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skyeet-the-writer · 4 years ago

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The Love Among Us

Chapter 1-- I’d Never Snitch On Daddy

so i haven’t seen many corpse husband x reader stories on here, so i decided to upload one myself. i’ve been watching jacksepticeye’s among us videos and when i heard corpse talk for the first time, i was like, “hol up” and now i’ve been obsessed with him. also, go stream his music on spotify, it’s amazing. enjoy! x.

corpse husband x female!reader

summary: while playing among us, y/n watches corpse kill felix in o2. when his body is reported, however, she doesn’t tell who killed him.

word count: ~3.6k

warnings: swearing, mentions of death (not real death), mentions of murder (not real murder)

EDIT: before i wrote this and after i published it, i did not know that corpse did not like to be referred to as “daddy”. had i known this, i would have not even thought of posting this. and since i know now, i won’t refer to him as such in the future. thank you. (10/19/2020)

EDIT 2: this is the first part to my corpse x reader series. i will be adding chapters as we go!

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4 rounds before the incident

“I was in coms with PJ!” Sean exclaims.

“He is doing the liar voice!” Felix shouts with a laugh.

“I’m not,” Sean tries to say, but everyone talks over him and the voting time ends. Everyone left alive, though it was only four people, had all voted for him and he yells at them as he gets ejected.

stinky was not the imposter

2 imposters remain

The round ends and everyone unmutes themselves.

“Lizzie, you saw Felix kill me and you did nothing!” Roomie yells as soon as the round ends and the imposters are revealed.

“Yeah, because I was the other imposter.”

“Oh. Okay, well that makes sense.”

Everyone laughs and Ken starts the round again.

“Wait, can I invite y/n to play? She’s doing her twenty-four-hour stream and she just finished playing Monopoly with Mark, Bob, and Wade,” says Lizzie, looking down at her phone as they all appear back in the waiting room.

“Yes,” Corpse blurts out and there are a few laughs and chuckles.

“You were quick to answer, Corpse,” Sean teases.

“Shut up,” Corpse mumbles and there are even more laughs.

Lizzie smiles and taps into her phone. “I’m gonna invite her.”

“I can’t believe that you actually made that deal, y/n,” Wade is telling you after ending the second round of Monopoly that you’ve played with them.

You smile and cross your legs on your chair. “Look, I was going bankrupt and it seemed good at the time. Besides, Mark was going to win anyway, he owned half of the board.” Your phone buzzes beside you on your desk and you pick it up. “Lizzie texted me.” There’s a sound effect that plays in your headset and you look up at your screen and smile. “Thanks to _lorieplays _for donating a hundred dollars, that means a lot. Thank you so much.”

“Do you want to play another round?” Marks asks.

You shake your head, reading the text from your friend in England. “No, I don’t want to lose to you again.” You laugh. “Nah, Lizzie wants me to play Among Us with her and a few others. It was fun playing with you guys.”

“It was even though you took all of my money,” Bob snaps.

You laugh. “Yeah, yeah. See you guys later.”

“Bye,” says Mark.

“See y--” Wade begins but you cut him off when you disconnect from the call.

“Oops.” You put a hand over your mouth and laugh. “Sorry, Wade. Okay.” You straighten up and glance over everything, making sure it’s all working properly. “I have to pee and I think my roommate ordered pizza, so we’ll be back after this short break. Enjoy this live feed of my pet rats.” You giggle and switch the stream over to a view of your two rats in their cage where you have a camera set up. You take your headset off and head out of your recording room.

Every two months, you have a twenty-four-hour livestream where you play games with your friends from all around the world. Despite being only twenty-five, your Youtube channel had grown exponentially in the past three years and you’ve had the chance to meet lots of other Youtubers like Markiplier, PewDiePie, and your close friend, LDShadowLady.

Currently, you’re on hour twenty of twenty-four and you’re beginning to feel the effects of not sleeping for a whole day. You had been drinking coffee and energy drinks for the past four hours and that seemed to perk you up for two hours max. But your roommate had ordered pizza and that would hopefully wake you up.

After going to the bathroom and grabbing an entire box of pizza, you return to your recording room and sit down. You put your headset back on and eat a slice of pizza before switching the views back to you. “And we’re back. I hope you guys enjoyed my rats because I don’t. They keep me up at night.”

You read a comment while loading up Among Us and laugh. “No, they’re not dead. They’re sleeping. They do that a lot when they’re not fighting.”

When you finally get into the game and entire the code, you spawn in. You also quickly join the Discord chat and wince when nearly ten voices hit you at once.

“y/n!” exclaims Lizzie and the other voices die down for a moment before rising to greet you.

You wince again but laugh. “Jesus, you guys are loud. Hey, Lizzie.” You move your character to the customize tab and go to try and switch your color. But then you frown and realize that you’re stuck with being dark blue. “Damn, I wanted to be white.”

“Do you want to switch?” Corpse asks.

Your eyes widen you your stomach flips. You hadn’t noticed Corpse was in this game. Immediately, your chat became flooded with keyboard smashing and lots of “omg my shipp” and “y/n rlly said ‘anna oop-’”

“Uh, yeah, if you don’t mind,” you manage to stutter out and take a bite of pizza as Corpse’s player comes over and the white option becomes available. You select it and also select the goggles in the hats menu.

“How’s your stream going?” asks Sean.

You shrug. “Pretty good. I’m super tired, though. I literally almost fell asleep while playing Monopoly with Mark, Wade, and Bob.”

“You went to college, right?” You’re pretty sure that’s Roomie.

“Yep,” you affirm with a nod even though they can’t see you. “You’d think that those all-nighters writing papers and studying for finals would make me able to do this.”

There’s a laugh in the group and the round starts.

3 rounds before the incident

You scratch your eyebrow and sigh in relief when you’re the crewmate. You mute yourself and slide up in your chair.

“I like being the crewmate,” you say, heading towards admin as a habit. “It’s a lot less stressful than being imposter.”

After doing your tasks in admin and fueling the engines, you stumble across a dead body in the lower engine and a vent closing.

“Oh,” you say, and press the report button. You unmute yourself and begin with, “So I saw a vent close but I didn’t see who went in.”

“Who died?” asks Lizzie.

“Felix,” says Sean.

You smirk. “It’s always yellow that dies first.”

“Where was the body?” Ken asks.

“Lower engine,” you reply.

“I was in medbay with Corpse doing the scan so it wasn’t him,” PJ says and Corpse makes a noise of confirmation.

This makes your cheeks heat up and you smack a hand over your mouth. Your chat explodes again but you decide to ignore it.

“And I was doing wires in cafeteria,” Lizzie says.

“Sean, where were you?”

“I was in reactor doing the simon says thing,” he answers.

You sigh. “I hate that one. What about you, Ken?”

“I was with Roomie in electrical doing the power thing. You know, the one where you have to divert it somewhere else.”

“So do we skip then?” asks Lizzie.

“No one is super sus, so I’m going to skip,” you answer.

When no one is ejected, you mute yourself again. “I dunno why, but Sean seems pretty sus. Because I didn’t see him on the way down from upper engine. But I guess he could have gotten there in time.” You shrug and run over to the trash chute in the cafeteria. “RIP to Felix, though.”

After doing the trash there, you head down to storage, running into Corpse doing the wires in there. You wait there to clear him and once you do, you run a few circles around him to get his attention and he follows you over to the trash in storage and watches you do that. After that, the two of you head over to electric together and do wires there.

Suddenly, there’s a body reported and you unmute yourself.

“Sean just killed Lizzie in front of me!” exclaims PJ.

“PJ killed Lizzie,” Sean retorts, flipping the blame. “I watched it, he didn’t realize I was there and murdered her.”

“I watched PJ do the scan in medbay, he’s cleared,” Corpse says and you find yourself smiling for no reason. “Sean, you killed Lizzie.”

“I knew he was sus,” you say, grabbing another piece of pizza. You look at the box and your eyes widen. Had you really already eaten half of it?

“Wait wait, how am I sus?” Sean asks.

You take a moment to swallow. “Because when I was doing fuel earlier, I was running down from upper engine and didn’t see you in reactor. Sure, maybe you could have gotten there earlier, but it was super weird.”

The discussion time ends and PJ immediately goes to vote for Sean as well as you, Corpse, and everyone else still alive. Sean ends up getting ejected.

stinky was an imposter

1 imposter remains

“You’re such a detective, y/n,” Sean says when he gets ejected.

You laugh. “I just play this game too much.” You then mute yourself and smile. “I am a genius.”

You end up finishing your tasks quickly after that and then stand in the cafeteria and eat another piece of pizza and read some of the chat.

“’ What am I going to do after this?’ I don’t know. I might play some Minecraft. Should I have a poll on Twitter? I’m stuck between public Among Us games, Minecraft, and taking random quizzes on Buzzfeed.” You smile and hear another sound effect and something pops up on the screen. “Thank you to coochie man for donating a hundred dollars, that means a lot.” You laugh at their name. “I love your name, by the way.”

There’s some rattling in the cage behind you and you turn around to see one of your rats drinking water. You turn back to the chat and read another comment. “’ Do you have a crush on Corpse?’” You blush and smile, biting your lip. “I mean, his voice is hot. I’ve never met him since he lives in San Diego and I live in h/t, but yeah, I guess I do. I’ve been listening to his music for the past few days and it’s really good, you guys should go check it out.”

You look up and unmute yourself when a body is reported. “Who died?” you ask. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Are you already done with your tasks, y/n?” Corpse asks.

God, even the way he says your name is making you blush. “Yeah, I get them done quick.”

“She does that,” says Lizzie, “She always gets her tasks done quick.”

“Ken is dead by the way,” says Roomie and your snort, smacking a hand over your mouth. “I found him in the hallway by navigation. Where was everyone else?”

“I was in cafeteria doing nothing,” you say, leaning back in your chair and spinning around just a little. “I think I saw PJ downloading while I was in there, but I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Yeah, I was downloading,” says Ken.

After more discussion, Corpse points out that Jaiden had been following him and it looked like she had been faking tasks.

“No I haven’t,” she says.

“That sounds like something the imposter would say,” you hum with a smirk. “That’s pretty sus, Jaiden.”

Everyone else agrees and you all end up voting Jaiden out.

jaiden was the imposter

0 imposters remain

You cheer as the round ends and a blue victory screen pops up for the crewmates. “Good game, guys,” you say and play again, waiting for the host.

1 round before the incident

“Oh my god, I’m imposter again?” you groan and sigh when you spawn back in. “I was just imposter, I don’t want to be it again. I’m so bad at it,”

After another short round of you and Felix losing to the crewmates, you all agreed to play two more rounds before Sean had to leave. So you move your character to admin where PJ is and fake the card swipe before moving over to the admin security thing where you could see who was around where. Luckily, no one appeared to be near admin, so you quickly kill PJ and escape through the vent and come out through medbay.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” you whisper over and over, running down to storage. “That was clean.” You fake getting fuel and go back up to the upper engine.

When PJ’s body is reported, you see that your fellow imposter, Sean, had reported it. You stay silent for most of the round and only say that you were in the fuel area when it was reported.

“Yeah, I saw her run past electrical earlier,” Corpse says. You blush and glance at your exploding chat and shake your head.

After everyone skips the round, you mute yourself once more and head towards navigation. “I hate this.” You drag the last syllable and watch Lizzie enter the room. You wait a moment before walking towards her and killing her, jumping into one of the vents. You let out a sigh and flex your fingers. “I’m so stressed.” You exit out of the vent into shields and your heart stops when you see someone else in there but you realize that it’s the other imposter, Sean, and you relax.

You run past him and go to the trash compartments and pretend to unload those. And that’s how the rest of the round goes. You kill someone, someone reports it and you vote someone off. Eventually, you and Sean do a double kill and end up winning the round.

You unmute yourself.

“Let’s go!” Sean exclaims and you smile.

“I can’t believe you killed me, y/n!” shouts Lizzie. “I thought we were friends.”

You laugh. “There are no friends in this game. I’m not loyal to anyone in this game. You could be my best friend and I would fucking murder you.”

“That’s cold,” says Roomie as everyone else spawns back in.

“Yeah,” you nod.

“Wait, PJ disconnected,” says Sean, and you all end up waiting for him to rejoin.

In that time, you look at your chat and say, “Hey, do you guys have any questions for who I’m playing with. I’m asking you, chat.”

“I swear if someone asks about my hands, I’m leaving,” Corpse says and everyone laughs.

You laugh louder when you read a comment and read it aloud, “_Ironlady _says that you should be a hand model, Corpse.”

“Okay, I’m leaving,” you hear Corpse say over everyone laughing.

“No, stay!” you exclaim, trying not to laugh. “C’mon, don’t leave.”

He sighs deeply and your brain goes fuzzy. “Fine. I’ll stay for you.”

You beam and your tummy turns. You ignore the whistles and remarks from everyone else and stand beside Corpse. You suddenly wish that the little bean characters could hold hands.

When PJ joins the server again, Ken starts the round and you cross your fingers, hoping to get crewmate.

0 rounds before the incident

You mute yourself and sigh when you’re a crewmate. “Thank god.” You let out a breath and go over to admin with everyone else. You swipe your card and go to the cafeteria to do some wires there.

The game turns out to be rather uneventful. A few people die and two people are voted off before the game gets truly interesting. And that happens when you walk in on Corpse and Felix.

“I’ve had this song stuck in my head for days,” you’re saying, walking from electrical over to O2. “And I can’t get it out of my head. Maybe singing it will help.” You hum the first part. “Don't go in there, you'll become one. Freaky creatures, monster party. Eyes of yellow, scales and feathers, tails in tethers. Turn the lights off. Bend the nightmare, you control it. Artful dodger, easy does it. Shut the closet, get under the covers. Snakes and lovers. Turn the lights off.” You do a little dance for a moment and continue hum the song, glancing at the chat as you go towards O2 after doing wires in storage.

“Like, I know the song, it’s just been stuck in my head,” you explain. “And it kind of annoys me--”

But you stop as you enter O2 and watch Corpse murder Felix. Neither one of you move and you don’t know what to do. “Uhhh.”

Then, without thinking, you turn straight around and make your way away from the scene of the murder. “I didn’t see anything!” you shout to no one. “I suddenly can’t see who murdered Felix.” You smack a hand over your mouth and stand in the middle of a hallway. “Oh my god, what do I do? I don’t want to snitch on Corpse, he’s hot.” You scratch the back of your neck and shrug, continuing on to reactor. “I didn’t see anything.”

You’re in the middle of doing the simon says in reactor when Felix’s body is reported. You unmute yourself and fidget with the sleeve of your hoodie. You know exactly who killed Felix.

“--was in O2,” says Jaiden and you focus back into the conversation. “And I didn’t see anyone around.”

“I saw you heading that way, y/n, but I know it wasn’t you because I saw you do the trash in storage.”

You look at the screen when Sean talks to you and you chew your lip. “I know who killed Felix.”

“Who?” asks almost everyone at the same time.

You close your eyes and swallow. It’s just a game, why are you taking this so seriously? Suddenly, a song lyric pops into your head and your stomach flips. You imagine yourself saying it and no one knows who you mean except for him.

You open your eyes. “I’d never snitch on daddy.”

There’s a laugh in the chat and you blush fiercely, your livestream chat blowing up once again.

“I think we know who it is, then,” says Sean, laughing.

“Yeah,” agrees Lizzie and your eyes widen.

“Wait, what?” you ask, watching everyone vote almost as soon as the discussion time ends. “Wait, hang on, who--”

“We know who you’re talking about, y/n,” PJ tells you.

You vote for yourself and your brain goes blank as you see that everyone voted for Corpse. He even voted for himself. They knew. They all _knew _about your feelings for Corpse.

The round ends with Corpse being voted out and the crewmates win. There’s some talking, but you stay on the victory screen. You’re trying to decide if your mad or embarrassed or both.

“I didn’t know you’d say that, y/n,” Corpse says, effectively breaking you out of your trance. “I thought you were gonna snitch on me.”

“You heard her,” teases Lizzie and you can tell she’s grinning. “She’d never snitch on you, Corpse.”

He laughs and you feel something in a certain place. “Oh my god, I’m gonna die of embarrassment.” You put your face in your hands, listening to your friends tease you in the chat. You suddenly want to jump out your window and run into traffic.

“Don’t die,” comes Corpse’s voice through the onslaught of teasing. “I’ll be sad.”

“Fuck!” you shout and slam your hand on your desk, shaking your equipment and scaring your rats. “I’m so sorry, Corpse, that was really weird, I--”

“Stop.” He interrupts you and the chat goes silent and you look up at the screen even though you can’t see him. “It’s okay. It was funny.”

Your eyes widen and then narrow. Funny? He thought what you said was funny? How could he think it was funny?

But then he speaks again and he sounds oddly flustered. “Uh, I gotta go. Um, it was fun playing with you guys. Bye, y/n.”

“Bye Cor--” but then he disconnects and you’re left talking to no one. “--pse.”

There’s a long moment of silence until Felix breaks it. “I can’t believe you just watched me die and didn’t do anything about it.”

There are some laughs and you smile faintly, rejoining the game. “Yeah, uh, sorry about that.”

“Are you okay, y/n?” asks Lizzie.

You blush and swallow. “I don’t know. God, I’m so weird.” You run a hand through your hair and adjust your headphones

“No, you’re not,” Roomie assures you. “He has a crush on you, too.”

Your eyes widen and you scoot up in your chair. “He does?”

“I mean, he called you pretty once during a game and said that he watches your videos a lot, so maybe.”

You groan and sink in your chair. “I’m gonna go, I need to run into traffic now.”

A few people laugh or chuckle and Lizzie asks you if you’re actually going to leave.

“Yeah,” you tell her. “But not to run into traffic. I’m going to go play Minecraft to soothe myself.”

“Aw.” You can practically hear her frown. “Okay. Bye, y/n.”

“Good luck with your stream,” Ken tells you.

You grin. “Okay, thanks, bye.”

When you exit the game and leave the chat, you scream. You actually scream and it’s loud. Your roommate even knocks on your door, asking if you’re okay.

You look at them and nod. “Yeah, totally fine. Probably about to have a mental breakdown, but I’m fine.”

“Okay,” they say and lean on the doorframe. “But I’m not cutting bangs for you again.”

You laugh and nod. “Yeah, okay, fine.” They leave and you turn back to your stream, feeling like you’re about to cry. Corpse knows you have a crush on him. And it seems like he has one on you as well, but now you’re embarrassed because you called him ‘daddy’ on stream.

You rub your eyes. “Well, now I know what’ll be streaming on Twitter tonight,” you tell the chat.

#corpse_husband #corpse husband #x reader #female reader #corpse husband x reader #corpse_husband x reader #jacksepticeye #among us #ldshadowlady #pewdiepie #fanfic

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shouyouwrites · 4 years ago

Note

Hey so this is my first ever request... like ever and I’m choosing you so... Congratulations! Aight so I’m asking for a a head cannon of Kuroo, Akaashi, and Bokuto with a s/o that fell asleep in the car and so they have to carry her into the house and CUDDLES AND A SHIZ TON OF FLUff. Thanks in advance.💕💓💖💕

hi sweetie!! thank you for your request, it was so cute! i’m sorry this took so long and also, i wasn’t really sure how to go about this?? but i hope you’ll like these, i had so much fun writing them! these take place after the time skip, since they’re driving a car and then carrying the reader home and all, it feels weird for them to be teenagers haha and i assumed they lived with the reader when writing this so ;) hope you enjoy!! 💕💕

♡ Kuroo Tetsurou ♡

He expects it. When he sees how often you yawn and close your eyes, when he notices how hard it is for you to keep them open, he realizes that the possibility of you falling asleep in the car is quite high.

He even jokes to you about it at some point, telling you that it’s okay for you to rest a bit if you want, that you still have a long time before you reach your house, but you say you aren’t tired and that you can definitely stay awake, and so he drops the subject.

At some point during the ride, he's doing most of the talking and you're just humming or offering a short comment here and there to indicate you’re listening to him.

When your comments and hums stop and he glances at you only to find out you've finally closed your eyes and leaned your head against the window, he shakes his head and smiles to himself.

He stays especially quiet during the rest of the ride, trying his best not to wake you, and he curses a bit when his phone rings and almost wakes you up. Kenma finds it extremely amusing that he's not just talking quietly but literally whispering so as not to bother you, and he tells you so the next time you see him.

When you reach your house, he carefully unbuckles your seat belt and takes you in his arms. When he reaches the front door of the house, he realizes he should’ve opened it before he picked you up, and so he does the most logical thing he can think of at that moment. He turns around, walks back to the car and places you on your seat again, as gently as he can or you’ll wake up and all of this would’ve been for nothing, then he turns around and unlocks the front door, walks all the way back to the car again, picks you up and carries you upstairs to your guys’ bedroom.

He's so proud of himself for it. He knows how tired you must be and he’s glad he hasn’t ruined whatever dream you may be having. He goes to lock the car and bring your things inside, but then he comes into your bedroom again only to find out you aren’t on the bed, and he just laughs because he really could have just woken you up instead of doing all that, but that’s alright.

He slips inside the covers and waits until you get out of the bathroom.

After lying down beside him, you wrap an arm around his waist, and even though you're tired and can’t really think properly, you manage to ask him if he carried you there.

He says yes, and when you tell him a quiet yet honest ‘thank you’, his heart swells with so much pride and happiness that he feels like the luckiest person in the whole world.

♡ Akaashi Keiji ♡

This sweet boy panicks a little bit when you don’t reply at first, thinking that maybe something's wrong or that something happened and he didn’t notice, but when he looks at you and realizes you've just fallen asleep, he lets out a sigh and relaxes.

He’s a bit lost at the beginning, taking the time inside his head to decide if he should wake you or let you rest. He knows you must have been really tired to fall asleep in the car and so it would be normal for him to let you be, but at the same time he doesn’t want you to wake up sore or with neck pain or shoulder pain or anything along those lines, so he thinks long and hard about whether he should nudge you awake or not.

He ends up deciding to let you rest and wake you up when you two get home.

The rest of the ride is silent and it almost feels like he's driving alone, but the sound of your breathing and the fact that he can sense your presence beside him are both so comforting to him, and he’s glad you’re with him even if you’re asleep.

Again, his plan was to wake you up as soon as you guys reached your house, but things don’t really end up that way.

Because when you do get home he simply can’t bring himself to wake you up. You look so calm and peaceful, even serene in a way, definitely very relaxed for someone who’s literally sleeping in a car leaning against the window, and he can’t find it in himself to bother you when you’re wearing such a soft smile, and so he carries you home.

You mumble something when you two are covered in blankets and he smiles as he wraps his arms around you.

How you can be this cute without even realizing it, he doesn't know.

♡ Bokuto Koutarou ♡

He’s actually so energetic that he talks to you the whole way, and he gets a bit carried away so doesn’t really notice whether you’re paying attention to him or not, except when he wants you to tell him he’s right about something or that he’s wrong about something or just remind him something he doesn’t remember.

So when he asks you a question and waits, very very patiently —for a couple of seconds— and you don’t answer, he’s so confused, because did something happen, or could you really be ignoring him? But then he looks at you and sees you’re asleep and suddenly it all clicks into place.

He laughs a bit, thinking back on how you told him earlier that you were still as full of energy as always, but here you are, sleeping in the car. He thinks it’s adorable and he keeps sending you glances here and there and smiling to himself.

Some time after you fall asleep he realizes he really prefers it much more when you’re awake, because you’re there with him and he can talk to you and listen to your voice and without all that the ride feels dull in a way and so uninteresting.

At some point he’ll do something like mumble “Y/N, you’re really sleeping, aren’t you?” and when no answer comes, he’ll smile even brighter, because now it’s his chance to take care of you, it’s his chance to shine, you know? You always make sure he comes home safe when you two go out, so now it is his chance to take care of you!

He is determined not to let it go to waste, because how cool would it be if he carried you home, and then made sure you were all warm and cozy and took care of you and did all these things you always did for him so effortlessly? He loves making you happy and taking care of you and he is ready to do it this time too!

He ends up waking you up by accident and apologizing like he’s done the most horrible thing in the world, but when you tell him it’s fine, he tells you he’s glad you’re awake because the ride without you being awake was unbelievably boring, and the way he says he was almost lonely without you talking to him makes you so unbelievably happy even when you’re tired.

When you get home, he insists you cuddle with him, and who are you really to refuse?

thank you for reading sweeties!! requests are closed right now, but hopefully they will be open again soon! here are my rules and masterlist! ( ˘͈ ᵕ ˘͈♡)

taglist: @haajiime @yams046 ily angels ♡ (let me know if you would like to be added to my taglist or removed from it lovelies!)

#moon writes #haikyuu!!#hq #haikyuu x you #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu headcanons #kuroo tetsurou #kuroo x reader #akaashi keiji #akaashi x reader #bokuto koutarou #bokuto x reader

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creweemmaeec11 · 3 years ago

Text

My Demonic Lullaby

A hero x demon snippet partly inspired by both @the-modern-typewriter and @amethystpath-writes hero and demon snippets. This idea actually predates my sleep paralysis snippet, but I never got around to writing it till their snippets got me back on the hero x demon train 😂 Next part to follow soon hopefully!

Insomnia really sucked, Ellory decided. He was already *exhausted* from the fight with one of the cities top villains earlier that day. He was aching all over, his head was throbbing, it was already 3am and yet he *still* couldn't fall asleep.

The hero rolled over onto his back with a groan, both from annoyance and the pain of moving. His ribs ached, still, open cuts stung. His hands came up to rub his face and eyes.

"What I wouldn't give to be able to sleep like a normal person," Ellory mumbled under his breath.

He closed his eyes, flipped his pillow for the * fourth* time that night, and thunked his head back down to the bed.

"Seriously," he muttered to the empty air, "what is it going to cost for me to sleep?"

Ellory had asked the question more to himself, as if asking his brain what he had to do to finally get the rest he so desperately craved.

He wasn't expecting an *actual* answer.

"Need some help?" a low and smooth voice asked from what sounded like the corner of the room.

Ellory tried to snap his head in the direction of the voice, only to be unimpressed by the fact he couldn't move.

"*Oh you have GOT to be kidding me*" Ellory mentally groaned, "*I ask to sleep and what do I get? Sleep paralysis, and even a disembodied voice hallucination to go with it!*"

Suddenly the voice chuckled, "Not quite,"

Now, the hero wasn't new to sleep paralysis. He didn't get it often, but every now and then it would creep its way in. This was the first time it had ever happened *before* going to sleep though. It was also the first time he'd ever hallucinated.

Ellory knew that there were others who had crazy hallucinations, even knew one hero who said they got them almost every night. (Even though they gave Ellory a weird look when they said they'd been getting better recently) Luckily for him though, prior to tonight, the worst he'd ever seen was a shadow or two.

His eyes turned, glancing over as best he could to the corner of his room. Despite the darkness, he could see some vaguely human-shaped swirling shadow. The only way he could make it out at all was because it was somehow even *darker* than the shadows around it.

Luckily, the shadow was just kind of standing there, and despite what his other hero friend had said, it didn't look very scary...

The hero mentally sighed again, letting his eyes slip closed. He was *so* tired. Why couldn't he just sleep?!

"That would probably be the insomnia," the voice stated sarcastically.

"*Thank you captain obvious,*" the hero mentally retorted, before stopping, "*great, now I am literally having a conversation with myself. Maybe villain DID hit me in the head too hard today,"*

The disembodied voice snickered again. Though highly amused, it wasn't mocking or unkind.

"No, you're head is fine. But you never answered my question," the shadow-thing said, its vague shape shifting over, more into Ellory's sight.

Whatever hallucination his brain had come up with didn't seem to be going away any time soon.

"*And that was?*" the hero replied. He had nothing better to do than to just amuse... well, himself; he supposed.

"Would you like some help sleeping?"

"*I would LIKE to be asleep already! And real sleeping, not this nonsense,*"

"I can help," the voice offered, seemingly as the shape took a step forward.

"*Oh I'm sure you can*" the hero replied sarcastically, "*If so, then why aren't you?*"

"You need to say yes for us to make a deal,"

Whatever hallucination Ellorys brain had decided to come up with, it certainly picked... an interesting voice. There wasn't anything wrong with the voice itself, in fact, it was quite pleasant to listen to. It sounded slightly masculine, low and gentle, yet not raspy in the slightest, like whatever this illusion was had never had a sore throat in their life. The weird thing, was it sounded confident and in control, but *wasn't*. The hero had been around villains enough to detect when a false bravado was just that; fake.

Especially with nothing else to do but listen, Ellory was able to easily pick up on the slight hesitations, the shaky undertones, and even the way the tones shifted, despite his sleep-deprived state.

Why would his brain come up with such a random yet weirdly detailed hallucination?

Maybe he *had* hit his head more than once.

"*A deal?*" the hero groaned again, "*Just sleep already!*"

"I can ensure you get a good night's rest every night, if you'd like...just tell me; do I have your permission to help you sleep?"

"*Yes! Please!*" Ellory internally cried. He was arguing - no, *begging* - his own hallucination. That's what tonight has devolved to.

"Very well then," the disembodied voice hummed. The last thing the hero remembered was opening his eyes to see the shadow move closer before things went black.

The next thing Ellory knew, he awoke the next morning, feeling shockingly well-rested.

What a weird dream he'd had last night.

The hero moved to get up, before remembering he was injured and braced for the wave of pain... only for nothing to come.

He looked down, lifting up his shirt to examine his abdomen and... what the hell?

What had previously been a sprawling mess of deep slashes, purplish-black bruises and swelling was now nothing more than a few scrapes, small cuts and the occasional tender spot.

Ellory skimmed his fingers across the surface of his skin, baffled.

Had it just looked worse in the dark? That made no sense.

Regardless, he wasn't about to complain, and he didn't have time to dwell on it. Being a hero meant busy days.

Unfortunately, as the week progressed, the strange occurrences only escalated.

While walking down the stairs the following day, Ellory tripped, nearly going head over heels, before something seemed to suddenly catch him, turning him in the air and standing him upright again.

It had happened so fast. Maybe his reaction times were better than he'd thought? Regardless, Ellory just brushed it off.

But then the following day, one of the cities villains threw a knife at him. He would have reacted to it too slowly if the knife hadn't suddenly stopped in the air mere millimetres in front of him before dropping to the ground with a clatter.

Now he was officially a little weirded out.

But the events just kept happening.

Doors were opening in front of him, only to close when he walked through. He'd knocked a glass of water off the counter, only to look down and see it had landed perfectly, not a drop spilt. His mail from the apartment mailboxes had appeared on his kitchen table when he didn't remember going to get it. Lights were flicking on and off when he'd enter or leave a room. One night he'd even realized he felt a bit chilly, only to hear the heater turn on seconds later.

One night, he fell asleep on the couch, only to wake up with a blanket over him he *swore* wasn't there when he fell asleep.

And yet, the hero had also been getting a great rest every night, drifting off almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

It wasn't until today, however, that Ellory really began to panic.

The hero had been on the rooftop of an office building, with a villain *on top* of him. (These events had really throw Ellory off his game)

This specific villain, however, wasn't particularly nasty, and Ellory had successfully reasoned with them before, and so despite the knife to their throat, they weren't quite panicked yet.

Said knife was still being held a couple inches away from their throat, more of a warning to stay down than an actual threat of "I'm one word away from slitting your windpipe open,"

"You, are becoming an increasing pain in the ass,"

The hero gave a small smile, "trust me, the feeling is mutual, but you know I can't let you do this,-"

He was cut off by the villain thrusting the knife much closer, "I wasn't aware you-"

Suddenly, without warning, the villain was launched back into the air, catapulted off him. Ellory watched them skid across the roof where they landed a couple meters away.

Whatever the villain saw when they looked back up made the colour drain from their face. They immediately pushed themselves up to their feet, staggered back a few steps, eyes wide, before they turned tail and fled.

The hero was frozen.

*What the hell?!*

Ellory looked down at his shaking hands.

*What the hell just happened?!*

Quickly, the hero got to his feet and took off home, completely panicked. He ran as fast as he could, as if something was chasing on his heels, breathing down his neck. It felt like his own shadow wanted to catch him.

*Something was wrong* *Something was really wrong*

As soon as he made it into his apartment, Ellory ran into his bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror.

He looked normal, though slightly red, which was just the consequence of being so out of breath. He was panting, breathing heavily and shaking. His hair was also a mess, a combination of both the frantic running and previous fight.

He could hear the frantic drumming of his heart in his ears.

Ellory took a deep breath, trying to ground himself. Grip tightening on the counter's edge.

Bending down into the sink, he splashed his face with cold water.

He was patting his face dry with a towel when a voice behind him startled him.

"I'm sorry...."

Ellory's head shot up. In the mirror, he could see a dark shadowy figure in the corner of the bathroom behind him.

The hero immediately whirled around, but was greeted by nothing more than an empty bathroom. His eyes wandered around warily, but not a thing seemed out of place.

Great, was he hallucinating now too?

He sighed, relaxing from the scare before turning back to the mirror and-

Ellory froze.

There in the mirror, in the same spot as before, was the shadowy figure.

He glanced back and forth between the mirror and back corner, but the dark humanoid shape was only visible in the reflection.

There was a few moments of silence as the hero simply stared, brain reeling, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

The shape was in constant motion, shadows swirling gently, like a foggy aura surrounding a much darker silhouette. The constant movement made it near impossible for the eye to focus on any one part of it, as if trying to see the individual particles in a stream of smoke.

The silhouette inside the aura was a bit more defined, at least around the head and shoulders. Apart from the clearly humanoid shape, the darker mass had no other identifiable features; except for its eyes, which were like two white voids, with a slightly darker pupil in the center.

Said eyes met Ellory's momentarily, before being cast downwards almost sheepishly.

That's when it clicked. The sheepish posture. This was the same shadowy figure from nearly a week ago.

He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He couldn't think of anything to say.

The figure seemed to take the action to mean he'd had enough time to process.

"I'm sorry for scaring you," they apologized, sounding genuine.

The hero blinked.

*This was really happening*

"What..." the hero managed, barely getting the words out of his mouth. His brain had stalled.

"I was only trying to help," the shadow went on to explain sheepishly.

Something in the hero's stomach seemed to drop, "What... what are you?" He asked nervously.

"I think you know what I am," the demon replied quietly.

Ellory swallowed.

"Why can I only see you in the mirror now when I could see you fine last time?" He asked as if that was the most pressing question at the moment. Perhaps it was the only question he could handle the answer to right now.

"You may want to change your definition of 'fine', you were experiencing sleep paralysis last time,"

Finally, Ellory's brain seemed to catch up, "Why are you here again?"

The shadow in the corner seemed to still slightly, "I'm here because we made a deal,"

Deal...? They didn't make any... wait-

"You tricked me?!"

"Hey!" The demon snapped indignantly, posture suddenly defensive, "Not entirely! I've kept up my end of the deal! You haven't had any trouble sleeping this week have you‽"

Well, no... but...

The hero couldn't help but swallow nervously again, "so then what's *my* end of the deal?"

The shadow's posture instantly deflated again, "just let me hang around, basically..."

Hang around what? His house? Surely not because the demon had been there when he was fighting the villain so clearly-

"You possessed me!?" Ellory realized, eyes widening.

"No!" They replied, sounding almost horrified at the idea, "possession would be taking over control entirely! I'm just... taking up residence in the back corner?"

"What!?"

"Please don't send me back!" The demon pleaded. Their voice was suddenly so *desperate* sounding. The hero could even see the desperation in their white eyes. "I'll do whatever you want I promise! I'll go back into hiding and won't do anything! You won't even know I'm here I swear! I-"

The shadow was full-on rambling now, sounding more and more desperate with every word.

It was probably absurd that his heroic instincts flared, but he couldn't help it! This... being(?) really sounded like they were in trouble. Like they were genuinely scared.

"Hey, hey, it's okay-" Ellory interrupted, holding his hands up and taking a step forward. His heart sank when the figure flinched back, sinking in on itself and pinning its eyes closed as if bracing for something.

When nothing happened after a moment, the demon risked opening their eyes again. Still, they never said anything, just sheepishly stood in the corner as if waiting for a verdict, looking like they wanted nothing more than to hide in their own shadow.

Ellory took a deep breath, surveying the situation. The creature in front of him certainly didn't seem dangerous... and he hadn't tried to hurt the hero at all. Being able to sleep without any problems was also a nice bonus...

"so your... not... going to hurt me or anything?"

The shadow shook its head almost frantically.

"Ok..." Ellory took another deep breath, "As long as you don't hurt me, and don't do anything unless I tell you to, you can stay, okay?"

The demon in the corner immediately perked up, eyes brightening, "r-really?!"

The hero nodded.

"Thank you!" The shadow cheered, and Ellory would swear he could almost see a smile, "Thank you so much! You won't regret it I promise!"

And then just like that, there was a poof of smoke and the demon's reflection vanished, leaving a confused hero that still had a million questions alone in the bathroom.

MASTER TAGLIST:

@llamaly @why-am-i-on-this-website-anyway @larinzz @sharraus @asrasmysoulmate @kaiwewi @akawrites000 @sunflower1000 @aroacewitchyacademic @aquarellesirene @lbelle0527 @trappedgoose-in-a-writblr-room @freefallingup13 @enemies-to-idiots-to-lovers @homosexual-having-tea @friiday-thirteenth @chocomarsgalaxy @ravenshadow17 @daydreamed-snippets @stankyt0es @jinx1365 @rainy-knights-of-villany @fromtheo-withlove @maybe-a-cat42 @the-sky-writes @watercolorfreckles @noirewaves @digitalart-tw @itsleighlove @chibicelloking @distractedlydistracted @kitsunesakii @daedae127 @wish1bone1 @avery1s @vampart @ilikebooksbuttheresnousernames @defectivehero

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biisexualemma · 4 years ago

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always you. oscar diaz

word count: 1658

warnings: little bit angsty but still fluffy i swear

requested: 'hi!! i truly love your entire blog and your imagines!! you're writing is incredible! could i ask for an imagine with oscar where the reader and oscar are together but he needs constant reassurance from her that she wants to be with him bc he thinks she can do better? so shes always letting him know that he's all she wants? just a lot of fluff pls! thank you!!’

a/n: sorry aGaIN for taking literal months to write this but here it is! i don’t really love it but hopefully you do! alright bye

masterlist

your eyes rolled, slowly drifting in and out of consciousness. your brows furrowed when you heard a loud thud followed by some muffled cusses. you pushed yourself up onto your elbows, peeking one eye open, your eyes still tired from the deep sleep you'd been in seconds earlier.

you knew who it was and he came shuffling in moments later. you often fell asleep well before oscar would get home, but almost always stirred when he'd get back, as much as he tried not to wake you.

the lights were off but you could just make out his silhouette. he let out a heavy sigh, his hand moving to his face, rubbing his eyes exhausted.

"hey," you muttered, your voice soft from having just woken up. you peeped at the clock beside your bed, it was almost two in the morning. you turned back to oscar who was trudging over to your shared bed, releasing a huff when he collapsed next to you. "it’s late— everything ok?"

his body relaxed under the touch of your fingertips grazing his shoulder, he pressed a soft kiss to the back of your hand. your eyes fluttered, you were so tired. you rested your head on his shoulder, eyes closing for a moment as you placed a kiss against his arm. you forced your eyes open to look at him, trying not to let yourself drift back off to sleep.

"i didn't mean to wake you," he mumbled, he sounded just as tired as you felt. you reached over and flicked on the lamp beside your bed.

the room dimly lit up, your eyes shifting straight away to the blood dripping just below his eyebrow. your eyebrows twitched into a frown, your hand touching his chin and tilting his head so you could get a better look.

"osc, you're bleeding," your teeth sinking into your bottom lip, unease sitting on your stomach. you didn't want to ask where he got it from, instead you climbed out from under the warm covers, shuffling to your shared bathroom. you knew you had a makeshift first aid kit lying around somewhere. "do i wanna know?"

oscar didn't answer you at first, he continued to lay still where you left him. he didn't want to think about it too much, and he definitely didn't want to put any images into your head. "probably not," he mumbled. guilt and tire laced his tone. he never liked having to come home to you like this. he would often try to hide it to avoid getting you up in the middle of the night. but you had a sixth sense, you always knew, somehow, when he was hurt. he knew you deserved better than this.

this guilt had being weighing on him for quite some time and he didn't know what to do with it. he loved you, much more than you were aware of. he knew he'd do anything for you but he couldn't help but doubt everything when this kind of thing happened (which was a lot).

you moved back over to the bed, seating yourself down with your legs crossed. you patted your lap, and oscar compliantly moved so his head rested between your folded legs. you pulled out an anti-septic wipe and began to clean up the blood surrounding the wound.

he watched your face as you hovered over him, upside down. your bottom lip tugged under your teeth, eyebrows furrowed softly, careful not to hurt him as you tended to him gently.

"sorry," he was practically whispering.

your eyebrows unknitted when he spoke, losing your concentration for a second. you glanced away from the wound and down to where his eyes lay. you noticed how his eyelashes fluttered, his brown eyes tired. you shook your head, brushing off his apology.

"don't be," you mumbled, your fingers touched his temple so he would turn his head. you continued to clean out the wound, ignoring his hard stare. "as long as it never gets any worse. i couldn't have you look any worse than this..." you trailed off, trying not to put those images into your head.

you finished cleaning him up, throwing your bits away, and repositioning him so he lay with his head on your lap again. you moved one hand to his face, running your thumb across his cheek.

"what you thinkin' about?" you mumbled softly. you leaned back against the headboard, your eyes growing tired again. his eyebrows were furrowed slightly with unease.

"that you deserve better than this," he didn't hesitate when he spoke because he really meant it.

he wanted to leave all this, to live a life with you away from everything tying him to freeridge. the fact that he couldn't give that to you right now, was starting to take it's toll. especially when he knew you this was all you wanted. he knew you didn't approve of his lifestyle, you had said so when you first started dating. but you learned, over time, to push it aside and not think about it. you loved him and would do anything to be with him. he didn't want you to go through that for him.

feeling more awake now, you frowned, approaching the conversation with caution. "better than what?"

"being woken up every night to fix me up."

"stop getting hurt then, problem solved," you tried to make light of where you saw this conversation going.

"i'm serious, y/n," he cut you short. he sighed, sitting up, his back facing you now. he didn't often call you by your name, he usually stuck to some kind of pet name. so it left a weird feeling in your stomach when he did.

"oscar," you mimicked his sigh. "can we not get into this— it's late," you really were exhausted, you couldn't imagine how tired oscar must be. you didn't trust having this conversation with him when you were both moody and tired. "you know i love you.."

"yeah, i know," he ran a hand across his face. his exasperated sigh made you think that wasn't what he needed to hear. it stung a little. "that's what makes it worse."

your eyebrows knitted, you didn't want to hear this now, or ever. for a moment you felt as if your relationship was very one sided, something you'd never worried about before with oscar. he was always very affectionate with you in private, he made sure to tell you he loved you at least once a day.

"please, i really don't want to get into this with you, osc," your voice cracked slightly, fear of where it would lead if you carried this conversation on.

"you can't just ignore it," he snipped. you touched his shoulder, gripping it so you could make him face you again. you knew oscar could get a little insecure when it came to you, but you never gave him any reason to be. you were perfectly happy with him, he just couldn't see it.

"i'm not ignoring anything," you sighed. oscar observed now how tired you looked, the feeling in the pit of his stomach worsening. "i love you, ok? is that not enough? i don't picture us running away together. i picture this. because this is the reality and that is what i am content with. i don't need you to be anything else because i love you. as you are, no matter what you do."

you felt yourself getting upset that you had to spell this out for him. you knew what you were getting into when things started getting serious between you two. you could've pulled away at anytime but you didn't want to. you were still here because oscar was it for you, and you knew that even if he couldn't see it.

his expression softened. "i don't want this to be your reality," he relaxed his head, looking away from you. you were torturing him, looking at him like that. "i want more for you."

you felt a lump growing in your throat, it was upsetting to hear him talk like this. you shuffled, moving so you could wrap your arms around his stomach, your head pressed against his back.

"good thing you can't tell me what to do then," you mumbled halfheartedly. you squeezed your arms tighter around him. he sighed. his body swivelled round, throwing his arm over your shoulder and pulling you closer. you kept your arms in place when he leaned down and kissed the top of your head.

"all i want is you, oscar," you mumbled, comforted by his embrace. you pulled at his torso until you both fell back into the bed. you rolled onto your side, looking up at him with a stern look in your eyes. "it was always you. you’re it."

"it?" he mumbled, caving just a bit for you to release a very soft smile, nodding. he looked at the ceiling, you watched his jaw unclench.

you hummed, content. "it."

oscar didn't say anything, he just tightened his grip around your shoulder, his head relaxing on top of your own. you could feel him relax underneath you.

"so you can quit your worrying and tell me you love me too," you were halfheartedly teasing him now. you felt him smile a little, as he slowly eased up and let it go. he tried to focus only on the fact that you were in love with him, and that nothing would change your mind. "'cause i said it like three times and you shut me down every time.."

oscar rolled his eyes, lifting his head so he could look at you. he now saw your small teasing smile. you tilted your head back, oscar followed your lead and kissed you. it was soft and slow, oscar pulling away only for a second so he could mumble a quiet you know i love you.

you both fell asleep moments later, wrapped up in each others arms.

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charnelhouse · 3 years ago

Note

alright so the million dolar question is, why watch your step? where did that come from?

Oh wow what a question! So I wrote the bloom universe which involved the tf guys and a reader and I thought it was the most self-indulgent shit I’d ever written bc who the hell writes a story with four dude love interests who all end up with the main OC. Turns out I didn’t know that the concept of “reverse-harem” existed until like the fall of 2021 and I then read a bunch of books that featured that trope.

There aren’t a ton of good ones out there tbh and I feel like a lot of them can be incredibly abusive. WYS is certainly dark and has pretty fucked up elements, but I want to explore that toxicity and build off of it. These are bad people who are capable of good things and there’s just a different level of morality here. It’s like when you watch the Sopranos or SOA - people die/kill all the time. In a lot of those reverse harem mob books, the guys were always cartoonishly evil or fell in love two days into meeting the mc. I wanted to make sure each guy was different and had layers and dimensions and blah blah. I wanted the main girl to be her own level of fucked up and not perfect or “not like other girls” adjacent. Faire has her Mary Sue qualities at times, but she’s insecure and self-destructive, too.

I’d never been into mob aus, but I read Den of Vipers and was like okay the concept of the mob setting actually works well with a reverse harem trope bc you kind of need guys who are all stuck in the same environment and are already taboo by nature bc of their living. I felt like the TF guys looked like they could fit the mob trope. Oscar just gives me that vibe and Charlie has played Jax Teller who is essentially the leader of a gang. They’re also all smoking hot.

I wrote a snippet of a scene and asked if people would be into it and a lot of people were. What’s so funny is that I made the guys WAY more mean and dark in that short drabble and just couldn’t really keep that up once I started the story itself.

It’s become something else entirely. Sometimes I don’t even envision the characters the way i originally did. There’s literally zero connection to Triple Frontier other than the names and the absolute boner I get when people have told me they read WYS despite never having seen TF. I’m half-asleep in bed so hopefully this made sense.

#inbox #wys

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rebelwrites · 3 years ago

Text

OPERATION: Find The Kids!

Bravo Team x Reader

A/N okay so I saw a TikTok yesterday and this gave me the idea for the chaotic fic you are about to read. Seven tier one navy seals looking after four kids. What could go wrong? So I give you nearly 2k words of utter chaos. Trying to keep track of what 11 people are doing is stressful 😂

Join The Group Chat Here - If You Want Tagging Manually Let Me Know 🖤

SEAL Team Masterlist

This Months Writing

Sipping on your coffee, you ran your hand over your face as you try to finish off the paperwork from the last deployment. You tried to get this done in your home office but it was no good when your house was used as base when the boys were home. Or as Metal kept putting it “the home of Bravo” but it did make your life easier meaning you didn’t have to worry about finding a sitter at short notice as you had at least one of the boys crashing at yours for whatever reason.

And at the moment it was a godsend, especially as you were looking after your Brother’s triplets whilst he was going through the divorce. But having four kids under the age of 7 in the house was chaos, but you lived around big kids all the time so you could just about cope.

“Guys, someone has to take the boss some coffee,” Clay said, as he placed the plate of toast in the middle of the kitchen table. “And to swipe the walkies.”

Everyone fell silent. That silent you could hear a pin drop.

“Oh hell no,” Sonny said, breaking the silence. “You know how she gets when she’s doing the reports. And it was your idea Blondielocks, so you should do it.”

“No way,” Clay exclaimed, “I value my life thank you. “

“Guys let’s settle this like adults,” Metal said, with a serious look on his face. “Rock, paper, scissors. We go around the group and do it as a knock out style thing and whoever is left standing has to take the boss some coffee and swipe the walkies.”

So that's how it was decided that Sonny was the one to go into the lion's den, armed with coffee and breakfast to hopefully make things go smoothly.

“Quinn, I see you.” You said not looking away from your screen.

“How the fuck?” He muttered, “I swear you have eyes in the back of your head.”

“You have to when you look after children,” you laughed, “now I’m busy so what do you want?”

“We know you left without breakfast so I thought I’d bring you some,” he shrugged, placing the food and coffee on the table.

“I don’t buy it,” you said, raising your brow at him. “You are up to something.”

“Nope, just bringing the boss coffee.” He grinned, he had already swiped the walkies and needed to get out of here. “You have a good day, and don’t worry about anything, we have it all under control.”

“That’s what makes me worry Quinn,” you glared. “Just don’t burn my house down and don’t lose a child. That’s all I ask.”

“Hard copy, boss.” He nodded before leaving the room.

“Mission success boys,” Sonny shouted walking back into the house, “Oh and final words from the boss were don't set the house on fire and don’t lose a child but she had no idea I swiped the walkies.”

“Well then, time to gear up boys,” Jase said, slapping his legs as he stood up. “Kids have requested we wear our camo bottoms so hurry up we head out at 0900.”

Twenty minutes had passed and everyone was gathered in the living room.

“Right, let's just run through this one more time,” Clay said looking at the list on his phone.

“First aid kit”

“Check”

“Snacks”

“Check”

“Drinks”

“Check”

“Sun cream”

“Check”

“Kids dressed”

“Check”

“All walkies on the same station”

“Check”

“Well boys I think we are ready,” Trent nodded, “So Brock has Cerb and Pepper, I’ve got the bag, so the rest of you get to keep an eye on the kids.”

Your daughter, Riley instantly clung onto Clay like a koala bear, your nephew Joey gravitated to Metal, Sonny scooped up your niece, Amber and Ray took your other Niece, Lola.

“Let’s hit the park,” Jase nodded, leading everyone out the house.

“What could go wrong,” Sonny laughed. “It’s not like we are gonna lose any of them. There’s four of them and seven of us.”

“Don’t say that, you idiot,” Metal said, hitting Sonny around the back of the head. “Don't jinx things, now If things go south it’s your fault.”

“Anyone got have eyes on HVT one?” Jase asked down the walkie, as he scanned the park.

“HVT one is south moving toward the tyre swing,” Metal replied, “I’ve lost eyes on HVT two.”

“I’ve got eyes on HVT two, she is in need of refilling. Lure her back to base Three,” Clay said, as he squinted from the sun.

“Copy six,” Sonny called, as he calmly headed for Amber, who thought this was the best game in the world as her Uncle Sonny chased her. “HVT two inbound,”

“My eyes are peeled,” Jase laughed, as he spotted Amber running towards him.

“For the love of god don’t forget the suncream.” Ray responded.

“Copy that,” Jase said, routing around the bag for supplies. He literally only took his eyes off her for two seconds but by the time he looked up she was gone. “All call signs I have lost eyes on HVT two. I repeat I have lost eyes on HVT two.”

“I don’t have HVT three or four,” Brock sighed “They just vanished.”

“Is HVT one still at the tyre swing?” Ray asked.

“Fuck, she’s gone to.” Metal cursed.

“Guys we fucked up, boss is gonna kill us if we don’t come home with a full head count.” Ray breathed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Three you know this is your fault,” Metal growled.

“How is it my fault?” Sonny snapped. “You're the one meant to be watching HVT One.”

“You jinxed things, idiot,” Metal huffed, “Told you this would happen.”

“Guys, stop fighting,” Jase sighed, “Look just everyone reconvene at base and we put a plan together, they can’t have gone far.”

You couldn’t believe what you were hearing, you knew Sonny was up to something when he came in this morning but the big idiot forgot to pick up all the walkies meaning you could hear everything.

Pinching the bridge of your nose, you messed with the station trying to get a clearer sound. You wanted to see how this would play out, they all sounded pretty panicked but they should be. One of the rules was they could do whatever, go wherever but just don’t lose anyone.

“You okay Y/L/N?” Eric asked coming into the briefing room with some fresh coffee.

“Define okay when the boys are looking after the tribe today, Sonny managed to swipe the walkies and now somehow they have managed to lose all four kids at the park,” you sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose.

“Well at least they had the sense to get the walkies I suppose,” Eric laughed, “you know they will have a full head count by the end of the day, they won’t leave until they do.”

“I know,” you laughed, “but I’m gonna get them back.”

“How the fuck have we managed to lose four kids,” Clay said running his hand over his face. “I don’t get it,”

“Because children like to fucking run off,” Jase snapped. “Look, we don’t need to go into how it happened, it happened. Let’s just work the problem and get these kids back before we all get brutally killed. Operation find the kids is a go.”

“Riley likes water right?” Trent asked.

“Yeah, she’s a proper water baby, why do you ask?” Clay questioned.

“She might have gone towards the lake.” Trent nodded.

“Right, Clay and Brock head to the lake and try to get Riley. We all know you are her favourite Uncle Clay so she might actually come back to you.” Ray said, making a call. “We divide and conquer boys.”

“Copy,” Brock and Clay nodded, before running off in the direction of the lake.

“What about Joey?” Trent asked.

“The woods definitely,” Jase nodded.

“I’m on it,” Metal nodded before disappearing.

“Okay so that leaves Amber and Lola.” Jase said.

“Fuck I have no idea,” Ray sighed. “They are both so quiet.”

“We are just gonna have to split up.” Sonny said, “we will find them.”

Two hours had passed and everyone apart from Brock and Clay were back at base. Three out of the four kids had been located and now sitting on the grass with Metal eatting some cookies.

“I’m gonna need a medic,” Clay said, his voice full of panic and cry’s could be heard in the background.

“How far out are you?” Jase replied.

“About 5 mikes,” Brock replied.

Clay looked down at Riley in his arms, she was screaming and the tears kept coming.

“Hey Riley-roo, it’s okay, Uncle Clay has got you. You are gonna be okay.” Clay cooed trying to calm down his god daughter.

“What’s the sitrep?” Trent asked.

“Not sure if it’s a broken wrist or just a sprain. She fell pretty hard on it whilst running.” Clay sighed down the walkie. “It’s official boys, we are dead meat when the boss gets home.”

The house was quiet when you got home, far too quiet. The only sound was the hum from the TV but even that was on low volume. Quickly glancing in the kitchen you rolled your eyes at the state of it. It looked like a bomb had gone off. There were plates and mugs everywhere along with McDonald’s discarded wrappers.

Quietly you walked into the living room to see all the kids awake and all the boys fast asleep on the sofas. Riley was tucked under Clay’s arms, Joey was laying across Metal and Brock, Amber was sat in between Jase’s legs and Lola was tucked under Ray’s arms.

“Mummy” Riley grinned as she saw you. “Look what I got,” she giggled, waving her casted wrist in the air.

“What happened baby?” You asked, crouching down to her level.

“I tripped and broke my wrist.” She pouted, “But Uncle Clay took me to the hospital.”

“Well it looks like you all wore your Uncles out today,” you laughed, “but just cover your ears for me kiddos.”

Once they all covered their ears with their hands, you pushed yourself to your feet.

“Wake up you lazy shits!” You shouted, startling them all awake. “Did we have a good day?” You asked playing dumb.

“Yeah it was amazing,” Jase nodded. “We went to the park.”

“So you did lose any of the kids?” You asked, placing your hand on your hip.

“Nope,” Clay said, with a sheepish smile on his face.

“Well can someone explain this?” You said, pressing play on the recording.

The whole room fell quiet as they heard the conversation playback from early.

“So wanna change your answer boys?” You glared. “I only have two rules and you fucking broke one of them. And my daughter has a bloody broken arm!”

“Sorry, boss.” Sonny mumbled, not making eye contact.

“You better be you idiots,” you laughed, “At least you came home with a full head count. Now Clay move, you are in my seat.”

Once Clay had moved, you settled down in your spot.

“Oh and another thing, I’ve had a long ass day typing up all the incident reports from J-Bad, I swear your band list gets longer each deployment,” you laughed, “but I’m not happy about the state of my kitchen so you can all get in there and sort it out.”

“Yes, boss.” They all said, making you smirk. Not many people could make Bravo team sulk off with their tail between their legs but you could and it always made you laugh.

“And someone make me a bloody coffee, because I am not moving off this sofa for the rest of the night”

@chibsytelford @mrsmarvelous1995 @supervalcsi @talicat713 @disasterfandoms @bravo-four-seal-team @jasonbabymama @jayhalsteadfan-2417 @lotsoflovefromlea @seik-o @velvetcardiganbucky @phoenixhalliwell @pancakeisreading @itsonautopilot @pinkrockstar19 @galaxysanduniversesinmymind @softi92 @abby-splace @theysayitscrazy @thelovelyleo23 @innerpaperexpertcloud

#seal team #seal team x reader #seal team imagine #seal team oneshot

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songbirdsingingthings · 4 years ago

Text

Midnight Revelations - Katsuki Bakugou x Reader

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of these characters, they belong to Kohei Horikoshi

MHA Masterlist - Main Masterlist

WARNINGS: Fluff, Swearing (It’s Bakugou, so, that’s kinda a given)

Requested by @luluwiie :

Given your gift for writing, I'm honestly utterly surprised your box is not already full :o but this is my chance ! Kuhuhu * robbing hands *

May I request a Todoroki or Bakugo one shot (Just choose whether you feel more inspired with one, another or both) where they are just sharing some moments with reader, and like, they enjoy their time with Reader and when they come back to their dorms, alone in their bedroom, they just realize how much they care for Reader? Like, more than their close friend and partner in crimes ? Like, more in a pining way? I just love emotional epiphanies 😳❤

Tysm if you do this ! CANT WAIT TO READ YOU MORE ❤❤

- Luluv

A/N: YOU’RE LITERALLY THE SWEETEST ❤❤❤. I had a lot of fun writing this one since Bakugou is such an interesting character, so I hope you enjoy!! (Also, the song “True Love” by P!NK was playing nonstop in my head while writing this.)

Word Count: 1.9K

If it was within his control, Katsuki Bakugou would be fast asleep in his own bed by now. It made sense to him - the sky was completely dark making the stars clearly visible and it was already past 10:30 p.m., so why on earth was he awake? The short and simplest answer yielded the same result; you. How you had wedged yourself in between him and his strict sleep schedule, Bakugou had no idea, so here he was, sat with a grimace on his face as you tried to work out the last math problem on the long homework sheet Ectoplasm had assigned.

“Wait, so when it’s a hyperbola, it’s a²- b² = c²?” You ask, glancing in between the blonde-haired boy sat next to you and the sheet full of conic section equations. Bakugou just looked at you with a mixture of a tired and dumbfounded expression.

“No, idiot, it’s a²+ b² = c² because the standard form uses subtraction. It’s the other way around for ellipses.” He explains gruffly, taking your mechanical pencil and writing down the equation roughly. However, due to the sheer force of his hand on the poor little pencil, the led snapped off. You laughed a little at the outburst that followed shortly after.

“Bakugou, don’t press so hard, the lead is thinner.” You say, taking the pencil from his hand gingerly. He simply scoffs in return.

“Yeah, well, normal pencils don’t do that. Get better ones next time.” He hurumphs, leaning back in his chair and letting his head hang off the back. He remains like this for a few minutes while you scribble down the rest of your equations, ultimately coming to a solution.

“Okay, I think I got it! Is it… (y+5)²/9 - (x - 4)²/25?” With a hesitant voice and a hopeful expression, you push the homework sheet in front of Bakugou to hopefully gain his approval. You wince as he scans your work carefully, raising his eyebrows on certain occasions. Finally, he sets the paper down and slides it back over to you. “Well?” You ask, a little exasperated.

“Yeah, that’s the correct answer.” With a sigh of relief you slumped back into your chair with a smile on your face. However, that only lasted for a few seconds. “Wait, then what the hell were those facial expressions when you were looking at it?” You ask, taking the math sheet and putting it in a folder that was then shoved into your school bag.

“Your handwriting is shit.” Is all Bakugou had to say as he stood up and stretched his arms out. You roll your eyes and glance at the clock.

“Damn, it’s already 11:15.” You murmur, letting one of your hands card through your hair, massaging your head and releasing the tension that was built up by doing several pages of pre-calc. “Thanks, by the way. You didn’t need to stay this late to help me out, so I really appreciate it.” You say, expressing your gratitude to the blonde. Bakugou rubs his eyes before slinging his bag over his shoulder, letting his blazer stay unbuttoned and his tie loose around his neck. You had to admit, his somewhat disheveled look did look quite attractive on him, but if you told him that he would either never let you hear the end of it or get pissed off for commenting on his fashion. He already got enough of that from his parents, apparently.

“Yeah, I didn’t, and now thanks to you I’m gonna be tired as hell in the morning.” He complains, opening the door to your dorm to exit.

“You know, a cold compress does wonders for eyebags.” You say, a mischievous grin on your face. He narrows his eyes and flips you off. “I enjoyed spending time with you too, Bakugou!” And with that, the door to your dorm was closed.

Katsuki felt like a zombie by the time he got to his own dorm. He didn’t even bother putting his school bag on his desk or arranging his shoes by the door like he usually does. Instead, he just let the brown shoulder bag slump onto the floor as he fumbled to get his shoes off. Why the hell had you made him stay for so long? He finished all of his homework hours before you did, and still, he had to remain stationed at that wooden low table as he had to keep himself busy while you plugged away at your own work. After about an hour, looking through his phone got incredibly boring so he moved on to looking around your room, taking in all of the things that made it up. Of course, he wasn’t doing this to try to get to know you more, he already knew all he needed to… right? But as his eyes raked over the photos and decor of your room, the more glimpses he got into your personal life, so he stopped immediately.

Bakugou did make an effort to change his clothes. Peeling his blazer from his arms and hanging it up haphazardly in his closet along with his white button up. He tugged on a random black shirt and swapped his uniform pants for pajama ones and finally, finally, clambered into his bed. And, although he tried hard to make his brain shut off and just let him enter a dreamless sleep, his mind began to wander. He blamed his delirious nature for letting his neurons take him from place to place, situation to situation, until they finally projected an image of you into his head. It was a simple display of you and a recent one, too. Just Y/N L/N, sat at the little wooden table with her head perched on one of her hands with a stupid mechanical pencil in her hand. Did her hair always kind of frame her face like that? He wondered, scrunching his closed eyes. It didn’t look as horrible today, he supposed. Bakugou let his eyes flutter open, only to see that his digital clock read a clear 12:04 a.m. in electric red. He sighed and let his gaze fall on the ceiling right above him. Why was he thinking of you this late in the evening? And, to his surprise, he realized that he felt much more at home in your dorm room than he did right now, in his own space.

“What the hell…” He muttered, turning on his bedside lamp. His room was shed in a soft light, illuminating only the nearest furniture and himself. If he wasn’t able to go asleep, he sure as hell wouldn’t let this time go to waste. Picking up the book on his shelf that he was most recently into, he flipped through the pages to find his place and started reading again. He would never admit it, but Pride and Prejudice was turning out to be a much better read than expected. Bakugou found the main heroine to be much more likeable than any others he had read about. Her charisma and wit satisfied him where other characters were lacking, and the way she refused to be phased by an arrogant and sometimes brash guy who pushed her buttons constantly… He let the book fall to the ground without so much of a care as realizations flooded his brain. You put up with him. Whenever he was acting rude or was teasing you without relent, you would just simply roll your eyes and fire back. He put up with you, too. All your unreasonable habits, like staying up way too late, he was still by your side. Why?

“I…” Katsuki forced himself to look into the mirror. He saw his reflection to be way out of the norm. His eyes were wide, his posture was perfect, and his cheeks were red. “I like her.” He let the words flow freely from his mouth. With one more glance to the clock by his bedside, he grabbed a hoodie and shoved his head through it while opening his door and heading straight to yours. He knew from all of the prior knowledge on you stored in his brain and the light that shown beneath your door that you were, in fact, still awake. With three soft knocks, your door swung open to reveal you. Clad in soft looking pajama shorts and a flimsy top, your hair was a mess and your eyes were drooping. Bakugou never thought you could look so beautiful.

“Bakugou, it’s way past your bedtime.” You quip, your voice mimicking a doting parent. Bakugou shoved his way past you into your room and began to lightly pace. Your once joking smile fell into a confused frown, your eyes starting to swim with concern. “Seriously, Katsuki, what’s up? You’ve never stayed up this late except for that one time I insisted you did because a once in a lifetime meteor shower was on full display. I mean, you complained about it of course, but I knew you actually liked it because your eyes-”

“Just, shut it!” The blonde finally says. You pull back slightly, surprised at his words. “You write your twos and sevens weird, some of your habits tend to be unproductive, and sometimes I just can not stand you, but I like you.” The two of you are silent for a moment before you take a step towards him.

“You have feelings for me?” You ask, your voice soft like velvet and your eyes twinkling. Despite all of his reservations, his hard exterior and the sneer he always wore melted.

“Yeah, sure, whatever.” You shook your head and took another step forward.

“Don’t answer it like you're confirming that I correctly solved a math problem. Answer it like you love me.” Bakugou’s cheeks flamed at your sudden confidence, but he took a step forward so that your bodies were almost touching.

“I love you Y/N.” And with that, a wide grin spread across your face. Your arms wrapped themselves around the blonde’s neck and you leaned into him, your lips meeting his in a searing kiss. It was slow in pace but fierce in passion as he grew more comfortable, wrapping his arms around your waist and pressing you closer so that you were flush against his chest. Breathless and red in the face, Bakugou finally pulls back to see your ecstatic face. “Oi, what’s with the face?” He says, flustered.

“Nothing,” you say, going into your bathroom with a little towelette. He raises his eyebrows. “I told you before, a cold compress works wonders for the inevitable eye bags that you will have in the morning, and this is the perfect size.” He huffs in amusement and plucks the towelette from your hands. “Plus, you’ll have to return it to me. It gives you another excuse to hang out with me.” Bakugou finally earns a little confidence and his trademarked smirk spreads across his face.

“I don’t need an excuse to hang out with you. You’ll need my help again on the homework.”

“Always the charmer,” you quip, walking with him so that he was standing in the hallway and you in the doorway. “See ya tomorrow,” you smile, pecking him on the lips.

“See ya, Y/N.” His blush was still prevalent, but his eyebrows narrowed and a scowl replaced the smirk. “And throw out those mechanical pencils, they’re absolute shit.”

“Anything for you, Lover!” You joke, closing the door. Lover, he thinks. He can get used to a nickname like that.

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spine-buster · 4 years ago

Text

c a t c h i n g t h e l i g h t | elias pettersson

Summary: Eleven years into the future, Elias and Svea embark on their next adventure. They have tackled everything together in life thus far with the other by their side. Now, it’s time to add someone new.

Word Count: ~13k

A/N: I hope you all enjoy reading this epilogue to Elias and Svea’s story. This style of small snippet scenes was so fun to write and I hope you like it. This sort of acts as an update on Brock and Grace’s story 11 years into the future as well! Regardless, I love these two so much.

CW: difficult birth

11 years later. ___

“I’m ready,” Svea said one night when she and Elias were in the car alone, driving home from the Parkinson’s Foundation of British Columbia Gala that they’d been to every year for almost fifteen years now, hosted by Grace. They were holding hands across the centre console.

Elias knew he had to keep his eyes on the road since it was dark outside, but he made sure to look over at his wife. It was so out of the blue that he knew exactly what she meant. “You’re ready?” he asked, wanting to make sure he heard correctly.

She squeezed his hand gently as she nodded. “I’m ready.”

>< >< >< >< ><

“So you guys are trying?” Grace asked as she sipped on her iced coffee in the quaint coffee shop in Yaletown. She rocked Dukey in his stroller, now almost 18 months old and in his prime chubby glory, though he was already fast asleep and had been since the car ride in. The kid could sleep, that was for sure. It was a nice reprieve from all the sleepless nights he cost Grace and Brock at the beginning.

“Officially. Yes,” Svea nodded her head. She was already on special prenatal vitamins. Already off her birth control. Already monitoring her ovulation cycle. Already had a checkup with her doctor to make sure everything was in order. Already having sex with Elias nearly every moment of the day she could fit it in. Not that either of them complained about that point. Almost twelve years later of marriage and they were still insatiable for each other. Elias still joked they had to make up for lost time. “I’m not a fertile youngin’ like you were but I’m hoping it happens just as fast,” she commented.

Grace nodded her head. “I’m just a baby-making machine at this point, so ask me any question you want. You know nothing is off limits with me, or us.”

***

“Fill me up, Elias. Fill me up with your cum.”

Elias groaned at Svea’s words. He grabbed her hair and pulled her towards him so her back was flush against his chest, pounding into her at a different angle now as he felt close to his release too. He licked and bit at the skin of her neck before dragging his lips up to her ear. “You want my cum, pretty girl?”

“My pussy needs your hot cum, Elias. Please. Please. Fuck me deep. Fuck a baby into me.”

He snaked an arm around to her hot core and began rubbing at her clit, and after a few frenzied gasps and moans, Svea felt him explode inside of her, filling her up like she so craved and making her feel the greatest pleasure she had ever known. Her orgasm coursed throughout her whole body and made her knees weak – literally – as they slipped further and further apart. She would have almost fell back down face first onto the mattress if it wasn’t for Elias holding her up and letting her fall back onto his body instead. As they lay on their bed catching their breaths, his cock was still inside her as it softened. “Happy birthday, Elias,” she mumbled as she kissed him. This was only round two, and they were planning to go all night.

***

“Are you serious? You just went to the washroom like fifteen minutes ago,” Brock pestered Svea playfully as she stuck her tongue out at him, quickly walking into the washroom at the mall.

Elias was looking down at his phone. Pregnancy symptoms, he’d googled.

Increased urination. You might find yourself urinating more often than usual. The amount of blood in your body increases during pregnancy, causing your kidneys to process extra fluid that ends up in your bladder.

***

“Svea, you love isterband! You can’t get enough of it!” Elias protested.

“Did we get a bad batch? It smells heinous.”

“It smells delicious!” he protested. What she was saying was unbelievable to him. Usually, she had to be told to stop eating the delicious Swedish style sausage, especially when they were back in Ånge or Sundsvall having it, and especially when it was a homemade variety. But now she was making gagging noises.

“I’m gonna go to our room until it’s done,” she said as she got up from her seat at the dining table. Immediately, Stella got up and followed her. “Call me when it’s ready. Hopefully it will smell less heinous by then.”

Elias watched her and Stella walk away. He took out his phone again and opened up the internet, still on the same tab from more than a week ago at the mall with Brock and Grace.

Food aversions. When you're pregnant, you might become more sensitive to certain odors and your sense of taste might change. Like most other symptoms of pregnancy, these food preferences can be chalked up to hormonal changes.

“Sveeeeeaaaaa!” he called out.

***

Svea was holding Elias.

She let him cry. It was important to let him cry.

His face was nestled onto her stomach, and had been there for at least fifteen minutes. His arms were wrapped around her. Every so often, she’d feel him move to kiss her bare skin, and she’d be able to feel the wetness from his tear-stained cheeks.

“I’m so happy,” he mumbled. He’d been saying that since they got home from the doctor’s office, but there was something about this time, right now, that made Svea’s heart swell a thousand times its size. His tone, the softness, the tears, the position – everything was working in a way that made her so emotional. “I’m so, so happy,” he repeated.

“Me too,” she whispered, running her fingers through his hair slightly.

“I’m going to be a dad,” he said. He looked her in the eye. “I’m going to be a dad and you’re going to be a mom.”

She nodded slowly.

***

“So all the fucking worked, then,” Grace winked from the sink.

“You’re so crass,” Svea giggled as Dukey screamed at her for more food. He already had a grape in each chubby hand and was eyeing the scrambled eggs on Svea’s spoon like it was a filet mignon. She brought it towards him and he opened his mouth easily to eat it. “But yes, it all worked.”

“I mean, you guys fuck all the time so I wouldn’t be surprised. You guys still fuck like you’re in your twenties.”

“You’re really comfortable saying the f-word in front of your 18 month old.”

“He doesn’t understand words yet,” Grace dismissed her quickly, causing Svea to snort.

“And who are you to call me out? Clearly you and Brock still fuck like you’re in your twenties too,” Svea whispered the word fuck, referring to Grace and Brock’s giant brood.

“Are you guys going to find out what you’re having?” Grace asked.

Svea shook her head. “We both want it to be a surprise.”

“It’s more fun that way,” Grace agreed. “I’m betting on a boy.”

***

“Can you see it?” Svea asked as she looked at herself in the mirror, her body in a fitted dress. She switched to a side profile to see if she could see her bump better. It was small, and barely noticeable, but it was there.

“I can,” Elias nodded, coming up behind her.

“Do you think other people will see it?” she asked. “I want to show it off.”

Elias smiled. “Show it off?” he asked.

Svea nodded. “Grace said she think I’m going to be all belly – you know, like one of those women who just grows out instead of, like, around. I waited so long to have one. Now that I do, I want everyone to know.”

Elias’s smile overtook his face.

***

“Look at you!” Grace winked as Svea approached her, her bump styled in a tight dress that showed off the small but noticeable curve forming. “Work it, Svea!” Svea danced a little bit, boogieing from side to side as Grace began to do the same. Elias and Brock rolled their eyes at each other but smiled, too, their wives completely ignoring them at this point. “I was right, too! You’re all bump!” Grace exclaimed.

“For now,” Svea smiled. “I feel wider.”

“You don’t look it, but it doesn’t matter. Get as wide and as big as you want, woman. You’re pregnant with a baby.”

“And ask Petey to go and get you cans of tuna in olive oil at 2:30 in the morning,” Brock quipped. Grace shot him a look. “Five times,” he added for dramatic effect.

***

“You want some, Elias?” Svea asked as she stuffed a spoonful of strawberry flavoured frozen yogurt into her mouth.

“I’m okay,” he shook his head, a small smile playing on his lips. “You have what you want.”

“You sure?”

Elias nodded. He looked over at the clock – 3:00 in the morning. He had a practice tomorrow and she had work. But she had to have some strawberry frozen yogurt. She just had to. She needed it. Which is why Elias put on his winter jacket and a pair of shoes – but kept his pajama pants on – at 2:30 in the morning and made his way to their local 24-hour supermarket, buying her favourite frozen yogurt so she could eat it. It was all worth it, now that she was digging into it – sitting cross-legged on the bed, belly showing through her pajama shirt, eyes rolling to the back of her head every time she ate a spoonful. Now he realized what Brock meant. “It’s okay, pretty girl.”

“Just one spoon,” she said, already scooping it. She held it out to him and he smiled before he ate the spoonful. “Is it good?” she asked.

He nodded. “It’s better at three in the morning.”

She couldn’t help but giggle. She had the best husband. She wasn’t sure if others would have gone and gotten her frozen yogurt in the middle of the night. “I love you, Elias.”

“I love you too. Now give me another spoonful.”

***

“I love your cock so much Elias, fuck,” Svea sighed out.

He was much gentler these days. They both were. The doctor said it was completely safe and healthy but Elias was still…cautious. But when Svea woke up that morning placing small kisses on his shoulder, and then reached over and slipped her hand down his pajama pants, he couldn’t help himself. So he flipped around to face her, and they kissed, and kissed, and kissed, and he teased her already wet pussy with his fingers, and he hooked her leg over his torso and slipped into her easily, the both of them sighing, the both of them savouring the intimacy.

“Does it feel good?” he asked. She nodded quietly. “Does it feel different?”

“A little bit,” she nodded again, biting her bottom lip. “But a good different.”

Elias thrust harder. Svea let out a gasp. “I could bury my cock in your pussy all day,” he huffed out.

That made Svea smirk. “I’d let you.”

***

“You have to be patient.”

“I can’t be patient.”

“Well, you have to be.”

“You’ve been feeling them for a week now! I haven’t!”

“Just. Be. Patient.”

“But Svea—”

“Elias—”

They both stopped the second they felt it. It happened right where Elias’s hand rested on her growing belly. He almost couldn’t believe it happened at first, because to him, the feeling was so new. But when he realized what had just happened, and the magnitude of it, he looked up at Svea. She was already smiling. “Did you feel that?” he asked.

She nodded. “Poke where they just kicked. Trust me.”

Elias did as he was told. He poked. And poked again. Then he placed his hand on the spot.

He felt another kick.

Svea could hear a sharp intake of breath. When she looked at him next, he was already looking at her with tears welled in his eyes. “Svea…” he managed to get out, his voice cracking.

“I know, Elias. I know.”

A tear fell down his face.

***

“Svea, can I touch your belly?” Violet Boeser looked up at Svea, swaying her dress from side to side.

“Me too!” Rose Boeser joined in.

“Me three!” Lily Boeser pushed her sister to the side.

“Me four!” Poppy Boeser squeezed her way in. “Svea can I feel the baby?”

“Be gentle!” Grace called out from the picnic table. In the distance, Brock and Elias were barbecuing the hamburgers and hot dogs. Coolie, Milo, and Stella were all sunbathing near the barbecue. “Svea isn’t a science experiment!”

Svea snorted. “Yes girls, you can all feel the baby,” she smiled. Immediately, each of the girls’ hands covered her bump. Rose even put her head against her bump briefly. “The baby isn’t kicking right now but they might soon now that they feel all your hands,” Svea said.

“Are you having a boy or a girl?” Violet asked.

“I don’t know yet, Violet! It’s going to be a surprise.”

“Baaaaaaaa!” Dukey Boeser yelled from the picnic table. Once Grace set him down, he ran over to Svea as well, not wanting to feel left out now that his four older sisters were doing something he wasn’t. He put his tiny hands on top of Poppy’s and looked up at Svea. “Baaaaaa! Ba ba baby!”

“Yes! There’s a baby!” Svea grinned.

“And I’m gonna babysit!” Violet said.

“Me too!” Rose followed.

“Me three!” Lily joined.

“Me four!” Poppy finished it out, like she always did.

***

“Your placenta is a bit low, but it’s nothing to worry about,” the doctor said as she looked at Svea. “Have you been feeling any changes lately?”

“A lot more fatigue, to be honest,” Svea confessed. “I push through it because I’m still working, but when I get home I, like, barely move.”

The doctor nodded his head. “That’s normal. Fatigue in the second trimester is common. We’ll continue to monitor symptoms and monitor your placenta but it shouldn’t be a problem. But if symptoms get any worse, we’ll put you on bedrest.”

“Bedrest?”

“Bedrest. For your health. And the health of the baby.”

***

“Should we start thinking about names?” Svea asked as she lay on the couch, her head in Elias’s lap as he ran his fingers through her hair. Stella was sleeping in between her legs, letting out soft snores. “Do we want super-Swedish or super…something else?”

“This is going to be the hardest part, I think,” Elias commented before offering any suggestions. “I think something that translates well into both languages is best, don’t you think?”

Svea nodded her head. Whereas Fanny and Emil chose pretty traditional Swedish sounding names for their three boys, she knew they’d have to go the “translatable” route because of their Canadian/Swedish lifestyle. “Do you like Linnea?” she asked.

“I do, but I think it’s too popular in Sweden. I want something nice but something that stands out. There will be five other Linnea’s in her class,” Elias mused.

“So that’s Milo down the drain too, then…” Svea giggled slightly. “What about Freya?”

“Too…mythological.”

“Ivar?”

“No.”

“What about Astrid? I was going to be named Astrid, you know.”

Elias nodded. “I like Astrid. Astrid is good. Do you like Oskar?”

Svea nodded. “What about Erland, like your grandpa?”

“That’s a good middle name.”

***

Babysitting Violet, Rose, Lily, Poppy, and Dukey was good practice for Elias and Svea. They’d been doing it, really, since Violet was born, and then when Rose was added, and Lily was added, and Poppy was added, and Dukey was added…well, it all just became routine. The girls were great, and they put frilly headbands on Elias and did his makeup more times than they could count now. His favourite look was the blue and green eyeshadow they’d created, stolen from mommy’s collection in her room. The Canucks colours, obviously. He’d even posted the finished product on Instagram.

The girls also never had any trouble with bedtime, even when they were much smaller. But nowadays, Dukey did. Entering his “terrible twos” was proving to be quite the interesting time. But with the girls already in bed, it was easy for Elias and Svea to deal with him separately.

After tiring him out, Elias tried rocking him to get him to fall asleep, but he was still fussy. He kept reaching out to Svea. So Elias transferred him over, and Svea held him in her arms. “Whatsa matter?” she asked him in a sweet voice. “Does Dukey want to fall asleep?”

He fussed around for a bit more before settling down, laying his head on Svea’s shoulder. He was looking down, his face in a pout. “Baby,” he said, pointing lazily down to her bump. “Baby.”

“Yes, there’s a baby,” Svea cooed, rubbing his back. His eyes almost immediately began to droop. “But Dukey is a big boy now.”

“Yaaaaa. Dukey big boy.”

Elias watched as she continued to rub his back and coo sweet words to him as Dukey fell asleep in her arms. His hands were almost shaking, thinking about how in a few short months, they’d be doing the same thing for their own child.

***

Midsommar. Svea’s favourite time of year.

And now time for an impromptu baby shower.

Elias’s family tradition of renting a big tent on the lake was still going strong, and now, with so many new cousins and family members, the party was bigger and better than ever. Svea’s family and Elias’s family decided to incorporate a small celebration for the impending baby.

With her flower crown adorned on her head and some special gifts already opened, Elias sat down beside his wife and held her hand underneath the table. “Remember when we were young? What you did to me on the banks of the lake?”

She side eyed him. “Don’t even think about it.”

***

“Give me your hands, Svea, fuck,” Elias moaned as he watched her rock back and forth on top of him. She did as she was told, grabbing his hands to brace against so she could keep doing what she was doing. As she rocked herself back and forth, getting closer and closer to her climax, she tightened her grip on his hands. “Does it feel good, pretty girl?”

Svea nodded. “D’you still like what you see?”

“Always Svea. Always.”

***

Grace had gone all out. She was the perfect person to host Svea’s Vancouver baby shower when she returned from Sweden almost double the size from when she left. She’d invited the Canucks wives and girlfriends to her house. She’d had her sunroom and backyard decorated in the most adorable Peter Rabbit themed décor. Stella was dressed up with rabbit ears. She’d even thought of the cutest, most perfect party favours – mini champagne bottles with “She’s About to Pop!” adorned on it. And not the cheap champagne bottles, either. This was Grace.

Too bad Svea couldn’t have any.

Svea usually didn’t like being the centre of attention, but she was having the best time being the centre of attention at her baby shower. She opened her gifts, she played the games, she laughed her head off at the game where the girls had to measure her girth.

After pictures with the guests, Svea sat down in her chair. “This was the cutest baby shower,” Holly Horvat commented to her, nibbling on the last bit of her cupcake. “But you know what?”

“What?”

“Remember that movie Bridesmaids? Remember how they had puppies as the party favours?”

Svea giggled. “Yeah.”

“Grace should have gotten us all cute little bunnies.”

***

“So the rumours are true. You’re pregnant.”

Svea looked up from her phone to see Trevor waiting down the bar for his coffee, staring right at her as she finished telling the barista her order. From behind her, one of her co-workers muttered an ‘Ew’ at the sight of him. With good reason, since Trevor was Svea’s political arch-enemy. They came up in the political world at the same time, got promotions around the same time, and were forced to work in conjunction with one another – but never actually together. And they never got along, ever.

“Yes. I am,” Svea nodded her head once. “Fancy seeing you here, by the way. Isn’t your office on the other side of town?”

“We travel all over the city,” he said. His smarmy smile made her blood boil. He grabbed his coffee and made his way towards her. “Congratulations, by the way. I wish Elias a lot of luck. He’s going to need it.”

“Just like you after we decimated you in the election, I assume.”

His smarmy smile left his face.

***

The Boeser girls got so excited by the flashing lights in the arena, the season opener in full swing. They were clapping and screaming and jumping around on their jerseys as the announcer began to announce the team, knowing that their dad would be near the beginning because of his number six.

“At number six, Brrrrrroooock, Booooeeeseeerrr!” the announcer roared, the crowd roaring as well as the girls screamed at the top of their lungs for their dad. Dukey was clapping too, balanced on Grace’s hip and in his own little jersey. Svea couldn’t help but smile.

Eventually, when they got to Elias, she knew the camera would pan to her. A member of the press corps had seen her earlier. And while she and Elias never made a formal announcement on Instagram or anywhere else in terms of her pregnancy, it was now out in the open – especially since that reporter asked about it during the media scrum earlier that day. “Your wife Svea is pregnant now; is the focus at the beginning of this season for you on hockey or on the things happening at home?”

The audacity of that question being asked made her head spin.

Lily had already wrapped her arms around Svea’s legs, and like clockwork, they were shown on the jumbotron clapping. At that point, the 20,000-plus fans in the arena could see she was seven months pregnant. The bump protruded through the jersey. And when the fans realized, they got noticeably louder. Like, louder louder. Cheering, whistling, smiling – so much so it sent shivers down Svea’s spine.

She smiled from ear to ear.

***

“Happy birthday, my beautiful wife,” Elias mumbled against Svea’s lips. He’d been kissing her, slow and sensual, but also quick and fast – every type of kiss, really – for the last fifteen minutes. He’d just made her a homemade dinner, and now he was ready for, uh, dessert.

“This time next year I’ll be a mom to a ten-month-old,” she mused.

Elias smiled. “It feels like just yesterday that we surprised Grace and Brock,” he said.

“It’s been twelve years.”

“Still feels like yesterday,” Elias kissed her again. “My moon, my stars, my Svea.”

***

“I think it’s cutting it too close,” Elias mused as they lay in bed together, Svea’s bump widening the distance between them.

“Elias, I’m only thirty-six weeks,” Svea rationalized. “My mom carried Sigrid to almost 42 weeks and me right to 40. This baby isn’t coming out anytime soon.”

“But you’ve…grown so much in the last few weeks,” he said, laying a hand on the bump. “And you’ve been so tired, and the doctor’s appointments have to be weekly because of that and I just don’t—”

“Elias—”

“It’s fifteen days, Svea. I’ll just let them know it’s too close.”

“Elias,” Svea said sternly. “You’re going to the East Coast and that’s that. You’re going to get back and we’re going to celebrate your birthday and then we’re going to have this baby. In that order.”

***

If you looked, if you really looked at the video, you could see Elias being called off the bench at the beginning of the third period.

The announcers mentioned it after the fact. And when play stopped about two minutes later, they were able to show the replay. They went through some major points of his shift, spoke about how good it was, and then showed how he skated back to the bench and sat down. About fifteen seconds later, someone came barreling through the tunnel and was screaming Elias’s name, waving him over to get off the bench. Elias complied. The analysts wondered – there was no hit, no scuffle, no trip, no high stick, no fall, seemingly no injury, no penalty at all or anything even worth a penalty during the play, and a perfectly healthy Elias Pettersson was being rushed off the bench? What was going on?

The camera stayed on Elias speaking to the man in the tunnel. Nobody could lip read but everybody could see Elias run down the tunnel once the man spoke.

“What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

“You need to get back to Vancouver. It’s Svea. She’s been rushed to the hospital and she’s lost a lot of blood.”

He was a six hour flight away in Florida.

***

There was blood everywhere. All over their bed. All over their sheets.

Svea called an ambulance. She called Grace screaming and wailing into the phone. She called her mom in Sweden crying. The pain was almost too much. The contractions were too. When the paramedics came, she was loaded into an ambulance and rushed to the hospital. “My husband. You need to call my husband. He’s in Florida playing hockey. He needs to be here. He—He—the baby—the baby—the baby—”

***

It was the worst six hours of Elias’s life. Eight hours really, from leaving the rink to getting off the plane and rushing to the hospital. Grace called in the last minutes before the flight took off to update him. Svea had placenta previa. That’s why there was so much spontaneous blood loss. The doctors had stopped the bleeding, but she’d needed a blood transfusion. It went fine. But now she was in labour. At 37 weeks.

“It’ll have to be a c-section,” Grace explained. “There was too much blood loss and too big a risk for more blood loss for a vaginal birth like Svea wanted. And I don’t – Petey – she will probably need a hysterectomy.”

“Hysta-what? What’s that?”

“They’re going to have to remove her uterus, Petey. This baby is going to be your only baby.”

***

Elias rushed to put on the scrubs provided by the nurses. He rushed to get back into the delivery room knowing that Svea had already had a blood transfusion. He rushed to be in the room to watch the doctor operate – literally operate on his wife – so that Svea could deliver the baby safely and have her hysterectomy.

***

Margot Pettersson.

They named her Margot Pettersson.

After all the blood, the fear, the frantic phone calls, the six-hour flight, the surgery, the operation – Margot was here. And she was healthy.

It took everything within Elias not to break down crying as he held her in his arms and lay in the hospital bed with Svea, who was recovering well considering the trauma and how much blood she lost. They couldn’t take their eyes off their daughter. She was perfect in every way, from the blonde hair on her head to her tiny, tiny, tiny little toes.

She was finally here.

***

It was a few days later when Svea felt confident enough to be in a photo – she didn’t “look like death” anymore, as she put it. Elias sent it to his teammates. He was on some brief phone calls with the powers that be on the Canucks for a statement and for some time off.

When he rejoined Svea in their hospital room as she fed Margot, he sat on the bed and wrapped an arm around his girls. “The bed,” she said suddenly, looking at him. “We have to buy a new bed. I can’t sleep in that bed anymore. All I’ll see is blood.”

“Grace and Brock already took care of it,” he said. “Everything is going to be fine when we get back home. I promise.”

***

The Vancouver Canucks organization would like to extend their congratulations to Elias and Svea Pettersson on the birth of their daughter, Margot. Mrs. Pettersson continues to recover in the hospital. Elias will be a healthy scratch for the next four games to ensure the health and well-being of his family.

***

Svea was on bed rest in their new bed, Stella’s snout resting on her post-partum belly. Elias never wanted to let go of Margot unless it was to put her back in Svea’s arms. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of her, either. Even when Svea was breastfeeding. He found it to be the most beautiful thing in the world, watching his wife, who he loved so much, feeding and nourishing his daughter, who he loved so much.

He cuddled with them, snuggling into Svea’s side as he watched Margot. The little sounds she was making brought a smile to his face. He brought his hand up and caressed her head gently, the blonde hair atop her head perfectly combed.

“I finally have boobs now,” Svea whispered.

Elias snorted and Svea had a cheeky smile on his face. “I’ve always loved your boobs. Big or small.”

“Hmm, don’t I know it,” she hummed, giving him another kiss. She looked down at her daughter. “She’s perfect, isn’t she?”

“In every way.”

***

Elias’s birthday was much quieter this year. Well, quieter in the sense that there weren’t any friends in his house; quieter in the sense that he wasn’t at some hip restaurant downtown eating an incredibly expensive steak while sipping on an incredibly expensive glass of wine while he wore an incredibly expensive outfit and an incredibly expensive watch, watching his beautiful and sexy wife in an incredibly expensive dress sip sultrily on an incredibly expensive glass of wine as she eyed him up and grazed his leg with her heel under the table.

But this was still his favourite birthday ever.

Sitting on the couch, a warm bottle of pumped breastmilk in his hands, feeding his eight-day-old daughter.

His life was perfect.

***

“She looks like Petey,” Brock said as he held a swaddled Margot in his arms.

“They have to biologically, you know,” Grace jumped in. “But my god you two, her eyes are so damn blue. I mean I know that’s the Swedish thing and all, but they’re sooo blue.”

“I know,” Elias smiled. “Even the doctor mentioned it during one of her checkups. She’ll have a beautiful set of eyes, that’s for sure. Just like her mom.”

Svea swooned. She watched as Brock craned his neck down and placed a quick kiss atop Margot’s head. “Getting baby fever again, Brock?” she winked at him.

“No no no, five is plenty,” he chuckled. “I just love that newborn baby smell.”

Svea, Elias, and Grace let out the all-knowing “Oooooh” sound in agreement. “You’re so right, babe,” Grace nodded. “It’s the best smell in the world.”

***

“God, I missed this,” Svea said as she took a huge gulp of crisp, clean Vancouver air. It was her first time outside with Stella in weeks, now that she was off bedrest and fully recovered from her c-section and hysterectomy. Her doctor had okayed light physical activity, so she’d invited Grace and Dukey over for a short walk around the neighbourhood. Grace had obviously agreed, and had brought Coolie and Milo along.

“Me too. You’ll be back running and doing yoga in no time,” Grace said, remembering some of their jaunts over the years where Grace would bring out Violet, or Rose, or Lily, or Poppy on walks or runs in their strollers too. When she finished strapping Duke in, and made sure he had his snacks, she rose to her feet. “You feel good?”

Svea nodded. “We just have to go slow. And I can do maximum half an hour.”

“I’ll go as slow as you want me to,” Grace said. She peeked into Margot’s stroller and noticed she was already asleep. Her son, on the other hand, was screaming about his grapes. “Let’s hope Dukey’s grapes last the entire time.”

***

Did Elias and Svea go all out for Margot’s first Christmas? Yes.

Did Svea dress her up in a red dress, green shoes, frilly headband, and reindeer antlers? Yes.

Did Svea dress her up in an elf outfit, complete with curled shoes? Yes.

Was there a portrait with the new family and Santa Claus? Yes.

Did Elias and Svea send the pictures to their family members, co-workers, and every teammate? Yes.

Did it get leaked to the media? Yes.

***

“She’s gonna start her chubby phase soon,” Brock said as he held Margot in his arms, feeding her with a bottle, as Elias sautéed some mushrooms on a skillet as part of their lunch. “She’s eighteen weeks now?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s the best,” Brock said. “They got so chunky. So squishy. I swear I went crazy for every one of them.”

“Margot was born at 37 weeks though. We might have to wait a little bit longer.”

“Well, call me the second you start noticing chunk,” Brock said. “I’ll be over here in a heartbeat.”

***

“There was a lot of blood.”

Elias held Svea in his arms as they lay down in bed together after one of Margot’s middle-of-the-night feedings. Margot had been really fussy and took a while to be put down and fall asleep again; Svea had been unable to go back to sleep herself once she was in bed, tossing and turning and not even being able to keep her eyes closed. Even Elias’s cuddling wasn’t helping, which meant something was on her mind and keeping her restless. So he’d asked her what was wrong.

And that’s what she responded with.

He knew immediately what she meant. Ever since that day, when he was called off the bench and rushed back to Vancouver, he’d beaten himself up for not being there, as a husband should have been for his wife, as she went through such a traumatic event. It traumatized him, but that didn’t even take into consideration how much it traumatized her. That’s what really mattered here. She still had to deal with it. She still had to see it in her mind when she closed her eyes. She had the memory, not him.

It killed Elias inside knowing Svea had to carry that burden with her.

“You were so strong, though. And your strength gave us our daughter,” he said.

Svea nodded slightly before she looked at her husband. “Were you scared? When they told you, I mean. When you were rushed off the bench.”

Elias nodded his head immediately. “I was terrified.”

“Of what?”

“That I was going to lose you and the baby,” he admitted. “Were you scared?”

“I was,” Svea said. “Do you…are…are you angry we can only have one?”

“Why would I be angry?” he was beside himself at her question.

“I don’t know. I just…are you angry we didn’t have a boy? Or that we can’t have a son in the future? Or another daughter? Are you angry I wasn’t healthy enough to—”

“Stop it right now,” he ordered. Tears were falling down his face at her words. “You’ve given me everything I’ve ever wanted and needed in my life. Do you understand me? Everything.”

Svea was crying now too. “You’ve just been so good to me, Elias. I want to give you everything too, like you always give me.”

“You already have,” he whispered, kissing her, feeling her tear-stained cheeks on his.

***

“You want to hold the baby, Violet?” Svea asked quietly as the Boeser girls looked at tiny Margot resting in Svea’s arms. Violet nodded her head desperately and outstretched her hands automatically. “You have to sit on the couch, baby girl,” Svea said, and Violet did as she was told.

Svea extended her arms and passed Margot to her slowly. “Put your arm up,” she said. “You have to support her head.” Violet nodded. Margot fussed a little bit, but once she was in Violet’s arms, she stopped.

Violet smiled. “Hello Margot,” she said in a soft voice, smiling.

“Hello Margot,” Rose mimicked in the same voice.

“Hello Margot,” Lily mimicked in the same voice.

“Hello Margot,” Poppy mimicked in the same voice.

All at the same time, the girls leaned forward and placed light kisses onto Margot’s face.

Svea couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear.

***

“Look at my beautiful baby girl,” Elias cooed as he finished changing Margot’s diaper, buttoning up her little onesie as she wiggled on the change table, looking up at him with her big blue eyes. “Hällo Margot! Hällo!”

She gurgled happily. Elias chuckled as he finished the last of the buttons, eventually scooping her up in his arms carefully and holding her against his chest. She settled in quickly, calming herself down as Elias walked from her nursery to his bedroom. Just as he walked in, Svea walked out of their ensuite bathroom with a robe on, drying her hair with a towel. When she saw her husband and daughter, she smiled automatically.

“Hello my loves,” she whispered, approaching them slowly. At the sight of Svea, Margot gurgled happily again, even waving her arms up and down once excitedly. “Hello Margot! Hello my beautiful baby!”

“Beautiful baby had a stinky diaper this morning,” Elias griped jokingly.

Svea laughed, placing a light kiss on top of Svea’s head. “Making daddy change the stinky ones? Good baby.”

***

Margot’s first game, after she got all of her appropriate vaccinations, was against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Elias and Svea made sure to go to the arena early so that his teammates could see her before the game. Even Elias’s friend William Nylander from the Leafs was able to pop over and congratulate the couple. Svea appreciated the gesture, since she knew how busy he was.

“Oh my Gooooooddddd,” Holly cooed as she saw Margot dressed up in a little Vancouver Canucks jersey. “The baby jersey! The baby jersey! Can Gunnar be this small again?!”

Svea laughed as Holly clutched at her heart. Bo smiled from ear to ear when he noticed, too. “She’s adorable, Svea.”

“Thanks, Bo.”

“Bo, remember when Gunnar was that small?” Holly asked her husband. She then wrapped her arms around his one arm, looking up at him sweetly. “Can we have another one, Bo? Please?”

“Holly.”

***

Svea hauled some of the grocery bags – the lighter ones, at least – inside the house. She would leave the other ones for Elias. He’d probably get angry that she brought in the light groceries, anyway. He always brought things in – ever since her surgery, at least. But she was feeling almost back to normal now, and she wanted to start contributing more again.

“Elias?” she called out. No answer. She set the grocery bags down in the laundry room and made her way into their house. “Elias?” she called out again.

It was only then when he heard loud, screaming giggles coming from the family room. Following the giggles, Svea heard the sound of raspberries being blown against skin, and an orchestra of loud, happy giggles again, this time from both Margot and Elias.

She smiled to herself. As she walked further into the house, turning a corner, she looked into the family room to find Elias on his knees in front of the couch, Margot on the cushion in between his arms in just a diaper, and him blowing raspberries on her tummy. Margot was laughing and wiggling in pure happiness. And when Svea’s presence caught Elias’s eye, he looked up. “Hey baby,” he smiled, before diving in one more time to blow raspberries.

Svea’s heart swelled.

***

“You and Elias deserve a nice Valentine’s Day date,” Grace said before taking a sip of her water. “How about Brock and I watch Margot for the night and you two go out for a nice dinner?”

Svea loved the idea, but she was still a bit apprehensive. It would be the first night away from Margot. And though she trusted Brock and Grace more than anyone else in Vancouver with Margot, it would still be a lot for her, at least mentally. She assumed it would be the same for Elias. “I’ll mention it to Elias, and we’ll think about it,” she said.

Grace eyed her. “Don’t think about it, just do it. I know it’s hard to think about, but time away from the baby will do you both some good. It’s necessary. It’s healthy. It’s hard but it’s healthy.”

***

“This steak is delectable,” Svea commented as she forked another slice of her filet into her mouth.

Elias nodded from across the table. “The wine, too. It was a good choice,” he said before he took a sip. He looked lovingly at his wife and smiled before he set his wine glass down. “D’you miss Margot like I do?”

Svea giggled and nodded her head. “I do. But I’m enjoying our Valentine’s Day date,” she said. “I wouldn’t be anywhere else in the world.”

“Me neither,” he reached across the table to grab her hand.

***

Elias and Stella walked into the bedroom quietly, Elias holding mugs of tea in both hands. He saw Svea sitting up, looking down peacefully at Margot whom she was breastfeeding. Svea grabbed the mug from Elias and took a quick sip before setting it down on the nightstand. Elias climbed into the bed, Stella following, and nestled in close with his two girls, gently stroking Margot’s blonde hair.

“Thank you for the tea,” Svea said softly, looking at him before pursing her lips slightly, signaling she wanted a kiss.

Elias gave her one easily. His lips lingered on hers, giving her small, quick kisses. “You’ve given me everything I’ve ever wanted,” he whispered huskily. “The least I could do is bring you tea.”

“Hmmm,” Svea hummed happily. “Can I suggest some other things you can do tonight?”

Elias smirked.

***

“Look here little Margot! Look here!” the photographer cooed as her assistant jingled some bells to get the attention of the baby, dressed up in the cutest little dress and tights. Margot babbled slightly and smiled at the noise. Elias could hear the shutter of the camera go off like crazy.

“Her eyes are showing up spectacularly on camera,” the photographer commented. “What a beautiful colour they are.”

Elias and Svea continued to smile throughout the photoshoot. Then, when they had to take a break, they changed Margot into a different outfit and went outside to take some more pictures. After a second break, they changed Margot into her last outfit before going to their bedroom and finishing the photoshoot.

“The photos should be ready for you in a few weeks, after editing,” the photographer said as she packed away her equipment. By this point, Margot was fast asleep on Elias’s shoulder, her chubby cheeks amplified. “She’s a cutie, you guys. I mean, just adorable.”

Elias smiled, placing a soft kiss atop Margot’s head. “She’s my little princess.”

***

At a cute little café in Yaletown, Svea pushed her stroller back and forth to rock Margot to sleep. Svea hadn’t gotten any sleep last night thanks to her daughter, and Elias being away on a road trip didn’t help matters. Svea knew babies went through sleep regression – Margot had been a fantastic sleeper, save for the last two weeks – but she wondered how long this would last. She was trying everything she could, but Margot wasn’t sleeping.

When Grace arrived without any of her kids in tow, looking especially stylish with a cute hat and thigh-high boots, Svea waved her down. Grace waved back and waited in line to order her coffee.

“You look like you haven’t slept,” Grace commented as she set her coffee down on the table and sat in the seat opposite Svea.

“That’s because I haven’t,” Svea admitted. She hadn’t even bothered to put on makeup this morning. “Margot kept me up all night. She was so fussy, Grace.”

Grace furrowed her brows. “Do you have milk with you?” she asked.

Svea nodded. “Of course I do. In the bag.”

Grace nodded, getting up from her seat. “Come on. We’re going home.”

“Wait—what—”

“We’re going back to my house, and you’re sleeping, and I’ll watch and feed Margot.”

Svea could cry.

***

“Look. At. The. CHUNK!!!!!” Brock practically screamed as he looked over Elias’s shoulder as Elias finished putting a new diaper on Margot, who was wiggling happily and cooing at seeing Brock’s face over her dad’s shoulder. “Look at you! Look at your chunk! Look at it!” Brock kept repeating.

“Brock—”

“What’re you gonna do with all these rolls? What’re you gonna do with all these rolls?!”

“Brock—”

“You gonna open a bakery? You gonna open up a bakery with all these rolls?”

“BROCK!”

“WHAT?!”

“Get me her blanket!”

Brock moved to the side and reached over to get the soft blanket he knew Elias wanted. “You don’t have to be so mean,” he grumbled at his best friend.

***

“Look, Svea! Look! Look!” Elias’s voice was frantic as he called Svea over from the kitchen. He could hear her footsteps as she rushed over to the family room. “Look!”

Svea looked at Elias on his stomach on the floor, a few feet away from Margot who was also on her tummy. She’d hit the traditional milestone of rolling over a bit early – four months in, instead of five – and now, at just over six months old, Svea watched as Margot started creeping along the floor, moving closer and closer to her dad as he kept wiggling further and further away.

“Eeeeeeh!” she would cry out in complaint of her seemingly not getting closer to her dad. “Eeeeeh!”

“Come on Margot! Just a little bit more!” Elias smiled wide.

She creeped some more, and when she was finally close enough, Elias began peppering her face with kisses. She giggled at the feeling and screeched with happiness when he picked her up and held her in his arms. “Baby’s on the move,” he smiled at Svea.

She nodded her head. “We’re not gonna be able to sit down anymore.”

***

“Where do you think you’re going, missy?” Svea asked playfully as she watched Margot crawl along the hardwood floor of the kitchen. Her chunky rolls filled out her avocado-printed onesie she was wearing as she made a beeline for the sunlight coming through the sliding door.

“Aaaaaeeeeeeee!” Margot squeaked at the sound of her mother’s voice, looking back.

“Where are you going?” Svea asked.

“Eeeeeeeaaaaaaaaa!”

“Eeeeeeeaaaaaaaaa!” Svea mimicked, knowing she should be mimicking the sounds for Margot’s development. She grabbed her phone off the counter and walked around her, crouching down on the floor and opening her camera for a video. “Come on Margot! Let’s show daddy how you can crawl!”

“Aaaaaaaadadada!!” she said, continuing her babbling and crawling as she made her way against the hardwood floor and towards the camera.

Later, when Svea held Margot on hip as she fixed a quick bowl of raspberries as a snack, she sent the video to Elias. His response was almost immediate.

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

***

“She’s cruising now,” Svea explained on the phone to Grace. “Like, she can stand, but the second she takes a step she’s too wobbly and falls down. But if she’s got the couch or the coffee table, she’s okay.”

“She’s going to be walking soon,” Grace said confidently. “You guys think you weren’t able to sit down once she started crawling? Well, good luck now,” she giggled.

“I don’t know how you did this three times in a row while pregnant with the next,” Svea admitted. “Crouching down, picking her up, over and over and over again…all that with a bump? You’re superwoman, Grace.”

“I’m not superwoman, I’m just a mom,” Grace said. “For going what you went through to deliver her, you’re superwoman too, you know.”

***

“Come to daddy, Margot. Come to daddy,” Elias beckoned as he sat with his arms and legs outstretched about six feet away from Svea, who was holding Margot up by just her hands. All of the videos Svea had sent him over the last road trip of Margot trying to walk and then falling made him want to practice once he got home. He refused to see his daughter’s first steps over an iPhone video, and Svea understood that completely.

“Go to daddy,” Svea whispered in her daughter’s ear as she let go of her hands.

Margot wobbled a bit, took a cautionary first step, then a second, and at her parent’s excited voices, she smiled and continued with her steps, reaching Elias who was so elated with joy that he scooped her up in his arms and peppered her chubby face with kisses. Svea could see tears escaping his eyes as he repositioned his daughter, holding her up again by her hands, and encouraging her to walk to Svea. Some more wobbly steps and a mid-distance squat later, Margot was back in Svea’s arms, getting more kisses.

They had a walker.

***

“Your costumes are sooooo awesome, girls!” Svea cooed as she looked at Violet, Lily, Rose, and Poppy dressed up in their witch costumes as she entered the Boeser house. “Are you girls ready to go trick-or-treating?”

The four girls nodded their heads excitedly. “What’s Margot dressed up as?!” Violet asked.

“You’ll see when Elias brings her in,” Svea smiled, watching as Dukey, dressed up as Buzz Lightyear came running towards the door. “Hi Dukey!”

“I Buzz Lightyear!” he screamed excitedly. “Look!” he turned around to show off the wings of the costume. He raised his hand in the air. “Iffity and blonde!”

“To infinity and beyond!” Svea copied him.

Before they could go any further, Elias walked through the door with Margot in his arms and her diaper bag over his shoulder. “Hello girls,” Elias greeted them. “Nice costumes! Look at Svea’s!”

The four girls cooed at her, admiring her in her cute little costume. “Mooooooom! Svea’s a strawberry!”

From inside the house, Elias and Svea could hear Grace scream in delight.

***

“Haaaaaappy Birthdaaayyyyy to you! Haaaaaappy Birthdaaayyyyy to you! Haaaaaappy Birthdaaayyyyy dear Maaaaarrrgggooooottt! Haaaaaappy Birthdaaayyyyy to you!”

Margot was smiling from ear to ear as she giggled and clapped excitedly as everyone sang to her. Her first birthday party was a hit – Irene and Torbjorn were able to come in from Sweden, Emil and Fanny were Zooming in with their kids, and practically the entire team and their kids were over the Pettersson house celebrating the big day.

“Blow, Margot! Blow!” Elias bent down so he was at the same eye-level as his daughter in her high chair. He showed her how to do it before watching as she tried to mimic him. “Blow!”

Instead, Margot made a loud fart noise with her mouth.

Everyone laughed hysterically. Elias could hear Brock scream “I hope someone got that on video!” Elias watched as Svea bent down to be at eye-level with Margot too. “On three! One, two three! Blow!”

***

“Say mama. Mama,” Elias said as he lay on his back on the couch and hat Margot sitting on his chest. “Mama. Mommy.”

“Dada.”

“No, no dada. Mmmmmmmaaaammmmmmaaaaa,” he emphasized. “Mama!”

“Dada!”

“MAMA!”

“DADA!”

“Elias!” Svea yelled from the kitchen. “You can’t force her words.”

Elias grumbled. “Mama,” he said, much quieter so Svea wouldn’t hear. “Mama.”

“DADA!”

***

“Gröt,” Svea cooed as she spooned some more oatmeal into a spoon. It was already all over Margot’s face and hands, Margot loving every spoonful. Her big blue eyes looked at the spoon excitedly. “This is gröt, Margot. Gröt.”

“Do we really want Margot’s first Swedish word to be oatmeal?” Elias laughed as he joined his girls at the table, setting his mug of coffee down and placing Svea’s tea beside her on the table.

“It’s at least a single syllable,” Svea mused. She looked back at Margot, who had just swallowed the spoonful of oatmeal and was pointing at Elias taking a sip of his coffee. “Gröt. Gröt!” Svea repeated. “Gröt!”

Margot pointed emphatically. “Fika!” she said suddenly. Svea’s and Elias’s jaws dropped. “Fika!”

Elias snorted from behind Svea. “Fika. Of course her first Swedish world would be fika.”

***

“If I’m going to go back to work – I mean, I am, it’s not a question – we need to find a good daycare,” Svea said, eyes focused on her laptop screen as Margot was napping.

“More important than the daycare, Svea, is if you’re ready,” Elias cautioned. “Are you ready to go back to work?”

Svea had thought about it a lot – she really did. Being at home with Margot was amazing, of course – it was the best thing ever, and she valued every millisecond – but she was ready to return to her career. It wasn’t that she had a duty or an obligation to, or that she was feeling forced or pressured or put it on herself to be a do-it-all working mother. She just…genuinely felt like it was the right thing to do for her. Svea never saw herself as a stay-at-home-mother, even though she and Elias had boatloads full of money and she was told by co-workers, well-meaning-but-ultimately-offensive-friends, and random people that she didn’t need to work. “I’m ready,” she nodded her head. “I know it’s not going to be the same as it was before, that I won’t be working as hard, but that doesn’t matter to me. I’ve already perfected my role. I’ve already won an election for my party. But I still…I still want to work.”

Elias nodded his head. He knew Svea meant every word. And who was he to say no? There was no way. He never held Svea back before, and he wasn’t going to start now. “Then let’s look at daycares.”

***

“Every daycare we’ve been to, I haven’t gotten the best feeling,” Svea admitted to Grace as she was over her house for coffee. Dukey and Margot were playing in their playpen in eyeshot as the women spoke about their lives. “And it’s not me being…me. I can’t picture Margot there. I just can’t. And it’s not me being picky either. We even brought her to our favourite place to see if she’d like it and she was wailing the entire time.”

Grace was nodding in understanding, but the second Svea mentioned picturing Margot in a daycare, the lightbulb went off in her brain. “Svea, why don’t I watch her every day?”

Svea was taken aback. “W—What?”

“What if I watched her? I’m already home with Dukey anyway. And you know Margot is comfortable here at the house, and she knows me. What if I watched her?”

Svea shook her head. “Grace, no. No. I couldn’t do that to you—”

“You’re not doing it to me if I’m offering,” Grace said. “You know how much I love kids. It would be so fun for me! And for Dukey! And you know how much the girls adore her so when they get home from school you know they’ll be all about it too. Will you promise me you’ll at least think about it?”

***

--- OFFICE OF THE PREMIER OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE ---

The Office of the Premier would like to formally thank Mitchell Maloney for fulfilling his duties as the acting chief of staff for the past eighteen months. The office would like to formally announce that Maloney will be assigned the role of Deputy Communications Director, effective two weeks from today, as he transfers out of his position.

The Office of the Premier would like to formally welcome back Svea Pettersson from her maternity leave. Pettersson will continue to fulfill her duties as the Premier’s Chief of Staff moving forward.

***

“Oooooooooohhhhh fuuuuuuck, Elias,” Svea moaned, looking over her shoulder at Elias who had just slipped into her from behind. “Feels so good baby.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Svea nodded. “I love it when you fuck me from behind.”

She could hear Elias let out a low chuckle. He began moving in and out of her slowly, almost too slowly, because Svea groaned, and Elias watched as she grabbed at their bedsheets, making her knuckles white. “Fuck me, Elias.”

“What’s that, pretty girl?” he asked mischievously.

“Fuck me, Elias. Fuck me harder,” Svea begged.

Elias bent over, placing kisses along her shoulders before nestling his head in the crook of her neck so he could whisper in her ear. “I fucking love it when you beg.”

***

“Can you say bye-bye to Mama? Bye bye!” Grace cooed as she bent down to be at level with both Margot and Svea who was already bending down, having kissed her daughter for a solid two minutes, unable to leave just yet. “Say bye-bye!”

“Bye bye Margot! You be good for mommy!” Svea cooed, her voice cracking as she began waving her hand so Margot could mimic her. “Bye bye!”

“Bah-bah!” Margot clasped her hand open and closed. “Bah-bah!”

“Bye-bye!” Svea wiped a tear that had fallen from her eye. She stood up, and Grace followed, picking up Margot and balancing her on her hip. “Please call me if—”

“I will, I will,” Grace interrupted. “Please don’t worry. I’ve got it. Enjoy your first day at work knowing your daughter is safe and having fun.”

“I’m definitely gonna try…can’t guarantee it’ll happen,” Svea tried to joke.

***

“Go like this Margot! Like this!” Elias said as he was on his knees, clutching a mini-stick, trying to show Margot how to hit the ball into the little hockey net they purchased months ago, which inevitably became the one thing that helped Margot learn how to walk the most.

Margot watched intently as her dad gripped the mini stick and hit the ball into the net, fetching to get it before placing it in front of her. “Shoot! Shoot!” he encouraged, making a swooping motion with the stick.

Margot looked down at the ball, and in one swift movement, she brought her mini-stick down and hit it straight into the net. Elias went wild. He began screaming and clapping and raising his hands in the air, causing Margot to start screaming and clapping and raising her hands up in the air too. He swooped her up in his arms and gave her raspberry-style kisses, causing her to shriek and giggle loudly and controllably. “Margot wins the game! Margot wins the game!” he screamed in between kisses.

Svea could hear them from upstairs as she read over some work documents for tomorrow. She felt her heart swell with love.

***

“Who knew when we were twenty and lame that we’d be surrounded by this many girls,” Brock mused, cracking open a can of beer for Elias. Both men looked out onto Elias’s backyard to see Violet, Rose, Lily, Poppy, and Margot all playing together, blowing bubbles and trying to catch them without popping them. Margot was always unsuccessful, but she was having the time of her life.

Elias nodded his head. “We’re a pair of pretty lucky guys though,” he commented.

Brock nodded his head, looking at his four daughters. “The luckiest guys in the world.”

Later in the afternoon, when Margot had to go down for her nap, Elias was rocking her back and forth as she fell asleep on his shoulder. Rose was quiet as she stood with him in the room, keeping a watchful eye and making sure Svea was falling asleep. When Elias laid Margot down on the bed, Rose finally spoke. “Uncle Petey?”

“Yes Rosey?”

“Can Margot be my sister?”

Elias smiled. “I think she already is.”

***

“I’m actually gonna sob. She looks so cute,” Svea commented as Elias finished putting on Margot’s toddler skates. Margot was bundled up in a blue jacket with green tights, the colour of the Canucks, and her helmet was already placed securely on her head. “You excited, Margot?”

“Yaaa!” she squeaked out, smiling at her mom. “Skate!”

“Yes! We’re going skating!” Elias cooed, picking her up and placing her on his hip as he and Svea began their walk towards the ice.

Svea made sure to get her phone ready on video mode, knowing she’d been taking tons and tons of videos. Most of the Canucks and their families were already on the ice, but Margot had had a mini meltdown when the helmet was put on, which delayed them. Elias stepped onto the ice, keeping Margot on his hip as he skated around quickly, making her laugh hysterically. Eventually, he carefully set her down on the ice, crouching down slightly behind her. She began moving her feet as if she was walking, with Elias holding her hands above her head.

“Look at mommy Margot! Say hi to mommy!” Elias said as Svea followed them, skating backwards slowly, filming a video on her phone.

“Hiiiiiii!” Margot said, smiling through the wire. “Hiiiiii!”

“Hi baby! Look at you skating!” Svea cooed as she continued the video. “Look at you go!”

Margot squealed excitedly, looking back up at her dad who was smiling down at her as well. “Skate! Skate!”

***

“Let’s hope she knows how to blow this time and doesn’t fart again,” Brock commented as he helped Elias light the candles on Margot’s 2nd birthday cake.

“We’ll see,” Elias giggled. “We haven’t practiced.”

Brock carried the cake so Elias could be beside Margot and Svea. Everybody began singing happy birthday, and when he placed the cake in front of Margot, she clapped and wiggled excitedly. Once everyone finished singing, it was time to see. “Blow, Margot! Blow!” Grace called out.

She took a deep breath in. She looked like she was going to do it on her own. And then…

Fart noise.

Everybody burst out into hysterical laughter. “Two-for-two!” Brock screamed.

***

“Margot…Margot, look here,” Svea said as she balanced her on her knee, reading her a book since she’d requested it. “Look here,” she pointed at the words at the bottom of the page.

Margot reached her hands out and pulled the book closer to her eyes. Svea noticed her squinting until she brought the book really close to her face. She put her finger above her mom’s and pointed to the animal on the page. “Monkey!” she said.

Svea felt worry pool in the pit of her stomach. She pushed the book back to its original distance away from Margot and turned the page. “What’s this, Margot?” she asked again.

Margot reached out again to bring the book close to her eyes. “Monkey in tree!”

“Good job, baby,” Svea cooed, closely watching her daughter. Maybe she was overreacting. Maybe Margot was just tired. But Svea knew she was going to mention it to Elias when he got home. “You’re so smart, baby.”

***

They were pink, naturally, because Margot got to choose and she was all about anything pink. Elias was worried they would bother her, or she wouldn’t like them, or put up a giant fit once they were finally on and she realized she had to wear them all the time. He’d shed a tear or two about it, worried like any father would be. But Margot was taking to them surprisingly well.

“Look, Margot!” Margot’s optometrist smiled as she held up a mirror for Margot to see herself. “These are your new glasses! They’re for you!”

“PINK!” Margot exclaimed, swinging her feet excitedly as she saw herself in the mirror.

“Yes, they’re pink!”

Margot looked up at her dad; she was sitting on his lap, after all. Her giant smile with her little teeth caused him to smile too. “Pink, daddy!”

“What’s this, Margot?” the optometrist had already opened a book and held it open a way’s away from Margot. “What’s this right here?” she pointed to Big Bird on the page.

“Big Bird!”

***

Elias groaned as he finally slipped his hard cock into Svea. They had been spooning in bed for what felt like hours that morning, waking up well before Margot usually did. Elias could hear Svea groan at his length filling her up from behind, and she savoured the feeling of him peppering kisses on the backs of her shoulder blades. “Good morning, pretty girl,” Elias mumbled coarsely in her ear as he thrust in and out of her slowly.

“G’morning, baby,” Svea smiled. She felt Elias’s hand snake up from her hip to her breast, cupping it in his hand. “I could get used to waking up with your hard cock inside of me.”

“Mmm, be careful what you wish for, pretty girl.”

“I know exactly what I’m wishing for.”

Elias began moving his hips more, making sure he was getting exactly the right angle even though their movement were still slow and purposeful; when Svea began moaning, closing her eyes when they rolled to the back of her head, he knew what he was doing was exactly what she wanted and needed. “I love you so fucking much,” she mumbled out, putting her hand over his that was still cupping her breast.

“I love you too,” he placed a tender kiss on her neck. “Thank you for giving me everything I’ve ever needed.”

Svea smiled at that, biting down on her bottom lip. “The pleasure’s been all mine.”

***

On a beautiful, hot, and sunny afternoon in Ånge, Elias couldn’t help but smile as he watched his dad hold Margot as they swam in the pool together at his parents’ house. Margot was having the time of her life in the water – after the baby swimming classes Svea had signed her up for, Elias figured she’d be happy and in her element. His dad couldn’t get enough of being a grandpa to a little girl, and neither could his mom. They spoiled all of their grandchildren. Törbjörn had even bought Margot a little bucket hat with the Swedish flag on it to wear while they were in the pool.

“Gillar du att stänka vattnet?” his dad cooed as Margot splashed the water with her hands. “Tänk om jag gjorde det här?” he asked again, throwing her up in the air and catching her low enough so she could splash in the water. Margot shrieked in delight, and that was enough reason for Törbjörn to continue.

Elias laughed along with his daughter. She had the best grandpa.

***

“Look at all the pretty flowers Margot,” Svea said as she held Margot against her hip, watching Elias as he crowned her with a beautiful flower crown that Fanny helped him make.

“Woooowww,” Margot said, grabbing at it because she was so excited.

“Gentle!” Elias warned softly. He didn’t want it to break after Fanny worked so hard on it. “Be gentle, Margot,” he repeated as he made sure it was on snugly and properly before pulling his hands away.

“My flower! My crown!” she smiled. “Daddy, you have flowers too?”

Elias eyed Svea with a smirk on his face. Svea knew he’d already crumbled. All it took was that question from Margot. He hadn’t exactly planned on wearing a flower crown, but he knew exactly where this was headed now. “You want daddy to wear flowers too?”

Margot nodded her head enthusiastically. “Mommy, daddy, me match!”

What Margot wanted; Margot got.

***

“It would be the first picture we’ve posted of her since the Christmas card photos leaked,” Elias mused as he looked at the picture on his Instagram, almost, almost ready to hit the elusive ‘post’ button.

“We didn’t release those – they were posted without our consent,” Svea clarified. She was right. They had no control over that and were actually really upset about it. To this day, they still don’t know who did it. “This would be the first photo you post of her willingly.”

Elias looked over at his wife. “Do you think I should do it? It’s so fucking cute,” he looked back at his phone, admiring the picture one more time.

In it, Margot was in her pink fluffy bathrobe, her wet hair combed back, and she was sitting on Elias’s chest as they were in bed together. Elias was holding her, pursing his lips, and Margot was putting lip balm on his lips. A classic “girl dad” photo, he thought. And if he was going to send any message out into the world about his child and the relationship he had with her, it was going to be what was encapsulated in this picture.

Svea snuggled herself into Elias’s side, bringing her hand up and pressing ‘post’ for him. “There,” she said, smiling. “All done.”

***

“When she blows out the candles, she better fart again.”

“You’re gross.”

“She’s gotta go three-for-three, Petey, or else this party is a bust.”

“You have a boy – can’t you go make fart jokes with him?”

“I have a boy who has grown up with four older sisters. He isn’t exactly one for fart jokes.”

Elias shook his head at Brock, but he couldn’t help the smirk that grew on his face. “You finally get a boy after four girls and you can’t even make a fart joke with him,” he shook his head playfully. “Just your luck, eh?”

Brock shook his head. “I have five healthy, beautiful kids. I’ll take whatever I get.”

When Elias carried the cake in and Brock began recording on his phone, everybody began singing happy birthday to Margot – a happy, energetic but cautious, giggly but quiet, exactly-like-both-her-parents’-temperaments-it-was-kind-of-scary-three year old, who every day was looking more and more like Elias’s double. She adjusted her glasses as everyone sang to her, and clapped along too. When it was time to blow, she did.

No fart noises.

“Noooooooo!” Brock groaned loudly. Elias pretended like he was going to backslap him over the head. “No fart noise!”

“It was fun while it lasted,” Svea winked at him.

***

“Will they be in my class, mommy?” Margot asked as she looked into the classroom sheepishly, a little shy now that she was in a new environment. Elias and Svea had started to talk to her about school, and how – now that she was a big girl – she needed to start going to school to learn, just like how Violet, Rose, Lily, and Poppy went to school.

“Can I go to Poppy’s school?” she asked nervously one day.

Elias and Svea decided to take her there, knowing that it would make her feel more comfortable. Knowing that Violet, Rose, Lily, and Poppy went there too put her at ease. When they saw all the girls in the junior kindergarten class in their green plaid dresses, they could tell Margot recognized them from seeing them on the Boeser girls.

“These girls won’t be in your class, but new girls who are the same age as you will be,” Svea said. “Do you like that?”

Margot hesitated slightly before nodding her head. “I like new friends.”

***

“She is out cold,” Svea smiled as she lowered herself slowly and gently onto the couch, making sure not to disturb the peaceful image before her: Margot, after an exciting and fun day of shopping for her new school uniform, completely knocked out in Elias’s arms, sleeping soundly on his chest as he rubbed her back.

Svea cradled her body into Elias, too, snuggling up against him and admiring her daughter. From the blonde hair on her head, to her pink glasses on her face, to her cute little toes Elias still loved to pretend to eat, she was perfect. As Svea thought this, she felt Elias grab her hand between them and bring it up to his lips for a kiss, holding on to it as his thumb grazed over her skin. “We did alright in the end, didn’t we?”

Svea smiled and nodded her head. “We did.”

“She’s perfect. She’s just perfect,” he said, placing the lightest of kisses atop Margot’s head.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Svea admitted.

Elias looked over at her, craning his head down to give his wife a kiss. “I love you more than I know how to explain. Thank you for giving me the light in my life.”

***

“Then all around from far away across the world, he smelled good things to eat, so he gave up being king of where the wild things are,” Elias read to Margot as they cuddled together in the rocking chair in her room. In her comfortable jammies and with her head on his chest, she was mouthing along to all the words of the book. Elias could see her get progressively more tired as he flipped through the pages, though she kept trying to mouth along and kept trying to keep her eyes open.

When they finished, Elias put the book on her bedside table as he cradled Margot in his arms and lay her down in bed, making sure to put the covers over her just how she liked. Still struggling to keep her eyes open, he brushed some hair out of her face. “Daddy?” she asked in her sweet voice.

“Yes baby?”

“I love you daddy.”

Elias smiled. “I love you too, Margot.”

“Will you read to me always?” she asked.

Elias nodded his head automatically. “Always.”

***

“Look at her go!” Grace exclaimed as she watched Margot zoom around the ice, chasing Poppy and Dukey around as they all giggled like maniacs. “I mean, who am I kidding? The daughter of Elias Pettersson? Of course she’s gonna skate like that!”

“She’s definitely a natural,” Svea smiled as her eyes followed her daughter around the ice. Brock and Elias both skated up behind their kids and scooped them up in their arms, giving them kisses before setting them back down on the ice together. “Do you ever think about how far we’ve all come…based on where we started when we met each other in our early twenties?”

“All the time,” Grace nodded. “We were so young! We were kids! Now there’s six kids between us!”

“A little skewed on your side, though,” Svea winked.

Grace elbowed her playfully. “We did good.”

***

“Margot! Margot!” Elias called out to his daughter who was already having fun with a new friend in her classroom as they played with a xylophone together. Other parents were in the room doing the exact same thing as he and Svea: making sure everything was okay on the first day of school. But the longer he and Svea stood there watching her, the more they realized she didn’t need them there; that she would thrive in the classroom and not have a meltdown about being in a new place.

To her credit, Margot listened when she heard her dad call her name and got up from her seat to hop over to her parents. “Mommy and daddy have to go now,” Elias said as he and Svea crouched down so they could by at eye-level with her. She nodded her head in understanding. “You listen to Mrs. Becker, okay?”

“I will.”

“Aunt Grace is going to come pick you up with Violet, Rose, Lily, and Poppy. Remember?” Svea asked.

“Yes mommy.”

“And remember—” Svea choked up slightly, Elias putting her hand over hers. “Mommy and daddy love you very much.”

“I love you too!” Margot said as she hugged her parents goodbye before skipping back to her friend and playing with the xylophone again.

Elias and Svea said goodbye to Mrs. Becker and held hands as they left the school building and walked back together to their car in the parking lot, silent the entire time. When Svea looked over at Elias once they were back in the privacy of their car, she could see tears streaming down his face. “Now you’re going to make me cry,” she said, wiping a few tears that had fallen.

“She’s so good. I’m so proud of her,” he said, wiping his own tears with the backs of his hands. “No meltdowns! Just walked right in there and started making friends. She’s so good.”

“Don’t jinx it – she might have a meltdown tomorrow,” Svea joked, trying to lighten the mood.

It garnered a smile out of Elias. He looked at his wife and placed his hand over hers tenderly. “I love you so much,” he mumbled, bringing her hand up to kiss it before cradling it against his chest, above his heart. All these years later, I’ve just grown to love you more, if that’s even possible.”

“I think it is, because I grew to love you more too,” Svea said softly. “My Elias. Always my Elias.

He kissed her hand again. “My moon, my stars, my Svea.”

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auroracalisto · 4 years ago

Text

she will be loved, part two

requested by @kpopgirlbtssvt: Omggg would it be okay if I send in a request for a part two for “She will be loved”?🥰 It’s soooo cute and I love rereading it because it makes me so happy!! 🥺🥺🥺🥺🤧🥰💜💜It’s so softttt

pairing(s): adoptive! dad! elijah x child! female! reader, family! mikaelsons x reader

word count: 1.3k words

warnings: reader has nightmares, written in third person, child reader

author’s notes: okok so i loved writing this, first of all. considering turning this into a series because i could do so much with this. that’s kind of why it’s an open ended sort of thing (if you read, it makes sense, i promise). also writing children is so fun. like. i have always been around children bc i’m the oldest grandchild and i also have like,,, five younger siblings. i just,,, it’s fun to put what i know into writing and it’s really easy for me to describe how a child could act because of how familiar i am with them. i feel like that’s another reason i like writing this so much is because i am familiar with how they act omg,,, anway enough rambling and if you read all of this, kudos to you, because i probably wouldn’t have. thanks for the request and be sure to look out for more!!!

part one

"That little," Kol took in a deep breath, closing his eyes. He sat down on the couch, composing himself.

Elijah looked over at him, smirking. "What's wrong, this time?"

"Nothing is wrong," Kol cleared his throat. "I just... cannot find her, for the life of me."

Elijah's eyes narrowed.

"Hide-and-seek," he quickly spoke, standing back up.

"Yes. And you're a vampire. You should easily be able to find her."

"Unless," Rebekah said, walking through the room with a laugh. "Klaus found her first and took her to a better hiding spot."

"Is that really what happened?"

Rebekah shrugged, watching Kol groan and vampire speed off to find little [Your name] and his pain in the ass brother.

REbekah sat down across from Elijah and she smiled at him as she did. "How are you?"

Elijah looked at her and rose an eyebrow.

"With [Your name]. I know how much of a handful children can be."

"Right," Elijah sighed softly. He sat down the book that he had been reading and he began to frown. "Her dreams are getting worse."

"Her dreams? Did you not use compulsion on her?"

"We did. Klaus and I both did. Kol tried, as well. But it just wears off after a couple of days and the dreams are worse than before."

"Has she been able to tell you what they were about?"

"You've been around [Your name], yes? She does not often wish to speak much of her dreams. She'll talk about everything else," he chuckled softly. He quickly moved to sit up as he heard [Your name] laugh and run through the hallway.

At this point, Kol wasn't using his vampire speed. In fact, he was taking his time, taunting that he was going to catch her.

[Your name] ran into the sitting room, rushing over to Elijah, giggling the entire time. "Daddy's base!" she quickly exclaimed, climbing onto Elijah's lap.

Elijah let out a soft laugh and he wrapped his arms around the small girl as Kol came over, his eyes narrowed at [Your name]. He points to his eyes, before pointing right at her.

"I'm watching you. As soon as you get up, I'll get you."

"No!" she yelped, laughing as she hugged onto Elijah.

Kol rolled his eyes before he left the room, leaving Rebekah and Elijah there with [Your name]. Elijah was quiet as he listened to [Your name]'s soft breathing.

"[Your name]," he softly said, gently shaking her awake. "Don't go to sleep yet, it's only seven—"

His wishes were drowned out by [Your name] getting comfortable in Elijah's arms. She was sound asleep in the matter of minutes. The nightmares of that evening had yet to plague her little mind.

Elijah looked over at Rebekah with a frown. "I hate to say this. But I wonder if we will have to have a witch's help with her dreams."

Rebekah pursed her lips. "That Bennett witch owes me a favor. Do you think she will help?"

"And have more people know about [Your name]? No. They will not be using her against me or any of us."

"Then I guess we will have to see what else would work."

Elijah frowned but he nodded. He knew that she was right. Elijah looked down at the little girl asleep in his arms.

"I'm going to go put her in bed. Hopefully, she doesn't sleep too long. Klaus's last fiasco completely wrecked her schedule."

Rebekah couldn't help but laugh. "Maybe Klaus should be in charge of fixing it for you since he's the one who ruined it."

Elijah shrugged and stood up, cradling [Your name] in his arms. He carried her into her bedroom and laid her down in her full sized bed. [Your name]'s little eyes quickly opened and she looked up at Elijah with wide eyes.

"Stay," she quickly said, her little voice was barely louder than the clock that ticked away on her wall.

Elijah frowned softly and he nodded, laying down beside his daughter. He pulled her into his chest and listened to her once again fall asleep.

—

Elijah didn't know when he fell asleep, but he knew it had to have been shortly after [Your name] did. She was out of bed when he woke. Her clothes from the day before were tossed in her little clothes hamper, but she had made a mess picking out her new outfit for the day.

Elijah left his daughter's room, searching for her.

He heard laughter coming from the kitchen and he followed the noise, seeing Klaus literally throwing pancake batter in [Your name]'s direction.

"What—"

"—stay out of this, brother," Klaus said, glaring in the child's direction. "She is the one who started this—"

"—started what?"

"She told me I was ugly."

Elijah pursed his lips for a moment, clearly holding back a laugh. "What?"

"She looked at me and said, Klaus, you're ugly."

"I did not!" [Your name] exclaimed from where she hid behind the island.

Klaus looked at Elijah, and then placed his hands on his hips like an angry Karen.

Elijah rolled his eyes and he sighed, walking over to where the little girl sat. "[Your name], did you tell Klaus he was ugly?"

[Your name] quickly shook her head.

"Don't lie to me."

Her eyes widened and she looked up at Elijah. Her breathing picked up and the tears immediately began to form. "What? I am not lying, daddy..."

Elijah continued to frown at her, prompting the child to cry. She quickly hugged onto Elijah, shaking her head.

"I'm sorry, daddy, I didn't—"

Elijah gently rubbed her back. "If you did, I just need you to be honest, [Your name]. Calling someone names isn't a nice thing to do. You're a good girl, aren't you? So why would you call your uncle something bad?"

"I'm sorry," [Your name] cried, looking up at Elijah with tearful eyes.

"You don't need to tell me sorry. You need to say sorry to Klaus."

Her eyes widened a bit and she quickly nodded, coming out from behind the island. She looked up at Klaus, her little face covered with tears. If she continued to cry, there's no doubt that snot would cover her face as well.

Klaus frowned as he watched her.

"I'm sorry..."

Klaus's features softened and he bent down in front of her.

"Sorry for what?" Elijah asked from behind them.

"Sorry for calling you names..."

"It's alright, [Your name]. Just... don't do it again, okay?"

[Your name] nodded and quickly calmed herself down, going to hug Klaus. Klaus sighed and hugged her back, lifting her as he did so. He sat her down on the counter by the sink. He grabbed a kitchen towel and gently cleaned up her messy face.

"These pancakes aren't going to cook themselves, now are they?"

[Your name] watched Klaus with big eyes as she shook her head.

Klaus smiled.

Elijah watched as Klaus helped [Your name] carefully stir the rest of the batter before Klaus made the pancakes his daughter so desperately wanted (according to [Your name], not to Elijah).

Elijah didn't realize how much would go in to being a parent. However, he knew that she was learning. Her little heart and her little head was figuring out how to do things as she went. It reminded him of his family when they were all young.

Elijah sat down on a stool as he watched his daughter.

The nightmares that plagued her were truly something for concern. But she didn't wake up crying the night before. He was hoping that it was simply because of a traumatic past that he had yet to figure out. But until then, he would be keeping a watchful eye over her, and he knew his family, Klaus included, would keep their own eyes on the little girl.

part three

#elijah x reader #dad!elijah x reader #child reader #reader insert #female reader #child reader insert #one shot #series???#she will be loved #the mikaelsons x reader #mikaelsons #the vampire diaries #the originals #tvd #to #elijah mikaelson x child reader

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christ0pher-evans · 3 years ago

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Could you please write a Chris Evans imagine where the reader is an actress and has to shave her head or cut her hair short for a role and is worried that chris will no lomger be attracted to her anymore? And he reassures her that he loves her no matter what?

Always | Chris Evans ♥

Pairings: Chris Evans x Actress!Reader Warnings: Mentions of Mental Health Issues [Anxiety] / Tooth-Rotting Fluff! Word Count: 881

My first request😘😘 hopefully this fluffy imagine will help me out of my writers block! Thanks for the inspo anon! Hope you enjoy x [Also pls feel free to send me any requests, they are always open!] Please reblog and like🖤

♡

As you sit in front of the mirror in your bedroom, you sigh at your reflection. Catching your eyes in the background, you look at the wall of photos of your life so far with Chris. Premiere photos. Wedding photos. Honeymoon photos.

You had been married to Chris for almost a year now and it had been just over that amount of time that you’d decided to take a break from your acting career. You loved your job and you loved your husband, but combining the two could be a vicious circle. You had amazing and supportive fans, but somehow the negative and nasty people seem to shine through and stick clear in your mind. The publicity of your marriage to Chris had bought about some horrible comments about you online and it had really knocked your confidence as a person and as an actress.

Leading you to this moment, staring at yourself in the mirror as you’d just been offered the biggest movie role of your career yet. You were so excited and couldn’t wait to tell Chris and you felt so overwhelmed with happiness that you knew this was the right time to jump back into your job. You felt you’d been away long enough for the dust to settle. But there was one big catch, well not so much a catch, but one big decision to be made first.

Your character in the movie was bald.

You wanted this movie to be perfect. You already knew you were going to pour your heart and soul into it, and the directors had recently raised the question of whether you would shave your head for the role. They had told you a bald cap could be possible but with your longer hair, it would take at least an extra hour every morning to get that fitted and you didn’t want to be an inconvenience.

Which posed the question, should I shave my head?

Ever since you met Chris, you had aways had luscious long locks and had never changed your hairstyle or hair colour. Your anxiety reared its ugly head as you admired your hair in the mirror. Would people hate on you for going bald? Would you look really weird? Would Chris still be attracted to you if you looked severely different to the person he fell in love with?

Footsteps echoing up the stairs startled you out of your panic and you composed yourself just before Chris drudged himself into the bedroom, flopping straight down on your shared bed.

“What a long day!” He huffed before turning his head towards you.

You smiled weakly, “Hi babe.”

Before it had even registered, Chris was up and standing behind you at the dressing table, a look of concern etched across his face.

“Whats up sweetheart?”

You bite your lip nervously, subconsciously twirling your hair round your fingers.

“So I got offered that lead role..” Chris grinned profusely.

“God baby! That’s amazing! I knew you’d get it! I bet you can’t wait to get started!”

Chris’s excitement was infectious as you showcased a stupidly big grin, which was quickly wiped from your face as Chris started playing with your hair casually.

“So what’s the problem?”, Chris enquired.

You cringed as he played with your hair. It almost seemed like a cruel practical joke as you dealt with your internal battle.

“Chris, would you still love me if I was bald?” You blurted out suddenly and loudly.

“What?! Bald? What are you on about?”

You sighed, “My character, she is bald in the film and they asked if I’d shave my head for the movie but I’m scared of what other people will think, scared you won’t be attracted to me anymore.” You look down, embarrassed.

Immediately, Chris was crouched down by your side, lifting you chin up to force your eye contact with him.

“Baby, there is nothing that you could do that would ever make me not attracted to you. You are quite literally the sexiest person I have ever laid eyes on. Why do you think I put a ring on it ey?!” He nudges your knee playfully, before using his other hand to wipe a tear that was sliding down your cheek. You let out a blubbery chuckle.

He continued, “I love you Y/N. I chose you because there is no one else I want to spend the rest of my life waking up and falling asleep next to, you’re it for me. I don’t care what you look like because I married you for your gorgeous heart and your crude sense of humour and for the way you love me unapologetically, even when I had that moustache!”

You laugh again, a lot louder this tie as your anxiety starts to fizzle away as Chris’s words wash over you. You lean forward, giving Chris a deep kiss, a I don’t know what I would without you kiss.

“Thank you baby, I love you too!”

You knew that whatever decision you made, Chris would still love you because beauty is on the inside. If you could love him when he had that bizarre moustache then you knew he would love you if you shaved your head.

Love is infinite support and meaningful words, simplistic gestures and eternal comfort.

#chris evans #rpf #chris evans fanfiction #actress!reader #chris evans characters #chris evans x reader

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brockadoodles · 4 years ago

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The CN Tower and Chocolate Chip Pancakes - w. nylander

AN: I swear before whipping this out I was complaining about no writing motivation and how I was going to finish my Christmas wips when this like came to me. So here’s a quick little story about one of our favorite blondies for @puckinghell and all of you. There is mention of losing a parent, which is something I closely relate to from losing one of mine recently, if that’s a trigger, I wouldn’t read this. It’s not an angst piece at all, I just think that warning is necessary. This also may or may not be self indulgent and based on an actual experience I had two years ago with a boy in NYC, but like, you didn’t hear that from me. Anyways, I hope you enjoy.

Word Count: 3,337

Warnings: Mentions of death of a parent

Christmas was usually your favorite time of the year. You loved how the city lit up during December, the white lights twinkling from the streetlights and trees, the fresh snow that usually littered the city of Toronto, and the constant smell of gingerbread and spices whenever you entered a building were all things that brought you comfort. This year, however, was different. It was the first year without your mom, without a lot of the traditions that the two of you would do together as you grew up.

You tried though. You went through all of the motions of the holiday. You decorated a tree, blue and silver just like she always loved. You went skating, an experience that was far less fun without your mom to laugh with you when you fell. You went to the Christmas Market, buying a new small knick-knack, like every other year you had done since you were five years old. All of it felt forced, but you were hopeful. You were hopeful that one last Christmas tradition would bring you the sense of comfort you had been searching for during the entire month of December.

The fleeting feeling of comfort and your mom were how you found yourself spending nearly $60 to go up CN Tower on Christmas Eve. A tradition that was usually entirely reserved for tourists visiting the city, a romantic setting with the tower lit up for the holiday and the nighttime skyline view of the entire city providing a cinematic backdrop for people’s perfect holiday moments. You weren’t a tourist, you had grown up in Toronto for your entire life, but your mom had always believed in the idea that it wasn’t a bad thing to be a tourist in your own city, so every year on Christmas even she would bring you up here and the two of you would sit on the observation deck and make a Christmas wish. No matter how lost you felt, it was the one tradition that you didn’t think you could ever give up.

You wandered around the observation deck, the dark beanie on your head keeping your ears warm and your hands were securely tucked in your wool coat pockets as you watched the various people scattered around. It was getting late, the families with children were long gone, probably at home tucked into their beds, and most people that were left were younger couples. You glanced to your right, spotting a boy on one knee holding a ring out for the girl standing in front of him with tears in her eyes. You watched them for a moment, finding yourself wrapped up slightly in how happy they both looked. It gave you an idea for your Christmas wish, and you found yourself smiling softly as you closed your eyes and wished.

“I love you, mom, Merry Christmas.” You whispered as you opened your eyes, the feeling of comfort not quite sinking into your chest yet. As you walked the familiar route to the elevators, you decided that once last stop before heading home for pancakes certainly couldn’t hurt.

You walked down the street with your eyes focussed on your phone as the snow was falling a bit harder than it had been previously. You were searching for anything that was open on Christmas Eve, your stomach growling a bit as you scanned through the search results.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” Someone exclaimed, grabbing your arm slightly to prevent you from falling into their chest. You looked up, seeing a boy that must have been around your age looking down at you with a concerned look in his blue eyes. You must have ran into him, too focussed on your phone to watch where you were walking properly enough. You studied his face for a minute, wondering if you had somehow met him before from the feeling of familiarity you were getting in your stomach.

“Do I know you?” You blurted out, adverting your eyes a bit when you realized how rude you must have sounded to this boy immediately after quite literally bumping into him. It didn’t seem to phase him though, and he just smiled.

“I think so? I’m William. You know Steph right? Steph LaChance?” And that’s when it hit you, you did know this boy, well sort of. You had met him maybe once before, at a mutual friend’s birthday party at least two years ago.

“Ah, I do remember you. Wow, you look different, I mean, good.” You stumbled out. It was true, he did look a lot different than he did when you met him. His hair was longer, his face a bit rounder, and a short beard that definitely wasn’t there before. You felt your cheeks heat up in embarrassment a bit as he laughed softly at your statement.

“So do you. Hey, this may seem a bit forward but, are you busy right now?” He asked. Part of you wanted to tell him yes, that you were busy. That way you could just get on the train back to your apartment, curl up with a warm cup of tea and your slippers, and fall asleep to the snow falling outside of your winder. But the other part of you was dreading going home, the sinking feeling of your first Christmas without your mom settling into your stomach and making you not want to go home. Because if you went home to your empty apartment, you’d have to fully confront your reality. So instead, you nodded up at William, taking a chance on the stranger in front of you that wasn’t quite a stranger.

“What did you have in mind?” You asked softly.

“Come on.” He smiled at you and held his hand out for you to take, your question going unanswered as you hesitantly wrapped your hand in his, letting him lead you in the opposite direction you had come from.

The walk was short and quiet, and your stomach grumbled once more when you stopped in front of what appeared to be the destination he was leading you to. You glanced up at the neon pink sign, the diner clearly out of date and straight from the 1980’s. You smiled to yourself, appreciating that somehow this stranger that wasn’t quite a stranger had instinctively known exactly what you needed at the moment.

“I hope you like pancakes,” He smiled as he opened the door for you, gesturing you ahead with his hand. The diner was relatively empty, just a few other patrons sitting in the various worn-out leather booths. There were decorations everywhere, garlands wrapped around the posts holding up the ceiling and a small Christmas tree lit up in the corner of the diner, multicolored lights strung throughout but no ornaments.

You followed William to a booth in the corner and watched carefully as he smiled at the waitress, her saying hello to him by name. You wondered if this was a place he went to frequently enough to be on a first-name basis with the people that worked here, or if perhaps they were just Toronto Maple Leafs fans who happened to recognize him.

“I come here all the time, usually after bad games. I just really like the people here, and something about diner food is comforting after a loss.” He explained before you had the chance to ask. You nodded at him while you shrugged off your jacket and pulled off your beanie, fixing your hair slightly as William handed you a menu from the side of the table. You grabbed the menu and let your fingers brush lightly against his, causing you to pull your hand back quickly.

“Why did you want to come here tonight?” You asked softly, hoping that your question wasn’t taken out of context or as too intrusive for him to answer. William didn’t seem phased by any of it, instead offering you what would have been the fourth or fifth reassuring smile so far that night, if you were keeping count.

“Just didn’t want to be alone on Christmas Eve, I guess.” He admitted. You were almost taken aback by his honesty with you, finding yourself wondering if he had asked you the very same question that you asked him if you’d answer as bluntly as he did. You felt oddly settled with him though, there in that shitty diner looking at a worn-out menu that probably hadn’t been updated in fifteen years and you found yourself wanting to give him the same openness that he gave you.

“Me neither, I guess.” You commented, holding back and giving him just enough that hopefully he understood that on some level you felt how he felt, even if you couldn’t entirely admit to him why.

The two of you sat in comfortable silence for a few moments as you both scanned over the menu. The waitress came over, sliding two pale brown mugs filled with coffee in both of your directions and noting that she would be back in a minute to check if either of you wanted any food. You scanned over the pancakes and peeked over at William, his eyes also scanning the page with concentration and you found your mind wondering about him once more. You watched as he bit his lip softly and wondered if he was the type who liked pancakes with fruit on them, or chocolate, an inconsequential fact that most people wouldn’t be phased by but to you said everything you needed to know about a person.

“You said you hoped I liked pancakes, right, William?” You asked, breaking the silence between you as you closed your menu in front of you. He looked over the menu in his own hands at you, raising an eyebrow quickly and smiling softly before looking back down at the pages.

“You can call me Willy if you want, and yeah. I like most kinds, but if you try to tell me fruit on pancakes is better than chocolate, I might have to leave.” He teased as he closed his menu, now looking fully at you with a smirk on his face. For a moment you went wide-eyed, wondering if he somehow crept into your mind and heard exactly what you were thinking. You recovered quickly though, and folded your hands quickly on the table, sending your own smirk back to him.

“I’m not going to argue with that, it’s obviously the correct answer.” Willy didn’t say anything, instead, he nodded at you before taking a sip of the diner coffee, seemingly not phased by its lack of strength or flavor. You grabbed your own mug and the two of you settled into a much more relaxed conversation as you waited for the waitress to come back. Nearly two hours of conversation passing through you without either of you realizing just how personal you were being with each other.

“Usually this place is faster than this, I’m sorry.” The boy in front of you commented, his head tilting toward the large analog clock on the wall that had shown it was nearing midnight, nearing Christmas. You weren’t worried though, glancing around the small diner as the snow fell harshly outside. You smiled softly at William,

“We haven’t even ordered yet, and I’ve got nothing but time tonight.” Willy just smiled back at you, nodding a bit and catching the eye of the waitress.

“Sorry guys, been a long day. What can I get you?” She smiled apologetically. You nodded at Willy to go first.

“No problem, Grace.” He started, referring to the older woman by her first name. He glanced at you quickly, taking a leap of his own as he spoke,

“Can we just grab two orders of chocolate chip pancakes and more coffee?” he asked.

“Confident, what if I wanted strawberry?” You teased, raising an eyebrow quickly. Willy laughed, a genuine laugh that somehow hit you in your chest as comfort settled into your system, a soft smile lingering on your lips as he started leaning into his hand that was resting on the table. He looked at you at that moment like you were more than just a stranger who wasn’t really a stranger to him, and you would be lying to yourself if you tried to ignore the butterflies that it was giving you. Willy felt familiar in an unfamiliar yet exciting way. It didn’t feel like you had only met him once, instead, it felt like you had known him in passing forever, your comfort level and trust quickly rising in him in just a few short hours of really knowing him.

“No chance, you said I was right about chocolate, and I pay attention.” He threw back at you.

“Okay, tell me the real reason you’re alone on Christmas Eve.” Willy pressed as he set his fork down, scooting the nearly empty plate away from his body and toward the center of the table. It was nearly 2 am at this point, and you weren’t sure if it was the few hours you had spent with him giving or the tiredness weighing you down that gave you the false sense of closeness with him, but you found yourself giving in anyway, wanting to tell him everything about yourself in hopes that he would for some reason be taking notes to remember you by.

“It’s my first Christmas without my mom, she uhm, passed away earlier this year and I spent the whole day doing things by myself that we used to do together. So, when you asked if I was busy, I said no, because going somewhere with you felt better than going home to my empty apartment and my thoughts.” It felt good to get it out and Willy’s reaction confirmed what you had already assumed about him, that he wouldn’t judge you for not wanting to spend Christmas Eve alone. After all, before you ran into him, he was set on being alone.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He frowned. You just shrugged, you were used to the apologies, no one really knew what it was like when a parent passed away unless they had dealt with it themselves. The apology was an expression of sympathy, and you didn’t mind it coming from Willy.

“What about you? Have a sad story to tell me?” You inquired. Willy sighed and for a moment you wondered if you had pushed too hard if you had overstepped some boundary that he had put up between you that you missed. But the sigh came with a nod as he continued, opening his mouth to speak quietly as you looked at him with eyes that you hoped indicated your willingness to take in whatever he had to say without any judgment.

“I guess I’ve just been having a rough year, I’m not sure how closely you follow hockey, but, a lot of people are doubting if I belong here. I guess with not being able to go home and see my family, it was getting to me. Didn’t even really have any plans until you ran into me and I just felt comfortable asking you to do something.” His voice wavered as he spoke and his eyes dodged your own a few times as he went through what you could only gather were insecurities he didn’t like to talk about. You reached out and put your hand on his wrist, running your thumb slowly across his skin and smiling softly at him.

“You belong here, Willy. I’m not sure how much that means coming from a stranger, but you belong here.” He lit up at your words, turning his hand to grab yours. Your heart pounded in your chest as he laced your fingers together and gave your hand a soft squeeze before letting go, a silent thank you that didn’t need words. You knew what he was trying to say, you didn’t need him to verbally thank you for it.

The two of you started putting your coats back on, the night coming to a close that you weren’t sure you were ready for. You hadn’t expected to have a good Christmas, and while it certainly couldn’t compare to the ones of your past, as you sat in that diner with Willy for hours you felt like you were soaking in the comfort you had spent the entire month trying to find. Each time he laughed at something you said you melted further into the old booth.

Willy set some cash on the table, ignoring your protests as he paid for the meal, and grabbed your hand, once again lacing your fingers together as he tugged you out of the restaurant, this time not letting go once you stepped outside.

“I’ll drive you home, I’m just parked a bit far. Is that okay?” He asked. You smiled and nodded in response, too focussed on the warmth of the feeling of his hand in yours and how it sent waves of feeling straight to your heart and butterflies to your stomach.

The two of you walked in silence for about a block, his hand never wavering from yours until you were standing at a crosswalk. He stopped and looked around a bit. You were near the Christmas market, some of the lights were still on despite how late it was. The decorations were visible from where you were standing on the street, and the only light was coming from the reflection of the twinkling lights reflecting off of the snow. He turned to face you, squeezing your hand gently as he stumbled through his next few words,

“I know this is so abrupt and we just sort of met, and maybe it’s the over romanization of Christmas getting to my head but I really want to kiss you right now.”

You looked up at him, his eyes were warm and the snow was settling into the hair sticking from his beanie. It might have been exactly what he said, the romanization of meeting someone outside of a shitty diner on Christmas Eve and somehow spending the whole night with them sharing things that you hadn’t even entirely shared with your closest friends.

The more you thought about it the more you felt like it was a bad Christmas movie. But bad Christmas movies always ended in a kiss, and you weren’t about to stop the tradition now. So you grabbed him by the collar of his stupidly overpriced pea coat and crashed your lips to his before you could stop yourself. Willy settled into the kiss quickly, wrapping his hand around your waist and tugging your body into his chest. When you pulled apart, the puffs of cloudy air from your breath filled the space around you, and he smiled at you like you were the best thing he could have hoped for this Christmas, a feeling that was unspoken yet mutual.

You buried your face into his chest, stomach in knots as you overthought exactly what had just happened and what it all meant. Willy took his hand and tilted your chin up so that your eyes were looking at his, smiling at you before leaning in to kiss you again, his lips brushing yours softly.

“You never told me what you wished for.” He commented when you pulled apart.

“You somehow gave it to me, Willy.” You smiled and kissed him again, tangling your hand with his once again. You didn’t need to elaborate, because Willy understood what you meant. He had given you comfort, a feeling of not being alone on the one holiday where no one should have to be alone. He didn’t know what the future held, or what this would mean to you by the time the enchantment of the holidays wore off, but he knew that right now you were what he wanted, and he could only hope that you felt the same as you kissed him for the third time that night in the snow.

#8 weeks of christmas #william nylander #willy nylander #william nylander imagine #william nylander fic #leafs imagine #nhl imagine #nhl fic #william nylander x reader

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refinedbuffoonery · 4 years ago

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Looking Through A Window (2)

macriley married undercover au

masterlist.

Oh man. My dudes. I received so much love and support and excited feedback on the first chapter that I thought my heart was going to explode. Y’all are so wonderful. Keep it up. <3

*****

Luckily, Matty lets them take the Phoenix jet to Houston. Flying commercial would make today even more tortuous than it already promises to be, albeit for a different reason.

No matter how hard he tries to distract himself, Mac cannot stop staring at the diamond ring on Riley’s finger. The princess cut gem is stunning and ridiculously large, but it suits her cover as a lucrative arms dealer. A white gold wedding band sits below it. Riley left her usual assortment of rings at home, and Mac can’t help but think her long, delicate fingers look bare without them.

He tears his eyes away from the rings again and again, both on the plane and while driving to the safe house. Riley drives with just her left hand, her right elbow resting on the center console. Mac likes driving, but there’s something relaxing about riding shotgun while Riley drives instead. He’s never been able to put a finger on it, but the sense of ease washes over him all the same. Admiring the way sunlight illuminates her engagement ring is simply a bonus.

He doesn’t let himself imagine what he might give her, in an alternate future where she reciprocates his feelings and one day wants to marry him.

Harley obediently lays in the backseat, staring out the windshield. She's been on her best behavior the entire twenty four hours Mac's known her, ever the professional.

Which puts her completely at odds with Mac and Riley's shenanigans—cracking jokes, dancing on the plane and in the car, doing purposefully bad impersonations of Russ. These are the best parts of going on ops alone with Riley. They can let loose in a way they just couldn’t when anyone else other than Bozer was around. Everyone else is professional all the time; Mac and Riley are only professional when they have to be.

Riley taps the steering wheel in time to the classic rock song on the radio. “What do you want for dinner?”

“Dinner? We haven’t even had lunch yet!”

“True.” Riley chuckles. “Can you tell I’m hungry?”

Mac gives her a sly look. “Not at all.”

They settle on Texas barbecue for lunch on their way to the safe house, because that’s what Jack would choose if he was here. If only the old man could see them now, all grown up and getting sent to take down terrorists unsupervised.

Seated in a booth in the far corner of the restaurant, Mac raises his brisket sandwich in a toast to Jack, in whatever afterlife he found himself in. Hopefully it’s the one with an endless supply of good barbecue.

“Oh man, Jack would’ve loved this,” Riley says through a mouthful of food. She sneaks Harley a piece of brisket.

Mac smiles. “Yeah, he would’ve.”

It’s easier, now, to talk about him. At first, Mac hadn’t been sure he could ever get to a point where talking about Jack didn’t make him want to hit something or just curl up and sob.

But here he is, on the other side. Him and Riley both.

Their safe house is another twenty minutes away from the restaurant, in a nice neighborhood full of trees and children playing on the sidewalks. It’s so much greener than a California neighborhood could ever dream of being. There’s even a park across the street from their apartment complex. It’s exactly the sort of place a young, affluent couple would want to live.

Riley parks in their designated space, and the pair ascend the stairs to apartment number 202. Outside of the car, they don’t dare use each other’s real names until they’re sure the apartment is free of bugs. The place was furnished earlier that week by other Phoenix agents, but Mac and Riley do a thorough sweep of every room just in case.

It’s a nice apartment. Wood flooring, granite countertops, matching cabinets throughout. There are pictures on the walls, but Mac doesn’t bother to stop and check what they are.

Riley clears the space from back to front, so Mac does the opposite. He clears the kitchen first, frowning at the absence of any sort of food, before moving on to the living room.

Mac stops dead in his tracks when he enters the bedroom. The singular bedroom. With a singular, queen-sized bed.

Oh no. This is not happening.

Mac shakes his head and rubs his eyes, hoping his mind is just playing tricks on him and that there’s actually two beds. Or a whole other room he missed before.

The one and only bed seems to mock him.

He walks back out, finding Riley already sitting at the kitchen table, turning on her laptop. “Uhh, Riles? There’s only—”

“One bed,” she finishes, not bothering to look up. “I know.”

Oh god. He can’t do this. He can’t. Not with his dignity still intact. Mac stammers, “I’ll, uhh, sleep on the couch. You can have it.”

That gets Riley’s attention. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re going to be here for weeks. You’ll hurt your back sleeping on the couch that long. Just sleep with me.” Riley’s eyes widen as she realizes what she just said. “In the bed,” she quickly adds.

Mac ducks his head to hide his blush.

“What are you working on?” he asks in a feeble attempt to distract himself from their sleeping situation. Because it will definitely be a situation if Mac’s not careful.

“Connecting to the Wi-Fi,” Riley says in a slow, “What else would I be doing?” sort of way.

“Right.” Mac silently curses himself. Of course that’s what she’s doing. “Anyway, I’m assuming you already know this, since you probably opened the fridge too, but we have no food.”

“I saw.” She’s multitasking again, manicured fingers flying faster across her keyboard than Mac can keep track of. “Why don’t you unload our bags while I finish this, and then we can go.”

Unable to help feeling like he’s been dismissed, Mac complies without protest.

Soon they’re back in the car, headed to the grocery store, and the whole thing feels ridiculously domestic. Mac’s never been a fan of grocery shopping, but Riley makes it almost...fun. For starters, she’s not methodical about it the way Bozer and Desi are. But more than that, getting to spend time with her doing mundane, non-work stuff is a nice reminder that their relationship is more than just the job. They’re friends too.

Mac wishes there is a way to tell her all that without it sounding weird.

They come home, unload the groceries, and take Harley for a long walk, and that feels easy too. It feels normal, even though literally nothing about this situation is normal, and Mac already knows he’ll miss this when the op is over.

But normalcy ends when Riley beckons Mac to sit beside her at the kitchen table, and together they write an advertisement for their arms dealing business. Once they’re satisfied with it, Riley sends it off into the dark web, and there’s nothing to do but wait, like a spider after spinning her web.

The waiting is the worst part.

Mac is contemplating taking Harley for a second walk when Riley asks, “Want to help me make dinner?” He takes one look at her hands on her hips and the “you don’t actually have a choice” look on her face and knows he’ll be left to fend for himself if he doesn’t help now. Mac learned that the hard way back when he and Riley lived together.

“Sure.”

They work in comfortable silence. Mac chops vegetables and grates cheese for their quesadillas while Riley does the actual cooking part. Even though they are doing separate tasks, Mac is acutely aware of every move Riley makes, no matter how insignificant. Flexing her long, thin fingers around a knife. Itching the back of her calf with her foot. Dancing in place, spatula in hand, while she waits to flip the quesadillas sizzling in the pan.

Mac smiles softly. Her random little dances are cute. He’s noticed them more and more since realizing he has feelings for her, but if Mac is being honest, he’s always thought the dances are cute.

Riley hisses as she peeks under the tortilla, checking to see if it’s browned yet.

“You good?” Mac asks, frowning.

“Yeah, I touched the pan by accident.” Riley runs her thumb under cold water.

Her laptop dings while they eat. Wide-eyed, Mac glances at Riley. That was fast. She grimaces before sliding the laptop closer and checking the notification.

“Is it them?” he asks tentatively. That’s the hard part about this; in order for their business to look more legit, they had to just put an ad out and hope for a response, rather than target the terrorist organization directly.

Riley exhales. “No, it’s not them. It’s someone else.”

Swallowing another bite of quesadilla, Mac says, “I don’t know whether I’m relieved or if that’s worse.”

“Same.”

There are no more responses that night.

*****

Mac wakes up in the same position he fell asleep in—on his side, facing outward, with as much space between him and Riley as possible. When they crawled into bed the night before, Riley did the same.

Harley spent the night on the couch.

She’s a very guarded dog, Mac is slowly realizing. Tolerating, but not trusting. Mac supposes he would be like that too if he was a dog and he got stuck with a bunch of strangers after his human suddenly disappeared one day.

He makes coffee, feeds Harley breakfast, and takes a shower, all before Riley loses her battle with the snooze button and finally gets out of bed. While she showers, Mac takes Harley for a walk in hopes that the cool, spring air will ease the anxiety that took root the moment Riley released their ad into the void.

It doesn’t.

Dark, puffy clouds loom on the horizon, and the few birds Mac hears shriek at each other in warning. It looks like a storm is coming.

When Mac returns, he’s met with a grim expression, one he understands without Riley uttering a single word. “They answered,” she confirms.

“What did they say?” Unclipping Harley’s leash, Mac moves to stand behind Riley, resting his hands on the back of her chair. The scent of her shampoo tickles his nose, and he forces himself to ignore it and focus on what Riley’s saying.

“They want to meet. Today.”

“Time or place?”

Riley points at a small box on her screen. “Just an address.”

“What’s there?”

“A warehouse,” Riley says. “Owned by the same shell corporation other Phoenix techs already tied to the organization.”

“Not very clandestine, are they?”

“No, they’re not.” Riley looks up at him, her head bumping his sternum, and butterflies ricochet inside Mac’s rib cage. There’s something soft in Riley’s expression that makes Mac want to kiss her. “Are you ready for this?”

Mac sighs. “As ready as I ever am. Are you?”

“Yeah,” she says, but her confidence falters. Without thinking, Mac squeezes her shoulders in reassurance before walking away to change.

*****

The warehouse is located on the edge of the city, in an industrial area that has certainly seen better days. Even from a distance, Mac can see cobwebs decorating the warehouse windows and rust creeping up the roller doors. Aside from Riley, there’s not another soul in sight.

As per the directions the organization sent after Riley confirmed the meeting, Mac parks on the south side of the building, near the only functional-looking door. He doesn’t look at Riley as they get out of the car, instead desperately trying not to cringe at the cold, heavy weight of the gun holstered at his side, hidden beneath his jacket.

High-end arms dealers couldn’t walk around unarmed, unfortunately.

Although her hands are occupied with holding Harley’s leash, there’s a gun hidden beneath Riley’s suit jacket as well. Mac’s stomach churns. The second Riley emerged from their bedroom earlier wearing that jet black suit, she was a different person. She was wholly Genevieve Turner, and no matter how hard Mac tried, he couldn’t find even a single trace of his best friend beneath the icy exterior.

Locking their SUV, Mac smooths the lapels of his own black suit and slips into character as well.

The dark clouds Mac noticed earlier are directly overhead now. Mac has never believed in omens the way Jack did, but he can’t help hearing Jack’s voice in his head, warning him that black clouds are a sign of certain doom. Or something like that.

There’s no one inside the warehouse, at least as far as Mac can see. “Hello?” he calls, the word echoing slightly in the open space. Aside from a few random wooden crates, the room is empty.

A door slams, and then an older man comes into view. He’s probably in his late fifties, with graying hair and a beer belly his shirt doesn’t quite cover. The man swaggers like he owns the place, although Mac doubts the leader of a terrorist cell would deign to play tour guide.

No doubt there’s a quip on the edge of Riley’s tongue about entitled white men, but she doesn’t share it.

The man extends a hand to Mac in introduction. “Conrad.” His sneer doesn’t reach his eyes.

Mac frowns, keeping his hands at his sides. “Last name?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

What he’s about to say might screw everything up before it even starts, but Mac says it anyway. In his gut, he knows it’s the right call. “If it doesn’t matter, then we’re done here. My wife and I have no interest in entering a business relationship with someone too inexperienced to understand that trust is integral to any transaction.” Mac spins on his heel and strides toward the door, Riley falling into step beside him.

“Wait!” the man calls. They pause, turning around slowly. “Deacon. Conrad Deacon.” The man seems to know he’s already lost. Good. “Welcome to the cause.” He gestures for Mac and Riley to follow him.

Mac stands his ground. In his peripheral, Riley stands utterly still, the perfect mask of cool, collected neutrality. Almost bored, even. It’s scary how easily she becomes her cover.

“Come on now,” Conrad says, taking a single step forward. “We have much to discuss.”

That’s enough of the power play, Mac thinks, but just as he’s about to give in and follow Conrad, Riley utters a single, sharp command that rings through the room. “Sit.”

Harley obeys.

Riley’s lips curve in a cruel, taunting smile. “Then enlighten us.” Mac suppresses a shiver; he’s seen this side of Riley plenty of times before, watched her hone it over the years, but it’s still unnerving. Admittedly, it’s also kind of hot.

Conrad ignores her entirely. He croons, “Why don’t we start with your names?” It’s phrased like a question. It sounds like a question, but Mac sees the demand for what it really is.

Mac gestures to Riley. “This is my wife, Genevieve Turner. And my name is James.” His father’s name tastes like ash on Mac’s tongue.

“And the dog?”

“Killer,” Riley sneers. Mac isn’t sure if she’s kidding or not.

Again, Conrad doesn’t acknowledge her. “James, why don’t I give you the tour and explain what we do here.”

“We’ll go on the tour, but we are not here to join your cause.” It takes every ounce of Mac’s willpower to maintain his neutral tone. “All we care about is what you’d like us to provide and how much you’ll pay for it.”

Conrad doesn’t hide his displeasure. “Fine. Follow me.”

Mac and Riley are led through the open warehouse. The layout is straightforward and nearly impossible to get lost in. But after Conrad shows them a room full of rifles—countless hung on the walls, floor to ceiling, the rest in half-open crates—Mac finds himself counting the number of wooden shipping crates scattered around the building.

He doesn’t like his final number.

Arming terrorists doesn’t sit well with Mac, even if it serves a purpose. It makes him sick, knowing he will likely be indirectly responsible for their next attack.

Especially because those crates are no doubt full of the kind of rifles designed to kill people most effectively. The ones hanging on the wall are military grade, probably cutting-edge. Desi would know exactly what they are and how they work.

Trusting Riley is paying close attention, Mac only half listens to Conrad babble about the cause. But then the older man says something that stops Mac in his tracks. “Our country is being run into the ground by whiny do-nothings,” Conrad asserts, “who waste our money and spew garbage that some people matter more than others. Well, you know what? Hardworking, everyday Americans matter. But no,” he scoffs, “those damn liberals don’t like it when we remind them of the truth. Once we’re rid of them and the insufferables who elected them, this country will be better off.”

The ground sways under Mac’s feet. He knows these people believe this, read it in Matty’s extensive briefing notes. But it’s another thing entirely to hear someone say it to his face.

He can only imagine what Riley must be thinking.

Clearing his throat, Mac tries to redirect the conversation. “Like I said, we don’t care about your cause. Just tell us what you’re looking for, and we’ll be on our way.”

Conrad eyes him suspiciously, but complies. “We’re looking for something a little more than what you can get at the store, you know?”

Mac doesn’t, not exactly. He’ll have to ask Desi later. “I do,” he lies.

“Good. Here’s what we’re willing to pay for it.” He hands Mac a folded piece of paper, and Mac does a double take when he reads the number. There are a lot of zeroes. “And as a show of good faith, we’d like it delivered tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Riley splutters. Mac feels it then, the broiling rage slipping through a crack in her persona. He needs to get her out of there. Now. Not just to preserve the op, but for Riley’s wellbeing. Some audacity Matty has making Riley play nice with men like this.

Mac slides his hands into his pockets, using the movement as a cover to brush his knuckles against Riley’s fist. I know. I’m here. I’m sorry.

For the first time, Conrad addresses Riley directly. “Yes. Tomorrow. Unless that’s something you can’t do?”

“We can do that,” she replies calmly, and the difference between her reactions is like night and day. As quickly as that crack appeared, it was gone.

“Excellent.” Conrad takes another step toward Riley, offering to shake hands, but Harley’s low, menacing growl keeps him at bay. Rewarding the dog with a quick scratch on the head, Riley closes the gap and shakes Conrad’s still-outstretched hand.

“It’s a deal,” she says. Following suit, Mac shakes Conrad’s hand as well and follows Riley out the door, neither of them uttering another word.

Mac drives. One look at Riley’s trembling fist decides for him.

By the time the warehouse disappears from the rearview mirror, he can’t take the silence anymore. “Hey,” Mac starts, but Riley cuts him off with a hand.

“Not until we’re inside.”

They hit every single red light between the warehouse and the apartment, and Mac anxiously taps the steering wheel. Raindrops land on the windshield. They’re small at first, but soon the drops are large and numerous enough to refract the streetlights, and Mac struggles to see where he’s going. He adjusts the windshield wipers over and over, never landing on the right speed.

Too slow. Too fast. Too slow. Too fast.

Mac settles on a setting that’s slightly too fast, and the squeak of rubber on glass nearly matches his heart thudding in his chest.

Riley stares straight ahead, unmoving, unblinking. Mac wants to reach out, to let a gentle touch say what he verbally can’t, but the road is slick enough to make him keep two hands on the wheel. We’re almost there, he reassures himself.

By the time he parks, it’s pouring hard enough that the ten second walk from the car to the door soaks them to the bone. Riley’s hands shake as she unlocks the apartment door.

Once they’re inside and Mac unclips Harley’s leash, Riley turns to him with pained, pleading eyes. His heart breaking all over again, Mac draws her in for a long, tight hug. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to.

Mac just cradles the back of her head and sways gently, wishing he could fix the world for her.

Neither pulls away, even when Riley suddenly says, “If Conrad was smart, he would’ve had someone bug our car while he paraded us around the warehouse. I don’t think he’s actually smart enough to do that, but we should check first, just in case.”

Mac curses himself for not thinking of that. “Good call.” He rubs Riley’s back, hoping the gesture is soothing. “I hate the way he treated you,” he snarls. “Like you weren’t even worth acknowledging.”

“Welcome to being a woman.”

It was more than that. They both know it. But neither say it.

*****

“You need what?” Matty shrieks over the phone.

Mac winces. “Sorry.” He’d called Desi first, to ask what kind of guns Conrad meant with his innuendo, and received a verbal lashing for not asking any follow-up questions. But she made her best guess anyway. Now on the phone with Matty, it doesn’t take even a single brain cell to know that her reaction will be much, much worse.

“He wants us to prove ourselves,” Riley adds. “As a show of good faith.” The words come out dripping in venom, but their boss doesn’t comment. Mac takes a second to study her; Riley changed into leggings and an oversized flannel shirt, and there are still remnants of dark makeup smudges under her eyes. Now, she’s sitting on the kitchen counter with her knees tucked into her chest. It’s weird to see her take up so little space.

Matty sighs, deeply and loudly in a way conveys her annoyance more than words ever could. “Fine. A few weeks ago, Border Control confiscated a huge shipment of smuggled guns near El Paso, so I’ll see if we can borrow those. But next time, Blondie, don’t make promises you can’t keep.” He doesn’t correct Matty in that it was Riley who made the deal. That would only add fuel to the fire.

“Thank you,” he says, and Matty hangs up. Mac runs a hand through his damp hair. “That went well.” Riley’s lips twitch, but it’s not the amused reaction he hopes for. He’s at a complete loss regarding what to say to her, so Mac gently asks, “What can I do?”

Riley slides off the counter, and Mac reaches for her automatically, although he doesn’t actually touch her; his hand hovers just beside Riley’s elbow. She doesn’t shrink away, but she makes no move to touch him either.

“Help me put him and everyone like him in a deep, dark hole where they can’t hurt anybody. And then just…” she trails off, taking a deep breath. “Keep being you.”

With that, she walks away, leaving Mac alone in the kitchen, racking his brain to figure out what that last part means.

*****

Later that night, Mac tosses and turns, replaying Conrad’s words. Once we’re rid of them and the insufferables who elected them, this country will be better off. They seem off-kilter, like what the man said and what he really meant are misaligned. Mac sighs, rubbing his face.

Another bolt of lightning illuminates the bedroom, and Mac automatically counts the seconds until he hears thunder rumbling in the distance. The storm is moving closer.

Beside him, Riley lies on her back with her eyes closed, although her breathing is too light for her to be asleep. Mac wonders if her mind is just as loud and chaotic as his.

For Riley’s sake, he hopes it’s not.

*****

Sleep never finds Mac.

The storm rages all through the night, but by the time dawn arrives, the thunder and wind dissipate, leaving just the steady downpour. The clouds are dark enough that Mac can hardly tell the sun even bothered to rise this morning.

When Riley’s alarm goes off, it’s like the shrill tone is mocking Mac for being awake. Riley groans as she shuts it off.

“Morning,” he mumbles. His throat hurts. He needs water. “Did you sleep well?”

Another groan. “No.”

“At least you slept,” Mac mutters.

Riley rolls onto her side, drawing one of the extra pillows into her chest. “Do you always toss and turn that much?”

It was his fault, he realizes, that she didn’t sleep. Mac suddenly feels guilty. “Sorry. And no.”

He expects Riley to be upset at being kept awake, but she isn’t. With a look that just might be understanding, she softly asks, “What were you thinking about?”

Mac can’t say that his thoughts whip around his mind like raindrops in last night’s storm. Not without sounding crazy, at least. So instead he says, “I don’t even know. I just have a bad feeling about this.”

“Me too,” Riley admits. “It feels off.” Her eyes are heavy, and Mac’s had enough early mornings with Riley to know it’s not just the lack of sleep weighing her down.

“Go back to sleep. I can handle the delivery.”

Riley rolls her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not letting you do that by yourself.”

He doesn’t argue. “Okay.”

A moment passes between them. It’s been happening more and more lately—holding eye contact a little too long, sharing smirks when no one else is looking, stealing moments where it’s just the two of them and nothing else matters. Each one gives him hope that there’s not a wall between them, but instead, a door. Someone just has to be brave enough to open it.

Sitting up, Riley quipps, “Just don’t make me regret letting you sleep in the bed with me.” Mac snorts.

“No promises.”

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