#maybe i should try to do a longer comic

[nocek]

Some Miguel and Gabriella doodles form last month :) I just hadn't had the motivation to turn them into proper drawings.

But the bottom two actually are part of my headcanons:

So starting with the happy one as in the one on the right:

I headcanon that Miguel actually ended in Gabriella's universe on accident and the multiversal travel didn't exist yet (to be more precise it was invented to look for Gabriella's father because Miguel didn't know that he was dead and just assumed they like switched places or something) and he explained the whole situation to Gabriella rightaway (because there is no way to be able to fit into another dude's life without a hitch even with I was bonked in the head recently excuse).

Gabriella was skeptical but decided to approach whole situation sitcom style. Dad was replaced by awkward but caring dude with superpowers - let's help him but also try the new boundaries. So she approached with hey dad runs twice a week and I ride the bike with him. I can show you our favorite route! And then proceeded to extend the route muuuuuch beyond what was humanly possible for her dad. And then beyond what was possible for her just out of curiosity if Miguel will ask to stop. Well he didn't so now after long ice cream break he needs to carry her home because she totally absolutely is beat and cannot cycle anymore (and also this way is more fun).

And the second separate depressing au headcanon that is not as tied to the picture but I guess I'll share it here:

While the Gabriella's universe was falling apart all the spiders there just grabbed as many civilians as possible and jumped through the portals. So Gabriella and couple dozen displaced people are alive at spiders hq and things are maybe better but also worse.

Since Gabriella is alive Miguel can't go sulk in the corner in his office. He needs to put on a front for her. Which most likely doubles the pressure that he already puts on himself.

Gabriella isn't an idiot and figures it out so she also tries to put on a front.

But to add a little spider whimsy and make the whole thing a bit happier - here comes Gwen.

Miguel was just as grumpy about letting her join spider society as was in the movie buuuuut Gabriela decided that Gwen being the slightly older girl with a little bit of alternative vibe is the coolest person ever and we will be best friends. And you are a ballerina!!!! I want to try ballet too!

Which in turn forced Miguel to be nice like to other Gabriella's friends and maybe be a bit more mindful and realize that Gwen needs more than place to stay and new friends and coworkers. She is too young to just jump into adulthood. She needs her father or better father figure.

And he tries to dump that on Peter B which doesn't work because Peter suffers form serious case of baby brain but also sees Gwen more like a equal adult and friend.

Besides the idea of Miguel trying to be nice and failing at because he approaches it form his experience with Gabriella standpoint while dealing with teenager is kinda fun and I like it.

[peathepirate]

Now that I know I’ll finish Wings this year, I’m slowly brainstorming new ideas for a longer comic project. But there’s too many options and I’m getting overwhelmed. It’s been so easy to focus on one story for these past two and a half years. What am I even going to do after Wings is done? Do another fancomic? Start creating my own characters and stories? I feel so lost – and Wings isn’t even finished yet! How am I going to feel once it’s actually done? I’m scared 😅

[todayisafridaynight]

AMAZING HAUL CONGRATULATIONS ON THE NEW KIDS And Godspeed with regard to the charger...

Speaking of a good haul, it's kind of crazy they'll just let you read a whole series at Barnes & Noble... My Brother's Husband sounds really cute though, I'll definitely check the adaptation out! Akane-banashi seems interesting too, I love rakugo-centric media so You Know... easy sell...

I should also probably rewatch VIllon's Wife... I gave it one star because I had an awful time watching the thing but as a film it probably doesn't deserve to be with my other one-stars, considering this review I left on a different movie...

I ACTUALLY REORGANIZED THE CLOSET SO IT LOOKS NICER NOW complete with a sonic-patterned blanket just to cover the wood ( ´ ▽ ` ) theyre so cute.. a lil ugly.. mine’s colors bother me so much… but i love them… cant wait for aoki to come in so i can abuse him </3

AND YEAH THE CHARGER,,,, hopefully i can just buy one from my school’s tech store and return it once i get my charger back (;;´∀`)

YEAH NO i didnt MEAN to.. it just really had me in a chokehold… if you check out the manga, mild warnings for (unfortunately Obviously) homophobia and nudity (there isnt any smut or even any hints of it, just one or two bathing scenes). I wanna watch the adaption this weekend- or whenever i can safely have a charger ( ˊ̱˂˃ˋ̱ ;;;) if i ever run into akane-banashi again, i’d like to check it out: im bad at reading series and usually just stick to one shots, but i mean. Never hurts to peruse :]]

LMAO?????? How can a movie be THAT bad <- wanted to commit homicide after watching Red Christmas

I thought Villon’s Wife was a fine movie tbh though it was hard watchi by the second half since i was a bottle of nigori in by then and couldnt tell who was what anymore.

Def not a movie worth self harming over thats for sure LMAO but it is p mellow and not super exciting, though i was intrigued by the wife’s character and her struggles and perseverance

[fanaroff]

Kind of continuation to this comic.

The first thing he opens his eyes to—

———

“Narinder?”

Too loud. Too bright. Too much. Even through closed eyelids and flattened ears. His head pounded behind his eyes. A rhythmic thumping so loud in his ears. A noise he was so unused to. A mortal sound.

Pain was a blinding experience when one was no longer numb to it. The One Who Waits could only huddle in one spot and cling to his own shoulders with claws he couldn’t not yet control enough to retract. He knew where he sat, but he was not going to allow the recognition to settle.

Hurt lanced across his chest, his wrists. He wanted it to stop. This was not how things were supposed to go. He’d planned for so long. How could this have happened?

Narinder chose wrong. He chose wrong. He chose the wrong vessel. His vessel who built him up, built a Temple in his name, raised devotion! His vessel who then tore him down and reduced him to this quivering mess of a new mortal.

How he wished they’d chosen to kill him instead. To have ended his millennia of suffering, not extend it further.

He chose wrong.

The physical hurt now ran in tandem with the emotional. How could they do this to him? When he saw them choose… he thought that maybe things would go right. He would be free and his vessel tucked safely in their own little heaven… but he saw them return the Red Crown to their own head. That damned Lamb!

The one he gave life to! The one he saved!

Betrayed by one he trusted so—

Now he was here. Now he was mortal. How foolish of him.

“…Narinder?” Faust’s voice was gentle, no doubt a front put on for the followers (they should be HIS) that he could hear hanging about in curiosity. (Insects to be squashed! How dare they look upon his visage and see him in this form!)

Narinder knew that if he were to open his eyes, he’d see nothing but hatred in theirs. After all, he ordered his vessel to sacrifice themself. And after all, this was not something his vessel was willing to do. Would such an ask not generate hatred in one unwilling?

Either way, the refusal… the betrayal… has generated hatred within Narinder and when he returned to strength… he would make them pay.

There was no point in putting things off.

Narinder cracked open an eye, blinking rapidly against the blinding light, prepared to see the Lamb standing before him with a weapon in hand. (They’d be foolish not to, what if he chose to attack?)

Instead, the Lamb kneeled before him (why kneel now and not then?), a bowl of water in hand and fake concern across their face. They were still covered in spots of their blood and Narinder’s ichor from their battle, fleece torn in places and wool sticking up in different directions. Yet, they were the victor and looked it. Narinder had no doubt that he looked worse.

He felt worse.

Light from the setting sun lit against Faust, brightening them in almost a halo. It would be beautiful sight… if not for the knowledge he had.

“Betrayer.” Narinder rasped. It came out wrong. He wanted it to be a hiss. A snarl. But it was a wheeze of air at best. His throat hated it. He hated it.

Faust had the gall to shake their head. They opened their mouth to speak, but Narinder beat them to it.

“Betrayer. I never should have chose you. A lamb that defiled my name. My Temple for their own!” He slowly devolved into a rant. A proper tantrum for the ages. Spitting insults that brought gasps of shock from those around them, a few being hands to weapons (garden tools at best), and yet Faust did not react.

If he had taken a moment, he would have noticed their eyes darken to sadness and a frown overtaking their features. He would have noticed the hurt. The Crown trying to get his attention that he had chosen the wrong subject for his ire. But he was understandably focused on his own.

“I wish not to see you! I wish not to be here! Kill me, Usurper! End the suffering you drag out further!” Narinder’s voice had torn by the end, quieted by the force he attempted to put behind it and sounding as if he’d been exposed to the smoke of fires for hours.

He’d begged at the end. Begged to be killed and put out of his misery. And again the Lamb ignored this.

When Narinder was done, panting harshly and lying against the ground as his body turned tired, Faust stood from their kneel and turned to a she-rabbit. They placed the bowl of water in her hands.

“Take him to a tent. I feel he would be calmer if I were not in his line of sight. Have someone come to me if he attempts to attack anyone. Make sure he drinks. Make sure he eats. Force him to if you have to, but be careful. He has not eaten in a long while.”

The she-rabbit bowed her head as Faust turned without a second look to Narinder and strode towards the Temple. His temple no longer.

Narinder could only squirm and attempt at clawing, glaring at Faust’s back as he was dragged away with the help of two other followers. Kicking and screeching, he vowed to himself that the Lamb would pay for this.

They all would pay.

— —

Quick Oneshot that may not stay canonical, or it may stay as a companion piece. The image will stay canonical as the first thing Narinder sees upon his indoctrination. For now, it’s a prompt for myself.

I plan to do the main fic series from Faust’s POV, but I wanted to play around with some of Narinder’s thoughts. I don’t know if it worked though, I have a hard time thinking how someone might react in hatred so I hope I got it close enough.

Hope you like it!

[deadsetobsessions]

Danny laid across his throne, legs planted across the left arm of the ornate chair and back pressed uncomfortably against the right.

"Listen," Danny started, letting his head flop to the side as he glared at a hovering Observant. "This meeting has wasted enough of my time. You all have been arguing for hours and that's without Clockwork slowing things down."

"Your Majesty, this is a matter of great importance. Belial means to overthrow and rule my-our world!"

"I am distinctly aware aware of that," Ancients, Danny couldn't wait to go home and rid himself of the formal speech he'd had to adopt in order to be taken seriously. Well, as seriously as he cared to be taken when sprawled across his throne instead of sitting on it intimidatingly or something. He slowly placed his gaze on the suddenly still demon sitting across from him. "Yet you've proposed fifteen different plans that were all unviable for whatever reasons you've cooked up. Your conclusion is that I must step in. Does your world not have heroes to take care of it?"

The demon- another lord of hell from this Belial’s universe- fell silent.

“Ah. But if they do, they would also take care of you.”

“No- no, that’s not-”

Danny allowed his voice to drop to the artic freeze he knew his core was capable of. "I opened these these doors to allow all of you to present me with reasonable concerns regarding your own universes and realms. What is not on the table for discussion is your petty politics. Do you think I am unaware of your intentions in tattling to me? That I do not know you are trying to use me to further your own position?"

"Your Majesty, I-" The demon growled out, fear slowly coating its expression.

"It no longer amuses me. You think that I am young and easy to manipulate." Danny froze the demon to its chair. It tried to break free, but Danny isn't the High King of the Infinite Realms for nothing. "Bring to me a miserable problem like this ever again, one that could be easily solved if you used even a smidgen of your intelligence, and you will find exactly how I tore Pariah Dark from his throne."

Not that Danny knew how he did it either, he just did it.

"Yes, Your Majesty. My-my apologies."

The room is dead (Danny patted himself on the back for the pun) silent. Some of the Ancients looked bored, like Clockwork who knew Danny would never hurt them, but everyone else looked close to crying. He held eye contact with the demon until it looked away.

When Danny settled back into the throne and allowed his ice to dissipate, the room let out a collective sigh of relief.

"The next item on the agenda is another demon, by the name of Trigon." Clockwork announced, the large piece of paper comically huge next to his currently toddler-like body.

"Another?"

He flicked an amused look at the previous demon, who kept his trap firmly shut.

"He is attempting to take over multiple worlds in an attempt to conquer the universe. I had thought you would be interested in this one, Your Majesty, as he plans to begin with Earth 135."

Danny stilled. That was his Earth. His haunt.

"Does he know of the Realms?"

"Vaguely, I believe."

"Then he should know the rules. I will wait to see if my Earth's heroes are capable to step to the task."

Danny would be a hypocrite if he doesn’t let the heroes of his Earth try first, even if he is one of those heroes.

"Of course," Clockwork grinned at him, fully aware of the shit Danny's about to stir back home. Ah, the wonders of being able to influence the time stream. Perhaps the young Ghost King will finally get some friends, and maybe get those pesky speedsters to stop making his jobs so hard. Cujo yipped at Danny as the King begrudgingly moved onto the next topic.

——

Raven shuddered as she watched the footage of her "brothers" laughing while steering their human "meatbags" around. She turned back to the giant circle of donated blood and herb filled candles.

“This is a nuclear option, don’t you think?” Green Arrow mumbled, clearly not against it by the half hearted way he’d said it. The Star City billionaire nursed his cracked ribs.

“No,” she floated over to where Zatanna and Constantine kneeled, trying to see if they needed help with the inscriptions. “Trigon is coming soon, and my brothers will no doubt find their way here in a moment. We are out of time.”

“Yeah. Plus, we don’t want Raven to be turned into a portal.” Garfield piped up, switching animal forms rapidly.

“No one dies.” Red Robin muttered. His wrist computer was open, monitoring the surroundings of the open field they found themselves uneasily occupying. Batman grunted in affirmation, eyeing the tree line. Every hero except the magical ones were on look out, preparing themselves for one more battle against the two demons that were trying to take Raven and force her into becoming a portal.

“Hey guys, we might want to hurrythisupbecausethey’re kind of close!” Impulse slammed into the room.

“Done.” Zatanna got up, motioning for everyone to step back. In Superman’s case, he floated back.

“Too bad you won’t get to use it,” a voice drawled, dripping with malice and the screams of a thousand souls.

“Come now, little sister. Why fight fate? Be grateful father has deigned to spare you. If not for your dirty blood being useful, you would be dead, little sister. Give up, before our patience runs out alongside the lives of your little pets.” Another, mocking, voice gleefully rumbled.

Raven would rather gouge out her own heart than to claim these two as any type of family.

“You won’t touch them.” Raven snarled, powers rising even as the marks on her body burned a painful red.

“Buy us some time!”

With that, the group of beaten and battered heroes rose to clash against just two demons, for a chance to save their world.

——

The Circle crackled. Danny felt a tug on his core. He followed the thread of the summoning. Oh. It was his haunt. Earth 135. Hm. It tasted of blood. Desperation? A hint of anticipation. Oh, an overload of fear. Could use some more hope, but Danny understood that it was rather hard to season these kinds of summonings with hope.

“Stop.” Danny commanded, straightening in his chair.

“Sire, we have more-”

“There is an issue with my haunt,” with that, he followed the summons.

——

“Ugh,” was the first thing everybody on the frozen battlefield heard. The demons had smacked away many of the heroes, but they all turned as one when the circle lit up a bright green. “Why do you people always use blood? I’m dead, I don’t need any more iron!”

A boy

Raven’s eldest brother let out a hideous rumble. “You fools tried to summon the king, and you got a dead boy. And now, you’ve doomed another.”

Constantine looked resigned, and regretful. “I am so, so sorry,” he whispered. It was just a kid. John might be a lot of things, but even he found summoning dead kids for demons to devour was just a step too far. “Shite, we got the wrong fucking-”

“Hey, man, that’s rude,” the boy snapped back, waving John off.

“Brother, kill the whelp.”

“I vote on not killing the whelp. Not killing at all, really,” the boy stepped out of the massive blood circle, wrinkling his nose at the drying stains.

“This is not one of your pesky democracies, fool.”

In response, the demons lunged at him, ignoring the screams of the surrounding heroes as they shoved their human arms through the boy’s stomach.

“So,” the boy continues, “I heard your dad was after my haunt?”

“Your haunt, whelp? This earth shall be his! And through him, ours!” Raven slammed against the demons with her power, shadows enlarging and tossing them away from the unharmed… ghost boy?

“Is it?”

——

Wow, these demons are so rude. Normally, it’d be a breath of fresh air compared to the stuffy halls of his throne room. But since they’re attacking his haunt…

“Thanks. You’re… Raven, right?”

Raven nodded, arms outstretched in concentration as she held her brothers back.

“You have to go. We’re- we’re sorry you got pulled into this, but it’s not safe here.”

“Eh. It’s cool. You don’t have to do that anymore, by the way.” Danny stepped forward once more, green skin shifting and gliding as everything about him sharpened. He flew at the demons piloting the human shells, catching them around the necks and dragging the demons out of their stolen bodies. The threw them even further away as he floated in the air, a beacon of green and white. Raven thought it looked like hope.

“My name is Phantom, the High King of the Infinite Realms,” let it be known that Danny always had an eye for dramatic entrances. He shifted into something more off, more eldritch, more kingly. The crown flared to life above his head. “You have invaded my haunt. You have challenged me. What do you plead?”

“You’re not-” they said.

“Wrong answer,” Danny flew at them once more, body contorting into something undeniably terrorizing, his maw unhinging and crunching down on the demons with a sound that made the present heroes cringe.

“Ugh,” Danny grunted, turning back and floating peacefully to the group of heroes- Tucker and Sam would be so stoked he met Wonder Woman and Batman!- and chewed rapidly. He shifted back into his normal form. “Eating demons always leaves me with indigestion. And their bones get everywhere up in my teeth!” Danny pulled out a giant femur looking bone from his mouth, despite it not logically fitting in there.

“Right. No eating demons, solid life advice.” Red Robin said.

“Right? So, you’re Raven! It’s nice to meet you! Think you can summon your dear ol’ dad for me?”

“But we summoned you to stop Trigon, not help him come here.” Superman said, frowning.

“One! That summoning circle is wack. Those things you piled up as offerings? Mid. Also, if you thought you could control me with those terribly written spells, you’re dead wrong. And yes, I am making puns about death.” Danny jabs an aggressive finger towards the shabby circle.

“Have you considered that maybe not every being that can be summoned wants a shit ton of useless blood? Like what if I wanted food? And two, how am I supposed to beat up Trigon if he’s still stuck in the prison realm?”

“I have a cup of coffee,” Nightwing offered. “Kid Flash could probably get you food, right?”

“Yep, surethinganythingyouwantyourMajesty.”

“You wouldn’t catch me alive accepting food from a speedster. You people fuck up the timelines so much,” Danny grumbled, crunching on the last of Raven’s brothers. Raven thought she should probably sit down.

“But you’re dead.” Batman said, something about his voice catching the sharp attention of his protégés who all started making cutting motions at him.

“Fair,” Danny pointed at him, grinning. “I’ll take two pizza and Nightwing’s coffee as payment for taking care of your little demon overlord problem. Raven, summon your dad.”

——

Didn’t much like the characterization of this piece but it’s been in my drafts for a while and I needed it out

[dontopenfairies]

“You’re holding so well. Just one more cup of water, okay?” She takes his glass from him and he waits on the couch while she fills it up in the kitchen. The elastic waistband of his diaper is pressing firmly against his lower belly and the soft material feels so relaxing and inviting…but he can see phone’s timer ticking down on the coffee table and he still has another half-hour to go.

“Here, sweetheart,” she says, passing him the glass of water and interrupting his thoughts. He mutters a thank you and starts to drain the glass. “You’re doing so well, I’m not even sure if I should have put you in a diaper. You might make it this time!”

I’m not too sure about that, he thinks, as his crotch and bladder start to really tingle. He leans back a little on the couch, waiting for the wave to pass.

“How about this,” she says, tapping her fingers on her chin thoughtfully, “how about we go sit on the toilet for the rest of the timer?”

Oh no, he thinks, but she’s made up his mind. She scoops her phone up off the table and grabs his forearm, helping him off the couch. She follows him to the bathroom, keeping so close behind him she’s practically pushing him with her body.

As soon as he stood up, the tingling feeling got ten thousand times worse. He can feel it in his whole belly and even his upper thighs. Deep inside his bladder a little burning feeling is starting. And as he sits down on the toilet, he feels his urethra open.

“Mommy, I really don’t think I’m going to make it!” he blurts out. The far-away feeling of the toilet seat and the open hole in the middle is making it so much harder to resist flooding his diaper. He’s trying to concentrate and get his urethra to lock up again.

But his girlfriend isn’t listening. She’s putting on soft music on her phone. The extra noise and the bright bathroom light is making him feel overstimulated. Don’t think about that, he thinks. Concentrate on your groin. You can hold it. Just…don’t move…

The first few minutes he thinks he’s doing okay. Mommy gives him a comic book to read and leaves and room to check on other things around the house. When she comes back he can definitely feel the urge, but he’s optimistic that he can maybe make it through the timer. After all, he has a really big and strong bladder.

She’s standing over him now, stroking the side of his face. He feels his lips part and his mouth fall open. It’s so relaxing… a tiny, tiny spurt of warm liquid slips out of him and quickly soaks into his padding. He sits up straighter, suddenly alert.

“Are you going to pee in your diaper, baby?” she asks, unbuttoning the first button of his shirt one-handed and sliding her hand down his chest.

“N-no,” he stammers, as she caresses up from his nipple to his neck.

“Okay,” she says. “You think you’re pretty far away from having an accident. I bet you can hold it a little bit longer.” She steps towards him, gazing into his eyes, and it’s so overwhelming. He can smell her, warm and musky and perfumey, and she’s smiling down at him…

“I can hold it,” he says.

“Ohh, you’re such a good boy! So eager and so polite. I think we should add another five minutes to the timer, sweet boy. I bet you could even do that. Couldn’t you? Couldn’t you show Mommy what a strong bladder you have?”

He nods vigorously, embarrassed of what her condescending tone is doing to him. She comes back over and wraps her arms around him again. He can feel his dick twitching. Even his legs are twitching a little bit. He’s trying to tighten up all of the muscles in his lower body…another little spurt of pee soaks his diaper. And then another, longer one. He gasps.

“Baby isn’t peeing his diaper, is he?”

He shakes his head, but another spurt comes out. He manages to catch it before it becomes a stream, but his eyes prick with tears.

“Are you crying?”

“No, my eyes are just…oh!” He gasps as another spurt of pee comes out. He wants to relieve himself so bad now, he wants to feel it soak the diaper, wet and warm. But he wants it to come out slowly, and if he lets go it’ll jet out.

“Baby, I think you’re peeing your pants, aren’t you? Are you peeing in your pants?”

He shakes his head, hands involuntarily grasping the sides of the toilet seat. “No, Mommy, it was just a little bit!” But then another little bit comes out. There’s no way he can close up now. His girlfriend’s hands are undoing his fly, and her fingers are bumping him all over around his lower belly and his thighs. Right as she cups the front of his diaper with his hand, a long spurt escapes him.

“Ohh, I think someone’s peeing right now,” she says. “Aww, honey, look. Three minutes left on the timer. Can you make it? Hold it, baby. Hold it.”

“I c-can’t!” he says, feeling more pee saturate the diaper. It’s starting to feel heavy around his legs, and he’s embarrassed of how much he’s already gone when it feels like he has so much more in him. The spurts start to converge into longer streams, stopping and starting as he loses control. “Mommy, I’m peeing!”

“Ohh, sweetheart, and with two minutes and thirty seconds left on the timer. Looks like you couldn’t make it.”

The stream is letting up but he still feels like there’s more in him. “Mama,” he says, pulling her down to his level. “I think I need to go pee-pee more but it’s not coming out.” He bends at the waist and leans forward, crossing his arms over his stomach.

“Push, baby, remember? Pretend like you’re going number two.” She rubs his shoulders over his shirt. “Lean forward a little more and push, okay, honey? Can you do that for Mommy?” He immediately complies, and she gets close to his ear. “You’re such a pervert. Immediately doing anything I tell you just to show me how wimpy and babyish you are. That’s what you want, isn’t it? To be all wimpy and babyish and needy?”

He’s taken aback. She doesn’t usually tease him this much and it’s making him feel all blushy and shy. Distracted, he pushes again, and this time soft, mushy poop fills his diaper. He hadn’t even realized he needed to go! He sits up immediately, looking at Mommy.

“I just…um…! I think I just, I mean, accidentally, like, um…”

“What? Did you finish going pee?”

“I…I think so…but it isn’t really that, I…”

“Did you just poop yourself?”

“Um…maybe a little bit.”

“Let me see.” She teaches her hand down the back of the toilet bowl and squeezes his butt through his pants. “That’s not a little bit, honey. That’s a full-blown accident. Is there something you didn’t tell me? Do you have a problem with this?”

“N-no, I…”

“It’s okay, honey, you can admit it. Are you not fully potty trained at the age of 25? It’s okay if you’re not, honey, you just need to tell me.”

“I am!! It was just a mistake! I don’t usually…I don’t even REMEMBER the last time I…”

“Honey, boys who don’t go poopy in their pants don’t…well, they don’t poop their pants!” she says, laughing. “Stand up, baby. We need to give you a diaper change. And I think you need to be in diapers for a little while.”

[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

can you see the stars in your dreams (and do they have a lot to say about me) - Part 5

Or: a secret Admirer AU

PART 1 || PART 2 || PART 3 || PART 4

Eddie’s just dropped his response in the requested copy of Romeo and Juliet. He’d looked furtively around the library, trying to see if anyone was paying him an abnormal level of attention.

No one even looks up.

There’s a mousy girl in the corner reading a comic book, some band girl muttering to herself as she frantically pulls books off the shelf, and Nancy Wheeler writing, fast enough that Eddie’s surprised the lead of her pencil doesn’t snap clean off.

Could it be her?

Eddie squints at her, trying to look past her frizzy hair and prissy face to what must be hidden underneath. Before he finds any clarity, she looks up from the page in front of her, already scowling before she meets Eddie’s gaze.

Eddie startles, damn-near sprinting out of the library, his smoker’s lungs wheezing hard enough to damn-near expel themselves from his lungs.

No way in hell is it Wheeler—she’s way too scary, and besides, no one’s ever accused her of being an athlete. That band girl, maybe? She looked feisty enough to kick ass at organized sports-ball.

The secret’s burning a hole through his heart and he wants, no, needs, to tell someone.

Eddie feels deranged with it, almost manic as he rushes to find someone, anyone, he can talk to. Hell, right now he’d take Hagan if he didn’t think the dude would punch him in the face.

Luckily, he smacks into Gareth before anything gets that dire. The kid’s obviously rushing through the parking lot to catch the bus before it leaves without him, stranding him at the school before the weekend can truly start.

“Dude—”  he stutters out as Eddie latches onto both of his shoulders and begins shaking him about. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

Gareth smacks him off, and Eddie stumbles back, almost buzzing with the frenetic energy built up from weeks of getting love letters in his locker and not being able to tell a soul. Eddie grabs onto him again and just keeps shaking, lest his soul quiver right out of his body. “I can’t keep it in anymore, man,” Eddie says, and he can tell from the bug-eyed look on the other boy’s face that he’s not picking up what Eddie’s putting down. “I’ve gotten four letters, Gare-Bear, four!”

He enunciates the last word with an even harder shake until Eddie can hear his teeth clack together. Gareth makes an unholy noise, like a cat submerged in bathwater, and damn-near claws Eddie’s face off in his attempts to get away. Eddie ends up standing in the parking lot, still holding the shoulders of Gareth’s flannel up despite there no longer being a body in it.

“And each one is sweeter than the last!” Eddie cries, maliciously dropping the flannel into a puddle.

Gareth squawks, bending down to scoop his outerwear up from the ground and twist it until some of the water sops out of it and back to the pavement from whence it came. He’s not looking at Eddie at all. God, he knew he should have picked Doug.

“So, why are you telling me about it?” Gareth gripes.

Left unspoken, but patently obvious between them, is that Jeff, Eddie’s usual secret keeper, is entirely absent. Eddie twirls one of his own curls, bringing it up to shield the blush that’s no doubt blooming on his face as he admits, “Jeff would make fun of me.”

Besides, Jeff’s been weird all day, eyes darting away from Eddie’s like he’s got some sort of disease that might be catching.

He doesn’t want to talk to Jeff right now.

Giving it up as a bad job, Gareth slings his sopping flannel over one shoulder with the beleaguered sigh of a single mother and finally meets Eddie’s eyes.

“Dude,” he says, voice that of someone delivering a deadly blow. “I’m going to make fun of you.”

Eddie can feel himself pouting, does absolutely nothing to try to stop it as he mutters, “knew I should’ve confided in Hagan,” too quietly for Gareth to hear.

“Now, where are these stupid letters?”

Eddie throws his hands up and takes two showily large steps back as he declares, “well, I’m not going to show you now!”

“Oh, Jeff,” Gareth calls, all sing-songy and sly.

Eddie lunges forward to slam his palm over Gareth’s mouth even though Jeff had disappeared from the school long ago. With his hands so close already, he’s hard-pressed to stop himself from wringing Gareth’s scrawny neck.

Before he knows it, Eddie finds himself settled in his room, the letters strewn about Eddie’s unmade bed.

Gareth reads them all; he laughs at all the parts that are sweetest, and despite being born an only child, Eddie can feel himself developing one hell of a Cain instinct. Maybe Cain was actually a cool guy, and Abel drove him to it with his incessant wheedling.

Eddie wouldn’t know; he’s never read the bible.

“Dude, she’s a jock?” Gareth asks, peering down at the letter with a level of glee Eddie’s never seen on the other boy’s face.

“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Eddie asks, taking sadistic enjoyment in the way Gareth’s nose wrinkles with disgust. He rips—gently!—the letter out of Gareth’s hands and gathers them all back together, intent to hide them from any more prying eyes.

“I was reading that!”

“Girls can do sports,” Eddie replies snootily, tucking the letters away beneath his pillow. “And besides, there’s always cheerleaders.”

All that does is make Gareth start laughing again. “You think you can bag a cheerleader?”

He raises his hand threateningly, one wrong word from smacking that look off his face, the way Eddie’s dad had always threatened. “Do you want to walk home?” Eddie demands.

Eddie’s doubtful it was the threat that got Gareth to stop laughing—they both know they’ll spend the rest of the evening eating stale cereal and watching whatever’s on TV before falling asleep in Eddie’s small bed—but the silence is still welcome.

It lasts a solid three seconds before Gareth asks, “you’re not afraid it’s all a joke?”

Eddie’s going to kill him.

***

The day’s been long despite Steve, Chrissy, and Jeff all skipping first period. Still, nothing could stop him from taking precious time out of his weekend to pick up any notes Eddie might have written.

It’s becoming normal now, to skulk behind Chrissy through the library as she picks up notes. What’s that saying about the third time being a pattern? And there, tucked reverently into a copy of Romeo and Juliet—Chrissy’s idea, not his—is an envelope with Secret Admirer written across it in bold, cursive font. Like Eddie’d gone out and gotten a quill and ink pot just for the occasion.

The ink’s so black, it still looks wet, but when Steve caresses the letters, they don’t even smudge. They both stare down at it where it’s still clutched between Chrissy’s fingers. Chrissy, ever the good friend, waits for his next move.

“Want to come over?” he asks, tired of impersonal whispers in quiet libraries. He wants a girl’s night, the way he and Carol used to before she’d started dating Tommy and everything had gotten so stilted. “I can paint your nails.”

Chrissy doesn’t even hesitate. She’s beaming as she puts the envelope carefully into her book bag, grabs his arm, and drags him out of the room.

She doggedly follows his car all the way home to his big empty house, her headlights beaming light and warmth straight into his heart.

The porch light’s on in front of his house, a beacon leading him home from his rapidly darkening driveway. He always leaves it on, something about its cheerful light making his dark house seem more welcoming, even more so now that he’s got a friend parking her car right behind his.

He’s glad not to get run out of town, but more than that, he’s grateful that it was all just a mistake, that he doesn’t need to let another friendship fizzle out into nothing.

“Are your parents home?” she asks as she bounces out of her car and up to his side.

“Almost never,” Steve replies, not turning back to her, unwilling to see the expression on her face as he leads her to the front door and ushers her inside once it’s unlocked. 

He slides his shoes off, and she copies his movements before following him up the stairs. They settle onto his bed, and he’s tempted to make a wise-crack about what boyfriends and girlfriends usually do in beds, but he’s a little afraid she might slap him, so all he says is, “did you bring it?”

Chrissy rolls her eyes, “of course I brought it.”

She’s already made herself comfortable laying on her stomach, but she dutifully reaches toward the ground to rifle through her bag and pull the envelope that’s been burning a hole in it free. Steve descends on it like a drowning man on land.

He lays on his stomach beside her, tempted to kick his feet and twirl his hair as he slots his finger into the envelope and opens it with the precision born from years of practice opening his parents’ mail.

It’s only as he pulls the tab open that he notices it’s not an envelope at all. Eddie had cleverly folded the note he’d written into the shape of an envelope, tucking the tab into it to keep it closed. He smooths the creases out and devours the words.

       Secret Admirer,

       I want to learn everything about you– the color of your eyes, how your lips curve when you smile, how soft your hands are, the sound of your laughter. But more than that, I want to know what you love, along with all of your deepest wants and needs. You’ve piqued my curiosity with your scant answers. I can’t help but want more.

       Unfortunately, there’s not enough room on the page for the unrelenting number of questions flooding my mind. I know the point of being a secret admirer is that it’s a secret, but I hope that if you really do like me, you won’t stay secret for long.

       I came up with a game I think could be fun! I’ve filled mine out already, for you to keep. Recopy it onto a separate sheet and return it with your next note. That way I get to keep your answers and you can have mine. I also wrote little notes on the back for some of them. I couldn’t help myself.

       Yours,

       Eddie

And there, tucked behind the envelope is a notecard, Eddie’s usual sloppy handwriting covering it with that same, black ink. But he’s circled his answers in red, and added little numbers next to some of them.

       ||Rock or Pop 1 || Board Games or Sports Games 2 || Early Bird or Night Owl || Reading Or TV || Big Spoon or Little Spoon 3 || Outer Space or The Ocean 4 || Art or History || Alcohol or Weed 5 || Cats or Dogs || Holding Hands or First Kiss 6 || Winter or Summer || Grease or Star Wars || Gold or Silver || Halloween or New Year’s Eve || Vampires or Werewolves 7 || Drive-In or Movie Theater || Back Seat or Under the Bleachers 8 || Cuddling or Dancing || Slides or Swings 9 ||

Steve flips it over and finds more little numbers in red, each with a corresponding blurb.

       1. Pop is fun if you’re into that, but nothing beats a good guitar riff.

       2. I know you’re into sports, sweetheart, but come on, board games are the obvious winner.

       3. If you prefer being the big spoon, I’m willing to compromise <3

       4. If you pick the ocean, then you’re braver than me! That’s a body of water you can’t even see the bottom of! How are you cool with that?

       5. If you know me, and it really seems like you do, then my answer here is obvious.

       6. I bet you’ve got really nice hands, sweetheart. Would love to feel them in mine someday.

       7. Werewolves are cool, too, but come on, vampires fit my aesthetic way better.

       8. Under the bleachers would probably be cool, too, but my van’s a lot warmer (does that count as a backseat?)

       9. I was always that kid who would go down the slide and pretend there was a dragon chasing me, what about you?

Steve smiles down at the card and all the secrets it holds.

“Aww, that’s so cute!” Chrissy says.

Steve, for the first time, gets the inexplicable urge to hide Eddie’s words behind his hands. He doesn’t because that would be insane, and also she’s already seen it. So, all he says is, “help me respond?”

She does.

       Eddie —

       I don’t love like you do, not so easily and with my whole heart. But I love my best friend, and I like a whole lot more—hopefully that’s enough.

       I’m just as greedy for answers as you are. I want to write all your answers down on flash cards, study them like you might test me on them. If you do, I’m determined to get an A+.

       I hope my own answers satisfy, even if they don’t include my face, my smile, or my name. But my eyes? They’re brown, but nowhere near as pretty as yours. I could fall into your eyes and die happy.

       Yours, Always,

       Your Secret Admirer

       P.S. This time, put your reply in The Anatomy and Physiology textbook, right next to the diagram of the human heart.

Chrissy tears up at the bit about his best friend, but luckily doesn’t comment, just keeps spinning his yarn into gold. She dutifully re-writes the answer card as well, letting Steve circle his own answers with her pretty pink pen as she peers over her shoulder.

“It’s kind of funny how many of your answers are opposites,” Chrissy says, once they’re done.

Steve frowns, staring between both cards. She’s right; between all the questions, they’ve got three in common: they both chose holding hands over first kisses, drive-ins over movie theaters, and cuddling over dancing.

It’s not much to build a relationship on.

“Yeah, funny,” Steve replies, trying for chill but his voice comes out all wrong.

“Steve?” Chrissy asks, sounding hesitant herself now. “None of that matters, you know that right?”

Steve doesn’t respond; he’s too busy looking between each filled-out card, debating whether changing some of his answers might be for the best.

As if she can sense his thoughts, Chrissy snatches them both from his hands.

“Hey!”

He goes to snatch them back, but she’s pushed them behind her, glare fierce enough to give him pause. “None of that matters,” she says, voice firm. “You really think whether you like gold or silver better is a deal-breaker for a relationship?”

She’s right, that’s not what’s doomed this whole thing before it’s even started—it’s Steve. Steve, who’s a boy, and a jock, and not very bright.

He’s always the problem.

“You hear me, Steve?” Chrissy asks. She’s leaning toward him now, eyes blazing with a conviction he doesn’t quite understand. “You’re perfect just the way you are, okay?”

His throat’s all clogged up so he just nods, looking down at her hands where they’re clutching tightly enough to his comforter that the beds of her nails turn pink, and her knuckles bleach white.

She’s got thin, pretty fingers, and jagged nails. These are the hands that can write letters Eddie will want to read; it’s got nothing to do with silver, or gold, or any of that shit.

It’s Steve.

“Did you really want to paint my nails?” Chrissy asks, biting her lip and not meeting his eyes.

Steve’s up off the bed in an instant, ready for the distraction she’s handed him. He rifles around in the bathroom and comes back with a crate of nail polish which he immediately shoves into her chest with enough gusto that she makes a little oof! noise.

“Pick your poison,” Steve says, watching as her eyes grow wider with every new color she picks up.

“You have so many,” she breathes, touching the small glass bottles almost reverently before picking up a pale pink color that suits her. “What about this one?”

She looks so unsure, like his opinion on her choice of nail polish is the most important thing in the world. Steve’s heart squeezes beneath his ribcage. “‘course, Chris.”

He settles onto the bed, legs criss-crossed. He waits for Chrissy to match his pose before grabbing her hand. She curls her fingers into a fist, a breath shuddering out of her before she forces her hand back open.

Steve doesn’t comment on the ragged state her nails are in. He just grabs a nail file from the crate and smooths them down as best he can. He buffs her nails out before finally grabbing her chosen color and gives the bottle a shake.

The first coat goes on quick, Chrissy watching each flick of the brush like it’s fascinating.

“You’re really good at this,” she says, sounding shocked.

Steve presses her hands down on the bed to keep them still as the first coat dries. “Thanks,” he replies, still not looking up at her. “I used to do Carol’s like every week.”

There’s a silence in the room now that feels one step to the left of stilted. He doesn’t know what to do about it, so he picks up her hand and blows on the nails like that will speed anything up at all.

“Can I do yours next?”

At that, Steve finally looks up from Chrissy’s nails to meet her eyes. She’s biting her lip, cheeks tinged pink with embarrassment.

“Do you want to?” Steve asks.

No one’s ever painted his nails before, not even Carol. But in the face of Chrissy’s earnest, nervous expression, he can’t say no.

That’s how he finds himself at school on Monday with bright yellow nail polish painted on each of his fingers, the edges already chipped from where he couldn’t stop himself from picking at it.

No one says a thing.

PART 6

[jacqueline-01]

OK I'm thinking aaron hotchner x wife!reader when he was sent to the middle east for a short bit to run a task force but then instead of him coming back for a "case" like he thought reader pulls him to the side and tells him he's gonna be a daddy for a second time! Just fluff

Mission: Daddy 2.0

A.H x Wife!Reader

Pure Fluff

Aaron Hotchner wasn’t entirely sure what he was walking into. After weeks overseas, running a special task force in the Middle East, he’d expected a quiet return, maybe a subdued evening with you and Jack. But the minute he stepped through the front door, he knew something was different.

For one, you were practically buzzing with excitement, your energy so infectious it made his jet-lagged brain suspicious.

“You’re back!” you exclaimed, throwing your arms around him before he could even set his bag down.

He laughed, the sound low and warm as he hugged you tightly. “I’m back,” he agreed, dropping a kiss on the top of your head. “Miss me?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” you said, looking up at him with a sly smile. “You hungry? Tired? Or are you up for… a surprise?”

That got his attention. “A surprise?” he repeated, his profiler instincts kicking in. “Should I be worried?”

You grinned mischievously, grabbing his hand. “Only if you hate good news. Come on, sit.”

Hotch allowed himself to be pulled into the living room, where you all but pushed him onto the couch. He sank into the cushions, his curiosity growing by the second as you began to pace in front of him, clearly trying to find the right words.

“Okay,” you started, hands on your hips. “So, you know how Jack’s been asking for a sibling?”

His eyebrows shot up, caught completely off-guard by the question. “I… do. You told him to ask Santa.”

You pointed at him. “Exactly! Which was a brilliant distraction, thank you. But, uh…” You trailed off, biting your lip to keep from laughing.

“But?” he prompted, leaning forward.

“But it turns out, we might’ve beaten Santa to it,” you blurted, throwing your hands up as if to say, Surprise!

For a moment, he just blinked at you, clearly trying to connect the dots. Then his gaze dropped to your stomach—though there wasn’t a visible change yet—and darted back up to your face.

“Wait,” he said slowly, his tone incredulous but tinged with dawning realization. “Are you saying…?”

You couldn’t hold back your grin any longer. “I’m pregnant, Aaron. We’re having another baby!”

His reaction wasn’t immediate. Instead, he sat there for a beat, looking almost comically frozen. Then—like a switch had been flipped—he was on his feet, closing the distance between you in two long strides.

“You’re serious?” he asked, his voice breathless as his hands found your waist.

“Completely serious,” you replied, laughing at the way his face lit up.

He let out a stunned laugh, pulling you into a tight hug. “How long have you known?”

“A few weeks,” you admitted, resting your head against his chest. “I wanted to tell you in person, but it was torture keeping it to myself.”

Hotch leaned back, looking down at you with a mixture of awe and teasing exasperation. “You mean you let me get off a 14-hour flight and didn’t warn me I was about to have my life changed?”

You smirked, looping your arms around his neck. “I figured a little suspense would keep you awake. Was I wrong?”

He laughed again, shaking his head. “Not wrong. Just… unbelievable.” His hands slid to your stomach, resting there gently as if he were afraid of breaking the moment. “Another baby,” he murmured, his voice soft. “How do you feel?”

“Excited,” you said honestly, covering his hands with yours. “And a little nervous. But mostly excited. Jack’s going to lose his mind.”

That earned another laugh, and Aaron’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “He’s going to ask if he gets to name them.”

“Oh, absolutely. And the first suggestion will be something ridiculous, like ‘Spider-Man Hotchner.’”

“Or ‘Captain Jack,’” Aaron added dryly, earning a snort of laughter from you.

The two of you stayed like that for a moment, the excitement settling into something quieter but no less joyous. Finally, Aaron tilted his head, a sly smile curving his lips.

“You know,” he said, “I’ve faced international criminals, interrogated spies, and worked with some of the most brilliant minds in the world. But somehow, you still manage to outsmart me.”

You grinned, leaning up to kiss him. “That’s because I’m the real mastermind in this family, Hotchner. Don’t forget it.”

“Never,” he murmured against your lips.

And as Jack came barreling down the stairs a few moments later, demanding hugs and peppering Aaron with questions, you knew this was only the beginning of a new, beautiful adventure for your growing family.

[marwhoa]

request: You write the turtles boys so well! I literally can't stop smiling when I read your fics - they're so sweet and endearing. I was wondering, only if it strikes your interest of course, if you'd consider writing about the boys being jealous of each other when the reader spends time with them one on one? Like, maybe a slot for Leo where he thinks reader finds Donnie funnier? Or one for mikey, where he thinks that reader likes how big raph is? Or for raph, where he thinks reader is more enamored with Leo? Or Donnie, where he worries that Mikey is flirting with reader? Of course they're all misunderstandings, and maybe it could end all fluffy with confessions and comforting their respective boy? If not, don't worry, but if so, thank you! 1 look forward to whatever you put out next.

🝮 “ green with envy ”

rise!boys x y/n

author’s note: screaming profusely !!! eeeee !!! So hey yeah here’s a fic, this took a while because it sat in my notes for days before I finally posted it, my bad. This was kinda hard cause I’m not experienced in the realm of jealousy—hopefully y’all like it? ᗡ: also does envy even fit this scenario? Lmao I just be naming these fics any thing, can y’all tell?

word count: 6.1k

┆ ── ˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ — Leo 💌

Leo never expected he could ever become… jealous, not him—no, no, NEVER him. He had too much pride, too much confidence. There should have never been any room for doubt in his ability to keep you focused and adoring on him, and him alone.

But, perhaps he had given himself too much credit? Or, maybe he had given his twin too little credit.

It wasn’t as though you were his. Just friends, and technically that meant you belonged to the whole family, not just him. But, no one could blame him for coveting you. From how starry-eyed you looked at him to how genuinely you laughed at his jokes, Leo found out too late that he had been falling for you, and here he was still falling. The way your nose crinkled when you laughed, or how your face lit up during Mikey’s dinner times, even down to the wheezing laugh you would give into if he pushed his jokes on too long, all of it spelled out lovely disaster for his heart.

But, fear not, he thought. He was the face man and the funniest turtle, surely there was no competition? No one could be better than him at getting you to make the faces you did.

Or well, it should’ve been no one. He wasn’t even all that funny, but Donnie managed to get you to keel over to some stuff he said—and he didn’t even intend for them to be jokes! A natural comic, can you believe the nerve of this guy?

So, yeah, Leo never expected himself to be jealous, and especially never towards his own brother, but god the way you were showing that tickled-silly expression to Donnie, wiping tears as he confusedly asked what was so funny? It had him gripping the arm of their couch, digging his nails into them. He wasn’t going to take this any longer! Sure Donnie meant no harm and would never try to swoop in and steal the prize he had his eye on, but Leo couldn’t help but still be… aggravated.

The pent-up annoyance was dispelled by the red-slider leaping over the couch, sassily walking over and snaking his arm across your waist.

“ Yeah, whatever, Donnie is sooo funny, but hey, Y/N, let me show you something better! ”

Never mind the fact that he had nothing planned as he twirled his katana in his other hand, slicing the air until a blue portal shimmered into existence. You glanced back and waved good bye to Donnie, fully intrigued by whatever it was Leo wanted to show you.

“ Oh—okay! What is it? ”

“ Who am I to ruin a surprise? ”

He cocked a brow at your question, tugging you through the portal and stepping out into the courtyard of the Witch’s city. While amazed, you wondered just what this had to do with anything—but, of course that was a comment you would keep to yourself until having fully exhausted the excitement of exploring not just any random town, but rather a town of witches!

“ Oh, Leo, finally! I’ve been begging you to bring me here for weeks! ”

Before he could even say anything, you were quickly rushing up to the nearest shop and sparking up conversation. Such a busy bee, but it was just another aspect of you he was captivated by. However, with such an impromptu visit to a rather overwhelming area, he found chances to spark conversation and get you to laugh to be stretched few and far between.

“ Oh wow, this store really doesn’t leave mushroom for walk-through, huh? ”

He gestured to a potions-ingredients shop, which, you guessed it, specialized in all things fungal-based. His shoulders drooped as you continued ahead, not even hearing him. That joke was gold! Huffing, Leo caught up with you and laced his fingers around your wrist, effortlessly stopping you in your tracks.

“ Mm? Leo? ”

You stared up at him with such a look of focus, all your attention finally fully on him, and he had to fight his legs not to reduce to jelly instantly. Instead, he took a deep breath, cocked his head, and insisted you follow him.

Down weaving alleys, through crowds of people, eventually you reached a park unlike any seen on the surface. The paths were lined with thick, luscious plants cultivated through the town’s magic. Foliage swayed with no wind, as though dancing like silk fabric to whatever music only they heard.

Your attention only left the plants when you heard Leo start clearing his throat and then flashing you a look that you recognized all too well. A grin was already tugging at your lips, and Leo finally felt like he was the only one in your world again. His hands held onto his belt and he kicked out his legs, faking as though he were tipping a hat. It seemed like some western cowboy impersonation?

“ What in carnation? ”

There you went, first with a light and short laugh.

“ Well I do say, I took a leaf of faith bringing you here,”

Which then melded into a series, topped with a “ Wait, Leo, hush—please! ”, all stuttered and peppered through your increasing laughter.

“—but, beleaf it or not—“

He wasn’t even able to finish the entire spiel before you were holding onto him, laughing with such a melodious voice. Which, of course, devolved into your trademark wheeze n’snort after dragging on too long.

“ Pwffhaaha!! Leo, wha-what’s with you today? ”

You wiped away a tear, and suddenly Leo was finally brought back to reality. Your hand on his forearm lingered, and he was just completely beside himself with how the glowing willows beside the garden softened your face ever-so-perfectly.

“ Y/N… ”

His voice was so uncharacteristically soft that it had you a tad bit spooked, hand gripping a teensy tighter. Your head cocked slightly in confusion.

“ I.. Ugh, okay, it’s—it’s dumb! But—“

He dragged his hands down his face, groaning exhaustedly.

“ I thought, maybe, you might’ve… Liked Donnie, more than me. ”

“ Huh? Why would you think that, I love all of you guys? ”

“ Yeah, but I love you, and—“

The shock painted on your face had him holding his breath. Alarms went off in his head, telling him he maybe should have held his tongue, not jumped ahead so quickly. The two of you searched each other’s eyes in silence, you recovering from what he said, and him preparing himself for what you would say. Soon enough, your face twisted into a confusion tinged with a bit of playfulness.

“ Wait a second.. You’re jealous, aren’t you? Of Donnie? What for? ”

“ What? What do you mean what for? You, you’ve been laughing at everything he said all day, don’t you think he’s funnier? Don’t you like him more?! ”

If it weren’t his dumb puns and act earlier, it was this that would do you in.

“ Leo, you dummy! Sure I was laughing, but that doesn’t mean I like him more than you, I just, well… ”

It was your turn to be a bit bashful as your eyes looked everywhere except him.

“ I, well.. You’re my favorite, Leo, not Donnie.. ”

As you batted your eyes at him, hoping he would connect the dots thoroughly, your answer was given in the form of his beaming expression as he swept you into his arms, spinning.

“ Ah-hah! So you do like me—and I’m the funnier turtle!? ”

“ Oh no, I shouldn’t have said anything, now you’re too powerful! ”

Playfully you cried, leaning back with your hand dramatically draped across your forehead. Leo chuckled at your antics leaning in to lay his head against your stomach as he tightened his hold firmly.

This was definitely something he would rub in his brother’s face later on—and said brother would be profusely confused by what brought it on???

┆ ── ˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ — Mikey 💌

Mikey was the last turtle you ever considered could suffer from the classic ailment of “ jealousy ”, and you couldn’t help but feel both ashamed yet intrigued.

While you weren’t too sure what it was that had got him so riled up, you were observant enough to see the way his eyes lit up with a startling emotion. At first it was impossible to pinpoint, just a glimpse of something indiscernible yet startling that crept into his blue hues at the oddest of times.

The first time you had seen that frightful emotion peek its head was during a date. The two of you had decided to hit a bar late at night, him donning a cloaking brooch, of course.

When you arrived, the loud music was entrancing, luring you both onto the dance floor to get lost in each other’s arms. The music coiled around you both, closing the gap to a suffocatingly tight end, as if either of you couldn’t stand any sort of distance apart. The floor vibrated, from both the booming speakers and the music reverberating the whole building alongside the dancing bodies around you both.

Mikey beamed with the brightest smile, and you just knew he was laughing, albeit drowned out from the ambiance. You were both having the time of your lives. Absorbed into a bubble fit for only the two of you, eyes locked on each other, neither party was ready for the stranger’s hands that snaked around your waist, pulling you in without any mind paid to you already having a devoted dance partner.

Chills set in and you turned to Mikey instantly, locking eyes, but the look in his eyes was enough to have your voice hitch in your throat.

That night ended with you both getting kicked out after Mikey wailed on the guy, but after a while, you both laughed and talked all about the fight on the way home.

The next time you saw that look was when you were hanging out with Leo while waiting for Mikey to return back from patrol. He had invited you over, and you planned to do it after wrapping up a few things, so he figured he could finish a patrol and be ready for you when you got done.

Unfortunately for him, you happened to finish your escapade much too early, and thus were at the lair awaiting his return. Leo happened to pass by, so you roped him into a conversation to bide the time. When Mikey did eventually come home, he stepped in to see you nearly keeled over in laughter.

You had been laughing so hard that when you noticed Mikey, you gave a weak wave and continued dying. He was curious what the joke was, but Leo simply shook his head and left, his own laugh dwindling down the hall. Once you recovered and were on your feet, you caught that same scary emotion swirling in his eyes. He tightened his lips and only softened when he turned to you.

More and more questions arose as you came to experience this look time and time again in all kinds of situations, but the one that finally made all the clicks pop into place was his outburst after you were with Raph.

He had been taking care of some villains on patrol with Mikey when you had ended up in the wrong place, wrong time. Their battle had turned to a violent one, with the villain bashed straight into a wall. Debris crumbled down right as you turned the corner, eyes shooting up to see parts of the building falling towards you. There was no time to move, so you just closed your eyes shut right and braced yourself.

But, no pain ever came, just a bit of dust. You opened your eyes, seeing a huge shadow casted over your body, and when you looked up?

It was Raph, who blocked the falling debris with his mighty shell.

“ Raph! “

You yelped, heart thundering in your chest, and Mikey misunderstood the shimmer in your eyes as Raph rose to full height, throwing the concrete off and away. He misinterpreted why you hugged him so tightly when he scooped you up, taking you away from the damage and ushering you to run the other way.

When you’re focusing on the wrong things, it’s easy to get the signs wrong, and boy had the ache in Mikey’s heart got everything so totally wrong. You liked Raph, didn’t you? Why else would you look at him like that? Did you like it when folks were bigger than you, unlike him who simply had an inch or two on you?

How could he be so stupid?

So, that’s how you ended up where you were now, seconds from entering your apartment when Mikey met you with a sour look on his face. You noticed that same glint in his eyes, still trying to piece together what it meant.

“ Why didn’t you tell me? ”

His voice wavered, and you responded with a hum of confusion. Inviting him in, he closed the door behind you both. His lips tugged down as he searched everywhere for the words to say. Finally, he found them and settled back on you as you were putting things down and unwinding.

“ With Raph! You like him, don’t you?! ”

“ Wha? ”

“ You—You! ”

He seemed frustrated, wracking his brain until finally he threw his hands out and shouted.

“ DO YOU LOVE RAPH MORE BECAUSE HE’S SO BIG?! ”

Silence blanketed you both as you processed his words. Finally, you placed a word on the emotion you always saw in his eyes. Struggling not to laugh at the absurdity, you snorted and shook your head.

“ Jealousy! That’s wh—wait, no, Mikey, no, I don’t ‘Love Raph cause he’s big’ ”

“ Then why do you like him more!? ”

“ Where is this coming from, Mikey, I don’t like Raph like that—I like you. ”

You stepped closer, and Mikey let you in. Your hands reached up, cupping his cheeks, and he leaned into them with such a desperation that you felt bad for finding this whole situation so silly.

“ Just, you always seem so happy when he’s around, and whenever he saves you instead, you always.. ”

His eyes were elsewhere as he spoke, almost as though he were seeing the absurdity in it all now with a clearer mind.

“ Ahh, mhmm, yup, alright so Mikey usually people are very happy when they’re saved from danger—and I mean, I probably look happy cause I’m friends with him too, but I’m dating you, silly. ”

You booped his snoot, smiling as his eyes lit up with the love you were accustomed to seeing them full of.

┆ ── ˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ — Raph 💌

If there was any one of the brothers full of insecurities, it would come as no surprise as the spotlight shone upon the red turtle, atop the winner’s pedestal. As someone who once led his brothers in the face of battle, who grew up with the elder sibling curse of forced parenthood, it came as no shock that there were a couple of problems sprinkled into his character.

While he had spent much of his life up to this point recovering and healing from what dared chip at his exterior, there was more than a few bits of stubborn grime that lingered on his surface. It ate away at him, leaving behind vulnerabilities.

Then you came along, and throughout the honeymoon period he experienced nothing but delights. Never had the negative Nancy in his brain perked up to talk her shit, misleading him in circles until he was a mess of unbundled, tangled up rope.

You were a light, something that seemed to power wash the grime away, cake over it with your delicate touch and sweet words. Much smaller than he, you were probably one of the kindest humans he met, someone he cherished more than life itself.

And that, in and of itself, was a vulnerability. You were his weakness, and the shrewd dark spots in his brain couldn’t wait for the rose-colored glass to shatter and let them sink their teeth into this beauteous opportunity.

The sensible part of him knew your kindness knew no ends, that it wasn’t limited or excluded to simply him or a select few. In fact, your sweet demeanor shared with his brothers? It was a breath of relief—it was an understatement to say he had been nervous to introduce you to the family. You were okay with him because he saved you, but his brothers and father weren’t present. They hadn’t been the heroes slamming down against concrete, scaring away the silverfish that preyed upon you one fateful night.

Turns out the trash-eaters had a hankering for good food, and you, all alone, on your way back home with a doggy-bag from Cleo’s Beach Shack, served to be the perfect target.

The night had been quiet, albeit suspiciously so, but your full tummy and weary limbs had their guard fully down. You daydreamed of the bed awaiting you at home, arms beckoning you forth with pillowy softness.

That delightful image was disturbed by the sudden rustling and clank you heard from behind. Turning, your eyes shooed away dreamland and were alert. An empty can rolled from a bush, tinking into someone’s trash can at the curb. Not a soul in sight, so surely it must have been one of New York’s infamous rats? Y’know, that creature that is practically extinct in this city, like there’s no way you would ever see them—definitely not at the metro nor the coffee shop, and surely never this residential street with primo rat hot-spots such as unsupervised trash cans full of food waste.

Yeah, of course, must have been a rat. You’re so paranoid, just hurry on home, nothing bad will happen. Nothing bad ever happens to pretty little guys like you, alone on dimly lit streets, lined with houses whose doors are locked to high hell.

Nothing bad, especially not like the cold metal that clamped firmly on your ankle. Never anything as worse as the chilling growl from whatever tripped you up, glaring with red eyes and flicking a long, sharp-looking tail.

“ Oh sh—“

Your voice feebly complained, raising into a scream to the heavens above as it lunged towards you.

Or well, towards your to-go bag, but who’s paying attention to the little things like that when your life is flashing before your eyes?

Thankfully, the end never came. There was the sound of a growling struggle after a tremor shook your shivering frame, and as you opened your eyes to peek at whatever held up your attacker, a silhouette towered over you. He casted a long shadow over you, which should have been intimidating as hell, but instead it left you feeling…

Safer?

In his hand laid two identical buggers, squirming and chomping with animalistic hunger. This had to have been worse than the rats, you’d take the rats any day, at least they weren’t massive.

… well okay, they are, but this is a whole ‘nother level.

The most shocking part was this giant hero taking a step back, assuming the position of a pitcher, and launching the creatures into the distance. There may have been a glint shining, and was that the cheer of an audience you were hearing? No, that was your imagination, obviously.

But you were not imagining this guy in front of you. Much too tall to be human, unless it was some basketball lead who somehow had balls of steel to save a stranger.

Every warning sign imaginable was washed away without a trace as your savior turned around and shot a shaky smile, warm as a summer sun.

“ S-Sorry about that, are ya okay? ”

He spoke with the timidness of someone a fourth his size, and you couldn’t help but be completely charmed to death.

From that day you would see him more and more, to the point that it felt as if maybe he had been appointed your personal body guard. Ah, but, you didn’t really mind, did you? You loved his company and his toothy grins. You adored his warm, gentle hugs, and it was too sweet how you could feel his hands tremble as they held yours ever so delicately.

So yeah, he worried to introduce you to his family, but the way you brightened up the room instantly had him starstruck. You’re perfect, that’s it. That’s the tweet.

The rosey glass shattered after a few lingering months of dating. His insecurities reared their heads, resting sharp grips on his shoulders as they whispered in his ears all kinds of falsities. You liked his brothers, but maybe you liked his brothers? Why else would you be so nice to them?

And, maybe that’s why you were smiling at Leo like that? Raph is right here, so why were you talking to his brother? He couldn’t even focus enough to heard you both holding the most mundane conversation ever about some shop that opened up over on Moore’s. He steeped in the tea of jealousy, filling his senses to the brim with worry.

The worst part about it was that if you liked Leo, he couldn’t even blame you. Leo was like water, while Raph was stone. Raph stood still, he could be bossy at times, while Leo was a spunky little river that would keep you on your toes. Leo was never boring, and he could keep a smile on your face for as long as the day lasted..

But he didn’t want any of that to be true. None of it.

The conversation was stopped by a meek voice asking for your time, attention shifting from Brother Blue to your beloved, clad in what became your favorite color in these past few months.

“ Y/N, can we talk? ”

Ignoring Leo’s nudge and teasing “ ooooooohs ”, you nodded with a smile, following Raph with a pep in your step.

“ Of course, dear. ”

That lead to the silence you currently shared—with him leaning against the wall of his room, gaze fixated on some smudges on the floor. That should be cleaned up, he thought, trying to not think of how you were sat on his bed, awaiting whatever it was he needed off his chest.

“ Raph? ”

You were the first to talk, already well acquainted with your love’s tiptoeing when it came to any sort of conversation that might be unsavory. You watched as he twisted his expression, tightening his lips—whatever it was, it was bothering him profusely, and you couldn’t help the pang gripping your heart..

“ Raph…? ”

Again, your voice seemed weaker this time. That was what gave him the drive to speak, he couldn’t handle leaving you in such a state, he needed to know if these worries of his were dumb!

“ Do you like Leo? ”

“ What. ”

Your response was so fast and curt, the product of being completely taken off guard with a left hook. There were plenty of other ideas you had for the direction of this conversation, such as having beaten his leftovers last week or how you have his favorite hoodie in your laundry basket right now. Maybe even the secret trips to Donnie’s, who was currently helping you get together a gift for Raph’s birthday next month. A particularly low worry even fretted that this might be a conversation about your relationship and how it should end.

But, instead it’s about Leo? What an easy question to answer!

“ Sorry, I didn’t mean that, I mean to say no. ”

Raph’s shoulders loosened and a breath of relief slipped out of him—when had he even started holding his breath?? Never mind that. You snorted at the absurd thought of liking Leo of all people.

“ Why would I like Leo? Raph, c’mere. ”

You held your hands out, and the way his hands fell into yours spelled out a desperation to be close to you. With a gentle tug, he climbed onto his bed, and you melted into his chest. A storm was brewing in his chest, his heart thundering nervously.

“ Ya just, Raph don’t know, something—he, just… Raph was worried, s’all. Afraid ya preferred him over a… ”

While he was searching for whatever word to insult himself with, you captured his attention with a gentle peck on the lips. Your fingers gently held his chin, turning his focus to lay fully on you.

“ Over a charming, handsome hero? ”

There was that adorable smile, peppering his lips as a light laugh erupted from his chest.

“ You think I’d prefer Leo, who is a risky little ticking time bomb, over my knight in shining armor? ”

He whispered a rebuttal, something along the lines of “ he really is, huh? ”

“ Oh Raph-a-doodle, never could I want anyone other than you. ”

Leaning up, you pressed your forehead against his and gazed into his eyes. They searched yours for a hint of deceit, for anything to latch onto and spiral about, but all he found was warmth.

Thus, the jealousy flame died out, and he plummeted backwards against his bed, dragging you down with him. He gave a heavy exhale as you giggled atop his plastron, scolding him for being so silly.

┆ ── ˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ — Donnie 💌

The green of jealousy was a hue you never expected to be painted across the purple canvas you called your boyfriend, but surely there is a chance for any reality to blossom true, right?

Jealousy had sewn seeds far before either of you could catch on, oblivious to the roots which spiraled and narrowed vision to see only one option as opposed to the myriad of other reasonings. You had poured love into your dearest Donnie, so much so that you couldn’t even fathom any room for jealousy. How could he ever be jealous? Surely he knows full and well just how you look at him? Obviously he knows just how only he can pluck the strings of your heart, strumming love with each touch, in a way unlike any other.

Why, if you were Excalibur, then he was your King Arthur.

So, yeah, may the gods above forgive you for not considering a jealous Donnie as a reality to worry about—though, is it really too worrying? Your boyfriend being jealous? Kind of interesting, doesn’t it just trip up your heart into a flurry of skips?

No? Just me?

Anyways, you had missed entirely the shifting of his gaze when Mikey would enter the room. The low growl, the holding of his breath, none of it had appeared in your mind as you laughed along with whatever silly antics the youngest brother would get up to. Sometimes you would even entertain him! I mean, he is your boyfriend’s little brother, so it’s only right that you laugh at his jokes, get along with him, and all that good stuff.

But, jealousy was the type to hold someone still, to draw their gaze upon one stiff perspective and allow no other reasoning. For a man of science, even he was not above the laws of insecurity in relationships, so when he saw how bouncy his brother was around you, never did he contemplate the obvious. Nary a thought shall he consider that it was simply his brother getting along with his brother’s girlfriend, nor did he consider maybe you were being nice. No, the sour, bitter green dipped his head in the nastiness of jealousy, and all he could consider in this moment was that you must have liked his brother more.

Or maybe, his brother liked you and intended to steal you away? Why else would you laugh so heartily at whatever nonsense his brother spouted? Whatever reason was there for the times he would find you in the kitchen, fixing up dinner alongside Mikey? What else could explain you returning home with topside art supplies and personalized tips to his youngest brother?

Obviously the jealous mind of Donatello Hamato was going to omit one important factor: you did this with all his brothers. If they told a good joke, you would laugh. If Mikey made dinner, you were guaranteed to be in the kitchen helping by fixing you and Donnie’s plates to your liking. If there was something on the surface any of the brothers needed, you would totally put it on your errand run, delivering it during your next visit.

But, jealousy cares not for easy explanations. It craves the most dramatic interpretations, and in this case?

The juiciest interpretation was that Mikey had set his eyes on you, Donnie’s prized lover, and you had fallen for him hook, line, and sinker.

No, no, no, Donnie says, not on his watch would he let you be swept off your feet by anyone else.

“ Y/N. ”

Donnie leaned forward, fingers firmly locking with yours and giving an urgent tug. There was a thickness layered in his eyes that left Mikey shrinking away, confused as to what he could’ve done wrong.

“ Let’s go,”

Straightening up, he couldn’t help the grin widening on his face in a “ I’ve won ” type of manner. You simply waved to his brother.

“ You haven’t forgotten why you’re here, have you? ”

The look in his eyes caused your heart to skip, unprepared for such a heavy gaze that you hadn’t yet experienced. A nervous smile rose on your expression as you looked anywhere but the face giving you a look that would serve to make you fall even harder.

“ Of course not, Dee. ”

Donnie noted your refusal to eye contact, and instead of assuming it was one of your usual bashful moments caused by yours truly, his thoughts were plagued with theories of Mikey somehow worming his way into the heart Donnie swore was his.

“ Right. ”

He muttered in a curt fashion, leading you both to his lab.

The uncomfortable awkwardness blanketing the atmosphere had not gone unnoticed as you followed him, thumb stroking loving little hearts upon the upside of his palm. Usually he would meet this with a firm squeeze, but you could recognize when your genius had his mind up in the clouds. He wasn’t even paying attention to you, was he?! And to think you came all this way to entertain his experiments, hoping to get a kiss or two, only to be met with unnecessary coldness?

What the heck, man?

“ Prepare to behold the wondrous creations of the genius, Donatello. ”

Whatever stink he had been brewing in just seconds prior had evaporated as he unveiled his newest creation: an air-fryer that could quite literally create anything from thin air.

You tried to ignore the distant shout of the youngest brother, something along the lines of “ Hey! Where’s the air-fryer?! ”

Donnie had not ignored it, nor had he dismissed the stifled laughter from you that he surely knew the cause of. His hands clenched, wrapping into crossed arms as he leaned his weight into the table.

“ Annoyed sigh. ”

While rolling his eyes, he muttered an annotation to the peeved groan slipping his lips. There it was again, you noted with a narrowed gaze, that odd discontentment he’d been soaking in this night.

“ Alright, spill it. ”

You mirrored his lean, relying on one of the structural pillars in his lab to hold your weight. Your fingers thumped impatiently against your bicep as your eyes soaked in Donnie’s body language. He seemed to stiffen, either nervously or defensively, you didn’t know.

“ Spill what? ”

He spoke with such an accusatory tone that you were almost ticked off. You held your tongue, hoping to keep this civil and not devolving into mindless argument.

“ Spill wh—?! ”

Sputtering, your hands gestured wildly before quite literally framing him. He knew what you meant, he wasn’t dumb!

“ Whatever is making you so, so—so THIS! ”

His brow raised, and he almost seemed insulted as you threw your hands up with a frustrated growl.

“ Why are you so upset with me right now? What did I do? ”

That seemed to do the charm of dragging out what you’ve been looking for, the explanation, as he straightened his posture and pushed off the table.

“ Oh save me the innocent act, Y/N,”

Confusion painted your face, and for a moment he physically faltered, unsure to continue after such a clear display of hurt across your pretty face. After a second, his mouth tugged into a frown, shaking off the hesitation to continue his claim,

“ I know you like Mikey, so just do us both a favor and go scurry along after him. ”

Donnie waved his hand off, pointing to the door. Whatever look you had on your face at that moment must have embodied just how deeply the pain in your heart crawled, right on down to your very core, because he seemed to balk at his own words. A bit of regret wrapped around him as he muttered something too low for you to hear.

Tightening your lips, you straightened this time and took a few steps to close the gap between you and him.

“ You will not talk to me like that, and what’s this about me liking Mikey? Your little brother? ME? You think I like him?! ”

There was no way, right? He couldn’t be serious? You, liking Mi—he might as well have been your brother too! You could never like him over Donnie?! What an outrageous claim, you thought, standing your ground in front of Donnie. This could have been avoided if he had just not been such, such a…

“ Obviously! Why else would you be bringing him gifts and helping him out in the kitchen? ”

You opened your mouth to speak, only to be interrupted as he continued with an accusatory finger pointing no where specific.

“ And I’ll have you know that I have read about ‘Cooking together’ and I know how much of an intimate bonding experience it is! ”

The childish stomp he gave, throwing his fists against his sides stiffly, served to diminish almost all the frustration bubbling up. You snorted at the sight, causing him to loosen up, confusedly tripping over his words to sputter out a “ Wh-What, what is this, what’s so funny? ”

“ … You’re a riot, Dee. ”

Wiping away the tiny tears pricking from such a hearty laugh, your eyes met his with less of anger and more of the warmth he was far too familiar of.

“ Since apparently I’m the only one of us with some sense, I’ll have YOU know that I do that for all of y’all! ”

Sheepishly, he seemed to curl into himself as you poked your index finger right into his plastron to emphasize the “ you ”.

“ I bring you gifts all the time—April, Raph, Leo, hell, even Splinter, too! ”

Jealousy was starting to burn away, leaving behind the bashful shame as he started to finally contemplate the more reasonable explanations for your behavior. Silently he condemned himself for starting up this whole dumb debacle with such a blatant disregard to the facts.

“ And of COURSE I help Mikey with cooking. You have a specific palette that he doesn’t always remember fully, so it’s up to me to make sure you get a fulfilling meal you’ll actually eat, dummy! ”

Ah, now that was the part that did him in, something he didn’t even know. Just as you were going to continue, he stepped closer.

“ Wait, you do? ”

“ I do—do what? I said a lot of things, Donnie, be specific. ”

Derailed, you stumbled over your claims, lost suddenly at which point he had cling to.

“ I thought Michael was just inconsistent in his preparation of my dishes, but since you say that, I do recall my meals being much better when you were around. ”

His hands had found their way upon your shoulders as he spoke, gaze flitting all across the lab as he collected his thoughts.

“ I had suspected meals were just better when you were around because, well.. ”

You softened as his gaze fell onto you.

“ Because you were there.. ”

Silence fell upon you both, except more comfortably this time. He exhaled deeply, marked with his trademark “ relieved sigh ” then smiled at you.

“ Oh Y/N, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to drag you into such a ridiculous argument. I was just… ”

“ You were just… Jealous? ”

Your teasing gaze was searing through him, so much so he shut his eyes tightly and groaned annoyedly.

“ As much as I would wish to not admit it, yes. I may have been experiencing,”

He waved his hand in the air, as if collecting his words.

“ Jealousy, towards your interactions with Miguel.. ”

Donnie was relieved as you laughed away all his worries, leaning in to plant a kiss on his lips. The moment lingered for a few, as if desperately needed to mend this situation, stopping only when you pulled away.

“ Alright, you’re forgiven… For now—BUT! Next time just talk to me, dummy, you got me all riled up for no reason. ”

With that, you gave a playful shove that had him gasping as though he were insulted, and quick to rush to his experiment’s side with more questions than he could keep up with.

Not like he hated an attentive and questioning audience, though. Much appreciated.

[knavesflames]

Anon: [Virgin reader who has Arle convinced she’s not a virgin and Arle realizes this mid-foreplay]

Hello 😧 I’m back with this. This time I believe I’ve read it correctly!! I made this one a bit longer for the inconvenience HAHAHA, either way, I hope you enjoy it now if you see this anon.

Word count: 1428

Contents: fingering, arlecchino being a lil tipsy, soft

Nsft utc!

You seem to realise about a year into your relationship that maybe you should have given up the lie. You’re not experienced, and if anything, you’re the complete opposite. You’ve barely kissed anyone. Arlecchino counts, obviously, but you’ve only kissed her and you’ve been lucky enough to worm your way out of sex and conversations about it every time.

Arlecchino is a busy woman, is she not? She is often away in Fontaine, or Sumeru, or Archons knows where else, it’s not exactly like she has time. Does it stop the murmured apologies spilling from her lips? No. Does it bother you? Also no. If anything, you’re worried for the day she figures it out. You shouldn’t have lied, you know this, but when the chance of being Arlecchino’s arose, you didn’t want her to come up with any reason to backtrack. So, you lied. Arlecchino is.. incredibly experienced, to say the least. You’ve heard the way the girls talk about The Knave in the town. How, way before you, she would go through three girls a night, at the same time, and none of them could think straight for the next week. You have no doubts she’d be gentle with you, and yet..

You don’t want to disappoint her. It isn’t that you don’t want to have sex, more that you’re worried you won’t be enough for her, you won’t be able to make her feel good (and that you’re nervous about your own pleasure).

So, what a shame (and a blessing) when she comes home tipsy after a Fatui gathering. You want to have sex with her so bad, so bad, in fact, you can feel it, and you wonder if this is the perfect time. She’s tipsy, she may not remember, and then you’re not really lying, are you?

It doesn’t seem to work out that way for you, though. Her kisses are as soft as always, but hungrier as she leads you towards the bedroom. Her hand is firm around your waist as she lowers you onto the bed, your satin nightdress billowing around you. You hear a small grunt as she flops down next to you before her lips meet yours again. Gracious when she’s tipsy, she is not. It’s almost comical, and you’d laugh if your head wasn’t running wild. Your hands move to remove her shirt, which is easy enough when she moves with you to help it along.

Mumbles of how good you smell and how tipsy she is leaves her lips and you manage to snicker in all your nervousness. The sound is quickly cut short by a sharp intake of breath when her fingers begin dancing up your thigh, your heart pounding more than it would, had you been experienced like you claim you are. Nevertheless, your own hands work their way under the waistband of her underwear, clumsily finding their way to where you’ve imagined touching her. You become lost in your thoughts, completely affected by the way you have to pretend you know what you’re doing, to the point you don’t even realise when she’s whispering your name softly.

Arlecchino’s eyebrows furrow and she uncharacteristically giggles as you try to find your way between her folds. It’s so clumsy, it’s almost like you haven’t done this before, and you’re the sober one. She studies you a little more, the way your lip is caught between your teeth, your breath a mix of nervousness and desire, and then it clicks. Her fingers wrap around your wrist, gently dragging your hand out of her underwear before her head rests on your shoulder.

“You haven’t done this before,” she murmurs as her lips graze against your neck. “Why did you lie?”

“I have!” You’re so quick to protest against her words, but to her, it’s just proving her point. With a soft sigh, she moves you on top of her so you can’t look away. You can tell in Arlecchino’s eyes she’s sobered up, at least a little.

“I mean this with a lot of affection, dear, but you can’t find the clitoris, and I am the drunk one.”

With a groan, you hide your face between her breasts in an attempt to conceal the heat on your cheeks. Her charred fingers move to your hair, carding through the strands as she questions you, her usually stern voice just a little softer.

“Do you want to, or are you agreeing because of me? Lie and I won’t be pleased.”

“I want to, I’m nervous.”

A low rumble leaves her throat, almost her usual laugh, and somehow more tipsy than the giggle she let out earlier. She flips the position, satisfied when she towers over you. “Then let me take care of you,” she whispers huskily against the shell of your ear. “I’ll show you how it works.”

Her eyebrow quirks, her red crosses piercing into your own irises as she waits for an answer. You pay attention the way your heart speeds up in pure excitement, and your body betrays any words that could leave your lips when you nod. You hear a hum leave Arlecchino’s mouth before her hands travel again, moving inside of the nightdress you so often wear. With your fingers twitching, you move under her waistband again, only for your hand to be gently pushed out.

“You tonight. Relax, I’ll make it nice.”

Your back instinctively arches when the pad of her thumb presses against your clit, your eyes closing as a shaky breath leaves your mouth. Her thumb pulls back quickly after, inspecting the newly achieved glisten on her skin. “So wet already,” she muses, locking her eyes on you as her thumb disappears beyond her lips. “You taste good, too.”

You make a noise that could only be described as a small whine in response. A whine of what, embarrassment? Arousal? You don’t know. Arlecchino does. Her thumb leaves her mouth with a pop before it meets the nerve bundle again, rubbing small, gentle circles to relax you. And relax you, it does, small noises of appreciation escaping you every so often.

“Ready?” She smirks against your cheek when you nod, making sure your lips are right next to her ear when she slides her finger inside of you, a shudder going down her spine at the delicious noise you made. Waiting until you’re comfortable, the finger stays unmoving until your hips buck up, initiating movement. It’s a slow rhythm, every pump and curl drawing out mewls and whines as your hands move to clutch at any part of her you can. One ends up around her shoulders, the other intertwined with her free hand.

“It’s okay,” she mumbles through her own heavy breath, clearly affected by your sounds and the movements of your hips against her middle finger. “Breathe, keep moving, keep making those pretty little sounds for me.”

Arlecchino’s words are punctuated by a particularly good curl and a small massage to the spongy spot inside of you, her own groan sounding in your ear when you flutter around her finger. “You’re so pretty. So pretty, and all mine, and I get to take you. Archons—“

The words are cut off by another groan, one that was clearly repressed for a few seconds. She isn’t even being touched, and somehow she’s receiving pleasure just from your own reactions. Either she’s desperate, or you just affect her that much. Her digits continue the movement, taking care to not scratch you with the nails she prides herself on, pressing and curling and pumping slowly until your whines are desperate and your walls are clenching against her.

“I know, baby, I know. Let it happen, hm? Remember to breathe. Good girl, you’re so good for me, aren’t you?” She breathes, smirking at your response (which is in fact, just another whimper). You feel it building and building until you feel like your skin is on fire and you’re about to explode, and then your back arches, your eyes shooting open as your hand tightens around hers. Your hips jerk up erratically, and she presses kisses to your forehead when you ride the high she’s so happy to have given you.

When you finally come down, able to make sense of the world around you, she chuckles, a low, velvety chuckle, making use of your nails to create goosebumps on your skin as she lazily drags them over your arm. “I was nice tonight, but if you ever lie to me about something as important as this again, I will not be as kind. Understand?”

[httpsserene]

Gosh please please please can you write something daniel x reader maybe inspired by too sweet by hozier when he thinks(some internal turmoil cuz he can't stay away from her) she's too sweet/innocent for him or something like but it turns out to be further from the truth?? I love love love your writing, i think about please's and thank you's at least three times a day since i read it. You're so immensely talented!!!

I'd really really appreciate it.

(i don't mind age gap(like up to 10years), some kinky smut or even a bit of morally grey characters as long as there are no explicit mentions of past relationships or cheating and etc., happy ending plss, and I won't mind if you add a pinch of "who did this to you")

Ly ly ly

𝖍𝖙𝖙𝖕𝖘𝖘𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖓𝖊'𝖘 2𝕶 𝕾𝖕𝖊𝖈𝖎𝖆𝖑 | 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕯𝖆𝖓𝖎𝖊𝖑 𝕽𝖎𝖈𝖈𝖎𝖆𝖗𝖉𝖔 𝕰𝖉𝖎𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓

𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐅𝐢𝐯𝐞: 𝐓𝐒𝐀

Summary: She’s too pure for him. She hasn’t been damaged by life like he has and he hopes you never will be. So, that’s why Daniel can never allow himself to be with her. He knows she’s convinced herself that she can fix him, but he knows that the longer he sticks around, the more he’s ruining her. He finds it cynical: their relationship (or lack of a relationship) reads like one of the books she’s obsessed with: right person wrong time or forbidden love. Daniel learns that it might be a little darker of a trope—like one of her books that she never allows him to see a page of. Content Warning: 18+ only. mdni. implied sexual content. mild!yandere!reader. stalking. sabotage. angst with a happy ending. lando and max are here. not edited at all. mentioned alcoholism. pov switch. fights? idk danny gets his ass beat. possessive!reader. can you find the hozier inspo in here? probably. Pairing: daniel ricciardo x fem!reader (black-coded? but not mentioned in the fic, i think) Word Count: 2.7k words.

Author’s Notes: okay! this is past me (6/11) hoping that the tumblr queue doesn’t do me dirty! this should be posted on thursday, because i won’t be able to manually post it on my own as i’ll be hiking in san diego the whole day :p

this was formatted on mobile so please ignore how ugly it looks :( and also ignore the ugly writing i’ve never written dark/morally gray characters so i’m pretty sure i did your request like terribly LMAO. um also i couldn’t find a way to write smut into it? so again i apologize for that :/

anyways, please bare with me. i’ll make it pretty when i get back to my computer…on sunday 🥴

prev 2k special join taglist feedback & requests table of contents next ↻

Daniel meets you in the elevator. At first, he thought you were a Formula One fan who snuck into the condo trying to get a glimpse of your favorite driver (himself, obviously) but, he learned that you’re his new next-door neighbor. It was awkward; he accused you of following him to his room and felt like the world’s worst person when you—dressed in the cutest pink dress and matching flowy bow tied in your hair—stared at him terrified, before you unlocked the door to your flat and slammed the door behind you quickly without a word.

He sent you a bouquet of pink orchids the next morning, along with a hand written card apologizing for his rude behavior and that he hoped the two of you could become good neighbors and friends. It seemed all was fixed, as the next time he ran into you, you greeted him softly, like nothing had happened. It was 5 A.M: you were starting your day and Daniel was ending his night.

Daniel was on his third drunken attempt of shoving his key vaguely in the direction of his lock on the door, when you exited your flat with a yoga mat over your shoulder and a water bottle that was comically large. With a hushed ‘good morning,’ you kindly helped Daniel into his apartment, telling him to drink a big glass of water and have pain killers ready when he wakes up; there was no judgment in your wide brown eyes, only tenderness, and a slight hint of worry. He woke up after twelve at the sound of a knock, his head pulsing with pressure and his sight slightly blurry from not quite sleeping all the drunk away.

He eventually made it to his front door and found that you ordered him lunch: a chicken wrap and sweet potato chips, from one of his favorite brunch cafés—Daniel figured you have good taste, as he doesn’t recall ever telling you about this meal in either of the two interactions you’ve had. So, he ate, drank plenty of water, freshened up, and debated if he should go over and express his gratitude, or whatever. He decided he will, and found himself putting on a nice watch and a few too many sprays of his expensive smelling cologne. Daniel didn’t let any thoughts of why he was prettying himself up cross his mind; he’s simply thanking you; a girl far too young, and probably far too sweet for his tastes.

You brushed off his thanks shyly, hidden behind your door with a blush strong enough Daniel saw it paint your dimpled cheeks and he knew he wouldn’t be able to stay away. Thinking quick enough to rival his reflexes, he offered to exchange phone numbers so the two of you could meet up and he could buy you a coffee. You entered your name in his phone with a yellow heart next to it.

The coffee meet-up had to wait due to Daniel’s hectic schedule, yet the texting flourished. He initiated the beginning of your text thread the next day, mindlessly texting you about how he overheard Emilio (another neighbor) arguing with his wife on the phone; Daniel said she’s probably going to mail him divorce papers within the next week. You replied that it was mean to eavesdrop and gossip. Daniel followed up saying it’s not eavesdropping if said person was screaming into his phone in the hallway, and he wasn’t gossiping, he’s merely keeping you informed.

Daniel laughed in the middle of his motorhome listening to the voice message you sent four days later, eagerly telling him about how you saw Emilio in the lobby with a couple boxes and without a wedding ring on his finger.

It was a warm morning, when you and Daniel finally managed to meet for coffee. You scrunched your nose in distaste when he ordered plain black coffee; Daniel did the same when you ordered a drink that was mainly milk and sugar. Daniel chuckled when you claimed the amount of coffee in your drink had you wired for the rest of the day. He decided to let you believe that, and not inform you that it was most likely the sugar content that had you crashing hours later.

Daniel invited you over for burgers one night and you comment that his home looks like a mix of a “mojo dojo casa house” and a “minimalistic hell.” You gifted him a throw blanket and a potted plant the next day, and continued to text him reminders about watering it.

Around 10 P.M. on another night, he’s yelling at Max for cheating at fifa. Max laughed around the lip of his beer bottle before the two of them paused at the sound of a knock. Daniel checked the door and opened it to see you: fuzzy slippers, eye-mask on your forehead, bonnet, matching pajama set, and pout on your lips with a sleepy tilt to your eyebrows. He apologized for the noise and promised to quiet down. Daniel threatened to kick the Dutchman out when he teased him for having a “crush.” He doesn’t get crushes, he’s a grown man.

Daniel spends less time in night clubs and more time with you. You took him to sip and paint nights, pottery classes, hiking, even bookstores. You order him to not open any of the books he’s holding for you; Daniel tries to take a peek when you scan through one and you slam the book shut, saying it’s too dark for your liking. He doesn’t comment when you end up getting it (Daniel paid).

He kissed you in your apartment, halfway through Howl’s Moving Castle. He proceeded to tell you it was a mistake. You teared up when he said you were too pure for him, arguing back that you weren’t a child. The tears fell when Daniel claimed he’s too old for you, that he’d only hurt you. He returned to his apartment, figurative tail tucked between his legs, and heard you crying through the wall. He fell asleep hating himself.

Daniel distanced himself from you; he misses your shared adventures and condo gossip, but he never forgets to water your potted plant, even without your texts. He fell back into the clubs, bringing home various women but never manages to get them in bed due to various things going wrong. He gets stuck in the elevator with Stephanie who happened to claustrophobic for hours, locked in the stairwell with Sofia who sprains her ankle in five-inch heels, the fire-alarm interrupts him and Kiana just as he unlocks the door, and his kitchen sink burst when he lifted Laura on the counter.

He tries to console Laura, who runs from his flat in drenched clothes, and sees you staring at her in confusion from your doorway as she rushes past. Daniel apologizes for waking you again, and you shrug, ignoring his words, murmuring that he should call maintenance before he floods the entire floor and shutting your door in his face.

Your potted plant starts to wilt, no matter if Daniel moves it in or out of direct sunlight, if he waters it less or more, or if he changes the soil, or adds fertilizer. The universe has it out for Daniel.

He finds himself in an ultra-private lounge, dim-lighting, sultry piano, and dark decor enhancing his dramatics as he reveals how he ruined his life to Max, Lando, and the bartender who will be tipped handsomely for pretending to care. The piano fades to the end of the piece just as Daniel wraps up his lament.

“It sounds like you deserve it, honestly,” Max stated bluntly, Lando nodding agreeably at his side.

Daniel groans into his hands, lifting his head to say that he’s already aware of that, but freezes when he sees you rise from the seat of the piano. Your figure is snug within a floor length, backless, black dress, complemented with gold jewelry, and makeup that opposes your angelic nature. You bow your head slightly in the direction of the tables clapping at your performance, stumbling briefly when your eyes meet Daniel’s. You smile softly and begin to make your way over to him.

“Oh, fuck,” Daniel shrinks into his seat, as the other two drivers stare at him in confusion.

“Hi, neighbor,” you start airily, before turning to smile at Lando and Max, “Hello.”

“You didn’t tell me you worked here,” Daniel mentions.

“You never asked,” you narrow your eyes at him, before relaxing, “I also don’t work here—this is my brother’s bar. The pianist suddenly fell sick and I offered to fill in.”

“Oh,” Daniel hums, “This doesn’t seem like your type of scene.”

You snort, rolling your eyes, “You should know better than to tell me where, what, or who I do or do not belong with.”

“Okay!” Lando claps, kicking Daniel’s shin under the table, everyone ignores his muffled groan of pain, “Sit with us for a minute, if you can take a break. Danny is seriously obsessed with you.”

You take the offered chair next to Max and sigh, “Really? I couldn’t tell,” all three men wince at your dig, but you continue, “Did he tell you that he almost flooded the entire floor last week?”

Daniel watches as you charm his friends, the three of you chattering happily over his demise, and ignoring him as you do so. He can’t find it in himself to be annoyed, only thankful, as this is the first time in weeks that you’ve been in his presence for more than five minutes. You smell so good. Is that weird of Daniel to think?

Unfortunately, the four of you are interrupted far too soon. Your brother calls you over from behind the bar; his expression is less than pleased, jaw tensed with irritation, and Daniel thinks the look in his eyes has a hint of crazy. He wonders if you told your brother about him. Hopefully not—the man looks like he could fold Daniel like a lawn chair without breaking a sweat. The three men watch as you argue with your brother; it doesn’t seem like it’s going in your favor.

Lando calls Daniel’s name, “Mate—she’s good for you.”

“Nah, mate. I’ll only ruin her.”

“Daniel,” Max scolds, “The few months you were ditching us for her were the happiest I’ve seen you. I wasn’t worried that you would be passed out in a random club or yacht after giving yourself alcohol poisoning.”

“She’s sweet, Danny. I think she’s exactly what you need,” Lando adds, “You've convinced yourself that you don’t deserve anything good. She’s trying to prove you wrong and you need to let her.”

He doesn’t answer verbally, he chooses to shake his head and remain silent. You make your way over to the table again and stand in front of them with a pout.

“It’s past my bedtime, apparently,” you huff, turning your head to glare at your brother, “Don’t worry about paying tonight, it’s on the house.” You exchange polite goodbyes with Lando and Max, Daniel gets a soft smile. He watches you leave the bar with a sad tilt to his lips, then orders a shot of whiskey.

You’re sat on your couch, freshly showered and ready for bed. It’s 1 A.M. and Daniel usually doesn’t end his nights out for another hour. So, it makes sense for you to be worried when you see his location nearing your shared condo building an hour early. Did you sneakily (his phone password is his birthday, it wasn’t that hard) use his phone and share his own location with you? Yes. But, you did it with good intentions. You worry about him when he’s not with you.

You decide to go down to the lobby and pretend to ask if you received any packages in hopes of intercepting Daniel when he walks in. You don’t manage to step out of the elevator when you suddenly have an armful of a bruised-up Australian. His lip is busted and you can see a bruise blooming high on his right cheekbone. You start to shake with anger.

Furiously pressing the button of your floor and slamming the ‘close door’ button, you frantically question Daniel, “What the hell? I left you not even two hours ago, and you look like a mess. Did you get into a fight, did you get mugged, did you—“

“Did your brother beat my ass for hurting you?” Daniel groans, not fighting your motions as you tug him out of the elevator and into your flat, “Yes, he did.”

You pause and grumble angrily, forcing Daniel to take a seat on your couch. You rush into your kitchen for ice, then to the bathroom for a first aid kit. He doesn’t fight when you order him to ice his cheek, and lets you hold his face to tilt his head at every angle possible, as if it’ll expose any more damage. Eventually, you end up looking into his eyes, pretending that you have the knowledge to know what a possible concussion looks like, even though you really just wanted an excuse to look at him.

Unconsciously, your thumb rubs soothingly along his temple, Daniel leans further into your hand. His tongue flicks out for a brief second, and he flinches when it disturbs the cut on his bottom lip. Blinking rapidly, you clear the haze from your eyes and frown as you turn to rifle through the first aid kit.

“I can’t believe he put his hands on you,” you bite out angrily, finding a disinfectant cloth to clean his lip, “I don’t know why I tell him anything anymore.”

Daniel winces at the sting of alcohol, remaining quiet as he watches the focus that covers your expression.

“I apologize for him,” you mumble, “He doesn’t think clearly when it comes to me, he thinks he’s like my guard dog or something,” you dispose of the wipe and grab an ointment, “I promise you I told him that the only thing you did was waste my time and hurt my feelings,” Daniel deflates under your hands, “It’s not like you physically hurt me…or anything. He’s just an idiot. I’ll kill him.”

At that, Daniel laughs quietly, dropping the ice from his cheek so you can clean that too, “Don’t say that. You’re such a sweetheart, you couldn’t hurt your own brother. Also—I’m not sure if he hoped this would make me stay away from you, because if you keep rubbing my face like that, I might fall in love.”

You hum, pleased you have him eating out of the palm of your hand, “Have some decorum, Daniel. You sound desperate. Also, he knows that I don’t like people touching what’s mine.”

“Oh? You’re possessive,” Daniel teases, “Is it bad if I kinda like that?”

Your heart flutters, he’s really the best for you. He doesn’t need to know about the lengths you went to ensure any of the girls he tried to bring home didn't make it into his bed. It's a shame Sofia sprained her ankle; that was not intentional on your part.

You shrug lightly, “No, it’s not bad. I think it makes you perfect for me. As long as you don’t mind a little crazy. And—don’t think you’re off the hook. You still have to apologize for making me cry.”

Daniel nods seriously, “I’ll fall to my knees and beg right now, if that’s what it takes.”

Sticking a plaster over his cheek, you stand and gesture for him to do so too, “Okay. Kneel.”

“Huh,” he chokes, eyes wide with disbelief, “You’re serious?”

“If you beg well enough, I’ll let you eat me out.”

The sound of his knees hitting the floor echoes.

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© httpsserene2024

[mrkeatingsblazer]

The Prophecy [Oh, Was It Punishment] Part Two

Apollo x Child of Hermes! Reader

Part One Part Two Part Three

It has been six months and seven days. Six months and seven days since the war against Gaia. Six months and seven days since Rachel has made a prophecy. Six months and seven days since Lord Apollo has been missing. Not even his children have heard a whisper from the God, not even a glimpse in a dream and while Demi-Gods are used to being ignored by their parents, it is never to this extent; it is never with this God.

You’ve found yourself with the three Apollo campers a lot, trying to comfort them during such a peculiar and unknown time. No child should have to worry for their parent. Will Solace especially has taken the blunt of the hardship. Being so young and taking care of both the wounded from the war and his cabin since the Battle of Manhattan has taken a toll on the kid. You find yourself relating to the younger boy immensely. When Luke left and you were finally claimed, Chiron made you the head of the Hermes cabin. Though unlike you, who has been out of camp more often than not and was allowed to appointed the Stolls the title of Co-heads, Will has been burdened with being alone with his responsibilities since he was 13. You watch him now, folding and unfolding bandages repeatedly out of a nervous habit. The frown on his face was subtle but still there. He could have been finished up with inventory an hour ago but chose not to.

“I think we’re done Solace,” you say from atop the infirmary counter, letting your feet swing back and forth.

“You can head to dinner, I’m fine here. Thanks for the help,” his tired voice mumbles in response.

“Kid, you’ve rewrapped that one bandage like 8 times now, I think it's been wrapped enough,” you say quirking your brow.

Will sighs, placing the bandage down before turning to you, “will you stop it with the kid thing, you’re only 2 years older than me.”

“2 and a half,” you point at him with a scalpel that was lying beside you and smirk, “and I’ll have you know I’m a legal adult William.” He looks you up and down and snorts. His expression quickly converts back downtrodden, as if that momentary joy was a mistake. Along with the fact that his father is gone M.I.A, camp has been more depressing than usual. Kids were going missing, and no one understood why; one of these kids being your little brother and Will’s best friend, Cecil. You watch as he shuffles around like a stray kitten, you’d never pity him not when you can relate. Hopping from the counter, you walk over to him and seize his arm, yanking him towards the door. It was a comical sight, with Will being almost 2 heads over you.

“[reader]- Hey!” he gently tries to get out of your grasp but fighting two wars made your grip nothing less than steel. You continue to push the boy towards the door

“Don’t even Solace,” you scold as he tries again to get away from you, “we will be going to dinner and after that we will be going to the campfire whether you like it or not.” you yank open the infirmary door and shove him out, “and hey, maybe a certain son of Hades will be there,” you smirk as the blonde turns bright red. He grumbles, rubbing his arm but compiling and following you to the dining pavilion. It was adorable to see the kid with his crush, especially due to who it was on. You’ve known Nico since he was an annoying but excitable little 10-year-old and Will even longer, neither of them have had a good childhood, most demi-gods never do. In a way, you were living vicariously through them. You did that a lot. With Annabeth who got with Percy, your old crush, Piper and Jason, Hazel and Frank. You couldn’t help but wish you had what they had or in the case of the former, who they had.

You remember your days on the Argo. When there were no battles or group meetings, you were subjected to sit and watch the love emulating around you. For a while you thought the countless couples around you meant something, that because they were all members of the crew and got together, that for sure meant you were to get with the last single member, Leo. He thought so too. After his little thing with Hazel, that even now you don’t try to understand, you felt as though something was forming between the two of you. At one stage you found yourself hanging off him more than you were around Percy and Annabeth. You couldn’t help but be attracted to his mind, his creativity, his light. Your two best friends encouraged the blooming relationship between the two of you, even with Percy not liking Leo a whole lot, and so did the rest of the crew.

Everything changed after he came back from Ogygia. He came to you first after he returned, making you feel special in a sort of pitiful way. Expecting a grand reunion, you were instead greeted by his starry eyes as he spoke about another girl- no not a girl, a Goddess, who had him returned to you utterly smitten. Your heart broke as he told you he was planning to find her again. When you were given the truth by Eros, it made sense in the end. Leo being sent to Calypso was the Fates way of ensuring you remained loveless and killing him was just a way for them to remain cruel.

You sat through dinner at the Hermes table, which was smaller than it ever has been in years. Connor was beside you flinging peas at Clovis who would jolt at the impact before dozing off once more. Nico Di Angelo was sitting at the Apollo table, next to a blushing and, surprisingly, flirting Will Solace. You sighed looking around at all the missing campers, be it they left for college, died during the wars or as of late, were lost to Gods knows where. Even the rising moon seems dimmer than it should have been. You wonder if that was on purpose, was it Lady Artemis’ way of showing her sadness for her twin brother? Was she also in the dark as much as all of us?

By the time the campfire rolled around, you just wanted to retire to your cabin, but chose not to, for the sake of your sibling, Will Solace and yourself. As Austin was doing his cover of ‘My Sweet Lord’ by George Harrison, you heard rustling coming from the forest behind you. At first you passed it off as nothing more than a noisy nymph. It was when you heard a yell did you twist your ring, transforming it into your sword. The object was gifted to you before you even knew of your parentage, by an original member of the Argonauts, Atalanta. You recall the words of the swift footed women, who aided you during your mission to save both Lady Artemis and Annabeth; “never let a man take you unless he can keep up,” she winked before racing off. Many other campers joined you in seizing their weapons, Nico and Clarisse come to either side of you, swords ready. Two figures stumbled out of the forest, neither were recognizable. The taller seemed to be giggling and relying on the smaller to carry their weight. As they came closer you could make them out. A small Asian girl with black coke bottle glasses was cursing the taller brunette boy. He was gangly and average; you deemed him instantly not a threat.

“Hold! Who goes there?” Chiron boomed.

The boy gave a wobbly grin along with a shaky wave and replied, “oh, hi! I’m Apollo!” before collapsing to the ground

[komaniyaexpress]

— is this .. me?! .. ♪

sagau — they find a piece of artwork made by the creator; of .. them.

— featuring furina, wanderer, freminet, and neuvillette .. ♪

cw. none wc. 200-400 ea.

furina

it goes without saying .. furina is ecstatic. i mean.. why wouldn’t she be? she wouldn’t make this known, however, because “of course you’re going to wish to capture my enthralling beauty on paper — it’s only fair when faced with such divine radiance!” inside.. she’s a mess. her widened eyes flit over every tiny detail, every little stroke of the pen or paintbrush. “enthralling beauty”, she says, “divine radiance”, she says — but is she truly talking about herself or the way you interpreted her? never in all the centuries she’d been alive would she admit this, but she couldn’t help but feel as if you had made her look much more ethereal than she truly was. she does make it known that she likes it, though. when you turn away from her and murmur something about how you’re not the most proud of this particular piece, she scoffs indignantly. “what? how— ugh, how could you ever say such a thing? do you dare question my judgement?!” she leans back against the couch, hardly able to focus on the taste of the small pastry half-eaten in her hand. she’s incredibly grateful it’s only you two alone, because she has an entirely embarrassing blush upon her face as she chews.

wanderer

“.. seriously?” he kind of just.. glares at it. i’m sorry, but i don’t really know what you were expecting. depending on the kind of mood he’s in, he’ll either simply cast it aside without a second glance or attempt to mockingly chew you out over it. it doesn’t matter whether he actually likes it or not; he is not going to let you live it down. he’s not amused, but i can’t really imagine him actually getting upset about it either. he’ll scoff, maybe roll his eyes if he’s feeling generous enough, then go about his day without another thought to it. even with his nonchalant, near-annoyed demeanor over the whole thing, when you’ve left and he’s alone — he looks for it again and stares at it like he didn’t get to before. as his eyes travel the lines that form a quite accurate depiction of his visage — implying you spent a lot of time looking at him — he can’t help but wonder why, of all people, you chose him as your muse. he does.. appreciate the sentiment, though, even if he’ll never voice it. he catches himself before he spirals. it doesn’t matter, he reminds himself. with a huff, he sets it down again and crosses his arms, trying to ignore the fact it does indeed make him feel.

freminet

if you were expecting anything other than freminet being an absolute mess.. you’d be sorely mistaken. of course, he’s not upset at all. he’s just.. very, very embarrassed. he loves your art, he does. he doesn’t want you to misconstrue this, and makes sure you know it’s not your problem, but his own. make sure to reassure him. the moment he lays his eyes upon it, it’s evident; his eyes widen almost comically, and, suddenly, he has the surely inexplicable urge to run for his life. that wouldn’t be fair to you, though, so he bites it back and forces himself to stay put. the gears whir in his mind like he’s a piece of the machinery he holds so dear. he doesn’t know how to thank you — should he thank you? he doesn’t know what to say at all, more like. he clears his throat, unable to get any words out; his mouth goes dry and his heart practically beats out of his chest, all the while he’s looking just as frozen in time as your rendition of him. he lets out an audible sigh of relief when you reassure him that he doesn’t need to speak. he can’t handle you when you stare at him like this, and asks if you’d be okay with him putting on his diving helmet. once you’ve given him your permission — which you reiterate he doesn’t need — he quickly places it over his head, letting out a soft sigh of relief when you can no longer see his face. his gaze doesn’t leave the art, not for a moment. he stands still and stares at it, unable to tear his eyes away from the lines that, somehow, paints a clear picture of.. him. that you made. he still does not make any move to talk, and he’s very glad that you’re so understanding. eventually, he murmurs an apology, and through the lump in his throat, reassures you that (if there was ever any doubt), he likes it.

neuvillette

it was raining. it had been raining all day. naturally, this worried you, and your first thought was to check up on neuvillette. exhausted yet unchanging, neuvillette sifted through his paperwork without taking a single break to rest. however, all things must, and eventually, his tire overcame him — letting out a sigh, he placed his palm upon his forehead and leaned into it, his eyes fluttering closed. it took him a moment to open them again, but when he finally did.. after such a long day, eyes sore with the strain of reading fine print jammed together so thickly the pages looked more inky than ivory, the last thing he expected was to see was a piece of blank paper on his desk. curious, he picks it up and flips it over, assuming it to be more writing on the other side — only to be met with.. himself, staring right back at him. the neuvillette now is slightly slouched over, eyes drooping with the weight of an unrelenting week. he’s unable to see his true reflection — in a mirror or water, not a near-perfect version of him on paper — so he couldn’t really tell, but even so, he can’t help but feel as if this version of him must appear much more composed. he pushes the thought away, stares at the piece a bit closer, and he eases a bit. not only was it a splendid break to the monotony of monochromatic paperwork, it was made by you. it’s now that you walk into the room. in a split second, you realize what he’s holding. you blink. he smiles, gentle and soft. the rain stops pouring.

[biahouse]

Perfect for him, Gregory House x Reader

You're House's girlfriend. Wilson doesn't like you, but... 3 times Wilson realized you were the perfect person for house, +1 time he finally admits it

There was something about you that James Wilson made to hate you.

Maybe it was the way you were the silliest nurse at the hospital, and always fell for the patients' stupid conversations.

Or because you always do your coworkers' duties.

Or the way that in every surgery he performs, you insist on being an assistant nurse and talking to her throughout the procedure.

Or maybe he hated having his best friend stolen.

Wilson didn't hate people. That was House's job. It was even comical that in your situation, House adored you and Wilson hated you with all his being.

Don't get me wrong, you weren't a bad person.

He just doesn't like you.

1

The first time Wilson realized you were perfect for his best friend was at lunch. Since the beginning of the relationship between you and Greg, the doctor in question used to have lunch with you in his office.

But on that particular day, you were very busy in surgery. So with no other alternative, House had to have lunch with Wilson.

It was a surprise for James to see his friend entering the room with a packed lunch. House was known for eating junk food with all his meals. So Wilson assumed that if that hadn't changed with your relationship, he was wrong.

"What is that?" Wilson asked with an incredulous look at the lined pots that Gregory placed on the table.

"Food?" House responded as if it were obvious and mocked his friend.

"Okay, I know. But, I mean... you don't usually eat that."

"I know" House threw himself into the chair and opened one of the jars and started poking a carrot. "Carrots are a horrible thing, you know?"

"House" Wilson called his friend carefully. "Is this some kind of diet for addicts that I don't know about?"

"No. Y/n told me that I should eat more vegetables if I wanted to live longer" The doctor rolled his eyes when he remembered the argument he had with his wife a few weeks ago and since then she usually makes him lunch. "So I'm pleasing my girl" And with that he stuffed the orange vegetable into his mouth with a grimace.

Wilson could only look at his friend in shock.

For years he had tried to get House to eat a healthier diet, and you had achieved it in just a few weeks. Wilson had to admit, he liked you a little more now.

2

The second time Wilson realized you were perfect for his best friend was a week after the lunch incident. He and House were bowling, like they did on Wednesdays.

However, there was something strange about House. He was limping and in more pain than usual.

"What is it? Are you afraid of losing to me or did you forget the Vicodin at home?" Wilson mocked his friend as he threw the ball into the pins.

"Neither" House limped closer to the track when it was his turn to play.

"Is the pain getting worse?" Now James asked worried that Greg's leg was getting worse.

"No"

"Okay House, you win. Why are you in pain?"

"Because I'm trying to taper off the Vicodin" House replied with a shrug and celebrated without a strike.

"What?" Wilson raised his voice making people look at him. Which made him apologize immediately. "You. Gregory House, are you trying to stop Vicodin?"

"Y/n said it's going to kill me. She didn't suggest I stop taking it, but she was upset that I took so many. So I'm trying to cut down."

Wilson opened his mouth in astonishment.

Who was that man?

Gregory House would never cut down on your daily Vicodin cocktail.

But he did, for you.

Only for you.

3

The third time Wilson realized you were perfect for his best friend was on a random day at the hospital a few months after the second time.

House entered his office as he always did, without knocking and suddenly, which made Wilson jump out of his chair every time, even though he was used to it. But something felt wrong that time.

The way House for the first time looked nervous and really confused. For a while, James watched his friend limp around the room as if he was begging for something very deep in his own mind.

Wilson waited, he knew that like every other time House would start telling him about his doubts and he would give him one of his beautiful pieces of advice, which House would probably never follow.

"I want to ask Y/n to marry me" House blurted out and looked at his friend nervously.

"What?" Wilson blurted out the question with a laugh. "Marriage?".

"Yes" Greg said, shaking his head and plopped down on the armchair in his friend's living room. "I thought about it all week"

"All week?"

"Are you just going to repeat everything I say or are you going to tell me your opinion on this?" Greg scoffed at his friend and adjusted himself in the chair, his leg hurting a little.

"What do you want me to say House?" Wilson asked and looked through his patient's files once more, before closing the folder and focusing fully on the matter at hand. "I thought I would never get married"

"I know" House passed his hand across the gap in his forehead. "I don't know why I want it. I just want it."

"Gregory House doesn't know why, that's something I never thought I'd hear" James smiled playfully.

"For the first time I want something more. I want her to be my wife. Is that a bad thing?"

"No," Wilson answered honestly. "It just means you're better House."

"Does that mean you'll help me pick out a ring?"

"As long as you don't make me pay."

Wilson would never understand his relationship with House. Or how two very different people could do such great things together.

Wilson didn't hate you. He understood now. It was just jealousy that you achieved everything he always tried to do. Improve House.

He didn't hate you. Now he respected you.

+1

“Hey Y/n” Wilson called out your name when he saw you walking down the hall with a clipboard.

"Wilson, hi!" You waved at him enthusiastically. It was the first time he willingly spoke to you.

"I just wanted to say thank you" James said making the woman frown in confusion.

"What are you thanking me for? I don't remember helping you" Y/n questioned.

"But it helped, with House" Wilson explained. "I'm sorry for treating you badly all this time."

"You didn't treat me" Y/n shrugged with a smile. "I stole your best friend, it makes sense that you don't like me that much. But it means a lot that you like me now."

"I think you two are perfect for each other," Wilson admitted for the first time out loud. "I can't wait to be the godfather."

"Godfather?" Y/n asked.

"You'll see" Wilson smiled knowingly. “I’ll see you around Y/n.”

[m0llygunn]

friends with b(aby)enefits (eddie munson x fem!reader)

MONTH ONE: Just friends—what a silly concept. After your accident, Eddie's been a full-fledged comedian, ill-conceived jokes left and right... neither of you are laughing though when his 'comedy routine' comes back to bite the both of you in the ass.

cw: 18+!, mature language, smut, pinv sex (unprotected again smh), pet names, vomiting, a lot of pregnancy related topics, potentially dramatized pregnancy symptoms (for the plot obvi, also idk anything about pregnancy), mention of readers period, mention of birth control an: lots of minor time jumps/cuts but we get some eddie pov!!! wc: 8.3k+

0 / 01 / 02 / 03 / 04 / 05 / 06 / 07 / 08 / 09 / 00

Arms wrapped around your waist from behind, both palms pressed flat to your belly.

“How are my girls doing today?”

Comically loud, heavily puckered kisses scattered over the top of your stomach, catching you by surprise— not at all expecting to be ambushed with facetious affection by your friend. 

Eddie thinks he’s a comedian. 

With about a month of his poor taste in jokes, he thinks he’s hilarious— and a self-proclaimed prophet because he 'just knows' that it's a baby girl. He's full of shit and you desperately try to not give him the benefit of finding his terrible jokes humorous. To your demise, from time to time, they get you.

His latest stunt was when he greeted you for your usual Friday get together. He swung the door open quick enough to stun you and immediately dropped to his knees. With a firm hold on your hips, he leaned in close to your belly, “Hi, baby girl. Did you miss daddy?” he cooed with big eyes and an even bigger smirk.

With a hand on his forehead, pushing him away, unfortunately you laughed, and unfortunately it feels like all of his jokes are coming back to bite the both of you in the ass. It’s hardly been 24 hours since the offending, but objectively funny joke, and neither of you are laughing now.

“Maybe you just ate something bad?” he offers with sheer, dumb, hope. “Or maybe it’s the flu?” he says, snapping his fingers together like he struck the gold mine of an idea.

Eddie can be as hopeful as he wants, but as you lower yourself down to the couch from vomiting your insides out in the bathroom, the panic in his eyes is evident.

“Maybe,” you reply dully, dropping your head to rest against the back of the couch. 

“Do you want to lay down? I can bring you to my bed?” he asks with concern lacing his words. 

“I’m—” you start, but with acid suddenly rising in your throat again, your eyes go wide and you jump from the couch with a renewed energy, just barely making it to the bathroom.

────────────

To put it plainly, you vomited two more times after. When you finally felt like you were done throwing up, with an empty stomach and a sore body, Eddie helped you to his bed and you slept off your spell of nausea. When you woke up a few hours later feeling a touch better, both of you decided the best choice would be to buy a pregnancy test. 

“Just to be safe, right?” he had said, eyes burning into you as you laid sprawled across his bed, feeling no longer nauseous, but instead like an empty shell of a person. “We should buy one, right?” he asked again, eyes growing wider in your silence. 

It felt like even moving your sight line to look at him took too much energy, but you met his gaze, and he nodded his head like he had made his own silent conclusion. 

“We’ll go after, okay?” he said, continuing his one-sided conversation. Standing from the edge of the bed he wiped his palms down the front of his thighs before straightening out and rubbing his hand down from his mouth to his chin. He nods a second time, doing what you assume is him coming to another silent conclusion. “I’ll get you crackers?” he continued, eyebrows raised. 

With your eyes locked on him, you swallowed the dryness in your mouth. You hadn’t done anything notable, hadn’t even attempted to answer him, but his face softened, mouth turning into a regretful frown. 

“Sorry you’re sick,” he said, bending down to pat your head, letting his thumb trace gently across your temple. It was a tender movement and you absorbed the warmth of his contact, letting your eyes blink shut. “I’ll get you water too, okay? Water and crackers and we’ll see how you feel after that.”

Eddie’s a lot of things, but nurturing and soft, and with high levels of compassion is not exactly how you would describe him. He can be those things, but principally, he’s more of an asshole— but one that you love enough to keep around, obviously. But an asshole, nonetheless. The last time you had the flu he laughed at you and made fun of the way you threw up, albeit, it was when you both were in your teens, but regardless, he was a dickhead about it— and most recently, when you had gotten a cold, he ceaseless made fun of your constant sneezing and the blazing red tone of your sore nose from blowing it so much, calling you Rudolf and asking how ‘Big Red’ was doing at this time of the year. Asshole.

Dichotomously to the Eddie you’ve known all these years, he grazes the backside of his knuckles across your cheek, rubbing them back and forth gently. It's painfully obvious he doesn’t do this often from the way his hand jerks, finger nearly poking you in the eye, but you appreciate the notion. You know you must really look awful if he’s managed to compose this much compassion for you. 

────────────

They say that nothing makes people more productive than the last minute. As the pharmacy's closing time approached, it was only then when either of you felt so inclined to even mention going to get the test.

After Eddie got you your water and crackers, you started feeling much better, and feeling much better meant it was easy to pretend like nothing had happened. You both unhealthily and aggressively ignored your potential futures by acting like it was any regular Saturday evening. You talked about your upcoming work week, and watched the usually shitty reruns on TV. Eddie made some freezer-burnt chicken nuggets, you warmed up some soup, and it was boring and uneventful, but it was the most comforting that boring and uneventful could be. 

The sun began to set and it was like the ticking of Wayne's alarm clock on the coffee table beside you only got louder and louder as time went on. 

“S’almost eight,” Eddie had eventually mumbled. You swallowed, keeping your eyes on the TV as you found this particular old rerun episode of Mama’s Family to be the most interesting thing in the world, which is odd considering you usually change the channel whenever it's on. 

With both of you sitting at the couch, feet kicked up, resting side by side on the coffee table, Eddie moves his foot far enough to just barely knock yours— an attempt to pull your attention away from the screen.

“The show’s almost done,” you say, turning your head towards him but keeping your eyes on the TV.

“The pharmacy closes at eight.”

“I feel fine,” you shrug.

Moving your feet from the tabletop, Eddie copies you, putting his feet down on the floor, but he goes a step further, sitting up from the couch. He stands, facing you, but you keep your eyes on the TV, ignoring him fivefold. He props his hand on his hip, arm bent at the elbow, one foot tap away from looking like someone's mother. You ignore him tenfold. 

“You want to stay here while I go?”

“Go where?”

“You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?” he laughs. You can hear the amusement in his voice. His hand drops from his hip and you look at him to see the smirk written across his face.

“Go where?” you double down. Huffing a laugh from his nose, he turns, opting to get himself ready, and begrudgingly, you do too. With your feet dragging through every step, you get in the car, and Eddie drives the two of you to the pharmacy. 

────────────

Under the bright, white fluorescent lights of aisle number eight, you and Eddie stare your potential future down. An unnerving amount of tests sit on the shelf at eye level, some with cute little daisy packaging, others looking sterile and pharmaceutical. 

“Why are there so many options?” Eddie asks, picking one up and flipping it to read the back. You look at the price tags and your mouth nearly drops to the floor. 

“Why are they so expensive?” you ask, taking the box out of his hand and putting it back on the shelf.

“Hey,” he objects, reaching out for it. “That one says response in twenty minutes.” 

“That one is, like, twice as much as that one,” you argue, pointing to another test.

“Yeah,” he says, grabbing the test from the shelf. “That one says a two hour response,” he continues, pointing at the exaggerated font on the front of the test in his hand, waving it in your face. “I’d rather be shitting my pants for twenty minutes than two hours.”

He’s acting normal, braggart and teasing, you can’t muster that same energy. Your stomach swirls and squeezes and does everything it shouldn’t do. Nerves or nausea, you’re not sure. A ceiling light flickers two aisles over and you can’t stand being here.

“Maybe…” you pause. Your hands start to turn clammy. “Maybe we shouldn’t get any,” you say, shifting in place. You turn to fully face Eddie, looking at him as he has a boxed test pulled close to his face, reading the side of it. “Maybe we should just go home.” 

Eddie turns to you, brows furrowed. “No— what? You just spent the whole day throwing up, we gotta get something,” he says, looking at you like you’re insane. The ceiling light flickers again and you definitely feel insane. 

It wasn’t the whole day, it was just the morning, you nearly object until you realize it doesn’t help your case. 

Bringing your hand to your mouth, you chew on the edge of your nail, distracting yourself from the tremble in your limbs. From left to right and back again, you flutter your sight over the different options. There’s too many. Too many and it’s overwhelming. 

“Hey,” Eddie says softly. The weight of his arm settles around your shoulder, pulling you so that your bicep meets the edge of his chest in a half hug. “Don’t be nervous,” he continues, in a low coo. You step inwards, turning the half hug into a full hug. Taking a deep breath, all you can muster is a short nod of your head. 

His arm moves from your shoulder, hand grazing down to your mid back. Focusing your attention on his touch, you take another deep breath, inhaling his familiar scent. Smoky, woodsy, and a contradicting sweetness from whatever shampoo that was probably the cheapest and on sale.

“We’ll be fine, remember? You probably just ate something bad.” he says. He rubs his hand up between your shoulder blades and back down. You want to believe him, you really do. 

“I’m scared,” you say quietly.

“Why?” he asks, voice just as small as yours. 

“It… it doesn’t feel like I ate something bad.” You swallow down the jagged edges of emotion that your voice gets stuck on. His hand, mid rub, pauses and you pull away enough to see him. His eyes glaze over with something you’re unsure of before he quickly blinks it back. 

“Well…” he swallows. “What does it feel like then?” he asks, brows turned upwards. He's nervous, you’re nervous, and the light flickers again, reminding you where you are. 

“Can we go home? Please.” Your nerves become far too jittery and it’s starting to turn into nausea again. Your stomach lurches and Eddie watches you for another moment, eyes searching yours until he nods, patting your back before pulling away.

“Yeah. I’ll just buy this one and we can go.” He takes your hand in his, twenty-minute-test in the other, and he guides you to the front of the store. 

────────────

“It’s almost nine now, so it’ll be ready at…”

“9:20,” you say when Eddie takes a concerning amount of time doing the math. The ride home was quiet. Being out of the fluorescence helped your nerves, and as you got further and further away from the pharmacy, and closer and closer to Eddie’s place, you started to feel normal again. 

“I knew that, I was just… thinking,” he responds. He sits up from where he was crouching in front of the dresser, using it as a table to put together the test. 

Decidedly, it was just nerves that had put you on edge, that’s it. The test is nothing but precautionary, just to rule out what could have made you sick. Eddie joins you, sitting on the edge of the bed. 

“Uh— before, we get a response,” he pauses, wringing his hands together. His eyes move down to his lap and your chest tightens. “I just want to say that whatever it is… I don’t regret what we did… and whatever it is, I’ll be there… for my girls.” 

He looks at you, his smirk widening by the second, and you can’t help the snort of laughter from escaping. Like every other ill-timed joke that he's pervasively told over the last month or so, he gets you, and you appreciate it this time as it lessens the gnawing feeling in your belly.

Despite the joke, when you really look at him, with his lips spread in a smile, his eyes swarm with the same trepidations that you feel. He’s a comedian but even the comedian is human. You try your hand at lightening the mood. 

“What if it’s not a girl?” you ask, playing along. He smiles, bumping his shoulder into yours as he huffs a breath from his nose. Shaking his head in an almost mirthful way you think you were successful until his demeanour drops into something serious. 

“What did you mean earlier?” he asks “When you said that it doesn’t feel like you ate something bad?”

“I just— I don't know. I just, I thought I had a feeling,” you explain. Eddie hums, eyes now set forward on the test. “I think I was just nervous, that’s all.” 

Twenty minutes has never felt longer. Eddie accepts your answer at face value but doesn’t do much to show it. He doesn't do much in general, and neither do you. At the ten minute mark, his hand found your knee. At the fifteen minute mark you were curled under his arm, resting your head on his chest as he rubbed up and down your arm. In the last minute, you had taken his hand in yours, playing with his fingers as you watched the seconds tick by on his Casio watch. 

21:19:59 turned to 21:20:00, and you turned to Eddie. Synchronously and in silence, you parted from each other. He stood and you sat. He moved to the dresser, and you held your breath. 

With his back facing you, you watch with unblinking eyes as he reaches for the instructions. Humming to himself, your lungs ache. You try to parse the meaning behind his tone, or vibration, or pitch — or anything that could give way to what he's seeing, but it’s far too vague. Taking a deep and vital breath, filling your choking lungs, you're just about to ask, mouth already open when he speaks.

“It says negative.”

“It says negative?” you parrot in disbelief.

“Negative.” Eddie firmly answers.

There’s no way. You should feel a weight lift from you, but, evident avoidance aside, that feeling is still there, stronger if anything.

“I…” you start, interrupting the loud beat of silence. “I’m not saying I want to be pregnant… but I think it’s wrong, Eddie.”

“Wrong? How could it be wrong?” he says, turning around to look at you. 

“I don’t know,” you shrug. “Aren’t they, like, only guaranteed to work like 95% of the time?”

“That’s still a lot of the time,” he says, copying your shrug.

“Yeah… but—” you shake your head, stopping yourself. This is what you wanted right? Why would you fight against the answer that you mostly hoped for? That you were already certain about in the car barely an hour ago. “Whatever. It’s probably right. I think… I think I’m just… tired.”

Eddie nods, agreeing with you. He turns enough to set the test down, abandoning cleanup for another time— gross, but when he asks you if you’re going to sleep over, you willingly ignore the unsanitary act of leaving a used pregnancy test to sit and simmer bacteria growth. 

“You gonna sleep here?”

“Can I?’

“Of course,” he laughs.

────────────

If it were a peaceful morning, you would have woken up to the warm, red tinted sun coming into Eddie’s room through the maroon coloured bed-sheet-turned-blinds. 

If it were a peaceful morning you would have woken up to shared warmth, his arm just barely tossed over your hip, hand resting in the dip of your waist. 

If it were a peaceful morning you would have been able to bask in the meaning of having him beside you— what it meant beyond just shared warmth, what it meant beyond friendship. 

If it were a peaceful morning, oh, if it were a peaceful morning…

If it were a peaceful morning, you wouldn’t have woken up to rising bile in your throat and your heart hammering in your chest. It's not a peaceful morning, it's a race against time. With your hand cupped to your mouth, ripping yourself from the shared tangled sheets, tripping your way to the bathroom over the crap on the floor, time almost wins. 

You made it by a stroke of luck with not a second to spare.

────────────

“It must be the flu,” you had croaked weakly. Eddie nodded, looking at you with tired eyes that had been startled awake by your fumbling and awful retching.

“Yeah, it’s definitely the flu.” It was not a whole hearted agreement, but there was no way any bad food would still be in your system. And with a negative pregnancy test, the flu is the only answer. Obviously.  

The next day, in the quietness of your apartment, you kept a preemptive bowl next to your bed, just in case.

Thank god you did because it was the worst it’s been yet, and with your temperamental luck, you would not have made it to the bathroom this time.

────────────

“Hello?” Eddie answered from the other end of the telephone line. 

Your untouched breakfast sits on the table as you stand in front of your wall-hanging phone, leaning against the counter to stop yourself from keeling over entirely. 

“It's me.” 

“Oh, hey, didn’t think I’d hear from you so early, what's up?” His near chipper attitude is grating and if you could strangle someone through the phone you might have muscled up the last of your strength and considered it. 

“I’m still sick.” If you sound as awful as you feel, and equally as annoyed, it's because you are every terrible emotion in the dictionary. You are the essence of a bad mood, a side effect of how sick you’ve been.

“Shit—” he cursed. “I have work in thirty but I can stop by after?”

“Yeah, you already told me you were working,” you snark, because obviously he has work. It’s Monday.

“Do you want me to stop by after?

“I'm just telling you that I’m still sick.”

The call lulls and you can hear a slight rustle from the other end.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“Why are you sorry?”

“Because you’re sick and I feel bad,” he says, voice turning up like he's asking you if that is an alright answer. It’s not, and you twirl the phone cord between your fingers, distracting yourself from scoffing and saying something you know you’ll regret. 

The call lulls for another moment and he clears his throat, coughing right into the receiver. 

“Uh— aside from being sick… everything else okay?” he asks tentatively, pausing too frequently that it annoys you, even more so than you already are.

“I’m fine, I just feel like garbage.”

“Nothing else bothering you? I have a minute, we can talk?”

“I said I’m fine.”

“You’re— and don’t bite my head off— but you’re not on your period?”

“Why would you ask that?” You meet his stupidity with a harsh and rightfully deserved defensiveness. “Don’t you think I would tell you if I was? You know, all things considered.” 

His voice raises as he comes to his own defence. “Well, I just thought… 'cause you thought that maybe there was a chance that the test was wrong, but then we agreed it wasn’t and…”

“And?”

“And you’re in a bad mood.”

You hang up the phone and when it rings again, you let it. 

────────────

Eddie spent the whole day being eaten alive by his thoughts. You said you had a feeling, and Eddie knows you well enough to know you wouldn’t joke around about stuff like this. He would, he has, but you wouldn't.

Since the moment you told him that you weren’t on birth control, he had been thinking about it. Hypothetically, having a kid with you wouldn’t be the worst. He’d actually… like it… maybe? Would he say that to you? No, but it's not an awful thought.

Sure he made jokes out of it, but that was just his ill mannered way of accepting the fact that he kind of, maybe, potentially, would like having a kid with you… and being more than just friends. But he could never tell you that, so he made stupid, stupid jokes. 

But now that having a baby with you is less hypothetical, he’s fucking scared. Not because it’s with you, but because he might be having a fucking baby. That’s terrifying in and of itself. 

When you first started feeling sick, he let himself really believe for about an hour that maybe you had eaten something bad, but in his heart of hearts, he knew. There was no way. Four weeks and 3 days after he came inside you— not that he's keeping track of the days— and you’re suddenly experiencing ‘food poisoning’, even though you didn’t eat anything particularly abnormal or poison-like?

You’re pregnant. So fucking pregnant. There’s no way you’re not. 

“Hey, Bill. You have kids, right?” Eddie had asked as he sat down at the break table with one of his more favourable colleagues. 

Bill, more or less his mentor— or more eloquently put, the kind soul that's been helping him work his way up to being an actual mechanic and not just the guy who cleans and sweeps up after them like he’s been doing for the last year and a bit. He’s an older gentleman, doesn’t do much small talk, is in a permanent old man bad attitude, but he’s a good guy— reminds him of Wayne at times. Eddie trusts him enough, especially not to go talking about him around town. 

“Uh-huh. Grandkids too,” he answers, barely looking up from his newspaper. Eddie knew this of course, but he couldn't think of any other way to approach the topic. 

“Right, sorry,” Eddie apologizes, wringing his hands out of nervousness and dragging out the point of interrupting Bill’s lunch break.  

“You gonna be a father?” Bill asks bluntly.

Father? Eddie's familiar with a particular ‘F’ word, uses it way too fucking much in fact. Father, on the other hand, is an ‘f’ word that was barely in his vocabulary, he could go weeks without letting that word pass through his thoughts, let alone it being a descriptor of his very own character. 

Eddie’s eyes widen, mouth dropping open as his breath stutters like a kid getting caught red handed. “No.” he stumbles to answer. “Uh— maybe. I don’t know. We don’t know.”

“So what are you askin’?”

“Your girlfriend— uh, wife—”

“Wife,” Bill answers with an annoyed ring to it. 

“Right, your wife… What was she like when she got pregnant?” 

Bill shakes his head, ignoring the question. “Did she take a test? They have those now. Can buy ‘em at the store,” he gruffs.

“We did, but it was negative. She… she said they’re wrong sometimes though, and she thought that… she thought that maybe it was wrong?”

Bill sets down his newspaper, the edges of both his fists meeting the surface of the table top. He looks to Eddie, catching his flighty eye contact, giving him his full attention.

“Morning sickness?”

“She’s been sick the last couple of days.”

“Hormonal?”

“Hormonal?” Eddie asks, quirking a brow. Bill rolls his eyes, not unlike how Wayne has done time after time.

“Bad mood? Mood swings?”

“Kind of?”

“I won’t go into detail because I respect my wife,” Bill says, eyeing Eddie through slanted eyes. “Any changes that aren’t to do with her mood?” he asks, looking down the slope of his nose.

“Huh?” Eddie thinks hard, trying to decipher what Bill means. Bill gives Eddie an encouraging nod that quickly turns short-tempered.

“Her body? Any changes?” Bill grumps.

“Oh.” Eddie’s eyes go wide. “Uh— I don't know. She’s not really my girlfriend, we’re just friends.” 

“Just a friend you got pregnant?” Bill’s near-permanent-scowl breaks into a smile, lips turning at the corners in a sadistic way, eyes gleaming with taunting amusement. Eddie feels his palms start to sweat. 

“So you think she’s pregnant?”

“I think you’re up shits creek with a turd for a paddle, kid. Gettin’ a friend pregnant,” he scoffs, shaking his head as he laughs to himself. He fixes his newspaper back upright, picking up where he left off in the classifieds. 

“Well, we’re good friends. I— she… we—” Eddie thinks about telling him that it’s you— Bill knows of you. Eddie’s talked about you enough, but he bites his tongue for the same reason that he didn’t go to Wayne about this— it would be all, ‘just ask her out’, ‘quit pussyfootin’ ‘round it,’ but he doesn’t get it, he can’t just ask you out. He—

“You like her more than a friend.” Bill says, making Eddie freeze. He opens his mouth to speak, to deny, to confirm, to anything, but nothing comes out. “Oh you got it bad, huh?” Bill continues with a teasing smile.

“C’mon, it’s not—” Eddie tries to object but Bill sees right through it. 

“You love her?”

“I…” Eddie swallows, thinking over his answer. “I don’t know…maybe?”

“Well, you got an interesting journey ahead of yous if she really is pregnant,” he laughs again.

And with that entirely unhelpful conversation, Eddie spent the rest of the day not only ruminating on you being pregnant, but now, his feelings for you as well. 

────────────

After work he went straight home, showered, got redressed in sweats and the cleanest shirt he could find and beelined straight for your apartment. He made one quick stop at the pharmacy but quicker than even he anticipated, he was at your front door. 

He knocked, and then there you were, opening the door for him, not exactly smiling— but not looking angry either, or sick, which is a good start.

Greeting him with a quiet ‘hello’, you opened the door wider. He stepped into your apartment, and like he mentally rehearsed, he leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to your cheek. Before he could look at your reaction, he turned, hiding his face behind the curtain of his still damp hair, and kicked his shoes off. 

He’s just trying to get back on your good side. After this morning— your bad mood, and then him only making it worse by asking if you were on your period, which he knew you weren’t because you said that it's been weird since you stopped birth control but… yeah, he’s just trying to get on your good side, definitely not anything more than that. 

Clearing his throat and praying his cheeks aren’t as flushed as they feel, he tries to move on. “How’re you doing?” he asks. You spare him, and you don’t mention the kiss nor give him any weird reactions— which is good, right? You would tell him off if you didn’t want him to kiss you, right?

“I’m doing fine now,” you reply, turning to lead him to the kitchen. He follows behind, humming an acknowledgement. At your counter is a full, waiting dish that looks like and smells like spaghetti. You sit back in your seat, and he takes the one next to it, putting his brown shopping bag down in front of him. 

He watches you as you bring a forkful of your dinner to your mouth. “You’re eating, you must not be feeling sick anymore?”

“No, I stopped feeling sick around lunch and then I was starving,” you say through a second mouthful, swirling your third bite around the fork. 

“Nice,” he nods. Eddie’s not sure of much, not now, hardly ever, but you feeling better around lunch means you only felt sick in the morning, and you being sick in the mornings falls exactly under the conditions of morning sickness… and that means…

Swallowing down his thoughts in a thick gulp, he reaches for the pharmacy bag. “Well, I bought another test just in case,” he rushes out quickly, moving to take out the good part of his shopping haul to lessen the blow if the test somehow pisses you off. “—and I also bought you—”

“Liquorice! Oh my god and popcorn,” you say excitedly, interrupting him with the loud crinkles of you grabbing for the package of candy, quickly ripping it open. 

Eddie watches you closely, the way your eyes light up for some of your favourite foods. He was taking a risk, buying you snacks when he knew that you’ve been sick but it was that or flowers and flowers seemed a little too… forward?

Your reaction to the snacks though, it’s not abnormal, but it’s not exactly normal either… a bit too… ravenous? To be fair, you were sick and now you’re feeling better, maybe you are just extra hungry…. But then again, there's also your bad mood earlier and sure you felt like shit from being sick, but you were usually pretty happy whenever you talked to him. He wasn’t used to all of these… mood swings.

Symptom after symptom, his thoughts finally bubble out. “I think you should take the test again,” he says, interrupting you as you rip open the bag of popcorn. You pause and he holds his breath.

With a shrug, you resume your movements, reaching into the bag and grabbing a handful. “But I feel fine?” you say, waving Eddie off.

“I think… maybe just in case?”

“Here, sit down, I’ll get you some spaghetti,” you ignore him, standing from your seat. “It’s so good, I swear. This is my second plate full.” You grab a dish from the cupboard, serving some up from a pot on the stove top without waiting for a reply from Eddie— not that he had one, he was too stunned by your unconcerned mood to think of one. 

Adding a slice of garlic bread to the side of the dish, you place it down in front of him, quickly moving back to your own seat to dig into the popcorn and finish your own meal. 

“You didn’t go to work today?” he asks after mumbling a polite thank you.

“No, I called in. When I got the promo, I got like six extra sick days, plus vacation time, so I figured I might as well use them,” you shrug indifferently.

“Yeah,” Eddie nods, taking a quick glance at you before looking back to his plate of food, moving his fork around the plate absentmindedly. “Do you happen to have… better insurance with your job now?” he asks, attempting to match your aloofness.

You pause your fork before shoving it in your mouth, opting to turn to look at Eddie. He purposely avoids your eye contact, continuing to swirl his fork in his food.

“Why?”

“Just curious,” he shrugs. “Whenever I get my promo—” he pauses. “—if I get the promo, Coop gives out some shitty insurance plan. Was just wondering what you were getting these days,” he continues nervously.

“I have insurance.”

“Good.”

“Why’s it good?” you ask, squinting your eyes at him.

“Is it not good? You get sick, you don’t have to pay as much— I think that’s objectively good.”

“Fine,” you relent. You stare at him for another moment, but when you finally go back to your food, Eddie lets out a long breath that he was holding in before going back to his food.

He finishes his plate while lost in a daze of thoughts. There’s no way you weren’t pregnant. Absolutely no way. He doesn’t know much about pregnancy, that’s for sure, but this is checking off every single box in his very limited knowledge of symptoms. 

He only withdrew from his head when he felt you staring at him yet again. You had pushed your plate back on the counter, head resting in the palms of your hands as you watched him intently with a particular glint of something in your eyes, something that he’s only seen two other times.

“Hi?” he says shyly, cheeks tingeing pink. 

“You kissed me on the cheek when you came in,” you state.

“Yeah, I did,” he nods, cheeks deepening to crimson under your close watch. 

“Do you want to stay the night?” you ask, stretching your leg out under the counter, running your foot along his shin.

Eddie chokes on his food before looking at you with wide eyes. Elbow bent to cover his mouth as he clears his throat from his sputtering, his eyebrows raise high, hiding under his bangs as he works through your suggestion. 

“Like stay the night or just stay the night?” he asks, eyes burning into you out of shock. 

“I just kept thinking about before… and, you know…” you say, shrugging, hooking your foot around his calf.

“So like, stay the night?” he asks, eyes glimpsing down at your outstretched leg. 

With a sly smile, you nod your head making Eddie’s eyes grow even wider.

“Are you sure?” 

“I’m really sure.” 

Eddie takes a final bite of his food before pushing back in his chair. You excitedly stand, taking Eddie’s hand and leading him to your room. 

Maybe it’s a stupid thing to do when you’re both still up in arms about being pregnant, but Eddie would be a fool to say no to you. He physically couldn’t, has never had it in him. It doesn’t help that he really likes you and might potentially love you. And after all, he’s just a simple man. 

────────────

“Harder.” 

Your desirous voice echoing off of wallpapered bedroom walls, airy moans embellishing every thrust, Eddie does his best to give you what you want. Round two and countless of your orgasms later, you’re still begging Eddie to keep going.

Round one was fantastic. Sincerely earth shattering and left him winded and full heartedly wishing he took up track in his freshman year instead of smoking cigarettes. 

The night started with you riding him, insisting that he laid back, and who was he to say no to that? He watched you intently, grasping at your hips with each rise and fall, feeling the way your body nearly trembled over his own as you made yourself feel better and better. He was completely enamoured by the way your mouth rounded into a perfect oval, the way your eyes welled as you rose up and down, enjoying yourself truly and utterly. Then, when he took over, you were begging, whimpering, and moaning for him. He swore he had never came that hard in his life. 

With the long day of worrying and his stress induced sleepless nights wearing on him, he was nearly nodding off when you were on him for round two. It was exciting— you needing him like this, and his cock was kicking up again before he could process it. 

You came again, adding another tally to the growing tab of how many times you’ve come tonight. This time, you were on your hands and knees, back in a deep arch as he watched the recoil of your ass with each of his thrusts. 

The only thing on his mind was you. How you felt so perfect around his cock, how pretty you sounded whining and begging for him to keep going, how beautiful you are, and how badly he just wanted to keep making you feel good, but then it was like a switch flipped in his head. 

He heard it once, how pregnant women would sometimes get really horny. Insatiably horny— and you just kept asking for more, begging for him to keep going. You were cumming and still managing to ask him to keep going. He had never had sex like this before.

His skin that had grown damp throughout the night, covered in a permanent sheen of sweat, now drew dry, just like his mouth. His thighs burned, his calves begged for a break, his balls were aching from staving off his own release, and now there was very little uncertainty in his mind that you weren’t pregnant. 

Mid thrust, you clench around him, stealing his already stolen breath, pulling from his meandering thoughts. He refocuses his gaze on the bounce and jiggle of your ass and the sweet noises singing from your lips before letting his palms slide down the slope of your arched back, giving himself better leverage to keep going. 

There's no doubt in his mind that he can finish this round. Not only would he feel like an asshole if he tapped out now, but he would also feel like the biggest idiot because this has been it for him. This is the orbiting thought in his mind, the exact scenario that he conjures up in his imagination during his alone time. 

Swallowing thickly and taking an open mouth breath, he moves a hand from your back to wrap around your torso, finding your clit with his finger tips. “One more. Gonna give you one more, pretty girl,” he rasps, voice horse and ragged from his near panting. Your back arches even deeper, hips pressing back into his as you let out a wavered moan. 

“Feels so good, Eddie. Love your cock, feels so good,” you cry, taking heavy, moaning breaths between words, your voice staggering with each of his thrusts that push you further up into the mattress. 

“Mhm, know you love it, baby. Sucking me right in, n' so wet for me," Eddie says through exasperated breaths, words coming out babbled from his focus on not cumming as your walls squeeze him harder and harder.

“Want you to cum inside me again,” you whimper out. Eddie doesn’t answer, he just thrusts harder, rolling his hips against your backside, making you moan louder and giving you the last of every ounce of energy he has left in him.

When he feels your pussy start to flutter, tensing, and pulsating around him again, he knows you're close.

“Gonna cum for me, baby?” he breathes, voice only getting lower and more ragged from the absolute marathon of a night.

“Gonna cum, Eddie.” Your voice rises so high in volume that Eddie's certain your neighbours can hear. 

“Cum for me baby, wanna feel you squeeze my cock one last time tonight,” he grunts, starting to feel delusional with the way his head spins. He grips his free hand on your hip, pressing his fingers into your skin and grounding himself to you, trying to push away some of the daze to think clearly. 

Eddie feels your tightness pulling him in almost immediately. He holds off his own release for as long as he can, bringing you through your orgasm until he can’t take it anymore. He pulls out just in time for his own release, sending his cum spurting over your lower back as his chest practically explodes, burning lungs having all the air expelled from them in a wheeze as he stutters through his orgasm. 

After taking a few, long moments to catch his breath, he reaches for the same towel he used earlier, wiping you clean before falling to your side feeling absolutely exhausted.

“Wanted you to cum inside,” you say pitifully, cuddling closer to him.

“Can’t, you're not on birth control, we didn’t have a condom.”

“You did it before,” you pout. 

“Yeah.” Eddie says, exhaling deeply. 

Yeah and now he's 99.9% sure you’re pregnant. 

“It’s late, got work tomorrow,” Eddie says, eyes unwillingly fluttering closed as you push your way closer to him, pressing your bare chest to his, speckling gentle kisses along his neck.

“Are you sure?” you ask, pressing another kiss to his skin. He barely has the energy to respond and you deflate against him with a sigh.

“Baby,” he coos, frowning when he looks at your lower lip jetting out in a pout. As much as he’d love to keep going, he physically could not go for another round. His cock might let him despite it feeling nearly raw from all the friction, but his aching body definitely would not. “Let me just hold you, okay? We can cuddle,” he offers to try to fix your frown. It only works the slightest bit, relaxing the crinkle in between your brows.

He wraps his arms around your waist, pulling you into his hold. You let out a quiet whine at first, clearly upset, but you eventually relax into him, melding to his side. It’s not long before Eddie’s out cold, completely wiped clean of energy. 

────────────

You woke up, ripping yourself from Eddie’s grasp, hand over your mouth, rushing for the bathroom again. Eddie follows behind you, barely alert, but at your side, rubbing your back.

When you were certain everything inside your stomach was gone, you sat back, leaning against the edge of the tub.

“Think I should take that test.” 

“Yeah, I think so too.” 

────────────

With the anticipation of waiting another painstaking twenty minutes, you sit on the ledge of the tub in your bathroom, watching Eddie’s back as he tinkers with the test again. The tailbone pain from sitting on the ceramic edge is nothing compared to the swirling nausea growing from your nervousness.

He had sat with you for a few minutes like the last time, but got up halfway through to get you water. He dallyed in the kitchen for a few minutes, and it was far too casual for you, especially too casual for the dramatic dungeon master himself. It was almost unnerving. 

At the fifteen minute mark, he sat with you again, throwing an arm around your shoulder, and you couldn't help but nuzzle into him. If his casualness was him disguised his nervousness, he doesn’t let on. 

This time, at the twenty minute mark, his watch beeped the grating default Casio alarm, and with the chime of a button being pressed, he stands, turning his back to you as faces the vanity. You don’t follow him, you couldn’t at this point, you feel welded to the tub ledge. 

Unlike last time, he doesn’t look at the instructions. He doesn’t hum. He doesn’t make any noise, he just turns to you, his body blocking the test. You feel your heart rate pick up, but he doesn’t give anything away with facial expressions or body language. 

His mouth opens, he takes a breath, you hold yours once again. 

“Well…” he starts. “You were right.” His tone is flat and you blink, trying to clear your confusion.

“I was right?” 

“Yeah.” he shrugs. “About the last test being wrong.”

“No.” 

“Yup,” he affirms, putting a plosive pop at the end of the word. Too casual.

With your heart pounding in your chest, thumping miles in minutes, you couldn’t process this even if you wanted to, so you don’t. You deny it. 

“You’re lying,” you state, ending your words with a light huff of laughter. Surely, this is all a joke. Eddie’s a comedian, right? Ill-conceived jokes left and right over the last month, this has to be one of them.

He doesn’t smile. His eyes don’t light up. He doesn’t laugh. “Come look,” he says, beckoning you over with a tilt of his head. 

You sit up from the ledge of the tub, moving to stand next to Eddie at the counter. He pulls out the instructions, pointing to a diagram.

“If the liquid turns blue, that means pregnant."

You look at the test, not bothering to look where Eddie points. Blue liquid sits where any other colour should be.

“It’s blue,” you state.

“Pregnant.” 

Pregnant.

The moment is eerily still. In the movies this is where the happy couples jump with excitement. In TV shows, they call family and let them know their good news. In commercials, they celebrate. They hug, they smile, they cry happy tears together. 

Eddie’s your best friend, but you’re not a couple, this wasn’t planned. So you both stand in silence, staring at the positive test.

“What do we do?” you ask, swallowing the lump in your throat.

“We could go get something to eat? I can call out and we can rent a movie or something?”

“Something to eat?” you laugh. It’s positive and he’s thinking about eating?

“Yeah, you should try to eat something,” he shrugs, turning to look at you. 

“Eddie. I’m—” Pregnant, you go to say but the word dies on your tongue. “Why are you not freaking out?” you say, staring at him with wide eyes trying to understand how he’s not affected at all by this. You’ve known Eddie a long time and he’s not exactly the calm and collected type. 

“Well…” he shrugs. “When you said that you thought the first one was wrong, I trusted you more than the test. Believe me, I’ve been freaking out, but now… it’s, kind of, settled in already, I guess.”

“Settled in?” you say, jaw dropping in shock. It’s your body, you were mostly certain you were pregnant— in denial at times, yes, but you knew, yet having it confirmed is still shell-shocking. How has it already ‘settled in’ for him?

“Yeah,” he shrugs. “If you want to keep it, I’m happy. If not, I’ll support you.”

“Happy?” you say, bewildered. 

“Well… yeah. We’ve... we've been friends forever. A kid that’s part you and part me? That’s fucking awesome, how could I not be happy, y’know?” he says, moving backwards to sit on the ledge of the tub. He leans forward with his hands on his knees, watching you with eyes that are too calm. Too, too, too calm about this. 

In your quiet mental chaos, you take a final look at the blue liquid before moving to sit next to him. Your skin prickles with cold shivers but you feel hot all over, like there's a flame of nerves in your belly and a hot air balloon in your chest making each breath feel laboured. 

“I’m…” you stumble over your words. “I— pregnancy is so— Eddie,” you breathe out. Your eyes inevitably start to water.  

“Pregnancy is so Eddie?” he laughs before turning towards you, noticing your eyes turning glossy. His face drops immediately, features turning soft as his brows turning up in concern. “Hey,” he hushes. “It’s okay. We’ll be fine, remember? Everything will be fine,” he assures you, wrapping his arm around your shoulder again, bringing you closer to him in a hug. 

“I know, I just—” you force a breath in your lungs. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”

“You can cry, it's okay,” he says quietly, and unfortunately, each of his nearly-whistled, whispered consonants pulls out a wave of fresh tears from you. His hand rubs over your shoulder and your cheeks only grow damper. “It’s okay to cry,” he repeats and you press your face to the cotton of his shirt. He pulls you in tighter, rubbing your back in long, steady strokes. 

Eddie’s seen you cry more than a handful of times— more than several handfuls of times, but this is substantial— it just feels different. Different because you’re pregnant. You’re going to have a baby. A baby with Eddie. Your best friend Eddie. Eddie, who you’ve had sex with three times. Eddie, who you’ve known forever, who you’ve spent day after day with, as a friend. Friends. You’re pregnant. Holy shit. 

Your mind races and you divert your thoughts before you stray down that road. “It’s gonna be half you and half me,” you say, mostly to yourself, repeating his earlier sentiment. 

“Half you, half me,” he echoes. He presses a kiss to the top of your head and yeah, this is different— different because Eddie doesn’t kiss you on the top of your head. He doesn’t give you kisses on the cheek either. Eddie’s given you noogies, he’s butted foreheads with you, even flicked you on numerous occasions, all particularly during your shared middle school years, but kisses? Kisses are unheard off. What you guys have been doing lately is unheard of. 

“We had sex and now we’re having a baby,” you state plainly, trying to bring any coherency to the situation, desperately needed to hear the unheard of.

“We did and now we are,” Eddie laughs. 

“You came inside me and now there’s a baby in there,” you continue, hearing every syllable of your own voice.

“That’s—” Eddie laughs quietly again. “Yeah, that’s how it works.” 

“I had morning sickness.”

“Yes you did. And mood swings.”

Pause.

“No I didn’t!” you gasp, pulling back from Eddie to look at him with a scowl. 

“You kind of did,” he smiles, dimples set deep in his grin.

“No, I didn’t.”

“You were also insatiably horny. I was getting leg cramps all night because of you,” he says, bopping your nose, making you scrunch it. Asshole.

“I was not ‘insatiably horny,” you scoff, rolling your eyes.

“Well… if it’s any consolation, if you wanted to have sex again, I could cum in you now, ‘cause you can’t get any more pregnant than you already are,” Eddie says matter-of-factly, purposefully batting his lashes, playing up a faux coyness just to get a rise out of you. Such an asshole.

You respond by hitting him in the stomach, followed by pushing him until he almost falls into the tub, grabbing onto the shower curtain to stop himself. 

“Hey— hey, you were the one asking for it!” he defends, corners of his lips turned up in an untimely smirk. 

“I’m never having sex again,” you shriek, burying your face in your hands. 

“Well, let’s not make drastic choices right now,” he says amusedly, bringing you back in for a hug.

“I’m serious. Never again. Not with you, not with anybody. Ever.” 

“Let’s just get some fresh air, maybe we’ll start thinking straight about this,” he laughs, pulling you to stand up and guiding you out of the bathroom.

Pregnant.

tags: @princesatracionera @venuslayla23-blog @mastermindmiko @tlclick73 @yujyujj @josephquinnsfreckles @uselessnewt @animechick555 @prestinalove @sluggzillaa @daisyridleyss (if you want to be tagged for the next part I kindly ask that you please reblog!)

thank you for reading! <3

[goodlucktai]

raised on little light (1/3)

rise of the tmnt word count: 2k pairing: leo & oc i've had this idea rattling around since the rise farewell comic earlier this year made it canon that the turtles had another brother and a sister floating around somewhere. we know who their sister is, so this is my take on that 5th brother. i hope you enjoy meeting him <3 big thank you to @soldrawss and @mykimouser for enabling my insane behavior (and thank you again to sol for drawing the art i included in this chapter!!!) title borrowed from northern attitude by noah kahan read on ao3

x

2020

Leo regretted his last words as soon as they left his mouth.

“Hero moves are totally your style”? As if Raph doesn’t have enough issues already.

But what he meant—what he would have tried to explain if there was time—was that Raph is his hero. He’s always been Leo’s hero. And if Leo could be anything like him, even for a second, even if it was the last thing he ever did, then he could be satisfied with that. 

It’s a silly thing to be stuck thinking about, laying on a torn up chunk of earth with a monster ominously lumbering somewhere below, looking for where it threw its toy. Laying there, feeling every bruise and broken bone, and hoping that he didn’t hurt his big brother’s feelings.

They’ll be okay, Leo thinks, trying to make it be the thing that gives him courage instead of just more homesickness. They’ll miss me, maybe for a long time, but they’ll be okay.

Leo’s supposed to be fighting for his life, but it’s all he can do to keep a grip on the photo in his hand, the only thing in this entire dimension worth holding onto. It’s all he can do to keep his eyes open when every blink is longer than the last. 

It feels like enough of a rebellion. The Krang looked annoyed that he was still breathing the last time it batted him through the void like a fly, which gives Leo the idea that he should probably be dead by now. He feels a detached sort of pride at how grown-up he’s being about all this. Better late than never

Leo waits for the Krang to come for him, dripping his blood and sneering his daddy’s nickname for him hatefully as it does, and hopes he made his family proud. 

Leo hopes he’ll go wherever Gram-gram is. It would be nice to know someone when he gets there. 

Movement in his periphery snags Leo’s attention. His brain starts throwing up warning flags, signaling danger—anything moving around in here is another parasite, or a Krang hound, nothing he’ll want to be sprawled out on a silver platter for—but he can’t summon any urgency. 

He turns his head and finds himself looking up at another turtle. 

It’s the very last thing he expected to see. They both just stare at each other for a moment. 

The newcomer appears to be a few years older than Leo, based on the broadness of their shoulders, and half a head taller. Their skin is more gray than green and their plastron is so pale it’s closer to white than yellow. Their carapace, what Leo can see of it, is a deep blue-black and they’re covered, skin and shell both, in white spots. Two of the spots on their face give the impression of eyebrows lowered in a glare, but they don’t seem angry at him.

The turtle is completely unfamiliar to Leo, which is saying something. He thought he and his family had the monopoly on… this whole situation. 

Disquieted, Leo remembers that he’s supposed to be the only turtle here. That was a very significant part of the decision he’d made. 

It must be a hallucination, he decides, instantly comforted by his own reasoning. That makes sense. He just wished that if his mind was going to conjure him some dying company it could at least be someone he knows. An imaginary Mikey or Donnie or Raphie for one last hug. One last affectionate forehead bonk. An “I still love you,” if that wasn’t asking too much. 

Don’t you cry now, he scolds himself sternly when his eyes start to blur and burn. It’s not about you. 

With a resounding crash of metal against stone, the Krang finds them at last. He’s snarling something that Leo is too slow to piece together before he cuts himself off—surprising the hell out of Leonardo by acknowledging the hallucination. That’s not how that works. 

“Another pest ,” the Krang hisses. His serrated teeth glint when he draws his gummy lips back in an ugly smile. His tone is oily and unpleasant when he adds, “You’re less colorful than those other ones. I would have remembered seeing you. Where were you when your accomplices were fumbling about in my Technodrome like the stupid creatures they are?”

“We won,” Leo reminds the alien, even though it makes him cough. His lips are warm and wet now but he won’t think about why. “Blew up your ugly ship. Who looks stupid now?” 

“Shut your mouth!” the Krang roars, going from slimy to homicidal in about three seconds. Leo cringes, every ounce of animal instinct in his body urging him to hide in his shell and ride the rest of this nightmare out. 

The spotted turtle snaps, “Don’t talk to him.” 

It would have made sense if he was looking at Leo when he said it. Don’t engage, don’t bait the big monster that could kill you with as much effort as it takes you to blink, et cetera ad nauseum. If only he’d had a nickel for every time he heard that. 

But instead the turtle is looking at the Krang, and he’s radiating the kind of cold-blooded murder that you mostly only see in movies. He has one arm flung out in front of Leo like he actually means to use it to stop the Krang from getting any closer. 

“Don’t even look at him,” he goes on, sounding seconds away from baring his teeth. 

This guy is significantly unaware of the danger he’s facing, and Leo ought to warn him about what enormous clusterfuck he’d just wandered into. Leo ought to say he appreciates the reptile solidarity, but you should definitely run, new guy. 

But this probably isn’t actually happening outside of his own head. And besides, Leo has to focus really hard on his numb fingers so he doesn’t drop his photo. 

“I’ll look where I please,” the Krang says, as unbothered by the hallucination as he was by Leo’s entire family. “Starting with that fool head of yours. I’m interested in whatever backdoor led you here. If it’s my way out, well —”

Adrenaline surges through Leo, and he’s hardly aware of moving before he’s lurching up and shouting out, “No!” 

He can’t get out, he can’t. Leonardo won’t be able to trick him again. He won’t be there to help this time. 

“I do have one thing for you,” the spotted turtle interrupts to say, reaching over his shoulder for what turns out to be a compound crossbow strapped to his back. 

Leo doesn’t know a lot about archery so it’s weird his fictional turtle does, crank-cocking the weapon like it’s an extension of his arm. He watches cluelessly as the turtle slides something very purple out of his jacket pocket and notches it into the groove where the bolts are supposed to go. It’s definitely not a bolt, but it’s a piercing-type projectile of some kind, and it fits in the crossbow like it was designed with crossbows in mind. 

The turtle aims the bow at the Krang, who clicks the claws of his metal suit on the ground the way Splinter would drum his fingers on the kitchen counter when he was waiting on the microwave. The Krang looks condescending and mildly curious, like he’s watching dumb little animals do something they’re not trained to do. 

“He told me to tell you he’s sorry he couldn’t be here to see this part,” the spotted turtle says, and then shoots without a second of hesitation or unnecessary dramatics. 

The Krang bats the projectile away, or tries to, but it explodes on contact with his armor, and suddenly all Leo can smell is burning metal. Then burning meat. 

The Krang begins to scream, clawing at something defiantly purple with a mind of its own that eats straight through him the effortless, immediate way corrosive acid chews through soft tissue. It moves like nanotech, covering as much of the Krang as possible in a manner of seconds and clearly designed to consume whatever it touches like a school of cartoon piranhas. 

Donnie would love it, color scheme and all. 

The Krang stumbles drunkenly, howling like a creature possessed, and Leo and his turtle companion both watch silently until he tips over the edge of the hunk of torn earth they’re on. Gravity is nonexistent in this dimension, so he doesn’t so much fall as sort of drift in another direction while he’s distracted with the purple stuff that’s doing its best to eat him alive. 

The last handful of minutes have been so bizarre that it’s actually going pretty far in convincing Leo that none of it happened for real. The Krang hasn’t actually found him yet. This is clearly a dream. Or a pre-death electrical storm as the neurons in his brain fire up to fizzle out.  

He tips his head to the side again to stare up at the archer, who is putting his bow away with perfect confidence that whatever that purple thing was, it will do the job. 

“Who are you?” Leo asks stupidly. 

“Gio,” the probably imaginary turtle replies.

Leo’s mouth runs off before he can stop it. “Just Gio? Like Cher?”

God, he thinks. That was stupid, Leo. Not the time or place, Leo. You’re in the prison dimension. You’re dying here and you can’t even cut the jokes now? Raph was so right about you.

But the imaginary turtle surprises him by smiling slightly, the corners of his mouth pulling just barely upwards in a way that somehow completely transforms him. Not the time or place for jokes or smiling at them but here they are. Like company.

“Giorgio Hamato,” ‘Gio’ says. That lands in Leo’s ears as something remarkably worth making a lot of noise over, but he can’t begin to unpack it. And after a second, he forgets what the remarkable part was. His mind is a deck of cards that got shuffled too enthusiastically and ended up scattered all over the floor. Gio doesn’t seem to mind when Leo just blinks at him, adding, “I’m here to take you home.”  

“Pretty sure Uber doesn’t come out this far,” Leo mumbles, the words a paint smear, all thick and wet and muddy. One of his teeth feels broken and it’s keeping him awake, a blistering ache that cracks through the back of his mouth like lightning. “And I’ve got, like, zero bars.”

This is how I cope, he thinks, watching the bigger turtle absorb the second bad joke in as many minutes. Leo’s blinking fast so he doesn’t cry. He’s trying to focus on anything but the pain radiating through his whole body, and the swallowing darkness all around him, and the ruins of ancient metal ships looming where they float unrestricted by gravity, and the ballistic howls of a pissed-off pink alien still dealing with whatever the heck this Gio guy did to him.

He can’t focus on any of that because all of that is scary and he’s already terrified. He needs to not be terrified because he doesn’t want to be that kind of ghost when he haunts his family. He wants to be the friendly, funny kind, the kind that gets to stay at the end of the movie, the kind that will make silly faces at Mikey so he doesn’t get scared, and leave sticky notes for Donnie to remember to charge his phone and drink enough water, and cover Raphie with an extra blanket while he’s asleep because it gets cold at night but he always leaves his bedroom door open for them.

If Leo’s friendly and funny, if he helps, he’ll get to stay. He didn’t get to stay the first time, so this time he has to make it stick.

Larger hands wrap around his. It doesn’t register for a second, and then it does in a big way.

Leo jerks his head up. Moving just that much hurts like his ribs are broken all the way down and the bones in his leg have all melted into liquid agony, but it clears some of the fog away.

Someone is holding his hands in the prison dimension.

An alien like the Krang wouldn’t know the first thing about the human gesture, the togetherness of it, so it’s not some mean trick that’s being played. And it can’t be an imaginary turtle that Leo dreamed up, after all, because kindness would be the last thing he’d give himself.

Possibly very real Gio says, “Fuck Uber. Whatever that is. And don’t repeat that word.”

The punchy breath Leo chokes in is going to punch out again as a laugh or a sob. Leo squeezes the bigger turtle’s hands, photo crinkling between them, suddenly tethered to something in this void and hysterically certain that he’ll die for real if Gio lets go.

“I’m sixteen.” Leo’s voice wobbles. He doesn’t know what to react to first. He doesn’t understand how this is happening. He holds on. “I can say the fuck word if I want to, I’m practically an adult.”

Gio’s face does something it hurts to look at. His eyes are dark and sincere, the shape of them entirely familiar. There’s a warmth inside him that permeates the gloom. A star belonging to a much larger galaxy, but more significantly, belonging to the same crooked constellation Leo belongs to.

I know you, he thinks, surprised by the truth of it. I do. Where have you been?

“We’re going home,” Gio says, the certainty in his voice like one of those huge stones a river parts around, unmoved by the currents and crashing water. “I know the way out. Don’t worry about it. Close your eyes.”   

The worst thing that could happen has already happened, Leo thinks. There’s no reason not to trust him. There’s nothing left to lose. He closes his eyes.

He feels himself drawn in, tucked against the built-in armor of a turtle chest, head resting on a broad shoulder. He’s been carried like this a million times before. He didn’t think it would happen again. Somewhere along the line, he’d been picked up for the last time and put down for the last time, and now he’s here, where no one who loves him can reach him, to scoop him up when he falls asleep on the sofa and take him to bed.

But Gio lifts him up like he’s still a kid. The Krang is bellowing hateful promises in between the grating shrieks of pain, promises of what he’ll do when he gets his hands on Leo, but all of that is far away. 

Leo isn’t afraid anymore. He isn’t going to be a ghost.

He’s pretty sure he’s going home.