#only took till night 4 and they were sleeping in the same bed

[henneseyhoe]

Home For Christmas

Terry Richmond x BLACK!FEM!reader

WARNINGS: none, lil bit of angst if you squint, fluff, short.

SUMMARY: Your husband, Terry, promises to be home to you and your daughters for Christmas, but will he really?

✮✮✮✮

The snow outside lit up the yard in the moonlight, frost nipping at the windowsill the more the weather dropped. There wasn’t a soul outside, not even the little black cat you saw wandering around late at night. Even she couldn’t be bothered with the harsh cold.

The house was warm and so was the hot chocolate you cuddled in your hand, but nothing could warm you the way you needed to be warmed. Nothing could make you feel the Christmas spirit you wanted to feel.

You missed your husband like crazy and your kids did too. They could feel the sadness radiating off of your body and it didn’t make it better for them, but you couldn’t help it. Terry had been stuck in another state for work, promising that he’d be back on time for Christmas, yet, he hadn’t shown and it was 5 hours to 12.

The roads had closed and from what you heard, till further notice. Flights were being canceled left and right, hell, you were nearly snowed into the house, only a small walk way you shoveled earlier prevailing, but even that was starting to freeze over a bit.

“Mama” Your 7 year old daughter, Tiana, called for you, looking up from her laying position in your lap.

You gave her your attention, a soft smile spreading on your face. She looked just like you when she was upset. You felt bad that she was sad too, but it was the cutest face she made that made you smile.

“I thought daddy said he’d be here by nowww” She whines, her baby sister, Jasmine, almost immediately getting annoyed as this was her fifth time mentioning what she thought was the obvious.

“Ana, you have to wait! Mommy told you already” Her little finger pointed at sister with agitation on her face that made you wanna laugh, but that’d just get you scolded by ‘little miss thinks she’s mommy’ too and you didn’t think you had the energy to correct it tonight.

She had so much attitude before she even turned 4, all of it inherited right from Terry when it came to people she cared for the most, a trait of loyalty you were sure Terry also took part in.

Before they could even get to arguing, you set your mug down on the windowsill and gathered them both up next to you, their matching onesies getting all bunched up from mixing in one spot for so long.

“Aht, cut it out you two. Daddy means well when he tells us things, but…maybe he just got the times wrong. If he isn’t back by tomorrow, then we’ll just have to forgive him, okay?”

Your youngest’s eyes quickly fill with tears that pull at your heart strings, her lip poking up with a quiver only Terry could settle at the moment. “So he’s not coming back tonight?”

You sigh. A few more hours of this and you were sure to cry with her.

“How about we wish really hard and go to bed, then see what happens?” Your children were quick to try and disagree while attempting to flee, but you swooped them up into your arms anyway and cuddled them close, giving them their nightly kisses.

Your back may be aching tomorrow from sharing a couch with two children, but they convinced you earlier to be around here to ‘catch santa’ and you couldn’t help but give in with the possibility of Terry not being here and upsetting them further.

Hours ticked by and you counted almost all of them, going in and out of sleep until you were knocked out of your cycle by the sound of boots against hardwood. Your eyes cracked open, seemingly at the same time as the mini-me’s laying on top of you, that followed by a gasp from both of the girls.

You and the kids almost leap from your seats, the sun outside the floor to ceiling windows in the living room making an attempt to blind all three of you, but all of you were on a mission that couldn’t be ruined by sleep still being in your eyes.

“DADDY!!!” The screams of joy were so loud from the kids that you would have thought they were awake all along, not a speck of grogginess in their voice.

Terry toppled over with both of them jumping for his legs, but he still managed to hold them properly, giving them both kisses on their chubby cheeks that they happily accepted. You had no idea how he pulled something like this off, not to mention bringing the rest of their presents from ‘santa’ in without disturbing anyone’s sleep.

“Really?” You ask in disbelief, Terry giving you a shrug before sitting up, sending the two off to pick a present out to open.

You were still curious, a shrug not being enough for you. “How?” You squint, helping him up from the floor.

“Christmas magic, baby. I always find a way”

He smiles and kisses your lips, then leads you to the tree. Again, the explanation wasn’t enough.

“Oh, please! Don’t gimme that, I’m not five, Terry” You complain, pulling his hand off of yours to demand a direct answer.

Terry sighs and looks at you with his arms now crossed, still happy despite being pressed before you even moved to give him a kiss first. “If I told you, you’d call me a liar”

“Well…” You wait, tapping your foot to add on effect.

There was a hint of childishness in his smile, you already knowing this wouldn’t be the answer you wanted either. “Santa brought me”

“….Nigg-”

Before you could even call out bullshit, You were quickly shut up by the presence of your kids, the both of them gasping in awe at what they just overheard being revealed to you.

“You know what…fine” You throw your hands up in defeat and chop it up to what he said, Christmas magic.

✮✮✮✮

As the children settled down and played with their toys, you became stuck to your husbands side like you were glued there, your arms wrapped around him. You admired him while he admired the kids, your tummy fluttering with butterflies similar to when you two first met.

“I really hope you know…” You started, bringing his attention to you.

“Hm?”

“That I love you and your determination to always come through for us, especially your kids, makes me love you even more”

He smiles brightly, his heart skipping beats. “I’m supposed to. Not that I don’t want to also, but I hate to see yall upset. Plus, I couldn’t miss their faces opening their new ballet shoes”

You smile back at him and stand on your tip toes for a kiss, savoring the warmth of his embrace.

“Oh, and I was gonna let them jump you if you were late. They told me not to tell you” You say after pulling from your fifth kiss that day.

“Wooow, straight out the gate? No warning?”

“Mhm! nothing but elbows as soon as you walked through that door”

Terry shook his head with a laugh, already plotting on catching the two off guard with a little roughhousing session.

“It be your own kids”

“Yup. May have told them to get a little lick in for me too”

You shrug, letting him go and walking off into the kitchen, knowing he’d follow like a stray.

“Damn, mama too? What’d I do to her?”

Wrapping his arms around you while still in motion, he mimics your footsteps all the way to the counter.

“Leave me with two hard heads for a week. I got something for you later though”

He smiles against your neck then playfully bites at you, your chin tucking in to protect yourself.

“Don’t threaten me with a good time, Mrs.Richmond”

✮✮✮✮

💌- Merry Christmas! i hope yall enjoyed yalls holiday. Here’s something short and sweet cause i love a good family fic lmao. <3

[orangehalfpeeled]

watched the hideduo stardew valley vod..

[strawberryshortcake0413]

Last Hope chapter 4

Hello everyone :D i have finally decided to upload a chapter i postponed for weeks. Hope yall enjoy it, lmk your thoughts and reactions

Characters:yandere Leon S Kennedy (older version) x reader

Disclaimer: This fanfic contains dark-themed topics, such as kidnapping, depression, suicidal thoughts, non-consent, unwanted pregnancy,etc

Warning: yandere Leon Kennedy, kidnapping, non-consent, depressed reader, manipulation, Stockholm syndrome, unwanted pregnancy, emotional & mental abuse

Chapter1 Chapter2 Chapter3

God. 

You were crazy. You were confused and blind. You didn't know whether it was love or hate. 

Hating your kidnapper seems to be the logical explanation most people would come up with. But again, most of those people had not been kidnapped, nor was Leon S Kennedy the one who did it. 

A few days ago, you had played with his nerves more than ever.

You took a small knife from the kitchen when he allowed you to watch him cook. Trying to be sneaky was harder than it sounds. 

You have been his good girl for a whole month, yet trying to steal a knife to kill him. 

Little did you know, Leon had already noticed your little trick, sneakily putting it in your sleeve while you kissed him.

He was happy that you were showing affection without any fuss at first. But when he saw your true intentions, he was furious. 

That same night you tried to stab him when he was sleeping. Or pretending to be asleep, waiting for the right moment to give you what you were itching for.

To say the least, you got your punishment.

Even though you got him mad a couple times during the months you lived in the isolated house, it was never this bad. It never went as far as Leon refusing to acknowledge you or tamper you like his usual self. 

Humans are social creatures. Communication was the key to survival starting from the ice age to the modern world. People need love, someone to laugh and talk to. Without these, life was darker than the pitch of hell. This what you felt like was happening to you. Leon was the only being you talked, communicated, snuggled in for a long time. 

Now he was trying his hardest ignoring and giving you silent treatment. Thinking more about this situation, it was half funny, half painful. 

If you start from the funny part, he was childish. The one who made sure to comment about how stable and mature for a family was now acting like a spoiled, mad 5 year old. 

At the same time, you realized you were truly alone. Here, in this prison of a house, you at least had someone to give a shit about you at least a bit, even if it was toxic. But thinking about your past life, you had nobody for you.

Hell, if you made a bet with a stranger your mom would stab you from the back if she wanted to have your boyfriend in her bed, it was not a lie you would lose a few bucks. 

You are alone in this miserable life with no one except a mentally ill old man. You were sure he had an addiction problem before by the looks of his face. It's easy to tell when you grew up with one. And worked to help those people, sacrificing everything that had the curse to be yours. 

Guilt was filling the room, almost drowning you till you can’t breathe. Even if he was shit, he still cared for you. Were you this pathetic to try to crawl back in the arms of someone you attempted to murder? Yes, you were. But who cares? Who cares as long as he forgives you? You are just going to pretend everything is fine till everything is not and the cycle starts all over.

You felt even shittier when the memory of you holding the knife and sitting on his lap when he was asleep, ready to slice his throat. If your childhood self saw you like that, she would think you’re a monster. 

But in the end, you were one. That’s why you have no one good enough that is willingly to stay with you. 

You had willingly pushed away someone that actually cared for you without even thinking. How stupid are you to try to do that? You cared and craved the attention that came with him. You were just not used to love that you immediately persuaded it as poison.

He locked you in the same room with no food and water for 3 days. No matter how much you pleaded, he wouldn't budge in. 

“Leon… Daddy… Please…” you begged again. You had already lost count of your whining and were begging for him to let you out. 

“I'm sorry. I won't do it again. Please?” 

Leon signed hearing your whining repeatedly in the morning before he even had his first cup of coffee. Work was already harder these past few days, your whining made it even more irritating. 

Hell. He should even add a little bit of vodka in his coffee since destiny decided to play with him again. 

Leon had already decided the love of his life bumped into him at the hospital, but he was starting to realize it was an illusion his heart made to bear with the pain of real life struggles.

Leon was starting to see the truth that you will never be someone he wanted. All he ever dreamed of was the perfect american dream where he had a beautiful wife and a few kids running around his house. If the Raccoon city event never happened, he wouldn’t even have looked your way. 

You were rude, wild, inconsiderate, and lacked motherly instincts. Leon was not even sure if you thought like a normal person. He was not blind to your personality. When he was carefully selecting you as his future wife and the mother of his kids, he noticed quite a lot of details. 

The way you responded to children crying, someone immature, or confused people asking for help or getting unlucky in life, he took notes of how you stare at them and how you respond with your body language.

He knew you were not a good person. He knew you wouldn’t be a good, caring mother. 

Despite the fact he refused to acknowledge your real self, he had hoped someday you will grow to love him and want to have children of your own. Little did he know, he felt angry at himself for giving you too much hope. 

In his own delusion, Leon thought you completely had given up the thought to escape and run away. Never in a million years, he would have imagined you holding a knife and almost killing him. 

Now, he didn’t even know if you were the right choice to go with for the rest of his life. 

But listening to your pleas, apologizing, and regrets pulled a string in his heart he hadn’t acknowledged since he was twenty something. 

Maybe you realized you were nothing without him. You didn’t have the basic needs of a human if he didn’t bother to notice you. You should be grateful. You should be grateful he takes care of you better than he takes care of himself. You should be grateful he chose to save you from your miserable little life before him.

But hearing your cries changed his already made up mind. It was something he would only do for you. Something he hoped that would change your mind about starting a family. 

Leon stared down at you with a cold glare as you whined pathetically before crawling and hugging his legs as you sobbed like you’re at your father's funeral. 

As much as he loves his parents, only one memory is engraved on his mind from his childhood. He remembers that day, clearer than water. Holding a bare white rose while people stared at the big hole in the ground as his parents were put to peaceful sleep forever without anyone interrupting them again. 

Standing there alone and confused why his parents would never come back. What did his parents do to be killed like that? Still to this day, Leon doesn’t have any idea why his parents were targeted out of all the people in the world.

His main goal is to never let any of his children go through that pain. Not in a single day he had a moment of lasting peace. Why would he not deserve a little dose of happiness others knew the taste more than once? 

You were his last hope. Last hope for a new beginning. To something he can’t have again.

“I’m sorry. Please. Daddy. I love you. Please, forgive me” you cried, sniffing your runny nose while kissing his legs. As much as you would have loved to make comments about his hairy long legs, you were not in the right position to be sarcastic.

“If you try to pull that shit again, your “daddy, i love you” is not going to work again.” he muttered before grabbing your wrists, pulling you up.

“See what happens when you disobey me?” Leon eyed your tired figure from the lack of food, shower and him.  

“I won’t do it again. I promise.” you muttered, hugging him hesitantly. It was a strange feeling for you. Even before you were forced to show affection, you never felt genuine enough to hug a person before. Sometimes rare visitors would hug you, it only gave you ick.

Something about it made me want to cry, while something else was making you angry at Leon. Where did his promise of taking care of you no matter what went when he was mad? Were you just a little toy for him to abandon when life gives him something sour? Is he someone that would abandon you at your lowest just like everyone else?

Walking into the kitchen you were greeted with a vegetable soup with a slice of bread, poured in the plastic bowl he bought for you specifically. 

“Eat well.” Leon muttered as he sat next, watching you devour the food. 

“Slower. It's not good for the body”

After a few minutes of eating, he brought you into the bedroom, showering you carefully before helping you put on a fresh set of pajamas.

“Sleep” Leon muttered as he laid beside, kissing your temple. 

Warm, soft blanket made you feel like a newborn being swaddled in its mothers tight embrace. After spending 3 nights on the cold flooring of the house, the bed felt like heaven.

Not to mention the fact, after a while Leon would occasionally rub your clit through your pants or give your nipple a hard pinch enough to awaken something in your belly.

As much as he missed you, Leon quickly learned you were even worse than him somehow. The way you begged for another round at 2 am at night proved everything he needed to know. 

“My baby missed me so much. Huh?” the older man smirked, feeling you clench as his pace increased. Your hands went back to the bed sheets while you babbled nonsense.  

“You see how much I love you?” Leon muttered as he stared at your dilated eyes.

As you nodded, he felt a satisfaction he hadn’t experienced in a while. Soon he felt himself finish inside you. 

“Promise me. Promise me that you would love me forever” 

You took a long shaky breath, brain foggy from the your body was being warmed by his warm cum. 

“I will… I will as long as you do” you said as Leon captured your lips in a passionate long kiss. Spit connecting you two still as he pulled away. “Sweet dreams baby”

Next chapter start: Leon grinned to himself as he started connecting all the clues God left for him. Your moody, bratty behavior, sweet cravings, morning sickness. He was trying to tell Leon his dreams are coming soon. 

Now that he knew you were with a healthy child, he was never going to let you go. If he had to fight for the sake of his child, he wouldn’t hesitate even if it’s you. After all, a child was more important than your temporary stupidity. 

[angelismmm]

𝄞 — thoma (gn reader) — ❝ i'll treat you like royalty ❞

summary: single, hardworking, thoma whose a father of a cute little girl you just happen to babysit! he ends up falling for you, finally seeing how much you care for his daughter, and his wellbeing, but he starts to have certain "dreams" about you at the same time that he wants to make reality.

a/n: d-d-d-dilf thoma... just hear me out okay... i seen so many headcannons for thoma as a father, anyways d/n is daughter name!! edit: i accidently deleted my progress again while playing valorant ❤️

warnings: nsfw, slight and i mean the slightest amount of dacryphilia if u squint hard enough, thoma 😍😍, dom!thoma, sub!reader, masturbation, idk sex??

dilf!thoma is overloaded with work at the office he works at, so he hired you! to take care of his daughter. only being able to come back late at night, he does miss his father-daughter bonding time with her :(

thoma comes hope to a sleeping child and a dozed off you too! coming over almost everyday to take care of such a little gremlin does tire you out </3 he takes (d/n) to bed, and you to sleep on the couch beside his bed, he'd be a monster to let you sleep outside!

now that you and him have talked a little more, getting to know each other, what's going at home, etc. he feels a bit closer everytime you come over, and when you talk to him. feels like home, yk?

thoma felt like he started to gain feelings for you, and not just a "that's a good person" feeling, but romantic. you made him feel like he finally had a place in this world. so much so, he started having dreams about you

those empty, sleepless nights, his mind will find a way to always wander back to you. you definitely would make a splendid partner, you're a great babysitter to (d/n), you were perfect. whenever you say his name, it does something to him

on those nights where you sleep over at his home after a long day of taking care of (d/n), of course you take the couch in thoma's room. while you sleep, thoma has an impossible time trying to doze off. the only thing on his mind is you, but not in a fluffy way.

the many wet dreams he's had of you bouncing on his cock, sucking him off from underneath his desk at the office, anything really, throughout the 4 weeks you took care of (d/n) made him crazy. crazy for your scent, your everything.

thoma tries his best to be quiet while you sleep, but it felt so good and to imagine you being pounded endlessly by him, and full of his seed. finally with one more pish he came, it'll be hard trying to cover it up if you ever questioned the stains.

sunshine finally pouring down, and out of the windows, you woke up and made breakfast before setting off, saying goodbye to (d/n) and thoma once again. since today was thoma's day off, finally finishing all the paperwork assigned last night. he couldn't think about anything but you.

the next day or so you came over to babysit again, till thoma told you it's also his day off. "oh, so is this where i stop babysitting the gremlin or?" you asked while (d/n) rested in your arms leaning her head on your shoulder. "that isn't what im implying— i mean yes continue to donyour job, i'll just also be home this time." he pats your shoulder and goes back inside. "follow dad!!" (d/n) says almost jumping out of your arms.

"also, i'd like to thank you for taking care of my dear daughter. it.. it means a ton to me and her." he adds, (d/n) jumping out of your hands to run around again. fast forward to dinner time, thoma was finishing up the food he cooked, as a thanks to you for being able to babysit.

afterwards reading a book to put (d/n) to sleep, you go back to thoma's room to get ready too. suddenly thoma grabs you by the waist from behind. "i— i wanted to thank you in another way. so please let me treat you like royalty just this once." he says giving you no chance to reply he starts sucking on your neck, making you whimper. finally facing you towards his face to get a better angle to bite your neck at.

once thoma finished sucking on your neck, he starts a long-lasting kiss, pushing you onto the bed with a desperate attempt to strip your clothes from you. (which um suceeds) "have i ever told you i love you?" thoma says deeply inhaling your scent, getting into the moment, "your crush on me was a bit obvious on me before this happened" kissing his forehead.

fast forward a bit, being pushed up against the wall and thoma's dick inside you thrusting fastly. holding you by your waist, cresent-like marks imprinted on your skin for how rough his pace was. completely unaware of yourself moaning his name so sweetly, the only words pouring out of your mouth being faster and pleads. round after round after round, you both finally gave it a rest.

"i love you so much" thoma added with doe eyes as if everything you both did just now didn't happen. "m-me too.." you said as he carried you to the bath. cleaned you up and u cuddled all night (which wasn't really all night, more like the rest of the morning)

anywaysr I just wanted to get this draft out as fast as possible but got carried away, capitano childe 3some next 😓😓

[lyrakanefanatic]

i just wanted to share with you guys a lyra and grayson scenario (that involves the leather pants karaoke video getting leaked 🫣) that NEEDS to happen in the grandest game 💀

lyra, whose a contestant in the game, stays up really late at night to search for clues, and gets back to her room at 4 am. she’s so tired that she doesnt even see the texts on the “contestants gc” (yes, one of the contestants made a gc with all of them in it) and goes right to bed. in the morning, after sleeping in till 9:30 by accident, she gets up and gets ready, before going downstairs. immediately she noticed that somethings different. everybody is chatting and laughing while pointing at grayson, and grayson looks incredibly annoyed. lyra, who is really confused, asks everybody what’s so funny. thea makes a face and says,

“don’t act like you hadn’t seen the texts and video from last night!” while laughing in graysons direction. Another contestant made a joke about how “tight those pants must have been”, and how funny he looked singing let it go. grayson’s jaw tightens, but lyra, who’s completely confused because she hadn’t seen the texts from last night, says to thea,

“what texts? I saw that you guys were texting, but I was in the library from 11 to 4.”. immediately the room goes silent as everybody realizes that lyra was the only one who hadn’t seen the video, and she glances to grayson for help. grayson, though, is glaring at all the contestants and his brothers hoping to convince them not to tell her. (he hasn’t admitted to anybody that he secretly likes lyra, but he was also not about to show the girl he likes a video of him singing stupid songs while shirtless, wearing tight leather pants. 💀) he threatens his brothers for a minute in Latin, before turning to lyra, saying, “it’s just a video that my brothers took of me singing karaoke” and lyra gets (SOMEHOW) convinced not to watch it. for now, at least, because that same night she texts thea for the video and immediately bursts out laughing in her bed, and was teasing grayson for it the next day 💀😭

this is kind of long but i can just see grayson threatening his brothers with every horrible thing just so lyra doesnt see THAT video of him 💀

[bunniesghost]

ღAll I Want To Hearღ

Pt.4

Simon “Ghost” Riley X Reader 

Pt.1  Pt.2  Pt.3

CW: Fluffy moments. Suggestive mentions.

Summary: 6 months since you and Simon agreed to become each other's Family. The Bond that has grown between you two is something you can’t name but it feels right. After he comes home from a mission, he tells you something that you don’t like. Things escalate from there.

༶•┈┈┈┈┈┈୨♡୧┈┈┈┈┈•༶

It’s been 6 Months since you and Simon became each other’s family. 

The way you two grew closer together, each day made you feel dizzy. 

He made you so happy and sometimes you couldn’t explain why.

The sadness you feel when you have to say goodbye to him, when he gets deployed.

“Do you really have to go?” You were gripped around his arm. Not letting go.

“I told you already, it’s only going to be for 2 weeks.” Simon said as he was dragging himself to the door, while you were holding on to him.

“But that’s too long! You can’t leave me here alone.” You let go of his arm and step right in front of him, blocking the door. 

“You better move, I don’t want to be late.” He picked you up and placed you to the side. 

“You better come back to me. We haven’t finished our series.” You crossed your arms and stood by the door frame as he pushed the elevator button.

“We would've been finished if you didn’t always fall asleep.”

“That’s not my fault!” 

“My bed being too comfortable isn’t an excuse.”

The elevator dinged open. 

He got in and pushed the lobby button. You waved goodbye and he nodded back.

You were going to miss your giant man.

You closed the door and walked into his room, and climbed into his bed. Ready to fall asleep.

༶•┈┈┈┈┈┈୨♡୧┈┈┈┈┈•༶

You honestly adore Simon. 

You love how he chose to walk life as the Ghost of Simon Riley.  

How he admits to not pushing you away immediately due to him reading you like a book and knowing that there was something going on behind closed doors, when he met you.

How he always lets you do things for him like help him put on his eye makeup, since you insisted on helping out. 

How he lets you hold onto him when watching a scary movie. Moving closer to each other.

How he lets you have your weekly movie night in his room, since you always fall asleep. You Insisted on watching in your bedroom, that way he could just go to his room, but he said he didn’t mind. 

How he always placed his blanket on you when he woke up first to go on his morning runs. Sometimes that made you wake up late, since his scent calmed you and took you deeper into sleep.

How you both go on walks in that park, at sunset. 

How he tells you that you do matter when you have nightmares from your past.

And how you repeat those same sayings when Simon has a Nightmare. 

How he holds you when you feel wide awake, too scared to fall back to sleep.

And how you do the same for him when you can tell he rather not say what he dreamt.

Becoming each other’s security.

༶•┈┈┈┈┈┈୨♡୧┈┈┈┈┈•༶

You hated him for leaving you.

Always wanting someone to be there with you. 

Wanting Simon to be there for you.

You fell back into that habit of going into auto pilot and skipping to the next day. Till he came back. Missing days just for him to have all your attention. 

Simon caught on to this habit, when he would ask about your day but you could not remember the details that well. Always changing the subject to ask about him.

He gave you a journal and asked you to write about your day when he was off on deployment. 

He would ask for it when he came back and you would just stare as he read through the pages.

He noticed the little doodles of you two holding hands.

༶•┈┈┈┈┈┈୨♡୧┈┈┈┈┈•༶

You honestly didn’t know what to call your relationship with Simon.

You knew you weren’t dating but you also didn’t know if you did like Simon like that. 

I mean, there’s many things to like about him. He was handsome, sweet and gentle. He was big and had a nice body that could crush you but, you wouldn’t mind. His eyes spoke for him, deep eyes with much emotion. And his deep voice that sounded even better when he was right next to you, near your ear.

You wouldn’t mind being in a relationship with Simon. You just didn’t know how he felt.

“You should get yourself a partner. Keep you busy and you can enjoy yourself other than a movie that shows pretend love.” Simon said to you while you were sitting on the sofa.

“What are you trying to say? That you don’t want my presence anymore?” You start getting defensive in a saddened way. Thinking whether he has had enough of you or he just felt pity that you were waiting for him like a soldier’s housewife. Waiting for the day your lover comes home from war. To you. Into your embrace. 

“No, you should just be with someone that won’t be gone for who knows how long. It’s just a suggestion to put yourself out there more, find a partner that you could grow a family with or just to be with.”

“Simon Riley, are you breaking up with me?” You said in a quiet voice. Joking around with him. 

“Wait-“

“Do you not want to be a family anymore?” You said in a dramatic voice. 

“Y/n that’s not-

“But I don’t want someone else, I want you!” You fall forwards into his chest. 

Simon is tense. And you just processed how you worded that sentence.

“Y/n..”

“Mm” you mumbled into his chest. Now scared to move.

“Do you..have feelings for me..” he spoke very clearly. Pulling you up to see your face.

You were shocked. And felt unsure. 

“I…don’t know.” You told him truthfully 

“I mean I’ve thought about us and having an actual family but..um..”

You didn’t know what to expect him to say. You just told him that you fantasized about having kids with him. Something you knew you wanted, but does he want kids? Especially with you?

Now Simon shared the expression that you had when he asked if you had feelings for him.

You felt scared. Something you haven’t felt in a while. Would he yell at you? Belittle you? Laugh at you? Kick you out? Tell you nobody will love you? 

You started to get up because you felt like it was too much. You did nothing wrong but you felt like you did. 

He grabbed your wrist but didn’t look at him. 

“Y/n look at me.” 

You didn’t. Tears resting on your eyes, bottom lip between your teeth, trying not to let out a sob. Quiet whimpers leaving your throat. 

“I’m not going to hurt you. Just. look. at. me.” Simon never raised his voice. Always keeping it at a normal level.

You turned your head and made eye contact. He slowly raised his hands up to your waist, bringing you closer to him. 

“Do you want to have a family together? You and me?”

Your eyes went wide. Tears spilled out, a small gasp coming out of your open mouth.

“You tell me the word and I promise to take care of you both.”

“Si-“

“A Yes or a no, that’s all I want to hear.” A stronger voice came out. A voice he uses for demands, when he’s a lieutenant.

You just stare at him. Into his eyes. Those eyes of his that are filled with darkness. Ones that you feel will get you lost and you won’t find a way out.

“Yes”

That’s all he needed to hear. He picked you up from the ground and placed a kiss on your forehead. 

He wiped a tear that had fallen onto your cheek when he placed you on the bed. 

The emotions that you felt came crashing. Now you know what you felt for him.

 It was actual Love

༶•┈┈┈┈┈┈୨♡୧┈┈┈┈┈•༶

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@hao-ming-8 - @yourmom3-5 - @thriving-n-jiving

[blankwashed]

Sleepless Shadows (Part 4)

Chapters: I II III IV V

Recap:

"I know, I know I just thought this night was going to be perfect, you know? Just me and you and-" He stops himself from continuing as he worries that he might scare you off.

Shucks, you were blushing. It was a chilly night, no doubt but you just felt that it was summer on your cheeks.

"I'm sorry, y/n. I should've known better and as your lecturer this mistake is very unacceptable for me to make," Satoru looks down at his feet while talking to you, as if he's a teenager again which you find quite cute.

"No big deal, sir. Anyways, I noticed that there's a motel nearby while we were driving here. We can sleep there for tonight, what do you think about that?" You adjusted your eyes onto his, making sure he's not sad anymore.

It took Satoru some time till he answered you.

"Sure, let's go get a room."

As Satoru reaches the motel on foot, he looks emotionally drained and with his shoulders down. He approaches the front desk of Hampton Motel.

"Hey there, can I have a room for two people with separate beds?" Satoru asks help from the hotel's front desk agent. He heaves a heavy breath, clearly tired and disappointed at his silly mistake of leaving his keys in his car.

The woman behind the desk smiles at him and says, "Sure, I'll try to find if there are any more rooms available. Today is a strange night, so many rooms have been booked..". Her mouse scrolls through the few rooms that they have in this motel. It is a motel, with a shabby looking appearance.

Her lips frown, "Sir, I have one room left however, we are out of separate beds. We gave the last beds to a big family that had 10 children. I think they had a bunch of friends over or something,"

Your eyes widen.

"D-does this mean that you guys have a normal queen or king size bed in the room?" You ask the woman at the front desk.

She nods and you don't feel sleepy anymore.

"W-Would you be okay with sleeping on the same bed with me? I promise I won't look or touch you, it's just only for the night. We don't really have a choice now.." Satoru states and you have to agree, he's not wrong.

Both your lips compress and your head nods slowly.

You don't really have a choice, do you?

"Great! So here are the keys to your room sir. Before that, this is the payment for the room,"

Satoru's eyes widen at the price. A whopping $200 for a night!?

"Ah that's because the room that you have is a room specially for couples, which includes the chocolate and champagne bottles," The woman only reveals it to you after Satoru swipes his card.

Satoru and you were both furious, not because of the fact they called you a couple but because 200 bucks is totally not worth it. You were feeling terrible at this point because money is scarce for you and you understand the importance of it.

You looked at your lecturer and he calmed down slightly, possibly because you knew that he was from a wealthy family. It's just that spending that much money is totally wasteful. You bit your lip and looked at Satoru, hoping that he wouldn't blame you for getting trapped in this conundrum.

"So shall we be go?" Satoru tries to cheer you up, he could feel some unsettling vibes from you. He gives you his hand to lead you to the shabby looking lift stairs.

Blushing tremendously, you hold onto his hand and let him lead you to the room where both of you will be staying for that night. How were you so lucky? Were you?

Satoru looked like an angel in the dark night, his white hair still framing his features. You rub your eyes once again. Nope, you're not dreaming. This is real.

The couples motel room was nothing much, being it a motel. Usually for backpackers, foreigners or for….something you'd not like to think about. There was a queen sized bed in the middle of the room, beside it having bed side tables. It was a very dim looking room with only one bright light coming from the entrance of the room.

"Since we both don't have our toothpaste or toothbrush, I think we'd better just sleep. So that tomorrow we'd have enough energy to get out of this place," Satoru said while he was trying to understand how they didn't have a duvet on their sheets. He looks disgusted at the things given in the motel.

You laugh silently, knowing that Satoru probably isn't used to a lifestyle without his must-haves. He is from one of the richest sorcerer family in Japan anyways.

"Sensei, I know you have only stayed in 6 star hotels for your whole life. But this isn't that bad," You said as you tucked yourself into the left side of the bed, making sure you gave enough space for the long legged man to crawl in as well.

Satoru still has a face of disgust looking at how some of the towels given to us were not washed properly and still have some stains of…semen something. "Does this motel even clean after customers leave?" He was thinking to himself.

"Hopefully we don't catch anything after tonight," You said and that frightened Satoru to the core. He probably won't be able to sleep for the night.

"C-Can I move closer to your side a little? It looks cleaner there, the floor, bed sheet, everything," Satoru pleads with puppy eyes which made you laugh a little. "Sure, sure. I'm used to places like this," You made more room for him and he sighs in relief.

"Used to places like this?! Oh my…" He looks at you in horror. "Sensei, not everyone is as fortunate as you," You felt that even though that might sound offensive to Satoru, its true. You were from a poor to middle class family that is still struggling to send you to Jujutsu High as the fees there are pretty high.

"Don't worry. You can come to me if you have any money problems. I don't know how a pretty woman such as yourself suffe- survive in such a dump like this,"

Ouch. Satoru really needs to learn how to be understanding about other's backgrounds. It's okay you offended him too.

Well, at least he said you were pretty.

"And, dear. You don't have to call me sensei when we're not in campus grounds. Just call me by my name, I'm not that much older than you anyways, I'm not like Principal Yaga. Am I right?" He got closer to you and it made your breath hitch.

You just nod and said his name softly, "Satoru".

two parts in a day, i'm on a roll ~_~

i guess i'm just preparing for this week..who knows what crap university is going to give me lol

[whitedragoncoranth]

Rocket Likes Being Petted III

One night, many months later, Peter and Rocket were in bed together in Quill's quarters. Poor Rocket had suffered another nightmare, and base raccoon wanted to be close to new parent. After the imprinting incident had happened Rocket was the same as he always was with their enemies and the other Guardians - ill-tempered, foul-mouthed, sarcastic, barely supressing the urge to flarkin' shoot and ask stuff later - but not with Peter Quill.

When he was with Quill--it was as if a switch had been flicked. Rocket was kinder, quieter, gentler to Quill, and on mission, Rocket looked to Quill first for guidance. The little raccoon no longer called Terrans dumb--because Quill was one--and, after genuinely researching Earth, its people, and animals, Rocket had come to the conclusion that Terrans... were just like everyone else in this flarked up galaxy, just trying to get by. Rocket soaked up his new father's culture - the stories, the art, the music, oh, flarkin' hell all the music! - and made it part of him.

Now, as new Father and Son cuddled in bed (Rocket wore one of his new Father's shirts that was huge on him, making him seem younger than he actually was), Peter gently showed the modified raccoon something that took him aback and made the base raccoon in his core leap! "Procyon Lotor" Quill murmured to his son as the image of the North American Raccoon was displayed on the screen of his data pad. "That's what you are, Rocket. Yeah, you... you say you were made, but that was later. Long ago, on Terra - on Earth - you were born. Somewhere, somewhen... a Mama Raccoon birthed a litter of raccoon pups, you among them. Your home is Earth, little guy--and I'm sure something can be worked out where we can go back there, and people will respect you and leave you alone so you and I can go see it, take it all in--if that's what you want...?"

Rocket looked at the images and videos of raccoons he was seeing. Raccoons climbing trees. Raccoons playing. The sounds they made. Raccoons living as the pets of humans! Rocket had been dismayed by this at first--but then Quill had explained that, in the wild, raccoons only lived a shocking 3-4 years, and were susceptible to terrible diseases such as distemper, and rabies. Under care of a human a pet raccoon was immunized against them, and pet raccoons were. treated far better than they would ever be in the wild, and thus, lived far longer lifespans, almost twenty years!

Raccoons sleeping in human beds, safe inside built box nests, being petted 'till they purred loudly, being fed grapes and other nice foods, given huge inside or outside places to run and play in. A human who still to this day looked after a raccoon who'd been paralysed due to a disease. Humans who dedicated their lives to rescuing, caring for, and fostering understanding of these amazing animals...

Rocket looked at himself - at his ringtail, at his little hands, tried to compare the 'mask' on his face, muzzle sizes - and then, looked to Peter Quill - his new Father - with anguished eyes, an expression of pain that ran soul deep. "I... why?!" He squeaked, his voice cracking, eyes filling with tears. "Why was...? Why...? Why was I taken away?!! Why did they do this to me?! Why did they take me apart over and over again? Why ain't I a normal raccoon?! Why did they jam all this stuff into my body and make me--this way?! I never asked for this! I never asked to get made!"

Peter Quill held the little raccoon - his Son - close; Rocket felt the man's tears falling onto his headfur. When at last he replied, Quill's answer moved Rocket, staggered him, made his heart wrench. Peter Quill's answer shifted something fundamental within his core... and finally, he understood.

"It’s not your fault that you couldn’t stop them, little guy. It’s not your fault that you didn’t know how to tell anyone, after they did all those awful things to you. It's not your fault that those assholes killed your friends. It’s not your fault that you’re feeling this way. And... you don’t have to do whatever it is you think will make the pain go away. Because it’s not your fault. It never was."

Rocket's breath hitched in a sob. Hitched again, and again... and then as tears that seemed endless fell like drops of salty rain from his eyes a noise of absolute anguish escaped him. His mind awhirl with grief, anger, agony - as the awful burden he'd been carrying for years was lifted away by his father's words - Rocket Raccoon cried, and cried, and cried, and cried. For a moment, all turned to hate -

and with claws out he - ::core child/teen-raccoon reports minor threat to sire from main_ai_persona/rocket. reason=grief. basecode ai 89p13 please ack! :: basecode ai 89p13 hears ack from raccoon-core. threat to sire/sys_admin/parent acknowledged basecode ai 89p13 sudo/init function=paw-servos-lock/engage. reason=do not harm sys_admin-parent-f-f-father! do not hurt father!::

- and with closed fists he punched Peter Quill's chest over and over and over, the blows soft and ineffectual. Quill fended off the blows, gripped Rocket's arms gently, knowing it was all just venting. Soon, Rocket's anger faded, and Quill just let him cry until his voice was hoarse, murmuring soothing nothings into his ears, stroking, petting, soothing...

[rainbowdaisy13]

WHEW runnin on 4 hours of sleep so I’m struggling with being eloquent. I’m gonna do a list to help my brain—thoughts as I remember them

*Stage is set up wonderfully—most stadiums you aren’t gonna have a bad seat

*If you have ever been to MN, you know that MN Nice isn’t what it means other places. Most here come from sullen Nordic stock so talking to strangers requires a shitton of alcohol. Nary a bracelet was exchanged around me, no complimenting of others outfits. The vibes were very much 👀 staring at others and being too scared to interact 😆

*Openers are perfect—MAATHP followed by CS really gets the crowd amped

*Her opening speech was interesting—she made a point of saying how she appreciates that we are so accepting of people in MN which felt like her acknowledging Pride

*She is so adorable and sexy live, very multifaceted —her stage presence is unmatched. She owns the entire stadium and she knows it. Was super powerful to witness

*Over the top long winded Het-splained Betty which was 🙄 because I thought she was transitioning away from that in previous shows—also my BFF turned to me and goes “she just said it’s a fictional album but then literally writes a song about a House she actually owns” and I died 😆 I had never thought of that before

*Which leads into the fact that Rebekah’s hair was in a ponytail flip thing—hairpin theory may be a bust

*The stage, lighting, bracelets light coordination, pyrotechnics are all top tier. Just next level—I don’t wanna ruin it because it was a shock and super cool, but I’ll say there was a point when we were blasted with volcano level heat being in the upper bowl and everyone went wild

*I sobbed the entire time through Marjorie which was expected

*Dear John was the only song I sat for—I absolutely freaked out that she said be nice online kids don’t go after anyone—turned to my friends and was like omfg she’s never addressed that before!! I do think she needs to be more forceful and real though in her language choice. It very much gave Kindergarten teacher talking to her class—which as we see, did nothing given the amount of posts I’m seeing of swifties being like nope don’t care. I wish she could’ve been like “hey stop being assholes online!! I don’t like it! It doesn’t help me!!”

*Daylight was a shock to me—very beautiful acoustically

*Her dancers are so talented, love all the diversity—also size inclusion, I love a bigger dancer that can do a fucking 3 hour set��break the stereotypes!!

*Seeing the screen during Anti-Hero live was heavy. I do not get what Swifties think is happening during that song. I didn’t realize it till last night, but they juxtaposed live Taylor singing on the left of the screen next to giant angry Taylor screaming and begging to be seen. It’s a crazy feeling to see that and be like damn I participate in this dichotomy by even being here

*I took a pee break during tolerate it and the line was nonexistent

*Shes so quick at costume changes!!

*Rainbow stage and rainbow bracelet lights for August which makes no sense unless it makes sense. Why wouldn’t it be a beach seen/waves?

*I don’t get how she sounds so good second night and doesn’t lose her voice. Doesn’t make sense to me—she must not talk day of the concert at all

*Shit I can’t remember which song it was for, but the screen visuals are naked Taylor in a bed. We get a brief glimpse of her holding someone’s hand, and the hand is of a Black person. This is significant IMO for 2 reasons—we are seeing continuity that she’s using anyone *but* a CIS white man as her love interest over and over and over again. Why?? If she’s only ever officially dated CIS white men?? Make it make sense. Also using a Black man as the Love interest in Lover and then having a Black male dancer do the Karlie grab hands stare at each other walk during Style seems like she’s trying to get across this is about the same person IMO

*The show is planned so well that it never fully loses momentum. And the 3 hours goes by way faster than I thought it was going to

*If you go to a show please stay and cheer for her band, dancers, etc. So many people left while she was asking for us to acknowledge them which is rude AF. She’s always known and acknowledged she couldn’t do these shows without 100s of mostly unseen talented people

Overall, I feel very fortunate I got to see her perform Eras. It is a once in a lifetime show. I don’t know what’s next for her, but it feels like she’s stepping away from this version of herself and evolving. I can’t wait to see what’s next 🫶🏼

[jodilin65]

SUNDAY, MARCH 30, 2003 The black bitch says I have to be in bed by 4 AM. You see, I’m in a tough spot with my schedule right now. I was getting up too late to report this Wednesday afternoon and unable to stay up late enough to be a slave to bitch in the morning, so I’m going to start setting my alarm so I don’t sleep past noon and we’ll do the bitch in the afternoon. I wonder if Scot will be back. He was never the greatest so I wish he wouldn’t return and that I could be turned over to that chubby blond chick that observed my test. Compensation, in a sense, begins in November. That’s when we’re going to add the money that the fucking state got over the last few years to our allowances which will mean we’ll each get $60 a month whereas right now we’re getting the same as them.

Although my nasal spray keeps me from having 24-hour sneezing fits, I still have daily patches of sneezing. It really gets old, too! I just want a day in my life without sneezing. Just one day.

SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 2003 Not surprisingly, since I can’t seem to go more than a week or two without being woken up, the sound of the wind yanking off a piece of the house’s skirting woke me up. It’s been windy a lot lately and it’s cooled down again, too. We haven’t needed heat, but we haven’t needed the AC either. Wish it could be like this year-round.

I’m up a pound so I gotta take it easy. It’s my own fault, though. I had 2000 calories or more yesterday.

Carolyn held true to her word and sent me those two books of stamps. I really am grateful, too.

The first large and regular envelopes to Fort Myers were returned to me today, and the plants are in, too. On a Saturday, of course, when we can’t pick them up till Monday.

It appears that both the bougainvilleas are going to end up dead, but everything else is fine so far. The palms are established, but unlike the oleanders, they don’t seem to have grown yet. The oleanders are doing the best. They’ve grown noticeably.

My bingo ticket vibes are hot again. I knew the last time he bought a couple that they’d lose, just like I knew one of today’s would win, and it did. It won $5.

FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 2003 It’s gotten to the point now where I no longer sit in anticipation of Scot stopping by. I really believe that’s now one thing in life that the freeloaders no longer have control over. I mean, I’d really be surprised if he ever did come back. Surprised enough to be suspicious. Especially since he and I both know there’s no reason he should be here.

Nonetheless, like it or not, those freeloaders do still own me for the most part which means I gotta make sure I start staying up as late as I can to go to Casa Grande for them first thing in the morning.

Last night I did my best sewing work yet, making Eve a gown very similar to the Mesmerizing leopard print gown Esme wears, so now I really don’t have to get it. I wanted something in that style, though, to add variety. I took an old leopard print bodysuit and used that for the material. I made a form-fitting skirt that rests on the hips and reaches nearly to the ankles and a halter that crosses at the chest. It really looks great on her, and I did it with no pattern in under two hours. For accents that I put around her waist, I added a small pearl necklace that came with another doll.

I’m now $110 away from that Indian doll I want.

In other doll news, there’s this really cool line of Barbies coming out this year, some of which is already out, called the Birthstone Barbies. Although they all wear the same beautiful glittery gown, each has a different color depending on the stone for that month, plus a matching necklace. The stone for my month is turquoise and that, along with September’s Sapphire Barbie, is my favorite. All the Barbies are white, but they have color variations in their hair and eyes. September’s a blond and December’s a brunette. I was surprised to learn they’re only $25 each. Walmart’s going to be carrying them. We learned that Walmart has an online store, too. Anyway, although they won’t be out till September, I think they’ll look cool together with one’s hair being darker than its dress and the other’s being lighter than its dress. The contrast will be nice and I think they’ll complement each other well side by side.

Tom got this vanilla-flavored Diet Coke that I thought would taste rather weird, but I’m amazed at how good it is. And it’s got 0 calories, too.

He says the bank’s going to have two floats in the gay pride parade that’s to be in Phoenix, and I said, “Oh, so the bank’s cheap, but not prejudiced?” and Tom laughed in agreement.

There’s a girl he works with who was eating and eating yet she kept losing weight. So it was discovered that she had what’s called a tapeworm till her doctor gave her medication for it. How I wish I could have a tapeworm! Only one problem, though. As soon as I got my weight down and killed the worm, I’d still be stuck with the cold hard reality of being over 30, and with that, a metabolism that’s virtually nonexistent. So, as soon as I took just one glance at food, the weight would come flying back on like a lonely puppy who missed its owner.

Carolyn left a message today saying she got her mail returned to her from Fort Myers (that was awfully fast) and that she’s sending me a couple of books of stamps which brings me to my Mary update that had me both furious and relieved.

Carolyn called to tell me yesterday that she finally received a letter from Mary, but she wasn’t in Fort Myers. She was in Naples! Terri went all out for her and got her in her own cell in this place she’s in now where she says she’s being treated a whole lot better. The inmates and guards are nice to her there which is what had Carolyn and I relieved. The other inmates are supposed to stay away from her, but they sneak over to chat with her, presumably on their hour out, and they’re the ones who lent her the envelope to send the letter. They know who she is, of course. I didn’t even realize myself just how famous Mary is, but I’m sure that’d be no compliment to her. Not under the circumstances which I can totally understand.

The part that pissed us off was when we learned of how shitty she was treated in Fort Myers. Apparently, Mary, whose wrists and ankles are still bruised from the chains she was forced to wear for a week, got a heavy period at one point and asked for pads, and the guard just glared at her till they eventually gave her a wad of toilet paper to use. They also wanted $3 a day, plus a $40 booking fee. Tom suggested the $3 fee might be because they get better food there, and also, if it was a maximum-security jail, that may be why she was treated like shit. They tend to be more aggressive and confrontational to inmates in maximum security. Anyway, although Naples has a $20 booking fee (I’m amazed Estrella didn’t have a booking fee), they charge $1 a day like Estrella. I hope that doesn’t mean the food’s so spicy it’s barely edible!

Another unfortunate thing is that Mary’s got walking pneumonia, so she’s been very sick. She said her brain was so fried from being sick that she couldn’t even remember my address.

She also told me that a guard told her that her English biddy of a mother-in-law, who lives in Florida and who’s a major drunk, has been in and out of the jail several times.

What had us so pissed off was all the mail we knew would be returned to us, particularly me. Here I was finally given something for mailing all this shit and what should happen but that the cost should get thrown back on me, as usual. Not the case, though, in the end, because Carolyn was kind enough to offer to send me stamps which was way nice of her. I really do appreciate it. It’s going to take about 40 stamps to get everything mailed.

As soon as I’m reinked, as a way of saying thanks, I’ll send Carolyn a word find puzzle. She seemed to think that was a really neat and fun idea. I’ll also mail a few pictures of Tom and I and our land. I’ll send an outer house shot, too.

Tomorrow I’ll be sending Mary one regular envelope with a couple of small pictures of Murphy (I think the mail rules are the same as Estrella there) and I absolutely won’t send anything else till I get a reply back.

THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 2003 The doll could be here any sec, though more likely not till between the hours of 3:00-5:00.

Meanwhile, I saw that fucking rat hanging out by the bush I dumped her by. She was in plain view where Tom could see her, so I went out, scared her down into a hole, then filled the hole in.

I keep hunting for this song that only one user in the world seems to have and they’re rarely online. When they are, I’m queued up over 100, and by the time I get under 20, they either go offline or I crash.

I turned the ringer down low on the phone while we still have the regular phone. Now that the satellite has freed up the phone, I expect we’ll get daily sales calls. Not like in Phoenix where we were getting half a dozen or more a day, but maybe once or twice a day.

All the petunias and wildflower seeds surrounding Queenie are pretty much dead. The wildlife seems to like to pick on that particular group, whereas the ones surrounding Palma are doing fine. Yeah, I always did say that Palma was one tough bitch!

There’s this 19-year-old gay girl named Meagan where Tom works. She’s the one that had that hilarious T-shirt saying: All my Barbies are Lesbians. Tom mentioned to her that I like women and the two have talked freely about gayhood. Well, Meagan’s getting married to another 19-year-old woman whom she went to high school with. Even though I told Tom to tell her she’s too young to get married, gay or straight, and that Jennifer Lopez is way better looking than her Ani DeFranco, we’ve been invited to the wedding. I was surprised to hear Tom say he wouldn’t mind going out of curiosity just to see what the ceremony’s like, and I’m a bit curious myself, but since neither of us likes to be sociable, we probably won’t go. It’s on April 25th and if it’s outdoors I’m not going to go sweat my ass off over this for people I don’t even know. Plus, as he pointed out, he’ll have to work that night.

Later…

Esme arrived at 3:00. She’s very nice. Awesome hair. Her outfit wasn’t quite the color I expected it to be. So many light-colored things online look white. I thought her outfit was of a frosty white color, but her jacket’s actually a light metallic gold and the pants, shoes and bodysuit are a cross between light tan and off-white. I left her leggings and boots on and replaced the jacket with the gold and white fur-lined coat that came with Karen. It clashes a little, but not much. I polished her nails metallic gold. She also has bendable arms, unlike the others, and comes with gold sunglasses which actually look cool on her and go well with the outfit I’ve assembled for her. Now I’m not sure I’ll bother with Sydney or even the Esme Mesmerizing. Maybe I’ll still get Sydney so I can have the full line, but I can get similar fashions on Barbies for half the cost.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 2003 The bitch of a rat is now history. No, she didn’t die on her own, and no, I didn’t kill her, though I’d have liked to. I simply had enough and dumped her, though I’m not going to tell Tom that. Unlike with Little Ratsy, I dumped her way out towards the front of the property. Hopefully, she won’t have the guts to come to the house, and if she does, I hope she doesn’t get into the vents. She won’t if we seal them up well enough. Hopefully, she’ll get eaten by either prairie dogs, roadrunners or something.

I finally got the UPS link to work. The doll started in South San Francisco, then went to Sylmar, and as of 1 AM last night, it arrived in Phoenix. I don’t see why it can’t be delivered today, but that’s how it always is; they get delivered the next day. Today she’ll be sent to the Casa Grande station where the actual delivery person will bring her from.

I’m still weighing the pros and cons of getting the kiln. We’d save a lot of time, money and hassles if we didn’t, but at the same time, I do want to make dolls and I’m not going to be working for Mary or writing my own dumb stories forever, so what will I do then? Sit and stare at the wall?

If all went well, Mary now has the first big envelope, plus a letter. This Friday or Saturday, she should have the second big envelope and another letter. I’m not going to send any more manila envelopes till I hear from her, though.

TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 2003 The first of the two letters sent to Estrella came back. I’ll be sending it off to Mary, along with another letter. I’ll also send a separate envelope with Murphy’s pictures. That way she won’t have to wait any longer for them. I also want to wait till I hear that she’s been getting the stuff I’ve been sending.

I called her aunt last night to see if she’s heard from her and she said she tried calling Saturday night, but that her husband accidentally hit the wrong button and lost her.

I got the UPS tracking link, but it doesn’t work. It says it can’t find any information for that tracking number. Tom said it’ll work when it gets in the system, but I don’t know. It seems to be taking an awfully long time. Either way, I won’t worry unless the doll doesn’t show up on Thursday, the day it’s supposed to.

MONDAY, MARCH 24, 2003 This new system sucks! It really, really sucks. I have so much trouble going online. All it does is crash. The whole point in switching to this setup was to save money, but there’s always a price to pay for saving money. It’s like something up there doesn’t want us saving money. I’m no longer watching any TV and I go online as little as possible. It’s just that I had to send Chuck Mary’s book and I want to keep checking for a UPS tracking link on the doll I ordered. I also questioned them about another doll I may order in the future and I’m awaiting a response on that, too.

I had to listen to a few hours of non-stop pop, pop, pop. Yeah, the hunters are still at it, mostly in the mornings. The hotter it gets, though, the less I hear of them during the day. It’s at the point now where it’s chilly early in the morning and warm by late afternoon. I ran the AC yesterday for an hour or so.

I’ve finished all of Mary’s stuff, so now I can take a break and work on my own stuff for a while. I’m sure it won’t be long before the drafts start coming again so I’ll use this time off wisely. I can’t wait to hear from her. I’m hoping to this week. I also hope she gets my stuff and that no one’s harmed her. If anyone ever does, I swear I’ll finish her book with the aid of her family, but so far, nothing up there’s proven to hate her enough to see her killed. Maybe badly hurt both physically and emotionally, but not killed. Anyway, Mary’s strong. She’ll pull through.

SUNDAY, MARCH 23, 2003 As usual, I can’t get on the net. It’s been nothing but hit or miss, usually miss. As I keep telling Tom, this new setup’s terrible. Just terrible. The net’s fucked up half the time and the TV is still complicated. It used to be we just brought up the guide and clicked on what we wanted to record, but now, I couldn’t even begin to figure it out. He does it. And of course, he’s still saying he’s going to come up with software to make it all better. Also, those video captures I was supposed to be able to make never happened either.

We did manage to get on the web long enough last night to order Esme. She’ll be shipped on Monday and should arrive Wednesday or Thursday.

They took the plant money on the 17th, so hopefully those will get here this week. Then all we have to do is hope they’re all alive upon arrival and that they survive when we plant them.

Although Tom is going to be looking for jobs in Casa Grande so he doesn’t have to drive all the way to Tempe, he wants to stay at the bank at least till January so we can get the final bundle of stock which will be about a grand.

The prairie dogs have been munching on the tomato plant leaves. I told him it was a waste of time and money getting fruit or vegetable plants. The rabbits and rodents will devour them in no time.

I hope that once the new driveway’s in, he’ll stop kissing the neighbor’s ass. He cuts the headlights as the car swerves around facing their house right before he stops the car, and I’m like, “But they couldn’t even see the light with all that brush they got in the way. Besides, you don’t owe them the courtesy. You don’t have to be mean to them, but you don’t have to be nice, either.”

And it still bothers me how he’s dealt with a certain other set of neighbors from the past, too. There have been so many times he’s played their shit down or acted as if I shouldn’t be bitching about something they’ve done, etc. Yet this black bitch was never once questioned. Not by her family, not by her friends, not by the courts, not by the media who no doubt never twisted a word she said. Never once did anyone ever ask, “Are you sure you didn’t do anything to provoke any problems?” Never once did anyone ever tell her, “You may not have deserved the journals, but if you’d just shut up and lived like normal, decent civilized people, you’d never have had a problem.” Never once did anyone ever ask her, “If you didn’t like the mail she sent, why didn’t you just dump it and move on?”

How do I know this? I just do.

Anyway, it’s a good thing we are just friends, as I never realized, though it’s all well worth it, just how much of his time the home improvements would eat up. His mother ran him ragged in the city and out here it’s the car and home improvements. Aside from why it wasn’t in my cards, no wonder it wasn’t in his to have a child. He’d never have the time for it. In fact, I’m seriously considering forgetting about the kiln. Not just because I can’t imagine God allowing me to work for myself for once and do something I want to do, but because I don’t see how he’d have the time to work on it with me. As soon as he sat down to work on it with me, the car would break. I think it’d be a whole lot easier, given the very full plate that we have, to just drop it and save the money to buy 4 or 5 of the nicest dolls. I think I could get them within 2-3 years.

My next purchase goals are the last 3 mugs I designed with several rat and mouse pictures. I’ll need to save $47. I owe $10 on Esme’s shipping, then I’ll need $37 for the mugs.

Tom trimmed 2” of hair last night. It was an inch below the crack of my ass and now it’s an inch above it.

Later…

Oh, no I’m not getting the mugs next. Not with the absolutely stunning new Indian doll Ashton now has. It’s breathtakingly beautiful! She’s called Spirit of the Snowy Owl. She’s 18” tall and holds an owl on one outstretched arm. Even her sleeveless Indian dress is gorgeous and the realistic detail of the sculpture itself is fabulous. Naturally, she isn’t cheap. She’s $130, but I think that by June I’ll have her.

I emailed Mary’s book to Chuck, but I had to do it in 5 different emails and mail about 50 pages at a time because the thing wouldn’t let me send so many pages at once.

In regards to Mary’s line: a man who hits you and claims he loves you is a full-blown devious liar – well if I could add to that I’d add that anyone who hits you and claims they love you is a full-blown devious liar. Even parents. My mother hit me as a child and then told me she loved me and I believed it. As an adult, however, I believe that the only one who believed she loved me was my mother herself. This advice shouldn’t solely apply to men. It should apply to everyone. Nobody who hits you loves you no matter if they’re family, friends, lovers, strangers, etc. I think that if one is going to have enough self-respect to steer clear away from violent lovers, one should do the same with violent friends and family. After all, self-respect is self-respect and to what do we owe the honor of allowing those to slap us around or abuse us verbally/emotionally just because we share their blood or just because they’re a friend or someone we don’t sleep with? My mother supposedly feels guilty just like hers does over the way she treated her kids, but you know what? It’s too late. Know what else? They never change. They may recognize they fucked up, but they never ever change. They’ll appear changed for a while, but I can assure you, it’s always temporary.

Speaking of change, most of us in general change throughout the years. However, never have I met people who’ve changed so little over the years as did the folks and siblings. They’re virtually the same with everything they do. The way they think, the way they talk, their beliefs, etc. Almost nothing had changed from when I was a child till I walked out of their lives for good 6 years ago.

It’s 82° in the house now so I turned the cold water temperature back on. Once it hits 85°, we’ll need to AC it.

FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2003 The renters haven’t been out much lately. At least we know they’re cool, though I sure as hell wouldn’t want them for neighbors in the city, and I’d still prefer the dogless, childless couple who are rarely home. God wouldn’t be that nice to me, though.

Still haven’t gotten back the letter I sent the day after Mary left, and here’s the latest on her which is not good at all. Hopefully, things are better by now, but she’s sure been having a hell of a time of it over the last week. I feel so, so bad for her. See, they actually drove her to Florida. I thought they’d fly her, but she rode on a bus which took a whole week to get to the Lee County jail where she is in Fort Myers because they stopped many times along the way to drop people off. Her aunt said she said it was terrible. She was stuck next to someone whose breath was a nightmare, she’s been stuck in the same underwear for a week, and of course, the whole ride was spent handcuffed and shackled to each other, having to beg really hard to use the bathroom, and being forced to sleep on the bus as they sure as hell weren’t going to check into a motel or anything like that. Makes me wonder about those who need daily medication that’s essential to their staying alive and about those who get their periods along the way. Do they even give them pads? Did they get fed along the way? It must’ve been so cool to see things she hasn’t seen for so long, yet frustrating at the same time to see places like Denny’s and not be able to stop there.

Another horrible thing is that you can’t just request Ad-Seg there and she was sent to GP. She says she’s terrified, and I would be too, with a high-profile case like that. So her aunt’s going to call Terri to see if she can pull some strings to get her in Ad-Seg, something Tom says should be no problem in light of the fact that she’s a witness for the prosecution. I just hope they Ad-Seg her real soon. That is before she gets jumped and not after.

I was surprised, yet pleased to hear after Mary called her aunt, that along with a bible, they gave her a 5x7 picture of Gretchen. Who gave it to her and how they got it, I don’t know, but that’s way cool of them.

I guess her aunt didn’t know we were cellies. She said one of us might have mentioned it in the past, but it came up when I commented about how I knew firsthand how horrible Estrella food was. We didn’t get into why I was there, but if Mary wants to discuss it with her, that’s fine. She can tell people whatever she wants to cuz I really don’t care.

Her aunt says inmates can write to each other there and that Mary’s worried about Justin writing her, but I assured her that if he did, it’s just words and words cannot hurt us. Especially when we’re adults who can tell ourselves not to listen to anybody’s shit. As Tom suggested, all she has to do is just give them to the prosecution.

Her aunt called the jail about the mail rules and the picture rule is the same as Estrella. You can send up to 5 pictures and they can’t be bigger than 3 x 5. When I realized I had to crop a lot of the pictures down and that some couldn’t be cropped without cutting off people’s heads, we agreed I’d send those pictures to her aunt, though Mary will still get them. I have them scanned in and all I have to do is squeeze them down before I print them out. We also agreed it be best if I sent the religious cards to her aunt to hold onto for her. I just hope there’s no problem with the astrology scans, cards and word-find puzzles. I also hope they don’t count my address label as one of the 5 pics. Her aunt said they said I couldn’t send her book, but I’m hoping they misunderstood her question and that they thought she meant an actual published book.

Every 3-4 days I’ll send something. She should have all her stuff by May if all goes well. I’m not going to enclose any journal excerpts in the letter that will go out to her Monday till the two sent to Estrella after she left are returned to me and I see where I left off. Meanwhile, the first of the 3 manila envelopes went out yesterday and the next one will go out Monday, then Thursday. Then I’ll start with the 3 or 4 small manila envelopes (I decided to enclose the start of my Kate story, even though there are only 10 pages), then regular envelopes with pictures. There’ll be 7-8 of those between her pictures and mine. I even found a site online with a small pic of Monster, her and Gretchen. Poor quality, but hey, at least it was there! They’ll be in with the rest of her pics. Gretchen had such nice eyes, and boy was her hair a lot shorter! It was to her collarbone.

I noticed that one of the 6 cards was a Christmas card from the infamous Michelle and company and I asked if she still wanted it or if she wanted me to ditch it. I also asked if she’d like me to email Michelle to let her know what a jerk she and her son are for breaking her heart and then promising to send pictures they never sent.

I can’t wait to get the first letter from her telling me all about what the place is like. It’ll be a while before she gets commissary and gets established and adjusted. Though there’ll be some who won’t give a shit, soon enough most of the DOs will get to know her and see what a wonderful person she is.

At least she’s in the home stretch now and should never have to move again. Right now my vibes say she’ll be a free agent in September or October of ’05. The question is, though, what kinds of guys is she going to be getting pregnant by when she gets out, and how will they react to the babies once they’re born? Tom doesn’t think jail will cure her sick fondness for abuse, but that she’ll smarten up with age, but how old will she have to be before she does that? Forty? I just got to the part where he ran over her foot with the car when she was 6 months pregnant, yet she still stayed with him she loved abuse so much.

THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 2003 This is it. Florida’s got Mary. I awoke to a message her aunt left last night, saying that when she went to visit, she was told she had been en route to Florida since the 13th. What I don’t get is how she could still be en route, even if they were driving for some strange reason, and how the Florida prosecutor could not have known about it like she said was the case when she called her.

I decided to go ahead and send a 1-page letter with a few small pictures of Murphy and a religious card to her. The religious cards are about the size of playing cards. I never thought I’d be sending anything to that state again! As soon as I hear back saying she got it without any problems, I’ll start launching her stuff to her.

This is good timing, too. It’ll give me a chance to catch up on her stuff and maybe do some of my own stuff, too. I’ve been neglecting my story and proofreading.

I told her that although Florida’s quite humid and loaded with mosquitoes (though I know she already knows this), at least their winters are much warmer and nicer than Arizona’s.

So, if she really took off on the 13th, I should be getting two letters returned to me. I knew I shouldn’t have sent them, but it’s okay, she’ll still get them. I can’t imagine why she’d be driven to Florida and not flown, but either way, she should be there by now if she left on the 13th. That’s a whole week ago and it shouldn’t take more than 3-4 days to get there. Who knows? I could even have a letter from her on its way to me which would be nice.

So how do I feel about her leaving? Well, naturally I’m saddened by the extra mileage between us, but as I said numerous times before, I’ll feel more comfortable sending mail to a place in which only she knows my name. Despite our age differences, Mary turned out to be such a wonderful friend. Maybe we will be friends longer than the 11 years Andy and I were friends, the 13 years Jenny and I were friends, and the 18 years Paula and I have been friends. Actually, I’ve known Paula for 18 years, but we’ve really only been friends for about 13, minus the time we lost contact between late ’91 and late ’96, so 8 years, to be even more correct. The true test of Mary’s friendship will come when she’s released and no longer needs me. When she’s released and she no longer needs me to type for her, will she still be there?

To my utter amazement, though I should’ve figured it was coming sooner or later, I got a summons for jury duty in Maricopa County, and I was like, I’m a convicted felon, you assholes! Tom and I were laughing when I said, “I guess in some cases crime really does pay, even if you didn’t do it.” Anyway, I very happily checked the box for the convicted felon whose civil rights are not yet restored. Hey, I was born without most of my rights, civil and not-so-civil! Felon or not, like I’d be willing to serve the system that fucked me over? Yeah, right!

I wonder if the only reason Scot hasn’t come around is because of his being out, but I doubt it. I’d think he’d have whoever was covering for him go see those who he thought should be seen, but they ain’t seeing me. If I look out and see someone I don’t know, they’re not coming in.

I turned off the cold water switch. I really do prefer it room temp. It tastes like shit, though. Like plastic. Tom said it’ll go away in time. I hope so! Either way, I love the thing. It makes cooking so much easier and I can even brew my coffee with it! I just take the filter, which is small since my coffeemaker only brews by the cup, hold it over the cup and press the hot water switch.

I went outside yesterday and picked a little bushel of wildflowers. We have so many beautiful little flowers growing in patches throughout the land. I picked tiny daisies and tiny orange and purple flowers. I took a picture of me holding the clump in my hand too, to add to my land album. I thought of Mary as I picked the miniature daisies.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19, 2003 It appears the new house in front now has electricity. I can’t swear to it, but I think the light I see is coming from that house.

In about 4 hours, we’ll be seeing Scot. I no longer let myself get nervous prior to visits. Not just because of how much time’s left, but because I’m sick of giving Scot credit he doesn’t deserve by allowing him to intimidate me. He can’t do anything to me, I tell myself. He’s just a simple person. While I may not be invincible, he has no power or control over me. He may think he does, but I know better and I’m not going to see him as an “authority figure.” He has no hold on me, for as far as I’m concerned, my life now belongs to me and me only. Doesn’t mean I can always get the things I want in life, it just means I’m nobody’s puppet anymore. I put in over 37 years of being someone or society’s slave and I won’t do it anymore.

Anyway, Tom got two 5-gallon water bottles yesterday. When one gets low, he’ll take and fill the other. It has pretty little lights on it, too. Green is the power light, red is the hot water and then there’s this pretty bluish-purple light for the cold, though the hot and cold only come on when the thermostat kicks in, very much like a refrigerator. Also, the space down below is not a refrigerator. It’s just a storage space for things like cups.

The spell’s a bust, too. The bougainvillea’s dead and the bitch isn’t sick. Is it just people I can place spells on? Or were Mary’s and Scot’s illnesses just coincidences?

Tom and I were talking about different states as far as population and prejudice go. Arizona has one of the smallest black populations, he told me. Not small enough, though, to save me from their wickedness.

We filled in the burn hole and agreed to do individual burn holes till the fences are up, and ultimately, we’ll get a barbecue pit. So, that’s one less thing I gotta worry about.

Although I look forward to Mary visiting someday, I felt it best to tell her up front that I don’t want anyone other than her aunt to know where we live while she’s on this bad-boy kick. Until that streak is broken, I don’t want potential trouble at the house. If there’s ever a time when she develops a little self-respect and has been with a guy for several months to a year with no known record and who’s never taken a swing at her, then we’ll see.

I also reminded her that I’m not single and in my 20s anymore. In other words, I’m not going to want to go to parties, go to bars, or hang out with lots of people. I’m a homebody and not a people person. I even hate to gab on the phone as much as I used to, I told her.

Anyway, I’m only telling her this cuz I think it’s only fair that she knows up front and doesn’t get released thinking I’m something I’m not. I figure she probably knows all this anyway from my letters, journals and book, but I still wanted to be upfront in advance. Besides, not everybody gets what they don’t want to hear. I’m not saying she’s like this, but take Andy for example, who refused to see the obvious; that I was a better guitarist than a pianist because of his overwhelming desire for his friends to be carbon copies of himself.

My visiting rules are simple, I told her – no smoking in the house and no small kids. This house isn’t childproofed, and I have too many breakables. I told her how I once told this to Evie and how she told mom she wasn’t happy about it (cuz she didn’t have the guts to tell me), and mom wasn’t happy about it either, and that I was like - tough shit! It’s our house and we have a right to ask people not to do or bring certain things into it just like others do with their houses. If Mary told me not to chew gum in her house, by all means, I wouldn’t and she’d have every right to tell me so. You can tell me not to wear the color pink for all I care, but I’d be obligated to respect that without taking offense. So, when she has more kids (and I know she will since she doesn’t seem to know the meaning of the words birth control) and they’re in their terrible twos, I’ll have to go to her place when she can’t get sitters. My attitude is pretty much – kids are kids and they have a right to be kids, just not at other people’s expense when it can be helped! Just because I don’t want any of my own doesn’t mean I hate kids or anything like that, cuz I don’t. They’re sweet, they’re cute, I just prefer them to stay in other people’s houses at least till they get a little older and understand the meaning of, “don’t touch.”

I was shocked to read she visited Monster at Estrella. I didn’t know this, though I knew he’d pretty much been getting in trouble with the law practically ever since he was in diapers. Also, his whipping his dick out like he did in the closed visitation booth to tell Mary it misses her was absolutely disgusting. What kind of class could a person like that possibly have? What a sickening thing to do, too. I mean, that’s nothing more than a man degrading men in general by doing that, and personally, I’d have been thoroughly embarrassed, but more so, I’d be embarrassed for him, then I’d walk out and never see him again in my life.

I suggested that if ever she gets the desire to “live dangerously” and on the edge with a bad boy, to remember all the suffering she and her kids have gone through on account of those bad boys and ask herself, is it worth it? Is it really worth the danger and excitement? I mean, she talks about writing the book to help others, well, what about helping herself first?

Later…

Oh, that fucking breakage curse! It just never ends. He was forced to do God’s favorite pastime for him, playing car. First a headlight went out, and of course there’s the power steering fluid that’s leaking. So he got a pump for that today, but now he says he broke a part and doesn’t know if it’ll get him to work tonight. This car is gonna cost us hundreds before we get the white truck running and licensed! See, I knew we’d be delayed with the fences. He planned to work on them this weekend, but he obviously won’t be able to if he’s going to be forced to stop and play car. Why won’t God just let us get ahead in life? Why must there always be so many setbacks?

To our surprise, Scot’s still out. All the PO covering for him would say was that he was on medical leave. Tom thinks it’s something like a knee or a back problem. The PO, some tall skinny dude, asked if I were “just a housewife.” Yeah, that’s all I am. Not much, huh?

Besides stopping for gas and car parts, we both got new underwear from Walmart. I got another 5-pack of satin string bikinis so I have more than enough for when I have accidents during periods.

We also got gum and those delicious caramel ice cream bars we’ve come to love.

You know, I got to thinking about it, and the more I think about it, the more I hope Mary makes a good sum of money from the book. It may sound selfish, but then I wouldn’t necessarily be working for free as I’m sure she’d give me at least a little something for helping her out.

Later…

Tom now says things are falling together nicely with the car. I hope so. I want to do fences this weekend, not cars.

Later…

Or so we thought things were going to be okay, but no, he’s now got to run all the way back to Casa Grande for parts. God, give him a break! Just give the poor guy a fucking break. They run him ragged at work as it is. He doesn’t need this shit. Let us just get the fuck on with our lives. If you have to pick on us, why don’t you just leave him out of it and pick on me? Come after just me. You hate me enough to, so do it! Just leave my husband and our fucking vehicles alone! I’m just so sick and tired, just so fed up with seeing him lose time, sleep and money to that fucking car!

TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 2003 I ended up having to wake Tom up to burn the trash yesterday, as yet another new dog in the area managed to push the 3 tires and umbrella stand off and dive into it. Big dogs like that can move pretty much anything a person can move. I was gonna burn the shit myself, but knowing how much he likes to be in charge of that, I had him do it.

Now here’s where it gets weird. Real damn weird. I watched Tom burn the trash from the window and I swear I saw him talking to himself. Actually, it looked more like he was talking to someone else, someone invisible. When I asked him about it, he denied it which made me wonder which one of us was going crazy.

I’ve also sworn I’ve heard him talking to himself in the bathroom which he says he never did either, but I know what I saw. Would he deny something like this? And why? Could he be doing it without realizing it? I sure hope not! To each their own, but the thought of people talking to themselves has always made me rather uncomfortable. It just seems like you’d have to be a bit ill to do so. Yet this is a man who’s smarter than 90% of the population. Too smart for any head problems.

I slept an uninterrupted 10 hours.

No plants yet, but Tom emailed me to say I have one big envelope from Mary. Hopefully, she’ll now be able to tell me when she’s leaving, but I hope there are not too many drafts. I still have 80 pages or so I’m trying to catch up on here. I hope my mail to her doesn’t get returned. I’m still hesitant to send more mail there. We’ll just have to see what she says, but if I don’t, I hope she’ll understand why. I told her why I was going to hold off mail in the first place which makes me wonder if she didn’t get the letter saying so. I absolutely hate it when she doesn’t answer all my questions cuz then I get all worried that someone’s tampering with the mail and all that. I was also surprised when she asked me to send José her letter, cuz I made myself clear about doing for her friends in a letter and she never struck me as the type to not listen well. It makes me awfully uncomfortable to be sending mail to an inmate I don’t know who could be in for anything. She doesn’t even know what he’s in for and see, she’s got to let go of people like that. She’s going to convince her PO that she likes “bad boys.” Meanwhile, sending emails, as long as I won’t have a lot to type up, is okay. For the most part, though, I just want to be her friend and her typist. Not her editor, publisher, messenger, etc.

Later…

Still nothing saying when Mary’s leaving, but I sent her a letter anyway. She definitely got the first one and probably the second one too, which was mailed on the 14th. However, we’re wondering if a letter from her to me didn’t make it because she said she commented about my drawings and Chris’ picture after I asked her again.

She agreed to send Teddy Bear’s letter and would be honored to let her know she sucks. I figured she would, but I’m still so grateful to her for doing this for me. Tom’s just too paranoid about me sending it myself. I’m still going to mention having moved in the letter. Her sergeant’s knowing about it should help keep her from getting any smart ideas too, cuz if something happened to me, it’d be too obvious she was behind it and they’d be there to testify that she was pissed over the letter which she no doubt will be.

She said her aunt got the disk and that Brandi requested that Virginia move in with her and she was ever so happy to see her go. I was like, awe, how sweet, two killers all locked up tight together!

She was all stressed and depressed over her aunt’s letting her have it over excessive money spending. Yes, the bad boy lover sent Clarence $45 of roses for Valentine’s Day. She got her roommate’s family to do it and she paid for it with commissary. She cried that she was a shopaholic who’d blown $550 since December. I told her, “Although I feel for you, I had to laugh at the same time when you were talking about the money you’ve blown. Yeah, I’m a shopaholic myself, but $45 on a loser like Clarence? Come on, girl, you can do better than that! I thought you weren’t romantically interested in him anyway. Also, we’re ahead of you. I think we’ve blown a few Gs since December.

I don’t want anyone other than her aunt to know where we live and to bring her here to visit once she’s out. Not while she knows too many losers. I don’t want her coming here with a different loser each time she visits, bringing potential trouble to the house. She’s simply too nice and too trusting, and she obviously isn’t going to break this wild attraction for bad boys anytime soon, so it seems.

She still wants any pictures she can get a hold of for her book. Even Justin’s mug shot. “Who cares if he looks like crap,” she said, “he is crap.” I’ll send it to her in Florida. Speaking of her book, she really does have a point that I never considered. She feels it’ll be no problem getting it published not because of how well-written it may be, but because of her name. Unfortunately, the girl is rather famous.

“I wonder what Andy thought when I was in the news, even if it was only for a few months,” I said to Tom. Tom doubted he knew about it, thinking he’d try to visit me at the jail out of curiosity, but no way. There’s no way he’d be that curious. Besides, he was so pissed that I dumped him. Not hurt; pissed.

She says most inmates label her greedy. Yeah, the spoiled little shits love to label those who refuse to be responsible for them as stingy, selfish and whatever else they can think of. It really is true that most inmates have shit for brains. The immaturity in that place was astounding. It was just like being in school all over again. The stupidity and childishness were sickening.

Yeah, I figured she’d like the daisy stationery like she told me she did. Daisies are her favorites as tulips are mine.

Fortunately, she only sent a few draft pages as I still have a ton of pages to type. Like 85 of them.

The wind is blowing strongly towards the east. Too windy for opening windows that face west. It’ll just cool the house down too much and bring in dust. Therefore, I opened a couple of windows on the east side. That way the air will get sucked out. It smells of the chemicals I used to clean with and it’s making me tight.

I asked Tom if he thought Scot would be back tomorrow. Yes, he said, and I agree. It’s too bad too, as I was enjoying the break from having to hear how much time I have left. If I think that’s bad, wait till I have to hear about the poor, poor “victim” around May 1st and probably towards the end, too. He’ll find some reason to bring it up again at some point, I’m sure. I’ll surprise him, though, this time around when he tells me how much time I have left because I’ll be quick to tell him there are now 226 days.

MONDAY, MARCH 17, 2003 It just hit me that Mary shouldn’t have the Teddy Bear letter with her in Florida since they’re not allowed to take anything other than legal papers, so I’ll have to make sure she writes that she discovered that they missed it once she got settled in Florida and thought she should have it.

Later…

It never ceases to amaze me just how much I’ve been woken up in this house, and even more so, how much I’ve been put out by other people’s animals! Something woke me up for a second yesterday and the dogs tore into our garbage. They wake me up, steal my peace and trash our yard! I should’ve insisted he bring the trash back into the house when he brought it out and saw it was too windy to burn. Despite adding two tires to the umbrella stand that’s filled with water as a cover, and just as I feared they would, the dogs toppled it over and got into the trash, spewing it all over the fucking place. It took me quite a while to gather it up. It had been super windy and at first, I thought the wind toppled the tires and stand over till I saw that the trash was all torn up. Nobody takes care of their fucking dogs out here! They bring them out here, decide they don’t want them for whatever reason, then turn them loose to depend on trash and shit like that. I left a message for Tom since I’ll probably crash before he gets up, letting him know that we need to either dig individual burnholes or dump the trash in the city till the fences are up, and also, I worry some of the giant dogs will jump over the fence out of sheer desperation alone. He said they wouldn’t since they had plenty of other land to roam, but if I were a starving dog who knew there was trash to pick through in here, I’d jump over whatever hurdles may be in my way. It makes me think we should spend the extra $150 on the zapping wire, but that’d be worthless against the big dogs if they do manage to hop on over as they wouldn’t need to touch it. Still, I wish we could have one strung low enough to zap little dogs from squeezing through and one up top for big dogs.

As far as what woke me up, I think Tom stupidly put the pot the oleander came in down without batting it down well. The wind apparently tossed it against the house. I found it in front in the brush. I put it where it can’t blow around and get whipped against the house.

In case I forgot to say so, I changed my email address. Feisty Dawn is now the rat lady. I’m ratlady1204, to be exact.

SUNDAY, MARCH 16, 2003 There wasn’t any money left over from Friday’s grocery trip, so I won’t be ordering that Esme doll on the 21st. Definitely at the end of the month, though, and instead of ordering the mugs at the end of the month, I’ll order them in early or mid-April.

It just started raining. The new plants will like that.

I got to thinking about how Mary surprised me by saying she was going to demand to be housed alone in Florida and that she was housed alone before because I thought she had told me they didn’t have Ad-Seg there which struck me as odd. All jails have to have some form of segregation, I’d think. Anyway, I think she’d be crazy to go general pop, and I’d be surprised if they even let her with her high-profile case. And especially in a state where more people would know about it. As long as the media’s going to be allowed to open their big mouths and endanger people like Mary, they gotta have Ad-Seg. Most people will feel bad for her and be on her side, but every so often she’d be up again a Nancy K who’ll see her as just as guilty for not protecting Gretchen.

The bougainvillea’s still alive. I’m trying again to put a spell on this bitch of a rat here. For Tom’s sake, I’m not doing death spells, just sick ones. If I have this gift, ability, power – whatever you want to call it – I may as well hone it as best I can. I’ll ask Mary if she wants me to try to make anyone she knows fall ill.

This morning we made my music computer part of the network, though we needed to get a newer, faster network card. They’re only $10, though. Tom said that it’s best to have backups on at least two different mediums, so I’ll still back up to CD once a month, but only on one CD instead of two. Meanwhile, I’ll send stuff to my music PC on a daily basis. At the end of each day, I’ll send whatever I’ve done during that day.

Tom’s going to visit his mom tomorrow, give her some puzzles I don’t want, and do some mooching. In other words, he’s going to see if Mom will pay for the grid fence, but I doubt she will. As Catholic as she is, she’s too selfish to volunteer that kind of money which would be over $500, even though she could easily afford to. It takes a crisis like when the well went out in order to get more than a measly $20 out of that woman. She’s as obsessed with the $20 bill as Mary’s obsessed with the camera.

He picked up the water dispenser today. It only does hot and cold, but all we have to do is turn off the cold, for example, and there’s my room temperature water. It also has a mini-refrigerator below for cans of soda. This thing would be ideal for offices, but in our case, it’ll save us $50-$100 a year. Not a huge sum of money, but it’s something.

We also now have all the posts we need (59). I believe him when he says wire wouldn’t be a settlement and that it’d be just as effective at keeping dogs out, but I’d still prefer the grid. They call it a field fence, I guess.

Let me guess, though, Mary will bitch about my jumping the gun in Mom’s letter, and Tom will defend her. I don’t know what it is with this man siding with others, especially to their faces. Art O. defended his wife at all costs, even when she was clearly in the wrong, yet I could be clearly in the right and my husband won’t always defend me.

Another thing that bothers me is his answer to a question I asked earlier. I asked him, if a woman were sexually neglected by her husband or boyfriend, say if he had a lot of business trips or whatever, and the woman stepped out on him, be it with another woman or not, would he A, blame the woman and say she was responsible for her own actions, B, blame the guy for being neglectful, or C, blame them both. My answer is C, cuz to me, it usually takes two to tango, but his was A. I was like, my gosh, you mean you wouldn’t feel the least bit guilty? Not that I intend to step out on him, but that really bothered me. He didn’t even feel guilty in the past either when he was jerking me around about the child I once so desperately wanted. I don’t like the way he’s assumed things about me and taken certain things about me for granted. In a sense, he’s expected me to give up so much for him. I have to wonder, is he ever grateful things turned out the way they did? Because most women would’ve walked. There’s no way he could’ve just expected them to give up a kid on account of his lame excuses, and put up with the lack of sex. That’s assuming and expecting too much of most people. I know he’d have been a good father if we’d had an accident, but that will never change things, though the past is the past. He’s handling the sex the same way he did with the kid; instead of coming out and admitting his lack of desire, he’s saying one thing and doing another. In other words, he’ll say he’s interested, then not make a move on me. He also places an awful lot of blame for his problems on me. I know he knows he’s not perfect, but to blame things I may’ve said or my attitude on his lack of cumming was really bad. He should’ve said, “I have a problem, it’s been years yet it’s not improving, so I should see a doctor if I want to cum and have a child, or I should just level with my own wife here. I owe her that much.” But instead, he strung me along with one excuse after another to tide me over between crying spells. Sometimes he was compassionate, sometimes he was sensitive but never guilty. The man seems to rarely ever feel guilt. It’s like he’d rather directly blame or imply it’s someone else’s fault. I still can’t believe to this day that he simply expected and assumed I’d just forget about a kid. Well, I did, though I don’t think I could ever fully forgive him for how he handled things in the past (I’ll certainly never forgive God for the depression and mental anguish he sat back and watched me suffer through for years). And now he just assumes I’ll live a life of celibacy whether or not I want to cuz he can’t come out and tell me the truth. Well, mark my words, if the opportunity ever does present itself between another woman and myself, I’m going to go for it, though I can’t see that happening and I don’t want it to. So you see, it’s not his lack of desire to get it on with me that bothers me, for I don’t desire sex either, it’s the not coming clean about it.

Back when he told me that the “cure” for his lack of cumming problem was for us to not talk about it, well, any decent therapist would say that that’s the worse way to handle a problem. Facing it is the best way, not ignoring it. Ignoring it won’t make it go away, but that’s just what he hoped would be the case. Not that his problem would go away, if it ever really was a true problem that was out of his hands, but that my desires for normal sex and a kid would go away, and believe me, I wish they went away in ’93 rather than ’98. But those aren’t things we can help. I couldn’t help wanting a kid back then and I can’t help not wanting one now. I’m only glad that the desire did go away in light of the circumstances. Besides, for every one mother I’ve met who’s praised motherhood, there are 20 who bash it, saying all it does is cause you pain, ruin your body, steal your life eat your money. “Hang onto your life and your money,” they’d tell me, “and keep your cute little figure.”

On the flip side, he’s more than made up for any faults he has with the things he did give me that I’d never have had the chance to experience if it weren’t for him.

He agreed with me that not having kids so you can have a life isn’t being selfish as some might say it is. What’s selfish is those who have kids that either don’t really want them or aren’t emotionally or financially ready for them. That’s both selfish and irresponsible.

Later…

Even on this damp, cloudy morning, the hunters are at it. They still shoot from sunup to sundown, and while I wouldn’t exactly describe them as obnoxious, I wish they’d give it a rest for the year. Hearing these little pops that sound like car doors all day gets old, though I do tune most of it out.

Later…

Sure enough, his cheap selfish mother didn’t pitch in anything toward the fences. Not even her famous $20 bill. This information was emailed to me from work, so if Mary or Mom started shit about me to Tom, I have yet to hear about it.

I also got an email from Mary’s lawyer in response to Murphy’s pictures I sent saying, “Wow, he is really grown up, thanks.”

We read together for a little while yesterday and discussed plans we have for around here. I got a great idea concerning the pond. At first Tom was skeptical, but after going out to take measurements, he agreed it could be done. Well, inside of having the pond out across the wash, making it hard to see into even though the house is elevated a good 3’ off the ground, I thought it’d be cool to have a long skinny pond close to the front of the house running alongside the living room and office windows. It’d be totally awesome to step up to the window and look down into a pond! It’ll also shade it from the afternoon sun.

We also busted out a lower shelf from one of the lower kitchen cabinets, allowing us to put our pails in there. That way they’re out of sight and the smell’s contained. I also won’t have to worry that certain eyes hired by the state to ensure I live my life according to their rules will see any mail from Mary. I used to make sure it was buried under other trash during the weekdays, but now it won’t matter. It probably wouldn’t matter even if it was still exposed since I doubt he’ll ever come here again, but the better my ass is covered, the safer I’ll be.

Last night while I was searching for MP3s, someone emailed me saying, “You’ve been busted as a leech and ignored!” (I did not have any music files set up to share) At first I thought it was the program itself, but Tom told me it had to have come from an individual. Nonetheless, I loaded a lot of my music on since I don’t mind sharing and it’s always neat to see what people want. They’re certainly coming at me more often now that I’ve got more files. I made two music folders. One for the slower stuff I don’t want to jog and exercise to, and then a folder for the more upbeat stuff. The upbeat folder is the one I’m sharing, though I may set it up to share both. I have a total of 794 songs right now. I’m very generous when it comes to my music and graphics, but with all else on this computer, I’m a stingy, selfish bitch. As selfish as his mother (at least she didn’t abuse him and pawn him off on other people, camps, funny farms, etc.).

It rained on and off throughout the day. Every time I think it’s not going to rain again till the monsoons, it does. Even the hunters called it quits early. We haven’t needed the AC for the last couple of days either.

It’s looking more and more like the fences are definitely going to be up sometime next month. I can’t wait! So my vibe was right all along about it not being much before I had 6 months left to go with the freeloaders.

Amazingly, despite being stuck for a couple of days and eating like a pig, I awoke at 125½. I really thought I’d be 128. Rather than having one big goal and telling myself I want to get down to 105-110, I think I’ll have multiple little goals. For starters, I’ll work at a goal of 120, though I doubt I’ll get much lower than that without nearly starving myself to death due to my age and muscle weight.

FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 2003 The more of Mary’s book I type up, the more sad, sick and cursed I see she has been so far. Get this, after Justin punched her out on the street, then cut the electricity and tore off the screen door to their roommate’s house to get in at her, slapped her again, busted down the bathroom door to assault her yet again, she goes and forgives him the next day saying that she loves him and love forgives all. That’s sick! Totally sick. How incredibly sad it is to read how she forgave him for all this shit, then insisted that God sent him, her “soul mate,” to her. That’s some God she’s been worshiping and some soul mate. Sorry, Mary, but nothing up there likes you. Can she ever be brave enough to see and face that fact as unfortunate as it is? Nothing up there has anything other than evil intentions for her. Maybe that will change someday and I sure as hell hope so, but the first step is going to be in realizing and admitting that she likes abuse and she likes abusive people. As soon as that illness is recognized and dealt with, the sooner she can do her part to help herself by avoiding people like Justin, Todd and Clarence. She can’t make God send her a loving soul mate if it isn’t in her cards, but she can at least stay alone if her only other choice is to take up with an abusive person. With the way she’s been going, though, she’s going to actively seek, be it at a conscious or subconscious level, an abusive guy the moment she gets out. In fact, her love of being slapped, kicked, punched and abused is so intense that I’m surprised she doesn’t request general pop. On the other hand, this type of disease usually pertains only to those the sick person is intimate with. It wouldn’t be the same if some fellow inmate took a swipe at her. It wouldn’t give her the gratification it would if it was a lover.

Nonetheless, it’s too obvious that she liked every minute of the abuse given the number of times she allowed herself to be abused by forgiving him, which essentially, was telling him it was okay. The only thing she didn’t get off on was the abuse of her kids. Yet still, her love of abuse was so much more powerful than her fear for her kids. Imagine that! To love to be beaten so much that it’s worth it to you to put your own kids at risk! And this is an otherwise compassionate and intelligent woman. I believe she really truly was scared at the times she was abused, but that was part of the thrill, the adrenaline rush she got from the fear. She’s what’s known as a fear junkie and a pain freak. I just can’t fathom it, but I know she hasn’t changed. Not when she’s still associating with people like her mother, who in a sense, was worse than mine. Her mother’s not her mother any more than mine was, but merely the woman responsible for her being born, yet people continue to obsess over biology.

She has no self-respect. She may as well go into a bar with a shirt saying: Buy me daisies and I’ll be fond of you, beat me up and I’ll love you forever.

It’s like all she knows is abusive men and having kids for them to abuse as well. I wonder how many kids she’d have by now if she’d never been to jail. Well, either way, I sure am worried for her future kids, that’s for sure.

If she were still alive, she’d still be with him today if the two of them were never jailed. She said it herself in her book: “True love forgives all error and I’ll be with you, Justin, no matter how much right or wrong you do.” Even if he killed all her kids by now, she’d still be with him.

After waiting forever in line, all the MV did was give him a number to call that doesn’t look at all promising for getting the title, so he’s going to make the transfer. I knew he’d have to anyway. Anything to eat up his time so it seems. I never realized just how much time all the home improvement and other projects would take up once we moved, but I should’ve figured as much. So see? Better to be just friends or else I’d still be going through the same old shit I went through with him in the past as far as being neglected goes. Anyway, it’s not that I can’t get off, it’s that I simply don’t want to. Not with him anyway, but maybe someday with a woman. I can’t see it happening anytime in the near future, though, so who knows? Maybe I’ll end up celibate for the rest of my life. Not something I could’ve handled in my 20s, but now that I’m older, had the experience, and no longer find it anything new or exciting, it’s okay. I think a lot of people end up feeling as I do.

Now that I’ve learned so much about the laws out here, Larry’s damn lucky he didn’t live here in ’97, cuz believe me, I don’t think he “blacked out.” I don’t see how you can blackout just cuz you got a little cough. I really think he was on something that night if he didn’t fall asleep at the wheel, and like I said, there’s no way he’d have gotten away with it out here. They probably felt too bad for him to check for drugs or alcohol, but out here he’d have been given no pity, no mercy, no nothing. He also took it awfully hard. Any parent would have guilt, yes, but “I murdered my son, I murdered my son,” was all he kept saying for the longest time. Well, maybe he did, though certainly not intentionally.

THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 2003 And so it came to pass that March 13th of this year begins the beginning of the fences! Yes, for just under $100, Tom got 25 posts today and put them up at 39’ apart across the front, leaving 6’-8’ for hedges. He said that all the posts, plus the wire, should come to around $550, $100 off of my vibe of $450.

The posts have bright white paint on the tops to make them more visible to vehicles. How wonderful it was to wake up and go outside to see the first of the fences installed. Tom said digging was a piece of cake. He’s going to cement all the posts, too. He realized, though, that if next door could have their posts so far apart, so could we. Theirs is probably a good 45’ or so, though it’s in shit shape. I don’t know why, but parts of it look like someone rammed a vehicle through it. Mexicans are stupid, though, so they don’t strike me as the type to do things right. In other words, the dumb shits probably didn’t cement any of the posts. Nonetheless, digging’s so easy, he says, that it would’ve been a waste of money to get an auger. At that, I was like, oh my God! You mean we didn’t waste money buying something that was either broken or useless to us – wow!

I wonder if we keep it unlocked if anyone will be brave enough to open the gate to ask us about property for sale around here or something like that. Especially at night. I mean, I sure as hell wouldn’t open gates. I could never know what may be in there hiding, waiting to pounce on me, like maybe some Doberman from hell.

Tom’s going to try to get the green truck’s title by going directly to motor vehicles tomorrow. Only one of two things could happen. He could either end up getting the title, or he could end up getting nowhere and being forced to set up the white truck. He asked me for my vibes, but I couldn’t sense anything. That’s mainly because I’m a doom psychic. I didn’t ask to be one, but that’s my strength within the psychic world. Not sensing good things. So if tomorrow’s going to turn out good and he’s going to get the title, I could never sense it. Very rarely do I sense such things.

I don’t seem to be able to help plants either, although those who have fallen ill at my wishful thinking are still a hell of a coincidence not to be ruled out. Plus the thing with Little Buddy. Even so, it still looks like it’s going to die.

I’ve learned that when I have paper jams if I just turn the paper around, it’s usually okay. Therefore, I may return to the back-to-back printing.

Tom told me a funny joke earlier that I enclosed in my joke file, plus I sent it to Mary. We agreed it’d be okay to send something every few days. The worst that could happen is that it gets returned to me and I resend it to Florida. I got 4 regular envelopes from her today and 2 big ones.

To my surprise, she wasn’t calling for a favor or to say she was leaving. She was just calling to call but said she hung up after a few rings, realizing it was early and very expensive. That’s cool that she understands that, though the phone could never wake us up and our schedule varies. What may be “early” for me this week will probably be late for me next week. I was worried, though, that she was going to get a little too carried away with asking for favors pertaining to those I don’t know. Emailing Chuck, her lawyer, a quick note along with her book is fine. It’s when she wants me to write to people in jail that I don’t dig or if she were to send lots of letters to type for others, but as long as it’s email where I don’t have to go buying more stamps, and as long as it’s not too often, it’s no problem.

I still worry she’s going to hang out with the same types of loser cocks once she’s free. Remember, it’s that illness some people have. She has a deep, dark craving to be abused. It’s what she likes, what she wants, what she’s used to. She never even tried to fight back most of the time Justin hit her. She’d just scream at him and try to get away.

She cracked the both of us up when she was bashing guys in general, saying that because she has no discrimination, she needs me to balance things out. Well, it’s true that she loves everybody as much as I hate everybody! Also, I’m as vulgar as she is not. For every 20 hardcore swears out of my mouth, she may say the words darn or damn once, but the thing that’s really cool about us is that we let each other be themselves. I hate people like Lora Edwards who bitched how much she hated it when I’d use God’s name in vain by saying the word goddamn. Not that she didn’t have a right to not like it, but people have a right to express themselves as they see fit. That’s why I can’t get along with most people. They either expect me to be like them or they assume I’m out to make them like me.

A part of me was glad to hear she was hanging up the fantasy writing. Not because it bores me or that she’s loony (maybe a little naïve at times) or that she should be ashamed or embarrassed by anything she writes, but because I have enough typing to do with her book alone, which she just learned she can’t profit from. I knew this, but she just learned that if you’re involved in a case, you can’t make money from it, so she may use an assumed name and have the proceeds go to her family. I think she should use a fictitious name anyway because then she can legally use people’s real names without being sued. All she’d have to do is put a disclaimer on the front of the book saying she changed names (even though she didn’t) and that anybody with the names used in the book is purely coincidental.

I was surprised to hear that she was worried about not hearing from me. I thought she knew that the only reason I was laying low was cuz I figured they could move her anytime and that my mail would only end up returned to me. Tom agreed it’d be okay to send something every few days. The worst that could happen is that it gets returned to me and I resend it to Florida. So tomorrow when he goes to do the grocery shopping, I’ll have him drop a letter in a box and she should get it Sat. or Mon. if she’s still there. Anyway, I still had to laugh when she said she was going to send the paramedics out and have them search all the Maricopa ranches!

Anyway, just after sunset, Tom and I went to Circle K for snacks. Some stupid fuck pulled out in front of us and I was so grateful there wasn’t a car on the other side of us so we could jump out of the way.

As usual, we had to stop and play leak with the car before we left. The cashier who was outside on her break mentioned it. He poured water into whatever was the problem this time around. “It’s a Ford, so it’ll make it,” the woman said, and it did.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 2003 Mary didn’t try calling back, so she either was calling to say goodbye, or she wanted something and found someone else to do what she wanted.

Tom cleaned my ear out some more with the earpick. It looks like we’ll manage just fine without having to deal with referrals and specialists.

Last night and today I did something on my office wall that’s way cool, though not without disaster. I made colorful silhouettes by shadow-tracing the outlines of the two Playboy dolls and Patrice, the queen of all my ballerinas. Victoria’s in purple, Karen’s in pink and Patrice is in blue. I stacked two speakers about 4’ from the wall and placed the doll on top. Then I made another stack about a foot behind it, using Sacajawea to prop the flashlight at an angle. Then I’d turn off the light to make my shadow sharper and would trace its outline. Yesterday went fine, but tonight I moved Patrice before remembering to do the inner section of lines and had a hell of a time lining her back up, then Sacajawea fell and broke from just below the elbow down. Fortunately, it wasn’t her head and I was able to glue and tape it, but how stupid of me! I should’ve used a towel or a shirt like I did afterward. I taped it with masking tape after gluing the sections that I glued, because there were tiny fragments missing that made it sharp and unstable. Taping it gives it extra security. It doesn’t look too bad but I’d rather have a funny-looking hand than no hand at all. It’s taped between her wrist and elbow and her sleeve covers most of it.

As predicted, the truck won’t be up and running anytime soon. Tom simply can’t get the title for the green one, so he’s going to have to set the white one up.

He fixed and installed the indoor/outdoor thermometer in the kitchen. The wire runs out through the oven’s vent. It’s 50° outside now and 75° in here.

Anyway, Tom met the renters today. When he was down there searching for that corner’s property marker, which he did find, it stirred the dogs up. I like what he had to say about them but was quite dismayed to learn there are at least 7 dogs back there. 7 dogs! He said there were about 3 adult dogs and 4 puppies. He couldn’t tell if any of the adult dogs had the puppies or not. Just that he got the feeling they intend to keep them. What surprised me was that most of them came from the house. He said they’re all mutts, not too big, and only one of them that they had in a pen outside, seemed like it could be more of a guard dog. I don’t exactly like the idea of swimming (once we get the pool) to the tune of 7 dogs barking, but he says it shouldn’t be a big deal, and after thinking about it I realized that maybe it won’t be. I’ve been outside enough lately and can truly say I haven’t heard barking from over there. After all, I sure as hell didn’t know there were that many of them. I thought they only had one dog.

So anyway, he can’t remember their names. The woman appeared to be in her late 20s to early 30s and the guy was mid to late 30s. He said they seemed quite nice and even were considerate enough to worry that they put their horse on our property and that their kids might be too loud (he only saw one 3-year-old, but we figure there are probably 3 or 4 kids in all). Nothing of theirs is on our property, though you could see old tire tracks clipping a corner of the property. They haven’t been throwing trash back there either which is nice, and as for the kids, I have heard a few shouts from outside, but nothing even remotely close at this distance to bother me. They could never be as maddening as the kids screaming just a few feet away from our old house for hours at a time.

Tom told them we were getting ready to put up fences and the guy offered to help which was nice of him, but Tom assured him he could manage. Remember, we don’t want problems with our neighbors like we had in Phoenix, but we don’t want to be friends with them either. All we want is to get along. Being friends with neighbors can be as bad as being friends/lovers with coworkers. Still, I really do appreciate their consideration, and it’s people like this that I’d consider being considerate of myself. The more someone’s considerate of me, the more I am to them, whereas if the blacks or Mexicans had asked me to tone down my music, I’d have told them to come back and ask again after they themselves shut up, and meanwhile, they could go fuck themselves. No black or Mexican could ever be like them. Very few of them could be anyway. They’re too me, me, me, me!

George still owns the place, the woman does ride the horse (though I’ve never seen her do so) and they’re planning on getting another one, and they hear karaoke parties at Dan’s place on weekends, though they certainly didn’t refer to it as “Dan’s place.” We didn’t even know it was karaoke, just that it was coming from Dan’s, but they’re closer to Dan’s and don’t have the 6” walls and dual-paned windows we have, so they can hear better. At first, I thought Tom was saying it was my singing that was mentioned, but then they said they hear guys that sound drunk. Well, I don’t sound like a drunk guy when I sing and I don’t throw the doors and windows open to purposely let the sound out for others to hear!

I can see why they sacrificed their housing. With 3-4 kids, 7 dogs and soon-to-be 2 horses to feed we’d have to live in a dump, too.

The Mexicans that were in the furthest rental took and dumped a bunch of shit across the street before they moved. Yeah, those Mexies are filthy people, that’s for sure! Tom said he could see stuffed animals, clothing, etc.

The woman obviously works, Tom said, because the guy told her she ought to hurry up so she isn’t late for work. This was at 1:00, so she might work second shift.

He says they didn’t look or talk Mormon and that they thought this house was vacant because they never saw anyone outside. I know we’re not outdoors much compared to most people, but I’m surprised they didn’t see us at least a few times over the year they’ve been here.

To sum it all up, although the high dog population isn’t comforting to know about, I do hope they stick around for a while as it really seems like we’ve been compensated for the shit we had in Phoenix. I’m just so glad we didn’t get Mexicans in there what with the way the illiterate junkies are invading the country, and you how it was for me for the longest time; I always had to get the blacks and Mexicans next to me. These are our first white neighbors since ’96, aside from Dan and the people after him.

Tom got a lot of brush cleared with the chainsaw and is going to pick up some posts and a hole digger today. Then we’ll set them in cement and see how they do. We’re now thinking of going with barbless wire to make it easier on his hands. As long as the thing will keep dogs out, get what you want, I told him, but if we ever do see a dog, we’re going to install a low-voltage wire that will zap them away. That’d cost about $150 if we do need it and will probably come out of the savings account.

The bougainvillea’s still in the same condition.

I asked myself if I’d go live on a ship or a submarine right now if I could. At first I was hesitant because I wouldn’t be able to shop as much, but on the other hand, it’d be a little hard for a bunch of freeloaders to get me thrown in jail in the middle of the ocean, so yes, I’d take the ship or sub. I still worry about that, too. Not the freeloaders but somebody somewhere. I know it’s only a matter of time before someone new makes my life miserable for years.

I added a couple more silhouettes. I did one of Lily, the bronze ballerina figurine, on another wall in my office. She’s in a reddish-pink color. Then I did a silhouette of Colette in green in the retreat.

TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 2003 Mary tried calling this morning. It came up as “inmate phone” on the Caller ID box, but he didn’t get to the phone on time. Tom said he thinks it was cuz she was about to be moved, but knowing her, she probably wanted something. Let me guess…she wanted me to contact a friend of hers with long-distance blocks? Either way, I’m getting tired of being used here. She’s worse than Andy! I swear I’ll be gone in a heartbeat if she pesters me on the outs. I don’t know. Maybe she was just calling to make sure I’m still alive, though I doubt it. Anyway, if she’s there, she’ll hear from me tomorrow or the next day. Also, there’s no way I’m going to get in the habit of letting her call. Those calls are outrageously expensive. That jail seizes every opportunity possible to make extra money.

I should have a better idea by tomorrow if she was calling about moving or not. If it wasn’t about moving, she’ll probably try again. If it was, then I probably won’t hear from her till she contacts me by mail from Florida.

It got up to 82° in the house. Getting closer to that AC! We put the grill in the skylight and pulled the den shades down behind their blinds.

I woke up at 124. I’m not too surprised about that, but I probably would be if I hit 120. I sent Mary and Dave a progress picture I took. Every few pounds I’m taking pictures. That ought to shock the shit out of them; me sending them a picture of myself.

Before I get to the landscaping news, it really hit me today that no, it’s no coincidence that people I’ve practiced my sick curse on have gotten sick. I did it with Scot, someone I don’t dislike, but don’t like either, and I did it when Mary pissed me off the first time at the casino. There’s also the time I healed Little Buddy’s illness. So, I figured if this modern-day witch could make people sick and heal animals, she might be able to heal plants too, and I took myself out to the very shocked, but not yet dead bougainvillea and did my thing. It’s a concentration thing, I guess you could say. Similar to Mary’s visualization thing. I know that although most of us have a basic psychicness to us, most people can’t do the things I do. Not in such detail and quantity, anyway. I don’t know if it’ll work as this is something new to me. I mean, I never tried to rescue a dying plant before. It won’t be the end of the world if it doesn’t make it, though. Tom put an oleander behind it today. A bigger one, too. Yes, we’ve been on quite a landscaping frenzy. Now’s the time to do it as well as in the fall. He also got about 30 petunias in pink, magenta, purple and white, and a few tomato bushes to plant in the midst of them which surround the palms. Lastly, he got a little strawberry bush which is off toward the side of Palma. I only hope the prairie dogs and rabbits save some strawberries for the rats and I!

The petunias, strawberry, and tomato bushes aren’t perennials. They’ll die in the winter, but they’re dirt cheap to replant. It was only like $1.80 for 6 petunias.

The big barrel cactus at the southeast corner fell over after all that rain we had, but that’s okay, I’d prefer prickly pears.

Tom checked that site out more and found we can get some pretty awesome stuff for dirt cheap. We’d never have believed that for just $240 we could put 5’–10’ Rose of Sharon hedges along the perimeters of the property, but we can! Maybe something isn’t so against us after all, as long as we can get the stuff shipped to Arizona reasonably soon and have it survive, too. We’re going to do a test and get Sharon hedges of about 80’ wide which will go between us and next door. We can’t see next door from in the house because there are no windows we can see out of on that side. There’s only the back door window and the bathroom window and they’re frosted. However, we can see part of their property from outside. We’ll need to run those skinny black rubber hoses around the perimeters for watering too, and water them every few days since they’re not native to Arizona (unless it rains). I don’t know if the Rose of Sharon hedges are really roses or if they just look like them. They come in purple, red and white and they pick the colors. I’m sure we’ll get a good variety and that they’ll all be lovely.

Later…

We ordered the trees and hedges online. We got so much for so little! For just $38.22, we got 16 Rose of Sharon hedges that will be 80’ wide, 5 poplar trees for shade in back between the house and wash which will be over 50’ tall in just 4 years, 12 elm trees for privacy that will grow to a height of 45’ and about 36’ wide, 1 very pretty and sweet-smelling English lavender bush that will get to 3’ and 2 tulip trees. I don’t know where we’ll put the lavender bush and tulip trees. I wanted a walnut tree too, but we’re in the wrong zone for that. I don’t know where these will go either. We’re also getting some free stuff with our order. Some flower bulbs, and a planting instruction book.

Assuming these things make it, we’ll order more at some point till we have all the shade and privacy we want.

We’re going to go back to planning to get barbed wire fences. That way we can use the extra money for the Rose of Sharon hedges. They should be thorny which will also make a good dog barrier, though the way we plan to string the barbed wire will be a good enough block in itself. I guess we’re going to put the hedges on the outside of the fence. It’ll be a very appealing selling point whenever we do move.

The only bummer is that they ship parcel post. We were hoping UPS would bring them right to us, but oh well. At least the PO has been more reliable.

Another thing we’ll want to ultimately hedge is that ugly well and water tank. That won’t take much at all, but the perimeters, shade and privacy stuff are way more important. Whether or not we’ll get any bird of paradise bushes, pansies, or any more oleanders and bougainvilleas, I don’t know. I do know I still want prickly pears.

MONDAY, MARCH 10, 2003 Tom thinks he found the problem. Something he did messed up the whole network after all. Good, then instead of having to stop and be set back by having to play fix-it all day on my computer after setting up the new satellite system, he can clean his damn office which is trashed as usual.

Since bombing, the spiders have been non-existent inside the house which is nice. It’s still unknown where they were coming from. The drains? The vents? I only know I hope it was the drains because there’s no way anything that might’ve been living in there could still be alive at this point.

Later…

Tom fixed the network and will soon be working on the TV. The thing that was supposed to take less than an hour ended up taking 3.5 hours because as our luck would have it, we were sent someone who didn’t know what they were doing. I know I sound like the biggest sexist in the world, but fucking cocks! I swear 99% of them are so stupid. We need more women doing more things. They’re more patient and not so quick to cut corners and do such half-assed jobs. At least it’s done, though, and we didn’t get ripped off. It’s one thing to have people’s stupidity consume our time and another to have them eat up our money.

Our goodies came today. When I first saw the size of the box, I figured things were on backorder, but nope, they squeezed everything we ordered in.

The pink, rose-scented roses are in the big bath and the mauve, fleece-lined slippers will be great for next winter. This winter seems to have exited practically overnight. It got up to 81° inside the house. We’re getting really close to needing the AC.

The tool he got to clean my ear with seems to work great so far so long as I soften things up with oil first.

Got the blind cleaners, which certainly do seem like they’ll make cleaning blinds a lot easier and more effective and the state map with its state coin holders. In 1999, they issued Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia and Connecticut. I’ve only got Georgia. I’ve got all of 2000 coins which are Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire and Virginia. The states issued in 2001 are New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont and Kentucky. I’m missing Rhode Island. For 2002, the coins are Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana and Mississippi. I’m missing Louisiana. I have no 2003 coins yet, but it’s only March. Arizona won’t be minted till 2008 as it’s the 48th state.

The filters are now in the vents too, and since they do a better job of sealing than the screens, I removed most of the screens.

The stuff came with some offers, one of which consists of a bunch of beauty stuff you can get for next to nothing. If you order $12 of stuff, you get free shipping and with $16 of stuff, you get a free 3-piece travel set and 10 free lipsticks. I got just under $20 of mascara, Ming Shu perfumed lotion, and 6 bath gels – peach, rose, blackberry, vanilla, lilac and lavender.

The pedals are terrible. Another $10 wasted. They’re of a better design, but they move all around when I use them. The things can’t weigh more than a pound or two. Unless we decide to strap them to the floor, I’ll just keep on jogging. Besides, I’m not trying to lose weight anymore but just stay the same. I don’t need to jog that long, on top of the other stuff I do, to stay the same weight as long as I don’t make a pig of myself. Who knows, though, maybe we could mount them to a heavy piece of wood or something.

At least the saw’s working. He got a chainsaw for clearing away brush. It’d make no sense to put up the corner posts and try to run string from post to post with brush in the way. The string, as I might’ve said earlier, will be our guide, keeping the fence installation in a straight line. We’re probably going to have a 30’ buffer on each side. The last thing we want to do is chance putting fences too close to easements or out of the property lines. Tomorrow he’s going to look for one of the back corner markers, but it’s likely to have gotten washed out over time.

I fed Shiny, the big black cat that hangs out here, some chicken today. He’s all black and shiny like the Phoenix Shiny was. I can’t let him inside, though, with the rodents and breakables. I don’t know if this cat’s fixed or if it belongs to anyone or not. I doubt it, though. I think he was dumped and left to fend for himself like most cats and dogs out here seem to be.

Also amongst the offers that were enclosed with our stuff was a landscaping brochure that looks quite promising, as well as a great value. Their Siberian elm hedges are said to grow to 45’ and as it is, we’re going to have to replace one of the bougainvilleas, though everything else is doing fine. It shocked so bad that we’re pretty sure it’s going to die, and gee, it’s quite a coincidence that it’s the one right in line with the renter’s little deck, the place I can see them the easiest. It’s like something’s saying, “You can run, but you can’t hide from society.”

Yeah, but I’m still going to try.

Anyway, Tom’s going to look into the landscaping’s website more thoroughly before we decide on anything for sure. The cool thing about it is that it tells you how many plants you’d need to make a wall of whatever feet wide. The elms are boring looking but with the way they could block the sun and give us privacy at that height, I don’t care. I only hope we won’t have to be dead for a century or two before they reach that height. All we need, though, is a good 10’-15’ to block out the renters. What we’ll need to do is find out how fast things grow and if they can live in Arizona. The site didn’t say much about the plants themselves, just the sizes and prices. Fortunately, though, Tom says elms will grow pretty much anywhere.

My God, though, I never thought I’d be buying trees! Not the girl with the food stamps from the inner-city projects amid the drug dealers and the rundown buildings littered with graffiti. Yes, I’ve certainly seen all financial levels. I was a rich kid who became a poor young adult who’s now a very comfortable middle-aged person. As I told Tom, though, we’d probably have a better chance of getting rich by suing one of the many people who fuck us over than by this property.

Because it’d cost many hundreds of dollars, speaking of money, to get a water softener/filter so we could drink our tap water, we decided to get a water dispenser. It’ll end up a lot cheaper than buying the 2½-gallon jugs we’ve been getting. For $100, we can get a dispenser with a 5-gallon jug. It has 3 controls on it. One for room temperature water like I usually prefer, one for cold, and one for hot. There’s a place here in town that dispenses water so we can fill the jugs up there for a lot less than buying these jugs from the grocery store. It’d cut down on the recyclables a lot, too.

Got 4 envelopes from Mary today. She asked if I could help her find a publisher in Florida, but like I told her, I couldn’t even find one for myself if I tried. Besides, I don’t want to be doing any more than typing for her and I already told her this. I have a full enough plate with my own stuff. I had no idea that the home improvements would steal so much of our lives, but it does. Then I have my usual responsibilities and my own writing projects. I can’t do it all for her anyway, and I’m not going to be like most people and tell her I’ll do stuff I don’t want to do.

Anyway, she sent me 62 pages of drafts and said she might be there for a month or two more, but even so, I’ll probably hold off again on the mail to her after the letter that’s going out tomorrow. I caught her up to date on things and enclosed some pictures for her. A couple of doll pictures and a few of our land and palms.

She also says she’s alone now and tickled pink to be enjoying the added peace and privacy.

SUNDAY, MARCH 9, 2003 Mary said she’d be gone the first week of March. Well, the first week’s done, so is she gone? I wonder. I don’t have any vibes either way. Meanwhile, all I can do is sit and wait till I’m contacted.

I got up at 3:30 to find Tom gone to Casa Grande. Today’s the day we should get the first of the fencing material. At last! I just hope we can get the whole thing done before the springtime bee swarms get here and before the snakes wake up. Of course, we’ll be dodging ants all along the way, too.

I’ve been waking up at 125 lately. Although I know it’s possible, I still doubt I’ll get below 120. I may not even get below 125, but I’m starting to suspect I will if only by a pound or two.

I decided to let my pierced ears close up. I simply never wear earrings anymore. I’ve never been big on jewelry as opposed to most women. It’s a pain in the ass. Earrings get in the way of my headphones. Hell, I don’t even wear my wedding band unless we’re going out. I’m not so into clothes, makeup, and jewelry like I was in the past. That’s more of a 20s single thing. Now that I’m a chunky, middle-aged married woman, it doesn’t matter so much to me.

Later…

And our shit keeps right on breaking. Yeah, today’s problem is that for some mysterious reason, I can’t get on the net. Tom’s been trying for hours to fix the problem but to no avail. He reloaded Windows and other stuff. He did find some corrupt system files, but getting rid of them hasn’t solved the problem. Meanwhile, the rest of the network is just fine.

Tomorrow, between 8:00 – noon, someone will be coming out to install the satellite uplink, and hopefully, though I highly doubt it, that will fix things and make them less complicated. The digital TV system I thought I was going to love and was going to be so easy to use and the program sucks as it is.

I’ll be asleep when the installer gets here and if they wake me up, they do, though I don’t think so. Not if I sleep with the fan on high. Also, the bedroom’s pretty far from the den.

SATURDAY, MARCH 8, 2003 It is such a beautiful, beautiful day out there. I have most of the windows open. It’s up to 78° inside the house. Naturally, the renters are out and about. We should see less of them as the temperature rises.

Tom’s now shoveling more dirt onto the pipes. Tomorrow he’s going to get cement, some posts and some fluorescent string. We want to put string from post to post as best we can so we know we’re putting the fences up in a straight line. He also thinks we can cut down from 120 posts to 80. He said he’s seen fences like what we’re getting with at least 30’ between them, so he’s going to get 8-10 posts or so and put them up in an area that doesn’t have a lot of brush to see how sturdy they are. This way, though, each post will have to be cemented, but that’s no big deal. It’ll save us a lot of money if we can cut down to just 80 posts. They’re 3 or 4 bucks each. The whole thing’s still going to cost $700-$900, but will be plenty worth it and a good selling point.

I finally got some serious sleep, too. I slept for 11 hours with no interruptions.

Poor Tom is still stuck. Wednesday he had diarrhea, so we picked up something for it at Walmart, and it worked alright. He hasn’t gone since!

I decided I would proofread the 1998 and 1999 files after all. I just won’t print them out when I’m done fine-tuning them. Together the files have just under 700 pages. I want to do about 10 pages a day.

I did manage to burn my MP3s after all too, by making sure I put a reasonable amount of songs on each CD. Each has a little over 100, and I figure every new 100 songs or so, I’ll burn a CD. Meanwhile, I’ll use the old set for traveling.

FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2003 Tom has to work tonight, then he’s on vacation.

There are now 34 weeks to go till the freeloaders are out of my life forever. About 238 more days left and about 161 in which Scot could show up here, but I really doubt he will. I hope not, but if he does, I’ll know that there won’t be 20- or 30-something more months in which he could continue to do so. So, I wouldn’t like it, especially if I was sleeping, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world either. Yes, there are many worse things than Scot popping in.

It dawned on me that you really can write to someone in prison from Estrella and get a reply, so I told Mary about the time I wrote Bob and got a response and suggested she give it a try.

Little by little it’s been warming up. Maybe that’s why there hasn’t been any activity in back when we go out to water the plants. The bougainvilleas are still in shock, but the rest of the stuff is fine.

Since I decided I don’t like flags enough to get more once the rest of the ones I have get old and tattered, the palms will be good for telling the direction of the wind like the flags are. Especially when they get bigger and fuller. It’s hard to tell the way the wind’s blowing with the bushier trees.

My prairie dogs remember me from last year. Both they and the rabbits are pretty brave around us, but the prairie dogs are definitely the bravest. I stepped up to an open window, and down on the ground just a few feet away, a cute little prairie doggie stood up on its feet staring at me. Then I went out and fed it.

We turned the heat off for the year which means it’ll get pretty chilly in the early mornings for a while, but we’ll live. The heat’s now not coming on till 4-5 AM.

To my extreme surprise, I was up 21½ hours and only slept for 6½, yet wasn’t tired when I got up. Maybe I’m finally getting to that point in life where I don’t need as much sleep, as is common with age.

Anyway, here’s a rather sad, sarcastic, yet to-the-point poem I wrote earlier.

Because of Them

Because of them, suffered great stress. Because of them, I could not live in peace. Because of them, I shed many tears of sadness. Because of them, I raged with anger and frustration. Because of them, I lost faith in God. Because of them, I was forced to turn on fans or music to drown out their racket. Because of them, I could not always enjoy being outdoors. Because of them, I had to sleep on a cold, hard floor. Because of them, I had to return to the city I thought I had escaped. Because of them, I could not live with my husband for six months. Because of them, the last six months of my pet’s life were stolen from me. Because of them, I was forced to eat overly bland or spicy foods. Because of them, I had no privacy. Because of them, I had to pee in front of others. Because of them, I could not wear my own clothes. Because of them, I could not sleep in my own bed. Because of them, I was forced to take cold showers. Because of them, I fell out of shape and gained weight. Because of them, I lost many hours of sleep. Because of them, I lost thousands of dollars. Because of them, I lived in a world of concrete and steel. Because of them, I froze my ass off. Because of them, I got the flu. Because of them, my newly straightened teeth shifted. Because of them, I was forced to interact with strangers I didn’t care to know. Because of them, I could not use my stereo, computer or other things. Because of them, I had to deal with even more noise and chaos. Because of them, I had to deal with some crazy, mean people. Because of them, someone stole my heart and broke it. Because of them, my husband also lost time and sleep. Because of them, I was humiliated, degraded and treated as a criminal. Because of them, I had to go places I’d have preferred not to go. Because of them, I live in the constant fear of reverse discrimination. Because of them, I can no longer trust the system. Because of them, I learned that corrupt cops aren’t only on TV. Because of them, I was forced to do things I didn’t want to do. Because of them, I learned many new things I didn’t care to learn. Because of them, I learned I was tougher and more capable than I thought. Because of them, I became friends with Mary and Rosa. Because of them, I have written and published things I may not have. Because of them, nothing will ever be the same again. Because of them, I WILL fight back if I am ever again legally railroaded.

I’m also going to put a copy of the letter I’m going to have Mary mail to Johnson in here.

Teddy Bear,

I have sent this letter in to Mary to give to you if you should return to Estrella while she’s still there because I’m trying to keep you out of trouble while I say what I wish to say to you, so please, if a sergeant should ever get a hold of this, just please make sure officer Johnson gets to read it, too. I want her to know just how much I’ve suffered on account of her rather poor conduct.

Yes, Teddy Bear, it’s me. Do you even remember me? The one you thought was too pretty to be a Jodi? The one you nicknamed Dawn? The one who called you Teddy Bear? The one whose heart you broke with your false promises of getting together a year after my ’01 release?

First I was hurt over what you did to me, but then I became angry. Especially after learning that there are other victims of your games and lies, which in a sense, is what’s inspired me to give you a piece of my mind. I had to do it, not because it can change the past, but because I hope it will cause you to think about what you’ve done and not make the same mistakes again. Life isn’t about avoiding mistakes altogether, it’s about trying not to make the same ones more than once.

So tell me, have you really simply wiped me out of your memory forever? And what about the property near my old place that was for sale that you asked me all about? Have you really forgotten the jokes we shared, the chats we had, etc.? Have you forgotten our joke about the dolls? Have you forgotten how I used to guess your name? I got new names for you, none of which begin with an R or would be appropriate to write.

For someone who’s considered to be pretty smart, I often wonder how I could’ve been so blind and dumb where you were concerned. And I thought you were oh so professional? Yeah, right! What kind of “professional” leads someone on the way you did with me? I know I wasn’t the only one and I know why you were transferred. I don’t want to “get you” and I don’t want to see you fired, but your behavior, looking back on it, was disgusting. Utterly appalling. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Don’t you ever feel the slightest bit of guilt? I was a human being you played with, not a toy. I had feelings, you know, and you really ran my head through the wringer. I was so, so hurt. I cried, brokenhearted for months when I realized you weren’t going to respond to the ’02 letter you told me I could send. No, I wasn’t going to leave my husband whom I love dearly, but I had hoped for and looked forward to some kind of relationship with you which you gave me every reason to believe would happen. Well, I guess it really is too late now, for I’m no longer even in Arizona. Now I know why you told me to wait a year after my release before sending that letter, too. As soon as you told me they had a 1-year policy, I became suspicious so I did some checking and found that wasn’t true. You only told me to wait, figuring I’d forget about you by then and how I wish I had, but see, you don’t understand the impact you had on me. It wasn’t just a crush I had on you, I fell in love with you and there was no denying it. One really can’t control who they fall in love with or how fast, nor does it matter if we don’t know the person too well, because I assure you, if I’d known what you were all about, I’d have avoided you at all costs. Flirting’s one thing, but must you tell people you’re going to get together with them when you know you won’t?

I busted my butt trying to breed you your favorite mice like I promised you I would, and what did I get for it? Totally ignored. The least you could’ve done was to call or write saying, “Thanks, but no thanks and I can’t make it to see you.” Instead, you blew me off completely as if I never existed. I mean, that was so cold, and you’re one of the last people I’d have thought would ever do such a thing. I thought you truly cared. I had no idea I was merely a game to you, and all on top of having to deal with why I was there.

I was there because I’m Jewish and I lodged a complaint against the wrong people with the wrong connections, unaware of the laws and my rights. I was tricked and manipulated by a public defender into pleading guilty for something I wasn’t even charged with and by the time I realized what had happened, it was too late, I was already convicted. And all for something I never should’ve done time for even if I had been guilty. Our old neighbors were black/Muslims, most of whom hate Jews, particularly them. They had section 8, were very loud, trashing our yard, etc., so we lodged a city complaint. They had a cop friend who typed a threatening letter, hauled me into the station, thrust it into my hands and asked if I’d seen it before. That’s how he got my prints on it. My point in telling you this is that first I had to deal with being set up and tossed in jail, then the media’s labeling me a stalking racist and having a field day making me their source of entertainment at my own expense with their fictitious tales, then you come along and shaft me all over again in a whole new way. There’s no excuse for what you’ve done. I trusted you, I loved you, and you used me while I was in custody. You, along with this corrupt cop and system, have really helped to shatter my trust of those within law enforcement in general and I have lost all respect and admiration for you. To me, you were very intelligent with such a vibrant personality and great sense of humor, but to you, I was a joke. Don’t worry, though, for I’ll be damned if I’ll always be the “woman scorned.” Little by little I’m overcoming the pain and emotional damage you’ve caused me and I will survive you, Officer R. D. Johnson, I will survive!

THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 2003 We watered the palms, and I swear Queenie’s grown half a foot overnight! The other one still looks the same. One of the bougainvilleas went into shock, but we think it’ll be okay. That’s a common occurrence when something’s been replanted in a new place.

Got a letter from Mary postmarked the 4th, but whether or not she’s still here is a mystery to me. I have a feeling she probably is. I wish she’d just get moved since we know Teddy Bear won’t be returning while she’s there, and then I can get on with sending her stuff to her and with writing to her in a place where nobody knows my name. She enclosed a draft and that’s it.

I also got my fashion and gold shoe boots. The shoe boots are nothing more than another few bucks wasted. First, I had to cut the backs of them just to be able to slip them over the doll’s feet, then they looked all funny once I got them on.

As far as the fashion outfit goes, it all worked out okay, but I was pissed at first. That’s because Robin, the woman I bought Alex, Eve and this fashion from, told me that Gene outfits would fit Eve. Not quite. The back of the strapless gown has 3 snaps and not one could make it around Eve’s waist. She’s fatter, even though she’s an inch shorter than Tyler and her friends. Then I tried it on Alex and found I could snap all 3 snaps, but it was loose at the top where it goes above her boobs and under her arms. So, it ultimately ended up on Tyler. I could snap only the top snap, but it looks best on her and goes perfectly with her gold/pearl earrings. The very light blue gown has pearl teardrop beads, gold beads, gold threading, and gold stars. It’s very nice and I don’t regret getting it. It came with a chiffon scarf (I’m not using it or the gold boots) and a pearl necklace. I put Mei Li’s light pink strappy sandals on her for now till I can give her Sydney’s light blue ones to better match the outfit once I get that doll. I can see why I thought it looked white online when it’s really what they refer to as celestial blue. In regular daylight, it looks like the color it is, but at night, under my 60-watt office light, it looks almost like an eggshell white with a slight tinge of blue.

I know dolls may not be Mary’s cup of tea any more than women are, but I’ll sure have a lot of pictures to catch her up on by the time I get the bulk of her stuff sent to her.

Eve ended up in Tyler’s original business outfit – the black wool skirt and white blouse. Alex is in a satin cranberry robe which matches her lipstick and nail polish well. Mei Li’s just in her pale pink teddy.

I’m determined to get out of having to do CDs altogether. I’m having too many problems with it. I went to make new backups of my MP3s, thinking I was adding more and more songs to the CD till it was full, while it was really overwriting whatever was there before. I thought CD-Rs couldn’t do that and that that was only a CD-RW thing. Nonetheless, if all goes well, I’ll back all my stuff up onto my other computer’s hard drive. I don’t think even we could be so cursed as to have two hard drives fail at once. If I could do this, though, there’d be no need for CDs. The 5 things I’ll have on both drives will be my journals, my drawings, my journal cover scans, and my graphics and music. Then, if we get either a portable MP3 player for traveling or one in the truck, I can use my music CDs there.

Surprisingly, I didn’t sleep as long as I thought I would. I slept just under 8 hours after being up for just over 18, and sure enough, something woke me up for a second at 8-something. I don’t know what it was. I woke up a lot of times. It seems the Melatonin causes me to do that, so I think I’ll skip it tonight. Besides, my schedule doesn’t matter right now. In a couple of days, Tom will be on vacation, and he said he didn’t have a preference as to when I sleep. He’s going to be doing his own thing for the most part anyway. Things I can’t really help much with, like his cleaning his office for the millionth time so I can get in there to dust and vacuum. I expect he’ll just want to relax in front of the TV a lot, too.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 2003 We were crashing like crazy on the net, but lately it’s been fairly stable. We’re thinking it may have something to do with the static on the phone, but soon it’ll be gone anyway.

I’m also having trouble burning CDs and even more trouble getting them from my work computer to my MP3 computer, so we’re going to run a cable under the house so the MP3 computer can be connected to mine, his and the TV computer.

Mary finally filled a floppy up with her stuff, so I’ll be sending a disk to her aunt to hang onto as well as keeping one here. If we were killed in a car accident and the shadow men of Florida stole her book, she’d be out of luck, so it’s good to have her aunt have a backup, too. You never know, some guilty Myra-like character could get paranoid, thinking Mary’s writing all about her evil deeds and tear it up while she was at medical or wherever.

Anyway, we were both pretty tired when we got up. We could’ve slept another 2-4 hours between the two of us, but we’ll be okay. He got more sleep later on and I’ll sleep a good 10-11 hours when I crash (I hope).

Once again Scot was out. I saw some other guy instead. I guess Scot’s been sick, though who knows why he was out the last time, too. Damn, though! That will make a month and a half that I don’t see him, assuming he’s there on the 19th.

Just 15 more reports. Where the water was once flowing steadily, it’s winding down to a trickle now. Once we get down to 10, it’ll barely be dripping. Then 75% of my life will belong to God and 25% will belong to me, rather than 45% to God, 45% to the blacks and 10% to myself.

I managed to get Chris some shoes that fit. They’re 10s. They fit well enough anyway. They extend a little past her toes, but not too bad. They’re Barbie sandals I slipped over her socks that go well with her windbreaker and culottes.

We also got two palm trees! I’m glad to finally have them and to be adding color to this otherwise dull land. They’re now planted out front. I can see one from my office window and the other from the living room, the windows I see out of most. One’s a date palm I call Palma and the other’s a queen palm I refer to as Queenie. Palma’s definitely the better-looking one so far, healthier and fuller, though they’re both still quite young. The date palm is about 3’ high now and the queen’s about 5’. Queenie’s a bit droopy at this point. That one will grow 25’-40’ tall and Palma will make it up to 50’. They were $16 and $21.

Hopefully, everything we plant will survive. For a week or so we’ll be watering everything to get things stabilized. Between the palms is where the pond will go. I mentioned getting a cute little statue or figurine like people often do for ponds, and Tom had me cracking up when he asked if I’d get this one in particular he once saw of a little boy peeing. Now that would be a funny one. Then we could invite Mom and Mary over!

We still have plans to get junipers, bird of paradise and more oleanders and bougainvilleas, as well as some petunias for color in front since we’re doing the front up more for looks and the back for privacy, and we may even get a prickly pear cactus (saguaros are too expensive). You can make multiple plants from one prickly pear plant.

TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 2003 Sure enough, Tom did have to play fix it on his way home from work. He got a flat tire which he replaced in the bank’s parking lot. Because it caused him to be way late, he was able to stop at the PO as soon as they opened to get the mug which is exactly what I pictured it to be. It’s way nice, and after I get the Esme doll with micro braids (I still want to get her ASAP, even though they don’t expect her price to change soon), I’ll get the remaining 3 mugs I designed. I should have them sometime in April.

I also got stuff from the Humane Society, finally. They sent 15 address labels, though we won’t need them as much as we used to, and a notepad.

Mary annoyed me by enclosing a note to send to José in prison in Florida because I told her I wasn’t going to cater to her friends, but in light of the huge favor she’ll no doubt be willing to do me at the end of the year, I told her I did it, though in truth, and I know this is probably going to be one of the most dishonest, meanest things I’ll ever do, I ditched the letter. I’m not going to play messenger with some prisoner I don’t even know.

Anyway, I’m a bit tired today, thanks to the freeloaders and the damn DVD I so stupidly rented that’s got to be returned tomorrow by noon. We agreed to hang up the DVD renting, either in person or online and just get HBO which is way cheaper. I’m tired because I knew that if I let myself sleep till 1:00 like I could have today, I wouldn’t be able to go to bed early enough, nor would I be able to stay up late into the morning, either. I just worry they’re going to boom me awake an hour or two earlier than I’d like tomorrow. They were flying today and yesterday. Fortunately, they waited till after I got up, but they could boom by tomorrow at 8:30-9:00, and I don’t want to get up till 10:00. I’ll snooze till 10:15 or so, but by 11:15, we’ll be out the door. We won’t be able to see Scot till 1:00 which means we’ll have over an hour to kill. We’re going to be bored out of our minds. It’s not going to take us that long to buy two trees, a pair of shoes and a snack. Perhaps we ought to eat at a sit-down place.

It’s really cool to see all the different license plates on cars. Especially at this time of year.

MONDAY, MARCH 3, 2003 The fashion that I plan to put Eve in, along with the gold shoe boots, were shipped today, and the site I got Mei Li from answered my question of how long they plan to have the Esme doll I want on sale. They said they don’t expect the price to change anytime soon, so in that case, I’ll have it by the end of this month, beginning of next.

We looked around and found there are a couple more options for fencing. There are a range fence and a hybrid fence we may end up getting which will be better than strands of barbed wire. It’d be an even better dog barrier. Due to all the rain we’ve had, digging should be easy enough so we shouldn’t have to rent an auger. In fact, planting our 2 new bougainvillea plants and our 3 new oleanders was a piece of cake. Yes, we’re finally doing it; getting/doing things we’ve wanted to for so long! It’s going to take a couple of years, but those rentals will certainly be out of sight sooner or later. We’re only going to hedge about 150’ in back if even that. Since we never hang out at the very edges of our property, for example, it makes no sense to bother hedging it. Just so we can’t see them from the house and like 30’-50’ at the sides. That way, we can have privacy when we get a pool that may be off to the side of the house. After this, we’ll do a little planting on the south side to give us a little more privacy from next door, though we already have quite a bit. Large trees block their house from our view unless we walk way out towards the road.

We’re planting just inside the back wash closest to the house. We’re thinking we’re going to split this property in half when we go to sell, so it should be a rather appealing feature.

Wednesday, before we see Scot, we’re going to pick up a date palm and a queen palm for in front. We decided to landscape the front and do it up really nicely. Even throw in some petunias and pansies and maybe some other colorful flowers, but not till we get the palms stable and growing well. I don’t care as much for white, yellow and orange flowers. Especially yellow and orange. I’ll be getting mostly pinks, reds, purples and a little white for its brightness. Of the 3 oleanders we have so far, one’s pink, one’s red and one’s white.

Though our hedges will consist mainly of bougainvillea and oleander plants, we may throw in some junipers in line with the kitchen window which is where we can see the renters the most. They’re boring as hell, they don’t bloom flowers, but they grow tall, wide and fast which is what we’re after.

Tom also got the pipes covered with enough dirt that not even the biggest dog could lift them. Next, he’ll put a layer of cement over them. We might even get some pavers at some point. They sell them in Walmart’s garden section which we were at today, not to get plants but to look around and get ideas and prices.

Instead, we got other things. A caramel ice cream bar, peach-scented lotion, socks for next winter (not Hanes which turned all holy in no time), a pink sports bra, daisy paper for Mary whose favorite flower is the daisy, a simple, easy-to-use recorder that uses regular-sized cassettes, something we still have around here, and a smashing Barbie outfit. Yes, it is quite dazzling. It’s a rock and roll outfit that even came with a little plastic guitar, not that I cared to save it. I just wanted the fashion. The low-cut pants are long and wide at the bottoms like bell bottoms, and the top’s a halter that’s shorter on one side than the other. It’s turquoise with purple glitter. It glimmers brilliantly as you move it in the light. It came with purple thick-soled pumps. Some of my dolls have nicer outfits than I do!

Mary was so right when she mentioned in one of her poems that one can be happy in a dungeon without money. Meaning, no, money’s not everything and I’d gladly give up all material things and live with my husband in a noisy dive if that’s what we had to do to stay together. Love really is the number one thing. However, if you do have money to spend on fun things, it sure is a nice added bonus.

As far as Chris goes, this time I measured that damn doll’s foot which is 7”. She’s a biggie! Wednesday, I plan to take a little tape measurer with me into the store. I saw these cute little Barbie sandals I hope to get her if they have any that are 7” long. I know I’ll find something, though.

Later…

Just got an email from Tom. I got two letters from Mary waiting for me and something to be picked up which we assume is the mug. If it is, that sure was faster than the Little Buddy mug we got before Christmas.

We have revised bed plans, too. Tom found a site that sells that memory foam, but not the mattress. Just a pad that goes on top of the bed. So, it looks like what we might do is buy new inner foam to replace the worn foam inside the mattress cover at the side, then get an additional bed frame, all of which are adjustable to either twin, queen or king size. In other words, we’re basically going to try to split this king-sized bed in half. The airbags are separate, so they can each go in twin-size beds. We’ll have to either modify or get new covers too, which the airbags go inside. So, hopefully they’ll be identical twin beds side by side. The only difference will be that mine will have the memory foam on top and his won’t.

Anyway, if we can stop having to play “fix it” so often, we just may get ahead with things. As it is, we’ve been crashing a lot when we go online. We’re doing different experiments to try to figure out why and it looks like his computer’s the one fouling things up. When his is powered up, we crash. But it’s been down all night and I’m still connected to the net.

SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 2003 And the breakage curse lives on. Yeah, it took out the car’s water hose this time around, so Tom can’t dump recyclables today. Instead, he’s gone to Casa Grande to get a new hose and drop off the DVD that’s due back today. Before we get the truck running well enough to be licensed, we’re gonna end up having to put a ton of money into the fucking car!

Tom’s worried we may not be able to get a title for the green one. They fucked up at the DMV and wrote this truck off as having been crushed so if they won’t title this truck Tom will have to pull everything out of the green one and put it in the white one which, of course, will mean more delays. He’d have to rent a lift to pull the engine out as it’s not something people can do with their bare hands.

The woman at the site I got Alex and Eve and now Eve’s dress and shoes from, says she plans to ship Monday and will email to confirm. That will mean the stuff will come Wednesday or Thursday this time around and not Saturday.

Our other stuff shipped a couple of days ago, but it’s coming by regular mail which means it’s hit or miss. It may take us a few tries to get it.

Webshots took the money Thursday night, so I should be getting the mug on Monday or Tuesday.

Later…

Wow, the renters may not be home. There’s not one vehicle over there.

Anyway, I called Carolyn to see if she knew anything about Justin, but then Tom found stuff online saying that he got 15 years, plus a lifetime of probation. Also, it could take anywhere from 2-6 weeks to extradite him.

So she left a message while I was taking a nap, saying she noticed my number on her Caller ID, even though I didn’t leave a message, and said she’d be home all night. So I decided to call her. She talks as much as Paula, barely letting me get a word in edgewise, though she sounded quite nice.

At first I was a little wary about Mary saving my letters, some of which Carolyn’s got, knowing anyone could read them. But then I figured it wouldn’t matter if they did. I wrote nothing wrong or bad in any kind of way.

She doesn’t know exactly when Mary will be leaving, but my guess is that yes, this is it. Sometime this month she should be gone. The sad part of it is that she doesn’t know anyone in Florida, so she won’t be having any visitors there. Carolyn said she thinks they’ll pay for Mary to return to Arizona upon her release, but I don’t think so. I’ve never heard of them paying for transfers, though I’m sure they’ll allow her to make the transfer. She said she’ll let me know the minute she learns that Mary’s gone, but as I warned her, 90% of the time we’re online, so she’ll probably get the machine. Although it’s true that we really are online a lot, I probably won’t answer if I see her number cuz I won’t want to gab for an hour with her. That’s why I told her to leave a message and since she loves to talk, I’m sure she’ll have no problem with that.

She too, learned the hard way that the media’s never a friend, just like Misery had told me. She said all they do is twist her words. “Oh yeah,” I told her. “If you say pink, they’ll print blue.”

She surprised me by saying that she sent those bookmarks and religious things to jail. I thought she got them inside the jail. See, we can’t send stamps, we can’t send money, so this was why I automatically assumed that bookmarks and pamphlets were a no-no. If I’d known they were okay to send, I wouldn’t have sent them to Carolyn, but Mary never objected when I first mentioned my hesitancy in sending things that weren’t pictures or that were of odd sizes or that had multiple pictures like the religious pamphlet did.

She asked if I were Catholic and I told her I didn’t follow/practice any religion, and then went on to explain to me about a picture of the Virgin Mary with knives in her representing the sorrow she endured when Jesus was killed. Well, she sent this picture to Mary, but it got returned to her as “inappropriate.” We both had to laugh about that one.

She mentioned Mary’s mom being coo-coo with guilt which is good. I mean, it’s good that she recognizes she did wrong, but I don’t know if that’d necessarily mean it’d be a good idea for Mary to live with her. We both agreed Mary’s only faults are her poor taste in men and her running like she did, but at least Mary’s learned from it all. I hope so anyway, but we’ll find out by what guys she takes up with when she’s free.

She surprised me by saying that as much as she hated to admit it, Derek’s a good father despite the horrible way he treated Mary. The reason I was surprised was that usually, if it abuses the girlfriend/wife, it abuses the kids, too.

We also talked about Todd’s burning Mary and Michelle’s silent treatment. She too, tried to get Mary to stop writing Michelle, but as I reminded her, she was trying to get those pictures back of Gretchen that Todd has. Speaking of Todd, I learned something new about Todd too, though I don’t know why Mary didn’t tell me this herself. Maybe because she knew I’d chastise her for associating with him. Well, he supposedly spent 5 years in jail after being implicated in a robbery/murder in which charges were dropped. He’s still on probation, though I’m not sure for what. Anyway, as Carolyn was saying, and I totally agree with this, it could very well only be a matter of time before he gets picked up for something else. Something that could pull Mary down with him. See, I’m just not sure Mary gets it. I’m afraid that just like Paula, she might not break her old habits. Like I said before, it’s what she’s attracted to, not just what she attracts. She probably doesn’t even know it and would deny it if you even so much as suggested it to her, but she likes abusive men. It may terrify her, it may hurt her, but at the same time, she likes being punched, she likes being kicked, and she likes being called a worthless whore. It’s as sick as it is sad, but some people really truly do have this illness that attracts them to shit like that. In the end, though, it’s her life and she’s going to have to be the one to decide who she hangs with.

I was way surprised to hear her say that Texas and Florida are the two strictest states. Supposedly she got this from a cousin of hers who’s a sheriff in Texas. I thought the worst two were Texas and Arizona. Either way, I know firsthand that Arizona’s bad enough.

She said Mary constantly speaks quite highly of me, which was nice to hear. Mary’s so right when she says that you can know someone for years and think you know them inside and out, then they turn on you or dump you. This is why I tell myself, “I’ll enjoy the time Mary and I are friends,” rather than, “We’ll be friends forever,” cuz Mary may very well decide someday not to associate with me. If she does, she does, but meanwhile, I won’t be going anywhere. It’d take a lot for me to dump her. As long as I’m not pestered with the 1-3 visits a week I used to enjoy, or expected to gab by phone for hours, I see no reason to dump her. I’ve already told her we don’t like to have a lot of company and that I’m not the phoneaholic I was in my 20s.

The poor girl had to ride on the same bus with Monster, who said to her, “Mary, you were right. I should’ve listened to you all along,” whatever that means. Mary said she ignored him while some other girl yelled out, “Shut up, you monster!” Also, Mary gave a beautiful speech in court. She has a video with news clips on it, all of which I have yet to see.

Lastly, she doesn’t seem any more thrilled with her neighbor, a drunken guy. Something about him breaking her van window with a weed whacker that he’s too poor to pay for. She’d be too scared living in a rural, snake-infested place, though, she said, and of course, her husband Rick is quite ill.

As far as the car goes, we ended up both blessed and cursed. He never would’ve made it to Casa Grande and had to stop in Stanfield where there was just one more water hose left. Had the problem been what he originally thought it was, it would’ve cost $130 instead of $30, and that’s all well and good, but it’d be even nicer if our shit could stop breaking so much. He even had to stop and play phone at one point. He said there was tons of static so he went outside and wiggled wires around. It was fine when I spoke with Carolyn, though. We might each get our own cell phones and get rid of the regular phone altogether so we won’t have to deal with power outages, etc. If the number changes, I’ll give it to Mary and Carolyn, but I don’t know about Paula. Maybe it’ll prompt her to write for real if I don’t just like it did when we moved from Phoenix.

[aurora567]

Morbid Curiosity Ch. 3

Warning: this story will contain mature content such as but not limited to sex, cursing, blood, violence, fighting.

Summary: This is a short Hanma/OC story that will have 4 chapters. So enjoy.

Word count: 4463

Last Chapter Next Chapter

The sun had set and night had truly set in when she decided maybe it was finally time to head home. She could take a bath and crawl straight into bed. It was late. People were trying not to miss the last trains home. She was not the only one who had decided it was time to head home. Working adults left their jobs, bars and whatever other establishments they were at till the late hours of the evenings. 

She herself had just left a cafe where she had been working on her homework after she had eaten her supper there as well. She was well known at a few locations that circled her school district. She hated going home. It was cold and empty. Had been since she pretty much started school. Her parents were never home; they were always working. Sometimes she would hear one of them returning during the middle of the night if she stayed awake long enough. But they would always be gone by morning. 

A stack of cash would be left on the table. Her monthly allowance in a way. It was often much more than she needed to survive. The bills on the home always paid and cash left for her. There were no rules. She could do whatever she wanted. At first the freedom was great. She liked it as a kid. No one forced her to go to bed. She bought candy and junk food with the money. But it didn’t last long. Loneliness had set in fast. 

She was forced to grow up fast. She wanted to have good grades, get into a good highschool and college. So she stayed on top of her studies, she kept the house clean, though her parents paid someone to come once a week while she was at school to clean the place. Still she didn’t like to stay there. It was an empty house not a home, and so she only stayed there to sleep more than anything. 

But with it getting late she knew it was time to head home and crawl into her cold bed and sleep till her morning alarm would wake her up to go to classes for the day. And that was the plan as she started walking down the growing empty streets. It was just the same as any other night. With her backpack full of her homework and still in her school uniform she looked forwards just spacing out as she walked. 

Though the peace did not last long. She had just walked past the door to a restaurant. She was two steps past it when the door opened and loud boisterous chatter filled the street behind her. It was a rowdy group of guys. They looked about her age. Still kids at the end of their teens. She paid them no attention as she could hear them walking down the street only a few steps behind her. 

It wasn’t the first time she had encountered rowdy guys while walking home. Cram schools only got out a short time ago, as well as the fact that most people out and about would start to head home at the same time as her. Kids and adults alike. Hell she often encountered more drunks than she would like at the same hour. Some teens were no concern to her. She should have taken more precautions and been a little more on guard. 

So when an arm slithered over her shoulders she was ripped from her thoughts. She blinked her eyes a few times before she looked over towards the stranger beside her. 

“Hey there sexy,” he hit her up with what had to be the worst attempt at flirting. And she was not amused as she scowled at him. 

“Don’t bother, I am not interested,” she said bluntly as she reached up to grab at his wrist and throw his arm away from her shoulders. That earned her a frown from the young man that looked close to her age. 

“Hey now. That is not very nice,” another man grumbled as he stepped up to the opposite side of the first. Looking around she took in the sight of four men about her age. She was clearly outnumbered. Four against one was in no way a fair fight. Then again she could not fight. She knew that fighting would get her hurt, both by the group and by herself. After all she was just as likely to break her own wrist if she tried punching someone. 

“No, what is not very nice is harassing a girl that has no interest in any of you,” she should learn when to keep her mouth shut. She watched the second guy's face grow red with anger. 

“You bitch,” oh shit. She fucked up. Hands grabbed at her left arm as one of the guys started to try and pull her towards one of the dark alleys. She was all too aware of what was probably going to happen to her if she let these men pull her into an alley. Dying may be one of the better outcomes. 

“Let go,” she yelled out trying to pull back against the tight grip. It did no good. His grip tightened as his pace did not slow. She could feel panic start to take over as she felt more hands gripping at her body. 

“Oh what’s this? Oh is that little Mori,” she knew that voice rather well. And for once in her life she could not have been more thankful to hear it. Tear filled eyes looked back over her shoulder to take in the sight of Hanma Shuji standing there. A half smoked cigarette sitting between his fingers. He was in a white t-shirt, some skinny jeans and flip flops. 

“Hanma,” she called out a little breathless at who she could only hope was her savior. 

“Who the fuck are you,” one of the men dragging her along barked at Hanma. 

“Oh? Looks like you got yourself in a little bit of trouble, girly,” Hanma said, ignoring the men as he took a drag from his cigarette. 

“Oi! He asked you a fucking question,” another man yelled at Hanma who simply tilted his head and finally looked over at the last guy to yell at him. She could do nothing more than look at him with pleading eyes. Praying that the man would step in and help her. 

“I ain’t talking to you,” The friendly look on Hanma’s face fell as he glared at the man who had spoken up to him. 

“Hey Ginji I don’t think we should mess with this guy,” One guy who was shifting his way to hide behind his comrades was trying to say to the man who was still holding tightly at her arm not yet letting go. Even as his attention turned to his friend to ask what he was talking about. 

“The bitch called him Hanma, if he is Hanma Shuji then he was the second head of Moebius and is the acting head of Valhalla. You can’t fight with him, he will kill you,” The scared one seemed to be the only one out of the group who was aware of the danger they themselves were now in. And he looked ready to either run for it or shit his pants; she was not sure which. 

“Was the second in command of Valhalla if you want to get technical,” Hanma said as a wide grin started to pull at his lips. It was a rather feral grin, one that she had seen before. When he had been fighting with Draken. She was saved.

Though the realization that she was currently stuck in the middle was a little nerve racking. She was not stupid. She could be turned into a shield and Hanma probably would not care if he hit her. This was not good, she was still not exactly safe in her current predicament as she listened to the men around her seem unsure if they should turn tail and run or attempt to stand their ground which would not end well. Their stupid leader seemed to refuse to let her go and let his pride take the hit instead of his face in the way of this fight. 

She needed to get away from the impending danger unless she wanted to find herself as collateral damage. Her own safety was her prime concern. It may have been seen as a dirty move in the eyes of guys but she did not care. Her knee slammed up as fast and hard as she could. Driving it between the legs of the man who had yet to let go of her. 

The noise he let out sounded like someone was strangling a moose. And she was pretty sure that he was starting to foam from the mouth. At first his grip didn’t waver for a second and she thought he was not going to let go. But then finally his hand dropped her arm and in that instant she turned and ran for it. She could hear the other three men yelling at her but she did not dare look back. 

Was running to Hanma really running to safety? That was probably questionable on the best of days. But she had no choice. She could not fight with the three men that were chasing her. Or the fourth that would recover soon enough and he was likely going to be pissed off after what she had just done to his manhood. 

She had no real choice but to hope that Hanma would help her. She felt bad dragging him into her problem. But she did not know what else to do. She had hoped that once she ran past Hanma and stood behind him the others would stop chasing her. She was wrong. 

Hanma had been puffing on his cigarette looking unimpressed as he watched the entire event unfold before him. Internally Hanma was laughing his head off. That tiny little kitten of his just drove her knee into the junk of the one guy so hard Hanma almost thought he could have heard a ball pop. He didn’t care if the move was dirty, it was hilarious that she was such a dirty fighter. 

He let her run past him to hide behind him. Had it been anyone else, Hanma would not have cared enough to intervene and may have even joined in with the other guys. But this was his toy and his toy alone. They could not have her. He waited till the first guy reached him before letting his cigarette drop to the ground as his right fist drove fast and hard into the nose of the first moron who thought it was a good idea to touch what was his play thing. The mixture of surprise and power was enough to send the first guy flying back to land on his ass as he cried out and his hand flew up to his bleeding and probably broken nose. 

Now Hanma was the target as one of the morons tried to throw a fist at him. He didn’t even bother to dodge. The knuckles hit his cheek. It was weak compared to some of the hits he had taken before. Compared to Mikey’s kicks and Draken’s heavy fists. That felt like a simple annoyance like a fly landing on his cheek. Though the soft gasp from behind him told him his little kitten did not expect him to just take the hit. 

“How pathetic. If you're going to run around picking fights with people you better have the strength to back up your fists. This is going to be so boring,” Hanma frowned at the guy who punched him and now looked like he was about to shit himself when Hanma did not even flinch. 

How boring. This was going to turn out to be a waste of his time. Another punch had the second guy on the ground too. And Hanma barely tapped him. Turning to the fourth and final guy to still be standing in one piece and it was the only semi smart one of the group. The one who had tried to warn his friends and encouraged them to run. This kid was shaking like a leaf as he stood back outside of Hanma’s reach without moving. The idiot was so scared Hanma wondered if he was to say boo at him would he scream, cry and run for it? The thought almost made him start to laugh. 

It seemed Hanma’s attention on the fourth was more than enough to have the kid turn and run for it. Chicken shit didn’t even attempt to stand his ground. Well that was a stupid waste of his time. And so boring. This was supposed to be a decent fight. Four on one should have given the others at least a slim chance of making this hard for him. But no, only one had been able to even reach him, and that was only because Hanma had let him connect the easily dodgeable fist.  

“Look out,” a thrilled voice cried out as Hanma had just pulled the pack of cigarettes from his back pocket. He was not expecting the attack from the first idiot that she had castrated with her knee. With his hurt pride fueling his anger he had pulled a knife. It was not a large knife, just some dinky pocket knife. Still if it stabbed into his body it would hurt and may even require him to go to the hospital. Hanma did not like that thought at all. 

Still this moron did not know how to attack with a weapon like a knife. His grip was weak, he didn’t even look like he was trying to aim the blade as he blindly ran towards Hanma like a wild boar. 

“Idiot,” Hanma drolled as he used his still empty hand to reach out for the oncoming wrist. His timing was off. He could feel the burn start as he tightly gripped at the blade's edge. The sharp blade sunk into the skin of his fingers. The blade had no extra handle to grip at and the idiot paused once closer and so Hanma was too fast to grab his wrist. It didn’t matter. This was fine. Pain in his right hand was nothing new for him. 

“If you are going to come at someone with a knife you better be prepared to kill someone then or die trying,” Hanma said, flashing the man a crazed grin as he leaned over him. The other grip on the pocket knife disappeared, leaving the small knife still in Hanma’s bloody hand. 

The idiot in front of him ended up backing away quickly when it became clear that he had just picked the fight with the grim reaper. It was a good thing Hanma found a knife used in a fist fight as only a tool a weakling would use. Tossing the knife away, Hanma was shaking his stinging hand out. A few spots of blood flying from his fingers. 

“Get lost. This fight is no fun. What a waste,” Hanma said, turning his attention back to the pack of cigarettes in his uninjured hand. He did not care about his own blood. Bloody fingers carefully plucked one out of the pack so he could lift it to his lips. 

Kokumori on the other hand was very upset at the sight of blood once the group of four guys were retreating away from the battle zone. She was quick to step up to his side. Maybe she should go into healthcare after highschool. She had a stupid strong desire to help hurt things it seemed. She was babbling about him bleeding. It’s not like Hanma cared at all. 

“You may need stitches,” was the first thing she had been babbling that grabbed his attention. 

“Nah this is nothin. I’ve had paper cuts hurt more,” he said as he stuck the cancer stick between his lips and his bloody hand reached into his pants pocket for his lighter. Any pressure hurt a bit, but otherwise the slices to his fingers did not hurt much. 

“This is not nothing,” she was clearly upset and maybe even a little panicked. Her tiny hands had reached out for his. And once his cigarette was light he let her pull his bloody hand down to her eye level so that she could inspect the cuts. 

“Come on. Let’s head to my place and I will clean and see if I can somehow bandage you up,” she was a bossy little thing. And yet Hanma let her boss him around as he found himself walking with the small girl. 

They did not have to go far it seemed as she was quickly leading the way into a large apartment complex. The place was really nice looking on the outside and even more so once inside. The lobby almost reminded him of a hotel rather than an apartment complex. Luckily at the late hour no one seemed to be around to witness the somewhat bloody Hanma as he followed the naive idiot up to her apartment. 

The letters 403 were staring at him on the front of the door as she proceeded to pull her ring of keys from her backpack and opened the door. The place inside was much larger than Hanma was expecting. For an apartment the place was huge. And quickly Draken’s earlier common came back to him. She lives here alone. This was a lot of space for one teen to live in. Following her inside he slipped his shoes off and watched as she did the same before taking off into the large house. 

“Just stay put for a moment. I’ll be right back,” she had yelled at him as he had started to follow her into the house. The place was spotless and almost looked like no one lived in it. Had there been a layer of dust he would have believed the place was abandoned. But no dust meant someone kept the place clean at least. Moving towards the kitchen Hanma could not help but snoop. Opening the fridge he was surprised to find it almost bare. Some soda and a jug of milk was all he could see. 

Even his fridge at his most broke of times had more in it than this. The sound of pitter patter of feet on the floor had him close the fridge and step back from it to not reveal his snooping. Though this was oddly raising questions in Hanma’s mind. Though why did he care? He barely knew this girl. And what he did know was limited, she went to school with Draken, she was too nice for her own good, and seemed to put others above her own safety. Like now, she barely knew him and yet she had dragged him to her home. They were alone, he could do anything he wanted to her and she would be defenseless. He was bigger and stronger, she could not force him off of her if he decided he wanted to harm her. 

Yet her own safety did not seem to matter at all as she returned to the kitchen with a backpack he had recognized. It was the one she had turned into her walking first aid kit for his and Drakens weekend fights. It must be what she stored all of her first aid stuff in. Placing the backpack on the table she reached into it with a growing expertise. Pulling out the clean towels, some butterfly bandages, disinfectant and some surgical style tape. 

“Run your hand under some cool water at the sink. Make sure the cuts are clean,” she instructed him as she was pulling out what she deemed that she needed for his injuries. 

Silently he did as he was told, walking over to the kitchen sink he turned on some cool water and stuck his hand under it. It stung a little bit as he watched his blood turn the water pink before it was running down the drain. It didn’t last long as the old blood was washed away and his cuts were bleeding much slower now. Once it seemed his hand was as clean as it would ever get he turned the water off. He didn’t even get the chance to ask for a towel as she was already standing beside him and she snatched out to grab his wrist and pull his injured hand closer to her to inspect as she was carefully drying and applying pressure to the fingers bleeding the most. 

“Butterfly bandages are not the best for highly flexed areas. But I’m hoping since the skin looks cleanly cut. And if you can go a day or two without flexing or bending your fingers too much then this should work. I’ll also apply some gauze and surgical tape to help try and prevent your cuts from reopening before you even get home from here,” she explained as Hanma was not really listening to her. He did not care what she had to say to him. Instead he was looking down at her tiny hands that were working to dry his fingers before she reached for the disinfectant first. 

Her hands were so much smaller than his, and soft. Where his hands were calloused and scarred up hers were soft and blemish free. And like the last time she cleaned him up her touch was so gentle, as if he may break under her gentle, helpful touch. He could not remember the last time anyone had touched him like he was the fragile one. It was an odd feeling. 

“This is gonna sting,” she warned as she sprayed some disinfectant on his fingers. It stung but he did not flinch or make a sound. It was not the first time he had felt the sting of disinfectant on an open wound. As she let the disinfectant dry she moved her attention to grabbing the butterfly bandages. 

“Thank you,” she said softly while her back was turned to him. He gently arched an eyebrow at the soft spoken words he knew he had heard. 

“There’s nothing to thank me for,” he gave a huff at her. 

“No, I need to thank you and apologize. It’s my fault you got hurt. And yet if you would not have stepped in, I do not want to think about what may have happened to me,” He watched a shiver run down her body as she spoke. 

He had not actually thought much about what had been happening when he walked across her and the group of idiots. He had heard some voices, and he had been about to ignore the events as they unfolded till one yell of a feminine voice sounded familiar. Curiosity had then gotten the best of him and he found himself walking over to investigate. And it seemed he had heard right, he had recognized the tiny girl that had started to join him and Draken on their Sunday fights. 

“Nah you're just lucky I was in the area. I had been hoping those idiots would have put up at least a slightly decent fight. They didn’t. How boring,” and to show for it he only had some cut up fingers and his boredom was still going strong. 

“Still you did not have to say anything, you could have walked past and pretended to not see me,” she pointed out, knowing that most people would have ignored the scene and just walked past her as she called for help. 

At that Hanma shrugged his shoulders. He too was unsure why he had stepped in. Sure his curiosity had been the reason he went to see what the noise was about. But his curiosity was not what drove him to step in and stop the men trying to drag her into an alley. He could have turned and walked away, or if he was that sick and twisted he could have tried to join the group. She was just lucky he was not exactly that sick and twisted. 

Her light touch took his hand in hers again as she turned her attention back to pressing the wound together before one hand carefully pressed the small bandage on one side of the cut before she pulled it slightly tight to the other side. It took a couple on each finger that were cut and she was careful where she placed the bandages to try and avoid areas that may pinch as he closed and opened his fingers. 

Placing some gauze over the fresh bandages and wrapping some surgical tape around his fingers, bending said fingers became much harder. Which had been part of her plan. It was probably her way of trying to prevent him from making things worse with always bending his fingers. 

“Why did you bother bandaging me up?” He asked bluntly as he looked at his hand inspecting her handy work as he waited for the answer. 

“Who would do it if I didn’t?” She asked with a tilt of her head as she watched Hanma’s golden eyes snap up to look at her. He was expecting her to say it was her thanks or something stupid like that. Instead she pointed out that if she did not tend to his wounds no one would. Hell half the time he could not be bothered to tend to his own injuries. 

He did not even know what to say. Could she see that he was lonely? Why did she care about him? A stranger to her. Even Kisaki, his one and only friend, did not care so much about him. That stirred a few unfamiliar feelings in his gut. Yet the sudden urge to make her his was one he noticed. She may have been chasing Draken but Hanma no longer cared. She was going to be his. His to keep, his to touch, and his to tend to him and him alone. He would not share her. Well maybe with Kisaki but even then he wasn’t sure. 

She was not far from him. Two small steps and he cleared the distance between them. His hands both reached out and he grabbed her hips. Listening to the adorable noise of surprise she let out as he picked her up off of the ground and placed her butt on the counter. With the added height she was a little closer to his height now but was still small enough he had to lean forwards and bend his back in order to crash his lips against hers.

Next Chapter

[ncityprincess]

drunken cuddles

let’s consider this part 4 of the johnny x oc series. here’s a fluffy drabble where big drunken koala johnny acts extra clingy with his wife.

MDNI

part three

it was 1:27 am when johnny stumbled into the quiet house. he toed his shoes off and hung his jacket up in the coat closet as quietly as he could.

he had just gotten back from his friend yuta’s bachelor party. he still had the same group of friends since college, and he knew he couldn’t miss his best friend’s last party before he tied the knot.

johnny hadn’t gone out much since you had the babies. he didn’t want to leave you home alone with three kids. he knew you would be able to hold your own, but you and him had decided to let the twins develop more before going out with friends. it had been about 7 months since your twins eli and ryan were born. they were already used to their sleep and feeding schedules, so you felt comfortable with johnny going out to celebrate his friend’s marriage.

johnny entered the living room and let out a startled sound when he saw you sitting on the couch wide awake and scrolling on your phone.

“babyyyyy, you didn’t have to wait up for me” johnny whined. he made his way over to you and laid his full weight on top of your body, causing you to giggle.

“it’s ok, i just wanted to make sure you got in safely. how was the party?” you asked as you stroked his hair. he loved when you did that.

johnny’s hazy, honey colored eyed stared into yours. he looked so handsome even with this drunken glow that was evident on his face. “i had a blast honey. yuta took so many shots, i lost count. taeyong and jungwoo had to tap out after two drinks. we sang sooooo many karaoke songs. but i have to admit, i couldn’t stop thinking about my precious babies. i missed you so much” johnny ended his slurred ramble with a warm, open mouth kiss on your forehead.

you patted johnny’s head, chuckling softly. “it’s only been what, 5 hours since you left? i got you sprung that bad huh” you teased.

“you know it baby” johnny said with a drunken smirk.

you patted his back, signaling him to get off of you. “alright lover boy, let’s get you ready for bed”

“okay mama” johnny rolled off of you onto the floor. he resembled an inebriated sloth, the way he made his way towards the staircase.

you grabbed the water bottle you saved for when he returned home and followed behind your husband, poking him on the butt. he turned his head around and gave you a suggestive smirk. “keep it moving” you whispered.

the both of you made it to the top of the stairs where you and your children’s bedrooms were. johnny made a pit stop at hazel’s room and gently pushed the door open. he quietly made his way over to where his daughter was sleeping in her bed and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. “goodnight, hazie. daddy loves you so much.”

you smiled at the cute scene in front of you and made your way to your shared bedroom. you had left out some clean clothes for johnny to change into.

after checking on his sons and saying goodnight to them too, johnny entered your bedroom, closing the door behind him. “i love you so much honey. i feel so lucky to have you.”

your man’s sudden sweet words made you blush. “aww, i love you more john. you’re so cute right now” you gushed. “come on, let’s get ready for bed.”

johnny nodded and went into the en suite bathroom to do his night time routine. once he came out of the bathroom you called him over to you and began to strip him of his clothes. you lifted his shirt over his head, undid his belt and his pants, and put him in a fresh pair of boxers. all the while you felt your husband giving you that signature stare. johnny always had a way of looking at you like you were the only girl in the world. it still made you blush till this day.

“stop looking at me like that” you said shyly.

“looking at you like what?”

“like you hold the whole world in your eyes”

johnny smiled sweetly down at you. “well i’m looking at you, and you are my whole world sooooo.”

you reached up on your tippy toes and ruffled his hair.

“even after all these years you’re still so impossible, johnny suh.”

“you know you love it” johnny teased smugly.

“here, drink some of this water before you go to bed. i’ll be right back” you said as you made your way to the bathroom.

“hurry up mama, i want to be the little spoon” you giggled at your big baby of a husband. he always got so clingy with you when he was drunk. you absolutely loved it.

“sure honey, give me one sec”

you came back from the bathroom and saw your husband passed out, snoring softly. you chuckled to yourself, shaking your head.

you climbed into your bed behind him and snuggled yourself into his back, draping your leg over his body. oh how you loved nothing more than snuggling up to your cozy “little” koala.

the end💋

[xnchxntmxnt]

5 Moments Kagami Taiga Realized How Much He Liked You, and the One He Finally Did Something About It

Fandom: Kuroko’s Basketball

Character: Kagami Taiga

Warnings: cursing, several food mentions, it’s assumed that reader isn’t a basketball player but knows a little, minor injury mentioned, plz dont listen to the fic ur not actually supposed to use hydrogen peroxide on cuts but i didnt know that till i googled it after i read this just use cool water to clean it,

Notes: wrote the ending when i was sick so its shitty however this is officially the longest fic I've written and posted on here. beat the last one by like 20 words or something. congrats to me

gn!reader!

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#1 - Los Angeles

Kagami smiled at his phone. It was only a few more days until he’d be back home in Japan after spending some time with his family and Alex. It was nice to see his young cousins (who, he found out, idolized him) and parents, plus playing a little street ball like he used to was always fun. 

But he missed Japan. 

He missed his friends. His team. 

He missed you, too. 

And that’s why it was four in the morning and he was still up talking to you. Because as much as Alex teased him about it, he really did miss you. 

“Ah, young love,” Alex teased, laughing at the basketball that flew next to her head from him. “You’re impossible, y’know, Taiga. If you don’t fess up soon, you might lose your chance.”

“There’s nothing to fess up!” he argued, like he had been for the last several hours on and off. She was impossible. 

She rolled her eyes and ruffled his hair. “You’re not stupid, although you act it. I know you can figure out just how wrong that sentence is.”

And she was right. He was wrong, at first. Because you don’t non-stop think about kissing someone you’re just friends with, or get sickening butterflies, or anything else he’d been dealing with. 

He yawned while you were in the middle of talking about something—he’d been ready to sleep for houts, but he needed to stay up to spend time with you. Even if it was over the phone. 

“And then Koganei said—” you paused. “Kagami, what time is it there?” 

He checked the clock. “Uh…4:17, why?”

“Please tell me its 4:17 in the afternoon.”

“No…?”

“Go to bed!” you half-yelled at him. “You have to be up and awake in the morning, please get some sleep.”

“I like talking to you, though.”

Maybe it was how tired he was, but that was too cheesy. 

You paused again, then he heard you laugh at his comment. “I like talking to you too, Kagami, but you have to sleep. Please.”

He yawned again and nodded. “Yeah, yeah…I guess. I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Night, Kagami.”

“Night.”

He hung up and sighed—you had no idea what you did to him, did you? He could fall asleep listening to your voice because it was so soothing, but at the same time he never wanted to miss a word of what you said. You made him smile easier than anything, and he was starting to think you were up there with basketball on his list of things he cared about. 

Now the question was what to do about these feelings…

#2 - Homework

After returning home, he realized he had a lot of work to catch up on—a week off of school and practice was fun (even though he wasn’t exactly not practicing), but it meant a lot of homework for him to work on. Luckily, you offered to help him through it and study. 

The two of you took a break to cook and eat dinner, during which you lounged on the couch and watched a basketball game. It was the same routine he had every night, but for some reason it was better with you. When he first sat down to eat, he threatened to sit on your ankles if you didn’t make room for him, too. He got kicked in the arm when he did, actually, sit on your legs when you didn’t move, but he got his spot on the couch back so he didn’t mind.

“Oh, that was shit,” he cursed at the TV, sitting forward to yell at it. “That wasn’t even his fault! He was—”

He paused when he heard laughter next to him. Why were you laughing at him? He was right! The ref was being stupid! What else was new, though—

“They can’t hear you,” you teased through your laughter. 

Once your words sunk in, he rolled his eyes and shoved your leg. “Shuddup, I know that!”

“Then why are you yelling at them?”

“Because I can!”

You laughed more, as did he. It was always the little things that made you laugh, he noticed. Even if you were laughing at him being stupid, you were still laughing, he figured. His smile softened a little when he looked at you, but he quickly averted his eyes when you looked back at him. 

“Oh no, Kagami, you’re thinking about something. Tell me.”

“I’m not thinkin’ about anything!” 

“What else is new,” you teased. “What was that look for, then?”

“What look?”

You scoffed at him. “You looked like you wanted to kiss me for a minute there.”

Maybe because he did. But he wouldn’t tell you that. 

“Wh—no, gross,” he said, coming up with any negative words he could to deny that. He definitely didn’t want to do that. Definitely. “Like I’d ever do that.”

You kicked him again, making him complain again. “What, don’t think I’m cute enough? Or would you rather be kissing Kuroko?”

He laughed again. “You’re…I dont even know where you come up with this shit,”  he siad, standing up from the couch. “Don’t jump in my spot, jerk. Want more?”

“I’m good, thank you. You cook well, though. Dinner’s great.”

“Thanks.”

He could freak out about that comment to Alex later. Yeah, he knew he could cook, but you complimenting him on it was different than someone else. Especially if it was his team barging in and suddenly he was cooking for eleven hungry teenagers. 

He could get used to dinners with you, though. 

#3 - Sunny Days, Popsicles, and Basketball

There was nothing better than playing basketball on the weekend with friends, Kagami had decided way back in middle school. And it was even better with his current team. 

He and the Seirin boys were bored and decided to get together for some streetball. Fukuda was busy, leaving uneven teams, so he decided to call you. Ever since Kuroko dropped that he had a crush last week at practice, they hadn’t stopped bothering him about it and wouldn’t get off his case about it until he called to see if you were busy. 

He’d taught you a thing or two about basketball not long ago, and while you were no pro, he was proud of how well you played for a rookie. Then again, he always went easy when you two played a game. 

The scrimmage went over as well as expected—with him and Kuroko on the same team, they easily won, but no one was keeping track of points after the first twenty minutes. They were too busy having fun and running around for the hell of it. 

They decided to call it for the afternoon—they’d been playing for at least an hour and it was sunny and hot. It was the perfect day for popsicles, which everyone volunteered you and Kagami to go buy. Based on Furihata and Tsuchida’s cheeky smiles, he knew they planned that. Kuroko looked clueless as usual. 

It was a good thing the convenience store was less than a fifteen-minute walk there and back. He might not have lasted much longer in the silence if not. 

To be fair, it wasn’t awkward silence. He was just tense. He was always tense around you, lately—trying to be the most impressive he could, trying to figure out if you liked him back…it was an internal struggle daily. But he wanted to spend all the time he could with you despite the butterflies. 

“What’s up with you lately?” you asked, turning the corner so you were in sights of the court. “You’re…weird. I dunno. But you’ve been different, lately.”

“What? No, I’m not different.”

“Yes you are.” You sighed, looking over at him. “Did I do something? You can tell me if you’re upset with me, Kagami.”

No! No, no, no, no, no, no! That’s not at all what he wanted! Just the opposite! He wanted you to know how much he liked you! He was too much of a wimp to say anything about it, though…

“Nothing’s wrong,” he confirmed, trying his best to smile and be convincing. Nothing was wrong, nothing was different. Just two really good friends hanging out, and not him almost getting hit in the head with the ball because he was too busy watching you during the game. “You didn’t do anything. Don’t, ah…don’t worry about it.”

There was no more time to argue that since Furihata saw the two of you, cheered, and got the other three boy’s attention. 

Crisis averted, he guessed, but how long would it be before you started thinking something was really wrong?

#4 - Patch-Up

He wasn’t exactly a saint when it came to cursing, but he usually tried to hold his tongue more than he was right now. 

He let out a string of curse words, yet again, as you poured a bit of hydrogen peroxide over the scrape on his knee. Kagami sucked air through his teeth, trying to pretend it didn’t hut as bad as it did. “Aren’t you done with that, yet?” he complained. 

“If you’d quit moving your leg every time I tried to put the peroxide on it, I wouldn’t keep missing.”

“You aren’t!”

“Yeah, but I haven’t gotten the whole thing yet, so hold still!”

You smacked the side of his calf and continued on. Serves him right for trying to pull off some skateboarding trick he saw his cousin do in America. It didn’t look that hard, he thought. Apparently they weren’t exaggerating on taking them three months to learn it.

Finally, you put the bandaid on his knee and helped him off the couch. He poked at the scrape and winced, receiving a slap on the arm for it. 

“Hey! What was that for?”

“If it hurts don’t do it, stupid.”

He rolled his eyes, sitting back down. “Thank you, though. For doing that.”

“Who would have thought Taiga Kagami had such a low pain tolerance?” you teased, sitting down with him. That time, he shoved you. 

“Its not low pain tolerance, that shit just hurts!”

“Mhmm. Whatever you say.”

He shoved your arm, which you shoved back, so he shoved back harder. This pattern went back and forth until all of a sudden you were beating him with a throw pillow. He was trying to find any sort of ammo to use against you, when he realized, he had all he needed there. The next time you hit him with the pillow, he snatched it from your hands, threw it to the side, and began to tickle you. 

It was a minute or so of laugher and breathless complaining from you, when you suddenly kicked out at him and made his arm that he was putting most of his weight on give under him. 

This knocked him down till his face was inches above yours. 

Shit. 

He stared wordlessly for what felt like an eternity, trying to figure out what to do. Should he kiss you? Would that make it weird? Would it be awkward? What were you thinking? Was he too close?

You opened your mouth like you were going to say something, but nothing came out. Instead he sat up, blushing like a mad man, and helped you up as well. 

“Sorry about that—”

“Oh you dont have to apologize—”

“Still, I—”

It was eerily quiet and awkward after that. The tension in the room was thickenough to cut with a knife and he hated it. He never had that kind of tension with you. Things were always easy when he was with you. But not right now…

After a few minutes of this, you made some excuse about needing to get homework done so you had to get home, but he knew it was an excuse. You told him Friday you’d gotten all your homework done so your whole weekend was free to hang out. 

Damn, he’d really screwed up, hadn’t he?

#5 - Lunchtime

“Yo, what’s dumbass moping about?” Kagami asked, sitting down at the lunch table across from Kuroko. Next to him was you, who was face down and groaning about who knows what. 

“Don’t call me dumbass, asshole…” you complained, sitting up straighter. “And, for your information, Kagami, I’m hungry. And forgot my lunch. And money.”

He scoffed, opening his lunchbox and shoving a box toward you. “How’d I know you were gonna forget?”

He watched you open the box slowly and rolled his eyes. “Nothing in there is gonna kill you, y’know? You’ve had my cooking before.”

“I wasn’t sure if it was a prank.”

“With food? Never, that's a waste.”

You scoffed, digging into the lunch he made for you. He wasn’t sure how he knew that morning, but something in the back of his head told him to bring extra food. Maybe he thought he’d be extra hungry after practice or something, but he was glad he did. 

The three of you chatted for a while, mostly him talking about basketball and Kuroko chiming in every once in a while. Most of it, he was pretty sure he’d mentioned before, but anytime he was talking you made sure he knew you were paying attention. 

Shortly after the lunch bell rang, the three of you parted ways for your next classes. He was planning on dropping his crap in his locker, grabbing his crap for math, and leaving, but those plans flipped on him when he felt someone grab his shoulders and use him to jump in the air. 

“What the hell?!” he asked, flipping around to see who it was. He couldn’t stay pissed off for too long, though, because it was you. He half-expected Koganei or one of the other boys from the team. He rolled his eyes, grumbling about how you shouldn’t scare him like that. 

“Oh, shuddup, Kagami.” You elbowed him in the arm, matching his pace as he kept walking. “I came to give you your box back. Realized I had it when I left.’

“Surprised you found me.”

“Dude, you’re a giant and you’re the only kid here who’s got BRIGHT red hair. Wasn’t hard.”

“True.” He laughed, taking the box back. “Thanks. For this, I mean.”

“I should be thanking you, Kagami, that stuff was amazing. Every time I have your cooking I can’t believe you cook that well.”

“Hey!” 

He shoved your shoulder, and you shoved him back in retaliation. “It wasn’t an insult, stupid, it was a compliment!”

“Sounded like an insult.”

“Maybe you just sound like an idiot.”

He made a face that made you laugh. There you go, making him think about all those dumb feelings again. He loved seeing you happy, though, even if it was at the expense of a little of his dignity. 

You smiled at him, pausing in the (now mostly empty) hallway. “I gotta get going, but I’ll see you later, right?” 

“You bet.”

You waved and ran off—he simply stood there, thinking about how incredibly adorable you were when you were excited about something. He hoped his face wasn’t too red. 

This was getting ridiculous—or at least Alex thought so. And the rest of the team who knew how embarrassed he got when they brought you up. He was down bad, and he knew it. For days, everyone had been telling him to say something about it, but what if it didn’t go how he wanted it to? Would that screw up your friendship? He didn’t want anything to change, but if it changed for the better, that wouldn’t be a bad thing…

The bell rang, and he cursed under his breath. Now he was late and a mess. This was going to be a fun rest of the day. 

#1 - The Winter Cup

He still couldn’t believe it. 

After all that work over the summer, and all the work during the game, they’d won. 

It was no easy feat, going up against Touou. And they had more (no doubt, harder) games coming. But for now, the entire team was buzzing with the excitement of victory and looked like they were ready to pass out from exhaustion. 

They were on their way out of the arena and heading home when Kagami heard his name called from behind him. 

He looked up and turned to see who it was, and there you were, running towards him and his teammates. He looked to Riko for permission to leave them and go talk to you, which she didn’t even give before she and Hyuuga were shoving him along. 

Kagami broke into a run towards you at the same time, only slowing down when he got closer to you. You didn’t, however, and ran straight into him, jumping and pulling him into a tight hug. 

“You did it!” you cheered in his ear, somehow squeezing him tighter. “You really did it, Kagami!”

He held you that tight, too, only letting loose a little on your waist when you pulled your head back to look at him. “What, did you doubt we wouldn’t?” he teased.

You laughed. “I always believed in you. You’re just…incredible, Kagami.”

I always believed in you. 

You’re incredible. 

Those words hung heavy in his mind, unable to speak once they sunk in. He was certain there were some things he could do most people couldn’t, but it meant so much more coming from you. 

He stared in disbelief for a moment, only breaking out of his thoughts when you ruffled his hair. “Earth to Kagami,” you teased. 

The words left his mouth before he could stop them. “I really like you, (Y/N).”

You stared. He’d screwed up. No, no, this was bad. He was caught up in the excitement, and now he was screwed. He wanted to eat his words, but there was no taking back what he said. 

Kagami opened his mouth to apologize, starting to pull away. You hugged him again, making it unable to let you go. 

“You idiot,” you said into his shoulder. “About time.”

He (gently) shoved you off, holding you at arms length away. “What do you mean, about time? You mean this isn’t going to be super awkward now?”

“I like you too, stupid! Took you long enough to say something!”

“Why didn’t you then??” 

“Because I wasn’t certain if you liked me, too!” 

“But I do!” 

“Now I know that!” 

“Captain told me to tell you to kiss or something so we can get going.”

The both of you jumped, not realizing Kuroko was standing right next to you. After the initial shock, you both started laughing, and he walked back towards the group (most of which who were watching the two of you). Kiyoshi flashed you a smile and a thumbs up, and Hyuuga smacked him for it. 

“If you kiss me, you can tell your captain over there to man up and get himself a girlfriend. Ask your coach out, finally.”

He made a face in confusion. “What are you talking about…?”

“Oblivious. You’re actually oblivious.”

Any remark he could muster out fell silent against your lips. He smiled, trying to ignore how loudly Koganei yelled “get it, Kagami!” from far enough away anyone else outside would have heard him. It was hard to ignore, however, and soon the both of you parted, too busy laughing. 

“I’m gonna kill him one of these days.”

“Make sure it’s after the finals.”

“Finals, huh?”

“Like I said. I believe in your guys—in you, Kagami. You’re gonna make it.”

Even if he wasn’t already, he was pretty inclined to believe that now.

taglist

@sirimirihiro​ @emswordss​ @iwaso​

[ajaxsprettyboy]

A post from my Wattpad account ! (lov3sn0w)

Manjiro “Mikey” Sano x Afab reader

Cw - smut , lowkey angst , no real comfort , reader is in love with Mikey , reader is wearing fem clothes

Sleepy. Tired. Exhausted. Many sleepless nights spent worrying about Manjiro, wishing you didn't feel this way for him, you could get past him, just let go of this mental obligation to keep tabs on him. Not him per say, no he didn't annoy you, it was this constant yearning for his touch, his presence, his approval. You knew that. You knew you loved him, but did he love you? A different story.

You loved him but god did it hurt to stand in the background and watch. He knew you watched. He knew you saw. He knew you cared for him, adored him even, but he didn't dare make a move when sober. When drunk he'd saunter over to you. He'd lead you to his room, have his way with you and toss you out till the next time he grabs a bottle off the shelf.

He didn't like being high, it gave him less control than he'd like. He liked being in control. More than he'd ever verbally admit, drunk or not. He's quiet. He enjoyed watching people from afar, silently. He watched you, more often than you knew. He'd grab a bottle off the shelf for the sole purpose of watching your reaction, your realization of your situation. You didn't realize it was intentional, his lies too sweet, too believable.

To him you were a pretty little thing. A pretty little thing he could trick into thinking he's drunk. The bottle in his hand, labeled Ketel One Vodka, was filled with 3/4 water and 1/4 vodka. His lies were believable, too believable for your own good. You knew you were tired, you knew this wasn't the best idea, but he was drunk right? He was 'drunk' and you were delirious from the lack of sleep. Fair trade in his eyes.

He finished the bottle and looked at you. Eyes locked onto yours. Without breaking eye contact he strutted over to you. Aware of the height difference between you two. The heels made you taller, the fishnets only added to his attraction. You were stood by his door, you knew where this was going. You knew this game, the name unspoken yet understood.

You wanted his approval didn't you? Then do as he says. He says this at least once every time you decide to play along. He nods towards his room, telling you to get in and get on his bed. You're still giddy, every time. Butterflies filling your stomach, crawling up your throat, and blooming into a smile you tried oh so hard to discard. He licked his lips, locked the door, and grabbed a box. Tissues.

"You'll need these." His tone steady, seemingly unfazed, and smooth. He doesn't like condoms much, only uses them when asked. The box of condoms still sitting where you left it, were you the only one he fucks? Yes. Would he admit that? No. You grabbed a condom, aware of how heavy his load is. You set it to the side, unaware of his next move. To your surprise he took your underwear off himself, licked his lips once more before heading face first into your groin.

When he ate it, he ate it like a mad man- no starving, one that hasn't eaten in months. His tongue darted moving quickly, watching you squirm and moan. When you moan particularly loud he shoves dry fingers in your vagina. This doesn't mean he's stopping his licks aimed at your clit, sometimes missing and hitting a lip. He's messy. He loves it. The way you writhe, the bucks of your hips, the facial contortions, your scent, your taste, the way you feel around his fingers, god he loves it. It's damn near enough to make him orgasm. Oh, he did.

Two minutes, that's all it took, you whined once more before releasing on his fingers. He chuckled, watching as you came down from your high. He took his own pants off, underwear following suit. You looked up at him, eyes asking a question your tongue was not yet bold enough to. He looked you in the eye and let out a breathy denial, he wanted to please you.

He knew it was uncomfortable, jaw locked in the same position for long enough to cry. Though it felt nice on his part, he'd like to keep your jaw in place. You on the other hand liked the feeling of his cum down your throat, getting there was less that comfortable, its thick. He's not incredibly long, but he fills you up so nicely.

He grabbed the condom, pumped himself twice, and rolled the fresh condom onto his cock. Positioning himself above your pussy. The first stretch was always the most difficult to take, it was always slow. Painful, yet oh so pleasurable. Inch by thick inch he filled you. Once he bottomed out he waited for a sign to move, this wasn't a usual occurrence but god it was interesting. You clenched lightly, he took the hint.

First five thrusts were slow, finding a rhythm, pace steadying, and eyes running over your face. He grabbed a breast in his hand, licking at the nipple, distracting himself. His hips grinding into your own, balls slapping your ass cheeks. His room was clean, minimalistic, and let echoes spring from wall to wall. Each pat of skin against skin, each vibration of the both of your vocal chords, every pant, every cream of the floorboards, each and every spring's croak, a symphony of sex.

A symphony you wish to never stop, you felt him cum once more, this time in the condom. He didn't stop though. He kept going, until you were overstimulated. He couldn't care less if he had to orgasm over 50 times just for you to meet him at 5, all he cared about was making sure you were pleased. Two more thrusts and you found yourself unable to take another orgasm.

He slowly slid out, noticing the change in behavior almost instantly. When he wants to, he notices things. Once he was fully out of your battered pussy, he collapsed onto the bed, not bothering to take the condom off until you told him to wash up with you. Too damn sleepy to give a damn about your smell until the morning you just grabbed a wash cloth and washed up, making sure to urinate before falling onto his bed once more. And, taking off that top you managed to keep on.

He followed your actions, it was now far past 2 in the morning. You slept, you slept well, you knew he was with you, you knew he was safe. You felt at peace. He slept on your chest, and you holding him. It was nice.

Life with him could be nice. You just had to convince him to love you as much as you love him. For now, sleeping with Mikey in your arms, was more than enough.

[hotch-stufff]

Kiss The Girl

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Reader

Warnings!: angst, pining(lots of it), crying, arguing, but a fluffy ending, like super fluffy ending :)

Word Count: 3.7k words

Description: Hotch tries to deny it, but he's madly in love with you. He keeps getting this urge to just kiss you. Could it really be that easy?

A/N: not really sure what this is, but I was listening to that new cover of kiss the girl by Brent Morgan and I really wanted wrote this. It definitely took a turn i was not expecting, but I hope you guys love it as much as I do. :)

*Based off the song "Kiss the Girl"*

--------------

He loved you. It was no secret.

Everyone knew, everyone except maybe him.

Or maybe he did know, but he refused to accept it. He couldn't love you. It was wrong. But if it was wrong, why on earth did it feel so good?

There, you see her, Sitting there, across the way

She don't got a lot to say, but there's something about her

He wasn't the best at sharing his feelings. He was good at locking them away, and throwing away the key. But you, you made that hard.

There was just something about you. It drew him in, and he was hooked.

Maybe it was the way you giggled when you were nervous. Or maybe it was the blush that tinted your cheeks when someone gave you a compliment. Maybe it was the way you showed Hotch the happiness he needed in his darkest times.

He wasn't sure, but he knew you were special. He was sure he knew exactly when these feelings had started. It was the night of Rossi's Christmas party.

You sat on Rossi's couch, laughing along with Morgan and Prentiss. They had made some very very inappropriate joke, that you just thought was hilarious. 

"Okay, h-hang on. I need a refill." You gasped out between laughs. You made your way to the kitchen, grabbing the wine before pouring yourself a glass.

"Hey." You nearly squealed as Hotch came in the room behind you.

"Jesus Hotch, could have given me a heart attack." He simply chuckled. "Yeah, laugh it up." You playfully rolled your eyes.

"I'm sorry." He tried to hide his smile.

"Yeah, you sound it." You walked towards him, giving him a soft smile as the teasing atmosphere faded. The room was empty, and you wouldn't be able to ever work up the courage again.

"Merry Christmas Hotch." You whispered as you leaned up, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. You pulled back, gave him a small smile, and walked back to the living room.

Aaron stood there, shocked. 

Why had you don't that? Why had he liked it? Would you do it again?

The questions repeated in his head, over and over. And he realised that a peck on the cheek wouldn't be enough. 

He needed a kiss, a real kiss. Even just one from you and he would be satisfied for life. But that, was an impossible dream. Or, so he thought.

And you don't know why, but you're dyin' to try

You wanna kiss the girl

Months had passed since then and he still hadn't gotten another kiss from you. 

You two had grown increasingly close however. You were practically inseparable. Always at one of your houses, talking, watching movies, eating. You name it.

Although watching movies was usually with Jack, and currently he was stuck on repeating the Little Mermaid.

"Miss Y/n?" He asked one night.

"Yes Jackers?" You asked, looking down at the small boy.

"Can we please, watch the little mermaid with daddy?" He begged. He used those puppy dog eyes and you were sold.

"Of course we can." You heard a chuckle come from behind you and you whipped around.

"Didn take you long to give in, huh?" Hotch questioned, a smirk playing on his lips.

"Oh shut it Hotchner. Go get the popcorn." He laughed and shook his head before walking to the kitchen.

Soon you found yourself wrapped up with the Hotcner boys. Jack was curled up on your lap, his face buried in your neck as he fell asleep.

As you and Hotch watched the movie, he snuck glances every couple of minutes. He couldn't get over how beautiful you looked. 

And you were holding his son, loving him like he could be your own. It filled Hotch's heart with love and affection.

And then that song began playing softly in the background

Yes, you want her

Look at her, you know you do

The lyrics spoke a truth that Hotch was desperately trying to avoid. 

But he didn't know how much longer he could go without telling you. In the moment he couldn't remember why he hadn't told you already.

Possible she wants you too, there is one way to ask her

It don't take a word, not a single word

Go on and kiss the girl

All he wanted to do was reach over and bring you into a kiss. Just a simple kiss. 

Just to feel your lips move together. Just for a second. He almost did. You had turned to look at him, and he leaned in slightly. His hand raising. 

But the shrill sound of his phone broke the trance. His hand receded before you could grab it. And he didn't kiss you.

You were filled with a disappointment that you couldn't explain. 

Sha-la-la-la-la-la, my, oh, my, look like the boy too shy, He ain't gonna kiss the girl

Sha-la-la-la-la-la, ain't that sad? Ain't it a shame? Too bad, He gonna miss the girl

The music of the movie faded as a grim look replaced the carefree one on Hotch's face. 

"We'll be right in." He muttered out the words with disdain, sending you an apologetic look.

But you barely noticed, you were still trying to calm down the beating of your heart.

He was going to kiss you.

Did he feel the same way that you did?

All thoughts left your mind though as you felt Jack wake in your arms.

"Hey buddy." He looked up at you with the eyes he shared with his father.

"Do you have to leave?" Your heart broke a little bit at his questions.

"Yeah, bud. I'm sorry." He just smiled at you and burrows further into your chest.

"Its 'kay." He mumbled sleepily. "But we have to wait till Aunt Jess gets here so we can keep cuddling." Your heart swelled and your face lit up. Hotch was staring at the two of you, in awe. His son loved you so much. 

You looked over at him, a tear in your eye. He swallowed as he pushed his feelings aside, giving you a soft smile before getting up to get dressed.

He was screwed.

A couple cases later, and you were holed up in a precinct, everyone nearly falling asleep.

It was a bad case, a really bad case. And you were running out of time. The unsubs' latest victim only had about a day left.

But nobody could work if they were falling asleep. Eventually Hotch sighed and told everyone it was time to head to the hotel.

But of course, once there, there were only 4 rooms.

"I'm taking my own room. I'm old." Rossi said and grabbed the key before anyone could argue.

"C'mon pretty boy." Morgan grabbed another key, and walked off with spence.

"I'll go with Jj. Y/l/n, you good with Hotch?" Your face went bright red at Prentiss's words. But you nodded, looking anywhere but at Hotch. You couldn't say no, it would be too obvious.

"Y-yeah, that's fine." You all trudged to the elevator, Emily and Jj said goodnight and walked off once you reached your floor. You and Hotch walked in silence down the hall to the very last room.

He swung the door open, and you had to stop yourself from gasping. There was only one bed.

"I'll uh, I'll take the floor." You scrunched your nose at Hotch's offer and he couldn't deny how adorable you looked.

"Hotch, no. That will kill your back." You shook your head. "We can share. We're both adults, it's fine." You're not sure if you're convincing yourself or him. He just nods and gives a soft okay.

"Do you want the first shower?" He asked. 

"Um, no. I shower in the mornings." He nodded before walking into the bathroom.

Why was this so awkward? You guys were such good friends, this shouldn't be so weird. 

You pushed the thought aside before crawling into the bed and curling up.

Hotch walked out of the bathroom 10 minutes later in nothing but a towel.

Your eyes grew and you couldn't take your eyes off of him. He cleared his throat, and you looked up at his eyes.

"Uh sorry, forgot my bag." You nodded, looking away quickly. Too scared to speak. He quickly went back into the bathroom.

"Get a hold of yourself." You whispered to yourself. You weren't going to survive this case if he did that again. He joined you in bed soon after getting dressed.

Neither of you spoke, neither of you moved, neither of you breathed. It was completely silent.

After about 20 minutes of silence and trying desperately to fall asleep you spoke up.

"Hotch?" 

"Yeah?" His voice was hoarse.

"Um, I can't sleep." You turned towards him and he did the same.

"Neither can I." You sighed.

"How's Jack?" You asked, trying to bring up the mood, or to at least get rid of the awkwardness. It seemed to work because his face lit up at the mention of his son.

"He's good. He actually just asked if you could come over soon. He got an A plus on his spelling test that you helped him study for and he really wants to show you." You smiled as you listened.

"That's great! He was so nervous for that test." 

"Yeah, thank you Y/n for helping him." You grabbed his hand, squeezing gently.

"Of course Hotch. I love Jack." You muttered, and you fell into silence again.

But it was more content, more peaceful. Your hands stayed laced together, and Hotch's mind went blank as you started leaning closer.

Now's your moment

Floating in a blue lagoon

Boy, you better do it soon, no time will be better

He started leaning in, his hand moved from your own to cup your face. But something switched in his mind. What was he doing? This was wrong. He couldn't let this happen. 

Your faces were inches apart when he pulled his hand away and scooted backwards slightly.

Look like the boy too shy

He ain't gonna kiss the girl

Your face fell, and his heart squeezed painfully.

"Um, we should go to bed." You were so confused. You thought that was it. It was perfect. He, he pulled away though. Why had he pulled away?

You could almost physically see his walls being built up.

Walls you had spent so much time breaking down.

"Oh, um. O-okay." You stuttered out, pulling back  quickly.

"Goodnight Y/n." He said softly, but you didn't respond. You were too scared you would cry if you did. 

You fell asleep faster than you anticipated, but maybe you were just that tired. 

He was gone when you woke up.

You thought everything might just go back to the way it was after that night.

But boy were you wrong. Hotch had completely pulled away from you.

No longer did he invite you over, or invite you to do paperwork in his office with him

You didn't watch movies, or go out to eat, or even talk about anything other than work. It was hell.

You tried, you really tried to get him to open up again, but it just didn't work. Nothing did.

It was to the point where he would be almost rude to you. 

The team was beginning to notice. And you couldn't hold back any longer. It was killing you.

You needed to talk to him, past this wall he had put up. You needed to know why he was pushing you away. You walked up to his door, knocking on the door.

"Come in." He said softly. You walked in, and his eyes stayed trained on the paperwork in front of him.

"Hotch?" He still didn't look up.

"How can I help you Agent Y/l/n?" He asked, his voice not wavering from professionalism. You shut the door behind you and walked forward, sitting in one of the chairs.

"We need to talk." He was taken aback slightly by the determination in your voice, but he sighed before setting down his pen.

"What is it?" He sounded almost annoyed, which just made you angrier.

"What the hell is going on?" You didn't mean to be so rude about it, but you needed to know.

"Excuse me?" 

"Seriously Hotch, we went from talking almost every day, to not speaking unless it has something to do with work."

"Y/l/n…" he went to stop you.

"No. Hotch please. I don't know what I did." You begged. "I mean you can't even use my name anymore." You whispered.

"This is very unprofessional." he wasn't breaking.

"Please Aaron. Don't lie to me." You tried his first name, and he had never loved his name being spoken more than when you said it. But he had to stop this.

"Agent Y/l/n. I'm sorry if our friendship was confus-" but you cut him off.

"We weren't just friends. You know that and I know that." He had the audacity to look confused. But he knew exactly what you were talking about.

Don't try to hide it how, You wanna kiss the girl

"Please Aaron, don't pretend, not with me."

"Agent Y/l/n! That's enough!" His voice was rising. 

He didn't understand why you couldn't just let it go.

"No it's not. I love you Aaron, I'm sorry. But I do. And it hurts so much that you are pushing me away!" Your eyes filled with tears and Hotch stood there, awed that you felt this way. But he couldn't let you in. So he took that final heartbreaking step.

"I don't love you." He whispered out. You had been standing and you took a staggering step backwards. 

"What?" Your voice was small.

"I don't love you Y/n." The lie was tearing him apart. Why was he doing this again?

Tears began falling down your face. You were upset and mad and heartbroken. And you were embarrassed that this man had this much of a hold on you.

"Fine." You sniffed. "If that's how you feel Agent Hotchner." He missed the way you said Aaron and flinched at the formal title. But this was what he wanted. "I apologize for the unprofessionalism." You turned to leave, but stopped when he spoke.

"Y/n…" His voice was small, strained. You wiped away your tears. When you looked back, his eyes were glossy.

But he didn't say anything else and you kept walking, slamming the door behind you. The bullpen silenced and everyone stared at you.

It was humiliating, but you walked to Rossi's office, your head held high.

"Rossi?" 

"Y/l/n, what's wrong?" He asked, like he hadn't heard the conversation through his shared wall with Hotch. 

"Can you please tell Hotch that I'm sick and I won't be in for a while?" Your voice wavered slightly, but you ignored it.

"Y/n-" he started, but you didn't feel like talking.

"Please Rossi?" You begged, praying he would just say yes so you could leave.

"Yes, of course." You nodded and thanked him before leaving. You slipped down to your desk and grabbed your bag. 

You didn't see Hotch standing in the doorway of his office, watching you as you left, tears silently slipping down your face.

Your teammates asked what was happening, but you just waved them off and left.

They all turned to Hotch, but he was already back in his office, his door slamming for the second time that day.

You wanna kiss the girl

A week passed, and you hadn't come back to work yet. Hotch wasn't sure what to do with himself. He hated what he did.

The team was confused, Rossi kept sending him angry glances, and your empty desk was haunting him.

And then, Jack asked that question. The question that broke him just a little more.

"Why doesn't Miss Y/n come over anymore daddy?" He had asked one night at dinner.

He didn't know how to answer. "Does she not love us anymore?" His eyes were big and glossy like he was going to cry. He decided not to lie to his son.

"Daddy made a mistake and Miss Y/n is just a little sad right now." Jack didn't understand what was happening, but he wanted to help fix it. His dad had been so sad these past couple of weeks and it made him sad. 

"Daddy, you have to say sorry! And you have to do what the song says!" Hotch looked at his son confused. What song?

"What song buddy?" He asked, pulling his son into his lap.

"You know, you have to kiss the girl!" He giggled like it was the most obvious answer in the world.

"The little mermaid song?" He asked, smiling at his son's innocence. 

"Yes, remember, you and Y/n were sitting on the couch before you left for work, and you were going to kiss her!" Hotch looks shocked, Jack was awake for that?

"Um, buddy. Me and Y/n aren't together." He sighed as his son deflated.

"But why? You love her. And she loves you." He spoke, confused as to what was happening.

"Um.." Hotch drew a blank. He couldn't give this little boy an answer. Not when it was his fault. Not when he was the one that had said no. 

It was a mistake, a huge mistake. He should have just told you.  Why hadn't he?

He should have kissed you.

The first time, or the second time. He should have told you that he loved you too. Was it too late? 

"Um, buddy, you know what? It's time for bed." Hotch put his son to sleep and called Rossi, asking him to come over.

He prayed he wasn't too late. Rossi showed up at his door 20 minutes later.

"Hotch-" but he knew.

"I know, I'm an idiot. But I have to go tell her I love her too." He was rushing, grabbing his keys.

"Atta boy Aaron." Was all Rossi said as Hotch ran out the door, jumping in his car.

He was sure he was going faster than the speed limit, but he couldn't care less. He needed to see you, and to be with you. To tell you that he loved you.

His car was barely parked when he jumped out and ran up to your door, banging on it.

You heard the noise wondering who would come over so late. You were shocked to find Hotch there as you opened the door.

There, you see her, Sitting there, across the way

She don't got a lot to say, but there's something about her

"Y/n." Was all he said. You slammed the door in his face.  He began banging his fist in the door and you threw it open, again.

"Leave Hotch." 

"Please, Y/n, just hear me out." He begged. You hesitated, but moved to the side letting him in. You shut the door softly.

Yes, you want her, Look at her, you know you do

Possible she wants you too, there is one way to ask her

"What do you want, Hotch? What more could you possibly want?" He shook his head, holding his tears at bay.

"Aaron." He spoke quietly.

"What?" 

"Please, it's Aaron." 

"Agent Hotchner. You need to leave." But he didn't leave. He stood there and stared at you. 

"I'm so sorry Y/n." 

"Hotch, seriously, I can't do this. I can't." You tried to keep those tears in, you were tired of crying over him, but there was no point. You felt then slip down your face.

Words weren't working, he had already said enough. But he remembered Jacks words. 

The song.

Now's your moment, Boy, you better do it soon, no time will be better

She don't say a word and she won't say a word, Until you kiss the girl

He stepped forward and brought his hand up to your face. He leaned in slowly, and brought your lips to his. 

Your heart stopped, and you kissed him back desperately. You had wanted this for so long. You had waited for so. Damn. Long.

"Your so stupid." You murmured against his lips. He pulled away gasping for air.

"I know" his voice was beautiful.

You've gotta kiss the girl, Go on and kiss the girl

He leaned in again, kissing you like his life depended on it. He gently ran his thumb across your cheek as he wrapped his arm around your waist, pulling you forward. He broke away a moment later.

"I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry. I was an idiot. I love you." A tear escaped his eye, and you brushed it away. "I dont expect you to forgive me. I wouldn't forgive me if I was you. I was awful, and I never should have lied and said I didn't love you too. I shouldn't have pushed you away."

"Why did you?" He hesitated, he wasn't sure you would understand.

"The last time I let someone in my heart, she left. And then she got hurt because of me. I couldn't risk that happening to you." He shook his head.

"Oh Aaron. I'm not leaving. I don't ever want to leave you. I love you too much to leave." You paused. "And you can't hide and be scared to open your heart. Its okay to let people in." You added softly and he gave you a smile.

You both stood there in blissful peace, your foreheads touching. He chuckled and you looked at him confused.

"What?"

"I kissed the girl." You just grew more confused.

"What are you talking about?" You asked humor in your voice.

"The song. Jack said I had to do what the little mermaid song said." You understood then and began giggling. 

"Maybe, maybe you should do it again." You suggested, a smile on your face.

"Hmm, maybe I should." And he leaned in again for another breathtaking kiss.

.....................

"And that is how me and your dad got together." Your three kids sat in front of you listening in awe. 

"Wow, so Jack is why he finally told you he loved you?" Your middle child, Tommy asked. Jack laughed as he stood up, tapping your shoulder as he towered over you. 

"You could say that." Aaron said from the doorway, you turned, smiling at your husband. 

"Yeah, sure." You giggled and ruffled Jack's hair as you picked up your nine year old daughter, Jenna. Who, in all honesty, was almost too big to be picked up.

"Mommy, can you tell us that story every night?" She asked, and you smiled. 

"Of course I can sweat pea. But now, its bed time." You tucked in your kids, giving them each a kiss on the forehead before joining your husband in your room.

You plopped on the bed and curled up into his side.

"Hi sweetheart." He greeted you with a kiss, and he pulled you into his side. "You know, you didn't need to make me sound so…" he couldn't quite find the word.

"Stupid? Clueless? Dumb?" You asked, giggling as he began digging his fingers into your side, tickling you. 

"St-stop. Aaron!" You shrieked and he let up, but not before plopping on top of you. He began peppering kisses all over your face.

"I'm glad you finally told that story. Jenna has been begging for weeks" Your youngest had watched the little mermaid a couple of weeks ago and Jack had made a comment about one of the songs. Jenna had heard one word and was begging for us to tell her our "falling in love story", as she put it. 

You had finally given in and told them, and they had loved every moment of it. Jack of course had already known, having witnessed it. 

But Jenna and Tommy had loved hearing how their parents had fallen in love. 

And a week later when you walked in the living room you were filled with a sense of nostalgia as you saw Jack with Jenna in his lap, as Tommy and Aaron sat on the couch next to them. Watching, of course, the little mermaid. You plopped next to Aaron, smiling. 

As Kiss The Girl started playing.

--------------

Thanks for reading! Requests are still open, so ask away! If you would like an idea of what to request, here is my prompt list, and if you would like to read more of my work, here is my masterlist.

[wizkiddx]

i just had the cutest idea at least in my head and would LOVE if u could do a blurb? where tom is trying to measure your ring size to propose while your asleep, but then you wake up and catch him.

this is v v cute! I hope this is what u want, sorry if it didn't translate I found it a bit tricky aha

summary: tom gets caught preparing for a very big moment

warnings: v small reference to smut

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

Sleep always had been, and always will be, an important thing in your life. Naturally then, any source of interruption, was met with some….some hostility. Maybe it was your annoying flatmates as a student, who insisted on playing the worst drum and bass till 4 am every night; maybe your neighbours car alarm, which seemed to be set off by the lightest gust of wind; or maybe your loving- if slightly infuriating -boyfriend.

Tom had just got back from a trip abroad and you’d had a quiet evening in- consisting of pizza, a long forgotten film playing and lots and lots of laughs. As much as you loved his family and friends, celebrating with a fancy dinner and lots of drink - there was nothing better than a night in. It was what you’d both desperately needed too, just actual quality time with the both of you living in the moment, forgetting everything else outside the four walls of your flat.

Needless to say, you’d ended up right between the sheets and you honestly couldn’t remember falling asleep. But now, barely conscious, you did notice your fingers being moved and fiddled with. With a groan you limply pulled them away, rolling over to chase Tom’s body heat - which seemed to have disappeared. His presence hadn’t though, you could tell even with your eyes shut due to his little coo.

“Shh darling…. go back to sleep.” And with a mumbled incomprehensible response, you tried to - even if you personal heater appeared to be in hiding.

Yet then, barely 30 seconds later, the bed dipped weirdly again; Tom’s grasp lightly tugged at the arm you’d crossed over your body. Fighting against it, you snatched your arm away and groaned incoherently once again. Again you got a the most whispered and soft sounding reply from Tom. “Shhh Y/n/n…. come on, work with me here.” Clearly you were half asleep, not really paying any attention to to his words, so huffed - shifting again so you we lying half on your back, half on your side, your left hand lying on the pillow next to your head.

And yet again, barely a minute later, you were sure you heard him chuckle before the bed wobbled as he crawled up it. You could feel his shin brushing against your side as he once again went to grab your hand. And that- that was the last straw.

“What the fuck are you doing?!”

The sight you were greeted with was not one you expected. Tom kneeling next to you, with bed hair and all, looking like a deer caught in headlights - literally too, the flashlight from his phone illuminated the otherwise pitch black room. His eyes bugged out his head, while he frantically fumbled with his phone in an attempt to get the light off.

“Nonononono” Muttering as if you weren’t there, Tom obviously struggled to find the right button to shut it off - giving you amply opportunity to notice the other object in his lap.

A yellow tape measure?

Why the hell he was measuring you while you slept, completely unawares, was beyond you. The boy hand some explaining to do - primarily because… he interrupted your sleep.

“Tom what the fuck?”

“I’m so sorry I-I just….just go back to sleep love.” It was weird, how he seemed defeated? He looked upset, and was doing that thing where he nervously ran his fingers through his brown curls.

“Not until you tell me what the hell you’re doing.” Sticking firmly, you reached over to flick the bedside light on, just as he finally got the torch off. The warm golden light illuminated to whole room, allowing you to more clearly assess the situation. The brunette was sat so he were almost leaning over you, with the tape measure but also you now noticed a little notebook and pen sat to the side. His despairing look had you immediately forgiving the interruption to your night- everything, melting away to concern. “What’s going on T?”

“You um-you weren’t supposed to-fuck! I’m sorry love I just-“ Reacting to his embarrassed ramblings, you sat up properly to cup his his cheeks with both your hands.

“Hey take a breath yeah? Then tell me why you’re being all creepy and sizing me up for a coffin or something?” He laughed breathily at that, but it was a smile that didn’t meet his eyes.

“I wasn’t- I… can we just forget this happened?” He already started to get off the bed, wrapping the tape up in a very hurried manner. With a scowl you shook your head, leaping up to grab the yellow ribbon out his hands before he could fight back.

At that point it was too late for Tom. You saw the way the tape was labelled, not with cms or inches. Instead it was letters of the alphabet, starting at G and ending at Z. You would’ve been confused, except the fact you’d used this weird scale before, when you and your best friend got matching promise rings the other month.

Tom had been trying to measure your ring size.

You couldn’t help but let out a little ‘oh’ as it clicked - making Tom sigh heavily, still looking at you with worried and terrified eyes. It took a minute for you to face him, smiling weakly with a little gleam growing across your eyes.

“We should- we should uh, let’s go back to bed yeh?” Stammering through, you already almost forced the the tape back into his hands. Wordlessly he nodded jerkily and placed both the notebook, the tape and his phone on the bedside - as you flicked the lamp off.

Obviously, it was awkward as hell. Right now Tom knew you knew - he was less convinced though on how you reacted. Now he was doubting whether you wanted that- if you wanted to be his wife. The silence was defeneing, the bedsheets the only noise to interrupt as you both settled back onto the pillows. Tom left a bit on no-mans land in the middle, not wanting to push it.

Really there was no reason to not move and cuddle up to him, even slightly cruel. You knew Tom was worried that he’d fucked up massively. You could hear his breathing shake, as you both stared up at the ceiling. Maybe it was slightly horrible, but you couldn’t help but feel insanely blissfully happy. Tom was your future and it was good to know he was starting to get the ball rolling.

“I’m a size N” You whispered up to the ceiling “just for the record.” You both swivelled to look at each other simultaneously, your smirk completely overwhelmed by the smile of pure joy that grew on Tom’s face. Yes the room was dark and you could barely see, but that image might just be one that lives forever in your memory - as your absolute favourite.

“Just-just so we’re on the same page… um, thats your fourth finger? Left hand?”

Finally moving from the awkward position, you nestled your head into the crook of his neck, legs wrapping round his. You chose not to answer super specifically, because it seemed like he was asking more than just one question there. Just very broad and very open to interpretation answer.

“Yes and… and um yes too…just for the record”

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