#or help him hide from being found by literally every other member of the family

[mammalsofaction]

Y'know what would be really funny? If each of the Flynn Fletcher siblings KNOW/have suspicions about Perry's secret, but they each keep it to themselves for individual reasons. It's been pointed out before that Perry can get REALLY reckless sometimes, and other times the boys are too clever/know Perry way too well.

-CANDACE has actually seen and interacted with Perry in secret agent mode, particularly during the time she thought she was high off her rocker and Perry had to save her from a self destructing volcano. She's had dreams where Perry was a secret agent in them.

-She doesn't bring it up or think about it much bc she just has like. A lot of other more pressing priorities most of the time, which is so valid. Also I lowkey thinks she suspects she's got a hallucination problem, like with the Zebra? I get why she doesn't talk about it out loud: she sounds crazy enough to her mother as is without suddenly talking about how their exotic pet is a sentient secret agent in a fedora.

-FERB figured it out almost immediately that day he and Phineas accidentally fell into Perry's lair and they pretended to be "secret agents" for the day. HE knows he didnt make that lair. Everything was almost toddler sized, but functionally and professionally equipped for a working adult. There were only two "P" s in the family, and it clearly wasn't Phineas. Also? Everything was Platypus themed. He put two and two together.

-I figure he doesn't talk about it bc he lowkey knows why Perry doesn't tell them. He and Phineas have a lot of faith in Perry, and Ferb is a lot less emotional. If Perry refuses to tell them about his double life and where he goes, hes just gonna trust him.

-Im pretty sure PHINEAS subconsciously knows about the secret agent thing. From where? Africa. He 💯 spotted Perry in secret agent mode on the other side of the gulf while hanging from that vine, and between his siblings Phineas is CLEARLY the one who knows what Perry looks like best. He can pick Perry out from colour and smell from every other brown eyed teal platypus in the entire tri-state area. He not only recognizes his paw prints: he knows Perry's healthy weight distribution on them to know whether or not hes injured or limping. Like....my boy can be oblivious and autistic 98% of the time, but Phin is also REALLY self aware and trusting of his own eyes and instincts.

-He doesn't talk about it because hes in denial 👍

[girlactionfigure]

THURSDAY HERO: Rabbi Herschel Schacter 

Rabbi Herschel Schacter was a young U.S. Army chaplain who helped traumatized Holocaust survivors rebuild their lives, and later became an influential leader in the Orthodox movement and a strong advocate for Soviet Jewry.

Herschel Schacter was born in Brooklyn in 1917, the son of immigrants from Poland and the youngest of ten siblings. His family was religious, and he was educated at the finest yeshivas before obtaining smicha (rabbinic ordination) in 1941. Rabbi Schacter served as a pulpit rabbi for a year before enlisting in the Army after Pearl Harbor. After attending Army Chaplain school at Harvard, he was sent to Europe with the VIII Corps and fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

Rabbi Schacter was one of the liberators of the Buchenwald concentration camp. He stayed in Germany for two and a half months after the war, tending to the broken spirits of survivors, most of whom had lost their entire families. Many were the only survivor from their entire town; everyone they ever knew had been murdered. A famous photograph shows him leading Shavuot services at Buchenwald (above). This photo occupies an entire wall at Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem.

What Rabbi Schacter saw at Buchenwald was hell on earth. The inmates who were still alive – barely -were emaciated, lying on filthy planks and covered in lice, hollow-eyed ghosts blinking in the sunlight and without the energy to even lift their heads. The stench of rotting flesh and feces was overwhelming. 

Rabbi Schacter noticed Yisrael Meir Lau, 7 years old, hiding behind a pile of corpses. Known as Lulek, the child had lost most of his family and had been on his own since age 5. Rabbi Schacter cared for the boy and helped him immigrate to Israel, where he would one day become Chief Rabbi.

Rabbi Schacter’s son Jacob, a prominent Orthodox rabbi and professor at Yeshiva University, wrote in a piece for Tablet Magazine, “My father spent the rest of his life describing what he saw in Buchenwald and what he did during his 10 weeks there. His work focused on a number of different areas: he tended to the psychological needs of survivors; he worked hard to reunite families; he founded a kibbutz outside Weimar for young survivors preparing to make aliyah [move to Israel]; and he organized a transport of children to Switzerland.”

Another story that illustrates Rabbi Schacter’s massive impact concerns Yoav Kimmelman, a 16 year old from a Hasidic home who lost every single member of his large extended family, around 60 people. The Holocaust destroyed Yoav’s faith and identity as a Jew. According to Rabbi Jacob Schacter, Yoav was “done with God, done with Jewish life, done with Jewish destiny, done with the Jewish people.” Rabbi Herschel Schacter reached out – literally – and singlehandedly brought Yoav back to Jewish life. It happened when Rabbi Schacter was taking 200 child survivors to Switzerland. He wanted young Yoav to go with him, but the boy had no interest in being around fellow Jews and he refused to go. Rabbi Schacter asked him to come to the train station to say goodbye and while there, the rabbi reached down and physically dragged Yoav onto the train. The teen was angry and sullen, but the rabbi convinced him to join a minyan and read Torah in the DP camp. Long story short, Yoav Kimmelman remained religious and at his death, he left 80 descendants, all of them Torah Jews. “That’s all because my father had the guts to pull him onto that train when it left the station,” said Rabbi Jacob Schacter.

Rabbi Herschel Schacter became a prominent leader of Orthodox Judaism in America, helping to rebuild from the ashes and grow the movement. He was elected president of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations in 1968. Dr. Rafael Medoff, in his book “The Rabbi of Buchenwald,” wrote: “He was the first Orthodox rabbi to reach that level of leadership. Until then others saw Orthodox leaders as fit to be heads of Orthodox groups, but not larger ones. Rabbi Schacter broke that mold. He was sufficiently savvy and sophisticated to represent the entire [Jewish] community, not just the Orthodox minority.”

At the very beginning of the movement to free Soviet Jewry, in 1956, Rabbi Schacter was part of the first rabbinical delegation to visit the USSR since 1917. He then went to Hungary to help Jewish refugees flee during the Hungarian revolution. 

Rabbi Schacter served as a pulpit rabbi in the Bronx for more than 60 years and was known as a brilliant and inspiring orator, beloved by his congregation. He passed away in 2013 at age 95 and was survived by his beloved wife Pnina, two children, four grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. Pnina Schacter died in 2018.

For healing the broken spirits of Holocaust survivors and helping them rebuild their lives, and for his devotion to the Jewish people and his decades of leadership, we honor Rabbi Herschel Schacter as this week’s Thursday Hero.

[behoright]

lightning on my skin l k. dach

there's nothing I can do / I just can't resist

summary: kirby + you + a house full of family members + an empty car...

wordcount: 3.2k

song: where would I be? - gwen stefani

warnings: 18+! smut sooo minors begone! unprotected sex, dirty talk and semi public sex. whoopsies. oh also cursing.

a/n: i'm sl*t for this man but no I will never admit it in public. enjoy.

𓇽 ⊹ ᨘ ִֶ໑𓇽 ⊹ ᨘ ִֶ໑𓇽 ⊹ ᨘ ִֶ໑𓇽 ⊹ ᨘ ִֶ໑

“You’re such a dumbass, Kirbs.”

“What? He was just being annoying so, I had to do it.”

The sounds of the crickets consorted your laughs as you and Kirby sat eating in his G Wagon, recently coming back from a lovely date at the nearby park. Despite being your second year of dating, this had been the first summer you had fully spent together. Staying at the Dach household had been an interesting but nonetheless exhilarating experience; you found out just how quickly chaos could ensue when Kirby and Colton were left to their own devices under the same roof. Proving that age was just a number, from day one it was plain and simple that they naturally retreated back to their little child selves, most of their interactions ending up with a playful physical altercation of some sort.

“You can’t tell me he wasn’t being entirely too cocky, Y/N.” he said with his mouth full of fries, his eyes widening over at you.

“He is your baby brother!” you exclaimed.

“Well, he’s no longer a baby. It’s a fair fight, that’s all I’m saying.” he chuckled.

Kirby hadn’t been this excited for a summer in a long time. 

Your internship now having wrapped up, he finally had the time to steal you and your newfound free time. He knew as soon as the season ended that he was going to keep you in his hometown all for himself. 

Seeing you interact with his family made Kirby’s heart flutter; cooking with his mom or ice skating with his dad and brother after their practice. 

You had met them before, but these were novel circumstances for the both of you. 

Any nerves he might have had swiftly vanished as you both settled in, making yourself at home in the most respectful way possible. 

He was able to forget about the stress of hockey and fitting your schedules together, and just revel in the normalcy of slowly waking up with you, knowing that you had virtually no strict plans for the day. 

“You guys are insane. These are full-on fights!” you laughed.

“You should have seen them when we were younger. They were actually much worse.”

“Oh, don’t worry. Your parents told me all about that.”

You naturally clicked with everyone in his family, so much so that his grandparents came fastly to meet you as well. It astounded him how you were able to pull everyone in so genuinely, leaving his introverted soul wrapped up in admiration. 

He was proud to have you with him. You completed each other nicely and in very practical ways.

“Oh god, please don’t remind me of all the embarrassing stories they brought up.” he blushed.

“Why? You really don’t want to talk about that little bath stor-”

“No, no! I’m changing topics! I’m pulling that card out!” he exclaimed.

“Alright, alright.” you laughed, throwing your head back against the headrest. As much as he was blushing, you could see him hiding a smile underneath it all. 

However, his house perpetually rustling came with its downsides. He enjoyed it most of the time, however, he missed the privacy of your shared apartment back in Montreal. 

When he watched you walk around his family home every morning his mind couldn’t help but flash back to seeing you strut around naked, getting your coffee ready, all from the comfort of his messed up bed, underwear, and clothes scattered on the ground from the night before. 

He missed that. A lot.

It was hard to have some alone time knowing his family members were around you both constantly. 

The last thing he wanted to do is make anyone uncomfortable. Not when there were literal months left in the summer.

So, Kirby decided to get creative. 

Much to his surprise, it ended up sparking a newfound love for public affection, in more ways than one, for the both of you, which just pushed him to explore more. 

Your first date of the summer that started with a picnic at the lake, and lovingly ended with you both hiding behind some trees for a while. The feeling of getting caught rushed through you equally as you consummated your love truly in public for the first time. 

So you unconsciously kept it going for most of the summer, looking for new places every day to spend time at. 

“You know, you’re bad for making me eat this.” he snickered at you.

“Oh, c’mon, tell me you don’t miss eating this junk during the season.”

“I do, I do.” he said, wiping his hands clean. “You know what I miss more though?”

“Mmm?” you asked, piling all the trash together.

“You.”

You turned your head up to find Kirby staring at you, his signature smirk peering over at you. 

“You’re so sweet.” 

“I mean it.” Kirby took his fingers to move to your hair behind your ear, gazing over your features. “I just wish I had a little more time with you every day.”

“Hey, we still make it work pretty well, right?”

“We do.” Kirby’s fingers lingered on you, now cupping your cheek. “I’m still going to enjoy this summer. As much as I can. I’m not letting you out of my sight, baby.”

His eyes trailed down to your mouth before he closed the gap between you two. 

The kiss was smoldering, both of your intentions clear as your brought each other closer despite the console dividing you.

“Kirby…”

“Baby..?” he said, his lips grazing against yours.

“Mm… here?” you asked.

“Mmhm.” Kirby answered in between kisses. “The back windows are tinted anyways.”

You turned your face to tentatively look at your surroundings, Kirby’s hands beginning to mess up your clothes already, his fingertips at your exposed bra strap. The parking lot was mostly empty, all families in their homes as the sun began to set. 

“You sure?”

“I’ve never been more sure about anything before.” Kirby said, his eyes dumbfoundedly fixated on your cleavage. 

“About doing it here, dingbat.” you snapped him back to reality, playfully hitting his arm.

“It’s more private than the park...” he said, smirking again. “...and the lake, and the rink, and the boat, or the mal-”

“Okay, okay.” you laughed, rolling your eyes. 

“C’mon, baby.” Kirby winked as he stepped outside while you moved in giddiness to the backseat over the middle console. 

You came face to face as he quickly shut the door behind him, your hot breaths colliding as he began to crawl above you, sending your back to lay against the warm leather of the seats. 

“Hi, beautiful.” he said, a smile appearing on his face.

“You’re quite the charmer for someone who’s about to take me in the back of his car.” you uttered, eyes focused on his lips, inching closer to you.

“...take you?” he asked, millimeters away from you. “I’m not going to take you, baby. I’m going to fuck you.”

Kirby wasted no time and aggressively sent his tongue inside your mouth, his pelvis already rubbing against your jean shorts. 

The walk in the park had been nice, but it had left you both a little heated and damp, in every way imaginable.

“That’s the Kirby I know.” you moaned, his tongue now trailing behind your ear and neck. “Always so hot and heavy.”

“Hey, I can be sweet.” he uttered defensively against your skin. “You want me to make love to you?” 

His head snapped up as he asked you, his questioning and piercing eyes looking for an answer in yours.

“Fuck no. I like you hot and heavy.” you said, bringing his face back onto yours, chuckling into the kiss.

He adorably kept giggling as he planted loud and silly kisses on your chin, moving down your chest and further lowering himself down the axis of your body. 

He had a tough exterior at times, but Kirby was playful at heart, and he didn’t leave that outside of the bedroom either. You found yourselves laughing and joking during your sexual escapades quite often actually, and it fulfilled you in the most endearing of ways.

“You’re smoking hot, babe.” he uttered against your belly.

“It is pretty hot outside.” you said, sitting up on your elbows. 

“Oh, you’re funny.” he laughed, sitting up as he began to undo the button of your shorts. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“And you know I don’t know how to take compliments. Not even yours.” you lifted your hips up, Kirby ripping your bottoms off of you. 

“Well, let me tell you a different way then.” he smirked.

“Kirby Dach, you are the cheesi-.”

You were hastily interrupted, Kirby licking up your pussy vigorously before bringing your hips all the way up to latch his mouth against your heaving sex. Forthwith, the sensation took you back to the countless nights your boyfriend had spent buried in your pussy, relentlessly getting you to the point of having to pull him off of you before your legs twitched hard enough to accidentally hurt him. 

The truth was that time stopped for Kirby whenever he lowered his face in between your thighs. He loved to get his jaw wet with spit and juices; even more, he loved grinding against the mattress for hours, sending tingles up his spine every time. Knowingly playing an edging game with his body, and your own at the same time, taking you both closer to the edge with controlled and precise force.

Despite not having enough space in his beloved G-Wagon for you both to lay down, he wasn’t going to skimp out. Bringing you all the way up to him was a risky move, but he wasn’t up for much thinking when he had you so bothered underneath him like this. 

He held your body securely, his biceps flexing around your ass and hips. As his tongue lapped in circles, he couldn’t help but trail up your body with his gaze. The nature of your position allowed for your shirt to bunch up, showing the softness of your stomach that he adored so much. However, seeing your breasts up to your chin, flushed just as much as your cheeks were, your face overcome by pleasure, had him gripping your hips extra tightly.

“God, baby.” he whispered against you, covering your skin in goosebumps. “You’re going to make me bust.”

“Fuck me, Kirby.”

He dropped your hips immediately, letting it hurt as he unzipped his pants, his erection serendipitously springing onto you. 

“I love you so much, baby, that was so good, but I-, I simply can’t wait.” you pleaded.

“I love you more baby; a couple more seconds of you wriggling like that in my arms and I wouldn't have been able to wait either.” he answered, removing as much clothing as possible.

Kirby was hot and heavy in every sense of the word. And it felt so good as it slapped your pussy whenever he pulled himself free of his clothes. 

“God, take a look at that.” he growled.

He set his blue eyes on the tip of his cock, parting your folds, glistening with his saliva and precum. The sun was lowering itself beautifully on the other side of the park, its rays peeking through the trees and his seats to create shimmering windows of light on your bodies. He felt the ridges of his member dampen as he kept plunging himself back and forth on top of you. He could feel the lust of his heartbeat in every single one of his veins and quickly into yours as he slowly dipped his cock inside you with a groan. 

You were mostly sure he had never realized it, but Kirby loved to push the tip of his dick inside you first and pause, just for a handful of seconds. 

Inadvertently, filling your cunt up with his body was one of his most cherished parts of fucking. 

There was something about the overwhelming feeling that took over his entire being when he felt your walls surround him concretely, soaking himself in all the gushy desire that had been building up inside you. 

He felt as if you had been waiting for him, and he loved to feel responsible for absorbing the aching that resided inside you as he bottomed himself out. 

Continuously, Kirby never took his eyes off you when he first thrust; the first time you had sex, he had to immediately take a break, the look on your face almost sending him over the edge completely. 

The sigh. 

The way your eyes rolled back. 

And he could always hear your vocal cords contract in the back of your throat in the slightest moan, but never strong enough to let it out.

It was almost inaudible, but it was there, and it drove him mad.

He loved being the only man that got to see you like this.

And you loved being the only one that got to notice the ritualistic thinking in your boyfriend, without fail.

His legs trembled as his pelvis came flush with your legs, pushing himself all the way inside you after feeling you clench once around the ridge of his head. 

Right underneath it, squeezing around him so deliciously as a signal for more. 

As soon as he saw that lovely look on you he was quick to throw your legs on his shoulders before he began thrusting steadily inside you. 

He tried to resist himself every time, and his efforts were never futile, but you knew they never lasted long. 

The more you showed your pleasure, the more he lost it. 

Kirby liked it deep and fast, and you were never one to complain about it. 

He let his head lull forward as he anchored a rhythm in his thrusts, his eyes squeezing shut in pleasure. 

“Oh, Kirby.” you moaned. “That feels so good, baby.”

He didn’t dare to look, feeling your hips begin to tilt forward already as you arched your back in the delight of his shoving inside you.

His brain went offline completely, letting all of the muscles in his face relax entirely, preoccupied only with the movement of his cock. 

“Keep talking, baby.” he uttered, almost whispering. “You sound like a fucking angel.”

The tremble in his deep voice was crystal clear, the knuckles of his fingers turning white as he gripped onto the flesh of your thighs. 

“I thought I was going to lose it today, babe. I wanted you so fucking bad.” you moaned, the leather quietly creaking as you angled yourself closer to him again. 

Kirby’s chest began to rumble, attempting to hold his moaning back as he stayed transfixed in the physical sensation of your bodies uniting. 

You could see him begin to sweat, flushing deeper every time he pulled out of you with a low, tight-lipped groan; a droplet lovingly trickled down the long hair strands that hung in front of his face before falling on your stomach. Every time they dripped onto you, it felt like you could hear a sizzle, your skin enveloped in lust as it flinched back with every single thrust.

It was nearly lovable how much he tried to control himself, always to no avail, but you could tell today, through your half-open eyes, that it wasn’t going to last long.

The reality was that the more he focused on the physical sensation, the hotter he got. 

The more relaxed you felt his whole body, the harder he became inside you, growing against your most sensitive spots. 

Quite curiously, the slowly blinking of his eyes open happened to come at the time your head fully tilted back, a glorious arch in your figure as your eyes fluttered closed. The muscles of his belly tensed at the coiling that he felt growing inside him, the only thing that was now softening being his jaw as he opened his mouth at the reverie of the woman reaching a  climax in front of him and underneath his touch.

“Oh fuck, like that, baby?” he asked, speeding up his movements just enough to let his skin stickily slap against you. 

“M-,m-,m-.”

Unfortunately for you, speaking was never your forte as you reached your edge. 

Fortunately for Kirby, it made him so horny he involuntarily hunched over, his body spasming as he swore he could see your pupils at the back of your head underneath your fluttering eyelids. 

He took the hint to increase his pace, slowly but surely, your shoulders trembling all the way down to your hips. His rough pubic bone came in contact with you, rubbing against your clit and exquisitely sending you over the edge. 

Your system went haywire as you came, sweet moans filling up the steamy car as you shook in pleasure underneath and around him, scratching his beloved leather seats. 

Any attempt to moan his name was inefficacious, but the effort was noticed by your boyfriend who pushed your convulsing legs further down, coming close to your face.

He had officially lost it, now dedicating himself to keeping you in this state as long as possible.

Kirby was able to somehow plant his feet against some steady surfaces of his luxury car, having the fresh ability to speed up, his eyes still stuck on your delirious elation that wouldn’t concede.

“Fuck, baby, you look so fucking good like this.” he moaned.

His muscular thighs tensed as he pounded into you, your cunt now gushing liquid all around him; you could only turn your head around as you sharply inhaled, letting the glee send sparks throughout your nervous system, your body moving on its own. 

It was so much that you both failed to feel the car shake with the power of his thrusts as he recognized the familiar creeping sensation begin to move inside him, his orgasm not far behind yours.

“This is-, this is-, fuck, baby, I can’t hold back.” he groaned, letting his forehead fall next to your head, his wet hair seeping sweat into yours. 

Finally, you managed the find the strength to move your fingers to the back of his neck, holding onto his hair for dear life as you began to descend back to earth.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Kirby came loudly as he let himself go, shooting his hot and milky seed inside you with deep thrusts; roaring, he was noisy enough to be heard outside of the vehicle, but neither of you cared as he stayed inside you, flesh to flesh, his cock still twitching and painting your insides white. 

“Oh my fucking god, Y/N.” he said with his head still down before placing a kiss on your shoulder.

“I could say the same thing to you.” you laughed, smart enough to reach slightly above you and open the passenger door only a crack. 

The evening, fresh air barged its way into the stuffy car, the fog on the windows starting to disappear slowly. The change in temperature made Kirby snap up, deeply inhaling almost unknowingly before finding you.

“Good?” you asked, Kirby’s favorite smile looking right at him.

“Better than good.” he coaxed. “You’re a dream, Y/N.”

“You’re not so bad yourself, Dach.” you chuckled, an adoring kiss planted on your forehead.

“I love you.” he whispered into your skin.

“I love you.” you answered just as lovingly.

....

“Where do you want to go tomorrow, baby?”

[noyoucantpinmedown]

Kaylee Hackett headcanons

18 years old during game events. 12 years old at the time of the Harum Scarum fire (because the Hackett timeline makes no sense, so we make our own)

As the youngest and only girl in her family, as well as being raised in a tiny rural town, Kaylee is quite naive and sheltered.

She is extremely well-meaning and compassionate, but assumes that most people are the same way. So surely people would understand her, um, condition if she could just explain, right?

She shares that denseness with Ryan (our beloved emo himbo), who she considers her best friend. She befriended him through Caleb back when they were kids, but nowadays Kaylee is the one that keeps in touch the most, mostly through email, because it's the next best thing to mailing letters, but free.  

Her family has gone to great lengths to hide the literal skeletons in their closet (or bodies in the lake) from her. They don't realize that Kaylee has also learned to keep secrets.

Dreams of going to college in New York to study social work and is frantically applying to colleges. However, her grades suffered in highschool due to coping with being a werewolf and her family's precarious financial situation, so that gets in the way of her getting accepted into many places. The Hacketts also can't afford and don't want her to move too far away given her condition.

With the help of Travis, she's been allowed to attend community college at a nearby town.

Travis is her favorite relative besides Gammy Constance. Kaylee often tries to defend him when the rest of the family gives him shit and Travis vouches for Kaylee to be independent within reason. She has the spare key to his apartment and sometimes crashes there.

Constance always wanted a daughter, so to have a granddaughter was a blessing for her. Since Kaylee's mother Amelia died due to complications after her birth, Constance became both grandmother and mother to Kaylee. She is the only family member that can openly disagree with Constance and not get a verbal (or physical) smackdown.

Works at North Kill Library during the off season and spends her summers as an unpaid worker for her father’s summer camp. She's also the go-to for babysitting and other odd jobs around town.

She hates working at camp. She's that coworker who has been at the company for way too long and is one minor inconvenience away from having a mental breakdown. For her father and the kids, she puts on a happy face, but her brother and the counselors know her to be in a terrible mood all day every day.

At Hackett's Quarry, she and Caleb are an extra set of hands helping out whenever needed. Kaylee is also tasked with keeping the camp stocked and making supply runs. She often worked closely with Nick because of this, and would ask him a lot about what Australia is like.

Her crankiness at camp is also partly because she's going through nicotine withdrawals. Kaylee has been smoking since she was 16, when she found her brother's cigarettes, but avoids smoking at camp because if caught, she would never hear the end of it from her dad—especially because the only people that know about her smoking are Travis, Caleb and Ryan.

Uses reading as escapism and has read every fiction novel in North Kill Library. Go ahead, ask her for trashy romance recs. She'll hook you up with the good stuff.

Listens to female country artist and 90s female rock. It helps her channel the deep dissatisfaction and resentment she feels. Stans Courtney Love.

[lirarey]

See you again (chapter 3)

☆☆☆

It's very hard to pretend that nothing happened. After almost a whole year of living in this state, she can't just forget about everything at the click of her fingers. The birthday celebration was a blur: the reality of the world around her was constantly being questioned. For the sake of appearances, she had to have fun with everyone, and the fake smile didn't disappear for a minute while the most contradictory ideas crowded into her head. The decision to go back into business, so that there would be no time and effort left for unnecessary thoughts, seemed right. The morning invariably began in her mother's office: she was ready to take on even what was far from Auradon. One such occasion was the celebration of the tenth anniversary of Chad's younger sister, Chloe. Jane had never been to Cinderellaburg before. The beauty and grandeur of their palace took one's breath away.

"Hello! Aren't you Jane?"

She turned around: in front of her stood a short girl with blue hair braided in two pigtails with yellow bows. Jane had known her older brother since childhood and was surprised when she found out how different the members of this family were from each other.

"I can't believe that my mom's godmother's daughter is going to organize my birthday!" The girl clapped her hands joyfully. "I'm so worried..."

"I am familiar with these experiences." She smiled, but shuddered: the memories of her own holiday were haunting. "The whole day is just yours. All dreams and wishes come true."

"Can you do magic too?"

"I prefer to do it on my own," Jane shook her head thoughtfully. "If you have free time, will you take a little tour?"

Chloe was glowing positively literally every second of their conversation. Perhaps she was even jealous: two years ago, her confidence in the future was exactly the same. But some dreams are destined to remain so. Pushing away the gloomy thoughts, the girl promised herself to focus entirely on ensuring that Chloe wouldn't regret anything.

By lunchtime, all the preparations were completed, while the celebration itself was supposed to begin at noon. Chad, who had arrived shortly before, was surprised that his younger sister was following her like a tail. But what could Jane do? Even their parents laughed about it.

"Look, you're standing like this," the girl taught her when they went out onto an empty territory, "you take the rapier with your right hand. Yes, yes, hold it tight."

Despite the fact that she usually didn't have to be interested in any kind of sports, Chloe explained in the simplest and most understandable words.

"How many guests will there be?" Jane asked, more boldly deflecting another blow.

"I heard mom and dad want to invite someone very cool. He seems to be able to communicate with dragons, just like me."

"Not with dragons, but I understand animals."

Chloe turned around, looking at the guest with admiration. Carlos. Carlos is here too. She was still breathless with love for him, but the incomplete understanding of what had happened burned her more.

"Jane!" He beamed, looking at her. "Your mom said you'd be here, and so did I..."

Realizing that she wasn't ready to talk, the girl looked expressively at the young birthday girl in the hope of help. Chloe blinked in disbelief, then grabbed her by the arm and chattered:

"That's right, I completely forgot, mom wanted to talk to you, it's important!"

And she dragged her towards the palace. There was no time to think about how convincing it was. And all of these weren't good deeds at all, but there was simply no other choice. As soon as the door closed behind them, Chloe crossed her arms in front of her chest.

"And why? Why hide from a boy who is obviously in love with you?"

"It's a long story." Exhaling noisily, she slid down the wall. "I'm just... can't."

"Mom says I understand people well," the girl casually remarked, sitting down next to her. "And I'm even better at keeping other people's secrets."

Jane mentally weighed all the possible consequences and slowly, carefully choosing her words, told about the events that took place without terrible details. After listening to her carefully, Chloe narrowed her eyes:

"Mom had a similar case. Her stepmother stole your mom's wand and changed the story. Dad thought he was dancing with Anastasia." The girl chuckled, tucking her legs under her. "But mom was brave enough to figure it out. And you can do it too."

"But..."

"No buts! Tell me, do you love him?"

"Yes, it's crazy, although I still don't understand at all how these feelings turned out to be mutual..." Jane broke off.

"Have you seen my parents?" Chloe raised her head, looking out at the street where Cinderella and King Charming were chatting with Carlos. "They've been married for so many years and are still terribly in love. Do you know what the secret is? They discuss everything. Go ahead, talk to him! Tell him what you told me. I'm sure he'll understand."

"Today? Am I not here for your birthday?"

"So be it, then tomorrow." Chloe waved her hand.

And she didn't lie: the birthday girl successfully prevented them from being alone, constantly finding new excuses. Perhaps she could make a good actress in the future. At the end of the day, Jane even felt guilty: after telling her mother that she would be here until the evening, she had to turn off the phone. The realization of his mistake arose later, when the Fairy Godmother herself appeared at the celebration. Although the girl used to be very happy. Who wouldn't want relationship support from family? But she is unlikely to be believed now. Cardiac arrest in a dream can't be without a reason. However, no one knew why.

"Honey, is everything okay?"

What could she say? "No, I lived for a year with the idea that the love of my life was dead, and a couple of days ago literally the whole world pretended that it wasn't so?"

"Something wrong?"

Mom approached her: there was nervousness in her movements.

"You're avoiding Carlos."

"No, not at all," Jane waved away, clutching the tablet to her. "It's just that Chloe keeps distracting me. I can't refuse the birthday girl."

"Jane!" A high-pitched voice sounded from behind. "Come on, I'll show you my dragon. Did you know that they can fly in any direction?"

The girl shrugged guiltily as she followed Chloe away. Otherwise, the event was very calmly.

[heartscfvalor]

Introducing: Branch

Lived underground to get away from the world 'Til I had my life changed by a beautiful girl

WARNING! Spoilers ahead for Trolls, Trolls: World Tour, and Trolls: Band Together, as well as Trolls: The Beat Goes On!

Branch (formally known as Bitty B) was once the youngest member of the hottest band in the Troll Tree, BroZone. With his iconic sunglasses and falsetto made of gold, Branch and his brothers John Dory, Floyd, Clay and Spruce made themselves well known with several records under their belt, until one night during a performance, John Dory was so obsessed with the idea of hitting the Perfect Family Harmony that things fell apart...quite literally. The brothers went their separate ways, leaving little Branch to be raised by his grandmother, until Rosiepuff died to save Branch from being eaten by a Burgen shortly before the Trolls escaped the Troll Tree in Bergen Town. Due to this massive upheaval, no one really noticed that Branch was by himself.

As a result of Rosiepuff's death, Branch became a depressed, paranoid recluse, losing his vibrant colors and turning a flat gray. He spent many years building the hide out that he and Floyd had been planning together, instead turning it into a reinforced bunker, stocking it with enough food and water to last him a decade or more. He started tinkering with experiments, all in the name of self preservation, resulting in his love for rules, regulation and safety. The other Trolls, despite caring for him, began to see Branch as a bit of an outsider; he never sang, never danced, hated Hug Time and his gray appearance was off putting. It also did not help that he often had a terrible and sarcastic attitude.

The one Troll that Branch could not seem to stand was Princess Poppy, the daughter of King Peppy. She was everything he wasn't; effortlessly charming, sweet, kind and always in a bright, upbeat mood. She was always inviting him to parties, and he always refused, but secretly held onto every invitation, hiding them away in a cubby within his bunker; as time went on, Poppy's endearing kindness thawed Branch, just a little. He definitely developed a crush on her by the time they were teenagers.

It all came to a head when, twenty years after the escape from the Troll Tree, the Trolls were found by Chef, a vengeful Bergen who's specialty was cooking Trolls for Trollstice, all because of Poppy's wild anniversary party. When Poppy came to Branch for help, Branch simply told her she was an idiot and tried to make her leave; she responded by having all of the Trolls break into Branch's bunker before setting off to rescue their kidnapped friends, and Branch finally escaped his bunker by the third Hug Time because he couldn't handle the stress.

The adventure that followed was just as stressful, starting a rivalry with Cloud Guy and almost getting eaten by Bergens; but Branch regained his True Colors during the journey, and Poppy was able to make peace with the Bergens so that Trollstice was no longer something they needed to feel happy.

The next adventure was stopping the Rock Apocalypse set off by Queen Barb of the Rock Trolls, who wanted to unite all of the Troll Kingdoms under one music genre. Poppy was able to save everyone by destroying their Strings, and reminding them that music was inside their hearts, saving them all, before heading home and trying to adjust to the new normal.

When King Gristle and Bridget, Poppy's best friend, were getting married, John Dory came back into Branch's life to ask for help in saving Floyd, who was being held captive by some wanna be fame leechers; despite Branch's reluctance, he agreed to help, first in tracking down Clay and Spruce, now renamed Bruce, before going to Mount Rageous to save Floyd from certain death. With BroZone finally reunited, Branch has hope that maybe the family he felt so rejected by can heal together.

My Branch is also taking inspiration from Trolls: The Beat Goes On. He's become less of a paranoid recluse and more of a rule loving fanatic; while he's struggling to come out of his shell more often, Poppy and their friends are there to catch him if he falls, and he appreciates that more than words can say... but don't tell Poppy. He's got a reputation to uphold, after all.

[daisyishedwig]

December Klaine Fanworks Challenge Day 2 - Bikini

Read on AO3

When Blaine Anderson’s father married Santana Lopez’s mother, he was unaware of the exact level of chaos she would bring into the Anderson household. Of course the whole affair had been chaos. He’d come home for spring break to find the whole house in a flurry and Cooper lounging on his bed. 

“Didn’t you hear?” he’d asked. “We’re gonna have a sister!”

Blaine thought his dad’s girlfriend was pregnant. He did not expect the Latina spitfire that was Santana Lopez to shake up his life.

He met Santana for the first time at the wedding as he did his best to fade into the shadows, desperate to avoid every extended family member asking if he had a girlfriend yet and how school was going, ignoring the fact that he was repeating his sophomore year because he spent most of the last one in the hospital recovering from a hate crime.

She’d quite literally run into him as she bustled around barking orders at anyone and everyone to make sure that her mother’s special day was perfect. 

“You,” she snapped, “where’s your brother?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

She rolled her eyes and mumbled something under her breath in Spanish. “Find him,” she ordered, “and give him this.” She thrust a piece of paper at him. “It’s his best man speech, and you let him know that if he even thinks of adlibbing, I will personally castrate him, comprendo?”

“C-comprendo’,” Blaine stuttered. 

She looked him up and down and gave a firm nod. “You clean up nice,” she said and left.

Blaine was, of course, not unused to chaos. He found plenty of it in the dorms at Dalton. You stick a hundred teenage boys in a building together with minimal adult supervision and there wasn’t much else you could expect. 

But his weekends spent at home in Lima were always quiet. With Cooper in LA and his dad always traveling for business, he had the house to himself most of the time. He’d been essentially an only child since he was eight, and with his parents divorced and his mother moving to Italy, he was used to being alone. He was okay with it. 

But now there were people at his house all the time. Maribel was of course around whenever she wasn’t away with his father. But Santana always had her best friend over, to the point Blaine wondered if Britney actually lived with them too. And there was a string of football players and cheerleaders running through his house every weekend to the point that Blaine had started to spend most of his off-campus days at Nick’s to avoid them all. 

But then Summer hit, and he couldn’t avoid his house for three months. 

And now, there was a boy with a mohawk wandering around his room in only swim trunks like he belonged there and he and Blaine were old friends and not complete strangers. 

Blaine stood in his doorway in shock, having just come back from the bathroom to discover the intruder. “Can I help you?” he asked, pushing himself to his full height to show he wouldn’t be intimidated. 

But he was intimidated. Very intimidated. And the show of strength was probably mitigated by the gentle tremble of his shoulders as his body shook with anxiety. 

“Oh, hey,” the boy said, looking up from where he’d been studying the pictures tucked into Blaine’s mirror. “You’re the brother, yeah?”

“No,” Blaine said dryly, “I’m the maid’s son, clearly.”

The boy frowned, “The maid’s son can afford to go to the sissy prep school?” he said, pointing to pictures of Blaine in his Dalton uniform with Nick and Jeff and some of the other Warblers. 

Blaine folded his arms across his chest to hide the way his whole body tried to flee out of his room at that moment. “Yes, I’m the brother,” he bit out, “one of them at least. And who are you?”

“I’m Puck,” he said with a grin, “one of Santana’s friends.”

“I assumed that,” Blaine said stiffly, “and what are you doing in my room?”

“Oh, just checking some intel from Santana,” he said.

Blaine’s eyes narrowed. “Intel?”

“Yeah, she said you’re gay. I’m just confirming.”

Blaine stilled, his blood running cold. He and Santana hadn’t talked much with him being at Dalton most of the time. And he’d certainly not talked to her about his sexuality, which meant either she’d heard it from someone in the family, or she’d presumed. And in any case, she thought that was information that was not only pertinent but safe to share with a boy who looked like he spent half his time in the principal's office for dumping queer kids in a dumpster.

“Puckerman,” Santana’s voice beside him made Blaine almost jump out of his skin. She had appeared beside Blaine silently, wearing a black lace coverup over her red bikini, dripping water on the hardwood floor of Blaine’s bedroom. “Stop scaring my brother and go help Finn with the meat.”

Puck grimaced. “I thought Kurt was grilling.”

Santana folded her arms and stared him down. “He was, and then Sam pulled him into the pool and now he’s angrily fixing his hair in my bathroom.”

“Fucking Evans,” Puck grumbled, “Finn can’t grill worth a damn,” but he slid past Blaine and out the door. Blaine flinched away from him, hugging himself tightly.

“Hey,” Santana said, putting a hand on his shoulder. He pulled away sharply and avoided her eyes. “Ignore Puck, he’s harmless.”

Blaine's heart was still hammering in his chest.

“You should come outside and swim,” she said with a jerk of her head, “you’re starting to look a little too much like your dad with that pallid skin.”

“No, thank you,” Blaine said tersely. He picked up a book from his desk and sat on his bed. He opened it to have something to do with his hands, but the words on the page were illegible blurs through his eyes. He blinked firmly to try and clear his tears, but all it did was force them to run down his face in rivulets. 

“Blaine,” Santana started. 

Blaine glared up at her. “What?” he snapped, and he could feel the full body shakes beginning, knew he was long past stopping this panic attack. “Are you going to apologize for outing me to your friends? For thinking there was any way I’d be comfortable with your friends knowing about me? Like people like them aren’t the reason I’m at a private school to begin with?”

“They’re not–,” she started but Blaine cut her off.

“Whatever,” he hissed. He stood quickly and crossed the room to her. “Keep your friends out of my room,” he said sharply before slamming the door in her face.

—

It wasn’t much later that Blaine heard a knock on his door. He’d just managed to make it to his bed, exhausted in the comedown from his panic attack, and was about to call Nick for an emergency extraction. 

“Go away, Santana,” he shouted.

“It’s not Santana,” a soft voice called. Blaine glanced to the side to check that he had indeed locked his door. He then looked to his window and began contemplating how difficult it would be to climb out of it if he needed to.

“Look,” the voice said, “I just wanted to check that you’re okay. I heard… well I only caught the tale end of what just happened, but you seemed pretty shaken up.”

Blaine furrowed his bed and stood up. He crossed the room to his door and opened it a crack. “Why do you care?” he asked, peeking out.

On the other side of the door was a boy not much older than him with chestnut hair and blue eyes so bright they almost took Blaine’s breath away.

“Because I know what it’s like to be scared of Noah Puckerman, and I know he forgets that not everyone knows about his secret soft side.” The boy gave him a sympathetic smile. “Can I come in?”

Blaine looked him up and down and his brow furrowed deeper. “You don’t look like a football player,” he said.

“Not anymore, last year I was the kicker, but this year I’m just in Glee.”

Blaine straightened up at that and pulled the door open wider. “You’re in the New Directions?”

The boy looked mildly surprised. “Yeah… so is Santana, and Puck, and everyone else here.”

“You’re all in Glee club? Isn’t that… aren’t you guys like the bottom of the pecking order at your school?”

He shrugged. “Pretty much. Just a bunch of misfits and losers.” 

Blaine blinked in confusion. “But Santana’s a cheerleader.”

“You two really haven’t gotten to talk much, have you?”

Blaine shook his head.

“Well,” he said, “I’m Kurt, and if you’d allow me to apologize for Noah, I’d love to introduce you to everyone else. It is kind of my fault he was up here accosting you.”

“What do you mean?” Blaine asked.

Kurt flushed, looking down. “Well, you see, I might have developed a bit of a crush on you, when Santana shared pictures from the wedding. Puck was just making sure I wasn’t going to fall in love with another straight boy. So I’m sorry.”

“Oh,” Blaine breathed. “Um… apology accepted?”

Kurt grinned. “And if you’d come downstairs, I’m sure some of my world-famous cheesecake would make you feel better.”

Blaine laughed softly. “I’d like that.”

[sissa-arrows]

I recently found something very interesting and wanted to know if you ever heard of it.

I'm assuming you know about OAS, the neo-nazi French organization that opposed Algerian independence and carried out terrorist attacks in France and abroad against pro-independence activists?

After Algeria's independence many of these French nazis from OAS became the first members of the GAL anti-Basque paramilitaries created by the Spanish government to, as the name implies, torture and murder Basque civilians with the pretext they were terrorists (because Franco's Spain was OAS safe haven back when they were still active in Algeria, with many escaping arrest for their crimes and never being persecuted for it).

As a result there were many Algerians that would stand with Basques in Spain and in France and help hide them or even fight against the undercover cops that were after them. I'm neither Algerian nor Basque, but I know a few Algerians who talked about this (and some of them even started families together). Have you ever heard of this?

I find it very beautiful how even during their fight against colonialism Algerians always stood in solidarity with other colonized people (most notably Vietnamese people), and how post-independence Algeria was considered a "revolutionary haven" due to how many anti-fascist and anti-colonial movements were formed there. Even today Algeria is like one of the only countries that firmly opposes Morocco and their occupation of Western Sahara (in addition to Timor Leste of course, because Timor and Western Sahara literally are so similar - their liberation movements also fought and trained together - except Portugal in 1974 fully supported TL independence while Spain literally sold WS to Morocco -and Mauritania too?- because it was more economically benefitial and of course because they wanted to keep Ceuta and Melilla)

I have one tiny thing to add to this because everything has been said already.

One of the reasons (not the only one) why Franco’s Spain was a safe haven for the OAS was because there was Spanish members of the OAS.

The pied noirs (white colonizers in Algeria) were not all French some were Spanish, Portuguese and Italian and the fact that they came to Algeria for a better life didn’t make them have more empathy than the rest of the white colonizers (aka the French) . I used to have a coworker who hated when I said “a pied noir is a colonizer” he would say “my grandpa was Spanish he ran from misery for a better life he wasn’t a colonizer he was sad when he had to leave” and every time I replied “your grandpa ran from misery to steal the land of indigenous people and thought it was okay to have more rights than them because he was white. He was a colonizer. If it was only about running from misery France was right there he could have went there but he knew that in Algeria France would give him more rights and land because he was white. Your grandpa was a colonizer like it or not.”

The majority of the pied noir were French, the of colonizers were French and the biggest oppressor were French. So I tend to say “French colonizers” when I talk about the pied noir but the definition is “European settler in Algeria” not “French settler in Algeria” because there was other European. On top of it it’s already complicated so unless someone bring it up (like you did thank you) I don’t get into details.

As for Algeria supporting anti colonialism movements and financing them you can watch the documentary “Algiers the revolutionary Mecca”. Algiers is a city where you see streets named after our revolutionary fighters regardless of race (Ben M’hidi, Audin, Fanon…) but also other important anti colonial and revolutionary figures who were not Algeria like Lumumba, Castro (Algeria had 8 days of mourning when he died), Che Guevara (with Castro they also helped us during the sand war when Morocco declared war to Algeria shortly after our independence and before we even had a proper army…), Mandela (who trained with Algerians so it’s not just a simple nod Mandela said Algeria was his second country) and so many more.

Lastly I knew a bit about Timor Leste I didn’t realize how similar both situations were until I looked it up when you mentioned it (thank you).

[sunsetconcert]

you have this person to blame

this is not all of my PokeFodlan ideas but it IS the Lords and a few others

Edelgard

Spiritomb: The amalgamated souls of her deceased family. It tries to help Edelgard out, but it’s not really good at anything but fighting.

Houndoom: Edelgard’s starter. It’s tried to protect Edelgard from the Agarthans, but has always failed. Has a bit of a complex about it.

Chesnaught: Part of Edelgard’s cover as a normal student. It has literally no idea about Edelgard’s plans for the future. Head Empty, Heart Full.

Trevanent: The second Pokemon Edelgard ever caught, right next to the dungeon where she was kept during the experiments.

Walrein: A gift from Ladislava before the school year started. Thinks of itself as Edelgard’s bodyguard. It and Hubert hang out a lot.

Porygon Z: An Agarthan creation foisted off on Edelgard during the timeskip. Their relationship is best summed up as “spitefriends”.

CF: Another Agarthan creation who assists Edelgard in freeing Fodlan. It can Warp AND Dance simultaneously, boosting team efficiency. Yes, you can combine this with Edelgard’s Raging Storm.

AM/SS: Giratina shows up to support Edelgard in her hour of need. It essentially acts as a Hegemon Edelgard, sniping you from long-range. This means you will have to deal with the AM and VW Edelgard fights *simultaneously.*

Dimitri

Cofagrigus: The ghost/reincarnation of Lambert, Dimitri’s father. Their relationship is DEEPLY screwy, and only makes Dimitri’s mental health decline faster.

Pangoro: It used to revere Dimitri as a hero. After the timeskip... Well, it's in the same boat as Dedue is.

Grimmsnarl: Technically, Impidimp was Dimitri’s starter. Went through the Tragedy alongside him, and evolved through sheer trauma.

Kingdra: A present from Rodrigue. It’s a bit ambivalent towards most things, but it’ll help out all the same.

Donphan: Literally the only non-traumatised member of the team. Will happily roll over things! Including Dimitri! :D

Aggron: Lambert’s ace, recovered during the timeskip. It will do anything to protect Dimitri, even if that means hurting him.

AM: Zekrom assists Dimitri with building a truly ideal world. It gives every character Canto, regardless of whether or not they’re on a mount.

CF: Yveltal will destroy anyone who gets in Dimitri’s way. It installs a hard turn limit on the battle, and if Dimitri is not defeated in time, it will kill every single unit on the field for an instant game over.

Claude

Altaria: Caught in Fodlan. Would actually murder a man for Claude. Would enjoy the chance to do so! Yes, this is PokeHubert.

Noivern: Caught in Almyra. BIG! LOUD! ULTIMATE FRIENDSHIP! It ruins a lot of Claude’s plans, but he loves it anyway.

Yanmega: Exhausted big brother who has to put up with little brother Claude’s nonsense. Has kept him alive for years.

Mandibuzz: An Almyran native Pokemon that followed Claude across the country. Laughs at everything, especially Claude.

Thievul: Claude’s partner in crime. Helps him with all schemes, even the self-destructive ones.

Breloom: Forced upon Claude by Judith during the timeskip. It’s there to keep him alive, and typically does it by Stun Sporing anything that gets close.

VW: Reshiram will help Claude to uncover the truth of Fodlan. All battalions are now Gambit Boosted x3, even if a character is on their own, and also burns away Fog of War.

Rhea

Bronzong: Rhea’s starter. Immeasurably old. Sometimes it lets Rhea hide inside it when she’s feeling unsafe.

Banette: Rhea’s childhood doll given life. It found her during the 560s, and they’re absolutely awful together.

Gloom: She thinks that Gloom smells like a sweet bouquet of flowers due to being Nabatean. It’s part of why everyone thinks Rhea is a bit strange in this AU.

Hitmonchan: A sparring partner. They regularly beat the shit out of each other for fun every now and then.

Flygon: Big Sad Boy. Rhea saved it as a Trapinch, and now it’s obsessed with flying her places. Even places she does not want to go. FLY, RHEA. IT IS FLYING TIME NOW.

Cresselia: A kindly Legendary who looks out for the dreams of all who dwell within Garreg Mach. They spend a lot of time keeping Rhea in peaceful sleep.

SS: Regigigas was the sole partner of Sothis, and is now the last link to Rhea’s old home. It can change the Terrain of any tile to make moving much, much more painful - PoisonFireSand tiles say hello!

CF: Regileki & Regidrago power up the Immaculate One until it’s literally starting to melt from the sheer power. It can now strike you with magic damage from anywhere on the map.

Nemesis: A real jackass. Basically enslaved a bunch of Legendaries and got to work murdering everybody he could. Basically Fodlan Tobias.

Type Null, Genesect, Darkrai, Groudon, Kyurem: All caught against their will and/or modified by the Agarthans for his use.

Zygarde: The only one that Nemesis didn’t enslave. It’s not a fan of the Nabateans at all, due to them not being native to Fodlan, and activately works with Nemesis to kill them. All of the Elites have 10% Zygardes, while Nemesis himself has a Complete Forme.

[asbestieos]

sorry for how scrunched this is, ill transcribe all the writings below the readmore <3 but tomokoi is my everything,, eventually ill draw their unit stuff and more time-line accurate portraits but for today you get this reflection on current tomokoi politics

Heart

-> Q: caretaker for, loves wholeheartedly // couple behind closed doors

-> Shinji: admires, will always offer help // “bad boy” duo

i can explain that second part fhgbhfgb "bad boy" because the public perceives them as delinquent-adjacent like bad boy (romantic) and they both find this funny and often pull a bit where they'll rip on each other's nonexistent rap sheet. this bit gets less funny after Shinji gets framed and jailed for attempted murder

-> Minami: kindest friend

-> Luka: confidant // unknowingly enemies

Q (founder and former leader of Tomokoi; current leader of XIV)

-> Heart: adores // couple behind closed doors

-> Shinji: less than trash // leaders

-> Minami: missed, fave member (of Tomokoi)

-> Luka: suspicious of // unknowingly enemies

Shinji (current leader of Tomokoi)

-> Heart: indebted // “bad boy” duo

-> Q: apologetic… // leaders

-> Minami: grateful, wants him to trust his feelings w/ others

-> Luka: ILY but stop being secretive

Minami

-> Heart: reliable ☆ (repressed crush)

-> Q: he has changed…

-> Shinji: sympathetic, unconditional support ;P

-> Luka: we take care of each other! ♡

Luka

-> Heart: knows their secrets, monitors their activities // unknowingly enemies

-> Q: scared of // unknowingly enemies

-> Shinji: too hard on himself

-> Minami: good friend, trusts w/ health

Heart and Q are currently members of a separate unit, XVI (“sixteen”), with two other members, while Shinji, Luka, and Minami carry on as Tomokoi !!

the story of Tomokoi is v smaddening and heartbreaking. this was back when Minami still went by ‘Hide’ short for.. their name ^_^; he also did not have those facial scars at this time.

Tomokoi began in junior high with five friends who wanted to become idols. Q founded the group and came up with its conception, believing it was the best way to popularize themselves. Tomokoi was only ever meant to sustain their dream while in junior high and to help them all develop their skills early to get ahead of the pack

for Q and Minami, they were perfectly able to maintain and dissociate their persona from their lives; for Shinji, Heart, and Luka, they struggled to live with their respective persona and how the public saw them. Minami becomes Q’s favorite, Q considered him skilled and determined enough to become an idol and sets him as the group's center; Heart as Q’s personal caretaker unconsciously becomes neurotic over it, Shinji gets jealous of his other unitmates for having an easier time with their persona than he with his own. Tomokoi ends up being very turbulent bc theyre all middle schoolers forced to play people they arent for the sake of a far-off dream they might not get to achieve. Luka is literally just Standing There (very upset that their friends are constantly at each other’s throats)

but the ultimate goal of every Tomokoi member is to audition for Reimei and to be accepted as individuals. they gave themselves individual personas to act out through Tomokoi to make themselves shine, so they hope that with the transition to high school, the tension that’s between them all will disappear along with Tomokoi; they’ll still be friends, but Tomokoi embodies the painful struggles and agonies and horrors they put themselves through as literal kids, and by moving on to individual work, they hope to move on from that painful part of their lives and to mature into idols

well, every single member of Tomokoi is accepted into Reimei - except Shinji, due to family history issues he was unaware of (blah blah blah sins of the father) and his own behavior (lashed out at judges). Q immediately gets on his ass for fucking up, Luka tries to defend them, all three get a distress call from Minami who, as it turns out, has been lying to his family the whole time about his future career path but that's not important, it's more urgent that he's terrified his family is about to kill him and themselves and needs help

lots of shenanigans happen. Shinji gets caught with the Madoka family's blood on his hands, Q frames Shinji for the assault of the Madoka family for very petty reasons, Minami is unconscious and hospitalized due to injury for the whole three weeks Shinji's trial takes. you may ask where Heart is during all this? Germany, trying to find their birth family (fruitless effort) (also didn't tell anyone they were going) (entrusted Luka, Shinji, and Minami with Q's health but really only Luka tends to Q).. it is a lot! by junior high graduation, Shinji is in juvenile prison, Q suffers a mental breakdown that Heart has to tend to, Luka disappears entirely, and Minami is left to care for what remains of his family, most of whom now rely on him due to disability.

this summary really doesnt do their individual stories justice i dont think i could do them justice but (shakes tomokoi) THEYRE EVERYTHING TO ME!!! THEYRE VERYTGHIGNGT TT OT MEEEAU AUAAUAGAG UAUA

ill also,, write up shit about their individual characters and personalities later i just wanted to get this relationship sheet out there so everyone knows theyre. not ok. ever

[ancestryfound]

@divxne-calcmity whispered: ♡ + guilt

( in his main verse, tom's guilt manifests mainly in not being able to tell his mother about thunder, even though he desperately wants to and feels deep down inside that he'd trust her enough to keep such a big secret, even if it'd be beneficial to the rakke corp and potentially, in their words, "to the world". of course, at the end of s4 where they leave us on a cliffhanger, his mother discovers the dragons by chance by finding the cave entrance to where tom has been going in and out of and meeting the group of teens and their dragons just as they're getting back from helping thunder's family defend themselves from the snow wraiths, but following this occasion, it begins to really hit him, and he has to explain over and over how much he wanted to tell her, how much it meant to him to share this secret with her, but every time he tried to she got called away or interrupted him because of something more important.

then, in his walking dead verse, which logically happens after the events of the upcoming s5 due to the characters that are regularly present in their to-be survival group, the thing that begins to pain tom the most is the fact that he is quite literally the reason why the group had to leave their safe haven research facility and throw themselves out in the world that grows more and more dangerous by the day. of course, the rakke corp was keeping the secret of the pandemic from them, hiding the details of just how truly dangerous it was, allowing the researchers to live their perfectly comfortable and sheltered lives without experiencing or knowing just how bad it was beyond their borders, without allowing them to do something for themselves or the countless other lives out there, because that was part of their goal as an institution, wasn't it? tom knew something was up right away, and when he found out just what was going on, how the facility was trapping walkers that managed to stumble in past the borders, mainly at night when most everyone was asleep, and doing experiments on them that would be considered inhumane. tom was so convinced that these things were just misunderstood people, so he freed them, but instead of the humane reaction he was looking for, all these things seemed to want to do was eat, so they did, many of whom were his parents' friends. there were too many of them to contain, so the remaining survivors had no choice but to leave, because of what tom did, what he unleashed upon the camp. he truly and genuinely believes that there is nothing he can do to make it up to any of them, even if they appear willing to work with them and appreciate him as a member of their survivor group. he thinks that if a walker doesn't get him, then his guilt will be what kills him. he knows he should move on from this, but how can he when his actions resulted in them leaving the only safe place in their region? when they were all sheltered and protected from the pandemic raging in the outside world? how does he come back from that? )

[jcwriting]

Written in the Stars

summary ↬ being soulmates with a werewolf? pretty easy. being jungkook’s soulmate? the easiest thing in the world. there’s only one teensy tiny problem. he doesn’t want to fuck you.

pairing ↬ werewolf!jungkook x reader

genre ↬ soulmate!au, abo verse, fluff, angst, hurt/comfort (this is so fucking dramatic and for what)

word count ↬ 10.4k my hand slipped

warnings ↬ swearing, angst (but with a happy ending bc im a sappy bitch), jk is stupid in love (emphasis on stupid), mentions of violence (very brief and i don’t go into too much detail but just to warn yall), slight nsfw (sex is a big topic for like half of this but not sex is had...i know im shocked too), half of this is background info/setting up the story the other half is finally addressing the summary lolol, jk is kind of an asshole but he has reasons!!!!!

authors note ↬ hello lovelies! here’s a small little thing for you all (laughs in 10k word count). this has been sitting in my drafts for fucking ever and i just needed to get it out there and out of my hands. im thinking about writing a part two where the actual ~*/sex/*~ is had but im still on the fence about that. please let me know what you think! i literally crave your interactions so pls dont be shy,,,,,okay love you bye :)

(ps i was so close to naming this Rewrite the Stars but since this has absolutely nothing to do with The Greatest Showman i didn’t. but i was close,,,,so fucking close)

You always knew Jeon Jungkook was destined for great things.

It was written in the stars, your mother had told you after he had first stepped foot into your family-owned grocery store. Your mother didn’t have any special powers, she just had a thing for astrology. While you normally shrugged off her random proclamations about divine intervention and planetary alignments, you found that Jungkook was something you couldn’t ignore or chalk up as your mother’s latest tea leaf reading.

From the moment you set eyes on him you knew he was different. While your family held zero claim to any sort of mystical or magical inclinations, you were well aware of those who did. It was no secret that non-humans roamed the Earth in plain sight, even though it had taken humans eons to realize this. After years of savage wars and civil unrest, agreements had come into place and governing bodies were adjusted to accept the changes that had finally been made. But, this was all before your time. You were the generation that was born into the period of peace, the first children to not experience bloodshed before they could walk. The world you knew now was almost a complete one-eighty of what it had been.

Where before those who were not of human blood had to do everything they could to blend in, now could be free of the shadows. Your classrooms had both humans and non-humans in their rosters. Some of your teachers were hybrids. Curriculum expanded to teach humans about a world that had once been entirely unknown to them. One of your favorite teachers was a witch who regaled your tenth grade class with stories of goblin wars, wizard duels, and vampire covens. All tales that you had once thought were nothing but fiction were now anything but.

Which is why, the second Jeon Jungkook entered the grocery store that your parents owned and that you had worked at since you were old enough to speak in full sentences, you knew who he was. You didn’t even question it.

He was a werewolf. A powerful one. You could see it in the way he carried himself. The purposeful strides he took down the narrow aisles, the confidence in his broad shoulders. Humans weren’t nearly as sensitive as their hybrid counterparts but you also paid attention in your classes. Or, perhaps you were more aware than other humans. Never in your life did you have the issues other faced when meeting a non-human for the first time. You always knew who they were without them having to tell you. You just knew.

So, when Jeon Jungkook stepped up to your register with a bottle of water and some raw beef, you didn’t flinch. Didn’t bend under his dark gaze or shuffle your feet in an awkward attempt to break the silence. Instead, you flashed him your customer service smile and rang up his items. He didn’t say a word as he paid, barely sparing you a second glance as he strode out of the store.

“He’s going to be a great and powerful man,” your mother said in that feathery light voice of hers. “It was written in the stars.”

You couldn’t help but agree.

Jeon Jungkook came into your store everyday for the next month. He bought the same thing every time. A bottle of water and a package of raw beef. The only time he spared you any words was to say thank you or the occasional hello if the sun was shining. Usually, he was alone. Sometimes, he came with a few members of his pack. You liked those days. He smiled a little brighter and talked a little louder when they were around. Especially around Taehyung.

Then, after a month, he didn’t come in. Not for an entire week. From Monday to Sunday, you hadn’t seen a hide nor hair of him. A part of you was worried, so worried that you almost stopped Taehyung in the middle of the street to ask of Jungkook’s whereabouts before realizing how insane that made you look, the other part was chastising yourself for caring. Jeon Jungkook was a customer. Nothing more, nothing less.

The following Monday had come and you had finally stopped glancing at the sliding doors every five minutes. You no longer expected his commanding presence to rock your little world. Instead, you continued your day as if it had been any other. That was, until, Jeon Jungkook stepped through the entrance looking as if he was walking on air. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why.

“Did you have a good heat?” You asked when he stepped up to your register. Jungkook fumbled the water bottle he had been setting onto the conveyer belt before turning to stare at you.

“What did you just say?”

You didn’t shrink under his intense glare. “I was asking if you enjoyed your heat. Seems like you did.”

“How do you know I was in my rut?”

“Oh, is rut the correct terminology? Sorry, they always interchanged them in class, I was never sure what was appropriate.” You shrugged and rang up his items. “It was kind of obvious, though. You seemed pretty agitated about a week-and-a-half ago, then you disappear for a week, and now you’re back looking happier than ever. If it wasn’t your rut then I want to know where you went on vacation because that’s where I’m heading to next.”

Jungkook laughed. That almost made you jump out of your skin. You had never heard him laugh before. It was throaty, it was deep, and it was wonderful. “I’ll be sure to send you the link to the Airbnb.”

“And how do you plan on doing that?”

He smirked. “I’m here every day, aren’t I?”

You tilted your head as you accepted the cash he handed to you. “Clearly, you’re not that reliable.”

Jungkook laughed again. It was becoming your new favorite sound. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to appear flaky.”

“You’re forgiven,” you decided as you handed him the plastic bag of his purchases. Teasingly, you added, “just make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

He flashed you a smile that showed off his sharpened canines. “Don’t worry, darling. I never make the same mistake twice.”

Jeon Jungkook kept his promise. He showed up everyday, like clockwork. Bought the same thing. Arrived at the same time. The only thing that changed was how he treated you. It wasn’t that he treated you badly before, he had always been polite. But now, he talked to you. He asked you questions and answered yours. More often than not, he laughed.

(It had become your favorite sound.)

For three months, this continued. The two of you had settled into a comfortable routine, something you relied on and expected. Until, he changed that.

Until, Jeon Jungkook asked you out on a date.

“What did you just say?”

“Are you free? Tonight?” You glanced around, almost expecting to see some sort of supermodel posing behind you to explain the absolute absurdity of the situation. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for the hidden cameras. I think I’m getting Punk’d.”

Jungkook sighed and placed both hands on the counter that separated the two of you. “Look at me.” You did. Slowly and warily, but you did. “Does it look like I’m lying to you?”

Narrowing your eyes, you regarded him carefully. He seemed serious. But, then again, do you ever really know someone? “I don’t know. I’ve never actually seen you lie before so I wouldn’t know the difference.”

“Fine. Ask me what color my shirt is.”

“What color is your shirt?”

“White,” he deadpanned. You glanced down at his chest. His shirt was black.

“Jungkook!”

He threw his head back and released a full bellied laugh. Even in your exasperation you couldn’t help but soften a little. “I’m sorry, darling. I couldn’t help myself.” Annoyed, you huffed and spun to face the cash register. Stabbing your finger onto the touchscreen, you ignored Jungkook’s obvious presence on the opposite side of the counter. Until his hand reached around the card reader and grasped a hold of your chin. The warmth of his fingers forced your head to turn to meet his.

“Come to dinner with me.” His voice was nothing but a rumble in his chest, his eyes so black and all-consuming you couldn’t do anything but agree with him. He seemed pleased by your response as his fingers tightened against your skin and a grateful smile flicked past his lips. His gaze darted down to your mouth and your breath froze in your chest.

“Are you going to kiss me?”

Jungkook raised an eyebrow. “Do you want me to?”

“No.” You tried to shake your head but his grip didn’t allow you much movement. He was taken aback by your answer, a small frown tugging at his mouth. You quickly backtracked to fix the situation. “I don’t want our first kiss to be in a grocery store. That’s a new low that I refuse to reach.”

Jungkook chuckled and tapped your chin gently. “Alright, darling. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

Again, he kept his promise to you. He showed up at your parents house exactly at seven, wearing a button-down shirt and slacks. The tulips he had gotten for you was thrust into your hands the moment you opened the door. Flashing him a genuine smile, you hurried into the kitchen to set them in water while your mother grilled him on his birth time. You were quick to drag him away, practically throwing him towards the car as you waved goodbye.

“Sorry,” you sighed as Jungkook opened the passenger door for you. “She has a…thing for astrology. She’s probably creating your star map or whatever right now.”

“It’s okay,” he responded once he got into the drivers seat. “It’s sweet of her to care.”

You snorted. “She’s delusional is what she is.”

“So, you’re saying you don’t believe in astrology?”

“Do you?”

Jungkook shrugged as he pulled out of your dirt driveway. He looked so damn attractive behind the wheel it was honestly unfair. “Not really saying I do or don’t. All I know is that there are a lot of things out there that are out of our control. If believing in the stars and planets helps you gain some of that control back, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

“God, don’t talk like that in front of my mother. She’ll want to start dating you.”

He grinned and placed a hand on your knee. “Tell her I’m already taken.”

You didn’t get a chance to respond to that. Not that he didn’t give you one, it was just that you literally had nothing to say. With just one sentence he opened the floodgates of your brain and the amount of thoughts that were flying through your conscious was painful. Anxiety fluttered in your stomach and you pressed your lips together to keep you from word vomiting onto him. No, it was better to keep your mouth shut and let the moment pass.

By the time you reached the restaurant you were a trembling mess of nerves. Were you guys dating? You thought this was just a ‘testing the waters’ date, not a ‘you’re my girlfriend now’ date. Did you have to make it Facebook official? You hated that shit.

Jungkook didn’t comment on your obvious distress, though. He merely placed a hand on the small of your back, ignoring how you jerked in surprise, and led you into the quiet bistro. Nodding politely to the hostess who was practically panting at the sight of him (you honestly couldn’t blame her) and pulled out your chair for you. When he sat down, he started talking. Idle chat at first. Commenting on one of the dishes, asking about the college classes you were taking at your local university. Before you realized it, wine was in your glass and your shoulders were loose. Previous nerves forgotten, you lost yourself in Jungkook. You drank, you ate, you laughed, and genuinely enjoyed his company. Honestly, it was the best date you’d ever been on.

“I have to be honest with you,” Jungkook spoke after he finished his raw steak. “I have an ulterior motive for asking you here tonight.”

“Oh,” you mumbled around the shrimp you had just tossed in your mouth. “So…this isn’t a date?”

“No, it is,” Jungkook clarified quickly around a dry chuckle. He seemed…nervous. It put you on edge immediately. “This is definitely a date. And, also, more.”

“More? What, is this a proposal too?” You were joking. A 100% joking. But Jungkook was staring at you so seriously it made you panic. “Jungkook, if you get down on one knee here I swear-”

“I’m not proposing,” he assured you. “This is something more than that.”

“More?” You parroted. Jungkook sighed.

“Do you know what a true mate is?”

Right there, in that quaint little bistro, on a date with quite possibly the most untouchable man you’d ever met, he explained how you were irrevocably his. His true mate, his soulmate.

Jungkook explained everything in great detail, which you appreciated, because honestly, you had no words. He explained how when he was born, the witch who cared for him told his father that his future glared brightly ahead of him, but only when he met his other half. True mates were rare. Mating was common, the wolves in his pack could have multiple mates or a lifelong one, but true mates were destiny. Someone or something out there had forged the two of you together. You were essentially each others other half. He was made for you and you were made for him.

“But…aren’t true mates only for wolves? I thought it’s impossible for a human to be a true mate,” you asked in a shaky voice once Jungkook took a breath.

“It was supposed to be impossible. Until, I met you.” Jungkook stared at you with a sort of reverence that made your entire body blush. “I have no idea how you are. I’ve spent hours researching. I’ve consulted with members of my pack and others. No one knows why.”

“Are you sure, though? I mean…what if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not.” Jungkook shook his head. “I visited the witch right after I met you. She took one look at me and told me that I had finally found my true mate. She said she’d never seen a future so bright before.”

You had no words for that. For the first time in your life, you were speechless. Jungkook seemed to understand. He let you sit in silence as he paid for the bill and walked you out to the car. The drive back to your parents house was the same. You couldn’t speak. The shock rendered you stupid.

By the time Jungkook pulled into the driveway you still hadn’t spoken a word to each other. You stepped out of the car before he could open the door for you. Walking up to the porch steps in a trance, you didn’t hear him follow you until he clasped your wrist in his hand. Turning to face him, you were surprised to see his brown eyes so big. They practically sparkled in the moonlight and he looked so soft and sweet you nearly melted into the wood beneath your feet.

“Please,” he whispered. “Can you…just - are you okay? You’ve been so quiet. I’m worried I’ve scared you off or something.”

With that voice, it was impossible to deny him. So, you said the first thing that popped in your head. “Do we have to make it Facebook official?”

Jungkook stared at you before bursting into laughter. “Really? That’s all you have to say?”

You blushed and glanced down. “I’m just worried, that’s all. I can’t remember my Facebook password so even if you wanted to change it I don’t think it’ll work.”

“So that’s why you never accepted my friend request,” Jungkook teased. Before you could squeak out a response, he wrapped his arms around your waist and tugged you forward. You kept your arms crossed across your chest but let yourself fall against him.

“Don’t make fun of me,” you whined as you buried your face into his shoulder. He smelled so good, a mixture of pine and spice. “My brain hasn’t worked since you told me I’m yours, so bear with me.”

Jungkook chuckled and gently swayed you from side to side. “Does that mean you’re okay with this? All of this?”

Sighing, you lifted your head up and stepped away from him. Jungkook was not impressed and pulled you back to him. Your heart swelled in your chest and you wrapped your arms around his neck in consolation. “Honestly? I haven’t really processed anything. You’ve had your whole life to come to terms with this. I just found out thirty minutes ago that I’m someone’s soulmate. It’s a lot to take in.”

Jungkook nodded as he tapped his fingers against your hips. “I know. It’s a lot…I’m a lot. I just want you to know that you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to be with me. I won’t-”

Now it was your turn to burst into laughter. You couldn’t believe those words had left his mouth. It was easily the most absurd thing you’d ever heard. “Jungkook, I want to make something very clear. I have no problem being your true mate. That’s not the issue here. Well, there really isn’t an issue. It’s just…hard to believe, I guess. I have to process that this is my new reality.”

“Really?” Jungkook perked up and looked so fucking cute you couldn’t help but cup his cheeks. His skin was so warm despite the cold autumn air that surrounded you both. “You want to do this? Be with me? Be mine?” All you could do was nod. You were so overwhelmed with emotions. The shock was evident, but a piece of you was so happy. You felt whole.

Jungkook’s face split into a wide smile that caused his nose to scrunch up. He wrapped his arms around your waist and spun you around. Squealing, you slung your legs around his hips and held on. Normally, you’d rather die than show this much affection to someone. But, this was Jungkook. Your soulmate.

“So…what do we do now?” You asked once Jungkook set you down. “Is there, like, a ceremony or something?”

“I have no idea,” he admitted as he stared down at you. He had a hand against your jaw and was rubbing your cheek tenderly. “I really didn’t think I’d get this far.”

You scoffed at his ridiculousness. While recognizing you were Jungkook’s true mate was going to take some time, believing that he thought you’d deny him was utter nonsense. “What if…what if we date, first?” You suggested timidly. “I know that sounds kind of weird considering we’re supposed to be the loves of each others lives. But, I don’t really know you all that well. And, I think this is going to take sometime for me to get used to. Maybe we should date, get to know each other, and just learn how to be with one another.”

“Whatever you want,” Jungkook agreed. “We can do whatever you want. Just as long as I have you, I’m happy.”

Two years passed.

Two blissful, wonderful years. Two years of dating, two years of loving, two years of being Jeon Jungkook’s. It was everything you could’ve asked for and more. You had never felt so loved and cherished in your entire life. He respected you, he took care of you, and most importantly, he was there for you in every sense. Since the moment you met him, you hadn’t been alone. He hadn’t let you. Jungkook knew you better than you knew yourself.

And, it was the same for him. You were there for him when he transitioned into the leader of his pack. You were there when he took over the CEO position from his father and encouraged and supported him every step of the way. You let yourself be loved and in return he let you love him. It was wonderful.

Except, for one tiny thing.

While the emotional aspect of your relationship flourished and bloomed into something beautiful, the physical side remained stagnant. Make out sessions and heavy petting were a norm in your relationship. At first, it didn’t bother you. In fact, you loved that Jungkook was taking things so slow and so seriously. But, eventually, your needs began to grow. You found yourself wanting him in more ways than one, wants that only he could satisfy. Jungkook refused. Every time.

It wasn’t like he refused your every need. No, Jungkook was extremely attentive. When it came to himself, that’s when things got dicy. He had no problem spending hours between your legs, worshipping you until you were crying from the overstimulation. Yet, he wouldn’t let you anywhere near him. Not without lack of trying on your part. The minute your hands went down to his waistband, he pushed you away. Every time you tried to dip your mouth to the obvious bulge in his pants, he lifted you up and kissed you breathless until you forgot your name. It wasn’t until after a year of dating that he finally let you grind on his clothed cock. Even then, he held off until you finished and then walked out with quite possibly the worst case of blue balls. You hated that he did this to himself. The worst part was, you couldn’t understand why.

The one time you had brought it up to him it had resulted in the worst fight the two of you had ever gotten into. It was the only argument that was never really resolved. After the yelling and the tears, all you got out of Jungkook was that mating with a wolf was not pretty. It was extremely dangerous and he refused to put you in that kind of danger. End of discussion. No matter how hard you tried to persuade him or broach the subject, he shut it down. Hard. Eventually, you gave up.

He even spent his ruts away from you. Every three months, he left you for a week. You knew he had a place somewhere up in the mountains and you assumed that’s where he went. You had no idea. There was no point even asking to come along. You loved your boyfriend and didn’t want to purposely give him a heart attack. You hated it when he left. As much as you tried to hide it and convince him that you were just fine, he wasn’t stupid. Being away from him was tough. A piece of you was missing whenever he was gone. And you were only whole again when he returned.

This past week had been one of those weeks. He had left on Sunday for the mountains. He was agitated and clingy, how he normally was pre-rut. Jungkook wouldn’t let you leave his side and you spent most of the weekend on his lap or wrapped in his arms. Not that you minded. When he left your parents house on Sunday night, you’d had to coax him out of the door. Promising him that you’d be okay and that you’d see him next week. It wasn’t until several kisses later did Jungkook finally leave.

While you’d been doing this for two years, it never got easier. More manageable? Sure. But definitely not easier. All you could do was go through the motions. You went to work at the local bakery, came home and helped your mom with dinner, watched TV with your dad before going to bed. Taehyung and Jimin would visit often, threatened by Jungkook to keep you company. While you assured them it wasn’t necessary, you secretly didn’t mind. They made you laugh and made you temporarily forget your boyfriend was miles away from you. Sometimes, if you were lucky, he’d call you to tell you goodnight. But those times were rare. Normally, you didn’t hear from him until Friday or Saturday when he was finally coming out of his rut and returning to the world.

By the time Sunday rolled around, you were a jittery ball of nerves. Not in a bad sense. You were just excited. The anticipation killed you and it took all of your willpower to sit and wait for his text to tell you to come over. Your parents always left you alone on these Sundays, unable to deal with your hyperactiveness and constant fidgeting.

This Sunday was no different. You puttered around your room for the better part of the day. You spent the other part in the kitchen, baking like your life depended on it. Jungkook loved your cookies and you always made sure to come over with at least three batches after his ruts. He always said that was his second favorite part about coming home, after seeing you, of course.

You had just finished packaging the final batch in a glass cookie jar when your phone dinged. You didn’t have to read the message, you knew exactly what it said. Pure joy rushed through your system as you threw on your coat and shouted a hasty goodbye to your parents. Juggling the cookies and car keys, you sprinted to your car. The drive to Jungkook’s was thankfully not long. About ten minutes, as long as you didn’t hit any traffic on the main road. Luck was on your side, though, and you showed up at Jungkook’s house in eight minutes.

Taehyung’s car was in the driveway when you pulled up, which wasn’t odd. Although Jungkook owned the house, the members of his pack were almost always around. While most preferred to travel in their wolf forms, you knew Taehyung and Namjoon preferred cars. Something about being able to listen to their own music without comments from the peanut gallery. You didn’t really understand and didn’t really need to. You had just chalked it up as one of their many quirks.

Carrying the trays of cookies in both hands, you shut your car door with your foot before speed-walking up the stone walkway to Jungkook’s home. The screen door was shut, but the wooden door was swung wide open. You had just reached for the metal handle when you heard it.

A deep, threatening growl ripped through the peaceful quiet and froze you in place. You knew it was Jungkook. While you had only heard it once, you’d never forgotten it. It was when the two of you had attended a party and an alpha from a neighboring pack had cornered you in the hallway. Jungkook had found you cowered against the wall as the other alpha had caged you in. The sound that had left his chest had given you equal parts comfort and fear. Comfort, because he was there and you knew you were safe. Fear, because you could see in the way he bared his teeth and how his muscles vibrated, he had been furious and bloodthirsty.

That’s what you felt now, fear.

Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

From your vantage point in front of the screen door, you could see directly into the kitchen. Taehyung was leaning against the granite countertop and Jungkook was seated at the island. The tension was so thick you practically choked on it.

“Enough, Taehyung.”

“No,” Taehyung snapped, seeming just as angry as Jungkook. “I’m not dropping it. Not this time.”

“Yes, you will,” Jungkook snarled. “I’m not having this conversation with you.”

“Too fucking bad.” While Taehyung was also an alpha, he acted so much like a beta you never really noticed. Until now. “I’m not going to sit by and watch you do this to yourself anymore. Not spending your ruts correctly is only causing you more harm than good.”

“I’m doing things the way I want to, and it’s working-”

“The hell it is!” Jungkook growled at the interruption but Taehyung ignored him. “It’s not working, and you know it. Anyone with two fucking eyes knows it. It’s getting so bad that the pack is noticing, too. Even Namjoon has realized something is wrong, and he’s as oblivious as they come.”

“If they have a problem with me they can take it up with me.”

“No, they can’t. Because you won’t listen. Your head is so far up your ass you can’t even hear yourself anymore. What you’re doing right now is not working. Something needs to change.”

“Like what?” Jungkook spat.

“You know what,” Taehyung bit back. Jungkook was practically vibrating from rage. You knew you needed to go get someone, someone from the pack to calm the two of them down. Things were only escalating, but you couldn’t move. Your brain screamed at you to run but your legs were rooted in place. “That’s is what’s so frustrating, Jungkook. This, all of this, could be solved. She’s right there-”

“Don’t.” Jungkook stood up so fast the chair he sat on flew backwards and hit the wall with a resounding crack.

“Why?” Taehyung threw his arms up in the air. “Why not? I don’t get it-”

“Because I don’t want her!” Jungkook yelled, the force of it rang throughout the house. You had no idea who the she was that they were referring to. You assumed it was someone from the pack. It was well-known that wolves with human mates sometimes turned to other she-wolves to help with their ruts. You figured that’s what Jungkook did whenever he went away for a week. It had bothered you at first, but you knew he had his needs and that they were at a biological level. You refused to make him feel guilty or ashamed for taking care of himself.

“You don’t want her?” Taehyung was enraged. You could tell by the way he straightened his spine and unfurled himself to his full height. Jungkook bristled in response and the muscles in his back strained against the thin material of his shirt.

“No, I don’t!” Jungkook exploded. “What don’t you understand about that? I don’t want her around me. I don’t need her, I’m fine on my own. The thought of having her there when…God - it makes me physically ill.”

“She’s your girlfriend. Above all of that, your true mate. You’re seriously going to deny yourself of her, for what? Just because you don’t like having her around?”

Oh.

That’s when it hit you. They weren’t talking about some random she-wolf. They were talking about you. You were the one Jungkook didn’t want. You were the one Jungkook didn’t need. You were the one he didn’t like having around. As the weight of the words sunk into your mind, you felt your chest becoming tighter and tighter.

Then, you’re heart broke right in half. You dropped the container of cookies and didn’t flinch when it shattered against the wooden slats. The sound unstuck your feet from their position on the porch and your fight or flight system took over. Without a second thought, you turned on your heel and ran.

You didn’t know if anyone was behind you, you didn’t turn around to check. Hands fumbled for the car door as you threw yourself into the drivers side. Pain ricocheted throughout your chest cavity and you struggled to breathe. Your brain was blank, the only thing your mind did was move your body to get you somewhere safe. You had to leave and you had to leave now.

Miraculously, your fingers found your keys and inserted them into the ignition on the second try. A flutter of movement occurred to the left of you but your eyes didn’t let you look that way. Instead, they focused on the rearview mirror as you reversed out of the driveway. Your right hand found the gearshift and moved it to drive. Soon, you were tearing down the street as your ears refused to register the agonized howls that echoed behind as you kept staring forward. Adrenaline pumped through your system and your body shivered in response, the splash of hormones had created a blanket of fake calm over you. The emotions, the pain, the thoughts were swirling inside of you, ready to break free and drown you, but your brain wouldn’t allow it.

It wasn’t until you reached the end of your long driveway that you felt the original spike of adrenaline fade away. Your mother was in the front, tending to the flowers, and looked up when she saw your car fly into its usual spot. She stood up and her face twisted into a frown when you got out of your seat.

“Honey, your aura…it’s concerning.” The blanket was yanked away and the pain crashed over you.

You couldn’t say a word, all you could do was collapse in your mother's arms and cry, cry, cry.

It took you two days to calm down. The tears had stopped rolling and your shoulders no longer shook from trying to hold your sobs behind your teeth. Your mother hadn’t left your side, leaving your father to answer the door whenever someone knocked. The only person who did was Taehyung and Jimin. Jungkook never showed up.

Well, that was a lie.

Jungkook did show up every morning and night, without fail. But he never came to your doorstep.  Instead, he was in the woods behind your house, patrolling, not daring to leave the protection of the forest. A part of you wondered if he was respecting your obvious need for space or if your mother had paid a witch to set up boundary lines that didn’t allow him to cross. Either way, you were grateful that you couldn’t see him. There was an incessant tugging in your heart to be near him but you staunchly ignored it, which would’ve been impossible if you saw his achingly beautiful face.

I don’t want her. I don’t need her. Having her there makes me physically ill. Those three sentences played in a constant loop in your head, like a horror movie you couldn’t escape from. You were the protagonist who couldn’t escape the maze, but the villain wasn’t kind enough to kill you off. No matter what you did, your brain wouldn’t stop repeating those three sentences. Your mother burned sage, she pressed crystals into your palms, she muttered ritual after ritual, but nothing worked.

You hated how affected you were. You had always told yourself that you would never be the girl who’d get so wrapped up in someone else they didn’t know who they were anymore. Independence was something you prided yourself on, but you seemed to be at a complete loss now. You couldn’t stop the waves of sadness and self-hatred at your depressed state. It was amazing how empty you felt yet so full of pain at the same time. Your mind and heart couldn’t seem to decide which hurt worse; your heart for having your soulmate so obviously reject you, or your brain for trying to make sense of the situation. When did this happen? How did this happen? How had you been so blind as to not see it?

“I don’t think we’re soulmates,” you rasped to your mom on the third morning. It had been the first words you had spoken to her since you had fell into her arms. She looked up from the bundle of herbs she was smoking.

“Why do you say that?”

You stared at your hands that had curled in on themselves. “I don’t make him happy. I-I never realized how uncomfortable I made him. I wish I had known. How did I miss it?”

Your mother tutted gently and gathered you in her arms. She smelled of lavender and wax. “This is good. I’m glad you’re letting yourself have this moment. Let’s sit in this and allow yourself to be embedded here.” But you didn’t want to have this moment. You didn’t want to have any moment and you’ve felt enough to last a lifetime. Instead, you rolled over, let sleep overtake you and tried to ignore the distant howling that rattled your window pane.

By nightfall of the fourth day, you were forced out of bed. Partly by choice, partly by force. Your parents had dipped out to run to the grocery store, despite your mother’s insistence that she could stay. You and your father managed to convince her to leave and you had gotten up to wave them goodbye. Sure, your heart was broken, but the least you could do was kiss them on the cheek before they left. You had turned around to shuffle into the kitchen to try and shovel something down your dry throat when a loud knock sounded at the front door. Hesitating, you carefully peeked through the kitchen window and saw Jimin on your front doorstep, dressed in all black.

Sighing, you stumbled over and pulled the door open. You figured you couldn’t avoid them for much longer. “Hey, Jimin.”

“Christ, you look like shit.”

You huffed out a laugh as Jimin stared at you in horror, not having the energy to be offended. You also knew, in a weird way, that this was Jimin’s way of caring for you. “Yeah. My mother’s covered all the mirrors in the house.”

Jimin nodded as he glanced at you from head to toe. “I want to ask if you’re okay but…” He gestured to your gaunt frame swaddled in a heavy sweatshirt and sweatpants. For the first time in two years, they were your own clothes, not Jungkook’s.

“I’m fine, Jimin,” you heaved a heavy sigh and leaned against the doorframe. “Do you want to come in? I think my mom boiled some tea not too long ago.”

Jimin shook his head. “Can’t. Jungkook would have a fit if I got that close to you right now. I’m already pushing my luck just by showing up.” He doesn’t care, you thought bitterly, and almost said it out loud but you caught yourself at the last second. Jimin wasn’t stupid, though. He knew what you were thinking. “Hey,” he murmured, eyes going soft, “are you ready to talk about it?”

“No.” You shook your head. A wave of sadness washed over you but the telltale prick of tears didn’t come.

Jimin understood. He tucked his hands into his pockets as he rocked back onto his heels. “Are you going to talk to him?”

Letting out a heavy breath, you crossed your arms over your chest. “I know I have to. I just…I just need time.”

“Take however long you need.”

It was another 48-hours before you finally snapped. While you had spent the majority of the two days that had passed to make yourself resemble a human being, you couldn’t focus. You couldn’t move on. Why?

Because Jungkook wouldn’t leave you alone.

His presence was constant. He circled your house every hour of ever day, the large shadow of him in wolf form darkened the trees behind your house. The howling had stopped but the pacing hadn’t. You hoped he was at least sleeping, but then you got annoyed at yourself for caring. You didn’t know why he was out there, it made no sense. Jungkook’s words were so different from his actions it made your head spin.

But, you needed to move on with your life. You had to. The only way it was going to happen was if Jungkook did too. It hurt. God, did it hurt. Yet, as sad and utterly pathetic as it sounded, you were used to the pain at this point, had resigned yourself to it. A part of you worried you wouldn’t know what to do without it.

Shaking off that depressing thought, you tugged on your rain boots and stepped outside for the first time in a week. The air was heavy with the promise of rain, the clouds low and gray. You tugged the hood up on your sweater to prevent your hair from completely frizzing out before you walked to down the back deck steps.

The backyard of your parents house was expansive. The home you had grown up in sat on top of a sloping hill that your mother had turned into her personal greenhouse. You stepped past rows of raised garden beds and pruned plants until you reached the line where the neatly mowed grass met the twisted ferns of the forest floor. As you had suspected, the ground was scorched with the evidence of past rituals. While your mother hadn’t out right admitted, you had figured someone had come and created a boundary line. It was obviously specific to Jungkook since Jimin and Taehyung were still able to visit. While your mother’s methods were extreme, you understood. As difficult as it was to move on with your life with Jungkook sequestered to the forest, you couldn’t imagine what it would’ve been like if he was within a few feet of you.

With a deep inhale, you sat down on the damp grass and waited. After a few minutes, you could hear the faint sounds of paws hitting the wet earth. The galloping got louder and louder until there was a momentary stretch of silence before it changed to footsteps.

When Jungkook emerged from the trees, you weren’t prepared. Although you knew you wouldn’t be, you still weren’t expecting it to hurt this bad. Your chest squeezed painfully at the first look of his broad form. Technically, it had been two weeks since you two had truly seen each other, the longest you’d ever gone. What hurt the most was how badly you longed for him. You wanted nothing more than to run straight into his arms, bury your face into his chest, and forget everything. Just forgive and give your heart what it wanted. But you remained firmly in place.

Jungkook looked as if he had seen a ghost. Which, to be fair, was probably true since you hadn’t seen the sun in seven days. His normally golden skin was pale and even from where you sat you could see the dark circles bruising under his eyes. Clearly, he hadn’t been sleeping. You hated that you noticed. You hated that you cared. He was dressed in all black and his chest strained against the material of his sweater. His hands were balled into tight fists at his side and the sight reminded you of why you were here.

“Hi.” Probably wasn’t the best start but it was the best you could do. Jungkook didn’t respond so you soldiered on. “I-I know you don’t want to be here, so I’ll make this quick. I just…wanted to apologize. I had no idea I made you so uncomfortable. I’m not sure how long you’ve felt this way about me, not that it really matters, but I wish you had told me sooner. Maybe things would’ve been easier for you, who knows.” You released a heavy sigh and tried to shove down the stone in your throat as you forced the next words out of your mouth. “But, all of that doesn’t matter anymore. I think I understand what you need, now. I know you loved me at one point, but I’m obviously not what you need anymore. And…t-that’s okay - I swear it is. All I want is for you to be happy, Jungkook. And I think, in order for that to happen, I need to move on. We both need to move on-”

“Stop it,” Jungkook broke in with a harsh voice that cut your sentence in half. “Stop talking.”

It felt like he had slapped you in the face. A wave of humiliation washed over you and you visibly flinched. Staggering to your feet, you locked your gaze onto your boots in an attempt to hide the tears that dripped down your nose. “I’m sorry,” you whispered, not expecting it to change anything. You began to turn away but Jungkook stopped you in your tracks, again.

“Wait, no - stop. Stop. Please…don’t go,” he pleaded. When you turned around, his eyes were frantic. Jungkook’s hand was raised from his side as if he thought about reaching out to you but something stopped him. His words were at war with one another and you were caught in the middle, at a loss for what he was trying so desperately to convey to you.

“Jungkook, I’m so confused.”

“I know. I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry.” Jungkook tucked his head into his hands before dropping down into a squat. “This is all wrong. This is all so wrong.”

You knew you should walk away. You had said your piece, it was time to move on, just as you had said. Yet, you couldn’t. It was as if your heart was tethered to him and your body couldn’t handle the pain of walking away. “Listen-”

“I don’t know what to do.” He cut you off but the bubbles of anger that had risen from being interrupted popped once you saw how lost he looked. His tattooed fingers threaded through his hair, allowing you to see the pure anguish that twisted his features. “Whenever I feel like this, I come to you. Because you always know what to do. Any situation, no matter what, you can handle it. It’s something I’ve always admired about you.”

The way he spoke to you now, so reverently and so full of awe, made your head spin. Nothing made sense.  It was such a blatant contrast to the brutality that he had spat out a week ago. As much as you wanted to believe what he said now, those stupid words could not get out of your head. It was a constant reminder that never shut up.

“I don’t know what to do either,” you admitted in a quiet voice.

“Tell me,” Jungkook begged, as if he couldn’t and refused to comprehend what you had just told him. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. Whatever you want from me, I’ll give you.”

You were shaking your head before he could finish. “There’s nothing you can do, Jungkook. Nothing.”

“Don’t say that.” He stared at you, horrified. “Don’t say that to me. Please, there has to be something.”

“What could there be?” You cried. Tears streamed down your cheeks now. “You said it yourself, being near me makes you sick. Why would I stay? Why would you want me to? I refuse to make you uncomfortable anymore - so that’s that.”

“It isn’t,” Jungkook argued back. “It can’t be. I-I can’t lose you, I can’t. I need to make this right, please just let me. Please.”

But, you were tired. You were so fucking tired. You were exhausted of the emotional rollercoaster that you were on that you just wanted to crawl away and hide. All the fight seeped out of you as your shoulders slumped forward. Jungkook saw this and the blood drained from his face. You were giving up, he could see it, and it scared the shit out of him.

“Jungkook, I need to go, okay? I-I can’t do this.”

“No!” Jungkook shouted and shot up to his feet. The pure panic that choked his voice brought on a fresh set of tears that you struggled to hold back. “Just let me explain, okay? I swear to God, after you hear what I have to say, if you still want me to, I’ll let you go. I won’t fight you on it. But, please let me tell you the truth. Give me a chance to make this right. You deserve that.”

You hesitated for a moment. Deep down, you knew you should let him talk. Not because you necessarily thought he deserved to, but because he was right. You did deserve the truth, no matter how much it broke your heart. With a heavy sigh and a quick swipe of your cheeks, you nodded. Once Jungkook was sure you weren’t going to leave, he began pacing. Looking every bit like the wild animal you knew him to be but never got to see.

“Mating with a werewolf is…brutal. It’s intense, it’s painful and it isn’t pretty. It’s essentially a breeding session where I use you as a vessel to fulfill my innate biological needs. It’s not romantic, it’s not gentle. Even for she-wolves it can be too much. The thought of subjecting you to something like that - that type of pain…I couldn’t fathom it. I don’t think you understand just how precious you are to me. The image of you being battered and bruised because of me, something I did…it tormented me, day and night.” He paused for a moment, the pained look in his eyes made you shiver. You hated that he had gone through all of this turmoil on his own, and you especially hated how you never made more of an effort to try and relieve him of it.

“I couldn’t do it. That’s partially the reason I waited so long to tell you that you were my true mate. I knew ruts were something I would never expose you to even though it’s such a huge part of my life, a wolf’s life.” Jungkook looked you straight in the eye, the intensity of his dark gaze took your breath away. “I know the practices other wolves partake in when their own heats or ruts arrive. I know you know them too. But, I need you to understand something. The moment you allowed me to be yours and vice versa, I haven’t had anyone else since. I swear on my life, I’ve spent every single one of my ruts alone. I wouldn’t and I won’t do that to you.”

“Isn’t that painful, though?” Your voice cracked but neither one of you acknowledged it. While your knowledge on ruts were expansive, having done plenty of research since being with Jungkook, you had obviously never experienced one.

“It’s manageable. It’s way more painful for a she-wolf to go through her heat alone than it is for a male.” Jungkook clenched and unclenched his fists as he resumed his pacing. “The worst part is being away from you. I’ve been going through ruts since puberty, I can handle them. But not being able to be with you for a whole week…I hated it. Still do. I dread that three month mark. And as time went on, I became more and more miserable. Being apart from you was almost unbearable but the other option…I never even allowed myself to consider it.

“It came to the point where the pack was noticing. I wasn’t getting the proper pheromonal release from my ruts and it was beginning to affect those around me. Taehyung has been on my ass for months now to get over myself and take you with me during my next rut. Each time I’d give him some excuse, but it was getting harder and harder to justify what I was doing. At first, I was convinced it was because I was protecting you. But you’ve been so understanding and so patient with me and my life, those excuses were becoming useless. Eventually, I think it was because I was protecting myself. I was - am - so scared. I’m terrified that I could hurt you when I’m like that. That I wouldn’t be able to notice or worse, ignored, if something happened to you. Living with that type of fear became debilitating. So, I just kept my mouth shut and kept you away from that part of me.”

Jungkook shook his head and chuckled humorlessly. “Now I know that was the worst possible thing I could do. That I was just hurting you more. What you walked into last Sunday was a culmination of my frustrations that I was refusing to deal with. While it’s not a valid reason, I’m well aware of that, I need you to know that what you heard was not the truth. It couldn’t be further from it. Because the truth is that I’m hopelessly in love with you and the thought of being without you hurts worse than I ever thought was possible.”

It wasn’t the first nor would it be the last time that Jungkook left you speechless. It took you a full minute to process what he had said. Jungkook granted you the silence although he became increasingly more agitated as time passed. His boots scuffed the dead leaves that littered the ground and his pacing led him closer to the ashes that lay before your feet. Then, he’d suddenly stalk off with a growl as he was forced to keep away.

“I-” you cleared your throat around the lump that had found a home there. “I had no idea. This whole time…I thought it was because you didn’t want me.”

“God, no.” Jungkook swore heavily as his muscles bunched and coiled beneath his clothes. “The - the fact that…you - fuck. I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. That’s not it, that’s not it at all. You’re my dream girl, you’re the love of my life, and I want you every second of every day.”

Maybe it’s because you were emotionally drained and had no mental strength left. Maybe, you needed to hear those words from Jungkook more than you realized. Whatever the reason was, it wasn’t worth trying to figure out an explanation as you sunk to the ground and burst into tears.

Jungkook lost it across from you. Broken whines stained the air as he carded through his hair anxiously. He kept trying to get to you, to try to soothe you. But the boundary was unfortunately doing its job and each attempt was met with failure. Curses were spat out until eventually, he got as close as the boundary would let him and fell to his knees. He began spewing whatever came to mind first, unsure of what to do. All he knew was that you were crying because of him and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. He thought hearing you cry from your bedroom window was torture, but nothing could compare to hearing you break down in front of him. Nothing. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’m sorry…please, I’m so sorry. I - don’t cry, darling. Please don’t. I’m so sorry I hurt you, I didn’t mean to, I swear.”

It wasn’t tears of heartbreak that leaked from your eyes. Instead, it was tears of relief. While your heart had wholly accepted his words as the truth, the logical part of you reminded yourself that the two of you had way more talking to do. This was far from over, but the relief of knowing that he loved you and he was yours…it was indescribable.

You finally lifted your head up and were shocked to find Jungkook’s cheeks glistening with moisture. Your only thought was to comfort him as you scrambled forward to do just that. Instead of feeling his smooth skin against the palm of your hand, you were blocked by what felt like a wall although nothing stood in your way. Frowning, you realized with a start that the boundary worked both ways. Jungkook let out a frustrated growl as he glared at the ashes that was stopping both of you from getting what you wanted. It was silent for a few moments until an idea popped into your head.

“Wait here,” you announced before jumping up and taking off for the house. Ignoring Jungkook’s distressed cry, you ran inside. You yanked your car keys off from their designated hook and quickly typed out a text to your parents to let them know where you were going before spinning around and sprinting back outside. Jungkook was where you left him, although he stumbled to his feet when he saw you reappear.

“I’m going to your house,” you announced, breathless. “No witch is stupid enough to go that far into werewolf territory. If you want to talk to me there, then follow me.”

Jungkook stared at you for a heartbeat until the words you spoke clicked. “Y-yeah. Yes. Okay. I’ll be there.”

With a curt nod, you ran to your car. For the first time in a week, a faint sprout of hope bloomed in your chest.

It was the longest and shortest ten minutes of your life. The drive to Jungkook’s seemed to last a lifetime but also was over within a blink of an eye. The tears had stopped flowing by the time you pulled your car into his driveway, but you felt the telltale prick in your eyes when you saw him burst from the trees. Your heart ached as his long legs ate up the distance between you two as you wrestled with your seatbelt and threw the car into park. By the time you freed yourself, he was at the hood of your car.

The two of you stared at each other for a few breathless moments. You weren’t sure who moved first, but it didn’t matter as you crashed into each other’s arms. The moment his searing warmth enveloped you, you dissolved into another puddle of sobs. The feeling of his thick arms banded across your back, his torso molded to yours, and his hair tickling your ear, felt so right. Another wave of crippling relief washed over you and you practically melted against Jungkook. But he held you up, just like he always had.

He leaned against the front bumper while his hands were everywhere. Cradling your head into his neck, smoothing over your hips, or running circles over your shoulders. He was crying, you could feel the tears dampening your hair. But you were soaking his shirt so no one was in any position to complain.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

“Don’t,” Jungkook hissed fiercely as he squeezed you tighter. “Don’t apologize. This isn’t your fault, not in the slightest.”

“Kook,” you sighed and pulled your head back to get a good look at him. “It takes two to tango.”

“Not this time,” he argued. “You’ve put up with so much. You’re everything I could’ve asked for and more. It was my own fears that got in the way and created this mess. And I’m so sorry for that, darling. I’m so fucking sorry.”

You shushed him gently, running your thumbs over his cheeks to swipe at the dried tears. “I know you’re sorry. I believe you.”

Jungkook dipped his head further into your touch with a pleased rumble vibrating through his chest. He kissed your palm gently, sniffing at your wrist. It made you giggle. “Missed that,” Jungkook mumbled as he stared at you with stars in his eyes. “Missed you. Missed you so much.”

A fresh wave of tears cascaded down your cheeks. You were positive that you looked like a mess, hair in a knotted bun, face red and puffy and you kept sniffling every two seconds. But Jungkook looked at you as if you held the world in your hands. “Missed you too,” you murmured in return. “Please, next time, just talk to me. I may not have the answers you’re looking for all the time, but I’ll always be here to listen.”

“I know,” Jungkook whispered. “There won’t be a next time, promise. If I happen to be stupid enough to put us in this position again, I give you full permission to punch me in the face.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” You lifted yourself onto your toes to brush your lips against his, dropping back down to your feet when his head chased after yours. “Or maybe I just won’t kiss you for a week.”

Jungkook’s eyes widened comically and he actually looked terrified. “I’d rather you just punched me in the face.” You tilted your head back and laughed. Jungkook tugged you closer and nosed your throat before peppering gentle kisses along the exposed skin. Sighing happily, you tilted your head to allow him better access and rested your cheek on his shoulder.

“I love you,” you said quietly. Jungkook froze for a split second before he sank against you. Squeaking in shock, you scrambled to brace yourself against the sudden weight pressing you towards the house.

“Say it again,” Jungkook pleaded. You couldn’t deny him. Dusting feather light kisses to the shell of his ear, you repeated those three words again, and again, and again. Each time you did, Jungkook held you a little tighter and cried a little harder.

Eventually, you’re murmured promises became softer and softer until the two of you just enjoyed each others presence. “C’mon,” you finally whispered as you started to lift yourself off of him. Jungkook growled and refused to let you move an inch farther. “Kook, come on. Let’s go inside. Your ass must be numb by now.”

“Don’t care,” he grumbled but he at least shuffled forward a bit more so that your combined weight wasn’t squashing his ass against your car.

“You might say that now, but you won’t be saying that later.”

Jungkook grunted at your logic but he at least raised his head and looked at you with the sweetest eyes. “Please tell me you’re staying.”

Giggling, you asked, “do you want me to?”

“Obviously,” he scoffed. “I want you here forever.” Jungkook tilted his head thoughtfully. “Actually, you should just move in with me.”

Christ, this boy was going to give you whiplash. You couldn’t help but laugh. “Jungkook, we just made up. The whole reason we were in this mess is because of poor communication. Don’t you think we should work on that first before anything else?”

“But…we could work on communication all the time if we’re together 24/7.” Despite his pout, you knew he wasn’t totally serious. Although you were sure it was going to come up again.

“Alright, you maniac,” you said fondly. “Take me to bed.” Jungkook’s chest rumbled happily as he lifted you up and wrapped your legs around his trim waist.

It wasn’t a long walk to his bedroom, but the exhaustion of the past week caught up to you and the gentle rocking of his steps lulled you into a serene state. Not quite asleep, but not quite awake either. You were aware when Jungkook placed you on his bed, practically engulfed in his scent. The last thing you remember before falling asleep was the words Jungkook pressed into your hair has he slid in behind you.

“Love you forever, my darling girl.”

©jcwritings Do not repost, translate, or use my stories without my permission.

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[undertale-writing-times]

❛ everyone i’ve cared about has either died or left me. except for you. ❜ with Tragedy please?

I made this a lot longer than it needed to be lol

It's uh... also not angst -w-'

It was a bit funny.

His nickname was Tragedy, and his life was one.

Every time he got something good, it was ripped away from him. Sometimes he wondered if it was his fault, did he do something to get someone mad at him? Why did he have to end up in this place? What did he do?

His brother got killed because of him, the family he worked with before was hurt and he was blamed for it, and now he has to work with this group of idiots.

He never wanted to do this! He didn't want to hurt anyone, he wanted a life in which it was just him, his datemate, and their children. He wanted a nice peaceful life, but he knew that he would never be able to have that.

He was forever going to be stuck in this circle of death... and he didn't know what he was going to do.

And then, he met them for the first time. A shining light in his world of darkness. They helped him, when everything around him was black and dark, he finally saw a light. A hand reaching out for him.

Literally!

When they met, Tragedy had fallen while getting stuff from the store for the house. He was the one that did most of the shopping because he wasn't the most known family member. He normally went and cleaned up the mess! You know, helped hide things that showed who they were or got rid of the bodies if anyone was killed. Sometimes he set them up if the killing was supposed to be a warning.

Well he slipped on a puddle of water, and when he went to get up, he saw someone reaching out for him. It was a human, their smile was bright and warm, they asked him if he needed help; if he was hurt.

The kindness shocked him, as did their smile and the way that their eyes looked. They shined like gemstones.

He told them that he was fine, took their hand, and got up. Of course he thanked them! They spoke a bit together and Tragedy found out that their name was Y/n. They seemed to find his name interesting, so he told them that it was just a nickname... They found that funny.

Before he even knew what he was doing he asked them for their number. They seemed a little embarrassed but they gave him their number! He went home that day thinking about them, thinking about the way that they seemed to glow.

Like an angel.

After that day they started to talk more. Mostly texting. He would message them at any time that he could! Something that Calamity and Envy took notice of. Hell, even their healer did. Calamity teased him, asking “Are you talking to your datemate?~” and making the best kissy sounds that he could because they didn't have lips. Tragedy pushed him away, telling him to knock it off and stalked off, grumbling to himself.

Datemate...

The way his soul skipped a beat when he heard that haha... who would have guessed? Did he want them as his datemate? Did they... did they want to be? If he asked them, would they accept him? Most likely not, they had no idea who he was... what he was.

He was a killer.

He's hurt so many people, more than he could even remember! The voice in the back of his mind told him that if he ever told Y/n what he was, they would hate him. They would leave him just like everyone else.

It made his head hurt, his sockets burn. His soul pound.

Why?

Why did he seem to care about them so much already? Did he care about them or did he just like the idea of not being alone anymore? Yeah, he wasn't alone because of the others, but they were his teammate. They weren't a family.

And that's all he ever wanted.

Even as a babybones himself he said that he was going to grow up and become a dad! He wanted to have two babybones, a boy first then a little girl. He didn't mind however they acted, or how they wanted to be.

He just... he wanted a family.

Tonight he had been out and about, cleaning up a mess, when he got a message from his friend, Y/n. It said 'hey Tragedy! :D Guess what? I got a job!' 'want to come out with me to dinner? Celebrate?' 'If yuo're not too busy, I mean!!! >///<'

He drops the bag on the ground with a gross wet sound, and pulls out his phone after taking off the gloves. He reads the message and smiles letting out a soft happy purr 'You know that I won't say no to you' 'Just give me an hour and I'll be over to pick you up'

They went back and forth on the plans for a bit before they said bye and Tragedy replaces his gloves then continues to clean up mumbling to himself “Calamity you messy shit” Honestly, did he have to make such a mess every time? Envy should get him to clean up after himself once to see what Tragedy had to go through!

Once Tragedy was done cleaning he went back home to change into something else. He looks into the mirror, messing with his tie. Okay, this was it. He was going to see if Y/n liked him!

And if they did, he would spill who he was.

"Tragedy" he heard causing his bones to lock for a second then he turns his head to see it was Envy that was talking to him. The leader of the mafia stared at him, while Tragedy stared back until Envy let out a soft sigh and he walks over. He reaches out, helping Tragedy fix his tie. “I know what you're plannin' on doin'. If you really love this person, I think that you should go for it... you never know when you'll find someone that you care for again like this”

Tragedy looks at him, tilting his head to the side, frowning slightly then nods in approval. “Y...Yeah” he mumbles. Envy was right.

There was a chance that he could never find someone like this again. He breathes in and out slowly and nods again, "Thank you Envy, I'm goin' to be leavin' now" Envy nods in approval and he turns, starting to walk out of the house looking forward. Calamity lets out a whistle seeing Tragedy go by. He rolled his eye shines, smiling a little.

He stops in front of Y/n's house, staring up at the building. His soul was pounding against his ribs and he suddenly felt tired. It felt like he needed to drink a gallon of water.

The door opens and Y/n looks out at him, smiling "Hey! You're here" they come out to him, looking at him with a relaxed smile on their face. They were wearing a nice outfit.

"You look nice" He was able to get out, his cheeks flushed, "Are... Y-You... You wanna get goin'?"

Y/n nods and leans against him as they start to walk together. Y/n was talking about the job that they were getting, something simple but still sounded fun at least. Tragedy nodded along as they were talking, studying their face.

The way that their eyes shined while they were talking, their lips up in a little smile. He noticed little things about the way that their eyes crinkled.

He blinks realizing that he was staring so he looks away, his cheeks flushing with magic. What the hell? Why couldn't he keep his mind in focus.

"Are you okay?"

He almost yelped when he heard the voice, making him turn his head to look at his friend. Y/n was looking at him with a little frown on their face. They looked almost worried.

"Ah..." he clears his throat, shaking his head to get his mind off that, then nods "Yes, I'm alright. Thank you I was just... thinkin'"

"About what?"

"...Things" he shrugs his shoulders, smiling faintly.

Y/n hums then they shrug, letting out a laugh and they both look forward as they walked together.

Finally they got to the restaurant and Tragedy gets them a seat, telling the worker that he would be paying. Y/n tried to tell him that it was fine, he didn't need to do that, but Tragedy told them that he wanted to. They did something good, and this was his good job type gift

They sat together at the table, making small talk. Tragedy was tapping his fingers on the table, scratching lightly at his cheek.

Y/n hums looking at him, "Hey, are you sure that you're okay? You're acting a little weird"

He looks at them, then looks away, clicking his teeth together. "Well..." He sighs out slowly then looks back at them, getting a small smile on his face. "Everyone I've cared about has either died or left me. Except for you" he turns his head down, holding his hands together, tapping his thumbs, "And I've been... I've been thinkin' about everythin' I don't blame you if you don't feel the same, but I wanna tell you that I've kinda... I've kinda started to like you" As he spoke he saw their face change, they looked shocked then embarrassed so he had to turn his head down.

He was scared.

What if they decided that they didn't return the feelings? Would they not want to be his friend anymore? Would they not want to spend time together? He didn't want to ruin their friendship honestly!

He cared for them.

"Tragedy, look at me" They say, so he lifts his head to look at them. They lean over to kiss his cheek, smiling at him, "Of course I like you too... I haven't really been hiding it all that much! I was waiting for you to tell me"

Tragedy blinks, his cheeks flushing with color, before getting a small smile on his face and he turns his head down purring softly. "I'm glad" He puts his hands over his face to try to hide his embarrassment.

Ugh.

Damn his feelings.

After that they had their dinner, holding hands on the table. Tragedy rubbed his thumb across their knuckles every once in a bit, enjoying the way that their muscles moved or their hands clenched onto his own. It was... comfortable.

[sunphroggy]

Bench Trio-centric zombie apocalypse au with background sbi but it's just poorly written notes, by me:

-Tommy and Tubbo were 13 when the apocalypse began, and the two of them are very close childhood friends. Tommy was at a sleepover at Tubbo's when the apocalypse began and zombies attacked the house. In a midst of fear they hid in the attic for days, listening to the horrors going on outside, until they eventually had to leave for food.

-Tubbo lived with his aunt Puffy and his two cousins Foolish and Dream before everything began. He doesn't know where they are but fears the worst. Tommy hasn't seen his father or brother either. It's been four years. He doesn't like to think about it much.

-Ranboo and his mom's were on holiday when the apocalypse happened. One of them was bitten, and he was forced to kill her. The other died during a raid by a group of surviours leaving Ranboo alone in an unfamiliar place.

-Tommy and Tubbo found Ranboo a few months into the apocalypse. They were running from zombies and quite literally bumped into eachother.

-Tommy was very skeptical of having another person tagging along with them, but Tubbo took to their new friend immediately and insisted he stay with them. They've been friends ever since.

-After two years of fending for their lives, dodging death and the undead together, the trio meet a kind man that is willing to help them. His name is Sam and he had a car and a radio that he would use to try contact other surviours, but no one else reached out. Only one station ever played anything beside static: American Pie by Don McLean.

-Tommy really liked Sam as he reminded him of his dad, Phil. Out of the trio, Tommy was probably the closest with Sam. They would go on supply runs together and Sam was the one that taught Tommy how to actually defend himself.

-Unfortunately, the bench trio can't have nice things so one day, on a supply run at an abandoned gas station the group is attacked by a large horde. There was no sign of escape until Sam threw the keys to Ranboo and told the three of them to run while he held them off.

-Ranboo had to teach himself to drive. He has been the designated group driver since then.

-Which brings us to present day; The trio are still going strong in Sam's car. Tubbo is hellbent on finding other surviours and spends most of the time they're not fighting for their lives working on the radio (it still plays that song over and over, Tommy is sick of it but Ranboo quite enjoys it. They argue about it frequently) but nothing ever happens.

-That is, until one day it does.

-They're driving, as they often do. Tommy sits in the front seat, Ranboo driving and Tubbo in the back. The radio is still playing American Pie - much to Tommy's annoyance - and then it crackles off and a voice calls out for anyone listening. Obviously they jump to reply.

-the voice - named Niki - tells them about a surviour camp on the otherside of the city and for the first time in the trios life, they have hope.

-They set off immediately, but - because the bench trio can't have nice things - lots of things go wrong. The main being Ranboo getting bit.

-He hides it for as long as he can, but around three quarters through his journey things get too much for him and he is forced to tell Tommy and Tubbo.

-This is where things get complicated because none of them want Ranboo to die. Tommy suggests cutting off the bite like they do in Zombie films but the bite is somewhere rlly inconvenient like his shoulder or something so they can't do that.

-Tubbo is the one that suggestes they try create a cure from Ranboo's infected blood. It's a long shot but it might work. However it will take a long time, a lot of blood samples and a break in to the nearest science lab.

-But Ranboo isn't willing to wait that long and potentially put his closest friends in the world at risk just from being around him. So, while Tommy and Tubbo are asleep, he leaves in the middle of the night.

-When they wake up to find Ranboo gone, Tommy and Tubbo dedicate a week to searching for him - this week includes the two of them taking turns horribly driving around and screaming out Ranboo's name. When they don't find him, Tommy decides that they need to keep moving, to get to the camp. Reluctantly, Tubbo agrees on the condition that he continues to try create a cure.

-And the two set off.

-When the apocalypse began, Techno was on the bus home from college. He never made it back to his house.

-He has spent most of the four years alone. Apart from roaming around with Bad and Skeppy - two people he met along the way - but they went their separate ways after Bad and Skeppy wanted to create a haven for survivors. Techno couldn't stay in the one place as he was intent on finding his family.

-He never did find them, even though he's been searching for four years.

-Unlike his brothers, Wilbur was at home eating dinner when the apocalypse started. His first thought was of Tommy, about his safety. His second was the zombie trying to eat his face.

-He and Phil were evacuated out of the city with most of citizens - much to his protest, they needed to find Tommy - and escorted to a temporary military camp that doesn't last long before its swarmed with the undead.

-Together with more survivors they grew to know (like Niki, Jack, Eret, Fundy) they survive together, eventually creating their own gated camp.

-Wilbur and Phil used to believe that one day Tommy and Techno would somehow find their way back to them. But as time passed, Phil slowly started to lose hope.

-He doesn't have the heart to tell Wilbur that though.

-In the camp, Jack, Eret and Fundy are scavengers that go out beyond the walls for supplies while Wilbur and Phil tend to the farm and Niki man's the radio, looking for other people out there to expand the camp (the crew boys)

-Wilbur keeps up hope that one day his family will be reunited, that the next voice he hears on the radio will be Tommy's or Techno's.

-But this hope dies when Puffy stumbles through the gates.

-She explains that she told Tommy and Tubbo to hide in the attic before she was evactuaded. She has no idea if they're alive or if they even made it out of attic.

-Heartbroken,Wilbur and Phil make the boys an empty grave. It's the least they can do.

-Wilbur never visits this grave, still in denial. He still waits up at night for Tommy every night.

-Techno was a surprise, stumbling upon the damp by accident resulting in a tearful SBI reunion which only becomes more tearful when Techno asks where Tommy is.

-Upon seeing the grave, Techno only wishes he could've been there from the start.

-He becomes the lead defender for the camp.

-Months pass, and soon another member joins the camp.

-His name is Sam. And he is adiment on using the radio.

[lady-literature]

Found Family

holy shit did this one get way out of hand. Don’t expect them all to be this long because hot damn this is a monster compared to literally everything else but it just wouldn’t stop

(should I have expected this? probably. we all know how I am about found family.)

anyway enjoy 4.5k words ig

based on this post | @maribatmarch-2k21 | find more here

***

When Marinette had been chosen to intern with Monsieur Wayne’s PA, she hadn’t been expecting anything special. Sure, the Waynes were an odd breed and generally considered strange, but Marinette hadn’t actually expected to have much contact with them—if any at all.

She was here to earn credit for her business degree.

Instead, she has… well. She thinks she’s been somehow inducted into the Wayne family, mostly on accident and kind of as a joke.

That is, until it very much wasn’t.

***

Her first mistake, she supposes, was being too good at her job.

Marinette is an old hand at keeping track of multiple moving parts and riding herd on stubborn people who’d otherwise be too distracted or goofing off. (She was the Court’s leader for more than just being the latest in a long line of Ladybugs, after all.)

After the first two days shadowing Selina—“please, darling. Ms Kyle is so formal”—and learning the broad strokes of the job, Marinette felt confident enough to dig her nails in and get to work. Selina spent most of her time dedicated to international tasks and arranging Monsieur Waynes’ private affairs—all of which was highly classified and not discussed with Marinette—so she turned her attention to inter-company affairs.

Her first order of business was personally meeting with as many people in managerial positions as she could get. Not a requirement for the job per se, but these were people she’d have to interact with often and Maman had always stressed the importance of building connections in the workplace.

“People,” she would say, “are far more willing to do what you want them to when you’ve endeared yourself to them.”

So Marinette takes that advice and spends her breaks and lunches charming employees and giving baked goods to security guards and learning the names of the cleaning crew. She doesn’t speak to the department heads, because Selina handles their correspondences, but everyone else is free game as far as she’s concerned.

She becomes a well-recognized face astoundingly quickly.

***

Marinette probably should’ve seen the rumors coming.

It’s common practice in not only the Wayne family, but in most business conglomerates, for the children to quickly rise through the ranks of their company—if not just handed a high position right off the bat.

It took barely a month before the eldest was all but running Human Resources, and the second was placed as Head of Security practically out of nowhere. Monsieur Drake is the youngest (and most terrifyingly calculated) CEO to ever hold Wayne Enterprises, even if he does share the title with his father.

The other three are still too young or have yet to express an interest in the company, but people say it’s only a matter of time.

The track record speaks for itself, even if Marinette wishes it didn’t.

As a girl who’d come mostly out of nowhere and found herself with far more divisive sway in the company than she had any right to, it’s no wonder everyone thinks she’s some sort of secret Wayne finally coming out of hiding.

Marinette had nearly choked on her coffee when Selina dropped the bomb of that particular tidbit of company gossip.

“Most think you’ve been unofficially adopted,” Selina tells her, looking far too amused for Marinette’s liking. “Seeing as you’re too old for official avenues now.”

Marinette looks up warily from the schedule she’s rearranging. Selina had all but shoved the thing at her a month ago when she started suggesting more efficient ways of managing the CEOs’ valuable time.

“Only most? Does that mean the rest have common sense?”

Selina’s grin widens even further, if that’s possible, and Marinette regrets her question even before the older woman starts speaking.

“Oh, of course not!” she laughs delightedly. “The rest are hoping to hear news of wedding bells. It’s high time someone swept a Wayne off the market, don’t you think?”

***

“So you’re the new little sister I keep hearing about.”

Marinette stares up through narrowed eyes at the brightly smiling Dick Grayson. In her stomach, there are already the beginnings of resignation starting to form. 

“It’s nice to finally meet you!”

This man is going to bring her nothing but trouble. She can tell.

***

Dick takes a liking to her. And she, against her better judgment, finds herself doing the same to him.

It’s a little hard not to, if she’s being honest. He’s bright and bubbly and brings her bagels during his morning break without her ever having asked.

It takes practically no time at all before Marinette considers him a friend, relaxing when he’s near and laughing openly at his ridiculous jokes. Despite being the head of HR, he’s not great at the whole ‘professional’ thing and often employees will walk by to find him draped across a chair or balancing precariously on the edge of her desk while she tries and fails to get some work done while he’s around.

It really doesn't help all of the ‘Marinette is a Wayne’ rumors running around. Especially when Dick starts pointedly calling her every variation of ‘little sister’ that he can think of just to annoy her (and, she knows, because he thinks the entire situation hilarious).

***

Three weeks after befriending Dick, Selina all but shoves her into Monsieur Drake’s office and, in no uncertain words, says, “He’s your problem now.”

Marinette blinks at what she can describe as nothing other than a disaster area and just… sighs.

Tim blinks back at her.

The motion is somehow both completely blank and filled with an uncomfortable amount of knowing at the same time. There is also, she notices, a frankly ludicrous amount of concealer caked beneath his eyes and more coffee cups scattered on every flat surface than Marinette has ever seen in her life.

She knows his schedule like the back of her hand seeing as she spends hours of her day pouring over it to make sure everything runs smoothly. He has no prior engagements for the next three hours.

“You’re not going to take a nap just because I ask, are you?”

He snorts. “Absolutely not.”

She nods, having expected the answer; her phone was already at her ear before he even finished speaking. “Hey, Dick!” she greets, sounding brighter than she feels at the moment, and watches as Tim stiffens in front of her. “Yeah, no. I was just wondering if you’re busy right now.” She pauses. “Oh, good! Can you come up to Tim’s office for me? Yeah, I need you to knock him out so I can fix his dumpster fire of an office.”

Tim has since started waving his hands frantically at her, panic setting in behind his eyes.

Marinette stares at him, unmoved. “Thanks, Dick! You’re the best!”

The silence after she hangs up is deafening.

“I don’t know if I should be impressed by the ease you’re manipulating me or pissed off that you’re doing it in the first place.”

She hums thoughtfully. “Does your decision have any bearing on my future employment?”

His eyes squint. “…No.”

Marinette shrugs, mind already whirling with what she’ll need to get done first and calculating how long she’ll likely have to get it done. “Then I think you should skip right over both of those and land on resignation as quickly as possible, Monsieur, because you’re going to have to get used to it regardless.”

It’s silent for a long moment, and she worries for just a second that she’s severely crossed some sort of line. Then Tim bursts out laughing instead of, you know, firing her like he probably should have.

“Oh, yeah. You’re going to fit right in here.”

Marinette doesn’t ask where the ‘here’ is. She’s pretty sure she already knows.

***

It takes ten days for Marinette to wrangle Tim’s life into something resembling order. His office is clean and organized to his liking. She’s developed a system of filing so that all paperwork goes through her and is quickly sorted into ‘can be handled by Marinette’, ‘forge his signature and tell him about it later’, and ‘actually important enough to have Tim read through’.

His schedule is the most efficient it’s ever been and Marinette is quickly honing the skill of getting him properly dressed and out of his office in under thirty minutes. (Dick is, thankfully, a great teacher and has little to no qualms about giving her the key to all his little brother’s weaknesses.)

Selina stares at her when Marinette all but drags Tim from his office, a folder tucked neatly under his arm and the sugary monstrosity of a caffeinated beverage she’s bribed him with in her own, with a whole ten minutes to spare before his meeting with the Board.

“My dear,” she says solemnly, “you are positively magic.”

She doesn’t even look up from where she’s simultaneously wrangling Tim’s hair into submission and laying his tie down flat. “You have no idea.”

***

She knows Tim is capable of professionality. She’s seen the cool facade he pulls up in front of the Board members and the kind but impersonal smile he uses on the employees of Wayne Enterprises. (He is not the Ice Prince of the Wayne family, but Marinette believes he should have some equally ruthless sounding title.) He is aloof and sharp and every inch the businessman people praise him to be.

She’s seen it. And yet… 

“Monsieur. Why are all the Lexcorp contracts I gave you done in crayon?”

Tim doesn’t stop messing with his Rubix cube or even look up at her when he says, “Cause deadbeat fathers don’t deserve the respect of a pen.”

Marinette is very tired. She does not have time for this. “What are you talking about?”

“Lex is a bitchass absentee dad and I live to inconvenience him.”

“What about inconveniencing me?” she all but whines. “I can’t hand him these!”

That does make Tim look up at her, eyes wide with false innocence and mouth pouting up at her. “But sister dearest, I’m your little brother. It’s my job to inconvenience you.”

Growling in frustration is probably an inappropriate reaction to the situation.

But, Marinette thinks, so is the fact that both of the Waynes she associates with regularly seem hellbent on convincing the world that she too, is a Wayne, so.

(Is this how Alya felt dealing with the twins? Cause if so, Marinette takes back every joke she ever made—little siblings are a bitch.)

***

She meets Damian without warning.

Honestly, she never really expected to meet him at all but, well.

She finds him in Monsieur Wayne’s office, sitting at his father’s desk and doing something that she thinks is vaguely illegal, but she’s not about to tell her Boss a dozen times over how to parent his children.

Damian is a near-perfect copy of his father with darker skin and calculating green eyes. There’s also a more potent aura of danger around the child than there is around his father, like Damian hasn’t yet learned how to hide behind his public persona as his father had.

Or, Marinette looks at the teen thoughtfully, perhaps he just chooses not to.

“Monsieur Wayne,” she greets. Children like to be treated like adults, she knows, and Marinette doesn’t think this one is any different. “Selina hadn’t told me you’d be in the office today.”

“I don’t run my schedule by her,” he says flatly. A response she expected considering Dick’s stories.

“Of course not,” she agrees.

He finally deigns to look up at her and something flits across his expression, too fast for her to pick up on it. “Are those for Father? Bring them here, I’ll deal with them in his absence.”

Marinette raises her eyebrow. “I’m not sure that’s wise Monsieur.”

Damian scowls and sticks his hand out. “I’m perfectly capable of forging Father’s signature. Give them here.”

She does not move and, instead, lets her lips quirk up into the smile she’s been fighting since she stepped in here.

“I don’t doubt it,” she tells him, and she doesn't. Forgery seems exactly like the kind of skill a child who broke into the CEO’s office of a multi-billion dollar company would have. “But you’ll find that all forging of signatures has been finished for the day and that these,” she shakes the sheaf of papers lightly, “actually require your father’s attention.”

He snorts disbelievingly and it says a lot about Marinette’s life up until now that the blatant display of disrespect doesn’t piss her off but instead reminds her of Chloé and of the fact that she still needs to reschedule their spa day. It's been too long since they spent time together in person.

“Well,” she pauses and eyes the papers thoughtfully. “‘Requires’ in the sense that its information needed to trounce the Board when they start spouting off greedy bullshit about cutting corners on our humanitarian efforts. I’m not sure how much of it is actually useful for anything besides that.” She shrugs. “But homework is homework, yes?”

That gets her a thoughtful once-over. His hand lowers and he then turns back to whatever he’s messing with on his father’s computers.

“Very well,” he concedes. “Father will be back in approximately thirteen minutes. You can leave the papers and I’ll inform him of their… importance.” He smirks, but it’s more like he’s letting her in on a joke than anything else.

Marinette smiles back as she sets the folder on the desk, feeling, oddly, like she’s passed some sort of test.

***

The day after, both Dick and Tim are waiting for her with what looks like an entire bakery laid out in her workspace.

“Uh,” she says eloquently, setting her purse down on her chair because there’s not a single open space on her desk not filled with some kind of pastry. “What’s all this?”

She looks up to find neither Dick nor Tim has stopped staring at her since she walked in. “We heard you met Damian yesterday,” Dick starts warily, like he’s scared of her reaction.

The response does not abate her confusion. 

“Yes, I did,” she says slowly. “That does not explain all… this.” She waves a hand, trying to encompass them as well as the state her desk is in.

The two brothers share a look.

“It’s a bribe,” Tim tells her simply and Marinette is taken aback for all of a second before her eyes suddenly narrow.

Dick cuts in hastily before she can say anything. “It’s more of an apology, really. For Damian’s behavior.”

But Marinette is confused and frustrated and just a bit offended by the apparent not-bribe at this point. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, but it only does so much.

“Damain’s behavior was fine,” she tells them with measured neutrality. “You two, on the other hand, are being weird and it’s freaking me out.” She crosses her arms expectantly. “Seriously, what’s going on?”

Appearing from out of nowhere, Selina drapes herself along Marinette’s shoulders and snags a raspberry scone. “I do believe,” she says as if sharing a secret, “That they are trying to keep you from quitting, kitten.”

Marinette wrinkles her nose. “Why would I quit? I like this job.”

She also likes the Waynes (in general, if not right then) and she likes Selina. The woman was a good mentor who didn’t shy away from the dirtier parts of the job and taught Marinette all she knew. (Even the bits, she noticed, that had little to nothing to do with being a personal assistant and were more likely to be found in the repertoire of a thief.

But, Marinette is in possession of her own sticky fingers and knows how to not ask questions, so. You know—curiosity killed the cat and all.)

She doesn’t voice any of that, but Selina, at least, knows it anyway. Marinette isn’t quiet about her gratitude after all.

“First meetings with the youngest Wayne don’t often go well,” Selina tells her. “In fact, I think he has a habit of making the interns cry.”

Dick makes some kind of offended noise. “Hey! He hasn’t done that since he was twelve!”

Tim elbows him in the ribs and Marinette makes a vaguely skeptical face at all three of them before deciding it wasn’t worth it. She has actual work to get done today and pastries to get rid of before she can even start.

She pats affectionately at Selina’s hand before grabbing as many boxes as she can hold. “Come on you two,” she says to the brothers. “You’re going to help me hand these out to the rest of the company.”

Dick immediately starts doing as told but Tim hesitates, humming thoughtfully. “You know that’s not going to help your whole ‘I’m not actually a Wayne’ thing, right?”

She glares at him. It doesn’t stop Tim from grinning like the utterly unrepentant little shit he is.

***

Things are quiet after the Damian Incident for a whole two weeks. It’s the longest lull Marinette has had since she first started and became somehow involved with the Waynes.

It ends because Dick finds out about the crush Marinette has been nursing on the Head of Security for three months now.

The Head of Security who is Jason Todd: second eldest Wayne sibling and Dick’s brother.

He takes it better than expected.

(Almost, she thinks later, a little too well.)

***

Despite her friendship with Dick and Tim—or perhaps because of it?—Jason had never seemed very interested in her. At first, Marinette had shrugged and counted it as a win; there was one Wayne, at least, who neither found her situation funny nor used it to poke fun at her.

They were on friendly terms, she supposed. Security has always been one of her more regular stops in the building, so she’d spoken to him often enough. He liked complaining that she spoiled his team rotten with all her treats.

But she also noticed that he likes her cherry danishes, so.

And then she noticed how crooked his grin was when he smiled. And how he seemed to have an arsenal of nicknames for everyone he knew. And the small collection of classic romance novels filled with sticky notes he tries and fails to hide in his desk. And, and, and.

It was around the time she began unconsciously memorizing his schedule based on when he was and was not there for her pastry deliveries, that she realized she may have made a misstep somewhere.

Jason was stubborn and passionate and flipped between overly proper and crass light a damn light switch. He was also, as stated, very much not interested in her.

Not that she would’ve pursued him anyway. He was a coworker as well as her friends’ brother.

Now if only one of said brothers could understand that.

“You should ask him out,” Dick suggests not for the first time and Marinette sighs, also not for the first time.

She loves Dick—she truly does—but he has been an aggravating level of unhelpful since he found out about Marinette’s latest romantic disaster.

“I’m definitely not doing that.”

Dick groans, like she’s being the unreasonable one. “Why are you being so stubborn about this?”

“Because I don’t like embarrassing myself?” she asks rhetorically. “Not everyone can have a fairy tale romance like you and Wally.”

He throws his coffee stirrer at her. “We are not a fairy tale.”

She shoots him a flat look. She’s heard Dick talk about Wally and Tim’s told her all the stories and she was there when he and Wally finally got their shit together. Dick was unbearable for an entire week with his gooey, lovestruck new lease on life.

“You two are the definition of fairy tale. You two make fairy tales look like trashy romance novels.”

He opens his mouth to argue the point before forcibly cutting himself off. “No. Stop distracting me. We’re not talking about that; we’re talking about you and Jason.”

“There is no ‘me and Jason’,” she reminds him through her clenched teeth.

“Not yet,” he says optimistically. Like it’s a fact, like he knows something she doesn’t.

He makes her want to slam her face into a wall. Truly, he does.

***

Dick stops running his HR papers up to her office. Instead, he’s somehow convinced Jason to play errand boy for him even though he literally never looks happy about it. What used to be a flimsy excuse for Dick to slack off for a few minutes and gossip with her has now turned into awkward silence as Jason drops off the papers and leaves without even a ‘hello’.

During their shared breaks, Dick takes to orchestrating ‘chance encounters’ between her and Jason, all but shoving them into each other (and even actually shoving that one time).  She catches Jason shooting dark looks at Dick every time he does it, and if she’d been holding any iota of hope at this point, it’s been smashed to dust. Jason obviously knows of his brother’s meddling and isn’t happy about it.

But Dick just can’t take the hint.

Every failed plan of his makes him steadily worse about it all—more frantic and frustrated and like he wants to strangle her for her stubbornness. (The last feeling being more than mutual.)

Dick’s meddling starts to make her and Jason’s previously friendly, if distant, relationship awkward and embarrassing. With every pointed comment, she gets closer to just punching Dick in the face. Or, maybe, she’ll just tell Wally who really ate all the chocolate strawberry macaroons she made; it’d certainly be more devastating.

***

It all comes to head on a Thursday, after most employees have left for the day. 

They run into each other in a breakroom, and she watches as Jason suddenly goes stiff, eyes flicking over her shoulder to no doubt scan for Dick. That single action makes her expression sour and she slams her empty mug down with more force than was necessary.

For Kwamis sake, he looks like a cornered animal. An image not helped by the way he jumps a foot in the air and stares at her like he’s worried she’ll suddenly lunge at him.

“Can we agree this is ridiculous?” she says abruptly. “I don’t know what Dick is trying to accomplish with his wingman schtick, but we both know it’s not going to work. Can we just… agree that he’s an idiot?”

A complicated look crosses Jason’s face before he snorts wryly. “Yeah, we can agree on that. Dickie-boy has always been a few sandwiches short a picnic.”

“I know things have been awkward between us lately, and I’m sorry about that, but I hope we can keep being friends?” she says hopefully.

“What in the world do you have to be sorry about?” he asks before she can start catastrophizing about the bewildered expression he makes at her words. “It’s not your fault.”

The smile she shoots him is rueful and she shakes her hand in an ‘ehh’ type gesture. “Kinda is. And I understand if the-” she makes a vague gesture between them that she hopes properly conveys ‘my giant, stupid crush on you’, “you know, is too much for you. Just say the word I’ll try and keep out of your way.”

She’s trying to be comforting or understanding or something like that, but all her words seem to do is make him upset. “Absolutely not,” he insists. “Sunshine, you are not going to change your routine just to make me feel better.”

Marinette crosses her arms, frowning up at him. ���Why shouldn’t I? If I’m making you uncomfortable-”

He makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat. “Uncomfort- Marinette. ” She jolts a bit at the use of her name. She doesn’t think he’s used it since her second week at W.E. “I’m not sure who made you think otherwise—and if it was Dick just tell me cause I’ll kick his ass —but barring the fact that I still enjoy your friendship regardless of any… feelings-” Marinette concentrates very hard on not showing emotion when he says that, “-it’s not your responsibility to deal with it.”

Okay, but… that makes no sense. Of course her feelings were her responsibility, that’s the whole point of them being hers.

“If it’s not mine, then whose responsibility is it then?” she asks, wondering where the hell his train of thought is running.

“Mine, obviously.”

She gives him a look, complete with narrowed eyes and thinly veiled judgment. “What? Is this some kind of gentleman’s martyr complex? Is that what’s happening right now?”

Jason huffs a laugh, but there’s no humor in the sound. “If me taking responsibility for my own damn feelings is a martyr complex then sure,” he snarks, not unkindly. More like he’s trying to protect himself by retreating behind a sour attitude.

Her mouth is halfway around a retort when his words catch up to her brain and she freezes.

“Your feelings?” she repeats. “Your feelings for… me?”

His voice is carefully neutral when he says, “Those would be the ones.”

Her mouth opens and closes and opens again. “You like me? Seriously?”

His face spasms at the question, starting at anger before he properly looks at her and the surprised expression on her face. He pales.

“You didn’t know?”

“No!” she squeaks, something she hasn’t done since she was fifteen. “Well Dick said but I didn’t believe him!”

And fuck, she thinks. This means Dick knew the whole damn time, didn’t he? Oh, she is so going to kill him the second she gets the chance.

Jason runs a hand down his face, covering his mouth as he gathers his bearings. Suddenly, his eyes shoot back open and land on her. “Wait. If you didn't know, then what the hell were you talking about just now?”

She blushes to the tips of her ears and buries her face in her hands so she doesn’t have to look at him. It was easy when she thought he’d figured it out himself. It’s harder now that she has to tell him. “I- I was talking about my crush on you.”

He’s quiet for so long that she gets antsy and peeks out from behind her fingers to see his expression. He’s still looking at her, but now there’s a wide, crooked smile on his face. The expression softens something in her chest and she lowers her hands.

“Really?” he asks, leaning closer.

Marinette nods, feeling a small smile spread across her lips.

He jolts forward, hands reaching for her before suddenly stopping just shy of touching. She startles a bit at the motion but doesn’t move away.

Jason licks his lips, smile smaller but no less bright. “I- can I?”

She blinks. “Can you what?”

“Kiss you.”

The blush returns full force, but with it also comes a smile, giddy and bright. She nods and no sooner than she does, is he swooping down to pull her into a toe-curling kiss. His hands cup her face with a tenderness that makes her smile, makes her giddy, and it’s not long before they’re both smiling too wide to actually kiss and are forced to break apart.

His hands fall to her back, practically engulfing her, and his chin drops onto her head. It’s warm and cozy and she thinks she could so very easily get used to this.

Later, they’re going to have to deal with Dick and Tim and Selina and the teasing they’ll no doubt have to endure—not to mention how much worse the rumors are going to get—but right now? Right now Marinette pulls Jason back down for another kiss and very pointedly doesn’t think about it.

[slasherrabbitmadness]

Victorian DILF Brahms x Female Reader

Series: Don't forget who you belong to.

Chapter 2 - Give me your answer, do

Underthecut - NSFW, Male Masturbation, Oral - Male Receiving.

Brahms sat idly in his living room, leaning back in his large leather recliner. Feet shuffling along the Egyptian carpet, thumbs twiddling as he hums Daisy Bell by Harry Dacre,

"I'm half crazy, all for the love of you." He smiles as he thinks of her. How her hair shines in the sun, like a halo above her head. Her eyes sparkling whenever she laughs, how the corner of her eyes crinkles ever so slightly. How her smile makes his heart skip a beat.

Brahms sucks in a breath, his hum-singing continues, "There are bright lights the dazzling eyes of beautiful Daisy Bell." He sits up straight, eyes on the unlit fireplace, the gold gate held an ornate Chinese dog welded on the front. He looks above the fireplace to the mantel, the rows of photos in their ash wood frames.

His face is stern as he glances at a particular photo. He, a half-smile as his hand rests on his son's shoulder. Lawrence when he was a boy of eight. Lawrence's other shoulder had a delicate white hand upon it. Gerti, her lips dark with her favourite shade of lipstick, her slight freckles littered her face, her silky blonde hair up in a beautiful age-appropriate bun.

His hum-singing fades as he continues to stare, the family photo, the family in the photo appearing as sharp and elegant as their social standing. That day, Gerti had scolded him all morning, her eyes wide and glossy, her alabaster skin held a blue and yellow hue under her eyes. Her fingers were cold and clammy.

"For the love of everything, Brahms, hurry for once." Brahms flinches as he can still hear her screeching, "Lawrence, get the cat's paw out of your mouth and stop pulling its tail!" He chuckles,

"I miss that cat," Brahms laughs to himself. Never one for pets but how that scraggly little beast could make his son laugh in the most jovial way, warmed him greatly.

His amused grin falls as his eyes lock with Gerti's. Grabbing the photo, his thumb ghosts over her image, remembering how once soft her skin was. His stomach churns as a chill seeps into his bones, shaking him in his spot.

He places the family photo back on the mantle, right next to a photo of her. Her hands grasping each other, face tilted slightly, a timid smile upon her face. "Sir, I don't need my photo taken!"

"Y/n, as my employee of a year, you are practically family." Brahms let out a shaky breath as his mind replays the conversation. "And you may call me, Brahms. You address Gerti by her full name."

"Gerti and are intimate in ways that have allowed us to be close."

"Pray tell may I watch these intimate moments?" His cheeky reply had cost him an ear full from his wife when she had found out. Brahms still never understood why women used such charged words to describe a close friendship.

Brahms left the living room, a stirring in his gut had him heave. He wanted to call upon her for aid, 'Fetch me a water with some ice, and actually bring some black tea and one of our lemons from Italy.' he clears his throat at the thought of dryness being washed back by the cold refreshment.

He had given her a few hours a week for personal time. Free to be spent however she pleased. Ever since the death of his wife and Lawerence attending Rugby School for Boys she had more free time. Much to Brahms immense displeasure.

Brahms had taken to stalking her on her days off. Wanted to see what she got up to. Where she went and specifically with who. He would linger twenty feet behind, always darting behind stalls and other tall men to hide, he even took to wearing a coat that he kept hidden in hopes she would not recognize him further.

He stared in amazement at how well she helped an old lady onto the trolley all the while juggling her belongings, refusing a 'tip' "It's the nice thing to do." in reference to helping others.

His cheeks flushed whenever she stopped to smell the flowers, literally. A quaint smile as she turned down the offer for a free one from the vendor. She often stopped to sniff the white and yellow flowers. He had noticed Daisys were her favorite.

He seethed when one day you were stopped by a handsome Youngman, his tall lean frame stood confidently as his dark brown eyes held a softness as they looked down at you. He had overheard the name in a distinctly American accent, "Dan, yeah I'm studying medicine with my colleague, I'd introduce you but..." He hated that you always walked near the campus, hated all the young men eager, too eager to chat up a single young lady.

Dan had never gotten farther than chaste conversations and one quick feather-light kiss on her cheek.

Brahms wondered if he should up and move, just to be a little further away from the university, away from the young men, away from one of them stealing her away. She was his, he had just yet to convince her. Ask her, even bring it up in any conceivable way.

One occasion made the blood sear in his veins. He should have been more away, should have been more vigilant of this Dan fellow. He watched from a distance as Dan rounded the corner and collided with her. His tall body fell over hers, his hand had just managed to catch the back of her head, softening to the blow to the ground.

"Oh, God! I am so sorry!" Dan's eyes wide in shock, "Oh, I'm so sorry."

She laughed, "No, no, it's fine," Brahms gritted his teeth.

"No, it's not." Dan pulled himself and her up, his hand holding her in a firm grasp. "I am so sorry." He scratched the back of his head, his expression doleful.

"Accidents happen." She assured, grabbing his hand still wrapped around hers. " It's okay Dan."

"You remember me!" Dan's brown eyes lit up. A Radiant smile over his face as he stepped closer to her.

Brahms seethed as the scene played out before him. She smiled, he smiled. She laughed, he laughed. The words between the two began to fall effortlessly between them both.

He watched despondently. How she could let herself relax so easily in another man's presence. How her demeanor shifted around Dan. Those stiff shoulders eased themselves as Dan placed his hand on her shoulder and winked.

Brahms cursed, the university's chapel bell rang out. Every thunderous clang shot through Brahms. Every clang was a reminder he had another place to be. The dreaded desk in the dreaded little corner of his office.

He turned one last time, eyes watched as she smiled with a warmth he'd never seen, how she leaned into Dan as his smile shined bright.

Brahms walks up to his maid's room, thanking Gerti for installing a sense of comfort in Y/N as to never locking the door.

He jiggles the door handle, "Hm..." Again, "Weird," his eyes narrow, "Bloody thing is locked." He jostles the handle, "Bloody woman..."

Click

"Ah, there we are." He hums in approval as the door creaks open. Forever grateful for the previous owner teaching him how to easily unlock a door in the house without a key "Rickety ol' tings" Brahms mocked the man's heavy accent.

He inhales as he enters her room. The simple little abode warmed his heart. Her bed and the nightgown left upon it stirred his loins. He walks to the bed, grabs the nightgown, bringing it to his nose, he growls as he inhales, her natural scent lingered on the garment.

Brahms holds the garment in his teeth as he shucks off his pants, freeing his painfully erect cock. The thoughts whirl in his mind as he plops onto her bed, sighing with content as he sinks down into the mattress and a sneer as he grips his cock.

The same bed she slept, where when the night calls for it, he knew she'd sleep naked. "Fuck..." He growls through the nightgown, ripping it from his mouth to place it over his chest. Her bed, her bed where she no doubt has touched herself, even if briefly in a beautiful sinful manner.

Does she shy away as she dipped those delicate little fingers into her dripping pussy? Does she bite her cheek to stifle her pitchy moans when that jolt of pleasure shot through her?

Brahms collects some spit in his large hand, sucking in a breath as his cold spit touches his cock. His hand pumps eagerly around his thick member, a low groan as the image of her crawling up to him floods his mind. He sighs as he pictures it as her hand gripping him, gasping at how large it is,

"Brahms, my fingers can't even wrap around it!"

"That's okay, love, use those pretty little lips and that wet little tongue to help you."

"What if my make-up smears?"

"Oh, love, that's what I want." Brahms throws his head back, thumb circling his swollen head, picturing it as her delicate wet little tongue. He grips himself harder as he swears he can feel her lips wrap around his cock.

His low groans and breathy moans fill her little room, her name falling from his lips, "So beautiful, Y/N. My love, so perfect, mhm, yes, further down your throat, moaning around it."

Brahms breathing hitches as he pictures her, clawing at his chest as tears prick the corner of her eyes, "I'm a little nervous," She says as she rubs her glistening pussy, inches over his leaking cock.

"You got this, my love." Brahms keens,

"Will it fit, Brahms?..." She bites her lip, a hand groping her beautiful chest.

"My love, just relax, I have you." He pictures gripping her hip to ease her down onto him, gripping his cock as he imagines her warm pussy gripping him.

Audible slaps from the fisting of his cock, mixing with his now desperate pleas and moans fill her room. She's on top of him, her chest flushed against his, she's commenting on how she loves the feel of his hairy chest, praised-filled moans as she comments on his pecs flexing under her.

Brahms bucks his hips into his hand, "Hold you close." He moans as he pictures rolling on top of her, her legs wrapping around his lower half, arms pulling him in close, whispering in his ear,

"Brahms cum in me, cum in me, make me yours." He grips squeeze around his cock, imaging it's her pussy clenching around him, "I love you, Brahms."

He hisses as his body shakes, muscles flexing, toes curling as he snarls out his release. The image of her accepting his seed sends heat washing over him. His cock pulses in his grip, his cum spraying over her nightgown, the remaining spilling down his fingers and cock.

His temples pulse, his ears ringing. His toes unfurling as his legs ceased in their shakes. He squeezes his cock a few more times, hearing her breathlessly thanking him, "It's so warm in me. Thank you, Brahms." He swears he can feel her nuzzling into his chest as if she was there.

Brahms coughs as he sits up, shaking his head as he gingerly throws his legs over the side, placing his feet on the door. The nightgown falls over his cock. He snorts, using it to clean himself. He stands up, placing the nightgown where he had found it. A wicked and mischievous grin spreads over his face at the thought of her wearing his spent at night.

He grunts as he retrieves his trousers, pulling them up in haste, tucking his chub back in. A content sigh as he eyes the bed and nightgown. She wouldn't be sleeping alone for much longer.

Brahms snaps his attention to the trill of his front doorbell. He clicks his tongue as he makes haste to the door. He debates on if he has time to properly clean his hand, decides to just wear a fancy white-glove he leaves, conveniently, near the front door instead.

"Coming! My Maid is out currently," He sucks in a breath as he pulls a glove over his right hand, he cocks his head quickly before opening the door. "Sorry, it'd have been answered sooner...who are you?"

Brahms stared down at the short man before him. His brown hair combed expertly to the side, his brows immaculate under his thick glasses. He wore a glowering expression, his lips in a tight line.

The man clears his throat, "Herbert, Herbert West." Brahms makes note of his American accent, "I believe this paper is for the lady of this residence." Herbert whips the paper in front of him, his expression changing to say "Well, hurry and take it!"

"Mr. West."

"Herbert."

"Herbert, If by Lady you mean, Gerti? She passed awa-"

"I don't mean your dead wife."

Brahms's eyes narrow at Herbert. He opens his mouth the speak.

"I mean, Y/n. She is the only lady living here. So Dan tells me."

Brahms's jaw slackens, "Dan." He says more to himself.

"Yes, it's an invitation to a formal at the university. He already invited her. Just wanted to make sure she got all the details, it's all there on the paper." Herbert whips it again in front of Brahms.

Brahms yanks the paper from Herbert, eyes scanning it wildly.

University of London

Residents of Handel Mansions we formally invite you to bring along the most beautiful dame for the start of our fall formal.

September 28th, 1900

Entrance fee 1 pound, with a beautiful dame on your arm the fee is waved.

Brahms stares back at Herbert who pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, "Well," Herbert begins, "I figured be best to drop it off for Dan. He's been awfully busy." He flashes a smile to Brahms as he turns, "Dan also says to let Y/n know he wishes her luck at her new job on Robitaille's farm." He turns back around to Brahms, "Oh, it was nice meeting you, Mr.?"

Brahms pauses, clearing his throat, "Brahms Heelshire."

Herbert clicks his tongue, "I knew that." He walks down the stairs, a pep in his step, "Was nice meeting you Mr. Heelshire."

Brahms stares at the short man walking away, nodding to a man walking past. He turns back around, slamming the door behind in, the frame shook.

He stares down at the paper, eyes reading it over and over again. "A formal." He starts, "That Dan..." His breath catches in his chest, "A job?" he questions aloud.

He collapses against his door, slumping over as he crunches the paper in his hands. His thoughts raced to her, cursing himself for not intervening that day she ran into Dan. Wishing he just took the reprimand from his employer and raced in to shove Dan away from you. Creating some fantastical lie as to why he was suddenly there.

Brahms's thoughts slip to his son. Lawrence, his green eyes shine whenever he and Y/n play. He hugs her like he did his mother. How y/n always promises to play with him, tuck him at night. How were you going to tuck him in if you were to be away? How were you going to be there to kiss his little cheek as he falls asleep?

"How are you going to be there for me?"