#shawn: *deep sigh*

[dragonpyre]

Psych au where Shawn Spencer comes clean at the end of the pilot like “haha that was fun. But seriously guys I’m just good at spotting things. I’m not actually psychic” but no one believes him.

[v6quewrlds]

💞 joe burrow angst

imagine overhearing joe’s friends.

You felt a little out of place, your knowledge of football limited to what Joe had taught you and what you picked up in passing during college, but you nodded along, smiling when appropriate. Your nerves slowly began to dissipate as you saw how much Joe's friends truly cared about him. They were a tight-knit group, and seeing him let go for a change was nice.

After a while, you excused yourself to the bathroom, the sound of the jukebox fading as you pushed through the swinging doors. The bathroom was small and dimly lit, with a single fan struggling to combat the stifling heat. You checked your makeup in the mirror, running your fingers through your hair, and took a deep breath. When you returned, the conversation had changed.

“... just don't see a future, you know?” Marcus was saying, his voice tinged with regret.

“What, with the season?” Clayton chimed in, sipping his beer.

“No, with her,” Shawn replied, gesturing vaguely in the air. Your ears perked up, and you slowed your pace, hoping to catch more.

Marcus sighed heavily. “I don't know, Joe's had his fun, but it's time he found someone more... stable.”

Shawn nodded in agreement. “Exactly. Someone who won't just fuck around and disappear when things get serious.”

Joe sat there, seemingly deep in thought as he chewed on a french fry, oblivious to the knife that had just been plunged into your heart.

“You're right, she's cool and all, but, dude, you gotta think long-term now. You can't keep messing around like this,” Clayton added, his voice barely above a whisper.

You felt the world begin to spin. You couldn't believe what you were hearing. You had been so sure of yourself, so confident in your relationship with Joe, and now, it felt like you were just another fleeting fling in his long line of conquests. Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes as you tried to hold back your emotions.

Without giving it much thought, you pulled out your phone and typed out a text to Joe.

Feeling sick. I got an Uber back to the Airbnb. Tell the guys I said it was nice to meet them.

You hit send and turned on your heel, making a beeline for the door. You didn't want to face them, not after hearing their true feelings about you. The music and chatter of the bar grew distant as you stepped outside, the warm summer air doing little to ease the chill that had settled in your bones.

[fairyrcts]

WHY WHY WHY , M.S.

by fairyrcts contents - (unresolved) angst , intended lowercase , pet names , 2nd person , pregnancy , cursing

warning ! - this may be triggering to some readers as this story does include pregnancy and abandonment. please read with caution.

an - i unironically love shawn mendes and i needed some dad matt stuff :P

taglist - @pvssychicken , @gothiccvnt6996 , @emely9274

you'd woken up feeling absolutely terrible. you were sick to your stomach, throwing up every now and then.

matt sat on the bathroom floor beside you, rubbing your back in attempt to sooth you.

"this is so weird. you were just fine yesterday." he mumbled to himself.

"i fuckin' know."

you had no idea what came over you today. no one at work was sick, you hadn't eaten anything bad. you were confused as to why this was happening.

matthew knew you hadn't been in contact with anyone who was ill and you hadn't even left the house in a day or two, so he was confused himself.

he felt terrible that all this was happening to you. "do you think it might just be your period?"

his voice took you out of your thoughts. no, it wasn't your period. in fact, you were late. four days late to your period.

"uh, no. i'm pretty sure i'm late." you spoke quietly, scared of the response to what you had just admitted.

matt took a second to process the words that had left your mouth. he began racking his brain with the possibilities.

"do you think you're.. pregnant?" he could barely bring himself to say the word. he wasn't ready to be a father whatsoever.

the words hit you hard. pregnant?

"i dunno.." you managed to let out.

matt's breath audibly caught in his throat. "i- do you wanna get a test?"

you avoided the question for a moment, not knowing if you were even ready to find out.

"yeah, okay." a sigh followed your sentence.

the two of you stood up, walking out to the car in silence. he didn't bother opening your door like he usually does or ask what song you felt like playing.

he was insanely stressed. you'd only been dating 8 months but you were incredibly connected.

you'd moved in together a while back, you'd both met each others parents and to say you loved each other was an understatement.

but becoming parents? that's a completely different story.

he pulled the car into the cvs parking lot. "i'll be right back." he muttered to which you nodded.

when he exited the vehicle, you were left alone with your thoughts.

you knew you probably weren't ready for this big of a thing. having a kid together was huge and you were barely even an adult.

but deep down you knew if that test came out positive, you'd make yourself ready for the situation. and you had no doubt that you and matt could handle this within time.

right?

matthew came back with two boxes in his hand. "i got two just in case."

he gave you a tight-lipped smile to try and give you some sense of comfort. he was aware you were probably as nervous as he was.

you reciprocated that smile and drove the rest of the way home in silence.

the second you walked into your apartment you let out a deep exhale. you knew this was gonna be a heavy moment.

"uhm, okay. i'll- uh. i'll wait on the couch." matt said, finally managing to make eye contact with you for the first time in fifteen minutes, giving you some hope.

while you were in the bathroom, matt mentally lost it. he had no absolute idea how he was going to handle this if it came back positive.

he began biting his already less than short nails even farther down to the nub. he bit back his lip to keep tears from streaming down his face.

after a couple of moments, he turned his head at the sound of the bathroom door opening.

you stood in the doorway with a nervous look written all over you.

"matt, i'm pregnant." you spoke just above a whisper.

his eyes widened at the new found information.

"seriously?" he allowed himself to choke out.

you gave him a nod, a smile just barely noticeable on your face as you thought about how great this could turn out to be for the two of you.

"y/n, i'm not ready to be a dad. i'm barely 21, i can't be a fucking father." matt stood up, running a hand through his disheveled, brown hair.

your face immediately faltered. "what?"

"i'm not capable of taking care of children right now. i still have my whole life to live." he raised his voice ever so slightly, but enough to cause a few tears to leave your eyes.

"you don't have a choice. you act like this isn't partially on you too!" the words left your lips as you became more and more upset by his reaction.

this is nowhere near how you imagined this would go.

this is not the matt you knew. the matt you knew would tell you it's okay and would support you through the situation.

"it was a mistake! i can't do this!" you weren't the only one crying now as the conversation got more intense.

"that's too damn bad! you have a kid now, matthew! man up!"

matt simply shook his head, looking like he was ready to break down completely.

"i don't know what to fucking tell you, y/n." his voice came out shaky.

"tell me we're in this together! that you and i can get through this! we're a team, remember? what happened to that?!"

"what happened was you got pregnant!" he shouted, regretting what he had said instantly.

"you're telling me that all of a sudden everything between you and i has changed i'm pregnant? mind you, the person responsible for this was you!"

matt remained silent, not even knowing how to respond.

you tried your best not to lose it in front of him before he spoke up again, this time quieter.

"fucking say something, matthew!" you yelled, the words getting croaked up in your throat due to the amount of sobbing taking place.

"i'm sorry, i can't do this."

and with that, he left the apartment, leaving you alone, sobbing in your living room.

[lowkeyrobin]

SHAWN HUNTER ; moonlight

summary ; friends to lovers makeout sesh

warnings ; language, horribley written makeout session, no smut you degenerates

track ; moonlight ; chase atlantic

word count ; 1.5k

masterlist

Y/n and Shawn, Shawn and Y/n. A duo to last centuries and possibly go down in history, at this rate. Obviously, the two had other friends, but they shared a weird bond.

Meeting in eighth grade in English class, due to a music reference that bonded the two, they became very close friends. Now, juniors in high school, they sit in Corey Matthew's bedroom, also accompanied by Topanga Lawrence and Angela Moore. The group were having a sleepover, playing typical 90s teen games such as truth or dare and telephone.

"Hey, should we get snacks and watch a movie downstairs?" Corey asks, seeing the clock read 9:30 beside him.

The group nod and agree.

Corey leads Topanga and Angela to his bedroom door, and notices Y/n and Shawn falling behind, ruffling through their backpacks. He turns away, assuming they were looking for their pajamas or blankets, and leads the two girls downstairs to the kitchen. Seeing the coast is clear, the two look at each other, sharing an awkward look.

Brows furrowed and lips sealed, Shawn is the first to move, making his way to sit next to Y/n. In response, they move their backpack over and lean against the side of Corey's bed. Shawn fidgets with his fingers, avoiding eye contact. Y/n does the same, biting the inside of their cheek, fidgeting with the hem of their shirt.

"So, uhm..." Shawn mumbles, looking up at them for a moment, "What're we gonna do about the obvious?..."

They shrug in response, glancing at Shawn next to them. "We don't have to do anything, I mean, I thought you were going out wirh Angela-"

"Enough about Angela, please" Shawn speaks, "This is about me and you. Shawn and Y/n. We obviously like each other, right? I mean, I'm not getting this wrong, right?" He asks them.

They shake their head no, "I mean, I like you if you like me, I don't fucking know" They awkwardly chuckle.

He nods.

The two bask in silence for a few minutes, unaware of where to take the conversation or handle the situation.

Shawn looks up at Y/n as they glance at him, and holds eye contact, staring into their eyes. He admires their face, unable to think in the moment. He's just mesmerized by how perfect their physical appearance was. Their nose was perfect, their eyes were beautiful, their lips perfectly shaped for his.

He'd already realized that he genuinely liked his friend for more than their appearance, their personality is what got him invested in them anyways. How they had such an amazing music taste, their kindness, their comedic sarcasm, their reasonability, their anxiousness that skyrocketed even over small things. It made him crumble to see them smiling and giggling over one of his jokes.

"Can I kiss you?" Shawn quickly asks, voice almost cracking as he speaks. "Please?"

They nod, slowly moving their right hand to his jawline.

Once he feels the light pressure of their fingers on his jawline, he quickly smashes his lips against theirs, and cups their face with his hands. His fingers brush against their hair a bit, sending a shiver down their spine.

He pulls them closer, feeling that they weren't pulling away from the kiss as he deepens it some more, pressing his lips onto theirs as hard as he could.

He pulls them onto his lap, their knees on each side of his thighs to support their weight. They pull away for a moment and look down at him, hands on his shoulders, silently asking if he's okay with the situation. He leans back in, pulling them forward as a response.

They tug on his hair a bit, pressing their body as physically close to his as they could. He takes a deep sigh, breathing for a moment before looking back up at them.

"You okay? Sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable!-" Y/n quickly speaks, pulling their hands away, holding them up.

"No, no, no, no" Shawn shakes his head. "You're fine, uhm... I like that...?"

They furrow their brows, "Is that a question or a statement?"

Shawn rolls his eyes in embarrassment as he mumbles his answer. "Statement"

They giggle, covering their mouth with their dominant hand.

"Don't laugh at me, asshole!" Shawn smiles, "You're the one sitting on my lap"

They quickly change their smile to a blank face, quickly placing one hand in the back of his hair, the other on his shoulder.

Shawn's eyes slightly widen as his smile falters, feeling embarrassed, slightly scared, and very flustered. He knows they'll tug at his hair at any given second, trying to scare him.

"Sorry, sorry!"

They shake their head with a little smile and lean back in, the hand on his shoulder moving towards his neck. He groans again as they pull at his hair, and he moves one hand down to their waist, the other resting at the nape of their neck to hold them close.

The two sit against the side of Corey's bed, making out while their three friends were downstairs debating over the choice of movie to watch. They mutually pull away to breathe, and they smile, giggling a bit.

"Your tooth gap is really cute by the way, I dunno if I said that four years ago" Y/n whispers, their thumb caressing his cheek.

Shawn smiles and giggles, "Thank you" He says, speaking quietly as he's flustered. "I think I like you on top of me like this"

"I think I do too" They shrug, tugging at his hair lightly.

He groans, "Mmm-stop! They'll hear us!" He gasps, glancing back at the bedroom door behind him.

They tug at his hair again to tease him, and he makes them stop by pulling them in for another kiss. He slowly maneuvers them off his lap, and shoves them by the shoulders onto the floor, and he crawls on top of them, and straddles them. The straps of his leather jacket dangle as he looks down at them with a smug smile.

"Told you to stop"

They smile as well, moving some hair out of their face. "Doesn't mean I will"

They tug at his hair again, just a little too hard, however.

Downstairs, Corey, Topanga, and Angela hear Shawn yelp in pain and shout Y/n's name. Then some profuse apologizing.

"I'm pretty sure they heard us, Shawn"

"That hurt!"

[cvnticy]

𓏵

SITUATIONSHIP!READER X SHAWN

⛧°。 ⋆༺♱༻⋆。 °⛧

warnings ⚠ sexual content, lowkey mentally draining relationship

Shawn Finds Out You Slept With Bret To Spite Him - Headcanons

Gut Instinct: From the moment he walks into the locker room and sees that smug look on your face, he knows something's off. His mind instantly goes to Bret—because deep down, he knows how far you'd push him. He doesn't say anything immediately, but the tension builds as he watches you move around, feeling the subtle change in the air.

The Look: He catches you at an odd moment—maybe you’re chatting with Bret in passing, or you just seem a little too at ease with him. That one look you share, that lingering glance, is all it takes for Shawn to know something’s up. His jaw clenches.

Paranoia: Was he crazy? You've expressed your strong disdain for him on multiple occasions. But, in those same occasions, he'd be pounding you into a hotel bed mattress and you were screaming his name right after. That has to mean something, right? You wouldn't do that to him.

You Play It Cool: You don’t react immediately. You’ve got your back to him, pretending to focus on your gear, but your pulse quickens. You don’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing you panic. "What if I did?" You try to keep your tone steady, but your heart's racing. You know exactly how he’s going to react.

Shawn’s Temper: He takes a step closer, his eyes like daggers. "Don’t play games with me," he growls, his voice rougher now. He can tell by the shift in your posture, the way your breathing catches, that you’re hiding something. “You think this is funny? You really think you can fuck around with me and then go fuck him too?”

The Mind Games: You smirk, trying to rile him up. “Maybe I wanted to see if he was better than you,” you tease, and Shawn's face darkens at the mere thought of someone else touching you. His hands go to your shoulders, spinning you to face him. His grip tightens. "He could never be better than me," he growls, his breath hot on your skin.

The Pushback: You refuse to let him see how much this affects you, but that look in his eyes—raw anger mixed with possessiveness—sends a shiver down your spine. "What’s the matter, Shawn? You think I can’t make my own choices?" you snap back, but the edge of vulnerability is evident in your voice.

The Fight: He shoves you against the wall, leaning in so close you can feel the heat of his body. “You think I won’t make you regret this?” he warns, his voice low and dangerous. His eyes flicker between anger and something darker—jealousy, maybe? You know he’s always had a possessive streak, but this is different.

The Realization: And then it hits him—he's not just angry. He's...hurt. The thought of you with Bret, even if it was a fleeting moment, cuts deeper than he expected. He’s not just mad you fucked Bret; he’s mad because deep down, he thought you belonged to him in a way that no one else ever could. And the reality of you moving on, even just physically, shakes him to his core.

Venting to Hunter: After the confrontation, he confides in Hunter. "She fucked him." "Who is 'he'?" "Bret Fucking Hart".

Hunter's Reaction : Hunter knows Shawn too well. He studies him for a moment, then lets out a sigh. “You sure about that?” he asks. Shawn nods sharply. “I know it. The way she’s been acting around him... She’s either hiding something, or she’s playing me for a fool,” Shawn mutters bitterly.

The Silent Treatment: After the confrontation, things get cold between you two. He ignores you at first, not willing to show how much it’s eating at him. He’ll throw snide comments your way, sarcastically bringing up Bret in passing to see how you react. But the silence speaks louder than anything he says.

The Moment of Weakness: It won’t be long before he pulls you aside, away from prying eyes, and grabs you by the wrist. His touch, though firm, holds a trace of vulnerability. "I don’t want to hear about him again," he says quietly, his gaze locking with yours. "But you and me… this isn’t over. Not by a long shot." He won’t admit it, but he’s hurt, and you know exactly how to use it to your advantage.

The Power Play: You use this moment to your advantage, holding your ground. “I never asked for your approval, Shawn,” you say, your tone defiant, but there’s a flicker of something in your eyes—a challenge. You know exactly what buttons to push to make him lose control.

[jeffhardyjams]

“passion behind the curtains” ❦

- jeff hardy x reader

(𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖉 𝖈𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖙 -2.0k)

Description: In the high-stakes world of WWE, Y/N and Jeff Hardy share a passionate moment after her intense Bra vs. Panties match, leading them to the steamy back room showers, where their deep emotions and undeniable chemistry come to light.

imagine : ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

WWF RAW 10.23.2002

𝄞 - headlock - imogen heap

---

It was 2002, and the arena was buzzing with excitement. The crowd roared as Y/N stood backstage, adjusting her colorful attire, reminiscent of Jeff Hardy's flamboyant style. Her heart raced with anticipation for the upcoming Bra vs. Panties match. She was set to team up with Trish Stratus, but her mind kept drifting to Jeff, her flirty yet feisty rival.

"Hey, Y/N, ready to lose some clothes tonight?" Jeff teased, leaning against the wall with a smirk.

"Only if you promise to pick up the pieces, Jeff," Y/N shot back, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

Trish Stratus walked over, giving Y/N a supportive smile. "Don't let him get to you. We've got this."

The match was intense, with Y/N and Trish giving their all. The crowd went wild as Y/N managed to strip Trish down to her bra, securing the victory. She stood in the ring, her red bra visible, feeling a mix of triumph and exhilaration.

Backstage, as her music played, Y/N took a deep breath and headed outside for a smoke break. She spotted Shawn Michaels and struck up a conversation, their laughter echoing in the cool night air.

Jeff's eyes narrowed as he watched from a distance, jealousy bubbling up inside him. He stormed off and found Trish, pulling her into a heated kiss in one of the back rooms.

Y/N's heart sank when she stumbled upon them. "Seriously, Jeff? This is how you deal with things?"

Without waiting for a response, she turned on her heel and headed to a nearby bar. She needed a drink, and fast.

Jeff followed her, his frustration evident. They sat down and ordered drinks, the tension between them palpable.

"You can't just go around flirting with everyone, Y/N," Jeff snapped, taking a swig of his beer.

"And you can't just make out with Trish to make me jealous," Y/N retorted, her eyes flashing with anger.

The argument escalated, but as the drinks flowed, their anger gave way to something else. Y/N decided enough was enough and they needed to be part ways.

---

The tension between Y/N and Jeff was palpable the next day, their every interaction charged with unspoken feelings. They tried to keep their distance, but the chemistry was undeniable. Stolen glances and secret smiles became their new normal.

One night, after an especially grueling match, Y/N found herself alone in the locker room, nursing a bruise on her shoulder. The pain was sharp, but she was used to it. What she wasn't used to was the emotional turmoil swirling inside her.

Jeff walked in, his eyes immediately softening when he saw her. "Hey, you okay?" he asked, concern lacing his voice.

Y/N looked up, trying to muster a smile. "Just a bruise. Nothing I can't handle."

Jeff frowned, grabbing an ice pack from the freezer. "Let me help," he said, walking over and gently pressing it against her shoulder.

Y/N winced at the cold, but the relief was immediate. "Thanks," she murmured, her voice softer than she intended.

Jeff's hand lingered on her shoulder, his touch both soothing and electrifying. "You don't have to do this alone, you know," he said, his voice low and sincere.

Y/N's heart ached with the weight of his words. "Sometimes, I feel like I don't belong here," she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. "Like I'm out of place."

Jeff's expression softened even more. "You belong, Y/N. You're one of the best fighters out there. And more than that, you're... you're important to me."

Y/N looked up, her eyes meeting his. "Jeff, this is so complicated. We have a job to do, and feelings... they just get in the way."

Jeff sighed, his frustration evident. "I know it's complicated. But we can't just ignore this. Ignore us."

Y/N shook her head, trying to hold back tears. "I don't know how to make this work. Every time I think about it, I just get more confused."

Jeff moved closer, his eyes never leaving hers. "Then let's figure it out together. We don't have to have all the answers right now. We just need to take it one step at a time."

Y/N's resolve wavered, the sincerity in Jeff's eyes breaking down her walls. "What if we mess everything up?" she whispered, her voice trembling.

Jeff took her hand, his grip firm and reassuring. "Then we pick up the pieces together. But I can't keep pretending like you don't mean everything to me."

Y/N felt a tear slip down her cheek. "Okay," she said softly. "Let's try to make this work."

Jeff smiled, a mix of relief and hope in his eyes. "One step at a time," he repeated, squeezing her hand gently.

---

The atmosphere between Y/N and Jeff was electric, the air thick with unspoken words and emotions. Jeff's hand still held Y/N's, his thumb gently caressing her knuckles.

"One step at a time," he repeated softly, his eyes locked onto hers.

Y/N took a deep breath, feeling the intensity of the moment. She knew what was coming, and she didn't want to stop it anymore. Slowly, she leaned in, her eyes fluttering shut as their lips met in a tender, yet passionate kiss. The world around them seemed to fade away, leaving just the two of them in that moment.

Jeff's hand moved to the back of Y/N's neck, pulling her closer as the kiss deepened. The ice pack forgotten, their bodies pressed together, the heat between them undeniable. Y/N's hands found their way to Jeff's chest, feeling the steady thump of his heartbeat beneath her fingertips.

As the kiss broke, they both gasped for air, their foreheads resting against each other. "We should... we should go somewhere more private," Jeff whispered, his voice husky with desire.

Y/N nodded, unable to form words. Jeff took her hand, leading her towards the back room showers. The corridor was dimly lit, the sound of their footsteps echoing off the walls. When they reached the showers, Jeff pushed the door open, pulling Y/N inside.

The room was steamy, the sound of water dripping echoing softly. Jeff turned to Y/N, his eyes filled with a mix of longing and tenderness. "Are you sure about this?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Y/N smiled, her heart pounding in her chest. "I've never been more sure," she replied, her voice steady.

With that, Jeff closed the distance between them, capturing her lips in another searing kiss. The steam from the showers enveloped them, adding to the intensity of the moment. Jeff's hands roamed over Y/N's body, exploring every curve and contour as their kiss grew more urgent.

Y/N's fingers tangled in Jeff's hair, pulling him closer as the heat between them built. The world outside ceased to exist, leaving only the two of them, lost in their own world of passion and desire.

---

[thatgenericwriter]

The Boyfriend? || Shawn Spencer

Paring: Shawn Spencer x gn! reader

Summary: reader is Carlton's younger sibling and is secretly dating Shawn

Warnings: idk Carlton?

P.s. this is based off of a request I got from the lovely @hpxmcusworld takes place around season 1-3

༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶

You've been keeping a major secret from the two most important people in your life and it's killing you. You've been trying to make it seem like nothing was wrong, but the truth had to come out at some point. You were just hoping that point in time would be far off in the future. Not in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner.

"Y/N stop chewing on your nails, it is very annoying." You drop your hands into your lap quickly apologizing to Carlton. You then opt to stand and start pacing around in a circle.

"Come on why are you so worried? If this guy is as great as you say he is then everything should be fine." You stop and turn to glare at Carlton who is currently cleaning his gun.

You were about to yell at him but before you could the doorbell went off. Carlton makes eye contact with you before cocking his gun and standing up.

You sprint across the living room and try to make it to the door before Carlton but you're too slow. He throws open the door and stands face to face with your boyfriend Shawn Spencer. Who was holding a pineapple with a bow on it? You decided not to question it, just happy that he actually came.

"Oh, Lassie! I'm so sorry I think I'm at the wrong apartment!" Your boyfriend looks around a little before you step out from behind Carlton and give a little wave to Shawn.

"I'm so glad you could make it!" Two things happened once you said this. One, Shawn immediately went towards you and gave you a quick peck on your lips before excitedly showing you his pineapple he picked "just for this occasion" as he quoted. And two, Carlton was figuring out 20 different ways to kill Shawn and leave no trace of his body.

Shawn had to make the situation more tense by opening his big mouth. "So what's Lassie doing here and when do I get to meet your brother?" You look between Shawn and your brother (who looks like he is about to strangle Shawn) before finally fessing up.

"Um... actually you're looking at my brother Shawn." You point to Carlton who is now cocking his gun with a murderous look on his face.

"Ha, that's a good one babe. But seriously when is he going to be here?" At this point, you have to stand between the two men as Shawn looks around cluelessly and Carlton starts raising his gun towards Shawn.

Taking a deep breath you slowly push Carlton's gun down and gently grab Shawn's face to make him look at you. "Guys I'm being so serious when I say this."

You look at both of them to make sure you're being heard. "I love both of you so much. And I don't want you to fight... At least not in front of me."

"But he..." You cut Carlton off with a sharp glare. He gulps and nods his head.

You look over at Shawn expectantly. "Hey man, I'm perfectly fine with this. It means I get to spend more time with my two favorite people in the world." He gives a flirtatious wink to Carlton. And you close your eyes with a sigh as Carlton lunges at Shawn in an attempt to strangle him.

This is going to be a long day.

༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶

Authors note: Hey....... Um so it's been a hot second... my bad. school has been a lil bitch anyways I'm trying to write more and get through some requests that I have plz be patient with me🫣

[daryltwdixon]

The Ruins of Us: Chapter 22

Summary: As you dig graves for Hershel’s family and Sophia, the weight of loss settles heavily, leaving you emotionally drained. After an intense encounter with Lori, you find comfort in a raw, vulnerable moment with Daryl, sharing an unspoken connection amidst the grief. In a flashback, you meet a new friend at a party after a heated break with Shane, only to find yourself in a complicated tangle of emotions when the night ends with the party getting busted—and Shane insisting on taking you home.

Warnings: drinking, mentions of drug use

notes: emoshie softie Daryl (I'm not well). I want to point out I realize he's an asshole more in the first few seasons than the quiet softie he becomes later, but in my head he only lets Y/N see the softer side of him from all they've been through.

x flash forward x

It’s silent. Utter silence, except for the incessant hum of cicadas rubbing their wings in the trees. And Carol’s sobs. She’s gasping for air, struggling to breathe as Daryl crouches behind her, his face twisted in pain as he tries to pick her up and move her from the scene—twenty dead walkers, including her own daughter.

“Don’t look—don’t look,” he mutters, his voice gruff but gentle, his arms tightening around her as he tries to lift her from the ground. His face is etched with anguish, each movement heavy with the weight of failure. But Carol jerks away, wrenching herself from his grasp. She stumbles forward, her sobs filling the air as she disappears into the distance, her cries echoing into the trees.

You watch frozen. The dry tears streaking your face stick to you as you watch the scene in front of you—Carol’s heartbreak, Beth’s muffled cries as she clings to Jimmy, the bodies piled in the dirt like broken memories. You barely register Beth running toward one of the corpses, her voice trembling as she calls out softly, “Mom.”

Suddenly, the walker she turned over jerks back to life, its hand shooting out toward Beth. She screams. There’s chaos—a flurry of movement as people rush to help. Glenn reaches the walker first, the butt of his gun smashing into its head with a sickening crunch. The group breathes again, but the air is thick with grief and disbelief. The Greene family pulls back, their spirits shattered, walking away from the horror without a word. It’s all such a blur of emotion you hardly react to any of it at all. 

You’re lost for words, lost for direction as you watch them walk away. You see Shane, Rick and Glenn following them, words being exchanged, ironically louder and louder as they go farther away.

Without a word, Andrea kneels beside Sophia's lifeless body, laying the wool blanket over her small form. You drop beside her, placing your hand over Andrea’s. Her hand trembles under yours, and when your tear-filled eyes meet again, you can’t help but pull her into a hug. You both collapse into each other’s arms, quietly letting your tears fall with silent understanding. When you pull away, Andrea’s hand lingers on yours, a tender gesture of a shared sadness.

Rick appears then, his shoulders sagging as he approaches the aftermath. His eyes are hard, determined despite the pain written across his face.

“Want us to start burying them?” T-Dog asks him as he approaches. 

“We need a service,” Andrea argues, standing now.

Rick doesn’t answer immediately, but Lori’s quiet voice cuts through. “Let’s dig a grave for the family members—Sophia, Annette, Shawn… over by the trees.”

“And the rest? That’s a lot of digging,” Jimmy murmurs, his voice barely above a whisper.

“We bury the ones we love,” you say, your voice trembling but firm.

You wipe your brow with the back of your hand, sweat dripping down as you finish the last grave with the others. Shane comes over quietly, his face pinched with emotion, offering his hand to lift you out. You look up at him, eyes squirting in the sun that sits high above his head. After a deep resigned sigh, you take his arm, his fingers rough but steady as he lifts you easily out of the hole. You see Daryl bringing Carol along with Lori from the RV. 

The air is thick with the weight of loss as you all stand in silence, heads bowed, eyes red-rimmed after all the loved ones are buried There are no words, just the crushing grief that presses down on everyone. One by one, people start to drift away, leaving only the mounds of earth behind. Some go off to take the truck load of bodies away to be burned. The sorrow is suffocating.

“Hey,” you softly call to Daryl as he walks away, jogging up to him now. You reach for his arm, your hand landing softly on his warm skin. He pauses but doesn’t turn to face you.

You face the front of him, searching his eyes. He worked so hard to try to find the little girl–the only one that was out in the woods everyday for her… Your hands reach for his face, but he flinches, not letting you touch him. His eyes swim with guilt and pain. You let your arms fall to your sides, not taking offense to his rejection. You are lost for words–there’s none that can be said to him. He’s grieving her more than the rest of you, maybe almost as much as Carol. He glances up at you and away, and beckons you with a single nod, and you walk far out into the field together, offering nothing but quiet solidarity in your presence.

And sometimes, that’s all you can do.

------

An hour or so must’ve passed by now, the only sounds breaking the stillness are Daryl’s knife scraping against the piece of wood he holds, making an arrowhead. He sits hunched over, sitting on the stone wall you both sought out as the dust of camp life settles into routine. The rhythmic metal-on-wood sound mingles with the soft clicks from the gun in your hands as you carefully dismantle it for cleaning. You sit across from him under a lone willow tree, trying to find solace in the mechanical repetition. You suddenly hear footsteps approaching, and you groan quietly to yourself as you see Lori coming closer.

“Movin’ to the suburbs?” she asks, jogging up. Her eyes are locked on Daryl, almost deliberately avoiding yours.

Daryl stays silent, not looking up at her approach. You try to avert your eyes as well, not in the mood for her cold stares.

“Look,” Lori begins, a little too sharply, “Beth’s in some kind of catatonic shock. We need Hershel.”

Worry flits across your mind, and you look toward the direction of the house for a long moment, waiting to see if Daryl will reply.

“Yeah? So what,” Daryl snaps back, still not meeting her gaze, his focus remaining on the carving in his hand.

“So I need you to run into town real quick and bring him and Rick back,” she presses, her tone insistent. Your worry is replaced by agitation at her presumption of Daryl being her errand boy. You can feel the irritation rise in your chest as you look back down at the gun, trying to focus on reassembling it. Her tone grates against your nerves.

Daryl remains quiet, his jaw tight as she crouches down to eye level with him, pushing further. “Daryl?”

Finally, he looks up, meeting her gaze for the briefest of moments before returning to his carving, “Your bitch went window shopping. You want 'em? Fetch 'em yourself. I got better things to do.”

You pull your lips between your teeth as you wait for her response, looking up for a split second. Lori looks between the two of you, “What's the matter with you? Why would you be so selfish?”

The words hit you both like a slap, and something in you snaps, “What the fuck, Lori?” you growl, anger flushing your face, but before you can get another word out, Daryl explodes to his feet.

“Selfish?!” he shouts, and she gets up at the sudden raise in his voice, “Listen to me, Olive Oyl, I was out lookin for that little girl every single day! I took a bullet and an arrow in the process. Don’t you tell me about getting my hands dirty!” His knife points outward, not in threat but as an extension of his fury, his hand trembling with the intensity of his emotions. You can see the vein bulging in his neck, his voice thick with frustration and pain. 

The irony of the comparison to the cartoon character isn’t lost on you. You would laugh if Daryl wasn’t so pissed and Lori wasn’t getting on your last nerve. You let Daryl stand his ground, knowing he was close to losing it.

“You want those two idiots? Have a nice ride, I’m done lookin’ for people,” he spits out, turning his back on her and dropping back down to the stone wall. Lori stands there, speechless for a moment, before she scoffs and walks away, throwing one last venomous glance in your direction as she goes.

You catch the look, but you’re more focused on Daryl—his chest heaving with the weight of what just transpired. He watches her retreat, and then his eyes flick to you, softer now but still dark with the storm inside him.

Without a word, you carefully place the gun and cleaning kit aside, your movements slow as you approach him. Gently, you lift your hands, palms up, offering to take the knife and wooden shard from him. He sighs deeply, and surrenders them without a word. You place them beside you and then, before you can think twice, you lean in, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him close. Your fingers lock at the elbows behind his shoulders, hugging him tight. His body stiffens at first, caught off guard, but you don’t let go. You can feel his breath warm against your neck, shaky and shallow. 

After a long, tense moment, his arms come up slowly, hesitantly, before wrapping around you. His grip is tight, almost desperate, and you feel him shudder as the first quiet sobs escape him. He buries his face in the crook of your neck, his body trembling as the grief, frustration, and heartbreak pour out in the safety of your arms. Maybe it was only about Sophia, maybe it was years of bottled up emotions, or just everything.

You don’t say anything. Words wouldn’t be enough right now. All you do is hold him, your fingers threading softly through the hair at the nape of his neck, hoping that he knew you were there for him through anything, that you’re not going anywhere. Not again. You close your eyes shut tight, the anguish in hearing him fall apart breaking your heart. The silence between you is heavy, but it’s shared. And for the first time in a long while, Daryl lets himself fall apart, trusting that you’ll be there to help him pick up the pieces.

x flashback x

It was late evening, the headlights of Shane’s car casting long shadows as he pulled up outside the apartment you shared with Dana. The tension in the air was palpable–you could feel it from the moment the car slowed to a stop. Shane’s jaw was tight, his hands gripping the steering wheel harder than necessary. He was angry, but trying to keep it under control. You were exhausted, not just from the day, but from this pattern with him—hot one minute, cold the next.

As he put the car in park, he didn’t say anything at first. The silence between you was thick, filled with all the words you were both too tired to say. Finally, you couldn’t take it anymore, the frustration bubbling over.

“You’re just gonna sit there and not say anything?” you snapped, staring at him. “Again?”

Shane clenched his jaw, looking out the windshield. “What do you want me to say, huh? We’ve been over this. It’s the same shit every time.”

You let out a frustrated breath, rolling your eyes. “No, Shane, it’s not the same every time. It’s like you’re here one minute and then you’re not. Like we’re fine and then you just—check out.” You glanced over at him, feeling the weight of everything that had been building between you.

He finally turned to look at you, his gaze hard. “I’ve been checkin’ out? You hardly even talk to me anymore. But hey, maybe that’s ‘cause I’m tired of feelin’ like I’m the only one who gives a damn. You’re always somewhere else in your head, off thinkin’ about whatever—”

“Don’t even try to put this on me,” you cut him off, anger flaring up. “I’ve been here. I’ve tried. But you’re the one always pulling away when things get too real.”

He wasn’t completely wrong. In the months that had passed through the summer you felt unmoored. You felt like you could barely keep yourself together to get to work, your hours got less and less at both the women’s shelter and dog pound. You felt like something was missing, and your mind was always so blank and…just elsewhere.

Shane exhaled sharply through his nose, his temper flaring, but he didn’t yell. Not yet. “Maybe we need some space,” he finally muttered, the words coming out cold and distant. His hands were still gripping the steering wheel tightly, like he was holding himself back from saying more.

Your heart clenched at that. Space? After everything? You felt the anger drain into something colder, more bitter. “Fine. Maybe you’re right,” you said quietly, your voice tight with emotion. “Maybe we do need some space.”

You could feel Shane’s eyes on you, but you didn’t look back at him. Without another word, you opened the door and stepped out into the cool night air, the door slamming behind you. You barely heard the car start up again as he pulled away, leaving you standing there in the driveway, feeling the weight of everything settle on your shoulders.

—

Inside the apartment, the tension was still clinging to you. You shut the door a little harder than you needed to, throwing your bag down on the kitchen counter. Dana, who was lounging on the couch with her laptop, raised an eyebrow when she saw your face.

“That bad, huh?” she asked, shutting her laptop and sitting up.

You sighed, running your hands through your hair. “Yeah. We’re...we’re taking a break, I guess,” you muttered, collapsing onto the couch beside her. You didn’t want to talk about it, but the frustration was still simmering just under the surface.

Dana gave you a sympathetic look, but then her eyes brightened with a mischievous glint. “You know what you need? A party,” she said, nudging you playfully with her elbow.

You groaned, leaning your head back against the couch. “Not tonight, Dana.”

“Yes tonight,” she insisted. “I heard the guys on the wrestling team are throwing a huge party tonight. Free drinks, music, the works. And you’re coming with me.”

You gave her a look, but she was already grinning. “Come on,” she pressed. “You need this. You deserve to blow off some steam. Forget about Officer Hottie for a night. Have fun.”

The thought of going to a party, of putting on a carefree face when you felt anything but, sounded exhausting. But at the same time, the idea of sitting here alone, stewing in your feelings, sounded even worse. Maybe Dana was right. Maybe you did need a distraction.

“Fine,” you sighed, giving in. “But can we stop calling him that? Not helping. And I’m not getting wasted. I’m not in the mood to deal with a hangover tomorrow.”

Dana’s grin widened as she jumped up from the couch, already heading to her room. “Don’t worry, babe, I’ll take care of the wasted part. You just have fun.”

A few hours later, you found yourself standing in the doorway of a packed house, red solo cup in hand, music blasting from the speakers so loud you could feel the bass in your chest. The living room was crammed with people—some dancing, others shouting to be heard over the music. The air was thick with a mix of sweat, perfume, and the faint scent of weed. You sipped your drink, trying to ignore how strong it tasted.

-----

“I’ll be right back, I see someone I know,” Dana called, disappearing into the crowd before you could protest. Typical.

Left on your own, you drifted toward the kitchen, hoping it would be less crowded. The kitchen was just as full, but at least the music wasn’t as deafening. You leaned against the counter, scanning the room for familiar faces, but none of them stood out. You were about to head back to the front room when a guy bumped into you, nearly spilling your drink.

“Oh shit, sorry!” he said, his voice loud and slurred. He turned around grinned at you, his dark hair tousled like he hadn’t bothered to comb it. “Didn’t see you there.”

“No worries,” you said, stepping aside.

“I’m Randy,” he said, leaning against the counter beside you, making himself comfortable, “Haven’t seen you around here before. You new?”

You raised an eyebrow, glancing around. “Pretty sure we go to the same school.”

Randy chuckled, taking a swig of his beer. “Yeah, I meant around the party scene. You don’t look like the type.”

“And what type is that?” you asked, amusement flickering across your face despite yourself.

“You know, the wild, drink-till-you-drop, dance the night away kinda girl.” His eyes flicked up and down your body, lingering for just a moment too long before he met your eyes again. “But maybe I’m wrong.”

You couldn’t help but roll your eyes, taking another sip of your drink. “Not usually my scene, but Dana dragged me here. Said I needed a distraction.”

“Distraction, huh?” Randy’s grin widened, leaning in slightly as if that word opened a door for him. “Well, I could be your distraction. I’m a nice guy.” His voice lowered a bit, his tone suggestive, and you knew exactly where this was headed.

You gave him a half-smile, indulging him for now. “A nice guy, huh?”

“Yeah,” he said, stepping a little closer, his arm brushing against yours as he took another drink. “You seem like you could use some fun.”

You chuckled softly, feeling the buzz of the alcohol starting to make your limbs feel a little lighter. Randy wasn’t bad looking, and his bold confidence wasn’t the worst thing. Maybe this could be your distraction.

As the conversation went on, he flirted more openly, his hand grazing your arm every now and then, his eyes locking onto yours like he was trying to reel you in. He was charming in a dorky kind of way, and in your slightly tipsy state, it was easier to flirt back.

At some point, you weren’t sure if it was the alcohol or just the heat of the moment, but Randy leaned in closer. His face hovered just inches from yours, his breath warm against your lips.

And before you even thought to stop it, he kissed you.

It wasn’t a bad kiss—he knew what he was doing—but something about it felt off. There was no spark, no rush. Just lips pressed against yours, hands grazing your waist as he tried to deepen it.

But as quickly as it started, you gently pushed him back, breaking the kiss. “I should, uh, probably go find Dana,” you muttered, trying to smile politely but taking a step back.

Randy blinked, looking a little surprised but not discouraged. “Yeah, sure. But hey, don’t be a stranger.” His smile returned, though there was a glint in his eyes now—a spark of something more, like he thought he’d made some kind of connection.

“See you around,” you said with a quick smile, leaving him in the kitchen as you made your way through the crowd, your mind spinning from the kiss and the realization that Randy might have taken that moment more seriously than you did.

As you slipped through the sea of people, you found Dana laughing with a group of friends, and you couldn’t help but feel relieved to have escaped Randy’s attention. You weren’t mad at the distraction, but just hoped the glint in his eyes didn’t mean he expected anything else from you. As you approached the group, Dana saw you and whispered into the ear of the guy next to her. 

She threw her arm around you when you got close, pulling you into a clumsy hug.

“Where’ve you been?” she slurred, her eyes bright and unfocused.

“Around,” you said, shrugging her off, glancing over your shoulder to make sure Randy hadn’t followed you. “You good?”

Dana giggled, nodding emphatically. “More than good. I think I found my future husband.” She jerked her thumb toward the guy next to her, who gave you a half-drunken smile.

Before you could say anything, the sharp sound of sirens pierced through the pounding music. Red and blue lights flashed through the windows, and your stomach dropped.

“Shit– cops,” you muttered, your heart suddenly pounding in your chest.

“Maybe Officer Hottie will save us,” she laughed out loud, and you rolled your eyes. You prayed silently to yourself he wasn’t one of them outside the front door.

The partygoers reacted like startled animals, people scattering toward the back of the house, others trying to duck into different rooms or slip out the back. Dana was too drunk to care, but you grabbed her arm, pulling her up.

“Come on, we need to get out of here.”

But as you and Dana made your way to the door, two uniformed officers were already stepping inside, blocking your exit. You didn’t recognize either of them, thank god. One of them looked around, his flashlight sweeping over the mess of empty beer cans and the crowd of tipsy partygoers.

“All right, everyone stay where you are,” one of the officers said, his voice stern. “We got a noise complaint and we’re going to need to ask a few of you some questions.”

You exchanged a worried glance with Dana, who was still giggling like this was all some kind of game. You were amazed she hadn’t sobered up as fast as you did with your current predicament.

“You two,” the officer pointed to you and Dana, “come outside.”

Randy appeared out of nowhere, stepping up beside you as if he were about to play the role of knight in shining armor. “Is there a problem, Officer?” he asked, his tone overly polite.

“And you two,” the officer said, nodding at Randy and the guy Dana had been hanging all over. “Outside. Now.”

With a sighed and followed the officer out to the front yard, your stomach twisting in knots. The cool night air hit your skin as you stepped outside, and you saw several partygoers milling around, nervously checking their phones for rides home or trying to disappear into the shadows.

But what really made your blood run cold was seeing Shane standing off to the side, talking to one of the cops like they were old pals. Of course. He was here too. Guess your prayers were going unanswered tonight.

“Oh my god,” Dana hiccuped drunkenly as he sauntered over, “I have never seen him this close before, Y/N, he is hot.” You barely had time to roll your eyes as he approached.

“Well, well,” he said in a low voice, his eyes flicking between you and Randy. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

You clenched your jaw, keeping your gaze focused on the ground. “I’m just here with Dana,” you muttered, your tone clipped. 

She waved at him, batting her eyes, “I’ve heard a lot about you, Officer Hottie,” you elbow her hard in the ribs.

Shane’s smirk widened, his eyes narrowing. “I’m sure you have,” he looks over to you again, “Seems like you moved on pretty fast, huh? What’s this guy’s name?” He nodded toward Randy, his voice dripping with mockery.

Randy, who was clearly oblivious to Shane’s history with you, puffed out his chest a little, flashing a cocky grin. “Randy. Who’s asking?”

Shane ignored him, keeping his focus on you. “Gotta say, didn’t think you were the type to go for frat boys. Thought you liked ’em a little tougher than that.”

Your face flushed, both from anger and embarrassment. You shot a glare at Shane, hating how easily he could still get under your skin. “Like you really give a shit,”

He chuckled, his eyes cold. “You’re right. I don’t. Just funny, is all. Here you are, all cozied up with a new guy just after I dropped you off at home.”

“Oh, fuck off, Shane.” you shot back, your frustration bubbling over. The guys next to you stiffen, but Dana covers her mouth as she laughs out loud. 

Shane’s expression hardened, his smile fading slightly. He stepped closer, his voice lowering so only you could hear. “Careful, Y/N. Don’t make me remind you of the position you’re in right now.” he turned and walked to speak with the rest of the officers that came along as back up. As the other officers returned to the front of the house, their flashlights sweeping over all of you, one gave a sharp nod to Shane.

“All right, this party’s over. We’re shutting it down. You kids need to clear out and head home. Don’t give us any more trouble.” one of them calls out.

The tension in your chest eased just a little—at least they weren’t hauling anyone away tonight. But as people started filing out of the house, heading toward their cars or spilling out onto the lawn, Shane caught your eye again. You barely had a moment to exhale before he was striding over again, his expression somewhere between smug and serious.

“Come on,” he said, his tone leaving no room for argument. “I’ll take you home.”

You opened your mouth to protest, but before you could get a word out, Shane’s eyes flicked toward Randy, who was still hanging close to you. The tension that flared between the two of them was almost palpable. You looked between them, weighing your options. You never really planned on leaving with Randy since you escaped him from the party. But the thought of getting in the car with your ex right now wasn’t exactly tempting.

Shane’s lips curled into a half-smirk, but his eyes stayed cold as it seemed like he read your mind. “You’re not seriously thinking about going with him, are you?”

You frowned, glancing from Shane to Randy, who looked like he was about to step in, but Shane beat him to it.

“I don’t think so, man,” Shane said sharply, stepping between you and Randy. “I’ve got this. She’s coming with me.”

Randy blinked, clearly taken aback. “Hey, man, I was just—”

Shane cut him off, finishing Randy’s sentence for him, his voice hard and final. “--Leaving.”

Your breath caught as Shane’s possessiveness sent a jolt of anger through you. But before you could say anything, Shane turned back to you, “Come on, Y/N,”

You hesitated for a second, still frustrated with him, but deep down, you knew Randy wasn’t someone you wanted to deal with anymore tonight. And despite your anger, Shane’s offer seemed... safer, despite everything.

With a sigh, you nodded, giving Randy a small, apologetic look before reluctantly stepping away from him. You turned to say goodbye to Dana who was already getting in an uber with her mystery man. Randy’s face fell, and he gave a half-hearted shrug. “All right. See you around, I guess.”

Shane’s smirk widened just a bit as you walked past him, his hand lightly touching the small of your back as he led you away from the scene.

As you stomped toward his patrol car, you grumbled, “wipe the grin off your face, I’m still mad at you,” 

“Whatever you say,” he said with a smug playfulness to his tone.

You stayed quiet, knowing the night was going to end up with Shane dropping you off whether you liked it or not. But part of you couldn’t shake the feeling that, once again, Shane was always there, always hovering, always finding a way to make sure you were under his thumb—even when you didn’t want him to be.

As you both climbed into the car, Shane started the engine with a smirk on his face, the tension between you simmering but unresolved. The ride back to your place was filled with an uneasy silence, one that left you wondering if you were just trading one mess for another.

[thatssonanii]

Chapter Sixteen

A/N: I've written and started this chapter over so many times because it just wasn't flowing right but I finally got. They never have a happy chapter so this is it, minus one part lol. Reblog, Share, Comment and Like! That's the only way my writing gets seen by more and more is if you guys reblog and everything. Help me get my art out! FYI I CHANGED JAYDEN TO BRAYDEN!!

Warning: Cursing, Mentions of Death, implied smut EXCUSE ANY TYPOS, 18+ ONLY MINORS DNI

DO NOT POST MY WORK ANYWHERE ELSE AND/OR CLAIM IT AS YOUR OWN!

Masterlist

Chapter Fifteen

As soon as the guys got Toni’s call, they rushed out of the performance center after clearing it with Shawn. Bronco followed Zilla to the apartment, both parking crooked in front of the complex. Toni met them at the door, a sad look on her face. They huddled in the living room, speaking quietly.

“What’s wrong? You said it was a emergency?” Zilla asked itching to get to his girlfriend.

“The little girl, Nia, she came back in. She was rushed into surgery but she didn’t make it. She cried all the way here,” Toni informed them, grabbing her bag, “She fell asleep not too long ago. I doubt she’ll get any sleep tonight.” The men cursed under their breath. “Yeah so I’ll stop by when I get off work to check on her. If you can, do not leave her by herself.”

He nodded, giving her a quick hug. “I got you. Thank you fa bringin’ her home.”

She waved him off, throwing out a goodbye to him. Bronco and him had a quick, short conversation before he followed his girlfriend out the door. 

Zilla made sure the door was locked and leaned his back against it, taking a few deep breaths to collect himself. Although he was thankful that she wasn’t hurt physically and nobody in her family was hurt, he hated that this is what was happening. The way she would talk about the little girl, how attached she had gotten since the little girl’s first visit and now she had passed away. Zilla knew and understood how big his girlfriend’s heart is so he knew how much this was affecting her.

Seeing her curled up in a ball on their bed broke his heart. He eased onto the bed carefully, trying not to wake her up and pulled her onto his chest. Moriah started to stir against him and lifted her head. Watery eyes met his.

“Zay,” she sobbed.

“I know, beautiful. I know that shit hurtin’ you bad but I got you. I ain’t goin nowhere.” He assured wrapping her in his arms tighter. “Get it out, baby.”

She cried for a few minutes before pulling herself together enough to talk to him. “She was doing so good and then I guess her body couldn’t take it. All he needed was three more minutes. Just three.” Zilla hummed softly, letting her know that he was listening. “It just happened so … freaking fast, Zay. One minute she was okay, the next she was … she was,” Moriah paused unable to bring herself to say the word. 

He kissed her head and her face as she cried softly. “I got you.”

“And when we went to tell her parents, the scream her mama let out … I’ve never heard anything like it, Zay.” She admitted softly. “Her scream is still echoing in my head, I’ll never be able to get that out of my head. And I tried to console her but she just pushed me away. She looked at me like I did it.”

He sighed. “She know you didn’t do it but she was in shock, Fat. Don’t let that bother you, aight? That’s that grief.”

“I just … Nia is … was so full of life. She was energetic, she was happy and now she’s gone.” Moriah spoke sadly. “That was my first and it was a little girl.”

He rocked her gently trying to soothe her. “It sucks, bae and I don’t know what I can do to fix that and make it hurt less. But I got something you can think about that might make you feel better when you get sad.”

“What?”

“Nia not here no more but she up there in them clouds with Pops and Angel. And you know they takin good care fo her.” He smiled seeing her smile a bit. “Angel know all spots for the lil ones and he gon take her to em.”

After another couple hours, Moriah went back to sleep. Zilla waited until he was sure she was in a deep sleep before getting up. Going out to their living room, Zilla flopped on the sofa with his phone to his ear.

“What’s up, nephew?”

“What’s good, Auntie Kami?” He greeted her in a soft tone. “You busy?”

“Nope, I’m on break. What’s up? Why are we whispering?” She asked, laughing.

He chuckled, leaning back against the sofa. “Rye in there sleep, ion wanna wake her up. I need a favor if you don’t mind.”

Kamille took a moment to turn her music down before responding. “You know I don’t mind doing anything for you two, Zay. What’s up?”

“I uh,” he paused to make sure he didn’t hear his girlfriend getting up. “Fat had a ill girl die on her today and she not handlin’ it well. Can you make sure you check on her when you can?”

“My baby,” she cooed. “Of course, Zay. I can take time off and come there if she needs me.”

“Not right now but I’ll let you know. I think ima drive her up to Georgia to see her dad. I think that might help. What you think, Auntie?”

Kamilled laughed a bit. “Of course that would help.”

Anybody who knew Moriah and Hassan knew that their bond was something special to the two of them. Moriah had been a daddy’s girl since the first time she laid eyes on him in the delivery room. Throughout her life whenever she was going through something, needed advice or just wanted to chill Hassan was always there. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her and there was never anything any more important than his babygirl. 

“Can I ask you something?” Zilla asked quietly.

“Shoot.”

“How is Nadine? I know Fat cut her off but it’s been too quiet. She never really listens to Fat anyway so it’s a little weird to not have her pop up in some way.” He explained further.

The older woman sighed on the other end of the phone. “Nadine is still Nadine. The reason you haven’t heard anything from her is because Hassan is takin the heat off of you two.”

“What that mean?” He asked quickly.

“When you go see him, you ask him. I know he’ll tell you.” She responded quickly. “I gotta go back to work but you know you can call or text me if you need me.”

“Aight, Auntie. Zilla love you.”

“Auntie loves you too.” She laughed.

Getting off the phone with Kamille, Zilla went back to lay with his girlfriend. When he pulled her closer to him this time she didn’t stir or wake up, she just took her place on his chest. As she slept, he made plans in his head for their drive and what he would need to do.  

That night as promised Toni and Bronco came back to the apartment to check on Moriah and brought Javi along. The five of them had dinner together, giving Moriah the support she needed without mentioning the elephant in the room. Afterwards, the boys went out to get dessert for them, leaving the ladies alone for a little while. They were sitting on the floor in front of the sofa drinking wine. 

“Bronco told me that girl sent Zilla videos and tried to act like it was an accident.” Toni rolled her eyes taking a sip. 

Moriah groaned, pulling her glass away from her lips. “Girl, Ima get pissed just thinking about it again cause what the hell was she thinking. She so lucky I like my job and my family out here cause if I didn’t I would’ve beat her ass already.”

“She need her ass beat, if you ask me. What did Zilla say to you about it?”

She rolled her eyes with a grimace. “He said that he would handle it, that a queen shouldn’t come off her throne to address anybody buuut I really don’t care about that. I wanna beat her ass. She keep inching further and further over the line like I won’t kick her frog eyed ass back over it.”

Glancing at the door, Toni slid a little closer to her and spoke softly as if somebody else could hear her. 

“So you know how Dr. Miller had to go out of town for that funeral last week?” She paused, waiting for Moriah to nod. “I was scrolling on instagram and saw he had posted some family pictures and in the midst of looking through them, guess who I saw.”

“Frogger?” She answered immediately.

Toni laughed loudly, covering it with her hand. “Yes, Frogger. I did a little snooping and found out that Frogger is his little cousin. They don’t seem to be that close cause the other pictures he has of her are clearly at family functions.”

 Moriah hummed, internalizing the information. “Oh really? You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Pump Dr. Miller for info next time we’re at work?”

“That part,” Moriah grinned. “So tomorrow we get em.”

Toni’s smile slightly faltered. “Don’t you think you should take tomorrow and try again on Thursday?”

“I promise I’m fine,” Moriah protested sitting her glass on the coffee table, “I don’t need to take any days off, T. I’ll be there tomorrow morning bright and early.”

Eyeing her friend, Toni rolled around the words she wanted to say to convince her to take the day. When she got back to the hospital, she went ahead and put Moriah off Wednesday and debated if she should do Thursday as well to give her a longer weekend to recuperate. Ultimately, she decided against it going with the one day.

“Just take the day, Rye. Please.”

She shook her head stubbornly. “I don’t need it.”

“About six months into my first year running Lakeland ED, I had a really good group of nurses working under me. But I had one favorite, Alicia.”

Moriah frowned. “You had a favorite before me? I don’t like it but continue.”

Both laugh,Toni pushed her shoulder playfully.

“Anyway, Alicia was pretty much my little second in command at the time like you are now. That girl was something,” she laughed. “Dr. Harris used to try to take her from me all the time. I think about her every day, I miss her smartass.”

“I never saw her on pediatrics with him so I’m assuming she’s at another hospital,” Moriah speculated.

Toni took a sip of her wine before answering. “Nope. One night there was a six car accident on the highway, there were some pretty bad injuries and some minor ones. She handled one of the minor ones with me and a doctor, it wasn’t major but it wasn’t minor. We thought the patient would be okay, they were talking and just needed a minor surgery to set a few things. Next thing we knew the patient had a heart attack.”

Moriah gasped. “Oh no. That’s awful.��

“Definitely. It happened so quick, we couldn’t get em back. The doctor told her to go home, that was her first but she fought him. I told her to go home, me and her fought for about two hours before I just let her have it but kept watch.”

“Soooo?” She asked.

Toni pinched her arm. “Impatient. A couple weeks passed and she was okay but I could tell something was bothering her so I pulled her to talk, she assured me that she was seeing a therapist so I let it go.” She paused to clear her throat and fight back tears. “She missed two shifts without calling in so I went to check on her since I had her spare key. I found her, I thought she was sleeping but she was so cold. There was a letter, she couldn’t get that night out of her head and she wished she’d taken time to deal with it.”

Moriah poked out her lip as tears fell. “I’m sorry, T. That’s … I’m sorry.”

The friends sat in an embrace, crying on each other's shoulders expelling their grief onto one another. Time would heal their wounds but in this moment Toni knew what an extra day would do for Moriah. It would be a lie for Moriah to say that she wasn’t still reliving the day’s events in her head over and over especially when it got too quiet but she didn’t want to be weak. She wanted to be strong like everybody thought she was. 

Pulling away from the hug, Toni used her thumbs to wipe her friend’s tears away. “Rye, please take another day.”

“Okay, okay,” she conceded softly. “I’ll stay out tomorrow.”

“Good because I was gonna have to undo your PTO and that’s too much work.” Toni joked, making them laugh.

Being in Atlanta put a big smile on Moriah’s face the closer they got to Hassan’s house. Zilla let her sleep after her Friday shift to nap before their 3 am drive. He chose that so she would sleep most, if not all of the drive because he wanted to surprise her. She slept until the last thirty minutes, when she got her bearings Zilla saw that sparkle in her eyes again. He laughed seeing her bounce giddily in the passenger seat.

“You ain’t ever been this excited to see me, Fat.” He joked. “What I gotta do to get you that excited for me?”

She laughed, moving her attention from out the window to him. “Be my Daddy.”

“Shid, I’m already that, ain’t it?”

“Shut up,” she laughed harder, “Be Hassan DeBreaux and you knew that.”

He shrugged playfully. “Either way. You like your surprise?”

“I do. Thank you. How’d you know I been missing my Daddy?”

He snorted. “You always miss him, it ain’t a secret. You my Fat but you a Daddy’s girl before that. And I got you always but I figured having both of us would help you more.”

Moriah poked his cheek playfully. “My Zilla being sweet. I love you.”

“Only fa you, Fat. Zilla luh you too.”

When they got to the house, Moriah jumped out of the car and ran to the porch ringing the doorbell repeatedly. Zilla hung back a bit, getting their bags and her purse out of the backseat. As soos as Hassan opened the door, Moriah jumped into his arms excitedly squealing.

“Babygirl,” Hassan laughed as he held onto her, “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Neither did I. Zay surprised me. I missed you!” She squeezed him tight one more time before he put her down. “Did you miss me?”

“I always miss my babygirl and my son in law.”

“I said me, not hard head, Daddy.”

Zilla stepped on the porch, knocking into her playfully with his duffle bag. “I shoulda let you carry ya own stuff.”

“He’s my Daddy not yours, hard head.”

Hassan chuckled, stepping in before they could argue. He took Moriah’s bag from him. “Alright, alright. You know my babygirl is an only child so sometimes she doesn’t like to share, Zilla.”

“Oh I know she don’t know how to share. She don’t share food, drinks or me.” He laughed, stepping into the house behind her. “So I know she ain’t gon share you.”

Hassan and Zilla sat their bags near the stairs then went to the living room to sit, Moriah pushing her boyfriend out of the way when he tried to sit beside Hassan. Laughing, he went to sit in the love seat.

“Be nice, Rye, Zilla, you can come sit on the other side of me if you want.” 

“Nah, I’m good. She gon beat me up later if I do,” he joked. “You need to talk to her about keepin her hands to herself and about bein mean to me.”

Moriah stared at him. “I’m no mean to you. Take it back.”

“See,” Zilla laughed. “Look at how she lookin at me. When you not lookin, she gon hit me, mane.”

“I’ll just hit you now then.” She sassed, reaching over.

He swatted her hands away laughing. “You can’t reach me anyway with them short ass arms. Stay over there, stubby.”

“Daddy! He called me stubby, get him.” She complained pointing at her boyfriend.

Hassan laughed, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He sat back, responding to a few messages. “Is this what the two of you put Lee through? I’m not playing referee, I will call Lee on you.”

“Dang you gon do us like that?” Zilla asked.

“Right. Just gon get us in trouble like that.” Moriah pouted. “That’s not nice.”

Looking up from his phone, Hassan looked between them chuckling to himself. “This is why I’m not playin referee with you. I say one thing you yall turn on me. Did yall surprise me to argue or did you just come to see me?”

Zilla glanced at his girlfriend then got up from his seat. “Ima take our stuff upstairs and check on Mama. Let yall talk.” He kissed her head before leaving the room, not giving her a chance to pull him back.  

Sitting his phone aside, Hassan gave his daughter his undivided attention, noticing the tears in her eyes. His mind immediately went to the worst but he silently talked himself down. The tick tacking of Moriah’s nails hitting one another filled the momentary silence until Hassan reached out to take one of her hands.

“Hey, whatever is going on you know you can talk to me about it, kid.” He softly reassured her.

“You remember that surgery I helped out with?”

“The little girl, of course I remember. What about it?”

She took a deep breath to try to calm herself down. “She came back in a few days ago with complications. Did another surgery to fix it but,” she paused to wipe her face and take more breaths. “She didn’t make it, Daddy.”

With no hesitation, Hassan pulled his daughter closer and into his arms. He rocked her, letting her cry on his chest. The thought obviously crossed his mind that this would happen eventually and he wished there was some way he could prevent it from happening but he couldn’t. But he  would always be there to catch her. 

He kissed the top of her head and rubbed her back soothingly. “Daddy is sorry that you have to deal with this. You know you did everything that you could to help her and the rest of it was in the Lord’s hands. He needed another angel. Just know she isn’t in any pain anymore.”

She nodded, finding solace in his arms. “She was so little. I just hate that we couldn’t save her.”

“The Lord saved her. He got her, kid. And think about this,” he paused to lean her back so she was looking at him. “She’s up there keeping Angel company. I’m sure he’s a little ladies man.”

Moriah laughed, wiping her face. “He better not be. He better be a good little angel.”

“Mmm, I know my grandson handsome like me so I dunno.” He joked. 

She blew playfully sitting up a bit more. “Daddy, you just like Zay. He said the same thing. How’s my stepmom?”

“Stepmom?” He chuckled. “Tamara is alright. She asks about you all the time.”

“Give her my number, I don’t mind. Am I gonna get to see her while I’m here?”

He nodded, taking his phone back out. “I’ll send it to her. Yeah, I’m actually supposed to meet her kids tomorrow. You know she met your grandparents and auntie and everybody.”

“Yeah, you know Grandma called and told me about it. Sooo,” she drug out smiling. “Can me and Zay go too?”

“You don’t have to ask, you’re welcome anywhere I am.” He sat back against the sofa, stroking his beard. “Have you spoken to your mama?”

“Nope,” she answered quickly. “And I’m okay with that.”

“If it’s making you happier and causing less problems between you and Zay then I support it. I know dealin with her ain’t easy.”

“It’s not and with all the problems she’s already caused, I don’t need anymore, Daddy. I don’t want anymore.”

That evening after dinner, Hassan stepped out for a little while to visit Tamara leaving Moriah and Zilla alone. The couple made a pallet on the floor in the den, eating their dessert and watching a movie. 

“You got the same ice cream that I got. Stay out my bowl, girl.” 

Moriah reached her spoon back in his bowl. “But yours tastes better.”

“How?”

She shrugged, eating the ice cream she took from him. “Cause it’s yours. I like anything you have.”

He leaned over to kiss her, when he pulled away he noticed her spoon in his bowl. “Fat,” he laughed, “Mane, just take it. Here.”

Giggling, she took his bowl and gave him hers. He looked at her bowl then back up at her and shook his head. “You lucky I love yo ass,”

“Very lucky.” She winked. “Sometimes I think about what life would be like if you didn’t go to prison.” He nodded for her to go on. “And sometimes I think that we would have Angel and be happy still but sometimes … I think about it and I don’t know if we would be this happy.”

“I’m right there witchu. Sometimes I wanna think that we’d be happy, me, you and Angel and maybe another one but then … then I don’t think so. I’m like aight it’s two this would go.”

“Which are what?”

“One way is that I kept at that bad shit and you wouldn’t stick around. I know you woulda got tired of the constant trouble especially knowin we was havin a son. You wouldn’t want him to have me in and out his life with that trouble. It would drive us apart.” He shrugged quickly eating another spoon of ice cream. “The other way is that you would stay even though you know you should leave and you would accept all the shit I did and give up on what you wanted in life because you gotta raise Angel and step up while I was in and out. Angel would see that and think it was okay and wanna be just like me. And even though we’d still be together, you wouldn’t be you anymore. Either option, I lose you, you lose me and we lose each other.”

Serious conversations for Moriah and Zilla didn’t happen as often as other couples but when they did, each of them spoke openly and honestly. Moriah liked that he had grown to a point where he could put his thoughts into words without being flustered or embarrassed. Coming from where they came from as children, both of them had made much progress in sharing their feelings and thoughts.

“I … yeah, you’re right. It sounds kinda fucked up but you getting locked and us losing Angel was probably the best thing for us.” She admitted softly, sitting her bowl aside. 

He thought it over for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, Fat, I think so too. I know I wouldn’t have changed if I was in and out, all that time gave me time to get myself together. I hate that I had to learn that away from everybody I loved but it needed to happen. You also needed me away so you could go to school and all that. You wouldn’t have went off to school if I was out.”

She chuckled a bit. “I would’ve made you come with me. Daddy would’ve gotten me an apartment or something so you could stay.”

He laughed loudly at that. “Ya spoiled ass. But that’s exactly why I ain’t need to be around. If I woulda went witchu your ass wouldnt’a graduated, Fat. I woulda known that from jump but I still woulda went if you asked me too.” He admitted lookin gin her eyes. “When you wanted to run away when we was like 12, I was packed and ready.”

“I remember that. But why would you do all that? Especially knowing it wouldn’t be a good ending.” She asked, tucking her legs under her.

He ate his last bit of ice cream so he could sit the bowl aside and give the rest of the small part of his attention that she didn’t have to her. “Fat, Ion think you understand how much I loved you back then or how much I love you now,” he admitted caressing her cheek. “I’a do anything you asked me to do if it made you happy or made you feel better. Nobody else, just you.”

Biting her lip, she tilted her head eyeing him with love in her eyes. Obviously she knows that Zilla loves her and she knows how much he loves her but hearing it from him warmed her heart. It gave her butterflies every single time.

“Kinda dangerous. No?” She asked teasingly to which he shrugged. “And what would Dr. Barnes say about that?”

“Don’t know but I’a ask em for you next session.” He laughed, leaning to kiss her cheek, “You talked to your mom?”

Moriah stared at him, “Hell no. You know I have clear boundaries and I’m no contact with her.”

“Just askin, Fat. You miss her?”

“I mean yeah, she’s my mom. It feels like I’m grieving for her but she’s still alive.” She huffed. “Are you mad at me for missing her?”

He shook his head. “Nah, Zilla wouldn’t be mad about that. The only thing that would make me mad is if you let her back in our lives without talking to me. I don’t want her back but everybody deserves a chance if they do the work.”

Moriah smiled wide at him, “Ooooh that therapy is working, Isayah! Listen to you. I’m so proud of you.”

He laughed, pushing her hands away from his face. “Chill. Dr. Barnes gon be happy to hear that though.”

“We gotta get him a gift or something,” she suggested excitedly.

Zilla stared at his girlfriend, happy to see her back to herself. Even if it’s for just this moment. No matter what happened, Moriah always had a giving heart. Zilla both loved and hated it because he didn’t want anyone to try to take advantage of her heart. But if it happened, he would take care of it.

“So uh at my last session, Dr. Barne gave me a list of like 4 fertility specialists we can pick from to go see. Or we can see em all. I mean if you want to, it’s all up to you.” He watched her shoulders slump slightly at the mention and a slight frown take over her smile. “Fat, we don’t gotta talk about it. My bad for bringin it up.” 

She shook her head quickly. “No, no, I’m okay. It just caught me off guard. We can do that, Zay.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” she whispered, “I’m just a little scared that they can’t help us and if they can’t help us, I don’t wanna disappoint you and your family.”

It was his turn to frown. “Baby, hell nah. You ain’t gon disappoint me or our family. Don’t think none of that negative shit. Whatever happens we gon keep tryin till you wanna stop. Aight?” He waited for her to nod before he cracked a smile. “Somethin else I gotta tell you that me and Dr. Barnes talked about.”

“You know you can tell me whatever, babe.”

“I know it’s just … ion want you to take the shit the wrong way, aight? It ain’t nothing you did.” At his words, she frowned but told him to go on. “You know how you mentioned before that since we got rid of the condoms that we don’t have sex as much as we used to?”

“Yeah. What about it?”

“I know I told you its cause I’m tired with everything starting to pick up for me but that ain’t it. And it ain’t that ion want to cause I do,” he admitted looking into her eyes, “I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t?”

He huffed, trying to get his words together without upsetting her. “Whenever we’re goin to or I think about it my shit just don’t work. It won’t get up.”

“So you’re turned off by me now?” She asked scooting away from him, slapping his hand away from her when he tried to pull her back. “Don’t touch me, Zay and answer me.”

“I ain’t turned off by you, Fat. I still think you beautiful, pretty, fine as fuck all that but when I think about not needing a condom and what your mama did, I get mad and it ruins everything. It’s not you, it’s what she did, Fat.”

On the verge of tears, Moriah thought back to all the moments where they were going to have sex or she planned on them having sex and he was either tired, always sleeping or came home after she was already sleeping. But then she thought of those moments where they would randomly have sex and that gave her pause.

“So what about in your backseat, on the sofa those few times and all the others?”

“I can explain that, Fat. You was catching me off guard getting mad as shit about stuff and my brian overlooked the other shit,” he spit out quickly. “Ima tell you like I told Dr. Barnes, that shit sound toxic as hell but you bein mad did some shit to me. Ion know. It was enough for my mind to blank that other shit out.”

She scoffed, folding her arms across her chest. “So me being mad turned you on but just me being me doesn’t?”

“Nah, nah, nah. That ain’t what I said. I’m tellin you that them times I wasn’t expectin you to get that mad so I didn’t have time to think about shit else but fuckin you. Them other times I knew what to expect so it gave my mind time to think about way too much. It ain’t you, Fat. I swear it ain’t. If it was you, I wouldn’t get up at all no matter what.”

“So you tellin me if I grabbed your dick right now, it won’t get hard?” She asked, squinting at him.

Feeling the anger radiated off of her, Zilla knew what would happen as soon as she touched him. Knowing that she was upset, what Nadine had done was far from his mind at the moment. If he was being honest with himself, she probably ain’t have to touch him for the shit to happen.

“If you grabbed my dick right now, it would get hard cause you pissed and I can see that shit. My brain short circuited like a muhfucker, Fat, knowing you pissed.” He admitted shamelessly. Seeing her eyes move from his face to his lap, told him she noticed it. “See? I told you, bae. I’m attracted you, the blood just don’t leave my head fast enough when you ain’t pissed.”

Blowing loudly, Moriah moved her stare to the ceiling for a moment then back to him. “Are you serious right now? I’ve been pissed all those other times and I’m pissed right now and all you can think about is fucking me? Seriously?”

He stared at her trying to concentrate. He heard every word she said but he couldn’t formulate a response. Feeling her push his shoulder, he shook his head trying once again to focus.

“Yeah, bae?”

“I’m talking to you! Stop thinkin about whatever you’re thinkin about and focus. Cause there is no way I’m fuckin you right now.” She fussed poking him in his chest. “You got some nerve!”

“Baby, shit,” he complained softly as he pulled her into his lap grinding himself into her, “I promise I hear you but I got just enough blood in this head up here to convince you to change your mind.” Staring at her for a moment, Zilla licked his lips noticing the flare in her nostrils and the fire in her eyes. He kissed her lips a few times then moved to her neck, still grinding against her.

“Zay … Zay,” she mumbled out, trying to push at his shoulders, “I’m still pissed at you and I wanna talk about this. I wanna talk about this right now.”

He bit down on her neck then pulled away to look at her. “And you know how to multi-task, Fat. So ride this dick and tell Zilla all your thoughts. Aight, beautiful?”

She moaned softly. “But I dunno when my daddy is gonna be back. I don’t want him to catch us.”

He kissed her lips again before standing with her in his arms. “Ain’t no problem, Fat. Zilla got you.”

A few hours later, Zilla had the overwhelming urge to pee so he carefully slid Moriah off his chest and onto his pillow then out of the bed. After taking care of his business, he pulled on his briefs and shirts to go downstairs for something to drink. Getting downstairs he found Hassan sitting at the island on his laptop with his back to him, bobbing his head to the music coming out of it.

“Rye was right, you do slide your feet when you walk.” Hassan spoke without turning around, making Zilla laugh a bit.

“Can’t help it,” he shrugged, grabbing a water from the fridge. “What you doin up this late?”

Hassan looked at the time on his screen. “It’s only 1am. I’m usually up this late when I’m workin on something. Surprised she let you get up, sleeping next to her is like sleeping with velcro.”

He took a long swig then laughed. “I learned how to maneuver her so now she don’t notice when I get up.”

“Smart man,” Hassan smiled and offered Zilla a seat next to him. “You and her didn’t fight anymore after I left, did you?”

“Nah, no fightin. We just talked. Why you ask?”

“I kept getting notifications about movement from my camera in the den. Since it wasn't a fight,” He slid his phone over, “Go to the blink app and delete whatever videos. I don’t wanna know. My phone password is Rye birthday.”

Zilla laughed doing what he was asked. “It wasn’t nothin bad, not all of it. We really was just talkin, you prolly don’t wanna hear the last part though.”

Hassan glanced at him with a smile on his face. “Didn’t I say I don’t wanna know? Just delete, son.”

“My bad, my bad.” He laughed as he deleted videos. “This is goin way better with you than it did that night Nadine was in the kitchen when I went downstairs.”

“Oh yeah? What happened?” He asked going back to his work on his computer.

Zilla finished deleting the last few videos before answering. “She was cryin, said she had just had a argument with you. She asked if me and Fat argued and if I put my hands on her, tryna like say that you did that to her. I know she was lyin.”

“She was but go on.”

“And then she offered to pay me to break up with Fat. Told me to name my price.”

“I wanna say that I’m surprised but I ain’t. I can assure you that this is not gonna go anything like that.”

“Shit, I know,” he admitted bringing his bottle back to his lips, “I was talkin to Auntie Kami the other day and asked her about Nadine, ya know about her being quiet and shit. She said you had takin the heat off us and to ask you what that meant.”

Hassan asked him to give him a few minutes to finish what he was working on. The younger man sat quietly watching the older man finish whatever design on his computer while he waited. When it was done Hassan saved his project then turned his attention to his guest.

“A little bit after the whole fall out I sent Gabi to see Nadine to check her temperature a little. And let me tell you, son, that shit was high as hell on yall so she did what I asked her to do.” He explained. “She informed Nadine about my relationship with Tam so the temp she had with you two turned to me and Tam. Nadine was hot, you hear me?”

“Damn. That’s all it took?”

“Nah, there was more. She called me like I knew she would to confirm what Gabi said and I did, that set her off even more. And after that it ended up working out that Tamara wanted to meet Didi.” He paused to make sure Zilla was following him. “We went to meet her. She wasn’t happy but it ended with her thinking she has the upper hand and that’s what I want her to think. As long as she’s focused on me and what I’m doing, you and Rye don’t have anything to worry about.”

Zilla whistled lowly. “Damn. That … you sure you gon be able to handle the shit she do?”

Hassan waved him off. “I’ve known Didi for well over 20 years, I know all of her moves before she make them. She think in charge of all of this but I’m just stringing her along.”

“I appreciate you doin that for us. I’m also sorry that you have to deal with her. I know that ain’t easy.”

“Difference between me and Rye is I ain’t Didi kid. I don’t feel obligated to do anything for her or listen to her.” He shrugged. “I talk to her enough to keep her attention over here and that’s it.”

The men moved their talk to the living room. They went back and forth trading work stories for another half an hour. 

“When you found out Fat was pregnant were you mad?”

“A little but me and Lee already saw it coming. We noticed the time you and Rye spent together and how it went from being friends to something else.” Hassan replied. “You think we didn’t know about the locked doors and what you two were doing on the sofa?”

Zilla rubbed down his face, laughing. “In our defense, we wasn’t doin nothin most of that time. My mama said the same thing though.I’m sorry about all that though.”

“Sorry about what?”

“Getting Fat pregnant that young. We shouldn’t have been doin none’a that.”

Hassan shrugged. “You don’t need to apologize about that, Zilla. Yall were young but you were still human. Like I said, we knew it was coming and mistakes happen.”

“It’s so crazy to me how you so cool about shit and so easy to talk to yet Nadine in … that.”

He shrugged. “She wasn’t always the way she is now. Or I suppose it was always in her but she made an effort to put her best foot forward all those years.Back to happier things, what’s next for you and Rye?”

“I been lookin for a realtor. Wanna find some houses to look at. Nothin big but like a townhouse, we outgrew that apartment already, mane.”

“Tam is a realtor, if she can’t help you then I’m sure she can find you someone who can.”

“Yeah definitely, I suck at tryna find one. Fat think you gon get married again.” He shared softly. “She mention it a lot.”

“My sister thinks so too. It’s still a little early to go ring shopping but I know I’d like to have her around for a long while.”

“I hear that. I get it.”

“But not too early for you to go ring shopping,” Hassan smiled.

Zilla laughed. “Every time we talk you bring that up. You dyin for us to get married?”

“Just wondering why you putin off the inevitable is all. Everybody know it’s comin. You scared?”

“I mean nah … I wouldn’t call it scared.”

“Nervous then?”

Zilla nodded, rubbing his hand over the top of his head. “Yeah that sound about right.”

“Nervous that gettin married is gonna change things or nervous that you’re gonna mess it up?”

“Both but more of the second one.” He admitted.

“Marriage is gonna change things but for the better, no need to be nervous about that. It is a big commitment but the two of you can handle it. Look at how well you’re doin now?” Hassan gave him an encouraging pat on the back. “And you not gon mess it up. Neither of you is perfect but as long as you try and your honest, you have nothing to worry about. You’re a good guy, don’t let anybody tell you any different. You hear me?” Zilla nodded letting the words digest. “Good. Go on and get you some sleep. We can talk more tomorrow.”

“Aight, Po…Hassan. Good night.”

Hassan ignored the slip, letting him continue on. He knew they would talk about it soon enough. Hassan got up to shut everything down before following Zilla upstairs to turn in for the night as well. 

Finally time for the meet up, Hassan drove them to Tamara’s house. He noticed the two extra cars in her driveway, taking note that her kids were already there. He shot her a quick text after parking. 

“No need to be anything other than yourselves, kids. She knows all about you two and I’m sure she’s told her kids about you. They’re around your ages so yall should get along.” He told them making sure he had all of his things before he got out. “But … no fighting. Keep your hands to yourself if they’re not nice touches and no arguing. Got it, kiddos?”

“That’s him always starting with me, Daddy. Tell him.” Moriah pouted in the backseat.

Zilla sucked his teeth. “Sound like you the one startin. All you had to do was say aight like I was bout to.”

Hassan held his hand up silencing them. “Cut it or I will personally fly Lee out here to get yall together. We clear?”

“Crystal,” the couple mumbled.

Moriah and Zilla followed Hassan to the porch, quietly pushing each other and arguing thinking he couldn’t hear them but he just ignored them laughing to himself. While he waited for Tamara to answer the door, he turned around to give the two of them one last look. When she opened the door, she had a big smile on her face and pulled Hassan into a tight hug, kissing his cheek until they heard kissing sounds coming from behind Hassan. They pulled away laughing.

“You remember my daughter, Moriah and this is my son in law, Isayah but we all call him Zilla. Zilla, this is my lady, Tamara.”

Moriah pushed Zilla out of the way to hug her. “Me first. Hey, Tamara. You look pretty and this house is nice.”

Tamara laughed and thanked her. “You look pretty too. Nice to meet you, Zilla. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Zilla thumped Moriah’s ear to get her out of the way and hugged Tamara. “Nice to meet you too, ma’am. Ignore fat head over there.”

Hassan stopped Moriah before she could hit him and made them follow Tamara inside the house. She led them to her den where her kids were doing some bickering of their own. Discreetly she tried to stop them until she realized they weren’t listening so she popped both of them making them hiss.

“Ow, aye, what you hit me for? She started it, Ma.”

Tamara stared at her son. “Don’t care, I finished it. Our guests are here.”

“So act right, ugly.” 

Tamara snapped her fingers stopping them once more. “Hassan, these are my kids Brayden and Sade. Sade and Brayden, this is my boyfriend, Hassan. And that’s his daughter, Moriah and his son in law, Zilla.”

The kids waved at each other.

Hassan smiled. “Nice to meet you two. Your mom talks about you all the time.”

“This ya man, Mama? I like em cause yo been nicer since you been datin him. What’s up, man?” Brayden shrugged his mom’s glare off. Ain’t she been nicer, Sade?”

Sade had zoned out for a moment staring at Moriah and Moriah stared back. “What? Oh yeah, she has.”

“Anyway, San, come help me get the snacks form the kitchen and leave these four to talk junk about us.” Tamara suggested.

He nodded. “Lead the way. Yall have a seat and get comfortable.”

After sitting down, Zilla noticed Moriah and Sade kept staring at each other and he made eye contact with Brayden who also noticed. Both tried unsuccessfully to get their attention, left feeling confused. 

“You look real familiar,” Moriah admitted. 

Sade nodded. “Yeah, you do too. I swear I know you from somewhere. Uuuh you went to school in Dekalb county?”

Moriah shook her head. “Nope. You ever lived in Houston?”

“Nah, never lived there.”

“You were on a dance team when you were younger? One that traveled.”

“Nope. Never had the time.”

Not being able to figure out where they knew each other from was frustrating each o fhte young women and confusing the men. 

Brayden cut in after thinking for a second. “You was in Houston for a minute until they caught ya lil ass. You probably don’t remember cause Mama whooped ya ass when you got back here.”

Sade jumped at him. “Shut up. I do remember that but I don’t think that’s it.”

“You look like this girl I met, Dreka, I met when I went to juvie in Houston.”

Zilla sucked his teeth. “You sayin that like you did hard time in there. You was in there one day and Hassan picked you up the next morning.” 

“Either way I went. Shut up.”

“Wait .. wait,” Sade called out snapping her fingers, “You are who I thought you were, girl! I used to go by middle name back then, it’s Shaundreka. You was the girl I had helped that night!”

“Yes, that was you that helped me! Oh my God! I was waiting on you to call me when you got out,” Moriah laughed. “Zay made fun of me cause I was sad.”

“Oh she ain’t call cause my mama ain’t let her ass do shit when she got back to Georgia. She was lucky my mama let her take her ass to school.” Brayden laughed. “Thought she was bad till my mama put that belt to her ass.”

Sade scrunched her face at him and rolled her eyes. “Oh shut up before I tell her that it was you that smashed her window and not that neighbor boy.”

“Awwe ya lil juvie friend back, Fat. That’s cute.” Zilla taunted laughing.

“Forget them. Let’s go in the other room and talk away from them. They just jealous.” Sade suggested getting up from the sofa. “And don’t try to follow us either, uglies.”

Brayden laughed out loud. “What yall gon be some runaways again? This time don’t tell nobody where you goin so Mama don’t catch you again!”

“Is that the one you got put in juvie for?” Sade asked as they were leaving the room.

“Mmhm, that’s him. Mistakes were made,”’ she said loud enough for him to hear.

“Love you too, Fat!” He yelled out still laughing.

In the kitchen, Hassan and Tamara were laughing softly with one another happy that all four were getting along. They weren’t exactly worried about it but they knew there was a slim chance that they could bump heads.

[etfrin]

Awkward Smiles and a Kiss | Nanami Kento

Warning - none! | masterlist

Nanami Kento x female! Reader

Summary - i need a date with Nanami Kento :'(

You weren't used to this.

A gentleman that Nanami Kento was.

You were used to boys not men. And Kento was a man. From the flowers he gifted you in front of the restaurant, to pulling your chair for you, and letting you order whatever you want without making you feel guilty about it.

You came to this blind date thinking it would just end in a hook up but the man hadn't had any such intentions. He was kind, sweet and patient. His tone is respectful and his voice deep. His eyes focused on you, and the conversations flowed smoothly.

You didn't have similar interests as him. While he liked non fiction, you liked your fictions. He liked the classics, you liked your pop culture way more. He was proper and you were chaotic. While his smile was confident and reassuring, yours was hesitant and awkward.

You were like a fish out of water. Convinced that you won't be getting a second date because there's no way you can be what this man is looking for. By the end of the date, he even offered to take you back home. An offer you gladly accepted.

The car ride was filled with the music from the radio. A classic he seemed to like but made you feel like it made your ears bleed.

His free hand went to press the buttons of the radio, changing the channels until a familiar pop song came on. Summer of love by Shawn Mendes.

— it was the summer of love

A delicate daydream

And for a couple of months

It felt like we were eighteen —

The music helps you relax into the seat. You face him. "You didn't have to change," you said. "I wanted to," he replied, his voice soft, mixing in with the chorus of the song. You chuckled, "But you don't even like this." He shrugs, "It doesn't matter much, you seem to like it and I am sure by the next date we can listen to a few classics then… only if you want to."

"Second date?" You asked, a bit surprised. Your heart skipped a beat. "I apologize for assuming but I would love a second date with you," he said, his gaze turning to you instead of the street for a mini second. "I would like that too," you said, your tone softer than before.

You don't see it but Kento smiles a bit from the confirmation.

You were standing in front of your door right now, holding the rose bouquet that he gave you. A part of you wanted to kiss him, another part wondered that you shouldn't. He wasn't like anyone you dated before. What if he took it the wrong way?

Before he entered the car though, you decided to stop him. "Kento," you said, getting near his space. "Yes?" he questioned, looking a bit confused.

"Is there something wrong-"

You pressed your lips on his cheek, before he could finish the sentence. He was so tall that you were glad that you wore heels. You pull back, smiling when you notice a light blush on his skin.

"Just wanted to give a proper thanks for the flowers," you said, walking back to your door and waving him goodbye.

You let out a sigh after you enter the house.

You'll make sure to take it slow with this man.

You'll make sure that this works out because you were already in love with Nanami Kento.

[alocon]

A Soulmate Who Wasn't Meant To Be [7] - Max Verstappen

written by alocon

Note: Name and Part One based on the song A Soulmate Who Wasn't Meant To Be by Jess Benko

Summary: Christian Horner hate club comes into full swing as everyone begins to turn their backs on the team principal and some Max fluff.

Before you read: Use of Y/N (sorry!!)

fc: Blanca Soler

[Previous Part Here][The Masterlist]

A Soulmate Who Wasn't Meant To Be [Part Seven] - MV¹

youruser

🎵 Shawn Mendes - Treat You Better

liked by maxverstappen1 and others

youruser: Geri Halliwell appreciation post because I know how to treat my women ❤❤

tagged: gerihalliwell

----

maxverstappen1: Iconic.

youruser: The post or Geri? maxverstappen1: Geri, the post and the poster 💜 youruser: 🧡

gerihalliwell: This is so sweet, thank you ❤

youruser: Love you!! ❤ gerihalliwell: Love you too, see you next weekend honey ❤ user1: next weekend???? Geri reputation era??? user2: AJWDFDPOGJSK CHECK MERC'S STORY

youruser and mercedesamgf1 posted to their story!

The clock showed 2 am as you slowly got out of bed, and made your way to the kitchen.

You opened the fridge and squinted your eyes as the bright light hit you. You reached out for the bottle of water you've been craving when you heard a voice behind you. You jumped in place and turned around to see your temporary roommate lean against the kitchen island. Max had been staying with you due to an issue with his apartment, meaning he would've had to stay either with friends or in a hotel. Luckily, you had opened your door to him with no hesitation.

“Can’t sleep?”

"Hello. No, I can't. I figured you're the same?" You grabbed the water, sitting on the kitchen counter opposite him. 

He nodded his head as he continued to lean against the counter. He had a relaxed look on his face, and was seemingly in no rush to return to bed. "What's keeping you up?”

"I'm not sure, I just can't sleep very well," you said softly, still trying to get used to the light. He chuckled, leaning over and turning the light down slightly.

He remained quiet for a moment as he studied your expression.

"It's always the same with me. Something gets stuck in my head, and I can't turn it off." You nodded in agreement as he continued, "My mind is always occupied and won't shut up long enough for me to sleep.”

"What's stuck in your head this time?” You asked, curiously. 

He shrugged.

"Just work, life, the usual stuff. But I can't focus on one thing and it's causing me to overthink everything. It's draining.”

"Is there anything that could take your mind off things?”

He rubbed his eyes as he considered your question. "Do you have any suggestions?”

You shrugged, thinking for a moment. "We could... watch some films together, we could.. I don't know, see if sleeping in the same bed or something helps.”

"Hmm..." The idea of watching a movie sounded nice, but the mention of you sleeping in his bed caught him off guard. "You mean you and I?”

"I mean, yeah. You and I.”

He paused as he considered what you've just suggested. "Are you sure you'd be comfortable sleeping in the same bed?” He asked, his voice quiet, soft, almost slightly nervous.

You smiled, nodding slowly. "Yeah, I'd be comfortable with that.”

He smiled at your response, finding it rather endearing that you're so willing to share the same bed. "Would you be comfortable with me resting against you?”

"Of course. What's the point in sleeping in the same bed if you don't cuddle?" You grinned, looking into his eyes.

The idea of cuddling with you in bed made his heart pound in his chest. He leaned in a little closer, his voice lowered to just above a whisper as he spoke quietly, "If I pull you closer, would you protest?”

You sucked in a sharp breath, not expecting the closeness, or the whispering, or the words. Your voice came out in a shuddery breath. "No.”

"Good..."

He smiled before he pulled you towards him, his arms wrapping around your body. Once he felt you pressed up against him, he let out a deep sigh, a contented expression taking over his face.

A brief moment of silence passed before he spoke again in an even quieter voice, "This feels really nice, you know that?”

"Yeah, I agree. Should we go up to my bedroom?”

The thought of taking you upstairs and into your bedroom to cuddle excited him more than he cared to admit. He missed it… a lot. But he also doesn't want to move too fast and potentially ruin this moment. "We could. Would you like to?”

"Yeah. Like I said, if it helps to let us sleep, I'm more than happy." You whispered back softly.

"Okay. Let's go. But..."

He hesitated for a moment, unsure of himself as he looked into your eyes. "Do you want to spend the rest of the night in your bed? Or would you prefer me to just come up and cuddle for a bit?”

"We could... we could do the rest of the night." You said after a moment, a soft, almost nervous feeling in your stomach.

He smiled at your answer, finding your shyness rather endearing. In a swift motion, he took your hand and started towards the stairs, leading you to your own bedroom.

He looked around your room. 3 of the walls were white, 1 was Palace green. The large bed had a black, wooden bed frame, 2 pillows on each side (one white, one evergreen coloured), the bedsheets were white but the covers were sage green.  green. The curtains were green. There was an oak wood cupboard and a set of white drawers. There were some wooden, hexagon shaped shelves on the walls, kind of honeycomb shaped, all adorned with fake plants. There were some posters on the wall, all green, white and black, as well as some records. There was a desk with a draw that had my makeup projects. There was a small rug in the corner with a little art area set up, with paints (not open) an easel etc. There were a couple of beanbags in another corner with a few teddies and a guitar. There were a few photos around as well. He loved it.

Once he closes the door behind the two of you, he leant back against it with a deep breath. "I'm glad you agreed for me to spend the night. I was hoping you would.”

You sat on the bed, sliding slowly under the cover before signalling for him to join you. 

Max followed your lead, sliding into the bed next to you.

He pulled you against his body once he was under the covers, his hands wrapping around you in a tight embrace.

You could feel his breathing slow down as he relaxes, a wave of warmth radiating from his body that is comforting and soothing to you.

"You comfortable?" You asked softly, hand instantly travelling to his hair, gently playing with it.

"Mhmm..." He squeezed you a little tighter, finding the sensation of your touch calming and relaxing. 

You could feel his heart pound in his chest as one of his arms moved up to rest on your shoulder. "But I think I would be even more comfortable if I could hold you a little tighter than this.” He mumbled into your shoulder.

"Feel free. Whatever helps," you whispered, continuing to play with his hair.

Without a word, he pulled you up slightly so that you're pressed against his chest.

His arms wrapped around your body once more, but this time he pulled you as close as he could and you felt his heartbeat against your back as his chest pressed against yours.

You gently placed a kiss on his forehead as your hand gently stroked through his hair. You kept your touches soft, enough to keep him calm and to hopefully drift you both off to sleep.

His chest rose and fell slowly as he exhaled deeply, his body feeling relaxed as he let you soothe him with your touch.

He closed his eyes as he felt your lips gently kiss his forehead, and he let out a soft exhale of satisfaction. Your touch was soothing and gentle, and the thought of falling asleep with you in his arms is all he could desire right now.

It didn't take long for your eyes to feel heavy, letting all anxiety leave your mind as you drifted off into a soft, gentle sleep.

The comfort of his presence and your touch calmed his mind and the tiredness of his body took over gradually until he drifted off into a deep sleep himself. 

As he slept, he wrapped his arms around you, keeping you pressed tightly against him.

As the hours passed, the only sounds that filled the room were the rhythm of each other's heartbeats, the gentle rise and fall of each other's bodies, and the slow and steady breath of your shared sleep.

The morning approached fast, your eyes slowly opened and you were greeted by the presence of his body next to yours, wrapped around you in a tight embrace. It took a little while to work out what was going on, until you saw him on my chest. You smiled as you remembered what happened in last night's late hours and felt a smile form on your face as you felt the warmth of his body against yours.

He stirred slightly as his chest rose and fell, and his arms shifted slightly but otherwise remained in their location as he slept on.

The next morning, you woke up, letting you remain in my arms until you did too. 

“Good morning,” he said softly, leaning his head onto my shoulder. 

“Morning Max. Did you sleep okay?” You asked politely, causing him to happily nod. 

“Like a dream, thank you.” He said softly.

You looked at your phone, before sighing. "Shit." You said, sitting up.

"What's up?"

"They've opened an investigation on me for creating a hostile work environment in the paddock??"

-word count: about 1.6k? Maybe?-

Hi all! Sorry I didn't post this sooner, I was really sick last week so was super unable to post. However, I will now be doing a schedule and posting every Monday (or trying to post once a week at least) and hoping to post part of my Max story every other Monday! Unedited pls correct spelling errors Have a good day Alocon

Taglist: @c-losur3 @itsjustkhaos @reidsworld @d3kstar @casperlikej

[rainchyna]

𓆩♡𓆪 episode thirteen: Despite Everything.

it's me! despite everything, it's still me. we are so back.

1:34 am — hotel room. wednesday, sep. 4th, 1996.

You were still awake, despite being exhausted beyond belief, you still couldn’t fall asleep. The stress of not knowing where your career was heading was getting the best of you. You were just laying there, not moving as you watched life outside the bedroom window. Apart from a car driving by every once in a while, nothing was happening.

You were resting your head on Hunter's shoulder, his muscular arms around your waist loosely as he faced you in his sleep. He looked so peaceful, handsome, a tiny snore occasionally escaping his lips. Careful as not to wake him up, you untangle yourself from him, quietly tucking him in, and slowly, you make your way to the bathroom. You close the door behind you and sigh, then you sit on top of the toilet’s lid. Your mind began racing yet again, everything was going so well, and here comes Shawn Michaels. You wondered how many people have had that same thought as you.

That heel turn was really getting to your head, you were y/n y/l/n, the women’s champion. The most credible one Vince has had in years, but now, you were y/n y/l/n, Shawn Michaels’ ‘girlfriend’, then the women’s champion. How long will it be until your championship loses its value again? What if you can’t keep the promise you made to Alundra?

You look up, your reflection in the mirror looking back into your eyes.

It’s you.

A knock at the door startles you, you exhale, you must’ve been in here for a while. You get up and open the door, Hunter standing there shirtless, one hand rubbing his eye and the other running through his messy blond locks. “Where’d you go?” he asks quietly, voice heavy with sleep. You sigh, “I couldn’t sleep.” you admit. He gently caresses your cheek with his knuckles, his other hand coming to hold your hip through his t-shirt that you wore to bed. “What’s wrong, angel?” he coos, pressing a kiss against your head, as he pulls you against his broad chest.

“Stressed.” you say, voice breaking a little. Hunter frowns at the sound of exhaustion in your voice, he hated how defeated you sounded. He lifted you up, his big hands on your thighs, holding them around his hips. He turned off the bathroom light, not caring to close the door. He brought you back to bed, holding you tightly against him as he sits on the edge, “do you wanna talk about it, my love?” he asked, his hand gently massaging your neck.

You cuddle into him some more, burying your face into the crook of his neck. “Can we talk about it in the morning?” you quietly mumble into his skin, Hunter holds you tighter, “of course, baby. Anything you need. Tell me what you need from me now.” he says, voice still deep.

“Love me.” you mutter, and he immediately does as he’s told. Hunter laid you down on the bed, climbing over you and pressing soft kisses on your neck, then down between your thighs.

6:00 am— airport, germany to italy. Estimated time of arrival, 7:35.

The flight from germany to italy wasn’t a long one, under two hours. Everyone was at the airport, waiting for the flight to be called. Some were at a cafe getting breakfast, some were asleep in their seats as it was still early, some chatting and minding their own business. You were sat on a three seat bench by a big glass wall that showed planes on the outside, taking flight, landing, rerouting as the clouds rolled by. Hunter was laying his head on your lap, he was asleep and covered with your leather jacket. You ran fingers through his soft waves, gazing outside the window. On the opposite bench sat Shawn, Chyna asleep with her head on his shoulder, and Lita asleep on her shoulder.

Shawn’s eyes were burning holes into your body, but you completely ignored him, something you hadn’t done in a long time. You didn’t even give him the slightly annoyed ‘good morning’ today, oh, he knew you were pissed at him for the heel turn he forced on you. But he was also slightly mad, a little irritated when he had no right to be. You were wearing light wash, low waisted jeans which fit you like a glove, but also showed off your toned abs, and a black fitted cropped shirt.

 How fucking dare you look this good at six in the morning? What annoyed him even further was the fact that he could see hickeys on your neck, your poor attempt (if you could call it that) at hiding them with keeping your hair down being nothing but that. A poor attempt.

He looked down at his sleeping friend, yeah, well, he clearly was up all night. Shawn looked back up at you, wondering, is there a way, or even a world in which you’d get over the little stunt he and Vince pulled on you? Would you forgive and forget? Not forgive, nor forget? Forgive, and not forget? Not forgive, and forget-

His train of thought was cut by Chyna shifting a little, he gently patted her head. His eyes drifted back to you.

Hunter had sat up, stretching as he yawned. Hunter placed his arm around your shoulder, pulling you closer to him and kissing your temple. “Do you want a coffee, baby? I can go grab us sandwiches, too.” you say, your fingers intertwined with his. “You’re such a godsend.” Hunter says, kissing your temple again. 

‘How clingy.’ Shawn thought, rolling his eyes a little then looking out the window. As if that wouldn’t be him, or even worse. 

You and Hunter got up, heading to a random cafe at your gate. Your hand was in his as you two sat in a booth after putting your order, Hunter sat next you and you leaned against him. You pulled out a small journal and a pen from your speedy bag, the journal you wrote all your wrestling related thoughts and ideas in. After talking to Hunter about everything that was flooding your mind earlier, you had felt significantly better. You actually felt a little silly for letting it overwhelm you as much as it did, and as you began writing down, Hunter teased you a bit. “Someone’s inspired” he chuckled, jokingly pinching your cheek. You smiled, writing down all the ways you could reinvent your character while doing that stupid angle with Shawn. Even if it was stupid, you were going to make it unforgettable, like you.

“Thanks to my lovely boyfriend.” you smile.

The waiter brought your order, two coffees and two breakfast sandwiches, you look at the dark brown drink in the white mug.

Your reflection on the surface looked back into your eyes, you smiled.

It’s still you.

9:37 pm — monday, sep. 9th, RAW.

You were sitting in the dressing room chair, obnoxious gear on. Tonight, you and Shawn wore white and gold, chains and jewellery adorned your skirt and halter neck top, along with your white cowboy hat. You had been slowly regaining your confidence throughout the day, thanks to your incredible friends, and more advice from the Undertaker. You were beginning to feel like the true star you were, unwanted heel turn be damned, you were going to do what you knew best. Be the best champion, like you always have been.

As you finished applying your makeup, you placed your championship belt in your lap, grabbing some tissues and cleaning it. As you wiped the leather and metal plates, someone walked into the dressing room. Shawn, of course. He didn’t really matter to you, you two had an interview with Vince coming up and some commentary duties, he was probably here to get ready, too.

Shawn, like always, shamelessly ogled you, staring at your legs, and the cleavage your top left out. His mouth went dry as he peeled his eyes away from you, always a sight for the sorest of eyes. 

He grabbed a hairbrush and sat in the chair next to yours, “are you ready?” he asked. You didn't even spare him a glance, continuing to clean up your belt. “Mhm.” you hum with a nod, Shawn looked at you for a second, damn, you didn’t even acknowledge his presence.

He applied some gel on his hair, absentmindedly brushing it as he looked at you through the mirror. You both sat there, in silence, and the tension was so painfully present between you. Shawn finished brushing his hair, then put on sunglasses, he looked at you again, trying to think of what he can say.

“Look-..” he began, only for you to immediately cut him off, “Don’t.” you say. 

He quietly slumped into his seat, “I’m not going to let you ruin my mood.” you add, finally looking at him. He quickly looked away, hiding behind his shaded frames. “Do you want us to work together?” you asked. He looked back at you, almost eagerly answering, “I do, I really do.”

“Then, don't ever do anything behind my back ever again. If you want to do something, you come to me.” you say, tone strict. He nods immediately, “Yes, okay.”

You exhale, you were going to make the best out of this heel run.

You look up at yourself in the mirror, confidence beaming through your eyes.

Despite Everything, It’ll always be you.

[salemshotspot]

HOW DOLLS SHOULD BE TREATED

Shawn Michaels x Reader

Kind Of A Song Fic If You Squint?

WORD COUNT: 2.6k

DESC: Shawn helps the reader out when she can’t record to moans for his song as well as he knows she can

Female Reader [She/Her]

WARNINGS: SMUT 18+ MDNI//Slight Choking//Implied Possessive Behaviour//Age Gap//Not Proof Read

RED >> Song lyrics

A/N >> NOT GREAT BUT I HOPE YOU ENJOY

TAGS: @dilfs-4life

Enjoy!

——————————————————————————

Y/n couldn’t believe her luck, she had grown up both watching and loving wrestling. Y/n was a semi-successful vocalist who was mostly well known for her work with the wwe; remastering a great deal of wrestler's theme songs with a contemporary twist

Y/n was having an uneventful day, it was her first day off work in a while, although it was uneventful she appreciated being able to rest after a busy few weeks. However this rest did not last long, y/n’s phone mockingly lit up with an email notification causing y/n to sigh as she realised it was from no other than the head of the creative team at the wwe; y/n's boss.

‘Hey y/n,

I’m writing to inform you we are remastering a song for a wrestler’s return [who cannot be revealed as of yet as his return has not been released to the public] and he has requested you by name to work on the song. Your vocals will only be backing vocals compared to your usual main track vocals so please come to my office before the end of the day in order to discuss if you’d want the role and what it would entail both job and pay wise.

-the wwe creative team.’

Y/n stares at her phone in disbelief, not only was a big time wrestler returning, causing her to become excited as a long time fan of the sport, but they paid enough attention to her work that they wanted her out of everyone to work on their song? Although she was determined to enjoy her day off, y/n practically jumped out of her seat and began getting ready to go into work, even if she didn’t want the job there was no harm in turning up and hearing them out right? Worst case scenario she doesn’t take the job but finds out which wrestler is returning to the sport.

Once y/n makes her way into work her boss spotted her and pulled her into their office and invited her to sit down and began explaining what they had already said in the email but they began sensing the idea of disinterest towards the job from y/n which is confirmed when she began speaking.

‘I’ll be straight with you boss' she begins ‘in not sure this job is right for me, I’ve only just gotten time off and I want to take advantage of tha-‘ but her boss cuts her off with a devilish smile.

'Before you say no to the job’ they say picking up the phone and telling somebody on the line to ‘send him in’ ‘at least hear the man out who so desperately wanted you for the job.’

Y/n’s mind began to race theorising who could be coming in, could it be a beloved wrestler from the attitude era like Steve Austin, wanting to have a final run, wanting to add vocals to his song to appeal to fans or could it be a more modern wrestler who had been out due to injury for a while like CM Punk, finally ready for his return?

It was while she was theorising as to which wrestler it could possibly be that none other than Shawn Michaels, The Heartbreak Kid, entered the room and sat down in the chair opposite y/n. Once y/n locked eyes with Shawn her eyes widened as she was flooded with emotions; starstruck didn’t even begin to cover it.

Shawn cleared his throat, pulling y/n out of her trance; ‘it’s great to finally meet you y/n’ he says smiling warmly, ‘I was really looking forward working with you, I was thinking we could go into the recording room and have a practice run.’ Y/n began to protest as a wave of unexpected anxiety washed over her being face to face with a wrestler she grew up watching, she grew up fantasising about- ‘y/n?’ Shawn questioned, causing y/n to blush softly.

Y/n took a deep breath to compose herself and smiled at the man across from her, ‘ok, sure, we can have a test run but I’m not promising anything’ she says in an anxious yet teasing manner as both herself and Shawn made their way to the recording room after promising the creative director they will both be back in the office within the hour with y/n's answer about whether or not she is going to take the job.

Shawn closed the soundproof door of the recording room gently behind the two of them and motioned for the younger woman to sit down in one of the many chairs in the room. As y/n took her seat Shawn began pacing a small area of the room as he spoke; not before apologising to y/n for his pacing, claiming 'moving around helps me get my words out properly' he pauses for a second, 'I'm not too good with articulation you see' he says with a chuckle to mask his insecurity. Y/n assured him that he didn't need to apologise, causing a sense of relief to wash over Shawn as he continued speaking.

As he continued speaking y/n's mind began to wander as Shawn spoke; her heart began to race as the realisation set in, as she realised exactly what parts of the song she would be running through for Shawn to judge if she's the 'right fit' for the job. As Shawn noticed the woman growing increasingly more nervous he placed his large, rugged hand on the woman's lap, gently grazing his thumb over her leg, bringing y/n's focus back to the conversation before he continued vocalising his idea.

'The lovely creative director back in there has informed me that you're familiar with my song, so I was thinking we run through it as it is then if the stars align for me and you want to work on the rewrite we can go from there' he says almost excitedly.

'Sounds good' y/n replied sheepishly with as she went onto one of the computers in the recording room to prepare a backing track as the computers had all of the wrestling backing tracks saved onto them for the creative team when necessary. While she was preparing the track Shawn also requested that y/n also recorded the process of them practicing the vocals so they could listen back to it and see if either of the two have any improvements or changes in min; Y/n hums in agreement and pulls up a recording software.

Once each piece of software was in place and the recording had begun Shawn gave y/n a nod to begin, the young woman took a deep breath and closed her eyes thinking if she couldn't see Shawn she'd be less embarrassed and in turn be able to perform better.

'Oh.. Oh.. Shawn' Y/n attempted to moan out like the original version of the man's song but she was barely able to mutter the words, let alone confidently moan them how she needed to. 'Great' y/n thought to herself, not only was she completely ruining her chance at the job but more so she was embarrassing herself in front of Shawn Michaels of all people, she was expecting to open her eyes to find Shawn laughing at her pathetic attempt to mimic his iconic song. However to y/n's surprise when she opened her eyes she was greeted by the older man's eyes filled with patience, there wasn't an ounce of mockery in the man's eyes.

'I'm sorry' y/n began, but before she could continue Shawn cut her off, almost parroting back the words she said to him before 'you don't need to apologise sweetheart' he reassured her in a low register 'why don't you give it another go, imagine you're going at it with your dream man' he teased making y/n flustered. Y/n jokingly nodded and agreed to try again with Shawn's 'expert advice' in mind.

Y/n closed her eyes once again and despite her best efforts to not imagine Shawn, trying her hardest to fantasise about anything other than the older man making her a quivering shaking mess using nothing but his fingers- y/n gulped at the idea, feeling herself grow increasingly wet merely at the thought.

Biting her lip, y/n completely missed her cue, only realising once Shawn asked her through a smirk 'is there something on your mind doll?' causing y/n to to immediately begin apologising and attempting to explain away her making a complete fool of herself before Shawn stood up and stepped closer to the seated woman, towering over her.

'I think my suggestion worked a little too well sweetheart' he jokes 'who are you thinking of in that mind of yours? A little boyfriend?' He questions, emphasising the 'boy', seemingly mocking the age of anybody y/n could possibly be dating.

'I don't have 'a little boyfriend' actually' y/n replies, causing one of Shawn's eyebrow to raise in a curious manner at the woman; without missing a beat, Shawn questions back in a curious tone 'who was making your mind wander so much you missed your cue then?' Seeing the woman's doe-like eyes widen as if starving for light as she assures Shawn it was 'no one in particular' was all the conformation Shawn needed, he's been around enough women to know when one was enamoured with him.

Craning his neck downwards so his face was inches from the woman's, Shawn asks in a seductive whisper 'do you trust me doll?' To which y/n responded with a simple nod. With that, Shawn moved over to the woman's ear and instructed her to press record on the computer as he nipped as the skin on her neck teasingly, causing y/n to let out a desperate whine.

Shawn swiftly moved from the woman's neck, not wanting to leave any visible marks on the woman, Shawn liked to see himself as a gentleman and didn't want people seeing the young woman leaving the room covered in markings, people can be cruel and Shawn has the rest of his life to mark the woman's pretty little neck, this what he was doing now was simply business.

Shawn made sure he let his hands graze down y/n's body as he gracefully falls to his knees, once on his knees he effortless pulled the woman's loose fitting jeans down to her ankles exposing her panties, already soaked from the way Shawn had been lightly touching her. Shawn's eyes grew lustful with hunger at the sight. With an uncharacteristically demanding tone Shawn began speaking to the woman; 'be a good doll and make sure you’re practicing your vocals’ he demanded as he softly pulled the woman’s cotton panties aside, the softness of the fabric had nothing on the softness of y/n’s skin as Shawn firmly gripped onto the woman’s thighs, spreading them to the side to gain better access to the heat between the woman’s legs.

With a cockiness to him Shawn dramatically allowed his tongue to fall out of his mouth, practically gasping for y/n like a dehydrated dog, Shawn took his tongue and painfully slowly glided it over the heat between y/n’s legs until he found himself at her clit. He hovered over the aching ball of nerves, his hit breathe being the only sensation pulsing through y/n causing her to desperately push her hips upwards in an attempt to bring her clit and Shawn’s mouth into contact.

‘Tut-Tut-Tut’ Shawn mocks ‘you’re so desperate for Shawn to make you feel good aren’t you darling' he continues as he uses his fingers to open y/n's folds, revealing her wet hole, desperately pulsating at the thought of being filled. With his free hand Shawn gently pries the young woman's plump untouched lips open and slid two fingers into her mouth and just like it was second nature y/n began to coyly suck on his long, thick digits.

Shawn’s eyes glaze over at the sight of the young woman enveloping his fingers in her mouth so easily; ‘now how about we see if you’re this good at swallowing my fingers elsewhere hmm?’ Shawn states as he pulls his fingers from y/n’s mouth still connected by a string of saliva. With ease Shawn slides his fingers coated in y/n’s spit into the gasping hole between her legs, walls immediately clamping down on him in fear of the empty feeling it’ll be left with if Shawn dares removes his fingers from y/n. Once y/n had adjusted to the feeling of Shawn’s fingers beautifully stretching her in a delicate way which she had never experienced before Shawn began slowly pumping his fingers in and out of y/n, in his mind claiming her as his own.

As y/n let out a soft moan Shawn snakes his hand around her throat and applied soft pressure, not enough to hurt her but enough to get her attention, in a smug and condescending tone Shawn utters ‘I don’t hear you practicing those vocals darlin’ I bet you can do so good for ol’ Shawn if you try.’ This praise was enough to have y/n melting into his touch, eager to please the man who had her falling apart in his hands.

Once again y/n attempts the dreaded vocals, but as she opens her mouth Shawn’s fingers pick up their pace, causing unimaginable waves of pleasure to course through the woman; 'Oh.. Oh.. Shawn' she practically screams as Shawn praises her efforts ‘good girl, you’re doing so well for me.’

Although Shawn had all the vocal samples he needed he continued pumping his fingers in and out of the woman until he felt her walls clamp down on him, until the woman’s delicate hands gripped at his forearm; with a smirk Shawn removed his fingers become y/n reached her climax, completely playing into the persona which his song encompasses he stands up and almost cockily says ‘hands off the merchandise’ expecting a laugh or at least a smile from his y/n, however upon seeing her pouting at him for denying her of her first real orgasm; that being an orgasm from a man who knew exactly how to send a woman over the edge, Shawn grinned and whispered into her ear; ‘don’t get short with me darlin' if we get through this meeting with the creative director then I want to take you back to my place and show you what all the fuss about the heartbreak kid really is’ he teasingly nibbled on her ear and continued ‘what kind of a gentleman would I be if I let a doll like you climax in an office hmm? Let me show you how dolls should be treated.’

Y/n blushed, unaccustomed to this kind of treatment, in response Shawn grabbed her hand, helped her back into her pants and led her back to the creative director to tell them that y/n had agreed to take the job after all.

Shawn wouldn’t admit this to anybody but his heart welled with excitement through the entire meeting fantasising about showing y/n what a real man can do, he was excited to have her desperately pleading for him because he’s the only man that can make her feel good, but more than anything he was excited to make her his, after all, who better to look after such a sweet little doll than the wrestler whose gimmick was love?

——————————————————————————

A/N >> Would anyone want a part 2 to this fic? Drop suggestions/requests if you have any

[writingsfromstarfleet]

[Julian Bashir] All This Time

♫ - Always Been You - Shawn Mendez

A/N: Hello! I'm finally back and working on the requests in my inbox! If anyone is still here to read this, please enjoy! I thought I'd start with someone I love, and so this fic was born. Thanks for reading! - Mal <3

When you had joined Starfleet, you were hoping to be stationed on Deep Space Nine. You had gone through the Academy with your friend, Julian, and he had been assigned to the station as the resident doctor. You were so happy for him, this was all he had wanted. You were even more so when you learned that you had been accepted onto the station as a science officer yourself.

"Julian!" you called out, running to him with your PADD in your hand.

"Do I detect good news?" he replied, and when you nodded and tilted your screen to him, he burst into a light scream and picked you up, turning you around in the air. "My gosh, I am so happy for you! For both of us."

That night you both celebrated, perhaps a little too hard, but it was one of the best nights of both of your lives.

The morning of your departure, you took some time to think about your time on Earth, and growing up with Julian.

It was strange, you had watched him go from this quiet, barely academic child to somehow being incredibly gifted and beyond smart enough for his age. It wasn't until you were older that he confided in you that he had been genetically enhanced. It changed your opinion of him none, he was still your Julian. His parents and yours had hoped that maybe you two may have married, as they thought highly of you both. Julian had insisted it wasn't like that, and you had agreed, despite your feeling for it otherwise.

Julian was a great man, he was strong and caring, and he was handsome. You would be a fool to deny it. Over time, more as you grew older, you realised that it was no longer friendship you felt for him. It had been love for so long. You knew he viewed you as a best friend, and you were not about to ruin that; especially not on your final day on Earth.

Now, you were almost three years into being on Deep Space Nine, and the job had yet to get boring. There was always something happening, whether it be a planet in need of saving or stopping another impending war. Sometimes, even Gul Dukat would grace the station with his presence, which gave you all something to laugh at in Quark's that night.

"Is this seat taken?" A cool, familiar voice asked you as you sat at a table in the back of Quarks, sipping on an Antarean brandy. Turning your head, you met the face of Jadzia Dax, someone who had quickly become a close friend of yours.

"Does it look taken?" you replied, a cheeky tone in your voice. Jadzia and yourself always joked, and you were happy to have someone to be that comfortable with. You couldn't lie to yourself that Jadzia was very attractive, and one hell of a flirt. So, half the time, you gave as good as you got.

"How have things been on the station lately?" she asked. Jadzia knew you had been a little stressed that week, as work had piled up high in the science department. You sighed, shaking your head.

As you began to talk to her, you told her everything that had gone wrong that week. In truth, very little had gone right. Still, she sat tentatively and listened to every word. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted someone staring.

Julian was sat a few tables behind, alone and sipping at a drink. It wasn't often he drank alone, but it had been a tough week for him, too. As well as the workload and a quite the few emergencies, he was dealing with a new wave of emotions that had completely drained him. As of late, Julian had come to realise that he loved you, more than a friend should love another friend. He was certain you didn't feel the same, but the hope he still had that perhaps you would feel the same was still there, however faded.

Julian sighed as he watched you and Jadzia talk. Jadzia was smiling, laughing at your jokes. She even had her arm around you from time to time, and Julian was sure she was closer in proximity to you than when she had originally sat down. Jadzia caught his eye and winked, before going back to your chatter. To say he was jealous was an understatement; if anyone outside looked in, you and Jadzia looked like a couple, and he couldn't help but feel that it should be him.

Perhaps it was his imagination, but he could swear after he had made eye contact with the trill, she was more touchy and giggly with you than at first. Maybe he was imagining it, maybe not. Either way, it made him feel a certain type of way inside. He knew. It was definitely jealousy.

"Well," Jadzia broke the conversation, standing and placing a hand on your shoulder. "I should be off, I have a lot I need to be doing. Thank you for the drink, hopefully we can do this again sometime."

With that, she winked at you and took off, leaving  you chuckling to yourself. Ever the flirt, she was. Jadzia ducked past Julian's table on her way out of the bar, leaning in to his hear and startling him out of staring down his glass.

"If I've made you jealous enough to finally act on your feelings, I would suggest going over there and kissing that Lieutenant now."

Julian's head shot up.

"How did you know how I'm feeling?"

Jadzia simply laughed. "We all know, except them."

Pointing a finger your direction, Jadzia sauntered away and Julian made his decision. Downing the last of his drink, he strolled over to your table and met you with his ever beaming smile.

"Hi," he started, seeming more nervous than he had ever been. "Is this seat taken?"

"Why does everyone keep asking me that?" you asked rhetorically with a giggle. Music to Julian's ears, was your laugh. "Please, sit down. I'm happy to see you."

The god doctor took a seat, and his fingers played idly with his glass. A glass of which he wasn't sure why he was still holding, given it was empty. Still, he pushed it away and turned to you. Julian's intent was to talk to you, to tell you how he felt, but he was stricken for a second looking your way.

In the light of Quark's Bar, or what little of it there was atop the balcony, your face was lit up in the most angelic light. Your eyes sparkled more than usual, and your hair framed your face perfectly. Backed by the windows showing the stars, you were the brightest thing in the room. Never had Julian seen such a picture, and it stirred something inside him. He knew it was now or never, and he feared that if he spoke, he wouldn't be able to convey what he wanted.

Noticing him staring, you raised a brow and waved your hand in front of Julian's face.

"Julian? Is everything-"

Cutting you off, Julian's lips connected with your own as he moved forward, his hand wrapping itself around your waist. Finally, he was kissing you. Without thinking, you closed your eyes and kissed him back, your arms wrapping around his neck. It was lucky you were in the darker part of the bar, the quiet and stifled noises coming from you both would surely have disturbed some.

Pulling back after what had felt like a lifetime, you opened your eyes first and they fell upon Julian's face, his eyes still partially closed and looking dazed. It was a kiss you had waited forever for.

"I-I, um.." Julian struggled to formulate a sentence, and you sat smiling at him, your hand resting on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me."

"Did you mean to do that?" you inquired, hoping that his answer was yes. The doctor nodded, eyes twinkling and sparkling with wonder. Nodding, you leaned in again and quickly pecked his lips. Julian's mind was in overdrive.

"Finally," you whispered, placing your forehead against his own. 

Julian held you, his arms around your waist and his head resting on your shoulder. You ran one hand through his hair, the other holding him tight. This was an action that was not uncommon for you both, but now it felt different. Now it felt right. 

"I have loved you for so long," Julian started, remaining where he was. "I haven't been able to tell you because I haven't had the words, but I was worried you wouldn't feel the same. I see so many people around you who you could choose, and I figured I was just the best friend who got to hear about it all."

"Oh, Juli," you chuckled a little, not unkindly. "You listen to me. I have been aware of who flirts with me, and I will admit there are some rather beautiful people on this station. But, none of them are you. I fell for you heart and soul so long ago that anyone else is secondary. I care not for the advances of anyone else, your heart is all I want."

"My heart is exactly what you have."

Julian glanced up at you, lovesick eyes peering into your own. The night was spent together, doing all of the things you should have been doing and being so engrossed in each other that you had no real bearing for those around you. If you had, you would have noticed Quark on the other side of the bar, handing over a few bars of latinum to a certain smug trill.

"Well I'll be damned," Quark said, shaking his head. "I really thought they would be oblivious for the rest of their lives."

"Never doubt my tactics, Quark," Jadzia replied, chuckling. 

[neymarismyfave]

MY LOVE

Paring(s): Zayn Malik x Y/n

Requested: No

A/n: Bare with me here I have covid brain.

Summary: Zayn is mildly upset with Y/n because she wants to "ditch" her weekly date with him to go out with her friends (Sabrina Carpenter and Selena Gomez).

Warnings: Angst, smut, cursing and fluff.

___________________________________________

Zayn is slowly pulled out of his sleep at the sound of high heels clicking against the wooden floor of the spacious bedroom. He yawned and looked over at his beautiful girlfriend, Y/n who was putting her diamond earrings in.

"Baby? Where are you going this early?" He questioned.

"Out with friends. And it's 12:00 P.M. you slept in late." Y/n replied, putting the back of her last earring on, looking in the mirror for guidance.

Zayn pulled the blankets off of him and slowly climbed out of bed. He made his way over to her and put his rough hands on her hips.

"But what about our date tonight?" He asked.

"Shit." Y/n cursed as realization took over her. "Baby I'm so sorry, I totally forgot." Y/n turned and faced her boyfriend.

She placed a small hand on one of his bycipes.

"I already promised them I would be there." She mutters.

Zayn let out an annoyed sigh. "Cant you just cancel?" He asked.

"But I barely get to go out with my friends Zayn," She protested. "Plus we always go on weekly dates. It wouldn't hurt to miss one."

"Baby please just cancel. I'll make the date worth your while." He says, his deep brown eyes clouded with annoyance.

"Zayn I cant. I promised them. And plus I'll be back in time!" She said as her brows furrowed. Her hand dropped back down to her side.

"Fine." He muttered letting go of her hips. "Who are you going out with anyway?" He asked, his eyes rakeing down her small frame.

"Sabrina and Selena." Y/n muttered in response.

"Ok then the date is at 6:00. Have a good time with whatever you're doing." Zayn muttered before turning and walking into the bathroom.

Y/n jumped as she heard the door slam shut. She sighed before grabbing her bag and making her way into the kitchen where her keys lay on the black kitchen table.

She grabbed them and made her way over to the front door. She opened the door and walked out before turning and closing it.

She then made her way down to her car and unlocked it. She opened the white door before she climbed in and started the car.

She let out a sigh before backing out of the driveway.

___________________________________________

Y/n sat in a small, fancy cafe with her two friends.

"Oh and then he asked me for my number!" Selena says with excitement.

"Shawn Mendes asked for your number!" Sabrina and Y/n say in unison.

"Yep! And now we have a date scheduled!" Selena said, smiling ear to ear.

"Holy shit! I'm so happy for you!" Y/n said, placing a hand on top of one of Selena's.

"Same!" Sabrina said.

"Thank you!" Selena said, her smile still very visible.

Y/n glanced at her watch. "Shit!" She yelped.

"What?" Sabrina asked.

"Yeah what's wrong?" Selena said, her smiling fading.

"Zayn's going to murder me. We have a date tonight!" Y/n whined. "I've already missed half of it."

"Well go!" Sabrina encourages.

"Thank you." Y/n said.

She quickly stood up and walked out.

She sped walked over to her car and hopped in.

___________________________________________

Soon enough she arrived home assuming Zayn had gave up waiting for her. She quickly made her way up the driveway and inside.

She looked around for any sign of her boyfriend before setting her bag and keys on one of the stone counters.

She removed her high heels and sat them by the front door before making her way into her and Zayn's shared bedroom.

"Where the fuck were you." Zayn questioned, his arms crossed over his chest as he lay in bed.

"Baby. I'm so sorry." Y/n says. "I just lost track of-" She was cut off.

"Save it." Zayn muttered. "I'm taking a shower." He said, as he climbed out of bed.

"Can I join?" Y/n asked quietly.

"No." Zayn muttered, grabbing out some gray sweat pants and boxers.

He then made his way into the bathroom.

"To bad I'm not taking no for an answer." Y/n whispered under her breath.

She walked over to the closet and grabbed out one of Zayn's over-sized T-Shirts and a clean pair of panties and pajama shorts.

She then made her way in the bathroom. She sat her clothes down next to Zayn's.

"I thought I said no." Zayn spits out.

"Well I took your 'no' as a 'yes'." Y/n spat back.

"Fine." Zayn muttered.

He pulled his shirt off along with his khaki pants, leaving him in just his black boxers.

He got the water going and warm before removing his boxers and hopping in.

Y/n hoped in soon after him after she had removed her tight blue dress.

"So was it worth missing our date?" Zayn whispered after a long silence.

"Mhm." Y/n hums in response.

Zayn shakes his head in annoyance before turning around to face Y/n.

He carefully pushes her up against the wall pinning her there.

Y/n's breath hitched.

"You told me I was the best thing that's ever happened to you Y/n." He whispered in a hoarse voice.

"Y-You are Zayn." She replied in a shaky tone.

"Then let me ask you again. Was your time with your friends worth missing our date?" He asked, his eyes darkening.

"N-No." Y/n stuttered.

"That's what I thought." Zayn whispered before placing messy kisses along her neck.

Y/n let out a small moan as she gripped Zayn's shoulders.

Zayn's nails dug into the soft flesh of Y/n's hips as he sucks on her neck.

Y/n bites her lower lip, digging her nails into his shoulders.

Zayn hissed as he continued his relentlessly attack on her neck.

He pushed his hips against hers, causing her to gasp as she felt his hard, throbbing tip press against her entrance.

Zayn groaned his hot breath causing a trail of goosebumps along her neck.

Zayn slowly lined himself up with her entrance as he distracted her with pressing his lips against hers.

Y/n gasped as she felt Zayn's cock suddenly fill her up.

"Zayn." She moaned as he began to thrust in and out of her.

Zayn continued thrusting into her just how she normally likes it.

"Fuck." She moaned, his fast thrusts were bound to bring her over the edge soon.

Zayn loved the way she felt around him. He also loved the feeling of the warm water against his back.

"God your fucking tight." He groaned.

He continued thrusting into her roughly, going back to placing rough kisses against her neck just like earlier.

Y/n moaned. She felt her release building up in her abdomen.

"I-I'm so f-fucking close." She managed to stutter out.

"I know baby. Me too." Zayn whispered in her ear.

"Zayn I-I'm-" But before she could finish she was cut off by her own release.

She let out a loud moan as Zayn helped her ride out her high.

Zayn followed soon after her, pulling out cumming on her thighs.

They both held each other as Zayn whispered sweet nothings in her ear.

After they had both had a moment to breath Zayn pulled away.

"Let's get you cleaned up." He whispered.

Y/n nodded, still at a loss of words.

___________________________________________

The two were now laid in bed, cuddled up against eachother.

"You look really hot in my shirt." Zayn whispered.

Y/n giggled a bit. "Why thank you. You look really hot in those sweat pants." Y/n whispered in response."

"Oh yeah? Wanna take them off me?" He joked.

Y/n let out a playful scoff and slapped him gently on the chest.

"I literally just fucked you." She protested.

"So?"

___________________________________________

[obsidiancreates]

Henry Spencer Is A Bastard (With A Broken Nose)

Shawn and Jules have been living together for two weeks when Jules storms into the precinct, grabs Lassiter by the arm, and drags him into the interrogation room.

“O’Hara, what the hell is-”

“You’ve spent time alone with Henry,” she says, sitting Lassiter in the suspect chair. “What was he like?”

“What?”

“This is important, Carlton.”

Lassiter sighs, looking around the room for a moment before answering. “Unpleasant and judgemental. He had every quality of a great cop but none of an actual person I’d spend time with.”

“Which for you is saying something,” Jules mumbles, looking to the side. “Would-would you say you think he’s capable of intentional child endangerment or neglect?”

Lassiter sits up more. “What? O’Hara, what is this about?”

Jules takes a deep breath, looking down at her hands. “I was helping Shawn get some stuff from his old room, and we found an old journal from when he was a kid.It was mostly just doodles and half-finished homework, and he said to just throw it away, but… I kept it. I thought it was cute, to be able to look at what went through his brain as a kid.”

“O’Hara. If you’re alleging what I think-”

“I read more later while he was out with Gus and one of the pages was a failed writing assignment. He was supposed to write about what he did over the weekend and he wrote that his dad locked him a trunk and made him pretend to be kidnapped.”

Lassiter lets out a breath. “Okay. But you and I both know Spencer’s imagination-”

“Carlton, remember the kicked-out tailight? When he got shot?”

“O’Hara, I was with Henry through that whole investigation, and I don’t think I can say that the man I investigated with would purposefully hurt or neglect his son. He was like a machine through the whole thing.”

“There was more, though, Carlton. One of the assignments was to write about how they spent Easter and Shawn’s said he got cut on some glass trying to dig up his eggs. He drew a picture, it-”

She pulls out her phone and hands it to her partner. Lassiter looks at a crude drawing of a small stick figure on it’s hands and knees, overly-large shards on the ground in front of it, and an egg a good few lines below it. There’s a taller stick figure behind the small one, with a wide-open mouth and the words ‘You can do better, Shawn,’ written beside it.

The teacher’s note on the side says that Shawn needs to stop making up stories for assignments about his real life.

Lassiter hands the phone back. “O’Hara…”

Jules sits back in her chair a bit, the tension giving way to a slumped tiredness. “I know they’ve never had an… easy relationship, but Henry has always been so present, ever since we’ve known Shawn. I thought that was a good thing and Shawn’s discomfort was just Shawn being… Shawn.” She looks down at her hand in guilt. “What if I completely missed that he has reason, Carlton?”

Lassiter grabs one of Jules’s hands. “O’Hara, Henry Spencer is a bitter, unlikeable, and overbearing old man- but I really don’t think he’s capable of child abuse.”

Jules holds his hand back and gives it a squeeze. “I just… don’t know how to ask Shawn if these are real. He’s not exactly forthcoming about messy emotions and memories.”

Lassiter nods, and then blinks. “So let’s ask Guster. They’ve been stuck together like flies on a flytrap forever.”

Jules shakes her head. “If Shawn isn’t going to say anything, I really don’t think Gus will.”

“Well, you can either ask Guster if these are real, or you can worry about it forever and never get any answers.” Lassiter knows his partner well enough to know that’s unacceptable to her.

She gives his hand one more squeeze. “I’m just worried. Henry works here. He’s in charge of Shawn.”

“And I’m sure that when we talk to Guster about all this, we’ll learn that Spencer was just exaggerating like he always does.”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gus reads the page with wide eyes. “Wait, he was serious about that?”

Lassiter stifles the urge to shout ‘Come on!’ when he hears Jules suck in a breath.

“You mean you knew about this already?”

“I mean, Shawn told me once that he liked Easter at my house way more because there was no ‘manhunt training’, but I thought he just meant something like when his dad would have him stakeout their porch.”

“He what?”

“It, sounds worse than it is. … I think.” Gus looks down at the old notebook again. “I thought. … I mean, Henry was always a little intense. When Shawn and I were boyscouts he used to set up challenges that were impossible to win, and then make us feel bad for not winning.”

“What do you mean, impossible to win?” Lassiter is starting to get concerned now. Shawn’s incessant need to show everyone up has been a pain in his ass for years, and if Henry reinforced that grating attitude and now acts like he tried to quell it-

“Stuff like telling us to go find a rocket in the middle of the woods and then going and grabbing it himself. He used to promise us ice cream if we won, then say he’d eat it himself if we didn’t win next time.” Gus’s face pinches the more he talks about the memories. “Gosh, I haven’t thought about that in years. I guess I didn’t realize how messed up that is until I said it out loud.”

“It’s horrible,” Jules says.

“But not criminal,” Lassiter reminds her. “And as… weird and dangerous as the eggs thing is, that’s not criminal either. … I think.”

“What about the trunk, Carlton?”

“... Yeah, that part’s looking pretty bad.”

Gus shuts the notebook. “We need to talk to Shawn about this. I don’t know if I’m even remembering right, but I know he will.”

“He’d never open up about something like this,” Jules says, gesturing to the notebook and letting her arms drop back to her sides with a flop. “He barely tells me about his childhood at all.”

“Well I was there for most of it, and I need to make sure I didn’t miss some serious abuse going down for our entire lives. Do you know how many times I’ve defended his dad to him, Juliet? … Oh my god, on that same boyscout trip with the rocket, he told me his dad had never said he loved him!”

Lassiter doesn’t need to look at Jules to know she’s probably seething with the rage of the entire underworld- if he believed in such a thing. 

Henry better hope they find out it’s not as bad as it’s seeming.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Shawn gets home, Jules, Lassiter, and Gus are all sitting on the couch looking somber. Well, Jules and Gus look somber. Lassiter looks mildly offput.

“Guys! What’s all this, are we having some kinda surprise party?” Shawn looks around for decorations, but there’s nothing. He looks back with excitement. “Is it a case? A big one?”

“Shawn, sit down, we need to ask you about something.” Jules gestures for him to take a seat on a different chair.

“Uh-oh. That’s not your happy voice.” Shawn sits down and leans forward. “Hey, babe, what’s wrong?”

Jules takes a deep breath, and pulls out the notebook. Shawn looks at it. “Oh, that? Please don’t tell me that my drawing skills when I was eight are a dealbreaker.”

“Shawn, did Henry…” Jules falters. Shawn’s expression… 

It doesn’t harden, per say. It just… shifts. Becomes a little closed-off.

“Spencer, did Henry actually make you dig through broken glass to find ridiculous holiday candy?” Lassiter says, offering Jules his hand for support. She takes it.

Shawn’s mouth quirks up in the corner, a huff-laugh escaping him. His eyes aren’t as amused, a dark look in them. “What? How-how’d you know about that?”

“Oh my god.” Gus looks sick.

“Guys, seriously, what is this?” Shawn reaches out and snatches the notebook, flipping through it. Fast at first, and then slower. The slight smirk disappears completely, and Jules and Gus know that habit of sticking his tongue over his teeth means Shawn is not in a good emotional space whatsoever as he reads.

He closes the notebook and tosses it onto the coffee table, sitting back into the chair and sniffling. “It’s uh- it’s nothing.”

“Dude, that is not nothing. I thought you were making that stuff up when we were kids!”

“What? Why would I make that up?” That just seems to confuse Shawn.

“Because you were always making things up!”

“Not about my dad! You were like, the one person I could talk about him with! You thought I was lying about everything the whole time?” Now he looks hurt. 

“Not everything, but crazy stuff like him locking you in a trunk in the middle of a hot day and putting broken glass over your eggs, yeah! Oh my go- this makes me look back on everything I know in a completely different light, Shawn!”

“Okay, you can’t actually be this surprised, Gus. I mean, you were at my house all the time, you know how he was. We couldn’t even play hide-and-seek without me getting a lecture about hunting perps the right way.” The bitterness in his voice is familiar to his friends, the way he keeps from meeting their eyes, the arms crossed over his chest and tense body language. It’s not that they’ve never seen him like this. But they’ve never seen him like this and truly understood it. Even Gus.

Gus, who looks increasingly horrified as he thinks back on more and more memories. “When we were really little and you told me your dad would throw you out for reading comics, were you serious?”

Shawn scoffs a little. “No, I wasn’t.”

“Did he actually ban them?”

“... Yeah. That part he did. He said they made cops look bad.”

“Good god, Spencer, you’re talking like everything in your house was about cops twenty-four-seven.”

“Gee, Lassie, I wonder why. You’ve met my dad, right?”

“But you’re talking like he expected you to be a perfect cop from the second you were born.”

Shawn goes silent. He still won’t look at any of them.

“Oh, my god.” Jules reaches out to put a hand on Shawn’s knee. “Shawn, did he expect that?”

“... Look, guys, it’s… it’s done, alright? It is what it is, and… I’ve accepted that, and I’m working on making things work with my dad. I don’t… I don’t need this. Okay? I don’t want to think about it and get all…” He huffs. “Last time I thought a little too hard about all this stuff I ended up on my motorcycle with nowhere to go, and-and I don’t want to do that again, alright?”

“Shawn, this is important. We’re all working with Henry constantly, watching how he treats you, and this changes how some of that looks.”

“How?” Shawn finally looks at Jules, right in the eyes. “How does this change anything? He’s the same person, Jules. He-he’s controlling, and-and expects way too much, and is disappointed in me. That’s not different now just because you know he went overboard with stuff when I was a kid.”

Lassiter lets out a deep breath. He’d really… really been hoping this wouldn’t be the case. “How overboard, Spencer?”

Shawn looks at Lassie, and then clicks his tongue and looks away again. “Not in that way, man. He never hit me or anything.”

“So what did he do?”

“Why is this an interrogation?” Shawn stands up, pulling away from Jules’s outstretched hand. “This is stuff for me, and my dad to hash out, okay? Just me and him.”

“Did your mom know about this stuff?” Gus asks. 

The mention of his mom seems to make Shawn shut down even more. “Now this is really over.” He walks away, and pauses for just one second to turn around and say, “Don’t- don’t go my dad about all this. I don’t want…”

“... Don’t want what, Shawn?” Jules’s voice is soft and careful.

Shawn doesn’t seem to be able to find the end of the thought. He just shakes his head and walks back out the door.

The three sit in silence for a minute. Jules has tears in her eyes. Gus looks almost shellshocked.

Lassiter stands up. “Alright, I’m officially taking lead on this case.” He looks down at his partner. “O’Hara, find out who in the precinct knew Henry well and still works there. We’ll interview anyone who he might’ve talked to his son about, see if we can dig up any leads there.”

“Whoa, Shawn just said he didn’t want his dad finding out we’re asking about all this, and we just learned he’s way worse than we thought,” Gus says, standing up too. “We can’t start poking around the precinct, because in case you forgot Lassie, he works there!”

“Part-time.”

“He’ll know something is up.”

“Please. I think I know how to run a discreet investigation, Guster.”

“Could you hide something like that from Shawn?”

“... Of course.”

“No, you couldn’t, and if you can’t hide it from Shawn it’s a safe bet that you can’t hide it from his dad.”

Jules stands up. “No, Carlton is right. None of us realized how these pieces fit together until we all talked about it with each other, right? If Shawn won’t… can’t, open up to us about it, the next best thing is getting as many witness statements as possible.”

“Why? It just feels like digging things up to dig them up at this point.”

“Because Henry is currently in charge of Spencer’s livelihood, Guster.”

“I know! He’s in charge of part of mine too!”

“Right.” Jules looks up at Lassiter. “And if we can prove to The Chief that Henry has a negative, unreliable bias against Shawn, we can lessen some of that control!”

“As much as I’d hate to see Spencer off the leash again, I’d hate to be helping enable an abuser even more,” Lassiter agrees. 

“Abuser is a strong word.” Gus doesn’t look like he feels that sentence is 100% true. “He wasn’t all bad a lot of the time. I mean, he loosened up on the comic thing when we were older.”

“We know he cares, Gus,” Jules assures. “But, caring doesn’t mean he didn’t do something wrong. Really, really wrong.”

Gus swallows, and then nods. “I know.”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They collect a good few statements over the next week.

One statement claims that Shawn would play poker with some of the officers when Henry brought him to the station- why Henry was bringing a seven year old to an active police station and then not keeping an eye on him was something that went unanswered- and that Henry was obviously upset when he discovered this. Another statement corroborated the story, and added that he caught sight of Henry taking all the money Shawn made from the games and shoving it into the police donation box.

One statement was from an elderly file sorter, who claimed that Shawn was sometimes sent down to grab files for his dad and used to complain to her that henry would only buy Shawn cop car toys, and no others. When she’d asked Shawn if he wanted to be a cop when he grew up, Shawn had reportedly said quote, “Something about not getting a choice.” Other statements claimed, when this was brought up, that Shawn seemed very excited by the idea of being a cop when he grew up- until his arrest.

One statement, given by someone Lassiter vaguely remembers being rookies with back in the day, lends more credibility to the recollections of the elderly woman. The statement claimed that when the rookie would go on ride-alongs with Henry or work under him, Henry would almost always complain about Shawn. Everything from Shawn having an interest that didn’t relate to being a cop, to Shawn ‘acting like a child’ when he would have been under twelve according to the timeline, to Shawn ‘not even trying’ during a specific incident where Henry claimed Shawn forged his signature to go on a field trip and quote “hesitated for a second with his pen or something- I remember it was something really minor, and Henry couldn’t stand it. I thought it was weird that he was teaching his son how to forge signatures and then expecting the kid to never use the skill, but it wasn’t really my place to say.”

By the end of the week, Jules is steaming and Shawn hasn’t come around the precinct at all. Gus keeps dropping by, digging up old journals of his own to use as cross-references when possible. Shawn is quiet with Jules at home, like he’s waiting for something big to happen and he’s worried he could trigger it early.

It makes Jules more upset at Henry, because now her boyfriend’s emotional immaturity seems a lot less like a natural childish nature and a lot more like having genuinely never been taught how to handle anything.

No, according to the information she and Lassiter have gathered, it looks like all Henry taught Shawn was that winning is everything, being the best is non-negotiable, and Shawn was born to be a cop and anything that didn’t align with that idea just… shouldn’t be there.

“Wow.” Lassiter tosses the latest statement onto his desk. “And I thought Henry didn’t discipline Spencer enough as a kid. Some of this stuff makes it sound like Spencer grew up in a boot camp.”

“He basically did,” Jules says bitterly, reading over one of Gus’s old notebooks. “Gus wasn’t even looking for evidence of it, and these journals are full of casual, offhand observations that look worse and worse the more we know. Listen to this one. ‘Today Shawn was in a bad mood, and when I asked him why he said his dad stole his mood ring after showing him to turn the box upside-down. I said that’s cheating, and Shawn said it can’t be if his dad said to do it.’ Who the hell steals a mood ring from a kid?”

“You’re getting caught on the small stuff again, O’Hara.”

“I know, I know. I just- now that we know some of the major things, even the small stuff is making me just unbelievably angry.”

“Yeah, it’s rough to read. At least you and I wanted to be cops.”

“Right? No wonder Shawn ended up a psychic detective, how do you just do something else after being raised so specifically like that? And no wonder he-he buys EasyBake Ovens and goofs off all the time, he had it so strict as a kid…”

“Mmmmm… let’s not excuse every antic, O’Hara. A lot fo it is still just him being a jackass.”

“I won’t get into this with you again, Carlton.”

“Good, I don’t want to get into it again either. … Heads up.”

Jules closes the notebook and tucks it into a desk drawer as swiftly and inconspicuously as possible, Lassie doing the same for his file. Henry walks past them, barley sparing a glance as he makes his way somewhere else.

Jules stares daggers at him so intensely that if dropped to the ground covered with enough puncture wounds to imitate Julias Caesar, Lassiter would think it was a mild scene all things considered.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s three weeks since Jules found the notebook when Shawn rolls over in bed, puts his arm around, and mumbles “I have an eidetic memory.”

Jules puts her book down and looks at Shawn with furrowed brows. “What?”

Shawn sighs and sits up properly. “I have an eidetic memory,” he says again, “And… I don’t like looking back, because I remember everything perfectly. Which means I usually remember what I felt perfectly too, and it usually wasn’t great feelings.” He can’t look her in the eyes this time, either, but instead of the tense, protective body language of before, he’s holding a pillow close to his chest and slightly burying his face into it, almost sagging around it.

Jules starts to rub his back. She knows how hard this kind of… difficult emotional discussion, is for him. Now she even knows why- suspects why, really, because not all of it is proven in full, but still she thinks she can cout is as knowing. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”

“About the memory?”

“Yeah. That sounds… really difficult to deal with, Shawn. Does Gus know?”

“Yeah, he knows. I think other than my dad, and… and you, he’s the only person who knows.”

“Shawn…”

“I just, I just want you to know… that I’m not asking you to drop it for no reason,” Shawn says, “Or-or because I don’t feel like it’s important. I know it is, I do. I just…”

“Don’t want to relive a lot of it,” Jules says softly. “... Shawn, does this mean you remember everything perfectly? All the time?”

“Eh… fifty-fifty. The ADHD gets in the way sometimes.”

“... But when it doesn’t?”

“I just try not to think about a lot of it.” Shawn moves again, to look her in the eyes, He takes a deep breath, and he looks a little pained. This kind of thing is painful for him, he’s so unsure how to navigate it. “I have to keep moving forward, Jules. It’d be so… so easy to just get stuck, forever, in all the stuff stored in my head. And I’m really, really trying to, I mean that. It’s difficult, and I’m not… always great at it, but I’m trying.”

“And you’re worried we’ll set you back?”

“No! No, I… I don’t know.” Shawn lets Jules pull him close to her chest and begin running her hand through his hair. “My dad and I don’t solve stuff, Jules. We just… argue over it. I’m getting tired of it.”

“... I understand.” She kisses the top of his head. “But I don’t like him being in charge of you when you’re a grown man anymore.”

“You think I do? … But it’s making him a lot happier than he’s been in a long time.”

“You should be happy too, Shawn.”

“Hey. Hey, I am happy.” He looks up into her eyes. “Look at me right now. I’m being cradled like a sweet little baby seal by the most beautiful, badass woman in the entire world. Of course I’m happy.”

Jules laughs a little and contorts a bit to kiss him on the mouth. “I’m glad you told me that, Shawn. And I promise, I won’t ask you to relive anything else for me.”

“... But you’re not going to stop investigating my dad, are you?”

“Did you stop with mine?”

“... Fair enough.” Shawn lays his head back down, and soon enough Jules hears soft snoring from him and mumbled phrases in his sleep.

…

An eidetic memory. Perfect recall.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Jules goes over everything they have so far knowing Shawn has a perfect memory, it makes her angry to such a degree that she thinks it might kill her. Not literally, but it feels strong enough.

She has some of Shawn’s old report cards, some statements she got from former teachers via social media contact, and some copies of pages of one of Gus’s old journals laid out in front of her, and she sees a pattern.

Shawn didn’t do good in school. His report cards are less than average, and are packed with notes about how he doesn’t pay attention, doesn’t seem to absorb any information, and doesn’t remember anything he’s taught. The statements from the teachers describe Shawn as hyperactive, passionate about everything but his schoolwork, and having difficulty with staying observant in class.

Gus’s old journals are full of the same, but also the opposite. Shawn didn’t pay attention in school, but sometimes he could pull something the teacher said from his memory word for word without even trying, and then a few entries later Gus would mention Shawn failed a test on that exact subject. Shawn got beat up because he told a bully he memorized the pattern of answers used in the math tests, but his dad told the teacher and let Shawn know he was doing it. And most of all, Gus writes about how freaky his friend’s ability to look at people and figure them out is. How Shawn notices almost everything almost all the time, and usually makes some dramatic conclusion that isn’t right, but he still notices things and Gus can’t figure out how Shawn fingers things out.

Detective training, and an eidetic memory, and psychic visions. Jules is now pretty sure that Shawn covers up some of his deductions using his visions- he’s known enough impossible information that they can’t possibly all be deductions in disguise, but when she thinks back there’s a few times where it’s obvious in hindsight he used his abilities to cover up the fact that he’s an incredible, highly-trained detective.

Maybe she’s jumping to a conclusion, but she finds herself thinking ‘Because Henry made him hate that he can do it so well,’ as she pieces it all together.

Gus’s journals lend a lot of credit to that theory. Shawn is smart, and Gus knows it, but Shawn acts dumb sometimes and Gus doesn’t understand why, and then Gus mentions that it’s weird that Henry kept Shawn up all night before to stakeout their porch and now Shawn is tired during Little League and Henry tells him to get his head in the game because Henry is the coach.

Henry is the coach, Henry is the chaperone on the field trip, Henry is their Scout Master- he’s in charge of every part of Shawn’s life except for school. And Maddie is rarely brought up, even when Gus writes about spending all day or night or even weekend at the Spencer house. Jules hasn’t seen Shawn’s Mom since Yang almost blew her up, and she just figured that Maddie wanted to stay out of Santa Barbara after that, understandably. She’s getting a different feeling about Maddie staying away now. It seems a lack of presence was her main impression in Shawn’s life, or at least, Shawn’s life through the lens of Child Gus.

So it was basically just Henry. And her heart aches for the thought of someone being stuck in a bad marriage, basically raising a kid alone, and that kid being as hyper and curious and chaotic as Shawn. But the ache is smothered in the sense of righteous rage when she reads other entries about things like a girl throwing a ball at Shawn and missing, and an ostrich choking on the ball, and Henry dragging Shawn away. The entry goes on to say that Shawn told Gus that Henry didn’t believe him when he said he didn’t do it, even after then-superior officer Captain Connors came in and tried to vouch for Shawn.

Henry always assumed the worst. Assumes, the worst, still.

Shawn tries so hard, sometimes, with his dad, and Jules is starting to realize that Henry doesn’t put the same effort in. He tries some, she knows it, she’s seen it, but she also sees him constantly berate, put down, and insult Shawn, publicly and privately. 

Suddenly she remembers something from when Shawn went undercover on the dating show, something she’d been too upset over about Shawn being there at all to really take in in the moment.

“I’m sorry, this woman is way too good for my son. If it was me, I’d vote no.”

She doesn’t have Shawn’s memory, so without rewatching the clip she can’t be totally sure those are Henry’s exact words, but she’s certain that it’s the exact sentiment.

First of all, she takes a little offense to that for herself. But secondly and more strongly, she takes offense for Shawn. As she thinks about it she can remember the way Shawn tried to cover up the awkwardness in the clip, the way the girl on the show whispered “Is this a joke?” and the way it absolutely was not. The way Henry said that on TV, to Shawn’s face, with no hint of shame.

“O’Hara.” She looks up to see Lassiter holding a cup of coffee and a bagel for her. She takes them and Lassiter says, “There’s more steam coming out of your ears than there is that cup.”

“Sorry,” she sighs. “I just… I don’t know if I can control myself tomorrow when Henry comes back in. The more I dig into this, the more I want to just- go back in time and pick little Shawn up and take him somewhere better.”

“Well as much as we don’t like it, O’Hara, Spencer is who he is because he was raised the way he was raised.”

“I know. And I like, who Shawn is!”

“Inexplicably.”

“Carlton.”

“Mmm.”

“Anyway… I love Shawn, and who he is, all of him, but I still wish he could’ve been who he is without going through all of this. It’s not okay.”

“No. No, it’s not.” Lassiter sighs. “Look, O’Hara, put the case down for a while. At this point we’ve got enough to at least make The Chief doubt some of Henry’s intentions and judgements when it comes to Spencer and, well, that was the goal.”

“... Yeah. Yes, okay, I will… I will put this down for a few days.” Jules closes up the file and puts it back into her drawer. “Shawn is still less than happy I’m working on this, anyway. He understands why, but I know he wishes he didn’t.” He probably understands a lot of things he wishes he didn’t. Jules has had to grapple with the realization that she actually doesn’t know as much about how Shawn’s mind works as she thought she knew, and that it’s possible she’ll never know a lot of it. There’s more than just psychic visions to the mystery of his mind, and some of those mysteries are locked up with a key cast out of self-resentments and resentments of his dad.

God, she hopes she can keep up a poker face when Henry comes in.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Her file is missing from her desk the next day, and so is Lassiter’s. They both know why.

They march over to Henry’s desk just as Gus comes in to collect a check, and all three end up standing over Henry as he openly and unashamedly reads through the Spencer Upbringing Case File. Gus takes a step back when he realizes that’s what’s happening, as does Lassiter.

But not because of Henry.

Jules looks murderous.

Henry purses his mouth in a frown and nods, raising up the file and then closing it and tossing it onto his desk in one smooth movement. “It’s comprehensive,” he says, like he’s grading a paper. “But it’s a bunch of biased bull.”

“Give them back.” Jule’s voice is ice-cold. 

Henry shrugs, moving his head side to side for a second, still frowning, and then says, “Nah.” He takes the files, and drops them in the trash. “I think you owe me an explanation for why the head detective and his partner are investigating the way I raised my son. Why’d Shawn put you up to this?”

“He didn’t.”

Henry scoffs. “Yeah, right.”

Jules slams one hand onto Henry’s desk. The whole bullpen goes quiet.

“I was helping Shawn get something from your house, and I found a notebook,” she says. 

“Oh, so, you found one of Shawn’s little projects where he exaggerated things to make himself look like a victim of the world?”

“I found the writings of a little kid who didn’t seem to realize at the time of writing that being locked in a hot car trunk and digging through broken glass for Easter Eggs wasn’t normal.”

Henry laughs, crossing his arms. “That’s what you have a problem with? It’s called training, detective. You went through it yourself.”

“When I was an adult, by my choice, and I sure as hell never had to dig through glass.”

“You’re really hung up on that.”

“Because it’s genuinely evil!”

Henry’s smug look melts into a scowl. “How dare you.”

“How dare I?! Do you understand how much all of this is still affecting Shawn, even right now?! He can barely talk about all of this!” “Oh, well, he sure seem capable of reminding me of it.”

“Because you did it! You’re the only other person in the entire world who understood what was done to him in the name of training because you did it!”

“Done to h- you’re overreacting, detective!”

“I, agree, what is going on out here?” Chief Vick hurries over to Henry’s desk from her own. “Detectives, there had better be a damn good reason-”

“There is, Chief.” Lassiter reaches into the trashcan and pulls out the files.

“Karen, Detective O’Hara has allowed her romantic entanglement with my son to-”

“Henry was borderline abusive during Shawn’s childhood,” Jules interrupts, facing her Chief. Chief Vick’s eyes widen and her mouth drops open, a disbelieving laugh escaping her even as she accepts the files and flips them open. “You understand what it is you’re alleging, O’Hara, and against who?”

“I do, Chief, and I think our case file speaks for itself.” All eyes are on them now. Jules doesn’t back down. “I’m well aware of my emotional ties to this case, but I assure you I’m not allowing it to cloud my judgment. If I was, I wouldn’t have used the word borderline to describe the conclusions I’ve come to.”

“Karen, this is ridiculous.”

But Chief Vick is focused on the files in her hands. Her eyes flick up to Henry. “Is it?” She looks over to Gus, who’s been watching with the quiet tension of a prey animal waiting to make a run for it. “Mister Guster, can you genuinely testify to the validity and accuracy of the claims in these files?”

“Oh, um, well, most of those are from my own journals.” Gus’s eyes flick between Henry and Jules. “I’d say that’s even more reliable than just plain memory.”

“It certainly is.” Chief Vick turns her eyes back to the file. “Henry, I think after I’m done going through these we’re going to have a chat about some of your current responsibilities and extent of authority over consultants.”

“Oh, come on, Karen!” Henry looks around at the entire precinct staring, and judging. “This is completely unfounded, and-and blown way out of propor-!”

Henry doesn’t finish the sentence because Juliet O’Hara punches him in the nose.

There’s gasps from everyone in the room. Jules’s fist is bloodied. Henry’s nose went CRUNCH! when her fist made contact.For a long moment it’s like the whole room has collectively stopped breathing. 

“I don’t make unfounded accusations, Henry,” Jules breathes. “Especially not when I have been building a case for over a month, and have watched Shawn completely close off whenever I asked him about this.”

Henry holds his nose, looking at Jules with fear that Lassiter and Gus don’t think is nearly intense enough. “Juliet,” Henry pants, blood streaming out from between his fingers. “This is insane.”

“Quiet, Spencer.” Lassiter moves Jules a little farther away. Her fist is still raised. “I won’t tolerate you disrespecting my partner, especially not in the same way you do your son.”

“What?! You can’t believe all this too, Lassiter.”

“You know I’m not Shawn’s biggest fan, but if you think what O’Hara has done over the last month is anything less than the best damn investigation possible then I have to seriously reconsider some of our shared opinions of your son’s work.”

Gus glances at a box of tissues on Henry’s desk- and then subtly moves to knock them on the floor and kicks them away.

“Herny, I’m going to have to ask you to step away from the precinct for a few days while this gets handled. O’Hara, I’m going to need to speak with you in my office.”

Jules lowers her fist, and nods. She knows she can’t just punch Henry and get away with it scot-free, and she accepts that.

No-one moves to help Henry. Not a single soul. He grumbles as he makes his way past Gus to grab a different box of tissues.

“It’s like he just sucks the respect out of people,” Henry grumbles. 

CRACK!

No-one is more surprised than Gus when his fist slams into Henry’s jaw. Gus reels away immediately, shrinking and cradling his hand, as Henry goes down.

“Mister Guster!” Chief Vick moves forward to try and catch Henry.

“Uuuuh!” Guss whines, shaking his hand. “I-I mean, you don’t get to say that about Shawn! He asked us not to keep doing this! You gotta stop assuming the worst of him all the time!”

“When he earns it!” Henry barks out, then groans and spits. It’s mostly blood.

“You won’t let him earn it!” Jules is furious again. “How many killers does he have to catch for you to see that your son is an amazing man?!”

“It’s not about catching killers,” Henry says, spitting again. “It’s about growing up.”

“Says the grown man who can’t even tell his son ‘I love you’.”

“He doesn’t say it either.”

“That’s not helping your case, Spencer.” Lassiter has his eyes on Jules and Gus. “And considering I’m the only one on said case who hasn’t taken a shot at you yet, I’d say keep your mouth shut.”

“Oh, what do you know.” Henry spits a third time. The Chief looks about ready to punch him herself. “Father-son relationships are complicated, especially when the father wants what’s best for the son and the son just wants to throw everything away and get himself killed!”

“You wanted him to be a cop, Spencer, you didn’t exactly put him on a path to a peaceful and easy life.”

“I put him on the right path, and he never appreciated it, and that is what your case file should say!”

“You know what, Spencer?” Lassiter takes a step closer to the bleeding man. “I’ve put up with a lot of crap from both you and your son over the years, and you two are a lot more similar than you think. But one thing I can say that Shawn has over you is that he doesn’t mean it when he says stupid crap like that.”

“He looks up to you, you ass,” Jules adds. “And he is willing to put aside all of the things you say and do to him to have a good relationship with you. Do you understand how incredible that is? That you don’t even have to work to have him in your life? That he comes to you no matter how many times you tear into him for it?”

“He comes to me because he never listens when he needs to.” Henry’s face is starting to become very purple as the bruises set in. “I don’t know what he’s been telling you, but he needs, my help.”

“Exactly! And he feels like you’re reliable enough to give it to him, and you do! So why do you treat that as though it’s a fault? Do you have any idea what I would have given as a kid, and even now, to be able to just-just go up to my dad and say ‘I need help,’ and have him be there to help me? That means the world!”

“Not to Shawn.” Henry looks pained beyond just the broken nose and possible broken jaw. “The kid is too focused on himself.”

“You don’t know your son at all, then.” Jules turns and walks with The Chief to her office.

Gus shakes his head, grabs the check out of Henry’s paperwork pile, checks that it’s signed, and leaves. 

“Oh, really? It’s up to me to take him to the hospital?” Lassiter looks around and then huffs. “Alright, Spencer. Don’t bleed on my seats, or my dashboard, or anything but yourself.”

“I’m not a bad father,” Henry says, still holding his nose. “I care about my son.”

“Yeah, and somehow Shawn knows that even though you act the way you do.” Lassie buckles Henry in for him so that the nose remains pinched. “But here’s the thing, Spencer. Your son is an arrogant, attention-hogging, impulsive, completely absurd person, and he didn’t just become like that out of a vacuum.”

“Yes he did. I did everything I could. I did everything right as much as possible.”

Lassiter sighs as he gets into the driver’s seat. “You seriously think that? You’d be okay with your grandkid being raised that way?”

“If they had Shawn’s potential, yes.”

“... Dammit.” Lassiter turns to Henry, and punches him in the gut. Henry coughs, and then chokes on his own blood, and then coughs again.

“What the hell?!” Henry gets out between hacks.

“O’Hara would’ve done it. I feel like I owed it to her. … And honestly, Spencer, after compiling that damn case, I’ve been wanting to do it for myself anyway. I already knew you were an overbearing perfectionist with a control issue, but you wishing your son was more like that than he is is even worse.”

“Shawn’s no perfectionist,” Henry wheezes. 

“But he is overbearing with a control issue more often than not. Like I said inside, you two are a lot more similar than you think, and frankly I blame you for the parts of Shawn that go past mild annoyance and into infuriating obstacle.”

“I’d never just hand a collar over to save someone’s ego,” Henry coughs out.

“See, that’s where I wish Shawn wasn’t like you.”

“He’s handed you a collar twice.”

“What? He has not.”

And Henry must be a little delirious from the repeated blows, because Lassiter is pretty sure his next words of “See, this is why Shawn should’ve been head detective,” wouldn’t come out of him otherwise.

Lassiter grips the steering wheel tighter and makes a sharp turn into the hospital parking lot. “Well he’s not, and from the sound of things he never would’ve been anyway.”

“He could’ve been a perfect cop.”

“He’d have been miserable and you know it.”

“He’d be doing things right.”

“You’re hopeless.” Lassiter isn’t any gentler helping Henry out of the car than he was helping him in. “I’m not picking you back up when they’re done with you.”

“I’ll call Shawn.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you will.” And Shawn will come, and probably be mad on his dad’s behalf, and will definitely be mad at all three of the punchers, because he loves his dad enough to overlook years and years of mistreatment that most people would probably consider ground for cutting contact. “And Spencer? If you ever insult O’Hara’s work again, or say anything that gets her that angry, I will help her cover up your disappearance.”

“You don’t mean that,” Henry scoffs.

“Try me.” Lassiter gets back in his car. “And if I hear from her that you’re still badmouthing your son to his face, I’ll make you disappear myself.”

And then he drives away. 

And Henry walks into the hospital alone.