#she made me get them waxed once and traumatized me

[angesaurus]

I’m not a huge makeup person I just like to use it to attempt to not look like a zombie but the one thing I do every single day is my eyebrows and my eyebrow pencil ran out 😭😭😭😭😭

[anthonybialy]

Lunatic Moon Puts on an Eclipsing Show

The eclipse almost got eclipsed.  Lousy jerk clouds were so jealous of the attention whore Moon blocking the Sun that they tried to ruin the view.  But Jersey Shore-style drama was ultimately not imported from a place outside the totality.  The Moon was free to moon us.

Aspiring lookers worried a once-in-a-lifetime event would be even one fewer than that.  Missing the lack of sunshine would’ve been a twist during the soft reboot of an emblematically bleak tale.   Circumstances seemed eerily similar to 

that deflating Ray Bradbury short story everyone has a traumatic memory of reading about the cruel class locking the girl in the closet so she misses the rare Venusian sunshine.  But the happy ending we’re told never happens appeared out of nowhere.

I traveled all the way outside to be in the route.  My greatest worry was whether I thawed enough Pizza Logs for every guest.  We always try to be hospitable in Buffalo.  I noticed how many out-of-state license plates partially concealed bumpers in the days leading up to the solar system show.  Adventurous travelers took a chance on meteorological fate with a trip to the Queen City of Good Neighbors.  The prospect of never getting a gift from the cosmos beat definitely not seeing it in some crescent-cursed state.

The skies weren’t blotted by a blizzard, so we dodged the worst-case scenario.  I’d like to point out howling snow is an April rarity.  Still, Buffalo residents braced to be disappointed by something other than teams or taxes.  As for the shamefully high latter, politicians are so certain they know how to spend better than people who earn money that they take a cut just to prevent frivolous purchases.  Take eclipse supplies.  Many sites offered “free” glasses that taxpayers would’ve just bought with their own money if left to their unfettered devices.  Visitors wondered why there was ample elbow room around commercial zones.

Existing area establishments celebrated the spacey occurrence by not selling anything.  Everything closed while the skies opened.  My indispensible neighborhood liquor store shuttered while the Moon was drunk, which means those who wanted to get eclipsed had to plan ahead.  And even Tim Hortons took a rare break from brewing so workers could look wide-eyed through filters.  How did eclipse viewers stay jittery?  I hope meth dealers were shrewd enough to stay open.

Precautions against never seeing again seemed to work.  Concerns about going blinfndsxvnjds wrrrervfwe ,a,,h/nxxc.  My helper monkey has kindly stepped in to type dictations until my eyes stop feeling like I doused them with lava.  Anthony is an idiot.

I’m trying to remember the astronomical facts I crammed over the past week, but I fret they’ll vanish from my memory like safety warnings for watchers.  In my defense, it was tough to retain endless tips for ensuring spectators weren’t seeing the last thing they ever would.

Some alerts sounded like newsrooms sponsored contests to determine who could make the daftest admonition seem plausible.  Most notably, owners of fancy wireless pocket phones were advised to not point the cameras where they were looking or the implements could go blind, too.  You could make up any claim you’d like about where to aim eyes and get nervous participants to heed it.  I’m pretty sure you couldn’t glance at a waxed car unless you wanted your eyeballs to melt. You won’t see them.

I tried to be as prepared as I was enthusiastic.  It was as a good day for donning NASA socks as any this lifetime.  To complement my festive wardrobe in practical terms, I made eclipse viewer from a cereal box just like Mrs. Benfanti taught me in third grade before a previous Moon-based incident.  Interstellar experts recommend eating the Cheerios first.

A fun throwback of seeking entertainment by looking outside reminded us what it was like not to be glued to glowing pocket screens.  The heavens should always be this entertaining.  Keep staring outside for as long as it’s compelling.  Your DVR retained its content unless lunar rays disrupted recording that episode of The Office.  Creed doesn’t get fired on Halloween, so don’t worry.  Television is probably crisper than the sky appeared but not as magical.

I spent most of Monday afternoon seeing the eclipse, sort of.  The worst possible hours for overcast conditions seemed to embody the way things go on this rather uncooperative planet.  I coped by planning to check out the spectacle next century presuming the weather obeys.

An eclipse where you can’t see the Sun for different reasons than advertised seemed like a lesson.  The worst part of cloudy weather during the eclipse was my lack of surprise.  The hometown of Rick James, Vincent Gallo, and me often seems like the place where fate disappoints.

Not being allowed to look presented little problem.  A cruelly overcast day meant seeing some sort of blur through the real-life 3D glasses.  Everyone was failing the eye test.  Light at the end of the tunnel doesn’t provide much hope when it’s so splotchy.

But a transformation as amazing as queuing celestial objects redeemed what felt like a pending letdown.  My journalism degree didn’t allow me to determine whether the totality overwhelmed puny clouds in its path or if they parted out of karmic mercy.  Either way, the darkness led to lucidity.

The cosmic ballet compensated for tardiness.  Blazing plasma surrounded the perfect black circle.  For four glorious minutes or so, the fiery halo was the only clue that the Sun was still around.  The only way the sudden penumbra coda could have been more satisfying was if it seemed like the advertised event wouldn’t be visible, so thank existence’s scriptwriters.  You worried it was going to be cloudy for the whole eclipse, but the skies cleared at just the right time.  Buffalo teaches about the universe.

Monday featured quite a night in the afternoon.  We shared an incredible moment of all looking at the same alignment alongside.  The eclipse offered a chance for people of all kinds to get together for gazing and realize we hate each other.  Now, we share both animosity and liking that disappearing sunlight trick that one satellite pulled.

[problematicfanfics]

rant/vent but

since i’m on vacation with my family i’m actually at my wit’s end. i have no privacy. i have been sleeping in the same room as both my parents, my sister and my grandma for the past two weeks. i’m genuinely crying dude. like i can’t be happy around them. they decimate everything i find joy in and everything about myself i like. i’m so over this. sleeping in close quarters is just making me feel like shit again and reminds me of all those fucking years i spent as a kid fucking battling poverty and couch surfing with my family. like i hate it. it’s so traumatizing. my sister has like no memory of it because she was like 3 so for her this is all cutesy poor core aesthetic. i’m ripping my fucking hair out. before we left my mom was hounding me, asking me if i wanted a hair appt, a nail appt, to go buy clothes. i said no. i said the only thing i wanted was a wax because shaving is a pain in the ass. she forgot. but u wanna know what she didn’t forget? my sister’s wax appt. my sister’s chemical hair straightening treatment. all the stores my sister wanted to go to. my sister’s $160 nail appointment. like are u fucking kidding me? then the day before i asked my mom “when is my wax appointment?” and she BLEW UP at me saying i should’ve made it, it’s my job to make it. last month i made a dentist appt for my tooth whitening like she told me to and she got mad because I MADE THE APPOINTMENT. i can’t fucking win. then on top of it all for the first time in like months i wanted to get my nails done bc they’re hella cheap and really high quality in greece and once again, my mom forgot. she said “if you wanted it you should’ve gone.” i said mom, i can’t speak greek like that. i don’t want them to scam me. i don’t know what nails are supposed to cost. i’ve gotten my nails done professionally two times in my seventeen years of existence. idk shit about them. but no, i’m the issue. i’m the fucking issue. every time i open my mouth they say i’m giving them attitude when i’m literally just speaking or asking a question. they say i’m too quiet then yell at me for being too loud. they say everything i enjoy is stupid or childish. they won’t give me ANY personal space. they keep ganging up on me with my sister. my sister has been the biggest thorn in my side though. she’s such a pos. like idk how to explain this to y’all. she’s a fucking brat. we couldn’t be further from different. i’m scared to buy myself food with my parents’ money. my sister spends upwards of $100 a week on food, clothing, makeup, etc. with no regard for my parents’ time or finances. she steamrolls over everyone’s emotions to make room for hers, which are usually disgust and anger, and constantly puts everyone in a bad mood. my dad is ALWAYS out to get me despite the fact i try my fuckin hardest to keep the peace between us. my mom is so fucking bipolar i never know what i’m getting. my dad and mom are at each other’s throats. my yiayia lectures me on shit when i’m mad that isn’t even remotely related to the reason i’m mad ever and it pisses me off even more and i desperately try to give her the benefit of the doubt bc english isn’t her first language but she does the SAME DAMN THING IN GREEK LIKE BRO. i met ONE GIRL in this STUPID fucking horio BUT I LEAVE IN TWO DAYS. AND TOMORROW IM NOT EVEN IN THIS HORIO IM OFF TO THE MAIN AREA. like fuck off bro. and the girl mainly speaks greek which is fine but it gets hard bc i’m not the absolute best in it (i’m sm better in other languages bro no one bothered teaching me greek and you’d THINK my GREEK FAMILY would teach me greek and wouldn’t be mad over the fact i don’t know greek bc yk THEYRE MY FAMILY AND THEYRE SUPPOSED TO TEACH ME but no everything is my fault). and she’s sweet but this is her summer vacation spot so she has hella friends here already and i can tell i’m just “the girl next door she has to hang out with”. i feel bad i don’t want to drag her from her friends or insert myself in her plans but for the first time in god knows how long i felt normal today just because i finally had someone close in age.

elevator music and the smiths have carried the brunt of my emotions these past two weeks i can’t lie.

[erisxdrifter]

Hey, here's a question...

Do you think you could post all your stories in Ao3? That would be very cool but I'm not forcing you to.

What made you love this ship?

Lol oh my goodness, I've been meaning to look into Ao3 but I've been kinda busy and forgot 😅 Definitely intend to look into it, and if I start posting my stories over there, I'll post the links here too! :))

Honestly, I've asked myself that a couple times too, and I think the reason is because not only are both characters already really cool and unique by themselves, but then their relationship is also slow building and fun to watch and observe too. I've been into other ships as well, but they all ended up fading pretty fast and I stopped really caring for them... For Eris and Drifter, I started thinking they might like each other in 2021, but actually started getting into/drawing the ship in 2022 and haven't stopped since 😂

Another thing I love is that their relationship doesn't feel sped up or forced, it feels natural, to me at least. I love the way they start off bickering and being mean to each other, and then as the seasons and years go by, with each new interaction they grow a little kinder to one another.

I also love how they both have so many differences, but then they also have some things in common. Like they've both had traumatic pasts, they are both dedicated to getting their work done (Eris even once referred to the Drifter as tenacious a long while back), and they are both kinda gross and messy XD

Drifter sidled through Eris's Athenaeum, poking at her occult doodads. Many of the unidentifiable objects were covered in one type of grime or another: wax, tallow, machine grease, or blood. He shook his head with affection, amazed that someone so sharp could be so sloppy.

And I love the way they treat each other too... The Drifter respects Eris, and he doesn't treat her like she's crazy. Eris understands the Drifter's pain, and so she is occasionally very gentle with him, especially recently 🥺

But even here in season of the Haunted she is being very open, sweet, and gentle with him...

I love the dynamic and growth between them over the years, and then the fact that they are really awesome and unique characters too... plus, what can I say? They also look really cute together :3

Sorry for such a long reply, I just love these two so much 🤣 Thank you for the ask!

[aggravatetheaxe]

FINDERS KEEPERS - Chapter 1: In the Woods Somewhere

Murderer. Monster. Serial killer. Abuser. Freak. These are words you would be well within your rights to use when describing Bo Sinclair. But when a trip to dispose of a body doesn't end up quite as planned and a nameless waif enters the picture, he might have to add one more label to the list: protector. How long can Bo justify the presence of a child who so critically throws off the tenuous balance of life in Ambrose? How long can he stand it?

CW for this chapter: murder and disposing of bodies, lost children, children in peril, traumatized and/or abused children (non-graphic), brief descriptions of injury and infected injuries, lice infestation

This title is SAFE FOR WORK.

Soundtrack: In the Woods Somewhere, Ambience

Words: 2,967

Masterlist

***

The woods were still. Serene. The rumbling of the old Chevy over gravel was the only man-made noise in a symphony of frogs and cicadas. And it set Bo Sinclair on edge, made him clench the filter of his cigarette harder between his teeth.

On edge. Yeah, he was on edge, but when wasn't he? His whole damn life was a balancing act. Wrong against right, truths against lies, nice against real ... life against death. At least he knew to mind the drop.

But he couldn't deny it got tiring every once in a while.

The last batch had been rough. A couple bikers and their girlfriends. Big guys. If he hadn't liked the look of one of the girls so much, he'd have just let them move on, but ... well. Times he couldn't deny his weakness.

Now, big guys weren't immune to being tricked, and when you brought 'em down, they fell farther and harder than the smaller ones. But one of the girls had accidentally cracked open a sculpture early on, and they'd figured out the game too soon.

It had been a hell of a job to hunt 'em all before they could leave town. The girl Bo had wanted in the first place had managed to make it up the road quite a ways before he'd run her down. Too bad she hadn't survived. All that trouble and for what? A little blood and hair on his truck's grille.

Wasn't much left of her and her friends. She, the other girl, and one of the guys were salvageable—Vincent would work his magic—but the biggest guy ... all the wax in the world wouldn't fix a close-range shotgun to the brain, and the thought of having incomplete trophies on display irked Bo.

So, the woods it was.

The Chevy's engine cut, leaving only the deafening forest stillness. Bo took a final puff on his cig before chucking it out the window and sliding from the truck. The stench of Lester's roadkill pit was overpowering downwind, so he'd come from the north side instead. Still stunk like shit, though. As he rounded the pickup, he fought the urge to pull the collar of his shirt over his nose.

The biker's body was wrapped in tarp in the truck bed, covered with loose plywood and tools. It'd taken both him and Vincent to haul this guy up into the back, but grabbing the dead weight by the ankles and sliding it to the ground was a one-man job.

Thud.

Bo looked at the tarp-covered mass a moment, then reached for a shovel. Time to get to work.

He lit up another cigarette, gnawing the filter as he began to dig. It wasn't enough to just throw the bastard in the pile—it'd be way too visible, and his DNA was all over the body, for Christ's sake. But burying it near the roadkill, now, that would ensure no bloodhound would ever sniff it out. Again and again, he plunged his shovel into the soil, until his huffs and grunts nearly drowned out the crickets.

The hole was small, just enough to fit the guy vertically. Bo's biceps burned slightly as he lifted himself out of the grave and grabbed the body. Another grunt, a hard tug, and it slid easily out of the tarp, crumpling into the hole like garbage.

Bo spat, flicked the cigarette on top of the grave, and took to shoveling again. Shoulda killed me first, you sorry son of a bitch.

That was the thing, wasn't it? If you weren't living on edge, you were taking up too much space.

By the time he was finished, the sun was most of the way down the sky, and sweat and dirt covered him like a second skin. He tossed the tarp and the shovel in the bed of the truck again and lit up a third cigarette.

This one—thank Christ—he could actually stop and savor. He took a long draw, filling his lungs and holding ... then exhaling all the tension from his body. His sore muscles prickled and burned as they relaxed. A light breeze kissed the itchy sweat on his brow, and he raised a hand to wipe at it.

Another long day fuckin' over. He couldn't wait to take a scalding shower and a nap. Maybe he'd celebrate another brush with death by cracking open some of Daddy's whiskey, or maybe Momma's ruby port. Vincent would like that.

The direction of the wind shifted, and Bo grimaced as he got a whiff of roadkill. It was about time he got a move on and headed back home. Couldn't linger here for long or someone might come along, and he'd have a lot of explaining to do, standing next to freshly turned soil.

As he put his final cigarette out, he scanned the treeline. One last sweep of his territory.

His gaze caught on something. He did a double take.

At first, it didn't seem real. Was it the slant of the light, a trick of the eye? But no, there was a figure shuffling through the woods toward him. Small, off-kilter.

What in the fuck?

As it crept between the trees, out into the open, Bo had a hard time making sense of what it was. It was skinny and covered head to toe in grime, hair matted like an animal's. Its eyes were big and glassy in its tiny head, staring at him as it made its unsteady, plodding way closer.

The hair at the nape of his neck stood up. It looked like a monster ... a demon. It took a few seconds for Bo to realize the reality was worse.

A child.

Didn't seem quite right to call what he was looking at a kid, but it was definitely a child. Bo's chest grew ice cold, limbs stiff, as the creature continued to toddle toward him.

What in the fuck?

The creature wasn't stopping its advance, each step slow but deliberate. Bo could sense there wasn't much fight left in it. Uncertain what else he could do, he hitched his Dickies up at the thigh and crouched.

"Uh ... hey, kid. What're you doin' out here?"

The creature didn't respond. It simply walked into him, giving him no choice but to open his arms and let it sink into him.

A tangle formed in Bo's chest, emotions wrestling: disgust, confusion, concern, fear. Each battled for dominance, and as the seconds crawled by, each won out only to be replaced with a new champion a beat later.

The child had buried its face into the crook of his neck, making no noise, completely unmoving. It simply clung to him, squeezing tight and grasping his shirt with hands that could more appropriately be called claws.

At length, Bo pulled his head back stiffly, forcing the little thing to look at him. He couldn't make out much beneath the dirt other than it was a kid and it was human. "Hey. Where are your mommy and daddy, huh? Where're your parents?"

When it didn't respond, Bo craned his neck, searching to his right and left and peering into the treeline like he might spot them running after their kid any second. But the woods were still.

A shiver licked his back. Suddenly, he was very aware that it was about to turn dusk. The horrible sense that something was watching him from the woods, judging him, made him want to hop in his truck and speed back to Ambrose.

"What's your name, honey?"

It was no fuckin' use. The miserable thing wasn't going to answer. It simply squeezed tighter until not only its arms but its legs, too, were clenched around Bo's middle.

Come on, you li'l brat. Irritation came out on top briefly, and he forcibly distanced the child from himself, giving it a proper once-over. He had to hold it firmly in place to keep it from walking back into his arms as he patted it down, checking for injuries. Couple cuts, lot of bruises ... its feet were busted to shit, and its ribs were sticking out like a junkyard dog's.

More to himself, he mumbled, "What in the gaddamn happened ta you?"

Finally, a little noise. Just a tiny one. The small mouth parted, making an o shape, and pushed out a sharp breath of air: "Pchhhew."

The noise reminded him of the quiet sighs and chuffs Vincent sometimes made. Not a brat ... mute. Either because something had happened or just 'cause. Lucky him. Bo stared into those big eyes, contemplating his next move.

Well, shit ... he may be a monster, but he couldn't leave it out here to die. Not a human kid. Anyway, there had to be someone looking for it.

He pursed his lips, then spoke, forcing the child to look at him. "Come on now, let's find your momma and daddy."

A leery look entered the pitiful creature's eyes for just a moment, though it didn't pull away.

Bo sighed. Nothin's ever simple. "You want a pop?"

That won it over. It clutched itself close again, and Bo put a hand under its bottom, hoisting it as he stood. He struggled to open the truck with the child clinging to him, and struggled even more to disentangle it from him.

"Sit down now. There ya go." He slid in after, watching the child from the corner of his eye as he backed out and headed down the road to Ambrose. It sat with its knees pulled to its chest, nibbling at the dirt beneath its fingernails.

Death out, life in—if you could call the thing sitting in the passenger side life. Vincent and Lester were in for quite the surprise.

***

Ambrose was quiet and dark by the time Bo pulled up to the garage. He slid out of the truck and headed to the old soda machine, kicking it until it submitted and dispensed a Sprite. Stupid piece of shit.

As he grabbed it, he glanced over his shoulder, eyeing the top of the small head through his passenger side window. The child simply sat, straining to watch him.

Hell of a week this was turning out to be.

He returned to the truck, cracking the pop can open as he scooted back into place. "Here ya go."

The child clutched the can with both hands and threw its head back, chugging the Sprite with unabashed greed.

Bo couldn't help but laugh uncertainly. It was a pretty funny sight, this little creature scrambling to drink as fast as it could, but more than a little concerning. "Take it easy, kid. Gonna give yourself the hiccups or somethin'."

The child either didn't hear him or didn't want to listen, and he was too tired to argue with the damn thing. With a huff, he pulled up to the house. No lights on. Vincent would be hard at work in his warrens below, creating the newest additions to the town.

Bo didn't say much as he cut the engine and went to open the passenger side door. The child clung to him again, holding the now-empty Sprite can in one hand, then clenched so tight it hurt when he slammed the door.

"Ow, fuck, ease up," he mumbled, loosening the uncut claws digging into his arm on his way up the front steps. He never bothered to keep the house locked—he simply stepped in and bumped the door closed behind them.

As soon as he was able to get free of the child, it was sitting on the couch. Bo stood over it, staring down.

What now?

He couldn't call the sheriff. Even if he wanted cops around here, he wasn't in any state to see them, covered in dirt and blood and blowflies. He couldn't drive around asking the "neighbors" for similar reasons. His stomach turned as he went down his ever-shrinking list of options.

Finally, he pulled a chair up in front of the couch, straddling it backwards as he and the child stared each other down. "What's your name, huh?" The edge of fear in his own voice surprised him as much as it frustrated him.

The child didn't respond, simply sucked on the rim of the Sprite can, running the aluminum against the ridges of its teeth.

Bo studied the grime-caked little face. For starters, he guessed he could run a bath. He didn't pretend to be the pinnacle of hygiene, but he'd been raised to always clean behind his ears. Plus, if the kid was gonna stay, it couldn't stay like this, getting shit all over everything.

And deep down, seeing it like this was ... frankly disturbing. He'd killed dozens of people, perverted humanity in ways that would've made the Devil himself shudder, but even he couldn't deny there was something so acutely unnatural about seeing a baby in this state.

"Let's wash up. I'll getchu somethin' to eat after, how's that sound?" He stood and shoved the chair aside, and the child readily climbed back into his arms, no questions asked.

Weird feeling.

He trudged up the stairs. Fuck, his knees weren't what they used to be, but at least his extra load was light. Too light. The child buried its face in his neck again as he pulled the hall light on and entered the bathroom.

It was a sorry old excuse for a bathroom: claw-foot tub with a rusty shower head, pull chain toilet, stupid seafoam paint and tile Momma had always been crazy about. It'd done for the last few decades, though, and it'd do now, too. Bo stood the kid next to the tub and turned the tap, holding his hand under to gauge the temperature. Chances were his charge didn't like it as hot as he did.

He popped the plug into the drain, then looked over at the child. It was basically naked already, wearing one hell of a leaky diaper and the remnants of a T-shirt. Bo swallowed. Fuckin' pitiful. Lord.

"Come on, let's get you outta those." The shirt went first, then the diaper. The kid's skin was so red and swollen from diaper rash that Bo's whole body cringed. "Jesus Christ." She—a girl—must have been out there for days and days.

Tears rolled down the child's cheeks now, leaving little streaks in the dirt, and she whimpered softly. The rash must hurt like a bitch.

"Don't you cry now." Bo shifted awkwardly, rubbing a thumb against her cheek. Damn, she was running a fever, too. He turned the cold tap on the tub up higher. No wonder she'd fallen into the arms of the first adult she'd come across.

Once the tub was full enough, he offered his hands. She stepped closer, and he lifted her by the armpits, lowering her into the lukewarm water.

"You wanna give that to me?" He gestured to the Sprite can still clutched in her hands.

She burped quietly and held it closer.

"A'right." Kids were fuckin' weird.

Bo knelt beside the tub, taking a washcloth and scrubbing his bar of soap against it. She'd come out smelling like him, but there were worse things she could smell like, that was for damn sure.

He hesitated before beginning to lather her up, chest and shoulders first. His parents had always scrubbed him and Vincent down pretty rough, but even he could see this required a gentler touch. It wasn't long till the soap cut through all the dirt, revealing sallow skin.

By the time her body was completely clean, he'd gone through three washcloths and half a bar of soap. The bath water was opaque brown. They were both utterly silent as he drained it, then refilled it again to start in on her hair.

It didn't take him long to realize shampoo and a brush weren't going to cut it. She was crawling with lice, and a cut on her scalp had become home to a handful of maggots. Bo picked them out with tweezers and washed the cut, but the hair would have to go.

Poor kid. Ah, well.

Bo made her hair a ponytail in one hand and snipped it off with scissors, then discarded the matted locks.

"Now stay still," he murmured, draining the tub again and plugging in his electric clippers. "It makes a loud noise, but it's gonna make it so your hair ain't sick no more, m'kay?"

She remained mute, sucking her Sprite can.

Thankfully, she sat good for the clippers. He let the clumps of hair fall into the tub, shaving as close as he could until she was completely bald. "No more bugs," he said, pasting on a smile as he gave her shaven head one last pass with soap and water. "Don't that feel better?"

"Pchhheww."

"Right." With a sigh, he unplugged the clippers, then hoisted her out of the tub.

She stood by and watched, wrapped in a towel much too big for her, as he cleaned the tub and put things away. When he was done, he stopped and considered her. She had—or had had, a few minutes ago—brown hair, eyes of the same color. She had to be ... three, maybe a small four? Her face carried the unmistakable hallmarks of fetal alcohol syndrome.

Some drunk's kid, maybe. One more try. "Where're your momma and daddy? Hm? Where you live?"

She said nothing. Of course.

Bo pushed out a sigh. He couldn't have cops poking around here and asking questions. Looked like he'd have to either cut her loose or take care of her till he could find the people she belonged to. Hopefully that was sooner than later. Last thing this town needed was a fuckin' kid running around.

"Okay," he mumbled to himself, picking her up again. "Water. Food. Medicine. In that order."

Looked like his long fucking day wasn't over yet.

***

Chapter 2

Masterlist

Tip Jar

[smart-and-dumb]

Anne’s Severe Mental Health

Was rewatching The Big Bugball Game, and something about what Frog Jordan said made me realized just how low Anne’s mental health is.

Anne has a unhealthy need to please people, tries to help everyone in a really unhealthy way, hides her trauma, trust issues, these are obvious, and then there’s there the less obvious; suicidal tendencies, self-degrading, self-blaming and the unhealthy need to feel loved.

1) Anne’s need to please people.

Pre-Amphibia, Anne always listen to Sasha and Marcy without standing up for herself, even if it gets her into trouble.

And it’s not just Sasha and Marcy; in The Big Bugball Game, Anne tries to win the game by herself. It almost felt like she was trying to prove herself. (see number 4 this to make sense.)

In Combat Camp, Anne gets attached to Tritonio and started acting like a Teacher’s Pet.

In Anne of The Year, she tried so hard to prove Toadstool wrong.

The problem is why...

2) The need to feel loved.

In Best Fronds, we see the first signs of the Calamity Trio’s toxic friendship. Anne has mentioned that she feels lost without Sasha and Marcy, and she always listened to them because she’s scared that they won’t be friends anymore.

Normally, she wouldn’t have to rely on Sasha and Marcy to feel loved since she has her parents, but with the way she acts throughout season 1; it has to be something else.

Anne is quick to get attached to The Plantars and tries her best to be respected by Wartwood.

Anne vs Wild is one of the obvious evidences. Anne wants to feel included by the Plantars.

In Family Shrub, Anne looked like she was about to cry once she realizes that she could be a part of The Plantars.

Then there’s Toad Tax, where she tries to get everyone’s respect.

In Cracking Mrs. Croaker, Anne admits that she tried to get a girl to like her.

In Wally and Anne, she didn’t want people to see her as a weirdo.

3) Self-degrading and Self-blame.

Throughout the start, Anne keeps degrading herself and when something goes wrong, she quickly blames herself to be the cause of the problem.

In Best Fronds, she quickly blames herself when she and Sprig got ambushed by a water snake.

In Cane Crazy, Anne said; “Sometimes I wonder why I even bother putting up with you at all!”

In Flood, Sweat, and Tears; Anne said both sentences; “You just couldn’t wait to get rid of me!” “If you wanted me gone; You should have just said so!”

In Wax Museum and Scavenger Hunt, Anne keeps calling herself stupid.

In Sprig’s Birthday, Anne sees herself as a terrible friend.

Some of these implies that Anne doesn’t feel loved at home. There are scenes that show this.

4) Why she doesn’t feel loved by her parents.

In Sprig vs Hop Pop, Anne barely reacted when she and her siblings found out that Hop Pop has been burning their suggestions. Considering her friendship with Sasha, you’d think she’d be mad and tries to challenge him but she didn’t. This implies that she finds this completely normal, it’s possible that her parents don’t listen to her when she tries to help.

In Girl Time, Anne tries to make Polly more “girly”. This is mostly Anne projecting herself to Polly, we’ve seen in Anne-Sterminator that Mrs. Boonchuy dreams Anne to have a successful career; I think Anne knew this from the start, and she tries so hard to change herself.

This evidence can be supported by Swamp and Sensibility; the entire episode is about Anne helping Wally to be accepted by his father for who he is.

In Anne-Sterminator, Anne said both sentences; “Why do I get the feeling I’m not leaving up to your expectations?” “I don’t know when I’ll be the daughter you want me to be.”

And this leads to her doing some unhealthy actions...

5) The need to help people.

Some episodes show that Anne only helps the Plantars because she feels grateful, but I’m pretty sure it only got worse because of Contagi-Anne. The girl got traumatized at what she thought of her adoptive family dying in front of her because of being a lazy child trying to avoid chores.

And it shows throughout the show; in Lily Pad Thai, Snow Day, Handy Anne, Anne Hunter.

This takes a lot out of a child, and there’s a reason why she never asked for help...

6) Trust Issues

Anne has been betrayed 6 times (Tritonio, twice by Sasha, Hop Pop, Andrias, and Marcy). That takes a lot of damage to her mental health.

If Anne never felt loved before getting stranded in Amphibia, then it’s easy for her to assume that she was never loved to begin with because of these betrayals.

And here’s the thing; all of these people who betrayed her except for one incel, do care about her, but their actions made her think that they didn’t; so when Anne finally meets people who tries to help her and actually care about her (Dr. Jan and Terri) She lets them help her and The Plantars, but she no longer believes that people do care about her.

And this leads to Anne doing another unhealthy thing...

7) Bottling her trauma.

If Anne thinks that no one cares about her, then she’d believe that no one will bother to listen to her problems. So she bottles up her being traumatized by her childhood friends’ near death experiences.

And I’m starting to think that this leads to...

8) Suicidal tendencies.

It’s probably just me but Anne has been getting more reckless ever since Reunion, and it only got worse after True Colors.

She keeps trying to do things on her own and never asked for help until it slaps her in the face.

It’s like she doesn’t care about her own well being anymore.

TLDR; Anne is depressed, traumatized, and most likely to be suicidal. She needs to trust people more and know that she is loved and just have fun in life.

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

The Voyage So Far: Paramount War (Part One)

east blue (1 | 2) || alabasta (1 | 2) || skypiea || water 7 || enies lobby || thriller bark || paramount war (1 | 2) || fishman island || punk hazard || dressrosa (1 | 2) || whole cake island || wano (1 | 2)

the introduction of the celestial dragons really is just so brutally effective. this is the first time we see them, and before they even show up on page they immediately establish themselves as both absolutely powerful and absolutely despicable. everyone is watching them commit atrocities in broad daylight, and nobody dares say a word. 

i mentioned it back in the enies lobby post, i think, with spandam, but oda is very, very good at creating villains who it just feels so good and so deeply satisfying to see them get annihilated, and the celestial dragons are maybe the crowning example of it. 

i really like how none of the strawhats are really intimidated or impressed at all by the celestial dragons, in sharp contrast to how everyone else responds to them. some of that is ignorance, but you can’t tell me zoro would have acted any differently in this scene had he known charloss was a member of the world’s ruling class. all the power the celestial dragons have comes from fear; of course their greatest weakness is someone who just doesn’t care. 

obviously this moment is just excellent, no qualifiers needed, but one thing i really love about it is how all the bad shit that results from this does not detract from the sheer satisfaction of what happens at the auction house at all. like, even though this leads directly to the strawhats getting crushed by the pacifista and kizaru and scattered by kuma, i’ve never once caught myself thinking luffy shouldn’t have done this. 

i’m a huge fan of how rayleigh introduces himself. he knocks out the whole action house with conqueror’s haki, but luffy is completely unaffected, and the two of them just watch each other down the aisle for a moment as everyone else collapses around them. 

i don’t know that i’ll ever get over the fact that oda created and designed the supernovas as he was writing sabaody. they’re all such distinct and memorable characters, and almost all of them have fit neatly into the post-timeskip story one way or another. they really feel like a part of the world that was always meant to be there. 

i think the way roger as a character is handled is very, very cool, because we don’t really meet him as a person- when we first learn of him, on the very first page, he’s a myth, a story, a framing device. which is fitting, because that’s all the characters know him as. the rest of the world doesn’t know what roger was like as a person or why he did what he did, and so neither do our main characters and neither do we. 

and then we learn, slowly, by following in roger’s steps and meeting the characters who did know him, like rayleigh and whitebeard and garp. and through their testimony and memories, over the course of the story, roger goes from being a faceless myth to being a proper character.

i think this panel, where luffy says he just wants to be the freest person on the seas, might be my favorite luffy panel. if nothing else, it’s definitely one of the ones i think about the most in terms of his characterization. luffy’s been defining himself by his dream since the very start of the story- he’s the man who’s going to be king of the pirates! but it’s only here that we learn what that goal actually means to him, and what he actually really wants. he just wants to be free. 

the tone shift of sabaody really is impeccable. because up until a certain point, everything seems pretty par for the course. the strawhats make some new friends, get into trouble for their sakes, get into a hard fight where they all have to work together but eventually scrape out a win. 

but then kizaru shows up, and another pacifista, and kuma himself, and for the first time in the story luffy says this is a fight they can’t win- 

and then zoro disappears, and all of the audience’s expectations for how this is going to play out get thrown completely out the window. 

it’s not that we haven’t seen luffy upset before this- his fight with usopp in water 7 and merry’s funeral are the two obvious examples that come to mind- but we’ve never, to this point, seen him as crushed as he is at the end of sabaody. it really drives the abrupt tone shift of sabaody home, because we’re used to seeing luffy be generally cheerful, and if not that, at stubbornly determined to power through. but here, he’s just wrecked- and the paramount war saga is just getting started. 

every time i see hancock i’m reminded what a lesbian i am.

i’m talking a lot about character introductions this post, but a lot of really good characters get introduced in the first half of this saga, from the supernovas to rayleigh to jinbe. on that note, i really like hancock’s introduction, for reasons similar to what i said about roger earlier. she’s introduced as a cartoonishly evil one-dimensional bitch, and she leans hard into that characterization for the first half or so of amazon lily.

and then luffy narrowly keeps her and her sisters’ worst fear from being realized, and her facade starts to slip, and we get to know her as- still kind of a bitch, but also a deeply traumatized person who has very valid reasons for being the way she is, and someone who is overall a lot more complicated than she appears at first glance. 

one of my favorite things about luffy is his ability to always, always defy expectations. hancock is dead certain he’ll take her offer of a ship and abandon marguerite and the others, but he doesn’t even hesitate before doing the exact opposite. luffy is always turning people’s worlds upside down.

i have a friend who coined the term “conflict of interest arc” to refer to the arcs where a crewmate is forced to choose between the crew and some obligation or baggage from their past- arlong park for nami, whole cake island for sanji, etc. 

marineford is luffy’s conflict of interest arc- he has to make the choice, here, to prioritize saving ace over reuniting with his crew. where it differs from all other such arcs, then, is that nobody else can come to back him up. he’s well and truly on his own. 

i love how thoroughly expectations get turned on their head with jinbe. for the longest time, all we know about him is that he’s a shichibukai and arlong’s former captain, so given what arlong was like and what the shichibukai encountered thus far have been like, it’s a fair guess to assume he’s pretty awful.

and then we meet him, and he’s ace’s friend, sitting bloody and beaten in the deepest dungeons of impel down for refusing to fight in an unjust war.

bon-chan is really one of the greatest examples of one piece’s stubborn refusal to treat any character as disposable, and oda’s endless ability to find new and interesting ways to fit them into the story. in pretty much any other manga, it would be all but guaranteed that we wouldn’t see a character like bon-chan again after the conclusion of the alabasta saga. here, luffy straight up would not have made it to marineford without him. this is true for mr. 3 too- who would’ve thought his ability to duplicate keys out of wax, established and promptly forgotten some three hundred chapters ago, would be the thing that let luffy free ace on the scaffold?

magellan is a good antagonist. i’m not saying i like him- i don’t particularly- but he’s a great antagonist for a couple reasons, and one of them is that his powers are terrifying. magellan is essentially what might be called in video game terminology an advancing wall of doom- the only viable strategy for dealing with him is to run.

i had more i wanted to say here but it literally kept turning into a rant about one piece’s take on morality no matter how many times i tried to keep it short, so i’ll settle for just saying that magellan is an antagonist but not a villain and i think that’s interesting. 

the absolutely ridiculous, eclectic mix of people that luffy winds up gathering to escape impel down is possibly my favorite part of the whole arc. i just think it’s so fun and so characteristic of him that even when separated from his crew, he winds up attracting the weirdest, most powerful bunch of people around to break out of prison with. 

the relationship between luffy and blackbeard is a really interesting one. it’s been plenty clear for some time that blackbeard is almost certainly going to be luffy’s final opponent to become pirate king, and yet they’ve been mostly running on parallel paths through the world, only occasionally coinciding (such as here and in jaya) and generally seeming pretty unconcerned with each other. it’s a really cool way to handle the built to an eventual showdown, and i really like it. 

this is one of my favorite spreads just for sheer smile factor. i love it so much. i think we should get to see jinbe’s whale shark buddies more often, it’s a crime we haven’t seen them since this. 

[arkt-nehrim-archive]

                         A Story in Spring : Renewal {1/3} 

"I have a proposition for you."

The walls of the fallen seraph's humble hut had so far been something of a passive comfort, yet Lithirill found no sense of ease.  Her host, and fellow Tel'lmaltath could certainly tell, eyeing her with some hint of concern, slowly rising to his full height, turning to face her once the fire had suitably caught. "Go on."

The encouraging mannerism was commonplace in their interactions thus far, but it didn't do much to make her desirous of speaking her mind, as images played in her head of all she had been plotting in secret, only thinking to bring the matter to him when she -knew- beyond a doubt she could -achieve- her goals. "It is a...personal matter, to you specifically.  I hesitate to even ask, truthfully." At that notion, her company raised  a sculpted brow. How he might've read her words differed from what she seemed to mean by her body language; a normally stood straight, confident woman now half hunched and barely maintaining eye contact.  He simply watched, resting a hand along his hip. It was the only prompt to continue she was going to get. "...Right.  -Arkt-.  I will speak plainly." even then she hesitated, a sigh accompanying an expression of complete honesty, "...I want to reconstruct your wings. I would see you fly again."  

There weren't many things reality could offer him that still surprised, but that had done it, the gentle carefulness in her tone most of all. It wasn't just an offer, but a plea. Arkt's gaze fell to his floorboards, called back to the moment she had seen the tattered remnants, and the conversation that followed where he learned much and more about the individual he chose to champion. Her perseverance in the face of impossible odds had ensured his second chance at freedom from past mistakes, yet here she was still giving. It was not debt fueling her either, but desire, leading him to a thought forgotten sensation; confoundment.

Lithirill only fidgeted in the quiet, narrowing her eyes in passive calculation, half braced for some kind of impact. It took him some several moments to recover, clearing his throat. The ever-present ache at his back he'd still struggled with flared up. Even to this day, the injury pained him, centuries "dead" had been his only reprieve.

"You are firmly familiar with the reasons I lost them in the first place..." he began, watching his company instinctively tense, ready for rejection; instead he would give her a question, "Knowing that, I must ask -why-? To what end would you go to such efforts?" Asked with genuine curiosity, over any manner of accusation; he suspected her of nothing.

Lithirill nodded, crossing her arms and easing her weight onto one leg. "History was one among a few reasons I have debated asking. As for why, well. I feel there are certain wrongs afflicted to those I’ve come to care for, and it is within my power to unravel those wrongs.”

Arkt watched her carefully crafted mask slipping, the woman ever at odds with herself. He wondered if there would ever be a time where she did not engage in the practice, and simply felt at home in his company.

"As you did with Arantheal?"  he questioned, curious to see if he could keep her at that boundary.

Lithirill puzzled over the question for a moment, pondering if it was harmless comparison or an accusation. Foolish to think it the latter, knowing Arkt had no history of resisting her intent.

"...Yes. As I did -for- Narathzul." She corrected, offering a sideways nod and a shrug, "Know I don't need an answer -today-. I only wanted you to know that the idea lingered in mind long enough to...plan for.”

Ultimately, Arkt was touched. Shock still kept a whirlwind of emotions at bay at the mere hint of taking to the skies again, permitting the warmth of the smile behind his veil to only grow as he watched her. She was not having so easy a time, clearly having wrestled with herself on the matter for awhile.

"Is this what has kept you from your usual visits of late?" he wondered, gesturing with a hand in a motion pushing down from his midsection;  'Relax.' he said silently.

Her eyes followed his hand, flicking up to his face like the lash of a serpent's tongue before she took in a breath and let it out, chuckling to herself.  

"In part. Alongside the politicking and the visits somewhere warmer. Thoughts?"

He sighed through his nose as he partly answered with the considering tilt of his head and a prolonged shutting of his eyes, continuing to chew on the notion.

"Too many to rightly voice in a manner composed or remotely understandable. Would you mind returning to Castle Darlan for the moment? I'll have an answer for you come the evening."

"Of course.~"

The professional manner in which she pulled herself together and turned from him showed a wall climbing between them that he had no patience for, the old seraph chuckling when she moved to open the door.

"Lithirill."  

She twitched, shoulders bunching as her fingers fumbled at the doorknob, before she straightened again and smiled a familiar, shy curve over her shoulder. Her eyes lit up a touch when she saw he’d pulled down his veil.

"Yes?"  

"...Thank you."  he spoke, genuine appreciation clear in his expression.

A hint of color, and the wall scattered; his only goal in the moment. She departed with an amused, "See you soon.", quickly on her way.

                                                   ~~~ As promised, Arkt had arrived that evening, uncharacteristically anxious, but Lithirill could hardly blame him. She could not imagine the weight of what her offer truly meant to him.

In times long gone, the loss of his wings, however deeply traumatic, had served a purpose; symbols had power, as much in their creation as their destruction and his fall signaled the end of an era where the Lightborn could rule without fear of repercussion. Yet now that all his battles were over, and this new life lay before him...

It was not long before the old seraph was waxing poetic, teetering back and forth in his words, as was his way. He all but danced between every sentence- whilst Lithirill only offered more wine when his glass neared empty. She refused to rush him in coming to a decision, simply enjoying his company, equal parts devilishly curious and genuinely empathetic.

Such camaraderie came to it's end at the dawn of the following day, Arkt admitting in the quiet of the morning fog that he accepted her offer; even with her many warnings of risk and pain, he had seen firsthand what she was capable of; he knew he was in good hands, even if a fair few of her achievements were with his shadowed aid.

Two weeks had passed since he agreed to her offer, wasting no time in getting started. The first bout had been the hardest thus far- having not yet known just how -much- it took to render a seraph numb, and having the unfortunate task of plucking the feathers he still had. A meticulous, painful, unexpectedly bloody process...but it was safer to start with a clean slate than try to rebuild all that was under them when half the limb had been shorn down to bare bone.

Trippling the dosages from there made things much easier, at least for Arkt. His struggle was not with pain in the familiar sense now, it came instead from a nameless sensation;  the agonizingly slow return of what should never be, able to sense every -tiny- thread of what was lost reconnect. It was as torturous as it was euphoric, and it could only be overcome by sheer force of will.

Tonight would be no different. Lithirill had learned his tells after a few sessions. When in the throes of her spell work, she could spare little attention for observance, but awareness returned as she dialed back, murmuring gentle nothings mostly for her own comfort; though it signaled to Arkt he could stop taking such measured breaths.

The touch of the Sea crept away like the retreating tide, Arkt opening hazy eyes, idly stretching his fingers.  He knew well enough not to move until his companion told him to do so, watching her over his shoulder. There was a slight notion of fear that kept him from immediately looking upon his wings, naked and ghastly as they were. He only had eyes for Lithirill's face, noting the knitted brow and how she clicked her tongue when observing progress, pondering how to proceed.

"I'd hoped to have had bone completely covered by now..." she lamented, drawing again the magicked circles that held his wings in subtle regeneration between sessions, "I've underestimated how deeply the burns go. I should’ve-”

"You need not fret, Lithirill."  Arkt spoke up, a look of assurance crossing fair features, "This shall take as long as it will take, and you have plenty to grapple with without adding the unnecessary elements of haste and worry.~"

"...Perhaps. Still, I don't savor putting you through further pain I could have avoided." she spoke idly, glad he could not feel it as she undid the slings above, gently moving the humble beginnings to rest on cushions whilst she worked tension from developing musculature.

"We went into this knowing it would be difficult. We will endure." he replied, his tone as much an attempt to comfort as it was a statement of fact; she was far too deep in it now to safely -stop-.  "Which for you to manage, requires heady use of those flasks behind you, as I recall."

It was a gentle, but earnest jab to not neglect her own health whilst taking care of him. She might have been Tel'lmaltath, but healing at -this- level for such prolonged bouts tested the limits of even legendary resolves, and Arkt did not fancy the idea of a Shadow God turned Oorbaya.

Satisfied with her ministrations, she sighed and nodded, letting her hand trail down his back as she turned and gingerly stepped away to pluck a flask of Ambrosia from a stockpile. The edges of a smirk tugged at his lips as she made a show of drinking half the vial like it didn't taste awful, raising both brows at him in a silent 'satisfied?'.

"...-Thank- you." he muttered, humming a chuckle, "Do not lose sight of your own well being in concern for me. I must stress, we have nothing but time."

Lithirill tilted her head at him as her eyelids drooped, well accustomed now to the odd heated popping in her ears as the Ambrosia did its work, blanketing the red pressure in her head and quieting the skittering under her skin.

"-Now- whose fretting?" she teased, setting down the flask so she could help him to stand, not letting his wings droop as she supported them from the base, "I don't intend to go hurrying into the arms of the Blue Death, I promise. Come now.~"

Twas a short jaunt to the spare bedroom within her personal quarters, Arkt leading the way and Lithirill matching his steps. The seraph counted his blessings that his pride could not be so easily wounded as she settled his wings into yet another set of slings, these ones arranged to allow them to safely hang whilst he rested. He knew -she- worried about such mental troubles, but he was far too old and that much more taken by fascination in all she insisted upon doing for him to care for foolish things like shame.

"Tell me something, Lithirill." he said, eyes on her as she arranged the vials that would help him sleep, and come the morn, ease his pain,  "What do you suppose I'm meant to do in return for all of this?"  

The question was laced with an undertone of playfulness that reminded her of when the seraph had taken an almost catty tone in Arktwend, all but making -gossip- of the infatuation between those who'd brought Narathzul into the world. She could only raise a brow at him in plain curiosity, willfully stepping into whatever trap this might have been.

"That is hardly a matter to burden the likely recipient, don't you think?  Or am I -supposed- to be reading between some manner of line here?" The teasingly scrutinizing gaze she leveled upon him was nothing to the coy look he gave her beneath the messy strands of his hair, the two locked in a quiet contest before she relented; as she always did where he was concerned. "...ponder and plot all you like, my friend. But hold to that patience you've assured me with. I would say it is early yet to be planning anything more than recovery."  she offered.

Arkt sighed through his nose at that, uncapping the cork to her sleeping drought and drinking it down with a quick chaser of water. Her answer was as good as any. Ponder and plot indeed then.

"Fair enough. Rest well, when you find it."  he bid gently, offering only a smile. For a would be God according to most's definition, who had seen millennia pass and returned even from -death-, he seemed to be handling the life of a crippled patient quite well.

Lithirill could only take that profound patience and trust in her ability to heart; ensure no matter her doubts that she'd finish the job.

She returned the evening farewell and meandered to her own bed, falling upon it like a stone. All too swiftly would the sun rise, and the pair would be again until their great task of renewal was complete.   Lithirill could only hope she'd be done by Spring.

                                                   ~Fin~

[deripmaver]

4 5 6 for ALL OF THE CaPri FANFICS

LKSJMDHGVLKSJ ALL OF THEM???

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue? 5: What part was hardest to write? 6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

Ink On Paper (tongue fic) 4. lmfaoooooooo there isn't a whole lot of dialogue in this one oop-

Laurent nodded. The wax softened as he pressed his hand into it, erasing his previous message. Soft, warm, melting under his touch. He wrote again, I need someone who is not afraid to read out the insults I make towards the idiots at court. You have been fired, Damianos.

i guess it technically counts lmfao. i just wanted to show laurent post-trauma still able to make jokes and snipe at his husband so it wasnt all doom and gloom 5. i'm not sure exactly what "hardest to write" here means because like... a lot of these fic have serious gore or otherwise upsetting content, but both emotionally and actually writing wise i find that kind of thing actually pretty easy to write hahahaha. i think i got stuck with the chronology and the decision to make it non-linear made it flow a lot better. for the record writing laurent getting raped and then having his tongue cut out was actually very easy to write, i think i got it out in basically one go. #cancelme the more fucked up and intense the easier i find to nyoom through it 6. my first ever fic in the capri fandom!!!! hehehehhehehe <333333 Level Of Concern (plan B fic) 4.

Before Nicaise could say anything, Laurent spat, “Does he know you had your first heat?”

SURPRISE nic was the one who was pregnant the whole time!!!!!!! 5. this one i banged out REALLY quickly so i cant think of anything here 6. capri omegaverse!!!!!!! i wish there was more of this 🥺🥺🥺 Like Me (what if Auguste was also abused fic) 4. ******CW INCEST MENTION CW ABUSE MENTION******

“Your brother’s stuck his dick in every single member of your family,” Auguste spat out, laughing, crying, and so miserable he thought his heart would stop. His voice rose again, and he felt something burst from him as he screamed for the whole world to hear, “Did you know that? Did you, huh papa? Did he fuck you too?”

dude this line is so fucked up lmfao but i enjoyed writing it so much. actually this entire scene where auguste is having his breakdown was really intense to write and im really pleased with how it came out OR

Auguste grabbed him suddenly, looking up into his grief-stricken face desperately. “Please, Laurent,” he pleaded, voice breaking. “Please. Don’t let him end up like me.”

i felt entirely too clever with this line lmfao. i was like ~ooooohhhhh title drop~ im so dumb 5. i just remember this one like. dragged on for some time. i couldnt figure out what to do with it, how to get everything to coalesce around the final reveal about auguste 6. plot twist!!!!!!! plus auguste angst. i really enjoyed this one, i wrote it after watching the movie Spotlight which is one of my all time faves Softly, Gently 4.

“My King has been overexerting himself again, I presume?” Paschal sighed, shaking his head with a fond smile. “When have I ever done that?” Laurent cocked his head to the side, a wry smile on his face.

hehehehe sassy laurent my beloved <33333 5. honestly im just going to skip this one from now on lskjghmvlksjhglkvsjhdl i just get "stuck" sometimes without rhyme or reason and its usually on boring stuff, but then i cant remember later. the hardest part for me is when my dumb fucking adhd brain wont let me focus on writing but once i overcome that its usually pretty smooth sailing 6. horny omegaverse.................... my beloved............... giving men vaginas for horny reasons my beloved......................... Water of Life (birth fic)

“Do you want to hold him?” Erasmus breathed, eyes glassy. The baby cried, Erasmus bouncing him tenderly in those sunkissed arms. He looked apologetic. “Only for a moment, it’s not quite over yet.” A playful smile danced on Erasmus’ lips, and he brushed away a slick, damp curl from the wailing baby’s head. “A head this big, he certainly takes after Exalted.”

a cute, fun lil line in the sea of horrible angst lmfao ORRRRRR

Erasmus knelt before Damen, before Laurent. He said, “Exalted… Can you command his Highness to push?” Damen froze. “Do you mean…?” Erasmus nodded. “Alpha command.” Damen’s expression crumpled. He said, in a voice that shattered Erasmus’ heart, “I can’t. I can’t do that to him.” Erasmus licked his lips. “Exalted, in this state, he can’t push. His contractions are weaker. He’ll-” “I can’t,” Damen cried, clinging to Laurent’s limp body like a lifeline. “He’d… He’d never forgive me.”

damen is so sweet........ he loves laurent so much...... ORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

He stopped at the doorframe, turning to face Laurent with tears in his eyes, and whispered, “How long does it take, your Highness?” Laurent, shocked enough to respond, hissed, “What?” “I still wake up in the middle of the night thinking of it,” Erasmus said, voice thick in his throat, tears burning at his eyes. “How long until it’s over?”

real sad hours if u up click like. i love erasmus and laurent bonding over their shared trauma <33333333333333333333 laurent and erasmus friendship propaganda 24-fucking-7 bay bee!!!!! 6. unironically this is one of my fav fic ive ever written skdljmfhgvlksjdhflmgkvjshldkjfghvmls call the midwife is one of my favorite shows and writing this made me look at birth as something visceral and possibly horrible and traumatic. i wanna write more fucked up birth scenes, SO MANY MORE. ridley scott knew what he was doing Sandalwood (erasmus/kallias my sweet boys i love u so much) 4.

“I do,” Erasmus breathes, ducking his head, flushed as though embarrassed. “In the gardens, the perfume from the orange trees all around us on those summer nights.” Kallias smiles behind him – Erasmus knows his body so intimately he can feel it in how Kallias’ posture changes, though he can’t see the soft turn of his lips. “The scent was so cloying I thought it would drive me mad. It made me want to kiss you senseless.” Erasmus laughs, breathlessly, imagining the warm heat of Kallias’ mouth against his. “Don’t blame that on the orange trees, dear one.”

beloved..................... im weeping.......... 6. these two make me fuckign CRY ON THE REG I LOVE THEM SO MUCH MY SWEET BOYS YOU DESERVE THE WORLD- Wisps of Smoke******************* (lauguste fic) 4. ***CW EXPLICIT INCEST*** (i mean....... obviously lmfao)

“Call me what I like,” Auguste growled against his ear. “You know what I like.” He did. Laurent did. He knew everything Auguste liked – the slow flick of Laurent’s tongue on the underside of his cock, that tender spot behind his earlobe, the way Laurent’s thighs looked straddled atop him like his horse – and this. “Brother,” Laurent gasped, desperate, “Brother, please, harder. Harder.”

i wanted the incest to be explicitly part of the kink here lmfaoooooo 6. hehehehehehehhehehehhehe lauguste................... i need to write more of u But I Love It (laurent is allergic to latex fic) 4.

“Laurent,” Auguste said, voice high in warning. Laurent braced himself, stiffening visibly. With what seemed to be monumental effort, Auguste continued, “You know, Laurent. I’m proud of you.”

IM A SOFT BITCH OK???????????????? auguste is PROUD of his baby bro for overcoming his sexual trauma and getting that fat dick 6. SLJHVDLMKJDHGVLK PEOPLE FUCKING LOVED THIS FIC i tried to be funny and i think it worked. plus some softe bits thrown in. i also kind of see lots of humor fic where its a no abuse au, but i wanted to write something comedic where the regent still. existed u kno????? anyways hahahahha i dont think i can write anything like this again but im glad y'all liked it Is It Cold In The Water (slice of life fic) 4.

Laurent opens his mouth to say something cheeky, but instead, what comes out is: “Do you think Aimeric had the right idea?” Damen is quiet for so long, gaze serious and framed with his long, dark lashes, that Laurent wonders if he’d spoken aloud at all – and when he’s sure he had, he realizes Damen had remembered Aimeric after all. When he speaks again, the sleep is gone from his voice. “Laurent,” Damen says carefully, as though approaching a spooked horse, “Is something wrong?”

🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 soft,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 6. ruby likes this fic lskjdvhmflgksfjdhmvglkjsdhflkvgmjhlekjfhdvlgskjfhv im a SIMP- The Devil's Got Nothing On Me (AIMERIC FIC LEGGOOOO) 4. there are lots of lil nuggets in here!!!!

Aimeric blinks, and all he can think is, you knew? He says, "I – I just." "I am a patient man," Guion breathes, "I support everyone in my household. Everyone. But Aimeric, you are truly testing my patience. Your mother came to me in tears, begging me to find you. Look at what you did to her! There was nothing I could say until we found you!" "I'm sorry," Aimeric whispers, looking at Loyse, "I'm-" "Look at me," Guion roars.

this conversation was inspired by a very miserable encounter with my boss lmfao. fuck that guy and fuck guion

The regent, blue eyes sparkling - and Aimeric has never thought eyes could look just like a summer sky until now - says to Guion but really to Aimeric, "I was thinking I could take little Aimeric riding tomorrow. Just the two of us." Loyse says, before Guion can speak, voice trembling with relief, "I think that's a wonderful idea, your Highness."

~dramatic irony~ lmfaoooooooooo. WE know of course that this is a bad thing, but it's always fun to have characters make bad choices that they have no idea are bad. i also did this briefly in "Like Me" with auguste's ex wife taking nicaise to church because she was so overwhelmed at home and he offered to help. of course, the regent is always happy to help out. evil evil evil

"-was worried it might be difficult for him." A soft, lilting laugh. The guards had said the regent was in the library, and then there is Guion, right there with him. Aimeric is suddenly angry, not sure why his father is with the regent, who is his and no one else's. The regent responds, "I daresay it's been perfectly easy. It seems you've done most of the work already."

i wanted to highlight the fact that it was aimeric's neglect that lead him to the regent in the first place. hence "youve done most of the work already" - guion by ignoring and neglecting aimeric created the perfect environment for the regent to sweep in and take advantage. like leaving food out btwn 40-140 F is a perfect breeding ground for bacteria LOL. the books touch on that but i wanted to make it explicit

He is so, so ashamed. It's unbearable, the thought of her kind eyes, the way she cried for him, the way he pushed her away. Before he'd left to join the prince's guard, she had taken his hand, kissed it, and said in a voice fragile as glass, "It's been such a long time since I've seen you smile like that," but in that moment he could think only of the regent's letter warm in his pocket.

6. honestly i know ive sounded super conceited this whole time but i kind of tear up whenever i read through the end of the fic lmfao. aimeric is just so fucking depressing as a character and i love that i really got to explore that in this fic. he really didnt have anyone, did he????? he's like a tragic greek character where you just watch him stumbling towards his inevitable end and it hurts the whole time. its even worse on the reread ANYWAYYYYYYY thats it. thanks so much for the ask anon!!!!!!! feel free to send me more!!!

[jean-does-not-have-a-horseface]

Hey I want to ask for Levi with a fem s/o were she tries to cook for him but while doing it makes a complet mess out of the kitchen.. s/o cant cook but wanted to try for Levi :( scenario if you have time please 🌼

I'm so excited to post this, originally I would have taken another path but these past few weeks I've been thinking about this story a lot and I wanted to write an interesting take on fluff. Hope you enjoy❤️

Pairing: Levi/ Reader

Warnings: beware! F L U F F, I wouldn't say this features mentions of PTSD, but anyways it could touch a similar topic

Tags: Hurt/ Comfort, all the fluff.

The nightmare before our fifth anniversary

The devastating sight of a kitchen covered in oil, flour and unevenly chopped vegetables would be enough to make every clean freak in the world, inside or outside of the walls scream in agony but it only sent concerned shivers down to Levi's spine.

He could only feel his poor heart sink as his eyes paced around the room in a panicked state. The unpleasant smell of smoke that came from the fireplace only sent hot rushes of blood to his newly throbbing head.

In a haze, he tried to puzzle the pieces together, to figure out what had actually happened. With a quick check around the small space he was assured that all windows were indeed in perfect condition, not a single crack or scratch adorning them. In addition had been locked when he entered, a fact he was amusingly certain of.

Had this been an attack, surely the attacker must have had entered the cabin someway. The lack of blood and physical struggle around the room though, slowly put his mind at ease as he took a step at a time, heading to your shared bedroom.

Glancing around he found traces of tiny vegetable pieces, some flour -or so it seemed- and water. In many places they were mixed together, creating the weirdest mass of sticky residue; such filth was an unusual decoration to his house yet his cleaning obsession instincts refused to mingle with his thoughts just yet.

"(y/n)?" With the calling of your name he heard a saddened tune. He knew, he definitely shouldn't have felt so relieved to the sound, still your situation was unbeknownst to him, but it was a sign that you were certainly still able to make noises.

As his shaking hand reached to push the wooden door of your bedroom open, he tried to shake all horrible thoughts out of his head.

"You're home early."

His eyes widened at the sight of you, feet sprinting on their own to your direction; you sat with your back against the closet door, your hands scrunched in weak fists resting on your cheeks, just underneath your eyes, wiping rivers of tears. Worry splashed on his chest in ice cold swepts as he kneeled down beside you, taking your hand in his in the process.

It was in that moment that he noticed you were covered in flour and unevenly teeny pieces of chopped vegetables. The sight immediately put his otherwise puzzled mind at work and in a second it had clicked to him. Naturally, it all came to fit in the bigger picture, he was proved wrong on his unitial guess on this being a home invasion.

A failed attempt at cooking, that's what it was.

The way that you burried your face in the flat of your palms was as painful for him to witness as it was for you to endure. You were panicking, the sheer terror of his reaction to the mess of the house bullied the insides of your ribs by twisting and turning them, burning them to the point you had to leave pained whimpers escape you.

It was so hard for you to look him in the eye and admit what you had done. Yet, your own embarrassment wouldn't allow you to torture yourself more than what you had already.

"D-don't yell at me, Levi"

"Now, why would I?"

With an exaggerated movement, his hand came to mingle in the space under your jawline. Another sudden wave of hot salty tears threatened to spill out of the corners of your eyes as you melted under the feathery drag of his fingers across the nape of your neck.

His mellow touch was soothing and comforting; forgiving even. It made your whole body fall into serenity as you leaned your head into his palm. Your own hand came to palm under his, your chest letting out a pleased hum as your furrowed brows finally curved upwards in a relieved manner.

"There was a time I knew how to cook. Before all that." you spoke low, voice barely over a whisper as your throat threatened not to hold back the lamp of cries that had gathered at the depths of it. "All I wanted was for us to have a nice anniversary dinner Levi."

You couldn't bear to look him in the eye just yet; your heart hammered inside your chest, anxiously preventing you from ensuring another comforting antic of his to yourself despite your need for it.

You hated yourself for not being able to exceed this simple domestic mission.

"It's fine," he eagerly spoke, his tone mimicking yours "you didn't have to cook on your own. We could just go to a nice restaurant."

"No, Levi! I wanted to make you those duck stuffed eggplants that you like! Why am I so useless that I can't even cook? Seems like all I know is how to put on odm gear and kill Titans while I'm at it."

His other hand came underneath yours. After having finally trapped your hand in between his fists he dragged your mingled hands to your chest, resting them right on top of your heart. Your pulse tightened, your heart threatened to spill in gory manners from the gaps between your ribs, this action was all too familiar to you, all too traumatic for you to momentarily try to endure. It struck you, though, in between coarse breaths and a sudden realisation that plastered wide shock in your eyes that this wasn't a salute. His slow hands wouldn't let go of yours; through your chasted breathing he could feel your whimpering heartbeat, the feeling causing the hair on the back of his neck to rise.

When, at last, your eyes fell into his the silence in the room became overbearing, the familiar buzzing that emitted from such lack of sound was sending your thoughts into a haze as your chest started to pulse with an all familiar warmth.

Surely enough your head wanted to guilt trip you and maybe pester you for not being able to simply mix ingredients together, but your heart ever melting under Levi's affections was invested in its counterattack against your intoxicating brain. When he finally batted his eyes, a little too loudly at it, to prepare your ears to endure the sudden incoming words he was about to utter, you goggled at him desperately. As if you were asking for forgiveness your eyes watered again, a whole new wave of tears shaking you whole.

"Please allow me to drown those tears, we'll prepare a meal together alright? I will show you how." He whispered and crashed his body onto yours respectfully, his chin now sat at the space between your neck and your shoulder. It was a much necessary physical connection that you would never get enough. The warmth that spread from his whole body through every aspect of him that was in contact with you was enough to help you feel anew. Had you previously melted under his touch, now you felt like you were ready for be molded, your existence flickering between the consistencies of melted wax and gooey sand.

In addition to his soothing words, the achingly beautiful gesture that still sat on the left side of your chest burnt holes through your shirt and your skin. His eyes on you were gleaming as if he had ordered the outside world to come to an alt, everything in you screamed for his calloused hands to get a good grip of your heart while he was at it. It should serve him as a well deserved trophy in a solo collection, him the rightful owner of your heart could do as he pleased it so long you could feel him hold you like that.

"Could I take one hand out of our grasp to bring close to me properly?"

Your answer was inaudible, yet he manages to figure it was of positive nature due to the short nod of your head in the name of his neck. He prompted himself a few inches back, despairate not to break much contact with you and reluctantly unleashed his right hand from yours. Before you managed to protest of the prolonged departure of his body on yours though, his hand shot tenderly on your cheek, cupping the soft skin in an urging motion.

The kiss he planted on the apple of your cheek was followed by another on your eyelid, he tired to ignore the ticklish feeling caused by your lashes brushimg against his contact sensitive lips but it was to no avail, a smuh had made it to his mouth before he manages to plant a kiss on your forehead.

"I really love you Levi, I'm glad you're in my life, I say this type of things every single year but-"

Your words were cut short as soon as they had began to form, only as his lips slammed against yours. In a matter of seconds he was moving feverishly, gluttony defining his earth shattering kisses and not even for a second did you hold back in returning the actions with fiery passion.

"I don't speak of this often," out of breath, he pulled back "but I do love you, so very dearly."

Before he could process the endearing look in your eyes, you pulled him in for a kiss once again, lips trembling to meet up with your hearts expectations. If there was a way to show him how you loved him this was it, the soft mingling of each other as you bit and sucked and fought for his lips to never leave yours, pressing his head impossibly close to you.

You knew what your answer should be, a short telltale of the way he made you feel a few moments ago would serve your feelings justice before you could press your aching lips on his once again.

"You could do as you please with my heart and I'd thank you, please don't ever leave me!"

"I won't, I promise. I couldn't be able to push forward without the one who holds my own heart."

Tags: @sasageyowrites @levisbrat25 @alrightberries @nobody-knows-anymore @miss-consulting-timelord am I forgetting anyone?? Pls I'm not good with taglists

[taeminyourmind]

Under the Moonlight (M)

Summary - Your marriage to Taemin experiences a rough patch after you experience a miscarriage. Though you want to give up on having children, his everlasting love gives you encouragement to try and grow your family again.

Genre - Mature (Angst and Smut)

Trigger Warning!! - Mentions of miscarriage

Word Count - 5.7k+

A/N - This story contains mature themes. Reader discretion is advised.

You sit alone on the bed in the guest room of your parent-in-law’s home, staring out the bay window at the night sky. Its beauty is unmatched as she flaunts her most prized possessions - the planets and stars. Though the waxing crescent moon offers little light, it gives you the motivation to overcome the darkness that’s consuming your mind. Beside it, the stars shimmer, sending a secret code with their pulsations.

The sound of the door creaking open and footsteps interrupt the silence. You remain still as the footsteps approach you. The rhythm of the steps and faint scent of cologne let you know that it’s your husband that entered the room. His weight shifts the bed when he sits beside you. He doesn’t make a sound and joins you in staring at the night sky.

“You’ve been gone for a while,” Taemin finally says. “You okay?”

You avert your eyes to the floor before exhaling deeply. You want to answer his question, but the darkness of your mind creates a haze over your thoughts. Taemin watches your face fall in sadness and gently nudges your shoulder, encouraging you to talk.

“I’m ready to go” you croak. You turn to Taemin with teary eyes that glisten despite the low light. “Take me home, please.”

Without protesting, Taemin nods his head and stands. Though he holds out his hand for you to take, you stand on your own and walk past him with your head hanging low. You succeed in avoiding Taemin’s family who has been pestering you with questions about when you would have a baby and giving you bedroom advice as if you need help pleasing your husband. You say a quick goodbye to his parents before walking out of the house with Taemin on your heels. A part of you feels sorry for dragging him away from his loved ones, but there is only so much you can take after a traumatic experience.

The ride home is silent with neither you nor Taemin daring to speak. You decided to not tell Taemin about his family’s pestering in fear of burdening him, so you keep everything to yourself. His family’s questions are loud in your mind. When you try to push them away, they come back louder, tormenting you. You try your best to ignore their invasion. You want to cry, scream, punch something, you want to do anything to kill the voices in your head. Taemin sees your hands clench and relax. He wants to ask if you’re okay when he glances over and sees a distant look on your face, but can’t pull himself to say anything. For the remainder of the ride home, silence is your best friend.

The house feels colder when you walk through the door. Was it because this was where your hope was lost? Was it because its rooms were no longer filled with laughter? Or was it because you made it this way? Your eyes fall to the floor, ashamed to look at anything that once sparked joy in you.

“___?” Taemin whispers, placing a hand on your shoulder.

“I’m going to shower,” you answer in a monotonous voice.

You walk away without glancing at your husband. His eyes can be felt on your back as you walk away, and though you want to run into his arms, you can’t bring yourself to do so. 

Your clothes seem to stick to your body when you try to take them off. It takes time before they let you loose and you throw them to the ground in frustration. You sit on the side of the tub with your hand under the water, but you can’t tell which is warmer, the water that flows over your fingers or the tears falling down your face.

The water from the shower falls over you as you sit in the tub. You bring your knees to your chest and hang your head as you try to suppress the cry that burns in your chest. You thought that you were quiet, but Taemin could hear your sniffling upon entering the bedroom. The thought of you curled up alone while you cry pierces his heart. He can’t help but tear up at the sound of your distress and he fought hard to not burst through the door and hold you in his arms. Instead, he sits on the bed with his back to the bathroom door and allows the tears to fall.

Your robe covers your body when you finally emerge from the bathroom. You stop in your tracks when you see Taemin’s back, his shoulders slumped while his head rests in his palms. His shoulders shudder whenever he suppresses his cry. Climbing on the bed, you wrap your arms around his shoulders and kiss the back of his neck. Your embrace breaks the chain of restraint that is choking him allowing him to cry out. His chest heaves when he chokes on his sob. He doubles over and allows himself to cry out loud for the first time in a month.

“It’ll be okay,” you whisper while you squeeze him tighter. “It’s okay to cry.”

In the following week, there is nothing but tension and arguments between the two of you. Doors are slammed, harsh words are thrown, and silent tears fall when either of you stormed off. On many nights, the two of you go to bed without making up. And the pain from the day before will roll over to the next. You find yourself wondering if your marriage could survive. You love your husband, and you know he loves you, but there is a dense fog blinding you from seeing that.

One night an argument spirals out of control causing you to storm away from your husband who follows you.

“Why can’t you just let me hold you?” He yells, his voice bouncing off the walls.

“I just don’t want to be touched! What is so hard to understand about that?” You say as you stop and face your husband. His face is full of mixed emotions - his eyes are filled with sadness, his nostrils begin to flare in anger, and his forehead creases in confusion.

“Do you think you’re the only one hurting? That was my child too in case you forgot!”

Taemin closes his mouth before he could say anything else. His hands grip his hair before he leans his head forward until it falls against the wall. Though you are filled with so many emotions, sadness is the one you feel the most. You realize how much you failed at being a wife in the past month and how much patience he’s had for you. The least you could owe him was an explanation, a word, something to tell him about everything you’ve bottled in.

“I feel like a failure.”

Your voice makes Taemin turn to face you with curious eyes. You look to the ceiling in an attempt to keep your tears back before looking back at your husband.

“You’re not a failure,” he whispers while taking a step closer to you.

“No, I’m a failure,” you answer with tears rolling down your face. “I was supposed to protect our baby, and I failed. And the other week, at your parents’ house, I was asked nothing but questions about when we were going to have a baby. And I was reminded of how much of a failure I am.” 

You pause to take a shaky breath.

“I want to have a baby, Tae. But I just feel like giving up.”

“Look at me, baby,” he demands. His strong hands cup your face and hold it up until your eyes meet. “We’re going to get through this. We’ll go to therapy, we’ll try again and if that doesn’t work, we can adopt, have a surrogate, or do infertility treatments. Whatever it takes.”

Taemin’s reassurance makes a smile spread across your face for the first time in a month. His lips press against your forehead softly when he wraps his arms around you and holds you tight. You rest your head against his chest where you hear his soothing heartbeat. Your head snuggles into his chest more as you wrap your arms around his waist, bringing him close. For the first time in what seems like an eternity, you feel worthy and loved - and it was all because of the everlasting love Taemin has for you.

6 Months Later

You stir in your slumber as the room begins to fill with the brightness of the rising sun, garnering a low groan to rattle in your throat. You squeeze your eyes shut and turn your back to the window to block the sun for a while longer. The moment you begin to drift back sleep is interrupted when weight is pressed on your side. Taemin presses the side of his face against your shoulder and brings his hand up to stroke your hair.

“Princess,” he softly sings while using his other hand to poke your side.

You groan once more and swat his hand away. Taemin laughs at your annoyance and sits on his knees. His hands attach to your sides and begin tickling you.

“Taemin!” You squeal while squirming.

The room fills with more laughter as Taemin joins in. No matter how much you squirm, you can’t escape from under his body. Your stomach begins to cramp and tears well in your eyes from all your laughing. Finally, you muster enough strength and escape his hold. Rolling off the bed, Taemin chases you around the room while you taunt him to catch you.

“Gotcha!” He exclaims as he wraps his arms around your waist from behind. “Happy anniversary, my love.”

“Happy anniversary, Tae,” you say with a smile while craning your head back to look at him.

Taemin’s hands twirl you around so you face him. The warm hue provided by the sunrise paints his face golden and accentuates the softness of his messily tousled hair. He smiles brightly at you before leaning down to softly kiss you.

“I have the whole day planned out for us,” he says. “First, we’ll have breakfast on the veranda, then we’ll watch our favorite movie, after that we’ll go biking near our favorite lake, and come home in time for dinner and dessert.”

“Sounds relaxing.”

“We always go out for our anniversary. I thought you would appreciate a day at home.”

You smile at his thoughtfulness and rise to the tip of your toes and kiss the middle of his forehead.

“It sounds like a perfect idea.”

Throughout the day, you treat each other like the loveliest creations you’ve encountered. You shower each other in the purest forms of love - intimate touches and words of affection. You find yourself stealing glances at Taemin in admiration. Whenever he catches them, he teasingly winks that make butterflies flutter in your stomach. As for Taemin, he finds himself falling more in love with you in each passing hour. Your gentle touch makes his heart flutter, your smile fills his body with warmth, and your laughter overflows his heart with joy.

Day turns to night with blackness blanketing the sky. The moon and stars shine brightly against its void. Taemin leaves you to get dressed while he prepares the dinner he made for the two of you. Upon entering the room, you see a large gold-colored box on the bed accompanied by four roses and a small card with your name on it. You look back at the closed door and pretend it’s Taemin, smiling at it to show your appreciation. Eagerly, you open the card to see the sweet words written to you.

My love,

It’s been four years since we wed and each day I spend with you is a blessing. I always wonder what I can do to show how much I truly love you. I picked out this dress for you to wear tonight and hope you’ll like it. When I saw it, I knew it was destined for you to be in it. Don’t keep me waiting long.

Yours,

Taemin 6v6

You smile at the card and open the box with quick hands. Inside, a blue silk spaghetti strap dress lays in front of you. You carefully lift it from the box and hold it against your body. Like a child at Christmas, you’re filled with excitement as you quickly undress and slip into the dress. Standing in front of the mirror, your eyes examine the way the dress appears on your body - its plunging v-neck accentuates your breasts, the silk material comfortably hugs your body to complement your shape, and the slit on the side teasingly exposes enough skin to make one yearn for a better look.

The door swings open without warning and cause you to turn towards it. Taemin is dressed in black slacks and a blue silk shirt, similar to your dress, that is slightly baggy on him. He immediately apologizes for barging in but trails off when he sees you in the dress. You watch his eyes glaze over for a second, feeling him undress you with his eyes.

“You look stunning.”

“Thank you.”

“Is it safe to say I made a good choice?”

“You made an excellent choice.”

You smile at one another before Taemin reaches in his back pocket and pulls out a piece of cloth. You raise an eyebrow at the material in his hand. Before you can question his motive, he moves behind you and ties the blindfold around your head. Cautiously, he guides you out of the bedroom and into the hall that leads to the kitchen area.

“I think you’ll like your surprise, princess,” Taemin whispers. One hand delicately holds yours while the other is placed on your lower back.

You feel yourself blush at his compliment. You smile and lightly nudge him with your shoulder. He chuckles at your bashfulness. Though the blindfold eliminates your vision, you can see the beauty of his smile and the way his nose scrunches when he laughs in your mind.

“Tae, how much longer do I have to wear this blindfold?” You whine.

“Only a few more steps.”

You walk a little further before Taemin stops you. You feel his warm presence leave your side and move behind you where his fingers swiftly untie the blindfold’s knot and gently removes it from your head.

You blink your eyes until your vision goes back into focus. The sight in front of you makes your jaw slightly drop. Before you, the kitchen table has been magically transformed into a gesture of romance - a white tablecloth covers its surface, small candles float in a bowl of water that is set in the middle of the table, and rose petals cover the tablecloth and the surrounding floor. The lights are dim to allow the candles to shine brightly and violin instrumentals of your favorite romance songs play softly in the background. Against the wall, a large framed picture of you and Taemin sealing your vows with a kiss from your wedding hangs under a wall light.

“Wow,” you gasp as you walk closer to the table.

“I hope you like it,” Taemin says sheepishly. He stands beside you, peeking over to see your reaction.

“I love it,” you smile. You turn and place a soft kiss on his lips. Pulling away, you can’t help but laugh when you see some of your lipstick smudged on his lips. “My lipstick is on your lips.”

“Is it my color?” Taemin asks before poking out his lips.

“They should rename the shade after you.”

Taking your hand, Taemin leads you to the table and pulls your seat out for you. A smile appears on your face as your eyes closely examine the decorations arranged before you. Taemin wasn’t the craftiest person, but for you, he tried his best. And for that, you continue to feel blessed to have a husband that loves you that much.

“Happy anniversary, princess,” Taemin says, interrupting your thoughts. He softly smiles and holds out a large flat velvet box. “I know we agreed on no presents, but I couldn’t resist.”

“Oh, Taemin,” you whisper and take the box. Slowly, you open the top of the box and gasp at the beauty in front of you. A graduating pear-shaped diamond necklace sparkles brightly against the box's dark hue. You are at a loss for words as your fingertips carefully glide over its jewels.

“Let me put it on for you.”

Taemin carefully removes the necklace from the box and transfers it around your neck. He apologizes when the sudden touch of his cold fingertips against your skin makes you shiver.

“It looks beautiful on you,” he says after moving in front of you to have a better look.

You look down to hide your blushing face. He always has a way to make you feel like the loveliest person he's ever known whether it be by his gazes, words, or actions. Looking up, your eyes lock with his soft stare causing your heart to pound harder. 

 “I made some of our favorite dishes,” Taemin says and stands to his feet. “First, we’ll start with a Caesar salad, then we’ll have salmon with sautéed asparagus and brown rice, and then we’ll finish with our favorite ice cream for dessert.”

“Strawberry?”

"Of course! Do you know a better flavor?"

"It all sounds delicious!"

As the night goes on, you and Taemin reminisce on your years together - showering one another with words of affection and soft touches. While you tell a story, Taemin barely pays attention to the words you say. He can’t help but admire your beauty against the candlelight - he watches your lips and wishes he was kissing them, gazes into your eyes and feels an overwhelming sense of love, and finds himself intoxicated by your voice.

After cleaning the dishes, Taemin picks you up bridal style and carries you to your bedroom. Your arms hold onto his shoulders as he twirls you around while humming a tune you are unfamiliar with. Your heart skips a beat when he presses his lips against your forehead.

“How did I get so lucky?” You ask as Taemin lays you on the bed.

“I could ask the same thing,” he says as he lays beside you.

The two of you exchange a smile before looking to the ceiling. Amid the silence, your eyebrows furrow as you fall deep in thought. Your thoughts are so loud that you don’t hear Taemin calling your name.

“Hey,” Taemin whispers while shaking you with a worried expression.

“Hmm?”

“Are you okay? You look like something’s wrong.”

You turn your head to look at your husband before nodding. You blow breath through your nose as butterflies of nervousness fill your stomach.

“I was just thinking,” you begin. You reach out to hold his hand in yours and stroke the top of his hand with your thumb. “And I’m ready. I’m ready to try again for a baby.”

Taemin remains quiet, processing what you had just said. It’s been almost a year since the last time you two had unprotected sex. You weren’t ready to have a baby, your wound still open from your miscarriage. But as you heal, you feel ready. But the more seconds go by, the more nervous you become.

“But if you’re not ready, I understand,” you whisper while avoiding eye contact.

Before you can move from the bed, Taemin lifts your chin with his finger until your eyes meet. He leans forward until his lips press against yours. His head tilts to the side to deepen the kiss. The kiss slowly breaks when he places his forehead against yours.

“Let’s make a baby,” he whispers breathlessly.

Without another word, you lean over and hungrily move your lips against his. His strawberry chapstick teases you and causes you to get a better taste by deepening the kiss. You feel his strong hands grip your waist to bring you closer. Your chest burns with intense passion as your hands slip under his shirt and rest on his chest.

With Taemin’s help, you roll on top of his body and straddle him without breaking the kiss. While you teasingly bite his bottom lip, his hands slip under your dress and tenderly kneads your inner thighs. You yearn for more of his touch as you grind yourself against him.

Taemin leans up slightly with the bottom of your dress in his hands and pulls it over your head before tossing it to the floor. Passion devours him when he sees your naked body. Your necklace sparkles under the moonlight  giving you an angelic aura. His eyes take in the beauty of your body - the suppleness of your breasts, the softness of your skin, every curve of your body, and the desperation painted in your eyes.

You place your hands on his chest and push him back on the bed. Once his back touches the bed, you place sloppy kisses along his jawline resulting in a pleasurable sigh to escape his lips. Your fingertips work quickly to unbutton his shirt until it falls open. His breath shudders when your lips move to graze the sensitive area on the side of his neck.

Taemin's chest quickly rises and falls when your lips travel down the middle of his torso and near his pelvic area. His body tenses as braces himself for your touch when your tongue glides along the width of his waist. He raises his hips slightly to aid you while you remove his pants and underwear.

Your hand firmly grips Taemin’s erected cock and massage the tip with your thumb. His whimpers fill the air as his eyes slowly close. He thrusts into your hand in desperation to create more friction, to feel more of your touch. Under your touch, he’s hit by a wave pleasure when the warmth of your mouth replaces your hand. His hand holds the back of your head, pushing you down further. A choppy groan floats into the air when his tip grazes the back of your throat. The overstimulation of your tongue swirling around its tip makes his back arch.

“I’m gonna cum,” Taemin whines while his body squirms.

When you pull your head away, a string of saliva connects from your bottom lip to his tip. You look at Taemin’s body that is spread before you. His chest tiredly rises and falls, his skin glistening with sweat causing strands of his hair to stick to his forehead, and his plumps lips swollen and wet from biting them. He gives you a tired smile while tugging on your hips.

“Come here, princess,” he says breathlessly. “Come sit on my face.”

A seductive smile spreads across your face as you crawl towards Taemin’s face. You feel your walls twitch at the sight of his hungry eyes. Your hands grip the headboard to keep steady while you lower yourself until your womanhood presses against his lips. He smiles against your outer labia before parting it with his tongue. You sigh into the air as you feel his tongue slowly work its way from your entrance to your engorged clit. Your head falls back when his tongue laps your wetness from your folds. Your hips unintentionally rock against his tongue to feel him more. Soon, his name drips off your lips like a declaration when his plump lips wrap around your swollen clit and begin to suck. Your restrained moans burn your throat as his skillful tongue renders you weak. Fiery knot tangles in the pit of your stomach causing your legs to shake beneath you.

“I’m gonna cum!” You exclaim through a moan.

Taemin releases his mouth from your clit with a pop. A moment passes before you garner enough strength to move until your hips hover over his. Your natural lubrication makes it easy for him to enter you as you slowly lower yourself on his member. Between your desperation and the sensitivity of your genitals, the moment your walls embrace him to cause a lengthy groan to escape your mouths.

Taemin’s fingers are intertwined with yours when you begin to slowly bounce. His presence between your walls makes your sweet name roll off his tongue. You sweetly moan his name in response while you focus on how good each area feels when he rubs against your walls. A flame of desperation ignites in you when his tip rubs against your sweet spot. You slam yourself down on him once more and begin to feverishly rock your hips forward and backward. The sudden change of pace has him moaning loudly while his fingers grip your hips, pressing into them tighter each time you rock your hips forward. 

A burst of energy shoots through Taemin’s body and causes him to sit up until your chests meet. For a moment, he stares deeply into your eyes before crashing his lips against yours. His tongue slyly enters your mouth just as you moan against his lips. Your tongues slowly dance around one another, and at one point, the dance moves from your mouth to his. One hand tightly grips your hip while the other is pressed in the middle of your back to hold you close.

Your lips greedily move against his as you begin to slowly grind against him, it’s slow and delicious as you feel your sweet spots being teased by his tip.

Taemin's muscles are tense as you torment him with your slow movements. You can’t help but smirk in the kiss while he whimpers. Your smirk suddenly disappears when an overwhelming sensation flows throughout your body. The sudden shock engulfs you in a euphoric high as your head falls back while your toes curl. You can’t help but let out a pleasurable gasp when you feel his thumb draws circles against your clit.

"How does it feel?" He growls in your ear.

His eyes burn a hole in you when you remain silent, unable to find any words to say. He forces your head upright and locks eyes with you. Your hands grip his shoulders, finding it difficult to not close your eyes in pleasure.

"Faster," you beg, slurring the letters together. "Please, go faster."

A smug expression appears on Taemin’s face when he sees how undone you’re becoming. He obliges your request and rubs your clit faster with more pressure. You feel your end coming near causing you to grind yourself on him once again, your pace matching with his thumb. 

The knot in your stomach returns with increased intensity. It feels like your mind entered fog has been placed over your head as you’re transported to a state of ecstasy. Your hips falter when your body shudders. Your walls squeeze around his member as you feel an intense wave of pleasure crash into you. You call out Taemin’s name in a loud moan before falling into his arms, your hips slowly grinding against his to ride out your wave.

When your high begins to fade, Taemin gently lays you on your back with his member still inside you. He holds your legs apart while slowly pulling out halfway. A whimper hums against his lips when he re-enters you. He carefully lowers himself on top of you until your chests are pressed together. His deep thrusts cause your back to arch off the bed while your hands cup your breasts and squeeze them.

"I love it when your cum coats my cock," he sighs in your ear through clenched teeth while locking your hips against the bed.

You can only answer in a choked whimper when he repeatedly rubs against your sweet spot. His thrusts become erratic before turning into circular grinds as he feels himself growing closer to the edge. His breathing becomes heavy and his grip on your hips becomes tighter.

"Cum in me Tae," you manage to whisper through a moan.

Taemin’s hips cease movement when he growls your name. Spurts of his semen enter your body, his waist thrusting forward with each spurt. The erotic sound of your name being called triggers your walls to tighten and relax around his member as if they were milking him for every last drop while he lays on top of you. In this intimate state, you find it unfair how beautiful he looks after coming undone - his face is flushed, eyes low, lips swollen and slightly parted and his skin glistens from the sweat forming on his face. But just like you admire his beauty, he is admiring you - lipstick smudged, strands of hair clinging to your sweat covered face, breasts resting prettily on your body, and the way you smile at him while you try to catch your breath. Even in this state, he finds you beautiful.

Your arms wrap around his body while you remain still. His heartbeat pounds against your chest as he tries his best to slow his breathing. The air that was filled with sounds of passion moments ago is now occupied with your deep breaths and the low hum of the air conditioner.

"The full moon looks beautiful tonight," he says before laying behind you, his arm wrapped around your waist.

"It does," you agree while admiring the beauty in the sky.

The two of you lay, admiring the beauty of the night sky and thank the stars for another year together. Your eyes begin to feel heavy until a streak of light flashes through the sky. Any exhaustion you feel is immediately pushed to the side when you realize what you just witnessed. You turn your head to glimpse at Taemin whose eyes are full of excitement.

"Did you see that?" He asks with a child-like grin. "We have to make a wish!"

Nodding your head, both of you close your eyes and make a silent wish. Though you can’t hear each other, you have a feeling that you wished for the same thing.

"Do you think your wish will come true?" You ask while pressing your back more into his chest.

"I hope," Taemin whispers. His hand gently rubs your lower stomach while kissing the back of your shoulder. "I hope."

3 Years Later

One after another your pregnancy tests have come back negative. The old you would have given up on having children after so many failed attempts, but Taemin’s positivity kept you from falling back into the darkness. 

Two years ago you decided to adopt a sweet girl named Haewon. She was 4 years old at the time of adoption and is now a spunky 7-year-old. Though she shows love to you, you know she’s daddy’s princess - they’re always joined at the hip and create inside jokes. She even picked up some of Taemin’s mannerisms which makes you laugh at times. They are so alike that it makes you wonder how alike your children would be if you had any.

You lean against the bathroom sink with your eyes closed, a row of pregnancy tests are lined in front of you. The pit of your stomach makes you feel as you’re about to plunge into the earth. Your heartbeat drums loudly in your ears as you take a breath. You know you can’t stay like this forever and force yourself to look at the tests.

“Positive, positive, positive, pos-positive,” you say to yourself.

Disbelief washes over you as you take a tissue and grab a test. Your eyes were playing a cruel trick on you, you thought while you walked towards the living room where Taemin and Haewon were having a tea party.

Taemin is dressed in a purple boa that is wrapped around his neck while sporting costume jewelry and tick star-shaped glasses while Haewon is dressed as Cinderella. He pretends to take a sip from his teacup and is about to talk when he sees you approaching. The blank look on your face makes him feel uneasy as he rises and walks towards you.

“Hey,” he whispers so Haewon can’t hear. “What’s wrong?”

“They’re all positive,” you stammer and show him the test in your hand. “All the tests are positive.”

You stare at each other in silence before Taemin breaks into a huge smile and picks you up.

“We’re pregnant!” He exclaims in celebration while twirling you around.

You laugh at your husband’s excitement while a tear of happiness falls from the corner of your eye. He places you back on the floor and kneels down until his head is leveled with your stomach. Tears pool in his eyes as he gently kisses your core.

“Is mommy okay?” Haewon asks. She rises from her seat and cautiously walks over with worried eyes.

“Mommy is fine,” Taemin says while taking her hand and placing it on your stomach. “You’re going to be a big sister.”

Haewon’s mouth dramatically falls open as she looks from you to Taemin and back to you.

“Mommy’s having a baby?” She squeals. “Is it a boy or girl?”

“We don’t know yet, honey,” you say with a smile.

“I hope it’s a girl because boys are icky.”

“But, what about me?” Taemin asks.

“You’re icky too, daddy. But I love you.”

9 Months Later

“They’re home!” You hear when you walk through the door with an infant carrier in one while Taemin carries the other.

“Shh,” you whisper when Haewon rounds the corner with Taemin’s mother. “Not too loud. Let’s go sit on the couch.”

Haewon excitedly skips to the living room and plops on the couch. Her eyes fill with excitement when you and Taemin sit on either of her and gently remove the twins from their carriers. She covers her mouth to contain her excitement as she studies their faces.

“They’re so tiny,” she whispers while Taemin’s mother nods her head in agreement and wipes away her tears.

“This is Jiho,” Taemin says with a smile. “And that is Jitae.”

“They’re so cute,” Haewon whispers as she looks closely at each twin. She gently touches their hands and kisses the top of their heads.

You can’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of love as you watch your husband look at your children with affection. He eventually meets your gaze and gives you a soft smile that you exchange. The past years have tested your marriage in ways that you never imagined and reminded you of the everlasting love that Taemin has for you. Through everything, you know you made it through the most difficult moments because you had him by your side. And now, a new chapter of your lives has begun and you couldn’t wait to write it with the man who has always been by your side.

[floralcalaveraa]

MEET THE MUSE

Rules: Answer in-character. Repost, don’t reblog.

► NAME ➭ He waves around proudly at the imaginary crowd his mind conjured, assuming a performance that one would put up when live on camera for an interview. Typical Guzma, thinking that he is all that, but he is not. “Hey y’all~” He says with a chipper, sing-song voice to continue convincing ... the dashboard? “Clean the wax outta yur ears; I’m only gonna say this once and I expect chu to say the WHOLE fucking thing when you call me. It’s Guzma Kehlani Kaliko- I’m joking.” The emotion in his performance stops abruptly at the end and he acts like normal again. But then again ... when was he ever normal? His voice is modest now. “Just keep it up to Guzma.”

► ARE YOU SINGLE? ➭ Guzma doesn’t hold back on widening his eyes upon registering the question and emphasizes the reality of his words when he curls a curl on his finger and bats his eyes, pretending a coy nature. “Yeah~ So if anyone out there single too and you want a good sex, come on down; my number is-” And then a convenient beep censors the sound of his voice because Guzma is doing too much.

► ARE YOU HAPPY? ➭ “Hmm, I’m aight right now. Is not like ... I’m going through anythin ...” He asks himself, looking at the sky for an answer. “Or am I?”

► ARE YOU ANGRY?  ➭ “Who isn’t? I know I am. Like, when’s a rich white guy gonna give me all his money ya know? Those fucking billionaires don’t know how to spend it, like, give me your money I’ll show you.”

► ARE YOUR PARENTS STILL MARRIED? ➭ All that talk from earlier? That magic disappears. Guzma falls silent for a moment, but tries to salvage his enthusiasm from earlier. “Weeeeeeeeeeeell ... they never married to begin with? Yeah, very telling of their relationship, ya know?” ‘I don’t want them to ever marry. That is not love, I wouldn’t attend to it should it ever happen.’

NINE FACTS!

► ‘BIRTH’ PLACE ➭ “In. This. Stupid. Region. Called. ALOLA!” Each word came with a jumping stomp to the ground, like if this tantrum would make the region he chanted out loud crumble in his stomps.

► HAIR COLOR ➭ He grabs a strand of his hair, stretches it out, and watches it recoil back to its original curly condition, feeling a bit shy to divulge. “It’s ... it was my daddy’s hair color. I didn’t like that. So I colored it to look like my mami’s ...”

► EYE COLOR ➭ “A stupid fucking grey. Can you believe that? Not even the universe wants me to own anythin’ gold like damn give me a fucking break.”

► BIRTHDAY ➭ “...” He remains silent, connecting the dots about this scheming universe. “Y’know, this life really doesn’t want me to be first in anything; July 2nd.”

► MOOD ➭ “Now that I made that realization, I’m feelin’ pissed.” Guzma says with a relative ‘ :-) ’ expression and relaxed voice.

► GENDER ➭ “A guy, wish I was a God though or somethin ...” A hand grabs his chin lightly, but pensively. “Or a bug ...”

► SUMMER OR WINTER ➭ “OOOh summer’s are sexy! Ya feel me?”

► MORNING OR AFTERNOON ➭ “I know I’m gonna sound like a cheesy old white lady but like, watching the sunset be kinda romantic tho-”

ABOUT YOUR LOVE LIFE!

► ARE YOU IN LOVE? ➭ “I either hate or love the people in my life. Never in between-”

► DO YOU BELIEVE IN LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT? ➭ “Oh that’s fucking cute, yeah. It only exists to the right people though, not bitches like me.”

► WHO ENDED YOUR LAST RELATIONSHIP? ➭ Who ended his confidence? This question. It’s going to make him mention Her name. Her. And that scares him. Madam Prez. He sinks into his chair in shame. “I ... I’m the one that messes up.”

► HAVE YOU EVER BROKEN SOMEONE’S HEART? ➭ “Yeah, I’m a real heartbreaker~” But his pride ends when he is left at the thought of the  loneliness that comes after break-ups.

► ARE YOU AFRAID OF COMMITMENTS? ➭ “... Yeah.” It is brief, in fear that entertaining it more would make him reveal the reasons why. After all, he wouldn’t want to bad-mouth Lusamine, no matter how vile she was to traumatize love for him.

► HAVE YOU HUGGED SOMEONE WITHIN THE LAST WEEK? ➭ “No because then they’ll smell my b.o ya know?”

► HAVE YOU EVER HAD A SECRET ADMIRER? ➭ “Not that I know of ... I don’t know-”

► HAVE YOU EVER BROKEN YOUR OWN HEART? ➭ “I guess ... I know that there were times I have to bite my tongue to stop myself from saying ‘I love you’ to someone ...”

CHOICES!

► LOVE OR LUST ➭ “Lust hell yeah 😎” Love.

► LEMONADE OR ICED TEA ➭ “I don’t give a fuck I just crave a refreshing drink right now; all this talking and answerin’ invasive, personal, intimate, scar-opening questions to a complete stranger has my throat all dried up like yo sex life.” Giving drawn out answers does nothing to help.

► A FEW BEST FRIENDS OR MANY REGULAR FRIENDS ➭ “I have my stinky siblings at Po Town. Sure they can be annoyin’ as fuck eatin’ my food, wasting water, stanking up the bathroom, wasting money, leaving the house messy, and all that, but I wouldn’t want them any other way.”

► WILD NIGHT OUT OR ROMANTIC NIGHT IN ➭ “Aw c’mon! Both are sexy! ... Aight, the one that will end with me gettin’ laid- ...” He sighs. “Aight, the one that would get me to know my companion better.”

► DAY OR NIGHT ➭ “I like to feel dramatic in the night. Like, ‘staring out from the window, musing about yo regrets and desires while seeing nobody but chu outside thinking about yo life’ kind of dramatic.”

HAVE YOU EVERS!

► BEEN CAUGHT SNEAKING OUT ➭ “Apparently not cuz my parent’s ain’t find me yet haha!”

► FALLEN DOWN/UP THE STAIRS ➭ “’Falling up the stairs’ sounds like some Loony Toons shit if I’m honest- Just imagine, you falling down the stairs, but then rewind it to make it look like you fell upward. Lol.”

► WANTED SOMETHING/SOMEONE SO BADLY IT HURT? ➭ A hand grabs at his chest, at his heart, as he yells at the top of his lungs, “GIVE ME YOUR FUCKING MONEY!!” Stability. Love. Healing. Those he had to let go in fear of having them punished by Lusamine. Honor. Respect. Freedom. And in truth, money, to support his family.

PREFERENCES!

► SMILE OR EYES ➭ “Oh I love both; a smile in someone that doesn’t do it often though. And eyes, those that are gold, blue, or green are pretty ...”

► SHORTER OR TALLER ➭ “Ain’t nobody gonna beat me and my 6′9″ ass. ‘Sides, I love my shorties anyways.”

► INTELLIGENCE OR ATTRACTION ➭ “Attraction. Not askin’ anyone to be smart in order for me to like chu-”

► HOOK-UP OR RELATIONSHIP ➭ “I only get casual hook-ups, night-stands ... C’mon, just look at me-”

FAMILY!

► DO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY GET ALONG ➭ “Talkin’ bout the one in Po Town? Yup.” He nods proudly, not acknowledging his biological one.

► WOULD YOU SAY YOU HAVE A “MESSED UP LIFE” ➭ ���Baby, I got a fucked up life-”

► HAVE YOU EVER RAN AWAY FROM HOME ➭ “Yeah. Best decision I ever made or else I wouldn’t find the real family I have now.”

► HAVE YOU EVER GOTTEN KICKED OUT ➭ “I kicked my own ass out before my daddy did.”

FRIENDS!

► DO YOU SECRETLY HATE ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS ➭ “Ooh that Plumeria, I can’t stand her! Her big butt be hogging up the whole sofa when we watchin’ t.v! Do you understand how irritatin’ that is?!” Seconds after this ‘wrath’, he bursts into laughter.

► DO YOU CONSIDER ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS GOOD FRIENDS ➭ “No because they are talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before, sexy friends.”

► WHO IS YOUR BEST FRIEND ➭ “Oh come on don’t make me pick n choose- Plumeria and Gemali (his Golisopod) has been my longest, how about that?”

► WHO KNOWS EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU ➭ “Oooo it’s just me, myself, and I baby- Ain’t nobody gonna understand my twisted mind better than I.” Can be deciphered by Plumeria or Lusamine.

tagged by: @obliviouskind​ wrow cryus, having a spot for love .. u know cyrus if u say josefina’s name 3 times she will appear easy as that

tagging: @maxskulline​ , @akuromatico​ , @kyohansha​ (me🤝erik: making you do this twice. BUT OKAY SRSLY U DONT HAVE TO ONLY IF U WANT-) , @unovasgambler​ , @theprxfessorpair​ (hemlock!) , @draconscious​ , @littlesilverplatinum​​  (me🤝myself, hand-gripping my other hand: making you Erik do this twice.)

[obsidiancreates]

Midnight Chat About The Past (That No Longer Exists)

It’s sometime in the middle of the night when Cavendish suddenly sits up, turning on the light.

Dakota groans, putting his pillow over his face. “What’re you doing?”

“You stopped something called the Mississippi Purchase, and I have no clue what that is.”

“Yeah? And? I told you this ages ago,” Dakota mumbles sleepily.

“So that means you’re from another timeline! Doesn’t it?”

“Mmph, yeah.”

“Dakota, why have we never discussed this?!”

“Because why would we?”

“Why would- you’re from an alternate timeline! How different was yours to this one?”

Dakota pulls his pillow tighter over his head. “Cav, I don’t wanna-”

“Oh no you don’t,” Cavendish says, tugging Dakota up into a sitting position. “We need to talk about this. Here we are, as... significant others, and I’ve just realized I don’t know a thing about your personal history before we met!”

Dakota sighs, and grabs his sunglasses from the night stand. “Alright, alright, I’ll talk a little. But if I sleep in tomorrow, it’s on you.”

“Very well, that’s fair.”

“Okay, what do you wanna know?”

“Let’s see... well, what was it... like? Describe it in... oh, I don’t know, literary setting terms.”

“... Okay... uh... kinda post-apocalyptic, a little? Not crazy bad, but like, there was a lotta gray skies, smoke stacks, things like that.”

“... What?”

“Yeah. There was this whole rebellion thing, some billionaire guys or something wrecked the world a bunch of years ago, I dunno. We didn’t really have history class.”

“Wh... but... but you’re so... relaxed. So... cheery, most of the time!”

Dakota grins. “I know, right? It’s great. Basically once I ended up here, where things aren’t completely terrible, I took advantage of it.”

“But then... how did you end up here? Someone invented time travel in that universe?”

“Yeah, not sure who, though. Like I said, no history class. It was... oh boy. This is not middle-of-the-night-whimsical stuff.”

“... We... we don’t have to discuss it right now, I’m sorry for pushing so hard.”

“Nah, nah, it’s okay. Just... prior warning, you know? Basically, society was set up as one big agency. Remember how I said that old gnome lady reminded me of my mother?”

Cavendish’s eyes widen. “Oh, gravy and giblets! Do your family not-”

Dakota shakes his head. “Looked ‘em up when I got hired, nothin’. Probably for the better, though, because they were not happy people. Having kids was basically just Making New Agents, so she uh... wasn’t exactly nurturing. It was her job to train me, not make sure I was, you know. Happy.”

“... So did you have to... fight people?”

“I was mostly a scout. Looking for food, supplies, that sort of thing. Lots of times I just came back with wax lips.”

“... Wax lips? You mean your habit of eating wax lips when you find them... is because of that?”

Dakota nods. “So what I think happened, based on stuff I gathered over the years, was that somehow the Mississippi Purchase lead to the founding of this company that made wax lips. They found some weird, revolutionary way to make them, and they mass-manufactured them for years. But they over-produced, set a bunch of dangerous precedents and laws, all kinds of stuff, that lead to the end of the world.”

“... Wax lips?”

“Makes as much sense as pistachio monsters.”

“Mmm, I suppose that’s true. But then, why did you collect them?”

“They were made of different stuff in my timeline, they could kind of trick your body into thinking you ate real food. Good way to keep from going hungry when rations were low.”

“So... is that why you’re so infatuated with food?”

“Yeah! We didn’t have burritos, or spaghetti, or Chinese takeout, or pizza... ah great, now I’m starving. Where were we again? ... Oh yeah, how I got here. They used to just send people back all the time to try and stop stuff, and you had to sign up for training to do that. I got sick of scouring for scraps and figured I’d give it a shot.”

“... Give it a shot? You decided to embark on a world-saving mission that casually?”

“Well, yeah. No-one had any real dreams or hopes about saving the world, especially not me. I just figured I could make things a little better, maybe take the machine out on joyrides and bring back some fruit, I don’t know.”

“But... you did stop it?”

“I went back one day, and things just sort of... fell into place. I prevented the purchase, and everything completely changed. I went back to my own time, and bam. A whole new future, way better than mine, in place of the one I knew.”

“... Did it sadden you?”

“Not really. Soon as I saw how much better things were, I decided it was time to relax. I was pretty young, had a whole life ahead of me now... Block kept me on as an agent, and I just rolled with it.”

“... That all sounds... horrifically traumatizing,” Cavendish says after a moment. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I managed to prove to Mr. Block that I was at least genuinely from a different timeline, not just a guy whole stole a time machine, and part of my training for that bureau was to see a therapist for a while. Then the day I met you was when I was dismissed from it. The burrito was a sort of celebration.”

“... And you still decided to buy me one as well?”

“It’s nice to be able to share things sometimes.”

Cavendish stares for a moment, unsure of how to respond to such a casually heartbreaking and bittersweet statement. In the end, his response his... less than the heartfelt comments he’d considered. “... How have we never discussed any of this before?!”

Dakota shrugs. “Doesn’t matter to me anymore. I’ve got a better life, I’ve got time to relax, I’ve got my tunes, and I’ve got you. My past literally doesn’t exist anymore, so why bring it up?”

They sit in thoughtful silence for a few minutes.

“Does... does all of that... have anything to do with... saving me, all those times?”

“I dunno. You’re Cavendish, what are you gonna do? I wanted to save you, so I did.”

He leans over, and gives Cavendish a quick peck on the lips. “Now can we get back to sleep? Because otherwise I’m going to knock you out with this pillow.”

Cavendish blinks. Did Dakota even have pillows in his old timeline? What about beds? Blankets? And didn’t Dakota technically save the world? Doesn’t this mean Dakota has done so, or at least had a part in doing so, twice? How can he be so casual and flippant about that?! And why wouldn’t he use that to get a better job at the Bureau of Time Travel?!

Before Cavendish can ask any more questions, Dakota reaches over and turns off the light. “Night, Cav.”

It’s only moments later that Cavendish hears Dakota begin to snore.

... Hmm.

He lays back down himself, looking at Dakota’s peaceful, resting face. Cavendish takes one of Dakota’s hands in his own, and watches a small smile form on his sleeping partner’s face.

... No wonder Dakota doesn’t feel a need to dwell on his past.

The present... is pretty good.

Cavendish smiles, and shuts his eyes. Oh, he’ll bombard Dakota with more questions after they wake up, of course. 

But for now, he just snuggles closer to his partner, and enjoys the moment as he drifts back to sleep.

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

(Yeah I don’t know where this came from. It’s the middle of the night and I just started typing and all of this happened. But I like it, so I’m posting it XD)

[sodone-withlife]

many faces

here’s something that has been in the works for a few weeks that I finally got myself to finish today. I was watching some edits on YouTube (as one does) and since Aaron Hotchner lives in my head rent-free, a line about death really just hit me, so here you go: almost 4k words about Hotch and Death

All credit to the writers of GoT for the quotes (even though they seriously fucked up season 8), and the last few lines in the blurb are very inspired by Arya Stark’s storyline in GoT seasons 5 and 6. Hope you all enjoy!

warning: canonical character death

word count: 3.7k words

There is only one god, and his name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death: not today.

- Syrio Forel (Game of Thrones s1e6)

He entered the world in the dead of night towards the start of winter, after the mother spent over twenty hours in labor. The father, passed out after too many drinks, was woken in time to hear the ear-splitting cry of the newborn. Faced with the dark eyes and dark hair that was so like his own, he could only turn away, hating the newborn’s innocence with a burning passion.

When the father gave closing statements only hours later that day, exhaustion overtook him. And so, the mother locked herself and the newborn in the nursery in fear of the vengeful phantom that alcohol made of the man who vowed to love and to cherish the woman.

Thus the next years were spent like this, the mother locking the door to the toddler’s room, reading story after story and waiting out the phantom. The innocence of youth was the only barrier protecting the toddler, one which dissipated the moment he turned four.

Their first dance was when he was eight and had collapsed in class after having spent hours struggling to breathe through the cracked ribs and move through the concussion that had been gifted to him by his father. When he woke up in the hospital, it was to the sight of both of his parents watching over him worriedly, but one’s expression was too vacant, and the other was hiding a familiar rage.

That wasn’t the last time his father put him in the hospital. It was easy to write off—who wouldn’t believe the only lawyer in town, who had done so much for his community?

Those that didn’t believe kept their mouth shut for fear of their reputation being sullied.

The little brother, young as he was, had no idea the power that he possessed. Ever since his birth, the mother’s skin remained unblemished and free from the bruising that was often there before, when she only had one child.

It was easy to play to the reputation the town had given the eldest. Silent and cold, stealing the joy out of everyone near him just as the dark of the Winter steals the light of the Summer, just as the father stole pieces of his being with every blow and every hospital visit.

He had already danced with Death many times before in his short life thus far, but now they were here to take his father away. He stood at the gravestone a few days later with a bottle of vodka he knew his father had hidden amongst his desk drawers. Now the eldest male in the household, the responsibility fell on his back and dragged him down into the depths of vodka and glass shards.

His Spring found him lying there, passed out with cuts on his arms as his mind was elsewhere, dancing with Death. She was relieved to see that they weren’t deep, and so she called her sister to help her bring him back to their house.

When he woke up with a pounding headache and throbbing arms, he saw the relief of his Spring. As she spent time with him in the days after Death took his father and reminded him of the light in the world with each dark secret he confessed, he fell in love all over again, just as the Spring coaxes the Winter into the light.

Later, he would think of the mottled red that had stained his father’s face and the unpleasantly warm, alcohol-tainted breath that washed over him as he stood in front of the wild, untamed man and took the abuse that was sent towards him as he was blamed for the man’s failures. He would think of the wide-eyed joy that his little brother explored the world with and his mother’s skin that had remained unblemished since his little brother came into the world.

He wouldn’t be touching vodka ever again.

He spent more time at her house, no matter how out of place he always felt amidst a family that was so close and open to each other, and slowly, his Spring taught him about the light of life.

They were lessons he strove to keep in the forefront of his mind in college and law school, even as he stared cheap alcohol and razor blades in the face with shaking hands. He went dancing with Death once, early in college, but he remembered her fear and worry despite the throbbing pain he felt.

He was dumping the alcohol down the drain as soon as he could and making it a habit to put his razors out of sight. He made sure she never found out about that one.

It was freeing to be in college and law school—Death did not reach him there. But soon he was graduating with a Juris Doctor degree and throwing himself into prosecuting crimes with a vengeance.

His father had once walked the same halls he was walking, and that was something he was reminded of each time he was addressed by his—his father’s—last name. Death walked in with each case, a silent spectator as he worked long hours to get offenders put away, to get justice for the victims who were sent into Death’s waiting arms far too early in life.

But it wasn’t always that easy. He knew that going in, but it didn’t take away that terrible feeling as he watched a jury buy into the misogynistic song and dance the defense put up in a rape case. As the defense uncovered some shady investigation on the police’s part and managed to get the whole case thrown out. As he watched a young man get sentenced for killing his abusive parents. As he watched an older brother get sentenced for assaulting a police officer that had assaulted his younger sister while that same police officer walked free with only his badge stripped and a year of house arrest.

Death walked the halls with him, with each case that he tried and with each new victim whose name and face he kept in the forefront of his mind. Young as he was, he was already one of the more jaded prosecutors in the office, His work ethic earned him numerous nicknames, and talk flew around about him potentially becoming the youngest district attorney in the county.

But the children…

The final straw came and went. Eight months after a serial pedophile walked free, with four years of prosecution under his belt and talk about him becoming DA, the youngest in county history—he threw it away and started over at the Academy.

A fresh start. He loved Virginia, but he fell in more love with the Pacific Northwest. The cool weather, the beauty of the temperate rainforests, and the scenic coastline were so different compared to the ghosts that haunted him back east. His and Haley’s first anniversary was a memory he would cherish forever; the picture never left his wallet

Two years of trying to solve cases before they got as bad as they were when they came across his desk in the prosecutor’s office and being part-time in the local field office SWAT unit hadn’t snuffed out the strange love he had for the region. Though he was more often calling Death to him to sweep the offenders he was hunting away, he did come close to dancing with Death a few more times—he was quite good at close quarters, but his true specialty was distance.

It was oddly comforting, though, to know that even as changes continued to happen, some things remained the same.

Only a week after his superior gave him a heads up about potential recruitment to the tactical team out in Quantico, he met David Rossi in San Francisco on a five-year-old cold case. He didn’t miss the look of surprise that appeared on the older agent’s face in reaction to his theory about the killer.

He had heard of the BAU and had listened to some of their lectures at the Academy about profiling—the confusion he felt at hearing about the years of training members of the team went through was reignited when Rossi started waxing poetic about an instinctual ability weeks later when they were at a bar after the case was declared cold.

That theory he had presented when he first met Rossi didn’t feel like an instinctual gift, and he said as much to the other agent.  Nevertheless, he and Haley were back in Virginia just months later—she was teaching at a local high school and he was the newest member of the BAU.

And so he danced, and he learned of the many faces Death had. He danced as Gideon started grooming him for leadership weeks after Rossi retired. He danced as Morgan brought his unending stubbornness and heart of gold. He danced as JJ and Garcia brought reminders of the light that was still in the world. He danced as Reid brought his own brand of uniqueness and painful reminders of his young age.

He danced with Death, who he could see peeking out from the eyes of the unsubs he and the team ended up facing off with. He danced more than he ever had, but his Spring kept him from falling into Death’s waiting arms. His Spring and the prospect of binging a child into the world together kept him going as Adrian Bale took out six agents with one bomb, sent him to the hospital for shrapnel wounds, and sent Gideon into a post-traumatic tailspin.

It was fine in the beginning; the expectation the Gideon would be returning made the long hours bearable. Six months passed, and he came back, but he didn’t return to leadership. Whispers that trickled down from up high made it clear that this designation was permanent.

They both thought they could make it work. Their child came into the world just days after he wove his web around Death and stared them down through a sniper rifle. He took a month off, and came back to face Death once more—only they were wearing the face of a man who killed multiple families.

He came close to another dance when Death wore a face that was nearly identical to his own—all that was different was their walks of life. He opened up more directly to Vincent Perotta than to anyone else that was currently on the team; Gideon could only profile, and he only explicitly told Rossi and his Spring about what his home life had been like.

Life went on, though with how often he danced with Death, it couldn’t really be considered living.

He danced, and he watched.

He watched as Elle danced with Death for the first time and was permanently changed because of his inaction.

He watched as Reid danced with Death for the first time and nearly fell into their arms because of his inaction.

He watched as Death taunted Gideon again and again until the man finally left to search for the fire that had been stolen from within him.

He watched, and he danced

He watched as his Winter darkness slowly crept towards Spring and their child, as his darkness became so oppressive that Haley finally left when he couldn’t stop himself from running to dance with Death. And when the light of Spring (not his, not anymore, she never was—) left, his darkness took over.

He watched as Death claimed Kate in an explosion of fire and debris and whirling him along in the quickest of dances, and he couldn’t help but envision his Spring in her position. He wasn’t blind, he knew how similar the two women looked, he knew what the team whispered behind his back, but it didn’t matter to him. All that mattered was the phone call he was going to have to make to Haley, who had gotten along so well with Kate but now had to face the reality of her death.

Colorado was a new hell for him, as he felt Death’s oppressive presence all over the compound that trapped two of his agents inside. When the buildings were engulfed in flames and debris, he could only sigh in relief that Death didn’t see fit to take his agents today.

When he met Death once more, they were speaking through Megan Kane. Hearing the confidence the young woman had in him, feeling the exhausted resignation she felt at her impending death…

The press got the tip just days after the SIM card was examined by the lab.

Death waits for nobody, however, and his ten-year-old demon woke up to shove onto him more responsibility and more guilt as ten people were found shot to death on the bus in Boston.

He had gotten the profile so right but still so wrong, and Death laughed in his face.

Death laughed as he was stabbed nine times and was in their clutches for thirty minutes before the doctors managed to shake him loose from their arms. They danced and they danced, and Death laughed as he found the bloody picture of Spring and the child.

And he found that he couldn’t wait to see the face Death chose to wear one more time if only to show him just how angry he was, how deeply he felt despite the mask that he put up. His team had no idea how close he was to the edge, and he didn’t let them see the depths of madness he had fallen into.

Even over twenty years out of college and he was still compulsively hiding his razors, but now he couldn’t be more glad but also more hateful for the habit.

But Death gives no respite, and nine months to the day Spring went into hiding with the child, he found himself unraveling quicker than he ever had as he was forced to listen as Spring was stolen from the world.

When the team finally got to the old house, they watched as the tenuous control he held over himself was ripped straight out of his grasp in a bloodthirsty, grief-stricken rage. His hands didn’t feel like his own, and he couldn’t place Jack into JJ’s care fast enough for fear that the hands of a killer would destroy the last precious light in his darkness.

Those same hands felt the unnatural cold that was already setting in on Spring, and his mind froze.

Should he have stopped dancing?

Could he have stopped dancing?

Would it have done anything?

Would it have saved her?

He lived only to make sure Spring lived on in their son. He couldn’t give up chasing Death, but he made sure to keep his son at the forefront of his mind, and if that meant staying behind and coordinating and the precinct, that was fine. It was a change that would have been asked of him when JJ was plucked from the team by the Pentagon, but with the whispered he’s been hearing in meetings, he couldn’t help but feel like she was walking straight into Death’s waiting arms.

There wasn’t any time to worry, however, nor was there time to marvel at the fact that he had made it this far after Spring was ripped from his weak grasp, as he soon had to send Emily away and pretend that she had been claimed by the being he was so familiar with. Barely over a year, and three women who had changed his life so drastically were all ripped from his desperate grip, and his team was barely keeping it together.

It was no longer a dance, but a chase. He chased Death, almost as if his efforts would somehow bring them back and fix everything. He closed himself off and kept chasing because otherwise he would crash and burn and take everything around him down with him.

He kept chasing, all the way to Pakistan and all the way back to face the wall of anger and betrayal that he knew was justified. He kept on going, as Beth came into his life and as Emily left to find her own equilibrium. He didn’t stop, not even when Maeve Donovan was murdered in a manner eerily similar to his own unraveling years ago, not even when he spoke to Sean for the first time in years only to lose him to the criminal justice system, but just weeks later he was given the option once more: he could fight the futile fight, or he could stop and protect his team from afar, standing guard just as he’s done for so many years now.

There was a brief moment that he wondered if he should have taken the section chief job, but just minutes later he was feeling the world tilt as his legs gave out from under him and he collapsed on the floor of the conference room, the pain in his abdomen that had been slowly burning for the past few days turning into a roaring fire that threatened to consume him from the inside out.

And how could he describe the tumultuous feelings of utter joy and desolate grief he felt when he saw Haley sitting in that dress she had worn on their first anniversary in the Pacific Northwest, the dress she wore in the picture that remained in his wallet for nearly twenty years? How could he describe the utter terror he felt when Foyet crashed their time together and shot her once again, or the renewed grief when he realized this would be the last vivid memory he would have of the Spring who had taught his Winter about the light?

But he woke up with the lingering feel of Haley’s lips on his own to see Garcia and her always brightly-colored clothing that matched her ever-optimistic outlook on life that was often a blessed reprieve from the evil that consumed their jobs, and he remembered why he stayed.

Not only to chase Death, but for the family he realized he had found along the way.

But just as life must go on, Death must as well.

Soon he was calling in favors while learning about the horror JJ had gone through during her stint with Pentagon. Soon his paranoia was reignited as he and the team tried to figure out just how deep the corruption went in that police force all the while Reid was hospitalized with a neck wound. Even as he was reminded of the dangers of the chase when he drove to his old mentor’s cabin in the middle of the night, he kept chasing, because, for all that he knew he had a family in the team, he knew it wouldn’t last.

It couldn’t last.

It was a truth he was all too intimately familiar with.

So he chased, and he chased, and he chased.

And Death laughed and taunted him, throwing him into a mental tailspin through Peter Lewis.

Perhaps that was the moment when he finally lost himself: sitting against the desk, paralyzed as his family was murdered in front of him.

Or maybe it was when he forced himself to play along to Lewis’s sick fantasy and pretend that he was going to shoot at his team.

Was it pretend, though?

Nothing felt real after that—one moment he was grounded in reality and the next he was hearing that awful growling noise right behind him and seeing that terrible Glasgow smile as the hairs on his neck stood up. But, as always, he never let the team know just how far he’s fallen, and he kept going and protecting and chasing with the whole of his being.

He threw himself into work with a vengeance when Garcia was being targeted by the darknet hit group and when Morgan and Savannah were being threatened by the vindictive Montolo Sr, knowing all too well what was at stake.

When Morgan told him about his intent to leave the bureau, he could only feel relief that Morgan wouldn’t fall down the path he himself chose to go down all those years ago, when he first realized he could never stop dancing with Death. He told him as such in that hospital room, and the two exchanged a look, one that was borne from years of respect and kinship that had formed between the two as a result of an understanding only two profoundly hurt yet fiercely protective beings could have.

But life goes on, the moment broke, and he went back to chasing, only to be stopped right in his tracks by Death once again when Metro SWAT stormed his apartment and arrested him at gunpoint right in front of his son. Now, Death wore the faces of all of those who swore revenge against him and tried to break his will.

They very early succeeded, too—it was the closest he felt to unraveling since that terrible day seven years ago, but he knew he couldn’t without taking the whole team down with him. He couldn’t let the seams burst open.

Not yet.

Not until he found out Peter Lewis escaped.

Not until he found out Peter Lewis was baiting his team while working to fulfill a vendetta against him.

Not until he found out the Peter Lewis had watched Jack at one of his soccer games, and not until he found out that Peter Lewis had stalked Jack to his school.

So he planned, he made calls, and he wrote letters to the team and his family.

One night, Aaron Hotchner left those letters on his office desk alongside his resignation letter and credentials, the one thing that truly defined him for nearly twenty years.

Without it, he was no one.

One night, after tucking his son into bed, no one slipped out of his apartment with both of his service weapons and a sparsely packed bag and disappeared into the night, one goal in mind.

Hunt.

I know death. He’s got many faces. I look forward to seeing this one.

- Arya Stark (Game of Thrones s8e2)

[flyingstar360]

The Scariest Thing

It’s Halloween, and of course Luke wants to have a scary costume contest. So Reggie dresses as the scariest thing he can think of. But it doesn’t get the response he imagined.

This is just kind of a Halloween/anxiety drabble about sweet baby Reggie, who can do no wrong and I love him. 

The Scariest Thing

“But one of us isn’t there, because we had a blowout in 2032. My money’s on Alex, He’s just so sensitive.” Reggie told Julie. She giggled when he said it a few weeks ago, but after everything had gone down with the Orpheum and almost losing the guys, she wasn’t so sure Alex was the sensitive one.

Ever since the boys almost disappeared from existence, Julie had noticed that Reggie constantly had to be with one of the others. If it wasn’t Alex, it was Luke. If it wasn’t Luke, it was her. He’d even showed up at school a few times, sat cross-legged in the back of the class and clapped whenever anyone presented in music. Today, he’d watched Carrie intently as she showed off, and clapped enthusiastically. His eyes were bright, but in a strange way. Julie noticed that they’d kept darting between her and Carrie- well, and occasionally Nick, who almost seemed aware that Reggie was there. It was almost intentional that Nick didn’t look over towards Reggie’s corner. But there was no way that was possible. As the bell rang, Reggie jumped a foot in the air, and tumbled over. He glanced up and saw Julie watching him as everyone around her was leaving. He shrugged, forcing a smile. Then, with a little wave he poofed out.

“Julie? Hel-Llooo. Earth to Julie!” Flynn was standing next to her, books in her arms and bag slung over her shoulders. “What’s going on in that crazy brain of yours?”

Julie sighed, and gathered up her things. “It’s Reggie. He’s been acting weird.”

Flynn snorted. “I mean, hasn’t he always? Anyway, what even is “normal” ghost behavior?” She asked, making air quotes with her hands. “Do any of these boys ever act normal?”

Julie tried to smile. Flynn was right, normal wasn’t a word she ever would have used for Reggie. But still. “I don’t know. There’s something going on with him. I mean, he’s even sitting in on class. He literally just poofed out of here after getting startled by the bell.”

Flynn shrugged as she shifted her books to her other hip. “Maybe it’s because it’s almost Halloween? He’s a ghost, that’s like their holiday. Right?”

“Maybe.” Julie caught her bottom lip between her teeth. She hadn’t told the guys that they’d been asked to perform at the school’s Halloween dance because she was a little nervous that something weird would happen to the guys. Ever since that night after the Orpheum, they’d occasionally become solid. They didn’t always seem to have control over it, leading to Julie crashing into Reggie in the kitchen, or tripping over Alex in the studio, or more embarrassingly, knocking heads with Luke at the piano while writing. Just thinking about that made her blush.

“And I’ve lost you again.” Flynn sighed. “Come on, airhead. Let’s go to lunch and figure out what we’re wearing to the dance.” She linked arms with Julie and dragged her out of the room.

~~

“Wait, is it like a costume dance?” Alex asked. He had been draped over the couch and Reggie in the studio when Julie had come in for rehearsal, spinning his drumsticks. Reggie had been sitting on the arm of the couch, just kind of staring off into the distance, Alex’s feet over his lap. When Julie had arrived, Alex and pulled himself up into a seated position, and Julie tried not to notice the way Reggie seemed to shrink when he wasn’t physically touching Alex anymore. It had bothered her enough to squeeze in between the two, leaning up against where Reggie’s legs would be if he were solid. When Luke had arrived, she wished she’d been able to take a photo of his face as he saw her cozied up with his bandmates. She didn’t need a photo of his face when she told them about playing the dance.

“Yeah, it’s a costume dance.” She told them. “And before you get all grouchy, I know we could be playing bigger clubs and stuff, but technically you guys do owe me a school dance performance.”

“She’s right you know.” Reggie beamed. “A school dance with cheerleaders!”

“And not accidentally selling our souls for meatball subs.” Alex glanced at Reggie while Julie tried not to laugh.

Reggie shrugged. “It was the best meatball sub of my life. Or death, or whatever.”

“Well, if we’re going to do this, then we need the best costumes ever.” Luke sighed. “Even if it’s just a school dance.”

Just then, the door to the studio slowly creaked open Julie and the guys jumped up, startled, and Julie could feel a chill pass through her as Reggie squeezed closer. There was no one there.

“Hello? Carlos?” Julie called out. Luke stepped in front of her, pushing her and the other guys behind him.

Suddenly, someone leapt out into the studio and screamed.

“Boo!”

Julie and the guys responded by screaming back. If Julie hadn’t been scared out of her mind, she would have laughed a little, remembering that first night, meeting her friends.

Instead, Flynn was giving them a heart attack.

“I’m sorry, but you should have seen your face!” She was doubled over laughing.

“That’s not funny! You scared us! I told you about that creepy guy, we all thought you were him!”  

Flynn straightened up, a little sheepish. “I didn’t realize the guys were here, I’m sorry. But your face was funny!” She flopped into one of the chairs, throwing her legs over the arm, then looked terrified over to Julie. “I didn’t just like, sit on one of the guys, right?”

Julie shook her head. “No. We were talking about our costumes for the dance. Trying to figure out what to go as.”

Flynn flipped her braid over her shoulder. “I’m going as a zombie DJ. I’ve got spirit gum and scar wax and I’m putting a record through my neck.”

Luke perked up. “Scary is allowed?” He asked.

Julie nodded. “I mean, yeah. Scary’s allowed, but not traumatizing scary.” Flynn gave her a strange look. “Luke was asking.”

Flynn quickly straightened out in the chair. “You guys should go as scary. Make it a contest! Whoever has the scariest costume wins.”

“We’re not making this a con-”

“I’m gonna kick your butts.” Luke crossed his arms, staring down Reggie and Alex. “It is so on.”

Alex smirked. “Get real. What are you going to dress up as? Someone crying? I mean, that scares you more than anything.”

Julie looked at Reggie, who looked almost like his normal self for a minute. He was beaming to himself, clearly having thought of a plan. Julie sighed. There was no way this was going to end well.

~~

“Are you really going to make us sing the Monster Mash tonight?” Luke grumbled.

Julie rolled her eyes. It’s quintessential Halloween. And our arrangement sounds awesome.”

Reggie grinned. “Julie’s right. Plus, we get to do that song from that Halloween movie that came out a few years ago. I can’t believe people still like it so much!”

“I can’t believe I’m in a band with people who remember when The Nightmare Before Christmas came out.” Julie sighed and checked her watch. “Okay, I have to go get dressed. I’ll meet you guys out here in a bit?”

“So, you can judge our costumes, yes.” Alex said. “I’m so looking forward to seeing you tell Luke he lost.”

Luke glared at him. “You’re going to lose, loser.”

As Luke and Alex started to get heated, Julie looked over at Reggie. Fiddling with his hands, he looked back and forth between his bandmates.

“Hey.” She whispered. He looked over at her, surprised. “Are you okay?”

He nodded. Once again, Julie could see that his eyes were almost a little too bright, a little two wide. He was upset but was hiding it. It hurt her feelings, just a little and she was surprised. Reggie was the open book. Luke had walls up, and even though he was getting better about letting her in, he still didn’t always tell her when he was hurting. Alex had the easiest time talking about his feelings, but he was still hiding something from her- and she had a pretty good idea about what his secret was from the look on his face anytime he mentioned Willie. But Reggie? He was more flannel than leather jacket. Soft, warm, and comforting. He may not be the brightest, but he was the most enthusiastic. And the worst secret keeper.

Julie mulled over what was bothering him as she got dressed in her costume. It was still the thing dominating her mind when she returned to the studio. At least, until she heard the yelling.

“No, dude, this is your fault!”

“My fault?! I didn’t do anything! I don’t know what’s wrong with him!”

“You laughed at him, Luke! It hurt his feelings!

“I thought he was joking!”

Julie swung the door open to reveal Luke and Alex, nose to nose, Alex’s finger jabbing into Luke’s chest. “What is going on?!” Both boys jumped and looked uncomfortable. Julie looked around the room. “Where’s Reggie? What happened?”

Alex cleared his throat and Julie could see the fleck of fake fangs in his mouth. “Luke laughed at Reggie’s costume and he poofed out.”

Luke rubbed the back of neck, the only place not covered by freaky clown makeup. “I didn’t mean to make him feel bad, I just thought he was kidding.”

Julie shook her head and ran outside. If she were an upset ghost who could poof anywhere, where would she go?

Correction. If she were an anxious ghost who’d been especially clingy, where would she go?

She ran up the stairs leading to the house and stopped when she caught a glimpse of her dad and brother. Carlos was dressed like an Among Us character and her dad was taking photos of him hiding behind the house. Sitting on the edge of the porch, just out of earshot, was a hot dog, knees to his chest, arms wrapped around them. She plopped down next to him, pushing the domino mask away from her face, and Reggie quickly wiped his eyes and tried to put his fake smile back on.

“I heard a rumor,” Julie started, tucking her legs underneath her, laying the mask in her lap. “That something has been bothering you, but you don’t want to talk about it.”

Reggie shrugged, and rested his chin on his knees. “It’s silly, Julie. It’s nothing.”

Julie was quiet for a moment, and the two watched her dad and brother goofing off. “Does it have anything to do with why you’ve been hanging out closer to home since the Orpheum?”

Reggie picked at a loose thread on his costume. He seemed to be curling in on himself, trying to make himself smaller. He shrugged again and avoided Julie’s gaze. “My first thought for a scary costume wasn’t this.” He whispered. “I was going to dress up like Caleb. But then I remembered that movie you and Flynn and Carlos were watching, where everyone was too afraid to say the scary guy with no nose, they were too scared to say his name.”

“Voldemort.” Julie said quietly.

“SHHH!” Reggie brought his finger to his lips. “He might hear you!”

“Reggie, he’s not real. It’s a movie.” Reggie nodded, and looked back down at his hot dog costume.  “So, you picked a hot dog.”

“I mean, it’s the scariest thing I could think of. That’s what did kill us.” He shrugged. “But then Luke laughed and…” He trailed off and went back to watching Carlos and Ray. “My family was never like this. My parents fought all the time, and if my parents weren’t fighting, they were comparing me to my brother. And he’s smart, way smarter than me. I know I’m not very smart, but Luke and Alex have never made me feel dumb. Until…”

“Until today.”

Reggie nodded, his eyes filling up with tears again.

“Reg, you? You are not dumb. And after everything that’s happened to you- Caleb, your parents, dying? You have every right to feel anxious. Everyone feels insecure sometimes. Especially when the people who are supposed to build you up, tear you down. But you know, you belong here. With us. With the guys, and me, and Carlos, and my dad. Even if Dad and Carlos can’t see you, they can feel you. My dad told me the other day after you left the kitchen that recently he just felt like something was brighter in the house. And that’s you. You make us all laugh and smile and-“

Reggie threw his arms around Julie. She nearly toppled over. This was one of those moments where he was solid, and she wasn’t expecting it.

“I’m scared of losing you. The guys were the only family I felt like I had and now there’s you and your dad and Carlos and what if we brought Caleb after you guys and what if he tries to hurt you and it’ll be my fault because I’m around them the most and-”

Julie wrapped her arms around him in return. “We aren’t going anywhere, Reg. You’re our family too. And if Caleb does come after us, we’ll take him on. All of us.”

“Yeah, man.” Julie and Reggie looked up to see Alex and Luke standing behind them. “We’re all family now. And I’m sorry I laughed. I didn’t think it was dumb. I thought it was funny. You know. Since street dogs did us so wrong, you know?” Luke said as he sat down next to Julie.

“And if it’s anyone’s fault for bringing Caleb into our lives, it would be mine. And you guys have already made it clear that you don’t blame me for it.” Alex agreed as he sat by Reggie’s feet. “Like you guys said, we all wanted to get even with Bobby.”

Reggie nodded as the other two members of the band joined into his and Julie’s hug. They stayed that way for a few moments, until the guys faded out of Julie’s arms. Reggie sighed. “The hug was nice while it lasted.”

“Dork.” Luke grinned, as he cuffed the back of Reggie’s head affectionately. “So Jules, I think we know who won the costume contest.”

Julie grinned back.

~~

“And that is how Allison from the Umbrella Academy ended up singing with a band of spooky Hot Dogs as her band?” Flynn asked, as she peeled the shattered record off her neck, fake blood staining her shirt.

“Yup.” Julie nodded, pulling off her knee socks.

Flynn shook her head. “Next year, I want to coordinate with the guys, okay? Ooooh, We can all go as slices of Pizza!”

“TELL HER DONE! IT’S A DEAL!” Reggie shouted, bouncing on the edge of Julie’s bed. Flynn looked horrified as the bed shook on its own. Julie shook her head.

Things were back to normal. Well, as normal as they could be.

[prettyboyreid]

the story (iv)

(a girl and a boy) (a boy and a boy) (me and my friend)

OC!Potter x Marauders, OC!Potter x Nephew!Harry

As Harry Potter gets older, his aunt makes sure he never forgets about his parents or his uncles.

Based on the song The Story by Conan Gray

Warnings: Mentions of death and violence

Word Count: 7186

When Lucy Potter saw the tawny owl perched on the open kitchen window promptly at noon on July thirty-first, 1991, she felt a pit in her stomach growing bigger and bigger.  She obviously knew this time would come, but the thought of her nephew leaving and going off to school scared her.  

It scared her that she wouldn’t be able to protect him from whatever could come after him, wouldn’t be there to console him when he came face-to-face with his first bully, and wouldn’t be there for him to help him whenever he needed any advice. 

But she knew that she had to send him to Hogwarts eventually. 

It was the safest option for him. 

Maybe even for both of them.

“Is that for me, Aunt Lucy?” Harry asked excitedly, pulling Lucy out from any of the thoughts she had.  She looked down at him with a small smile, nodding before handing him the thick, parchment envelope with his name written in loopy handwriting that she could never forget. 

He ripped it open immediately, not bothering to even look at the warm, crimson wax seal or the school crest printed on the back in dark black ink before he pulled out what would be one of the most important letters he had ever received.  

Lucy couldn’t help but smile as she watched his face light up as he read the letter silently to himself, leaning against the kitchen counter as she looked down at him.  “What does it say, bug?” she asked, despite still having the exact words her letter said engraved in her brain. 

Harry looked up at her with a wide, toothy grin, before he looked down at his paper to read her what the letter said. 

“Dear Mr. Harry Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. 

 Term begins on September 1st.  

 Yours Sincerely, Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress.”

Lucy smiled down at him and pushed some of his dark brown hair out of his face, watching as he looked up at her with wide, animated eyes.  “I’m gonna go to Hogwarts, Aunt Lucy!” he exclaimed, which only made her chuckle softly.  

“You are!  And you know what I think?” she asked, lifting up her nephew and setting him down on the countertop next to her.

He giggled a bit as he looked up at her, shaking his head a bit.  “What?”

“Well, I think that you’re gonna be a Gryffindor, just like your mom and dad,” she said, tapping his nose with a small smile

This comment made him light up like a Christmas tree.  “You really think so?” he asked, looking down at the letter before beginning to read over the books and supplies he would need before the first of September.  

“Oh, I know so.  You’re just like your parents, I don’t see why you’d be anything other than Gryffindor,” she explained to him, glancing over his shoulder to look down at the list so she could get an idea of where they would need to go on their next shopping trip in the Wizard World. 

Harry just smiled, completely full of bliss at the whole situation, before he leapt off the counter.  “Can we go shopping for everything today?” he asked hopefully, giving his aunt pleading eyes as he looked up at her with a smile. 

She grinned but eventually nodded, kissing the top of his head gently.  “You’ll have to get ready quickly then, bubba; there’s a lot we’re gonna have to get and it’s already noon,” she told him, but that was all the confirmation he needed - he practically bolted up the stairs to get to his room and get dressed to leave.

-x-x-x-

The shopping trip didn’t take as long as they had expected, especially considering all of the different supplies that they needed and how picky Harry was with getting his quills (“You don’t get it, Aunt Lucy.  I have to have a quill in every color!”) and how many wands Harry had to try out before he finally found the one that chose him, as Mr. Ollivander had put it.  

He even had the pleasure of meeting Rubeus Hagrid for the first time, who was absolutely delighted to see him for the first time since he delivered Harry to Lucy’s doorstep ten years ago.  He was so delighted, in fact, that he insisted on buying Harry an eleventh birthday present, which happened to be a beautiful snowy owl that he saw in the window of the wizard pet shop.   After glancing through Hogwarts: A History, Harry quickly landed on the name Hedwig for his new pet. 

Once they had everything that the young boy needed for his first semester, they made their way back into London and decided to take the train home instead of the Floo Network.  Now, they were sat on said train, with bags and boxes carrying every possible thing Harry could need surrounding them and the seats beside them.  Luckily, they were the only one’s on at this hour. 

Harry looked fairly tuckered out from his long day of shopping, resting his head against his aunt’s shoulder and keeping his eyes closed.  His breathing became so slow and steady, Lucy almost thought he was asleep, until he piped up after a long while of silence.

“Do you remember going shopping with my mom and dad for school?” he asked curiously, his eyes still closed as he awaited an answer from his aunt. 

Lucy smiled gently at the thought and nodded, leaning her head back against the window of the train.  “Yeah, I do.  Mostly your dad, though,” she answered aloud finally, sighing gently as she looked up at the ceiling.  “His favorite place to go was Gringotts Bank, because he liked the ride down to our vault,” she told him with a weak chuckle, running a hand back through her hair.

“What about my mom?”

She smiled softly and looked down at him, now noticing he was looking up at her with his usual curious gaze.  “She loved going to Flourish and Blotts.  She would always grab books that she didn’t even need, just in case she got bored and wanted to learn more about anything,” she told him, pushing some of his brown, curly hair out of the way of his glasses so she could see his sage colored eyes.  

She didn’t think she could ever put into words how much she loved and hated that he was a perfect mix of his parents. 

“Harry, I need to tell you about something,” she said after a few moments of silence.  His gaze never left his aunt’s anxious face, though for a bit she couldn’t look at him without second-guessing her next few words.  “About your mom and dad.”

Harry tilted his head slightly as he listened to her, but didn’t interrupt her despite his blossoming curiosity at her comment.  He just looked up at her, his full attention on her as her focus was on the poster on the other side of the train that suddenly seemed more interesting than explaining what had happened to his parents.

But she still knew she had to be the one to explain it to him.  The last thing she wanted, and that he needed, was to have some third year telling him what happened to his parents on his first day of classes and traumatizing him for the rest of the year. 

“On Halloween night, just after you turned one, your parents…” she started, swallowing thickly as she looked down at him.  “Your parents didn’t just die, Harry.  They were killed.”

Harry’s eyebrows furrowed a bit as he listened to his aunt, frowning as he listened to her.  “Who killed them?” he asked her after a few moments of a somewhat uncomfortable silence, his eyes meeting hers timidly. 

“Well, uh, he’s a very powerful wizard, and in the wizarding world, we don’t want to say it, so we call him You-Know-Who,” she explained, pushing some hair out of her nephew’s face a bit as they spoke.  

“Do you know what happened, Aunt Lucy?” he asked, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he kept his gaze on his aunt. 

“I, uh…” she started, not sure how exactly to explain everything to him, until all she could think of was the only way she ever told him anything about his parents - a story. 

“Let me tell you a story, bubs,” she said, giving him a small smile and kissing him on the top of his head.  He just nodded softly in response, leaning against his aunt once again as she spoke.

“On October 31st, I was actually with Uncle Padfoot at my house.  Uncle Moony was off doing work for a group they were a part of, called the Order of the Phoenix, and Uncle Peter said he was going to his mom’s house for Halloween to help her hand out candy to the muggle children.”

-x-x-x-

“Luce, you can’t just expect me to watch these muggle movies with you all night!  They’re all about killing people!” Sirius exclaimed, getting some more popcorn from the kitchen as they finished up their most recent movie, Halloween.  

“Just two more, Pads; Friday the 13th and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  They’re good movies, I promise,” she told her friend with a smile, getting up and beginning to clean up a little bit since Sirius had to be holding the popcorn during every single jump scare that movie had.

“My birthday’s in four days. Little Prongs.  You should at least let me pick the movie,” he protested, turning on the stove as he put the popcorn overtop of the flame on a burner.

Lucy just rolled her eyes, getting another bottle of butterbeer from the fridge for her and one for Sirius as well.  “No way, Sirius.  You’d pick a stupid movie like… Sleeping Beauty, or something.  Halloween is for horror movies.  You can watch your drawing movies any other day of the year,” she said, tossing a bottle to Sirius as she twisted off the cap of her own with a grin. 

“Okay, first of all, they’re called animations, not drawings.  Have you learned nothing from Lily’s rants about these things?  Secondly, Sleeping Beauty can be scary.  Maleficent is pretty scary when she turns into a giant dragon and tries to kill everybody,” Sirius corrected her, continually mixing the popcorn up so it didn’t burn as he opened his bottle of butterbeer.

“Shut up, Sirius,” she said with an eye roll, before she raised an eyebrow as she noticed a snowy owl sitting on the windowsill of the kitchen, just above the sink.  She slowly moved towards it, taking the letter from its beak and thanking it before seeing it was addressed to her and Sirius, with the Hogwarts crest stamped on the back of the envelope.

“It’s not a terrible movie, anyway, it has a good story-”

“Sirius, shut up,” she repeated, holding the letter up to show him.  He turned around to look at her and his eyes widened a bit, flicking off the burner and setting his drink down before practically rushing over to her.

“Open it,” he said, shoving his hands into his front pockets as he looked at the cream colored envelope anxiously.  Lucy just nodded, pulling the flap up from the wax seal and pulling out the thick parchment.  She read over the loopy, thick letters quickly as her eyebrows furrowed together, reading the letter again once she finished.

“What?  What is it?” Sirius asked almost impatiently, taking the letter from her when she didn’t reply to him.  He read over the letter quickly and his face matched hers, chewing on the inside of his cheek.  “What does this mean?  ‘We’ve received intelligence that James and Lily might have been attacked’?  How would they not know?” he asked, running one of his hands back through his hair as he looked over to his honorary younger sister.  

“It means we have to go see for ourselves, since Dumbledore obviously won’t,” she answered, setting her drink down on the counter and heading towards the front door.  “Did you ever figure out how to make your motorcycle fly?” she asked, shoving on a random pair of shoes on her feet as she got to the door.

He just nodded softly, grabbing the keys quickly from their hook and going to grab his shoes too.  “Yeah, I can get us to a straight shot in like, ten minutes, at the most?” he told her, shoving the letter into his pocket before Lucy led the two of them outside.  

The motorcycle was parked in the driveway behind Lucy’s car, and Sirius had two helmets resting on each handle bar - one for him and one for any passenger he might have.  He handed one to Lucy as he put his own on, getting on the front seat as she climbed on behind him and tightly wrapped her arms around Sirius, her eyes squeezing shut as they quickly ascended into the air, smiling ever-so-slightly as her mind wandered back to the time in their sixth year when the boys forced her onto the back of her brother’s broom.

Sirius would have broken multiple speeding laws if they had been on the road instead of in the sky, as they made the trip in barely eight minutes.  Once he parked the car in the driveway, they saw a large flash of green bursting through the top floor, a scream that made every hair on their bodies stand up straight, before it was dead silent.  

Both Sirius and Lucy knew what that meant, and it made both of them stand still for many minutes.  You wouldn’t even know if they were breathing, until the quiet, barely audible sounds of a young child crying hit them all of a sudden.  They both threw their helmets off and ran inside, the door nearly off its hinges when they arrived. 

They were about to run upstairs to find where their nephew was, but the body of their brother, the one person that they both trusted and loved most in the entire world, was flung onto the staircase, like he was just a ragdoll at the disposal of his killer.  Sirius, to Lucy’s surprise, was the first to break over this sight.  She gave a few sniffles at first, tears beginning to stream down her face as her brother’s face lolled back onto one of the steps beside one of the many toys she had spoiled her nephew with, but Sirius fell down to his knees in front of him, shaking his shoulders a bit as he cried. 

“It’s not funny, Prongs,” she heard him mutter out between choked sobs, fixing his glasses that had gone askew during his fall.  “Come on, it’s not funny, James, wake up,” he muttered, looking around him a bit before he slumped back against the banister, letting another cry leave his body before he looked back to Lucy, his cheeks stained red with streaks of hot tears running across them.  

“He doesn’t have his wand,” he said to her quietly, running his hands across his face to wipe away the tears.  When he noticed the confused expression on her face, he sniffled and looked back down at James’ pale face.  “H-he didn’t have his wand.  He went up against him with nothing,” he told her with a frown, shaking his head a bit.  “How could he be so stupid?”

“He was probably trying to protect them,” Lucy tried to assure him, resting a careful hand on his shoulder before he shook it off.  

“Can you… can you go find them?” he asked her quietly.  She just gave him a silent nod and carefully moved around him and James, being extra careful not to step on either of them, before she slowly ascended the rest of the stairs.  

She peeked into every room, every closet, just to make sure there was no one hiding anywhere, and to make sure Lily didn’t put Harry somewhere safe where You-Know-Who couldn’t find him. 

All that was left for her to check now was the nursery.  The nursery she and Sirius had just finished up a few months before for Harry’s first birthday.  She knew they had to be in there, but that didn’t mean it was any easier to go into that room. 

Especially when she saw a hand with the all-too-familiar engagement and wedding rings she helped her brother pick out for her.  

She pushed the door open a bit farther, swallowing thickly as she saw her sister-in-law, one of her best friends, sprawled out on the floor.  She knelt down next to her as she let out her own grieving sobs, sniffling a bit as she looked down at Lily’s face.  She almost looked like she was at peace, like she had lived the life she was supposed to and it was fulfilling, like she was ready for what had come to her. 

She looked up after a moment to see Harry peering down at her from his crib, tears streaking his cheeks as neither of his parents had answered his cries.  She stood up and wiped her own tears away, letting out one last sob as she picked up Harry from the crib.  She frowned a bit as she noticed a lightning bolt-shaped cut in his forehead, though it didn’t look as it had ever bled.  She ran her thumb across it gently, and it didn’t seem to hurt him at all.  She kissed his forehead gently, moving to head downstairs with him when he heard a shout coming from the street.

“Peter!  Peter Pettigrew!” she heard Sirius’ voice yell, along with a crack of a spell being cast.   Lucy ran to the window to look out at him, frowning a bit as she saw him running into the street, where Peter was standing, while other different neighbors began to pour out of their houses, curious as to why there was so much noise.  She genuinely had no idea why Peter was there, but the fact that Sirius was upset with him didn’t make her feel any better.  She moved away from the window and began to head downstairs, though she froze in front of her twin brother's body as there was another flash of light, much bigger than the one she had seen earlier with Sirius from the driveway.  

She carefully made her way out to the front door, moving past it slowly before she saw Sirius slowly standing up from a crouching position.  He was looking around and looked rather confused, holding tightly onto his wand as he looked around to see twelve people surrounding him, and what looked to be a large finger by his food.

“Sirius, what the hell have you done?” she asked him slowly, looking around with wide, scared eyes as she held Harry close to her chest, who had slightly calmed down by now. 

“I don’t- I didn’t do this, Luce,” he said, looking around before looking back at her.  “I swear to Merlin, I didn’t do anything. I-I tried to hex Peter, that’s all, I swear, then he just… he just made a blast and everyone went down,” he tried to explain, his hands shaking slightly as he did his best to tell her everything that had happened. 

Lucy chewed on the inside of her cheek and swallowed again, instinctively turning Harry away from him.  “I can’t… I can’t have Harry around this, you know that, right?” she told him quietly, shaking her head a bit again.  “I’ll find Dumbledore and talk to him.  Just… you just stay here,” she said, holding tightly onto her nephew as she quickly apparated to the village of Hogsmeade, though she could have sworn she saw an auror arrive in Godric’s Hollow seconds before she had.

The second she arrived on the famous cobblestone streets, she found herself face-to-face with the headmaster himself.  He had his hands folded together in front of himself, giving her a sad smile as he stood eerily still.  

“Lucy.  I’m sorry to hear about Lily and James.  It’s terribly awful,” he told her, shaking his head gently.  “However, on the plus side, however it may have happened, Voldemort was defeated when he went to the Potter’s house in Godric’s Hollow.  Everyone can sleep a little more peacefully now,” he told her. 

“That doesn’t change the fact I don’t have a brother now, Dumbledore,” she told him with a frown.  “Or that my nephew doesn’t have any parents.  Or that he lost one of his uncle’s tonight, too. A-and that there’s twelve dead muggles outside my brother’s house!”

“Oh, yes,” he said, clicking his tongue a bit and shaking his head softly.  “One of the portraits in my office told me.  Terrible news.  The report came in just before I arrived to meet you,” he told her.  “Sirius Black always seemed much more promising than that.”

“I thought so too,” she told him quietly, looking down at her nephew before kissing the top of his head gently as his head was curled up into her shoulder.  “What do we… What can we do now?” she asked him, still looking down at her nephew, as if he was the only good thing left in her life, like he was the light at the end of a dark, gloomy tunnel.

“Well, it’s best that Harry’s put in with his Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, as for you, since you were always so gifted in your studies here at Hogwarts, we’re prepared to offer you any position you’d seek; Potions, Astronomy, Ancient Runes-”

“I’m sorry, what did you just say?”  Lucy asked, her eyebrows furrowing as she frowned at Dumbledore’s comments.

“Oh, you could have any position on our staff you’d like, as a sign of our condolences.  I remember you always said you wanted to be the youngest professor at Hogwarts,” he said with a soft chuckle, before Lucy put her hand up as if to silence the headmaster.

“No.  About Harry,” she said firmly, standing up a bit more straight.  “You’re not taking my nephew from me.  I’m not letting him go stay with a family who wants nothing to do with him or has never even met him.  The last time James and Lily even saw either of them was when they invited Petunia and Vernon to their wedding, and they practically spat in their faces.  They loathe anything that has to do with magic.  He’ll be suppressed from this life for his entire life.  They probably won’t even let him go to Hogwarts when he’s old enough,” she defended him, holding the boy close to her chest with a frown.

“Lucy, there is magic beyond your control that is protecting him now that his parents are gone, and Petunia has the blood of his mother -”

“I don’t care if she has the blood of Merlin himself, I’m not letting you take him away from the only family that loves and cares for him,” she interrupted him, taking a step back from Dumbledore again.  “And I won’t fall for your bribes to keep me occupied from him either.  I’d rather be a damn waitress at the Hog’s Head Inn before I’ll give up Harry and work at Hogwarts,” she told him, switching the toddler onto her other hip as she spoke.

Dumbledore stood silently for a few moments, just looking at Lucy as if she hadn’t said anything, with his hands folded neatly in front of himself. 

“You’ll be putting him at a great risk, Lucy,” he finally said slowly, letting his hands release from each other and letting them fall down at his sides. 

“I’ll protect him better than I was able to protect my brother,” she told him without hesitation, resting her hand on Harry’s head as she continued her little stare-down with Albus Dumbledore, not wanting to show any possible sign of weakness. 

After a few more moments, he simply nodded and gave her a small smile, one that almost looked like he pitied her.  “I suppose I can’t stop you, in that case,” he said slowly, looking down at the one-year-old she held tightly to her chest.  “For my own curiosity, will you be able to live off of your parent’s and James’ will?” he asked, his head tilting to the side, his long, white beard following suit.

“If not, I’m sure I could get a job at the Ministry.  They always need people to do paperwork,” she answered with a shrug, gently patting her nephew’s back as he stirred slightly.  Dumbledore only nodded once again, his mouth still playing host to the crudely sympathetic smile.

“Very well.  Remember, you’ll always have a home at Hogwarts if you need it, Miss Potter,” he added before turning on his heels and beginning the slow walk back to the castle.  He only made it a couple feet, maybe passed by a single building, before there was a large crack that rang through the air, and within a moment, he was gone.  

Lucy just let out a soft sigh and kissed the top of her nephew’s head, shaking her head a bit before deciding it was time to take him back to her house so he could get a proper sleep, one where he wasn’t interrupted by someone trying to kill him or people trying to take him away from his family. 

So, she apparated back to her little cottage house in Torpoint, which she soon after figured that she would need to give up in order to have more room for Harry as he got older, though it wasn’t a concern for her at the moment.  She just knew he needed rest. 

Once she was inside her small house, she looked at the time on a grandfather clock that was pushed into the corner of her living room, which read 2:26.  Lucy just sighed and looked around her living room, trying to figure out where she should put Harry for the night.  She didn’t want to put him on the couch, because he could easily roll off.  She didn’t have his cot set up for when he would usually spend the night, and she didn’t want to risk waking him after the long night he had already had.  So, she settled on carrying him up to her bedroom and letting him take her bed for the night.  

She wasn’t going to get much sleep, anyway.

She set the toddler down on her bed so his head was rested on a pillow, setting one pillow on either side of him so he didn’t turn too far one way or another.  He seemed to settle down almost immediately and fall right to sleep again, like nothing had ever happened. 

Lucy grabbed a picture frame off of her bedside dresser and sat on the edge of her bed, looking down at the photograph with a frown.  It was a picture of her, the Marauders, and Lily on their last day of Hogwarts.  They were all smiling and they looked so happy, like nothing bad was going on around like them.  Like nothing bad could ever happen to them.  

She looked at the photograph for a while, even after the glass covering was stained with her tears, and long after she knew she should have tried to get some sleep.  It wasn’t until she heard her nephew babbling from behind her that she wiped her cheeks and set the picture frame on the bed beside her, looking around and giving Harry a small smile.  “What’s up, bug?”

“Pong?”

Lucy raised an eyebrow at the odd word he had spoken to her, wiping her eyes with her sleeves before moving up to the head of the bed where he was laying.  She pushed some of his growing hair out of his face, her stomach sinking as she saw the scar on his forehead again; she knew she’d never get used to seeing that mark on his innocent face. 

“What’s pong, bubba?” she asked softly, picking him up and setting him in her lap.

“Pong,” he repeated, frowning up at his aunt as she didn’t understand him. 

She just shook her head a bit, chewing on the inside of his cheek as she tried to comprehend what he was asking of her.  “I-I don’t know-”

“Where Pong?” he asked her with a huff, folding his small arms across his chest. 

“What do you mean Po-... oh,” she said, giving him a bit of a frown as she silently tried to figure out what to say to him.  He obviously wouldn’t understand what had actually happened, though she knew he probably wouldn’t remember what she even told him, and she’d have to re-explain everything all over to him every few days.  She just gave him another sad smile, letting her hand fall into his lap.

“Pong and Mama had to go away, bub.  But you’ll get to hang out with me for a little while,” she told him softly, hoping it was a good enough explanation for the young boy. 

Harry frowned for a moment before nodding, then standing up and leaning against his aunt.  “Play now?” he asked her, to which she just smiled and pressed a kiss to his cheek. 

“Sure, we can go play.”

-x-x-x-

Harry was silent for a few moments as he listened to her, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he looked down at his lap.  

“I almost didn’t live with you?” he asked, looking up at her finally after a few more moments of silence. 

Rather surprised at his choice of question after what she had just unpacked onto him, Lucy simply nodded.  “Yeah.  Dumbledore really wanted you to live with your mom’s sister and her family, but you hadn’t even met them yet, and I wasn’t about to let my favorite nephew go and live with some random people,” she told him, kissing the top of his head softly as the train came to a halt outside the Kingston upon Thames stop.  

They gathered up their bags and everything they had bought down in Diagon Alley, scuffling out of the empty train car and onto the platform.  Harry looked down at his feet as he walked out of the train station with his aunt, and down the street a few blocks to their house.  He did his best to just to stay silent - whether it was only because he didn’t know what to say or if he didn’t want to say anything about wizardry in public, Lucy didn’t know.

When they finally reached their little house in the far corner of a far street, Lucy unlocked the door and led him inside, closing the door and locking it behind the two of them.  After he set his bags down in the middle of the living room, he turned around to face his aunt again.  “Why did he have to kill them?” he suddenly asked.

Lucy was unsure of how to even respond to the question, sitting down on the couch and looking over at him as she gave him a sad smile.  “Well, the Order heard about the possibility of a prophecy about a boy born at the end of July, one who could be his equal,” she explained to him.  She didn’t entirely know what the prophecy was about, in all honesty; she just knew it was possibly about her nephew.

“Then why did he kill them?  They didn’t do anything wrong, Aunt Lucy,” he said firmly, frowning a bit as he hadn’t gotten the answer he was looking for.

She nodded softly, letting out a soft sigh before tapping the space on the couch next to her.  “I hate to say it, bug, but I’m afraid that’s just the way the world works sometimes.  It’s not all funny, pretty, and sweet like I make it out to be in your little stories.  There’s a lot of bad things that happen - which I tried my best to keep you from growing up - and that’s one of the bad things.  Your mom and dad tried to protect you, and that meant they were in his way, and he was willing to do anything to get to you,” she explained to him, kissing the top of his head again.

He just leaned his head against her shoulder as she finished, frowning for a moment before wrapping his arms around her as tight as he could.  She rested her hand on his back and patted it gently, silently wishing she could do more for him than just comfort him.  

“Is it possible to miss people you don’t even remember?” he asked quietly, looking up at his aunt with glass, red-tinted eyes, which seemed magnified by his little round glasses. 

Lucy nodded softly, pushing some hair out of his face a bit as she looked down at him lovingly.  “Of course it is,” she assured him, kissing his forehead gently before he snuggled up to his aunt again.  “I miss them too, you know.”

He nodded gently as he rested his head against her side, sniffling a little bit as he listened to his aunt.  He stayed in that same spot for what felt like hours to her, but she wasn’t complaining; she just combed her fingers through her hair to try to keep him calm.  After a little while, though, he sat up and sniffled a bit, wiping at his eyes with the sleeves of his shirt before he looked up to his aunt again.

“Thank you, Aunt Lucy.”

“For what, bubba?” 

“For telling me, I guess,” he shrugged, standing up and grabbing his bags.  “I’m glad you told me what happened now so I didn’t have to find out on my own.”

She just gave him a small smile and nodded, ruffling his hair up a little bit.  “No problem,” she said, grinning a bit as he bound up the stairs with all of his bags.  “Don’t try to use your wand, though!  I’m not gonna deal with you getting expelled before you’ve even gotten to school!” she called up after him with a small grin. 

She knew it was gonna be hell once he got to school.

She wasn’t entirely wrong, though.  On September 1st, she and Remus packed nearly all of Harry’s belongings into her car, since she didn’t want Harry to feel awkward with everyone else being dropped off with their big families and Harry only having his aunt.  The entire drive to King’s Cross Station, Harry wouldn’t stop asking either of them questions about what Hogwarts and everything associated with it was like. 

“Is the food good?”

“It’s really good, bubs; you’ll love the desserts.”

“How long is the train ride?”

“I think about nine hours, right, Luce?”

“If they haven’t changed anything, yeah.”

“Are the professors nice?”

“Most of them.”

“Who was your favorite professor, Uncle Moony?”

“Harry, if you ask him any more questions, there won’t even be a need for you to go; you’ll know everything about the school already.”

“Sorry Aunt Lucy.”

“...My favorite professor was Professor McGonagall.”

“Remus!”

“Sorry, Luce!”

They arrived at the train station at precisely 10:45 A.M.  Harry practically jumped out of the car, quickly grabbing the cage his pet owl was in and waiting for his aunt and uncle to grab his trunk, which was a little too heavy for him to drag himself. 

“Careful, Harry.  You don’t want to hurt her wings before you get the chance to send letters,” Remus warned him, getting out of the passenger seat and going round to grab Harry’s trunk from the back seat.  Harry just gave an apologetic smile, but still was practically jumping up and down as he waited for his aunt to come with them.  

Lucy grinned a little bit and grabbed his train ticket, finally getting out of the car and locking it behind her.  She ruffled up her nephew’s hair a bit as she finally began to lead him and Remus inside, smiling down at him as she watched him.  

“Are you excited?” she asked, looking up at the different signs posted up so they were headed in the right direction; contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t too difficult to forget where to go, especially when the train station is filled to the brim and it had been nearly fifteen years since she had been to the station.  

Harry nodded quickly, looking around at everything like he already was at his new school.  “I can’t wait,” he told his aunt with a bright smile, squeezing her hand a bit as they walked through the station.  

After a few more moments of walking, Lucy was able to pick out a large group of fiery red-headed kids, two of which quickly disappeared into a brick wall.  

“Weasley’s,” Lucy muttered to herself, to which Remus nodded gently in agreement, leading Harry over towards where they had seen the group.   The second the three of them got to the brick wall, the only two girls in the family were remaining. 

“Molly!” Lucy called out, giving her a bit of a wave as they got closer.

“Lucy Potter!  Remus Lupin!” she exclaimed with a bright smile, making her way over to the two of them before kissing each of them on the cheek.  “How are you two?  It’s been so long!  Do you still have that part time job at the Ministry, dear?” she rushed out quickly, resting her hand on her daughter’s shoulder.  

“We’re good, Molly.  I’ve still got the job down in the Department of International Magical Cooperation, but I’ll probably pick up a few extra hours now that Harry’s headed off to school,” she said, grinning down at her nephew with a proud smile.  Harry, however, just looked up at the new woman somewhat warily, despite how warm she appeared to be. 

“Oh, goodness!  Is it time already?  We’re sending Ron off today.  He just went through with the twins,” she told her with a smile, looking down at Harry, who now looked rather confused.  

“Sent through?  How do you get to the platform?” he asked, looking between the two of them.  

“Oh, it’s nothing, dear, you just go right through that wall.  It’s best if you do it with a little run,” Molly explained to him with a smile.  

He just nodded up at her before looking at his aunt.  “You’ll go through with me, Aunt Lucy?” he asked softly, to which she just nodded gently. 

“Good luck,” the youngest Weasley told him with a small smile.  Harry gave her a small nod and looked to his aunt again.  She counted down with him slowly, before they both made their way through the brick wall quickly, and it, quite literally, opened up a new world to the young boy. 

There were clusters of family’s bunched around the bustling platform, with handfuls of owls flying around overhead before they’d be cooped up on a train for the rest of the day.  Harry could’ve sworn he even saw a toad hopping past his feet at one point.  

As he looked around in wonder, he heard Remus bidding his goodbye to Molly and her daughter from behind him, before resting his hand on his shoulder as Harry admired the scarlet and black train in front of him. 

“It’s almost eleven, bug, you’ll have to get on the train soon,” Lucy said softly to him, before he looked up at her almost nervously.  She raised an eyebrow and knelt down to his height, to which Remus backed away for a moment to let them say their own goodbyes. 

“Are you sure I’ll like it there?” he asked his aunt quietly.  She smiled softly and nodded, pushing some hair out of his face.  She was a little relieved that was his only concern at the time.

“Of course.  You’re gonna meet a lot of great people that you’ll love.  You’ll feel right at home, I promise,” she told him, holding her pinky out to him with a grin.

He smiled softly and wrapped his much smaller pinky around hers.  “Can you write to me if I miss you?” he asked her quietly, like he was almost worried someone would overhear.  

She chuckled softly but nodded nonetheless.  “I’ll write to you every day if you want me to,” she promised.  He laughed quietly at this, before wrapping his arms around his aunt’s neck.  She hugged him back without hesitation, kissing the side of his head gently. 

“I love you, Aunt Lucy.”

“I love you too, bubs.”

After a few moments of them standing there like that, she stood up, glancing over to Remus and giving him a soft nod.  Remus took his time giving Harry his goodbye, and Lucy was almost positive she heard him telling Harry to say something to Professor McGonagall for him.  Harry just laughed and nodded, hugging his uncle tightly.  Remus hugged him back, sighing a bit before his nephew pulled away.  

Harry turned back to his aunt and took his ticket from his aunt, giving her one last hug.  “I’ll miss you, Little Prongs,” he told her with a smile.

She chuckled weakly and nodded, pushing some hair out of his face to get one last look at her nephew, her brother, and her sister-in-law for a few months.  She gave him a weak smile and kissed his head.  “I’ll miss you too, Baby Prongs,” she replied, leading him over to the train and helping him on. 

“You’ll do great, I promise,” she called after him as he got on, smiling at her through the open window of the train as it slowly began to pull away.  He waved at her dramatically until he couldn’t see her anymore, before shuffling into an empty car and quietly hoping someone would sit with him. 

Lucy backed away from the platform, standing beside Remus for a moment as she just lingered on the spot where the train was only moments before.  Remus rested her hand on her shoulder gently, giving her a silent, reassuring smile. 

“He’s going to be just fine.  You don’t have to worry about him,” he promised her, squeezing her shoulder gently. 

And he was right.  Despite missing her nephew, who felt like her own son at this point, she managed on when he wasn’t there.  She wrote to him every day as she had promised, sending him a bag of sweets every few days along with a letter.  He wrote back as frequently as he could, and every time she saw an owl on her kitchen window holding an envelope with her name written in blotchy chicken scratch that she would know anywhere, it never failed to make her smile.  Even though she let go of a big part of herself on September first, she knew it was for his own benefit, and he’d be better off for it. 

And because of that, all was well.