#so my brain has an easier time keeping track of my train of thought

[mr-urple]

phenomenon i've noticed about my speech

[polarisjisung]

LOVE ON THE COURT | 16 LOVERBOY #1 & #2

SYNOPSIS | every college student has their struggles, but raising her younger brother has Y/N top of the list, struggling her way through college whilst balancing her academics and basketball captaincy is difficult no doubt and with Jaemin, her ex best friend and captain of the guys basketball team, and his growing one sided hatred towards her, it doesn't seem to be getting any easier

WARNINGS | sexual innuendos, swearing, mentions of sleepwalking

NOTES | written cut ahead!! followed by more smau slides :) jaemin redemption arc is about to be in full swing but trust that does not mean sunshine lollipops and rainbows for our girly y/n also I'm actually a sucker for dystopian movies, like the maze runner trilogy??? 🙏🙏🙏🙏 i feel like I've watched every dystopian movie out there but if anyone has any recs send them throughhh or just to geek over the movies then my inbox is open 😭‼️

Minjun was nothing short of everything to y/n.

When she woke up to find him gone, her front door ajar, she felt the room close in on her. Her heart raced like a runaway train and panic gripped her chest. In no less than a few seconds, beads of sweat formed over her forehead, her breaths shallow and rapid.

She had rushed out of the apartment in a frenzy, calling out his name like her life depended on it. Constricted for air, her body ran on autopilot, down the dimly lit hallway and then down the stairs to search each floor the same way she had searched her own. To no avail. With each step her stomach churned further, sinking, overwhelming. The feeling of nausea ran deeper, stronger, her heartbeat beginning to sound in her ears. Loud and so painfully unforgiving.

She couldn't lose him. Not now, not like this.

Every noise seemed amplified, every shadow morphed into a lurking threat. She felt trapped in a whirlwind of far too many emotions she couldn't recognise. Her mind had become a storm of what-ifs and worst-case scenarios. Time seemed to slow down as her panic escalated, consuming her every thought and sense.

Where could he be?

Useless, she felt so utterly useless. She had raced a thousand times, millions of laps of the track during practise and yet when it really mattered, she couldn't find her feet moving fast enough, she couldn't run with the same speed no matter how hard she urged herself to. Her life was on the line, her everything, and her attenpts seemed futile as she raced up the stairs again, across each floor and down again, over and over. How could she have been so careless?

Her pants grew in their depth, the lack of oxygen getting to her brain and causing her vision to blurr— mixed with the tears that overcame her vision, y/n was struggling to keep going.

She couldn't breathe.

Her legs threatened to give way beneath her and yet the determination that coursed through her veins wouldn't relent.

There was no way she would give up without finding him. She wouldn't be able to live with herself. Her motivation, her happiness, her reminder to keep going and keep trying, Minjun had been every single one of those things and more, her family, her best friend, so utterly irreplaceable that she already felt the hole within her heart widening.

Circles. She felt like she was running in circles, searching the same corners of the same floors she had already looked over a hundred times, desperation evident in her frantic movements, worry painting her features.

It had been 20 minutes and she hadn't found him, not a single sign of him— she'd lost him. She was so sure. He was gone and it was all her fault.

Y/n had given up on far too many things in life, but if there was one thing she knew she couldn't give up on, it was him. Minjun was her purpose, in every meaning of the word. She could give up on herself, but she could never give up on him.

She forced herself to think, though her thoughts had become slow, foggy as she repeated the words in her head, think y/n think.

Where could he have possibly gone?

When she finally arrived on the 7th floor again, ready to search her apartment, considering the small chance he may have returned, y/n felt her heart drop. The feeling of inadequacy overcame her being— unable to stand her body found the floor.

And the feeling of relief, though present was so agonisingly fleeting that she couldn't push herself any further.

There he was, sleeping peacefully in Jay's arms, safe and sound. The Park let his eyes land on y/n, sleepy gaze softening at her panicked state. desperately wanting to ask if she was okay but not knowing how to.

He was barely conscious himself, struggling to make sense of the situation in front of him. All he knew was that he'd found Minjun banging against his door no less than a few seconds ago. The traces of slumber were still visible in his squinted eyes and messy hair.

He couldnt find himself to care, not when she was like this.

"Y/n what hapenned?" his voice was hoarse, but soothing, "are you okay?"

The words rested at the tip of her tongue but she couldn't bring herself to speak, shaking her head. She took ragged breaths and gasps for air, a broken eyed stare on the younger boy, her hand clasped across her mouth for the fear of waking him.

Jay found himself conflicted, at an inner battle with himself, not wanting to leave the girl in this state for even a second, but not wanting to wake the sleeping boy in his arms either.

"He sleepwalks" was all she could breathe out, her voice cracking sharply. How he had made it out of the front door in the first place, she had no idea. It had never been this bad, but she knew it was no excuse. If only she had been more careful, none of this would have ever hapenned.

Jay's mouth fell open, finally piecing together the information as he crouched down beside her, cradling her head in his free arm, rested against his chest

Her tears flowed so incessantly, pained and burning against her cheeks, the bitter feeling of guilt caught in her throat, heavy. Shoulder slumped as her body rested against the railings of the staircase behind her, her soft cries echoing throughout the empty space, loud enough for the door opposite to swing open to reveal a concerned, but equally as confused jaemin.

"I've got her" jaemin said, immediately letting his arms wrap around her, rubbing small circles against the small of her back, her tears soaking through his shirt. And though hesitant, Jay nodded, earning a puzzled look from jaemin when he stepped into y/n's apartment to tuck minjun back into bed.

But that was the least of jaemin's worries when y/n, the girl he had always seen so strong, unbreakable in fact, now shook in his hold, suddenly seeming so fragile.

"It's okay peach, I've got you, let it all out"

Something about his voice, his presence, something about that moment washed over her like a gentle wave, soothing the knots of worry that had twisted tight within her. And though nothing could negate the pain, the disappointment and the thoughts of self doubt playing in her mind like a broken record, his hold had offered her worlds of comfort. Even if for a second, y/n felt the weight lift off her shoulders and her racing heartbeat began to settle.

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[vicsbasement]

From what we’ve seen so far it almost looks like Carlos has been trying to make it easier for Charles? Take the chili plushie clip, Carlos is clearly teary eyed but he still tries to make Charles laugh. He is the one who’s hurting but he puts his own hurt aside because he notices that Charles is sad too and he has to make him laugh, because if there’s something else I’ve noticed in the past years is that Carlos loves seeing Charles happy

Anon! Firstly, are you the same anon from the other day? Let me kiss your brain, because I love talking about these boys so so so much and for some reason people really enjoyed the conversation we had. Anyway!!!! Let's talk about this for a second. Carlos is definitely having a hard time. If we're going blindly on the timeline, we have to assume Carlos knows about his exit from Ferrari ever since before the Dakar finale, (this is just especulation, though, because we don't know for certain) and he sort of, kind of, blew off Ferrari and the Maranello trials to go celebrate with his dad. Pretty sure he wouldn't have done this if he didn't have enough leverage on Ferrari because the trials at Maranello are SUPER important, but first, his dad just won Dakar at his age, and then he's like: well, I mean, I'm getting kicked out of the team anyway and I won't be active during the development of the next car, so, whatever, let's just do this,-- and he went and did it. That's my idea. He needed to be with his father because they all knew. I'm pretty sure they even knew during the training camp at Madrid / Portugal because he's surrounded by friends and already doing the absolute most to get in an amazing shape because he needs to be his best version this year. But-- then when he meets up with Charles again, Charles even feels blindsided. Because like I said previously, Lewis is Lewis. And he comes with sponsors and 7 world titles and his experience and all of a sudden Charles isn't really Ferrari's most important figure inside the team. So they're both trying to soothe each other. Because for the first time ever, Charles doesn't feel like the golden boy, he probably even feels like Ferrari did him dirty (that's what I would've thought, anyway) because who pays two or three times your salary to your second driver? Not any team, that's for certain. Carlos was stability for Charles and it's like his world was thrown off its axis. They were equals, similar in status, genuinely a good team. Charles feels bad and Carlos sees it, because he's lost his teammate, they were supposed to beat Ferrari's record of the teammates that lasted longer and now, well.

And Carlos knows this, and sees Charles handling it just as bad as himself and goes: well. If I don't have to think about this, and make him laugh, then neither of us need to focus on this, right? And the first challenge rolls around and he's tired but Charles is doing his best so why not sing until Charles' annoyed so he doesn't have to see how bone-tired Carlos is? He's sort of protecting Charles' heart by protecting his own. And then there's the little chili and I can simply see Carlos' thought process: this is the last first race of the year with Ferrari, and someone gifted him a chili. And he's chili and he's smooth operator and he's supposed to be fine, but his throat closes up and his eyes fill with tears and he doesn't want Charles to see him like this but it's so much. So he tries to laugh it off. And when he sees that Charles is also thinking the same thing he says, well. At least we're in this together. So he makes Charles laugh by saying he was a chili, too. We don't know what he means, but Charles is so fond and so filled with nostalgia that he laughs, anyway, even though his throat is dry and his eyes are filled with tears. And he gets to keep the chili plushie after Carlos reminded him they're supposed to part ways.

Remember Monza 2022? When Carlos completely ignored the woman who was guiding him to the back of the track so he could follow protocol? And he broke protocol to ask Charles if he was okay? Yeah, that's Carlos, to me. And I no longer feel like he's the only one capable of doing that for Charles, I really have seen Charles fight british and italian press and tell them to respect Carlos' last year in Ferrari, and I see Charles perfectly capable to soothe Carlos as much as Carlos has tried to soothe him. Because he's mourning in front of all of us, basically. And Carlos did go to Jeddah not only to help Ollie, but for Charles' sake, too. Did you see the smile Charles had on his face when they asked him about Carlos and he said that he'd called Senior and he'd told him that it was all okay and that he might've been going to the track later that day? He's doing that in front of all of us, showing us how much Carlos means to him. This is the best and worst time for Charlos fans right now and we have to deal with these two behaving like that for the rest of the year. I don't know how we're going to cope. Again, thank you for sending me these, because I just love to type until I don't make any sense.

[toinfinitywinning]

this is get to know you time. the cringy name game at every camp in the world you do with toilet paper. enough.

Conversations and thoughts resembling the same level of random and incongruence of my Apple Music library. like Josh Groban is to Eminem: Mercy Me. a lot about everything that’s not a hashtag bc it just needs more attention.

Let the first (post) be first:

Hi. I’ve never done this before (like a seriously grown up blog on purpose. Just when just followed sad somewhat desperate poetry with a random live-laugh-love meme in there somewhere.) and Pitch Perfect.

BUT.

For 2 years I’ve had Long-Haul COVID. It’s a different kind of lonely

Thanks so much, amirite? —Gen-Z apologies if I didn’t use that jumbled acronym-word correctly.

It’s hard to keep up.

See? What am I talking about now and how did I get there…

Due to a very common symptom of LHC…

Again—hard to keep up. It’s there. Tho

And I have a lot of quirk so it’s possible I think you’ll “get” but are just nice not to tell me

BUT.

It’s already gone. Train left the Station yesterday.

Slipped on a penny.

Not Good. not even funny.

Teens with the gorgeous graffiti have to Go elsewhere. I’ve always been jealous of that kind talent.

Whole lot better than something else shiny thrown on the track and it’s derailed. There’s at least some innocence in a paint can.

WOW.

I have major attention and Brain Fog hurdles to conquer or shortly bypass. You might not be able to tell b/c of how My writing jumps around so infrequently.

Not true but still easier.

Mostly innocent and playful.

Sadly the attention part is this many years young.

Writing comes naturally. As it always has, strangely...

And why is healing so exhausting? Writing is therapeutic but My body says—can you not?

i know im not the only one asking that!

As if I have time for that too.

find a community of people suffering just as similarly and gain strength, tips and tricks.

Just, speak-screen edit my writing for me. Maybe a clarification fact-✔.

Just not wherever Tr*mp gets his.

Could be Truth Social. Monthly fee tho will cost you your Red Hat.

MYGAbad

Speaking I struggle with processing w/e skills I must have held onto.

BUT.

Since 2 years is quite. some. time.—I’ve shared many struggles and victories.

Like a Bell curve. Or a punk Domino falling then lining them up takes longer just to go down again in half the time. Repeat.

It’s very likely I Will try to talk about many things at once.

I really can’t help that. LOL.

Jury’s still out but I get most of my writing and miscellaneous musings from mom.

Dad can write the best, longest, and precious prayers and notes.

Almost delicately but like you KNOW he’s giving you a hug.

A Good mix tape’s paper Version.

Enter Run on sentences. Truly a stream by now.

Although my brain muscle is weak I’ve been encouraged by several people to Start a blog. Someday I’ll include the past 2 years of w/e pics are on other SocMed.

I can’t think of anything worse.

Yea, okay LOL.

Judgment free. Occasionally… like normal doses then have to work through that.

Mostly that’s because I knew nothing about anything before I opened My computer and started sharing My thoughts under zero context ridden or form at all.

More likely as well to offend and piss someone off. Well done you’re now one less friend popular. There’s an App for that tho-tracking people Who don’t like you.

Not sure where I’ll land with this. It may not land you either.

Because like a lot of us. Sometimes you don’t get to talk actually. No Room.

I like routine; that’s out. So it gets dull.

I’ve learned I hadn’t yet given myself the space to see all of things I can do sitting down.

But. By “given” I mean to say that perhaps I didn’t know it was there.

One Good thing I’ve gathered from this Hell.

Hell fresh by the Day! Never frozen.

So at that time and in this case of my life; sitting is fine.

Some of it isn’t too bad. The writing. You will find questionable punctuation. Run on sentences that I was running.

Relevance at all.

All around Confusion…altho connect the dots could have been seen as practice.

Or annoying even. I’d have no words.

I truly don’t set out to be funny. I could never do stand-up or improv. Or act.

Humor forced just takes and receives too much energy that might come off insincere.

Nothing on command.

Like Matt Perry’s brilliant improv wit it just doesn’t hit the same.

B/c it was scripted.

A syllabus for it Imagine.

The horn to jump off the swim block.

It’s when Life feels more scripted a lot of people close up.

That’s because you’re not in charge anymore. I’ve lost the Power.

Don’t prefer caring about whether someone likes me like I used to.

I believe you can snooze me for 30 days or say ‘I’m done w/ her’ and send Me to the cyberarchives.

Okay. Okay.

So—90% of the time I’m witty and sarcastic with a bit of cynicism, discomfort (for you), and pettifogging.

I write primarily about the questions of intersectionality.

How do things fit.

Let’s Fit it.

Until I figured out physics and calculus and basic math were behind a career in architecture and the classes I would have to take, I enjoyed taking things apart to make something else.

Not always pretty.

Could be Good what I took apart was the best thing we can’t see.

Like I’m writing questions but with wisdom not meaning to do that either,

A lot of people don’t like that. You do you! Baby.

I don’t mean to be at all harsh or hurtful. I try not to say that anything vainly.

I say it b/c a lot of what I’m writing is all of every piece of stream of consciousness tallied.

And it was a synapse connecting another.

Maybe that’s the creative part? The other side of My Brain is telling Me to ✔ on the other side so I’m like…crickets.

What I write is stream of consciousness, brutally honest and to some might be lightly offensive. In College writing this Way would’ve absolutely driven Me crazy.

Then life steps in and bonks u on the head with a newspaper but 15 years later returns the favor with an iPhone.

Or too blunt. And comes across as harsh. And that’s mostly because if I don’t have an emoji to match my real-life broken ღ I’m breaking up with you.

Self reflection: impulsive

I used to journal so much growing up.

When did I lose that innocence?

We can’t talk about folding paper into cranes and witchcraft finger fortune games anymore?

No more MASH?

Huh, maybe you weren’t born this Way. Ur Parents just drew circles nearest each other or your apple stem twist broke too soon and you want a partner whose name starts with P.

Very often I overshare. If you’re reading this this is not brand new information. No ability to say things simply. Think I’ve already. That can put me really vulnerable to more bitcoin hacks.

And then you need to figure out what bitcoin is. And whether Mario can collect coins as well in place of the hackers.

I’d say ask Tom Brady b/c of his investments but since retirement he’s been pretty deflated.

Mean people that mean to hurt.

First of all I feel sorry for you. Not in a poor you tho.

People Who hurt on purpose don’t often have any Way to vent or get a rise other than evoke feelings in and deflect toward a schoolmate.

Skip back to the part I tried talking about vulnerability. It truly is the invisible cloak and no one can see you but nothing makes sense still and you’ve only fixed what’s on the outside. Now you’re peeved AND cloaked.

At this conjunction junction next I’d suggest try shopping at Target opposed to Abercrombie then.

Feet in the water right above bankruptcy to see how things could be different only what…if?

Good ♧ seriously.

So there’s more grace given when you fall. When it’s not your month Day or even year!

Nobody is there for you!!

And My cloak is getting rained on.

Maybe gathering strength from falling will come a common sense with a 6th one but with seriously meaningful things I’ve learned and less hard knock’s Life for us.

The hard Way.

The bottom’s still there and it actually stinks stinks. Discouraging b/c there are two sides to the bottom of the cave full of stalagTITES and mites.

All the up’s and down’s. Right there. And the COVID-19 bat OMG!

You know you may not be able to fall any further further but once you’re up again you’re wondering whether you should get some cement to close that thing off.

Choose to live! But welcome to the real world—it sucks—ur gonna Love it.

Almost 4got. In the cave you dont always have to wait for Jesus to be resurrected if that metaphor comforts you but if change comes and it requires a whole new worm can of Life we already can’t handle that gets us outta the dank I don’t think we need to ask permission to the rights of that Bible passage.

BUT.

Until YOU are ready for change...

Forget it. At least you meant well. Someone can guide that horse to water but it stays pretty hydrated, so he says he’s Good. Promise. The only talking animal and it was Me Who got to hear it. More importantly, who’s gonna ☊? Care? There’s a country song finding out Who your Friends are. A lot stay lost and it’s not helpful all our Friends aren’t the same.

Missing a Good chance to find out if you’re in a similar predicament and that not always a bad thing.

At times I have literally had to be lifted off the floor.

I don’t do this at all for pity. As you read, My Pride is the biggest obstacle to let Go.

When you do?

The hard way through this.

I am angry and irritable for bouts. Sometimes I’m silly and invite karma punishments.

Go all Brimstone and every type fire and the Old Testament has nothing New-thinking and no one new to add to it. SMH. Nail a list on the wooden church door reading it is nearing endgame. Or, Just open your hotel drawer and tear out the back half.

So change then— If it were Me and it has been just not an actual hole I’d be outta there due to the spiders and crickets alone. Jiminy’s Cool.

If u can’t change and just stay a novice bunny hill—fine! Stay there. Build some confidence through experience.

And isn’t that another thing? Something specific motivates the fire under your (cuckoo!) and before you’d see the dark without any End of the tunnel and more importantly with the light aspect. All the sudden you care b/c what? It applies to you of course be selfish. Fascinating yet humbling.

Then there’s the ‘Why Me’ (?) phase? Not fully pitiful but just pretentious enough to resume the trailblaze. Bad attitude with a healthy dose of are we there yet and trying to Balance whether someone is saying …’they get it; you always feel bad’ so…KY Basketball banter? Ashamed accompanies too bc thing is a few times I did kind of scoff at phrases like I always feel bad. Like, here’s 2 Extra strength Tylenol.Alright, Ok, come test for Covid 1/29/22. It shouldn’t take going through something to empathize with or change but you could’ve listened for longer with a clear mind. Just cannot wrap your head around it and I think sometimes that’s okay. What’s next I’ll try so hard.

+ It’s 12:01am of 1/29/24 (so last night), you still can’t do math and/or struggle to add or subtract 12 so aren’t entirely sure its your sophomore year orientation, and you already surrender to what you didn’t want to get up for in the first place. Kind of silly u set the alarm! B/c Pain, confusion, Discomfort and a Deep loneliness that has very little to do with people awaits. That whole scenario is a disaster but look who’s standing and GOT. UP. period. 15 years ago that’s where I’d be. Just defeated.

THAT. Is enough some days. I say that to you struggling to believe the same but know Deep down.

Year 2 longhaul and youre wondering why there are anniversaries at all given about half are always sad or tragic. Evoking the worst on what could be the best. Might be something To think 2 minutes ago you’d ended your prayer to have a better Day. Of anything is true about everything happens for a reason I’d say having to chooose how to respond given you have the privilege at all to that just means were normal. B/c ill be honest I would not

I’m angry. WHAT is so complicated about your lack of Faith or belief prayer must go into an encrypted iCloud even the FBI can’t retrieve or interpret. Never had a chance! But I’ll add that it’s worth noting prayer doesn’t deal with its existence in transaction currencies..

Feel less Pain but feel more with it or stronger now. Or, just plain ‘ol numb. Similar to Addiction I suppose people get so used to being healthy one Way or another they don’t even notice better OR worse and no one is getting married.

Truth is.

Yea.

I’m in Hell, but I’m not on a ventilator. I’m not without relentless Support.

I still can smile but laugh just a bit before it hurts.

Something is always worse.

SomeONE is doing worse.

Somewhere and definitely rn.

I never knew I’d be dealing greed of perspective for this Long.

Something you’ll never find out about that changed your life’s trajectory where an explanation would have only confused things.

Then we still have the chance to be astonished and then genuine bc of that. Thankful. Expectant. With Faith somehow. Maybe carrying someone else’s Hope for a while might burden you less for a short time.

You dont need to see eye struggle and suffering. You dont need examples. You just know. There’s a fleeting peace u might not see again for 2 days but in knowing it’s not just you with the same bs going on.

Like here. Here is someone who needs support but in a different Way but how unique it could be to trade just for a bit. It’s not leg day this time remember u agreed a temp trade.

We don’t have to know everything. Most of the time I don’t give God the time to keep up w/ Me let alone do anything miraculous before I just hang up.

Although My Life was headed in a completely renewed direction in so many ways of recovery—

I got sick. Not because it was meant to be.

Because COVID. Possibly a rabid bat. Cracked vile or petri-dish

Everything does not happen for a reason and ppl dont like hearing that bc its an easy out. Says time might go on but this thorn wont ever heal. How do we respond? that’s the most authentic and a strength yes or no wand.

I hate cliché. Thing is tho…I think we all hate it b/c it doesn’t hold us accountable. Eh it’s fine.

Unfortunately we wouldn’t have the pretty, surprise, one of the Walk to Remember walks. All up to the of healing and forgiveness individual to each of us.

If for Me that means ive healed all I can and I’m counting on research to help Me out some more maybe I just keep going. Trust Me nothing is forgotten but you do know now that at least you were strong and capable enough to figure all that at all. And—I can do that. Some days aren’t that kind.

Maybe it becomes a goal we never anticipated but ✔ your resilience at the ticket line and saddle up, honey.this donkey only holds ____ lbs. let some things Go. That thing will still only walk in a circle but you’ve evenly distributed your baggage.

The feeling of pure joy. Which btw does still require a thesaurus b/c it is NOT the same as joy. Like a preventative Med to an acute one.

Then feel Accomplishment.

Not knowing what’s next but trying to be prepared.

It’s a surprise party we never RSVP’d and don’t regret it.

And it’s a Good thing u got outbid for that yacht.

Hell, tho, you won’t be forgotten but pushing helps the donkey move faster for now that is acceptable.

Unshun. Reshun. (This will make sense if you Watch the Office)

Flee fly. Be gone. Thankfully we hope to come out more resilient after the rip and tear and often not fully repaired sewing lessons.

But perhaps the biggest trait I’ve had to work on is My Pride. I want to do it.

I’ll give myself 3 strikes. 4 balls.

Then I walk to First.

Please do not get Me a gift.

I Love you and that was so sweet.

Would I be as generous?

Do u work, yea. It’s just one really hurts more and being tough isn’t tough at all if it’s not helping the worst hurt.

Those are sitting down, timeout thoughts.

The compression socks need to breathe.

But once the Pride slides over, let go, I get to know how it feels to very tangibly be taken care of and watched over.

Patience. The other side of a rant.

Later on that.

My main goal is to learn. Connect. Be called out if something comes off really tasteless.

Laugh at things that don’t have anything to do with being chronically sick. Laugh about what Medicine u had to administer and royally failed.

Sometimes all coupled with a handicap car-tag. No crutches either b/c I don’t like hearing I Will get better. It is a nice statement but it is impossible to be sure. Ive struggled with that b/c I know everyone believes that and means well I’ve just taken prior sick Gentry’s generalization and multiplied.

I am not making light. I think part of me is using the sarcasm as a coping mechanism.

Praise God there is something that does help the pain or at least distract from that Pain just not the one in your legs.

A codependency just a bit less severe. Embarrassing. Reason for judgment. Too easy.

If you can believe it—-I am not the same person I was 2 years ago.

For now I truly don’t know how. Pain can leave, anything traumatic can be worked on. You’ve got your scars.

I actually really think a scar is just unique as a snowflake or fingerprint. Telling so many stories. B/c a scar does mean something has healed. And it never forgets at one time it was painful. I’d prefer to see what I accomplish but I see wonder and beauty in them.

Things get pretty deep, complicated and downright pitifully sad. Vulnerable. Frighteningly true and relevant.

So I take what Good I can get in that day and pray those with LHC (Long-Haul COVID-19)

Be released.

However. On the flip tail’s side.

I’m 35 years aware there are some people who just don’t like me.

Until recently I wouldn’t have meant ‘sorry not sorry.’

I do now. To a respectable extent.

Reader discretion is advised. I promise I never set out to hurt anyone.

definitely not on purpose.

Because. Idgaf. Not bars being held. Que sera, sera.

complete transparency and seriously tho this doesn't mean i dont care. i wear my heart on my sleeve like a ding-dong ready to get hurt.

call it a diversion. we were on a break.

i just might take all of whatever hits wrong and turn that in to whatever ounce of assurance I can with the openness and to the best capability to learn new things and grow with compassion.

And back to writing—may already be just engrained but I don’t ever have a thesis, 3 supporting ideas or a better word then a conclusion.

You might find yourself confused. Reading it again prob won’t help.

Some will be really bad. Ugly. Waste of time. it was at least therapeutic for me.

Already is.

Even more might not make sense.

Read at your own risk, basically.

I have confidence but not really. Just enough not to care to change.

But I think about it. Because I’m wrong a lot.

challenge me. ill try to get through the fog.

But a lot of things have changed. in ways i might not even know Beauty in the Mess.

To sum up the above (sorry, there won’t be another summary after this disclaimer’s commercial intermission.)

I want to be as positive as possible.

Be in control of what I can. Ask for help for what I cannot.

I’m so ready to get My Life back. Trust Me and trust anyone Who tells your theyre in constant pain.

Really embarrassing I used to kind of scoff and be empathetic.

Funny how youre so sure of things.

Until it happens to you.

Suddenly it’s back to the drawing board and humility.

I wear my ღ on my sleeve. My greatest superpower and kryptonite.

What you read is as close to what you get as possible.

Balance can be unfair.

Please know that I care. I try harder than I ever had before. There are things I didn’t even Imagine could happen to someone when sick.

In all the ways I want to come out of this even better than what I envy I was entering into when I got sick.

There will be a WIDE range of thoughts similar to how i write. Mostly Sports and public figures and the politics I can comprehend.

B/c I know there’s someone out there who’s homeless because of this diagnosis. Or was deadly. Fired.

Divorced.

Ive become a bit of a nerd. Childish in some ways b/c you have to be creative…to be creative.

How do I even Start philosophizing that? So I don’t.

So I try My best to be the best I can. Inspire. Elicit laughter and new ways of thinking.

Questions.

Really tho? I just wanna be me.

thank you so sincerly to anything fromn a meme to a gift to a hug a prayer a smile, company, vibes if they can travel

but most of all

for holding hope when ive not been strong enough to.

For better or worse

for loving me.

making me feel heard.

idk what tomorrow holds but if its the same as today ill know at least i can make it and i am still beyond blessed and cared for and loved unconditionally.

even if forever.

wanna feel free, free.

to be me unabandoned.

changed for the better without knowing it.

some people dont have that option.

or even less the resource or safety to write about it.

Lastly mostly—I’m thankful for Insurance and the ability and privilege to work from home. And. Still have a job in general.

A Family and Family reserves holding me.

gentry.gonna.gents/g3

next. and if you made it this far, bless you.

thank you.

you mean more than you know to me. to anyone miscellaneous thanks as well and to my family and extended family and friends and job and insurance.

im in better shape than a lot. perspective sucks in the throes. selfish not selfish but my gosh turn the lights off. each journey is sooo different, but idk find the goodness and inspiration inbtw. There will be a rainbow soon enough, I wont make the bold claim and promise you one tho,

semi lastly and vulnerably, we've all been hurt. all going through something.

I say this every time something really bad happens. Ya know the ‘this is even worse,’ talk.

This one holds every candle.

Funny not funny none are the same and you’re never fully prepared.

and no one knows what it is you’re dealing.

give grace when I can’t sometimes.

cliché’s be damned lets just golden rule it b/c that one’s hard to do too but it sounds cute and Idont see a periodic table saying A! U! Be nice and welcoming.

I know I’ve forgotten something.

So I’ll fight.

But I still get to complain.

Feeling so entitled to this ill.

Sincerely,

Gentry

no ps you're welcome

[uncloseted]

how to actively let go of shame and actually love yourself? mantras and affirmations feel so phony and my thoughts actively work to combat them almost, i feel so ashamed of my past and my mistakes that i feel like i can’t overcome them and i can’t love myself because of them? i know it’s important but how to actually make changes that don’t feel superficial, i’m not beautiful or smart or worthy so those mantras make me feel worse :/

Anonymous asked:

How to learn to love yourself and feel worthy in practical ways? Self love and mantras always seem like a mindset I can't learn or truly believe, due to my bad choices and also being treated as unworthy and unimportant and stupid it feels weird to say "i'm worthy, I deserve good things, I deserve love" when I've been show so many time that I'm not and I don't; both by my own failures and actions and by those around me, how do i practically build up self love and confidence in a way that sticks and doesn't feel like phony or like it doesn't apply to me bc I've done such bad things and I was born bad? I know a lot of my fucks ups were due to insecurity and shame and jealousy so I know i need to work on myself, but how?

Anonymous asked:

how to love yourself despite your own past and fuckups? I find it so hard to love myself and develop good self esteem when i can see in my flaws and mistakes and all i know is people treating me less than worthy, i don't feel like self love mantras apply to me because i'm not a good person or beautiful or worthy, and the things i've done and what i am and the way i've been treated prove that, but i know lacking self loves leads to envy and bad choices for me, how i do improve this?

It seems like this is something you're really struggling with and that's really impacting your life. If you can, I would really recommend looking for a therapist who can help you work through these feelings. Mental health professionals have training that can help them figure out what kinds of therapy will work for you and come up with strategies to help you start loving and appreciating yourself. If you're in the US, most health insurance plans do cover therapy, so I would start there. They should have a list of the therapists that are covered in network. PsychologyToday also has a great therapist finder that lets you get a better sense of what different therapists are like, what kinds of therapy they do, and the approach that they take. If your insurance doesn't cover therapy, there are also lower-cost online services like BetterHelp, Talkspace, Calmerry, Alma, and Open Path Collective. If you're a teenager, Teen Counseling is also an option. Working through our feelings is hard, but it's easier when we have someone on our team who can help us figure out what the next step is and keep our progress on track.

Positive Self Talk

All that said, like I was talking about here, I think figuring out how to forgive yourself and, eventually, learn how to love yourself is a process that takes time. As much as I wish there was, there's no magic bullet for self esteem. Building yourself back up, no matter what approach you take, will feel stupid and false at first. When we've spent our entire lives believing one thing about ourselves, we can't just flip a switch and believe something else. Our brains will push back on trying to change the way that we think because our brains truly believe that those thoughts are keeping us safe. But the more that we challenge those beliefs that we have about ourselves and the more that we repeat the alternatives to ourselves, the easier it becomes to start considering that it's possible they're true, and eventually the easier it becomes to believe them.

I want to be clear that I'm not saying you should recite mantras to yourself in the mirror every morning (although that can work, too). Maybe right now, that's way too much. Instead, I would try to notice when you're having a negative thought about yourself such as "I was born bad" and then gently suggest an alternative to yourself. "Is it possible that I wasn't born bad because nobody is born a bad person?" Even if you immediately reject that idea, just considering it is a start. Every time you have the thought that you were born a bad person, just gently ask yourself to consider that maybe nobody was born a bad person. The more times you do that, the more you might be able to get to "nobody is born bad." And then if you keep asking yourself to consider that nobody is born bad, you might be able to get to, "I wasn't born a bad person." The more times you ask yourself to consider the possibility that you weren't born a bad person, then you might be able to get to, "I wasn't born a bad person. Is it possible that I developed these maladaptive coping skills due to something in my childhood or the way I was raised?" It's a long and often slow process, but eventually you can get to "I did the things I did because [insert thing here- didn't have the tools to cope with feelings of jealousy/felt like I always had to look out for myself because nobody else was going to/was raised to feel ashamed of myself for being who I am/whatever], and although that doesn't make my actions okay, I can forgive myself for not having acted differently." And from there, eventually you can get to, "I am worthy of love and respect despite the things that I did." And from there, then maybe you can start looking at yourself in the mirror and saying, "I am worthy! I deserve good things! I deserve love!" But you can't just jump into the deep end with things like this; you have to take it one baby step at a time.

Other Therapies

All that said, for some people, therapies that are focused on challenging thought patterns can be really hard. If that's the case for you, it might work better to take an approach that focuses on acceptance. There are two main therapies in this group- "Dialectical Behavioral Therapy" and "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy". As I said before, it's best if you can find a therapist who specializes in this kind of therapy and who can help you work through your thoughts and feelings. But if that's not a possibility, there are some at-home resources you can use to help yourself.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is designed to help you manage difficult, intense emotions and to better handle interpersonal relationships. There are some good self-help DBT resources here and here. DBT has four core skills that build on each other:

Mindfulness: these are skills that are focused on being present in the current moment. Mindfulness includes things like observing your thoughts and feelings without judgement, doing a mental scan of your body from head to toe, noticing the emotions you're experiencing and describing them, and exercises where you focus on your breathing. Mindfulness helps us realize that our emotions are impermanent, which allows us to better regulate them when we're experiencing negative emotions.

Distress Tolerance: these are skills that are focused on helping you learn to cope with distressing emotions and difficult situations. Distress tolerance includes things like making a list of distracting activities for when you feel yourself headed into an emotional crisis, using grounding techniques (like describing 5 things you can see, 4 things you can hear, 3 things you can feel, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste), and other methods of self soothing. In your case, the distress tolerance skill of radical acceptance might be particularly useful, since it focuses on accepting and making peace with things that cannot be changed, like past events, and letting go of the distress we hold because of those events. Distress tolerance skills allow us to be more confident and resilient in our day to day lives.

Emotional Regulation: these are skills that are focused on helping you manage your emotions, change negative emotions, and increase the number of positive emotions you have. Emotional regulation involves things like recognizing and naming the emotions that you're experiencing, accepting that your emotions are valid, identifying distortions in your patterns of thinking, practicing feeling uncomfortable, and coming up with a plan for when difficult situations arise.

Interpersonal Effectiveness: these are skills that are focused on helping you manage your relationships with other people. Interpersonal effectiveness involves things like identifying your communication style, learning how to listen attentively and validate other people's emotions, and how to build trust in relationships. These skills allow us to build a support network of people who can build us up when we don't feel like we can do it ourselves.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) asks us to view "negative" emotions like sadness, anger, and jealousy as a natural part of life, accept that these feelings are appropriate responses to situations that we're put in, and to commit to changing our behaviors so they're in line with our values. There are some good self-help resources for ACT here and here. The book "The Happiness Trap" by Russ Harris is also a really popular starting place. ACT has six core skills:

Acceptance: as with DBT, acceptance is a big part of ACT. In ACT, acceptance involves acknowledging and embracing difficult emotions without judgement or trying to change them.

Mindfulness: also as with DBT, mindfulness is a big part of ACT. The skills you'll build here are similar to the ones I mentioned above- observing your emotions and thoughts without judgement, meditation, doing a mental scan of your body, and breathing exercises.

Cognitive Defusion: Cognitive defusion involves distancing yourself from your thoughts and feelings, which leads you to change how you react to them and to have a more objective perspective on them. Instead of assuming that our thoughts and emotions are true, this skill teaches us to ask whether the thoughts and feelings we have are true. Techniques for this skill can include things like singing our thoughts, noticing the automatic reaction we have to certain thoughts or feelings, or using language to distance ourselves from those thoughts and feelings (For example, "I'm noticing that I'm having the feeling that I was born a bad person" instead of "I was born a bad person").

Self as Context or The Observing Self: This skill asks us to recognize that our physical and emotional states are temporary. As people, we're more than just our emotions, thoughts, and experiences. Because we are not our emotions or thoughts, we can choose how we react to the emotions and thoughts that we have. Exercises in this group can include things like exploring the roles we play in our day-to-day lives and noticing the things that stay consistent throughout those role switches that we experience.

Values: This skill asks us to identify what our personal values are. When we know what our values are and are trying our best to live in line with them, it's easier to avoid acting from a place of negativity (like shame, jealousy, anger, and fear).

Committed Action: finally, committed action asks us to create long-term goals that are in line with our values. What are the concrete steps you would need to take in order to align with your values and positively impact your life?

Final Thoughts

I know this all probably feels like a lot of work, and I would imagine that some of it doesn't feel immediately relevant to your pressing concern. But by learning these skills, either thought positive self-talk, DBT, or ACT, it will become easier to accept your past, tolerate your discomfort with the person that you used to be, change the way that you think and feel about yourself, and change the way that you interact with the world moving forward.

[firespirited]

Managed to list the monster high stock and dolls. I'd been putting it off in the distant hope that i'd show improvement enough to warrant waiting. It's stupid I have plenty of projects kept and there will always be gunky bundles. Still my brain bought this and that for a reason and I had often had something specific planned, so a sense of, not quite obligation but when each doll head was in hand there were moments of "well this one only would require an hour or two to complete the vision" and "that one's so rare I'll never see that again while I have the right supplies".

Bratz spare clothes and project dolls tomorrow. Kiwi too. Not sure whether to split Barbie and other 1/6 from 1/7th Licca and Anthro. I have to keep the momentum and remember the relief. It's so SILLY having to go through the same mental blocks every time. I post in the hopes it'll make me cringe someday and maybe learn something.

If you're in the EU, you can still get the whole lot for $100 shipped (if it's not western eu it might be a bit more shipping) massive bargain for you and no ebay hassle for me.

Then new shelves/glass cupboards for the Rainbow High and possibly a few anthro hybrids. Now that the collection has more monsters and novis, they won't be out of place.

There's been an odd sense of loss of identity with not being able to customize but it's so much easier seeing how many people know how to reroot now and also letting myself enjoy being a collector (occasional restyler!) who doesn't have to do anything spectacular to enjoy a doll.

January pushed me out of my habits to learn some minor bead embroidery skills and I did some fun upcycling with clear plastic, silica beads and plastic ab rhinestones. It was a fun exercise in using unusual materials and reminded me that I love a challenge and the odd far more than a full pallette of high quality hair colours.

I have not made any progress on the recoding of the tutorials. I might be motivated if there's a section on the new doll collector site. Hard to get hyped/panicked enough: Tumblr's not ideal for the search engines but at least it's stable for now and people can ask questions directly on posts, spam's minimal, you build a rapport with other doll folks.

I do my walks, my exercises, and just have to hope that it's doing something. I can't build muscle like a normal person just have to measure in how many seconds before collapse or full body trembles. Patience is a virtue I've never had. The high pain shock collar built into my neck with a instant to 48h delay is having to do the work of keeping me on track lol.

On an unrelated tangeant, i really hope AI hype craps out soon. I hated the new 'predictive/most searched' google update, it basically broke the internet for me to not get the most accurate results for my searches.

I have zero interest in having a bot tell me what I really want to hear from some random blogger who happens to be into that subject or who sees a link between that subject and another. That's what this is for, to hear from other people not have their thoughts filtered through algorithms to give me an all sides version of the story. I don't want the review that's a condensed consensus matching the 80% of 2 star reviews I want to hear from the three dweebs who adore this film for entirely different reasons (the train schedule and effects are totally correct and it's the one vhs they used to watch with the neighbour and quote it as in jokes, it's also got great practical effects and it was filmed in a place that is now knocked down but used to be their workplace.) People make the internet interesting. I don't want the information without the superfluous personal ramblings attached. Give me the anecdote with the recipe, it's far less intrusive than the five adverts and I'll remember the recipe as the one that he found in a book about Greece and he's never been but he dreams about it sometimes.

[xocontinentaldrift]

monthly report: january 2023

Wowza, I can't believe a month has already flown by. After a rough start of my kiddo getting stomach fly on New Year's Day, I spent most of the month just catching my breath and easing into the new year. It was a good call not to put too much pressure on myself.

Ironically, it was a productive month anyway, with lots of happy-making moments and accomplishments:

Revised about 1/3 of my novel

Took a lot of outdoor open air walks despite the snow and cold

Started to go out for dinner every Friday night with the family

Decluttered a lot of papers and some books

Mastered making falafel in our Instant Pot air fryer

Talked with my best friend on the phone a few times

Spent more time with my parents with my kiddo

Did a little more strength training in the mornings, experimenting with doing pushups everyday (because a few times a week makes it hard to track, it's easier for me just to do them everyday)

Bonded with our new kitty and she seems happy and well-adjusted in our home, and she is so snuggly!

Began getting to bed at a reasonable hour (before midnight is a huge accomplishment for me.)

Participated in some fashion challenges via my favorite fashion forum on Reddit

Read a lot of books

Began planning the little guy's birthday party next week, which is NOT a fun task for me, but I booked the location, put down a deposit, sent out invites, managed the RSVPs. Next up: figuring out food, transport/pickup logistics, ordering the cake, sending out reminders

Bought a nice lounge bed roll from Natural Life that makes my home so much more cheerful, funky and comfy

Paid all my bills!

Trucking along in my Duolingo French course -- I'm determined to finish the Intermediate 1 course by mid-year

However, the month had its difficulties and sticking points:

Some instances of mindless spending

Yelling a few times at my kiddo, especially when I was burned out at the beginning of the month coming off the busy holiday season

Conflict with partner over who does what in terms of house/life shit. The problem is that I feel all the work I do is never seen as the work that it is, it's just written off as "easy" and inconsequential.

Thought it got better at the end, my sleeping patterns were off, and I've begun waking up in the middle of the night. (Thanks, perimenopause!) Gotta figure something out because it really does bite into quality of life.

BORED AT WORK. Can't figure out if the responsibilities, the need for a new direction, or just the drab isolation of working from home in the middle of winter.

Inconsistent exercise when it's sub-zero temps. I mean, part of me thinks I can give myself some slack on this, but it does affect my overall sense of well-being

Having moments of feeling super, super depressed right before my period. It's not even just sad -- it's like my brain just can't feel good in any way, and I feel really despondent and hopeless in a way that doesn't feel right. Sometimes I wonder if I have PMDD. Something to think upon, I guess.

Just that general feeling of being in a hamster wheel, running furiously but with no real movement forward. Spinning my wheels. File it under "existential mid-life malaise."

So that's my roundup of January 2023. Not a bad month, I must say. I'm really looking forward to February 2023's goals and resolutions:

Keep revising my novel! I'm really making a lot of headway at the moment, maybe because I've hit a decent patch of storytelling

Getting ready for my writers group to start up again

Planning my kiddo's birthday party, it's gonna be a banger, lol

An old friend will be in town from London, so I'm looking forward to seeing her

Talking regularly on the phone with my best friend from college

More Friday night dinners as a family

Making myself get dressed in real clothes instead of being in sweats all day -- too easy to do in the winter, for sure!

Focusing my reading on books on relationships, parenting, love and marriage, and also incorporating more fiction

Cleaning out my closet once again and sending a box of clothes to ThredUp

Getting a shoe storage cabinet for my dining room

Getting to bed before midnight most nights -- ideally asleep by 11:30pm, but let's be realistic that this might not always happen

Cleaning out toiletries and makeup bag

Wearing perfume everyday -- I have a lot of scents that I need to use and use up and use out

Making an appointment to meet with a new OB-Gyn -- might delay this till March

Taking walks outside as much as I can

Going out to work at a cafe or some place like that at least once a week

Trying out 2-3 new recipes this month as a challenge. I don't care too much about being the ideal housewife, but for my own sake, I need to try some new recipes

Start re-creating an official website/social media professional presence again...which means paying off Dreamhost, ugh.

Maybe look into estimates for redoing kitchen floor

Start planning outdoor landscaping miniprojects, like planting new boxwoods on my side garden beds

Ok, that's getting a little too ambitious; I'll revise this as needed. Here's to a lovely February full of peace, inspiration, liberation and the divine feminine!

[unseelie-robynx]

Soo in the End Of Hope tyrant prince ending.. what does the beaten rebellion do? What are their lives like now?

!!!!!!!!! I am terrible at remembering I have things in my inbox cause I don't get the little number on the letter because tumblr is dumb so I'm sorry this is so late

So there's a few thoughts on that located here, but let's get into it.

WARNING: DARK!! also Brainwashing, Mind control, Objectification, and probably Dehumanization in here. Bad End.

Also, this ended up getting LONG so it's under the cut.

So first off are the spiders. Their fate is pretty straightforward. The Queen, as Red promised, is trapped screaming inside her own head while her body runs around being basically a public use public service robot. Anything she gets told to do, happens. Obviously not like, illegal or harmful things, no one could tell her to attack someone or rob a store (not that they would, why would anyone even think of something so horrible in the Perfect Golden City?) if someone tried she'd just like, shut down until a new order was given. But anything else if fair game. carry groceries? Clean up after someone's dog? jump up and down three times and swear to everyone she meets today that the sky is magenta? Done, done, and done.

Goliath is got as far away from the main palace as possible. He's big and strong, so it's easy to just permanently melt his brain, leave him as a manual worker who's blissfully happy all the time, and ship him off to do hard labor somewhere where Xiaotian never has to see his creepy gross spider self again. (Because while Xiaotian needs to keep the Spider Queen in the pubic eye, a 'Symbol of Triumph and his power to redeem even the worst sinners' A warning of what will happen if he catches anyone else trying to ruin his perfect city. There's a reason the celestials have backed off any tentative plans to stop him. They didn't pay attention in time, and now it's too late. And Syntax and Huntsman are kept close for other reasons, the arachnophobic boy wants to get rid of at least one of them if he can)

Wich brings up Huntsman. He went under the 'needs permission but is permanent' version of the Oblivion Track. The price for them not completely breaking Syntax's brain wide open and leaving him most likely braindead. He had to willingly let Red Son and Xiaotian back into his brain, to turn him back into the perfect little pet wife they'd been working on. And Red delighted in making Huntsman 'train' himself. Not just sit there and let them break him, but actively do it to himself. Eventually, he starts begging for more 'sessions' because the faster he loses himself, the faster it stops.

And Syntax get's to watch. Because he's a hybrid, and technically a forced hybrid, his mind is a mess and the venom in his system isn't helping. He's immune to normal versions of Oblivion, but then so is Xiaotian. He needed a special remix trained to the specific mix of human, yaoguai, and celestial that he's ended up as under the Monkey King's influence. So they knew they could make something that worked on him, it would just be time-consuming. Hence the deal Huntsman made to save Syntax. But until they get that done, his life is awful. He'd kept drugged most of the time, so that he can't try and escape or fight back. He's only ever really awake (where he's chained up, still mostly drugged, and with a constant electric current forced through his body to keep his mechanical limbs from being operable) when he's being forced to watch Huntsman's 'training'. So it ends up being almost a relief when Xiaotian comes in one day to 'test things' and Syntax feels his mind falling away from him.

Syntax also ends up 'wifeafied' as it were. Huntsman fixated on him during his 'training' and it was easier for all parties to just go along with it. Plus, Sandy is a bleeding heart so when he got the story about 'kidnapped and forcibly turned into a spider demon' and how Syntax was also his Wife's friend, he offered to take him in. (Poor Sandy has had his mind messed with to the point he just basically sees the two spiders the same way he does his cats. Like pets and Syntax is the poor stray his sweet Huntsman brought home for him to take care of) So Syntax ends up all victorian era ballgowns, because the design makes it hard to move, and he can tuck those 'unsightly disgusting you hate them, hate that they were forced on you' mechanical limbs under the folds. And the corseting makes it hard for him to breathe, constantly putting pressure on his back and the painful implant buried in his skin. Red holds a grudge.

Then there's DBK. He gets exactly what Red Son promised him. He is reunited with his Wife on Flower Fruit Mountain. And he and Princess Iron Fan then get extremely fine detail Oblivion work done on them, curtosy of Yin and Jin's calabash, which had been repurposed to trap someone in a full immersion of the music and then new memories can be programmed in for the victims subjects to live out thus perfectly replacing their old ones. (Xiaotian wants to get this right he'd screwed up with these two once before, and that was before his darling perfect Wife asked for the most perfect doting adoring Mama and Papa to have loved him growing up before handing him off to his even more perfect and wonderful Huband whom he was always meant to belong to.) Sun Wukong happily takes to the arrangement, and a little bit of Oblivion in his ears has him totally sold on the new history. 500 years sealed away? What are you talking about?

The unnamed human and random demon 'leaders' of the rebellion are, of course, 'rehabilitated'. They're all kinda braindead now, but they're so happy to be free of that horrible Spider Queen and what she was forcing them to do. They're a bit in between a warning and just getting them out of the way and making sure they can't do anything to anyone else. They serve time, of course, for their crimes, but that these days is almost exclusively community service. Out in places where they can be exposed to the thrum of Oblivion all day long, driving the changes in deeper

Most of the average members of the rebellion are grouped up and mass blasted with Oblivion and the story of how they were 'kidnapped' and 'abducted' and forced to serve the Spider Queen in her horrid plans. How none of it was of their own free will and even thinking about that time is painful so it's best to just stop thinking about it altogether and let all those memories fade away. Families are reunited there is a lot of celebrating and everyone sings the Golden Prince's (because he's more than just the Monkey Prince now, he's stepped out from under Sun Wukong's shadow) praises for defeating this last great evil in their perfect home.

And then there's Macaque. Who was both part of the rebellion and not. Their spy and informant, but not active in what was being plotted. Who, most importantly, is Sun Wukongs brother in all but blood. He now wears the Golden Circlet that graced the Monkey King's brow on the Journey. He needs it. He knows he does. His nature is dark and violent and he hates that about himself. He wants to be good. To be good and bright and kind, to be worthy of the love his brother still gives him. And someday he will be. Someday he'll stop slipping up and having those violent episodes, (Please, Wukong please! Just let me go! I won't cause problems, you'll never see me again, please), that force his brother to use it to stop him hurting himself or, worse, someone else. Someday he'll be the perfect brother, someone the Great Sage, Equaling Heaven, would be proud to have by his side.

(Macaque begged Sun Wukong not to let Xiaotian take his mind from him. That if he was going cause everything that was Macaque to be stripped away, to at least let it be by Wukong's own hand. And so the Monkey King promised. He takes exclusive control of Macaque, and his exposure to oblivion. This means he doesn't have Xiaotian's years of expertise to draw on, even if he is getting advice, and the results of that, combined with the celestial monkies all having a level of natural immunity to Oblivion, is that sometimes the programing 'slips' and the old Macaque comes out for a bit. But that's ok. Sun Wukong knows that enlightenment and change are a process. But he's going to be here the entire time, helping his brother just like SWK was once helped himself. He had the tightening sutra memorized before the Journey was even half over after all.)

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Can we take a moment to talk about what a tragic character Minerva is? Y’all know that for the longest time I haven’t been the biggest fan of her, and honestly I’m still not? but I think I might’ve had a breakthrough on why that is. 

Whenever I’ve asked around to see why people find her so appealing or why they consider her their favorite, I’ll get answers like, “she’s such a complex character and she deserved a redemption arc!” or “she should’ve come back to the school with us! Let Minnie be happy, you cowards! Telltale did her dirty! I could write paragraph after paragraph about her!” all sorts of things along those lines… but like, no one seems to want to actually talk about her. I find that interesting? Since when I do follow up with a “care to explain further?” I get nothing. Radio static. Like…. no, talk to me please, I just wanna understand-

Minerva within the context of TFS is such a tragedy. She grew up in a school for troubled youth where all the adults left them for death at the start of the breakout, they had walkers trying to eat the living all around them, and I’m sure she saw her fair share of traumatic violence and despair… but on the bright side, she always had her twin sister, Sophie, and little brother, Tenn. She had her friend and eventual girlfriend, Violet. She had music, and a dorm full of pretty paintings done by Sophie. She and Louis composed a song together to make everyone feel better. There are worse places to live than the school. 

Then one day she got traded away to a bunch of raiders against her will, having no idea what the hell these people were gonna do to her and Sophie. They were made to be soldiers to fight in a war that had nothing to do with them. The delta fucking broke her. If we’re to believe Lilly’s story about the twins, they started their brainwashing process early on when Sophie was still alive, and it seems like Minerva was easier to control as Sophie was still planning a way out and causing trouble. Then, when Sophie convinced her to steal a boat and get the hell out, they got caught and the delta forced her to murder her own twin sister. 

Like…. I’m sorry, not only did Minerva kill her own sister, but she was made to believe that was the right thing to do? That line she says about how she had to prove her loyalty to the place she calls home? That shit’s ingrained in her brain, you can tell that isn’t the first time she’s heard or said that very thing. That is what made her family to the delta. Delta is her home now, her family. Sophie was just a thing that needed to be dealt with. You keep your head down, do as you’re told, and you survive.  You survive and you get to go home, eat a hot meal, take a shower, and be with your delta family.  If not, you end up like Sophie.

What’s also fucked is that Minerva actually cares about these people now. Think about that. After everything they did to her and made her do, she’s been trained to see them as her family and obey. When you save Louis and he kills Dorian, Minerva actually cries out and is visibly hurt by her death. When she’s with the other raiders on land, she's screaming at walkers to get away from them. She cares about the people who made her kill Sophie… and no one ever talks about that??

She fucking hates Clementine. Clementine is just another thing in Minnie’s way. I know the part of the fandom likes to ship these two together and they think it’s hot when they fight and shit, but within the canon text, Minerva wants Clementine gone. Dead. She is the thing stopping her from having her old family merge with her new family. If Clementine hadn’t made them fight, they all would’ve been captured and they’d all be a delta family now. She would’ve had Tenn back. 

Clementine is the problem, she made everyone fight back and that’s why people are dead. Minerva hates her for it… it’s not a “I hate you but like the sexual tension, y’know?” that I see people pretend it is, it’s “you are ruining everything and if I have to, I will kill you myself and I won’t give a second thought about it when they toss your body overboard.”

Like….. seriously, think about how fucked up all of this is. Minerva is a husk of who she was before she was taken away. Sure, you do have to keep in mind that when Tenn and Violet are describing her, their sights are a bit clouded, y’know? But I do believe that she was someone who was kind and cared about people, she wanted to make people feel safe and comforted. 

Now she’s a brainwashed soldier who won’t help the people she used to call friends when they’re about to get limbs cut off. She won’t hesitate to knock someone unconscious or threaten a child.  She’s willing to trick them into being captured with no regard for what’s going to happen to them. … all she knows is this was the mission, and now they all get to be together again back at the delta. 

Then when she finds out there’s a bomb on the boat, she ditches Violet to blow up with it in order to make it to land herself. She loses her shit seeing everyone die and gets her face chewed off by a walker… and then she tries to blow Clementine and AJ up with a grenade. 

Oh, and who can forget the fact that she tracks the group down with plans of murdering Tenn so that they can go to a better place together? And she’ll take down anyone who gets in her way?

Like….. jesus christ, Minerva’s waaaaay too far gone. It’s awful. 

I think that’s what stumps me about why she’s so loved in the way that she is. It’s not that I don’t understand why she’s complex and well-written, I get that perfectly fine. She’s a compelling character study when you comb over all her scenes and take different factors into account.

What I don’t understand is why we tend to just throw everything interesting about her away? For what? 

These days, I never see anyone talking about any of this unless they’re insisting she deserved a redemption arc which…. Eh, I’ll touch on this later. What I mostly see here and mostly other platforms is how great it would be if she and Clementine made out, or hey what if she and Violet got back together if she did come back to the school? Or they just….the best term I have for this is “uwu-ify.” As in she’s reduced to a caricature of a tall, pretty, mean, white lesbian who has “good damage.” 

People insist that Telltale are cowards or bastards because their predictions of her turning on the delta to save Clem and crew didn’t happen. Instead, Minerva ends up being the final baddie you gotta get away from, and she ends up taking someone down with her. But did you really expect to just do a 180 and suddenly decide being brainwashed for over a year was lame and Clementine and friends are cool? Gonna help them out and be with Tenn again? Sure, there’s some left over trauma but love conquers and fixes everything, right?

Uh…. no? That’s not how people work? Honestly, if we entertain the idea that Minerva wasn’t bit and somehow didn’t murder Clementine when they all got back to the school…. romance is the last thing she is ever gonna think of??

I think that’s what bothers me most when reading these au’s and rants about redemption and the entire idea of clemerva as a whole. It’s the same thing that I see happen with Violet- Minerva only has value to fans if she’s in a wlw relationship. By herself, she doesn’t matter. They don’t care about her canon story, they don’t care about Sophie, they don’t care about discussing what could’ve happened if she and Tenn reunited under better circumstances or had a healing recovery together. But why?

Throwing a girlfriend at her isn’t some band aid that’s gonna cover up all the bad she went through?? Having an enemies to lovers romance with Clementine isn’t going to fix a years worth of brainwashing, trauma or the fact that she murdered her own sister and the delta told her she's proved her worth to them?? 

Having the support of those around her is a good thing, don’t get me wrong. The idea of the Ericson crew as a whole trying to help her out and do the best they can to accommodate her is bittersweet since there’s only so much they can do. They’re not trained therapists, which is what Minerva would need and plenty of years ahead of her to work through and come to terms with everything that happened as well as taking steps forward. I’m not saying that she shouldn’t have friends or that she couldn’t have a healthy romantic relationship someday... but that isn’t the solution, y’know? 

I don’t know how else to explain this, but it makes me feel weird that all of this stuff is flat out overlooked or doesn’t appear to matter to fans of her. 

Look, I get it. We all want these characters to be happy. AU’s are a thing, after all. Sometimes we want to forget about the bad things and focus on the good that bring us comfort. You wanna gush about the idea of an AU where the twins never got traded, the raiders didn’t exist, and Clementine got to meet them the way they were before? I feel that, AU’s are super comforting and fun to explore, and my point isn’t to try and shame anyone who has an AU you like this. 

Hell, you think I don’t have days where I pretend mute Louis isn’t a thing because the whole concept of Louis having his tongue cut out of his mouth breaks my fucking heart? No, lot’s of days I just want to forget everything about that route, I want to set aside all the bad and just intake as much clouis fluff as I can get…. But that doesn’t mean I always ignore or refuse to acknowledge the bad just because I don’t like it. I fucking hate the fact that Louis loses his tongue when you don’t save him, but guess what? That’s a canon route you can play, just like any other route, and the possibilities that come with a mute Louis are vast and compelling. 

This is how it is for me… my favorite characters are my favorite for a reason, and I take all the bad with the good. Louis isn’t perfect, and I don’t want him to be. I was to dive into his backstory about why did that to his parents, I like to talk about what he went through with Marlon’s murder and his feelings about AJ and Clementine at the point, I like to view his love of music as bittersweet. He can stand on his own, and while he is a love interest for Clementine, that isn’t his only purpose. 

I know everyone’s different, they express their love for characters in their own ways, but I do have a genuine question: do you guys actually like Minerva?

Believe it or not, I’m not trying to step on toes or make everyone feel defensive which I know is how people will react to this. “You’re just saying all of this to make us feel bad for shipping clemerva! You don’t even like Minnie so you don’t get to say shit!” yeah yeah, I hear you and look, it’s true that she’s not my favorite character. I know I’ve said I hate her in the past but upon reflection and throwing out fandom interpretations.... I don’t hate her. I get it now. She’s a great character study to dissect and analyze and I think she deserves more than what the writers and the fandom have given her. 

And yeah, what I do hate is clemerva, and I’ve explained why. It’s not for me, it makes me uncomfortable, but at the end of the day, who cares? Me not liking it doesn’t mean anything to those who create AU’s for them. They have their reasons, they can do as they please as long as they’re not hurting anyone. I’m just here pointing out things I see and things that bother me in hopes of starting a discussion.

There’s my ramble about Minerva. I’m gonna go make some tea now. 

[robin-obsessed]

i think my relationship with social media has been interesting to say the least haha. i grew up in a strict household so my relationship with it has been rocky, but i think it’s safe to say that i’m doing a bit better in comparison? ^^;

yes! it definitely is like choosing between the lesser of two evils. you’re also right about the future of k-pop. i definitely don’t know what’s in store, but i do know that i’m a pretty avid enjoyer rn ~

you seem like you have the mind of one!! ATEEZ is a much newer group than BTS, so it’d be a lot easier to play catch up with them haha

ooo, a business major with a focus in marketing ~ your brain >>>> because my little studio art major brain is not built for for the mathematical part of the business track 🥲 those parasocial relationships they sell with the idols was truly a stroke of genius because so many people pour themselves into k-pop due to that nonexistent relationship (aka me 😞) and they make serious bank. i know because i’m a victim 🤧✋

you say indie games and i immediately thought of this one Webtoon called “Let’s Play!” i haven’t read it in a while, but the main character was someone who worked in this field! i hope that you can make a lot of games for a long time, lissie! i’d love to see your creativity brought to life!!

i agree… it’s hard to see 00-03’s debut these days because they debut them so young </3 i heard they recently debuted a girl born in 2011… like that is 12 at most there’s no way she’s had proper training oO (i know you can manage to make them stand out without being repetitive though ~)

NOT THE CALL OUT 😭 it was cute and creative 🫶 it was fun, but seriously crazy keeping up with everyone, esp since not everyone is in the same timezone ><

it is no problem at all ~

that is quite a young age to be exposed to such platforms. i am glad that your journey on starting anew is going well. it is hard to completely erase ones identity, as it is tied to you, but i believe you are doing a pretty great job.

yes, some fandoms can be quite toxic. while it is nice to bond with people over certain activities, there are people who always manage to ruin the fun for others. personally, i allow it to roll off of me at this point. i do not engage in fan wars or anything silly like that because not only is it a waste of my time and energy, but it is also completely pointless as most of these groups are friends in real life. after all, i am in it for the group, not the people who stan the group, so i do my best to support them as much as i can ~ however, i am glad that you have found joy in other interests. k-pop can be forever for some, but not for all.

the storyline is an interesting thing really. others make theories and others do not care. for me, i take note of the storyline, but i am not one to avidly keep up with it. i simply acknowledge that it is there and apart of the concept.

i can see your point with ateez and enha. enhypen’s storyline does have that webtoon. i believe that the company made it more complicated by marking lines between enhypen as a group and enhypen as characters in their storyline. so i am not entirely sure of the story myself… as for how hybe and kq treat their groups, they are rather different. they capitalize off of them in very different ways, but the most important thing in my opinion is the music and i do not have too many complaints in that department.

your ideas are very interesting and i can say that i would be invested in your career path as a creative director. i believe i saw a post where you created a group just for fun, street spirits? very cool and eye-catching.

unfortunately, this will be my last ask. i believe my time as your anon has been amazing, but all good things must come to an end. rather than simply revealing myself or ending with a grandiose gesture, i will pose a simple question to you. if you have the correct answer, then my reveal is complete ~

who in our group chat recently changed their icon to soobin? ~

signed, 🩻

lissie: hey xray! good job for lasting this much especially longer than my attempt lol my guess will be at the very bottom of the ask

yeah, i try my best with that especially knowing how big tech companies are technically "data mining" you for their business. i feel very uncomfortable with that and i much rather stay off the grid from social media platforms as best as i can. i don't know about your relationships towards social media but if you are the person i guess than you must have a good relationship with it unlike me (especially based on the others' testimonies of you when they're guessing about my anon attempt)

toxicity is everywhere in my opinion. but i guess you just have to pick between the lesser of evils you see. life is full of choices of course! also, having different interests is a very human thing to do because nothing lasts forever. we don't know how kpop as an industry will go in for the next five years because everything changes fast, especially with the existence of the information super highway currently (eg: slave contract abolishments, bts raising kpop up to the mainstream, etc)

i'm actually one of the theorists! i used to theorize for bts but after mots:7, i stopped because it doesn't seem to connect anymore. i want to try to theorize for ateez, but i have to keep up with so many things that i'll let other people take the spotlight while giving some comments from the side.

it is definitely interesting to see their strategy, especially as a business major who focuses on marketing. but that's what comes with competition: innovations that are good and bad. just like we see with twitter and threads, consumers are very fickle and they can change. i'm one of the fickle kpop consumers because i'm a multifan at best and a casual listener most of the time. yet we have to know that kpop idols are essential products for us to consume by hearing, seeing, and interacting which way you could do.

i hope so! i don't know if the music industry is my exact calling but I'll definitely work towards enhancing my creativity in my career in a way (there's a reason why i chose marketing as my focus). i was thinking of making a studio for game publishing, idk if i wanna it to be for video games or physical games but i know that i want it to be small-to-medium size and indie rather than it being extravagant like the big aaa game companies with examples of electronic arts or activision blizzard.

there's also a reason why i picked kq ent as the home of street spirit and it is definitely lore and concept! there is a missing market of girl groups with kq ent with the members between 00-03 liners (youngest in ateez and oldest in xikers). lore-wise, i'm trying to connect them to ateez's as best as i could without making to similar. while concept-wise, the group definitely has influences from le sserafim, newjeans, billlie, and a bit of kiss of life that putting them in hybe just makes it redundant...

not the call out to me with my grandiose gesture :") i felt like jigsaw when i'm doing my anon reveal (tbh the whole guess the anon between us felt like the saw movies but more pg-13) good job on keeping up because this is hard! hope you gain more insight on me and the others! i know i'm not as fun as the others lol but that's is just how i interact with people honestly...

soobin in weverse concert! hi lee @robin-obsessed !! hope you have a great time and i guess, take a rest to because it has probably been so exhausting for you~

[kiingocreative]

The Structure of Story is now available! Check it out on Amazon, via the link in our bio, or at https://kiingo.co/book

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Performance coach Tony Robbins says that the quality of our lives depends on the state we live in every moment of every day. That state, whether we’re happy, sad, frustrated or excited, depends on three things:

• Our physiology — the way we move our bodies, the way we breathe and what we do with our face.

• Our language — the words we use, whether spoken out loud or inside our own head, to describe our experiences.

• What we focus on — the things we see versus the things we block out or fail to notice.

Today, I want to zone in on that final piece, because what we focus on is key, and it will in turn affect the way you move your body and hold yourself, and the language you use. I see this play out so much around me in general, and in the writing community in particular.

At any given time, the things we focus on determine how we feel and what we make of a situation. And what we focus on, in turn, is governed by the questions we ask ourselves every moment of every day.

Take your writing journey for instance:

If someone leaves you a negative review, do you ask yourself whether this means you’re a failure and your work is a failure? Do you ask yourself how dare that person belittle your work with a bad review? Or do you ask yourself what you can learn from this? Could you ask yourself how good it is that this person was honest in their feedback, so that readers with similar tastes won’t buy your book—and therefore not spend money on a read they might otherwise dislike and rate negatively too?

See how different questions would illicit different points of focus, and therefore different states? Some are more conducive to a positive mindset, whilst others tend to nurture frustration.

‘Why’ Questions: The Endless Loop.

And so it goes that by asking lousy questions, we get lousy answers. Because our brain has this tendency of taking any request we give it and processing it, regardless of whether or not it’s good for us. It’ll scour through the recesses of our mind and go on and on until it finds an answer.

‘Why’ questions are the worst, because there’s often no clear answer, or more than one possible answer to them, and it sends our mind on a chase to find as many possible reasons, processing like a headless chicken, often going around in circles, leaving us ruminating.

Take our example again: What if you asked yourself ‘why is this person leaving me a bad review?’

Now unleash your brain on that one, and let it roll with it—you may get:

• Because they didn’t like the book.

• Because my book is terrible.

• And if my book is terrible, then that makes me a terrible writer.

• Maybe I should just stop writing.

• Who was I to think I could do this?

• I’m clearly not good enough.

• Or maybe they left a bad review because they’re an idiot and didn’t get the brilliance of my work.

• Clearly they’re a moron.

• Maybe I should track them down and tell them just that.

• Maybe I should rally everyone I know on Instagram to shame that dimwit for leaving that review.

• …

… this can go on, until it loops back to the top and starts again. Sounds familiar?

What kind of state do you think you’d be in from obsessing over those disempowering, angering questions, never able to get closure because the loop has no logical end?

Empowering Alternatives.

My own experience of asking myself lousy questions, and my interactions with others within the writing community, have left me convinced that writers need to start asking themselves more empowering questions.

Because the way we tend to ask questions to ourself—those that breed anger, and resentment, and self doubt—ultimately only bring us back to two fears that sit at the root of it all: the fear that we’re not good enough, and the fear that we won’t be loved (or appreciated, or liked). These fears can be crippling. And that can’t be good for anyone’s art anywhere.

I’m writing this today to give you some more empowering alternatives. Some that I have used along my journey and have helped me improve.

Here are four examples:

#1 — gearing up for success:

• Instead of: ‘Why are other writers so much more successful than I am?’

• Ask yourself: ‘What I can learn from other writers to become more successful myself?’

There’s a lot of comparison out there. We know we shouldn’t fall into the trap of it, but it’s easier said than done.

If you see fellow writers thriving with their writing, their social media strategy or their exposure, try modelling what they do that is working and find what, from that, works for you.

Better even, reach out to people and ask them for advice—most people will be more than happy to share, and it’s a great way to build a network!

#2 — boosting sales:

• Instead of: ‘Why am I not selling books?’

• Ask yourself: ‘What I can do to increase my book sales?’

It can be discouraging to have published something, and to see your sales figures stalling. If you start wallowing in self pity through disempowering ‘why’ questions, you’re bound to start spiralling.

Instead, make a list of what you could do to help your sales along.

Here are some ideas that come to mind:

• Seek out book clubs and put your book on their radar. See if they’d been interested in reading your book and having you for an author Q&A when they’re done reading the book.

• Look into running promotions on Amazon (like discounted eBooks).

• Go local! Reach out to your local community and spread the word (cafes, local bookshops and libraries, local Facebook groups and communities etc.) and give them a chance to support a local.

• Contact your old school or university and enquire about showcasing you and your book as an alumni success story.

• Build genuine connections with fellow writers, avid readers and book bloggers. These relationships are a fantastic way to increase your reach and spreading the word about your book—and as a result, improve sales.

• Offer to do a read and review swap with a fellow author, where you read and review each other’s book.

• And so on.

If you start asking your brain to think outside the box, it’ll do just that!

#3 — the writer’s life:

• Instead of: ‘Why can’t I be a full-time writer and have financial security from writing?’

• Ask yourself: 'How is my present occupation helping my writing?’

• …And then ask: 'What can I do to increase my revenue from writing?’

This is one topic that’s been crossing my mind a lot, and I suspect many of us out there have pondered it at one point or other. If asked the wrong way, this question can send you spiralling into a frustrated state.

I don’t write full-time at present, and I have had my moments of daydreaming hours away, wishing I could live off my craft. That never led to anything very productive.

What I have found helpful however has been to focus on what my day job enables me to do with my writing:

• It takes away the pressure of earning a full income from writing.

• It gives me time to write and experiment with my craft in different forms.

• It enables me to look into ways to monetise my writing at my own pace.

• And that’s made for much more exciting trains of thought!

#4 — social media guru:

• Instead of: ‘Why can’t I manage to grow my Instagram reach?’ Or ‘why is social media sapping my energy?’

• Ask yourself: ‘What can I do to create a healthier balance when it comes to promotion efforts?’

Social media is a tricky one. It has incredible benefits if leveraged the right way, and it’s an amazing tool to get yourself and your work out there. In fact, I recently wrote a piece on the immense value of joining Bookstagram for writers.

But it can also be a drain, because the mechanisms of social media are built on the principle of addiction. It’s literally designed to suck you in and make you crave more, and fear that you’re missing out and not doing enough.

To avoid falling into that vicious circle, I’ve found it much healthier to ask myself how I can find the right balance to achieve what I want with my social media presence whilst also keeping my sanity. What this ends up being will look different for different people. If you’re unsure where to start, think about what you find challenging about maintaining your social media account, then what you find helps with your peace of mind, and try to find a middle ground somewhere in between that meets your needs.

Ask and thou shalt get.

I’m a firm believer in our ability to manifest our reality—at least to some extent. If you focus on all the wrong things, then your reality will look challenging and bleak.

If you train yourself to look for constructive ways forward and to get yourself excited about making the journey smoother for yourself, then finding that sweet spot that works for you can be a fascinating journey.

And that all starts with asking the right questions. Finding the right point of focus. Writing can be a wonderful, yet at times confusing and challenging journey. So do yourself a favour: where possible, take away those mind blocks that stand in your way!

Different questions about your writing journey illicit different points of focus, and therefore different states. Some are more conducive to a positive mindset, whilst others tend to nurture frustration.

[the-scandalorian]

Tempered Glass: Chapter 6

Pairing: Din Djarin x Female Reader Rating: M (will become explicit) Word Count: 4k Warnings: slow burn, sad feels/angst, canon-typical violence, cursing, sexy thoughts, pining Summary: When Fennec Shand reveals your true identity to the Mandalorian, you do your best to pick up the pieces. Notes: I’m sorry this took me so long!! I rewrote it like six times because I couldn’t get it to feel right. Next chapter should be much faster. Taglist: @bbdoyouloveme​​ @beskarhearts​​ @dincrypt​ @dunderr​ @honey-hi​ @just-me-and-my-obsessions00​ @mbpokemonrulez​  @oloreaa​ @red-leaders​ @speakerforthedead0​ @spideysimpossiblegirl​​ @theflightytemptressadventure​ @ubri812​ @zoemariefit​​

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Image from The Art of Star Wars: The Mandalorian

Fuck. Panic coursed through your veins and paralyzed you. Your brain moved infuriatingly slowly as you tried to think of a way to stop the disaster that was unfolding before your eyes.

And yet...despite your fear and despite the fact that this terrifying, high-level bounty hunter had once tracked you, hearing Fennec call you sweetheart made your stomach drop—in a pleasant way, not at all like when Toro had done the same. She was beautiful, strong, mysterious, intimidating. What little you saw of her fighting style confirmed that she was lithe and exacting—catlike in her grace and prowess. A sexy armored bounty hunter.

I have a type.

You shunted that wildly unhelpful train of thought out of your head to refocus on the crisis at hand.

You looked at Mando. “I—”

“What’s she talking about?” he prompted. You couldn’t tell if you were projecting because you felt guilty or if he really did sound a little hurt.

You opened your mouth again to respond, but Fennec beat you to it.

“Oh, you don’t know?” Even in the dark, you could see Fennec’s eyes sparkle in delight as she addressed Mando. “I don’t know how this one stayed off your radar,” she explained. “She was wanted by the Empire for years. Huge bounty... She looks a little different now—check her chest for a scar to make sure, but I’d bet her bounty it’s there.”

Mando had already seen the scar. He knew Fennec was right.

You caught the hungry look on Toro’s face as he drank in everything Fennec was saying. His eyes trailed down your face and landed shamelessly on your chest. You could practically hear the wheels turning in his head as he tried to think up a way to confirm your identity and claim the reward for both you and Fennec. This little fucker.

Fennec looked at you, and you took a step back involuntarily. “You’ve gotten sloppy, baby. There’s been chatter for weeks that you resurfaced on Nevarro. If I hadn’t been pinned down here, I’d have come for you myself.”

Her words felt like ice sliding down your throat and settling in your stomach. You’d figured that news of your sighting would probably get out, but you had hoped against hope that the blue-haired bounty hunter had been taken out before she’d been able to spread the word.

Mando was silent, fists clenched tightly at his sides, visor glued on Fennec. Pulling yourself together, you grabbed his arm and dragged him a safe distance away.

“I was going to tell you. I’m sorry,” you blurted, once you were out of earshot.

“It’s fine,” he replied stiffly, his gaze trained decidedly to your right.

Somewhere in the back of your mind you registered that even though it was just the two of you, his voice retained its icy, detached quality, all the tender familiarity gone.

“No, it’s not. I should have told you sooner. I-I wanted to—believe me—but I didn’t know if I could trust you. You were—you’ve been worried that I might turn you or the kid in, haven’t you? I was worried that you’d do the same to me if you found out. The longer I spent with you, the more I felt like you wouldn’t, but I had to be completely, totally sure. I couldn’t take the risk. You can understand that, right?”

He said nothing.

“Look—I really want to be able to trust you. I want you to be able to trust me. I just didn’t know where to start. It’s not easy for people like us to trust blindly, you know?” You hated that your voice sounded almost pleading.

Still, he said nothing, a blank beskar wall. The comfortable warmth that had developed—slowly, painstakingly—between you two over the past weeks had dissolved in an instant.

“Mando. Talk to me, please.” You reached out for his arm, but he stepped back. He still wouldn’t meet your gaze.

“Not now. Not here.”

“But—”

Your heart sank when he turned abruptly and walked back to the others.

You watched as he grabbed Fennec’s arm roughly, hauling her to her feet, and you trailed behind as he lead your party back down to the foot of the cliff. When you reached the bottom, Mando threw Fennec to the ground.

“Uh oh, looks like two of us have to walk,” Fennec taunted, eyeing the lone bike.

Mando jerked his head, motioning you and Toro to follow him.

“Alright, so what is the plan?” Toro asked Mando.

Reluctantly, you refrained from asking him if he could contribute for once instead of letting Mando do literally all the work; instead, you turned to Mando and supplied, “That dewback isn’t far.”

Mando didn’t look at you. To Toro, he said, “I need you to go find it.”

“And leave you here with my bounty and my ride?” Toro asked incredulously. “Yeah, I don’t think so, Mando. I’ll only go if she comes with me, so I have a guarantee that you won’t leave.” Toro gestured toward you.

You and Mando spoke at the same time: “No.”

“Either she comes, or I don’t go.” Toro was obviously pleased with himself for thinking of this plan, a smirk painted on his face. 

You shot him a scathing look before turning to Mando to offer, “I’ll go get it alone.”

You’d love to put some distance between you and Toro, between you and Fennec, and honestly even between you and Mando at the moment.

“Suit yourself,” shrugged Toro. “Less work for me.”

You ignored Toro. “I remember vaguely where it was.” You pointed.

Mando pressed a button on the side of his helmet and scanned the horizon, stopping vaguely where you’d pointed. Finally, he trained his visor on you. He looked from you to Toro to where Fennec was seated and to you again, deliberating. You could tell he didn’t want you to go alone, but he also didn’t want to leave you here with Toro and Fennec. “We’ll go together.”

You nodded, knowing you were in no position to complain. Now that your secret was out, it was evident that both Toro and Fennec would capitalize on your value at the first chance. And, even now, when your dishonesty had been revealed to him, Mando still felt compelled to protect you, his generous heart winning out over whatever malice he felt toward you.

A small part of you resented him for that; it didn’t rub you the right way that he didn’t think you could take care of yourself. A larger part of you knew it was exactly why you liked him so much.

It would be convenient if he were a selfish ass. You could convince yourself you didn’t owe him anything, that you’d done nothing wrong. But no. 

This is why it’s easier to be alone.

You felt both angry and guilty, an awful combination that manifested in the urge to hit something—a deep yearning to break Toro’s nose flashed through your mind when you caught the smug expression on his face as he looked from you to Mando. He was enjoying the palpable tension that had materialized between you a little too much.

“Watch her,” Mando reminded Toro, gesturing to Fennec. “And don’t let her get near the bike. She’s no good to us dead.”

Without a look or a word to you, he turned and started toward the dewback. 

***

You walked in awkward silence, knowing you’d have to be the one to break it, but you delayed the inevitable, admiring the array of stars spread out above you. Mando stomped up and down the swells of sand, staying several paces ahead.

You meandered your way through a storm conflicting emotions: anger at yourself for getting into this situation (rightful), anger at Mando for being infuriatingly honorable (misplaced), guilt that you’d hurt Mando (well-founded), fear about your safety (appropriate), fear that Mando was about to break your heart a little bit (honest), irritation that you were trekking through a damn desert and there was an aggressive amount of sand in your boots (fair but trivial)... and a myriad of others that were too nuanced to unpack.

After deliberating for a long time, you decided to take an offensive position and offer to leave preemptively to save Mando the trouble (and to save yourself from having to hear that from him). You steeled yourself with a deep breath and interrupted the oppressive quietude of the night, jogging for a moment to catch up with him.

“We can go our separate ways when we get back to Mos Eisley. I know I’m too much of a liability to keep around, especially with the kid.”

He turned his head to look at you, the night sky reflected in his visor.

“I have enough credits to get off world some other way.”

“If that’s what you want.”

It killed you a little just how much it wasn’t what you wanted. You were supposed to be totally independent—you’d chosen this life when you joined the Rebel Alliance, knowing that if by some miracle you managed to survive, you’d be hunted for years. The call for your blood wouldn’t—and didn’t—end with the Battle of Endor, especially when Imperial remnants remained strong. And years ago, condemning yourself to this life for a just cause had seemed brave and romantic. Now, here you were, desperate to build a connection with someone else, despite the risk. And you were starting to think that truly being brave would mean accepting that risk.

At what point is it worth giving up ease for happiness, for something more?

You gathered up what nerve you could muster and took a leap.

“It’s not what I want, but I know you feel betrayed. I really am sorry I didn’t tell you—I was planning to, but I was scared. Scared that you’d take advantage of that... scared that you’d take back your offer to stick together. And the longer I waited, the harder it got to come clean.”

“I understand.”

The frostiness of his voice had given way to something a shade softer, but it still hadn’t returned to its former warmth.

You nodded.  

As it became clear that he wasn’t going to say anything else, the disappointment started to settle in, trickling into the hollow of your chest. He understood, but it evidently didn’t change the fact that the fragile trust that had evolved between you was shattered.

Well, fuck.

You suppressed the wave of emotions that threatened to overtake you, focusing instead on making a new plan for yourself. There would be time to work through the feelings later, alone. Your thoughts wandered to where you might go next, running through a mental list of options. Nothing sounded appealing. 

None of the places that came to mind would be stocked with a shiny, withholding Mandalorian and an ancient green toddler.

You walked for another twenty minutes before Mando spoke again.

“I want to trust you too.”

You stopped. “What?”

He halted too, turning to face you. The dark sky painted his beskar deep shades of liquid indigo, speckled with pinpricks of starlight, that moved as he shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “I wish you... uh... had felt safe enough to tell me that, but I understand why you didn’t.”

You knitted your eyebrows together. “Wait. You’re not mad?”

“I haven’t given you any reason to be open with me. And I guessed you were running from something.”

“Oh.”

“The Empire part caught me off guard—but I knew there was something.”

Of course he’d figured it out...that seemed so obvious now. He’d be able to spot that from a mile away. Plus, he knew you. You spent the last month or so learning his tells and quirks, but you hadn’t stopped to think that he was doing the same with you.

He continued: “But the kid and I are also wanted by the Empire. We’d have the same problem even if you weren’t here.”

“True...” You were struggling to recover from the whiplash.

“What are you wanted for?”

“I was an Intelligence Officer in the Alliance.” It had been years since you’d shared this information with anyone, but the words fell from your lips as naturally as if you said them every day, like you’d been ready to tell him all along and your mouth had finally caught up with your heart.

“Yeah, that makes more sense,” he said. “Explains a lot of your skills.”

You scoffed. “Fair.”

Mando cleared his throat and hooked his thumbs in his belt. “But... it’s...uh, nice to not always be alone.” He punctuated the end of his sentence with a shrug, a little embarrassed.

Relief washed over you.

You smiled. “For me too.”

“Good,” he agreed, nodding decisively.

“Shit, you really let me think you were furious,” you laughed, feeling infinitely lighter but still trying to wrap your mind around this abrupt turn.

“Sorry,” he apologized, “I was... trying to figure some things out.”

You shook your head in exasperation and started walking again, but you froze when he said your real name. You’d known your name would sound good in his voice—everything did—but the way it rumbled and rasped through the modulator was borderline sinful, agonizingly personal.

File that away for later.

You looked back at him, and he cocked his head: “So you’ll stay?” 

“Yeah, I’ll stay,” you agreed, a broad grin on your face.

You both started walking again, and suddenly, trudging through the sandy desert in the middle of the night didn’t seem so bad. The dewback came back into view as you crested another sand dune.

Mando looked over at you. “Din,” he offered. “My name is Din.”

You glanced up at him, surprised. “Din,” you repeated back to him, feeling it out.

Despite the contradictory definition of the word, it suited him. He was the opposite of a cacophony, a man of few words—though to be fair, he did often cause a commotion. But as a name... Din was short, to the point. It evoked a lot of feeling for just three letters, and that felt right.

“I know your real name now. I thought it was only fair that you know mine too, but only use it when it’s just me and you and the kid,” he explained.

Your throat was unexpectedly tight.

You reached over to squeeze his arm at the elbow, where there was a gap in the beskar. He didn’t pull away.

“Thanks,” you answered, looking up into his visor. 

You hoped he understood that you were thanking him for more than just his name—for his understanding, for his trust, for his protection, for his vulnerability. You couldn’t say that all out loud at the moment, but you hoped he knew.

He dipped his helmet in acknowledgement, and you dropped your hand. 

When you finally reached the dewback, Din approached slowly, speaking to it in a calm, lilting voice. It warmed to him slowly, and he grabbed the reins.

He hauled himself up onto its back and then extended a hand down to you. You took it, and he pulled you up easily to sit behind him. You wrapped your arms around his middle.

“Is this okay?” You weren’t really sure why you asked this time. Things had shifted between the two of you, so you were compelled to check that the casual contact was still welcome.

He cleared his throat: “Yeah, fine,” he confirmed.

It had been a long time since you’d been physically affectionate with anyone, besides the occasional casual, short-lived tryst. It was nice to wrap your arms around someone familiar and comfortable, someone who knew you.

The dewback started forward. Din directed it back toward the cliffs with the reins in his fist. It wasn’t a huge distance, but the dewback was a slow means of transportation.

You had little idea what all this meant for your daily reality with Din. You had both shared that you wanted companionship, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was interested in anything more than that. However, for you at least, this was undeniably no longer a superficial interest that you harbored; you had real affection for him. And it seemed like he maybe was starting to feel same way about you? Or maybe he was just getting comfortable with having companionship? The man was starved for human interaction, so it was hard to know if he was warming up to you or warming up to companionship in general.

One step at a time.

Time slipped by as the dewback lumbered on. You rested your cheek against the scratchy fabric of his cape and closed your eyes. The rhythmic movement, the darkness, and comfort of the position lulled you into a light sleep.

You weren’t sure how long you’d been asleep when Din woke you, squeezing your now limp arm that was resting on his thigh above his beskar plate.

“Alive back there?” he asked in a low voice.

Leaned against him, still groggy with sleep, you felt the question rumble through his chest.

You sat up straight, pulling your arms back to your sides. “Shit, sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

He chuckled. “It’s fine. We’re close.”

The two suns had risen, bathing the landscape in the golden glow of early morning. You looked around and saw that you were a short distance from where you’d left Toro and Fennec. You couldn’t see them yet, but you figured they were hidden behind one of the many large boulders strewn across the landscape.

As you drew nearer, though, you could tell something was wrong. Only one figure came into view—and it was crumpled on the ground. Din registered this as well: his shoulders stiffened, and he pulled the reins tight to halt the dewback’s slow advance.

It was Fennec’s body on the ground. Toro was nowhere to be seen.

“Fuck,” you breathed.

“You were right about him,” said Din. “Stay here.”

Din dismounted and approached Fennec’s body. She looked dead, but he crouched to check. He tried to find a pulse, and after a moment, he stood back up and shook his head.

As Din walked back toward you, the realization dawned on you both at the same time.

“He didn’t—”

“The kid—”

“She must have—”

“We have to—”

Din hurried back onto the dewback and directed it toward Mos Eisley, doing his best to make the lumbering creature pick up its pace. It didn’t help much.

The ride back was interminable. You definitely didn’t fall asleep this time, adrenaline keeping you on edge as the hours passed. Both you and Din were incredibly tense, speaking very little, thinking only of the child.

***

Night had fallen again by the time you reached Mos Eisley. The speeder bike that Toro had been riding was parked outside Peli’s. Fury and fear spidered through your veins at the thought of him with the kid.

Din jumped off the side of the dewback and looked up at you expectantly, his arms outstretched. You maneuvered your leg over the side and slid down a bit until his hands gripped your hips, and he lowered you until your feet hit the sand. You could have easily jumped down on your own. He knew that. You knew that. You’d let him help you anyways.

You paused outside the bay to draw your blasters.

“Here,” Din offered you the flash charge.

You slipped it into your jacket sleeve, where it stayed tight against your wrist. Together, you crept through the door and down the stairway that opened up to where the Razor Crest was parked. It was eerily quiet.

You scanned the space, jumping slightly when one of Peli’s pit droids scurried past.

“Took you guys long enough.”

Toro walked slowly down the open ramp of the Crest, the barrel of the blaster in his hand pressed to Peli’s back. The child was held in his other arm.

“Looks like I’m calling the shots now. Huh?” he sneered.

The urge to hit him flared up so acutely that you clenched your fists. You hissed at him: “Don’t you da—”

“Drop your blasters and raise ‘em,” he ordered, cutting you off.

You and Din exchanged a look before throwing your blasters to the ground. In a subtle movement, you shifted the charge from your sleeve to your fist as you placed your hands behind your head.

“Cuff ‘em,” commanded Toro, nudging Peli forward and throwing two sets of cuffs to the ground.

She moved toward Din.

“No, start with her,” Toro drawled, jutting his chin toward you. “To think I almost cut Mando out of this deal,” he laughed. “I would have gotten you and Fennec, but this is so much better. I get to collect the bounty on you and this target here that Mando helped escape,” he pointed his gun at the baby and all your muscles tensed in protective rage, “...and I get to turn in the legendary Mandalorian himself—a Guild traitor.”

Peli walked behind you. You grasped the charge in your fist so that she would be able to see the top of it. You heard her quiet, sharp intake of breath.

“Fennec was right,” Toro continued smugly. “Bringing you three in won’t just make me a member of the Guild—it’ll make me legendary. Three high-value targets on my first try. Wow, I should really thank you guys.”

Peli was fumbling with the cuffs behind you, taking longer than necessary on purpose.

You hoped she was ready to duck because you’d heard enough of Toro’s self-congratulatory monologue. You released the charge.

In the split second of blinding light, you, Din, and Peli sprinted in opposite directions, taking cover. Toro groaned and attempted to cover his eyes, shooting blindly at the empty space where you had been standing.

Din took Toro out in one shot.

You were closest to where he fell, so you charged forward with your blaster trained on his body. The baby wiggled out of Toro’s arms and ran toward you. His big eyes were watery and his arms stretched toward you, his fingers making little grabby motions. He chittered nervously as you scooped him up with your free arm, and he buried his head in your shoulder.

You kicked Toro’s blaster away from his body as Din approached to make sure he was dead. After he checked his pulse, Din tugged the pouch of credits from Toro’s belt and tossed it to Peli. “Here,” he said.

With a gasp, she caught it and emptied the pouch in her hands. Credits tumbled out, a few falling to the ground.

“That cover us?” Din asked.

Peli looked shocked, scrambling to pick them all up. “Yeah... uh, yes. This is gonna cover you.” It was clearly far more than she was expecting.

You passed the child over to Din, and he looked down at the baby, tilting his helmet in...what? Affection? Relief? This was a head tilt you hadn’t defined yet.

Peli approached him and looked down at the child. “You take care of him, you hear?”

Din nodded.

“Thank you for watching him,” you said to Peli, genuinely grateful that she had turned out to be trustworthy.

“Besides getting held at gunpoint... I guess it wasn’t too bad,” she replied, smiling down at the baby. She’d clearly grown fond of him, and you couldn’t blame her. After a moment, Peli mumbled a goodbye and walked away, eagerly counting the credits in her hands, her pit droids skittering after her.

You stood there, finger caught between three tiny green ones, as the kid babbled and cooed up at you. When you looked up, Din’s helmet was trained on your face.

He tipped his head toward the open ramp of the Crest in a wordless invitation.

You smiled at him, a comforting warmth settling in your chest, and he followed you into the hull.

***

Chapter 7

[happyandticklish]

Tickletober Day Nine - Tools

Notes: So this is an entire day late, but here it is! Based off the fact that I’ve been writing this and today’s prompt today, I will probably not have today’s out either. I’m hoping to get back on track with everything tomorrow, but we’ll see. Apparently, writing a fic a day is harder than I thought it would be. But I am having fun with it, so I’m gonna try to keep up! This is a follow-up to Endurance Training and Not So Easy. 

Summary: Izaya really needs to stop underestimating Shinra. 

The first thought Izaya had when the bristles touched his skin was that he had not thought this through.

He yelped, his arms shooting down immediately and shoving the tool away. Shinra lifted the toothbrush, clicking it off with an amused look. “You didn’t even last two seconds!”

“I wasn’t ready,” Izaya shot back quickly, raising his arms up once more. He was laying on the other’s bed, his shirt rolled up to his chest for easier access. Shinra didn’t miss the slight tremble of his arms as he gripped the headboard again. “I was just startled is all.”

“Startled,” Shinra repeated skeptically.

Izaya was staring determinedly at a point somewhere around the far wall. “Yes. Most people aren’t used to the feeling of an electric toothbrush you know.”

Shinra smirked, poking his side just to watch the other jerk away from his finger. “Ticklish, isn’t it?”

“Just start already,” Izaya grumbled, ignoring the way his face went red at the comment.

“Alright, but just remember you asked for this.”

The flip of the switch filled the room with the sound of mechanical whirring, and Izaya tensed, knowing now what awaited him on the other side of it. He hardly had enough time to gather his composure before a shock of intense sensation flooded through him and he shrieked, bursting into panicked giggles. He fought to hold his arms up as it traveled slowly along his sides, circling the one area and driving Izaya crazy.

“Shihihihihit!” he squeaked. His torso twitched and trembled, doing its best to get away from the tool, all ultimately unsuccessful. “Ohohoho m-my gohohod!”

“I thought this would get to you,” Shinra commented, doing a poor job of hiding how pleased he was at the other’s predicament. “It’s hard to avoid, isn’t it? The vibrations are so intense when combined with the soft bristles. It’s a confusing mix for sure—which in turn, only makes it more ticklish while your brain tries to figure out what’s going on. Not to mention, I hardly need to do anything. Just holding it here has you in stitches.”

“Shuhuhut uhuhuhup!” Izaya managed, unable to stop listening to the other’s words. It was wholly unfair that Shinra was allowed to talk throughout these sessions. Next time he would invest in duct tape to avoid the issue. “N-Nohot hehehelping!”

“That’s why it’s called training,” Shinra reminded him. “I’m not supposed to make it easy on you. Which reminds me… I wonder what would happen if I moved this somewhere else?”

Izaya opened his mouth to shoot back a disrespectful comment at that, only to instead find a babble of protests flying out instead. The toothbrush skated across his skin towards his stomach, zig-zagging across the skin with wild abandon. Izaya’s laughter shot up several octaves, and he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block it out.

“All you have to do is let go and I’ll stop,” Shinra reminded him unhelpfully. “Anytime it gets to be too much for you—”

“I-I’m fihihIHIHIHINE!” Izaya insisted, though the high-pitched giggles pouring out of him added doubt to that statement. He was squirming as much as he could in his position, his heels digging into the mattress. “JuhuhUHUHuhst fihihihihine!”

Shinra clucked his tongue, shaking his head. “I must be doing something wrong then. Is this any better?”

Izaya yelped, attempting to escape down into the bed somehow when the toothbrush moved to his hips. “Shit! ShiHIHIHIT! FUHUHUHUCK ohoHOHO m-my gohohohod!”

He almost, almost, brought his arms down again, just barely managing to sustain his grip. He curled his legs protectively, but this only pushed the toothbrush harder against his skin, effectively trapping it there. Still, instinct kept them there despite how much it tickled, a hell of his own invention. His nerves were screaming at him to make it stop, but he didn’t want it to end just yet. He could do it, he just had to focus.

It was hard to do so, however, with Shinra’s innocent teases worming their way into his brain and ruining his concentration. “Man, I knew you were ticklish there, but I didn’t realize it would be this bad! You’re gonna alert the neighbors at this rate.”

Izaya wanted to fight back against his claims, but he could hardly concentrate on keeping his fingers curled around the headboard, let alone forming words. He was a mess of squeaks and giggles by then, each laugh tripping over the next. Why the fuck did it tickle so much? That amount of power should not have been put into a tool of that size.

Shinra continued to torment his hips for another endlessly long minute before moving back to the rest of his torso. Each spot sent Izaya into hysterics it seemed, no matter how ticklish it may have previously been. It was when Shinra moved the brush under his arms, however, that he finally caved.

Izaya yelped, his arms coming down instantly and wrapping around himself. He rolled over on the bed, still giggling slightly as his skin tingled in memory.

Shinra clicked the tool off, setting it down on the bedside table. He leaned over Izaya’s curled up form, smirking in triumph. 

“You lose!”

“You are never allowed in the bathroom again,” Izaya grumbled into the sheets, his cheeks a bright red. “You get far too many ideas in there.”

Shinra snorted, and Izaya felt his smile switch to something more shy and genuine. He tried not to dwell too much on whatever thought was trying to surface in his mind, or the way his heart was doing loopedy-loops in his chest. There would be time another day to focus on that. For now, however, he contented himself with insisting that he would never again so much as touch an electric toothbrush.

Izaya wasn’t particularly disappointed when he was wrong about that.

[jinmukangwrites]

@damianwayneweek Day 2 (6-14): Undercover | Sibling rivalry | Damian having a nice day

Warnings: Mentions of trafficking, threats, violence, attempted kidnapping, injuries, healthy doses of angst

Note: hahahahaha once again I'm begging you all to pretend I posted this when it's still the 14th somewhere in the world. Please enjoy.

---

Damian didn't mean to get caught. Honest. As annoying as it is, he understands that there are certain parts of their nightlife that have to be handled by an adult. Going undercover, for one, is usually something that's left to Grayson. It's easier for adults to blend into some things than it is for... well... Teenagers.

Children, as Grayson would say. Even though Damian is not a child.

Not that it matters, however. Grayson, for the past week, has been putting off their normal patrols to get insider information on a recent underground trafficking scheme. Grayson has been working hard to find the people responsible for this and get on the inside to find where the victims are being kept and Damian had respected that. He's kept to the sidelines and worked on other cases that don't require so much adult delicacy.

The only issue was that tonight he ended up getting bored. There wasn't anything for him to do, and that butler wasn't giving him any useful suggestions to fill his time. He wasn't allowed to patrol alone while Grayson was undercover, but escaping through his bedroom window in a dark hoodie was simple enough.

One thing leads to another. He ended up walking into an alleyway where a man was getting rather forceful with a drunk woman. Damian was jogging forward and calling him out on the disgusting behavior before he even realized he recognized the profile of the man.

Grayson turned from the woman with wide, horrified eyes, not moving a muscle even as the woman slipped from beside him and rushed back into the bar's side door.

"Shit," is all Grayson said before more people came out from the shadows, and Damian realizes he's just stumbled upon Grayson's undercover work.

Damian, for all of his training, has no idea what to do as he's suddenly grabbed by one of the newcomers. He's just witnessed Grayson in his undercover work... attempting to kidnap a woman... and he shouldn't be here.

"The fuck did this brat come from," the man grabbing Damian sneers.

Damian reacts instinctively now, slamming his elbow back into their gut. The man wheezes and weakens his hold. Damian then ducks under a new pair of arms making a mad grab for him and is sure to trip them over onto the cement ground as they stumble past.

A beefier man charges at Damian like a bull, and he prepares to retaliate... only for Grayson to grab him by his arm and shove Damian behind his back.

"Wait," Grayson gasps, bringing his free hand up in front of him. The man stops in his tracks, as do all the others. "It's my... brother."

"Your brother?" A woman scoffs, and Grayson gives her a hard look.

A mean looking man steps forward, glaring daggers at Grayson. "What's he doin' here Malone? Thought'chu said you weren't followed."

"I'm sorry," Grayson says, sounding panicked. Damian wants to jump out from behind Grayson and give these kidnappers a piece of his mind. There can't be more than seven of them. Damian can take them with his hands tied behind his back. Grayson must sense this, because he tightens his hold on his arm. "I thought he was at home."

"Well, he wasn't," the man snarls. "And now that bitch is probably in there telling the barkeep some guy got handsy with her."

Grayson shakes his head. "She isn't. I paid off the barkeep. If we calm down, I can go back in there and finish the job. Danny here won't say anything, he knows what we have to do to survive these streets. Right, Danny?"

Damian's lips thin, but he nods. Damian doesn't know why Richard is acting all frightful right now. Has he forgotten the legacy of Damian's father that he holds? He carries the name of Batman, yet here he is looking like a frightened animal in front of these low-lives. He wants to argue and take down these imbeciles... but if there's one thing he's learned while in his ever lengthening stay in Gotham, Grayson usually has a reason for everything he does. If he thinks they need to act like they're frightened, then Damian will humor him. For now.

The man looks down from Grayson and gives Damian a narrowed look. It lasts only a moment before he looks at the bar side-door and... smirks?

He looks back at Grayson, keeping that smirk. "Alright, Malone. I'll take you up on that offer. You get the bitch, and we'll take care of Danny."

A bad feeling settles in Damian's gut. The hand on his arm tightens even more, proof that Grayson has the same bad feeling. They don't have a chance to say anything about it, however, before the man strides forward and grabs Damian by his other arm; yanking him away from Grayson and towards the big man.

Grayson shoots them a murderous glare, but doesn't come to Damian's aid as the big man tightens both of his hands on Damian's biceps. His pointer fingers press just under his shoulders, and he swears his pinkies wrap close to Damian's elbows.

"Go on," the talkative man says, jerking his head to the door, showing his rotting teeth in a grin. "Get the bitch."

Grayson shoots a look Damian's way, then nods. "Okay," he says placidly. "Okay." He turns his back and starts towards the door.

Then, the man looks at another in their group and nods his head. The man's cheeks rise like a Cheshire cat before he starts towards Grayson, raising a fist.

"Grayson! Look out!" Damian shouts. Grayson, for his part, reacts immediately. He ducks under the blow and side steps his attacker.

However, that's all Damian sees before the man that has him in his grasp changes position quite suddenly so that Damian is practically hanging in his grasp—an arm the size of a log wrapped around his neck. Damian's hands fly to the arm and he attempts to kick his feet for purchase. His air is already cut off, and he curses himself for getting in a situation like this.

He stills, however, when something cold and metal is pressed against his head by the man's free hand. Through blurry eyes and choking gasps, he notices Grayson has gone still too.

"I knew you were fishy," the man from before cackled. "Grayson? That your real name?"

Grayson glares, but doesn't move.

"Here's what's gonna happen, you're gon let us do whatever we want wit'cha, and maybe we'll let the kid live after."

And just like that, Grayson is at the receiving end of a savage blow to his jaw from another member of the group. Grayson stumbles and clutches his jaw, but he doesn't fight back even as another jumps in and throws their own punch. Damian can already see blood dripping down his cheek from a cut in the skin.

He's hit again, and he continues to not fight back. Damian knows he'll take the beating, even though he can easily take them down. He won't risk the gun pressed against Damian's head. He won't risk the arm wrapped so right around Damian's neck it feels like he's breathing through a coffee straw.

A particularly savage punch has Grayson falling to the floor, scraping his hands, elbows, and knees on the rough and suspiciously wet asphalt. Damian growls and digs his nails into the arms of his captor, but they tighten the grip threateningly and his struggles are forced to come to a stop.

Pathetic. Idiotic. Childish. This is Damian's fault. Every blow that hits Grayson's body as punches are replaced by kicks might as well be dealt by Damian himself.

He argues with Grayson. Calls him out on not acting how his father would. He calls him incompetent, insignificant, idiotic... but some time these past few weeks the bite he means to carry with those words have turned fond.

He... He likes Grayson. He's the first person to show Damian unconditional kindness... other than his own mother. While being stuck here with him rather than his own father had, at first, been miserable and annoying... it's turned out to be... fun. For the first time in his life, he almost feels like a normal kid with Grayson here to lead him along the way.

Damian wonders at night if that's what his mother intended. Why she hasn't taken him back yet.

He doesn't mind it. He likes the time that he spends with Grayson now, even if he would never admit it. And here he is, helpless and unarmed as Grayson is being beaten to a bloody pulp all because Damian couldn't listen to instructions and snuck out when he shouldn't have.

For a moment, pure terror fills Damian's veins that he's most likely going to witness the death of Grayson tonight. If he tries to fight his captor, he'll get a bullet in his brain. If Grayson decides to fight back, then Damian would die anyways. Grayson wouldn't do that. He would rather die himself.

Another blow hits Grayson's body, and he lays on the ground and groans, unmoving for a worrying few seconds.

Then, the bar door slams open and the woman from before runs out with fire in her dark eyes. No one has a chance to do anything before she kicks the main guy in the jaw, sending him down to the floor with more force than any woman... or man... should have.

Damian doesn't question it. The rest of them are distracted by her sudden entrance, and Damian uses that to his advantage. He throws his hands up and grabs at his captor's distracted face and claws at his eyes. The man yowls and drops Damian, leaving Damian completely free to make his own attack. He easily disarms him and jumps onto his back, wrapping his own arms around the man's neck and squeezing as tightly as he can.

It's all over in a matter of seconds. The man falls unconscious in Damian's grasp, and the woman finishes taking out the others.

She was in on this whole thing too, Damian realizes as she rushes towards Grayson's still form and grabs his arm.

Grayson blinking slowly at her through already bruising eyes and whispering "Donna..." is all the proof Damian needs to confirm his suspicion.

"I got you, boy wonder," Donna says fondly. She helps him to his feet and wraps his arm firmly around her shoulders, helping him stand. She looks at Damian. "You got a way to get us out of here, squirt? The cops are gonna be on their way any minute."

"What-" Damian starts, then pauses. Shame fills his gut. "What about the mission?"

"It's fine," Grayson says with a pained strain in his voice. "They're low in the chain. Won't be missed in prison. Can't give much away. I'll-" he cuts off to gasp as Donna shifts her hold on him. "I'll just try again later."

Damian nods, but the guilt doesn't leave. He looks away from Grayson and Donna to pull out his phone and request Pennyworth send the Batmobile to their position.

The entire way back to the manor is filled with tense silence, broken only by Grayson's hissed curses and groans as Donna helps give immediate first aid to the worst of the bruises and cuts.

Damian... he messed up. He disobeyed Richard and ruined the mission. This woman, Donna, is a better companion to Grayson than Damian ever was. Or will be. They get along. She's kind. She was trusted enough by Grayson to bring her in on his solo mission, and she clearly trusted him enough to go along with it and let herself be captured.

Grayson will never trust him as much as her. He's... He's fucked it all up. He won't want Damian around anymore. He'll want to send him back to the League, and if his mother and grandfather don't take him then his suit and the name of Robin must surely now be forfeit.

Drake will take back the suit, and Damian will forever be left behind by the man he thought... He hoped...

Sitting by his bedside after assisting Pennyworth in dressing Grayson's wounds... he mulls these thoughts over in his head. Grayson is fast asleep, and Donna has retreated upstairs for a shower and dinner by Pennyworth's insistence.

Then, as he's considering leaving so he's not the first thing Grayson sees when he wakes up, a hand grabs hold onto his.

"Don't blame yourself," Grayson whispers, blinking through his puffed up and exhausted eyes. Damian wonders how long he's been sitting here with his thoughts and when Grayson started to awaken without him noticing. "You have the same look in your eyes... That B always did..."

Heat flairs behind Damian's eyelids. He bursts. "But this is my fault. If I hadn't gone out- if I had listened-"

Suddenly, his hand is jerked, and Damian is dragged onto the cot and into Grayson's arms. He attempts to fight the hold, but Grayson holds tight despite his injuries.

"Mistakes happen," Grayson says, "they always do. I will never give up on you, Dames. No matter how many you make. Trust me on that."

He sounds so very much in pain, but he's relentless in his hold. All Damian can do is stop his struggling and lay in Grayson's grasp. His brain studies the words said to him, and his heart wants to believe him. Guilt pools to his throat and he opens his mouth to let it out before he can stop himself.

"I'm sorry," he chokes. He doesn't know when he started to return the hold Grayson had him in. His hands are bunched in the material of Grayson's shirt.

Grayson shushes him. "It's okay," he says. "What's done is done, and we've learned. We're okay. I got you."

And perhaps it's the moment of weakness, but Damian can't help but believe him.

[oh-no-a-whovian]

Despite my claws (love me) Part 3

18+

Summary: Missy Moreno is missing right after fighting a notorious villain. Marcus will do whatever it takes to save his little girl. Even working with that villain to find her.

Pairing: Marcus Moreno x villain-reader

Warnings: Swears, violence, injury, weapons, Mentions of abuse and trauma. Brutal murder. If there’s others let me know

Word count: 5916

Masterlist PT1 PT2 PT4

The sun light streams through cracks in the curtains and you feel nauseous as the train starts to creak and move along the rail. A small cloud of dust plumes into the air as you drop Marcus onto the bed and he leans up on his elbows, finally conscious enough to move. You can feel his eyes on you as you stand frozen in front of him, looking around the space and feeling the sway of the train. It really is the same. Maybe more dust but nothing has moved. You’re willing to bet your old outfits are still in the wardrobe. It’s like you never left and it makes you want to burn it all down.

“You weren’t planning on telling me that he’s your father, were you?” you can hear him but you just can’t react, can’t move, you feel paralysed in place. You really never wanted to be here ever again. Last time you were on the train you barely had a mind of your own. He allowed you a little freedom but ultimately, he treated you like every other person he’d taken. He’d treated you like a slave. “[Y/N]” Marcus calls, pulling you from the whirlpool of your thoughts as he grabs a hold your hand. “Are you okay?” he asks when you finally look into his eyes.

“Do I seem ok to you?” you tell him honestly with a sneer curving your lips. “I thought it seemed pretty obvious that I didn’t want to be anywhere near this fucking train, Marcus. Now let’s kill everyone and get this over with.”

“No! No killing”

“Let’s get one thing straight.” You snap, climbing on top of him, pinning his wrists above is head with one hand and wrapping the other around his throat as he struggles, keeping your face mere inches from his. “The people on this train will not hesitate to shoot you in the face or stab you in the gut”

“[Y/N]” he warns, fighting against you.

“Are you really gonna risk your daughter for your morals, Moreno? You can either grow a pair or stay out of my way.”

“They were normal people once, you said that. Maybe we can save them…” he pleads beneath you, no longer struggling against your vice like grip.

“I. do not. care. Now, have the sedatives worn off enough for us to try to figure out where Missy is?” you ask as you sit up on his hips, releasing your grip. He nods without a word, his eyes following your hand as you check the fake scar and the edges of the mask. “Last time I was on the train the prison car was in the middle but it’s moved every few months.” You consider aloud as you climb off Marcus’ lap. “Unfortunately there won’t be a map of the layout… If we ask where the prison car is we’ll immediately be caught, locked up and brain washed. I don’t need that again.”

“But if we take too long, it could be too late” he points out.

“Yeah, we definitely don’t want to take our time. We should…” a knock on the sliding wooden door interrupts you and you glance at Marcus on the bed with worry. “What do you want?” you snap, sliding the door open with force, the emotional mask you wear sliding back into place, your lip curling in anger.

“Your father wishes for you and your friend to join him for dinner” the man at the door says. His face is devoid of emotion, not even a glimmer showing in his grey eyes. He doesn’t even look around the space in front of him, just stares as if there’s a wall right in front of him.

“I’d rather not” you reply, making to slide the door shut. He grips your wrist with bruising force, his silver eyes finally focusing on yours.

“It wasn’t optional, Sekhmet”

“Fine” you tell him, ripping your arm from his grip and sneering at his use of your dead name. You’re not that person anymore. Haven’t been for years. “How long?”

“An hour” you nod and watch as his eyes glass over again, hating that you probably looked the same once. No soul behind your eyes.

You close the door when he finally walks away and press your back to the deep coloured wood. Marcus is silent as he stands from the dusty plush surface of the bed and you can feel his eyes on you as you keep yours cast to the floor.

“We don’t have time for dinner, [Y/N]” Marcus says as he moves less than a metre from you.

“We don’t know where Missy is on this train and if he’s pretending to be an actual parent then he’s not hurting her. We have time, just not much.” You sigh, looking past him to the window. The particle filled beams of light flicker in and out, then vanish. The light that replaces them is an eerie mix of green and blue with violent flashes of purple. The sounds of clashing stones cracks through the air to match the violet blooms. “We’re not on earth anymore”

Marcus’s brown eyes glance between you and the window, confusion furrowing his brows. There isn’t a sound to indicate that the train has breached the fabric of reality, no sign, just one second you’re on earth and the next you’re on some unknown planet you can’t even breathe on. Marcus pulls open the ashy curtains, freezing at the sight sitting just outside the train.

Colours swirl around a circle of nothing and around you asteroids glowing with vibrant lines of violet smash into each other making the bursts of purple you’d seen through the cracks in the curtain. The ground around the train’s tracks is cracked, reduced to rubble with magma oozing out from the lines.

“What happened here?” Marcus asks in quiet horror as the train passes what looks to be the remnants of an ancient temple, the statues barely recognizable and the stone walls crumbling. “Was it the- the black hole?”

“Mmm, no. Apparently a planet would orbit a black hole just like they would a sun. So I’ve heard anyway” you tell him, watching the scene outside with awe. “Was probably a war or over population… they probably just over used the planet.” You shrug, glancing away from the aftermath of an apocalypse. “This isn’t the time to mourn their loss, Marcus.” you whisper gently as you place your hand on his shoulder, your fingers sliding subtly under the sleeve of his vest. You love how warm he is, you’d never tell him though. You doubt it would be accepted.

“You’re right” he sighs, looking at you, an unreadable look in his warm chocolate eyes. “We should go to dinner… with your evil father”

“Just, remember you’re meant to be a villain doppelganger of Marcus Moreno. You can act how you usually do but like you really hate it and yourself.”

“Right” he replies, looking at you with concern.

“You can either make up a name or use your normal one and ‘refuse’ to tell your real name.” you tell him as you check the fake scar once more, comforting yourself with the warmth of his cheek. Any excuse to keep touching him right? “Depends on your improv skills”

“I have a question…” he says, watching as you remove the blades from your back, continuing when you don’t say anything. “They keep calling you Sekhmet…”

“Your question?” you pause, the blades still in your hand and your chest feeling tight.

“Do you want me to just pretend I knew or that I’m not hearing it… You seem really tense when you hear it…”

“Just don’t use it, ok?” you ask him as you drop your swords onto the bed and another cloud of dust flies into the air making you sneeze and growl. “Fucking… ugh let’s just go.”

“You know where the car is?” he asks, following you as you stomp from the room.

“Uh, yeah. The only car he moves is the prison car. Maybe we’ll be lucky and the prison car will be between us and that arsehole hmmm?” you muse. “Hey you!” you call out when you finally spot one of the poor brainwashed bastards in the isle. “Get someone to clean my room” you’re not sure if you’ll find Missy tonight, might as well have a clean place to sleep right?

“Of course, Sekhmet. Your father has asked that we do as you ask” the woman smiles, her eyes just as empty as the man’s from earlier. Even her hair is dull and lifeless, hanging from a ponytail.

You grab Marcus’ arm as he reaches out, stopping him from asking the brainwashed woman where his daughter is. She steps past you both, Marcus barely registering as an obstacle in her mind as she makes her way through the corridor.

“She’s not gonna tell you shit, Marcus.” You growl “pay attention!” you smack the side of his head “the second our cover is blown we have to get off this train or kill everyone trying to take it over. Asking questions is cover blowing, got it? We need to find the prison car ourselves”

“I just want my little girl back.”

“I know… but you need to listen to me, Marcus.” You say, continuing down the corridor. “The next car should be the private dining room. I’m gonna try to see into the next two cars. If there is only two cars ahead then the prison car is somewhere along the other end of the train” you whisper.

A shiver runs down your spine as you reach the dining car door, your body freezing with your hand raised to the door. You keep getting waves of horror and chills of fear. Your hands shaking and heart beating way too fast. You don’t want to show weakness. Need not to show weakness. You know Marcus would never take advantage of you, never try to hurt you, he’s too good. But your father will and you can’t let him. This place really did fuck you up.

Glancing at Marcus you force yourself to knock, swallowing the fear in your chest.

Another woman, lighter skinned this time, slides open the door an eerily serene smile on her lips as she leads you both to the table. Your father isn’t in the room yet so you breathe a little easier as you take a seat at the mahogany table. You fix your eyes on the door leading to the front of the train, hoping to get a glimpse of the next car when your father comes through. If the next car is his room then the prison car isn’t up this end and you’ll have to make your way to the other.

The woman places a glass of amber liquid in front of you as the door opens revealing your father. You peek at the space behind him, seeing his bedroom and further through the controls for the train. You were really hoping the prison car was up this end.

“Sekhmet! So good of you and your friend to join me for dinner” your father says grinning as he sits at the head of the table.

“Didn’t exactly feel like a choice” you mumble, rolling your eyes and sipping at the drink in front of you.

“Now, now, daughter. You haven’t seen me in five years and I haven’t seen you in much longer.” He points out, smiling at the brainwashed woman as she places plates of food in front of each of you. “Is it too much to ask that I get to spend some time with my little girl?”

“Oooh! It’s almost like you care!” you say, your lips curving into a mix between a sarcastic smile and a sneer.

“You’ll show me respect, Sekhmet. You know what happened last time you got too mouthy” your breath hitches and you shy away, looking down to Marcus’ hand when it moves onto your thigh. He’s glaring at your father, the fake scar making him look even more threatening. “What’s your name boy?” your father asks Marcus once he’s satisfied that he’s curbed your attitude.

“I don’t have one. You can call me Marcus, I tried to steal his life, may as well take his name on the way out” the man beside you says to your father, a sinister smirk on his lips. You’d be lying if you said ‘bad’ didn’t look good on him. He seems to be an ok actor at least.

“Hmmm… and what reason have you two decided to leave that world?”

“Given that we were in three different fights with like fifteen different people just today. I figured it was time for a change in scenery” you tell him, keeping your eyes on the plate of food in front of you. “He was unconscious so I got our shit together and got out.” You say as you jab your fork into a piece of the food, popping it into your mouth. “One of my contacts said that your train had been spotted circling the city”

“Interesting” your father says, his eyes shifting between you and Marcus as he places pieces of food in his mouth. “What did you think of the view?” he asks, nodding toward the window you can all see. Outside pieces of glowing debris float and collide outside the moving train’s window.

“Didn’t think much of it.” You admitted, you thought it was morbidly beautiful but you’ve seen so many places. It’s just one more to add to list.

“Did you recognise it? We passed a temple a while ago.” You pause, confusion marking your features as you glance between the monster you call your father and the ruined world outside.

“Why would I?” you shake your head, watching out the window to see if maybe you do.

“This place was one of your favourites when you were a kid. They were the first lot to make that lion head statue for you.” he tells you, waving over the brainwashed woman for more to drink. You stare out the window dumbfounded. How? “They worshipped you like a god.” He muses.

“What happened to them?” Marcus asks, looking out the window as a particularly large chunk of asteroid collides into the shielding around the train.

“No idea. I suspect they tore their world apart after their ‘god’ hadn’t returned in a long time. Not the first time I’ve seen religious turmoil destroy a planet.” He replies callously, sipping at what you assume is konjac, his favourite.

A heavy silence fills the room as you stare into space. You don’t know what you feel. Horror? Sadness? Fear? Guilt? Rage? Everything? You are definitely holding yourself still though, the urge to end your father at the forefront of all thoughts and feelings. You know you can’t, not yet anyway. If you do all his minions will go berserk. You’d prefer to do it on a planet with a breathable atmosphere. So you can jump if need be.

You can feel your father studying you, hear his fingers topping on the wooden table. He’s probably looking for weakness, for a moment to call in the troops and lock you and Marcus away. It would definitely fast track finding the girl but fuck any plans for escape.

“I need to prep the next dimensional phase. You know where your room is.” Your father says dismissively as he gets up, gesturing for his little slave to lead you and Marcus from the room. You hadn’t even noticed the weapons strapped to the small of her back till now. This place is fogging your mind and you fucking hate it.

~~~~~

You watch Marcus with interest, fighting what you know is a bad decision. You didn’t say a word the whole way back to your old room, how could you? The place you loved most is gone, the one man you’ve started feeling things for is your enemy and is in the most dangerous place you could think of and you’re pretty sure your father has already started his mind game, manipulative bullshit. You need a distraction but you know you shouldn’t try that. You want to lash out.

You keep your back pressed against the door and breathe slowly. You can feel Marcus’ eyes on you but you keep yours closed. You’re pretty sure if you open your eyes right now you’ll jump his bones.

“So… are you immortal?” Marcus asks. You finally look up at him with raised eyebrows.

“What no?” you smile, amused by his question, breathing as the urge fades. You step over to the bed, examining the fresh green silk sheets and the smell of fresh linen in the air.

“Well your father just implied that the goddess from Egyptian mythology was you…” he says as he props himself by your wardrobe with his arms crossed.

“I was” you admit. “But although I do age slower, it wasn’t cause of that.”

“How then?”

“Know how I mentioned that we could be gone for centuries for earth?” you start, posing yourself on the now dust free bed, continuing when he nods. “Well it goes the other way too. We could end up surrounded by dinosaurs next phase jump. Has something to do with quantum entanglement or something. Or maybe how if you put a mirror light years away then looked through it, it theoretically would show the earth millions of years ago.” You propose as you lay on your back, your knees in the air and spread so you can see Marcus between your thighs. It’s a pretty good view. “It’s sciency stuff.”

“Does that mean there could be two versions of the train at one time?” he frowns, looking to the ground.

“Mmm probably… though they’d have to keep a certain distance or risk blowing up…” you pause, seeing worry on his features once again. “If you’re thinking that there’s a chance that this train from a different time point has her that isn’t possible.”

“How do you know that?”

“The space he’d have to keep between the trains is like… two states wide. Any closer and reality tries to correct them, forcing them together like hyper magnets” you tell him, rubbing your temples to remember the things your father had taught you before he stole your free will and mind. “The resulting destruction from the explosion would be devastating throughout time.”

You sigh as you look out the window to the vibrant colours of space, seeing the ruins of a once beautiful planet in a different light. You’d shown them a picture of a lion from earth during a stop there and for some reason they made statues, altars and places of worship in your name. Sure you’d done a few nice things but was that really worthy of worship? Their goddess of healing. You became something else to the people of Egypt. A goddess to be feared. You earned the title they gave you many time over since.

“This is all your fault” you hear Marcus say and you glare at him raising from your spot on the bed.

“I’m sorry?” you challenge, daring him to say that again.

“This. Is. All. Your. Fault.” He sneers, meeting you toe to toe with anger in his eyes. “If you weren’t doing awful things, my daughter wouldn’t have been grabbed!” you leap onto your feet and press your hand to his chest and force him to the wall, pinning him with your body and getting right in his face.

“Need I remind you, that I am trying to help you! You would never have had a chance without me!” you shout, baring your sharp teeth. “I’m on a train that I never wanted to see again. My own father tortured me on this fucking train!” you take a deep breath to calm yourself, keeping him pinned but lowering your voice as he looks down ashamed of his outburst. “I wasn’t even doing anything. I had no plans. I think the most ‘evil’ thing I had going on was a few stolen paintings in my warehouse and renting out space to a known drug dealer….” You sigh, loosening your force but not moving away. “If I did have something planned, I would have been a lot more upset about the children showing up instead of you…” you admit. You know he wouldn’t care about a revelation like that, you know you’re a monster in his eyes. How could you not be? You don’t exactly have much of a moral compass.

You move to step away and give him space but it seems he has other plans. He grabs your arm, pulling you back toward him and pressing his lips to yours like you had done earlier when you made the deal with him. He wraps an arm around your waist and threads his other hand’s fingers in your hair, kissing you with bruising passion. You move your hands up his body as you kiss him back with fierce aggression. Gently you curve one hand on his jaw and the other around his throat, squeezing a little as you nibble on his bottom lip.

You gaze into his lust filled eyes as he pulls away for air, panting like he’s starved of it. You could spend eternity in this moment, even in the worst place in all of reality, you’d stay. His dishevelled hair, soft lips, the warmth of his skin and the gentle tug of his fingers in your hair. If you could have Marcus Moreno for eternity, you would.

~~~~~~~

“How long does it take?” you hear Marcus ask as you glare at the clothes you used to wear, glancing to see him staring out the window to the ashy desert that now surrounds the travelling train. He’s lying naked on the bed, propped against the wall with his arms behind his head, just a silk sheet covering him from you.

“Uuh, depends.” You reply, grabbing the only outfit you’d ever liked from that point in your life and shoving it into your bag.

“On what?”

“Destination mostly. Whether or not there’s a version of the train already there. But apparently there’s a few other reasons that I didn’t get to learn…” you tell him as you pull a shirt on.

“Do you know how to… direct the train back to earth in our time?”

“Somewhat… after a few attempts sure. But I’m not sure we’ll get a few attempts…” you watch as a sand storm forms in the distance, the grey ashes swirling into the air promising violence.

“Why?”

“Just… I need you to trust me and if I say jump, you’ll grab your daughter and jump. Okay?” you can see hesitation in his eyes but he nods. Gently you lift his hand and press your lips to his palm, silently thanking him for not arguing. Getting up with a sigh you grab his clothes, vest and swords and put them next to him. “Get dressed, we’ll start making our way down the train soon. They’re gonna be suspicious…” you huff as you pull on your harness, your gun already in the holster, and pull on your jacket to conceal it.

“Do you have a plan?”

“Well… half of two plans…” you shrug. “We can sneak along the outside and try to figure out where the car is from the windows. Not my favourite. Or! We can move along the inside saying we’re looking for a drink then wing it if the prison car is past the kitchen…” you smile, knowing both plans are fucking awful.

“So we’re just gonna wing it then?” Marcus asks, an unimpressed look on his face as he fastens his vest and puts the Katanas in their sheaths on his back.

“Pretty much. We need to take our things and us being out of the room is suspicious as is… I don’t see this ending in anything but a fight. We just need the fight to be after we find your daughter.” You tell him as you pull on the harness with your two khopesh blades attached. “If we die tonight, it’s your fault.” You grin before stepping over to the door and sliding it open to peek along the hallway.

“We’re not gonna die”

“mmmhmmm” you roll your eyes, gesturing for him to grab the bags and follow. You can’t help your pessimism, it was hard enough getting off this damn train the first time.

You slide open the door to the next car silently, gesturing for Marcus to be quiet. On the right of the hallway is a familiar door leading to a room filled with bunk beds. One of four cars where your bastard father keeps his slaves. On the left a door with a window leading to the ash desert outside, the wind and sand swirling violently.

You creep through the car, then the next, hoping that the neither door to the bunks will open to reveal you two dressed for war sneaking through. Marcus remains quiet behind you, seeming to trust that you know what you’re doing.

The next car is the mess hall and you pause as you peek in. there’s a few of the brainwashed sitting at the long tables, people of different races all staring blankly at the walls as they slowly move the food into their moves. You’d never under estimate them though. They may be slow when doing menial tasks but they’re fast as lightning when it comes to drawing a gun on you. They’re almost as fast as you when it comes to melee too. It’s the main reason you want the fight to be later. So you can jump from the train and avoid them, whether your father is still in control or not.

“How are we getting through?” Marcus whispers in your ear, his body pretty much squished to yours to see the room. His body curving around yours and his hand holding your hip for stability.

“I don’t know… they may be practically zombies right now but... they still know when something is off in their peripheries.” You whisper, flinching slightly when one of them rises, moving into the next car. You assume it’s the kitchen, going by the strong food smell that floats through when the carriage door slides open. “Keep the bags low and as close to the tables as possible. Act normal.”

You rise from your position, standing tall as you slide the door open. A couple of the brainwashed stand at the sight of you, glaring at the intrusion. Their eyes shine a little brighter at the trespass, almost like they have actual thoughts. You know they don’t.

“What reason are you here, Sekhmet?” one that you recognise asks as he glares between you and the man behind you. Probably eyeing the blades on both your backs.

“Father is getting the train ready to take us to our destination, I’m just getting a drink before. You know how that world is, Cole” you tell him, putting your arms up passively. “Could be days before we find water…”

“Sounds like a you problem”

“And when exactly did my father give you free will to make an opinion?” the other mindless look at Cole, ready to jump him. Clearly they’ve been made stricter since you left, they weren’t so ready to jump you when you were showing signs of free will. Cole stutters, his eyes wide as one of the others grabs him. You can’t seem to help the sadistic grin that spread on your lips as he’s dragged past you toward front of the train. You know he’s probably not free, his brainwashing was probably only just wearing off. Everyone would know if he was truly free.

“What was that?” Marcus hisses as you step into the next car.

“A distraction” you tell him, watching the two men doing dishes with their backs to you as you pass through the kitchen.

“If he was free he could have helped us”

“Even if he was totally free he wouldn’t have wanted to. He’d have attacked us instead.”

“How do you know?” he argues, not taking no for an answer as he follows you into the next car. Another garrison car. The prison has to be soon, you’re sure you’re running out of train cars.

“I just do” you snap, freezing as a door slides open at the noise. The woman eyes you both from the door way, silently waiting. “Father said we could get some water from storage” you tell her, praying your lie will sell but moving your hand to the blade on your thigh anyway. You don’t know what allowances he’s made for you. Or if he actually made any at all. Without a word she moves back into the room filled with bunk beds and shuts the door and you finally let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. Releasing your hold on the bone grip of your blade you glance back at Marcus, trying to say ‘shut the fuck up’ but with your face.

“Let’s keep going” you whisper.

It’s almost peaceful, the sound of the train moving and the gentle snores from the sleeping people in the carriages. It’s a shame that it’s also horrible.

The next train car is another garrison and you move through it swiftly, keeping your ears focused on sounds within the room but taking note of the door to the outside. There’s three more cars, just three and you’re pretty sure none of them have exits. Missy must be in one.

You slide open the next door and you’re greeted with an almost empty sitting room. A plush blue carpet and ugly green couches and a holographic screen floating in the middle. Standing to attention by the opposite door is a buff woman, glaring at you as you take in the ugly ass room. You don’t remember it being so damn ugly.

“We need to get into storage. My father said I could take some water and I was told it’s in there.” You tell the strong woman, gesturing toward door behind her.

“You’re not allowed past.”

“My father said I could” you insist.

“You’re not allowed past” you glance between the woman and Marcus incredulously. ‘This bitch’ you glare, trying to decide what to do. You know Marcus will hate it but…

“Fuck it” you sigh, ripping your blade from its sheath, slicing it toward the woman’s throat. A strong arm blocks against your assault and a fist collides with your nose with a crunch. “Shit” you hiss, stumbling back as you clutch at your bleeding face.

“[Y/N]!” Marcus shouts as the woman shoves him aside to get to you. You’re not sure if his shout was worried or pissed as the woman shoves you violently, launching you back into a glass cabernet. Throwing punches into your gut and smashing her fist into the back of the cupboard, barely missing your head. You grimace at the crunch, that would have been your face again if you hadn’t dodged her fierce fist.

A small trail of blood trickles from your nose, filling your mouth with the familiar metallic tang and you spit it out as you move away from the woman. You flip you blade as the woman struggles, her fist stuck in the cracked remains. She growls at the hole keeping her hand in place then looks at you with rage in her eyes. A rare sign of emotions from the brainwashed zombies.

With bared teeth she rips her hand from the wood, tearing the flesh of her wrist and hand as the splintered wood fights the force. She doesn’t scream or cry out as her blood pours down her fingers, she just sneers, glancing at something over your left shoulder to the door she was guarding.

Marcus steps up to your right, his fists raised ready to fight the buff bitch.

“Why do you carry around swords, if you’re not willing to use them on people!” you hiss, keeping your eyes on your prey.

“They’re for monsters!” he yells, dodging as the guard makes the first move, trying to land punches on both of you. Even with her bloodied hand she flails, growling as she shoves past you. You couldn’t see it coming, couldn’t know that she had a gun sitting in a holster by the door. She rips the gun from its holster stuck to the side of the little table by her guard post, aiming it at Marcus.

You hear the bullet fire and feel your body move, the bullet ripping into your side as you shove Marcus out of the way. “Fucking bitch!” you scream and you throw your knife with deadly precision as she aims her gun again, the blade imbedding itself into her skull. She stumbles, her eyes going wide and her mouth dropping open, the gun falling loose in her hand. With one hand clasped to your side you step up the woman, you don’t know how she’s still standing with a blade lodged in her brain. You wrap your fingers around the hilt of your blade and try to pull it from the woman’s head, frowning when she moves with it, gurgling on the verge of death. With a sickening sound the blade pulls free,

Marcus is staring in horror as you turn to him, the woman finally falling to the ground. You can feel the blood oozing from your side and you wince as you move your hand to see. You wipe your blade off on your thigh and gesture for Marcus to move.

“Let’s get this over with Marcus” you breathe, moving to the next door despite your body’s protest. “Leave the bags here, we won’t be able to get out from the end. It’ll be sealed tight.”

Grunting you pull open the next door, ignoring the shelves of stuff and passing around the edge of the room. The next car has to be the prison car. On your way around the sides of the train car to reach the other door a label catches your eyes and you let Marcus pass as you pause to look at the bucket like container filled with weird little capsule like things. The label says they’re filled with water but they look like fucking tide pods and you shiver at the memory of that internet sensation. You grab the handle and take it. You’d be damned if you end up stuck out there without water.

“[Y/N]! The door is locked tight” Marcus calls out as you round the corner.

“Yeah it’s got a DNA lock” you cough, moving him to get to the receptacle. Grimacing, you place your blood coated hand upon the lock. A small buzz sounds from the lock as it clicks open. Moaning in pain you press your hand back to the hole in your side, hissing at the sheer pain. It will heal, it always does. Leaning against the wall you let Marcus open the door and go in, breathing slowly as the train jostles you.

“And here I hoped you might have actually been coming around.”

You freeze, your wide eyes looking to Marcus in the next car. His eyes meet yours as he holds his daughter, finally reunited. You breathe slowly, wincing in pain as you turn toward your father’s voice. Your eyes lock on the barrel of a gun. Shit

A/N: part three is here! Been try to make things a little less specific like features of Y/N and the meal. Curious to know what people pictured as their (plate of food) hopefully no one here is colour blind cause idk how to make this for colour blind people, sorry ⬇️. like and reblog to share the love!

@love93sstuff @superawesomegeek @whore-of-many-hot-men @sara-alonso @farfromjustordinary @i-d-k-any-more

[yeah-all-of-it]

I’ve had this headcanon for awhile now about Ian and Mickey starting a family and since I’m becoming more comfortable with writing, I thought I’d turn it into a fic. Enjoy!

A Life Changing Gift

“Debs, are you sure you understand what you’re offering right now?,” Ian questions, feeling a bit skeptical.

It is Debbie after all. Sometimes she’s perfectly pleasant and reasonable, other times she can be a raging bitch. But, she is his sister and he can’t imagine her offering something this monumental only to renege after they’ve gotten their hopes up. And she’s definitely mellowed out since they didn’t end up selling the house and she didn’t have to find a new place to live.

Ian and Debbie are sitting at the kitchen table in the Gallagher house. She had called him over to look at a cut Franny had gotten playing in the backyard. Wasn’t sure if it needed stitches and thought Ian could use his past medical training to check it out. In reality, it was barely a scratch. Ian should have known at that point Debbie was up to something, especially when she invited him to stay for coffee.

“Ian, I’ve been thinking a long time about this. Came up with the idea months ago but wanted to be completely sure before I said anything,” Debbie explains.

“Yeah, but, Debbie. This is fuckin’ huge. Think about how hard it’ll be on you-“

“I’ve already thought about all that shit, Ian. I’ve been through it before, you know. It’s really not that bad,” Debbie assures him.

Debbie seems sincere. Like she’s really considered every angle, every downside, upside, and in-between. He’s trying to keep his excitement reined in because he still has to convince Mickey that this is a good idea, which could be easier said than done.

“Listen,” Debbie says. “You don’t have to say anything now. Go home, talk it over with Mickey. You can even bring him over here and we can all talk about it if you want. No pressure.”

They both stand from the table and Ian goes to give her a hug.

“Wait, what the fuck are you doing?” Debbie jokes. “Thought you hated me and that we don’t do hugs anymore.” She laughs, and Ian knows she’s remembering how tense things were a year ago when she thought she’d be homeless and alone and she lashed out at all her siblings.

“Would you just fuckin’ come here?” Ian smiles warmly and holds his arms out.

She steps into his embrace and he just holds his little sister. Sometimes he still likes to imagine her as that sweet little girl that was always helping people. Always loving people, sometimes so much she would get hurt. It would kill him to see the tears in her eyes.

Sometimes, he sees glimpses of that caring little girl in the jaded woman she’s become. Like when she pretended to be the bride at his wedding; staying in the kitchen, missing the whole ceremony, just so he and Mickey could get married without any problems from the homophobes at the venue. And now, when she’s offering this selfless and life changing gift to them.

Ian whispers into her hair, hair that’s the same vibrant shade of red as his own, “I don’t even know what to say, Debs. Just… thank you.”

Debbie gives him one more big squeeze before pulling away. “You’re welcome. Now, go home and convince your husband to let me have his baby.”

———

“No fuckin’ way, NO fuckin’ way!” Mickey exclaims. “No way am I bangin’ your little sister.”

Mickey hops up on the counter, takes a long chug of the Old Style in his hand.

“Mick,” Ian sighs, leaning up against the opposite counter. “That’s not how it works. You would basically jerk off in a cup and she’d use a turkey baster, in the privacy of her own room,” he emphasizes,” to… place the sperm where they need to go.”

“Don’t you need like, a doctor or some shit to do that?” Mickey asks incredulously.

“Well, you can use a doctor but it’s expensive. This way is free,” Ian clarifies.

Mickey is clearly churning the idea around in his brain. Finally speaks.

“I thought we were just gonna like, find a fuckin’ kid that didn’t have parents or somethin’.”

“We can do that too, one day. Ya know, if we like the first one enough to do it again,” Ian says lightheartedly, slight grin, trying to calm Mickey.

Ian steps toward Mickey, placing his hips between Mickey’s knees, resting his hands on his thighs, rubbing softly.

Ian continues. “Think about it though, Mick. This baby would be us, you and me. It’s the closest we can get since we don’t exactly have the right stuff to do it on our own. He or she would have your DNA and, through Debbie, a little of mine too.”

Mickey beams at this, wraps his arms around his husband’s shoulders. “It would be kinda fun to have a little version of us runnin’ around,” Mickey admits. “You know a kid that’s part Milkovich and part Gallagher is bound to be a little shit though, right?” Mickey jokes, smiling at the thought.

“Oh, I’m counting on it,” Ian quips, leaning in and planting a sweet kiss on his smiling husband’s lips.

Ian pulls back from the kiss and asks seriously, “So. Do you wanna do this?”

“Yeah. Yeah I do. What about you?” Mickey questions.

“Fuck yeah, I do. Let’s call Debs right now.”

———

“I’ve done a lot of research about this. You guys know it might not work on the first try right? Don’t want you to be frustrated or disappointed if it doesn’t work this month. Doesn’t mean it won’t ever work, but it can take a little time,” Debbie explains.

They are sitting in the Gallagher living room the day they are making their first attempt at insemination.

“Yeah, we know, Debs. Don’t worry,” Ian replies. “We’re not in a hurry.”

“Okay, good. Keeping your expectations reasonable is good,” she says. “I’ve also been tracking my basal body temperature and took an ovulation test, so today is my most fertile da-“

Mickey interrupts, “Thanks, Dr. Gallagher, but we don’t need all the gory details. Now where do I jerk off? Hey Ian, you gonna gimme a hand, man?” Mickey clicks his tongue and bounces his eyebrows playfully.

“Ugh, no gory details, right? Let’s just keep all the personal shit to ourselves okay?” Debbie requests.

“Yeah, this is already awkward enough. Don’t need to make it weirder,” Ian agrees and eyes Mickey scoldingly.

Ian and Mickey are forced to go into the bathroom because Lip and Tami live there now and their old bedroom is now Fred and the baby’s room. They’re not home but it would be uncomfortable seeing Fred’s little toddler bed, his stuffed animal collection staring at them while Mickey gets off. So, bathroom it is.

“Listen, Mickey,” Ian explains. “I’ll help, but we are keeping this clinical. Short and sweet. We can fuck at home later for fun; this needs to be done with a purpose, a goal. Debbie’s waiting.”

“Ugh, Jesus, man, why you gotta bring up Debbie? Doesn’t exactly make this process easier to think of her waiting in her room to squir-“

“Okaaayy, focus Mick,” Ian interrupts before that sentence goes any further.

Ian yanks down Mickey’s pants and gets to work. He knows exactly how Mickey likes it to make him come quickly. It works and Mickey finishes into the bulb of the turkey baster in record time.

Ian wipes off the edges and walks it to Debbie’s room, knocking on the door. She opens it just enough to stick her arm out and Ian places the bulb in her hand. Ian hears her say, “Uh, you guys can go home. I’ll text you later,” and shuts the door.

On their way back to the Westside, Ian’s phone dings. He picks it up and reads the text from Debbie out loud. “Transfer is complete.”

“What now?” Mickey asks.

“We wait,” Ian answers.

———

“It should have worked by now, right?” Mickey asks, an edge of concern in his voice. “I mean, it’s been almost 4 months. What if like, my fuckin’ swimmers don’t work or somethin’?”

Ian tries to calm Mickey down, rubbing his arm that’s slung across Ian’s belly. It’s midnight and they really should be asleep but Mickey’s spiraling over the whole surrogacy thing.

“Mick, this is normal. We knew it could take awhile. There’s no need to freak out yet,” Ian assures. “What’s all this about, anyway? All the worry.”

“Just… I know it took a long time for me to even wanna have kids. Then you had to convince me to do this shit, to be okay with Debbie carrying my baby. Fuck, that still sounds creepy as hell. But anyway, I know I wasn’t on board with everything at first, but now? Ian, I’m so fuckin’ excited to have a baby with you. To be a dad with you. It’s just hard to wait, that’s all. And then I think… what if it doesn’t happen? What if this whole plan just fuckin’ fails? Then what?”

“Then, we come up with another plan,” Ian assures. “I wanna raise kids with you too, Mickey, so fuckin’ much. I wanna give them the childhood we never got to have. I wanna take them to the beach with you, I want us to play blocks on the living room floor, and read bedtime stories together. All that shit. It’ll happen, Mickey. One way or another, we’ll make it happen.”

Ian snuggles Mickey closer, kisses him on the top of the head, and they fall asleep in each other’s arms.

They are woken up by Ian’s obnoxious ringtone at 6:00 am, well before they have to be up for work.

“Who the fuck is calling this goddamn early? Better be fuckin’ important,” Mickey grumbles while rubbing his eyes.

It’s Debbie.

“Hey, Debs!” Ian says with fake cheerfulness, still half asleep. “What’s up?”

“There’s two lines!” she screams on the other end of the phone.

“Okay?” Ian replies.

“There’s TWO lines!” she repeats, emphasizing the word two.

“I don’t know what the fuck that means, Debs. Two lines where?” Ian questions.

“On the pregnancy test, dipshit! It’s positive! I’m pregnant!” she yells.

Ian bolts upright in bed. Mickey grumbles “what the fuck” under his breath, eyes still half closed.

“Holy fuck! It’s positive?” Ian exclaims. “It worked?

Mickey’s up now too. “What the fuck did you just say?”

“Debs! Thank you! I love you! I’ll call you back later!” Ian says, unable to hold in his excitement.

He hangs up the phone. Turns and looks at Mickey. “It worked. She’s pregnant,” Ian practically whispers, unable to believe it. Ian sees tears well up in Mickey’s eyes and, for only the second time Ian has ever witnessed, they spill out onto his cheeks.

———

“Damn, you look like a beached whale, Debbie,” Mickey observes.

Debbie gives him a dirty look but chooses to keep her mouth shut.

She’s a week past her due date so they are at the clinic today to make sure everything is good. Debbie is up on the table and Ian and Mickey are sitting in the two available chairs when the doctor comes in.

“Hi, Debbie! Hi, Dads!” she says cheerfully. “So we are going to measure your belly and do a quick ultrasound just to make sure your amniotic fluid looks good.” Mickey grimaces at the term “amniotic fluid”. “I’ll have her back in a jiffy, guys!” the doctor says as she whisks Debbie out of the room.

They spent the last 6 months getting everything they needed for their new baby. Tami even threw them a shower where they got clothes, bottles, a swing, a carseat, and about a billion diapers. They decorated the nursery in light gray bedding with tiny white stars. Gender neutral because they want to be surprised. They have everything ready, all they need is the baby who is taking its sweet time.

Around 20 minutes has passed when the doctor pokes her head in the door.

“Sooo, I have some news. Debbie’s water broke while we were doing her ultrasound and her contractions started coming really fast. From what I’ve been told, her first delivery was pretty quick so we’re transporting her to the hospital just down the road, just to be safe. You are welcome to head over there now. I will be delivering so I’ll see you guys there!” and her head pops out as quickly as it appeared.

Ian and Mickey just look at each other, stunned. Finally Mickey regains his senses and breaks the silence. “Well, let’s fuckin’ go!”

They finally make it to the OB floor after a couple wrong turns inside the hospital. A nurse points them to Debbie’s room and they walk in when she’s in the middle of a pretty intense contraction. Once it subsides, she greets them and informs the epidural is on its way.

Once it’s been administered and Debbie is blissfully pain free, she asks, “Do you guys want to be in the delivery room?”

They both look at each other. “I hadn’t really thought about it,” Ian replies.

“Fuck, no,” Mickey says. “I don’t wanna see that shit.”

“Mick, you don’t have to watch. We can stand up by her head. Hold her hand. Be supportive since she’s bringing our baby into this world.” Ian turns to Debbie. “Are you sure you don’t mind? We understand if you want to keep things private.”

“Ian. I gave birth to Franny on our kitchen table in front of… like, everyone. Kev saw my vagina. V saw my vagina. Fuckin’ Sean saw my vagina. Trust me, I don’t care if you two are in the room.”

Ian looks at Mickey. “Fuck… fine. We can be in there,” Mickey relents.

A nurse comes in to check Debbie and informs her she’s 100% effaced and 10cm dilated. It’s go time. Things move at a quick pace after that. More nurses come in, turning on extra lights, bringing in supplies, wheeling in the heated bassinet.

Ian and Mickey stand side by side to Debbie’s left, Ian holding her hand, while she pushes. It’s fast. She only pushes for ten minutes before they hear cries and the doctor’s holding the baby in her hands, declaring, “it’s a girl!”

The next thing they know, a nurse is throwing a clean blanket over Mickey’s chest, and another nurse walks over and places the baby, his daughter, in his arms, blood, vernix, and all. Ian expects him to be grossed out but Mickey just stares in awe at this beautiful baby. This baby that looks like him in the face, but has a head of red hair.

Ian steps up to Mickey and wraps an arm around his shoulders, placing his other under Mickey’s arms that are holding their daughter. There is not a dry eye in the room. Ian and Mickey are crying, Debbie is crying, even the doctor and nurses are crying.

The next hour or so is spent getting the baby, and Debbie, cleaned up and dressed. They take the baby and run the normal tests and give her a vitamin k shot.

Once Debbie is in a room, the nurse brings the baby in to her dads. Ian sits in the rocking chair snuggling her while she sleeps and Mickey is right next to them.

Debbie just gazes at this new little family from her spot in bed. “So,” she finally says. “What are you naming her?”

Ian and Mickey just smile at each other before Ian responds, “Debbie, meet Margaret Laura Gallagher-Milkovich. Maggie for short.”

Debbie’s eyes tear up. “You guys gave her my middle name?”

Mickey surprisingly fields this question. “We wanted her to be named after the person that’s responsible for her bein’ here. For helping’ create her for us. I know I give you a lotta shit, but I love ya, and I appreciate the fuck outta you, Debbie.”

“Aww, Mickey, I love yo-“ she begins before being interrupted.

“Don’t get fuckin’ used to it. I’m emotional today,” he snaps with feigned grumpiness. Then smiles at her.

They let Debbie snuggle her for a bit before being released by the pediatrician to take her home. Thankfully they had already installed the infant seat in their car so they were prepared.

They walk through the door of their apartment 30 minutes later. Ian sets the carrier down and picks the baby up out of it, snuggling her tiny body to his chest before passing her off to Mickey.

“I’m not sure what you were so worried about, you’re a natural, Mickey,” Ian says as he gazes at his handsome husband tenderly cradling their beautiful baby girl.

They walk over to the sofa and sit down, thinking about the whirlwind of a day. Not knowing when they got up this morning to take Debbie to the clinic that by evening, they’d be holding their daughter in their arms.

Ian wraps Mickey’s shoulders with his arm, places his hand on their swaddled baby and says, “Welcome home, Maggie Gallagher-Milkovich. Your dads love you so much.”