#so we had a huge party on sunday

[jediwizard]

i took this picture last week. i went to the cinema with some old friends and watched the new deadpool movie. the film was so unoriginal and dumb, like most marvel movies lately, but i loved it anyway. the film was funny and it felt so nostalgic. it was the gayest thing ive ever seen, and this is by someone who obsesses over destiel and anderperry. after the film was over i went for lunch with my friends, and i ate japanese food. i ordered a chicken yakisoba, which is basically noodles with a lot of chicken, stir fried vegetables and all of it was coated in a sweet and tangy sauce. two of my friends saw how good it looked and they both ordered the same thing. i would definitely recommend anyone to try it if you haven't already.

my dad came to pick me up from the mall later, and we went to our favourite coffee shop. the place is really cozy and dark, with open brick walls, black leather couches, plants, records and prints of iconic artists like the beatles and bob dylan. my dad ordered mocha and i had hot chocolate. after we got home, my cousins invited my siblings and i for a sleep over and we had the best time. we watched casper (1995), one of my all time favourite movies. i was really looking forward to showing to my cousin. she didn't like it much, and i'll admit, i was a bit disappointed. on the other hand, she and i read pretty much the same type of books and we would talk for hours about percy jackson. anyway, we eventually fell asleep at 2am after singing, talking and taking a shit ton of photos on my sister's digital camera. i fell asleep on my cousin brother's bed, and just like almost every other 12 year old, he had spiderman bedsheets.

the next day, my cousin brother and i were the last ones to wake up. the girls woke us up and we went down for breakfast. my aunt made a ton of stuff and we went to their pool later. my uncle grows a lot of vegetables in their backyard, contrary to my dad, who finds it impossible to keep an indoor plant alive for more than a month lol. we probably spent 3 hours in the pool before our parents eventually called us in.

i would have posted a picture of my friends and i or a pic from the sleepover, but i feel uncomfortable posting pictures of myself for strangers to see;) i took this picture at my parents house. the rooftop's one of my favourite places in the whole world because of how peaceful it is. i took this at around 4.30pm and while it doesn't showcase any photography skills, i just really liked how the sky looked around the time that the sun was setting.

i don't usually blog about my life, but saturday and sunday were really good days and i wanted to document it somewhere. if you read this entire shitpost, then thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[6gumi]

jealous little angel.

synopsis ﹒” oh mr. sunday 、you really need to work on your jealousy ! it was just a prank ! ”

pairings﹒sunday x f!reader

cw﹒ nsfw MDNI. jealous s3x 、rough ! sunday :< 、some possessive themes / tendencies 、usage of petnames ( angel-face、dove、etc ! ) 、wall s3x 、semi-public s3x 、slight breeding kink if yew squint ! ^-^ 、he rips your stockings . . hehe 、we luv possessive sunday !

note﹒hai hai ! ! decided to write for sunday . . . ooh he’s so dreamie . . . he’s such a red flag but i luv him . . . x.x hehe here’s a special taggie for a special someone ! @cubffections | reblogs are highly appreciated. if you would like to talk to me, send in rqs or thirsts, feel free to send me an ask ! — rubi ♡

this party was going to drive him to the edge. sunday can't contain his excitement as he examined his surroundings . . . the anticipation of seeing his beloved made his heart race. he knows you’re waiting for him, dressed in something that's bound to drive him wild. It's maddening, the way you tease him, playing with his emotions. he steps forward, closing the huge door softly behind him. the scent of you permeates the air, and he can't help but inhale deeply, relishing the familiar comfort it brings. sunday knew you were off talking to a few ipc members here and there, so he took his sweet time trying to find you, savouring every step.

rounding the corner, he spots you in profile, your body bathed in the soft glow of the hallway light. the sight of you in that red lace nightgown, the way your breasts sway with each step, is enough to make his cock ache. it’s an irresistible sight, and sunday moves toward you with predatory intent. but wait . . . why were you speaking with someone else? sunday’s smile faded . . . lost in the immediate shuffle of emotions as he examined the man that was way too close to you for comfort, that dopey smile on that man’s face wasn’t fooling anyone . . and he was aware of that. his vibrant gaze slowly faded away, clouding the atmosphere with nothing but tension. he clenched his fists as hard as he could, enough for his nails to draw blood to his delicate skin.

sunday really couldn’t stand it.

he couldn’t stand seeing you with someone else. even so, he knew very well you were doing this on purpose just to tease him . . . seeing you having such a great time with someone else triggered a primal protective instinct within him. the way you touched that man’s shoulder . . . those pretty doe eyes of yours staring into someone else’s eyes other than his . . . the way your breasts squeezed together when you crossed your arms, fuck. he couldn't ignore the need to discipline you when you behaved like this, and he knew he had to put you in your place.

with a smooth, fluid motion, he scooped you up into his arms, carrying you away from the party, away from your new little friend you made and any distractions. “huh . . . ? sunday?—“

“not another word from you, my love.” sunday tried to act firm . . yet he couldn’t stop his heart from skipping more beats than one at the sight of your cleavage in that god-forbidden revealing dress, the memory of how they felt in his hands coming back to him in a rush. sunday swallows thickly, his gaze locked on your exposed cleavage. he can almost smell your arousal now, faint but undeniable. "what were you thinking? were you trying to seduce that fool?“ he was moving closer. He can't resist the temptation, his hand reaching out to cup your cheek . . . his thumb pressing against your lower lip.

"you know I can't resist you, and you know i can’t stand it when you’re all dolled up talking to someone else but me. have you learnt nothing from the punishments i’ve given you? is that it?” a devilish glint sparkles in his eyes, promising an evening full of sin and pleasure. who knew such an angel like him would have eyes this dangerous. sunday leans in, his lips brushing against your ear. "you belong to me . . ." he whispers, taking in the scent of your fragrance, “. . . or have you forgotten that?”

you couldn’t help but shiver against his body, you wanted this as much as he did and he could tell, he knew very well you did. “baby . . . i just wanted to play a little prank on you, ‘s nothing serious . . . promise!” sunday kept his mouth shut as he wrapped his arms around you from behind, tugging you flush against his body. his lips find the nape of your neck, where he plants a series of wet, open-mouthed kisses along the sensitive skin. "it is serious when there’s another man involved," he growls, his voice deep and rough with need. “ . . . and you know i don’t share, darling.”

with a hand, he reaches down and eases your pretty lil’ dress up, exposing your ass. his gloved fingers dig into the soft flesh, tracing the curve before giving it a firm, possessive squeeze. "bad, bad girl.” he murmurs, already envisioning the way you’ll shred under his touch. “what am i gonna do with a bad girl like you . .” sunday examines your facial expression, giving your cheek a gentle slap, inserting his thumb inside your mouth. “should i tie your arms around your back? shove my cock inside this slutty mouth of yours . . . or fill you up with my cum? or maybe . . . i should fuck you in-front of everyone else, let them know that you’re mine and mine alone . . do you want that, my love?”

sunday’s lips curve into a wicked smile, and he nods, his hand still firmly gripping your ass. "i wish i can hide you away from the world, angel-face . . . you need to be taught some more.” he warns, his voice thick with lust. “guess those punishments didn’t work on you . . . how pitiful.”

sunday kept your body pinned against the wall, the grip on your ass never wavering, the feel of his beloved pressed against him driving him wild. he knew you both had to be careful . . his little wings would flutter at the loud sound of music from below, there were still people around . . and getting caught was not something he would want. once you both were in the clear, he doesn't waste any time. with one swift movement, he lifts you even further up against the wall, your legs parting to reveal the wetness between them. sunday’s sinful eyes devour the sight, and he can't help the predatory smile that spreads across his face. "such a naughty girl, wet for me already,"

"now, what do you say we do something about that wetness of yours?" he asks, his voice low and suggestive, the air thick with the promise of pleasure and sinfulness. “ . . ‘s not fair i’m gettin’ punished for a prank . .” you murmured, legs trembling under his hold. sunday chuckles darkly, giving your ass a hard slap, the sound vibrating against your skin.

“now, now, baby . . no need to act all innocent," he teases, his hand never leaving your hip . . gently pinning you with his body even more. “i like how feisty you can get, angel face . . . but there's a time and a place for everything, right?" he purrs, his eyes dark with lust. “you won’t be acting all innocent once i fuck you dumb on my cock.” your husband traces his fingers down your chest, pausing to tease your nipples through the lace of the dress. his mouth finds yours, his lips soft as he explores your mouth with his tongue, taking his time to savor the taste of your lips he yearned for all day. when he pulls away, he's breathing heavily. the young male tsked, shaking his head as he reached your chin again, “you know how i feel about disobedience, correct?”

"tonight i’m going to show you who you belong to," he murmurs, reaching for the hem of the dress. with a swift yank, he pulls it over your head, revealing your body in all its glory. “the man you will belong to until the end of time.” sunday’s eyes drink in the sight of your black stockings, licking his lips. "you’re not getting away from me anytime soon, my love, i hope you and your pretty little head realize that.” he asks, his voice thick with desire as he starts to tug the stockings down.

“you’re not escaping me, angel-face.” he growls, his hand gripping the delicate fabric of the pair stockings you wore . . . with a swift and violent motion, he tears them down your legs, the sound of the material tearing filling the empty hall. he relents, pulling back just enough to grip your inner thigh, his grip firm but not oppressive. . . admiring the rip he caused with your stockings, giving him easier access to those pretty panties you wore.

sunday’s eyes gleam with a deranged excitement, gripping your hips, positioning himself at the entrance of your pussy . . giving it one painful slap. "you’ll thank me for this someday," he growls before gently sliding himself inside your wet heat, the friction sending shivers down his spine. “you’ll thank me for claiming you, my dove. you will.”

“a-ah . . sunday . . !” the young halovian’s lips curve into a wicked grin as you gasp, the surprise at the sudden invasion of his cock into your pussy more than apparent. he’s not gentle, not this time. sunday needs to claim you, to make sure you knew who owns you in this moment and forever. his thrusts were harsher than usual, tongue lolling out as you were slowly losing your mind already when his cock filled you completely. “you’re mine, angel. you’ll always be mine," he growls, the possessiveness in his tone thick. he pounds into you with desperation to get his message across your head, the rhythm erratic, as if he's trying to claw his way into your soul . . fingers nearly turning white as they dug into the flesh of your hips, pulling them back to meet each thrust of his cock.

his own heat was rising, the scent of sweat snd sex filling the air around you. with how loud you were moaning, he was almost certain someone would catch you both. “let the heat pass through you, and i’ll mark you. i’ll claim you, my love.” he was going to breed you, to leave no doubt that you were his. his thrusts became more erratic, more urgent, as he fights to push aside the thoughts that threaten to consume him. the single thought of his seed filling you only intensifies his need to dominate, to control . . to keep you all to himself.

"nobody will take you away from me. nobody.” sunday grinds his hips against you, his cock sliding against your tight entrance. sunday already came inside you multiple times the previous times you both had intercourse, but it's not enough. he wants your body to be filled with his seed. his fingers dug into your hips, holding you in place as he thrusts forward, filling your cunny with his throbbing dick. sunday’s eyes roll back as he relishes in the feeling of your tight pussy wrapped around him once more . . only raising his urge fill you up even more. “s—so tight, so perfect. i wish i could fill you up every day . . let everyone know you’re mine.” sweat drips down his forehead as he drives into you with a newfound fervor. each thrust is a powerful assertion, “easy now . . you don’t want us to get caught now, do you?" his voice is a low, gravelly growl, laced with desperation.

“sunday . . f-feels weird . . feels like i’m goin’ stupid . .” drool slipped away from your lips, a chuckle left sunday’s lips as he slowed down his thrusts . . giving you a moment to adjust to his size again, taking that moment to kiss and mark your neck, nibbling at the sensitive skin. “you were sent to me by the angels of this world,” he whispers, the possessiveness in his tone unmistakable. “you look so pretty pressed up against the wall like this . . . are you enjoying yourself?”

“fuck . . yes, yes!” sunday’s eyes flare with delight at your whine, your need for him clear, and it makes him even more aggressive in his thrusts. sunday was close, so close. he leaned over your shoulder, his teeth finding their mark on the juncture between their delicate skin of neck and shoulders, biting down hard enough to leave a mark. “mine, mine, mine . . ." he whispered against your ear, burying himself deeper and deeper, caging your hands above your head, holding them there as he filled you completely, ensuring that when you cum, you cum for him and only him. he’s not going to let you go.

with one final, brutal push of his cock, the halovian came inside your aching cunny, flooding your walls with his seed. he held you tightly against his body, shifting gently further into the wall. his release was intense, seed spurting deep inside as some dripped down on the floor. he nestled close against your neck, breathing heavily, refusing to let go of you even after he emptied himself inside. “ . . . so tell me, angel face, did you learn your lesson?”

© 6GUMI 2024. modifying 、translating 、sharing my works on other platforms 、or considering them as yours is strictly prohibited.

[lychgate]

i haven't posted a really poorly drawn thought piece adventure in years so here's a brief update!

hope i hit the read more thing right oh well anyway:

"Spent a lot of time applying for a home loan. I had to pay -fucked up- to have a convincing income for a decent loan. It was very confusing but cody helped me a lot."

"Cody proposed to me It felt wonderful that someone wanted to share their time and love with me. Cody proposed Anthrohio weekend, it's the con we really met at."

"We saw the listing that sunday morning before we had to go to our table to vend."

"It was a perfect house. We were the first people to view it and we immediately put in a bid. And we got the house. Many papers to sign."

"Moving was not easy. It took 2 whole months. Cody was out of town helping their grandma recover from a big surgery and we had to sell their old house/move that as well as move from my apartment. ALSO THE PETS: My cat dick wolf + Cody's 3 birds. Until we could get some doors installed and separate the house, I had to live between two places every day to feed and care for them."

"Still, life was good. I bought my first house! It has a swing in the backyard. I've never had my own backyard. I've never even lived somewhere that had trees (in said yard) It felt nice. Living together with the love of my life and 4 pets."

"Through all this i never closed my shop. How could I? It was my income, and I just bought a house. It needed to stay open. Moving that much inventory, setting up a new office, the house is a nice size but it's not huge, so, very careful organizing had to be executed if I wanted my apparel laid out right. (Which I totally managed to do)"

"but i Did get really good at baking pies. the two are connected."

"sacred_crow on instagram!"

"there's like 25 of u bastards i would absolutely die for, and about 75 more that i would go nearly dead over."

"We have an extra bedroom so I got to turn it into a toy room. There's games, crafts, stuffed animals, movies, a sick loft I painted the shit out of. It rules. It brings me a lot of Joy."

"Under the loft we have a dug out where we can watch VHS tapes. I love to sit with Cody and watch movies and play Donkey Kong."

"I am not good at Banjo Kazooie, but Cody is. Cody is so talented. I love watching them play games. (Depicted is not banjo kazooie but donkey kong country 2 as we are currently playing that. I'm good at DKC but I will still swear and make sounds like im about to throw up)"

"Half the basement is finished, so we turned it into a dual office space. It rules. Cody has a whole side for fursuit crafting, and my side is mostly my gigantic gamer computer area/shipping area. I took a whole wall to put all my non apparel merch like pins charms and notebooks also. for hte love of god someone buy the notebooks they take up more space then i wanted"

"I love to look over from my computer and see cody working. They always look so focused, yet peaceful."

"It's winter but it rains. I miss the snow. I lived by the lakes growing up. I miss piles of snow. It's just wet and cold here. Yes i'm quite aware of global warming"

"I got kicked off both my health and car insurance. I fixed the car one but health insurance still no. All my meds have gone away. The past few months have been hard. I think way too much lately. I can't get myself to do anything. -this is a whole page of downer bullshit and i cropped it!-"

"We had a leaky ceiling that took a month to fix. Cody did all the work because they are smart and kind."

"Oh yeah I had my uterus removed earlier this year. They let me keep it. It's in a jar in my living room."

"We threw a very nice halloween party. I was the green m&m. Cody was the monarch."

"We adopted 8 beautiful kiwis from a crane machine at the mall. we spent over 100 monies to get them but it was worth it."

"

It was a rough year. My health is in decline. Our country may try to end my life for being trans soon (lol?) I am in hte middle of a colossal mental breakdown of my core fundamental behavior (depression advanced) BUT ALSO: I am engaged to my favorite person. We bought a house together. I'm beginning a new chapter of my life. I have a swing in my backyard. The negatives suck but there are also many positives. The cycle of emotions is immense, but there is beauty in it. There is beauty in life, and isn't that wonderful?"

[look-at-the-soul]

Every little thing you do- Part 1

Tommy Shelby x reader

Series Master list

✨So first part is finally here!! Please be aware this part is set to happen in different days therefore you’ll see a little divider in the middle… and also! There’s violence. Please note I’m trying to follow the ideas/education from back in the day so it won’t necessary fit for today’s way of seeing things.

Word count: 2,977

Waving her sister goodbye, Y/N headed outside. But to her surprise she found Scott stopping his vehicle.

“Hello sweetheart.” He greeted her with a quick kiss on her lips, she stepped back immediately in case her mother was watching behind the curtains.

“Scott, I wasn’t expecting to see you today.”

“We’ll I lied and said I felt sick to get out earlier.”

This wasn’t something he’d do, but she listened to his explanation.

“I wanted to see you.”

Y/N looked over her shoulder, her parents were strict.

“You know you’re only invited for lunch and tea on Sundays.”

“I know, I know.” He moved back retrieving something from the car. “Got you these.”

“I love them, thank you.” Y/N pressed the bouquet of flowers against her chest, the fresh aroma invading her, a smile growing in her lips.

“Why don’t you go back inside and put them in water? Then meet me at the bakery around the corner.”

“Where are we going?”

Scott gave her a wide smile that took her breath away. “It’s a surprise, you’ll like it.”

Butterflies got spread all over her stomach, the expectation building. She hurried to the unexpected date.

“Listen, I want to apologize for acting shitty the other day.” Scott announced. “Can you forgive me love?”

Y/N nodded eagerly, pleased by his change of heart.

“It’s alright, just be careful next time.” Y/N suggested as he drove.

“Careful?”

“You shouldn’t have talked Tommy that way.”

Scott rolled his eyes. “There you go again, defending him. This why we fight.”

“No, Scott I don’t want a war between you two all the time, he didn’t like the way you talked to me.”

“Why does he always sticks his bloody nose in our business?”

“It’s not like that.”

“He’s always standing in the middle, I’m sick of getting orders from him, he leaves me the worst jobs just to please himself, he’s got people to do those things. I thought they wanted me to do other things, not to clean horses shit.”

“Scott I can’t interfere in your role among the gang, he already has done more than enough.”

“There it is, you’re defending him instead of being on my side…”

Y/N realized how unintentionally she always put Tommy on a pedestal, her boyfriend was right, feeling like he was belittled. She knew Tommy didn’t like him, and there was a possibility that she wasn’t impartial.

“I’ll see what I can do.” She finally gave in, not wanting to spend their time together fighting.

“That’s my girl.” He stopped the car on the sideway and began to shower her face with soft kisses.

”Do you need anything else?” Lizzie walked around the desk, resting against the bookshelf.

“What happened with the contracts you couldn’t find?” Tommy asked leaning back on his chair.

“Arthur took them by mistake.”

“Keep those locked.” He pointed a finger at her.

“Are you going to Karl’s birthday party?” She tried batting her eyelashes at him, but Tommy wasn’t looking at her.

“Yes, in a minute.”

Lizzie looked down at him again, hoping he’d ask her to join him.

“Heard Ada bought a huge cake.”

Tommy took his briefcase and hummed nonchalantly.

“I wrapped you a present for Karl, take it before you leave.”

She didn’t get a response.

Giving up to her wishes to be invited with the Shelby family, Lizzie shook her head. Collecting the remains of her dignity from the floor.

Tommy followed her with his eyes as she stomped her foot on her way out but dismissed it a few seconds later, not understanding her attitude.

The office was quiet when he crossed it, everyone had headed home already and his family were already in Polly’s house.

This was the first time he left considerably early in a long time. The need to release some stress made him reach for a cigarette. He had a dozen of things to do, a trip to London in the upcoming days, visit one of the fabrics… before he realized, Tommy parked outside Polly’s property.

Karl’s celebration was a rare family gathering. For his brothers birthdays they’d usually went to camp close to the river and drink all night. He wasn’t used to paper decorations and chocolate cake.

A small figure crashed against his legs. “Oh oh.”

Looking down, he found one of John’s kids. Was this Kate? Or Barbara?

“Careful.”

“There you are.” John appeared with a sandwich in his hand. “Go with your siblings.” He instructed his daughter.

“John.” Tommy called him mysteriously, with his hand motioning his brother to step closer. “Wipe your fucking mouth, you’ve got chocolate all over it.”

Stepping into the living room, he joined his family.

“Uncle Tommy!” Karl ran towards him with his arms open.

Tommy rubbed the kid’s back and offered him his present. “Happy birthday Karl.”

“Thank you!”

“Looks like you owe me money Pol.” Ada chuckled as she helped her son open his present.

Tommy looked from his sister to his aunt, studying them.

“Damn it. I thought he wasn’t going to show up.”

“So you made a bet?” He asked in disbelief.

He usually wouldn’t. But when it came to his sister, he made an effort.

“Where’s Y/N?” Polly asked with a frown.

“I sent her the invitation, thought you’d arrive together.” Ada explained staring at her brother.

But Tommy shook his head. “No, I haven’t seen or heard from her.”

“Shit! Pol! Help me out here!” John shouted holding his son James in his arms, he was bleeding and crying. “Smashed his fucking head.”

As Ada rushed to get some clean towels, Polly tried to comfort the child.

Stepping away from the chaos, Tommy leaned against a column to think he actually hadn’t seen Y/N in almost a week. A million thoughts filling his mind, trying to find a reason for her to be distant.

He needed to know if she was alright because she had always been close to the family, she was always considered part of it to all their gatherings; she was there for them at Freddy’s funeral, at John’s wedding…

“Now that we’re here all together, I’ve something to say.” Arthur announced stepping on a chair, oblivious that Esme and Polly were taking care of a bleeding child.

As the room went quiet, Arthur announced he and Linda were expecting a baby.

“Congratulations.” Esme managed to blurr through gritted teeth. “Now help me hold James, because I need to rearrange his arm.”

As Arthur walked past Tommy, his brother patted his arm and mumbled a low congratulations.

But the thought of Y/N not being with them, stuck in his head.

Y/N felt like sleeping on the couch. Her feet were swollen, Lady Winchester lost one of her precious earrings and decided to put everyone in the search until they found it under her vanity hours later.

Oddly her family decided to stay up late apparently as she could see the candles still on. But just as she set one foot inside, her mother pushed her abruptly.

“You’re a dishonorable daughter! We gave you everything!” One of her hands intended to land on her cheek but hit her on her ear instead.

“What happened?”

“Y-your aunt says you’re with a child, she saw you this morning and came to ask me.” Y/N’s mother was furious.

A woman came into view, her sister poking her head from the kitchen as her mother pushed her into the room next to it and closed the door. She demanded Y/N to undress and started touching her breasts.

“She’s with a child.” The elder woman confirmed, her hands still on her breasts.

Y/N’s face got paler by the second. Her mother gave the woman money and asked discretion.

A heavy silence filled the room, Y/N could hear a pin drop if someone threw one. Dizziness swept over her as her palms started to sweat.

“Your father will be so disappointed by you.” Her mother sentenced firmly. “You’re a whore, this sin will follow you from now on.”

Blood went to Y/N’s feet and she had to grab the vanity for support.

“You’ll tell Scott tomorrow and get him to ask your father’s permission to marry you before you start showing.” Y/N could hear her mother’s words as if she was underwater.

“I’ll save him the embarrassment, perhaps you can go to your grandmother’s house and hide there…” she was pacing the room as a maniac, Y/N was starting to process everything, she could hardly breathe.

“I didn’t know I could get pregnant without being married.”

Y/N’s mother laughed sarcastically. “It’s too late for that now, you should’ve waited until you got married!”

“You never told me this could happen.” Y/N felt on the edge of tears.

“I educated you with values, God only knows what you learned from that friend of yours.” Her mother mumbled something else Y/N couldn’t understand. Slowly she sat on the carpet, her skirt pooled around her hips and she finally sobbed. When one day Scott touched her breasts and it felt nice, electricity ran through her body. But he stopped right there. Then after taking her to the river, one of his hands sneaked under her skirt and moved her intimate clothes to the side and her body trembled. A week after that, he was about to start a fight with Tommy, for the night when they arrived after visiting Tommy’s new house. So in an attempt to make up for that fight, he took her to the river again and after kissing her, he told her he wanted to do something else. It had been over a month since she stepped in the middle of Tommy and Scott.

Y/N didn’t know she could feel such pleasure until he introduced himself into her body and she exploded of ecstasy. It felt right, he said he loved her and they went back a few days later.

Scott had said this should be between just the two of them, just as their love. But he never told her she could get pregnant.

Worry kept her up all night. She felt sorry for her poor father.

Covering her face with her hands, Y/N felt the tears rolling down her cheeks uncontrollably.

“Scott,” Y/N breathed with relief, all the worry from the past days when she hadn’t been able to reach out soon, forgotten. “I need to talk to you.”

“Y/N… I’ve to rest, haven’t had a decent sleep yet. Can we talk about this another day?” He had been out of the city, busy with God knows what, but this was important for her, for them, for their future.

Y/N studied their surroundings carefully, trying to keep her voice from shaking she placed her hands on his shoulders.

“We’re going to have a child, Scott I’m carrying your baby.” She whispered.

Scott blinked unamused by the news, his nostrils expanding profusely. Y/N wanted to reach out, to throw herself in his arms but as they were outside his house, she had to control herself. Keep her distance with him and behave accordingly.

But when he took a step back, she felt confused.

“I-I’m… this must be a mistake.”

“No, no. There’s a baby growing inside me.” She repeated, keeping her voice down. “We’ll need to figure out about the wedding, it’ll have to be something intimate and soon before it starts showing…”

“I’m not going to marry you.” Scott scoffed. “How can I be sure this child is mine? You could’ve slept with someone else just as you did with me.” He mocked her.

Before she could stop herself, Y/N found her hand flying to his cheek. Her palm tingled after the slap she gave him.

“How could you say something like that?”

“Don’t you ever dare to fucking touch me again!” He snapped. “And as for this little inconvenient… I’m not taking responsibility, you’re on your own.”

He gave her a disgusted look and walked inside his house. Leaving Y/N turned into a crying mess, she was hurt and disappointed by his reaction and terrified of the outcome.

Her mother sent her to talk to Scott to arrange the terms of the wedding and now she just realized he didn’t have her back. But what was worse, he thought she would sleep around like a whore.

Folding her arms, she walked with her head down. Guilt and embarrassment written all over her face. How would she deal with this? How would she tell her mother what Scott just said? She had been so sure she’d be able to hide it from her father by marrying Scott but now she was left in the worst possible way.

She cried uncontrollably feeling defeated, it was now too late to do something, but at the same time she didn’t know how she’d take care and raise a baby by herself.

“Where’s Scott?” Her mother hissed when her daughter appeared in her eyesight.

Y/N couldn’t speak, something heavy made her walk slowly. Her whole world was crashing down and now she’d have to face the consequences.

“He told me he wouldn’t take responsibility for a child who might not be his.” As the words left her mouth, she started crying again.

“Of course he would say that! What did you think Y/N?!” Her mother exploded. “He must think the worst of you now, how easily you have yourself away to him!”

“He told me he loved me!” Managed to shout through her tears and sobs.

Her mother’s hand flew rapidly and hit her hard.

A heavy silence surrounded them. Her cheek was burning from her mother’s slap.

“Leave Y/N!” Her grandmother intervened.

“She deserved that.” Her mother explained, she was beyond angry.

Y/N’s grandmother wrapped an arm around her granddaughter protectively.

“What happened?”

“Tell her, go on… tell your grandmother what you did.”

Y/N kept her head down, she felt like she couldn’t look her grandmother in the eyes. She had failed them terribly, the values and principles they had showed her were thrown through the window.

“No? Well, I’ll tell her myself.” Her mother warned. “Y/N didn’t wait until marriage, she gave herself away like a whore and is now with a child. Couldn’t keep her legs closed.”

“Well we’ll think of something, she won’t start showing right away.”

“There’s nothing to think mother, Scott is out of the picture he didn't accept the responsibility.”

“But he’s as responsible as Y/N.” Her grandmother pointed out thinking this wasn’t fair on Y/N.

“Your granddaughter’s honor is right on the floor, he even suggested the baby isn’t his.”

Y/N saw her mother pacing around the small room, it was making her feel sick.

“And your father arrives tomorrow… should we send her with your sister to Durham?” She pondered the possibilities thinking of her mother’s sibling.

“Absolutely not.” Her grandmother defended.

“Then what? What are we going to do?”

Y/N felt sick and rushed away from them. Her head was pounding, her stomach in a tight knot and her heart shattered into million pieces.

“Ma’am you can’t go in there.” Tommy heard from outside his office, then saw the door swing open.

“Mr. Shelby you’re the only one who can help me.”

Tommy rose to his feet in a second, the worry he found in Y/N’s grandmother raised all the alarms.

“What happened?”

“My son in law is hitting Y/N badly.” Her voice cracked, her hands reached for the sleeve of his suit. “You’ve to help her.”

Tommy took his coat from the rack and rushed to see what was happening.

“John, get Polly and meet me in Y/N’s house.” He demanded.

“I’ll go with them Mr. Shelby.” Y/N’s grandmother expressed, not wanting to make him wait.

Tommy doubted for a second, but with her hand, the elder woman ushered him, so it must be serious. Stepping in Y/N’s house without knocking because he heard her cries and pained screams from outside, but Tommy wasn’t prepared to find what he’d see.

Y/N was in the middle of the living room half her clothes shattered, kneeling on the floor and her upper body leaned over a chair, her back covered by the belt marks and blood.

He felt a rush of anger and disgust through his body. Tommy could practically taste his bile in his mouth, but as Y/N’s father was about to hit her again, he stepped in his way, holding the man’s hand firmly in the air.

“You touch her again, and I’ll fucking kill you.”

“Stay out of this Shelby, I’m dealing with this whore.”

“Don’t make me repeat myself or you’ll regret it.” Tommy muttered through gritted teeth.

John joined him with a couple of some of their men, they went straight to hold Y/N’s father away from her.

Y/N winced in pain when Tommy tried to help her up.

“This is a family matter!” Y/N’s mother shouted disturbed for the interruption. “You should respect that.”

“Yeah? Just like you’re respecting your daughter?” Tommy snapped, he lost all self control over this injustice.

“She has to deal with the consequences of her acts! Behaved like a whore, gets punished like one.”

Y/N felt her mother’s words like daggers to her heart. She wasn’t sure what felt more hurtful; her father’s hitting her with his belt or her mother’s words.

Tommy felt like throwing up, he apologized when he got Y/N in his arms and she complained from the pain.

“You can’t take her away!” Her mother warned, trying to stop Tommy.

He gave her a warning stare and mumbled; “watch me.”

Part 2

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[strawberrymochin]

Springtime Fushiguros♪

Context-: exploring the memories of childhood of fushiguros, marking the spring time of you and satoru gojo.

Period- tsumiki gets her first period. Gojo and Megumi panicking around.

Gojo streched himself on the couch, turning sides to get hold of the tv remote, switching it on, totally ignoring the pile of laundry he's supposed to get done.

Yawning to himself, he sits up straight. It's boring, to enjoy a sunday alone, especially when you have gone out with shoko to help her out with some of her queries. He could have bothered megumi, annoying him would be a great time pass or maybe getting him practice some of the new moves he learned.

Or maybe he could have played with tsumiki, letting her tie his hair into pigtails, doll him up. Adore his skin with different cute holographic stickers and have a kitty party. And even rummaging through your closet, hosting a fashion show.

However, today none of the kids bothered to show their faces.

A rushed creak of door opening echoed through the apartment, above the sound of the television. Gojo turned his head to the side, to see megumi....with dread plastered face.

"What happened? Saw a ghost or something?" Gojo's lips curve into a smug smile, pleased to get an opportunity to tease megumi. Though it vanishes quickly when Megumi's expression doesn't seem to falter.

Megumi's steps are rushed towards his sensei, eyebrows knitted in a worried form.

"Tsumiki's bleeding." Said megumi, pointing his hand towards their room.

Gojo got still for a moment his eyes travelled to megumi's hands. They were trembling.

"What! Did you use you accidentally used your cursed energy on her?!" Gojo stood up hastily, walking up to the kids room, trying to locate tsumiki.

"No." Megumi followed him.

Gojo's eyes scanned around the entire room— tsumiki's nowhere.

Megumi dragged him to his sister's bed by his sleeve. As the bed came clear in view, among the tousled sheets of pink strawberry printed ones, sharp in contrast with plain whites of megumi's, there was a huge stain which seemed like fresh blood.

"She went to the bathroom hurriedly, and I saw her shorts had blood stains....what happened to her? Is she going to die?"

"Goddamn! Did she ate those cookies made by shoko?"

"Huh?! I did saw her having some this morning!!"

"Fuck! She must have been poisoned then....her cooking is disaster anyways"

"No wonder she's your friend."

"Wha—"

"What do we do now??"

"What do we do nowww???"

"I wouldn't have asked you, if I would've known what to do!!"

"No wait...i know....imma get an ambulance first and then," he halts midway before reaching hell for leather to get an ambulance, "wait a min....." He straddled his way back to miki's bed, bending down to scrutinize the stains properly.

"Ahh....I see...but she's only 9 years old..." Gojo mumbled to himself, tilting his head to the side, while megumi glares at him annoyed.

"Why aren't you hurrying? Go get an ambulance!!" To this gojo replies nothing but goes to the corner of the room, knocking on the bathroom door.

"Miki... it's me. Gojo sensei. Is your stomach hurting?" For moments it's complete silence, till gojo speaks again, voice more soft, this time, "Don't be afraid Miki, it's fine. Tell me. Open the door of you feel like."

After a few seconds of hushed silence, the door of the bathroom unlocked, creaking a bit, revealing a tear stained tsumiki, eyes puffy from crying, looking down.

"Is it hurting?" Gojo asks tsumiki, fists dragging the hem of the tshirt, trying to hide the stains nodding her head slowly.

"You're a grown up girl Miki! Congrats!" Gojo chimed as tsumiki, with eyes filled with fat tears threatening to fall, looked up to him. Gojo had the kindest smile on his face, as he forwarded his hand patting on Tsumiki's head. His little girl's blooming fast. Though he cherishes it, there's a pang in his chest. It's already been two years. Why does time flies so soon? Why can't its wings freeze? Why can't the blissful moment last forever?

Megumi's stands behind him totally dumbfounded.

"So Tsumiki's fine? And she won't die right?" Megumi asks frowning, however there was a little relief on his face.

"Ofcourse not idiot," gojo flicks megumi's forehead earning an 'ouch' from him, "Your sister is just growing up. She got her first period which is a 100% normal thing. And we don't need ambulance for that."

Tsumiki tilts her head at confusion. Period? She thought. Gojo continued, "what we need is, a—"

"What?" Megumi asks dubiously as gojo's face falls.

"Umm... I will just call y/n a bit..." He says, asking tsumiki to stay there till he returns. Megumi, however, uncertain of gojo's decisions follows him to the living room, where he picks up his phone dialing you.

Then, to his washroom checking in the cabinets. "I can't seem to find it."

"Find what?...just ask y/n san."

"As if she's picking up my calls...i will be back in a few minutes.....be with tsumiki till then.

Before Megumi could ask what he's exactly planning to do, he senses the flow of cursed energy as gojo's figure fades in a quick blink of eye. He teleported to somewhere leaving Megumi and tsumiki home alone.

By the time he's back, teleporting to the entrance, wanting to hurry up to tsumiki, he's greeted by shoko bumping midway.

"Woah! What the heck dude!!"

"What are you doing here?"

"Well I'm here, since your girlfriend brought me in. Damn what do you have in those?"

"Is y/n home?"

He rushes inside to see you caressing tsumiki on the couch as Megumi sits on the opposite one, reading a book.

"Toru— omg.....what do got in there?" You gasp at the two huge plastic bags. Before he could answer, shoko snatches the bags from him peaking inside.

"He got pads and tampons along with cramp medicines, chocolates and heat pack and oh— there's menstrual cups too."

"toru, it looks like you robbed an entire pharmacy!"

"I couldn't find any in the cabinets," gojo sighs joining you guys on the couch. "And i didn't knew what tsumiki would prefer, moreover you weren't picking up my calls. Are you fine now Miki?"

Tsumiki nods at him with a smile, as he ruffles her hair. "Now that you're home, I guess everything's fine."

"You handled it well too. And you too megumi, you really care for your sister even though you don't show it much." You compliment as tsumiki giggles seeing Megumi blush.

"Yeah I mean you gotta see who's he learning from!" Gojo says with his signature smirk, spreading his arms showing off his greatness.

Silence,

Awkward Silence,

More awkward silence.

"Whatever." You, Megumi and shoko say at the same time, as you shift your attention back to tsumiki. Megumi goes back to reading his book while shoko goes to the kitchen.

Later this evening, shoko bought a cake to celebrate tsumiki's first period. Gojo sang on the top of his voice as shoko lectured the fushiguros on how this is a thing every girl has to go through.

As the kids were busy with shoko, gojo excused himself to the kitchen, where you were pouring out hot chocolate for everyone.

"Want a sip in advance?"

"I would love to have that but—" gojo's voice wavered a bit.

"Hmm?" You looked at him from the side of your eye, wanting him to continue.

"Is it okay for a girl to get her period when she's 9? Those parenting books and those internet articles said that the average age is somewhere between 10 to 12..."

You smiled to yourself at his question, leaving no doubt that one day he will surely be a great father. Maybe he even sees himself as a father figure for the kids. How pure and innocent is he?

Being born so strong, he had such huge responsibilities over his shoulders, barely allowing him to have his childhood. Growing up devoid of affection, gojo knows how important phase it is, thus he tries his best providing for Megumi and tsumiki. Making sure, the kids won't face what he faced.

"Nah, its normal to get it a year earlier or so, it depends on the girl's body." You assure him. Gojo leaned on the counter next to you, gazing the kids with shoko.

"They are growing so fast, ain't they?" He sighs.

"They are...." You sigh, " you want the time to stop?"

"Would be itching for that to happen." Gojo chuckles lightly, as his crystal blue eyes met yours.

"I love you."

"I know you can't resist my charm."

"Shut up. And say it back."

"I love you too my dear villian, my wicked angel, my sweet nemesis, do you even know how cunningly you've stolen my heart, even though it was yours to belong with."

"God! satoru...shut up."

a/n- had to post again for a glitch. Please reblog or like if you feel so.

[thisismeracing]

okay but a request for a new face around the paddock and Lando having a huge crush and gets some assistance to ask her out 😔

Hi, love!! <3 Since you didn't specify if it was a smau, a blurb, or a full imagine, I decided to go with a blurb, 'key? I hope you like it!! *mwah*

New girl | LN4

― Pairing: Lando Norris x reader (sher/her) ― Warnings: mentions of alcohol, getting stuck on the roof, and typos; ― my masterlist | my taglist | patreon guide ― check some exclusive pieces here ― you can support my writing by reblogging, leaving a comment (don’t forget to follow me if you like the piece), or buying me a coffee

Someone was playing early 2000s remixes, the sound escaping to the roof where Yn was sitting, nursing a half-full red cup. She was a bit tired. It was her first week attending a race, and things were more hectic than anticipated, though Charles told her it was crazy when you weren't used to the pace.

Still, she was looking for the next Sunday. The next plane ride, the next country to explore.

"Oh- hey," Lando waved after opening the door and finding her sitting in one of the small couches. His face read surprise with a tinge of confusion, but, in reality, he knew she would be there. Carlos told him as much. His friend actually encouraged him to go after her. Lando was infatuated the second he saw her, and when he discovered she was Charles' friend he was quick to ask Carlos for help, which coming to think about now wasn't the best idea.

Maybe he should have asked Charles instead. He probably knew her better. She was the new girl for Carlos too, having just met her the same day Lando did. Or just tried to get to her without any help, but then again, she was so beautiful and so cool, he felt like the whole paddock stopped the first day Yn showed up, though rationally he knew things kept going as usual. He was the distracted one.

"Hi," she waved back, a small smile gracing her lips before she took the cup to her lips sipping whatever drink she was nursing.

"Can I- huh- Can I stay here too?"

Yn nodded, "It's a bit packed in there, huh?" she asked before patting the spot beside her. "Carlos told me I could get some air here instead of in front of the house, the air is flowing good there, but there's still too much noise- and drunk people," she ranted, and Lando thought it was cute the way she would explain things he hasn't even asked yet.

"I'm Lando," the British extended his hand to her, and they shook it right before she said her name as if wasn't etched on his mind, and he sat beside her.

"I know," there's a hint of amusement in her voice. "There's only twenty of you, and you happen to be really close to my friend's teammate."

He chuckled, taking a pull from his beer, and sensing someone behind him. When Lando turned he saw Carlos and Charles at the door, and before he could stop them both, the noise of the door closing echoed around.

"Shit."

"Was it the door?" Yn asked, getting up.

"I think the wind closed it," he tried to keep it cool, even though he was finally understanding why Carlos had asked to borrow his phone.

"Can you call one of the guys to open it up?" she asked, and then added, "For when we want to get back...I'm fine for now."

He smiled, and then his face twisted in a grimace, "I forgot my phone with the guys."

"Mine doesn't have any signal here," she stated, but didn't seem too worried.

"Do they know you're here?"

Yn nodded, "You?"

"Carlos will probably come looking for me any minute now," he tried to convince himself, taking another pull from his beer.

They sat in silence for a beat, the wind making their cheeks cold and the noises of the party muffled by the distance, until Yn started talking about racing, Lando following the train, catching the ride and the opportunity to talk with her and not embarrass himself trying to figure a good topic.

"How do you keep up with all the traveling?"

He chuckles, "Sometimes you don't."

"Oh-"

"Yeah, it can be tiring for the drivers as well, but we just...get used to it I guess. Most of us- all of us, have been driving since we were kids."

"mmhhh, so a bunch of outlaws?"

"What?"

"Driving when it wasn't even legal yet," and she answered with a straight face, no hint of amusement, so much Lando thought she was talking serious, and when he opened his mouth to explain, a nervous look crossed his features, Yn started laughing.

"That was a terrible joke, but you fell for it so..."

"Horrible," he shook his head with a small smile, tipping his bottle upon his mouth. "How about you? How are you keeping up? Are you coming for the next race?"

"I'm exhausted. But I'm also excited about the next stop. I'm definitely joining. I'm just getting my maps ready because Ferrari has a bunch of media stuff this next week and Charles won't be able to be a huge company in exploring...not that he was a big one this last week, but, yeah."

"I can go with you...that is if you want, I can keep you company, I know the next stop pretty well, I used to go there on vacation with my family during my teenage years," Lando shoots his shot, half expecting her to let him down gently, but Yn gifts him with a bright big smile.

"Would you?"

"Yeah, totally."

"Perfect then," she crossed her legs sitting more comfortably on the couch, neck resting on the headrest, while she watched the dark sky above them. "Now, tell me about your side gig- Carlos told me you're into DJ stuff?"

Lando crossed his legs too, his shoulders aligned with hers, staring at the sky as well. He turned his head to the side, and she was already looking at him. He bit his lips to keep the infatuated smile from showing and started telling her about the things he liked to do besides racing. Yn shared with him as well. She told how she and Charles had met, how she loved music, and though she was into sports, she didn't practice any. She told him about her family, studies, and job. And Lando listened to everything attentively, feeling his silly little crush grow with each giggle and look she shared.

A couple hours later, when Carlos and Charles went to check, Yn had her head on Lando's shoulder, both were sound asleep on the couch. The Ferrari duo snapped a picture, and a high five for playing cupid to what would eventually become one of the paddock's favorite couples.

[sunflowersandsapphires]

Claimed by the Devil

Small Creatures, Chapter 1

pairing: Matt Murdock x fem!reader

summary: When the well-known vigilante of Hell’s Kitchen saves you from disaster, you realize he might mean more to you than you thought.

warnings: swearing, Matt Murdock’s self-destructive tendencies, mentions of a cult and subsequent trauma, allusions to drowning

a/n: This is it, y’all! A Matt Murdock soulmate AU as requested by that poll a few weeks ago. A HUGE shoutout to @zomtart for helping me plan this AU!! I am so excited to share this new verse with you, I really hope you like it! As always, please let me know what you think by replying and reblogging! This chapter takes place about a month before the beginning of Daredevil S2.

w/c: 4.1k

“For small creatures such as we, the vastness is only bearable through love.” Carl Sagan

Since the creation of man, each soul was created with another. Two, sometimes more, mirrored fractions of a whole, destined to forge a bond. Particles of a spiritual atom, drawn to each other by invisible forces, finally satisfied through connection. Soulmates. Each body marked with a symbol, to help them find their other half. Sometimes a word or a shape, a small clue to start their journey.

For a while, that journey was short. It would still take time, of course, to meet your soulmate, to fall in love—but it took less than one lifetime, while the world was still small, the human race still growing.

After a few generations, and centuries of invention, the population began to travel. Groups of people living on all 6 continents, developing new cultures, traditions, languages. As they moved, the average distance between bound pairs grew. It became less common to ever meet your match. Humanity found love in other places, built families on opposite sides of the globe, living their entire existence without their intended.

With each non-bound couple, came children without bonds. Scientists have puzzled over the phenomenon for years, some drawing the conclusion that our biology began to reject the bond, to continue without it as if it was a recessive gene. Through countless wars and plagues, and the continued spread of humanity, finding your soulmate was almost an impossibility.

And then the pendulum swung back. Wars became fewer, food more prevalent, medicine more exact. Lifespans were stretched and, with the help of machines, it was easier than ever to find your soulmate. The damage of an era without them began to repair itself.

Within 5 generations, chances of forming a true bond soared from one in one-thousand to one in thirty.

A sharp vibration from your laptop interrupted the voice in your head. Glancing at the bubble that flashed across your screen, you rolled your eyes at the message. It was the seventh—yes, SEVENTH—in a string of emails from the same haughty woman demanding the pictures of her great aunt's 90th birthday party.

The party was beautiful, and the photos reflected that, but it had been less than 48 hours since the event. Every contract you signed gave you a window of 5-7 business days to edit the photos, more time depending on the length of the shot list you were given and the number of pictures they wanted. If this woman wanted professional, edited photos, she needed to give you a damn break.

Clicking on the small white cross in the corner of the pop-up, you huffed out a small laugh, imagining the fuming woman growing redder in the face when you didn't answer her at 4:02 on a Sunday afternoon. Setting your own hours, as well as being able to ignore frustrating clients during your down time, were just two of the perks of running your own photography business. The flexible schedule and lack of strict routine were a welcomed change after your upbringing in a highly controlled community.

While you did understand why experts used that terminology, you were much more content calling your “community” what it was: a cult. “High control group”—or whatever other politically-correct, secular terminology people wanted to use to describe a bunch of adults deciding to use their limited power to exploit others in the name of some bogus goal—was too polite for the assholes from your hometown. The bumfuck rural town where “religious” leaders congregated to torture dozens of children over a tiny, immovable mark on their skin.

A brand of the devil. That’s what they claimed soulmarks were. The sign of a being destined for evil. And, in order to save humanity from said evil, it was up to this specific community to cleanse you of your threatening aura, to rid the demonic energy from your body and spare your soul.

They’d used written and verbal propaganda, forbid outside contact, relied heavily on fear-mongering—the whole nine yards of brainwashing, all to supposedly grant the town salvation. Given that your particular mark was on the inside of your right wrist? Well, it definitely didn’t help the “damned” accusations coming your way.

Something flashed across your mind. A memory. Tepid water, turning frigid as you were forced deeper and deeper. All traces of oxygen slowly draining from your lungs, your body struggling desperately against the hands gripping you forcefully by the arms, holding you under.

Shuddering with discontent, your mark itched fiercely, as if it was trying to snap you out of the flashback. Absentmindedly dragging a nail over it to quell the unpleasant sensation, you inhaled deeply, studying the image as you did.

It was a simple thing, a series of a few lines just over the pulse point on your forearm. Two triangles, placed horizontally and pointing away from each other, with three small straight lines fanning out beneath. From your limited knowledge, it was a rune of some sort, though you hadn’t been able to narrow down the origin or meaning quite yet. Not scary enough to warrant the actions taken by your wonderful hometown though.

After surviving, and escaping, your upbringing, a lack of a rigid schedule was a necessity—which meant freelance event photography was a perfect career path. Unfortunately, an anxious mind and spontaneity didn't always mix.

It didn't matter that you didn't hear the messaging daily anymore. You were still struggling to unravel the mind games and indoctrination you'd been subjected to, hence the re-reading of this particular article. It wasn't the most informative, and the author clearly had a fully-realized bond herself, but it was the first piece of literature you'd ever read that wasn't propaganda.

There was a historical explanation for the disappearance of your condition, as well as a documented existence of others like you. Your mark didn't make you evil—it meant you were loved.

You re-read the blurb on days like today. Days where your conscience buzzed with apprehension, adrenaline flowing freely despite the lack of danger. There was something in the air around you. A warning, illustrated by the tiniest changes in your environment. On days like these, you felt like a bug beneath a descending shoe, scrambling to understand what was coming so you could make it out alive.

Expecting a disaster was illogical, you knew that. But reason wasn't the driving force in your brain on the anxious days. It was your desperate need to survive, to be prepared. On your bad days, your eyes flew open like you'd heard the door come crashing in or felt the cold steel barrel of a pistol against your temple—your body readying for a fight before you were even fully conscious.

Those days, your heart hammered in your chest, battering your ribs until they ached. Your lungs constricted when your blood pressure rose, each breath coming as a pant as you struggled to inhale enough oxygen. One wrong move and you'd send yourself spiraling into a full anxiety attack. Hopefully, you'd at least be able to stave that off over the last hour of daylight today.

Chewing at the edge of your thumbnail, you aimlessly scrolled through the page again, blowing out a terse sigh. The biggest annoyance when it came to your anxiety was that each experience was unique. There wasn't a universal solution. Sometimes, staying at home where it was familiar and safe was all you needed to settle your nerves. Other times, the constancy only made you more jittery.

As much as you'd wished that a sedentary day would slow your pulse and ease your breathing, that clearly was not in the cards.

Time for Plan B.

Growling almost inaudibly, you resisted the urge to start pulling your hair out strand by strand. Working up the energy to get through the door was always the hard part. As exhibited by your professional side, freedom to roam and choose your own path was vital. Despite your nervous brain trying to deny it, leaving your place to wander on a small adventure would be good for you in the long run.

When you'd escaped the clutches of the nutjobs running your old neighborhood, you'd made a promise to yourself–try at least one new thing every week. It seemed childish, but you'd missed out on so many things when under the control of the Order, you wanted to make up for that. Pretty quickly, it became clear that you thrived on flexibility and exploration.

So you kept up with it. Made a list of things in case you ever ran out of inspiration or couldn't decide what to choose next. That line of scribbles in a worn notebook came in handy on days where you disappeared into yourself, where you lacked the excitement that normally accompanied your little outings. Allowing the intense reluctance in your gut to churn, you reached for the leatherbound pages, sliding the book from where it lay on the coffee table and into your lap. Heaving out a breath, despite your protesting lungs, you thumbed through the paper, letting the smell of ink and coffee-stained parchment wash over you.

You weren't looking for something big. And the idea had to be plausible, there would be no mountain climbing or language learning in a single evening. Trailing a finger to the side of the dried ink, you skimmed each bullet point, eyes lingering on a particularly messy string of words.

“Golden Skyline Ink 48”

Thankfully, the gibberish you'd immortalized was recent enough that you could decipher it. Sunset photos of the skyline from the Ink 48 Hotel. You'd swung by the prestigious building for a meeting with a potential client, but you'd been too busy to snap a decent shot from the roof before your next errand of the day.

Pondering for a minute, you decided to go with your hesitant gut instinct. You craned your neck, hunting down your camera bag as you rolled your shoulder to unravel the tension balled up in them. Shoving up from your horizontal position on the couch, you closed your laptop and shuffled towards the door. Hefting the bag into your arms, you strode down the entryway.

Your hand reached for the doorknob at a snail's pace, halting mere inches from it as if the brass had a forcefield around it. ”You can do this.“ You muttered to yourself, forcing your fingers past the barrier and around the knob.

Stepping through the door, you flinched at the bright fluorescence of the hallway lights, hissing slightly like a vampire seeing the sun in a cheesy TV show. Swallowing the flash of pain in your head as the lights continued to beam down, you took another step. Here goes nothing.

Matt was grateful for the new body armor. He was, really.

He just wished Melvin’s talents included making the damn thing breathable. He’d never admit that, of course. On the spectrum of pain he lived with, being a bit overheated was closer to the bearable end. It wasn’t a stab wound or a broken bone, it wouldn’t impede his patrolling. If he could work through a punctured lung, he could handle a little sweating.

But when the nights got quiet and slow, it was more difficult to keep his mind from latching on to the discomfort–blown out of proportion by his fickle senses.

Sitting atop an apartment building on 55th Street, Matt could feel pure thermal energy bubbling up from the concrete beneath his feet. The waves of heat collided with his shoes, seeping into the rubber soles and blanketing his skin. Around him, the short ledge wrapping around the roof refracted more warmth, sending the sweltering air to smack directly into him.

He wasn't a fan of the heat, never had been, but the thick, skin-tight suit he was wearing only exacerbated the issue. Sweat beaded in the paper-thin gap between his skin and the fabric surrounding it, suctioning it impossibly closer to his body. Grinding his teeth in aggravation, Matt prowled to the edge of the roof, leaping off and rolling to deflect the impact from shattering any of his limbs. With a quick jump, he was back on his feet, taking off towards the next building in the line.

If he patrolled towards the Hudson and back around, he could escape the worst of the heat without neglecting his duty to the city.

Not that there was much action these days. The past handful of weeks, his outings in the suit had been unusually unproductive. It wasn’t that he was missing out on fights–it’s that they didn’t exist. Gangs were staying holed up, petty crime had taken a dive, even the steady drug or arms traders like Turk had gone radio silent. As much as Matt wanted to believe that his time as Daredevil had made a lasting impact on the city he loved so dearly, a current of doubt continued to whirl beneath his skin.

Crime was more likely in the summer, that was an inevitability. Increased temperatures shortened people’s fuses. Spats with loved ones were more likely to turn violent, miscellaneous expenses are more likely to add up and cause financial distress, it was statistically probable that he’d have busier nights leading up to the fall. And yet, here he was, twiddling his glove-clad thumbs while metaphorical tumbleweeds were swept down the streets.

He was confident something had changed, but he hadn’t quite determined what. So, despite the lack of problems he felt the need to solve, he continued to remain out until all hours, ears straining to pick up a scream or the explosive pop of a bullet leaving the barrel of a gun.

Body on high alert, he ambled towards the piers, vaulting from roof to roof in a familiar trajectory while his brain fought off an incoming onslaught of guilt at the notion of staying out. Foggy would be furious tomorrow, when he saw Matt gulping down the cheap coffee from their machine–which was held together by masking tape and sheer luck these days. Matt had foolishly admitted his conundrum to his business partner, remarking that the city had been eerily still lately, that there was less of a need for him. That he’d been searching so urgently for justification that he’d been going out before dusk.

The idea that Matt’s nighttime activity was no longer an absolute necessity had upset the tenuous understanding the pair had reached over said activity. A simple slip of his tongue and Matt was on the receiving end of Foggy’s chastising, being told he should take advantage of the lull and “get some goddamned rest for once”. (Foggy’s words, not his own.) The renewed argument had become such a frequent topic of discussion that Karen had almost been clued in a few times when Matt’s frustration had narrowed his senses. Just that morning, he and Foggy had been going at it when she’d arrived at the office, surprising both of them with her bright greeting and intrigued glance.

Hurling himself to the next rooftop, Matt huffed out an aggravated breath, clenching his fists as his muscles tightened with irritation, his friend’s desperate pleas echoing in his head.

“You can’t keep going like this.”

“You’re hurting yourself for nothing.”

“The city will be fine without you.”

That last one stung the most, ripping open an invisible wound he’d crudely stitched after taking down Fisk. His work had helped people. His infamous alter ego was the final straw in the case against the organized criminal, imperative to his arrest. To the people of this city, Daredevil mattered–which meant Matt Murdock mattered.

If he boxed up the suit…

No. That wasn’t an option. He couldn’t–

The shuffle of a shoe on concrete caught his attention, snapping him out of his downward spiral. His chest trembled as he panted in and out, his shallow breaths deepening as he focused in the direction of the noise. He wasn’t alone.

Mouth parting as his atypical radar closed in, his nose scrunched with slight confusion, brow furrowing with concern. There was a person perched on the brick ledge–a woman, balancing on her tiptoes and facing the city. She hadn’t noticed him, her pulse far too slow. Her hands held something blocky, the plastic object dragging along her skin as she positioned it, arms outstretched over the nearly 20 story drop to the pavement below.

He bit back an incredulous scoff as she bent further towards her death, practically rolling his eyes to the heavens as he approached. Not only was this position begging for disaster to strike, she had one headphone in, her lips moving as if mouthing along to the lyrics. She heaved in a dramatic exhale.

“Let’s try this again,” She murmured, finger slotting into a divot on an edge of the thing in her grasp, prompting a series of mechanical clicks to burst from it. Shutter sounds. A camera. A camera? You were risking your life for a photo?

Before he could judge you too harshly, your mouth twitched and your heart rate jumped. You’d realized he was there, then.

“You know, if you fall off that ledge, the effort you went through for that picture will be wasted.” He quipped, his lips twitching with a hint of a smirk as you squeaked indignantly.

It was only amusing for a moment.

As you whirled to face him, apparently surprised that he was there, you lost your footing, tumbling backward off the ledge.

For what it was worth, your little adventure had been going pretty well before the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen almost killed you.

There weren’t too many people out tonight, probably because it was disgustingly hot, so you’d made good time–jogging the few blocks to the hotel and sneaking into the elevator with a young couple who were too busy being at each other’s throats to care that you slipped in. The roof was vacant and more perfect than you could’ve dreamed. Swathed in the lights of nearby skyscrapers, you were presented with a gorgeous panoramic view of the Manhattan skyline at sunset, the stark red-orange hue of the sky peeking between towering steel.

Once you’d attached the proper lenses, you began snapping photos, but you couldn’t get the exposure to set correctly. To capture a good picture at this time of evening, you needed the settings to be just so. It was a tedious, attention-consuming process, that, when combined with the soft music blasting from your lone earbud, had prohibited you from hearing someone approach…until he spoke.

“You know, if you fall off that ledge, the effort you went through for that picture will be wasted.” His growl was low, but contained traces of a humor you weren’t expecting.

Damn your anxious self for startling so easily. With a tiny squeal, you slipped from the ledge, your careful posture crumbling as you fell. Your heart lodged in your throat, air rushing into your ears as you began to descend, but before you could even scream, a pair of warm hands grasped you firmly by the arm.

Face jerking up, your eyes locked onto the masked vigilante’s snarl of exertion as he hauled you over the cement shelf and onto stable ground.

Breathing shakily, still in his grip, your face went slack with a nauseating combination of shock and relief. “Th-thank you.”

He let out a puff of a laugh. “You’re welcome. That was a close call. Do I need to call a hotline?”

His lips twitched with a smirk, his face clearly displaying humor despite his eyes being covered by a mask. Head tilted cockily, he seemed to be studying you, maybe evaluating whether you should be in a psych ward.

Shaking your head furiously, you scrambled to your feet, nearly tripping over yourself as you backed away from your savior. “No, I’m good, that wasn’t the plan. I just–”

As you began to retract himself from his hold, his thumb brushed over your forearm, tracing the faintest line over your exposed soulmark. When his fingertip made contact with the lines over your wrist, the world exploded.

When you were a small child, you’d electrocuted yourself when unplugging a lamp. It was an act of rebellion against your parents when they had demanded you clean up after compulsory bible study. The inflicted shock had careened through your entire body, feeling as though you’d been dipped in boiling water and then flash-frozen as your body tried to adapt to the new current. An abrupt change of temperature, the suddenness uncomfortable but the aftermath numbingly calm.

Touching the Devil felt like that.

Your mark glowed with warmth like embers in a dying fire. The hair along your arm stood on end, your heart nearly bursting with energy as you were clobbered with a realization.

“You..you’re my–” You whispered, taking a step closer to the vigilante.

His hand had clasped around your wrist, holding it delicately, chin dipping towards his chest. His breaths were labored, his complexion seeming to grow more pale as he ran a calloused finger over the mark again.

“I don’t–” Dropping your arm as if it had burned him, Daredevil’s face settled into an angry mask as he hurriedly stepped away from you. “I have to go.”

“W-what?” You stammered, running your hands over your arms as your body recovered from his touch, goosebumps undulating beneath your palms. “But we–”

“It’s late. You should get home before it’s too dark.” He responded tersely, turning away from you. Striding across the roof, his hand landed on top of the short stack of bricks, head turning over his shoulder with a sorrowful pout. “I’m sorry.”

Gracefully jumping over the side, he was gone.

Feeling dumbfounded and slightly defeated, you stared after him for a minute before shouldering your bag and beelining for the fire escape.

Karen stretched her arms over her head, groaning softly as the knot of tension between her shoulders unfurled. Tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, she jiggled the mouse on the desk before her, turning her laptop back on to try and appear busy. After the law firm of Nelson and Murdock put Wilson Fisk behind bars, the clientele began to pour in–though whether that was for their proven representation skills or their shitty but functional AC, she wasn’t sure. Regardless, there had been a steady stream of walk-ins this week. And now that it had finally slowed down, she felt almost disappointed.

Being a secretary at the tiny little office was one of the most interesting things she’d ever done. Each case presented completely new realities, new opportunities and challenges. It was like she was given the chance to start fresh every day, and she was grateful for it. But in moments like these where the people filed out of the crooked doors, it made her a bit antsy.

Foggy and Matt were buried in new evidence for a guardianship revocation, holed up in Matt’s office, leaving her to schedule their appointments. She sighed, contemplating whether or not to interrupt them, to ask for something to do. Depending on when the guys would be heading out, they might want dinner or more coffee…

As she was running through a list of takeout that all of them could stomach, that hadn’t been ordered too recently, her phone’s display lit up, a new message appearing on the lock screen. An anonymous message in a chat board she frequented–one dedicated to opinions about Hell’s Kitchen’s hero, Daredevil. 

When she joined the board, she was solely intending to be a spectator. Unfortunately, the internet made it easier for trolls to share their bullshit opinions. Call the vigilante a threat to justice. Say that he should be put down. There was only so much she could handle before her blood boiled over and she sent her responses. 

These days, she was a pretty active poster. She rarely received private messages though, so the notification set her on edge. 

Hesitantly tapping the glowing bubble, she held her breath as it opened. No context, no identifying information, just two bizarre sentences that she was not prepared for.

“I know this is strange but..I think Daredevil might be my soulmate? And I was hoping you might know where I could find him.”

Taglist: @marytheweefrenchie @cheshirecat484 @siampie @xxdrixx @gracethyomen @ignore-mp3 @silas-aeiou @screechingphantommaker @spiderstyles04 @paradox-brody-chase

[9w1ft]

i declare

thinking about the tortured poets department the song, and the charlie puth line, and how maybe like, the act of declaring he should be a bigger artist helps place the song into the greater timeline.

because it’s a sort of weird thing to say in 2024 of an artist that’s no longer up and coming.

charlie puth got his start in youtube in the late 2000’s and released his debut single in february 2015. and leading up to that he had several EP’s and promotional singles. it made me curious, at what point might the people en masse start to pay him attention? i checked google trends and as you can see here he gets a huge jump between the 2014 and 2015 data.

(he then gets a further jump toward 2016 when he did a promo single featuring megan trainor, and then doing “see you again” with wiz khalifa. (coincidentally this song becomes one of the guest duets featured in the 1989 tour movie))

and i was looking around at articles from this time period, when i ran into this tasty morsel:

so i clicked on through

take a little ride with me

so to summarize, charlie puth had his breakout star peak over the course of roughly 2014-2016, during which he was up for an award at the 2015 MTV VMAs. he doesn’t win, and in fact, he loses out to taylor herself! later on in the article it talks about him going to an after party and hanging out with taylor selena and others. so it had me thinking, i could almost imagine taylor talking with her friends that year or that night, or even declaring to charlie himself in the wake of his loss and her win, in a giddy manner, at the party they are reported as having talked at, that he deserves more success than he gets. in this way i came to the conclusion that the timeframe of 2015-ish (rather than 2023) really fits the spirit of the lyric “we declared charlie puth should be a bigger artist”

and

yes.

yes fam.

the 2015 vmas was that vma’s.

that vmas.

let me pull quote an excerpt from the billboard article as i included above, just to emphasize:

4:40 PM: Charlie has the good fortune to walk the carpet in the wake of Taylor Swift’s gaggle of supermodel friends, including “Bad Blood” star Karlie Kloss, leading photographers to alternately yell “Charlie! Karlie! Charlie! Karlie!” as if it were a hectic version of Name Game. While on the carpet, Puth chats with multiple news outlets, and later he says of the dealing with the paparazzi, “It’s amazing that we view people in unnatural states and just love it. I don’t really understand it — it just makes me very uncomfortable. But, whatever. I’m so appreciative to be here.”

such a fun convergence of events, don’t ya think?

and just a few extra points i thought i’d add:

first, i don’t know how many of you remember how taylor was behaving that evening, but don’t you think she was giving major golden retriever energy??

both in how she was chasing after karlie that night,

and also… call me crazy but, her hairstyle??

(also she’s in a houndstooth print, har har)

and i can kind of envision this taylor, who brought the whole bad blood music video crew as her entourage, having more than several bars of chocolate at hand for everyone that night, but ending up eating them all herself 😆

and another thing that helps tie the song to this time period (maybe some of you have guessed?) the line “who else decodes you?” is extra apt because… *da da-da daaaaa*

🤗 karlie had just embarked on her coding journey!

on a more solemn note? i don’t think it requires too much of a stretch of the imagination to see “but you awaken with dread” “i chose this cyclone with you” among other lines pointing to the new layer of stress taylor probably was harboring around being with karlie in public. because this is all taking place in the year directly following kissgate 🥺

so there you have it folks! this is why the tortured poets department is a kaylor song to me 😌

[theanimeroom]

Do you think you could do a NSFW on kazutora please, I just saw this picture and couldn't help but think about how perverted he is and how lonely he is, so what if we found him like this.

the moment i clicked on that picture i got kazu brain rot give me a minute 😖

MINORS DNI || NSFW BELOW THE CUT

this is never where you thought you’d end up.

you’d always imagined what it would be like to start college when you were younger. you wondered where you’d go, what you would do, what people you would meet, you even planned out exactly what your dormitory room would look like when you finished decorating.

the moment you finally stepped into your new life, walking into your new bedroom for the next year, you could feel your imagination coming to fruition. despite all the daydreams and extensive planning you went through to prepare, you never really thought past your first year of freedom.

now, four years in and almost a college graduate, you’ve found yourself in a spacious apartment with your now best friend, kazutora hanemiya. you’d both met during your sophomore year, your roommate at the time, emma, introducing you to him at a house party you were attending. you two hit it off pretty quickly, immediately becoming glued to each others side for the rest of the night, and pretty much every day after that. you spent the next two years getting close to each other until one day, kazutora offered to be your roommate after you expressed your distaste for the prices of the off campus apartments. knowing him and recognizing that it would make your life a lot easier, you agreed rather easily.

living with kazutora was rather simple, thankfully. he was somewhat tidy, always cleaning up the living spaces but constantly leaving his bedroom a hot mess. you didn’t care though, being content with the fact that he at least cleaned the main areas whenever you couldn’t. he was also quiet, you barely ever noticed when he was walking around the house until you were being startled by a hand reaching above you to grab a snack from the cabinet. you even made a ritual out of your sunday nights, always making a huge bowl of popcorn and watching every movie that you could think of until someone passed out from sleep deprivation.

the only downside that came with being so close to your roommate was that you never really got the chance to hang out with him when finals came around. you would both get so wrapped up in studying and finishing your assignments that you would barely see him in a week, let alone every day. along with this being your graduation year, that meant that you had a thesis that needed to be completed before the end of the semester, which left you with no choice but to hole yourself up in your room while you tried to perfect your work.

on this particular day you decided to work in the campus library rather than your home, growing stir crazy and weary of the four walls suffocating you. it was late, the sun long gone and being replaced by the reflection of the moon and stars. your eyes were straining from staring at your computer screen for so long, and after a 10-second too long blink, you knew that it was time to wrap up for the night. yawns and fatigued sighs constantly left your lips as you drove back to your apartment, mind racing with thoughts of your pajamas and duvet that were anxiously awaiting you.

the moment you stepped into your apartment, you could feel your shoulders slack in relief. “kazu, i’m back!” you called out, making sure to say it just loud enough for him to hear, but not too loud in case he’d fallen asleep. you knew that kazutora was also busy with his own final exams coming up, seeing him every so often with his nose in a textbook around the house, or even being told about his study sessions right before he walked out of the house.

when you were only met with silence, you silently maneuvered around the house, making sure not to be too noisy in your wake. you dragged your feet to the stairs, feeling your sleepiness kicking in with every footstep.

well at least someone went to sleep at a decent time, it’s almost 3am.

your thoughts plagued you as you tried to keep your eyes open, not paying any mind to the slight crack in the bedroom door across from yours. when you finally made it to the top of the staircase, a small whimper reverberating through the hallway caught your attention. you peeled your drooping eyes open, eyebrows furrowing as the sound filled your ears again. your gaze was diverted to kazutora’s bedroom, where the ajar door exposed the blue hue of kazutora’s room. with a slight pause, you tried to listen for another noise, wondering if you’d just started hallucinating for a second from exhaustion.

“no,” a whiney voice muttered quietly, and you knew immediately that you were in fact not hallucinating.

taking a step towards the door, you contemplated on what you should do.

is he having a nightmare?

another heavy sigh leaves the room, and you finally decided to check on him for fear of him being in trouble.

“kazu…?” you asked, standing behind the door where you couldn’t be seen or see inside. when you heard kazutora whine again, you got a bit closer. “kazu are you okay?”

you decided to peek inside just for a moment, your eyes clearing the edge of the door until you caught a glimpse of your best friend, causing any and all fatigue to be wiped away from your stature without a trace. your eyes widened as you took in his figure; eyes locked shut and brows furrowed, skin tainted red as his hand shuffled in the confines of his sweatpants. there were a box of tissues laying next to his body that was propped up against his headboard, random pieces of the cloth crumpled along his sheets as his hips lunged off the bed. there was another whine, this one unintentionally going straight between your legs.

the wire of his headphones laid against his chest, sliding along the toned pecs with every heavy breath that escaped him. you were frozen in place, eyes wide and mouth watering as you shamelessly watched your best friend jerk off. a small part of you felt bad for playing the role of peeping tom, but when he was making such pretty noises, you weren’t exactly sure how you were supposed to react.

kazutora’s head jerked to the side, more than likely a reaction from whatever was playing into his ears right now, before a more guttural sound penetrated your own, the deep groan sounding like it came from the deepest parts of his chest. another whine slipped from him immediately after, his face contorting into something that looked almost like he was in pain.

he sounds so pitiful, fucking hell.

it looked like he was struggling, a small pout taking over his lips as his hand started to move spastically in his sweats, urgently trying to force himself into a release.

you found yourself taking a small step forward, your body moving instinctively without taking your eyes off of your best friend.

what am i doing? i really should get some help.

your intrusive thoughts didn’t stop you from quietly approaching him though, the dampness of your panties taking over your brain. you knew that this was a line that shouldn’t be crossed, you knew that this could potentially ruin everything that the two of you built for the past 3 years. but you also knew that kazutora was quite an intriguing person.

you knew he was attractive from the moment you laid eyes on him, and after having your first conversation, you were pretty much whipped for the man regardless. it was only when you’d become closer to him that you’d buried your lust in the deepest parts of your mind, hopefully to never be seen again, until today.

you didn’t want to jeopardize your friendship, not now, but when he was being so shameless, how were you supposed to control yourself?

you stopped your approach when you were hovering over the male, a close up look of the desperation painting his face leaving your cunt clenching around nothing. you watched him for another moment, taking in the sight before a manicured finger brushed the material of his sweatpants against his thigh.

with a sharp gasp kazutora nearly launched himself off of the bed, eyes looking like they were about to pop out of his head from fright as he ripped the headphones from his ears. you didn’t move as he scrambled to take his hands out of his pants, breathing labored and face even more red than it was before you made yourself known.

“sorry,” you couldn’t stop the small grin that plastered itself onto your face as you spoke. “i called your name but… i guess you couldn’t hear me.”

“y/n what are you doing??? you scared the shit out of me,” he chastised, not even acknowledging the position he found himself stuck in.

you put on a nonchalant visage before shrugging your shoulders, placing one of your knees against the cushion of his bed. kazutora pushed himself further against his headboard, mentally questioning what you were doing right now without ever taking his eyes off of you. “i was coming to check on you because i heard rather…. questionable noises coming from your room.”

“and now that you know what they were, you can leave now, right?” he asked, his eyes pleading with you to just forget everything you just saw and pretend like it never happened. he fidgeted in his spot, legs moving every so often and gaze constantly averting yours. you’d never seen the man like this before, but it lit something inside of you that you didn’t even know existed. wondering just how far you could take this, you decided to press your luck just a little bit.

“and what would be the fun in that?” you chuckled, placing one hand on the thigh closest to you before digging the pads of your fingers into the material covering his skin. “besides, weren’t you having a bit of trouble finishing the job?”

your question made his ears turn bright red, silence taking over him as you slowly climbed your way into his lap. you didn’t miss the way his breath hitched when you made yourself comfortable, seating yourself right on the throbbing bulge between his legs. kazutora watched your every move, but never made a motion to stop you. you decided to test the limits when you placed a hand on his chest, applying a bit of pressure as you carefully rolled your hips against his.

the moan that came out if the man under you was something deadly, the sharp sound piercing your ears in a way that you could only describe as delightful. the longer you played with kazu the more you found yourself losing your cool, listening to his sounds of pleasure and shock and knowing that it was you who made him lose it this way.

“w-wait, y/n…” he said, hands trying to keep themselves at bay.

“c’mon kazu,” you smiled, biting at your lower lip. kazutora’s eyes were glued to where your crotch slid against his, the friction of your hips doing so much more for him than the audios he was listening to previously. he watched as you rocked against him, his legs twitching and hips bucking up for more with every movement. you leaned in slowly, closing the distance between your faces before you lifted his gaze to yours. his pupils were blown wide, a lustful gaze clouding his face. “won’t you let me help you out a little bit?”

you could feel his breath fan against your lips with every heave, and you wondered in that moment just how good his lips would feel against yours. you stalled right before your lips could touch, your eyes locking with his one last time for a final confirmation.

kazutora paused for a millisecond before eyeballing your semi-parted lips. “you know there’s no going back after this?”

you could tell he was having the same reservations as you, but you held your resolve and nodded your head. the moment you saw that flicker in his eye, you knew you had him hook, line, and sinker. “fuck it.”

his lips smashed against yours the moment the words left his mouth, a soft grunt slipping past your mouth and into his at the pressure. the kiss felt even better than you had imagined it to be, the softness of his bottom lip between yours left your brain fuzzy and body warm. you grabbed at his dark locks as you rocked your body against his once more, huffing out a weak moan as the slick lining your panties rubbed against your clit just right.

your tongue swiped at his lower lip, humming when he parted his lips to allow you in. he tasted like mint mixed with a hint of beer, probably a result of the last study session he had with his classmates in a nearby cafe a few of hours earlier. you relished the smooth glide of his tongue against yours, swallowing every needy sound that escaped his mouth.

his fingers twitched against the sheets as he watched you use him for your own pleasure, his eyes darkening as he tried to resist digging them into your waist. your parted your lips from his with a sloppy smack, peering into his eyes as you glide your hands along his shoulders, down to the dips on the inside of his elbow, before wrapping your own fingers around his hands and placing them onto the soft skin of your waist.

“don’t be scared, kazu,” you spoke softly, keeping your faces only an inch apart as you continued to guide him. you listened to the way his breath caught in his throat as you dragged his hands up your body, pausing when the palms of his hands were wrapped around your breast, the thin layer of the tank top you were wearing leaving little to the imagination. with a soft squeeze you rolled your eyes back, relishing in the feeling of his hands on you. with a soft exhale you leaned into the man’s grip, bringing your lips as close to his ear as possible. “you can use me however you want to get off.”

turns out, phrasing it as “however” he wanted wasn’t the best idea. the moment the words slipped past your lips you were immediately flipped onto your back, the feeling of sharp teeth digging into the flesh of your neck. he bit and sucked on every area that he could find, hands covering every expanse of you. the ghost of his touch made your back arch, aching deeply for the feeling of his cock filling you.

you were so overstimulated that you didn’t even register the feeling of his fingers slipping down your naked lower half, not even sparing your swollen clit a passing touch before he shoved two fingers into your sopping cunt. your eyes immediately touched the back of your head, hands crumpling the fabric of the pillow under your head. violent curses rang out from you as he wasted no time in curling them upwards, ramming the pads of the digits into that spongy area that left you seeing stars.

“sorry princess,” he huffed through labored breaths. you weren’t sure whether he was fucking you or if you were fucking him at this point. he arched his wrist once more, relishing in the feeling of your walls squeezing around his fingers. “i’m in a rush too, but i gotta get you ready. don’t wanna hurt you.”

kazutora placed another few kisses against your neck, lips traveling across your body until he was hovering between your legs, eyes glancing up as you followed his movements. with another curl of his fingers, you rolled your hips.

your best friend lowered his head, pressing a light kiss against the hood covering your clit. your hips jerked at the action, barely even having time to register the initial touch before your clit was enveloped into his mouth, sucking and flicking his tongue along the sensitive bundle of nerves. you gasped, hands weaving into his hair as his ministrations shot straight to your lower belly. his fingers continued to poke and prod at your g spot, your moans taking over the sounds of your essence leaking over his hand. he pulled away for a moment, a discontent whine leaving you at the loss of pleasure. “can’t let my baby get hurt trying to take me, now can i?”

your heart sank at the statement, your eyes peeling open to glance down at the bulge pressing against his sweats. you knew from sitting on it that it was at least a bit girthy, but you also knew that the man wouldn’t say anything that he knew wasn’t true. especially in a situation like this.

and pleasantly surprised you were when kazutora had pulled his lips away from your clit, leaving your breathless form laying haphazardly against the bed while he finally slipped of his sweats and underwear. you’d only noticed it when the man himself had brought you back down to earth, hand gripping your jaw before pressing his lips against yours roughly. you could taste your essence on his tongue as he dragged the tip of his cock against your folds, your body jerking when it brushed against your clit.

at the first ounce of pressure as he slid inside of you, you knew that this man was much bigger than whatever you’d imagined. peeling your heavy eyes open to glance down at where you two were connected, your gaze was something akin to horror as you watched the fat tip bully it’s way into your pussy. the first couple of inches left your cunt clenching down at the pressure, the burn making your face contort.

“i know baby, i know,” kazutora muttered softly, face tucking itself into the crook of your neck as he tried to pace himself. he placed light kisses over what are soon-to-be bruises, waiting until your rapid breathing had calmed down before pressing in some more. “that’s why i had to prep you.”

no amount of prep could have saved you from this, but there was no stopping as kazutora filled you to the brim, hips flush against each other. the man’s cock reached places in your body that you didn’t even know existed, the pressure of him filling you to the brim being enough leave your head spinning and body twitching. your hips instinctively rolled in search of more friction, feeling the man’s cock throb as he reached impossibly further into you.

the first thrust of his hips forced a guttural sound from your throat, the next one getting caught behind the phantom sensation of his tip breaching your throat.

“f-fuck!!” your voice was higher than you were used to hearing, your mouth growing dry from having it open for so long. the sounds of moans and squeaks from the bed were quickly heard resonating around the room, your skin felt like it was on fire every time his hips connected with yours. his thrusts were brutal, every muscle in your body tightening and loosening while the sounds of his moans penetrated your ears.

“so. fucking. good.” he almost growled, each word being punctuated by a harsh thrust behind it. “so much better than a stupid hand…”

“yeah?” the word nearly went unheard with your softened tone, legs wrapped around the man’s waist to pull him closer. you locked eyes with him, a tired hand reaching up to cup his cheek. kazutora moaned at the contact, the whimper coming out strained as his eyes rolled to the back of his head. you loved how easy it was to make him crack, just a smidge of attention and the man before you was putty in your hand. “maybe we should do this more often then.”

you couldn’t remember a day when he wasn’t yearning for your attention, honestly. anytime you came around he was stuck to you like glue, you could barely even move around the house without him making himself known to you in some way. he may have been relatively quiet, but you always saw him at least a few times a day, and both of you being distracted with school really took a toll on you both. he was always right by your side, but you had the tendency to be just as needy, so you never had a problem with it. the more you thought back on all the tell tale signs, the more you realized that this outcome probably would have been the end result to your friendship anyway.

“how about everyday?” he asked, head perching up at the suggestion. his eyes were big and hopeful, and you had to clench around him to make his expression change before your heart tried to explode. “is that a yes?”

with a small hum you placed your lips right next to his ear. “why don’t you make me come first, then we’ll talk.”

and come you did.

it took all of 10 seconds before kazutora was picking you apart; legs raised and placed against his shoulders, body folded in half, while his fingers placed themselves in the crooks between yours.

you were barely conscious by that point, eyes blurry and your body shaking from the intensity of his thrusts. you could barely breath, short hics resonating from your throat before being masked by kazu’s lips. you felt like you would die at any moment, yet you were convinced that this was the closest to heaven you’d ever get.

you could feel the heat rising in your stomach, eyes locking with his as you squeezed the hand that was occupying your own.

“m’gonna come…” you slurred, short breaths taking over your body as your brain short circuited. “gonna come, gonna come!!”

your back arched off the bed the best it could as every nerve in your body was set on fire, tingles shooting through your spine and running down to the tips of your toes. you clenched around him, nearly suffocating his cock as he worked you through your high. his pace never slowed as his own orgasm took him by surprise, a quick grunt slipping through as he pulled away.

you didn’t hesitate to wrap your free hand against his shaft, jerking the tip until his body was trembling in your grip. his eyes immediately crossed, breathy moans becoming more frantic before stopping instantaneously. “wait…wait, wait–”

“fucking– shit! ohmygod…” his body froze as his release stained your stomach, his body jerking with every inch of the thick, white stream. you stroked him through it until his hips were running away from your touch, the long anticipated orgasm he was searching for finally flooding through him. he tucked his head into your neck once more, his words being muffled by the surface of your skin as he searched for your warmth. “oh my- ughhh fuck me.”

your eyes slipped shut as your body sank into the sheets, your legs slipping from kazutora’s shoulders and onto the sides of his hips. your best friend slumped beside you, body plopping onto the space beside you while his hand never left yours, even for a moment. you could only hear the sounds of both your heavy breathing, attempting to catch your breaths as the heat of the moment started to wear off.

the silence was broken when kazutora let out a soft hum, body leaning into yours too seek your warmth. when you nuzzled into his touch, you laughed to yourself when you heard him mutter into your ear. “so, what was that about doing this more often?”

don’t plagiarize! it’s not nice <3

©️ theanimeroom

[mrsportgas]

The Neighbor. CHAPTER 1

Summary: The story takes place in the real world. Shanks, your unbearable neighbor, makes you a proposition that you're unsure whether to reject. It could be the start of a friendship, or maybe something more?

SHANKS X YOU

WARNING: Except for the first chapter, the rest will contain scenes of sex and violence, making this fanfic strictly +18.

Nami and I had just arrived. It was Sunday, and people were out and about, either running errands, taking a stroll, or simply enjoying the last hours of the day before the week began again. The neighborhood was lively. As I looked out the window, I could see children playing in the park, adults walking their dogs, and others jogging, all going about their lives calmly. Nami parked the car in the driveway, and to the right, a huge Range Rover took up the entire parking spot. The semi-detached houses, split two by two, practically forced you to share the parking and almost the garden with the next-door neighbor.

"Hurry up, Y/N! Let's grab the stuff and go in, they’ve been waiting for us at the bar for hours," Nami said, slightly out of breath.

I laughed at her nervousness, got out of the car, and grabbed the things from the trunk, following my friend.

It had been a year since I finished college, and now Nami and I were starting our PhDs at the same university. So, we had returned to the town where the university was located, but this time, we rented a house in the suburbs. We felt too old to go back to the sorority and wanted some peace and quiet.

We had made plans to meet our friends from college. Some, like us, had started their PhDs, others had stayed working in the city, and Luffy was still in his final year.

"Let’s just drop the stuff at the entrance and go. They’re going to kill us, we’re so late," I said, hoping Nami would relax a bit.

We finished unloading everything from the car and headed to the bar. We chose a bar close to our new house so we could get to know the local spots better, although it was likely we’d end up partying at our place more than once.

We entered the bar, where Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, Usopp, and Robin were already quite lively.

"Guys!!!" Nami shouted, completely unaware that she was drawing everyone’s attention in the bar.

Everyone greeted us enthusiastically. It had been months since I had seen them, so we spent a long time saying hello. We started catching up, each of us updating the group on what we’d been up to. Meanwhile, Zoro drank at lightning speed, seemingly unaffected, and Luffy ate quickly, as usual.

"Y/N, don’t you want something to drink? Come on, it’s on me," said Sanji, guiding me to the bar without waiting for an answer.

The bar was packed with all kinds of people, though the bar itself was clear, except for a group of men. I made eye contact with one of them, who was chatting with two women, and then turned his gaze towards our group.

"Luffy!!!" the man shouted.

Luffy turned around, and a huge smile appeared on his face. He ran over, hugging the man, practically plowing through the bar like a bull in a china shop. I’d say he almost knocked over those women. "Shanks!!!!!!!"

The two of them started chatting animatedly.

"Y/N, I got this for you," Sanji said, snapping me out of my daze.

I wasn’t sure what he had ordered, but I trusted his taste in food and drinks, so I grabbed the glass and returned to the table.

The night flew by, with everyone drinking and chatting excitedly.

"Luffy, who was that guy?" Nami asked.

"He’s not that guy. It’s Shanks, he’s a friend of mine," Luffy responded, laughing.

"You have the weirdest friends," Nami repeated, and we all burst out laughing.

"Nami, we should probably head out, or we won’t be able to get up tomorrow," I suggested.

Nami nodded, and we all got up to leave.

"I’ll walk you home, girls, and you too, Robin," Sanji said, trying to wrap his arms around us.

"We’re fine, Sanji. You’d better walk Robin so she’s not alone," Nami said, dismissing Sanji’s offer.

Nami and I got back home and agreed to clean up the next day since we still had a week before our PhD program started.

I put on my pajamas and climbed into bed, ready to fall asleep, when I heard noises outside. My window faced the front yard and several windows of the neighboring house, so every time someone passed by, I could hear them. I just prayed they weren’t a family with loud kids. I took advantage of the night to look out the window without being seen and finally see who our new neighbors were.

The man from the bar, Luffy’s friend, was walking with the two women he had been talking to. All three were clearly drunk, stumbling across the parking lot while the women complimented the man’s car, and he showed off, flirting with both of them.

"Nami!!!!!!!" I ran to her room, hoping she wasn’t asleep yet.

"Y/N?!?! Are you okay? What’s going on?" Nami responded, clearly disoriented.

"Come quickly, our neighbor is outside. You won’t believe who it is."

We both rushed back to my room like the nosy people we were, hiding as best we could behind the curtains, watching the whole scene.

"That old guy is our neighbor? Great. Looks like we’ll have some good entertainment," Nami said.

I burst out laughing. "He’s not that old, and if he’s Luffy’s friend, I’m sure he’s cool."

"Or a total weirdo… Looks like he’s gone inside. Well, I’m off to bed. If you find out anything else, let me know tomorrow," Nami said with a mischievous smile as she left my room.

She closed the door, and I turned around, just in time to notice that right in the window across from mine, our dear neighbor—shirtless—was laughing and chatting with the women in what appeared to be the master bedroom. Suddenly, he looked out the window, his gaze meeting mine, as I stood in the middle of my window, completely visible.

Our eyes locked, and a huge smile spread across his face. My heart started racing, pounding in my chest. I quickly closed the curtains, my face flushed and burning. I jumped into bed, hiding under the covers. As I calmed down, the image of his muscular body kept popping into my mind. He might be older, but it was clear he was hot.

The next morning, Nami and I unpacked all our belongings and carefully organized everything.

"Why don’t we invite all our friends from the city tonight? It’ll be fun," Nami suggested with a mischievous tone.

"Alright, just hope nothing gets broken, or the landlord will kill us."

We began calling and messaging all our friends and then started setting everything up. We dressed in our favorite outfits, and Nami did her favorite hairstyle on me. "This is the one that looks best on you. You look gorgeous!" she said every time she styled my hair like this.

The night came quickly, along with the guests. We greeted old friends and acquaintances. The party was in full swing. Zoro and Nami were competing to see who could drink the most without passing out, Usopp and Robin were playing beer pong with a few others, while Luffy ate as much as he could. Sanji was busy making drinks for anyone who asked.

"Could you make me a piña colada?" I asked as I approached the table where Sanji was mixing various drinks.

"For you, anything," he replied, winking.

Suddenly, a loud noise interrupted us. The doorbell rang sharply, and Nami rushed to open the door.

Behind it stood our neighbor, clearly fed up.

"What, did you come to join the party, old man?" Nami teased.

"It’s Monday. I have work tomorrow. Could you at least turn the music down?" Shanks replied, ignoring Nami’s comment.

"Oh yeah? You had your little party yesterday, now it’s our turn. Buzz off, old buzzkill," Nami said, slamming the door in his face. "Let’s keep the party going!"

"Nami, what are you doing? We could get in trouble. We just got here," I said, running to open the door again.

The man was still there, his hand on the doorbell, ready to ring again. His surprised expression gave away that he hadn’t expected anyone to open the door.

"I’m calling the police if you don’t turn down the volume. If I don’t do it, another neighbor will. Do you realize people have work tomorrow?" he reprimanded us.

"Please don’t call the police. I’ll turn the music down, and if that’s not enough, we’ll end the party. But please, don’t call."

"You have 10 minutes, or I will," he responded coldly.

I didn’t like his tone at all. I had tried to apologize, and he was still being rude.

"Fine, then I’ll call the police and tell them how you were staring into my room yesterday, you freak," I said, slamming the door in his face.

Nami, who was still behind me watching the whole scene, burst out laughing. "It's been a while since you showed your sassy side, it was about time!"

We both laughed at the situation. "We got stuck with the annoying neighbor."

I headed back towards Sanji, but just before I got there, someone grabbed my arm.

"Where are you going in such a hurry, gorgeous?"

I turned, pulling my arm away forcefully from the person’s grip. Kid—my ex—his voice was unmistakable.

A year ago, right after we graduated from college, our relationship was at its worst. It was the most toxic relationship I’d ever had, and taking advantage of the fact that I was moving back to my hometown, I left him, thinking I’d never hear from him again.

"What are you doing here?"

"I was invited, though I didn't get an invite from you. Guess it got lost on the way," he replied with a smug look.

I responded with a disgusted face, hoping he’d take the hint and leave.

"You know? I haven’t stopped thinking about you, not for a single day. Honestly, I only came tonight because I know we’re getting back together."

I threw a desperate glance in Sanji’s direction, and he immediately understood my non-verbal cues.

"Leave," Sanji said, approaching us.

"This doesn’t concern you, cook," Kid responded, clearly challenging him. "Get out of my sight."

"I said leave. Y/N doesn’t want to talk to you," Sanji replied, unfazed.

Kid got in Sanji's face, pushing him slightly while repeating, "You want a fight?" over and over.

Luffy and Zoro appeared from the nearby rooms, grabbing Kid and throwing him out through the front door.

"It’s best if you all leave," I said, my voice breaking.

I was overwhelmed and scared. The fact that Kid was back in town, knew I was here too, and even where I lived, made me anxious.

People quickly left the house after the scene. Nami turned off the music and started cleaning up the mess on the floor. I just stood there trembling.

"Don’t worry," Nami said while hugging me. "If he bothers you, the guys will take care of him. Nothing’s going to happen."

The rest of the week passed normally. We both started our PhDs, so we were so busy with work and tasks around the new house that the days flew by. Occasionally, we’d run into our dear neighbor, whom we awkwardly greeted—well, Nami did; I just ignored him. After our encounter, I didn’t even want to see him.

"He’s just an old freak, forget about him, Y/N," Nami said after hearing that I’d bumped into him by the window and that he’d waved at me. "I’m sure he’s waiting by the window for you to look out," she added with a laugh.

"Ughh, I don’t even want to think about it."

It was Friday morning. We’d been here for almost a week, and the sun had been shining every day except today, when it was pouring rain non-stop. That night, we had plans to meet at the bar right after class or work, so I wore a skirt, my best top, a cute sweater, and high boots.

The day went by normally, except for the constant rain. As I left, I headed to the bus stop. A huge Range Rover passed by, splashing through a puddle, soaking me from head to toe and ruining my outfit. Now I had no choice but to go home to change. "Damn idiot," I thought. I got on the bus, completely drenched, and shortly after, I got off, realizing I’d left my umbrella at the stop. I ran as fast as I could to the front door, which left me soaked to the bone.

To make matters worse, I couldn’t find my house keys, and Nami wasn’t home. I called her three times and sent her a ton of messages, but nothing—she didn’t answer. After 20 minutes, my wet clothes started to chill me to the bone, and I began to shiver from the cold. Nami still seemed oblivious, so I decided to text our group chat, but no one responded.

"What happened to you? Can’t get into the house?" My annoying neighbor was getting out of his Range Rover, holding grocery bags in one hand and an umbrella in the other.

"Yeah, I forgot my keys, and if you don’t mind, I’m going to keep trying to call my friend."

"You’re going to freeze. Want to come inside while you wait?" Shanks suggested, with a little smirk on his face.

NEXT CHAPTER

[beatrice-otter]

I really like John Scalzi's analysis of the whole wtfery of this. (I'm not a great fan of his books, I think he's really overrated as a novelist, but his political commentary and commentary on the SF/F world is interesting.)

I think he has a good point about how while the initial panic about his bad performance at the debate was genuine (and if he'd done better, he'd never have withdrawn), but also that once there was panic, he decided how to manage things to maximize Harris' chances at both getting the nomination and winning the election.

Consider that the announcement was made on the Sunday after the Republican National Convention, and after the Sunday morning political talk shows were put to bed, i.e., after the GOP political capital was spent slagging Biden, and when professional spinners would be caught flat-footed by the announcement. Biden’s news was quickly followed by his endorsement of Kamala Harris, which in turn was followed by a flood of endorsements for Harris across the Democratic political firmament, effectively slamming the door on any serious challenge to Harris at the upcoming Democratic National Convention. If you think something like that just happens spontaneously, well, one, bless your heart, and two, you’re wrong. This was a work, a rope-a-dope, and a strategy to energize the Democratic base and to toss what little momentum the GOP had coming out of their convention down a deep, dark hole. And it worked! Harris raised an huge amount of money for her campaign in its first day — $49 million at least, and I’ve heard up to $70 million — and the GOP messaging was in disarray, limited largely to Trump whining on Truth Social, Stephen Miller freaking out on Fox News, and Mike Johnson trying to suggest that the Democrats can’t do that, it isn’t fair. Which is just what the Democrats wanted out of this. ... The current iteration of the GOP has been mask-off racist and sexist for some time, and Donald Trump sets the tone for the party on this score. Be expecting the whole array of nonsense from them, from dog whistles to flat out racist and sexist shit, said out loud, and also all over the former Twitter by Trump’s pet fascists and/or Russian bots. I guarantee you it will be nothing Kamala Harris has not heard before, but you might see a couple of new ones. The GOP outsourced their policy making to The Heritage Foundation with its Project 2025, which is already deeply unpopular, probably because it’s terrible for anyone who is not already a billionaire cryptofascist with a cross fetish. The GOP can’t go after Harris on policy grounds, and Trump doesn’t do policy anyway. So expect endless variations of she’s an uppity black woman for the next several months. ... Also, Biden has manifestly changed the narrative around both himself and his presidency. I didn’t want him to stop running for re-election, but choosing to do so allows for a “country over self” positioning that’s a hugely effective contrast to Trump’s “I’m running to avoid prison and to get revenge” narrative. It also allows a fresh reframing of the Biden administration’s achievements and accomplishments, and positions Harris to say she will continue them. Biden can lean into the whole “Grandpa Joe” thing now, and have it seen as a positive rather than a negative. ... To put it another way, after eight years, we know what the hard cap is on Trump’s support. We don’t know what the cap is yet for Harris’ support. History does suggest that cap is higher than Trump’s.

[darlingshane]

Salt of the Earth ~ Part 2

Pairing: Michael Berzatto x OFC

Summary: She was Carmy's best friend growing up, and Michael never looked at her as anything other than that until years later when she comes back to Chicago to start over. In the process, she turns his sorry excuse of a life upside down.

Content/Warnings: 18+. Explicit, Friends to lovers, Fluff, Heavy Angst, Smut, HJ, Fingering, P in V, Family Drama, Dysfunctional relationships, Addiction, Alcohol, Hangover, Pets, Pet names, Dialogue heavy, Undisclosed age gap.

Word Count: 7.5k // Chapters 5-7 // AO3 Link.

— Part 1 (Chapters 1-4)

Chapter 5: Eat Humble Pie

One more mistake turns into a lesson learned for Maya.

She climbs into her car before breaking in front of him and drives back home after the party to dwell in her misery.

It was silly of her to make herself available for someone who doesn't take her seriously half of the time. She should have seen it earlier that he's just an asshole, but being blindsided by guys like him is one of her many flaws.

Against her better judgment, she put herself out there for the first time in a long time. He knew that was a huge step for her, and he just had the nerve to dismiss her feelings.

She's not the one to play games with. If Michael can admit that there's something between them, then she's not going to invest more time on this or push for something he doesn't want. Maybe she’s being a little arrogant, it wouldn't be the first time someone told her that, but this wasn’t a one-sided thing. He’s been definitely reeling her in just as much. She felt that every morning she went into the beef before work, every time they went out for drinks, every time he came over, every call, every text… He initiated a lot of those. Who does he think he is to make her feel like she's crazy? Like she made that up in her head? It could be possible, she tries to internalize. Perhaps she latched onto Michael so desperately because he was the only person that made her feel welcomed. It was strange for a long time being back in Chicago and being with him felt like being home.

Her mind jumps back and forth, trying to find a logical explanation. She doesn't find any, but she's sure he has his reasons.

Trying to forget all that and more, it’s not easy.

A week after his birthday, there’s still a part of her that keeps holding onto all those moments and memories they’ve made together. From painting her room, to the day she took care of him when he got his wisdom teeth removed. To all the many nicknames he gave her. And that time, he dog-sat for Coco when Maya went out of town for a couple of days. He’d just sent pics and videos of them playing, so she wouldn’t worry. It’s still fresh in her memory the day he invited her to his Sunday Braciole tradition. They weren’t as frequent as they used to be since Carmy left, but at least two Sundays a month they got together to cook and eat, and just have a good time with friends and family. For the past two months, she never missed one of those Sundays, but it was a hard pass this week. She got a text from Natalie asking if she was okay, that they missed her and Coco, but she was far from okay. Maya just replied with some bullshit about coming down with something.

Many times she’s found herself wanting to pick up the phone and call him as she used to. She willingly had to fight that need every day until it disappeared.

One evening, when she comes home after work, pulling up on the driveway, she spots Michael sitting on her front stoop, having a smoke under the light of the porch. It’s dark and cold and the last thing she wants to do right now is face him, but there’s no way around it.

“Hey,” She mutters, walking up to the door as he puts out his cigarette and stands up.

“Hey, can we talk?” His breath manifests in the air, as he exhales that last puff he took.

“Depends on what you have to say,” Maya crosses her arms against her chest.

“Just wanted to say I’m sorry for being an asshole the other night. I never got to say thank you for the party. That was really nice of you.”

“That's fine, Michael. I'm over it. I got the message,” she says dryly.

“This isn't as easy as you think it is.”

“I think it is. Either you want me or you don't. But you can't string someone along for months, and then make them feel like shit for wanting something more. It's fucked up.”

“Yeah, I agree it's fucked up. I'm… fucked up.”

“I'd say.”

“Hey, you're no picnic either, sweetheart.”

“You're right, I'm not. But at least I'm honest about it. I admit that I can be a little intense and inconsiderate, but I don't try to hide it. You on the other hand hide behind layers and layers of fake smiles and charms and bullshit stories, cause if people were to look closer, they'd see the real Michael. The one that I see.”

“You're also unbelievably obnoxious, did you know that? You don't know shit about me.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“Have you even considered my part in all this, huh? You're Carmy's best friend. I knew you as a kid. How am I supposed to look him in the eye when he comes back in a few weeks and say – hey, by the way, I've been seeing Maya… Your Maya. What do you think he’s going to say? He's gonna hate the both of us.”

It's good to know he's considered all those things that didn't cross her mind. Yes, it'd hurt her to know that Carmy could potentially be affected by this. She wouldn't want that either, but no matter what, someone is getting hurt here.

“Well, I haven't thought about it that way, but I was never his to begin with. I’m my own person. I get to decide who I want. Not you, not him, not anyone. And even if something happened between you and me, it’s not like I’d rub it on his face.”

“Maya… You don't understand. You were everything to him.”

“Were. You’ve just said it. It's been a long time since high school, do you really believe that he's still hung up on me?”

“What if he is? What if you two were meant to be together?”

“Saying that out loud over and over won't make it come true. This isn't a fairy tale. And you should know that I haven't really talked to him, not one real conversation, since last year. Last time I heard from him was a text telling me he got the job at Noma. I said hey, congratulations, I'm proud of you… And he never spoke to me again. Told him I was moving back here, and crickets. And you know what? I still love him cause he's Carmy, but I'm not in love with him. I wish it was that easy. It'd be great if people could fall in love with the person they were supposed to be with. But it doesn't work that way, Michael.”

“Look, I know it's hard to understand, but I'm not the right guy for you. I'll never be. I thought we could be friends, but I can tell that's not enough for you, is it?”

“No, it isn't. If you feel that way, you should just go. It’s cold. I’m tired. And I should…” Defeated, she vaguely gestures at the front door before climbing the porch's steps.

“It hurts for me too, you know?” He mumbles as she unlocks the door.

“How’s that my problem?” She scoffs, incredulous at the gall he has of driving up there just to cause her more grief, and guilt-trip her. At least that is how it seems right now to her. “You’re the one that is too scared to feel anything real. I told you how I feel. I kissed you, for Christ’s sake! Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?”

“Maybe if you had stayed away from me, this would have never happened.”

“Are fucking serious right now?” she glances over her shoulder, letting her blood instantly come to a boiling point. “You gonna put this on me? This is just as much of your fault as it is mine. You knew that I was having a hard time adjusting, that I missed my friends, that I couldn't even turn to my family, and you took advantage of that. Go fuck yourself, Michael! Take your damn pills and go get high like you do every night to forget you're a fucking loser!”

Maya doesn't give him a chance to respond. She slams the door shut, turns on the light, and closes her eyes for a second as Coco comes out of her room to welcome her. The dog whines, happily wagging her tail, circling around Maya's boots.

Leaning down to pet her dog, she places her bag down on the floor. Coco lowers her ears as Maya holds her head and scratches her head.

“I'm so sorry I yelled, baby. C’mere,” she hugs her neck tight, taking some extra comfort from her pup cuddles and kisses for a moment until they both hear a shy knock on the door.

Hoping he’d just leave, she closes her eyes again and ignores it.

It’s worthless.

He knocks twice again.

And again.

“Maya? Open the door… Please. I’m… I’m sorry. You’re right, I’m a fucking loser. Let me try again… Please, I didn’t mean…”

“What do you say, should we open?” She asks Coco as she tilts her head to the door.

“Maybird. Mayhem. Can you hear me? Maya Papaya?”

It’s crazy to even consider going for round two, but she’s like a moth to a flame, unable to escape the appeal of that alluring heat.

Drawing a fortifying breath, she stands up and hesitantly unlocks the door.

“I thought I told you to stop calling me that.”

“I'm a lost cause. Can I come in?”

“Are you going to behave?”

“I promise.”

She lets him set foot inside to be warmly welcomed by Coco hoisting her front paws up to his chest, wagging her tail, sticking her head out to lick his face.

“Hey, Coco girl. Have you missed me?” He pets her fondly.

“Coco, get down. He doesn't deserve kisses right now,” Maya sighs, gesturing at the dog, and she begrudgingly obeys, getting down and finding her bed in the corner of the living room. “Okay, say what you gotta say? You have one minute.”

“That's not a lot.”

“You're wasting time.”

“Straight up. Alright… I came here to apologize, and I blew it cause you're right I'm a loser. I uh… I thought that by pushing you away was doing you a favor, but I can see now that's not how it works.”

“No, it doesn't,” Maya says firmly.

“Truth is that I don't know what I’m doing… I thought that if I came here and gave you some closure, we could just move on. But I'm looking at you right now, and I don't think I'll be able to do that. It'll be pretty hard to forget about you after everything…”

“Stop trying to sabotage yourself. Live a little. Isn't that what you told me that day when you helped me unpack? Why don't you take that advice for yourself?”

“Because I'm a piece of shit and I don't deserve you.”

“That's not true.”

“It is. You said outside… For the longest time I've been pretending to be something I'm not, that I'm not sure who I am anymore. I thought you fell for that version of me that isn't real. But you didn't, you saw through all my bullshit, and you fell for me anyway… Why?”

“Why? Because I'm probably out of my mind.” She can't help but scoff a little. “I keep falling for all the wrong guys. But believe it or not, you're not the worst I’ve dealt with, Michael. You're not perfect. Nobody is. You say you’re pretending you’re something you’re not… that must be exhausting. I can see it's catching up with you already…”

“It is exhausting.”

“So stop doing that.”

“It's not that simple. I'm not you.”

“The best things in life are hardly simple, hon. It'll hurt like a motherfucker to undo all the damage, but once you make it to the other side, it'll be worth it. I've been there. I’m not perfect, either.”

“I think you're pretty perfect to be honest.”

“I've done plenty of shit that says otherwise.”

“Yeah, but you admit it. You're not afraid of putting it out there, even if people don't like it. That takes guts.”

“Well, I've realized that you can't please everyone all the time.”

“You should have been a shrink, you know that?”

“No, I'm not very patient with people. That's why I work with animals, remember?”

“You've been with me. It's been over a minute, and you haven't thrown me out yet.”

“Cause I'm a sucker. And beyond all reason, I believe everything you've just said.”

“So, what do we do now?”

“You're asking me?”

“Yeah, you're the one with all the insight.”

“Whatever happens now it's up to you, Michael. I’ve already forgiven you. You say you don’t wanna be with me but refuse to leave, and come in here for an encore. What did you expect from me?”

“I guess I keep hoping you’d change your mind about me. It’d be easier to leave if you hated me.”

“Do you want me to lie to you and say that I despise you?”

“No, unless you do.”

“Well, prepare to stay here all night, cause as much as I want to, I'd never hate you. So, it's just a matter of, do you wanna stay or go?”

He takes a deep breath and surrenders, “I… I think I wanna stay. If that’s okay.”

“That’s okay,” she exhales softly, echoing his words.

Neither of them are sure how to go on from there.

They’ve said so much, and yet there is still so much left unsaid. But the fact that he’s stopped letting that inner turmoil of shame and guilt keep him from her is a big step in the right direction. It grounds him, and gives him some peace of mind knowing that she’s looked him in the eye, and said — yes, I know everything about you, and I still want you.

Maya accepts who he is with an open heart, mind, and arms. She doesn’t seem fazed by it because she’s the most powerful force he’s ever encountered. He’s finally willing to give into what was meant to happen all along. He's tired of fighting himself. And if someone like her can find something redeeming about him, maybe he can try to be better for her.

“Can I…” hesitant, he takes a step closer. “Can I kiss you?”

“Only if you want to.”

“I wanna,” he barely mumbles below the sound of a breath. “I shouldn't have pulled away the other night. I understand if you-”

“Shh, just kiss me,” Maya's cuts him out. “Don't overthink it, Berzatto.”

“Okay.”

Drawing a shy smile, his head leans forward, as one of his hands cup her jaw.

“God, forgive me. You're so beautiful, Maybird,” he utters an inch away from her lips before sealing them shut.

This time, he closes his eyes, quiets the voices in his head, the ones that tell him he doesn't deserve her. In between the cracks of the walls he's put up, something else emerges. The relentless desire that comes with the same force of a waterfall. He lets it take the wheel as he savors the thrill that are her plump lips. Tenderly she kisses him back. Links her hands to his neck, begging him to keep kissing her, to consume her, to take her last breath. And he does. He delves deeper. Sends his tongue to soothe that aching that made a home in his chest. He's never felt his heart beat louder than now. It's like he's been dead for years, and she's bringing him alive kiss after kiss after kiss after kiss…

Chapter 6: Life is a bowl of cherries

Like most things in his life, Michael has a tendency to sabotage his relationships right before things start to get serious. He never follows through, a lot of people would agree. Perhaps, it isn't as much of a tendency but a result from his dependency to something else entirely.

The commitment to his work, the pressure to provide for his family has driven him to a very dangerous path. It’s never been more clear as it is now. His eyes are wide open. Forcefully. And for the first time ever, he’s willing to admit he has a problem that he can’t solve on his own.

It’s way past time to face the music, and he’s scared shitless to put that into words. Once the truth comes out, everyone will know how much of a failure he is.

He and Maya still haven't tackled that issue. She's not oblivious to it. She's the first one who saw that something wasn't right. She called him out on it and felt like a dagger laced in shame poked into his heart. Like most addicts, he never thought anyone would notice, he believed he was going so careful. But Maya Silva is not just anyone. She's insightful as she is sharp. She could spot his bullshit from miles away if she wanted to.

Having someone putting that into words was probably one of the hardest truths he had to hear about himself. He didn't realize it was getting out of hand until she verbalized that. They didn't touch it beyond that. While she's not a stranger to challenges, this is out of her depth. As much as it is for him.

While he got rid of a handful of demons, there are still hundreds that haunt him. They make all his fears come true the day after their kiss…

In an attempt to make a better man out of himself for her by breaking the habit, he tries to go just one day without the comfort of reaching to his hidden stash. He manages to go a few hours in the morning without it, but eventually, it becomes harder to go through the day to stay sober. He takes a lower dose, which is an achievement on its own, but it only shows how much he was relying on that.

Michael desperately wants to follow through for once, and makes the executive decision of not using while he’s with her. He’s aware that trading one addiction for another is not the best way to deal with it, but when they're together, it's easy to forget and ignore all those demons making noise in his head. It's when he's alone that he feels that devious hand trying to pull him into the dark well of desperation that his name carved on the walls.

At this moment, there's another different hand, a cold one, holding his own as they walk between rows of Christmas trees while Maya surveys each of them to choose one to bring home.

It’s the first week of December. They’ve easily slipped back to hanging out as much as they used to. And officially, they’ve been out a handful of times since that night he showed up at her door. They've been talking a lot and taking it slow, which feels nice for a change. Sometimes he wishes he could rush through all this part to see what the future holds for them. Thinking about the future in general has always been scary. However, thinking about a future with her gives him just a sliver of hope that things will get better.

Lacing his fingers with hers, he captures the glimpse of a smile as she keeps hauling his ass deeper into the tree farm. They had driven here, an hour out of the city, so she could cut her own tree, cause she read it was better for the environment. There’s no more fight left in him to chase away this overwhelming warmth, and new kind of love that envelops him. If she’d ask him to fly up to Mars, he’d do it.

His other hand is occupied by the end of Coco's leash that walks by his other side. The dog stops as Maya comes to halt to point at the chosen tree.

“This one.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. This one will fit perfectly in the living room without taking too much space.”

“Alright. Let’s haul it out.”

With the help of a saw they carefully cut the trunk at the base and then, aided by one of the farmers, then sleeve it in a net and load it into the truck.

It's a nice drive with his two favorite girls. Coco sits between Maya's feet and props her head on her thigh while she's pampered with lots of caresses and ear scratches. The dog quickly falls asleep like a baby and doesn't open her eyes until the truck has pulled up on the driveway.

They bring Coco inside, unload the tree, and put it on the stand. As Michael busies himself whipping out something for dinner, Maya brings the decorations she bought earlier and starts hanging them on the tree.

It's a pretty damn picture of the two of them, sitting on the couch, sharing food in front of the fire. He wishes he could frame that moment when she glances at him with that vivid glint in her eye that makes his heart melt.

Maya climbs onto his lap after putting the dishes away. Sitting sideways, her head pillows his shoulder, while his arm curls around her waist. One of her hands holds his bearded jaw, having her fingers softly petting his hairs.

“Thanks for helping me today,” she utters, enjoying his embrace and the cozy decorated room.

“Anytime, Maybird,” his palm slides over her legging-covered thigh.

Maya lifts her head and presses her curved lips sweetly on his cheek.

“We should go on a drive sometime again. It was nice.”

“Yeah, it was. Maybe for New Year's.”

“It's a date,” Michael squeezes her knee as her head leans to the side to capture his eyes.

Maya throws one of those disarming smiles that drives completely out of his mind. He holds the back of her head and seizes the temptation of her lips he’s come to know so well in a matter of days. He revels in the way their mouths fit together like two puzzle pieces.

They lose track of time while their tongues swirl slowly to the same cadence, savoring every second of it as if it was the last. Their arms are loosely locked around the other when Maya swifts her position to straddle his thighs instead. Her body dangerously rezones, sitting over his crotch. His adventurous hands travel to her ass, while the lock of their lips remains strong. He can’t help but pull her hips flush against his as the kiss heats up.

They've never gone further than second base until this point. Though they agreed not to rush into anything, tonight might be the day. He wants to. And so does she. But there's still that part of him that's holding him back from crossing that line with her. Maya's special. He's known her for so long, he wouldn't forgive himself from ever hurting her.

“I thought we were taking it slow.” At the most inconvenient moment, he breaks the kiss and takes his hands away from her when his body demands more of her.

“We’re making out… slowly.”

“Not anymore.”

“Do you have a problem with that?” A sly grin flashes across her face as one of her eyebrows arch.

“Don't look at me like that, Maybird.” He throws his head back on the edge of the couch.

“Like what? I’m not doing anything,” she laughs and leans her face closer to his. “Is it that bad to want you? Don’t you want me?”

“Of course I want you, sweetheart.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that doing this with you feels pretty fucking weird.”

“Why?”

“Because I knew you as a kid. You were practically a baby when we met.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said, Bear. First, stop thinking about me as a kid. That's creepy. Second, you aren't much older than me, Mister. And third, do I look like a fucking baby to you now? Or… Do I look like a babe?”

“A babe. Definitely a babe,” he emphasizes, lifting his head and running his tongue across his lips, letting his eyes roam the beautiful curves of her body hugged in a tight t-shirt and a pair of leggings.

“So treat me like a babe. Fuck going slow. Kiss me like you mean it, goddammit! Stake your claim. Grab me. Touch me like the world is about to end and the last thing you wanna do is spend your last dying moments with me.” She demands so passionately, it sends a chill through his body.

He swallows, as his eyes become glossy in lust. Michael grabs her chin to keep her face still. Chasing that desire, he ravages her mouth like he’s never done before. Drinking her in, letting his tongue run wild as his hands go down to grip at the curve of her hips. He unabashedly handles her body to press harder on him, over his growing bulge, that makes her moan into his mouth every time it hits the right spot.

Maya is beyond pleased to have him finally give in to that shared crave that only grows bigger by the second. He grows bigger even quicker once he’s jumped over that line.

Without breaking from his eager kiss, Maya stops moving on his lap and sends her hands to undo the fly of his jeans. Beneath the denim fabric, she can tell how his erection strains, begging to be released by the kindness of her hand. He groans a couple of curses into her mouth when she peels back his underwear.

Maya doesn’t have to look down to know how big he is. Her palm curves around his swollen cock. It fills up both her fists as she stacks one on top of the other. There’s some wetness already that she spreads down to the underside that helps her jerk him off nicely.

Michael loses momentarily his ability to breath and parts from her lips to draw some air. He captures her eyes that hold a darker shade as both of her fists tighten around him. After a moment, he glances at her diligent, handy work that might have him come earlier than he’d want to. Michael hasn’t been touched like this in a long time. At least not with someone he had a connection as deep as this.

“Does it feel good?” Asks Maya with a grin splitting her face, as she shifts on his thighs to straddle just one and rub herself against the toned muscles of his leg.

“So fucking good,” he says under his breath as his head falls back, clutching his fingers to her moving waist. “I… fuck… fuck me… Are you riding my leg?”

“Uh-huh. Do you want me to stop?”

“Hell no. That’s…” his breathing keeps faltering as she picks up the pace. “You getting all wet for me?”

“You have no idea, Bear,” she purrs over his lips.

All his blood flows down to fire consuming his center, letting him dangle from one lousy thread.

“Don't have to hold it. It's okay if you wanna come.”

“It's just… I don't want you to think…”

“Shh. There's nothing to prove. Just close your eyes, and relax. Let me give this to you.”

Following her guidance, his mind clears completely as he closes his eyes and stops clenching every muscle of his body to let her bring him to ecstasy. His hips buck up a few times. And in just a few more pumps, his cock twitches in her hold before covering her hands in the warm spill of his orgasm.

Maya’s hips come to a halt. She tenderly kisses his exposed Adam's apple without letting go of his hardness that still throbs for a moment as the orgasm ebbs. Then she wipes her hands on her leggings while his mouth finds hers. He presses a couple of soft kisses at the corner of her mouth as his breathing recovers.

Michael cradles the back of her head and pulls it down to his shoulder. He plays with her hair, while she listens to his heartbeat as it evens.

“I’m gonna make it up to you,” he says under a breath.

“You don’t gotta.”

“I wanna. Just need a sec.”

“Okay.” She smiles to herself, hugging his chest as he descends from his high.

Once his strength returns, he’s seizing her lips again at a gentle pace. His tongue swims in that endless well of affection she offers freely.

When he's ready, he picks Maya up and carries her to the bedroom to finish what she's started. Clothes are quickly discarded in the dim lit room they both painted together. When he frees her from her leggings and underwear, she's still wet.

He's dumbstruck by the beauty of all her, all bare just for him, laying as the most precious offering.

Smiling bashfully, he props one elbow on the bed, and lies by her side. His fingers gently slide across the surface of her inner thigh. Her skin forms goosebumps beneath his palm as they ascend closer to her groin.

Aiming for that sweet spot between her legs, he locks eyes with her and watches her expression as they land on her folds. Drawing a breath, her chest swells as he tenderly craws circles around her clit. The arousal wrapping around his fingers and the sighted moans he coaxes out of her mouth makes his cock harden again.

“A little harder,” she demands between pants, placing her hand on top of his to show him exactly how hard he can go.

“Like that?”

Maya nods and then holds his bearded jaw with both hands, pulling his face closer to capture his mouth, while his fingers move quicker. She jolts at the sensation of two of them suddenly slipping into her opening. He keeps his thumb steady massaging her clit at the same time. The delicious mixture of movement makes her core thread in a tight knot of pleasure that begs to be untied.

“Michael, baby… I'm almost…” His name has never sounded as good as the way she cries to it the closer she gets to the edge.

“I know, sweetheart. Come for me, beautiful.”

His fingers slip in and out gradually faster until her body is left shuddering by the final impact of that sweet orgasm. The soft fabric of her skin buzzes beneath his palm as she rides that wave of pleasure that takes her to a higher plane. All her muscles seize up for a split second, and then her body becomes jelly.

Inhaling a long breath, Maya turns to the side and curls against him, hugging his torso.

They stay in comfortable silence for a long moment, enjoying the calmness of being wrapped around the other.

Maya kisses his neck softly while his fingers run up and down her spine.

“Did I tell you how beautiful you are like this?” He whispers.

“Yeah, I think you did,” her head tilts up to look at him.

One of his fingers draws her jaw, “I mean, you’ve always been stunning, but I’ve never seen you glow like this. It's like staring into the sun.”

“You're so fucking corny.” She smiles shyly before pressing a chaste kiss to his lips. “You look different, too. More relaxed.”

“The power of orgasm.”

“That must be it. When was the last time you had sex?” She blurts out, and regrets immediately after seeing his eyes slightly widen. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Sweetheart, you can ask me anything now. I mean, we’re both fucking naked. It can’t get more intimate than this.”

“That’s true.”

“To answer your question… the last time I had sex was a few months ago. It wasn’t anything serious. There was this girl in my building, we used to hang out sometimes. And then… then there was you, and I couldn’t…” he doesn’t have to finish for her to grasp the concept that he couldn’t be with anyone else but her.

“Well… If you’re up for it, we could go all the way.”

“I suppose we could. We’ve come this far… Why stop now, right? It’s the end of the world, after all.”

“Right,” she laughs, pressing her lips to his shoulder.

Feeling more energized, she guides him to lay on his back, stretches his arms above his head while she mounts his hips. Leaning over, she nibbles his bottom lip as her ass rotates over his dick, getting it to become hard-rock again with such little friction.

“Are you clean, you know, STI wise?” she mumbles over his mouth.

“That is the sexiest thing anyone has ever asked me.”

“So, are you?”

“I am. You?”

“Clean and safe, if you’re wondering. That’s sexy to me.”

“Bet it is,” he chuckles, grabbing her ass and pressing her harder against his building erection.

She moves like an enchantress, cursing every inch of his body with her charms to use for her pleasure. He welcomes it. He’s never felt this excited in years, and that’s all she is. Her impulsivity, her passion, her vitality… It's the perfect cocktail. She adds all of her to it, doesn’t leave behind an ounce of anything. It’s all or nothing. That’s why he easily falls in love with her more every day. He wants to drink her all in, absorb every drop until she becomes part of him.

When she sinks onto his cock for the first time, he’s mesmerized by the way she looks at him with nothing but radiant warmth and lust. Her hands brace his chest, as she slowly takes him all the way down. It feels like his world spins on its axis as she experiments with her hips. First, waving gently, then when she’s used to being filled with him, she starts bouncing on top of him.

Nothing ever felt more right than having her like this. Her skin melts beneath his palms, and all he wants to do is explore every corner of her body. She throws her head back and moans at the air as her hips go back to rocking back and forth when they get tired.

Michael slings an arm around her waist, pulls her down against his chest, and gingerly swifts her body around to be on top. His thrusts suddenly come sharp and measured, hitting all the right spots within her tender walls, earning a few good cries mixed with his name. He holds one of her breasts in his palm, as he madly makes love to her. He feels her nails scratching roughly along his back as they both swim closer to the edge. There’s a force taking over his hips that pushes him to his limit as if it was a matter of life or death. It is. At this moment, nothing matters more than chasing that ultimate reward. He makes it his life mission. It consumes everything in the room, makes his whole body tremble in ecstasy as he ascends with her closer to that pinnacle.

He doesn’t stop until she’s left breathless with her body shaking underneath him. And this time, he can hold on for just one more second till she comes apart to let go and have all his seed spilled inside her.

This becomes their most memorable night to date. That room becomes their safe haven to explore and love each other in ways they haven’t done before. They disappear into a daze of sleeping, fucking, and repeat. It becomes primordial and sacred. He finds new ways to worship her body. She finds new ways to reach into his soul, carve herself deeper.

Chapter 7: That's the way the cookie crumbles

Michael is sitting on the couch, absentmindedly surfing between channels on Maya's TV when Coco sprints down the staircase, anxiously whining after hearing a string of loud popping sounds outside. The dog hops onto his lap with her tail between her legs. She lowers her head, tucking it beneath his arm, trying to make herself as small as possible. He glances out the window to see a few kids playing with novelty fireworks across the street.

“Are you scared of fireworks, Coco girl?” He pets her head softly. “Shh, It's okay, baby.”

Maya's out tonight with some of her coworkers she's made friends with, and he's decided to stay with Coco. She doesn't need babysitting, but he likes staying here. To be honest, he's been sleeping at Maya's most nights since they started having sex.

He soothes the dog with lots of cuddles and a couple of treats until the kids go back home and the big scaredy-cat pit bull finally stops trembling.

They both doze off for a while, and he's awakened by the ringtone of his phone when Maya calls him to ask to be picked up. She said she had a few drinks and didn't want to drive. So, he takes Coco with him and drives to a bar that is only a few blocks away from his own apartment.

Maya is more wasted than she sounded on the phone. Her friends are only halfway there. He makes sure that all her friends have someone to give them a ride before taking Maya home. Instead of driving back to Oak Park, he decides to take her to his apartment.

It concerns him to see her in this state. She barely mumbles a word, but he can clearly see that there's something going on that she can't bring herself to say. Michael shouldn't judge. God knows how many times he's drowned his sorrows in a bottle, but this doesn't seem like her at all. She was so excited earlier to go out and now there's nothing but sadness plastered all over her face.

Upon their arrival, she vomits everything she had drank earlier and some more. Michael holds her hair and soothes her back while she leans over the toilet until there's nothing more left in her. He dutifully takes care of Maya and brings her some juice to settle her stomach after getting her to lay down on his bed.

In the morning, he quietly slips out of bed, takes Coco out on a walk and feeds her before Maya even wakes up. By the time they return, Maya is already up. She's taken a shower, and now she's just sitting on the couch, wearing one of his shirts, sulking and eating some crackers she found in the kitchen cabinets.

“Morning, sweetheart.” He kisses the top of her head while Coco goes around the couch, wagging her tail, demanding some attention.

“Hey,” Maya greets back, glancing at him while holding the dog's face and kissing her nose. “Was she good last night?”

“Yeah, she's the best.” Michael sits down on the coffee table and pats the dog's spine as she lays down on the floor. “Did you know she's scared of fireworks?”

“Yeah, she's not a fan.”

Maya tucks a knee to her chest, catching Michael's vexed look that creases his brow as he props his elbows on his knees and tensely links his fingers together.

“What?” She asks dryly.

“I didn't say anything.”

“There's clearly something in your mind. I can tell.”

“Of course you do.”

“C'mon. Out with it, Berzatto. What is it?”

“Nothing. I just… I'm worried about you. You didn't seem like yourself last night.”

“Bear, you don’t have to worry about me. I just took a few more shots than I should have.” She shrugs it off with little importance. “But I'm fine… Well, you know, besides the killing headache and the hangover. I shouldn’t have drank that much.”

“Then, why did you?”

“I don't know… Why does anyone drink at all?” She annoyingly deflects.

“You seemed okay when you called. But when I picked you up… You could barely stand.”

“Look, I'm sorry that I called you. I'll think twice next time.”

“It's not that, sweetheart. I loved that you called… I'm just trying to understand what happened.”

“People drink. Big deal. I went out with some friends and had fun. That's it. Why are you grilling me about this? It's a little hypocritical coming from you, don't you think?”

“I'm not grilling you. I'm trying to figure out what happened. It’s obvious you're trying to hide something.”

“Yeah? Tell that to your stash drawer. You wanna lecture me about drinking? Start explaining why you need that many pills.”

“You went through my drawers?”

“I was looking for a shirt.”

“You know what? It doesn't matter, cause we're not talking about me right now.”

“How convenient. You're the one that has a real problem. I was upset last night and I got wasted. The end. I'm not going to drink tonight or tomorrow or the day after that, and probably it won't happen again, cause I know my limits. Do you know yours?” She jabs sharply, meaner than he's ever heard her.

Michael hangs his head down, shame washing all over him, stares at the floor for a long moment before answering.

“I wasn't trying to start a fight or lecture you. I just wanted to know if there was something bothering you– I guess it was just a matter of time before you found… You're right… I'm… I have a problem. But I don't use when I'm with you… I…”

Maya stands up and faces the window. Looking outside, she comes to realize how tactless that was on her part. Tears slip out of the corner of her eye. She never wanted to confront Michael like this. Let alone let her own insecurities get the best of her.

“I'm sorry. I didn’t mean…” She wipes her tears, and picks up the phone from the table.

She unlocks it and presses play and speaker for him to listen to a voice message she received yesterday. In it, the voice of her sister suggests that Maya should consider not attending Christmas dinner to avoid upsetting their mother like the year before. The message goes on about their-sister-in-law being pregnant, about to give birth around the holidays, and that she doesn’t need that added stress to that night, since they’re the ones hosting this year somewhere in bumfuck, Utah. She babbles for a while about how Maya has made her situation even worse for herself when she decided to move back to Chicago and hide it for months; along with a string of excuses that she's heard many times before.

They've always been subtle with their dismissal, saying it was fine if she had other plans. But that call is the first time they've openly asked her to refrain from attending a family function.

“I got it during dinner and I just… I don’t know, it’s like a switch flipped in my head, and I started throwing back shots to forget… I wasn’t trying to hide it. I just didn’t want to talk about it or think about it right now.” She explains, placing the phone, and then paces the length of the living room a couple of times.

“I get it,” Michael sighs and stands up, running his palm over his beard, putting a stop to her feet.

“I’m sorry that I went through your stuff and that I used that against you… I shouldn’t have. That was a low blow.”

“Guess we're both kinda messed up. I wasn't trying to hide it, either. You already know that I'm fucked up. It's just… We've been in this bubble and I wanted to enjoy that for a little longer before having to deal with all that, y'know?”

“I know,” her hand gently cups his bearded jaw. “When you're ready to talk about it… I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. Bubble or not. I… I've never been happier with anyone, Michael. It might be incredibly naive and idealistic of me to say this, but I feel like if we're honest with each other, there's nothing we can't face.”

“I feel that too, Maybird.”

Michael holds that same hand that's placed over his beard and prints a soft kiss on her palm, tickling her skin.

Then, he releases it and perches his hands on her waist as Maya links her arms around his neck.

“What are you going to do with the whole don't come home for Christmas thing?”

“I don't know. Part of me just wanna show up and ruin their night. But I know if I stay, they'll see that they're just as miserable with or without me. They just need someone to blame for their misfortunes, and I’m it.”

“Hey, maybe you could come have dinner with us like you used to.”

“Christmas at the Berzattos? I'm not sure which one is worse.”

“C'mon, they both suck. It's our first Holiday since we started this, it'd be nice to spend it together, don't you think?”

“I guess… I could think about it.”

[johaerys-writes]

Snippet Sunday

@rowanisawriter tagged me earlier this week for a WIP Wednesday but I had nothing to share, so I'm sharing a snippet today instead 😊 I've been working on a flashback which takes place at that fateful New Year's Eve party Antilochus mentions in chapter 2 of baby born blue, not sure if I'll include all of it in the next chapter but this is a small bit of it:

Patroclus is halfway down the stairs when he bumps into Briseis. 

“Where were you?” she demands hotly, her voice just loud enough to be heard over the music. “I’ve been looking all over for you!”

“Oh—sorry, I was just—” Patroclus stumbles over his own words. His face is hot, and he realises he actually never even bothered to come up with a believable excuse should he walk into someone he knows. “I’m tired,” he says finally. “I’m heading home.”

“Really.” Briseis quirks her brow, unconvinced. “And where is Achilles?”

“He’s…” Patroclus swallows thickly. “He—I don’t know, still at the party, probably.”

“You don’t know.” Briseis shakes her head and crosses her arms before her chest. “You’re leaving with him, aren’t you?”

“Brie…" Patroclus starts pleadingly, but doesn’t know how to finish the sentence. It’s not the first time they’ve had this conversation. Just before this party she had made him promise that they’d be leaving together, whether Achilles was there or not. The promise didn’t even cross his mind before Patroclus broke it.

“How many more times are you going to do this to yourself?” Briseis asks when Patroclus doesn’t reply. “For months I’ve watched you pick up your pieces after he left. And now at a wiggle of Achilles’ fingers you’re crawling back to him without a second thought?”

He hates the hopeless, disappointed look she gives him, and he hates himself for giving into all of this once more. But he just can’t help it. The pull is too strong, impossible to fight. No one else could understand it, because no one else shares a bond like he and Achilles do.

 “We won’t do anything,” he lies, only to placate her. “We’ll just talk things over.”

"In the middle of the night? And after everything Achilles has downed?” 

“I just— I need to do this, Brie,” Patroclus says, as if that’s enough to explain any of it. “It’s been a while, and—things might be different this time. He deserves a chance, at least. We both do.”

“Oh, Pat.” She shakes her head again. “Are you lying to me or to yourself?” 

Patroclus just gazes at her helplessly. He doesn’t know what else to say. Briseis sighs. “Did you tell Iphis at least? She probably still thinks you’re on that ‘date’.” 

Patroclus winces slightly at the reminder. Briseis had brought Iphis as his plus one for the party, but he barely managed to spend half an hour with her before Achilles arrived and practically pounced on him. After months of interacting with him only through text messages and video calls, whenever they both had time, having all of Achilles' attention on him all at once was intoxicating, headier than the strongest drug. He could try looking for Iphis now, but the villa is huge and she could be anywhere, and he also hates to leave Achilles alone when he’s in that state.  

He feels like the worst, most selfish person in the world when he asks Briseis, “Can you make up an excuse? Just tell her I got sick or something.” 

Briseis glares at him. “I’m not lying for you again. I’ll tell her the truth: that you left with Achilles to—”

“To take him home, because he got sick. Or something. Please. I’ll owe you.” 

Briseis glares at him for a moment longer, then she shakes her head dejectedly again. “Fine. But I’m doing it for her sake, not yours. She deserves some kind of an explanation.”

“Thanks, Brie, you’re the best,” Patroclus tells her over his shoulder, already hopping down the stairs. 

“Pat.” 

He stops and turns to look at her. She lets out a deep breath, her features growing hard. 

“When you’re with him, you become just like him.” 

The words are like a punch in the gut. Patroclus just stares stupidly at her, until she turns around and walks back to the party.

Tagging forth to @baejax-the-great @in-arlathan @tragediegh @reprrise @hekateinhell @starlightvld @maxdurden @vimlos @darlingpoppet @babyrdie and anyone else who might want to share a little WIP!

[textsfromthetva]

I would have made a post sooner, but I've been too distressed to even talk about this.

Mobius is sick. That's my cat, for the uninitiated. He started throwing up food Thursday night, like, a lot, so we went to the vet on Friday, who concluded he had a fever, but other than that and the nausea, there were no symptoms. So that's an infection, right? No telling where, but he got a shot of anty-nausea meds, a shot of antibiotics, and I got a box of catch-all antibiotics in pill form, and home we went.

Problem is, he kept getting worse. Cats do this thing where, when they feel a bit under the weather, they go 'guess I'll die 🤷‍♂️' and stop eating and drinking, like little drama queens. So you need to keep them from starving themselves to death until medication starts working. Friday night I had to start force feeding him, which in the case of cats means mixing wet food with water, forcing their jaw open, and using a syringe (without a needle, obvs) to squirt food into their mouth, holding their head back to force them to swallow. It's not fun for either party, and for 36 hours I did that every other hour, including throughout the night. But he continued to get worse. He was sluggish and dehydrated. I kept feeding him. No improvement. He was miserable, I was miserable, it was fucking horrible.

Sunday night we went to an emergency vet clinic, because I couldn't handle it any longer, I needed someone to have another look. She concluded that his fever had gone up, despite him being on antibiotics. This is obviously very troubling. She convinced me to pay for some blood work, just the basics, and he's insured, so whatever. I told her the Good Girl died two months ago, from FIP (feline infectious peritonitis). When she came back she looked very grim, and had brought scanning equipment. A ton of stuff was totally fine, but there was one thing, that was alarming. A number that should be over 8 in healthy cats, with 4-8 being troubling, and under 4 being 'that cat probably has FIP' was clocking in at a 3 for Mobius. But his red blood cells were fine and his organ markers were fine, so she did an ultra sound to look for fluids in his abdominal cavity, which is another sign of FIP. There was nothing. She's worried that it's just because we caught it super early.

But, we decided to proceed as if he's got a crazy infection, he got another injection of anti-nausea medication, new antibiotics, some fever-reduction pills, and an appetite stimulant that's a cream you rub on the inside of their ears, so it's absorbed through the skin.

He started perking up a lot. Still wasn't eating though. So this afternoon my mom stopped by with ten different kinds of wet food they had lying around (cat breeder behaviour), and we created a huge buffet on the kitchen floor. All my plates are in play. And eventually he started eating some shredded chicken in jelly. I don't know if you've ever cried from watching a cat eat, but I was fucking sobbing.

At this point, 12 hours later, I've had to refill the plate with that single fucking kind of wet food four times. He's almost halfway through a big can by now!

So I'm choosing to be delulu right now. I'm choosing to believe that those numbers were off because he hadn't eaten. Because he's completely back to normal now, behaviourally, and surely, surely he would not get better like this if he was fatally ill and about to die.

Anyway, if he does die I'm going to break. Just FYI.

[mariacallous]

Lithuania’s Jews and Yiddishists around the world are mourning the passing of Fania Brantsovsky, the last surviving member of the Jewish underground in the Vilna ghetto and a keeper of the flame of the city’s once glorious Yiddish past, who died at the age of 102 on Sunday in Vilnius.

Brantsovsky escaped the ghetto in 1942 and fought against the Nazis and their local collaborators in the Rudninkai forest with a group of Jewish partisans under the command of Abba Kovner. 

In the years after the war, she became a lifelong advocate for the memory of Lithuanian Jewry and their Yiddish language, serving as the librarian and beloved teacher at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute and an ambassador to visitors she brought to view the landmarks, many vanished, of a city that had once been known as the “Jerusalem of Europe” for its rich Jewish culture. 

It was a role that brought her world-wide acclaim and eventually local hostility, when Lithuanian nationalists began to equate her Soviet liberators with the Nazis, and tried to discredit partisans like her who had once considered the Russians their allies.

For all these roles, Brantsovsky was hailed by Yiddishists around the world who consider her death the end of an era.

“She lived so long that she came from a completely different universe than ours, like out of a history book,” Alec “Leyzer” Burko, a Warsaw-based Yiddish teacher, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“We’ve lost the last exemplar of interwar Yiddish Vilna, someone who could impart the spirit of the Yiddishist movement of interwar Vilna and its secular circles. We lost our last active veteran of the Vilna ghetto and the Jewish partisans,” said Dovid Katz, an American-born Yiddishist and co-founder of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute.

“And on a personal level,” he added, “we’ve lost a dear friend whose warmth, enthusiasm, encouragement, and desire to help, show and teach was a huge inspiration.”

Brantsovsky was born Feige Jocheles in 1922, in the then-Lithuanian capital of Kaunas but her family moved to Vilnius, then a part of Poland, when she was just five years old. 

As a young girl, she was active in the rich Jewish life of Vilnius. At the time, Vilnius was home to more than 60,000 Jews and boasted over 100 synagogues, the largest of which had seating for more than 2,000. With a Jewish community that had been flourishing when Napoleon passed through the city in the 18th century, Vilnius was more than just a religious center. It was home to a rich cultural and political scene, all in the Yiddish language. 

While she hailed from a secular family, which Brantsovsky noted kept neither kosher nor Shabbat, she completed her entire traditional education in Yiddish-speaking schools, and as a teenager was active in Jewish political youth movements

That world was shattered in 1941, when Vilnius fell under the control of the Germans and Brantsovsky, along with Vilnius’s tens of thousands of other Jews, were herded into the cramped conditions of the Vilna ghetto. 

From the first days of the Nazi occupation of Lithuania, they began taking Jews from Vilnius to be killed in the nearby Ponar forest. Over 100,000 people would be killed there, including 70,000 Lithuanian Jews and 8,000 Roma, making it the second-largest mass grave in Europe after Babyn Yar in Ukraine.  

“Our life was more of existence, really,” Brantsovsky once described the ghetto in an interview with Centropa, a European Holocaust memorial organization. Every day was a struggle for survival, and one slip-up or turn of fate could mean starvation, or deportation to Ponar.

Brantsovsky recalled hearing of a resistance movement forming in the ghetto and quickly requested to join. 

“The underground organization of the ghetto united all parties and trends such as communists, revisionists, Bund etc. Their common goal was to fight against fascists,” she told Centropa. 

That group would be remembered as the United Partizan Organization, or by its Yiddish initials, FPO. 

The FPO had considered instigating an uprising in the ghetto, as would later take place in Warsaw. After the capture and execution of it’s leader Yitzhak Wittenberg by the Gestapo, the movement’s leadership decided instead to take its fighters out of the ghetto and into the nearby forests where Soviet-backed partisans were harrying the rear and supply lines of the German army. 

Brantsovsky bid farewell to her family and was smuggled out of the ghetto on Sept. 23, 1943. She would later learn that on the same night, the Germans began their final liquidation of the ghetto, killing most of its inhabitants. None of her family would survive the Holocaust.

In the Rudninkai forest, which has been immortalized in partisan literature under its Yiddish name, Der Rudnitzker Vald, she joined up with a partisan unit composed of Jews under the command of Abba Kovner, known as the Nokmim or Avengers.  

In the forest she trained with weapons and explosives and took part in military operations against the Nazi occupation. 

“We blasted trains and placed explosives in the enemy’s equipment. We shot and killed them,” she told Centropa. “Yes, I did, I killed them and did so with ease. I knew that my dear ones were dead and I took my revenge for them and thousands of others with each and every shot.”

In the forest, she also met her future husband Mikhail Brantsovsky. Nearly a year after fleeing the ghetto, Fania returned, rifle in hand, as the Soviet Red Army captured the city. 

Less than a month after returning she and Mikhail married. 

“We were intoxicated by the victory, our youth and love,” she recalled. 

After the war, her commander Abba Kovner would gain fame as one of Israel’s poet laureates, and infamy for an aborted plot to kill 6 million Germans in vengeance for the Holocaust. 

Brantsovsky took part in none of that: She stayed in Vilnius where she and Mikhail built a life together and had two children. 

In the years after the war, it quickly became clear to Brantsovsky that the world of her youth had been lost. 

“There were hardly any Jews left in Vilnius. When I saw older Jews, or they looked old to me considering how young I was, I felt like kneeling before them to kiss their hands.” she once recalled. 

Fania quickly went to work, helping to document what had been lost, and assisted Soviet Jewish writers Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman in the “Black Book of Soviet Jewry,” a 500-page document that recorded the Nazis’ crimes in the occupied regions of the Soviet Union. 

While it was first published in the USSR by Der Emes, the Yiddish-language arm of Pravda, the book would later be suppressed as the Soviet policy towards the Holocaust shifted to present the genocide as solely an atrocity against Soviet citizens, not one that specifically targeted Jews.  

Though Mikhail and Fania had been present and honored in Moscow’s Red Square during the victory parades of 1945, their enthusiasm towards the Soviet regime dulled after experiencing the antisemitism of Stalin’s later years. 

Mikhail passed away in 1985, and Fania retired from her job as a teacher in 1990 just before Lithuania gained its independence. 

In retirement, Fania found a new purpose: In an independent Lithuania, there was renewed interest in recording Vilnius’s Jewish past and studying the Yiddish language of its Jews. 

In the early 1990s, Fania and a group of other survivors, including another former partisan, Rachel Margolis, worked to establish a Holocaust museum in Vilnius known as the Green House. 

In 2001, Katz, a professor of Yiddish who had previously worked at Oxford, relocated to Vilnius and established a Yiddish institute at Vilnius University. 

“When I founded the Vilnius Yiddish Institute in 2001 my first executive act was to hire Fania as librarian and that choice was a success from day one,” Katz told JTA.

Fania, who worked as a teacher much of her adult life, originally trained to do so in Yiddish for students in the city’s Jewish school system. The Nazis shattered that future, but decades later, the Vilnius Yiddish Institute represented a return to her roots. 

“She understood that she was the carrier of so much of the living Yiddish culture of the interwar period, especially its secular Yiddishist incarnation,” Katz explained.  

The Institute lasted for 17 years, until it ultimately closed down in 2018. Every year it ran a summer program attended by students from around the world, and Fania became a fixture of the experience, telling students about the city of her youth, the experience of the ghetto and bringing them out to the remains of her partisan camp in the Rudninkai forest well into her nineties. 

She is remembered fondly by nearly everyone who passed through.

“I feel really blessed to have had an opportunity to work with her,” Indre Joffyte, who helped run the program, told JTA. “Fania’s energy, determination and passion in everything she did was an inspiration to everyone around her. I will always remember her caring nature, our girly conversations, her preparedness to help, and her inner youth despite her age and tragic life experiences.”

In independent Lithuania, Fania became a prominent figure in its Jewish community as well as in diplomatic circles, guiding visiting leaders on tours of the former ghetto and Ponar where so many of her relatives were killed.

But the increased attention also invited trouble. 

In the years since the fall of the Soviet Union, a nationalist narrative arose in the Baltic states that equated the actions of the Soviets with the Nazis.  

Known as the “double genocide” theory, it has been largely rejected by Jewish and western Holocaust institutions, but has become the standard presented in Lithuania and the other Baltic states. 

It resulted in a smear campaign directed against Brantsovsky and other surviving Jewish partisans, such as Margolis and Yitzhak Arad who was the director of Yad Vashem from 1972 to 1993. 

For fighting in units allied with the Soviets, they were accused of being war criminals on the same level as Lithuanians who collaborated with the Nazis. 

“I agree completely with all the anti-Communist pronouncements. What I disagree with is, of course, the equalization of the people who committed the genocide at Auschwitz and the people who liberated Auschwitz. They’re simply not the same.” said Katz.  “As much as one should hate the Stalinist Soviet Union between 1941 and 1945, we were in the American-Anglo-Soviet alliance, and the Soviet Union was the only force fighting Hitler in Eastern Europe. So of course, Fania’s partisan union was aligned with the Soviet partisans in the forest who were fighting.”

For Brantsovsky, the issue came to head in 2008, when Lithuania’s chief prosecutor publicly demanded that she be questioned over her alleged connections to a massacre of Lithuanian civilians during the war. 

Katz believes that the demand was in retaliation for increased pressure from the Simon Wiesenthal Center and other Jewish institutions for Lithuania to investigate its own wartime collaborators.

The charges were dropped that same year, but the incident had a notable effect on Brantsovsky, resulting in her receding somewhat from public life in Lithuania. 

She didn’t stop teaching Yiddish, however, and was active in working with students and guiding tours until her 99th year, when she had a fall on the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

With her passing, another thread connecting Eastern Europe’s Jewish past and rich Yiddish culture has been severed. 

“She was one of the last witnesses of prewar Jewish life in Vilna, a proud graduate of its Yiddish school system where everything from chemistry to Latin and Shakespeare was studied in the Jewish community’s native language,” Jordan Kutzik, a former deputy Yiddish editor at The Forward, said in a memorial post on Facebook.

“After nearly her entire family and cultural milieu were murdered and then her native language suppressed for 50 years, she wasn’t wasting any time in helping to document her city’s history and encouraging others to explore it.”

[radiant-reid]

Easter Sunday

a/n: in honor of my favorite holiday and favorite comfort character

Summary: A cute Easter brunch with the team and some Reid babies

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader (fluff)

Word Count: 3.0k

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The sun shining through the large double windows marks the perfect start to the day. The weather forecast has promised sunshine and higher-the-usual temperatures for the holiday weekend. Emily let the team have a five-day weekend as the BAU tradition has dictated for several years. Hotch originally started it, realizing, three months after Christmas, there was a need for family time. 

For the Reid children, things look different now that their dad is home more. He has always been very present, but now he’s at more practices, doing drop-offs and pick-ups, and reading stories at bedtime. Still, their excitement for Easter has been growing, knowing it means uninterrupted time with all of their uncles and aunts.

“Good morning, gorgeous.” Spencer greets her from the doorway before she notices he’s not in bed next to her.

He hands her the mug she has every day, filled with perfectly made coffee. He’s the expert at that, so it’s his first task in the morning.

“Thank you, handsome.” She replies, adding to the thanks with a soft kiss on his lips. “It looks like a good day out there.” She notes as he draws the curtain open. 

“It’s meant to be in the high 70s later.” He reports, probably having already skimmed the New York Times.

She grins, sipping her coffee. “Perfect for today.”

“We should host one time,” Spencer suggests.

Y/n chuckles softly, shaking her head. “Rossi would never go for it, and I thought you’d know better than to mess with tradition.” 

He nods, knowing it’s true. “We’ll stick to summer barbeques and birthday parties since it’s the perfect house.”

It’s the type of house Spencer never really saw himself living in. Growing up, he lived comfortably, and thanks to the mortgage being paid off before his dad left, he continued living in a very middle-class area of suburban Las Vegas until he went to school. 

California was more expensive, but between his multiple scholarships, he had enough money to feed himself, always be caffeinated, and live in a small apartment near Cal Tech. He didn’t see the need to spend every cent he had living somewhere fancier, and his mom’s treatment wasn’t fully covered, so he paid for that. 

In DC, his place was simple. He didn’t need anything more than a one-bedroom apartment since he didn’t have family coming to stay, and without any student debt and a good-paying job, he had more money than he needed.

When they moved in together, it was to Y/n’s larger apartment that they eventually brought, and with two bedrooms, there was no need for anything huge until Matilda was old enough to sleep in her own room.

After learning they would have twins their second time, their quickly growing family needed much more space, so they brought their dream house. As much as he wanted it, Spencer never expected to have a family or a large home in the suburbs, but he does now, and every morning, he’s grateful for it.

“True.” Y/n agrees. 

Spencer sits back on the bed next to her, and she throws her legs over his lap, wrapping her arms around his waist and nuzzling into his side as they enjoy a few minutes together in silence before the craziness of their day starts. 

Gurgling on the baby monitor breaks the peace, and the video feed shows Mabel standing up and shaking the crib bars. 

“I’ll go.” Spencer declares, shuffling away from her to get out of bed. “And I’ll get the twins changed.”

Y/n raises her eyebrows, looking impressed with what he’s promising to tackle. “Good luck.” She jokes, grinning at him as she also gets out of bed. 

“I’ve got this.” He assures her. “Go shower and get dressed up.” 

She’s not about to argue with it. Having a shower where she doesn’t get interrupted by little hands banging on the door asking for snacks or to change the TV channel would be a rarity. 

Her new dress is perfect for Easter and spring, long and flowy white fabric with a blue floral pattern and a sweetheart neckline. It’ll look even better with some soft curls in her hair.

Spencer’s first stop is Mabel’s room. The door’s sign says her name, and the bedroom has cute flowers painted on the wall above the crib. “Hi, sweet baby.” He coos, reaching out for his youngest. She still wears her sleep sack to bed, and Spencer thinks it’s the cutest thing.

She squeals when she recognizes him, jumping adorably. “Daddy!” She yells in her sleepy voice. 

He scoops her up, wrapping his arms around her and cuddling her tightly to his chest before kissing her forehead. “You know, I think you might be ready for a big girl’s bed soon.” He tells her.

Mabel rests her forehead against his. “Like Tilda?” She asks, eyes sparkling at the mention of her big sister.

“Just like Matilda and the twins, too.” He answers.

She pulls back from him quickly with excitement. “We go see them?”

“Let Daddy put your pretty dress on you first, and then we can see them.” He tells her. “If they’re awake.” 

They are awake, he discovers when he finally finishes dressing Mabel. She runs ahead of Spencer and climbs the stairs without help to find the three of them in the living room.

“Hi, little people,” Spencer says, announcing himself to them. 

They spin around from the TV, jumping up from where they’re sitting and rushing over to hug him. It’s one of his favorite sights when they get excited that their eyes shine upon seeing him, and one of the best feelings is how warm he feels when they race over and fling their arms around him. He has never felt as much love as he does now, yet somehow, it grows more each day.

“Daddy, it’s Easter!” Matilda cheers. 

“I know.” He says. “Happy Easter.”

“Did the Easter bunny come?” Toby wonders. 

Spencer nods. “Grandpa Rossi called to say he’d dropped off lots of chocolate eggs for all of you.” It’s a lie, technically, but it makes their faces light up all over again, so it’s worth it.

“Are the cousins coming?” Aspen wonders. 

“Henry, Michael, Jake, David, Chloe, Lily, Rose, and Hank is as well,” Spencer lists the other BAU kids and former BAU kid, earning another round of cheers from his kids. “We need to get ready, though. Tillie, your dress is hanging in your wardrobe. Want me to help you, Aspen?”

She shakes her head. “No, I can get changed by myself.”

Independent as always, and something he should have anticipated. “Okay, upstairs and into dresses.” He instructs. “Then you can watch TV. T, you want daddy’s help getting ready?”

“Can you put gel in my hair?” Toby asks. “Mommy says that it looks handsome.”

Spencer chuckles at how cute his little boy is. “Sure, bud.” He agrees. “And it does make you look very handsome.”

It’s always a juggle with four kids, trying to get everyone dressed in time to go anywhere. Mabel can’t be left alone, so Spencer has to multitask between keeping her from running away to cause trouble while doing Toby’s hair and ensuring Aspen and Matilda haven’t gotten distracted. 

“Look how handsome you look.” Y/n coos as she peers into the bathroom where Spencer’s finishing off Toby’s hair. 

“Mommy!” He squeals, jumping off the stool and running over to hug her.

She hugs him back, careful not to ruin his hair. “Hey, bubba, did Daddy do your hair really nice?”

“Mhm.” He answers. 

“You want help getting changed?” She offers, met by him shaking his head, following the independent streak of his older sisters. “Alright, get to it, Mister.” She instructs, sending him off to his room with a pat on the back. Spencer’s eyes stay fixed on her as she stands there, and he rests against the bathroom counter. “What?” She asks shyly.

He smiles softly at her. “Nothing.” He shakes his head. “It’s just you’re so pretty. I still can’t believe you’re my wife.”

Then Y/n is grinning dumbly, twirling in her dress for him to get the full 360 view. “I might marry you again if you keep being so sweet.”

“Then I’d be the luckiest guy in the world again.” He tells her, walking over and placing his hands on her waist. He just stands there looking at her, admiring every detail of her makeup.

“Stop.” She says, pushing his shoulder. “I love you, Spencer Reid.”

Spencer steals a kiss, careful not to mess up her pink lipstick. “I love you more, Y/n Reid.” 

She shakes her head. “Impossible, but we should debate that later.” She decides. “We’ve got babies to get ready.”

“Yeah.” Spencer agrees. “It’s been oddly silent for a little too long.” 

Thankfully, the silence wasn’t getting-into-mischief silence. Y/n takes over getting the kids ready while Spencer gets himself dressed, and impressively, they’re done five minutes early.

“How you do this every morning is a miracle to me.” He remarks as they make their way out the door. 

“I’m just a super mom.” She jokes, but it’s the truth.

“You absolutely are.” Spencer agrees with her. “The best mom in the world.”

Car rides are possibly louder than being inside, thanks to the enclosed space, but Rossi’s house is only a few minutes drive, and they pull in behind JJ’s car. 

The girls are in pretty pink dresses that’ll no doubt end up covered in grass stains, and Toby’s pastel blue shirt matches Spencer’s. In both Y/n and Spencer’s eyes, they’re the most beautiful children ever.

“Little Reids!” Penelope cheers as soon as they’re through Rossi’s wide-open front door. She’s crouched down to scoop them all up, wrapping them all in a tight hug, looking like the definition of sunshine in her yellow dress. “Aren’t you four just so perfect?” She asks rhetorically as she pulls back to look at them. They are, and their parents nod to answer her confession.

After answering a few of Penelope’s questions, they squirm away to run through the house and greet everyone else. 

“And the perfect parents.” She greets them with hugs as well. 

 Y/n chuckles onto her shoulder. “You look incredible, Pen.” She compliments.

“That’s you, Mrs. Reid.” She replies. “And you’re all matching, just the cutest family ever.”

Spencer grins, wrapping his arm around his wife’s shoulder. “We kind of are.” He agrees.

“Come on, come see everyone.” Penelope ushers them through the house, taking on the role of secondary host as she usually does at Rossi’s. She and Krystall tag-team the job.

Henry, Michael, Hank, Matilda, Toby, Aspen, and Mabel are waiting in the living room, their little faces pressed against the glass as they look out the big glass doors trying to spot the hidden easter eggs in the garden. 

Everyone’s in their nice clothing, dresses and good shirts with jackets. It’s mostly BAU members Y/n often sees at Rossi’s, but Derek and Savannah have made the trip and quickly hug their old friends.

“Look at you, mama,” Derek remarks. “You’re as gorgeous as ever.”

“And you’re as flattering as ever.” She jokes, nudging his shoulder. “We didn’t know for sure that you’d be coming.”

“Couldn’t miss a family day.” He reminds her.

The Simmons’ walk through the door a moment later, and Rossi flings open the glass doors for the excited children to race outside and start their egg hunt with squeals of delight. 

Y/n gives Rossi a hug as the adults stream outside. “Thank you for hosting another wonderful Easter.”

“You’re always welcome, my dear.” He assures her. “I hope you don’t mind the little Reids going home full of sugar.” He nods to the massive baskets of chocolate and candy each kid carries, almost as big as Mabel. 

“I guess Spencer’s doing bedtime.” She jokes. An hour on the trampoline should do the trick.

“Speak of the devil,” Rossi says, drawing her attention to her husband as he comes waltzing over, holding out an extra mimosa to her.

She takes it appreciatively, letting him wrap his arm around her shoulder. “A very handsome devil.” She chuckles, making Spencer blush easily. It’s endearing to her that he reacts the way he did the first time.

“Shall we eat?” Rossi asks, looking around the yard where everyone’s scattered chatting. 

“It almost looks too delicious to eat.” Y/n compliments, looking at the spread.

It’s the gorgeous, perfectly prepared food the team has become accustomed to having at Rossi’s. There are hot cross buns, fresh bread, fruit salad, pastries of all kinds, bacon, eggs, waffles, and all the toppings in the world.

They sit at the adult table, and Spencer’s hand drifts to her knee instinctively. It’s why she sits on his left side each time. The kid table is next to the big one with smaller seats and prefilled plastic cups of juice. Rossi and Krystall are always prepared to entertain.

The kids take their seats, and Y/n momentarily leaves to ensure they’re getting balanced plates and not just gorging themselves on chocolate and candy. 

Then she’s back to Spencer’s side, and they’re talking with the rest of the team, basking in the warmth of the sun and family. It’s what they always have been. Even throughout the darkness they’ve seen over the years, they’re closer than ever, and there’s so much love between them.

After brunch, a few drinks in, and Spencer’s more relaxed, pulling Y/n onto his lap and resting his head on her shoulder while they laugh and joke with the team.  

It doesn’t last too long before someone’s pulling on Spencer’s sleeve. “Daddy, can you look for the Easter eggs in the trees?” Toby asks, showing him his best puppy eyes even though it’s unnecessary since he’d do anything for him.

Spencer looks around the table to see Derek and Matt being asked the same question, all three of them being targeted by their sons for their height. Flashing a curious look at Rossi, Spencer agrees, moving out from under Y/n to join the hunt. 

Rossi and Krystall insist on cleaning up, not wanting their guests to move a muscle, which leaves most of the girls alone at the table since Penelope and Luke are getting drinks and definitely not flirting with each other.

Rose, who has been sleeping so far, starts to cry in her carrier, and Kristy unclips her, pulling her into her arms for cuddles to quiet her. She’s adorable, most similar looking to Jake, in Y/n’s opinion. 

“She’s so tiny.” Y/n remarks off-handedly, looking at the small baby. “What’s it like? Four to five?” 

All eyes are on her in a second, but JJ beats everyone else to speak. “You’re not...”

Y/n shakes her head quickly, stopping that rumor before it can start. “No. No, I’m not.” She assures them, holding up her glass of champagne to prove it. “I’m just wondering.”

“The nights are rough, but diaper changing is still the same,” Kristy answers honestly. “And Mabel’s probably young enough that you’ve got all her stuff. Is it something you’re considering?”

Y/n shakes her head again. “Not until I see a little baby or that.” Her eyes drift to Spencer, who’s chasing Toby and Aspen around the yard. “But we could end up with twins again, and I think six is a little too crazy.” 

Laughter breaks out around the rest of the group, which relieves the seriousness of discussing family planning.

“Here.” Kristy offers Rose to hold, and Y/n takes the baby happily, looking at her adorable face and seeing up close how tiny she is. 

“She’s so precious.” She notes, catching Spencer’s eyes. “Spence, look at how little she is.”

Her address gets Matt and Derek’s attention, who are standing next to Spencer. “Uh oh,” Derek remarks knowingly, smirking at Spencer. 

“Someone’s about to commit to a new baby.” Matt pats him on the shoulder, smirking as well. 

Spencer chuckles, unsure of if it’s true or not. He’ll give her another baby, promised he’d go up to five if she was willing. “Do you think I could pretend I didn’t hear her?” He asks jokingly.

“Get over there, papa bear.” Derek insists with a laugh. 

Dutifully, he walks over, sitting next to Y/n and admiring the baby. “She’s so cute.” He compliments Kristy first.

“Look at how little she is.” Y/n repeats. 

“Yeah, it seems impossible they’re ever this little.” He remarks, earning hums of agreement from the other women sitting around the table who once had babies this little and now have fully grown children running around in the yard. He remembers when his children were that little like it was yesterday, but Rose still looks tiny. “No more, though.” He tells his wife with a laugh.

“Yeah, you’re right.” She agrees. “Not when we’re just getting full nights of sleep.”

The party continues into the late afternoon. The company is too good, and too much fun is being had for anyone to leave earlier. 

Despite how much candy they’ve eaten, Aspen and Matilda still manage to eat more in the car on the way home. Y/n agrees they can sleep in the lounge for a sleepover while watching movies, and it takes them far longer than usual to fall asleep, but they do. 

Y/n and Spencer hug in the kitchen as they watch the ending credits. He knows it’s a good chance to ask about what he heard earlier. “Do you actually want another baby?”

She’s taken aback, figuring it was forgotten, but she shakes her head. “Not really, but I think our kids are beautiful, and babies are cute when they’re that little.”

“We’d get more chocolate if we had five.” Spencer jokes, nodding to the baskets on the table and pulling away from her to steal one. 

“Spencer.” She giggles, splitting the chocolate egg with him. “I think we’ve got more than enough. It’ll last us until next year.”

“I love Easter, you know?” He asks rhetorically. “And you, everything we have, our kids, being a dad, brunch.” 

She nods in agreement, leaning up to peck his lips. “I love you, too. Thanks for being in this with me.”

Spencer takes her left hand and kisses her ring finger. “Always.”

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