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celestie0 · 7 months ago

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gojo satoru x reader | fake marriage au [18+]

in holy matriphony ch2. you may now kiss the bride!!

ᰔ pairing. fake marriage au - neighbor&realtor!gojo x nurse!reader (ft. choso x reader & suguru x reader)

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is your extremely annoying next-door-neighbor who you're pretty sure is the most insufferable man you've ever met. given the fact that you exclusively work the night shift at a chaotic emergency dept, just got broken up with your boyfriend of seven years, n have been taking care of your sick mom ever since her multitude of diagnoses, yet somehow your neighbor is the main source of stress in your life should speak volumes. but when your mother's medical bills start to skyrocket more than you can manage, and you learn that said neighbor of yours has the best private health insurance in the country, you ask him to enter a matrimonial agreement with you for the spousal benefits all in the name of saving a few hundred thousand dollars. but you'll have to see if suffering cohabitation w him is worth any amount of money.

ᰔ genre/tags. fluff, smut, angst, enemies to lovers (sort of), annoyances to lovers (that's more like it), small town romance, fake marriage, next door neighbors, lots of bickering, suburban shenanigans, slow burn, mutual pining, mild love triangle(s), gojo likes to play house but you don't, hatred for the american healthcare system, gojo always forgets to mow the lawn, jealousy, an insane amount of profanity; btw gojo in this fic is in his mid 30s n reader is in her late 20s

ᰔ warnings. reader in this fic has a sick mother w alzheimer's & cancer so there is secondary medical angst!!

ᰔ chapter. 2/x (probably 10)

ᰔ words. 16.8k (i be yappin)

a/n. AHHH thanks very much for 2k followers!! yippeee :”) i had a lot of fun writing this chapter of ihm i feel like there’s a lot of silly but a lot of angsty too and i got to set up a lot of secondary plot lines in this chapter which was fun. i really hope you enjoy!! see ya at the bottom!!

nav. ch1 :: ch2 :: ch3 :: ch4 :: ch5 (pending)

“Can you chop down that stupid avocado tree of yours already? It keeps dropping its devilish spawn all over my herb garden.”

“Wow. Good afternoon to you too.”

Gojo scratches the back of his head from where he’s opened the front door of his house, standing in his pajamas and you briefly glance down at his bunny slippers before looking back up at him with a ridiculing face before pushing past him into his house.

Gojo’s house is almost the exact mirror of yours, as are most houses in the neighborhood, but it’s been a while since you’ve been inside of it and so you take an indulgent look. A cozy family room to the side, which you see he’s decorated with a coffee table and a loveseat, and the staircase is visible from the entrance. A modest dining table sits where the carpet turns into wood, and you’ve noticed he’s made the effort to place real hardwood on his floors contrary to the laminate in yours. Ok, show off. Your eyes take in the paintings on the wall, and you remember how his house almost looks fake, like in the way he sets up props in open houses he’s showing for clients, as if someone lives here and yet somehow there’s no real living proof of it.

And because it’s pretty much the exact same layout as your house, you know exactly where the pantry room is, and you grab a bunch of Doritos and Pocky from his secret snack drawer.

“Oh yes, go right ahead. Please,” he says sarcastically as he leans against a support pillar near the dining room and watches you stuff your face with his snacks.

“So,” you say, muffled, “did you grab the paperwork?”

“No, I didn’t.” He glances at his watch. “My friend’s a family law lawyer, and he’s gonna be here soon to help us out with the prenup.”

You roll your eyes. “Oh my god, you’re being serious about the prenup? You really think I’m trying to gold dig at the cobwebs of your bank account? How little self respect do you think I have?”

“...do you really want me to answer that questi–”

The doorbell ringing startles you, and you quickly wipe at your face to clear any crumbs before setting the wrappers in your hands onto a bookshelf as you watch Gojo head to the door and open it.

You hear another distinct masculine voice ring in the air as Gojo exchanges pleasantries with him in the form of a handshake and a familiar hug with a few pats on the back, and then the angle Gojo twists his body reveals the man standing outside the door. He’s a bit shorter than Gojo with a lean build, clad in a fiercely formal black suit and tie with polished shoes. His hair is well-kept, short and raven black, and his eyes are sunken with what you can only imagine is fatigue. And it’s kinda hot to you, unfortunately, after years of working the night shift, you’re starting to find dark circles under people’s eyes to be extremely attractive.

“Uh, y/n, this is my friend, Higurama. Hiromi Higurama,” Gojo says, gesturing between the two of you, “and Hiromi, this is y/n. My obnoxious neighbor. Careful though, if you get too close she’ll bite off your fingers.”

“I’ll bite off a different appendage of yours if you don’t shut the fuck up,” you snarl at him, and Higurama takes a step inside the house to greet you with an outstretched hand.

“Hi, it’s lovely to meet you,” he says, and you’re a little startled by the politeness, but aptly shake his hand and nod before squawking out a likewise!!

You look past Higurama at Gojo who’s got an eyebrow raised at you, and then your eyes are on Higurama again as you watch him set his briefcase down on the dining table. “Are we ready to discuss?” he asks, brown eyes darting between the two of you. You nod and take a seat across from him, and Gojo first grabs everyone some glasses of water before he takes a seat at the head.

“So,” Higurama starts, “I take it you two are madly in love and would like to enter a marital agreement to declare your affections for one another in the court of law under just circumstances?”

You blink at him. “Y-Yes. Very just circumstances. Nothing shady going on here, we are indeed very madly in love and would like to get married.”

“Why the fuck would you say it like that?” Gojo chirps in but not before sighing.

“T-The way he asked was really nerve wracking!!” you counter. And then your eyes widen when you look at Higurama again, who has a slightly amused tug to his lips. “...oh, you already know this marriage is a fraud.”

“I was just testing you,” he casually says, “in case they mention any suspicions in court. Seems you should just let Satoru do the talking.”

You pout a little and sink further into your seat, then bring the glass of water up to your lips.

“Well, in any case,” Higurama says, and then he goes on into the details of what to expect in the courtroom. He pulls out paperwork for the marriage license application and starts to walk the two of you through the prenuptial agreement.

“It’s my understanding you’re both desiring a prenup for this marriage?” Hugurama asks, brow furrowed slightly as he rustles through the endless papers in front of him that he was drowning in.

You briefly glance at Gojo, who’s also looking through all the papers with a concentrated look on his face, his features tense and he’s slightly worrying his bottom lip through his teeth. He’s thinking way harder about this whole prenup thing than you would, and you realize he’s genuinely taking this very seriously.

“Um, yes,” you acquiesce, suddenly feeling a little guilty. And you remember who’s the one in need of the favor here. “I’m okay with the prenup.”

Higurama tells you two about the implications of the prenup, what can and cannot be included under state laws, and stresses the importance of full financial disclosure and fairness in the agreement to ensure its enforceability in the event of a divorce. Basically, don’t fucking lie about anything or else you two could sue each other to hell for it should divorce occur. You both agree, and you’re feeling sick to your stomach with anticipation.

“Alright,” Higurama interjects your thoughts, “I will begin to draft the document then. Let’s start with assets.”

Gojo drones on about his tangibles, intangibles, cash equivalents, stocks, yada yada and you open up with yours too, but you can barely hear anything you’re saying and you can hardly hear what anyone else is saying either because you’re just dreadfully awaiting for Higurama to finally bring up—

“How about debts?” he asks, mindlessly as he types away on his laptop, as if the question doesn’t make you want to throw up.

Your breathing picks up in speed, and you’re nervously fidgeting your hands over the surface of the table. You glance over at Gojo again, this time startled to find his eyes are on you too. His gaze briefly flickers to the shuffling of your fingers, then it meets yours again as he tilts his head slightly in a silent ask of you good?

“Uh–” you start, when you feel Higurama’s eyes on you too now that the silence has stretched on for too long, “I’m…well, I’m in a bit of…debt. From nursing school, a little bit from undergrad still, actually…”

“Okay,” Higurama says, “how much would you approximate? I’ll need the official loan statements soon, though.”

“Well, I’m paying off slowly…but last month I have around seventy-thousand still to pay off.”

“Alright,” Higurama accepts, “and you, Satoru? Student loans?”

“Oh, I don’t have any,” he says, “I paid them off a while ago.”

You feel like you’re being opened apart at the seams, and suddenly feel ashamed.

“Alright, what about other debts? Credit card debts? Any loans to know about?”

You figured you just needed to rip the bandaid off.

“Um,” you say, “I’m about three hundred thousand dollars in medical debt from my mother’s treatment loans.”

The room goes quiet, there’s no more rustling of papers or the mechanical jumping of keys on a keyboard, hell, even the birds outside stopped chirping to display their disbelief.

“Wha–” Gojo starts, like he can’t help it, before he catches himself out of politeness, but he’s still looking at you with concern and shock. “y/n…what happened?”

You look over at Higurama too, and he’s completely turned away from the document he was drafting on his laptop, full attention on you, and his brow is creased with the same amount of concern. And you feel like you’re in therapy. You also feel like you’re about to cry.

“Well…it’s just,” you start, throat feeling raw, “my mom couldn’t qualify for medical loans because of years of poor credit, and insufficient income, and her cancer treatments became really costly, and so–” you suck a breath in, because your voice cracks slightly at the end. You were not about to cry in front of them right now. “And so I decided to cosign on her loans so she could receive treatment, and stuff kept coming up, and I had to work reduced hours for a couple of years when she was first diagnosed, and…some payments got away from me, and so then…there was interest, and…it’s…I guess over five years, things just…accumulated.”

They both sit there in stunned silence, shifting uncomfortably in their seats, like they understand your situation is so fucked in its entirety that they can barely even bear to put themselves through the trouble of even imagining themselves in your shoes, let alone fathom that you’re living in them.

Higurama clears his throat and redirects his attention to the computer. “That’s… no problem for the prenup. Thank you for being honest.”

“Hey,” Gojo interjects, and his hand reaches out to lay over your fidgeting hands over the table. His eyes are serious. “Why didn’t you–” he starts, and his face softens slightly when you can’t help the small sheen of tears that reaches your eyes, “...why didn’t you say anything about this? I mean, anytime we’ve talked.”

It’s your turn to look at him with a tense expression, and you slowly withdraw your hands from the hold of his palm to place them in your lap under the table. “Uh, why would I share about my financial woes to my neighbor? Don’t most people just act like shit’s normal with their neighbors?”

“I guess, but I didn’t know it was that ba–”

Higurama’s phone starts to ring, and he glances at the Caller ID before sighing slightly. “Sorry, I have another client I need to see soon. We’ll have to wrap this up, but I’ll continue drafting this document. Please send me your relevant statements for any loans and–” he glances at you, “...associated debts.” He starts to gather his things at the table, then neatly tucks his papers into his briefcase before placing his laptop in there too. He reaches to shake Gojo’s hand first, then shakes yours, and holds onto your hand a second longer to gather your attention. His eyes are almost solemn.

“I truly hope your mother gets better soon,” he says to you, tone contrite.

You slowly nod and thank him, and then Gojo goes to see him out the door.

The house feels quiet when Gojo closes the front entrance, and he stays facing the door for a few seconds before slowly turning around to face you, back leaning against it as he crosses his arms in front of his chest, and just when he opens his mouth to speak, you cut him off.

“I really–” you say, “...I really don’t want to talk about it.”

His face contorts into confusion, and it looks like he’s about to protest, but you allow yourself to show the slightest amount of the hurt and the worry on your face, and he realizes that means he shouldn’t try to push it.

“Okay,” he says, and quietly.

Things are awkward in the air for a second, so you waltz over to the window and watch through it as Higurama gets into his car, some type of sleek old black Mercedes Benz but it’s polished to perfection, and you let out a content sigh.

“What?” Gojo asks you, tone a little short.

“Ohhh, nothing,” you say, bringing your hands up to cup your cheeks to feel their warmth as you take in the image of Higurama’s slender legs in his business attire, “I just…” you sigh again, “I just loooove men in suits. I wish I knew more men that wore them often.”

A beat of silence. “Um. I wear them often?”

You turn on your heel to face him. “Yeah, but you wear them in, like, a slutty way. Higurama,” you say, pointing with your thumb facing the window, “wears them in the actually respectable workplace way. Hence why it’s hotter on him.”

He scoffs. “And yet you’re always staring at my ass from afar when I’m wearing my tailored trousers.”

“I seriously wonder what it’s like to be so fucking delusional all the time,” you shake your head at him and he looks like he’s got a comeback on his tongue but you sshhhhhhhh him and walk back into the heart of the house. You look over your shoulder briefly, and see Gojo’s standing where you were standing at the window a few seconds ago, looking out onto the street, and he’s grumbling something under his breath you can’t quite hear. And then you hear the sound of Higurama’s car driving away.

You circle around the dining table, and take a seat to look through the marriage paperwork Higurama left behind for the two of you to fill out.

“Bring the paperwork over to the kitchen island,” you hear Gojo say as he makes his way to the kitchen, “I’ll fix us some coffee.”

The island has a seated side to it with bar stools that raise high and turn in fully 360 degree fashion, so you swirl around in your seat to make yourself dizzy while Gojo brews some coffee with his espresso machine.

“Mm…smells nice,” you comment, still swirling.

“Milk? Sugar?” he asks you, and you stop swirling to answer him.

It’s not the first time you’ve been to Gojo’s house. When he first moved in next door, you brought him a plate of cookies as a welcome to the neighborhood! gift and he had invited you inside and fixed you a cup of coffee then too. The house was mostly empty back then, he’s made a lot of good work in filling it with furniture in that sort of IKEA catalog fashion, and you can clown on him for it all you want, but it still looks nicer than most homes you’ve been in. Anyways, you only visited him in his house a couple times after that before you realized you hated him. Because he blasts loud music at the most random times, which you’re convinced he’s just trying to show off the sound system he probably spent an unnecessary amount of money on, not to mention an unnecessary amount of time installing. He also always forgets to mow his fucking lawn, and it drives you nuts because then the weeds spread over into your lawn, but it’s not like it matters because you hardly mow yours either, but still. And that fucking boat. That fucking boat he keeps right at the edge of your driveway that taunts you and your ability to pull into garages after every single one of your dreadful night shifts. One of these days, you might just steal it and drive it into the ocean so it drowns. Wait, boats don’t drown. That’s the point of boats. They’re buoyant. It’s okay, you’ll find another way to get rid of it. The boat, you mean.

“Here you go,” he says, sliding a cup of coffee to you across the island. You peer inside at the brown liquid, and the scent alone awakens your senses.

“So, logistics,” you say.

“Logistics,” he repeats after you as he stirs a spoon in his mug.

“We need to make this believable,” you say to him, “otherwise the marriage could be invalidated, and we could face criminal charges, and I could lose the insurance benefits for my mom, and potentially get sued by said insurance companies, and get thrown into jail for life, and—”

“And how much sleep have you lost thinking about this?” he asks you with a sigh as he brings his mug up to take a sip.

“I’m being serious, Satoru,” you say to him, “I…would just rather err on the side of caution. It’s a small town, people talk. And sometimes those people know the law.” You shudder.

“Who the fuck is out there that would be so pissed about us getting married just so you can help out your sick mom?” he asks.

Your eyes flicker downwards slightly in consideration. You can think of one person, at least. And when you look up at him, you’re surprised to see there’s a similar look on his face, as if he could think of a particular one person too. But before you can dwell more on the expression on his face, he grabs the paperwork in front of you and looks through some of it. “You should get started on your paperwork. Higurama filled most of mine out for me already, so you’re the one he’s waiting on.”

You groan and stretch your arm out across the island counter, then lay your head on your upper arm. “Sigh, why couldn’t he have done that for meee tooooo.”

“Probably because he doesn’t know you?” Gojo snorts. He’s silent for a moment as he takes another sip. You can’t see his face. “So,” he starts, “I mean. If we’re going to make this believable, which, to be honest, I don’t think a single person in this neighborhood would find us getting married believable, but still, if we were to try making it believable, wouldn’t it make sense for us to, uh, I don’t know, live together? Like what regular married couples do.”

“I am appalled you would even suggest that.”

“It’s going to look like we’re just faking it if we don’t at least cohabitate together,” he tells you.

“We can’t do that,” you sigh, “I bet you’d try to touch me inappropriately.”

“What???”

“Yeahhh, I don’t know, you just—...you just seem like a guy with very little self control.”

“...y’know what? This is over. I’m calling off this engagement,” he says, and he walks over to the dining table with his coffee cup in hand and you lift your head up off your arm in a panic.

“Wha–...no!! Wait!!” you say, grabbing all the paperwork off the island and bringing it to the dining table where he’s taken a seat. “Please marry me. I need it so bad.”

“Woah,” he says, looking up at you, and there’s a darker glint to his eyes. “You need it so bad? Can you say that again?”

You curl up the papers in your hands into a makeshift hollow pole and whack him across the head with it. “This is exactly why I think you would touch me inappropriately.”

He grumbles slightly as he nurses the spot you whacked him with two of his fingers rubbing the area, and then he fixes his hair with a comb of his hand through it. The sleeve of his shirt drops a little from the movement, and you can see the muscles of his arm flex, then your eyes are quickly darting away so he doesn’t catch the line of your gaze on him. What the fuck. That was weird. You blame ovulation.

“Alright, fine,” he says, and he grabs the papers out of your hand, “also don’t bend these. It bothers me.”

You circle back to the kitchen to grab your abandoned coffee cup, and then bring it to the dining table to sit down with him at it. He places your half of the papers in front of you. You glance down at the first few boxes to fill out, and you already feel like giving up.

You glance up at him for a distraction. “Aren’t you going to ask me how long I want you to be married to me for?” you ask him.

“Uh, how long do you want me to be married to you for?”

“Forever,” you say. To scare him.

“Yeah, right.” He waves his hand in the air dismissively.

You sulk because it didn’t scare him. “Six months.”

“More plausible.”

“Really,” you say earnestly, “six months.”

He looks up at you now, a curious expression on his face. “Why specifically six months?”

Your eyes find the color of your coffee fascinating once again. “I don’t want to put my mother in hospice for too long. I’ll miss her,” you say, “it’s just…something I’m trying out for now. And to just get a bit of a caretaking break, and also so I can pick up more shifts at the hospital to work on paying off my debt. It’s just…temporary.”

His shoulders roll back once and he sits up a little straighter, holding up one of the pieces of paper to study it better while he clicks his pen. “Alright. Whatever works for you.”

You twiddle with your hands again, blinking a little in consideration as a few moments pass by. “Uh…about living together. That’s fine. I suppose.”

His eyes widen slightly. “Really?”

“Yeah. But no touching,” you point at him with a strict finger.

He tilts his head back up to the ceiling in annoyance. There’s a roll in the muscles of his throat as his jaw goes slack. You squirm in your chair a little. Ovulation, you think.

“I’m not going to touch you, y/n,” he assures you when his chin tips back down. You just stare at him for a few seconds as he seems to be in thought about something, and then his eyes meet yours. “Whose house are we going to live in?”

“Mine,” you say, “yours looks like a shitty catalog. It’s lame.”

“True,” he says, “yours feels homey. I like that.”

You’re a little taken aback by his words, and then purse your lips together. Your sort of go-to thanks expression reserved for him. “So, are you gonna sell your house then?”

“Huh? No way,” he shakes his head, “I’ll just see if I can rent it out for now.” He shakes his head even more. “I mean, god no, I wouldn’t be caught dead selling a house. Not with these market conditions. You know how much it’s already risen in equity within just the past few months alone? In five years from now—”

While Gojo continues to drone on about the lunacy of not holding onto property in this housing market, your eyes widen slightly at his words, like your body realizes a truth to what he’s saying before your mind does.

And then that’s when it hits you.

How you can help pull yourself out of debt.

You slam your coffee mug down on the table with a little more fierceness than you probably should’ve.

“Hey,” he scolds you, “can you be careful with that?”

“We’re not going to live in my house,” you say, ignoring him, “we’re gonna live in yours.”

“Huh?” he responds, “...but I thought you said mine looks like a catalog.”

“A shitty catalog.”

“Did you need to specify?”

“We’re not going to live in my house,” you tell him, with resolve, “because I’m gonna sell my house.”

He sits up a little straighter at your words. “Like, the house next door?”

“Mhm,” you nod.

He sighs. “Were you even listening to me? It’s so much more worth it to–”

“I don’t care,” you cut him off, “I need the money now. Not five years from now.” Your eyes glance down at your hands, and your tone becomes quiet. “I…I don’t even know if my mom has five years left to live.”

A silence settles in the room, and you see in your periphery that Gojo’s stiff and still, like he’s barely allowing himself to breathe as if you’d find it abrasive, and when you look over at him, his expression is soft.

“I know,” he says. “It sounds like a plan.”

“Will you help me sell it?” you ask him. “I’d…need a realtor.”

“Sure,” he easily agrees.

“Okay…” you say, and take a sip of lukewarm coffee, as if you haven’t just decided on an extremely major life decision. “Um. I’ll go get the paperwork then. From my house.”

“Oh. Right now?” he asks you, and he leans forward in his seat a little to get a closer look at your face. “I mean, don’t you want some time to think about it before putting it on the market? We can wait for a little bit.”

“No. That’s okay,” you say, standing up from your chair, “I’ll…go get the paperwork.”

He nods at you slowly, but his eyes are observant, and you ignore it to keep up the momentum of this decision that was definitely the right decision by all means and one that you should not be hesitating on at all as it is such an epiphany that can help clear your debilitating financial burdens.

“Drive safe,” he says to you when you grab your purse off the coffee table in the family room.

“Ha ha. Very funny.”

The outside air is breezy, it’s a nice day with the sun shining down and sparkling off of sprinkler dew drops on overgrown grass, and you hop across with a pep in your step as you make it to your house next door. You’re always quiet when opening the door, because you never know when your mom is sleeping or not, and since her bedroom is downstairs, she’s privy to noises. Once you’re inside, you check to make sure she’s sleeping with a small creak open of her door, only to find that she’s sitting on her rocking chair and looking through a box of paintings.

Your heart twists at the sight, and you gently knock the door with your knuckles.

She glances up at you, and you can always tell from just the look in her eyes if she recognizes you or not. Because they’re warm and gentle when she does, but they see right past you to the wall when she doesn’t.

“Hello,” she says, “can I help you?”

You come up to her and kneel down beside her, placing a hand up on the rocking chair arm rest while she looks down at you.

“Hi, mom. It’s me. Your daughter,” you gentle reintroduce yourself. It’s what her neurologist suggested you do anytime she can’t remember you, but it rips away a piece of your soul each time.

Her eyes still see past you, abstract, empty with no feeling as she wraps her head around your words. “I am no one’s mother,” she tells you, tone sounding sharp and like she’s a moment away from terror.

“That’s okay,” you quickly remediate, feeling hollow inside from her words but you always had to be the sane one, so you direct her attention to the box in her lap. “What are you looking at?”

“Oh, I just found these paintings!” she exclaims. “I thought they were wonderful. Do you know who drew them?”

You smile up at her. “You did.”

“Me?” she blinks at you. The wrinkles in her forehead crumple with surprise, “oh, no, dear, I could not paint such things with detail. Look at me!” She holds her hand up. “My hand is trembling!”

She’s getting weaker. You make a mental note to bring it up to her doctor.

“You used to hold a paint brush like it was just an extension of your hand,” you tell her, picking up one of the paintings out of the box, “you were an art teacher, mom.”

“Don’t call me mom,” she says to you, that sharp tone from earlier cutting through to your soul. “I am no one’s mother.” Her eyes shimmer with a light sheen of tears.

You stare at her, brow pinching together with hurt, but you bite back the part of you that wants to beg her to remember you, to take one close look at you, and see you with warmth and not emptiness. But she sees past you all the same.

“Can you do something for me?” you whisper to her.

“Yes?” she asks.

“Could you please lay down? You need some rest.”

“Are you my nurse?” she asks.

You breathe in deep. “Yes.”

“Am I…” she glances briefly at her reflection in the vanity mirror, her eyes flitting up to the head scarf on her head that covers the absence of hair, “am I sick?”

You exhale. “Yes. You need rest.”

“Oh…” she acknowledges, “why, yes. I do feel…a little frail.”

“I know,” you comment, and you put the box down on the floor then help her up onto her feet slowly by holding onto her arm, and you guide her to sit on the bed and take her medications. She then lays down, and you nod at her reassuringly before you head out the door and close it behind you.

Your lip trembles with the threat of a sob as you stare straight forward at the wall in the dimness of the hallway. But a harsh bite to the plush of it ceases the quiver.

You make your way up the stairs to go grab that binder you had with the mortgage and house information, plus some of your recent utility bills. Except the binder is hard to locate, and you’re rummaging through the cabinets in your closet, the drawer of your nightstand, you’re even looking underneath the bed. But when you lift your head up from under it, still kneeling on the carpet, and glance at the wall, you notice something.

48’’ eight yrs. what a big girl!

46’’ seven yrs. big jump

41’’ six yrs.

37’’ five yrs. my little princess

…

–all written in graphite pencil, scribbled up the wall where you would stand tall against as a kid, your mom marking your height at every birthday. And your eyes start to well with tears.

This was your childhood home. With magical corners tucked away where you used to play hide and seek with your dad, with your old bedroom you used to play in with dolls and have tea parties with all your stuffed animals. There’s still a stain of fruit juice on the carpet underneath the rug that you never told your mom about because you knew she would be mad at you and would scrub it out, but it was in the shape of a heart and when you were a kid, you thought that meant you would find your prince charming some day. This house holds so many memories, like birthday parties and Christmas Eve and the sunflower patch in the backyard where you laid Sniffles to rest.

And it holds the familiarity of you that seems to be slipping through your mother’s fingers with each passing day, all those memories you created with her now solely yours to keep and no longer to share. But you realize at this moment that you’re not alone. This house still holds those memories with you.

Your eyes flicker to the graphite pencil marks on the wall again, and the tears flow freely.

In the moments where she cannot remember that you are her baby, this house remembers for her.

Your sleeve wipes at the dampness on your cheeks.

But it’s never enough, is it? And it’s never that easy, either. Life was never that easy, and you don’t always have the choices you might think you do.

You find the binder, and grab all the utility bills too, and head downstairs. You pass by your mother’s room with softness and sleuth, and guilt in your heart when you realize what you’ve chosen to do. There’s no pep to your step when you make it back to Gojo’s.

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

“Sooo,” Gojo says, after about twenty minutes of looking through all the house paperwork in the binder at the dining table, “your mom transferred ownership of the house to you as a gift deed when she was diagnosed?”

“Mhm,” you say.

“She paid off quite a bit of it,” he comments as he looks through banking statements, “but still not enough to pay off your medical debt, unfortunately.”

You sigh. “I know. It was never really a house she could afford anyways. She just received it from the divorce, and I remember we were supposed to downsize, but…she didn’t want to.”

“I see,” Gojo comments, “well, it’s alright, it would still help you a lot for sure. How many years are left for your solar panel lease?” He has a pen in hand and a custom realtor notepad in front of him with his messy handwriting all over it.

“It’s new,” you say, “still got thirty years left.”

“Jeez, okay. How much per month?”

You scavenge through the bills on your table. “Ummm um um ummm…….”

“You should really…get more organized.”

“You should really mind your fucking business.” You find the bill. “$285 per month.”

“Okay,” he scribbles it down, “does it offset your electricity bill?”

Your shoulders sulk. “A little bit.”

“Yeah, it might scare some buyers away.”

You sigh. “Oh and then the HOA too.”

“HOA?” he looks up at you with a puzzled expression on his face. “We don’t have an HOA in this neighborhood.”

“We don’t?” you blink at him. “Then who have I been sending $195 dollars to every month?”

“…….....you’ve seriously gotta be some special kind of stupid.”

After panicking for five minutes while checking your credit cards for fraudulent activity, Gojo gets done cutting up an apple for you.

“Here,” he says, sliding the plate to you, “since you look like you’re about to faint. Knowing you, it’s probably just low blood sugar.”

You dramatically sigh and sink in your chair. “I can’t believe I spent the last three years paying an HOA that doesn’t even exist…”

“Hey, on the bright side, there’s some dude out there on an exotic vacation that’s very thrilled by your idiocracy right now.”

You shoot him a look. And then you hang your head low to drink your extremely cold coffee that you were still nursing, before downing it all in one go. Your eyes catch the marriage paperwork that Gojo was reviewing earlier, and you see Higurama’s pre-filled in information that he typed onto the papers before printing them for him.

“Hm,” you hum, “it says here that you’ve been married before. You might want to get that fixed before we submit these.”

He stands up from the table, two of his fingers hooking onto the handle of his coffee cup, and he glances into yours to make sure it’s empty, briefly flicking his eyes to you and you shake your head for no, no more coffee, thanks before he wraps his other two fingers around the handle of your mug as well. The clink of the two porcelain mugs in his hand startles you a little as he walks past you to the kitchen sink. “There’s nothing to fix about that,” he says, his tone level and easy, “it’s true. I’ve been married before.”

Your eyes widen at his confession, and you quickly twist your torso in your chair to stare at him. Or at least, the back of him as he turns the faucet on and begins to rinse out coffee mugs.

Married? Before? There are so many questions swimming through your head right now, ones that you desperately want answers to, biggest of all perhaps being now who the fuck would actually want to marry him??? for real??? you’re telling me this self obsessed dork proposed to a real life woman with a pulse and she actually said ‘yes’ to him??? who was this woman, and which psych ward did he find her from???

But he’s so quiet from where he stands, broad shoulders less pushed back like they usually are, and something tells you he wouldn’t entertain any of those questions from you right now. A glance at the paperwork, though, tells you the divorce was recent. Less than a year ago. Around the time he moved in next door.

He still has his back facing you, and you try to sneakily catch a glimpse at more info under the Wife section on the prior marriages form. You can see the paper says maiden name: Inoue and you’re just about to sneak a peak at the first name when—

“You want to stay for dinner?” he asks when he turns around, leaning back against the sink counter. “I’m ordering pizza tonight.”

You’re surprised by the sudden invitation, and shuffle the papers over one another again. “Oh–that’s…that’s okay.” You glance at the clock he has hanging on the wall. “I’ve got work in a couple of hours, so…I should really get going. Have a few errands to run before then.”

“Okay, so, we’ll…talk later?”

“Yeah, later,” you stand up from your chair, and for some reason, the air feels a little heavier to you now. “Uh…” you start, awkwardly scoffing a little, “wow. Bachelor life again, then, huh? Probably just–...probably just beer and pizza every night?”

He purses his lips together, humoring you with a small laugh that comes out as a scoff through his nostrils. “No. Not really. I only order pizza when I close a sale on a house. My way of celebrating.”

“Oh,” you respond, “I see.”

“I’ll walk you to your car,” he says.

“I live next door,” you remind him.

His eyes widen slightly. “Oh. Right.”

“H-Hope the traffic’s not too bad!” you joke.

His laugh comes more genuine now. “You’re stupid.”

You head towards the door, and when he opens it for you, there’s a chill of air outside and it’s darker now, hues of dark gray, purple and a slight orange still present on the horizon paint the sky and you step outside then turn on your heel to face him.

“Um. Congrats, by the way. On the sale,” you tell him, “enjoy your night. And I’ll see you this weekend?”

“Huh?” He raises an eyebrow. “What’s happening this weekend?”

“We–” you scoff, “we’re getting married this weekend?”

“Oh!” he exclaims, tense, “right, yes, see you this weekend. For marriage. Of us.”

You roll your eyes and make your way down the concrete pavement that leads its way to his house, and leads its way away from it too. And when you walk back to your house, it’s not with a sulk, but it’s not with a pep in your step either. You just feel…neutral.

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

“So, tell me about this fake husband of yours,” Hana says, leaning against your work-on-wheels as you attempt to catch up on charting notes with 4 hours and 15 minutes and 53 seconds left on your shift (it’s not like you were counting though).

“Yeah, in a sec,” you mumble as you punch in keys.

6/2/2024 0344: patient placed on 5150 hold on 5/31 at 1745, continually monitored by ED tech. all objects have been removed from pt’s room to prevent any danger to self or others. however patient accessed hand sanitizer dispenser on the wall at roughly 0320 and ingested all the hand sanitizer. notified MD of toxic ingestion, follow up plan is to coordinate care with poison control. no further orders at this time

“Okay, what were you saying?” you look up at Hana again and rub the tired out of your eye with a balled up hand, along with all the mascara.

“Your fake husband!! Tell me about him!!” she chirps, shaking your work-on-wheels in excitement and the blur of your computer screen makes you feel dizzy.

“Shhhhh,” you hiss at her, “keep your voice down when we discuss illegal activities.”

She rolls her eyes. “Why are you always so paranoid? I’m already sick and tired of you charting incessantly every five seconds to save yourself from medical lawsuits that you haven’t even been accused of.”

“In a medical lawsuit, the chart is the law, Hana,” you say eerily with a shiver, and her words remind you to continue your detailed charting. “Never forget that.”

She sighs. Her gaze travels across to the other end of the emergency department, and you assume she’s staring at the asses of the EMT boys again, so you glance over your shoulder too.

Except instead, you see the worst person on the planet.

Well, second worst as of right now.

The worst person title was reserved for someone else.

Approaching from down the hall is Yuna, your ex-best friend, a bounce in her step as she walks with a sort of allure as her hips rock side to side, her mile-high ponytail swaying in beat with the rhythm as well, and the ashy blond highlights in her hair hypnotize anyone she waltzes by.

She was the kind of nurse that all the other nurses are jealous of. Always has cute little accessories and stickers on their badge, is wearing the fancy FIGS scrub sets that hug her sporty curves in all the right places, paired with those little shoes with the ankle socks, and she most definitely gets her water goal in for the day because she’s always sucking on the straw of her periwinkle Stanley cup around the ED all night just like she sucked the cum out of your boyfriend of seven years just twenty-four hours after the two of you had broken up–

“y/n,” she casually calls your name, leaning her elbow up on the cubicle divider of the nursing station. “It’s time for you to take your break. I’ll watch your patients.”

“I’m not taking my break,” you say, trying to relax the grit to your teeth which makes your eye twitch out of frustration instead. “Now get the fuck away from me before I call a Code Black.”

She sighs, rolling her eyes and smacking loudly on her gum. “Yaga said you have to take your thirty tonight. Something about how you haven’t clocked out for a break in more than two months and the hospital could get sued for that.”

“The hospital has way bigger cases they should be biting their nails about getting sued over,” Hana snorts just to butt in on conversation.

“C’mon,” Yuna says, her fingers reaching out to touch the handle of your work-on-wheels, purposefully stretched so that you can eye the perfect sparkly manicure to her nails. You curl your fingers into the skin of your palms to hide your gel polish that’s long started to scrape off. “Go clock out.”

“I’d rather die than listen to a single fucking thing you tell me to do,” you tell her, plain and simple.

“y/n!” a loud masculine voice calls from the other end of the Emergency Department, and all three of you visibly shrink a little in your stances out of fear. Head nurse Yaga. “Take your break, or I’ll be damned to let you set another foot in this hospital!!” he’s yelling at you all the way from the entrance to the CT scanner.

“But–”

“Now!!!!!”

Your eyes flicker to Yuna, who has an amused look on her face and a tilt to her head, and then you’re grumbling before logging out of your computer then stepping away from it. “Draw a CBC & chem on Beds 24 and 28 at 4 AM sharp,” you grumble to her, and she just gives you one of those tight-skinned smiles.

The break room is empty, with shades of beige on the walls and even more depressing shades of gray on the lockers. There are all sorts of things pasted on the walls, like photos from staff Halloween and Christmas parties, drawings that pediatric patients have made in appreciation of their nurses, and employee information that Yaga’s constantly shoving in everyone’s faces.

Okay, the backstory with Yuna. Pretty simple. You two had been best friends since high school, like inseparable best friends. Y’know, sneaking out late at night to use fake IDs at the bar, cover for the other when you’re busy losing your virginity to your high school boyfriend in the most dishonorable way possible, rooming together in college, sobbing and crying through all of nursing school together, ride or die type of friendship that you think you’d only find once in a lifetime. Except turns out your best friend, who you’d considered a sister, had eyes for your boyfriend since you started dating him in college, and the second that dickwad dumped you, you catch her sucking him off in the back of his Toyota Camry when you go to pick your stuff up from his place. Yeah, ouch. You lost the two closest people in your life, all in the matter of twenty-four hours, so pardon yourself for being a bit bitter about it.

But being bitter is the coping mechanism. The real way you feel comes in the form of tears prickling in your eyes and the pain in your throat as you try to swallow away the knot that’s suffocating you from the inside out. A type of loneliness that leaves you stranded even in a room full of people. But at the very least, this room is empty, so no one has to see the crack in your resolve.

There’s no time on a thirty-minute lunch break to have a full mental breakdown, so you sparsely wipe at your tears and head back to your shift.

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

If you want to know who actually holds the worst person on the planet title right now, well, you run into him on a Tuesday afternoon while on a grocery run after you just woke up from barely sufficient post night shift sleep. Bitter and drugged by Melatonin was not a state of being you needed to be in right now, but you’re out of orange juice and you’re having Vitamin C withdrawals which warrants a trip to the store. Unfortunately, the town only has one grocery store, which means you were bound to run into pestering ex-boyfriends at least once every full moon.

“Get the fuck out of my way, Choso,” you snarl at the man who’s walking backwards ahead of your grocery cart, trying to stop you in your tracks so you’d just chill out and listen to him for a second.

“Can you just chill out and listen to me for a second?” he asks you, irritation evident in his voice like you’re being the difficult one here.

“I already told you that I quite literally never want to see your stupid ugly face ever again for as long as I live,” you say, and you ram your grocery cart forward with so much force the metal hits his knees and he doubles over the basket indignantly with a groan.

He seems like he’s had enough of you evading him, so he jams his foot under the wheel to keep you from moving forward, and you’re scowling at him and struggling against his foot-stop but to no avail.

You briefly consider abandoning your cart all together and just bee-lining for the exit, but he’s a cop, so he’d easily be able to tackle you to the ground if you tried.

“What do you want?” you snarl, impatiently tapping your foot with every miserable passing second spent in his presence.

“I just–” He sighs, “I just want to talk. And to know how you’re doing. You won’t pick up any of my calls.”

“Huh?” You blink at him. “I’ve had you blocked for the past two weeks. You shouldn’t even be able to call me.”

His eyebrows raise. “Really?...who have I been dialing then?”

“Fuck if I know,” you shrug, and you use his moment of confusion to swerve your cart off to the side and make your way down the refrigerator aisle. Ohhh, dulce de leche gelato sounds nice, and it’s on sale. You grab a jar.

Choso’s trailing behind you as you eye price tags and sale signs in the open chill of the yogurt section. “Babe–”

“Don’t–” you immediately cut him off, spinning fast on your heel and he stops himself just in time from crashing right into you. You hold your index finger up in the air between the two of you with a clench to your jaw so tight it feels sore, and through gritted teeth you say, “don’t call me babe.”

He rubs the back of his neck. “Sorry. It’s habit.”

Indeed, habit. Seven years of him calling you babe, or baby, or boobie (idk don’t ask). Your favorite though? Babydoll. He’d always call you that when he’d make sweet, sweet love to you while you were wearing his favorite flimsy little piece of lingerie–babydolls. Even now, the memories have your cheeks feeling hot. But he doesn’t get to call you babe anymore, and he doesn’t get to fuck you anymore, or talk to you anymore, or breathe in your general direction anymore, because he betrayed you. He wasted your time, and then he betrayed you.

Seven years of your sexual prime, where you could’ve been fucking hunky firefighters and bisexual Europeans, wasted on a man you weren’t even going to marry in the end anyways. Now you’re pushing thirty, and the idea of having to date again makes your skin crawl with anxiety that turns into fury because your doom is all caused by the man in front of you.

Whatever, forget about the sex and the impending loss of a woman’s novelty within society for a second. You loved him. A part of you still loves him. You wanted to marry this man. You thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with this man. Little sheriff deputy’s wife, Mrs. Kamo, the perfect number of letters to get on a bejeweled license plate. You had envisioned all the cute little quotes of adoration that would be imprinted on your wedding reception’s custom-made doily napkins with everyone that’s ever meant anything to you sitting at the table, ready to celebrate the love that you thought was real and true and brave and strong and one that would last forever.

But he abandoned you when you were at your lowest. And he fell into the arms of the one person you thought you could turn to crying when the relationship crashed and burned in the first place. And the problem with living in a small town is that everyone knows everybody’s business, so now you’re just the woman that wasted her youth on a man that played her like a broken fiddle. Utterly heartbroken, and humiliated.

So, yeah, he doesn’t get to call you babe anymore.

“Listen here, asshole,” you say, stabbing him in the chest with your finger, so he can feel even a fraction of the pain you’ve felt in the past three weeks, “I couldn't care less if you live today, or die tomorrow. So if you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave me alone. Or I’ll file for a restraining order.”

“Really?” he says, brows pulled tight together in disbelief, like he just can’t understand what he’s done to make you act this way, and quite frankly, that only makes it sting even worse, “after everything we’ve been through, you’re just going to throw away the past seven years?”

“What the fuck are you saying?!” you all but snap at him, and an elderly couple that’s passing by flinches a little from the noise and you wince in apology before glaring at Choso again. Your voice is hushed this time. “You’re the one that broke up with me, but I’m the one that’s throwing it all away??”

He purses his lips together, and you notice how dark the circles under his eyes are. He shuts them tightly and leans back away from you, which makes you realize how much he was leaning into your space just a second ago. “I know that we…aren’t dating anymore. But, I mean, c’mon, y/n, it’s me. Just because we’re not together anymore, doesn’t mean that I don’t still…care. I want to know how your mom’s doing, and how treatment has been for her, and–” he glances up at the ceiling briefly, as if to mislead you into thinking that the next thing he says is just as nonchalantly desired as the other things he listed, “and I want to know how you’re doing, too.”

“You don’t deserve to know how I’m doing. Continue to wallow in your pathetic self righteousness, or go run with your tail between your legs to that two-faced rat I used to call a best friend. Either way, I don’t give a damn,” you say, in a way that very much sounds like you give a damn unfortunately, and spin on your heel to continue pushing your cart down to the juice section.

“Yuna and I–” you hear him say behind you, and just the mention of her name on his tongue makes your heart ache in your chest, to the point you need to place a flat palm over it just to alleviate the pain, “I–...I broke things off with her yesterday.”

Fuck. Pretend like you’re not fazed by that info. Pretend like you’re not fazed by that info.

“Okay? Whatever,” you barely manage to say.

He’s silent for a moment behind you. The wheels of your cart squeak as they roll.

“I mean, we’re not together anymore. I’m not seeing her anymore,” he clarifies, as if he didn’t believe you heard him right the first time.

“Cool,” you comment, tone colder this time, since you had the practice round.

“You don’t–” Choso starts, a rattle of hurt and confusion in his voice, “you don’t care about that?”

“Nope.”

He reaches out to grab your wrist, and the contact burns through your skin, like something so familiar yet so foreign. You turn your head to look at him.

“I…” he starts, and you can see his chest rising and falling with more intensity. Oh god. Please. Please don’t say it. You’re not sure you can handle hearing it. “I really miss you.”

Damn it, he said it.

Your posture relaxes slightly when you take a long look at him. You finally notice his hair has gotten longer in just the three weeks you’ve been apart, layered locks curling at the end of his neck, and it’s the first time you’ve noticed such a small detail because you were so used to spending everyday with him. He spent most of the week at your house, since the two of you could never formally move in with one another after your mother was diagnosed and it was easier for him to come by to yours so you could continue to keep an eye on her. There’s no option to live on your own and start your own life when you’re taking care of someone sick. They become your priority, not yourself, but you’d still make every single sacrifice you’ve made for your mother over and over again in a heartbeat if you had to relive the past five years.

But that meant that you never had a real and true chance to live the life that you wanted with Choso. A place just for the two of you, lived in intimate solitude and not with the cries of your mother down the hall when she feels too sick to get up out of bed or when she cannot remember her own name. But you had never been this far apart from him to where you notice his hair is an inch longer than it was the last time you saw him. He was never that far away, as he is now. And you’ve just now realized it.

“I don’t,” you start, swallowing the lump in your throat and your voice quivers ever so slightly when you speak, “I don’t care that you miss me.” You take a deep breath. “I’m getting married this weekend.”

His face entirely relaxes, like a calm before the storm, before it twists with so much confusion and incredulity and shock and–was that horror on his face?

“What?” he practically spats out, “it’s only been three weeks since we broke up!”

“Uhh,” you glance up at the ceiling of the store, just in time for an employee to make an announcement on the overhead for a manager at checkout lane 2 please, and then you glance back down at him, “I was having an affair while we were dating.” An easy lie.

He scowls. “Yeah fucking right. There’s no way you’d cheat on me.”

His words burn bitter. The fact that he couldn’t even fathom you hurting him the same way he hurt you makes you clench your teeth. Because he knew you were better than he was, and that you were too good for him, and yet he still wasted your honor.

His friends, who used to be yours too, have probably fed him lies since the breakup. Like it’s okay, man. You broke up with her before you got involved with someone else. You didn’t do anything wrong.

But you say bullshit to all of that. Because after seven years of being together, you can’t just cold turkey a relationship like that to sleep with someone else, and then claim it’s not cheating. Technicalities like that were no vindication if the betrayal hurt all the same in the end. Because it still felt like you got cheated on regardless.

“Whatever. I don’t need to explain myself to you,” you tell him, “I’m getting married this weekend, so I really don’t give a damn about anything between us anymore. It’s over.”

“Who are you marrying?” he asks, suddenly breaking a sweat over the news like he’s starting to suspect you’re actually being serious.

“My neighbor.”

His face twists with disgust. “Old man Jenkins? He’s eighty-four years old.”

You roll your eyes. “Not the one on my left, you idiot. My neighbor to my right.”

The corner of his mouth tugs up in a ridiculing smirk, and the sight of it makes your skin crawl. He scoffs. “There’s no way. You hate that guy.”

“It’s true. I’m marrying him.”

“Seriously??” He guffaws at you, leaning in closer to you and you lean away until your back is resting on the handle of your shopping cart. “The obnoxious realtor I once heard you talking in your sleep about how much you want to murder him and then dump him in a lake?”

“What?! I talk in my sleep?!” you gasp.

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah. You have for years.”

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me that?!”

He looks annoyed. “Because you’re such a hypochondriac. You would’ve thought you had a brain tumor or something, and I’d have to deal with the paranoia that follows suit.”

“Choso,” you say to him with a strict tone, jutting your hip out to the side in preparation to scold, “my mother has Alzheimer’s, which is genetic, and I was having an abnormal neurological symptom for years which has studies to show is an early indication of dementia and you just chose not to tell me because you didn’t want to be annoyed?!”

“See?” he gestures to you, “you’re doing it right now. How did we go from just sleep talking to ‘I might have dementia’?”

“We,” you point between you and him, “are never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever getting back together. If there’s one thing you can pull through that stupid skull of yours, make it that.”

“Excuse me,” you hear a tiny voice squeak out, and you turn to your right to see a little kid trying to push past the two of you to grab a box of GoGurt in the Yogurt section. You move your cart forward by bumping it with your butt to get out of the kid’s way, and Choso circles around to the front of your cart before you start moving forward again. Like he’s literally stopping you from moving on from him.

“You’re lying about marrying this guy,” Choso says like it’s a fact. In typical cop gaslighting fashion. “You’re just saying that to make me jealous.”

You roll your eyes. “No. I’m just that hot and gorgeous that I made a man fall in love with me in three weeks.”

“He’s in love with you?” he asks.

“Duh, he wants to marry me. When you dumped me, I found comforting solace in my next-door-neighbor, and we fell into bed with one another, and now he feels the obligation to provide for me for the rest of my life. What’s so hard to believe about that? You didn’t find abrupt matrimony odd when we binged all three seasons of Bridgerton two months ago.”

“That show is set in the fuckin’ regency era,” he hisses at you, “look around. There’s plastic bags of Hot Cheetos with Red 40 in them everywhere. Does this look like the 1800s to you?”

You have to be careful with him. He’s a cop, who could arrest you for medical insurance fraud, and would also have a personal vendetta against your marriage because boo hoo he misses you. But yes, he was right, you did want to make him jealous, and you just can’t help it.

“Well, me and him have a love that no one else can understand, so suck it. I’m marrying him, and he’s super into me, and he can’t wait to spend the rest of his life with me, and he desperately wants to put babies in me, and–”

“And where’s the ring he gave you, then?”

Fuck. You briefly flick your gaze down to your left hand and note the daunting absence of a shiny diamond on your ring finger. Note to self, Gojo needs to buy you a ring.

“I left it at home,” you mumble.

“Uh-huh, as all newly engaged women who have been waiting for a ring all their life would do.”

That pisses you off. Because you were waiting your whole life for him to put a ring on your finger, and he never did.

“Go fuck a fleshlight,” you snarl at him, unfortunately in earshot of the GoGurt kid and his mom shoots you a nasty look, but you’re a jaded woman after everything you’ve been through and you ram your cart into Choso so hard you swear you could’ve cracked his knee caps, and he doubles over in enough pain for you to have the time to leave him stranded there as you push your cart all the way to the end of the store.

You finally make it to the orange juice section, the one thing you needed, although your cart is filled with things you didn’t need, because that’s always how these grocery runs go. You try to take a few breaths to calm down the fast beating in your heart after that confrontation with Choso. You’re not good with confrontation, even though it might seem like you are, but you’re just putting on a face. Acting strong, when really all you want to do is curl up into a ball and cry. But there are bills to pay, and images to upkeep, and orange juice to replenish.

Your hand reaches out for the handle on the refrigerator door, but just before you curl your fingers around it, another hand beats you to it. It’s a large and masculine hand, with veins disappearing into the cuffed felted fabric of a suit jacket, and the knuckles turn a shade lighter than the olive skin around them when the fingers flex around the handle.

You glance up at the person standing next to you, who you register towers over you in height. He has long, sleek black hair that shimmers under fluorescent lighting, some of which is tied up and out of his face, while the rest cascades over his back. But there’s tendrils of hair falling over the left side of his face, barely distracting you through the intensity of purple in his eyes when he glances at you.

“Ah, apologies,” he says, and the way he speaks is so calm and gentle, different from the intimidating aura he holds himself with. He retreats his hand from the handle.

“Oh, that’s–” you find yourself stuttering, “...that’s okay.” You grab the handle and open it, the chill rush of the fridge hitting you as your eyes peruse the selection of orange juice cartons while his eyes remain on you. You awkwardly glance at him again. “Sorry, d-did you also need to get orange juice?”

He nods. “Yes, I did.”

Not a man of many words, you think to yourself. Or maybe just around people he’s just met.

Your eyes catch the familiar labeling of your go-to orange juice, the one with no pulp and has added Vitamins D and E (basically the one for children), but you realize there’s only one left. You grab it anyway and put it in your cart. When you glance up at the handsome stranger beside you, there’s a slight look of amusement on his face.

“Seems we both have the same taste in orange juice,” he comments.

“Oh no,” you say with a small laugh, “I’m sorry. It’s the last one.” Your eyes widen. “You–…you can have it, if you want–”

“Oh, no, no,” he shakes his head, long hair swaying with the motion as he holds his hands up in front of himself, “please. I will just find a nearby store.”

You tilt your head. “Oh there’s no other stores nearby…unless you get on the highway for at least twenty minutes. It’s a…small town.”

His lax expression finally cracks into one of subtle surprise. “That’s interesting.”

“Are you…new to town?” you ask.

He nods with a small smile on his face. “Indeed. Well, just visiting. I’m from New York.”

“Oh! Wow, that’s a long way from here.” You briefly register that he does look like a city man. Upscale restaurants, skyline views, premium outlets. The subtle fragrance of his cologne smells expensive too. “What are you up to while visiting?” You mentally facepalm yourself for asking personal questions, but he seems mysterious and you like peeling the layers back on people like him.

His expression drops, turning almost solemn and his eye contact that was previously very direct is suddenly averted elsewhere, “Just…visiting some old friends.” There is no elaboration.

“Ahh…I see,” you say, picking up on the hint that he has no more words to give you. “Well…I’ll be taking the orange juice…maybe try one with pulp?” you suggest a little cheekily.

His lips tug upwards in a lopsided smile, one you’d call a smirk if you weren’t so mesmerized to define it as one, “I’ll think about it.”

You hum slightly in polite acknowledgement of him, then push your cart back towards the heart of the store without a word of goodbye.

Odd stranger, who’s good at giving misleading answers. You wonder what life he’s come here to escape.

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

It’s a bright, picturesque Sunday morning, with children laughing and squealing out on the streets in front of your house as they ride their scooters up hot pavement while their parents catch up on PTA drama on the lawns. You’re standing in front of your full length mirror, trying on dress #3 for your little meeting with the courthouse today. And by little meeting, you mean your wedding. You’re getting married today.

The dress you have on falls to below your knees and has buttons all the way from the hem right up to the base of your neck, where the collared neckline wraps around you like a noose. Suffocating, way too prim and proper, although it’d make your grandma very happy and adored to see you should you show up to church service in it.

Your bed is cluttered with clothes you’ve thrown across it as you try to find a good dress. Your hands move with impatience as you skim through the rack of your closet for another dress to try on, since you’re starting to push the time a little too much. You’ve only got ten minutes before you need to leave.

A dress tucked in the corner of your closet catches your eye and you pull it out. It’s a cream-colored milk maid dress with an underskirt to puff out the A-line silhouette, length down to your shins that would be oh-so-flattering with a cute pair of heels. There are small red flowers adorning the pattern, with tiny green leaf details as well. It was cute and sweet and feminine, something you haven’t worn in a long time unlike your usual monotonous hospital scrubs, stained sweatpants and adult onesies.

It was the dress your friend Sana convinced you to buy when you thought you were going to get engaged. In the first two years of your relationship with Choso, you two talked about marriage non-stop. You both had just graduated college when you first started dating, and it felt like your lives were finally starting. At the end of the second year you two had been together for, after Christmas dinner with your family, he pulled you into his arms and you squealed with glee as he spinned you around in your childhood bedroom upstairs and told you how much he wanted to marry you, and that he was going to propose in the new year.

Your mother was diagnosed with cancer in January, and he never brought up marriage ever again.

He still stayed with you for five years after that though, and swiftly dodged every single question you ever asked him about his impending proposal. For five years, you were fed every excuse in the book. And in hindsight, you feel like an idiot for staying, and for still holding out hope, when what you were really holding onto was heartbreak. The feeling of not being enough, like someone was just tolerating you, and not loving you. It was easy to ignore at times, given how occupied you were with driving your mother to chemotherapy appointments and reading up on books about which diet works best to slow down the development of Alzheimer’s because your mother started showing signs of dementia just two months after the cancer diagnosis. But in those moments of freedom, where you had a moment to breathe, all you could breathe was a suffocating smoke. Because you stopped feeling wanted or loved in between all of it.

But there was a trip he planned for the two of you to Greece. It was after your mother had first successfully gotten into remission. A gasp of fresh air amongst all the pain and suffering, and you could only assume that he wanted to celebrate by taking you on a trip. Sana was convinced he was going to propose to you on this trip, and you wondered if maybe he was just waiting until your mother felt better before he proposed so that the two of you could enjoy being newly engaged without the pressure or worry. Sana took you shopping, and you bought this dress, one that clings to your form in a way that made you feel beautiful. Made you feel wanted. Made you feel worthy of being loved. Because all other parts of yourself had been overlooked and paid no attention, but you thought a dress could save you.

He never proposed. You left Greece with an extra suitcase of souvenirs, but without a ring on your finger or even a compliment on how beautiful you should’ve looked to him standing there on that beach with this cream-colored dress on, arm wrapped around his. And it was at that point you became numb, and you existed in limbo for the remaining four years of your relationship. Until he finally did what you silently begged him to do, with every sullen look in your eyes when you glanced at him. Maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, what he did to you. Something you willed him into because you didn’t have the strength to leave, and so he had to.

You hold the dress up to your form in the mirror. It’d still fit you, and it’s far too pretty to have only worn once. But you’ve been numb for so long now, you don’t even remember what it’s like to feel pretty in a dress. You unbutton yourself out of dress #3 and step into failed proposal dress #4, and as you slowly zip up the back of the dress, you’re met with resistance.

Fuck.

The last thing you need right now is a weight-related meltdown.

You tug up on the zipper even more, harshly, to the point you hear a stitch rip and you gasp and try to do it slowly so as not to completely tear the dress apart. But it’s not fitting. It should fit. You just assume the zip is stuck, or it’s too rigid after years of no wear.

You’re about to do another colossal yank upwards that could potentially dislocate your shoulder when you jump at the sound of your phone chiming with a notification. And then multiple.

“What...the hell…do you want…” you sigh to nobody, swiping your hands across the pile of dress fabric on your bed to find your phone, and when you do, you quickly tap on the screen to see the messages.

|| 11:32AM neighbor (avocado tree): Hey, are we still getting married today?

First of all, wild fucking thing to nonchalantly ask.

|| 11:32AM neighbor (avocado tree): Your car’s still parked out front, so I wasn’t sure if you’ve left yet. I was just about to leave, and then the thought occurred to me that we should probably carpool?

|| 11:35AM neighbor (avocado tree): But just wanted to verify, are you sure you want to go through with this? You’re not having cold feet? Won’t be a runaway bride? I’m not gonna be left at the altar, wondering where I went wrong?

You roll your eyes, breathing heavily still from the struggle of zipping up your dress.

|| 11:36AM You: yes, we are still getting married. I just can’t zip up my dress for the life of me

It takes him a whole minute to respond.

|| 11:38AM neighbor (avocado tree): Do you need help?

You blink at your phone screen. Help? What kind of help? Helping you zip up your dress?

You look over your shoulder to the full length mirror, eyeing your back. The dress was zipped up to just above the small of your back, with the rest of it flayed open to reveal the expanse of your skin. Setting your phone down, you roll your shoulders back once and flex your fingers to try again in securing this dress, but to no avail. You curse yourself for not having the flexibility, and to be honest, you’re not even sure if you can take the dress off anymore to get into something else with the way the zipper won’t budge neither up nor down. Well. You’re just going to have to wear this dress for the rest of your life now. A scary predicament.

You pick your phone up again.

|| 11:41AM You: yes

It only takes about two minutes for him to text you that he’s at your front door, a surprisingly considerate gesture considering your mother is sleeping downstairs so it’s good he didn’t ring the doorbell, and you tiptoe your way down and over the creaky floorboards of the stairs to the front entrance.

You slowly crack the door open only a couple inches, hiding yourself from him behind it as you peek at him. “Hi.”

“Hey,” he says, and he glances at his watch. “We’ve got to hurry.”

You nod, and take note of his appearance. He’s wearing a dark fitted navy suit over a white dress shirt, which to your surprise, doesn’t have the top two buttons sluttily undone for once. His suit pants are perfectly tailored to his ankles and you can barely see the exposed fabric of black socks before they disappear into his polished Oxfords. He looks like he’s going to a wedding. Oh wait, he is.

He raises an eyebrow at you when you refuse to reveal yourself by stepping away from behind the door. Even his hair is particularly kept and proper, swept off to the side slightly in a way that makes him look younger and you feel nervous from the intensity of those eyes, which are usually somewhat hidden by the fringe of his snowy hair, now look at you unwaveringly with no obstruction. You feel like you’re seeing him in a completely new light, and for some reason, it makes you cower behind the door even more.

“Uh, are you going to let me in?” he asks you, his foot tapping lightly on the welcome! mat.

“Yes,” you say, but you make no movement to prove your word.

“y/n,” he says, “we need to get going.”

You sigh, tapping your fingers against the stained glass window of your front door to release some nerves before hesitantly stepping to the side and pulling the door open all the way, then you’re standing in front of him in full view. You catch a glimpse of the black tie hanging from his neck that’s secured all the way up to the collar of his shirt, before you finally look at his face.

Those striking eyes of his round slowly until he’s looking at you wide-eyed, blinking in some sort of dazed surprise as his gaze eventually sweeps down your entire form to take in the sight of you standing barefoot on wooden floor in your cream-colored dress, and you swear you see the muscles in his jaw jump. His brow furrows like he can’t believe what he’s seeing.

“You–” he starts, that shocked blinking still taking place on his face, and you grasp the fabric of your dress in front of you from the anticipation of what he’ll say, “...you look beautiful.”

A silence settles between the two of you as he continues to roam his eyes all down you like there’s nothing that could stop him from doing it, and you feel heat in your cheeks from his compliment. It’s just a silly little cream-colored dress. One that didn’t look pretty on a beach in Greece, so why would it look beautiful on you here right now? While you’re standing at the dusty front entrance of a decades old house? He’s bullshitting you.

“You know you don’t have to compliment me, you know that, right?” you squeak out, trying to keep your tone level and easy to fight back the raw feeling in your throat, “this isn’t a first look. There are no photographers around to capture your reaction. We’re not actually getting married.”

“But–”

“Can you just help me with the dress?” you cut him off so he doesn’t say anything else that makes you feel pretty right now.

“...sure,” he agrees, and he steps inside your house. You start to walk upstairs, and he follows suit, and you suddenly feel his eyes on your back so you turn around and walk up the stairs backwards while facing him.

“I don’t understand the concept of first looks anyway,” he says out of nowhere to cut the silence, “isn’t it a bad omen to see your partner before getting married?”

“That’s such an outdated superstition,” you tell him as your feet finally press firmly flat at the top of the stairs.

One of his feet is placed next to where you’re standing up straight at the top, while the other is still on the third step down. And it’s like he’s kneeling on one knee in front of you as he looks up at you. After a moment of deep breathing on your part, you finally step away from the top of the stairs so he can finish walking up them too.

“I don’t know what happened,” you say to him as you make it to the front of your full length mirror, “I was just trying to zip it up but it got stuck. And it’s not unzipping either.”

He comes up behind you, and you can see in the mirror that he’s put a decent amount of space between the two of you from the way his arms are reached out in front of him just to access the zipper. He tugs up on it.

“Hm. It…” he struggles with it, “it seems…” he yanks again, “jammed?”

“Fudge,” you mutter under your breath (more ladylike perhaps, as opposed to fuck) and you sulk your shoulders. “But will it close at all, do you think?”

He takes a step closer to you, and his cologne has the fragrance of woody oak with undertones of citrus, like something expensive and sophisticated. His hand sweeps your hair off to the side and over your shoulder to the front so he has a better view, fingers brushing against the nape of your neck from the motion and you try to fight the shiver. A glance to the mirror, and you see his eyes are set on the exposed skin. He tugs to pull your dress together, and is able to cross the fabrics. “Yeah, it should. I think just hold your breath for a second? I’m going to try to see if zipping it down helps unjam it.”

“Okay,” you say softly, and he eyes you in the mirror at the sudden subservience.

You try to hold your breath as he tugs down on the zipper, and you hear the metallic click when he succeeds in unjamming it before he zips it down just an inch. You can feel the small of your back exposed to cool air from the motion.

He’s suddenly frozen entirely behind you, the knuckle of his index finger brushing against your skin as he continues to pinch the zipper between it and his thumb. You feel his slow exhale on the back of your neck. You’re too scared to look at his expression in the mirror.

“Sa–” you stutter through a gasp, “Satoru.”

“Sorry,” he says quietly, and then he’s shifting on his feet once before slowly attempting to zip the dress up.

He’s met with a slight resistance just underneath your shoulder blades. “Hey. Just hold your breath.”

“I’m trying to,” you tell him, almost whining, because it’s hard to stop breathing when your heart is beating fast and it needs the oxygen supply.

“Do you want to try on a different dress?” he asks you.

“No,” you immediately answer him. You’re not sure why, but the idea of wearing this dress for the rest of your life doesn’t scare you anymore. In fact, you never want to take it off.

Your hands twiddle with the flimsy string at your collarbone that you tied to connect the fabric across your chest, and then you realize. “Oh…maybe I need to–” you tug at the end of the string, “undo this? That might make it looser?” You finally glance at the mirror to seek his approval of your suggestion.

His eyes meet yours, and when he sees what you’re referring to, his eyes widen. “But that would–”

“Just don’t look,” you say simply.

You two remain looking at one another in the mirror, and you see his chest heaving slightly through the tightening of his dress shirt against the expansion of his breathing. Like you’re asking the impossible of him.

“Or I’ll kill you,” you say.

He sighs, and his eyes flit down to your zipper again. You swear you feel his hand tremble slightly. “Alright.”

You pull on the end of the string, watching him in the mirror to make sure his eyes don’t wander, and the fabric covering your breasts falls open, but you use a hand to still sparsely cover your skin with the cloth where you can. In the reflection, you see his jaw clench but his eyes remain on the zipper, and only briefly flicker to the bed once. Then he’s zipping up your dress with ease.

You quickly tie the string above your chest once more to cover yourself up, and then spin to face the mirror, petting down the fabric of your dress and throwing your hair back over your shoulder. It was a snug fit, but at least it still fit.

He’s a step behind you with his hands shoved in his suit pockets, looking at your face with a slight tilt to his head like he’s studying you in the mirror just as much as you’re studying yourself. And then he pulls his hand out of his pocket to glance at his watch again. “It’s almost noon,” he says.

“What?!” you bark at him. “We’re fucking late!!! Why didn’t you say anything?!?!”

“Huh??” he baffles. “I’ve been trying to tell you we need to rush this entire time.”

“Oh my god, oh my god,” you say, pacing your room to find your things in a scurry, picking your purse up and then grabbing your Manila folder of paperwork from your desk, and you try to walk past him to the door when you trip over the five pairs of shoes that you had been trying on earlier, almost twisting your ankle, and you gasp then grab onto his suit jacket for purchase before his arm attempts to reach out to hold you upright but to no avail since you tug on him as you fall straight backwards onto your bed and bring him down with you.

His hands sink into the soft mattress on both sides of your head, wrists tickled by your hair, as he hovers over you, and your fingers quickly curl into little balls at your chest as you shrink underneath him, looking up at his surprised expression, likely from having to suddenly brace himself from falling right on top of you.

You both look at each other, blinking as you come down from the sudden chaos, and his tie that’s hanging from his neck brushes against your knuckle and falls over your hand to graze the skin above your breasts. His eyes briefly flicker to the sight, and he catches himself only to stare at your lips instead.

Even through thick layers of fabric, you can see the thick curves of the muscles in his arms, pulled taut from how he’s holding himself up over you. And for once, you wish the buttons of his shirt were undone, so you can see what he’s hiding underneath. The hair he had swept up above his eyes now falls freely with gravity, soft tufts that dangle above you and shadow over the blue of his eyes as he looks at you with a furrowed brow that–...that makes him look handsome.

You must be ovulating.

No, wait, you finished ovulating a couple days ago.

Oh god.

Was your next door neighbor hot this entire time?

There was simply no way.

You refuse to believe it.

You’re laying still like a deer in highlights, motionless underneath him, before he curls his arm around your waist to bring you up with him as he stands up straight, and you only spend a moment pressed up against him before you get yourself out of his grasp by pushing flat palms against his chest, and then the two of you are in proper distance from one another once again.

“D-Don’t ever do something like that ever again,” you stutter, shimmying your hips slightly to pull the snug fabric down your waist from where it had risen up.

“I didn’t do anything,” he grumbles, and he runs a hand through his hair. Now it looks like it always does, no longer prim in style.

“Whatever, let’s just go.” You slip your feet into one of the pairs of heels sprawled across on the floor, and then you head straight for the door. “You drive.”

You hear him sigh behind you. “Yes ma’am.”

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

The courthouse is bustling with people when you two arrive but Gojo’s pleasantly able to pull into an open curbside parking spot right in front of the entrance. You’re surprised when he comes around to the passenger side to open the door for you, and you swat his hand away when he offers it to you too, but you probably should’ve taken it, since you almost twist your ankle for the second time today as you step out onto the curb and get used to walking in heels again like a newborn fawn.

“Should’ve taken my hand,” he says to you, smile turned upwards into a smirk as he watches you struggle while he’s a few steps ahead of you.

“Give it to me then,” you grit through your teeth as you wobble, giving up your pride to avoid adding yet another medical bill to the list of debts in your name.

“Nah,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets, “too late. Lost your chance.” You curse his entire lineage in your head.

You two make it inside the courtroom, and the first person you look for is Hana, whose head you catch at the front row much to your pleasant surprise since she is your sole witness to sign on the marriage certificate today. But in your study of the room to find her, you notice that there are a lot of other people in here as well.

“Don’t tell me…Did you invite people??” you ask Gojo, grabbing onto his sleeve to get his attention and also for balance, but he doesn’t need to know that latter part.

He glances down at you. “No? Why would I invite people to my fake wedding?”

Your eyes peruse the room once again, and you realize that most of them are just old retired people with nothing better to do on a Sunday than visit the courtroom. Some are elderly couples, eyeing you and Gojo as you two make your way down the aisle with sweetness in their eyes like awwwwwww to be a young couple in love once more <3 while they wait for the judge to call on their hundreds of unpaid parking tickets because they don’t know how to access an internet portal.

“D-Do you have the marriage license?” you squeak out to Gojo, who has now adjusted his walking speed to match yours.

“No, I left it at home,” he tells you in a flat tone. “Of course I brought the marriage license.”

“I was just checking, jeez…” you grumble.

Gojo hands the clerk the folder he was holding in his hand, and you hand in yours too.

Oh god. Your peripheral vision already recognizes him before your brain can, but you see an extremely familiar silhouette standing guard off to the side of the Judge’s bench, and your gaze immediately snaps in that direction.

Choso stands there, in his Sheriff Deputy’s uniform, his thumbs tucked into his vest as he puffs his chest out in assertion of his oh so important duty securing the courthouse on a Summer Sunday from any devastating danger, such as an elderly man not wanting to pay a parking ticket and then proceeding to charge towards the judge at 2 MPH, and you can’t help but roll your eyes from his attitude and scowl at him. Of course he pulled some strings and saw when you were getting allegedly married and decided to show up on that exact day. Whatever. You’ll pay him no mind. As long as he doesn’t speak now.

You and Gojo walk back to the lower desk in front of the Judge’s Bench.

“Ah! y/n, hello my dear, how are you?” the judge calls out to you.

“Hi Judge Jin,” you say meekly with a small wave, your voice echoing in the room, “good, and yourself?”

6/4/2024 1232: Judge Jin is a 72 y/o man with a past medical history of hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, hyperglycemia, GERD, liver cirrhosis and COPD, who endorses a social history of frequent tobacco usage and occasional alcohol consumption. Patient presents to the ED with chief complaint of chest pain, onset two hours ago after he drank three bottles of beer, and—

“Much better since you took care of me last week!” he humphs, patting his stomach.

You snap out of your automatic charting that was droning on in your head on reflex from how many times Judge Jin has shown up to the ED for acute chest pain which almost always ends up just being beer-induced GERD.

“At the hospital!” you clarify, “for taking care of you at the hospital!”

The man laughs heartily from where he sits up at the raised platform bench. “Yes! And Mr. Gojo! Nice to see you as well.”

You flit your eyes to Gojo, like you know him too? He only briefly spares you a sidewards glance before looking back at Judge Jin. “Likewise, sir.”

You postulate he scammed the fuck out of the man into signing a forty-year lease on a condo in the shady part of town, and you’ll leave it at that.

“I have to say, I am a little shocked by this matrimonial partnership!” Judge Jin chimes in. “But do you both swear to enter this marriage under just circumstances? I will need verbal affirmation from you both.”

Gojo raises his hand up in the air to swear on it, and you remember that he’s possibly done this before. Y’know how people have a courtroom wedding before a real wedding, something like that. And maybe that’s why he knows to raise his hand, because you didn’t even know you were supposed to raise your hand until now.

A real wedding. Something you’ve pictured a lot in your head, and so much more different than the arrangement you find yourself in right now. And because the pain of imagining yourself tying the knot with someone is too much right now, especially when the man you thought you were going to marry stands in uniform five feet away from you and probably doesn’t even recognize the dress you’re wearing right now, you glance over to Gojo and you try to imagine what a real wedding would’ve been like for him. Since he’s done it before.

He probably had a tacky wedding, like in a barn with barrels of beer used as tables with barely flickering string lights hung across wooden planks high on a triangular ceiling. The reception and the ceremony likely happened under the same roof, because he seems like the minimalist type, more focused on the feelings behind it and all, and not the grandeur.

Or maybe he was into the grandeur. Maybe he had a wedding on a skyline penthouse in the city, wearing expensive cologne like the one he’s wearing now, and a Dior suit he got custom made because it was a once in a lifetime occasion so why not? The image becomes a little too vivid in your head now, where you can picture this woman he’s marrying too. Pretty, tall just like him, wearing a ball gown white dress. He would’ve told her she looked beautiful, too. He would’ve told her he can’t wait to spend the rest of his life with her. Vows uttered shakingly into the microphone at an altar while the sun is setting far into the sky, shimmering off of high building windows until the air is golden and it reflects off of his and his soon-to-be wife’s face. And when they’ve professed their love for one another, he grabs her by the waist and dips her in a kiss, for the perfect picture against the perfect backdrop in front of all the perfect little people because there probably was a photographer at that event, wanting to capture the moment.

You snap out of the dazed moment when a loud voice calls out your name, and in a shock, you glance back up at Judge Jin who’s looking at you with slight irritation.

“Huh?” you squeak out, and then turn to look at Gojo, who’s got a look of mild concern on his face as he raises an eyebrow at you.

“Please swear that this marriage is under just circumstances,” Judge Jin states with a cadence that indicates he’s commanded this of you multiple times already.

“Oh!” you stand up straight, “I—…I’m sorry.” You hold your hand up. “Yes, I swear this marriage is under just circumstances.” Just like Higurama had you practice. He’d be proud. Phew, the hard part was over.

The rest of the ceremony goes by in a rather fast blur, and it’s a little awkward when you both have to tell Judge Jin that you don’t have any vows to exchange at the moment when he offers the time for them, but Gojo comes up with some lie about how the real vows will be at our formal ceremony, and Judge Jun seems entirely satisfied and a little too ecstatic by the answer before allowing you two and Hana to sign the marriage certificate.

“And rings?” Judge Jin asks as he peers down through his glasses to the paper he was holding at his desk. “We can now make time for the exchange of rings.”

You’re prepared for Gojo to come up with another lie about how the real rings will be at our formal ceremony, but you see him shuffling with something in his pocket in your periphery. Hm? You glance down at his hip, and you see him pull something shiny out.

He turns to face you, and he holds his hand out to you with an up-facing palm. You blink at him and then glance down at his hand. And then you look up and blink at him, and then glance down his hand. And then you look up and blink at him, and then gl—

“Give me your hand,” he says to you, a little hushed and rushed.

“Why???” you ask, baffled.

“So I can put a ring on your finger?” he says, like it’s the most casual thing. Like getting a ring slipped onto your fourth finger is the most casual Sunday for you, when it’s something you’ve dreamt of your whole entire life.

You finally take a long hard look at the ring he’s holding in his right hand. It shimmers with every glint of light in the courtroom off of every angle, no doubtedly precisely cut diamond from a jeweler who really cares about their craft, and you swear you’ve saved a similar looking ring to one of your Pinterest wedding boards before.

You hesitantly bring your hand up and hover it over his.

“Your left hand, silly,” he tells you.

“Oh, right,” you say, and hand him your left one instead.

He holds it in his hand that is much warmer than yours, and it’s so tender, the way he gently slips the ring onto your finger. It fits with ease, perfection actually, and you can’t help raising your hand up in the air, spreading your fingers weakly as you admire the stone now sitting above your knuckle. It’s pretty.

You feel Gojo’s eyes on you, as he’s halted in frame, and you glance past your hand to look at his face. You dislike him. You do. You should. He’s your annoying as fuck next-door-neighbor. So then why does your heart feel like it could burst right now?

A glimmer of silver catches your eye, and you look down at his hands as he slips a silver ring onto his left hand while facing you before he turns to face the front again, signaling the end of the ring exchange, except you didn’t get to put it on his hand. He didn’t give you the chance.

“Alright! Wonderful!” Judge Jin exclaims, whose eyesight is probably too poor to have seen that it wasn’t even a proper ring exchange. “With the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife!”

There is scattered applause across the courtroom, a few cheers as well, as you two stand in front of the court of law in holy matrimony.

Judge Jin glances at Gojo. “Well, young man, you may now kiss the bride!”

“Oh—…that—” you stutter, “that’s not necessa—”

“Okay,” Gojo says, more to affirm Judge Jin than in acknowledgement of your protest, and in a series of what feels like just one motion, he wraps his arm around your waist, pulling you two him and then he—

He kisses you.

He kisses you like it’s real, like there’s history, like it’s a pure thing meant to last and not something you quite literally put a time stamp on. The kiss muffles the small sound that comes from your throat, your hands held up in the air in some slight surrender before they slowly settle on his shoulders as he bends you backwards over his forearm to deepen the kiss and the cheers surrounding you grow with a fervor that has your cheeks burning red but for some reason you don’t want it to end—

And then he pulls away from you, eyes darting across the features of your face in close proximity as he exhales slowly, like a release, and it feels like the two of you are the only ones in this room before he glances at your lips one last time and then he releases his hold on you. You stand shocked, and briefly glance at Choso, who looks like he’s about to burst a fuse off the top of his head.

What.

What?

And just like that, you were married to your insufferable next-door neighbor.

[end of chapter 2]

a/n. thank youuu soooo so much for reading this chapter of ihm!! i’m kinda liking the writing style i’ve adopted for this series, it’s kinda lax n lenient sort of like a stream of consciousness and i hope it doesn’t come of too crass of informal lol i’m just playing around w some writing styles rn. ANYWHO i hope you enjoyed!! btw i picture choso as long-hair choso in any modern au (and not pigtails choso) so if you see me describing his hair in the way that i do, that’s why lol. love you all so much, hope to see you in the next one <3

➸ take me to chapter three!

note: please do not ask me for updates or when i will next update (read rules)

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mysunshinetemptress · 4 months ago

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Never Grow Up-T.V.

Alessia Russo x Reader x daughter

Warnings: haven’t written anything in a while so if it’s terrible writing please bear with me as I get my head back into it. Not everyone’s experience with anxiety is the same this is mine, the feelings I get so it might not match with yours . Anyway enjoy

“I’m pregnant”

She’s pregnant, Alessia’s pregnant, your wife is pregnant.

This is what you wanted, what you both wanted, so why do you feel a sinking feeling in your stomach, why has a knot formed in your chest.

This is what you wanted, all you have ever wanted, a family with Alessia, yet you feel a sense of impending doom, failure even as your wife looks at you with tears spilling softly down her rose tinted cheeks. Happy tears. Alessia’s happy, over the moon even. But all you feel is anxiety, nerves, impending doom.

You plaster on a smile and pull her into you as tightly as you can whispering how much you love her, how excited you are, how you can’t wait to meet them.

You tell your families fourteen weeks later, just as a small bump begins to form and you stand back and watch as Alessia’s family jump from where they are sitting, her brothers get to her first both wrapping her in a hug, just the three of them, then her sister in law Lauren, and finally her parents. You don’t move though, you can’t that feeling of impending doom, of failure seeps back into your bones like an old friend, you move on autopilot as Alessia’s family move from her to you. You don’t hear them as they spout their congratulations to you, yet you answer with quite thank yous, autopilot stays in complete control even as Alessia moves to you wrapping her arms tightly around, squeezing you her excitement, relief radiating from her like the sun.

You don’t tell anyone else she’s pregnant, Alessia tells everyone, she tells your friends, your band, your team, her friends, her teams. She can tell there is something wrong but she puts it down to the pressure of trying to finish a tour while she’s pregnant, that your worried about her and bump and so she tries to calm your woes by updating you on every little thing.

“Bump is the size of a peach”

“Bump is the size of an Avocado”

“Bumps the size of a Banana”

“It’s my twenty week scan tomorrow baby, you’re still able to come aren’t you, they can tell if bump is a boy or a girl.”

You hadn’t been to a scan since the ten week check up, you had tried, really you had but with the tour and that sense of impending doom you had been unable, you couldn’t miss this one, not the halfway mark, it would be unfair to Alessia, to bump. So you go.

You hold her hand the entire way to the hospital, you squeeze it tighter as you walk the halls of the hospital, so tight that Alessia looks at you her eyebrows pushed together, worry etched across her face.

“Do you wish to know the sex of the baby.”

You watch as Alessia adjusts herself on the bed, as she tells the radiographer no, that it’s a surprise.

As the image of bump comes on the screen you grab Alessia’s hand, as the heart beat, bumps heart beat sounds through the speakers you welcome in that old friend anxiety, you don’t welcome it really, you hate it, you hate feeling this way, the sense of impending doom, of failure running through you.

You feel sick as your eyes flick between Alessia and the baby on the screen, your baby.

Autopilot mode kicks in shortly after and you spend the rest of the day floating around on it. You feel terrible, both with this constant feeling weighing you down as well as the feeling and thoughts of letting Alessia down, of disappearing and going on tour, of disappointing her throughout her pregnancy and in the future when you officially become a mum.

Alessia doesn’t know what to do, your there but your not there and it’s been like this for months, but you won’t talk to her, if you just talked to her she could put your mind at ease she knows she could.

You finish your tour a month before Alessia’s due date, you arrive home and although you had been popping in and out through it all you feel as though you have missed so much.

“Bump is the size of cos lettuce.”

“Bump definitely takes after me, definitely a striker in the future.”

“Bump has lungs now, baby I made lungs, that’s so crazy.”

“Do you want to feel Bump kick”

That feeling doesn’t leave you for the remaining month of Alessia’s pregnancy, you can’t tell her, she is to excited, she will think your being silly, but you have to talk to someone, that’s how you find yourself outside the Russo family home, your mother in law looking at you face etched with worry.

“I-I’m sorry I didn’t know what else to do. I-I’m so lost.”

You blink as you realise you’re sitting in the Russo’s kitchen, cup of tea in-front of you as both of your in-laws look at you concerned.

“What’s going on darling.”

“I-I’m failing Alessia.”

“I-I’m failing Bump.”

Carol grabs your hand, “oh darling you haven’t failed anyone, what’s going on.”

You want to tell them you do, you want their help but you can’t help but think about the disappointed look on Alessia’s face when you get home and she sees you went to her parents instead of her.

“I’m sorry I-I have to go…I really am sorry I wasted your time.”

Your home before you feel like you have even taken a chance to breathe.

“Y/n”

Alessia’s knocking on your car window, wrapped in your jacket, she’s still shaking slightly, you can’t let her freeze out here, you can’t let Bump freeze and so your out of the car arms wrapped around Alessia as you pull her inside.

“Y/n.”

“Y/n what’s going on.”

Your back is turned as you make the both of you a hot chocolate, but Alessia can see the knot forming in your shoulders, the tension.

“How do you know you’re going to be able to do this, that you’re going to be a good mum.”

Alessia’s eyes soften immediately her hands going to rub her bump in comfort.

“I don’t, I have no idea what’s going to happen when Bump gets here but I know I’m going to try my best, that you are going to try your best and together we are going to do everything we can to raise Bump the best we can.”

“I-I went to your parent’s house, I-I left shortly after because I didn’t want you to feel like disappointed or sad in yourself for me not being able to talk to you but I feel like a failure.”

Alessia moves around the kitchen island so she’s standing on the same side as you but doesn’t close the gap to you, you need your space right now and she knows that, of course she does.

“I understand baby, I do. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone who isn’t me but thank you for telling me how you feel. But I need you to explain to me why you feel this way, why do you feel like a failure?”

You don’t look at her, your eyes drop from her hands tracing circles on Bump to the floor.

“I-I don’t, I have this feeling, the feeling like a knot in my chest and my stomach drops and I get this sense of impending doom, of failure and it’s been with me since you told me you were pregnant.”

“Y/n”

“I want this, I have wanted this forever, with you forever but I just, you told me and this feeling creeped in and I can’t shake it, but I need you to know I want this.”

Alessia steps forward now grabbing your face softly between her hands.

“I never doubted you wanting this, not once but I did notice you going quite on me and I can only help when you tell me, I’m scared too trust me but we are a team, we will face this together.”

Alessia’s words settle you slightly but still that feeling follows you, it follows you the entire way to the birth of your daughter.

“It’s a girl.”

A girl, you have a daughter, a baby girl.

“Amelia”

“Amelia Mariona Russo”

She was here and she was perfect so perfect you were scared to hold her.

“You won’t break her.”

The nurse tries to get you to sit down, your t-shirt off for skin to skin but you can’t, you don’t want to break her.

Alessia shuffles on the bed and pulls you into her so you’re sitting on the bed with her, she pulls your t-shirt off and nods to the nurse as she brings your daughter over, she’s resting on your chest before you can blink and your hands shake as you try to figure out what to do, how to hold her.

“Just lie back with me and relax.”

You do, you lie beside Alessia for an hour before the nurse comes back in and takes her away for her checks.

Alessia falls asleep and you feel lost so you decide to go for a walk, head to the gift shop, you’re proud of yourself, you held your daughter, you didn’t break her.

But that comes crashing down as you come up to the nurses station.

“Her wife is incompetent, honestly I feel so sorry for her she had to move over on her bed to get her wife to hold their daughter, like come on the girl just gave birth and had to baby her own wife.”

You are failing.

The Russo’s arrive a short while later, you hand Luca the ballon’s you had gotten your girls as you sit outside the room, your failing.

You can’t fail, Alessia’s to good for you to fail, Amelia is to perfect for you to fail.

Alessia and Amelia are kept only for one more day, you stand in the corner out of the way as you watch the nurse talk to Alessia, explaining things to her, telling her if she needs anyone to call her, even she knows you failing, that your a failure.

You carry Amelia out along with all the bags, it’s the least you can do you think, Alessia has done so much, will do so much. You drive home the slowest Alessia has ever seen you drive and she can’t help but add it to the tally of things you do, are doing to be a good mum.

There is a pile of books on the kitchen counter, books about baby’s, about raising baby’s, kids, teenagers.

“What are these.”

You set Amelia’s baby carrier on the counter, pushing it in incase she rocks it so it doesn’t fall off the counter.

She’s two days old, she hasn’t opened her eyes for more than an hour, she can’t rock a baby carrier, but you can’t help it.

“Books, for-for me I-i want to be perfect for her,for you and these can help-I heard the nurses say these can help.”

She’s here but the feeling doesn’t leave, the feeling of impending doom, of failure, of anxiety.

You help as best you can, as best you can while barely holding her.

She doesn’t sleep well, you get up every time, you hold her then, you try to settle her by yourself, prove to yourself, to her, to Alessia that you can do this, you do everything those stupid books tell you you should do to get her to settle but nothing works. You find yourself waking up your exhausted wife, Alessia, every night.

“I’m-I-she won’t settle, I’ve tried everything but she-she won’t settle.”

“I-I don’t know what to do, I-I’m so sorry I know I should know what to do but I-please help.”

Alessia is patient, so patient with you and you don’t know why.

Your trying, your trying so hard and she loves that about you, that you wake up at all hours of the night trying to do everything to make your daughter happy, to settle but it’s a hard job, but she is happy to help every time because you try, your trying.

It takes Alessia all of five minutes to get her to settle and back to sleep and you can’t help but feel yourself sinking more and more.

Weeks pass and every night is the same, every night you try and try and try and every night you fail, again and again.

Your not there when the nurse calls in, after the first visit where the nurse sent you to make her and Alessia tea and brought Alessia and Amelia into the living room before you had even made your own you took that as a hint, the nurse ones you were a failure, she didn’t want to waist her breath on you, Alessia knew what she was doing. So you make a habit out of not being there that is until you have to go to the hospital for Amelia’s six week check up.

Amelia turns six weeks in a blink of an eye and you’re back at the hospital to make sure she’s still perfect. Of course she’s still perfect.

“How are you today Mrs Russo.”

Alessia holds your hand as you hold Amelia in the other, you’re holding her more often now.

“I’m good, we are good.”

“I can see someone is finally stepping into their role.”

Alessia feels you tense, she hates this, she hates the way the nurse treats you, as if you’re just a little blip in her and Amelia’s life.

“What do you mean.”

The nurse looks taken aback.

She answers but you don’t hear her, you look down at the baby sitting in your lap as you take in her face, she looks just like Alessia, she’s perfect and you’re still failing.

Everyone can see that.

You don’t remember anything else happening but Alessia pulling you out of the seat and walking to the door, you don’t hear her shouting at the nurse for being so rude, for not understanding.

Your not failing, your learning how to swim and sometimes when you start to get to the deep end you panic a little but it’s getting easier to just keep going, Alessia can see that, she can feel that.

You hold Amelia more, you don’t wake her up in the night to help settle her as much anymore, she can see it, everyone can see it but you.

Amelia has these big blue eyes, you’ve read somewhere that they will change colour in a few months but you hope they don’t, she has the most perfect big blue eyes, Alessia has seen them but never noticed how they constantly search for you until now.

Now at four o’clock in the morning as Amelia won’t settle and Alessia is getting restless not feeling you beside her that she wanders the house in search of you both, only to stumble into your studio.

Your playing guitar, chords she hasn’t heard you play before, Amelia perched on top of the instruments body head turned looking straight at you her big blue eyes watching your every facial feature as she smiles.

She’s smiling

Oh my god she’s smiling, actually smiling for the first time and it’s for you, because of you.

You don’t take your eyes off her as you hum the melody and play the chords.

You don’t take your eyes off of her as you begin to sing a song you’ve written just for her.

Alessia can’t take her eyes off you both as you continue to sing, your perfect, your both perfect, so perfect.

You aren’t a failure, you are still struggling through the water but you’re slowly learning to float, to swim and she can see that in the way your shoulders are so relaxed singing to your daughter.

You are a complete different Y/n than the one who stood crying in the kitchen a month ago, worrying about letting her down, about letting Amelia down.

This is it she thinks, you ever feel like that again, where the anxiety is so bad you have this feeling of impending doom over you, seeping into your bones, she’ll remind you of this, the moment you made your daughter smile, you settled her, all while writing a song for her.

You’re perfect, Amelia is perfect, Alessia is perfect, this little family you have created is perfect.

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bokunoheros · 2 months ago

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ཐིཋྀ KINKTOBER - day 12 squirting : shouta aizawa/eraserhead

warnings : afab reader, reader and aizawa are married, y’all have a cat, pussy slapping (pun probably intended), this is doo-doo dog shit, like this actually sucks, doo doo fart ass, dookie, poo poo fart, smegma, this fic reads like what sharting yourself feels like, this fic smells like the family bathroom at walmart, we’re fucking twelve (not literally), don’t expect anything else genuinely, butt, pretend this was never posted, PLEASE, day 12 is NOT REAL, THEY HIT THE PENTAGON— MR PRESIDENT GET DOW— bill gates did it, bill cypher is canon, squirting, fingering idk, eating ass, butthole rimming, 2024 election, ellen digestive did 9/11, Trump x Biden, 9/11, hilary emails included, proof of aliens existence, video footage of the area 51 raid, UFOs, alien butt sex, wrong usage of condoms, anal probing, biological dna harboring, sickle cell anemia, KLANCE is canon, Steven universe, major character death, gem fusions, love children, feel like cinderella naega byeonhae, NETFLIX ORIGIONAL, only on Hulu, Elsa x Jackfrost smut, playdough, me x YOU, tiana x nanami au, your mom x me, sarcamouche x kazuha, xiao x venti, improper use of crack cocaine, making herion, mentions of drug mules, dead dove: do eat, improper use of magic, meth making, cocaine balloons bursting, Harry Potter x Snape, hermoine x the whomping willow, herobrine x steve, unfortunate uses of pixels, bakudeku slime, hnnng harder daddy, mmhppgh— yeah yeah right there, cum consumption, cumflation, feeder fetish, oh yeah, koolaid man x me, very improper use of koolaid packets, nickacaco avocado weight loss journey, apology videos (tears included), , banjos, jake paul dcead body in forest footage (NOT CLICKBAIT), live leak posts, webtoon origional, anal stretching, did you know the human anus can stretch to the size of a raccoon?, now you know that, and also, the sun will explode June 17th, 3028, character flaws, bodily anatomy, your balls will explode on october 21st at 7:99am, my gleeby deeby ass, futurama, Micheal Angelo, improper use of abortions, medical surgery on a grape, plastic surgery, baby killing, tampon usage, description of endangered animal poaching, Mario Kart, tuberculosis, ima get it donnnne oh aye oh aye oh, butt stuff, dazai x chuuya, atsushi x akutagawa, mpreg, mad cow disease, omegaverse, ranpo x me, Dream SMP, matpat x scott cowthan, michael afton x freddy fazbear, aggressive typing, bath salts, bath salt inhalation, whippets, galaxy gas, all might is a bottom, skinny men, carrington x shigaraki, anorexia anorexia anorexia, afo x nana shimura, BLOODY MARY, BLOODY MARY, BLOODY MARY, TW gun law debates, tenko x mon, Amazon delivery, school shootings, talk of gun laws, bad dragon toys, silicon, aoyama belly button leaking, lego ninjago r34, ninja turtles r34, bloody mary r34, kamala harris r34, tenya iida x tensei iida, jesus x judas, luigi x bowser, sonic and shadow makeout sesh, i fuck your dad, suck his dick reallll nice, penis sounding with dirty twig, orgasm denial, overstimulation, xenotransplants, oviposition, diaper Taco Bell, people die, revival, dark magic, ecoterrorism, global warming, chemical warfare, wanda x the winter soldier, haruhi x tamaki suoh, cosmo x wanda, comicon, bronies, pegasisters, mentions of twilight sparkle dying, twiilight sparkle x mordecai, air planes, shootings stars, night skies, NLE Choppa, we could really use a wish bro, TuPac is back, floppa carts: plompy haze, death of a platform known as tumblr, twitter referred to as X, elon musk creates sex robot that specializes in butthole sex, Tesla sex robot, androids that FUCK, necrophilia, android phone usage, pheromones, premonitions and words of Jesus, divine intution, potion making, heavenly visions, satan, satanic visions, the heavenly principles, celestia is above mondstadt, spiritual healing, veganism, white washing, canon hispanic hanta sero, futanari, blasian mina ashido, bovine spongiforms, Tenya Iida virginity loss, bakugo is a fucking faggot, handjobs, footjobs, peaceful protests, the government is controlling you through vaccines, asian fishing,

vaccines might cause autism, freshwater fishing, they will, xenophobia, hentai hucows, incest, usage of slurs, starbucks coffee, lizards run the world, obama might be a lizard, inappropriate use of baby oil, gojo x getou, day twelve never existed and it was all a lie.

word count : 420k words and 69 pages

🐙 note : we are not locked in we are as loose as a ran through sorority president

🦊 note : i am. i have no words. idek what happened. we ran out of time so we went with the option we thought might make people giggle (no we didnt we did this bullshit for ourselves)(your regularly scheduled content will resume tmr!)

🪲 note : i ain’t fucking sorry

you adored your husband—shouta aizawa—so much so, that you were his dedicated housewife. he made plenty of money as a pro hero and… enough… as a teacher, so that left you to take care of the house and your shared cat. though when he did come home he was way different than he was at work, usually at work he was all nonchalant and cold but at home he was sweet and caring, sometimes even a bit rough. his students would definitely describe him as laid back and uninterested, yet when you were around they were in awe of his personality shift.

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imposterogers · 11 months ago

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BABES THERE ARE REAL TEARS IN MH EYES ITS FOR REAL!!!!!!!!! ITS FOR REAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE AVOCADOS IN LAW ARE BACK

#daredevil #Matt Murdock

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newtsixtyfive · 3 months ago

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Avocados at Law !!

Video Description Below Cut

[ID: Red and white text: "Get yo mangy ass on!" Foggy, bouncing to the beat, is pointing at Matt behind him, smiling: "Back to the kitty, cuz she's kinda pretty." Foggy is wearing a pink shirt with a blue tie. Matt is standing behind him, wearing a grey suit and red tie. He is holding his cane and staring to the right. Foggy is to the left of him. Karen is fanning herself with her hand, also bouncing to the beat: "I can't stop looking at her-" Karen is wearing a blue sleeveless blouse. Matt stands behind her, the same image as before, and Karen is to his right. "T- Face." The video zooms in on Matt's chest, and there a faint heartbeat lines fading in and out. Matt is slightly taking off his suit jacket. Then, the video shoots up to his face, and he smirks at the viewer. "Me and cat mama rolled into the distance fog." Foggy, Matt, and Karen are depicted as little chibis, and are walking. Matt seems a little flustered and they are all smiling. There is a red transition, and Matt appears on screen facing the viewer. His glasses hide his eyes, and he holds his cane in his left hand slightly up to his chest, "Little does she know," "I'm as nasty," Matt lifts his cane, and there is another red transition. "Dog!" Daredevil appears in Matt's place, grinning at the viewer as he starts bobbing to the beat. After the second "Dog!" there is a Snapchat dog filter over his face. END ID]

#nmcu daredevil #daredevil #daredevil fanart #matt murdock #matt murdock fanart #foggy nelson #foggy nelson fanart #karen page #karen page fanart #mattfoggy #mattkaren #mattfoggykaren #animation #animation meme #nasty dog meme #my art #ive never done video descriptions before. i hope its alright #let me know if i need to change anything

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uceyliyahh · 3 months ago

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UNDER YOUR TOUCH

Summary: After her difficult breakup, Tiana wanted to start anew with her life. That's when she realized her life would be better when she met him.

This fanfic is 18+! NO MINORS ALLOWED

word count: 3585

smut warning; it’ll come in the story randomly so PLEASE PLEASE look out for it I’m not really good at writing ✍🏽 smuts but I’m improving at the moment.

Jey Uso x Tiana

AWFUL GRAMMAR IM GETTING BETTER I SWEAR LOL.

comments, likes, repost are appreciated I would love the constructive feedback in what area I need to approve in. 🤍

ALSO! I don’t not want nobody stealing my fanfics or take it as theirs that will be an issue fasho so keep it cute respectfully.

I only own my OC along with the make up scenarios

But I’ll be writing along the way since this story is in my drafts on Wattpad right now so yuh. 💁🏽‍♀️

TAGS ⬇️ lmk if you wanna be tag 🏷️

@paigereeder @pinkwithhearts @jstarr86 @biancasreign @angiedawn02 @fearlesschimera @empressdede

TIANA It was eleven in the morning as I had woken up from my slumber, stretching my body and arms while yawing and seeing Jey still sleeping peacefully; I hope he had forgotten about beating Kai's ass today because, honestly, I didn't want him to do it. After all, Kai is just a waste of time.

I played with Jey's messy hair, causing him to shift in his sleep. I giggled while getting up to cook some breakfast for us before heading into the shower.

I threw on some comfortable clothes while going downstairs to the kitchen. Meanwhile, I saw Bianca sitting on the couch watching TV as her eyes darted towards my direction.

"Hey girl I didn't know you were here." Bianca said.

"Yeah, I was here yesterday," I said, grabbing the boxes of eggs from the refrigerator.

"What you finna make? Wait, is Joshua here?"

I nodded my head, yes, as a smirk appeared on her face. I just rolled my eyes at her—she was so dirty-minded—until she spoke, "Any tea?"

I turned my head around and looked at her. " Yeah, girl, it's a lot of tea." Once I had said that, she sat up quickly, ready for me to spill.

✧.* After cooking breakfast, I was spilling the tea to Bianca about Kai and Kehlani and how Jey wants to beat his ass today for putting his hands on me.

She rooted for him to do so because she'd been tired of Kai ever since he and I started dating each other for about two or three years.

"Girrrrrl, you need to let him do it, " she encouraged me as I stuff my face with food.

"I mean, I said I wasn't stopping him from doing it; that's his choice, not mine," I said as Bianca and I heard footsteps coming down the steps.

We both turned around, only to see Jey walking in the kitchen, getting something from the refrigerator. His eyes darted in my direction.

"Good morning, brother-in-law," Bianca said as I looked at her with a shocked expression.

He chuckled at her comment, "Hey, B." He came towards my direction as I stood up wiping my mouth with a napkin, he hugged me while I stood up on my tippy toes hugging him back as I gave him a kiss on the lips.

"Good morning, mamas. It smells good in here, " he said while grabbing a piece of avocado toast.

"Yeah, I decided to make some breakfast before I go open shop for today." I heard him sigh deeply.

"Do you gotta open shop today?" He whined softly as i chuckle at him.

"Yes, boy, you know my clients want their nails done. I mean, what did you have in mind?"

"I mean, I wanted to spend time with my shawty today." He said, flirting with me.

I smiled at him while playing with his messy mullet, "We can if you want to watch me work." He shrugged his shoulders, agreeing to it.

"As long as I'm spending time with'chu for the day I'll be ight mama."

'That nickname just rolls off his tongue like magic.'

"Also.... are Jon and Trin still in town?" I asked.

"Yeah, I mean, we can go hang out at my crib if you all want to, of course." Bianca and I looked at each other and then back at Jey, nodding our heads in agreement.

"Ight then, are you comin' in the shower with me or what?" Jey asked.

He didn't have to tell me twice as I followed him upstairs to take a shower with him.

✧.* JEY I was at Tiana's nail shop with her today. Since I'm off work and the tattoo shop is closed today, I just decided to spend time with my lady and see her do her work.

She looked so focused and polite with her clients. Even when they caught glances at me, her face would turn up instantly filled with Jealousy, but she knew to pay attention to these women who came and went.

I haven't forgotten about her ex-boyfriend either. I'm still standing on what I was doing to beat his ass when I see them because he doesn't got any right to be putting his hands on Tiana like that.

Twin📌: what's up Uce? Jey: y'all busy later on Uce? Twin📌: nah, why? Jey: I was thinking maybe we should hangout today at my Crib you know chill n shi Twin📌: I mean I'm down fasho, just don't be loud when you and Tiana fucking uce. Jey📌: mane that's my house last time I check 😭 Twin📌: ight my fault my fault.

Unknown number sent 2+ messages.

'Who the fuck is this?'

Unknown Number: Jeyyy babyyy I miss you please I'm sorry about what happened. Jey: Kehlani please gtfo ion' got time to be dealing with yo' delusional ass. Unknown Number: Nigga yk what fuck you, honestly is her pussy that good? Better than mines?

'This gotta be a fucking joke right?'

'Is she serious right now?'

Jey: that's none of your concern Lani, leave me tf alone dawg. Unknown Number: fuck you, you know she isn't better than me. Jey: she really is but ok😐

I blocked her ass while sighing I'm glad I broke up with her ass she was just a hoe anyways, I've seen Tiana scrolling through her phone as I walked up behind her wrapping my arms around her waist causing her to jump a little bit.

She hit me on the arm, making me wince from her little hits as I scooped her up by her thighs, kissing her face.

"You on break mamas?" I asked.

"Yeah, I think after these three clients, I'll be done for today. Have you talked to your brother?" Tiana said.

"Yeah, they're going to be there today, so bring your bathing suit." She smiled at me as I put her down, seeing someone pull into the parking lot while I went back to what I was doing.

✧.* We were at my crib chilling, smoking weed enjoying the weather as I was in the house talking to the guys about the whole situation with ol' boy.

They could understand where I am coming from because when I was with Kehlani ass she was fucking around with some dude that I had to beat his ass for being disrespectful but Kehlani didn't really seem to care about what she did.

She still went back to the dude after I whooped his ass just made me feel heavy.

"aye, uce you gotta do what you got to do, even if Tiana tells you no it's a waste of your time who knows when he'll show up and just do it again." Montez said.

"That's what I've been saying uce." I said.

"After all, we got your back if something pops off." Jimmy said.

I wish something would pop off at my crib because anybody will get fucked up honestly, I've seen Tiana talking with girls as she coming back inside to probably get another blunt.

She looked so good in her bathing suit but I knew I had to keep my composure since we had guest I ain't wanna beat her shit in while they're here so I'll wait.

But I've seen her facial expression changed when she looked at her phone, she looked at me then back at her phone me feeling concerned I went up to see to see what was up.

"Mama, what's wrong?" I asked.

She showed me her phone with messages between her and her ex-boyfriend when I read the messages I just smirked while chuckling darkly.

'This dude don't quit does he?'

"He wanna pull up? Tell em he can pull up." I said.

"Josh ion'—— tell him he can pull up Tiana. I want all the smoke with ol' boy since he wanna play. Let's give him a show." I cut her off mid-sentence before she could say something.

She nodded her head lightly as she went back outside to the pool with the girls, as I did the same with the guys.

"What happened uce?" Jimmy asked.

"Her ex wanna pull up to 'beat' my ass, so I just told her to tell him to pull up. I wanna give him a show, yall got my back if shit hits the fan, right?" I replied. They all nodded their heads yes.

We kept passing the blunts back and forth to each other, waiting on this dude to come pull up because I've been waiting all day to beat his ass. I'll do him worst than I did the last time.

We saw a light coming through the window. When I noticed a car pulling up in my driveway, I just knew it was the ol' boy, so I signaled the guys to meet me outside.

I stood outside with my arms folded over my chest, seeing him coming out of the car with his boys, knowing that this would be a long night.

"Where's Tiana at?" Malakai asked.

"Why yo' ass worried about my girl?" I questioned him while maintaining my distance.

He chuckled a bit while putting his hands on his hips, staring at me, "Man, stop playin' bring her ass here."

'He's more delusional than I thought.'

'He's worse than Kehlani'

I called for Tiana to come here, and my voice was raspy and deep enough for her to hear me from the back. She came out front, confused as to why I called for her, and she turned her head, looking towards her ex-boyfriend.

My hand sneaked around her waist, pulling her closer to me as she held onto me.

"Kai, I think you should go home like fr." Tiana said as he scoffed at her.

"Nah, Tiana fuck that you think this bum can beat my ass? Please, I got help." He said.

"Me too, yo' ass ain't the only one with help, and again, if I were a bum, I would've been dressin' like yo' ass come up with something new." I said.

I looked over at Tiana, who stared at me with her deer-eyed eyes. I kissed her on the lips.

"Kai, I'm wondering why you want to embarrass yourself when you know you and your friends will get messed up, so go home, dude." She said, holding onto me tightly.

"You're coming with me, Tink. C'mon." She didn't move an inch as she continued to hold onto me. He looked back, seeing her not coming.

He looked pissed as he began to walk up on us, causing me to bring Tiana behind me, pushing ol' boy back, causing him to stumble.

"Go in the house, baby," I told Tiana as she went back inside with the girls.

Him and his boys began to run up on us as we began fighting each other, I was handling ol' boy ass punching him in his mouth causing him to fall down on the ground.

I got on top of him, bashing his head against the concrete while punching him in his shit. Meanwhile, Jon and Montez were body-slamming the other two on the ground.

"Yo,' ass wanna keep playin' with me, right? putting yo' hands on women? Let's give yo' ass a show, huh?" I spoke with aggression as I grabbed him by the hair, throwing him onto his car breaking his windshield.

I heard him groan in pain while holding his back like I gave a damn. His ass wanna keep playin' with me, and my girl ion' play that shit.

He tried to get back up to swing on me but missed as I sucker-punched him in his jaw as he fell back on the floor, seeing blood coming from his face.

"Next time you wanna threaten my girl, it's goin' to be worst for yo' ass." I said as I backed away from him.

Seeing him and his friends fucked up as they got back inside his car, "TIANA IMMA FUCK YO' ASS UP WHEN YOU AINT PAYIN ATTENTION!" I heard him making threats, making me run to his car, but Jon held me back.

"C'mon uce, he'll get what's comin' to him again let's go back inside the house and check on girls." Jimmy said as I nodded my head.

We went back inside the house, and seeing Tiana and the girls sitting on top of the couch, Tiana came up towards me, hugging me as I kissed her on top of her head.

"I'm okay mama, I just got a few scratches," I reassured her as she looked up at me.

She was biting the bottom of her lips, which turned me on a bit because she looked so innocent doing it.

"Honestly, he needs to be in jail, but I know his parents will bail him out," Bianca said.

"Yeah, I care about Tiana's safety for real ion' want nothing happening to her while his ass is around." Trinity said.

I was agreeing with what the girls were talking about.

"T, you gotta get a restraining order on him or it'll get worst."

She nodded her head, agreeing to the idea because that's what she needed. Anything could happen to her while she's at work or even at home when I'm not around, Bianca is not around, or Montez is not around.

"C'mon, yall let's go outback to enjoy ourselves ion' wanna keep talkin' about this." I said as we went out back to the pool.

✧.* OMNISCIENT

While everyone was swimming and smoking weed together, Tiana was sitting by herself, letting her mind take over, thinking about what had happened earlier between Jey and Malakai. She didn't know what would happen if he showed up again.

She was even worried about her safety as well, but she was concerned about Jey's safety, knowing that Malakai does own a gun, so anything could happen to him.

She felt someone touching her on her back, which made her snap out of her thoughts when she saw Bianca sitting next to her.

"Hey bestie are you okay?" Bianca asked.

"I don't know B, I'm worried about Josh's safety." Tiana said softly.

"Why you say that? You saw him hold his ground in order to protect you T." She said.

"Yeah, I get that but..."

Bianca looked uncertain as Tiana sighed, "Look B, Kai owns a gun, and I don't want nothing happening to Josh." She confessed with concern in her voice.

"You're just now saying something T!?" She yelled as everyone looked our way, including Jey.

"B! Yes, I know it's bad, but I completely forgot about that," Tiana said as she heard Bianca sighed deeply.

"Bestie, you can't be telling stuff at the last minute, even things like that. Now you have to go tell him you know what happened last time."

Tiana sighed softly. She didn't know how to explain to Jey that her crazy ex-boyfriend had a gun on him and could end up in the hospital any day if this kept happening.

She didn't even want to remember what happened last time.

FLASHBACK

"Don't point that at me Kai!" I shouted.

"Well, tell me that you won't leave me, and I'll stop pointing it at you, " he threatened.

'How could he be this manipulative towards me when all I ever did was love him and support him.'

"Kai, me and you both know that's not going to happen; you don't care about me anymore."

He scoffed at me while continuing to point the gun at me, causing me to back up.

"I! DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU?! WHEN ALL I EVER DID WAS CARE TINK!?"

"GIVING ME SEX AND THEN FUCK OTHER BITCHES ISNT CARING ABOUT ME KAI OR LEAVING ME IN THE DARK!" I shouted at him, feeling frustrated and scared.

Malakai stomped towards me as my back was against the wall feeling scared as his gun was pressing against my neck.

"I did not cheat on tink; you're just being delusional and in your head a lot," Malakai said.

He's so manipulative and a narcissist, trying to make me feel bad for feeling this way when I've been feeling like this for two years in our relationship.

It didn't seem fair that I was going through this with him. His parents think he's mentally ill, but I call bull shit.

He was pressing his gun up against my neck more further as I was shaking.

"So tell me, baby, are you goin' to leave me?" He questioned me as I shook my head not wanting to die.

A smirk appeared on his face as he pulled the gun away from my neck as I had tears coming down my cheeks while he gave me a kiss on the lips.

"Good, now go cook us something to eat because I am starving." I did as I was told, not trying to have that thing pressed up against me again.

FLASHBACK OVER.

"B, ion wanna think about that day please I'm traumatized," Tiana said.

She hugged me tightly as she pulled away. " Well, you have a man who can protect you and love you for who you are, T, and that man is Joshua. He would never leave you in the dark."

"You need to tell him he'll understand, T." Tiana looked over at Jey, who was staring at her, signaling her to come inside the house so they could talk.

She sighed as she got up from the pool and walked inside the house. He closed the door behind them, folding his arms over his chest.

"Is there something you wanna tell me mama?" He asked as he stared at her deeply.

Her mouth was opened, and she began to say something, but she closed it while looking down at her feet, fiddling with her fingers, picking at her skin.

She didn't know how to explain to him what she had to deal with when she was with Malakai. Yeah, he cheated on her, but that wasn't the whole story; she only gave him half of it.

Tiana heard him walk closer to her, and he grabbed her chin, making her stare at him. Her looking innocent made him turn on even more, but that had to wait.

"Talk to me, baby; I'm right here." Jey reassured her.

She sighed while folding her arms, "I didn't tell you the whole story of me and his relationship I only gave you half of it because I didn't want to think about all of things he did to me." She confessed as his eyebrows furrowed a bit.

"What'chu mean?"

Tiana gave Jey the whole spill about what had really happened between her and Malakai, how he would threaten her with the gun if she left him, causing her to feel trapped, her feeling manipulated by this man or gaslighting her about how she felt calling her crazy or delusional.

Telling him how she felt scared and didn't know what to do or how to leave him without feeling like he was going to kill her.

Until she could finally escape him when Bianca and Montez came to get her one night when he wasn't around packing the things that she needed as she left with them.

Jey listened to her confess everything as he stood there quietly, keeping his arms folded around his chest. She stopped talking, looking up at him in his eyes, trying to read his facial expression.

She saw concern and a bit of sadness in his eyes. He didn't know that she went through all of that with him. He unfolded his arms while hugging her tightly.

"I'm so sorry that happened to you baby." Jey said softly as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

She nuzzled her face onto his chest as tears poured down her face, thinking about what happened.

Crying quietly in his chest as he held onto her, comforting her, kissing her on top of her head.

His eyes darted toward everyone else who was staring at them. They didn't know what was going on except for Bianca and Montez because they knew that this was hard for Tiana.

He pulled away for a second as he cupped both of her cheeks, rubbing her tears away from her face.

"I will protect you with my life Tiana and I mean that shit, I'm here for you baby I will never leave you in the dark like his dumbass did. I love you Tiana." Jey said as he kissed her on the forehead.

Tiana smiled lightly while nodding her head, "C'mon, let's enjoy ourselves, okay?"

They both walked outback with everyone else, enjoying the rest of the night.

Under Your Touch.

biancabelairwwe, MontezFordWWE, shelovekai and 288,000 people liked your post.

tianasworld: it's a healing journey. ❤️‍🩹 uceyjucey: we are doing it together mama yk I got'chu mama. 🫶🏽 tianasworld: @ uceyjucey 🥹🥹 biancabelairwwe: yes it is girl you're doing a good job. 🤍 shelovekai: what fucking healing journey? 🙄 I didn't do anything to this girl. uceyjucey: @ shelovekai gtfo. theyhatelani: pick meeeee 🙄 biancabelairwwe: @ theyhatelani girl don't get yo' ass beat you'll be next on the list hoe 💁🏽‍♀️

Read all 56,000 comments.

tianasworld replied to your story: 🥹 i love you. biancabelairwwe replied to your story: WIFEY??? Is that a sign you'll actually be my brother in law??? trinity_fatu replied to your story: IKTR BROTHERR Jonathanfatu replied to your story: wifey? you goin' make it official? lmk about the wedding uce. 😭 theyhatelani replied to your story: tuh you callin her wifey now? remember how you used to say that to me? shelovekai replied to your story: that's funny.

Welp Malakai and his goons got they asses beat yet again and I feel like bad for Tiana that she had do go through allat with him I'm glad Jey is being there for her.

Lmk what yall think in the comments. 🤍

Stay Ucey.

#jey uso #black writers #black fanfic writer #jey x oc black #black oc #wwelove #black reader #wwe fanfiction #jey uso fanfiction #jey uso smut

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avocadoletters · 10 months ago

Text

What a Mess

There was nothing except stunned silence and the sound of droppings.

On the counter, on the floor, across the kitchen, beyond the lid to a blender, and most of all on you.

With eyes closed, you could still hear him.

“Matthew–” You began slowly.

Wheezing and the compression of couch leather began.

“Don’t you dare.”

“Well honey what can I say? I thought I was–”

“MATTHEW MICHAEL–!”

“The Avocado at law!” With a bark the man without fear doubled over, laughing until he had to take his red lenses off and wipe away his tears of mirth.

Until a glob of guacamole not even he could have stopped landed splat on the back of his head.

#matt murdock #fanfic #mine #avocadoletters #fanfiction #blurb #daredevil #cute #happy #wholesome #avocado #matt murdock x reader

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heartofwritiing · 1 year ago

Text

Absent in the spring.

paring: q!wilbur x fem!reader (+ platonic q!philza x fem!reader)

summary: a small vacation to Phil’s beach house causes you to finally break down.

authors note: a follow-up to this fic but you don’t really have to read it. some more q!wilbur angst for you guys because I miss wilbur and tullulah content! also i made it so chayanne and tallulah talk in this lets just pretend the eggs are the human-dragon hybrids that are in fanart bc thats how i see them!

warnings: a little angsty sorry, hurt-comfort, happy end, not 100% following qsmp lore, unedited! please ignore any mistakes!

“how are you holding up?”

Phil’s voice pulls you out of your trance from fidgeting with the blades of grass next to your tucked legs.

You bring your gaze up from the lush green and watch on as Chayanne and Tallulah play tag a few feet away in the field behind Phil’s beach house.

The past month had been weary as you waited for your husband to return from his tour. Days stretched on though you kept going despite that dread in your chest of missing him.

Phil had noticed you seemed less like yourself as the month went on. You were sleeping less, and getting stressed. When he came over to help you take care of Tallulah yesterday he saw how defeated you looked while trying to keep a brave face for your daughter.

Being in an empty house wasn’t fun for anyone, especially when it was too dangerous to go outside on the server alone. So, Phil invited you out to escape that empty feeling, just for a while at least. A walk and boat ride later, you were now sat beside the man with his legs crisscrossed while he munched on avocado toast.

You had shrugged plainly to his question. Fine? Okay? you didn’t know…

Squeals and giggles erupted in your ears as you watched Tallulah finally tag a breathless Chayanne, who had gotten tired of running away from his sister and let her have a turn at the one being chased. Her little legs barely kept up with her taller older sibling as he quickly regained energy.

You couldnt help the smile that was brought upon your lips. Happy they were having such a good time together, being normal for once and not sheltered from the horrors of the server that was trying to harm them every moment. They needed this time, to be care free. To be kids.

You and Phil chuckled at their antics. Though It made your heart break thinking about Wilbur being absent. He wasn’t here to hear the sounds of his daughter's sweet giggles as she played blissfully in the tall grass. To see how she was getting along with everyone, making sure they were happy and cared for.

Wilbur hadn’t sent you a letter in a week. You understood he was busy with tour, you didn’t expect him to have much time to sit and write but your worst agitations were coming true.

The disappointment was settling in each time you would go to the mailbox by the door- you and lullah had spent a day painting and decorating to your liking, with splotches of colors and your names painted across in not-so-straight letters- it would be empty with no sign of even being open since the previous morning.

“I miss him,” you say suddenly to Phil, whose gaze shifts away from the kids to you. You keep your eyes locked on them, fearing that meeting his eyes would make you finally break down into the tears you were holding back for so long.

Phil brings his hand onto your shoulder, a simple symbol of comfort.

“Awe mate, I miss him too.” he said warmly. “he’ll be back soon, im sure of it.”

Swallowing the lump building in your throat, you were so glad you had Phil there for you in these moments. Tallulah had done a good part cheering you up but sometimes you needed a real talk.

"I thought I could do this on my own but-" you choke. "I need him, Phil. He's missed so much and I can't help but think he's gonna feel guilty for not being there for her, or for me."

You let yourself break down in-front of your father in-law finally letting go of everything you’d been holding onto the past month and a half.

Phil placed his hand on your back in support as you sobbed into your hands. The aching pain in your forehead with the slight headache building, the chest pangs told you this cry was long over due.

A tap on your shoulder brings your head out from your knees. You lift your eyes to see Chayanne standing over you, his hand stretched out with a simple white flower pinching between his little fingers. His eyes held nothing but innocence as he looked down on you solemnly. He did not understand why you were so distraught, nor did he care, he just wanted to aid you in any way that he could.

"Please don't cry, Tia Y/N," his voice was small but sympathetic, making your heart sink.

Phil looked so proud in that moment, to see his son come over to aid you with comfort made him perceive he was doing something right in raising a child for once.

Taking the flower from Chayanne, he immediately crouched down to give you a tight hug around your shoulders. Surprised but grateful, you began silently crying as another pair of little arms joined the embrace - you knew it was Tallulah. Finally, you allowed yourself to let go and broke down into tears, feeling their tight embrace.

You were so glad you had these kids. Though they didn’t understand your behavior entirely there was no judgement, only care.

“For what it's worth Y/N, you have us and we will always take care of you both.”

Of course, you knew that. Phil had always been there for you since you first met him. He took his role as a father to everyone very seriously.

“thank you for bringing us here Phil, we really needed this.” you breathe as the kids pulled away from you. Phil gives you a smile of understanding.

A few hours passed as you all sat on the dock, watching the last glimmer of daylight fade away over the water - casting a golden glow. Phil suggested a campfire to roast marshmallows. Tallulah and Chayanne were already running off excitedly to gather various sticks to help. Once the fire was going, you all sat together on the sand telling stories, laughing, and enjoying each other's company.

The hole in your heart was healing, and the weight on your chest lifted. You realized that even though life was rough and unpredictable, having a supportive family was what mattered, and you felt content and at peace.

You saw the others smiling, knowing the shared bond was enough.

That night you all slept at the beach house, and for the first time in a month, neither you nor Tallulah had a nightmare.

The journey the following day back to Phil’s was thankfully uneventful. Mostly just shenanigans between the two children. Collecting things like leaves for the scrapbook you and Tallulah were making for Wilbur, documenting all your adventures. Chayanne running ahead to deal with any monsters who dare cross your path.

Upon seeing the tiny house with a fenced yard, you all went your separate ways. As you opened the gate to the yard, the tall purple trees and the various flowers made you miss the tiny home.

Tallulah seemed happy to be back and automatically tried dragging you to see her turtles before you could close the gate. You asked her to be patient while you brought your bags inside.

Walking up to the front door, you heard a crash from inside and you froze. You instantly reached for your sword laying on your hip. Tallulah saw this as a warning and she quickly cowered behind your legs. Preparing for the worst, it could be anyone behind the door. Charlie looking for food, (since he was living near your house in a shed last you heard.) Quackity looking to start another fight about parenting. Or worse the code monster could’ve shown up again to take Tallulah from you.

You would die before that would happen.

Tallulah clung to your legs as you quietly unlocked the door and pushed it open. You gazed down at her and saw her worried eyes.

“If something happens I need you to teleport to abuelito and Chayannes to warn them okay?” You spoke to her firmly in hushed tones, being careful. Tallulah showed you the tiny purple stone for a quick getaway and indicated she understood.

The house was exactly as you left it, except for the suitcase and guitar bag resting against the sofa, which made you frown. Then realization settled in and a gasp escapes you.

Was he here?

Or was this another trick?

As you lowered your sword, you heard someone rustling down the ladder. The wood creaked with every step as the person in the yellow sweater came into view. With round glasses leaning down his nose, fluffy hair, and long limbs, you’d know him anywhere.

Wilbur felt relief wash over him as he stopped midway on the ladder and saw you staring at him in disbelief. as if he were a ghost. It pained him slightly. You couldn’t believe it.

Wilbur was back.

Tallulah peeked out from behind your legs and the tiny gasp she let out when she saw Wilbur. She ran into his arms and cried out;

"Papa!"

Wilbur grinned as his tearful daughter ran towards him. He scooped her up in a tight embrace as you watched, tears streaming down your own cheeks. He held her swinging back and forth gently trying to hush her cries. She was so happy to finally see him again. You had never seen such a wonderful sight of the two people you loved the most in this world.

“I missed you so much Tallulah!”

Wilbur rested his head on Tallulah’s and smiled sideways at you and reached out his arm. Without hesitation, you dropped your sword, which clanked loudly on the ground, and you rushed into his embrace.

You bury your face in his neck, holding onto his scent, his body, his everything. Never wanting to forget how he felt and sounded. Tears stream down your face, drenching his sweater, but you don't care. This time, they flow out of love and happiness, not frustration or sadness.

You all cried and held onto each other for dear life.

“I missed you so, so much my love,” he coos in your ear causing you to choke out a laugh. After missing his voice for months you were so elated to hear it again.

Wilbur sniffled as he squeezed you both tightly in his arms, never wanting to let go.

“I’m here my girls, and I am never gonna leave you again,” he whispers.

This was home.

End

#q!wilbur x reader #wilbur soot x reader #c!wilbur soot x reader #q!wilbur #fanfiction #qsmp fanfiction #q!philza #x reader #qsmp x reader #mcyt fanfiction #mcyt #dadbur #dadbur x reader #dadbur headcannons #wilbur soot x fem!reader

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vylad243 · 5 months ago

Text

More out of context conversations from work but hazbin hotel (bakery edition)

~☆~☆~☆~☆~☆~

Alastor: Oh, it's the long weekend.

Charlie: Which long weekend?

Alastor: August

~☆~☆~☆~☆~☆~

Vox: Someone keeps pouring vinegar by the watermelons

Alastor: Sometimes rotten fruit smells like vinegar

Vox and Alastor: *Slowly look inside*

Vox: Well fuck

Alastor: Get the gloves

~☆~☆~☆~☆~☆~

Vox: I identify as a fucking problem

Velvette: did you just say you identify as an avocado?

~☆~☆~☆~☆~☆~

Angel: I'm the biggest bitch in the store

Husk: I think I misheard you

Angel: What? What do you think I said?

Husk: That you're the pigeon in the store

~☆~☆~☆~☆~☆~

Velvette: *runs into freezer* Let me get a good sniff of you, boy

Valentino: w-what

~☆~☆~☆~☆~☆~

Vox: *gives exact recipe on how to make specific sandwiches*

Vox: I need therapy

~☆~☆~☆~☆~☆~

Vox: That customer totally heard you call them a bitch

Velvette: They didn't if I don't believe in it

~☆~☆~☆~☆~☆~

Alastor: *coughs* I got turbercolosis

Vox: Jeez, who are you? Arthur Morgan?

~☆~☆~☆~☆~☆~

Alastor: back in the old days, sailors used to commit cannibalism to stay alive when their ships wrecked

Vox: Yeah. They would just eat the weakest one

Alastor: No. They did that, and the law had to be changed over it. They all had to agree and usually randomly chose. If one party didn't agree, they couldn't do it.

~☆~☆~☆~☆~☆~

Vaggie: Let's just do twelve trays to be safe.

Charlie:... eleven times three is thirty-three. Thirty-three packs of hamburgers.

Vaggie:... we need five trays

Charlie: we need five trays

~☆~☆~☆~☆~☆~

Vox: Okay Sherlock

Velvette: Yeah, Holmes

Vox:....

Velvette: Wait.... what's the other guy's name?

~☆~☆~☆~☆~☆~

Alastor: I will hit you with this pan

~☆~☆~☆~☆~☆~

Vaggie: Why is the bread so... deflated?

Charlie: It got too tall :(

~☆~☆~☆~☆~☆~

Vox:My stuffed whale shark named Sharky is at home, becoming my dog's stuffed shark. She keeps stealing my sharks. Please help. This is a genuine problem. I lost many to her

Angel:Does she destroy them?

Vox:She sleeps with them

~☆~☆~☆~☆~☆~

Velvette:Someone once asked me if we were siblings and I just stared at them

Vox:Maybe they thought one of us were adopted?

~☆~☆~☆~☆~☆~

#hazbin hotel #vox hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin hotel velvette #hazbin hotel valentino #hazbin hotel charlie #vaggie hazbin hotel #angel dust #hazbin hotel husk #incorrect quotes

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justinspoliticalcorner · 2 months ago

Text

Asawin Suebsaeng, Tim Dickinson, and Ryan Bort at Rolling Stone:

Donald Trump — the twice impeached former president, Jan. 6 coup leader, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual abuser, and man who mismanaged the 2020 economic implosion and coronavirus disaster that killed more than 1 million people in this country — has convinced American voters to give him another term in the White House.

After a campaign marked by nativism, open bigotry, and aspiring authoritarianism, Trump triumphed over Vice President Kamala Harris, despite being denounced by several of those who worked most closely with him in his first term as a “fascist.” The 45th president will become the 47th in late January. Trump got out to an early lead on Tuesday and never looked back, securing North Carolina and Georgia before shattering the Democratic “blue wall” of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The race was called at 5:35 a.m. EST by the Associated Press after Trump earned 270 electoral college votes by winning Wisconsin. [...]

The stakes of a Trump victory could not be higher for many of the most vulnerable people living in this country. Trump’s central campaign promise has been to embark on the largest mass-deportation program in the nation’s history, a supercharged version of a racist Eisenhower-era program called “Operation Wetback.” Trump has promised to forcibly remove millions, and said that it will be a “bloody story.” He has vowed to employ local law enforcement, sheriffs, and, if necessary, the armed forces.

Trump has also vowed to use the Justice Department as an instrument of revenge on his political enemies, to crack down on media outlets that have criticized him, to hollow out the professional ranks of the federal government (and stock it full of his MAGA cronies), and to impose massive tariffs that will increase the cost of everything from avocados and automobiles to iPhones and apparel.

America’s democracy has rarely been in a more fragile place. The country has chosen a leader who has promised to govern as a strongman, and who will not be held accountable for breaking the law, thanks to a ruling by his hand-selected, far-right Supreme Court majority that puts the presidency beyond the reach of criminal prosecution. This implausible victory — coming after a chaotic campaign that saw Democrats change candidates mid-election, and Trump galumph down the closing stretch with an increasingly bizarre series of stunts, including dressing up as a garbage man — also has huge stakes for Trump personally.

As early as the summer of 2021, according to three sources familiar with the matter, longtime political operatives and GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill who had remained in direct contact with Trump were coalescing around a shared belief: If the criminal investigations into the former president keep ramping up, and especially if charges materialize, there is no way he doesn’t run for the presidency again. This conviction was based on conversations these Trump allies had been having with the ex-president at the time, when Trump’s fixation on, and barely veiled anxiety about, prosecution and potential prison sentences was already palpable. As time inched closer and closer to the 2022 midterm elections, Trump would, in discussions with close advisers about running again, increasingly ramble about the unique legal protections from prosecution that a sitting American president enjoys.

Two years, several history-making indictments of a former president, and billions of dollars later, those anxieties continued to fester in Trump’s brain. Over the 2024 election season, he and his allies had brainstormed and plotted numerous ways to shield him from dire legal consequences; earlier this year, the former president personally pressured multiple Republican lawmakers to pass legislation essentially designed to keep him out of prison forever. (This law did not pass, but stay tuned.) Trump appears in the clear for at least another four years after voters handed him his long-coveted get-out-of-jail-free card on Tuesday. [...]

Trump won this year even though — and, surely in some cases, because — he ran on imposing upon the American people and global community an openly authoritarian regime concerned largely with score-settling. In addition to pledging mass deportations, militarized crackdowns, and disassembling and reconstructing the federal government around protecting and empowering himself, the former president loudly and explicitly ran on a platform of letting fellow Americans die if he doesn’t get his way or if your local leaders don’t bend to his will. Trump has recently threatened to deny potentially life-saving natural disaster aid to states whose leaders don’t bend to his wishes, threats that should be taken seriously given his history of withholding such aid for political reasons.

[...] Trump’s win demonstrates that the most powerful people in the country are indeed above the law. An elderly, foul-mouthed, racist game-show host can try, in broad daylight, while the TV cameras are fixed on him, to execute a coup d’état in our nation’s capital, people can die from it, and in a few short years be rewarded with the full-throated support of his political party, and now the keys to the White House.

For just the 2nd time in American history, A president who previously lost an election wins a 2nd non-consecutive term, as Grover Cleveland was the first to do so.

34x convicted felon, insurrection-inciter, adjudicated rapist, fascist, and vile bigot Donald J. Trump, who tried everything he could to sabotage his re-election bid, won the 2024 elections… this time with the popular vote to likely swing his way.

Assuming the 2-terms limit applies to consecutive and nonconsecutive terms, 2028 will be a wide open Presidential election for both parties (provided that America has free elections still at that point).

#2024 Presidential Election #2024 Elections #Donald Trump

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apparitionism · 1 year ago

Text

Bonus

Happy particular Monday! Here’s a story for it, which came about mostly because I wanted to put a couple of people into a clichéd situation, and then I had to do leadup and aftermath... anyway, it’s intended to be a two-parter (yes, I know; aspirations) set in a not-entirely-canonical season 4, in which the Warehouse did get brought back and Helena did leave without explanation, BUT Artie doesn’t go full Father Data and Leena doesn’t suffer the consequences—mostly because Mrs. Frederic has sensed some badness to come and thus sent Artie and Leena away. Because why not? Also I have Claudia jumping into Caretakering, and even a bit of Artieing, with some enthusiasm.

P.S. I know I haven’t yet finished last year’s Christmas story—that’s a pain point—but I genuinely am working to get back on various horses, including that one. Weather (in all senses) permitting.

Bonus

“I genuinely cannot believe we’re stuck in an elevator,” Myka says. It may be the most true statement to which she’s ever given voice.

****

SEVERAL HOURS EARLIER...

Myka’s reasonably pleasant thought, burring along as background to her monotonous tasks, is I don’t mind this. She and Steve are in the Warehouse office early in the morning, doing file inventory, and it’s true: she doesn’t mind it. It’s a little lacking as a holiday activity, but with Artie, Leena, and Pete all away, “lacking” is pretty much the flavor of the moment.

Claudia pokes her head in and says, “Ping.” She’s unenthusiastic, speaking of lacking. Where’s the usual revving about what it might be this time? “At some midwestern accounting firm, because it’s important to have a boring Christmas.”

Ah. “An accounting artifact?” Myka asks. Speaking further of lacking: here, it’s artifacty zing. Then again, artifacty zing got Myka trapped in Alice’s mirror, among other catastrophes, so maybe boring isn’t so bad. “Balance sheets?” she ventures. “Pluses and minuses?”

“Some people at this pingy company just got extremely large Christmas bonuses,” Claudia says, “and some got their pay extremely docked. So yeah, ‘balance sheets, pluses and minuses’ just about covers it. Probably. I mean, I might be trying to manage expectations here.”

Claudia’s certainly right, in that getting one’s hopes up—about anything (or anyone)—is a fool’s game.

But still, there’s something to be said for boring-but-remunerative, even if only for some people... what a nice idea. “I’d like a Christmas bonus someday,” Myka says, “instead of a Christmas penalty. Which I think pretty accurately describes the Pete-plus-artifacts situation.”

“It’s two days before Christmas, and he hasn’t done anything yet,” Claudia says. “That you know of,” she amends.

“Because he’s been with his family in Ohio for the past week,” Myka points out, and she’s gratified when Claudia rolls her eyes. It’s practically a concession.

Steve says, “It’s inappropriate to say ‘Christmas’ bonus these days. It’s ‘end-of-year.’” The contribution suggests he’s listening with only one ear.

“I wish appropriateness mattered here,” Myka says, not really to him but in general. Who knows how a Warehouse HR department would make heads or tails of the application of employment laws—much less employment niceties? “Not that it makes a difference. Christmas, end-of-year... call it Fred, and we still wouldn’t get one.”

“If I ever do get a bonus, I’m absolutely naming it Fred,” Claudia declares.

Myka shakes her head. “Poor Fred. Doomed to be injected right back into the discretionary economy.”

“Inject-o-what are you even talking about?”

“Just a guess, but: you’d spend it on things you don’t need.”

Claudia harrumphs. “Thanks for lumping me in with the avocado-toast-and-Starbucks crowd. My fiscaling is way more responsible.”

“Really? What would you use Fred for?”

“Asus VG278HE gaming monitor. Plus a graphics card, maybe the Nvidia GTX 690, depending on how hefty Fred is.” At Myka’s snort, Claudia challenges, “Fine, where would you inject it?”

“My Roth IRA,” Myka says immediately. She’s not sure what assets her evil, crazy, or dead self will need in retirement, but given the many and varied forms each of those, or combinations thereof, could take, it seems like a good idea to have a financial plan in place. That’s another thing a Warehouse HR department might be useful for...

“You’re the actual human manifestation of an accounting artifact,” Claudia accuses. “Speaking of which, here’s the deal. I gotta stay here—some Mrs.-F homeworky stuff—and Steve’s busy reassuring all the misfit toys in the building that Leena hasn’t deserted them forever. And I’d say ignore the ping entirely, but your never know what’ll go viral, and I bet Artie’d say the last thing we need is another financial crisis. Or maybe you’d say it. Anyway, you’re it. And for your backup, when you get to Cleveland—”

Myka groans. “Cleveland? Seriously? Pete’s going to be so mad about you pulling him away from the family.”

“I’m not pulling him away,” Claudia says, blinking like she’s some innocent little lamb.

Myka groans again. “You’re making me do it?”

Claudia shrugs. “Sure. Why not. You’re partners, right? But here’s some advice: wait till you get there to call him. You know, put off the misery, if that’s what it is, as long as possible. Besides—more advice—I really think you should spend your travel time thinking about bonuses. Who gets ’em and why. Because what’s a bonus, really?”

“An economic stimulus whose nametag reads ‘Fred,’ if I’m understanding things correctly.”

“We’ll see what you think about that when you get to Cleveland.”

“On the day before Christmas eve,” Myka grouses. “By the way, that’s a whole lot of ‘advice,’ coming from somebody who’s over a decade younger than I am and not technically my boss.”

“By the way,” Claudia mimics, archly mocking, “we’ll see what you think about that too.”

“When I get to Cleveland?”

“When you get to Cleveland. On the day before Christmas eve.”

“Sounds like the title of a lesser Christmas carol,” Steve says—he’s tuned back in to the conversation. He then says, with his grin that curves so impish, “Think we could get Mariah Carey to sing it? It’s a hit if we get her, right, no matter how lesser?”

“‘When You Get to Cleveland on the Day Before Christmas Eve?’” Claudia skeptics. “Hit-wise, that’s gonna need a lot more power: Mariah dueting with Darlene Love at the very least. Plus we’ll need a Destiny’s Child reunion for at least one chorus.”

“Thanks for reinforcing my sense of how awful this is likely to be,” Myka tells them both, and Steve’s grin turns apologetic.

Claudia, however, shrugs. “Maybe you’ll sing it different.”

Myka is now the one to roll her eyes. “I won’t sing it at all.”

Surprisingly, Claudia doesn’t go with another eyeroll. “We’ll see,” she says, and Myka is struck by the Mrs.-Frederic resonance in her words. Does the homework include practicing the enigmatic tone?

Steve looks up and catches Myka’s eye. He winks. Myka would wink back, but he would probably interpret that as her saying she understands what’s happening. And that would be a lie: serious enough, probably, to make him wince and massage his temples.

So Myka just blinks—not Morse or any other code, just basic eye-moistening blinks. Then she goes upstairs to collect her always-packed travel bag for her trip to Cleveland.

****

Her flight departs late, of course; it’s December in South Dakota. But that’s this-time fine, because it allows Myka a necessary excess of opportunity to prep her Pete-placation. Under her breath, she practices the delivery of such words as “shorthanded” and “necessary,” aiming for maximum sincerity.

When she at last emerges from her Cleveland Hopkins jetway, that extensive prep deserts her entirely, for what awaits her is the manifestation of a Christmas wish she has worked overtime to convince herself would not, could not possibly be granted:

Helena.

Whose arms are crossed, and whose posture betrays that her foot might recently have been tapping out impatience with the plane’s tardy arrival. The attitude is so normal, so entirely of-the-world (rather than of-its-imminent-end), that Myka wants to reverse course, get back on the plane and redisembark, just so she might meet it again, meet it and refeel this wash of absolute relief at seeing Helena impatient in an airport.

Devious, Claudia, Myka thinks. Outstandingly devious. “Hello, Fred,” she murmurs, then tries, in the ten seconds she has before she and Helena are in proximity to speak, to engage in a far more consequential prep.

For Helena has been gone—has been, as Myka put it to Steve not so long ago, “god knows where”—since shortly after the Warehouse did not explode. She was there, in the Warehouse, but then she was gone, and Myka was told only that Helena had “matters to attend to.” God presumably also knew what those matters were, but Myka hadn’t, in the wake of that first moment of absence, and hasn’t since, been able to pry any information about matters or their whereabouts out of anyone, divine or otherwise.

And through the seemingly endless wondering, Myka’s mind and heart have gnawed themselves ragged.

Until this moment, when the wondering and gnawing end: now her blood speeds, coursing with urgency even as everything else seems to slow.... her movements, her reactions, her thinking, all are sluggish, unresponsive; only her blood matters. This blood knowledge. For all her wondering, she’s been avoiding gnawing her way to that answer.

“Claudia said you needed backup” are Helena’s words when they meet.

Myka’s attempt at prep has fallen grievously short—not that she could have risen to such an occasion, not when hearing that voice for the first time in some time, and certainly not when faced with what her blood’s embarrassing insistence has forced her to confront anew. “I... assumed I’d be calling Pete,” she says, to at least go with truth.

“Interesting assumption. Perhaps necessary, if you believe I’ll be insufficient.”

Myka’s impulse is to reassure: “More than sufficient—you’re necessary,” she would shout, or better yet, whisper. Instead, because Helena’s tone is neutral—is she in actuality indifferent?—she falls into a defensive, businesslike crouch, offering only implicit denial of the premise of Helena’s statement. “Let’s head for the accounting firm,” she says, internally cursing herself.

Cursing, but also justifying: Helena is here as backup, thanks to Claudia’s cleverness, and Myka should not assume (speaking of assumptions) that she even wants to be here. All focus should be on retrieving the artifact. Certainly on that and not on Myka’s (honestly) predictably overexcited blood.

She tries to concentrate on Claudia’s advice (while at the same time trying not to resent her success at being cryptic about it): what’s a bonus, really? Helena’s presence, the sight of her, the apprehending of her impatience, the experience of blood: whatever else may happen, these have been—must be—are!—the bonus.

****

The cab ride is quiet. Myka’s resolve to think only of backup and bonus is dissolving by the second, and she lets words reach her tongue that might start a conversation with Helena about things... but those words don’t escape her lips, for a strand of formality seems to be stiffening Helena’s spine. Does she know how Myka cherished her impatience? Is she attempting to discourage such adoration?

Myka, in regret and relief, follows that more-strict lead.

That’s a bonus too, though, for it turns the ride into unpressured, liminal time, perfect for simply basking in presence. It’s best, Myka is now thinking, to treat this reunion as something that was of course going to have happened. For backup or other professional purposes. Despite the fact that it’s the thank-god fulfillment of recurring, desperate dreams.

However: at one point in the traffic-backed silence, Helena, completely unprompted, turns and smiles at Myka.

Myka smiles back.

It’s a previously missing puzzle-piece slotting into place... yet in its aftermath, Myka finds herself having to push with force against a will to worry over other missing pieces; in particular, she must fight the fret-intensive futility of trying to count them.

****

They find the accounting firm’s lobby spacious but quiet—holiday-low staffing, presumably. Myka asks the receptionist, “Is there someone we can talk to about end-of-year bonuses? Also penalties?”

“I’m a temp,” says the young man. His tone suggests it’s his answer to every query... but then he adds, very quietly, “Unofficially, there’s this one guy...”

That has the ring of “artifact,” so Myka nods, encouraging him.

“Super-vocal about his paycheck the other day. How tiny it was. I mean, he’s the kind of guy you might have theories about what else is tiny, but I—”

“Who was that?” Myka interrupts, even as she feels Helena’s readiness to laugh. Mr. Super-vocal is thus probably not a wielder of an artifact; more likely, one of that wielder’s... victims?

“Bob,” the temp says. “I’m sure he’s got a last name, and I’m sure he thinks everybody should call him ‘Mr. Lastname,’ but my care level? Anyway he’s down the hall—one of the only ones in the farm today. Spite-working. Maybe on his anti-everything manifesto.”

“Down the hall” turns out to be a vast expanse of cubicles: definitely a farm.

Myka says to Helena, “Follow my lead?”

“Always,” Helena says.

It’s a tonally sincere utterance—and in that, admirable—but it’s also manifestly untrue; nevertheless, Myka’s blood decides to believe it, to recognize it as another puzzle-piece. I really need to function, Myka tries to explain to her interior. So if we could climb down just a couple rungs. Like to the cab-ride level, maybe?

Her body refuses the agreement.

Of course.

The occupant of the first inhabited cubicle they find is an over-coiffed middle-aged man who clearly spends far too much time in tanning booths. He’s typing aggressively, as if the force of his keystrokes will power his message. His manifesto?

“Are you Bob?” Myka asks him.

“You better be here about my money,” obviously-Bob says, clearly spoiling for a fight.

Myka finds his demand incongruous—his job has to do with other people’s money, and Myka and Helena are manifestly other people. Who could have money. Fred or otherwise.

“In a way,” she says. She follows up with “We’re from the IRS,” and it’s never not funny for that to be useful. Bob winces, as if she's about to strike him. Also never not funny. “We’ve noted some suspicious discrepancies in end-of-year reporting.”

“You have?” Bob asks. Now he’s avid rather than confrontational.

“Looks like some overreporting. Also underreporting. So you see our concern, particularly about effects on withholding.” She is making this up, as she generally does whenever she has to go actual IRS on someone. Read up on tax law, she reminds herself, as she generally does every time. Not that she’ll ever have the leisure to do that... “What we need to find out is whether it was in error, or if it warrants a full investigation.”

“Nancy Sullivan,” he says, with contempt, the name itself a curse. “She’s the one you should investigate, and then send straight to jail. She’s always been a witch about year-end, but now? On steroids. Talking about making her list, threatening to mark down people she doesn’t like, including yours truly, as naughty... and then we got our paychecks, and somehow she did it! No idea how she managed to push that garbage through, but I swear you better get her up on some kind of charges!”

He rises abruptly, clutching a slip of paper; his chair topples over behind him. He shoves the paper in Myka’s direction, his knuckles nearing her astonished nose—but in the instant before contact, Helena intervenes, her arm blocking his, stopping his forward motion.

Backup.

Helena plucks the paper from his pushy hand. “And what’s this?” she asks.

A pretty minimal manifesto, Myka thinks initially. But then she replays his screed in her head, and his babbling about Nancy Sullivan resolves into meaningful references; struck by the realization, she very nearly misses his next statement: “My pay stub. She can’t just do this.”

Helena says, “Of course not.” She’s soothing him, her voice a faux-caress. It’s enough to tempt Myka to act out, just to hear it directed her way, even as Helena continues, “But we understand some of your colleagues, to the contrary, received large bonuses.”

His “tanned” skin darkens further. “Guess she thought they were nice. To her. Suck-ups.”

Mya looks a Find out anything else that’s relevant at Helena, who nods. Retreating back to the pre-cubicle hallway—relieved that her nose is intact—she Farnsworths Claudia. She skips the pleasantries, starting with, “A very disgruntled employee says the woman who signs off on bonuses was making a list.”

Claudia chortles. “You’re hilarious. Was she checking it twice?”

“This is my point. We don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with, not yet, but I bet that’s the crux.”

“I should’ve known you weren’t aiming for hilarity. So you really think this is some Santa thing?”

“No. I’m saying words about lists because I think it’s a grocery thing.” Myka wants to shake her fist at the heavens and every deity who occupies it. Occupies them. All the heavens. “Of course I think it’s a Santa thing! I also think it’s Pete’s fault somehow.”

“Just because it’s Christmas? C’mon.”

“Christmas and Ohio?” Myka snorts. “You c’mon. I don’t believe in coincidence.”

“Maybe you should though. For peace of mind?”

“That’s another thing I don’t believe in. Just see if you can find anything about a Santa’s-list artifact, would you?”

“Roger. By the way, how do you like your backup?” She chortles again and disconnects.

“I like my backup like I like the sunrise,” Myka tells the blank Farnsworth screen.

“What about the sunrise?” Helena asks from directly behind her.

Myka wishes the sound of her voice were either more or less startling. She wishes also that she knew exactly how much overhearing had occurred.

“It’s inevitable,” she sighs.

In response, Helena blinks.

They take the elevator to Nancy Sullivan’s office.

In that elevator, which is aggressively mirrored, Myka can’t help but glance repeatedly at herself. So many reflections. You called this into being, thinking about Alice’s mirror before, she accuses. She tries not to focus on how her hair could really stand to be more controlled... she’d focus on Helena instead, but who knows how that would be received? Instead she allows herself one glance, then looks down.

She likes being on the elevator with Helena, though; it’s a space of relative privacy, like the cab. Have they ever before been on an elevator together? Alone or otherwise? She runs through their interactions, fast-forwarding from the Wells house to D.C., Tamalpais to Moscow, Yellowstone, Colorado Springs, Ohio (here Myka trips over the fact that Helena’ s now been to Ohio twice, if only once in physical form), Pittsburgh, Hong Kong...

The review—the speed with which she can conduct it—reminds her of how limited that time has been, so: an elevator ride. Yet another bonus.

“That fellow,” Helena remarks, and Myka looks up again; their eyes meet in the mirror of the elevator’s doors. It’s uncanny, as if they’re both holograms, so Myka turns her body toward Helena, who meets Myka’s actual eyes and continues, “He attempted to make a lewd joke about his willingness and ability to be naughty when it’s called for. I pretended not to understand.”

Myka can’t help it: she snorts. “I bet he didn’t buy that for a second.”

“I have the ability to perform ‘prim’ when it’s called for,” Helena says, and Myka has to acknowledge that statement as good evidence of itself. Then Helena’s face reshapes into a devilish grin as she says, “In a slightly different vein, his quailing at those three letters with which you assailed him? Hilarious.”

“Letters?” A little perverse-quirk makes Myka want to hear Helena say them, though she’s probably not pulling off “disingenuous” in making the request.

Helena seems fine with the perversity, for she obliges: “I,” she begins, then draws out “Aaaaare.” Then, after a beat: “Esssss.”

Myka now herself feels assailed—by how right Helena’s reading her. She tries to step it down with, “I wasn’t aiming for hilarity. I never do. Claudia can vouch.” But she does spend a little moment thinking about the context of that previous assailing: we’re from the IRS. We are here, together, from an agency. We, together, represent. It isn’t by any means everything Myka would have wanted... but it’s something: part of this bonus. “Fred,” she says, sotto voce.

The office they’re seeking is on the building’s highest floor, suggestive of Nancy Sullivan’s bonus-approving rank; it features several large windows, one of which affords the office a view of the hallway, and vice versa. Through it, Myka and Helena watch a woman, presumably that powerful Nancy Sullivan, writing with a quill-esque pen.

“It’s the pen,” Myka says, because it has to be. “It’s always the stupid pen.”

“Always?” That’s unusually tentative, like Helena’s trying not to step.

“Okay, once,” Myka concedes. “My dad and Poe and a pen, and as a result I’ve developed a severe aversion to those quill things.”

Helena takes a beat. Then: “I never liked feather pens.”

“Are you just saying that,” Myka says, because she might be, and she might admit it, and that might be good or bad or something else Myka has no way of evaluating. Why does Helena say words like this? And for that matter, why does Myka keep spending her limited time on this planet trying to parse them?

“Yes? In that I’ve... said it?”

That really didn’t help with any of the whys. “I mean, just to make me feel better?”

Helena shrugs. “The fact is, today’s ballpoints et cetera are far more reliable. Does that make you feel better?”

She’s playing at being obtuse—surely that’s for a reason? But Myka has no time to wonder further, for Helena is knocking on the office door and opening it without waiting for an invitation, and the real retrieval is underway.

Myka flashes her badge. “I’m Agent Myka Bering, and this is Helena Wells. We’re from the IRS.” She glances at Helena—all these glances!—and gets a small smirk in response.

Rather than introducing herself, the woman says, “Really? I bet that’s not true.”

“Why?” Myka asks. Have she and Helena, over the course of the elevator ride, lost their ability to perform “official” correctly?

“I have a feeling you’re here for this,” Nancy Sullivan says, and she lofts the pen, waving it like a wand. “Mostly because I also have a feeling that I want to close my fist around it, punch my way past both of you, and make my escape.”

Well. “That’s self-aware,” Myka says. “Unusually so.”

“Thank you? Although it’s less self-awareness than kind of a... sixth sense.”

Helena raises an eyebrow at Myka. “Sixth sense aside, we appreciate your good sense to refrain from attempting to punch your way past us. That would have ended poorly.”

“I wish I’d had the good sense not to use this pen,” Nancy Sullivan says.

“Is there a reason for your wish?” Helena asks. She sounds, to Myka’s ears at least, like a recently summoned, slightly flummoxed genie.

“Because of how much I liked using it—particularly when I realized nobody was going to question anything. I signed off on all these orders, and it was like...” she trails off. Then she concludes, “Magic.”

To keep her talking, Myka prompts, “Was it?”

“Having the power to reward good people has been fantastic,” Nancy Sullivan continues, “but penalizing the awful ones? I mean I’ve sort of resented feeling compelled to use the word ‘naughty’ about them, because that’s way out of character for me. But other than that? Utterly spectacular.”

“Bob,” Helena suggests.

“Oh, god, you met him?”

Helena offers a dry “Alas.”

Nancy Sullivan’s smile is as dry as Helena’s tone, astringently vindictive. “I could not have been more thrilled to hit him and everybody like him where it hurt... I admit I’ve always been kind of judgmental, but wielding this pen? Intensified. Like, the hates are more. In particular, the hates are more. I’m not saying the Bobs of this company didn’t deserve what I did, but I feel it more. Punishment. It’s satisfying, but also weirdly costly. Grinch-in-reverse costly.”

That’s a little on the nose. Myka glances at Helena again, because the satisfactions of punishment, of judgment, even of hate, are among the things they will need to talk about. Maybe. Someday. If they are to have a someday that is theirs... if that is even possible after so much time and tribulation... Myka lets the glance grow into a gaze, a resting regard, and it stays that way until Helena, too, glances, with the result then that their eyes meet and lock... such a clasp, Myka feels, could ground that potential, and potentially necessary, talk of things, if only they were not in the middle of a retrieval...

...which makes Myka think. Why are they in the middle of a retrieval?

“I wish I didn’t feel like I need to articulate this, but where did you get the pen?” she asks. Because she has a niggling sense of something larger happening, something beyond her grasp. Nevertheless, it is not—repeat, not—a vibe.

Fine. It might be a vibe.

“My cousin gave it to me,” says Nancy Sullivan.

“Your cousin,” Myka says. “Whose name is?” Now she’s knows what’s coming, and that has nothing to do with a vibe: no, it is entirely deduction based on experience.

“Pete Lattimer.”

TBC

#bering and wells #warehouse 13 #fanfic #Bonus #holiday (but not Gift Exchange)#proceeding at a vaguely nonzero speed #being left in the dust by snails and tortoises #but I do still love a Myka who fights with herself about who deserves what (and why)#and of course a Helena who can be reasonably inferred to do the same #struggling against the graceful acceptance of gifts #whatever form they take

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