#then at family therapy they’re all like please tell me i’m a good parent

[pheadrus]

asking my parents to pick me up pads on their way home.. this is like the most normal request right? they’re in a car and they’ll pass many service stations? anyway they said no bc they weren’t planning on stopping <3

[sadstrever]

i’m still 114lbs. i feel sick. yesterday was an awful day, i came home and had an out of body chew and spit session. i wish there was more research on this part of ed’s, or just more people who talked about it because i can’t be alone in this. i refuse to believe i’m the only sick person who does disgusting shit like this. anyways the reason why i call it an out of body experience is because it’s almost like binging-just without all the swallowing of food. i came home and immediately started doing it and filled up 1 and 1/2 2 liter bottles with food. i spent 5 hours doing this without even realizing and pretty much emptied out my whole families fridge. the guilt i felt afterwards was worse than a binge in my opinion. not only did i totally waste SO MUCH food, make a huge mess, ended up with disgusting bottles of mush in my room, i also have to face the consequences of my family coming home to an empty fridge. but when they got home they were happy that i “ate.” god i’m such a fucking piece of shit.

anyways after all that i took 4 laxatives to try and get the guilt of wasting the food out of me. i woke up in the morning today in terrible pain but still had to go to class, cuz what am i supposed to tell my parents? “yeah i haven’t eaten in almost a month and basically just threw all the food we have out in the trash and i also took 4 laxatives, can i please stay home tehe?” so i went to 1 class and ended up leaving because the pain was so excruciating. straight from class i went to the gym and somehow burnt 900 calories because i guess that’s what guilt does to me. i had to take the bus 2 hours home afterwards(bus delays and i went to a new further gym location this time), high out of my mind. i’m home now and my stomach hurts but the laxatives finally did their job. i don’t want to keep doing this. 4 years ago i said i’d recover and then i didn’t. since then i’ve forgotten about recovery (with the exception of a few random moments here and there that i block out immediately), i am so used to living in this fucking misery that i didn’t realize how abnormal my reality is. i don’t want to be a bad person anymore. but i can’t stop lol.

this is what bothers me about the girls who romanticize this disorder SO MUCH, when much of the time they haven’t realized how difficult it can become. i know i’ve done this, even now sometimes as a coping mechanism. but man, i’m sick of it.

i have a friend who writes poetry and she wrote a poem about eating disorders that make me so fucking angry. the thing is, i’ve known her for years and she’s always had the best relationship with food out of most of the people i know. she’s naturally pretty thin(not too thin but normal) and she’s very open about her struggles. i know every single one of her stories, i know she’s diagnosed with adhd. that’s HER disorder, that i don’t understand so i DONT write fucking POETRY about it. a few months ago she kind of forced me into opening up about my eating disorder. after i did, suddenly she started writing these stories about her eating disorder-very very very suspiciously similar to mine. i obviously didn’t tell her everything but i told her about how long this has been going on and just my emotions about it. seeing her start to adapt my fucking disorder into her poetry disgusted me. she glamorized the fuck out of it and made me feel so stupid for ever opening up about it. she’s naturally skinny so she got a bunch of support from our friend group from it and i’m just upset man. i’m sick of living in misery while other people can use the idea of living in pain for attention.

i promised my best friend that in 3 weeks i’ll go back to therapy and try my best to recover. it’s not true. man it’s never fucking true. it’s never fucking over. unlike ms.deep-poetry-girl i can’t just fucking write this and log off and then eat a good warm meal and talk to my parents without them mentioning my body. i can’t wake up tomorrow morning and hug them without worrying that they’re gonna feel my bones. i can’t wear shorts anymore without people noticing the bruises. i can’t go to school and keep my focus because i have nothing to feed my brain. i can’t let anyone get close because soon enough they’ll be just like YOU. OR they’ll hate me for not wanting to get better. i can’t love myself like you do because of the disgusting things i do each day. i can’t wake up thinner and suddenly stop hating myself. FUCK YOUUUUUUUU GOD IM SO SICK OF IT GOD. whatever im done. just sick and tired.

[kitofawriter]

So I watched the first two episodes since they’re in English now. Live reaction:

LMK Season 5 spoilers under the cut:

Fun training session! Let’s go!

Tired MK is tired. Somebody get this boy the therapy he needs!

Wukong is trying to be responsible about the monkey form at least.

“I’m compartmentalizing!” XD me too MK, me too

MAC MAC MAC!!!! Also “Bud” not in a mocking way!!!!

“This mountain’s been by home just as long as yours” I’m screaming!!!

They’re working together! (Sorta)

Wukong confirming he didn’t know about MK!

Referencing Mac’s death and resurrection!

Ominous stone crack!!

Mei!! My girl!!!

THEY BUILT HIM A NEW HOUSE!!!!

Tang continuing the tradition of shirking the hard labor. Good to see he’s still himself.

THE PICTURES!!!

The origami!!

Even Mo gets a picture!!

HUG HUG HUG!!!

MK please chill, like even 2% calmer would be a major improvement. You need to rest and get therapy.

“Sleeping with the noodles”

Dadsy give him some comfort. Also send him to therapy. Or teach him cooking.

MK backstory! Noodles! Sleepy noodles!!!! That is so cute oh my god!!

MK is a heavy boi. Also sleepy.

“I love you, son” I am not emotionally prepared for the sheer amount of MK and Pigsy fluff in the last two minutes.

Mac sleeping with the little monkeys!!! At the tree!!!

Spooky goings on. References to Monkey King getting kidnapped to the underworld perhaps??

Stop blaming the monkeys for the things they’ve been trying to stop please. That’d be great. MK needs a nap. You could’ve waited for him to sleep.

Wukong throwing shade about the underworld situation. You tell ‘em!

Smug smile. Good monkey.

Mac canonically appears in the Monkey King Ace Attorney TV show? What?

Fillet?? Fillet??? Nezha?!? “Nezhie”?!??!?

Li Jing, hey, can’t say it’s a pleasure to meet you. Maybe take some parenting classes and then we’ll talk.

Mac trying to stop the fillet!!!

MK losing it a bit at that, love the concern for Wukong! They is a family!!!

Also Nezha trying to plea for them!

Underworld jail.

Grumpy Wukong and mopey Mac, I can just feel all the angst fics being written.

MK is trying so hard to free his mentor!

“It’s tense in here.” Gee I wonder why.

Secret plan with the fur? Secret plan with the fur? The nods?!

(I think I should interject here to point out, I rarely watch things without also doing something else to distract my hands, and yet my crochet has been forgotten because I’m having so many thoughts!)

Nezha providing exposition

Tang!Wukong, glasses is a must

Painted art style my beloved it’s good to see your return!

“My father is not the enemy” I mean he’s not exactly a pillar of goodness either my dude.

“I’m a clone”

Okay the running animation bit was actually pretty nice, love the movement. I like how they’re really trying to keep close to the original style of animation even though they’re working with a totally different tool set.

Mac, are you…are you Naruto running?

Wukong keeps doing the cutest smiles. I’m gonna have to go back through and grab some many screenshots.

Wukong and Mac just…knowing exactly how to fight together with no communication when they’re actually both on the same side.

Sandy got a new truck…

…And it’s gone, poor guy

MK worried that they’re just the harbingers of chaos when they have directly caused so few of the problems they’ve faced. Like, I get it, but maybe have some perspective. You know what would help with that? Therapy.

Just don’t explain anything. It’s fine. They’ll figure it out.

MK building powers!!

Fillet use!! Mac stepping in!! Mac sacrificing himself?!?!? Oh the angst fics will be legendary!!

“He always gets away, right?” Followed by sad face?!? OH THE ANGST FICS WILL BE LEGENDARY!!!

Monkey in pagoda. This feels familiar.

I’m sensing a later “boiling rock” style episode. Or else they all get trapped in there and have to bust out (Nezha helping them escape possibly?)

That was so good! I can’t wait for the actual proper release for better audio quality and more importantly MORE EPISODES!!

[goodnightmemes]

BONES SENTENCE STARTERS / s01e12 - s01e14

❛ Don’t use your charm smile on me. ❜

❛ Every family has its secrets. ❜

❛ Are you a nerd? ❜

❛ Go ahead. Don’t let me stop you from - What are you doing exactly? ❜

❛ You know I gotta tell you, I never bought all that English 101 stuff. Sometimes a river is just a river. ❜

❛ Could you please, maybe just for once try not to piss everyone off around you? ❜

❛ My God, it’s like we lead parallel lives. ❜

❛ You’re just one of those guys who’s way too good at lying. ❜

❛ I’ll see you in the comic books, buster. ❜

❛ So what you’re saying is that reality falls far, far short of the fictional. ❜

❛ I was just using it as an excuse to make conversation and reestablish our connection. ❜

❛ Great, how he’s ignoring us in two languages. ❜

❛ You know that book I’m reading, about getting along with your coworkers? It says that sarcasm is never helpful. I could lend it to you if you want. ❜

❛ Did you hear what I said about sarcasm? ❜

❛ I call shotgun. ❜

❛ I called shotgun. What does it mean to a society when the niceties are no longer observed? ❜

❛ Is anybody here? You don’t have to be afraid. ❜

❛ Of course they’re gonna be afraid, I have a gun. ❜

❛ I am asking you as a favor not to make me do this…to scare her. Please? ❜

❛ Interesting or horrible? Because sometimes, it’s the same thing with you. ❜

❛ Mega tough old bastard. ❜

❛ I’ll tell you what, because I like you so much, if I find out who did it, I’ll kill him. ❜

❛ You think you can intimidate people into doing what you want? ❜

❛ How do you handle someone who isn’t afraid of you? ❜

❛ That’s gonna hurt in the morning. ❜

❛ I know you’re all about self-reliance and fighting your own battles and standing up for yourself, but now, as your friend, and knowing how much you hate psychology here, you need therapy. ❜

❛ Later I found out it was three days. But, I thought it was a week, maybe more. ❜

❛ He came in every day and made me believe I was going to die. ❜

❛ I promised myself if I ever had the chance, I’d get even. ❜

❛ You put a hit out on my partner? ❜

❛ If anything happens to her, I will find you and I will kill you. I won’t think twice. ❜

❛ Come here, look in my eyes. Look at my face. If anything happens to her, I will kill you. ❜

❛ Should I keep talking as though you are paying attention? ❜

❛ The information that I’m about to tell you must not leave this room. ❜

❛ I am philosophically imposed to institutional secrecy in all its forms. ❜

❛ So now politics are more important then murder? ❜

❛ Next time you know, you miss me, pick up the phone, call me, we’ll do lunch or something. ❜

❛ He doesn’t know what it’s like to lose a parent, you do. ❜

❛ You want to back down a jot there buddy? ❜

❛ Well maybe he discovered that being pushy is how you get cops to pay attention. ❜

❛ What are you hawking at me for? ❜

❛ Ugh, you’re so sweet, honey. You really are. ❜

❛ We get it. You’re a rebel. ❜

❛ Yeah, I know at times like these not to get hopeful, but on the other hand you’ve got to have hope. ❜

❛ I’m not really interested in bonding over the loss of my parents. ❜

❛ Ah, good one sir, very droll. ❜

❛ Never. Freeze. On. Me. Again. ❜

❛ Well, I’m never trusting any of us again. We’re that good at lying, huh? ❜

❛ Some people find it harder then others to get over the loss of a loved one. ❜

❛ Either talk loudly enough so I can hear all the way or whisper so I can’t. ❜

❛ No, we are going to keep doing what we are doing behind [name]’s back. ❜

❛ Oh, I’ll do that! Was that overly enthusiastic? ❜

❛ You just want to see what happens when you toss some frozen pig into a wood chipper. ❜

❛ Your primary job is to do what I say, failing that your job is to fool me. You failed to fool me. ❜

❛ I can be vindictive and petty. I will take you down even if it means striking at you through your friends and co-workers. ❜

❛ I know what it’s like not to know what happened. I know how painful that can be. ❜

❛ Even if you don’t believe it, I know your parents are somewhere proud of what you do. ❜

❛ Hey, you know, your people are my people. ❜

[kendrixtermina]

More thoughts on the Flake thing

I know everyone's jaded from how the Till thing turned out to be largely crying wolf when ppl were much more open-minded/critical at the beginning but pls try to look at it neutrally, imagine it was your least favorite politician.

Let us please consider that "several witnesses said she spoke about it at the time, including therapists (not family members who might conceivably lie)" is the highest standard of proof you can realistically get with rape. They convicted Trump recently on the same level of proof.

If that's not enough, then all rapists would get off scott free unless they did it in public or in front of a camera.

Besides, ppl making it up is rare, because it's serious and gets your targetted. Rare does NOT mean zero but in those Amber Heard, Evan Rachel Woods type cases there is usually a proveable track record of the person having a personal vendetta and being demonstrably unhinged, or being pressed into it by threats of judgement (lying to protect yourself from conservative parents etc) - ppl don't just get up an day & decide to lie, it happens but it's usually a demonstrably crazy person.

What's more likely, a full blown conspiracy, or that a person who described himself in his book as having been sexually irresponsible back when he had a drinking problem was extremly careless in a way that caused someone serious trauma & harm?

is ridiculous to cry conspiracy on this. its just sobering & dissapointing to see, those responses alone kinda make me wanna quit the fandom completely and stop caring

Yes, we have to consider & feature in as a mitigating factor that people were not yet sensibilized for/ taught about freeze responses & hence expect that if someone didn't like it they would say so, but no matter how you spin it, starting to touch someone out of nowhere when they've laid down in bed after drinking too much (especially when they're younger & trust you) would have been considered taking advantage even then & regardless of the norms at the time it's not something I would want happening to me.

It's not the same degree of severity as if you're actively holding someone down or a someone who strategically looks for perving opportunities, but there's no way to spin this as consensual.

He fucked up bigtime, with very serious consequences.

I'm not calling for cancellation, demonization, torches & pitchforks or even telling anyone to stop listening to the music, but the behavior was unwanted, hurtful, and something we as a society should discourage and can't just brush under the table, even if we happen to like & sympathize with the person that did it.

I’m frustrated that this apparently still has to be explained to people, but it’s suuuper common for people to take a long time to process trauma before coming out.  

It’s as airtight as can reasonably be. That 100% happened. 

I don’t think it’s automatically rape because she was 17, but if it’s her first time getting shitfaced and/or having sex - or just as the host while someone else is a guest at your house - you have an extra responsibility to make sure she has a good time & it shows a distinct selfishness & disregard to be so casual about it. 

This person had a traumatic experience that she went to therapy for that could have been completely avoided by just simply asking “Hey, you ok?” instead of starting to touch her just like that. Or simply letting her be if she’s already gone to bed due to feeling sick from too much booze, for crying out loud. 

I hardly think that’s too much to ask to avoid someone having a traumatic experience.

I can imagine that it must be hellish for him to think he had managed to turn his life around & get over that but then find that he still did some pretty irreversible fuckup. 

But we gotta consider that he had much more of a choice in crating the situation than the girl who lived with the consequences/trauma in the years after, even if we don’t know her or the details of how it impacted & stunted her life

The ppl it happened to should be allowed to say it so that people (especially thosewho in theory care of they traumatize someone) are sensibilized for the importance of enthusiastic consent because freeze responses are a thing.

I’m not saying Flake should be roasted on a pike by the mob; Rather he is a person who had a problem with alcohol and made impulsive decisions that hurt others as a result.

But there is just no way under the sun to spin that story as consensual or no big deal. 

its frustrating that the mob understandings nothing short of either complete demonization/ostracism or exonoration, but the victim isnt wrong from coming out & saying what her experience of it was; Saying the truth is ever wrong

...i really wonder how the others are going to react now that its a different person being accused and some extent of undeniable wrongdoing.   

I just wish that instead of this for or against circus we could be having an awareness about freeze responses & the need for enthusiastic consent and WHY people “dont just say something” 

[allthecastlesonclouds]

10, 17 & 32 for writer questions?

oooo thanks for the ask!! link to ask game

10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

When I was. like. 8. i wrote this original story about five girls and a boy. it was, in short, very bad: none of the character traits were consistent, the plot moved along terribly, and scenes were messy. every chapter was in a different font and Oh Dear God was it unreadable.

and i fucking loved it. i was so proud of it. i still kind of am? 35 pages for an eight year old isn’t bad. but there are printed copies i still find around my house, and my mom still talks about it to this day, and every time i read it i wince.

i’m not sure if this is the definition of haunted, but it follows me around to this day. you maybe thought this was gonna be a fanfic, but this story. Oh God.

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

Gotta talk about fight or flight baybee!! okay so when i started this it was basically because i had many thoughts on the fact it was kristen’s siblings who convinced her to go during family in flames and not. her parents. and also the fact her parents names combined were McDonalds. that cracked me up. also actually i was talking to a lovely irl about this and they said “wait a character is Christian Applebees??” and i went ally beardsley how dare you. the google doc is titled ‘the mfing MacDonna Applebees’

i brainstormed a rudimentary layout for Mordred for this fic, as in i thought about the first floor and went ‘everything else doesn’t matter’. the chapel is canonically disconnected from the house but kristen also canonically has a secret passageway to tracker’s room, so i decided all the secret passageways link up and let people just. into the walls. kristen and riz are the only ones who have any semblance of confidence in there bc they sneak around so much. kristen uses the passageways mostly for tracker’s and bee’s rooms, but she knows how to get to the kitchen and about midway up the tower staircase.

bee is trans. i debated for a while whether her name was spelled Bee or Bea, but i decided on Bee bc i know a Bea and the vibes are. Different. kristen’s nickname for bricker is bricks, and bee calls him rick or ricks, and when they’re a bit older on their Fantasy Discord she Nicknames him Dick and kris doesn’t let Bricker change it back. bricker is bi; he kissed one of the luckstones under the bleachers and that’s what McDonalds was angry about. he’s also religious (bee goes i know the gods are real but i think i’m taking a step back please); he probably becomes a cleric of helio and does something similar to tracker in the sense he worships his own version of helio, not the widely accepted version.

they’re all two years apart: if kristen’s going into jr year, bee’s going into freshman, bricker’s going into seventh, and cork’s going into fifth. this means cork was seven or eight when kristen left, and you know, third graders are Little and have the object permanence of baboons, so. he’s fine. he’s not really in this fic sorry. when i listen to songs, i like to imagine animatics, and so fics are based around them often, and this one is no acception; the first line of the song is ‘i think it might rain today’ and a separate 3+1 line i was debating was ‘3 times kristen found her siblings in a storm and the one time she had them’.

also kristen needs therapy. she Will Not Get It.

32. What is a line from a poem/novel/fanfic etc that you return to from time and time again? How did you find it? What does it mean to you?

really any line from ‘For Everyone’ by Jason Reynolds. it’s such a good book. my boss at a camp i worked at gave it to me a couple years ago, and i cried reading it. if i had to pick a section: (id in alt text) (it hits different when formatted like it’s read aloud)

[talesofmetalandmagic]

Azir and Taliyah – sparse recovery headcanons

Only until he’s recovered, she’d told Nasus. That’s more than he deserves from me or any weaver. And the moment he attempts anything nasty on us… I’m out.

Taliyah has every reason to loathe Azir, and only chose to become part of his retinue for kindness towards Nasus and Sivir, who do genuinely care (Sivir hides it better, but hey, he still saved her life), and because she finds torture appalling regardless of who’s on the receiving end of it.

Still, even she couldn’t possibly imagine how bad it’d get. The stitch signs on his eyelids, the tattered and ragged feathers, the emaciated skinniness, the curved posture with the bowed head, the twitchy eyes and the shaky hands are just the first details she notices. He doesn’t even look like a hawk.

After it’s become clear that Azir has been completely and utterly humbled, and a lot of his old habits are of the past, she, clever girl she is, takes the chance to not only help a poor penniless old man in need – which Azir is – by giving him a new purpose, but turn a powerful asset towards the downtrodden and to a good cause.

Nasus tries to bring Azir back to new by bringing back old habits, which Azir can hardly stomach now that Xerath has tainted them. Certain smells and food – most notably milk and honey – the feel of heavy crowds, heavy jewelry… all stuff he loved, but he now sees as pain. So it’s Taliyah who shows him new ways to have fun and new things to try.

She teaches him new recipes that don’t involve milk and honey, tells him stories of the modern world he wasn’t alive to see, and shows him natural remedies the court would not allow.

Sometimes he watches her weave and admires her handiwork like a relaxing light show.

One night she catches him in a nice mood and makes a stone caricature of him – a chicken in a fancy helm. He gets angry, showing some of his old colors… but then it quiets down and he sits back, eyes low and absent. She realizes she pushed some trigger button on him and gives him the nicest apology she can manage.

“So this way of mocking people is just how… you talk to friends?” “Yes, my lord. If it pleases you to be called a friend of mine” “I don’t know what pleases me anymore. But I appreciate your apology, and I apologize myself for this displeasurable conduct.” Because yes, being triggered after more than a year of torture is very displeasurable mr. birb man, and not at all a sign that you need comfort and help and therapy

As you’d imagine, one of Taliyah’s first lessons is “throw that etiquette out the window and learn to have fun”. The second is “mental health is good actually, crying and needing help aren’t signs of weakness and people will be there for you.”

Azir is genuinely surprised Taliyah’s parents didn’t cane her. She on the other hand is appalled to find out Azir’s parents did. “No my lord that’s not discipline you’ve been abused!”

Sometimes he rests his head on her lap and lets her pet his feathers. They’re slowly growing back in shape, “so soft they’ll come from the provinces to stroke them”. It’s one of the few gestures from yore Xerath didn’t taint, and Azir associates it with his late children.

He loves talking to her about his family, the kids he had and how much every day it pains him to never see them again. That’s something Taliyah knows even she can’t heal. She just lets him vent and even get emotional. Sometimes just having a young person around helps soothe the pain.

“Pain is always legitimate. Don’t let your heart harden, my lord. Keep it soft… but firm, like these stones.”

Taliyah remembers her days at Noxus before Yasuo. She remembers the fear, the blood, the cruelty. That’s why the blossoms of love within Azir give her hope, and not just to prove she’s beyond that mindset: he can’t be all bad. She’s seen monsters, elsewhere. People too can be molded, can’t they?

And so she tells him about the cruelty of Noxus and Yasuo’s kindness and pain. It helps Azir feel less alone in the whole “they tortured me” thing and sparks some empathy.

Other times they stargaze. He loved doing it with Xer… with that one as a kid. She represents a second chance, and damn heck he’ll take it.

“I know I should move on, sweet girl, but where would I go?” “Shurima is big, my lord. There’s always room for one more.”

[h3adsh0t]

Hey, I’m making this post on this new account real quick because I think I really need some advice or something. Please try to read everything. If you have any advice or questions or comments to give me that may help me, even just a little bit, please dm me.

So, just for some background about me, I’m 16 years old and just got into my junior year. I live in Louisiana with my mom, stepdad, and half brother. Also, I’m a straight (bi curious) boy.

I don’t know why, but for the past year now I’ve been having a lot of really shitty suicidal thoughts and all that. I don’t know if I wanna go to any therapy or my parents or any friends about these thoughts though. Everyone I open up in front of anybody for any reason, I just start crying a lot. And I completely hate crying in front of anyone because I’m scared they’ll think I’m some scared or selfish pussy that can’t handle simple things or anything like that.

I’ve always been incredibly shy and introverted so I usually always worry about what basically anyone thinks of me. Anytime someone at school even glances at me, they look away and that makes me think that they think I’m ugly or look weird or something. Anytime I walk past someone in the halls and hear people laughing, I always think they’re laughing at me for either my hair looking shitty, me being a bit chubby, or something else.

I’ve never been popular in school. I feel like most people in my grade just kinda know who I am but don’t care enough to talk to. I’m just the guy they look at and say “oh it’s that guy”, and then move on. And I’m honestly fine with that. I’m fine with being the quiet kid who just wants to do his work and go home. The problem is that my school is filled to the brim with gangster-wannabe type kids who just never know when to leave people alone. And I never wanna tell them to go away or leave me be because I’m scared they’ll get mad and hit me or something or just give me dirty looks I guess. I genuinely feel like I can’t go anywhere in that damn place without getting harassed by a bunch of asshats.

I never really leave my house outside of school. I still need to learn to drive and I’m planning on applying at Subway soon for a first job. I spend most of my free time at home either binging YouTube, TV, Movies, Anime, Cartoons, playing video games, working out in the evenings, and a lot of sleeping.

I also think I might have a few undiagnosed mental disorders. Whenever I’m alone by myself, I just talk to myself. I constantly imagine myself in different scenarios and situations. It might be BPD but idk. I have a fuck ton of weird interests that most people are not into, especially around where I live.

I’m also really scared of my adult future. I want to eventually go to Full Sail Uni in Florida and become a successful screenwriter. A lot of my family calls me really creative so I think it’d be a good job for me, plus I just like making stories and writing in general. However, there’s a ton of more things I’m terrified of. I have no clue how things like taxes, insurance, business deals, applications, the DMV, bills, basically anything having to do with just being an adult scares me. I can do the basic shit like laundry, washing dishes, cleaning, sometimes cooking, etc. But everything else just scares me.

When it comes to friends and relationships, I think I have probably some of the worst trust issues on the planet. I’m constantly scared of going over to friends’ houses because I think they’ll judge me for something dumb, so I never really go over to any of them and I just stay home all day. I’m also incredibly scared of getting into any relationships with girls because these days, everytime I go on twitter, or Reddit, or TikTok, I feel like I’m seeing some new story about people cheating on each other and not being faithful. Or I’ll see another story about people dating someone as a joke, or a dare, or just to mess with them. It’s made me so terrified of dating out of fear that it’ll happen to me too, or I’ll say something bad or too weird and they’ll think I’m a freak and leave, or something will happen and they’ll have to move. And it sucks because I wanna be able to just hang out with my friends without stressing. I wanna be able to date something sweet and kind and caring and fun. I wanna be with someone that I can hold and take care of on their bad days. I want someone I can be weird with I guess. I just want people who I know won’t leave me.

I don’t know why I’m so damn anxious all the time. I don’t know why I’m stressed. I don’t know why I’m scared. I don’t know why I’m so shy. This is just kind of how I am.

I’m sorry for making this so long, I just really needed to get this all off of my chest and I didn’t really have anywhere else to go. If you have any questions or anything, please feel free to DM me at any time.

Love to all of you and I hope you have a good rest of your day. Or night.

[shadow-grrl]

I want to be seen a normal person not an object to society that thinks i only have value if im pretty, married or have children i want to be my own free person

“I’m not a poet. I’m just a woman. And as a woman there is no way for me to make my own money not enough to earn a living or to support my family and if I had my own money which I don’t that money would belong to my husband the moment we got married and if we had children they would be his not mine. They would be his property so don’t sit there and tell me that marriage isn’t an economic proposition because it is” this quote is from little women a novel my Louisa May Alcott based in the 1860s.

even if they were talking about a situation women were in about 164 years ago this somehow still applies to people today from all aspects of that quote its 2024 and there is still a wage gap. Its 2024 and there’s still women being ridiculed for their passions or line of work off the fact that they are women. Its 2024 and women are still bound to the fact that marriage is the only option because they won’t be taken seriously or because they aren’t very good at traditional school classes. Its 2024 and women still aren’t able to call their children theirs because they’re married. Its 2024 and marriage is still an economic proposition some people are getting married for convenience or because they feel obligated to. Its 2024 and I must keep calling them women instead of people just because we are still being seen as objects. I grew up hearing my mom having to call my dad every time we went to the passport office because in my last name, they only considered my dads and not my moms they said sense his came first I was recognized as HIS child not my mom’s. I had to grow up listening to my mom and the whole internet tell me if I wasn’t good a the four core classes in school that all I could do to prepare for the future was to start learning to cook and clean teasing that I could only make it in life if I had a hard working husband and lots of kids so I could “please him”. I grew up hearing beauty is pain every second of the day from those all around me from my first memories to this present day I’ve since learned that women who aren’t beautiful aren’t successful and to compete with other young girls so I can get a good boyfriend. I grew up thinking I wanted kids since I was five at that point I didn’t make much choices for myself and I just went along with what others told me I was waiting for the day that I would become a mother so that I could feel useful and fulfilled when in reality all I needed was a little love from my own parents or to play with kids who didn’t become society’s sheep so early on. It took me until I was 15 to realize I never wanted children. I didn’t want to have any because I was scared I would bring them into a harsh world that they didn’t want to be in. I didn’t want to eventually turn into my mom wishing I had pursued my dream instead of settling down. I definitely didn’t want them to turn out like me being in and out of therapy sessions because I was somehow “messed up as a kid and teenager”. I don’t want my situation to turn into the same thing they experience in life. Yeah, who knows if in a universe where I choose to have children, they go on to cure cancer but I’m not thinking about that universe I’m thinking about this one where I don’t want a child to have to grow up with a world that won’t care or love them. And God forbid I have girl I always wanted to me a mom to two girls but never in this world where thy my die to the hands of a psycho just because they walked down the wrong street at night or because she stood her ground to someone. I don’t want to birth a girl and live in fear if she’ll make it far or if her dreams will be crushed early on like so many other girls

[uboym]

I’m so tired. I have no way out. I’m trapped, I have no one. I have 3 friends, two of which don’t really care. They just talk to me to fill the space, but its nothing more than that. The one I can really call my friend.. I’m not even sure if he loves me. I can feel his resentment grow towards me every day. I’m sure he’d leave if the situation was better.

I cant provide anything he needs.. I’ve bleed dry on income. I cant please him sexually. I’m almost certain if the circumstances were better, he wouldve dropped me like a rock. I know he wants to. I wish he would. I cant imagine what it’s like to have me tied around their ankles, dragging them deeper into whatever shit this is. I cant make anyone happy, I dont make anyone laugh…

Nothing makes me happy anymore. Not new sights, not new things, not drawing, not gaming. The only company I have is from comment sections online. I have my cats, but even I know they’re not here forever. My best friend is bound to die in the next few years, if that. I dont even have family, its beyond superficial. My siblings dont talk to me, and my parents only want something to do with me when its to yell at me or try and convince me that my partner is seeking to milk me dry. As if thats what they havent been doing to me my whole life.

Say I cut them out, like everyone tells me to. Then what? I have no one, after my friends drop me, too? I’m 26, theres no time left for me. I’m too old for most people to consider me as a “new friend”, and all old friends.. the bridges have been burnt to ash. No amount of apologies or time could ever repair them. The best it’ll get is water flowing downstream, no bridge for it to flow under. How many friendships do I have to lose until I’m considered a lost cause?

No matter what I do, I’m chained to misery. I know I’ve done bad things, I can’t complain. This is the life I’ve made for myself since the very start, I don’t think theres a fix. The only comfort for me is within myself. I just wish I had someone, anyone to talk to. I’m tired of tough love, it’s not fair. I just want a friend. I just want a fucking hug. I just wish I could wake up tomorrow and be normal. I cant stand being myself, and no matter how much I try to change, it’s never good enough. No amount of meds or therapy can change me into someone deserving of love. I just want things to end.

[celestianstars]

Delayed taking a shower cause I was so wrapped up in reading this chapter MY FEELINGS BESTIE AHH! This little family has my heart forever 💌

I love anytime you give us a breakfast moment in the Miller household, it just feels so wholesome and warm and they’re all so stinking funny, not everyone stealing Sarah’s coffee and Tommy spitting in it—he’s such an idiot and I love him lmfao

Also the amount of times I teared up reading this chapter is…please my sleeve is damp, it’s the subtle but profound ways you write Alison and Joel acting and thinking like a unit, a family, talking about their finances and supporting each other with the new business and recovering from everything, even Sarah feeling so comfortable in Ali’s space, brave enough to come to her with worries they’re gonna breakup…it’s melting my heart, you do it so beautifully!

Joel was also so charming here like ok I’m giggling and kicking my feet at this!

“That’s a good idea, I already got plans for this ass tonight.”

So when I was talking about crying while reading this yeah this was one of those moments!

“since everything happened—he covers this vulnerable part of me that only, really, just now stopped hurting with his large and gentle hands.”

God he’s so gentle and loving with her, he’s so boyfriend and husband and man of her dreams and I love that for her!

“On my life,” he whispers.

Tearing up again oh my god he said it 🥺

Ooh and their lake getaway! So so cute, YES THE TENSION OF THINKING HE COULD ASK THEE QUESTION AT ANY MOMENT!!! I was thinking that the whole time time too, the anticipation! And their conversation about it too, Joel revealing he’s waiting for permission, oh man this dude! He’s so thoughtful at every turn!

Love love love that she doesn’t want to return to work, that’s a big big step for her and there’s so much growth in her reasonings and in telling Joel and being assertive with him the this is the plan and their family will be okay and ahh getting his support in response was so good!

Ok and him joining her therapy session! For them to really get into it and talk about their fears, about her resigning not wanting him to treat her like she’s fragile but also his protective side just wanting her to be safe regardless of money, whew such a good conversation for them to have had

I know I say this a lot but your realistic way of writing really makes this shine and it’s been lovely to watch it unfold! From how they’ve both assumed parenting together really well to how they navigate their worries and hangups and the not so fun shit…it’s so great

This is sooo long I’m sorry for the word vomit, we’ve just come such a long way and I’ve enjoyed this ride immensely I’m excited and nervous for Sept. 🥲🥹❤️ but I trust and love you and these characters and how much youuu love them!

Finally, that ending! There I go tearing up again awww, I am so hyped she’s moved in officially now and they’re so goddamn adorable talking about what color to paint their room, Joel being thoughtful again with wanting to give his girl space to make their shared home feel like here too ugh yes!

Her own “aha” moment of knowing, truly knowing, settling into the fact that he could ask the question at any moment yes but she’s thought about it enough now that it wouldn’t throw her for a loop, she’s steady, she knows he’s got her…and she says yes… 🎆 reading that was everything!

Phenomenal as always! I adore you so much! 🥰 @wyn-n-tonic

Days of You & Me: August

Word Count: 10.6k+ Warnings: Hospital talk. Grumpy Joel. Unprotected sex. Blink and you miss it cumplay. Marriage talk. Anything missed was not done with malicious intent. Author’s Note: Thank you to @tauralmie and @darnitdraco as well as @marvelousmermaid for being my continuous shoulders to lean on throughout writing this series.

Please follow @wyn-writing and turn on updates for notifications. You can sign up for my taglist HERE.

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August 2, 2003:

Joel’s shuffling through the unopened mail on his desk, pushing it around and around and eventually grumbling something about making a goddamn phone call that he doesn’t have time for. 

“The fuck is he so goddamn grumpy for?” Tommy asks, taking Sarah’s coffee from her as he walks in and immediately spitting the overly sweetened contents back into the mug. “I owe you Starbucks,” he says as he hands it back to her.

“Maybe also a new mug too because that was gross,” she says, watching him walk to the coffee maker and pour himself a cup. “And I don’t know what daddy’s grumpy about, he’s just being grumpy.”

“He can’t find the hospital bill from when you broke your arm,” I say, not looking up from my book. “I think he was also expecting for his contractor registration to have come in by now, he and Tommy and are actually bidding on a project at the hospital so he doesn’t want to have any outstanding dues.” 

“Wait,” her eyebrows pinch together and her face twists like her dad’s does when he’s confused. “You're bidding on a project but—“

“We started a business,” Joel says, coming into the room. “It's not a big deal and we’re still working regularly until we get some footing.” When he picks up my cup—the one he made me—and finds it empty, he calls me a dick and takes Sarah’s instead, contents halfway tipped into his mouth before Sarah can scream out that Tommy spit in it.

Confusion builds up into that space between his eyebrows, masked over by the frustration he’s felt already this morning. “Is it that hard to not make me want to kill you off a job site for just one day?”

“It’s not my fault she overloads that shit with sugar,” Tommy says, sneaking to take the seat Joel has just pulled out with half a grin on his face. “Really, that one is your fault so you can’t even blame me for it.”

“Technically,” Sarah stabs into her pancakes, “he is right, dad. You’re the one who encourages this sugar intake because apparently caffeine is worse for me than that.”

“It'll stunt your growth,” Joel says over the rim of my cup before placing it back in front of me. 

“Is that what happened to you?” She asks, face dead serious with concern as she looks up at her father. “And your shirt’s inside out.”

Breathing out an expletive, he sets the cup down and pulls his shirt over his head, groans from both Sarah and Tommy accompanying the movement as she fakes a gag and her uncle complains about Joel lacking manners at the table.

His stomach growls as he pulls it back on the right side out and he pinches my nose as he walks into the kitchen proper, asking what’s for breakfast besides pancakes.

“I just made pancakes, Joel.”

“But I don’t—“ 

Turning, I catch his eye before he can finish the sentence. I’m aware he doesn’t like pancakes, swears up and down that he’s a waffle kind of guy but conveniently doesn’t have a waffle maker. “I didn’t make ‘em for you, Joel Alexander, there are eggs in the fridge but they’re uncooked because somebody had to be grumpy over the mail instead of helping.” 

Eyebrow raised, he lets out a low whistle as he turns, collecting a clean plate and throwing some pancakes on. “And I stole your coffee,” he says. “I’m a dick today.”

Tommy doesn't even skip a beat in his agreement and immediately claps Sarah on the shoulder with a nod towards the front door as soon as his older brother rounds on him, asking if I still have the same order or if the child has corrupted me.

Joel’s shoulders drop when we’re alone, frustration clearing way in his features to make way for apology and a hint of embarrassment as he drops into the chair opposite me. “Did I snap at you at all?” He asks. “Or Sarah?”

“You didn’t snap at us but I think you certainly offended the bookshelf when you stubbed your toe and called it an inbred jackass. How can wood be an inbred jackass, Joel?”

“Don’t even get me started,” he breathes out. “Just know that the inbred trees are good for nothing but wood pulp and toilet paper.”

“You got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” I observe. “Which is funny because I remember you giggling and carrying on while we were still half asleep.”

“Just thought my registration would be in,” he says around a bite. He sounds defeated. “I had it expedited and everything, it should be here; and not being able to find the bill for her broken arm isn’t helping. I thought I put it on top of the pile to take care of.”

“You did.” Leaning back, cup in hand, I shrug. “Not that you threw the business together fast or anything, I know you had the entire business plan already mapped out, but getting it all together happened pretty fast and I figured I’d take one stressor off of you so I took care of the hospital bill.”

“Y-you—why?” It’s not anger in his voice, just mounting frustration. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate it but you didn’t have to do that.”

All I can give him in response is a shrug as I take a pull off my coffee. That does anger him.

“It was over five hundred dollars, Alison!”

“Yes, I’m aware,” I say. “I wrote the check and mailed it.”

“But you didn’t have to do that,” he insists. “That's a lot of money.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” I say. Again. “You just paid for the registration, the expedited service, other business expenses, the liability insurance. You started a business in the span of a month, Joel, you put so much into it. Not to mention the doubles upon doubles and doing things with Sarah and taking care of me so I would really appreciate if you’d be okay with me taking care of this family too, sometimes.”

He swallows thickly, cupping a hand around his face to scrub down the length of his sparse beard, and releases a breath. “I fucking adore you,” he says, quiet in that disbelieving way. “God, I love you so much, but that was a lot of money.”

“It’s fine,” I promise. “And I was also thinking that I should contribute to the mortgage, I probably should’ve been this whole time but I definitely should if I move in.”

We haven’t really talked about it since that night except for him to insist he had a plan, that he had a better way of wanting to ask me instead of just yelling at me out of frustration. Even telling him he still could didn’t do much to relax him, but I haven’t pressured him for this to be a conversation we have just yet.

His eyes go wide. “I can’t ask you to do that, Alison.”

“You're not asking, I’m offering, Joel.” Leaning forward, I take his hand and say nothing about the syrup that has managed to find its way onto the skin of his palm. “We can’t have all of these big, life altering conversations where we even talk about the plans we know we’ll be making with one another in the future and not take the baby steps towards those goals. I don't know if there are rules to this shit but I refuse to share just sex and smiles with you; I want the not fun shit too, Joel.” 

Shoulders curving inward, his breath hits my hand as he looses it from somewhere deep in his chest but I can see the calculations he’s doing behind his eyes; the emotions he’s flickering through. The last time he split the hard stuff with somebody, it ended in divorce and left Sarah without a mom.

He takes another bite and then abandons the food altogether, pushing back the chair and standing instead to stack his half empty plate on top of mine and Sarah’s empty ones before walking over to the sink. I can’t see the face he’s making but I can sense his feelings in the way his ribs are expanding through every breath.

It’s been a while since he stood behind me at the kitchen sink or I stood behind him and I take the chance now on unsteady legs, still tender from the way he’s touched me in the nights following my insistence than I’m not breakable.

We might be heading into the late summer but the house is set to near freezing, an attempt to keep me from overheating on the pain medicine and the heating pad the doctor insists I wear to help speed up the healing process. There’s also the fact that he, himself, is a space heater, blood running thick with warmth that radiates out of him and has me kicking off the covers in bed more often than not.

That’s what I lean into now, that body heat that feeds off the golden tones of his skin and keeps his brown eyes smoldering like coal. He takes a deep breath and I can feel his heart beating through his shirt, steady and loud and healthy.

He seems like he’s shut off; like he’s shutting down because he doesn't know how to speak what’s in his mind just yet and his head drops forward between his shoulders as he drops the dishes he was focusing on to hold onto the counter instead.

“Joel—“

But he turns before I can finish, those soapy hands covered in bubbles pushing right into my hair as he bends his body towards me until my lips are opening beneath his own to grant access to his tongue.

“Thank you,” he breathes out, pressing his forehead to mine. “I should’ve led with that.” The rough pad of his thumb swipes across my cheek and he kisses me again gently, whispering little words of gratitude in the small space he creates between us. 

Sarah and I get coffee, again, on the way home from the pottery workshop. It was my surprise for her birthday the way it was Joel’s surprise for mine. When I initially got hurt, I insisted he or Tommy take her instead but she said she’d rather wait for me. 

Again, what I made only mildly resembles what I was going for—a bowl—but Sarah grabbed every bit of artistic talent her father has and made a beautiful plant holder. Her plan for it is to glaze it purple and the shop owner had some butterfly stamps she could press into the clay. Those, she said, are going to be a darker purple or maybe gold.

I have to stop by the apartment on the way home, grab my mail and water my singular plant before it dies. Sarah seems pretty at home here now, I let her stay here on the days that I worked at the hospital and she didn’t have plans just for a change of scenery. Really, she didn't want to start having to go back to the Adlers’ and I convinced Joel that my several floors and doors and a great security system in the building was a safer place for her to be than there or home alone. 

Usually, she flops right down and turns the television on; cracks a book or her journal. Instead, she looks up at me, hazel eyes more brown than gold in the low light of late afternoon.

“What's up, bug?” 

“Were you and dad fighting the other night?” She asks, following up quickly with clarification on what day she meant.

Tuesday, when he got home from his double. 

“No,” I shake my head. “It wasn’t a fight. Why?”

She shrugs, eyes focused on the straw she’s been stirring her drink with since the moment she asked. “I was coming out of the bathroom and I heard him raise his voice, he almost never does that, and you sounded like you were crying. I didn’t want to pry though and if I ask dad, I don’t think he’d be honest with me.”

“Well, we weren’t fighting,” I assure her. “But I was crying, yeah, and he did raise his voice but he didn’t raise it at me.

“But you said something about coming back here,” she goes on. “You guys aren’t… breaking up are you?”

“God no,” I laugh out. “I'm sorry, Sarah, but I think you’re stuck with me so I’ll try not to be too wicked of a stepmother.”

“So…” Her father’s grin splits her face and it fills me with so much more love for the both of them to see his features in her. “You are gonna say yes.” It’s not a question this time, not like when she asked previously. 

If the increasing bareness of my apartment hasn’t told her, I might as well. “Yeah,” I nod, crossing the threshold into my bedroom to start picking and packing more of my clothes up to take them over. "Does he have a plan?” I toss over my shoulder from the closet and back out the door to her.

“He does,” she shouts back. “But you know him, he’ll probably end up blurting it out after you quote Die Hard or something equally as lame.”

“Wow, calling Die Hard lame is a bold move.”

She shrugs when I come back out of the room. “Maybe I’m hoping you’ll lean into the wickedness a bit, I was really hoping for boarding school in Switzerland.” 

“And you’ll keep hoping,” I say, grabbing my keys and my drink again after putting the mail in her outstretched hand. “The best your dad and I can afford is military camp and, really, we might as well just send you out fishing with your Uncle Tommy if you wanna wake up before the sun and listen to war stories.” 

“I cannot even begin to describe how badly I do not want that, actually.” 

She spends the rest of the walk back to the car telling me about her summer reading list, asks if we can head to the library over here to see if they have a copy of Speak or The Giver. 

I’m turning around before she even finishes, heading back towards the elevators and pushing the button to head up.

“Did you forget something?”

“Yeah, I have both of those books upstairs,” I tell her. 

Sarah heard us the other night,” I tell him, eyes closed as my neck stretches to the side to give Joel better access. Since our talk, he’s tried to be better about the way he shows attentiveness. Still gentle and concerned but less infantilizing. He’s taken to massaging my neck and shoulders, hopes to keep those joints loose as he insists I still sleep in a nest of pillows. For the last couple of nights, it’s been ending with more than just his hands all over me. 

Those same hands still on my shoulders and he lifts his head just enough to ask me what night, the words ghosting over the still bruised and sensitive skin of my throat. 

“Tuesday,” I breathe out. “She heard you raise your voice and heard me crying, she thought we were breaking up.”

“What'd you tell her?”

“I told her she’s stuck with me and I’ll try not to be too wicked of a stepmother, she was disappointed because she was really looking forward to boarding school.”

Joel laughs. “You tell her all we can afford is camp?”

“Military camp,” I correct. “Then said she might as well have Tommy take her fishing and yap her ear off about Desert Storm.”

“You're so hot, you know that?” He whispers into my skin, lips pressed back down into the spot where my neck meets my shoulder. “I wonder if I talk like you now the way you talk like me.”

“You got a little Massachusetts in you but I think I have more Texas in me.”

“I'll put some Texas in you, alright,” he mumbles while pushing his puffed out chest into my back. “Did you tell her our fight ended up in me asking you to move in?”

“No,” I tell him. “You and I haven’t really discussed it. You know, the logistics and everything.” 

Nuzzling his face into my hair, he asks what logistics there are when it’s simple—I give him a date to show up and help pack and he moves me into his house. But there’s more that goes into it, there has to be.

“I have to sell my furniture,” I say. “I have to cancel my lease and change my address and fix all the holes I put into the fucking walls.”

He laughs. “Really good thing your boyfriend is a carpenter then, huh?”

“Mmm, construction worker and a nurse, that’s a damn good pairing.”

“Come work for me,” he suggests, accent honey thick and tipping towards the edge of sleep. “Maybe wear one of those cute little nurse outfits like at the halloween store.”

“You can’t afford me,” I toss back.

We’d never really discussed finances either, in all these months we’ve spent together. But earlier he kept saying how much money Sarah’s hospital bill was; that he’d pay me back for it. When I shrugged and said I’d make it back in a little more than a single shift, he asked me how much nurses make. I could only tell him how much I make and his only response to that was to ask me why I wasn’t taking him on more dates.

“Can’t afford you but still landed you, didn’t I?” He yawns out. “Dumb, grumpy, single father construction worker with a broken nose and a hot nurse. We’re a bad Hallmark movie.”

“Or a bad porno.” 

The whole bed shakes beneath his laughter and he presses his lips into my bare back. “I fucking love you.” 

August 14, 2003:

Joel’s sweating, coffee kicking in to put tremors in his hands and he pulls at his tie over and over again in hopes to get a little more air in. We've just seen the doctor who wasn’t happy with how dark the bruises just beneath my chest still are. He ordered a scan that Joel was insistent he stay around for and now we’re running late to his proposal for the hospital project.

We decided last night that he’ll undersell himself, a fair but otherwise underpriced bid with the goal of performing the work to the highest quality he can manage in order to build a reputation and get good word-of-mouth recommendations.

He worried about the loss he’d be taking, how it could and would negatively impact me and Sarah and our home if he’s underbidding. I can tell he’s still worried as I fix his tie and his hair on the elevator ride up to the board room and I assure him again that it will be fine.

“Hey, it’s fine, you’re fine—we’re fine. This won’t even start for a few months so you can continue working and padding our savings, maybe take on a few smaller projects in the meantime just to get some reviews.” 

He takes a deep breath and nods, jaw set with tension. Nervous or not, he looks good—he looks the part. Joel Miller, business owner, freshly shaved in his blue button down with a navy blue tie. There are little brown horses on it and he asks over and over again if I can see them from far away and if they’re lame.

“Remember,” I frame his face with my hands, pulling his eyes to mine as we reach Tommy at the doors to the conference room. “I’m taking half the mortgage over in October, I’ll handle Sarah’s back to school shopping and we will be fine—you are going to do great, my love.” 

Doors open and somebody calls for Miller and Co., pulling a smile wide across his face. Before Tommy can yell at him, he takes a deep breath and presses his lips to mine.

Everybody is buzzing.

Probably because everybody—sans Sarah—is buzzed.

They got the job and a bottle of whiskey to celebrate and now we’re tipsy and blasting music through the house as we pack for Lake Travis. I don’t think I’ve seen him this giddy or this touchy in a while. Not touchy like this anyway. Usually he’s concerned or loving and he’s loving right now, but the desperation in the way he pulls at me is reminding me of that morning in the gardens and the afternoon we spent making out in my bed.

I can tell that he wants to squeeze; to grab. He wants to show me all the strength in his body to highlight the self control that cuts through his hunger.

“I just realized I’ve never seen you in a swimsuit,” he growls against my lips. “God, the thought of you in a cute little bikini is doing things to me.”

“And the thought will have to keep being the one to do things to you,” I tease. “I got a one piece, I’m not feeling very comfortable with being in a two piece.”

“Makes sense,” he nods.

“And you see me naked every day.”

He shrugs, lips turned downward in a frown as if he’s disappointed in himself but he can’t help it. “I’m a man, I see my pretty girlfriend and all the blood in my body rushes towards my dick—“

“The door is open, Joel.”

“—and there’s something about knowing people would be seeing you half naked and glowing, the way I usually do, but it would still be only me who gets it all.”

“You are a caveman,” I tell him.

“Explains my brow bone.”

Pushing him away, I tell him to go order me a pizza so I can finish packing. We leave in the morning and I really don't want to be scrambling the way I know Tommy will be since he’s only been watching baseball and drinking since we got home.

“Pepperoni and mushrooms?” He asks.

“Can I do supreme with no mushrooms, actually?” When I ask he makes a face of confusion. This whole time we’ve been together and I’ve never deviated from my order, I’m shocked he even asked for confirmation on what I wanted. “The FDA recalled a bunch of mushroom brands, apparently there’s E.Coli contamination and I really don’t want to be shitting my brains out all night.” 

Joel’s large hand collides with the seat of my pants, grabbing a little harder around the curve of one cheek than I think he meant to, as he hums a positive into my lips. “That’s a good idea, I already got plans for this ass tonight.” 

August 15, 2003:

We’re behind schedule and I think Joel might be more anxious than I have ever been, grumbling at the steering wheel and calling his brother a dumbass.

Tommy didn’t pack last night, he’s rushing around now to get things together and swears he just needs his swimsuit and a toothbrush, maybe a shirt. Which is making steam come out of Joel’s ear as tension sets and unsets in his jaw.

“What's the rush, baby?” I ask from the backseat. “Lake Travis isn’t going anywhere.” 

“We only have a weekend,” he says, voice strained. “I want to get you both there to have a nice time, spend as much time in the sun as we can.”

“Daddy, we live in Texas,” Sarah says from beside me. “We spend all our time in the sun.”

“Ooh, she’s getting grown as shit,” Tommy practically howls out as he opens the door. “She getting it from you, PG?” He asks, sticking his head into the backseat.

Dressed in swim trunks and a t-shirt, he’s already got a beer in hand the moment he slings his backpack into the passenger side floor.

“Don't call her that,” Joel tells him, turning back towards us. “Either of them”—he points at Sarah—“she is not grown as shit so don’t make me cry and”—he points at me—“she is not your pretty girl and I am not in the mood for your bullshit.” 

“Morning to you, too, fucker.”

When he goes to pop the cap on the bottle, Joel raises one eyebrow and looks his brother up and down. “I don’t fucking think so, baby brother.” 

God, he’s sexy.

That ferocity he approached me with last night is continuing over into this little beach house.

As soon as we unlocked the door, Sarah ran in with her backpack, changed and ran back out the door with Tommy. Joel said we’d be out there soon but now it’s closing in on a time close to lunch and we still haven’t joined them.

I barely had my swimsuit up my legs, his shirt that I still sleep in hanging over me for privacy, when it was abandoned instead. He sees every bare part of me but after the check up, after being told the color is still too dark for the doctor’s liking, I’m feeling self-conscious even around him. When he wrapped his hand around my elbow, I thought he was just helping me to steady myself but when I looked up at him with half a thanks on my lips, he was already on his way to meeting me in the middle. 

By the time he had me up against the wall, my shirt was gone; tossed to the side to sit with my bathing suit as he pressed kiss after kiss into my ribcage while sinking to his knees.

We’ve been in the same spot since.

“Joel, they’re back,” I tell him, alerting him to the sound of the door closing downstairs. “We should—“

“Be quiet,” he commands, eyes hard on me as he lifts up from the crook of my neck and stares at me. “ That’s what we should do, we shouldn’t make a single sound.”

“We've been up here for so long,” I whisper, watching heat flash in his eyes over my words and the low tone of them. 

Most of that time was spent with him just looking up at me, barely even moving and definitely not letting me move. Joel sat back on his heels, trailed his hands all over my body, commenting that all this time he’s been afraid the bruising would never go away and he’d have to add them to the map of my body he’s got drawn up in his mind. 

It’s not that it’s not going away, it’s just still too dark. I’ve held off on telling him it’s because I’m moving around too much. Not only did I finally get him to stop tiptoeing around like I’m fine china but I feel like he hasn’t been this energetic in forever—neither of us have. 

“I'll just tell them we were taking a nap,” he shrugs, biceps flexing to lift me higher between him and the wall. “It's not a total lie.” 

“You said you wanted us to soak up all the sun,” I remind him. “I can’t do that with you pinning me up against the wall and, honestly, I’m starting to get a little worried about your knees.”

“What's wrong with my knees?” 

“God, and your back, baby,” I tack on. “I’m gonna be rubbing Aspercreme all over you if you don’t start acting your age.” 

His lips pull down in a frown and he starts mocking me, putting on a high pitched whisper to talk about his knees and his back as if he’s me even as he gently places me back down on my feet. 

“You didn’t even invite me on this trip,” I remind him, eyes following him as he turns on the shower and steps in ahead of me. “Your daughter did.”

“It’s so cute when you try to be mad at me while you pee after sex,” he teases. “Sitting over there being a little smartass, good luck getting me out of you with all the sex we have, Miss We-Don’t-Need-Condoms-Anymore.” 

“Who said I want you out of me?” I ask him. “I just don’t want a UTI, you’re not immune from them either so you should really start pissing after we fuck, too.” 

“Who says I don’t?” He asks, looking down at the shower floor. “And what happened to my sweet, pretty girlfriend? Why do you speak like my brother now?”

His eyes follow me and that self conscious feeling I’ve been covering with his t-shirts comes back out of nowhere, goosebumps prickling across my skin with the knowledge that he’s looking at me—at all the places he’s touched and kissed and loved. I make a joke that I sound like Tommy because Tommy sounds like him and he jokes that Tommy was his first child.

“It's funny how we start picking up the language and mannerisms of the people we love,” I shrug. “Even you drop your Rs sometimes.” 

There are times when he looks at me like there’s some kind of secret he’s holding onto, except we both know what that secret is. Sarah told me he has a plan and I can’t stop my mind from wandering and thinking through just how he’ll do it. She’s right though, he’ll probably jump the gun and blurt it out after I’ve done something stupid. 

Part of me thinks he’s going to do it right now, laughter just passed his lips as he shields me from the full force of the water. He doesn’t. 

But he could.

He could drop this on me at any moment and we both know how it’s going to go; we’ve talked about it as much as anybody who’s been together for eight months can talk about something this big and life changing. 

But knowing he’s going to ask isn’t the same as asking and knowing I’m going to say yes isn’t the same as actually saying it.

August 16, 2003:

“This is The Life,” Sarah says over her book, watching her father set two more drinks and some sandwiches down on the cooler between us. “Books, the beach… table service,” she gestures at Joel. 

His eyes go wide and he lifts his eyebrows, one of those silly faces like he’s just been smacked with a cartoon hammer. “I remember when your idea of The Life was building sandcastles with me and you would get so frustrated because the floaties made it hard for your chunky little arms to move properly.” He studies her, head shaking. “What happened?”

“MTV Cribs,” she says, not missing a beat. “Also you brought a woman around and now I’m not outnumbered by stinky boys so I don’t have to pretend to find farts funny anymore.” 

“Farts are funny,” Joel and I say at the same time.

“Poop jokes never get old,” I tell her. “I promise. You will hit thirty and a poop joke will make you laugh so hard you pee yourself.”

Joel nods, hand raised to grab at some of the chips in the bowl between Sarah and I. “I should know, I’m the one who told her the joke that made her laugh so hard she peed herself.” 

“That's really gross,” she says, looking over at me. “I hope I never like a boy so much that I pee myself over his lame jokes.”

“Yeah, I hope you never like a boy either,” Joel says around a bite.

Sarah’s only response is to roll her eyes and go back to her book, pulling it up so far that it covers her face wholly. She barely reacts when Joel tells her she needs to eat, waving him off with a comment about chips and coffee taking up valuable real estate in her stomach. 

“Will you come make sandcastles with me?” He turns his big brown eyes up at me. “Tommy’s abandoned me to go talk to a girl.”

“Aww, kinda like how you abandoned him for me.”

“Come on, you’ve barely gotten any sun,” he insists. “People are going to start thinking you’re a sickly Victorian child or that I don’t feed you.”

“If I get anymore sun, I’ll burn,” I shrug. I’ve spent more time in one of his t-shirts covering up the swimsuit than I have spent swimming in the damn thing. “And the water kind of smells like the morgue.”

Both him and Sarah turn towards me with mirrored looks of disgust on their faces, both insisting that it smells like play-doh and not dead people. Joel suggests I’m maybe missing work.

“Formaldehyde and play-doh have the same smell,” I say. “And I’m not missing work, I honestly kind of don’t want to go back.” He raises his eyebrow at me and I can feel my shoulders raise so high they’re almost brushing my ears. “Like she said, this is The Life.” 

Sarah asks the time and excuses herself, frantically running into the little beach house talking about Days of Our Lives. Joel can only look after her in confusion and then he takes her chair.

“So,” he turns his head towards me. “Besides ignoring me to read your books and giggle about your plans to take over the world with the child, what’s been on your mind?”

“I keep wondering if you’re going to propose this weekend,” I say, trying not to let the nerves come out in my voice. He can hear them though, I can tell by the look on his face. “Sarah says you have a plan,” I shrug. “My favorite thing about you is that you’re predictable and reliable—“

“I thought it was my dick,” he drawls out, shit eating grin stretching across his face.

“I fucking hate you,” I breathe out before continuing my thought. “You're predictable and reliable but you also keep enough hidden up your sleeve to catch me off guard and, I don’t know, I’d hate that usually but you make me feel safe enough that I know your surprises aren’t going to end in my free fall. You know?”

“No,” he shakes his head. “I don't know, I’ve never experienced a similar reaction to change like you have, but I try to understand and I’m glad that I’m a person that gives you that safety.” 

“Didn't answer the question though.”

“You didn’t ask one.”

I love how comfortable it gets between us—him and me and this natural, silent safety we both feel with one another. 

His eyes search mine and I thought that they’d be so much brighter with all this sun and sand around to reflect off of them, but they’re somehow darker. Fuller and with more want than I’ve seen him have in so long. Like every little thing he’s been stressing over is starting to melt back down as the summer comes to its sweltering peak. 

Finally, hands clasped and resting on the sun kissed skin of his stomach, he lays back and takes a deep breath. “I'm not gonna ask you this weekend,” he says on the exhale. “So you can relax.”

“So you are going to blurt it out at some random time?” I ask him.

He peaks one eye open at me and I’m reminded of that day in the car, having lunch outside of a build as he sat through a migraine and asked if I’d come home to tuck him in—the day it really felt like all this changed. Because that night, I went back to Boston and, two days later, I called him drunk and sobbing and spilling every insecurity and shattered little piece of heart to him through the telephone and he didn’t run away.

He didn’t hang up and cut communication; didn’t say that I was giving too much for a girl who hadn’t yet given enough in the bedroom.

“What gives you the idea that I’m just gonna blurt it out at some random time?” He asks. “You act like I have a habit of doing that.” 

“Wasn't so much my idea as it was Sarah’s,” I tell him. “She said you have a plan but, that knowing you, you’d probably jump the gun after I’ve done something lame.”

His nose scrunches up and I can see him trying to fight the laughter building in his lungs as he says everybody seems to know him so well. “I'm waiting on permission, actually,” he says. When he reaches over, I think he’s going to stroke the back of his knuckles along my cheek, the way he does so often, but he goes for one of the chips on my plate instead as he sticks his tongue out.

“Waiting on permission?” I ask him. “Like… from your financial advisor about the return on investment or…?”

“From your mom, smartass,” he laughs out. “From your grandma, from Drea. They haven’t given it to me yet so I’m not asking yet, you’ll just have to be content with living in sin.” 

He says everything so simply, like this is an everyday conversation about everyday things and it doesn’t jolt me out of my skin at all. Because it is an everyday conversation about an everyday thing, I just never thought it would be a conversation I would have with anybody. Not in a sad way, though, I guess I was sometimes, but more in a way of just… I didn’t think about it; I didn’t care about it—I didn’t have time to. This year started and I didn’t care about anything but getting through the day at work and now I’m talking about marrying a man who swears he wouldn’t have a nose if it wasn’t for me.

“You asked my mom for permission to marry me?” I ask, biting back my own laughter. “You know she had a baby at sixteen, right? She’s not much for tradition.”

Joel leans forward, smile growing wider. “You know that means she had a fourteen year old when she was thirty, right?” His eyes flick to the cabin and he nods his head in that direction. “You didn’t birth her but you’re technically parenting a fourteen year old at thirty, too, PG. So, yeah, I want your mother’s permission.”

Wind generated waves hit against the tiny shore of the tiny beach, the only sound between us now as I look from him to the water and back with all the thoughts of all these things running through my head.

His eyes go wide and dart all around my face and he clears his throat. “I'm saying a lot of shit that could and should scare you, I’m sorry.”

A deep breath and I try not to wince against the pain in my chest because I don't know if it’s from the injury or from the words that don’t actually scare me that much at all. “I don't think you’re sorry at all.” 

Lips pursed in thought, he shrugs. “Maybe I’m not, but I sure would be if it actually did so you gotta tell me, sweetheart.”

“I would,” I reassure him. “I will.” 

August 17, 2003:

“Shut”—he hauls me up against his chest, arm curling around my body to clamp his hand down firmly across my mouth—“the fuck up,” he growls into my ear.

Moaning harder into his palm, he laughs as the muffled sound relaxes my head down on his shoulder—just far enough back to look up at him and the dark, sweaty curls that are fallen down into his eyes. 

I see his cheeks draw up, indicative of the smile he’s wearing and he asks if I can be a good girl or not now. His laugh is low and dangerous as I nod against the hold he has on me but, when he lets me go, he nuzzles into my cheek and breathes deep. 

All those nights he refused to sleep next to me or touch me for fear of hurting me and now he’s hungry and needy and squeezing new bruises into the old ones as he holds me up against him. 

I woke up with a hand between my legs not even an hour ago, his lips pressing into my neck over and over again until I woke up enough to hear the words he’d been chewing on. 

That he loves me.

That he’s sorry he makes me feel lesser than sometimes because of how worried he is.

That sometimes he dreams of all the bad things that can happen to me and to Sarah; that two of those dreams came true over the last couple of months and it’s really fucked with him and that protective nature he prides himself on.

“If I wasn’t dead set on you after you were there for my daughter,” he says into my ear, “please know that knowing it was me you wanted in that hospital room solidified it. But I don't want you making quick decisions or regretting me, or us, so I’m waiting for permission—wait.” He swipes his thumb across the swell of my cheek to push the fallen saltwater away. “What are these? Am I squeezing too hard? Am I hurting you?” 

“No,” I shake my head, the smallest sound of contentment pushing out of me as he pulls me back tighter against his chest. “I just love you.”

His smile grows wider and he drops his hand to grip around my jaw, holding me firmly in place as he pushes my mouth open beneath his.

The sun is barely up, orange light pushing into the night sky and he jokes that I can finally see him and that he must be real fucking ugly first thing in the morning. But I saw him when he woke me and faced him as he undressed me. Even in the dark, I could make out the subtle curve of his nose and the heavy light of lust in his eyes as he told me all about the dream he had that put his hand between my legs in the first place.

Apparently it wasn’t helping that I was rubbing my ass on him in my sleep.

I didn’t tell him that he woke me up from a nightmare; that I was glad he didn’t sneak off to the shower so he could continue letting me rest. It’s bad enough he knows about the panic attacks, he doesn’t need to know they follow me into sleep, too.

He thrusts up again and any thought left spills out of my head as I feed another moan into his greedy mouth, smile wide against me when he drops his hand to rest gently around my throat. That’s my favorite thing he’s taken to doing on these nights since everything happened—he covers this vulnerable part of me that only, really, just now stopped hurting with his large and gentle hands.

It’s the protection he couldn’t give me that day.

The grip of his other hand slips from around my middle, dropping to lay flat against my lower stomach and he slides down until his fingers can curl around my mound to encourage another rush through me as he spills himself on a hard breath out. 

Slipping from between my legs, he pushes me gently back into the pillows and lays himself beside me, tired eyes going dopey as he slips one arm beneath my arched back and lays his head against my shoulder. Head in my hands, I press a kiss to his sweaty forehead and the scar on his nose, down to the tip and then his lips, muscles tightening beneath my bruised skin to pull me toward him as he continues trailing his middle finger through the mess he’s already made of me.

Another routine we’ve fallen into—laying tangled in each other while he finger fucks himself back into me. Something he started and has grown a taste for, calling from work or coming home after a hard day to say it was knowing I still had him in me that was on his mind to get through all the bullshit

“Sorry if I was too hard on you at any point,” he whispers in the small space between us.

“I would tell you if you were.”

He searches for a lie in my eyes, knowing that I haven’t said it to others in the past and then smiles, “I know you would.”

Nuzzling into the crook of my neck, he breathes deep and then sighs out, asking if I want to shower with him or if I’m hungry or if I want to sleep.

I shake my head to everything, I just want to lay here.

“I can hear you thinking,” he whispers, pushing up to the base knuckle. “What are we thinking about, my love?” 

Pulling him closer, pushing myself closer, I take a deep breath. "I think I want to quit my job.”

He looks up at me, shock fighting the heavy drooping lids over his eyes. “What?”

“When I go back,” I clarify. The doctor told me to take off the rest of August but said I should be good to come back in September but I wasn’t kidding when I told him I didn’t miss it yesterday. “I want to give them my notice of resignation and then I want to say goodbye.”

He doesn’t say anything, just looks down at me but also looks far away. Calculations are being made behind his eyes because he knows I haven’t been interviewing elsewhere and we both know I said I’d take half the mortgage. I also know that he just started a business and he’s scared shitless of failing me and Sarah.

“I have a lot in savings,” I tell him. We’ve had this conversation already, I know he knows these things. We’ve been really open about our finances and what they look like and who will prioritize what. “We’ll be fine with that for a little while,” I insist. “Just while I decompress and look for something new.”

All he does is nod, jaw set like he’s trying to keep from chewing on something building in his mind. I’d feel less bad about this conversation if we didn’t have a kid to think about but I’ve been holding this in for a while and—“I don’t want to set a bad example to Sarah that we have to stay in spaces that make us unhappy just because our past selves made the decision to go there in the first place.”

“That's not what’s on my mind,” he laughs out. “But I love you.”

“Then what’s on your mind?” I ask. 

He shrugs and lays himself back down onto me gently. “Trying to figure out how to make you the brains behind this operation so you don’t have to be a nurse anymore at all,” he says. “I don’t think you particularly like it and I want you to have the freedom to figure out what you do like.”

“Are you sure you’re okay with it?”

“It's not my job,” he mumbles, sleep crawling deeper into his voice. “Remember you told me nobody was going to be mad at me if I tried to be a contractor and fucked up?”

“I didn’t exactly say that—“

“Shhh.” He mouths the sound into my pulse point, sending a shiver down my spine and I feel him smile as I clench around where his fingers are still buried in me. “Nobody is going to be mad at you for changing your mind on a career you decided on at eighteen out of the hurt you held inside of you for just existing.”

“You promise?” It’s the first time I’ve asked him to affirm his words for me. We made big decisions; had big conversations. Months ago, I never would’ve left my job because it was just me and, well, it was what was holding me together so I didn’t have to think of much else. Now, though, I don’t want to quit because it’s not just me. It’s him and a house and family he invited me into and made me apart of.

He laughs out, low into the skin of my neck, increasingly hot from his words and his breath and his movements causing blushes to run up the length of my body. “On my life,” he whispers.

August 26, 2003:

Another check up with the doctor and he confirmed it—I’m good to go back to work next week.

I wish I could even begin to describe how nauseas it makes me but Joel took care of that by bringing up the panic attacks and the nightmares. 

I begged him not to come, told him he didn’t have to leave work to accompany me to the doctor and, yet, here he is. White knuckling the steering wheel with a set jaw as he drives from the hospital to the therapist.

Sarah’s been in the office a lot this summer but this is the first time Joel’s tagged along.

When Julia sees him, she asks if he’d like to join the session but he declines saying he doesn’t want to take up time away from me. She insists that she thinks it would be a good idea but respects his decision, only barely saying we’d see him in an hour when he changes his mind.

“Has she told you she’s having panic attacks?” Joel asks. She looks to me for permission to speak but Joel takes it to mean that I haven’t told her at all. “Nightmares, too,” he continues. “And they want her to go back to work next week, she’s on the schedule and everything.”

“I'm always on the schedule for those days, Joel,” I tell him. “They didn't take me off, they just crossed me out.”

“Call in sick,” he says. “Call in sick until your resignation time is up.”

“Resignation?” Dr. Bonner asks. “You've decided, then?” 

“I did,” I tell her. “I haven’t put it in yet, though.” When I turn to Joel, that vein in his head is sticking out. “I can’t put my resignation in while I’m still on leave, they won’t finish paying it out—they’ll use up all my vacation time instead and I would prefer to have that money in my savings account.” 

Ever since I said I wanted to leave that morning, he’s been more than on board—he’s been ready for me to send the letter now.

“I take it the money aspect isn’t a problem for you, Joel?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t care about the money,” he says. “So long as I can keep a roof over my family’s head and food in their mouths, money doesn’t mean much to me at all. She could decide she wants to be a circus clown and I would hate it simply because that’s terrifying but I would support her.” 

“Alison, you’ve talked a bit about how anxious you are over the thought of disappointing Joel so I’m curious to know how you feel hearing these words come out of his mouth?”

“He says stuff like this all the time,” I say.

“Yeah, but you’re always convincing yourself in some way or another that I’m just saying things to be nice to you even though we established that I don’t talk just to hear my own voice, Alison.” He turns back to Dr. Bonner, eyes hard and soft at the same time. “With the panic attacks and the nightmares, I don’t want her going back into that environment. If she doesn’t feel safe there, I definitely don’t care about the money.”

“Do you feel safe there, Alison?” She asks.

“I haven’t really thought about it,” I say. “Yeah, I mean…” I shrug. “This is the first incident I’ve ever had, of course I feel safe there.”

“Ah, but that’s just the thing isn’t it? It’s the first time it’s ever happened,” she says. “So there’s never been a chance for them to prove that your safety is actually their top priority because it hasn’t happened before and we know you’re not a fan of big emotions or events like this.”

“Joel, you drafted the letter with me,” I say. “My last day is on your birthday! I work that morning”—I count on my fingers—“you work that day, we come home and have dinner and get good sleep and then we fly to Wyoming in the early morning on Saturday.”

For his birthday, I found a ranch out near Jackson Hole that doubles as a hotel and has horse riding and other cowboy bullshit for him to live his old western dreams out. We’re going for a week to decompress before the project at the hospital starts.

“What did I tell you about not treating me like I’m broken and fragile, Joel?” I ask. “What did I ask you not to do?”

He laughs and shakes his head. “I don’t think I’m doing that.”

“And I’m telling you that you are.” It comes out half a tease because he’s being petulant and bratty like a child. Truth is, he said I could be a stay at home wife and he’d be fine with it but I know it’s that protective nature coming out of him. I’m shocked he even lets Sarah go to school sometimes. “I can’t believe you joined my therapy session to tell on me that I have panic attacks but we know that, sweetheart—I’m in therapy for it.” 

He holds his finger up to stop me. “I am not being bratty and you're in therapy to help you make sense of the things that cause you hurt and learn how to better communicate, PG, not for the panic attacks so please forgive me for worrying about you.” 

Julia smiles, eyes darting between us like she’s following a tennis match. “She said how easily you two speak with each other but, I have to admit, I did have a hard time believing it. It’s so nice to see it.”

Joel slips his arm around my shoulder and pulls me close. “What did you want to talk about before I walked in here and screwed up your plan?”

“I wanted to talk about how you were behaving like a brat, actually.”

His chest rises and falls against me as his laughter pushes out into the open air. “Okay, baby,” he concedes. “I'll keep my mouth shut for the rest of the time.”

He doesn’t but he does try, even as Dr. Bonner and I talk about how he asked my mother and grandmother for permission to marry me.

“Why is it important for you to ask permission, Joel?” She asks. “You know she’s going to say yes, you’ve already discussed it and everything you’ve said about your daughter makes it seem as though Sarah’s more than fine with it as well.”

He smiles and takes a deep breath. “I know she’s going to say yes but I don’t want her making any rash decisions,” he says. "I don’t want her saying yes and not knowing if everybody else in her life thinks she’s making a huge mistake with me.”

“And?” She asks, head cocked to the side to study him.

He wipes his palms on his jeans and swallows before clearing his throat. “And I know how she gets about big changes and emotions, I’m trying not to put too many on her at once. I don't want her to say yes because she can’t read her own feelings and I tell her all the time that it’s okay to change her mind about things and want different for herself but once we cross that line, I know her changing her mind on me will break my heart in a way that I not sure I’d be able to fully come back from.” 

There are those fears again.

His pleas to break his heart but do it quickly; give him warning; let him dodge the impact.

The impact can’t be dodged now so the barrier has been moved and rebuilt.

Turning to him, I ask if he knows that I feel the same. Ask if he knows I look at him sometimes and imagine him throughout the years and then break my own heart as I imagine him with somebody else.

Somebody else who gets to grow old with him. Who sees the scar on his nose fade out as his freckles get darker beneath years in the sun.

“You can’t cover all of your insecurities about us up with saying you think I’ll regret it, Joel,” I tell him. “It’s not fair to me, especially after all the ways that I’ve shown you that I’m in this.”

“I know.” He runs the flat of his hand across the bridge of his nose and takes a deep breath. “That's why I never say anything, I know I’m being irrational but it’s that knowledge that makes me want to be sure that everybody else backs you up on your decision to move forward with me,” he goes on. “These people and what they think mean a lot to you which means they mean a lot to me. It wasn’t just you who came into my family, Alison. You brought me into yours, too.” 

August 29, 2003:

Save for most of the furniture and a few other pieces of my life outside of his house, I’m moved in officially.

He didn’t add me to the mortgage but he did add me to the deed, said it gives me ownership without financial responsibility over it all and, even though he knows I’m taking the financial responsibility anyway, he doesn’t want me to be tied up in it. Not while the business is still new and tied to the mortgage. This way if something goes south, I can take over that aspect and he can close the business with no repercussions to Sarah.

Truthfully, I don’t know what much of it means and I’m not trying too hard to figure it out. Because I know I’ll just confuse myself more and things are kind of overwhelming as it stands right now as he keeps handing me paint chips to decide what color to paint our room.

Our room.

Ours.

That’s all I care about, that it’s ours.

“Green,” I tell him, pointing towards the section of greens.

"Doesn't match your bedspread, though,” he says.

Shrugging, I tell him we can get another bedspread. “I want at least one wall to be dark green, we can figure out the rest when we find a bedding set we like.”

He’s dragged me around all day today, excited to start decorating things with both of us in mind. Until now, his bedroom has been blue, everything else mismatched because the only thing he cares about is making Sarah’s space comfortable. But now his space is mine too and he wants to give that same comfort to me. 

"We don’t have to figure it all out right now, Joel,” I insist. “Grab a couple of samples and we’ll put them on the wall to see which ones we like better but there’s a lot going on, we can save this project for later.”

“If we save it for later, it’s never gonna get done, Ali.” 

Everything smells like sawdust and while that’s usually such a comforting scent for me, that’s only when it’s coming off his skin or in his truck. That’s only when it’s mixed in with all the other smells of him; his deodorant; his body wash; the natural scent of him. Right now, it's just giving me a headache and the paint fumes that are drifting over from the spill on the next aisle aren’t helping.

“It'll happen,” I insist. "If not here, then in the house we build together when the business takes off, there are other things that are pressing.”

Eyebrow raised, he asks me what’s more important than feeling comfortable in my space, scoffing when I tell him I am comfortable in our room. I’ve been comfortable in it and that's why I find it so easy to sleep there.

Hands raised to my lips like a prayer, I promise him that the color of the walls doesn’t matter to me and if he’s so concerned with the paint matching my bedspread then what it looks like now is more than perfect. “Baby, you said we were going to have an afternoon date and all I’m getting is a headache. I love you so much for wanting to make my space beautiful and comfortable but I am telling you that it already is because you are in it.”

“Okay,” he says on a nod. “But don’t be shocked if you come home one day and it’s just done.”

Wrapping my arms around his middle, I push my face into his chest and breathe deep, holding there with him for quiet moments of nothing but the steady beat of his heart in one ear and the high pitched beeping of heavy machinery backing up in the other. “I trust you,” I say after another deep breath. “I don't know how to decorate to save my life but I love the space you created for your family before I was in it and I will love the space you create for our family now.”

Holding onto me, I can feel his smile stretched wide across his face as he presses a kiss into my crown. “Okay,” he whispers.

It really is as simple as this, it always has been with us.

No games, no hiding. Even when I’ve wanted to, neither of us have allowed it. Even if he’s stubborn or I’m stubborn, we listen to one another and nothing is ever an argument because we never let it get to that point.

He calls my attention up to him and looks down at me, thumb stroking over the swell of my cheek as his eyes only seem to deepen even beneath the fluorescent lighting all around us. For a moment, I think he’s going to blurt it out right now, the way Sarah said he probably would. Maybe it’s because I think I’m acting stupid but I also know that my mother and grandmother called him this morning and I don’t know everything that was said but I do know that he was smiling after. 

Which means it could be any day now, it could all be any day now, and I know how I get with big emotions but I’ve settled into this one well enough that it’s not an emotion anymore. Not really.

I’m happy, I feel happy, but we’ve talked enough about it now that this isn’t a surprise that will throw me off my axis. This isn’t coming out of the blue to inform me that we’re not on the same page. At this point, this is an expectation of the next step with one another, thoroughly looked at from every angle. No part of it will surprise me because I feel safe enough with him to not be surprised. Because when everything else is happening all around me, I’ve found solace with him.

Even going back to the first moment we met one another, I felt calm and safe even beneath all of my nerves.

“Yes,” I tell him.

“I haven’t asked you anything.”

“I don’t care,” I tell him. “I love you and the answer is yes and also please paint a part of our room dark green or burnt orange, but don’t do both and I love you”—deep breath—“and the answer is yes.” 

[wenellyb]

Is Sambucky Canon or Not?

TL;DR: Yes, it is

I've seen some people saying that they only see friendship between Sam and Bucky, and I can understand that. Because depending on your education, the environment you grew up and the kind of media you’re usually exposed to, you will have a different interpretation of different situations, in real life or in TV. Just let me insert a short story before I dive into the Sambucky topic:

My best friend's uncle is in his fifties and has been living with his roommate (a man) for more than 10 years. They lived together, went on holidays together but officially were just roommates. My best friend wondered if they were a couple, but never talked about it to her parents because it wasn't her business. Two years ago, they decided to come out and get married. My best friend's parents and his parents were genuinely surprised, they were not expecting that, at all, not even a little bit. Let me tell you that it didn’t even cross their mind that it was a possibility, at all. For them, it had always just been two men who had decided to live together because they were single. And preferred to have a roommate rather than living alone.

What I want to say with this story is that people will see what they want to see, or what they're used to see, or what they were raised to see. It’s human.

What I mean is that you will have different perception of a same event, depending on your own circumstances. And I think the writers of TFATWS were counting on that a little bit when it came to Sam and Bucky’s relationship. They obviously didn't want to make some big announcement or big love declaration.

And yes, of course, I have my own circumstances as well, influencing the way I see things. I have shipped SamBucky since Civil War, when they were supposedly enemies. I never expected anything to happen between them on screen. But then they got a show together and I was so so happy about it but I didn't expect anything other than friendship between them.

I was perfectly fine with that because a show was already more than enough: my man Sam Wilson was becoming Captain America, the show was great, the characters were great, their interactions were great, and this wasn't a love story anyway but a superhero show. I thought that here was no way the showrunners would ever go there. I changed my mind after episode 5. I tried to stay objective, but it was clear to me that the writers were hinting at a relationship that went beyond friendship between Sam and Bucky. In some of my previous posts, I explained that there are some scenes and writing choices that make absolutely no sense if you read them as a scene between two friends. I can link them if anyone’s interested.

Side note: I would like to know if one person on this website can tell me what was up with Bucky's behavior with Torres (in episode 5)? What other explanation is there, if not jealousy? It's a scene they chose to keep, so it was probably written this way, there must be a reason. Please I’m begging someone explain it to me. I'm genuinely asking, because otherwise that scene alone is canon Sambucky.

After episode 5, I was convinced they would make Sambucky canon, one way or the other and I started speculating about the ways they could do it. What I said was that if they did make Sambucky canon, they would do it in a very subtle way, in order not to make it too obvious because that’s generally how Marvel movies deal with love stories. And also because they wouldn’t want to scare away their homophobic audience ( I guess Disney needs their money...who knows)

So here are the scenes of how I imagined SamBucky becoming canon and the comparison with reality:

1.

- What I thought we could get : AJ and Cass calling Bucky "Uncle Bucky" - What we got: AJ and Cass running up to Bucky and playing with him. This point is interesting because it’s also related to the point I made about how the environment you grew up in influences your perception of things. I grew up in a big family and I know that, at least in my family, kids don't run up to an adult like that just because it's their uncle’s friend or just because he's nice... There's a real bond there. They haven't seen Bucky just that one time when he slept on the couch. They're obviously close. But some people might just see this as kids being kids. Also, if you watch at how the kids were fake punching him, they were really coordinated with Bucky. They have done this plenty of times. 2.

What I thought we could see: A non-explicit scene where we were supposed to draw our own conclusions. I thought they could show us Bucky staying over for the night, and the last scene would be an empty couch, meaning we would have to understand that Bucky slept in Sam's room this time.

-What we got: Bucky arriving in Sam's car ( A few people on Tumblr pointed out that it was the car Sam was driving in episode 1) So here again we have a scene that a lot of people will not notice. But they still chose to put it there. 3.

What I thought could happen: Sam asking Bucky to stay in Delacroix

What we got: Bucky wrapping things up in New York, as if he was leaving the city for good and coming to Sam's party as if he already knew everyone there. You can read my take on this here. 4. What I thought could happen: The scene in the trailer where we see them looking in the same direction and then we get a shot from very far away where they're holding hands but it’s not so obvious because they are being filmed from a disctance. -What we got: The scene in trailer and then a blurry shot of Sam holding Bucky and then fondling with his neck to find the best spot to rest his hand on. So none of the scenes I was imagining happened exactly like I had imagined, but it felt like all of them happened but in a different versions, which is still crazy to me. If it had been only one scene. I could probably understand the people who see them as just friends. Actually, I still do understand the people who see them as just friends, because everyone has their own interpretation. What I am saying is that they are NOT being portrayed as just friends. There are TOO many scenes in the 6 episodes for it to be a coincidence. One or 2 would be ok but friendship doesn’t explain everything:

The therapy scene (not the therapy scene itself since it was improvised) but the therapist saying she had heard a lot about Sam and wanting them to do a couples’ therapy

Bucky following Sam no matter what

Sam saying ok as soon as Bucky says "do it for me"

Sam asking "what about Bucky?"

Bucky starting to touch Sam whenever he has the chance

Bucky being the one to bringing the suit for Sam

The boat repairing montage

Bucky wanting to stay at Sam's place, when a hotel room would have been more comfortable than a couch

The second day of boat repair in closed quarters with an intense staring scene.

And there are so many other scenes, soft touches, looks,...

These writing choices are not a coincidence, it’s not involuntary, and it’s not fan service ( Fan service is the roll in the flower field scene, or the therapy session). This is them telling a story.

Let’s not even talk about the scenes in Endgame:

Sam comforting bucky at Tony’s funeral

Sam looking up to Bucky for approval before accepting the shield from Steve.

So yes, Sam and Bucky are canon in the sense that Peter and Gamora were canon in the first movie, or Wanda and Vision were canon in Captain Civil War. Meaning that there was no big moment, kiss or anything, but the show is consistently throwing elements clearly showing Sam and Bucky as a romantic item and hinting at a lot more than friendship between them.

It is normal that some people have a different opinion. Because it is extremely rare, in big productions like this to have two male leads with romantic feelings towards each other, so not a lot people who see it will interpret it as such (I don't think it ever happened). You’ll see what you’re used to seeing.

I guess it also depends on what you expect from a love story. For me, the storyline between the characters, their scenes, their chemistry, the way their feelings towards each other are described, are the most important. The kiss scene is just there as a bonus, but I don't need it when the love story is told perfectly. If you’re used to seeing love stories with many kissing scenes, that’s what you will be expecting to see in most love stories.

If you're only used to seeing male friendships in superhero or action movies. The 1000th time you see men interacting in that type of movie or show, you are more likely to assume it is a friendship and nothing more, no matter how many codes and tropes usually associated with romantic movies, the writers and show makers are using.

Add to that the conviction that Disney would never approve Sambucky in a million years, and there you go, I can understand the people who see only friendship.

But, just think about it, if we had the same show, same scenes, same dialogues, but minus the action scenes and the project was being marketed as an Indie movie, would you think they were just friends or a blossoming couple?

If you read Sambucky’s relationship like a friendship: some scenes don't make sense. If you read it like a developing romantic relationship: it all makes sense. "When you hear hoofs, think horse, not zebra" If a writer or a film director chooses a last scene with a romantic setting and the two leads are staring at a sunset, smiling repeatedly at each other and then walking away together with one of them touching the other's neck, with a love song in the background, maybe friendship isn't the first thought they had in mind.

Some people may say “I see them as just friends” and other people may say “ I see them as lovers” and both are fine, because people have different perceptions, and that’s ok.

What I am saying is this post is that the show and the writers are portraying them as more than just friends, they’re portraying them as two characters who are romantically involved.

Perceive what you want but that’s how they are being presented in the show.

Bucky’s therapist said that the exercise she gave them was for couples who want to figure out what kind of life they want to build together. Then, the show ends with Sam and Bucky, staring at a sunset together, looking in the same direction.

“Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction. “  - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

What else do you need???

This show had more romance than half of the Marvel projects out there. Not every love story needs a kiss (for now...)

We'll see in their next projects which direction the writers want to go with this. But since it was said that the writer on the movie is the same as the writer from episode 5, there's no doubt in my mind that we'll keep seeing this dynamic. I don't think they would have made the same choices if this had been a movie. But I won't complain that we got this. I hope they keep this going even if it stays subtle like in the show. Just hope they will add one explicit scene where one of the characters acknowledges their relationship. But even if we only ever get this show, it’s already a great love story. Let me know what you guys think and sorry for the typos and grammar mistakes, I was tired when I wrote the last part. I hope it still makes sense!

If you think they're only being portrayed as friends let me know why! I would also like to know about the way you see this!

[vaspider]

I'm getting married Saturday! Any words of wisdom to impart for someone starting that new chapter (if you're comfortable with it)? Thanks for being a parent figure to so many of us on here. Goodness knows lots of us need someone like that.

In any case, Shana Tovah, and many blessings to you and yours!

💙

First of all, mazel tov! So much joy and happiness to you both. 💓

I had to think about this for a bit. @dadhoc and I have been together for 17 years and married for 12, and we've been with @apocalycious for 2.5 years, so I think we're doing something right. In no particular order:

Know when you need to be Right and when you'd rather be Happy. If your spouse wants to build a house with a Jell-O foundation, keep arguing/discussing/etc. bc you need to be right - it could hurt you both if you don't! If you're arguing over which one of you said what when you clearly had an unfortunate misunderstanding and accidentally hurt each other's feelings... wouldn't you rather be happy than right? Take a deep breath, apologize for your part in the misunderstanding, and figure out how to not have it happen again.

Don't let the sun go down on your anger. Don't go to bed angry with each other or actively arguing. That kind of stuff calcifies.

Figure out how the other person expresses love and says they're sorry, and honor that. Communicate how you need to be loved and apologized to. @dadhoc doesn't always say "I love you" out loud, but they make the leftover challah into French toast on the weekend, and they work really hard on NerdyKeppie stuff. I write poems and make art for people and get silly little presents, like an enamel pin with a red panda or a penguin on it for my boos. If you mention something you might like to do someday offhandedly, or a question you wonder about, Evie will remember that and research it for you! Steve also often doesn't say "I'm sorry" out loud - they will go wash the bedding and clean the bedroom so we can all spend time watching TV and snuggling together when the argument is resolved... but I need to hear "I'm sorry" out loud. So I acknowledge and appreciate the things they did, and they say the words out loud.

Respond to what your partners say, not to your baggage or to what you expect them to say. This becomes more of a Thing the longer you're together: you have so many conversations and talks and arguments that you fall into a comfortable groove with each other. That's great! But. Make sure when they're talking that you're not responding to something your dad said that hurt you 20 years ago, or to your ex who was hypercritical of you, or to who your partner USED to be, 6 years and a bunch of discussions ago.

Celebrate each other's successes, even the little ones. Get ice cream together when you finish a project at work. Take each other out for self-care time. You're together because you're each other's biggest fans, after all, but also...

You don't have to be each other's everything. I'm fact, you shouldn't. Make time for yourself. Spend time with your friends. Cultivate your friends, not just our friends. (Evie is friends with people I can't stand, and I'm happy they get along!) Have your Own Things that you do and are.

Spoil each other just a little. If you won't do it, who will?

Laugh with each other but never at each other. Human beings are ridiculous!

Go to therapy. It's preventative maintenance for your brain.

Find something you enjoy doing together that has a finished product at the end. Build a model, bake a cake. Evie and I really like cooking together. Even cleaning is nice if I'm doing it with my partners.

Don't stop going on dates, even if a date means eating dinner outside instead of in your kitchen.

Speaking of which: try to make Family Dinner a thing. Sit at an actual table presuming you have one, trade off making food, put your phone somewhere else while you're eating, and talk to each other without distraction for at least that long every day. I know I sound like a mom in a Pixar movie, but I'm serious, this works! When I was sick, we stopped having a dining room table really bc of how our house got rearranged, and we didn't eat together at a table for years. Now our Family Dinnertime is sacrosanct. Even if we're all eating leftovers, we eat at the table right around the same time every day. It makes a difference in our ability to connect with each other. Eating together is an important human bonding activity.

You're going to change. So is your spouse. That's not just okay - that's great! Life means growth. I'm not who I was in 2004, thank G-d, and neither is Steve. I'm not who I was in 2019, for that matter. That change and growth is who you're becoming together, so honor and celebrate that. You can't grow old together if you don't grow old, after all.

If you're so inclined generally speaking, never stop looking at your sexy-ass spouse with the same wide-eyed delight you do now. Just... enjoy it when they're getting changed in the room with you. If I ever stop saying "... butt... " dreamily when one of my partners is changing, or informing one that they're missing out on seeing the other's butt, just bury me, I'm dead. Appreciate them out loud. They're cute!

Smooch daily.

Take care of yourself. You can't be a good spouse if you're not eating food food, getting enough sleep, etc.

Even in the shitty parts, which will happen, remind yourself that you've got backup. From now on, you've always got backup, and it's much easier to go through crises with your biggest fan by your side. It'll be a great story on the other side, right? I'll forever tell the one about how when Steve was in the hospital for afib, and the docs had to knock Steve out to shock their heart into behaving, they woke up and started immediately asking "where's my [husbutch]?" They got so insistent about it - still loopy on the anesthesia - that the nurse came to get me. I called from the doorway and Steve calmed down... for 5 seconds, and then their short-term memory cycled, and they started asking for me again. This happened half a dozen times until I asked "do you want me to just ... squeeze in?" bc Steve's insistence was slowing the doctors down, the docs said yes, so I worked my way up to the head of their hospital bed and said "here I am, please calm down so the doctors can work." Steve said, "oh! My [husbutch]. Hello, [husbutch]!" and took my hand and calmed down. It was a TERRIBLE day but I LOVE that story in retrospect.

Smooch lots.

Mazel tov! Love each other. Building a marriage is work, but anything worth building takes effort. It sounds cheesy but it's so true. 💗

[local-trashmouth]

Henry making love to you and you're all soft but then you say you want kids and now bow (yes I call him bow lol) has the idea of getting you pregnant in his mind and kinda snaps and gets a bit feral or he extra soft 🥺🥺 whatever you like I just had this idea lol (feel free to write this for the gang as well, separate ofc)

note: not directly female cause 'm ftm so like gn reader please <3

headcanons ?

AAAAAAAAAAAAA I LOVE YOU

LITERALLY THIS HAD ME SCREAMING (altho I didnt rlly know how to write this because I hate kids xD)

I'm not sure if you meant have kids in sense of the natural way, or adopt a child (although that interferes with the impregnation thought of the bois) so I just wrote both variants

(also if this isn't what you wanted, pls send another ask. If that's the case im very sorry ;-;)

Warnings: mention of sex, impregnation, Patrick is a warning himself lol

Pairing: Henry Bowers x reader, Patrick Hockstetter x reader (I thought this fits him too)

Henry Bowers

Having a child naturally

since you said that, he can't concentrate on anything but the thoughts of building a future with you

he definetly goes soft on you, practically melting into putty

just you telling him that you want kids with him gives him butterflies

although he's worrying about being a horrible dad like Butch

you have to reassure him, telling him that he'll be the total opposite

heck even in school he can't think about anything else other than moving out of Derry with you and building a Family

he'll totally get you there, I mean, when you two can provide for a Family of course

he doesn't want to have children at a time where he can't give them the best possible life he has to offer

fight me on this, but he totally wants girls

so they have your beauty and heart, and he really just wants to do their hair

but when one of them or both turn out to identify differently he'll support them despite his views (same with the son/s)

if you end up having a son, or multiple he'll totally be that cool dad

taking them to shooting lessons and spending a lot of time with them

adopting a child

again, he wants to wait until you two can provide for it

he's gonna try his best to be a good parent, better than the previous ones at least

he'll probably take his kids into the woods too, make campfires with them while letting you put your head onto his shoulder

you just adore watching him bloom like that

if they ever ask about being adopted, he wouldn't be closed off about it

he totally takes you and the kids to Derry for holidays to brag to Butch about his success, and will 100% rub it into the boys' faces aswell

he really wants the kids to get along with the guys, they're his closest friends after all

Patrick Hockstetter

Having a child naturally

he totally goes feral when you say that

look, he won't be the best dad there is

and it's not even really his fault

which sometimes upsets you, and he gets it

but he's trying okay

he'll make a lot of shitty dad jokes

very very very overprotective over his kids

now there isn't just one real Person to him, but a whole family

HIS family

like, how did he get here?

it often overwhelms him

but he knows he can find that security he needs with you

so everything's good in the end

he really doesn't have a preference for the gender, and he will seem like he doesn't care about his kids

but he truly does, and it shows in other things than affection

for example, he will not hesitate to defend his kid, no matter if they are in the wrong or not

he'll also attend therapy which is a big step to a better future :)

when he's alone with you he opens up about his worries of not being able to give them the things they need/want because of his lack of empathy

so u better reassure ur fireboi

adopting a child

he lets you "choose"

the first months will be rough, and there will be a lot of small fights between you two

because Patrick never imagined to be in this kind of commitment

he hopes the kid gets into knives and other weapons, cuz boi will he fanboy about the one's he still has from being younger

he wants to stay in Derry, he just likes this town somehow

maybe its because he can get away with his killing

talking about that, he'll stop it

just for you and the kid of course

so you better feel special

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 302: As the Todoroki Turns

Previously on BnHA: 

Today on BnHA: We have a very fun chapter in which (1) Shouto grows up lonely on account of his parents being worried that his siblings will literally try to kill him, (2) Natsu and Fuyu grow up neglected on account of not being special and/or self-destructive enough to attract attention, (3) we get to revisit all of that exciting spousal abuse from chapter 39, and (4) Touya burns to death right on cue, pretty much exactly like we expected it to happen. Thankfully since this is a shounen manga, Horikoshi finds some hope in all this misery as the Todoroki family rallies together, with Shouto getting his long-overdue credit for being a perfect sweet angel who put up with all of this shit for sixteen years and somehow came out of it strong and kind and empathetic and determined. Anyway, so that flashback was a barrel of laughs. But now that it’s over, we can put all of that angst behind us, and move on to... well I guess, probably, more angst. Look, we’re short on variety at the moment. Bear with it.

ouch. we knew this was coming, but still

A+ parenting move there. “ho boy, our eldest just tried to murder our youngest, now what? hmm how about we isolate our youngest from all human contact”

though in their defense, we probably shouldn’t have expected this rabidly strength-obsessed fire man and his wife who was groomed since childhood to obey her family’s whims to have any idea of how to raise stable, well-adjusted offspring

SERIOUSLY YOU GUYS

this is a perfect example of Enji’s tragically self-revolving viewpoint right here. just because being a hero is your entire world doesn’t mean you can just excuse yourself from anything outside of that and act like it’s out of your control. “alas, all I care about is hero stuff and my son can’t be a hero, we are doomed to inhabit two different worlds” no you jackass, it’s called having more than one hobby?? figuring out how to spend some time with your son that doesn’t involve training?? the same exact thing you were telling him to do last week, while ignoring that you’ve never done that yourself in your life??

that said, yet again we have that complexity though because it’s obvious that Enji at least on some level is aware of his own flaws, even though he seems unwilling or unable to confront them. honestly, from what we’ve seen so far, Enji’s obsession with surpassing All Might might be more accurately called an addiction. he literally can’t let go of it even though he’s fully aware of how it’s slowly destroying his life. and so in the same way that a lifelong smoker or alcoholic might tell their child to stay away from cigarettes and booze, Enji tells Touya not to follow down the same path as him, even though he himself doesn’t know how to leave that path. so yes, it’s hypocritical as fuck, but there’s also an element of helplessness there as well because Enji literally doesn’t know how not to be like this

though all the same he sure could stand to put in more than just a token effort. but it is what it is, and we already know how much he’ll come to regret it

and meanwhile Baby Shouto has frozen his sleep bubble with his quirk lmao. so I guess his quirk did come in early. that’s a recipe for chaos right there

once again Shouto is ruining every single dramatic panel in this flashback

this was so dark and intense... and then I spotted the lil bubs in the corner. Horikoshi please control yourself

“some hero you are, running away” and then all of a sudden, “FIVE YEARS LATER” lol what. OKAY THEN

(ETA: love the confirmation that eight-year-old Natsu comes from the Iida school of puberty and is basically a fully grown man, and meanwhile Touya comes from the hobbit school of puberty and has been perpetually eight for the past five years.)

“HEY BIG BRO WANNA COME RECREATE AN ICONIC FLASHBACK SCENE WITH US. WE’VE GOT THE SOCCER BALL RIGHT HERE, BUT HURRY UP OR WE’LL BE TOO LATE FOR SHOUTO TO WALK ON BY AND STOP TO LOOK”

lol and that’s literally the next three panels. but Horikoshi did add this extra bit after Endeavor starts to drag Shouto away

seriously Enji what the hell did you expect was going to happen here. “Touya went nuts and tried to kill his little brother out of jealousy, so let’s make it clearer than ever that Shouto is the important child and all the other children are just rejects. this will definitely not make the problem 100x worse, and will surely lead to Touya giving up and living a happy life, having been emotionally abandoned by the person he admired more than anyone.” good for you pal you figured it all out. no need for that plan b, “we all just go to therapy”

anyway so he’s telling Shouto he can’t play because he needs more endurance training. and meanwhile Touya’s patented Todoroki Drama Genes are going through puberty as well

definitely the face of a happy, emotionally stable child who’s not still plotting to murder his younger brother in his sleep

“WELL ACTUALLY MAKESTE” lol I stand corrected??

apparently during the five year interim Touya actually stopped blaming Shouto and realized Enji was the one at fault. good for him! a bit inconsistent, given what we know happens later, but I assume we’ll get to that in good time

anyway. “yeah man I agree that dad sucks, but it’s the middle of the night and I’m only eight and you’ve been monologuing for the past two hours bro”

LMAO

the manga is making my jokes for me, only better. fine then

looks like someone’s still miffed about that disagreement he had with his baby sister back when she was like four

“Fuyu doesn’t get properly riled up like I want her to so ranting to her is annoying.” okay but having been in Fuyu’s shoes, it really is just a different way of coping, and I can guarantee she’s not as fine with the whole situation as Touya might think. but making your peace with something is often a decision that’s made for emotional self-preservation reasons. and I sure as hell don’t fault her for trying to shut out a situation that she had no control over, and trying to make the best of it, and scrape together as normal a childhood as she could manage

and now in Touya’s defense as well, that is of course easier said than done, and I’m sure if there was a “push this button and instantly get over all of the trauma in your life” switch readily available for Touya then he would have pushed it too. unfortunately it’s not always that simple

so now Rei is pleading with Touya not to go train up on his little emo hill again, but it doesn’t seem like much has changed since he was eight

I don’t think he gives two figs about being a hero; he just wants his father to look at him again with pride. fucking hell, stop doing this to me you damn Todorokis

guh, they keep telling him the same thing over and over again

even if we hadn’t already known he was gonna go melt his jawbone off soon, I wouldn’t have expected a line like that to go over well

yep. fuck

that Todoroki puberty angst, though. nothing else quite like it

“you have a part in this too, Mom” ooooooh man

okay but look, he’s not entirely wrong. like, I’m not saying any of this is Rei’s fault at all! she’s in an impossible situation where she’s afraid to stand up to Enji (who by this point has shown that he’s willing to physically attack her if things get too heated, which is terrifying), and doesn’t really have anywhere to turn for support. her parents aren’t helping much if at all, and Japan in general is just a terrible country to be in when you’re in a domestic abuse situation. everyone’s expected to put on a brave face and deal with their problems all on their own in private. Rei is basically completely isolated at this point, and she doesn’t know what else to do, and so she’s just trying to keep the situation as stable as possible for the kids

but on the other hand, “for the kids” is also where that argument starts to break down a bit, because at this point Shouto is also being physically abused by his father, and the other kids are continuing to be neglected (emotionally if not physically), as they have been for years. so the situation really isn’t stable at all for them. and as a kid, what you end up learning in that type of situation is that you can’t rely on either parent. not the abusive one, certainly, but also not the other one who can’t protect you from any of it. even if they love you and they’re trying, they’re just as helpless as you. Rei is struggling to deal with all of this with one hand tied behind her back, and I get it, and I’m not blaming her at all. but all the same, particularly given that she’s (understandably) putting almost all her focus on Shouto, the end result is that the other kids have basically been left to fend for themselves

so yeah! a shitty situation all around. and one of those cases where it’s not really anyone’s fault (aside from Enji’s), but I can understand the resentment Touya is feeling all the same. and I’m so glad Horikoshi is acknowledging this, because it’s something I probably would have been too uncomfortable to bring up otherwise. as it is it’s still an incredibly heavy subject, and one that I probably have too many personal feelings about

anyway, so once again the whole “we’ll try talking to him and then just shrug our shoulders when it doesn’t work” parenting strategy doesn’t really pan out for the Todoroki fam

sob this boy is Anakin Skywalkering before our very eyes. all that’s missing is AFO to come and start whispering in his ear. any minute now...

“anyway so then he got taller and his fire changed from red to blue”

guess we’re getting pretty close then huh. this is the part of the flashback that I really don’t want to see, but also unfortunately the part that I’m most curious about :/

oh for fuck’s --

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN IGNORING HIM FOR FIVE YEARS DIDN’T ACTUALLY DO ANYTHING TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM” sob. back to the drawing board I guess

I thought he got taller, why is he still only like a third of Enji’s height here

oh fuck me these are armor-piercing feels. this is the heavy artillery right here

ENJI I’M BEGGING YOU PLEASE STOP AND THINK FOR ONE MOMENT IN YOUR LIFE BEFORE DOING SOMETHING YOU’LL REGRET FOR THE REST OF ALL TIME. your child just told you that he still thinks beating All Might is the only thing you care about, and that he believes his existence is a mistake unless he finds some way of doing that for you. please stop for a moment to contemplate that and choose your next words with care and grace and oh who the hell am I kidding

-- OR WE COULD JUST BLAME REI

go on and blame everyone but yourself then!! that’s a great solution!! jesus christ man I know this is Endeavor at his literal worst but still this is fucking hard to watch

POOR BABY SHOUTO IS YELLING AT HIS DAD NOT TO HIT HIS MOMMY THIS LITTLE BRAVE BOY NEEDS SO MANY HUGS OH MY GOD

AND MEANWHILE THE OTHERS ARE HUDDLED IN THE NEXT ROOM TRYING NOT TO CRY AH FUCK

(ETA: Fuyu covering Natsu’s ears cuts RIGHT TO THE CORE OF ME. Horikoshi if you’re really not gonna get these kids some therapy then at least consider giving your readers some. what is this.)

you know it’s bad when you’re starting to think the part where the kid burns to death might actually be a less traumatic thing to cut to right now

holy shit, actual Rei thoughts

“I was the one who ultimately made that choice” well there we go, wonder if that’ll put that whole argument to bed at last. I doubt it, but you never know. actually who am I kidding it’s not gonna settle jack shit lol

oh thank god, they decided it was getting too intense and cut away back to the present to narrate this next (final?) part

get ready to cue up that Alicia Keys. THIS BOY IS ON FIREEEEEEE

yeah I think that’s one thing we can mostly all agree on. neither of them had any clue what the fuck they were doing pretty much at any point. though I will say that the hypocrisy of him being all “WHY DIDN’T YOU STOP HIM” followed by him IMMEDIATELY DOING THE EXACT SAME THING is a bit rich

(ETA: and he still has this problem, doesn’t he? he froze up when Ending snatched Natsuo, and again when Dabi was attacking Shouto. he’s so afraid of doing the wrong thing that he ends up not doing anything, which of course is exactly what led to Touya’s death. damn Enji I guess you’ve still got some additional character development to unlock.)

and of course neither of them could possibly have known how badly it was going to turn out. like, the consequences here were WAY disproportionate even for the shittiest of parenting. no one expects “I didn’t know how to talk to my son” to snowball into “my son burned to death and then somehow came back as a villain and murdered thirty people”

ohhhhhhhh fuck me

LITERALLY INCINERATED THE ENTIRE HILLSIDE. fuck. and I am so not ready for the scene of Enji finding the remains of his jawbone afterwards. at least we were spared anything super-graphic (for now at least)

I feel like the timeline here is off, btw?? wasn’t Touya’s death supposed to happen after Rei got hospitalized? this might be the first actual retcon of the entire flashback. although I think it makes more sense this way tbh

I do appreciate that ten years later Enji is finally reflecting on the fact that if he’d just given up his stupid obsession he could have stopped his family from crumbling apart. that probably sounds sarcastic as fuck, but it’s not. there are countless jerks out there who would have still managed to find a way to blame literally everyone and everything under the sun except for themselves. at least he finally figured out how to take responsibility, even if it came too late to stop his son from dying and being radicalized into a villain terrorist organization

and speaking of, it seems to me we’re missing a third and final part to this little tale of woe, and one which only Touya himself will be able to shed any light on. so we’ll see how that goes

oh man seeing the other kids blaming themselves even though none of it was their fault hits hard af. Rei wasn’t kidding when she said they’d been bearing that burden of guilt far longer than Enji

SHOUTO I SWEAR TO GOD IF THE NEXT PANEL IS YOU APOLOGIZING FOR BEING BORN, I WILL... WELL I’LL BE VERY SAD, I GUESS. SO DON’T DO IT

oh good he’s just being quiet. good. it absolutely is not your fault lil bean. it’s not theirs either, but feeling guilty about things that aren’t your fault is a time-honored shounen tradition

goddammit I braced myself for the angsty Shouto panel a page too early. gotta do it all over again now lol. okay here goes

;_;

well well well would you look at that

imagine that. talking things out with your child before they make a rash decision. looks like the Todorokis’ parenting skills are finally leveling up

OH MY GOD

holy shit. this is the most quintessential moment of father/son Todoroki bonding in the entire series. for me it even tops the “nice scar” scene lol. Enji sobbing at the fact that he still has a chance to set things right. and Shouto offering his hand in what is actually the most mature and selfless gesture I’ve ever seen, and being all “we’ll stop him together” to his dad who he hates, but also doesn’t really entirely hate anymore. and all of that is incredibly moving... BUT ALSO HE STILL REFUSES TO MAKE EYE CONTACT WITH HIM AND HE WOULD LIKE HIM TO STOP BEING SO FUCKING DRAMATIC ALREADY IF YOU DON’T MIND. “WHEN YOU’RE DONE CRYING...” fkjldsk

OH MY FUCKING LORD

(ETA: wouldn’t be a Todoroki drama fest if there wasn’t somebody listening in on the whole thing in secret just around the corner lmao.)

“you think we should have waited somewhere else?” “yeah, probably.” “are you feeling a lot of secondhand embarrassment too?” “god, you have no idea.” STFU HAWKS IT’S NOT EMBARASSING TO BE MOVED TO TEARS BY YOUR FAMILY ALL COMING TOGETHER IN YOUR DARKEST HOUR TO GIVE YOU HOPE THAT YOU PROBABLY DON’T DESERVE BUT ARE NONETHELESS INDESCRIBABLY GRATEFUL FOR

and anyway you chose these guys as your found family, bucko. too late to back out now. next time go get yourself adopted by the Iidas then

AND MEANWHILE NO WORD ON THE WHOLE “HOW DID A THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD SURVIVE A FIRE THAT COVERED HIS BODY WITH HORRIFIC SCARS AND MELTED HIS JAW OFF, AND HOW DID HE SOMEHOW THEN MANAGE TO GO INTO HIDING FOR TEN WHOLE YEARS, AND WHAT HAPPENED IN THAT INTERIM TO CHANGE HIS GOAL FROM ‘SURPASS ALL MIGHT TO IMPRESS MY DAD’ TO ‘KILL ALL HEROES TO MAKE MY DAD SUFFER’.” as if we don’t know the answer to that. but still, would it kill Horikoshi to just confirm AFO’s involvement in all of this already. at this point it’s basically just a formality

so here’s hoping next week we’ll either get that, or more Hawks action, or (DARE I EVEN SUGGEST, I’M AFRAID TO JINX IT) finally cut back to Bakugou and Deku and All Might omg. either way I’m hyped

[ncssian]

A Favor: Part Twenty-Three

Nessian Modern AU

Masterlist

a/n: so yeah this isn’t my best work bc i havent been feeling great lately but i hope you guys can stay patient with me until i get my shit together. we’re almost to the end🤞

***

Sitting crammed between Elain and Feyre on the gray couch in Lana’s office, Nesta has to cross her legs prettily and pretend she doesn’t want to peel out of her skin right there. She doesn’t know what she was thinking when she invited her sisters to one of her therapy sessions, but she’s assuming it would be considered rude to kick them out now.

“Who wants to speak first?” Lana’s bob swings as she looks at each of them. The office is ice cold today, and Feyre and Elain’s presence doesn’t help the chill in the air.

Nesta crosses her arms before she can be asked to speak. “No, thank you,” she says. She knows everyone probably expects better from her, but no way in hell is she going to be the first to open up in front of this crowd. “Feyre,” she turns to her youngest sister instead, “why don’t you say something?”

“Actually, why don’t you set the example, Nesta?” Lana gives her a look, making her cheeks redden with irritation.

“Fine,” Nesta grumbles. She clears her throat. “As you can see, I have made moves to reconnect with my sisters. I invited them here because I hoped that therapy would bring us closer and also make them more… tolerable.”

Elain coughs, “Bitch.”

Nesta smiles tightly. “Elain could especially use this, I think.”

Lana is already frowning. She never frowns this early into a session. “We’ll start with an easy question, then. What’s been on your mind lately, Nesta?”

Nesta purses her lips, pretending to think. “Nothing important. I’m looking at jobs for the summer. I think Azriel keeps sneaking money into my purse, and it’s starting to become more than a little condescending. I caught up with some friends from school, and I was polite enough to pay for lunch.” She mentions off to the side to Elain, “Lucien was there, too.”

“Why would I care?” Elain sneers. She spies Lana’s disapproving look and lowers her head demurely. “Sorry,” she murmurs.

“That’s alright,” Lana says. “Why don’t you go next?”

“Me?” Elain’s head snaps up, and Nesta holds in her snicker.

“Start by describing your relationship with Nesta. I heard you two used to be very close.” Lana uncaps her pen, preparing to write.

Elain flushes lightly and folds her hands. “That was when we were children. The only thing keeping us together was that we shared a home. When we stopped living in the same place, some of us had no problem leaving others in the dust.”

“You can use my name,” Nesta rolls her eyes, “I’m right here.”

From the corner of her vision, Feyre cringes.

“Are you saying you feel abandoned by Nesta?” Lana continues probing.

Elain’s answering silence tells more than enough. Therapy must actually be paying off, though, because Nesta only thinks about interrupting and defending herself for a second before shaking it off. Her mind focuses on the word abandonment instead.

Lana is focusing on the same thing, because she leans closer and says, “Being abandoned bothers you?”

“I never said that,” Elain says indignantly.

“It would bother most people.”

Nesta watches Elain sigh and blink her big doe eyes at Lana. She’s always been able to use those eyes on anybody for anything. “I just don’t understand why I’m the villain for expecting a little loyalty,” Elain says sweetly. “Especially when you take a look at this face.” She cups her round cheeks. “You know psychology. How could you abandon this face?”

Nesta’s jaw hangs open. “Are we still talking about me?” She remembers Cassian telling her the story behind Azriel ghosting Elain, and a pang of guilt and pity hits her. She still hasn’t talked with Elain about why Azriel left Velaris, and she knows she won’t be able to decide whether to spare Az or not until she does.

“So that’s my turn,” Elain finishes up. “Feyre can go next.”

Lana is writing something sharply on her notepad, but she nods coolly. “Feyre, how would you describe your relationship with your sisters?”

“Oh, we don’t have time for all of that,” Feyre laughs awkwardly and waves a hand.

Nesta agrees, but the look Lana gives Feyre tells her that yes, they do have time.

Gulping, Feyre glances around. “Well, I was born last, so I guess that made me the outsider of the family. I never had much in common with my sisters, but now that we’re older I… hoped that we would grow past that.”

Translation: she hoped that once she found her happy ending in Rhysand’s arms, poor little Nesta and Elain would happily assimilate into her new community of wealthy friends, putting the cherry on top of her perfect life. And while Elain did that exact thing, it’s always bothered Feyre that Nesta won’t do the same.

Feyre continues, “I admit I’m not the best at understanding Nesta. Elain and I get along fine now, but Nesta…” Feyre meets her eyes. “It’s like nothing we do is enough for her, but for some reason I can’t stop trying.”

“Whose fault is that?” Nesta mutters.

“You want her approval,” Lana hums, taking notes.

“Is that what it is?” Feyre looks away.

Nesta refrains from saying yes, that’s exactly what it is, and it’s not my problem if you keep looking for something I can’t give.

“What are your feelings about that, Nesta?” Lana turns her focus to her. “Remember that this is a safe space.”

It really isn’t, not with two siblings holding long term grudges against Nesta. But once and for all, she’s going to set the record straight. “I spent most of my life being a bad sister.” Nesta’s voice is apathetic, straightforward. “I let Feyre take the burden of providing for us even though I was the oldest, and I didn’t know how to be anything other than cruel to my family. So once I had the means to do so, I cut everyone off for all of our sakes. I still don’t regret it, because being a stranger is better than being a bad sister.”

In that way, Nesta is a bit like her mother. Nesta was angry after her death, but she knows she would have been even angrier if Magdalene Archeron had lived and continued to be a disappointing parent. In that way, both of them are wise for leaving their families when they did.

“Or you could just be a good sister,” Elain interrupts with a drawl.

Nesta smirks bitterly at her. “I’d rather die.”

Feyre takes in a breath. “Why? Why are you like that with us?” She blinks furiously, and Nesta can see the simmer of her emotions. “It was okay when we thought you hated everybody, but you don’t. You only hate me and Elain.”

Nesta looks to Lana for help, but her therapist is sitting this one out. She sighs through her nose. “I don’t hate you,” she says, even though they might never understand. The next line comes with great difficulty. “I’ve loved you since before I even knew what love was. But I don’t like you very much, Feyre, and you don’t like me, either. Please stop trying to change that.”

When she finally meets Feyre’s eyes, though, they’re glimmering with tears. “How can I stop trying to change that?” Feyre whispers. “How can I give up on us like that?”

For Nesta to give Feyre and Elain the relationship they want from her would require nothing but lies on her part. And as much as she wishes she was capable of lying about this, she can’t do it.

Looking away and down at her hands, Nesta mutters, “It’s not fun for me either, but it’s how I am. I can’t be easy or friendly with you. I hate watching you try to make me be easy or friendly.”

Nobody says anything to that, but when Nesta looks up again Lana gives her a remote nod that Feyre and Elain don’t catch. Thank you for your vulnerability, it says.

“You said something interesting, Nesta,” Lana breaks the silence. “Did you see your sisters as your responsibility to raise?”

Nesta shrugs. “I was the oldest,” she repeats.

“Your father was the oldest.”

“He wouldn’t do shit even if you held a gun to his head, so I was up next.” Though Nesta hadn’t done shit either. Neither had Elain, but the rules have always been different for her. Elain redeems herself to others by handing out sunny smiles and pretending to have the intelligence of a fawn.

Lana stares at Nesta until Nesta’s skin starts to heat. “What?” she says defensively.

Ignoring the other two women in the room, Lana leans forward. “You told me once early into our relationship that part of the reason you left Tennessee was to get away from your sisters. You said you were heartbroken when they ended up following you here.”

Nesta doesn’t breathe or look to see her sisters’ reactions.

“Now I’m going to ask: did you really want to get away from your sisters, or did you want to escape the feeling of failing them?”

Nesta doesn’t know how to answer, because to her they might as well be the same thing. Having Feyre and Elain around is like having a weight tied to her chest. The lingering guilt every time Feyre is in a room, her existence screaming I’m the reason you’re still alive. Elain’s constant expectations of unconditional support and loyalty, whether it’s reciprocated or not. It’s all so heavy. And it all goes back to the fact that the three of them were once just helpless children.

If she couldn’t take care of her sisters, how is she supposed to take care of any child, ever?

Nesta releases a weary sigh. “You’re going to bring this up the next time we have the baby talk, aren’t you?”

Lana’s eyes sparkle. “Don’t get ahead of yourself just yet.” But Nesta can see from where she sits that her therapist’s notepad is covered in bullet points.

***

“I need to use the bathroom.” Feyre is hopping back and forth on her feet once the session is over. “You guys head down to the parking lot without me.” She exits in a rush, leaving the two sisters alone. Nesta hisses in frustration, nearly chasing after Feyre so she won’t have to face the inevitable awkward conversation with Elain.

By the end of the session, it was Elain that broke and pleaded with Nesta, “Don’t do everything we want, then. Just keep doing better, the way you’ve already been doing. I’ll be happy with just that.”

Nesta was surprised that Elain had even noticed her efforts, but she retorted, “And how do you plan to do better?”

To which Elain twirled her hair and murmured something halfheartedly about, “I might be more open to taking criticism or whatever.”

Though it was the absolute bare minimum, it was still a relief for Nesta to hear Elain admit that she has flaws worth criticizing.

Now, Nesta clutches the straps of her purse and turns for the stairwell leading to the parking lot. Elain follows without comment.

Inside the stairwell, Nesta asks, “Have you spoken to Azriel since he left Velaris?”

Elain looks surprised at the sudden question, and doesn’t remember to be guarded when she answers, “No. Why?”

Nesta shrugs, her heels thumping loudly on the linoleum stairs. “Because I know what happened between you two. I know why he left.”

Elain halts midstep, grabbing Nesta’s arm and turning to face her with wide eyes. “What do you mean, you know? He told you?”

“He told Cassian, and Cassian told me.” Nesta hardly cares that she’s being a poor friend to Azriel by spilling all this to Elain, and continues, “If I had known he was such a coward, I would have kicked him out of our place a long time ago… but I figured I would get your input on it first.”

She’s never seen Elain look so genuinely pleading before. “Get my input on what?” Elain breathes. “What did he say about me? Was it something I did?”

At that torn face that borders on heartbroken, Nesta decides that she’ll do more than kick Azriel out of the cabin. She’ll kick him off the whole mountain.

She shoves Elain’s back to get Elain detached from her and moving down the stairs again, and as they walk, Nesta spills everything she knows. She tells Elain about Rhysand’s talent of shoving his nose into places it doesn’t belong, and how one conversation with him managed to convince Azriel to ditch Elain for good. She tells her about how instead of having a straightforward conversation with Elain, Azriel chose to leave the city and hide out in the mountains like a pussy. She might sound blunt, but Elain needs blunt. She needs to know the unfiltered truth of things.

By the time they reach the floor where their cars are parked, Elain is silent. “Did he really say that?” she finally asks quietly. “He said he wants me to hate him?”

“That’s what I heard.” After a moment, Nesta feels the need to add, “You should hate him, though. He fucked up bad.”

When Elain continues strolling for their cars without replying, concern bites at Nesta. “You are mad at him, right? And mad at Rhysand? You’re not going to forgive them, right?”

“I’m not a total pushover,” Elain snaps. She stares at the cement ground as they walk. “I’m just… more disappointed than anything else. He gave up so easily.” She chuckles without humor. “It sounds like he was looking for an excuse to get away from me.”

Nesta frowns. “I don’t think he would’ve spent so long moping around our house if he wanted to leave you.” Though they can never truly know what Azriel was thinking or feeling until he grows a pair and talks to Elain. Still, she shudders at having to defend him.

“I take it he doesn’t mope anymore?” Elain says.

Nesta doesn’t know how to answer that truthfully. She knows there’s more to Azriel than he lets her and Cassian see, and she knows he’s gotten better at keeping his feelings to himself. So she says, “It looks like he’s doing better, but I really don’t know.” They reach Elain’s car.

“Were you in love with him?” Nesta suddenly asks. Or worse, is she still in love with him?

Elain digs around for her keys in her purse. “You know how I am. Of course I was.”

“Not anymore, though?”

Elain looks up, keys now in hand. “It’s hard to still feel love for someone I haven’t talked to in two months.”

Then it wasn’t real love. Nesta is relieved, even though it doesn’t change the fact that Elain is hurting either way.

Elain jabs her keys at Nesta and says sharply, “Don’t you dare punish him for what he did. That’s for me to decide on.”

Nesta’s brow creases in refusal. “I’ll do what I need to do, and you do you.” She’ll have to be careful with her plotting, though, considering Azriel is Cassian’s brother.

“No.” Elain surprises Nesta with the force in her tone. “He’s your roommate and your friend. Keep treating him like it.”

Elain makes it sound easier than it is, and Nesta wants to argue until she sees Feyre heading down the parking lot toward them. “Fine,” she grumbles halfheartedly.

Elain gives her one final long look, not of threat but something else. “Thank you—for inviting us today.” That’s all she says before getting in the driver’s seat of her little red car. At the same time, Feyre catches up to them.

“Where are you parked?” Feyre pants as she approaches Nesta. She sounds a bit out of breath, like she ran to get here before Nesta could drive off alone.

Nesta points down the lot to where her scrappy old car is waiting for her, and Feyre straightens up with a grim smile. “I’ll walk you.”

Nesta knows that arguing isn’t worth it, so she allows Feyre to trail her the rest of the way to her car. Once they reach the old thing, Nesta gives a curt goodbye and heads straight for the driver’s door. Before she can touch the handle, Feyre attacks her from behind with a hug.

“Get off me, freak!” Nesta tries to jostle her way out of Feyre’s arms. She tries being nice to her sisters one time and this is what she gets—

Feyre only squeezes her tighter. “You don’t have to hug back. Just let me love you my way.”

Nesta squirms for another second before stilling. Swallowing tightly, she stares at the reflection of herself and Feyre in the car door window. One of her hands goes to where Feyre’s hands are clasped around her stomach, and she stands there without moving. She can’t remember the last time she shared affection with a family member like this, but it must have been before their mother died.

The warmth at Nesta’s back doesn’t leave, like Feyre is trying to pour all her understanding into the hug. Silently saying, I’m finally starting to get it.

In a way, Nesta is starting to get it, too. After all, how do sisters with such a complicated history begin to forgive each other?

Not by apologizing, but by doing better in the future.

***

On her way home, Nesta remembers at the last minute to stop by Gwyn’s apartment to pick up one of her sweaters. She doesn’t know when Gwyn started raiding her closet like it was a free mall, but she has a school event next week and doesn’t plan on letting her nicest clothes rot at Gwyn’s forever.

Nesta enters using the key beneath the doormat, knowing Gwyn is at work and won’t mind her stopping by. She scans the living and dining areas for a glimpse of brown cashmere, but only finds scattered books and a disorganized mess. Her fingers twitch with the urge to stop and tidy up the place, but she continues hunting for the sweater. Gwyn promised it would be waiting in plain sight for her.

Realizing the scatter-brained girl probably forgot to put the sweater out for her, Nesta pauses in the hallway leading to Gwyn’s bedroom and bites her lip. She doesn’t know if bedrooms are off limits or not, considering how often Gwyn and Emerie have barged into hers, but she knows she doesn’t want to make a second trip here just for a sweater.

Without giving it further thought, she strides into Gwyn’s room—

And yelps to find Gwyn on the bed.

Except she isn’t alone, and there’s definitely another body under the dark green blanket with her, and whoever it is definitely has their head between her legs.

Nesta spins away at the same time she hears Gwyn’s cry of surprise. She braces one hand against the doorjamb and presses the other to her freezing cold face, not having any words for what she just saw.

“Nesta?” Gwyn calls from behind her. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Um, have you seen my sweater? It’s the expensive one.” She’ll just grab it and leave. Or maybe she’ll just leave—yes, that sounds like a good idea.

“Nesta?” a new, deeper voice repeats.

Gwyn hisses, and Nesta freezes because she recognizes that voice. She wants to be wrong so badly, but she has to whirl back around to confirm for herself.

“Azriel?”

***

a/n: i decided to cut this chapter short and add an extra one to flesh out my silly little gwynriel subplot. so if there’s anything specific or random you wanna see happen in the next chapter tell me bc i might have space for prompts!!

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