#there’s one bagel left in the freezer

[foggieststars]

housemate ate all my bagels 👍

[whoslaurapalmer]

okay. am I doing something wrong when I eat an everything bagel. bc I just cannot taste much of the Everything despite this particular bagel being CAKED in the everything. like, should I toast it more??? do I need a spread or a sauce to bring out the Everything flavors????????

[lamentationsofalonelypotato]

Chapter 12: Skip The Bagel Next Time

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV, Soldier Boy POV

Summary:  When you decided to work with Butcher and his merry band of supe hunters to take down Homelander, you neve expected to be saddled with a sullen, grumpy, jerk like Soldier Boy when the job was done. The more you're around him the more you hate him, but you can't help but wonder, is he really as big a jerk as you think? Reader is a supe with plant powers. This takes place in an AU about a month after the end of The Boys Season 3, in which Butcher has let Soldier Boy continue to work with him on his team.  (I'm real bad at summaries, please forgive me!)

Tropes: Enemies to Lovers (Not in this chapter), Slow Burn, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Soft Ben/ Soldier Boy, Protective Ben/Soldier Boy

Word Count: 11.7K (I know it's a big boi, but so much happens)

Warnings: I'm going to label this 18+ because Soldier Boy (he's a warning and everyone knows it) and because there is an ATTEMPTED SEXUAL ASSAULT that the reader stops. Swearing, Mentions of Sex, Sexual Innuendo, Dark Themes, Dark Thoughts,  Kidnapping, Torture, Blood, GRAPHIC DEPICTION OF DEATH, DEATH, BLOOD, GUTS, Threatening, Denial, A whole lot of denial,  Manipulation, Self deprecating thoughts, Talks about weed, Super Manipulative Creepy Trash Man, Sexist Comments, Kinda awkward situation, Ben/Soldier Boy might be a little bit OOC.

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

A/N: I'm serious y'all this one is BLOODY, the show is too, but really this one has got A LOT. There is an attempted SEXUAL ASSAULT and there are SEVERAL graphic deaths. If you do not like that or if that will hurt you, please don't read this. I love you all and I don't want anyone to be hurt from this.

Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

READER POV

The cold was oppressive, seeping through flesh and bone and scratching along your soul. A chill travelled along the bare plains of your face and fingertips to freeze whatever it could, clawing at your clothes to find the skin hidden beneath. You'd never known cold like this, even in the winters when the snow drifted and swirled overhead, glinting in the streetlights as you shuffled home after a long day you were able to keep it at bay, but now there was little you could do to protect yourself.

For you, cold was deadly, just like the early frost that crept along greening leaves in winter, you too felt the effects of the temperature when it dropped.

You thrived in the sunshine and absorbed the rays like a tree raising it's arms to worship the rising sun, but in the cold you were hollow, like the weathered trunk of an old oak long lost to frost and snow.

The dark and cold surrounded you in a shroud of chill and ice, making you feel tired and alone. And this time you didn’t know how much longer you could go on before you succumbed to the frigid embrace.

You didn't know how many days had passed since Darren left you with Elijah, there weren't any windows in the freezer and no way to tell the passing of time.

That's what you decided to call it.

There was no light in it, but you'd walked the perimeter on shaky legs feeling along the ice covered walls while trying to avoid the pieces of meat hanging from hooks above you.

At least, you hoped it was meat. There was something else that seemed too dark to consider, but after being in here as long as you had, your mind began to inch along the edge of the cliff that beckoned you to leap into the churning water below.

No one had come since you woke up in the darkness and you’d given up counting seconds.

No Elijah, no Darren, no team, and no Ben.

 hat last one you weren't sure why you added it to the list or why you separated it from thoughts of your team, but you were starting to believe what Elijah said to you in his office, that Ben hated you and now he wasn't going to come help you.

He said he didn’t care, of course he's not going to come.

The thought wasn't unfamiliar, but it was just as unwelcome. You wanted to believe that your team would come for you or at least Annie. She was your best friend and you knew that she would figure out something was up, but you were worried that Darren had figured out how to keep everyone off his trail. He did have your phone and he was your brother which meant he knew most of what to say if someone texted you. But you tried to remain optimistic that Annie would be able to smell the imposter.

You’d tried talking and shouting at the frozen walls for someone to hear you, screamed yourself hoarse, but there was no one to answer.  There's a dull throb in your limbs that won't leave and a hollow in the pit of your stomach. No one had brought food or water, and you'd taken to relieving yourself in the opposite side of the cell.

I guess that's what this is. Elijah put me a cell.

You couldn't hear anything outside, no rumble of the expressway, no splash of water against the rocks, no honking of traffic, and no low murmur of people speaking outside.

It was just you alone in the darkness waiting for whatever came next.

The shudder that works it's way down your spine has nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with Elijah. What he said to you in his office worried you. You weren't one to give in, but the superhuman strength he possessed in was troubling you. And without plants nearby you weren't sure you could fight off someone who was so much stronger.

Not to mention you could feel the weakness of your body beginning to close in on you. Being in the cold was quickly becoming unbearable and you weren't sure how much longer you could take this before it caused permanent damage.

You would cry again if you had anything left. You couldn't believe that Darren would do something like this, that he would allow Elijah to take you and that your brother was so desperate to pay off a debt that he used you as a bargaining chip. You wondered if Darren knew what Elijah would do to you or if he didn't care as long as it settled his debt.

After all these years of me paying off his debts, he probably thought that I'd be happy to do something like this. I've been giving up parts of my life so he could go off and live his. I never said no. I never turned my back on my brother and look where it got me.

You'd thought that you were showing your brother how much you loved him by bailing him out as many times as you did, but now you felt stupid and used. You now saw that your brother didn't care about you, the only thing he cared about was how willing you were to give him money and support him for nothing in return.

You huddle further into a ball in the corner of the room, your back pressed against the frozen wall trying to reach out for some kind of plant energy, but there isn't anything. There wasn't a single seed, vegetable, or piece of plant in the freezer or anywhere nearby and it made all of this worse. It made you feel unsettled being away from them and you're reminded of the cruise Annie and you spent together where you were isolated from land in the middle of the ocean and couldn't leave the cabin.

You couldn’t even feel the sickness of the marijuana plants anymore. That was the only welcome part of all of this, that you couldn't feel them anymore, not when it made you dizzy to be that close to them.

Then again, I'll take what I can get. If I get out of this I'm going to start carrying seeds in my pockets everywhere.

You press your lips together, feeling the chapped flesh that was dry and flaking flushed red. Your cheeks and the skin of your face were the same way. You felt tired and you knew it was your body telling you to shut down, slowing your heart rate to save your life, but you fought it.

At first you'd tried to keep moving around the cell, rubbing your left arm up and down your right to keep warm the best you could, while avoiding the large pieces of meat hanging from the hooks above, and distracting yourself with how bad it smelled instead of the cold. But you gave up walking around and decided to conserve as little heat you had left by crouching down and shivering in the corner. Your could feel your mind going a little bit cloudy, as if you couldn't focus on anything. You hadn't slept and you weren't sure if that was why you were confused or if it was your body beginning to shut down.

It scared you to think that if you fell asleep, you wouldn’t wake up again.

Of all the things that Darren had done this was the biggest betrayal, that much was obvious. Telling Elijah that you were a supe who could control plants was one thing, but telling Elijah that you don't do well in the cold was unforgivable, especially because Darren knew how dangerous it was for you to be in cold for a prolonged time.

I wonder if he ever cared for me, or if this has all just been a game to him from the beginning since our parents died.

You had thought that you were doing what your parents would have wanted you to do in supporting your brother, thought that you were showing him the love they would have given him, but now you wished that you'd turned your back on him years ago. 

You move slightly, but wince with the pain that comes streaking down your right arm. It was a bad break and you knew that it probably needed to be set, because it had swollen up beneath your sleeve and was now an ugly purple color in certain places. You couldn't straighten it at all without screaming so now you kept it contracted and against your chest. You would have made a make-shift sling for it, if you didn’t want to keep as much skin covered from the cold.

Maybe the cold is helping it.

You think to yourself gently probing along your right sleeve, but wince when you get to your forearm and lean your head back against the wall while gritting your teeth together to keep from screaming. You had left your hair down as a way of protecting your ears and the skin of your neck, but now the strands were dry and brittle. You worried that they would snap off at any second.

Fuck, Ben where are you?

The thought was surprising. You hadn’t meant to think of him again, hadn’t meant for your mind to drift to him, but it did. You’d be lying if you didn’t imagine Ben barging in and saving your life. When you imagined your team doing a big rescue, Ben was always leading it with Annie close behind him.

You would kill for a hug from him right now, he was always so inhumanly warm and it was such a comfort. The memory of him laying on top of you comes back and you imagine it, feeling the weight of his body, feeling the warmth that curled through him and into you, but then you remember what you yelled at him.

Are those going to be the last things I say to him? All those terrible things about his team and his son?

You frown at the thought. You didn’t want it to be. Now you were more upset that you hadn't listened to him about Darren, that you hadn't seen the things that Ben had. If he were here you might even let him say "I told you so." 

Maybe, and only once.

You wondered if this was how Ben felt when he was trapped in Russia for forty years, if every day he waited for someone to come get him who never would. If every day he remained hopeful that Countess would break down the door and save him. It was cruel of her to leave him there with that hope and you could never imagine doing that to him. You could imagine how alone he must have felt, how small and helpless he did, and how much it probably broke him when he figured out that she wasn’t coming for him.

He's not going to come save me. You think to yourself remembering what he yelled to Darren before he slammed the bathroom door. He doesn’t care about me. Everyone else will come, but he won't. 

The thought made it feel like you were going to cry. Then again you kept having that feeling come surging up, but it never brought any tears. The only way you hadn't dehydrated was that you kept having to break some of the ice off the wall and sucked on it, trying not to ignore how much colder it made you.

But if he didn't care, then why did Ben try to warn me about Darren?

It's not the first time you’d thought that. It was the truth. You didn’t understand why Ben was acting like he cared and yet he said those things to your brother, why Ben shouted things just as bad at you that you'd shouted at him.

He called me stupid. He insulted me. He's just always so damn stubborn and rude and annoying and-

You sigh and press your head into your knees. It doesn’t matter now. Nothing does.

The door handle jingles as if someone is trying to open it and the lights of the freezer flare to life, temporarily blinding you. You blink to clear your vision, squinting at the two large men dressed all in black who enter. One of which you identify as Joe, the man who had been outside at the gate, the other you have no idea who he is, but suspect that he's probably another part of Elijah's security team.

Standing seems like too much effort, so all you do is glare at them from your seated position.

"Come here often?" You cough out a laugh, your voice more of a rasp.

Neither of them laugh.

Annie would have laughed. Maybe Ben.

Joe grabs you by your left arm and hauls you up off of the ground, the motion of your body bending feeling like each joint is creaking and cracking, breaking through ice as they move.

He practically drags you from the room and you don't fight him. If anything you understand that you’re going to need to conserve your strength for wherever it is that you're going.

Your legs don't really work as he hauls you down the hallway, your feet stumble and try to catch against the solid ground, but not quite correctly.

You can feel your skin flaking away under your blouse where Joe is holding you by the arm, the other man following silently behind with his hand in his jacket as if prepared to pull out a gun. You figure that Elijah sent two men as a precaution if you had found some kind of plant in the freezer.

Maybe I should be flattered that he's not underestimating me. You frown. Yeah, no not gonna do that, the asshole locked me in a freezer.

The warm air in the hallway is a welcome change from the freezer, but it almost hurts for your body to be abruptly put in a place so different than the place you'd been inhabiting for who knows how long.

Joe shoves your body forward into a door in front of you and as you move towards it, the door opens and you fall onto the floor directly onto your bad arm.

This time you do scream when the white hot stab of pain shoots through your right arm as it makes contact with the floor. And Joe laughs.

"For a supe you're pretty wimpy." He chortles to himself, yanking you up from the ground again by your left arm. "Then again what a waste of a power, making the flowers grow."

Your teeth grind down. "Keep talking and I'll shove some of those pretty flowers up where the sun don't shine."

"I don't think you're in the position to make threats." Joe smirks. He shoves you deeper into the room and your body stumbles back, but you catch yourself on a plush highbacked navy armchair.

"Oh really? How do you know this hasn't been my plan all along? To get you and tweedle dum over there alone." You clear your throat glancing around the room for something you can use as a weapon.

The room is smaller than the office was, more intimate. With two navy high backed arm chairs, a leather couch that looks more decorative than comfortable and a fireplace where a fire roars, sending a wave of heat through the back of your shirt.

You scramble forward to try and melt your frozen fingertips, but keep the two men in your line of sight.

"I'd be nicer if I were you sweets. When the boss is done with you and he gives you to me, maybe I'll be a little gentler than he is." Joe's eyes trace down your body, making revulsion rise in the back of your throat like bile.

You were already feeling a little better, but you still couldn’t use your right arm and there were no plants that you could draw from. The good news was that these two men weren't supes, which meant that you might be able to take them with just your strength, but your arm was the problem.

"Joe." Elijah sighs as he enters the room behind the two men. "Are you being rude to our guest?"

"Just telling her how it is boss."

"Hmm." Elijah looks you up an down with a sad smile. "You look tired honey. You didn't find your vacation relaxing?"

"Oh it was paradise darling." You seethe, standing up from the floor. You refuse to back down from him.

If he's gonna do something he might as well do it. I'm sick of this tough guy mafia bullshit.

You could sense what was coming, it thrummed through your veins, and sent electrical impulses over every synapse of your body as you prepared for the coming fight. The fog was still hovering in your mind, but the adrenaline beat it back with a stick.

"Usually the cooler makes people more docile. I see it's made you more heated." He looks pleased, and makes a motion with his hand to Joe and the other man, who leave as soon as they see it. "Good. It’s always more fun that way anyway."

The energy in the room shifts for a moment as Elijah approaches you before he runs his large hand over the back of the high backed chair drawing your eye to the thick steel ring on his right fourth finger. It catches in the light of the fire, but you longer feel the warmth of the blaze. It’s worse now that it's the two of you alone, not to mention with Elijah being a supe and no plant in sight, your odds of getting out of this went from 50/50 to 40/60.

Fuck.

You fight the shudder that threatens to shake through you when you see the glint in Elijah's eye, hoping and praying that you have enough energy to take him down. Butcher had made you spar with him every chance you got so it wasn't that you weren't trained, it was that you could feel what little energy you had left draining from your body.

But that didn't mean you weren't going to back down.

"I'd be happy to show you just how wonderful it is to be locked in a freezer with no light. Just say the word." You take another step back eyes searching the room for something to use as a weapon.

"Tempting." His head tilts to the side. "But I can think of more fun things the two of us could do."

"Chess?" You gesture to the board on the coffee table in front of the couch.

"You could call it that." His smile turns more into a smirk.

Elijah flashes forward so fast your didn't see him move, knocking you backward onto the uncomfortable couch. One of his hands is fastened to your throat, the other pins your good arm above you head as his entire weight knocks the wind out of you. Nothing about his weight is comforting or is anything like how Ben laid on you the other night. It's oppressive and heavy, and the thick cloud of his cologne stings your nostrils as you gasp for breath. Everything in your body screams WRONG as you feel his hand squeeze down on your throat so tight you’re sure that it's leaving a mark.

His lips bite against yours, teeth cutting through the thinly chapped and flaky skin. You scream into his mouth and bite down hard until you taste blood wiggling beneath his weight. Elijah roars, the sound of his crescendo vibrating through your body and he backhands you so savagely you see stars.

"You'll pay for that." His eyes are wide and dark like two soulless pits that wish to drag you under and his teeth are bared in a snarl more animal than human. It reminds you of a rabid dog that rips and tears in a savage rage.

Your eyes drop to his mouth.

Is that what I think it is?

The pull is there, small, just barely a throb, but it's there, because between Elijah's two front teeth is your salvation.

"You really should floss more." You spit into his face, feeling your eyes shift to green focusing on the poppy seed caught beneath his gums. You assume he ate a bagel earlier and forgot all about it, but you don't give yourself time to speculate on exactly why it's there, only that it's your chance.

"What are you-"

Elijah doesn't finish his sentence, instead he gags as the stalks and roots begin to pour from his mouth. Poppies bloom from the outstretched stems that hang daintily past his full lips. He coughs and stumbles back from you, blood dripping around the flowers, as the roots begin to thread themselves into the soft skin on the inside of his mouth and twist and tangle down his throat.

Elijah's screams are muffled into the buds and leaves that sprout from his open mouth, eyes wide and staring at you with a mixture of horror and pure hatred. The vessels in his face burst until the blood flows from his eyes and skin freely and the roots breach through bone, vein, and flesh as if searching for earth outside of his body. The plants suck every nutrient they can from what you've given them, breaking Elijah's body down into what they can and cannot use.

The flowers do not hear his screams, the petals do not show remorse and the gentle bend of each bud before it blooms is not sinister, but beneath your hands they are deadly.

Turning someone into a tree you'd never done, sure you'd threatened it, but you’d never done it. You'd locked Newton your ex-boyfriend into a tree years ago, but that wasn't a transformation or a death, that involved the tree cocooning him inside, but it was nothing like this. You stand from the couch watching Elijah writhe in pain and confusion, trying to stop the plants that continue to feast on him.

His hands grasp at his face, ripping away the flowers that sprout from his lips, but he tears away pieces of flesh loosened by the roots away from his skull until chunks of muscle and tissue are mushed into the rug at his feet. There's a terrible snapping sound as the roots continue to expand outward and the flowers stems and stalks continue to unfurl beneath his skin, shattering through bone. Elijah's hands scramble down his chest, tearing away his shirt, the scream in his lungs lost to the crimson blooms that block air from coming in to his chest. He claws at his skin, falling to his knees, the inky black of the tattoos that cover his chest vanishing beneath the roots and stalks the peel away from his flesh and burst from his ribcage, the poppies the final bouquet laid on the casket.

And as you stand there, your un-ruined arm outstretched towards him, feeling the healing ebb and flow of energy from the poppies strengthening you momentarily, you have no remorse. Elijah Black is the first man you've ever essentially killed outright with your powers and yet you feel nothing. The men on the street the night that Ben saved you would have done the same thing to you, you'd spared their lives, but this time you didn't spare his.

He makes one more attempt to scream, the blood from his chest spurting upwards in an arch and splashing against your body, but then he falls silent. The poppies spreading along the plush rug at your feet covering his body, burying it beneath their beautiful petals, smiling at you.

He deserved this.

The little voice at the back of your mind whispers and the feeling of him on top of you comes roaring back, sending revulsion through your body. You didn’t want to think about what almost happened, what would have happened if he hadn't eaten the bagel.

You stoop down to pick one of the flowers before you lay it against your right wrist and manipulate the vines and roots to form a make-shift sling for your broken arm. The exhaustion was back, tugging at your body, but this time you ignore it, knowing that you had a long way to go before you earned your freedom.

At least now my arm is stabilized. You think to yourself. How the hell am I going to get out of here?

"Hey boss are you done yet-" Joe says as he enters the room, but he stops mid-sentence. His eyes trace your body again, but not in the lewd way he'd done earlier, instead you see horror flash in his gaze when he sees the blood flecked across your cheeks and the bits of flesh and muscle that sit in clumps, smashed into the plush rug at your feet.

You feel your eyes shift to green once more, the poppies that cover Elijah's body begin to stir as if an unnatural wind has begun to wisp into the room. "You should have been more worried about getting on my good side Joe, because the flowers might be pretty, but you won't enjoy them as much as they'll enjoy you."

He tries to draw his gun, but it's too late. They'll be nothing left of him or anyone who stands in your way.

Soldier Boy POV

Blood stained Ben's ungloved hands, soaked into his supe suit, and splashed across his cheeks, but he didn’t care. He would bathe in it every day until he found you if that's what it took.

He didn't understand why he felt this way, felt unsure and antsy at the thought of you being trapped somewhere, but he did, and it was almost too much to bear. With each passing hour on the long drive from Boston to New York, Ben could feel himself slipping further and further into a feeling that he couldn't place, a feeling that he'd never felt before in his entire life. His hands had curled into fists where they rested on his thighs with each mile that the car inched closer to you and to whoever the fuck had hurt you. He hadn’t spoken since he threatened Butcher at the motel, well, except for the occasional "Can you drive any fucking faster?" he shouted at Butcher every few minutes.

Even Annie seemed unnaturally quiet where she sat beside Ben in the backseat, her hand clasped tightly in Hughie's. She had been upset since she figured out what Darren had done and Hughie was trying to comfort her. Hughie had his arm wrapped around her shoulders and was whispering gentle things into her ear while she leaned into his chest and hugged him.

It annoyed Ben.

In the past Ben would have mocked a man for doing that, would have made an offhand comment about the man being pussy whipped, but as Ben sat there and listened to Hughie try his best to bring Annie some peace, Ben couldn’t help but remember the night you had a nightmare.

The scream you'd let loose was what jolted him into consciousness. He'd never heard you scream like that before. In that moment he hadn't cared about what you'd said about him not going in your bedroom, all he knew was that he had to be in there and he had to make sure you were okay. When he'd found you sitting on your bed crying and gasping for breath he hadn't wanted to leave you, for the first time in his life Ben had wanted to do exactly what Hughie was doing for Annie. Ben didn't know the first thing about how to do that, but he'd wanted to sit there with you until you calmed down.

He'd never done that for anyone before. Countess had been distressed once because she'd lost an earring her mother gave her, but Ben had just told her to "get the fuck over it."

You were different and as much as Ben hated to admit it to himself, he was starting to realize that as well. He just didn't know why.

When Butcher finally crashed his car through the front gate that surrounded the warehouse Ben jumped from it while it was still in motion, leaving the rest of them to squawk and squabble over a plan like a bunch of fucking chickens.

Ben had a plan, save you. He didn't need to hear Butcher come up with a plan of action when Ben was a man of action.

"Where is she?" Ben snarls to the man he's pinned to the wall of the cool concrete hallway, his voice shaking the foundations of the building.

The dim lightbulbs that line the hallway flicker and flash a yellowed light that curves cruelly over the sharp edges of Ben's face, but he does not back down from the man he has pushed against the wall. The bodies of the other men who stood in Ben's way lay in a trail of blood and bone behind, and the man in his arms would join the fray for wasting his time.

"Go to hell." The man spits in Ben's face.

"You'll go first." Ben says in a murderous growl as he pulls apart the body easily as if the man is made of tissue paper, the sound of the man's screams no more than a memory as they ring down the desolate hallways.

Ben trudges on through the dim light with the sticky smell of blood following behind him. He was hoping that he wasn't too late. Sometimes he forgot how fragile other people were, how easy it was for an accident to occur and for someone like you to get hurt or killed, but Ben didn't want to think about that. He didn't want to consider that possibility.

It's only been 4 days. Ben's jaw clenches together. It would have been no days if she had just fucking listened to me!

Ben frowns. Or it would have been no days if I had followed her.

Ben didn't know why he felt guilty, just that he didn't like it. A part of him kept flashing back to the years he spent in Russia, when he hoped that Countess would come get him, when he thought she loved him as much as he loved her, and when in reality it was her that put him there.

After that happened Ben had decided that it was stupid and unmanly to care about anyone, to love anyone, because it only fucked everything up. But Ben didn't want you to go through what he had. You were so different than he was, softer, kind, and way too trusting. Sometimes he didn’t like that you were doing this kind of work. It didn’t seem like you. When he saw you in the plant shop working it was different, you seemed to be in you element.

But he didn't want you to think that no one was coming to save you, because he was and like hell he was going to let anyone stand in his way.

This is taking too long.

The hallways were twisting and turning and Ben hadn’t seen another soul in at least two minutes. He listens with his hearing hoping to hear you talking or someone talking about you, but he doesn’t all he hears is a heart beat. It's faint, but it's there. The room where it comes from is torn to bits, chairs are laying on their sides stuffing falling out onto the blood stained carpet and covered in a field of red poppies, the smell of blood is thick in the air, and the bodies that lay on the ground are cleaved open with the plants tangling in the organs within, spilling out onto the floor.

Truthfully, Ben hadn't thought that your powers could look like this. Sure, you would make an offhand comment about turning him into a tree or shoving a watermelon up his ass, but he didn’t actually think that you would ever do it. Again, Ben didn’t see this side of you very often. He did piss you off and annoy you, but Ben didn’t actually think you’d ever try to attack him.

Not to mention that Ben thought that being able to make flowers grow seemed like a woman's power, and truthfully he liked watching you walk to work and place your hand on a bouquet or a small cluster of flowering plants to make them perk up, or watch you move around the apartment and see how the plants seemed to turn towards you, but this was surprising. He didn’t think that you could do something like that to someone's body and he wasn't disgusted, in fact he was a little impressed.

Ben raises his gaze from the bodies to see you.

You're on the ground, curled into a ball to protect your right arm that's also covered in poppies, but Ben can tell that it's broken, by how swollen it is.

Your breath is coming in shallow gasps and you heart beats faintly. You're covered in so much blood that Ben is worried that he's too late.

"Petals?" Ben drops to his knees beside where you lay, gingerly picking you up off the ground so that your left arm is resting against his chest. "Petals?" Ben says again, his heart seizing in his chest, throat thick. His hand gently pushes back the hair that sticks to your bloodied cheeks as he checks you over for wounds. Ben feels his jaw tighten when he see the bruising handprint around your throat, the blaze of heat from his anger coming back when he realized that someone had touched you.

"Come on Petals wake up." Ben murmurs, as he brushes your hair back. The strands are dry and brittle against his fingertips. "Come on sweetheart, say something annoying."

"Ben?" He hears you murmur, it’s more of a shallow breath than his name, but it’s something.

Ben exhales the breath he didn’t know that he was holding. "Yeah it's me."

"You came." You whisper and turn your head into his chest, weakly pressing your fingertips over his heart the motion making something stutter inside of him.

Your skin is flushed, veins shimmering beneath, body colder than Ben has ever felt it and he can see the flecks of skin that flake from your lips. Ben’s gaze falls on the mark over your right cheekbone that has already begun to bruise and drop back down to the handprint around your throat. Ben feels the tendrils of his rage beginning to spill over into the cavity in his chest screaming for blood. Ben's eyes flick to the bodies in the room momentarily hoping that they suffered for what they did to you and regrets not getting here sooner to make them suffer for touching you.

"Of course I came Petals." Ben replies his rough hand gently tracing along your cheek. "Did you think I was gonna leave you behind?"

"Thought you were mad." You breathe not opening your eyes. "I'm sorry for-" Your voice breaks as if it’s too much effort to finish the sentence, but he understands what you're about to say.

The feeling in Ben’s chest is not unfamiliar. It was the one he’d felt when he was in Russia every day, the loneliness that drove him mad.

Ben wonders if that's all you’d thought of the past four days. If you really believed that he wasn't going to come save you because you'd yelled at him and said what you did.

What I said wasn't better.

He remembered shouting at Darren that he didn’t care and he felt a twinge deep down when he realized that you must have been thinking that he was going to leave you in all this shit because of it.

"You can make it up to me later sweetheart." Ben stands with you close to his chest, but accidentally jostles your broken arm.

You whimper in pain and Ben freezes, adjusting his left arm under your knees and his right around your waist to secure you to his chest. "Shh it’s okay. I'm going to get you out of here." He reassures and takes a moment to press a kiss to the top of your head at your hairline where your head is turned into him. Ben clenches his jaw together and swallows. He hadn't meant to do that and didn't know why he did, just that he didn’t have the ability to touch your face with his hand and it seemed like the next best thing.

His mind flashes back to Hughie in the car with Annie, the things that Hughie said to her the way Hughie held her close and kissed her head to make sure she knew he was there.

"Okay." You breathe, cuddling further into his chest and pressing your face into his collar bone with a soft sigh as if you don’t know what he did.

Ben was glad, because the last thing he wanted was for you to accuse him of coping a feel when you weren't up to snuff.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

Reader POV

A rhythmic beeping noise lulls you from sleep as you sigh softly, but you don't open your eyes. It feels like you’re swimming through tar, as if your limbs are being bound to the soft bed beneath you with cement. Everything hurts and yet you're here and you're alive.

Well, I think I’m alive.

You blink your eyes open, squinting in the oppressive unbroken sunlight that bathes the entire room in a brilliant glow from the un-curtained windows to the left of the bed you're laying in. The room is white, a blank slate,  and unfamiliar. There’s teal couch underneath the large left window and a small cabinet pressed into the corner between the couch and the opposite wall, a tv mounted on the wall across from the bed and a large pale blue curtain hanging to the right of your bed behind a collection of monitors that beep and squabble with one another. The room would be unremarkable if not for the plants.

There are buckets of monstera that unfurl leaves as big as your face jammed into the corners of the room and tangles of jasmine hanging from the top of the cabinet. Cacti line the windowsill absorbing the healing light from the sun, while a cart of honeysuckle, lavender, rose, and more flowering plants than you can name sits at the end of your hospital bed. The smell of gardenia is strong, floating lightly through the air to kiss you on the tip of your nose and you look to your left at the small bedside table to notice the gardenia plant you had on your bedside table back at you apartment blossoming in the warmth of the room.

Bouquets of flowers are shoved onto all other possible surfaces, some big some small, but all of them colorful and beautiful to look at. The healing energy of the plants is everywhere, absorbing into your body and strengthening you, the sweet smells of the flowers masking the stale clean smell of the hospital, and making you feel at home for the first time since you left your apartment with Darren.

Your eyes shift to the teal couch under the window and see that it's not empty, Ben is laying there on his back, his arms crossed over his dark t-shirt, sound asleep. His soft snores a comfort over the sounds of the beeping monitors so close to your bed.

The memories of what happened however long ago come back muffled and slurred through the haze of the drugs the doctors have given you, but you remember the final ones you had before you fell into the abyss.

You remember feeling Ben pick you up and hold you close to him, begging you to answer him, while the warmth of his body was like a soothing soak in a hot bath after a cold day. All you could do was cling to him and try to get as close as you could to absorb some of the heat. You didn’t believe that he would come for you and he did.

Tears glaze your eyes while you watch him sleep, all the sharp edges of his face smoothed in his slumber, all the frown lines you knew all too well no longer there while he slept. He looked different like this, peaceful.

You could feel your heart warming to think that Ben actually did care about you and that was why he came to get you.

"You’re awake." A familiar voice says.

Diana Moore, your grandmother, looks cheerfully at you from the teal rocking chair to the right of the bed, working on a purple knit blanket in her lap.

"Gran?" You clear your throat as you adjust yourself to sit up. "What are you doing here?"

She stands and nears the bed, tucking the granny square blanket she must have covered you with, further under you as she does. "Annie called and said you were hurt in some sort of accident." Your grandmother frowns. "And when I got here she told me what happened."

"Everything?" You say with a grimace.

"Most of it." Her frown deepens around the edges of her mouth. "But it was easy to fill in when she mentioned Darren."

Your grandmother knew everything about your life, there were no secrets between the two of you, and as much as she discouraged you working with Butcher, she pretended that she didn't care. Despite you being a supe, she always seemed to want to keep you away from the hero lifestyle. That was always odd to you, especially when you saw how proud Annie’s mother was of her abilities. Your grandmother although supportive of your abilities, never wanted you to become a hero. Whenever you’d ask her why she’d always say that “the grass looks greener on the other side.” It wasn’t an answer, but you never pushed her for one.

"I'm-"

"What your brother did is not your fault, and if the next words out of your mouth are an apology I will pack up everything you own and make you move back home." She raises an eyebrow.

It was an empty threat, you loved being in Illinois with her and you both knew it, but you let it slide.

Your grandmother looks the same way she did as when you first went to live with her when you were twelve. Not to mention for someone who was just over eighty years old, she looked pretty good. Whenever someone mentioned that to her she’d only say that “time had been good to her.”

Her gray hair is wavy and pinned back away from her face in an elegant twist that makes her look classic and poised. Her clothes are stylish, clean blue-jeans with a floral blouse that is covered by a thin cream colored sweater she knitted herself and a pair of black flats.

She was the reason you started knitting and crocheting. The love she instilled into each handmade item she delivered to her neighbors, made you love your grandmother's gentle spirit all the more. She'd always been like that, a shoulder to cry on, the person who always baked and filled the house with warmth, the person who took care of her neighbors when they were ill and made sure that they were well fed, and all the people back home loved her almost as much as you did.

She became the mother you’d lost and you didn’t realize how much you’d missed her until this exact moment.

Tears burn against your eyes as the events of the past few days surge up in a lump at the back of your throat. The memories of Elijah said and did, the freezer, the deaths, and the betrayal from your brother all too much to bear.

"Oh sweetie." Your grandmother whispers gently sitting on the edge of the bed and lets you hug her. You cry into her shoulder, holding her tight, the smell of her perfume familiar. "It's okay." She rubs your back. "Let it all out."

You do. It's the hardest you'd cried in weeks, but she sits there with you and continues to hold you close to her the way she'd done since you were twelve.

"Better?" She cups your cheek, her blue eyes tracing your face. They were the same as your father's and it made you miss him more.

"Yeah." You sniffle.

"Good. I brought you some fudge."

"What?"

"And some meat-pies and I stopped by your apartment and put a few frozen lassagna's in there for later. You look thin. Have you been eating?"

"Yes I have." You roll your eyes, but smile, because even when you thought you were all grown up she was trying to take care of you.

"Hmm." She presses her lips into a tight line looking you up and down.

"Fine, sometimes I skip a meal." You admit.

"You shouldn't. Especially with how often you use your powers." She squeezes your left hand because your right one was now in a bright green colored cast.

You wonder if they chose that color randomly or if Annie told them to pick that.

"I know Gran. Where's Annie?" You ask. It kind of hurt that she wasn't here when you woke up, but you couldn't fight the happy feeling knowing that Ben was here. That one also hurt a little bit, especially when it filled you with the hope that Ben wanted to have a relationship when you knew he didn't.

"She just went to get some dinner with Hughie. He's a nice boy, good manners. A lot like your boyfriend." She gestures over to the couch where Ben is snoring.

Ben having good manners? She's kidding right?

"He's not my boyfriend-"

"No?" Your grandmother gives you a knowing look. "He sure seems like it."

"He's my roommate. And well-" You bite the inside of your cheek feeling your cheeks flush bright red in embarrassment. "I think we're friends."

I mean he carried me out of the warehouse that's gotta be a friend thing right?

"He hasn’t left that couch since I got here. Not to mention he keeps harassing the doctor whenever he comes in, keeps asking him when you're going to wake up. Made one of the nurses cry-“

"He what?"

"You didn't tell me you knew Soldier Boy."

You pause looking up at your grandmother. "What?"

"He's Soldier Boy." She says it matter of fact.

"How did you-"

"He looks just like him." Your grandmother examines Ben's sleeping face again. "Plus I met him a few times before, but that was a long time ago."

Your mouth drops open. "You met Soldier Boy. When?"

"Story for another time dear."

"Oh please tell me that you didn’t go out with him." Sometimes you forgot how old Ben was and the thought that he and your grandmother had a thing made you feel nauseous.

I swear if Ben and my grandmother fucked or made out I am going to go crazy and I'm taking him down with me.

"No of course not." Her cheeks flush. "I was dating your grandfather when we met."

"Oh."

I guess that's a little better, but still weird.

"But he was certainly trying his best." She snorts.

"Please no more." You cringe back from her trying not to imagine Ben hitting on your grandmother.

"I'm just teasing sweetie." She kisses you on the forehead with a smile. "Not really."

"Oh my sweet goodness, please do not tell me anything else." You groan blocking out the mental images of Ben with your grandmother.

She sits back down in her chair with her knitting smiling to herself, the subtle scrape of the needles together reminded you of the quiet nights the two of you spent back home sitting in the living room and watching TV.

Guess I won't be able to crochet for a while with this thing. You frown at the cast on your right arm more disappointed at the prospect of not being able to crochet than what had happened to you.

"He was with Crimson Countess anyway." Your grandmother rolls her eyes when she says her name.

"Wait a minute, you knew Ben when he was with Countess?"

How in the fuck did I not know this? Why didn’t she tell me that she knew famous supes? Why did she know them?

She nods not looking up from the purple mass in her lap. "She was a real piece of work, very callous, and uncaring whenever the cameras weren't flashing." You watch her eyes slide to where Ben is laying. "I always hated the way she seemed to treat him. She was manipulative, very good at getting whatever she wanted. She was possessive when it came to Ben, fiercely jealous of anyone who got near him. Weird given the relationship they had" The thought makes her frown and for a moment you see something slide across your grandmother's face that was unlike the woman who'd raised you.

"But why were you around them in the first place?" You ask her.

Your grandmother had never said that she was around supes, never said that she was a part of any of that. All you knew was that she met your grandfather who was a retired veteran turned doctor and settled down in Illinois so he could open a private practice, but to know that she knew Ben was making your head spin.

"Another time. You need rest."

"But-"

"Please sweetie. I don't want to talk about the past right now. Not when you need to sleep."

“But-“

She looks up at you with the same matronly look she always had when she told you to go to bed and you were being unruly.

“Okay.”

The doctor walks into the room, his smile brightening when he notices that you're awake. "Hello, I'm Dr. Martinez. How are you feeling today?"

"Good I guess." Your eyes were still focused on your grandmother who has begun to knit innocently as if the last few things that she'd mentioned hadn't happened.

"Well it’s reassuring that you're awake." His eyes skate to where Ben is sleeping and you see just a glimmer of fear behind them. "We were all eagerly hoping that you would wake up soon-"

Did he threaten the doctor with bodily harm? Because that feels very Ben-like.

"How long have I been asleep?" You ask taking a sip from the cup of ice water on your tray.

"Three days."

"Three what-" You shriek, spewing water all over the bed.

Ben jolts upwards from sleep to his feet, looking around the room with narrowed eyes like he believes that someone is in the room about to attack you.

"Ben it's okay." You say with a cough to clear the water that came out your nose. Ben's gaze flicks to where you're laying in the bed.

You weren't prepared to see the tension leave his shoulders and to see relief flash through his eyes, before they harden once more to his usual expression.

Was he worried about me? I mean my grandmother said that he hasn't left the couch and that he's been harassing the doctors…

"Yes." Dr. Martinez looks at where Ben is now standing over your bed, but Ben hasn't looked away from you. In fact you see his eyes shift over your face, down to your throat, then to the cast on your right arm and see his frown grow by the minute.

"Sorry I wasn't ready for that." You clear your throat with a forced smile.

"It's alright. But the good news is you're awake-"

"No shit sherlock." Ben snarks. "Did your big fancy degree tell you that?"

“Sir-“ Dr. Martinez starts, but Ben interrupts him.

“Because-“ Ben begins to say something else but you reach out and touch his arm with your left hand before you can stop yourself. His gaze focuses back on you.

“Ben, it’s okay. I’m okay. Let him talk.” You squeeze his warm forearm to reassure him.

His green eyes flick back to your face, something flashing through his eyes that looks very different than the man you usually saw. He doesn't apologize, but he nods his head in the direction of the doctor to let him know that he could continue. Ben also doesn't move your hand from his forearm, in fact, he steps a little closer to you.

You miss the smile your grandmother hides behind her hand when she sees Ben’s reaction.

"As I said you're awake and it looks like you're doing much better now that we've given you fluids. You were dehydrated when you came in and had a touch of hyperthermia which is unusual given how warm it's been lately." Dr. Martinez gestures to the sunny day outside. "Your right arm is broken, but we set it and it should be about 6 weeks until you're fully healed. As for the black eye and the-" The doctor clears his throat, eyes looking to Ben for a moment. "Marks around your neck, those should be gone within a few weeks or so."

Does he think Ben did this to me?

The thought makes you angry. As mad as Ben had gotten at you in the past, you didn’t believe that he would ever hurt you. Sure he'd hurt you the first day you'd met, but you weren't afraid of him, you couldn’t be. Even when his temper flared you didn't fear that he would hurt you. Yeah he had a bad temper, but Ben always seemed to stomp away when you pissed him off, not attack you.

"And how long do I have to stay here?"

"Well, now that you're awake I want to keep you one more night for observation and do blood work again, but I'm not worried about sending you home." Dr. Martinez looks at Ben again before he looks at you. "Unless you want to stay longer?"

"What the fuck are you trying to say doc?" Ben growls, realizing exactly what the doctor is insinuating.

Your hand skates down Ben’s arm and entwines with his fingertips. Ben looks at it surprised.  “I'd like to go home with Ben as soon as possible." You say it to the doctor with a frown, not liking what the doctor is trying to say, but then you realize exactly how it sounds.

It wasn't a lie, you wanted to go home with Ben, wanted to go back to your everyday life and forget that all of this happened. You didn't mean to hold his hand, but it just seemed like the only way to get your point across.

"Alrighty then. I'll just have the nurse come in and take a little more blood." The doctor replies and backs quickly out of the room, casting one more look at Ben.

The three of you sit there for a moment in the silence that follows, Ben's eyes still on you, your hand still holding on to his. You quickly let go.

“I'm going to go down to the cafeteria before it closes. Do you want anything Ben?"

"No thanks Di. I'm good." He replies rubbing the back of his neck as if he's unsure what comes next.

"Di?" You turn to look at your grandmother with a frown.

"Do you want something sweetie?" She doesn’t look phased at Ben's use of the nickname.

"No I'm fine Di." You emphasize the nickname, but she doesn’t react.

"I'll bring you back some tea. That always seems to help you relax." She winks and places the mass of purple yarn onto the chair before she leaves the room with an elegant flourish.

The silence grows.

"Please tell me that you didn't fuck my grandmother. Because that wasn't on my bingo card this year and I really don’t want to have nightmares about the two of you."

Ben snorts. "Jealous Petals?"

"Oh fuck, just get out of here." You cover your eyes with your hand. "I can't even look at you right now. You're such a slut Gramps."

Ben only laughs at you and sits down on the side of your bed. His fingers gently pull your hand away from your face so he can look at you again.

"I didn't fuck your grandmother. We knew each other forever ago." He's still holding on to your wrist, his thumb smoothing against the soft skin on the inside of you arm. "But I will say that she is just as beautiful now as she was then. Really aged like fine wine-“

"You're not making this better."

"You look a lot like her." Ben says quietly.

Did he just call me beautiful?

You sit there for another minute, eyes focused on where Ben is holding your wrist. “I’m really sorry for what I said about Homelander and your team. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You already apologized.”

“When?”

“When I found you.” His jaw tightens at the memory. “You apologized.”

“Oh.”

“Are you-“ He clears his throat, eyes raising from your wrist to look at you. “Are you feeling better?” You watch his eyes trace the bruises around your neck, the black eye, and the cast again.

And for a moment he almost looks guilty.

Why is he guilty?

“Yeah. All the plants are really helping. It always makes me feel better to be surrounded by so many.” You smile at him, but Ben doesn’t return it.

“Plant boy brought them by.” Ben grunts. “You probably should call him. He was fawning all over you like a fucking pussy, thought he was going to cry.”

You thought that was ironic given that your grandmother had just told you that Ben hadn’t left the couch since you were brought in, but you didn’t want to tease him about that. Not now anyway.

You look at the gardenia on the small bedside table, the one you know that’s from home. “Not that one.” You glance back at Ben.

“No. I told Annie to bring that one.” Ben says as if it’s difficult for him. “I figured if it was on your bedside table in your room it must be important.”

“It’s my favorite. Thank you.” You squeeze his hand with your good one. “Really Ben, thank you for everything.” 

“Sure.”

Ben isn’t really holding your hand, your left is laying on its back cradled in his right where his thumb continues to rub along the thin skin of the inside as if he wants to trace along the veins.

“How long was I with Elijah?”

“Four days.” Ben grits his teeth together.

It was a surprise to hear how long you’d been there aloud, but a part of you knew in your heart how long it had been. 

“That feels about right.”

“I should have come sooner.”‘Ben murmurs it more to himself than to you. “I shouldn’t have let you go-“

“You tried to stop me remember? I should have listened to you instead of insulting you. I just-“ The tears were coming back. “I wanted to believe Darren. He’s my brother I thought-“ Your voice breaks. “And then Elijah-“

The memories of everything that happened were coming back tenfold now, worse then they had when your grandmother was there. The monitors to the right of the bed are beeping frantically now as your heart rate begins to spike and you begin to sob.

“Fuck.” Ben says under his breath. “Look Petals it’s okay. It’s alright-“

“No it’s not. My brother sold me to Elijah because he had fucking poker debt and Elijah wanted me to fix all those fucked up plants and then he-“  Your can't finish the sentence. You pull your hand from Ben's grasp to rub at your eyes, trying to make the tears stop but they don't. Memories of Elijah holding you down against the couch come surging up followed by the anxiety ridden question "What if?"

Ben's entire body goes stiff. "What did he do?"

You level your gaze at your left hand where it lays in your lap not wanting to answer. Ben's hand comes to cup your chin raising your eyes back to his. His green eyes have hardened, a murderous fire burning behind them that makes you worry about anyone who would ever get in his way. You'd never seen him so mad before, not even at you when you pissed him off.

"What did he do?" Ben says again in a low growl.

"He broke my arm-" You swallow the sob. "And then he put me in a freezer for a few days and when he took me out he tried to-" The memory of his oppressive weight and expensive cologne fills your nose, followed by the feeling of his hand fastened around your throat.

"He touched you?" Ben spits.

"I stopped him." You say in a whisper.

"How?"

"He had a poppy seed in his teeth."

The look in Ben's eyes shifts to surprise. "Really?"

You nod with a sniffle as another round of fresh tears comes out of your eyes.

"I saw the aftermath of it." Ben sighs retracting his hand from your chin. "Didn't think you could do something like that."

"Me neither. Guess it was a "desperate times desperate measures" sort of situation." You swipe the back your hand across your eyes. "But I really do want to go home, forget any of this happened-" Your voice cracks a little.

Ben's hand comes down on your shoulder in an awkward patting motion. "It's okay, Petals."

It enough to make you cough out a laugh. "What are you doing?"

"I don't fucking know. I just-" He drops his hand from your shoulder looking angry. "I don't like it when you cry." Ben says it more to himself than to you, as if he's ashamed he admitted it.

The admission makes something flicker to life in the center of your chest, a pilot light to some furnace that you'd blown out a long time ago.

"And I don’t fucking know what to do when women cry! Because y'all are always so damn emotional and-" He continues looking frustrated.

When you pull him into a hug, Ben stops mid-sentence. It's difficult with one arm, but you try your best. It's the first one the two of you have ever shared, given how much Ben hated showing affection that made sense, but you wanted to hug him. He had saved your life and maybe you could be friends despite everything else.

And you wanted to hug you because even though it made Ben uncomfortable, he had tried to comfort you. You weren't sure why, all you knew was that it made you smile.

Ben doesn't move, he goes completely tense in your arms, not accustomed to this and unsure what to do next. A part of you thought it was kind of cute how awkward he was when it came to something like this, but another part felt bad for him. You liked hugging people and were accustomed to doing just that, but it hurt you to think that Ben hadn't had any experience with someone giving him a hug that wasn't attached to anything else.

"Thank you, Ben." You whisper, pressing your face into his t-shirt. The smell of his spicy cologne burns your nose in the best way, the feeling of his warmth taking away the residual chill you feel when you think of the memories from a few days ago.

This is better than I remember.

You think, remembering how it felt to wake up in his arms and feel how his body molded around yours as if he was made for you.

"You're welcome, Petals." He says tightly, the pleasant rumble of his words vibrating against your cheek. He's not hugging you back, but you didn't expect him to. Not when he was awkward when it came to things like this.

You pull back from him, wiping your eyes again with the back of your hand. The longer you sit there together, the longer the silence grows between the two of you, but it's not uncomfortable. It's filled with an energy that you can't describe, hovering in the space, alive and charged.

Ben slowly raises his hand to your face, brushing back a strand of your hair with a surprising gentleness, the roughness of his hand is a comfort and you weren't prepared for how his touch burns against your skin.

“Did you really think I’d leave you there?” Ben murmurs, his eyes are a light green in the sunlight, like the budding grass on a summer day.

“You were mad at me. I-“ You look down at your lap.

“So?" Ben raises your chin with his hand.  "I said some shit too."

It wasn't an apology, but you were sure it was as close as he was going to get. What was weirding you out a bit was how often he was touching you and how gently. Not that you thought he would hurt you, just that he'd never tried to be this open to touch before. 

“Yeah, but it’s different. You might have pissed me off but I would have come to get you anyway because I know how much what happened in Russia hurt you.” It was the truth. You wouldn't have let anyone stop you if you knew that Ben was trapped somewhere, even if the two of you had been in a fight. He was your friend, sort of anyway. And you took care of your friends.

Ben’s body tenses at the mention of Russia, the memories that flash through his eyes are not pleasant. “Then don’t you think I’d want to come get you if I understand how fucked up that is?”

You blink at him surprised. "I didn't think about that."

Ben smirks. "And I thought you knew everything Petals."

"Sorry to disappoint you."

"Never." His hand is still cupping your cheek, his thumb brushing just barely over your cheek.

Electricity charges through the air and you feel your lips begin to tingle. You want to kiss him so badly, to pull him close and allow yourself to finally fall into him. The memory of the two of you on the couch the other day resurfaces when he almost kissed you, when he looked so different than he usually did, when he looked at you differently in a way that you weren't sure what it meant, the same way he was looking at you right now. The gardenia plant on the bedside table explodes with fresh blooms and Ben glances over it with a chuckle. It was embarrassing that he knew your deepest darkest secret and it caused a flush to creep into your cheeks.

Ben smiles the same way he did the morning you were curled up against his chest on your couch. His thumb dips to brush along your bottom lip and you inhale in surprise. It seems to jar Ben back into reality.

"I'm going to go feed Bean." Ben drops his hand and stands from the bed, but he's still smiling at you the same way he was a few seconds ago. "I'll be back in an hour."

You try not to feel the loss of his skin against yours and try not to focus on how good it felt for him to touch you so tenderly.

"You don't have to come back." You begin to say, trying to make the flush fade. "It's only one more night and-"

"It's not that bad." Ben shrugs. "I mean my butt isn't as comfy on this couch as the one at home." He cracks another smile repeating what he said when you took him to IKEA, but then something flashes in his eyes. "Besides, the apartment's too quiet without your bitching. Rather be here and witness it first hand."

Is he trying to say that he misses me? No. There's no way that he'd ever admit that.

"Get out of here, you ass." You try to push him, but he catches your hand.

"Be careful Petals, you don’t want to break the only arm you have left."

"I'm gonna break my foot off in your ass if you don’t get out of here." You groan rolling your eyes.

"Didn't think you’d be into that, but I'd be willing to try whatever you want Petals. As long as I get you all to myself" Ben is still holding on to your hand. "Do you-" His smirk shifts into something softer and he swallows. "Want me to bring you anything from home?"

You imagine that his voice changes when he says the word "home." But you don't imagine the way it sticks in your chest when he does.

"No, I think I'm okay." You frown down at your cast mournfully. "I'm never going to be able to finish any of my crochet projects with this thing."

"Yes, because that's why most people are upset when they break an arm."

"I thought you'd know by now that I'm not like everyone else."

"Trust me I noticed." Ben chuckles with a smile that makes your heartbeat stutter.

"Don’t knock it til you try it Gramps. I thought you'd be old enough to appreciate the quality of handmade goods. Didn’t your generation still do that or whatever?"

Ben rolls his eyes, but then he squeezes your hand so quick you think that you imagined it. "I'll be back. Try not to give your grandmother a hard time while I'm gone."

"You think that me giving her a hard time will ruin your chances with her?" You snort.

"I already tried years ago." Ben shrugs. "Then again she might give me another chance. It's been a while"

"You couldn't handle me then Benjamin and you can't handle me now." Your grandmother says as she re-enters the room holding a steaming cup of tea for you and a cup for herself. "But hurry back. I want to beat you at poker one more time before I go back to Illinois."

"I let you win." Ben grouses.

"Whatever you say sweetie." She sits back down on the chair to resume knitting, but you catch a glimmer of her smile quirking the ends of her lips.

Ben only rolls his eyes and throws you one last look filled with an emotion that you can't place before he vanishes out the door. And you try not to think about how empty the room is when he's gone, how the hell he knows your grandmother, and why your heart was skipping like a kid frolicking in a field full of sunflowers.

A/N: I know Darren didn't get got in this chapter, but he is going to come back into play next chapter. But this one was definitely bloody... Kinda was horrified with the place my mind went when she was killing those men with those poppies, but I like to think that people really do underestimate what she can do because they think she "just makes the plants grow" when in reality it's more complicated and way more powerful than people think. And I know, a lot of more denial, but we are starting to see the walls beginning to crumble and the unraveling between the two of them as they both begin to come to terms with their feelings.

As always thank you so much for reading! Reblogs, Likes, and Comments are not required, but are always appreciated. I love to hear what y'all think! If you'd like to be added to my taglist for this series please let me know :)

Taglist:

@roseblue373 @mrsjenniferwinchester @corruptedcruiser @winchesterwild78 @the-super-who-locked-wizard

@criminalyetminimal @52ndstreeet @bitchykittenconnoisseur @anna6307 @libby99hb

@faephoria @possiblyafangirl @jqtaro @quietlybitchy @tinydancer40

@roger-that-cap @megara0224 @miskwaadesiwag @rainyeggvoidpurse

@soldiergrimes @tiffsbagels @podiumackles

@ifyouwerethemoon @ririshkin @peachhiz @fitxgrld @sukunassfinger

@xx-spooky-little-vampire-xx @ej13928 @deans-spinster-witch @kr804573 @modiddys-blog

@acciosherlockholmes @minas-fantasies @fireskyy

@n-o-p-e-never @nesnejwritings @am0rem @tpwkcalli @momggn

@fitxgrld @whimsicalcherry @ladysparkles78

@spxideyver @zepskies @impala67stellawinchester

@reidtomewinchester @samanthadegaro @glossy01 @nikimisery

@tunnelvisionlove @incandxscents @winchester-stark @samahanta

@melonmochi

[rosewaterandivy]

petrichor

a continuation of sugar & mint

summary: a summer friday feat. long lie-ins, a doting husband, and something unexpected

pairing: dad!steve x mom!reader

W.C.: 2390 K

warnings: NSFW 18+ MDNI, smoking, cursing, pregnancy mention, my usual brand of filth (unprotected p-i-v, oral - m & f receiving, come eating)

a/n: disclaimer, i'm not a mom (unless you count my two pets)!! i am but a simple god mom to some feral babies, whom i adore. if pregnancy or mom!reader is not your vibe, i completely get it - i just couldn't get the thought of these two out of my head 🥹

🎵🎵 Oh, woe-oh-woah is me, the first time that you touched me 🎵🎵

pet·ri·chor /ˈpetrīˌkôr/ (noun)

definition: a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather.

Waking to the sound of rain falling steadily on the roof, you blearily pry an eye open to check the time. The sheets beside you on the bed are cool, Steve having made good on his promise to let you sleep in. The clock informs you of the late hour, 1 PM, as your stomach begs for sustenance.

Scrubbing a hand across your face, you roll over and rummage around for a shirt to cover throw on before trotting downstairs. Bub is off with her aunts for one final summer weekend, and there’s a slight chill in the air. Enough to warrant slipping on your husband’s discarded gray sweatshirt.

Aside from the rain against the eaves and windows, the house is silent. Grabbing your favorite mug from the cabinet, you busy yourself making a cup of coffee before you see the post-it stuck to the fridge.

Hope you got to sleep in, your majesty. Grabbing groceries in town, see you soon. xxx - Steve

Grabbing a cinnamon bagel and your coffee you settle in the window seat of the breakfast nook to watch the rain, free of distractions and responsibilities. It’s rare that you get a moment like this, no pressing deadlines, drop-off or pick-up lanes, hosting dinners for friends, or attending a birthday party.

Eyes following the drag of raindrops on the windowpane, your hand falls to the nearly imperceptible swell of your stomach. Early days yet, but you knew the signs: nausea, exhaustion, all the usual suspects. Finishing your coffee, you trekked upstairs in search of a rogue pregnancy test— would it have expired by now?

After checking the date and deeming it worthy, you took the test and checked the time. Deciding it best to go back downstairs to ease your anxiety, you settled back in the window seat with a second cup of coffee.

_

“Couldn’t find a shirt?”

He laughs, shaking off the water droplets like a dog in the foyer. “It wasn’t raining when I left,” Steve says, as if that’s explanation enough. Not that you’re necessarily complaining, his hair and skin damp, tank top doing fuck all being as soaked as it is. “And I couldn’t find my—”

Catching sight of his sweatshirt grazing the tops of your thighs he smiles. “Nevermind, looks better on you anyway.” He kicks the door closed, shoes squelching against the floor as he makes his way into the kitchen.

“Baaaabe,” you whine, catching a whiff of tobacco on him, “Please tell me you didn’t smoke in my car.”

He scoffs and rolls his eyes, sunglasses resting against the visor of his ball cap as he sets the tote bags on the counter. “Trader Joe’s was insane,” he says setting the keys on the counter, “It was an emergency cigarette, I swear.”

A roll of your eyes as you begin to put away the groceries. “If you bothered to wake me, I could’ve told you Trader Joes on a Friday was a bad idea.”

Steve quirks a brow in interest, grabbing a few items to shove in the freezer.

“Flower delivery is Friday, brings all the Lululemon moms to the yard.”

“Huh,” he grunts, “Explains all the spandex and lycra then.” Damp fingers trail against your thigh before wrapping an arm around your hip to draw you close. “Besides,” he breathes against your neck, “If I remember correctly, you requested to be left to sleep in.”

Failing to stifle a yawn, you eek out, “Because I’m fuckin’ exhausted, Harrington.” Setting your mug in the sink, you turn in his grasp and drape an arm across his shoulders. “Raising your daughter and dealing with your sorry ass.”

“Oh,” he pulls you closer, hips flush against one another, “So she’s my daughter now?”

“When she’s having sleep regression, yes.”

“Poor thing.”

“Yes,” you huff, “Me, I’m the poor thing because she insisted on crawling into our bed and kept kicking me in the ribs all night.”

“Hmm,” he hums, resting his chin against your head, “Explains the post-it stuck to my face this morning. ‘Help me Steve Harrington, you’re my only hope! Can you get Bub off to Aunt Nancy & Robin’s and please (for the love of god) let me sleep in? xxx —the love of your life & bearer of your child.”

“Hey,” you grouse into his chest, “I am clever and cute and you love me.”

Steve pulls back to get a better look at you— sleep mused, hair askew, barely dressed in a sweatshirt that had seen better days, and bare feet. He reaches down to link his fingers through yours. It feels so good, and warm, and you sigh almost contentedly.

“Course I do.” He takes a breath, “How could I not?”

“Steve Harrington,” you whisper against his lips, “You sweet talkin’ me?”

And with that, you crash your lips over his, sliding your tongue—sweet and heavy with promise into the space of his mouth.

He tastes like a stolen cigarette and coffee, cinnamon dancing on his tongue from the Big Red he’d swiped from the car. Kisses you slow and deep, easing you back against the counter. Chest pressed flush to yours, you let out an involuntary hiss.

“Somethin’ wrong?”

A shake of your head as your pepper his cheeks with kisses, bristles of five o’clock shadow catching against your lips.

“My tits just really hurt.”

“Huh,” he tuts, leaning back to look you over. “That’s uh… new.”

Quirking your brow, you level him with a look. “And how would you know?”

Steve’s lips curl in a slow smile, “I notice things.”

Glancing to the green numbers illuminated on the microwave, you grab his hand and make for the staircase. “Sure you do, big guy,” you toss over your shoulder playfully.

Settling him on the bed, you trot back into the en suite and return with the white plastic test in your hand. Handing it to him without fanfare, you watch as his face turns from one of mild curiosity to that of astonishment. Shock.

There was a cautious longing in your eyes and your face was measured. The air was weighted in silence, desire crystallizing as he leaned towards you, a pull he allowed himself to fall toward, closing the space between, choosing not to think, blocking out any hesitation and he was kissing you.

You were trying not to rush this, trying to savor this, slowly, carefully, tormented with the scent of his skin, all warm and washed linen, comfort laced in a simmering heat that he kept tempered somewhere deep within his soul.

Your face was cradled in his hands, pulling you closer, skin hot against palms, lips hotter still against his own when he realised the rain had stopped.

You crawl into his lap, straddle his waist, and his breath is punched out of his lungs in awe of your beauty. You undress him with deft fingers, yanking his clothes, hissing when he pulls away to peel the shirt off— as if not touching him pains you. The sweatshirt comes off— thrown carelessly landing somewhere on the floor— Steve revels in the exposure your chest—soft, heaving with love and agony.

Steve. Stevie. I love you. I love you. I love you so much.

Desperate, again.

You tug his hair, grip his chest and back, kiss him until his head spins. The bed creaks softly, as if it doesn’t want to interrupt the sounds that your bodies create together.

His kisses were deliberate towards one destination as his hands moved toward another, caressing you soft on the skin of your hips, slowly, sweetly up your sides and arching your back where you perched, a way to kiss you harder, reach you further to rediscover all his favorite parts of you.

The moan started low in your throat as he eased himself into you, sinking all the way to the hilt, delicious and easy, because he couldn’t wait and neither could you. You in all your love and splendor, always ready, always open for him, legs widening and gripping him as he began to move, slowly and agonizingly sweet.

Steve was trying to restrain himself, slow it down, revel in the feel of you, warm and wet and wonderful around him. He wanted to make it go slow, try not to lose himself through your soft sounds, the little breaths that told him the how, the when, the yes, please, right there, yes as you dissolved into moans that had him aching.

It was less deliberate now, more messy, a stuttered rhythm that had his legs feeling shaky, chasing his release, the push and pull of desire tightening, closer, hotter, tighter, and then an instant hardness that had him seeing stars, mouth tucked into the curve of your neck, your fingers threaded, gripping his locks, spilling feeling from his cock through your cunt.

He makes love to you, and even though he is bone tired from the hectic morning, he doesn’t feel it until you tremble in his arms and slump against his chest.

Your breath caught in your throat when he drew back to look at you, half-embarrassed, half a smile awash in his flushed face, hazel eyes full and wanting – utterly beautiful. Steve kissed your nose, your mouth, lingering sweetness on your lips, and you groaned as he picked you up, still buried inside you, his hands strong beneath your ass, fingers itching to trail the familiar paths of faded stretch marks. To praise the skin that grew to house you and your daughter, knew instinctively what to do, even if you were less than pleased with their sudden arrival.

Steve can’t help it - he loves your body for that, for keeping you and Bub safe. It’s something he won’t ever experience, but each time he happens to catch sight of you, pregnant or not, he can’t help but feel that he’s witnessing something sacred. Something holy.

The bed now, a comfort beneath your back, sheets scrambled beneath his palms as he balanced himself above you, then a stuttered breath as he slipped out, your muscles already missing the fullness of him. His pretty head moved lower now, your pretty hands still stroking through his pretty hair, sending pretty shivers through his spine.

The gasp was low in your throat when Steve pushed his fingers inside you, slow and agonizing, damp with you and him, all melded together and you almost winced when he dipped his mouth between your thighs, his tongue careful and deliberate, tasting you, tasting him, his mouth warm and licking you from core to clit.

This time, your legs were shaking, skin like fire and you were already too wound up, too high on just the feel on him, his hair brushing skin, beard soft on your thighs. Your fingers were fisted still through his hair, and god, he loved the way he knew how to drive you by the tension in your hands, the scrabbled grip through his locks as you got closer, more breathless, a groan and then an arch of toes before you were wrung out and writhing beneath him.

A clap of thunder sounded out as you collapsed, loose limbs and shivery skin as he came up to kiss you, shared joy and wonder, near awe that he could still bring you over the edge this way.

Steve's hair was something else now, wild and beautiful – definitely overdue for a trim and you were laughing now, face sparkling with glee.

“You look awful,” you told him, bringing your lips up to kiss him, all giggly with delight.

“Thank you,” he replied, nosing you close and drawing new breaths from your tongue as your hands drifted to the velvet skin beneath his thighs, working him slow and sweet.

“Oh, I will,” you answered, tempered smile in that face he adored so well, and shifted your body, drawing Steve onto his back as you dipped lower and he tried to hold the groan as you took him in your mouth.

He had to look away, some way to regather himself, the rushing blood through his skin, shooting straight to his cock, the warmth of your mouth on him, your tongue stroking him, the push and drag of your lips along that sensitive skin.

Steve focused on the feeling of you surrounding him, your warmth, your light, but even so, it was too much after a while and he had to change it, change the way you felt on him before he got too eager, too earnest. He lifted you, a giggle escaping your lips as you pulled off him with one last, deliberate drag of your mouth and this time, he couldn’t help the moan from his lips.

It was heaven, warm and sweet, when he pushed into you for the second time, your knees almost matched high at your chest, grazing your aching nipples as he found that special part of you that drew his most favorite sounds. You were keening, moving slowly together, trying not to lose control, trying to savor this for as long as you possibly could in this delicious bubble of time and space. _

Hours later and the pair of you had yet to leave the house. Rain pouring on and off throughout the afternoon and into the evening.

A tentative look at your belly, still smooth and firm. His hand finds the plane of it, fingers brushing the skin and over newly forming goosebumps. A surprising amount of excitement flutters in his own at the thought. It’d be good.

Steve insisted on throwing something together for dinner and made his way downstairs. He’s excited at the prospect of another baby, especially if they continued to take after you like Bub had. And she’d be adorable big sister, his heart swells at the thought.

He grabs the plates and heads back upstairs, the creak of the trick-step signalling his ascent. Nudging the door open with his hip, he pauses to take in the sight of you, and sets the plates on the nightstand.

Steve doesn’t know how someone can light up a room like you, just sitting there in his sweatshirt, doing nothing but smile. “Honey,” he says quietly, like he doesn’t want to disturb the moment but can’t help himself. He just wants to see you looking at him.

“Yeah?” You turn your head ever so slightly, peek up under flared lashes— sleepy eyes struggling to stay awake— still sparkling. “What is it?”

“Honey, I love you.” Is all he can manage. Everything else seems to fade away.

And then you smile, a slow curling of your soft lips, cupid’s bow catching a moonbeam. You smile so sweetly his heart stops in his chest. The world comes rushing back with your tired sigh and your hand linking itself with his. One beat, two beats, steadily, heavily, his blood pulses again when you kiss his cheek and murmur,

“I love you, too.”

[two-calicos-in-a-trenchcoat]

I say all this and then immediately started snacking on some chip crumbles left in the bottom of the chip bag my mom left on the counter

So im eating a bagel now

I want a bagel but ive been nauseous most of the day so I probably shouldn't eat anything but bagellllll 😭😭😭😭

[tangledinink]

Chapter Seven of I'm Sorry, Teenage Mutant What Now? is out! Just normal teenage boys doing normal teenage things. :) Read it on ao3 or below the cut.

[ prev ]

It had been three days now since they last saw their dad.

On the first night, over and over, everyone kept saying, ‘I’m sure he’ll be home any minute. He’s more than capable of defending himself. He wouldn’t just disappear. Any second now,’ and the only reason that Mikey had been able to get himself to sleep that night was because he thought that maybe when he woke up again, Dad would be back. He wanted to just skip forward to the good part. But then when he woke up, the good part wasn’t there.

The following morning, Mrs. O’Neil was in the kitchen making breakfast, with the blankets all folded up neat on the couch as if she hadn’t slept there that night. April helped set the table, as if this were normal, as if she hadn’t slept on a bean bag in the Lair, as if they were meant to be here and it made sense for them to be carefully preparing for a big pancake breakfast instead of wolfing down bagels and granola bars in a chaotic frenzy, attempting to make it out the door on time.

It wasn’t like Mikey didn’t appreciate it. He did. It was nice, the gentle looks, the backrubs, the hugs… But it felt weird. Alien, almost. And yet, even with things being so starkly different, even with the five of them staying home from school, staying home from activities, in this absolute jarring contrast to their normal routine, at the same time, there were still these moments that felt so… untouched. Leo and April made bad puns when the opportunity arose like they always did. Raph physically picked up and moved them when they were in his way or getting on his nerves, like usual. Donnie took the time to check up on all of his houseplants, watering anyone who needed it. Some memes were sent to the group chat. Leo and Raph got in a fight over the last raspberry popsicle in the freezer. 

There were moments where Mikey could almost look around and pretend like everything was normal. Dad just wasn’t home right now, and that was all. There were all these beats and steps that just weren’t colored by this horrible thing at all, in this weird way that Mikey wasn’t expecting.

But just on the surface level.

Because no. Dad isn’t just out getting groceries or meeting with an agent or picking up takeout. Dad isn’t here. And they don’t know where he is. 

They had already discovered, on that very first night, that Dad’s cell phone was left in his bedroom. They had obviously all tried texting and calling him about eighty times each, with no response, and eventually found the phone, plugged into its charger on his nightstand. They tried guessing the passcode, but none of them knew it, so they had all looked at Donnie. They said that they would figure it out and pocketed the device. And aside from coming down to care for their plants and grab some banana pancakes, they hadn’t been down from their room since.

They spent most of the first day making calls. They contacted everyone that they could think of. Dad’s agent, his lawyers, any friends or acquaintances he knew. They called each and every one of his dojo locations. Anyone whose number they could find who they had ever known to speak with Dad, they contacted, asking them if they had seen him, heard from him, had anyone idea who the masked guy could be? And over and over they heard, no, sorry. We haven’t seen him. We haven’t heard from him. We don’t know anything about this stranger. We’ll keep an eye out and let you know right away if anything changes. Dead end. Dead end. Dead end.

They texted people, they sent emails, they combed the internet for anything that might be helpful, but they didn’t find anything. The whole group, Mrs. O’Neil and even Donnie included (Mrs. O’Neil, I mean, Carol, made them come. Mikey thought that it was probably because they were nervous about anyone being alone after… you know,) took multiple walks around the neighborhood, the neighborhood next over, and the neighborhood next over to that, looking for any sign of their father.

On the second day, Mikey made posters, and they started hanging those up when they did their walks. Word was starting to spread, and Mikey kept getting texts on his phone-- friends from school, friends from dance, friends from sports, friends of friends… At first, Mikey would reply to all of them. Would say, oh, thank you so much for reaching out, we really appreciate it, please, if you see him at all, let us know… But that rapidly became exhausting. After the first ten, Mikey took to just copy-and-pasting the same message asking them to look, along with an image of the poster he had made. And even just that was exhausting. What was he supposed to say? ‘Everything is horrible and I have no idea how I’m feeling right now, I’m just overwhelmed and terrified-- thanks tho, melting face emoji?’

Donnie got into Dad’s phone but didn’t find anything useful. They sent out emails and texts to every contact he had saved, even though they didn’t recognize half of them, and posted on every social media that he had. All four of them posted on their social media, too. Mikey made a TikTok video reaching out to 350k of his followers. He kept all his notifications on, hoping and waiting that someone would message him telling him that they had seen him and he was okay… but it didn’t come. There was a flood of empathetic comments, of thoughts and prayers, of heart emojis. But nothing that would help them. He and his brothers posted on every Lou Jitsu fan forum that they could find, but they got much of the same there, too.

And now it had been three days. Three days was a long, long time. Ever since that first night, Mikey couldn’t really sleep. He knew his siblings couldn’t, either, and he anxiously fussed over them whenever he could, trying to encourage them to get some rest. Especially Leo. He hardly ever slept even on a good day-- now he kind of just seemed more and more like a wreck as time passed. All of them did. 

It was on the third day that Mrs. O'Neil got a phone call. Well-- she had been on the phone on-and-off ever since she got here that first night, making calls and taking them, even more than they had. But this phone call, in particular, went a little like this:

"Hello?" 

"Yes, this is she,"

"What?"

"No, I'm sorry,"

"No."

"Yes, I'm absolutely certain. No. No, we're not accepting any interview requests right now. I'm not sure you do understand. With all due respect, I'm not putting any of these kids on TV right now. Yes, I'm quite sure."

"Yes."

"You have a great day, too. Goodbye."

Mikey knew that all four of his siblings were listening, but Leo was the first one to speak once Carol hung up the phone.

"Who was that?" 

"A reporter," Carol sighed in response. They had barely exchanged five words and she already seemed exhausted with this conversation.

"What did they want?"

Carol pursed her lips. "They were asking about doing a live interview or bringing you guys on their talk show. I told them we weren't interested."

"Why would you tell them that?"

"Because we're not."

"Uhm. Maybe you're not," Leo corrected, his brows furrowing. "Why the hell can't I do an interview? I can do interviews! I've done interviews before! I'm great at interviews."

"It's not a good idea, Leo," Carol said, putting her phone down, turning her attention back to her laptop in front of her, beginning to type again. Oof. That was gonna piss Leo off.

"Why not?!" Leo demanded, growing pissed off. "I've done interviews before! I've done live shows! I could totally handle this! Besides, we're trying to get the word out to as many people as possible. What if someone saw the interview and knew where Dad was? This could help!"

"This isn't up for debate, Leo. I'm not putting any of you kids on a talk show right now."

"Why is it your decision!? I'm the one who would be on the show! Why don't I get to decide?"

"Because I'm the adult," Carol was just a step away from snapping, but her voice was hard, definitive. "I just said this isn't up for debate. I'm sorry, but it's off the table. It's not a good idea."

Mikey looked nervously at his brother, wondering if he should say something. Raph looked like he was about to, but Leo huffed, rolling his eyes and getting to his feet. "Fine," he hissed in reply, promptly moving to the front door and beginning to put on his shoes.

 "Where are you going?" Carol questioned, frowning a bit.

"Gymnastics."

"Leo--"

"I'm sick of sitting around here not doing anything! It's driving me crazy. We have gymnastics practice right now. I'm going to gymnastics. Mikey, are you coming?"

Mikey jumped when eyes shifted to him, floundering for a second. If he was being totally honest, he wasn't exactly in a gymnastics mood, but... he knew that Mrs. O'Neil wasn't gonna let Leo go by himself. And there was no way he was gonna convince Donnie to even leave his room, let alone go to gymnastics practice. Maybe... it would be good? Get his mind off of things?

"Yeah. Uh. I'll come. Let me grab my stuff. Hang on," he said, jumping to his feet and scampering off to grab their gymnastics bags-- packed and ready to go in the hallway, like they always were, like they didn't know anything was wrong. 

"Leo, I don't know if this is--"

"I'm not going alone, Mikey is with me. There's gonna be adults there. We'll get a taxi cab home when it gets dark. I'm not gonna sit here twiddling my thumbs anymore. I'm gonna go insane." Leo spoke over her, and Mikey thought privately to himself that that was rather ballsy. Leo must really be upset because usually none of them would dare interrupt Mrs. O'Neil. He hurried to get his shoes on, hoping that they could escape before things got too heated. Sorry April, sorry Raph. 

"Ready, Mikey?"

"Yeah… yeah, I'm ready. Let's go." 

---

April was trying really hard to be patient with her brothers right now, 'cause she knew that they were having a hard time. I mean, if either of her parents went missing, she'd probably be behaving less than her best, too. Raph was clingier than ever, and April had had to talk him off the metaphorical ledge about five times now, Donnie had turned into a total hermit, even by Donnie standards, Leo was honestly being kind of a brat, and Mikey was...

Ugh. God. Mikey. He was such a sweetheart. He was killing himself, April could tell. Even more than she was killing herself right now. She would have to corner him later. Right after she cornered Leo.

And kicked his ass.

Look, she got where he was coming from, but did he really need to tick her mom off like that!? And then leave her to deal with it?! She knew her mom was mostly just worried, (and, okay, maybe also kind of peeved, but April could only kind of blame her,) but that didn't make it any more pleasant. And once she managed to settle her down, she had to deal with Raph, too. 

 If her mom was freaked out, then Raph was about ready to lose his mind. April half thought he was gonna take off after Leo and Mikey on foot any second now. April sank into the couch next to him, bodily draping herself over his lap to make sure he didn't go anywhere.

"Hey Big Guy," she said, blinking up at him, forcing a half-hearted smile. "How you holding up?"

"Me?" Raph said, just barely glancing down at her before his eyes snapped away again, anxious and flighty. "I'm fine. Raph's fine. How are you holding up?"

God, they were all so predictable. April privately thought that self-sacrifice must be a Hamato tradition. It was simply a question of which one of them could outdo the rest.

"You're a bad liar. You're as bad as Mikey. As bad as Donnie."

"What?!" Raph squawked in protest. "I am not as bad as Donnie! No one's as bad as Donnie!"

"Okay, well, maybe not that bad," April relented. "Leo and Mikey are gonna be fine. They're taking the subway in broad daylight. They're only gonna be, like, ten minutes away. They both had their phones and they already said they'll take a taxi cab home. It's okay."

"I know," Raph said, wrinkling up his nose. "It's just-- I mean. What if somethin' bad happens to 'em? And I'm not there to help?" 

"You know it's not your fault, right?"

There was a telling silence.

"Raph. It's not your job to protect your Dad from creepy stalker fans. And you couldn't have done anything."

"I know," Raph relented, frowning a little. And it wasn't that April didn't believe him, but... There was a difference between knowing and knowing. April knew that perfectly well. Raph might be the biggest brother, but she was the biggest sister, and... okay, she wasn't gonna sit here and delude herself into thinking that she could have physically stopped that guy if she had just moved a little faster. She wasn't a martial arts champion like the rest of them, (even if she did have a mean left hook and an even meaner softball swing.) But she hated... watching them fall apart. She hated watching all of them shrivel up under the stress. She hated that she couldn't fix this for them... Or at least make it a little easier.

And she was worried too. Mr. Hamato might not be her dad, exactly, but... this was her family, too. She had known Yoshi since she was five! She used to spend every afternoon after school at their house, and they would spend the weekends at hers. She couldn't even count how many slumber parties and sleepovers they had had over the years. Raph, Donnie, Leo, and Mikey were like her brothers, and Yoshi was, like... her weird uncle or something.

She really hoped he was okay. And that he'd be back soon.

"Nothing bad is gonna happen. They'll go to gymnastics, they'll blow off some steam, they'll come home, and maybe Leo will be less of a headache for the rest of the evening." She said with a sigh. "Maybe he's got a point! You guys aren't used to being cooped up for so long."

"I guess," Raph said, seeming unconvinced, though he leaned back a little into the cushions, slumping a bit. April would take even the littlest victory. 

"You could probably use a distraction too."

"Mmm..."

"Sooo... You could paint my nails for me? I'll paint yours back." She offered, raising a brow. He had to take the bait here. This always worked. The boys loved getting their nails painted. Especially Raph, since he was so bad at doing his own. He was okay if he was working on someone else, but if it was a solo project, that right hand just never quite turned out right.

It took a moment, and for a moment April thought he might actually turn her down, but eventually, he sighed and relented. "Okay, fine," he agreed. "But Raph gets to pick the colors this time."

Thank god for small miracles. He could pick whatever color he wanted.

---

Mikey had never noticed how loud the gym was before.

Usually, it didn't bother him. But today? It was just... so much noise. Every thump of a landed flip echoing through the padded floor, reverberating, every shout, every stomp, every clap of chalk on hands... It seemed to travel right through his bones.

He was waiting for it to wear off. 

Their instructor had seemed... surprised to see them, especially since they had gotten there a half-hour late, but hadn't protested or turned them away, much to Mikey's relief. Well, initially it had been relief, but now he wasn't so sure. Usually, he adored gymnastics. It was easily one of his favorite hobbies, (tied between ballet, painting, cooking, yoga, hip-hop, and skateboarding,) but there was something... off today. Every movement seemed just a beat behind reality, as if he himself were lagging somehow, like the connection was slow. His head felt fuzzy.

Every second they were here felt so odd. Everyone was just... working. Doing gymnastics. Practicing back-flips and floor routines. Mikey wanted to scream at everyone. How could they all just act like this when their dad was missing? How could they pretend like things were okay and just keep moving through life? Every person they passed on the walk here, every passenger on the subway, the receptionist at the front desk, he wanted to grab them by the front of their shirts and wail to them and explain everything. 

How could people just live? How could so many people just not know that their dad was gone and might not ever come back?

Mikey had been working on his high bar routine for almost forty minutes now, and he still wasn't getting it right. Usually, this was easy. It wasn't even that hard of a routine, not compared to some of the other things he had done before. But every single time he made another go at it, he missed a beat or moved the wrong way, his brain blanking out on the next step, and he'd have to start over again, gritting his teeth and telling himself he'd get it right this time. The chalk on his hands itched. He was forming a blister. Blisters had never bothered him before.

His coach was being so patient. So sweet, repeatedly telling him it was okay, he could just try again, but it wasn't okay. He wanted to yell at her, too, that they both knew he could do better than this. But he didn't. He just thanked her and nodded his head and kept going.

Leo was over at the vault. He could see him from here. From what he could see, he was doing fine. He wasn't missing any turns or freezing up or losing his balance. He was doing great. His routine looked perfect. Why was he doing so perfect? What was wrong with him? If the problem wasn't Dad, if it wasn't affecting Leo, then it had to be--

Mikey's hand missed the bar. He never missed the bar. He didn't swing far enough and his hand didn't make contact. 

He missed. He fell.

He never fell.

It didn't hurt. They had all this matting for a reason-- for exactly this reason, in fact. There wasn't even any heavy thud of contact, no wind got knocked out of him, he just flopped sadly down on his back on the padding, bouncing a tiny bit, staring up at the bars above him.

He fell down. He never fell down. He missed. He never missed the bars. 

He knew he needed to get up. He should try again. If he didn't move, people would worry, or think he was hurt or something. But every time he told himself to sit up, his body didn't quite listen. 

After a few minutes of staring at the ceiling, his older brother's face came into view. He had been expecting a coach. He wasn't sure if Leo was better or worse.

"Well that wasn't very razzmatazz," Leo remarked with a grin, leaning over and offering a hand to the other. "Here, c'mon. I'll help you up."

Mikey sniffled a tiny bit. His body didn't listen when he told it to grab Leo's hand, either.

"I wanna go home," he finally got his mouth to move.

"What?" Leo immediately protested. "Oh, come on, little brother, we just got here. We've still got two hours left of gym time! You love gymnastics. You're not gonna let one little fall get to you, are ya?"

"I wanna go home," Mikey repeated, because he didn't know what else to say. His voice sounded horrible. What was the matter with him? This wasn’t even what he wanted to be saying. He didn't want to talk to Leo like this. He did love gymnastics. This wasn't him! He didn't act this way. Why was he acting this way? He blinked rapidly, hoping that it would help somehow.

He didn't want to look at Leo anymore, so he didn't. But he heard him sigh. He felt the gym mat shift as Leo slowly moved to lay down next to him, until both of them were staring up at the ceiling like silly little animals stuck on their backs, unable to flip back over.

Like...

I dunno, like beetles or something.

"We can go home if you want to, Mikey," Leo said, and Mikey hiccuped softly, wrinkling up his nose.

"Sorry," he bit out. "... We c-can stay if you want. I can stay."

"Nah. It's fine. We should go home," Leo repeated, finding Mikey’s hand and squeezing it shortly. "Sorry. For dragging you out."

Mikey shook his head, sniffling a bit. Ugh, crying on your back sucked. His nose was all full of gunk. 

"I like gymnastics," he said weakly, and Leo laughed.

"Yeah, I know. That's 'cause you're really good at it."

Mikey nodded kind of numbly, crossing his arms over his chest, clinging to himself slightly. 

"Everyone is acting like nothing's wrong," Mikey whispered.

"Yeah," Leo sighed through his nose. "It's weird, right? I keep seeing people on the street and being like... Oh my god. They don't even know. They have no idea. And, like, I don't even know what's going on with them, either. Like. You know that lady we sat next to on the subway? I kept thinking, I dunno, maybe her dad went missing once, too, and we don't even know. How much shit do we just not know?"

"Leo, what if he doesn't come back?"

It wasn't like Leo was bad at hugs. It's just that he wasn't as good at hugs as everyone else. There was a very clear ranking, and yes, Mikey did keep track, like a reasonable person. At the very top of the ranking, obviously, was Raph. Raph gave the best hugs-- He scooped you up and swung you around and you got all squished and squeezed in the best way possible. Absolutely top-tier. Second best hugs were Dad, because, well, they were Dad Hugs. Dad Hugs had a special quality to them. He really didn't think he had to explain himself any further. Next up was Donnie, not necessarily because Donnie was good at hugging or anything, but just because he was so rarely down for hugs that every time he got one it was special. It felt like he was winning something-- especially since he got Donnie hugs more than anyone else in the family. April hugs were next, because while she gave really good hugs, and she always let him cling to her for as long as he wanted, her glasses could be a bit pokey at times. And then Leo brought in the rear-- not because he was bad at them, but just because the competition was so stiff.

But this was a really, really good hug. Two really's.

The absolute second Leo had him wrapped up in his arms, Mikey just dissolved into sobs, before he even had a proper chance to try not to. He was just so tired of feeling scared like this. If Dad wasn't going to come back, could they just know already?! He hated waiting. He hated not knowing! He just wanted to tear the band-aid off so that he could mourn and then get better. This was worse than their Dad being dead, he thought to himself. He almost wished that he was just dead, and that this could at least be over. Wasn't that horrible...? How could he feel that way?

 He was pretty sure Leo was crying, too, but he couldn't really tell for sure. He was clinging way too tight to see anything. 

"It'll be alright, Mikey." Leo's voice was muffled, but he could hear him all the same. "We'll be okay. Dad would never stay away from us on purpose. We'll figure it out."

---

They had been getting a lot of takeout since Dad went missing. No one really felt like cooking-- not even Mikey, and Leo couldn't even blame him. He wouldn't wanna cook, either. He barely even wanted to eat. And there was pizza in front of him. That was a big deal.

 This was their third Jupiter Jim movie marathon night in a row, but Leo wasn't the least bit excited. He was trying hard to pretend like he cared about which title they put on, to keep up with all the running jokes they had, to pay attention, but his heart wasn't in it. No one else's was, either, he knew. They hadn't even been able to convince Donnie to come out of his room and join them since the first night, much to his frustration.

 It was all just distraction. They were just smoke-screening themselves to pretend like everything wasn't awful, and frankly, Leo wasn't even sure who it was benefitting anymore. Clearly not Mikey. He had gotten it back together by the time they started heading home from gymnastics and had made Leo swear to secrecy, insisting that he 'didn't wanna worry anyone.' Leo had told him that that was stupid, that everyone was already worrying anyway, and pretending like he was fine wasn't gonna make a difference, but if he was being honest, he and the rest of the family rarely won any arguments against Mikey, so... 'keep it between them' it was. 

It was stupid. He wasn't fooling anyone. None of them were. 

And yet here he was, playing pretend right along with them anyway. He was such an idiot. 

As was rapidly becoming routine, they all stayed up long enough to watch three Jupiter Jim movies while eating whatever dinner had been ordered that night before everyone headed off to bed, saying keywords and phrases like 'I dunno about you guys, but I’m exhausted' and 'it’s getting pretty late,' etc etc, even though Leo was pretty sure no one was sleeping. He certainly wasn't. And he was really trying. He swore he was, but... 

Even under the best of circumstances, sleeping was hard. He had never understood how Dad or Mikey could just fall asleep the way they did, laying their heads down on their pillows and almost instantly drifting off. Sleeping involved so much work, so much effort, that sometimes it just felt easier to call the night a wash, take the all-nighter and go from there. Yes, he had tried meditating. Yes, he had tried Melatonin. He had tried sleep podcasts, white noise machines, drugs, music-- he swore he had tried it all! And none of it fixed the problem. Some of it helped, sure, but nothing consistently guaranteed him a full night's rest. Every night it was just a roll of the dice; a total blind bag. Some nights, he would sleep, and some nights, he wouldn't. It was anyone's guess.

Including his.

He wouldn't have put money on going to sleep that night. But he did.

He had no idea what made him realize that he was dreaming, but at some point, he did. He couldn't even tell you what had been happening before that point, because now, he didn't remember. Had he been outside? It had been cold. It had been dark, and there was water nearby, but he didn't think he had been outside. Somewhere else, but... He wasn't sure where.

But now, he was in their house. Right in their living room. Leo frowned a bit, looking around slowly. It was odd for their house to be this quiet. 

He paused, looking at the family pictures hanging on the walls in abundance. Someone had written something on them in black marker, but he couldn't read it. It was in plain English, but he had no idea what it said. He leaned in a bit closer, narrowing his eyes, trying to translate, when a cry ripped his attention away.

"Blue!"

He knew that voice. Eyes widening, Leo whipped around to face his father-- on the ground not more than five feet away, pinned beneath some hulking stranger with jagged horns erupting from their head, their eyes glowing white and their jaws dripping with foamy blood.

"Dad?! Hang on!" He tried to jump forward, to reach out for him, but his legs wouldn't move. Why wouldn't his legs move?! His dad was right there-- right there in front of him! He could help him! He could save him, so why wasn't anything working?!

"Blue!" The same howl tore through his mind, and Leo hissed, clapping his hands over his ears as if that would help. He didn't want to watch. He didn't want to watch this creature kill his father-- he couldn't do it. 

This is a dream, he reminded himself. You're dreaming. If you don’t want to watch, then you have to wake up. Wake up. Wake up now!

He could see it-- almost feel it-- his own body laid out on his bed back in the waking world, curled up on his stomach, his cheek to his pillow. He knew exactly where he was. He could see his room. He knew he was dreaming, so why couldn't he wake up? He couldn't get his body to move at all, repeatedly trying to sit up, to open his eyes, to jolt a limb to the side to no avail. The pitch of the screams shifted higher.

"Come on! Wake up already! I know you can hear me!" He cried, gritting his teeth. He knocked his fists angrily against the side of his head. "Move. We have to move!" He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, tasting blood, and he wasn't sure if that was his dream self or his actual self. How was he supposed to tell the difference? "Move!"

Leo startled awake, his head jerking upwards and his limbs splaying outward in surprise. The entire house was quiet. Right... because it's the middle of the night. Because he was dreaming.

He had just been dreaming, and now he was awake. It was fine. He was fine.

Slowly, he sat up, running his hands through his hair with a sigh, rolling his head a few times to try to work the stiffness of his neck. He reached for his phone, knowing it would be plugged in on his nightstand, except... It wasn't there. 

 Leo frowned a little bit, wrinkling up his brows. His phone wasn't there. In fact, his nightstand wasn't there either. His bed wasn't even there, he realized with a start. He wasn't in his own room. He was on the floor-- the floor of-- somewhere else in the house, he guessed. How the hell did he get here? Had he sleepwalked? That was new.

 He noted, vaguely, that whatever room he was in wasn't nearly as dark as he would have expected. There was this warm golden-orange glow blanketing the room like a nightlight, and Leo thought vaguely that someone must have accidentally left a desk lamp on or something, turning to take a look.

He had not been expecting to see his youngest brother floating half a foot above his own bed. Nor for him to be glowing.

[myculinaryblogtx]

Day 1: The New Job

Hello readers, it has been an eventful week...

I'm sleep-deprived, and my body is sore, but I feel fulfilled.

For the last month, I have been working at a second job at a bakery/brunch spot downtown.

I initially applied for a baking position to gain experience before graduating. But they needed someone to help expedite and run food, which is no problem as I have been a food runner at a fine-dining steakhouse for the last two years. I thought it would be similar, but I was wrong.

In my first week, I had to learn how each dish on the menu was plated correctly. The kitchen is small, but it can make fantastic food. Thankfully, the menu was new, so everyone, including me, was learning how the dishes were supposed to look, and I caught on quickly. If anything can catch my attention, it's food. Learning about the different garnishes or sauces that went with each dish was stressful but informative.

For example, we are doing a Japanese Omurice with spam fried rice. This is a typical Japanese dish, but we add hollandaise on top, a citrusy, dark soy sauce on the side, and garnish with pork floss and seaweed. It is one of my favorite things on the menu!

I don't get to garnish the dishes often at the steakhouse as most of the kitchen does it behind the line. My main objective there is to put the food in the correct order before it goes out to the guests. The most I do is ask for compound butter and sauces or pour some ketchup for fries.

But at the bakery, I get to make the plates look beautiful, and knowing I was the one who did them drives me further to pursue my studies at school.

For my latest development at the Bakery, one of my managers called me when I was visiting some family and asked if I was still interested in working on the actual bakery side, as they needed some help.

Eagerly, I accepted. They asked about my school schedule and what day I would be available for training, and the only day I was available was Halloween. I knew it was going to be an early morning, so I planned to sleep in on Friday, but fate had other plans.

A few days later, on Sunday, they posted the schedule, and my heart sank.

I had to train 4am-7am on Wednesday and Thursday.

I am not a morning person, and my usual shifts start at 9am on Saturday and Sunday. This was going to pose a challenge for me.

But I knew what I was getting into, so I sucked it up and braced myself for the hectic week ahead. On Monday, when I drove home, I promised myself that on Tuesday night, I would go to bed and wake up at 2am, as I don't live close to the city and get there early to make a good impression.

Well, long story short, I failed.

Instead of waking up at 3:30am, I woke up at 7am!

Pissed, I got dressed and ran out the door, hoping I could get to the bakery and see if I could do anything, but my manager texted me about it, and. I explained what had happened, and he told me to not come in, but he would move that training shift to Friday... Great.So, no sleeping for me then. I drove back home and went to right back to sleep. Later in the day after talking to my mom, dad, and my boyfriend, I had a plan.

I would just stay up all night.

I am a night owl so it was not that hard. I played video games and chatted with friends, and then an hour before the shift, I washed my face, changed my clothes, and left the house at 3:30am.

After waiting for someone to open, I eventually began training! I was mainly taught how to fulfill the orders we had for someone who was going to pick them up at 6 a.m. I also learned how to finish off the baked goods, such as adding chives to the bagels, powdered sugar on Danishes, and how the fruit was to be cut and presented on the pastry.

Then, I learned how to prep the next order for the later shift to bake. I would Pull dough out from the freezer and set the number we needed aside to proof. On my first day after all of that, I helped make butter pats.

Essentially, we took parchment paper and folded it into a kind of envelope. Then we had huge blocks of butter, which I used and sliced lengthways. I aligned them in the folds of the parchment and closed it back up before pounding it with a rolling pin so it would come together for my trainer to make sheets of dough for croissants.

On the second day after doing the same thing but solo, I prepped out some cookies and brownies before I was let go and drove straight home to pass out before going to my other job at 3:30pm.

I know baking is a lot, and I know it will take me a lot of drive to work out the kinks in my plans, but I feel good about this.

Next week is not as hectic. I still have to get up early, but only at 9am on Thursday and 7am on Friday. Much better. They plan to train me in actual baking and proofing. At least, that's what the note said. I am going to go check on my chicken thawing in the kitchen and think of what I am going to eat, as all I had today was coffee, 2 pieces of bacon, and a bowl of buttered noodles. They are not the healthiest choices, but I'm a broke college student, and beggars can't be choosers.

Till next time, my friends! And if you want to stay notified, follow and tag yourself below, and I'll add you next time I post!

[copperbadge]

BAGEL LOG PART FOUR: THE BAKENING

In my ongoing quest to master the gluten-free bagel I have made progress! I made Batch 2 this morning, and because Batch 1 had SUCH a strong flavor due to the coconut milk (I’m confined to coconut, the kid’s allergic to all other milks) this time I split the liquid -- half coconut milk, half water.

The flavor is lighter and more pleasant, and the crumb seemed lighter too. But the bagels came out super ugly (see top left photo of the tops and bottoms) because they stuck to the paper they were resting on prior to boiling. Compared to the first batch (top right) they look less attractive because they were more fragile. But I think that might have just been too much liquid -- the dough was wetter and stickier than the last batch. 

I also baked some leftovers from the first batch; I froze half of the first batch after boiling but before baking, and baked half of the frozen from frozen, and half after thawing on the counter for an hour. I really do think the moisture fluctuation is what damages these bagels the most, because these were not good. Lower left, you can compare a fresh-baked bagel with a bagel baked from frozen -- the interior is very gluey. Likewise, bagels thawed and then baked had a “ring” of gluey bread in the center, though it wasn’t as pronounced as the baked-from-frozen. (Bottom right -- it’s tough to tell but the top was baked from frozen and the bottom was baked from thawed.)  

SO, NOTES: 

1. Freezing after boiling is pointless; you have to freeze what you bake anyway, so I might as well boil, bake, slice, and freeze.  

2. Full fat coconut milk should be watered down 1:1 when preparing liquid.

3. Be super careful with the amount of liquid; if the dough feels very “loose” while shaping the bagels, make sure the parchment you let them rest on is extra super well greased. (Note to self, buy new coconut oil.) 

4. NEXT STEPS: I sliced most of the bagels, packed them into a plastic bag, and froze them; those will go to T’s parents because functionally they are the bagels’ final form. Two bagels are in their own bag in the freezer; one of those I’ll toast from frozen, one I’ll microwave, to see which works better with this new lower-coconut recipe. One is in the fridge, to see how it fares when toasted from fridge. 

5. TO TEST: Check in with T’s mother to see if he can tolerate olive oil; if so, try a batch with 3:1 water:oil in place of coconut milk. If not, perhaps test out coconut oil and water, which would be slightly cheaper supplies-wise. 

Also I need to work out how much each batch of bagels costs, roughly: xanthan gum, coconut oil, King Arthur measure-for-measure flour, brown sugar, coconut milk (there’s also yeast but I’m not going to nickel-and-dime, it’s a teaspoon of the stuff which I buy in bulk anyway). I think probably it’ll work out to about $10 a batch, but we’ll see how close I get. 

[drpeppertummy]

Ice cream and Leon?

hewwoww this is so tiny & disjointed but What Ever its somethinggg

[mild post-stuffing stuffing]

Leon hadn't been quite as enthusiastic about ice cream as his friends.

It wasn't something they normally did, going out for ice cream together, particularly after a meal. It had crossed their minds once or twice, but Shel would be too full for dessert, or they'd have somewhere to be, or nobody would feel like going. Today was different. The three of them had gone down to the bagel place for lunch together, and, determining that they'd earned a nice long dick-around lunch break, decided to hit the little ice cream joint before it closed for the season. It had been Angela's idea. Shel often joked that all of her teeth were sweet teeth, and he wasn't wrong. Not one to turn down a little something sweet himself, he'd gladly been on board, and Leon had smiled and nodded along.

Unlike Angela and Shel, who had saved some leftovers from lunch and still had room for dessert, Leon had left the bagel place absolutely stuffed. He couldn't fathom putting anything else in his belly right now; even the smallest cup on the menu seemed like far too much. Still, that was what he ordered, and he sat down with his friends at one of the little round tables.

"I thought Janine was gonna kill you today," Angela said to Shel, dipping into her sundae.

"Oh my god!" Shel laughed out loud, a rare divergence from his usual soft, wheezing laughter. "Can you believe her? She is too much."

Leon nibbled on his little cup of ice cream and listened to his friends gossip. Shel could talk shit like nobody's business, and Angela loved to hear it. Normally, Leon would be right there with them in the conversation, but right now he was focused on pacing himself as he ate his dessert. His stomach felt taut and heavy and a little bit unsteady, and each bite seemed just a bit too much. He silently scolded himself for getting it at all. He hadn't wanted to make the outing awkward by not getting anything, but Shel and Angela wouldn't have cared. It was too late now, though; he had his ice cream, and he supposed he may as well eat it.

"Hey, Leon the Lion, you alright? You're awful quiet," said Shel, giving him a gentle nudge in the side.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm just tired," he said, smiling halfheartedly. Then, unsure why he'd only given a half-truth: "And full."

"A winning combo," said Shel, patting him on the back.

"You could always bring that back and stick it in the freezer," suggested Angela. Leon thought about it.

"It's just a tiny bit," he said noncommittally. "It'd probably get all gross in there anyway."

"True," she agreed.

Slowly and reluctantly, Leon finished his ice cream. It took him longer to reach the bottom of the cup than it took his friends to get through their much bigger desserts, and by the time he did, his stomach felt uncomfortably stretched. He sighed and rested a hand on his belly. It poked out noticeably over his belt, straining against the fabric of his now too-snug shirt.

"Christ, I don't wanna go back," he groaned.

"Hey, you better steer clear of Donna," warned Angela. "She brought some kind of gross oat loaf she made. She's been pushing it on anyone she sees."

"Ugh, good to know," said Leon. "I think I'd explode if I tried to eat anything else."

[chen-chen-chen-again-chen]

Hi, hello, hola, it's me! This is not a WIP Wednesday post (well, the WIP is always me), but it's something.

First off, thank you thank you thank you to all the beautiful people who messaged me, or commented, or tagged me in things, or even just thought kind warm thoughts at me while I've been away and not writing. Brain not working good enough to sort through the things and tag properly but you know the drill - I love you all.

Here are things I did while I wasn't writing AKA while I have Big Sad Brain:

I visited London, and had a great time - eating delicious food, flat-sitting, visiting old haunts, picking up new ones, spending time with friends, and watching too much Shakespeare. The salted beef bagels in Brick Lane are still unparalleled, there were daffodils everywhere, and I brought home too much tea but not enough biscuits.

I buzzed my hair short again, and as EarlobeGreyTea said, "it really moved your energy from bisexual to lesbian," and then followed up with, "I'm glad that I, a man, could explain your sexuality to you"

I read a lot. I read The Locked Tomb series (I'm obsessed) and fell down a danmei pit (I have consumed SVSSS and MDZS but not yet TGCF) and I have spicy hot takes on why I did not enjoy The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo or The Starless Sea. I re-read all of Ann Leckie's books. I read The Future is Disabled in a Socialist bookshop in London, and I cried so fucking hard that the gentleman in the shop asked me if I was okay. I read The Song of Achilles and Circe and wandered down the labyrinth of getting really, really into Greek myth.

Speaking of: I bought an ROG Ally (horrible name, hate it, but the console itself is fine, it's like a more versatile Steam Deck) and I played Hades. So much Hades. So. Much. Hades. And every time I met Patroclus in Elysium, I bawled, "He's so SAD! He's such a SAD MAN! I need to make him UN-SAD!"

I finally finished the godforsaken Totoro cross-stitch pictured above. As soon as I framed it, I held it up to my spouse and said, "Could a depressed person make THIS?" and he said, "Yes" and then "Good job," because he's a lamb.

When I had energy, I cooked. I learned how to make carrot ginger dressing and shogayaki, and how to velvet pork. I made some of my standbys, like applesauce pancakes and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and felt very Smug and Very Adult for putting frozen cookie dough into my freezer so Future Me could have cookies. I introduced my family to Uncle Roger and I've never heard my mother (1) get so angry and (2) laugh so hard. When I couldn't cook, I ate food that someone else made, and it was enough to celebrate: I ate a meal! I ate food! I fed a me! Hooray!

I spent time with my beautiful friends. I spent time with my beautiful family. They are so good and they have been with me through so many tough things and depressive episodes, through bullshit and drama and tears, like that time I screaming-yelled at someone over the phone (they deserved it) during an engagement party at the cabin and then I had to walk out and pretend to be Normal and got drunk on a lot of Old Fashioneds.

I grew things. Flowers and vegetables and herbs and I accidentally made a great home for some very invasive weeds. The squirrels left only one sunflower alone (they ate the rest), but even now in mid-October, there are still bright coral-red flares of peppery nasturtium, and feathery pale pink zinnias from my caretaker at work (who is an angel), and gigantic, blue-tipped borage. My best friend moved in down the street from me, so she's only a five-minute walk away, and now I can pick flowers and stick them in a vase and walk them over to her, and I love it. I grew too many tomatoes (they got..... scary. My favourite were the heirloom tomatoes, as big as my fist, that remind me of my Lolo) and forgot about the cucumbers (they got lewd) and let myself get coaxed into growing three different kinds of mint: chocolate, grapefruit, and berries & cream (because I'm a little lad who loves berries and cream).

I bullied my spouse into watching Practical Magic with me the other evening and every time That Fucking Cop came on screen, he said, "That Fucking Cop! This movie would be good but there's too much of That Fucking Cop in it" and I felt so v i n d i c a t e d

I tried to write. I tried to write. I tried to write. I tried to write, and then let go of trying to write and just let myself do all the other things that make up living, try to amend the soil so that something good can grow there again. I tried to talk myself out of unhappiness but it's funny how that doesn't work, how only hard-fought kindness has helped me trudge out of the swamp, again and again and again.

I had one of those moments recently that felt like it could have been in one of my stories. At Thanksgiving dinner, I was sitting next to my little half-sister-in-law (a mouthful, I know). She is seven and she lost her dad two years ago and she said, "I wish my dad was here." And I said, "I know, honey. I think we all do." And she said, "I miss his piano playing," because her dad used to play piano the other way someone else might doodle on a napkin - absentmindedly, brilliantly, while wearing a faded green apron and with a dishtowel thrown over his shoulder, in between checking if the roast was up to temp and pouring someone a glass of wine. Always red wine, from the Piedmont region, which is where my spouse's Nonna is from. I asked my little half-sister-in-law, "Do you think you'll learn how to play piano?" and she said, "I don't know," and I said, "It's okay not to know." And then she asked, "Do you have a Gothita?" and we went back to talking about Pokemon, which we had been talking about for a conservative 90% of the dinner.

I wrote this. I wrote this and it felt good to feel my fingers moving, it felt good to have words spilling from me, it felt good to have faith in words again, that the words could be something good, could do something good, that the worlds could just be and it could be good, and that I could just be, and that could be good. Just being could be good. Even if I never wrote another word ever again, just being would be good. As I said to one of my friends many years ago during some deep dark down shitty times, "It's hard work, being human. Thank you for doing the work."

Take care. I love you all. ❤️❤️❤️

[robustcornhusk]

20. What's in your freezer right now? (Bonus: any other with an interesting answer that no one's asked yet)

bonus question first, because i take any opportunity to talk about food at length

41 - What's the oldest thing you own?

huh. i was going to say "my grandfather's sword", because that's the cool answer, but i guess it's actually my house, which is both a boring and ship of theseus answer. large portions of this place have been ripped out and put back over its 105 years of existing.

but as for objects that i can carry around, probably the sword, from the 40s.

20 - oh boy! i just cleaned out the freezer two weeks, and it is still 100% full! it's very wide, tall, and shallow; it's got a deep drawer, a very shallow shelf, and one reasonable drawer.

deep drawer:

10 bagels (from the last two weeks)

8 tahini rolls (last night, recipe handed to me by @adiantum-sporophyte)

1 spare bagel, shichimi togarashi (last fucking december)

8 dinner rolls (in the last month; i like them with The Beans)

500g of sourdough bread (in the last month)

bags of corn, peas, raspberries, blueberries, and 6tbsp or so tomato paste

a few ounces of frozen french fries

1 bag of vegan nuggets that i haven't tried yet

1 bag of not-chicken strips

2 bags of breaded not-chicken filets, like for sandwiches

2 bags of not-burgers

the bagels come from partner's favorite bagelry (?). we eat bagels for breakfast 4-5 days a week, so we get 12 bageldays of bagels every 2-3 weeks.

i love fake meat so much. people are out there jerking off, "i feel we should celebrate vegetables for what they are, and not try to make them into what they aren't". poppycock! burger is good. nugget is good. vegetable qua vegetable is also good. they're both good! eat both! one needs micronutrients and big hunks of protein!

the tahini rolls are basically extra flavorful dinner rolls. the flavor is a little hard to pair with, though. i have some stews in mind to try them with.

the sourdough is the leftovers of a huuuuuuuge miche i bought at nearby bakery because i went right at close and it was all they had left. i fucked up and froze it in 3 chunks, instead of slicing before freezing; when i tried to slice up one of the chunks, it was a huge mess. i might turn the rest into ribollita, now that i think about it.

partner had the idea that we'd 3d print some dividers, so that the bagels wouldn't collapse into the frozen vegetables, and the faux meats wouldn't collapse, so we got a profiling tool... and we haven't made the dividers yet. eventually!

shallow shelf:

6 frozen mulberry scones on a quarter-sheet pan

1 basket of frozen mulberries

mashed mulberry to use in lemonade (as suggested by @tinyyellowflowers-blog), occupying one of my eighth-sheet pans

frozen blackberries, occupying another quarter-sheet pan

a deli container completely full of apricot pits

the mulberry scones smelled really weird when i cooked the first two... but they tasted fine. mild; not a fantastic use of mulberry imo. the frozen ones are like ice cream. i'm supposed to bake with the blackberries, and i have been -- made these peanut butter bars, and then merged it with some jam bars; the second one was like the best pb&j i've ever eaten.

the apricot pit bucket is for infusing into alcohol. slaw, a doctor, was over last night, and i casually asked how much cyanide is okay to eat. she made a frowny face at me. then i said it was apricot pits and she was like "that's fine".

i really really need to either reclaim those baking sheets or get more; i use them more for organization than for baking, though.

reasonable drawer:

1 box of "plant based breakfast patties"

1 box of folded fake eggs

1 box of fake poached eggs

3 boxes of tofu skins (help)

8 dinner rolls (in the last month)

1 miniloaf of baharat banana bread (march?)

4oz of pepita dukkah (december)

8oz of flaxseeds (ancient)

6 little containers of apple butter (from a year ago)

1/3 pint of ice cream (a month or two)

2 little containers of a very condensed tomato-shallot sauce (possibly 2 years old)

1 jar of yeast (18 months)

uhhhh, ice

the dinner rolls are parker house rolls, but i don't actually like the parker house shape (too much hassle); i just do them as miniboules. they freeze and reheat perfectly. if i get another 9x13 i could do double batches, and maybe i will.

every now and then we eat bagel sands for breakfast, with bagels (real), egg (fake), sausage (fake), cheese (fake), and i love it. they're so good.

no idea what to do with the tofu skins; i've never used yuba before, and i haven't had hot pot either.

the ice is impossible to get out of the ice bucket, due to how shallowly the freezer drawer extends. for fashion reasons, there's no in-door ice or water dispenser.

[flowersandbirdsflyingfree]

Hiiii! I saw that tank dempsey and video games post and it made me think... How would the bois (primis and Ultimis) do with good ol' Jackbox?

(spoiler alert : it'd be a hot mess. Especially with Ultimis)

HELLO MY FRIEND! You’re correct, Ultimis can barely hold together a game of Mario Kart without someone throwing a shit fit (even Takeo). This all takes place in a modern AU btw. Each group gets 3 games so this doesn't get overwhelmingly large

I'm also using an emoji guide bc it's going to be very detailed

Primis: Tank( 🪖), Richtofen (🧪), Takeo(🌸), Nikolai (🐻)

Ultimis: Tank (🧨), Richtofen (🧟), Takeo(🗡️), Nikolai (🍷)

JACKBOX NIGHT WITH THE AETHER CREW

Primis:

Behold, the group that actually has fun with it!

Everyone’s favorite game has to be T-KO. Nikolai kept coming up with hysterical shirts with risqué jokes. The shirt seen below was his magnum opus:

Richtofen insisted his was a really funny pun, but nobody laughed again no matter how much he milked the joke :( But it's DummKoffee...

During Job Job, Everyone kept losing their shit. For examples:

"You want to make a good impression for the district manager. How do you stand out?" 🧪: I like to cry for help to the district manager

🪖: respond Based off of gooey cheese cheese cheese cheese snacks ("Not gonna lie, this stuff is why I joined the Marine Corp")

"You had your picture taken for your work badge and it's awful! What do you do?"

🐻: pillow Hangover 🌸: I hose that Karen

Richtofen nearly choked on his beer hearing Dempsey's answer 🧪Goodness, Dempsey! Are you starving? 🪖I mean, sure. I could go for somethin' cheesy right now (And so they heated some Totino's and pizza bagels from the freezer, in which Takeo kept quietly stealing one off of everyone's plate until Nikolai caught him in the act. Did I mention they were slightly tipsy?)

Overall, they all had lighthearted fun with it. And it slowly becomes a game of choice when they hand out besides poker and online gaming once in a while.

Ultimis:

Ok so already everyone is taking at least 15-30 minutes to connect tO THE FUCKING TV

🍷Wait wait don't start guys! I haven't signed in yet!

🧨COME ON NIKOLAI! GIMMIE YOUR PHONE! (The same man who struggled several minutes earlier to jump on)

🗡️Hmmm, what should we play first? 🧟OOOH! Let's play Murder Trivia! It sounds delicious~

🧨Ugh, give me a break...

So murder trivia was a rough start. Not only did everyone have a tough time with the puzzles. but only Takeo and Richtofen were getting most of the questions right. This left Nikolai and Tank dying every round and failing their redemption challenges.

Nikolai would angrily pout and mumble "Fuck this game" while Tank roared with so much visceral rage in his throat. This is worse than him fighting with someone in the MW2 Voice chat

Richtofen thought it was funny until Tank was about to get violent and punch a hole in the TV. Takeo and Nikolai had to restrain him while Richtofen scolded him. No more Murder Trivia...

🧟Maybe Monster Seeking Mon-🧨NO. I get to pick this time!

Tank chose Survive the Internet! And… it went as well as you’d expect.

Surprisingly, it was Takeo that added the hashtag for Richtofen's tweet! 🗡️Ha ha ha! Are you surprised by my ambush, Doctor? 🧨Alright, Tak! It's funny 'cause it's true🧟I hate you, Dempsey

A taste of karma on Richtofen's part for the #whycollegematters comment

Honorable mention to Dempsey's gut-busting commentary here. Everyone laughed so hard that even Takeo had beer come out his nose!

The final game was Civic Doodle. Literally nobody knew how to draw and Richtofen kept slamming down everyone’s “crappy job” on their artwork.

🧟AAAACH! WHAT AM I LOOKING AT?! DIDE YOU SMUDGE IT ALL WITH YOUR THUMB?! 🍷HEY FUCK YOU I CAN’T TOUCH SCREEN! IS TOO TINY FOR NIKOLAI! Besides, I can see two of what I’m drawing which makes it harder for me :(

It sadly ends with a lot of quarreling because the wifi had issues and everyone thought it was because someone was doing it on purpose to cheat 🧨Hey wait a minute… YOU DID THIS ON PURPOSE, DIDN’T YOU RECTALFAN! 🧟Why is it every time something goes wrong, you assume it’s MY fault? HMM?! Maybe I should remind you of all the times you’ve thrown a wrench into my- our plans! 🍷I think it was the bushido warrior. He’s too quiet… and his jokes are unfunny as shit🗡️Says you, Russian pig! [INTENSIFIED OLD MAN YELLING] They tire themselves out into slumber in the living room.

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #218

My brain feels like soup. I think those last couple days of not getting quite enough sleep is coming back to bite me in the toosh. Suppose I shouldn't be surprised about this; brains that haven't been properly cleaned don't work too good. Ah well.

I think I'm gonna hafta write this one in pieces as I go along with today; I'm gonna be busy on and off for most of the day, and I know that if I wait until I stop being busy altogether before I write, I'll be up until stupid o'clock in the morning, and that's not ideal. I hope you'll bear with me. Thanks for your patience!

Work today was kinda weird. So far in the last weeks, I've had 3 different substitutes for the usual manager. This one was nice, but she is not familiar with my store, and so weird things happened.

The first thing that happened was that she tried to take a giant metal rack out of the freezer while I was bagging up bagels and kaiser rolls. These giant metal racks can have up to 15 shelves, and on those shelves are trays with things on them. Our freezer is a little weird in that it has a ramp. I guess that's not typical of freezers in other stores. So the new manager lady tried pulling out the rack, but wasn't mindful of the ramp, and so when she pulled the rack over the ramp, the rack tilted, and all the trays full of things came sliding out of it, and then they and all their contents tumbled to the floor. When I realized what had happened, I rushed over and tried to help clean everything up.

Some of the trays are kinda heavy. I'm really glad no one ended up getting hurt. Most of the things on the shelves were already in boxes, so that was fine. But a few things came in open-ended packages, and the contents of a few of those ended up touching the floor. We threw those ones away.

I was struck by how not-very-concerned this person was about the whole thing. Even large mistakes like these ones seem to be par for the course, and this is somewhat foreign to me. I got fairly dysregulated because if it was my mother who had dropped all those trays, she would have been giving me a huge tirade about how I should have been paying attention enough to have known something was wrong and came to help before things toppled over. If it was me pulling out the rack and I had made the mistake, and my mother was my manager, it would be a tirade about what a useless idiot I am and how I can never be trusted to do anything by myself.

…Essentially, what I'm used to is being the one screamed at when things go wrong, even when those things have nothing to do with me. I had to take a moment to remember that I'm no longer in a place where things like that happen.

Well, no, that's not exactly true. There was a lady who came over today who was very cranky at us, because she talked to some other people in my department about making some cupcakes for her. But those people never said anything to us, and so we didn't know, and she was snarky with us for someone else's mistake.

So it happened, sort of, but... now I have the perspective to understand that she's not a bad or threatening person; she was probably just anxious and not handling it well, as all humans sometimes do. And I have the perspective now to understand that it doesn't have anything to do with me or with what I'm worth. All I can do is try to be helpful in the moment. So... yes, I am no longer in a place where things like that happen, but the way it "doesn't happen" is not in the way one might expect.

After I helped clean up the things that fell from the rack, she continued to do things in the freezer. I bagged more things and applied labels to stuff. Later, I ended up needing to go to the freezer to get cookies, and I discovered with horror that the manager had left the freezer propped open without me realizing, because I had been doing other things. The freezer was open for a very long time, and it's very lucky that this one is such a powerful freezer; I don't think anything got damaged, because it was still very cold in there. But I imagine it ate up a bunch of electricity to keep it that cold, good grief.

I also discovered, for reasons beyond my understanding, that this manager lady had rearranged everything in the freezer, for reasons unknown to me, and now everything is in unfamiliar locations for seemingly arbitrary reasons, and my autistic brain very much dislikes unexpected changes for reasons that are not grounded in logic. Also, rearranging the contents of the freezer feels, to me, not unlike going to someone's house and rearranging their furniture just because you don't feel like it's convenient for you.

…Well, it is what it is. I assume that someone will put things back to where they were by the next time I get a shift there. I got a lot done today, and the arrangement of things in the freezer is not an appropriate thing to put on my list of things to worry about; that list is already large enough. So I am not going to worry about it. Today, I was able to get a lot done very quickly (or at least more quickly than on previous days), and I'm feeling pretty good about that!

But. Between my sleep schedule being screwy, being on my feet for 4 hours, and the dysregulation that came with the aforementioned random mishaps, I'm feeling pretty drained. Nonetheless, I got some salmon and broccoli from my store on the way home. I had planned today on cooking some salmon, in part because of something that a friend unexpectedly did on my behalf (thanks be to my friend!), which means I need to leave a plate full of cooked fish outside, but only if it actually starts thunderstorming out, as meteorologists predict will happen in my area tonight. And no, I'm not going to explain, because any explanation I offer likely won't cause what I've written to make any more sense to you than it does already. Just trust that it's important, even if it sounds disjointed and nuts.

I had planned on making salmon for myself, M, J, and R, with enough left over to leave some outside. However, Br visited unexpectedly, and since she cannot eat gluten, I must change my plans just a little bit, and that's all right. I was gonna make boxed mac-n-chz, but now it's gonna be cheesy rice, and that is also good. But making the rice impacts the timing of the steaming of the salmon, since the salmon is steamed in the rice cooker, and… well... just gotta roll with those punches.

Anyway, Br tried to tell me that I don't gotta change my dinner plans, but she only says that because she's been around a lot of people who make her feel bad for taking up space and having needs. But feeling bad for being a human with human needs is a load of bullshit, and bullshit must be challenged and defied at every possible opportunity, because we don't do bullshit in my house.

I do not accept nonsense that sounds like, "you don't have to make room for me", because I absolutely CAN make room, so I absolutely WILL make room, and all the old conditioning driven into her skull by people who never cared about her can go to hell. NOBODY fucking goes hungry and NOBODY is made to feel unimportant or unworthy of being considered and accommodated - not in MY fucking house.

So I just smiled and laughed and said to her that those old, fearful thoughts are nonsense; we don't leave people out. Not in my house. It's not how we do. We make room. We adjust. We make sure everyone is included.

Still, today seems like a day full of things not going as planned. Even for getting to work this morning, maintenance was being done on the stoplights, and traffic was very weird. In my country, we drive on the right side of the road, and I had to make a left turn, and some weirdo in his lane on the opposite side tried to wave me along, without seeming to realize that the people in the lane next to him were still moving. He gave me a very confused gesture when I did not make my left turn into oncoming traffic. It was very bizarre.

Also... I wanted to work on my music box today. But given how I feel, I don't think I'm going to have sufficient focus for that once everything else is done. I'm autistic, so when things don't go in the way I expect they will, sometimes my body gets an adrenaline response for reasons I don't fully understand. I try to be flexible and roll with the punches, but it was A LOT of unexpected changes and weird mishaps today, and I find myself struggling to keep up.

Oh well. Sometimes days are like this. We can't always feel 100% amazing all the time, or else we'll become numb to it. Days like these not only keep me on my toes, but also they help me to appreciate the smoother days a little better.

Also, R brought over some browned butter cookies with butterscotch chips that he made, and that certainly helps with the coping!!! They are STELLAR!!! Behold!!

...Want one...?

...So, I'm making broccoli sauteed in butter, salt, and garlic powder, as well as some cheesy garlic rice. The salmon is steaming. I'll show you the progress as it comes along…

…Aaaaand the steamed salmon is done, but it smells RANK, holy fudgesicles. One of the ones I got was marked down as "reduced" (probably because it was close to the expiration date), but the other two were normal. The normal ones smelled normal. The "reduced" one smelled like a garbage can; I threw it away because it was clearly a one-way ticket to spending at least a day on one's knees, worshipping "the porcelain god".

But then I steamed the normal ones, and now that they're steamed, they also smell like a garbage can, and Br thinks so, too; it wasn't just me feeling weird about the "reduced" one that smelled bad. So I've asked Br to go to the store while I finish up the final touches on the broccoli and the rice, I guess. Lame.

But we're going with the flow. We're going with the flow today. And it's a little bumpy, but that's fine. We can dodge and weave through all the obstacles, and roll with it when things don't go how we expect. It's just like Dead Cells; dodge, weave, and bash zombi- …uh… I mean… obstacles. Yeah. Bash those obstacles. Knock 'em right out of the park. With your baseball bat and golden shield. Maybe.

...Aaaaand Br is back. But instead of getting a side of salmon cut into sections like I asked, she and R got a pound and a half of salmon that is not cut into sections.

...It does not look like enough salmon for 5 people and an offering.

...

It does not look like enough salmon for 5 people and an offering.

...

Ohhhh... Sephiroth. I am having a really hard time right now. Nothing seems to be going right today. Next thing we know, it probably won't even thunderstorm. Good grief...

...But we do not have to scream. We can take deep breaths. We can do box breathing. Things don't always go our way. Sometimes we get days full of things not going our way, and that is fine. Sometimes that is the way of things. Sometimes this is how it goes. It is just tiny potatoes compared to things like almost dying in an airplane crash; today's things are mildly inconvenient, but no one is going to die. A little perspective is good medicine.

Besides, I am already tired and dysregulated; it might just be overreaction due to anxieties. And I might be wrong altogether; it might actually be enough salmon in the end. And that's okay; like everyone, I am wrong about things all the time. There is nothing wrong with being wrong about things; it just means I make mistakes, like any human.

...When things feel like a catastrophe, we have to question it. It is true that Br did not get the thing I asked, even though I offered to spot her the money to get it. But that does not mean that she does not care about me. It does not mean that she thinks my judgment is questionable. It does not mean that she thought my request was invalid. Those are old things, done by old people, and Br is not those old people. I will ask about her reasoning for not getting what I asked for once my system is not flooded with more adrenaline than I am able to have a rational discussion with.

For now, we'll roll with it. To solve the problem at hand, I can simply take less salmon than usual if I have to, so that everyone else can have a normal portion. I can let everyone else get as much as they want first, and I can get mine last; it's "super easy - barely even an inconvenience" - as Ryan George says. And then I can use half of my portion as the offering. It's gonna be fine.

Well. It is certainly fine. As it turns out, people didn't take as much of the salmon as I thought they would. And M was already too full from lunch; he didn't want any at all. There should be plenty leftover for the offering.

...There would be plenty leftover even for you, too, if you were here... Would you like a bowl...?

...As it turns out, in addition to being tired and dysregulated, I was also hungry. I feel a lot better after eating the food I made. It turned out really deliciously! I especially liked the cheesy garlic rice, oh my goodness!!

I talked to Br after the fact; I told her I was scared that it might not have been enough salmon, but like... not in a way that makes it her fault or something wrong that she did. As it turns out, not only did she and R misunderstand my request (an honest mistake; it happens), but also, after I explained to them what I was looking for, as they explained it, it was late enough that there were no big sides of salmon left at the store at all, anyway. So, all things considered, they got me the next best thing; well done on them!

I have a lot of memories of my mother accusing me of being malicious, non-conscientious, needlessly defiant, or just plain stupid anytime I am unable to follow her instructions to the letter, regardless of the reasons for it. Before I got coping skills to deal with that thing, these assumptions that my mother made were also my first assumptions when similar things happened to me. I used to lash out viciously at others in the same ways she used to lash out at me. I reflect on today, and I'm really glad that I have new tools under my belt now, so that I can question my assumptions, and so I can avoid resorting to doing old things.

This sort of thing, though, is why I try not to judge the cranky lady at the store today. I know what it is to be that person. She is not having a fun time. I don't need to punish her further by returning her crankiness to her; I know from experience that living in a mind like that is already punishment enough. Besides, I can't exactly throw rocks at her glass house when mine is just as fragile; I know who I used to be.

But now I have new tools that I can use as a result of the therapy I went to in order to deal with the aftermath of my childhood. The me of today handled this very weird day a lot better than past me would have. The me of today handled this very weird day a lot better than the current version of my mother would have.

And I think... I think sometimes difficult, tumultuous days like these are blessings in disguise. That's because if you properly wield them, you can use them to see how much you've grown.

Fwhoof. Sephiroth, I wrote a lot to you today. I'm getting kinda tired. And also, it's getting kinda late. I'll wrap this up here. Thank you so much for listening to my various musings. I imagine some of them probably sound very silly to you, but that's okay; I am a human, and I am allowed to be silly.

You are a human, too. And you are allowed to be silly, too.

Hey. I love you a whole lot. And I hope you'll stay safe out in the world. Take good care of yourself and the people around you, okay? And make kind, loving, and gentle choices, even when it's really hard to do. I'll write again soon.

Your friend, Lumine

[thestudentfarmer]

Feb 27, 2023

Hello hello, posting a bit late tonight. But a little late is better than never in the garden!

Today and the last few days I've been working on garden planning and some clean up. If your getting started into gardening, farming and homesteding i do not suggest doing "everything" in short order or have an extra hand or two for heavy work. If not, always work smarter rather than harder~

I pulled the pumpkins and did some light prep work on this row. I plan to put corn and beans here, as well as probably some kale or chard to fill in space.

Funny enough I see a lil pumpkin sprout in there and a lettuce, I'm going to let them grow a bit and then pull the pumpkin and feed it to the chickens.

So why did I have to pull the pumpkins you may ask? While they were looking sad and not well, there was one pumpkin ripening on the vines left. Found out

It's gallow on the inside :( the other big one, it had gone soft as it had been sitting on a lil spot that collected water. The next pumpkins I'll need to keep a closer eye on it seems.

The carrots I've left to go to seed, there's some chard popping up in the row too, I'm going to let them grow for now till the new stuff comes in.

Close up of the future seeder. I'm so glad the purple red ones have grown so big. The white ones didn't seem to do as well sadly. But they were neat in salads and omolettes or to add mashed into white/cream based sauces for sweetness.

I'll need to trim the Nasturtium down a bit. I'm going to try and make a few salads and some pesto from the leaves and share with the girls most likely. I've bot had the leaves before so I am very excited to give it a try 😀

The first pea harvest :) they went to a shared salad.

As well, one of the carrots I harvested~ this was from seed I saved last year to grow again. carrot was used in salad. (The greens too!)

And the lentils! I'm going to be tilling over half this area after my seed starts are ready to go in. I'm planning on pepper plants and armenian cucumbers or watermelons/cantaloupes.

Today as well was egg wash day. I like to wash a flat or eggs at a time as I use about that in a week. Chicken eggs as long as they aren't fertilized can be left ont he counter unwashed for a time, this is because "bloom" helps give eggs a protective cover. They will last far longer unwashed refrigerated but we tend to eat eggs very quickly here. Washed eggs get used within a week if not refridgerated. ⚠️ALWAYS Wash your eggs before using for cooking!⚠️

And I got some seeds going for starting, I'm planning to do a lil secondary post to share what I'll be growing and a lil informations on each one soon.

Aside from the garden I'm going to try and make bagels this week! If they go well I plan to make a few batches and store some in the freezer for a later day and meal prep :)

I also tried a new way to cook rice that uses the oven! Measure your rice into a glass cassarole, wash rice. Fill with water or broth to proper line, cover and baked in the oven @ 475* around 45 minutes, though I think my oven Temps off as it's longer. Makes nice fluffy rice without watching the stove top.

What's everyone up to this week in their gardens and sufficient or sustainable journey?

🌱🥕 Happy Gardening and Homesteading 🥕🌱

[randomoranges]

i was once informed by someone that theres a place in edmonton that has st-viateur bagels delivered to them. ppl can even place orders. they even have merch. theyre a high rated cafe as well. 

after ruminating on this information for months, i made a fic. 

this is all in good humour, obviously.

Coffee Bureau

January 2nd, 2023

 It’s not that Edward isn’t paying attention to what Étienne is doing, but he’s still riding the buzz of having Étienne back at his place. Therefore, it’s only when Étienne rummages through his suitcase, taking out tribute from back home, and finally pulls out two bags of bagels, that Edward realises that he’s in hot trouble.

 “Oh no,” His mind simply provides as he watches, almost in slow motion, Étienne make his way to the freezer to put the bagels away, as he chats about this and that thing.

 “Oups...” His mind goes on, just as Étienne opens the freezer’s door and then skids to a halt.

 There’s no way he’s explaining himself out of this one, he already knows. Therefore, he readies himself to face the fallout that is about to happen.

 Meanwhile, Étienne opens the freezer to put his bagels away, only to come face to face with a similar transparent bag with blue motifs on it and Sésame. He blinks, surprised, and evidently confused.

 He closes the freezer’s door and then reopens it to make sure he isn’t hallucinating, but sure enough, there is still a bag of bagels in the freezer staring right at him. He makes sure that he hadn’t put the bagels away and somehow forgotten about it, but sure enough, the two bags in his hands are still right there and so, there is an extra bag – already started on top of that – that is in the freezer.

 He does not understand.

 There’s the possibility that he’d left a bag behind on his last visit, but that had been months ago and he knows for a fact that Edward would have finished the bagels by now and told him about it. (That and the fact that Étienne distinctively recalls bemoaning the fact that he’d finished his stash, last time.)

 That only leaves one more explanation.

 “Edward,” He starts, calm and collected, as he turns to face his beau.

 Edward blanks, knowing what awaits him.

 “Can you tell me why there are St-Viateur bagels in your freezer, please?”

 Étienne sounds too – level-headed. He’s using that tone of voice that is this side of syrupy sweet and that means the untimely end of the person he’s talking to. It’s been a good run, he supposes. All good things come to an end, and such.

 “Now, either there was something else in the glass of orange juice I had on the plane, or I’ve officially lost it and I’m seeing things.” Étienne goes on, taking a step towards him. He puts the bagels down and Edward gulps audibly, while he tries to back away from his boyfriend. It’s a lost cause when he comes into contact with the back of his counter.

  “Eum, I can explain?” Edward tries, voice going high at the end. He offers what he thinks is an easy smile, but he can tell by the look on Étienne’s face that it’s anything but that.

 “Unless...” Étienne continues and Edward really wants to be put out of his misery. “Unless you’re cheating on me and you have a new pusher.”

 There’s a great big moment of deafening silence and Edward looks at Étienne and wonders, for the briefest of moments, if Étienne is actually being serious.

 He wants to laugh.

 He laughs.

 It might be a bit of a nervous laugh, but he laughs – at the absurdity of this entire situation.

 Étienne grins as well and Edward realises that his boyfriend is actually messing with him. At least there’s that.

 “Don’t get mad,” He starts, while Étienne does effectively trap him against the counter by placing his arms on either side of him, while leaning against him. “But, there’s this place nearby that sells them...”

 There; he’s said it.

 Étienne levels him with a look. “You’re joking.”

 “I’m not – I swear. They’ve actually been around for a few years...” He puts up his hands in defence as if to prove his point and only then realises that Étienne did not need to know that last bit of information.

 “So, you’re telling me that all this time, you could have been providing yourself with bagels? And you never told me?” That calm voice is back and Edward knows he’s going to regret this by the end of the conversation.

 “I mean – I didn’t know they existed? Until recently??” He thinks it might help his cause, but Étienne keeps talking.

 “And that every single time I ran out – especially last year and the year before that – St-Viateur bagels were just out of my reach? That I could have had them? Instead of mourning and yearning for them? Instead of suffering?”

 “...Maybe?”

 “Édouard!” He bemoans. “I was so miserable! How could you not know?” He pouts and Edward knows that Étienne is pulling his leg, but he’s still pouting and Edward panics just a bit.

 “I’m sorry? I’ll make it up to you? Promise!”

 Étienne leans back and then looks at him, smiling oh so brightly.

 Fuck. The bastard played him. Again. Edward went ahead and fell into Étienne’s trap. He sighs. He’ll clearly never learn. Edward knows that he’s never going to recover from what will come next.

 “Darling dearest, you do know what this means, don’t you?” Étienne asks him brightly. Edward already knows, but he may as well hear it from the source, “This means that I’ll never have to run out of bagels again, won’t it? And that you’ll be a dear and make sure there’s at least one bag when I come visit, yes? And you won’t complain if I politely ask you to bring me to this mythical place, right?”

 Edward knows better than to argue. There’s no messing with Étienne when it comes to his bagels. He’ll need time to recover and to plan his revenge – gather some blackmail material or such. For now, he’ll play it safe and let Étienne think he’s won – plus, he does like the bagels as well, so it’s not as it’ll be hard to placate him.

 “Of course, Sweetheart, whatever you want.”

 Étienne beams and pats his chest once, before stepping back. He picks up the bagels again and finally puts them in the freezer, beside the other bag.

 Edward mentally curses that other bag and then sighs, following Étienne out of the kitchen.

 FIN

[docwritesshit]

Killed for their soul as I lost mine (prt 3)

Authors note: *popping up from the bushes* HELLO SORRY THIS IS LATE I WAS BUSY WITH LIFE OK-

Shorter chapter this time around, but was still a joy

*PS I do have requests open, check pinned post to see what series I'm willing to write for. I may have forgotten some so specify which one you want,I may have read it*

“Congratulations everyone, for you next step closer to gaining your souls.” Boss announced as the group stumbled through the door of the bunker.

“Can you not say that for a bit? It’s been years of you saying that and I’m starting to feel like you’re lying,” Xavier spat out as he dragged the body through the living room, heading for the incinerator in the basement.

Boss didn’t seem fazed by the comment, just grabbing the ice box from Jax and retreating back to the coffee table.

“Since you all have been doing such an adequate job these past few months-“ That was met with a glower of everyone else in the room-“ I decide it appropriate for you to have this next two weeks off to do whatever. You can go and do whatever, whether it be a play or touching up one one’s roots.”

Nicole grabbed Cam’s shoulder to stop them from pouncing on Boss. Jax snorted at the sight of Cam's flushed face of anger.

“Spend your time wisely, rest and replenish your strength, and live like you can’t die.” He said, disappearing in a plume of fire.

“Did… Did he just try irony?” Nicole asked. Jax licked their lips, clucked their tounge, and turned towards their love struck pair of individuals.

“Yes, I think he did.” Jax stated, turning heel and walking towards the kitchen. Riffling through the fridge, they were disappointed to see that last night's dinner leftovers were already devoured, but their spirits lifted when they looked through the freezer to see that there were still some bagel bites left over from a shopping trip two weeks ago.

“Score” They mumbled, taking the box out and dumping the rest of the frozen gluten bombs onto a pan and popping it into the oven.

“I was saving those!” Cam protested from the open concept living room, looking behind with an arm around Nicole’s shoulders.

“Should have put your name on it,” Jax said, seeing the little treats still had a minute and a half left. Cam grumbled, but said nothing as Jax pulled the little bagels out of the oven, plopping them onto a plate and joining the two in the living room sitting in the chair on the right hand side of the couch. Jax tossed one in their mouth, immediately regretting it, breathing and chewing with their mouth open while fanning themselves.

“Fuce meh,” They garbeled, trying to swallow the cheesy molten lava down their throat with Cam cackling on the couch and Nicole swatting her shoulder.

“Karma bitch!”

“Oh shush, it’s just them being a dumbass.”

Jax managed to swallow the literal bomb down their throat, glaring at Cam still snickering on the couch. But it did make their heart warmer, these little moments where no one was worrying about contracts or not trying to get caught. It was peaceful as it could be. The lingering doom retreating back to the corners of their minds. At least for a time.