#they said they wish they were born a couple of hours earlier.........................

[thepinkdreamganjaqueen]

Subway Obsessions Arthur's POV ch.1

Arthur Fleck POV x Fem!Reader  

Masterlist 🩷

Summary: From Arthurs POV. It's just another night on the subway. A typical ride on the Gotham train on his way home from a long day of running errands and away from his tedious depressive thoughts. Perhaps he would catch a glimpse of the woman he could only seem to catch in passing, the woman he’d been secretly watching, following, fantasizing about nightly. Perhaps the unending misery that is the city above had him thinking of change, of something new to obsess about. Something to draw his mind away from the blistering and the mundane. Would he finally get the courage to talk to her? 

Warnings: SMUT, NSFW, 18+, MINORS DO NOT INTERACT, public exhibitionism, subway cruising, swearing, stalking, obsession, mentions of violence, fem!reader, romantic smut, fluff

A/N: Beginning to a series? Who knows. May add things later. First fic, btw! I'm hyper fixated now, so expect more. This is something I've been mulling around with for a while. I've done this story from both the readers' POV and from Arthur's because I can't get enough!! So, make sure to read both! I loved writing from this perspective so much, btw! Literally! Send ideas, edits, etc. my way!! And be nice please. The first chapter is mostly fluff/ descriptive plot/character building. Cheers! Enjoyyy!

Word Count: 3.9k

SERIES: Subway Obsessions 

CHAPTER 1: Chance Meeting 

Today was another mundane day. Arthur had been out earlier in the evening running errands for his mother. Picking up T.V. dinners at the grocer and medications for him and her at the local pharmacy. Still, getting around the city was a chore in of itself. He figured the subway would be the easiest and quickest way home. It was nearing 10 o'clock pm. His mother would be worried, and it was getting late. He knew the dangers of roaming Gotham city at these hours. His mother used to say, "That's when the colorful people come out." A way to make something serious, completely unserious. Still, he knew the dangers and tried as hard as he might to keep his wits about him. Easier said than done when you're a man with a neurological disorder, apparently so many people hate you for. He wished they’d understood or tried at least.  

He always pondered why the people of Gotham were so... well so mean! Everyone he encountered save for the very, very few were just assholes to him. Perhaps it was the political climate? With Thomas Wayne running for government placement, it probably didn't help. Make the rich richer and the poor poorer he thought. Perhaps it was the state of the city itself, the infrastructure, the lack of resources. He sure has been on the wrong end of that stick one too many times. "Good people suffer Happy," his mother would say. But he never understood why it had to be that way. Life was circumstantial. He didn't ask to have what little he did. He didn't even ask to be born and thought life was the real joke.

It doesn't have to make sense to be funny! He jested internally. Because its fucked! And there lies the comedy for those broken enough to see, yet perhaps healed enough to laugh at the pain. Because, what else can you do?  

His mind wandered through these endless fields of thought when a train car stopped in front of him. He had been standing on the platform disassociating for some time. Perhaps he even forgot where he was for a moment, ruminating over the wrongs of life and playing them out differently in his head. The things he didn't say or do, what he could have done differently... 

The brisk hiss and click of the air brakes as they screeched to a halt brought him back to reality. He blinked a couple of times, waiting for the doors to open. As he did, a disheveled looking figure pushed past him while exiting. He burst out in a cry of compulsory laughter and stepped on the train. He was in the last car and immediately noticed it was bearable, as bearable as riding the subway can be he postulated. 

In his search for a seat towards the end of the train car, he noticed a large putrid looking spill in the back. It melted off the seats and slid across the aisle. It looked sticky. Best to avoid that then, he thought. He opted for a bench seat away from the offending area and sat down, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back, arm outstretched on the head of the seat next to him. No one was in this car except for him. He found a moment of solace and drank it in, filling himself with the noiseless satisfaction of silence and peace when a warbled voice broke over the loud speaker. He couldn't really understand it, but the semblance of words spoke what sounded like “platform 19”. It was all he could understand through the robot whine. He felt anticipation rising within him. 

At approximately 10:15 p.m., the doors of the subway train broke open with a gush of cold night air. At the other end of the subway, he watched as a woman stepped onto the train like a fawn. Scared and unsure of where to go or sit. She was bright and colorful; she immediately caught his eye. Was this what his mother meant by colorful people? He thought to himself. He quickly realized it was her! The girl he had fantasized about daily and nightly, hoping to catch her on the train but only seeming to in his thoughts and dreams, remembering her face, her scent that penetrated her surroundings. He had tirelessly followed her the first time he saw her. She was the only person to smile at him that day. He had to know more and had to know why. But she wasn't always on the same train. He always hoped to run into her and had almost given up, thinking she must have been some sort of hallucination he created for himself to lessen his own pain. But there she was.  

She looked different tonight. She looked like a predator, displaying colors brightly in the face of possible danger. She was a force; he felt the atmosphere change as soon as she stepped in through the steel doors, a thickness lifted in the air and he could feel himself tense in his seat. His clothes were suddenly uncomfortable, his collar too tight, his hands, sweaty. She always looked beautiful when he saw her, she always looked content and comfortable. Hair in a messy bun with strands falling about her face swayed by the wind that surged through the train car. Sweats he could still make out her figure through, leaving him wanting more every time, it drove him crazy! But today she looked like she was straight out of the films on the TV! He thought to himself. She made him think of glamour, it's the only word that truly fit, like the old films he would watch with his mom. Wow! Was she a sight to see, a cool pristine liquid flowing over his burning eyes. A soothing image of pure proclivity. An unknown sense of calm swept over him. 

He watched, frozen, as she cautiously observed the train car searching for a seat. He looked at her from top to bottom. She was significantly smaller than him, petite, probably around five feet three he gauged. Fuzzy black boots, blue jeans tightly hugging her figure, full thick thighs, his mouth began to water - he thirsted for her, wanted to drink in her every essence. He felt a lump in his throat as he tried to choke it down. A tight black shirt under a small cropped pink sweater with red hearts all over. It perfectly displayed her large soft breasts. Brown curls bounced about her shoulders as she walked, strands of them fell daintily on her face and cheeks. As she walked, she would flick it away with a quick movement of her head. The way she did that, moving her hair out of her face without using her hands. It made him tingle in all the right places. His mind raced. What else can she do without using her hands? he thought.  

There was something pink in her hair too, he saw as she walked past. She didn't notice him at first. Most people don't he thought to himself. Although this thought disappointed him, he didn't fault her for it. He had the urge to make her notice him. To be a presence and to be objectified by her, he only wished he could hold that kind of power.  

As she passed, the scent he had come to know as her- wafted past him, he sucked in through his teeth sharply. It was heaven on earth. Stimulating. He would follow that scent hoping to find her, mercilessly searching. It was like a drug, an aphrodisiac, and he felt his cock spasm. She was eyeing the seats towards the back where that odd spill was. A butterfly he thought. It's a pink butterfly in her hair. He immediately felt like a school boy again, fawning over and wanting to get the attention of the pretty girl and for her to return it.  

"This one's fine!" He blurted out, not really knowing what he was saying. She turned around, her beauty, dark, striking, and he found it hard to speak again. He stammered and was able to get the lump out of his throat to follow up with; "I don't know what that is back there but these are not so bad" his voice felt cracked but he tried to contain his composure, he didn't want to scare her off. He was the only other person on the train, and it must have jolted her since she didn't see him at first. Plus, she probably thinks I'm some kind of creep or weirdo, he thought to himself. There was some truth behind those thoughts, but that didn't make him a bad person, he thought. All day, he spends trying to have a nice day to make himself and others happy, trying to think good thoughts, trying not to let the bad influence the good he can salvage. 

"Oh, thank you!" A sweet voice broke the monotony of thought, and immediately he was flung back into the present. She made her way to the seats laid out in front of him. A row of sideways seating. He watched her sit gracefully, slowly, like a calculated ballet dancer, he thought. Every move fluid, every move perfect. When she sat, she arranged her things on the seat next to her and settled in. He wondered to himself where she was going. Why she had so many bags, why she was riding the subway so late, as a woman, she should be terrified. This city is not safe, especially for someone as strikingly beautiful as her. She was like a beacon of light, too bright to stare at, but he was drawn to her like a moth to a flame and simply couldn't resist the allure. 

She actually sat next to me! He thought. Only one seat away, actually next to me. But that wasn't all. She saw him, noticed him, heard him, and listened to him. The weight of these simple gestures made his hands sweaty, and he tried his best to remain aloof. The doors of the train opened on the other side of her, and a breeze blew her hair behind her and over her face. He couldn't help but see her, every aspect of her. He studied her every move, every inch of her body. He wanted this to last, for this image to never leave his mind.  

The wind that blew past her carried on it her scent. He was suddenly overwhelmed by the sweet alluring scent of peach? No. Some kind of berry? No. When the doors shut and the pressure created another breeze, the scent wafted to him again. Taking it all in, he identified the smell as watermelon. Some kind of fruity smell filled his senses with the feeling of euphoria. It was intoxicating. He wondered what it would be like to be pressed up against her, inhaling her deeply. He looked down with a deep sigh when he looked back over. She was moving a strand of hair out of her face and caught a glimpse of her looking at him as well. Her cheeks flushed instantly, and she broke her gaze. She was fire, burning too hot near him, and he wanted so badly to play, to burn himself, engulf himself in her flames breathlessly.  

He tried to come up with something to say, anything. How do I talk to her? What would I even say without sounding stupid? He thought. He watched on as the florescent lights above her flickered. It lit up parts of her he hadn't seen upon first observation. Glitter decorated her collar bones and cheeks. Her sweater was slightly unzipped. He could see the peeking out of her cleavage. Sparkling with glitter, so pretty, she reminded him of the stars of the night sky. Unmistakably beautiful, yet so. Far. Away. He had been working up the courage to say something to her, to hear her voice again, he didn't want to forget it. A symphony replayed in his mind. He needed more.  

He stumbled over his words, "Sorry, I-it's hard for me to talk, I meant to introduce myself. I'm Arthur, " he said in the kindest, most unassuming voice he could muster. She looked up and locked eyes. They burned his insides like hot coals. He anticipated her reply, not knowing if she would even engage in conversation with him. "No worries!" She spoke in a reassuring way that made his heart flutter. "I know how it can be, trust me!" She sounded genuine. Kind. There was something underneath her voice, though he couldn't quite conceptualize. Fear? Doubt, maybe? He wanted to take it away.  

"I'm Y/N. Nice to meet you, Arthur!" Again, her voice beaming so light and so lifting. She reached out to shake his hand that he had offered. Her hand was small and was practically swallowed by his. Her fingers were warm, sweeping softly over his palm as she grasped his hand in hers. It's a simple thing, he thought. It was a small touch, but it was enough to make him crumble inside. She felt so nice! "Y/N," he said. "I like that." He lamented. Such a beautiful name. But everything about her was beautiful. Her presence was wholesome and welcoming. Is this real? he pondered. Thoughts took over again, and not knowing how to continue the conversation, they sat in silence for a moment as he worked up the courage to speak again. 

Moments passed that felt like a lifetime, but he was content in her presence, soaking up her aura. As he went to ask her a question, she moved to speak as well. Catching each other off guard, Arthur profusely apologized "No it's okay, go ahead," he said, not wanting to interrupt her. "No, no, that's okay, what were you going to say?" She insisted back. Her voice was small and mousey, she seemed so shy. Why would she be? She screams confidence and power. Even in her apprehensive movements, she seems calculated, he thought to himself. He stole another glance at her. Her eyes sparkled reminiscent of a smokey quartz gem in a bracelet he once saw in a shop window. A thought of her adorned in nothing but gems crossed his mind. He tried to hold onto the image before it left his mind's eye. He felt a flush in his cheeks again, and his eyes darted. He couldn't look her in the eyes for too long. It made him nervous. He was working up the urge to speak again, to say something, anything.  

He broke the silence and asked, "So what brings you to ride the subway so late at night? Aren't you scared?" He uttered jokingly. After saying it, he felt immediate stupidity. Why would I say that? He thought and started an inner spiral. As if seeing his reaction to his own question and wanting to ease the tension building within him, Y/N said, " Well, I work at the Gotham shelter overnight. So, having to ride the train every night, I guess, I've gotten used to it for the most part. But, yeah, I do get scared sometimes. The city can be super sketchy, and I've been attacked twice already, so I had to buy mace and stuff to try and protect myself."  

The words spilled out of her mouth like a wave of glass, he couldn't fathom her ever saying this of all things, it was jolting for him and triggered something within him he had tried so long to hide. His mind raced. He felt anger and rage well up inside of him it hardened his sternum and burned in his throat. He became stiff but was unaware. The spiraling began to start again. This city was ruining people, hurting people, good people! He thought. She helps people, and then people hurt her?! Pieces of shit! He screamed internally. The emotions he felt were at war within himself. He felt rage for her pain and suffering at the hands of this city's denizens, he felt fear for her life knowing she rides the train every night, he felt regret, why couldn't he have been there to help, to do something? He all but took the pain on as his own, it soaked through to his core. He too had been at the mercy of some of the worst people he has ever had the displeasure of encountering in this god forsaken city, he too had been attacked, hurt, mercilessly tortured by these fucking terrible people.  

Lost in his train of thought and looking straight ahead he couldn't help but sternly say in sympathy "These people are just fucking terrible!" She must have noticed his change in demeanor at this declaration. He suddenly felt a warmth cross his leg, and lightly squeeze. It was smooth and comforting. His concentration broke completely. Pulled out of a trance by her as if the thoughts were just zapped out of his brain. His eyes quickly darted back to her where they followed the length of her shoulder, to her arm, and from her arm to her hand that rested upon his thigh. He felt the muscles in his face relax, his shoulders dropped, jaw unclenched. The sheer power she had over him he thought. The warmth emanating off of her palm was like security, a blanket of nostalgia. He couldn't remember the last time he felt what felt like love, like connection, or attachment. He couldn't help but see flashes of images in his mind, her moving her hand closer to his cock which had began to throb. He tried to brush away those thoughts but they plagued him. She was touching him. Something that never happens to him. He immediately craved her touch, he wanted more, he wondered how that would be possible. He thought this couldn't be real. Not this time.  

Once again, breaking his thought pattern she spoke, and he gave her his full attention. "Yeah, but I'm ok now!" She said in a reassuring tone. Her voice, like petals on velvet. Soft, gentle. "You're here now! And so, I feel safe." Safe? He thought, with me? Like she trusts me? He could feel the negative thoughts start to brim to the surface of his mind but quelled them by responding instead. He needed clarification. The words she spoke just didn't make sense to him. He couldn't see why she would or should trust him, although he so badly wanted her to, for this to be true, he needed it to be. He suddenly felt the urge to never leave her, to always be by her side. He would watch, he would follow, and he would do anything for her.  

He only imagined what it would be like to know her both romantically and intimately. "You feel safe? W-with me?" He spoke haphazardly, unsure of the answer he wanted to hear, hoped to hear. "I do." She looked into his eyes sincerely. His heart leapt into his throat; he couldn't breathe. She was so fucking beautiful. He wanted to grab her, to feel her against him. He shifted his legs at the thought. Looking up at him like that weakened him in so many ways. Most noticeably, in his pants, where he tried to conceal the results of his dirty thoughts. "Then I will protect you Y/N" he proclaimed proudly. A shy smile touched her lips and she continued to gaze into his eyes. He smiled back. I make her feel safe, he thought. She is comfortable in my presence. No one even bothers talking to me, no one ever wants to talk to me. He had the urge to speak once more but couldn't find the words.  

Before either of them could speak, the subway speaker rang out once again in that barely audible robotic toned voice announcing the next stop as the harsh brakes squeaked heavily to a stop. As if anticipating her to leave, he just as quickly stood up and offered out his hand. "Thank you," her voice sang. She turned to face him, her small stature looking up at him once more. He held his composure but felt the heat well up inside him. "It was so nice having someone to ride the train with tonight for a change!" She cheerfully exclaimed with a smile.  

She had grabbed her things and had let go of his hand. What sweet bliss it was for the few seconds he had held it. Her fingers, so dainty and soft. The train screeched to a halt, and he instinctively grabbed her hand again and put his other hand at the small of her back to steady her. He could feel the soft curve of her spine. He slowly moved a pinky closer, hoping she wouldn't notice, tracing the line of her jeans as he did, feeling the line of her panty through the fabric. He quickly pulled away as she exited the train. He had held back. He wanted to do so much more. He wanted to turn her around, grab her face and kiss her, shove her onto the subway seats, and have his way with her, make her cry out. He wanted her to miss work. He wanted her to quit! He wanted her all to himself.  

This moment was too perfect. It felt like a dream. As she stepped off the platform and began to walk away, he stood as the doors shut, helplessly watching her as she slowly walked. Unable to stop time. As the train brakes hissed and cranked, he saw her stop and turn around. She had stepped to the doors, but it was too late. He watched on as her figure shrunk into the distance as the train traveled once again into the dark tunnel. He waved. He would see her again. He would make sure of that. Platform 19. He thought, I'll remember this time. 

[jisforjudi2]

THE FAITHFUL SECRETARY

Chicago Tribune

UPDATED: August 10, 2021 at 12:23 a.m.

Before the women’s movement, back when Father knew best and network TV made room for Daddy, when Mary Tyler Moore was Laura Petrie, not Mary Richards, actress Barbara Hale was playing a single working woman on TV.

Hale, now 71, remembers what appealed to her about the role of Della Street, secretary to lawyer Perry Mason on the series that was based on the mysteries by Erle Stanley Gardner.

“When we started (in 1956), it was the beginning of women not working at home. I liked that she was not married. My husband didn’t have to see me every week married to another man, and our children didn’t have to see me mothering other children.

“When (my son) Billy was in the 1st grade, we went to school for the first parent meeting, and on his desk were little projects he’d made-pictures of Daddy and Mommy and his sister and his animals. And underneath my picture-I wish I had it now, but the teacher kept it-he’d written in inch-high block letters, `This is my mom. I love her. She is a secretary.”‘

On Friday, the latest Perry Mason two-hour movie, “The Case of the Telltale Talk Show Host,” will air on NBC, one of seven productions that will carry the courtroom stalwart and his unflappable Girl Friday into 1994.

“I guess I was just meant to be a secretary who doesn’t take shorthand,” she quips. “My assistant wants you to know I’m a lousy typist too-33 words a minute!”

The Emmy award-winning actress is a Hollywood survivor-going into her second half-century in a profession she never dreamed of pursuing. A veteran of the old studio system and of television’s infancy, her co-stars in those early years were household names-Sinatra and Cagney and Stewart and Mitchum-when she was the ingenue.

RKO Studios was her “paid education,” as she puts it, her training ground. She met her husband, actor Bill Williams (who died several months ago), over coffee at the studio commissary.

Today, she still offers ample evidence of the effervescent beauty she was in the ’40s and ’50s-and even earlier, in Rockford High School, when her buddies entered her in a May Queen contest and she won. “I still know them, dear, and we 15 get together every three years. It takes three years to get over the three days we spend together!”

Her career seems to have evolved from being on the right Chicago street corner at the right time.

The daughter of a Rockford horticulturist and a homemaker, Hale (born in DeKalb) was studying at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, living at the Harriet M. McCormick branch of the YWCA and planning a career as a commercial illustrator and portraitist.

One day, as school let out for the summer, she was standing at the corner near the Drake Hotel with a girlfriend who’d come to town for a couple of weeks to look for modeling work. While they were waiting for the bus taking them to the North Side, a car drove up and someone tossed a card at them. It referred them to a modeling agency.

“A couple of weeks later, I went to see my buddies, and I told one of them the story about the card,” she recalls.

“She said, `Barb, you’re kidding! I was sitting in the little coffee shop at work this morning, and a lady came in and sat next to me, because it was the only seat left. She was pouting. I asked if she had a problem, and she said, “Yes, darn it. I have a model agency and I saw this kid on a corner, in a red coat, and can’t track her down. She’s exactly what one of our ad agencies is looking for.” Barb, what coat did you have on that day?

“I said, `My red coat-it’s the only coat I have.’ And she said, `Barb, I think that card was meant for you.”‘

It was. Hale went in to the Seaman Agency, and stopped Connie Seaman in her tracks. “She said, `Oh, my God-honey, don’t move! Al, get over here quick!’ Al came in and said, `It is her! Let’s see-we’ll shape her eyebrows, put on a little more lipstick, pull her hair back … ‘ and I said, `Just a minute, sir-what are we talking about?”‘

Hale was “a green 19” when she began fashion modeling, and after about a year and a half, RKO offered her a six-month tryout. The day after she arrived in Los Angeles, she visited the studio and its casting director, Dick Stockton.

“As I was shaking hands with him, the phone rang. He took the call, and as he listened, he started looking at me. `Yeah, yeah, yeah, just a minute.’ He turned to me and asked, `Honey, can you say a line?’ I said, `I don’t know.’ He said into the phone, `There’s a kid in the office right now. I think she’ll work. I’ll send her right over.’ He told his assistant, `Take her to wardrobe, take her to makeup, take her to Stage 6. One of the kids is sick. We’ve got to have a girl there immediately.’

“It hit every paper the next day. Cinderella story. First day on the lot, she gets-of course they said a starring part. I had one line, but you know about those things.”

Apart from that walk-on, in “Gildersleeve’s Bad Day,” she made her debut in 1944 in “Higher and Higher,” opposite Frank Sinatra.

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Ginger Rogers and Jane Russell were all at RKO then. So was Burr-who would be her TV series co-star about a dozen years later.

Hale studied dancing and singing at the studio. She began to appear on screen regularly-four movies in 1944, two in 1945-and eventually won leads in such movies as “The Boy With Green Hair,” “The Window,” “Jolson Sings Again” and “The Jackpot,” performing even while pregnant.

“I told Billy (her son, actor William Katt, who starred in the television series “The Greatest American Hero”) he should put on his resume that he was in `The Jackpot’ and `Lorna Doone,’ and he said, `Mother, I wasn’t,’ and I told him, `Oh, yes, you were!”‘

She continued her movie career and was a mainstay of television dramas until 1956, when a producer offered her the Della Street part in the pilot of what turned out to be a 9 1/2-year run. Hale went on to win an Emmy for best dramatic actress for the role in 1959.

“We did 36 shows that first year,” she says. “And we’re still doing it!”

She says that Della “was-and still is, to a great degree-a woman who knew what everybody was thinking. She was informed, and very observant of everything that went on. That was my challenge as an actress-to be a necessary part of the office without being too aggressive. Della was quietly overpowering: She knew when to speak and when to keep her mouth closed.”

Hale sees Della as having remained constant, to an extent. Her task is basically the same. But there have been some subtle emotional changes.

“I think she’s a little more at home, relaxed, showing her knowledge not only of the case, but also of her boss. In the early days, it was all business. Today there’s more of a camaraderie between them, a little more humor and more sensitivity to each other, which comes with years of being side by side.

“She’s trying to see that he stays healthy,” she says. “She’s taking him off coffee.

After nearly 300 episodes, “Perry Mason” folded in 1966.

In the mid-1970s, the show returned briefly with other actors and faded quickly. During the ’70s and early ’80s, Hale worked sporadically. She was in the original “Airport” in 1970, and appeared opposite her son in a 1978 surfing movie, “Big Wednesday.”

In 1985, producer Dean Hargrove asked her what she thought of the idea of a “Perry Mason” reunion show. She told him, “it would be divine, but we are 25 or 30 years older than we were then.” He said the intention was to use them as they were and to bring in a few new young actors to replace cast members William Talman, Ray Collins and William Hopper, who had died.

“Dean said, `There’s a young blond kid in town. I want to talk to him, not his agent. He’s done a series-“The Greatest American Hero.” But I can’t reach him.’

“I said, `Oh, well, that young man is in Kansas City doing “The Music Man” right now, and I can get you in touch with him if you want.’ And Dean asked, `You know him?’ I said, `Dean, I changed that boy’s diapers!’ Billy played in the first nine (Perry Mason) movies, then went on to another series of his own.”

“Perry Mason Returns” in 1985 was a Nielsen triumph, and with Perry stepping down from a judgeship to defend Della against murder charges in the first episode. From then on, the Mason bunch have visited America’s living rooms every few months.

After nearly four decades, Hale says the role of Della still offers unexpected moments.

“This week, at the end of the show, very quietly and very surprisingly, Perry plants one on Della,” Hale says. “It’s a first!”

Originally Published: May 16, 1993 at 1:00 a.m.

www.chicagotribune.com/1993/05/16/the-faithful-secretary/

[aurea-corde]

the end

It went like this. I hear mum crying before I see her. A stone settles in my stomach because I know what has happened. "She's gone," she tells me, voice strained from the tears. "I've had this terrible feeling all day, but I wanted her to wait for me. I didn't get to say goodbye." I tell myself to be strong for her, but tears are already streaming down my face. Mum had booked her flights for the next morning, was supposed to be with her. Just one more day.

I message my sister that we have news about our aunty. I call her. She doesn't pick up. Minutes pass and I can hear mum trying to hold her voice steady in another room as she tells her siblings that their eldest sister is gone. A few people call her to say how sorry they are to hear the news. She thanks them and reassures them she is okay, it just happened, it was all so sudden but at least she went peacefully. My sister calls me back and I feel unable to form the sentence. I stutter through something like "She's gone, it just happened, we don't really know the details." She tells me that she has had a terrible feeling in her chest since this morning. I tell her that mum had a feeling too. She asks if she can talk to mum, so I put her on speakerphone and find mum sitting still at the edge of her bed. She is crying more than I have seen her cry since her father passed. My heart is breaking and I cling to her, to comfort her, to comfort myself. I don't know what else I can do. "I wanted her to wait for me," she repeats. "I said to her, 'Jie, please wait for me.'" We hear a sniffle over the phone. "Oh mum, I'm sorry," my sister says, and I can hear that although she has been unable to cry since we first heard our aunty was unwell, I know she is crying now. My sister offers her help, her support, anything she can do for the family from Sydney until she gets on the plane. In the past week alone, she has bought her first apartment, taken on a mortgage, heard the news about our aunty's stroke, been offered a new job, and now our aunty has passed. I think she has always been the more emotionally resilient out of the two of us, some combination of her inner emotional intelligence and being the oldest child. Mum is flying out this morning, my sister will join her in a couple of days. I am stuck here, immune system too weak to risk travel, not wanting to stress out my relatives even more by giving them one more thing to worry about over there. A psychologist that works with the hospital immunology clinic has booked me in for a couple of days' time. The timing obviously could not be better. I slept only a few hours last night. My muscles are holding so much tension and I can't seem to physically get them to relax. I find myself crying sporadically as I write this. I didn't plan on writing all of this, but I think I need to. I need to acknowledge what's happened, that this is happening. A terrible storm of circumstances has hit the family. We have already lost two people this year, and our aunty is the third. Dad has offered his version of condolences in the family chat, it is about as insensitive as I might expect but also not as insensitive as I feared. His family wasn't really a family and still isn't. He nearly didn't attend his sister's viewing earlier this year before she was cremated. Mum and I talked him into it the day before the viewing. I don't know that he can comprehend how much mum's side of the family love each other, how bonded we all are. Mum and her sisters all gather at one of their houses every Sunday just to chat. It was the dying wish of my grandma, before my sister and I were born, that they all spend time together. My cousins and I go for dim sum, go for karaoke, travel together, help each other prepare for weddings, for funerals. Mum once told me that our ancestors would have lived communally in a big compound of sorts, different generations of the same clan in one structure. Some of my cousins and I are in different cities, but we all refer to the extended family as the [last name] clan. I'm glad most of them are able to fly out to where my aunty lived, that they'll be together. Condolences have been given, help has been offered, shoulders have been cried on. For the family members like myself who have to stay here, we have to keep going. It happened, it is happening right now, and we have to keep going anyway.

[jordanianroyals]

Royal Wedding in Amman | By Rami G. Khouri, June 16, 1978

An American girl became a queen yeaterday as 26-year-old Princeton University architecture graduate Lisa Halaby took the name of Noor al Hussein, the faith of Islam and the hand in marriage of King Hussein, ruler of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordon.

The new queen's mother was barred from the four-minute ceremony itself - Koranic law dictates that the bride be the only female present - but the new queen beamed radiantly down at her two-inches-shorter, 16-years-older royal husband at a reception afterward attended by some 500 friends and relations. Soft drinks subbed for champagne at the reception, though, as Moslem law again prevailed.

Queen Noor, whom Jordonian officialdom had reffered to earlier as "Moslem Miss Noor Halaby," had converted to her husband's faith. she had been expected to attain the rank of "pricess" because she was not an Arab, but was dubbed his queen by the Jordanian monarch. Only one other of his four wives, the late Queen Alia, a Palestinian, had been so honored.

But Queen Noor's Arab ancestry - her father was of Syrian descent - had been played up by the state-run media since her engagement to the king was announced, and, of course, it is all up to the king as to visit what he wishes to name his wife.

The bride smiling throughout the ceremony and the two-hour reception that followed was dressed in a white Christian Dior wedding gown and had a women band of white flowers holding in her long blond hair in place.

Diamond earrings and bracelets added sparkle to her composure, as she and the king posed for photographers immediately after the wedding ceremony.

Queen Noor - her name means "Light of Hussein" - was visibly settling comfortably into her new role, and she and the king exchanged frequent glances and comments that grinning broadly.

Five hundred guests waited for them on the lawn of the Zahran Palace, home of the queen mother and traditional site of royal marriages. The couple emerged to cut the seventier one-yard-high fruitcake wedding cake with a golden Hashemite sword, and mingled for 10 minutes with the royal family that had gathered to congratulate them.

The casual, happy atmosphere of the occasion was captured decisively when one of the king's young daugthers from a previous marriage rushed up to Queen Noor and exclaimed "I really like your dress," for which she was rewarded with an equally enthusiastic embrace, and a hug and a kiss from the king. Queen Noor had helped design the gown.

The guests included the elite of Jordonian society, the diplomatic corps, government officials, senior officers of the armed forces and selected friends of the new queen. But no foreign guests were to be seen aside from the Halaby family, Mrs. Cyrus Vance and a handful of the queen's friends from the United States. Oneof Hussein's ex-wives, the English-born Princess Muna, was also present. The former Toni Gardner, she now lives in London but returns frequently to Amman where she still has a palace.

Smartly dressed, flag-bearing troops of the Hashmeite horse guard flanked the entrance to the Zahran palace, in Amman's most exclusive residential neighborhood, while the armed forces band played lively music in the background and tough Bedouin security forces got caught up in the general gaiety around and continually preventing photographers from swarming over the royal couple.

The father of Queen Noor, former Pan American Airlines chairman Naheeb Habaly, said "We have feelings of pride, pleasure and some anxiety," and revealed that the king and queen will visit the United States before the end of the year "so she can have an American-style reception in Washington for all our friends in the United States."

The wedding ceremony itself was a traditional all-male affair, with the king and his bride sitting together on a settee flanked by the chief justice of Jordon's highest Islamic court; Crown Prince Hassan and Prince Mohammad, and the bride's father, with his gray business suit and black bow tie.

The king first signed three copies of the marriage contract, and Habaly followed suit, signing in Arabic to the left of the king's signature. The chief justice, Ibrahim Qatan, then recited the couple repeated. The vows derived from the Koran, the Islamic holy book, simply stake that the couple has been married according to the agreements reached between them them in the marriage contract and according to the laws of God and his prophet.

Then, the royal couple, with the king at the wheel of their silver Mercedes 600 limousine, drove out of the palace grounds and off to an undisclosed destination, followed by the usual contingent of two security cars, and the cheers and quiet clapping of the several hundred guests who gathered at the gate to see them off.

There was a festive feeling throughout Amman today, but no special decorations or signs of public celebration, in keeping with the wishes of the newlyweds for a low-key ceremony. Newspapers were filled with notices of congratulations from citizens throughout the country, and some shopfronts and taxicab windows sported large black-and-white pictures of the king and queen. Otherwise, life in the Jordanian capital went on as usual. (Washington Post)

[ladylilithprime]

Day 22: Ladies

(Takes place in the Faerie Court of Avalon, NJ series. Donna Hanscum is a selkie sheriff. Amelia Everett Richardson is a veterinarian specializing in magical animals and animal forms. Matthew Pike is their foster son and best friends with Jack Kline Winchester, who is the adopted son of the faerie whose magic helped Amelia transition in exchange for her first born child-- Amelia's suggestion. The child's sire is either John Castiel Novak or James Constantine Novak, who are twins and Sam's husbands, and donated their sperm to the cause by way of artificial insemination.)

I NEVER THOUGHT that I would say I miss morning PT," Amelia Richardson groaned as she carefully eased herself down into the embrace of the large, overstuffed armchair that had pretty much been declared as her chair from the moment she had been invited to move in. They had just returned from another appointment with Meg, an almost 900-year-old dragon woman who had taken charge of Amelia's health care for the time despite technically only being a registered nurse at the hospital. Immortal credentials were hard to transfer over despite the Magical Revelation, but everyone Amelia had asked said Meg was more than capable, which was good enough for her. With a swing by Lighthouse CommodiTeas for a couple drinks and to drop Donna's foster son, Matt, off for a sleepover with his best friend, that meant that Donna and Amelia were going to have the apartment to themselves... and here Amelia was, sore and exhausted and wishing she was still doing the PT from her brief stint in the Marines again!

"Do you really?" Donna asked, eyebrows raised skeptically. Amelia thought about it, then made a face.

"No," she admitted and sighed. "I miss having the stamina to go up two flights of stairs without being winded. Not really looking forward to the long haul effort it's gonna take me to get back in shape after the munchkin pops out, either."

She placed a hand over her extended abdomen and immediately felt the roll and flex as the baby inside her womb shifted position and pressed back. There was still at least half a month to go on the incubation period, and while Amelia had no desire to rush things along and risk the baby's health from coming out earlier than intended, she also knew that she was quite ready to have the whole thing over and done with.

"It'll take longer than you'll like, but it won't take as long as you think," Donna promised with a pat to Amelia's shoulder as she passed. "Hungry?"

"Yes," Amelia admitted, a little sullenly. It felt ridiculous to be hungry when they'd just had lunch three hours ago. "Do we have any salt and vinegar chips left?"

"I got a few more cans yesterday," Donna called back as she disappeared into the kitchen. She was back a moment later with a can of the requested chips and a bottle of the Green Machine fruit smoothie, both of which she handed to Amelia. "Don't give me that look, Meg said to keep your iron levels up for the baby on account of the faerie magic at work."

"I know, I know," Amelia sighed. She obediently opened the smoothie bottle and gulped down a third of it before going for the chips. "So, we have the place to ourselves with the only kid still here being the one inside me... I know I can be a little oblivious, but this feels like a set-up for either a romantic evening or a serious conversation."

"Kinda," Donna admitted, ducking her head a little sheepishly. She dragged the ottoman over and sat down on it in front of Amelia, then lifted the other woman's feet into her lap, gently tugging off her shoes and rubbing soothing fingers over the marks left behind by them on Amelia's swelled feet and ankles. "This thing between us... it's working pretty well, right?"

"Yeah?" Amelia bit her lower lip, wrestling with the sudden spike of anxiety. "I mean, I kinda thought so. I know this... me living here... only really started because I had that dizzy spell right at the end of the first trimester and Meg put her foot down about me living alone while gestating..."

"Charlie would've offered to take you in as a roommate if I hadn't volunteered first," Donna admitted, ducking her head a little. "I almost had to arm wrestle her for it. And it wouldn't have made a difference in our dating, except for the driving back and forth. I kinda worried that you'd think I was jumping the gun, going from dinner out to moving in after just two months, but...."

"But I was already head over heels for you and jumped at the chance to move in with my gorgeous girlfriend, who actually wanted me to move in," Amelia finished with a crooked little smile that probably didn't do anything to hide the way her heartrate had picked up. She hesitated, then added softly, "Sometimes I wonder how things might've gone between us if we'd met earlier... before I was a real woman...."

"You were always a real woman, Lia-love," Donna broke in gently but firmly. "You might not've realized it at the time, but--"

"I was an angry shell of a person trying too hard to be a man because that's what was expected of me even by me," Amelia interrupted, shaking her head. "And as much as it pains me to say... you really wouldn't have liked me back then. I was a complete asshole, too lost in my own pain to care how much pain I put the people around me through. Being a woman... being allowed to be a woman... has made me a better person overall, and being with you just makes me keep wanting to work at being better. Because you deserve the best, and while I don't exactly think that's me, I'm just so damn grateful you're willing to settle for me anyway that I'll keep trying to be the woman you deserve in your life."

Donna's eyes were suspiciously bright as she reached out and fumbled to take Amelia's left hand in hers. She brought it up to her lips for a kiss, then turned it enough to kiss the base of Amelia's bare ring finger. And then, to Amelia's astonishment, Donna brought their twined hands together to touch the little gold locket she wore in the hollow of her throat.

"I showed you what's inside the front cover of this locket, right?" she asked, her voice thick with emotion. Nonplussed but feeling the unexpected weight to the question nonetheless, Amelia nodded, heart in her throat. "There's a compartment in the back... behind the engraved iris blossom. It's enchanted to have an expanded interior... because it's where I keep my pelt."

Amelia felt her heart practically slam to a stop in her chest before picking up triple its normal speed in shock. "Didi--"

"I don't expect you to do anything with this information," Donna went on, looking up into Amelia's eyes earnestly. "I keep it here because I never know when I might need to 'fursuit up' for an emergency, and I know you well enough to know you respect that and wouldn't try to hide it or anything... you'd probably bite the head off of anyone who did try and take it, knowing what's in it."

"Damn right, I would!" Amelia choked out, her vision starting to go a bit blurry around the edges. She'd take on anything and anyone that put her Donna in danger! "Why--"

"This thing we have is working real well," Donna said with a slight shrug, squeezing Amelia's hand gently. "I just wanted you to know where it is. So you'll know if something happens and it needs looking after."

The dam broke and Amelia burst into tears, too overwhelmed to do anything but cry and clutch at Donna's hand. She felt her girlfriend - was she her wife now? Fianceé? - lean forwards and draw her into a tender embrace. She collapsed against the other woman's chest and sobbed, choking on a wet laugh when the baby protested the suddenly squished position with a sharp kick.

Thank you, she wept, unable to voice the words properly. I love you. I promise I won't let you down.

And the kiss Donna pressed into Amelia's hair felt like a truer benediction than that of any god.

[densi-mber]

Rushing Home with their Treasures

“Ooh, what about this?” Deeks asked, holding up a tiny green and red elf costume.

“I don’t know,” Kensi said, rubbing the fabric between her fingers. “It’s cute, but also kind of ugly.” She rested her hand over her stomach, absentmindedly rubbing a few times. “Those dresses are really cute, though,” she added.

Deeks followed her gaze to the smallest imaginable velvet dress with a poofy skirt.

“That is adorable,” he agreed. “We could get it.”

“But then we’re going to end up with three possible sets of everything to cover all the possible girl/boy scenarios. Besides, we’re supposed to be getting gifts for family and friends, not the twins.”

They’d taken advantage of a afternoon when neither of them had any appointments or work to knock out some of their holiday shopping. The giant display of baby paraphernalia had sent them on a half hour detour.

“Ok, where do you want to head first?”

“Well, I thought since Rosa’s gift is probably going to be at least partially custom-made, we should probably get that taken care of before it gets too busy,” Kensi suggested.

“Sounds like a plan.” He saw Kensi give the baby clothes another look before finally turning in the direction of the jewelry department.

“How can I help you today?” the assistant at the jewelry counter asked as they approached. “We have some lovely pieces on sale today and all earrings in this display are 50% off.”

“Thank you, but we’re actually looking for a pendant for our daughter,” Deeks explained. “This is what we had in mind.”

An hour later, they walked away from the counter with pamphlets, paperwork, and the promise of their personally designed necklace in a week’s time. In the end, they’d settled on a design a series of interlocking hearts that incorporated each of their birthstones, with space to include the twins’ once they were born.

To some, it might sound slightly cheesy, but Rosa valued anything that linked her to her found family. From the pictures spaced throughout the house, to Deeks and Kensi’s names on her school forms. The necklace just happened to be a very purposeful and more extravagant addition.

“I think she’s going to love it,” Kensi said, examining the example pictures they’d been given. They strolled past a couple food vendors on their way out and she inhaled deeply, closing her eyes. “Mm, cinnamon rolls.”

She gave Deeks a sly look, and he chuckled, veering off towards the Cinnabon. “C’mon, we can’t let you and the Pastry Babies starve. Especially when there’s literal pastry to be had.”

Kensi looped her arm through his, leaning her head on his shoulder. “I love you.”

“So, where to next?” Deeks asked once they both had cinnamon rolls the size of his head in hand.

Peeling off a strip of glaze-covered dough, Kensi slowly at it while she considered his question. “That boutique Anna likes is across the mall, we’re getting Rountree and Fatima’s gifts at the Christmas market, so maybe your mom’s?”

“Sure. Though we are definitely not getting items 2, 3, or 7 from her wish list.”

“Oh, you mean the lingerie, dirty truth or dare game, and aphrodisiac gift basket?” Kensi said, licking icing off her finger. “Yeah, I’m thinking we need to pass those on to Arkady.”

“Ew,” Deeks commented, giving a full-body shudder. “Ok, you want to meet up in the accessories? I’m gonna grab some coffee to wash down the sugar and hopefully burn the thought of aphrodisiacs, my mom, and Arkady from my mind.”

Snorting, Kensi leaned in for a kiss. “See you in a few.”

Deeks joined the line for one of the many coffee shops sprinkled around the mall’s main floor. When Kensi was out of sight, he ducked out of line, making a beeline for the baby department. It only took a few minutes to locate the racks of Christmas outfits they’d looked at earlier.

He grabbed the tiny green dress, smiling as he headed for the register.

***

A/N: So much fluff this densimber! And yes, I’m still manifesting twins all day, every day.

[spiel-mit-mir-ein-spiel]

The Beginning~Paul Landers pt 24.

Enjoy ;3

Paul was getting ready to go to the studio to record an new album with the boys. You were 38 weeks pregnant and you knew you were about to pop anytime soon. Lilly was already 2 years old and she was such a funny, sweet little girl. Paul played a lot of guitar for her and she knew a couple of Rammstein songs. She was playing while she hummed. ''Du hast"' she sing and you started laughing. It was so cute. Paul looked proudly at her and you smiled. ''Really a Landers'' you laughed and wrapped your arms around Paul. He smiled at you sweetly and put your hands on your waist. '' How is our other little girl doin?'' Paul looked at you very big stomach and you smiled. '' I have this feeling she is coming very soon, so keep your phone on you at all times '' You said and Paul looked very serious. '' You want me to stay at home?' he said and you shook your head. '' Go, i will call you if anything happens. I will stop by to bring you guys lunch'' you smiled and Paul kissed your forehead. '' Du bist ein engel ( you are an angel)'' Paul said with love in his eyes. '' Genau wie ich? (Just like me?)'' Lilly said and the both of you started laughing. ''Genau wie du schatze ( Just like you sweety)''' Paul said while kissing and hugging his little daughter. Paul said his goodbye to you and Lilly and went out of the door.

After a couple of hours you felt a weird feeling in your stomach. It was a bit restless in your stomach. You kept a close eye on your gut feeling but still went to the boys to bring them their lunch.

When you arrived with Lilly at the studio and went inside.

''Hello evybodyy'' Lilly said happily when she walked in the studio. ''Hey little angel!'' Till said and picked her up. '' How are you doing sweety?'' Lilly started to giggle and hugged Till. '' Good!''

''Hello boys'' you smiled when you sat the lunch down on the table and you hugged Flake. '' How are you?' He said and you nodded. '' I'm good" ''Foooood!'' Olli said while he came out of the recording booth and hugged you. '' I would die for your sandwiches'' he said when he took one and began to eat. '' That's not necessary'' you laughed. Paul and Richard came out of the other room and Richard hugged you. '' Hello sweetheart, how is Khira doing?'' you asked Richard who became father two weeks earlier. ''She's good, Perfect even! Margaux is such a good mother'' He said with love in his eyes and you smiled. '' You both are great parents, the best a child can wish'' you smiled and Ricard looked at you thankfull. ''How is our baby doing?'' Paul said while Lilly sprinted into Christoph's arms. ''Well, i think she is coming today'' you said smirking and Paul his face turned white. '''Are you okay? did your water break?'' he said and you shook your head. '' I'm having small contractions but i feel them getting stronger'' you said and Paul looked concerned. ''We have to get Lilly her stuff'' he said and you held Lilly's bag in the air. '' Already here'' Paul smiled and at that moment you felt a sharp upcoming contraction. '' Oh god'' you said while you grabbed Paul's arm. ''Breath to it babe'' Paul calmed you and you started puffing. Till came in the room and Picked Lilly up. ''Are you ready for a sleepover with uncle Till and Auntie Jessica?'' he said smiling at Lilly and she smiled. '' Yaaaay!'' You smiled once you was okay and gave Till ,Lilly's backpack. ''Lilly, mommy is gonna give birth to your little sister today. When she is born, uncle Till and auntie Jessica are taking you to see us in the hospital okay?'' Lilly nodded and Paul kissed her before hugging her. '' Be sweet okay? but you can tease uncle Till' he smirked to her. Lilly giggled . At that moment your water broke. '' Fuck not this again'' you said while grabbing a chair while you got another contraction. ''Oh.. time to go'' Paul said while you supported you. '' Mommy peed herself'' Lilly giggled to Till who snorted. '' Yeah, something like that. It doens't matter. We clean it up'' he said to her and she nodded. Paul helped you in the car when another Contraction hit. You squeezed Paul's thigh hard while you yelled. '' Goddamnit, i forget how bad this hurt'' you said while you rubbed your belly and Paul put his hand on your knee. ''I'm sorry'' he said, not really knowing what to say. ''It's okay, you give me a beautifull daughter so i forgive you'' you said smiling.

Once in the hospital they admitted you and you went in labour.

Paul sat behind you and you lean into him while you started to push. ''One more!'' the doctor said and you pushed as hard as you could. Then you both heard a little cry and you smiled in relieve. You hang your head on Paul's shoulder who kissed your forehead. '' So proud of you sweetheart'' After examen your daughter they laid her on your chest. ''Our beautifull little Storm Landers'' you said while you looked at Paul. He looked proud at you and his newest little daughter. His little family was complete <3

[thathopelessromantic]

i fell hard into your arms tonight (it was nice) (4/?)

His body is heavy and hot and there seems like very little reason to keep fighting the heavy droop to his eyes. Except, there’s this strange tugging somewhere deep in his chest. Like an anchor settled just behind his ribs, reaching back out of his body towards something Eddie can’t place. And it keeps pulling at him. Not painfully, but insistent. Stay awake. Stay alert. Tug. Almost there. Pull. Safe. Calm.

Eddie Munson wakes up from his expedition into the Upside Down to a broken guitar, some new scars, and Steve Harrington’s voice in his head.

AO3: (X) First: (X) Previous (chp. 3): (X) Next (chp. 5): (posting TBD)

4. there's two clear ways (and i always take the easy one)

Nancy looks between them just once before reaching over and picking up her sweater and purse from the chair next to Eddie’s bed. He can’t believe he didn’t notice those before. Like Steve’s lie wasn’t already blatant enough.

“I’ll go check on Robin. Good night, Eddie.” Nancy shoots a look at Steve, but it’s too dark for Eddie to make out any details. She skirts around him carefully, slipping back out into the hallway and closing the door fully behind her.

Even having adjusted to the dark of the room beforehand, now shrouded in complete darkness, Eddie can only just barely make out the shape of Steve standing in the middle of the room – still poised to run. Somehow, Eddie knows even if he couldn’t make out anything in the room, he would know exactly where Steve was. That sensation in his chest – it isn’t pulling now, not like someone trying to get a message across, trying to get his attention – but it’s still there, settled, nestled between his ribs. A tether unfurling from somewhere deep inside him and tying him inexplicably, but inarguably, to Steve. He could find him across a busy room; across town. Somehow, he just knows he could follow this sensation to the ends of the world and find the same destination.

“What the hell is going on?”

That thrum of anxiety starts up again, agitating him. But now, Eddie can recognize the sensation not as his own anxiety but Steve’s. Childishly, Eddie wishes he could put his hands to his ears and taunt “La-La, I’m not listening” until the sensation went away. But it is literally in his head or his chest or something and either way, he has a feeling that would not be particularly effective.

“Fuck.”

Something finally seems to propel Steve forward and he moves to the side of Eddie’s bed, collapsing into the chair. He slumps forward. For a moment, Eddie thinks he’s going to drop his head against the bed, but he stops just short of that, catching his head in his hands, elbows propped sharply on bent knees.

“…Steve?”

“I didn’t want to have to hash this out with you just yet,” Steve says quietly to the floor. “You just woke up.”

Eddie was passively aware that he had most likely been unconscious for a couple days, rather than just a few hours, based on how worried and squirrely everyone was acting around him, but if any of the doctors or nurses had said the exact time, he hadn’t retained that information. He tried asking Wayne for the date or time earlier in the day, but his uncle had gotten uncharacteristically shifty and changed the subject. Or maybe Eddie hadn’t asked as coherently as he thought. Both were very real possibilities given his general state even just a few hours ago.

Exhaustion still weighs heavy in his limbs even now, but he feels more present mentally for this conversation than he has all day. Maybe it’s an effect of whatever this connection is, or maybe it’s just a burst of adrenaline born from the insanity of all of it.

He’s honestly not sure his body has stopped producing adrenaline since Chrissy first started levitating in his trailer.   

“How long has it even been?” Eddie asks. It’s not the most pressing concern to him at this moment, but he wonders if it will make it easier for him to understand Steve’s hesitance to talk about whatever the fuck is going on with them.

“Nearly two weeks.”

Eddie flinches despite himself, the information settling in his gut like a rock. He supposes it could be worse – no, it definitely could be worse; Max still hasn’t woken up yet as it is – but that was still longer – a lot longer – than he would have ever thought.

“Weeks?”

Steve is quiet for a minute, as if gathering his thoughts. He won’t look up to meet Eddie’s gaze again. “We brought you here as soon as we could after getting out of the Upside Down and you were rushed to surgery. You were technically conscious in the beginning, but they kept you pretty heavily sedated after that because every time you started to come to you uh…” Steve glances up at him, just for a second, but Eddie can see a haunted look cross his eyes in that flash. “You were just in a lot of pain.”

He doesn’t elaborate but Eddie gets the sense that he knew, personally, just how much pain Eddie must’ve been in during that time, and not just because he’d also been bitten by the demobats. Eddie at the very least can’t remember any of that time, at least not right now, but he wonders if Steve’s memories of these past few weeks are what makes him look a little sick to his stomach right then. “So, they kept you sedated for a few days after the surgery, but then even after they started to wean you off the medications you just…you just didn’t wake up.”

Eddie exhales slowly, rolling Steve’s words around in his mind and trying to make sense of them. He tries to imagine how he would feel if he was on the other side of the conversation. If it was one of the kids or Uncle Wayne or, goddamn him, Steve, inexplicably unconscious while he just had to wait around and hope for the best. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Steve lets out a shuddering breath and adjusts himself in the chair. Finally, he lifts his head out of his hands, but he still won’t look at Eddie. He stares past him to the window, but the little sliver of moon still hanging in the sky is mostly blocked out by clouds so there’s nothing to see but a stretch of darkness outside the hospital. “At first, they kept saying stuff about how your body needed the rest, but then it turned into how the stress and trauma of everything might have been keeping you from waking up while you were still recovering. And then they just seemed to stop offering explanations when Wayne asked for updates.”

Eddie glances at his uncle’s still-sleeping form on the cot in the corner and feels his chest ache with guilt.

“The only reason we knew for sure that you were still in there somewhere was…” Steve lets his sentence trail off, but the unspoken part lands heavily in the silence between them regardless.

“So, everyone knows?”

 Steve’s face makes an interesting, complicated series of expressions before landing on something a little bit like…embarrassment, maybe. “Uh no. Just El and Robin know. Though I think Nancy has some theories brewing, especially after tonight,” the comment feels pointed, but Eddie refuses to feel bad for any part he may have played in Nancy figuring this out. “And it’s probably only a matter of time before the kids start figuring things out, they’re all way too smart for their own good.”

It makes sense, Eddie thinks. El can clearly see inside his head into whatever this bizarre connection is, so of course she would know about it. And he’s only seen them together for a short while, but he can’t imagine Steve keeping something like this from Robin, even for a moment. Those two were so in-sync, so in tune with each other at every turn, there’s no way he’d be able to keep a secret like this for even a minute before Robin would have figured out something was going on.

And Robin…Robin would believe Steve, immediately and whole heartedly, even if it sounded insane, which this absolutely did, even just in the privacy of Eddie’s own head, let alone trying to explain aloud to someone separate from the experience.

But he could see the kids questioning it, poking holes and prying and trying to either make sense of all of this or unravel Steve’s statements entirely until some other explanation made itself known. Which is probably the last thing he needed to deal with on top of everything else. 

“And how long has…it been going on?” Eddie follows Steve’s lead, leaving whatever this thing is between them unspoken or unnamed.

With every passing second of this conversation, he doubted there was much chance for this to have started while he was in a minor coma, though he had been hoping before this revelation that he’s been imaging some things, and this was a very recent development.

He tries very hard not to think of some of the more questionable thoughts he’s had about Steve recently. On the off-chance Steve miraculously missed those earlier, Eddie certainly doesn’t need to remind him.

“I think it started when you were first attacked by the demobats,” Steve finally says after a moment, confirming some of Eddie’s fears. He tries to tell himself it could be worse. He’s still been unconscious for like ninety percent of the time since the demobats. Not many opportunities for embarrassing Steve-related thoughts. Probably. “It wasn’t really a solid connection until Robin, Nancy, and I found you and Dustin though.”

“What does that even mean? A solid connection?”

Steve runs his hands through his hair, tugging at the ends in frustration. Eddie wants to reach out and pull his hand away, gently untangle his fingers from the unkind way he has them twisted in the dark strands. No sooner does that thought cross Eddie’s mind and Steve pulls his hands away from his head, crossing his arms over his chest and tucking them under his arms as if he has to forcibly hold them down to stop from doing it again. He glances up at Eddie for a moment, almost shyly.

Embarrassed.

Oh.

He had heard that.

Fuck.

“Steve-” He falters. What is he even going to say? Kill me now?

Steve’s expression scrunches up like he’s smelled something foul but relaxes again after a moment. He takes a deep, grounding breath. Eddie can feel it unfurl in his own chest through the tether.

Calm. Focus.

“Not everything comes through, but right now most everything does,” Steve says, pointedly, when he opens his eyes again.

Right. So, he definitely heard the ‘kill me’ thing too.

Eddie latches onto something else he said, rather than focusing too hard on the rest of this dumpster fire of a conversation. “‘Right now,’? Like it’ll change? How do you know?”

Steve groans, slumping forward once again. “Oh, god. This is a mess.”

Steve lurches out of the chair again suddenly, pacing around the room like a caged animal. Eddie can practically feel the tension rolling off of him, even from across the room. A few times, Steve edges towards the door but somehow Eddie knows he won’t just leave. Not yet.

Or maybe not, somehow. He knows because he can feel it settle in his chest like it’s a fact he’s always known about the world, even though that doesn’t make any sense. The sky is blue. What goes up must come down. Steve Harrington won’t abandon his friends. And Eddie is now inexplicably included under that umbrella.

He knows it because Steve knows it. He can feel his desperation to stop this conversation, the curling anxiety and stress of trying to have this out in the middle of the night, on what seems like very little sleep on Steve’s part, and his determination not to abandon Eddie to deal with this on his own if Steve can help, even a little.

Fucking unbelievable.

Steve seems to have an argument with himself for another minute but the only thing Eddie gets from him is the same calming mantra.

“How come you’re getting some kind of constant word vomit – thought vomit? –” Steve makes a face like he can’t quite believe that’s the description Eddie is going with. “From me but everything from you seems intentional? Except maybe the anxiety because like, honestly dude, you might need something for that.”

Steve gives him a dull look and even though he isn’t saying anything – aloud or through whatever this insane mental connection is – Eddie can still practically hear his sarcastic “Gee, what would I have to be anxious about?” anyways.

“I’ve had a little more time to practice,” Steve finally says.

That being his reply doesn’t exactly surprise Eddie, for some reason, but it still doesn’t make any sense. “But…I’ve been unconscious. How are you practicing? Or know what you’re doing works?”

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose, muttering to himself. Eddie can only just make out the quiet exhale as he speaks and he wishes he could make out the actual words, his steady voice.

He stomps that thought down before it can even finish forming. No more Steve-related thoughts. At least not until he figures out how to keep things to himself.

Steve sits down again, staring intently at Eddie for what feels like the first time in a very long time. Had he ever met Eddie’s gaze like this? “Will you just…Just let me talk. To explain. No questions, no interruptions, until I’m done. And then I’ll try to answer any of your questions. Can you do that?”

Eddie nods, pressing his lips together as if he could force himself to stay quiet for Steve’s explanation through sheer force. If just keeping his mouth shut for a few minutes would get him an actual explanation about everything that was going on, he would damn well manage it.

Probably.

Seemingly satisfied that Eddie would keep quiet for the time being, Steve starts with a shaky breath.

“The best we can figure is this connection has something to do with both of us being bitten by the demobats. You know how the bats and the vines and the, the demodogs-” Dogs? Eddie definitely did not remember dogs in his trip. “-We’ve met before, just all of the Upside Down works like a hivemind. So, the demobat spit or venom or whatever tapped us into some kind of similar hivemind.”

That explanation made a surprising amount of sense considering how insane it all was in general. But Eddie practically had to hold a hand over his mouth to stop from asking questions. Like again, dogs? But also, were they connected to the bats or greater Upside Down hivemind along with each other? Or maybe just when the gates were open, assuming they were successful in fully closing everything. God, Eddie didn’t even know what happened after he had been attacked. Just that somehow Vecna had gotten to Max. And then he woke up two weeks in the future with no fucking clue what was going on or how many others might have been hurt during that time.

Steve had continued talking for a little while, but apparently at some point in Eddie’s mental spiral he had trailed off. When Eddie finally manages to get the world to come into focus again and drag his eyes back to Steve, he’s watching him with a solemn expression.

“We should do this later.”

“No wait, please!”  Terror, or at least something akin to it, settles in Eddie’s gut at Steve’s suggestion. “We can – we – please continue. Tell me. I can handle it.” 

“Eddie…”

Eddie tries to ignore the involuntary shiver of something that travels down his spine at Steve’s husky whisper in the dark. So not the time, Munson. Get it together.

“I’m going to go insane if I don’t get some kind of answers, man. Seriously, how are you not freaking out just as bad as me right now?”

Steve just stares at him for a long time. “I’ll explain everything, I promise, but you’re exhausted. I don’t think this is a good time.”

Eddie thought that was particularly rich coming from a guy who snuck into the hospital in the middle of the night with bags under his eyes so dark they looked like bruises.

However, before Eddie can think of a way to express that sentiment without just making Steve irritated or defensive, the door opens and a nurse slips inside, pushing a cart in front of her.

She looks between Steve and Wayne on the cot a few times, clearly surprised by the multiple visitors, but she quickly schools her expression into a friendly smile. Steve gets to his feet immediately, moving out of the way to let her in close to the bed. Eddie’s eyes follow him to the corner of the room, even as the nurse sidles up besides him and starts checking him over. He wordlessly holds his arm out as she pulls out a blood pressure cuff and she smiles gratefully at him.

“I’m sure you guys aren’t always happy about it either way, but these check-ups are always so much easier when you’re already awake,” she tells him in a whisper, like she’s sharing an important secret with him. “I always feel bad waking you up. How are you feeling tonight?”

Eddie finally tears his gaze away from Steve to really look at her. The room is still mostly dark, though she left the door open for some light while she worked, so its hard to make out any distinct features. But she’s older, probably old enough to be his mother, with soft curly hair pushed back from her face by the glasses perched on the top of her head. And she’s treating him so unbelievably normal that it startles him.

“Uh…fine,” he manages after a moment.

“He’s in pain,” Steve chimes in quietly from the corner. “Especially his right side.”

Eddie shoots him a look of utter betrayal. Dick.

The corner of Steve’s mouth quirks in a quick, half-smile. So, he had heard that too. Well, good.

Eddie scowls at Steve while the nurse tuts over him, finishing with his blood pressure and moving on to check his pulse and temperature.

“It is about time for your next dose, hun. Sit tight for me and I’ll go see if I can’t get that for you a couple minutes early.”

“Thank you,” Steve says for him as she bustles out of the room again. Eddie feels bad about not managing to thank her himself, but his guilt is quickly replaced by his anger flaring once again as Steve comes back to the side of the bed.

“That’s your grand plan? Drug me up so you don’t have to talk to me?”

Steve’s expression darkens for a moment and Eddie thinks his comment might have actually bothered him, except just as fast the look is gone.

“You are in pain,” Steve says plainly in his defense.

“Yeah, but I’m still more concerned about how you can tell.”

Steve glances over his shoulder to the doorway. The nurse hasn’t returned with his medication, but she left the door to the hallway open with her departure. The light of the hallway spills across the floor, and the sound of the still-constant bustle of the hospital comes with it, other machines beeping somewhere, people walking down the hall, their conversations carrying with them. An overhead announcement summons a doctor to the nurses’ station on floor four. And there’s a person stationed outside Eddie’s room.

The door hasn’t been open so wide since he’s been awake, or maybe he was just too out of it the last time to really pay attention, but the outline of someone’s back and shoulder in the doorway is enough drag his attention away from their argument. His side protesting the movement the entire time, Eddie sits up more, trying to lean around Steve to see more of the doorway. Steve silently pushes him back against the bed, though he shifts to stand closer to the head of the bed so Eddie can still see around him.

Eddie stares for a few minutes, but its like his brain can’t comprehend what he’s seeing.

“Is there…an armed guard outside my room?”

“Yeah.”

Eddie can’t make out much more than the dark suit and the walkie strapped to the guy’s hip, but he can’t seem to stop staring regardless.

“I thought that doctor…doctor something, earlier, I thought he said my name was cleared?”

“It is.”

“So, he’s there for…?”

“As far as Wayne is concerned, your protection. To make sure no one still not convinced tries to take things into their own hands.”

Eddie was definitely going to have to ask what the fuck this cover story was they had come up with, but there was just too much going on right then for that worry to take center stage.

“And as far as anyone in the know is concerned?”

“To make sure you don’t talk to anyone not already involved before you sign an NDA.”

Eddie’s gaze snaps away from the guard to stare at Steve with wide eyes.

“Seriously?”

Steve shrugs. “Welcome to your first government-classified secret.”

Eddie searches Steve’s face for any hint of how exactly he’s supposed to take that, but his expression gives nothing away.

Eddie’s nurse bustles back into the room a moment later, triumphantly brandishing a small plastic cup of pills. Eddie tries his best to put on a grateful smile as she encourages him to take the pills, expertly switching out the pill cup for his water as he needed. She is…nice and her overwhelming…normalcy refreshing after everything. He doesn’t want to push away the one person outside of the Party and Wayne who is willing to treat him like an actual, decent human being again. Not to mention, it isn’t her fault she was unwittingly used against him.

She spends a few more minutes with them, checking a few more things off Eddie’s chart and double checking with both him and Steve that there wasn’t anything else they needed. By the time she finally bids them goodnight, Eddie can feel the medicine beginning to take hold, drowsiness making his eyelids droop and his limbs feel heavy.

His side does also feel a lot better, dammit all.

 Steve has a tightness around his eyes as he finally comes back to Eddie’s side. He feels guilty again, Eddie guesses.

“I promise drugs aren’t usually my solution to difficult conversations,” Steve says awkwardly. There’s a tone in his voice – something tight and a little scared, maybe – that Eddie can’t quite parse when his mind feels quite so fuzzy.

“To be fair,” he says around a yawn. “They are usually mine. You’re not off the hook though.”

Steve’s expression softens a little with an awkward smile but there’s still tension behind his eyes and through the line of his shoulders.

“I’m going to explain everything, just not right now.”

Normally, Eddie would like to have argued the point more, even if he agreed with Steve, but he knew right now it was just a losing battle with his consciousness. Even if Steve kept talking, he wouldn’t be able to follow any of it.

“Just tell me one thing,” he starts, though his jaw feels heavy and he’s not sure he’s being entirely coherent. It’s a struggle to keep opening his eyes after every blink, but behind his eyelids, those nightmarish images are starting to come back. There’s a flash of the Demogorgon coming through the wall, of it lifting Steve in the air, monstrous, inhuman hand thrust through his chest. “Am I going to have that nightmare again?”

“No,” Steve says firmly. He reaches out, just for a moment to straighten the blankets on the bed and though the touch is fleeting Eddie feels the phantom trail of his fingers even as he drifts off. “No, I won’t let that happen again.”

[ebdanon]

why is it concerning 😭 i dont get it

i completely agree about needing to learn lessons/have experiences before meeting the right people

it's possible that's just memory issues if you notice it happening about the most random things but it's not in my case, because the only things getting twisted are the ones where she knows what she did/said wasnt right and got called out for it

got another short update for ya: for easter yesterday, my husband and i went over to my parents. during the argument the other day, my mil called up my mom, and my parents and even my sister all reached out via text within a few minutes worried about my husband and i. i told them not to worry, its no big deal, we'd talk another time about it. so when we were over, we finally revealed all of the shit talking my shitty grandma has been doing with my mil and how close they've become behind everyone's backs (because that's something they could help put an end to). and that's when my dad revealed he was over to her place the day before (day after the argument) to fix something on her new phone, when he saw about a dozen calls with my mil through the fb app. my husband said he checked my mil's phone and there were no calls between the two whatsoever except for stuff like christmas to wish happy holidays, which my mil has mentioned before. but other calls were also missing from the log, which we know happened, like with my sil or even me, the only two people in the call log were with two cousins she has, and it went back for months with no one else there. turns out she's been erasing the call logs. my dad also checked my grandma'a regular call log outside of fb and noticed many calls to an unsaved number he wasn't sure who it belongs to. and he asked my grandma why she called my mil, and she said "idk how to work the phone, my hands shake, i slipped it was an accident" and he started wondering how many times does that happen in a single day because the answer doesnt make sense. he didnt get why she'd be hiding something weird like that in the moment, but fully understood when we told him what's been happening.

and then the most jaw dropping reveal happened from my dad: this crazy woman kidnapped me as a baby when my parents were having a random argument. my parents asked them over to watch me for a couple of hours so they could go over to my mom's parents to figure something out (they'd had a few of those arguments the first few months i was born) and when they came back home, no one was there. this was a time before cellphones and even home phones so they couldn't immediately call up my dad's parents to check. the only option they had was walking over to their house, because they didn't have any other transportation option either. and when they did, my grandma sent them back refusing to say a single word?! my grandpa had to do the explaining that she didnt want to stay in my parents' apartment because she felt like going home and they had to take me with them, but also according to her they were unfit parents so she'd be handling it from now. i dont know when they got me back or how.

this woman has done some insane shit throughout my life that one ask wont cover. maybe 3-4 lmao. but i thought she was maybe losing her mind in her old age over the last decade (shes in her 80s). but apparently not. and then both my parents revealed she'd been trying to mess with their marriage in many ways ever since they got married over 30 years ago. god knows why, but she had also been manipulating my grandpa while he was alive to get her way. he'd been apologizing to his sons for her actions for years, all behind her back. (once upon a time i wanted taylor to write a song about this crazy woman; right now i need kendrick to go in with "master manipulator" lines lmao).

my parents didnt get why we hadn't revealed this earlier, it's been happening for two years now, but we were never 100% sure that it really was my grandma calling her up that often because of the empty call logs. a lot of the shitty stuff my mil would say about various members of my family lines up with what ive heard her say throughout the years, but not everything. she's never talked shit about my mom or cousin for instance. i kept trying to prod my parents the last six months by hinting my grandma and mil seem to talk but they were oblivious to my hints, thought i was joking.

i hope i get a job out of this country this month and never see any of them again once i move. i desperately need to be away from crazy, and if it bothers any of them, they can go at each other's throats for all i care.

“why is it concerning” my sweet lore anon literally none of this behavior is normal what do you MEAN you were kidnapped as a baby 😭

the grandma and mil allyship needs to end for all of your sanity oh my god

[likeapray3r]

A lot of success comes from a loving home with supportive parents who only ever wanted the best for them…and on the other hand I have to cry for a little over an hour before my therapy appointment because I remembered the memories of being a child/tween/teen and knowing my mother hated me, but not always, but just enough to make sure it slipped out whenever I began to grow in my own way… I think my worst hit was when she told me I looked like a tr*nsvestite when I was starting to explore myself more and my self image. I was wearing clothes from the woman’s section when she said it, and we were just about to go to a holiday party. Why she would ever say it so openly and so surely… my body was just what it was, and I started to wear clothes out of my comfort zone, and my eyebrows were fugly but I was so young. I was so fragile. I had been made fun of at school earlier that year, by girls who were upset about something trivial when it came to me, and they posted all of these vines about me…I know, I’m showing my age a bit, but in one of the videos they called me a tr*nsvestite. She saw how hurt I was by seeing those videos. She knew what they said about me. She knew how crushed I was…and then a couple months later she said it to me. I think my mother liked to taunt me. I never had it easy when it came to my image, I felt like every woman that was a part of my upbringing always made their point to de-feminize me / make it known that I was nothing special…or that I should be ashamed of myself in some way. I remember the first time I ever felt shame for myself and my body and my existence as a girl and it was in kindergarten. I was glared for not wearing a bra by my grandmother. I was about 5. She never did this with any of the other kids. When I was 7 I got yelled at by her for sitting with my legs open. I was a child coloring on the floor at the dells with my cousins. I remember when I made my first trans friend, and my mother told me if I kept hanging out with “freaks” I will become one if I haven’t already. I remember when I first discovered kali uchis and I watched all of her music videos almost every day for a month. My mother stopped to tell me she thought she looked like a tr*nsvestite. It was like every thing I enjoyed, every thing that was something I felt connected to, she wanted to taint with outdated cruelty…consistent to let me know I was someone she loved but hated. She hated that I was something else. Maybe she always knew. Maybe that’s why she never kept many of the crafts I made for her when I was a child. Maybe that’s why she cried on a Mother’s Day when I was a teenager, on the phone with my father and telling him about how she couldn’t believe she raised someone as cruel as me. I felt offended. I didn’t do anything. I stayed in my room all day because she started a fight out of nowhere (as she would whenever I started to let my guard down) and I knew to stay out of the way. I think I was 14 or so. All my life I was scared and walking on eggshells. I did what I knew how to do to share my care, but I was shut out when I was too young. I didn’t know how to hug because nobody ever hugged me. I didn’t know how to say I love you because nobody taught me how to. Nobody said that to me at a pivotal point of my existence as a human being. Sometimes I wish I could’ve been my mother’s mother. I’ve heard the stories of how she grew up, constricted, and in a communist country with lack—and she wasn’t cherished by anyone (enough). Here I was the daughter that had the “American dream” without working for it—but I never asked to be born to parents who were too young, too avoidant, too emotionally immature, and haven’t processed any if not all of their entirety up until the point I arrived. Maybe I was asking to get put down. Maybe I was visibly a freak and I just didn’t know it. Maybe I had to get my girlhood ripped from me before I understood my own consciousness. Maybe my place was to be outed and shamed while everyone else received love. Maybe I was supposed to feel insecure. Maybe I was never given a chance.

[briamichellewrites]

29

Brie was in the hospital with Mike and Chester. She was overdue by a week, so there was talk about inducing labor. Thankfully, the babies were still alive and were responding well. The three of them were worried that something was wrong. The nurse and doctor gave them all the information they had. Their concerns were valid. It had been a very difficult road just getting pregnant and Mike’s infertility, so they didn’t want to leave the hospital without giving birth.

The twins had run out of room inside her stomach. They were just waiting for her body to tell them it was time to be born. Mike was keeping their parents informed about the situation. The doctor and a couple of nurses came back to check on her. There wasn’t any progress, so he was going to induce her labor. He told them what that meant and allowed them to ask him questions.

She was given medication that would trigger her labor. It would take a few hours before she started having contractions. Mike took her hand because he was so anxious. He had faith in the medical team helping his wife. But it didn’t relieve his anxiety. He wouldn’t be okay until he heard two babies crying.

Finally, after three hours, she started feeling contractions. Chester went out to find a nurse while he gave her support and encouragement. Well, he tried. Tears were flowing from his eyes. She hugged him tightly. Why was he crying? He was so relieved that it was working. It could take twelve to nineteen hours before the babies were ready to be delivered. Chester came back with a nurse, who examined her.

Bruce was giving updates to Patti on Brie’s condition. They were worried because she was overdue. Earlier that morning, they got a message from her saying that her obstetrician wanted her to go to the hospital to be induced. Mike took over giving them updates after she was admitted. He and Chester were both with her. Did they all drive to the hospital together? No, Chester met them there. His boyfriend, Phoenix was going to come by later to help out.

Boyfriend. Bruce thought about how Mike and Brie had sat him and Patti down. He started the conversation by telling them he was gay. It was something he recently discovered. He and Brie were in an open marriage but were staying together out of love and respect for each other. An open marriage was not something they understood, but they had to respect it.

As for him being gay, it didn’t change anything about him. They loved him like a son and they always would. He thanked them relieved! Did he have a boyfriend? Yeah, he did. His name was Phoenix. He was in his band and was a great friend to Brie. She was asked how she felt about having an open marriage. It was her idea because she wanted him to be happy. She wasn’t going anywhere because she loved him too much. They could both tell that even though they weren’t in love anymore, they could make their marriage last because they were best friends.

The four of them – they, Chester, and Phoenix were going to take care of the kids. Did they come up with any boundaries? Yeah, they would not bring any partners around the kids unless they were seriously dating. That was to prevent child abuse. That was his boundary.

Her boundaries were to be open and honest about where they were, who they were with, if they were spending the night, if they were bringing someone over, and when they would be home. She also wanted him home two to three nights a week to help out. Why did she want to know where he was? Just so she didn’t have an anxiety attack. It was also just in case of an emergency.

“‘Hey, I’m hanging out with Phoenix. I’ll be home later.’ That kind of thing.”

“Those are very reasonable. Congratulations on working together”, Patti said.

“I still threaten to kick his ass to keep him in line.”

They laughed. Now, he wished he could be there to hold her hand and encourage her. He was on tour, which was his priority. It would be too expensive to cancel. He would also have to pay for the cost of lost revenue. It had to be a life-or-death emergency. So far, it wasn’t. He was excited about becoming a grandfather and having two granddaughters to spoil with love.

Phoenix told Brad and Linsey about Brie being in labor. Mike texted him that she was admitted by her obstetrician because she was overdue. They were going to induce her. That was all the information he had at the time. He was going to the hospital after Linsey picked up the kids. Brad thanked him for letting him know. They were supposed to be working in the studio, so he was happy to know in advance that they weren’t going to be there.

That was fine. He, Rob, and Joe could work on some stuff. Labor and delivery didn’t always go as planned. It was almost as if the babies decided when they were ready. Due dates weren’t always right, either. He and Elisa were hoping that everything went smoothly.

Lily Grace was born at eleven fifty-five and her sister followed behind six minutes later, making them born on two different days. They were both healthy with brown hair. Mike cried when he heard them screaming their little heads off. He hugged Brie happily. Finally, after nine months, he was a father! He wiped his tears as he watched the nurses take care of his daughters. Congratulations. Thank you.

After they were cleaned up and examined, they were each placed in a diaper, and wrapped in a warm blanket with a little hat on their heads to keep them warm. He was given one of the babies while she was given the other. The babies were blind and didn’t know where they were. It was cold and loud. They were not where it was nice and warm. Chester came in with Phoenix and greeted them with congratulations and hugs.

They both thanked Chester. He was just happy to have been able to help. He looked at the baby Mike was holding. Was that Lily or Lila? He replied that he didn’t know. They looked identical. He laughed.

brielikethecheese: Nine months, one week, twelve hours, and thirty-six minutes, Mike and I are proud to announce the births of our little girls, Lily Grace and Lila Rose born at 11:55 pm and 12:05 am. We want to thank our wonderful friends and family for their support and encouragement during the past year, along with our sperm donor, who helped bring us this miracle. Both babies are healthy and ready to join Linkin Park as their new screamers.

Brie posted a picture of the babies laying on their backs with only their feet showing. She, Mike, and Chester were going to raise their daughters offline and out of the spotlight. Their friends and family agreed to respect their wishes for privacy. There were too many people out there with the wrong intentions and Mike was too scared about something happening to them.

Congratulatory texts and comments came in for them. Their friends and family couldn’t wait to meet them! Chester laughed when he saw what she posted. They were his daughters, so he would have to teach them how to scream. She joked that if he was going to do that, he could be the one to get up in the middle of the night to take care of them. He, Mike, and Phoenix laughed. Joe, Rob, and Brad were coming in later to meet the twins and celebrate with them.

@zoeykaytesmom @feelingsofaithless @alina-dixon @fiickle-nia @boricuacherry-blog

[clathrose]

i wish i were an aries rising -____-

[inriospocket]

Hello can you do rio having to deal with a spoiled daughter and wife

Hope you like it! 🥰

word count ♡ 1,156

summary ♡ Rio dealing with a spoiled wife and daughter.

situation ♡ fluffy

warnings ♡ cursing

-

Rio knew the monster he created when he spoiled you but there was nothing possible to prepare him for the mini monster; your daughter.

“Go ahead, baby. Ask him.” You said, leading her into his office. Rio looked up from his work to see those familiar baby doll eyes your daughter always gave him when there was something she wanted.

“Daddy?” Your daughter called, holding her hands in front of her.

“What’s up? You want some cash?” He answered, already getting his wallet out.

“No, I have enough saved up. I was actually wondering, well, it’d be better if I show you.” She smiled. He exhaled, and leaned back in his chair waiting for the hour-long presentation.

She put her hand out in front of you and you pulled out a rolled up poster board from behind your back and gave it to her.

She walked closer to his desk to flatten out in front of him. It read “[y/d/n]’s 10th Birthday Party Extravaganza”. It hurt his eyes looking at so much glitter but he smiled anyway knowing she put a lot of effort into it.

“Extravaganza?” He repeated. She nodded proudly.

“It was either that or shindig.” She shrugged and you both couldn’t help but to laugh.

He listened intently as she further explained every detail of what she wanted her party to be like from the space in the backyard she wanted to utilize down to the very color and detail of the utensils.

She was very much like Rio, calculated and patient with her work but with your fervency.

“So? Is that a yes?” She grinned. He rubbed his chin with the back of his hand, thinking of how much money and work that was going to cost. He had it but he didn’t know why her 10th birthday needed to be like this when she never asked for anything different the past couple of years.

“You did a great job making this,” He started and her smile started to disappear. “But why does every kid need a cake of their own? Princess, you always liked a chill birthday. Not that you can’t have a big birthday but this ain’t like you.” He furrowed his eyebrows.

He felt outnumbered once he saw you both fold your arms in synchronicity. He started to roll the poster back up to avoid your glares.

“So, yes?” She asked, hoping he’d change his mind right there. “Nah.” He said, handing her the poster.

You both could see the debate in her eyes, calculating her chances of a punishment if she just decided to take the poster into the backyard and set it on fire.

“Keep it.” She frowned, turning on her heels and walking back to her room.

“Really?” You looked at Rio and scoffed.

He gave you a puzzled look thinking that you were going to be on his side.

“Mama, come on. You know that shit’s too much.” He said. You shook your head and started to walk away just like your daughter.

You didn’t need to tell him how much he’d regret it because you both would make sure he’d feel every bit of it.

You got ready for bed together every night but you made sure you were in bed far earlier and out of bed before he would trap you into cuddling him for another hour.

It hurt worse when his own daughter denied him. He no longer got his morning cheek kisses and regular tea parties but what he did get was her animosity.

“Do you wish I was never born?” She asked at breakfast. You muffled a laugh by clearing your throat.

“What?” He asked. He hated the dramatics. “Do you hate me?” She asked again.

“Cut the shit.” He said with a laugh. “Are you gonna say no to my college fund too?” She asked, faking a frown.

She sighed dramatically, picking through her fruit. “You know, it’s okay. I understand if we’re broke.” She said and you spit your drink out from laughing so hard.

“S-sorry,” You could barely say in between your laughs as he glared at you.

“Nah, you ain’t sorry. She gets that shit from you.” He shook his head and turned his attention back to your kid.

“I said no and that’s final. If you’re done, go get ready so I can drop you off.” He said, taking her plate for her.

“I want mommy to drop me off.” She said. He looked towards you hoping you’d finally take his side.

“Mommy’s gotta head into work early today but I’ll pick you up, okay?” You smiled, and she nodded before going to her room.

“You’re welcome.” You said as you got up. He pulled you back down to sit on his lap, holding you close. “Christopher, let me go. I have to get ready.” You said, trying to hide your smile.

“No, you keep dodging me.” He said, slapping your thigh playfully. “For a good reason.” You said, trying to tear away from his grip.

“What good reason?” He asked, attempting to kiss your neck. You pushed him away, getting up. “You’ll figure it out.” You said.

He scanned your body as you reached to clean the table up. “So that’s a no?” He asked, reaching to grab your ass.

You quickly grabbed his hand. “Doesn’t feel so good, huh?”

The ride to school was quiet until he broke the ice.

“Why is this year different from last year?” He asked. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out.

“I ain’t trying to be the bad guy, mama. It’s just, you’ve always been a simple kid.” He said and he loved it about her. He gave her everything because she always had a good reason for it and that’s when he realized he fucked up.

He pulled over into the car drop off line. “You see that boy over there with the curly hair?” She asked.

He squinted his eyes to look at him, noticing how beat his shoes were. “He’s never had a birthday party. So, I thought maybe there were other kids like him too. So, I wanted to share it.” She explained.

There was only one other person besides you that could make his heart sink and that was your daughter. She was just like you, a little too good for this world.

He spent a full week getting everything together and planning it exactly how her poster depicted. It was put together beautifully down to the streamers.

“Make a wish, guys!” Your daughter grinned before her and all of her friends blew out the candles on their mini birthday cakes.

As they indulged in all the sugar, you walked up to Rio who was cleaning up some of the trash.

“What changed your mind?” You smiled, wrapping your arms around his waist from behind.

He looked over at your daughter who laughed amongst her friends.

“Can’t say no.”

[waywardavatarenthusiast]

Here’s Azula Week Day 3

Emotions made things complicated. Duties made things simple. Ozai was her father, and it was Azula’s duty to take care of him in his time of need. Zuko had worked hard on integrating her into his friend group while they were in the Fire Nation. She was just beginning to like them when Ozai was released on the grounds that he would perish within the next month. It was an old law of the Fire Nation, one that the family members of prisoners were grateful the Fire Lord had not yet overturned. Azula thought it was foolish long before her father was sentenced.

Still, a part of her felt like an enormous loser when he watched her eat and converse with the enemy. Her heart sank when she was spotted eating with Zuko, who made a joke in the moment that caused her to laugh. Her father walked by just then, and he gave her the look of disgust only she could identify. Then it turned into a smirk.

“I’m done,” she’d said. “Thank you for the meal.” She ignored Zuko’s frown in her peripheral vision, and never ate with him after that. No one saw much of Azula except to come down and feed her terribly sick father and help him walk around the palace. Sometimes he would humiliate her, and vomit all of his food so she would clean it up. A couple times she heard him mutter Ursa’s name under his breath. Azula used to steal her mother’s crown and parade around the palace, saying she would one day be a queen. The servants all smiled at her and told her such news was most certainly true (she didn’t know this was because she was in an arranged marriage to her own cousin). Now she truly understood how heavy the crown Ursa wore had been, and why her mother hadn’t told her what it entailed.

“Ozai,” Zuko said, glaring at the man. “There are more than enough servants to handle all of your needs. Leave Azula alone.” Ozai’s leathery face crinkled into a twisted expression.

“Just because you have failed as my child does not mean Azula wants the same thing for herself. With your mother gone, it is her duty to take care of me and my right to call upon her when she is needed.”

“I’ll find somewhere for her to stay. She’ll no longer be in your presence.”

“More important,” Ozai said, grinning, “she won’t be in your own. I know you like the back of my hand, son. This display of Azula possessing a larger heart than your own is making you look bad. It’s making you look like me. But she is her mother’s daughter, and you are your father’s son. No matter how hard the two of you try to flip that narrative.”

She didn’t eat much that month, between skipping meals with her brother out of humiliation and not wanting to be too far from her father should he need something during the day or night. There was a time however, in which she grew so hungry that she decided to ask a servant to make her something in the third hour of the morning.

Ozai’s coughs were rapid and deep. She opened his door quietly and saw the way he tried to grip the sheets with his hands but they were too weak to even do that. He turned his face to her, and the most pure mixture of hatred and love filled his eyes.

“My daughter,” he rasped. She sat on the bed, and took his cool hand. He was unnaturally pale.

“It’s okay, father,” she said. “You’re a phoenix, you’ll be reborn. You can still be what you want to be.”

“And what’s that?”

“You can still be great. Remembered.” He smiled.

“I wish,” he said, “that I had nurtured your feminine side some more. You enter it easily. For a moment I thought you were your mother in the doorway.”

“I wish I understood what you wanted from me. I wish I’d understood earlier that I would always be in debt to you for being born a girl, and that I needed to prove to your father that you were worth loving, the way Zuko wasn’t worth loving. I wish you’d given me my own name. I wish I’d believed the servants in the hall when they called you a monster in a man’s body.”

“Azula-”

“I wish you never told me that the only thing stopping me from looking like Zuko was that I have mother’s face. I wish I was your child before I was your subject and soldier,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “I wish I didn’t check your stupid pulse every morning, knowing that I don’t owe you anything but giving my everything just to take care of you. I won’t miss you, daddy.” Only Ozai’s heavy breathing filled the room, until it didn’t. She swore she saw his chest flash orange, like the last of his flame had finally left. Azula wiped her face, got up, and left.

Junko was alarmed to have her quarters knocked on at such an early hour. It was the princess, who looked gaunt and disheveled. Junko had taken care of Azula since infancy, and to see her in such a state broke her heart.

“What is it you need, dear princess?” she asked. The princess shuffled her feet.

“I’m very hungry.”

Food had never tasted as good to Azula as it did that morning.

[woodsfae]

idk what sort of powerful drugs I got in post-op, but it kinda felt like being on shrooms. Boy, was I a happy camper! I woke up physically, full-body, spasmodically shaking with cold, at a 6+ on the pain scale, but utterly ecstatic. I went under anxious and terrified and did not expect to wake up absolutely 100% positive that everything was peachy-keen and suffused with delight.

What I had was a laparoscopic, partial hysterectomy. Edit: it was a vaginally-assisted, robotic, total hysterectomy. I kept my ovaries and yeeted the fallopian tubes, uterus, and cervix. My doc used a robot to do the surgery - no idea what that looked like, but I've been delightedly imagining one of those claw machines.

So far the worst pain has been the gas they pump up your abdomen with. The wildest thing is that it extends into your shoulders! Apparently the gas irritates a nerve in the diaphragm and that causes excruciating shoulder pain. I do not understand why. At no point has any pain in my abdomen been worse than menstrual cramps.

I walked (feeling very unsteady, clinging to my IV pole and wishing the nurses were carrying me by my elbows instead of just lightly touching my arms) to the bathroom and then to my hospital room bed about an hour after waking up. I couldn't pee for a couple of hours, but I got up and walked (with a nurse holding my arm) to the bathroom to try after another hour or so. I was able to pee on my second attempt.

I had the most bonkers almost-lucid dream repeatedly while I was dozing the afternoon away. I kept dozing off and immediately dreaming that I was in my exact room and exact bed watching red-robed, hooded figures pop into existence on either side of my hospital bed. They would silently walk past the head of my bed into a vast, cavernous space behind me and pace back and forth. Every time I woke up I would realize there was no room behind my bed for them to fit into. And then I'd doze off again and have the exact same dream. It was completely a neutral experience. I wasn't distressed at all, and was really just fascinated by them appearing out of nowhere and doing their strange walk-by-and-pace-behind-me routine. They looked just like these evil little guys in Lode Runner.

But thankfully they didn't eat me like the Lode Runner guys do when they catch you.

I had the worst dry mouth I've ever experienced. I asked my room tech to refill my water so many times she eventually brought me a pitcher to refill my own, then I rang to get unhooked from the machines to go pee so many times, the nurse came and unhooked everything I couldn't get to myself and showed me how to unhook and re-hook myself into everything else, since I was very clearly ambulatory and by then my sister was there to follow me back and forth so I wouldn't fall.

A little before 7pm, they discharged me at my request. Doc had said as long as I was ambulatory, my pain was controlled, and I could pee, I didn't have to stay the night.

Instead of going home, Partner and I went to my sister's, since right as Partner arrived to pick me up, our housemate texted and said they'd just tested positive for covid. So we crashed at my sister's for two days till housemate's symptoms subsided enough that their viral load would have to be pretty low, and now we're quarantining away from each other in the house as much as possible, running our multiple UV-light HEPA air purifiers, and masking outside our rooms.

Five hours before I had my surgery, I had a little niece born in the same hospital, so I got wheelchaired down to see her before heading to my sister's. Now that I'm much less drugged, I'm amused that my brother just fuckin handed me his fresh-out-of-the-womb daughter with just, total confidence, not to mention my niece's mom being totally chill with it! I don't even want kids and idk if I'd hand any baby to someone who just came out of general anesthesia only six hours earlier, lmao.

Anywho, the new tiny little family also came to my sister's the next day, and our oldest sister came to town as well, so lil sis had a very full house. I spent my first 48 hours out of the hospital alternating between napping and holding Fresh New Baby. (she is super, super cute)

Partner has been a total gem - he knows I'm on total pelvic rest and am not supposed to bend or twist at the waist at all, or really even use my abdominal muscles, and so I have hardly done a thing for myself - I haven't even really lifted my own feet in and out of bed! That's definitely contributing to my pain management, since when I do lift my own legs, I feel an ache.

Every day he's gently lowered me into the car and taken me for a little enrichment drive somewhere in the county - I actually highly recommend this, as the road vibration legitimately seems to be vibrating the gas out of me. Plus the car has heated seats and that's nicely soothing for all my sad muscles, too.

Overall, I'm ludicrously positive, feeling well, and am happy to be coddled to an almost silly extent.

Fingers crossed Partner and I don't come down with covid! I don't want to experience coughing while my insides are unmoored from their normal hawsings.

Everyone at the hospital was really, really nice to me. I felt extremely well taken care of by the medical staff, my doc has such a good bedside manner I think he's at least half-way cured me of my medical anxiety, and I finally got a diagnosis! Endometriosis. And now that shit's been ablated the fuck out of my torso.

This is definitely a very serious surgery and my body knows it. I feel the urge to hold my abdomen at almost all times, and in a very unlike-me turn of events, I have no desire to do anything I'm not supposed to. I barely want to get up and walk around a little. I'm zoning out constantly. I can hardly hold an entire train of thought in my head, and I haven't been able to get to genius in the NYT Spelling Bee game since before my surgery. This is definitely take-it-easy time, and I'm grateful that my body and brain agree that I need to be very still, and very easy on myself.

[mae-gi-writes]

Calling... | Juyeon (tbz)

Juyeon tbz! x f! reader 

Summary:

Long distance is hard, even for people like you and Juyeon. 

Genre: angst, some fluff, LDR relationship

A/N: some self-indulgent angst because I’ve been feeling low these days and have nowhere/no one to vent it to. 

-----

"We’re going to get through this, Y/N. I promise.” 

That promise. You’re not sure whether that’s a curse or a blessing. Every single day becomes a torturous game between wanting to give up everything that you’ve built with the man of your dreams and pushing forward towards the happy ending you’ve always hoped for. 

It was easier in the beginning. Maybe because you were both so new to the prospect of love, that you didn’t know what you were missing from each other. It only grew harder the more the years went by and though some people said that the pain gets easier, you’re not quite sure whether they’ve supposedly missed out the part where you keep falling deeper in love with him every day. 

Maybe if you didn’t love him so much, it would hurt less. And god, you wished that would happen. You wished a miraculous cure would numb the swell in your chest every time you had a spare moment to think of what Juyeon was doing. You wished that it would stop the familiar burn of tears tearing your throat apart every time you forced yourself to keep down your choked cries for the sake of not crying. Because you were sick of that too.

This kind of pain is toxic and unsurmountable, to an extent that you start wondering whether life would be easier without Juyeon around. 

"A few more months Y/N,” Juyeon says, face taking up your phone screen as you put the device onto your nightstand in favour of curling your knees up to your chest. You’re trying very hard not to cry, and hope that he can’t see the silent tears slipping past your lids, “it’ll go by quickly, I--” 

“Yeah yeah, I know,” you mumble out, having already heard this mantra over a thousand times. It’s the same thing, after all. A few more months, a little bit more time, just a little-- you’re so fed up of all this waiting, of everyone telling you the exact same thing. 

You’re so sick of it. You can’t even look at the camera anymore.

"Where...Where do you think we stand?” comes his question. A little hesitant, but without any stutter. And when you look back at his face, you notice the downward cast of his eyes, the saddening turn of his lower lip. 

It’s hurting him just as much and you hate it. You hate how guilty you feel about dragging him into this when he’s only just a victim. 

“What do you mean?” you ask softly. 

Juyeon takes a soft breath, exhales, “like...do you think we have a hundred percent chance? Or...fifty percent? Or...” 

He trails off, but you understand what he means, and shrug while scratching the back of your head, “definitely not a fifty,” you say, biting your lip, “and...there’s nothing that can make me say we’re less than a hundred, but...” 

You’re not certain what to say there. It’s touchy, and you don’t want to hurt your boyfriend more than you are at this particular moment. 

If you had been asked a question a year earlier, there is no doubt your answer would’ve straight up been a hundred percent. And you’d say it with confidence too, Juyeon knows that.

But it hurts so fucking much.

It hurts so much that it’s the only thing you can think about every day. 

It makes you sad. It makes you want to curl up in a ball and cry because there is literally nothing else you can do to take your mind off it. 

"Do you...are you--" his voice wobbles, then breaks off without courage of actually saying the words out loud, "I--"

You shake your head, lips trembling as you murmur, "I'm not--I`m not gonna do that, Juyeon."

You fear that saying the words out loud might make it come true. And you don't want to imagine what that would be like, even if you entertain the possibility at the back of your mind.

The silence overcrowds the distance between you and the phone. For a minute, you can't bear to meet Juyeon's eyes. Your fingers start picking your nails apart, a nervous habit you've manifested whenever you get anxious.

When Juyeon speaks next, his words are laced with pain and he doesn't even try holding back a sob, "please," he exhales shakily and even from your tiny screen, you can see the redness lining his eyes, "please don't break up with me."

Your heart aches at the sadness etched onto his features, "I'm not," you repeat it more firmly then, "I won't."

He doesn't answer. But then again, you've probably shocked him to the core.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you," you say quietly.

"No, it's okay. I--" running a hand through his dark locks, you note his jaw clenching, "I didn't know you felt this way. I'm the one that should be sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"It is, though isn't it?" He chuckles emptily, "I guess I...I'm not doing enough."

"That's not it, Juyeon. It hurts a lot. This, everything. And I'm just tired. I'm tired of always crying. I'm just so fucking tired."

And then you burst into ugly sobs.

----

The weather has gotten warmer now that June is in full swing. Your final semester is over and that means a little bit of freedom before starting your job search. It is enjoyable and peaceful, walking across town with your friends, meeting up at odd hours of the day and finding new treasures that your town has to offer.

You are currently in the middle of parking your bike next to the harbourfront when your phone suddenly buzzes in your pant leg.

"Hey," you say as you pick up the receiver, "what's up?"

"Hey," there's a little bit of static before Juyeon'a voice comes through, "I'm good. What about you?"

"I'm at the harbourfront. Getting some air."

"That's nice," a pause, then, "how was it?"

"I think I might have enjoyed it more than I should've," you tell him as you walk up to the edge of the harbour. The water lolls peacefully against the edge and it calms you down, as the talk has earlier, "it helped. A lot."

He breathes out softly, "that's good to hear. How...how do you feel?"

"Surprisingly serene."

"Woah, fancy description."

You can't help but laugh at that, "thanks. I try."

A comfortable silence fills the air and you lean down, hand outstretched to catch some of the waves lapping up along the edge, "and you?" It's been a while since you've managed to speak to Juyeon properly. You miss him, "how have you been?"

"Oh you know," you hear him shuffle, "keeping myself busy. I started working at a skateboard shop. It's been...interesting."

"Do you even know how to skateboard?"

"I can stand straight on one. Does that count?"

You giggle, "no, you goon. You actually have to be able to skate on it."

You talk for a little while longer as you enjoy the peace and quiet that comes with a breathtaking view. Even more breathtaking as the sun slowly sets over the horizon and giving bloom to hues of orange and salmon pink bleeding into the clear blue sky.

It has been nice to talk to someone. As per Juyeon's request a few weeks earlier, you had decided to sign up for a free counselling session. You weren't a big fan of people poking around your thoughts and feelings, but the consultation had actually been really enjoyable. To unleash everything that you've been carrying in your heart is a weight that has suddenly lifted off your chest, and you feel shades lighter as you spend the reat of your evening roaming through town, getting your groceries, walking along the pavement back to your flat.

"I gotta go now," Juyeon says as you unlock your front door, "Changmin's been bugging my ass for thirty minutes."

"Well please tell him I have nothing to do with this."

"You had everything to do with this."

"Lying will get you nowhere."

"And I will tell him anyway," he singsongs, causing you to chuckle good-naturedly. That is, before the next words come to shake up your heart a little.

"I miss you."

You smile softly, sadness combing through your chest, "I do too, Juyeon."

"Stay safe, okay?"

"You too."

"Talk soon Y/N," his voice is filled with a gentleness that makes your heart sing, and you repeat back the said words, a mixture of melancholy and fondness blooming inside your chest.

Ending the call and setting down your groceries atop the kitchen counter, your eyes find the date circled in red.

Your lips curl into a smile.

----

"Flight A472 has arrived. Travelers, please make your way to the luggage section.“

The intercom buzzes with static to repeat the earlier statement and you feel your heart flutter in your chest as you slowly get up from your seat. You've been waiting at the nearby fast food joint until now, and it's no surprise that your butt feels numb and flat.

Stretching your limbs and picking uo your bag, you sling your navy coat over your shoulder and make your way towards the arrivals. The airport is deserted at this time of night and you're grateful, for it gives your heart more time to prepare for the man you haven't seen in over eight months.

Eight months. Eight months is a long time. It's almost the time it takes for a baby to be born. You flush at the thought, wondering whether Juyeon sees you in his future just as permanently as you see him.

"Who are you waiting for?" Your head swivels to see an older woman, in her late fifties, with a handbag slung over her shoulder and a burgundy scarf wrapped around her neck.

"Oh, uh--" heat travela up the back of your neck, "someone close. And you?"

"My daughter. I haven't seen her in over two years," the woman smiles fondly, "it's hard, isn't it? Not being able to see your close ones every day."

"Yeah," you mumble, "it sure is."

Your gaze is now fixated on the sliding doors now that people have started walking out. One by one, you watch as strangers hug their families, laughing and smiling. A couple is embracing in a nearby corner. And the old woman brightening up and waving at the sight of her daughter pulling up her luggage.

Your chest can't help but swell with emotion. What a beautiful thing to be admire the magic of a reunion. Tears rush to your eyes, suddenly overwhelmed by the amount of love radiating through your veins and bathinf your limbs in warmth.

"Y/N."

You freeze. Slowly, you turn around and see Juyeon.

Your Juyeon.

He stands there, backpack on his shoulders and hair ruffled. A luggage at his side and sporting a grin.

Your heart explodes.

Heat rushes through your face, mouth opening in a soft 'oh'.

"Juyeon," his name rolls off your lips.

You're breathless. Everything falls out of focus.

Juyeon. Juyeon is here.

Everything happens so fast. You blink and you're in his arms, his warmth engulfinf you, his scent making you light-headed, his lips permanently pressed against your temple as your hands unconsciously scrabble to hold on to his hoodie like he's a dream you don't want to let go.

It's magical. It feels like a goddamn miracle.

You can't help but burst into tears.

"Oh god," Juyeon's chuckle echoes through your ear. He tightens his grip ever so slightly and kisses your forehead, the corner of your eye while stroking your back.

You cling to him like he's your only lifeline, "I missed you," you sob into his shirt, "I missed you so much."

"It's okay," he cooes into your ear, one hand coming up to smooth over your head, "I'm here now, Y/N."

"I--" emotions rush through you like a dam broken down by the tides and suddenly you're babbling everything you've kept hidden in the grooves of your heart, "I'm so sorry for everything, I-- I was hurt and scared and lonely. I didn't think about how this distance affected you too and I'm sorry I made you go through all this when you did nothing wrong, I--"

Your words get muffled by his lips pressing onto yours to stop any other protests and you melt into him like coming home with open arms. His arms pin your middle to his chest, parting your mouth with his and taking your breath away with every suckle, every nibble. It makes you gasp, clutching his shoulders and returning his kisses with just as much vigor.

"You," he breathes against your parted mouth, "are everything I want," pulling back to press his forehead to yours, he continues, "so don't you dare think for one second, that you're in this alone. You're never alone, Y/N."

"I love you," you murmur, nose brushing his. He kisses you once more, heat lingering between you and claiming your affection for him, "I love you too."

You know that this isn't the end. A path of tears and pain and struggle still await you. The mountain is high and steep, a tough climb that makes youe legs tremble.

But you know now, looking into Juyeon's eyes and seeing the magic in there, the dripping affection that makea your fingers tingle, that this is it. There's nobody else, nothing else you want than Lee Juyeon.

Because if there's one thing for sure is that Juyeon's hand is the one you want to take, to make that climb happen.

"Wanna get out of here and tell me everything I've missed out about you?" Juyeon whispers upon finally detangling himself, though still holding on to your shoulder as he gently pulls you towards the exit.

"Only if you tell me everything I've missed about you," you reply.

He chuckles, before pressing another lingering kiss over your cheek, "deal."