#this was PAINFUL | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

highhhfiveee · 1 year ago

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Mike x reader, with reader who works long hours during the daytime and Mike working at night which results in them barely having time to see eachother besides from dinner and bedtime

oh, you wanted angst fr 🥲 i think it could go either way, but honestly angst is what stood out to me first. i’m going to make this sadder too, just because i can 💜

to crumble

pairing: mike schmidt x blackfem!reader summary: y/n and mike find their relationship at a dead end. wc: 2.3k tags: angst, pain, prescription drug mentions, fluff and cuteness in the beginning but not for long. mdni. part 2 here: 🏳️

all i can think ab is the unbearable pain that replaces the love in your hearts as time goes on.

you’ve been together for half a year. things were fun at first, but once you decide to move in to help with abby, you start to see the cracks in the foundation.

in this one, reader works two jobs (bc let’s face it, this is unfortunately realistic); teaching from 9-4 and cashiering from 5-8:30. mike doesn’t want you working two jobs and you didn’t want to, but you knew that your salaries combined wouldn’t keep you afloat. abby’s school is expensive, and so is everything else in life. the extra money you get from cashiering gives you guys flexibility.

every morning at 6:30, monday to friday, you wake up alone. even though you know it’ll probably be empty, you still reach your arm over to run it over mike’s side. it’s always cold and flat, completely untouched.

you brush this off at first; it's one of the things that comes with him working overnight and you know he needs this job so that he can keep abby. you want that for him and know that love is sacrifice.

you wake abby up and start getting her ready in between fixing yourself up; brushing her teeth while you brush yours, letting her get a few more minutes of sleep in while you throw on your clothes, guiding her through packing her bag while you make breakfast. by that time, closer to 7:30, mike is finally walking into the house.

his eyes are hooded and surrounded by dark bags and you can tell he's exhausted from the way he hangs his things up lethargically. he kisses abby, who's running around collecting things, on the head, then ambles over to you, wrapping his arms around your waist and kissing along your neck.

they're soft, gentle actions that make you forget about not being able to do things like this at night. it doesn't matter when you have mornings with him, even if it's only 30 minutes before you have to go. you giggle and reach a hand up to his cheek, kissing him on his other one.

"missed you," you whisper.

"missed you too," he mumbles back, planting a kiss on your lips before stalking away to ask abby something.

you all eat breakfast together, and then you're slipping abby's coat over her shoulders before you put on your own. you usher her to the car and give mike one last kiss before you leave, a deep one that you hope he feels all day. when you pull away, you can see the affection sparkling in his eyes, low and tired but expressive nonetheless.

"i love you," he whispers, his sleepiness masquerading as love-drunkeness.

"i love you, mike. get some rest, okay?"

you drop abby off, wishing her well, before you're alone for the next 12 hours. it often drags. at your teaching job, you feel as if it's just passing you buy in waves, everything whizzing past you at light speed. you're aware that you're in front of the kids, but then you just blackout. you're thrown into autopilot, and you do this over and over until your lunch break at 1. you text mike to pass the time.

sometimes it's something silly, like "god i do not get paid enough" or "a kid just ate glue /: send help", to which mike will respond "😂😂😂" or "lol you deserve millions (:". he makes you laugh, and it's enough to help you push through the end of the day.

he picks up abby from school, asking her all about her day and what she wants for dinner. he'll text you what she says so you know what to expect when you get home, like "meatloaf 🍖🍞 (:" or "chicken alfredo 0: fancy".

for you, transitioning from teaching to customer service was easy; all you had to do was maintain that same autopilot: smile on, eyes alert, prepared for anything. no one suspected a thing when you could keep up and answer their questions.

mike helps abby with her homework, scratching his head with the eraser of a pencil when he draws blanks on a math or history question. abby only sighs, telling him about something off-topic. "art class is much more interesting."

mike starts dinner while you're closing up at work, sweeping the front end of the store and counting down your drawer. he lets abby help sometimes, and they usually have it ready for you by the time you're home at 9.

abby meets you at the door, and you hug her tight, picking her up and waltzing her back into the house. mike is setting the dining table, greeting you with a sleepy smile and, "the queen has arrived."

you all sit down and eat, and it's another one of those moments where everything feels okay. the last 12 hours didn't matter when you were able to have this at the end of it.

you tell abby and mike about your day over spaghetti, spilling details about prideful parents and spiteful customers. abby laughs all throughout, asking questions about being a cashier. mike just listens, eyes and heart floating between the two of you.

you clear the table while mike goes to get ready for work, and a wash of dread passes over you. your brain knows what's happening next. you'll kiss him goodbye, clinging to his hoodie sleeve for a second longer than you should, and then you'll settle down with abby, bathing her and reading her to sleep. then you'll be alone. it will just be you and the screech of infomercials until midnight, and then you'll be off to sleep, snuggling into a pillow that smells like mike.

you push the feeling away, shaking your head and hands and doing just as you know. there's the kiss, the night routine with abby, and the moment you sit on the couch, surrounded by tv light and the croaking of cicadas.

mike doesn't text during his shift unless it's an emergency. it makes you sad, but you understand. security requires focus, and you require sleep.

for a while, this works. it's what you and mike have to do to make ends meet, and while you both think that it'll only get better with more time at it, it doesn't.

you still wake up alone and go through the same rhythm, but when mike comes in around 7:30, it's not 7:30 anymore. it's 7:39, then 7:45, then 7:58. the latest he's ever been, so late that you're not able to eat with him. he shrugs it off when you mention it, kissing your cheek and retreating to the bedroom to sleep.

you drop abby off as usual, and go to work. work. work. work.

mike starts missing your lunch break texts, sometimes dozing dangerously close to when abby's school lets out. while your class works, you bitterly stare at your text conversation. your unanswered "shaping america's future is kinda sick" message stares back at you until it's replaced by abby's school calling. your heart drops to your stomach as you step out of the room to take the call, answering the phone with, "is she okay?"

mike didn't pick her up. she's out at 2:30 and it's 3:30 now, and she's crying and scared because he didn't pick up the phone, and she always calls him first.

you leave work in a flurry, asking a fellow teacher to take over, and you speed to abby's school, not caring about tickets or police or anything. you only want to get her home.

mike is dashing out of the door when you pull up, wrenching a sobbing abby out of your backseat and clutching her close. "i'm sorry, i'm sorry, i'm sorry," he breathes, smoothing her hair and looking up at you with regret etched into every feature on his face.

you try your best to hide your upset, ushering everyone inside before changing into your work clothes. you were going to be late, but you shake it off. abby was home and that was all that mattered.

"hey," mike reaches out to you when you're on your way out. his fingers graze their way down to your hand, and it makes you wish that you could stay home. "thanks for that. i've just been super tired lately and i overslept and---"

"it's okay, baby," you give him a tight lipped smile and a kiss on the knuckles. "just don't let it happen again."

it happens again. and again. and again. it happens so many times that abby starts to think mike is forgetting about her, and you don't know how to get that out of her head. she cries about it more and more with each time you have to pick her up. he stops running out to apologize, still asleep inside.

you rush into the bedroom. he's splayed out over the bed, snoring loudly with his arm hanging over the side. you find an orange pill bottle on his nightstand. an old ambien prescription.

you argue with him before work sometimes.

"what do you need ambien for?"

"i can't sleep."

"but every morning, you skip breakfast to sleep."

"i do fall asleep, but i started waking up out of it. i just take the ambien to help me fall again."

"what time do you take it?"

"i don't know, y/n."

"why are you lying to me?"

"i'm not."

"what time?" you cry, grasping at your chest. a sharp pains thud through your ribcage, and you literally sob. it feels like your heart is tearing in two. "you stare at times, mike. what time do you take the ambien?"

he doesn't answer you and he doesn't know why. it would be so easy to tell you that he takes it at 9 or 10, and that he believes he'll be able to wake himself up around 2 but he doesn't. he can’t sleep without the ambien. he needs it now because he kept himself up in the early days of this, mind toiling over their situation, the endless reassurance that this would work sending him into insomnia.

you leave when he doesn't answer, wiping at your watery eyes and runny nose.

you cashier as a shell of yourself. abby stops asking mike for homework help, and eventually he stops cooking dinner too, trading all that time in for extra sleep after picking her up. you have to explain the situation to your retail store manager, just in case mike forgets again, and start looking after abby more. mike only ever made time to spend with her on the weekends, content with awkward moments over lunch and low energy bickering.

the lunch break texts stop. the dinner texts stop.

he's dressed and ready to leave when you get home these days, prepared to exit as you enter. you don't know what to say as you face each other in the doorway, eyes focused on anything but each other. you don’t even kiss anymore.

"i think abby's asleep already."

you shake your head. "i think she's really sad. she hasn't been coming out of there like she used to. she misses you."

"i miss her too, of course. i'm just busy."

"all you do is work, mike," you deadpan, exhausted with him. you never thought you'd ever get to a point where you looked at mike, the sure love of your life, with disdain, but you felt it creep into you ever so slightly.

"yeah, i know. it fucking sucks, but it's what i have to do to keep abby."

you scoff, scooting past him to take your coat and bag off. "as if you're going to keep her by leaving her at school everyday." it's supposed to be under your breath, but the disdain creeps onto your tongue, bitter and raging, and you say it aloud, to his face.

his jaw clenches and his brown eyes burn, staring you down with an unrelenting severity. you hunch yourself over, dropping your head and sighing out, "mike, i'm sorry. i didn--"

he leaves without another word.

how it got to this, neither of you know. not even the weekends healed anymore. mike caught up on sleep, you caught up on grading, and in your downtime, you avoided each other. for him, it felt easier than being around you. you were irritable all the time, a quick fuse with any word he could think to speak.

for you, it seemed like it was what he wanted. time away from you, from abby, from everyone; time to be alone and recharge for the only thing he ever did, the only thing that was keeping his sister in his care.

you didn't even remember what his touch felt like, what he tasted like. the man that you loved had become but a memory, a ghost that passed through your plane. you’re able to imagine his fluffy hair, his perfect smile, his laugh, his rich smell, but none of it mattered. he didn’t feel like yours anymore.

you suppose it was the same for him, with you existing in the same space but only tangible to him some of the time. he would catch glimpses of your smile, laughing at something on your phone, or talking to abby, meet your eyes when you shuffled back to the bedroom from the bathroom, rimmed in red from crying for the last 30 minutes.

he starts sleeping on the couch, unable to even lay beside you.

mike does a lot of crying. a lot of screaming into his pillow, wondering why he fucks these things up so badly. you do the same, wondering why you stay in situations that hurt you.

this goes on for longer than you two would like, so long that you don't even celebrate your one-year anniversary.

the day passes without noise, mike sleeping and you working.

a prequel of sorts : x

THIS WAS SO FUCKING LONG MY BBBBBBBB OMG. i did NOT mean to go this deep in, i just felt SOOOOO MUCH! my little brain got sad ): i could go deeper into this too one day, breaking up moments into specific little blurbs or ficlets d: let me know if y'all even enjoyed this lmaooo off to write for Halloween lol

#mike schmidt x reader #mike schmidt #mike schmidt angst #fnaf angst #fnaf movie #fnaf #fnaf fic #faire’s mike schmidt <3 #this was painful #kind of tired so it may be ass but #it feels painful #imagine your relationship just falling to pieces 💔#i made this so long #whoops #faire is writing stuff #josh hutcherson

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thelostgirl21 · 1 year ago

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After watching that scene, I'm pretty sure that Radovid's intent was to go ask for Ciri's help and convince her to come with him to Redania, so all the madness would stop.

Seriously, he's all alone, he openly admitted to being afraid, he's got no royal security detail nearby, and I'm pretty sure that Jaskier could easily knock him out with his lute if it ever came to it!

And Ciri is what? A highly trained magically enhanced warrior?

Like there was literally no way he ever could have managed to kidnap her on his own, and I'm fairly certain he's 100% aware of it.

Not to mention that his big "masterplan" had Radovid just initially knocking on the freaking door while both Jaskier and Ciri were inside to come see them!

The fact that he attempted to go inside the cabin without Jaskier's permission is pretty much the worst thing he's ever done "wrong".

Yes, it would have been better for him to wait until Jaskier was awake, and then convince him to let him see Ciri; but, like Jaskier said, "people do stupid things when they feel like they're trapped in a corner".

So, disrespecting Jaskier's boundaries by taking the initiative to go see Ciri himself, likely because he was too afraid that Jaskier would still say "no" if he asked, is not exactly what I would call a "betrayal".

Something that would require a good talk between them, yeah.

But given how terrified that poor Prince was (and he had every reason to be), I can understand why he would have been rather desperate to get an audience with Ciri by that point.

And I get that Jaskier's highly protective of Ciri, and that he's got a hard time believing that someone could just fall in love with him as easily as Radovid did, but come on!

Cutting straight through him like that, by basically telling him he's freaking empty behind his mask?

You know, after Radovid told him that he believes he is someone that sees people as they really are, not as they pretend to be, and that he sees the best in them... Jaskier basically goes straight for the kill by telling Radovid there's no good in him?!

And Radovid just... takes it?

He takes his broken heart, apologizes, and leaves?

And one of the most heartbreaking things is that I think he's not telling Jaskier how bad things are at the Palace, because it might put him in danger, too.

Dijkstra's already threatened to have him killed if he says a word to anyone about that truly happened to Queen Hedwig, and it's very likely that if he tells Jaskier - and Dijsktra and Philippa find out who he spoke to - they'll get rid of both of them.

The more it goes, and the more I'm having a feeling that Radovid really is just that highly emotionally intelligent and perceptive puppy, a bit of an empath, like Jaskier, but definitely not the kind of person that enjoys political strategy and scheming.

He was crying and whimpering alone in the corner of a room upon finding out his guards were dead, for frak's sake!

You know, after Jaskier sort of "broke up" with him (before they even had a chance to really become something), all because he was scared, and had a moment of weakness where he went to see Ciri alone.

And then, he comes back to the Palace to find that all the guards that used to look after him are dead (I wouldn't be surprised if Radovid had become friends with a few of them), and he just huddles in a corner, and then tells Jaskier that he should go, and shouldn't have to listen to him / comfort him.

I'm kinda glad that Jaskier found him, and decided to give him a chance to show him that he didn't betray him and that his feelings for him were 100% genuine; and even implied that he might have gone with Radovid if he hadn't needed to go looking for his family.

It's actually when Radovid told him "you shouldn't have to listen to me", sounding like he was blaming himself for the mistake he made, and minimizing his own hurt pretending he wouldn't be worth the time and efforts, that Jaskier went into "protective mode" and considered that he was being sincere earlier.

I'm just hoping the show won't try to do something extremely dumb like turning this into a sort of "villain origin story" or something.

From what I understand, the books had Dijsktra and Philippa running Redania in Queen Hedwig's name, by forming a Regency Council because Queen Hedwig was too devastated in the wake of her husband's death, and out of her depth / unable to figure out how to run the country in times of war and conflict.

So, essentially they become the true power behind the throne.

And here, they had Queen Hedwig killed because she had an interest in politics, strong opinions, was (according to how Vizimir described her at her funerals) considered a STERN and distant figure, and the King adored her and respected her influence.

Whereas Radovid essentially says "Look, I'm terrible at being a prince, or spy, or anything to do with court and politics, really... But I've found someone I love and I think I can do some good out there..."

And when they put that crown on his head, he was looking on the verge of a panic attack.

This isn't someone that apparently ever craved power, or recognition, or enjoyed politics, or wanted to rule anything.

So what if the show was brave enough to give Queen Hedwig's role to a man who is deeply caring, loving, empathetic, weeps when he discovers that his guards have died, and has a hard time recovering from what happened to his brother and the way it totally crushed his hopes of ever escaping a world of constant betrayal and deceit.

What if Radovid is unable to rule (at least, at first), and therefore the power goes to Dijsktra and Philippa, just like it does in the books.

It's just that instead of a Queen that is unable to take care of the Kingdom and must rely on the decisions of Dijsktra and Philippa, it's a King.

Instead of Vizimir's wife, it's his brother.

He's pretty much just told his brother "I'm not cut for life at court, I can't be of any use to anyone here, but I can be of use to someone I love out there in the world."

And yes the fact that Radovid basically heard Jaskier say "I need to find my family" and his instinct was to immediately go "look, just let me be there for you, and make up for that moment of weakness I had, and let's go help the people you love and protect your family together..." just made me unconditionally fall in love with that character.

Like he's not jealous that Jaskier has people that he loves, and that he considers family, and that he's putting first (because, let's face it they barely know each other), and apparently Radovid would feel happier and safer being out there with him - where the things that want to eat you usually are very clear and open on their intents - than stuck in a viper's nest where you constantly have to watch your back and play mind games to survive.

Sure, if they have Radovid play "Hedwig" there are a few toxic gamers out there that are going to complain about how the "feminazis" have ruined a perfectly good, ruthless villain!

But that ruthless villain never existed in the books. He's literally a 13-year-old child, and the trauma that was suggested that book Radovid went through as a kid - that made him want to take his "rightful place as King", get even with those that tormented him and his mother, and earned him the nickame "Radovid the Stern" - never happened.

Book Radovid was an immature child that seemed a bit entitled and was going in his mind "Oh, just you wait to see what I'm capable of".

TV show Radovid is a very emotionally mature, sensitive, and insightful man that worries that he's taking up too much of Jaskier's time and bothering him with his concerns.

And the minute that he learns that Jaskier's family is in danger is willing to sell as much valuables as he can to get out there and help him get them back!

Like... Why on the Continent would he suddenly become a villain that decides he hates all non-humans and wants all sorceresses dead?! (That's videogame Radovid, not book Radovid, BTW)

But yeah, he doesn't fit the psychological profile of a tyrant at all!

I'm not saying that he can't turn out to be a surprisingly good strategist, given that highly empathetic people are often able to give manipulators a run for their money!

But it's exhausting, it's unpleasant, it's not something they enjoy, and they'd much rather not have to.

Seriously, I never expected to fall in love with Radovid to the point where, if I could, I'd have been tempted to jump in there to protect him from Jaskier, of all people!

Like WTF is this?!

It's probably just like I absolutely adore Geralt, but have often wanted to knock some sense into him when it comes to the way he's been behaving with Jaskier.

It's a case of "a beloved character's issues are targeting another beloved character's issues, and would you guys please stop hurting each other?!?!?"

Like, I get it, Jaskier, but Radovid didn't deserve to be told that everything you believed you saw in him was a lie, because of your own difficulty trusting that someone could really be so enamored with you, and the risk of being blinded by your feeling for him... And is it just me or it's like a huge running theme of Season 3, part 2?

Tissaia and Vilgefortz, Philippa and Dijsktra, Jaskier and Radovid, etc.

Anyway, I just have tons of feels about Radovid that I needed to get out...

#Radovid #Jaskier #Radskier #The Witcher #The Witcher Spoilers #My Posts #My Thoughts #This was painful #But I'm trying to trust that Jaskier will eventually make it right to him...#Hopefully...

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