#though possible too; like when only the woman keeps the daughter they get divorced because of the first child's gender perhaps(?))

[honestlydeeppolice]

Women who chose selective ab// by gender

Women who chose selective ab// by gender, they probably think that the humans are 80% biologically male and they(she) are one of them, they just happen to give birth.

[trickstarbrave]

I have been consuming too many cdramas I just came up with a plot for one

Mc met and ended up becoming the wife to a rich ceo and fell in love with him. Their ceremony was very subdued despite how wealthy he was. Yet the in laws were always nice to her except for a few aunts and cousins who hated her. She wasn’t dirt poor but wasn’t as wealthy as him. She was surprised his immediate family even liked her at all.

He insisted they use contraception. She agreed. She loved him but at first he was very distant to her. Slowly he began to warm up to her and was kind to her, treating her well. She didn’t like feeling like she was freeloading though so she tried to find work. He got her a job as his assistant early on and told her they wouldn’t be open about being husband and wife and keep it strictly professional at work. She agreed. She figured at first this was a marriage out of obligation because his parents and grandparents made him marry her, so she wasn’t bothered by it.

A few years pass though and she’s now very in love with him but assumes he only started treating her better because his family made him. Then he started having sec with her because he was stressed from work. She saw how stressed he was from work after all bad then at work he was always in a better mood because of this. She didn’t knew w if he would ever divorce her, but thought he might some day.

Then his first love who left him years ago comes back. It turns out she left without saying anything because she got very ill and was afraid she might die on him and didn’t want to put that on him. She was content to die quietly overseas but her family made her get treatment and she is more stable but doesn’t have very long to live.

His family dotes on her excessively. Mc realizes now they might have treated her nicely, but it was nothing to the love and adoration given to his first love by his family. They used to say it was despicable she left their son, but now they’ve completely changed their tune and forgiven her so quick. She told herself “maybe it’s just because she’s sick? They used to play together often as children and now a child they think of as their own is sick.” Then it’s revealed in order to save her life her family spent most of their fortune on her medical treatment including experimental treatments. But it still wasn’t enough to fully help her. She uses a wheelchair most days.

Mc however then overhears the first love say “it’s so despicable how mc acted like a simple assistant when I met him at his office. Then I come to family dinner and it’s revealed she’s his wife! Completely shameless. While I was fighting for my life his parents married him off just to make sure he had a wife to deal with his home life yet she gets a job as his assistant! Acting bold to spend as much time with him at work as possible. He doesn’t even care for her, I’ve seen how cold he is to her at the office! He only acts nice at his parents house because his family values a peaceful home life. Yet she still doesn’t know her place!” To one of his aunts.

The aunt chimes in “I know, my sister doesn’t even like her truth be told. Whenever we’re at my house or out together she always badmouths her but says they must keep the peace. I bet she doesn’t even know her daughter in law neglects the home and being a wife to pretend to be a single woman in an office! Maybe she’s having an affair at work and her husband doesn’t know because he’s so busy with actual work? It’s not like he’d want to pay attention to that kind of plain woman anyways.”

“Don’t worry, he said he would divorce her for me when I asked. He will still do anything to make me happy. And would his parents really say no to a sickly woman they already treat as their own daughter? Even if they value a peaceful home life and dislike divorce, the public doesn’t even know he’s married and I am worth more than her. They won’t lose face.”

Mc feels horrible. She holds back her tears and feigns illness saying she didn’t feel well. Husband says he’ll take her home right away but she says “your friend is sickly and came here to share a meal with you and your parents, how could you possibly leave? If my best friend were in this position and you got sick, you wouldn’t have let me leave with you, would you?”

He relents, looking worried. She thinks to herself that he is either very good at acting. She used to think he was good to her because as he came to care for her, at least on some level. But if he cared for her, why would he not tell her something like this first at least? He promised his beloved he would divorce his wife for her within a week if her coming back into his life without even talking to his wife about it.

Then again, the mc starts to get anxious, wondering if she believed that entirely. Maybe he wasn’t acting and genuinely cared about her. It seemed like the childhood friend/ex was talking with an aunt who hated her, perhaps the ex gf was two faced and looked town on her background like the aunt did and was spinning tales. Maybe they hoped she would overhear and misunderstand so she would file for divorce first or start fighting them and look like the one who started it? Surely that wouldn’t be above the ex gf who already shown she was two faced. Or maybe, for extra drama, the ex gf had agreed to help out the husband’s family and tricked her into getting the aunt to confess. After all, her MIL suspected her sister wasn’t kind to the mc but the mc always told her that wasn’t the case, her aunt in law was just a bit awkward but to not misunderstand her as she was still always polite and tried to be good to her just like her MIL.

She didn’t know. But she decided to keep an eye out. At home he texted his ex gf often and smiled at her messages. She tried not to snoop, it was just what she saw. He always talked to her on the phone a lot, and when she needed to go to the hospital for more treatment. Ex gf came to the office often and there were already gossip magazines saying they got back together. And then while she was at work she went into his office to drop something off while he was at a business meeting out of the building and saw plain as day a divorce agreement draft sprawled across his desk.

Mc was upset. She goes to her own office and around half an hour later, ex gf comes in with her bitchy cousin. Ex gf sees her crying, and says she will keep this short since he must have told her what happened already. Mc is frozen. Her tone is very harsh and venomous. “Your husband only married you because your father saved his parents’ lives once. Before he died, your father made them promise to return the favor by making you their daughter in law and take care of you for him. Then they could die in peace.”

She was shocked. She lost her mother when she was younger, but to make up for her her father constantly doted on her. He never remarried because he loved his wife too much and worried about his daughter too. He always said his heart was already full since her mother and her were the most important women to him and gave him enough love and happiness to last a dozen lifetimes. He died a few years ago, shortly before she was asked to marry her husband in an arranged marriage proposed by his parents who claimed they wanted a mild mannered woman to be their son’s wife. He told her in private they wanted a daughter in law from humble origins who had parents that would try to take over their business or demand a merger. She understood, but wanted stability after her father died especially since her father died in debt, something he carried to the grave no one else but her knew, and she only knew bc she took over his estate. She said she would marry him. They gave her a generous wedding gift that was all her own as a large sum of money. She paid off the debts. Saved interest on the rest. She said she might need it later if he divorced her one day.

And it seemed like that day had come.

She was distraught tho to find out his parents were only nice to her out of obligation. He only pretended to like her likely for the same. They probably told him it later to try and get them to be civil. He could have told her, but instead he told his first love, his ex girlfriend, all of it.

“But they’ve agreed they’ve paid their debt enough. You were given money, and allowed to live as their daughter in law for several long years. And in the end, they want me to have the position of his wife, saying I needed it more than you. To top it off, they don’t even know you work here, but you have work experience as his assistant you can use to get a job just about anywhere!”

The mc was so upset. Even though her father was their savior, who asked only for them to take care of his daughter with his dying breath, they decided a few years of marriage and some money repaid the favor. He saved two lives and asked for them to take care of his daughter who was orphaned at 21, yet they felt a few years made up for it? Or perhaps they would later joke in private that few years around her felt like enough for two lifetimes? But it was not like she could fight it. Nor did she want to stay married to a man who pretended to like her just to have sex with her. Especially not around his family that were also fake. She would have preferred they all acted distant or were upfront about it.

“Sign the divorce papers when he gives them to you. Don’t drag it out thinking they will support you because they actually like you.”

With that she and her cousin leave.

Mc cries more. Then she cleans up, finished her makeup, and pretends it didn’t happen. She doesn’t want to stay married to him. She is thankful the ex came her to tell her that bc honestly it will make it easier.

She’s distant for a while. Her husband asks what’s wrong.

She asks him if her father asked his parents to have them marry because he saved their lives. He’s stunned and quiet before asking very seriously who told her. She says her mother in law got drunk at a friend’s event and drunkenly told the mc. Instead the mil was babbling abt how good her son was and saying she hoped he was good to her and always a perfect gentleman at home before she started talking about how he was when he was younger. He winces, knowing his mother did like to babble while drunk and just have told her by mistake. He apologizes, but they thought telling her so soon to her dad’s passing might have hurt her more. Her father cared about her and wouldn’t want to burden her with the knowledge he found a way to take care of her for the rest of his life while he was dying. It would have hurt her, but also she would be touched and wouldn’t be a burden on them by trying to act close. Instead they decided to lie to her, she doesn’t say this though, she just starts crying and he comforts her. 

He tells her her father saw they crashed their car and stopped to help them, called an ambulance, and waited by their sides doing first aid. He didn’t know who they were even but he tirelessly worked to help them. He even went to the hospital and paid their medical bills and didn’t leave their sides until he knew they were safe. They wanted to return the favor with money but he turned them down, saying he didn’t do it because he wanted something. She cries harder. Her mother died in a car accident and he wishes someone found her sooner to save her. He would feel obligated to save strangers so no one would go through what he did. Then she steps away, saying she wants some space. He relents.

Then, only a few days later, despite her being withdrawn he knows he can’t delay. He has to divorce her quickly. His ex is sickly and has a risky medical procedure soon that will potentially kill her. It’s a very low percent chance of success. It was always her dream to marry him. Even if she does survive it’s only going to make her life slightly longer, three years at most. She at least wanted to spend her little time on earth getting to be his legal wife.

His parents agreed he would remarry his wife afterwards. He would promise her they would have an even more lavish wedding. She would be his public wife after his ex passed away. This was just showing a dying woman a kindness and she would understand. He wouldn’t even sleep with his new wife under threat his parents would not allow him to remarry and and his ex had agreed.

He tells her they need to talk, pulling out divorce papers. She doesn’t look surprised, and tells him she already knows. He looks at her surprised instead, asking if his drunk mother told her that too. She smiles sadly and says yes. He says no wonder she’s been withdrawn, she knew all along while he worried how he would tell her. He asks if she knows everything. She says yes. There’s silence that follows

He tells her she’s allowed to be mad at him. But says “If you accept it, I promise you, the next wedding will be lavish.” She doesn’t respond. She wonders if he’s seriously going to invite his ex wife who he had a subdued ceremony with to his new wife’s lavish wedding. She slowly nods her head, unable to meet his eyes. He hugs her gently and she doesn’t reciprocate much. Knowing this was awkward, he leaves, thinking she must be angry at him but not so angry she wouldn’t agree to remarry him. She must just be hurting and she was someone who didn’t like to show weakness in front of others, even when she was hurting and it was with someone she loved. He would give her space for now, she can ask for more comfort and reassurances later.

They visit his parents. He tells them he asked her. They look at her sadly and go “don’t worry dear, she’s just sickly. That’s the onlv reason we’re doing it. She might not have much time left.” “Think of this not as an ending but a new beginning. It will hurt at first, but everything will fall back into place.” They were always so good at comforting her and saying what she needed to hear, even when she didn’t show them she was hurting very much and didn’t like bothering them. But it was just fake. Perhaps it was easier to guess what she wanted to hear than she thought.

She said she understood. His childhood friend was sickly. Like they said, she didn’t have much time left. Silently she tells her father not to be angry with them and consider it not them forsaking their promise but instead helping fulfill another dying person’s wish. She was sickly, while the mc wasn’t. They still promised she could visit whenever she wanted though she didn’t believe them.

She looks over the divorce agreement only a little. She doesn’t care about the terms and she can guess what they are. She looks at how much money they want to give her, and it’s more than she ever thought it would be. It was more than generous. She had no idea they were in that much of a rush. She could live well for the rest of her life without working. Not in luxury, but it would be enough for an apartment, food, and medical expenses, but also includes in it a nice luxury apartment. He told her she could negotiate it as she saw fit, and she wondered if he thought she would want to take even more money from him because she was greedy. Regardless, he’d pay her as much as necessary to get her away from him so he could marry his beloved.

She signs the agreement. She doesn’t need anything more than that. She won’t bother him ever again. After it begins processing, he proposes to his ex. The media goes wild.

She tried to stay in her job even while they were getting divorced, but seeing this his new fiancée begins harassing her, telling her even if he agreed no one wants to work with their ex wife. Is she planning to try and seduce him? He doesn’t want her anyways. She said no, it’s not like that, but his fiancée threatens to fling herself down the stairs if she doesn’t resign and no one will ever believe her if she says otherwise bc she’s a loving, sickly young lady to everyone else. They’ll think the mc tried to kill her. She is scared now. This woman isn’t just mean, she’s crazy.

She says she agrees. Fiancée tells her good and to hurry up. She writes a resignation letter and leaves. Her boss/ex calls her asking what this was and knowing he wouldn’t believe his beloved could do that, she lies and says it was too much to see him every day and she wanted to travel anyways. He is quiet, and says “is that really what you want to do? If you leave it will be difficult to come back.” She agrees. She doesnt care if he’d refuse her a job.

She makes a new account at a new bank they can’t snoop on and begins transferring money over. She thought they could remain cordial but his first love his crazy and she wants to completely avoid him from now on and make sure they had nothing to do with each other.

Then she starts getting harassing messages at her place. Then starts being followed. One message tells her vaguely “resigning wasn’t enough, leave this place!” She gets a new apartment on lease. It continues.

She knows his new wife is harassing her. She hasn’t contacted him since and blocked him on everything. She didn’t even get a wedding invite like he “promised” so it seemed like he didn’t even want to rub her face in it anymore. Why did his new wife care? She even changed her name and moved to a new city. Then her window was smashed open, with another threatening letter left that she should die. She realized this woman wouldn’t stop until she died. So she decided to fake her death, obviously. The people had been hacking her friends’ emails and phones to spy on her conversations. She decided to tell her best friend her plan in person while dressing up like she was depressed and trying to hide. Her best friend agreed, and also slowly informed her friends of the plan by going from person to person, just to her close friends in a way that wasn’t suspicious. They were all usually very social and visited often, the mc had been the one that was distant.

They all messaged her concerned in a way that was staggered. Saying she didn’t go to the last function. Or inviting her knowing she wouldn’t accept and then asking if something was wrong because she didn’t normally avoid get together like this. She continues to be silent while one friend got her a place to stay. She then sneaks out and fakes taking her life. Sent a message to her best friend saying she couldn’t do this anymore and to forgive her. She hides someplace obscure in an apartment. She’s changed bank accounts multiple times. She changes her name once more. She abandoned her old place. The new wife finally feels like she won as the best friend tells the others what happened. They pretend to look for her before giving up and crying together and holding a small vigil. They ask if they should invite her ex husband in the messages and her best friend says not to bother, he wouldn’t care either way.

She decides to live her life in hiding. She sees a cosmetic surgeon to remove the moles on her body. She lost weight from the stress and looks a bit gaunt but uses makeup to change her features subtly as well and keeps her hair dyed. Eventually she returns to the country under a false identity, even with sort of fake parents: people on her travels moving from place to place who lived in a village and lost their daughter. She got feverish and lost hey took care of her not asking for anything in return because she looked a bit like their daughter. She said she would repay them anyways as she lost both her parents and she would send them money and consider them as her new new parents if they’d accept it. They cried and agreed. She didn’t intend for them to be fake parents at first hut figures it won’t hurt her fake identity to have them.

Mostly though, she lives a life a bit isolated. Works from home as an excuse why she has any money. Claims to be from that village. She lives quite modestly. She’s afraid of being harassed like that again.

Meanwhile new wifey is not having a good time. She had mostly recovered from her illness, but her parents did use most of their fortune saving her life. She wanted to marry her ex she left to make it up to them by giving them some of his money. When he found out she miraculously recovered, wouldn’t he be happy? But it was when after her last treatment and she started to display dramatic improvement did he start to have his suspicions. He went to visit the mc but she wasn’t in her apartment. Let himself in as he had a spare key in case of emergencies and the place looked abandoned. It looked like someone rushed out of there Ava he found the old threatening letters and a window that had obviously been replaced. He confronted his new wife and she denied it, asking how could she accuse him of something so horrible? Was he angry she was recovering too well? Did he resent her for having to leave his real wife to take care of her? She would get sick again, this always happens with her treatment, she just appeared better at first and then got even worse.

He investigates his employees getting a bad feeling. Several employees were caught embezzling, all with ties to his new wife’s company. He then investigates her procedure and the doctor had lied to him, it wasn’t a risky procedure to save her life but a normal one as part of recovery treatment when someone is cured and is very safe. She tricked him for money.

He divorces her and makes her family pay him back by taking all of their assets and absorbing their company. Everyone curses her as a scam artist. He wonders where his wife is and starts investigating. She probably went into hiding after such horrible treatment. He wonders why she didn’t tell him. Did she start to think he wouldn’t believe her?

Eventually he tracks her down. It’s been so long. She didn’t ever respond to him when he tried to contact her before. He would explain everything and tell her he made them pay and do everything to make it up to her.

He finds her, and bumps into her while she’s out of the house. She acts like she doesn’t know him abd apologizes “excuse me sir” given she’s in casual clothes that aren’t expensive and he’s in an expensive suit. He calls her name and she doesn’t respond. He tells her he knows it’s her as he would recognize her anywhere but she gives her new fake name, putting on a stellar performance. He notices the mole on her arm is gone as is the one under her eye. Did he really get the wrong woman? Why does she look and sound like his wife?

And I’ve been writing this too long I QUIT

[elfqueen006]

Duchess' Choice - Villainess AU

Based off of @yukidragon's Villainess AU headcanons, that are absolutely brilliant! I love villainess manhwas with all my heart, and the Sunny Time Town AU being added to the mix is even better because the AU as a whole needs more attention!!

---

May-Rose is a perfect cut out for a villainess isekai protagonist in my opinion. She's curt, standoffs, and can have a bit of a sadistic streak if she's feeling nasty - it usually never goes too far beyond some teasing and hazing, though.

In my "perfect universe" of what I would call the Sunnyside AU, Ian has inherited the role of Sunny Day Jack from an older Jacktor rather than usurping it by the studio. In this universe, May-Rose is the Cloudy-Bell Sue actress' daughter, and seeing as this makes her "television royalty", she'd automatically be offered a role on the show, likely as a supporting character.

Instead though, she chooses to be in the background, working on designing the set, the toys, and some of the promotional material.

And she loves it! She feels like she's playing an important part in all of this.

And another thing, Ian and May are engaged in this universe. Everything seems to be going well for her!

That is until she caught Ian cheating with an old flame in the backseat of his car. Skylar, her name was. Ian got caught up with her in theater school. It was a big hurdle in their relationship but he'd sworn to May that he wouldn't get involved with her again... guess old habits die hard.

In a fit of rage, May had stormed off set and drove away. She died in a crash shortly...

Enter the villainess, Midnight Bluebelle. At first, she was a one-off antagonist from the original series. A mime lady who mocked people with puppets and took toys from children. The new Sunnytime Crew Show would've been written with more complex situations in mind, and if May were on board with acting, she would've been cast as such and been a villain for a major arc. However, she was scrapped from the show and put in the promotional book series aimed at young girls and tweens: Duchess' Choice !

The OMC in Duchess Choice is a generic female lead to stand in for the reader. She's from a dwindling house, but boosts her standing in high society after returning Prince Jacks' special pin that was given to him by his father who's away on diplomatic business.

Her sudden popularity then attracts attention within and outside the castle, including that of the cruel Duchess, Midnight Bluebelle, who taunts and sets up various schemes to sabotage OMC's standing with the prince, whom she aims to marry after discarding her fiance, Ian Duff, the knight deemed Sir Sweet Dreams.

Over the course of the three books OMC balances other possible suitors such as the Glad-Pire, Sous Chef Sweetly, and Sir Sweet Dreams. Inevitably, the endgame is Prince Jack. And after learning of her crimes, Belle is stripped of her title and is exiled from the capital.

When May awakens as Belle, she's in the middle of the ballroom floor, having fainted either due to shock or a sudden illness.

She's tended to by her only living relatives, cousins Cloudy Belle Sue and her resentful father, Sam Sours of the Marquisate.

She's taken to her estate and takes some time to gather her bearings, taking note of the point in time before the story.

She and Ian have only been recently engaged, set up via Gretchen Duff as a way to keep Ian in check, so the first standing of business is to properly divorce him. Just because she remembers the woman she was doesn't make her blameless in Sir Ian's torment. She divorces him and makes a formal apology to him, leaving him perplexed and worried.

With the title of Duchess gone, Belle has gone back to being a Marquess. Naturally, this raises some eyebrows that the coarse and condescending woman would cut off a man so devoted to her without a second thought.

Sam definitely has some things to say. In his eyes, she'd blown off the best chance at a happier life even after she practically abandoned Sue and him. But Belle has a plan in mind. She decides... to open up a toy store!

Before Ian had gotten his big break, Belle as May had been struggling to make ends meet for the both of them. Part-time, she worked as a cashier in a yogurt shop. But she'd made a majority of her funds making gothic stuffed animals on her own time and from commissions.

Despite this being in a medieval European-like setting, and around this Era stuffed toys wouldn't have been invented yet, they coincidentally are! Because when you have a society full of clowns, you naturally make more fun things to do.

And that's just what Belle intends to do this time around, have fun!

(And if she can... avoid the OMC!!)

[sophietv]

I like your latest post intricately explaining the LSK secret family theory and such even though I'm not thoroughly convinced yet, simply because in my gaylorism playbook I put lyric analysis above everything and I believe her art and her words in melodies and songs are the ones that conveys her story in it's most truthful sense before any hints shown through clothing items or merch etc (even though they are very interesting & convincing too I must say). That is how I got into gaylorism and how I could connect to her artistry and songs as a lesbian even when PR news publications and the general public all reports about her as this boy-crazy straight woman, I knew it's not true because her songs paint this unique specific experience that gay/lesbian women go through so I believe in that more rather than some staged pap walks of her with some random famous man.

Now the question is that, so many songs in evermore and midnights talk about Taylor fearing and not wanting the marriage and family model in all it's varieties, especially the system of lavender marriage itself. One song even explicitly states how she's annoyed at being pressured into it. The daughter-in-law line in anti hero feels more like a confirmation of her fear of family to me and for Peace, I saw it more as a contemplation with herself if lavender marriage/family is something that she wants (which she then answers in lavender haze, midnight rain, champagne problems, antihero, dear reader, etc).

If theres any late stage theory between Kaylor I see it more as taylor being an outsider looking in through karlie's domestic life and being on good terms/supportive to her, and I do believe they are love of each other's lives, they'll never forget each other and they'll keep referencing each other etc etc but they also recognized they wanted different things in life (Midnight Rain, I personally think this song finalizes and marks the end of any possibility of them getting back together).

All these songs in evermore and midnights painting this picture of taylor being alone and a pariah with self loathing and feeling sorry and guilty and melancholic about her old love that is doing good creates this perception in my head that when an LSK says they both are in a happy family raising a child together it felt like all those time in 2020-2021 when toes/hetlors were trying to convince everyone taylor is in a stable happy longlasting relationship while in contrast she writes 2 albums about a disastrous falling out and a damn near divorce.

However, I do try to keep an open mind and there are some songs in midnights that could point towards the secret family theory of LSK, such as the great war, bigger than the whole sky, sweet nothing, labyrinth and glitch but idk. The sadder songs about her being alone and rejecting the family model, being a pariah, etc feels more real to me. I guess if ts11 is coming I'll know for sure when it drops. P.S: I do think that random "mom! " voice over in Dear Reader is sus as hell. Perhaps the one thing I cant get my mind off.

Oh and also if we get into any kind of LSK stuff, what are your thoughts about the two of them coming out, either alone or together? We all know 2019 taylor wanted to come out, some say karlie was also in the picture but there was lack of evidence for it I think? In Midnight Rain it says that K wanted it "comfortable", which explains marrying her beard of 7 years while T is the opposite of that, to which I believe that she'll keep dropping hairpins untill the time comes where she'll do some grand dramatic thing, maybe in the long future. I just wanna your thoughts if T or K ever decides to come out, how will it all unfold?

Hi!

Thank you for your questiond!!

I see what you are saying.

And you are not the only one. The songs are a big part of why people question LSK.

Since it's a really long and complicated answer. I already wrote a post about it here: (X)

This post about my reflexion on why I still believe in Kaylor and my thoughts about them having a family off of the public eye might help as well (X)

I don't believe that Taylor was gonna come out with Karlie in 2019. Whatever happened there seem to have had a change of plan made toward May to exclude Karlie of this.

I don't believe that this was either Karlie's or Taylor's choice.

So in 2019 when she was to come out, I believe she would have come out as bi with Joe by her side.

As for now.

Tree seems to be working really hard toward the reconcialliciation narrative.

Especially since Karlie went to the Eras Tour.

So I believe there is chances that if Taylor comes out. She does so with Karlie by her side.

Hope this answers your questions!

Don't hesitate if you have any other!

[ratralsis]

Strings: Mini-Prequel and Mini-Sequel

In the time between my first attempt at writing the story I'm currently calling "Strings" and the version that I just posted, I took a couple of short-story-writing classes from the same school that I then took two longer novel-writing classes from.

Because I lack creativity, or possibly because I thought it would be fun, I decided to use characters from Kevin and Marigold's little story in a couple of the prompts.

One prompt was to write a 250-word story based on the phrase "Love Hurts." This is what I wrote.

Henry tilted his head from side to side, his neck cracking loudly. He yawned, alone in his car with his briefcase and a fast food bag, still slightly warm from holding the dinner he'd eaten while driving. He grabbed the briefcase and walked to the door of his house.

He knocked. After a moment, the door was opened by an older woman who looked almost as tired as he felt. "You can't keep doing this," she said.

"It won't be forever, ma," he sighed, raising his arms for a quick hug. The briefcase made the motion clumsy.

"Until when, then?" She asked. "Until the girls are old enough that you just leave 'em by themselves all day?"

His shoulders dropped. He looked past his mother at the curtains. Pale blue. Emily's idea, bought just over a year ago. Before the twins, when it was the two of them living here. Now it was the three of them. It had never been the four of them.

He swallowed that thought along with a piece of hamburger bun that had been stuck in his teeth. "What do you want me to do? I gotta work. I'm all they've got."

"No, for half the day, I'm all they've got," she said.

"And I appreciate it," he said. "But we're both too tired for this right now. Can we talk about it this weekend? Please?"

"Fine," she said. "They're asleep, God only knows how much longer."

"Alright, ma," Henry sighed. "Good night. Love you."

This is much of a prequel as I ever plan on writing for Marigold. 250 words, all of them very carefully chosen as I pared down a much longer piece until it fit that requirement, about Henry as a young man, and Marigold and Lily as tiny babies who don't even really appear.

Henry's struggling to get by. He's working overtime at the law firm, trying to establish himself as a lawyer or possibly still trying to pass the bar, I'm not really sure myself, at age 26 or so, while the girls are still too young to be left alone. In another year, he'll have remarried, and in a few more, he'll have divorced, and then a decade or so of peaceful days before one of his daughters dies in a car accident.

It's not worth writing more about him. I love Henry as a character, but his story, to be blunt, doesn't interest me much. As a character, he's fascinating, though. He's worked hard and found himself thrown about by fate and chance in a million different directions, and through it all, he's perservered, and worked hard, and done his best to keep his chin up. When we meet him in the main story, he's 47 or 48 years old, still working, making somewhere around $100,000-200,000/year in his day job (but not, like, millions), living in a big house with a big yard, but he's living by himself, and finds himself facing life as an empty nester while also knowing he's going to have to keep working for probably another decade or two before retiring. He's not sure he made the right decisions, but he did what he thought was right, and now things are the way they are and nothing can change the past.

But what's the conflict in his story? If I actually wrote it out, it would just be "Decent, hard-working guy keeps having bad things happen to him and his family," and that's not an interesting story.

So no prequel for Henry, but I absolutely love the 250 words I did write. "It had never been the four of them" is one of the best sentences I've ever written.

A while later, as a POV exercise, I wrote this three-part story. It's a sequel to the main story, and I really enjoy it, too.

Part 1. Marigold arrived home later than she had planned. There was no way to sneak into her apartment after the guests had already arrived. She tried to look on the bright side: this way, she could avoid the suspense of having to wait for them to show up.

She had helped Kevin set up the Christmas decorations earlier in the week, so those were no surprise. The bright paper streamers along the walls were his idea, as was the tree in the corner that took up a bit more of the room than she would have preferred. It did look nice, though, she had to admit. Extra chairs had been placed at the table, but nobody was sitting at it.

She hadn't known what food he was going to be preparing, and the spicy smell of it hit her like a wall as she walked in, guitar on her back. Her heart in her throat, she scanned the front room, hoping to see Kevin first. She saw him, but he was standing near the kitchen, chatting happily with the guests of honor: his parents.

Part 2. "Oh, there you are," Kevin said, turning to face her when he heard the sound of the door. "I was just finishing up the grand tour, such as it is."

"Oh, great," she said, giving them her best stage smile. "Let me put my guitar away, and I'll be right back for introductions, okay?"

Kevin smiled back and nodded. His parents said nothing, staring almost blankly at her. She darted into her music room and placed the guitar case against the wall. She could fuss with it later. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and came back out. Kevin and his mother had disappeared back into the kitchen, leaving his father standing by himself. She walked over, stuck out her hand, and looked up at him. He was as tall as his son--nearly a foot taller than she was.

"So, I'm Marigold, and you must be Mister Stiles."

He took the offered hand and shook it. "Please, just Kevin," he said. "I think we can be on a first-name basis."

"Sure, but, that's also what I call, you know, Kevin Junior?" She kept smiling, though it felt a bit strained at this point.

Part 3. "I'm sure I can figure out which of us you mean from context clues," he said. "So, my son told me you're a musician. Tonight's performance ran late?"

"Um, well, sometimes that happens when I'm playing a reception," she said. "I'm paid by the hour, so when the family is willing to keep paying me to stick around, I… let them. Plus, they're more likely to leave me a good review if I'm a good sport, you know?"

He furrowed his brow slightly and looked closely at the petite woman in the pink dress in front of him. "Certainly. And that's what you wore to a wedding reception?" He asked.

She bobbed her head to one side and continued smiling. He wondered if this was her best dress. "Yep," she said, after a moment. "Sure did. I'll be right back, I'm just going to get a drink."

She was back in only a moment, full glass in hand.

"I like the decorations," he told her, gesturing.

"Thank you," she said. "They were Kevin's idea, actually."

"I know," he said. "I still thought you should know that I liked them."

"Okay," she said, and downed most of her glass.

I can't remember what all of the rules were, but I believe Part 1 was required to have no dialogue, part 2 to be from one character's point of view, and part 3 to be from another's. Part 3 is meant to be from the point of view of Kevin Stiles Sr., though it's not as obvious as I wish it were given how short the story is.

I loved writing this, because I loved showing Kevin's dad as this very uptight and stiff conservative sort of guy who looks down on Marigold's line of work and lack of education (she's a high-school dropout with a GED, remember), sees her as irresponsible (for showing up late to an event like this Christmas party), and wonders if the outfit she has on is really the best she has (maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but it's what she wore to a wedding reception where she played acoustic guitar for just as many hours as her client was willing to pay her to). He's not a bad guy, but he's not willing to meet Marigold at her level or engage with her as an equal. He doesn't accept that she's going to have trouble calling both him and his son "Kevin," because, even if this guy says he'll know who she means, when they're at the dinner table and she says "Say, Kevin," both Kevins are going to look at her and she's going to have to point at one of them.

Marigold also has a rough relationship with alcohol in the original story. After her car accident, she quit drinking. It's the real reason why she refused a drink from Kevin on the night they first met. Her "I don't drink while I'm working" excuse was a lie. She doesn't drink alcohol because the last time she did, she thought it was a good idea to get behind the wheel of a car and her twin sister died. It's based on a guy I knew whose drunk driving accident scared him sober, but I don't know how common it really is.

Yet, in this sequel story, she downs most of a glass of something that presumably has alcohol in it simply because Kevin Sr. is being kind of weird to her and she's having a hard time coping with it. So either

A) She's gotten over her fears of alcohol and now drinks on occasion, B) There's actually no alcohol in her drink and she just finds the act of drinking ANYTHING to be calming, or C) I thought it was funny and knew nobody else in my writing class could possibly have read her story and known she didn't drink.

Take your pick.

While I truly love the character of Kevin Sr. as seen here, as the guy from whom Kevin Jr. gets his serious and boring sides from, a stereotypical no-nonsense German dude (Kevin is 1/2 German, 1/4 English, and 1/4 Mexican, though only the 1/4 Mexican part is specifically mentioned in the story; Marigold's ethnicity was spelled out in an earlier draft as being equal parts South Korean, Syrian, Northern Indian, and Puerto Rican, but I decided for this draft that it was more fun to just leave her as "light brown" and never let the reader actually know), but going on from there, it's not the most interesting story. It would just be Marigold having a very awkward night, and while I did truly love writing from her POV after so long writing from Kevin's, and showing her fears and insecurities for once instead of Kevin's, as well as showing how Kevin appears to her from the outside for once, where does it go from here? Eventually, Kevin Sr. and Mary will leave, and Marigold will sigh heavily and say "Wow, that was rough" and Kevin will say "Haha what" and then they'll… live happily ever after, probably?

Again, there's not much conflict there. I don't want to bring back anything from Marigold's past to threaten the happiness that she and Kevin have together. No childhood friend is going to appear and threaten to get her canceled online. Her probation officer isn't going to show up and threaten to lock her up because she crossed state lines. Her career isn't going to fizzle out and force her to get a real job. Kevin's not going to lose interest in her and find solace in the arms of another woman. They're just going to be a boring couple like every other boring couple from here on out. They'll have ups and downs. Maybe Marigold will eventually be able to have kids, and maybe she won't. Maybe they'll adopt, and maybe they won't. Maybe they'll drift apart in ten years and get divorced, and maybe they won't.

I'm really and truly happier not knowing. I'm happier leaving them just as they are, a young couple starting their adult lives together, unsure of themselves but sure of each other, doing their best to face things one day at a time, just like everyone else.*

*I love this kind of ambiguity in storytelling sometimes. It's why the second chapter ends with Kevin saying that he isn't sure if five minutes will be enough time to make up for two months of not having kissed Marigold. What happens next? Does he give her a little peck on the lips? Does he shove his tongue into her mouth? Do they fuck right there on the loveseat?** It's whatever you want it to be. I'll never tell.

**They probably didn't fuck on the loveseat. They really did only have five minutes, after all. But given that Kevin reflects on how he's seen Marigold's spiderweb tattoo before when she shows it him a few months later, it's reasonable*** to assume that, at the very least, he's seen her in her underwear.

***My headcanon is that Kevin's social awkwardness and Marigold's fear of letting someone get too close to her mean that neither of them has as much experience with sex as they want the other to think they do (it's entirely possible that they began the story as a couple of virgins), but it's not on the page, so it really is just headcanon, and mine is no more valid than anyone else's if it's about things that didn't make it into the story.

So there won't be a prequel or a sequel, because I've already written them, and they were a lot of fun, and there's nothing else to say about Kevin Stiles and Marigold Spade that I want to say.

For now, at least. If I live long enough, I may change my mind.

This is already more of an afterword than I had planned. There won't be more.

[efficiiency]

𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞 "𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐞" 𝐜𝐡𝐨

❝ Once, I ran, face first, into a mirror because I didn’t recognize my reflection, because I didn’t see a reflection at all. ❞

B A S I C S –

Name: Bernadette Cho, FKA Bernadette Senanayake. Nicknames: Bernie. Birthday: December 9, 1984. Pronouns: She/her. Gender/Sex: Cisgender/female. Sexuality: Bisexual(?). Occupation: Seafoam owner.

P E R S O N A L I T Y —

+ Articulate, reflective, approachable. - Anxious, embarrassing, short-tempered. Has cool aunt energy despite being a regular mom. She's finally in the stage of life where she knows (mostly) what she wants so she's coming out of her shell in big ways - involving herself in the community, adding color to her new (solo-owned!) apartment, and throwing her entire wardrobe out in order to start fresh. She loves to laugh though she's not very funny, and she's always down for a glass of lemonade and a few cigarettes on the balcony.

A R R I V A L — ( 2005 )

The moment that Bernie and Kilroy graduated, they headed to Aurora Bay to be closer to Kilroy's family. Bernie loves California so it wasn't a huge change, but she never quite felt like she fit in. Almost twenty years later she's finally made some steps toward making Aurora Bay her home.

C O N N E C T I O N S —

TBA.

E X T R A B I T S —

– Never used to care about her nails, but after her divorce/coming out (and after fixing her relationship with her sister), she started going bi-weekly to get a full mani/pedi with her sister. It's a great way to bond and also to check in with herself/show some self care. – Disaster in the kitchen. DO NOT LET THIS WOMAN COOK! Has set multiple kitchen fires. Her biggest expense outside of the club is all of the delivered food she gets. – (Mostly) sober because she gets too wild when she drinks. If there's an event at the club she's particularly excited about she'll have a few drinks, but she always employs one of her friends to keep her safe. – Has the loudest, most annoying laugh in the world. It sounds fake but it's all naturale, baby. If you really get her going, she'll start wheezing.

B A C K G R O U N D —

tw: cheating

- Bernie grew up the daughter of two first-generation Korean immigrants. Her and her younger sister were treated under the harsh boots of two loving parents who both feared and adored America, so curfews were strict and screen time was non-existent. Bernie was always good with the rules imposed in her household, but her sister, Carol, was not. - Carol and Bernie's relationship seesawed back and forth depending on how harsh their parents were being. Most of the time, they weren't on good terms. The four year gap between them kept them at odds, and even after Bernie left for college, the divide between the sisters stayed. - The only escape Bernie ever had from her home - the only place she could be completely alone - was in her writing. Poetry mostly, though also short stories and, though they made her blush to handwrite, romances. Her passion (and talent) for her craft was clear from a young age; her teachers encouraged her, even if her parents didn't, and preferred she follow a more lucrative career path like being a doctor, or... being a doctor. - Bernie applied to as many colleges as she could, as far away as she found, with as little contact with her family as possible. While she promised she'd pursue a degree her parents would be proud of her for, the first thing Bernie did was declare herself undeclared and the second thing she did was fill her schedule with classes she thought were more interesting than biology or anatomy. - The third thing she did was fall in love.

- Kilroy Senanayake was charm with legs. He captured Bernie's heart immediately with feats of romance like flowers delivered to her dorm room and improv'd songs in the cafeteria. He was like a character from a rom-com come to life and wouldn't you know it, he loved her, of all people. Plain Bernadette Cho was the apple of a man's eye. That's what she always wanted, right? What she always should have wanted? - Three years of school flew by, and the summer before their senior year, Kilroy pitched marriage. It felt like a simple choice: her parents would hate it, so of course Bernie should do it. This was also, unfortunately, around when Bernie's horrible bout of writer's block took hold; she struggled academically through much of her English degree requirements, and many professors spoke of their concern. She waved off their worries, graduated, and then Kilroy whisked her off to Aurora Bay to start their family. - For a long time, Bernie took birth control pills religiously. While she knew that, eventually, her husband expected children, her own strained relationship with her parents always turned her off to the idea. She just wasn't ready, and, truthfully, she wasn't certain she ever would be. Instead of a baby, Kilroy decided they should invest in a business. Without a real plan for her life anymore, Bernie agreed, and together they opened Hot Spot: a night club that, though insistent upon it's unique qualities, turned out to be just like any other night club. - And so that was life for nearly a decade. Years passed by like water through her fingers; never once did she turn back to her writing that had at one point been her only solace. Her distance led to some drinking and partying that she isn't proud of, and her drinking and partying led her to a string of bad decisions (and lack of care) that resulted in a baby. When Bernie was a ripe 30 years old (truly in her prime!) she gave birth to a daughter: Penelope. - Though she's loathe to admit it, Bernie felt burdened by the child. While she'd been pretty sure before, now she was certain: motherhood wasn't for her. She didn't even know if she loved Kilroy anymore. She didn't even know if she really loved men at all.

- In a terrible turn of events (and decidedly not the fault of drinking), Bernie began sleeping with Kilroy's sister when Penelope was 2. It just happened. The stress of being a new mother paired with the stress of being in a relationship she wasn't even sure she was still happy in drove her to terrible places - mostly between Kadie Senanayake's legs. - Three years of on-and-off sleeping around finally led to Kilroy discovering the affair (2019). Crushed and murderous, he threatened Bernie's parental rights. She didn't want them anyway. While she did want to be there for her daughter, she knew she couldn't be the parent that Penelope deserved, so she took partial custody of Penny and full custody of Hot Spot. - With a failing business on her hands and a new life in front of her, Bernie decided to embrace the newer clientele she had been serving. Most of the Hot Spot's patrons were fruity as it is, due to their high security measures making drag queens and their crews feel safe enough to dance without watching over their shoulders. In January of 2020, Bernie closed the Hot Spot for "renovations", and in April, she re-opened it under the name Seafoam. Since it's rebranding and reopening as an LGBTQ+ bar, its impact on the community (and Bernie's sense of self) has only grown. - After Kilroy and Bernie's divorce, Bernie called off the affair with Kadie. They're civil - more civil than with Kilroy - but it's not exactly hugs and kisses. Now, Bernie's throwing everything she has into making Seafoam as lively as possible, as well as being the best every-other-weekend-mother she can be. - When the whole ordeal with Bernie and Kilroy went down, Carol reappeared in her sister's life, this time with the intention of staying there for good. They've been repairing their relationship ever since, and are now best friends in the way they could never be while growing up. Carol has also been her biggest fan, hyping her up to get her back into writing (because the minute she left her ex-husband, her muse came back. How funny!)

PENNED BY MIGZ. ( @aurorabayaesthetic )

[a-world-of-whimsy-5]

First, love ya for answering and for making this AU. Second, I have more questions, and if I'm being too much, please ignore them!

So Lyanna ,when she went with Rhaegar, she was told that she would be a second wife. Did she know Rhaegar was planning on making her share? Did they fight over it?

You said it finally sank when she heard the princess cry. Does that mean she thought nothing was wrong with going with Rhaegar because he didn't love her no matter how she felt until this point?

If being a second wife was not what she wanted at the very beginning when she decided to go with him, did she hope that Rhaegar would get annulment? Never go near her again? Run away from westeros?

It seems that they met. How did it go between them? Were there any bad words? Or trying to look indifferent? Were they allowed to be in the same room together?

What was her reaction when Rhaegar was like: I ain't love you but I shall give you my body every now and then because I feel bad and care for ya even though I'd prefer not to. And BTW, your place as queen? Yes, you will share that with my love, too. I know Rhaegar would *kinder* when he says it but you get it.

Does the princess role in this AU end when she goes to Pentos away from all the darma?

What about Daenarys? Is she going to be in it or is the princess/ a possible future daughter will take place?

Why didn't Rahella leave with her daughter?

Was House Dayne supporters of Rhaegar?

Did the princess try to struggle when she heard she would have to get divorced?

Who decided Arthur should be the one? Did he? The counsil? Rhaegar? I suppose Vaesella was forced?

What was Arthur's reaction when he was chosen? I imagine he'd very much hate leaving the kingsguard but perhaps feel unworth of it now?

Were there other candidates?

Man, that is too much for one person to endure.

Here you go anon. Again, I’m sorry if my answers are a bit all over the place because like I said in the previous ask, this AU is still a long way off from being finished.

Warnings: Mentions of infidelity | Divorce/Annulment | Targaryen marriage practices | Major character death

1 & 3 : Lyanna is a woman grown in this AU, and she knows her own mind. She did not want to be wife number two in the beginning and they did argue. She even wanted her and Rhaegar to run away and start a new life in Essos. Rhaegar, as tempted as he was by the idea, could not do it in the end because his first marriage had to be dealt with, and he could not just shirk his duties to the realm.

2 :   For a while, yes. (Before anyone starts, Lyanna was not a cruel monster. She, much like everyone else, was just an imperfect human being.)    

4 : Vaesella avoided Lyanna as much as she could during this time, and her handmaidens, Taenira Narratys and Saera Velaryon, made sure that she could do so by coming up with various engagements and outings to keep her out of Red Keep. The few occasions she did interact with Lyanna (and this was only during special occasions she could not avoid), she merely smiled and looked away. Lyanna also did the same.    

5: Vaesella did not react while Rhaegar spoke with her about the possibility of him taking Lyanna as a second wife and him being in love with her (he did it as kindly as he possibly could, but there is no way one could soften the blow when delivering news such as this). It was only after he left, did she begin weeping.

6: Stories about Vaesella will continue after she travels to Pentos with Arthur. There will still be no drama, because she doesn’t want it. She just wants to move on with her life.

7: Daenerys will still be born. And yes, she will still be born while a great storm rages in the world outside.

8: Rhaella couldn’t leave with her daughter because, like in canon, she dies giving birth to Daenerys.

9: House Dayne are loyal supporters of Prince Rhaegar.  

10: Vaesella becomes sad and withdrawn.

11: The offer was given to only certain members of the Kingsguard because of the obvious difficulty in finding a highborn lord (in Westeros or Essos) who would not try raise an army in Vaesella’s name (Vaesella would not have done it because she did not want more people to die, but they still did not want to take the risk). Barristan refused because he saw the princess as a daughter, and he was secretly in love with Ashara, Arthur’s sister. Gerold Hightower refused because he could not bear to leave the Kingsguard. Oswell Whent was intrigued by the prospect, but it was Arthur who agreed to marry the princess.  

12: He did not want to leave the Kingsguard, but he felt like he had to do it for the sake of duty to crown and country. Vaesella didn't have a choice as Rhaegar (acting in her behalf as king and head of House Targaryen) and Arthur signed a binding marriage contract after Arthur agreed to marry her.

13: The only unwed lord high enough in rank to be considered a worthy suitor for a Targaryen princess at the time was Tywin Lannister. Rhaegar did not agree to speak to Tywin in the end. He did not trust Tywin because he waited until it was certain the Targaryen Loyalists were going to win before he ordered his own men to march to war. Also Tywin, despite his ambitions for his family, could not bring himself to marry again.

[kawaixkissex]

I’m about to be married.

To a stranger. In a few minutes.

What a strange turn of events.

“please seek the blessings of your elders.” the priest says, concluding the wedding ceremony. I’m married now. Namjoon and I walk towards our parents. My mother is smiling at me, but it is devilish and cruel. My father had left my mother for she had troubled him quite a lot during their marriage, that they had divorced when I was seventeen, and i hadn’t seen him since.

“you’re such a beautiful bride.” my mother says, as i bend down to touch her feet, although I don’t touch her, just barely brush my fingers on her legs. Namjoon, my husband seeks her blessings before we move towards where his parents are standing.

“you’re so beautiful, Ruhaani.” his mother says, caressing my back, and giving me a genuine smile. Looking at her, I realise just how much time has passed, since I felt someone’s good intentions for me.

“thank you, Mrs Kim.” I murmur softly. She immediately dismisses me with a flick of a hand, “please call me, mom, ruhaani. You’re my daughter, now.” something about the way she called me daughter made me happy inside, even though I didn’t know what fate awaited me in their house.

I was an unwelcome child, my mother didn’t want me, she treated me like a slave, and I was fed up with sacrificing myself for her at all times, it got unbearable, so i decided, i’d do one last thing as she says, and then leave her, forever, if possible.

Namjoon and I were arranged to be married, but there was no prior meetings to get to know each other, my marriage news was announced to me like a headline of a newspaper on a monday morning, my mother didn’t bother to accept my opinion on the matter, and just shooed me away, before I could say something. Well, it wasn’t like I’d protest anyway, so like a good girl, that I’ve always had to become, I agreed to this marriage, with a promise to myself that — if things got worse, i’ll commit suicide, because dying was way much better than all the horrible things that could happen to someone like me, if my husband turned out to be an asshole.

I didn’t know anything about him, except his name, of course, which was the only thing my mother had told me hours before the wedding. The preparations were done so quickly, I didn’t have the time to cherish anything, getting married, celebrating with my friends had been my dream, ever since I was a teenager, and understood what marriage was, but my mother had successfully shattered those dreams, crushed all hopes for a happy wedding.

My attention is brought back to my vidai, where my family stands, well…nobody except my mother, and my friends — saanjh, and yashodhara.

Mrs Kim guides me slowly to their car, where everyone stands, waiting for me to say goodbye to my family. I can’t say that i’m happy but i’m grateful that I’m leaving the clutches of my selfish mother, i’d always known who she was, but never been able to do something, gives me a sense of little peace, even though I don’t know if it will be short lived or not.

She hugs me coldly, then whispers, “behave Ruhaani from now on, you’re a married woman, make sure you please your husband in every way, don’t give me a reason to be disappointed in you.” she says it so coldy, I forget to keep my poker face on, but then I remember namjoon’s parents and his family are watching, so I give my mother a smile, and move towards my two friends.

Heer tears up, and hugs me tightly. “I’ll miss you, hani,” I wrap my arms around her small frame, reminiscing in her warm, and comforting scent, breathing in her presence, because these two were the only things that happened in my life, which saved me. “I’ll miss you too, heera.” “me too!” saanjh exclaims, before wrapping herself around us both. We cry for I don’t know how long, until Mrs Kim very gently peels me away from my friends. “it’s time to leave, Ruhaani.”I nod and follow her to our car.

Namjoon is standing at the car, holding the door open for me, It makes me confused, because this man literally knows nothing about me, why is acting like a gentleman? Maybe to impress my mother, when I glance at her for one last time, she has a half smile, and half confused look on her face that I can’t interpret.

a side note to you Yuri: i don’t have any idea if this is good or not, but to me, it looks okay to be published, but i didn’t continue not because I wanted to tease you, but because I didn’t want to force myself when the words won’t come, because my writing … how to put it, when it’s forced, you can just see it, and it’s fucking embarrassing. So, give me your feedback and if i’m stuck on something i’ll ask you for help/ advice, how’s that sound?

[talesofstyles]

Drs Styles

paediatric heart surgeon harry, husband harry and dad harry. honestly the holy trinity.

warning: they did it in the car. bloody animals.

Harry

“Move your car, please!”

“What are you going to do? Write me a ticket?”

“This is in the interests of safety for the children!”

I look at the time in the car. I’ve still got about twenty to twenty-five minutes to watch this drama unfold at the school gate. I just wish we had popcorn because drop-off and parking situations at the school gates are always more entertaining than Good Morning Britain. 

The school gate is a strange social scene, and honestly, I don’t blame my wife for trying to avoid it like a plague. Sometimes, you don’t even have to talk to these people to know everything about their lives and more. I swear there are more gossips in the class WhatsApp group and daily playground chattering than in the copies of The Sun and Daily Mail combined. You know who’s married, who’s getting a divorce, whose husband shagged the au pair again, whose party you haven’t been invited to, even who’s looking for a builder. 

I see the school caretaker chuckling to himself as he sweeps the autumn leaves off the pathway, no doubt also enjoying our morning entertainment. 

“Why is Mrs Chambers screaming like that?” Alma, our eldest daughter, asks from the back of the car. 

“Because that man parks his car in a drop-off zone,” I reply, still watching him as he removes a child from his car seat. “Do you know who that is?”

“I think the boy is your classmate,” Alma turns to her sister.

Fiona, our youngest, peers over to inspect. “Oh yeah, that’s Rufus and his dad.”

“Do we like Rufus?”

“Not unless we like boys who pee down the slides,” Fiona scrunches her nose up. “He stood at the top and peed down like a waterfall. I haven’t gone down the slide ever since.”

I shake my head and let out a chuckle. “M’sure they’ve cleaned it up since, button.” 

Did you know that choosing a school for your child after nursery can be a head-throbbing, stomach-twisting, heart-pounding experience? Well, it can. How is one supposed to choose a school anyway? According to the proximity? Leavers Results? Adorable uniforms? Parents’ agendas?

After many, many discussions and visits through more schools than I can count, we ended up with Thomas’s Kensington. It’s a great school, and only ten minutes away from our home, making school runs easier. The downside of this school is the fact that it costs us an arm and a leg and that they’re always trying to rip us off any chance they get. Also, they only take the kids until 11, so after that, we’ll have to look for other schools again. But since our girls are only seven and five, we can worry about that later. 

There’s a strange mix of parents at this place. I went to school up in the North and the school gate scene is nothing like this. Here there are more au pairs, fancy cars, nicer clothes and people coming with impressive tans from their last weekend break in Antibes. The kids here are suited up too: the PE kit is the size of a small weekender bag, and we put them in uniforms that make them look smart, hoping that will increase the size of their brains. A child walks past our car with a cello case, another with a hockey stick. It’s a different land here. One that my socialist in-laws constantly tease us about and one which my mum was hysterical about because she was scared her grandbabies would be little Tories. I promised her I’d keep them grounded by only giving them plain hobnobs. None of those luxury chocolate covered ones.

Jokes aside, my girls are happy here. They’re thriving. They learn French and Spanish and Mandarin, even if they share a class with kids who have ridiculous names like Kitty and Archibald. 

A knock at my window calls me to attention. I wind it down.

“Are you Fiona’s dad?” A mum asks me.

“I am.”

“It’s about Ophelia’s riding party this Saturday at the riding stables.” 

Like I said, it’s a different land here.

“I thought we RSVPed to that?” I look at her in confusion.

“Yes, you did, but we have to change the food options as one of the partygoers is allergic to nuts. I’m making everyone aware and we need to let the guests know that they can’t bring any nuts on the day.”

A dirty joke is right there on the tip of my tongue and I’m trying my hardest to keep it in. My wife would definitely find it funny though, I’ve got to remember this and tell her later. 

“Noted,” I mean, I wasn’t going to send my daughter to a party with a packet of cashews anyway but I nod politely.

“And just gift vouchers for gifts please. Smiggle, if you can.”

Again, I nod, biting my tongue at the presumptuousness. But then I suddenly panic, because we haven’t entered the realms of pony riding just yet. Do I have to buy jods and boots? If I don’t, will my daughter be the odd one out? But Ophelia’s mum saunters off before I’ve got the chance to ask.

“Do I have to go to that party, daddy?” Fiona asks. 

“Well, we’ve already replied, poppet,” I tell her. “Did you not want to go?”

“I’ll go if I have to.”

I don’t answer because I get distracted by a vacant space. I edge the car forward so my girls can hop off. 

“I love you both. Have a good day, make good choices.” 

“Bye daddy! We’ll see you after work!”

***

Evelina London Children’s Hospital is our second home. Of course, as a children’s hospital, we try to make the place as fun as possible as not to freak those little patients out at being ill. It is bright and primary coloured, and each ward is decorated according to its own theme with different colours and lovely artworks. There are televisions and toys almost in every corner. We have a giant slide on the ground floor, and even the bins are shaped like red London buses. The aim was to help the children to forget that they’re in a hospital and take their minds off their sickness.

Since my wife and I are in the same department, our offices are next to each other, both overlooking the Thames. It’s nice up here. Would’ve been nicer if we could sneak in a quickie, but that’s practically impossible with our shared secretary’s desk sitting literally in front of our doors. 

Speak of the devil.

“Good morning. Here’s your tea,” my secretary follows me into my office with a cup of tea and a tiny plate with a couple of rich tea fingers. “Clinic until 3 pm, scheduled PDA ligation in the laboratory for 4 pm and then evening rounds on the wards.”

“Mornin’ Rhonda, you look lovely today,” I greet her cheerily. She’s a stern-looking woman who definitely likes her tea as strong as tits and who has probably never cried in her life. With such severity, she runs a tight ship, but she secretly has this affectionate side in her too. Not only is she a great secretary, but she also takes care of us in a way as a grandma does. She makes us tea, feeds us in between surgeries with biscuits or nice baby cheeses and crackers just so we wouldn’t starve. 

See that sofa over there in the corner of my office? Rhonda got me that. It was around the time when I had just become a new father with the sweetest, most gorgeous little baby who did not sleep. Alma wasn’t a fussy baby though. For some reason, she just wouldn’t go back to sleep after her midnight feed for months. Believe me, I tried everything. I changed her nappy, I swayed and jiggled and rocked and sung her to sleep. Odd nonsensical songs like, ‘Alma darling go to sleeep. Sleepy sleep sleep. Pleeeeease. I’m so tirrrred. My eyeballs may actually exploooode. I don’t want you to see thaaat.’ And she would just look at me all wide-eyed like I’d lost the plot. Those were song lyrics? That was rubbish. Please don’t give up your day job. Also, it’s not sleeping time. I’m awake. I’m ready for life. Come on, entertain me, old man. Isn’t this nice, just you and me? Tell me everything you know. EVERYTHING. 

Except of course she didn’t say all that. She would just stare at me and I had no idea what was going on in her little head. 

I took over my wife’s patients at the hospital during her maternity leave, so I had longer hours at the hospital. One day Rhonda found me napping on the floor between surgeries, so she sweet-talked some porters into looking for any old sofas on the go and paid to have this one reupholstered. She even bought me a fleece throw for it too. We really don’t deserve her.

“You hittin’ on me?” She deadpans. “Yer wife not doing it for you these days?”

“It’s the blazer. I’m a sucker for a blazer.”

“If I’d known, I would’ve worn it more often,” she replies. “Did my nice dress yesterday not give you the fanny flutters?”

“It’s schlong shiver for me,” I roar with laughter. “And it’s the tartan, makes you look well old.”

“YN, yer husband’s a bloody git, did I ever tell you that?” Rhonda says loud enough for my wife to hear, and I can hear my wife’s laughter from her office next door. “Drink your tea. Your first clinic appointment is in twenty.”

“Yes ma’am,” I salute her. 

***

The Arctic ward in the Evelina is home to many of our imaging, heart and kidney services. The name is probably giving it away, but everything is decorated in blue and white to go with the theme. We have several zones, and since paediatric cardiology clinics are held in the Walrus zone, I spend a great deal of time each day looking at walrus and snowflake decals. 

“Doctor Styles!” I hear a little voice shouts in excitement as I walk towards the waiting room in the outpatient ward. I smile, because I recognise that voice even before I see the little person.

The waiting room is very open here compared to other hospitals. There’s a sea of noise, snacks, tiny juice boxes and colouring pages. There’s also always a look of expectation, judgement on the faces of parents and guardians every time I walk in. They want to see if their doctor is old or qualified enough to see their children. There’s always one child who has the whole gang with them; parents, two sets of grandparents and even several aunts and uncles, and there’s also at least one child running around in circles out of boredom. 

This little lad bounces off his chair and hurls himself at me in a way like a little puppy would when its owner comes home from work. I put an arm out, hoping that he’ll apply the brakes but no such luck and he bundles himself into my arms. “Nice to see you, mate.”

His parents smile as they watch their son’s antics, who then runs off as I shake their hands. I turn around to see what caught his attention, and I can’t help but chuckle when I realise it’s my wife. 

“Doctor pretty Styles!” He exclaims excitedly as he bundles himself into her arms. She gets a mouthful of curls in the process. 

“Hi Rory,” she greets him as she runs her fingers through his curly mop. 

“Oi,” I pout as I walk towards them. “You don’t think I’m pretty?”

“Your wife is prettier,” he says with a shrug, his tone matter-of-fact.

She laughs and gives him a high-five. “Rory, you are officially my favourite patient.”

She is right. Rory is one of our special patients for sure. We’ve both known him for about six years now, ever since Rory’s mum gave birth to this tiny human next door at St Thomas and his heart was literally broken. I remember watching proudly from the theatre when my wife replaced two of his valves when he was born. It was in our early years of training. Long time patients like Rory almost always feel like family. We’ve seen all their parents’ tears and watched over their children throughout the years. They send us cards and wine every Christmas and despite all attempts to keep a professional distance, their kids do feel like our own.

Rory shrugs off his dinosaur rucksack and unzips it, pulling out a drawing of a blue whale and an opened packet of KitKat. I like that the whale wears a top hat and appears to also don a moustache. 

“I drew you both a picture. Only one though, because I figure you can share,” he says with a big toothy grin and hands the packet of KitKat to my wife. “And I’ve got half a KitKat here. Do you want it?”

“I’m good for now. Keep that KitKat for later on the tube,” she smiles and waves at Rory as she begins to walk away towards the fetal cardiology ward just down the hall. “Bye Rory, thanks for the picture.”

“Bye doctor pretty Styles,” Rory replies, making my wife laugh as she walks away. I give her a wave and a wink. 

“Hey Rory, did you know a blue whale has a heart the size of a small car?” I ask him and his eyes widen.

“No way! That’s mega!” He exclaims. “Do you think you could operate on a whale heart?”

“I would need a very big ladder,” I tell him. “And a wetsuit. I’d give it a go though.”

A senior nurse from the outpatient ward, Florence approaches us with a junior nurse trailing behind her. “Dr Styles, always a pleasure.”

I smile at her. “Florence. How are we today?”

“Busy as usual,” she replies. “We’re about twenty minutes behind I’m afraid. We had Dr Goodridge in this morning and you know he likes to talk.”

“He always runs over,” I chuckle. “Well, don’t worry. I’ll skip lunch and get us back up to speed.”

“I’ll make sure to send some snacks for you. Here’s your chart, your files are already in your office. And this is Alice, your nurse today. She’s newly qualified so might need some instructions.”

The new nurse looks terrified so I smile at her to try and calm her fears. I totally get that. When you work in medicine, unfortunately, you’ll realise that there are a lot of rude self-important wankers. 

I look down at my chart and find Rory’s name on the top of the list. “Well, look who’s coming with me to the exam room.”

Rory reaches out to hold my hand and we walk towards the examination room. His parents follow us closely, carrying the usual coats and devices that people do when they know they’re bound for a hospital waiting room. I see them inside and sit behind the desk.

“So, young man, I hear we’ve had a touch of drama with you. Can you tell me what happened?”

I’ve actually already got the information in the file, but I like the way this kid tells a story. He reminds me of my youngest. 

“So… I was at school and we were doing PE and I wasn’t really feeling it because it was cold and really we should have been inside but Mr Witter makes us go outside because he used to be in the Army apparently and he says we should get used to the cold but that’s what they do in prisons.”

I smile. “Go on.”

“And then my heart started running.”

“You mean racing?”

He nods firmly. Racing isn’t even the word. It sprinted to the finish like Bolt at 252 beats per minute, three times the speed it should.

“It felt like bubbles in my chest and then the school went crazy panicky and they called the ambulance and they brought me to the hospital but not this one, it was another one and it wasn’t as good because you weren’t there and they had really bad biscuit.”

His mum adds. “And they gave him some drugs to bring it back to a steady rhythm; they were close to shocking him.” Her voice trails off and both parents’ faces look drawn and pale remembering the incident.

Rory looks absolutely unbothered by this. To be fair, we have put this little man through everything. We’ve cut his chest open more times than is necessary for someone so small, we hook him up to machines and put him on treadmills. His resilience and character amaze me, and I really can’t imagine what it feels like to see your child so vulnerable and helpless, to be paralysed and weighed down with such worry.

“Alright then, little man, we need to make sure that your heart is working as it should. This is Alice, and she is going to take you over for an ECG and we just need to make sure your tick-tock is in good shape.”

Rory nods and jumps off the chair. His dad offers him a piggyback, and his mum smiles at them. I can hear Rory offering that half KitKat to Alice as they leave the room. 

His mother turns to me as the door is closed, her shoulders relaxing, allowing herself to breathe. “And how are you?” I ask her.

“You just think it’s done and then something like that comes along to scare you,” she says with a sigh.

“Let’s have these tests and then see if it’s anything major to worry about,” I try to calm her. “Episodes of rapid heartbeat is quite common in Rory’s case, and we can look into drugs to remedy that if necessary.”

She smiles, nodding.

“Did you have any other questions for me?”

She studies my face for a moment too long. “I… well, it will show up in Rory’s records soon, but my husband I are… I mean we’re getting a divorce.”

I pause for a moment. Of course, I know these things happen in life, but I’ve known this couple for years. I’ve seen them at their lowest ebb, bound by friendship and their love for that boy. I really do feel sorry for them.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I mumble.

“We just… we’re terrified about telling Rory.”

“He doesn’t know?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “We’re scared of breaking him. I mean, look at him. All of this stuff he’s been through and he carries on like nothing has happened. We don’t want to upset him.”

“It took a team of us the best part of six years to build Rory’s heart. There's a warranty on that workmanship,” I reassure her. “Have that chat with him. He’ll be fine.”

***

“Have we got time for dinner first?” I turn to my wife as we walk out of the hospital. We don’t normally have the luxury of ending our shift at the same time, but today is exceptional. We have parents’ evening at the girls’ school so Rhonda made sure to clear up our schedule after our evening rounds at the ward. 

“No, but we can raid M&S and eat in the car?”

I’m starving and I almost cry with relief at the suggestion. “Always knew I married the right woman.”

She chuckles. “Damn right you did.”

We leave the car at the hospital and she drags me along the walkways to Waterloo, the breeze biting at our cheeks. I pull her into M&S, dodging the marching commuters and grab a basket. 

“I’ll look for some wine,” she says before she saunters off. “Oh and I want sushi. None of that crap with the mayonnaise please.”

“Alright.”

I skipped lunch today so the whole place calls to me. I start taking very random things off the shelves: a packet of raspberry iced buns. That’ll do. I also take some hummus for my wife because she bloody loves hummus. I’m not even joking, I’ve seen her down a whole pot of it. Then I take some sushi as requested, some coleslaw, a family bag of mature cheddar and red onion crisps and a trifle. I hope I don’t bump into Rhonda. Next are cheese twists, noodle salad and cocktail sausages. 

It takes me a while to notice that there is a man right next to me with a roll of yellow stickers in their back pocket. Hello there, you are one of my favourite people tonight. Have I managed to find that sacred hour when all the food is being marked down? He labels some prawns with dip and even though I get a little squeamish about eating fish near its expiry date, I put it in my basket. I then follow him around the corner. Now, this is dinner. I put all sorts of random food in my basket and smile at the thought.

Ooh, knockdown pizzas. I should get a pizza. That’s tomorrow’s tea sorted, the girls will love it. Although I can’t help but wonder, what’s the limit for us to feed our daughters frozen pizza in a week before they get taken away from us? But eh, we might be able to get away with it if we give them frozen peas on the side. 

“Look at you,” says my wife, depositing two bottles of red in the basket. 

“Yes, it’s me. I’m the yellow sticker bitch.”

She snickers as we turn to head for the tills. “Excellent work.”

***

“Mr and Mrs Styles, welcome.”

“Mrs Ebner, always a pleasure,” I shake the headmistress’ hand who’s standing at the door. 

“Busy evening?” My wife asks her as she shakes her hand next.

“Always,” the headmistress replies with a smile, then proceeds to speak like she’s reading out of brochures. “But such a wonderful opportunity to connect with our parents and build on the special relationships we have with our school community.” 

Two uniformed minions appear.

“Lewis, Maggie, could you please show Mr and Mrs Styles through to the drinks reception?”

They both nod in unison. The boy holds his arms out like a waiter showing us to our table. We follow them through the school’s grand corridors to the main hall. It’s the one thing I like about this place. It’s very Hogwarts-like with hefty engraved name boards and sepia photos of successful sports teams. In the hall, a throng of parents mill around waiting to see respective teachers. It’s the same every year. We all dodge the people from the PTA trying to sell us quiz tickets, and the bowls of crisps out of hygiene concerns.

“Red or white?” Asks a lady in an apron.

This right here is the very reason we get through parents’ evening. From the look of the bottle, it’s decent wine too. I think that’s where a good proportion of our fees is going. 

“Red, please.”

We both take our glasses and walk to the corner of the hall. It’s essentially a holding area without the background music. The idea is that all the parents will get on and create a party vibe but it just becomes a strange family gathering. As terrible as it sounds, it’s sorted into cliques: parents who know each other via NCT groups, the international expat brigades who keep to themselves, the parents who’ve ostracised themselves by gossip, the ones who you know regularly brunch and ski together.

The boy from earlier suddenly appears in front of us. “Mrs Hughes is ready for you.”

I put my hand on the small of my wife’s back as we walk towards the classroom. Fiona’s teacher first and then Alma’s straight after. Right, we can do this.

“Mrs Hughes, we meet again,” I shake her hand. I’ve got no qualms about Mrs Hughes. She’s a seasoned teacher who likes a slack and sensible moccasin and we’re familiar with her since she taught Alma two years previously. When we enter the classroom, Lewis bows in reverence, taking his leave and I wonder whether to tip him. 

“It’s always lovely to have another Styles girl in my classroom. Fiona is a particular delight.”

My wife and I smile proudly. I’m sure Mrs Hughes says this to every parent here about their child, but that’s always nice to hear. 

“She talks a lot about you,” my wife says. “She seems to have settled in well.”

Mrs Hughes opens up a couple of books and it’s classic Fiona. Alma is ordered and neat—if she makes a mistake then she erases it completely and she underlines things with a ruler and listens to instruction carefully. She gets that from her mum. Fiona though, on the other hand, she’s all me. She has more wild abandon about her; no rulers, no rubbers. She puts giant crosses through things that don’t work and likes her bubble writing decorated with doodles of many, many cats.

I glance around the classroom as Mrs Hughes talks to us about standardised scores. The theme of the school is to show you how smart and educated these children are. Look at the copperplate handwriting, their reproductions of Van Gogh and our languages corner where they’ve all had a go at telling us what they like in French. I spy a contribution from my girl. J’adore les chats et le gâteau au chocolat. 

I’ve lost track of the conversation so I try to catch up.

“So to push Fiona into those top scores, perhaps we can look into tutoring? For maths, in particular, so she can grasp some of the concepts a little more tightly,” says Mrs Hughes. 

My wife and I look at each other confused. “Uh, I don’t think there’s a need, right? She’s only five.”

“It’s never too early,” replies Mrs Hughes. “We run an after-school tutoring club on Tuesdays that would help.”

Back when I was a youngster, clubs were fun endeavours that involved matching baseballs caps or were a chocolate biscuit that you had in your lunchbox. Maths tutoring session was not a club.

I ask her. “Is it free?”

“It’s fifteen pounds per session.”

See? My point being this should be a parents’ evening, not a sales session.

“Well, then it’s something to think about,” says my wife. “It could be that Fiona catches up with people throughout the year.”

“Possibly,” Mrs Hughes nods. Still, though, she proceeds to go into her folder and passes me a form. Sneaky. “Fiona has also shown great interest in languages and art. Her pictures have been a joy.”

Mrs Hughes goes to a file and pulls one of Fiona’s drawings. I glance down at it. It’s a standard child piece of art. The grass and sky are strips of colour to the top and bottom. It’s a family portrait, and we are as tall as the broccoli style trees. Wait, hang on a second. I count the number of people in the picture again. Is that-

“And Mrs Styles, I gather congratulations are in order,” she says with a smile. “Such lovely news.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Fiona told me it’s a boy,” she adds, and the sheer terror on my wife’s face at the realisation is priceless. “You must be very thrilled.”

I study the picture. There’s a house in the middle, and standing in a line in front of the house is our family. The one slightly taller than the broccoli tree is me. I’ve got my white lab coat, and I look like a serial killer because I’m holding a scalpel with the size of a butcher’s knife. Next to me is my wife, also with a white lab coat, but instead of a scalpel, she’s holding a very chunky baby who rather looks like a basketball with a head.

“Oh dear,” I chuckle. “Guess now we know what she’ll ask for Christmas.”

“Yeah,” my wife shakes her head. “We’re not expecting.”

“Oh, I apologise,” Mrs Hughes says with a sheepish smile.

“No worries, Mrs Hughes,” I tell her. “So, what else has our girl been up to here? Besides gossiping of course.”

Mrs Hughes laughs under her breath. “Well, in class, Fiona is attentive, bright and very helpful. She is a credit to you both.”

***

“I swear your daughter, Styles.”

We’re sitting in the car now. Finally done with parents’ evening, still laughing at the slightly creepy, chunky basketball baby in Fiona’s picture and the fact that three people, including Mrs Hughes, have congratulated us for the ‘baby’.

“You haven’t called me Styles in years,“ I turn to her with a grin. “Not since medical school.”

I can’t help but flashback to the good ol’ days when we had matching university hoodies and we’d test each other on the parts of a kidney whilst walking into lectures, sitting next to each other, sharing pens and cans of Lilt. 

“Well, after that I became a Styles too,” she chuckles. “Would be confusing then, wouldn’t it?”

“True,” I laugh under my breath, then I grab her hand and pull it to my mouth so I can kiss her knuckles. “Thank you.”

“What for?”

“For being a Styles.”

“Aw, aren’t we soppy tonight?” She smirks. “Alright, stop the car.”

“What?”

“There,” she points to a dark empty spot and I oblige. 

Then, before I can even ask her why, she reaches over and grabs me by the collar. Pulling me close to her and gives me a kiss. I kiss her back, and I smile when she bites gently on my bottom lip.

“Oi, oi. Something’s got you randy.”

The next thing I know, she undoes her seatbelt and then rolls her trousers down her legs along with her knickers, fumbling and giggling at the awkward movement. I push my seat back and pull my trousers down. 

“Don’t fall on gearstick now,” I joke as she climbs over to straddle me. “Well, unless you want to, of course…”

She laughs as she lowers herself over my lap. I really can’t believe what’s happening here.

“Mrs Styles, we’re about to have sex in a car. Around the corner from our daughters’ school.” 

“I know,” she says with a smile before she runs her tongue along my neck. “Not our first rodeo though.”

“Oh right, we did it in our Volvo years ago, didn’t we? Thought the suspension couldn’t take it.”

“And it turned out fine. Told you that you needed to have more faith in the Swedes, they’re a reliable breed.”

“I love it when you talk about Sweden.”

“Ikea.”

“Fuck.”

“Meatballs.”

“Billy Bookcase.”

She throws her head back in laughter and I take this as an opportunity to run my tongue along her collar bone. She gasps. I reach down to lift her before I slowly lower her over my cock. We both sigh as I enter her, a long exhalation with our lips barely touching. 

“Viggo Mortensen.”

“Isn’t he Danish?”

“Tomato, Tomahto.”

I smile at my wife and push my hips up, silently telling her that we don’t need to talk about Swedish people anymore. She grabs onto the car seat and levers herself up and down. I look at her in the eye, a goofy smile still plastered across my face.

But then I squint. Light. Bollocks, what’s that? Where’s that light coming from? Crap, that’s bright. Shit. I see the flash of a hi-vis jacket, a knock at the window and someone shaking their head.

Oh sodding fucking bollocking shit wank.

[tryingmybestpls]

Me and My Husband

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Summary: The reader warns herself of her relationship with Steve Rogers.

Rating: R

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: Infidelity, miscarriage, depression, suicidal thoughts

No one will tell you what to do when you find out your husband is cheating on you. No one tells you that whether you stay or you leave him, everything you do will be judged ruthlessly. So you just pretend. You will pretend like its not happening, like you haven't seen the text messages on his phone or heard the whispers when you visit the Compound upstate. You'll ignore them the best you can, pray that somehow you got this all wrong. But you can read minds, so you get it straight from him that he's cheating on you.

You'll keep your head held high, ignoring the issue as much as possible. You act like nothing is amiss, even though everyone that you work it-or have worked with-knows the truth. They all know your husband was having an affair and they wonder if you know. You can see their questions as they appear in their heads. You plaster a smile on your face, wishing to be in your bed so you just cry. You'll get bombarded with their thoughts and it'll make you feel like you're drowning.

You'll never bring it up to your husband, but he knows that you know. You've promised that you'd never read his mind, but he knows that you have. You know every gritty little detail of the affair and he knows. He is reminded of it every time he sees you lying in the bed you once shared, your back to him. He's reminded of what he did every time the two of you visit the Compound upstate, when everyone gives her looks of sympathy while he gets glares that bore into his skin. Every time your eyes meet his, he is reminded that he didn't care about the sanctity of marriage and because of that you'll never look at him the same way ever again.

You'll spend moments wondering what you did wrong. Did you not love him enough? Not give him enough attention? Instead of being mad at your husband, you're mad at yourself. Wanting to think about what you could have done instead of thinking that your husband just didn't love you. It'll be easier to blame yourself and you'll live with this bundle of hatred for yourself.

A betrayal by the people closest to you. Your husband and your best friend. Your husband and your maid of honor. The two people you loved most in the world sleeping together and losing your trust, losing you. You wanted it to be anyone but her, anyone else. You prayed and begged that somehow his thoughts betrayed him and he didn't sleep with her, but you know deep down that he did. Her face is all over his memories. She won't meet your eyes and you've stopped taking her calls.  You will want to hurt her, kill her. Want to make her brains spool out from her head because you're so God damned hurt. She isn't friend anymore. Friends don't betray you. Friends don't sleep with your husband. Friends don't make a mockery of your marriage. Friends don't-

Cry.

You'll find yourself crying a lot. It's an endless stream of tears that leave your head pounding and your eyes aching. It's the type of crying that makes your throat and entire chest hurt, the types of crying that leaves you feeling hollow. You must be dehydrated with how much you're crying. Your husband will come home to see your eyes red and watery. He used to be so concerned when he saw you post-crying, but that was before your marriage imploded. He knows he is the reason why you're crying, so he doesn't bother asking anymore. And that only makes you cry even more.

A night of emotions being too high and apologies that he doesn't mean result will in a positive pregnancy test and you're stuck in marriage with three people. You, your husband, and the other woman. It's too cramped and you feel like you can't breathe. It's suffocating.

When you get pregnant, people will whisper it's a save the marriage baby. None of their smiles will meet their eyes and their pity will be written all over their faces. They congratulate you nonetheless, calling you a fool once your back is turned. Having a baby with a man that betrayed her with her best friend.

They'll ask you how he feels about it. Not how you feel because you're not allowed to have feelings anymore. You gave up your feelings when you chose to ignore his infidelity. They'll ask you how he reacted, if he is happy. You don't want to tell them that he just nodded when you told him, his face not giving away way what he felt about the news. You don't to tell them at he left immediately to go see her as soon as you got into the shower.

She will be in the room when you tell the remaining members of your team, both holograms and in person. Hidden in plain sight, she sits among the people you call your friends-at least the ones that remain. His eyes meet hers when the news falls from your lips and you can hear her whisper in her mind "What are we going to do?". As your friends and teammates walk up to congratulate the two of you, she takes her time getting up, takes her time to walk over to you. She looks you in the eye and says that the two of you are going to be great parents. Three of us in this marriage and I can't breathe.

You'll wonder every day as your stomach grows if the man who you married hates you. He's stuck in this house that he had built, with the family he had wanted, in loveless marriage because he messed up and you found out. It doesn't stop him from leaving at night, showering immediately when he comes back. They both know you aren't stupid. You know what they are doing, but your heart can't break anymore. You'll tell yourself that he'll stop when the baby comes, but you know that's a lie, but it's a lie you keep repeating to yourself in hopes of it coming true.

Sometimes, you will dive into his mind when he is asleep next to you. He'll never know that you've snuck inside, but you get to see every moment of their relationship. It's sadistic and all it does is make you more upset, but you can't help yourself. You need to know how far it goes, if they love each other or if it's just a physical thing. She fills up more of his memories than you do. You're being replaced and there isn't a thing you can do about it. You can only watch it happen.

And no one will tell you what to do when you start to bleed. It will seems to pour endlessly from you, staining the cream colored sheets. Your husband won't be beside you, he's off with her. So instead, through the pain, you drive yourself to the hospital, blood covering the seat. Tears streaming down your face as you force yourself to walk into the emergency room, hand on your stomach. You'll lean on the receptionist's desk and calmly tell her "I think I am losing my baby." as blood drips down your legs. No one tells you who to call. Should you interrupt your husband's time with his mistress? Make him hate you more? No. Instead, you call your friend, the one who has always been like a brother to you. The one who lives a few hours away with his wife and their newborn daughter. You'll wait for him, sitting alone in a hospital room as nurses run tests on you.

No one will tellyou how you are supposed to react when they come in and tell you that your baby-a boy, you learn-is gone. Your bump is still there, so how can he be gone? He. A sweet baby boy that you'll never get to meet. When Tony arrives, you can't get the words out. Saying it aloud will mean it's true. But he knows. He knows as soon as he walks through the door that the baby is gone. He doesn't bring it up and instead sits next to you, where your husband should be, and holds your hand. Your hand in his while you other hand cradles your bump. Your husband will return home the next morning to find your car gone with blood smeared everywhere. For the first time in months, he'll call your phone, wondering what was going on.

Tony will be the one who answers the phone when you're in surgery, the doctors wanting to make sure the contents of your womb are completely out. He'll be the one who tells your husband that you lost your baby. Tony will be the one to tell him to stop calling. Before your friend hangs up, Tony will tell your husband that he caused this, that his infidelity direct caused your miscarriage.

In that time, you'll finally lose it. It's like you're finally reacting to everything. You'll be drowning in anger, in sadness, in sorrow. How you managed this far you'll never understand. Tony will bar your husband and his mistress from coming anywhere close to your hospital room. Your life is falling apart at the seams and you're losing control of everything. You're unable to sleep, unable to eat. The last thing you've had was your baby and now that he's gone-Well you don't have anything left. You just want all of the pain to end and you'll tell Tony that. He'll will be worried and he'll ask for you to be put into a seventy-two hour hold. While this is happening, while your brain is being picked in order to see if you're going to harm yourself, Steve will be throwing away the bloody bed and getting rid of the ruined sheets and blankets.

Tony will decide that you can't go back to your home you share with Steve, but you also can't stay with him. He has a baby and you just lost yours. It's not right for you to stay there. So instead he takes you to Asgard's new home. You'll be thousands of miles away from the home you had wanted to raise a family in, away from your husband. Thor and Valkyrie will welcome you with open arms, helping you transition into your new lifestyle as you grieve. Tony will handle the divorce proceedings and Steve will get a new bed. Your things will be packed up and sent to you and you'll be completely removed from your husband.

And when Bruce and Rocket come knocking on your door three years later, begging for your help, you'll be forced to make a choice. And you'll sit there in your tiny cottage next to Thor's, thinking about what to do. And then you'll agree to help because you want to bring back half of the universe. You love saving people and it doesn't matter if you feel uncomfortable, you are going to help bring people back.

So when that beautiful man with the baby blue eyes comes up to you after a mission, a million dollar smile stretched across his nervous face and asks you to go on a date, heed this warning. He'll be amazing at first, but it'll go down hill so fast. Know that you were never his first choice, you were the only available one.

If you don't heed the first warning and you do go on a date with the blonde man, don't marry him. The marriage is a sham, something you'll do a year after half of the universe turns into dust. You'll be excited and it'll seem like he's really happy, but he isn't. He just wants purpose again and he won't get it from the marriage. He'll emotionally leave you and you'll try to stick it out.

Being with Steve Rogers will only end in pain, so save yourself the heartbreak and stay away.

[erwinscrybaby]

𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐥 𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠.

@seychellse, HI!! I'M YOUR CUPID! And i hope you like what i wrote, even though it's just the first part! too much plot, too much reader development STILL i hope you appreciate it!!! smut comes on the next part and it's gonna be YUMMY cause aizawa is YUMMY! happy valentine's day again and thanks for your patience with me!!

aizawa shouta x reader. too much plot, slight angst, parents divorcing, but also fluff, reader is kinda naïve and silly, aizawa probably ooc, forbidden relationship (student x professor).

6.826 words.

Mom and dad are getting divorced. After almost two years of homemade hell, not even you were able to be the glue keeping them together, at least, until you find your way out of this room as an independent woman.

The big serious conversation happened yesterday. Right after a fucking tiring class at the college, you got home only to find out that your efforts were in vain. Useless, thrown aside with no hesitation.

Years of wearing the mask of happiness and flawless child just to discover it changes nothing in the way your parents are not meant to be with each other.

You’ve never been as happy as people say around. Despite the light, carefree smile always on your shining lips, good grades, social interactions and nice days and night having fun with your friends, you’re not as content as the gossips say. You do look like having a perfect life; never complaining and never letting your real feeling to come up beneath the thick layer of good manners and behavior, even inside your own home.

It wasn’t like you had any other option, anyway.

You used to wonder what could possibly happen if you stopped being the perfect, wonderful, amazing daughter your parents talked about every chance they got. Not long ago, on your eighteenth birthday, their marriage started to fall apart and, not wanting to accept what your eyes were showing, you tried hard to be the best girl in order to keep them together.

You graduated from the high school with a rain of compliments coming of your teachers, pleased to have had you as their student. Entered the best university of the State to study what your father always said would be a good idea. Built a network, met important people and brought pride to your mother, so interested in what the contacts can bring to one. Got a part time job as the assistant of a great specialist in the area you wanted to research about. You even dated a guy your parents liked for a few months, wanting to make them happy.

But none of this was enough. Years after making yourself the question “what if they divorce one day?”, you’re feeling it on your skin, every cell of your body aching, fingers trembling, eyes squeezing—how can one handle such pain?

They weren’t joking about mother leaving the house in the same night. You’ve seen the bags with her clothes, a truck outside to help her carry all of her stuff to her new house, on the other side of the city. She had kissed your face with a guilty expression, but reassured she’d always be right there if you ever needed help, of even if you wanted to move in with her.

Though she was talking like a stranger; she possibly doesn’t want you to go with her to live with her new prettier, richer man. Her words were pity, manners only. It broke your heart; you’ve spent the night awake and trying to convince yourself it wasn’t happening.

However, when your clock alarm announced that it was time to go study, you went to the bathroom and stared your own face on the mirror, your red eyes said everything. She’s gone; she’s leaving you and her husband because of a man she have known for less than six months. Your orbs also ask God, the universe, even yourself what did you do to deserve this. Or, even better, what haven’t you done? Were you supposed to be even more perfect? If you haven’t failed that exam—receiving a B instead of an A—, would the universe agree with keeping your parent together for a few more years? You’d never know the answer.

So, instead of dwell into it, you decided to keep your act. Perhaps your life is going to be fixed if you don’t lose your mind; if you keep playing your familiar role. Makeup could do little for your reddish eyes, but your skin won’t show the cruel pattern your never-ending tears made on your face if you cover it well enough. Although you know how fast the gossips run, and your phone already is full of messages of friends asking what happened, going to your classes won’t make you sadder. It doesn’t work anymore; since the day you decided you’d be the happy student, content daughter and unwavering friend, little has you upset.

Having your heart broken doesn’t hurt as it used to do when you were sixteen; hearing comments about your appearance also doesn’t have you sad. What is this bullshit in comparison to the hell you used to see at least once a week—parents trying hard not to scream and report they’ve been fighting for hours, but then saying, whispers of regret, that they shouldn’t have had trusted themselves to raise a child.

Oh, the weight of hearing your mother saying it would be better if they never had you.

After this, what else can make you cry like a newborn, wanting to be dead instead of hearing those things?

The curious, unsubtle gazes people throw at you also don’t bother you at first. You meet your classmates, talk to them about silly, light subjects; pretend you’re not broken inside, and it goes very well the whole day. Like the role of flawless student always does, you’ve almost forgotten about what waits for you at home. But then the classes are done.

You sure can hear the whispers as you walk to the exit of the place, this time alone, but none of them hurt you as much as when you notice a guy staring at you. He’s blonde, his eyes are creepy, the devilish smirk on his lips is enough to have you disgusted and annoyed. His mouth is moving, he doesn’t bother to hide he’s talking about you to his much less interested friend.

“Said her mother’s a whore,” he laughs, shamelessly pointing at you. “Woman’s moving in to my house, bet it won’t take long ‘til I can fuck her, like my father did.”

You try to ignore, but suddenly you’ve lost the skill of walking. Your legs shake a little as you pass in front of him, now his words hitting your ears with a cruel remind of your family’s situation. It hurts. You wanted to talk back, tell whoever listened to his words that he’s just a fucking liar, a stupid weirdo, yet your tongue froze and you couldn’t do much more than feel them again. Warm tears, a sob leaving your lips as you looked at him with the most pitiful of the gazes.

The last time you’ve cried in public happened when you were fifteen, after a guy affirming he’d rather die instead of even holding hands with you. However the feeling is still familiar, the humiliation lump in your throat feeling bitter, like you’re about to puke the little you ate during the day. Your body burns in shame, so conscious about the way people stop on the hall just to see your crying face—not only the students, with their pity expressions, but also the professors, complacent but not surprised faces seemingly used to the young adults drama.

You finally manage to move your feet, walking towards the door, but the blonde guy opens his fucking mouth again. His voice is gross and, even without looking back, you know his smirk is also sick.

“Are you like this, too?” He inquires, but he answers himself with a creepy chuckle. “Of course you are; it must be genetic, mother’s a slut, daughter also is.”

Insults are nothing. It doesn’t matter if he’s calling you a slut. He’s an unknown, a guy you’ve never noticed before and probably will never see after finishing your studies. Although it still uncomfortable to hear a motherfucker like him talking about your mother. Not even your father, who was cheated on, didn’t call her names, why the little crap of this boy has to do it?

You know he wants you to answer. The usual behavior of a man trying to make himself a little fame. You’re tired, you’re sad, you’re feeling humiliated by the way your body betrayed you after so many years pretending to be the unshakeable girl—you don’t even have words in your mind other than fuck you, what you probably make him laugh. Still you turn around to face him and his red-haired friend.

“Quit it,” you hear your own voice, shaky and breathy, but also harsh. You feel anger, you feel sadness, you feel the urge to get closer to the guy and punch him, you feel the urge to cry an ocean and tell him to fuck off. Instead, you start walking again, this time decided to reach the exit. “If you’re so annoyed about my mother go cry for your father.”

“I won’t, unlike you, fucking crybaby. Just get over the fact your family is screwed now because of her,” he replies quickly, never stopping to smile, but it’s the last thing you pay attention to.

“Enough, Katsuki,” says a professor, approaching the both of you.

You recognize it is Yagi, but only because your friends can’t shut up about him. He’s not a professor on your department, so you barely know more than his name and the assumptions of him being rich and spoiling sugar babies around. You can also remember about your father saying they used to be close, back on master’s degree days, but that’s all. He’s never shown up on the reunions dad used to do to meet his friends, so you could only assume they don’t talk anymore.

You shake your head, bowing as you murmur apologies—not for the boy, but for the rest of the curious surrounding the high school-like scene. Your irises are shining, wet, tears threatening to fall again. Instead of waiting a minute more, you finally leave.

The heavy stares follow you until you’re inside your car, head on the driving wheel as you try not to let out a desperate scream and confirm you’re mentally unbalanced because of your parents’ divorce.

—

You don’t drive home. The Havana themed café inside the shopping mall is a place you’ve thinking about visiting for so long and, after a stressful moment, you think you can do this. Sit down, ask for your favorite beverage while the knot in your throat threats to untie in the warm, painful, familiar tears. At least in this part of the city the chances of any stupid guy seeing you are low, and you don’t have to struggle fighting against your feelings. On your own, yet in public, you can be a little more like yourself.

It’s small, really small, behind the glass door that rings a bell when you pull it. Only one of the six little yellow tables, each with two blue chairs, is taken. Because of the AC, the space smells like coffee, puff pastry and a man’s perfume, which you assume is fault of the one sitting down, sipping his cup and reading something on his tablet. You can only see the back of his head still, somehow stopping to think about the awful state of your life, you wonder if he’s pretty. He might be.

You shake your head. As you pull a chair and sit down, the waitress approach and gives you the also yellow menu and you analyze it briefly before asking for something different, this time. Life’s changing, isn’t it? It’s not the same as last week. Something catches your attention and you ask for one—strawberry frappe. Vanilla, milk, ice and strawberry jelly. You hope it tastes sweet.

Other than the workers of the place starting a conversation with each other once in a while, during the time you wait, the café is silent. You observe the details with an attention that makes no sense, so focused on trying to discover what the scenes on the wallpaper might be. Are scenarios of the Havana city, you know, but you let your brain go further. The more you think about bullshit, the less you think about your cell phone ringing on your bag, probably your father wanting to know if you’re coming to the afternoon tea.

It’s almost five, anyway.

The images are pretty. Behind the man writing on the tablet, the wallpaper shows colorful houses, an old car in front of them. Quite inconvenient, however your mind doesn’t fail to remind of the time your parents talked about their dreams of visiting a cliché scenario like Havana seem to be—you imagine a couple in front of the street, sharing a Cuba Libre as they flirt, the sensual air of the city involving both. Your eyes burn, a sob stuck in your throat, just when the man turns around to check something—maybe the clock on the wall behind you?

A single tear rolls down your cheek as you recognize a professor of your University. Aizawa. He’s pretty, you think, hiding a humorless smile. Also just saw you about to drown in tears whilst your frappe is being done, all because of a stupid thought that you shouldn’t have.

It’s ridiculous enough that you’ve been living your life for your parents, to keep them together, but this? You’re about to cry thinking about a love scene where you wouldn’t be the protagonist?

Epiphany hits you hard when you receive your pink-colored strawberry frappe and taste it. Sweet. Luckily. When had you stopped to be the protagonist of your own life? Your eyes widen, fill up with tears that you can’t control. In a matter of seconds, professor Aizawa sees you falling apart with a frown; the waitress comes closer to ask if you’re feeling good, if is there something wrong with the beverage.

Pathetic mumbles of sorry leaves your mouth. Along with them, the urge to stand up and go face your mother, ask her why? If it wasn’t for her and her stupid decisions, you wouldn’t be crying in public, suddenly finding out your life hasn’t been yours. You were, until the day they said they were getting a divorce, living your parents’ life.

“Sorry,” you manage to say, finally. Your eyes travel from the girl close to you to the man in front of you, who hasn’t stopped staring you. “I’m good, don’t worry about it.”

Exhaling, he stands up, nodding, and holds his stuff. Is he getting out sooner because of you? Guilt and shame hits you, fingers shaking awkwardly yet they’re still holding the mug tight. Too much humiliation for five minutes, you think.

Then he pulls the chair in front of you and places his coffee by your frappe’s side.

For you, his eyes are bored, like he’s doing something because he has to and it’s a pain in the ass. The tablet is the next to be on the table. Mr. Aizawa seems to keep there for a while, and you don’t understand why. You clean your eyes with your thumbs, careful not to smudge the eyeliner, and open up your prettiest smile, the happiest.

As if he hasn’t seen you sobbing a minute ago.

You’re a good pretender, aren’t you? Instead of giving up, you try to put yourself back together again, so no one has to worry about the pitiful state you are right now. You’re fucked up, you can’t say it softly—since your own experiences were standing by for more than half of your life, when it falls on your lap again it’s scary and probably keeping with the same attitudes as ever isn’t the best to deal with the unknown, still you can’t help. It’s like a part of you, already. Put on a fake smile and pretend you’re good.

You’ve been doing this for so long. Why would you hesitate?

Of course, your smile doesn’t last. Your lies don’t stand a chance against Aizawa’s attentive eyes. You’re too obvious. Too weak. When the professor keeps staring at you, lips in a rigid line like ever, arms crossed, you feel a little intimidated. No, not just a little. You instantly let your mask fall; your always so straight column curls forwards as you face the table, eyes down. Like you’re a joke, Havana’s cute streets laugh at you.

You take a long sip of your pink frappe, eyes locked on the beautiful city, waiting for him to say something. You wouldn’t say anything, if he doesn’t first. Childish, but you are not sure of the reasons he decided to sit close to you. Perhaps it’s pity, a small gesture for you not to feel that alone.

However, little could do to make you feel less like you’re this—alone. Absolutely alone.

“You’ve been crying too much for a tough girl,” Aizawa states, his sudden voice making you jump in your chair, as you look him in the eyes. Lazy eyes, still nice ones, though. “What’s going on?”

You’re surprised, to say the least. You don’t usually let your drama bother you at school. How does he know about this? Yes, you might have cried a little in the corners of the campus, but you’d make sure no one’s close. And, why does he pay attention to you? Many students cry around the corners, too overwhelmed by the awful feeling of being alive, you’re not special. Why had you caught his attention? Did he see you instead of the daughter of those rich ass parents? You try to start talking, but words don’t come, your voice doesn’t sound and the man takes it as a sign, sighing.

“Listen,” he tries once more. “It must be weird. But if you want to talk, we can pretend we’re just strangers.”

It’s an implied suggestion and you take it, nodding slowly after a quick “okay”. Yet it doesn’t work as easy, you need to talk. Having little to none friends has a great impact in the way you feel, and right now you need to vent, tell your worries. If he stays in front of you for time enough, you can even tell him about your stupid late epiphany. Maybe he has a good answer for what has your heart beating faster when you think you have been wasting your life for so long.

“You might have heard around the campus,” you start, but a detail has you shaking your head to begin all over again. “Why did you say I am crying too much?”

“I always drink coffee here,” he speaks as he points to the place you are. “Saw you passing by a couple times these days. Now I look like a stalker, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you shrug, not sure of what else to say. “It’s true, I’ve been crying a lot. You might have heard around the campus, people have no manners to—”

Aizawa cuts you before you can proceed, “I’m the stranger, remember?”

“Oh,” you murmur, face heating up. “Oh. So, my parents are getting divorced. My mom has already left home and… I’m kind of lost. Don’t want to hear advices of how to handle this,” you continue, after a sip on your frappe. “I just want to feel I’m not broken into pieces.”

That’s how you’re feeling since the day your mother said she was leaving. Leaving her daughter to live a luxury life with that rich man. Leaving her home, built with so much efforts of her and your father, her husband, for a teenager dream. She went and took away with her a part of you; the part you were gladly showing, the part of being the child every mom want to have. Left you with nothing but the little girl hidden deep inside, the one who hasn’t been in the real world since the day you found out what are the consequences of being the flawless kid.

And that little girl is also in pieces. Like a puzzle, you have to discover how to put yourself together, how to be the woman the years has taught you to be.

All the nights awake, insomnia making you think of many terrible things happening; the mornings spent in front of the mirror, putting on the makeup to pretend, once more, everything’s fine, you’re not drowning in your own suppressed feelings. It has to be useful, right? You did not suffer, you are not suffering it all for nothing. Where’s the maturity experiences were supposed to bring to you?

“I feel like I’m lost, too,” you conclude, your voice tone so hopeless that makes you cringe a tiny bit.

“And what are you doing to end up with this feeling?” The man asks, hands going to his hair, putting the locks in a messy bun. You feel your face hot again and look away. “Did you try to help this pain out in any way?”

You pout slightly, unconscious, nails hitting the wood of the table. You’ve been doing nothing more than pretending your life still the same. You’re living like the past months, changing the fact you don’t drink tea in family at five anymore. And that’s all. It must be the phase of negation. You let out a breathy chuckle, yet not happy at all. Everyone can see it.

“I don’t drink tea anymore,” you say, joking.

He doesn’t smile. Instead, harsh eyes meet yours once you’re looking up again.

“I bet you know this isn’t the answer I was expecting,” Aizawa sighs. “You understand what you’ve got to do, don’t you?”

“No,” you spill without missing a beat. “I don’t know the fuck I’m supposed to do now, that’s why I said I’m lost.”

You could have been softer on him, but it slipped out of your lips without a second warning. It’s the truth, after all, and the rare times people get to hear it from you it’s because you’ve given in to the primitive urge of saying whatever is inside your mind. You haven’t done this for so long, too much worried about what’s the correct to say, what’s the most nice to say, ignoring all of your feelings in the process.

“Sorry,” you apologize, feeling embarrassed. That’s why you don’t like those feelings; they cause you to be tough on others, just like yesterday, when you yelled at your father for a silly reason, hurt by the way he suggested that you should use mom’s jewels as yours. “Didn’t mean to be rude. But I still have to say that I don’t know what I should do.”

“Neither do I,” Aizawa finally shows you a hint of a smile that reaches his eyes. “However… Go home now, google something about self-knowledge. Find out who you are when you’re not being your parents’ daughter. It might help.”

Crappy advice. Everybody could have told you that. Somehow, you still take it like an order. And it hadn’t bothered you. You nod, drinking the last of your sweet frappe, and stand up. A trial of a smile creeps on your face. It might not be the prettiest, but at least is an honest one. The first one in days. You hope the professor can see it, too. You’re smiling because of the “stranger’s” words.

Self-knowledge. Sounds awful. You don’t even know how to start.

“Thank you, Sir,” you tell him, offering another smile, receiving one, way smaller than yours, back. Suddenly feeling brave, you reach out for him. “I hope we can see each other another day, stranger.”

A subtle flirt. You’ve never been that good with it, so it was a clumsy trial. Yet he accepts your hand, standing up to shake it. As he does, his eyes never leaves your orbs, and you feel proud of yourself of how you manage to stand until he blinks, glancing at your body.

Of course you’re going to meet again. Next semester, probably, inside a classroom, in a position of student-teacher that can’t be broken. Still he nods.

“Perhaps. Good luck, girl.”

You give him a last gaze. Havana behind him, Aizawa’s dark hair in a casual bun you’ve never seen; he looks like a man you could dream about drinking Cuba Libres with. When you leave the thematic café, your smile is wider, and your sadness has grown smaller.

This time, after buying your father a new record he’d like, you drive home, satisfied with your brief interaction with a man that hasn’t been introduced by your mother or a jerk trying to get into your panties. Better—you talked to him and felt like yourself, not the perfect-kid-role you’ve been for years. Your heart feels so light, so happy. You can’t wait to go home, tell your father it’s getting better! It’s getting better, father, you’d say. I can be myself for a couple minutes, if I need to!

You feel silly, so many good things coming from a weird meet with a man years older that has nothing to do with your life. You feel like you’re sixteen again, talking to a guy with flirty tones for the first time, on your own. But what can you do about it? Despite the lazy expression on his face, you felt like he was looking at you.

You, you, really you. He looked at your body and the creepy shining of perverts hasn’t shown up on his orbs; he seemed to be interested in what you were saying, not in what your flesh can do or anything else.

The felt was too good to be real. What a pity it wouldn’t happen ever again, because it’s against the rules and you have no reason to flirt even more with Aizawa Shouta, although it’s all you can think about when your enter your go downstairs hours later and see your father’s friends fraternizing.

And, amongst the men you’re used to see, your eyes fall onhis black hair, black shirt, low voice again.

Him.

Aizawa is quite sure the reason he decided to join a few friends and ex-colleagues is because one of them—your father—is going through a terrible time. It’s absolutely this. He might not be the most affective person, but he’d never decline a request made with so much pain in the voice. The way that ex-professor said “I need to have a pastime” as the excuse for a late planned dinner at his place was too painful for one not to notice it wasn’t the only intention. By inviting his old coworkers, Shouta bet he wanted to hide something deep inside his chest, too.

Yet the both men hadn’t talked for a few months, losing touch after a few months, Aizawa used to think about how he is doing from time to time. A year ago, your father decided to leave his job at the University and make himself comfortable by doing what he always said was his dream: writing a book, he could both enjoy the pleasure of writing and the companion of his lovely family. At least, he said this to the professors he used to work with, in his last day.

Now, after talking to you on the café, Aizawa couldn’t understand what was the real motivation to make your father, enthusiast literature teacher, leave his happy job. He knows divorces doesn’t happen out of nowhere—even if the end begins in one’s head, the other totally unaware, it is never quick. Starts with some flirt here and there, if one of them is leaned to cheating; or it can start with the unpleasure of being even by the partner’s side. Minimum details start to annoy; love doesn’t seem to be enough.

It's slow burn, but one day the relationship ends and leave girls like you lost like puppies, unsure of what else to do.

If Aizawa knew about this situation before seeing you falling apart in a corner, trying to put yourself together before a class, he would have found a way of talking to you, or make the psychologist talk to you, to find out what is happening. It isn’t like he has any special interest in messing with students’ business, yet he couldn’t stop noticing the way you’ve been growing sadder beneath the mask of happiness.

He also knows it happens to every single person in the world. Sometimes things just don’t get together, just don’t work. And it’s okay, he thinks, nothing stays like this forever. However, he started to hear from his colleagues that you, the bright, always so joyful, student of theirs, was looking down, unfocused, not even joining your friends after class to the casual dates they usually have. They didn’t know whether it was unconscious or not, but you were isolating yourself and, for such a popular person, it was strange, to say the least.

Took all of his self-control not to call your father like you were a kindergarten child and say you were acting strange, not like yourself. He’d ask “Is something happening at home?” and would also suggest “Have you ever offered her therapy?”

Of course, he couldn’t do this. Otherwise, he’d have to do it for the other hundred students that he noticed becoming even sadder during the semester. Wouldn’t be fair with the other people.

Anyway, Aizawa did the stupid thing of sitting in front of you in public, acting like he was an advisor for a young girl instead of your professor, explicitly forbidden of having any kind of extra-scholar relationship with any student. Yet he put his tablet, coffee and hands on your table and listened to your vent, pretending to be a stranger as if it would absolve him from the guilt.

Unfortunately for him, he’d do everything again—would even talk more, try to be of any real help. The man would honestly like to help you.

During the days your father were a professor with Shouta, he wouldn’t shut up to talk about his prodigious, perfect daughter. Proud filled up his eyes as he spoke about how you were going to study in this University too; praising you with no shame, so glad to have a chance to talk about his little girl, that was becoming a woman so gorgeous as her mother. In work fraternizations, he’d talk with his colleagues, especially the ones who had children, about how was it wonderful to have such a great kid as his successor.

At first, Aizawa didn’t want even to hear about you. Your father showing you off everywhere, endlessly commenting about your qualities and how he loved you and your mother. It was kind of annoying, mainly because he didn’t want to hear proud fathers early in the morning, and he thought to himself that all his talking must be bullshit.

Who talks too much, does too little. And the parents’ perspective over their own kid isn’t fair, most of the times.

So, when Shouta heard the gossips between Yagi and Hizashi—the girl’s finally coming—he thought with himself that it was the time (or the year) of the truth. You’d show who you truly are to the professors and they’d come to the conclusion that your father was being exaggerate.

Except he wasn’t.

Dedicated, smart, kind girl. Easy to captivated your classmates; interested in finding what you could do in the university to help the others, to enjoy the maximum you could about the college experience. Though, one thing Aizawa found out was better than what your father said.

Gorgeous wouldn’t be enough to describe the deity you are.

Oh, he felt so guilty when he discovered this. You’re so much prettier than the other girls around that he almost got down to his knees to be grateful he wouldn’t be your teacher this semester. You are too pretty for his own good and he hated having amazing students on his classes—they’d never keep still, the entire class wanting to spend some time around you, wanting to have a word with you despite no subject or no need at all to do this.

Aizawa would feel jealous of how it is good to be a classmate instead of a professor. If he wasn’t fifteen, sixteen years older than you, he’d himself find a way of ignoring his embarrassment to invite you to a café. In a perfect scenario, you’d meet in the Havana one, in a much less suspicious situation.

That being said, the reason of why he joined the reunion besides not being a big fan of meetings, became both the worry about his old colleague, for who he cares, and the idea of entering your house and seeing you.

Luckily, when he entered, the living room was free, as the kitchen. Except for the host, no one else of the family were there by the time all of his guests arrived. So the night started, snacks, talks about children as usual, conversations about jobs, commentaries about woman. Until your father decided to fill some glasses with honey whisky—at the same time, like a mocking move, the music player started to play any Lana del Rey melancholic song that he justified being from your playlist—and said what everybody already knew.

“I’m a divorced man, now,” he said, a joking tone that matched nothing in the way his eyes were sad, tired, dark bags under them. But his expression became even more sadder as he continued, saying now what Aizawa already knew. “And my daughter is devastated. I don’t know what to do, she goes study and comes back hours after the end of the classes, never tells me where she’s going or with who. And, fuck, she cries the whole night. Breaks my heart to see her like this, but…”

His voice died as he heard steps coming from the stairs. In a weird synchrony, the men drank of their glasses and started talking about lighter, happier stuff. Although it was clear the host needed to vent, none of them wanted to keep the conversation knowing his daughter was right behind, in the living room.

Aizawa looks away when you sneak into the kitchen after greeting your father and his friends. Just like when you flirtedwith him in the cafeteria, you smiled at him shortly, a smirk carried with an inside meaning, before opening the fridge to get yourself a snack before coming back to your room, just as fast as you’ve showed up.

Unlike the expected—seeing a student in her casual clothes, since she’s at home—, Shouta watches you with the same t-shirt you were wearing when the both of you met, now matched with thick fabric pants. Better than the expected, to be honest. Yet inside his brain he can think whatever he wants about you (nobody’s there to judge him other than his own conscious), it wouldn’t be quite nice to see you jumping the steps in pajamas, usually with a thin fabric that leave little to the imagination of those who watch.

Your father did raise you like a good girl, hm? No showing off in front of dad’s friends; always dressing composed clothing to go downstairs during his meetings.

It doesn’t stop Aizawa from wondering about what did you think when you first saw him. What did you think when you showed him your smile, the one your father used to show off, shaking your hands at him?

Are you going to think of him in your room too, just like he’s thinking of you—despite his trials to avoid it—whilst your father keeps talking about how it is hard to understand what’s going on inside your mind?

Glasses of whisky and many hours later, the men start to go home. One by one, they ask for their wives to come pick them, find and Uber to drive them home, the one who didn’t drink goes straight alone. Then Aizawa and your father remains, eating the last pizzas slices and listening to Swedish songs as they try hard to find any subject to talk about before leaving.

“See,” the man talks to Shouta, pointing at the big portrait of his family enjoying the last happy vacations on the clear waters of a paradisiacal beach. In it, your swimsuit had a flowered print, and your arms were up, face seeming genuinely happy. “I wish I could live forever to take care of her. Of her smile. She’s not smiling these days, after her mother left, not even talking to me properly. Man, you can bet I’d do anything for her to stop crying at night and saying in the morning she’s okay, she’s feeling better than yesterday.”

He stops, perhaps noticing he was talking too much, and sigh, sipping the last whisky of his glass.

“I know she isn’t,” he continues, and Aizawa nods, silent. “Because I’m getting worse every day. Anyway, if you ever see her down at school, of even if something happens, don’t hesitate to call me.”

“You’re too worried about her,” Aizawa states, softly, placing a hand on your father’s shoulder, who shakes his head. Sounds strange to say it after listening to you, knowing you’re feeling lost, unsure of what to do to ease the pain and scary feeling of being thrown into the world without any knowledge, but he doesn’t stop himself. “She can handle this. Let her be for a while, she’ll be fine.”

Your eyes shined when you gave him that kind of rude answer, apologizing after. Yet you’re still a little girl trying to find your way, you’ll be able to do it in a couple days. His crappy advice should work for something, and maybe, just maybe, if you show up to drink another strawberry frappe at the Havana café he’d say better things to help you.

“I suppose so,” the host finally accepts, opening a smile, after a couple minutes in silence, a comfortable one. “She’s tough. But still, keep an eye on her to me.”

“Don’t worry,” he affirms and stands up, walking towards the door. “I’m going now, Sir. Take care and have a good night.”

Shouta enters the Uber he called after a couple minutes—those spent staring at the window covered by the curtains, a silhouette passing by every now and then—and heads home, thinking about how the innocent request of your father could be the excuse for him to do awful things to you. Things he wants to do, to be honest, but aren’t that important for him to feel the crazy urge of creating plans. He can’t risk losing his job because you’re pretty even when you’re crying; he can’t risk losing his career for something like that flirt that might just have happened because of your current state of loneliness, clinginess, neediness.

Still, the alcohol on his brain making it hard to deny, he thinks of you when he’s taking a shower, dick hardening against his will, wondering why the hell the bittersweet taste of the risqué and forbidden things is always tastier than the sweet of the things did according to morals and rules.

His cock remains untouched during his shower, but only because he thinks you don’t deserve it. Him fucking his hand to the thought of your crying, the memory of your eyes getting slightly happier when you notice he has paid attention to you during your conversation, really trying to help you.

You want to be seen, to be heard, to be liked for ones not because your father said you’re amazing and not because your mother said you’ll be heading overseas in a couple years to study more and become a great professional. You want someone to forget you’re their daughter, their flawless kid, predicted to be the greatest woman of the family. Instead, you want to take off the mask and still have someone praising you, saying you’re a good girl because you are! You’re the best girl when you don’t need to play your constant role, too. You need to hear the praises, but this time for the person you’re really are.

Aizawa knows it. Your irises are clear, can be read like a book, and he noticed all of this is a couple minutes. A hurt girl finding out the life isn’t what parents want to be—after all, the one who stays with you until the day of your death is you, only you—, expecting to discover what else you should do to live the dream hidden deep inside your heart.

He understands you. And, unlike a gentleman, he’s not going to help you with that. You need to understand it by yourself. Then, when you’re ready to say what you need to him—a poor, pathetic dream, because he knows you can choose any other guy, especially younger ones—, Aizawa Shouta will give you whatever you want, and take away from you whatever he needs.

Right now, the sun rising on the still dark sky, he decides he needs you.

continues on part ii.

[lesbianoctoling]

🖊 🖊 thatcher and angel?

Meme

Thatcher -

The daughter of Toni Kensa and an Octoling. It's hard to tell that he's part inkling at first glance, but his ears give him away. He grew up not knowing who his father was and was raised as a soldier, but after discovering the secret through a magazine (without much proof, though) he came to the surface to become a nuisance and try to take over his father's company.

Thatcher is such a fun character for his premise alone. I want to write a short story about him one day. He actually hardly has any solid evidence of his heritage when he first comes to the surface other than 'we look alike and you vaguely mentioned your previous love life in a magazine interview once', but his father's reaction to him when they meet is enough. There's big daddy issues here.

He loves the surface though, and company aside Thatcher wants to become a fashion designer or something eventually. He also bothers Ava like, a lot. Ava and Callie were the ones to help him in the first place!

Thatcher's mom also kind of hates Toni Kensa too. I want to write Toni Kensa as an epic divorce man. I should honestly think about it all more one day, but it's really a story for another day.

Angel -

oh my god angel i can go on about her for literal hours and hours and hours . After I got a bit stuck writing WPW i kind of ended up focusing on her and her story. My poor little meow meow. My absolute garbage of a woman. I have a ton of human art of her too, because her human counterpart is similar but a little more grim and in a sci-fi universe. If I were to ever take my ocs out of Splatoon she's where I'd start with a unique universe, but I'm happy with her having two versions.

Trying to figure out what to say about her without spoiling story stuff I also want to share on day is a little hard - though a lot can be pieced together through some art too tbh.

Her morals are awful but she doesn't think so. Angel is an unreliable narrator, and why I want to write about her so bad one day. She's awful, but in a way where I can't really say where she stands on 'worst to least worse' of my villain ocs. She's willing to kill anyone in her way under the guise of making her world (The Deepsea Metro City) better, but she'd never ever hurt a child. She's consumed by this, but she thinks she's in the right. She hates the Telephone so much. So much.

But her plans for revenge take years. She's around 25 when her villain arc starts, and 37 during Octo Expansion (I think 42 at the start of Splatoon3). She's a chemist with the odd job of stealing memories and making mem cakes out of them. I haven't figured out how this makes sense yet, I have to research it, so this could change in the future. But her stealing memories is pretty important - about every test subject in Kamabo has gone through her for it.

Tartar has tried to sanitize her a few times but her body's tetrodotoxin combats it. He gave up and gave her her current job instead. She's experimented on herself with sanitization before, though, over the years - to try and see if it was possible to sanitize an octoling and keep their free will. This resulted in the scarring on half her body and sanitized eye. Sara was eventually the first successful attempt at this. i don't have a smart in universe scientific explanation for all of this but I want to do my research eventually to make sense of it. If ur a scientist and this doesn't make sense I am so sorry.

Post story is weird. She isn't forgiven for most of the damage she's done and I think it's important to point that out. I hesitate to say she gets 'redeemed'. I was actually originally going to kill her off, because I didn't know what to do with a villain like her without somehow saying her actions were ok. I decided not to, though, because not only had I become really attached to her, but it also felt extremely cruel - she's evil, sure, but she's also very very traumatized and a pretty sad woman. She can live, but has to forever live with the guilt of what she's done.

Oh and some of the people she's killed still want revenge on her years later so she has to deal with quite a few metaphorical bounties on her head.

i like to joke about it sometimes though because i am guilty of making her a little silly....

She has two girlfriends by Splat 3 (post story), Idunn who belongs to @herosplatling-replica and Rivera who belongs to @inkbwush . They're all a fucking mess and their family gets big and complicated because polyamory and found family does dat.

[lubdubsworld]

Better Man.

              ~~~~We might still be in love, if you were a better man. ~~~~

Taehyung x OC 

Rating 18 +

Angst. 

Implied Infidelity in the past. 

Chapter 1 ~ Walk out the first time. 

"Are you okay?" My mother's soft voice came from behind me and i panicked, hurriedly swiping at the tears that were streaking down my face. Heart pounding, I grabbed a bunch of tissues from the dresser, patting my face down hurriedly , making sure to keep my back to her. 

"I'm fine, Mom." I said , voice surprisingly steady as I turned around to smile weakly at her. She stood near the doorway, a petite woman of fifty with greying hair and too many wrinkles. 

I thought she looked older than she was and i knew I had a part to play in that. Sighing, I tried not to cry more, moving to gently take my son out of her arms. 

He was four years old, fast asleep and smiling sweetly in his slumber. He had downy black hair, feather soft and warm brown eyes. He looked incredibly like his father, the resemblance stunning even though he was so young. I stared at him some more, laying him down on the bed and brushing the hair off his face. 

"Are you sure there is no mistake? Taehyung ssi wouldn't hurt us like this..." My mother said, sounding broken and I felt a pang of sympathy. But also annoyance. 

Us. 

Us....like she had an equal share in the hurt I was feeling.

 I was the one getting a  divorce but my mother made it sound like it was personal to her as well. Like somehow, the fact that she now had to meet her friends and tell them that her daughter was divorced could compare to the pain I was feeling. To the sheer anguish that was filling me.

To be fair though, my mother had loved Taehyung very much. Her favorite son-in-law . My sister's husband had been a mean drunkard who had brought a lot of misery to our family. Taehyung by contrast had been a loving, filial son in law. He had cared deeply for my parents, paid for my father's funeral ( even though the man itself was nothing more than a drunk , cheating fool who had abandoned us )  and he had been the most kind man . 

I swallowed. 

Maybe , you should have forgiven him. Maybe , you shouldn't have divorced him . So, he slept with another woman. Fine.  It was one night... just one night. you should have gotten over it! Was it worth it to spend all these countless nights alone? To break your mother's heart a thousand times over? 

 The funny thing was, i had forgiven him. Maybe right after I had found out. He had stood there, looking shell-shocked and horrified and his eyes had begged me for forgiveness and my heart had cracked , the way it always did whenever I saw him in distress. And when he had looked me in the eye and said, "  I’m sorry,  Jang mi..." I had forgiven him right then and there.

 But it was the forgetting that was hard. The fear that it would happen again. The fear that somehow, I was the reason he strayed. And that kind of fear can be debilitating. For the first three weeks, I'd tried to pretend it hadn't happened. I had tried hard to see him the way I had always seen him but it had been impossible. everytime I saw him, my heart had broken anew. It had been hard but I had to accept that things would never be the same. That I would forever look at him and remember what he’d done. That I would forever wonder if he would do it again. 

So we had done the wise thing. 

At first a break.

 A few days apart to get our head on straight.  Then I’d found a job and I had to move closer to the office to make the commute easy. And then suddenly, I wasn’t seeing him even during the weekends , to spend time as family for our son’s sake. And just like that , a whole year had passed and we  were separated. Only meeting to hand Hoshi over to each other. 

"I'm sorry mother." I said softly. I knew that she blamed me, a whole lot for the separation. 

People with children  didn't leave each other over infidelity in my country. You hit your husband, denied him from your bed maybe but you didn't break up a family over one night of bad decisions. You just didn't .

But for me, it was beyond the act. It was the broken trust, the shock of knowing that some other woman had given him something I couldn't, the fact that he had even wanted it from another woman had been enough for me to crumble on the inside.  

But, none of it mattered now. 

He wanted a divorce. Officially. Wanted to end it for real. 

It was jarring, how badly it shook me. I felt unaccountably lost and confused and disoriented. I couldn't imagine not being Taehyung’s wife , i realized with a stunning sense of self realization.

 Call me irrational, but apparently, I couldn't stop thinking of him as my husband , even after two years. Soon he wouldn't be my husband. 

He would be  my ex -husband. 

i hated that word. 

It had such a plethora of negative connotations to it. When you hear it , you just brace yourself for unpleasantness.

 Because it is unpleasant. A marriage ending, a family breaking, feelings hurt , hearts shattered,  angry words tossed...its all a very unpleasant experience for everyone involved. 

An ex husband was seldom a harbinger of happiness, more often a reminder of choices gone wrong, regrets and wasted time. and I didn’t want to associate Taehyung with a word like that.

Taehyung who was still the kindest, warmest human being I knew. The best father in the world. 

I felt like someone had sucked all the strength out of me.

I didn’t really want to think about the call I’d gotten from Taehyung last night. An appointment with a divorce lawyer.  It had been followed by an apology because apparently, someone in the law firm had let the info leak. And now it was all over the sleazy tabloids that fed on people’s misery. 

It was impossible to escape it too, Taehyung was famous. An idol. And actor. The country's sweetheart. And he was the epitome of perfection. The beautiful, talented actor with an impeccable record of well behavior. 

I knew that literally everyone on the planet thought he was a literal angel. 

 I remembered how much , by contrast, I had been hated when I'd married him.

I could just imagine how much more it would all be this time around. And i wondered if it bothered Taehyung too. Did he perhaps wish he’d never met me

? 

It had been sheer luck that we had met.... 

In fact, if Jimin's  car hadn't broken down right outside our home on that cold December night, I wouldn't have even met Taehyung. A great cosmic shift, somewhere some butterfly flapped its wing a certain way and suddenly, Jimin’s car ran over a thumbtack and his phone was dead so while he tried to fix the damage , Taehyung  just had to knock on our home and I had been the one to open it. 

Boom. That was it. Love at first sight. 

 I had been a high school kid and he had been barely nineteen. Fresh faced and cheerful , the struggling idol from a small company. He hadn't been surrounded by fans or chased by saesangs. He hadn't had security tailing him. No daesangs, BBMAs, or acting awards. No blockbuster movies to his credit , no chart-bursting songs either . 

And I had fallen in love with that version of him. 

The hardworking, talented young man who worked twice as hard as anyone around him. 

 That's right. You've loved him for fifteen years.  So it's understandable that you're upset. Now, maybe you can move on too. Go on a few of those blind dates that Jiyoung is always setting you up on. Go live your life instead of being a zombie. Get a hair cut. Dye your hair red. Do something to get your life in order. 

"I still find it hard to believe that he would want a divorce. Jangmi yah... did you tell him you forgave him? Tell him you wanted to try again..." My mother said again and the distress in her voice was equal parts heartbreaking and exasperating. 

"Mother, I don't want to try again . We aren't married anymore. It's over, whatever it was between us. " 

 Whatever it was. 

How cruel, to have all that love, all that affection  reduced to a phrase like that. 

What a pity. 

"But what about Hoshi? He needs his father..." My mother cried out and I willed myself not to snap. She means well, I thought miserably. 

"He has a father. Taehyung is an excellent father and you know that. Don’t start that again.” 

My mother sighed.

"I still feel that this wouldn’t happen if you tried a little bit. He’s a good boy. Such a good boy and you could never do anyone better. Why are you so full of pride, Jangmi... so prideful...you should be a little humble. Think of the kind of man he is...where would you find a man like that ? And moreover .... Taehyung loves you. i know he does." My mother said stubbornly. 

I sighed, feeling my fingers shake from the effort not to scream. I wasn’t strong enough to have this conversation with her. Not now. Possibly never. Taehyung did  love me. Had never made any effort to hide it. But sometimes, love wasn’t enough. It just wasn’t. 

And I wanted to yell at my mother she was at least partially to blame for me walking out on Taehyung. 

My father had left us for another woman , when I was twelve. I had seen the toll it had taken on my mother and I just knew that I would never let a man do that to me. My mother had later confided in me that it wasn’t the first time. He had done it before. A lot of times. And my mother had always forgiven him. Let him back into our lives. 

And one night, drunk on soju she had confided between hiccups, ‘ I wish I’d walked out the first time.” 

And that had stuck with me. 

Walk out the first time. 

If he cheats on you , walk out the first time. Don’t stick around waiting for him to do it to you again. Walk out the first time. 

 And so I had. 

“ Should I talk to him? Tell him you’ve changed your mind? “ My mother began and I felt my patience snap.

“No!! Could you just, for the love of God, stay out of this, ma? It’s over. Our marriage is over and it has been over for a long time. A piece of paper doesn’t really change that, does it? Its not my fault you can’t get over it but that’s a you problem. And you need to fix it yourself.  “ I shouted. 

My mother immediately recoiled, eyes shuttering down. 

“Of course. You know the best. Who cares how anyone else feels, right, Jang Mi? You always know best.” She said softly, and I exhaled, shaken. There it was. The guilt trip. It was never ending. 

Please... I just need to go now.” I moved to grab my bag, :” I need to go get ready for the meeting with the lawyers tomorrow. You can keep Hoshi with you tonight.  I’ll come pick him up after I’m done and then I’ll drop him off at his father’s place.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With Taehyung and I, our break up hadn’t been terrible. 

It hadn’t been terrible because our own penchant for being terrible had always been very minimal. We didn’t do swearing or fights or threats and it always annoyed our friends that we got along so well. That it was so easy for us to forgive and move on with each other . That we were the one couple who didn’t hold grudges or bring up past mistakes. 

Which is why, when we did break up, none of our friends had tried to change our minds over it. They had accepted it rather calmly, shocked at first because it was so out of the blue but not opposed to the idea itself . They just trusted us to know the right thing to do because we were easily the most mature , the most level headed couple in the entire group. We were usually the sounding boards , the voice of reason in whatever petty conflict our friends were involved in . 

So when it was us, needling a little advice, a little guidance, our friends had been woefully ill equipped to help. They had merely hummed and nodded and empathized. Maybe that was another reason I’d left. I hadn’t considered the alternative. No one had asked me to consider the alternative. 

Our friends had watched us drift apart watched us break up, but they hadn’t really asked us  why.  

Because if something had caused Kim Taehyung and Jang Mi to break up, man, that must’ve been a really huge issue. 

So the break up had been amicable. Gradual and slow but mostly amicable, eased by our mutual love for our son. We wanted him happy and he was happy when we were happy. So we put on a front, laughed and joked in front of him and let him have some semblance of normalcy in his life. 

It wasn’t easy. 

From him,  it had been nothing but a mess of   heated glances, touches laced with intent and eyes begging forgiveness . every gaze of his was a silent scream for a second chance that I was not at all ready to give. 

Because for me, the raw hurt and anger and frustration that bubbled up every time I saw him , it had nowhere to go. It stayed churning in my gut, made everything bitter and unpalatable and I wanted to hurt him for hurting me. How could I think of a second chance when the hurt from the first, was still so fresh, an open wound festering. 

Self esteem in tatters, I had hated him fiercely. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The meeting was at his company, and I arrived at nine in the morning, with a few more minutes to spare.  I knew the place like the back of my hand, was here at least  once a week either to pick or drop Hoshi off and I knew that the conference room in the third floor was sound proof and cut off from the rest of the building for extra privacy. 

Which was a little too late because I’d found two tabloid newspapers waiting outside my apartment this morning. 

I opened the door carefully, surprised to see Taehyung sitting in one of the chairs, bent over a sheaf of paper on the table and next to him a leggy girl in a small skirt hovered, fingers resting lightly on his shoulder, bent at the optimum angle to show him her curves. 

I sighed, looking away.

It was way too early for this. 

“Mia!” Taehyung’s voice made me look up, and I watched as he stood up, pushing the chair away and moving to me . He was easily the most good looking man in the country. And he looked so good at thirty five that it was impossible to look away from him. 

He was dressed in a pale blue shirt and black slacks and it never amazed me, how good clothes fit him. 

I took in the broad shoulders, thick arms and the lean waist, the carefully styled hair and the breathtakingly beautiful face and sighed when he kept coming closer, hands held out. . 

Of course, the customary hug. 

i let him wrap his arms around me, my face buried in the comforting warmth of his body, the scent of his cologne filling my brain . He always smelled so good it made my heart hurt. I tried not to let myself get carried away. Tried to remind myself that this wasn’t anything more than a.....

A facade ? Or was it? Was his affection genuine? 

Was I just too cynical?

I shook my head, pulling away and smiling a little at the genuine venom in the leggy girl’s face. 

“Are you okay? Where’s Hoshi?” Taehyung brushed the hair off my face, eyes warm and I wondered if he’d forgotten we were here to get a divorce.

 Whenever we met, Taehyung acted like we were still together. 

No, that wasn’t it. 

He just didn’t act like we had broken up. He was affectionate and open and cooperative. It always left me in a sort of limbo, unable to navigate our relationship with clear boundaries. There were no line to stop myself from crossing, because he just didn’t draw them. 

“ Ms. Lee says we just have to go over the details like the alimony and the custody and the division of assets and then we can just proceed. Get it all finalized.  “ He said casually, when I moved away and sat on the chair opposite him. 

“Okay .” I said casually. 

He smiled and turned back to the girl next to him.

“I’ll join you after the meeting Lisa.” he gave her a nice wide smile and the girl practically bloomed under the attention before bowing curtly in my direction. I watched her walk away, slightly amused.

“Bit younger than your usual type.” I commented , glancing at him. He gave me a look.

“I’m not dating her.” He shrugged. 

“Does she know that?” I retorted.

 It was dumb. Uncalled for. I was being a bitch, really but the urge to evoke some kind of reaction from Taehyung was something I’d never really out grown. I liked getting under his skin.

Taehyung sighed and gave me a little smirk.

“Are you jealous, Mia mine?” He teased. 

It felt a little like someone had dug a nine inch dagger straight  into my heart. 

That stupid nickname. 

God I couldn’t bear it. 

Swallowing i looked away. 

“Sorry. “ he said quietly, a few seconds later. 

I nodded curtly. 

“Don’t do it again.” I said hoarsely. 

“Why not?” He whispered gently. 

I groaned. 

“Taehyung... “

“it’s just a name...why does it bother you so much?” He whispered. 

“The same reason you’re asking me for a divorce.” I said softly.

He blinked.

“Mia...”

“Because we both know its time to stop.” I said quietly. “ Stop dancing around each other , stop doing...whatever it is we’ve been doing these past two years and give our relationship a name. “ 

“I’m not very fond of labels.” He shrugged. I glared at him. 

“Well tough luck. Labels are good. Labels are great. They let you draw boundaries. “ I retorted. 

“You sound like you’ve had enough of me.”

“Well, haven’t you had enough of me?” I snapped.

“Not even close.” He leaned forward gently, eyes pinning me to the table with a gaze so strong he may as well have used his body. And it didn’t help that two years wasn’t enough time to forget how it would feel if he  had  used his body. How it would feel to be stretched out on that table, him on top of me, hands working my clothes open, lips kissing their way down my jaw. 

I could almost taste him, taste the minty freshness of his breath, feel his tongue in my mouth, the hardness of him inside me. My thighs clenched because I hadn’t gotten laid in two fucking years and even if i did, no one would ever compare to the man in front of me. 

“Mr. Kim? Mrs. Kim? “ 

The lawyer’s voice broke the spell and i straightened, swallowing. Ms. Lee had walked in , and I watched her close the conference door behind her before locking it gently. 

She was young, dressed in a business suit , a no nonsense bun and had small round framed glasses. She gave me a nice smile, shook hands with us both and placed her briefcase on the table before glancing between us. 

“Shall we begin?” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author’s Note : its gonna be a bumpy ride. 

[janeaustentextposts]

Hello! Love your blog :) I was watching P&P 1995 and... to which point would Darcy get involved into Lydia's affair to protect his own reputation? It is always understood he does it because he cares about Lizzy but if he plans to marry her and the scandal comes out, that would force him to change his plans, right? Would he be able to marry her and maintain his society status if Lydia's elopement with Wickham was made public?

Also, could the Bennets oppose the wedding in a situation like Lydia's if they think it would harm her or would the reputation be lost forever? They are always convinced she HAS TO marry but he is really a piece of work, he would be in their family forever, draining them. Would there be an alternative where they don't lose their reputation?

It's hard to say if he plans to marry her, as he isn't moved to try asking Elizabeth again until after Lady Catherine's interference. She's already emphatically turned him down once, and regardless of whether she's begun to soften after they meet again in Derbyshire, Lydia's situation puts an end to any chance he might propose again with such a scandal in effect. While Lydia and Wickham have run away and remain unmarried, there is NO way he could connect himself to the Bennets. Word of the scandal will only spread further the longer it lingers, and Darcy could never attach himself to that, much less force his younger sister to be attached to it, by him, especially as it's Wickham. Lydia could have run off with the milkman and Darcy wouldn't have allowed that scandal to seep into his sister's life, but the fact that it's the same man who very nearly ruined Georgiana and broke her heart for money, Darcy has mega-motives to Avoid That.

Plainly put, there wasn't really a better option available to the Bennets than to have Lydia marry Wickham ASAP to keep the scandal as brief and contained, as possible. Fortunately they're kind of nobodies in the broader society sense, so the Bennets unremarkability is kind of a blessing in disguise because there aren't too many eyes on them outside of Meryton.

We can see an alternative for a 'fallen woman' in Maria Rushworth in Mansfield Park, though her situation is very different as a divorced woman from a monied family. Henry refuses to marry her as a means of salvaging any remnants of respectability, and Sir Thomas has no way to force a rich young man to marry Maria, whose scandal was much more publicly known, and blew up her whole marriage, not just her chastity. Maria is confined to a quiet house in the country with her aunt Norris, to never participate in good society again. Mr. Bennet cannot afford a separate house in a far-off place to maintain Lydia for the rest of her life, and Wickham is fortunately in a position to be swayed by enough money to convince him to actually marry Lydia. The Bennets can have no logical reason to refuse to let Lydia marry Wickham, whatever his bad behaviour, because the damage is all to THEIR reputation, and not his. Even Lydia being kept in the country would not be adequate containment of the toxicity of the scandal attached to her (and let's be real, Mrs. Bennet would NOT allow her favourite to be shut up in a lonely house elsewhere, and Lydia would not submit to such a fate with quiet grace.)

They're all aware of just how dire the fate of the whole family will be if Lydia is NOT married to Wickham--the other daughters would have no chance of a respectable marriage, much less a materially advantageous match, when it is widely known that their sister did something so morally loose by the standards of the time and did not end up married to the man. They don't have to like the marriage, but the marriage has to happen if they're to have any remote chance of containing the oil spill of bad repute and keeping the other Bennet daughters safe enough to be eligible options for any bachelor.

If the scandal of the elopement did get to the wider world, it would have an impact on the reputations of everyone involved. Once the marriage has taken place, however, there's not much most people could do to dig up the dirt. The people who know the gritty details all have an interest in not spreading that gossip. Colonel Forster and his wife would have a black mark against them as they failed so badly as chaperones meant to protect Lydia. Lydia's family obviously needs as few people as possible to know. And Darcy, and any friends to the Bennets, and anyone who would wish to marry a Bennet, would not want to see them ruined, either, as the ripple effect of the scandal would hurt them, too. Maybe less, but not not-at-all.

Marriage to Wickham is a keep-your-enemies-closer strategy to minimize the damaging fallout from the elopement as much as possible, and to refuse the marriage would only serve to make that damage worse for everyone remotely involved. Reputation wasn't as self-contained as it can be, today--it was a big deal in your communities, and it could make or break the turning-points in people's lives. With no Google and social media, all anyone could rely on to prove their good name was the testimony of those who knew them and their family, who could speak to how they conduct themselves.

[justkending]

Moral of the Story. Chapter Five.

Summary: Marrying too young out of highschool leads to a naive and failed marriage. Now 10 years later, word comes that the divorce was never actually completed. Bucky and Y/N have to come back together after all these years to settle what wasn’t all those years back. Passive attitudes, miscommunicated endings, and reminiscing of old loves and lives all comes back for the two.

Pairing: Bucky x Y/N

Word Count: 3200+

Chapter Five:

Once the meeting was done and over, Bucky and Y/N both left at the same time. Bucky was kind enough to hold the door open for her as they made their way back to the street, but Y/N’s goal was to get back to her car as quick as possible. So she gave him a curt thank you and moved quickly to leave. 

“Y/N!” Bucky shouted just as she was less than 10 feet away. She paused with a cringe on her face before turning back to him. He was walking hesitantly to catch up with her. “Listen, I know it’s been a few years.”

“A few is an understatement,” she mumbled and he heard, but decided to move on. 

“I just- I,” he stuttered. What the hell was he doing? “Would you want to get coffee? Catch up some? I-,” Before he could finish, she cut him off. 

“Listen, as great as that sounds,” she tried to say nicely, but he could see the nerves in her face. “I actually have plans right after this.” He deflated some in his spot. She noticed and though she thought she wouldn’t care if she hurt him after all these years, something deep down proved that thought was wrong. “I-I just haven’t seen my family in a while, and the little time I have left here this weekend, I wanted to spend time with them where I could.”

“Right, right,” Bucky tried to brush off unbothered, but failed. “I’m sure your dad misses you, and you him.”

“Yeah, it’s been a few years. That and I haven’t been back in the city in 10 years, so I have a lot to catch up on,” she nodded. 

“Wait, you haven’t been back here in 10 years?” he asked shocked. He thought she had a least been in town throughout the years. Even if he hadn’t seen her. 

“Um, yeah. I kinda…” she hesitated, but figured where would the truth hurt? “Guess I wasn’t ever really ready to get back here.” Bucky knew what she meant even if she wasn’t saying it verbatim, and it hurt his heart knowing he was the cause. Well, I guess both of them were, not just him. “That plus starting up Horizon, it was hard the first few years. But the family still sees each other for the holidays.”

“That’s right. Colorado,” Bucky nodded. 

Y/N had kept forgetting for some reason that Bucky and her father were with each other at least once a week most of the time. Always hanging out and doing guy things, or really, father and son types of things. Meaning he knew of, if not actually knew, Sherri, Denise, John, and Chloe too. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t know about the yearly Colorado trip. 

“Right,” Y/N nodded with pursed lips, putting it all together and Bucky realized. 

“Oh, God sorry. I promise I’m not stalking you, it’s just your dad and I-” he started to defend his knowledge. 

“It’s fine James, really,” she said with a wave of her hand and a slight chuckle. One he never expected coming from her. And the name… He wasn’t sure the last time he heard her say Bucky. As soon as they decided to bring an end to their relationship, that nickname never passed her lips again. “I know you and my dad are close.”

“You’re not upset at that?” he asked, slightly confused. 

“I’m not evil. No matter how much you may think,” she mumbled the last part. “I-I… I know the relationship you two share. You’ve had it since the beginning of time practically. I wouldn’t dream to take that from either of you.”

Bucky didn’t respond. Because all he could do was look at her with a longing look. God, he missed her. Sure he held some anger from where they ended things, but he had moved on for the most part. Now he just missed his best friend. The girl he grew up loving. From best friends to girlfriend, to eventually fiance and wife. He missed her. Just who she was as a person when resent wasn’t a feeling she had toward you. 

Sure, it was a lot to think back on in just the thought that she still cared for him enough not to banish her father from him, but it spoke volumes for who she was as an individual and he missed that. 

“I mean not that I really have a say in other people’s life, but if I did, I wouldn’t do such a thing,” she looked down, fidgeting in her spot seeing him staring at her like earlier all over again. 

“I know you wouldn’t,” he responded, quickly noticing his stare and looking down at his own shuffling feet. “Well, in that case, I’ll let you go. Thomas has been excited beyond measures to have you home. I won’t keep you from him.”

She nodded as they made eye contact again and started to turn back to her car. But before she could get too far, knowing this may be the last time he sees her again for a while, if not ever, he had to say it. 

“Y/N?” She turned at her name and sent him a questioning look. “I’m glad you’re doing ok. You seem to really be taking the world by storm like you always were going to,” he smiled softly and she blushed some before returning the smile. 

“Thank you, James. You too. You seem like you’re doing some pretty amazing things yourself,” she nodded once. 

They didn’t speak more than that, but instead walked back to their cars. Not without a second glance here and there. 

___________________

“So? How did it go?” Thomas asked as soon as Y/N walked in through the garage door. Him and Sherri sitting at the breakfast nook with cups of coffee in hand and wide eyes ready for all the details. 

“It went,” she responded, throwing her purse on the island bar stool and going to make a mug for herself. 

“Wow, such a colorful description. Anything more and she’d be over doing it,” Thomas exaggerated, getting a giggle from Sherri who stood up and joined Y/N’s side grabbing the creamer and sugar for her. 

“Come on now, sis. Good? Bad? Magical?” she added the last word with flare. 

“Anything besides magical,” she sent a playful glare to the woman. “I will say this though.” She walked over and sat with a huff in the nook across from her father, practically deflating in her seat. “I am still technically Mrs. Barnes.”

“What?!” they both gasped. 

“How?” Thomas pushed on. 

“Well I guess the meeting today was just to update the papers and nothing else. I mean, yeah. A few signatures here and there, but it’s not finalized.”

“So it was just an revision meeting? When’s the final cut?” Sherri asked, leaning on the back of Thomas' chair. The two watching their daughter with intrigued eyes. 

“A few days?” she said more in a question. “Matthew, our new lawyer, said him and his partner are going to update them within the next day or so, and then send us the final write up to sign. After we send those back in, it’ll all be settled.”

“You still going to have John overlook everything for extra measures?”

“Never hurts. I really would rather NOT go through all this mess again. Getting divorced once sucks, but twice? Yeah, I’d rather not have to do it a third time. And all with the same man,” Y/N sighed heavily before taking a long chug of her coffee. 

The couple ahead of her sending each other a silent message to the other. Y/N hadn’t noticed as she closed her eyes at the upcoming headache, and even if she had, she wouldn’t have time to question it as her phone started going off. 

Looking down, she saw the office calling her. On a Saturday?

“I have to take this. I’ll be back in one second,” she groaned, taking her coffee mug with the buzzing phone to the back patio. “Hello?”

“Y/N! Hey, I have a quick update,” Melody’s voice came through the other line.

“Why are you at the office on a Saturday?” Y/N said a little sternly, but good intentions were behind it. 

“I got an email from our recycle plant we had scheduled for that Monday meeting and it couldn’t wait until Monday,” she was quick to explain. “But listen. They had to reschedule. The main guy and his wife, the bosses of the vendure who was coming to discuss the offers, had a family emergency come up and asked if they could postpone it a week.”

“Um, yeah sure. That’s fine,” Y/N shook her head trying to run the schedule through her mind. “Did you contact Bee’s Knees and let them know about the postponement?”

“Yes, and they said they were fine with it as well.”

“Ok, good,” Y/N nodded. “So I have a clear schedule besides background work Monday. Is that all?”

“Well…” Melody drug out. 

“Why does that sound like a Natasha kind of ‘well’,” Y/N questioned with a quirked eyebrow. This wasn’t receptionist or assistant talk about to happen. 

“Speaking of Nat, we thought because that was your only big meeting for the week and everything else is normal for the rest of the week, you should extend your stay in Brooklyn,” she replied. 

“What?”

“Come on. We both agree you haven’t seen your family in far too long, and a weekend trip isn’t going to cut it. That plus, Nat made a good point that you have tons of old friends you haven't seen in way too many years either,” she went on. “Why rush catching up with everyone, if all the work you need to do can be done on your laptop from Brooklyn? That and for once, your schedule isn’t overstacked with meeting after meeting. That happens once every few months. Plus, you’re already in New York!”

“Ok, ok. Calm down there, Sparky,” Y/N chuckled at her friend being out of breath. “I mean I guess, you’re not wrong…”

“She can’t be. I’m the one who came up with all this,” Nat’s voice broke in. 

“Oh, yeah. I may or may not be hanging out with Nat and Yelena,” Melody giggled bashfully. “Or be partially tipsy.”

Y/N rolled her eyes at the three, but couldn’t stop the laugh from coming out of her own mouth. 

“You sneaky little bitches,” Y/N chuckled. 

“What can I say? We’re Romanoff’s,” Nat smirked through the phone. 

“Well, I’m a Hill, but Romanoff by descent,” Melody added in. 

Again, another joking eye roll. 

“Now I have to change my flights and everything,” Y/N sighed. 

“Oh, woes me,” Nat mocked. “What a challenge it must be to log into your computer and change a flight to another week…”

“Hey, smartass,-”

“Lucky for you, you have me. I state once again,” Nat laughed. “I already checked into your flights to see if we can get a cheap reschedule.”

“How’d you know my login information?” Y/N asked, confused. 

“I have my ways, now don’t interrupt,” she scolded before continuing. “I was able to find you a flight around the same time, plenty of time to get to your rescheduled meeting, and it won’t cost you a hair off that pretty head of yours.”

“How’d you manage that?” Y/N asked with a smirk of her own now and a pop of her hip.

“I’ll say it again since apparently you’re deaf. I have. My ways,” the red head replied. 

“You sure you weren’t a spy in another life or something? Because sometimes you and Yelena have some strange tricks up your sleeves that I’ve only seen done in movies.”

“I would like the answer to that as well. Like how they coroerced me into a girls night while I was hiding in my apartment trying to take a relaxing night to read,” Melody spoke up. 

“Drink your juice, babygirl,” Yelena’s voice came quietly in the back. 

“With all that being said, we are gonna to let you go. We’re going to get all the details of last night out of this little one and go to a few clubs,” Nat explained. 

“Oh, I’d love to hear the details when you have them,” Y/N laughed. 

“I’ll have a nice 5 page paper ready for you tomorrow morning,” Yelena yelled from a distance.

“I’ll be expecting it. Now you girls go have a good time and please show Melody what she’s missing out on!”

“Can do, boss lady! Love you! See you next week!” 

With that, the phone call ended and Y/N looked at the empty lock screen. 

“I guess we’re staying a little longer.”

________________

“So, how’d it go?” Steve asked coming home from his early half shift. 

Bucky was sprawled across the couch with a pillow over his face, a sports playback running in the background and a beer that looked like he had been nursing all afternoon on the coffee table. 

“She looks great,” he mumbled into the cushion, but Steve couldn’t syfer the words.

“You’re going to have to say that again without a throw pillow over your face,” he chuckled, kicking off his shoes and throwing his keys by the door before heading to the nearby kitchen. 

“I said, she looks great!” Bucky all but grunted as he sat up. Frustration and annoyance clear in his answer. 

“And why do you sound like that’s a horrible thing?” Steve laughed again from the distance. 

Bucky groaned as he stood up and walked into the other room with Steve. He was parading through the fridge for an afternoon snack, or by the looks of the clock on the oven, lunch. 

It was 12:30 already?

“Because Steve, it makes it hurt all the more,” he pouted, crossing his arms as he leaned against the island in the middle of the space. 

“Her looking good, hurts you?” Steve asked, standing up with a tupperware bowl of leftovers in his hand. 

“I don’t know!” Bucky sneered at him, angry that his best friend wasn’t catching on to his feelings that even he didn’t understand. “I guess deep down, I was hoping she didn’t age well so that walking away would be easier. But there she was, walking in like fine wine. All mature and curvy, and… Perfect…” he mumbled the last part. “She did smack me though,” he added, thinking back with a dazed face. 

“Smack you?” Steve chuckled, popping the cold food in the microwave. 

“Our lawyer is blind. I asked a simple question of out of all the states to live in, why New York in that kind of condition?” Bucky said, hating how it sounded. “I realize now, after processing it, that was stupid and rude.”

“Hence why she smacked you,” Steve laughed, copying the brunette's stance on the opposite counter. “You’re an occupational therapist, Buck. Out of all the things to understand, it’s people adapting to their handicaps and disabilities.” He couldn’t help the laugh at his friend who seemed oblivious to the irony. 

“I was nervous, ok?!” Bucky defended, throwing his arms up and going to pace the room now. “Y/N and I had been sitting in awkward silence for the most part of the meeting so far, and that was the first piece of conversation that came to mind.”

“I’m hoping for your sake, he wasn’t a dick about it.”

“He wasn’t. He actually said he gets asked that a lot. Apparently, he hasn’t been blind all his life and said he’s lived here all that time. Helps when you grow up in the environment you live in.”

“Very true,” Steve agreed, grabbing his food and stirring it around before taking a bite and talking again. “Besides her looking ‘perfect’, did the process go well? You know, besides her reprimanding you like a mom?”

“Ha ha. You’re so funny,” Bucky deadpanned. “But yes. We signed our things and updated it all. Hey, did you know she’s a co-founder of Nat’s woman’s home? I guess not a co-founder, but investor?”

Steve finished his bite and shook his head. “Can’t say I did. It must be recent if that’s the case because neither Nat or Y/N told me about that.”

“I think it is, but damn…”

“Damn what?” Steve asked. 

“Well, at first she had me dropping my jaw at the fact that she did everything and more that she had hoped to do. She’s become an environmentalist like her grandmother and has started a whole business based on it.”

“I mean she was an environmentalist as soon as her GG had her walking. Remember how she would always take our straws at restaurants and have the waitress take them back so we didn’t ‘kill the turtles’? And that was before that was a like a worldwide trend,” Steve remenised, moving to the living room to eat at the couch. Bucky following. 

“God, yes. She started carrying like 10 reusable straws with her as soon as they came out with them. That and remember the amount of reusable bags she had in her backseat any given time of the week?” Bucky laughed, joining him in thinking back to the dated memories. 

“So many she would hand them out to people in parking lots at grocery stores to use themselves,” Steve added. “God, she really loves this planet. I admire her passion though. We need everyone to have a heart for our home like that.”

“She made it everyone's mission around her to know just how important it was,” Bucky smiled at the thought as he looked off in the distance, wrapped in the memories he loved. But that wasn’t the point. The point was he would never be close with her like that again. What they had was done and over… Or would be. “Funny thing actually…” Bucky chuckled awkwardly. 

“What’s that?” Steve asked, looking at the TV in front of him. 

“We may or may not still be married…”

There was a pause as Steve stopped mid-chew and slowly turned his gaze from the baseball reruns on the screen to Bucky with a tight smile. 

“Excuse me?”

“I guess that wasn’t the endgame for today’s meeting…”

“What was?”

“Getting things updated and signed so that the papers were actually ready for our divorce,” Bucky answered. 

“So she’s still Y/N Barnes?”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t say that to her face. She looks like she wants to physically throw up when you call her that,” Bucky slouched in his chair. His hand coming up to cover his face as he rubbed his temples with his thumb and middle finger. 

“So still married?”

“Still married.”

“How long?” Steve sighed, putting his food on the counter and leaning back in his own seat. 

“As long as it takes to make up the new divorce settlements and get them signed and sent back in. Until then… I’m a married man.”

If you would like to be tagged in this series, please send an ask! It keeps things more organized for me. If you comment, I most likely will not add because I loose them:)

- Tags will be closing soon.

Moral of the Story Taglist:

@taylormobley​ @ximaginx​ @vicmc624​ @leyannrae @lonerlovescompany​ @jessyballet​ @angstysebfan​ @tita127​ @semistablecentenarian​ @im-a-light-child​ @alyssahowden​ @studiesinspanish​ @natyvwe​ @rebekahdawkins​ @fanfictionjunkie1112​ @millennial-teenybopper​ @scotlandasshole​ @aquariusbarnes​ @shinykoalacat​​

Marvel Tags:

@thejourneyneverendsx​​ @death-unbecomes-you​​ @heyiamthatbitch​​ @lizzymacy555​​  @srrymydood​​ @xa-dia​​ @redhairedfeistynerd​​ @morganclaire4​​ @connie326​​ @captain-asguard​​ @mollygetssherlockcoffee​​ @teenagedreams-bucky​​ @shower-me-with-roses​​ @pham-tastical @livstilinski​​

My Lovelies forever:

@natura1phenomenon​​ @lauravicente​​ @kakakatey​​ @traceyaudette​​ @notyourtypicalrose​​  @laneygthememequeen​​ @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce​​ @sandlee44​​ @thorne93​​ @thefaithfulwriter​​ @essie1876​​ @greyeyedsmile14​​ @capsiclehan​​  @xostephanie​​ @averyrogers83​​ @awesomenursingstudent​​ @gh0stgurl​​ @cs-please​​ @carls1022​​ @jjlevin​​ @rainbowkisses31​​ @anise-d-castle6​​ @deannotmoose​​ @their-bibliophile​​ @kitkatd7​​ @willowbleedsonpaper​​ @mariaenchanted​​ @snffbeebee​​ @couldabeenamermaid​​ @rebekahdawkins​​ @alyispunk​​ @princess-annna

Bucky Barnes Tags:

@chloe-skywalker​​ @charmedbysarge​​ @jbarness​​ @bellamy-barnes​​ @katiaw2​​ @aikeia​​ @stopjustlovethemcu​​

[buckyownsmylife]

Moral Insanity - Andy Barber smut

The one where you’re Jacob’s friend and Andy fucks you on a balcony.

Warnings: this is divorced! Andy and college! Jacob, so while there’s a definite age gap there, reader is legal. So other warnings go: semi-public sex, a lot of dirty talking, no daddy kink on this one, which came as a surprise even to me, curse words and really rough sex. p in v, porn with little plot, masturbation (f). A/N: Kinktober Day 27 prompts were sex on a balcony or window + “Don’t cum yet”. Hope you guys like this one, I feel like it was a good one, but if I had more time, I could probably make it better. I think that’s kind of the sentiment behind the whole kinktober, actually.

Andy’s P.O.V.

Even the strongest of wills caved when faced with a sweet enough temptation. All it took was one look and I knew she was mine.

Perhaps I should have known better than to let Jacob invite his friends to our beach house, but I was recently divorced and in desperate need to feel cool again, even if I knew that trying to be seen like that by my own kid would only lead me to the opposite direction. And maybe I also forgot just how old he was, ignored that he was now in college and saw the image of his teenage years when I looked at him, because the truth was, when I saw her walking in, I was frozen in my spot. 

I didn’t even consider that my son was old enough to have sleepovers with girls now. And when I had to confront my own desire for the much younger girl who he introduced as a friend, in my own eyes, he grew up too.

But I still had to face the reality that she was undeniably young enough to be my daughter.

“Good morning, Mr. B.” My head automatically whipped around to look at the ray of sunshine personified in the body of Jacob’s college best friend. I’d heard about her before, obviously, and even teased him about being embarrassed to admit that he was dating her, but now that I knew the girl I could only acknowledge the fact that she was way out of his league.

Maybe I shouldn’t retroactively feel relieved about their relationship being so innocent, but I was way past denying the attraction I felt for her. My goal now was to keep it hidden, despite just how enticing she was.

“Good morning, Y/N. You do know you’re on spring break, right? There’s no need to keep waking up so early.” I chanced a glance up at her, to find her looking out at the balcony, towards the sea. 

“I know,” she nodded, her eyes still focused on a distant point before they suddenly met mine. “I just like to keep you company.” I didn’t know what to say, so I just resumed my previous activity of frying bacon, letting the silence of the morning fill the space between us. Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t uncomfortable. Maybe because in the last few days I’d had the chance of striking up many conversations with her - which only added to my attraction, since she was an incredibly intelligent woman - so I felt like I knew her enough, by now. Enough for what, I didn’t know.

“Well, the eggs are ready. Will you accompany me to breakfast?” We made idle chit chat before two of her friends made their way downstairs, my signal to leave them alone. As much as I liked to view myself as young at heart, I remembered just how weird it was when adults tried to force their presence into a group, and I wasn’t about to do that.

Just before I left, her eyes met mine in a longing stare, and it felt like she wanted to say something, but refrained from doing so. But perhaps it was just my hopeful imagination, wanting her to like my company as much as I enjoyed hers.

The next time I saw her, it was lunch already. Jacob and his friends had spent the day between the beach and the pool, while I remained in the bedroom returning some calls from the office. When I finally joined them downstairs, I was once again shocked by the view of her glistening wet body in what could only be described as a barely there bikini.

She caught me staring, that much I knew and I couldn’t really admonish myself for my lack of restraint, not when I hadn’t seen that much of her body yet and it was driving me crazy. Besides, I definitely wasn’t the only one staring, perhaps just the only who really shouldn’t be doing it.

“Why are you pouting?” Was the first thing I asked her when she approached the kitchen island where I fixed myself a sandwich, making sure to keep my eyes on the bread slices in my hands, instead of on her chest.

“You left me alone with dumb and dumber! In the middle of a conversation about the Supreme Court! You really know how to make a girl feel interesting, Mr. B.” My heartbeat sped up in my chest, my mind racing with the possibility that she was flirting with me. Was she? How could I know? 

From my experience being single, I knew the only way was to slowly reciprocate it and hope for the best. Hopefully I’d be able to get out of it if she ever called me out on it. “You are interesting, Y/N. I’m the one who’s a boring old man. Say, what happened to the bathing suits you were wearing until today?”

My question made her look down to her own body, like she didn’t remember what she was wearing until I asked. When she did return her eyes to mine, she was biting her lip, though it was hard to assess if it was due to embarrassment or excitement for my acknowledgement.

“I lost a bet to the other girls. They gave me one of their bikinis to wear for the day, knowing I don’t usually wear them because they make me uncomfortable.” She looked downright adorable, the pout back on her lips at the memory, and I had to shake my head to swipe away the thought of leaning over and kissing it away.

“Well, I think you look great.” That was all I considered safe to say, but I did throw a wink in her direction before picking up my plate and moving to my bedroom, where I still had some work to go through while I ate. I didn’t look back to witness her reaction, but hoped she’d be at least a little intrigued by my sudden expression of interest.

Y/N’s P.O.V.

“You sure you don’t wanna go with us?” I nodded patiently, confirming for the upteenth time that I did in fact desired to stay back at Jacob’s huge beach house instead of following my friends to a noisy, sweaty club. I’d never really liked those environments, so it wasn’t that weird that I ditched them for whatever crime show was on tv for tonight, but in the back of my mind, I knew it was more than that. 

I wanted to see Andy again. I wanted to have the opportunity to talk to him without the fear of being interrupted or judged. So really, it wasn’t any surprise to me that after everyone left for the night, I could barely sit still in front of the television, quickly deciding to turn it off and go look for the man that had been plaguing my thoughts for the last few days.

I paced in front of the door to his room for a while before finally gathering the courage to knock, expecting him to open it and follow me downstairs so we could talk. So I was beyond surprised when he simply ordered me to get in without even asking who was there, but I hesitated only for a few seconds before complying.

It was clear by Andy’s expression that he wasn’t expecting to see me, and all at once I realized he must have thought it was Jacob that wanted to speak with him, after all, no one else had probably ventured to this part of the house besides his son and himself. So I was beyond sheepish as I remained by the door when he lifted an eyebrow to ask me what I was doing there. “I thought you guys had gone out to a club or something.”

“I-I decided to stay back here and I was wondering if you wanted to chat.” Now both of his eyebrows were lifted, like he couldn’t believe what he had heard. In the seconds of silence that followed, my mind finally processed the fact that what Andy was wearing weren’t swimsuits, but boxers, and there wasn’t anything else covering his body from my wandering gaze. His hair was wet, too, like he’d just gotten out of a shower, but none of that distracted me from the fact that in those few seconds of silence, his expression changed from incredulous to something entirely different, something I couldn’t really pinpoint, but made my body feel hotter than the sun.

“You wanted to chat?” The question sounded more like an accusation and I found myself giving a step back when I realized that Andy had crossed the room to stand right in front of me, his eyes taking in every inch of skin the bikini exposed. “You wanted to chat,” he repeated, and I gulped before opening my mouth to explain myself, even though I wasn’t entirely sure of what I should be explaining, when his hands found their way to the door behind me and he closed it before settling them in the dark wood, caging me between my escape and himself. “You come into my room when your friends are out and we’re the only two people in the house, dressed like that after spending the last few days driving me absolutely insane, and you tell me you want to chat?”

Andy’s P.O.V.

God fucking damn. This girl had to be completely unaware of her effect over me or absolutely intent on having me going crazy over how badly I wanted her, because it was impossible for her to have waltzed into my room without knowing that this was how I would react.

Still, I had to admit it came half as a surprise even to myself, so maybe I shouldn’t judge her too harshly. Maybe if I hadn’t just tugged one out to the thoughts of her and spilled over myself so badly I had to take a shower, I would be able to ignore the temptation. But as it were, she’d just incited the beast within me, and all I needed was the confirmation that she wanted this just as badly as I did so I could take her exactly like I’d been dreaming about for the last few days.

She heaved as she looked up at me with unmistakable lust-filled eyes, and I felt an insurmountable amount of pride spread through my chest at the knowledge that this desirable young woman was affected by me.

“Well, now that you’re offering me an option, I’ve been wanting your cock in my mouth.” The surprise that hit me over hearing those words fall out of her innocent lips was soon overtook by my desperate need to have her, and with a growl, I pulled her by the back of her head to meet my lips in a furious kiss.

Completely immersed in the taste of cinnamon on her lips, I bit on the lower one to beg her for entrance so I could graze my tongue on hers, taking up the opportunity to finally feel her body against mine. I pressed her up against the door, running my hands over her body before I reached the back of her thighs, pulling her to wrap her legs around my body.

In a few quick strides, we were through the open doors that led to the balcony from where I had a perfect view of the sea, and when I let her go to stand on her own legs, she looked around, clearly confused about my choice of place.

“Did you think you could tease me like that and not get punished? Oh no, you tempted me publicly, I’ll fuck you right here.” It was easy to see that the shiver that ran through her body wasn’t completely due to the wind that was caressing our bodies, she was aroused by the idea. Still, I knew she had a fight in her, so the second she opened her mouth to argue, I lunged at her, capturing her lips with mine again.

The beauty of a bikini. One simple movement and the top piece was on the floor and my hands were full with her breasts, my fingers occupied with circling her hardened nipples as I kept kissing her with all that I had.

“Now, princess…” Leaving her lips to kiss down her jaw, my fingers found their way inside her little bottom piece before they teased her, testing her wetness to find her dripping for me. “I know you said you wanted my cock in your mouth, but I think we can leave that for later, huh? Right now, I really need to have you. So you’re gonna cum real quick, with my fingers deep inside this tight pussy, before I bend you over the rail and rail you.”

I fucked her quickly and harshly, making sure to hit her sweet spot every time when I managed to find her, while I distracted myself from my throbbing cock by nibbling on her earlobe and imprinting her scent in my memory. When she did cum, it was with a breathless gasp as she held tightly onto my biceps, and I groaned just from the feeling of her tightness squeezing my digits.

“I gotta have you now.” That was all the warning I gave before I did just what I promised, bending her over before pushing her bikini bottoms and sliding home. Our moans echoed each other, only fueling my arousal to a point where I couldn’t really wait for her to adjust to my size. So I just started pounding into her, keeping a grip on her hip and another on her hair as I watched her ass slap back against me, her breasts bouncing with the force of my thrusts.

“So fucking tight.” I bit my lip so hard I tasted metal in an effort not to cum too quickly, but it only made me hornier. “C’mon, sweetheart. Tell me how much you love being ruined by me. Don’t you wish your friends would get back sooner, so they’d see just how great you are at taking my cock?”

She cried out at my words, her legs shaking with the effort to keep herself up, but the sight before me was too fucking pretty to let her go. “Been dreaming about my cock deep inside this pretty pussy, haven’t you? Just like I’ve been jerking off to the thought of these pretty little lips wrapped around it.” Having pulled her against my chest by her hair, I rubbed her lower lip before pushing my thumb inside her mouth, where she eagerly started to suck just like I imagined. 

“Won’t have to think about it anymore, will I? Because you’ll let me fuck you any time I want. Every time I get hard thinking about you, you’ll bend over for me to take you and I won’t have to say a single word.” I could feel her pussy clenching periodically because of my words, but I wasn’t quite there yet. I still needed a few more minutes of fucking this tight young pussy and I wanted her to cum with me, so I ordered, “Don’t cum yet,” giving a quick slap over her clit before holding her by her throat so I could kiss her cheek.

“Tell me, baby. Tell me how badly you wanted my cock, how much you want my cum and I’ll let you have it. I’ll let you milk me dry inside this pretty little pussy until it’s dripping out of you.” 

I knew she was having a hard time trying to contain her orgasm, but she still managed to beg me while holding the hand that was pawing at her breast. “Please, Andy, Mr. Barber. I need your cum inside of me, sir. ‘Ve been thinking about it for so long. Please, let me cum with you.”

The sir did it for me. With one last command for her to cum, I allowed myself to release deep inside of her, sliding my hand to her lower stomach so I could feel myself and making her clench again at the feeling.

We stayed like that for a few minutes, catching our breath while staring out into the ocean, until my softened cock slipped out of her, and I gave her a quick kiss on the shoulder. “It’s a pretty view,” she murmured, and I chuckled before turning her to look at me.

“Not as pretty as you. And hey, as great as this was, I want you to know that I really want to get to know you better, Y/N. Talking to you every morning has been the highlight of my day and I’m in desperate need of something like that.”

She smiled before standing up on her tiptoes to deposit a quick kiss on my lips. “Sounds good to me, Mr. Barber. Now, have you ever gone skinny dipping?”