#time is so fucking relentless your daughter will never be tiny again because shes all grown up

[drwcn]

《Without Envy》- concubine/sleeper agent!wwx & prince!lwj 

[story board 1] [story board 2]   [story board 3]  [story board 4] 

long post: story board 5 →

Lan Wangji, as it turned, was a true gentleman. This was problematic for Wei Wuxian, who was tasked with getting close to him, because Hanguang-wang’s upstanding morals being rather unimpeachable rendered Wei Wuxian’s initial seduction efforts entirely unsuccessful. 

 Lan Wangji straight up ignored him. Whenever he came to visit Jiang Yanli it was always to speak with her and not Wei Wuxian. It was like Wei Wuxian, or A-Xian as he was known, did not exist to the prince. Whenever Wei Wuxian tried to “get close” to him, aka, making himself available to serve tea, meals and such, Lan Wangji would always dismiss him, or tell him to wait outside so Lan Wangji and Jiang Yanli could dine together alone. Needless to say, Wei Wuxian was getting increasingly frustrated. Entirely unbeknownst to Wei Wuxian however was the fact that Lan Wangji had noticed him from the start and was just trying to stop himself from doing something inappropriate. Truth is, Lan Wangji first saw Wei Wuxian at Jiang-fu during one of Lan Wangji’s visits to finalize the marriage between himself and Jiang Yanli. 

It was the dogs’ barking that got Lan Wangji’s attention first. That, and a young man’s agitated cursing.

“Fuck - ow! Princess that was not nice! I’m going to turn you into barbeque if you don’t cut this shi - Ow! Jasmine, give it here!” 

Lan Wangji’s personal guards Guo Ai and Sun Ting made to investigate the source of the ruckus and to tell off whoever dared to be so impertinent and disrespectful in a marquis’s manor, but Lan Wangji stopped them with a subtle gesture.  

Slowly, he approached the round archway looking into the garden and saw by the shrubs a handsome young man cradling a fuzzy tiny thing while trying his darnedest to fend off two relentless hounds. “Shoo, shoo, go bother your master!”

But the dogs wanted to play. Their bushy tails wagged happily.  

Eventually, the young man tired of the over enthusiastic canines, picked up a stick off the ground, and tossed it far over the garden walls. The dogs took off running, and he and the little creature he protected were allowed a moment’s peace. 

“Little tutu, it’s okay, the mean dogs are gone now. Don’t be afraid.” 

It was only then that Lan Wangji saw that the furry round thing was a small bunny, probably driven from its burrow by the aforementioned hounds that belonged to Jiang-xiao-gongzi. He watched, slightly transfixed, as the young man lifted the bunny and gently booped its nose against his own, his comely face scrunching up adorably in the process. 

So when Wei Wuxian arrived at the prince’s estate with Jiang Yanli, Lan Wangji cursed his luck. He had no intentions of becoming attracted or attached to anyone in his harem. His marriages were political games. Everything he did in his harem was calculated. The last thing he needed was for the Jins to think they could sink their claws into him. So he kept company with all his concubines equally, just to maintain the balance. Lan Wangji did not want Jin Ziyan to be the only man in his harem, which was why when Qin Su offered him Mo Xuanyu, he did not refuse. It was fortunate that Mo Xuanyu himself seemed eager to serve too, so Lan Wangji did not have to grapple with ethics there.  He was doing this for his country; everyone knew this. As long as he kept to his duties and divided his attentions equally, there would be trouble in his harem. Except...Lan Wangji wanted to see ‘A-Xian’ again. The more he wanted, the more he made himself keep his distance. He recognized the power dynamic that existed between this servant and himself, and that if he were to ask, A-xian was not really in a position to refuse. Besides, Jiang Yanli made no indications that she wanted her A-Xian to serve Lan Wangji. In fact, she seemed quite protective of him, always looking out for him wherever she could. She practically treated him like a little brother than a servant. As such, Lan Wangji was happy with the way things were. He could live with never knowing A-Xian more intimately. In fact, he did not want A-Xian to be ordered to serve him, or find out that A-Xian was just like every other man and woman in his harem, there to curry favours with him. It would be a shame if he turned out to be just another flower in the garden, another player in this game they played.  

Of course Wei Wuxian read this whole situation as: that little bastard Lan Wangji doesn’t like me. Xue Yang was charged with being Wei Wuxian’s correspondence between Gusu and Qishan but ended up just being the guy Wei Wuxian complained to.  —“Is this Hanguang-wang truly a paragon of virtues???” Wei Wuxian raged. “Aren’t princes supposed to be lechers? Wen Chao certainly is a sleeze. Wen Xu could be too for all we know. I’m young, fit, attractive and available. I know he likes men so why not me? He sleeps with Mo Xuanyu all the time apparently …Is Mo Xuanyu more attractive than me?!” Xue Yang: >_> God I miss murders. 

Wei Wuxian’s “opportunity” came when Jiang Yanli fell mysteriously ill about three months after she married Lan Wangji. When the physicians were left scratching their heads, Wei Wuxian quickly took the matter into his own hands. He needed Jiang Yanli alive; if she died before he made an impression on Lan Wangji, he could be sent away back to Jiang-fu and threaten his entire operation. What’s more, Jiang Yanli had been extremely kind to him in the last two years since he arrived at Gusu. She truly was the perfect lady; he would hate to see her suffer.  Through some crafty investigations, Wei Wuxian discovered that the cause of Jiang Yanli’s illness was a slow poison being laced into her food by Jin Ziyan’s orders. The motive of his actions were obvious enough; ever since Jiang Yanli married in, Lan Wangji seemed to be showing her extra favour, favours which he never distributed unevenly prior to her entering his household. Jin Ziyan did not want Jiang Yanli as a competition. She was a marquess’s dichu daughter, much higher in rank than either Qin Su or Luo Qingyang, and therefore posed serious threat to becoming Lan Wangji’s legal spouse. In a way, she was Jin Ziyan’s biggest competitor, and he couldn’t have that. What Jin Ziyan didn’t know was that Lan Wangji visited Jiang Yanli so much because he wanted to catch glimpses of Wei Wuxian, even though he dismissed Wei Wuxian from the room every time he saw him (the man was clearly a masochist). Wei Wuxian managed to sniff out the poison before it could cause lasting damages, but the effect of it was going on for long enough that Jiang Yanli still had an early term miscarriage before she even knew she was pregnant. Wei Wuxian, incensed by Jiang Yanli’s suffering, was ready to expose Jin Ziyan, but was ordered not to by Wen Zhuliu. ‘We still need Jin Ziyan’ was his reasoning. Still, Wei Wuxian managed to tip off the investigators such that they detected and put an end to the poisoning, but the culprit was ultimately never caught. As this played out, Wei Wuxian realized that now was his chance to get close to Lan Wangji. With Jiang Yanli recuperating...surely the Jiang family would want someone else of their clan to serve Lan Wangji in her place, someone who could keep Lan Wangji’s attention but would not replace Jiang Yanli’s place in the harem. It did not take much to lead Yu Ziyuan to the same conclusion. To ensure that he would have ample time with Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian secretly slipped a special sedative into Jiang Yanli’s food and drink to mimic the symptoms of a slow recovery. The sedative was one of Qishan’s secret formulations and could not be detected by Gusu’s finest doctors. But Jiang Yanli, bless her heart, did not want the boy who she’d come to see as a little brother to be used like an object. "A-niang, I don't want to force A-Xian to do things he doesn't want to. I will get better, dianxia will not abandon me." — Yu Ziyuan tsked, "Silly girl, serving Lan Wangji in your stead is his entire purpose for coming with you. Every family must plan for something like this; someone to hold onto Lan Wangji's interest while you're indisposed. Men are fickle, child. You need time to recover and someone will need to remind Hanguang-wang that you still matter when you’re ready again. We cannot let him forget you. Think of what this would mean for our clan." Much to Yu Ziyuan’s delight, Lan Wangji came to check on Jiang Yanli while she was visiting, and Madam Yu had no qualms making hints that it would be the Jiang family’s honour if Hanguang-wang allowed ‘A-Xian’ to serve him while Yanli recovered. Wei Wuxian did not protest. Why would he? This was his orchestration after all, but when he dared raise his gaze from the floor to look at Lan Wangji, he detected a hint of something in Lan Wangji’s face…something like disappointment. Wei Wuxian relayed this to Xue Yang and the other evil gremlin sucked on a candied apricot and said with a roll of his eyes： —“You’re so dense, shixiong, tsk. Men like Lan Wangji could have any man or woman he wants. If you go along with Madam Yu’s orders, you’ll just to be like everyone else, another ambitious servant trying to socially advance. He’ll fuck you and forget you within a blink of an eye.” — Wei Wuxian sipped his liquor and grimaced. “Fine, what do you suggest I do then? — Xue Yang smirked, “Oh, haven’t you heard? Men like roses with thorns. When you’re brought to him tonight, don’t play along. Don’t humour him. Refuse him.” — Wei Wuxian： >_> Is this how you got those Daoist priests in bed with you? — Xue Yang smirked shamelessly, “Worked, innit?”

Listen, Lan Wangji was fully prepared to have some emotionless sex with Wei Wuxian okay? Boy was prepared to just go through the motions. He was disappointed to know that A-Xian turned out to be no better than any other servant in his harem: eager to climb his bed.

Being a concubine was stupid work, Wei Wuxian realized belatedly. After dinner, Jiang Yanli bid him goodbye with worried eyes as the momos and gugus of Hanguang-fu dragged him away to be bathed and prepped for the prince’s enjoyment later that night. (gugu, momo - older female servants)

Wei Wuxian was not a dirty person - sure, he worked hard, but he bathed regularly - they did not have to scrub that roughly. As they practically scrapped off a layer of skin, the momos rattled on and on about how he should “conduct” himself in the presence of dianxia and how he should position himself to best please him. 

What the actual fuck. Wei Wuxian resisted the urge to pull a face. Did the ladies get the same banal talk? How fucking boring was the sex around here? Wei Wuxian wasn’t born yesterday alright? He knew how to fuck.  ...Well fine, he didn’t, but he and Xue Yang had sucked each other off once or twice, so that should count for something. 

Once the attendants were satisfied with the state of him - hair brushed, skin cleaned and lotioned, callouses removed - they rolled him in a large full-body sized blanket, placed him in a sedan and ordered the servants to carry him to Lan Wangji’s chamber. 

Wei Wuxian tried not to make an exasperated grimace when the servants literally picked him up like a log and deposited him on the prince’s large bed.

Fucking...seriously? 

He did not remember this bullshit when zhangjie married in...but then again Jiang Yanli did marry in. There was a ceremony and everything. Lan Wangji was very respectful that night, bowing to her before lifting her veil as a gentleman ought to. So what the fuck is this barbaric treatment? Just as he pondered on these questions, the tulle canopy parted, and Lan Wangji’s handsome face and broad chest came into view. Undressed to his inner most layer of robes and his ink black hair let loose, he looked very much like a man ready to ravish his new concubine, but somehow, Wei Wuxian could not detect a trace of interest on that jade-like face. 

Despite knowing this was all an act, just a means to an end, Wei Wuxian shivered when Lan Wangji reached for the edge of the blanket that encased him. 

He pulled the blankets closer, shrinking deeper inside. 

“Don’t be afraid,” said Lan Wangji. “I won’t hurt you.” 

Time to act, Wei Wuxian. Give it your best shot. 

“I’m not afraid.”  “Then why do you hide?”  Wei Wuxian waited a meaningful second before meeting Lan Wangji’s gaze dead on and said, “Because I don’t want to.”  Nonplussed, Lan Wangji raised an elegant eye brow in return. “Oh? Is that so? Or are those just words? Perhaps you've confused what kind of place a harem is. If you do not want to, why are you here?”

Is my act not convincing enough or is this stupid asshole so confident in his attractiveness that he thinks everyone must automatically want to fuck him? Slightly ticked off now, Wei Wuxian sat up, still holding the blanket to his chest and retorted hotly, “I am not confused, dianxia. Perhaps you are unable to comprehend the idea that someone as lowly as a servant would refuse when given the opportunity to ascend in rank, but nevertheless, that doesn’t change my position. I don't want to. I am here because Lianfang-jun appointed me; there was hardly any room in that decision for me to argue. If you are determined to have me, I will not resist, because I understand my place. But I am a person, not a thing or a broodmare for you breed. I have some dignity left, and at the very least, before you...before you hold me down and fuck me, I want you to know."

Wei Wuxian half wondered if his act had gone a little overboard. The expletives maybe were just a tad too dramatic, but then again...   ...seeing how Lan Wangji's entire stance shifted, maybe not. 

Lan Wangji withdrew his hand. He had mistaken Wei Wuxian’s initial unwillingness as coquettish posturing, but the heat in those dark, bright eyes could not be faked. 

“Those words could get you into a lot of trouble when spoken to the wrong person. Have the momos not taught you the rules?” 

Wei Wuxian squared his shoulders. “They have, but I place trust in Hanguang-wang’s reputation, that you are a true gentleman and would not force me against my will.” Then, just as he practiced, Wei Wuxian lowered his eyes. “I am a servant, your servant, and I know it is my duty to serve you in any way you command me, but I -...please find other use of me, dianxia, but not this.” 

 He startled a little when a warm hand found purchase under his chin and lifted up his face. Lan Wangji inspected him wordlessly with those cold, sharp eyes, searching for lies, for pretense. Wei Wuxian held his breath, praying he won’t be found out, but eventually, when the prince and his calculation deemed him good enough, he let go. 

“Very well.” 

Lan Wangji fetched a pair of clean inner robes and trousers from the wardrobe and handed them to Wei Wuxian. “Get dressed and move over.” Without waiting for Wei Wuxian to respond, he sat himself down on the edge of the bed and began to remove his socks and shoes. 

Wei Wuxian moved quickly, shrugging on the robes and tied it in place before shoving the trousers under the covers to try and pulling them up his legs. “You’re...you’re not leaving?” 

Lan Wangji glared at him over his shoulder. “This is my room, my bed. Why should I leave?” 

Right. Right.

“But you’re not...sending me away?” 

Lan Wangji frowned as though questioning his intelligence. “Would you like me to send you away? I should think that would reflect badly on you and your mistress.”   That did give Wei Wuxian pause. “Uh, well –”   “Your declining to be my bedfellow does not impede my fulfilling my side of the arrangement. You will leave in the morning, and the others will think that I found you pleasing enough to keep you the whole night. That should give Jiang-fu’ren and the Yunmeng Jiang clan sufficient face."   “I could sleep on the floor.” 

“Do you want to sleep on the floor?” Lan Wangji swung his legs onto the bed and arranged the blankets to his liking. “The doors are never locked. Servants and sentinels must be allowed in to check on me during the night for security purposes. It would not bode well if they found you lying on the floor.” 

Right, yeah that would defeat the whole purpose. 

“Oh.” 

Lan Wangji lay down and crossed his hands over his chest. “Lie down, sleep. I have morning court assembly, and I’m tired. If you’re going to stay, don’t be a disturbance.” 

Feeling like he’d lost all semblance of control in this situation, Wei Wuxian awkwardly laid himself down beside Lan Wangji. The bed was big enough for the two of them that there was space in between even when both of them lay flat on their backs. 

Lan Wangji lifted up just a second to blow out the bedside candle, and then there was total darkness.

Wasn’t I suppose to seduce him? What the fuck is this? Okay...maybe I have no idea how to seduce him...maybe I have no idea how to do anything that’s not straight up strangling him in his sleep. 

Wei Wuxian could feel his heart thudding in his chest, panic coiling tighter and tighter. He almost wished Lan Wangji had ignored his protest and took him, because then it’d be straight forward. As it were, he had no idea how to proceed now. 

Just as Wei Wuxian was being slowly consumed by his maelstrom of thoughts, Lan Wangi suddenly spoke into the dark. 

"I am not a heartless bastard, you should know."

Huh? 

"I never implied that."

“You did.” Lan Wangji gave a little shake of his head. “I do not want this anymore than the others in the harem. You said I treat my women like broodmares, but perhaps you have not considered that Gusu treats me like a stallion."   Wei Wuxian was momentarily speechless.    “Your mistress is very kind and gentle. I am sorry that the child in her belly was lost; I know she very much wanted to be a mother. I see that you are very protective of her, so you should know, I would never hurt her.  Even if she were to never recover her strength, I would not let harm come to her.”   Those words, softly spoken, tugged at Wei Wuxian’s conscience, if not his heartstrings. “Dianxia -”   “Sleep. Good night.”

The next morning Wei Wuxian woke up to knocking on the door. The sun was already high in the sky and the bed was empty of Lan Wangji’s presence.  A group of maids entered carrying a basin of water, towels and clean clothes. Wei Wuxian, dazed, asked, "Where's danxia?" One of the maid giggled. "Dianxia left at dawn to attend morning assembly at the palace. You must not know; he wakes up very early. He said not to wake you, and to let you sleep. He said," The others giggled with her. “He said that you've had a long night."

To the great surprise of everyone, Lan Wangji did not elevate Jiang Yanli’s servant A-Xian to concubine status after the ‘long night’ they had together. Instead he ordered A-Xian to be transferred to his court to be his close-quarter attendant, to serve him in his every day tasks.  Wei Wuxian did not exactly understand why Lan Wangji would make this particularly decision, but he did not complain. After all this was exactly what he wanted, to be close to Lan Wangji and earn his trust.  Lan Wangji, on the other hand, was content to have Wei Wuxian close by, secure in the knowledge ‘A-Xian’ did not wish to spread his legs to socially advance. Perhaps, if he dared to hope, he could finally have someone to speak to in this lonely manor full of people who only saw the crown hanging above his head.

Xue Yang was of the opinion that this was all going to end badly. He was right. 

[next]

[stitch1830]

Bets

Happy Mondangst! Here's some angsty Kantoph :)

......

“Da.”

“That’s right, baby girl!” he cheered in his most ridiculous baby voice. “Da da! Da da!”

Lin giggled in her father’s arms, and Toph jokingly scoffed at the two from the couch. She lay on her back with her hands behind her head, enjoying the vibrations of the two through the ball of her foot that she kept firmly on the ground. “You two are giving me a headache.”

“C’mon, Toph! It’s Lin’s first word, how can you hate this?”

“First off, she’s babbling. It’s not even words yet. Second, the fact that she’s making ‘D’ sounds instead of ‘M’ is the other reason.” she explained simply. “If she says ‘Dada’ before ‘Mama,’ that’s betrayal right there.”

“Sorry, Angel. I just have that effect on women, I guess.”

“Gross,” she complained, but pointed a smile at him, and she felt his heart quicken ever so slightly and his voice let out a quiet chuckle at their antics.

And when his gaze turned back to Lin, Toph could feel through the earth how at peace he was at that moment. Complete adoration for their baby, and she silently laughed to herself at the thought of him having to deal with Lin as a teenager. Oh, she would have him wrapped around her finger for all of eternity, Toph just knew it.

His voice broke up her thoughts. “Hey, what if we had a little competition?”

Toph said nothing, but raised an eyebrow at him, prompting him to continue. “What if we compete to find out who Linny walks to first?” he asked.

“What are the stakes?”

“If I win, we start trying for another baby.”

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” she laughed.

“And if you win, Lin’s our only perfect little girl.”

“And if she doesn’t walk to either of us??”

“Then we let fate and destiny take over,” he answered rather smugly.

Toph smirked and sat up from her position, ready to playfully protest this silly competition. “You realize that she’s gonna walk to you, right?”

“We don’t know that.”

“Right,” she responded sarcastically. “Lin, the little Daddy’s girl who shares the same birthday as her Baba and whose first words are gonna be ‘Dada’ and ‘Baba.’”

“Mama could be a close third,” he defended.

“Yeah, sure. I’m going to shake on a bet I’m bound to lose.”

“Just a little fun,” he replied, and she could hear the grin in his voice. “Obviously we’ve got time, but, I don’t know. I think it could be fun!”

“You and I have two very different definitions of fun,” she teased.

“But it’s harmless!”

“Harmless?” she laughed. “I could end up fat and pregnant at the end of this!”

“Only if you want to,” he added.

“So this isn’t even a bet at all,” she commented. “It’s just fake stakes on the table.”

She felt him shrug. “Bit of pride on the line, I suppose. What do you say?”

Toph wanted to continue berating him and teasing him, but his heart sang whenever Lin made a noise or reached out for something, and he adored playing little games like this with her. Perhaps deep down in a place that she barely allowed to admit to herself, she could imagine them having another baby. Even if Lin was almost 6 months old, she thought that maybe, just maybe, a family of four would be nice. And when Lin giggled at her father once again, Toph’s resolve to say no to those two disappeared.

Spirits, they had her whole heart, and she couldn’t help but shake her head as she smiled and extended her hand out to him.

“It’s only a bet if we shake on it.”

His silly cheer caused Lin to giggle more, and after he shook Toph’s hand to signify the start of the bet, he playfully kissed each knuckle before Toph mildly complained as she tried to free herself from his grasp.

~~~

They sat on her living room floor, engaged in small talk while they paid attention to Lin’s every move. The elephant koi in the room became a semi-permanent resident in the Beifong house, but everyone learned to live with it, Toph especially.

Sokka carefully treaded every conversation as he supported Lin to standing on her own two feet. Every now and again, his gaze would turn up to Toph to catch her expression. Today it was unreadable, but she sat on the floor with her legs out and leaned back on her arms, a sign of openness.

That was a good sign, right?

The warrior never knew what was good and what wasn’t anymore, because everything reminded them of him. Of Kanto.

And it was unfair, because Toph deserved to go about her life without having to be constantly reminded of the man she loved and lost to a crazy person. But there was no escape; Kanto was at her place of work, at their home, and he was there whenever Lin moved or breathed or learned something new.

None of that seemed to matter to the universe, however, and Toph and Lin and everyone else that loved Kanto lived with the reminder like chronic pain: constant, relentless.

Still, Toph’s body language was more positive than usual, so Sokka took the opportunity to strike up another small conversation.

“So,” he began by clearing his throat. “What do you and Lin have planned for the rest of the day?”

His friend shrugged in response and a nonchalant wave. “Eh, same old shit, Sokka. Maybe I’ll take her to the park. It is a nice day out.”

“How come you only call me Sokka, now?”

Toph shot him a confused look. “Because it’s your name??”

The man rolled his eyes to himself then said, “Well, yeah. I just mean you almost always called me ‘Meathead’ or ‘Snoozles’ or ‘Captain Boomerang.’”

A quiet scoff fell from Toph’s breath, and she dug her knuckles into her earthen floor. “Yeah, well nicknames are for fun times, and I haven’t been in a jovial mood as of late—”

“Toph I just mean—”

“So forgive me if I don’t feel the need to call you by some dumb nickname that reminds me of all the other stupid ones I called him.”

Sokka shut his mouth, but still held onto a bouncing Lin and stared at Toph. Her expression contorted into one of regret, and she let out a tired sigh.

“I’m sorry, Sokka. That was rude.”

“No, Toph, it’s okay,” he reassured her. “I just—”  Sokka paused before he continued. What he wanted was to help his friend and hoped she would return to her old self soon.

But the idea seemed silly after a second thought. How could she go back to her old self? Going back wasn’t an option, only forward, to a different Toph Beifong who loved and lost and learned to adapt to this difficult change.

So instead of saying I just want to help you get back to your old self, he amended his statement. “I just want to help you.”

“I know,” she sighed again as she moved to lie down on the ground. “I know you’re all trying to help.”

And Toph did know that. The whole group seemed bent over backwards in helping her through this mess of her life, and she not only wanted, but needed their help. However, figuring out things that did help seemed to be a challenge, for it all required talking or thinking about him.

She really couldn’t do that at this point, not even nine months after his death.

Saying his name sent her down a spiral of thoughts of longing and regret, the feeling so strong that it tempted her to visit their bedroom again. But she hadn’t stepped into that room since she was dragged out by Sokka, because she wasn’t sure she’d have the strength to leave it a second time.

Instead of visiting their shared bedroom or speaking her dead almost-fiancé’s name or figuring out what could possibly help her through this, she lay on the ground, focusing on the earth’s humming while blocking out all other erratic and uneven vibrations. It was soothing, being completely one with the earth and ignoring everything else. Her mind wasn’t racing, her heart wasn’t hurting, and she felt a feeling that strangely resembled tranqui—

“Toph?”

Her focus was broken, and as annoyed as she was, Toph responded to her friend and asked, “What is it?”

“Are you okay?”

“Stupid question.”

“I just mean—”

“Mama!”

Lin’s interruption pulled Toph further from the earth, and so she waved her hand in the air and exclaimed, “Mama’s right here, Lin. Just wallowing in self-pity as a widow does, although I’m not even sure I can call myself that.”

“Toph,” Sokka began, but Toph continued her useless ramble. “Probably not, since he didn’t even ask me to marry him. Kind of a requirement to be in the mopey widow club, don’t you think? Pathetic, really, I don’t even have a dead fiancé, just a dead baby daddy.”

“Toph—”

“You know what, guess it doesn’t matter I could just—”

“Toph!”

Sokka’s exclamation startled her, but she didn’t move from her spot. She waited for him to continue with whatever was so important to interrupt her self-deprecating monologue, but he didn’t speak again.

Instead, she felt little, uneven, and heavy footsteps toddle toward her. Toph sat upright in an instant, completely shocked at the sensation of Lin walking.

“Go Lin!” Sokka cheered.

Toph cheered as well and held her hands out excitedly to catch her daughter. “C’mere, Lin! You got it!”

And with a few babbles and shouts for Mama, Lin made her way into Toph’s arms.

The earthbender pulled Lin in for a tight hug and smothered her cheek with kisses. “You did it, baby girl! You took your first steps!”

“She’s a natural, Toph! Gonna be running tomorrow,” Sokka teased.

Toph grinned at the thought, and moved to balance Lin’s tiny feet on her knee. She felt Lin squirm in her arms and crane her neck, as if she was looking for someone.

“Dada.”

And with a single exclamaion of Lin’s favorite word, Toph’s heart shattered just as quickly as it soared a moment ago.

…….

Sokka’s grin faded slowly with Toph’s as he watched her realize what Lin wanted. In a second, one of the greatest feelings and feats of Toph’s baby girl turned into a situation of pure grief. And All he wanted was for his best friend to have a single fucking moment not be ruined by the memory of losing Kanto.

But that was impossible. Every accomplishment was tainted with this memory, and there was nothing to do but accept that harsh reality.

He watched Toph suddenly become overwhelmed by the grief. She bit her quivering lip as she combed through Lin’s hair over and over, fixating on a few curly strands at the top of her head.

They stayed like that for what felt like an eternity, all the while Lin kept asking for her dad. Sokka was about to intervene, but then Toph let out a quiet breath and answered Lin.

“Yeah, Lin. Dada would be so proud of you right now.” She formed a small, sorrowful smile at Lin while tears fell down her cheeks. “I’d rub it in his face, too.” Toph choked out a chuckle, then continued, “But Baba isn’t here anymore, baby girl. It’s just you and me.

“Don’t worry, kiddo. All your aunts and uncles will be around to bother us, especially this Meathead over there, okay?”

When she pointed a finger at Sokka, Lin turned to see, and smiled at him. And Sokka found himself grinning back at Lin for only a second. For when he turned his gaze to Toph, he saw her tear-stricken face and any signs of happiness left Sokka’s face.

He saw Toph hastily wipe at her eyes, then stood up with Lin in her arms. “Thanks for uh, coming by, Sokka. But Lin and I are gonna spend some time together alone.”

She walked out into the backyard before he could even protest.

Sokka didn’t move from his spot, however. He just sat there, thinking and wondering and hoping there was something he could do to help his friend. But she was a silent sufferer, carrying the burden of grief everywhere she went and barely let on what hurt the most about it all. As a bystander, it hurt Sokka to see her shoulder it all. What was he to do, though?

He let out a tired sigh. Sometimes there was nothing to do but be there, even if it made him feel useless.

……

“You’re  a terrible listener.”

Sokka ignored her jab and sat down next to her, Lin bouncing gleefully in her spot in front of her mother. He gave her elbow a light nudge and replied, “I know, but I know you don’t actually want to be alone.”

“I just said—”

“Listen, Toph. We don’t have to talk about it, about any of it. But you’re like me, okay? I don’t like talking about what’s bothering me, but that doesn’t mean solitude is the answer.”

Toph bit her lip as she considered the offer, but made no outright objections to his presence. So they sat there, silent and contemplative about everything and nothing in particular.

It wasn’t until minutes of silence (and little babbles and single words from Lin) that Toph finally spoke. She chose her words carefully, as if saying the wrong thing would send her down a rabbit hole of despair. But Sokka watched her and steadied her with a reassuring hand to her shoulder.

Toph gave a sad smile as she spoke and played with Lin’s wavy hair. “We, uh, we made a stupid bet.

“He liked these silly games and it made him so fucking happy, I didn’t think twice about them. And it gave us a reason to be competitive, and you know how we would get with this shit. Still, they were harmless.”

She hastily wiped her eyes then continued, “But then he wanted to have a bet on who Lin would walk to first, and he said that if Lin walked to him, we’d try for another baby. If she walked to me, no more kids.”

Toph let out a sorrowful chuckle as she slightly hung her head low and let the tears fall in her lap. Sokka’s eyes grew misty at the thought. A silly bet turned into a reminder for Toph, and it felt cruel.

But then Toph took in a deep breath and brought her head back up, pointing her gaze toward the warrior. “You know what’s even crazier? I was gonna let him win. Under the illusion I was upset, of course.”

Sokka softly chuckled at that.

Lin cried out and turned to face Toph, who gently rubbed her daughter’s chubby cheeks. Sokka still sat there, hand on Toph’s shoulder, and watched through his blurred vision his best friend continue to open up to him.

She sighed again. “I’d let him win all the silly games if it meant—”

Her sentence was left unfinished, but nothing else needed to be said. Toph pulled in Lin to an embrace, breathing deeply into her hair as the gravity began to weigh heavy on the pair.

Toph mindlessly played with Lin’s soft curls. “But I guess all bets are off, or I win them all now.

“I don’t feel like the winner, though, Sokka.”

Sokka’s grip tightened on Toph’s shoulder as his sign of support, because he truly had no words. All he could do was sit and stare and hope that there would be something on the horizon to look forward to.

And yet, in that very same moment, he couldn’t help but silently admire Toph’s strength. Her ability to carry on and raise Lin while facing practically an insurmountable amount of grief was something that couldn’t be overlooked. He’d seen his friend show great feats of strength and resilience in the past, but in the back of his mind, he thought that perhaps this was the greatest one of all.

Still, he’d be damned if he was going to let her face this mountain on her own. So they sat there silently once again as Sokka’s hand remained on her shoulder, reminding her that he was there no matter what. He would be there to help her and to hold onto her through it all.

She deserved that. She deserved that and much more, but this was their reality. It would have to do.

[sinsbymanka]

ooh for the femslash feb prompts- f!aeducan/f!brosca. sfw,your choice between 'Trust me, you don’t want to meet my family' or 'You’re right. I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m just making it up as I go along.'

Thank you friend! I've never written an Aeducan/Brosca before. Both of those work SO WELL for this pairing but I went for your first prompt: "Trust me, you don't want to meet my family." I’m submitting this for @dadrunkwriting!

Title: To Fall on Her Sword Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Words: 1523 Relationships: Female Aeducan/Female Brosca (Dragon Age) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Multiple Wardens (Dragon Age), Warden Brosca (Dragon Age), Warden Aeducan - Freeform, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Post-Betrayal, The Aeducans are f’ed up, Brosca has had enough, Arguing, Kissing, Orzammar Culture and Customs, Femslash February ​ Summary: Natia Brosca knew that letter Gorim Saelac gave Sereda Aeducan was gonna cause problems. She just didn't expect the problem to be Sereda gaining a bit of a death wish. And, by the Ancestors, Natia has saved Sereda's life enough that if anyone is going to kill the princess, it's gonna be Natia.

Read on AO3

Natia knew that letter was gonna be trouble the second that warrior handed it over to Sereda.

Not that she could read it even if she got her grubby hands on it. Natia’s reading lessons were only brief moments snatched by the fire at night with Sereda, which meant she was just beginning to recognize the shapes of letters on signs in Denerim. She couldn’t even hazard a guess as to what they meant.

But there were other things Natia understood very well. She recognized the shocked relief on the warrior’s bearded face when he saw Sereda’s blonde braids. She knew the emotion choking his voice meant he was on the verge of tears when he fell to his knees in the marketplace before their exiled princess. She even recognized the way he stumbled to his feet, it meant a wound hadn’t properly healed and now never would.

She saw the way Sereda reached for him greedily, the way her eyes flashed with concern when he tripped on his aching joints.

More importantly she knew the parchment he handed over, rolled into a tight little tube, was the creamy, expensive kind that cost the same as a full meal in Dust Town. The expression on his face spoke volumes, none of it good. The wax sealing it shut had the crest of Orzammar embossed within it.

...And Natia knew that the tiny tremor in Sereda’s fingers was the only hint of emotion the princess would show as she took the paper and tucked it away with a brisk thank you.

If that was the last of it, Natia would be happy. But Natia also knew it wasn’t going to be the last of it. She just didn’t know exactly what kinda trouble it was gonna cause until they had Denerim at their backs and were heading deep into the Brecilian Forest.

Natia didn’t realize that Sereda had lost her damn mind.

The princess fought like a warrior, Natia always appreciated that about her. Ancestors, it had been the reason she threw her lot in with an exiled royal rather than risk imprisonment. Sereda had confessed once that she’d been meant to lead her father’s army, and Natia could see it. In another world, she’d have been a warrior queen fit for the ballads.

In this world, however, Sereda was a pain in the ass that was going to get Natia killed.

Sereda threw herself into battle with no thought for strategy. Her warhammer swung into one wolfman’s ugly maw, shield bashed into another. She didn’t pay the slightest attention to the monsters flanking her. She just drove onward in relentless, foolish pursuit of blood.

If Natia wasn’t there, Sereda would be dead. Again.

But nobody was gonna pin a medal on her Duster chest for keeping the Kinslayer alive. They probably wouldn’t even do it if she managed to help end the Blight and save all these surfacers. Sereda Aeducan could afford to go out in a blaze of glory - they’ll remember her regardless.

Natia Brosca didn’t have that luxury. So when the last wolf dropped, she turned her ire to the Princess.

She’d lost her helm somewhere, Stone knew where, and her blonde braids were askew. There was blood running down her cheek, but Sereda’s blue eyes burned with desperation.

Natia knew that look too. It was the look some of the Dusters got in their eyes when they’d made up their mind to find their last fight.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Natia asked.

“There were werewolves.” Sereda picked up her helmet and looked at the dented metal critically, pointedly not looking at Natia. “Now there aren’t. Problem solved.”

“Come here,” Wynne ordered Sereda, exasperated. “Your head wound needs tending.”

“Let her keep it,” Natia declared hotly. “She’s in such a damn hurry to get herself killed, may as well not waste the healing.”

“Natia,” Wynne scolded.

Notably, Sereda didn’t deny it. She simply glared at Natia across the battlefield. Not to be deterred, Natia glared back. The silence stretched between them until Sten finally broke it.

“Asala-taar,” he rumbled. “That is what my people call it. The urge to give up because the battle is too much. We cannot afford such an ailment now.”

We can’t afford it in you.

Sereda with her quick mind. Sereda who knew what to do, how to talk to these nobles, Sereda who was indomitable. If Natia lost her, she may as well walk up to the next darkspawn and kindly ask him to finish the job that the Joining had started because there was no way they could do it without her.

No way Natia could go on without her.

Wynne’s hands reached for Sereda and she flinched away. “I’m fine.”

“Like hell you are,” Natia challenged.

“I’m fine!” Sereda used her best princess voice. It rang off the trees with regal authority, silenced both Wynne and Sten in a moment.

Natia simply drew herself up to her full height and leveled her dagger in Sereda’s direction before whispering one word. “Bullshit.”

Sereda cursed under her breath and turned on her heel, vanishing into the trees despite Wynne’s sputtering protests. Sten growled in his own language and Natia moved without thinking.

“Stay here!” she called behind her, flying after Sereda’s retreat.

She did not lose this stubborn princess to the Deep Roads. Natia would not lose her here.

“Can I not have a moment’s peace?” Sereda called over her shoulder, sliding down the riverbank until her boots sunk in the mud. Natia clammored down after her easily, unencumbered by her leathers.

Her quick fingers twisted into Sereda’s chainmail and tugged. “What was in the letter?”

“What letter?” Sereda asked through clenched teeth.

“The one that made you decide to sodding end it all!”

Sereda whipped out her grip and turned, glaring at Natia. She could see herself reflected in those clear eyes, all frazzled orange hair and reddening face. “It is none of your business.”

“I saved your life twice, I’m sorta attached to it.”

“I never asked you to.”

“Well I did!” Natia yelled, crossing her arms over her chest. “And I’ll be the one that decides when it ends, thank you very much. So come out with it. What did your loyal knight give you?”

“My loyal- Gorim?” Sereda asked, momentarily perplexed.

“Yes! The one that looks like he’d throw himself on his blighted sword for you.” Natia sighed, exasperated. She understood that much better than she particularly wanted to. Sereda had that damn effect on people.

“Gorim was my Second. Before-”

The pain that crossed Sereda’s face was raw. Violent. Before. Before Sereda was banished, before they called her Kinslayer, before she almost died in the Deep Roads.

Before she picked the Grey Wardens, before she would ever have looked twice at Natia Brosca or the brand on her cheek.

“My father’s dead,” Sereda said quietly. “I’ll never see him again. The last time he saw me, he sentenced me to death.”

“So you wanna finish the job in his honor?” Natia asked. “He was a shite father. Lots of people have shite fathers, Sereda. You don’t have to please him, especially not now.”

“He knew I was innocent.”

That surprised her. Sereda reached up to her breastplate, touched the space over her heart. Natia wondered if that was where the damning letter was stashed. Sereda’s voice grew hoarse, but she kept talking. “He knew I was innocent, that I didn’t kill Trian, and he exiled me anyway to avoid the scandal.”

...well, lots of people did have shite fathers. But Sereda’s father was truly the king of shite.

“He ruined his only daughter’s whole life to avoid a scandal?” she asked dumbly.

Tears popped into Sereda’s bright blue eyes, but they didn’t fall. She nodded. “There’s no king now. He’s dead, but they won’t make Bhelen king. The other candidate, Harrowmont, doesn't have enough support. There’s no King, the throne is empty, my father is dead, and I am…”

She trailed off helplessly and lifted her arms.

“Better off,” Natia declared, crossing the distance between them to run her gloved fingers over Sereda’s bloodstained cheeks. “You’re better off. You don’t belong to them, not anymore.”

Sereda was hers now, and Orzammar could rip her from Natia’s cold, dead fingers.

“We have to go back, Natia,” Sereda whispered, tipping her face to nuzzle into the cool leather while her eyes closed. “I have to go back.”

They did. They both did. “I’ll be with you. I’ll be your new Second, watch.”

Sereda smiled. “Maybe I can meet your family.”

That startled a laugh from Natia’s chest. The beautiful, perfect Sereda Aeducan in her former hovel across from her drunk mother and ferociously cunning sister? It was too absurd. “Trust me, you don’t want to meet my family.”

“Why not?” Sereda asked glumly. “They can’t be worse than mine.”

Natia took Sereda’s chin in her fingers and guided it to her lips. “Not true,” she murmured softly, “I’m your family now. And I’m pretty sodding great.”

The smile underneath Natia’s lips when they crashed together tasted like sweet, sweet victory.

[mimik-u]

Flower Child, Chapter 17: Fall

AO3 Link

i.

In defiance of every atom, of every primordial instinct that told her to run, Priyanka Maheswaran found herself in the slaughterhouse as the steel analog clock on the wall dragged her into the next minute.

5:55 PM.

But the hands of time were relentless. They kept moving, kept circling across the swath of smooth white. Seconds and seconds and seconds. Unthinking. Disinterested. Inexorable. 

Seconds and seconds and seconds.

They piled upon the altar like dry kindling. One spark, and they would smoke; they would simply burn, and the reek of charnel would suffocate her where she languished and sat in the slaughterhouse, where all dreams crumbled—embers becoming charcoaled dust.

5:56.

In approximately two hundred and forty seconds, in four minutes more, Steven Universe’s guardians would file in through the door directly across from the nephrologist. She would implore them to sit with a terse nod of her head. She would not tell them that the medical staff who worked on the Truman Ward colloquially called the conference room directly across the nurse’s station—this very room—the slaughterhouse, where doctors brought the family members of patients in and didn’t leave them unchanged when they finally came out.

I’m sorry, they would say to someone’s mother, father, sibling, lover, friend, daughter, son. 

We did all that we could, but the damage was too extensive.

We’ve tried everything, but your loved one is dead.

Your loved one is going to die.

I’m sorry, she would say.

She would adopt her best patient voice, which had only ever managed to be adequate. It wouldn’t be enough; her throat would strain against the sound, the crease between her eyes betraying that she was afraid.

They would see right through her.

I’m sorry, she would say anyway. She would plead. It would be the last defense against complete dissolution that she had.

She’d bring the cleaver down upon the smiles she’d wrought on their careworn faces only just that morning. 

It would be quick and brutal.

Barbaric even.

I’m sorry.

She had not intended to come here—not for any patient if she could help it.

Not for Steven Universe most of all.

But life was perverse, and it was so damn unkind; it knew nothing of intentions and hopes, dreams and childish wishes. It cared little for found families and fourteen-year old boys who needed kidneys.

5:57.

Priyanka sat at the head of the long table, her hands clasped in a rigid temple upon its smooth, gray surface, knuckles white from the simple exertion of clenching them. And then, as the seconds ticked by, as they smoked, as they gathered, as they burned, the room dissolved beneath her, stolen into nothingness by the snatch of a memory, an echo from a ghost who died nearly fifteen years ago…

She had possessed a beatific smile.

Her hair fell across her gowned shoulders in flowing, pink ringlets.

Rose Quartz went into labor two weeks before her due date.

It was a starless August night.

Balmy.

The world outside slept, lulled by the susurrant hush of the wind.

Though her contractions were coming steadily, Dr. Howard’s parenthetically lined mouth grew thinner each time his hawklike eyes slid towards the monitor which registered the twenty-six year old’s increasing blood pressure. She’d been admitted the week prior for severe headaches, a symptom consistent with her kidney disease, sure, but her blood tests indicated that she was hypertensive, too.

They started her on corticosteroids to help the baby’s still-developing lungs.

Dr. Howard took Priyanka off of all her other cases.

Made it her priority to stick to Room 11078 and to page him immediately if Rose’s blood pressure spiked to 140/90 mm/Hg.

“Because we’ll have to deliver the baby right then and there,” he stressed gravely,“if we want any chance of saving them both.”

He was talking obliquely about preeclampsia, a birth condition which began with high blood pressure and often ended with damage to the livers or kidneys.

And Rose Quartz’s kidneys were already shit, so there was that, and here was yet another sordid item to add to the ever growing list of what was wrong with the poor woman’s body.

Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl had all gone back to the hotel room for the night—against their wills, protesting—but Rose had made them, had told them to go on ahead, to get some sleep. She would see them in the morning. She loved them.

Goodnight.

And Greg was in the hallway, making a call to an insurance provider, which left Priyanka alone with Rose, who was propped up against two pillows on her hospital bed, palming her stomach protectively as she idly watched whatever was playing on TV—some offbeat sitcom or another. Frankly, Priyanka neither knew nor care. Scrunched up in one of the hardback chairs off to the left of Rose’s bed, she scratched harsh notes on her chart for the want of something to do.

To combat the growing feeling clambering up the rungs of her constricted throat.

To drown out the laugh track.

Those nameless people, that detached crowd, they laughed and laughed and laughed.

She couldn’t see what was so fucking funny, and she intimated as much without ever realizing it, scoffing just as her pen decided to run out of ink.

(It wasn’t really about the pen.)

“You seem exhausted, Priyanka,” Rose Quartz said softly, and it was with a jolt that the resident realized that she had been caught out.

Discovered.

Seen.

She flushed as she felt rather than saw that familiar, dark eyed gaze settle upon her gently—like a blanket, warm and encompassing. She stared obstinately at her clipboard, trying to will her own scribbles to make sense in a world that had currently lost its ever loving mind.

“I’ve been working overtime all week,” she said shortly, shifting uncomfortably in her chair. The wooden armrest pressed stiffly against her back, an unwelcome hand upon her spine. “Of course I’m exhausted.”

“Then you should go home. Get some rest.”

“Dr. Howard assigned me to your case again.

“Excuses, excuses,” Rose clucked, teasing, fond, amused. “He can’t make you work overtime.”

Priyanka was simply furious with herself. 

With a final click of her useless pen, she replaced it in the lapel of her scrubs and finally met her patient’s gaze with a steeliness that she hoped would wound, cut, eviscerate.

But nothing, not even the possibility of her imminent death, seemed to faze the woman, who stared at her evenly, with all the air of someone waiting patiently to explain the turn of the seasons to a child who wondered where the leaves had all gone.

Change was inevitable.

Winter became spring became summer became fall.

I want to leave them with roots, Priyanka, she’d explained in that tiny examination room, so many months ago. She’d taken the resident’s hand and intertwined it with her own. A faint floral scent wreathed her hair. Strawberries, maybe. Wild and sweet. I want them to have the chance to grow…

“It isn’t looking too good, is it?” Rose asked, her voice so casual that they could have merely been discussing a chapter from a really sad book. 

And the princess didn’t get to live happily ever after. And the evil forces prevailed in the end. And Rose Quartz’s body was rapidly shutting down. And there was nothing they could do about it, or more accurately still, they were doing everything.

And nothing was entirely working.

Priyanka’s dark eyes flitted to the number she had just recently scrawled on her chart in stuttering ink.

132/90 mm/Hg.

“No,” she said flatly. She felt no need to sugarcoat a bush that was already burning. Her fingers were cold where they gripped the flat of her clipboard. Her entire chest ached. “Your blood pressure is too high. The antihypertensives aren’t working.”

“Oh, well… I figured,” Rose sighed softly, still rubbing her swollen belly. Her forehead was beaded with sweat, curly tendrils of pink hair clinging softly, like gossamer, to her pale temples. “That explains the headaches, doesn’t it?”

Priyanka stared at Rose Quartz incredulously.

Gaped at her wildly.

Like she’d never properly seen before.

(She’d seen her so many times in the past couple of months, flitting in and out of the hospital, Dr. Howard’s office, and then the hospital all over again; she’d done what she swore she would never do with a patient; she became attached; she cared; it would be her own undoing.)

“Of course it does,” she snapped. She didn’t care that she was breaking a hell of a lot of rules, all the studied lines of decorum. She slammed her clipboard onto her lap and couldn't bring herself to bring a shit that it produced such a violent sound. She wanted to shake this woman, wanted to break the calm in her face, wanted her to register the simple fact that she could very well die. “If you’re still suffering from headaches, then, of course , it means the medicines aren’t working. It’s common sense, Rose. Mere logic.”

Her shoulders heaved as though she had only just ran a marathon.

And Rose’s smile—that beatific, perfect, clandestine smile—slid, like melting ice, from her mouth.

Finally, Priyanka thought savagely, and she hated herself for it.

Guilt assaulted her, a new lump in her constricted throat.

“I’m sorry,” she said abruptly, dull color bruising her sharply drawn cheeks. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m just… I’m—”

“No, Priyanka.” Rose brought one of her hands from the top of her belly, raising it firmly against the resident’s stammered apologies. If she was injured—if she was hurting—she didn’t very well show it, her expression as impenetrably smooth as the silver face of the moon. “Please don’t say sorry… not if you don’t mean it. You only said what you’ve been thinking, what all my loved ones have been thinking, really… what an entire fool I am.”

Her soft, brown eyes briefly flicked to the multiple IVs stemming from her lifted hand. The tubes swirled all around her arm, spiraling towards a multitude of brightly flickering machines.

“Crazy,” she laughed humorlessly, the sound without familiar melody. “Throwing my life away…”

A little less than nine months had elapsed since she had first announced her pregnancy, and now there was a grayness to her once milk white skin.

A lethargy behind that calm face.

The passion, the vivaciousness, the youth all gone. 

Priyanka was scarcely two years older than her.

“Priyanka,” she whispered, the name somber in the movement of that once perpetually smiling mouth, “would you believe me if I said that this ”—she gestured feebly at the hospital bed, at the medical apparatus all around her—“isn’t living? Would you understand if I told you that this isn’t who I am on the inside—all these needles and lines and medicines and awful machines?”

Without waiting for an answer, not seemingly needing one, Rose gently replaced her hand on her stomach, her palm tenderly cupping its curve.

“I know what living is, sweet Priyanka,” she continued, closing her dark eyes against some invisible memory, “and this isn’t it…  this isn’t all those days I’ve stood in endless protest for a cause that I so desperately believe in. This isn’t being able to play volleyball on the beach with my loved ones, watching Amethyst and Garnet and Pearl and Greg laugh in the sand. This isn’t the fish fries we’ve hosted, nor the long nights spent planning demonstrations on the deck. This isn’t the thrill of falling in love with so many people. Meeting Pearl. Coming to understand the strange cosmos of Greg Universe. Choosing to have this child with him. Choosing this path which may very well end in my own destruction… because this , Priyanka Maheswaran, from the moment I was first diagnosed at sixteen years old, was already my destruction. And I simply have been borrowing moments of living in the full acknowledgment of that terrible truth.”

Rose did not falter.

So strong, even to the last, she did not break.

But maybe, just maybe, she cracked… just a little, just enough so that Priyanka could see.

A single tear escaped the confines of her closed eyes, slowly slipping down her cheek and into the slightly rumpled collar of her paisley-studded gown.

“So would you believe me, Priyanka?” She asked again. 

She begged.

She pleaded.

“Please?”

She was asking a lot of the twenty-eight year old, to whom belief had never come easily. Priyanka was constantly interrogating her own values, checking and double checking them against rationality to ensure that they fit the meticulous schema she had constructed of the empirically observable world.

But just as there was no rationality in a twenty-six year old dying, there was no logicality in belief.

There was only a leap of faith, fingers crossed that she wouldn’t fall into the abyss.

Landing was not a guarantee.

And that was what so unfathomable to her, so cruel and so disgusting.

But what more could Priyanka say? What facts and statistics could she throw in this dying woman’s face to make her see reason that wasn’t exactly there.

The answer was nothing.

Perhaps it had always been nothing.

This student of science had no more protestations.

And in the absence of protestation, all that was left was a single choice: to jump or not to jump.

It was simple, really.

It was so damn hard.

Rose Quartz finally opened her eyes then. They were bright with her tears, and yet, simultaneously, the sheer darkness of them gripped Priyanka like the hands of a drowning sailor. The screen on the wall which measured her blood pressure had incrementally risen since they had started talking.

134/90 mm/Hg.

There was no time to waste anymore.

To pretend like they had ever possessed.

“What…” Priyanka began, her own voice hoarse, tight, strained, on the very verge of the precipice it hesitated to leap.“… what do you need me to do? Name it, and I’ll… I can’t promise anything… but I’ll try. ”

The word felt paltry, insufficient.

Trying was not an assurance, just as landing was not a guarantee.

“I’ll do what I can.”

Rose’s face simply collapsed, tears falling down both sides of her cheeks in gentle lines.

“Thank you, Priyanka,” she whispered, relief in every word, redolent in all the syllables of her spoken name.

But Priyanka did not want gratitude; she wanted an answer, something solid to latch onto, a promise she could keep.

“What you need, Rose?” She asked again, shifting her gaze her away. Her voice was abrupt—it was always abrupt—but somehow, it was not entirely unkind. “Tell me.”

The woman’s answer was immediate, unflinching; she had been obviously been thinking about it for a very long time.

It was the answer she probably would have proffered to anyone who asked.

Who took the time to wonder what exactly it was that Rose Quartz wanted.

What she needed.

What she had kept so carefully concealed behind that calm veneer of a facade.

“Take care of my baby for me, please,” she whispered. “Be their advocate when Dr. Howard and Greg will be mine… I’ll have so many people in the delivery room. I’ll have so many people rooting for me outside of it, too… but, my baby, Priyanka… I need someone in their corner, too… to root for them… to be their voice… please..."

All things considered, it was a pretty damn unreasonable request.

If Rose had to have a c-section, then Dr. Howard would need Priyanka’s steady hands to hold a clamp or provide suction; in the battlefield of surgery, her only allegiance was to the brusque orders that the old man barked to her behind his mask. The obstetrician would handle the delivery. Their own resident would whisk the baby away to the NICU.

And she and Dr. Howard would try to save Rose’s life.

That was Priyanka’s calling.

Her solemn oath.

Her duty.

But...

.... Unreasonable though it was—and it most certainly was so—Priyanka reasoned that it was likely not unkeepable. 

She could help keep an eye on the baby’s heart monitor.

She could even lend a hand in the delivery procedure if Dr. Howard didn’t need her.

She could try, dammit.

She could at least promise that.

“You have my word,” she returned tersely, dark eyes still averted. She played a little with her hands on top of her clipboard, twining and untwining them, as Rose seemingly sank back against her pillows, sighing softly.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“Don’t thank me until it’s over—I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You heard me out,” Rose replied evenly. “That’s something.”

“No,” the resident heard herself say aloud. “It isn’t.”

The hands on the clock veered into 6:00 with all the bluntness of a collision and none of its explosiveness.

The door opened.

That was mundane enough.

And Amethyst and Pearl came in first, laughing about something that Garnet had apparently said.

And Greg followed, chuckling, lightly scratching his stomach.

And Garnet made up the rear, grinning, pleased with herself.

Oblivious.

They were all so happy, this extraordinary group of ordinary people—they had no idea where they were or what it all meant or what was about to happen to the smiles on their tired faces.

And Priyanka did not have time to recover her own face, to arrange it into some manner of professional acceptability, her mouth half-open, hands rigid upon the table.

And Amethyst caught her out first.

Because she was smart like that, perceptive.

And the mirth drained from her brown eyes as she perceived the nephrologist’s expression in the semidarkness of the room.

And the two women stared each other across its length.

They called this place the slaughterhouse.

“No,” she simply said. She croaked it. Panic violated the smooth youthfulness of her face, tearing it all asunder. “No, Doc.”

“I’m sorry,” Priyanka Maheswaran whispered. 

It wasn’t enough.

It had never been enough.

Garnet only stared at her, disbelieving. 

Her mouth hadn’t quite untwisted itself out of the ghost of its last smile.

“I am so, so sorry.”

She said it again anyway, though, like it counted for something, like it meant anything, as tears began to flow down Pearl’s cheeks.

Greg Universe made a sound that was half-horror, half-agony, bracing his hands against the back of a metal chair to steady himself against the blow.

ii.

A doctor, a washed up rockstar, and three Crystal Gems walked out of a conference room.

And the joke, the cruel punchline, was that the boy they all loved wasn’t going to get the kidneys he so desperately needed; he was going to go back on the list, which had always been more of a desperate gamble than a guarantee; he was going to degrade in that hospital bed for however many days, weeks, and months he had more.

Dr. Maheswaran didn’t think he had a year.

She was blunt about it. 

Professional.

But her eyes gave her away, the lines beneath them, the consumptive shadows.

(Mere hours ago, her face had been transformed by the simple action of a smile.)

There were no comforting words, nor bracing gestures between the coterie of broken people who limped their way back to Room 11037—injured, defeated, the wounds glistening across their bruised eyes, their shivering mouths. Greg took the lead, the rubber of his sandals snapping harshly against the tiled floor with each step, every guttural, convulsive movement. 

They silently decided that he should be the one to actually commit the words aloud, knew that it was for the best. He could be soft where Dr. Maheswaran was brutal. Comprehensive when Garnet couldn’t muster words. Sage when Amethyst’s youthful clumsiness sometimes made it difficult to find the right words. 

And he could hold it together long enough to actually say it.

Trailing behind him, pale fingers gripping the fabric of her sweater, Pearl’s horror took the form of sniffling that couldn’t quite be concealed. She was holding herself together—the news had cleaved her apart—and he wondered again, not for the first time since Steven’s diagnosis, whether or not she had been right all those years ago, when she had told him quite plainly, in that incisively logical way of hers, that she was better for Rose.

They’d come a long way since then.

They grudgingly tolerated each other now.

They coparented the best that they could.

Sometimes, he thought that they were even friends, sharing beers together on dusk lit balconies and spending so many sleepless nights side by side at the kitchen table, poring over bills and medicines and more bills because the bills, above all, were endless. 

And perhaps in the end, he and Pearl were even family in the way that they loudly and silently and entirely loved the same dying boy.

(That was how they had loved the same woman, too.)

But still, maybe she had had a point.

Pearl always tended to have a point...

The hallway was painfully short; Room 11037 arrived far quicker than any of them had ever anticipated.

His breath coming in hitched gasps, chest seized with a sudden tightening, Greg palmed the wood of the door, splaying his shaking fingers against its smooth grains as though to steady himself against an impossible reckoning. He was minutes away, possibly seconds, from breaking his own son’s heart, and that was on him.

Hell, all failures when it came to his son’s happiness were on him.

He was the kid’s dad.

He was supposed to protect Steven, shelter him, keep him safe from every quantifiable danger that he could.

And here he was, about to deliver another slap to his face and call it kindness.

The contradiction was not lost upon him.

The unfairness of it all stung.

It stung his eyes, and it stung his heart, and it stung all over, simply undid the man. He was a pincushion falling apart in all the places where he had been needled over and over again.

But he felt a hand on the small of his back then—gentle, kind.

He expected it to be Garnet or maybe even Amethyst; that had always been their sort of thing.

But when he looked back behind him, his mouth half-formed in an empty, perfunctory thanks, he saw that it was Pearl, her big, blue eyes still edged with the remnants of her tears.

Her sweater, neatly pressed, seemed to swallow her entirely.

She stood perfectly within the lines of one of the tiles on the floor, feet poised like a ballerina’s. Rose had once told him that she’d been trained to dance—once so disciplined in the art that she could stand upon the tips of her toes for as many minutes as her tutors required. 

Even when she was devastated.

Even when she was hurt.

“How… how do I do this?” Greg asked before he could stop himself. The words tumbled out of his mouth in an ungainly rush. “How do I… how can I… I mean… he’s just a boy… a kid, and I—“

And I don’t want to do this, Pearl.

I don’t want to see him go through this.

Pearl swiped delicately at her nose, and she swiped at her leaking eyes, but the carnage still remained. It was unlikely to disappear for a very long time. She wrung her slender fingers together and twisted them apart. She congregated them in a prim temple just above her stomach. She eventually let them fall to her sides. She glanced down. She failed to look back up.

Shoulders shivering.

Feet still in first position.

“I… I don’t think there’s any right way to do this,” she finally said. “Not really… but I—we’re behind you, Greg.”

“Yeah,” Amethyst agreed.

Garnet nodded her silent assent.

“We’re… always behind you.”

The weight of these words, the implicit meaning behind them, was not lost on Greg. He immediately understood how much it must have cost her to say such a thing to him, and yet, he simultaneously knew that she must have meant it—for Pearl rarely ever said things that she didn't mean.

She gave silent treatments, and she evaded tough emotional conversations with all the agility of a dancer; she shot people glares that she thought to be discrete from the corners of her eyes; she kept secrets to herself, kept them tucked away in the same places where she had invisible shrines to the woman they both loved.

But she rarely lied.

Or maybe, more accurately, she wouldn't lie now.

And so, choked, overwhelmed, grateful, he could only muster something like a vague sound of gratitude in the back of his throat that he thought she equally understood because she nodded at him primly.

And then, he turned to face the door again, palming the brass handle.

On the other side, he heard a snatch of laughter.

Steven.

Assuredly.

Perhaps he was watching one of his favorite shows, laughing at something a character had said.

Greg twisted his hand downwards and pushed lightly upon the door.

iii.

The door opened upon a scene that Yellow Diamond had always intended to flee before she could be caught out, but one anecdote led to another, and before she knew it, Steven Universe had started telling her about how he’d met Blue at the cemetery where their dead daughter lay. And the conjured image of her bathrobed wife, holding a hibiscus aloft in her gently curving palm, plucked an dusty chord in her chest. 

So this was the flower that had been on the nightstand for a couple of nights now.

This was the story of a boy and a woman and a cemetery and a handful—a lifetime, really—of aching, miserable griefs.

“She told me that she married you so her name would be a pun,” Steven had said, grinning mischievously.

“Something to that effect,” Yellow dryly returned.

And he pressed for more stories, more memories, more chords inside her chest. How did she meet Blue? When did they fall in love? Who proposed?

He asked so many questions, his brown eyes alight with curiosity, that she was reminded so much of Pink that it almost hurt to even look at him. But, just as she had done with her daughter, she sighingly indulged him, groaning and moaning and making it out as thought she was doing him a massive favor by relenting. And he only smiled at her teasingly—like he was in on the secret.

It was the other way around.

She was the one at his mercy.

And so she told him the story of the princess and the knight in less than fantastical terms, laying out the bare bones of her and Blue’s first meeting with a halting voice as the memories slowly came flooding back: Blue Montgomery’s sweeping ball gown, the spidery chandeliers, the waiters swerving in and out of the crowd bearing silver trays loaded with champagne, her ridiculously dramatic mother waltzing through the ballroom with all the radiance of a sun. 

God, how many decades ago was that now?

Years and years and years.

“Our daughter used to love this damn story,” Yellow murmured at the end, briefly flicking her eyes downwards. “We told it so many different times to her that she could repeat it word for word.”

“It’s a very good story,” Steven returned, laughing. “Did you really think about punching that guy?”

“Fleetingly, yes,” she almost smiled, “but—”

But then the door opened so abruptly, bringing reality back in with what appeared to be a collection of harried looking people. The businesswoman’s head sharply cocked towards the far side of the room to greet an assemblage of expressions that she was surprised to find in total strangers: anger and disgust.

Complete and total loathing.

Damn, at least buy me a drink first.

“You!” A slight woman in a sweater hissed furiously.

“Uh-oh,” Steven Universe said, shrinking slightly beneath his covers. “Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh...”

But Yellow Diamond wasn’t listening to him anymore, instinctive indignation rising to her aid and defense as she stood up from her chair and mustered as haughty of an expression she could for a woman wearing silk pajamas.

“Excuse me?” She asked venomously, crossing her arms over her chest. “And you are?”

“Pearl…” The balding man standing next to the sweater-wearing accoster tried to plea, placing a big hand on her much smaller shoulder. “Maybe we shouldn’t… uh—?”

“No,” The woman named Pearl snarled, jerking her arm away from him. Yellow could see that her pale eyes were bright with tears, which seemed like an overreaction if she had ever witnessed one. She didn’t know these people from Jack, Jill, or Harry on the sidewalk! “I want to know what she’s doing here! She has no business—“

“Pearl, wait!” Steven tried to interject, jerking upwards from his pillows. “It’s okay! She just wanted to vis—“

But his voice got lost in the shuffle as the taller woman behind Pearl suddenly stepped forward, her powerfully muscled arms clenched into fists by her sides. There was an indefinable air of authority about her that Yellow only recognized because she, too, possessed it. Her bicolored glare was a weapon in and of itself; the harsh florescence of the overheads glinted off the sunglasses folded neatly across the collar of her sweatshirt.

“Leave,” the woman said. “You’re not welcome here.”

“Garnet! No! She wasn’t doing anything wro—“

“Well, frankly,” Yellow shot back before Steven could complete his thought, “I’d perfectly well surmised that without your help. But forgive me if I’m having trouble piecing together the context behind this unwarranted rudeness.”

“You know what you’ve done,” Garnet growled.

“No!” The blood inside her head churned, simply boiled. She had never known when to leave well enough alone. “I damn well don’t!”

“1999—Diamond Electric vs. Hutchings,” Pearl began to tick off names on her fingertips. “2005—Diamond Electric vs. Davis. 2011—Diamond Electric vs. Bach. Are these names ringing a bell? Unsafe factory conditions! Unconstitutional wage gaps! Leaking waste reservoirs!”

“All settled in court!” Yellow returned with a cruel laugh that she did not remotely feel, raking her cold eyes over each and very one of her newfound opponents in turn. It had always been her against the world for as long as she could remember—she the trapped lioness cornered by the angry mob. (But the mob always tended to forget one crucial fact about exchanges between lions and men. Lions had claws and sharp, gleaming teeth; she would devour them and gnaw on their bones for sport.) “What are you all? Lawyers? Reporters? Protestors? Please, spare no sordid detail as to why I’m being read case names for events that happened long ago.”

“Yellow Diamond, please—” Steven’s voice was tiny by her side; she could not hear him; or perhaps, she didn’t want to hear him.

She wanted to fight.

“We’re, like, the Crystal Gems,” the smallest woman to Garnet’s left said emphatically. Her lavender bangs fell over one of her eyes, but she blew them back with a small puff of air.

“Never heard of you,” Yellow replied flippantly and untruthfully.

Because she had heard of them—several times, in fact. 

They were some small activist group that had always been a vaguely minor nuisance at her side—especially a few years ago—but they’d never done anything more than force her lawyers to spend some time haggling in appeals courts. 

A waste of time and money for everyone, really.

“Never heard of us?” Pearl spluttered wildly, her complexion whitening. “Never heard of—“

“Enough, you all!” The doctor who had been at the back of the group finally seemed to have found her tongue, and a pretty harsh tongue it was because her exasperated voice clearly cut through the melee. “We’re in a hospital for goodness’s—”

But the doctor was drowned out, too, lost in the onslaught of noise suddenly coming from one of the monitors above Steven’s bed—a shrill beeping noise that put an effective end to all the squabbling. The neon green line measuring his heart rate was spiking in short peaks, the numbers climbing, climbing, climbing… and beneath it all, clutching his chest, Steven was struggling to breathe, gulping in shallow bursts of air, his skin paling. Sweat beaded at his pale templed, hid eyes wide with fear.

“STEVEN! Steven!” So many voices yelled his name; it was all a jumble, a blur, a dissonant symphony.

The white coated doctor shoved past Yellow unceremoniously, nearly knocking her to the ground in her haste to get to her patient’s side. She pulled an oxygen mask down from one of the receptacles behind the bed, placing it over Steven’s mouth and nose.

“Breathe, Steven!” She commanded, her voice tight with obvious strain. The man and the woman named Pearl scrabbled over to the child’s bedside. Tears streaming down his ruddy face and into his beard, the man placed an arm around Steven’s back, steadying him. Pearl clasped one of his hands, her shoulders shaking violently.

“In and out,” the doctor continued. “Breathe. One… two… three.  That’s it, honey. There you go…”

As Steven’s breathing evened out, the monitor’s beeping died down, nearly becoming regulated once more. Exhausted, overwhelmed, so quickly undone, the boy slumped against the man who was holding him, closing his eyes heavily as the doctor took the opportunity to more securely fasten the oxygenated mask around his face.

But what happened next, if anything happened at all, Yellow Diamond did not stay to find out.

Violently tearing her gaze away, the woman turned around and did what she should have done the moment she made the poor decision to come into this room in the first place.

Shoving past the remaining Crystal Gems, uncaring that she knocked Garnet in the shoulder, Yellow limped away as fast as her sore leg would allow her to go, nausea rushing up the column of her throat, her cheeks burning with shame.

What a pathetic creature she was.

A monster.

A lioness among men.

(The lioness always tended to forget one crucial fact about exchanges between lions and men. Lions had claws and sharp, gleaming teeth; she would end up destroying the people she cared about, too.)

iv.

Pearl only had eyes for one person in the entire world, and his name was Steven Universe. Both in the absence of Rose and in the lingering presence of her, he was the center of her universe, the sun which she orbited day after day after varied, sundry day. Weak, pale, cold, he shivered in his father’s arms, barely able to keep his eyes open as his heartbeat continued to regulate itself after that latest episode.

“Acute stress arrhythmia,” she heard Priyanka explain behind her. The nephrologist had her back turned to them as she read numbers on a nearby computer monitor. 

She didn’t elaborate.

She didn’t need to.

Everybody in the room knew exactly who was to blame for his acute stress.

Shame colored them all; shame welled up in the corners of Pearl’s eyes as she continued to hold on to Steven’s hand.

Garnet collapsed into the chair that Yellow Diamond had just vacated, placing both of her hands over her eyes.

What children they had been.

What fools.

Pearl closed her own eyes in a useless attempt to stem the tears that were flowing freely now, unable to hold them back any longer. Shame wrapped a hand around her insides and squeezed. 

Steven was… he was—oh, God, the word was too unbearable to even think, much less say aloud—and here they all were—fighting with someone who would never see reason.

How stupid.

How pathetic.

“Steven, wait, honey. You need to put that mask back—” But Priyanka’s soft admonition was apparently ignored; Pearl looked up just in time to see Steven feebly lifting the oxygen mask from his face, dropping it just below his mouth. Each movement looked like it took something from him; he couldn’t even lift his head from Greg’s chest.

So he stared straight at her.

Directly into her eyes.

He had his mother’s eyes.

Her dark and lovely eyes.

“S-she…” She had to lean forward to hear him, for his voice was barely a whisper, an echo, a ghost. “…she really wasn’t being mean.”

“Shh, Shtu-ball. We know,” Greg tried hoarsely, pressing a kiss into his son’s mass of curly hair. “Save up your strength…”

“Steven,” Pearl pleaded, barely able to discern him through her tears. She refused to let go of his hand; it wasn't as much for his sake as she would have liked to kid herself to believe.  “I’m so, so sorry. We shouldn’t have squabbled with her like that. We just weren’t… I mean… I wasn’t… I was stressed—I-I wasn’t thinking.”

“Stressed?” Again, his voice was so small that it struggled to be heard over the hissing of the various machines he was hooked up to, and the fact of it nearly undid her right then and there. Salt coated her lips. It lacquered her tongue. “Why… why were you stressed?”

No.

No.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this... the news wasn’t supposed to come from her. It was supposed to be Greg’s job to do this; he was the one who was good at emotions; he was the one who knew how to have these sorts of conversations without completely dissolving into nothingness and rubble.

(He was the better person.)

(The one who Rose chose.)

Pearl could yell at a tyrannical businesswoman for longer than she could hold herself together in front of Steven; she could protest wars; she could hold demonstrations; she could plan fish fries; she could keep herself together on a day to day basis, bound by Scotch tape and glue.

But for him?

For Steven Universe?

Her eyes refilled with fresh tears, and she finally withdrew her hand from his, placing it over her mouth in the quietest sign of her incapacity.

Useless.

Pathetic.

Childish.

Fool.

“Oh,” Steven only rasped, understanding immediately. He was so smart like that; he never missed a beat. “The… the kidneys fell through, didn’t they?”

“I’m so sorry, kiddo,” Greg said, wrapping his arms more tightly around Steven as gently as he could manage as Priyanka took the opportunity to replace the mask over his nose and mouth.

“The kidneys were damaged during the donor’s accident,” she explained dully, “and we couldn’t detect it until we were already in surgery… I’m sorry, Steven. I am.”

But Steven never took his eyes off Pearl, those dark and lovely eyes. 

They were wounded eyes.

Bruised eyes.

Goddamn exhausted eyes.

"I'm sorry, Steven," she whispered. "I am so, so sorry."

The mask prevented him from speaking.

In place of his reply, there was only the steady hiss of oxygen and the dark-cloaked presence of grief, the seventh person in an already crowded room. They sat on the edge of Steven’s bed, simply taking up precious air.

Pearl couldn’t breathe.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

v.

Night descended upon the sky like a heavy curtain, unfurling its black velvet across the horizon with dark finality, the punctuation unmistakable. Sitting atop of the bulky air conditioning unit that stretched the length of the hotel room’s window, Amethyst gazed emptily at the spectacle, knees pulled up to her chest, her still-damp hair pulled over one of her shoulders. If she was back at home, there would be a roof to clamber onto and a vast canvas of stars to behold… but here, there were only skyscrapers that stretched their supplicatory hands upwards to an unhearing god. Here, there were stars made out of lit windows. Here, there was that familiar feeling of suffocation, of being cloistered in...

Cornered.

And unlike in a good alley fight, putting up her fists wouldn’t solve a damn thing.

Three hours had passed since they’d nearly given Steven a heart attack and then told him that he wasn’t going to get those stupid fucking kidneys. And still, the scene haunted her mind’s eye in the absence of anything else to think about, to obsess over, to grieve. When they had all left for the evening—Greg the only one staying behind for the night—he couldn’t even muster enough energy to tell them goodnight, simply blinking at them from over the top of his oxygenated mask before closing his eyes.

Merely twelve hours ago, they’d all been sickeningly happy because they had thought that the nightmare was over… but that sensation had long passed, a relic of time immemorial now.

Now, there was only darkness.

A feeling of falling.

The ground giving way beneath their feet.

Now, there was only Dr. M’s only consolation that wasn’t really a consolation at all.

He’s at the top of the list now.

The door opened and gently closed behind her. Amethyst swung her head around just in time to see Garnet come in, a towel slung around her corded neck, her white tank top damp with sweat. She’d gone to the hotel’s gym to obviously treadmill away from her feelings, which was a way more productive solution than Amethyst’s choice coping mechanism. She raised her half-empty bottle of wine in greeting—reckless, loose—accidentally sloshing a little over the top of the rim.

“Hey.”

“Where’s Pearl?” Garnet studiously avoided her gaze as she lowered herself to the carpeted ground, leaning against the wall. Her shoulders hunched forward, elbows braced on top of her knees, she almost looked like some kinda statue—still, beautiful, tragic.

“Tryin’ to drown herself in the shower, I think,” Amethyst shrugged before taking another hearty swig of Moscato. The tangy notes stung her tongue. “She’s been in there for an hour now, so you might not have hot water later.”

The gym trainer shrugged noncommittally as though this was all the same to her. 

And the two of them simply listened to the hissing of the water beyond the thin door to Garnet’s left for a handful of seconds; the serpentine sounds lashed the ground. Lashed their skin. Their ears. Their chests.

Amethyst sniffed and took yet another drag of wine.

There was nothing else better to do...

... but the silence was unbearable now that it was optional.

She turned her bottle upside down again.

Liquid courage.

“I met the old lady, y’know,” she said softly, her consonants a little rushed around their edges, a little tipsy, a little unsure. “Blue Diamond. It was… yesterday, I think? Hell, I think it was yesterday. God, I don’t even know at this point. But she was in the lobby, waitin’ for her valet to pick her up…”

Garnet didn’t say anything, didn’t even look up at her, but Amethyst knew she was listening from the way that every line in her body was rigid with attention.

“She’s kinda snooty, I think. Kinda looks like she’s got a stick up her ass… but she’s got a good heart, I guess. She cares about Steven…” Amethyst remembered the way her accented voice broke when she spoke of him, all of the syllables collapsing upon themselves in the throes of her gentle tongue. And she remembered the woman’s eyes, how startlingly blue they were, haunted underneath by the ravages of grief and time. 

“A lot,” she added. “That surprised me.”

“I… I shouldn’t have let Yellow Diamond get to me like that,” Garnet said, reaching up and gingerly holding her head. “I know. I know.”

“No, that’s not what I’m sayin’, G,” Amethyst immediately and fiercely returned, shaking her own head. “I mean, it’s kinda what I’m sayin’, but we all got caught up in her. She got under all of our skins. I’m just, I dunno, I’m trying to—“

But she broke off then, ripping her gaze away from her roommate and back towards the window.

To the darkness.

The absence of stars.

She raised the bottle to her lips once more but stopped short of taking another swill; the sickly sweet perfume nearly gagged her.

“It’s just… it’s difficult,” she continued, setting the drink down between her knees. “That’s all I’m sayin’. God knows why, but he likes the Diamonds, and the Diamonds like him… and we shouldn’t… I mean, we should try our best not to shit on him for that because—“

But Amethyst stopped short again as the natural end to that sentence reared its head off the floor of her stomach, striking just where it hurt.

Sick, ashamed, inconsolable, she covered her eyes with both of her hands.

“Because we love him,” Garnet proffered, her voice quiet, almost inaudible over the noises coming from the shower, “and we want him to be happy.”

That wasn't the end of the sentence.

That wasn't what they had both been thinking anyway.

“Yeah,” she croaked gratefully, wiping roughly at her eyes. “Yeah.”

They resumed their silent vigil together then, mostly because it kept them from commenting upon the fact that it wasn’t just the water they were hearing behind that thin bathroom door.

Garnet reached upwards and grabbed the remote from the edge of the nearest bed, turning the volume up on some stupid sitcom to drown it out.

The water.

The weeping.

And the weeping and the weeping and the weeping.

vi.

Blue Diamond had been on the balcony for hours now, long enough for the sky to bruise from peach to blue to purple, long enough to see the first stars ascend to their storied mounts, glimmering down upon the world in silvery, distant specks. 

Long enough that the tear tracks riveting down her cheeks had dried upon her long face in stiff lines.

Long enough that she wondered passively to herself if she had been here forever, a statue carved out of flesh and bone and misery and blood.

Long enough to reflect upon the fact that she wasn't referring to the balcony... but to something more abstract.

Metaphorical.

A state.

A cycle.

A condition of perpetual mourning.

Her phone laid facedown on the tiny table between her chair and Yellow’s empty one.

The last text she had received had been from Steven Universe.

It wasn’t even a sentence. 

Just a fragment.

No exclamation points, no abundant elaboration, no joy.

Tuesday, 7:09 PM:

Steven: kidneys fell through

Blue had seen the boy just this morning—dropping by after she had left Yellow’s room—and she could remember, quite distinctly, how radiant his face had been, utterly metamorphosed by its own happiness. 

She’d been drawn in by it, magnetized. 

Oh, how the two of them laughed and smiled and played. 

How many years had it been since she had last played?

It was before Pink died assuredly.

But even then, the details were murky to her; she’d been so wrapped up in her school, that she had forgot what it was to be twenty-one, and that twenty-one year olds were still children in a way, that they loved to have fun.

She’d been so strict with her sometimes.

Forbidding.

Cold.

(Her own mother would have been proud.)

But she and Steven Universe? They played, and they played, imagining all the things that Steven was going to do once he had recovered from the transplant surgery. Some of these plans were simply extraordinary in nature. He was going to run all day just because he would finally feel like it. He was going to make a massive sandcastle on the beach with all of his friends. It would be palatial, obviously, so they could live in it together, making seashell necklaces and seaweed crowns. He was going to eat all the donuts that he wanted—his diet had been so restricted since he’d taken ill—and then some.

“And if I get sick,” he had said proudly, “it’ll just be a normal sick, and that’ll be perfectly okay.”

But it wasn’t the extraordinary inventions which had touched Blue, which had moved her to the quick.

Rather, it was the simple things.

The mundane ones.

He would get to go to school with all the rest of the kids his age. He could go to a theater without worrying that his symptoms might flare up during the movie's climax. He could ride a bike through his charming, little beachside town. 

He could simply be a child.

And that would be enough.

That would be perfectly okay.

“And I could come over for tea and cakes on Fridays,” he teased as she had prepared to leave, running one last hand through his curly hair as she stood up from her chair. He smiled at her gently, his mouth tilting crookedly.

“Aye,” she returned warmly, returning the gesture with an almost easiness that still surprised her. “I would love that..."

But just as quickly as these fantasies had risen—entertained, explored, viscerally imagined—they had been wrenched from his hands just as immediately, and so Blue Diamond sat on her balcony for hours on end grieving for the poor boy.

But because she was selfish, because she was predictable, because she was broken, she gripped the arms on both sides of her chair, and grieved, too, for Pink Diamond.

(She was always grieving for Pink Diamond.)

Fingernails digging into the weathered wood, she thought herself a desolate fool for ever kidding herself into believing that she could go a day without being painfully aware of her daughter’s ghost.

She thought herself a masochist for inviting the same pain again in the form of Steven Universe.

She thought herself a coward for not daring to say three words to Yellow Diamond, three words that wouldn’t make everything between them right, but three words that needed to be said nevertheless.

And she couldn’t bring herself to utter them.

Not even when Yellow was in a hospital bed, covered in lacerations and bruises.

Because how could she say such a thing when she hadn’t said it in so many years upon years?

I and love and you.

And she kept thinking these things until they chased each other around her head in circles—dizzying, unceasing, senseless circles that gradually chipped away at the tentative hope she had held aloft in her chest ever since she had met Steven Universe.

Spirals and spirals and spirals.

Fool.

Masochist.

Coward.

Circles and circles and circles.

And somehow, every time, Blue Diamond concluded where she had first begun: alone in her own misery, drowning.

Fool, masochist, coward.

vii.

The walk to the parking deck that night was slow and laborious, one foot dragged after another, the styrofoam cup of shitty coffee in her hand doing little to perk her up for the long drive home. Priyanka couldn’t remember the last time she’d stayed past her shift so long, but she’d wanted to make sure that Steven remained stable… that he didn’t suddenly crash on them after such a long, hard day on his body… that she continued to try (and miserably fail) to keep Rose’s last request.

Take care of my baby for me, please…

Ever since his episode, Steven’s breath sounds had been decreased on the right side of his chest; she instructed the intern on duty for the night to keep him on a steady supply of oxygen and to page her immediately if his stats even shifted by a margin.

“Like, even a number or two?” Dr. Stephens asked, her brow furrowing.

“Yes,” she had snapped rather harshly. “Even a fraction.”

But somehow, even as Priyanka had said it, even as the poor intern had flinched, she had known to herself from the very beginning that she could quantify every little integer and it still all be for nothing.

Chronic kidney disease didn’t care about numbers.

It didn’t care about people.

“Hey! Priyanka! Wait up!"

Oh, hell and shit—she recognized that voice. 

Wincing, she tried to arrange her features into an expression that didn’t completely betray her entire disinterest with humanity before she turned to face her colleague Dr. Reed. Maisie Reed, an ER doctor, had been at Empire Regional for about a decade longer than Priyanka. 

She was a good woman and good friend, but frankly, she just didn’t know when to shut up, going off on long, rambling tales that were hard for Priyanka to weasel away from once she got rolling. 

This was vaguely annoying on most days, but tonight, the nephrologist simply wouldn't be able to bear it.

“Hello, Maisie,” she returned brusquely as the older woman caught up to her. Her curly, flyaway hair was tucked back in a messy bun, her wire-rimmed glasses perched a little crookedly on the bridge of her nose. “How are you?”

“Exhausted,” Maisie rolled her eyes. “Did you hear about my star patient?”

“I think I actually met her,” Priyanka said, resuming her brisk walk. Maybe if she made it to her sedan before Maisie started a story, she could make a narrow escape.  “She somehow made it to my patient’s room. Goodness knows for what reason. She and the patient’s family nearly got into a fistfight.”

“Ha! You're kidding! I didn’t think that part was true, but some of the nurses were saying—”

“It’s true,” she affirmed curtly, cutting across the woman. “All of it.”

They lapsed into silence then as they walked side by side on the harshly lit concrete. The nephrologist could see her tiny car near the end of the row. She pulled the key out of one of the pockets of her lab coat, clicked the unlock button, and hoped that Maisie would finally take the hint.

“I think we’re only parked a little ways from each other,” she said cheerfully, dashing all of Priyanka’s dreams.

Joy.

They continued to walk together, the heels of their shoes clicking reliably against the floor.

“I also heard… that you’ve got a bad outcome,” Maisie murmured, her voice soft, empathetic.

Pitying.

It was the pity that Priyanka hated most of all.

Her companion’s hazel eyes raked her over piercingly, like an X-Ray, and there was tenderness in her expression.

Understanding.

“I’m so sorry, honey.”

“It’s not a bad outcome yet,” she snarled, rounding upon the woman fiercely, not bothering with polite pretense anymore. Screw her. Screw everything. Screw this fucking day. “He’s still alive. He’s still got a chance. I’ve just got to find…”

“… kidneys, yes. I’ve heard,” Maisie finished gently.

Priyanka violently turned away again, increasing her pace so that she pulled ahead of the other doctor. Her entire body strained against the sudden burst of energy.

She was tired.

So fucking exhausted.

“Then don’t resign him to the grave yet, Maisie. I’m still fighting for him, dammit.”

“Yes, I know that, too… I’ve always admired that about you, dear. You never give up.”

“Yeah, well”—she didn’t exactly know what to say to that—“that’s what we do.”

“Mm, yes,” Maisie replied. “That’s what we do…”

She finally reached her sedan with no small feeling of relief, proceeding to the driver's side with the expectation that Dr. Reed would continue onwards to her little red Nissan at the end of the row, finally putting an end to this unpleasant conversation.

Infuriatingly, though, Maisie stopped, too, her eyes bright with kindness and warmth and all the other things besides that Priyanka simply couldn’t stomach at the moment.

“Yes, well, goodnight,” she said pointedly, making a motion to open the door of her car. She threw her briefcase in rather unceremoniously. It slammed against the passenger side door and fell feebly to the ground.

“What’s his blood type, Priyanka? I’ll keep an eye out for any patients that fit the description… you know what the ER is like. We get potential donors all the time.”

Yes, this was assuredly true, but Steven’s blood type being what it was, finding a donor so quickly would be a damn near miracle.

Priyanka exhaled harshly through her nose but relented anyway—anything to end this absurd conversation.

What the hell—it wouldn’t hurt.

“It’s a long shot… but O neg, so I need an O neg donor. Had any of those on your docket lately?” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

And here was the part where Maisie’s kindly face would undoubtedly fall into dismay because of course she hadn’t seen an O neg patient in a while—only seven percent of the entire population had O negative blood, which was a startlingly rare number. So, of course, she would shake her head profusely and apologize and swear to keep her feelers out…

… but Maisie Reed didn’t exactly follow the quick script that Priyanka had constructed in her head.

In fact, her pink lips wobbled into a radiant smile.

“Honey,” she laughed, “sit down and take a sip of that damn black coffee of yours because you’re not going to believe this.”

[saibh29]

Mother and Daughter

Pairing: Kelly Severide x Reader

Warning: Language, fluff, Implied family issues

AN: Ok this one I enjoyed... immensely... 

Your mother is in town for a few days, which means your boyfriend is suspiciously absent

*****

Your mum was coming to the city, it was a biannual visit that she made under sufferance simply to say that it wasn’t always her commanding you to come home. She liked to sit on the high ground of moral vindication.

You loved your mum, you actually had a decent relationship now you’d grown up, moved away and didn’t have to live with her anymore. These visits though, even though they only lasted for a few days, tended to be painful for everyone involved. Your mum did not like the city, she didn’t like crowds of people, traffic, noise or the small bedrooms you had in your tiny apartment. She missed her own kitchen, fancy coffee machine, Women’s meetings and town gossip sessions.

You’d taken the morning off work to wait for her to arrive and had already set up the bed for her in the spare room. You’d also removed any trace of your boyfriend from the apartment. Kelly was allergic to parents and in the case of your mother you didn’t really blame him. Your mum was also allergic to men, after the mess your dad had made of their relationship you didn’t really blame her either. So, by silent agreement neither of them met, ever. Not in the context of ‘mother of your girlfriend’ anyhow.

You’d been sat on the window seat so saw the taxi pull up outside your block and your mother emerge, commanding the poor uber driver to remove her bags from the cab. How one woman needed practically a suitcase a day you’d never figured out, especially as her daughter, you, managed to travel for weeks with only a rucksack you’d had since high school.

Starting to assemble the requisite smile on your face you went down to help her with the pile of luggage.

“Mum”

She turned and caught sight of you enveloping you in a huge hug, your mother always smelt vaguely like fresh cookies and vanilla, it flashed you back to sitting in the kitchen of your childhood home nibbling on said cookies while in the living room your mum and dad screamed at each other.

“Y/N, darling” she held you slightly away from her eyes taking you all in. “You look skinny, have you been eating? I brought plenty of casserole and stews, you can put it in the freezer”

“Mum, you always say I look skinny, and how did you get TSA to let you on your flight with a load of frozen food”

“Hmmm” That was your mothers all purpose noise, mainly meaning the subject was closed and she wasn’t going to tell you anything more. Picking up the many bags you helped her carry them up to your apartment, dumping them in the kitchen. “Put that food in the freezer darling”

“hmmm” you copied your mums previous sound but did as you were told. It was more trouble than it was worth to try and disobey her.

Your mum was still stood in the middle of your apartment. “This place seems smaller every time I arrive”

“I promise you its not” how did the woman do it, in one sentence you were desperately trying to remind yourself that murder was not a good idea. “I have to go to the firehouse. I was just waiting for you to arrive” your mum was still staring around the room. “Maybe you want to rest?”

“Rest?” she finally gave you her attention again. “Oh, I'm quite rested. Maybe I’ll come to the station with you, I haven’t been there for quite some time”

Crap. That was what you’d been wanting to avoid. Trying to dissuade her though would only make her more determined to come with you.

“Fine”

“I'm sure the boys would appreciate some warm food”

“mum…” you whined but she was no longer listening, she’d gone to your fridge and was tutting in dismay at the offerings inside.

“We’ll stop by the market on the way”

“Ok” grabbing your bag you hustled her back out of your apartment and down to your car. It was going to be a very long day.

**

The guys as you’d guessed had been delighted to see your mother entering the station with you following behind, arms piled high with groceries. They’d swarmed your mum leading her into the station with smiles and hugs.

“Yeah don’t worry about me!” you snapped trying not to trip over your feet. “I'm fine”

The guys ignored you completely still fawning over your mum. Someone did come up from behind you though and the top two bags were removed from your arms leaving you with only one.

“I see she arrived”

“It’s been 2 hours Kelly, 2 hours and I want to kill either her or myself, I haven’t decided which yet”

“That bad?”

“She called me skinny! Mocked my fridge, apartment and now she’s here… my mother is here, where I work”

“Sounds terrible”

“Just don’t” you warned as he didn’t look all that sympathetic.

“Hey! Y/N get moving with those groceries your mum’s gonna cook”

Your eyes narrowed as you focused on Herrmann who was hanging out of the door to the mess room. You were about to say something scathing and generally unkind when Kelly cut in.

“Coming” he nudged you forwards. “Aren’t we?”

“Yeah sure… we’re coming” you went into the mess dumping the groceries onto the counters where you mum was already rooting around in cupboards bringing out varying pans and equipment.

“Your mum’s going to cook” Otis sounded almost dreamy as he leant beside you on the bench “real food Y/N”

“I heard”

“darling will you peel the veg for me please” you mum didn’t wait for an answer just pushed the peeler into your hands along with a bowl of washed vegetables. “and clean strokes Y/N, don’t attack it like a rabid dog”

“Sure” you got the word out around gritted teeth and snatched a carrot from the bowl. Obviously you were attacking it because soon after your mum grabbed the carrot snatching it from your hands in horror.

“Y/N”

“You said peel it”

“Yes peel, not chunk. Honestly”

Alright, that was it, you were done. Almost hurling the peeler back to the counter, you spun on your heel and stormed out of the mess room.

You’d gone to the locker rooms, sat on the bench in front of the lockers therapeutically letting your feet swing into the metal with a satisfying thump.

“Babe?” Kelly came carefully into the locker room, sitting down beside you his arm going around your shoulders. “what’s going on?”

“I can’t deal with her being here Kelly” you let your boots kick once a lot harder into the lockers. “Mum needs to be at home in that sphere and my life, you, my apartment everything else needs to be separate”

“I think most people feel like that about their parents”

“Helpful, Kelly. Very fucking helpful”

“Hey” he used his spare hand to take hold of your chin forcing your face around to look at him. “She isn’t here for long and in the meantime, she’s your mother.”

“So what, deal?”

“Yeah babe, you deal”

“What good advice Kelly”

You both jumped apart like guilty teenagers at your mums voice coming from the doorway. Her arms were crossed over her chest as she looked between the two of you. You’d never seen Kelly move so fast as he did then, lurching off the bench and going for the door. Your mum didn’t move though blocking his exit.

“Kelly Severide, sit down”

“I um… but…”

“Sit”

“Yes Ma’am” Kelly came back to sit beside you as your mum finally moved from the doorway to stand in front of the two of you.

“Y/N, you may technically be an adult, but you’re still my child. I'm sorry if that upsets you, I am never going to stop being your mother though and this is simply how I am”

“It doesn’t upset me” you felt like an ungrateful ass now. You knew your mum hated the city and yet still she came, still she wanted to see you. “I'm happy you’re here”

“Good, now…” she trailed off staring at the two of you.

“Mum?”

“This needs to stop”

“What?”

“Me pretending I don’t know about you two and you” she turned narrowed eyes on Kelly. “Is my daughter somehow not good enough for you to admit to dating?”

Kelly coughed and squirmed uncomfortably, looking at you for obvious rescue, you just shrugged though. “Don’t look at me, I can’t help”

“No Ma’am of course not”

“Do you love her?” your mum continued; she could be relentless when she was focused onto something. When Kelly remained silent, her hands went to her hips. “Well?”

“Yes alright” Kelly jumped to his feet. “Yes! I love her, I love your daughter”

“Well good” your mum then turned her interrogation to you even though you were fairly in shock from Kelly’s sudden declaration of love. “and you Y/N, why did you think you had to hide this from me?”

“I… um…” Kelly sat back down and took your hand in his own linking your fingers together. It gave you the strength to keep talking. “When dad left, you broke Mum. Ever since then you’ve had this vendetta against men. I didn’t want to hurt you”

Your mum stayed quiet for a minute before reaching out and pulling you to your feet severing your connection to Kelly. She wrapped her arms around you. “You don’t have to protect me sweetheart. I'm your mum. I want you to be happy, it’s all I’ve ever wanted” She kissed your cheek “Now, I have some food to cook” and with a final look at both of you she left the locker room.

Turning around so you could lean against the lockers you caught Kelly’s eye. “Hell of a way to tell me you love me?”

He shrugged standing up and catching hold of your waist, he pulled you off the lockers and into his chest instead. “the truth is the truth”

“I love you too”

Kelly’s lips claimed your own in a kiss that made everything but him flee your mind.

“Now, come on. I want to see what kind of food I can scrounge”

Laughing at that you let him take your hand and pull you out of the locker room again.  

 *****

@lifesaclimb-buttheviewisgreat​  @lclb13 @moli1497​   @clementines-x​ @the-chosen-one-time-lord​ @no-other-names-availible-blog​ @angelaiswriting​ @selldraug​ @angryares​ @thenovarose​ @georgiagrl1990​ @punk-rock-5-sos @mindofthescattered​  @dontstopxx​ @iamabeautifulperson18​ @madelinecraig03​ @ka-x-in​ @im-hurric4ne @mesmericbell​ @something–awesome @weirdpotato-14​ @putinontheritzz​ @soulslaststand​ @fuckthatfeeling​  @ember1201​ @morganlb23​ @kitkatbadass @tomhopperarms​  @fakingintrest​ @artprincessbree​  @dreamer-lover-laughter​ @artprincessbree​ @rime-warrior​ @captainvaneswife​ @jaib2-blog @kapolisradomthoughts​ @thingsandstuffienjoy​ @letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked​ @aya-fay​  @itsbubbaog​ @hp-hogwartsexpress​ @emmykinzs​ @thatbadassunicorn​ @sassywingednightmare​ @weirdnewbie​ @goyawriter​ @shipperfangirling​ @nathaliabakes​ @stillreadingfantasy @waywardblueshun

[ayatosmlktea]

Trigger warning: mentions of date rape

𝑴𝒆𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝑻𝒐 𝑩𝒆: 𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒕 2

Part 1

Y/N had fully meant it when she had said that she was going to look for her own place at the time but as the weeks went by and depression got the best of her she had ended up staying at Hanji’s for longer than anticipated. Not that the brunette minded, her best friend was in need of something-someone to keep her grounded during this dark time in her life, especially when she was pregnant.

Levi was relentless in trying to get in contact with Y/N, he called her, left voicemails, countless text messages and had even shown up at Hanji’s apartment one night. She had only heard his voice begging the brunette to let him in, and the sound of his voice only further broke her heart. Her knees were drawn up to her chest as she hid her face in her arms trying not to make any sound as she sobbed on the floor of the bathroom listening to Hanji deny his request to see his former lover.

In summary, Y/N was a mess, showering required more effort than it ever had, work was torturously long and her performance was beginning to slack. The only times she would eat would be when Hanji physically dragged her out of bed scolding her for neglecting the tiny life dependent on her for survival. In the end she had decided to go through with the pregnancy, although she wasn’t sure why. The bump on her stomach went from being non-existent to protruding slightly which made her look constantly bloated.

They hadn’t spoken or seen each other for the past month and while she was still angry and hurt her heart longed for Levi. The years they had spent together, the memories they’d made and the feelings she had developed for him wasn’t something that was going to disappear any time soon it seemed.

During the day she could play off her feelings, acting like she wasn’t screaming with rage and pain on the inside. But at night when she was alone with nothing but her thoughts she cried until she couldn’t cry anymore while clutching her stomach and yearning for a future that would never be. Hanji never let on that she heard the heartbroken sobs muffled by the door but she did. This mess was tearing apart two people she cared for dearly and made up her mind to do something about it even if Y/N wouldn’t like it.

The next morning the apartment was far too quiet for her liking, normally she’d hear Hanji making a bunch of noise as she rushed around the house getting ready for work or to meet up with her lab assistant Moblit on the weekends.

Figuring that she must’ve left while she had still been asleep she makes her way to the kitchen to start the kettle for tea. She lets out a yawn and stretches her arms over her head but stops dead in her tracks when she sees Levi and Hanji sitting at the kitchen island. Her eyes dart over to Hanji’s and then back again to Levi who’s attention was focused solely on the tiny bump uncovered by her sleep wear.

“Why is he here? I don’t care what he has to say.” She growls clenching her jaw so hard her teeth hurt. Her brunette friend walks around to her cautiously, it was obvious they had been waiting for to to wake up as she notes that Hanji was dressed and ready to leave.

“Please Y/N just listen to him, you don’t have to make any decisions today but just hear him out.” Y/N scoffs but says nothing, feeling slightly betrayed by the fact that she had been cornered into being in the same room as her cheating ex fiancé. Her whole body remains tense as the door closes leaving the two of them alone. She wills herself not to look at him, fearing that if she did she wouldn’t be able to hold back the floodgates of tears that were sure to come. Neither of them says anything for a few minutes, the tension in the air so thick it felt suffocating. The sound of his chair scraping against the floor makes her jump in surprise as she notices that Levi is moving to stand in front of her. Still not looking at him she steps back, missing the look of utter hurt on his face at how cold she had become.

“Y/N I’m so sorry.” His voice is barely louder than a whisper and she balls her fists tighter digging her nails into her palm to keep from punching him. “I never slept with Jess, at least not on purpose.” She laughs harshly at his pathetic excuse of trying to lesson the blow of his actions.

“Yeah I’m sure, I accidentally sleep with people all the time Levi.” He flinches at the venom lacing the tone of her voice when she spits out his name. Deciding that beating around the bush wasn’t going to help he takes a deep breath and tells her everything.

“Erwin and Mike dragged me out for drinks that night to celebrate you coming back. Jess was at the bar too but I didn’t notice her until Mike and Erwin left and she showed up next to me. Obviously I told her to fuck off. She started spewing some bullshit about how we were meant to be together and that you were going to meet some guy in Korea and leave me.” She can’t help but snort at the ridiculousness of that statement. From what Levi had told her about his previous relationship with her, Jess was manipulative and obviously had no idea of what a healthy relationship was supposed to look like.

“Anyway, while I wasn’t paying attention she drugged my drink. I don’t even remember leaving the bar.” He mutters in disgust balling his fists at his side. She looks up at him in shock, her lips slightly parted. “The morning after you left I called the cops on her and went straight to the hospital. The doctors confirmed that she drugged me from the results of my test.” Y/N feels her heart drop to her stomach in horror and disgust and for the first time she notices how awful he looked. His skin was paler than usual making the dark circles under his eyes even more prominent. He looked a little thinner too, his hair was a mess- something that was uncommon for someone so tidy.

“I feel disgusted that I can’t even remember what happened that night. I betrayed your trust and because of me our relationship fell apart.” She sees tears sliding down his cheeks and it breaks her resolve. This entire time she had been blaming him for something that wasn’t his fault and to see him beating himself up over it so harshly because of her tore her apart. She rushes forward and buries her head in his chest feeling her own tears soaking into his shirt. Out of habit his arms wrap around her, pressing her body as close to his as physically possible.

“I would never cheat on you Y/N. I love you so much. I’m so sorry I put you through this.” He chokes out.

“I’m such an idiot, it’s not your fault Levi. You had no control over the situation, I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you before.” Y/N sobs into his chest feeling guilty that she had prolonged his self-deprecating thoughts. Desperate to feel his touch after being apart for a month she grips his face in both her hands and pulls him down into an apologetic yet passionate kiss. He groans against her lips, savouring the feeling of finally being able to touch her again as his arms slide down to her hips. He backs her up against the counter as they claw at each other relentlessly, her hands moving upwards to grip his hair and his fingers dig her skin harder to bring her closer. They pull away when the need for oxygen becomes too much, their foreheads leaning against each other as they pant heavily trying to catch their breath. Levi’s hands move from her hips the cover her stomach.

“You’re pregnant?” He asks quietly, looking into her eyes.

“Yeah. I wanted to tell you when I got back but...things happened.” She sighs feeling horrible at what he had gone through, knowing the kind of person Jess was she should’ve known that she would take desperate measures to win Levi back.

“It’s not your fault love, she staged it well. Anyone would have reacted the way you did, I just want to move past this and focus on rebuilding our family, if you still want to be together.” He whispers against her skin rubbing small circles on her back.

“Of course I do! I missed you so much.” Y/N clings to Levi’s shirt like it’s the only thing anchoring her to the ground. He releases a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and feels a huge weight lifted off his chest.

“I missed you too love. Let’s go to bed now, you look like shit.” He kisses her forehead before guiding her back to the bedroom.

“You’re one to talk.” She retorts playfully, her heart pounding with emotions at finally having her Levi back. For the first time in weeks the two of them had fallen asleep peacefully.

It would be difficult for them to move past but time and their unconditional love for each other would heal their wounds.

Shortly after getting back together they made the mutual decision to move out of their house and began looking for a new one. Deciding that it would be better to leave those dark memories behind and make new ones with their growing baby girl in a fresh environment. Hanji had cried when they’d asked her to be their baby’s godmother, after all she was the reason they were a family again. To say that neither of them had come out of this unscathed would be an understatement, there were times that both of them felt angry at the other and after one particularly nasty fight they had realized that they both needed to seek professional help not only for themselves, but to provide the best care they could for their daughter.

They weren’t perfect but Y/N was forever grateful that she had decided to keep the baby, she was the perfect mixture of them.

“You did so well love, she’s beautiful.” Levi murmurs as he places a gentle kiss on her sweaty forehead. He hadn’t thought that he would have cried at seeing his baby girl for the first time but a few tears had managed to escape as he held her for the first time. Later that night after they had taken Lea to the nursery and Y/N had fallen asleep from exhaustion, he had sneaked into bed with her. Holding her against his chest and stroking her hair unconsciously he made a silent promise to his family. He would do his best to prove to Y/N that no matter what happened, they were meant to be.

Masterlist

[drblueneck]

Massive Genderbent AU - Rookie 9 edition

Ok. I should really NOT be writing that, but that little shit of a story wouldn’t leave me alone and I couldn’t focus on my studies and I was going CRAZY. So, here. It’s written. NOW LEAVE ME ALONE BRAIN, LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!! I decided to post it, because I want people to enjoy the beauty of genderbender. This will turn into a fullfledged story. Maybe. Probably. Certainly. But not right now. Because I don’t have time. I NEED TIIIIMMMME.

As spring was in full bloom, it was time for Hideo-sensei - Head of the Academy - to peruse the new application forms for the upcoming year. Going through each of them and smiling at the familiar clan names, he took him a moment to notice the higher than normal percentage of girls being enrolled. As he took a closer look, his surprise went up a notch. The heirs of the most prominent ninja clans were to be in the same year class, and all but two were females. It had been a long time since such a thing happened! Hideo-sensei idly wondered if the girls would be up to par with the boys, and winced at the ludicrous idea of Genin teams made up mostly of kunoichi - their strength would never amount to that of their male counterparts, science said so. Or, well, science said so before Tsunade-sama gave it the finger... Hideo-sensei shook his head and snorted. Frankly, what were the chances for all these girls to end up like the legendary Sannin? Prodigies were a fluke, not the norm.

With a rueful sigh, he closed the files and signed them, already mourning for this future batch of Genin who would more likely than not bring down their forces’ strength for months, if not years - that is, if they ever graduated instead of mooning over boys like so many were wont to do in their debute... Hopefully, these kunoichi would have a wake-up call sooner than later!

Years later, looking back on this biased oversight, Hideo-sensei would berate himself for dismissing so easily what Konoha saw as its new rising stars and the best ninja of their generation.

  Shikaku stared at his ranting kid from where he was sitting under the shade of the great oak in their backyard, ears used to relentless tirades after years of mariage to his dear banshee of a wife. He loved her, really, he did, but damn if that troublesome woman didn’t turn him half-deaf in the first two months of their marital life. It’s without shame that Shikaku would readily admit to having prayed for his kid to turn out like him - lazy and fond of long stretches of silence. The Nara genes were usually strong, to the dismal of those who married into the clan, but it looked like Yoshino’s were as stubborn as her!

Troublesome woman indeed, Shikaku thought with fondness as his daughter finished her rant about ‘not being a kid anymore’ and thus demanding to be ‘trained as a real kunoichi to kick butts’. Maybe he stayed quiet for too long because she started tapping her tiny foot on the grassy ground, arms crossed as she dished out her best glare, and all that was done in a perfect imitation of her mother - and it only made her father want to laugh and squeeze her in a hug.

Which he did.

“Daaad! I’m serious!” Shikaru wailed, tugging harshly at her father’s spiky ponytail to punctuate her words.

“Yes you are,” he cooed, rubbing his scratchy beard against her chubby cheek.

“I wanna leaaarn!” She wailed again, squirming in his grasp and trying to escape his beard, struggling not to laugh and keep up her angry pout. It tickled!

Trapping her into his arms, Shikaku let himself fall down on his back, adjusting comfortably his neck so that he could watch the fluffy clouds go by.

“Maa, why couldn’t you be a lazy one just like your dad, hm?”

The child instantly stopped her useless squirming and with fire burning fiercely in her brown eyes, she hissed like an angry cat, “Cause I’m gonna beat Inoshi! He made Chou cry!”

Aaah, right. The first time he and his teammate decided to officially introduce their kids to each other when they were four, Inoichi’s boy - who lacked a brain to mouth filter - had taken one look at Chouza’s girl and pointed at her before saying with all the innocence of the world, “Daddy, look, she’s fat.” The poor Chouko had bursted into tears and clung to her father the whole day while Shikaru, true to her name, spent a good ten minutes scolding the boy before launching herself into a philosophical pamphlet of sorts on the serious issue of body image within the shinobi world. Inoshi had gaped at her, a bit pale, before hunching his shoulders and muttering a bit too belligerently, “Well, you’re definitely not cute...”

Inoichi had confided that to this day, his son still obsessively kept his hair short, traumatised by Shikaru gripping on his tiny ponytail so hard that she tore out a big clump of fine blond hair. Another of her mother’s bad habits... It was a good thing Shikaku got so used to the rough treatment that it felt like his head was made of steel, otherwise, between his two troublesome girls, he would’ve turned bald yeard ago!

Anyway, all that had been a year ago, and Shikaku had to marvel at his daughter’s ability to hold a grudge.

He hummed under his breath at another of his daughter’s whine about ‘stupid boys’ and wanting to train.

“Then you’ll be happy to know that you start the Academy next month,” he said, nonchalant, happy to stare at the powdery blue sky with the light weight of his kid securely held against his chest. Said kid abruptly sat up, pushing a bony knee into his ribs and he ‘oofed’. Kids... so uncaring...

“Really?!” she cried out as she bounced on his stomach, her almond-shaped eyes almost glittering with stars.

“Really.”

Shikaru dropped back down against him, squeezing her skinny arms around his neck with all her strength - and Shikaku was proud to say that it was actually a lot - as she smothered her excited ‘”thank yous” into his shirt, her feet kicking out in a show of unrestraint happiness and narrowly missing his jewels.

Inoshi was going down. Ha!

  It had been a long time since a masculine presence had been felt in the Inuzuka household. From as far as she could remember, Kiku had always been surrendered solely by her mom and sister and their dogs, with the occasional clansmen dropping by to check in with their Head. And if asked, Kiku would tell you that her mom was badass.

Once, she had asked where her father was and mom bristled and waved a fist in the air. “Who needs that pussy when you got me, huh?” Hana later told her that dad had left them because mom scared him. Tch, mom was right, what a scaredy-cat! Inuzuka women were the bomb!

And Kiku wanted to be just like her mother.

It actually amused Tsume greatly to see her youngest daughter following her everywhere like a lost puppy, even when she went to work in the Jounin HQ or meeting with members of the Council for clan matters. Kiku would closely watch her every move and copy them – sitting with an arm thrown on the back of a chair, legs slightly splayed out or crossed at the ankles; fingers drumming on the table when she wanted to fuck with uptight people like Hiashi or Fugaku; lips turning into a snarl when she wasn’t happy… Yep, her daughter was cute as a button in her mom-worship antics.

Tsume actually thought it was all just a phase and that her childish wonder would soon fade out, but Kiku never stopped praising her mom with starry eyes, asking stories of her missions, and more recently, pleading to start her training in the shinobi arts like Hana. She had already given Akamaru to her a few weeks ago, wanting her to acclimate herself to her life-partner, but Tsume had wanted to leave the shinobi training for a bit later to make sure the dog would be able to follow… So what to do, what to do?

Sighing over her dilemma, Tsume entered Shikaku’s office and dropped her latest report on his desk, not feeling one bit sympathetic as he groaned while glaring at the pile of reports that would soon turn into a tower. Usually, he had to hunt down his Jounin to get their reports on time, but strangely these past few days, they’d all been quite eager – gleeful even! – to complete their administrative duties…

Tsume shot him a mean smirk. “Serves you right for ditching us last week with the new recruits,” she said snidely, still peeved that heir commanding officer had disappeared for a whole afternoon and let the more seasoned shinobi drill the baby Jounin. Shikaku was way too good at hiding from them, the sneaky bastard.

“God, I’m surrounded by nagging women,” the man groaned, signing the papers he was reading with a flourish and attacking a new batch.

“Beats being surrounded by whiny men,” was Tsume’s quick retort.

Shikaku shrugged and stretched his arms, which Tsume took as her dismissal. All too happy to leave the Jounin Commander to his own suffering, she skipped to the door with a bounce to her step, only to reluctantly stop when Shikaku called out her name.

“What.” She was a busy woman, dammit.

He smiled apologetically before asking, “I was just wondering if you were putting your daughter into the Academy this year? Mine is going, and I’d be more at ease if some of the kids she knows were to attend too… Shikaru really needs to up her social game,” he added thoughtfully.

God, that man could be such a mother-hen sometimes! Tsume wondered if he would’ve been this dotting had he had a boy as laidback as him… Probably not.

“I’ve put in Kiku’s application but didn’t tell her anything yet. You know how my clan likes to keep the kids as long as possible and teach them at home before sending the little brats to schools, what with our dogs needing proper training too…”

Shikaku nodded. Many clans were like Tsume’s, enrolling the kids only for the last two or three years of the Academy as they preferred – or simply needed in some cases – to train their kekkai genkai first and foremost before even thinking about formal schooling.

“Well, if your girl is anything like you, she’s going to take to shinobi training like a fish to water,” he said in a smile, complimenting his Jounin’s ruthless efficiency on the field, and Tsume grinned back, showing her sharp teeth.

Maybe sending Kiku earlier than expected would actually be a good thing. Her girl was driven after all!

“She’s been bugging me about training her for weeks now. I think she’s ready to commit,” she mused outloud in a prideful tone.

With a wave of the hand, she turned around and leisurely walked out Shikaku’s office while calling out, “My girl’s totally gonna make you turn prematurely grey when she’ll be under your command, Nara!”

Chuckling at the muttered “troublesome” that her enhanced hearing caught, Tsume made her way back home, the grin never leaving her face. Damn right, her Kiku was going to become a kickass kunoichi!

(Shikaru means “to scold” which I found hilarious. Inoshi comes from inoshishi which means boar, Kiku means chrysanthemum because I just wanted to have some coherency between her sister and her, and Chouko means butterfly child, which is cute af. Next one should’ve Female!Sasuke, Male!Hinata, and I’m gonna have so much fun.)

[sometimesimawriter]

The Day He Died (pt 1)

Hey everyone! This is my first imagine: basically you were a late addition to the Academy and you control blood! Pretty cool! Lots of mentions of Ben and switches from past to present back to past. You talk about how you met the academy and what happens leading up to the reunion of the Academy. Let me know if you like it and feel free to reblog it, or don't read it- whatever.

Warning: description of blood; minor language

You first came across the Umbrella Academy when you were 16. Your (step)father was a high-ranking politician, a US Ambassador, who married your mother, a famed social justice fighter. Together, they made a great team that aimed to change the world, and you as their prodigy. So, it was at this boring, A-list, political "party" you came across the Umbrella Academy. The party itself was impressive. A large ballroom with giant, shiny, crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling. A pianist struck away at some chords, filling the room with a sweet melody that blended beautifully with the roar of chatter from the hundred or so politicians that flouted about the room. Men were dressed in their finest of suits, eager to shake one another's hands. Women wore elegant dresses that fluttered as they walked. Their earrings reflected the bright light of the paparazzi's cameras. Gentle laughter floated through the air and voices overlapped one another. It kind of sounded like the relentless crashing of waves along the shore. You were sitting on a decorative, high backed leather chair, that stuck to the royal blue silk of your ball gown dress. Your mother forced you to dress your finest at these events, saying that one day "you'll be a professional in this field, Y/N!" Your father insisted that you left your phone at home, saying it was "unprofessional" and you had to "socialize", and so you were people-watching.

So far, you had seen some senator walk in with his wife and leave with his mistress, a really old Democratic presidential nominee get very drunk over two shots of whiskey, and a Republican House Representative make fun of a Democratic Representative's ugly yellow blouse. Really professional. What an exciting life these people led, one that you wished never to be a part of.

But you scanned the room one more time and noticed a group of kids around your age walk in, following a man that seemed old as dirt, who was wearing a monocle.

Who the hell wore monocles anymore?

Five kids walked behind him in a single line, each wearing what looked like a school uniform, along with a mask that hid their eyes.

The paparazzi left their respective scandal of the night and swarmed the school children. Cameras clicked away and the flashes looked like fireworks had erupted around the mysterious group.

What really peaked your interest was all the major political heads came rushing over to shake Monocle Man's hand.

"You know who they are, right?"

You jumped a bit and looked over to the only other guy around your age here. Jackson was 18, but he acted more or less like a 40 year old. His brown hair was always shaved to a militant buzz cut, but he was fairly attractive- all cut features and soft brown eyes, and he towered over you. If you two weren't so close, you'd call him cute. You two met years ago when your parents decided you were old enough to attend events with them. Jackson had three years under his wings by the time you joined him, but he was ecstatic to have another kid there with him. Together, you two grew up, surrounded by press conferences, political affairs and bombshells, and both experienced what little of a normal childhood you could have.

Back to the present.

"No, but it looks like the Speaker of the House is about to start squealing like a little girl."

Whoever these guys were, they attracted lots of attention. All eyes in the room looked at them and the journalists swarmed them, snapping pictures at every angle.

"That is the Umbrella Academy," Jackson said, flourishing his arms.

You gave him a blank look. "That's a comic book, Jack."

He clenched his jaw at the nickname. He hated it, so you used it to tease him.

"It's not just a comic book. All those kids were born on October 1st, and get this- their mothers weren't pregnant before they gave birth. Total mystery."

"It's total bullshit. That's not possible."

You looked over to the kids again. They seemed to be around your age. October 1st was your birthday as well, and you never knew your biological father, but that was all coincidence.

You felt Jackson nudge your leg. "I think one of them noticed you."

You looked closer and saw one of the kids, a boy with messy black hair, was staring at you. Well, it looked like he was. You couldn't really tell with the mask covering their eyes. What a weird thing.

"You should say hi."

You looked back up at Jackson. "Why would I do that?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Dunno. Make some friends. You cling to me way too much anyway."

"I do not!"

He gave you a bland look. "You haven't spoken to anyone else here."

"Because they're all old and political and boring."

He smirked a bit. "I'm glad you think that." He grabbed you arm, lifting you up. "Come on, lets go make friends."

Jackson dragged you across the room towards the Academy kids. He stopped ever so often to shake hands with a senator or stop to playfully flirt with some old governor's wife. Gross.

Eventually, you both made it to the other side of the venue. Before Jackson pulled you over to the group, he turned and faced you.

"For President's sake, fix yourself."

He fussed with your hair, patting down the strays, and pulled your dress down a bit to flatten out the wrinkles.

"There. Presentable."

Again, he ushered you over to the Umbrella Academy. Jackson approached the tall, blond guy first and playfully tapped his shoulder. The blond turned around and his impressive stature made Jackson look tiny.

Jackson extended his hand. "Hello! My name is Jackson Henderson. This is my acquaintance (Y/N) (Y/L/N). We wanted to formally meet you all!"

The blond smiled a bit, and quietly said hello, then turned back to the curly haired girl he was previously talking to. She was utterly gorgeous and she made her uniform look fashionable. You were a little jealous.

You saw her huff at the blond and she moved past him, extending her hand towards you.

"Hi Jackson and Y/N, my name is Number Three, but you can call me Allison."

I shook her hand. And she continued.

She jabbed her thumb towards the guy, "This is Number One, but we call him Luther."

"It's a pleasure to meet you."

She moved down the line.

"This is Number Two, or Diego."

He intrigued you. He was around your height and he was your age, but the scar on the right side of his head and his eyes made him seem way older. Like an old soul. Diego said nothing and just nodded at you. You returned a small smile.

"This is Number Six, Ben."

Ben seemed very timid, raising a hand to you in a small gesture. He kept his chin tucked and shied away. The poor kid was probably freaked out by this boring political party, you thought.

A boy with the ruffled black hair ran up and flung his arms around Ben's shoulders. Ben winced at the touch.

"Who's this, Benny Boy?" He asked.

You extended a hand to him, putting on your diplomatic face. "My name is (Y/N) (Y/L/N). And yours?"

He released Ben and looked you up and down. His eyes settled at your hand and he shook it. "Name's Number Four, but please, call me Klaus." He bowed his head towards you, unable to conceal his grin. "It would be an honor to know you." He put on a fake British accent, his tongue rolling with the words.

He was funny. You liked that.

Klaus's goofy smile quickly faded as he looked behind you. A cold hand clasped itself over your shoulder. It turned you around and you were face to face with the man with the monocle. He looked angry- unless that was just his neutral face- and his eyes studied you.

Your father popped out from behind him, all cheery and kind like he normally was.

"Y/N! So happy you decided to join the party! This is Sir Reginald Hargreeves, and Sir this is my daughter: Y/N!"

Hargreeves continued to stare at you, his hand tightening around your shoulder.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir. Now please, you are beginning to hurt my arm." You nodded your head towards his grip. You hated unsolicited contact.

Your father's mouth gaped at you. You could just hear him bitching at you in the car later:

Be nice. Be friendly.

His cold hand slowly released you. "Your father has told me much about you. Your birthday and lack of resemblance to him is remarkable."

What?

You glanced towards Jackson and he shrugged. This dude was weird.

Hargreeves continued, "I think it would be beneficial if you returned to the Academy with my children and I."

You stepped back from him, shocked. "Excuse me?"

He began to repeat himself, "I said, I believe-"

He was cut off short by the ringing of a loud bang, like a giant balloon had popped. The chatter in the room stopped and you frantically looked around the room. Everyone stood still, wide eyed.

Then, a second shot. You heard a woman scream and people began to run. You tried to take a step forward, but something felt hot on your stomach.

You looked down and saw the front of your blue dress begin to turn black with blood. Your father pushed Hargreeves to the side and grabbed you, lowering you to the ground. His hands pressed into your stomach and he was yelling something, but the ringing in your ears drowned him out.

Jackson appeared above you, concern drenching his face.

Your head lolled to the side a bit and you saw Hargreeves staring down at you, as if he were studying you, and he calms adjusted his monocle.

What the fuck was he looking at?

Anger pierced through the fear. Your father tugged your head back towards him. His eyes were pleading, and you reached up to him.

Before you could reach his face, he was thrown to his side. Your head slammed against the floor from being dropped, and through your daze, you lifted yourself up a bit. Jackson sat on his ass, staring at your father, who lied in a puddle of his own blood that was seeping through the white of his suit, eyes fixated on nothingness.

No no no no. This wasn't happening.

Panic flooded through your veins. Jackson pushed you back down onto the floor, his body pressing down on yours. He yelled into your ear.

"Stay down!"

Life was going by in a blur.

Jackson suddenly was off of you, landing a few feet away.

A man in a mask stared down at you. The lower portion of his face was covered by something that looked like a skeletons mouth, all teeth poised in an eternal smile.

He held a military grade gun and pointed it down at you. You stared down the barrel, remembering a similar gun that hung on the wall of one of your father's business associate's office. Time felt like it slowed down. The chaos in the room subsided, and all that was left was the barrel of the gun, the man in the mask, and the blood surrounding you. Who would have known your final moments would be so tragic? A politicians daughter, who died in a dress she hated, at a party she hated, but died next her father whom she loved. You closed your eyes, and an image of your father's puddling blood appeared in your mind. So much blood. So much...blood.

Why hadn't he pulled the trigger?

You opened your eyes and the man still stood above you, shaking violently. Whenever he shuddered, it felt like some ripple of it went through you. So you embraced the ripples, like it was natural. The ripples crescendoed into waves, and the man shook even more violently. Blood began to drip from his nose. Then his eyes. And finally, through red tears, he looked down at you and red dripped through the skeleton teeth of his mask. He finally collapsed, the gun clattering next to your head. The waves came to a halt, and the pain you should have felt earlier came crashing down on you like a tsunami. Your stomach was on fire, but the rest of you was cold. Screams of politicians wives pierced your ears, and the glaring lights of the banquet hall grew brighter. Then, it all turned black.

You awoke the next morning. Early sunrise flooded through the slated blinds and your eyes blinked open, adjusting to the light. The bed you slept on was very soft and molded itself to your body. Silk pajamas rubbed against your skin. Perfume flooded your nostrils and you felt like you woke up in a Bath and Body Works. You tried to sit up, but pained stabbed at your stomach, forcing you back down.

"Oh don't move too much, darling. It will ruin the stitches."

You whipped your head towards the doorway of the room. A blonde woman, dressed in 1950's housewife attire, stood there. Her red lips turned upwards into a dazzling smile and sweetness and kindness emanated from her. She took a step into the room, her heels clicking off the wood floor. You tried again to prop yourself up on your elbows, but the woman moved to your side and propped pillows behind you.

She brightly smiled again and patted your head.

"My name is Grace, but feel free to call me Mom, all of my children do."

You were still dazed from sleep. Did she just offer for you to call her "mom"?

"I apologize, but where am I?"

She clicked her tongue in a playful way.

"You are at the Academy, home, whatever you would like to call it. I don't believe I got your name?"

"My name is Y/N Y/L/N. Why am I here? What happened?"

She sat on the bed next to your legs and crossed her legs. She then clasped her hands together above her knee.

"Oh darling, there was an accident at that party you were at last night. Some bad men came in and hurt you and some others. The other children fought off a bunch of them, but from what I hear, you have some abilities! Yay!"

Her cheeriness was soothing, yet something didn't sit well with you.

"Abilities? What does that-"

You cut yourself off. An image raced through your mind. Your father. The blood. The man. The man's blood. The gun. Jackson.

"My father- is he okay? Where is he?"

[chalantness]

our sins are sweeter than sugar – day four

(for my smut fest calendar)

Ship: Bucky/Wanda Rating: NC-17 Word Count: ~2200 Kinks: spanking, mirror sex

Read on: [ ao3 ]

“Wanda?”

She flinches when she hears a gentle knock, feels a warmth spread over her cheeks as James eases the bathroom door open, which is ridiculous. She’s being ridiculous and she knows it, and it makes her blush a little brighter, somehow, as James catches her gaze in the reflection of the mirror.

“Having trouble in here?” he teases, sliding his hands over her hips as he comes up from behind her, kissing the top of her hair. She hums, leaning back against his chest, her head resting on his shoulder as she folds her arms across her stomach. Across the marks stretching over her skin – fading, almost entirely gone, and something you wouldn’t notice if you didn’t know where to look – but still there. It’s not as if she can forget. She sees them every morning in the mirror and every night, when James peels back her silk slip, kissing every inch of those scars with such adoration that it makes her breath catch, makes her body tremble. She’s never felt self-conscious about them before and she doesn’t want to start now.

Still. Her bikini feels a little too small right now, despite how perfect it felt when she tried it on. A little too revealing, even though that had been the entire point.

She hates being so ridiculous.

“Doll,” James says, his voice low and his breath warm against her ear as he gently wraps his hands around her wrists. She tips her head forward, catching his stare in the mirror as he slowly pulls her arms away, holding them at her sides. His lips curve, smiling that dimpled smile of his as his eyes take in every curve, every inch of exposed skin. “There are you.”

“Stop,” she says with a laugh, only half-heartedly trying to squirm free, but he squeezes onto her a little tighter as his smile widens, as his eyes darken. “James.”

“What?” His question sounds perfectly innocent even as his hands slide over her hips again, giving a gentle, playful, promising tug to the knots holding her bikini in place. Her heart skips, a warmth shooting down her spine, unraveling low in her stomach. She feels tingly and giddy from a simple touch, a teasing smile, and she can’t help the soft giggle that bursts from her lips because of it. They’ve been married for four years; they have a daughter together. There’s not one part of her that he hasn’t touched, that he hasn’t memorized like the back of his hand, yet all it takes is that boyish, dimpled smile of his and a gentle brush of his fingertips and she feels the same burst of warmth as the very first time he said her name.

“Our daughter is waiting for us,” Wanda points out as his lips trail over the curve of her neck, kissing her thrumming pulse. “She’s really excited to play on the beach.”

“She is,” he agrees, sucking at her skin.

Her breath hitches. He squeezes her hips. “Our friends are waiting for us.”

“They are.”

“Don’t just agree with me to distract me.” She attempts to sound stern, but her voice comes out a little too shaky, a little too happy. The cool metal of his fingertips trace the waistband of her bikini, back and forth, over and over, as his lips suck at her neck a little harder. “Stephanie—”

“Is happily distracted, being watched by all of her adoring aunts and uncles, splashing around with the other kids,” James points out, glancing up from under those ridiculously long eyelashes to meet her gaze in the reflection again. “She doesn’t even notice we’re gone.” He hooks his fingers through the knot on her left lip, slowly tugging it loose as her breaths grow heavier. The material falls away as his hand curves over her bared skin, his thumb digging into her hipbone. “And none of them will notice if we’re gone just a little bit longer.”

“Yes they will,” she breathes.

He tugs on the other knot, letting her bikini fall to the tile of the bathroom floor. Her eyelashes almost flutter closed, but she doesn’t want to break their stare. She can’t.

“Everyone is going to give us such shit for this,” he says, smirking against her shoulder.

“They are.”

His fingertips dip lower, finding the soft, wet folds of her sex, and her knees quiver ever so slightly. But she’s not afraid of falling. Not with James right behind her, letting her lean against his firm, solid weight, holding her up. “Don’t just agree with me to distract me,” he teases, stroking his fingers slowly.

“You’re the one that’s being distracting,” she says, and he chuckles, his breath warm against her skin as he brushes a kiss to her temple, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. She mewls, turning so that his lips fall on hers next in a soft, gentle pressure. She reaches up, pushing a hand into his hair and twisting it in her fingers, kissing him a little harder, a little deeper. He dips his fingers, drawing her wetness over her folds, his metal hand firmly squeezing her hip as her body trembles, vibrating with the pleasure building from her core.

“You’re not off the hook, you know,” he murmurs against her lips, his fingertips purposefully grazing her clit, making her suck in a breath.

She blinks, her mind hazy, not quite catching what he means. “What?”

He gently moves her forward, pressing her hips against the edge of the sink counter, and she gasps as she feels his hand come down on the curve of her ass. It’s hard enough for her to feel it, to feel that it’s purposeful, but not enough for it to hurt, not even a little. Her eyes dart to the mirror, finding his gaze on her, dark and twinkling.

He’s stroking over her clit now, slowly, almost lazily, and she can feel the pressure coiling and tightening at the base of her spine from the gentle, relentless pressure. He holds her stare as his hand spanks her again, twice, with just a little bit more force than before, and she feels herself blush. Oh. Oh.

He spreads his fingers over the curve of her ass, massaging her tingling skin with the pad of his thumb. “I noticed how you tried to cover yourself from me,” he whispers into her ear with a gentle pinch over her clit, making her body arch. He slides his fingers lower, teasing at her entrance as his other hand comes down on her ass again in another spank. Her body jolts, the fleeting burst of pain dissolving into humming, tingling pleasure, spreading just underneath her skin. “You’re not feeling insecure about yourself, are you?” he asks, his voice low and gravelly with his arousal. He sinks two fingers into her, thrusting slowly as his thumb presses right over her clit, and her eyelids flutter closed. “Open them, doll,” he instructs.

Exhaling a breath, she presses her hands flat against the counter and blinks her eyes open again, staring back at their reflection. Her skin is flushed all over, her lips parted, her wetness shining on the inside of her thighs.

She glances away, overwhelmed by how aroused she looks – how aroused she feels – but then he spanks her again and her eyes dart forward, obeying his silent command.

“I fucking love this body,” he tells her, his fingers moving faster, his thumb circling. She wants to roll her hips, wants to urge him to go faster, but he has her trapped between him and the edge of the counter. “So delicate and so strong at the same time,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to her temple, to the top of her hair. “Your energy has its own pulse, as strong as steel, but when I touch you you’re nothing but soft and pliant under my fingers.” As if to prove his point, his metal hand slides up her side, ghosting over her ribs to cup her breast and squeeze it. “You’re tiny, and so much more fragile than I am, but you held our daughter inside of you. You gave birth to her and made it look like it was a fucking walk in the park, too.”

He spanks her again and a laugh bursts from her lips, raspy and breathy and quivering as he drives her closer and closer to that peak.

“I should be afraid of breaking you, but I’m not.” His lips are on her neck again, kissing her pulse with every word as he says, “You’re the first thing I wasn’t afraid of breaking.”

You’re the first thing I wasn’t afraid of at all, he means, and her heart skips in her chest.

She’s known this, of course. She’s known this from the day they met. From the overwhelming and odd sense of awe and calm that had emanated from him when he’d witnessed her power for the first time. He’d reveled in its strength, realizing its danger and finding relief in it. The part of her that felt wild and untamable, that was unpredictable, was the part of her he’d fallen in love with first. So many people avoided her touch, fearing what it could do, that it may hurt them, but he was drawn in because he knew exactly what she was capable of.

Because it made him feel human again.

“James,” she breathes, feeling her legs quiver, feeling herself starting to unravel.

“I’ve got you, darling.” He kisses the column of her throat, soft and slow and sweet, his fingers quickening. “I’ve always got you.”

Her eyelids flutter closed, a soft whimper falling from her lips as his thumb finds her clit again, circling and circling and circling, and she feels her orgasm burst over her. White-hot pleasure rushes through her veins, pulling her apart, and she bites down hard on her lower lip to keep from crying out like she wants to.

Her knees give out from underneath her, but James guides her body to bend over the counter, leaning her weight against it as he draws his hand away. She whines, wanting to feel him, wanting him to touch her – but then she feels the hard length of him pressing against her wet, oversensitive folds, her lips parting in a gasp as he rubs his tip over her clit. A shiver of anticipation rolls down her spine as she lifts her head, catching his gaze in the mirror as his hands curve over her hips, squeezing them gently. Her body is still trembling with her first orgasm, yet somehow she feels a fresh burst of want unfurl in her stomach as he starts to push into her, feels the pleasure shoot through her as he stretches her oversensitive folds.

She whimpers once he’s all the way in, twists her neck and presses her cheek against the cold counter, moaning as he starts to move. It’s always so much deeper like this, so much fuller, and with her body still vibrating with the hum of her orgasm, everything feels so much more intense.

His body curves over hers, his chest pressing against her back as he groans against her skin. “Fuck,” he mutters, angling his hips and sinking in deeper. “Fuck.”

She can feel how tense he is, his muscles pulled tightly together in restraint as he tries not to thrust too hard, to move too fast. He knows she’s sensitive and he wants to give her time to catch her breath, but she doesn’t need it. She needs him, needs to feel him fall apart inside of her, needs to feel him chase his own release, and she moves her hips back in a snap as he sinks into her again, making them both moan. “More,” she breathes, knowing that he’s waiting for her permission, for her plea, before he lets himself abandon his control entirely.

She’s so consumed by sensation, by pleasure, that she can’t quite catch her breath. Can’t quite focus on anything other than how deeply James fills her.

She doesn’t know how long either of them last – seconds, minutes – but she feels herself right on that edge again, and she whimpers, her nails scratching at the counter as James slips his hand between them and finds her clit again. Her walls flutter, her spine arching, and she feels his warmth spill inside her with a long, low moan against the curve of her neck.

She whimpers, his metal hand digging into her hips as he thrusts into her once, twice, three more times, and she falls apart with gasp.

He presses his forehead against her shoulder, his breaths hot and stuttering over her skin as he kisses her there. “Think they heard us outside?” he asks after a moment, and she can hear the smirk in his voice as she giggles and lifts her head. He catches her gaze in the reflection, his eyes twinkling. She shrugs. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t really care, either. He smirks a little wider, his hand curving over her ass and giving it a gentle pinch. She bites on her lower lip, trying, and failing, not to smile too widely. “I wasn’t too rough, was I?” he asks.

She knows he’s not genuinely worried, that she likes it when it’s a little rough, when she can feel him for hours, days, after. But he still asks, and she really likes that, too.

She shakes her head, reaching back to cover his hand with hers where it’s curved over her ass. “The spanking was a surprise,” she says, one eyebrow arched.

“Good surprise?” She licks her lips, nodding, and his eyes sparkle in pure adoration. “Naughty fucking girl.”

[bazypitchandsimonsnow]

Coming Home

Rating: T

Genre: Fluff

Word count: 4326

Summary: Simon Snow arrives home from work to his messy, tired, amazing family. Based on "a nap" request.

Read on AO3

AN: So this is the request I misread. I got the number wrong and thought it was first kiss, not nap. But it's all good because I had this idea immediately and it's very fluffy and cute. I love kid fics and always looking for an excuse to write more. Enjoy!

———————————————-

Simon

When I get home, I expect to hear the oven going and Baz’s classical music playing as he cooks. He bragged this morning about trying a brand new roast beef recipe he found online. Ever since staying at home, he’s been obsessed with online cooking videos, even though he’s usually too tired to actually make them. But he was very determined this morning, shouting about it from the other room while was trying to wrestle Tasha into her overalls.

But as I enter the flat, there is zero violin music, or oven whirring, or even baby cries. Wow, this place hasn’t been quiet in eleven months. (Coincidentally the age of our daughter.) Maybe they’re out for a walk. Baz takes Tasha out a lot. He tends to get stir crazy when he’s stuck inside for too long. The trials of a stay at home dad.

“Baz?” I say, very quietly in case Tasha is asleep but just loud enough for Baz to hear. Thank Crowley for a husband with vampire hearing. There’s no answer though. Huh.

I carefully place my bag next to the entrance, then take off my shoes. As I walk down the hall, I navigate around Tasha’s many toys left strewn about. Baz says she gets her messiness from me. I always remind him that she is a baby. I bend my head around the corner into the living room, and my heart instantly melts.

No wonder Baz isn’t in the kitchen. He’s right there, sprawled out on his back on the couch with messy hair and lazy clothes. He’s sleeping very lightly if his rapid eye movement is any clue. His right arm is hanging off the edge with some thick book in it while his other is on his chest. Or more accurately, placed lightly on Tasha’s back as she sleeps on top of him. She’s dressed in that duck onesie she loves so much, laying completely still and snoring softly. She looks like an adorable little freckled bean topped with a mess of tiny black curls. And they look far too adorable for words. I can’t help put snap a picture on my phone. Looks like I’ve got a new lock screen.

I walk over and kneel near his face. I put a piece of hair behind his ear. Apparently, that’s too much, because it startles him awake instantly. He inhales sharply as his eyes fly open, all his muscles tensing. I put a soothing hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, hey,” I whisper, “it’s alright, it’s just me. Tasha’s fine.”

He runs a hand down his face. “Sorry. I was reading and I shouldn’t have fallen asleep with her like this. It’s not safe-”

“Shhh, it’s fine. You’re a light sleeper. If she had moved you would’ve felt it. Besides,” I look at the sleeping baby with a grin, “you two look really cute.”

He sighs, but I can hear his smile. “Thank you. Though I think she’s the more adorable one between the two of us.”

“Hm, I love you, but I have to agree.”

“Aw, I’m so hurt,” he deadpans. He runs a hand up and down her small back. She yawns adorably, shifting against him, flexing her tiny hand. I put my hand under it, and her fingers curl around mine. Aleister Crowley, I never knew my heart could feel so full.

“How was your day?” I ask quietly.

“Quiet,” he replies. “Tasha and I watched some Postman Pat, then we went to the park, where she attempted to eat dirt again.”

“She’s curious.”

“She’s going to get sick.”

“Then luckily her Papa is a wizard, and a very good one.”

He chuckles softly. “True, thank Merlin. Well, after stopping her from eating dirt, she played with that Tyler kid. They still get along very well. Though his mother is also still relentless in her pursuit of me.”

I sigh, instinctively placing a protective/possessive hand on his arm. “I don’t know what else we can tell her. You’ve said you’re gay, and married, and not ever leaving me. She must tune us out to stare at your face.”

“What can I say, Snow? I’m irresistible.”

“Hm, don’t I know it.” I push my nose against his neck, and revel in the sigh Baz lets out. “Did you two have fun though?”

“Yeah, definitely. We usually have fun.” He makes a strange noise, somewhere between wistful and sad. “I can’t believe I’m supposed to go back to work in a month. It’s going to be so...weird.”

“Good weird or bad weird?”

He shrugs, a habit he’s reluctantly picked up from me. “Sort of both. Of course I love being with Tasha, and I’ll worry about her non-stop when she’s not right next to me. But it’ll be nice to talk to actual adults regularly again.”

“You see me everyday. Am I not an actual adult?”

Baz, my wonderful husband, gives me a deadpan look that silently says, “what do you think?” I return a large grin and kiss his cheek. He softens immediately.

“So, no fancy roast beef tonight?”

“Ugh.” His head falls back against the throw pillow. “Yeah, that’s not happening. After the park, Tasha had lunch and passed out on me while I was reading. It was too cruel to move, obviously.”

“Obviously. Want me to whip something together while she keeps resting?”

“No, no, it’s still my turn. And Tasha’s slept the whole afternoon, she’s fine. You take the baby, I’ll make spaghetti.”

“Huh, that rhymes. You’re a poet and you didn’t even know it, love.”

“Yeah, you’re not adult.”

I glare at him, but when he kisses my cheek, I immediately soften. He carefully lifts Tasha as he sits up. She starts to wake, dark blue eyes blinking up at Baz, and I can see the moment she recognises him. I love the little smile she makes.

“Papa,” she coos, reaching out to him, pawing at his face. He grins brightly.

“Good morning, little puff,” he says softly. “You had a nice nap, didn’t you? Yes you did.”

She giggles and grabs his long nose. She’s got a thing for noses, unfortunately. Baz winces when she inevitably grips too hard. He slowly pries her hand off.

“Her strength gives mine a run for it’s money,” he says with amusement and exasperation. “Take her before she tries to rip it off again?”

“Of course.” he passes her off to me. Tasha immediately goes for my nose this time. I try to pull my face away but it’s no use.

“Dada!” she shrieks, then babbles at me in her random made up words.

“Hi, lovely girl. Missed you all day.” I bring her closer, and get a whiff of what’s obviously in her nappy. “Whoo! Someone’s stinky.”

“Ha!” Baz shouts from the kitchen. “I’ve changed two nappies today. Your turn, Snow.”

I flip him off as I pass by with Tasha on my shoulder. She’s trying to gnaw on my shirt. Teething has been a very fun time.

I carefully place Tasha on the changing table. It’s very hard to change her nappy when she keeps trying to eat her own toes. I want to be annoyed, but it’s hard when she’s looking at me with big, beautiful blue eyes.

“Yeah, you’re cute and you know it.” I lean down and blow raspberries on her stomach. She shrieks and giggles, but also grabs my hair a little too hard. I pull away slowly. “Ow, ow. Papa is right, you’re very strong, love. We’ll have to teach you to use your powers for good.”

She burbles and goes back to sucking her own toe. My mobile buzzes in my back pocket, as I’ve been waiting for it to all day. I put a hand on Tasha to keep her steady while I check.

Penelope: Talked to Micah. He’s cool with ur idea. Talked to your vamp?

Simon: Not yet. Will at supper. Check out these cuties I came home to tho <3

Simon: [sent a photo attachment]

Penelope: Awwwww tired puppies huh?

Simon: Pooped from playing at the park and fending off single mums respectively

Penelope: Lol Baz needs “gay and married” tattooed across his forehead.

Simon: Yeah I thought the wedding ring did that

Penelope: Obvs not.

Penelope: It’s midnight here so I’m off to bed. Night Simon!

Simon: Night Pen <3

I pocket my phone and go back to my self-cannibalistic daughter. She’s gnawing on her big toe quite vigorously. I sigh and carefully pull it away from her mouth.

“That’s not gonna work, sweetheart,” I say kindly.

She smiles anyway, because of course she does. Tasha is a very happy kid. I hope she stays so throughout her life, and I’ll make sure she gets the chance. Her childhood is never going to be as scary as mine. It can’t be perfect, of course, but it won’t involve any group homes or super villains or civil wars. I promised her that the day she was born. I’m not ever going to break it.

“Shitty supper is ready!” Baz shouts.

I sigh and do Tasha’s onesie back up. With her on my shoulder, I walk into the dining room to see Baz setting out plates.

“You really shouldn’t swear around her,” I say. “She’s going to pick it up.”

“She’s not even a year old. It’s fine.”

“Fuck!” Tasha chirps right on cue. I give Baz a pointed look. He goes wide eye, then clears his throat and looks down.

“Okay, maybe she’s learning,” he says reluctantly.

I walk up and kiss his ear. He flushes instantly “Of course she is. She’s smart, like her Papa.”

He scoffs, but keeps on blushing. “Smooth, Snow. C’mon, let’s eat.”

Getting Tasha into her high chair is always a production. She’s stubborn and fidgety as anything, and hates being strapped into something so she can’t move. She squirms away from me and hits my face with her small hands.

“Darling, you have to sit in your chair,” I sigh.

“No!” she yells back.

“If you want to eat, you have to sit.”

“No! No no no!”

Crowley, fighting goblins and a chimera is nothing compared to a baby with sharp fingernails. After a lot of slaps and screams and scratches, I finally wrangle her into her chair. She pouts and glares at me. (It’s scary how much she looks like Baz when she does that. She really does learn a lot from him.) I sit down with a heavy sigh. When I look at Baz, he’s smirking as he places down the plates.

“What’s so amusing, Basil?” I ask with a slight edge.

“Just watching you get a taste of your own medicine,” he says, sounding annoyingly smug.

“Oh? And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve finally met someone as stubborn as you; you’re own daughter. And it’s fu- very, hilarious.”

I roll my eyes  “Shut up, arsehole.”

“Language, Snow. For the baby’s sake.” He grins around his fork, pointing his spoon at the eleven month old currently smashing steamed carrots in her mouth.

We eat in companionable silence for awhile. It’s nice, to be quiet and let myself relax. It doesn’t last long though, as Tasha needs help to eat her food. How human babies survive truly amazes me. She only gets about a third of the vegetables and cut up meatballs actually in her mouth. Baz attempts to clean her up and fails miserably.

“There's no use in trying, love. She'll just get dirty again," I say through the spaghetti I'm currently eating.

“I can bloody well try,” he mutters. “Merlin knows I don’t want her to learn your manners.”

“Hey! Not fair!”

“You’re currently talking with your mouth full of pasta, love.”

I wish I could protest that, but I’d have to speak with my mouth full. I settle for a Baz/Tasha style glare. He smiles back. I finish my food before I speak again. I need Baz paying full attention to what I’m saying instead of my poor manners.

“So, Baz, I’ve been talking to Penny-”

“Uh-oh, that’s never good,” he says with a smirk.

I roll my eyes, just like Penny does. “Yeah, yeah, shut up. So she and Micah would really like to take some time off, and American kids are still off school at the end of the month. And since Tasha has never seen Chicago before, maybe we could all go visit them that week.”

Baz raises a brow (he’s so good at that.) “Spend a week in Chicago, huh? So are we going to be the people who bring a baby on an airplane?” He’s smirking with a playful glint in his grey eyes. Bastard. I shrug in the most sarcastic way I can.

“Well, unless you want to leave our eleven month old baby alone with someone while we’re out of the country, Mr. Overprotective, then yes.”

Baz chuckles. “I suppose a trip before I go back to work would be nice. And Bunce keeps saying she wants to see Tasha more.”

“And Tasha wants to see her!” I turn to Tasha with a big grin. “You wanna go see Auntie Penny, huh Tasha? Wanna see Auntie Penny and Uncle Micah and little Lucy and Harold?”

Tasha shrieks excitement. She jumps up and down and burbles, spraying vegetables and meat everywhere. I’m not sure she fully understands (Baz knows more about child development than me) but I like seeing her smile anyway. Even if she gets half chew green bean on my face.

“I think we’re all in agreement then,” Baz says as he flicks carrot off his cheek.

“Wonderful! I’ll text Penny tomorrow.” I lean in to Tasha, tickling her stomach. She giggles and pushes at my hands. “We’re going to Chicago, Tasha!”

Tasha claps happily, mushing more food between her fingers.

“She’s going to need a bath, huh?”.

“M-hm.” Baz starts cleaning up everyone’s plates. “I made dinner, so have fun with that.”

I sigh. Baz keeps grinning smugly. He’s such a bastard, and I love him so much. I unstrap Tasha from her high chair. “C’mon, darling, time for a bath. Let’s try not to get Daddy completely soaked this time, alright?”

She giggles and starts playing with my hair, yelling in her usual baby gibberish as she gets me just as filthy as her. I hear Baz snort from behind me. I promptly flip him off.

“Don’t do that,” I whisper to Tasha. “Not until you’re older. I’m teaching you very bad habits, aren’t I?”

“Dada,” Tasha burbles with her big baby grin. She wraps her arms around her neck, hugging me close. She likes hugging and physical affection in general. Baz says she gets it from me.

Maybe I’m teaching her bad habits, but I’m teaching her good ones too. Guess that’s parenthood.

———————————————-

“And they all lived happily ever after,” I say, closing the book. “The end.”

“Again!” Tasha yells. It’s become her favourite word. We finish playing on the swings or reading a story or watching a show, it’s always “again.” She’s just a very excitable kid.

“Sweetheart, it’s bedtime.” I lift her up from my lap and walk towards the crib. She squirms as I place her down.

“No!” And that’s her second favourite word. Baz mentioned yesterday that most babies her age usually don’t even have her limited vocabulary, so Tasha’s language is advanced. He said that with a very pleased expression.

“Yes, Tasha.”

“Noooooo!”

I sigh and leave her there to scream a bit, let her get it out of her system. But when I turn off the overhead and the night light on, she immediately stops. It projects stars and moons across the ceiling. Tasha loves it. She coos and reaches out to try to touch them. I stand over the crib, just looking at her wide, curious blue eyes. I wonder what it would be like to see through those eyes. To see everything as new and beautiful. Baz says I’m sappy. I say I’m curious, just like her.

“Night night, darling,” I whisper, kissing her forehead. “Love you.”

Tasha yawns, then her head lolls to the side. I take one last look before walking out.

Baz is sitting on our bed with his book when I enter. He doesn’t look up from it though as he doesn’t need to.

“She’s asleep?” he asks quietly.

“For now,” I reply, flopping next to him with my arm over his waist. “Knowing Tasha she’ll be up in half an hour crying for a bottle.”

“Hm, very true.” He carefully closes his book and places it on his bedside table. I have my eyes closed, but I can feel him put his arm around me. His other hand plays with my hair. He feels a bit cold like always, but I don’t mind. I run hot even without my magic. So being next to him cools me down, and I warm him up. We’re perfect for each other in that way, along with others.

“I’ve been thinking,” he whispers.

“Uh oh,” I mutter, “that’s never good.”

“I’m not plotting, Snow. I haven’t ‘plotted’ since we were teenagers.”

“No, but you tend to get lost in your big head.” I tap his forehead for emphasis. “It can get scary up there.”

He chuckles, his breath brushing against my skin. “Don’t I know it.” He holds me a bit tight and it makes me worried. “To be more specific, I’ve been thinking about my mother. What with the anniversary coming up and everything,”

My eyes fly open. Oh shit. I scoot up so we’re face to face. Baz’s face looks impassive, but I’ve been with him for over ten years, and I’ve known for even longer. I can see that it’s just an attempt to hold back the sadness and anxiety he’s feeling.

“Right. It’s next week.”

“Yes, it is,” he sighs. “It’s been awhile since the anniversary has felt this looming. But I’ve been thinking about her a lot this year. And not just because we named Tasha after her. I wonder a lot if she thought the same things about me I think about Tasha. If she’s feeling okay, if she’s healthy, if I’m messing her up too much.”

“Baz.” I hold his chin, making him look me right in the eye. “You’re not messing Tasha up, I promise.”

He chuckles and pulls my hand away, shaking his head. “No no, I probably am. Father says every parent fucks up their child. It’s just the degree that varies. Daphne concurred. My mother probably would’ve said the same thing.”

I humph, gripping his hand tightly. The metal of his wedding ring is a ressuaring feeling against my skin. “Well, I think you’re doing a wonderful job.”

His face softens, half his mouth pulled up. And I consider that a victory. “Thank you, love.”

I lean up and kiss him, because he looks so cute and I bloody well need to now. Plus I haven’t kissed him since I got home. That’s a wrong I can’t let stand. He curls his hand around my cheek, cradling me like I’m special. I suppose I am though, special to him. That thought just makes me kiss him harder. He holds my other cheek as I roll on top of him. He pushes up my shirt and I go for his trousers.

Then Tasha starts wailing.

Baz and I both pull away with heavy sighs. Penny warned us that babies destroy sex lives and we didn’t believe her. But she was right, as usual.

“I’ll get her,” he says. “You get the bottle?”

“Yeah, will do. Pick this up later?” I smirks, and he copies me.

“We’ll see. Now get off me, please.”

“As you wish.”

I roll off him (reluctantly) and scoot to the edge. One big stretch later, I’m walking down the hall with Baz. He turns off at Tasha’s room while I go to the kitchen. Heating up the bottle is easy enough. I’ve done it a lot over the past year, so it takes just five minutes. But by the time I get to Tasha’s room, Tasha is mostly calm again. Baz is rocking her back and forth in the chair. He’s softly singing some lullaby as she whimpers.

“There there,” he whispers, “you’re alright, little puff.”

She hiccups and curls into him. I walk in and sit on the chair arm, lifting the bottle up to Tasha. She drinks it happily. I place my cheek on Baz’s hair. I feel Baz’s other hand on my knee.

“Y’know,” he whispers, “I can’t help but also wonder what my mother think of us right now. What would happen if she got to meet Tasha.”

I lean a bit closer. “I know what happen.”

“Oh really? You can see other realities now, Snow?”

“No, but I can imagine. She’d be here all the time, cooing over Tasha, helping us out, giving us unsolicited parenting advice because she was as much of a know-it-all as you.” He lets out a scoffing chuckle, because he knows it’s true. “And, she’d be really proud of you. For how you’re taking care of Tasha and the life you’ve built.”

He doesn’t answer. He reaches up to Tasha’s face and fiddles with one of her small curls, wrapping it around one of his bony finger. The exact same way he’s been doing with my hair for years. It’s incredibly sweet.

“You’re doing good, Baz,” I say firmly, “don’t ever doubt that.”

“Your grammar is still atrocious at 32, Snow,” he whispers with absolutely no contempt, then kisses my cheek. “Thank you.”

“Anytime, darling.”

“I love you.”

I lean in closer, putting one hand on Baz’s and the other on Tasha’s side. I never had a family growing up, and I never thought I’d get one, yet here I am. It’s certainly what I expected, but it’s all mine. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

“I love you, too.”

———————————————-

“Good morning, Simon!” Christine chirps. “What happened to you?”

Christine doesn’t give me the courtesy of letting my eye bags and dishevelled hair go without comment. She’s not great at ignoring problems, hence why she’s a good social worker.

“Baby was up at 3am,” I sigh. “I decided to be a good husband and let Baz sleep. I’m currently paying for it.”

“Yeah, your face make me glad I don’t have kids.”

I glare while Christine keeps grinning. She holds up a cup of coffee though and I soften. Whoever has caffeine is my God right now. I take a deep drink and sigh.

“Thank you, Chrissy.”

“Welcome, Simon. How is your little hellspawn doing anyway?”

“She’s good. Almost a year old now and cute as anything. Look what I came home to last night.” I pull out my phone and press the lock button. Chrissy sighs because she's used to it. Yes, I’m that annoying person who has a hundred pictures of their kid and spouse and shows them off to my boss. And right on the lock screen are Baz and Tasha fast asleep together.

“Awwwww,” Chrissy coos, only slightly sarcastic. “What sweeties.”

“I know right? They’re adorable. Also, I gotta ask you something.” She gives me a curious look. “Can I have the last week of the month off?”

“May I ask why?”

“Well, Baz’s leave is up next month. We want to do something before he’s back at work and Tasha goes to daycare. My best friend is in Chicago, so we were thinking we’d go see her and her kids that last week.”

“Ah, I see,” Christine chuckles. “You’re sneaky, Mr. Snow-Pitch. Showing me your adorable husband and daughter to butter me up for vacation time? Diabolical.”

“Hey! That’s not-”

“Sure it wasn’t.” She flashes a knowing smile at me, even though she’s wrong. (Well, she’s half wrong.) “Lucky for you, it worked. You’ve got the last week of August off. Go see your friend and frolic with your family.”

“Thank you, Chrissy!”

She waves at me dismissively. “Yeah, yeah. Just try to wrap up most of your work before you leave. Don’t want to have to fob off too many cases on others while you’re gone.”

“Will do, don’t worry.”

I watch her go into office as I take my desk. Once she’s out of sight, I take out my phone and shoot off a quick test.

Simon: Got the time off. Book the plane tickets!

Baz: Will do.

Baz: Tasha says hi.

Baz: [sent a video attachment]

I put in one earbud and open the video. It’s of Tasha, of course. I can hear Baz’s voice from behind the camera.

“Can you say hi to Daddy, Tasha?” he says. “Come on, say hi.”

Tasha looks up, blinking at it in confusion, probably thinking; that’s not Daddy, that’s Papa holding a little black box. Soon she smiles and reaches out towards it. Her pudgy little baby fingers nearly touch the lens.

“Papa,” she says.

“No no, say ‘hi’ to Daddy. You can do it. Hi. Hi!”

“Hi!” She finally chirps. “Hi hi hi!”

Baz laughs kindly and reaches out to ruffle her hair. “There you go. Good job, sweetie.”

I watch Baz’s arm scoop up Tasha. The camera switches to the front. Baz is smiling in that way he only does around Tasha and me. It’s bright and beautiful and could probably melt ice. And he calls me the sun. Tasha is burbling in gibberish, reaching towards the camera and pulling on Baz’s hair.

“Have fun at work, love,” he says. “We’ll see you when you get home.”

The video ends, freezing on my grinning husband and baby. I take a screenshot. I need a main screen phone background too. I don’t care if some people think it’s obnoxious, I want to see my family all the time. My family. The strange amazing one I always want to come home to.

Simon: See you two later <3

———————————————-

AN: Awwwww what an adorable family. I always believe that Simon and Baz would have kids and they'd be very good parents. And their kid would be a bit of nightmare because all kids are nightmares haha.

So you guys are awesome and sent me a bunch more requests. I can't wait to get to them, but just be warned I start full time work this weekend (kill me blech) so it may take awhile. I will get to them though with my free time, and I'll keep accepting new ones until the end of August. Thanks so much for the requests though. I love getting them and writing for them :) Have an awesome day everyone!

[loki-subterfuge]

Irked

Author: lokilover9 Chapter: #20 Rating:Teen The morning following the storm, Shandi made her way to the kitchen and found a note next to the coffee maker from Loki. ‘I heard my unexpected absence yesterday, left you rather concerned. Should it reoccur, Kroshka suggested leaving you a horse tranquilizer. I opted for a note, instead. Currently, I'm inspecting the grounds for damages and forest debris from the storm. Tell me when you're ready to go. ;) Yours truly, Brat.’ She poured a bowl of Fruit Loops. “A horse tranquilizer? You're in deep doos doos, Natskies.” Loki's secret destination turned out to be a Mini Golf course and minus some amusing mishaps, the two quite enjoyed themselves. While returning to the car, he couldn't stop smirking and Shandi finally caved. “Okay, let's have it. I can tell you're ‘dying’ to comment.” “You're hilarious.” He laughed. “It was enough one ball struck the ass of a senior, then a second flew beyond the fence, but a third nearly decapitated a squirrel.” “Well..he shouldn't have sat atop the challenge marker. I thought the little twerp was part of it.” “Yes, but you were to aim the ball through it.” “Listen, I've a hard enough time seeing my feet, nevermind a tiny ball before them.” “Fair enough, but Norns you've a violent swing Lizzy. It's a good thing we weren't bowling. Imagine the carnage, then?” Before driving off, they received a call from Tony. “Hey guys. As it turns out, S.H.I.E.L.D didn't know of Shamus selling at the fair because the Antiques are owned by his son and common law wife. Their main shop is located in Jersey and ownership is under her name. With a fair happening there this weekend also, I'm guessing Shamus is selling here as a favor.” “Perfect timing.” Said Shandi. “You bet, Doll. On another note….” Shandi and Loki were elated to learn the couple were expecting. “Ahhh! Does this mean I get to play auntie? I'm going to spoil your little one, rotten!” “Maybe I'll postpone any shopping until this missions over.” Said Pepper. “Nat expressed the same.” “You must celebrate with some Asgardian Whiskey, Tin Man. Thor should still possess a few bottles.” “Not after the birthday incident.” Said Pepper. “He's forbidden to drink that, like you're forbidden to conjure him gifts, Loki.” “As you wish, Virginia.” “Yeah, see Cactus? You traumatized my girl.” The call ended and Loki chuckled. “I conjured him a blow up doll of the hulk, with breasts, a lacy bra and feathered butt plug.” Shandi rubbed her brow. “Oh my goddd. You're truly warped.” “Eh he he he.” Carters Bakery was busy when they arrived and Shandi went straight to the ladies room, in the basement. It had recently been renovated, given three new stalls, each fully private from floor to ceiling. While doing her business, she paid no mind to another who’d entered, until hearing an oddly familiar sound outside her door. “Hello? Who's there?” Footsteps quickly faded, after the entrance door closed and she carried on. Upstairs, Alice was behind the counter, aiding Mrs. Carter, Beth was working in the back and Loki patiently waited for Shandi at a two seater table. Focused on his phone, he hadn't seen Tanya enter until she purposely stood in his view. Clad with thick makeup, heavy perfume, a snug, cut off t and jeans so tight, they sported a camel toe, he thought her absurd. Especially when parking it on the opposite chair, with a sly grin. “Hello friend. Remember me?” “Can't say as I do.” He flatly replied. Her frustration due to insult, was hardly concealed behind a fake smile. “The grocery store?” “Oh..right. That seat is reserved for my wife. Would you mind?” Tanya pouted and twirled a lock of her hair. “Does she accompany you everywhere?” Loki replied, politely. “Not that it's any of your business, but I prefer it that way.” Ignoring his comment, she leaned onto the table, attempting to lure his gaze to her cleavage. “What a crime one so tantalizingly handsome would waste himself on only one.” He returned to his phone. “Your time would be better spent elsewhere. Good day.” Mrs. Carter then approached and customers lessened their chatter, when she plunked a bag down before Tanya. “These are what you came for, yes? Daddy's steak pies? Today, they're going on his tab. Now, be off.” A short, stout, woman, close in age to Alice, she carried an air of one you’d hesitate crossing, yet it was clear by her tone and demeanor, Tanya frequently indulged. With a smug glare, the young woman quietly left. Once out of sight, Mrs. Carter had no sooner introduced herself as Judy when a young girl came tugging on her mother's arm. “They're out of order and I really have to go.” “The washrooms?” Asked Judy. “No they aren't, Cassie.” “But, the sign said so.” “What sign?” “On the door and there's a lady inside asking for help.” Loki was downstairs in seconds and found Shandi trapped in her stall, by three large pieces of duct tape across the door. “What the fuck?” Magic quickly peeled them away and when she stepped out, sweaty and flustered, he was genuinely concerned. “Are you alright? How long have you been in there?” “Since we arrived.” She dabbed her face with a paper towel. “Why the hell would somebody do this?” Judy suddenly appeared, gasped at the scene, then scowled. “Because they aren't playing with a full deck. Good heavens girl, are you hurt at all?” “No.” Shandi replied. “Might I ask who you're referring to?” “Tanya. I heard you'd the misfortune of already meeting her?” Alice arrived and her mouth fell agape. “Unbelievable, she hasn't been back two weeks!” “You're surprised?” Asked Judy. “She must've come from doing a duct tape run for daddy, before coming for his dinner.” By this point, Shandi was visibly pissed and Loki gained her attention with a kiss to the temple. “Please Elizabeth, try hard not to let this upset yourself, or the baby?” He then addressed Judy. “Are you certain she's responsible?” “I'd bet my life on it, son.” “I still don't understand.” Said Shandi. “What was her intent and how was she aware I was down here?” “I'm guessing she saw you enter together, via the window, then watched yourself head downstairs. Her intent, was to access him.” Judy gestured towards Loki and Shandi stared up at him, subconsciously crossing her arms. “And did she?” Battling a smirk, he replied. “Briefly, but I was quick to dismiss her.” She relaxed again. “Oh...well okay then.” Cassie and her mother entered, so Loki excused himself to wait upstairs. When Alice followed, he asked if Tanya was prone to such behavior. “When learning you’d encountered her through Laura, Beth and I gave a subtle warning to Elizabeth, hoping not to raise needless concerns. In light of this, you need to be better informed.” Judy waited as Shandi washed her hands, apologized for the incident, then offered her and Loki free lunch, plus any other intended purchases. When Cassie was settled in a stall, her mother was introduced as Rachel and a short conversation began. “I gather princess evil has struck again?” “Unfortunately, yes.” Judy replied. Rachel shook her head. “Was that your husband, honey?” Shandi nodded. “Then you've a problem.” The stall reopened, all went quiet and Judy shot Rachel a reassuring wink. “You can always call Dahlia or I, if you need to.” “You're busy, Judy.” “It doesn't matter.” Rachel smiled. “Thanks.” The bakery was empty when Shandi returned and as Rachel and her daughter left, Loki insisted they accept Judys offer. She requested they remain until after she made a call, excused herself, then Beth nonchalantly locked the Bakery’s door and lit the closed sign. Once the couple were served and seated, the ladies retreated into the back and Shandi whispered. “Don't you find it odd we’re locked in?” “Apparently, Judy likes privacy for such calls.” “Huh?” At that moment, Judy's angered voice rang loud and clear through the walls. “GOD DAMMIT, SCOTT! SHE TRAPPED A PREGNANT WOMAN IN A BATHROOM STALL! YOU’VE HEARD FROM ENOUGH OF US WHAT SHE'S CAPABLE OF, GROW A DAMN SPINE AND STOP TURNING A BLIND EYE TO IT!” “Is she actually addressing the Chief of police, Tanya's father?” “Yes, Alice warned me of it.” “What? And you agreed to stick around? We can't risk him wanting to question us about this.” “OF COURSE THERE WERE NO WITNESSES, THERE NEVER IS! FROM NOW ON, COME FOR YOUR OWN PIES, SEND YOUR NEWEST ROOKIE OR HIRE A BLOODY COURIER! IF SHE STEPS ANOTHER FOOT IN MY BAKERY, I’M FILING TRESPASSING CHARGES, YA HEAR?” “Apparently, being questioned about today, will not occur. Tanya, however, may become a problem." “Why?” “According to Alice, she’s caused several divorces in this town, takes pride in such accomplishments and is known to be relentless in the pursuit of those she fancies.” “Are you implying she now fancies you? I mean no offense, but you only..met once.” Shandi recalled the immediate effect Loki had had on her and the thought of anyone else trying to win his affections, sparked unpredictable jealousy at a level she'd never experienced, until Tanya entered the picture. And of course being the God of Mischief, Loki couldn't help but tease, finding amusement in her reactions. “Do you not think it possible, she could?” “I never said that.” “It may be pure physical attraction.” “It's pure stupidity thinking you can boink a guy, buy taking the actions she did.” Loki cackled at her frown. “Boink? There's a way of putting it. Does that mean I'm, boink-able?” A smirk curled on his lips when she blushed. ‘Oh lord.’ “I'm hungry. Let's eat now, Clifford.” ‘I'm hungry too, Pet. Yet not for a sandwich.’ “Certainly.” Once Judy regained her calm, the women reappeared, sat at the next table and without hesitation, began speaking about Tanya. They revealed she'd been absent from town almost a year and always returned to Scott after a relationship elsewhere went sour, or they'd have a blow out of sorts, then he'd allow her back. Her daddy's weakness, she was spoiled to an atrocious degree and most in town, were reluctant to challenge her with Scotts position. They warned she's a master manipulator and liar, lacks empathy and respect, is highly charismatic and applies these talents along with her beauty, seeking out the hearts of unattainable men to appease her ego. Once realizing her charms have failed, or she's rejected after an affair, her talents are then used destroying her desires life, regardless of who else she hurts to succeed. Shandi was silent, thinking Tanya was indeed despicable, when Loki spoke up. “Has she ever been violent?” Alice and Beth looked to Shandi, as Judy responded. “Yes. That's why we're telling you all of this.”

[lilynibelung]

Unhealed Scars

The little girl ran as fast as her short legs would take her, her breath coming in sharp ragged gasps.  In her arms she carried a squirrel, the critter surprisingly allowing itself to be carried and not wriggling free of the small child's arms.  The pounding of her heart echoed in her eardrums as she ran, desperately seeking escape from her tormentors.  Shouts and jeering came from just behind her, growing louder despite her attempts to outrun them.  She glanced behind her frantically to see how close they were... a costly mistake that would slow her just long enough.

The first rock clipped her on the shoulder, jolting her with pain and spinning her to the ground.  She fell hard, shielding the animal in her arms protectively to prevent her body weight from crushing the animal.  She felt the sting of a second and third stone as they pelted painfully into her back.  A boy's laughter could be heard before another rose up, then another.  The girl looked up to see the faces of twenty-some older children looking at her.  Soon a chorus of mocking laughter assailed her from the assembled throng, singsong teasing soon following.

"It's just a stupid squirrel!" "'Beast Girl', 'Beast Girl', Hahaha!" "She even looks like one too!"

The little girl whimpered as they approached.  The first impact of a foot in her side caused her vision to blur as the breath was knocked out of her body. The child endured the beatings, her only focus on trying to keep her little charge safe.  Mercifully, the beatings would eventually stop as her tormentors grew bored and wandered off.  She groaned and stirred, red hot pain shooting through her leg.

Somehow, she knew that her leg was fractured, as though she had lived through this moment before.  The pain had been a small price to pay to keep her tiny animal companion safe.  The girl eased into a sitting position and opened her palms.  The lifeless eyes of the squirrel stared back at her, having been smothered in her grip as she was attacked.  A strangled sob escaped the girl as she cradled the little creature's body in her arms.  Unbidden, the darkness crept forward, choking out the light and leaving her in inky silence.

***

The nude Hyur knelt on an obsidian dais, hundreds of images revolving around her in an endless dance.  Like the facets of a gem, the images would fade in and out of focus, each one a different story.  One, a morbol bearing down upon the frightened little girl, threatening to devour her whole.  Terror gripped her heart as the creature opened wide its maw to consume her, but it never came.  Another image appeared, this time a lass with a bandana riding away leaving the heartbroken Hyur behind.  Each moment of pain bit into the woman, carving away a piece of her.

The Hyur wrung her hands as each image spun around her chaotically, each one taking its place to torment her.  Each vision was a single piece in a cacophony of stories.  Some she had experienced, some she had imagined, but all were cruel and painful.  Yet another image flashed into view.  This time, a pale-green-haired Lalafell woman was being beaten by a large Miqo'te with a savage axe while she watched helplessly.  The Hyur reached out a hand desperately towards the image, as though she could somehow alter the course of events with that gesture.

Unable to change anything as the Lalafell was brutalized and beaten near to death, she squeezed her eyes shut.  She jolted with the sound of each impact, felt each blow as they landed on the Lalafell as though each hit was striking her.  Sensibilities overwhelmed, she cried out for someone to help her, to bring her back... but only mocking laughter came back.

When she opened her eyes, the woman was on a dark forest path.  Around her, several indistinct figures closed in.  The dark forms loomed all around the woman, flitting just out of her vision.  Indistinct and devoid of detail, they shifted in and out of focus, ever on the edges of her field of view.  Voices darted in from every which way, the speaker always unseen.  The words were mostly incomprehensible, though bits and pieces were sometimes audible.  There could be no mistaking the tones though, filled with derision and scorn.

"Stupid bitch, look what you did!" "You failed him!  You did this to him!"

The Hyur sat on the bloodstained grass, hugging her knees.  A discarded lance lay nearby, as did the body of an animal - an antelope whose eyes were glazed over in death.  She rocked back and forth, tears streaming down her face unchecked.  Her cheeks were spattered with the blood of the beast, a macabre sight when paired with the whites of her frantic eyes.  The body of an Elezen boy laid nearby, drenched in blood and gored from several wounds.

"You can't do anything right!" "He was a fool to count on you!"

The blonde haired woman quivered on the brink of breaking as the voices closed in around her.  She let out a choked sob as her resolve deserted her. Collapsing to the ground, she curled into a fetal position mewling like a babe.

The silhouettes bore down upon her, arbiters of judgement.  "Please stop..." she pleaded in a whisper over and over again.  The relentless phantoms came as one, chaotic forms beginning to mingle together as each darted in to deliver a barb like a swarm of angry hornets.

The phantom of an emerald haired scholar scoffed: "I'm only your friend because you spread your legs when I ask." A miqo'te in a maid's uniform spat upon her prone form: "You worked me near to death - my illness is -YOUR- fault.” A giant of a Roegadyn bore down upon her, maelstrom armor clanking in the darkness: "You take advantage of how much I care about you - you disgust me!" A spirit veered in, this one with the tall black ears of a viera.  "I cannot fathom why I even had an interest in training you.  You are lackluster in every sense of the word.  You are a mistake.

As one, the phantoms began to chant together, the sound growing until it was a roar despite the Hyur's efforts to cover her ears.

"The sentence is death." "The sentence is death." "The sentence is death."

She heard the hollow sound of metal scraping as swords were removed from their scabbards.  The voices began to crescendo, a chorus of a mob demanding retribution.  As one their chants grew in strength, the volume increasing until the woman could not think, could not breathe.

"Death.  Death.  Death.  Death.  Death."

A skeletal wood wailer grabbed her chin, forcing her to gaze upon her executioner.  Her father.

"Pathetic, useless excuse for a daughter.  I know what you do."  She could feel the scorn in her father's voice as he spat his words at her.

"You spend your time at a whorehouse, fucking anybody that will pay attention to you.  Useless whore, you shame our name.  You're better off to me dead." he sneered.  The man took hold of the colossal claymore at his side, hefting it easily.  The weapon was raised up in an overhead arc before rapidly descending.  She struggled to move, but her body would not obey her.  She could only watch the blade's descent towards her exposed neck.

"NO!  AHHHHH!"

Lily's desperate scream rent the tranquil night's silence.  She bolted upright, panic in her eyes.  Her body was drenched in sweat as were her bedsheets.  She struggled for several long minutes, trying to control her panicked breathing.  Her sunken eyes and the fatigue lines upon her face made the Hyur look absolutely ragged.  Large bags had formed under her eyes accentuating her look and the normally beautiful woman looked quite frail indeed in that moment.

Another night, another nightmare.  It had been several days since she had slept without one disrupting her sleep.  Tears poured down her face as she clutched at the blanket on her bed.  She huddled there, afraid to close her eyes lest the same dream come again to torment her.  She shivered involuntarily, longing for the comfort of touch that would not come.  Her mind wandered back to the events earlier in the evening when she had gone to the Whispered Wish.  Exhausted and seeking comfort in the company of her friends, she had managed to make an absolute mess of things.  Lily thought of Zozola and how terrible she had likely made her feel that evening.  The last thing she had wanted to do was cause pain to her friend, but she had managed to do just that with her callousness.

She found it hard to think, the fog of fatigue and the wild emotions from torturous dreams running rampant through her head.  She looked to her linkpearl, wondering if she should apologize but she quickly decided against it.  Zozola likely didn't want to hear her stupid little voice anyway, was likely regretting her friendship with her even as she sat there in her bed miserable.  Lily collapsed back into her bed shaking.  She -deserved- this, she realized.  This was recompense for a lifetime of failure and disappointments to those that were close to her.  She would find no respite this night, nor the next as she lay there staring unblinking at the ceiling to her chamber.

***

The shadowy creature couldn't help but smirk.  All the pieces were falling into place, and she so loved when a plan came together.  There wasn't much she could do in this accursed prison, but with the Amdaporian magic holding her gaol together finally waning, she was able to send little slivers of her will out.  It was just -so- easy to manipulate the mind of this one, as insecure as she was.  A subtle thought at just the right time, and the woman became a blubbering mess.  She couldn't believe her luck when the little fool had wandered nearby a few days ago.  Possessed of a large quantity of aether but a weak will, it was easy to mark her and keep in contact with her.

And so, the creature had started sending the nightmares - ensuring the woman wouldn't get a full rest's sleep for many days.  As she felt the girl's fatigue begin to set in, she sent a subtle suggestion to her, one that was not easily ignored.  Every day that passed would cause the wretch to slip a little bit further into her delusions, and she wouldn't even be aware.  Her call would not be denied and would ensure that the girl would find her way to her... and when she did, she would be waiting to devour this morsel whole...

[the-revisionist]

The Tristan Chord, chapter 15

[Edited to fix typos, thank you @farminglesbian, and to change a musical selection that came to me out of the blue.]

xv. the book of miracles

The tragedy isn’t that love doesn’t last. The tragedy is the love that lasts. —Shirley Hazzard, The Transit of Venus

“High fructose corn syrup.”

The phrase, dropped like a gauntlet at dinner, brings idle conversation to a halt. It is spoken by Lawrence, who points in a very melodramatic j’accuse fashion at Flora.

In turn, Flora blinks at him slowly, decides he’s playing at something, and giggles.

Why do I not have normal children? Caroline wonders. One is terrified of Latin and cries at soppy commercials on telly, the other apparently hears voices and is seriously considering going to clown school. The jury, however, is still out on Flora. Please be normal, she silently begs the child. If I screw you up somehow, I won’t be able to bear it. Meanwhile the others assembled around the table—Alan, Celia, and Greg—stare at her, awaiting a Solomon-like proclamation on Lawrence’s bizarre declaration.

Caroline makes them wait. She gulps wine, girds her loins, and unfurls a mighty sigh. “What are you on about?” she asks Lawrence.

“She said it.” Lawrence wags his finger at his sister. “The other day. Quite clearly, I might add. At breakfast, I swear she was looking right at the cornflakes box—”

Greg gasps. “You didn’t let her eat any of those, did you?”

“What? No.” Irritated at the interruption, Lawrence screws up his face in a profoundly unattractive fashion, the expression on a scatological scale somewhere in the not-so-vast plane between taking a shit and actually smelling one.

“Good,” Greg says, “because they do have high fructose corn syrup in them. Corn flakes are the devil.”

God, I am going to be completely pissed before this night is over if this keeps up, Caroline thinks as she polishes off her second glass of wine. “Can I quote you on that?”

“That’s not the point,” Lawrence says. “The point is, like, totally out of the blue, she just says ‘high fructose corn syrup.’ Just like that. And I was like, ‘What did you say?’ And she looked all smug and wouldn’t say anything else! Not a single word. And she won’t say it now. She just won’t. I’ve been trying all day to get her to say it.”

Bright with paternal enthusiasm, Greg gives it a go: “Flora. Sweetheart. Say, ‘high fructose corn syrup!’”  

Celia pinches her brow.

Thoughtfully Flora regards her dinner plate. She positions several tiny pieces of broccoli upright on their stalks near a mound of uneaten casserole, creating a little mini-forest surrounding a hilly terrain. Caroline interprets this as a potential clue to a future occupation: Maybe she will become a naturalist. Or an urban planner. Or a demented celebrity chef.

“See? Nothing. She’s gaslighting me,” Lawrence says.

“Very significant achievement for two years old,” Alan observes. His mobile pings and he pulls it out of his pocket.

Celia glares at him. “Don’t look at it.”

“Just a peek.”

“I said don’t look at it.”

“I’m looking at it.”

“Don’t look at it.”

“I have to!” Alan protests.

“It’s dinnertime. You’re being very rude.”

“You know I have to,” he repeats. “Could be urgent.”

“They’re fine. The worst is over, that’s what the weather service says.”

“It’s still raining,” Alan says plaintively.

It’s been raining for a week, and as a result the valley is flooded. Well, Halifax is flooded; as for Harrogate, Caroline cannot help but summon words of wisdom from Gillian’s own personal saint, Morrissey: the rain falls hard on a humdrum town. It’s not exactly flooding of biblical proportions all around, as a rather hysterical local weatherman had decreed, but bad enough that Gillian’s farm and sheep have felt the effects: washed-out roads, power out, ruined hay, sheep driven to higher ground, and bad enough that Raff has been bunkered at the farm alone with his mother for three days and serving as the reluctant point person in keeping everyone else informed via increasingly irate and desperate texts to his grandfather.

“Well?” Celia prompts. “What does our Raff say?”

Alan squints at the mobile and enunciates slowly: “‘Is matricide a crime?’”

Lawrence gives his mother an inscrutable look. Caroline glares back in a manner that, she hopes, conveys that she will not be very easy to kill. Which he should certainly be aware of by now. He sulks and resumes surveillance of his sister, who tosses a piece of broccoli in his direction; whether it’s a peace offering or a come at me bro challenge cannot be discerned.

“Oh, dear,” murmurs Celia.

“Also, they’re almost out of toilet paper!” Alan places the mobile on the table. “That settles it. I think I should go out there.”

“But the roads may be bad, love.”

“Roads are fine now, rain should stop tomorrow.”

Celia’s eyes narrow. “Thought you said Gillian isn’t convinced the rain will stop.”

“Well—”

“‘She knows rain,’ you said. You always make her sound like she’s some sort of bloody American Indian, out on the prairie doing a rain dance.”

“There’s a mental image,” Caroline says. She starts clearing the table.

Alan frowns. “Harry will come with. If I ask, he will. We’d be all right, together. I just want to know they’re all right, want to see with my own two eyes.”

“Why don’t you sleep on it?”

“‘Sleep on it,’” Alan grumbles. “You’re just hoping I’ll forget.”

“Yes, dear, I am.”

In the kitchen Caroline stacks plates on the counter and grabs a casserole dish to scrape out before putting it in the dishwasher. As she turns around she finds her mother has magically materialized before her with the shocking stealth of a malevolent, enchanted garden gnome; rearing back to avoid certain collision, the contents of the dish—mixed remnants of noodles, various vegetables, and crumbly tofu in some kind of peanut sauce that Greg said was inspired by West African cuisine even though Caroline thinks he probably knows as much about West African cuisine as she knows about Renaissance poetry or the inner workings of her Jeep—find themselves gloppily splayed against her chest before gently sliding down her shirt and plopping onto the kitchen floor.

She counts to ten—normally an effective way of tempering her reactions, but in this case with random food gunk clinging to an expensive silk blouse finds herself going full on sacrilegious: “Jesus Fucking Christ!”

Lawrence enters the kitchen and then quickly backpedals out.

“Must you sneak up on people like that?” Caroline shouts.

“Must you swear like that? Gillian really is an awful influence on you.” Celia frowns at the floor. “Now that’s a right mess.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“I’m sorry but I wanted to talk to you alone, while I had the chance,” Celia says in an undertone.

“Well you’ve a captive audience now, so fire away.”

“You need to go to the farm tomorrow.”

Of course, the old woman would ask her to do precisely the one thing she does not want to do. “Why?”

“If you don’t go, Alan will and he’ll drag Harry along, and those two together—good God. If they don’t get stuck in the mud somewhere or lost God knows where while chasing errant sheep, Harry will drink all of Gillian’s wine and you know how she gets about that. In other words, they will drive her right ’round the bend and none of us, ever, will hear the end of it—well, I won’t hear the end of it, because she’ll blame me for not keeping her father put. She said as much to me when the rains started. She actually called me, can you believe it? She never calls me unless someone has a gun to her head. But she told me to keep him here.” Celia pauses to recharge from this breathless petition and plays with her necklace—pearls, a gift from Alan on their first anniversary. “He’s in fine fettle these days but I know, I just know, he will push himself trying to help her if he goes out there now and I don’t want him to risk making himself sick again.”

“I understand, but why me? Why not send—Greg?” As Caroline marvels at the nonsense out of her mouth, Celia seems to seriously ponder it but exactly five seconds later they burst into simultaneous fits of laughter.

“You are really funny sometimes,” Celia chortles.

“I know. Missed my calling.”

“But really, love. It’s not like you’d have to actually do anything strenuous. Just take them some food, you’ve got that leftover origami—

“—orecchiette,” Caroline says.

“—oh, and toilet paper, and just sweep the floors, wash the dishes, say an encouraging word or two and you’ll have done your duty.”

Like a wife, Caroline thinks.

“So will you?”

She sighs. “If you think it will—”

“Ah, wonderful! Thank you, love! You’ll go tomorrow then, will you? I’ll tell Alan right now.” Celia whirls out of the kitchen.

“I didn’t say yes yet,” she shouts at Celia’s retreating form.

Celia cackles triumphantly. “You’re my favorite daughter!”

She stares at the greasy smears on the floor.

The beginning of the flood had arrived at a most inopportune time: immediately after the pub kiss, which had left her fiery-cheeked and dazed on the ride home, quietly holding herself as she stared at pearl drops of light random and fleeting against the panorama of darkness. Twice William asked if she was all right. Later, alone in bed, she touched herself briefly and found no satisfaction in doing so. Bored before I even began, she had thought and then, oh Christ, quoting Morrissey, and finally, dismally she threw herself off the cliff into sleep. She woke to a morning heavily cloaked in rain and fog, the relentless downpour hissing with such persistence that when it briefly let up three days later the air rang with empty glory, not unlike the ripe silence following the violent peal of church bells.

At least Raff will get a good laugh out of seeing her in Wellies; she will actually get use of the pair that she bought years ago at the last threat of flooding. In fact, she is excited to wear the boots because they are a lovely, glossy black that will go smashingly with practically anything. Oh Christ, she sighs, and imagines the women’s mag headline: Dressing for Natural Catastrophe: What to Wear!

The drive to the farm the next afternoon is fraught with detours and muddy roads along a horizon that reminds Caroline of a Rothko: dark gray land and light gray sky cauterized together with a ragged white line across the horizon, the gleaming line absorbing every bit of light that daytime can possibly spare. Splinters of thin, light rain fall against the windshield. In the drive up to the farmhouse the Jeep gets caught in a muddy rut; she manages to back out and then maneuver around it, but the flood-damaged dirt road is bumpier than usual and despite the Jeep’s otherwise excellent shock absorbers Caroline gets a shaky, tediously unsatisfying ride that brings to mind the nadir of her sexual relationship with John.

As she pulls up within sight of the farmhouse she sees that Raff has spotted the Jeep from afar and he awaits her impatiently, bouncing on his heels. She is unprepared for the intensity of his greeting: He throws himself into her arms like a long-lost son or lover. She doubts she will receive a similarly enthusiastic reaction from Gillian; Christ knows you certainly don’t deserve it, she thinks.  

“Thank God!” he says. “A normal person.”

“It’s nice to be thought of in that way,” Caroline replies.

“Please tell me you brought—”

“—toilet paper, yes, and pasta, sandwiches, biscuits, salad—”

“None of that healthy stuff for us,” Raff says. “Oooh, look at those fancy Wellies! Very chic, Cazza. You look like a farmer on telly—like you could be on a show about a sheep farmer who solves murders all the time.”

Caroline rolls her eyes in mock exasperation. “So where’s your mum?”

“Out in barn. I find it’s best to keep her out there, away from polite society.”

After they’ve unloaded the Jeep she reluctantly follows Raff out to the barn while he talks of dead sheep, wet hay, and power outages; the sheep were two dumb, young ewes that fell down a ravine, some of the hay might be salvageable but at least half of it might be bad, and the power is back on.

They find Gillian pulling an empty wheelbarrow into the barn. From the knees down her jeans and boots are spackled with mud. Her left elbow looks skinned and the sleeve of the flannel shirt on that arm is torn, and her hair is greasy and pulled back into a ponytail. At the sight of Caroline she drops the wheelbarrow; the clatter echoes and Caroline jumps. Gillian frowns and tugs at her work gloves.

Over the past week Caroline has rehearsed various speeches in her head ranging from the florid to the plainspoken, but all these thoughtful peregrinations made her wish she could simply present Gillian with a Venn diagram of intersecting emotions where each panic-riddled state or practical consideration included Gillian as the common element. Additionally the circular aspect of the diagram alluded rather obviously to Caroline’s typical mental roundabouts on the subject. Even allowing for Raff’s presence, what comes out of her mouth is still light years from either an articulate summation of the current chaos of her mind, or a poetic expression of inchoate desire:  

“I come bearing toilet paper,” she says.

As expected she gets Gillian’s flinty look of irritated incomprehension, not unlike the time Greg tried to educate her on the nutritional value of mung beans in refutation of Gillian’s steadfast refusal to eat anything called mung.

“Sometimes you don’t get the hero you want,” Raff says as he claps a hand on Caroline’s shoulder, “but the hero you need.”

Gillian shuffles, stares at the floor. “That’s great.”

“There’s food,” Raff adds. “She’s brought food.”

“Good.” Gillian pretends that peeling off work gloves and tossing them onto a tool bench is an effort requiring both massive strength and supreme concentration.

Resigned to his mother’s surliness, Raff merely shoots her an exasperated look.  

Look at me, Caroline thinks, but now Gillian busies herself with wiping dry the handle of some dangerous-looking tool that could easily be used for disembowelment and so she quickly turns her attention back to Raff. “Are you hungry?” she squeaks at him.

“I am, but I was gonna shove off—” He hesitates, fixing a glance on his mother. “—if that’s still all right.”

Gillian nods, digs around in her jeans pocket. In flight, the keys to the Landy flash across the barn.

Raff swipes at the air and catches them. His face softens as he jiggles the keys in his palm. “You sure?”

“Yeah, yeah. I told you it’s all right. So go on already, go see your girls. Come back tomorrow.”

Not content to proffer a mere thank you, Raff strides across the barn and engulfs his mother in a bear hug. Caroline allows herself to be amused at the spectacle of Gillian squirming, looking irritated, then pleased, then smiling, and then berating her son’s manhood: “All right, stop hugging me before you start growing ovaries.”

Would that be such a bad thing? Caroline decides not to say this.

“I love you, man,” Raff drawls oafishly in imitation of an American drunkard.

This makes Gillian chuckle and Caroline experience a brief fit of jealousy. There was a time when she used to make Gillian laugh; was that gone now, did the leaden intensity of this thing between them somehow drain the light from their relationship as the cursed, bloody flooded valley drained the sun from the sky?

She clears her throat and asks, “Is there anything I can do?”

Back to the squinty glare. “Yeah.” Gillian grabs a wide broom. She swaggers in Caroline’s general direction and then effortlessly tosses the broom at Caroline, who manages an awkward catch of it. “Sweep in here. Muck it out a bit.”

Once again irritated at Gillian’s behavior, Raff asks pointedly, “What are you gonna do?”

“Well,” Gillian drawls as she continues walking away from them, “since we’ve got toilet paper, thought I’d celebrate by taking a shit.”

They watch her leave. While she walks down the path to the house she occasionally glares up at the sky, as if daring it to rain more.

Raff shakes his head. “She’s really too much.”

You have no idea, Caroline wants to say. Instead she hugs Raff again before he sprints out to the Land Rover. As he drives away, he waves with frantic, grateful desperation, as if she ceded a place on a lifeboat for him. It’s like Titanic and she is Leonardo DiCaprio, Raff is Kate Winslet, and Gillian is the fucking iceberg. No matter, Caroline smiles bravely in a quintessentially English well chaps we’re doomed fashion while waving listlessly back at Raff and murmuring, “God help me.”

After sweeping the barn Caroline sits gingerly on an ancient stool that should be consigned to the woodpile. The stool wobbles and abruptly she stands. She rubs her back, stares at the large metal tool chest tucked under the tool bench. The red enameled exterior has clearly seen better days; the tool chest’s squat body is covered with dents and dings and dirt. There are five drawers of varying sizes, ranging from the smallest at the top to the largest at the bottom. The largest drawer looks a bit crumpled, as if it had been targeted in Gillian-driven fit of pique; as a result, it does not close properly. Caroline is not certain what compels her—other than sheer nosiness—but she pries open the drawer. It is crammed with books: Both paperbacks and hardcovers, all in varying stages of age and decrepitude. History, poetry, literature. Even a Stephen Hawking book. Philip Larkin. J.B. Priestley. Wallace Stevens. Barbara Tuchman. A book called The Transit of Venus catches her eye—her hope that it is actually about astronomy is immediately dashed by an abstract, pastel cover that indicates it’s a novel or perhaps poetry. Some of the paperbacks are warped with damp, their pages as furbelowed as the skirts of a Victorian matron. 

All of these, Gillian’s books–as hidden and damaged as she is.

Caroline knows now that she has misjudged Gillian from day one. Thought she was reckless when in fact she possessed patience borne from a lifetime of denials and disappointments. Thought she was fragile and frail until Caroline discovered the untold muscles and sinew coiled under her skin and the sure and steady grip of her hands. Thought she was an uneducated rube and not a woman who secretly read books in a damp dim barn—probably because she didn’t want her shit husband to find out and knock her upside the head and who does it now simply because it’s a force of habit or is unwilling to admit to anyone that she needs the grace of solitude. Or both. Thought she was incapable of fidelity or love when she would gladly accept the smallest scrap of anything remotely resembling love, including its many seductive duplicities.  

Tell me a lie, tell me you love me.

The glinting rain, which had stopped shortly before she arrived, picks up again, deepening the puddles and dips along the rough path that leads to the farmhouse. She imagines Gillian walking this path everyday, through all kinds of weather. Day in, day out. Sun warming her skin, wind stiffening her clothes, rain soaking her bones, snowflakes dusting her hair. Or on days when she’s hungover, or menstruating, or too wired on coffee, or walking with a spring in her step because she had if off with someone she met recently and it was good. Or walking slowly because Eddie has broken her ribs and they’re still mending.

Gillian told her this story while in that strangely lucid state of drunkenness that lent itself to her compulsive confessions: She had been too frightened to go to hospital because they would have asked too many questions, so she spent a fortnight in bed feigning a bout of flu to everyone until finally, with her torso bound up with bandages—the perpetrator himself had gently wrapped her up while crying and saying it will never happen again, I swear to you—and stuffed with as much paracetamol and oxycodone as she could take, she went back to work, doing some light chores every day. The path to the barn every morning was the hardest bit, she had said, like walking a gauntlet and every uneven step sent waves of pain beating against her core; once she got past that, everything seemed easier. A miracle then, a bloody fucking miracle that she did not die, a miracle that the man Celia Dawson reacquainted herself with after so many years was not just a widower but a bereft parent showing them photos of his lost child—a handsome, weary woman with haunted eyes the elusive shade of sky, sea, and earth commingled. There, that’s her, that’s my Gillian.

Caroline riffles the stiff, yellowed pages of The Transit of Venus. As words flutter by she encounters her name in the book several times. There are signs and miracles on this rainy day to be interpreted and treasured in equal measure, and the last one is divination for the disbeliever: She stands here looking at Gillian’s books and know that this, all of this, is heading where it’s heading despite her complete and utter lack of faith.

CHAPTER SOUNDTRACK:

The Smiths:

“There is a Light That Never Goes Out” “William, It Was Really Nothing,”

EDITED TO ADD:

Patricia Barber, “You Don’t Know Me”

Note: The great Shirley Hazzard died recently, so the reference to her novel in this chapter is a hat tip to an extraordinary writer who, I fear, will not be as remembered and revered as she should be.

[touchmyspinebookreviews]

Go Home, Afton

Author: Brent Jones

Length: Novella

Genre: Thriller

Series: Afton Morrison, Book 1

Release Date: June 25, 2018

We all wear masks, and Afton Morrison is no exception.

A small-town librarian with a dark side, Afton, twenty-six, has suppressed violent impulses her entire adult life. Impulses that demand she commit murder.

Blending her urges with reason, Afton stalks a known sexual predator, intending to kill him. But her plan, inspired by true crime and hatched with meticulous care, is interrupted by a mysterious figure from her past. A dangerous man that lurks in the shadows, watching, threatening to turn the huntress into the hunted.

Go Home, Afton is the first of four parts in a new serial thriller by author Brent Jones. Packed with grit and action, The Afton Morrison Series delves into a world of moral ambiguity, delivering audiences an unlikely heroine in the form of a disturbed vigilante murderess.

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        Wow, what an amazing ‘hit it and quit it’ kind of novella! From the first chapter I was already hooked! Think about it like an unique female version of Dexter Morgan, how can you go wrong? The story had me hooked and I devoured the whole book in one setting. After reading some books that I am way past the due of being reviewed that were triggering and some that were blah, this story was a breath of psychopathic fresh air!

I admittedly can relate to Afton in some ways like having more than one version of “myself” not the whole murderous vigilante type of way. This novella had one helluva story line as well, most of the time when reading a novella you feel like you are missing out on something or it doesn’t give you enough enjoyment because of its length but that was not the case with Go Home, Afton! This story was “Wham Bam, Thank you, ma’am” kind of fun! I would definitely recommend this story to anyone looking for a good read that can be read in a couple sittings and you can’t beat a great read for 99 cents! You can grab a copy if interested with the buttons above! I am so excited about reading the second novel and I can’t wait to see what Mr. Jones comes out with next!

“Someone was creeping in the shadows. A man, perhaps, watching me while standing next to a wooden bench at the edge of the street, concealed in part by a decorative lamppost. And all at once, I could feel it. The prying eyes of a fellow voyeur, keen to assess my intentions as much as observe my actions. But as I gave my head a soft shake, the figure disappeared, and I was almost alone again.” —Go Home, Afton (Chapter 1)

  “I hadn’t experienced true autonomy over my consciousness since adolescence. Well, seventeen or so, to be exact. A second Afton emerged that year. A twin sister of sorts, a manifestation of my darkest desires. A relentless cheerleader, in a manner of speaking, who appeared only to me, urging me to obey impulses that most good people can suppress or ignore. I had named her ‘Animus’ Afton, and the time to give in to her was drawing nearer.” —Go Home, Afton (Chapter 1)

“Kenneth Pritchard had to die, you see—she and I agreed on that much—but it would be me who would have to kill him. He would be my first, and his death had to be just right.” —Go Home, Afton (Chapter 1)

“There was nothing on my desk but a plastic canister of Lysol wipes. Not a framed photograph, not a placard, not a pen or a pencil, not so much as an artificial fucking ficus. My belongings, sparse as they were—lens cleaner for my glasses, an extra cable to charge my phone—were filed away in a two-drawer cabinet next to my feet. I took a moment, as my single computer monitor flickered on, to savor the beautiful synthetic scent of lemon disinfectant. No, not all librarians were meticulous creatures, but I was, and it felt soothing, reassuring.” —Go Home, Afton (Chapter 4)

“When I left for college…I swore I’d never come back. But it was that last year before I left, when I was seventeen, that cemented my roots in this town. That gave me a sense of belonging here. The incident, as I had labeled it in my head, in a strictly euphemistic sense. More like scarring, perhaps, or what some might call Stockholm syndrome. Somewhere inside, I harbored this crazy notion that returning to Wakefield might help me find a lost fragment of my soul. Closure, wherever it was buried.” —Go Home, Afton (Chapter 5)

“…a thin line of red trickled down his throat. Even seated as he was, he towered over me. He looked down his nose through widened gray eyes, waiting to see what I’d do next.” —Go Home, Afton (Chapter 6)

“Thousands of memories came flooding back through my consciousness at once, each one an image I had fought like hell to forever banish from my psyche. Demons, that had laid in wait, were seething at my core, and came breaking to the surface in flashes of white-hot anger, rushing to my head and neck.” —Go Home, Afton (Chapter 11)

“I debated my next move, chastising myself for allowing fear to creep into my consciousness. I hadn’t come this far to turn around and go back…” —Go Home, Afton (Chapter 15)

  From bad checks to bathroom graffiti, Brent Jones has always been drawn to writing. He won a national creative writing competition at the age of fourteen, although he can’t recall what the story was about. Seventeen years later, he gave up his career to pursue creative writing full-time.

Jones writes from his home in Fort Erie, Canada. He’s happily married, a bearded cyclist, a mediocre guitarist, and the proud owner of two dogs with a God complex.

Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads | Brent Jones

Excerpt (Chapter 3)

*Note: When copying this excerpt to your blog—please be careful to leave formatting intact, including use of italics, em dashes, and ellipses.

Parents—stay-at-home moms, mostly—brought in their toddlers once a week so I could read them a story. And I use the word toddlers loosely. Kids as old as six or seven sometimes attended during the summer. And the stories we would read were made up of fewer than fifty words, for the most part. A lot of the mothers in Wakefield were too lazy to read to their own children, I guess.

Oh, and crafts, too. After reading a story together, we’d break out glitter and colored pencils and paste and other nonsense, but that wasn’t the real reason a dozen women turned out with their little monsters each week. Storytime was an excuse for the mothers to gather and gossip. It always took a little while to get the children to settle down, sure. I’d press my finger to my lips and wait. Five or ten seconds at most, although I would have been happy to wait longer. Their mothers, on the other hand, were so much worse. Getting them to shut their fucking traps was a whole separate exercise in endurance.

But as much as I disliked children, there was something magical about them. It was their inability to see gray, I think. Their entire worlds existed in black and white, right and wrong, good and evil. You could see it in their faces as a story unfolded, rife with nervous energy at every inconsequential turn.

“And she just doesn’t know”—I read to the room, pointing to each gigantic word—“should she stay, should she go?”

I caught a boy’s expression, who sat just inches from me. The hippopotamus in our story was faced with a dilemma, and this boy was transfixed. His eyes were wide, his hands were cupped over his mouth, and he was vibrating with anticipation to see what the hippo would do next.

I flipped to the last page. “But yes the hippopotamus.”

The boy relaxed a little, making a deliberate show of letting his shoulders drop. A talented drama queen in the making. He was new to storytime and looked to be about five or six years old. He had dark hair, a tan complexion, and a missing front tooth. He’d attended just once before and he’d sat close that day, as well. I’d never really been big on learning children’s names, to be honest, but I knew his was Neil only because he’d come to the library alone both times. It sounds strange, I’m sure, but having a parent use the library as a free babysitting service happens more often than most people would guess.

I continued on, reading the final words of the story. “But not the armadillo.”

Neil was stressed all over again, and his tiny hand shot up. “Miss Afton?”

“Yes, ah, Neil? What is it, little man?”

“How come not the arma-darma?”

“Armadillo.” A woman in baggy gray sweatpants corrected him from the back of the room. She was a few years older than me, had bleach-blonde hair in a ponytail, and her voice resembled a seagull getting crushed by a car.

I shut the book and set it on my lap. “That’s a good question, Neil.” I bit my lower lip, deciding how much to share. “Well, let’s see. Ah, no one likes armadillos, for starters. They’re bullet-proof, if you can believe it, and ugly as sin. They carry leprosy, too, but they don’t bite children too often.”

The woman at the back of the room—Sweatpants, let’s call her—looked horrified. Her stained teeth chattered and she blinked in rapid succession. She placed her palms over her daughter’s ears, a girl around three or four in age.

Neil scratched his head. “What’s a lepra-she?”

“It’s—”

Sweatpants raised her hand to silence me—not that I minded—and looked to a few of the other mothers in the room for support, most of whom were checked out or occupied with their phones. She looked back at me again, then at her daughter. “It’s when good little boys and girls get ice cream.” That wasn’t how I might have defined the word, however. “You want to stop for ice cream on the way home, Jessi?”

It was hard enough getting these little turds to sit still for all fourteen pages of But Not the Hippopotamus. Why on earth would this woman want to stuff her daughter’s face with sugar before lunch? But the girl jumped up and squealed at the mention of sweets, and soon, other kids joined in, as did their mothers.

I peeked down at Neil to see him cradling his head in his hands, masking a look of disappointment by staring at the floor. It appeared he had forgotten all about armadillos and leprosy and storytime, and now sulked, wishing he had a parent present to take him for ice cream like the other children.

The mothers talked amongst themselves, and their toddlers fed on the elevated energy levels. The room was alive with discourse, and I wondered if the local Dairy Queen might consider paying me a small commission. “Well, that’s it for storytime, boys and girls. Thanks for coming.”

Sweatpants spoke up at the back of the room, the self-elected leader of Wakefield’s fattest and frumpiest. “But it’s only quarter past, Afton. Isn’t storytime supposed to be a full hour?”

“Just figured you were all on your way to get a double-scoop of leprosy.”

“Very funny.”

I raised my hands in a gesture of mock uncertainty. “We’ve got crafts we can do.” I pointed to three short tables covered in plastic, adorned with supplies that Kim had set up for us. “Should we get to it?”

“That won’t take long. Couldn’t you read them another story first?”

Couldn’t I read them another story? It’d been her idea to squeeze out one of these little nightmares. Why was I being punished for it? “Not this week, I’m afraid. Sorry.”

But she just wouldn’t give up. “Afton, do you know where Jessi’s daddy is right now?”

My first thought was that her husband was probably fucking her sister at some roadside motel with hourly rates, bed bugs, and a one-star rating on Trip Advisor. I couldn’t say that out loud, of course, and so I fought like hell to keep a smirk off my face. It helped to keep my sights trained on Jessi, who had sat back down, cross-legged in a checkered dress. She was drawing on the floor with one small finger.

Sweatpants answered her own question. “He’s at work, Afton. And he works hard, by the way, and we pay more than our share of taxes in this town. Taxes that pay your salary.”

Oh, the salary card. How I loved it when disgruntled parents brought up my salary, as if any one of them wanted to trade places with me. Yes, her taxes paid me a small fortune. That’s why I rented a one-bedroom apartment in a triplex. And it’s the same reason I drove a seven-year-old Corolla. I was so grateful—indebted, even—to Sweatpants and her husband that I just couldn’t wait to read another story.

“Sure thing.” I grabbed a second book off the pile next to me. “One more story, coming right up.”

Sweatpants smiled. It was a flat, fake smile, of course, the kind where the mouth curls tight but the eyes are dormant. It was about the best I could have hoped for, and it seemed to have a calming effect on the other mothers. They quieted down, eager to return to their various text message conversations.

I pointed my finger to more jumbo text on a colorful page. A story about an overweight and diabetic caterpillar with impulse control issues, who was always so very very fucking hungry. “In the light of the moon, a little egg lay on a leaf . . .”

And I couldn’t help but lose myself in thought. I was that little egg on a leaf, glimmering in the moonlight, and about to hatch. Soon after, the morning would come. And my hunger would be satiated at last, because Kenneth Pritchard would be dead.

Schedule

June 25th

Reads & Reels (Review) http://www.readsandreels.com

Book Wonderland (Review) https://bookwonderlandweb.wordpress.com/

Down the Rabbit Hole (Review) http://meggydowntherabbithole.wordpress.com/

Touch My Spine Book Reviews (Review) https://touchmyspinebookreviews.com

June 26th

Book Dragon Girl (Review) http://www.bookdragongirl.com

Jessica Rachow (Review) http://jessicarachow.wordpress.com

Sinfully Wicked Book Reviews (Review) https://sinfullywickedbookreviews.com

The Scribblings (Review) https://thescribblingssite.wordpress.com

June 27th

On the Shelf Reviews (Review) https://ontheshelfreviews.wordpress.com

Tranquil Dreams (Review) http://klling.wordpress.com

June 28th

Dash Fan Book Reviews (Review) https://dashfan81.blogspot.com

J Bronder Book Reviews (Review) http://jbronderbookreviews.wordpress.com/

Just 4 My Books (Review) http://www.just4mybooks.wordpress.com

Life at 17 (Review) https://lifeat17.wordpress.com

June 29th

Kim Knight (Review) http://kimknightauthor.wordpress.com

Misty’s Book Space (Review) http://mistysbookspace.wordpress.com

Port Jerricho (Review)  http://www.aislynndmerricksson.com

R&R Book Tours

  Thanks so much for checking out my review, loves! I am so sorry I haven’t been spamming up your notifications as of late. My mom got married this weekend and I was the maid of honor and had those duties. I also had to stop one of my medications so haven’t been feeling the best but now that the wedding mess is over I can bloggy hop! Woot! I missed your faces and can’t wait to read your posts. Thanks for reading my review of this great book! I have many to catch up on and unfortunatly some reads were not as great. I hope everyone has a fantabulous week! You guys rock!

  Go Home, Afton by Brent Jones~R&R Book Review Go Home, Afton Author: Brent Jones Length: Novella Genre: Thriller Series: Afton Morrison, Book 1 Release Date: June 25, 2018…

[lalobalives]

*An essay a week in 2017*

I used to write letters. It started when I was in boarding school. No, now that I think about it, it started before I left, when I was 12, when my first love and I would sneak letters to one another through my older brother Carlos, who was good friends with his mother and wanted us, me and Ruben, to be together. But in boarding school, letter writing became something else. It was a way for me to feel connected. To share. To vent and rage and long and want. To express myself in and through the intense solitude that were those four years of high school.

I learned solitude in boarding school. It was through letters that I peeked out into the world. That I showed my heart when I couldn’t show my face.

I wrote to everyone—to my first love Ruben and his sister Cindy, to my friends on the block, Zuleika and Eli and Peggy and her sister whose name I can’t for the life of me remember; to my best friends Marie and Nefertiri; to my sister though I don’t remember her ever writing back; to Chiquita whose name was Vanessa but they called her Chiquita because she was so tiny. I wrote to crushes. I wrote to anyone and everyone who would receive them. I wrote pages and pages and used my $8 a week allowance and the money I made at the babysitting jobs and whatever job I had (supermarket, ice cream store, accounting firm), to pay for stationary and fancy pens and so many stamps.

I don’t remember exactly what I wrote in those letters, but I remember saying “I miss you” a lot and “I miss home” and “I don’t fit in here.”

Once a friend asked me if I hated it so much, why didn’t I just leave. To be clear, I didn’t hate Wellesley. I just didn’t feel like I fit in, and I eventually stopped trying to. I went into myself and stayed there. But, no, I never considered quitting. I never considered returning to Brooklyn. I knew that once I left, I would never return. Yeah, I went back for vacations and breaks, but I knew I’d never live there again. Not in my mother’s house. I got out. I had to stay out. I knew that at 13.

***

I wrote my brother letters while he was in prison, the first time after he was caught with two balloons of heroin in his stomach on his trip back from Venezuela. I was in college then. I wrote him letters year later, when he went back to prison for violating his parole. I sent him stacks of letters. I bought colorful markers so I could adorn the envelopes. I found some of those letters when we cleaned out his house after he died. I found pages and pages of writing. It was the same story—he was sick of his addiction, he wanted it to end, he carried so much regret, and he always imagined a life, somewhere in the future, when he wasn’t addicted and depressed and a mess.

***

I haven’t been writing as much as I want to. There are days when I sit in front of the computer and just stare. Then there are days when I grab my journal and write the entire train ride downtown, to therapy, an appointment, a teaching gig. I look at those pages later. I read them. I try to type them. More often than not, the trying fails. I have so many starts though…there is beauty in that.

I am struggling with finding the words for what’s going on in my heart these days. It is a mixture of grief and ache and anxiety.

I have a clear visual though:

I am a race car revving up. I am burning tires and smoke. I am reeling body, jerking and swerving. Engine screeching and crying.

I am that race car. I am the burning tires. I am the smoke. I am the guttural roar from the engine.

All that revving is painful. It shakes my insides. My nerves are frayed. My anxiety is on turbo. It is frightening, and yet I know, this too is necessary.

There are no cars but me on the track. It is just me. Revving and raging. This challenge is with myself…

***

Today I wanted to write myself a letter…but all I got was the image and this:

Vanessa, You’ve been here before. You know what this looks like. You know the salt of it. The silt. The way it drags. Keep reading. Keep digging. Stay in that quiet space as much and as long as you need. Show up when you can and want. Go for those walks that feed you. Let your dog sit on your lap when he paws at you. Hold your partner close. Talk. Kiss your baby girl when she lets you. Your role of mother is changing. She is months shy of the age you were when you left. You have no context of a mother-daughter relationship at this age. You know this. It is pulling at you. Yanking. You will figure it out as you always have. Do the work you need to do. Write those recommendation letters. Finish those anthologies. Finish your Writing Our Lives Spring Semester class. Yes, you will miss them. Tell them that. Remember you’ve got the summer to write and be with yourself and your stories. No, don’t wait until then to write…but know that this, all of this, the whirl, the race car, the revving is a preparation…a getting ready. Stay open, love. Remember who the fuck you are.

Relentless Files — Week 68 (#52essays2017 Week 15) *An essay a week in 2017* I used to write letters. It started when I was in boarding school.