#why do people get ten million times more disgusting when they have kids. i mean i know why but dude who the fuck puts plates of food in

[californiaquail]

had to fucking hand crank the coffee beans for 15 minutes to brew them in this ridiculous contraption. bro i hate la liberals

[mykingdomforasong]

bookshop au + mutual pining for skysolo?

[fanfic mash up list]

A fair fifty percent of the mall had shut down in the last five years, but the movie theater, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Barns and Noble still did decent enough business to justify keeping the rest of the building up and running.

Most of the customers were middle and high school students looking for ways to pass the time on weekends and summer breaks. The other customers were middle-class moms trying their best to keep their kids entertained. But it was 11a.m on Tuesday, which meant that most of the customers visiting Luke at the Barns and Noble Starbucks were a few elderly people and the occasional college student.

Them, and his coworkers.

Luke started punching Han's usual drink order into the cash register when he saw him walking up. They worked together most weekdays, and Luke had become intimately familiar with the scary-high quantities of caffeine Han could consume in just eight hours.

"Sold two memberships already," Han bragged.

Luke rolled his eyes. "I have no idea how you get so many people to sign up for those."

"I'm good at my job. Charming. People like me," he said.

"Eh, you're not as smooth of a talker as you think you are," Luke said smirking as Han paid for his drink.

"Well, you wouldn't know. I've never tried to sell you anything."

Luke handed him his receipt and grabbed a cup for his drink. "I guess not."

Luke was the only one behind the counter; Ezra was in the back somewhere, restocking something or brewing drip coffee. On a slow weekday like this, Luke could manage on his own just fine. His prosthetic hand was good at balancing cups as he poured drinks, and everything else he'd learned to do one-handed. Like make a large oat milk latte with four shots.

He snapped the lid on, and then grabbed an M&M cookie out of the case.

"For you," he said, placing them both on the pick up counter.

Han smiled. "They're gonna fire you if they find out you keep giving me free cookies."

"Then I hope no one tells them." There was a pause then. Luke expected their conversation to end, for Han to turn towards the break room. Instead, they both just stood there, looking at each other for a little too long. Luke's stomach fluttered in the dumb way it always did when Han was around. He felt his cheeks get a little pink, and he hoped it wasn't noticeable.

He'd tried to find the courage to ask Han out a million times, but he always held himself back. What if he doesn't like guys? What if he doesn't like younger guys? What if he doesn't like me? Ignoring his crush also just seemed to be out of the question; more and more of the porn he watched seemed to feature men with dark eyes and hair. Han Solo was starting to occupy more of Luke's brain than he could afford to rent out.

And maybe that was why he'd managed to say absolutely nothing for ten seconds, spending that time, instead, imagining kissing Han's little chin scar.

Han's voice finally snapped him out of his chin scar-related daze.

"There's a copy of Project Hail Mary in the break room with your name on it," Han said. That was their exchange: Luke gave him cookies, Han squirreled away new releases Luke wanted.

"Thanks," he managed to say, smiling as Han walked away.

When Luke turned around, Ezra was standing by the counter. "That," he said, "was disgusting."

"What?" Luke asked, like he had no idea what Ezra was talking about. But of course he did, and he felt his face going red at the imminent confrontation.

"Your flirting is getting worse," Ezra told him. Luke just grabbed a rag and started to wipe down the counters. "And I don't mean quantity. I mean quality."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Luke insisted, despite knowing Ezra was right. Giving out free food and holding uninterrupted eye contact for an excruciating ten seconds hardly counted as good flirting.

~*~*~

Han sat in the break room enjoying his cookie as he attached and detached a post-it note to the inside cover Project Hail Mary, sticking it and peeling it off again over and over.

It was just his phone number with a little heart in the corner so Luke would know it wasn't meant to just be a friendly gesture. He peeled it off. Maybe I should be more clear, he thought reaching for another sticky note, about to write Luke - how about a movie this Saturday? Before stopping himself. Maybe I should be more vague. He was about to rewrite his own phone number, leaving out the heart, when Lando walked in.

"Skywalker give you another cookie?" He asked. Han nodded. "You ask him out yet?" Han held up the post-it note. "Thought you'd be more confident than that."

Han slumped back in his seat. "Got a better idea?"

"Yeah, use your words. What's the worst that could happen?"

"I could die."

Lando just laughed at him.

When Lando left, Han stuck his original post it back in the book, hoping that Luke (and no one else, for that matter) found it before his shift ended.

~*~*~

Luke stopped in the break room when his shift was over, and found Project Hail Mary on top of the lockers with a note: for Luke, do not sell. Han's handwriting was scratchy and familiar. He hugged the book to chest, excited to get home and start reading.

Han was at the register. "You leaving?" He asked. He looked ... off. He wasn't as laid back as he usually was; instead, he stood a little straighter, and, Luke noticed, he'd done up the top buttons on his shirt. Luke wondered if there had been bad customers or something. He didn't want to pry though.

Luke nodded. "When do you get off?"

"You're my last customer," he said. Luke almost asked him out for a post-shift drink at Buffalo Wild Wings, but Leia was already outside waiting for him.

"See you tomorrow?" Luke asked, slipping the book into his bad.

"Yeah," Han said, "enjoy the book."

"Thanks," Luke said before heading out.

Leia was idling in the fire lane when he stepped outside. He slipped into the passenger side.

"You look smitten," she said.

"Shut up." He held his bag on his lap, letting his hand rest over the book, excited to get home and open it.

[verdantmoontruther]

the anti-bkdk ramble that turned into an anti-internet ramble

i’m not like the biggest or most present bnha fan on here (i’m more about naruto personally) and i know this point has been discussed to death within the more intellectually capable circles of the fanbase, but i think we should really talk about the hypocrisy of people that excuse or ‘forgive’ bakugou’s behaviour for whatever purpose they come up with, whether it be shipping or ‘bc he’s hot’ or whatnot.

the tl;dr of what i want to say: bakugou and midoriya do not like each other. there is no evidence for that in the books or otherwise. it is unwise to view their genuine dislike as unresolved sexual tension because injecting a sexual component into bakugou’s decade-long antipathy makes for a much, much scarier bullying scenario. also, please touch grass and get a hobby outside of media consumption; i make friendship bracelets and photograph graffiti around my town. it’s very fun. take a break from the online world.

first things first: i UNDERSTAND, fully and wholeheartedly, the desire to see a queer enemies-to-lovers relationship happen in mainstream media. i may be young enough to be on the cusp between gen z and millennial, but i’m also old enough to remember when homosexuality was the weird joke paraded out on late night telly to explain a man’s bizarre behaviour, or be the shitty punchline to an equally unfunny joke. i remember feeling young and disgusted, young and scared, young and hopeless when i thought that we would never see anything remotely resembling a healthy gay relationship on tv. i didn’t even think legalised gay marriage is something that would be won in my youth. but you’re going about it the wrong way.

bakugou bullied midoriya for a long time. that is an immutable fact, and a very important aspect of both of their identities. in their childhoods, bakugou cemented midoriya into a victim role by singling him out and tormenting him. it’s important for some of you to understand that you can’t come back from that. whatever relationship they may have in the future will forever be tainted by the fact that, when bakugou knew he had the upper hand physically over midoriya, he chose to ridicule, belittle, and hurt him, and was never told by those around him that he may have been wrong for it.

it bothers me to no end that the people who will recognise how well the bnha universe fits as an allegory to the treatment of disabled people in society - which is, in my opinion, a completely astute and intelligent observation - will fail to see bakugou’s treatment of midoriya in their formative years as not abusive or ableist, but criticise a character because they said something demeaning about the quirkless population. it’s interesting because the allegory only extends to the characters and actions that are easily dealt with (cancelling a minor character for their words is very easy), but as soon as you raise the issue of physically, emotionally, and mentally abusing someone for their disability, it gets wishy washy because that’s their favourite character that we’re accusing of unsavoury behaviours. it begs the question - do you actually give a shit at all?

the reason i raise this is because fiction directly translates to real life. the things an author, screenwriter, or mangaka write about and the perspective they write about it from effect our view of ourselves and other people, especially in an industry aimed at, and mostly consumed by, the youth. that’s why i discussed what i did in the second paragraph - representation is important because it makes people feel more comfortable in their skin. and i can understand why you crave seeing yourself depicted as the hero of a story. but it also means that bad interpretations can weasel their way into the malleable minds of the young people consuming these stories: think about everything jk rowling was cancelled for. her only irish character constantly blowing things up. hook-nosed elves in love with money. werewolves preying on young boys as a metaphor for the aids epidemic.

i can’t blame horikoshi for the way that people infer his writing because there is absolutely no evidence in his writing that bakugou and midoriya harbour romantic feelings for each other, but i do know where this sentiment comes from: you kids are grasping at straws, wanting to make genuinely antagonistic characters into some sort of star-crossed romance because this is your first time being exposed to fighty blowy uppy shounen that doesn’t give a shit about love, and it worries me, because it means you begin romanticising all the wrong behaviours. if i was reading half the shit you guys like about the mythical bkdk dynamic in an actual book, it’d be raising red flags immediately. no communication. possessiveness. jealousy. entitlement. belittling. taking out their anger on each other. i’m concerned for you lot.

some of you aren’t going to like hearing this, but i think the reason we are seeing such a strong insurgence of the romanticisation of such an unhealthy relationship dynamic, apart from representation, is because being bombarded by so many stories and headlines and works in a day due to the internet has desensitised us to a lot of things. you look at a news headline about a bombing or a murder and you don’t feel anything anymore. same thing with fiction: ten years of bullying, when you have nothing from your own personal life to compare it to, doesn’t sound that bad. someone telling you to kill yourself gets brushed off like water off a duck’s back because everyone tells everyone to kts these days. having no friends is normalised because all of us people online are ‘depressed and anxious uwu no fwends’. in order to get a real hit right in the gut you need something that takes the word angst and amplifies it by a scale factor of seven million. in a culture that sensationalises pain and is devoid of empathy, midoriya’s situation is just not enough anymore.

once again idk if any of this made sense. i write what i think and if it comes out like a jumble of random letters then oh well.

[jessiebanethedragon]

White Sands Warm the Cold Sea (pt 10)

Summary: the reader, betrothed to a disgusting Coruscanti Lord flees her home world and lands herself in a plethora of trouble, a ship of clones, and one pirate captain whose cold exterior needs much more than the tropical seaside sun.

Chapter one

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter four

Chapter five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Warnings: Swearing, takes place in time periods where women have dowery's and suchlike. The readers' dad and betrothed are asses.

Chapter Ten: The Echo

Greeting your companions the next morning was just as awkward as bidding them goodnight after the debacle last night. You’re stiff, bruised, and the dirtiest you’ve ever been in your whole life. Lightly retying the corset to support yourself, you collect Gonk from where she’s curled in the Hammock and brace yourself before heading out onto the deck of the ship. It’s already very bright out, and the crew is as rambunctious as ever. With the Captain throwing orders around here and there, Tech and Wrecker working the sails, and Crosshair shouting back down to Hunter. It’s marvellous how they work together when they're not disagreeing about something.

You feel Gonk leap off your shoulder with a curious noise before bounding away, her speckled wings bouncing behind her. She looks clumsy for a lizard, but then again, how many lizards did you know that have feathers?

“Good Morning!” Wrecker shouts to you when he notices your figure. You give him a smile and a small wave. Tech returns your smile and watches you as you glance around. Appreciating the sea and the vessel you’ve found yourself on.

The water of the Corillian run is a rich blue with just enough green to look magical. And the waves the churn underneath you look more powerful than any carriage or speeder you’ve seen before. Just as you’re wondering how deep it is, there's a commotion behind you. Hunter is glaring deadly at Gonk, who’s held by her neck feathers in front of his face. And from the way her wings are flapping and her front claws grab at him, it's no mystery where she was, or where she’s trying to go.

“I’m sorry!” You say, gathering your skirts and rushing over. The Captain glares at you as he shoves her into your arms, her grey feathers bunching up as he does so. His tunic is rolled up again, and in the morning light you can see the symbols on his forearm more clearly. Traitor.

When the wooden ruler collided with your desk you yelped in fear and surprise. Was it the first time this had happened? Absolutely not, and if these lessons continued this way, it certainly wouldn't be the last.

“Pay. Attention.” The Pantoran woman growled at you, she was very smart. You could just tell, and the fact she was instructed to dumb down your education infruiated the both of you. “As I was saying…” She eyed you - a dare to look out the window and start daydreaming again.

“Teach me about the war.” You blurted out the statue of the emperor they were erecting, catching your eye again.

“This is a language class.” She said with a sigh, before placing the ruler down. “I’m guessing you want to know about the Clones.”

“How did you kn-”

“It’s all anyone ever talks about.” She interrupted you, which was shocking in itself, but not unwelcome. Perching herself on the birch coloured desk, you found her staring out the window as well.“It’s well known that there was scarcely a better soldier than a Kaminoan Clone. And so when the war came to its end, and the Jedi went rouge, well they hardly stood a chance. Those who sided with them were caught and killed or branded traitors. Why they let any of them survive is beyond me, but those clones were so fiercely loyal. Some of them just couldn't shake that. No matter how hard the Kaminoans or the Emperor tried, there were millions of them, and some…” She paused for a moment, glancing back at the door as if someone was watching you through it.

“Well even if an inhibitor chip is 99.99% effective, out of one million, there will still be one hundred defects.”

You try to stop staring, you really do. But by then Hunter has caught your eye, and is glaring even harder than he was before. Cautiously you take a step back, finding yourself in the company of clones is one thing, those willing to defy Nython, another. But enemies of the Galactic Empire was a different kind of dangerous.

“Courtesy of your betrothed.” The Captain grits out, and whatever softness was there from the night before is gone. Scared, you clutch Gonk to your chest like a child would a blanket. “What did you do?” You ask, looking him up and down. Even with the scars on his knuckles of cuts and burns, He didn't look like the horror stories you’d been told as a kid, in fact, he didn't look dangerous at all. But the symbols were there, scared into his skin some time ago. Something flashes in his brown sugar eyes, like the ping of a blaster bounces off of his iries in the heat of battle. Like he relives combat right in front of you.

“What we did was rescue a prisoner of war.” He spits, walking towards you and backing you into the banister that overlooks the pain part of the deck. “That hammock you’re sleeping in belongs to someone.”

“I’m sorry.” You say trembling. Looking to the side to see Wrecker place a firm hand on his sergeant's shoulder and pull him firmly away from you.

“Echo’s was in the hands of the Techno Union for some time.” Wrecker explains defusing the situation. “He’s waiting for us on Alderaan, after some much needed rest.” Hunter, who’s now swatting Tech - and whatever device he’s trying to scan him with - away, seems to be ignoring you.

“I-I didn’- I didn’t mean…” You tell Wrecker shakily.

“I know, and it’s okay.” He says with a smile, but Hunter's words resonate with you. Haunting you of acts you have had nothing to do with.

In his cabin Hunter throws his hat as hard as he can against the wall. He hates you, he hates the Empire and most of all he hates Nython. And what’s even more infuriating is how innocent you are, how your morales are driving you away from your betrothed, and how you saved the shit disturbing reptile that seems to like himself and yourself too much. And no matter how much Hunter wants to despise the empire, if it’s still filled with people like you, it means there’s still something to fight for. But if he’s being honest with himself, he doesn’t know how much fight he's got left.

☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠

“What did he mean, courtesy of my betrothed?” You have to walk quickly behind Crosshair in an effort to keep up, his long legs easily outpace you and even though you’re both still injured he moves quickly. You follow him into the storage area that you’re all too familiar with, nearly bumping into him when he stops to look for a specific crate.

“Why don’t you bother Tech with your questions?” Crosshair says pushing boxes around.

“Because you’ll tell me the truth, no sugar coating.” You tell him, nudging him aside with your boot as you lean over to grab what he couldn’t reach. Perhaps being smaller wasn’t a disadvantage after all. Proudly you hand him the strange looking fruit.

“I need the whole crate.” Crosshair tells you unimpressed, before giving you the singular Meiloorun fruit and leaning over the stack of crates again. “And to answer your question, he was talking about the scars on his hand.” You lean against the tower so you can try to read his face as he yanks the crate forward.

“The burns or the wounds?” You ask, mulling over the fruit in your hands.

“Same thing.” Crosshair explains. “From a mission on Kashyyyk, Nython had the whole forest alight, and Hunter got trapped behind a blast door.” He watches as you cover your mouth with one hand as you remember the boasts, the gloat, the pride Nython had when he recounted the battle.

“You should’ve seen it,” There’s awe in Crosshair's voice now. “The Regs wanted to label him MIA, but that's not Hunter, not the Sergeant of ‘Force 99. When the squad hoisted him into that medical bay, he was barely alive.”

“No wonder he hates me.” You breathe, looking at the clone in front of you who shrugs.

“Don’t take it personally, he hates mostly everyone. We all do, it’s…” Crosshair stops and composes himself, like being honest or genuine with you is a weakness. “Nython decimated everything in his path. There’s what? A handful of Wookies left, half of those are thanks to him and all he can think about is how many he didn’t save.” You gently place your fruit on the box Crosshair is standing before you with. “It’s all a bit narcissistic if you ask me.” You smile at Crosshairs sass.

“You’d know.” You counter, trying to ease the tension in the room. “Thank you, for being honest.” You tell him, catching a smirk as he starts up the stairs.

“It’s one of my many endearing qualities.” He says, before shouting to his brothers about something that you don't even bother trying to understand.

With a look back at the hiding spot that you had chosen when you boarded the ship, you start up the stars and get back into the daylight. The captain is still gone, but Tech, Crosshair and Wrecker are each peeling a Meilroon fruit. You smile at them, they look so picturesque right now. The sea in the background and the three of them scraping the tough skin off of the fruits with knives. You’re reminded of children's picture books of pirates mulling over gold.

“Hey! What’s so funny?” Wrecker calls when he sees your big smile. Walking over, You plant yourself on the floor leaning against the banister.

“I half expected you all to break out into a sea shanty.” You tease reaching up to pick up a fruit.

“Ha ha.” Crosshair said dryly, giving you the handle of the knife to take from him to peel your own fruit. “Try not to chuck it at Tech again will ya?” you nod and very carefully start running the blade along the fruit.

“So no sea shanties then?” You ask, popping a piece into your mouth.

“We don’t sing.” Tech states.

“Yeah we do!” Wrecker argues, jamming his knife into the lid of the crate, “we know that one from-”

“Ferrik if you start singing that again.” Crosshair grumbles.

“THERE ONCE WAS A SHIP THAT PUT TO SEA” You all cringe when Wrecker starts shouting rather than singing, both of his brothers shout back simultaneously for him to stop, while you giggle from your spot on the floor. You could almost get used to their company, that and the fresh salty sea air, you are already beginning to enjoy the life of sailing. On the second floor, emerging from the captain's quarters, Hunter generally steps. Even someone without enhanced senses would have heard Wreckers incessant shouting and he has every intent on giving the three of them a lecture when he hears something else entirely.

“There was once a soldier who carried a mighty sword, and he had saved the village, oh lei, oh lai, oh lord.” Your voice accompanies soft taps to the wooden boards to create some kind of beat. The sound stops as soon as it starts.

“Don’t stop on our account.” He hears Tech's voice, and a stealthy Hunter moves to try and get a better view, he wants to know what you’re up to, and if you’re still trying to manipulate his crew.

“I’ve been told I have an atrocious singing voice.”

“It’s better than Wreckers.” Both Crosshair and Tech comment simultaneously. And Hunter hears you let out a half laugh. Some kind of reserved dainty thing that has him rolling his eyes.

“There was once a sailor, he had travelled the globe, his love he was chasing. oh lei, oh lai, oh lord.” You continue tapping again, “And there will come a captain who’s heart is completely pure, he will find those who are lost, oh lei,...” He hears you stop. As something catches your attention. And Hunter takes the opportunity to make an appearance.

You hear the captain’s footsteps before you turn your gaze away from the birds flying alongside the ship. “Who let the Aaray get a’ hold of a knife again?” He says looking down at you, the fruit and the blade. Hesitantly, and with only half of the Meilroon fruit peeled you give the knife back to Crosshair the same way he had originally given it to you. Pointing the handle towards him whilst gently holding the blade.

“I wasn’t going to…” You start.

“Going to what? Try and kill one of my crew again?” Hunter raises an eyebrow as if he’s daring you to disagree. You take a deep breath in, and hoist yourself onto shaky feet. Wrecker gives you a hand when your legs shake still in pain. Letting out your breath you lock eyes with the captain.

“I understand your hatred for that man,” You begin softly.

“No.” He snaps, “you don’t” You plead with his unforgiving eyes, and the way his half tattooed face scrunches in annoyance.

“You can’t be reasoned with.” You say hopelessly, knowing that whatever you say, it won't be enough.

“I should not have to reason with the likes of you.” Hunter bites. And at this point even Wrecker has given up trying to reason with him. Behind you, Tech’s Holopad beeps.

“I am not my Fiance!” You exclaim. “And yet you attribute all of his crimes to me, even the crime of trying to rid myself of Ny-”

Before you can react, Hunter moves fast as lightning, a hand on your throat, his own vibroblade dangerously close to you, bending you against the banister that stops you falling into the abyss alone. The three others brace themselves and when they move to help you, stop at the growl of anger from their sergeant.

“You do not. Say that name. On. My. Ship.” He tells the trembling woman beneath him.

“What happened to you Sergeant?” You breathe out, searching for the man that his brothers seem to think he is. Everything they tell you about him, every ‘he’s not like this.’ All of his actions point to the fact that he is like this. Something changes in his face, like he remembers where and who he is. And like Hunter is on fire, he steps away from you. The second there's room, Wrecker forces you behind him protectively.

“Sarge.” Tech says, his voice echoing like blaster fire in the mountains. “I think you should come with me.”

Tags: @the-mandalorian-clone-lover @peacefulwizardfox @rex-meshla @s1st37 @and-claudia @kamino-mermaid @thelambandthewolffe @starwarsmeninhelmets

@bronvin @myeternalsin @sweetsunflowerkisses @loverofclones @beizm @gunsmoke-blu

@logina6 @wondergal2001 @lafy-taffy @lafy-taffy @m-o-o-n-s-g-o-o-n-s

@starskenobiwan @lordellbell @kaetavlos @violetjedisylveon @​​vergol @Lackofhonor

[apollostears]

TEENAGE LOVE AFFAIR [ BTS ]

group: BTS

pairing: BTS x daughter!reader

warning(s): swearing

request: can you do BTS reacting to their 15 year old daughter having a boyfriend/girlfriend?

requested by: @mela3340

oomfggg this was so fun to make!! thanks for requesting the first request of 2021 :) hope you enjoy love <3

➝︎ jin

he’s literally dramatic af.

#dramaking

but no really, he’ll be shook to the gods.

like huh??? his child got a partner?!!!

my kid?!!! IN THESE STREETS?!

he would faint, then wake back up and shake her til she’s dizzy.

ok but on a more serious note, i think if he saw his daughter have genuine feelings for this person they’re with, he would support a 100%

definitely wants to meet them asap

would chaperone their dates but in a way that’s soooo cliché. i mean ugly ass disguises cliché.

will definitely have a heart attack if his daughters partner used the fake ‘yawn-over-the-shoulder’ move while at the movies.

all his daughter would hear is someone choking horrendously a few rooms behind them and instantly know it’s her dad.

will call the boys up every time she asks him to go on a date with their partner or if they can come over to hang and study.

“i’m at a lost here! it’s like i’m in the war!” jin exaggerates on the group call with his friends.

“hyung, i think you’re over exaggerating.” jungkook would say sheepishly.

with the straightest face, jin would hang up and contemplate his choice in friends.

after about the sixth month mark, i do think he’d let up a tremendous amount.

like he’s no longer breathing down her neck about them and allows them to go on dates without him, so long as she tells him where they’re going.

10/10 is the dramatic dad that goes through a midlife crisis when their daughter starts dating.

➝︎ yoongi

mans does not care.

ok lemme clarify, he doesn’t care to the extent that jin does. he trusts his daughter and her decisions and understands that this is an important part of her life. he’s gonna try his hardest to not overstep.

but deep down, he definitely is having a hard time coming to grasps that his daughter is in love and starting to enter the dating world.

he understands the pressures surrounding dating too, especially at fifteen. so he’s definitely giving a nice lil lecture about sex, safe sex, consensual sex, and commitment.

and yes, yoongi knows that most of these young love relationships don’t last long, but he wants his daughter to know that her relationship is legit to him. no matter how old she is.

will look intimidating af to their daughters bf or gf. he definitely overhears them discussing if yoongi likes them or not 💀

looks like he could kill you and will but is also such a sweetheart once you actually know him.

doesn’t do no undercover brother shit but will follow his daughter on their first few dates just because he’s worried. isn’t overbearing and keeps a good distance.

honestly, if anything it brings his daughter a lot of comfort to know her dad is there to back her up 🙂

100%!is the father that seems like they’re chill on the surface but on the inside is working overtime to not be overreactive when their child starts dating.

➝︎ namjoon

is literally the 😯 emoji

when his daughter tells him that she’s got a lover, he literally looks exactly like that emoji.

he’s like “love? what you know about that?”

is extremely confused the entire time. yes, he knows that at her age, children start experimenting with dating but he never actually thought he’d have to deal with it.

was definitely worried that he’d lose out on daddy-daughter time once she started dating.

that was his biggest fear. that his daughter wouldn’t need him anymore. she would no worries.

is deathly afraid of his daughter experiencing heartbreak. their s/o could be the perfect match for his kid, he still wouldn’t care. namjoon is going to be worried regardless.

constantly asks for updates on their relationship to see if he needs to give any advice on how to keep the relationship going.

he doesn’t see their love as something immature. namjoon values it the same way he would value an adult relationship.

which meansss giving them the birds n the bees. same as yoongi, a thorough talk on sexually transmitted diseases, birth control, safe sex, you name it.

was incredibly nervous to meet the person their daughter was dating 💀 like how you supposed to be the daddy but more scared than the actual date.

chaperones his daughter’s first couple of dates. doesn’t get in their way but definitely makes his presence known when does attend.

has a strict “have her home by 9 or else” policy.

won’t ground their child if they give them a heads up on why they would be late.

is 100% the type to be the “work in progress” dad that wishes there was a book on what to do when your teenage daughter starts dating.

➝︎ hobi

mans was like “awww my wittle baby likes somebody!”

was wayyy more excited about meeting their child’s s/o then what is deemed normal.

don’t get me wrong, he’s definitely protective of his kid but hobi understands that these things happen.

it was bound to happen that one day his daughter would start dating.

doesn’t hound his child with questions but is very curious to learn more about this bf/gf that their daughter has.

when he meets them, he’s very scary looking at first. switching into serious hobi, he intimidates the kid just a bit before breaking into a grin and letting them know he was kidding.

is the type of dad that would make their daughters’ s/o fall in love with him 💀

hobi gets along with virtually anyone so it wasn’t hard for him to bond with the s/o.

however, he does make it known that he is a father and while the kid seems to be an alright choice for his daughter, he still lets them know that he will go liam neeson on a motherfucker if necessary.

doesn’t follow his daughter on dates but somehow ends up attending some of them because they both want him around.

on the times he doesn’t go, there is a curfew in place and it’s 8 o’clock 😔

hobi is 100% the dad to become friends with their daughters’ bf/gf but still be a force to be reckon with when needed.

➝︎ jimin

probably the one who meddles in their daughters love life.

sees their daughter walkout of school with a guy and is asking fifty million questions on who he is and if she likes him.

all for her to turn around and be like “dad, i’m gay.”

and he’s like 🥺🥰 “good, boys are disgusting anyways.”

so now he’s scoping out girls that could be a potential match for his kid 💀

“what about her?”

“nah, she’s a little rude to me.”

“you know what they say! she likes you!”

“no dad. just...no.”

was not expecting the girl his daughter chooses but can totally see it once he actually gets to know her.

is constantly giving his daughter cute date ideas for her to do w her gf. definitely has a pintrest board of places for them.

will happily be a chauffeur for his daughter if necessary. this can be good and bad. good bc yayay free rides. bad because she has to deal with a jimin that wants to be on time or a jimin that makes them ten minutes late to a movie showing. there is no in between.

he doesn’t follow his daughter around. mainly because he’s always driving them but if he doesn’t, she still gives him a heads up on where they’re going.

doesn’t mind them hanging sleepovers or leaving the door closed but will totally pop up at random times to be nosey.

is definitely in his daughters corner anytime someone tries to give her and her gf a hard time for being together.

a 100% the dad that’s constantly involved in his child’s love life but not to an extreme point. is totally just excited to be there and apart of her world.

➝︎ taehyung

the motherfucker is all smug and shit talking about some “ i know ” 😏 when his daughter approaches him about her new partner.

lets be real; taehyung would know his daughter like the back of his hands. he would have suspicions that she’s seeing somebody but won’t pressure her to speak until she’s ready.

acts like the fbi when he finally meets their daughter’s partner.

is stalking all social media, finding where they work, who they guardians are, and where they grandma stay 💀🤣

but it’s really because he knows how dangerous people are and the last thing he wants is for his kids’ life to be in danger.

is definitely a hard ass to whoever his daughter ends up dating regardless of gender. will go major payne on a motherfucker real quick.

does not care if he gets caught watching out for his daughter while she’s on a date. will deadass sit there and stare them down as they look at him, completely unbothered.

after meeting their partner a few times, he’ll become a bit more loose in regards to their relationship but will still eye them wearily.

his daughter is very important to him and he’s just worried about any potential heartbreak she may experience.

“have you ever killed?”

“uh, no sir. i-i’m only fifteen...sir.”

kisses teeth, “would you kill for my daughter?”

*beat of silence, two horrified teenagers*

scoffs, “pathetic. d/n choose a new partner.”

“dad!”

seems like a hard ass and is a hard ass but it’s completely out of love.

is 100% the dad that gives their daughter’s partner a hard time and will hold such a passive face that they’ll never know if he likes them or not, but overtime will start loosening up and accept them for who they are.

➝︎ jungkook

he was thoroughly surprised.

like...she might as well had told him she was pregnant.

jk needed a moment to comprehend that his daughter...his precious jewel was dating.

just the thought sent chills down his spine with his dramatic ass.

immediately demanded to meet the person who stole his daughter from him. and when he found out it was the bad kid from school??!!! mans was heated.

i mean really? the juvenile delinquent of ALL people?

he feels this way mainly because he remembers how he was as a kid and he knows how anal teenagers can be. really just wants the best for his kid.

is present for their first date. why is that? because it was at their house with him sitting on the opposite couch, watching them like a hawk as they attempted to watch a movie.

after that, his daughter had a serious talk with him about personal space and independence.

jungkook didn’t like the fact that he had to have this talk, but he understands it’s importance. him and his daughter have a sacred bond with one another that he doesn’t wanna risk breaking all because of his overprotectiveness.

that overprotectiveness does come in handy though because their daughters’ partner is always on time when it comes to getting her and dropping her off. honestly, if his daughter ever tried to convince their partner to skip curfew, their partner would text jungkook to snitch 💀

“so...you tried to skip curfew, eh?”

“wha-? how do you know this?!”

smirks, “i see all d/n. besides, your partner knows not to cross that line with me.”

“i literally cannot stand either of you.”

this has definitely led the daughter to question if she has a relationship or if her dad has a relationship with her s/o.

after about three months of them dating, jungkook turns into a pretty chill dad to be real. at that point, he understands that he can’t protect her from pain. so, he might as well just try his best to support his daughter through everything she does.

is 100% that is overly dramatic at first and comes off as incredibly scary but eventually comes down to earth and becomes a big teddy bear 🥰

❧ join my taglist: @olamidey @knjkitten @pimpnameyannie @sweeneyblue1 @sunrayyellowhalo @exomama-random @simplyskz-maya @valkryienymph @supop @namjoonswifeyy @asparagusclifford

[dcforts]

[day 4: cooking and baking]

Now, Bobby Singer didn’t always exactly enjoy having Sam and Dean around – he was used to living alone and he liked his routine; they got loud when they bickered and he always had to make sure they were clean and fed and far from the stuff he had laying around that they weren’t supposed to touch.

He never wanted to be a father after all, nor get stuck running a daycare for hunters for that matter, but he just couldn’t bring himself to say no to John whenever he asked, even if he had his garage to run and hunting on the side.

He felt bad for them. He might have known nothing about raising children, but he sure knew that they were supposed to have a home, not to be dragged across the country in an old car, exposed to all kinds of dangers.

So, if washing an extra set of bedsheets and hiding his booze and getting a headache or two from their feet stomping upstairs meant giving them a roof over their head for a few days, a familiar place where to feel safe and proper food in their belly – if one could count canned soup as proper food – then he could bite the bullet.

And they were good kids, they always did what he told them and never complained about anything.

Even when one year they got stuck at his place on Christmas Eve. The air was heavy around the dinner table and Bobby had turned on the tv in an attempt to liven up the atmosphere and distract them. Still, they remained quiet, hunched over their plates wearing gloomy faces.

Their father was supposed to pick them up but he’d called and said he wasn’t gonna make it. Bobby knew it was gonna happen as soon as he’d heard the phone ringing that afternoon.

"But it’s Christmas!” he’d hissed angrily trying not to be heard by the kids, “What am I supposed to tell them?”

“Uh - I don’t know, Bobby," John had replied, with that tone he got when he was uninterested in what you were saying and had already uncorked one too many beers. "It’s just this one time.”

When Bobby had delivered the news, Dean had shouted "Why hasn’t he called me?" and Sam had grumbled "You should have convinced him", so they most likely hated him too.

Bobby didn’t take it personally, if he were a kid he sure wouldn’t have liked to spend Christmas with someone like him and without his only parent.

Bobby didn’t do holidays at all. He hanged a wreath on the front door just cause he kept it in the hallway all year round. He made himself a turkey sandwich. He enjoyed a classic movie just as the next guy and he passed out on the couch with a glass of store-bought eggnog. That was it. It was not like he had anyone to share it with. It had been like that for years and he didn’t mind. 

Knowing that the kids would be around though, he’d hanged on the window a string of lights he’d found in the basement and had put on display a weird looking statue of an elf - although if he wasn’t sure if it was Christmas related or just an old dark artifact. The boys had spared those things barely a glance and not brought up Christmas at all so Bobby had just figured that they didn’t do holidays either.

But then a commercial featuring a big holiday banquet came on tv for the umpteenth time, filling the kitchen with its obnoxious jingle and Dean finally spoke up.

“Hey Bobby,” he asked, tearing his eyes from the tv. “Did your mother ever bake for the holidays?”

Bobby didn’t even remember the last time he’d talked about his mother with anyone. It always brought up bittersweet memories he didn’t like to deal with. Still, he cleared his throat, “Sure,” he said, but now Sam was watching him too so he added, “she was a good baker - made a mean blueberry pie.”

Dean gave him a small smile. “Really?”

“Yeah, and she’d always make two, one for everyone and another one just for me."

“A whole pie? Just for you?" Sam asked with a glint of amusement in his eyes.

"I could eat that," intervened Dean immediately.

Bobby snorted, “Yeah, I know that, kid."

Dean smiled proudly, but then Sam said "You couldn’t, Dean. You’d get sick."

"No, I wouldn’t," he shot back.

"Yes, you would. Not even an adult can - "

"What do you know, if you never - ”

“I know - ”

Bobby groaned and got up from the table to start collecting the dirty dishes, "Alright, break it up".

They fell into silence again as he put the dishes in the sink and started washing them.

"Go get ready for bed."

He heard the scraping of chair legs on the floorboards, but he was still thinking about his mother and didn’t realize that only one pair of shoes had left the room and the other one had come to stand next to him.

"Does your oven work?" Dean said, making him jump.

"Wh- my oven? Yeah. Why?”

"Just ‘cause... you never use it," was his reply, a little unsure.

"That don’t mean it don’t work."

"Have you ever used it?”

"Can’t remember, honestly.”

"Mum used to bake pies for me too," Dean said then. "Sammy wasn’t there so he gets upset when I talk about it."

Bobby gave him half a smile. "Bet Mary's pies were the best, uh?”

"Yeah", he said, but he sounded thoughtful. He still made no move to leave and Bobby didn’t know what else to say. The last thing he wanted was to make the boy sad, or worse, make him cry for his mom.

He started working faster on drying those dishes.

"Maybe your father remembers the recipe. You should ask him,” he said, casually.

Apparently it was the wrong thing to say. Dean tugged the hem of his jacket and looked at him with the most scared expression Bobby had ever seen on him. “Don’t!" he said, "Please. Dad doesn’t like talking about these things. Don’t tell him I told you."

Bobby gritted his teeth and tried to not let his rage show on his face. He put down the rag and grabbed one of his shoulder, “It’s okay, Dean. I won’t.”

Dean gulped and quickly nodded and Bobby itched for a drink.

“Now go. It’s time for bed.”

"Yes, sir," said Dean.

“You don’t have to cal-” he started, then sighed, “Nevermind. Just go.”

As he heard the door upstair close he opened the highest cabinet and grabbed his bottle of scotch. He sat down to pour himself a glass, took his cap off and rubbed his forehead.

His hands tightened into fists at the thought of John. How could he leave them like that? What would’ve happened if he’d died on a hunt? Who would have cared for them? Bobby certainly couldn’t – John couldn’t possibly expect –

The tv was still on.

His second glass was already empty when that stupid holiday commercial with that stupid jingle came on once again. Annoyed, Bobby stood up to turn it off and that’s when Dean came to his mind and a thought hit him.

The kid wanted a damn pie.

He just didn’t know how to ask, or even if he could ask. And of course he would think that, with that father of his, his taboos and his rules. Bobby felt anger and stubborness rise in him.

If the kid wanted a goddamn pie, Bobby would’ve given him a goddamn pie. Even if he had to drive for miles at the crack of dawn on Christmas Day for blueberries.

And now where the fuck did he put Karen’s recipe book?

*

The morning after, he cracked the bedroom door open and Dean blinked awake as soon as he brushed his shoulder.

“Don’t wake your brother. Come downstairs," he whispered, motioning him to be quiet.

In the daylight Bobby was willing to admit that he was a little nervous about his idea.

Yet he couldn’t resist watching Dean’s face as he entered the kitchen ten minutes later and stopped in his track when he saw flour, eggs, sugar and blueberries lined up on the counter.

It was like his face couldn’t settle on an emotion. He frowned, smiled, frowned again. Then he just looked at Bobby as if he was asking him what he was supposed to do or say.

"I was thinking it’s about time I make that oven work again. What you say? Wanna bake your own pie?"

Dean surprised himself with a laugh. "But Bobby - I don’t – I never -"

"What, you think I do?" Bobby shrugged, "If it’s bad, we’ll just throw it out."

Dean seemed too overwhelmed to say anything. He just nodded.

Bobby went towards him. "See, I got this book here, it was my wife’s. We’re more than capable to follow a bunch of instructions, right?"

It took way longer than Bobby had anticipated, and surely longer than it generally took other people. And it wasn’t easy. At all. Not just because in the last few years he’d reduced his diet to mostly pre-cooked stuff, but especially for the smells that filled the kitchen and the long string of memories attached to them - Karen and his mom, guilt and comfort, sweetness and fear.

But Bobby went through all of it, the fishing out of the egg shells, the spilling of the flour, the hour long wait for the dough to set and the million questions Dean seemed to have – because the boy enjoyed himself.

Bobby was pretty sure of it, from the way he groaned in disgust as he dipped his hands in the mixture with raw eggs, in his cheeky face when he lied about stealing the blueberries they were using, in his clear laugh when Bobby slipped and almost crashed on the dirty floor; all of that made it worth it.

When the oven door was closed and the timer was set, he even sat cross-legged on the tiles to watch it as it baked.

Bobby moved around him to clean the mess they’d made and then went to wash himself up. When he looked himself in the bathroom mirror he saw flour all over his beard and bits of dough on his flannel. He found himself smiling a little.

He might not be able to bring the boys the spirit of Christmas or whatever crap they sold these days, but he would’ve been be satisfied if he managed to make them happier for half a day.

Dean started pounding on the door right in that moment. “Bobby!” he was shouting, “The timer! Hurry up! We need to get it out!”

Bobby’s reflection rolled his eyes and sighed. “Coming!” he shouted back and heard Dean running away again.

When he entered the kitchen half a minute later, Sam had joined Dean in front of the oven. He was still in his pyjamas and looked up at him with sleepy eyes. “Dean’s screams woke me up,” he said.

“Yeah, alright. I’m here, let me through and step back. I don’t want you to get burned.”

As carefully as possible, he took the pie out under the scrutinizing gaze of the brothers. As he sat it on the table he noticed the uneven colour of the crust and the filling that had spilled all over the sides and through the cracks. He made a face. “Well - doesn’t look half bad as far as first attempts go -" he tried to say but his words were drowned by the boys shouting “Whoa!”

"It smells so good," said Dean, wearing a proud smile.

"It’s perfect," said Sam with the solemnity of a renown critic. "Can we try it now?"

"Let’s give it a moment to cool down. You go get dressed. Dean, go wash your hands."

They both sprinted in different directions. Sam immediately ran up the stairs banging a hand on the banister in excitement. Dean bolted in the direction of the downstairs bathroom.

“Be careful!” he thundered.

They both shouted back at once: “Yes, Uncle Bobby!”

A rush of affection washed over him. He shook his head looking down at their pie.

“Merry Christmas kids.” 

 joining @bend-me-shape-me in this!

[readyplayerhobi]

Flower | 30

; Hoseok x Reader

; Genre: Angst, fluff

; Warnings: Discussions of sex, questions of consent (no rape, don’t worry), body issues, body weight issues, self-esteem problems, self-confidence issues, brief mention of self-harm thoughts, mentions of bullying

; Word Count: 4.2k

; Synopsis: You finally decide to take a dip into the world of online dating and find the Flower dating app. One of the top matches for you proves to be a guy who looks to be your complete opposite; tattooed, pierced, a metalhead and oh…incredibly handsome. What happens when you throw caution to the wind and reach out to him?

; A/N: This chapter is one pretty close to me and might be tough for anyone else who’s also overweight or has been overweight during those tough times in school! Don’t worry about the MC, she’s okay. There’s no rape, the consent thing is briefly mentioned as a question. Please reblog this if you enjoyed so others can read, leave me comments or asks so I can know what you think :) only 10 more chapters left...

; Flower Masterpost

-

Giggling quietly to yourself, you scroll through the pictures on your phone carefully. It takes you forever to finally move onto the next one as you feel the need to carefully scan over each one in depth to catch all the little things. There’s so much to find in each picture and you spend as long as you can looking them over in amusement, grinning at the odd fashion choices.

“What are you laughing at?” Hoseok asks, coming over from the kitchen with a fresh glass of water for you and a cup of peppermint tea for himself. He’d only been home from work for about ten minutes while you’d been home for over half an hour now. Taking a sip from your glass, you smirk at him slightly as he sits next to you with a deep sigh.

Tiredness is etched into his face today, the dark circles under his eyes a little deeper than usual. He’d been struggling to sleep lately for some reason, waking up repeatedly apparently. Reaching over, you gently cup his cheek and stroke his skin softly, enjoying the welcome smile he gives before you turn your phone around to let him see.

“Interesting hair. How many jars of hair gel did you go through when you were a teenager?” You tease him, watching as his eyes widen when he realises what the photo is. It’s of Hoseok when he was a teenager; maybe fourteen or fifteen and with what looks like a bucket of grease on his head. The spikes of his hair turn quickly into an overly long hairstyle in the next picture, straightened but with a distinctive fringe covering one eye.

“You had an emo phase! Look at you! All that eyeliner and those neon streaks. I never had an emo phase, you know. I don’t think I had any phase to be honest. Except for a horse phase when I was really young.” Hoseok goes to grab for your phone, his mouth pulled into a cringe as you scroll to the next picture and reveal yet another emo looking Hoseok with an abundance of sweatbands, colourful wristbands and more. He looked distinctly drunk, even though he can’t have been more than sixteen.

It’s so strange seeing Hoseok with slightly chubbier cheeks, his body gangly and lean in that teenage boy way as it went through the process of puberty while his face still maintained such a youthful look. Despite that, you can see the template for the statuesque face he’d end up with already in the pictures. The elegant slope of his nose was still pretty, even if he’d not quite grown into it at that point and a jawline that’s not quite as strong as it is now.

“Mom sent you this, didn’t she?” He groans, rubbing at his eyes before peering back at the phone through gaps between his fingers. Chortling softly, you shake your head before looking back at the screen.

“No, actually. She put them on her Facebook. Apparently she found the pictures while cleaning and scanned them in. Reminiscing about your wild years.” That makes Hoseok make the strangest noise, a combination of a groan and a shout. He’s looking at his own phone instantly, face palming when he sees the pictures.

“Moooom,” He whines pathetically, looking through them. You place your phone down on the coffee table and shuffle closer to him, letting yourself see the photos through his screen. Glancing at his face, you take in his slight frown and the pout of his lips, hoping he’s not too annoyed that his mom has put them up.

“Are you angry at her?” Shaking his head, he sighs deeply before letting his phone drop onto the table too.

“Not really. Just...it’s more embarrassing. Though, isn’t that her job at this age? As you can see through; I’ve always been good looking. Maybe not always with the best style admittedly but...at least the music is still great. My Chemical Romance remains one of the best bands in my opinion, even if they’re not as heavy as what I listen to now.” Rolling your eyes, you pull your legs up and rest a hand on your knee.

“I mean...it was certainly a style.”

“So come on then, I’ve shown you mine. Where’s your embarrassing teenage pics?” Hoseok teases, sticking his tongue out at you playfully. The silver ball of his tongue piercing catching the light momentarily before it disappears into his mouth once more.

Awkwardly, you smile back at him before shrugging slightly. The sudden change in your behaviour is obviously noticeable as Hoseok frowns, tilting his head in a silent question at you. Licking your lips, you realise that you’re playing with your fingers. A nervous habit.

“I don’t have any,” At the confusion Hoseok shows, you clear your throat. “I mean, outside of graduation photos. I...I wouldn’t let myself be photographed back then.”

“Wha-, seriously? Like...none? I don’t think my parents would have let me, even as grumpy as I was to them all the time.” You can understand why he doesn’t understand. There’s not many people you can think of who have near enough zero pictures of those years. For many teenagers today, the very idea of not having a million pictures might be unthinkable.

“Have you ever been overweight?” You ask quietly, the question seemingly random as you lean into him until he has to wrap his arm around you to make it comfortable. For a moment, he doesn’t respond. Being with him for well over a year now means that you’ve come to understand him, the knowledge that he’s not ignoring you but considering your question carefully.

“No. Can’t say I have.” He finally answers, running his fingers along your arm slowly. 

Twisting your lips, you sigh heavily and let your head fall back against his shoulders as you let your mind wander back to when you were younger. Back to where your insecurities began, all those years ago. Swallowing hard, you decide to go ahead with it. You’d alluded to it enough and now felt like the right time to finally talk about your formative years.

But your breath stutters, throat closing tighter as you realise it’s hard to go back to then. To when you were so easily hurt and affected by everything. Even in the safety of Hoseok’s embrace, you felt the tremor of fear and anxiety as your memories came back tainted.

“I have. I mean, when I was a little kid, I was like a stick. I could eat whatever I wanted and I used to spend so much time running around having fun. We don’t have too many pictures from back then; my parents couldn’t really afford a camera. Occasionally they’d get a disposable one but that’s about it. But...when I hit puberty around twelve or thirteen...I just kind of, ballooned? I don’t think I even realised it at the time, but it’s like my metabolism just plummeted or something. And before I knew it...I was the fat kid in class.” The heat in your eyes tells you that you’re on the verge of crying and you take a moment to breathe, blinking hard before looking up at the ceiling.

Hoseok remains quiet, letting you tell him without interrupting or anything.

“I mean...no one outright bullied me or anything, you know? It wasn’t like in the movies where you’re getting beaten up or shoved into lockers. It was more...the comments, the looks and just the general knowledge that you’re not attractive. Teenagers are really good at making those sly comments that are so hurtful, especially when you’re so young and still finding yourself. It’d be like...we’d be watching something and a pig would turn up on the screen and somebody would snicker and say it was me. Or someone else would joke about dating me and...I could just tell that it was an insult. And that their reasoning was my weight.” The arm around you tightens suddenly, as if hearing the casual cruelty you’d endured had ignited Hoseok’s protective instincts.

Memories flit by in your mind as you recall incidents; someone in your class finding out your crush and spreading that you liked them. Their disbelieving snort as they looked you up and down, their eyes falling heavily on your stomach before saying it would never happen. Without even realising it, you’re cradling your stomach now. Still not flat like you’d always fantasised, but not like it used to be.

You didn’t hate it now at least. Never loved, but not hated anymore.

“That...that sticks with you. Something I’m not too sure people realise is that, like, when you’re overweight...you’re constantly aware of it. It’s not just your body, it’s your life. It is you. There’s this weird mentality that people think overweight folk don’t know it, that you’re oblivious. You’re never oblivious. You’re not allowed to be oblivious. People make sure you’re aware, you know? The people telling you it’s unhealthy or it’s ugly and stuff. If you’re overweight, you’re well aware of these issues. But trying to resolve them is just as hard. You go to the gym and you’re aware of all the fat rolls, the way you jiggle and roll. How you’re out of breath doing the simplest thing while super fit people are probably watching you in disgust, even though you’re there to get fit,”

“If you eat, then you feel uncomfortably aware that you’re not just eating. That you’re fat and eating. So you become self-conscious over food. If it’s something healthy like a salad then you just think everyone is laughing at you. ‘What’s she bothering with that for?’. If it’s unhealthy then it’s more like, ‘of course she’s eating that, the lard ass’. You’re hyper aware of every aspect of your life and that’s the worst thing. Just...being so aware. You’re convinced that everyone is judging you, staring at you or talking about you. I felt so many times when I was like, fifteen or sixteen that I just...took up more space than I should.” Wiping at your eyes, you sniff before looking at Hoseok and giving him a watery smile.

The concern on his face for you makes your heart swell, the knowledge that he’s listening to you openly. That he cares. Even if you’re exposing a part of you that you’ve never let anyone see. Not even Chungha or Soyeon. It had felt far too personal, something that they couldn’t understand.

“It’s like...everyone has a certain amount of space they’re allowed to have, but when you’re fat, you realise that you take up more. And you become so aware that other people don’t like that. That they’re disgusted by the idea, and you become afraid of things like...sitting on a seat in a bus because you’re terrified of spreading past your ‘space’. Or sliding through a small gap and the panic that you’re just being...too much. I’d always try and run to the school bus when class finished so that I could find a seat first. And I’d always let the other person sit next to the window so that I could hang as close to the edge as possible and get off quickly. Then I’d panic that I’d look disgusting to others, half-hanging off the seat. I just...it affects you. Mentally. You just do things differently because you’re always aware of your body. In negative ways,”

“I’d never go swimming with anyone else. Mandatory swim classes left me panicked because it meant people would see me. See all the lumps and the bumps, everything I hated. I’d never look at myself naked in the mirror, or even in my underwear because I hated it. I was disgusted. I used to fantasise about just...slicing off bits of me to make myself nice and thin. I don’t even know if that’s normal.” Your voice breaks slightly, going slightly hoarse as you recall the pure hatred and revulsion you’d felt for yourself back then. The way your body felt like a cage you were trapped in.

Sitting up straight again, you take a deep breath to fortify yourself before smiling at him gently. Taking his hand, you squeeze it for reassurance and feel comforted when he squeezes back.

“I hated myself. Didn’t ever think I was going to be anything amazing. Or that I’d ever fall in love. How could anyone fall in love with me when I hated myself, right? When I was seventeen, I finally took the plunge and joined this free gym. Started eating healthier. It was really hard. I hated it so much. Vomited everywhere from the exercise, cried a lot. I wanted to lose weight healthily though, not too fast otherwise I’d end up thin but with skin flaps. So it was gradual. I wasn’t hugely overweight thankfully, but I only felt finally happy when I was nineteen.” Now you laugh at yourself, rolling your eyes and poking at your stomach in amusement before kissing Hoseok’s cheek playfully.

He doesn’t laugh back, causing you to kiss him gently. A silent way of letting him know that you’re okay, that it’s okay for him to laugh and smile too. When you pull away, he hesitates for a moment before giving you a slightly awkward smile. It’s enough for you.

“That’s why I didn’t have any experience until college. I was nineteen when I met Chungha and Soyeon in class. They were like...these ridiculously beautiful girls who were so confident and full of life, you know? Partygoers and everything. And I wasn’t. But somehow, we found things in common and it’s like...they knew I needed encouragement. So, it was slow but...I did stuff. I went to the parties...hated them just as much as I thought I would. Finally kissed a guy; wasn't as good as I thought it’d be. Lost my virginity to a random guy at a party in some house when I was twenty. Also wasn’t that good. The extent of my dating life was a few guys who didn’t last long. Both in terms of relationship and sex.” You grin at Hoseok, wiggling your brows and causing him to chuckle in amusement.

His chest gets a little bigger as he pushes it up, a smug look on his face. “All those memories obviously pale in comparison to my amazing kissing and sex skills.”

Snorting, you push at him playfully before reaching up and pulling him down, hand resting on the short undercut hair on his neck as you bring him into a kiss. Hoseok obviously wants to prove his skills, kissing you a little more intense than you’d expected but you just laugh into it before pulling away and smiling at him happily.

“Well...I’m not going to say you’re wrong. It did kind of depress me a little that it seemed guys were only interested when I was a bit thinner but, I also felt a weird sense of pride. That I’d finally done it. Gotten what I thought I’d wanted. Until I realised I hated that whole scene and wanted nothing to do with it. So...I just kept myself as in shape as I could over the years and tried to come to terms with myself. As you know...I’m not quite there. But I’m better than I was, I promise. I just feel a little bad that I was convinced being thin would change things. It changes some stuff but...not everything.”

You can tell that Hoseok isn’t entirely sure what to say. It isn’t surprising really, you wouldn’t have any idea how to respond to someone telling you all these sad things they’d experienced either. But then again, you were just generally useless when it came to anyone else’s emotions and feelings.

When he does finally speak again, his question surprises you completely as it seems to have nothing to do with what you’d just been telling him. 

“Did you drink alcohol back then? I know you don’t drink it now because you don’t like the taste but if you went to parties…” He trails off, his face twisted in question as he considers what you’ve said. It was true that you didn’t like the taste, hence why you never drank it. You also just preferred to drink something like water as it was much healthier for you.

“I did. Too much. When I started going to them, I threw myself into the alcohol as it helped me to overcome my shyness. A drunk me is apparently very outgoing. I also have very little inhibitions when I’m drunk. Pretty sure the only reason I first kissed a guy was because I was completely fucked. And I’d drank a lot when I lost my virginity; there was no other way I was going to get naked in front of a guy.” You don’t notice the instant concern on Hoseok’s face when you say that, your gaze far away as you stare unseeingly at the TV screen.

You’re too busy remembering those wild years in college. Or what you can remember anyway. Another reason you hated alcohol was the way you didn’t feel in control of yourself and your emotions while inebriated along with the way you often end up forgetting parts of a night. Why anyone could possibly enjoy that all the time was beyond you.

“You...I hate to have to ask this but...you did...consent to it. Right? It wasn’t like...forced on you?” Hoseok sounds intensely uncomfortable as he asks the questions, causing you to frown as you look back at him. “I just...if you were really as drunk as you say you were, then I mean, well, I just...I wouldn’t have been comfortable sleeping with a girl who would only sleep with me if she was completely inebriated.” 

He shifts in position on the couch, bringing a knee up so only one foot remains on the floor while taking your hands. The look on his face is completely earnest and filled with worry. For you. And you finally click as to what he’s talking about. Hoseok is concerned that you may have been raped for your first time.

Smiling at him gently, you squeeze his hands and shake your head. “No, no baby. Please don’t think that, I swear. It was consensual. I wasn’t that drunk. Just...enough to let me get over my worries. I needed the alcohol for the confidence and the lights off. I remember it all though. He wasn’t good but he wasn’t mean or anything either.”

His worry seems to decrease a little, shoulders lowering as he lets out a deep breath and you marvel for a moment that you’ve found someone who gets worried about things like that. Things that you hadn’t even bothered to properly consider. If you hadn’t been completely sure in the knowledge of your first time then you’d be concerned as well.

Leaning forward, you kiss his cheek affectionately before grinning at him and cupping his chin. “Thank you for being concerned about me though. I promise, I’ve never been forced into anything like that. I may not have enjoyed a lot of sex but I did it openly in the hopes of it getting better.”

Hoseok’s cheeks flush ever so slightly and you laugh sweetly, kissing his lips quickly before shifting back. Leaning against the couch sideways, you let your head flop onto the back and smile at him.

“So, yeah. That’s why I have no pictures of me from being a teenager. If you thought I don’t like being photographed now, then you’d be shocked to see me back then.” There’s a moment where Hoseok is stiff, unsure of what to do before he smiles back and shifts into a similar position, his head closer than you might have anticipated.

But you get the sense that he’s a little uncertain of how to proceed now.

So you make the move for him, gently pushing at him until he’s laying on the couch. The L-shape means he’s at the point the two halves connect, one half completely free except for Kasumi stretched out. But you want the safety and security of his body. Not only for yourself, but also to comfort him. Even if he hasn’t said it, you can tell he’s a little unsettled by your negative feelings towards yourself.

Hoseok let’s you move him with ease, smiling happily when you get yourself settled and comfortable. His natural scent is strongest at the base of his neck, and you inhale it happily while your arm rests over his waist. Even if you’d talked about your deep and painful teenage years as willingly as you could to him, it was still traumatic to remember. And you needed your own comfort to assure yourself that those years were over.

“Well, I don’t think you’d have wanted to meet teenage Hoseok. So it's probably a good idea we never knew each other.” Humming, you recall all the times Hoseok has told you about his own teenage years. Unlike you, he was much more open about them. Mainly because he acknowledged how bad he’d been.

“I doubt it would have mattered anyway. From what I’ve learnt from you, teenage Hoseok wouldn’t have given me one look. Nevermind two looks.” There’s a brief pause and you feel Hoseok’s chest rise as he goes to respond. He stops though and you chuckle, running your fingers along the soft material of his shirt over his stomach.

“...you might have got one look. I mean, I’ll be honest. I wasn’t exactly picky but that’s not a good thing. Just means I was an out of control teenager. Besides, it sounds like you were very shy and quiet. I was...not. Loud, brash, abrasive. Often drunk and high. God, I was terrible. I don’t know how my parents put up with me, honestly. I wouldn’t have wanted you to meet me. I’d have just hurt you even more.” Humming, you wiggle against him slightly and kiss his neck gently.

“I’m glad we met when we did. I think we’d both had enough time to grow and accept ourselves. There’s no way I would have reached out to you if I was still like my teenage self. And I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have said yes if you’d been like you were.”

“True. Three cheers for maturity! But on a more serious note; I’m glad you’ve told me. I figured there was something along those lines after all these months but...I understand more now. I hope I haven’t made you feel uncomfortable or embarrassed.” Closing your eyes, you nuzzled closer to him while shaking your head.

“You haven’t. At least, not through anything you’ve done. It’s mostly been in my head. If anything...you’ve helped me to grow and become more...loving of myself. Just you accepting me has helped so much for my mind to understand that...well, I’m not ugly or anything. That you’re not judging me. And that you actually find me attractive. It’s a slow process.” You feel the press of Hoseok’s soft lips against your forehead, their warmth resting there for a few moments while the arm wrapped around you gently runs along your arm.

The very fact that you can talk with him like this is pure proof of the growth you’ve experienced over almost a year and a half with Hoseok. Just his welcome acceptance and love of you has created a safe space for you to explore yourself and grow comfortable in your own skin and mind. It was nice.

“I’m glad. And if I ever do anything that’s wrong, then please tell me. The last thing I want is to be an asshole by accident. Or remind you of a bad time.” Laughing gently, you smile and nod before tightening your arms around his waist fondly. 

“I mean...I’m still considering the whole lingerie thing. Especially those super revealing ones. I’d love to wear one but I just...don’t think I look sexy in them.” Pouting, you shift as Hoseok moves until he’s looking at you with wide eyes that quickly become stern. Poking your cheek gently, he tuts.

“I’m not gonna push you into that, but there’s literally no way you wouldn’t look sexy wearing black lace lingerie. Oh god. Just the thought of you in it makes me hard. But for now, I’m content with my mind for that.” The way he presses his hips against you lets you know that he’s being truthful, the mental image of you in the lingerie you’d bought on a whim the other month causing the erection that presses against you.

Grinning, you push at him until he’s laying back again and crawl on top of him, raising your brows. “I think you just get horny at the thought of sex full stop.”

“Well...duh. I’m a man. With a beautiful girlfriend. Whom I enjoy sex with.” Laughing loudly, you lean down and kiss his nose playfully. The whine he lets out when he tries to follow you for a proper kiss causes you to grin as you press at his shoulders, holding him in place.

“Glad to hear it.”

[tartagliaxx]

hi. i only got to play in inazuma today so here's me live reacting to the archon quest. it's a lil out of context tho so have fun trying to figure out which parts im talking abt. also, this is the only time i'm going to be talking abt spoilers for at least one week so... 🤷‍♀️

swordfish ii? cute.

Jesus Christ. and here i thought it was my lowest settings that made his hair grey… this poor kid. teppei i admire your determination but no… just no...

SCARAMOUCHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

IF EVIL WHY SO HOT

you know.... scaramouche could stand still and the air would get electrified. and yknow,,, that's p... that's p attractive

ugh im disgusting myself. and here i thought i still had an inch of sanity left in me.

of all people it had to be this little jerk

scaramouche is so fucking evil. i’d like ten of him, please.

man,, they expect me to dodge this shit? that’s the biggest l i’ve heard today. none of that shit. i’m bringing out my zhong and my sweet madames skrrt

sayu is adorable… i remember when i had hopes of growing up too… alas, it has come to this.

OH MY GOD AYATO CRUMBS. I AM LICKING THAT SHIT UP. PLEASE— HE HAS A SECRET UNIT. THATS SO HOT WTF. AYATO MY DEAR, PLEASE DONT BE A REGULAR ICKY NPC BUT WHITE HAIRED…

SNEAKY SNEAK. SNEAKY SNEAK.

THOMA OH MY GOD MY MALEWIFE. HOW HAVE YOU BEEN? also, sayu’s sleeping again. this girl’s got talent. is her circadian rhythm okay?

pains me to be the bearer of all bad news and no good news…

WAIT THOMA IS LEAVING NO DONT LEAVE YET I WANT TO LOOK AT YOU MORE

oh nvm he’s still in the background.

EYY WHATS UP AYAKA. YOU’RE AS FINE AS EVER.

i… i don’t like where this is going… i refuse to be the bait. i’m too hot for that. so spicy they’ll spit me right out

DONT VOLUNTEER YOURSELF LUMINE— GIVE ME AN OPTION OR AT LEAST AN ‘OH SHIT HERE WE GO AGAIN’ LINE

YES FIREWORKS THAT WOULD WORK RIGHT? PLEASE TELL ME THAT WOULD WORK-

oh thank god… wait... they… they wouldn’t ask me to be the one to set off the fireworks right?

UNFORTUNATELY NO. AFTER YOU BECOME A FREE MAN, YOU’RE IMMEDIATELY MARRYING ME THOMA ANJKFHAIGHLANGKLAHOFJLKAB

oh crap… i’m… i’m in deep.

HE’S BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING US AGAIN EVERY DAY SINCE HE GOT THERE ANFLaglvbajlfblabvljabefva;bfalLJBLJDABVBAALSNADL tumblr user @tartagliaxx is broken. she is now irreparable. she has no regrets. goodbye.

ehem… what if… you and i… and hotsprings… together?? JUST KIDDING. PG-13 OVER HERE. NOTHING INDECENT WHATSOEVER MOVE ALONG NOW

poor thoma,,,

oh come on ayaka… cut us some slack… i just watched lumine wheeze bc of evil purple mist only to be dragged into 2 timeskips and an entire training arc. dont let her be yet another traumatized shounen manga protagonist… altho, it might be uh… too late for that…

oh dear… is thoma going to get another round of diarrhea?

OF COURSE. OF COURSE IT’S ME DOING ALL THE WORK. OF COURSE IT’S ME WHO’S RISKING MY LIFE ALL OVER AGAIN. GOD! GIVE LUMINE A BREAK. BEING A TRAVELER DOES NOT MEAN IT’S FREE REAL ESTATE.

hello yoimiya… still looking as bomb as ever i see……… mhm… gonna see myself out rn…

HELP MY SHITTY GRAPHICS COMPLETELY ERADICATED HER BROWS

oh god… are we dying because of fireworks? forget getting caught by the patrol… we’re about to light up an untested firework that was made to be a billion times more explosive….

NO. SHE SAID IT. SHE SAID THE CURSED SENTENCE. WHATS THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN? IDK YOU TELL ME. YOU JUST SENTENCED US TO DEATH YOIMIYA GREAT GOING still love you tho.

man… these patrol guards aint shit… i literally walked an inch behind their backs and they did nothing… its a surprise the rebellion still hasn’t won when they place guards like this in their ranks………. ok that was kinda mean i’ll apologize in a bit.

SAYU OMG… DONT WORRY I’LL SNEAK YOU OUT AND RISK MY LIFE willingly JUST TO RESCUE YOU. ILYSM HONEY YOU’RE DOING SO WELL

no, paimon. it’s not but we’re doing it anyway 🤡

NO ONE TOLD ME WE’RE GOING TO RUN. I WENT COMPLETELY OFF COURSE. first try tho 😏

HELLO THOMA. HELLO AYAKA.

HELLO SAYU. HOW DID IT GO? IM GUESSING IT WENT WELL BC YOU’RE STILL ALIVE?

oh no….. she’s worn herself out…. man,,, this is why you dont make convicts out of kids….

WE ASKED SAYU FOR AN INCH AND SHE GAVE AS TEN THOUSAND MILES. SAYU MY CHILD YOU EXCEED EXPECTATIONS

god, don’t remind me. as hot as the shogun trying to kill us w her blade was, i don’t appreciate almost getting murdered on screen (even if we most certainly have plot armor)

awwww is thoma worried about me uwu owo? dw i have like… a lumine w 6% crit rate by my side

sigh… i dont want to leave yet… cant i just stay by thoma’s side and not go to war for a change?

it was at this moment that tumblr user lei saw the wonders of being a housewife.

oh sara… my stars… i’m so sorry. i feel so bad for you but at the same time… this oddly makes me want to write a song for you ABJFJKABJABCABVABVKA I KNOW JACK SHIT ABT SONGWRITING WHY AM I THINKING LIKE THIS

well… there she goes…

oh…. oh….. yae is stealing my heart. WHAT DO I DO WHAT DO I DO (i have an alt for a reason heehee)

DEAR LORD. PLEASE STEP ON MY NECK SARA.

these guys got guts to say ‘i’m sorry ma’am’ to THE kujou sara.

oh old man… you’re dead. you’re so dead.

man… this old man is a simp? sheesh.

YES. GO TELL EM PAIMON. PREACH THAT SHIT LOUD AND CLEAR.

oh my god… is that dude dead? i probably should’ve uh apologized b4 he flopped down to the ground ig…

MAN,, SARA’S DOWN FOR THE COUNT?? tbf i didnt expect much but…. also, AYE SIGNORA’S SO ICY.

she’s calling me out for being a simp ;-; heart been broke so many times or smth

OH SHIT LUMINE SPOKE. MAN,, WHY IS SHE SO COOL.

oh… i love this part of the vow… im suddenly inspired to write… how about a wedding au? an angsty wedding au?

goddamn… it’s been nice knowing you all…. i dont think i’ll come out of this alive if signora went out like that…

WHATS HAPPENING? ARE YOU SAYING KAZUHA WENT THROUGH THIS BS? IS LUMINE OKAY-

DID THEY REALLY JUST STORM THE ENTIRE FUCKING CAPITAL?? THEY HAVE SOME NERVE.

FUCK OMG KAZUHA AHHAHFHAFHAHGKJABKASBGA IM TEARING UP WTF WHY AM I GETTING EMOTIONAL- HONEY BUN THATS SO HOT OF YOU TO DO

oh… oh it’s time for round two? haha… time to… say my goodbyes….

yo… there are actual tears in my eyes… like… idk why… but that cutscene? shit man… that hit me…

hm… i feel bad for the shogun… ultimately, there is reason behind every act no matter how horrid. no matter how unreasonable, the reason one thinks of is always justified on their end. whatever everyone else thinks pay little effect on whether the act is fulfilled or not. also, her little laugh? i’m extra deceased.

the animation's fire as always wtf

oh but my kokoro... oof... my kokoro... ugh...

I’M SO FUCKING DONE AJKFHAKJBVAK- WE BEAT A HARBINGER AND FOR WHAT? she should’ve just tossed that gnosis into the ocean or smth...

HAH OMG SCARAMOUCHE. WHAT A MAN. I’M- I WAS RIGHT OMG. I HAD A LIL THEORY AND ITS JUST SMTH I HAD IN THE BACK OF MY MIND. I NEVER THOUGHT IT’LL ACTUALLY COME TRUE DEAR LORD. so now ig i have to admit i think abt him a lot and he has a soft spot in my heart 🥺 he’s evil you see and you know what my type is? evil men or at the very least, men with the potential to be evil. ugh so annoying.

scaramouche banner when

bc i sold everything worthy of money in me (read as my organs) for albedo, i'll sell my soul for him how about that?

EYE- makoto huh… well… fuck…

it’s day 400 of being ayato less even if he’s like… teased a million of times (jk it’s like… a grand total of seven but thats still p high)

im so… sigh…

i wonder if i’m still alive by the time sumeru releases… at the very least, i know my brain wouldn’t be.

....we were literally a captain for like... one second. that is so sad.

[xxrainstormxx]

Save it for the Doctor. Spencer Reid x Reader.

(A/N: this is based off a writing prompt. "You're... beautiful." "And you're concussed") Word count; 2,475 Part 2 (edit: my pleas for requests for stories are not reaching people so I will beg here. If you want a oneshot I’ll write it. Prompt or no prompt.)

I had heard a lot about the recent murders. I even had seen a few almost survivors on my mom's operation table, yet somehow I was wrapped up in the middle of it. Smack in the middle. No normal citizen even knew the FBI was investigating the murders and yet I was being interrogated. The man who sat in front of me was just mean, he wore a serious look and his eyes never moved from the narrow eyed glare he gave anyone who walked by and especially gave me. I was happy to cooperate, but the minute I was under fire I was fed up and wanted a lawyer. I was no killer, I had no upper body strength to move a dead body and believe me, I would know how much a dead body weighs thanks to my mom training me. I was a tired college student trying to get my damn degree so I could move on with my fucking life. And I was not in the mood to be interrogated when I could be working on my thesis. The mean man, Agent Hotchner I believe was just staring. I guess waiting for me to break or some shit like that? I don't know. I wasn't talking first. I didn't care anymore and this resulted in a match of silently staring waiting for the other one to speak. This went on for what felt like an hour but was probably closer to at least three minutes, I just sighed, "I cave." I sighed muttering curses as I shifted in my seat. "Go on, ask your questions I have a thesis to write and I would like to go home to continue it," I reluctantly urged on. He leaned forward in triumph I think as he demanded answers from me. "Where were you the night of Synthia Robbin's disappearance (Y/N)?" he began dwelling on the poor girls name. It made me frown, she was a 13 year old girl, a child, and she was gone. Kidnapped and found dead. It made me sick to think of what could happen to her. "So that's what this is about?" I hissed disgusted with the accusation "I was at the library with Emmalin." the mention of my sister's name made him further darken. "Your sister, correct?" he inquired. I rolled my eyes, "Yuduh" I sounded sitting back. "All your time is accounted for?" he continued leaving me puzzled for a moment. "There were maybe ten minutes in between where she left to find a book." I murmured unsure if the truth was the right thing to say as he stood and pulled out a file and threw it on the table making me flinch. "What about the night of Chris Bennidict?" he asked "A s-sports game" I stuttered "A baseball game I think. Rockies vs Rangers." I said shaking a little as he threw down that files some of the pictures falling out of the boy, shot twice. "Eunice Quiet, Quiara Basson, Basen Unice, Lynch Gryse, and Philip Jence!" he got  louder with every file he threw at me. "You were near by every single scene and you fit most of our profile" he concluded the pictures that fell out made me physically sick. Children, those poor babies. I sobbed and turned away gagging, he wasn't convinced it was real but I knew it was and up came the vomit that was caught in my throat.

I had no doubt I fit their profile but I worked part time at a daycare. Children were my life line, and it mad me sick to see them hurt. He answered a call and left the room leaving me there to cry over the pictures. A brunette woman walked in and sighed taking me out of the handcuffs attaching me to the bolted down table. "Come on sweetheart. We'll get someone to clean up that." she sighed very tired, I wanted to know why. They brought me out to the main area of the station and sat me down. They slowly cuffed me to the desk and I cried softly. I looked across the station to see Emmalin "Emmy!" I called but was ignored causing me to frown. So I shut up and listen to whatever raving was in my defense, "My baby sib? A murderer?" she asked "well... it isn't that hard to believe," she said making my jaw drop. "They've always been a little too obsessed with the idea of death." A lie, I had an emo phase and so did she, "Introverted" well partially true. "and well she creeps out her friends," she finished causing me to stand suddenly, "Liar!" I shouted "You fucking liar!" I cried ignoring the pain and stress on my wrist the hand cuff was causing. I was now a 45 degree angle due to the cuffs keeping me in place. She seemed genuinely shocked i was there. "Why are you trying to pin this on me. Your own sister!b You were with me everywhere we went and those bodies were found. Why aren't you being questioned too? Did you lie? Did you say I was the only one there?" I screamed as I was sat down. She hissed at me and most of the agents took notice. Agent Prentiss, the nice brunette sighed and walked to my now horrible sister and asked her to follow her into a different interrogation room. It felt like hours that I was sat there, and a curly haired man was sat in front of me just reading, or what I thought was faking, really bad faking. "Why are you even sitting here if you're just going to pretend to read?" I asked the "doctor". My mother was a doctor and I didn't believe this boy was any kind of doctor. I had gotten to know his name as Doctor Reid and I wasn't allowed to call him an agent so I had no other choice. He just looked at me thrown for a moment before shaking his head "I'm not pretending" He stated as he shifted "No one can read that fuckin fast ya damn liar" I muttered not necessarily hostile just a little vexed. "I can. Did you know that our unconscious minds can process sixteen bits of information per second? Our conscious minds, however, can process sixteen million?" I sat back unimpressed "You are... absolutely insane" I laughed "Insane, perhaps but I'm not being accused of murder." he stated, and my smile that i worked so hard to get disappeared "You think I did it too." I muttered, it was meant to come as a question but instead it came as a statement. He shook his head "Not fully, while you do supposedly fit the profile our profile, our unsub wouldn't inject themselves into the investigation. The one part that doesn't fit" he said sitting back and crossing his legs turning to the board filled with evidence, and all those pictures that made me sick sat right next to the happy photos of the children in their school uniforms smiling big. I tried to focus on those "Well maybe your profile is wrong, cause this is sick." I hissed "(Y/N), you're here most likely because you were in the wrong places at the wrong times. Kids being picked up and murdered minutes apart from each other, while you were out with your sister at those locations? It's not very probable."

I just sighed knowing he was probably right "There aren't many coincidences when it comes to murder" he stated "Out of uh... curiosity what is an unsub? No normal person knows that is." I muttered as I tried to avoid the board, the thought of being in those places, not helping those kids, not even having a clue what was happening made me sick. "Unknown Subject" Dr. Reid said mumbling "Why aren't you uh... looking at the board. I thought you'd be proud of your work." He said as if to egg me on. I rolled my eyes "Those pictures make me sick." I muttered "I work at a daycare, it's my job to protect kids not watch them get hurt. I don't wanna see dead fucking children!" I shouted realizing I probably sounded fucking crazy and definitely like a kill. I hung my head in shame. "I know... I know it isn't fair to blame myself for what happened to those kids, but being in the places of the crime, the same night it happened, it makes me feel like I could have and should have done something. Something other than just sit there and wonder." I whispered "Yeah I feel guilty now but, not of what you think" I whispered looking to the board once more focusing on the pictures of the children when they were alive. "Sweet innocent babies... Never done anything to anyone. Probably were crying for their mom." I whimpered at the thought "They didn't deserve any of what happened" I looked away once more thinking about the mothers. "Moms.... Their moms" he stood up as if he had a damn epiphany nearly knocking me backwards in the chair. "Morgan, it's not an attack on the children it's an attack on their mothers." He said starting to put of pictures of older women. "think about it. They all went to the same cafe every day. It wasn't the day care, so it can't be (Y/N). They wouldn't see much of the parents" he enthused writing things down that I could not decipher because his hand writing was absolute shit. "But wouldn't that just give them more reason? They think these women are bad mom's for working instead of taking care of the child, and wants to teach them a lesson?" making him shake his head "That's stupid, if they wanted to make them suffer they'd just kill the women themselves, it'd be much more efficient and wouldn't lead to them doing the one thing they would dread doing!" he said circling one name on the board. Emmalin. "That's also sexist. Women work, children can't go with. Why would I have a fucking problem with that" I shouted across the room. "Who fits the profile while also holding these sexist values." Reid stated more than asked pointing to Emma's name again. "Oh dear god." he sighed "But my sister isn't a murderer!" I cried. "She's connected to the murders... and she's made it clear she doesn't think women should work." Morgan stated and went to the interrogation room. "You are a life saver (Y/N)" Reid said kissing my cheek out of pure joy, and I slapped him as a natural instinct and turned red "Shit! I'm sorry! I'm not used to boys doing that if they aren't being creepy! But at the same time that was really fucking creepy" I yelped as he held his face and laughed "No it's fine. Got too excited to fix what felt like a huge mistake." he said, and when I say I turned red I mean red. This was the first time I'd seen him as a human. Not a super genius, not as an agent, not an asshole. Just a normal guy with pretty eyes, a good jaw line, soft hair, and the sweetest smile I had ever seen. The blush was apparently very clear on my (skin color) skin because he hummed and smiled "Did you know blushing is speculated to be caused by a sudden rush of adrenaline making our blood pump faster." I giggled a little "Is that why you're so flushed?" I asked as he blinked not understanding just how damn pink he was after that rant. "Guess so." he shrugged. the door opened and out came Emmalin and she grabbed a ceramic vase off a desk and slammed it down onto Reid's head and ran away quickly. He fell to the floor because it was a heavy fucking vase, and I freaked out as he hit his head on the desk on the way down.

"Shit!" I yelled as half of them chased my very obviously guilty sister and I sat in shock as two of his friends rushed over to help him. Morgan uncuffed me and I blinked "Spencer?" Agent Jareau asked worried and I sat down next to him sitting him up and grabbing a water bottle slashing it on his face "Do not fall asleep." I said firmly "You could very well have a concussion." I said as an ambulance arrived quickly, he was cearly not feeling good because of the way that he was acting. I was worried about how sick he looked. He threw up half way to the hospital so I was told. I went with because I didn't feel safe with my sister on the run and an Agent in the hospital. Well I guess he wasn't an agent he was a doctor. The doctor, not Spencer, came out and i stood with the other two very worried. "He'll be fine. He has a mild concussion." as i thought "but he's awake, and on some pain medication. I take it you all know the situation and his limitations in the field?" he asked and Morgon and Jareau nodded "You can go back to see him now" he said and stepped aside "come on" Jareau said quietly to me "oh. Agent, I don't think he'd want to see me." I said quietly. "I'm sure he would like to know you came. You won't make a very good profiler if you can't even tell that Reid enjoys your company. And call me JJ, it makes it easier," she said giggling and pulled me right back with her and Morgan. "Hey man" Morgan started "What happened?" he muttered groaning in pain. "You got hit with a vase, took a pretty sweet fall, and got a concussion" JJ hummed arms crossed as she leaned on the wall. "Shit." he muttered making me giggle. "Oh hey!" he said when he saw me. "I want water, and jello" he muttered making small lip smacking sounds. "Morgan and I will get it" JJ laughed leaving me in a very awkward situation. "So umm.." I began before being cut off. "You know.. You're beautiful" he said staring at me causing me to snort "And you're concussed." I laughed shaking my head "Well, a concussion based on the severity doesn't necessarily affect your judgement of a person especially if it's a first time thing. I thought you were beautiful long before I was concussed but you were a suspect. Suspects being beautiful, hard to comprehend sometimes." I laughed "You're a dumbass" I snorted "But I-" he blinked and i walked over pecking his lips. "How about a date sometime? I'll give you my number" I said quietly. "Yeah... okay..." he whispered. "A date."

[221castiel]

Yesterday - Chapter One

Master Post // AO3

-

He isn't exactly sure why he wants it so badly, his own parents were only married for five years before Mary had died and even then it was only a year later when John had stopped wearing his ring. Opting to instead leave it some drawer filled with other forgotten items; pennies and keys with no purpose other than to collect dust. Cas's parents had divorced when he was nineteen. Something that had become a long legal battle over every little thing, the house, the kids, every single piece of silverware that filled the kitchen.

Marriage had never been a permanent thing in either of their lives, and yet, Dean wanted it. He wanted it the same way he wanted the sun to set every night and rise every morning. He wanted to whisper each vow as he stared into Cas's vibrant eyes, to feel the other's lips as they kissed for the first time as a married couple. Dean wouldn't consider himself a romantic, he was just as happy to stay at home and watch Game of Thrones as he would be going on an over planned date, and yet, he wanted every sappy moment he would roll his eyes at growing up. The first dance, shoving cake in each other's faces, the perfect ring, which Dean had quickly learned is something far easier said than done.

It had taken months of stopping at the mall's jewelry store, sorting through each shipment of new rings before he'd finally found the perfect one.

"Holy shit," Charlie cries, her nose only inches from the glass case that she'd lent over, "that's a lot of bling." Dean nods, a grin tugging at his lips. Charlie's excitement was contagious, warming his chest as she continued to study the ring. He had a ring. He was going to propose. It was happening. "Seriously dude," Charlie continues in the same raised voice, "Marline Monroe would be jealous of this."

"Well could you keep it down," Dean teases, as one of the workers behind the counter gives them a side glance that he's frankly too excited to care about. "Or at least let me buy the ring before you get us kicked out."

Charlie looks up, a wide smile across her face. Her bright hair had been pulled back in a ponytail though through the workday it had begun to fall out and now framed her face in small strands. "Sorry," Charlie whispers, a grin still spread across her lips. She stands up properly and adjusts her walmart vest that she'd draped over her arm. "I'm just so excited for you- and jealous of Cas."

"I'll buy you one next."

"I'm holding you to that," Charlie teases, causing Dean to roll his eyes.

She looks back to the glass case and Dean steps forward looking over her shoulder at the rings that fill it, his gaze immediately finding the ring he'd spent the past weeks looking at. The band itself is silver, the center lined with small diamonds, while the edges were carved with a leaf like pattern. In the center a large diamond sat, catching the store's bright light and reflecting it in small shimmers. "Do you think he's going to like it?" Dean whispers. He'd been sure Cas would, but now he couldn't kick the tug in his stomach, the thought that maybe he's better off saving for a little longer, buying one a little bit more expensive or with a bigger diamond.

"He's going to love it," Charlie replies.

Dean looks up as Charlie goes silent, meeting her concerned gaze. Her lips pressed in a tight line, eyes darting over Dean's face, eyebrows knit together, her whole expression weighs on him. He already knows he doesn't want to hear whatever she has to say. Is it too late to walk away?

Despite the sudden dread that weighs on his shoulders, Charlie continues speaking. "Look," she begins, "I want to be all supportive and stuff, I really do, but how the hell can you afford this, it's gotta be more than you and Cas make in a month."

"I've been savin'"

"For what the past century?"

"Three years and just under ten months," Dean corrects. He shrugs his shoulders looking back down to the ring. "But who really keeps track of that crap."

Dean shoves his hand into his jean pockets, pressing his lips together as he looks across the rings. He can feel Charlie's eyes burning against the side of his head, but he refuses to meet them, he already knows the expression that would sit across her face, concentrated and curious, trying to figure out Dean's exact thoughts.

Charlie takes a small step closer, and Dean doesn't move, continuing to study a rose gold ring that holds a dark blue jewel in the center. "Dean," Charlie says, her voice low and gentle. "You know Cas would be just as happy with a cheaper ring, something you can actually afford."

"Cas would be happy with a fuckin' ring pop," Dean grumbles. "Doesn't mean I can't buy him something better."

"Could you push a side your prince charming complex for five minutes, and not make the most financially stupid decision of your life?"

Dean looks back to the silver ring. He knows Charlie's right, hell the thought has been in the back of his mind since he'd begun saving, putting every extra penny or dollar won during a game of pool, aside. They could pay off almost two months of their health insurance, fix their bathroom sink, save the money for if an emergency came. Dean could think of a million different things the money could go towards. Things Cas, who was far too selfless for his own good, would want the money to go towards, yet Dean couldn't bring himself to do it.

"Charlie-"

"You can't-"

"No," Dean insists, looking back to the other. "I'm going to do it."

Charlie's expression softens her lips tugging into a gentle smile. A gesture that's so simple yet seems to lift whatever weight that'd been resting across Dean's shoulders, easing his breathing, and allowing him to return the smile. "He's going to love it," Charlie says.

"I hope so."

-

His feet ache as he doesn't so much as walk down the apartment building's hallway but drag himself, the dim lights above casting shadows over the dingy hallway walls. Stopping at his apartment Dean pulls the keys from his pocket, the sound of fighting from the neighbours clear through the thin walls.

Fuck people. After a six hour morning shift at Walmart followed by a five hour shift at McDonald's filled with bitchy people and forced smiles, Dean was done with people. Especially loud neighbours that spent nights fighting until they broke up, only to get back together a few days later. If he had to listen to make up sex even once that night he was complaining to the landlord.

A loud crash comes from their neighbours and Dean sighs. Maybe he'd prefer the makeup sex over hate sex.

He finally manages to unlock the door and step into his apartment where he's immediately met by silence, the main room of the apartment -a small joint living room and kitchen- dimly lit by the living room table lamp. Though other than the lamp and a few dirty dishes there was no sign of anyone else. Not that Dean minds, it gives him a moment to breath. A moment to catch his thoughts and relax.

After dropping his things onto the kitchen chair Dean goes to get a glass of water, though his attention quickly changes as he stops at the kitchen counter where papers were spread out. A mix of bills and lined papers that were covered in Cas's neat writing.

Across the top of one page the words, Next Month's Budget, had been printed. Various numbers were printed underneath as Cas balanced out their income, trying to figure out how they could buy new light bulbs while saving money for Jack's birthday. He feels sick just looking at the numbers.

He already knew everything on the page. There were no surprises, medical insurance took out most of his income, car insurance took what was left. Everything Cas made was spent on food and rent, making sure the heat stayed on the months they really needed it and that water came when they stepped in the shower. There was close to nothing left.

He already knew that.

And yet he feels sick.

He flips the page over to read the back, though he doesn't get more than a glance before the sound of footsteps comes, followed by Jack's voice, "dad!"

Dean turns at the sound, forcing a smile across his face as Jack comes running towards him, a wide smile across the child's and his arms out for Dean to pick him up. "Hey kid," Dean hums, picking Jack and resting him against his hip. "Did you have a good day?"

"So good!" Jack cries, wrapping his arms around Dean's neck in an awkward half hug, causing a genuine smile to tug at Dean's lips. A warmth spreading across his chest that has him gripping Jack together as the child buries his face into Dean's neck.

"So good, huh?"

"So so good!"

Dean laughs, smiling down at Jack. "What made it so good?"

"We goed to the park," Jack says, burying his face further into the crook of Dean's neck where he rubbed his nose much to Dean's disgust, then made a soft sniffle. "And- and drawed."

"All while you're sick?"

"I'm not sick!"

"He's been refusing to take the cold medication," Cas says, Dean's gaze immediately darting up at the sound of Cas's low voice. He stood at the entrance of their hallway wearing one of Dean's AC/DC shirts, his dark hair tousled with strands overlapping one another or simply sticking out in random directions as a small smile rests across his face that Dean returns. How couldn't he. When his boyfriend was standing there looking gorgeous even with his messy hair and slightly darkened eyes from lack of sleep. Boyfriend- hopefully soon to be fiance.

"I don't want it," Jack grumbles. Dean looks back down to the pouty expression that now rests across Jack's face, his bottom lip puckered out, and eyes pleading. Something that only makes Dean's smile grow. "It's bad, I want ice cream!"

"How about you take the medicine," Dean offers, "and I'll get you some ice cream, deal?"

Jack stares back for a moment, bottom lip still puckered out as he gives a firm nod. "Deal."

After Jack runs off to the bathroom, Dean grabs a bowl from the cabinet filling it up with a few spoonfuls of vanilla ice cream before he walks out of the kitchen. He makes his way down the small hallway and into Jack's room where he finds Jack standing on his bed while Cas helps him get into his superman pajamas.

"Superman?" Dean hums as he steps into the room, careful not to break any of the toys that scatter the floor. "Batman's way cooler."

"See Daddy," Jack cries to Cas, "I telled you! I telled you!"

"I know Bee," Cas replies as he helps Jack slide his arms through the shirt's holes. "But they need to be washed."

"I want them now!"

"You can have them tomorrow night."

"Tonight you'll just have to be lame Superman," Dean teases as he takes a seat on Jack's bed. He knows it's not a good time, Cas is obviously tired, and Jack is starting to get sick, something that always leaves him a little more sensitive, but he can't help himself. He knows it's worth it when Cas sends him a glare, an expression that Dean finds far cuter than he ever should.

"Daddy!" Jack cries, Burying his face into Cas's chest as Cas wraps his arms around the child and rubs small circles into his back.

Cas leans down pressing a kiss to Jack's head. "It's okay Bee," He whispers gently, though when he looks back up the glare he gives Dean is anything but that. "You're provoking him," Cas whispers.

He definitely was.

"Am not," Dean replies in a similar low tone. Cas's eyes narrow, and Dean sighs. "Let me fix it."

It takes a few minutes for Dean to calm Jack down, between a mix of apologies and promises that Superman was in fact a very cool super hero, and in fact almost as cool as Batman. By the time he does, Jack is more than happy to eat his almost melted ice cream, then receive a piggy back ride to the bathroom where he brushes his teeth, and continues to tell Dean about his day. Specifically about the squirrel he'd seen at the park and the tv shows he'd watched in the morning. Finally after a long conversation about a show Dean's never even heard of, Dean manages to get Jack into bed, whispering a goodnight before he goes to flick off the lights.

He reaches out to the light switch, his finger grazing it before he hesitates, looking back at Jack.

Even in the single bed Jack looks small, far too small for a four year old. The doctors had insisted it was fine, a common side effect to a chronic illness, nothing anyone could fix, and yet Dean couldn't help but feel guilty. A weight in his stomach as if he'd swallowed lead, he wanted to fix it so bad, wanted to make sure Jack was never going to be anything but okay. He wanted to fix it no matter how many times he was told he couldn't, and he knew Cas felt the same way.

Jack made a small sniffle then his eyes fluttered open, meeting Dean's stare. "Dad?" Jack whispers, his voice sounding more nasally than before.

"Yah?"

"I love you."

"I love you too," Dean whispers back, a small smile tugging at his lips as he flips the light switch.

After stepping out of Jack's room, Dean takes a deep breath allowing himself a second to calm his heart before he walks into his own bedroom, finding it empty. The living room and kitchen is exactly the same as when he first got home, the lamp still dimly glowing, dirty dishes and papers still scattering the surfaces. The only difference is that the porch door had been propped open, letting the night air linger through the living room

Dean walks across the livingroom and to the porch doorway, where he leans his shoulder. An easy smile spreads across his face as he watches Cas stand over one of the many plant pots that cover their tiny porch.

With a pair of scissors in hand Cas carefully looks over the pot of Marigolds, cutting off any leaves that had begun to wither and letting them fall off the porch and onto the street below. A concentrated expression rests across Cas's features as inspects the plants, his lips pressed in a tight line and eyes narrowed, his fingers working carefully. How Cas had the patience to watch something grow, to care for something so frequently, Dean would never know.

"It's cold," Dean finally says, stepping onto the deck. Cas doesn't look up and instead picks up his watering can, tilting it over to let the water soak the marigolds. "Do you need a coat?"

"I'm fine."

"You won't be saying that when you're sick."

"I won't get sick."

"Just cause you don't get cold doesn't mean you can't get sick," Dean mumbles.

Cas looks up, the smallest smile tugging at his lips as he tilts his head to right, a small action that always brings a warmth to Dean's chest. A comforting feeling that leaves him wanting more, one more look of Cas's eyes, one more touch of his fingers that were surely frozen from the chilled wind, one more second of just being with the other.

"Dean," Cas insists in his usual gravelly, monotone voice. "I am fine."

Despite Cas's arguments Dean tugs the first sleeve of his jacket off and then the second, the evening air immediately freezing against his bare arms. "Comeon angel," Dean says, offering his jacket. "Humor me."

Cas narrows his eyes, but still takes the jacket from Dean's hand and pulls it around himself before turning back to the plants. Dean leans against the deck railing no longer trying to speak and instead watches as Cas works his way from plant to plant, trimming leaves, and drizzling them with water. He can hear the distant sound of voices in the streets below, some kind of fight that could be just heard over the ambulance sirens from a few blocks away, both noises that occur far more frequently than Dean would ever like.

Maybe it wasn't a good time to buy an engagement ring, maybe they'd be better off saving to move to a different apartment. Somewhere nicer, where kids didn't walk in the middle of the streets because it was safer than walking near the alleyways, or near parks that weren't filled with used needles and other things that had Dean caring Jack rather then letting the child walk (though honestly Dean wasn't sure if Chicago had any parks not like that). Maybe they'd be better off buying light bulbs or saving for the over the top birthday Dean knew Cas wanted Jack to have.

Saving it would be the best choice, yet Dean couldn't bring himself to not picture the ring. To not imagine how Cas's eyes would light up as Dean opened the box, he'd say yes, Dean had never been so certain of anything in his life. Cas would say yes, and then they'd kiss, holding onto one another as if it was their last moments alive.

"Do you regret anything?" Dean suddenly says, his mind spinning with too many what ifs to stop himself.

Cas pauses for a second, before he continues inspecting the small tomato plant that had just begun to sprout. "No," Cas replies, his voice steady, though Dean can hear something else in it, hesitation, maybe worry, "do you?"

"No- yah- I mean, I don't know," Dean shoves his hands into his jeans pocket, trying to warm them from the numb feeling that had quickly begun to grow. The fighting down below had stopped though the ambulance's sirens continues to blare and for a moment Dean let's that fill the silence as he tries to sort his thoughts. "I think I'd've liked to try harder at school, maybe got a degree in mechanics, something that'd make us money." He pauses, looking down to his shoes, it's easier than looking at Cas as he admits his defeats. "We could have a nicer apartment."

"I like our apartment," Cas replies.

"The neighbors suck," Dean says, "We've got the Joker and Harley Quinn on one side and a fuckin' hooker on the other."

"Meg is a respectable woman."

A smile tugs at Dean's lips. "Yah well most apartments have nice chicks."

"Dean," at the sudden softness in Cas's voice, Dean looks up, his eyes meeting the other's. Cas places his watering can down and steps forward. "Are you alright?"

"Yah." Cas gives the smallest tilt of his head, a crease forming between his eyebrows as his gaze darts down Dean. Dean pushes himself from the railing and raises his arm, lacing his fingers with Cas's. "Really, angel," Dean continues, pulling Cas into his arms, "I'm fine."

Cas wraps his arms around Dean's neck, resting his chin against Dean's shoulder. Even with the help of his jacket Cas feels frozen as Dean wraps his arms around the other's waist, Dean's fingers grazing the frozen skin from under Cas's t-shirt. "Dean," Cas says, his voice louder in the suddenly silent night. "You are allowed to talk to me."

"I'm just thinkin'" Dean replies. He holds Cas closer to his chest hoping that it will keep the other warm, and rests his chin against Cas's shoulder. "Worryin' about Jack, money, the future, that kind've crap," Dean says. "Things are just goin' to get more expensive."

"I understand your concerns," Cas replies. Dean tilts his head as the other talks, pressing a kiss to Cas's neck, followed by a second, the kiss so soft and gentle Dean's lips just ghost the frozen skin. "But Jack will be starting school soon and when that happens I'll discuss working more hours with Crowley. We will figure it out."

"I'm worried about you," Dean whispers, something which was only half true.

He was worried with every beat of his heart that he could never give Cas what he deserved. That one day Cas would realize he deserved better and walk out. Dean wasn't worried about Cas, Cas could handle himself, he was worried the day Cas would realize he was worth more.

Dean was worried that one day he would be left with nothing but a broken heart for memories, and the feeling of sorrow to wash it out.

"Dean," Cas whispers, "there's no reason to worry about me." Dean presses another kiss to Cas's neck and slowly let's his fingers travel down the other's back, tracing the curve of Cas's spine. "Please don't worry about me." The thought of arguing crosses Dean's mind but instead of trying he buries his nose into the crook of Cas's neck as Cas's grip around him tightens.

It was moments like this that left Dean holding Cas closer, clinging onto every second as if it would be his last with the other. When they were alone in the dark, only lit by the decks faded orange light, and the world around them had gone silent as if to give them one moment alone. It was simple moments like this that left Dean out of breath, and at a complete loss of words, unable to describe just how in love he was with Castiel Novak.

Slowly, humming softly, Dean removes one hand from Cas's back and laces the fingers of his right hand with Cas's left. "Here comes the sun," Dean begins barely above a whisper, swaying softly, an action Cas mimics.

"And I say," Dean sings softly, "it's alright."

"Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter," Dean continues, his voice hanging through the silent night, only broken by their footsteps as they move across the deck. "Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here." Cas's lips press lightly to Dean's neck and he replies by giving Cas's hand a gentle squeeze, it's all he can manage. Any words would ruin the moment, nothing he could say would be as gentle as them swaying, sharing one another's warmth as the wind continues to blow.

"Here comes the sun, do, do, do. Here comes the sun, and I say," Dean sings, "it's alright."

They continue to dance as the song goes on, footsteps heavy, and their swaying half a beat off. Cas's fingers are still frozen against his, and Dean's own arms had long ago become numb, and yet it's perfect.

Dean wouldn't trade it for a second of perfection. The breathless feeling leaving him light, his heart pounding constantly in his chest yet always one beat not enough. It's impossible to breathe properly when all his senses are heightened on one thing.

Cas.

By the time the song comes to an end and their slow dance has stopped, Cas's eyes were on Dean's, the normally vivid blue casted in shadows by the deck's light. Cas's hand moves from where it rests on Dean's shoulder and to his cheek, the contact so light Cas's fingers barely grazes Dean's skin. "I love you," Dean whispers, because he isn't good with words, he never has been, and that's the only thing he can think of that can even remotely describe how he feels.

"I love you too," Cas replies. He leans forwards pressing his lips to Dean's for a slow kiss that has Dean's heart somewhere between racing and stopping, tearing all the air from his lungs. When they pull away, their lips still grazing, there's only one thing Dean's sure of; he's going to marry the love of his life.

[movedkagen]

right back at ya,     @guroshi​ !

He’d never been caught before. 

Despite his very obvious restriction regarding cursed energy,     Toji Zen’in   ( ‘Fushiguro’ was a name that would come later )   had never been caught by a person he was pursuing.     He moved soundlessly,     like a panther in the nocturne jungle,     and struck precisely.     It was the one reason why despite his  lack  of ability,     calling him  weak  was a sore mistake.     They therefore treated him like he were a curse himself;     they  loathed  him,     they  were  disgusted  by  him,     but  they  dare  not  say  his  name  lest  he  appear  in  their  midst.     Toji Zen’in had a tendency to appear like a bad omen.   When people caught him,     it was only when he wanted them to,     and it rarely ever ended well.

It turned out that being the boogeyman paid pretty well;    he’d made a living out of that rejection.     And maybe,     just  maybe  to a certain extent he felt a sense of  vindication whenever he closed in on a sorcerer.     Outwardly,    thriving off of the disdain was a survival tactic.     I’m  just  not  a  likable  guy,     he’d  say,    usually with a sardonic laugh.     But  inwardly  …  sinking his blade into the flesh of someone who he  knew  thought him worth little more than an  animal  brought him a slight sick sense of pleasure.     The  jobs  mean  nothing  to  me:     truth.     But it would be a  lie  to say that he didn’t like  fucking  up  the order  of the food chain just by  drawing  breath.     When his very existence served as a shameful  thorn  in the side of his family,     Toji made sure to do so with an expertise that made it so that even  ridicule  was too dangerous an acknowledgement.     If  you’re  going  to  be  bad,     be  the  best  at  it.     If he was hopeless as a Zen’in,     he would therefore be a source of hopelessness to them in turn.

In nearly all other things,     Toji was a man who lived aimlessly;     fighting,   fucking,   food,   fortune.     Those were the only motives that propelled normal men,     and for Toji his motives were no different.     So,     when his phone rang and revealed the voice of his uncle,     Toji nearly hung up.     They’d provide him no benefit,    after all.

“Toji?”     The voice echoes again when his initial greeting doesn’t earn a response.

“Ojisan.”    His voice is groggy,     but the snide way he calls him  uncle  is still palpable.     “If you’re calling me because my old man finally decided to kick the bucket,     save your breath.     I’ve no interest in his funeral.”

He can  hear  the way his uncle grimaces on the receiver.     “That’s not why I’ve called.     We want you to come to the estate.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“We have a job for you ------”

“Not interested.”

“------  and we will pay.”

Toji paused at that.     His family was shit,     sure,     but they were also swimming in cash.     Inversely,     looking over his shoulder at the woman he’d been sleeping with in exchange for a  bed  in January,     he couldn’t be any less liquid.     “...How much are we talking?”

“Name your price and we’ll negotiate.”

It was the right answer;     he knew if he went,     strong - arming the amount he wanted would be easy.     “I’ll be there in an hour.     You waste my time,     I walk.”     Without waiting for a response,    he hangs up and pushes up off the bed,      disappearing to shower.     

He arrives at the estate feeling tense.     He’s got bad memories of this place;     being born without an ability meant he’d spent most of his early teenage years serving the family,     but looking at the other servants,     it could have been worse.     I  could  have  been  born  a  woman,     he thought,     watching with morbid horror as a cousin he barely spoke to struggles to soothe fussing children as her husband glances at her with annoyance without daring to lift a finger to help.    

The Zen’in estate was like a sepulchre;     opulent and pristine from the outside,     but filled nothing but rotting stench and decay internally.

He hides his unease well,     despite it all.     Bile builds in the back of his throat,     but in the room appointed to be their meeting place,     Toji stands with a bored expression and seems as though nothing bothers him at all.     The door slides open,     and he smirks when only his uncle walks through.     Typical.     His father didn’t show.

“So … what did you do for them to dump this meeting on you?     They must not like you these days.     Have you fallen out of favor,     Ojisan?”

His uncle ignores his comments,     taking it as an obvious ploy to provoke him.     Instead,     he simply sits and folds his arms.     “You’re a man who always has his ear to the ground.     Have you heard the rumors?”

“You’re going to need to be more specific.”

“About the Gojo clan.”

The mention of the  Gojo  surname reaches deep into a past Toji barely remembers;     not only is this history  old,   but it’s also near inconsequential.     It’s only ever been mentioned in the story of their  great  victorious  ancestor   who killed the vengeful spirit that fathered that clan,   and how while the Zen’in clan grew in glory,     the Gojo clan continued to fall from it. But oddly enough,     Toji does recall something he’d heard,     which he only remembers because it’s odd to mention the burnt - out family in the first place.     “I heard they have a new kid.”

His uncle gracefully pulls out a kiseru and lights it,    then puffs on it lazily before continuing.     “...The rumor is that he possesses both the  limitless  and the  six eyes  technique.”

Toji frowns.     The longer he’s here,     the less he understands why he’s been called.     “Get to the point.”

“It’s been years since you’ve left,    Toji,    but you surely can’t forget one of the most prolific battles of our family history.     The  ten  shadows  shaman  versus the  limitless  many - eyed spirit.”

“Spare me the lecture,     old man.”

“We want you to verify the rumor.”    Seeing Toji pause,     his uncle doesn’t need to wait for him to ask ‘why me?’  before continuing.     “Your lack of cursed energy means that if it’s true,     you’d be able to get in easily without being noticed.     Since the birth of this boy,     the family has been in utter seclusion.     It’s almost as though they’re trying to hide him from the world.”

For a moment,     Toji is silent.     But slowly,    he chuckles.     The chuckle builds until it’s a booming laugh,     bordering on a cackle.

“Is this funny to y ------”

“Oh,    this is rich!     A little kid has you all shitting yourselves,     is that it?     What’ll happen if the rumors are  true?     Will you all go sick with grief because you don’t have anyone with the ten shadows ability?    Is that it?     Are you sure you want to know,    old man?    After all,     if it’s true,     then your  prolific  battle  story means dog shit.    Unless … you’re asking me to off the kid?     Because if that’s the case,     I won’t do it.    Not because it’s a kid,    but because watching a primary schooler ruin your entire dynasty just by being alive is too funny to let pass by.”

Clear  irritation  is written across his uncle’s expression,     but he forgoes an argument.    “No one is asking you to kill  anyone.    We are confident the  perfection  this family produces is enough to rival one person.    The Gojo clan can’t be rebuilt on the shoulders of a single man.”

“------ But?”

“But,    that hasn’t stopped them from trying.    They’ve managed to weasel their way back into the upper ranks based off of these rumors alone.    If they’re a threat to our own influence,    we must know.”

Toji waves his hand dismissively.    “I don’t care about any of that.    How much are you offering?”

“Five million yen.”

“I want twenty.”

“And yet you’ll only get ten.”

Toji pauses.    Ten  million  yen.    He would have walked with the five,    but to give him this much … they really were uneasy about this,    weren’t they?    It didn’t matter.    These politics didn’t matter to him;    it was a job,    and it paid well.     With ten million yen,    he’d never have to sleep at that dingy apartment in Kabukicho again.    “...Deal.”

This all brought him back to the beginning point:    being  caught  for  the  first  time.    Sneaking into the estate was so easy it was almost comical,    and dressed properly,    he  was easily believed to be a servant himself.    The Gojo estate was different from the Zen’in estate.    The Zen’in clan was big,    lively compared to this place,    where he could hear a pebble being kicked across the gravel he walked upon.     This place was a graveyard.    If the Zen’in estate was like a palace of bones,     the Gojo estate was like the temple of a god that had died centuries ago.    Big,    but brittle.    Quiet.   Prayed to only by the wind that passed through it,    as if out of pity,    echoing the hollowness of it all.    

But it would seem that god had returned at long last.

He made sure to keep a safe distance behind the boy;    he was followed by two men on either side of him at all times,    who Toji deduced to be bodyguards.     If that was the case,    he could only assume the rumors were indeed true.    Why else would a child need to be guarded in his own home?     As he walks behind him,    Toji feels something unpleasant.    Pity  is too noble a word;    but it was like gazing upon a lovely bird in a zoo.    Did  it  know  that  it  was  captive,    or  was  it  content  with  the  magnificent  cage  it  lived  in?    

This  kid  is  going  to  be  one  hell  of  a  puppet,     he thinks.

It is at that moment that the boy stops walking,    then turns and looks at him.    There’s  no  mistaking  it.    His eyes lock with Toji’s,    and Toji halts in his tracks.    It’s not like him to stop like that,    but his body freezes of its own accord.  Fighting,   fucking,   food,   fortune.    He’d always believed those were the four things that motivated the average man,     but he forgot the last motive;    maybe because he didn’t remember the last time he felt it,     if he’d ever felt it at all before this moment.

Fear.

The boy’s face is pale and listless,    nothing like that of a child.    His hair and eyelashes are bone - white,    and his eyes,    large and owl - like,    are a crystal clear blue that shimmers in a manner that makes it seem as though his irises  swirl,    like pools of fate.     Toji shouldn’t be able to see that from here,    but for some reason distance doesn’t seem to  matter  between them.    He is several feet away from the child,    but he sees him as though he’s inches in front of his nose.    Curse  …   sorcerer  …   those words didn’t suit this boy at all.

This  child  is  a  demon.

The child doesn’t blink.    The guards beside him seem to keep walking,    but the boy also never seems to move from his place.    Did  he  stop time?    Did  he  pull  Toji  into  another  dimension  entirely?  The boy gazes at him with neither curiosity nor contempt;    he simply looks at him,     looks  through  him,    and Toji feels as though his soul is being stripped bare.     There’s no doubt.     This boy knows everything;    Toji wasn’t a paranoid man in the slightest,    but he felt as though this child had known about it all  ------   the zen’in’s,     the exchange,     the ten million yen,     the rumors and the eyes on him,     and the task to verify it all.

Well?,     his eyes seemed to say.    Have  you seen  enough?     You  have  someone  waiting  for  you.     Go  and  tell  them.

Toji  would  never  forget  that  boy  again.

He’d never been caught before.

As the knife is pulled from his flesh,     Satoru feels the strange, unfamiliar sensation of being unable to support himself enough to stand.     Is  this  what  weakness  felt  like?     He falls to the floor,     finding himself incapable of processing that this attack even happened in the first place.     He watches his blood pool around him   ------    strangely enough,     he feels no pain.     As his vision goes dark,     he knows the truth;     the shock is preventing him from feeling a thing.     Maybe he wasn’t as untouchable as he thought.     “Su …”     The name is not even half spoken before he falls silent.

He must be dead.

He stands in an expanse that extends  forever,     an endless void of vantablack that is maddening to look at.     Didn’t people get a rush of endorphins before they died?     Why,     then,    did he see a past that only made him miserable?     He watches his life flash before his eyes;     he sees his own birth.     He sees the countless days he spent in his family estate,     learning mathematical theory and physical nonsense all because they  hoped  he would awaken this latent  infinity  within him.     He sees his arrival to Tokyo tech   ------   his first time away from the prying eyes of his family.     His first time meeting kids who weren’t  hand  selected  to be his friends.     The thrilling sensation of being disliked,     being  a  delinquent.     Breaking rules and laughing from his chest.     It  was  a  fun  way  to  end  things,     he thought.     I  just  wish  I’d  gotten  to  have  a  lot  more  of  it.

He’s shown the moment of his demise,     and Satoru grimaces.     Ugh,     how  uncool.     He looks like a deer with its throat in the maw of the wolf;     helpless,     surprised a second too late.     He sees the horror in Suguru’s expression,     and he feels just a tinge of guilt.     The  strongest  duo’s  broken  up.     Sorry  I  couldn’t  stay  and  help  you  in  the  end.     

He wants to look away   ------   really,     who wanted to watch themselves die twice?   ------   but just as he thinks to,     Satoru’s eyes stop on the face of the man who killed him.     Why   does   he  look  familiar?     He looks at his life laid before him,    and watches a bright white string extend from this image and go back,     back,     back  into a very peculiar day in his childhood.     He sees himself,     six  years old,     turning and locking eyes with him.

No.     Not  him.    This man.

He  met  him  before.

Great,     he thought bitterly.     So  I was  more  perceptive  when  I was  a  first  year.    

But then,     all of the images hit him at once.     They condense and slam him with such force that Satoru feels  pain  all over his body,    like the wind has been knocked out of him.    He’s drowning in this knowledge   ------   this  infinity.     Maybe that means in the physical world,    his lungs are taking their last shallow breaths.     The images continue to condense until they make a small orb;     the single source of light in this place.     Slowly,     the orb opens and reveals an iris that reflects his own:     too blue to be human,    dimly shimmering in a way that makes them seem like a flowing spring.     Satoru feels his own gaze turned upon him.     His own voice echoes in his ears.     Get  up,     it says.     Or  are  you  really  that  weak?     If  you  can’t  get  up,     you  were  never  strong.     You  deserve  to  die  here.     Satoru’s hand extends towards the orb.

Get  up,     dickhead.

Satoru wakes up with a gasp,    bolting upright with a shock that could wake the dead.      And hadn’t it?     No … he looks down at himself,    and sees the still - warm blood staining his shirt.     Satoru realizes in that moment,     he never died at all.

Gojo Satoru had touched infinity for the first time.

He stills himself and thinks.     Or,     more accurately,     perceives.     He allows those six eyes to see  for  him.      He’d forgotten that so much of his power worked without his effort,     if he let it.     Riko is dead.     Suguru is alive.    He’s still bleeding from his leg.    And Toji is …

The  rest  is  a  blur.

“Yo. Long time no see.”     It’s all he can say,     when he’s intercepted Toji.     Why is he here?     The job is done.     They  failed.     There’s no reason for Satoru to come here.

Ah,    that was a lie.     He was here to kill Toji.    Infinity … he’d touched it and seen it;     he’d be the strongest,    now.     No more goofing off,     no more avoiding his own holiness.     But the thing about being a  god  is that gods can’t be killed.     And if there was someone who could kill him,      that person had to fight him.     Yes,     that would be his true trial of divinity;     he and Toji would fight here and now until one of them died,     and whoever left standing would be the one  truly  bound to heaven.

The shock on Toji’s face doesn’t matter to him at all.     ... Are you serious?,     he says,     but Satoru hears it like a dull echo.     He’s barely listening to him.

Toji is weak,      after all.     And he hates weak people.

The shock is enough to make Satoru giddy,     however,     so he grins and pushes his hair up to show him the healed wound to his head.  “Oh,      yeah.     I’m alive and well.”     His eyes are owl - like and large again,     though they don’t shimmer like quiet pools.     They churn like a riptide,     and they focus on Toji with malicious intent.

“A reverse technique,”     Toji breathes,     more to himself than to anyone else.

“Correct!”     Satoru chirps.     “I gave up on fighting back when you crushed my throat.     I poured my all into perfecting this technique.     Cursed energy uses negative energy.     It can fortify the body,     but it can’t cause regeneration.     That’s why it’s necessary to multiply it with more negative energy to create the positive.     That’s the reverse technique!”     He laughs and his grin widens,     and he can tell his elation is too much for Toji to understand.    But it can’t be helped   ------   this isn’t about Toji.     He’s giddy because all along,     the secret to reverse technique was  math.     Simple math,     whereas Satoru had mastered complex number theory ages ago.     All this time,     the ability’s secret had simply flown over his head.     If he had known it was just the application of a basic mathematical principle,     he could have used reverse technique ten years ago.     “The theory is easy enough,     but I couldn’t do it at  all ... until now.     The only person I know who could do it can’t explain for shit,     either.     But I  finally  got it when I was on my deathbed … the core of cursed energy.” 

Satoru grins and sighs euphorically before continuing on.     “You lost because you didn’t cut off my head,     and because you didn’t use a cursed tool when you stabbed me in the head.”     Doesn’t Toji understand how  funny  that is?

Apparently not.     Toji’s eyes flash all of a sudden.     “Lost?”     He says,    pulling a cursed blade from the throat of his  worm  of an accessory.     “The fight has just begun.”

“------ Huuuuuuuuuuuh?!     Ah,     yeah,     I guess so!”     Satoru realizes he’s right;     he’d already seen the end of this in infinity,     but he supposed he couldn’t say it happened until it did,     right?      He was getting ahead of himself.     It’s not like  Toji  could see the future.      He starts to laugh.     “I guess you’re right!”

Toji gives him no time to even finish his sentence.     He’s a real warrior,     Satoru will give him that.     He flies at him with the same beast - like grin from before,     only this one is different.     They both fight with the full intent to kill,     and it’s not a matter of work.     It’s a battle for the crown;     one that Toji was for better or worse proud to have,     and not willing to give up easily.     Good.     Toji understands.   

He slashes at Satoru with terrifying force,     but he has evolved since their last fight.    The once devastating prowess of the sorcerer - killer is little more than a  mild  inconvenience  to him,     now.     By the time Toji’s slash reaches the end of its arc,     Satoru is in the sky above him,     and even more terrifying than when he gave him that maddening smile,     he looks upon him with a wide - eyed,     barely perceptible grin.     Though  he’d  already  reached  a  new  height,     it  would  seem  he  was  evolving  again,     right  before  Toji’s  eyes.     He  was  fortunate  to  witness  it.

The positive energy  that  is  born  from  the  reverse  technique  …  that  energy  is  channeled  into  the  infinity  technique  I’ve  carved  in  myself.     He  understands,     now.     Reverse rotation  technique.

“Red.”

It repels Toji back hundreds of feet,     through a  building  and into the side of the concrete.

One:     “The  power  to  stop.”     The  neutral  infinity jutsu.     Up  until  this  point,     an  ability  that  required  vigilance  and  effort,     and  why  he’d  fallen  to  Toji.

Two:     “The  power  to  attract.”     The  reinforced  infinity  jujutsu,     “blue”.

Three:     “The  power  to  repel.”     The  reverse  jujutsu,     “red”.

Satoru watches him attach his blade to a chain and create a vortex with it.     Toji believes that he can fight this.     And why wouldn’t he?     Satoru had the power to stop from the start,     and Toji circumvented it.     The power to attract,      he could negate either from afar with the spear,     or he could outrun it.     The power to repel could be blocked with the spear,     so long as he got the timing right.

But Satoru still appears on the rooftop with the same peaceful grin from before,     appearing madder than ever.     He  knows  all  of  Toji’s  thoughts  already.     He  knows  his  heart.     He knows that unease is slowly settling into his foe,     but that despite that,     Toji  believes he still has a chance. 

“No,”     Toji tells himself.     “It’ll work.”     Satoru knew that Toji would say that.   “------ I’ll  kill  you!”

Satoru knew he’d say that,     too.

Time seems to go still,    for a moment.     Satoru reigns himself in,     a sobering clarity coming forward in the midst of it all;     he  would  not  be  a  foolish  god,     after  all.

I’m  really  sorry,     Amanai,     he thinks.     I’m  not  angry on  your  behalf.     I  don’t  hate  anyone.     All  I’m  feeling  right  now  …  Is  the  pleasantness  of  this  world.

Satoru grins again,    and extends his hands forward.     This would be the final blow.  “Throughout the heavens and earth,     I alone am the honored one.”     

Toji whips the bladed chain at Satoru,     but it’s less effective than flailing a cotton  rope  at him,    at  this  point.     You  don’t  understand  what’s  going  to  happen  yet,     he thinks.     That’s  okay.    I  saw  it  in  the  void.     You’re  going  to  die  here,     Toji.     Thank  you  for  sending  me  into  myself.     I  understand  everything,     now.

The good thing about jujutsu techniques that have been passed down over generations is that the instructions on their usage are clarified by the predecessors. The bad thing is that the information about the technique can be leaked much more easily.

You’re  from  one  of  the  three  great  clans  …  the Zen’in  clan,     am  I  right?     Satoru recalls the day he met Toji,     all those years ago.     The man who came to see him for ten million yen.     How could he forget?     He’d seen infinity before.     

You  know  about  “blue”  and  “red”  …  and  everything  about  my  infinity,     I’ll  bet,     Satoru thinks.     But  this  …  even  among  the  Gojo  clan  …  only  a  select  few  know  about.     When  the  infinity  collides  with  the  forward  and  reverse  rotation  techniques  …  this  is  born.     The  expulsion  of  imaginary  mass  …

And  I’m  using  it  to  kill  you.     You  should  be  honored,    Toji.

“Imaginary Technique:     Purple.”

It is spoken like a final rite;    like the decree to end all decrees.     The opposing forces converge and destroy everything in their path  …  Toji,     and anything unlucky enough to be behind him.

Satoru fixes that impenetrable gaze on him again.     That soul stripping,     all - knowing gaze.     “I  don’t  wanna  work  for  free.”  ------  you’d  usually  just  have  said  that  and  ran  away.     But  the  person  in  front  of  you  is  a  user  of  the  infinity  jutsu,    who  probably  just  became  the  strongest  shaman  of  this  generation.     You  wanted  to  deny  it.     To  go  against  it.     Against  the  Zen’in  clan  that  denied  you,    against  the  apex  of  the  jujutsu  world.    In  order  to  reaffirm  your  identity  …  you  warped  your  usual  self. 

You  already  lost  at  that  point.

“I thought I had discarded that pride …”  Toji breaks the silence for them,     finishing the thought that Satoru had heard from the depths of Toji’s soul.

Satoru heard every thought leading up to that declaration,     but he feels strangely peaceful in the moment.      He’d  made this prophecy come true;     Gojo  Satoru  emerged victorious,    conquering death and the god - killer  himself.     There would be a new era from now on;     for better or for worse,     Satoru would be the head of it.     “... Do you have any last words?”

“ … Nah.”     The look on Toji’s face says he  knows  that Satoru’s seen everything.     But,     just in case  …  “In two or three years,     my kid will get sold to the Zen’in clan.”     Why was he telling him that?     Maybe because he was understanding that if  anyone  could  fuck  up  the  natural  order  of  things,     it wasn’t him at all.     It  has  always  been  this  kid.     Maybe it was because,     in his final moments,     he realized that he’d left behind nothing,     and given his  blessing  to the very place that had sculpted his demise.     Maybe it was the “regret” those damn shamans never shut up about.     Whatever  it  was,     Toji  couldn’t  bring  himself  to  beg,     even  on  Megumi’s  behalf.     “... Do whatever you want.”

Before the light left Toji’s eyes,     Satoru watched something else die first.     What  broke  then  …  was  the  heart.     What,     did he think he would go and right his wrongs?     That he would protect his  kid?     It seemed his six eyes hadn’t anticipated him doing  that.     Honestly,     what was Toji thinking?     It was too late to ask that now,     but  Satoru only knew  one  thing for certain.

Satoru would never forget this man again.

[soldrawss]

Ares kids giving percy shit and then they just see... luke... standing in the background... staring at them... and they suddenly decide to leave percy alone, because they 'just FEEL LIKE IT, oKAY???' jhgfgdhfdhggfjghg

Despite what everyone else thinks, Luke is always angry. He just also happens to be really good at hiding it. He probably had his dad to thank for that, being able to redirect and reassure others with a flash of a smile and a wave of his hand to disarm anyone who’d think otherwise. He hardly ever lets his temper get the best of him anymore. He’s too old for that. Too tired to let the little things get under his skin and leave bruises that the world could see. He can’t afford to wear his anger out like tattooed sleeves, the same way Silena Beauregard wore compassion on hers.

And it would be too easy. Too easy to just let his anger for the world and for the gods fuel and feed the hurt bleeding into his rationality and blaming all his problems on everything other than himself. It would be way too fucking easy to go about his days in a blinding rage that left nothing but empty holes in the places that should have held love and forgiveness and all the good he tries so desperately to instill in the younger campers. It wouldn’t solve anything. It wouldn’t help the hurt and it wouldn’t end the suffering. Luke knew this. Luke knew the world didn’t need one more angry, unwanted kid adding that kind of gasoline into the fire. Kronos was wrong, even if his tempted whispers late at night tried so hard to convince him otherwise.

So he hides his anger. Buries it under daily counselor chores and making sure the Stoll brothers don’t get too rowdy during their free time and just keeps busy enough to ignore the pounding tremor in the back of his chest. It works for the most part. It’s easier to smile nowadays, he barely even has to force it anymore, and when he laughs along to campfire stories and songs, it’s something lighthearted and genuine.

But his anger is always right there, like it’s something second hand and lingering. There without him having to reach for it. 

And when he notices Percy get dragged behind the armory by the scruff of his neck by some older kids, he lets that all too familiar anger consume him in seconds. He pushes away from the handful of campers he was monitoring by the amphitheater, ‘Activity’s over. You have free break until lunch’, he calls over his shoulder, and doesn’t wait for a response as he marches his way in the direction of the armory with a speed Hermes would probably be proud of if he ever cared enough to check-in.

Luke doesn’t have special skills or powers like other Demigods. He can’t build things like Beckendorf and he can’t charm speak like Silena and he certainly can’t summon lightning from the heavens like Thalia could. But he was respected and feared in equal measure all the same, and no one could deny that he worked hard to earn the title of the best swordsman in camp. 

His was still a presence that demanded attention and authority. Even if he lets the seven-year-old from the Haphestus cabin ride on his shoulders after breakfast most mornings, or moves over on his already tiny bunk in the dead of night so that little unclaimed Lily Anderson can sleep with him after a bad nightmare.

He was a self-designated older brother to pretty much anyone who needed one, and Luke took a quiet sort of pride to that so many people liked and needed him.

But he was still a threat when he wanted to be.So when he saw Percy on the ground, with a nose bleed that stained the front of his shirt an awful rusty color, all Luke had to do was growl a low, ‘walk away. Now’, and the three boys took off at a sprint. He only vaguely recognized two of them from the Ares cabin and one from Aphrodite, but he didn’t care enough to do more with the information at the moment because Percy was staring up at him with green eyes electric and burning. 

And Luke recognizes those kinds of eyes. They’re the same as his. There's a light like dying stars in them. Angry and terrified and burning with something terrible and so full of single-minded devotion that it has to hurt. And it leaves something aching and red hot in Luke’s stomach when he takes a step forward only for Percy to flinch away out of reflex.

“I’m fine,” Percy said like a knee jerk reaction before Luke could even ask, barking it in a mean and biting way that Luke didn’t take any offense to because he remembers what if felt like to be twelve and have your pride hurt. So Luke doesn’t question it, because Percy is scrappier and stronger than anyone probably ever gave him credit for, and offers a silent hand and the gentlest smile he can muster. Luke does his best to ignore the thumping jolt of anger that vibrates through him when Percy takes it almost immediately and so desperately, like it’s his only lifeline in the world, and wonders what kind of people were in Percy’s life before camp that made him so hungry for a positive human connection. 

Percy apologizes a second later with a horrified expression, jumping out of reach when he notices he got blood on Luke’s hand.

“Don’t worry about it. Let's just get you to the Apollo cabin. Lee keeps a first aid kit and a jar of ambrosia superglued to him at all times after Cecil Markowitz’s third greek fire burn.” The comment was supposed to lighten the mood somewhat, but Percy’s face darkens as he takes a step back from Luke.

“Um, no thanks,” Percy says in almost a pained whisper, hugging his middle and trying to wipe the continuous flow of blood from running down his chin by holding his head back. “It smells too much like the infirmary in there. And I hate the way ambrosia burns down my throat. I’m good, Luke, really.”

And that should have tipped Luke off to some bigger problem, but he can’t concentrate on it because he’s already closing the distance between them faster than Percy could object, and softly pushing the back of Percy’s head down towards the ground. “Pinch here, just above your nostrils, and lean forward unless you want the blood to go down your throat.” He instructs, guiding Percy’s bloodied hand to his nose.

Luke can’t rightly blame Percy for his hesitance. The kid’s first moments of conscious grief since his new life as a half-blood began was spent in the camp infirmary, nursing the pain of losing his mom while also nursing actual physical wounds with acidic nectar and ambrosia that even Luke can attest to growing disgust for after the first few battle wounds of his own. Anyone would have some kind of underlying trauma from that, and Percy didn’t have to outwardly admit how uncomfortable he was at the idea for Luke to understand.

Being a 12-year-old without a mom was hard enough. The problems of a half-blood added on top of that was almost a cruel joke that Luke bitterly couldn’t believe was a reality for most the kids at camp.

“Annabeth used to get into a lot of fights too, I’ve gotten pretty used to fixing noses the old fashioned way. Come on, I have a spare medkit in the combat arena,” Luke says, pressing a hand to Percy’s back, not giving him a chance to escape because dammit, someone had to care for this kid. And Percy doesn’t smile, but something in those sharp green eyes turn leaf like and muted as he lets himself get led from out from behind the armory.

No one really bats an eye towards Percy as they walked, and Luke could only assume it’s because he looks like he’s about to kill anyone that tried with a stone-cold glare that could rival Medusa’s. 

No one was is in the arena when they get there, and Luke instructs Percy to keep the cold washcloth Luke had snagged for him on his nose for about ten minutes, keeping upright to help stop the bleeding. They don’t say anything after that, they just sit on the arena steps and watch the campers from the Demeter cabin try to flip the canoes of some Aphrodite kids with little success, while they wait. 

Luke doesn’t ask any questions on what happened or why, he feels like the answer wouldn’t matter anyway, but Percy eventually softens in the silence between them. Luke pretends he doesn’t notice Percy’s eyes get red and wet as he rubs at them angrily with the palm of his hand.

After about fifteen minutes, and a fresh camp shirt that Luke had given him to replace Percy’s stained one, Percy looked no worse for wear, at least.

“Thanks,” he says softly, like he was thanking Luke for a million things at once, and Luke was all too aware of the crack in his voice and the angry hunch of his shoulders that made him look whole years to young to be angry at the world.

“Don’t thank me just yet, I need your help with something,” Luke decides as he stands up and walks back into arena, not looking back to see if Percy is following him because he knows he is.

“Alright,” he says once they make it to the middle of the dusty pit, holding his hands out in front of his chest and adjusting his stance as Percy looks at him with a doe-eyed curiosity and confusion. “Come at me with all you got.”

Percy frowns, and sniffs once before rubbing his nose with the back of his hand. “What? Dude I already got my butt handed to me, I don’t need another nose bleed on top of a few broken bones.”

Luke can’t help but smile at that. “Come on, humor me. I have a few unchecked microaggressions I need to work out and you owe me. I promise I won’t aim for your nose.”

Percy frown deepens, but he sighs like the whole world is weighted on in and gets into a fighting stance of his own, keeping his fists close to his chest.

Now it was Luke’s turn to frown. “Aww dude, you’re breaking my heart here.”

He relaxes his stance and walks over to where Percy stood, dodging the lame attempt of a punch and catching Percy’s fist in the palm of his hand, readjusting Percy’s fingers. “Thumb goes here unless you want to break it. And you wanna keep your fists closer to bottom of your chin.”

Luke uses his own foot to shift Percy’s into a more stable stance. “Feet this far apart and bend your knees, or you’re gonna get knocked down no matter what happens. Try to punch me again.”

Frowning more out of concentration then confusion, Percy took another swing that Luke caught easily and without letting go, pulled it back towards Percy’s shoulder and used his other hand to straighten Percy’s back. “Use these muscles here and punch straight out. You keep swinging too wide and putting all your force behind it, leaving you open.”

He guided Percy’s hand with his own, twisting it slowly in the form of a punch. “You’re gonna feel the bones in your arm want to move this way. Let them and you’ll get more force out of it.”

Percy hummed something like acknowledgment, so Luke let go and retook his stance in front of Percy, mimicking his same posture from before. “Try it again.”

Luke still caught Percy’s fist in his own, but a smile broke his face in two when he, not unkindly, pushed Percy back aways. “A couple more hits like that, and my hand may actually start to hurt, Jackson.”

And the grin that crept upon the twelve-year-olds face was something bright and delighted and outshining the stars as easy as breathing, and Luke soaked in every inch as they continued for the better half of the morning sparing till the lunch horn sounded.

Percy was so much like a younger Luke that is actually scared him, but moments like this, where he knew practical methods of defense would help Percy better than any reassurance that bullies would eventually leave him alone ever could. And Luke knew that Percy wouldn’t be ok with anyone fighting his battles for him, even if it would have been so easy for Luke to channel some of that unchecked rage into beating the ever-living snot out of anyone who looked sideways at Percy again. Just like he knew that Percy wouldn’t ask for help if it wasn’t already freely giving, or that trust was a hard thing to earn when your whole life was built around people burning that bridge before you could ever extend it.

But Luke was prepared for the challenge, and with Percy chatting happily away from underneath where Luke rested his arm across his shoulders as they made their way to the dining Pavillion, Luke could feel the edges of his anger slowly quiet into something barely there. And it’s a feeling that carries him throughout the rest of the day. A feeling that he wants to bottle up and keep on a shelf whenever he wants to forget what hating the world feels like.

Because if it feels like it’s worth it just to keep kids like Percy smiling for the rest of forever, well then, Luke could handle forgiving some of his anger, and letting his heart rest on his sleeves just a little bit more.

[angelic-writer]

“If you’re not up to something, you need to tell us. There’s no shame in it, but we can’t help you if you don’t tell us you need help.” For the prompts

TW: Self-harm, talks of suicide, Implied abuse

Sophie skipped up the stairs to show Katherine what she made. She felt like her baking had gotten a lot better and now, she's confident that she perfected the recipe. Now, all she needs to do is find her taste tester...

She approached her bedroom and opened the door. "Kathy! The shortcake's done!" She called out before she noticed the room was empty. Huh, weird. Katherine was here earlier. Maybe she went to the bathroom, she thought.

Oh well. She might as well wait for her to come back. She put the strawberry shortcake down on the nightstand and waited, catching up on some of her books to pass the time.

Ten minutes had passed. Sophie was starting to get worried now. It shouldn't take long for her to have a bathroom break. She got up from her spot on the floor and walked down the hallway. She tried to calm her racing heart as she made slow, deliberate steps. Maybe her period started and she needed help getting some pads. Yeah, that's it. Just a little bit of girl trouble. That's all.

As she went to knock on the door, she could hear the sound of faint breathing. Then, a sharp inhale, like someone was sucking air in through their teeth. Is Kathy in pain?

She slowly opened the door.

"Kathy-"

She almost reeled back from the sight before her.

Katherine was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, her sleeve rolled back to reveal bleeding cuts on her arm. Some were small, some were large. Some of them were even freshly bleeding. The blonde girl stared at her, petrified while she held the knife close to her wrist.

Sophie didn't even have time to react when Katherine suddenly screamed "GET OUT!!"

The smaller girl flinched. "Kathy, wh-"

"GET OUT!! GET OUT!!" She got up and started to push her out, blood dripping down her arms and onto the tile floor.

"Katherine, what is this?! What are you doing?!" Sophie shouted as she tried to fight back.

"Didn't I tell you to leave?! Get out!! Leave me alone!!" Katherine practically screamed in her face.

Tears were welling up in Sophie's eyes. What was going on? Why was Katherine cutting herself? Before she could even have time to process it, she was already pushed out and the blonde girl started to close the door. Her body reacted however, and pushed her way back in.

"Sophie, what did I tell you? Get out and-"

"Katherine. Tell me what you're doing, now!" Sophie was trying to channel her dad's voice even though she was shaking and on the verge of crying.

Katherine flinched. "I-I... I-" Her voice floundered. Now she was the one who was shaking.

"Honey, it's alright. I-I'm here. Just... tell me what's wrong." Sophie's voice was soft and caring. She had to tread carefully here. She was clearly walking on eggshells.

Katherine glared at her. "Are you blind?! You already saw what's wrong with me! I'm messed up, Sophie!! Both inside and outside!!! I've mutilated myself so everyone will see how disgusting I am!! There is a reason why I didn't tell you. It's because I hide it. I hide those scars of mine just so you wouldn't have to freak out." She gripped her arms tightly, hugging herself. "Y-You probably think I'm lesser to you now. You probably think I'm a freak now."

"Kathy, no. I don't think that-"

"I'm sorry. I-I'll go. I'm sorry I ever came here." She tried to walk out, but Sophie blocked the door.

"No, Katherine. You're not leaving with those cuts. Sit back down and let me treat you."

Katherine gritted her teeth. "I don't need your help, Sophie! I'm fine! I can handle this myself!"

"You clearly cannot! Look at you! You're bleeding in my bathroom!! I'm not letting you leave!!"

"Sophie, just get out of my way!! You clearly don't know how to help me!! It's like you're blind to the situation or something!! Well, let me tell you, when someone tells you to leave them alone, you leave them alone. Simple as that. Or are you too stupid to realize that?"

That sentence felt like a knife to the heart. How....? How could she say that to her? How could she be so cruel when she was just trying to help?! Sophie gritted her teeth.

"Well?! Are you going to let me leave or what?! I can take care of these myself!!! I'm not some damsel in distress and I'm not a broken project for you to try and repair!! You can't help me and you can't fix me! So just-"

"Stop yelling at me!!! I'm trying so goddamn much to help you and you push me away when I try to help you!!! God... I just want to slap you right now, but I can't!" Katherine flinched as a squeal escaped her lips, making her regret her words. She didn't mean to say that. It was wrong of her, but she couldn't stop herself. Her voice shifted to a more authoritative tone. "So, I suggest you shut up and sit down!! Let me treat your wounds. Let. Me. Help. You."

Katherine froze. She whimpered before she slowly sat on the toilet. She was now regretting yelling at her. For a moment, she really was waiting for Sophie to slap her. For a moment... She sounded like her mother.

Sophie got the first aid kit and started to treat Katherine's wounds. Immediately, the blonde girl started rapid-speaking. "I'm sorry I'm so sorry I wasn't thinking clearly I'm sorry for making you angry please please please I'm sorry don't hurt me-" The pink-haired girl shushed her.

"Hey... I-I shouldn't have said it... I didn't mean to... I-It was no excuse..." A soft sob came out. "Kathy... I-If you're not up to something, you need to tell me. There's no shame in it, but... I..." She put her hands over her face as she started to sob. "I can't help you if you don't tell me you need help."

"No... No no no no nonononono. I-I'm the one who should be sorry! I-I didn't mean to yell at you! I-I-"

"I-It's alright." She sniffled. "I'll leave you alone. I'll let you take care of it. You're your own person and... You need to be independent. Besides... My parents would be angry at me if they found out I said that... It was no excuse to say it to anyone no matter who they are. I shouldn't have barged in..."

She started towards the door. "Sophie, wait!" Katherine suddenly hugged her from behind. "Wait, please... Don't leave me alone... I'm sorry!! I'm sorry for all the things I said!! I'm sorry for calling you dumb!! I'm sorry for everything!! Just please don't leave me!!" She buried her face in her shoulder as she bawled her eyes out.

The two girls stayed in each other's arms for what seemed like an eternity, Sophie comforting her as she continued to cry. Katherine's emotions just came spilling out and she told her what she was really thinking. "Sometimes... I just want to die... I just want to erase myself from this world... That way, you won't have to deal with me... I'm just such a burden on everyone... I feel like everything would be better off if I were gone..."

Sophie was not prepared for her to spring this on. She was suffering for so long and it had gotten this bad. It's understandable that Katherine wouldn't want to tell anyone about this. Hearing all this just made her more determined.

She will try and help her best friend. The girl she loves.

After a period of time, Katherine's wounds had been treated and she was calmed down. Sophie knelt down in front of her. "Look, Kathy, I know what you're gonna say and-"

"I'm sorry. I know I said that a million times, but I'm sorry!! I told you you couldn't possibly help me, but you've done so much to do so! You being here is all that matters to me."

"T-Thank you... But I'm only one person. I can only do so much before I eventually give up. But I don't want to give up on you! I want to help you in every way I can, even if it's only a little bit."

The blonde girl felt herself start to cry again, but she wiped up her tears. God, she's so useless...

"Have you, maybe... considered going to therapy?" Sophie suddenly asked.

Katherine looked at her, perplexed. "W-What?"

"You know, someone you can talk to."

Katherine scoffed. "How is therapy going to help?"

"Well... I just think it'll be good for you. It helped me a lot when I was a kid."

"But what about my parents? They're gonna know about this and... They're not exactly the most supportive of people with mental illnesses."

"Then screw them! You can come to me and my parents if you need help with anything! We can introduce you to our therapist friend! He's a really nice man and I'm sure he can help you!"

"Sophie, you know you don't have to deal with me, right? I just had a mental breakdown and I hurt you. It's just... I don't want to do that to you ever again..."

"Kathy, you're my friend and I want to help you. I want you to get better! I want to see you smile. I want... I want to see you happy."

Katherine was confused. Nothing was making sense. Sophie was supposed to leave her. She was supposed to leave her alone where she could have solitude, but... At the same time, what she said made her feel... relieved.

After more time had passed, Katherine finally had enough strength to get up. Sophie helped her up and led her out of the bathroom.

"So, uh... The strawberry shortcake is done if you want to try it. It's probably gone cold by now."

Katherine managed to crack a small smile. "I-I think I'll try it. I'm sure it tastes very good."

[embeanwrites]

Finding Home (Gavin Reed x Reader)

Chapter One

          I couldn’t believe I was back in Detroit. I honestly never planned on coming back after everything that had happened between me and my dad. I left Michigan to go get my PhD in Sociology from (dream school). However, my dissertation was over android and human sociological relationships and the moment I was approved, Wayne State University in Detroit recruited me and offered me an amazing deal for a brand-new professor. It made sense since Detroit was at the heart of the android revolution, which would make research even easier.

         I moved into a basic apartment in June and now it’s early July. I had been avoided seeing old friends and family, telling them I had to unpack and work on my new class, SOC 345: Android and Human Relationships. Which wasn’t a complete lie, but I have been watch an unhealthy amount of cute cat videos and eating a lot of peanut butter toast alone too.

         I told my dad I would meet him today, Monday, at the station so we could get lunch with his police partner, Connor. My dad had always hated androids, I still had a hard time believing he had basically taken Connor under his wing and from what Tina tells me, he treats him like a son.

         I took a deep breath and walked into the DPD. I couldn’t help but feel anxious. I hadn’t seen my dad in over 10 years. When him and my mother divorced, he tried to stay in touch, but after my half-brother, Cole, died he pretty much disappeared from my life.

         “Hey, dad!” I said, a little too enthusiastically as I walked towards his desk. Immediately the android in the desk across from him stood up and gave me a goofy smile.

         “You must be Lieutenant Anderson’s daughter! My name’s Connor.” He reached out his hand for a handshake which I accepted with a smile.

         “Hi Connor, I’m (y/n). It’s nice to finally meet you!” I looked over to my dad, who had awkwardly shuffled towards us.

         “Hey, (y/n). How’s Detroit been treating you?” I reached over and gave him a short hug.

         “It’s been good. Doing research is a lot easier here than back in (old state). Plus, WSU gave me a pretty nice office.” I rubbed my shoulder; my dad was about to ask another question when another voice interrupted.

         “Dr. (L/n). I’ve read some of your research and wanted to introduce myself. People here call me Nines, but I am an RK900 from cyberlife. If you ever have time, I would be interested in discussing some of your theories with you.” Nines kept his hands behind his back. He looked a lot like Connor, but taller and more serious.  

         “It’s nice to meet you Nines. I always have time to talk about my theories. Not many of my peers do similar research so any chance I get to talk about it I’ll take it.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw a man in a leather jacket with a hood, blue jeans, and what looked like a permanent scowl on his face.

         “Hey Tin Can! We have a case to solve!” Nines whipped around to look at him and I moved from behind him so I could glare at this rude stranger.

         “Excuse me? Who do you think you are? You don’t get to talk to people or androids like that.” I could feel everyone’s eyes on me, but I couldn’t help myself. I hate bullies, especially people who bully androids. I marched over to the man with my arms crossed my chest. He’s about 6 inches taller than me with a scar running diagonally across his nose. He snorts and looks down at me.

         “And who are you pipsqueak?” He chuckled, for once I was glad, I looked younger than my age. Nothing beats giving your full title to assholes.

         “I’m Dr. (Y/n) (L/n), a professor at Wayne State University studying sociological relationships between humans and androids, and it seems you fall under the category of ‘asshole to everyone’.” Keeping my glare on him, he awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck and looked away. He mumbled a ‘whatever’ under his breath and walked away. I smiled to myself and turned back towards Nines, Connor, and my father.

         “I apologize for my partner, Detective Reed. He sometimes forgets not everyone shares the same opinions as him.”

         “No worries, Nines. But you shouldn’t have to deal with that, I mean-“

         “(Y/n), Reed has a lot of problems, but is mainly just an asshole.” My dad interrupted me, “but we should really get to lunch.” I nodded.

         “Well it was nice to meet you, Nines. Please feel free to stop by my office anytime. I’m pretty much there every day until classes start.” Nines gave me a short nod and walked towards where Detective Reed had gone as I followed my dad and Connor out of the precinct.

          “Lieutenant Anderson said you like sandwiches, so I found a local restaurant that is highly rated.” Connor said as we all buckled up in my dad’s car. Connor had given me the passenger seat and he sat in the back.

         “I do like sandwiches.” I turned back to look at him, as my dad started driving. “So, Connor, how do you like working for the police department?”

         “I was made to assist law enforcement, although I do prefer working for the DPD over Cyberlife.”

         “That’s fair. What about you, dad? How do you like working with Connor?” My dad snickered at my question.

         “Well, he’s the only partner I’ve been able to stand. Although I wish he would stop putting evidence in his mouth, it’s disgusting- “

         “He has a forensics kit that can analyze samples in real time.” “I have a forensics kit that can analyze samples in real time.” Me and Connor said at the same time, causing my dad to groan and me to giggle.

         “Damnit now there’s two of you.” My dad said with a short laugh.

         “(Y/n), how do you know that?” Connor asked, I noticed in the rearview mirror he tilted his head.

         “Shortly after the android revolution I interviewed one of my old contacts who use to work at Cyberlife. Plus, you’re the one saving my dad’s butt out in the field I wanted to know what you were capable of.” My dad quickly glanced over at me. I could tell he was surprised that I knew that, or maybe he was surprised I kept tabs on him.

         “That makes sense.” Connor said shortly, his LED changed to yellow for a short second and then looked back at me through the rearview mirror. “Lieutenant Anderson forbade me from looking you up and learning more about you before meeting you. I didn’t know he allowed you to do research on me.”

         “Connor, two things, I’ve told you a million times you can call me Hank, especially when we’re outside the precinct. Second, (Y/n) looking you up for her research is different than you scanning a ton of databases and learning everything about her.” My dad said as he pulled into a parking spot.

         “That’s fair, Hank.” Connor said as we all got out of the car. The restaurant wasn’t very busy, and we got a table right away. Me and Connor sat on one side of the table and my dad sat on the other side. He kept nervously looking at me and the menu.

         “So, how do you like your new apartment, (Y/n)?” My dad asked me while staring intently at the menu.

         “It’s a little small, but it’s just me so it works. It’s only a ten-minute walk from the university which is really nice. You guys should come see it sometime. I’m pretty much fully unpacked.”

         “Do you have a dog?” Connor asked quickly, I couldn’t help but laugh.

         “No, I’m more of a cat person, but I have missed Sumo.”

         “Sumo’s going to go crazy when he sees you. He refuses to let anyone take one of the blankets you left still. He’s always hiding it around the house. He’s so much bigger now.”

         “I didn’t know that that blanket belonged to (Y/n).”

         “Yeah, Sumo and (Y/n) were really close.” My dad said softly. I felt an ache in my heart. For a moment I thought of telling my dad I wished I hadn’t left, but that wasn’t fully true. Luckily the waitress saved us from sitting in awkward silence. She cheerfully took me and my dad’s order and walked away. “I’m surprised Nines walked up and introduced himself and asked to talk sometime.”

         “He seems nice.” I said softly, somehow, I felt I’ve stepped over a boundary. Maybe I should’ve met them at the restaurant instead of going into the precinct. “I’m sorry for yelling at that man, it wasn’t my place to talk like that in a police department.” I stared down at my lap until I heard my dad burst out laughing.

         “You have to be kidding! I love seeing people put Gavin in his place. He’s an asshole,” my dad said. “Pointed a gun one time at Connor even.” I gasped.

         “What? Why? Connor are you okay?” I grabbed his arm and he jumped a little in surprise.

         “Of course, it was when I was first assigned to the DPD. I did knock him out later, which was…satisfying.” Connor said, I let go of his arm and felt myself blush. “(Y/n), may I ask a personal question?”

         “Sure.”

         “Why do you care so much about androids? Even before the first reports of deviancy you were publishing papers fighting for android rights.” I had expected Connor to ask me that at some point, but I thought it would take longer than this.

         “I don’t know I’ve just always felt that we were equal. Why does it matter that our blood is different colors? Androids have helped push society so much further than expected. I just…it never felt right to me. The way people treated androids.” I couldn’t help, but shiver thinking about some of the horrific stories I’ve read. I looked over at Connor who was staring at me intently. His LED was spinning yellow. “Can I ask you a personal question, Connor?”

         “Of course.”

         “Many androids have taken off their LEDs, why have you kept yours?” His hand raised up to his LED, which was still yellow.

         “There’s no reason I should be ashamed that I am an android instead of human, so why would I hide the fact?” My dad snorted and I quickly turned my head towards him, tilting my head slightly.

         “I’m not laughing at what he said. It took a month of me trying to convince Connor to stop wearing his Cyberlife uniform.” I couldn’t help but smile, looking back at Connor. A light blue blush spread across his cheeks.

         “It was comfortable.” He said, his LED finally turning back to blue.

         “That’s fair. In middle school I wore the same sweatshirt every day.” I said, as the waitress sat down our sandwiches. I took a bite, not realizing how hungry I was. “Mhmmm, Connor you picked a great restaurant, this is delicious!” He beamed a smile. I looked back at my dad, who was looking at both of us with so much happiness. “Dad, do you think you and Connor could stop by my office sometime this week? I really hate where they’ve put my desk and couch and I could use some help moving them.”

         “That’s fine with me, Connor?”

         “I would love to help, maybe after you can come over and visit with us and Sumo?” I looked at my dad who immediately looked worried, I could tell he wanted to take fixing our relationship at my pace.

         “That sounds really nice. Does Friday work for you guys?”

         “Yeah, that should be fine. Fowler’s been telling Connor he needs to take time off anyway.”

         “Which I don’t understand. I’m an android. I can work every day and be fine. Our cases have a high success rate.” I let out a laugh.

         “Connor, he isn’t asking you to take time off to punish you, he wants you to be able to enjoy the world outside work! Have you picked up any hobbies?” I asked him.

         “I like to take care of Sumo.” He answered quickly.

         “Okay, well how about one day me and you go to a local dog shelter and walk some of the rescues?” I offered.

         “Really?” He was practically jumping up and down.

         “Yes of course! It’s great volunteer work and those dogs need some love.”

         “Hank, would you come with us?”

         “That should be you and (Y/n)’s thing. We can do something altogether some other time.” I couldn’t help but notice his hesitant tone.

         “I think that would be really nice, Dad.” He didn’t look up from his sandwich, but I could see the small smile on his face.

Chapter 2

[marshmallowprotection]

Oh my gosh she would definitely refuse to acccept her and Saeyoung being similar. Because as much as they would get along in some aspects, she's also very hotheaded and sometimes Saeyoung would definitely remind her of one her coworkers (who i came up with like two weeks before i got into mysme, so when i saw how Seven was i was like :0)

Jeth-TEN is similar only to Saeyoung's mischievious/sadistic side; Jeth doesn't have some depressing backstory, and its not a mask (though that's not to say he cant be serious or that he's shallow... i think u get what i mean). Jeth is also a lot more... shark-like, if you will. That's how I like to describe his grin, at least; whilst with Saeyoung, I prefer "wolfish." Jeth is bit more intense and pushy with his antics, still a bit of a prankster but mostly just likes to mess with people verbally. He isn't Rigby's typical partner, but they pair up here and there and, well, he has a reputation.

As does she. A reputation at her agency for excelling. She also has a rep for being serious, because she is a bit more serious at her job. And, amongst the medical staff, a reputation for refusing treatment, but i'll touch on that later. She even dresses semi-formal whenever she goes in and isn't doing action-based field work or training. But its reminiscent of Suit Saeran's style; ya know, the chain? Formal suits (you'll never see her in a dress, skirt, or heels) with an edgy flare.

Her agency's primary goal is assisting those with powers. Her sector focuses more on the youth. Soemtimes, they have to remove the kid(s) from their home situation -- which can be for a few reasons, such as the family is abusive, or the child's power is too out of control -- and stay in the care center of the agency, where they are well taken care of and trained to control their powers and utilize them efficiently and safely.

Vasyl and Amara both went through this, and they both ended up under the care of Rigby's parents.

Rigby is, as Hughes, another coworker, likes to call her, a "jack of all trades." She hates that term, but it's kinda true. When she was young, her parents weren't only training her to control her powers, but they also taught her the basics for pretty much everything they knew, and then at a certain age, she was allowed to pick a few favourites, which they then focused more on, although they still gave occasional lessons on other skills (such as dancing, but there's no way in hell she's ever telling anyone that she knows how to dance lmao). They wanted her to have a lot of options when she got older.

Hacking/info gathering, general investigation (which is when she gets paired with Jeth), infiltration (including undercover), rescue, and when needed, trainer. Her main/"official" ones tho are the hacking and rescue.

Also, hardly anyone uses their real names there. She smushed her last name to get "Nova."

Hdbdhsvsj the dynamic between Vasyl and Rigby is adorable, but i also love the dynamic between Jeth and Nova. Like- look at this:

"A gut feeling, huh? Are you sure it's not just the tacos?"

"I don't eat tacos."

Jeth gasped loudly, as thought she had offended some revered figure. "You've never had a taco?" he exclaimed.

"I've had a couple. But I don't like them." She parked the car along the curb.

"You're insane! How can you not like tacos?"

"How can you not like ice cream?"

"Ice cream is f--king disgusting."

"Oh, my days." Nova unbuckled and opened the door. "I- I refuse to hear such blasphemy."

Also, insults:

She shook her head. "Are you sure you weren't dropped as a baby?"

He opened his mouth, but Nova continued.

"Oh, wait, we already established that when you decided mixing strawberries and barbecue sauce was the best thing ever."

He grinned. "You should try it~. It's delicious!"

"Not for a million USD." They stopped before a door. "Something definitely went wrong during the development of your tastebuds. And your brain."

"Agent Nova, why must you be so cruel?"

"Because your presence is a truth serum."

I live for banter tbh lmao.

Oh, and about her brother. She does her best to make sure he doesnt adopt that self-sacrificing behaviour -- call her a hypocrite; she's well aware. Alfhough, she's only that way with certain people, but still.

[417]

I am thriving on this banter. It's made me laugh so hard. It's about the chaos all the time. I think that's kind of hilarious that you struck gold and then found that another game struck gold. You can't go in the wrong direction when it comes to some wild cat.

These are just screaming what we all want in a friendship. Someone to call you out and bop you on the head for being a little shit. It's simply as it should be. Just a little something about chaos mixed in with the rationality can be really fun to play around with. You said tacos. Now you gotta sing the Jaehee Spicy Taco song.

I do love a woman with a flare for style and that's WHAT WE'RE THRIVING ON. I would like to be her friend the more that I learn about her and her universe, NGL.

It's good that the two of them have a sibling relationship where they can be honest with each other about this sort of thing and have a good laugh about it... or a playful shove to the shoulder as a reminder to lighten up and work on how hard and intense one is. It's good to want to care about your family but always remember that you can put yourself first sometimes! Easier said than it is done... that girl is asking for trouble but she's thriving. My condolences to her brother who deals with that daily.

[chickensarentcheap]

Sanctuary - Chapter 8

Warnings: slight language, domestic Tyler (is that really a bad thing?)

Tagging: @valkyrie-of-the-light, @c-a-v-a-l-r-y, @alievans007, @innerpaperexpertcloud

“You know, sometimes it is still weird seeing you like this,” Ovi remarks, as he sits at the kitchen table with Declan standing on his lap; tiny hands tightly gripping his shoulders as surprisingly strong little legs dig into his thighs as the baby bounces up and down.  

“Like what?” Tyler’s at the stove, making lunch for himself, Ovi, and the twins. The girls have gone out for the day; hair cuts, manicures and pedicures, lunch.  Millie was in one of her ‘ girly girl’ moods when she woke up. Pulling on a princess dress over her pyjamas, donning that plastic tiara, ordering her brothers to refer to her as ‘your highness’.  

“Extra,” Esme had said. “She’s a little bit extra today.”

After five years he’d thought he’d have the being a girl dad gig under control.  He’d (somewhat) mastered  the pig tails and braids and the ridiculously small elastics used to hold them together, gotten used to the splashes of pink in every room and the glitter that seemed to magically appear on rugs and couches and nearly every other available surface.  But the moods. And the sass.  Going from sweet and loving to she devil in the blink of an eye. Boys are easier. He can relate to them. They didn’t have the up and down emotional swings and weren’t nearly as mouthy. They were either running at full speed ahead or were down and out. There was none of this guessing what would set them off. Was the good-natured teasing going to make them cry or laugh hysterically? They didn’t come to the breakfast table with the biggest bitch vibe because they felt as if someone spoke too harshly or looked at them the wrong way.

Testosterone was running rampant in that house, but there were days the women clearly had the upper hand and the guys just had to tow the line or there’d be hell to pay. He’d long ago learned to pick his battles. Especially with his wife. A well placed ‘yes, babe’ or a smile and a nod during an argument over stupid shit could avoid being banished to the couch for an indeterminate amount of time.

And that was ninety percent of their fights.  Dumb shit that just escalates into something bigger; both ferociously stubborn and neither willing to admit defeat.  The other ten percent was over the job. Other his growing obsession with feeling as if he had to prove something to other people. And to himself.  Nearly losing his life in Dhaka and the months of recovery had taken their toll. Especially on his mental health. He saw his struggles as a sign of weakness. He hated that she’d seen him at his most vulnerable. That he’d had to surrender his control over his life and everything in it.  In turn, she thought he was being ridiculous.

“That’s what people do when they love each other, Tyler. They take care of one another. No matter what that entails. You don’t abandon someone because they need you to help with things. Who cares if I had to help you get to the bathroom some days? I’d do it again. In a heartbeat. What’s going to happen if I ever get sick? Or if when I’m old and gray you have to do things like that for me? Are you just going to say fuck you and the past forty years and just walk away?”

He had tried arguing that that was different. She was his wife. And it was his job as a husband to take care of. Not the other way around.

“Fuck your stereotypes, Tyler. Can you not just stow your damn stupid foolish pride long enough to let me love you?”

They’d never had that argument again.

“This side of you,” Ovi says, as the baby grabs at his ears and nose. “The domestic one. Sometimes I just remember the other side, know what I mean?”

“That’s a side no one should have to remember, mate.”

It was a side he didn’t even like to think about at times. While the brutality and the killings were for the most part justified, there were times he’d come home after a mission and look at himself in the mirror and the reality of what he’d done would hit him. And he’d feel sick; disgusted with the knowledge that he was capable of doing the things he could and not even think twice about it.

“It just seems weird,” Ovi says. “To see you one way and then you see this way.”

Tyler smirks. “What? You didn’t think I knew how to cook or do laundry? I wasn’t always a bachelor living in a shack. I did have a wife before the one I have now.  And now I’ve got four little humans to help keep alive, so I best be doing my part,” he loudly wraps his knuckles against the widow above the sink, waving the twins inside when they glance towards the house.  Having to help strip them of muddy rain boots and dirty jackets, scrubbing hands and faces in the kitchen sink before they can even think about sitting down.  Arguments ensuing over who gets to sit beside Ovi; he is their older brother in their eyes, and they’ve been seeing him less and less now that he has a woman in his life.

“I like when it’s just us,” TJ announces, after everyone is settled and digging into their plates of food. “All boys!”

“I miss mommy though,” Tanner admits. He definitely is a momma’s boy. He wears his enormous heart on his sleeve when it comes to his mother; sticking close by her side at all times, always willing to help her out when she is doing things around the house, requesting to tag along whenever she went into town to run errands.  As far as he’s concerned, mommy can do no wrong and is the one who hung the moon and the stars. Even now he has tears in his eyes, not liking the realization that she isn’t close by. “Maybe I can call her.”

“She’s out with your sister,” Tyler reaches out and tousles his son’s hair. “Girls day. Give Millie a chance to spend some alone time with her, okay?”

 He totally understands where the kid is coming from. There’s not a second that goes by when he’s on the job that he isn’t missing home and wishing he could be there.  Where he’s missing the way she smiles at him, or the way she runs her hands through his hair, or even just the sound of her voice.  Or how when he’d lie awake beside her and watch her as she slept; listening to her breathe and thinking about how much he’d miss her if suddenly she wasn’t there anymore.

Those were the thoughts he hated the most. That what if’s. What if something happened and he was left alone with four children to raise? What if she got tired of him always being away and being addicted to the job and she took off with the kids? What if she woke up one day and realized all along what a mistake it was to get mixed up with him in Dhaka?  He never brought those things up to her.  Most of his demons she was aware of and helped him battle. Others he kept to himself.

“Why do you care so much?” he can hear Gaspar’s voice plain as day. “Why are you holding on so tight to some girl you just met? Save yourself, Tyler. Get rid of the kid, take your part of the ten million, and just ditch the girl in the street. Save yourself a lot of heartache.”

He’d thought of attempting to explain it to him. How that ‘girl’ had come into his life when he’d least expected it and had shown him what it was like to feel alive again. That she’d managed to begin the dismantling of the walls he’d built up around himself and was reminding him what it felt like to be wanted. That she didn’t give a fuck about his past and vice versa and he was feeling confident that things would lead to something more.  

There was no way he was just leaving her in the goddamn street.

Instead he’d just told his old friend that it was none of his business.  He didn’t need to know what was going on and Tyler sure as hell didn’t owe him an explanation.

“Just don’t come crying to me when she destroys you. Because she will. You’re already putting your all into this and for what? Because you like getting your dick wet and keeping your bed warm? This won’t end well, Tyler. Trust me. Two broken people can not and do not make a whole. They just make a mess of things.”

Five years have come and gone since that conversation. Since Gaspar had betrayed him and tried to kill him. And since Ovi turned the tables on the man and took his life.  Sometimes Tyler wishes that Gaspar was still around solely so he could spite him, that he could sit him down at the kitchen table and make him look at the beautiful little faces gathered there. See how their eyes sparkle when they smile and hear their laughs. These tiny beings made up from the very best parts of their mother and father. Who know they’re loved without question and live in a house where they see love and respect between the two people who’d come together and created them.

Maybe things had started out in a less than perfect way.

But what they had now was perfect for them.

 ****

“So this girl…” he address Ovi, as they lounge together on the front porch; the baby spread along his thighs as he drinks a bottle of milk, an eye on the twins as they play together on an old tire swing dangling from the branch of a towering willow. “...you see her again last night?”

The kid nods.

“You spend the night or…?”

“No. I came home. This time I didn’t lose my key. I still feel horrible about that. I didn’t mean to scare anyone.”

“You realize how close I came to shooting you, yeah? I thought someone broke into the house. My wife and my kids were there. And I’ll do anything to protect them. You know that.  Definitely wasn’t your smartest moment.  But this girl…whatever you said her name is…”

“Chloe,” he sighs it with a long, content sigh and Tyler is tempted to slap the shit out of him.  But he knows what it’s like to get caught up in a whirlwind; to be unable to catch your breath or even think straight.

“What’s the deal with you two? You seeing each other or sleeping together or…?”

“I guess we’re seeing each other. We like to spend time together.  But we haven’t slept together. I already told you about that. That I wasn’t ready for that.”

“And what about her? Is she ready for that?”

Ovi shrugs.

“I can’t believe I’m even having this conversation right now. Part of me wants to avoid it altogether and another part of me is just surprised we haven’t had it sooner.”  And yet another part is grateful his own sons are at least eleven or twelve years away from needing the same talk.  “So you know to be careful, right? You know how to be careful?” Fuck. It sounded lame even to his own ears.  

Ovi looks offended. “I know what condoms are. And how to use them. I did take health class in school.”

“Well just make sure you use them. If it comes down to needing them. Use them no matter what. Even if she says she’s on the pill. Unless you want to get the burn. Do you want to get the burn?”

“The burn? What?”

“It’s just a nickname for a STD. You know what those are right?”

“I learned about those the first year here.”

“Well make sure you don’t get any. Be safe. All the time. Take responsibility for wrapping your shit up.” He feels like a hypocrite for even saying it. Seeing as he and Esme had never used a damn thing during those five days in Dhaka and she ended up pregnant.  “Look what I’m about to say, don’t take it the wrong way. Because I love my daughter. You know that. But she wasn’t exactly planned, know what I’m saying? Things just happened between Esme and I. We barely even knew each other. And in hindsight, we should have been more careful. But we weren’t. And Millie is the result of that.  She wasn’t made out of love. It was two strangers who couldn’t and wouldn’t stop fucking each other. Understand what I’m saying?”

“But if it didn’t happen, she wouldn’t be here,” Ovi points out.

“I’m just saying that we should have known better and been more careful. What would have happened if I got Esme pregnant and in the end it turned out we couldn’t stand one another? It would have been a big fucking mess.  Don’t get yourself into a big fucking mess. That’s all I’m saying. Understand?”

The kids.

“Just take your time and get to know her. Really know her. That’s my best advice. Other than wrapping shit up. And if you want to bring her here, that’s fine. But she doesn’t spend the night under my roof. I don’t want that shit going on with my kids in the house. Probably sounds old fashioned, but I’d just rather you didn’t do shit like that. Okay?”

“So everything came back fine? All her background checks?”

“Other than an uncle that likes to beat up women, things are clean. Now that’s not an invitation to just go crazy and propose to her and all that shit.  Just take your time. You have your whole life ahead of you.  You’re way too young to be thinking about marriage and keeping a wife happy and having kids.”

“Do you ever regret it? Marrying someone so soon? Having a baby so quickly?”

“Do I regret it? No. Hard to regret it when you end up loving someone as much as I love my wife. I’d die for her. In a heartbeat. And I have an incredible little girl. So no. I don’t regret it. I wouldn’t go back and change things if that’s what you mean. But I’m lucky. Things worked out. How many people do things like this happen to where it doesn’t work out? Don’t be one of those people.”

****

The sound of tires on the gravel driveway brings their conversation to a halt. Tyler gets to his feet and checks his watch; way too early for Esme and Millie to be returning from their girls day. Very few know where they live; all mail rerouted to a post office box, all deliveries picked up at the outlet at the pharmacy. His clients for his side business only have a cell number to contact.  Extra measures that had to be taken considering the job and the many toes he’s trampled on in the nearly ten years he’s been in the game.   And he frowns at the first sight of the unfamiliar vehicle; a Lexus SUV with tinted windows and all terrain tires.

“Who is that?” Ovi asks.

“Take the kids out back,” Tyler hands him the baby, puts two fingers in his mouth and issues a shrill whistle to capture the twins’ attention. “Boys…come here..”

“Who is that, daddy?” Tanner inquires, watching over his shoulder as the Lexus glides to a stop alongside their own vehicle and the driver kills the ignition.

“Go out back with Ovi,” he instructs. “Stay back there until I either come to you guys or I call for you. Understand?”

The twins both nod and he tousles their hair and presses a kiss to the top of their heads.

“Maybe I should stay here,” Ovi nervously suggests.

“Everything’s fine. I doubt a guy driving a car like that can do much manage. Just take them out back. Keep them busy. I won’t be long.”

Ovi reluctantly agrees, carrying the baby on his hip, a twin on either side, holding onto his shorts by the side pockets. Tyler watches them go, making sure they’re well out of ear shot before stepping down of the porch, hitting the middle of the front walkway just as the driver throws open the door and steps up.  Fairly tall and quite stocky, with pushed back brown hair that’s graying at the temples and receding slightly at the crown. Glasses, dressed conservatively in a blue blazer, white golf shirt and khaki pants.

“Nice piece of property you have back in here,” he says, as he shuts the driver’s side door. “Hard to find. Beautiful though.”

“That’s how we like it. Lots of privacy. No one just coming back in here unannounced. Well, until now anyway.”

“How many acres?”

“Little over five.”

The stranger gives a nod of approval. “Very nice. Esme always wanted a place like this. In the middle of nowhere. Where she could have a whole bunch of goats running around. Whole bunch of kids. You must be Tyler,” he offers a hand.

“I am,” he confirms. “Who are you?”

“I’m Mark. Esme’s…”

“Ex husband,” Tyler finishes for him. “Yeah, I heard my mother in law told you where we are. I’m just surprised you actually showed up. That something told you it was a good idea.”

“Michelle said that there shouldn’t be a problem. That neither of you would mind.”

Tyler smirks. “We mind. What are you doing here? Just one day woke up and decided you weren’t quite done tormenting your ex wife?”

He sighs. “I seen you’ve heard the stories.”

“I have. Which makes you being here a really bad idea. You shouldn’t be here. I don’t appreciate people just showing up out of the blue. Especially when my kids are here. And especially when I do know all the stories. So it’s probably best you just get back in the car and leave. You won’t find what you’re looking for here.”

“She said that you’d probably be combative. That you’re a tad possessive.”

“Protective,” he corrects. “I’m protective. Of my kids. Of my wife.” He stresses the word ‘my’, noticing how it instantly unnerves the other man. “Why are you even here? It’s been what? Seven years? Eight? And suddenly you just decide you want to see her again?”

“Is she home?” Mark attempts to step by him.

Tyler moves to block him. An easy feat considering he’s wider. Broad and solid and definitely not a push over. “She’s not.”

“Are you just saying that because you don’t want me talking to her, or…”

“I’m saying that because she’s not here. And because you shouldn’t be here either. I don’t know what game you’re playing, but you’ve got the wrong guy to try and play it with. She’s out. With our daughter. So just get back in your car and…”

“Ex army, right?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Marine,” Mark boasts.

Tyler smirks. “Mate, I honestly don’t give a shit. Navy, Air Force, Army, Marines. I don’t give a fuck. So don’t try that bullshit with me. I’m going to ask you again. Why are you here?”

“I’m here to talk to Esme.”

“Why?”

“Well to be quite honest, that’s business that is between her and I.”

“Your business became my business when she became my wife. You show up at me house, where my kids are, wanting to see my wife and I’m supposed to be okay with it? What do you want? I’m not going to ask you again. I won’t think twice about dragging your ass down the driveway and throwing your ass in the road.”

Sighing heavily, Mark removes his sunglasses and slips into the inside pocket of his jacket. “I was warned you might be a little…hostile.”

“You don’t want to see me when I get hostile. So unless you want me dropping you on your ass..”

“I’m in a program. A twelve step one. I’ve just gotten to the step where it comes to making amends for the wrongs we’ve committed. That’s why I’m here.  I know some of the blame can be placed on me when it comes to Esme and I splitting up.”

“Some? Because from what I heard, it was pretty one sided.”

“I wasn’t the best husband, I agree. I had my faults. But you probably know for yourself that she’s not exactly the easiest person to live with.”

“It must have been something to do with you. Because I haven’t had any problems living with her at all.”

“You know how she can get. She’s moody. Irrational. She likes to pick fights. Nothing is ever good enough for her. I’d even go as far as unstable but…”

“That’s my wife you’re talking about,” Tyler interjects, attempting to keep his cool.  “So I’d stop while you’re ahead. Just admit that you were a fuck head, mate. That you cheated on her. Multiple times. That you bullied her. Put your hands on her. Make it easier on yourself and just admit it.”

“Like I said, I know I’m partly to blame. But she wasn’t one hundred percent innocent.”

Tyler smirks. “We’re done here. I don’t need to hear anything else. You might have gotten away with gaslighting her, but you won’t get away with it with me. I’ve dealt with bigger and better, mate. I don’t care about your twelve step program. I don’t give a shit that you’re looking for absolution. Esme owes you nothing. She never deserved what you did. No one deserves that. So you need to just leave. Because I’m just about out of fucking patience.”

“Daddy,”  TJ is at his side, tugging at the bottom of his t-shirt. “Ovi said to come and check on you.”

‘Yeah? Well I told Ovi to keep you in the backyard. So go on. I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Hey there, little man,” Mark greets, and crouches down so he is eye level with the child.

Tyler puts a hand on the top of his son’s head, moving him away from the unwelcome guest.  

“Hi,” TJ says in return. “Who are you?”

“An old friend of your mom’s. Which one are you? Tanner or Tyler?”

“I’m Tyler. Like daddy. That’s his name too.”

“And you’re how old? Three?”

“Almost four,” TJ confirms. “I have another brother too. Not just Tanner. A baby brother. Declan. And a big sister. Amelia. We call her Millie though.”

“Alright, that’s enough,” Tyler runs a hand over his son’s hair and gently nudges him towards the backyard. “Go back to Ovi and the others. I’ll be there in a few minutes. Okay?”

“Okay,” he reluctantly agrees, then adds  a cheerful ‘bye!’ in Mark’s direction before running off.”

“He’s a cutie, huh?” Mark grins as he stands up. “Twins. And two other ones. She always wanted a big family. Wasn’t in the cards for us, though. We weren’t on the same page when it came to wanting a family. I’m honestly glad she found someone that wanted it as much as she did.  I bet she’s a great mom.”

“She’s an amazing mom. And wife. Are we just about done here? Because I really need to get back to my kids.”

“It really did a number on her when she lost the baby. She was never quite the same after that.”

Tyler frowns. “Baby?”

“She was only a couple of months. We’d just found out. Didn’t really have a chance to get used to the idea. You didn’t know about that? That there’d been a baby?”

“First I’m hearing about it.”

“I wonder why she wouldn’t tell you. Maybe it didn’t bother her as much as she let on it did. If she didn’t even tell you about it, maybe it wasn’t that big of a deal after all.  Look, I’m not here to cause problems with the two of you. I’m not here to try and win her back. That ship sailed a long time ago. I just want to talk to her. I just want to apologize and make amends for the things I did. The things I said. I’m sure even you can understand that.”

Tyler nods.

“Can you at least ask her to give me a call? I don’t have to come back here. I know when I’m not welcome. But it’s really important that I do this. And I think she deserves to hear the things I have to say. Can you do that for me at least? Get her to contact me?”  he pulls a business card from one of the pockets on his blazers and offers it. “I really am happy for her. That she moved on. That she found someone that’s crazy about her and was able to give her what she wanted. She’s a great girl.”

“Yeah,” he plucks the card from Mark’s hand. “She really is. Your loss is my gain.”

“It definitely is. When she loves, she loves with her whole heart. You’re a lucky man. I hope you realize that.”

“Sometimes I have to be reminded,” Tyler admits, and this time when Mark offers a hand, he shakes it.

“You’ve got a beautiful family,” Mark says, as he heads for his SUV. “I hope you and Esme are happy. She deserves to be happy. That’s all I want for her.”

“That’s all I want for her too,” Tyler responds, then shoves the business card into the back pocket of his jeans. Hands on hips as he watches the other man climb into the SUV and drive away.

***

“Daddy!” Millie bellows the moment she steps through the front door, hastily kicking off her sandals and then scurrying down the hallway that leads to the back of the house.  “Daddy! You have to see! Daddeeeeee!”

He’s at the kitchen sink, up to the forearms is water and dish soap, and he dries his ands on the thighs of his jeans just as she races into the room and hurls herself towards him. Effortlessly catching that little body in large, strong arms and scooping her up.  

Esme drops her purse on the counter and watches them together; a precious, trusting five year old and a tall, strong man who is capable of inflicting so much pain and punishment. His entire demeanour changes when he’s in ‘daddy mode’; features and smile softening, eyes sparkling, tone gentle and patient. It’s phenomenally sexy; a man that big and powerful with these innocent, precious lives who idolize him so much. Two very different sides in one person; one is merciless and savage and takes lives if he needs to. The other nurtures and loves and helps create life.

Millie proudly and excitedly shows off the pampering that she’d received: sparkly pink and purple polish on her fingers and toes –“Just like mommy’s”- and her hair curled into tight ringlets.

“Why does it sparkle?” Tyler asks. “Why is there glitter in your hair?”

“Daddy…” she sighs dramatically. “…it’s not glitter. It’s unicorn dust.”

“Unicorn dust? What’s that? Is that what comes out of a unicorn’s butt when they fart?”

“Maybe…” she sing songs, and then giggles when he nuzzles his face against hers; effectively and purposefully tickling her with his beard.

“Why don’t you go  outside and show Ovi,” he suggests, pressing a kiss to her cheek and setting her down. ”He’d like to hear about a unicorn farting all over your head.”

“It’s not farts, daddy!” she argues, as she skips towards the sliding door and throws it open.  “It’s unicorn dust!”  And then she’s gone, bounding across the deck and jumping from the top step without a single stitch of fear. Hitting the ground running; shrieking about painted nails and glittery hair and elbowing anyone in the face that dares try to mess her curls up.

“And you say I’m the one giving you the gray hair,” Esme smirks. “It’s definitely her.”

“You’re the gray hair. She’s the ulcer,” he places his hands on her hips, and kisses her in greeting. “Hi.”

“Hi,” she runs her hands up the back of his t-shirt, then rakes her newly done nails down his back.

“What the fuck? Like fucking talons.”

“They’re not that sharp. And you’re the one that always says it’s a turn on when I do things like that.”  

Many a time he’s woken up the next day with his entire back, shoulders, and even rib cage carved to shit; long, bright red gouges that mar the skin and sting like a bitch.

“I wasn’t complaining. I’m just saying they’re…” he winces when she gets him right in the middle of the spine. One lonesome finger nail dragging all the way down to just under waist of his jeans.  “…fucking sharp. You need to stop…” he kisses her once more and then backs away. “…quit trying to seduce me all the time.”

“Like I have to try,” she snorts, as he goes back to the sink full of dishes and she plucks a bottle of water from the fridge. “I think you’re the one that’s doing the seducing,” she says, as she leans back against the counter next to him. “Doing housework while I’m watching? There’s nothing sexier than that. Seeing you all domestic and shit. What’s next? Laundry and vacuuming?”

“Already did the vacuuming and the last load of laundry is in the wash.”

“Baby, you are making me so wet right now. I might actually jump you right here and right now if you tell me that you remembered to take something out of the freezer for supper.”

“I did remember.  But as much as I wouldn’t object to being jumped in all the right ways right now, it is definitely not a good time. Too many little people running around. And Ovi is still traumatized from almost being shot the other night. Seeing us fucking? That would be years of extremely expensive therapy.”

“Or, it would be great experience for him to take back to Christine or Cathy or whatever her name is.”

“Chloe. And he says they haven’t had sex. Actually, he says he’s never had sex at all.”

Her eyes widen, bottle of water pressed to her lips. “Get out of here. Seriously?”

“That’s what he says.  He’s told me that twice now. And I had to have the ‘talk’ with him today.”

“I can only imagine how that went,” she gathers up a dish towel and steps alongside of him.  “I love you, but open communication is not one of your strong suits.”

“What are you talking about? We communicate fine.”

“That’s different. You and I know each other intimately. Once you start seeing one another naked and doing the things we do together and to each other, I think it means we can pretty much talk about anything. I mean, we’re at the stage where I can pee while you’re brushing your teeth and you don’t think about it. But you talking to a teenage boy about sex? That doesn’t seem awkward at all.”

He frowns. “I’m not exactly a rookie when it comes to sex, you know.”

“Baby, you are so far from being a rookie it isn’t even funny. But I mean talking about it. With someone who isn’t me. Someone who is practically your kid. And Ovi’s shy and sort of awkward so he was probably mortified that you were talking about whatever you were talking about.”

“I just told him to be careful and wrap his shit up. That the last thing he wanted was knocking her up or getting an STD.”

“Kind of ironic,” she grins. “You talking about condoms considering…”

“Yeah, I thought about that too. Kind of makes me a hypocrite.

“Well in all fairness, we were adults who knew exactly what we were getting into. It’s not that we didn’t know the risks. It’s just that we didn’t seem to give a shit about them. Which just means my blow job game is strong enough to temporarily wipe you of all your brain cells.”

Tyler smirks. “Temporarily? It’s five years later and we’re married with four kids. That’s a permanent loss of brain cells.”

Frowning, she smacks in across the ass with the towel. When she tries it a second time, he grabs a hold of the fabric and pulls her into him, covering her mouth with his in a long, slow kiss. The kind that has her standing on her tiptoes and her arms sneaking around his waist as her body curves into his.  And she breaks out of the kiss with a laugh when he slides one of his soaking wet hands down the back of her shorts. Struggling against him as he chuckles and holds her body against the counter with the full weight of his and proceeds to suck and nibble at the side of her neck.

“And you talk about me trying to seduce you?” she laughs, trying to use her elbows in his chest to push him away. “You’re like a fifteen year old. Nothing but raging hormones and pent up sexual frustration. Which makes no sense considering how much you actually manage to get laid on a regular basis. Oh shit!” she  curses, when his teeth grab a hold of that sensitive spot between her neck and shoulder. “That’s going to leave a mark. What’s wrong with you?”

“Like you said. Nothing but raging hormones and pent up sexual frustration,” his palm slides down do her ass; tightly squeezing it through her shorts as his tongue soothes the bite mark he’d left on her skin.

“If this is your version of a midlife crisis, I’m totally okay with it,” she says, her hands pushing their way into his hair as his mouth moves across the neckline of her t-shirt.  “By the way, I bought one of those test things today. You know the ones that tell you when the best time to get pregnant is? You know, just in case I give in to your idiotic idea of another baby.”

“Just one more.”

“What if one turns into another two at once?”

“We’ll deal with it. And why do we need a test to tell us that? We just keep fucking like we do and it’ll just happen.”

“It will tell us which days are best. You know, the days where we have to put a little…extra…into it…”

He grins against her neck, beard scratching the tender skin. “I think I have extra I could put into it.”

“That’s the spirit. You never disappoint me.”

“Ever?” his lips travel along the side of her throat, his breath warm, tip of his nose tickling the skin as he moves up to just below her ear.

“Ever. I had high expectations you know. Of what you’d look like naked.”

“You actually thought of what I looked like naked before I got naked? When did you think about that?”

“My dirty little fantasies pretty much started when I walked into your place. Hard not to have sex dreams about a guy that looks like you do. I wasn’t even put off by the fact you had a chicken as a significant other. I think it was the eyes. And the big arms.”

“And the voice.”

“Yeah…” she sighs, fingernails digging into his scalp as he places a trail of kisses along the outer edge of her ear. “…that too….”

“So  you thought of me naked? When?”

“Of you know, when a girl is lonely and horny in bed at night.”

He chuckles. “That’s a turn on. Knowing you actually thought about me when…”

“I still do. When you’re away. Just so you know.”

“That’s pretty fucking hot. Not gonna lie.”

“I would have been so disappointed if you’d dropped your pants in that hotel room and you were a short dick man. That would have been it. I would not have let you anywhere near me. The disappointment would have been too great.”

“Well it’s a good thing for both of us that I lived up to your expectations.”

“Oh you did. And then some. The thing about a man having a big hands and feet is very much true.”

Both his hands find her ass now, drawing her tightly against him as he kisses her. Long. Deep. Slow. His tongue pushing its way into her mouth and finding hers.  And she willingly reciprocates, both hands sliding down to his shoulders. 

“Okay…” she pushes him away, fanning her face with her hand. “…you need to stop and take about five steps back or I honestly will jump you and not care who comes in and sees it.”

“They all have to learn sooner than later,” he reasons, and puts a hand on the back of her head and pulls her into another toe curling kiss.  Feeling her hands slide down his back and then in between them, hands slipping under the front of his t-shirt, finding the buckle on his belt.  One of her fingers slipping just under the waist of his jeans and teasing the skin there.

The sound of the sliding door being drawn open causes both of them to jump.

“Sorry,” a bashful Ovi says from the doorway. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your baby making but…”

“We weren’t making babies,” Esme says, as she clears her throat noisily and moves to grab her bottle of water. “You stopped that before it could happen.”

“In the kitchen?” Ovi sounds horrified.

Tyler  returns to the task of washing dishes. “Kid, there isn’t a place in this house that hasn’t been christened already. Might want to think about it every time you sit down somewhere.”

“Or not think about it because I know how distressing the thought of Tyler being naked can be,” Esme teases. “ Trust me, don’t think about it. It’s really disturbing.”

Her husband smirks.

“The kids just wanted something to drink,” Ovi says. “They were thirsty, so…”

She fetches a sleeve of juice boxes from the fridge and hands it to him.

“Did Tyler tell you?” he asks. “About who came to visit you today?”

“No, Tyler did not,” Tyler replies for her. “Because Tyler was busy trying to get laid first before telling her the bad news.”

“Who came to visit?” she glances between the two of them.

“You can go back outside now,” Tyler says to Ovi, who blinks at the force in his eyes and then gives an apologetic smile before slinking back through the sliding door.

“Who came to visit?” Esme asks again. “Oh God, please tell me it wasn’t my mother. Yesterday she called you a tall, cool, drink of water and I haven’t been the same since.”

“It wasn’t your mother. I would have actually preferred if it was your mother. As fucked as it is that I’d admit that.” Unplugging the sink, he dries his hands on the dish towel and then reaches into the back pocket of his jeans in order to pull out the business card that her ex had given him. “He wants you to call him.”

Arching and eyebrow, she plucks the card from his hand. Immediately frowning when she sees who it belongs to. “He actually gave you a business card? Who the hell does that? And why does he have business cards? He’s retired for Christ sakes.”

“He likes to throw it around that he was a Marine. Expected me to be impressed.”

“He thinks it’s some kind of power move,” she rolls her eyes. “No one actually gives a shit. Did you kick the shit out of him?”

“No. But not because I didn’t want to. He’s kind of an arrogant prick, yeah? Thinks pretty highly of himself. You didn’t tell me he was that much older than you.”

“Eleven years is not that much older.”

“Older enough. So what was it? Daddy issues?”

Her eyes narrow. “Please tell me you’re joking and not being serious when you say that. Because you know about my father and what happened and I will kick you in the nuts. We’re not going to fight over this. Over my ex husband.”

“I don’t want to fight,” he assures her. “But he is a fucking asshole. You weren’t wrong about that. He definitely doesn’t understand that what he did was wrong. Kept trying to tell me all this bullshit that you had your own role to play in it and you were partly to blame to.”

“And you believe that?”

“I told him it didn’t matter what you may have said or did. He didn’t have a reason to do the things he did or say the things he said. There’s no fucking excuse for any of that.”

“He’ a narcissistic. I told you that. He loves to gaslight people.”

“What I don’t understand is why you never told me that you were having a baby with him.”

She blinks. “What?”

“He told me that you guys were having a baby. Which I was kind of surprised to hear about because you never once mentioned it yourself in the past five years.”

“There was no reason to tell you about that.”

“I’m your husband. How much more of a reason do you need?”

She taps the edge of the business card against the counter top. “It was way before you. Before I even knew you existed. You would have been still been married to your first wife at the time. Austin would have been a baby. Why would I bring up something from that long ago?”

“I talk about my life from that long ago,” he points out, as he leans back against the counter, arms crossed over his chest.

“That’s totally different and you know it.  You lost a child. You have every right and reason to talk about him. Why wouldn’t you tell me about him? He’s still very much an important part of your life.”

“And this baby wasn’t? The one you were having with your ex?”

“It was never a baby, Tyler. Not in the true sense of the word. I’d only known for a week when I lost it. There’s no comparison between that and what you went through.  I didn’t see a reason to tell you about it because it wasn’t that serious.”

“So my wife, almost has a baby with her first husband but there’s no reason for me to know about?” he scoffs, and shakes his head. “That makes no sense.”

“Why are you making a big deal about this? It was a long time ago. And I didn’t almost have a baby. I didn’t even come close. It wasn’t meant to be obviously. Could you imagine having a kid with that guy? It would have been a fucking nightmare. Things happen for a reason. You say that all the time.”

“You just would think it would come up in a conversation, yeah? You’ve been pregnant three times and not once did you think of bringing it up? Like maybe you were worried it might happen again?”

“I was worried. I just kept it to myself. All pregnant women worry about things like that.”

“Sure. And they probably tell their husbands about it. And you know why? Because they weren’t the only ones who made the goddamn baby in the first place. Last time I checked, it took the two of us.”

“Don’t be so goddamn condescending,” she huffs, and tosses the business card onto the counter. “I hate when you get that way. That fucking tone you get when you think you’re somehow morally superior.”

“I have never…ever…thought that.”

‘Bullshit. You do it all the time. You don’t even realize you’re doing it.  Every time you don’t like something I have to say. Or you don’t agree with some decision I made back in a time where you didn’t even exist in my life yet. I may not agree with all the decisions you’ve made, but at least I support you. I don’t have this fucking chip on my shoulder.”

“I don’t have a chip on my shoulder. I…”

“I didn’t tell you because that part of my life didn’t matter any more. Because I just wanted to forget about it and put it behind me. Because once you came into my life, everyone and everything before you ceased to exist. I didn’t want to remember all of that. And then Millie came along and I had everything I wanted. I had this amazing guy and a beautiful baby and all that other bullshit was left in the past where it belonged. So I wasn’t intentionally keeping anything from you. I was keeping it from myself.”

He grabs a hold of her wrist as she tries to stomp off. “Don’t do that,” he says.  “You do that every time we get in fight.”

“Only because I’m this close…” she holds her thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “…to punching you in the face. You know I hate when you pull that self righteous bullshit with me.”

She struggles against his grip, but he only tightens his hold on her.

“Not everything is about you, Tyler. My past is just that. You didn’t need to know. And I’m sorry if that pisses you off or hurts your ego or…”

“Stop,” his voice is surprisingly tender despite the power in his grasp. “…just stop.”  And when she opens her mouth to speak, he pulls her into him, speaking in between pecks to her lips.  “…just…fucking…stop…”

“You fucking stop,” she retorts. “Stop it with those stupid eyes and your stupidly good-looking face and that stupid voice of yours.”

“I’m sorry,” it’s the first time he’s ever surrendered first. There’s been arguments that have gone on for days because neither of them wanted to admit defeat.  “I didn’t mean to be a condescending asshole. I don’t mean to be that way and you know it.”

She reaches up and runs her hands along his beard, cradling his face in her hands, thumbs brushing over his lips. “Sometimes I worry we’re not doing this marriage thing very well.”

“Why? Because we fight? All couples fight. We don’t fight over things that can’t be fixed.”

“I worry I’m a shitty wife. That I’m just like you’re ex.”

“You are far from being anything like my ex. Trust me. And you’re not a shitty wife. You’re an amazing wife. And an amazing mother. I’m not the easiest person to live with. I know that. Why do you think the chicken shit everywhere? It was definitely out of spite.”

She can’t help but laugh at that.

“But I love you. And I love our life together. Fights and all.”

“You just like the making up.”

He grins. “I’m not going to deny that.” His eyes never leave hers as her fingers gently trace the various scars that mar his face. Her touch is soft, soothing. And he feels it to his very soul.

She stands on her tip toes and kisses him. Short and sweet. Yet powerful all at the same time. Feeling so much love and trust and forgiveness in the simple press of her lips against his.

“Sometimes I wish I didn’t love you as much as I do,” she admits. “So it would be easier to be angry with you. And I know I’m not easy to live with either. That I test your patience. A lot. I’m not perfect. Far from it.”

“Neither am I. But you’re still here.”

She smiles, presses her lips against his forehead. “There’s no place I’d rather be.”

And it’s the truth. He’s her happy place. Where she feels safe. Protected. All the things she’s never even known she’d been desperate for until she’d walked into that little shack in the Australian outback.