#will put this here for important reasons so people don’t take this the wrong way: this is not ship post for kazuma and barok!!!!! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

atrwriting · 1 year ago

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selfish - frank castle x reader

hey y'all back in action with another porn no plot one shot

all i'm saying is,,, they knew who their target audience was with this (or are we just all mentally ill?)

summary: frank shows you what it means to be a real, selfish man.

informal warnings: frank is the selfish man in this, but I was the selfish woman writing this. couldn't get this out of my head as I started season two of the punisher, and frankly (haha get it -- sorry) after this scene you wouldn't be able to either

as always, the actual warnings: vulnerable frank, #sadboihrs for both the reader and frank, smut, porn no plot, choking, dirty talk, and ROUGH frank

anyway... selfish:

“what’s your type?”

the million dollar question. the one that you had been troubling yourself over for years.

“my type?” you repeated, eyeing the man who asked you. “or my pattern?”

he tilted his head in curiosity. “both.”

you chuckled. “my pattern… well, they’re usually useless. man babies.”

it was his turn to chuckle. “you like taking care of them, yeah?”

you shrugged. “i love taking care of people, but not men that de-age into babies as time goes on. did you know a guy i dated asked me how to boil water once?”

“you’re joking,” he took a swig of his beer, eyeing you. “no way that’s true. made that up.”

“i wish,” you laughed, rubbing a hand over your face. “i’m also not making it up that i stayed with him two years after that.”

“sounds like your fault.”

you nodded. “the pattern made me realize what my real type is.”

“what?”

“it’s corny.”

“say it.”

a smirk attempted to appear on your lips, but you pushed it back down. “i don’t like selfless men.”

he let out a laugh in disbelief at that. “you and every other chick.”

you chuckled too. “i heard this an analogy once… if you’re falling over a cliff, would you want your person to save you? or someone else about to fall on another side of the cliff?”

he stopped talking then, listening intently.

you kept going. “obviously, i’d want the other person saved… but in my head, when i’m all alone and there’s no one that has to be saved… sometimes it’s nice to think that someone would be so selfish that they would save me over doing what’s right.”

“you could live with that though?” he asked, narrowing his eyes, a bit of judgement lacing his words.

you shrugged. “never been the person that was saved, so i’m really not sure. it’s not that i want to be saved or anything — that’s super fucking corny. but man, a fucking masculine man, putting you over other things? deciding that in that moment, you’re what matters to him? i spend all my days being selfless, putting myself in danger so other people are saved… and i’m tired.” you took a swig of your drink. “i’m really fucking tired.”

“why don’t you save yourself, then?”

“for the same reason you’re here,” you sighed. “when have we ever been selfish, frank?”

he laughed at that, but almost scoffed. “i don’t do anything i do for anyone but me.”

you swallowed then, clenching your jaw. “so many people have wronged you… but you’ve only done what you’ve done because of how people have wronged those you loved. hate to break it to you… but you’re as selfless as anyone could be.”

he folded his lips underneath his teeth and stared aimlessly off into the distance. there were bags under his dark eyes, and no amount of sleep or beer would ever take them away. the man would never know peace, and your heart broke at that. however, it was nice to know someone was going down the rabbit hole with you.

“i don’t think i’m selfless,” he finally spoke after a bit.

you raised an eyebrow at him, calling his bluff.

“i did the things i did because my family was what was most important to me,” he admitted. “that’s selfish.”

you swished his words around in your mouth a little, and decided he was right. the spin on your words made you nod, agreeing with him. “i see your point.”

“so, what?” he asked. “you want a man that would choose you over innocent people?”

you huffed, standing. “i know you know that i never said that. i’m saying that in the back of my mind, it would be nice, just once, for a selfish man to decide that i’m all he wanted. it would be nice to know that i don’t always have to carry the weight on only my shoulders.”

he didn’t say anything then, staying planted on his seat on the floor. he twisted the bottle in his hands and listened to you.

“if i’m being honest with myself…” you began, swallowing your heavy statement. “i would prefer if they saved the innocents, but only so i could die, as i probably would falling in that situation, with a clear conscience. all i’m saying is… it’s a heavy fucking burden always doing things so i don’t feel guilty.”

you walked away then, not muttering a goodbye. frank didn’t say anything either. you heard him raise the bottle to his lips once more before you shut your bedroom door behind you.

it would be an hour or so before you heard a gentle knock on your door. there was no yelling or screaming outside, so you were grateful to hear there was no imminent danger present. in your tiny pajamas, you answered the door to find none other than frank. he was leaning against a wall in the hallway that led to your door, only a couple feet from you.

he didn’t say anything when you came face to face with him. he just stared at you, placing all of his focus on your confused face. it would be a few moments of silence before he finally stepped closer to you, and placed a calloused hand on your face.

you froze. frank castle never touched you, especially in that way.

“wanna know my type?”

you stared at him and swallowed thickly. your lips parted to whisper, “sure.”

“an escape,” he whispered back. “i know what you meant by always having the dark cloud of duty hanging above your head, ready to kill any moment of peace you happen to get your damned hands on. i’ve done everything i’ve ever done for the people i loved, and i know the only way for me to experience any fuckin’ joy is with another person.”

his dark eyes held your gaze, and you soon grew lost in them and his words. you swiped your tongue across your lips and stepped closer. you could feel frank’s breath on your chin, but you couldn’t breathe. his scent, his stare, and his fucking words were more intoxicating than any alcohol you had before.

“you want an escape, frank?” you softly asked, eyes darting to his lips.

“i do,” he stated, before he lowered his head and kissed you.

his free hand immediately came up to the other side od your face and pressed against your cheek. there, he held you in the palms of his hands as you rested your hands on his thick, muscled chest. his lips were dry and cracked, but you didn’t care. the fire that brewed from his affection was enough to fill any of the cold, dark, and lonely places inside of you and you greedily drank from anything he offered.

“you want someone to want you, darlin’?” he asked in between kisses.

you hummed in agreement, not wanting to break apart your kiss for anything — even words.

“can’t get you out of my head, sweetheart,” he spoke, dipping his tongue into your mouth. “need to feel those long legs around me.”

you whimpered at his words, letting his tongue dance with yours. you could taste the heineken on his tongue and savored every bit. “please, frank… i need to feel you so badly.”

“i’ve got you, darlin’.” he picked you up by the backs of your thighs and you wrapped your legs around him. the pads of frank’s finger tips dug into your flesh and a warmth spread throughout you. “those fuckin’ legs.”

you would’ve giggled, but you were too consumed with the very touch of frank to even care. you pulled at his shirt and threw it over his head, sad to break the kiss for even a second. you immediately went to his neck and began to nip at the thick skin, causing a growl to rumble in the deepest parts of his rib cage.

“y’drive me fuckin’ crazy,” he grunted. “sweetest fuckin’ kisses.”

“oh, frank…” you moaned against his neck before he threw you onto the bed. you turned over onto your back to face him. he locked eyes with you as he stood over you, muscles naturally flexed as he undid his belt. your mouth watered at the sight of the fucking man before you, taking off his belt for only you. the way his shoulders, pectorals, and arms worked in the dim light of your room… that man would be the death of you. you hissed, “you’re such a tease.”

he smirked at that, throwing the belt somewhere in the distance. “think you’ve just never been with a real man before,” he replied, before engulfing you into another kiss.

frank’s hand dipped into your shorts and immediately went for your slit. your body fucking sang at finally being touched the way you needed to be as you arched your back into frank, his chest pressed against yours. when frank began to run rough circles around your clit, nothing could hold back your moans or him swallowing them whole.

“only took off my belt, and this is how wet you get?” he asked, biting down on your neck. his long, thick middle finger dipped inside of you as his thumb worked at your clit. he tapped against your upper wall and you keened into his touch, whimpering his name. “now i know it’s the men before me. barely doing a fuckin’ thing and i’ve got you like this.”

you nodded pathetically, just wanting him to continue. “it feels so good,” you gasped, bucking your hips into his hand. “please, please — don’t stop, frank.”

he leaned over and pressed his chest against yours before his lips found your neck once more. his kisses were wet and sloppy, and there was nothing better than feeling the weight of a strong man above you working at your needy pussy. his rough movements against your sensitive skin were sending you into a frenzy as if nothing mattered in the world besides frank — your world started and ended there. your body felt hot — steaming from everything this man was doing for you with barely any effort. your whimpers and gasps fueled frank’s movements as if he couldn’t get enough of them.

“such a good girl f’me,” he said before he bit down on your neck and kissed the spot. “y’get so worked up, i want to see what it’s like when you fall apart.”

“i’m so close, frank…” your voice was hoarse and full of lust, and you were about to break any moment.

“that’s it, baby, yeah,” he spoke, slipping a second finger inside of you. “cum all over these fingers baby. let me taste you after.”

“fuck, fuck, fuck —!”

your world came crashing down onto you. your strength was no match for frank’s, but with the way your back arched and body curled into him, your chests both rose off the bed. he wrapped a strong arm underneath the curve of your back as you fucking sobbed his name, holding you to him and supporting your weight.

“that’s it, darlin’,” he grunted against your ear. “yeah — that’s it. keep cumming for me, fuck…”

your hands grabbed at his thick biceps and you grew lost in his movements against the most sensitive parts of you that never ceased. your hips were rolling in circles with his fingers and your vision went hazy.

“so beautiful like this f’me,” he groaned. “might be mean and not let you stop.”

“fuck, frank,” you cried, whimpering for him. your body fell limp against his arm, and he lowered your bodies back down to the bed. during your comedown, frank kissed at your neck as his free hand ran up and down your body. his other hand continued to rub against your pussy and it was driving you fucking crazy. “let me ride you — please.”

your voice was full of desperation, and frank smirked down at you. he slipped his fingers out of you and rolled off of you onto the bed. you tugged his pants down to his thighs, not wanting to waste any time. you were so greedy, but he didn’t care. he smirked as he watched you pull down your tiny shorts. you straddled him, pressing his chest to yours, as you sank down onto his thick cock.

“my fucking god —“ you gasped, your pussy stretching around him.

frank immediately grabbed your throat and you sucked in a sharp breath at the sight. he placed the tips of his fingers in his mouth, and tasted your juices that remained on his skin. there you were, impaled on his cock, hovering over him as you watched the most sensual thing you had ever seen him do. his dark eyes were locked on yours, but your lips parted as you watched him taste you. only a smirk remained on his lips.

“sweetest fuckin’ pussy i’ve ever tasted,” he spoke. “now show me how she rides me.”

he roughly pushed you upwards so you stood up straight. the angle made a whimper leave your lips, as he was now fully inside of you and the deepest anyone has ever been. you planted a limp hand on his stomach, and began to roll your hips against his.

his calloused hands found your hips as he threw his head back against the bed. the tendons in his neck were on full display as he stretched his head back as far as he could. the pleasure he felt was spreading all throughout his body, and he couldn’t help but go taut at the feeling. you watched his mouth fall agape and his eyes close as a moan pushed passed his lips.

the pads of his fingers dug into your hips and pushed you forward and back. even his fingers were strong and had control over you, and you couldn’t help but willingly give everything over to him. your whines filled the room, getting lost in your own pleasure with him. there was nothing like the sight of being thrown into vulnerable pleasure with the man under you, succumbing to your touch.

“fuckin’ god —“ he moaned, raising his head back up to keep his eyes locked on where your bodies connected. “never felt so fuckin’ good.”

his hoarse voice caused you to move faster as you ground your hips against his. his hands were rough and desperate as they pulled you up, down, back and forth — until you didn’t know which way was anything. all you knew were the directions of frank’s hands, and you followed in suit as he dragged you down another road of ecstasy.

“greedy fuckin’ pussy,” he groaned. “never enough for her, huh? needs more, even after what i did?”

“yes, yes,” you whimpered pathetically. “your cock feels so good, frank. so fucking good.”

“yeah, darlin’, that’s it,” he grunted, brown scrunching together. “such a good fuckin’ girl f’me.”

“fuck, frank — don’t say that,” you cried loudly, biting your lip. “feels too good when you say that — i can’t cum yet.”

he immediately reached for your neck and pulled you down to him. you gasped at his rough touch, but your hips never stopped. he bent his knees so your ass could bounce off of them, giving you more leverage. his cock curled deeper into you, hitting your cervix.

“oh my — god —“ you sobbed so close to his lips.

“nah, baby, that’s not how this works — you’re gonna take everything fuckin’ i give you,” he grunted. “i know y’want to be a good girl f’me, yeah?”

“yeah, yeah, yes —“ you were incoherent at this point, ready to tell frank anything he wanted to hear as he bucked his hips into yours. “frank, i’m so close — how —“

“love a needy pussy like this,” he spoke, pulling you closer by the throat for a kiss. “you gonna be good to me? you gonna cum around my cock?”

“fuck, yes —“ you sobbed. “i want you to cum with me, baby, fill me up.”

that set him off. he rolled both of you over before you even knew what was happening. he had you pressed against the bed, hand still around your throat. you grabbed at his arm, loving having the feeling of his strong muscles hold you down. you wrapped your legs around his back as he threw his hips into you. over, and over, he drove himself inside you.

“dirty fuckin’ girl,” he growled, biting down on the skin of where your neck and shoulder met.

that was it. that was how you crumbled a second time for frank that evening.

you fucking wailed his name.

you grabbed at every part of him you could, struggling to hold on for dear life. your body shook with convulsions as your pussy tightened around him, locking his cock in place. nothing could stop his strong hips as they continued to rut into you — riding out your second orgasm of that evening.

you fell back against the bed, fucked out and gasping for air pathetically. frank pressed several kisses to your neck before he stood up on his knees, leaving your weak body below him. you pushed yourself to your elbows with whatever strength you could muster. frank grabbed you by the hips and you watched him slam his hips into yours.

you watched his forehead scrunch as his mouth fell agape. his chin was almost tucked to his neck as his eyes never left where his cock fucked into you.

“use me just like that, baby,” you cried. “i want your cum inside me.”

his strong, trim body went taut as his orgasm hit him, and you watched hungrily as the man before you fell vulnerable to the only pleasure he could allow himself these days. you watched as his conscious mind slipped further and further into the sensation until every ounce of stress and exhaustion left his face. you couldn’t help but bite your lip in pride and satisfaction — knowing that you will never see a more beautiful sight like frank castle using your body to get off.

you fucking loved selfish men.

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DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN NOW EVERYONE GO WATCH THIS SCENE -L xox

#the punisher #frank castle #frank castle x reader #frank castle x you #frank x reader #frank x you #he can punish me #lol #frank castle smut #frank smut #frank castle imagine #frank castle fit #frank fic #frank imagine #the punisher smut #the punisher fic #the punisher imagine

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chastiefoul · 2 years ago

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he said something hurtful

characters: childe & zhongli genre: hurt and comfort wc: 1.4k

Childe

it’s been such a stressful day for the eleventh fatui harbinger. all these paperwork but no place to let out his pent up frustration to; battles. he’s been stuck to the duty for too many days now and when he said it was not going to get to him, perhaps that was overconfidence.

“here, i made you tea hope it helps you to relax a little,” you said as you put the glass on his desk at a reasonable distance away from his work. he hummed a lazy response as gratitude. you’d learnt not to take these gestures to heart since he’s palpably stressed and you all of people knew that childe is the most loving man you’ve ever been with. “anything else i can do for you?” you asked, genuinely wanted to assist him in any way you could. he just shook his head, “it’s fine,” he said curtly.

“massages? back rubs? need me to get anything from somewhere?” you tried again, seeing his not so good expression at a particular part of the paper he’s looking at, wanting to at least ease him a little.

“gods, (y/n),” he said with the most exasperated tone that it made you a little nervous. “can you be quiet for a second? what the hell do you think you can do for me?”

you gasped quietly at the outburst and childe regretted the words as soon as it came out from his mouth. “(y/n), baby i’m sorry i didn’t mean th-“ but you quickly cut him off, wanting to get out of the room as soon you can. “i’ll just leave,” you whimpered, voice clearly holding back tears. at this childe’s heart twinged with even more guilt, he swiftly chased you and brought you close to his chest. “i’m sorry, that was stupid and horrible of me, sorry (y/n),” he repeated the apologies as he rubbed circles on your back. you held back a sob yet to no avail tears still fell to his shoulder. “i just wanted to help,” you mumbled. “i know and you do, my baby always does the best things for me,” he kept you in his hold as he planted kisses on your forehead. “i always worry over you, childe. if i bother you i wish you could’ve just tell me nicely.”

“i’m sorry, i took out my frustration on you, ‘m sorry baby. won’t happen again, i promise. please don’t leave.” childe’s hold on you got tighter, he wished he could turn back time and hit his past-self for running his mouth like that when you’ve been nothing but kind to him. he brought your face close to his, wiping your tears with his thumbs. you looked at him, the apparent raw regret painted all over his face. “stay? please?”

“mhm, but none of that again, okay? ever,” you warned him. “promise. sorry again, you’re too good to me.” he continued embracing you.

Zhongli

you had promised zhongli to assist him with his work, he asked you to bring over a document from clerk zhao 9 a.m. sharp as it is was a very important task to do. he told you that a few days prior about it saying that he would have no time to do it himself thus asking for your help since there’s nobody in the world he trusted more than you. and of course you were more than happy to do it if it helped him even just a little.

the said day was approaching. you felt that your body was slightly sluggish the night before as you prepared to go to bed yet you thought nothing of it and assumed would get better if you just slept it off, but you were wrong. you woke up feeling extremely sick along with a terrible headache. but that wasn’t your biggest concern, you looked over the clock and its hour hands clearly showed: 9.30 a.m.

with your best ability at your current condition—which was very limited, you quickly forced yourself up and rushed to do the task zhongli has entrusted you in. you were struggling as you arrive at feiyun slope area that even clerk zhao showed concern and asked if you were okay which to you answer that you were just fine, when in fact you were clearly not. yet your bigger worry that minute was getting that document to zhongli as he said that it’s a very important matter and you must not be late. however with such a sick body, you arrived at the wangsheng funeral parlor a little over ten a.m.

you burst open his office, “zhongli, i’m so sor-“

“where were you?” he cut you off rather rudely, and he does not do that. “sorry, i-“ you tried again.

“i had told you that this is a very important matter, yet here you are being carelessly tardy.” his usual gentle tone was nowhere to be found, you found yourself in a very bad state, it took everything out of you to just even stand up right that second and he couldn’t see that. even clerk zhao immediately noticed it. you were not even going to make excuse, you just wanted him to listen. “zhongli, please listen-“

“this was such a mistake. i regret relying on you.” he swiftly took the paper on your hand, his back turned and faced you as he sort out his business on his desk. it wasn’t until he heard a sniffle that he had realized what he just said. mistake. regret.

“dear, i-“

you were already started to leave his office, one of your hand was on the wall supporting your own weight as you felt extremely weak and fatigued from all the running around a sick person should not be doing.

“(y/n), wait please i—you’re very warm!” he claimed loudly as his hand touched your arm. “sweetheart, do you have a fever?” he reached out a hand to feel your forehead but you swatted it away. “it’s nothing, just get back to your work.” you attempted to release yourself, but zhongli had another idea on mind as the former god of rock suddenly carried you to a room where there’s a bed as he lied you there and tucked you in a blanket. you who barely any strength just let him did whatever as you turned your back on him the moment your body touched the bed. the wound from his words still fresh on your mind as you cried. you knew that it was your fault that you’re late, however zhongli acted way out of line. his tone and harsh words were very unfamiliar to you.

zhongli looked at your back as he was eaten away by guilt. if only he could just listen. to think he was very adamant to not listen to you when all you wanted to do was to explain yourself and he said that crap instead which he didn’t mean at all.

he truly meant it when he said he would entrust even his life to you.

zhongli was late on realizing the severe damage he just caused over the harsh words he spouted in the heat of the moment. whatever the reason, he should have not done that, not to anyone, especially not to the love of his life. but in reality was he did.

“love, i apologize.” he knelt beside the bed. when that met no response he continued, “that was very foolish of me. i didn’t know what i was talking about. you’re my whole world, i rely on you the most. how very stupid that i could even have the nerve to say that when i do nothing but lean on you everyday in my life.” his voice heavy with remorse as he hesitantly rubbed your arm, trying to soothe you. “to think i just made my sick lover running around like that... i apologize.”

“i wasn’t trying to make excuses, zhongli. i did not choose to be sick.” your voice was meek, zhongli’s chest squeezed in pain, how could he make you say things like this. “of course not, even with your condition you still did your best for me and i reacted like that, i really deserve your anger.”

he saw that tears still ran across your face and it broke his heart. “dear, please, what i don’t deserve is your tears.” he gently turned you to face him, wiping your tears with his fingertip. you slowly stopped crying as zhongli kept whispering apologies and sweet words. “why don’t you get some rest first? we’ll talk again after you feel better,” zhongli said softly. you who had no complaint over that only nodded, getting the sleep you’ve desperately needed.

seconds before you fell into your slumber you could feel a kiss on your forehead. “(y/n), i love you very much.”

#genshin impact #genshin x reader #genshin scenarios #genshin fanfic #genshin x you #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact x you #genshin fluff #genshin angst #childe x reader #tartaglia x y/n #tartaglia x you #tartaglia x reader #genshin childe #zhongli x reader #zhongli fluff #childe angst #zhongli angst

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literaryavenger · 1 year ago

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I love you and I hate it - part 2

Summary: After your fight with Bucky, you put all your efforts into avoiding him, convinced that your friendship is over. Bucky, however, has other plans.

Pairing: Best Friend!Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader

Warnings: Reader being dramatic. Angst. Language maybe. Minimal use of Y/N. Fluff. My poor attempts at being funny.

Word Count: 4.5K

A/N: I promise I didn't mean to make it this long, but I couldn't help myself, again, and I didn't want to end on another 'cliffhanger' so here it is! hope you like it!

Part 1

Masterlist

Bucky can't believe what he just heard... You like him?

No, you used the word ‘love’. You love him.

Do you love him?

Certainly, he would’ve noticed if you did... Right? He is a trained assassin, he was taught how to see beyond people’s words and actions.

And he knows you, you can deny it all you want, but he knows you better than anyone. He knows you better than he knows himself.

And if he’s being honest, you know him better than anyone ever has, Steve included.

You feel safe, you feel calm. You feel like the peace he’s always wanted, the quiet he needs.

You feel like home. In a platonic way, of course.

Right?

His thoughts of you are interrupted by Sharon’s voice. He didn’t even realize he was back at the party.

"Where did you go?" she asks and, suddenly, her grip on his arm was just a little too tight for his liking. But it was probably nothing.

"I went to check if Y/N was okay."

"Oh." something in her voice felt wrong, but Bucky tried to ignore it, that is until what she said next.

"Why would you even care about her? All she does is embarrass you like before. She’s useful to no one, I heard the only reason she’s even on the team is because she slept her way to it." she laughed like it was the funniest thought in the world, and Bucky couldn’t ignore it anymore.

Not only was she saying hurtful, untrue things about his girl, but she has the audacity to laugh at her own cruelty?

"How dare you?" he does his best not to yell, but his tone still startles Sharon. "Y/N is the best agent in all of Shield, that’s why she got in the team! She’s not an embarrassment, she’s a valued member of our family and she’s my best friend! Of course I care about her, she’s the most important person in my life! Don’t ever talk about her that way again."

Sharon seems shocked at his words but, looking around, she realizes people are starting to stare so she tries her best to defuse the situation. "Alright, I’m sorry, I won’t say things like that again. Let’s just calm down and have a nice rest of the evening, ok?"

In his head Bucky knew her request was reasonable, he could forget about this and keep having fun with his girlfriend. But in his heart he just knew he couldn’t let it go.

The words were coming out of his mouth before he can stop them, not that he even wants to.

"You know what, Sharon? This isn’t working. We have to break up." He doesn’t even give her a chance to say anything before he’s turning around and making his way to his room.

Meanwhile, on the roof, Steve’s trying to talk you down the ledge. Metaphorically speaking, obviously.

"He hates me, Steve." you can't stop the tears.

"Stop saying that, sweetheart, he doesn’t hate you."

"You saw what happened at the party, the way he looked at me. And he heard me say that I love him and walked away like it was nothing." You sniffle. "If he didn’t hate me before, this certainly pushed him off the edge."

Steve has nothing to say to that, he knows Bucky doesn't hate you, but he also knows that you’re too stubborn to hear any reason, especially not right now when you're in the eye of the tornado and can't see a way out.

Right now you need a friend and shoulder to cry on, usually Bucky would take on that role, but, given the circumstances, Steve decides to step up and be that friend.

He wraps his arms around your crying body and holds you as you let it all out. Neither of you say anything else, the only sounds in the dark of the night being your sobs, until eventually you calm down and after a few moments of silence Steve glances down to see you fell asleep.

Not wanting to wake you he carefully picks you up and makes his way to the elevator.

When he gets to the floor you both reside in he finds Sam and Natasha chatting at the kitchen counter, probably about to go to bed after coming up from the party.

Sam gives him a confused look, while Nat seems to understand what is going on right away as she moves without saying a word, walking ahead of Steve towards your room.

She opens the door for him and walks in behind, moving the covers back as he lays you on your bed as carefully as he can, and then Nat delicately takes your heels off before covering you with the duvet.

As they’re leaving your room the door opposite yours opens, revealing a hopeful Bucky but when he sees it’s not you, his face becomes stoic once again. He’s about to ask where you are when Natasha beats him to the punch.

"Leave her alone, Barnes. You’ve hurt her enough already." Is all she says before she steps into her own bedroom.

Bucky looks to his best friend for help but, at his confused face, the blonde super soldier just shakes his head in disappointment and walks away without a word.

Bucky stands there for a few minutes, just staring at your door like he's gonna will you to open it and talk to him.

He sighs and goes back to his room where he spends the next few hours overthinking about you and this whole night, eventually falling into an uneasy sleep.

The next morning when you wake up you feel at peace for about 10 seconds before the events of last night hit you like a truck, and all you can feel is humiliation.

How can you face the team after they witnessed your fight with Bucky?

How can you face Steve after he saw you at your most vulnerable and, apparently, carried you to bed after you cried yourself to sleep?

How can you face Bucky after he heard you say you love him and he walked away from you?

You can’t, that’s the answer.

Should you just move out? Just quit the team, ask Hill to be reassigned? Maybe you could even get transferred to another country...

You’re not overreacting, right? This is a very embarrassing situation and you have every right to want to run away from all of it.

As you’re making up an escape plan in your mind you hear a knock on your door, followed by Steve’s voice. "Hey, are you awake? We just want to make sure you're okay…"

You try to be as silent as you can, slowing down your breathing praying he’ll think you’re sleeping.

You can hear him exchange some muffled words with what sounds like Natasha, and then you hear their footsteps as they walk away, so you let out a relieved sigh.

Okay, step one is definitely getting out of this room, it’s just the most obvious place where to look for you.

You get up and out of your awfully classy dress, take a shower being sure to clean away all the makeup from last night and put on the most comfortable sweats you own.

Just as you’re opening the door you can see Bucky opening his about to get out and, in a panic move, you run back inside your room and slam the door shut.

Very subtle, yes.

You rest your back against the door and can hear him sigh and then walk away.

You wait a few minutes, just to be sure, and then relax a little. Your plan was to go to the gym and work out a bit, but now all you can think about is getting the hell out of this compound.

You grab your purse, make sure to have your phone and keys in it and open the door, making sure no one’s around before getting out.

You’re practically running, taking the stairs for good measure, and in a flash you’re at the garage. You jump in your car and drive away as fast as you can without breaking the law, not even knowing where to go.

Once you’re in the city you stop at a cafe for breakfast near your favorite book store, the one you and Bucky have visited together a hundred times.

Okay, stop that. No more thinking about Bucky.

You spend the rest of the day just going from one store to the other, stopping to have lunch at the diner you always go to when you’re in the city, and trying not to kick yourself for not being able to stop thinking about Bucky.

Seriously, why can’t you stop thinking about him?

It doesn’t help the fact that every one of your favorite places has at least a hundred and twelve memories of Bucky.

God, have you ever gone anywhere on your own in the last two years?

The more memories come to mind the more you think that maybe transferring wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Go somewhere new, get a fresh start.

When it starts getting dark you decide to drive back to the compound, but when you park and turn the car off you can’t find it in yourself to get out.

You take out your phone, which you’ve been ignoring all day, and go through all the messages of your worried friends, hating yourself a little more when you catch yourself looking for his name in your notifications.

Just as you’re about to answer Tony’s texts first, you get a call from Steve. You stare at your phone, unsure if you can stomach answering him right now, but your decision is rendered moot when someone taps against your car window.

Your head snaps towards it and you let out a breath of relief when you see Steve standing there, holding his phone and using it to tap on your window again.

You close your eyes for a second but resign to your fate as you gather your things and get out of the car.

When you lock your car you turn to see that Steve moved to be leaning on the trunk of your car, so you join him and wait for him to say something, not knowing what to say yourself.

"So," he starts, with his arm folded in front of his chest and looking at his shoes "you’re avoiding all of us now?" You let out a sigh, feeling bad for hurting his feelings.

"I’m sorry, Steve. I just…" you can’t even look at him as you talk, so you just look ahead of you at all the cars "I’m just embarrassed. After everything that happened last night, I don’t know… God, you even carried me to bed like a child." you cover your face with your hands.

You finally look at him when you hear him chuckling. "That’s what friends do, Y/N. They lean on each other." he bumps your shoulder with his playfully.

"I know we’re not as close as you and Bucky, but I am your friend too. I’m not gonna judge you for last night, I just want to make sure you’re okay. That’s what we all want. You made us worry that you might run away on us." He says the last part as a joke, but you can’t help looking away from him.

That’s exactly what you wanted to do.

You bite your lip as he keeps looking at you and you feel like he can see the gears turning in your head, like your thoughts are so loud and your guilt so visible that he knows right away he was right on the money.

"Y/N…" it’s almost a warning, but you still can’t find the courage to look at him. "You were seriously thinking of running away?!" he seems almost shocked.

"Okay, it’s not like I’m a teenager running away in the middle of the night after a fight with her parents!" you finally look at him. "I was just considering… I don’t know, maybe asking for a transfer?"

"So you actually want to leave the team just because you had a fight with Bucky?" He scoffs.

"It’s not just the fight, Steve, he knows I love him and he doesn’t even care!" You yell before sighing and lovering your voice.

"Do you realize how much that hurts? And now I’m supposed to, what? Just go back to how things used to be? Pretend like nothing happened? Even if we’re not friends anymore, he lives across the hall from me! I’m bound to see him and it’s gonna hurt every fucking time!" You’re almost crying, again, but you hold back not wanting to go through that again and you look away.

"I know it hurts, trust me, sweetheart, but… what about us?" you look at him again as he goes on. "We’re your team too. We’re your friends, we’re your family... You can’t just leave us. I'm not saying it's gonna be easy, but we can help you make it better. We all care about you a lot." It’s honestly a miracle you’re not crying already. You feel him take your hand, but don’t look away from his face.

"Please let us help you." you squeeze his hand and nod, not trusting your voice not to break and the flood to hit as soon as you open your mouth.

He smiles at you and you can’t help but do the same. "Good. Then let’s go up and have dinner like we always do." He starts walking and taking you with him, his hand still in yours.

While you’re waiting for the elevator you can’t hold yourself back as you turn to him and give him a tight hug. "Thank you."

He hugs you back just as tight. "Anytime, rookie." you snort and let go of him, giving him a punch in the arm you’re sure he didn’t even feel as he laughs with you.

When you get to the big kitchen most of the team is already there and you sit down next to Natasha while Steve sits at her other side.

The seat next to you is quickly occupied by Sam as he bings the pizza to the table. He gives you a side hug and squeezes your arm in sympathy but aside from that nobody even mentioned what happened last night, which you're grateful for.

You eat like always, having conversations, laughing and teasing each other like normal, you didn’t feel like anyone was pitying you and you realized Steve was right: these people are your family, you could never leave them.

And, as you watch Loki and Peter trying to make you laugh by messing with Thor’s hair, putting tiny umbrellas in it while he's not looking, you just know they’re gonna help you through everything.

What makes you sad to notice is that one brooding super soldier is missing, though you don’t bring it up for fear of opening that particular door.

And that’s how you spend the next few weeks: avoiding anything and everything that has to do with Bucky, including the man himself.

You start training with Natasha and realize how easy Bucky went on you.

You do more missions with Sam and Steve and realize that missions aren't as fun for everybody as they were for you and Bucky.

You hang out during your down time with pretty much everyone and realize that you couldn’t have as much fun with everyone as you had with Bucky.

So yeah, as much as you could avoid Bucky and talking about him to anybody, he lived rent free in your head.

Fun, huh?

It also didn’t help the look that Steve gave you every time you basically ran out of a room as soon as you caught a glimpse of your former best friend.

Everybody noticed the change in your friendship, but it felt like they all took a silent oath to not mention anything to either of you, and you were glad they were respecting your choice to stay away from Bucky.

He, on the other hand, was going crazy.

He hasn’t seen you in weeks, except for those few seconds before you realize he’s in the same room and run away.

He doesn’t hear your voice unless he’s eavesdropping on you with someone else, but even then he never hears his name come out of your mouth.

Nobody will tell him anything about you, the only thing he can get out of Steve is ‘she’s okay, just give her time’.

He’s been trying his best to give you the space you need, but he feels like he’ll lose his mind if he doesn’t hear you say his name soon.

It’s been a month of successfully and not so subtly avoiding Bucky.

There was one time where, as the team about to land for a mission, he got much too close to you for your liking and you thought he was about to say something so you grabbed a parachute and quite literally jumped out the jet, then walked the rest of the way to the Hydra base.

Everyone had to wait for you, some annoyed, but most found the situation too amusing to be bothered by it.

Anyway.

You’re at the gym for an early morning workout, a habit you took to when you started avoiding Bucky.

You know he usually stays up at night. Occasionally because he still gets nightmares, usually because his overthinking mind tortures him until early hours. So he uses mornings to sleep in when he doesn’t have missions.

You’re on the treadmill when you hear the doors of the gym open behind you but think nothing of it, assuming it’s just Steve replacing his morning run with a workout because it’s too hot to run outside.

When you don’t hear him say anything, you’re about to turn your head to see who it is, but before you can do anything you feel two hands, one cold and one hot, on your waist.

You squeal when they pick you up and take you away from the treadmill, setting you down on the ground in front of it before turning off the machine.

"Bucky, what the fuck?! I could’ve gotten hurt!" you were so shocked you didn’t even fully realize you were actually talking to the person you’ve spent so much time and effort avoiding, or that you were walking backwards while Bucky was getting closer to you.

"Oh please, I’d ever let you get hurt." he’s sounds almost amused, like this is a normal thing between you two, but the truth is he’s just happy that you’re actually talking to him.

When your back hits the wall you realize too late that it’s Bucky in front of you and suddenly you’re looking around you to find a way to escape. But all you find is that he’s successfully trapped you between the wall and his body, his hands on the wall at either side of your head.

You swallow hard and if he notices he doesn’t say anything, but your brain is too busy registering the warmth of his body so close to yours to even be ashamed right now.

"Is this the only way I’ll get to talk to you now?" you almost miss his question, your eyes snapping up to meet his and, where you expected to see a smug look at having caught you not only off guard but also ogling, you found a frown and a slight pout.

Something about the hurt on his face stopped you from lying or straight up kicking him so he’d move and you could run away.

No, Bucky was your best friend, you’ve always felt the need to be honest with him ever since that first day, and even now you owe it to him to tell him nothing but the truth.

"I just need time." You hoped he understood.

"How much more time do you need?" Apparently not.

"I don’t know, can’t you just be patient?" You can't believe you really have to ask him this.

"It’s been a month, doll, I think I’ve been plenty patient. Are you planning on avoiding me forever?"

"Not forever… just… I don’t know." If you were being honest with yourself, you didn’t know how long you would’ve kept on avoiding him.

You were so busy doing the actual avoiding that you didn’t take the time to think about when you’d be able to stop.

You let out a sigh, but didn’t look away from his eyes for a second. He needs to know you meant every word you're about to say. "I was hurting, Bucky. I still am. I get that you have a girlfriend-"

"I broke up with her." he interrupts you.

"You… What?" you weren’t expecting that. "When?"

"The night of our fight. I would’ve told you sooner but it was hard to catch you, you know, with you avoiding me and everything."

You almost lost your train of thought, but it didn’t matter that he was single, he was still the first one to walk away, why was it so wrong for you to do it now?

"It doesn’t matter… I know you don’t owe me anything, but you walked away from me. From my feelings." you can see Bucky’s confusion so, before he can say anything, you explain yourself.

"That night on the roof. I know you were there, you heard me say that I loved you and you walked away like it was nothing. Like I was nothing. I know you don’t like me like that, and I can live with that in time, but it hurt. It still hurts." you don’t know what you were expecting him to say, but it definitely wasn’t he says next.

"Do you remember the day we met?" you furrow your brows in confusion but he waits for you to nod before he keeps going. "We’ve never really talked about it, have we? It's ironic since we’ve talked about pretty much every topic we could possibly come up with. But that day, you introduced yourself and I just got up and walked away. Kind of what you’ve been doing this past few weeks." he chuckles a bit and you have the impression he's getting closer to your face, but you're probably just imagining that.

"Yeah, I thought I did something wrong, but you were just a rude bitch." he laughs and you can’t help but smile.

"I’m sorry about that, I just… the second I saw you I felt weird. And when you talked to me it was too much, I couldn’t handle it. I didn’t know what I was feeling and my brain just screamed at me to get out, so I did. Then you came to my door and said all those nice things and that weird feeling started to feel more and more comfortable as you talked. It was nice. Then we became friends and I guess I just dismissed that feeling as friendship. It was a different type of friendship that I’d never had... But then again I’ve never been this close to a woman. Emotionally speaking, of course." His hand comes to cup your cheek and you can’t speak, so he takes the opportunity to say everything he needs to say.

"This month has been hell for me, doll. I’ve missed you more than I’ve ever missed anybody in my entire life. Not being able to spend time with you, joke around, talk to you, barely even see you. It's been driving me insane. Being away from you for so long made me realize what that feeling was. You’re not just my best friend, you’re my person. You’re my calm, and my reason. You’re my happiness, my home. You’re the love of my life."

"What?" you're basically whispering, so quietly you’re sure he wouldn’t have heard you if he didn’t have super hearing.

"I love you too, doll. I love you." he holds your face in his hands "I love you."

You feel like your brain shut down all of a sudden. You barely know how to breathe, let alone talk. All you can do is stare at him, the look he's giving you making you weak in the knees.

"You’re killing me here, doll. For the love of god, say something, angel." The nickname seems to snap you out of it, and there's only one thing in your mind left to ask.

"If you love me, why didn’t you tell me on the roof?" He let out a deep sigh, you can feel his breath on your lips, but you try your hardest to focus on his words and not his lips.

"For one I was still with Sharon. And I didn’t really know what I was feeling. Also, I wasn’t even sure you were serious. Honestly, I was just confused about the whole thing, and still mad about the fight. Nothing good would’ve come from me staying and talking to you that night. I probably would’ve ended up hurting you more." All that makes a lot of sense, sure, but it doesn't change the fact that it hurt.

The look in Bucky’s face at the moment though makes you want to forgive him right this second and let this whole thing go. Pretend like the last month didn’t happen.

So that’s what you do.

"What if…" you start, looking back and forth between his eyes and his lips "what if we forget all of this happened?"

"No." he answered so fast and firmly that it made you furrow your eyebrows in confusion and disappointment. "I don’t want to forget anything about us, doll. Good or bad, it’s all worth it, as long as it ends with you in my arms."

You're melting and can't hold yourself back, you grab his face and bring his lips down to yours.

He freezes, probably not expecting it, but when you're about to pull away, he holds your face to keep you there, deepening the kiss.

After a few moments you hear someone clear their throat and almost throw Bucky off of you, looking behind him while he turns to see who it is and you see Steve and Sam standing there, amused looks on their faces.

"We were just talking." You blurted out and Sam cracked and almost doubled over with laughter.

"Really?" Steve said while raising an eyebrow, almost exasperated and knowing damn well what you were doing.

"Sure they were, Steve, she was obviously trying to get the word out of his mouth!" Sam said to the blonde, still laughing his ass off.

"Oh, of course she was. Tell us, sweetheart, what did you find in Bucky’s mouth?" Steve was now laughing too, and you were so embarrassed you hid your face in Bucky’s chest.

He wrapped his arms around you, barely glaring at the two laughing idiots. "Ok, just get out of here, punks." Fortunately for once in their lives they decided to actually listen and left, their laughs echoing through the halls.

"You okay there, doll?" Bucky was now chuckling at your embarrassment.

You raised your head and, meeting his eyes, you said "I can’t believe Captain Dumbass is making fun of us for kissing."

He started laughing and you gladly joined him, looking forward to making up for the time you missed with him, unknowingly promising each other to never let go of the other ever again.

taglist: @mostlymarvelgirl @spookyparadisesheep @scott-loki-barnes @pattiemac1 @emerald-writes @sapphirebarnes

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georgiapeach30513 · 8 days ago

Text

Two Good Reasons, Part 11

Summary: Christmas time is here

Pairings: Andy Barber X Reader

Rating: mature

Warnings: language, Scott, Audrey 🥺, 18+ ONLY

Word Count: 8.4K

Series Masterlist

*Divides created by @firefly-graphics

Audrey groans softly as she opens her eyes. Leaning over her brother, she keeps her face close to his, until she feels his breath brush over her skin. The little girl lays a hand on his stomach, counting his breaths before she rolls to the other side. Panting with how long she had held her own breath. Another bad dream. A dream of her brother not breathing.

Her fingers reach toward her iPad Mini before she drops her back on the bed. She leans over to check the floor for monsters before reaching towards the iPad again. Deciding it’s best to keep her hands safe under the covers while she stares longingly at the tablet. Daring herself to either be brave enough to walk out of this bedroom to get her mommy or brave enough to just pick up the iPad.

—

Ransom’s hands cling to the bed as he hoists his hips back into the girl. She was good enough to fuck, but would never be good enough to have a decent conversation with. It beat spending another holiday alone. He drives his hips deeper into her before he looks towards the bedside table. His phone lighting up with the cutest little picture of the sweetest little girl. A smile spreads over his face, until he realizes the time.

Scrabbling off her, despite her protests he picks up the phone, and walks himself into the bathroom, locking the door behind him. He answers the call quickly, trying to catch his breath, “Audi, baby, what are you doing awake?”

“I had a bad dream,” her voice sounds as wrecked as a five year old’s voice could. Deep circles pocket under her eyes with her lack of sleep since her party.

“The same one about Suede?” She nods her head, and Ransom could barely see it in the dark room. He sighs, “Have you told your parents?”

“Daddy won’t call me,” his head leans back as he looks up at the ceiling. Scrounging around for some pants to put on, and get this girl the hell out of his house. He’d buy a fucking airplane ticket to Michigan if he had to. He wasn’t supposed to like kids. But now he’s invested, and he wants to kick Scott Huffman’s ass. In court. Legally of course.

“What about your mom and Andy?” Audrey shrugs, looking down. Her eyes open up quickly, trying to avoid falling asleep.

“I don’t want to bother them,” so instead she calls Ransom in the middle of the night, and stays on call with him until she feels comfortable enough to fall back asleep, “Mommy got in a fight with aunt Morgan. She had to take her outside.”

“I’m sure your mom gave her a mouthful,” Audrey shrugs, looking behind her at her brother before flipping to her back. “You’re sharing a bed with your brother?”

“Uh huh. I sneak into his bedroom sometimes to make sure he’s breathing. But uncle Ryan’s bed isn’t like my princess bed. It’s lumpy and smells like a boy.”

“Sweetheart, we really need to tell your mom and Andy about your nighttime habits. I can’t help you like they can,” she sighs, and holds her hand over her brother’s mouth the same way she’s seen you do. Counting his breaths again before he offers a pitiful smile, “Is he breathing?”

“Yeah-huh. Do you think I’ll become a lawyer one day?” One thing about a five year old, they can change the subjects of conversation quickly.

“I think if that’s what you really want, yeah. You’ve got the best people in the world to help you,” but what every adult in her life wants her to do is to be a damn kid. But the one adult she wanted attention from, she wasn’t getting it. So now becoming a lawyer is the most important thing.

“Daddy won’t help me though,” she looks off to the side before back at the screen, “Did I do something wrong?” he starts taking a mental stock of every time that he wants to punch Scott on Audrey’s behalf. He’ll behave and start at one.

“No, Audi, you did nothing wrong. I think your daddy is still very scared about what happened.”

“What about me?” He barely can the tears start to well in her eyes, but the break in her voice is enough. “I’m scared, too.” That deserves at least one hundred punches.

“I know. And your daddy is a big man that should know better. We adults suck, you know?” She nods her head, trying to give him a smile. “Well, what else have you done since being there?”

“Me and mommy had a mani/pedi. My fingernails are pink,” her voice starts to get more animated, and she giggles. Holding a hand over her mouth, trying to quiet it. “And I got glitter on them. My dad — Andy said that they look just like a princess.”

“Youd,” the little toddler groans beside his sister. A kid that needed his sleep.

“Suede, buddy, are we being too loud?”

“Chess. Me seep. Oo youd,” Ransom gives a smile to the little boy that flops over to the other side. His body wiggles a bit, until the blanket is nearly over his face, but he wouldn’t be asleep for long. If Audrey was with Suede when she called Ransom, this is always the routine.

“I think my giggles woke him up.”

“I’m sure they did. Are you going to buy me a Christmas present while you’re there?” She smiles, nodding her head. “It’s going to be bigger than the plane, isn’t it?”

—

Andy pets around your belly, while you’re in the middle of dozing off, and staying awake to keep feeling him. He isn’t even snuggling you as much as he’s cradling your stomach. “Doe, it’s late, go to sleep, honey.”

“I’m enjoying you,” enjoying feeling more loved and worshiped than you’ve ever felt. Elated that you are the one giving Andy the family he’s craved. No one would ever love you like Andy, and no one would love Andy like you.

“You’re going to continue to enjoy me for many months. Go to sleep,” your eyes droop down for a bit longer, and you take comfort in his warmth. His protective hold over you and the unborn child in your belly. He’d proven more times than not his protection extended to Audrey and Suede as well.

It’s like everything is finally fitting in a pretty little puzzle. Just the way that you have always wanted it. You start to drift, until you hear the sweetest little giggle, “Andy?”

“Shh,” you think you’re falling asleep again before you hear two cute little giggles. “Is that?”

“What are those two up,” you sit up in the bed, but Andy playfully pushes you back on the bed. “Excuse you.”

“Let me go check on them,” he is not serious. If it wasn’t for his playful smile, you’d have already stubbed up.

“No,” you stubbornly answer, sitting back up again, and slinging your feet off the side of the bed. “If they’re giggling that means they’re having fun. And it’s vacation, so if they’re having fun, I want to join in with them,” grinning wildly, he stands up, extending a hand towards you, and you tiptoe out of your childhood bedroom, and walk towards Ryan’s.

It isn’t until you get closer that you hear a man’s voice. Not just any man either. But the endearing part is it’s a little conversation with all three of them. You could stand and listen to them having their moment. Their safe space. You open the door, and are followed by Andy. “Hey, mommy.”

“Hi, mama. Uck Ann, my mama and daddy!”

“Hey, Andy. Hey, Doe. Don’t be mad. I, uh, I called them because I couldn’t sleep,” you get closer to the mini, and frown at him. He didn’t call. He is doing a great job of keeping the camera higher, but he was topless. So the question then becomes, why did Audrey call?

“Did they pull you away from an — engagement?” You ask with a smirk.

“Nothing important. Audi?” you look towards your daughter before glancing behind you at Andy.

“I have nightmares, and call Uncle Ann. He doesn’t care. He just gets me to laugh, and I fall back to sleep,” your daughter has nightmares, and she doesn’t seek you out. She finds someone else. You don’t want to cause a scene right now in the middle of the night, but you want to know what she’s dreaming about. And while you’re happy that she feels comfort from Ransom, it hurts that she didn’t try and find it with you.

“I’m glad you could find someone to talk to,” Andy says, walking behind you, and his arm wraps around your waist. His hand resting on your barely swollen belly. “Ran, are they bothering you?”

“Nah. They’re just giggle boxes right now. Suede was asleep,” was. So the call woke him up. “Audi says that you’re buying me an airplane for Christmas.”

“Nu-uh, you said that my gift was going to be bigger than the airplane, I didn’t say that about yours. Mommy his nose is getting bigger,” the true joy you see in her eyes, melts your heart. Despite all that she’s been through, and is still going through, she has managed to keep her beautiful smile. Even the sweet little bantering between her and Ransom. But you’re still jealous.

“Did he now? Ran, I don’t know if we can do that.”

“Chess. Big big ruck!”

“A truck?” Ransom snarls.

“Chess! Big um!” Ransom’s nose crinkles as he tries to tell Suede he would not be driving a truck. “Chess!”

“Shh, buddy,” Andy blurts in. Audrey keeps moving the iPad to point at whoever is talking, and she lets that mini tablet capture Andy’s awkward hold on your stomach, while he addresses the kids, “We should really let Ransom get back to his — plans, and get back to sleep.”

“The plan has already left,” he smiles, hoping that Andy sees his eyes flicking down to see his hold on you. He knew that his partner wouldn’t be able to stop touching you once you got pregnant. If he liked Scott, he’d pity him. Andy will now have this innate need to protect you and the kids even more. People have yet to see how ruthless Andy can be for his family. “It’s not a big deal.”

“And then, we’re going to sneak into the kitchen for hot chocolate, and Audi and Suedey are going to come into the bedroom with us for a Christmas movie,” both kids get excited, wiggling around, but Ransom sticks his tongue out at Andy. Is he now jealous that you're taking time away from him? Did you just find a trustworthy babysitter? “And when we get back, we’ll make sure to invite Ransom and ’a plan’ to have a Christmas dinner and movie at home, okay?”

“I can live with that. But there’s only one ‘plan’ that I would take to your house, and meet the kids. And her name starts with a Tay and ends in a Tum,” Audrey turns the iPad to look at him, questioningly, and gasps, “Bye, cuties. I look forward to hearing everything that has happened while you’ve been gone, and movie night. Yay!” The video ends abruptly, and Audrey looks up at you and Andy with her brows furrowed.

“He doesn’t have plans with Miss Tatum yet.”

“Yet?” You ask her, and she puts both hands on her hips as she gets out of the bed with her princess nightgown, followed by Suede. “What do you mean yet?”

“He told me that he would do a book read in class for Christmas. That is his plans with Miss Tatum,” oh she sounds grumpy. First crushes are hard, especially when this crush could never happen.

“I’m sure he just misspoke, baby. Come on. Andy makes the best hot chocolate you’ve ever had, okay?” Suede is already sassy walking towards Andy with his arms outstretched for him. “You need to wipe that moody look off your face.”

“Why would Uncle Ann bring Miss Tatum to our house?” She stomps her foot. Sass you expect from Suede, but never her. She’s entitled every now and then of course. But it’s extremely out of character.

“The bigger question is why Uncle Ann even said that,” Andy mumbles, starting to walk out the door with Suede.

Kneeling down, you look at Audrey’s sweet face. Brushing some baby hairs back, “Would it bother you if he did?”

“Well, if he did, would that mean I can’t sit in his lap?” Oh no. “I don’t want her to sit too close to him.”

“Why not?” You don’t want to giggle at this. But you wonder if she’s going to tell you why she doesn’t want Miss Tatum close to Ransom.

“I am his girl,” there it is. “Not Miss Tatum. His only plan is to read a book in class. And I get to sit in his lap.”

“You’re right, baby. And in the daylight, we’ll make sure to tell Ransom not to be telling fibs, okay?” She gives you a single nod, and almost marches towards the bedroom door. Little girls' first crushes usually are someone that is kind to them. But having your five year old be jealous of her teacher is not something you were able to be prepared for.

But you didn’t want to think about it. You want hot chocolate with your family. You want to snuggle up all in the bed together. You want to stare at Andy as he watches over all of you. Watch Suede starfish out as much as he can, while Audrey tries to touch every person in the bed in some way. She just didn’t know she would also be touching another member of the family.

“Suedey, go potty before we take sissy to school,” Suede may blow out a puff of air, staring up at the ceiling, but he also bops off to his and Audrey’s shared bathroom, and you turn to look at Andy looming in the doorway. “What?” You ask, standing up, and going to check on Audrey.

“If you’re that nervous about a babysitter, we can take Suede with us,” you shake your head no as you walk up to him. Giving him a chaste kiss. “You’re not nervous about a babysitter?”

“What’s there to be nervous about? You’re going to be with me. And she is going to be at the office so Sloane and Ransom can make sure that our baby is being taken care of. Do you think that making her watch him at your office was the best idea?” Of course he doesn’t care. Andy said that’s what was going to happen, and that’s just how it was going to be. Suede was at the office enough to know his space. Know that under Sloane’s desk was an okay spot. Know that if Ransom didn’t have a client, he could be in there with him. But more importantly, the sitter couldn’t be alone with Chris.

“If it means that his mama can be at ease at her doctor’s appointment then yes,” you give him a little kiss, heading towards Audrey’s room. She needed to wrap a present for Miss Tatum by herself. You peek your head into her beautiful princess room. She never asked for anything, but she wanted the giant pink canopy bed, and Andy made sure that she had gotten it. It’s still one of her prized possessions.

“Do you think this is pretty enough?” Her nose crinkles up as she turns the wrapped gift around. It wasn’t the best. “It’s not very pretty like yours.”

“I think it’s beautiful. And I think Miss Tatum will love it,” she sighs, looking up at you as you join her at her tea table. “What is it?”

“Can I just stay with Uncle Ann?” You shake your head no. “Why not? Suede gets to.”

“And mommy gets a little bit scared when Suede isn’t with her,” she crosses her arms over her chest, looking towards her bed. The very bed that she asks you to help her make every morning so she can pile her stuffed animals on it.

“I get scared when he’s not with me, too.”

“I know you do, baby. We’ll have to slowly start trusting other people with him. But your job as a five year old is to go to school. Have fun with your friends, and other classmates. And tonight we’re decorating the gingerbread houses. And it won’t be long until Christmas. And,” she pushes her chair out from the table. Brushing down her jumper she grabs her school cardigan from her bed, and brings it to you. “Are you mad?”

“No,” her voice is a bit short as you put the cardigan on her though. “Can dad — daddy make hot chocolate tonight, too?”

“Yes, he can,” you’re proud of her for trying to figure out the most comfortable name to call Andy. It changed constantly. Sometimes Andy still popped out, but recently it seemed to go between dad and daddy.

“Can Uncle Ann make gingerbread houses with us?”

“We can ask him,” if he wasn’t busy that man would probably buy all the gingerbread house kits he can find and show up. He never can tell Audrey no.

“And he can’t invite Miss Tatum, okay?”

“Okay,” she holds out a pinky towards you, “I pinky promise Uncle Ann won’t invite Miss Tatum tonight for gingerbread houses,” you aren’t sure what Ransom’s plans are with the teacher. If he’s going to read in Audrey’s classes for brownie points, or if he truly enjoys it. You didn’t know, and you didn’t want to know. Ransom’s private life was his.

“I’m ready to go to school now!” All worries are washed away as your sweet girl jumps up from the pinky promise with a smile. The joys of being a five year old. She had deep feelings, but she still had her many joys in life. And you still had many annoyances with trying to get in touch with her father.

Fuck Scott for ever acting like he wanted full custody of your children. He has missed three weeks with them. Three weeks of not seeing their faces, or hearing their voices. Three weeks of not asking how his son was doing, but how his daughter was feeling! Three weeks without your children sounds like a lifetime.

This is the difference between you and Scott. You wanted him to spend time with his children, even if it meant more time away from you. You wanted them to have a relationship with their father. You wanted him to step up for Suede. You wanted him to treat Audrey like the little girl that she is. And all he cared about was trying to get one over on you.

He used custody as a weapon against you. He wanted you to suffer because he needed you to pay for his transgressions. These three weeks away from their dad, without any word, showed you that he didn’t even truly care about either of them. It makes you sick to your stomach that he can so callously walk away from his flesh and blood. When a man who didn’t even have kids wanted to call them every night. It is Ransom who Audrey turns to with her nightmares, not her own father. Or you. You still haven’t got over that.

“Alright everyone!” Andy shouts from the bottom of the stairs. “The train needs to head out of the station,” Audrey gives you a little giggle as she grabs her gift for Miss Tatum. It’s a bit early, but she has been excited to give it to her. And now, to check on the little Barber bean in your belly. After you get both kids situated.

Taking a deep breath, you look around you and know no matter what this baby will be loved and cared for. Andy would never let three weeks go by without needing to see or hear from Audrey and Suede, and now another one. Andy didn’t even like the weekends the kids were gone. It’s why he implemented naked Saturdays. Saying seeing your tits was the only way he didn’t feel like something was missing.

He wanted to talk to them when they were with Scott. Needed to hear their voices, and see their little faces. And the man that wanted a third child with you could go three weeks with nothing. He claimed your lack of providing him with a third child was one of the reasons that he cheated. That your behavior after Suede made him fall out of love with you. Pig. Of all the ways he’s flawed, when it comes to being a father, it’s his biggest downfall.

“So,” your doctor begins as he roots around for the baby. Of course the pregnancy test was positive. You’d tested enough without Andy’s knowledge just to be sure. Nearly a daily reminder to prove you weren’t dreaming, you were pregnant. You couldn’t get over seeing the two pink lines, the word pregnant, and whatever colorful array of tests that said you were pregnant. “How far along do we think we are?”

“She’s probably about two and half months,” leave it to your fiance to know roughly the length at which you’re pregnant. He knew these things. He’d been paying attention when you were trying to ignore what your body was telling you. You couldn’t get pregnant. It’s what your old doctor told you. Andy agreed with you, he didn’t want you to see that doctor. Except the petty part of him wanted to go back just to say, ‘You were wrong.’

“Well,” he says looking at the monitor, and you grip Andy’s hand tighter. He squints his eyes, and then looks towards you. And then looks back at the monitor. There is no denying what you see. It’s clear as day, right there, “Umm…”

“The baby is okay?” Andy asks, looking at the monitor, and slightly shaking his head with confusion. He didn’t see anything. Nothing but blobs.

“Is there two?” you screech. Andy’s grip on your hand now matches your own when the doctor nods. “But they’re in different sacs,” you’ve been here before, you know what sacs are. Know the what two means. They’re not identical. You could have a boy and a girl! You could have two boys, or two girls.

“Not just different sacs.”

“I really do not see two. What…oh,” you’re so thankful to be looking at Andy when the Doppler picks up the heartbeats. His face immediately changes at the sound. He looks so calm hearing a steady heartbeat, and a less loud one in the background. His eyes go misty as he leans to kiss your temple without removing his sight from the monitor, “Can we talk about what’s happening. That’s their heartbeat?”

“Yes, Mr. Barber. But…you were told you couldn’t have any more children?” Maybe you should make an appointment to see the doctor, after the babies are born.

“Yeah.”

“You weren’t given a true explanation as to why?” You shake your head no. It was complicated. He said there were several factors at play. Your uterus was shaped wrong. There was scaring. You were old. You may have PCOS. “I mean there’s some scarring, you said that your son’s birth was difficult?” You nod your head. A ball of anger starts forming in your gut, and you’re not sure why. “Hmm,” that’s all he says. Hmm.

“What does that mean?” You ask, starting to get agitated. Your uterus has always been a big conversation with some people, and clearly it works just fine. But your uterus, your business. Now you just have mixed emotions. Would it not be for the two beautiful beans growing in you now, you might be raging.

“I mean it would have made conceiving difficult, but not impossible with viable sperm,” you snort. “I did not make a comment about your ex’s sperm. Here’s the biggest issue we currently have,” you didn’t like the sound of that as he starts to clean up. You kind of liked seeing and hearing the babies. It gives you calmness while talking about something you hate. Even though you’re struggling to wrap your head around babies. Two.

“Is there actually three?” Poor Andy is in shock, and not saying anything, he just stares at the now blank monitor.

“No,” the doctor answers shortly. He rolls his chair away from you, and picks up your file. “Baby B seems to be growing a bit slower pace, or…”

“Baby B was conceived after Baby A?” You ask, and he nods his head. He wipes his brows as he looks towards you, “What are you suggesting?”

“This isn’t uncommon mind you. I know you said your periods were irregular, and there is the scarring. There’s a few concerns. You’re older, you’re starting off at a disadvantage. Multiples are high risk anyways. I want you to take things easy. There will most likely come a time you will be on bed rest if you want healthy babies, and I’m assuming that you do. I will not sugar coat this. The babies can be fine, but stress…”

You hear what he’s saying without saying it. Stress. You’re a mother of two, you’re going through a divorce with an asshat, your baby daddy won’t call his kids, you have emergency sole custody of Suede, now you’re finding out that you’re having twins and one is possibly much younger than the other. Stress is no big thing. Completely stress free life here.

“I get it. Stress is next to impossible. But I need this to be a very valiant effort. But both babies have a great heartbeat. Both are growing well, despite Baby B at a bit of a disadvantage. And I’m going to urge you to think about this being the last pregnancy,” you nod without question. Two more babies is more than enough. You’ll get fixed, Andy could, you didn’t care. You didn’t need another.

Now onto more things. Divorce finalized, and custody dealt with.

“We need to keep the pregnancy as much from Scott as possible,” you didn’t care if Scott knew or didn’t know. It didn’t matter either way.

“Is there a reason why?” Andy’s hand on your thigh squeezes you slightly. “So what are you not telling me?”

“We need the divorce finalized before you start showing,” you would have liked the divorce finalized a month ago. “Umm, he could contest the pregnancy.”

“Excuse me?” There is no contesting. The twins were yours and Andy’s. He can’t force you to do shit.

“Legally you’re married to him.”

“And physically I’m with you. The doctor said no stress, but this is stressing me out. Can you just spill it?” He’s trying to protect you. But in terms of your children, you didn’t care right now.

“He’s enough of an asshole that if he found out that you are pregnant, he would demand a DNA test while you’re pregnant. He’ll want me to be legitimized to be a dick,” you’re still not fully understanding. “Legally those are his children. Our twins.”

“No,” tears prickle your eyes. Not tears of sadness, but pure rage. “No. No, they are our babies.”

“Legally they are his. I don’t doubt what a DNA test would say about either baby. But if we can avoid that it would be more ideal,” Scott would be the asshole that would make a mockery of yours and Andy’s relationship. “We shouldn’t tell the kids until after the divorce. Not that he is calling to see or talk to either, but still.”

“Why is he not calling her back? I’m getting tired of lying to my baby. But I won’t have us speak ill of Scott, she’ll figure it out all on her own. But she’s a confused child right now. Can — is there anything legally I can do?” So many thoughts and question run through your mind. Scott could contest the pregnancy. He could say whatever he wanted in court to put doubt in a judge’s mind. He could say infidelity happened.

“It can be brought up during the custody hearing. I just don’t know if it’ll make a difference. Scott knew he screwed up, and he’s continuing to screw up and doesn’t know how to stop it. They’ll be fine,” you aren’t worried about Suede, he doesn’t even talk about Scott. He is young enough to accept the man with him daily is his dad.

“So we can’t say anything to the kids, we need to keep the pregnancy on the downlow, I’m currently at risk and need to have no stress while my stress is piling up. Andy, I just want to be divorced. I’ll give you whatever type of wedding you want, but I want divorced, and I just want to be your wife. I want you to have custody of Audrey and Suede in case something happens,” his hand tightens on your thigh again. “I need to know that if anything happens to me their dad will take care of them, not their father. This is the responsible part of being adults; thinking about the hard stuff.”

“I know. And we’ll do whatever we have to. Just promise me that you’ll keep the babies safe,” that isn’t something that needs to be discussed, it just is what you will do. What you’ll do for your family. You want Christmas to be a pleasant one. You want Scott to put his big boy pants on, and you want him to be a fucking adult for once.

Uncontested little prick. Andy knew that Scott was operating on a low moral scale, but contacting Ray to just inform him that he would sign divorce papers uncontested was something Andy couldn’t predict. He knew that you had the ammunition to smear him and his good name. He agreed to the terms of child support. Agreed to you having full custody, but wanted to go back to every other weekend with Audrey. Just Audrey.

Your eyes glazed over as Ray told you all this information. Hitting you like a blast of cold wind when he got to the end. It’s not that you want Scott to have Suede, it's the fact he could easily throw him away. You should have known. You allowed your son to be around him for too long.

It’s bittersweet hearing your ex wanted to sign away his rights. The one thing that was never mentioned was alimony. Ray advised you to proceed with getting some money, but you didn’t fucking care. You’d be marrying Andy anyways, and wouldn’t receive it. Scott folded over under pressure.

You know that Andy is wanting you to do something more by his pacing around the house tonight. He doesn’t like you’re not getting alimony. He doesn’t like that he wants Audrey, and not Suede. He doesn’t like that you aren’t doing more. “You know I just want to make sure they're safe.”

“You have the power to do that,” he answers with a bit of anger in his voice. “You should get alimony for putting up with that prick. I don’t know why you’re agreeing to his terms. You’re making it too easy for him.”

“Or I’m thinking of how this speeds things up. Scott wants to sign away all of his rights for Suede, giving you the ability to adopt him. I don’t need alimony when I want to immediately marry you, and it’ll go away anyways. Do you see him having children with anyone else?” Andy sighs. “I actually wonder if the asshole got snipped, and he’s the reason I couldn’t get pregnant. He just made me believe I was the issue in the family,” you heard the doctor loud and clear. It’s stuck in your head. Something you can’t prove, and won’t try, but it’s made you wonder if all this time it was always Scott.

Andy sits down at the bar, while you stuff a loaf of sourdough back in the oven. His fingers make odd circles on the counter. “You think I’m making a mistake?”

“I think you’re thinking too rationally, and in the end it makes sense. But I also want him to pay,” you just want him to disappear. “Has he even called you? Asked about his golden child?”

“No,” you answer shortly. Circling around the counter, you lean against Andy, letting him cup your belly. He gives you a kiss to your temple, holding his mouth there while you listen to your babies giggling and laughing in the playroom. “He’s a coward, and probably won’t do anything until after Christmas anyways. I still have full custody. You heard Ray, I get the say so on holidays. It’s because he doesn’t want her to cramp his style.”

“He’s a damn sperm donor. I don’t see how he just kept spiraling,” plain and simple, he wanted to own you. He was realizing he couldn’t, and then he made a grave mistake with Suede, and his reputation was put on the line.

“Well, according to Sloane, his ego has been hit,” Andy’s brow cocks up as he looks at you questioningly. Sloane always gets the best gossip in the courthouse. “Taylor, well, she has this thing with fucking men that don’t belong to her.”

“What?” He smiles, getting excited to learn that Scott was the one cheated on.

“She’s cute. And doesn’t have a job. He was working late, and she found her a young man to fuck in Scott’s bed,” you don’t want to rejoice at his bad luck. But it does serve him right. “She was too young for him, and lets be honest, she doesn’t need kids right now.”

“So where does that leave them?”

“Well, she did show up at his office, and told him it would never happen again,” Andy snorts, and rubs on your belly. He couldn’t feel anything, and neither could you. But the bump is becoming more noticeable. Clothes are struggling to hide the babies growing there. “So it seems that she’s back at the house with him. But it’s not about love, it’ll be about finding someone with more money.”

“But he knows that she doesn’t have a problem with cheating,” you shrug. You didn’t care anymore. She was Scott’s problem. Maybe if he wasn’t so concerned with parenting an adult, he might be better a parent to his daughter. “I just can’t sit and think about him giving Suede up.”

“I know. And I’m both amazed, and pissed off that you can do that,” you know it bothers him. But Scott fighting for Suede would be worse. It’s like he knew deep down he could not give Suede the care that he needed for health reasons. He didn’t want that responsibility, and you would always be there over his shoulder with him. “Are you angry with me for thinking you’re crazy?”

“No. Because you’re looking at this as being Suede’s dad. You can’t fathom why a man would give up their rights to their child. Could throw him away without thinking about it. You’re thinking like someone that loves Suede, because you do.”

“I also think he’s giving you what you want,” he definitely was. He knew that it would be hard for you to let things go back to how they were with Suede. It’s possible you could have enforced monitored visitation for Suede’s safety.

“And I don’t care about his reasons. I am done trying to figure out Scott Huffman. I’m done trying to appease him. I can’t think about if this is a grand scheme of anything because I know that our son will be safer without him in the picture, and Suede Barber sounds nice.”

Andy gives a sighing chuckle as you start to get off him. “I like the way that sounds. So what do you think the babies are?”

“Healthy,” you already have one of each, so it doesn't really matter. You wanted healthy babies.

“And how is Christmas going again?” Neither of you have family in the area, so it will be Christmas at home with the kids in the morning. Just you and your little family.

“Uncle Ann is coming by for Christmas brunch, and,” you walk backwards away from Andy with a smile. Going to check on the bread.

“And? You’re being very coy and secretive,” he pulls you into him, pressing himself up against you in a not so innocent way. But the kids can be heard, and they aren’t anywhere near you. “Doe?”

“Miss Tatum couldn’t get a flight back home, and she’s alone, so she’s coming here,” Andy looks at you confused, and it’s so sweet how clueless he can be. “Ransom has a crush on her.”

“And Audrey has a crush on Ransom.”

“A bit of an oversight, but it can never happen. Ransom can, however, date this cute little teacher at Audrey’s school. He goes there to read books,” Andy shakes his head no. Oh, he really is clueless. “He’s been there three times. Once was to read How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”

“Ransom Drysdale went to a Pre-K class to read books for what reason?”

“Andy!” He is so dense right now. “He is trying to impress Miss Tatum. He wants to see her, and how else would he see her?”

“She’s a teacher,” he reminds you. Rolling your eyes you take out the Dutch oven, and smile at him. “I don’t think I’m following.”

“He wants to see her, and impress her, so he goes to her classroom, and shows that he can deal with sticky hands. And he wants to make it clear that you’re not his partner,” Andy’s face goes flat as he stares at you.

”I shouldn’t have told you that,” giggling, you pull him into you.

“I’m really glad that you did. You and Ransom make a very handsome couple,” he leans to the side, blowing a raspberry on your neck. “Make sure to invite me to the wedding.”

“Is dinner ready? I’m getting tired of your attitude. I think I should punish you later,” emphasizing his baseless threat with a swat to your bum, “Audi, Sued, dinner is ready!”

“No, it’s not!”

“You little,” playfully he grits his teeth, and nibbles on your neck. His hands squeezing your ass as Suede runs in, giving Andy’s finger a pinch. “Suedey!”

“Dada, no, my mama! Mama! Mama!”

“Come here, buddy,” you’re able to snake out of Andy’s arms, and pull your baby up, getting a stern look from Andy. “Do not tell me not to pick my son up.”

“I just want…”

“Picking up my children was not on my list of don’t’s. And I will hold them, and if I’m told I can’t, we’ll deal with that then, okay?” He gives you a nod. You know he worries about you, about the babies. He’ll help out how he can, you know that. But not being able to pick up your kids just isn’t an option for you. You need them.

“Is dinner really not ready,” he pouts at you, leaning in to give both you and Suede a kiss.

“It is. And, you know what tomorrow is!”

“SANA! Uck Ann. Peesants and baby,” his legs wiggle around, and you stare at Andy with your mouth gaping. What was that last part? You can’t bring it to Suede’s attention, or he could go blabbing to everyone else.

“You told Suede Ransom was going to be here?” Andy focuses on that part more than ‘baby’ being said.

“Uck Ann. Chess. Me yike Uck Ann. Dow, mama. Dow der,” you put him down, and take a long breath. Saying a silent prayer that Scott could find it in his heart to call his daughter. If you didn’t have Andy in Suede’s life, you would feel like a failure to him. He has someone. But how Scott could ever throw a little precious boy like Suede away is shocking to you.

But is it worse that he wants Audrey enough, but doesn’t want to call her? See her? It just didn’t make sense. Didn’t add up. You know that Andy wouldn’t do that. He would fight to see both the kids, and they weren’t born from him. You’d chosen the wrong man, and deep down, you knew it. But you got the right kids. The best kids.

Ones that are now surrounded by so many people that love them. You are making it work out here away from family. Growing a village, and everyone is happier because of it. Even though Ransom wasn’t happy about the plan for you to fade out of work, but you and Andy decided as a unit that it was best if you slowly weaned your hours down to nothing.

Ransom might not be the biggest fan of that idea, but he couldn’t argue much. You volunteered to do some work from home. Help him out as much as possible. You’d already made him change his mind about children at the office. Suede was easily entertained, and entertained himself well. You just couldn’t let his health be in someone else’s hands right now. You weren’t ready.

Now, onto Christmas Eve, and Christmas.

“Uck Ann, and yoys, and mama, and dada, and Audi, and yots a yoys, and tees, and mine dog, and…” Ransom’s eyes just keep getting larger the more that Suede jabbers about that morning. Ransom gave the morning to your family, but the moment he walked in after cleanup, Suede and Audrey attacked. They were not expecting him, nor expecting him to spend the night.

“Audi, can you translate for me?” He asks, smiling at the little boy, and giving him some rib tickles.

“He had a good Christmas,” she covers her mouth, giggling. They both did. So far, Audrey hadn’t even mentioned Scott. His loss. She very may well later. But she is too much into her feels about new toys, and decor for her bedroom, and now Uncle Ann to care. At bedtime, it was sure to be different.

“Chess. Mine yoys in for. Oo pay me,” Suede points to the wide array of toys in the living room floor. You’re just relaxed with Andy the giant chair of his, enjoying the sight. Before toys had to be strictly cleaned up and put away, and never brought out into the living room. What is the fun in that? This living room is big enough that they had a little nook for additional toys that didn’t fit in their play room.

The fireplace was on, and you soak up Christmas morning. Even more, Andy’s joy of having a Christmas he always dreamed of. The both of you sat in the floor with the kids, opening up presents with them. Then opened up boxes, added batteries, built the race track for Suede. You enjoyed the time with your kids.

“He wants you to play in the floor with us,” Audrey nods. It’s what she is wanting to. If she had it her way she’d probably spend her time sitting in his lap, and getting him to play baby dolls with her.

“Chess,” Suede does one solid nod, and points to the living room. “In der wi us.”

“Can I sit in your lap? Suede likes to get up and move too much,” he responds with a chess, still pointing in the living room. “Please?” Your little needy, sneaky girl.

“Of course,” she giggles again as Ransom carries both of them into the area with you and Andy. Such a lazy Christmas today. The kids have been in the living room with their toys all day, you’ve had a Yule log on the television, and the fireplace on, while you snuggled with Andy, watching the kids play, or playing with them.

“Hey Ran,” you smile up at him, and Andy rubs over your belly, getting an eye roll from Ransom. Apparently, he’d been ragging on Andy for being able to knock you up, while ‘Scoot’ and his limp dick couldn’t

“How the babies?” You cringe, looking up at Ransom. You hadn’t told him. The divorce is official final, but it just was never the right time.

“Mine otay. Chess. Yots a toys!” Suede answers, because he is the baby.

“What babies?” Audrey looks at you accusatory as you gawk at Ransom. “Like me and Suedey are your babies?”

“Me no babE! Me ig boy,” Suede’s brows furrow at his sister. You take a deep breath, trying to think if this is the wrong time. Christmas should be about their happiness with being kids. You’ve already signed the divorce papers. You agreed to Scott’s terms. You allowed him to belittle you over and over again to keep the peace. You deserved to have this family. And they deserved to know.

“Doe,” Andy’s voice is reassuring, and not pressuring at all. He’s always let you lead things when it comes to the children. But you want him to have say as well. He’s earned it. You gulp staring at Audrey who continues to just look at you. Miss Tatum will be coming, and Audrey is already jealous of Ransom’s attention. Would she feel like you are replacing her?

“I got a new baby doll for Christmas. And she looks real,” oh sweet girl. “Is that what you mean?” Audrey twiddles her fingers, as Suede swings his legs, silently asking for Ransom to set him down, and he does.

“I’m sorry,” he says, still holding onto your sweet girl. “I thought…”

“Audrey,” your voice cracks looking at her sweet face. The little girl that made you a mom. The one that has been so strong, and yet is still your baby. The one that calls Andy’s partner to tell him about her nightmares. She’s suffered through so much, and you don’t want this to hurt her, but you wouldn’t change it.

“Honey, Andy and I have a big surprise for you.”

“More yoys?” You shake your head no, at Suede, and he returns to his playing. He didn’t care about anything but more presents.

Audrey looks at your belly with glassy eyes. Andy’s hand is still splayed over it. She’s so smart. Too smart some days. And then her mouth turns up into the biggest smile, “Babies?” She is going to be okay.

“Uh huh. Two of them,” letting her work through the emotions, you just smile up at her.

“Twins!” She screeches, causing Ransom to grimace holding his ear, and he lowers her to the floor, and she bounds towards you. Crawling up into your lap, and kisses your neck. You melt into her touch. Hugging her back, and kissing all over her cheeks. “But daddy said you can’t have babies,” daddy shouldn’t be talking to her at all.

“But mommy can,” Andy says proudly, kissing both of you. “Mommy can have two at once.”

“NaNa my daddy,” Suede sings, connecting the magnetized blocks together. He’s taking it well. Still just worried about NaNa being his daddy. He’d eventually figure out there are babies in your belly, and then there are babies in his home.

“So Suedey is going to be a big brother!” She covers her mouth again giggling. “Can I name one?” You smile, pushing her hair back as her hand joins Andy’s on your belly. Giggling when she feels the growing bump.

“As long as it’s not Princess Peach or Bubbles,” her sweet nose scrunches up, shaking her head at Andy. “Maybe Princess Banana Hammock.”

“I was thinking Aubrey,” she says so sweetly. Something to match her.

“We don’t even know what we’re having, just that there’s three,” her hand stops right above your belly button, and both of you lock eyes for a moment. She felt it, too. Of course your sensitive girl would feel the small flutters. Or just knew that you could. Or it was all in her head. Children’s perceptions are strange.

“You’re sure? Can we put a third in there?”

“I’m sure, and two is enough” you answer. Turning towards Andy you nod your head, and he reaches over to his wallet. He digs through it before pulling out the photos of the ultrasound. “See, this is baby A, and that is baby B.”

“That is a blob. What is that?” She asks, squinting at the photos. “These are not babies. Are they going to look like that when they’re born? That’s terrifying.”

“No,” Andy chuckles, giving her another kiss to her head. “Oh,” he looks at Ransom with a smile as the doorbell rings. “Ran, can you answer the door?” He smiles, putting the photo back in his wallet. Realizing now he can have the ultrasound on display with the family photo. And soon a family photo with your bump. And then photos with all four kids.

“Is it Santa?” Audrey claps her hands, jumping up to cling to Ransom as she follows him out of the living room.

“Sanna! More yoys! Yots a yoys,” both kids run with Ransom to the front door, but you just look at Andy for a moment. Creating new traditions for Christmas. A village unfolding and hopefully no tantrums with Miss Tatum joining you for dinner. There is the couch if she wants to stay, but Ransom better give her the guest bedroom.

“That went better than I thought,” Andy yawns, and brings you practically in his lap. His hand goes up underneath the oversized sweatshirt. He didn’t have to hide anything anymore. You are carrying his babies. And he’d shout it to the moon.

“Now, let’s hope that Audrey does well with this,” you agree. Let’s hope this goes well. She did have such big changes happening.

“Miss Tatum!” Audrey screams, and two sets of feet start jumping up and down, and Ransom says absolutely nothing. “Can I show you my room?”

“Mine yoys. Mine Uck Ann. Mine mama. Mine daddy.”

“Hey, Ransom,” you know that voice. At least Ransom’s crush is reciprocated. That can be your gift to him this Christmas. “I brought a cookie box, and some fudge.”

“My Ike tookies!”

“Ands, everything is okay,” he shushes you, and gives you a chaste kiss. “I’m not sleepy,” you are. You’re very sleepy. And cozy, and comfortable.

“Say hey to Miss Tatum, I’ll offer coffee for everyone, and make hot chocolate for the kids if they want it, and we’ll play a movie. You can sleep right on here with me during the movie, okay, little deer?” You nod as you start to stand up. Better yet, let you make the coffee, he make the hot chocolate, and you get a cookie and be a cordial houseguest. Nap can come later.

Christmas just got so much sweeter.

Masterlist

Taglist: @tis-thedamn-season @marveloustaylortot @pono-pura-vida @peaches1958 @seitmai

@smile1318 @andydrysdalerogers @cjand10 @midnightramyeoncravings @kmc1989

@pandaxnienke @kmm-fluv @rogersbarber @theinheriteddutchess @buckybarnesisdaddy

@hisredheadedgoddess28 @capswife

#two good reasons #andy barber #andy barber x reader #andy barber x fem!reader #andy barber x female reader #andy barber x y/n #andy barber x you #andy barber fic #andy barber fics #andy barber fanfiction #andy barber fanfic #andy barber fanfics #defending jabo #andy barber smut #chris evans #chris evans character

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saschuv · 9 months ago

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Thinking about how sad the end to Sasuke’s story is and how his grief and anger is minimised.

Rewatching parts of Naruto and seeing Naruto declaring to sasuke to put all of his hatred onto him and that he’s the only one that can take it is actually so strange. Don’t get me wrong this isn’t hate for his character (okay maybe mild hate because he does do a lot wrong, but so do most Naruto characters and I’m not here to get into that rn). It’s just I find it kind of off… (I know people use this moment as a great sns scene and I have no hate against that ship! This is nothing to do with sns) Sasuke’s grief for his clan and deep seated anger at the village and world is beyond valid. Naruto’s declaration feels slightly entitled? I understand they were friends for a bit and went through a lot together during the short time they were a team and how sasuke is one of Naruto’s first proper connections so it’s all very important to him and so on. It’s just… this isn’t about him? He’s got nothing to do with this? I know it’s about trying to “help” sasuke who is self destructing to get revenge and justice. I’ve spoken before how this fandom compares characters’ traumas a lot and how that’s odd, including how Naruto doesn’t compare to sasuke - both had truly dreadful childhoods, I just think they’re two different traumas and whilst both lonely, are lonely in different ways and for different reasons. And also sasuke is so much more than just lonely. Naruto doesn’t understand Sasuke’s trauma and doesn’t understand his anger. The whole of team 7 disregarded his grief and trauma. At the end of the show Naruto fails to give the Uchiha any justice as hokage and sasuke is manipulated into believing he needs to “repent” and to protect the village. It’s such a sad story. I could say a lot more and this isn’t well articulated at all but anyways… if people disagree or have another interpretation I’d love to hear!

#anti konoha #sasuke did nothing wrong #pro sasuke #sasuke #sasuke uchiha #naruto #anti kakashi #anti sakura #anti naruto ending #pro uchiha #pro sasuke uchiha

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traumasurvivors · 10 months ago

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I wrote a blog post about how harmful it can be to have your emotions invalidated growing up. It's here if you want to check it out! I'll paste the text below the read more for people who don't like links, but if you're comfortable, I really appreciate getting hits on my site! It feels really validating after all the work I've put into it. I've opted to not have any ads or anything to monetize my site, so it isn't like those annoying clickbait articles.

The effects of having our emotions invalidated while we’re growing up isn’t talked about enough and it can have lasting effects. This can happen when people say things like “you don’t know real struggles” when a younger person is upset about something they’re struggling with. This might include being told “I’ll give you something to cry about” which implied that the reason you were crying then “wasn’t a big enough reason”. Other people may have had to deal with “worse” problems and so we were told to be thankful for what we had because of what other children experienced. Your feelings of sadness, frustration, disappointment or anger were still real and valid. And you were allowed those feelings.

You may have been told to “stop being so sensitive,” which taught that you weren’t tough enough. You may have also been told “it builds character” which may have made you feel that you had to find a positive lesson in every bad thing you experienced. This can also be part of how people invalidate the seriousness of abuse, and other things that happened to you that were someone else’s fault. If someone doesn’t want to take responsibility, they may minimize what happened to you. They may say it’s okay because “they didn’t mean to do it” or “they don’t know any better,” perhaps because of abuse they went through. Your feelings may be invalidated because someone wants you to “let it go.” How serious they feel it was, or the reasons it happened, are not reasons that your feelings should be ignored or disregarded. Your feelings are valid. You should never have to “let it go.”

These things that we were told, and many more, taught us that our emotions were bad and wrong. It likely felt invalidating. It may have been damaging And it probably affects how we see the emotions of others. I’ve had people say similar things to me now that I’m an adult, and I think it’s likely they do it because they were told things like these when they were younger, too. Over time, this has led to me invalidating my own feelings. I’ve told myself I should be strong and to avoid such feelings, or that the reasons for them weren’t “big enough”. I told myself that others had it worse than me, therefore I wasn’t allowed to be upset. None of these things helped me. Instead, they actually made me worse off. I bottled stuff up and then began using unhealthy coping methods to deal with the emotions. Having our emotions invalidated as we grow up can be traumatizing in its own way. It also doesn’t teach us how to effectively deal with and process our negative emotions. This can lead to people having fits of uncontrollable rage, spirals of depression and guilt, substance abuse to avoid feelings, and any number of other unhealthy reactions that can cause us more harm and prolong everything or make it worse.

Being unable to cope with my feelings was a big part of me not being able to cope with conflict in my relationships. Downplaying any “bad” thing that happened and ignoring it meant, for instance, I wouldn’t point out and deal with a small (sometimes completely unintentional) mistake. Instead, I let my feelings build without communicating about them and let my resentment build. By the time I acknowledged and spoke about my feelings, the problem was a thousand times worse than it would have been if I had dealt with it quickly. And sometimes it was too late to fix the damage done.

It’s not too late to learn and do better. You don’t have to be thankful it wasn’t “worse”. You don’t have to find a silver lining. While it’s important not to get stuck in our feelings long-term, sitting with them and feeling them and acknowledging you aren’t okay is okay! It’s okay to think something sucks or that it wasn’t fair. It’s okay to feel frustrated or sad over “small” things. Sometimes we don’t even understand why a situation or something has left us having such big feelings, and that’s okay, too! Your feelings are real and valid, even if they don’t make sense to you. And you deserve patience and compassion. Especially from yourself.

When you have negative feelings, if you find yourself minimizing them, or telling yourself why you don’t have a right to feel them, stop and try to be aware of what you’re doing. And allow yourself to feel it if you can. I've often had to remind myself that while it is uncomfortable, I can be uncomfortable and sit with my feelings. Think about if there’s a healthy response you can have to those feelings. For instance, if someone said something hurtful to you, talking to them about it might be a lot more productive than acting like you don’t care. Your feelings are valid. And invalidating them yourself is unlikely to be good for you.

Try to remember that, and try to be kind to yourself.

#my blog posts #emotions #validation #trauma

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fp-am · 4 months ago

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Ok I normally don’t write lazy oneshots in Tumblr posts but I had this idea

What if, during Green’s little evil arc, the gang just talked to Alan?

(And Green and Alan have to have a talk)

Lazy Oneshot under the cut.

*Green walks into Alan’s drawing program. It’s pretty awkward after the CG told him off. Alan is animating.*

Alan: Hey, Green.

Green (awkwardly): ..hey.

Alan: Have a seat.

*hesitantly, Green sits.*

Alan: So, you have a YouTube channel now. Is that correct?

Green: ..yeah?

Alan: That’s great! How’s it been doing?

Green (a bit surprised): It’s been really good! I’ve been gaining a lot of traction recently! I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it yet.

Alan: I see. Well, I’ve been watching your videos.

Green: Really?! They’re great, right?! I already know they are..

Alan: ..I’ve been watching your videos, and I have to say that your more recent ones are.. *he wholeheartedly chuckles, then laughs*.. they’re terrible!

Green(shocked): W-WHAT?!

Alan: Yeah! They’re bad! I can barely get through one. Too much editing, too much energy, it’s overwhelming.

Green (defensive): W-Well! That’s just you! My viewers love it! I know it! I read my comments!

Alan: Really now? Let’s go through them together then.

*Alan pulls up a tab with one of Green’s recent videos, pauses the video, and scrolls down to the comments. They appear positive.*

Green: Hah! See? They love me and the videos I put out!

Alan: Mhm. Let’s go a little further.

*as he scrolls, the comments get more negative and get more criticism”

Alan: There.

Green: Well.. there’s a reason they’re at the bottom! They’re wrong. Haters!

Alan: They’re not hating. They’re giving you feedback. Here’s a good one. Ahem.. “Green, good video, but everything seems a little off. All the extra editing is really headache inducing, and your friends seem distant. Can you please go back to real moments with your friends?”

Green: They’re just being negative to be negative.

Alan: They’re giving you advice and recommendations. I can tell, just by your attitude, that you avoid these on purpose, and that’s not a good thing to be doing.

Green: …

Alan: Not to mention, the only reason you’re doing YouTube is for the traction your videos bring in. That’s not what this job is about.

Green: Then what is it about, huh? How would you know?!

Alan: It’s about doing what you like. I would know, because I have 28 million subscribers.

Green: We- WHAT?! No you don’t! You’re lying!

*Nonchalantly, Alan pulls up his channel.*

Green: ALAN? WH- Why have you never brought this up before?!

Alan: Because I don’t feel the need to brag, which is apparently something you do a lot, according to your friends.

Green: But.. I don’t.. I’m..

Alan: Listen, Green. I get it. YouTube is exciting, don’t get me wrong, it can lead you to some pretty exciting places. But, when you start doing YouTube for the sake of fame, it loses its meaning.

A lot of YouTubers I’ve witnessed the growth of over the years have taken the route you’re going down right now. Exploiting their audiences and staff to produce cheap videos that get them views, likes, and money. That’s all this platform is to them. A way to get eyes on you. A lot of times? That leads to controversy, injury, and a terrible life.

I saw your earlier videos. They were good, Green! You put love into them. That’s the most important thing that your new videos lack. You’re trying to produce content that catches people’s attention, flashy meaningless junk that’s soulless. I would be a bad caretaker and fellow content creator if I just let you go down that route. So I have to tell you to take a step back.

In sorry for being harsh, but if I wasn’t, you wouldn’t listen. The thing is, the people that genuinely like the real content you put out will stay. The rest won’t, and that’s life. You just have to find those people.

Do you understand?

Green: I’m.. yeah. ..yeah. Thank you, Alan. And.. I’m sorry.

Alan: You’re alright. Now, go talk to your friends. I’m sure an apology is way overdue.

#alan becker #animation vs animator #ava #animation vs minecraft #avm #ava green #avm green #green influencer arc

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saras-almanac · 2 months ago

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So I wrote this post the other day about my feelings on the handling of the BuckTommy breakup (which you can read here if you want). And @parrishjeanna reblogged with a link to an article from Tim. I wrote out a reply to it but it became so long I needed to put it in a separate post because it’s over 3k and I need to put it until a readmore.

Okay so I did read that article thank you @kawaiifacesong for linking the not generating revenue clicks because I don’t like reading any articles for 9-1-1 because it’s literally all buddies who can’t ask anything about the show. (Case in point, in this particular interview, the interviewer brings up “The Couch Theory” because Buck and Eddie sit on a couch.)

So this interview was trash for many reasons but I’ll narrow it down to three for the sake of this response: Biphobic nature of the breakup and aftermath, what’s being said in interviews isn’t what we’re seeing, and Tim writes as he goes so there’s no actual plan going forward.

First: The Biphobic Nature of this breakup is still moving full swing.

The idea that Buck is “still figuring himself out” and needs to explore is insulting in so many ways—especially to myself as a bisexual lady in my 30s. Firstly, being in my 30s, the idea that you need to figure yourself out still is absolute bullshit. Yes, you can still find new things out about yourself and make some changes, but usually by this point in your life, you have a pretty decent handle on who you are as a person. Which Buck does have… and we’ve seen that? So it has to be a reference to his newly discovered and realized sexuality.

Which, AGAIN is so biphobic and plays into incredibly harmful bisexual stereotypes that bisexuals need to “explore” to figure out what or who they want. This means either they need to fuck around and make sure they’re really bisexual. OR they need to get enough experience with their same gender to then be able to have a same-gendered relationship. Both of which are insulting and harmful. This idea that Tommy couldn’t possibly be a lasting relationship because Buck just came out as bisexual is wrong. It’s fine if they didn’t want Tommy to be a long-term love interest or even an end-game love interest, but why couldn’t they have done it differently, to hopefully not play into these harmful stereotypes that are still incredibly prevalent today.

Now do I think they fully intended it to play out as biphobic as it is? Not really, but I do think that the heart of what they wanted—Buck exploring his sexuality—is inherently biphobic because of the way they have chosen to go about it. There’s a world of difference between having Tommy break up with Buck so Buck can go exploring and having OS and TM saying similar things in interviews and Tommy and Buck breaking up and Buck getting back out there and dating around. Which if they had given it just a smidge of thought, I have to hope they would have come to that same conclusion and maybe gone about it in a different way.

Second: What Tim’s saying in interviews about what’s happening on the show and in these storylines doesn’t match up to what we’re seeing

I’m going to paste the few paragraphs related to BuckTommy break up here, just to read. I have bolded what I thought was important and what I’m going to talk about after it.

“Look, I think the breakup was premature, but that was by design. For me, the story that I was trying to tell was here’s a guy, Tommy. He’s not a main character on the show. We haven’t done ‘Tommy Begins’ or something. But you do see him in the ‘Begins’ episodes, in flashbacks, and by the time he leaves in ‘Bobby Begins Again,’ he’s turned over a new leaf. He’s feeling more comfortable. He’s hanging out with the new people at the 118 once Bobby takes over, and they throw him a party and bake him a cake when he goes off to his new post. There was even a reference in Broken when Chimney calls him to do the water drop,” Minear explained. “But Tommy’s a guy who’s in a different place in his life than Buck is. And I think what Tommy realizes is exactly what he said, which is, ‘I’m not your last. I’m your first.'” Minear referenced the coffee shop scene in Season 7, where Buck asked Tommy to give them another shot and come to his sister’s wedding, as a point when Tommy thought, “Alright, this guy’s kind of great. He’s super hot and he’s sweet. And this will be nice. And I’m going to be vulnerable for this.” As the relationship grew stronger and the stakes grew higher, however, Tommy reevaluated things. “I think Tommy, in the end, understood that this was not forever — that Buck is exploring himself. He’s still figuring himself out. And even if Tommy doesn’t know it, he might sense the fact that Buck likes to jump in with both feet a little bit precipitously,” Minear mused. “So was the breakup premature? Yes. Because Tommy was put in a position where he had to be honest. And once he speaks the truth, which is, ‘I think I know where this ends, and I can’t move in with you,’ he’s kind of breaking the spell — the spell of that honeymoon. Tommy even says, ‘I didn’t see this coming either.’ I don’t think either one of them did.”

Okay, lots of things happening in this quote but ultimately there’s a massive disconnect in what TM thinks is happening or what he’s saying is happening and what is actually on screen—and that’s a huge problem. You can’t rely on interviews to explain things, it needs to be in the actual text of the episode.

I think the real crux of the issue is this: “Tommy’s a guy who’s in a different place in his life than Buck is… Tommy, in the end, understood that this was not forever… he’s kind of breaking the spell—the spell of that honeymoon.”

Let’s break this down a bit. Tommy being in a different place in his life than Buck… How? Buck has, since the pilot episode, been looking and searching for a stable romantic relationship—he’s always craved that and wanted that. Even in the breakup, he was thinking about their future and marriage and moving in with Tommy. Is that not what the next logical step of a relationship might be? So doesn’t that—regardless of whether it was premature or not—prove that Buck and Tommy are in the same place of clearly wanting a long-term, committed relationship? So if this wasn’t the case, why didn’t you show that? Show them having that disconnect or make it clear that Tommy’s dropping hints about their future and Buck is not in the same place so he’s not picking up on them at all. Because what we saw was Buck wanting and seeing a future with Tommy and Tommy basically telling him that the doesn’t actually.

“Tommy, in the end, understood that this was not forever — that Buck is exploring himself. He’s still figuring himself out.” This is my villain origin point—for real. Because this is also not what we saw! What we saw, was a Buck who was so secure in himself and his relationship, arguably for the first time on this show, that he didn’t panic or second-guess anything really. He was all-in with Tommy and enjoying himself and being with Tommy. He even said that being with Tommy makes him more comfortable with himself—aka what a lot of couples say when they’re in committed and reciprocal, healthy romantic relationships—that being with you makes me happy being me. (Paraphrasing here, but hopefully my point gets across.)

Because what is there for Buck to figure out yet? He knows he’s bisexual and incredibly into Tommy. He’s happy and content with his work life and seems pretty happy with where he’s living. His relationships with his friends and family are all as good as they usually are. So what is there for Buck to still figure out? I’m left to assume that this is again only about his sexuality, which just keeps adding more to the pile of shit that makes me feel crappy and uncomfortable with this storyline.

Also, why couldn’t Buck and Tommy last? Why is that assumed to be the correct conclusion to come to? How many high school sweethearts get together and last? How many people who don’t date until they’re in their 20s-30s find someone right away and stay together? How many people come out as queer later in life because they have found someone they click with and it just makes them see more of themselves and they stay together? Sure, this is not the case with every single person in these situations, but it’s not unheard of. To me, this just feels like the show and Tim are acting like Buck is a young, 20-year-old child and now a grown man in his 30s…

What we actually saw on our screens, was two people who genuinely seemed to enjoy each other and spending time together. That had an easy and sweet relationship, where they both felt settled and comfortable together. It’s why the weird change in 806 felt so abrupt—what do you mean these two people who had amazing communication up until that point, have not talked about their past relationships at all? I think that was done as a shortcut for the writers and TM to say, “Look, see, they’re not compatible, they can’t last because they’re not talking about anything serious.” But again, my point is: then you should have showed us that beforehand, given some foreshadow or lead up to it. Instead, they chose to blindside the audience for the “shock value” and it didn’t work. Shock value for shock value’s sake never works for the audience. They don’t want the rug to be pulled out from under them, they want to see you building something and only after it’s built can they see what you were doing the whole time.

Now, I understand that they just wanted to break them up for “story” reasons (which I have no faith is going to be anything good). While I personally hate that because I feel like there would have been much more storylines and things for Buck to be involved in and it would have opened up a lot more potential stories for the future, I get that it’s not my decision to make. But why couldn’t they actually make this make sense in the actual context of what we’d seen already? If you wanted to break them up because they’re in different places, then having Buck ask Tommy to move in could have caused more of an argument of Tommy saying that Buck doesn’t really see him and doesn’t seem to understand that Tommy has a whole life outside of Buck. O Tommy could have been the one to propose moving in together and Buck freaks out because it’s too soon—which leaves Tommy to come to the conclusion that they want different things right now and he can’t just sit around and hoping Buck will catch up because it would be too hard for him to let go of Buck later. Or have Tommy literally going to a different place—whether temporarily or permanently—and so they have to break up because Buck has a whole life here and Tommy wasn’t about to ask Buck to uproot himself for Tommy…

There’s so many other ways this breakup could have gone instead of the route they went—and they would have made much more sense contextually. Instead, they went this cheapest way possible and have Buck now acting like a child about calling Tommy, when in reality and with the growth we’d seen of Buck in the past 8 years, he would have reached out to Tommy already. At least to talk things through. The baking thing was cute for an episode and it would have been okay for longer, but I’m just sitting here wondering exactly why Buck can’t call Tommy… If it’s because he’s hurt, then they needed to say that because right now, it just seems like Buck is literally being forced to not call him but the audience isn’t really sure why.

All this brings me to my biggest point. Third: I don’t trust anything that’s being said in interviews or by TM because he doesn’t write in advance and that’s a major problem

Before we get into it let me make a disclaimer: I’m gonna need every single network and studio to start requiring all the white men who write for them to actually be getting them scripts. We cannot rely on their “genius” to make sense because these scripts—especially season 8—should have had a few more passes before what we’ve seen. The only episode so far that actually felt like a complete episode was the Halloween episode.

And if this season has taught us anything, it’s that Tim not having any real plans or anything written is actually a massive problem for this show.

Now me not believing TM is not me saying that I 100% believe Tommy is coming back (though I feel like the chances are higher now with the reaction from the GA for ABC to suggest some things or at least give a closure beat to this character and relationship) This is more, nothing that TM has said in interviews up until this point for season 8 has really actually happened on screen except for Eddie shaving his moustache… Granted, I don’t read every single article with him so I might have missed something, but I just feel like he’s got no interest in setting anything up and actually paying it off in any real way.

So many people were so excited for season 8 because it was the first season in years where we actually knew so many storylines going into 8—that weren’t told to us in interviews; they were introduced in the actual show! We had Bobby/Athena’s house hunting, HenRen fighting Ortiz and trying to get Mara back, Madney fostering Mara in HenRen’s place, Eddie dealing with Christopher leaving, and Gerrard back at the 118. Any one of those storylines would have been so amazing to really see explored and fleshed out. Instead, everything was basically settled and done by episode 4—apart from Christopher and Eddie resolution and Bobby/Athena actually moving in / building. To me, as a writer myself, that decision to rush though those other stories was a massive massive misstep. There was so much there to explore and delve into that could have been so satisfying to watch and really reap the emotional payoff.

Instead, we had like 2-4 minutes max of processing HenRen not being able to see Mara again before they were all reunited. Not that I wanted to see HenRen struggling again in this way, but it would have been different and they could have put some humor into it with Karen suggesting they tail Ortiz and try to find things out about her—or Hen comes back from a shift to find Karen has stayed up for 38 hours tracking every single facebook post from Ortiz and her family to try and find something they could use and she’s the one who uncovered the link between Ortiz and Gerrard, which then promts Hen to ask Buck as Gerrard’s specialist boy to ask for a favor or try to convince Gerrard to help them deal with Ortiz.

And Maddie and Chimney having Mara would have been so interesting to see them actually having conversations about what they want for their family going forward—do they want more kids, do they not? Are they wanting to try naturally or adoption? And then Mara being with Chimeny could have also added another layer of tension between Hen and Chimney with Hen being jealous that Chimney is raising her daughter.

I mean Eddie… the fact that it took 8 episodes (basically) for him to actually acknowledge that he needs to do something to be a part of his son’s life is a major problem as well. It makes me not want to root for Eddie to reconcile with Chris because he has shown hardly any initiative in actually confronting what he did and the actual reason why Chris is so upset and feels betrayed. There was a little in 6, but that’s sort of it.

Bobby and Athena, they just don’t seem to know what to do with them anymore. And that’s a shame because there are so many things they could do—namely my favorite thing which is give them more comedy to do! They are so funny together (cruise ship is one of my favorite things). Or they could have had the first few episodes be them sort of couch surfing through the firefam and be a fun little runner of “we really need to figure out what we’re doing.” Even their storyline of their house burning just doesn’t seem to be a thing anymore.

Buck, it would have been so amazing to see him dealing with the work stuff more and having Tommy to lean on, to see Buck who’s been pretty secure in his work for the past few seasons now dealing with Bobby being gone and Gerrard there, just really gets him thinking about the future. Or even the comment about budget cuts, why was that never brought up again? That would have been so interesting to lead up to the midseason finale, which of the 118 is going to get laid off? And Buck being in such a secure spot maybe he volunteers because he wants to explore something outside of firefighting and/or because everyone else has kids and a family and he knows it’s easier for him to not have a job? And then he’s saying his goodbyes and the midseason act out is Bobby announcing that Eddie is going to be leaving them instead.

Instead of really exploring any of that, it’s all been rushed through to move on to the next thing, but the honest truth is: I don’t trust what TM’s great next thing is because he absolutely squandered all the potential he had going into season 8. So all these “amazing things” he has going forward I just don’t trust they’re going to happen or even be slightly interesting. Instead, I assume they’re going to be something that’s like an episode opening and then never mentioned again if they do happen.

I just don’t understand what is going on in his head other than ego right now and I’m just… I deal with too many egos in my life to deal with another one like this.

#didn't expect this to end up as long as it is but i guess i had a lot to say and honestly still have a lot to say but mentally need a break #but this has just made me want to get back into actually writing and maybe writing my own version of season 8 #one day I'll move on but it took me months to get over magicians and this is bringing those feelings back a bit #bucktommy #911 critical #911 season 8

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narcpixiedreamboy · 11 months ago

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Okay I’d like anyone that sees this to blind react and put a finger down for each thing in this list you relate to. There are 9 things. You can comment your score publicly or keep it private, up to you, but I think this might be interesting for some people. Here’s the list:

-Do you tend to take criticism too personally, or gotten unreasonably defensive when someone points out a mistake you made? Do you hate admitting you’ve done something wrong?

-Do you like to daydream about doing something amazing (such as saving people from a burning building, being the one to win your team the game, being an amazing actor in a movie, etc.) and having people recognize you for the great thing you did?

-Do you place in importance on being associated with important or high status things, like trying to date/be friends with the coolest kids in your classes, or choosing to go to a prestigious university over a common state school?

-Do you tell people about things you’ve done specifically to get praise for it? Such as telling your friends about the A you got on that really hard math test, or pointing out your cool new hairstyle, or the drawing you did that you think looks really cool, specifically so that they will compliment you for it?

-Do you feel comfortable prioritizing yourself and what you want/need over other people?

-Have you ever diminished your accomplishments, or been purposefully self-deprecating so that the person will reassure you (i.e. “You’re such a good artist!” “Oh no I’m really not, anyone could do what I do” “No really, your art is amazing!”)?

-Do you find it hard to genuinely care about other people’s problems?

 -Do you get jealous easily if, let’s say at a party, your friend is getting more attention than you?

-Have you ever felt secretly happy that someone around you failed or did worse on something than you did? Like maybe you didn’t want your friend to fail their math test, but them failing it did you make you feel a little extra good and proud about the non-failing grade you got on it.

(Scroll for explanation for spoiler reasons)

So what that list was a rewriting of the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for narcissistic personality disorder, where for each section I filled in one of the ways I actually feel that part of the criteria. So instead of “grandiose sense of self”, I said “bad at taking criticism”, because that’s one of the ways my grandiose sense of self actually presents. If this was the original diagnostic criteria, you would need 5 of 9 to be diagnosed with NPD.

The reason I asked you all to count how many you relate to is that I have seen a lot of egotypicals do this exact same stuff. My goal is to help someone possibly unfamiliar with NPD understand that people with NPD are not the foreign, subhuman monsters that we are so often represented as, but rather people who feel some normal human traits too much.

(Also please don’t use this alone to self-diagnose, it was not made for that)

(Also also, thank you to the people in the reblogs for letting me know I could’ve used the read more feature. I am new to tumblr so tips on how to use it are appreciated)

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lurkinggirlie · 10 months ago

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Elain & Azriel are EndGame

Azriel’s bonus chapter: semi-essay on my thoughts

This post will be a long one. The shipwar has been going on for far too long, and there's a possiblity that we'll be getting closure soon. So, I want to put my thoughts out there. For Obvious reasons, I could be very wrong, but this is what I think based on canon text: (Ignore any errors..I haven't edited this, and I'm sure there are many posts like this that are way more articulate)

Elriel are endgame. If they’re not then Azriel is kinda pathetic and having him end-up with anyone else is bad writing and character assassination. (Which we sadly won’t put past sjm but I don’t think she would..at least I hope)

1- Elain has no other love interest. Yes, Lucien is her mate but we have hinted at a broken/rejected mating bond for the longest time when it comes to these two so having them accept it eventually is going to be quite underwhelming, repetitive and boring. Even Lucien seems to have given up/isn’t interested in bridging that gap between them, which we’re told in both acofas and acosf. Unless you want to count the longing pointed out by Cassian, although Cassian also pointed out that Lucien was also uncomfortable when he mentioned his mate. To add on, there is no sexual tension between the two, and we know how important that is for sjm’s couple. You can't keep whining "but Elain isn't giving him a chance, if only she gave him a chance, then maybe this and maybe that" Elain is not a seprate entity, she is what SJM writes, Sjm could have written that but she did not yet and I'm not sure if she will. It feels too late at this point, she had already shown us that Elain has feelings for someone else aka Azriel. The author doesn't have to spell everything out for us to understand to what's going on. Sarah usually makes it clear who's endgame. and she literally is. So, it would be very sudden and out of the blue if Lucien and Elain were to end up together when she had never shown it before. When even Azriel pointed this out “I think Lucien will never be good enough for her, and she has no interest in him, anyway” people can say Rhys killed elriel, that the bonus chapter ended them. But this line right here tells us otherwise! First we know Azriel and Elain can read each other so well that they don’t need words, and then Azriel tells us this. He’s literally telling us that Elain does not want Lucien.

We also cannot compare elucien to Feysand or Nessian in the “enemies to lovers" department, because these two seem to hardly care about each other. For obvious reasons she wouldn’t accept or reject Lucien in a book that isn’t hers. But if they do end up together I’d feel robbed that she had more sexual tension with Azriel than she did with Lucien. And we know that Nessian and Feysand had sexual tension before getting together. Most of what we got from Elain and Lucien was awkwardness, and discomfort. Not a single spark. Furthermore, it would feel like Azriel was just leading Elain own. Plus their romance (Lucien and Elain) would not feel organic, only getting with Lucien because she felt rejected by Azriel, which doesn’t give epic romance no matter how sjm tries to spin it. It would always make Lucien seem like the second choice.

2- Azriel regifting the necklace was a dickhead move, and offensive to both girls. Anyone thinking the regifting of the necklace ended elriel or started gwynriel is delusional and clearly doesn’t know how the romance genre works. (should’ve thrown the gift in the Sidra like Cassain did) I can’t believe Rhys isn’t paying Azriel enough that he felt the need to return the necklace to the shop instead of throwing it. Senstive Illyrian baby indeed.

3- Rhys saying stay away from Elain (can we take a moment to appreciate how sexy Rhys was for pulling rank, he really made the ship more interesting now) and Azriel actually listening to him?? When he told him you can’t order me to do that. shit would be underwhelming if Azriel actually stayed away? Hello? Secret relationship potential ? Hello? Forbidden romance potential ??? The tropes would be epic. Sjm had never done that. And I’m not saying she will, but this is how I see it playing out. + Azriel saying it was a mistake to Elain, and Elain apologizing?? The fact she was confused/hurt and probably thought she misunderstood the whole situation? SHE IS BABYGIRL?? Regardless, Azriel saying it was a mistake and it being a mistake is NOT it. This is not how romance works most of the time. This is such a basic romantic trope, why are a lot of people misinterepting it? Elain deserves better, and sjm isn’t about to hurt Elain’s feelings without making it up to her. And she’s definitely not making Azriel end up with another girl before he fixes that shit. I will be needing a proper apology to Elain.

4- Whenever people think of the bonus chapter they weigh in Azriel’s feelings far more than Elain’s. It’s clear that Elain and Azriel’s feelings are MUTUAL, ignore the bonus chapter and it’s right there in the actual book. I don’t think Elain got the memo that Azriel had a conversation with another girl after he hurt her feelings which made him realize he’s in love all of a sudden. *sarcasm* that would be very out of character for Azriel.

5- His chest sparkling at the thought of Gwyn getting the necklace was so??? I have been saying he’s for the streets and yes this was out of pocket. So, I understand people shipping them. However it could mean anything really, you can't continue saying that Gwyn in the bonus has to mean something, and that that spark must mean somethig but continue to disreagrd every single Elriel interaction like they mean nothing. Because for it to be taken as romance we’d have to ignore the beginning of the bonus, the feysand’s bonus acosf/acomaf/acowar and acofas. + we could easily take this in a platonic way, which is how I viewed it when I read the bonus. Not everything has to be romantic. And sjm will NOT introduce a new guy to make him end up with Elain since we already established Elain doesn’t want Lucien and Lucien doesn’t want her either.

6- I know that a lot of people have theories about Gwyn being a lightsinger and all of this happening because of her powers (While I do think this is very smart, it wasn’t something I thought of so I won’t talk about it). I do think it’s possible, and all the theories I saw were really cool but idk where sjm is going with this, so to make it simple I do think it could be because she’s his student, she went through a lot it could simply be platonic happiness that a girl who went through so much is going to be happy about something. Even if it was a secondhand necklace specifically picked with ANOTHER girl in mind PLUS I do think sjm wanted drama, and for people to doubt elriel cuz now they have all these obstacles, so Gwyn would be the easy choice, but the second choice regardless. The relationship would feel icky and I genuinely cannot see the potential gwynriels keep talking about. I would take the ship a lot more seriously if a) he didn’t regift her another girl’s necklace b) there was more to them in the actual book. c) he wasn’t still upset about it 3 days later…

7- There’s a high possibility Gwyn never even got the necklace..

He gave it to Clotho not Gwyn, he didn’t want his name mentioned, and then said if any other girl would like it to give it to them: the aim was to get rid of Elain’s necklace. It’s sort of a parallel with Cassain throwing away Nesta’s present.

I think it’s possible that Azriel went there because he knows how much the girls in the library have suffered, especially since his mom did too, it's possible he thought "okay this is a pretty necklace, I don't want to hold onto the reminder of what could've been, so instead of throwing it let another girl be happy about it. At least it won’t go to waste”

Clotho could tell there was something wrong, like maybe she sensed the energy and decided ayeee let me keep this aside for him, he might come back and ask for it.

The bonus did not happen at the end of the book

If Azriel was truly in love with Gwyn now /or he wanted her/ or more between them was going to happen/ or they were mates according to some theories we could have AT LEAST gotten more after the bonus.

We know the bonus happened after solstice.

Nesta mentions that Azriel was stone-faced and more aloof than usual, he wouldn’t even give her a smile. That was 3 days after the necklace situation. I think it would’ve been a great opportunity to highlight any attraction between Azriel and Gwyn.

Maybe he sees the necklace around her neck, maybe Nesta and Emerie compliment Gwyn’s necklace, or Gwyn telling them she doesn’t know who it’s from, maybe they tease her that someone might have a crush on her. Nesta could’ve pointed out that Azriel was looking at Gwyn’s necklace.or looking at Gwyn in some sort of way. Literally anything.

Anyone pointing out the way Azriel and Gwyn looked at each other. A charged glance perhaps. Literally ANYTHING. We only got him looking at her with admiration which is very teacher coded.

If sjm hadn’t made Nesta realize Azriel had a thing for Elain then maybe gwnyriel would’ve been more appealing to me. But no, Nesta noticed. This doesn’t mean nothing people.

aside from that we got nothing romantic, but a part of the fandom still acts like we need to exile Elain because she’s coming between Gwyn and Azriel’s epic love story.

Not everyone has access to the bonus.

The Azriel chapter was only in ONE store in the US, but Feysand’s bonus chapter was in 3 stores in the US and UK. I don't know but something tells me it’s more important. Soooo if SJM would do a love interest switch she would not do it in a bonus chapter, and wouldn’t be highlighting the Az/Elain interactions in ACOSF as much as she did.

Feyre’s chapter focuses on Elain, it literally tells us Elain is next once we’re done helping Nesta. EASY MATH. and the Azriel bonus also focuses on elriel/Azriel’s feelings. ENDGAME MATERIAL RIGHT HERE.

But the girls swear up and down that Gwyn and Azriel’s book is next because of a secondhand necklace.

Let’s assume elriels are the delusional ones (like so many of them say), how do we explain these.

Casual readers who usually read books and aren’t on the internet and aren’t looking for bonus content (wish that was me) (lord knows I skipped every bonus chapter in throne of glass and crescent city and I wasn’t confused about anything. Not even once) so they’d expect answers for

The Charged glance between Azriel and Elain

Azriel following the sound of Elain’s laughter.

Elain looking away when Azriel smiled at her during family dinner, Cassian god bless him that idiot could NOT piece all of that together. BUT it was still highlighted through his POV ???

His secret to tell never hers (and we do learn of that secret in the bonus but people who didn’t read it could only guess so they’d want a confirmation) and sjm did say in one of her lives that Nesta learns of one of Azriel’s secrets (she looked all giddy about it)... and that Azriel is going through some shit right now…and we learn why from the bonus chapter.

Cassian being confused that it seems like Azriel moved on from Mor

Nesta pointing out that Elain moved on from Graysen

Cassian wondering why Elain is lying about where she’s going. (I viewed this as her avoiding Azriel but idk)

Azriel’s protectiveness of Elain. He gives mate behavior without the mate part. (I will hit him on the head though omg let my girl do something)

Elain willing to look for the troves even when Nesta wasn’t, the girl wants to do something (her journey is coming next)

Nesta wondering if Elain is training with Azriel or the twins (who are spies that were trained by Azriel !!!)

Feyre telling Azriel that Elain got him beat for secret keeping. Sure it might sound delusional but Elain keeps being compared to Az/being a spy and maybe this could be a thing.

Elain speaking back to her sisters about them treating her like a child?? Hello finally

The way Elain’s mother only treated her like a pretty doll which shaped up Elain’s whole life??? I want this from Elain’s POV sooo bad

In conclusion, we’re not pausing Elain’s story so Azriel can end up with a side character in a spinoff about an og side character, we’re sticking to our og side characters for now.

Azriel being over Mor because of Elain, and Elain moving on from Graysen because of Azriel only for Elain to get over Azriel to be with Lucien (who we got nothing from aside a mating bond..) and for Az to get over Elain and questioning fate for her…only to end up with gwyn…like I don’t think anyone could take Azriel’s feelings seriously if this happens. Shit will be too goofy. Because if he ends up with Gwyn who says he won’t move on to the next pretty girl he sees afterwards.

To add to that, what plot would we have for Azriel and Gwyn. We'll get more Valkyries training, more healing journey so the plot would have to be paused for this. Nesta’s book was mostly about her healing journey and friendship, while it was nice I don’t want a repeat for the next book. Especially since we know the Rite took a toll on Gwyn, she went back to the library, wasn’t even sure she would make it to Nessian’s mating ceremony. This doesn’t give the protagonist of the next book to me. Or "I thought it was pretty obvious"

Elain’s healing journey had started in ACOWAR, she got her friends in ACOWAR. Now is their TIME to do something!! She is next.

Closing thoughts on what I think would happen based off each ship happening:

If elriel happens = new sjm couple dynamic/interesting plot. Fresh sjm protagonist that is unlike sjm's others + we don’t ignore all the foreshadowing and hints. We follow the love triangle we set up in the og trilogy + finally get a rejected mating bond. And instead of warrior training we might get spy training and instead of physical power (as far as we know) we get something more mental. Again this is very new for sjm + there’s a lot to Elain’s power that we don’t know and since Azriel was the one who found out what she was, I think it would make more sense for him to know how to help her. Imagine the sexual tension during training..yes please. I hope sjm doesn’t rob me. Elain is really mysterious, we got Nesta’s inner thoughts before her book but we still haven't gotten a peep about Elain’s inner thoughts and I’m just dying to know more. AND THE STAKES!

1) Rhys forbidding Azriel from Elain, 2) Elain’s mating bond,3) Azriel’s self doubt and how he doesn’t think he’s good enough. 4) The blood duel and the political mess we could get into. (Lucien probs won't but what if Beron would, the breeding potential, A seer must be a powerful thing she can see things others can't and I think that’s valuable. If Eris thought Nesta was valuable as cauldron made and there was no potential there, so The Autumn court probably feels even more entitled to Elain) We have high inner and outer stakes. I have a feeling SJM will fumble all this potential but a girl can dream

If elucien happens = another successful mating bond + “enemies” to lovers sort of but they won’t ever be mean to each other so maybe not enemies, just dislike and awkwardness to friends to lovers? We ignore the hints about a rejected bond and in mating bonds we trust. We also ignore all the elriel hints, and their mutual feelings. We follow the love triangle set up in the og trilogy. I don’t think Lucien could train her in anything? Maybe self defense, Idk Sarah could pull something, but I don’t see Elain leaving her circle of friends but neither do I see Lucien settling in the night court and leaving his own friends. There are no stakes but Elain’s and Lucien’s awkwardness around each other + Elain’s feelings for Azriel. Elain’s and Lucien’s plot connects though so at least there’s that, SJM could ship them off on a mission together and make them get closer. Forced proximity sort of thing.

If gwynriel happens then = we lost the whole plot, ignored the foreshadowing and hints found in the actual book. Mentor to lovers, civil with each other. Azriel has to move on from Elain first though and that could be icky. Healing journey, more Valkyries training. So we pick up from where we left off in acosf, and we’d see Azriel trying to get her to come out of the Library, or he goes to visit her there until she agrees to come out again. Maybe if Gwyn is a lightsinger then idk more training with Azriel? Again, no stakes but Gwyn’s trauma and Azriel’s self doubt oh and also his feelings for Elain. But that’s it, Gwyn as of now does not connect to the overall plot with the troves (she’s not made therefore she can’t use them) or koschei. So I don’t see us making her go on a mission like that. I’ve seen a lot of gwynriles saying Gwyn has spy potential idk where, but she could barely keep a secret for Nesta so I highly doubt she’d be keeping secrets for the IC.

Ps: the original koschei plot is 3 sisters marrying 3 very powerful wizards and like idk 3 sisters 3 brothers…we can have a retelling ya know

#elriel #pro elain #azriel shadowsinger #acotar #a court of thorns and roses #Azriel's bonus #anti g*ynriel #anti el*cien #elain archeron #acofas #acosf

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