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faofinn · 1 year ago

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13. Anxious Stomach

Kieran had been at university for all of six months before his life exploded and erupted around them. He'd settled in well, secretly glad Alfie had come with him even though they were on different courses. He found a girlfriend surprisingly quickly, Alfie teasing him as it moved faster. They were on the same course, so it made sense for them to study together, and they couldn't study on empty stomachs.

If Kieran wasn't with Alfie, then he was with Kizzy, and it had become the most natural thing. She met the family, and they loved her. She brought Kieran out of his shell, made him happier than he'd ever been. Of course, it was early days, only months into their relationship, but Kieran couldn't help but dream.

And then everything changed.

They'd been careful, used protection, done everything right, but somehow there it was.

Two lines.

Positive.

She'd taken another, but it was the same. Positive. They'd gone to the doctors together, discussed their options, Kieran acting older than he was. Whatever happened, it was as much his responsibility as it was Kizzy's, and he'd accepted it. Somehow, she'd missed it, her body concealing it, acting as normal, and the doctor dropped the bombshell she was already at least twelve weeks. They decided against making any decisions until they'd had the scan, and then they heard the heartbeat.

Neither wanted to admit it to their parents, so took the weekend to try and digest it themselves. Kieran couldn't stop looking at the scan, his mind reeling. That was a baby. His baby.

He'd left the sonogram on his desk while he made a cup of tea, peppermint to settle his stomach, like his Uncle Fao always told them. Him and Alfie were going back for the week on Monday, and he'd been trying to build up the courage to tell his dads. The stress had kept him up, tossing and turning with butterflies in his stomach. He headed back to his room with his mug in hand, pushing open the dorm room and coming face to face with Alfie. Holding the sonogram. Shit.

"Uh, Kieran? Want to explain?"

He froze, mouth agape as he stared at his brother. He didn't know what to say, how to say it. He'd not had enough time to plan, to work out what he wanted to say.

“You can’t be serious, Kieran. Say something.”

"We're gonna keep it." He managed.

“It’s yours?!”

He nodded, sitting heavily on his bed. "We used protection. She didn't know. We just…we just found out. She's three months."

“What the fuck? I didn’t think it was yours, I thought it was a joke or someone’s sibling or something. Fucking hell.”

"Yeah." He finally looked at Alfie. "Yeah."

“You’re gonna keep it? We live in halls for fucks sake.” His mind was reeling.

"We've got six months."

“What about uni?”

"I'll have to drop out, I guess. I'll have to find a job. I don't know."

He softened, sitting next to his brother and putting his arm around him. “You’ll work it out. Guess you’ve not told Dads yet.”

He gratefully leaned into him. "We found out on Tuesday, had the scan yesterday. Everything's just happening."

“Jeez, that is quick.” He sympathised.

"She didn't even know. Everything was…happening normally." He shrugged.

“At least you guys found out now.”

"I don't know how I'm meant to tell Dads."

“You just have to be honest.”

"They're gonna kill me."

“Nah, they love you.”

He groaned. "Oh, I feel sick."

“Hey, breathe.”

"How am I supposed to breathe? They're gonna kill me, oh, fuck. I can't do this."

“Kieran, look at me.” Alfie said softly. “They’re not gonna kill you. Why would they?”

He turned to look at his twin, his eyes wild. "Why wouldn't they? I got someone pregnant. I'm gonna be a dad."

“Dad’s made some shit choices in his life, you think he’s gonna judge you?”

"I just don't understand. We used protection! She takes a tablet. It's not meant to happen!"

Alfie shrugged. “Sometimes it just does.”

"I can't do this."

“You’ll have me, y’know? Even if Dads lose it, which they won’t, you’ll have me. And Eden, he doesn’t have a choice.”

"What about the rest of the family? Grandad Steve is gonna be so disappointed. And grandad Fred, I don’t even want to imagine what he’s gonna think."

“Kieran, Grandad Steve looked after Dad, he won’t care. And uncle Finn was young when he had Meelie.”

"Not this young."

“It’ll be okay.”

"Kiz hasn't told anyone either."

“Then you’re both at the same spot. It’ll be fine, I can be there with you when you tell Dads.”

"Thank you."

“I’ve got your back.”

He pulled Alfie in for a hug. "Thank you."

“You know I’d do anything for you.” He said, holding him tightly.

When Monday rolled around, Alfie was true to his word. Kieran still hasn't worked up the courage to do it, but he knew he didn't have a choice. As much as he loved his little brother, he just wanted to tell his dads first. Thankfully, Alfie got the hint quickly, distracting Levi and taking him upstairs while their dads sat in the living room. Kieran felt sick, his stomach long passed feeling anxious. Even Tai had asked if he was alright, apparently looking that nauseous on the way home. He knew if he didn't just do it, he never would, so pushed the living room door open, closing it softly behind him.

"Dads?" His voice wavered, his hands trembling in his pocket as he tried to breathe.

Tai looked up at his son, frowning. “What’s wrong, Kit?”

"I need to tell you something." He sat on the sofa opposite, staring hard at the floor.

"You know you can tell us anything." Harrison said softly.

“Anything.” Tai echoed. “It’s alright.”

"You know Kizzy?"

“Yeah, of course.” Tai said with a smile.

He took a shaky breath. "We were careful and I don't know what happened but she's pregnant and she's three months and we want to keep it and I know you're gonna hate me and be mad at me, but we were careful and I was careful and I'm sorry."

“Hey, hey. Slow down.” Tai said, leaning forwards. “She’s pregnant?”

He nodded. "I'm sorry."

Tai was quiet for a moment, glancing at his husband. “That’s… that’s big, Kit.” He said softly. “What are you going to do?”

"She wants - we want to keep it."

“How far along?”

"Three months." His voice wavered again. "We only found out on Tuesday."

“Oh, Kit.”

Harrison had been silent throughout, his mind reeling. Tai looked to him, but he couldn't say anything. He stood, quickly leaving and heading outside. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think. After everything Steve had done for him, he'd still ended up doing what he'd feared; he'd ruined the kids' lives. They wanted to keep the kid, he couldn't blame him for that, so they'd support him, of course they would. He dropped his head to his hands, feeling like a scared kid again. Tai was busy inside (apparently handling it a lot better than he was), but he needed to talk to someone, anyone. He fumbled for his phone, quickly pressing Dad.

Steve picked up quickly, as he so often did when his son rang him out of the blue.

“Harrison?”

"Kieran's pregnant."

“That’s, uh, not what I was expecting to hear.”

"What do I do?"

“What have you said to him?”

"I haven't."

“What do you mean you haven’t?”

"I couldn't. I didn't know what to say."

“You didn’t say anything?! Harrison.”

He groaned. "I know, I know. I didn't want to say the wrong thing."

“So you said nothing?!”

"Yeah."

“Fucking hell, Harrison.”

"What am I supposed to do?"

“Say something, anything? Tell him you love him, for Christ’s sake!”

"He knows that."

“Not right now he doesn’t.”

He made a pained noise. "He does."

“He’s just dropped a huge piece of news on you and you’ve walked out. He’s probably shitting himself.”

"Oh, fuck. I've fucked up."

“Go back, tell him you love him, and that you’ll support him.”

"He knows we would." He said. "Doesn't he?"

“He doesn’t, not now.”

The pain was obvious in his words. "I've fucked up. I've fucked up so much."

“Go and tell him you love him, Hars. The rest will work itself out.”

"It will?"

“It always does.”

"Thanks, dad."

“You know I love you too, right?”

"Even though I've fucked all this up?"

“It was a silly mistake you made in shock.” Steve reassured. “I’ll always love you, no matter what. I’m your dad.”

He gave a shaky laugh. "That's what I should have said to him."

“Go on, go and tell him that now. And tell him if his idiot Dad does that again, he’s more than welcome at mine.”

"Thanks, dad. I'll call you later, yeah?"

“Yeah, let me know how it goes.”

"Will do." He murmured, hanging up. He took a moment to build his confidence before heading back in. The living room door was shut, and he knocked quietly before entering.

Tai shot Harrison a less than impressed look as he walked in, Kieran now sat next to him on the sofa. He looked wide eyed and worried as his dad entered, afraid of what he might say.

“See, I told you he’d come back, didn’t I?” Tai tried to reassure, though he was fully prepared to take Kieran’s side if things went south.

Harrison cleared his throat, a blush across his cheeks. "Kit? C'mere."

Kieran glanced at Tai for reassurance before he stood, padding closer to his dad. He couldn’t look at him, eyes fixed on the floor. “‘M sorry.”

"No." Harrison bundled him in for a hug, squeezing him tightly. "God, no. You're not supposed to be sorry. I'm sorry. I panicked, and I didn't want to say the wrong thing and hurt you. I fucked that up, didn't I? I love you, Kit. Whatever happens, whatever you need, I'll be right there. I love you."

Against his Dad’s chest, Kieran dissolved into tears, the stress from the past week and more just overwhelming him. “I… I th-thought you were r-really mad…”

Harrison found himself crying too, refusing to let his son go. "God, no. I'm not mad, I promise you. I'm so sorry I made you think that."

He sniffed. “You’re not mad?”

"I'm not mad." He promised, pulling back to look at him. "I'm proud of you, I am. And I'm really ? that you could tell us. I'm just sorry I panicked a bit."

“Shouldn’t be proud.”

Hands on Kieran's shoulders, Harrison swallowed thickly. "I'm always going to be proud."

He sniffed again. “‘M sorry.”

He pulled him back in for a hug. "Please don't be sorry."

“I am, though.”

"I know, I know."

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absolutesort · 2 years ago

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FRANKIE & MALI — DAY TWENTY-EIGHT.

location : day beds. time : mid-day.

featuring : mali @inquixotic

mali wattapohn.

"darling, you must tell me everything i've missed up until now." her voice is saccharine sweet, as if they've been friends for ages and hadn't only met an hour ago. "now, i know you are practically moved in with callie already, and i don't want to split up anything good," they smile sweetly. "who do you think needs the attention the most?"

𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐚 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨.

everything. that's kind of a loaded question. "uh..." frankie pauses, attempting to remember further back than what she ate for breakfast ( pancakes and a protein shake ). "i mean... i'm not sure how much help i can be. this is my fifth day in the villa, and i'm not even in the villa, so..." she sips on the straw of her water bottle, rolling onto her side to look at mali. is she really gonna ask her who to graft? isn't that supposed to be their job? "i think you should go for josh. him and jenny are not solid. maddox is an easy option, because he's in a friendship couple. marcus and romi aren't really solid either." if you could call seeing your ex fuck someone else in the kitchen like, the same day they broke up with you as not really solid. "and i can vouch that he's a good kisser."

mali wattapohn.

"yes, but so much has happened in those five days," they press, widening her eyes until they resemble the 🥺 emoji. "just look at you and callie, i mean..." a wistful sigh, as if that's something she'd genuinely want for herself. to mali, they feel a little vanilla. they nod along with her assessment, humming thoughtfully. she's had that pegged, too, but it's good to hear confirmation from someone who's actually been in the villa with them, too. "you can? color me intrigued." she sits forward with interest, completely pulling her sunglasses off her head to tossle her hair. "marcus seems like such a sweetheart, too. i'm sure everyone's got their eye on him. was that during one of the little party games?" she asks innocently, chattering away a mile a minute, ever so casually checking frankie out. "they just look so fun. lovely way to figure out who's your type when everyone is so gorgeous, right?"

𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐚 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨.

she pointedly avoids the question, or rather statement, about her and callie. all she needs is another bombshell poking in their head into her relationship, looking for the cracks. "yeah, it was during a game. he was quite handsy, which i like. obviously, i'm way into callie, but things aren't like, super locked down so i probably would've ended up kissing him at some point anyway," she admits, despite vehemently denying it to naomi just yesterday. still, admitting that you would kiss someone and actually kissing them is a big difference. "we're on love island, and if there's chemistry and you're feeling it, you just kinda have to go with it, y'know?" she can't really work mali out yet. she's not even sure if that's actually her name. introductions happened so fast, and now frankie's still playing catch up. "oh, they're super fun. no stakes making out, exactly my kinda party. feels like being in college." or at least, the experience of college her friends had. frankie never got to go. "okay, who are your top three, right off the bat, if you had to make out with someone right now?"

mali wattapohn.

"is he now?" now that's a fun tidbit, that she'll have to file away for later. "well, he probably just moved a spot up on my list, then," she laughs, before cutting it a little short, looking with some wide eyed concern at frankie. "so long as that is not overstepping, you know. if you're interested in him, i can focus on maddox and josh instead." her shrug is easy, as if she really would drop him like that. "absolutely agreed. i think the most important thing is you follow your gut, of course, but that you're with someone who makes you feel good. physically and emotionally, too." her top three makes her pause, stretching out as she thinks that through, her smile feline in nature. "off the bat, i'd say marcus, maddox, and...josh?" there's a question in her voice, her gaze moving back to frankie with a teasing smile. "unless this is an invitation, of course, and then you're obviously number one."

𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐚 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨.

tongue sliding over her teeth, she attempts to remember the night of the party, where they'd kissed, twice she thinks, in games that felt a little too real. "it was just after romi fucked maddox, so he was kinda going for it." frankie smirks, somehow rendered girlish by this cutesy conversation about boys despite herself. "no, no. don't be silly!" she's quick to deflect, waving mali's concerns off with a bat of her hand. "if you wanna go for marcus, you jump straight on him. catch that dick, girl." she's pretty sure mali would anyway. these bombshells mean business ; they've been picked specifically because they've got game. "i'm so not in the business of telling someone not to graft. we're all here for one thing, and you've gotta test shit out to see what sticks, you know?" or at least, that's frankie's persepective on the situation — though she'd be lying if she claimed she didn't wish she was sharing a bed with callie tonight. frankie zones out a little when the usual answers come to mind, though her ears perk up like a little dog at the comment tagged on the end. "you go for girls? that's hot. for some reason, i didn't peg you as a card-carrying bisexual. maybe because you're not wearing the badge." her jokes could use a little work. at least callie has the decency to laugh at them.

mali wattapohn.

"oh, right. that sure was something to watch," she chuckles, a little uncertain about how that had actually played out in the villa. getting only the highlights from the episode felt a little weird. "well, i hope he's brought that same kind of energy to this. he's too gorgeous to be single for long, you know?" mali gives a broad grin at her assuring her not to worry about her if she wants to graft, and she flips her sunglasses to the top of her head. "ugh, i'm so happy to hear you say that. i felt a little like everyone would be on edge, so i've been trying to be careful, you know, and that's just simply not my style." she gives graceful shrug of her shoulders. "i just want something fun for once, like easy." frankie's joke pulls a chuckle out of her, though not necessarily any surprise. most people didn't think she was gay in the slightest, due to their extremely feminine nature. "left it at home, actually," she returns, with a sweet smile. "i usually just say queer, for simplicity. it explains my gender and my attraction, you know? i do have a soft spot for strong women, though, not sure anyone can resist."

𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐚 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨.

“marcus is gorgeous.” at this point, frankie’s a bit sick of hearing it— not because she’s not happy for him, he deserves all the attention he’s getting — but because with every new islander she talks to, it’s the same old tune. yeah, marcus is great. next? at mali’s suggestion that she’s on edge, frankie’s already shaking her head, attempting to reassure her that they’re not all gonna be cunts about it. “nah, dude. don’t even sweat it. you gotta do your thing, and if they don’t like it, that’s a them problem. they’d be an idiot to not find you hitting on them flattering.” even if they’re not exactly thriving at the idea of sharing a bed with a bombshell, some stranger all up in your grill. “our time here is short. the only thing being careful guarantees is a plane ticket straight back home.” shrugging, frankie takes another sip from her branded water bottle, eyes lazily scanning around the villa before returning to mali, voice lowered to a half-whisper, the two of them co-conspirators. “if it’s fun you’re after, you should probably go for maddox. no offence to marcus, but i think he’s going for the wife and kids kinda vibe. but if that’s what you mean by fun, then fair.” personally, frankie can’t think of anything more suffocating. if callie so much as speaks about buying a place together she’ll be slamming her hands over her ears. dogs on the other hand, she’s down for. two dogs and a van and a map of south america sounds like her kinda post-love island gig. “oh! so are you, like, non-binary? that’s tight. d'you have like, pronouns?” frankie doesn’t meet too many LGBTQ+ people in yachting, it’s pretty much straight people central, (aside from that one charter guest who’d got a little too handsy and almost cost her a job) which is part of the reason she’d come on the show. “strong women?” frankie scoffs. “as opposed to what? weak women? dude, all women are strong women when you consider the shit men put us through on the daily.”

mali wattapohn.

"well, obviously." she knows what she looks like. they're gorgeous, they have virtually everything. what's not to find flattering? "but even still, i'm not trying to be a cunt about it, you know?" she's going to have permission for every steal of theirs she has, thank you very much. "yeah, i suspected as much. weird for how young he is. i'm not sure i want to be married off, so maddox and josh were next on the list." her confirming that maddox is fun confirms what she's expected of him from his stint on the show, a reputation but little in the way of connection. the way frankie says wife and kids, though, makes her laugh because she almost makes it sound like it's the worst thing to want if you also want fun. "yes, more or less. i like she, i like they. neither more than the other, so long as it is not he," she laughs. they're only really a woman in the way that it matters to other people, like how she presents, anyways. "all women are strong but not all women can bench me," she rolls her eyes at how metaphorical frankie takes it.

𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐚 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨.

shifting on the daybed, frankie tries to get comfortable, switching from lying on her back to shifting onto her elbow, her body angled towards mali. “maybe he doesn’t,” frankie shrugs, backtracking, because come to think of it she’s never had a serious chat with marcus about what he wants out of this. “i’m not spitting facts. just caught that vibe.” it’s hard to gauge what mali’s vibe is — it was similar with adela — whether the gentle dipping of a toe in the water is them wanting her, or them wanting a ticket back to the villa. it feels like every bombshell (save miles and valerie) has come in with the impression that frankie’s married off, a no-go zone, and while that’s half-true, it doesn’t mean she’s immune to the feeling of eyes on her, or that she’ll shun any bit of attention directed her way. she’s not a prude, or a nun, and on the outside, four days into a relationship she wouldn't think twice about hooking up with some random at a club. it's four days, that's like nothing—but a relationship in love island feels heavier, somehow. “oh, so you’re talking about physically strong. yeah, dude, i can do that.” her eyes roll over mali, sizing her up–she’s teeny tiny– if she can bench callie, she can certainly bench mali. frankie almost offers, but then second-guesses herself. probably not a good look, especially on the first day in casa. “so are you saying your type is like, pop-eye but with tits?” smirking, she flexes her bicep. “not trying to gloat, but this morning i opened a jar of nutella all by myself.”

mali wattapohn.

"i'll chat with him about it myself," she says serenely, sure she'll have the time soon anyways. "if it works, it works and if it doesn't, it doesn't. i'm just happy to have a shot." the way frankie's eyes go over here feels almost appraising, less like actually checking mali out, and they giggle at the calculating look on her face. "lucky me. you'll have to show me how much you can lift later," it's lightly flirty, not quite walking on eggshells based on frankie's own attitude, but she's seen how serious she and callie got in, what, three days? she's not looking to get left out to dry. at her flexing, mali does give her an appraising glance over, letting her eyes wander for only a beat too long. "ooh, she can open her own jars?" there's a teasing smirk, a light, slightly sarcastic fanning of herself, as if frankie's too hot for them. "pop-eye with great tits, preferably." she's definitely not talking about frankie herself or anything, definitely has not noticed how spectacular her boobs actually are. "and a little more ass than he has."

𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐚 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨.

with the way mali's speaking to her, she feels like a slicked up fireman in a middle-aged housewives fantasy. sure, it's objectifying, but not necessarily in a bad way. maybe there's some truth in porn, even if it is unethical. most women just want someone strong and sexy to make them feel protected, like there's somebody fighting their corner who cares enough to make them come. "i can bench 120, i think. but i can try more." she's never against upping the ante to impress someone hot. "josh obviously knocks me out of the water, every time. it's kinda depressing. but men are also built different, not just in a men are trash way, but like, their bodies are literally better set up for it." it's why they don't do mixed-gender olympics, which, while it sucks, she can see the logic behind. but she backs herself against men, she still thinks she could throttle most of the guys here in a sprint, if she hadn't been holding her breath underwater beforehand, would probably have beaten miles if she hadn't eaten that burger. at least that's what she's telling herself. her desire for competition is snagged by her desire to be wanted when mali makes a comment about tits, which feels personal, rather than neutral and non-specific. laughing, a little nervously, she reaches for the bottle of sun cream to have something to do with her hands, squeezes a dollop out and begins rubbing it against her shoulder. "well you're shit out of luck there, because i have neither of those things." tits and ass, she means. "this is actually a body suit i zip on every morning. i'm like larry king under here."

#⥂ frankie castro. ╱ threads.#frankie & mali.#frankie & mali 001.

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greymoonfeelings · 2 years ago

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flufftober day 2: “you’ve told your parents?”

pairing: eddie munson x gn!reader

word count: 500

warnings: kissing, weed mention

•••

“Eds…”

Hearing you call his nickname pulls Eddie from his current focus, rolling a fresh blunt. You come shoving into your boyfriend’s bedroom, slinging your backpack onto the carpeted floor.

“Eddie,” you sigh exasperatedly. “you’re supposed to be doing your algebra homework, not getting high.”

“I work better when I’m high, no random thoughts getting in my way.”

“More like no thoughts at all.”

You plop next to him on his bed, taking the roll from his hand. You run the tip of your tongue along the edge, sealing the blunt for your boyfriend who pulls out his lighter for you.

“I came to tell you that you’re invited to dinner this Friday with my family. My mom is making lasagna.”

Eddie coughs around the blunt, pulling it out of his mouth to cough some more, not from the smoke but from the proverbial bomb you just dropped on him.

“Me? Family dinner?” Worry starts to flood his system at the thought of having to meet them, face to face.

“Yeah.”

“You’ve told your parents? About this? About us?”

“We’ve been together for three months. Haven’t you told Wayne about us?”

“Yeah but that's different.”

“How is that different? He’s like your father.”

“But you’re a bombshell of a lover, Wayne is proud that I'm dating you. What are your parents going to think when they meet Eddie “the freak” Munson? They’re gonna hate me.”

“They don’t care about that stuff, Eds.”

“Yeah they say that but the moment I walk into your perfect white picket fence house wearing my ripped jeans and my dirty old jacket they’re gonna tear me apart.”

“You really think that I come from a family that shallow-minded?”

“It’s not your family, baby, it’s the world. Everyone hates a metal demon freak like me.”

“You never cared about any of that before.”

“This isn’t just Jason and his asshole basketball friends, these are the parents of my partner. I don’t need anyone important like that despising me.”

“Even if they did, it would change a damn thing about how I feel about you.”

“You shouldn’t even be with me. You could do so much better. Someone who can do their homework and doesn’t take three years to graduate.”

“Stop that. I don’t want anyone else, Eddie. there are more important things than school work. No guy has ever treated me as well as you have. You make me feel like I could do anything in the world and make me feel loved even when I don’t feel worthy. You actually respect me and if my parents don’t care about how happy you make me then they care about the wrong things.”

“Shit, babe, that was a beautiful speech.”

Eddie smushes your face between his palms, pressing a wet kiss to your lips. The taste of weed still lingers.

“It’s just the truth, Eds. I love you, even if you kiss like a slobbery dog.”

#heather writes #flufftober2022 #flufftober day 2 #stranger things fanfic #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x gn!reader

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vixenpen · 4 years ago

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Can you do a KiriBaku smut imagine with a chubby black s/o

KiriBaku x (F)Thicc Black Reader NSFW

“Ugh! I need a vacation,” you groaned as you exhaled a stream of smoke.

“I need a baecation.” Kirishima replied, grabbing the joint from you.

“Haah? What the hell is that?” Bakugo chimed in, confused.

“It’s a vacation where you spend the whole time fucking.” You explained, laughingly.

“Tch. Isn’t that what vacations are for anyways?” He scoffed, beckoning to Kirishima for the joint next.

The three of you were relaxing at Katsuki’s massive apartment enjoying one of your rare days off together. Mellow music pumped through the surround sound system in his room and black lights cast a purple glow over everything.

The rotation matched the order you all were sitting in. Bakugo, sat against the headboard, your head resting in his lap, and Kirishima sat on the opposite side of you, massaging your feet. It felt amazing to be able to vibe with your best friends. Something that, since becoming pro-heroes, you all found yourselves with little time to do.

“Ya know, Katsu, not everyone turns into a horn dog the minute they step outside of a five mile radius of the gossip rags.” You laughed.

“Hey, if you idiots want the media dissecting your sex lives and splashing it all over the gossip rags that’s on you, but some of us actually give a fuck about our reputation as heroes.”

“Bro, at this point the whole internet knows you’ve got hoes in different area codes,” Kirishima chuckled. “You’re not foolin’ anybody.”

“Yeah, but can you name one name? No. Cuz the people I fuck with know how to keep their mouths shut when it counts.”

“You mean, you break ‘em off a fat check to keep them quiet.”

“Hey, it’s kept my name out of scandals. Can’t say the same for you Mr. Red Ran Through.”

You burst out laughing especially when you saw the baffled expression on Kirishima’s face.

“Ouch man! That was harsh.”

“But accurate.” You pointed out.

Kirishima definitely had a reputation in the hero world as a more of a lover than a fighter in every sense of the word. He was constantly courting a new hero, sidekick, or medical worker. But where as that type of philandering might hurt another hero’s reputation, Kirishima managed to come out of his multiple affairs relatively unscathed; as none of his former conquests had a negative word to say about him. You chalked it up to his charming and chivalrous personality.

“I may have been with a few of our colleagues-“

“A few?! Kiri, you’ve sucked and fucked your way through our entire agency. I think the only people you haven’t fucked in the hero world is us.”

“You, babe.” Bakugo chuckled blowing smoke in your face. “I’ve been there done that.”

“Wait, what?!”

“Yeah,” Kirishima laughed, “Bakugo was actually my first.”

“Wait, what?!” You shot up so fast, you almost knocked the joint from Bakugo’s hand. “I’m sorry, he was your what, when and where was I?!”

“Chill, thickums,” Bakugo smirked. “We were kids—still in high school. It was before we met you.”

You gaped back and forth between the two men in disbelief. Meanwhile they were trading the joint over you as if they hadn’t just dropped the biggest bombshell of the year on you.

“Aww baby,” Kirishima tucked your chin, running his thumb over you bottom lip. “What’s with that pouty face? Are you really that upset?”

“Yes!” You crossed your arms. “We’re besties and neither of you assholes thought that might be valuable information for me to know?”

“I mean, not really.” Bakugo snorted. “What were you gonna do with it? Sell it to the gossip rags?”

“Or maybe she was gonna dream about it herself.” Kirishima winked. There was a wicked gleam in his ruby eyes that made you flush.

“Heyyy, I think you may have been on to something there shitty hair.” Bakugo pinched your round cheek. “She’s blushing.”

“No I’m not! Black girls don’t blush!”

“Baby, blushing is more than just a color on your cheeks, it’s a mood, and right now you’re totally giving me that mood.”

“W-whatever! I could care less that you two used to sleep together.”

“Used to?” Kirishima quirked a brow.

That statement earned an incredulous look from you.

“S-seriously?! You still...” A pang if envy shot through you at the idea of your best friends sharing something that you weren’t apart of. “You know what, I don’t even care.”

“Oh?” Bakugo quirked a brow. “Then you won’t care if I do this.”

He reached across you to grab Kirishima by the collar and plant a deep kiss on the man’s lips. The burly redhead melted into the kiss easily.

Simultaneous moans escaped your friends as the kiss deepened.

“Ahem! Y’all realize I’m still here right?” You snapped.

“How could we forget?” Bakugo smacked one of your chunky thighs, jiggling it a bit. “That little show was for you thickums.”

You wished you could look away, but there wasn’t much else to look at with two hot, shirtless, muscular men looming over you. You popped your lips and rolled your eyes.

“That little attitude ain’t scarin’ nobody pun’kin.” Kirishima pressed a soft kiss on your lips. “I know you liked it.”

“Hell yeah she did.” Bakugo added. He toked the joint one more time and held your gaze as he blew the smoke in your face. The predatory way he sized you up made you feel...exposed—vulnerable. “You know, as long as we’ve all been friends, I wonder why neither me or Shitty Hair never tried to fuck your fine ass yet. God knows it’s not like we aren’t both into you.”

“Better yet,” Kirishima said, turning you to face him by your chin, “it’s not like we aren’t all into each other.” He kissed you again. This one was much more commanding than the last and his tongue wrestled yours into submission.

“Oi!” Bakugo snapped. He grabbed your chin as well and pulled you towards him. “You not gone keep stealing all her affection from me, Shitty Hair.”

Bakugo bit your lip, making you gasp. He took full advantage of that opportunity to slide his tongue into your mouth.

Is this really happening right now? What the hell?

“G-guys, wait...” You pulled away from Bakugo.

“What’s wrong, sweetness?” Kirishima asked, sliding your box braids aside to plant gentle kisses along your neck.

Between his soft lips and Bakugo’s strong, scarred hands sliding along your thick thighs, your sex was clenching desperately for stimulation.

“You don’t want this?”

“I-I’m not sayin that, I’m just saying...” what the hell were you saying? Because the way Bakugo was sucking the top of your breasts had you drawing blanks.

“Why don’t you stop pretending, y/n?” He smirked up at you, hooking a finger into the scooped collar of your tank top and yanking it down to free your full, round breasts.

He hummed. “Fuckin’ delicious.” He groaned.

Licking his lips, the ash blonde dove down to suck your hard, brown nipple into his mouth making you hiss in pleasure.

“You clearly want this, y/n.” Kirishima chuckled. The deep, rich sound rolled down your spine and made goosebumps rise on your skin.

His large hand slid around your side to squeeze your other breast. He rolled the pebbled nipple gently between his fingers.

“You want this and so do we.” He nipped at your ear. “So what’s up? Are we doing this or not, thickums?”

Before you could say anything, Kirishima’s hot mouth sucked your nipple into it.

“Oh god.” You sighed as shivers ran down your spine.

They ran their strong hands up your juicy thighs, squeezing and massaging them.

Each man worked either side of your body. Bakugo was now behind you, running his hands down your spine—mouth tasting your sweet skin, nipping along your spine. He dug his hands into your hips, caressing them lovingly.

Kirishima took care of the front. He sucked hickies onto your soft stomach and slowly worked your shorts down.

He groaned at the sight of your bare brown skin.

“Damn, that’s beautiful.” He grinned up at you, ruby eyes flashing once more. His mouth landed in an open mouth kiss against your clothed core, fingers exploring your pussy through the thin fabric of your panties.

“Ki-Kiri~” you sighed.

Bakugo bit your ear, making you yelp in surprise.

“Is Kiri the only one here, thickness?” He asked.

“N-no..” you stammered back.

He slid his hand down until he reached your pussy and toyed with your clit. Shockwaves of pleasure coursed through you.

“Then say my name too, Thickums.” He plunged two fingers into your heat, flexing them towards your gspot.

“Ahaaa, Katsu!” You cried out.

“Man, Katsuki, you gotta see how pretty this kitty is.”

“Does it look as good as it feels?” He asked, slipping a third finger into your gripping cunt.

“Mmhhm,” he hummed in response. His long tongue slithered out, joining Bakugo’s fingers in your juicy pussy.

The sensations had your head swimming and your nipples and cat tingling with excitement.

“Tastes just as good too.”

“Oh yeah?” Bakugo slipped from behind you to join Kirishima’s side. He laced his fingers through the redhead’s long hair and forced a harsh kiss onto the man’s mouth. “Shit,” he muttered between kisses, “that is good. But I bet it’s better straight from the source.”

Soon Kirishima’s mouth and fingers were replaced with Katsuki’s. His fingers swam inside of you and he sucked at the sensitive button of your clit until your pleasured screams grew hoarse. Your cream soaked his face and hands. When he made way for Kirishima to join in, your moans only grew louder.

The two men seemed to be competing in who could bring you to ecstasy more times. They worked your sex until your legs shook and your toes curls. You dug your hands into their hair, and bucked your hips to meet their mouths, hungry for more of the overwhelming pleasure.

“Baku-Kiri, shit! Shit, shit, shiiiit! Oh my god!” You couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, and couldn’t think.

“Cum for us, Princess,” Kirishima urged, “come for your daddies.”

And cum you did. Again, and again, and again, until everything went black.

(Art by: @deb_amm/Debby-San)

#kiribaku #kiribaku x reader #bnha imagines #my hero academia #mha headcanons #bnha #bnha scenarios #boku no hero academia #my hero fanfic #bnha smut #n/sfw #kirishima x bakugou #bakugo x reader x kirishima #black self insert

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storiesforallfandoms · 4 years ago

Text

pushing buttons ~ eminem

word count: 1912

request?: yes!

@thatonegirlthatlikesthings “Hi me again I literally love your writing so much omg I was wondering if you could once again indulge my Eminem obsession cuz my baby don’t get enough love🥺🥺 I was thinking like a angst/fluff where MGK tries to hit on the reader even though he’s with Meg Fox now and Em loses it and dr Dre and Paul try to call him down but it doesn’t really work and the reader has to chill him out. I love you I love your writing and I love you bye!🥰☺️❤️❤️”

description: in which his enemy tries to push his buttons by flirting with his girl

pairing: eminem x female!reader

warning: swearing

masterlist

“What the fuck is that prick doing here?”

Marshall glared at the tall blonde standing across the room with his arm around a familiar actress. It was the night of his launch party for his new album, and he thought it was just supposed to be personal friends of his as well as his friends from the industry. However, a few others from the industry had arrived as well, including the infamous Machine Gun Kelly.

“Paul invited him,” Marshall’s girlfriend, (Y/N) responded. “Said you two should try and squash the beef. Fans are getting tired of it.”

“Squashing the beef and becoming friends with the enemy are two totally different things,” Marshall hissed.

“You don’t have to be friends,” (Y/N) told him. “Just...shake his hand, look friendly for the pictures, end the beef.”

Marshall rolled his eyes as (Y/N) wrapped an arm around his waist and gave him a slight squeeze. “I know, I tried to tell Paul he should run this past you first. But him and MGK’s manager think it’s best for both of you to end the beef. He wants to move on with his new punk pop genre, you should move on too considering the fact that you absolutely destroyed him.”

She lowered her voice to a whisper for that last part, causing Marshall to smirk.

“This is gonna push me to drink,” he muttered as he noticed Kells approaching him.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” (Y/N) hissed. “If you break your sobriety, I will be your worst nightmare.”

Marshall smiled at her before dropping it to glare at Kells.

“Hey man,” Kells started. “Listen, thanks for the invitation. I know things have been rocky between us, but I hope you know I never meant any harm by my tweet about Hailie, and I still view you as a massive inspiration to me. I just thought...maybe I’d get more recognition with the diss, and it worked. It just sort of fucked up my rap career in the process.”

(Y/N) gave Marshall a quick look before sipping on the drink she had in her hand. They were both shocked by such a mature response from Kells, especially after the stuff Kells said about Marshall following the drop of Not Alike and Killshot.

She was watching her boyfriend expectantly as he processed what had been said to him. He glanced back at (Y/N) finally before saying, “No hard feelings, man. Tensions ran high, we both said some shit, I think it’s time we get past it.”

Kells smiled and offered a hand to Marshall. Although reluctant at first, Marshall took it and shook his hand. Kells soon left and went back to his girlfriend, knowing not to overstay his welcome.

“Was that so hard?” (Y/N) asked. “At least he’s being mature about it, too.”

“A little too mature,” Marshall said.

“Stop it, you just don’t like him. Let’s get a non-alcoholic beverage.”

~~~~~~

As the night continued, Marshall was pulled from (Y/N) as people kept coming and congratulating him on the album. She wasn’t too shocked, it was a normal occurrence. Luckily enough, she had come to know most of the people at the party through Marshall, so it wasn’t like she was awkwardly standing around for any amount of time.

She was at the snack table when a tall stature came to stand next to her.

“You lost your boyfriend, huh?’

(Y/N) looked up to see Kells stood next to her, a friendly smile on her face.

Despite the feud between the two, (Y/N) never had any sort of opinion on Kells. She hadn’t listened to his music - besides that one song with Camilla Cabello that blew up - and she didn’t want to form an opinion based on a beef she wasn’t even a part of. So, him standing next to her didn’t make her as angry as it had made Marshall earlier. Instead, she smiled back at him.

“Yeah,” she said. “Nothing new of course. Everyone congratulating him on the album and whatnot.”

“Seems like a lot of people just trying to kiss his ass.”

(Y/N) shrugged. “That may be true in some cases. Most of the people here who have already worked with him and known him for so long know better against that. Maybe it’s because they’ve already worked with him though, who knows. Where’s Megan?”

Kells gestured aimlessly into the crowd. “Also pulled away from me. Talking to...someone I guess.”

He didn’t sound too concerned over it, although maybe it was just the same situation (Y/N) was in. Megan was pretty popular as an actress, this was probably nothing new for Kells either.

“So, how did you and Em meet?” he asked, offering her one of the two red cups he had in his hand. (Y/N) didn’t think much of it at first. She figured he had probably gotten a drink for Megan then realized he had lost her in the crowd.

“We met through a mutual friend, actually. One from back in Detroit,” she explained. “I knew who Marshall was, obviously, but I was never really a hip hop fan. We got to talking and before I knew it, he was asking me out on a date. We were official within a month, and we’ve been together ever since. That was like...three years ago now, I think.”

She took a sip from the drink Kells had given her and cringed at the strong taste of alcohol in the cup. Noticing this, Kells asked, “Too strong?”

“Just not used to alcohol,” she explained. “I’ve mostly given it up in solidarity with Marshall. I’m proud of his sobriety, even if I’ve only been here for the tail end of it.”

“That’s lame,” Kells scoffed. “The old man shouldn’t hold you back from doing some fun shit.”

The tone of his voice plus the subtle diss caused a slight feeling of annoyance in her, but she pushed it down. Be the bigger person, she had been telling Marshall all night. She couldn’t go against that.

“He’s not holding me back from anything,” she responded. “I chose to do it. I just know it sucks to have to be sober when everyone around you is drunk or high. I want to be that one person he can confide in in those situations, you know?”

“You’re too good for him, man,” Kells said. “For real, you have a heart of gold and the body of a smoke show. You shouldn’t be wasting it all on that fucker. You should be getting with a real man.”

(Y/N) shuffled uncomfortably, now putting her cup down on the snack table. “I’m perfectly happy with Marshall, thank you. Besides, you have a girlfriend. One who is literally at this very party right now.”

He waved off the comment, as if it weren’t a real concern. (Y/N) looked around the room, desperate to find someone she knew who could save her from that situation.

Across the room, Marshall was glaring daggers into the back of Kells’ head. He could see the uncomfortable look on (Y/N)’s face, and saw the drink she had just discarded on the table. He knew something was happening, something he didn’t like.

“Why the fuck did you invite him?” he asked Paul. “Why didn’t you warn me first?”

“It needed to be an authentic meet up to end the beef,” Paul responded. “After tonight you won’t see or hear from him ever again.”

“You bet I won’t, because I’ll have him six feet under the fucking ground if he doesn’t get away from (Y/N).”

Paul looked over at the two. His face grew concerned upon seeing (Y/N)’s. “It can’t be anything too serious. He’s here with Megan, remember?”

“Do you see Megan anywhere around here, Paul?” Marshall asked.

He was so furious you could almost see the cartoon smoke coming from his ears. He was clutching his plastic cup so hard that it would’ve shattered into a million pieces if it was glass. It dropped from his hand suddenly when he saw Kells grab (Y/N)’s waist, trying to pull her closer to him. Both Paul and Dre had to grab him to stop him from going over and beating the shit out of Kells right then and there.

“Calm down, man,” Dre told him.

“He’s fucking touching her, Dre!” Marshall snapped. “She’s obviously uncomfortable, let me go over there and beat the shit out of him!”

“Not here,” Paul said. “Not in front of all these people. Go over and get her - peacefully - then you guys can just leave. This was a stupid idea from me.”

“Really fucking stupid,” Marshall hissed as he pulled away from the two. He tried to keep his anger at bay as he went over and wrapped an arm around (Y/N), effectively pulling her from Kells’ grasp. “Come on, babe, let’s go home.”

“What’s wrong, Marshall? Don’t like another man talking to your girl?” Kells challenged.

“I don’t like other men grabbing my girl when she’s obviously uncomfortable, no,” Marshall responded.

“Sounds a little insecure to me. Maybe you should work on that, man. You’ll be able to keep up with this absolute bombshell when you’re not so over jealous of her.”

Marshall’s grip on (Y/N)’s waist tightened. She tried to calm him down, but it was obvious he was past the point of no return.

“Fuck you,” he snapped. “Man, I don’t know what your fucking problem is, but you’re the one who started all of this shit. Now you’re coming here, to my launch party, trying to flirt with my girl, and now you’re insulting me?! Must be a sad existence you live, Kelly, when you can’t even be happy with your own success. You have to keep trashing on someone else who’s doing much better than you.”

Kells’ cheeks were tinted pink with anger as he glared at the two of them.

“I suggest going to find your girlfriend while you still have one,” (Y/N) told him. “Because I will be telling her about this whole...incident between us.”

Before any other words could be said, Marshall took (Y/N) and guided her out of the building. When they got to the car, he sat in the driver’s seat for just a second, trying to make himself calm down.

“I should go back in there and fucking kill him,” he said, more to himself than to (Y/N).

“No you shouldn’t,” she told him. “He was just trying to push your buttons. He seems very happy with Megan, and there were so many other girls at that party he could’ve flirted with if he just wanted to be a scumbag. He only chose me because he knew it would get to you.”

She reached over and put a hand over one of Marshall’s that was clutching the steering wheel. On contact, he loosened his grip and realized how much his hands hurt from holding the wheel too tightly.

“Whatever his intentions were, they don’t matter,” she assured him. “I love you, Marshall, and only you. No other asshole will ever come in and swoop me away from you.”

He chuckled at her slight insult, their own way of flirting with one another. He leaned across and kissed her gently on the lips before finally starting the car.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

#eminem #eminem imagine #eminem x reader #marshall mathers #marshall mathers imagine #marshall mathers x reader #imagine #one shot #request #fanfiction #fanfic #fandom

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messrmoonyy · 3 years ago

Note

I think it would be cute if you wrote something about tonks meeting lyall lupin for the first time, I've always wondered what their first interaction would be

I ended up losing a massive chunk of the middle of this and had to rewrite it, and almost JUSY deleted the whole thing in annoyance. but I do like this request, so here it is. enjoy!

And The POV shifts half way through. Just an fyi.

Pairing: Remus lupin x Nymphadora Tonks

Warnings: none

check my masterlist if you wanna see my other writing and feel free to drop me a request!

“ you’re worrying about nothing. It’s gonna be fine “ Nymphadora said as she hopped around trying to pull on her boot, she’d already fallen over twice and Remus was somewhat waiting for the third time “ I mean it’s no big deal right? It’s not like you and him are best buds- You’re not round there every weekend. If he doesn’t like me I just.. won’t have to see him. Really Remus I. I don’t know why you’re so worried “ she huffed in between some of her words as she continued to battle with the boot that just didn’t want to go on over the three pairs of socks she had on. Though watching the whole event was slightly easing his nerves actually “ fucking boot “

They were going to visit his father. More out of a simple common decency than a true want or desire to visit. He felt it was only polite that he introduce his father to his soon to be wife.

He’d sent his father a letter a week ago so that it wouldn’t be a complete bombshell of a meeting. Contact with his father had been little to none since the first war. They wrote to each other maybe once every few months, just to check The other was still alive. But with the heightening of the second war he’d been in contact a little more frequently to ensure his father was protected. And he’d actually gone to visit him in person for the first time in 10 years 9 or so months ago. And it had been awkward as ever and he’d not stayed very long.

But after writing and informing him of his upcoming marriage to Nymphadora, Lyall had asked to meet her. Remus had planned to just say he’d never received such a letter and not even tell Dora about it. But she’d read it over his shoulder as he sat contemplating it on the sofa and insisted they went.

He was still trying to recover from the slightly wobbly first meeting he’d had with Doras parents two weeks ago. That hadn’t exactly been a barrel of laughs. Ted had been very welcoming, very much the mirror of his daughter. But Andromeda has been slightly more cold. He had excepted it in a way, she was a Black after all. And no matter how much she had distanced herself from them, that air of superiority was still faintly there. Though she had warmed to him towards the end of The night- even after a slight tiff at the dinner table between herself and Nymphadora after Andromeda had shared her concerns of her daughter marrying a werewolf. Which he guessed were all completely valid points. But he believed they were on the same page of a sorts now.

But Lyall was a whole new ball game. He didn’t have an exactly wonderful relationship with him. Hadn’t done since the night Remus was attacked. Hope had been the one to love and protect and treat her son with all the same kindness and care. If not more. But Lyall had distanced himself greatly. He could barely stand to look at Remus most days as he was growing up. Even less so when Hope had died. But maybe things would be different now. He hoped they would anyway.

After watching Dora struggle for a few more minutes with her boot he pushed himself out of his chair at their little table. He walked over to her, nodding his head at the kitchen counter, and placed his hands gently on her arms to help her up. He knelt down with a slight wince as his aching knees creaked, still in that seemingly never ending throbbing period the week or so after the moon, and carefully loosened off the tight laces.

“ you are unbelievably optimistic “ Remus said as he slipped the boot from her foot that she’d only managed to wedge halfway, not looking up at her as he spoke. She’d see right through him and see his nerves if he did.

“ aren’t I always? “ she was “ what’s he like then anyway? Your dad? “ she asked as he continued loosening the laces she’d tightened to the extreme in her attempt to yank the boot onto her foot. Remus didn’t particularly know how to answer the question. Because maybe the Lyall Lupin that Remus had known as a child had changed. Or perhaps not. Either way he didn’t feel as know he really knew his father. They were strangers really.

“ quiet “ he said as he finally loosened the laces enough for Dora to wiggle her foot into the boot, which he laced up for her in a neat bow “ maybe if you didn’t wear so many socks you’d get into your shoes more easily “ he said as he tapped her ankle to signal he’d done before rising to his feet.

“ I get cold feet “ she said with a shrug before hooking her boot behind Remus’ leg and tugging him closer “ now don’t change the subject. Tell me about your dad. What am I walking into? “

Again, Remus didn’t really know how to answer her. He was going in just as blind as she was. Remus could lie and tell her everything would be alright, the Lyall Lupin was an energetic soul and happy and loved to laugh and tell bad jokes. Bit Remus hadn’t know that man since he was 4 years old. He’d grown up knowing a man that resented him, that could look at him with guilt and sympathy. Not like his son. Like a victim. A stranger.

“ I don’t know “ he said honestly after a moment of thinking “ you know we haven’t talked much. He’s… he’s quiet now. Keeps himself to himself. Mopey “ Nymphadora have a small nod and chewed on her lip for a moment, deep in thought.

“ should I tone it down a bit? Mum said I can come across a bit.. Loud sometimes. Mad as a box of pixies “ Remus smiled in a mild sympathy and shook his head, brushing her hair away from her face gently.

“ no. Don’t be anything but your normal, wonderful self. You don’t need to change for the approval of my father. I love you because you’re mad as a box of pixies darling “ a grin spread across her face and she planted a kiss on his lips before hopping off the counter.

“ well I best finish getting ready then aye? “ he watched her with a smile as she stood in front of the mirror faffing around with her hair for a bit. He let her get on with it and tried to distract himself from the ever looming trip to his fathers, re reading the address they would apparate to again and again. Just for something to do.

He wished they were going to visit his mother instead. Hope would have adored Nymphadora, he was certain of it. She’d have been amazed at her gifts, in awe of her determination and her stubbornness too. They were so alike. It was one of the reasons he’d used Hopes old ring to propose to Nymphadora in the first place. But they weren’t meeting Hope. They never would be either.

“ right. You ready? “ Dora asked as she turned away from where she’d been doing one last check of her hair in the mirror by the door a few minutes later “ Remus? “ he nodded slightly and just took a moment to look at her, admire how beautiful she looked. She’d hadn’t toned herself down one bit for the visit. She had mentioned a slight concern that Lyall might find her a bit too ‘ in your face ‘ before today too, but after the little kitchen chat… she was very much her usual self. He loved her as she was, so unashamedly herself and he didn’t need her to change just because of his father.

Her hair was morphed into waves to just below her chin, an amalgamation of different shades of blue that made it look as though it were shifting colour everytime the light caught it. Bright and bold as she always was “ oi, Remus. Staring into space “ her fingers clicked in front of his face and his cheeks warmed slightly making her smile.

“ sorry. I was simply admiring “ she brushed some none existent creases from her black dress and gave him a warm smile.

“ I look alright then? Sure it’s not too much? “ he brought a hand up to cup her cheek and shook his head.

“ beautiful as ever “ she smiled again and looped her arms around his neck.

“ soppy sod “ she kissed him gently, standing up on her tip toes to reach him better, but pulled away far too quickly for his liking “ now stop wasting time. We’ll be late “ he internally groaned and realised there really was no more time wasting to be done. It was going to happen whether he wanted it to or not. So he sucked it up and held onto her hand as they left his cottage and passed the apparation line.

As always just lately his skin prickled with the fear that someone may be watching them, most of the order had commented that they had been followed at least once in the last few months. So he didn’t hesitate before pulling Nymphadora into his embrace.

“ hold on and focus on me “ he said quietly and placed a kiss to the top of her head before apparating with a crack.

———————

The cold sea air hit her the second they appeared in the tiny welsh village that Lyall lived in, suddenly quite pleased with her three pairs of socks. She’d always wondered if it’d be quite nice to live by the seaside, but the bitter night chill coming off the sea was quite the deterrent. She really was a city girl at heart. She only partially unravelled herself from Remus’ hold when they’d regained their bearings from the apparation, staying huddled to his side and front to steal his warmth. He was always warm, his blood practically boiling within his veins, he was practically her very own portable heater.

“ cold? “ Remus asked softly and wrapped his arm around her as they made their way down the street to Lyalls house. Remus had encased the property in as many protective spells as he could think of on his last visit, so a little distance was needed on their arrival.

“ bloody freezing “ he gave a small chuckle and she took it as a good sign. He wasn’t as stressed as he’d seemed back at home. Though it very quickly changed when they reached Lyalls house. He paused at the front gate and Tonks gave him a moment, she knew it must’ve been hard. She just hoped the evening went well. She didn’t particularly care whether Lyall liked her or not, his answer wouldn’t change Remus’ mind. And Remus was the only opinion she cared about. Though it would be nice if he did like her. Just a bit “ ready? “ she asked after a moment, worried that they were standing out in the open for too long. He gave a small nod and they walked up the garden path.

The house itself was much different to her own parents home. Andromeda and Teds house was pretty big. A beautiful country home with Andromedas pin perfect garden, with all its beautifully pruned flowers and bushes. And Teds garden gnomes that he’d had to convince Andromeda for months to have.

Lyalls home was far more modest. The garden wasn’t exactly a mess but wasn’t as tidy. It seemed to have tools lying around that signified Lyall must have a vegetable patch somewhere. The house was small and she guessed that as it was only him there, that was really all the space he’d need.

Remus froze again on the door step and she looked up at him with a sympathetic smile.

“ when you’re ready. Take your time “ she said softly and reached to squeeze his hand reassuringly. But before Remus really had much more time to process the door creaked open.

Remus didn’t look much like his father. Small similarities were there but nothing that really struck her as the same. Even the height was a difference. She wondered if Remus got his height from his mother instead.

“ dad “ Remus finally spoke, a little quieter than she thought he’d meant to. He cleared his throat and turned slightly towards Nymphadora, his hand gripping hers even tighter “ this. This is Nymphadora Tonks… my fiancé “ Lyall himself still hadn’t spoken and she felt a slight awkwardness filling the air. And she always had the instinct to just ramble when she felt awkward. So she couldn’t really stop herself.

“ hi! Really great to meet you “ she said with the brightest smile she could muster and held her hand out for Lyall to shake. He took it a little tentatively but shook it.

“ it’s very nice to meet you “ his accent was quite thick and it made her wonder if Remus would have picked it up a little more if he’d not been forced to moved around so much as a child, or left home so young. Sometimes on certain words she thought she caught a slight tinge of it. But overall it wasn’t really there “ come on. It’s quite cold out tonight “ Remus placed a gentle hand to her back to guide her inside and made sure to reseal the charms on the door when it closed.

It was much warmer inside, it felt quite cosy actually. She could smell a fire burning and what seemed to be roast beef cooking somewhere on the house. It reminded her a bit of Remus’ cottage. Homely.

Lyall led them through into the living room and she and Remus sat down together on the sofa, Lyall taking the chair opposite. He sat towards the edge, his hands clasped in front of him, and that mildly awkward silence crept in again and had to restrain herself from blabbing out something. Anything.

“ so. Where did you both meet? “ Lyall said after a few more moments and Tonks glanced up at Remus. She didn’t know if Lyall was aware of the order and that would really be the cherry on the already shit cake, accidentally outing the order. So she left him to it

“ at work “ he simply said “ Nymphadora works for the ministry, she visited Hogwarts on Ministry duties whilst I was in my teaching position there “ he lied smoothly. The lie added significantly more time onto their relationship and she wondered if he had done that purposely. Especially after her own parents had expressed concern at the timeline of their relationship.

“ and. She knows? “ Tonks did bristle slightly at the way Lyall spoke as if she wasn’t there for a moment, only glancing at her as he looked over at Remus “ about- “

“ yes. I know “ she said quite matter of factly, before clearing her throat slightly. Remembering she was trying to create a good impression here. She took a breathe and shifted a little closer to Remus “ I know. And I don’t care about it either. We deal with it. In fact I’m in the process of learning how to brew wolfsbane “ she hadn’t actually told Remus that yet, but it kind of slipped out in some attempt to prove she was good enough almost.

Remus’ eyes darted to her as she said it, his features softening at the knowledge she was attempting to make his monthly horrors easier. She knew when they got home he’d probably start fretting over her wasting her money on him, or some other useless argument. It it wouldn’t change her mind. She was so close to getting it right and she was determined to get it perfect. Even out if simple pure stubbornness at this point.

“ it’s an incredibly hard potion to brew “ Lyall said slightly harshly.

“ yes well shes very talented “ Remus quipped back at his father.

“ the ingredients are expensive too “

“ I have the funds. I’m an auror “ she neglected to tell him that she had in fact been sacked several months ago, on suspicion of just about everything she could possibly do wrong in the eyes of the ministry. It was either leave quietly or find herself sat on trial. But in the current circumstances she was starting to see it as a good thing. She was engaged to a werewolf after all. And people had been killed for less just lately.

“ I am surprised “ Lyall spoke again, seemingly hell bent on his attempts to throw a negative at every positive they could give him “ I read recently about the tightening of the anti werewolf legislations. There are loopholes for Aurors? “

“ we understand now isn’t… ideal “ Remus said and she couldn’t help but notice he sounded a little defeated. She silently prayed he wouldn’t end up falling into one of his moods after they left. When he simply seemed to become the sadness person to walk the earth, sometimes sobbing to her that he wasn’t good enough. But he sat a little straighter instead “ but Nymphadora and I- we…. I love her. Very much so. We’re willing to take the risks to prove it “ he’d starting referring to them as a ‘we’ much more frequently. No longer speaking as though Nymphadora was risking so much alone, or carrying such a burden in loving him. He was finally seeing them as a team. Equals.

The conversation didn’t particularly improve much even when they sat at the table for dinner. It was a mostly silent affair with Lyall occasionally popping up to say something else or question something else.

Remus held her hand under the table, his fingers fiddling with hers, anxiously twisting her engagement ring around her finger. She wondered why he was still so anxious around his father. Even after so many years. She was half tempted to silently cast a calming spell, to try ease his nerves and get him to relax a little. She had full contact of his hand, it’s be easy enough to do. But she didn’t like to without asking him first. Even if she did think it would help. Though from how Lyall had been behaving she guessed she couldn’t blame his nerves.

Though when Remus dismissed himself to use the bathroom. There was a silence as Remus left the room and Tonks sat fiddling with her hands. She wasn’t one to be nervous. Or awkward. But she felt an awkwardness so strong it made her shift in her seat a little. She felt as though Remus had let he’d dumped all of his nerves onto her as he’d left the room.

“ you do realise that you are taking a very large risk. Especially in the current situation “ it had been silent for so long that his speaking startled her slightly and she looked at him a little confused. “ marrying a werewolf… it’s unheard of. For good reason “ she held her tongue as he continued to speak “ it seems a shame to limit your life by marrying him. You’re young. A good job. You could loose it all. You’d never be able to live a normal life with him. Never have a family. I’d be surprised if you will actually be able to find anyone to even marry the pair of you “

“ I’m in love him. I don’t care what he is or what his condition means risking. I love him. And he loves me. That’s all that really matters. Especially in the current situation “ she kept her voice calm, thinking that Remus wouldn’t be too happy to have her screeching at his father “ we’ve already started to arrange things for the wedding. I’ve never wanted kids anyway. And no job is worth more to me than Remus is. And as for my age? Please, you don’t think I’ve already heard that one before? I’m a perfectly sane minded adult who knows exactly what I’m doing and I can make my own choices. I don’t particularly care what others think about it either “ her voice had picked up slightly towards the end but Lyall didn’t seem phased by it. In fact he looked as though he pondered on her words for a moment, before nodding his head slowly.

“ I just have to warn you. You understand? I’ve seen the affect it has on the people who love him and who he loves. His mother… “ he trailed off, his voicing catching in his throat as he so clearly struggled with Hopes memory. Even so many years on “ she tried to care for him. Love him the same “

“ and why didn’t you “ he seemed taken aback by her words and she was surprised she’d actually said them. But they hadn’t exactly gotten off on a good path to begin with, so there was no real harm in making it any worse now. She thought then that she saw something by the door, but a glance in the direction and she saw nothing. But she wasn’t stupid. She wondered how long Remus had been listening.

“ I blame myself “ she stopped herself from telling him he should. That it was his fault. That his own big headedness had left a tiny Remus traumatised and changed for life. That it was his fault he’d been outcast and alone. But she held her tongue “ the guilt I had every time I looked at him… and even now. It twists my stomach. I feel sick with it “

“ he needed love more than ever, he still does. And you turned him away. I won’t. I won’t stop loving him I won’t run away because I feel sorry for him or guilt or whatever. I’m not going anywhere. Which is exactly what you should have done too. “ Lyall didn’t speak again for a few moments before a small, sad smile pulled at his face.

“ Hope. She would have liked you “ she didn’t like that he seemed as though he was changing the subject. But the thought that Hope Lupin, Remus’ pride and joy, would have liked her sent her heart a flutter “ you’re like her. You know what you want. You won’t let others change your mind. I still think it best to be wary of your situation, but I know I can’t change your mind “

“ you can’t “ she confirmed and turned her head as Remus finally returned. She pretended not to notice the small smile on his face. She got the idea he’d been listening the entire time. Lyall looked between the pair of them before smiling and focussing on Remus.

“ your mother would be very proud of you “ she heard Remus’ sharp intake of breath at the statement and his eyes looked glassy. As if he were fighting back his tears. Remus wasn’t particularly good with emotion and Lyall didn’t seem to be either. So when Lyall stood up then she got the feeling their conversations were over. It had been a heavy night.

Nymphadora helped to clean away their plates and when Lyall assured her he didn’t need her to wash up, that she was a guest, she wandered back out of the kitchen to find Remus.

He was in the living room by the fireplace, looking at the row of picture frames. She walked beside him, placing a gentle hand to his back.

“ that your mum? “ she asked softly, looking at the frame Remus had in his hands. It was a moving picture of a woman smiling, sat on what seemed to be a picnic blanket. Her face was kind, soft, she looked like one of those people that just simply could never be mad. A heart so pure that nothing but happiness radiated from her.

“ yes “ Remus almost whispered, his full of adoration for the woman in the picture. He didn’t speak much of his parents but he had told her briefly of Hope. And how highly he held, how much he truly adored her.

“ you look like her “ Remus’ face softened at the sound of that, as of it had been the greatest praise he could’ve ever received “ you have her eyes… kind eyes “ she pressed her face against his arm and reached out for another picture “ I wish I could have met her “ Remus shifted to wrap his arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side.

“ she would have loved you. She’d have been amazed at your abilities. She was always so interested in learning about magic… she had your sense of humour too “

“ completely lost her marbles then? “ she teased and Remus laughed for the first time that evening.

“ yes. Completely “

#messrmoonyy writes #remus lupin #nymphadora tonks #remadora #harry potter #remus x tonks #ronks #the marauders #lupin #tonks x lupin #tonks #remadora one shot #remus x nymphadora

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lilover131 · 3 years ago

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Chapter 56 Analysis+Theories

AHHHHHH CHAPTER 56 AHHHHHH!!! <--Chrissy every time a chapter comes out

I wasn’t as hyped up about this one as I was for the last one thankfully, seeing as we didn’t have a super long wait, but I certainly don’t want to diminish in any way the importance of this chapter!!!

I won’t waste any time and will get right to it, so buckle in, cuz’ the theory train is coming! More under the cut!

So I’ll start by saying that when I first read the chapter, it was 2 AM where I was. I had been sleeping and just kinda magically woke up right when the chapter just came out, so I like to think there was some fate there. But when I opened that chapter on my phone and the first thing I saw was that Syaoran color spread, I audibly gasped and instantly woke up a bit.

I woke up not because it was absolutely stunning to look at, or even at the fact that we haven’t had Syaoran in a color page for a while. No, the thing that caught my attention was the serious atmosphere it contained and the tone that it seemingly set. To me, this was one of CLAMP’s subtle ways of saying “Prepare for the final battle”. I could be reading into it too much, but I was right about what I believed the Syaoran and Kaito color page insinuated, so I’m gonna stick to my guns here.

We start off the chapter without a moment’s pause where we left off last time. It continues right from the last point of the conversation where Sakura dropped the bombshell that she had seen Kaito use magic. She seems to think that they may not believe her at first, but Syaoran interrupts her to affirm that he 100% believes her and that he even already knew. Sakura is naturally confused by this, but he finally FINALLY gets to tell her what he’s been dealing with this whole time, and it definitely seems to be an uncomfortable topic for him. But at least this time he got to tell Sakura truthfully that he hadn’t ever intended on keeping this from her but was physically not able to. Despite not needing to feel guilty about this, Syaoran seems uncomfortable for the simple fact that someone else had that much control over him, and he was unable to do a thing to stop it. It’s also important to keep in mind that Kero and Suppi were hearing this for the first time themselves as well (about the silencing at least).

Not much time passes after this before Kero and Suppi fess up to also knowing about Kaito, but they admit that theirs was a conscious decision rather than force, but that they believe they too would have been silenced like Syaoran was had they attempted to speak. One could say that since they didn’t know Syaoran was silenced in the way he was that this is not entirely truthful or was just a bad decision, but in reality it still makes perfect sense why they thought to be more careful. They saw Kaito’s magic first hand violently take down Eriol, and if he could shut down a magician of that caliber from halfway across the world, then he could easily do the same or worse to the guardians. And since they also weren’t yet aware of his true intentions with Sakura, it would have been likely seen as dangerous to provoke him and possibly put Sakura in harm’s way. I guess the only thing that doesn’t make much sense to me is why Syaoran and the guardians didn’t collaborate and put together what they knew sooner. Even when Yue went to Syaoran’s apartment, the topic of Kaito or Eriol never came up, and since they both clearly had Sakura’s best interest in mind, I’m not sure specifically why they chose to keep their information to themselves when they both knew they had the same goal. This, I would say, was actually a bad decision on their part, but when it comes down to it, they’re not perfect and everyone makes mistakes (I think Cinzia made the same point here, so I apologize if it seems like I’m copying here! I just also agree when it comes to this).

I’m actually going to pull in a little thing I learned from my counselor not long ago when I felt guilt over a particular decision I had made long ago, and that is that you can only work based on the emotions and information you have at the time. And because we don’t know the future, it is not possible to always make the right decisions, but there is also no telling if our decisions would have changed things for the better, so it is best not to dwell on them. I believe truly that based on what they knew at the time and through the experiences they had, they were likely only trying to protect each other, but missed that they could have probably helped each other. It’s easy to miss things when you’re on the defensive.

What I love about Sakura after this is that she forgives them immediately. This is not the first time she’s had things hidden from her for her protection, and naturally it’s upsetting to not feel like you can be trusted to deal with the serious information. When Syaoran told her how he’d been hiding what he knew before, she was upset but more because she thought he suffered as a result. This time around though, they concealed things from her not because they were worried about how she’d handle it, but rather out of fear from what Kaito would do if they tried, so it’s a completely different reason and much easier to forgive. Sakura is able to differentiate this, because she is a very emotionally intelligent girl and a lot more observant than she gets credit for when it comes to reading people. She’s grown a lot and isn’t as ‘dense’ as she was in Elementary School.

Then we get a precious gift of seeing Syaoran show off how smart he is, working out how Kaito managed to make them forget about said confrontation at the botanical garden. He’s probably thought about it a lot already, considering he mentioned before that he felt like someone made him forget something. But this time, he had additional information that Sakura was able to provide, and this was the final piece of the puzzle he needed. The most important detail that Sakura gave him was the location in particular, the botanical garden. He knew that that was where they intended to go, but that they had yet to go there. This prompted him to check his phone and see how much time might have passed without them realizing, and because he knew what time he had arranged to meet Sakura, 9:30 AM, he was able to observe that it was impossible for them to meet, go to the botanical garden, have this encounter with Kaito, and both get back to their houses in only 16 minutes. This meant it was not just a mere meddling of memories but rather time magic as it was the only explanation for the time discrepancy issue and memory loss. I can’t say how freaking proud I was of Syaoran for working this out. He’s such a smart boy, but I know that Sakura also would have been able to come to the same conclusion had she had more knowledge about the magical world. Sakura is running on pure instinct right now, which is super strong, but Syaoran really helps fill in those gaps where things don’t make sense for her, making them the perfect magical team!

The scene changes to Momo, who appears to be keeping tabs on the conversation (though it’s unclear if Kaito is aware while they are under Siege). And this part is perhaps the most worrying of the entire chapter, and I’m not talking about the line where the English translation says “Into the final act of your story”. That line in particular is a gross mistranslation cleared up by @meimi-haneoka, who graciously gives us translation notes each month in comparison to the Japanese version. The actual line in fact says “Into the final act of THE story”. This changes the entire tone of that page as the first translation implies it is leading to Kaito’s death, whereas the Japanese translation actually more implies that we’re nearing the climax of the story. Momo’s facial expressions also match the wording of the Japanese translation better, as we know she does not seem to want Kaito to die, so she would certainly look more upset here if she were speaking of such a thing. Also, I have to speak up about how pretttyyyy Kaito looks in that panel. The way CLAMP designed that page is just stunning as always.

HOWEVER

Back to what I was saying before! The most concerning part of the chapter for me is the page right before that, where Momo says “Once a spell’s been seen for what it is, it all comes crumbling down. Particularly, where time magic is concerned. And that’s to say nothing of your target’s considerable power. Now everything you’d turned back time to undo. Everything you’ve succeeded in freezing…is beginning to move again”. So here comes Chrissy’s big crazy theory and possible overthinking, but bear with me here!

I think…that what they are saying here is that these moments that were frozen in time and turned back were cut off from the timeline and now floating in a separate space. And now these scenes, which were all intense in their own way and incredibly frustrating for us, are about to move forward.

….all of them….

….at the same time….

This concept isn’t exactly new in CLAMP series. It happened with Tsubasa where Syaoran turned back time to go back to a moment where he could take Sakura’s hand and keep her from being cursed, and to keep that moment ready until he could return, it was in its own separate dimension, cut off from the rest of the universe. Eventually, once he got there, time started to move forward again. Turning back time is a taboo in the magical world for a reason, and Kaito has done this over and over and over again. But also, wouldn’t it be so like CLAMP to say “Hey, we know you’ve been frustrated that all these scenes were seemingly amping up to a big confrontation, but then Kaito rewound time over and over, so how about we give those back��.ALL AT THE SAME TIMMMMEE?”. Can you even imagine the consequences of such a thing? At least three of the occasions where Kaito turned back time, Akiho went into what I call ‘book-mode’, where she is no longer herself and tries to absorb Sakura along with her magic (and even succeeds on one occasion). Then there is also Syaoran and Kaito’s battle and Syaoran having his outburst about Kaito being a magician right in front of Akiho. It would be absolute utter chaos, and honestly I’d be living for it. Lmao.

If you believe that this line Momo said was simply to state that his time magic won’t work anymore and that things will continue to progress in this timeline, that would make perfect sense as well, so I don’t want to discount that. I’m just throwing out theories here based on what I know about CLAMP and concepts that are not out of the realm of possibility.

The scenes from here on out bounce a little bit back and forth from a continuation of the conversation with Syaoran and the guardians and present time with Akiho at school. I kinda like the way they did the transitions here, and it didn’t really feel awkward at any point but rather pulled up the relevant information when it was needed.

When Akiho comes in to the classroom, Sakura recalls how the topic of Akiho came up in the conversation from the day before. It’s natural for everyone to question at this point what she knows and if she is someone to be concerned about too. Syaoran mentions that he can’t detect any magic from her, which was something he had looked into from the very first day Akiho arrived at Tomoeda Middle (he knew literally nothing about her, but you know how transfer students go in this town. Lmao). Sakura drops another bombshell here by saying that she actually senses something in Akiho, but she is unclear of what that is and why she feels that way. It’s completely likely that she’s strong enough now to sense the suppressed magic spell the association and her clan put on her. I also noticed Syaoran seemed to tense up when Sakura said this, and I’m sure that this new information probably made him feel very uneasy. Sakura’s instincts are never wrong, and if she feels something, that means there is something, but to think that it’s something even Syaoran can’t sense would definitely be concerning.

It is then that Syaoran decides to approach the idea of addressing Akiho directly about Kaito’s magic to see what she knows. Maybe at this point in time he is thinking “If she possibly has some sort of magic in her, then she might know already about Kaito”, but like Sakura, he has seen Akiho’s behavior as a person and probably believes that she is not doing anything malicious of her own accord. Perhaps he thinks that Akiho might be able to talk some sense into Kaito and put a stop to things. But the way he goes about it doesn’t push Sakura, but rather just offers it as a suggestion as something a bit more direct.

Before we see Sakura’s response to this, we are back to Akiho in the classroom and she is very cheerful from having gone out with Kaito the day prior, and OMG CAN I JUST GUSH FOR A MOMENT ABOUT HOW FREAKING PRECIOUS SHE IS? She is seriously adorable, and the more I see her smile, the more it makes me want to burn her whole clan down to the ground for being so awful to her. But also, it reminds me how strong she is to have gone through everything she did and still smile and hold no hatred in her heart. I can’t honestly say I would be the same in her shoes, so it’s really admirable. For those My Hero Academia fans out there, remember Eri’s smile? You know the one I’m talking about. That’s how I feel every time Akiho smiles.

Anyways, back to Sakura’s response. She decides, in a very Sakura-like fashion, to avoid the subject with Akiho for now. It is true that they don’t fully understand who Kaito is and what his intentions are, but the one thing she does know is that he is considered precious to Akiho, and that at least says something about his character. Akiho herself also isn’t an idiot and is perceptive to Kaito’s feelings. Even when he’s smiling, she can tell when he’s actually hurting inside, so if he had bad intentions at all, that likely wouldn’t go unseen either, so Sakura decides that she’ll wait for Akiho to come to her first if the discussion between them needs to happen. I think this is a very mature decision on her part but also continues to show how much she considers the people around her and cares for them.

Back in the present, Akiho apologizes for talking so much, and Sakura tells her that she doesn’t mind and will listen to whatever she has to say. More than just trying to show good will as a friend, I think this is also her way of opening up the door to tell her “If you want to talk about more serious things, I’m here to listen as well”. That way, when the time comes, Akiho will feel comfortable having that conversation with her.

The scene moves on to Yukito’s home where all the guardians are having a nice little get together in their true forms. It’s not entirely necessary for all but Yue to do this, but I love it as we haven’t gotten to see much of them in these forms in the series so far, especially Spinel and Ruby Moon. Ruby Moon is surprised that they decided to go along with what Sakura said, which I suppose makes sense considering they’ve been kinda doing their own thing up until now. But it turns out that it was Syaoran who made the final decision, and the others just took his lead.

I love that Syaoran was so comfortable just trusting Sakura and realizing that this time, they needed to let her make some choices, especially since it concerned her the most. Moreover, I love that Kero, Suppi, and Yue just basically caved when Syaoran agreed. This shows how much they respect the opinion of not just Sakura, but Syaoran too. They could have easily gone off and continued to work secretly without Sakura, but they didn’t do that. It obviously didn’t work well for them before anyways.

I cracked up when Ruby Moon mentioned how much Syaoran has grown a lot and used to be a ‘pouty brat’ back when they were in Japan the last time (in his defense, Eriol was screwing with him a lot, so he had a lot of good reasons for the bratty attitude. Lmao). But Kero and Yue’s responses are just precious. They both have the same expression initially, but their actual responses seem to differ quite a bit. Kero states that he will always be a brat to him and that he’s only grown ‘a little’. This is classic Kero essentially saying he agrees that he’s grown a lot, but he won’t admit it yet, hence why Spinel calls him childish. Hahahaha.

Yue’s response however makes me absolutely melt. He states he’s not upset about the mention of Syaoran’s growth, but that that he doesn’t think they “should be in such a hurry to grow up”. He sounds just like a freaking dad here who is happy to see his children grow up, but is also wanting to them to slow down and stay children simultaneously. I am absolutely living for it, and I love seeing how soft he gets when it comes to them. -squeals-

Despite how lighthearted this scene is, I’m gonna put out another theory here that might seem like I’m overthinking and perhaps makes this appear a bit darker than possibly intended. My thought was “Why did CLAMP put such focus on this subject right now?”. They could have simply stated that they decided to go along with Sakura and been done with it, but the made a point to talk about the children’s growth as human beings, particularly Syaoran. Now where am I going with this you ask? Perhaps it’s the Tsubasa PTSD speaking, but when CLAMP has dialogue like this, it usually it done quite purposely at times, because it is meant to enhance our emotions when a particular moment comes later on. So when I thought “Now, why would they be talking so much about how Syaoran’s grown emotionally and how much Kero and Yue care about him?”. I think they are trying to emphasize how much people in general care about him. CLAMP showed it again recently with Touya, who threatened Kaito and purposely included Syaoran in his statement, and again when Kaito pointed his staff at Syaoran and Sakura reacted. CLAMP is pointing out right now how much people care about Syaoran, and I think this is once again a signal that something bad is going to happen to Syaoran, and I think it’s going to be soon.

Now, Cinzia actually recently found my reaction to spoilers of chapter 1 of Clear Card (that’s right, chapter 1 from all the way back in 2016), and from the very beginning, I have been screaming at the top of my lungs that I had the worst feeling that something bad was going to happen to Syaoran. I imagine some of you are probably tiring of hearing it from me. Lmao. So here we are, 55 chapters and numerous bad dreams later, and I finally feel like that time is really really close. I’m calling it right now that it will probably happen within the next 4-5 chapters, and if I’m wrong, I will eat my words, but them even putting Syaoran on the color page all by himself for this chapter gives me more reason to think that “that time” is approaching.

That is a good transition for me to talk about the last part of this chapter. We are finally getting some progress on this play Naoko has been writing, and the moment she mentioned it was about “Twin Alices”, I thought to myself “this is going to be where the climax happens”. The pieces are coming together for it, and we’ve finally gotten to hear the premise of this play. We all knew Naoko would ask Sakura and Akiho to play the main roles, but it’s unclear what the role she wants for Syaoran will be when she inevitably peer pressures him into it. Lol. But I’m telling you, I really think this play is where shit is going to hit the fan and we’ll finally get some real answers.

I can’t wait to see what happens from here on out, but it’s very clear to me that things are just going to get more and more intense from here on out!!

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iamwhoami · 4 years ago

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Are You With Me (Grey’s Anatomy)

Grey’s Anatomy

When Y/N unexpectedly find out that she’s expecting, she suddenly finds herself having to figure out how to tell Jackson.

Warnings: Pregnancy???

Requested = Yes

“No...no, please no,” You whispered quietly as you stared at the stick in your hand.

You were starting to lose hope that the first one you took was a false positive.

It had all started a few weeks ago actually when you missed your period. That didn’t really alarm you since you were never regular and plus with all the stress that was on you right now, you figured that those were just the reasons.

Then, you started getting sick. Feeling nauseous, throwing up...all that fun stuff.

But only in the morning.

Even then, you kept brushing it off, telling yourself that you had probably caught a stomach bug from a patient.

It was the one and only Arizona Robbins that forced you to grab a pregnancy test (or two) from the pharmacy.

So now here you were, locked in the bathroom in your apartment with three positive pregnancy tests.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

You and Jackson hadn’t even started talking about kids and now you had to tell him you weren’t just thinking about having kids in the future, you were having one now.

This couldn’t be happening.

You were deep in your swirling thoughts when your phone suddenly went off and you looked over to see a text message from Jackson.

Hey, do you wanna come over? I’ve made dinner for two...

Did you? Not really. But at some point you’d have to tell him right? You quickly texted him back saying that you were leaving now

Sighing, you decided to shove one of the pregnancy tests into your purse along with your phone before grabbing your coat and heading over to Jackson’s.

~~~

“Hey!” Jackson’s smiling face greeted you as he opened the door. “Come in!”

You walked in and shook off your coat before hanging it up. Usually, it felt more casual but today you couldn’t help but feel out of place.

“I made fettuccine alfredo,” Jackson said, not noticing your tense body language, “Do you want some?”

You swallowed, “Yeah, sure. That sounds good.”

You took a seat on one of the bar stools at the island and Jackson soon placed a plate filled with a generous amount of pasta on it. He then helped himself to a plate and took a seat on one of the stools next to you.

Normally, you would have finished the pasta in seconds, but your stomach was too nervous to have any sort of appetite so the best you could do was a few bites before you ended up playing with the food on your plate.

“Is everything okay?” Jackson asked, now noticing your strange behaviour.

This might have been a good time to tell him but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it.

“Yeah, just a long day you know,” You replied, not completely lying.

It had been a long day but that wasn’t why you were acting different.

Jackson nodded, “It was a long day, do you want something to drink? Wine?”

“No,” You quickly declined, earning a strange look from Jackson.

You had to think quickly to prevent any suspicions.

“I think maybe I caught a bug or something from someone,” You explained, “I don’t think wine’ll make me feel any better.”

Jackson nodded and for now, it looked like you were able to steer clear of the topic.

The rest of the dinner, you and Jackson talked about all the patients the two of you treated earlier in the day. By time he had finished, you had still barely touched your plate.

You knew he was concerned about that but he didn’t ask about it, much to your relief.

Before he could invite you to stay over, to quickly came up with a lame excuse about forgetting to your laundry in one of the machines in the apartment laundry room and thanked him for dinner.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” You told him.

Jackson nodded, “Yeah, see you.”

~~~

Okay, you were going to admit it. You were avoiding Jackson and there was no way around that.

He had texted you last night once you got home and when you didn’t reply, he had called you multiple times though every time you just let the phone ring until it stopped by itself.

When you had gotten to the hospital the next morning for your shift, you spotted Jackson talking to a nurse at the front desk and made a quick beeline for the hall that lead in the opposite direction.

While Jackson had specialized in Plastics, you specialized in Peds after realizing that there was just something special about working with kids.

“Hey! Look who made it!” Arizona greeted you as she watched you start to go through the charts of the patients you had to see today.

You sighed, “Yeah, I made it all right.”

“So what did the test say?” Arizona pried.

You knew what she was talking about but you played dumb anyway.

“What test?”

“You know what I mean,” Arizona said and you swallowed hard, trying to keep your eyes that were now slowly filling with tears on the charts.

Arizona noticed your tears and quickly placed a hand on your shoulder. You didn’t need to say anything for her to know your answer to her previous question.

“Have you told Jackson yet?” She asked you softly.

You shook your head, “I was going to last night, he invited me over to dinner, but I chickened out.”

“You should tell him,” Arizona told you, “The sooner he knows, the better.”

“I know, I know,” You said, “And it’s not like I don’t want to tell him because I do. I want him to know.”

Arizona nodded understandingly, “But you’re scared.”

You scoffed, “More like terrified. I’m pretty much dropping a bombshell on him.”

“Well, my advice would be to just tell him,” Arizona said, “Get it over with.”

Both of you knew though that it was much easier said than done.

“Yeah...okay,” You took a deep breath, “After shift, I’ll tell him, but right now, I have to check on Tracy Jenkins. It looks like she took a turn for the worst overnight.”

“Okay, yes, good luck!” Arizona told you before you hurried off.

~~~

After a very long, exhausting, and horrible shift, you collapsed on one of the beds in the on call room.

Today had been an awful day.

Tracy Jenkins ended up coding and you weren’t able to restart her heart. She was eight years old.

It wasn’t just Tracy though.

Little Billy, born premature five days ago, had caught an infection and was now in critical condition.

Sixteen year old Molly Thompson was walking home from school when she was hit by a car. The driver was drunk.

She was still alive, but she was currently facing the possibility of paralysis while everyone waited for her to wake up from surgery.

You heard the door open before Jackson’s face suddenly loomed over you.

“Long day huh,” He commented as he took a seat next to you.

“More like a rough day,” You groaned.

“Yeah...same,” Jackson sighed and you sat up.

You were exhausted and felt like crap but you had said you were going to tell Jackson the news after shift and you didn’t plan on chickening out this time so...

“We need to talk,” Jackson said before you could say anything though.

You nodded, “You’re right. We do.”

“I don’t know what I did,” Jackson kept going, “I keep racking my brain for anything I could have done but I can’t think of anything-”

“Jackson, stop,” You cut him off, “You didn’t do anything.”

“Then what’s wrong? And don’t tell me nothing’s wrong Y/N because you know I know something’s wrong,” Jackson raised his eyebrows.

You took a deep breath, “Jackson, I’m pregnant.”

Silence.

“You’re...” Jackson’s voice faltered.

You nodded, “I’m pregnant.”

“Okay...well...” Jackson seemed to be at a lost of words, “Maybe it was a false positive?”

“Maybe,” You bit your lip, “But I took three and they were all positive so unless I got three false positives...”

“Which is very unlikely,” Jackson said.

You swallowed, “Yes. Which is very unlikely, but, I haven’t actually gotten any blood drawn or anything.”

More silence.

“Jackson, I need you to say something,” You finally told him, “I need you to say how you feel about this.”

“I mean,” Jackson put his hand on his head, “You just told me you were pregnant, I’m still comprehending things.”

You sighed, “I’ll put it differently then. Are you with me or not?”

“Of course I’m with you,” Jackson quickly took his hand off his head and placed it on your hand instead, “I’m not leaving you, not now, not when you need me the most.”

At those words, you burst into tears, not able to keep your composure any longer.

“Hey...hey,” Jackson said softly as he scooted closer towards you, “It’s okay. We’ll figure things out.”

“I was going to tell you last night,” You spoke between your sobs, “But I got cold feet. I’m sorry.”

Jackson wrapped an arm around your shoulder, “It’s okay. I’m just glad you told me.”

“I was scared,” You admitted, “I’m still scared.”

“You know what? So am I,” Jackson whispered, “But we’re gonna take this one day at a time. Together.”

You nodded and buried your face into his chest.

“Does anybody else know?” Jackson asked you as he started stroking your hair.

You nodded again, “Only Arizona. She was the one who told me I should take a pregnancy test.”

“I think we should talk to her again,” Jackson said, “Get some blood drawn to see if those tests were right and then if they were, get an ultrasound done. You know, to check on our little bean.”

You smiled, “Our little bean?”

“Well, little bean probably does exist so they need some sort of name,” Jackson explained, blushing a little.

“Okay well...we’ll do what you just said in a little bit,” You agreed, “But I just need a moment with you.”

Jackson opened his mouth to say something but before he got the chance, your pager went off and you quickly picked it up.

“Molly Thompson’s waking up,” You said and started getting up, “I need to be there.”

“Yeah of course,” Jackson replied, “I’ll meet you on the OB floor then when you’re done.”

You nodded, “Sounds good.”

You left the on call room feeling as if all the weight had just been lifted off your shoulders and you could now breathe again.

Everything was going to be okay.

#grey's anatomy imagines #grey's anatomy x reader #grey's anatomy imagine #greys anatomy imagine #greys anatomy imagines #greys anatomy x reader #jackson avery imagine #jackson avery imagines #jackson avery x reader #greys anatomy #grey's anatomy

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ramblingguy54 · 4 years ago

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True Colors: An Emotionally Fantastic Serious Game Changer.

If we’re to look back at Reunion as Season 1′s dramatic pay off for Amphibia’s message of toxic friendships, as Anne & Sasha’s conflicting dynamic showed us, then True Colors is a colossal expansive note on this big theme of the series. True Colors makes Season 1′s finale look like a walk in the park for what angst goes down between our three main heroins in Season 2′s climatic resolution. Everything that can go wrong does go oh so painfully wrong for these three kids. Anne, to no one’s surprise, gets double crossed by Sasha leaving things between them a Hell of a lot more bitter than they were previously, as if that couldn’t already be topped when Sasha tried to kill the Plantars before. Anne has had enough of her lies and manipulation not being afraid to tell Sasha straight up how awful of a friend she’s been in general, even hitting her where it hurts most of all saying, “No, I’m done listening to you! I’m done trusting you! You’re a horrible person and I am done being FRIENDS with you!”, going so far as to get a shaken reaction out of Sasha dropping her brave face act, making this girl try to wipe away the frog family.

Right off the bat, True Colors makes it highly evident this isn’t just another story of stopping a bigger threat, but one hitting much closer to home, overall. Yes, King Andrias is certainly a dangerous villain, who makes his presence and intimidating nature known to the others by True Color’s final act, which despite this Amphibia isn’t entirely putting him at the forefront, rather focusing on a more intimate study of Anne, Sasha, and Marcy’s big emotional conflict. This finale knows exactly where to put its focus of importance on, so I love that instead of it being action packed we’re getting the spotlight shined on just how screwed up these three of a friendship have, in spite of Marcy claiming in The Dinner episode, “We’re supposed to be friends for life. We don’t split up!’ . Very ironic stuff right there, indeed.

True Colors’ most powerful strength it adds to Amphibia’s ongoing profound story about healthy friendships is the thorough deconstruction of these girls defined “ideal relationship” as people. Before Anne came to the world of Amphibia this kid was afraid to stand up for what she believed in, even knowing especially well that stealing the calamity box was morally questionable, but did it anyway. Sasha was super manipulative, abusive, and used her power to control people, like she did a lot of toward Anne in their lives. Marcy, while very smart, wasn’t the most competent physically, who soon grew into being more independent without needing to rely on Anne always having to be there for her. These three were changed immensely by the events of being thrust into this world of sentient amphibian creatures. Anne benefited morally most out out of all three in taking up the mantle of responsibility and ironing out her own issues. She’s become a much stronger person all around.

This episode asks us an important question though in nutshell with, “Have Sasha & Marcy truly changed for the better?”, since Anne has reached a point in her arc feeling genuinely content with who she’s become and the bonds that have been made with the Plantar family shown most notably with Sprig Plantar. Hence the whole purpose behind the song, It’s No Big Deal, with Anne feeling proud for who she is, yet not noticing a bigger issue right underneath her nose. That previous episode was meant to bring Anne’s happiness up only to bring it all crashing down in a devastating display of new revelations in True Colors. Every dramatic emotional beat isn’t just earned. Each significant moment is completely knocked out of the park by terrific voice acting, beautiful animation, and music composition that gave me serious emotional goosebumps. True Colors did exactly as Not What He Seems accomplished for Gravity Falls in shaking up its own respective dramatic stakes just when you thought it couldn’t get any higher for these protagonists. Shit seriously hits the fan here.

Did it ever occur to you, Anne? Sasha? That one of you knew more, than she was letting on? That ONE of you might’ve gotten you stranded in Amphibia on purpose...?

The big bombshell twist of Marcy playing a part too in getting them into this whole debacle completely flips everything upside down. Sasha pushed Anne into taking the Calamity Box, yes, but if Marcy never sent that photo because of her desire to stay with them together forever, then they wouldn’t have been stranded in basically a world full of dangerous creatures and who knows what else. Easily my favorite part of the episode, considering it adds more nuance to a situation that defined Amphibia’s story. It wasn’t just one person’s fault at the end of the day. Sasha bullied Anne into taking the box, Anne didn’t put her foot down to make a stand for something morally questionable, and Marcy took advantage of them both to benefit her own selfish desires for supposedly a “happy ending” not involving them staying apart, due to her parents moving away for a new job. All three girls played an important part on why they got landed into Amphiba. It’s why Anne’s statement to King Andrias, “The three of us may have made some mistake, but you...You’re evil and I’m gonna stop you!”, holds such a real weight to it, as this story continues to solidify how genuinely fleshed out their dynamic is.

Marcy’s super desperate plea to be understood by Anne & Sasha when Andrias revealed her getting them thrown into Amphibia purposefully was hard to watch. On one hand, I felt for Marcy because she didn’t want real life circumstances to tear apart that close connection she had to Sasha & Anne. Sure, she could’ve just kept in touch with them over the phone or chatting online, too. However, Marcy had known them since very early childhood. When you’ve been so attached to someone it can be a devastating thing, depending on just how vulnerable you are emotionally, to start drifting apart. Marcy represents that embodiment of toxic need for togetherness and couldn’t bear to let a possibility, like moving away, throw a wrench into her happiness and friendship, as well.

Never mind Marcy wanting to stay permanently in a different reality, rather than face her’s, but it made this person feel like something more. It gave her a chance to feel truly special in being able to live out a fantasy dream of having such power and freedom that a kid, like herself, couldn’t have had. The freedom to know she is plenty capable of making it out there on her own without Anne having to watch this kid like a hawk. So, to have someone, or something, try taking it away from her terrified Marcy of facing a terrible truth. That she isn’t strong enough after all to live a life without Anne & Sasha by her side completely, where Marcy will never feel truly worthy enough to blossom into her own person. It’s why that line, “I just...didn’t want to be alone...”, carries such a deep pain to it all. Marcy just crumbles into pieces accepting her greatest weakness. As much as Marcy fumbled the ball big time, it’s so easy to empathize with her on the idea of feeling competent enough. Marcy never meant to hurt Anne or Sasha, but the sad crushing punchline is she very much did.

Speaking of which, Anne had every right to be upset and mad, obviously. Anne has been missing so many things from her life before everything went off the wall. Hopping Mall especially highlighted Anne’s emotional desire to give anything just to hear her mother’s singing again. This teenager has been really dealing with a lot of grief in general quite honestly. Anne got into a high stakes battle against Sasha to save new friends, who’d practically became like an adopted family, which left the poor girl traumatized and heartbroken over the end result. She thought finding Marcy would help compensate for it and eventually be able to mend those complications with Sasha to boot. It’s simply painful to see it all blow up in Anne’s face to know not only Sasha betrayed her trust yet again, but realizing Marcy also played a part of responsibility in getting them thrown here. Matt Braly really just decided to slap future trust issues onto Anne finding out Hop Pop, Sasha, and Marcy were all super dishonest in their intentions at one point or another. Damn, I feel so bad for her.

It makes their embracing hug back in Marcy At The Gates so much harder to watch. Anne was super glad to see her again. Anne had wondered what became of Marcy or even possibly started to think she could even be alive at all. Then come to find out later on Marcy having intentionally ripped her away from a normal life must’ve felt worse then what happened with Sasha. Anne, already done with all of Sasha’s bullshit, thought she could at least expect better from Marcy not letting her down, but that too wasn’t the case. Marcy is very much as flawed as Sasha in what she has done. To think, Anne wanted so badly to get back home, yet she’s staring the very person dead in the eye, who ripped her away from it to begin with. Marcy knew Sasha would talk Anne into taking the box from that thrift shop, even if she wasn’t completely certain it would successfully teleport them away. Regardless of whatever good intentions someone can have in why they did what they did, it still doesn’t absolve them of said mistake. Fact of the matter is, Marcy tragically made her own bed, by choosing to mess with forces she couldn’t begin to comprehend and now has to face consequences, in spite of her not deserving them.

What really got to me was when Marcy tried to spin around Anne’s personal growth and close friendship with the Plantars as all entirely thanks to her. When she said, “I gave you this! I gave you everything!”, I was like, “Nope, that couldn’t be any further from the truth.”, seeing everything that has culminated in Anne’s journey of bettering herself. Marcy didn’t give Anne anything, but a one way ticket to cutting the kid off from her family, presuming she’d be fine with this idea. It’s all kinds of messed up, however what it boils down to is Marcy undermining Anne’s independence and agency. Anne’s moral judgement in decision making was what allowed her to create this new life she made for herself in Amphibia. Anne’s honesty as a whole led her down a path of togetherness, while Marcy’s lying landed her in a result of not wanting to be alone, costing her so much.

“I don’t believe this. We were so focused on each other we couldn’t see what was right in front of us!”

True Colors excels at earning each of its emotional beats because they line up with character motivations down to the last letter. Anne doesn’t want to trust Sasha anymore because of their already rocky past, which leads to her helping King Andrias regain control of his kingdom. Sasha not keeping a lid on her temper, wanting to rule over Amphibia, and trying to reinforce that power dynamic with Anne & Marcy only made things worse for her image of a changed good friend. There wasn’t a chance in Hell Anne would hear Sasha’s reasoning after she flat out tried to take away her frog family, by attempting to use the Calamity Box a bit ago in the episode. Marcy wanted to believe there was a happily ever after in seeing this world traveling idea as their only chance for salvation as friends for life, but it turned out to be something much more sinister, when learning of Andrias’ backstory and his true scumbag nature. All three of their motivations come clashing together, blinding them from a much bigger danger. Something that effectively puts everyone at stake.

Amphibia’s Season 2 finale works so excellently, given it covers important dramatic elements it’s been stirring around since Season 1′s early rumblings. Amphibia is a story centered around people’s need for emotional connections. True Colors builds miraculously off what Reunion already did quite well in showing friendships can become rough and they are never easy to deal with. When you have to make a stand it can be a tough pill to swallow on the reality check of maybe this “good friend” of your’s isn’t as nice as you previously thought them to be. Anne having been hurt one too many times now by her former friend sends that message close to home, so much so even Sasha begins to question her morality as a human being. It poignantly encapsulates how this trio’s complex friendship is a serious growing issue needing to be reexamined, overall.

What if Anne’s right..? What if I am a horrible person...?

Something I absolutely love to pieces about True Colors, also a testament to Season 2′s darn good writing, is how much introspective we get from each character on what they’re feeling. We’ve seen plenty of Sasha’s vulnerability before in other episodes centered on her issues, but now we’re getting to the root of it. Sasha is really taking everything more to heart, little by little. Sasha’s understanding what kind of an effect she has on people, seeing the damage it has caused made evident by Percy and Braddock in Barrel’s Warhammer. Grime once told her, “Some dreams have a price and not everyone is willing to pay it.”, where she’s questioning that idealism every passing minute the invasion plan proceeds further into reaching success. Sasha isn’t sure what to do with herself anymore feeling aimless. Those previous episodes had a real impact on her priorities more than she cared to let on with Sasha’s typical tough girl act. This kid has let her guard down more, which scares and confuses Sasha. She’s always used to playing the role of protector it contradicts everything Sasha stands for when the roles are totally reversed because now Anne has made her feel the tremendous change in their growth as individuals.

Sasha’s lifestyle has been all about control that after somewhat learning to be more considerate to Anne & Marcy’s feelings she feels beyond conflicted about what truly matters to her. The most screwed up part of it all is Sasha didn’t want to fight anymore, taking up a pacifist approach after seeing what King Andrias had been hiding from everyone. It’s a fitting punishment for Sasha to try bringing Anne over to work together once more, but getting her pleas for companionship outright ignored. Anne was correct that Sasha had wasted all the chances to be reasonable. Boonchuy tried to hear out Sasha before at The Third Temple. One wanted to start things over again to iron out their serious issues, but the other was driven by bitterness, while only remorseful to a degree at best, of seeing their once weak friend become so independent, mature, and stronger that it drove her up wall. Sasha wanted to take away that “problem” being the Plantars, since in her eyes they’re the source of Anne’s strength, driving a wedge further between the two girls in their heated Reunion 2.0 battle.

True Colors demonstrates the horrific price of no trust, communication, nor teamwork from the three main girls that Andrias smoothly took advantage of, as if they were fiddles.

“That’s the thing about friends isn’t it? The more you love them, the more it hurts when they go.”

King Andrias is quite literally what I wanted Lunaris to be, where DuckTales’ Season 2 finale didn’t impress me on doing. He’s a serious big baddie to the main cast, who follows through on his threats of violence to demonstrate his wide array of arsenal and power. Andrias doesn’t just emotionally manipulate characters, like poor Marcy, but utterly crush them without an ounce of remorse for his actions. When he dropped Sprig out that window after Anne willingly let him have the Calamity Box back I thought they were legit gonna kill this boy off. The way Anne’s flashback montage of her good times with Sprig were eerily shot really didn’t help either on that note. Anne’s Calamity power finally activating is easily up there among stuff, like Dewey risking his life for Della’s disappearance in Last Crash, where the cinematography is shot and animated brilliantly. You feel Anne’s blind raging sadness in every hit she landed on those robots and Andrias. If anyone didn’t believe Sprig was like a little brother to Anne, then I dunno how anyone couldn’t view their bond anymore as such after this hugely defining scene. Anne went bloodthirsty when she believed Sprig to be dead further evidenced when she hugged him in relief afterwards exclaiming, “Sprig!? You’re alive!? Oh, thank goodness...”, which cuts deep so damn much.

Anne was ready to fight every one of Andrias’ troops in that castle to the death, if need be. Before Sprig came back from falling, thanks to Marcy’s quick acting, to comfort Anne, her only goal was to slaughter every opponent in that throne room, along with making Andrias pay dearly for even daring to lay a single finger on anyone of the Plantars. I’m not gonna lie, this pivotal power up reminded me so much Gohan turning Super Saiyan 2 after Cell curb stomped Android 16 into pieces with a smirk on his face. Anne Boonchuy’s maddening outburst is a classic testament to the idea of, “Piss off the nicest person and they’ll make it their mission to instill the biggest kind of fear/terror into you.”. showing this kid at her most vulnerable mental state, yet. Sprig & Anne’s cathartic embrace really messed me up in reinforcing just how these two respect, love, and would go above any of their limitations to help the other out. Sprig’s “death” scene was a masterful bait by the writers into making us think someone was gonna die and it was gonna be a poor kid, no less.

However, it was actually all just a bait and switch for the real, “Oh, shit. They really just did that”, moment with Marcy unexpectedly getting run through with Andrias’ gigantic sword. In a last ditch effort, Marcy wanted to atone for what she had a hand in getting them all into. Marcy was ironclad determined in making her own stand for what was right trying to save the people she endangered. Akin to what Sasha did in Reunion for saving Anne’s life, Marcy does the exact same here. Although, unfortunately this time, no one is here to protect Marcy from escaping death, like Grime catching Sasha from plummeting at Toad Tower. Marcy couldn’t react in time because she was so focused on helping her dear friends out. She wanted to prove to herself at least one time, “I’ve screwed up so much stuff with my friends. Maybe, just maybe. If I get my friends back home, it’ll prove I’m not an entirely crappy person for setting these events into motion.”. Marcy’s own deep seeded remorse is what saved Anne & the Plantars, while being the cause of her own untimely demise at Andrias’ hands.

This scene is what no doubt encouraged the warning sign for younger viewers Disney decided to make for them. It’s impressive how far Matt and his crew are willing to go for intense dramatic content. Andrias trying to crush Polly with his fist after destroying Frobo with casual ease, dropping Sprig out of the window from up sky high, and stabbing Marcy with his powerful sword displays his cold blooded brutality. Doesn’t matter who you are. If you get in the way of Andrias’ plans for multiverse domination, then he’ll throw anyone into their own grave, be it man, woman, or child. That’s the mark of a truly terrifying antagonist.

Andrias didn’t care who had to be hurt or manipulated to get back the box, so he could invade other worlds with Earth being his next prime target for invasion. Marcy’s fate is a horrifyingly poetic statement, since Sasha stated to Anne in a flashback from Marcy At The Gates, “One of these days, she’s gonna get herself killed.”, with True Colors tying back to this line in a disturbing manner. Something that sends chills down my spine is we get to see the full extent of how far Andrias shoved the sword through her body. We don’t just see the entry point of where it hit her, but it even zooms out to show the whole thing. Real talk, I got serious Avatar The Last Airbender vibes from this scene. Reminded me so much of Aang getting suddenly zapped with lightning by Azula when he tried to enter the Avatar state. Marcy didn’t want to be alone so badly she ended up inevitably dying alone trying to send Anne back home to their reality. One Hell of a way to close off Marcy’s last moments in Season 2, until her inevitable resurrection happens in Season 3 now that King Andrias has her in a tube tank that looks tied to his master.

True Colors ends on a deeply bittersweet cliffhanger leaving the fates of Sasha & Grime totally unknown if they’ll get away by the skin of their teeth, or get captured by Andrias’ soldiers and robots. Anne finally returned home with the Plantars, but at a deadly cost of leaving her other close friends behind in Amphibia. After all the isolation, heartbreak, and endurance she went through with her frog family Anne finds herself at a total loss for words. Once again, Anne is in a state of solitude of not knowing if her friends are really okay or not, mirroring the start of Season 1 when she landed into Amphibia’s world. It’s safe to say to say that, “Finally me and it’s no big deal.”, lyrics have aged terribly for Anne’s realization of finding her own identity came at the expense of getting separated from friends she’s known since kindergarten. Definitely see Anne becoming a lot more protective of the Plantars now more than ever after watching Marcy drop to the ground from being stabbed in front of her eyes.

Amphibia’s Season 2 finale is exactly how you capitalize on a winning story telling formula of dramatic writing, lovable characters with layered depth, and increasing the stakes of your story in an organic manner. True Colors is a finale that should be talked about for a long time to come, as it not only showed how worth the wait it was, but reinforces why Amphibia is a truly great series. It’s unafraid to take its characters to dark places in a way that feels totally earned.

Amphibia Season 2 is everything a sequel to a first film should be.

#amphibia true colors #amphibia spoilers #amphibia season 2 #anne boonchuy #marcy wu #sasha waybright #sprig plantar #polly plantar #hop pop plantar

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trashbaggage · 4 years ago

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a mr. and mrs. smith-flavoured assassin au

geralt and jaskier are assassins for different firms and run into each other on a job, thinking the other is a civilian. they use each other as a cover and (fall in love) get married, it’s all for the cover, swearsies :)

cut to like, 5 years later. they got a house in the suburbs and ciri stays with them every other week when she’s not at mom!yennefer’s place. they’re a little domestic family.

yennefer, unbeknownst to them, is the head of the firm jaskier works with. tissaia runs the other firm which employs geralt, and the two have a (mostly) friendly rivalry going on. ciri sees what’s up with her dads and tells yen; yen can’t believe the two most unsubtle (when not on a job) people she’s met haven’t clued in to the fact they both kill people for a living. she thinks it’s hilarious. she tells tissaia. she also thinks it’s hilarious and even lets out a slightly inelegant laugh. they decide to help the boys by sending them both on the same fake job.

the day of the set up comes, and while they’re both trying to go for the target they see each other. they’re both incredibly startled, and geralt sees jaskier give a sheepish wave through his scope as the target gets away.

jaskier gets back to the house first, with geralt not far behind, and before jaskier can get more than a “well, that was awkward darling” out geralt slams him up against a wall. jask is a bit disoriented but soon gets with the program. they fight and roll around (making a right mess of the place, good thing yen planned for this all to happen when it was her week with ciri) until geralt has jask pinned on the kitchen floor with the knife that was taped behind the professional portrait of roach the cat geralt drunkenly commissioned one night and jask just goes “wow, you’re really committing to this bit, I thought when you finally caved into my unsubtle role play hints you would just kinda half-ass it”. geralt stops and is visibly confused. “while this ‘fight’ (jask even does the air quotes) was quite exhilarating, i think that’s enough foreplay, c’mon and ravish me”.

geralt is still hella ????? and is like, uh, are we not gonna talk about how we just found out we’re rival assassins???? and jask goes uh, jUST??? babe, i’ve known you were an assassin for years, i THOUGHT YOU KNEW I WAS ONE TOO AND WE JUST WEREN’T TALKING ABOUT IT. and geralt is just WHAT.

jask: i thought you just wanted to keep work and home separate or smth, and that’s why we never seriously talked about it idk, but i make jokes about it ALL THE TIME

geralt: you thought i wouldn’t want to talk about the fact we both KILL PEOPLE FOR A LIVING?? and what jokes???

jaskier: i always wink when i ask about your day and how work can be ‘killer’

geralt: that’s just,, normal stuff! how would i have known from that??

jaskier: i call you john wick all the time and point out all the things they get wrong in assassin movies

geralt: but -

jaskier: you yell at me about leaving my knives out everywhere

geralt: i thought you just liked collecting sharp, pretty things -

jaskier: you’ve LITERALLY walked in on me stuffing body parts in a trash bag

geralt: it was halloween!! i thought they were fake! i thought you were just really into decorating that year!!!

jaskier: ....fine, I’ll give you that one, my haunted house that year was very involved and spooky. but i wrote ‘you’re the best ass-assin i know x’ in your birthday card three months ago!!!

geralt: you know how i feel about puns, i just thought you were being a little shit

jaskier: ohmygod, ohhhh my god how. you just - no. nope. we’re not fighting about this, all parties now know the truth, can we just get back to the sexytimes and talk later?

geralt: .....yeah ok

they do the do.

they eventually talk everything out.

yennefer congratulates them when she drops off ciri, and ciri just looks at the partially destroyed house and goes “FINALLY” and “my room better be in one piece” and jaskier and geralt deal with the twin bombshells of yen also being in the business and jaskier’s boss and the fact that ciri figured them out, but c’mon, she’s yen’s daughter, she knows what’s up.

the only real conflict in this story is

man vs. self as geralt tries to look back on their relationship with new eyes and sees a LOT of things making more sense and laments he’s not even the cleverest assassin in his own home

and

idiot vs. idiot (no explanation needed)

and

yennefer vs. man as she roasts both of them for being so goddamn oblivious and having the communication skills of a particularly dense walnut

everyone lives happily ever after, the end

516 notes · View notes

spine-buster · 4 years ago

Text

The President Wears Prada (William Nylander) | Chapter 21

A/N: I’ve always wanted to write a super-tropey scene like the bar scene in this so I went ahead and did it and I LOVE IT, OKAY?! Also, if you haven’t seen, I posted Part 3 of my Elias story last Thursday. It’s linked on my Masterlist!

Also, just a quick note that I will be returning to a full-time job after Labour Day today. I have enough chapters written out that I don’t think I will have to skip a week of posting, and I organize my time wisely so that I still give myself time to write, but this is just a PSA/FYI that I may not get to your asks/canon questions super quickly like I have been over quarantine. They will still ALL be answered, though, so don’t worry about that!

Anyways, enjoy this!

February 18th, 2020

Aberdeen Bloom was dejected.

The Leafs had lost their last two games, but these felt different. They’d lost to Buffalo on Sunday 5-2, and Buffalo was one of the worst teams in the league. It didn’t even matter that there were a majority of Leaf fans in the building. Now, tonight, they’d just lost 5-2 again, but this time to Pittsburgh. She couldn’t keep her eyes off her phone, with tweet upon tweet upon tweet calling this the worst game of the season for the team. Just an absolutely awful game. No effort. No heart. No soul. One that they would have to answer for at home, since they faced them again on Thursday, but this time at home. She didn’t even like hockey and she was taking everything to heart because, well – she was part of the team now. Everybody had told her that since day one. And now, at one of the lowest points in the season, she felt that.

She couldn’t stop scrolling. Couldn’t stop reading what everybody was saying.

It was Tyson who had volunteered to drive her home tonight. Ever since Morgan broke his ankle, it was a rotation of Tyson or John. When Emma picked up Tyson, she was just as nice, but she missed Bee. She missed seeing the way Morgan looked at Bee when they were in the car, because it reminded her of how William looked at her when they were alone.

Aberdeen shuffled into the backseat of Tyson’s SUV. Tyson was in the driver’s seat, and Emma was the passenger. Everyone was silent as Tyson began driving into the city – she and Emma could tell he was dejected and mad at the game that had transpired just a few hours ago. The short flight did nothing to quell his emotions. And as Emma laid her hand on his on the gearshift, Aberdeen watched as she moved her thumb back and forth, trying to tell him that it was all okay.

“Tys…it’s not your fault,” Emma said softly, finally, after what felt like a lifetime of silence.

“Em—”

“Tyson, listen to me.”

“—Emma, please, not right now—”

His eyes flashed to hers through the rear view mirror, but Emma wouldn’t listen to him. “I know it and you know it too. The whole defence is flawed. Plus, you guys are missing Mo. It’s not just you and you know that—”

“—Emma, I really don’t want to talk about it right now—”

“—and besides, if – or should I say when – you’re traded at the deadline, none of this will matter,” she dropped a bombshell. “Everyone knows you’re unhappy and it’s not working out and that you’re much better suited to play somewhere else.”

Aberdeen felt her body stiffen at the revelation. So Tyson was unhappy. Unhappy with playing on the Leafs. She knew he wasn’t having the best season, especially considering how successful he’d been in Colorado, but she didn’t think it was that bad. He’d gotten better when Sheldon came in, but apparently that wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to make him happy. And in Aberdeen’s life, happiness was important. It was almost paramount. What you did and who you surrounded yourself with and your work should, ultimately, make you happy. Was it the same in hockey? Were hockey players allowed to be happy? Were hockey players on the Toronto Maple Leafs allowed to be happy? Or was everything just a business transaction? A long road to the ultimate success of lifting the Stanley Cup, regardless of who got hurt along the way?

Tyson let out a long sigh as he continued to drive, choosing not to answer his girlfriend or say anything else. When they got off the Gardiner and into downtown, Aberdeen was almost desperate to get out. She felt very awkward. Clearly Emma and Tyson wanted, needed to have a conversation, and she was stopping that from happening. Just by being in the backseat. She almost wanted to just tuck and roll out of the car. Tyson could return her suitcase later. She really didn’t care at this point.

When he pulled up outside her condo building, Aberdeen almost didn’t want until he stopped the car and put it in park to click her seatbelt off. “Hey Aberdeen,” Tyson looked at her through the rear view mirror. She paused all her movements to stare back at him through the mirror. “I uh…I’d appreciate it if you don’t mention to Brendan, uh, you know…what you heard…” he trailed off.

Aberdeen stared back at him doe-eyed. She shook her head slightly. “I don’t…I don’t tell Brendan about anything I find out about you guys. I mean I would never…” she said softly, trailing off too.

Tyson nodded, smiling slightly. “Thanks, Aberdeen.”

“Yeah, it’s no problem.”

When she got out of the car, Tyson popped the trunk so she could get her bag. After one last thank you, a polite wave, and a push of the button to get it to close, she walked into her condo building. She nodded towards the security guard before walking towards the elevators.

She wondered if William felt that same way when he played last year.

***

February 20th, 2020

“Get ‘em!” Aberdeen growled as she looked down onto the ice. “Get ‘em!!!”

Brendan chuckled as he watched Aberdeen, her hands balled up in fists as she practically hung over the box. He’d never seen her so into a hockey game before, and he didn’t know what had gotten into her. “You alright, Aberdeen?”

“Get ‘em!”

He got a kick out of it. Kyle, too, was doing one of those silent chuckles and getting redder by the second. “Aberdeen, you’re going to blow your heart out. We’re gonna need to put you on meds,” Brendan commented. “You gotta remember that you’re staying until the proofs get here. You can’t waste all your energy now.”

Aberdeen calmed down a bit, but she was still on the edge of her seat. “Sorry,” she said. She knew she was maybe taking it a bit overboard, but she couldn’t help it. After the awful game against the Penguins on Tuesday, the Leafs were dominating them right now. Freddie was playing phenomenally, Jake Muzzin had just scored to put them up 1-0, and they were getting really good chances. It’s like the team did a complete 180 from what they were. She also knew, though, that she needed to stay at the arena later tonight, because the final proofs for the St. Pats jerseys were coming and she was the one who had to sign for them and place them safely and securely in Brendan’s office to see tomorrow. She didn’t know how long she’d be up tonight, and she’d need to conserve energy.

“Don’t apologize. I just don’t want you to have a heart attack,” Brendan smiled.

With the Leafs on a powerplay, Aberdeen was like a hawk following the puck. With Tavares, Matthews, and Nylander on the ice, she was praying for a goal. And then—

“YES!!!!!” she screamed as William scored a beautiful goal, jumping up in her seat and throwing her fist in the air like she was Bender at the end of The Breakfast Club. From beside her, Brendan and Kyle stayed unnaturally calm. Aberdeen looked over at them and tried to settle back into her seat calmly. “Sorry. Again,” she said, gripping the armrests of her chair. “But how can you guys be so calm?!”

“You get used to it,” Brendan smiled.

“Well, maybe you do, Mr. Hockey Player,” Aberdeen joked.

“Especially when the camera is on you,” Kyle added.

Aberdeen’s face dropped. “Oh my God, I’m not on camera, am I?!”

Kyle shook his head, his smile spreading from ear to ear. “We’ll have to see, Aberdeen, but I don’t think so.”

The Leafs dominated the rest of game. Kasperi scored another goal only three minutes after William, and Zach scored in the third to make it 4-0. Freddie got the shutout. She knew he’d be happy about that, despite his stoic reserve. As she, Brendan, and Kyle made their way to the locker room, Aberdeen saw the media already speaking to Jake Muzzin. She knew they’d want to speak with the goal scorers too, and so when she saw William and Kasperi heading to the media room, along with John, Freddie, and Sheldon, she wasn’t surprised. It was a good game. Hopefully the media would back down a bit.

She congratulated the guys and stood on the sidelines as Brendan and Kyle spoke to some of them once the media left. By that point, some of them were dressed and ready to head home. “Hey, you want a ride?” Jason offered as he approached her, tightening his tie around his neck.

“Oh, I’m staying back, actually,” Aberdeen informed him. He looked at her skeptically. “The final proofs are coming in for your St. Pats jerseys in March and I have to receive them and put them in Brendan’s office under lock and key.”

“Oh!” he exclaimed. “Well, I can wait with you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Aberdeen, it’s fine. We can grab a bite to eat afterwards.”

“Jason, I might be here until, like, eleven.”

“So we’ll have an authentic Italian-style dinner then. All the more reason since I miss my motherland.”

“Jason—”

“Aberdeen, are you really going to say no me?”

She glared at him. It was like St. John’s all over again. Before she could open her mouth and say something else, another voice interrupted her. “Why’re you giving Jason the stink eye?” William asked as he approached them.

“I’m gonna wait with Aberdeen until the proofs come and then we’re gonna grab dinner. You in?” he asked William, but everybody already knew the answer.

William shrugged his shoulders casually, like Jason hadn’t just invited him to dinner with his own girlfriend. “I’m in.”

Aberdeen rolled her eyes. “You two are insufferable.”

“I like to think it’s part of our charm,” Jason smiled. “Let me call Jen and then we can go trash Brendan’s office.”

*** It was about 10:45 when Aberdeen, Jason, and William ended up at a small bar none of them had ever been to that served small pub-style plates. It was crowded, for some reason, even though it was a Thursday. Aberdeen quickly learned, judging by the drink specials, that it was their grand opening weekend, and tonight was their first official night open. Opening on a Thursday meant pandering to the university crowd for sure (whose pub nights usually took place on Thursdays), but this place was pretty full with an older, gruffier clientele that were seated at the bar and congregated in small groups around the open space in the centre of the room, away from the few booths against the wall. She wondered if they marketed the place wrongly, or if they just wanted to fill the place so they could say they had a successful opening.

It was a bit loud, but she, Jason, and William ate their late dinner in relative peace. They spoke about the game only for a little bit before they moved on to other topics, making it abundantly clear to Aberdeen that they didn’t want to discuss hockey at all. The food was fine, and so, too, were the beers William and Jason had, but Aberdeen’s Long Island Iced Tea had way too much rum in it so she couldn’t finish.

By the time they finished, it was almost midnight and Aberdeen was starting to feel her fatigue. They were told to pay at the bar, so they gathered their jackets. Aberdeen insisted on paying for her meal, ever going so far as to run up to the bar herself, inching between some patrons in order to pay, before William or Jason could even get out of the booth. William, however, was right behind her, ready to Jason’s meal on his card.

“H—Hey! Hey! Look what we have here! Y-You’re Wiiiilliam Nylander,” a guy, older and very clearly inebriated, slurred out as he laid his eyes on them.

“That’s me,” William gave a tight-lipped smile, standing just slight behind Aberdeen, waiting his turn to pay.

The drunk guy focused his attention on Jason now. “You. Spezza.”

“Yup.”

He turned back towards William, shaking his head. “Teams like this can’t win the Cup. Esp-p-ecially not with this guy around.”

That caught Aberdeen’s attention. She furrowed her brows as the friend of the guy, obviously just as drunk, nodded his head in agreement. “Don’t have the heart like Dougie or Wendel. All a bunch of pussies now. Especially you.”

Aberdeen pulled her card out of the reader dramatically, turning her body so she could face them head on. “What the hell is your problem? There’s no need to be rude,” she said, her voice loud and firm.

“Aberdeen, stop it,” William said loud enough for her to hear.

“Y-Y-Yyyyou shoulda just sssigned the contract, man,” the drunk man grumbled out.

Aberdeen tried again, ignoring William’s plea. “Sir, this isn’t the time or place,” she intervened, but William’s hands went straight to her waist to move her out of his way so she wasn’t standing in between them anymore.

Suddenly, it was William closer to the drunk man that Aberdeen. The drunk guy apparently didn’t like that very much. “You’re damn – you’re damn selfish! Ssssselfish and greedyyyy,” the man continued to slur drunkenly. “Seeeelfish, no good—”

“Sir—” Aberdeen showed up beside William, refusing to stand behind him.

“I oughta hurt you like you hurt the fffranchise.”

Aberdeen’s eyes widened. That was a threat if she ever heard one, and even though he was drunk, Aberdeen didn’t like the tone of his voice. “Okay sir,” she chastised. “You need to stop overreacting. We’re just here trying to pay for our meal. This is no time to be a dick.”

“You know what? Let’s just pay at the other end of the bar,” Jason said, trying to diffuse the situation as much as possible. He even started to herd William and Aberdeen away from the drunk man and down the opposite end of the bar. “You have fun with whatever whiskey you’re drinking,” he gave one last look to the man before walking away himself.

“Fuckin’ pussy!” the friend yelled loudly at William, already half way down the bar now.

Aberdeen looked back. William had grabbed her wrist and was dragging her through the crowd so she’d get to the other side with him. She watched as one of them slammed his glass down on the bar dramatically. “Willy—”

“Ignore them, Aberdeen.”

“Yeeeeeah, fuckin’ pussy! Fuckin’ lowlife! Worst Leaf on the team! Shoulda traded you back to Sweden, ya Swedish piece of shit!”

The men continued to yell obscenities and taunt William as they stood at the other end of the bar. Aberdeen stared at William as he stuck his credit card into the machine, quickly punching in his pin. “Does that happen often?” Aberdeen asked him.

“Aberdeen, don’t,” he shook his head, refusing to answer her as he pulled his card out of the machine and stuffed it back into his wallet. It was as if he didn’t want her to know; as if he wanted to protect her from learning just how awful some “fans” could be – at least to him.

“Did you pay?” Jason showed up beside them. William nodded. “Alright, then let’s get the hell out of here,” he ordered, herding them again to lead them out.

It all happened so fast that Aberdeen didn’t really know exactly that – what happened. All she knew was that she heard the guy yell from down the bar. Then she heard the breaking of glass (commonplace in bars, really) and someone else yell “Put it down!” as she, Jason, and William continued towards the door. Then another voice screamed “Watch out!” and she, Jason, and William turned their heads to look behind them.

Then it hit her.

Literally.

A glass had been thrown – obviously by one of the drunk men who had been harassing them – intended for William, but it hit Aberdeen right on the forehead instead. She staggered backwards but didn’t fall. As she brought her hand up to assess the damage, she could almost immediately feel blood dripping down the side of her eye.

“Aberdeen!” Jason screamed.

William looked over and saw the blood on Aberdeen’s hand and it dripping down the side of her face. His eyes filled with anger. Jason, who was still looking at Aberdeen, saw the look she was giving William. He whipped his head towards William, who appeared ready to murder everybody in the room. “Will—William—” Jason tried to get his attention, but to no avail.

“Ohmygodareoyouokaaaaay?!” voices began to ask as they huddled around Aberdeen, William, and Jason worriedly, forming a protective circle around them. There were so many people, so concerned and so loud asking if she was okay that Aberdeen couldn’t even respond – she was too overwhelmed and too confused to even comprehend what was going on.

That’s when the two men ran out. When most of the people in the bar were distracted trying to see if Aberdeen was okay, the men had the wherewithal to completely book it out of the bar with nobody stopping them. It was only William who noticed, screaming out a loud “HEY!” to try and get somebody’s attention to stop them, but nobody moved enough for him to get out of the scrum around Aberdeen to chase him. William focused his attention back on Aberdeen even though he could feel his cheeks flush red with anger and tears forming in his eyes. She was still holding the area above her eyebrow cautiously as the bartender waved her over. Jason and William led her towards the bar, making sure she didn’t step on any of the shattered glass that now littered the floor. The bartender was already opening the first aid kit. William heard Jason tell everyone “It’s fine, it’s fine, we don’t need your help, it’s alright, we’ll handle it, we’ll handle it.”

Aberdeen was offered a bar stool to sit on, but she turned it down. She didn’t want to be on display for everyone to see; she was already embarrassed enough as is. “You wanna go into a washroom?” the bartender asked, and Aberdeen nodded her head. He led them to the wheelchair bathroom, since there would be space for all of them, and ushered them in. “The emergency rooms are just up the street. They’ll do stitches.”

William glared at the bartender. “Aren’t you even gonna call a paramedic or something? What about the cops?” he demanded, his voice shaking from the anger he was still feeling. “Can we look at security cameras to get a face?”

“Bro, we don’t want cops or paramedics here opening night. That would kill us,” the bartender said. William couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “We don’t have cameras installed yet, either. Just clean it up and take it to emerge. It’s, like, two blocks north.”

William felt like punching the bartender square in the jaw. And he would have, too, for being so insensitive about it, if it wasn’t for Jason opening the first aid box loudly against the counter. Jason, for his part, glared at the bartender too. “You can leave now,” he growled, focusing his attention back on finding what he needed within the kit. “Useless piece of shit,” he mumbled under his breath.

Aberdeen sat on the toilet, trying to collect her thoughts and emotions. She’d gotten hit with a fucking flying glass in the middle of a bar. A glass seemingly intended for Willy, thrown by a drunk guy, but it had hit her. She couldn’t believe what had just happened. She was sure her hand was covered in blood at this point; she didn’t even want to know what her face looked like. “Did I get busted open?” she asked, even though she was well aware of the answer. She needed someone else to confirm it so this all felt real and not like a nightmare.

“Yeah,” Jason said softly. “Listen, if that dipshit isn’t gonna call the cops or paramedics, I want to clean it before we go to the walk-in. Your face has a lot of blood on it.”

Aberdeen nodded her head slightly. There was nothing else she could do, really. It wasn’t like she was going to reject any medical attention, from Jason or otherwise. “Is it gonna hurt?” she asked.

“Of course it’ll hurt, but I don’t want any of the blood to crust and dry,” he said.

“Am I gonna need stitches? I’ve never gotten stitches before.”

“Move your hand a bit and let me see,” Jason said. She moved her hand the slightest bit, too scared to move it anymore out of fear that blood would gush out like some Halloween decoration, and Jason looked up close. “Yeah, probably,” he deadpanned. William winced at the thought.

“Oh, Jesus. Is it gonna scar?”

“No. Not deep enough to scar. At least not to me,” he said. She trusted him, if only because he was a father of four and had been around the block a few times. He cleaned her face as much as he could of the blood that had streamed down. She watched as he got some alcohol and put it onto a pad, prepped a sterile gauze, and whatever else he needed. Now, are you ready?” he asked.

“I guess so,” Aberdeen braced herself. She took her hand off the injury, relieved that no blood gushed onto Jason’s shirt. “On three, okay?” she asked. Jason nodded his head. She began to count. “One…two—”

She let out a guttural scream as Jason put the rubbing alcohol on her early so she wouldn’t wince away. It fucking stung. The sound that escaped her made Will’s heart drop into the pit of his stomach. He never wanted to hear it again. When he looked over, she was writhing on the toilet seat. Even Jason’s face was pained at her screams, but he was doing what he needed to do. After doing as much as he could, he took one last look at it before putting the sterile gauze on it, grabbing Aberdeen’s hand to hold it against the cut.

“You ready to go to emerge?” Jason asked.

Tears had streamed down her face at this point. She didn’t have a good tolerance for pain. She nodded her head. “Let’s go.”

***

It was just past two in the morning before an emergency room doctor saw Aberdeen. Jason had called Jen to let her know what happened and let her know that he was going to be extra late, and William…well, William was silent. He was still red with rage as they sat in the emergency room, with Jason and Aberdeen making conversation, but he was silent. Truthfully, all Aberdeen wanted to do was hug him, hold his hand, and nestle into him, but she couldn’t. It would have made things a hundred times better, but Jason being there meant that it was impossible. She noticed William’s silence from the moment they were in the washroom at the awful place and Jason had cleaned the wound. She was hoping that he wasn’t blaming himself.

“So, Miss Bloom, what happened here?” Dr. Behari asked as she sat on the gurney, Jason and William standing near her with their arms crossed.

“Some guy at a bar threw a glass and it hit me,” Aberdeen explained simply. “I think I’m going to need stitches.”

The doctor nodded, then looked towards Jason and William. “And you’re her bodyguards?” he joked.

Jason smiled, but William didn’t. “Friends,” Jason said. “I cleaned it up a bit with rubbing alcohol at the bar, doctor. I – It was the only thing I could think to do.”

The doctor nodded, stepping closer towards Aberdeen. “Let me take a look, Miss Bloom, and I can clean it and see if you need stitches.” Aberdeen took her hand and the gauze off the cut and the doctor put on his gloves. “Aallllllright…” he mumbled as he checked it, Aberdeen wincing in pain slightly as he pressed down on it. “You’ve got no residual glass in it, which is great. All we have to do is clean it up and give you some stitches.”

The thought of stitches made Aberdeen a bit woozy. She tried not to think about what they’d have to do. “Is it a deep cut? Like is it gonna scar?” she asked.

“Not a deep cut at all,” the doctor shook his head. “I’m only putting it one layer of stitches. You’ll probably have the slightest scar once it’s all healed but it’s easily covered with makeup, and due to placement, it won’t be too noticeable.” Suddenly, the curtain that blocked off the room opened, and some supplies and medical equipment were ushered in. Jason and William looked to see everything that Dr. Behari would need laid out on the tray. “Ah! Here we go. Have you ever received stitches before, Miss Bloom?”

“No sir.”

“Think of it as me putting this beautiful masterpiece of a face back together,” he joked, causing Aberdeen and Jason to laugh. William still wasn’t laughing, and Jason took notice.

“You’re great, Doctor Behari,” Aberdeen giggled. “I’m gonna get a scar like a real hockey player now.”

“Ahhhhh, so you guys are hockey players, huh?” he gestured towards Jason and William. “I’ve stitched up a bad hockey injury once or twice in my day.”

Dr. Behari continued with what he needed to do, cleaning up the wound and making sure everything was well and prepped for the stitches. The second he picked up the needle filled with lidocaine though, to numb the area so Aberdeen wouldn’t feel the stitches as much, William became more visibly upset. For the last two hours he looked like he was about to cry, and now he just looked extremely pained, distressed at the thought of what Aberdeen had to go through.

It took Jason intervening for William to stop thinking over and over about when the glass met Aberdeen’s head; the look in her eyes and the blood on her face as she tried to stop the bleeding with her hand. “Will, can you breathe for me?” he mumbled, Aberdeen and Dr. Behari too deep in a conversation to hear them.

William started shaking his head. “He needs to be arrested. He needs to be charged with assault. We need to find him,” his voice was still trembling.

“Will, we’re not gonna find him. He ran off,” Jason tried to reason with him. “There aren’t even any cameras we can check – the manager said. We just have to let it go.”

“No. That’s not good enough,” William was persistent. “We need to—”

“Listen to me,” Jason said in a low voice, grabbing William’s forearm and turning him away from Aberdeen and the doctor. They stood right in between the hallway and the curtain sectioning off the room. “I understand this is personal for you because it’s Aberdeen, but you need to be level-headed right now, because as much as the doctor is making her laugh, she’s gonna see the stitches and probably get scared. And she’s going to be looking at you to help calm her down and tell her it will be alright.”

William stopped breathing during the first part of Jason’s sentence. He furrowed his brows, trying to brush it off, and brush off what Jason was implying. “I don’t know what you mean about this being personal for me—”

“Will, come on,” Jason interrupted him. “I’m too old to be fucked with. We all see the way that you look at her and we know you have the biggest crush imaginable on her. It’s not like it’s a fucking secret.”

“H—How do I look at her?”

“She’s the only person you ever see, Will,” Jason deadpanned. “But…beyond that. You have to remember Brendan’s gonna be asking questions tomorrow at the office. I’ll handle a majority of that but he’s going to want the story from you too and you better be on your best behaviour or else he’ll figure out your little crush and Aberdeen will be fucked. Do you understand?”

William couldn’t look Jason in the eye anymore. He bit down on his bottom lip nervously, knowing that he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. “I think he already knows…” he mumbled.

“Excuse me?”

“I think…Brendan already knows about the crush. At the Christmas party out on the ice I guess he caught me looking and he told me she can’t do anything with me until she leaves, and more importantly, I can’t do anything with her.”

Jason looked like he’d seen a ghost. “And?”

“And what?”

“Are you doing anything with her?”

Here it was. William’s first opportunity to lie outright to a teammate, a friend, a colleague, a guy that he looked up to immensely. Aberdeen had had to do it with Siena, now he’d have to do it with Jason. His girlfriend was a mere fifteen feet away and he had to deny that anything was going on. “What?! Of course not!” he said angrily.

“William I swear to fucking God—"

“Nothing is happening,” he stressed. “Jesus, Jason. How awful do you think I am? I wouldn’t do something like that to her.”

“Don’t fuck with me Willy. She’s got too bright a future for you to—”

“I know that,” William stressed. “I. Know. That. That’s why nothing has happened. That’s why it’s stayed a crush.”

“You promise me right here, right now, in the middle of this hospital while she’s getting stitches, that there’s nothing going on between you two, or so help me God, Willy—”

“There’s nothing going on between us,” William said bluntly. He saw Jason’s face relax slightly, meaning that he was buying it. “I’ve got my crush and that’s it. But there’s nothing going on between us. Nothing.”

“Woohoo! Boys!” Dr. Behari called out, interrupting their conversation. “Miss Bloom wants to hold one of your big strong hands just in case she feels anything. Any takers?”

Jason raised his eyebrows at William and gave him a look. William gave Jason one last look before walked over, stood next to Aberdeen, and offered his hand. She grabbed it without hesitation.

Jason watched.

***

February 22nd, 2020

“What in God’s name happened to your eye?” Brendan demanded as he got his first look at Aberdeen Saturday morning. In the town car, Lou had already commented on it. Now Brendan got to see it, bright and early in the morning before heading towards the office.

“It’s a long story,” Aberdeen mumbled.

“Well we’ve got a long drive to the office.”

She sighed. She recounted the events of the previous night to Brendan, from Jason and William agreeing to stay back with her, to them going to dinner, to the rude men, to the bottle throwing. Brendan looked more and more horrified as time went on, and especially angry when she got to the part with the rude men. They were essentially targeting one of his players, one of his star players, with assault; instead, that assault ended up hurting his executive assistant. And when she mentioned the no cameras and the clueless bartender, he got really angry, because there was nothing he could do either.

“And so, here we are,” Aberdeen finished. “I’m three days out from my 22nd birthday and one week out from my party and I have a giant scar on my face.”

Brendan could tell by her tone that she wasn’t necessarily upset about it, per se, but that she was more so a bit self-conscious about how it looked. “It’s not that big,” he said, trying to not make it a big deal. “The stitches will be out soon anyway. You don’t want to see some of the scars I’ve gotten. I mean…” he trailed off, pointing to the one on his top lip and the one on his chin, “yours won’t look as bad as these. Won’t end up as bad as these either.”

“You don’t think so?”

Brendan shook his head. “No chance. It’s only three stitches. Did you tell your parents?”

“Yeah, we FaceTimed so I could show them. They don’t want me in bars past sundown now,” she giggled slightly. “I’m going to have to go to my doctor before we leave for Tampa Bay to see if they can get taken out though. By then it will have been four days. The emergency room doctor said it should be okay by then.”

“I’ll call Noah and have him take a look at it once we get to the arena,” he said, referring to Dr. Noah Forman, the team’s head physician. “I’ll call Jason and Will in, too. To let me know what happened.”

Aberdeen nodded her head. It was only logical to talk to them about it to. William had been the one targeted, after all. “Are you excited for tonight?” she asked, trying to change the subject.

Brendan shrugged. “Last time we faced Carolina it was an…interesting game,” he said. “How much more interesting can it get?”

***

Aberdeen was absolutely horrified. Just absolutely fucking horrified at what was transpiring in front of her very eyes. A complete and utter collapse. Something that couldn’t be real. Something she didn’t want to be real. Something that was affecting her more than she ever thought hockey would. If Aberdeen thought that Penguins game on Tuesday was bad, this was a hundred times worse. A thousand. A million. A billion times worse.

The Leafs were losing to the Hurricanes. 6-3. And who was in net for the Carolina Hurricanes? Their emergency backup goalie, who was, somehow, also the Toronto Marlies’ Zamboni driver. Yes. The Toronto Maple Leafs were losing to a Zamboni driver. Their own Zamboni driver.

She wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

Brendan had already left the box. He’d asked her not to follow him. That made her incredibly nervous, because usually when he was upset or disappointed about games, she was still following him like a little puppy. That wasn’t the case now; he clearly wanted to be alone and alone he would be, wherever he happened to be.

When the final buzzer rang, Aberdeen felt her heart rate go up even more, because it now meant that she did have to go find him. She didn’t want to be in the locker room right now. The team needed to be with their coach, and she didn’t exactly want to hear whatever was going to go down in there. She wanted to remain willfully ignorant. So instead, she began walking towards the offices, where a part of her knew Brendan would be.

She was quiet as she walked down the hallway and towards her desk. She saw Brendan’s door almost closed, and knew he was inside his office. She gathered her things, grabbed her jacket, and took a deep breath.

She knocked lightly on his office door. “Come in,” she heard him say absent-mindedly.

She pushed the door open slowly. When she revealed herself in the doorway, Brendan’s eyebrows rose slightly. He was surprised she’d come and find him. But he didn’t want her to know that. Most other personal assistants he’d had usually let him be when he did something like this. But Aberdeen was different. “Oh, there you are,” he said, his voice low as he cleared his throat. There were a few moments of silence as he thought of something to say. “We need to go over the, uh…the proofs for the St. Pats jerseys,” he held out his hand.

Aberdeen was nervous. He was a bit too calm for her liking, considering what had just happened. She knew he wouldn’t want to talk about it exactly, but still. “Okay. Um, yeah, sure. I have it right here,” she said as she began digging through her bag with all the files in it. There were so many to sort through, and she knew she was taking a while.

“By all means, move at a glacial pace. You know how that thrills me,” Brendan said.

She pulled the proofs out of her bag and handed them to him. He took them, a bit dramatically she thought, and opened them up. “Okay, so…they’re done. They can be sent,” he said dismissively, putting his signature at the bottom of every page of proofs.

Aberdeen was shocked, slightly. There was so much back and forth on them because they had to be perfect and now he’d just signed off on them? “They…they’re done? So I don’t need to bring them back to the artist and fetch them back tomorrow?” she began to pull out her iPad so she could change her schedule.

“Well, if you think the team is worthy of even wearing these jerseys and want to convince me to not just scrap the whole damn idea…then yes, fetch away. You’re very fetching, so go fetch,” he grumbled out with a resolute emotion of nothingness in his voice.

Aberdeen stopped her movements. Okay, so he was affected by what had just happened. And he was going to let it all out now, in front of her, with no-one else around. No Kyle. No Sheldon. No team. Nobody but her. As she continued to stare at him, he couldn’t look her in the eye; he was looking everywhere in his office but her, even though she stood right across his desk from him. “You’ll need to contact PR, um…Leslie, to see what she can do to minimize the press on all this,” he continued, pursing his lips together, looking out into a void. “Another humiliating loss splashed across the Toronto Sun. I can just imagine what they’re going to write about us. The Toronto Maple Leafs lose to a Zamboni driver who works for them. The most embarrassing loss yet, and it’s under my watch. Every newspaper in this city should cut me a check for all the papers I sell for them.” He shook his head, pausing for a few moments to collect himself, and finally looked at Aberdeen. “Anyway, I don’t…I don’t really care what anybody writes about me. But the team. I just…the team. It’s just another disappointment…another let down. Another bad game. Horrible game.”

Aberdeen didn’t know what to say. She knew this was Brendan’s version of spilling his guts out to her. This loss had taken its toll on him – was going to take its toll on everyone in the organization, and he was the guy heading the entire operation. It all fell on his shoulders. And Kyle’s. But he was the overseer of it all. He put the brunt of the blame on himself – not on the players or the general manager. “Anyway, the point is…the point is…” he cleared his throat. Aberdeen could see him visually recollect himself. “The point is, we really need to get these proofs sent first thing tomorrow morning, because I’d like to see the jerseys before they get sent to the players.”

It was weird to Aberdeen how he could just switch like that – from experiencing the lowest of the low to going back to normal again. She wondered if it was a hockey thing, because Willy did it too – he would be upset after losses, especially bad ones, but it would quickly become dirt off his shoulder. She held on to her emotions and feelings much longer than them. “I’m so sorry, Brendan,” she offered. She knew there was nothing else she could say to him. “If you want me to cancel your morning tomorrow, I can.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Why would we do that?” he asked.

Aberdeen offered a tight-lipped smile. “Is there anything else I can do?” she asked.

Brendan nodded quickly. “Your job.”

***

Aberdeen called Siena the moment she was out of the office and walking home. She’d been okayed to go home by Brendan. She’d texted Will, but he wasn’t answering, so God knows what was going on in the locker room right now. She didn’t want to stay at Scotiabank Arena for that very reason. She just knew it was too much for her to handle.

She knew it was too much because she was already crying. Silent tears, but tears nonetheless. She prayed to God that Siena picked up.

“Hey,” Aberdeen finally heard her voice. “What’s up?”

“Siena…” Aberdeen’s voice was shaky. “Siena did you watch the game?”

“No, why? What’s wrong?”

Aberdeen sniffled. “I never thought I’d be crying about sports but here I am crying about the Leafs!” she blubbered out.

“Why? What happened?”

“We just had the most God awful game,” Aberdeen huffed out. “We lost to our own Zamboni driver.”

There was a pause on Siena’s end. “Aberdeen, are you drunk?”

“NO!!!” she exclaimed. “Go check the highlights or whatever. Go turn on TSN. It was humiliating. We’re going to get absolutely roasted. It’s going to be so bad and—”

“Aberdeen—Aberdeen you need to calm down,” Siena urged on the other end of the phone. “It’s not your fault, Aberdeen. And it’s not your problem. Why are you so upset about it? It’s not like you’re a part of the team.”

Aberdeen felt a punch to her heart at Siena’s words. But she was. Everyone had told her that she was – Brendan, Kyle, the guys, everyone – and she had no reason to think otherwise. It was hammered into her since the beginning. For all intents and purposes, she was a member of the team, which is why it hurt her so badly. Siena didn’t understand that. Siena didn’t understand how all the traveling together made them closer; how all the guys looked out for her – not in a patronizing way, just…in their own way – like they were her older brothers, especially after what happened at Christmas; how the word family was tossed around so often that Aberdeen really felt that this was a family in its own way, with a bunch of moving parts, often dysfunctional, but a family nonetheless. Siena didn’t understand any of it. “Yes I am,” Aberdeen said meekly, offering nothing. She couldn’t put into words what she’d just thought, and even if she could, Siena, with all her smarts, wouldn’t understand them. “I am a part of the team.”

“Just sleep on it, alright? I’m sure everybody is going to forget about it by tomorrow morning,” Siena offered, showing truly just how much she didn’t understand. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

At that exact moment, a car pulled up on the curb alongside Aberdeen. When she looked over, she saw William in the driver’s seat. He was already looking at her. “Okay, bye,” she ended the call abruptly, stuffing her phone into her coat pocket before approaching and opening the door, slipping into the passenger’s seat easily.

When Aberdeen looked over at William, he immediately noticed her red eyes. His heart tightened in his chest. “Why are you crying, minskatt?” he asked.

“How could you not be?” she asked back.

He leaned over the centre console to kiss her. “Please stop, minskatt. I can’t stand to see you cry.”

“I don’t know what to feel – what to do – I don’t know what to say to you to make you feel better about this,” she lamented.

“Shhhh shhh shhh,” William kissed her again, bringing his of his hands up to cup her face. “You don’t need to say anything.”

“Don’t I?”

William shook his head slightly. “You’re here, aren’t you?” he asked, as if that was enough. As if that’s all he needed, when really, Aberdeen knew he’d need so much more. That she would need so much more. “D’you want to come back to my place?”

Aberdeen looked William in the eye. He wasn’t asking politely. He was begging. She nodded. “Okay.”

***

Aberdeen was getting scared at how good she was getting at lying. She’d made up a stupid story about needing to stay late at the arena again for the trade deadline so Kasha would go to bed and not wait up for her. Kasha bought it. Aberdeen didn’t even know if she was staying at William’s tonight or if she’d walk into her apartment at three o’clock in the morning again, for the second time in two days.

(As if William would bring her to his apartment and then tell her to leave in the middle of the night.)

He took her to a tall, glass condo building, only about a ten minute walk from hers but closer to the south core that made him possible to practically walk to all the games if he wanted to. He held her hand firmly in his once they got out of the car and walked through the parking garage, getting on the elevator. William pushed the button for one of the top floors. Of course he’d have a penthouse.

Aberdeen was still too caught up in her own emotions to realize how big this was – every other encounter had been at her place, and now she was finally seeing his space. When he opened the door, she was pleasantly surprised at what she was greeted with. She knew it was rented, and so she half expected it to be kind of dull with no personality, but that wasn’t the case. There were touches of William everywhere in the apartment – the slight, boyish messiness just adding to it. Expensive shoes scattered at the entryway. A few plants that weren’t dead, so she figured they were fake. A giant, comfy looking couch in the main area with a massive TV that was hooked up to every gaming console known to man. And pictures. Lots and lots and lots of pictures everywhere. All of his family.

She could tell that there was a spare bedroom on one side of the apartment, and she saw a door leading to the master. William put his keys in the bowl in the middle of the kitchen island, watching her as she looked around his apartment. “So what do you think?” he asked.

“Do you miss your family on nights like this? When it’s a really bad game and really embarrassing?” Aberdeen asked, staring at a picture he had of him and him sisters together, holding them all in a giant bear hug as their smiles stretched from ear to ear.

The question caught him completely off guard. “Of course I do. I miss them all the time,” he said.

“What do you do on nights like tonight?”

“I sit on my couch and watch TV until I’m not thinking about it anymore,” William admitted. “Lately I’ve really been meaning to do it with my girlfriend.”

Aberdeen couldn’t help but smile. Even after a night like tonight, he was still flirting with her. “Do you have a change of clothes?”

They went into his bedroom – bed messy, but huge; closet overflowing, but orderly; giant floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the other skyscrapers around them – and she changed into a pair of his boxers and a t-shirt that looked Supreme-branded but instead said ‘spaghetti’. It smelled like him, thoroughly, and the second she put it on she felt like she was being hugged, even though it was about six sizes too big. They changed together, and when they were done, they made their way back to the living room and William turned on the TV, pulling her towards the big couch. He made her sit down first before kneeling down between her legs, resting his head on her stomach just beneath her breasts before wrapping his arms around her.

It was calm. It was nice. It was mindless. William was mindless as he laid there, his arms wrapped around his girlfriend in his clothes, watching TV but not really watching TV. Aberdeen was mindless as she laid there, running her fingers through William’s hair soothingly, watching TV but not really watching TV. It was a while before Aberdeen decided to speak again. “You know, it’s not healthy to not talk about it,” she said.

She felt William sigh. “You know I’m not good with words, minskatt.”

“Oh, I think that’s a lie. You’re great with words,” she said.

“No I’m not.”

“William, every author in the English language wishes they came up with the words, ‘I think about you when I’m not even thinking’, including me,” she countered.

William couldn’t help but smile. “Those words are only for you,” he said.

“I know,” she said, “but can you please give me some other words so I know that you’re okay? Because I’m worried.”

The fact that he was making her worried made him compelled to talk. That was the last thing he wanted. “I just…I just know that we’re never going to hear the end of it. And I hate that. I hate that it’s gonna be the big joke now. Because hockey isn’t a joke to me. Neither is the Leafs.” He paused and Aberdeen was silent, and he knew that silence was urging him to continue. “It happened because…it happened because they rallied around their goalie. They protected him. They had his back. And we didn’t. We just…we didn’t. And I hate it when we do that. Because I have…I have every guy in that locker room’s back. I do. But sometimes it just…” he sighed, shaking his head. “Sometimes it just doesn’t work out how I want it to.”

Aberdeen had continued to run her fingers through his hair. She nodded at the end of his speech. “I’m not going to pretend that I know what it feels like, because I don’t,” she said. “I haven’t been a fan of hockey and I don’t understand it like you do but I know how much a game like this can affect the group, especially with the media in this city. But I got emotional about it because I know how much it affects you. Even if you won’t tell me about it.”

“I don’t mean to not tell you,” William said. “I just…” he paused again, thinking if he should even say anything. “It’s that besides my dad and brother, nobody’s ever really…you know, listened. So I just stopped talking.”

Aberdeen’s heart broke. At that point, she stopped running her fingers through his hair and forced him to sit up, even though her legs were still wrapped around him, so she could look him in the eye. She thought about Mike Babcock and what he’d done to Will. She thought about all the other hockey coaches he had and wondered if they were just as bad. “Willy…” she said softly, running her thumb along his jawline and lips. “Willy, I want you to talk to me more. About hockey. About your family. About your feelings. About everything. Please. Please.”

William nodded. He understood completely what she was asking him to do, and he was going to make a concerted effort to do so, because he loved her. He loved her so much and he didn’t want to see her worrying about him. “I will, minskatt. I will, for you,” he said, kissing her quickly. He shifted them so she was straddling his body. “I just have to get used to somebody listening.”

“Willy, I’m always going to listen to you. Don’t forget that, okay?” she asked, cradling his face in her hands.

He nodded, quickly kissing her again. The words were coming now, and he couldn’t stop them. Aberdeen had that power over him. “What happened the other night at the bar was my fault,” he said.

“What?” Aberdeen’s eyes bulged out of her head dramatically. “Willy, that was not your fault at all—”

“Yes it was—”

“No it wasn’t—”

“Yes, yes it was,” he said sternly. “And I couldn’t take it. I was so mad, minskatt. I was shaking. I wasn’t able to stop it or to protect you or—”

“Willy—Willy, stop. Willy, it wasn’t your fault at all,” she repeated. “Those stupid guys were drunk.”

“But they were aiming for me. They hated me. I wish that glass would’ve hit me instead,” he said, bringing his hand up to her scar and touching it lightly.

“Don’t you dare say something like that. It was a freak accident, Willy. There was nothing either of us could do,” she said, hoping he would soon realize it.

William paused for a moment. “You’d talk to me too, right? Like you want me to talk to you?” he asked. Aberdeen nodded her head confidently. “Were you scared that night?”

Aberdeen shrugged her shoulders. “Just a little bit. But you were there. And Jason. And when I realized that, I wasn’t so scared anymore. I’ve been scared before in my life much worse and with less blood.”

William nodded. “Are you listening?”

“Yes…”

“I love you.”

Aberdeen smiled. “I love you too.”

They began kissing. Lightly, at first, and then Aberdeen couldn’t help but stick her tongue down his throat, and William couldn’t help but squeeze at the flesh of her thighs. As they made out like teenagers on his couch, Aberdeen placed her hands over his and guided them to her ass.

William giggled slightly into the kiss. “Aberdeen…” he said in a playfully accusing tone.

“I only want to remember feeling your hands there instead,” she mumbled against his lips.

William froze. Suddenly and all at once, her words hit him like shards of glass, cutting him to his very core. “I’ve been scared before in my life much worse and with less blood.” Ethan. She still thought about what happened with Ethan – she still thought about it and it affected her and it made her scared, something she hadn’t admitted to before. William felt like killing Ethan all over again right then and there, with Aberdeen sitting on his lap. What affected her wasn’t a physical wound; what affected her was something much deeper.

“Listen to me,” he said, his hand cradling her chin, thumb gliding over her lips softly as she’d done to him earlier. “Nobody is going to do that to you again, okay? Not while I’m here.”

Aberdeen nodded her head. She believed him completely.

“I mean it, Aberdeen,” he pressed.

“I know.”

“If I ever saw him on the street, I’d fucking kill him for what he did to you. For how he made you feel. And I want you to know that, like…you’re not what happened to you. You’re so much more. He was a pig who couldn’t see that but I can,” William said.

Aberdeen almost burst out into tears at his words. You’re not what happened to you. You’re so much more. She could have cried right then and there. But instead, she nodded her head before kissing William again, even more eager this time, wanting to show him just how much she appreciated him, just how much she believed him, just how much she loved him.

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prettyinlimegreenboots · 4 years ago

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A request came from AO3 from Firecracker_Newsies to see more from my Leaving story. This takes place about 8 months before Leaving but you don’t have to read it to understand what’s going on here.

Warnings: cursing.

“So why am I currently looking at your smug mugs? You were quite vague over the phone.” Jack sat in his usual booth at Jacobi’s, looking over at two of Spot’s friends.

“Have you noticed anything differently with Racetrack lately?” Hotshot bit back, giving the Manhattan friends a look.

Jack looked over at Albert. He shrugged his shoulders, not really understanding where this meeting was going. “Not really sure where you’re going with that question but he’s still the loveable idiot we all know and love. What do you potentially know that we don’t? Is it Conlon?”

“Ding ding ding, give the boy a cookie.” Itey replied sarcastically as Albert grounded his fist into his palm, glaring at the other boys.

Jack held up a hand, concern written on his face. “Just spit it out. What’s going on?”

Hotshot looked over at Itey before letting his shoulder fall. “Racetrack and Spot have gotten awfully close and almost are never seen without the other. You think somethings up with them?”

“You two are worse than a couple of gossiping girls.” Albert hit the table with a laugh. “Spot and Race are best friends. There’s nothing going on between them.”

Itey and Hotshot raised their eyebrows in unison. Itey laid his hands on the table, leaning forward to look between the two. “Okay then tell us what you make of this - I stopped over the other day, and the two of them were sitting awfully close to one another on the couch.”

Albert threw his head back and laughed, loudly, catching a few other patrons’ attention. “Apparently you haven’t been paying attention these last few years because you’d know that Race is the most touchy feely person ever and he’s extremely close to any of us; that’s not just reserved for Conlon.”

“What about the almost kiss we witnessed?” Hotshot dropped that bombshell as Jack and Albert’s jaws dropped. “What do you have to say about that?”

“What kiss?” Albert asked, raising an eyebrow.

Itey snorted. “The almost kiss happened about a week ago when we showed up at their apartment unannounced. When we shut the door, they sprung apart but they were so close to kissing.”

Jack ran his hand through his hair, sighing. “So you’re saying that they’re together?”

“Not exactly.” Itey was careful with his words. “There’s definitely something there.”

Albert sighed, looking between the three at the table. “So what’s the game plan? Do we confront the two of them?”

“They’re going to see it as an ambush.” Hotshot sighed.

Jack’s hand slapped the table. “Not necessary. Text Spot that you need him to come down here, make something up. If you’re right, Race will be by his side and he’ll come with Spot.”

“You may be onto something Kelly.” Hotshot grinned, pulling out his phone and firing off a text. “Let’s see if he takes the bait.”

A few seconds later, his phone rang, causing the four to look at one another. Hotshot sighed before answering the phone. The three listened to the one sided conversation before the phone was dropped to the table. “He’s on his way down here. Might as well order food while we wait.”

The four quickly ordered while they waited for their friends to show up. Just as the plates were placed on the table, the front door of Jacobi’s was thrown open and Spot and Race entered, huffing as if they had run to the restaurant from Brooklyn.

“You said it was an emergency.” Spot huffed, stalking over to the table before looking at the four. “Yet, you’re here eating like it’s no big deal. What gives?”

Itey grinned, popping a french fry into his mouth. “The gig’s up Conlon. Time for you and Higgins to come clean.”

Albert and Jack simultaneously facepalmed, causing Race to throw his head back and laugh. That was one way to do it, Jack thought, though probably not the best way. “What gig? Higgins, you know what they’re talking about?”

“I have a clue, based on my best friends’ reactions but this is between you and yours.” Race said, reaching over and stealing a fry off Albert’s plate before dragging a chair over to the table.

Spot crossed his arms, looking way more intimidating than usual as he stared down Itey and Hotshot. “Speak.”

“We know something is going on with you and Race.” Hotshot spoke up, raising an eyebrow, looking between Race and Spot. “So spill.”

Race leaned back in the chair and grinned. “Spottie, I’m going to leave this one with you.”

“Thanks asshole.” Spot gave him a look before sticking his tongue out at Race. “So what do you want to know?”

Itey leaned forward, he looked at Spot. “Are you and Race together?”

Spot’s eyes went wide as he looked over at Race, who failed to hide the grin stretching across his lips. “What makes you ask that?”

“Are you going to continue to ask questions in response to my questions?” Itey raised an eyebrow, in Spot’s direction. “You’re avoiding my question, Spottie. So I’m going to ask you once more. Are you and Race together?”

Spot sat back in his chair and sighed. “I have one question before I answer. Do you guys just sit around all day and gossip? It’s not like you four are even friends.”

“No but the four of us care deeply for the two of you and want to make sure you’re happy.” Hotshot spoke up, giving his best friend a hard look.

Spot smirked, leaning forward in his chair to look at the four around the table. “Awww, I’m so touched that you care about us.”

A hand slammed on the table causing the patrons to jump. Race and Spot looked at Jack, who slammed the table. “Spot, quit the dramatics and just fuckin’ tell us. Are you and Race together?”

Race reached over and laced his fingers with Spot’s, giving them a squeeze. “Yes, Spottie and I have been together for the last month. We were waiting for you guys to notice.”

“Wait, you weren’t hiding it?” Albert asked, eyes widening in realization.

Spot shook his head. “Nope. We were just waiting for you idiots to realize what was happening.”

“If it was any other announcement, you two would have thrown a damn party. But for this, you just let everyone wonder in the dark.” Jack shook his head, glaring between the two of them. “The confusion is all because of you two idiots.”

Spot squeezed Race’s hand with a grin. “We are idiots.”

“Glad you agree with us.” Jack laughed, nudging Race’s shoulder affectionately. “Love you, Race. We just want you two to be happy.”

Nodding, Race chuckled, stealing a few fries off of Jack’s plate. “Now can we drop the dramatics and just get back to normal business.”

Jack turned and looked at Race. “First, quit stealing my french fries and second, what normal business are you talking about?”

“The Jets first game of the season . . . we gonna win or lose?” Race threw out as a small debate started among the table.

Spot squeezed Race’s hand as a grin crossed both of their faces. It felt right that their friends all knew and were supportive of the two of them.

I’ve been in a writhing rut lately so I apologize that I haven’t posted anything lately. If you’d like to see something written, feel free to send me a message. As always, feedback is always appreciated!

#newsies fan fiction #writing #ask #newsies drabbles #drabble requests #drabble prompt #spot conlon #racetrack higgins #relationship #drabble

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luci-in-trenchcoats · 4 years ago

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A Nightmare In A Dream (Part 1)

Summary: Six months after reuniting with the Winchesters and her brother, things are going good for the reader. She and Dean are happily together and occasionally stay with her brother, Matty, and Sam, who has been getting him used to normal life. Life appears to be heading in a good direction when the past has a way of creeping up again and dropping a bombshell on them all...

Pairing: Serial Killer!Dean x reader

Masterlist

Square: AU!Dean

Word Count: 4,500ish

Warnings: mature (language, angst, death/murder, drugging/kidnapping, family drama)

A/N #1: This is a spin off of A Dream In A Nightmare and takes place ~6 months later. It’s recommended that fic is read prior to this one...

A/N #2: Written for @spndeanbingo

_____

“Good morning,” said Matty as you came downstairs with Dean. You’d taken to staying over the vacation house Matty and Sam were permanently staying at over the weekends and a couple times during the week, even if Dean had to make the drive back home for work. “I made breakfast.”

“Thanks, Matty,” you said, heading for the fridge to get out some orange juice for the three of you.

“Smells good. Sammy’s really been doing a good job teaching you how to cook,” said Dean.

“He’s really good at it. He’s super smart at like, everything,” said Matty, dishing the food onto plates. Dean sat down at the kitchen table, Matty quiet before he brought the food over and took a seat himself. He glanced at the front door and you saw the worried look on his face.

“He’s just out on his run. He’ll be home soon I’m sure,” said Dean. Matty nodded and you brought over the drinks, starting to eat your meal. Dean picked out a piece of eggshell and pushed it to the side, Matty staying tense for the rest of breakfast.

“I’ll cleanup,” he said when you finished, your plate gone before you could blink.

“Matt,” said Dean. He swallowed from where he stood at the sink, glancing over at the table. “You can stick ‘em in the dishwasher. It’s why we have it,” he said.

“Oh. right,” he said.

“Breakfast was great,” said Dean. “Thanks for cooking.”

“Of course,” he said. Dean sighed and leaned over to you.

“I don’t think we should do this today,” he whispered.

“He needs the push,” you said quietly.

“He’s already upset about the eggs,” mumbled Dean.

“He needs to learn that part of life is being uncomfortable,” you said, smiling when Matty came back to get the glasses.

“He was kidnapped for a good portion of his life. I don’t want to scare him,” said Dean.

“Neither do I. Sam’s gonna be a little late and that’s that. He needs to be his own person,” you whispered.

“Guys,” said Matty as he shut the dishwasher. “You realize I can hear everything you’re saying.”

You and Dean shared a look, Matty walking back over with crossed arms.

“My hearing is pretty good. I can’t exactly unlearn that skill,” he said. “I know I still get scared about stuff I shouldn’t, like accidentally leaving egg shell on a plate, but please don’t play games with me. I can function without Sam or you guys here. I know I’m not exactly normal like you guys but I’m doing my best.”

“Okay. We uh, we were going to have Sam come home an hour later than he normally would to see how you’d react,” you said, your brother pouting. “You’re doing so amazing with everything, Matty. But people are late sometimes and we wanted to see how you’d react.”

“We can’t use the kid gloves forever. It’s not fair to you,” said Dean, giving him a nod. “But we can be upfront about trying those things in the future.”

“I appreciate the honesty,” he said. “I’m not a kid. I might be a little behind for my age and I don’t understand some things but I’m 21 years old. Please treat me like an adult.”

“Alright,” you said. “You can’t blame us for wanting to give you some of your childhood back though.”

“Yeah but who in this house had a childhood? We all had shitty versions of it. Sometimes I feel like I was the lucky one out of us four if I’m being honest,” he said. “If you want to get me out of my comfort zone, alright. I’m willing to try too. Just don’t lie to me about it.”

“I think we can agree to that,” said Dean. You hummed and forced a smile.

“You guys cool if I go take a hike in the woods this morning?” he asked.

“Yeah. We have to run back into town, do a few things around the house,” said Dean. “We’ll be back for dinner?”

“Sounds good,” he said. Twenty minutes later you were dressed and in the car, Matty walking into his usual spot in the woods around the house.

“You think he has a point? That we’re all fucked up?” you asked, Dean pulling out of the driveway.

“Probably. I’m a serial killer after all,” he said.

“Maybe he’s right. Maybe we’re the ones that need to be watched and not him.”

“He didn’t say that and while none of us has had great lives, we had freedom. Matty didn’t but he’s never killed anyone either. We all got shit to deal with. He needs more help right now is all,” said Dean. He reached over and held your hand, getting a small smile out of you. “We don’t have to do this today.”

“I haven’t killed anyone since Lewis. I’m nervous,” you said. “Even if this guy deserves it.”

“He’s a bad guy. He’s a monster. We kill the bad guys. James Smith deserves to go. He needs to go,” said Dean.

“I know.”

“If you don’t want to do this, it’s okay. I can handle it on my own,” said Dean. “I’m the one that likes it. You’ve always been forced. It’s different.”

“You don’t enjoy killing. You enjoy protecting people. That’s the part you like,” you said. He didn’t say anything as he continued to drive. “You were forced too.”

“I pushed a guy in high school and accidentally killed him. That girl? She thanked me for stopping him. No one forced me to go out and find other bastards to get rid of. That was all me. That’s not normal.”

“I disagree,” you said. He laughed and you rolled your eyes. “I’m serious.”

“Who on earth forced me to kill any one of those people? Who?”

“Lewis.”

“Lewis forced you. You had no choice. You had no choice because of me. I-”

“A psycho became obsessed with you when you were a kid. Was that your fault? Was it?” you asked. He was quiet and pulled over on the side of the road. “Was it?”

“No. But the choices I made, that my family was forced to make, that got your parents killed and your brother killed and your other brother lived in a hole in the ground for a decade because I didn’t let him have me. If I had, Sam and my dad could have come out of hiding. Those things? Those are on me. Killing? That’s on me. I killed the people I could find, the ones I could go after because Lewis? He scared the shit out of me. He still fucking does. The only thing I was forced into was ruining your life,” he said. “You’re not going after James Smith today. You’re not killing anymore if you don’t want it. I’m fucked up. Not you.”

“I don’t think either one of us should be doing anything today besides going home to the house and taking a quiet day for ourselves,” you said.

“You’re right. I’m not focused. We’ll hold off on it,” he said with a sigh.

“Can we talk about what you just said at least?” you asked.

“What’s to talk about?”

“Us and Sam and even your dad when he drops by, we have all been focused on getting Matty healthy and okay. I know he’s far from perfect but he’s getting there. My brother probably isn’t going to have a normal life. He knows it and we know it. It’ll be quiet and probably a little lonely but he’ll be safe. We need to take a day to talk about you.”

“Talk about what?” he said. You stared at him and he gave it right back, throwing up his hands. “No really, what? I want to know.”

“Maybe...maybe we shouldn’t kill people at all anymore. It seems like it’s stressing you out,” you said.

“Did you literally hear the words that just came out of your mouth? Seriously?”

“All I want is for you to be happy and lately you’re on edge. I don’t think you ever sat down and dealt with what Lewis did to you and you need to.”

“Are you my fucking shrink now?” he said, scoffing before he was back on the road. “If you have shit you’re going through, that’s fine. Don’t project it onto me or some crap.”

“What is your problem?” you said. “I want you to be okay. That’s it.”

“I am okay. Problem solved.”

“Don’t fucking go back to treating me like I’m some kind of prodigy or something.”

“Oh, you mean the time you were working for Lewis to fuck me over?” he said.

“Fuck you. Stop the fucking car,” you said. He quickly pulled over again and you got out, the other door opening behind you. “I’m walking back so you can go on and fuck off.”

“Y/N,” said Dean. You didn’t look back, a hand on your arm quickly, Dean stopping you in your tracks. “I’m sorry. I’m fucked up. I’m more fucked up than Matty ever could be. I don’t...I don’t want you to love me. It’s why I’ve been pushing your buttons lately. You can have the house with Matty and Sam. Or the one back home. I don’t care. Just keep it. Just stay away from me. You’re better off without me.”

“What are you still scared of?” you asked. You spun around, Dean looking past you with a quick glance down. “What?”

“I think Lewis is back,” he said, biting his bottom lip.

“Dean, I killed him. I saw him bleed out.”

“You thought you killed him before you passed out,” said Dean.

“The police have the body. He died. They buried a body,” you said.

“I know they did. I dug it up a week ago with my dad,” he said with a sad smile.

“Dean. Who was buried?” you asked. He shut his eyes and you put your hands on your head. “No, no, no. No, he’s dead. No, please no.”

“It was a different guy. I wasn’t sure how to bring it up and then yesterday at work I got a strange phone call, just a little humming before it hung up. I got one from a different number a week ago too which is what prompted us to check the body. I think they know that we know. James Smith...I think Lewis had another backup plan and this guy was it. He’s around our age from the profile we did so it makes sense. I think there were always two plans and I think James Smith helped Lewis survive and recover. Or if Lewis didn’t make it, James is intent on coming back for me revenge. It’s why I want to get rid of him and yesterday.”

“This is going to sound like a horrible thing to even say,” you said, running your hand over your face. You glanced over to Dean and saw him shake his head. “I know it must have crossed your mind too.”

“Matty is not James Smith,” said Dean. “I triple checked the timelines. Matty was with Sam the whole time they were stuck in the cellar and once they got out. He never left his side. There’s no way it was him who helped Lewis.”

“What if he still fucked with my little brother’s head?” you asked. “He was there for ten years. Ten fucking years and we all always thought it was a little weird he wasn’t a shriveling mess.”

“You’re about to get really mad at me,” said Dean.

“For what?”

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and you saw it was on speakerphone.

“Hey, Y/N,” said Matty from the other end.

“What is going on?” you asked.

“Dean told me about his suspicions with Lewis. He and Sam questioned me about it earlier this week. Every so often, I thought maybe there was another person there. I never saw them. I always thought it was you which is why I never said anything. But I learned more about where you were at certain times and it couldn’t have been you. The guys wanted to make sure I wasn’t pretending. I don’t blame them for that. It got kind of intense which is the real reason I was timid this morning. They freaked me out some but I’m okay. I know they’re on my side.”

“Why the Hell didn’t you guys tell me about this?”

“It was my decision,” said Dean. He leaned back against the car and closed his eyes. “You’ve always been the protector. I wanted to take care of you for once. I wanted you to not know he was back.”

“We are going back to the vacation house. Now,” you said. “Matty, I want you back from your hike and tell Sam to get there wherever the hell he is.”

“I’ll see you guys in a few,” said Matty before he hung up. You threw up your hands, Dean not bothering to look at you.

“Never keep me in the dark again,” you said. He nodded and headed back into the car. “Dean.”

“I understand. I’m sorry.”

“I know why you did it but this is too big. Let’s get back and pronto.”

Half an hour later you were sitting on the couch, Sam coming downstairs after his shower. There was a knock at the door and it opened, Dean standing up and giving a nod down the hall. John stepped inside and headed straight for the kitchen, cracking open a beer from the fridge.

“It’s ten in the morning,” you said. He chugged it down and gave you a bitchface. “Oh I am not in the mood today, John. Don’t even start your shit.”

“Start my shit? Kid, I don’t care what my boys think about you. I still don’t trust you and I never will.”

“I saved their lives.”

“After handing them over to that scumbag. You’re no saint. I know where your priorities lie. Dean’s judgement is too clouded to see it but I-”

“Enough,” said Dean, shooting his father a dirty look. “You two don’t get along and that is fine. But we’re all on the same side. We need to figure out what our next move is. Together.”

“I told you to keep her in the dark,” said John.

“You got some trust issues there, John?” you shot back. He walked over to you and leaned down into your face.

“You threw my boys to the wolves for your brother. I know where your loyalty is and it’s not with them. It’s with him,” said John. Behind him you saw Matty gripping the pillow in his lap, his eyes squeezed shut.

“You’re upsetting, Matty. I won’t apologize for protecting my brother. I’ve already talked about what I did with Dean and Sam and it’s their forgiveness to give, not yours,” you said.

“You will do anything for your brother. If you betrayed us once for him, who’s to say what you wouldn’t do for him now?” said John.

“Dad. That’s enough,” said Dean.

“She and that fucked up brother of hers are working for Lewis or this James Smith guy. Even if they aren’t, they will. She’ll pick him over us in heartbeat. I’m not throwing away everything, all of the sacrifices we’ve made as a family, for people that are going to betray us,” said John. He walked around the coffee table and grabbed Matty’s arm, pulling a zip tie out of his coat pocket.

“What the fuck is your problem?” said Sam, pushing John away. You were out of your seat, Dean pushing Matty back towards you.

“Keep them secured until we deal with Smith and potentially Lewis. When they’re dealt with, those two can be on their merry way,” said John.

“No one is doing that,” said Dean, turning to face your brother. He was behind you, clinging to your shirt like his life depended on it. “Matty. Look at me. No one’s doing anything to you.”

“I don’t know what to do,” he said. You grabbed his hand and he squeezed it far too tight. “I don’t…”

“Come on, Matty,” said Sam, giving him a soft friendly smile. “Let’s go take a hike. You didn’t get to take it this morning really.”

“I don’t…” he said, Sam smiling before Matty nodded.

“Sammy, you need to-”

“Fuck off,” said Sam back at his father. Sam took Matty’s hand and quickly went out the back deck with him, the pair crossing the yard and into the woods.

“How the Hell can your brother think that-” said John before Dean grabbed him and shoved him against the closest wall.

“Do you have any idea what you just did to that poor fucking kid? He’s been getting better. It’s been three months since he’s been that scared. Even when Sammy and me questioned him he was still okay. This place is supposed to be safe for him and you had to go and fuck that up. That could have been Sam. It could have been me. His life got fucked up because of the Winchesters. You threaten him or Y/N ever again and I’ll add you to my fucking hit list,” said Dean.

“The only reason that kid made it this far is because he fell in line with Lewis.”

“The only reason he made it this far was because of her,” said Dean, pointing over to you. “You think we had a fucked up life? Try listening to hers. In case you forgot, she saved Sam and me. She risked her brother’s life for us. She tells me that Lewis made me this way, that none of it was my fault. That what I turned into isn’t my fault. That I should take the day off so we can focus on me, help me deal with the jacked up shit in my head. She’s a fucking saint I don’t deserve. None of us do. If you can’t respect her or Matthew, if you can’t protect them the way they protect us, then you can get out and never come back. Sammy and me don’t need any more angry men trying to control our lives anymore.”

“You need to grow up!” shouted John. Dean took a step back and John shook him off. “All I have ever done is protect you and Sam. All I-”

“I told you that Lewis was watching me. I was a kid and he scared me. He hurt me. He hurt you and Sam and mom. My mother is dead because you couldn’t stop him. Sam had his life destroyed because you couldn’t stop him. I don’t know how to be normal because of you. You couldn’t even protect me after the fact. I lost friends, people I cared about, because you couldn’t stop that monster. I’ve spent my life alone. I can’t be alone again. I won’t,” said Dean.

“Fine. I’ll handle it myself,” said John. He started to head down the hall when he paused. “I’ve never been perfect but I kept you both alive. If you want me gone from your life, fine. I’m gone.”

“Dad,” said Dean, John getting out of there quickly. “Dad.”

John walked straight over to his truck and got inside, Dean barely getting to the driveway before he was out on the road.

“Dad!” yelled Dean but John was already driving off. You waited on the front porch, Dean standing there for beat before you went over to him. “Why doesn’t he want me?”

“He’s scared for you and Sam. It was a fight. It’ll be ok-”

“He always leaves me alone,” said Dean quietly. “I don’t think he even likes me. I think he pretends for Sam.”

“Dean-”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m too old for this anyways. I’m going to make up a sandwich for Matty for later. He likes those on bad days,” said Dean as he headed for inside.

“I don’t get along with your dad, Dean. But if I was in his shoes, I’d probably be wary of us too.”

“Half hour ago you were pissed at me for keeping the truth from you and now you’re trying to make me feel better? Why?”

“Because I know you did that so I wouldn’t be scared and your dad, despite how he goes about it, was trying to do the same thing for you and Sam.”

“I’m sorry about earlier and Matty. I think it might be better if I go back home and try finding out more there,” he said. You took a deep breath as he went inside and threw your head back.

“Somebody up there please keep an eye on him for me today.”

Four Hours Later

“Hey, Matty,” you said, knocking on the door to his room. You peeked your head inside the master and saw him on bed watching TV, Sam looking at something on his computer. “I brought up some cookies I made.”

“Thanks,” he said. You put the plate down on the nightstand as Matty tucked his legs up under himself. You sat on the edge of the bed, Sam looking over the top of his screen at you. “I’m okay. I don’t need two babysitters.”

“I’m sorry about John,” you said.

“Matty was okay once we got outside,” said Sam.

“I’m better now. I just really don’t want to ever wear a pair of those zip things ever again,” he said. You nodded and he took a cookie off the plate, his sleeve riding up to show a few scars on his skin. “Y/N?”

“Sam? Can I ask you and Matty to do me a favor?”

“What’s up?” asked Sam.

“Dean owns this house. It’s in his name. There’s a possibility Lewis knows about it. Or Smith does. Can you take my brother somewhere safe while we deal with this?”

“Y/N. You-”

“Matthew,” you said, watching him swallow. “You are never being hurt like that again. Sam will keep you safe. I know you trust him to do that for you.”

“Yeah. I do. But if someone is out there, if there’s two guys out there, you need all the help you can get. I know enough to know what I need to do if I start having a panic attack. I will go somewhere with Sam but then he’s gotta head back to help. I can cook for myself. I can be alone and not freak out. You need Sam more than I do,” he said.

“Matty, I’m not comfortable leaving you-”

“I spent most of the past ten years alone. I can survive on my own for a while,” he said.

“He has a point, Y/N, and Matty’s capable of handling himself. I’ve taught him a few things asides from schoolwork and cooking. He knows how to shoot and throw a few punches,” said Sam.

“Alright. But I want him someplace he can move if he needs to and get help, get around other people,” you said.

“I’m not supposed to go out in public yet,” he said.

“You may be forced to if something went wrong. Are you okay with that?” you asked. He nodded and you took a deep breath. “Sam, did you pick up the other thing yet?”

“I’m supposed to this afternoon,” said Sam.

“Get it on the way,” you said. “It’ll be good company for him.”

“Company?” asked Matty.

“We got you a dog. A german shepherd. She’s been away at training. Us three thought you might like her. She’s some responsibility for you and some comfort. She can protect you in a worst scenario too,” you said. “It was supposed to be a surprise for you.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I always wanted a German Shepard.”

“I know. You were supposed to get one that year for your birthday before everything…” you said. You shut your eyes and sighed. “Matty, I’m-“

“Don’t say sorry. You didn’t pick this,” he said. “I’ll be okay. I promise. You guys go get Dean and figure it out. Please.”

“Okay,” you said.

“If you see John...tell him I’m not mad. He got scared too. I know a thing or two about that,” he said.

“We will,” said Sam. He looked over at you and gave you a smile. “I’ll go start packing the car. I have a safehouse up North a bit I think’ll be good. Nice little cabin, perfect yard for Maggie.”

“Do me a favor, Sam, and spend the night with him?” you asked.

“Of course. I’ll come and meet up once Matty’s all settled in,” he said.

“Thanks, Sam,” you said before he left the room. “Are you sure you’ll be okay by yourself?”

“I’m sure. Does my dog have a name?” he asked.

“Maggie. She’s sweet,” you said. “You’re gonna have to feed her and clean up after her and take care of her though.”

“I got it. Don’t worry about me. I’ll lay low. You be careful too. Don’t fall for any of his tricks.”

“I won’t. I’m gonna see you in a few days. Maybe we can take Maggie with us and go to the beach or something,” you said.

“I’d like that,” he said.

“Alright. Sounds like a plan then,” you said. You gave him a hug, Matty returning it with a tight one of his own.

“Thanks for protecting me again,” he said quietly.

“Always. I’m going to pack up the rest of the cookies for you to bring with you, okay?” you said.

“I know you’re scared too,” he said. “Promise you’re gonna come back.”

“I promise, Matty. A few days from now this’ll all be over.”

______

A/N: Read Part 2 here!

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