#your christmas present is it leaving the depths of the blog

[probablybadrpgideas]

My yoga pose and animal action foam d12’s

[luvrodite]

Thinking about jealous AK!Jason… thinking about getting sick of his coldness and walls and accepting a date with the hot guy that works the floor below you… thinking about how fucking angry Jason gets… thinking about how he makes sure you know who you belong to …. Just thinking 🧐

neon phosphorescent, open like a christmas present [1241]

minors, ageless and blank blogs dni. yan!ak jason, stalking, depiction of unhealthy relationship dynamic, rough sex, hair pulling (no mention of texture or length but he does grip reader's hair) afab reader, fingering, possessive jason, reader is referred to as 'princess', begging, condescension, piv sex, biting, manhandling

He finds it a little amusing. Don't you realise you've always been his? Nevermind that nobody will ever make you feel as good as he does, the fact of the matter is, he owns you. Wherever you go, you will never be able to outrun him. You sealed your fate the moment you let him in, the moment you decided to leave that window unlatched and confirmed you wanted him, it was over for you.

Still, he can't let your actions go unpunished. Did you really think you could let someone else touch what was his – nevermind the fact that you didn't actually get that far with that pathetic neighbour of yours – and get away with it?

He's got fire in his eyes when you close the door after your date and turn to find him already waiting in your living room. You blink and he crosses the threshold, crowding you against the door, taking up your entire field of vision with his broad shoulders. He leans into your space, blue-green eyes molten, almost electric.

"Have a good time tonight?" he asks coldly, and you stutter, purse slipping from your fingers and onto the hardwood floor. "You looked pretty cosy from where I was standing."

He circles his fingers around your wrist and tugs you forward, other hand coming up around the back of your neck and fisting your hair to tilt your head backwards. "Do you need a reminder? Is that it? You forget who you belong to?"

Your phone buzzes once, and then twice, from the depths of your purse. The vibration against your floor makes his gaze harden, muscles in his cheek jumping. You're pressed back against the door, the wood solid against your muscles and disoriented from the sudden movement. His hands squeezing at the fat of your thighs underneath your dress are rough, travelling higher and higher to tug the thin fabric of your underwear down. They barely get past your thighs before he grows impatient and the sound of tearing reaches your ears.

You gasp but it's quickly swallowed by his mouth in a bruising kiss, tongue laving over your bottom lip as his fingers swipe against your dripping sex. He grows tenser, if possible, and pulling away you fear you'll be burned by his stare alone.

"This is because of him?" he demands and you draw a breath, your chest thrumming with electricity, every nerve ending alight with anticipation. "Huh?"

You choke on a gasp as his fingers enter you, a strangled squeal when his thumb brushes over that spot expertly. He knows your body like the back of his hand, it isn't hard to get you sagging back against the door.

"I–" you force out, gritting your teeth despite the burning in your lower stomach, pleasure coiling down your spine with every thrust of his fingers. "I don't belong to – oh – to you!"

"No?" he sneers, drawing closer.

"S'not what you said last night, or the night before that...as a matter of fact," he says mockingly, as though he's made a discovery, "I'm pretty sure that's what you've been screaming every night for the last few months, princess. Isn't that right?"

His fingers don't stop, and you find it difficult to string together words when you're near seeing stars. "S-screw you," you stutter and his resounding smile is a mean, snake-like thing. His eyes glitter with promise of the night that awaits you, and you bite back a whimper, both fear and arousal clouding your thoughts.

"Yeah," he murmurs thoughtfully, as you come with a moan around his fingers. "You're gonna. Come here."

You're spun to face against the door, skirt pushed up as you hold yourself up. You hear the rustle of clothing, a zipper and then you're pressing your forehead into the wood with a silent scream as Jason pushes into you, an accompanying sting following the stretch that empties your lungs of air for a moment.

For one brief, singular, moment it feels like he might go easy on you, pausing to let you adjust. But then he pulls out only to pick up a punishing pace, each thrust angled so as to kiss your sweet spot and simultaneously leave you gasping for breath.

"What's that?" he leans down to murmur in your ear when you sob his name, tears crowding your lash line and spilling, splashing against the bare skin of your collar as you're jostled. His hand circles around your throat, pulling you up against his chest while the other presses low on your stomach, pushing you into him and making you cry out. "Huh? Thought you didn't belong to me, sweetheart, how come you're crying on my cock?"

When your legs give out underneath you, he laughs unkindly and picks you up, carrying you over to the nearby couch. It's only a momentary pause, dropping you flat against the seat before he crawls over you and returns to teaching you your lesson, hooking your legs in his elbows and grinding his hips into yours, unrelenting.

"Please!" you slur out and he breathes out a laugh above you, chest pressing into your back. The pretty dress you'd worn tonight is long discarded, strewn somewhere on your apartment floor and you're left bare. Jason, in comparison, remains clothed. The button of his pants and teeth of his zip press into the back of your thighs, seemingly inconsequential for Jason as he bullies himself into your cunt.

"So polite," he rasps, chuckling. "I don't think you've learned your lesson, though. Have you?"

"Yes! Please, please." Drool and tears stain the cushions below you, and your eyes roll back into your skull when his fingers tighten over your hips.

"Yeah? You gonna let anyone else touch you like this?"

You shake your head, crying. "'m close!"

"Don't you dare," he growls. "You're not gonna fuckin' cum until I say so."

You drop your head into the cushions with a sob, but his fingers find your chin and turn your head to face him.

"Who do you belong to?" he demands. He's panting and blurry in your teary eyed vision. You try to lean forward, desperate to feel his mouth against yours but he keeps you there, repeating his question.

It feels damning, to babble out the words, "You! I-I'm yours, please." but his mouth quirks in cruel satisfaction before he's surging forward to give you what you want.

"Don't ever," he mutters into your mouth, "don't you ever fucking forget that."

"Please," you whimper, tears streaming down your face as his hisp continue to slap into yours.

He bites your bottom lip, tongue flitting out to lick the welt afterwards. "Cum, then," he orders, and reaches around you to circle your clit with calloused fingers.

You fall apart with a squeal, his teeth sinking into the junction of your neck and shoulder, shuddering as the aftershocks of your orgasm ripple through you. Jason, still hard inside you, busies himself with marking up your skin as you pulse around him.

"Just in case you decide that wasn't enough," he remarks, teeth glinting in the lowlight when you tiredly crane your neck to look at him. He looks beastly in this light, fanged and maw dripping with saliva, eyes burning neon in the moonlight.

Jason reminds you several times that night who you belong to. And when you wake in the morning, he takes great pains to do it all over again.

whew did not think this was going to become an actual oneshot fic...thank you nonnie for seeing the vision, you and me r sharing the same thoughts exactly. he is so mean and punishing, but there's still these moments where you know he's in denial and you do mean something to him but he refuses to admit it – but for the most part, he's kind of mean. like i said, worst situationship of your life.

[kwanisms]

heyyy, so i just read the tags on your most recent “otherworldly” repost and OMG !! i’m so excited bc i just read that fic for the first time earlier today 🤭 i’m a sucker for lino AND alien/monster fics, so this is literally a christmas present to me lmfao. also, i just discovered your blog last night, but you’re already one of my fav writers on tumblr! i hope you’re having a good day/night :)

💀 I genuinely thought those tags would fly under the radar and now here I am, booboo the fool lmao but yes! I'm working on a series with alien!Minho from Otherworldly. I had wanted to do another alien!SKZ story and decided to expand on Minho some more. I'm still working out the details but I've expanded the characters, given them some more depth as well as outlined some profile for them.

I've included more about Minho's life on Ninsa and his past, including his friendship with his roommate, a past relationship, his friends, his experiences in his quadrant of the galaxy and his travels before leaving Ninsa and arriving in our Solar System.

As for our MC, I've given her a bit more depth and added a job to her profile. There will be more about her growing up as well as her past with Jake and their friendship.

Most of these past things will be told in flashbacks. As for the main part of the story, you'll just have to wait and see what that is ;)

Thank you so much for reading! I'm very attached to that story as it is one of my longer pieces, especially for what was supposed to be just a oneshot. It was almost 40k before I edited it and got it down to its final word count. Welcome to my little corner of stayblr and I hope you enjoy your time here 😊 💕

Reblog mentioned.

[uncxntrxllable]

Anonymous sent:

Feel free to ignore this ask. First wanted to say Merry Christmas even though it is Boxing Day. Anyway just wanted to say how much I love and adore your blog and muses. Thalia is my favourite I must say. I'd love to read more about her and more of her history. What is her personality like and everything. Dont stop writing. You are amazing!

This is the best thing that I woke up to this morning!! Thank you so much, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to you as well! And happy boxing day of course, don't spend too much money 🤣

THANK YOU AGAIN, it means so much to hear this. Thalia is / was the latest muse I added to this blog, I haven't had a whole lot of chances to write her in as much depth just yet, so she's still kind of new to me as a whole. But the more I write her the more I'll be able to navigate who she is, apart from what I've written on her link.

And because you've given me permission I shall talk about her more below!

But I kinda like to think she embodies the whole "be careful what you wish for," at least in regard to her origins. The witches who created her wanted a monster to kill all the werewolves they were having problems with, they got what they wanted but it backfired. The reason I have it that the venom present in her saliva can also kill a witch is because it's basically a... Fuck you 👍 you created this abomination and now it can kill you too.

She was created by dark magic, which included a pit of fire to perform the uh... Spell? I've never actually written witches before so I don't know anything about 'em 🤣 but anyways, I think that only thing without an explanation in her link is, that's the reason why if she's set on fire or burned or anything, it can trigger involuntary aggression or trigger a shift that causes her to lose control. Same as her being vulnerable to dark magic.

She's meant to be like, a werewolf opposite... So, you know, instead of silver, for her it's gold, and instead of turning on a full moon, she turns on a new moon.

She is and will always be a monster, and she is absolutely an abomination, something not meant to exist, but that is simply what she is and not who, she just wants to live her life and enjoy it. She wants more of a meaningful purpose than just the killer she was created to be.

If trouble finds her, that's one thing, but I can't quite see her leaving home specifically to seek out trouble and conflict. She does her best to keep her emotions in check because it is in fact a very big problem and too much intense emotion can be dangerous.

She is still rusty with making and maintaining relationships with people, and she usually prefers to keep the monster in her a secret, at least if the person is human. She's not the best when it comes to making up lies to cover things up which can make her come off as very obviously hiding something, but, uh, she's just doing her best out here.

[magicpumpkin3]

Idia Shroud x (Fem?)reader

Warning: NSFW; light!dom/sub; maid outfit; pegging(kinda); Idia is kinda OCC'ish

Note: thank yous go to → @intynidad Check out their blog! It's... interesting ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°). Note 2: sorry for shitty writing, author is new to smuts :). (My second ever smut tbh)

"…P-please… stop!" Idia desperately trys to hide his legs as much as possible with that stupid skirt. He has nothing against maid outfits. It's more opposite way actually, he loves them! It's not that he's wearing one right now, no. It's you, staring at him. And all of this because of a stupid bet! He could've sworn, you were horrible at this game but no. You just had to be lucky today and win. And loser, who's punishment was to wear a maid outfit, is him. Blushing like a mad man, sitting in a corner of your room, Idia trys to hide from your eyes.

Giggling like a five-year old kid that just got their own toy as present for Christmas, you slowly walk towards your boyfriend. "Hey, you look wonderful, no need to hide!" His hair bursting in bright red flames even more, Idia lets out a groan of frustration. "It's n-not, I'm…You…m-me…" And there he goes mumbling again. You love him to the depths of your heart but sometimes he needs to be a bit louder and clearer with his words and thoughts. Though, you can't blame him. We've all been there, still there at some point actually.

Sitting on a floor, turned away from you, keeping his knees close to his chin, Idia trys so hard not burn your entire room. "Idia~…" Hearing your voice sing-song his name, makes him want to hide himself even more. Your gentle touch on his arms makes him jump in surprise. "You okay?" Asking him gently, making him want to tackle you and hold you for ever. How can you be so brave? He slowly, a bit shackly, turns his head towards you. Red as Riddles hair, he tries to to mutter something out.

He's so cute like that. Not being able to hold yourself together, you bend forward and give his lips a small peck. Small whimper escapes him. "It's n-not fa-funny…" Chuckling to yourself, you lightly shacke your head. "Yes, it's not funny how gorgeous you look." Oh boi! You can practically see steam leaving his ears. Gently placing one hand on his thigh, that are covered by black stockings and another on his shoulder.

Shuddering because of the gesture, Idia sheepishly looks you in the eyes. Staring at you, like you're one of the great seven. He suddenly feels your lips on his. What starts as a small tender kiss, turns into a heated make out session really fast. Your tongues dancing together, pushing one another. Moaning into your mouth, he closes his eyes in a bless.

Pulling away, breathing heavy, you look at him. Such a mess, flushed all over, breath wrecked, he trys to avoid your gaze. Though, his body speaks for him better then his words. Idia now is fully turned to you and is sitting on his knees before you. Looking so delicious, it's almost painful. Scooting closer to him, you now place your hands on his cheeks, making him look at you. Staring into one another's soul, you kiss each other again.

He can feel your hands slowly moving down his body. They gently, like afraid of scaring him, caress his sides, pushing on his sweet spots, that make him hitch his breath. Almost bitting his own tongue, and yours too off, when he feels you go beneath the skirt. Breaking apart, breathing in and out rapidly, Idia looks at you. Thin line of saliva still connecting your mouths.

You slowly, bend forward and start leaving trail of kisses and small bites down his neck. Idia sinks his teath down his bottom lip to keep himself quiet. Soft cry leaving his throat. You move one of your hands up his thigh. Reaching beginning of his underwear, you teas it a little, pulling and tapping it. You can particularly fell his cock twitch.

"P-plea-se! I…Ah! Pl-please…Hn...I c-can't!…" Face flushed, tongue rolled out a bit, your boyfriend trys to say something. "Yes, dear? You want something me to do?" You ask Idia in teasing manner. Your hand reaches his erection. Slowly stroking it through his underwear, you keep smiling at him with that grin of yours. "Use your words dear."

"P-please!!! More ah!" Right when he finished his thought out loud, you put a pressure on a head of his cock. Bucking his hips towards your hands he whimpers and crys in pleasure. Pushing Idia down, you pin his hands over his head. Kissing him heatedly again, you push your knee between his legs. Moaning into your mouth, he arches his back towards your other hand that is playing with his nipple under that stupid outfit.

Pulling away, you rise a bit to look at him. Flushed all over the place, hot rigged breath, eyes slightly open, his neck and collarbones with few of your marks. Maid outfit pushed down his shoulders to expose more skin that was begging for more marks. Realising his hands, you carefully help him to get those short sleeves out of the way. Front falling down a bit reviling his erect nipples, making you bend down and press a few teasing kisses to them.

"Idia, do you trust me?" You asked in husky hushed voice. He looked you on the eyes with a second doubt nodding. Smiling like Cheshire cat, you press a fee kisses to his face and get off him. You can see the confusion on your boyfriends face. "Be a good boy and wait for me here." Coying it sweetly, you quickly leave the room.

Laying down, all alone, Idia's hands without him noticing it, reach to his bulge. Slowly, with shaky hands he removed his underwear from his also shaking legs and slowly started touching himself. Moving fingers up and down his shaft, he exhales with a small whimper. Your loving hands feel so much better then his. Squeezing around himself he began to pump his hand up and down. Precum leaking out already. He closes his eyes and groans with pleasure.

What a beautiful sight you walked on. Him, moaning your name out like this, legs bend a bit, like waiting for someone to rail him in the ass, jearking himself off in that cute outfit. It makes you get even more turned on. Slowly walking closer to him, you sit down near your boyfriend. Apparently he got too consumed by the filing and didn't see you. Not to worry. You know just the way to get his attention. Reaching your hand, you slowly add pressure on his hand over his cock. Choking out a gasp, Idia opens his eyes and looks at you.

"I'm…I-" Before he could say anything, you shut him up with a kiss. He melts immediately. Slowly, you move one of your hands towards his asshole. He crys out in a kiss of the feeling of your fingers massaging hole. Breaking a kiss, you bend even further, whispering into his ear. "Sorry for, keeping you waiting you". You put mote pressure, more moans follow. "I thought we could try something…" Smiling like you're a devil in a flesh, you push your index finger in.

Silent scream left his lips. A few trails of droll roll from his mouth. Idia clings to you shoulders and crys out into your ear. You slowly start to move your finger inside, slowly trying to add another. "It-it! Insi-side!!! Agh!" After having all four fingers inside of him, rhythmetically fucking him, he's already almost sits on your hand. One of his stockings has rolled down, and his whole outfit was steady only on his abbs. Suddenly you stop and pull your hand away. Low whines and crys of disapproval are heard from your Idia. "So the thing I wanted to try…" you turn your back to him and grab something. "Well…what do you think?" Turning back to him, you revel a strap-on. Not too big, not too small. Medium. Glaring at it for a few moments, he realizes what's it for. He almost immediately got on his back and raised one if his legs. Turning his head away from you, he trys to hide behind one of his own arms. Chuckling to yourself, you smile down on him, putting your toy in place, getting the lubricant oil and getting ready. Whole time your boyfriends eyes were glued to you. Getting on top of him and placing one of his legs over your shoulder, you bend down and hover over him once again. "Say what you want~" you say in a husky voice. Idia desperately trys to push himself on your toy but you keep moving away. "Neh-neh! That won't do, dear. You have to tell me what you want." Even though Idia shuted his eyes long time ago he could feel you smile at him.

"I-I want…"

"yes?"

"I w-want you to…to," here he goes again, trying to push himself on a strap-on.

"Shh~. Tell me I'll do it" moving away from him, you kiss pulls on his neck.

"I want y-you! To!…"

"Yes?"

"I want you to fuck me!" Almost yelling it out, Idia opened his eyes and looked at you. Holding on to you for dear life.

"Very well then"

A loud cry echoes through your room. Pushing in slowly, you sigh, as if you could feel how it feels to be inside of your boyfriend. Slowly bumping in and out, you thrusts deeper with each push. Head rolled flames a bit purple, not quite red, not quite blue, droll dripping from his mouth, tongue also out, Idia moans and crys like madman. You're truly grateful that your dorm is as far away from any 'crowded places'.

Kissing and sucking on one of his nipples, you slowly start to use your free hand to jerk him off a bit. Almost immediately his head shots up and he's pressed flushed to you. You start to move more aggressively and harsh, making him particularly scream your name and how much 'he fucking loves it'. You can feel his cock twitch when you hit one specific spot inside of him, making him scream from pleasure, literally. You start to hit it over and over again, making him see stars. Burning fire inside of him, grows bigger and bigger every single time, you touch one of his sensitive parts. He's so close he can feel it.

Suddenly he stops you. Looking down at him worriedly you ask "Everything okay?" Before you could mentally prepare yourself Idia half says, half huffs "C-can you…ri-ride me but k-keep t-the stra-pon i-inside?…" You at loose of your words. "I mean...we can try?" Slowly detention strapon from yourself, you get on top of him and line his dick to your entrance. Slowly pushing yourself onto his shaft, you sigh and shiver from the feeling. You can feel Idia buck his hips tawords you.

Slowly you, you start to ride him. Skirt up, revealing his crotch area, where your body's connect, hands holding into a carpet to keep himself from hurting himself or you, he looks at your eyes with his golden once. You smile daring at him, you start to move even harsher. Moaning in unison, bumping and crying out in pleasure.

A great idea comes to your head. Leaning back a bit, with one hand, you try to find with another the tip of a strap-on. Finally finding it, you grab it and push in your boyfriends hole a bit. Hearing a raw crys of pleasure, as you ride him.

Hot bubbling feeling inside of you getting stronger as you get more aggressive. Pushing in harsher, ridding more rigged you make eye contact with him again. And it's your both breaking point. You can feel him twitching inside of you and realising hot semen into you, he almost screams but bite's his lower lip just in time to just moan really loud. He stills and now it's your time to cum. Hot knots inside are vanishing. Your vision is unclear, white noise filing your ears.

After what felt like an hours, you collapsed on top of him. Giggling to yourself, you make a mental note to make more bets like that

[1ddotdhq]

🍌Wed 2 Dec ‘20💚

Harry Styles Reacts to Banana Innuendo Rumors by Making EVEN MORE Banana Innuendos part TWO

Good morning/evening/night to Harry’s post and Harry’s post ONLY! (Okay that’s not true but it was definitely a highlight of my day). In case people haven’t seen it yet, it’s Harry in a light blue custom made suit putting a penis banana in his mouth. The picture is captioned “Bring Back Manly Men” so take a suck on THAT Candace Owens! It was only one of many great pictures in his variety shoot (including another, um, fruity picture of him biting into a pomegranate okay Persephone we get it), but Harry did indeed choose That One to post on This, the day after banana necklace dickscourse, BLESS. Harry’s interview was a little more in depth than they have been in the past, touching upon his feelings on race (“Historically, I can’t think of any industry that’s benefited more off of Black culture than music. There are discussions that need to happen about this long history of not being paid fairly. It’s a time for listening, and hopefully, people will come out humbled, educated and willing to learn and change”), as well as his tattoos (the only time he regrets them is in the DWD makeup chair), his love of reading, fashion and art, his exercise routine (Kid Harpoon couldn’t keep up!),  and his feelings on success and acclaim (“It’s never why I do anything...it's always nice to know that people like what you’re doing, but ultimately — and especially working in a subjective field — I don’t put too much weight on that stuff...Fans are the best A&R”). 

The problems arose - as they so often do - when One Direction was mentioned. The article said that “The proof [of the band’s benefits] is in the relatively seamless solo transitions of at least three of its members- Payne, Malik and Horan in addition to Styles- each of whom has landed hit singles on charts in the U.K., the U.S. and beyond”. Leaving aside the bad math (that's 4 people!) one name, of course, is notably missing: Louis has in fact enjoyed quite a lot of success both with Walls (remember when his album went #1 on iTunes in the UK AND the US literally 2 months ago?) and his pre-Walls singles like “Back To You” and “Just Hold On”. It got worse because the author tried to back up her claim with Harry’s quote, “When you look at the history of people coming out of bands and starting solo careers, they feel this need to apologize for being in the band...but we loved being in the band...I think there’s a wont to pit people against each other. And I think it’s never been about that for us. It’s about a next step in evolution. The fact that we’ve all achieved different things outside of the band says a lot about how hard we worked in it”. By linking her own words with Harry's quote she made it seem as though Harry said it to agree with her biased take, which we'd know he didn't even if we hadn't heard him say this exact quote without that slant multiple times before. Fans were quick to point out both to the author and to Variety that they were wrong (to describe the reaction mildly), and the author rather than fixing the mistake, doubled down and began blocking fans. Plenty of people were quick to say that of course HSHQ and Harry had approved this content, despite more knowledgeable fans trying to be heard protesting that that is not how it works. (Remember how just recently Vogue got Harry’s whole ass FAMILY situation wrong and it was not corrected until after print, for example?) In fact, even the magazine didn't really proofread this- the print version of the article is different and says, “The proof is in the relatively seamless solo transitions of at least three of its members - Styles, Malik and Horan”, effectively erasing both Louis AND Liam. It's an annoying take either way, but it's one the author more than likely picked up by doing her research on harrie twitter, not on orders from Jeff.

And because we DO NOT STAND FOR LILO ERASURE ON THIS BLOG, let’s talk about Liam’s Web Summit panel! It was 25 minutes of Liam and Marian Dicus (VP of Spotify) being interviewed about the current and future state of the music industry. Both of them, of course, noted that things had changed very quickly in their careers back at the beginning of lockdown, and how it had seemed surreal, at first, but that Liam had found that the way he was operating now (with Veeps and Tik Tok and Instagram lives) had made his platform a two way interaction with his fans. “For a long time I've been living in a dream world where I thought I was speaking with my fans but really I was just talking at them whereas we as artists ask a lot of rhetorical questions... I wanted to start a conversation”. Marian discussed how engaging fans differently WAS one of the most difficult things to puzzle out at the beginning, but that as months have passed, it seems artists like Liam have found a viable virtual future in the music industry (Liam tells us that he's been doing “stadium size shows” on Veeps which is an exciting clue about the mystery of how many tickets they're selling). They also went into the way music trends change as a response to social and political occurrences, how comfort songs gave way to protest songs this summer. Liam said, “People want their artists to have an opinion nowadays it's not that we can stay out of the conversation anymore-- and nor do we feel that we should in many places-- but for me it's a fine line because I realize what I do for people is an escape, people don't want things rammed down their throats every day and news messages from me about things that they don't want to hear about if they've come to listen to music, so its a real fine line that we kind of teeter on”. And about his opening acts, he acknowledges that his fanbase are mostly young women (based on the data breakdowns he gets from his team), and so he feels a responsibility to mentor young female artists in the industry so that more people like his fans have a voice. In an interview full of really fascinating music and technical discussions, this remained my favorite moment from Liam. Just like we won’t erase HIM, he refuses to erase US! And let's not forget our Liam alarm of the day-- it starts out absolutely adorable (“good moooorning!”), is hilarious in that apparently he just rambled completely unscripted and then they awkwardly cut it into 25 parts, but today's installment is frankly not relaxing! “only 23 sleeps til christmas have you done your shopping are you prepared” excuse me Liam YOU ARE STRESSING ME OUT. The promised relaxing sleep story affirmations are still 'coming soon'-- hurry up please I need them to decompress after that alarm!

Now for a lightning round of epic proportions: DWD darling pictures and vids keep comin’ and Harry and Florence are both looking GORGEOUS as Jack and Alice,  after the Variety shoot dropped ‘THE CAPTION’, ‘BRING BACK MANLY MEN’, and ‘LOUIS IS SUCCESSFUL’ trended worldwide on twitter, Tan France said “yes please” to Harry's banana post, Harry reiterated that London was home and he didn’t want to be in LA for longer than he needed to,Variety has its virtual show tomorrow at 5 pm PST so see you there! Veeps is sending out emails promoting Louis’ show to people who bought LP show tickets, fans have already started to receive their Louis Tomlinson Live From London merch, Trinity College in Dublin’s Law society presented Niall with an award for, uh, his Irishness, I guess? (Just kidding, it’s for “his incredible talent and work ethics which is famously underscored by a distinct humility despite unthinkable success”). It looks like he will be giving a talk when he’s presented with it, and I’m honestly really interested to see what it’s all about - is he...gonna be talking to law students? Idk but tune in on December 7th at 12 pm GMT to find out!

[black-streak]

Waiting for the Worms - Goodbye Blue Sky

Part 10

Extra long, late Christmas gift. Warnings are always in effect. I'll leave it at that.

CLOSED list of friendly people: @northernbluetongue @thethirdwheelfriend @shizukiryuu @theatreandcomicfreak @michellemagic @karategirl119 @moonlightstar64 @my-name-is-michell @mystery-5-5 @zalladane @queen-of-the-trash-planet-tm @miraculousdisapointment @dorkus-minimus @jardimazul @allthebooksandcrannies @g-arya @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @persephonescat @mycupisbroken @luciferge @18-fandoms-unite-08 @dawnwave16 @alwaysreblogneverpost @kris-pines04 @mysteriouslyswimmingfan-blo-blog @weird-pale-blonde-person @you-will-never-know-how-i-think @kokotaru @naclychilli @slytherinhquinn @clumsy-owl-4178 @ladybug-182 @darkthunder1589 @evil-elf16 @dast218 @lysslovsanime @emilytopaz @naoryllis @iloontjeboontje @thepeacetea @danielslilangel @finallyaniguana @i-like-fairytail-and-stuff @vixen-uchiha @yuulxd @bleeding-heart-romantic @magic-inthe-stars @st0rmy-w1th1n

~---~

The moment the door creaked open, Marinette woke up, shifting towards the source upon recognizing its pattern. Damian stopped misstep as their eyes met, then proceeded to edge closer until he could sit upon the edge. They sat silently watching one another, Marinette's tired mind not fully functioning in her sleepy state now that the intruder was blatantly not a threat to keep track of. 

The boy faced away from her, muscles tense and trembling ever so slightly. He twitched as though he wanted to turn around but aborted the attempt before it could even begin. His fists twisted up in the sheets at his side and he seemed to brace himself for something. Haze lifting a touch, she realizes she needs to bridge the gap herself this time. Normally he came to her in his own time, but just showing up in her room in the middle of the night told her how much he was already meeting her halfway; even if he needed something from her and not the other way round.

Reaching out, shuffling the sheets in warning, she rested a calloused hand on his wrist. His attention snapped over to her, head whipping over his shoulder and eyes locking once more. Only this time, he stayed close enough for her to see the shine to his eyes, fear hiddened in the depths. 

"Damian?"

He huffed a breath through his nose, staying silent otherwise, not moving closer nor creating distance between them. Deciding he probably wouldn't speak on the issue in this mental state, she tugged softly at his wrist, shifting to the other side of the bed and lifting the bedding on the now opened side, keeping her grip on his wrist gentle enough to ensure he knew he could escape at a moment's notice with no resistance.

"Come here, little one. Sleep."

His face pinched up as though to protest only to soften into a confused little pout, "No questions?"

"None."

He eased up, padding further onto the bed and settling beside her, relaxing as time passes. Marinette maintained a foot and a half of distance between them, refusing to crowd the boy or make him uncomfortable after he came to her. She knew he craved attention and affection, likely touch starved throughout the last seven years, but knew Damian needed to decide for himself if that was something he wanted from her. Despite calling her family, Marinette knew she would need to tread carefully to not break that fragile trust, letting him decide if he wanted her as an older sibling, parental figure, or distant cousin. So instead of cuddling the distressed boy as her instincts screamed for, she turned away and listened until his breathing settled before slipping back to sleep herself.

...

Their plans started to take a new depth, Talia starting to speak more in places and times instead of abstracts, referring to several upcoming missions or events in which opportunities might present themselves and how to take full advantage and slip away.

She stressed the importance of not informing her when they decide to leave and where they'll end up. 

The decisions laid out before her, Marinette mapped out every instance and possible outcome, taking the easiest routes and simplest plans and immediately scrapping them. Too easy to track. She also scraped any idea that seemed overly complex. Overactive imaginations such as Ras' would immediately think of the most intricate and convoluted plans and follow their leads. The distraction or escape itself mattered less than the journey afterwards, when the league would attempt to hunt them down to reclaim their heir. She wanted a middle ground. Something complex enough to throw them off of any path, but easy enough to not hit their radar. 

The thought hit her in the middle of the night, Damian snug on the other half, having entered some time ago. Looking down at the child, she knew where they would go and how. 

The next day, she waited for Talia in her rooms. When the woman entered, she waited until the door locked to speak.

"I've figured it out."

"Jason, what did I-"

"I'm not here to tell you any details. I'm just informing you that our departure is prepared for. And to say goodbye. You can't know when we'll disappear, meaning the loss of your son will blindside you as well. So I'm telling you now. His ties are broken, he won't come back, he will never feel the need to return. I'll keep him safe though. I'll remember your love and sacrifice. It's going to be okay Talia. You're doing what's best for him."

"I know," she gave a small smile, broken in the corner. With that, Marinette left her alone, knowing there was nothing left for them to say. The woman knew how grateful she was for this second chance at life. For the training and education. The trust and care. The connection to the world through her child.

The next morning she found a bag hidden in her rooms, filled with supplies and multiple currencies of cash, along with access keys to multiple unattached drop boxes across the world. Child support, she thought to herself with a huff of laughter.

…

The two had just returned from a particularly terrible mission, where Damian had made his second kill and she had taken some gruelling measures to protect the kid and prevent his needing to step in further.

When Damian entered her room that night, it seemed less for his own comfort and more for hers. As though he sensed how distraught his killing made her. He was too young and raised too harshly to understand why, but knew that it upset her and wished to soothe the gloom looming over them. If she had to guess, that probably contributed to why he avoided the act when out on the field. She took matters into her own hands, killed when the situation called for it and sometimes when the madness echoed a touch too loud, but she couldn't stand the thought of the little one becoming a killer.

Huddling amongst the sheets and feeling his tiny hand press between her shoulder blades, she decided the time to inform Damian had come at last.

"If I said we could escape this. The trainers who hurt and demean you, the woman who disowned you, the man who cares only about an heir and not the boy behind the title, would you want that?"

His breathing pattern threw itself off just a touch, a sign of his surprise, "What do you mean?"

"The League. Talia, Ras, everything. Would you want to escape. See the outside world, decide for yourself who you ought to be, instead of just becoming what they want. Stop being used."

"That's not an option though," he countered, tone cautious.

"Why not?"

"Where would I go? How? Nobody escapes."

"We could. I've spent enough time as Talia's pet to know how to evade anyone here. Watched and listened in to enough to know how Ras thinks. And you? You grew up here, you must have this place memorized like the back of your hand. Know the patterns and inner workings of its people. We could escape, together."

He stayed silent, hand wrapping into the back of her shirt subconsciously where it lay.

"And once we're out?"

"I grew up in the outside world, I know where to go, how to survive."

"You're saying I'd have to trust you with my life."

"I'd be trusting you as well. I'm trusting you now to even ask this," she mentioned, drawing attention to how risky bring up an escape plan to the heir of the Demon's Head truly was. Showing her trust in him to ease the fear of putting his life in her hands.

"And if we were to escape successfully, I'd be free then? To make my own decisions like you said?"

"With some moderate supervision," her voice betrayed her amusement at his prodding, "I'm not going to distance myself from your upbringing like they did, but I'm also not planning to micromanage your life. Just enough to keep you safe and guide you through the outside world. Does that sound agreeable?"

"I could live with that," he surprisingly sounded pleased by the notion instead of putoff as she had originally expected. She hummed in contemplation and fell silent for some time before feeling a tug from the hand still at her back.

"Jason?"

"Have a bag ready at all times. We'll need to leave at a moment's notice."

Damian fell silent, but she felt the way his hand relaxed it's grip at her, his quiet sigh all she needed. He would be ready.

…

Only a week after their conversation, an opportunity presented itself. Whether Talia played a hand in it, she didn't know, but either way, Marinette was not about to look this gift horse in the mouth. 

The two woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of chaos. Screaming came from outside, the crackling of fire and clang of metal hitting metal in the distance. The city was under attack.

Marinette pushed Damian to the edge of the bed, urging him up and grabbing their bags from hidden compartments around the room, throwing a change of clothes to the boy and grabbing her own, shoving armor and her mission clothes on, knowing the boy was doing the same somewhere out of sight. Soon, they were back in front of each other, Marinette adjusting his one small bag onto his back and carefully strapping the rest to her own before handing his katana over, bending down to look him in the eye.

"If it comes to it, don't hesitate. Your life is way more important to me than theirs. They will aim to kill you. I won't let them. But if someone gets past me, protect yourself."

"I know."

"Promise me. I don't care how much you think it upsets me. Promise me you'll do whatever it takes to make it out of here."

He looked down, lips twisting and brow furrowing before he met her eyes and nodded, "Promise."

Nodding, she led the way out, bladed staff at her back, knives in hand. By some stroke of luck, most of the fighting stayed some distance away. Happening upon a small crisped body, unrecognizable, she pushed Damian forward, grabbing a small blade off him as he passed and pushing it into the crumpled hand of the dead, pushing back fear at her own lack of respect for the dead. Now was not the time for a crisis. Looking up, she met his confused eyes, gesturing to the body size and pointedly looking him up and down. Realization struck and he nodded back. She wanted them to assume he died in the attack. As she headed towards a tunnel up ahead, he tugged on her wrist, leading her another direction. She gave a questioning look, but followed upon his insistence. As they turned another sharp corner, a body hit hers. She rolled with it, seeing another approach Damian and throwing a knife with perfect precision into the would be attackers neck as she hit the floor, her own now straddling her stomach. Before she could even start to fight back, a flash of silver crossed above her and blood rained down, covering her as the body dropped heavy on top of her. Shoving it off, she rolled onto her stomach and into a crouch, dragging her arm across her face and looking up into Damian's wide eyes, katana dripping blood in his hands. Clearing what she could from her face, she stood up and put a hand on his shoulder, turning him away from the scene and internalizing the moment to panic on later. She yanked her knife from the neck of the other and picked up their pace down the hall once more, urging him to take over directions again, not knowing his escape path and glad for the distraction it offered him. Turning down another path, Marinette caught sight of the carnage down a separate hallway and rushed them along faster. Damian pulled off the path into an alcove and shoved at the wall until it gave way to another blocked off path. They took the time to reset the wall to cover the path once more. At this point, she took out a glowstick, snapping it and allowing the acid green to light the way. 

At some point the path turned upwards and continued winding for another mile before letting out into a basement. Deciding not to tempt fate, they changed into civilian clothes and made their way out of the abandoned building. From there, they set off for the next city over before taking one of many sets of airline tickets shoved into the cash bag courtesy of Talia and flying out. Arriving in a new city, they rented a hotel room and burnt the remaining tickets. 

The next week followed the same pattern. Buying bus tickets and airline tickets under different IDs, some stolen from other league members, some falsified and placed in the bag weeks before with no one the wiser. 

By the end of the week, they reached their final destination. Gotham City. The last place anyone would expect Jason to run back to. Renting an apartment was easy enough, Talia and the league having been very thorough in teaching how to falsify documents, the former having taught her personally, the latter having taught Damian.

Around this time, in a dingy, inconspicuous hotel, Marinette broached a rather difficult topic.

"Damian, you need to decide who I am to you before we move forward."

"Put me down as-"

"Hold up, I'm not finished."

He huffed at her interruption, but gestured for her to continue.

"Do you know how Talia came across me?"

"You were a dead boy who came back to life and dropped into a coma. She took you in and healed you in the pit. You were connected to someone she cared about once."

"Have you heard of Batman and Robin?"

"Yes? I don't see what this has to do with anything."

"Jason was Robin. I was killed by the Joker, sat in a grave for something like six months in a dead body. It came back to life and I clawed out of that grave and to a hospital where I was indeed in a coma for a year before coming back and being found by Talia."

A contemplative pinch in his forehead showed up as he thought on her words, "You said Jason was Robin. But you died. What does that mean?"

"This is Jason's body, but I'm not Jason. I'm his soulmate. I died for him and the connection was lost. I've never been Jason, in all the time you've known me."

"Why are you telling me now?"

"You deserve to know exactly who I am before you decide anything. Especially anything pertaining to my guardianship over you."

"But I know who you are. What body you inhabit means nothing."

Marinette felt a tiny smile tilt the corner of her lip, "All the same."

"But… Out of curiosity, what's your real name?"

"Marinette," the name fell heavy off her tongue, foreign and harsh after nearly three years without use.

"On paper, you'll be my older brother, Jason, who gained full custody over me upon the death of our parents."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. In reality, you're my big sister though. Alright?"

"Alright. Mind if I take some liberties with the paperwork?"

Narrowed green eyes seemed to assess her for only a moment before he nodded and moved on to the next piece of legal work. The fact he could understand the jarbel on the sheet still caught her off guard at times. Shaking her head, she made a few adjustments on the electronic documentation, saving the work and erasing any trace of proof of her having hacked the system. Having her own laptop was coming in handy.

With their identities secured, she rented their new place and had them moved in within three days. 

While their cash wasn't even near dwindling, she began her hunt for work. Her first instinct was to return to design, but after so many years, the idea of designing clothing with no real purpose no longer held its appeal. Hopefully something would come her way soon.

…

Their first night in their new home, Damian crawled into her bed with nightmares from the night of their escape. She certainly felt the terror of that night in the back of her mind as well. 

"I'm sorry," the seven year old murmured, hunched up as though expecting anger.

"What for?" She whispered, rubbing the sleep from her eyes while turning towards the small voice.

"I didn't listen. When we escaped. You told me only to protect myself."

"You did protect yourself."

"I also protected you. You probably didn't even need my help, yet I killed that man before you could."

"I told you to do what you deemed necessary. Could you think of an alternative option?"

"No… they wouldn't have stopped until one of you were dead. He had to die for us to escape."

"Correct. While I wish that blood wasn't on your hands, his death in that moment was inevitable."

"You are still upset though."

"I would be upset either way. You shouldn't have to witness such things. But I'm glad we're both safe and that's what's important. That you're okay and neither of us will be put into such a position again."

"Do you resent your soulmate? For putting you through all of this?"

"No. Never. I chose to die for him. I chose to take every hit the Joker intended for him. I chose to take his place in the horrific life fate planned for him. He fought me in those last moments, you know? Tried to force his way back into his body. He didn't want this for me either. But I got a second chance. I've learned so much. I got you. And he's safer, wherever he is."

"You love him," he stated.

"I love him," she agreed easily.

Silence fell over the room and Damian shifted closer until he could snuggle right up into her side, holding a tense position until she wrapped an arm around him and whispered a soft goodnight. With that gentle acceptance, he immediately softened in her hold and fell into a restful sleep.

… 

Around eleven in the morning, she woke abruptly to a yanking sensation in the back of her mind. Stumbling out of the room, she pushed over to a bar stool in the open kitchen, collapsing onto it and leaning on the table before promptly blacking out.

[thewonderstruckwitch]

Hecate

There are many gods that many witches look up to. There are the Norse gods, Roman gods, Egyptian gods and countless others. Though there is one god who is one of the most famous among witches, Hecate.

Who is Hecate?

Hecate is from the Greek pantheon and her name means “worker from afar”. She is the goddess of witchcraft, the night, the moon, necromancy, and crossroads. She is the child of the titans Perses and Asteria and due to this, she ruled over heaven, the earth, and sea.

Usually, she was depicted holding two torches and wore a maiden’s skirt and hunting boots. Later, in the 1900s, she was seen as a triple goddess in Wicca. Greeks would hold festivals in her honor at night. It was also common practice to leave offerings at crossroads for her.

Mythology

In Greek mythology, it is said that Hecate was the only one to have heard Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, call for help when she Hades kidnapped her. She helped lead Persephone out with a torch and brought her back to Demeter.

Hecate also had two familiars. One was a black dog who was originally the Trojan Queen Hekabe. She fell into the sea once Troy had fallen and Hecate transformed her. The second one was a weasel who originally Galinthias who was Alkmene’s midwife. Eleithyia, a goddess, was enraged that Galinthias had tricked her and transformed Galinthias. Hecate felt bad and soon took the weasel in.

My Experience with Her

Though, I haven’t had many experiences with Hecate, they we’re what really pushed me to go on my journey through witchcraft. I remember very early on in my journey, when I considered myself a Wiccan, I tried this ritual where you just make your presence known to the God and Goddess. At the time, I was terribly scared to do anything with witchcraft, but since I was interested, I asked the God and Goddess if witchcraft was right for me.

I made a circle, lit some candles and started to meditate. I was very anxious and unsure if what I was doing was right, but I eventually calmed down and let my mind drift. Finally, in my astral projection, I get to this place that looked like space, but it had a greenish-blue tint to it. I looked around and soon saw two figures in the distance. I walked up to them and I knew in my heart it must’ve been the Greek god Pan and Hecate. At this point, they were the only two gods I knew in depth because of Wicca.

Pan looked a bit like the Ghost of Christmas Present from a Christmas Carol. Hecate wore a very dark blue cloak. I stared at them for a moment in wonder, not really sure what to say, until Hecate suddenly hugs me. I was so filled with joy that I started crying and I was so shocked by how caring she was. It takes quite a bit for me to cry so the fact that she moved me so much was astounding. After the astral projection, I knew that witchcraft was right for me.

Recently, I’ve been called to work with her more. Though, I am quite unsure on how I’d work with her, I’m glad she has pushed me through my journey.

If you decide to work with Hecate, I hope this helps! She’s truly a wonderful goddess to work with. Have a blessed day, witches!

 Sources:

https://www.theoi.com/Khthonios/Hekate.html

https://www.greekmythology.com/Other_Gods/Hecate/hecate.html

https://ancient-greece.org/culture/mythology/hecate.html

https://pantheon.org/articles/h/hecate.html

 Image Sources:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/199934163/goddess-hecate-art-print-open-edition

https://vamzzz.com/blog/hecate-hekate/

https://retrieverman.net/2011/02/05/how-backcrossing-works/

[tegoshigeftw]

Tegoshige Top 25

“More Tegoshige, please!” - said absolutely noone and I delivered. Well, this isn’t for 5 likes, this is for me. I’ve had this blog for 6,5 years now and I decided to look back on the best it had to offer. This is my rating of top Tegoshige moments, excluding those that tightly involved other members (so the making out had to be left out ;;). The things that made my heart doki doki... It was originally a top 10 but it was getting hard to pick so I decided there literally was no reason to hold back so here we are.

#25 4x9

That one time Tegoshige went on location together (which is already a blessing) and Tegoshi got freaked out because of insects running about and nearly got into Shige’s lap. Nearly. So it heads the list.

# 24 Halloween 2017

Tegoshi was Oiran - an elite courtesan - and Shige was Alex from Clockwork Orange. This was but a short moment but is lasted forever in my mind.

#23 Dropped earring

This was during White final. After the boisterous MC scene where Shige was the couch and Tegoshi was the girlfriend, Shige noticed Tegoshi dropped his earring, picked it up and gave it back to him. Just a minor moment, but Tegoshi was still in girlfriend mode and it was incredibly soft. Video here.

#22 Neverland in Tokyo encore 2017/06/11

Tegoshi got very emotional after he went backstage but the fans kept cheering so they went back on stage again and Tegoshi wouldn’t stop crying so Shige led him softly.

#21 As long as Tegoshi is happy...

Before a live performance, they were interviewed and as it was just after Tegoshi’s birthday, they were asked what they wanted to give so...

S: … (in his best ikemen voice) As long as Tegoshi is happy, that is enough! T: Ahhh! ♥ I am loved! Thank you, Shige-chan! I wanna hug you!~

Video here.

#20 The Spa

It was a photoshoot for Biteki. They were originally in different sandboxes but Tegoshi got lonely very soon.

#19 Hairstylist Shige

Shige has been Tegoshi’s stylist for years, since the early days. You can see it in photos and several DVDs, most notably Live Diamond. Video cut here.

#18 “Shige, thank you!”

The night after the Neverland Tokyo concert, 2017 Shige got a call...

S: After the concert ended, Tegoshi had a party with his friends. And so late at night he suddenly called me saying “Could you come for a bit?” S: He seemed to be serious and he cried so much at the concert. (laugh) I got worried and came over but this guy… he just fell asleep! (laugh) K&M: That’s terrible. S: He woke up once, looked at me saying “Shige, thank you!” and went back to sleep. T: Moreover, I was sleeping in Shige’s lap. [S]

Tegoshi: After the last concert in Tokyo Dome I invited several members of staff and Juniors and we basically did a wrapping up party. I called Shige at 3 AM and he came but I ended up falling asleep in Shige’s lap though I don’t remember that at all. I heard it afterwards but apparently I sang “I’m coming” and Shige sang “Ayame” but I don’t remember a bit… [S]

#17 Neverland in Tokyo 2017/06/10

According to a fan report: At the intro of some song, Shige grabbed Tegoshi by the waist tightly. At first, Tegoshi was playing along but Shige didn’t let go and Tegoshi, not used to being attacked, got embarrassed.

#16 Umeboshi

Shige’s been making umeboshi for years now and his #1 fan is none other than Tegoshi.

S: I’ve been doing it for 10 years. It’s not that I like them, I hardly eat them myself. During the tour our Tegoshi eats quite a lot of them. I leave it (in the dressing room) so after the concert he opens it and eats it. About half of them I make for Tegoshi. [2017.02.08 Moshimono Futari]

Q: If you were to give Christmas presents to the members what would it be?

A: …Well, umeboshi! Umeboshi! Eat my umeboshi and get healthy! I give it to Tegoshi every year though. Ah, but that’s showing “Love”. I give it all the time but it’s a deep love that has a special depth! (laugh) [2018.12.05 TVガイド]

#15 Blue making

This is perfect for several reasons, how naturally this fells, how there’s a perfectly empty chair next to them, and how at the end Tegoshi stumbled and Shige is cautioning him.

#14 That 2013 photoshoot

You know the one. That is all. No comment needed.

#13 Tegoshige Kabe-don and confession

During k-chan news, they played the Prince game and Koyama wanted a kabe-don. So Tegoshi kabe-don’d Shige and told him “I love you!”

The audio available here.

#12 Tegoshi’s kirakira eyes

Back in 2009, Shige had a diary and I’m really sorry he does not anymore because one day after a photoshoot he wrote this:

At that time he had seemed to be already smiling and looking at me Looking at me at such a close distance Is this an effect from DREAM BOYS As compared to before, the distance was so much more closer Tegoshi Yuya Indeed is a prince………….. Oh please won’t you be even a little embarrassed. Just how strong is your heart? Don’t look at me like that………… Being looked at with those shiny eyes…………… The atmosphere will become weird (oдO) ………………………………….. Tegoshi Yuya who has ended the photoshoot using those shiny eyes, had walked towards DREAM BOYS with that pair of eyes Ah~ shiny shiny Tegoshi eyes~ I’ll be waiting for that photoshoot~ I wonder… for which magazine would it be Oh the kira kira eyes

Full text here.

#11 That Taiwan hotel video 

We all remember that one. Tegoshi in his bathrobe going out to visit ‘other members’’ rooms but he only goes to Shige’s and gets comfortable on his bed, and gets pounced, and the next thing they show, it’s morning.

#10 Soukon thigh stroking

That time the camerman got very fascinated with Tegoshi’s legs and the other members teased him about it and called him a pervert. Then, Shige decided to stroke those thighs because... well, he can. 

#9 Taking a bath together!

- An unforgettable episode that happened on stage.

Kato: Because of a thunderstorm we had to stop the concert. We moved it to a later date. After a break the 4 of us got into tiny bathtubs, 2 in each and it felt sort of like a field trip, (laugh) the bath was warm. [Duet 2015.04]

They also talked about it during an MC at the time.

Shige pretended to climb into the “tub” with Tegoshi. “We were Team… What was it again?” T: Team “We haven’t done our solos yet”. S: And Tegoshi was sliding all over the place and smacking into me. He was such a naughty guy. T: It couldn’t be helped. It’s slippery. K: But baths are nice, aren’t they? Shige answered in a chill voice, “Yeah, they’re great.” [S]

#8 Worldista routine

I think this was during Weeek where they make up different letters with their bodies. Every concert it went differently but several times Tegoshi left his place and went over to Shige. This fancam pictured the time he got on top of him. Or tried to.

Also here’s a report from Nagano, May 25:

Tegoshi goes to Shige and captures him in a hug and Shige hugs him back. Then Shige picks Tegoshi up and carries him like a sleeping child to his original position. [Fanart here]

#7 Showers

Tegoshi is long known to invade other people’s privacy and during the tour, other people’s shower stalls are no exception. There are many recent episodes but here’s one account:

Q2: Shige-chan said in Nagoya when he took a shower Tegoshi appeared right before his eyes but does he do it always?

S: Not… always but he did it quite a lot on this tour. He trespassed about 3-4 times I think. He would enter the shower room I went to really quietly. That’s why I got really startled. He’d get happy he made me surprised and start grinning. (laugh) I would counterattack by pouring water over him.  

[Tour Stories from Popolo 2016.09 FUN’S QUESTION - SHIGEAKI]

Then, there’s an important MC from 2008. One time, during the tour Massu wanted to take a shower but as he entered the stalls, he met a naked Shige standing proudly. Shige explained he was only waiting on Tegoshi who earlier danced for him naked. Massu was like “Cool, I’ll leave you to it.”

The full account is here. There used to be an audio of this but I didn’t manage to get it.

#6 DTF ‘ago-kui’

There were many instances during two whole tours and also a SCP performance. Each time seems a little closer and more intimate, but each time looks equally fun on both sides.

#5 Accessible Emma outfit

Now we know that Shige, unlike Tegoshi, is not a touchy kind of guy. So him doing something like this, especially on air, is pretty unusual. Tegoshi said Shige did it a lot backstage too.

#4 “I wanna stir you up”

This line from ‘S’ was a real hit and Tegoshi basically admitted it got him horny. Twice. Detailed posts here and here.

#3 Tegoshi saying they’re basically married

Here’s the video.

#2 Tegoshi knows what’s up

Who do you think has the most sex appeal?

Tegoshi: Shige. His face is handsome like a nobility but he’s also manly. Rather than a shining sexuality his sexuality is monochrome… a deep sexuality. It’s the kind that slowly unravels as you get to know him.  [Wink Up, 2013.12]

Who would be a perfect boyfriend in NEWS?

Tegoshi: Wouldn’t that be Shige? It seems like he wouldn’t be clingy but all the while even when he’s silent, in his heart he’d be like “I’m thinking about you properly ♥” keeping a good distance. [Ane Can 2015]

Look with a “female gaze” and say who’s the most handsome member Tegoshi: Alright, I’m switching to female… click! …Hello, I’m Yuko! (laugh) So… for me it’s Shige. The reason is his face and his way of life. His face is up to my taste (laugh) and he doesn’t hesitate in words or in actions. His open-minded way of thinking is similar to mine. It’s refreshing and feels good. [Potato 2016.10]

To name but a few.

#1 Shige radio confession

During k-chan news, they played the Prince game and Koyama wanted one person to say what they liked about the other person and this is how Shige confessed.

K: Do it properly! Seriously. Connect hands “lover style”, look at each other. *giggle* S: Tegoshi has a really cute face. Really cute face and a good voice… K: That’s not it. S: A nice voice and beautiful eyes… K: Something you really like, really like.  S: But I really do like it. K: Something more about his personality. S: If it’s about his personality then… even when he complains he still does his job properly.

Sorry, but that’s just... yeah. You have to hear it though. Full transcript and audio here.

[criminalminds-hc-hq]

Sweater Weather

Word Count: 1,408

Warnings: None that I can think of off the top of my head. Spencer and an OC go to a hockey game.

Author’s Note: I love Spencer Reid and hockey so I made this fic. I am so worried that either/both of them are going to come across as OOC, but if I keep editing it at this point I know they will. Please be kind as this is my first fic over 1,000 words.

Laura had only been dating Spencer for seven months but she had a pretty good feeling about him. He was so sweet and thoughtful. And that smile of his takes her breath away. His early Christmas present to her was a clear indication of how well he knew her already. There’s a knock on her door as she slips the sweater over her head. The excitement is bubbling over as she opens the door.

“You wore a jacket! Great,” she says while grabbing her wallet and keys. “I don’t know if you know this, but it can get pretty cold even if you aren’t in the lower bowl.” He stops her for a moment with a gentle kiss. She savors the feeling of his lips on hers for a second longer. “Hello,” Spencer says after they break apart. “And, yes, the ambient air temperature is typically between 50 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit while the ice temperature is around 24 degrees.”

“Let me guess...the NHL website? Or Wikipedia?” she laughs to herself at the fact that Spencer Reid studied for a hockey game. “Neither. There was a helpful blog where they told me what to wear. Though, it was supported by both.” Spencer takes a second to look her over before frowning. “Are you going to be warm enough though? A hockey jersey probably won’t cut it.” She looks down at the well loved Pittsburgh Penguins logo stitched and stained on the front of her sweater with a smile. “I have a hoodie underneath and I’m grabbing my jacket before we leave. Oh, and you do know they’re called sweaters, don’t you? Jeez what a newbie.”

At that Spencer starts to pull the concerned face she hates to see him wear whenever he’s nervous about doing something wrong. “I’m joking,” she clarifies and caresses his face softly. “Believe me if you wanted me to go watch chess with you I’d be just as lost. Probably more so.” Searching his eyes to make sure he knows that she has zero expectations of Spencer becoming a hockey expert, she asks, “so, are you ready to go?”

“Let’s go,” Spencer says with a smile and grabs her coat from the hook next to the door. “You’re probably going to be shouting that a lot tonight. Just remember: we’re rooting for the away team. Which means we probably aren’t going to be super popular tonight.” She locks up and follows him out toward what she expects will be her best Christmas present ever.

----------------------------

Spencer leads the way down the row to their seats while noting his girlfriend’s silence. She stares around in awe before finally breaking it. “I’ve never sat in the lower bowl before! This is awesome. You’re awesome,” she rambles before sitting down next to him. He chuckles and wraps his arm around her. “This is supposed to be one of the best places to sit according to the Internet. Apparently, if you sit too low you have trouble seeing what’s happening at the other end.” She bounces in her seat a little from her excitement.

“And you don’t mind getting here early for warm ups?” She had asked him about it when he called about his Christmas present on the way back from a case a few days ago. It was a tradition she picked up from her father when they used to go to games and it’s something that people who aren’t hockey fans didn’t seem to understand. “It’s your Christmas present,” he reminds her. “We’ll do whatever you want.” Her more reptilian brain as she likes to call it comes up with a quick response to that, but she pushes it to the back of her mind. Tonight was all about the hockey. Instead, she gives him a soft, quick peck on the lips knowing he isn’t a huge fan of PDA. “This has to be the best present I’ve ever gotten.”

The players take to the ice just as Reid begins giving her a better idea of the depth of the studying he put in on his way to her place. “Currently, Connor McDavid from the Edmonton Oilers is the points leader of the league with 55 points while the goal leader is David Pastrnak from the Boston Bruins with 26 goals,” he says as if this was information everyone should already know. “Is that how you say his name?” Laura asks about the Boston player. “I hate Boston. Almost as much as I hate the Caps. I really hope we win tonight.”

“They’re number one in the league, but according to the Penguin’s Twitter page you’re starting Tristan Jarry and he’s got both the best goals against average at 1.92 and the best save percentage at .938,” Spencer spouts off as if that’s not the hottest thing Laura’s ever heard him say. “I have never been more attracted to you than I am right now,” she deadpans. Spencer takes it for the joke it is and laughs loudly.

 ------------------------

The first period flies by pretty quickly and thankfully Spencer had looked up most of the rules before hand so she doesn’t have to explain many to him as the game progresses. But the darkside comes out to play when the referee (read: zebra) calls a penalty against one of her favorite players, Jake Guentzel, with 5 minutes left in the period.

“You call that hooking?! Your mother’s done more hooking than that, ref! What the fuck?!” she shouts unabashedly before remembering who she came with. Her cheeks redden as she turns to look at him with wide eyes. “Oh my god. I am so sorry,” she says quietly. “You know, I have seen you watch a game on television before,” Spencer says grinning at her with a gleam in his eye. “I know you get foul mouthed when you’re watching your team. None of this is a surprise.” Spencer leans over and kisses her warm and still red cheek. “I’m still a little sorry you had to see that,” she jokes before turning back to the game.

------------------------

For the first two periods of the game, the Penguins are losing, but as they are want to do they start making a comeback in the third. She spends more time jumping out of her seat for goals than in it. Spencer seems to be having a good time at the game despite him not being a big sports guy. With 2:25 left in the third, Guentzel gets a breakaway and goes high glove side and scores. Again, she jumps to her feet screaming like a banshee, but quickly quiets as she sits back down and grabs Spencer’s hand.

“What’s wrong?” he asks reading the look on her face. “In hockey, you can pull your goalie and put another attacker on towards the end of the game. Now that we’re up by one they’ll probably have Holtby do that so they can try to tie it up.” Laura nervously starts biting her lip.

The Capitals do just that and her grip on Spencer’s hand could not get any tighter. Nor could she be hanging on the edge of her seat any more than she already is. To her, the clock feels like it’s going twice as slow as normal. It looks like Ovechkin’s going to score until Reese steals the puck. With just 52 seconds left, he passes it to McCann who’s further up the ice and he scores an easy one on the empty net.

Laura drops Spencer’s hand in her excitement. She jumps up from her seat and shouts herself nearly hoarse. She was able to see her team win and she got to see it with Spencer. She truly feels like her night cannot get any better. Sitting back down at the puck drop, she turns to see Spencer with a giant smile on his face just staring at her. “I love you,” he says. He says it with confidence and without a trace of doubt in his voice. She feels like her heart is in her throat and feels her cheeks darkening for the second time that night. “I love you too,” she says just as the buzzer goes off for the end of the game.

As the Capitals fans start leaving, Spencer leans over and kisses her without his usual fear of PDA or a thought for anyone else. She was wrong. Her night could definitely get better than a hockey game.

[alternislatronemhq]

Congrats, Niamh, you have been accepted to AL for the role of Ted Tonks (FC: Richard Madden). Ahh, I am so excited that we got both Ted and Andromeda, and played by such excellent writers! Ted is in such a hard place of having to choose between fighting for what he believes in and protecting his family, and I’m excited to see the way that you play that out as things begin to heat up again. Ted’s backstory is just truly heartbreaking and yet it’s so beautiful the way his relationship with Andromeda and Dora grounds him. I’m so excited to have you here! Please send in your blog (no sideblogs for first characters, please) in the next 24 hours and be sure to take a look at our new player checklist.Welcome home, we’re so excited to have you join the family!

OOC

name — niamh age — 18 pronouns — she/her timezone — gmt+1 activity level — i’m on lockdown atm with no major commitments until uni starts so i can be a solid 9/10 ! i’m always lurking and i tend to do replies as they come or when the dash is a bit more active

IC Overview

name — Edward ‘Ted’ Tonks age — 31, born 8th September 1955 gender — cis male sexuality — heterosexual

patronus — golden retriever

boggart — it used to be his mother, cold and alone without anyone, but it’s now changed to the lifeless forms of his wife and child

IC In Depth

personality traits —

STEADFAST : as an eastender, ted grew up keeping his friends close and everyone else at as far a distance as he could. there was a sort of code of honour around the council estates, and you stuck by your own, stayed wary of anyone who would have cause to harm you, and look after those who needed it. it was probably his easy loyalty that sorted him into hufflepuff, and it’s given freely and fiercely to those who prove they’re worthy of it.

ALTRUISTIC : as well as his loyalty, ted’s friendship and care were easy to come by for those who earned it. he likes to feel the upstairs rooms of his pub have become a bit of a home for waifs and strays. while he decided not to join the order himself, that doesn’t mean he won’t help out where he can, offering members the rooms to sleep in, hold meetings if needed, and he’s more than willing to help patch up wounds after hours if needed. he knows that it could be dangerous for his family, but as long as he keeps it quiet and discreet, he wants to offer help wherever he can, the consequences be damned.

BOISTEROUS : ted’s mum has always called him a ‘man’s man’, and while he doesn’t exactly like the sound of that, he’s known enough of them to know what she means. he’s loud, he’s always up for a laugh, but he can be quick to anger and slow to soothe when he wants to be, and that rowdiness can often be mistaken for immaturity, rather than the well meaning gregarious nature he tries to give off. while he knows more often than not he does come off that way, friendly and open and lively, it can also be seen as cockiness or overconfidence, and he’s not always the best at toning it down.

INSECURE : a muggleborn, born to a family barely surviving on the breadline, with a past that included a tendency for violence and petty crime. despite ted’s overwhelming sense of goodness, he believes that, some days, the badness and inferior background will one day catch up with him, and his life will fall down around his ears. in his mind, ted isn’t deserving of the life he has. sometimes, he feels like he isn’t enough for his wife, and never was, and that one day, especially now that narcissa is back in her life, andromeda will truly see what she’s been missing out on and leave him, realising that he’s just a nobody with a poor family with nothing to offer her or their daughter. and what will he be then? he knows the answer: a man with no place in the war and no place back in the muggle world with no place to go.

character biography — 

edward tonks took his first breath as the last of the summer winds blew through london. michael and maggie tonks wrapped their son in the only good blanket in the house, and a mere four hours after his birth, while he was sound asleep in a bedside drawer turned crib, the new parents were fixing the same leaking tap they were before their son decided to make an appearance. living in the east end of london meant that there were too many people, too many mouths to feed, but not enough money and not enough jobs. the tonks’s twenty year old council house was crumbling down around them, and ted’s parents job at the local biscuit factory meant that they were the lucky ones, and they seemed to be the only people in peckham who managed to hold down a steady job and keep their dingy dwellings.

ted was never at home much. one of his parents would work during the day while the other slept and this would swap during the night, so his time was much better spent outside. it’s not that his parents didn’t want him milling around the house, but rather that wherever ted decided to roam was never a quiet place for long. indeed it seemed that ted had the whole of london in the palm of his hand, and he intended to roam every alleyway and slip road, even if it was just to ensure his mum and dad got some rest.

ted was a good kid, truly he was. he was polite, and he never brought any trouble to his front doorstep, and he held open doors for people and helped anyone who needed it. yet despite this, his quasi-nomadic tendencies often offered a less than savoury pathway, and once ted took one wrong turn down it, it seemed he couldn’t get off it. he quickly turned to petty crime, yet he was never sure if it was out of necessity or boredom. he would pinch food from local shops at first, but then it turned to toys, sheets, soap and other things he could slip into one of his dad’s old jackets. he’d then trek the long walk to portobello road once a week to flog his wares. (the extra couple of pounds he made a week were stored in an old wine bottle his grandma had gifted them one christmas, and when it was filled it was left for his parents.) it was at the age of nine he witnessed his first fight, and he ran home soon afterwards. the image of the boys he looked up to, the misguided idols of his youth, bloodied and bruised scared him stiff, and the faint wail of police sirens was the final push to send him running. it dawned on him, under the scant safety of his rough duvet, that this was the way his life would go. he would loiter and steal his way through his teenage years, and if he was lucky, he’d spend adulthood behind bars instead of six feet under. the realisation lay heavy on his shoulders, and the first time he ever prayed the same way his mum did every night, he wished and wished for a way out, for some miracle to come to him to save him from the backstreets. this miracle came two weeks before his eleventh birthday, in the form of a tall man with a grey beard sitting on his couch, sipping cheap tea from a chipped mug and eating the good biscuits with the chocolate on that his mum saved for when the priest came round.

he hadn’t even batted an eyelid, and then ted found himself sat on the hogwarts express, in the first new uniform he had been bought since he was eight, fitting almost perfectly, but there was still some room for him to grow into his jumper. tears sprang into his eyes when he saw the castle, his new beginning, and he was quickly sorted into hufflepuff. within a few weeks, he had proudly garnered a reputation as being loud, happy-go-lucky, and in one rare slip up from one professor, ballsy. a small part of him knew it was too good to be true, but ted drowned it out with potions, gobstones, and pumpkin juice. that was, until, his third year, when his perfect illusion was shattered beyond compare. he was called out of his astrology lesson and was asked to make his way up to dumbledore’s office. when he got there, he found dumbledore, mcgonagall and his head of house, a mixture of pity and hurt present on their faces. when dumbledore stepped aside to reveal his parish priest, rosary beads in hand, dressed in black, he fell to the floor, tears streaming down his face, a scream caught in his throat. his father had been killed in an explosion at the factory, dumbledore explained, caused by faulty, cheap wires. his tears had just about dried when he got to his mother; the portkey from hogwarts didn’t reach his house quick enough in his opinion. for the first time in forever, ted was silent. he felt like a chunk of his heart had been wrenched from his chest, but he still couldn’t find an excuse for the feeling that something was wrong and that somebody wasn’t telling him something.

he returned to hogwarts sixth months later, and there was no denying that ted just wasn’t ted anymore. he didn’t want his grief to change him, and he let on that everything was fine, but his laughs were forced and the twinkle of amusement seldom lit up his blue eyes anymore. he was barely going through the motions, and his whole life was a dull cycle of eat, sleep, pretend, repeat. life got easier for ted. his grief, as grief does, faded from a sharp pain to a dull ache, and eventually, the light returned to his eyes and his days became a lot easier to get through, and meeting the love of his life helped him too, and his thoughts were then consumed with life after school, bringing andromeda home to meet his mum, maybe putting a ring on her finger one day.

he bought his pub when he was 20. an old friend of his dad’s had been selling it, right on the corner of diagon alley ( not that they knew that ) and ted had jumped at taking over as landlord, extending the back so half of the pub served exclusively muggles and the other half, heavily guarded by magic, served wizards and witches and wix. it’s funny, how he feels embarrassed about it still, at 31, feeling he should have a more noble profession to provide for his family, but he’s all but cut his shifts, leaving it in the capable hands of his staff, and it makes a steady income, enough and more for the three of them. still,  he thinks that sometimes his mum wished he had become a plumber or had some sort magical office job, but ted supposed he was never one for convention.

it wasn’t until his 25th birthday that his mother told him the truth. his mother, looking the strongest she had in months, relayed the events, her voice detached and unwavering, and as soon as the word mudblood left her lips, ted punched a hole in the kitchen wall. there was a war brewing, and the urge to fight had never been stronger in him, but he had a wife, a mother, a baby girl. if he was eighteen, he’d have his wand at the ready and blood already on his hands, but he wasn’t, and so he bit his tongue and clenched his fists and did what he had to do to keep his family safe. now that it seems voldemort is on the rise again, he doesn’t know if it’s going to be easier or harder to do the same again.

plot ideas —

i think it would be cool to explore ted’s restlessness about the war, especially with the person who’ll play andromeda, and how that paired with narcissa coming back into her life could place strain on their relationship! i’d also looooove to see how narcissa & lucius and ted get along when they’re forced to share space. alsohis dynamic with the order, how much he sympathises and wants to join and yet distance himself at the same time, i think that would be really interesting

extra — pinterest board here { x } !

[scrapyardboyfriends]

Jenny’s Belated Live Blogging - 26th December 2019

- Kind of liked today’s episode better than yesterday’s. I still don’t really understand quite where they’re going with all of this Graham stuff but I’m willing to see how it goes and how it gets to him getting killed. I am worried about it all feeling really contrived on most peoples’ parts though. We’ll see. 

- This episode was probably the most I’ve ever liked Jamie. I enjoyed him punching Graham. I liked that he didn’t just give in with Andrea and Kim. I liked his scene with Belle although I wish they’d stop dangling that in front of me if they’re not going to go there. They were pretty close today though so we’ll see. But anyway, he seemed like a sort of real person today that got to react to things properly so I liked it. 

- Speaking of Belle...I loved that she was just like “sorry Ellis” and went off with Jamie. It’s like “Oh this is a better story and I have more chemistry with him so....bye”. 

- New Ellis is still just not working for me because I see that yellow coat bobbing along and then the camera swings around to his face and I’m like “Who are you again?” Damnit Asan. 

- Rhona throwing her lot in with Graham makes me a little sad. Although it’s obviously going to blow up in her face. I did sort of enjoy her yelling at Marlon about Jessie though because she does kind of have a point. But also #TeamMarlon

- Glad to see Matty back. He was gone for so long. I just really wish they’d give him something more to do than just being stuck to Moira though. He needs his own story. I really want them to give him a relationship story again. That was his whole thing when he first arrived and now that he’s had his top surgery, it’d be nice for him to get back out there again, feeling more confident etc. 

- Moira is...driving me crazy at this point. I just need her to hit whatever depths her rock bottom is...lose the damn farm and get a redemption arc because she just needs one. Her character needs a real shake up so badly. I’m just tired of watching her be tired of Cain and tired of her kids. 

- Speaking of mothers and sons, I did love Noah being like “I had to almost die for you to pay attention to me” because...fair. Haha. But I also love Charity being true to form and still not taking any real responsibility for that. It’s because she has to blame Graham so she can be a suspect but still. At least she’s consistent. However....#TeamNoah Sarah really needs to come clean. 

- I adored Nicola and Laurel’s secret little meeting though. That was great. With their present exchange and their catchup and Nicola making a deal with Brenda to keep things quiet. And I loved their fake insults to each other about the presents as Nicola left. That was just such a fun little thing to have in this episode. 

-  I do think it’s a bit weird that there was this whole thing of Jai and Archie spending Christmas with Laurel and Arthur and Dottie and then we didn’t actually see that. Hmm...

- As for the Baby-on-a-Doorstep crew...I just don’t get the need for secrecy. I mean, I know Leyla doesn’t want Jacob to have to deal with a trial because he’s finally doing okayish again but this whole thing just seems insane to keep quiet. 

- Purely as a point of contrast from Wendy, I kind of loved Maya’s mother. “Maya? Why would I want anything to do with that monster who’s no daughter of mine anymore?” “Grandchild? Didn’t want one, so no thanks, you’re on your own”. It’s just so refreshing. Haha. She’s just like “Eh...Maya ruined my life but I’m good here on my own, I don’t want anything from you people. Just leave me alone.” I wish she’d come along and give Wendy a reality check. 

[let-it-raines]

Indirect Deposit (3/3)

Summary: It’s the oldest story in the world, isn’t it? Falling in love with your neighbor. Killian’s sure that he’s seen hundreds of books and television shows starting off that way, and he’s always thought them all to be entirely unrealistic. That is until he started getting to know Emma Swan, who just so happens to live across the hall from him, and he has absolutely fallen for her in a way that he hasn’t fallen for anyone in a long time. 

It’s the oldest story in the world...until it isn’t. Because it’s not just Emma he’s fallen in love with. It’s her unborn child too, and while everyone he knows thinks he’s crazy for falling in love with a pregnant woman, he knows that he’s not. Some things in life are worth taking the risk. 

Some people are worth loving. And some things about life may surprise you.

Rating: Teen

A/N: So I hear you guys are anxious for that cliffhanger to be resolved. Well, here you go! Thank you to @csmarchmadness for being an awesome event that has inspired a lot of writers and encouraged me to actually write this when it was sitting as a 1,000 word story for forever. And, of course, thanks to @wellhellotragic for letting me have her brain child and for talking through ideas and sending me badly photoshopped pictures of babies. I didn’t die of sickness before posting, so I guess you can’t give away the fake ending. 

AO3: Beginning | Current

Tumblr: Part One | Part Two | Part Three

Tag list: @emmas-storybook @effulgentcolors @kmomof4 @kingofmyheart14 @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @wellhellotragic​ @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook @skyewardolicitycloisdelena91 @branlovesouat @dreadpirateemma  @ekr032-blog-blog @superchocovian @artistic-writer @andiirivera @cs-forlife @qualitycoffeethings @thejollyroger-writer @ultraluckycatnd @killiarious @scientificapricot @mez86 @snow-into-ash

“Do you think you’re Sawyer’s father?”

He drops the pair of socks he was folding at the sound of Emma’s voice behind him. She’s frantic, her voice strained and full of emotion, and he can’t move. He simply can’t. Emotion is lodged in his throat only to be pushed out or pushed down by shock. He really doesn’t know because Emma just asked him the one question he hoped that she would never asked him.

She also asked the one question he always hoped that she would.

But now that the words are out, that she’s said them, he can’t deny his thoughts. He can’t deny how he feels. He’s thought he was crazy for nine months. Nine entire months of thinking that luck or God or just something  had blessed him with this crazy coincidence of Emma choosing him even before she chose him, even before she knew him. He knows that Sawyer is his daughter. He does. He knows that the darkness of her hair and the blue of her eyes comes from him. He knows that she has his nose and his dimples. He knows that when he looks at her, just like when he looks at Emma, all he feels his love. He loves them both so damn much, and it wouldn’t matter if he thought Sawyer was his or not. He’d love them both all the same.

It’s one of the reasons besides his fear of Emma’s reaction and his inability to find the words that he’s never said anything. He’s fine living like this. He’s fine getting to spend time with both of his loves. Yeah, sometimes he wishes that Emma knew so that maybe he could take on a bigger role, so that maybe one day Sawyer would call him dad, but he’s never wanted to take anything away from Emma. Being a single mother has been such a big thing for her. This is her child, and just because he thinks all of this, just because he might actually be biologically related to Sawyer, it doesn’t mean that he has any right to her. He donated sperm for money years ago. He didn’t actively plan and try for a child with Emma. He has had no part of it. It was all Emma. He knows that Emma’s comfortable raising Sawyer on her own now, even though she allows him to help, and he knows that she has walls and issues that she’s allowed him to gradually take down like she’s done with him. Telling her that he thinks he’s actually the father to her child, well, he knows that it would fuck absolutely everything up.

With the tone of Emma’s voice right now, though, he knows that he’s likely done that from not saying anything. He can somehow already feel Emma retreating, already feel her backing away from him and from their relationship, and even though he doesn’t know what made her ask this, from the way she asks…he knows that he should have never hidden anything from her. Not like this.

How does someone even find the words for something as outlandish as this?

He’s royally mucked up, and it’s why he has to brace himself for the fallout that’s about to crash down around him.

He deserves it too. He’s lied to her, and it hasn’t been about something like what he had for lunch. It’s been about something so much bigger.

“Aye,” he says softly, tensing his shoulders and turning around to face her. She looks furious and ethereal and every thought he’s every had about her with the set of her mouth and the fire in her emerald eyes, blonde hair falling over her shoulders and down her back while her chest heaves. “I do.”

“Are you fucking insane?”

He nods his head toward the crib, toward where Sawyer is sleeping. “Do you think maybe we should not have this conversation in here?”

“No, we’re having it right here, right now,” she whispers, and the quietness almost makes her tone more terrifying. No, it definitely makes the tone more terrifying. “How long have you been lying to me?”

“Emma – ”

“How long, Killian? How long have I been letting you into my life, into our lives, while you’ve been hoarding away this secret? This crazy, preposterous secret that you could somehow be my daughter’s father?”

Her words sting, but he knows that he deserves them. They’re not supposed to keep secrets from each other. That’s what they said one night after spilling far too much about the depths of their hearts than any two people should in one night, and yet he still hoarded this one away in the depths of his heart.

He’s screwed up. He’s screwed up. He’s screwed up.

“Since the day she was born.”

Emma practically stumbles backward, her feet failing her, and the width of her eyes slant into a green so dark that he almost doesn’t recognize it, doesn’t recognize her. “So what? Everything you’ve been doing, you’ve only been doing out of some weird obligation? You’ve convinced yourself that of all of the men in the world who have donated sperm, I somehow picked yours? Do you even love me? Do you even love her? Or is at all only because you think she’s actually related to you? Would you even care otherwise?”

“Emma, no. I love you. I love Sawyer. I don’t care about any of that. I promise. I would love you no matter what. Yes, I do think you picked me. I do think you chose me, and that it’s been one of the absolute weirdest coincidences that we found each other. Everything you’ve told me about your donor, that matches up with me, with my life. Every bit of it.”

“She’s not your daughter.”

“Love – ”

“She’s not,” Emma sobs, covering her mouth with her hands as her shoulders shake, and all he wants to do is hold her. He knows that she won’t let him. He knows her well enough to know that. “She’s not your daughter. She can’t be your daughter, and I don’t think I can be with someone who’s been lying to me like this, who is thinking crazy things like this.”

“Please,” he begs, the emotion that he thought left from his throat coming back strong, making it difficult for him to breathe, “please don’t do this. Please think about this. Please let me talk, let me explain.”

“I can’t. I can’t do this. It’s too much, and I need you to go.”

“Emma.”

“Please go.”

“Darling.”

“Go,” she shouts, the volume loud enough that Sawyer begins to cry. Instinctively he takes a step toward her only for Emma to block him, staring him down until he backs away. “Get out.”

He nods his head before he does just that, letting his feet guide him out of the room even while everything around him seems to blur, his vision becoming murky with the tears that sting in his eyes that are only worsened by the shine of the Christmas lights moving off of Emma’s tree, wrapped presents resting underneath it. Staring at it makes the nausea come to him, and he has to quickly leave the apartment even if he knows that he might never get to go back. He might never get to see them again all because he wasn’t honest about his suspicions. He should have been honest.

How the hell was he supposed to be honest?

The nausea is almost unbearable by the time he gets into his apartment, his hands shaking as he turns the knob on his front door, and he barely makes it to the kitchen counter before he has to support himself on something, resting his head against the sweater that’s resting on the marble.

It’s Emma’s sweater, and he can smell her perfume on it. It’s her favorite one actually, and he nearly loses it thinking of how much of Emma he has in this place. It had taken so long for him to feel ready to let himself love again after being hurt, to want to take the risk, but he knows that this time, he’s the one who messed up. He’s not the one who’s walking in on his life being changed. He’s the one who’s causing everything to change.

“Why do you look like you’ve been hit by a bloody train?”

His eyes snap up to Liam who’s standing across the island from him, his clothes from earlier gone as he’s now dressed in a pair of flannel pajamas and a long sleeves t-shirt. It’s when everything suddenly clicks in his mind, like the gears have all matched up for everything to make sense, and he knows exactly how Emma found out he thinks that he’s Sawyer’s father. He’s only told one person, the person who he trusted most outside of Emma, and it was in a night of weakness when his mind wouldn’t turn off, when he needed to get his thoughts out of his mind for one moment. He’s an asshole for not saying anything to Emma, but Liam’s so much worse for betraying his trust like that.

At least, he’s worse to him right now. He’s thinking that Emma thinks he’s a bloody monster. She likely thinks his entire family is made up of bloody monsters.

“Why the fuck would you tell Emma about me thinking I’m Sawyer’s father?”

“I – ”

“Don’t you dare lie to me,” he shouts, his skin heating in anger while he straightens his back, standing up to his full height while his hands grip into Emma’s sweater, the softness calming him so that he doesn’t absolutely lose himself here. “You are the only person who knows I think that, and unless you told Loren and she decided to be a manipulative prick, I’m guessing you decided to share a secret that wasn’t yours to share with the woman I love.”

Liam’s calm as he crosses his arms over his chest, his shoulders broadening instead of shrinking, and it only increases Killian’s anger. He’s always done that when he’s trying to subtly let Killian he’s in charge, and it’s not going to work now. “Because there’s no way that child is yours, Killian. You’re letting yourself fall for a woman and a child who are never going to let you be their family. It’s going to be like Milah again or Hannah or even Tina, but I know that this time it’s going to be worse because of the child. I’m guessing she just blew up on you in there, that she doesn’t trust you, and it’s better to know these things now than learn them when you’re in too deep. I’m simply trying to protect you.”

“Protect me?” he scoffs, rolling his eyes while his heartbeat seems to sound between his ears, a drumline amplified. “You just fucked up my life. I’m thirty-four years old, Liam. I’m not sixteen. Yes, I’ve screwed up in the past, but that doesn’t mean you know best. You’re not some all-knowing being. You’re just a man who thinks that he’s smarter than he is.”

“You’re upset with Emma. You’re not upset with me.”

“I’m upset about Emma. I’m furious at you. I’ve let you do a lot of shit in my life because I trust you and I love you, but you just betrayed that trust and made me lose the two best things that have ever happened to me outside of our family. I love her. I love Emma, I love Sawyer, and I may never get to talk to them again because you couldn’t keep your mouth closed for long enough for me to figure my own shit out.”

“Little brother – ”

“It’s younger,” he huffs, unclenching his fists from Emma’s sweater so he can wipe away the tears on his cheeks. “It’s fucking younger. You and Loren can stay here tonight because it’s late and I’m not a monster, but I want you gone in the morning. Happy Christmas.”

-/-

“Do you see this?” Roland squeals, running up to Killian with his bike, pushing it through the apartment before Killian can even get the front door closed behind him. “Santa brought me a new bike.”

“That’s awesome,” he laughs, squatting down to Roland’s level and admiring the bike with him. “Are these racing stripes? In your favorite color? How did Santa know?”

“I don’t know. He just does. He’s magic.”

“He is. He even got your name on it.”

“Yep. The elves probably did that.” Roland looks over to him and the box he’s holding. “Is that for me?”

“It is indeed.”

“Can I open it?”

“Roland,” Robin scolds, walking out of the kitchen archway to wiping off his t-shirt, legs still covered in pajama pants, “you need to be patient. We’re going to eat breakfast, and then you can open your present from Killian and your stuff from me. For now, why don’t you go put your bike back in the living room?”

“Okay,” Roland shrugs, already wheeling the bike away. “How long until breakfast?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“Cool. I’m going to set up my Legos.”

He chuckles under his breath before following Robin into the kitchen, immediately settling down at the table while the smell of bacon fills his nostrils. He swears there’s some cinnamon somewhere too, but he doesn’t really trust a lot of his senses after the past four days.

“Happy Christmas, mate.”

“Yeah, Happy Christmas.”

“So you’re cosplaying at the Grinch this year then?”

He twists his head to look at Robin who’s cutting up apples into slices and not at all looking at Killian to see his reaction. He probably can see it without even looking. Dad powers or something. “I’m kind of having a shitty week.” “Aye, I know. Your girlfriend broke up with you, and you got into a fight with your brother who took an early flight back home, so even if you felt like forgiving him so you could spend Christmas together, you can’t.”

“Pretty much, yeah. No offense, mate, but I didn’t imagine spending the day with the two of you. I thought I’d get to spend it with my brother, Emma, my da – I thought I’d get to spend it with my family.”

“You’re Uncle Killian. You’re family here too. I just…hell, Killian, do you really think that Sawyer is your biological daughter?”

“She picked me,” he sighs, getting up from his chair to walk over to the kitchen and pour himself a cup of coffee. He’s so exhausted, physically and emotionally, and he needs coffee. “The donor she picked was me, Rob. What are the odds of that? What are the odds that I’d fall in love with this incredible woman and I’d happen to be the father of her child?” “Are you sure, though?”

“I mean, yeah,” he laughs, the craziness of what he’s saying beginning to sink in while the coffee burns his tongue and his throat, the feeling somehow comfortable when it shouldn’t be. “But it doesn’t matter to me. That’s the thing. It doesn’t matter to me if she really is mine biologically. I love her, and I’d love her regardless. It’s the same with Emma. I love them both no matter what. I just…I fucked up with this. I should have told Emma sooner. I shouldn’t have kept it from her.” “Why did you?”

“A part of me says that it’s because I know that none of it matters. Another part of me says that it’s because I couldn’t find the words and I knew it would freak Emma out, that there was no point because even if it’s true, she’d think I was crazy. Sawyer is her child who she conceived and carried and is raising alone, and I would never try to take her away from Emma. Never. Hell, I don’t have a legal right, and even if I did, I wouldn’t try. No matter what. But she’s not going to see it that way. She doesn’t see it that way, and now I’m missing Christmas with them…I’m missing life with them.” Robin sighs, sprinkling the cinnamon he smelt earlier over the apples before popping them in the oven. “Have you tried talking to her?”

“Yeah. She won’t answer my texts, my calls, and she sure as hell won’t answer the door.”

“I’m sorry, man.” Robin walks over to him and wraps his arms around his shoulders, pulling him in for an embrace that he so desperately needed, some of the weight on his shoulders lifting the slightest bit. “I’m sorry that Liam messed up, that you did too, but I know you and Emma. It might take some time, but you’re going to work things out.”

“I don’t know…I don’t know how to fix this one. I don’t even think time will.”

“It’s been fifteen minutes,” Roland announces, skidding into the room with his bike helmet latched over the mess of curls on his head. “Let’s eat, so I can open my presents.”

-/-

The New Year comes in with a bang, literally, as he can hear cheers outside of his living room windows and fireworks outside despite the fact that fireworks are illegal here. He doesn’t go out to celebrate, his moping reaching new heights. Instead he sits at home watching television, avoiding all of the shows that he watches with Emma, and drinks a glass or two (or three) of rum, letting the spice soothe him as he watches the ball drop on television. He knows that there are texts from his friends, a few colleagues, even Liam and Loren wishing him a happy New Year, but he honestly…he just doesn’t care.

Especially about the ones from Liam.

And even though he doesn’t believe any of the crap about new calendar years meaning new chances at life, starting over, and getting to be a brand new person, he does wish that maybe he will get some new chances at life. He wishes that he’ll get a chance to talk to Emma again, to get to read Sawyer another story at night when she’s about to go to bed, and he wishes that maybe he won’t be so pissed at his self-righteous brother who he misses despite everything. He lost his two best friends in one day, and it’s hitting him harder than he expected. He simply wishes that he were able to make up for everything that’s happened in the past two weeks.

But as the weeks go by and he starts a new semester of lecturing, loading up on even more classes than before because he wanted to save money for…future life decisions that will probably not be happening now, he realizes that maybe he’s not going to get new chances. Maybe he should stop holding out the little glimmer of hope that he has that things are going to get better. He still has a life without the three most important people he knows, but it’s definitely a little less bright. He spends more time with his colleagues than he usually does as well as spending a hell of a lot of time teaching Roland how to ride a bike or picking him up from school while Robin is at work. If anything, he can’t complain about getting to spend more time with Roland. It’s fascinating to get to see life through a child’s eyes. He gets so excited about everything, even when the snow starts falling despite the fact that it blocks the roads, and Killian thinks to himself that maybe he should try to think the way Roland does.

(It reminds him of how Sawyer will see things one day, and as much happiness as that brings him…he can’t.)

Of course, he knows that’s not possible. He knows too much. He knows too much heartache and heartbreak, and he’s aware of the realities of the world that Roland is blessed enough not to know. He hears all of the time about how childlike innocence is nothing but being ignorant, but he doesn’t believe that’s true. Childlike innocence is seeing the good in the world even when there’s only the slightest glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. It’s not about seeing the darkness. It’s about seeing the light.

So he tries to work and live with that philosophy throughout the month of January, even as the winter chill continues to bite him every time he walks out the door, sometimes even as he hides away inside, but then he sees Emma and Sawyer in the lobby of their building and it stops him in his tracks. Literally. He can’t move. His feet are glued to the tile, and he can’t move, can’t tear his eyes away from them.

Emma’s dressed in dark pants that reach up past her waist, a white sweater tucked into them to show of her slim frame, and her hair is pulled into a high ponytail on the top of her head that makes her seem even taller than she already is with the aid of the heels that he can see peeking out from under her trousers. She looks beautiful, stunning really, and she’s got Sawyer on her hip dressed in an outfit that he had bought her before she was born. It was an impulse buy, something he saw and figured Emma would need like one day for when Sawyer is a little bigger like she is now. It’s a blue jumper with ruffled sleeves, and Emma’s dressed her in a thermal shirt underneath to keep her warm in this weather. Her hair has grown quite a lot since he last saw her, the black lightening a bit as curls peek out around the back of her head, but it’s difficult to see under the floral headband Emma has her wearing.

When Emma turns around, she sees him. He knows that she does from the way her lips part, the red splitting apart, and from the way her eyes blow wide, green so much lighter than the last time he was able to look at them. Honestly, though, the worst part is the moment he realizes that Sawyer recognizes him. She squeals, giggling the slightest bit, and does absolutely everything she can to move out of Emma’s arms to try to get to him. He can physically feel the way his heart begins to malfunction in his chest, the pieces breaking even though it’s not possible, and the similar feeling of nausea comes back to him at the same time that tears sting behind his eyes.

He’s about to fall apart in the middle of this lobby, and it takes everything in him not to.

“Hi, Sawyer,” he whispers, waving his hand at her and taking a step forward until a glance from Emma makes him freeze again. “Swan, please. Let me talk to you. Or at least let me say hi to her.”

Her lips close, pressing into a firm line that he’s seen so many times and yet hates to see, before they open up again at the same time that her head nods up and down. “You can say hi to her for just a minute, but I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Emma – ”

“Please don’t push it. Just take what I’m giving you, okay?”

“Okay.”

He quickly walks over to the two of them and reaches out to grab Sawyer’s hands. He already knows that Emma is not going to let him hold her, so he doesn’t even try. He lets Sawyer grasp onto his hands as he moves them up and down as he talks to her as fast as he can, letting out watery chuckles every time she giggles or babbles. She’s saying Mama, and he knows that it’s probably just babbling, but he also knows that he’s likely missed Sawyer’s first word. And he wonders what else he’s missed, what else he’s going to miss. Those tears that were stinging behind his eyes come back in full force, and he doesn’t try to bother hiding them and holding them back while he enjoys the moment that he’s getting.

When he looks up at Emma, though, he sees a single tear running down her cheek, but before he can say anything, before he can try to convince her to talk to him, she’s making excuses about them needing to go, and he’s having to say goodbye to the two loves of his life.

For how long, he doesn’t know.

God, he fucked up.

-/-

“Dr. Jones.”

“Dr. Jones.”

“Dr. Jones.”

“Huh,” he gasps, startling up from his desk as one of his students stands at his office door. What’s her name? He’s pretty sure it starts with an A. Allison? Amanda? Autumn? He’s pretty sure it’s Amanda. He won’t say anything until he’s sure. “Sorry, sorry,” he apologizes, rolling back in his chair and adjusting his shirt, straightening the buttons. “I seemed to have zoned out, and I didn’t hear you. Do you need something?”

“Um, yeah,” she sighs, flashing her a smile while he tries to pull himself together. “I was wondering if you would be willing to write me a recommendation letter for an internship I’m applying for at this publishing firm. It’s at Houghton, and I kind of figured a literature professor I’ve had for two semesters would be a good person to help out.”

“Of course,” he smiles, ignoring the guilt in his stomach from not recognizing her at first. The more he wakes up, though, he remembers her enough to know that he can write her a recommendation letter without completely fabricating it. “That sounds wonderful, Amanda. If you want to leave me the information for who and where to send it, I’ll start working on it today.” “Really, um, okay great.” She walks toward him and hands him two sheets of paper, placing them on his desk. “Thank you so, so much, Dr. Jones. I’m sorry that I woke you from your nap.”

“Ah,” he sighs, reaching up to scratch behind his ear, “that’s fine. It’s not just the lot of you who are always tired.”

“Well, you do give us a hell of a lot of reading.”

He barks out a laugh, feeling it rumble in his stomach. “Too true. Too true. Thanks for coming by. I’ll get this into you before the deadline. I’ll send you an email when it’s finished, okay?”

She nods her head. “Thank you. Have a good afternoon!”

“You too.”

Now that he’s awake and thoroughly embarrassed to be caught sleeping in his office – he’d been up late last night grading essays, red lines marking his vision as much as they marked the essays – he spends the rest of his time before his afternoon classes writing Amanda’s recommendation letter and answering emails. Classes have only been in session for a month and a half, February nearly almost over now, but they’re all really getting into the swing of things as spring approaches. He’s excited to be in a rhythm, to be back into his old rhythm really, but mostly he looks forward to the way that the weather is beginning to change, frigid temperatures warming into comfortable mornings that will allow him to get back into running in the mornings without having to layer up so as not to freeze to death.

It’s the light at the end of the tunnel, the one that he’s been trying to focus on, and he’s doing a little better at it than he was at first. Helping that is likely the fact that he’s talked with his brother. It’s been slow going, mostly encouraged by Loren with her texts about them both being stubborn assholes (but mostly Liam), and slowly but surely he’s started speaking to his brother again. He’s still upset at what Liam did and still upset that even though neither Liam nor Emma (he’d have to be talking to Emma to know these things) have told him the true story of what exactly transpired between the two of them, he knows that Liam must have said something to Emma besides his thoughts about thinking that he’s Sawyer’s father. He’s learning, though, that his brother isn’t perfect. He’s human, he has flaws, and he’s going to screw up. The same applies to himself. And he doesn’t want to live his life without his brother just because Liam decided to be a pompous ass one night out of some sense of protection.

It’s been a lot of arguing, a hell of a lot of screaming over the phone, and he believes that there’s been more cursing in the two weeks that they’ve been talking than there has been in all of their phone calls in their years of living across the ocean from each other. And even though he still wishes that none of this had happened, he’s learning to forgive his brother.

He’s learning. He’s not quite there yet. His brother betrayed his confidence, and everything is not as black and white as he wishes it was. He thinks they’ll be fine, but there’s always going to be the niggling thought about not being able to give Liam his complete trust. He can forgive him, but that doesn’t mean everything is okay.

It doesn’t change anything but how he gets to feel when he wakes up in the morning.

If he could get Emma to forgive him, though, that would…that would be everything. She may never fully trust him again, but he’d at least like the chance to earn it back. He might not deserve it, but if she were to give him the chance, he’d do everything he could.

When he finishes his lectures for the day, he packs up his backpack and makes his way home, pulling his sunglasses down over his face to shield his eyes from the sun. He almost feels hungover from how tired he is and the way the sunlight is bothering him, but the coffee he was drinking in his last lecture is beginning to thrum through his veins, the caffeine alleviating his headache if only for a little while. All he really wants is to be home and to resume his nap from this morning, but he needs to go to the market and get food. It’s got to have been at least three weeks since he bought groceries, and he really needs to stock up on the basics and stop spending money on takeout when he’s trying to save money. He doesn’t really have the need to save like he was, but he figures it honestly can’t hurt to save a little something for a rainy day. He could always get fired or something.

God, that would be the cherry on top to the last two months of his life.

He stops at the market around the corner from his apartment, getting everything he can carry and making a mental note of everything that he’ll need. He’s out of sugar weirdly enough. He’s not sure when the last time was that he was out of sugar. Isn’t there an old saying about borrowing sugar from your neighbor? He could do that, but the only neighbor who he wants to borrow sugar from is Emma.

And that’s not happening.

Or maybe it is because when he gets home she’s pacing back and forth down the hallway, her hair sticking up in several directions despite it being pulled back in a braid. What the hell is going on?

“Swan.”

Her head whips around faster than he knew a neck could turn. “Killian.”

She looks relieved to see him. Why in the world would Emma be relieved to see him? She must hate him. He’s sure that she hates him.

“Swan, what’s wrong?”

“I – I…oh shit. I locked myself out of the apartment. I was carrying in a box and…and you know what, it doesn’t matter. I’m locked out. Sawyer is inside, and I really, really need you to still have your spare key. Oh God,” she sobs, covering her mouth with her hands and looking at him as if she’s about to lose her legs from underneath her.

He drops all of his groceries, likely cracking his eggs, but none of the matters to him as he turns his backpack around and grabs his keyring, finding the one to Emma’s apartment that he never took off and unlocking the door even as his hands shakes and his stomach rolls in on itself. The moment he gets the door open, he steps back, letting Emma rush inside. He doesn’t know if he should follow or go on his way, but he can’t not know if Sawyer is alright. He has no idea how long she was in there alone, how long Emma’s been locked out, and he simply needs to know.

He doesn’t have to look far to find them. Emma’s sitting on the floor of her living room with Sawyer help tightly to her chest, Emma’s voice reaching his ears even as she whispers. Relief immediately washes over him only to be replaced by more apprehension over the situation he’s just walked into.

“Is she okay?”

Emma looks up at him, her eyes the brightest emerald he’s ever seen, before she’s nodding her head up and down. “Yeah, she’s okay. She’s crawling now, can stand a little bit if she’s got something to hold onto, so I was really worried she’d get into something she’s not supposed to get into. Or that she’d knock the bookshelf over or that a knife would somehow fall out of the kitchen drawers that she can’t even reach.”

“She’s crawling?”

“Yeah,” Emma sighs before she presses kisses all of Sawyer’s face, “she is. I have a video, if you want to see it. I missed the first time because of work, but I’ve got the second time. Or you could just see it in person.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I was going to…I wanted to talk to you, actually, was planning on it tonight when she was asleep, but then I became the worst mother in the world…and yeah.” “Hey,” he soothes, the tenseness in his shoulders easing as he boldly takes steps toward Emma and settles down next to her, reaching out his hand when Sawyer wants to come to him. He’s surprised that she recognizes him like this still even though he saw her three weeks ago. She doesn’t see him like she used to, but he guesses he made a big enough impression in those first few months. “You are not the worst mother in the world. You had an accident, and these damn doors are so fickle anyways. I guarantee that if I google something like this, there are a million stories exactly the same, and every one of those people have a child who’s okay just like this little one.”

“But what if she wasn’t?”

“But she is.” He nudges his shoulder into her before waggling his brows, knowing that it makes Emma laugh. And she does. She laughs, even if it’s a watery chuckle. It’s a good sound to hear. “Besides, whenever you get locked out of your apartment, good things seem to happen to me.”

“You still think meeting me is a good thing?”

Sawyer clasps her hands over his cheeks, and he pokes his lips out to peck her nose, making her giggle. God, he missed her laugh too. She’s so beautiful. “I still think meeting you is the best thing to ever happen to me.”

“Killian – ”

“Can I talk first?” he asks, tilting his head to look at her, their noses so close that he could probably kiss her nose too. Or at least kiss her. That would be pushing his luck too much. He’s somehow walked into an opportunity here, and he doesn’t want to screw this one up too.

Emma doesn’t say anything. She simply nods, and he takes this as his opportunity.

“I’m sorry, love. I’m sorry that I…that I kept a secret from you. I’m sorry that I kept such a big secret from you. I don’t have a great reason. When I sit down and think about it…I don’t have a good way to explain it.”

“Can you try?”

Does she…is she…she almost looks hopeful. Does he have any right to feel hopeful?

“You’d just given birth, and neither of us had slept in awhile, and a nurse or two kept making comments about how Sawyer – ” Sawyer squeals at the sound of her name, and he and Emma both laugh at her as he starts bouncing her up and down in an attempt to entertain her while he gets this miraculous chance to talk to Emma. All of his food outside is going to spoil. He doesn’t even care. “ – they kept talking about how Sawyer looked like me, which was insane. It’s still insane, but it nagged at me. I knew there was no chance, but I asked you about your donor anyways…and while yeah, it could just be the freakiest coincidence in the world, the man you were describing, I’m that man. At least I think I’m that man. I had forgotten the I was once I donor, and I’m…I think I’m your donor.”

“I know.”

“What?” he whispers so quietly that he can barely hear the words himself.

“I know that you are. I’ve had a lot of time to think. I kind of…I shielded myself away from people. I shouldn’t have, but I did. And I had a lot of time to think. You do match every description. I went back and read the sheet. I had it on file or whatever, and there were so many more things that are just…you, which may very well be the craziest thing in the entire world.” “I agree with you on that.”

Emma presses her lips together in a soft smile, and he can see tears forming in her eyes. He can feel them in his own. “I don’t know how I didn’t see it before when I was getting to know you, but to me, I was never worried about the donor. I was going to be a mom, and I was going to do it on my own.”

“And you’re doing a bloody fantastic job.”

“Today not withstanding,” she chuckles, reaching over to push Sawyer’s hair back, staring at her for a long time before she looks back up at him. “But I don’t – I thought about coming to talk to you so many times, but I was so hurt about you lying to me, about you betraying my trust like that, and even though I know you would never do this, I was terrified that you’d try to take her away from me even though you legally couldn’t. I see crazy stuff like that nearly every day, families falling apart, and I couldn’t risk that happening. I still can’t.”

“I’m not going to try to take her away from you. Ever. You of all people know that biology doesn’t give me any rights to her. I don’t intend to let you down.”

“Yeah, but don’t you see how I could think that maybe you would try? I see that happen all of the time for parents and couples who fall in love, get married, and then decide to have kids only for it to fall apart. You and me…we’ve done things all out of order. We didn’t plan for any of it. I mean, I did. You sure as hell didn’t, and a part of me kind of feels like maybe…maybe you only stayed with me and decided to date me because you felt some kind of obligation to me for Sawyer. There are just…there are so many things that I simply didn’t know, that I don’t know.” “First of all, Emma Swan, I fell in love with you far before this little girl was born. How could I not? It’s not every day that a woman throws up in your toilet, and I knew then that you were something special from the beginning.”

“Did you really? The love part. Not the vomiting.”

“Aye. It was the night you came and made me go searching for that blasted bride’s cake ice cream. I went to so many stores, and I realized that there was not a person in the world who I would do that for besides you. And I loved this little munchkin before I ever had an inkling that she may be mine. Emma, I don’t think I have the words to let you know just how much I love you, both of you, and how much I would love you even if the situation wasn’t like it is. She’s your child no matter what, and I never want you to think again about how I could want to take her from you, to think that I only love you out of some kind of obligation. I love you both for you.”

He means it. He means every damn word and a million more. And as well as he thinks this is going, as relaxed as he’s become every with the way his heart is pounding in his chest, he knows that he still needs Emma to feel the same way. They were partners, and maybe they will be again. But he can’t do that without Emma feeling the same way.

“I love you too,” she sighs, and his heart nearly soars hearing the words. “All of this has been so hard because I do love you. And I’m sorry that you’ve missed so much. I’m sorry we got all screwed up. I don’t…I’m willing to try again, Killian. I think we have a lot to talk about, but I’m willing to try.”

He chuckles before looking at Sawyer, the blue of her eyes shining as she looks at him, hands sill messing with the material of his shirt. “My darling, can you close your eyes? I’m about to very indecently kiss your mum.”

“Oh my God,” Emma laughs, twisting her head from side to side until he places a hand on her cheek and guides her lips to his. They’re just as soft and warm as he remembers, but he doesn’t really care about any of that when Emma automatically opens her mouth to him, letting him flick his tongue out at her bottom lip and apply the smallest of pressures. Mostly he’s thankful to get to be connected to her again, to come together and expertly move against each other like they never stopped. He never wants to stop again. “If she could feel embarrassment, she would be mortified by us making out like that.”

“She’ll have to get used to it.”

“Hear that, baby, you’re going to be mortified by us.”

-/-

One conversation doesn’t fix everything. It never does. He hurt Emma, and she did the same to him in her reaction to his hurt, no matter how justified she was. Even if they both hate it, they can’t change it, but they can try to make amends, try to rebuild that trust. As much as he wants to dive back into things without abandon, he restrains himself and takes things as slowly as he can. He often has to remind himself that with he and Emma, everything has always been a gradual, natural build. Nothing about it has been rushed, and honestly, he thinks it’s that very thing that’s going to help them make this work.

There’s nothing he’s ever wanted to make work as much as he wants to make this work.

So there are baby steps for them (and none for Sawyer as of yet). They start with eating dinner again together. It’s not every night, but it nearly is. He starts cooking for more than him again, making the portions bigger, and Emma will come over to his apartment with Sawyer when she gets home from work. The things of Emma’s she left here, her sweaters and makeup and the occasional shoe – and really just the one at a time which he’s never even quite understood – start to multiply, the old being replaced by the new, but that’s nothing compared to the toys that scatter across his floor and the pureed food that fills his refrigerator and his shelves. As much as it bothers him to have his apartment all out of order, he’s learning to allow the mess.

He’s learning to love the mess.

It’s not as if he can tell an eleven-month old baby that her toys and her food are driving him into madness. When she’s older, well, that’s when he’ll teach her the wonder of organization. And maybe that’s when he’ll teach the same to her mother. The latter is less likely.

His life is his life again, but he likes this version so much better. Emma’s trusting in him, and that’s honestly more than he could have asked for. He screwed up in a lot of ways, and a part of him feels like he’s getting another chance at life. Emma didn’t have to accept him back into her life, their lives, in the way that she has. Forgiveness and love are powerful things he’s both gained and lost in his life, and he’s glad to have found them again.

“Should we have a birthday party for her?” “What now?”

“She’s turning one in three weeks,” Emma sighs, curling her legs up underneath her and tugging the comforter up to cover her waist, her entire body bundled in warm clothes despite the warming spring weather outside. “I think most people have first birthday parties with the smash cake and everything. I just…I don’t have any friends who are moms, so I don’t really – I don’t know what I should do.”

He puts his phone down on the bedside table after he finishes replying to a student’s email. They’re on spring break, and yet he’s still getting emails. These kids should really go out and have some fun. It’s not as if he assigned them work for over the break. “What do you want to do, love?”

“I think I might like for it to just be us. I don’t…you missed so much in those two months, and I kind of want it to be special, you know? She’s not going to remember it, but we are.”

“If that’s what you want to do, we should do it.”

“But what do you want?”

“Emma, darling, it’s your decision. If you want it to be just us, you should decide.”

Her lips form an “o” before they press together and she twists her body, turning her shoulder to him and her back so that all he can see is blonde of her hair falling down her shoulders over her sweater. He’s obviously said something wrong, so he moves over in the bed until he can touch her arm and gently nudge her back into looking at him.

“Hey,” he murmurs, making sure that his voice is low and soft, “what’s wrong?”

She sighs, her shoulders heaving, before she slaps her hands against the bed in what he assumes is frustration. It’s not even seven in the morning, and he’s already somehow messed up today. Or not necessarily messed up but…Emma is upset, and he doesn’t know why. “If we’re going to do this, this whole being together and being parents together, you have to make decisions too. You can’t let me make all of the decisions when maybe you have a different opinion. I want your opinion.”

He quirks a brow, confusion running through him. Is Emma Swan herself giving him permission to veto her decisions? Is this an alternate universe?

“Is that what we’re doing? Co-parenting?”

“I thought so.”

“Aye, I know, I know. I just – Emma, I know that she’s ours…technically…maybe…I don’t know how the hell to describe it, but I already told you, I don’t intend to step over all of your toes. Sawyer has always been yours, and I’m not sure how exactly I fit in here.” “What do you mean?” she asks reverently, reaching forward to cup his cheeks with her hands, the coolness that always seeps from her extremities invading him. “Killian, you’re her father. That’s – I’m not ready to change anything legally, but you’re her…you’re here for us. I trust you, I love you, and even though this is a weird situation, we’re still us.”

His heart stops for a moment, which cannot at all be healthy, before he nods his head up and down, letting all of that sink in. Their timing is all over the place, but maybe the conventional family thing is not going to be for them. Hell, he didn’t ever think that Emma would accept him as Sawyer’s father this soon, even if it’s rare that she says it. Then again, if he thinks about it, how can anything be soon when they’ve pretty much been together for nearly two years?

“So I’m allowed to have a voice on the first birthday celebrations?” “You’re encouraged.”

“I think we should have it be just the three of us with a vanilla cake with buttercream icing. I think she’d like it if it was in the shape of an octopus, since she really likes her Ollie the octopus doll.”

“Ollie?”

“Yeah, that’s his name.” “Baby, you named the stuffed animal?”

He chuckles underneath his breath before dipping his head and gliding his lips over Emma’s, her softness making him feel content while his hands move up and down her shoulders, holding onto her muscles and the warmth that radiates from her. Warmth from everywhere but her hands and feet in the mornings. “He needed a name.” “I love you.”

“For naming a stuffed animal?”

“Yep.”

“Well, I love you too, but I apparently have a lot of stuffed animals to name if it makes you love me.”

They do end up having a first birthday party for Sawyer with just the three of them. He sends pictures to his friends and family, and Emma ends up having to facetime Anna halfway through because the woman absolutely insisted that she see Sawyer and her cake, but it’s just the three of them. And it’s perfect, he thinks. Sawyer has no idea what’s going on, but like Emma said, they do. And besides, they’re giving a one-year old icing for the first time. They could be at a funeral and Sawyer wouldn’t care.

That’s a bit morbid, but it’s true.

And Sawyer absolutely loves it, very meticulously trying to eat the cake at first, something which he knows she gets from him, but once she’s had a taste, she absolutely smashes the cake into her face, covering her mouth with purple and blue icing. That…that she definitely gets from Emma. He has no doubt.

He barks out a laugh the more she does it, and Emma does the same, the video she was taking surely filed with the sound of their laughter, and when he looks over at Emma, she’s got tears running down her cheeks from how much she’s laughing. She looks so happy, and it fills him with a lightness he wants to feel forever.

“Oh, baby,” she laughs before going to get Sawyer out of her high chair, “you are a mess, and your daddy is going to be so upset if you get icing on any of the furniture.”

Every part of him stops functioning for a moment. His organs might even stop for a moment, but then everything is roaring back to life as he watches Emma move Sawyer over to the sink so she can wash her off. He can’t stop staring at them, can’t stop thinking about the slip of the tongue that just happened. He’s always hoped that maybe one day they’d get there, but he never assumed it would be this soon even with all that’s happened. He never assumed it would happen at all. He’s learned not to assume things. Maybe Emma’s not ready for that. Maybe it really was just a slip. Still. She said it.

There’s a difference between Emma accepting him as Sawyer’s father and her accepting him as an actual dad when she has no obligation to do that. She’s never once referred to him as Sawyer’s daddy, and he wants to replay the moment over again and again to make sure he hasn’t lost his mind.

“Killian, why do you look like you’ve just been slapped?”

“I – I – you called me daddy. You referred to me as Sawyer’s dad.”

“Yeah,” she smiles softly as she tests the water out under her hand, “I know. That’s who you are. I’ve been practicing the word with her because I knew you wouldn’t until I said something even though we’ve had this conversation so many times. I felt like the word should be in her vocabulary. You know, for a rainy day or something.”

God, he can’t believe this. He can’t believe that this is his life. He can’t believe that he’s been granted this stroke of luck. But he has, so he walks over to them and wraps his arms around Emma’s waist, tugging her in closer and resting his chin on her shoulder. “Thank you.”

“You deserve it. I don’t thank you enough for being who you are and for helping us even when I’m an idiot. It’s…I’m trusting my gut here by doing this, by not hiding behind things that I’ve been hiding behind. Now, help me clean this mess of a munchkin off before I try to salvage some of that cake so I can eat it.”

“I like that plan.”

He’s a dad.

-/-

“Hey, hey, hey,” he soothes, picking Sawyer up off the ground and holding her to his chest while she cries into his shoulder, the screams practically piercing his ears as the door clicks into its frame. “Mummy will be back, little love. Mummy is coming back. Oh, I know, I know. I miss her too, but she’s coming back.”

It happens nearly every morning that Emma leaves for work, but he’s never quite prepared for it. And it doesn’t help that it happens twice a day when he has to go to his lectures in the afternoon. He’d lightened his class load this summer after talking to Emma about Sawyer’s scheduling, and he was happy to work a little less so he can spend more time with his daughter. He didn’t realize there would be separation anxiety tantrums every day, but he knows that it’ll go away eventually. And he knows that it only lasts a few minutes before she calms down and wants to play or to read a book.

“Ball, Dada.”

Plus, there’s that. Not long after Emma started officially referring to him as Sawyer’s dad, his little love started doing the same thing, and he will proudly admit that he had a few tears slip from his eyes. It’s a moment that happens in every dad’s life, but with the way he got here, well, he’s eternally thankful for it. He’s thankful that both Emma and Sawyer accept him into their lives in any capacity, but this is something else. As Emma has pointed out to him in her real life Elle Woods capacity, ejaculating into a cup does not a father make. He’s known that from the beginning, but hearing Emma say it made him laugh. It’s not about biology. It’s simply not. It’s about being there and showing up and loving even when all you want to do is run away and go back to the life where the only person you ever had to care for was yourself.

In all honesty, he thinks that’s the reason he gets to be Sawyer’s dad. It’s not that he’s sure they’re related biologically. That doesn’t even matter to him. He’s biologically related to his father, and he never did a damn thing for him except fill him with false hope and every abandonment issue known to man for the longest time. He gets to be her dad because he’s been there for it all, and he will be there for all that’s to come. If he’s learned anything about Emma, it’s that being there to hold her hand when she needs it is far more important than any flowery words or promises that can’t be kept but that sound good in the moment.

Being a parent is about being there, and for someone who didn’t get to have that, for two someone’s actually, he never wants to let Sawyer go a day without knowing just how much she is loved by him but also by everyone in her life.

How much she’s loved by her mother is something that he can’t even begin to attempt to articulate.

“Yeah, you want to play, Sawyer? We can play this morning.”

He spends the morning rolling a ball back and forth to her before she gets bored and decides to push around her shopping cart that’s filed with all of her things. With as many things that Emma has, it’s nothing compared to all of Sawyer’s possession. He swears that they multiply, and then multiply again, but with how quickly she moves on from one thing to the next, he’s glad for it. And since she’s pretty much taken over his apartment as well, he wonders how exactly she accumulates all of these things.

He and Emma are definitely culprits, Anna too, but he swears that Liam sends her a package at least once a week. They haven’t seen each other since Christmas six months ago, but they still talk almost daily, often Face-Timing when they can, and as of late, after Liam and Emma had a few rounds of arguing with each other over the phone, Liam video chats with Sawyer as well. To say he’s a bit smitten is an understatement. It’s kind of a testament to the fact that having a conversation and talking things out can solve a lot of awful situations.

All of the relationships in his life are a testament to that too.

Sometimes trust can’t be earned back, and sometimes it can.

If Liam betrays his trust again like he did, Killian’s not sure he’ll be able to forgive that. But he hopes he’s never in that situation.

“Alright, baby,” he sighs, getting up from the floor even as his joints groan. Thirty-five isn’t old in the grand scheme of things. Really, it’s rather young. But he’s not exactly a fan of some of the lines on his face even if Emma tells him that she likes the lines around his eyes when he smiles, and he’s not a fan of the way sometimes he gets sore after making love to Emma or playing on the floor with Sawyer. But it’s his age as of last month, and there’s not much he can do about it. “I have to go to work, so you have to get ready to go to nursery.”

“No.”

He chuckles even as he picks her up, letting her keep hold of Ollie. “Yes, my love, we have to go to nursery because daddy needs to be able pay his rent so that you have two apartments to spread out your things in.”

She’s got no idea what he’s talking about, no idea that there are bills to be paid and food to be bought, and she’s got no idea that even though he and Emma sleep in the same bed most nights, they’re not living together. His lease lasts at least another half of a year, and honestly, as financially smart as it would be for them to officially merge their lives, they’ve only been together for a short time. Well, no. they’ve been together for nearly a year if he doesn’t include their time apart and friends for even longer then that. Honestly, he doesn’t even know how long they’ve been together, and he’s kind of wondering if that even matters. Their lives are intricately complicated, and moving in together may be the very last thing on both of their minds. Emma is being absolutely buried with work right now, and most nights she comes home ready to go to bed several hours past when she should get off work. She’s a badass in everything that she does, and even without him getting to witness her in action, he knows that she’s a fantastic attorney.

A fantastic attorney who’s very much in love with and who he’s happy being with as they are, preconceived timelines be damned.

After he drops Sawyer off at her nursery, he takes the T to campus, the heat too much for his usual walk. He’s only got a few lectures to do today, but he does have office hours and a bit of grading to do, so he knows that it’s going to be a late afternoon for him too. He enjoys his job, enjoys what he gets to do every day, but some days aren’t for him. Very rarely does anyone in his summer classes want to be there, especially when they could be sailing around the harbor or at the beach somewhere, so his students don’t exactly love listening to him talk. But it is what it is, and the hours move by at a leisurely pace that he’s content to be a participant in.

“Knock knock,” Emma says out loud instead of physically knocking on the door. He’s surprised to see her, and when he looks up from his desk to see the smirk on her face, he knows that was her intention. “Surprised to see me?”

“Only in the best way.”

“Oh cheesy,” she laughs, walking into the room and over to him before she bands down to quickly slide her lips over his as she settles her ass down on his desk, her dress moving up her legs to show the muscles in her thighs that he loves. Seriously. She’s badass in all ways. “But I cannot say anything about that because I’m here to very romantically whisk you away from the office and take you somewhere secret.”

He raises a brow, his mind already filling with ideas. “Swan, I believe that you and I aren’t supposed to have secrets.”

“Yeah, well, this one isn’t exactly on par with you knowing that you’re my daughter’s father for nine months.”

“Emma, I – ”

“Hey,” she soothes, taking his hand and placing it on her thigh, the skin smooth under the roughness of his fingertips, “that was a joke. That’s not…Killian, I’m not mad at you over that anymore. You know that, right?”

“Aye, I know. I just – ” He stops his words to keep running his fingers over Emma’s skin before he leans down to press a kiss on her thigh. “Sometimes I think about it, about how unbelievably fucked up we were for awhile.” Emma’s looking at him with her eyes widened, reverence and affection filling them, and it makes the sudden uptick in his heartbeat calm a bit. “I love you something fierce, Killian Jones, and I don’t know about you, but I stopped worrying about us doing things the conventional way awhile ago. And if you would like to close up shop around here a little early, I can show you that.”

“Where’s our little lady?”

“She is with Anna, who has been practically begging to keep her for weeks now.” “Are we going to miss bedtime?”

“Yes, my love, we are going to miss bedtime, but I think it’s going to be worth it.”

“Just what are you up to, Emma Swan?”

She winks, and he can feel the corners of his lips tug up into a smile. “You’ll see.”

-/-

“Swan, where are we?”

She doesn’t say anything, her hand simply tugging on his from where their fingers are interlaced as she guides him into a building he doesn’t recognize. And she doesn’t say anything when she guides him up three flights of stairs and down the hall into apartment 306, their footsteps echoing with each step. There’s no furniture in here, just polished cherry wood floors and large bay windows that look out onto the street that they just came from. It’s only a little bigger than where he lives now, but it almost seems more open somehow. It’s likely the way the kitchen doesn’t take up most of the room or because of the lack of furniture. Really, though, he thinks it’s the windows and the seats beneath them that he’d love to read next to.

“So,” Emma asks, squeezing his hand and tugging her bottom lip between her teeth, “what do you think?”

“I like it. Why am I looking at it?”

“Okay, so long story short. Anna’s boyfriend’s brother just moved to Philadelphia, and his lease is still good for nine months, which was crappy planning on his part. Anyways, he’s subletting, and when it’s over, I’ve already checked to make sure I can get the lease.”

“You’re moving?”

Disappointment rushes through him, and his lips curl into a frown. She’s moving. Emma’s moving. Why the hell would she be moving when they’ve got the good system with each other right now? This is at least a thirty-minute walk across the city. That’s a hell of a lot different than thirty seconds.

“I was kind of thinking that we  could move.”

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

“I’m sorry, what now?”

“I was thinking,” Emma begins, tugging him a little closer and releasing his hand so she can press up on her toes and wrap her arms around his neck, her lips curled into a smile that makes his frown lessen, “that we move here. I know you’ve still got some time on your lease, but mine is up in two months. We basically live together, Killian, and even though I really enjoy the nights where I can sleep diagonally in my bed, I don’t see the point of paying two rents.”

“How romantic.”

She slaps the back of his head before curling her fingers into his hair, a shiver running down each vertebrae of his spine. “Hush. Dr. Jones – ”

“I do so like when you call me that.”

“Dr. Jones, Killian, my love, baby daddy because you ejaculated into a cup instead of into me – ”

He scrunches up his entire face, eyes shutting for a moment. “Bloody hell, Swan, what an awful way to put that. And technically we still don’t have official confirmation that I’m – ”

She pushes her lips into his with such force that it makes him stumble back, his hands grabbing onto her hips and his fingers tightening around the material of her dress as their bodies come together while their mouths move in a kiss that very literally took his words and his breath away.

“I don’t need the test,” she whispers before she fully pulls back, her lips tickling his with their featherlight touches. “We’ve already said that. We don’t…Killian, I don’t need it. Whatever would come back on that paper, it doesn’t matter to me even though I already know the answer.”

“It doesn’t matter to me either. I believe you were trying to ask me something.”

“Oh yeah, you want to move in with me and your daughter?” “Bloody hell, yes,” he murmurs before slanting his lips over hers again and backing her up to where he thinks there’s a wall. He’s not really sure as he’s barely looked at this place, but he knows that there’s a wall somewhere. He knows he’s found it when Emma gasps, or that may be the way he flicks his tongue against her lips and presses his hips into hers, feeling his much of her as he can. “You should probably show me the rest of this place first, though, so I can make sure it’s better than what we have. I only want to move in with you for your money.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“I love you.”

“Yeah, whatever. I love you too. Do you think we can get away with christening the place before we even move in?”

-/-

Summer cools into autumn in the way that it always does, the miserable heat and humidity slowly fading away in a way that he doesn’t notice until he’s putting on a sweater to go to work. If anything, he’s thankful for it. His body produced enough sweat over the summer, simply from existing and carrying boxes of their possessions and actual furniture up three stories into their new apartment. It took he, Rob, Kris, and Graham to move couches and mattresses and new bedframes up the stairs in a full reenactment of the pivot scene in Friends. At least he doesn’t think he’s as much of an asshole as Ross is.

Half of his furniture is in a storage unit right now waiting to be sold, and the other half is already sold. He’s kept all of his possessions, books and trinkets and every kitchen appliance he can think of, but there was really no need for him to keep a ratty recliner when Emma had a nicer set of lounge chairs. They do keep his mattress, though. It’s larger and far more comfortable, and he’ll give up a lot for Emma, but his mattress is something that was always going to have to stay.

He’s known Emma for over two years now, even if it really feels like longer, but as they’re learning, you learn a hell of a lot more about a person when you officially live with them. To start, the storage unit their excess furniture is in also houses all of Emma’s father’s possessions. He never even thought about all of her dad’s things, and apparently Emma hadn’t either until one day he was talking about how they needed a few end tables and she casually mentioned that she basically had an entire furniture store worth of stuff, not to mention boxes full of photo albums and precious memories that she’s been too nervous to go through. So one day she had taken him down to the unit, and it had been absolutely miserable. Just…it was awful. To him, it was all things he had no attachments to, but he watched as Emma ran her fingers over dusty furniture, as she thumbed through old books, and when she got to the photo albums still stacked on a bookshelf like she couldn’t stand to actually pack them up.

“I’m so sorry, Emma,” he whispers, wrapping his arms around her and tugging her close so he can run his hand up and down her back while he simply holds her as he shoulders shake. “I’m so sorry that you went through all of this alone.” “I miss him.”

“I know, love. I know.” He presses his lips into her hair, knowing she can’t feel it, but he needs a little comfort too as he thinks of his mum and the memories of having to put her things away. “We don’t have to go through any of this today or until you’re ready, but I think one day Sawyer might want to be able to see her grandpa or her mum when she was a wee one.”

He feels her nod against his chest. “Can we do it another day?” “As you wish.”

It took three more trips to the unit before they got the end tables and the photo albums, and another ten before they left with a set of bookshelves that he’s painted white to replace the ones from his apartment that couldn’t be detached from the walls. But over the summer, an empty three-bedroom apartment began to feel like home. It was even clean for a little while, the throw pillows arranged artfully and the floor clean of everything but a checkered gray and white rug and a few house plants to lighten up the place, but then Sawyer came in like a gust of wind with her possessions that are still multiplying. Now the floor is covered in playpens and toys despite the fact the there’s an entire hallway closet artfully organized with storage bins, Emma’s penmanship written across the labels. She’s still not quite old enough for cleaning on a bigger level than “Sawyer, put the ball in the box” but they’re getting there.

Or he is.

He’s usually the one to clean up.

That’s another new thing that he’s learning even though he pretty much knew about it before. He’s much cleaner than Emma, definitely more organized, and even basically living with her for months, both consecutive and not, he was not prepared. He’s been to her office several times, and that place is like a showroom for cleanliness. Seriously, everything is in perfect order, but when Emma comes home, she kicks her shoes off wherever she pleases and leaves her jeans crumpled on the closet floor, her bra usually hanging on a bookshelf. And it’s never because they got particularly enthusiastic in the living room and undressed on the way to the bedroom. It’s because she just takes it off and leaves it there.

But she leaves it there because she’s home, at their home, and if he spends five minutes out of his day picking up one of Emma’s beige work bras or hanging a skirt so it doesn’t wrinkle, he thinks that it’s worth it.

They share a home.

With their daughter.

It is beyond anything he ever could have dreamed about or wished for or wanted. It is beyond whatever facetious novel he thought up on the day Emma threw up in his toilet and he wondered how his life could possibly get weirder.

“Daddy,” Sawyer sighs, the frustration in her voice so obvious for someone still only a year and a half old, before she falls out on the ground, her limbs sticking out in every direction.

“Yeah, Sawyer?” he hums, still grading papers at the kitchen table, a pen stuck in his mouth with his glasses falling down his nose. He’s honestly got to make an appointment with the optometrist soon.

“Juice.”

Without looking he grabs her cup off of the table and holds it up until he can hear her slowly making her way over to him. She usually moves quickly, but she’s been pretty lethargic today, which is what happens when she refuses to sleep the night before and keeps both he and Emma up when Emma’s spending her day in court and he’s working from home. She takes the cup and mumbles something resembling thank you, so he whispers back a you’re welcome before wrapping an arm around her waist and tugging her up to sit in his lap while she sips away. She’s pretty smart for her age (he’s not biased or anything), knows about twenty-five or so words even if she chooses not to use them sometimes and simply points. She’s the slightest bit dramatic, but her doctor assures them that everything is normal.

“Color?” she asks, smacking her hand down on the paper he’s marking up with a green pen.

“These are daddy’s colors, but I’m going to get you your own in a minute, okay? We can draw mummy a picture because she’s having a bad day.”

She doesn’t really listen to him, taking a pen and slashing a green mark across the table, and he immediately gets up with her so he can get her the crayons and large white rolls of paper that they let her have free reign on in hope that she doesn’t start drawing on the walls. They’ve still got the paint colors just in case.

In between drawing with Sawyer and grading his papers, likely missing things for how unfocused he is, the rest of their afternoon passes. He usually only has time like this in the mornings with her, all of his classes later in the afternoon this semester, but it’s kind of nice to have all day during the week. Now if Emma were here, well, then it would be so much better. But by the time Emma gets home he’s already fed Sawyer dinner and given her a bath. Emma’s usually not this late, but sometimes it happens. Her job is busy, but he knows that she likes it that way even if she would like to be home for dinner.

“Momma,” Sawyer gasps the moment Emma walks though the door, scrambling off her seat on the couch and running toward the door, only tripping once, before Emma’s dropping her purse and swooping Sawyer up in her arms. It’s a beautiful sight, one he’d like to watch forever. There’s something indescribably stunning about watching Emma with Sawyer. She wanted to be a mum, wanted it for a long time, and she does such a bloody fantastic job at it that he often watches with awe. He’s obviously glad that he came along, that they stumbled into this life, but there’s no a doubt in his mind that Emma could do this all on her own and kick ass like she does every single day.

He’s glad that she doesn’t have to do it alone, but she could. If there’s anyone in his life who inspires him, it’s her.

In every way.

“Oh, you’re already in your jammies,” Emma sighs after rousing Sawyer up, her giggles filling the room. “Are you ready to go night night?” “No.”

“Oh really? Because mommy is so ready to go night night, and I would think that daddy is too.” She looks at him for a brief moment, a soft smile on her face as she kicks out of her heels. “Hi, babe.”

“Hey, beautiful. I am so ready to go night night, especially if it means going to bed with you.” Emma rolls her eyes at him before looking down at Sawyer and affectionately rubbing her nose into Sawyer’s. “Your daddy is trying to flirt with me, baby, but the only thing we’re going to do is go to sleep like you.”

“That is totally what I meant.”

“I don’t at all believe you,” she sighs, propping up Sawyer on her hip as she walks over to him and collapses on the couch, her head landing on his shoulder as Sawyer crawls over them. “I’m so tired.”

He snakes his arm around Emma’s waist and tugs her in a little closer before kissing her cheek. “I know, love. I can put her to bed if you want to change clothes and eat dinner.”

“No, no,” she protests even as she yawns, “I’m going to do it. Just give me a minute to rest my eyes.”

The minute to rest her eyes turns into falling asleep on the couch within five minutes, and as much as he knows Emma wants to be able to put Sawyer to bed and to read her a story, he’s sure that just one day of letting her sleep a little bit will not be the end of the world. She’s exhausted, the day and this week obviously taking a toll on her, and even if she’ll probably get irritated with him for not waking her, he’s making a judgment call here.

After Sawyer is asleep, he makes his way back out into the hallway, fully planning on heading to the living room, only to be stopped by the opened bedroom door and the trail of clothes that follow it. Emma must have woken up, and when he finds her in the bathroom, she’s got one eye bare of mascara and the other smeared everywhere as she rubs it down.

“You should have woken me up.”

“You should have stayed asleep on the couch.”

“And kill my back? No thank you.”

“Love,” he sighs, resting his hip on the doorframe and crossing his arms over his chest, “you are killing yourself at work right now. You deserve to get some rest.”

“I’m supposed to put her to bed. That’s always my goal. I miss a lot, but I’m going to put her to bed. And I’m missing that because I’m falling asleep on the couch.”

“Emma – ”

“I know, I know. It’s just a bad week. I don’t know. I’m just,” she sniffs, wiping away at her makeup again before turning to the sink and splashing her face with water, “I’ve spent all day watching people argue over their kids and custody, and today didn’t even seem like it was about them doing what’s best. It seemed like they were being selfish, and the only people who were getting hurt were the kids. My goal in life is for Sawyer to never doubt how much I love her, and yet I’m missing things. What if she starts doubting that?”

“Hey, no,” he protests, walking away from the doorframe and moving to stand behind Emma so he can wrap his arms around her waist and rest his chin at her shoulder. “Don’t you dare start thinking that. Did you not see how she ran to you when you got home? She talks about you all day, and we spent half of our day drawing pictures for you. I don’t know what they are, but I can tell that she put a lot of heart into it.”

She chuckles, her body moving against his, and his emotions settle seeing hers do the same. “Life is hard.”

“Aye, I believe that it is.”

“Way to be optimistic.”

“Realistic.”

“Still.” She looks up at him through the mirror, and he tugs her a little closer. “On Saturday, I was thinking that we can take her to the park and then look for a Halloween costume. Anna said that her sister’s kids go to a party made for little ones, and I kind of thought it would be cute.”

“It would be adorable. You can have all weekend to spend time with the little lady, okay? She’ll love it. And I’m sure she’ll love whatever sweets we let her have.”

“Yeah, well, as much as I miss her, if she gets sugar in her, she’s your kid.”

“I’d expect nothing less.”

-/-

He walks in the front door only to be bombarded by one hundred and twenty pounds of woman as Emma literally jumps in his arms, her hands holding onto his shoulders and onto his button down while her feet hang in the air, his senses coming back to him when Emma’s legs get a good grip on his waist. What in the world has he just come home to?

“Bloody hell, love, what are you doing?”

“I’m just really glad you’re home.”

He raises a brow at the hitch in her voice, but he doesn’t say anything as he continues to move them through the apartment until he’s sitting on the couch with Emma straddling his lap, her excitement palpable as she bounces up and down, which is getting him excited in a totally different way. He hasn’t seen her this excited since she got a pay raise in February a few months ago. They’d hired a babysitter and gone out to a far too expensive dinner and had far too much expensive wine. It had definitely been worth it.

“You want to tell me what has you vibrating out of your skin?” he questions as his hands settle at her hips and his eyes scan her face.

“I really, really do, but you have to promise that you’re not going to get mad at me.”

“I feel like I can’t do that until you tell me what exactly you’ve done.”

“That is such a Killian way to answer that.”

“Well, I am the one who answered it.”

She rolls her eyes, and he’s helpless to do anything but laugh. God, he loves her. “Okay, so as you know, your birthday is next week.”

“I was there for the birth.”

She slaps his chest, and he wonders if she has any idea how much strength she possesses in her arms. She likely does. It’s not as if she works out for nothing, but he seriously hopes she’s not lifting weights so she can slap him. That would be something else. “Okay, anyways smartass, your birthday is coming up, and I may have been working on a gift for you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, but it’s kind of a big thing, and I kind of…okay, I definitely need you to be on board with it. Legally, I can’t really finish this gift without you.”

“Color me intrigued.” He runs his thumbs over waist, feeling the soft skin of her stomach as he attempts to figure out what the hell she’s talking about. “Where’s our daughter, by the way?”

“Napping, which is good because this conversation is kind of about her.”

“Well God forbid the two-year-old hear us talking about her.”

“Anyways, so I’ve been thinking – ”

“Always a dangerous thing.” “You have got to shut up and let me talk.”

“My lips are sealed.”

“Good. So I have been thinking about things lately, about us and our family. Killian, there is no one in the world who I trust more than you. No one. I love you a ridiculous amount, and if you’re willing, I have some paperwork waiting to be drafted for you to officially adopt Sawyer as your daughter. There’s a lot of legal stuff that I’m not going to bore you with right now, and us being unmarried makes it stupid complicated – ”

“I know you told me not to interrupt, but I can fix that.”

He smiles at the confusion on her face as he tries to contain his happiness over absolutely everything that’s happening right now. It’s like the perfect opportunity has fallen into his hands.

Or his lap really.

“You can what now?”

“Fix the being unmarried thing. I’ve got a ring hidden on the bookshelf. Been waiting for a good time to ask you, and I figure what better a time can there be to ask you when you’re giving me legal talk about officially becoming Sawyer’s dad?”

Emma’s lips are parted, her cheeks tinted red, and despite the absolute exuberance he feels right now over absolutely all of his wants coming to fruition, he can’t help the smug smile that’s forming on his lips while his fingers continue to rub at her stomach.

“Are you serious?”

“I am indeed. Liam brought me our mum’s ring when they came to visit for Christmas so I could have it fixed up, and with the bastard’s track record at telling you secrets, I’m surprised you didn’t know.” “Well, he has obviously gotten better.” She has to readjust herself on his lap before she cups his cheeks with her hands and slants her lips over his several times in quick succession, each getting deeper than the last, stirring him up and settling him down all at once. “You have to ask me.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah, you do now that you’ve brought it up and everything.”

“I mean, if you say so,” he sighs, mock annoyance tainting his voice even though he could not be happier than he is right now. “Emma Swan, love of my life, will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

“Yeah, Killian, yeah I will.” Her kiss is slow and lingering, drawing him in as she draws it out, and he gets lost in it, lost in her, lost in them. He loves her so damn much, and he whispers the words against her lips the moment that they part before Emma speaks. “Killian Jones, love of my life, will you do me the honor of officially adopting your kid?”

“Yeah, love, yeah I will.”

-/-

Seven months later there are rings on their fingers, papers filed, and he thinks that there is nothing that could make his life any better as he sits on the floor of their bathroom with Emma sitting next to him, their toes knocking against each other while they both take deep breaths at the sight in front of them.

“I’m pregnant,” Emma whispers, the words reverberating around the room until they settle somewhere around his steadily beating heart.

“God, I hope I’m the father this time too.”

[thegodthief]

No Favour To Return

I am breaking my self-imposed exile from Tumblr because I had responded to a Tumblrite on my main blog and felt led to repost it here now in case the intentionally anonymized Tumblrite is still present and wants my response.

“This is probably not helpful, because I’m much younger than you and not part of any community to speak of but: I have been quietly following you since I made a tumblr to follow people with because I was in a cult in my teens and something no one ever talks about is the ANGER and the HURT and the way that it just KEEPS GOING even as I keep going– the way that it so overtly breaks you and so subtly continues to break even years later– but you. You talk about it. And that– that is a light for me. Not because of ‘it gets better’ or anything hopefully trite like that, but because it /doesn’t/, you just live with it better and worse and your writing sets it out so plain– trauma is trauma, and even in the older pagan/polytheist circles I’ve found, no one likes to just face up to the scars. You do, though, and write it so well– I don’t know. It helps, and I can’t say that I can return the favour at all– but it helps. So. Thank you. I am sorry you hurt so much.“

My response: 

That was a message sent to my Tumblr blog quite some time ago. I never answered it publicly there because I didn’t want to expose the sender to undue harassment.

It’s funny how whenever I brought up the abuses I experienced in the Christian cults that the responses would mostly lie at two extremes. Either there would be an avalanche of people declaring that my abuses are why Christianity needed to be crushed, wiped out, and made illegal, and in doing so, be completely blind to the fact that they are continuing the very same thoughtcrime punishments that my abusers did but with a different name. To them Christianity was a virus that required purging even if it meant destroying the youngest and most vulnerable of hosts.

Or there would be a large number of professed Christians who would drown my inbox with messages of love and sympathy while doing their damndest best to make sure I did not identify them with my abusers. But they didn’t realize that in making sure that they stood on the neck of those who hurt me, they were also stepping on the neck of their victims who believed them or could not escape them at the time.

Both groups, in making sure I knew that they were not like those evil people over there, also made sure I knew that to them, I was responsible for what was done to me because of my beliefs at the time. They didn’t come right out and say it in those clear words, but they made it clear that anyone who yielded to the abusers, deserved the abuse.

There is still a vicious judgement from those who have never been hurt in this way when the question of “Why didn’t you run?” is finally spoken. I have had one baptised, redeemed, washed in the Blood™, gentle soul of a Christian tell me to my face that it was obvious that the only reason I remained in the cults for so long, was because I obviously had to have enjoyed being exorcised beaten, because she wouldn’t tolerate even a rude word spoken in her presence.

Those of us who have been prey, have been taught how to recognize a predator. And many in the various religious, spiritual, occult, and/or metaphysical circles have that predatorial aura to them even though they will declare to their own people how welcoming and safe they are. Folks like me who have come through don’t want to trade one master for another, but we are not given space to find out how to master our own lives, much less how to learn how to navigate our freedom.

I have rage the depths of which I am only now beginning to understand in the literal decade since my apostasy. It took stepping back and looking at not only the cults themselves I was involved in, but the actual cultural fabric of my country, my socio-economic class, and the racial entanglements that made me vulnerable in the first place.

But so many people don’t want to look at how all those pieces interconnect to create snares and shackles that are hard to avoid and harder to escape. It is so much easier to point to the Person Who Got Away™ and blame them for being hurt. It is so much easier to say that their community would not have allowed this than recognize that their community would not have accepted the runner because the runner is the wrong ethnicity, age, gender, excuse.

It is so much easier to tell the Person Who Got Away™ that because they don’t know, they can’t help, and because they can’t help, they won’t try to help. And it’s not like you were really hurt, because no one knows that the mask you wear is glued to your face by your dried tears and snot.

After I declared myself apostate, every year I avoided everything possible during the Christmas Season until last year. My family thought I was being surly. My coworkers thought I was being a bitch. How do you explain to people that the church body you believed in and supported had told you that you were too demonically tainted to participate in church body Christmas celebrations, so either stay away or better yet, allow yourself to be locked in this small room with a bible and a chair so you can study away the demons that would otherwise ruin Christmas for everyone else, and because of that, any group gathered for doing something Christmasy sends you into a panic attack because you are expecting to be asked to lock yourself away again? (Or that because of that anxiety, you are not comfortable in any public celebratory group, and you’re leaving so no one sees you crying?)

You don’t.

You make excuses like how you made excuses for the bruises, the cracked rib, the lack of spending money, your unavailability to your unapproved friends, your subservience to anyone with a loud enough voice.

You continue keeping the abusers safe.

That is how the abuse keeps going even though it has been years since I was in the same space as them. It’s just easier to let people think that you’re just “odd”, rather than you’re dealing with PTSD.

Last year, when Christmas season began (prior to Halloween, what the hell!), I stopped hiding. When people asked why I wasn’t at the numerous (formal and informal) work related parties, I had only four words to tell them. “That’s not my thing.” Because of my work, I have many clients who feel they are entitled to more personal information about me and would ask if I was brought up “that way” or if something happened.

“Don’t worry about it.” If they persisted, my answer would be more blunt. “That is not for discussion.” I may not be declaring what was done to me, but I’m not making excuses, either.

I am as I am and I will not adjust myself to make you comfortable because you want to continue believing that your personal value system of choice has never been used for harm.

I will tend to my scars and make myself comfortable as best as I can in the environments I am in now.

And that makes people who don’t have those scars uncomfortable.

So here I am, a decade into my apostasy, and involved in Christianish things like saints, and angels, and prayer, and the like. I have had people drop ugly messages in my inbox about obviously not being able to function like a “normal human” because I’m apparently going back to my abusers. There have been declarations that I deserve whatever pain comes from my actions, because if I hadn’t learned before how evil Christianity was before, then I’ll never learn.

Something something dog vomit something.

And ya know what… that is fucking abusive. That I’m choosing to walk out this part of my recovery from the cults by making the active and aware choice to investigate and explore other ways Christianity can present itself is seen as a sign of mental illness requiring physical restraint is abusive. Those of you who say/type that are no different, and no better, than the people who tried to literally beat the devil out of me.

I will not hide that some of my wounds are still mending. I will not hide that some of my scars itch at the sounds of certain words. But the fact that I can recite the Pater Noster with a grieving client in my office and grant her five minutes of peace will always triumph over whatever ugliness people with agendas try to carve out of my side.

*deep breaths to let the rage evaporate*

My Dear Reader, I don’t know if you now follow this blog or if you are still only viewing what is on Tumblr, but I hope, and pray, that comfort, healing, rest, and solace reaches you. That you are able to find how to clean your wounds and soothe your scars in ways that don’t damage you further. That you have found a path to come out of the pain still etched in your memories so you can create new memories with new sensations. And that however you come through, whether through kink and/or abstinence, silence and/or exposure, stillness and/or creativity, abandonment of what you grew up in and/or discovery of something else to mature in, that you come through on your terms, to your health, and for your recovery.

If you still feel indebted to me and want to return the favour, do this: Live however you damn well feel like living, and we’ll call it good.

I grant permission and encouragement to any and all who wish to reblog and/or repost the above words with the condition that I, Kerian Nox, am not removed as author. I understand how Tumblr ignores posts with external links, so you may link back to this one as your source if necessary.

*resumes exile*

Go all now in peace.

[steviedegrae]

An excerpt from a blog post by Florian Harms, which I can fully subscribe to.

New year, new happiness: these days many people are looking ahead, making new resolutions, wanting to make a fresh start and leave the old behind. When I look around our country, I wish for exactly the opposite: a return to old virtues. One should actually consider them timeless, but they do not seem to be. Whether on the railway station, at the supermarket checkout, on many company boards or in ministries and in parliament: all too often there is a lack of morals, many people seem unable to master even the most banal rules of etiquette. They are no longer chic, they are supposedly no longer up to date. Instead, if you uphold traditional values, you are quickly considered a reactionary redneck. Therefore, this morning a small plea for three supposedly old, but in reality very modern virtues: First, I would like to see more decency. Those who are decent do not enrich themselves at the expense of others and do not exploit the misery of the weaker ones. They do not evade taxes and do not cheat their customers, for example by installing cheating software in cars or selling bad real estate loans. But decency also includes the style of how one presents oneself in public: respectful, polite, or even better, courteous. You let others finish speaking. One does not take the last piece of cake, but offers it to others. You hold the door open for others, even if you don't know each other. You dress decently. Tracksuits belong in the gym, not on the subway. One does not talk down about other people, especially not about whole social groups. "The migrants" or "the Muslims" or even "the women" are not dirty words. People are first and foremost individuals with individual origins, with desires, goals, good and bad characteristics. They are not "them". This does not change even if someone who is currently sitting in the Bundestag or in the White House and abuses his office to insult the weaker ones and claims the opposite. Secondly, I would like to see more sincerity. This beautiful virtue makes us shine everywhere: in everyday life, in the family, at work, in politics too. I don't know about you, but I have learned from experience that the best way to go forward is to be honest and to admit your own mistakes. Not everyone, but many people have a keen sense of when someone is acting authentically - and when you are fooling them. If, for example, a transport minister who has robbed taxpayers of half a billion euros were to take this virtue seriously, he would have resigned long ago instead of saving himself with excuses over the months. In this way, however, he not only damages his reputation and his party, but also the reputation of politics as a whole. Those up there do what they want, they are only interested in their career: that is the distorted image that Andreas Scheuer confirms anew with every day he spends in his ministerial chair. If, on the other hand, his party leader placed value on honesty, he would not shoot his old rival by demanding a rejuvenation of Merkel's cabinet - without daring to mention Horst Seehofer's name. Instead, he would seek an in-depth one-on-one conversation with Seehofer to explain to him that his best days are behind him and that Germany needs more drive and new ideas. Instead, Markus Söder once again focuses on tactical games. That is dishonest. Thirdly, I want moderation. I'm by no means the first, as Aristotle already counted it among the seven virtues. But today it is more necessary than ever: in world politics as well as in our everyday lives. When shopping (do we really need the fifth sweater or do we only buy it because we are bored?), when eating and drinking (everybody knows that, especially after Christmas), but why not also when it comes to CO2 consumption? Does the city trip to London really have to be? The holiday in America? Just for a single meeting with the plane from Berlin to Cologne? Do we have to drive to the supermarket every Saturday, because it's just more comfortable than riding a bike? Do we need meat on our plates every day, even though factory farming is at the expense of animals and the climate? Do we really need a new smartphone every two years, stuffed with expensive chips and rare metals, and the latest sneaker model, do we also need it because the advertising tells us that we need it badly, even though the two old pairs are still standing in the cupboard?

Would it not be here and now, at the beginning of 2020, when most people have finally understood that we have long since been living beyond our means and cannot go on like this if we do not want to ruin this planet completely, is it not time that we resolved to be moderate, at least a little bit, but just: each and every one of us? I can't take your answer. You have to give it to yourself. But what would be decent and moderate is not too difficult to see, I think. At least if you're honest and don't kid yourself.

I hope the translation is OK. And no, I will not discuss this.

[ereri-lost-and-found]

Heyy so first of all I wanted to tell you guys that your blog is so good ! Aaah it's nice to have so many people willing to dedicate themselves to help fans find ereri fics :') and your 100th follower giveaway !! You are just adorable

Why, hello there little Strawberry! Your kind words just put you on our ‘nice’ list! These ereri elves were determined to make you a list that makes it feel like the Holidays! Please take a peek below for an early Christmas gift from us to you; we won’t tell Santa!

While this is our first list of Christmas fics, please feel free to comment below and share with us some of your favorites! Tis the season to share ereri, fa la la la la fa la la la. 🎶🎄🦌⛄

A Christmas Carol by FraBee

(Rated E, 22 456words, complete)

Levi Ackerman hated a lot of things: people, dirt, noise, crowded spaces, wasting his money on things like paying his employees, getting together with his relatives…But there came a time of they year in which all these things came together, a time he despised with a passion: Christmas.Which was, undoubtedly, the dumbest, most expensive and irritating holiday of them all.So, like every year, he refused to go spend time with his nephew (Farlan Church) and made his secretary (Eren Jaeger) stay in the office ‘till late on Christmas Eve, not caring if the younger had plans that night.He knew everyone hated him, avoided him, but that’s exactly what Levi wanted: to be left alone.But on that Christmas Eve the spirit of his dead colleague (Erwin Smith) and three others (Historia Reiss as the ghost of Christmas past, Sasha Brauss as the ghost of Christmas present, and I have no idea who the ghost of Christmas to Come is) will change his mind, but most importantly his heart.

a modern day christmas carol by acidtowns (Rated T,10 774 words, complete)

Three spirits visit Levi on Christmas Eve to tell him to get his life together.

Christmas at the Ackermans by zhedang (Rated T, 8 611words, complete)

An incredibly self-indulgent fic in which Mikasa asks Eren to do her a favor and go pick up her “sort of” cousin Levi from the airport and oh no, he’s hot.

Christmas Cleaning by raindrop_rouge (Rated G,2 361 words, complete)

Christmas has come and gone, and Levi only has one thing in mind: cleaning up. Eren, however, does not seem 100% devoted to cooperating.

Baby It’s Cold Outside! by ReluctantHero (Not Rated, 8 603words, complete)

Eren has been a huge fan of Actor Levi Ackerman since he was a child.Now he’s doing his first big roll on a TV Christmas movie and get to work with his long time idol.Will they hit it off?

sit it out by elliewritesthings (Rated T, 14 081words, complete)

However, when he steps out from between the shelves he freezes in place, brows furrowing as he stares at the chair, his chair, that’s currently being occupied by someone that is not him.Well, that’s unusual, he thinks. During the current semester, Eren has never seen anyone sitting in his chair. In fact, the seats by the window are rarely taken, and even now there are plenty of available ones just few feet away, but Eren wants this one. Annoyance bubbles up inside him as he glares at the person who’d so rudely stolen his chair. Though all he can see is the back of the guy’s head, Eren can tell that he’s a grade A asshole.

Sweeter Than Expected by inkshaming (Not Rated, 18 144words, complete)

Though he had the best of intentions, Levi finds himself out of his depth when it comes to expressing his new-found affection for a college student who’s a little down on his luck. He’s about to find out that, when it comes to Eren, there’s really no such thing as ‘too sweet.’An Accidental Sugar-Daddy AU.

home for christmas by elliewritesthings (Rated M,7 069words, complete)

He’s so not over it, Levi surmises, slumping down on the table as he keeps stealing glances in Eren’s direction. Damn it, the man has only gotten more handsome while he’s been gone, that bright, beaming smile and those lively eyes making Levi’s heart beat faster even though he’s all the way on the other side of the room. There are a couple of new gray hairs at his temples, and Levi figures it tells quite a lot about him that he’s able to spot something that minor from across the room. Coming back had been a terrible mistake because he can feel himself falling all over again and it’s even worse the second time around - he’s an adult now, for fuck’s sake, and it’s downright ridiculous that he’s still not over his little crush.

Homebound by Gootbuttheichou (Rated E,6 546words, complete)

When Michigan is hit by a blizzard, Levi and Eren find that they are unable to fly back to their home state for Christmas- so they make do by celebrating it on their own.

Murphy Christmas by SimplyTsundere (Rated T, 5 739words, complete)

After adopting two unfortunately mischievous kittens, Veterinarian Eren Jaeger discovers his new neighbor isn’t the most friendly person when he gets awoken by kittens screaming in his face. The straight-laced, attractive man scoffs at his presence and goes on about his morning. Eren feels terrible for the first impression and decides that he should apologize properly: with some wine. He returns that afternoon to apologize only to wind up in a series of unfortunate events. Little did he know that his fateful meeting would lead to much more than a bloody nose, a glass of wine, and a proposition.

Check Me Out by Attack_On_Feelings (delsol) (Rated E, 6 219words, complete)

Itchy green polos, bailing coworkers, rude suburban moms, and one very attractive costumer.Based on the prompt: Some asshole customer is screaming at you for doing your job and I can tell that you really want to yell back but I’m assuming you can’t so excuse me I’ll do it for you

Wasabi, Or All the Things We Leave Behind by Silicu (silmil) (Rated M,4 916words, complete)

Levi hates Chriastmas, Eren loves hot chocolate, Hanji is going to suffer and Mikasa is creepy. Oh, and Erwin and Armin might take over the world.

Late Night Coffee by iStygianEmpress (iDarkEmpress) (Rated T,7 390words, complete)

For days, Levi has been receiving gifts from an anonymous sender.  He doesn’t have any idea about who the sender is, but whoever it is seems to know him very well.Levi also has a crush on Eren Yeager, his daily late night customer who seems to worm his way to his heart.Gifts, jealousy and couple sweaters ensues.Who knows? It may become his warmest Christmas.

Endearing Proposal by sweetkokoro (Rated M,3 151words, complete)

Levi and Eren spend their Christmas Eve in downtown Chicago. They’re in Navy Pier and do many fun activities. Towards the end of the day they head towards the big Christmas tree and there, Eren makes an endearing proposal.

Frozen Nipples by BreadHood (Rated G,902words, complete)

Winter is coldHange is annoyingLevi is pissedand his nipples are frozenso why not look for a boyfriend along the way?

Holiday Happenstance by slugworthingtonjr (Not Rated,3 551words, complete)

Eren always waits until the last minute to do his Christmas shopping, and it always sucks. This year however, he manages to collide with another shopper, sending the man’s coffee everywhere. It should’ve made the night worse, but somehow it made it better.

Titan Trees by sciencefictioness (Rated M,5 492 words, complete)

Eren found the perfect Christmas tree for the house. Or he thought he had, until Levi shot him down brutally. Now Levi needs to find a way to make it up to Eren.

C'est la vieby joouheika (Rated E, 11 641 words, complete)

Eren’s cousin Krista just had to come out on Christmas day.

Of Mistletoe and Shitty Fake Boyfriends by TheSpazzBot (Rated T, 13 819words, complete)

Eren wouldn’t say they were friends. Hell, he wouldn’t even say they were acquaintances. But he supposes that ‘Fake Boyfriend’ does have a ring to it.