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greenorangevioletgrass · 6 months

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give me a minute (2/2) | chef luca

pairing: chef luca x ex-wife!reader word count: 6.6k warnings: established former relationship, discussions of separation and divorce, discussions of moving on, luca and reader has a son, brief mention of blood and minor injury, smut 18+ (fingering, oral (f receiving), unprotected sex, size kink? idk luca's big, dirty talk, creampie) notes: it's finally here! thank you everyone for your patience, i am a slow writer by nature and life gets in the way, but i finally got around to finish it! happy reading, and do comment, reblog, and send me asks to tell me what you think <;3 ✨follow @ficsbygreenorangevioletgrass and turn on the notifications to get alerted for my latest fics ✨

<<< read part 1 here >>>

06.13 PM

Your apartment has never felt so claustrophobic after that little moment you shared with Luca. You try to stay busy in the next hour —tidying up Alfie’s room even after he made it up, checking your email four times, even doing the laundry, for fuck’s sake— as Luca keeps to himself in the kitchen area. Whether Alfie is obliviously enjoying his screen time or purposely ignoring the weird tension between his parents, you’re not entirely sure. Right now, you’re just grateful that he’s not saying anything at the moment.

The boy simply creeps up to the kitchen counter with a shy eagerness about him. “How long ‘til dinner, Dad?”

“3 more minutes, Chef,” Luca answers, focused on the task at hand, so poker-faced that it makes his son giggle.

“I’m not a chef, you’re a chef!”

“Well, where I work, we call everyone in the kitchen ‘chef.’ Out of respect.”

Alfie climbs onto the dining bench in interest, peering up to watch his father set the dish on the plates meticulously. Luca doesn’t miss how the boy deeply inhales the delicious smell in the air.

“Smells yummy.”

“Thank you,” Luca replies, his excitement seems muted although his heart is soaring. He looks up to find Alfie staring at the plate, chin propped up on his little fist. You’ve always said that he looks just like his dad, but in that moment, Luca only sees you. Alfie has the way your mouth tugs ever so slightly into a smile, the way your eyes shine in childlike wonder. In quiet thoughtfulness.

No Michelin star, earned or retained, would ever amount to this.

“Can you go get your mum and tell her dinner’s ready, please?” He softly asks Alfie, as if not wanting to disrupt this peaceful silence. “Thank you, Chef.”

“Yes, chef.” The six-year-old salutes him and pads over to your home office, which doubles as the guest bedroom. The door is open, and he sees you reorganizing the linen closet with your back to him. He hugs you from behind, startling you.

“Oh!” You put your hand on his head, stroking him lightly. “Hey, bub.”

“Daddy told me to come get you and say dinner’s ready.”

“Gotcha. Thank you.” You half-expect him to run off like he usually does, but he lingers, his arms still wrapped around you. “What’s up, bubbie?”

“Nothing.” He buries his face against your side. “Love you, Mommy.”

“I love you too, bubbie.” This makes you smile, pleasantly surprised at this seemingly random admission.

“Love Daddy too, but don’t tell him that,” he whispers as he looks up at you, putting his forefinger in front of his mouth.

“Why not?”

“Sometimes he gets sad when I say that,” he murmurs. “He doesn’t tell me, but I know it.”

Oh. His playful exterior sometimes makes you forget just how emotionally sensitive he is. And it breaks your heart that he can see through the complicated adult emotions with his childlike eyes.

“Alfie…” you level with him and pull him closer, “Your dad loves you very very much, and I’m sure he’d be happy to hear you say that. He’s just sad because… he’s been away, and he misses you a lot.”

“He should come home, then.”

It’s so simple, the way Alfie puts it. His Dad comes home and reunites with him and you, and his puzzle would piece together perfectly again. And you all live happily ever after. The end.

The truth, of course, is not so simple. But maybe, just for tonight… Maybe you and Luca can sacrifice a few of your own puzzle pieces. For your baby boy.

So you get back on your feet and guide your son out of the room. “Come on, bub. Let’s see what Daddy cooked for us, hm?”

When you and Alfie turn the corner into the kitchen-living area, Luca is wiping the side of the plate neatly. He smiles at you somewhat nervously, like he’s not sure what to do with himself, so you throw him the figurative olive branch.

“Smells amazing,” you compliment him as you and Alfie take your seats. “What are we having, Chef?”

Luca’s eyes light up and your heart stops. You stopped calling him ‘Chef’ long ago, when the moniker became synonymous with workaholism and neglect. But there’s no venom in the way you say it tonight. Call him sentimental, but it reminds him of the early summer days in the tiny apartment you first shared in Chicago.

Of blueberry pies and barely there bumps.

He has to remind himself that this whole ‘happy family’ shtick is just a charade now, it’s all for Alfie, it doesn’t mean anything for the two of us, but he can’t help but miss this.

And little does he know, so do you.

“Well, buckle up, you guys, because we are having…” He carries the plates over and serves it to you and Alfie with a flourish, “Baked sweet potato wedges with Mediterranean dip, and our pièce-de-résistance… Alfie’s Nuggies.”

It looks nothing short of beautiful, with the wedges fanned out like autumn leaves underneath a colorful burst of cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, and feta cheese. The chicken nuggets are rich golden brown against the brilliant white plate. The splatters of sauce (is that Tahini?) is a hint of thoughtful chaos on the dish.

Your six-year-old let out a little noise of awe and amazement next to you, but no sound escapes you—not for the longest time.

“This is…” you look up at Luca as if he would have the word you’re looking for.

But his blue eyes just look a lot like I love you.

“Thank you,” you ultimately say, with absolutely no pretense whatsoever.

And if he does hear an ‘I love you’ hidden somewhere in there… he hopes he’s not imagining things.

***

08:37 PM

If you could travel just a few hours back in time and tell yourself that you would spend the whole day stuck at home in a nasty storm with your son and his father that you’re divorcing—and that you’d be okay with it, you would’ve probably scheduled yourself an MRI scan because clearly something is wrong.

But the night is winding down. Luca is tucking Alfie into bed for the first time in months. You are washing dishes in the quiet accompaniment of steady rain and running water, and everything feels just right.

“He’s out like a light,” Luca informs you quietly as he reemerges from Alfie’s bedroom and stops right by the kitchen counter. “Need a hand?”

“Nah, I’m just about done,” you casually wave him off. “You want anything to drink?”

“Uh… what do you got?”

“Scotch, gin…” you pause, not wanting him to get the wrong idea. The sink tap squeaks a little as you shut it off. “...wine.”

His heart skips. Don’t overthink it, he reminds himself. “Red or white?”

“Take your pick,” you shrug nonchalantly.

Luca reaches up to see the bottles of wine you have in store, and you try not to pay too much attention as his shirt rides up around the waist—or the sleeve, showing off the remnants of Alfie’s crayon work over his inks… you’re just two co-parents hanging out. It’s normal, right?

“What about the Malbec?” he eventually chooses, taking out the bottle.

He’s always loved Malbec—this particular brand of Malbec you brought him when he first invited you for dinner on your third date.

Don’t overthink it, you remind yourself. “Yeah, sure.”

You pick up two wine glasses and set them down on the dining table, shuffling into the corner bench. Luca settles into the other bench, directly against the kitchen counter, pouring the wine onto both glasses.

“How many bedtime stories did Alfie manage to get out of you?” you pipe up, swirling the purplish liquid around.

“Just one…” he sips on his wine thoughtfully. “Although he made me read it three times.”

You smile, bemused. “Which one was it?”

“‘The Bear Who Did.’”

“Ah, yeah. He’s been into that one lately,” you muse. “But… for what it’s worth, I’m glad he asked you to tuck him in tonight.”

The two of you exchange a soft look. A ceasefire. A truce, at least when it comes to your son. Because you really do want Luca to have a good relationship with Alfie.

“Me too.”

“And I’m sorry you had to… make do with spending the day with Alfie here.”

He shakes his head softly. “Nah, don’t be. I had a good time. It’s nice to just hang out… at home.”

At home, the words echo in your head.

With you, they echo in his, loud and unsaid.

“So, uh… how have you been?”

“Ah, you know how it is. Work is kicking my ass—my current client’s only two blocks away, but the house is a total fixer-upper, and Alfie’s… Alfie.” You don’t want to backtalk your own son, although you both know how trying he can be sometimes. “But it’s all good. My mom helps out with Alfie, and Jess insists that I go out and live a little every now and again.”

“And do you? Live a little?”

“I mean, within reason. I can’t go clubbing ‘til 4am anymore. I think I’m getting old…” you stretch your arms, feeling that soreness just from your daily activities.

Luca grins, raising his glass. “I hear you. I don’t even really go out anymore.”

“Seriously?”

“Mm-hm.”

You make an incredulous face. It would make sense for you not to go out much, with Alfie and everything. But he was alone, abroad… “Why, though?”

He just shrugs lightly. “I’m working. Whenever I’m off, I mostly just… eat or sleep.”

“I somehow find that hard to believe.” You take a dubious sip. You both know how much Luca enjoys grabbing a cheeky pint. He’s British; it’s in his blood, goddammit.

“Oh come on…”

“You don’t even go out drinking or whatever? Meet people?”

His gaze flashes towards you almost playfully. “Do you?”

Your face falls, not expecting to be caught so off-guard with such an innocent question. And upon seeing that, his face falls. Shit. And with that, the air between you shifts so dramatically.

Stupidly, you still try to save the conversation. “Of course my friends and I go out—”

“You know that’s not what I meant.” His voice darkens, his blue eyes piercing through you.

This conversation is a long time coming. It’s a natural progression of your relationship—or the lack thereof. You separate, you get divorced, and eventually you move on. Two years is a more than acceptable time to start dating again. And still, you phrase out your next words very carefully.

“I’ve been on dates here and there…”

Luca sucks in a slow, calculated breath. “Does Alfie know?”

You shake your head. “It’s nothing serious so far.”

He’s not sure what’s worse, the fact that it’s nothing serious, or that you’re holding out for something serious in the future.

“Look, we both know this is happening sooner or later…”

“I know,” he quickly recovers—or as much as he can recover. He just stares down the stem of his glass. “It just… It’s a lot to take in, that’s all.”

“I understand.” The wine feels like gravel down your throat, and the words coming out of your mouth feel like throwing up a boulder.

“Because I do miss you.”

Your eyes immediately dart over to his, as if you’re not sure you heard it right. “Luca…”

“I miss you everyday. I miss us. I miss everything we used to have.”

Your heart catches—no, stops altogether at his admission. “Luca, we can’t do this anymo—”

He swallows thickly, his jaw setting as he braces himself. “I’ve been thinking about it everyday—the whole time I’m away, and frankly, I’m kicking myself over not telling you this sooner.”

“That’s probably just the homesickness talking.” You turn away. This can’t be possible. This can’t be happening. What the fuck?! “It got you reminiscing about the good old days. Give it time, you’ll come around.” You try to maintain a neutral, distant, cold approach to this, although the crack in your voice betrays you.

“No. That’s not it.”

“Then what the fuck is it?”

Your words cut through the quiet apartment like a flash bang. Luca stops dead in his tracks in his shock, and honestly, so do you. Awful silence hushes over the room, and both of you are almost too afraid to break it. Neither of you even dare to move.

After what seems like forever, Luca moves first. A tear escapes his eye, and he wipes it away with his knuckle hurriedly. “Noma should’ve been a dream. And it is, in a way. I guess.” He stares blankly ahead, his life in Copenhagen replaying in his head like it’s on fast-forward, and the playback seems to just highlight how lonely he is there. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m utterly miserable there. I get up and go to work and I just feel empty. Because what’s the point? You and Alfie are way over here, being a family while I’m… doing what?” He wants to tear his hair out, because this is everything he’s dreamed of, and yet he is living the stuff of nightmares. “It makes no fucking sense.”

It makes even less sense to you. You can’t even begin to process this tangled mess in your head. “Luca… we are almost officially divorced. You’re telling me this now? When everything is—”

“I thought I was doing what was best for you. I thought I should just… let you cut your losses and—”

“The best for me? How the fuck did you think giving up was the best way forward for me?” The thought of it burns your eyes with angry tears. They melt, and you don’t do a thing to stop it from running down your face. “You didn’t think to fight for us while you still could?”

Luca’s heart aches to see that. He is dying to reach out and wipe them away, but he can’t. His voice is quiet and small and almost childlike. “I tried. You were just so… sure about the divorce. You had it all figured out. And I… I thought you had no room for me anymore.”

“I had to keep it together. I had to figure it out—for Alfie’s sake. For mine.” You stare at your little potted sunflower on the windowsill. “I don’t see the point in being vulnerable with you anymore when you’re already set on leaving.”

The words have run out. The whirlwind of emotions has passed. What he feels and what he wants is now very clear.

“I shouldn’t have left.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have.” You wished he didn’t. Everyday for the last two years. And everyday you set yourself up for disappointment because, the truth of the matter is, he did leave. So you stop wishing. “Because I don’t know how to come back from this. I really don’t.”

Nothing that comes out of your mouth is unexpected. But it doesn’t hurt any less to hear it from the horse’s mouth. “It’s just… seeing you guys today… We were a family again. And I would do anything for us to be a family again. Please.”

You sigh heavily. “What else is there to do, Luca…?”

“We can, I don’t know, figure something out, go to couples counseling—”

You groan in frustration, Jesus Christ not this again, wanting to tear your hair out when— CRASH! You accidentally knock over your wine glass and it shatters as it hits the floor. “Shit…”

“Mommy?” Alfie calls you from inside his room, sleepy but alert.

The two of you freeze just before you can move out of your seat. Afraid the slightest of noises would rattle your son.

“Yes, bubbie?” you try to sound bright and normal. Maybe if you can convince him that everything’s fine, he won’t come running in panic.

“What was that?”

“I just knocked over a glass, kiddo, everything’s okay. Go back to sleep.”

You and Luca wait a few seconds with bated breath. One, two, three… ten seconds go by, and there’s no movement in the bedroom.

The coast is clear.

You scramble down to pick up the shards of glass. The spilled wine looks like blood in the dim light of the room. It’s a painful reminder of the broken pieces of your former life, the casualties. He quickly follows suit, as if struggling to put it all back together. The irony is not lost on either of you, you’re sure of that.

“It’s fine, Luca. I got it, I—” a sharp piece of glass accidentally cuts your palm as you pick it up in hurry. “Fuck!”

“You okay?” He takes your hand as quick as lightning, wanting to inspect the wound, but you snatch it away.

“I’m fine.” You get up on your feet, teetering over to the sink, away from the crime scene, careful not to step on any piece of glass.

Yet he still follows you, walking over to where you’re standing now. “Come on. Let me just take a look.” He reaches out to your wrist, running little circles with his thumb to ease your grasp.

“It’s not a big deal…” you let him look anyway, you figure it’s easier to just let him do his thing than to argue your way out of it.

His calluses are brittle against your palm, but he handles you with the gentlest touch. The wound is not too big or too deep, but the sight of blood marring your palm makes his heart drop. There’s no visible piece stuck to it, that’s a good sign, he thinks. He rips off some paper towel and wets it on the sink, and softly dab at the gash, cleaning the wound and wiping the blood off.

You grit your teeth, not wanting to show any sign of pain although it stings. “It’s just a little cut…” your tone bears less and less conviction, as if you have no energy left to argue with him on such a small matter.

There’s a very particular way his eyebrows arch when he’s deep in thought. The left one always sits slightly higher than the right. Blue eyes fixed on the object of his focus. A minute gesture behind the chaos in his head. “You need a Band-Aid,” he points out.

“It’s in the—”

Luca is already opening the drawer next to the stove, taking out a packet of a Star Wars-themed Band-Aid. He still remembers where everything is, and you can’t tell whether the ache in your chest is a good or bad thing.

He puts the Band-Aid on your cut, then takes your hand close to kiss it better, like he used to do.

“Um.” You freeze in your tracks, taken aback. And it seems he’s just as equally as taken aback by his own action. He is flushed with embarrassment, and you feel your face growing hot as well.

He’s the first to break the awkward silence, quiet and tentative. “I’ll clean up the mess. You just hang tight.”

It seems so mundane, sweeping broken glass and cleaning the floor. His body registers it as a simple muscle memory—he must’ve cleaned up messes on this very spot a million times. But his heart is heavy with the burden of your history, and all the pain that comes with your separation. He might not be able to put the pieces back together, but maybe he can clean up the mess and make it nice again for you.

And all the while, you’re stuck to the kitchen counter, watching him so effortlessly reacquainted with his former home. It’s as if he never left. For a confusing moment, it feels like home again. How did you manage without this view, this presence for so long?

Luca puts away the debris in the trash, hidden away in another kitchen drawer next to you, and hovers in front of you, as if wanting to reach out and touch you… but too afraid you’ll push him away.

“Does it still hurt?”

You can’t tear your eyes off of his. The little cut on your hand is but a dull ache now, but the insides of your chest feels like it’s been mangled beyond repair. You burst into tears, sobs ripping through the seams.

His arms wrap around you, keeping your tattered pieces together. Your face is buried in his chest, surrounded by soft cotton and earthy perfume, and your first thought is you can’t remember the last time you were in his arms like this. You rake your mind through all the memories, all the times you hugged each other hello and goodbye and all the times in between, and you can’t remember the last time you stopped, why would you stop—

“My love…” Luca’s voice soothes you, so quietly murmured against your forehead with a soft kiss, yet rings so clear in your ears. He cups your face with both hands, wiping the tears away with his thumbs. “It’s okay... I got you.”

The palm of his hand grazes your lips, and you kiss it the way he kisses your Band-Aid earlier. You have no energy left to fight whatever is going on inside you. You don’t understand the nagging urge to be away from him, when being close to him feels this good. You miss his touch and his voice and his face, and you’re so overwhelmed with longing that you close the distance between your lips and his.

Luca gasps when you kiss him—and it feels like the first breath he’s drawn in two years. Your lips are just as he remembers, just as warm and inviting and familiar, and he relishes coming home to them tonight. He didn’t think he would be so lucky ever again, but now you’re here, kissing life back into him again.

Against your better judgment, you stumble into the bedroom, careful to make as little sound as possible as you tread down the hallway. Still tangled in each other. Refusing to let go even for a second. His five o’clock shadow scratches your skin, following the trail of his lips down your neck.

You push him into bed and climb on top of him without a single thought. You need him close, closer than the past two years, closer than now, and your clothes feel like they’re in the way. Of his hands, of his mouth, of his warmth…

You tear your dress off and throw it away, and he stops in his tracks. He has every part of you memorized, every curve and every ridge, every notch of your stretch marks, every inch of your C-section scar from Alfie’s birth… and yet he’s looking at you for the first time all over again.

“Beautiful…” it escapes his mouth just like that, and you kiss him senseless in return. You worry that if you stop, the moment will pass and this whole thing turns out to be just an illusion.

Or worse, a mistake.

You tug his t-shirt over his head, trying not to linger on his broad chest too long. He gets the idea—he is dying to say something, but doesn’t—and just unclasps your bra in response. He keeps his mouth busy by kissing and licking and sucking your newly exposed breasts.

It’s not that you haven’t been touched like this in a while; it’s just that you haven’t been touched by him like this for so long.. “Luca…”

He never thought he’d hear that again. His name in a wanton sigh, uttered by the lost love of his life. He’s not one to waste his chance. “It’s okay. I got you, my love. I got you.”

Because for the first time in a long time, it’s true. He’s got you. He’s got your body underneath him, your nipple in his mouth, your sweet sex in his hand.

God.

You’re so soft, so warm, so wet against his fingers. The little stuttered moan you let out sounds absolutely heavenly. He remembers exactly the last time he was here.

Christmas Eve, two years ago.

Things had been tense long before that, but Luca was home and able to spend some time with his wife and kid at last. You didn’t seem all that chuffed having him around—whether he was here or not brought out that “neutral look of displeasure” from you these days— but at least you didn’t pull away when he rested his head on your shoulder as the three of you watched Jurassic Park (Alfie’s all-time favorite). Didn’t roll your eyes and turn away when he kissed you and wished you happy Christmas before bed.

And he wanted so desperately for you to openly want him again.

So he tentatively deepened the kiss and reiterated his love for you in every inch of your body that he could get his hands on. Trying to convince you that he was still here. Trying to convince himself that with every orgasm he pried out of you, that you still wanted him there.

But you just… laid there and watched. Hands locked in on the sheets, not even touching him. Motionless as he went through the motions of his thrusts. Numb as he touched and kissed and fucked you the way you used to like. He was fighting a losing battle. He might as well have been making love to a ghost.

“Luca…” Your breathless voice snaps him out of his own intrusive thoughts, more clear and alive and real than any memory of you posing no desire for him.

“I— yeah, sorry. I just…” he shakes off his own thoughts.

“Hurry up, come on…” you needily thrust yourself into his hand.

“You sure?”

No, and neither does he. But at this point, you’re much too stubborn about your decision in the divorce and much too prideful to admit that you want him back and maybe just a tad too eager to make a mistake with him.

So you nod your head yes, and with a searing kiss, he fingerfucks you the way you needed him to.

“Oh, God… fuck…” you sigh under the undoing of his fingers. It’s like he never forgot how to work your body. His fingers play a pattern on your clit that makes you sing. And when one slides into you, crooking and curling against your silky heat…

“Luca, I— now.”

He unlatches his mouth from your nipple almost begrudgingly, as if too sweet to part with you. “Not yet, baby. We can’t…”

“What, why?”

“Because…” he nips at the smooth flesh of your chest thoughtfully. How can he explain it to you in a way that makes sense? “I want…” to take as much time with you as possible, he adds another finger inside you deliciously slow. “I need…” to feel you in every way first, he chants in his head as he kisses you through your orgasm.

Your resolve is slipping, but the craving is as ravenous as ever. You try to squirm in protest anyway. “But…”

“Please.” His lips press against your forehead, eyes squeezed shut. “I got you, okay?”

His blue eyes meet yours, as familiar as the sky you’ve walked under your whole life. As sure as day. And before you realize it, you find yourself nodding along.

Watching him slither further down your body. Mouth paving the way between the valleys of your breasts, up the diamond-hard tops of your nipples.

Down your torso.

Between your nether lips.

You don’t remember the last time you did this either. Memories of attempts to rekindle the romance flash before your eyes. The nights that he climbed into bed late at night after work, still smelling like chocolate or mint or whatever ingredient he was working with that day. Waking you up with the parting of your legs and hushed kisses saying, “Missed you so much, baby…”

“Right there. Yes…” you pant as he laps you up where you’re dripping, catching every drop and coaxing more at the same time.

His eyes close, and he swallows back a needy groan. “Come for me, baby.”

The words shoot right into your core, and you’re suddenly overcome with the waves of pleasure running through you, grinding your hips into his mouth shamelessly. Has he always been so greedy in the way he ate you out?

Your head is spinning with need and you hope the broken words you string up are comprehensible enough for him. “Luca, come on, I can’t—”

“No, please—” he seems to understand just fine, but still he shakes his head and buries his face deeper into you.

“Luca…”

“Wait, just let me—”

So insistent. So stubborn. So… needy. You grasp a fistful of hair on the back of his head. Both heaving, you breathe out,

“Please.”

The word stops him in his tracks. But it’s not so much the word as it is the gravity that comes with it. Whatever the two of you are doing, whatever you’re feeling is beyond words at this point.

It’s just you and him and this need.

And as much as he wants—needs— to satisfy his hunger, there’s just no way of stopping you anymore. Truth be told, he’s not even sure why he’s been stalling you in the first place. Not when you’re so eager to tug his clothes off and touch him absolutely everywhere. To stroke him, and taste him…

“No, baby.” He stops you just before you slither down his body, settling you back on the bed and caging you underneath him.

You throw him a look, indignant. If he’s gonna hold it off some more, you swear to God—

“No, I…” he kisses you hard, hoping you’ll get that he wants you too. More than anything. And that he’ll give you what you want. Hell, he would give you anything if he could come back to this again for the rest of his life. “Just trust me, okay?”

You marvel at the sight before you. So tall and broad and sturdy. With dark blond locks tousled in passion and eyes lidded from lust and longing, and it makes your heart stop because… there it is.

Love.

As much as you shut it out and as much as you avoid it, love is permanently etched to his actions. Tattooed onto the smallest of things. In the way he kisses your temple softly, and the way he caresses your skin as he aligns himself against you, and the way he holds you as he pushes in…

“Luca…” you gasp sharply.

He stops halfway into you, his eyes searching your face with compassion. “You okay?”

You’re aching and craving the stretch of him all at once, but you wouldn’t have it any other way, so you ultimately nod your head. I’m okay.

And he knows that deep down. He feels the same. Soothed and tormented by your very presence, although he can’t help but ask, “Do you want me to stop?” Please don’t ask me to stop…

You shake your head quickly. Neither of you would ever dream of it. You would take everything—the weight and the sting of it all— and he would leave everything behind just to have this again.

Your hips colliding again in a frenzy of a rhythm you haven’t played in so long—still remembering every beat like it’s your own pulse. Your walls gripping him like you wouldn’t let him go.

He shudders a little. “I’m gonna come if you keep doing that…”

“I don’t care,” you murmur into his neck with a kiss, “Come.”

“What…?” He can’t have heard that right… right?

“I want you to.”

“Jesus…” he breathes out. “I wanna make this last, baby—”

You shake your head again and wrap your legs around him almost demandingly. “I want you to come inside me and fill me the fuck up… want you dripping down my legs… please…”

“Fuck!” The images flash before his eyes faster than he can stop his hands from grabbing you by the hips, slamming himself into you.

Nor can he stop himself from coming deep inside you.

There’s no way to describe the way he feels at that moment. The way tension peaks and snaps into release. How it brings you into your climax as well. Your lips must be swollen from the assault of your own teeth as you hold back the filthy noises coming out of you. You don’t mind the building ache in your thigh muscles, because as soon as that warmth fills you up, your body is overcome by waves of bliss.

“Fuck…” he flops back onto his side of the bed—the right side—and quickly gathers you in his chest. It’s an effortless little maneuver, making sense at last as you lay half on top of him.

Your hand finds his—more puzzle pieces coming together as he fills the spaces between your fingers. You bring it to your lips, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. Surprised to find the gold wedding band still adorning his ring finger.

***

9:56 PM

“Was that really your first time since we… you know?” Your murmured question rings loud in the absence of the rain. The storm has finally passed, but neither of you move—neither even dare to bring it up— afraid to ruin the moment.

“It was.”

“Not even in a casual, ‘no strings attached’ kind of situation?”

“No.” He looks almost embarrassed to admit it, but there is no hesitation in his answer.

“Wow…” your heart sinks. Is it possible to feel good and bad at the same time?

Luca pauses for a moment. You can see the conflict brewing in his head. “Did you?”

You don’t have to answer. The sheer silence you take is an answer enough.

The confirmation feels like shit, but he tries to stay neutral. His thumb stills on the back of your hand. “Can I ask how many?”

“Gosh, does that even matter?” You sigh. There’s another argument coming—you can feel it.

“No, I just… I wanna know.”

“You don’t really wanna know.”

“Is it a lot?”

“I mean…”

“How many?”

You take in a sharp breath. There’s no way out of this now. If the truth is what he wants, then the truth is what he shall get. “Twelve.”

He tenses up next to you. The whole world stops, and you can’t help but think, it’s over. There is no way this marriage is salvageable now. “What…?”

“I know that it’s a big number, and I know you might be upset—”

“That is a big number.” He doesn’t say anything about the latter part of her sentence, but it’s obvious that he’s upset, too. “I just… why?”

“I was trying to get over you.” It’s a pathetic answer, but that’s all it is to it. “I couldn’t sleep in this bed for months. I just couldn’t. Slept on the guest bed instead,” you motion at the next room, “and then one day, I couldn’t take it anymore. It’s like a switch flipped inside my brain, and I needed to—”

“What?”

“I needed to… overwrite the memories of you,” you admit feebly. “On this bed. On my body.”

Knife, meet heart. He’s not sure what answer he was expecting, but whatever it was, this hurts so much more. “And did it work?”

“Up to a point…” you pause, a sad smile in realization. “It’s funny. I keep getting bits and pieces of you somehow.”

“What do you mean?”

You close your eyes, your memories flashing, reminding you that every single time reminds you of Luca one way or another. “It’s… somebody’s perfume, or the timbre of their voice, or the way they hold my hand…”

“And you see me in them?”

“Every single one.”

“Jesus…” Luca finds himself relieved and choked up at the same time. He doesn’t want you to ever get rid of your memories of him, but at the same time, it’s painful to hear that you tried anyway.

And you tried very hard.

“I’m sorry.”

He hums, and you realize… he hasn’t let go of your hand. Not once. Not even after your little confession. It makes the argument easier, knowing he’s there. It’ll be easier to part with him again after tonight, you hope, knowing you both did your best to understand. Why you needed to be apart. Why you did the things you did.

The armor has been shed, and the two of you are now naked, in every sense of the word.

Luca turns to look at you, studying your profile. He remembers the last time he was here.

He had just told you about Denmark. Stupid of him to feel excited, to tell you he’d just been offered his dream job, to ask you and Alfie to move someplace new with him, because it turned into a fight.

Worse than a fight; it was a death sentence.

You turned away and stared at the ceiling, and told him you couldn’t do this anymore.

And in some fucked up way, Luca feels as if he’d been brought back in time, and this is his one chance to make it right. So he asks you,

“Do you still love me?”

You breathe out, heart clenching because in spite of yourself, “I do.”

“Do you want us to try again?”

“Luca…” you sigh heavily, “How would that even work? Alfie and I are here, and you have Noma–”

“No more Noma. I’m giving that up.” The answer is straightforward, and he surprises himself over how easily it rolls off of his tongue. How right.

“What? You wouldn’t…” Your face falls as you turn to him.

“I would. And I am,” he says firmly. “Look, I’ve thought about this for months now. I can’t do Noma anymore, I need to be home.” His gaze softens, and you feel the pattern running on the back of your hand again.

Slow and steady and certain.

The tear rolls off the corner of your eye and onto the pillow with the tiniest drop. “I wanted you to come home…”

“Then let me come home. Please?”

“I want to. I just…” you reach out and cup his face tentatively. “I just want to make sure that we’re not doing anything rash.”

His eyes light up. The only thing that matters is that you want him home, too. It takes him everything to let his logical part of the brain take control. “How about this, then?” Luca pauses thoughtfully. “We’ll take a minute. For me to sort out everything at Noma, find a replacement… and for us to figure out if this is really what we wanna do.

“If it starts to feel like a bad idea, maybe we should rethink it. But if it feels good… maybe we can give it another shot.

“And in the meantime, we’ll talk. We’ll FaceTime and… figure out what the hell to say to our lawyers.”

That makes you grimace. You were supposed to have another meeting with your divorce lawyers. Tomorrow is going to be awkward. But awkward beats saying goodbye to the man you’ve always loved, right? It’s a small price to pay.

“What do you say, baby?” He looks at you with all the hope that he has. “Just give me a minute to get everything sorted and then I’ll come home.”

You smile tearfully. “A minute is not enough… how about a month, hm?”

“Yeah, that makes more sense, actually.” He chuckles sheepishly. “A month. I can do that.”

“Good.” You sidle up to him and kiss him where his heart is. You’re willing to settle for having him just for the night, but you can’t wait until he comes home to you for good.

You hope he will.

#will poulter #chef luca #luca the bear #the bear fx #chef luca x reader #luca x reader #chef luca x ex-wife!reader #chef luca fic #chef luca smut #will poulter fic #will poulter smut #ava writes

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alpha-mag-media · 6 months

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lovebugism · 1 year

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how about "are you comfortable?" with stevie and he's just being really needy with reader

✶ ┄ PUPPY !

summary: steve isn't just needy, he's downright insatiable, and he'll take you any way you’ll let him. pairing: sub!steve harrington / f!reader word count: 1.5k warnings: sub steve always needs his own warning, dry humping, r calls steve "puppy" once (spoiler alert: he likes it), smut 18+ a/n: thanks for your request, anon, and for giving me more oppurtunities to write sub!stevie <3

( BLURB SLEEPOVER ) | ( MASTERLIST )

Steve Harrington was a sweetheart — the sweetest of sweethearts.

All boyfriends were supposed to be nice, but he was perfect and then some. He’s made of marshmallow fluff, all gooey and saccharine. He loves you so much that it’s got him dripping honey.

It’s sweet. He’s sweet. But sometimes all of his mushy goodness is suffocating.

He’s always needing you. It’s like if he’s not touching you, he might die. Most of the time, it’s purely innocent — a hand on your back to keep you close, an arm around your shoulder to press you into him, fingers spread on your thigh to keep you tethered to him.

But there’s always another side of that coin, a far dirtier side, that has him rutting up against you like a damn dog.

Freshly showered and winding down for the night, you lie in the middle of your shared bed on your stomach while you flip through a too big novel.

Steve watches you from the doorway. His step stutters when he catches sight of you. It leaves him frozen where he stands.

Your underwear isn’t anything special, a cotton number he’s seen about a thousand times before, that leaves more of your ass covered than not. Your tank top is possibly older and decorated with a number of dubious stains you've never been able to get out.

And it's not like you’re in the sexiest of positions either, posed in wait for his arrival. It's quite the opposite really. You’re lazing and in your own world, totally sucked into the book you’re reading.

He might've been offended that you didn’t wait for him to come around so you could read to him like you always do, if he weren’t so incredibly hard at the sight of you.

Steve isn’t quite sure how someone could be doing something so mundane, at their most comfortable and more at peace than he’d ever seen, and still be so goddamn beautiful.

It’s just not fair.

He clamors on top of you without saying a word. He presses his nose to your neck, sprinkling tiny kisses onto your skin, while he grinds his hard cock into your ass.

His sweatpants-covered hips drag into you all slow — the feeling makes him exhale sharply in the place of a low moan. Chill bumps erupt at your skin, at the feeling of his warm breath fanning across your shoulder, and the gratification of your boy finding you so irresistible.

It’d be too easy, to roll over and let him take you like he wants. You don’t give in so freely. You rarely ever do. Instead, you take to teasing him, mocking him, because you know he likes that just as much as you simply giving yourself to him.

“Are you comfortable?” you monotone as he rests the bulk of his weight on you.

“C’mon, baby, please,” he all but begs. “I’ll even take a handjob, I just— fuck, you don’t know how hard I am right now.”

“I think I have an idea,” you scoff out a laugh and flip the page, trying your best to ignore the throbbing cock he presses against your ass. “You’re insatiable, you know that?”

“I just love you,” he mumbles into your neck, punctuating his admission with a kiss.

“Yeah?”

“Mm-hmm…”

You laugh softly to yourself, several exhales through your nose, at the way he ruts into you all needy.

His cock is still prevalent through the thin layers both of you wear, warm and so incredibly hard. You still feel so much of him despite the fabric that separates you. You can tell he went without underwear for the night. It makes the raging hard-on he has for you, that much more prevalent.

It makes you wonder if it hurts. If the stiffness brings about a throbbing and ravenous ache.

“Flattery goes a long way with me, Harrington,” you purr.

You feel his smile contort against the skin of your neck, all proud of himself because he thinks he’s gotten you to concede. “Yeah?” he mumbles before pressing another wet kiss to your shoulder.

“Yep,” you assure. You turn your neck to look at him over your shoulder and it forces him to leave the refuge of you. He’s lit up with anticipation. You’ve got a playful glint in your eye that excites him. “So you can do whatever you want—”

“I like the sound of that.”

“—But you have to keep your pants on.”

His hips still. The smirk on his face washes away like an ebbing tide. His face contorts into a look of confusion — bushy brows furrowed, nose scrunched, and lips quirked. “…What?”

“I’m gonna let you come,” you shrug.

“But I have to… keep my pants on?”

“Yes, Stevie,” you affirm, almost stern as you arch a brow at him. “Do you understand?”

He swallows thickly, adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, then nods with wide, twinkling eyes. “Yeah,” he mumbles before clearing his throat. “I understand.”

When he humps his cock into your ass again, it takes little time for him to pick up the pace. He was needy before, heavy with his want for you, but now he’s downright desperate. He grinds his hips into you, holding himself up on his forearm — next to the elbow that props up your chin — while he lets out pitiful little whines into your skin.

He might not be pleasuring you just now, but a similar feeling swirls in the pit of your stomach. You’ll always feel satisfied when he begs for you.

“Fuck, honey, you feel so good,” he murmurs, breathless. “Love you so fuckin’ much.”

“I’m almost done with this chapter. If you’re not finished by the time I’m done, you’ll have to get yourself off, ‘kay?” you warn with a voice that’s far too sweet. You know he’ll be done by the time you’re finished reading. Besides, it’s not like any of the words are sticking in your head, anyway.

But Steve likes a challenge. Give him a time constraint and an obstacle he has to get over, and he’s golden. Your subtle threat, the way you act like you’re not as into it all as he is — like your panties aren’t soaking wet — just makes him need to come more.

“I’m almost there, baby,” he promises under his breath. “I’m almost there— almost there—”

He mumbles it to himself over and over again as pleasure takes over every fucking lobe of his brain. His free hand tightens its grip on your clothed hip, keeping you nice and still for him while he pathetically ruts his weeping, throbbing cock into you.

His wet, pink lips part to let out every heavy breath and low moan. You wish you could see him right now — the glazed look in his honey-tinted eyes before they squeeze shut tight as his orgasm so quickly approaches.

You know that he’s close by the way his hips stutter against you, like he’s fighting to keep his rhythm as his impending orgasm threatens to take control of his body. His sweats go damp and sticky when several loads of come spit from his cock without much warning.

A whine escapes from the depths of his throat and he leans more of his weight against you, still warm and comforting as heavy as he is. His heaving moans are heaven in your ears and stars against your skin.

Steve stays like that, pressed so fully against you, while pathetic whines spill from his mouth. Even on the comedown of his orgasm, just having you so close makes him feel high.

His head is stuck in the clouds until he hears you laughing. Soft, hearty little giggles spill from your mouths — muffled at first like he’s stuck underwater, until he comes back to reality.

Then he’s laughing right along with you, lazy exhales at how good he feels just now.

You shift under him, silently asking for him to roll off of you, and he abides — still so obedient for you. You sit up on your side as he flops onto his back. Your eyes have a hard time leaving his fucked out face, all flushed and glowing red, to catch that darker gray stain at his crotch. Both sights are equally as beautiful. You don’t know which to gape at.

“Was it worth it?” you ask him with an arched brow.

“Every damn second,” he pants with a sloppy grin.

“Good,” you smile back at him, pressing a too innocent peck to his warmed, freckled cheek. “Now go get cleaned up. You’re a fucking mess, babe.”

Steve eyes flit from your face to the wet spot spreading on his gray sweatpants. He’s embarrassed, almost, feeling like a teenager who’s got the stamina of a goldfish. But he’s more so terrified of leaving this room.

To get to the bathroom, he’ll have to walk by Robin and Eddie’s rooms, and he’d rather die than run into them in a pair of come-stained pants.

“How am I supposed to walk out like this?” he wonders, bewildered.

You shrug in response. “You’re the one who made the mess. You figure it out, puppy,” you tease innocently, though you don’t miss the way Steve briefly perks up at the use of the pet name. The feeling of anticipation swims in your stomach all over again.

#published by bug #stranger things x reader #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington smut #steve harrington imagine #stranger things imagine #steve harrington fic #steve harrington #stranger things #stevie drabble #st drabbles

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coochiequeens · 11 months

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This is why I hate it when MRAs whine about the courts “favoring” the mothers

How the 'junk science' of parental alienation infiltrated American family courts and allowed accused child abusers to win custody of their kids.

This story was reported in partnership with the nonprofit newsroom Type Investigations.

In the summer of 2020, when he was 12, the boy told his therapist something he'd never told anyone else.

For years, Robert claimed, his stepdad had sexually abused him.

The therapist alerted the San Diego County child welfare agency, which launched an investigation. The county sheriff opened an inquiry, too. Thomas Winenger, the only father figure Robert had ever known, began assaulting him when he was only 7, Robert told a forensic social worker in October 2020. Winenger would pin him down, cover his mouth, and force him into acts he found "disgusting," he said. Sometimes, he said, Winenger recited Bible verses during the attacks, claiming the devil was in Robert's heart.

Robert, whom Insider is identifying by only his middle name, said that as he struggled to breathe, he fought back by hitting, punching, and kneeing his stepfather. But he said Winenger overpowered him.

By the time Robert came forward, Winenger had been named his legal father and was divorced from Robert's mother, Jill Montes, with whom he also shared two young daughters. Robert confronted Winenger with the allegations that November, and within weeks Winenger denied the claims in family court. "This NEVER HAPPENED," he asserted in a filing.

He offered an alternative explanation for Robert's disturbing claims, one that shifted the blame to Robert's mother.

Montes, Winenger contended, had engaged in a pattern of manipulation known as "parental alienation." Robert's accusations weren't evidence that he'd abused the boy, Winenger claimed. They were evidence that Montes had poisoned the children against him. The delayed timing of Robert's allegations, Winenger argued, only made them more suspicious. Montes was causing the children such grave psychological harm, he claimed in the filing, that the children should be transferred to his custody right away.

That December, Child Welfare Services substantiated Robert's allegations, calling them "credible, clear, and concise." But the family-court judge, Commissioner Patti Ratekin, withheld judgment until the following October, when the psychologist she'd appointed as a custody evaluator submitted his own report.

That report, which has been sealed by the court, appears to have convinced Ratekin that Winenger was correct.

“Ma'am, you didn't show very well in the report. You are toxic. You're poisonous. You're an alienator," Ratekin told Montes at a hearing on October 28, 2021. "I don't believe for a second" that Robert's father molested him. "Not for a second," she repeated. "I think you've put it in his head."

Ratekin acted swiftly, granting Winenger's bid for custody and ordering him to enroll Robert and his sisters in Family Bridges, a program that claims to help "alienated" children reconnect with a parent they've rejected. She barred Montes, a stay-at-home mom and home schooler, from all contact with her children for at least 90 days, a standard prerequisite for admission to the program.

"I just wanted to crumble," Montes said.

Rejected as a psychiatric disorder

Parental alienation is a fairly recent idea, conceived in the 1980s by a psychiatrist, Dr. Richard Gardner, who argued that divorcing mothers, desperate to win custody suits, were brainwashing children against their fathers. In "severe" cases, Gardner wrote, children with "parental alienation syndrome" must be removed from their mothers, transferred to the care of their fathers, and reeducated through what he called "threat therapy."

Alienation has never been accepted as a psychiatric disorder by the medical establishment. Yet today, mental-health practitioners across the United States assess and treat it, particularly those who specialize in custody cases. Many of them collaborate closely, attending the same conferences, following the same protocols, and citing the same papers. Some run reunification programs like Family Bridges; others offer family therapy or produce custody evaluations for family courts.

Influenced by these experts, many judges have given the unproven concept the force of law.

Though most custody cases settle out of court, in a small fraction parents don't come to terms. In some of these contested cases, one parent accuses the other of alienating the children. The most intense disputes arise in cases where one parent alleges spousal or child abuse and the other responds with a claim of alienation.

But alienation claims are highly gendered. Men level the accusation against women nearly six times as often as women level it against men, one study suggests. That landmark study, published in 2020, found that in cases when mothers alleged abuse and fathers responded by claiming alienation, the mothers stood a startlingly high chance of losing custody.

Occasionally, parents accused of alienation are cut off from their children altogether. Since 2000, judges have sent at least 600 children to reunification programs that recommend the temporary exile of the trusted parent, a collaborative investigation by Insider and Type Investigations revealed. While the programs suggest a "no-contact period" of 90 days, this term is routinely extended and may last years, according to an analysis of tens of thousands of pages of court papers and program records.

The treatment typically starts with a four-day workshop for children and the parent they've rejected; aftercare can add months or years. Children may be seized for the workshop by force, with no opportunity for goodbyes.

Former participants at Family Bridges and a similar program, Turning Points for Families, said they were taught that their memories were unreliable, the parent they preferred was harmful, and the parent they'd rejected was loving and safe. In some cases, participants who resisted these lessons said they were verbally threatened; at Family Bridges, a few were threatened with institutionalization. Some participants said they ended up depressed and suicidal.

Program officials say they are helping children. Lynn Steinberg, a therapist who runs a program called One Family at a Time, said in an interview that virtually all the kids she's enrolled have falsely accused a parent of abuse and that she does not accept children into her program whose abuse claims have been substantiated. Without treatment, she said, alienated children would risk being plagued by guilt, and the relationship they wrongly spurned might never heal.

In Steinberg's view, the only child abusers in the families she sees are the "alienators," who have "annihilated" a devoted parent from their children's lives.

Recently, alienation theory has faced rising criticism. Efforts to legitimize the diagnosis have been rebuffed by the American Psychiatric Association, the World Health Organization, and the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. And the reunification programs burst into public view last fall, when a video documented two terrified children in Santa Cruz, California, being seized for One Family at a Time. In the clip, which went viral on TikTok, a 15-year-old girl named Maya pleads and shrieks as she's picked up by the arms and legs and forced into a black SUV.

Since then, bills that would restrict reunification programs have been introduced in Sacramento and four other state capitols.

An idea takes off

When a law professor named Joan Meier founded a nonprofit to help victims of domestic violence two decades ago, she didn't expect to focus on custody disputes. But day after day, she heard from mothers with similar, troubling stories. They'd finally escaped their abusive marriages, but their exes had fought them for custody — and won. The mothers had been accused of something Meier knew little about: parental alienation.

Meier, who taught at George Washington University, ordered a stack of books by the child psychiatrist who coined the term.

Richard Gardner began writing about children of divorce in the 1970s, when a dramatic transformation was underway in family court. Under the "tender years presumption," judges had long favored women in divorce cases, typically assigning children to their mother's sole custody. But as more women entered the workforce, more men participated in child-rearing, and more couples divorced, a nascent "fathers' rights" movement emerged, demanding gender neutrality in custody proceedings. The idea appealed to many feminists, too. By the 1980s, most states had recognized joint custody in their statutes.

This left judges in a quandary when couples failed to settle. Now, aside from a vague mandate to advance the "best interest" of children, courts lacked a clear paradigm for resolving disputes. Overwhelmed, judges turned to mental-health professionals, asking them to assess each parent's fitness and recommend an optimal arrangement. Gardner, then an associate clinical professor of child psychiatry at Columbia University, was an early custody evaluator, and in 1982 he published a how-to manual.

By 1985, Gardner was arguing that some mothers, seeking to regain their advantage in court, were inducing a mental illness in their children, a condition he dubbed parental alienation syndrome. Children afflicted with the syndrome, he said, could be identified by the "campaign of denigration" they waged against their fathers, which was accompanied by "weak, frivolous, or absurd" rationalizations and a disquieting "lack of ambivalence."

Some "fanatic" mothers even manipulated children into claiming their fathers had sexually abused them, Gardner contended. When other maneuvers against a father fail, he wrote, "the sex-abuse accusation emerges as a final attempt to remove him entirely from the children's lives." Child sexual-abuse claims made during custody disputes, he claimed, "have a high likelihood of being false." To prove children are suggestible, he often invoked the wave of 1980s cases in which preschool teachers were charged with sexual abuse but later exonerated.

Gardner's theory sidestepped what Joan Meier saw as a glaring truth: Many children accused their fathers of abuse because their fathers were actually abusive. In fact, by the early 2000s a large-scale study had found that contrary to Gardner's writings, neither children nor mothers were likely to fabricate claims during custody disputes.

The remedies Gardner proposed for parental alienation syndrome were harsh. "Insight, tenderness, sympathy, empathy have no place in the treatment of PAS," he said in a 1998 address. "Here you need a therapist who is hard-nosed, who is comfortable with authoritarian, dictatorial procedures."

In a 2001 documentary, Gardner told a journalist how a mother might respond to a child reporting sexual abuse: "I don't believe you. I'm going to beat you for saying it. Don't you ever talk that way again about your father."

Juvenile detention could cure children who refused to visit their fathers, Gardner said. But the main remedy he advanced in severe cases was "the removal of the children from the mother's home and placement in the home of the father, the allegedly-hated parent." This would break what he called a "sick psychological bond."

After introducing his theory, Gardner began using it in expert testimony and promoting it to other evaluators and fathers'-rights activists. By the early 2000s, family-court judges were regularly citing parental alienation.

To address this, Meier said, she undertook a series of academic articles examining the scholarship on parental alienation. She found that the theory was based on circular reasoning and anchored almost entirely in anecdotal data.

"I still believed in that day that if you did careful, thoughtful analytic scholarship, people would read it and be persuaded by it," she said.

The scarlet 'A'

Jill Montes had always wanted a big family. In 2008, she already had a 5-year-old daughter, Paige, with a man she'd divorced, and she was finding regular work as an actor in Los Angeles. She decided to adopt an infant son, Robert.

The next year, she met Thomas Winenger, who had master's degrees in engineering and business, on eHarmony. "He wanted to talk a lot about faith and God, and that wooed me," she said. She also welcomed his interest in Robert, whom she was insecure about raising alone.

In 2011, the couple married and settled near San Diego, and Montes quit acting. Soon, she later said in a court filing, Winenger was shoving, insulting, and threatening her, often in front of the kids. He promised to change, and she hoped he could. In 2012, their first child, Claire, was born, and Eden followed in 2015. Insider is identifying Montes' children by only their middle names.

Later that year, Montes accused Winenger of dragging Paige across a room. Montes sought a restraining order, which was ultimately denied, and kicked him out. He rented a room in a house nearby, where he regularly hosted the three younger kids. Sometimes, Robert went there by himself.

Montes filed for divorce in February 2018. Under an informal agreement, the kids continued spending time at Winenger's place. But at a hearing that fall, a 10-year-old Robert testified that during an argument over his math homework, Winenger had repeatedly grabbed, shoved, and spanked him.

Montes filed a petition for a domestic-violence restraining order, which Winenger fought, saying he hadn't mistreated Robert. In the end, Ratekin, the judge presiding over the divorce, signed a "stay away" order prohibiting Winenger from contact with Robert. But it didn't address the allegation of violence. Weeks later, Winenger asked Ratekin to name him Robert's legal father, arguing that he'd helped raise the boy from toddlerhood. Ratekin ruled in his favor and ordered the custody evaluation.

In court papers he filed on July 19, 2019, the day after the evaluator was appointed, Winenger accused Montes of parental alienation.

Often, according to Meier, the dynamic of a custody case shifts radically once alienation is raised. "It's like the table turns 180 degrees and now the only bad parent in the room is the alleged alienator," she said. An abuse allegation "fades out of view," she said, and any attempts by the mother to limit the father's access are seen as suspicious. It's almost as if, like Hester Prynne in "The Scarlet Letter," she's been branded with a flaming red "A," Meier said.

Indeed, Montes soon lost ground in court.

In January 2020, Ratekin ordered Robert into the care of a therapist, Mitra Sarkhosh, who has since provided aftercare for at least one reunification program. Sarkhosh saw Robert and his father together about 20 times, charging $200 an hour. But by summer, she had halted the sessions, saying Robert's anger was "not improving."

In a report filed in court, Sarkhosh appeared to blame Montes. Living with her, Robert was "saturated with negativity about his father," she wrote. There may be a need for "new interventions." (Citing patient-confidentiality laws, Sarkhosh declined an interview request.)

Robert was relieved to be finished with Sarkhosh, Montes said. He started seeing a new therapist, and, during the first session, he told the therapist he'd been sexually abused.

On November 18, 2020, at the direction of the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, Robert called Winenger to try to elicit a confession. When that failed, the department paused its investigation, but the child welfare inquiry proceeded. On December 1, the California Health and Welfare Agency issued a report substantiating Robert's claims.

"The Agency is worried that if given the opportunity, Tom Winenger will sexually abuse [Robert] again," the report says.

Neither Winenger nor his divorce attorney, Tamatha Clemens, responded to requests for interviews or to a list of detailed questions. In a motion for custody he filed on December 8, 2020, Winenger argued that Robert's allegations had been "orchestrated" by Montes and that her alienation "will not stop until she is restrained by the court."

The welfare agency sent Ratekin its report on January 4, 2021, according to a cover sheet reviewed by Insider. But Ratekin was still awaiting the custody evaluation, which she'd assigned to a psychologist, Miguel Alvarez. In 2009, Alvarez coauthored a handbook for parents in custody disputes. While the manual spells out in detail how to prove an alienation claim, it offers no specific guidance on how to prove a claim of abuse.

According to the report, part of which Insider reviewed at a San Diego County courthouse, a personality test Alvarez administered suggested that Montes suffered from "extreme hyper-vigilance" and "persecutory fears." People with these traits, Alvarez wrote, "are often quick to anger and overreact to perceived or imagined threats."

Winenger's scores on the same test were "normal," Alvarez wrote, and his performance on psychosexual and polygraph tests was "inconsistent" with Robert's allegations of sexual abuse.

The 136-page evaluation cost Robert's parents more than $90,000, according to bills reviewed by Insider. Alvarez didn't respond to requests for comment.

Ratekin reviewed the evaluation just before the October 28, 2021 hearing. Alvarez's findings were "exactly" what she'd expected, she said. In her view, the situation called for immediate action.

She put Claire, 8, and Eden, 6, in their father's custody that day, and she sent Robert, 13, to stay with his football coach. That was for Winenger's protection, she said. Until Robert was "detoxified," she said, he'd be prone to false claims of abuse.

Ratekin suggested Family Bridges as a solution. She'd had "really good success" with the program in another case, she said, and she thought it would ease Robert's transition. Without it, the boy wouldn't "get better," she said, and his sisters stood to benefit, too.

Winenger agreed. Under an order Ratekin signed on January 3, 2022, the children would attend a Family Bridges workshop with their father from January 11 to 14 and then return to his home. Montes was barred from contact with the children for at least 90 more days. Ratekin also prohibited the children from communicating with their older sister, their maternal grandmother, and anyone else who might "interfere" with their healing.

Contact would resume at Ratekin's discretion, depending upon how well everyone was cooperating.

Insider and Type reviewed 35 cases from the past two decades in which judges removed children from their preferred parent and sent them to a reunification program. In most of these cases, the children had resisted court-ordered visits with their fathers, and judges had held mothers responsible. Many of the judges framed the no-contact period as salutary: Children would be freed from the overbearing influence of their mothers, and their mothers would be motivated to change.

A case from New Castle County, Delaware is typical.

In 2016, Judge Janell Ostroski transferred two brothers to their father's custody and ordered them into treatment at Turning Points for Families, a program in upstate New York run by a social worker, Linda Gottlieb. Both boys had told Ostroski that their father, Michael D., yelled at them frequently, court records show, though neither had alleged physical abuse. The 9-year-old, O., told Ostroski he felt unsafe at his dad's house. Ashton, 14, was refusing to go there. Insider is not using the family's full last name in order to protect O.'s identity.

Michael had pleaded guilty several years earlier to public intoxication and indecent exposure for an incident in a public park with Ashton. A court-ordered psychological evaluation found that he had alcohol dependence and narcissistic personality disorder "with antisocial features." In 2013, the state's child welfare agency found that he'd emotionally abused Ashton, then 10 years old. The report, including any denials Michael presented, is sealed. This history was all cited in court three years later, in a custody dispute between Michael and his ex-wife, Kelly D.

During that dispute, Michael accused Kelly of alienation, and a custody evaluator backed him up. The evaluator, a psychologist, determined that Michael had become "a more positively functional person" and that Kelly, a preschool teacher, was the problematic parent. Kelly "distorts the reality of events" and "conveys to others an inaccurate and menacing perception of Mr. [D.]," the psychologist wrote in a May 2016 report. (Michael did not respond to detailed requests for comment. Neither did the psychologist.)

In written rulings that barred Kelly from contact with both children, Ostroski said the boys were "well cared for" in Kelly's home but blamed her for Ashton's refusal to see Michael. "Mother has done nothing in the past year to promote the Father/son relationship," Ostroski wrote, adding, "the court is hopeful that, with the appropriate interventions, Mother can recognize her role in helping the children have a healthy relationship with their Father."

Insider and Type sent questions about parental alienation and its remedies to Ostroski, Ratekin, and 19 other judges who've ordered the programs. Only Ratekin responded, and she declined to speak about the Winenger case because it is still pending. Nor would she answer general questions. "I am definitely not an expert in this area," she wrote, "nor do I feel qualified to answer questions about the issue or programs."

'A moratorium on the past'

In her January 2022 ruling, Ratekin authorized Winenger to hire a transport company to drive Robert and his sisters to the Family Bridges workshop, which would take place at a hotel a few hours outside San Diego. There, the children and Winenger met Randy Rand, who founded Family Bridges in the early 2000s, and a woman the children knew only as "Chris."

In 2009, Rand deactivated his psychology license after the California Board of Psychology found he'd committed professional violations including "dishonesty," "repeated negligent acts," and "gross negligence." Since then, he's accompanied at workshops by at least one other clinician. Rand isn't the only alienation expert to face sanctions from a state licensing board. Two other psychologists who've led Family Bridges workshops, Jane Shatz of California and Joann Murphey of Texas, have been sanctioned — Shatz after an allegation of negligence and Murphey after a finding that she failed to respond promptly to a subpoena. Both Alvarez, the custody evaluator in Robert's case, and Steinberg, who runs the program where a judge sent the girl in the viral TikTok, have been cited by California regulators for improper recordkeeping. Steinberg said her citation was the result of a series of meritless complaints by an "alienating parent."

Family Bridges workshops are held at hotels around the country and tend to cost parents more than $25,000, receipts show. In 2016, for example, one family from Seattle paid more than $27,000 to Family Bridges and another $3,500 to spend three nights at a Sheraton in Southern California. Since the children had opposed the intervention, a company was hired to transport them for an additional $8,300.

Once they arrive at Family Bridges, children quickly learn the rules, program documents show, including a policy called "a moratorium on the past." As Murphey, the Texas psychologist, testified in 2018, "There's no talking about 'You did this back when.'" Instead, she explained, "this is a new family, this is a new paradigm, we are starting off in a healthy way."

Ally Toyos was a 16-year-old in Kansas when she was taken from her mother five years ago. In an interview, she said she and her then 14-year-old sister tried defying the Family Bridges moratorium, telling Rand and his colleagues that their dad had abused them. (Toyos' mother said a court order prevented her from speaking with the press; Toyos' father didn't reply to interview requests.) Threats ensued, Toyos said. The girls were told that if they didn't comply, they could be separated, sent to wilderness camps, committed to psychiatric facilities, and cut off from their mom for the rest of their childhoods, according to Toyos.

Much of the Family Bridges workshop involves watching and discussing videos, program documents show. One of them, "Welcome Back, Pluto," tells the fictional story of a petulant teen who scorns her father. "If you're alienated, like Emily, you might get mad when others don't take your complaints seriously," a female narrator says. In time, however, Emily "learned to see things more clearly." She realized her complaints were "exaggerated," the narrator explains, and "sounded just like her mother's."

According to the video, which was scripted by Richard Warshak, a psychologist who helped develop Family Bridges, some children who steadfastly reject a parent "suffer for the rest of their lives."

Other materials warn children against trusting their memories. Toyos, whose workshop took place at the C'mon Inn in Bozeman, Montana, said she was shown a 2013 TED Talk by Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist who developed the idea that memory is malleable and who has served as a defense witness in high-profile trials, including Harvey Weinstein's. Memories are often contaminated by outside influences, Loftus warns in the talk, which leads to false accusations that can ruin lives.

Insider and Type spoke with or reviewed statements by 17 youths ordered into Family Bridges, Turning Points, or other reunification programs. Their accounts of the workshops were broadly similar. Hannah Rodriguez, then a 16-year-old living in Tampa, Florida, said her workshop, in 2016, was held at Linda Gottlieb's home in New York's Hudson Valley. Gottlieb, the author of a book on parental alienation syndrome, had founded Turning Points about two years earlier. Rodriguez said Gottlieb's office was right off the living room, where her husband spent his time in a recliner. Every day, Rodriguez could see him and hear his TV shows, she said.

Rodriguez, Toyos, and several other former participants said the workshops plunged them into depression.

In spring 2022, one 13-year-old girl got so distressed during a session with Gottlieb at a hotel that she banged on a wall and screamed for help, court papers show. Someone called the police, who brought her to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. "I just want my mom," the girl said, according to hospital records, but under the court order she couldn't call her. She was held at the hospital for three days.

In a written statement that Montes said he later dictated to her, Robert said he became suicidal. "The only thing that stopped me from throwing myself off the balcony was the 24/7 surveillance," the statement reads. "I never thought so many people would be that horrible, controlling, and manipulative towards little kids."

At the end of the workshop, Robert went home with Winenger and had "horrible, weird depressive anxiety episodes," according to the statement. In early February, he was admitted to the psychiatric ward of a children's hospital, according to court records.

Repeated emails to Rand were met with an auto-response saying he was "on sabbatical." The psychologist managing Family Bridges in his absence, Yvonne Parnell, declined interview requests, as did Gottlieb. Gottlieb forwarded Insider's queries to a lawyer, Brian Ludmer, but Ludmer said he couldn't speak for her. Neither Parnell nor Gottlieb replied to detailed written questions.

Lynn Steinberg said her program One Family at a Time, based in Los Angeles, has treated some 50 families over the past eight years. A family therapist, she's the author of "You're Not Crazy: Overcoming Parent/Child Alienation." She was the only program director who agreed to talk.

She said she begins each workshop by listening to the children and taking down every accusation they make; she then works to achieve "an agreement between parent and child." After those conversations, she said, the children are dramatically transformed. They apologize and cry, she said; they kiss and embrace the parent they'd rejected, even sitting in the parent's lap. They're eager to make up for lost time, she said, and can't wait to see long-lost kin.

Daniel Barrozo, of Chino, California, said Steinberg's workshop was a "tremendous help" to him and his daughter in 2021. Steinberg successfully challenged his daughter's misperceptions about him, he said. When Steinberg asked her what he'd done wrong and what she hated about him, his daughter simply looked down and cried, he said. "The whole time, she had nothing to say, because Mom was the one speaking for her," he said. Now, he said, his relationship with his daughter is stronger than ever.

Steinberg said her own mother alienated her from her father, a realization she reached only after his death. She called her ex-husband an alienator, too, saying her adult daughters reject her to this day. She regrets that they didn't get help from a program like hers.

Left untreated, alienated children "fail at relationships" and risk developing eating disorders, drug addiction, depression, gender dysphoria, and other ills, Steinberg said, citing her clinical experience.

But an increasing number of scholars are criticizing the programs. Jean Mercer, an emeritus professor of psychology at Stockton University, is the author of recent papers on parental alienation. One examined six reunification programs, including Family Bridges and Turning Points, and found that the research evidence supporting the effectiveness of the programs "has few strengths and many weaknesses." For another paper, Mercer reviewed the scholarship on the programs and statements from five youths who'd attended them. She found that the programs "may contain elements of psychological abuse."

Another study, by Michael Saini of the University of Toronto, examined 58 empirical papers on alienation and its treatments and found the body of research "methodologically weak." While some divorcing parents exhibited "alienating behaviors" and some children rejected a parent, the nexus between those phenomena hadn't been proved, Saini found. Moreover, he found the studies hadn't shown that interventions worked.

Following the workshop, the programs commonly assign children to a specially trained aftercare therapist. Meanwhile, the exiled parent undergoes reeducation.

Insider obtained audio of a call last year between Gottlieb and the mother of a 14-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy in Turning Points. "I think what you did is criminal," says Gottlieb, who, like Steinberg, has publicly stated that her own mother alienated her from her father. There was "no reason" the children shouldn't have a relationship with their father, Gottlieb says in the recording, and "you have failed miserably to require it."

"That's alienation," she says. "That is what you are guilty of, and it's child abuse." For the children's sake, the woman must "make amends," Gottlieb says. Otherwise, "I will recommend extending the no-contact period until they're 18."

Insider and Type interviewed 12 mothers whose children were sent to Turning Points, many of whom said Gottlieb rebuked them over the phone and in emails. Most said they were required to write letters to the kids praising their fathers and submit them to Gottlieb for approval.

In early November 2016, Gottlieb told Kelly D. — Ashton and O.'s mother — that her letters contained superfluous details and secret messages and needed to be redone. In the end, Kelly submitted several drafts for each of her sons, all of which Gottlieb rejected.

"She sets a bar," Kelly said. "You try to reach the bar. She sets the bar higher."

Judge Ostroski had ordered Kelly to find a therapist "acceptable to Ms. Gottlieb" who would help her support Michael's relationship with the children. From a list provided by the Delaware Family Court, Kelly chose a psychologist, William Northey. But Gottlieb warned in an email, "I cannot approve him before I speak with him about his specialized knowledge of alienation."

The conversation went poorly. Gottlieb considered Northey unacceptable, she later testified, and Northey found fault with Gottlieb, too. He sent her a letter, reviewed by Insider, criticizing her for calling Kelly a "sociopath" and for using the phrase "parental alienation syndrome," which, he wrote, "is not a recognized diagnostic term."

Meanwhile, Gottlieb was making demands of Ashton and O. Shortly after they returned from New York, according to an email to both parents obtained by Insider, Gottlieb determined that they needed to transfer schools immediately, as their current schools had "actively undermined" their relationship with their dad.

She sought custody of O., too. But in September 2020, Ostroski found that Kelly still hadn't been properly treated for her alienating tendencies and denied her petition.

For now, even visits were too risky, Ostroski concluded.

"Ashton's behavior of running away from Father and refusing to now see Father supports Gottlieb's prediction that, if the children are returned to Mother before she addresses her alienating behavior, they will revert to their prior behaviors when they were refusing to see Father and all of the work that has been done over the past 4 years will be wasted," Ostroski wrote in the ruling.

'Junk science'

In June 2010, more than a thousand mental-health practitioners, lawyers, and judges gathered at the Sheraton in downtown Denver for the annual conference of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, which unites players in the child-custody field from around the world. The theme that year was "Traversing the Trail of Alienation," and over four days the condition was discussed in more than 30 sessions. Participants could learn how to spot an alienating parent, when it was best to defy a child's wishes, and what might help an alienated child heal.

The event signified a remarkable embrace of an idea whose author had been consumed by scandal and tragedy just a short time earlier.

In the late 1990s, critics of Gardner's dealt a powerful blow to his credibility by unearthing writings in which he'd defended pedophilia.

"Sexual activities between an adult and a child are an ancient tradition," he wrote in a 1992 book.

As a product of Western culture, he viewed pedophilia as reprehensible, he wrote, but it may not be "psychologically detrimental" in other cultures. The following year, in a journal article, Gardner argued that from an evolutionary standpoint, children benefited from being "drawn into sexual encounters," since these experiences steered them toward early reproduction. "The Draconian punishments meted out to pedophilics go far beyond what I consider to be the gravity of the crime," he wrote in 1991 in "Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited."

In May 2003, at age 72, Gardner dosed himself with painkillers and stabbed himself to death. His son told reporters he was driven to suicide by chronic pain that had recently worsened.

In the assessments of his life that followed, Gardner's work was lambasted by prominent psychiatrists, including Dr. Paul Fink, a past president of the American Psychiatric Association. "This is junk science," Fink told Newsday in July 2003. "He invented a concept and talked about it as if it were proven science. It's not."

The theory could have died with Gardner. Instead, it gained ground.

In 2001, Richard Warshak, a clinical professor of psychology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, published "Divorce Poison: Protecting the Parent/Child Bond From a Vindictive Ex." The book, released by HarperCollins, brought parental alienation theory to a wider audience — and made it more palatable. Unlike Gardner, Warshak spoke of alienation in gender-neutral terms, saying many fathers were programmers, too, and he likened the no-contact period between children and their preferred parent to study abroad.

Warshak started leading workshops for Family Bridges around 2005 and eventually became its unofficial spokesman, a role in which he excelled. In 2010, he appeared in "Welcome Back, Pluto" and published an influential article about Family Bridges in the AFCC journal.

In that study, Warshak reported on outcomes for the 23 children he'd worked with in the program so far. During the four-day workshop, 22 of them recovered a "positive relationship" with their rejected parent, he observed, including recalcitrant teens.

After the workshop, however, four children regressed, Warshak wrote, following what he called "premature" contact with their preferred parent. The program worked best, he said, when this contact was blocked "for an extended period of time." Warshak didn't respond to interview requests.

Meanwhile, another Gardner successor, Dr. William Bernet, a professor of psychiatry at Vanderbilt University, was working to push alienation theory forward. He submitted a proposal to the American Psychiatric Association to include "parental alienation disorder" in the next version of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, and authored a scholarly article making the case for inclusion. He submitted a similar application to the World Health Organization, which was revising its International Classification of Diseases.

Bernet declined a request for an interview. But in a 2010 book, he wrote that since alienation scholarship had advanced in the wake of Gardner's death, "there is no need now to dwell on the details of what Richard Gardner did or said or wrote."

At the AFCC's conference in Denver in June 2010, Warshak was given a platform to discuss his Family Bridges paper, as was Bernet, to describe his DSM bid. Other presenters staked out a more moderate stance, arguing that while alienation was a pervasive problem, there was insufficient research to support construing it as a mental illness or ordering extreme interventions.

A few alienation opponents presented, including Joan Meier. But she said she flew home to Washington in tears.

"Everywhere I turned, alienation was the coin of the realm," she said.

She set out to design a study that would document how women who alleged abuse were treated in family courts nationwide — especially when alienation was raised. The Justice Department supported the project with a grant of $500,000.

In 2013, the new edition of the DSM was released with no mention of parental alienation. And in 2020, the World Health Organization ruled that parental alienation was "not a health care term" and lacked "evidence-based" treatments.

Bernet and his colleagues simply regrouped. In court, they started calling alienation a "dynamic" or a "phenomenon" rather than an illness, which appeared to satisfy some judges. And Bernet incorporated the nonprofit Parental Alienation Study Group, a coalition of parents, lawyers, and therapists who collaborated on cases and research. Rand, Gottlieb, and Steinberg joined, along with hundreds of other mental-health practitioners involved in custody work. Many, like Steinberg and Gottlieb, claimed to have experienced alienation themselves.

Meier assembled her own research team, comprising a statistician, three social scientists, and two assistants, to conduct her large-scale study. In January 2020, just weeks before the WHO decision, the results were published in the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law.

The stark findings shocked even her.

Most trial-court rulings in custody cases are unpublished, but Meier's team identified 15,000 rulings involving abuse or alienation that were published electronically from 2005 to 2014. After winnowing that dataset to cases in which the only parties were two warring parents — not, for example, a child welfare agency — the team was left with 4,300 rulings. There were nearly 2,200 cases in which a mother had accused her ex of spousal or child abuse, and in 10% of these, the father had fought back with an alienation claim.

In general, judges were hesitant to credit mothers' abuse claims. When alienation wasn't raised, judges credited these claims 41% of the time, Meier found, and 26% of the time, mothers lost primary custody.

For the 222 mothers whose spouses accused them of alienation, the picture was even grimmer. Women who alleged abuse and whose husbands accused them of alienation lost custody half the time — twice as often as women who weren't accused of alienation.

To Meier, one of the study's most staggering findings was how rarely mothers branded with the scarlet "A" were believed. In cases where mothers alleged child physical abuse and fathers cross-claimed alienation, judges credited mothers a mere 18% of the time, she found. And in the 51 cases where mothers alleged child sexual abuse and fathers claimed alienation, all but one mother was disbelieved.

For a father accused of child molestation, Meier concluded, "alienation is a complete trump card."

'The whole world is watching'

In January 2022, three months after losing her children, Montes chanced upon a sickening discovery.

In a cloud storage account she'd once shared with Winenger, she said, she found thousands of his photos and videos, including explicit images of their three shared children. She loaded them onto a thumb drive for the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, whose investigation into Winenger had never closed.

Within days, Winenger was arrested. He was soon charged with 19 felonies, including possession of child pornography and 14 counts of committing forcible lewd acts against a child, Robert.

He pleaded not guilty and was released on bail, his access to the children suspended. Because of the no-contact order he'd previously obtained against Montes, the children landed in a county shelter. Winenger's defense attorney, Patrick Clancy, declined to comment on Winenger's behalf, saying he doesn't try his cases in the press.

Suddenly, the custody dispute was transferred to juvenile dependency court, which meant Ratekin was no longer presiding. The new judge ordered the kids into their mother's care while the case was pending. On February 18, they came home.

At first, Montes said, the two youngest children were so scared of being taken again that they couldn't sleep in their rooms. She set up a big mattress on her bedroom floor.

Meanwhile, Joan Meier was using her research to make inroads with policymakers.

She'd worked with colleagues to draft a federal law that would incentivize states to protect children from abusers during custody disputes. They named the bill Kayden's Law, after a girl in Pennsylvania whose father murdered her during a court-ordered visit. During negotiations over reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, the child's congressional representative, Brian Fitzpatrick, got Kayden's Law in.

The legislation, signed into law on March 15, 2022, sets aside up to $5 million a year for grants to states if, among other measures, they mandate training for custody judges on abuse and trauma and prohibit them from ordering treatments that cut children off from a parent to whom they are attached. If enough states comply, the law could spell the end of the reunification programs.

Last summer, California was the first state to consider such a bill. It was introduced by state Sen. Susan Rubio of Los Angeles County, a survivor of domestic violence herself, after she heard from mothers who'd been accused of alienation and children who'd been sent to reunification programs.

Rubio's bill set off a battle that has since spread to statehouses around the country. Steinberg, the alienation therapist from Los Angeles, was a vocal opponent, arguing that men would be rendered powerless against false accusations. She was joined by fathers' rights groups and by the Parental Alienation Study Group, which was simultaneously pushing hard to discredit Meier's study. (Two prominent members of the group authored a studyconcluding that her findings could not be replicated, which Meier then rebutted.) After Rubio's bill passed the assembly unanimously last August, she was forced to withdraw it in the face of intense opposition from state judges over the training mandate.

Then, last October, the momentum shifted. That's when Maya, the 15-year-old from Santa Cruz, told a custody judge that her mother had abused her and her brother. The judge, Rebecca Connolly, didn't believe her and ordered the children into Steinberg's program, cutting off contact with their father. The graphic video of the children being seized on October 20 was quickly viewed millions of times.

In response to an interview request, an officer of the Santa Cruz County Superior Court said Connolly could not speak about pending cases. Maya's mother has denied the abuse claims in court. Her lawyer, Heidi Simonson, declined an interview, citing court orders pertaining to "privacy and confidentiality."

On the heels of the viral video, a coalition of activists — many of them mothers accused of alienation — organized protests around the country. The first took place October 28 outside the courthouse where Maya had just testified. Standing on concrete risers and facing the building, a pack of Maya's friends demanded her return. "The whole world is watching!" they shouted. Protests also erupted in Michigan, Kansas, and Utah.

Rubio introduced a new bill, with modified judicial training requirements, in February. A similar bill passed both chambers of the Colorado legislature in April. One in Montana died in committee; its sponsor, Sen. Theresa Manzella, said she was up against a "deliberate distribution of misinformation" by opponents, including attorneys who use parental alienation as a legal tactic.

Montes said she's "cautiously optimistic" about Winenger's criminal trial, set to begin in June, and she hopes for an imminent victory in her custody case. Five years of legal bills have left her in debt and on food stamps, she said, but she considers herself lucky all the same. Almost every day, she talks to mothers who remain severed from their children.

Mothers like Kelly D., whose children were sent to Linda Gottlieb's reunification program in New York.

Kelly last saw her younger son, O., early on a Monday morning. It was a warm, sunny day, and she dropped him off at his best friend's house so they could shoot baskets before school. She hugged him, told him she loved him, and said she'd pick him up in the afternoon. Then she drove to court for a hearing.

That was six years, six months, and 24 days ago.

The reporting for this story is part of a forthcoming documentary from Insider, Retro Report, and Type Investigations.

If you are experiencing domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence hotline at 1-800-799-7233.

Read the original article on Insider

#USA #family courts #Child custody #abusers making themselves the victims #Parental alienation #Children being abused after the courts removed them from their mothers #Family Bridges #Dr. Richard Gardner #Reeducating children #Threat therapy #Long article #State sponsored gaslighting of children #Lynn Steinberg #One Family At A Time #Pathologizing abuse victims

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celtic-crossbow · 4 months

Text

Whumpuary Day 7-8

Prompt: Lightheaded

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Warnings: None

gif by @daryl-dixon-daydreams

This was brutal. On the road, boots dragging over the pavement in the hot Georgia sun. No supplies. No game to hunt. A meager amount of water. In the tournament of survival, your group seemed to be on the losing side. You were all exhausted, sweltering, and easily agitated.

Daryl was no exception, probably the most volatile with the exception of Sasha. He continued to refuse your attempts at making him drink, reasoning that his share go to Judith or Carl. You were quickly losing patience with his repudiation of his own wellbeing. It infuriated you that he continuously put himself last, acting as if that was the price of admission into your little apocalyptic family.

“Daryl, you need to drink.” You stepped into his path, pressing the canteen into his chest. “Don’t argue with me. I swear, I will sit on you and pour it down your throat.”

The archer seemed to mull over your words, his eyes darting back and forth between yours. Any hope you had managed to gather during his moment of consideration was quickly shattered when he sidestepped around you with a mumbled m’fine.

You were quick to block him again. Well, as quick as you could be with exhaustion and hunger gnawing away at you.

“This is bullshit, Daryl!” You thrust the canteen at him once again. “You’re important too!” He smiled at your concern, not a genuine one. It was a weak attempt at reassurance.

“M’fine.” He was gentle when he pushed away your offering. Right on cue, baby Judith began to fuss from her little carrier on Carl’s back. You spared a glance, a mere heartbeat, and he was gone when you looked back. Silent as a ghost, only the lingering sway of branches as evidence of his departure. With an inward sigh, you walked over to Rick and handed him the canteen with a nod toward his children.

The slow but steady march had once again begun when Daryl appeared next to Rick. You were just behind the deputy, watching your archer with narrowed eyes. Something was off. His steps were sluggish, in stark contrast to the way he kept his chin raised and shoulders back. You longed for him to allow himself to be vulnerable, just once. Admit he was human like any of the rest of you. Admit he was tired or thirsty, that he needed to stop and rest.

When Daryl staggered sideways, your hand immediately went to Rick’s shoulder; a careful movement that alerted him. He glanced back at you and followed your gaze, turning his head toward the hunter. Daryl had already found his footing, but was looking down at the pavement while shaking his head lightly.

You hoped that someone else asking would be the catalyst to his admittance of being the opposite of fine as he automatically claimed each time you expressed your concern. Rick didn’t break stride as he walked closer to Daryl, who didn’t seem to notice at all.

“You alright, brother?”

Rick’s voice suddenly in such close proximity appeared to startle him, his head snapping up to reveal a dazed expression. Wide blue eyes narrowed, not in anger but confusion. He blinked quickly a few times and dropped his gaze back to the pavement.

“Mhm.”

“We can stop. Take a break.” When Daryl didn’t answer, the other man stopped walking with a hand grasping the archer’s forearm. “Hey, let’s take a break.”

“Ain’t needin’ no break.” Daryl seethed, snatching his arm away. He stumbled but only slightly before continuing ahead.

Rick was watching him when you came to stand at his side. “He’s not okay.”

“Yeah.” You replied inside a sigh. “He’s gonna drop, Rick. I can’t get him to drink anything.” Daryl’s gait was off. He carried himself by sheer force of will, veering left and then right without seeming to notice. “He’s punishing himself.” You said after a moment. When Rick looked at you, you were already looking back at him. “For Beth.”

A nod was shared and then the trek began again.

Later, the sun was at its highest, the unforgiving heat taking its fury out on the lot of you. You had stripped off your t-shirt, the camisole underneath providing enough coverage that you weren’t embarrassed. Everyone who could remove something with the hope of some relief had done so as well. Except, of course, the ever stubborn, self destructive archer.

This time, you sent Carol after him when he disappeared to hunt game and water. When she stepped back onto the road without him, you couldn’t contain the hope in your eyes. It was quickly shot down by a shake of her head.

Goddamnit, Daryl. He didn’t appear for a while, longer than usual, worrying you sick. You were ready to have his head on a platter when he emerged from the foliage and took the lead. Fingers combed your damp hair away from your face more out of frustration than an attempt at some sort of relief. You knew you looked like a parent preparing to scold their child when you began to stomp toward the man who was currently the single source of your worry and agitation. You were almost just behind him when he staggered, a palm slapping against his forehead. This time, he wasn’t able to catch his balance and descended hard to one knee.

“Daryl?” Annoyance forgotten, you dropped down beside him, concern intensifying into something more akin to panic as you watched him blink fast, close his eyes; rinse and repeat. “Hey, talk to me.”

“Just a lil’ lightheaded. Need a minute s’all.” He needed more than a minute, damn him. His lips were cracked, tongue dry as a bone when he attempted to wet them.

“Let’s take a break.” Rick, crouching on Daryl’s other side, suggested in a hushed tone.

The archer growled and gave a valiant effort toward standing, only to fall back to both knees. “Lot’a light left. Should keep movin’.”

“No.” The deputy raised his brows, clearly not considering that option. “You’re dead on your feet. Rest. Drink.” He offered his own bottle, pushing it toward Daryl with an expression that indicated he wasn’t asking.

You reached for the container, jutting your chin toward the rest of your comrades. Rick nodded and gently clapped a hand over Daryl’s shoulder with a squeeze. He left the two of you there, trusting your ability to get through to the archer.

“Let’s go sit in the shade.” You left no room for argument, extending a hand toward him once you were upright. He looked at it but didn’t take it, pressing a palm to the hot pavement to force himself to his feet. When he tilted backwards, you were quick to grab his arm and prevent him from smacking his head on the unforgiving ground. “Come on.”

Daryl allowed you to lead him to a large tree, a little ways away from everyone else. Having several concerned gazes on him would be nothing but a hindrance, and he desperately needed to rest and hydrate. You plopped down first and patted the ground next to you. Your irritation was already ebbing away, extinguishing entirely when you saw him struggling to lower to the grass without tipping over.

“Drink.” You handed over Rick’s water and nearly sobbed when he took a sip. The archer tried to hand it back, stopped short by a shake of your head. “You haven’t had any. Catch up. Take your share.” After a moment, he lifted the bottle to his lips. The relief was almost overwhelming. “I’m not gonna bitch at you but you really need to take better care of yourself.”

He scoffed, toying with the bottle cap between his fingers. “M’fine.”

“If you say that one more time, I’m going to drown you in the first body of water we come across.” You managed to sound completely serious while brushing his sweaty hair off of his forehead. “At least try. For me?”

Daryl stared at you, lifting the bottle halfway and pausing there. “Okay.” He took another sip, already feeling a little less like a walker. “For you.”

#whumpuary2024 #whumpuaryno4 #lightheaded #the walking dead #fic #daryl dixon #daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon fanfiction #murda writes

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webslingingslasher · 1 year

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omg i need to see “mutual friends alerting the other about something they definitely deserve to know” and “anxiously waiting for them to come home so that they could give them a piece of their mind” please!! i love your angst it’s soul crushingly delicious 🫶

whew i got carried away, but this is a fave out the gate

It started as a dare, a shitty, drunken, jokeable dare.

“I dare you….” Flash hiccups then burps in his hand, he chuckles and throws it at MJ who gags, “I dare you… Y/N…. to kiss Parker.”

You made eye contact with Peter, it was a dumb dare, you were new to the group of friends, but even you could play into the game. You shrug like, ‘what’s the big deal?’ Peter acts the same, he’s not in highschool anymore, he wasn’t scared to kiss girls.

“Okay, let’s go Peter.” You stand to wave him over to the closet, Flash stops you with a buzz sound. “Nope, right here where we can all see.” You look at him oddly, “that’s weird but okay.”

You and Peter are friends, he’s cute sure but you weren’t hungry for his attention, you just thought he was kind and funny, and quiet, but somehow full of charm so when he spoke you made sure to listen. But it’s not like you had a crush on him or anything.

Peter stood in front of you, you stepped closer and pulled his neck towards you.

“Pucker up, parker.”

And… holy shit.

The kiss was like fireworks, a feeling like you’ve never had before. It made your entire body buzz like when you whack your funny bone against a doorframe. Neither of you could pull away, both experiencing what true blissfulness was made of, forgetting the dare you lost yourself into Peter.

Until the group laughs, it makes you feel like this was a set up.

“Not bad, Parker.” You’re breathless.

“Not so bad yourself,” he is too.

You shrug, “a dares a dare, right?”

“Anything to please the peanut gallery,” Flash chugs his cup while Ned counts down.

Something in both your eyes told each other it wouldn’t be the last time.

Safe to say, it was no one's question how you’ve found yourself in Peter Parker’s bed for the hundredth time.

Friends with benefits sucks, give someone the girlfriend benefits, she’ll think she’s the girlfriend. It really, really hurt to find out you weren’t, no matter how aware you were the reality check hit you hard.

“Uh, I don’t…. Look, you and Peter are hooking up right?”

You could deny it, but that would be dumb. The friend group knows it, you both won’t confirm or deny, but when you hook up with someone who’s roommate is in the friend group, people are gonna know.

“Something like that.”

MJ sniffed, “but, you’re not serious right, like you’re not secretly dating or anything?”

You don’t like that she’s asking questions, MJ was one of those ‘the less I know the better’ people, so her asking gave you an edge, there was a reason for the interrogation.

You narrow your eyes, did Peter put her up to this? Does he want to know if you want more, or maybe he’s trying to see if you caught feelings.

“Who’s asking, did Peter put you up to this?”

MJ looks sad when you say that, a small frown pulls at the corner of her lip. “No, nothing like that. I just want to make sure you guys aren’t a thing.”

Why was she acting so odd, this was an one eighty from her normal self.

“What’s with the interrogation, trying to get a job with the FB-”

“Peter’s hooking up with another girl.”

MJ’s voice was rushed, like she had to say it right then or it would be taken to the grave. She gasps for air, like the admission choked her. Your ears ring, head feels hot and fuzzy, your chest clenches, you think you’re going to puke.

MJ repeats your name, you can’t stop reciting her words.

She snaps, you blink. “Oh.”

It shouldn’t hurt like this. It was friendly, it was not supposed to be serious. But then the line between friends with benefits and dating started to blur more and more and suddenly you were only reminded you weren’t dating when you were around your friends. But there was trust, it was supposed to be about trust, and part of that was not hooking up with anyone else. The rules were if either one started to hook up with other people it would stop, but he broke the rules.

You never took Peter Parker to be a rule breaker.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure if it was serious between you guys but when I saw him kiss her I-”

You held up a hand, you didn’t want to hear the rest of it. It didn’t matter, he broke a promise, and so did you. No one was supposed to get hurt, and yet here you are ready to break down the second you’re able to get alone.

“Fuck.” you whisper the words, nothing else comes to mind. You just wanted to disappear, everything was numb and you wanted to go back in time three months ago and just take a shot instead of participating in Flash’s dumb dare.

“MJ, I’m sorry but I have to go, I think I have to break up with Peter.”

Her shoulders slump, “do you want a hug? She’s not even a fan of physical affection but you look desperate to be comforted, you wave her off, you tell her if she touches you you’ll cry. She apologizes, she hates that she had to be the one to tell you.

You tell her it’s fine. You say it enough to yourself you start to believe the lie, all you have to do is erase Peter from your place, then he can leave your mind. So, the moment you enter your own apartment, you pick up every piece of his and stow it in a box.

Clothes, games, books, a toothbrush, a watch, even his spare phone charger. Nothing of his was to stay, to solidify the importance of this decision, to prove that you were serious you stripped your sheets and made a trip to the laundry room before sending a text to Peter.

“Come pick up your shit.”

He answered with a question mark, you didn’t even give him the satisfaction of seeing a read receipt.

You felt ballsy, and you even had the fire in you for a minute. But the idea of seeing Peter any minute, and having to confront him, look in his baby brown eyes and pull the plug aches you. It hurt to know that if he had begged and asked for a do over there would be a large chunk of you that would dare say yes, anything to keep him.

But he broke the rules.

Without rules it’s only chaos and destruction, you didn’t need that with him.

You imagine how you’ll do it.

Throw the box at him, tell him it’s over and make him leave? No, you’ll have to see him again.

Tell him he’s a lying piece of shit that broke your heart? No, you’ll have to see him again.

Ask him why he’d do this with you knowing you’d catch feelings? No, you’ll have to see him again.

Yell at him? Curse his name, tell him he’s a monster, that he broke the most important rule? No, you’ll have to see him again.

Tell him you loved him, and you thought he did too?

No, you’ll have to see him again.

It all ends the same, you’ll have to see him again knowing what you had and what he did. Or, you just leave the friend group, it would suck not having friends but you could make new ones, ones you didn’t sleep with no matter how cute, or how good kissing them feels, no matter if they promise they won’t hurt you like the others did.

You washed down the imagery with a glass of wine, nothing felt right and you had no reason to be anxious. You pour another half glass, swig most down, then head to the building’s basement to put your sheets in the dryer.

Nothing feels as right as Peter, you hate that he’s making you do this.

You felt your stomach knot up when there was a knock on the door, you knew it was Peter. Your roommate was at her girlfriend’s and had a key, you only invited Peter over for the night, you wonder if it might be MJ but she would never show up unannounced.

He knocks again, you finish the second glass of wine.

Peter’s face lights up when you swing the door open, his eyebrows rise and so does his grin.

“Hi, baby.” He’s cheerful, dressed in gray sweatpants and a hoodie, his white and blue Nikes poked out the bottoms. He looked adorable and you hated it, you were supposed to hate him, not hug him.

You pointed at his box of things on the coffee table.

“I packed your shit up.”

Peter stepped through the door, looked at you then the box, then you, then the box. Finally, “why?”

“So it’s easier to carry out, silly.”

You wish your sheets were done, your hands need something to do, they’re starting to shake.

Peter shakes his head like he’s trying to wash the response from his head, “why would I need to carry my stuff out?”

This wasn’t a scenario you dreamed up, just being blunt.

“Because I’m breaking up with you.”

Peter’s face twitches, you raise a finger to continue.

“Correction, I’m ending things. To break up we’d have to date, you just fucked me.”

Talk about blindsided. Peter thinks he’s been shot, puts a hand on his chest and slumped in the chair next to the table with his things. He’s checking to see if his heart is still there, it feels like it dissipated the second the words left your lips.

His head falls into his hand, he rubs at his jaw.

“I…” He didn’t know where to go with that.

I thought we had something?

I thought this meant more than that?

I thought I loved you, and you did too?

Instead he sighs, he can’t make you change your mind.

“Okay. Um, okay. Sure.” He slaps his thighs then rubs at them, he doesn’t want to leave, it will feel real.

Finally he looks towards you, “why?” Peter’s voice cracked, he was distraught, if you weren’t so upset yourself you’d want to console him.

You round the corner, you look at his things tucked in the box. Small things, but held memory. The first shirt you slipped on after he came to yours, the toothbrush you made space for on your counter, a comic book he had read you, his wristwatch. It was bulky and digital, you found it on your desk while he was in the shower, you strapped it on but it still loosely dangled, you ran into the bathroom to rip the curtain back, you remember shoving your arm in his face.

“Look at me, I’m go go gadget.”

You didn’t realize you had it in your hand until the watch face blinked at you, that’s when you noticed you were crying.

You were supposed to be tough, he wasn’t supposed to see you cry. You were supposed to hold it together and show that you didn’t need him.

But you weren’t tough, and you were crying, and the one person who could make the hurt go away was the same one that caused it.

“You broke the rule,” your words wavered, you tried to say it strongly.

Peter’s mind is racing, what rule, what rule, what rule?

“MJ told me you hooked up with someone else.”

Confusion fell over his face, if you didn’t trust MJ as much as you did you might question if she made the whole thing up.

“No, I didn’t… I didn’t break the rule.” Peter’s head shakes slowly, he’s trying to piece together the information, he didn’t hook up with anyone else, he swears on it.

You sniffle and wipe at a stray tear, Peter looks at you sad, you know he wants to hold you tight.

“MJ said you were kissing someone else.”

He’s still searching in his mind, you can tell. The new information races through his memory, he’s searching for a kiss, then it clicks, he knows what MJ’s talking about.

“Oh!” He jumps up, he can save this.

“I know what she’s talking about. Yes, MJ is not lying, I did kiss another girl.”

Your face drops, it felt like a suckerpunch when he admitted it. Peter sees the hurt cross over your face, he reaches out for your arms but you shy away, he hates that you won't let him touch you.

“Peter, I don’t… this meant something to me, something really big, and I thought it did for you too.”

Peter doesn’t like how this is going, he can save this, he knows it.

“It did! It does! Just, hear me out, please?”

You don’t say anything but your glance at his face is taken for a go ahead.

“It was at the Bjorn party, I went with MJ and I swear it all makes sense cause she was giving me the stink eye the whole ride home and I had no idea why. But there was this girl there and I swear to you on everything I just walked by and she grabbed me.”

You scoff, “real believable, peter. Next you’re going to say you had no control over it and she threw herself on you?”

Peter winced, “kinda, but not really. She was quick with it, I did pull back but she pulled me back in and I could just see she was… I don’t know, terrified. She looked absolutely petrified and I just knew she needed someone she could trust and I gave her a second to explain. Her ex-boyfriend was at the party and he’d been stalking her and she couldn’t find her friends and she said she was with her new boyfriend but she didn’t have one and he’d been following her around to prove she didn’t have a boyfriend,”

He was just rambling and confusing you now, “where is this going, peter?”

Peter sighed, this time when he reached for your hand you let him grab it.

“She asked if I would kiss her to get her ex off her back, that’s it. MJ must’ve seen me at the right time, but I promise that was it.”

You looked him up and down, he seemed sincere.

“I didn’t even get her name, we didn’t make out either. It was just a peck that lasted like ten seconds, and I would’ve told you, I swear. If I had ever done anything with anyone at any point during this I would’ve told you, but I forgot about it. It was like a favor, and I just didn’t think about it like that.”

“How did you kiss her?”

Peter’s eyebrows turn in, “I just told-”

“No, show me.”

He looks surprised but he won’t ask questions, actually he will ask one.

“Do you want me to replay the exact scene or just the kiss?”

Your eyes sparkled, “if you’re offering a theatrical rendition I won’t say no.”

He looks behind him and pulls you over to the wall, he spins you so your back is against the wall.

“Okay, so I’m gonna walk past you and you need to pull me in by my shirt, got it?”

You bite back a laugh and nod, he returns a grin and jogs backwards. He gets into character and clears his throat, then begins to walk by. You do as he says and reach out, you pull the pocket of his hoodie and tug him into you, on instinct his hand hits the back of the wall and he looks shocked, he pulls himself away.

“Pull me back in, closer this time.” He spoke from the corner of his mouth, you follow instruction. His hips brush against yours, he tries to move away but you improv and hold him to you. “Now start rambling off about your creep ex boyfriend and you want me to kiss you.”

If he wants damsel in distress you’ll give it to him.

The back of your hand comes up to rest against your forehead as you swoon, “oh, mr handsome hero man, please help me, my ex boyfriend, you see, he’s been watching me and i’m all alone and scared and I need a big strong man to bravely kiss me so he’ll leave me alone, are you up to the task my knight in shining armor?”

Peter nods along with your words, “that’s exactly how it happened.”

“And being the man up to the task, I spun her like this,” he pulled at your hip so your right side was pushed against the wall, “so he could get a view, and I kissed her like this,” his hand came up to cup your jaw, but there was no softness. His thumb didn’t brush over your cheek like it normally did, he didn’t brush your hair back or look in your eyes and smile softly, like every moment before kissing you was just a lead up until he could. He just grabbed your face and pulled you in a little, mostly he was leaning to meet you, and placed his mouth against yours.

No flow or movement, just a holding kiss against your top lip. At the last second he pulled and gave you a little movement, nothing more than a few seconds. At max, a ten second kiss. And it lacked everything Peter normally gave you, it was disappointing to say the least. Frustrating and pathetic at most.

Peter could read on your face you absolutely hated that, he understands, it was a shit kiss. But it also wasn’t you he was kissing, so he gave nothing, and he’s showing you exactly how it happened.

“I pulled away first, by the way. And-”

“Peter, I’m gonna need you to kiss me for real, I need to wash that down with something good.”

He hummed, “sure thing, honey.” It was a real kiss, a Peter kiss, the one where he pulls you in delicately, he looks over your face and smiles, his thumb wiped under your eye catching a fallen eyelash. He captures your bottom lip, and breathes into you, you follow his mouth with each movement. He won’t pull away first, he’s already on thin ice, he thinks that for the next week absolutely anything you want will be granted.

When you broke off and his eyes opened you couldn’t help the blush that took over. There’s that love, you say to yourself. You need to hear the rest of the story.

“You may now continue the tale my noble knight,” you bow to him.

“It worked, when we turned around he was gone. She thanked me and then told me she hoped my girlfriend wouldn’t mind me helping her out.”

You raised an eyebrow and crossed your arms over your chest, a hip cocked out. “Girlfriend?”

Peter laughed, he held a hand over his chest. “I swear to god, she said the only way I would kiss her like that was because I had a girl, she said she could tell and that's why she could trust me. She said something about girl code and helping sisters out but I wasn’t a sister, so that part confused me.”

At last you reached out to hug him, “your girlfriend isn’t mad and she’s glad you helped a sister in need. She also will put your things back where they were.”

Peter’s arms wrap around you just as tight, “did you just become my girlfriend?”

You nod against his chest, your cheek squished against his chest, “yeah,” you dragged out.

Peter squeezed you, like he’s won a golden ticket he mumbles against the crown of your head, “sweet.”

You shove him back in panic, an alarm bell in your head.

“Oh shit! My sheets!”

#peter parker x reader #tasm! peter parker x reader #peter parker blurb #tasm!peter x reader #peter parker angst #peter parker fluff #tasm!peter parker fluff #my writing

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