#for a year i believed it was something physically caused for sure

[balkanradfem]

Beloved friends, I am having a sad day. If you've been with me for the past year, you might remember me complaining about neck pain, so bad I couldn't run, or walk, or sit for prolonged periods of time. This pain never went away, and I was in the line to get a MRI for the last 8 months. Today, I got the results, and they show nothing. There's absolutely nothing wrong with me physically, yet I've been in pain almost every day.

I don't exactly know what to do, medicine won't help me anymore. I have to assume the pain is caused by psychological issues at this point, but I have absolutely no confidence, or a plan to resolving that. Feeling inconsolable for today. I'll figure out what to do about this eventually, hopefully.

#:( #neck pain #i was so sure it was a physical issue #all my other psychosomatic pains are different and they come and go #but this is constant and sharp pain #for a year i believed it was something physically caused for sure #i don't know what to do now i know its psychological #also can't believe this is happening #how is it possible for psychological pain to nest in my neck and torture me without me being able to do anything about it #without being able to prove that pain is even there

[zillychu]

I’ve gotten a WAVE of asks about this AU, so I decided to flesh it out some more and answer some of those questions!

I’ll probably polish this extended summary up at some point and submit it to AO3. But for now, here’s a rundown of my thoughts–please feel free to send more questions! I’ll update this post if I get any more. But if you’re someone who wanted to write fic for it, don’t worry, you don’t need to take my headcanons as gospel. It’s a pretty basic AU honestly lol

Summary:

The portal accident results in a violent explosion that wipes out the whole block, and condemns all of Amity Park. Danny haunts the city for 100 years, before Sam and Tucker find him. 

Setup:

In the 1920’s, 19-year-old Danny went into the incomplete portal on his own, hoping to help out his parents. Ripping the portal open through unnatural means created a huge burst of energy that resulted in a massive explosion. A good portion of the Amity Park population died, many were injured, and the ones on the fringes relocated–Amity was quickly deemed too dangerous due to the excess ectoplasm in the area that attracted ghosts. 

While the disaster was in Amity, the fallout was seen around the globe. Before, natural portals were rare, short-lived, and rarely allowed ghosts to fully slip into our realm (the most severe cases being on par with poltergeists that most people didn’t believe in). Now, natural portals pop open frequently around the world, large enough to allow the entirety of a ghost into the physical plane. They’re more common the closer you get to Amity, but they happen enough elsewhere that this change was something of a small apocalypse before people settled back down and found out how to combat at least some of their new, permanent neighbors. 

Danny is unaware that he’s only half-dead, believing he’s a full ghost. He ends up sticking around Amity, unintentionally making it his haunt. His grief and guilt over causing the death of his loved ones (and many others) makes him isolate and avoid human contact. Though he has, at times, scared nosy people away from the city in a mix of territorial instinct–and to get them to leave before a less friendly ghost finds them. 

Ghosts are much more of an uncontested danger in this AU. Lesser ghosts are practically mindless, and while stronger ghosts are capable of reason, their interests are limited. They’re highly territorial, possessive, and often destructive. Most worrisome is that they also like to snack on the life force of anything alive. No one is sure what dictates a ghost’s propensity to attack or hunt the living for their life force since ghosts don’t exactly experience hunger. At least, not the way we do. If a human is rescued before their life force is fully drained, they can make a full recovery–though humanity has still not yet found what this “life force" is. 

And since the Fentons’ research died along with them, there aren’t many tools available to the public to protect them from ghosts. Most homes have standard ghost shields and some weapons are available on the market, but certified ghost hunters are required to take care of anything more powerful than your average spook. 

Sam and Tucker met in high school, and are now rooming together for college very close to the Amity border. Rent is surprisingly cheap when you’re a stone’s throw away from a condemned area crawling with ghosts. Sam is the one who drags Tucker along with her fascination over finding out more about the city, and its largely mysterious demise. Sam is aware of the danger, but feels ghosts have a place in this world just like everything else, and does exercise caution–like one would while foraging in the woods with a known tiger population. 

What she and Tucker weren’t expecting was to run into a ghost that felt almost human. One that hasn't hurt them, not for lack of trying–while being powerful enough to walk past ghost shields without so much as a flinch. The long white hair is familiar in the whispers of the ectobiologist community, but there’s no way it could be the rumored ghost king Phantom, right?

About Danny:

He has very long hair, claws, and black sclera. His hazmat suit is more torn and ragged, with exposed hands and feet that fade into a burnt black.

His hair tends to float a lot on its own. It can start morphing into fire under duress. 

He does still technically have gloves and boots, they've just charred and melted into his skin towards the ends. He can't take them off in his ghost form. His hands and feet have a leathery texture that's tougher than the rest of his skin.

The white of his hazmat suit is both supposed to look like flames, and also a battered look representing his more violent, explosive death.

Overall, he appears rather listless and sad, with an unnerving air of danger around him–even for a ghost. 

Danny’s “ghost sense” comes out as white smoke.

He does breathe black smoke at times, usually when agitated. 

He's already fought and defeated Pariah Dark by the time Sam and Tucker find him, technically making him the Ghost King. This is heavily speculated by ghost experts, despite there being no real proof beyond a massive battle that scarred Illinois. He has not donned the Ring or the Crown, and captured sentient ghosts are hesitant to answer questions surrounding him. Danny basically has the throne but doesn’t do anything with it, and finds it meaningless enough to routinely forget he has the title. He only fought Pariah because he knew otherwise, humanity would have perished. A lot of ghosts are scared of him because he's so hard to figure out, and he's strong. 

Danny is usually very quiet and speaks softly, because his lungs were damaged in the blaze that half-killed him. He's technically healed since becoming a ghost, so it's more of a compulsion due to the traumatic memory. That, and he’s just… very forlorn and distant, shy around humans who don’t seem to understand how dangerous it is to keep hanging around him.

His memories pre-accident are extremely fuzzy. He knows the very basics of who he was, but specifics have been muffled due to trauma and isolation. He routinely forgets human habits, etiquette, etc. and tends to act more like a full ghost with some odd quirks. 

He does try to scare Sam and Tucker off numerous times. Unfortunately for him, they realized they shouldn't have been able to escape a ghost that strong–but they did, because he let them. 

Sam and Tucker think he's mute at first! He doesn't speak a word to them until several encounters later, when he fumbles his whole scary act and saves them from another ghost. 

He’s still half-ghost, though he doesn’t figure this out until Sam and Tucker come along trying to unravel the mysteries behind the Amity catastrophe. Physically and emotionally, he’s been stuck for 100 years–so his human form is still 19. It’s unclear at this point if he can age normally like a human as long as he stays in human form, or if he’s immortal. 

Danny's family did not turn into ghosts, though he sometimes worries he'll find them in the afterlife as shells of their former selves. He doesn't know if it's better or worse that he's not sure he'd recognize them. 

(Danny also still has some living family. Take a guess.)

Yes, he knows how to Wail. Understandably, he very rarely uses it. You do not want to witness this.

Danny :) is not immune :) from the allure of eating a human's life force :)))

#danny phantom #au #zilly art #I just wanted to draw a boy with long hair and claws how did this happen #fire core au

[dcxdpdabbles]

DCxDP Fic Idea: The Contact, the Butler and the Sly Time Lord

Martha accidentally engaged Bruce to a higher being when he was two.

It sounds terrible, but she hadn't thought that the man wearing the Time ghost costume at her husband's Halloween Gala wasn't wearing a costume and was actually the physical embodiment of Time.

She just thought he took Halloween very seriously.

Mr. Clockwork was charming and didn't care that she had married from the lower level of first class. Her parents were rich, of course, but they weren't old money, and they certainly didn't have a lot of power to speak of.

Because of that, the elites of Gotham thought she wasn't good enough to be in a family such as the Waynes. It was so lovely not to be dragged into conversations that were thinly concealed insults.

Everyone else at the Gala thought Martha had no right to be there with them. Why was she just a few zeros off from being middle class, and wasn't it just so sad that Thomas would stain his family with her?

Secertly, Martha prayed Bruce would do something wild, like marry a girl from Crime Alley or even adopt kids in lower classes to make them all choke on their pearls.

Her son would be one of the most powerful men in a few years, and she couldn't wait to see what kind of hell he would unleash upon them. She would never push, of course, but it would be a nice fantasy to have every time she had to face passive-aggressive comments from ladies told by their fathers they would be a far better Mrs. Wyane.

" Why, hello there. Aren't you the cutest little thing?" Mr. Clockwork coos, smiling down at Bruce. He clung to his mother's skirt, his matching cowboy costume a miniature version of what she was wearing.

The boy had wandered over in the middle of their conversation once he was bored of coloring at his table. Martha couldn't blame her poor baby. There really wasn't much to do for those his age here.

Thomas had stated that children were usually not brought along due to being loud and distracting.

Martha wouldn't hear any of it, insisting her son would be going with them at the party or there would be no party. The majority of the elites believed children should be seen, not heard, and that boiled her blood something fierce.

Thomas had thankfully known when to pick his battles, so he allowed his wife to drag him to a costume store for a family costume to wear. He currently chatting with a group of investors in all his cowboy glory somewhere on the other side of the gala.

"Say thank you, Bruce," She tells her boy, but he only hides his face more, causing the two adults to chuckle. "Do you have kids, Mr.Clockwork?"

"Yes. Two daughters and a son" The man chuckles "All three are a handleful but I love them dearly."

"Oh, how wonderful. Bruce is my only son, but I want to give him siblings," she tells him warmly. She can picture Bruce chasing after his younger siblings dressed up as the Grey Ghost he loves.

She knows Thomas was worried about their chances of having a second child. He was informed not too long ago that he may suffer from secondary infertility. She didn't mind. If they couldn't have a child of their own by blood they could easily adopt.

Martha worked long and hard to provide good orphanages to the city. Maybe one day, a child from there could be her own. She'll have to speak to her orphanage managers- those in charge of the kids- to see if they could help her find one.

They have successfully been getting kids into good homes (At least she thought the number of children constantly changed, and the kids were never seen again, meaning the families that adopted them loved them enough to never return!)

Mr. Clockwork hums "how about giving him a spouse instead? My girls or boy could be a good partner"

Laughing, she assumes he meant her work on bettering the lives of the gay community- in honor of her brother who passed during the AIDs epidemic. "I'm sure Bruce would be happy to hear Mommy found him a husband."

"Is that a yes?" Clockwork eyes' flashed with an emotion that was gone too quick for her to identify.

"Yes, of course. If that is what they both want, I wouldn't mind their marriage at all."

Mr. Clockworks red eyes - contacts? A medical condition?- gleam, and his voice takes on a strange rhythm. "Then so shall it be, my son Danny Fenton shall be married to Bruce Wayne per their Blood Mother and Core Father deal."

Huh. Maybe Mr. Clockwork is a nutcase. Suddenly, she thinks back to her father, who would often tell her that she lived in a delusion because he did not want her to see the horror that Gotham truly is.

Even when you think you're doing good, Gotham has a way of making your work into nightmares.

Was Mr. Clockwork one of those people he warned her about?

Thankfully, he leaves not long after that. He claims he must return to work before his co-workers notice him gone. She doesn't see him for the rest of the night and half wonders if she had been speaking to one of the wait staff they hired as extra help.

Not that she minded, but it made her think his name might not even be Clockwork.

She tells Thomas the story hours after Bruce is put to bed with a candy bucket and the last guests have all slipped home. Thomas is exhausted, having been playing host longer than her because Martha had left around eight to take Bruce trick and treating. Then she got home and put him down for his bedtime.

She got back to the party around eleven but it was a much-needed break from all the hostility that Thomas had been forced to face alone.

"WHAT!?" Thomas booms when she finishes the story. They had just crawled into bed, and Thomas had been rolling to his side for sleep before her words flung him back. "Clockwork!? You're sure you spoke to Clockwork!?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"What did he look like?"

"Um well he was in costume, but red eyes, blue skin, and he was wearing purple robes." She watches as the blood drains from her husband's face. "What is it darling? Who was he?"

"Oh, this isn't good....Alfred! Alfred!" Thomas frantically calls as if the devil had appeared in their bedroom.

Their servant and sometimes lover comes racing into the room, carrying a loaded shotgun. Ever since Thomas had met him overseas when he hired the British man as a personal bodyguard, he fell hard and fast for Alfred but he still deeply loved Martha.

He had sent Martha a letter detailing his feelings for his guard, and only after she had given him permission did he pursue the butler. Alfred had insisted on meeting Thomas' wife to prove that she was okay with him having a lover, so he had followed Wayne back home.

Then he simply never left.

Maybe because he was the best butler Wayne ever had, with his regal training and service in her royal highness' army, but she thinks that her own developed feelings for Alfred convince him to remain.

Alfred insisted that he was only a servant and thus could not be added to their marriage besides a bed partner occasionally. Still, Martha hoped one day they could convince him otherwise.

Bruce already saw him as a second father.

He looks at the pair, dressed in their nightwear in a rather enticing position (Thomas had grabbed Martha by her shoulder, to look into her eyes but that left them rather entangled on the bed) with no visible threat, and raises one brow.

Before he can say anything Thomas is all but rolling out of bed in a frantic leap. He tangles up in the blankets, falling gracelessly over the edge in failing limbs "Martha made a deal with Clockwork!"

At once, Alfred's handsome face drains of blood. "Oh dear, Martha darling, you made a grave mistake."

She can only blink at the men in confusion. "Who is Clockwork?"

"He has many names, but I knew him as Merlin," Alfred informed her evenly. He took her hand in his, the tremble in his fingers revealing his unease. " He had shown interest in Master Thomas before and was the one I protected him from. I barely fought him off and only due to outsmarting him. I would not be able to do it again a second time."

What?

"He is also known as a Fae or incubus in some circles. The kind that steals you away for fun." Thomas babbled from where he was pacing next to the bed, eyes franticly glancing about as if the bogggie man was about to leap out at him from the shadows.

For a moment, Martha wondered why her husband, a man of science and medicine who had never been superstitious, believed this Clockwork was some...some creature of myths.

"Martha, love, what did he ask of you?" Alfred questioned, bringing her hand to his lips as though kissing them would confirm she was safe before him.

"He asked for Bruce to marry his son."

"Oh, gods!" Thomas fretted, speeding up, his long strides becoming far more frantic. "Please say you didn't say yes."

"I-thought it was a joke, I didn't see anything wrong with it, I- said yes."

Alfred closed his eyes, looking like a man who had just been informed his death sentence had been signed by the Queen. "Then all we can do now is pray."

Years later, as Alfred is dusting the portrait of his deceased loves. He allowed his hand to trace the cover of Martha's painted smile and Thomas' strong jaw, mind filled with stolen kisses and sweet nothings that were ripped away that fateful night.

He is still struck by their loss. Every now and then, the knowledge of their death creeps in during his most mundane activities. It's like a kick to the chest every time.

Oh, how he misses them.

Ding Dong

The front doorbell jolts him out of his memories so violently it takes the aged Butler a moment or two to get a hold of his senses. He puts down the duster, climbs down the latter, and quickly makes his way to the door.

Stopping to fix his suit coat, he throws it open with a prepared smile. He expects extra help from the catering company Master Bruce hired for Wayne's annual Halloween Gala.

He was not expecting the two men, one looking nervous around Master Bruce's age and the other sly. His age is hard to gauge, but it may be due to time not affecting him as it did mortals.

Alfred's blood freezes at the sight of those cunning red eyes and smirk. "Merlin."

"Alfred Pennyworth." The demon chuckles. "I prefer Clockwork, as you know, but it's good to see you remember me. Most humans are prone to forgetting in their limited age."

"What are you doing here?"

"Why I came to fulfill the deal between Martha Wayne nee Kane and I"

"Martha is dead. Your contact is void."

Clockwork chuckles again, the sound as deadly as poison. "The contact lives as long as all those involved in it live. You know this."

Alfred presses the panic button on his wristwatch, knowing it sends a message to everyone in the manor to evacuate immediately. He will not live through this battle, but hopefully, it will give Master Bruce time to escape. "You will not lay a hand on Master Bruce."

"Come now, Alfred. We are to be in-laws. Our sons are joining in holy matrimony. Why the hostility-"

"Excuse me what?" The other man-demon? Ghost? Higher-being? cuts in, looking at Clockwork with brows knitted into a frown. "What did you mean holy matrimony?"

"Danny, you're getting married," Clockwork says with a cheerful wave.

"The hell I am!" The man barks, flushing red with anger. Alfred can hardly believe he just yelled at the monster. "I am not marrying some random guy!"

"It is the way things must go for the good of mankind-"

"Oh, go suck on a lemon! We both know that whole "this is fate" is bull!"

"You are embarrassing me in front of our new in-laws, younn man" Clockwork actually waves a finger at the fully grown human. "This is my one chance to marry you off to a good man. We both know that you can't attract a mate on your own."

"What!? Yes, I can! I've had girlfriends and boyfriends before!"

"And yet, no spouse! No wedding! Not even a ring!"

"Moby Dick, I knew this bonding fishing trip was a lie! You can't make me get married because of some contact you made when I was three!"

"It's not permanent! Martha Wayne said If that is what they both want, I wouldn't mind their marriage at all. This means you both must want to be together after one year of marriage. See if you like it, and if you don't, I can always find you a new husband."

"This isn't returning a jacket to a store! I can't just see if I like being married Clockwork!" The man hissed running a hand through his hair. "We're going home. I'm so sorry for bothering you today Mr. Alfred."

Alfred blinks at the young man's sheepish smile, wondering if ti's a trick. "No bother at all."

"Danny, if you leave without marriage, Bruce Wayne will die in an hour due to breaking our contract," Clockwork says, crossing his arms. "Honestly, your sisters were far more mature regarding their marriages."

Danny punches him in the face with a glowing hand. The higher being falls like a sack of bricks.

"Right, I'm going to drop this one off at a nursing home, and then I'll return to marry Bruce. Only so the contact doesn't kill him, and I swear I'll only visit every once in a while until our year is up." Throwing- Merlin, holy shit- over his shoulder as if though he weighed nothing, Danny waves at Alfred and scurries away, vanishing into a green portal.

Alfred is left standing at the doorway, utterly flabbergasted. Distantly, he wonders if the hollowing wind is actually Martha laughing herself silly in the afterlife.

Carefully, he reaches up for his com, switching it on to the sound of his family's frantic bickering. They were all worried about him since he sent the alarm and were fighting about following policy or saving him.

"Master Bruce," He says faintly silencing the coms "Please come to have your suit fitted as soon as you can."

"What for?" His son asks, likely looking for a coded message, but Alfred doesn't have the mental capacity to make one.

"Your wedding, sir. It's tonight, courtesy of your mother."

The coms explode into chaos.

#dcxdpdabbles #dc x dp crossover #Alfred/Thomas/Martha #spirit halloween #In which Martha thought her lovers were making shit up about their epic battle against the Time Lord #Clockwork is Merlin because he likes messing with humans #Danny is tried of his adoptive dad trying to set him up #arranged marriage #Clockwork hords choas like a dragon and motherhens like a bear #Alfred is just tired

[gracieheartspedro]

More Than Friends

how to help the Palestinian people

pairing: best friend!ellie williams x fem!reader (set in the jackson era)

description: you and ellie have been friends for awhile. while at a party for tommy’s birthday, you try to catch the attention of your crushes. sadly, they are all over each other. in a childish effort to get them to pay attention, you two try to make them jealous. 'cause that always ends the way you think, right?

word count: 3.3k words

warnings: MINORS DNI! this is 18+, smut, wlw, f!receiving oral (reader), fingering, jealousy, semi-public sex, dirty talk, tons of nicknames, no mentions of reader's appearance. talks of sexuality, but it's vague. reader wants to fuck whoever, it doesn't matter lol. let me know if I missed anything!

author's note: I wrote this after watching one too many ellie edits on tik tok. it was written in two hours, so it's not my finest work but it scratched my little ellie itch. okay, much love xoxoxoxxo

“So… you really like Dina, huh?”

Her face twists immediately at the question. She throws herself back in the wooden chair, cursing under her breath. Her arms cross over her chest, her t-shirt riding up a bit above her jeans. 

You saw the way Ellie looked at Dina. She looks at her like she hung the moon. She was always fumbling over her words around her, nervous to say the wrong thing. When she did try to flirt, it came up awkward and strained. And you understood her predicament because you were the same way about Jesse. 

You both were pining after two people in a committed relationship.

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” She mumbles, gesturing towards the center of the room where Dina and Jesse slow danced. He was leaning down to whisper something in her ear and it made your stomach flip. “She would never go for me.”

You felt bad for Ellie. She was everything you wished you were yourself; beautiful and funny. You felt like you were the only one, besides the Millers, who got her dry humor. You two had met in class about two years ago, now. You were a newcomer to Jackson, arriving about two months prior with your mom. When you got seated next to Ellie, you could tell her give-no-fucks attitude would mesh well with your give-too-many-fucks attitude. Over the years, you two had really rubbed off one another. You two were inseparable. 

“You’re the whole package, Els,” You say before nudging her shoulder with your elbow. You two are moping at a table near the exit of the food hall. It was Tommy’s birthday celebration, so everyone in Jackson got together to plan a big bash for him. Ellie felt obligated to come and your mom was pretty close to Maria. More time spent with your best friend wasn’t time wasted, so here you are. 

“At least she shows you the time of day,” You say under your breath. 

Jesse had been pretty flippant with you. He could never remember your name, let alone that you two shared the same street in Jackson. You also once shared a table at the mess hall. He was so tall and strong. Your crush on him was more physical than it was emotional. He was funny, sure, but you mainly just wanted to get him alone. 

“Why are we doing this to ourselves?” She ponders, finally looking away from the canoodling couple across the room, “We could do so much better!”

You know she’s just trying to convince herself of something she doesn’t really believe. The tone of her voice changes when she’s lying. 

“Like who? Slim pickin’s out here, Ellie. We have them and maybe 4 other undesirable people. There’s always the butcher’s son, he always had eyes for you.”

She grabs her cup from the table in front of you, “Yeah, men are… not my type.”

You turn your body so your legs are nudging her thighs, “Then, you really don’t have any choices.”

She nods her lips in a thin line. “I wish I could just.. Just go up there and talk to her. Ya know?”

“Why can’t you?”

“The same reason you can’t just go up and talk to Jesse.”

You roll your eyes, leaning forward on your knees. Your body is practically in her bubble, but she just sits back with her arm over the back of your chair.

You and Ellie had no real boundaries. You had no qualms about physical touch and Ellie never said anything or seemed to mind. You two have shared a horse countless times and even a bed. She never steered away from you.

“Well, Dina will talk to you if she sees other girls talking to you,” you state, reflecting on the last time everyone in Jackson got together. Some random girl came up to you two and as soon as Dina saw Ellie laughing with the other girl, she scrambled across the room to see what the fuss was about. You saw the same glint in her eyes that Ellie had. 

For some reason, it made you kind of jealous. 

You never tried to explore those knee-jerk emotions you had for Ellie. She was your best friend and you were positive she never felt romantic feelings towards you. Plus, you weren’t sure of your feelings about your sexuality. You always told Ellie you just liked who you liked, not really putting any importance on what was between their legs. You weren’t very experienced, but you had hooked up with both genders and liked it all equally.

“That was a coincidence, bug.”

That stupid nickname that she called you. Born from the one time you practically attracted every infected in the area with your scream over a huge beetle. She could not let it go and ended up calling you bug, just to annoy you. 

You finally look up at her freckled face, waiting for her to crack a smile. When you squint at her with contempt, she smirks. 

“Why don’t we find another girl and test the theory?”

She glances around the populated party, “Everyone here is over the age of 40.”

You turn back to the crowd of people around you and see that she’s right. 

You mull it over, your brain working to find a way that you both could get their attention. You two could simply say fuck it and go watch a movie and forget this stupid encounter happened. Joel would probably chew Ellie out, but when doesn’t he do that? 

Your next idea is something dangerous but something you had thought about before. You had never brought up the idea to Ellie because you were afraid of her reaction. 

“What’s your idea?”

She could read you like a book. You pursed your lips, wondering if you should even propose the idea to her. 

“How desperate are you?”

She laughs out loud, completely taken aback by the query. “Jesus, what are you thinkin’?”

You lick your lips, trying to make sure the idea comes out as a whisper.

“Why don’t we make them jealous? Just you and me?”

“How though?”

You bite the inside of your cheek, “Well, I’m a girl.”

You glance back at where Dina and Jesse were just dancing. They are both now facing you two’s direction, Jesse engrossed in a conversation with Tommy. Dina is just sipping from her glass, not really staring anywhere specific. 

You look back at Ellie who’s also looking at her, but meets your eyes when your face gets closer to hers. 

You would tell her how beautiful she was all the time and she just would roll her eyes and change the subject. You were physically attracted to her and there had been a couple of times you had thought about kissing her and wondered what her lips would feel like against yours. 

But she was your best friend. 

“Wrap your arm over my back,” You are still positioned, your elbows on your knees, your knees facing her thighs, “And rub it.”

She furrows her eyebrows, but she submits and brings the arm that is slouched over the chair to your lower back. You nod, watching as her lids lower. Her hand creeps up and down your side, her fingers grazing your ribs, up to your side boob. “Now what, bug?”

“Now, slowly move your hand up my back,” She does it as you’re speaking and the movement makes the hairs on your arms stand up, “Grab the nape of my neck.”

“Why are you making me do this?”

You lift up off your hands, bringing your face closer to hers. She doesn’t budge, sitting still and only focused on you and your words. 

“Because,” Her hand grabs the back of your neck, before slowly bringing it forward to collar bone. The gentleness of her touch and the fact that it’s your Ellie, makes every sense heightened. You don’t even realize how her touch is making you feel until you see her crack a smile. 

“Because why?” She whispers, her voice teasing. 

“Cause I want them to see you touch me.”

It comes out needy and desperate. Her eyes change when it slips from your lips, instead of being playful, she’s looking at you like you’re her next meal. She leans forward, her face millimeters from yours. 

You had never talked to Ellie like this but at this moment, you were completely transfixed on her. She was wearing a flannel over her shoulders covering her usual gray t-shirt. The sleeves were rolled up exposing the tattoo Cat did on her a year ago. 

You always thought it was hot, the way it trailed up her arm from her delicate wrist.

Her jeans are ripped and her legs and man-spreaded like she was carrying something in her jeans. 

And she smelled like pine. You loved it when you got the privilege to sleep next to her because her linens always smelled like her. You would love the idea of getting into bed with her right now.

“How do you want me to touch you?”

You chew the inside of your lip, “Any way you want to.”

She chuckles before brushing her hand down your exposed arm, “Is this for the bit or do you want me to genuinely touch you?”

You notice her being sincere. You think back to all the times you joked about sleeping with Ellie, and while at the time you chalked them up to being jokes, deep down, maybe it’s actually what you wanted. 

With the way she’s looking at you now, you prayed on every star that she would continue pushing your buttons. That somehow she would forget Dina even exists and realize it was you all along.

“Hey guys,” Her voice brings you out of your horny daze. It was the last voice you were expecting, and you can tell by the look on Ellie’s face, she is thinking the same thing. 

“Oh, hey Dina!” You quip up, not moving all the much to ensure she sees Ellie’s hand on your bicep. 

“You two busy?” The way she asks is almost too demanding. You glance back over at Ellie whose color is draining from her face. 

You shake your head, finally sitting up. Ellie’s hand doesn’t leave you though, instead, it just drops to your thigh. You try not to acknowledge it, as you notice Jesse coming up behind Dina. But now it feels so heavy against your legs, the weight of the situation finally hitting you. 

It worked. 

“We are just talking,” Ellie manages, her voice cracking. 

Jesse comes up behind Dina, wrapping his arms around her. You’re suddenly grateful that Ellie’s hand is still on you, the jitters hitting your system subsiding by the physical feeling of her being so near. 

“Looked like more than that,” Jesse jokes, his smile taking up a lot of his face, “You good Ellie?”

“Ellie was just telling me about the patrol she just went on with Jesse,” You explain quickly, making sure to look at Dina and not Jesse. “She told me about the infected y’all ran into!”

“Oh yeah, shit was crazy,” Jesse squeezes Dina tighter, “We gotta get back out there again, Ellie. You were a beast at taking those suckers down.”

“U-uh yeah, absolutely.”

You grab her hand as a reassurance. The exchange gets awkward quickly, none of you knowing what else to say. 

“Well, we should get goin’,” Dina says tapping Jesse’s arms, “See you two around?”

You two just nod. They walk away, not saying much of anything else. You stare at the wall, humiliated by the last 10 minutes of your life. You were unsure if you could even look Ellie in the eyes again. 

Ellie huffs loudly, sitting further back in her chair. “Well, that failed.”

You start to agree until that little bit of Ellie that’s rubbed off on you starts to come up your throat. The not-giving-much-of-a-fuck is creeping up on you. 

“Did it? Because I think it went exactly how I wanted it to.”

You finally return your eyes to her bewildered expression. You pull her hand off your lap as you stand up, yanking her up after you. 

“You wanted it to go like that? What was the point?”

You pull her closer to you before raising your lips up to her ear. Her hair is tucked behind the crest of her ear, so it tickles your nose a bit before you speak. 

She turned you on, so now you needed her to do something about it. Here’s to not giving a fuck. 

“The point was to get you to finally touch me.”

The temperature in the room rises a million degrees. Ellie’s eyes light up at the statement and you know that was exactly what she wanted to hear before Dina came up to you. 

You start to pull her towards the kitchen door, right near your table. You remember finding a hidden supply closet back there last Christmas party. Your skin was on fire as you dragged her through the appliances to the somewhat large closet. It was practically empty, void of anything anyone at the party may need, so it was safe. Plus it had a lock. 

As soon as the door shuts behind her, Ellie’s on you. Her lips hit yours and it was exactly how you imagined it. She was quick and eager with her kisses, her tongue plunging into your mouth immediately. She was grabbing your hips, pushing you towards the wall where all the brooms and mops were. You try not to trip, giggling as you pull her face closer to you. 

“So this is what you wanted?” She pulls away from you for a breath, “Using making Dina jealous as a ploy to get to finally kiss you?”

Your hands find the spot above the hem of her jeans, right under her t-shirt. Out of instinct, you start to unbutton her pants. 

“Actually, that wasn’t the plan.”

Her eyes are trained on your lips, “Is that so?”

“No, but you were playing the part way too well and I realized something.”

“What did you realize?”

The overhead light was so dim but you could still somehow see her cute freckles. 

“That I want you more than I want anyone else. I need you to touch me more often.”

She chuckles, her fingers still pressed into your hips, “Well, bug, I’m touching you just like you asked.”

She drags kisses up your jaw and neck. You try not to fall apart over that alone. Ellie always talked about how inexperienced she was, but she’s probably the most tentative kisser you have ever encountered. 

“Can you touch me here?”

You press your hands to the zip of your jeans. She looks down at your body to where you’re touching and she clicks her tongue. 

“Ask politely, baby, and I’ll do anything you want.”

The nickname change makes your heart stop. 

“Can you, my sweet best friend, touch me and get me off? Please?”

She groans at the question, a sound you never thought she’d make for you. 

“Of course,” She grabs the belt loops of your pants before yanking them down your legs without resistance, “What are friends for?”

You know you’re soaked by the way she smiles up at you. She gets down on her knees, looking up at you, as her hands slowly start to spread your legs. You are standing against a wall, watching your best friend’s face creep close to your center. 

It’s the hottest thing you’ve ever seen. She pulls at your panties, toying with the fabric before you take matters into your own hands and pull them down your legs. 

She brings her lower lip between her teeth, “This wet for me?”

You could slap the stupid smirk off her face, but before you can even say something snarky back, she slips her digits between your glistening slit. Your body practically buckles at the prodding, so you brace yourself against the shelf next to you.

Your normal reaction to feeling good is to close your legs together tightly, but Ellie has her left hand mounted to your inner thigh, keeping you open for her, while the other one is slowly creeping up to your weeping hole. She’s gentle when she puts one finger inside you.

Once your body reacts around her, she pulls her finger out to inspect how wet you are. After she’s satisfied with her findings, she adds another which causes you to mewl at the sensation. 

“Ellie, please,” You beg, trying to get more friction. She’s not letting you do anything but watch. 

“Mmm,” She hums before moving her face closer to you, “Love to hear you moan my name, bug. You wanna be a good girl? Keep begging.”

You never took Ellie as someone who loves to hear her sexual partner beg, but it turns you on even more. 

You watch her close in on your clit, her tongue finding the bud and flicking it a couple of times. The moans that come out of your mouth are so deprived. Her fingers slip so seamlessly in and out of you, that you try to remember a time you were so wet. Nothing comes to mind because all your brain is thinking is Ellie, Ellie, Ellie. 

“Please, please,” you plead, trying your best to egg her on so she goes faster. It works because she picks up the pace fucking you. Her mouth suddenly closes around your clit, and she sucks. 

Your one hand is still gripping onto whatever is next to you, but your other hand has to rest somewhere. Her short brown locks are right there, so you grab on. 

Her mouth leaves your clit, and instead, her tongue licks up and down your weeping hole. When you bring her closer in, her nose starts to stimulate your sensitive bud. 

The sounds are so wet and depraved, you’re sure the bubbling in your stomach is about to come to a tipping point. You find yourself grinding forward, trying to get friction on your clit again. Her nose prods the spot over and over again as you grind down onto her face. 

Ellie hums as she fucks you, trying her best to push your limit. You know you’re close and you are sure she can feel how tight your pussy is gripping onto her fingers. She knows you’re close so she kicks it up a notch and shakes her head between your folds. That motion alone sends a tidal wave within you crashing to the shore. You pull her hair so hard, you know it probably hurts but fuck, you needed her to feel how good she was making you feel. 

The white-hot feeling starts to subside and you are panting like you just ran a mile. You finally release Ellie’s head, letting her come up for air. Her lips are saturated with your slick and it looks like she’s drunk on you by the way her eyes are half shut. She pulls her two fingers out of your tight hole, making you whine at the emptiness. 

She stands up, bringing her two fingers up to your lips. 

“Wanna see how good you taste?”

She’s so fucking dirty. It gets you so riled up. 

You grab onto her wrist and bring the fingers up to your mouth. You suck them dry, giving into how absurd this is. 

“You’re a freak, too,” She beams at you, before bringing you into another feverish kiss. You were so mesmerized by her. She grabs onto your hips, pulling your naked bottom half to her still-clothed legs. 

“Why didn’t we do this sooner?” You grumble, still recovering from the drilling you just had. Her hands travel up your sides, under your t-shirt. She is holding onto your ribcage, looking at your exposed tummy as the shirt rides up. 

“I didn’t think you’d go for me, especially when guys like Jesse are your type,” She explains, so enthralled by the way your body looks to her, “I don’t know if I can let him have you, now.”

You smirk, your hands twisting around her shoulders, “Oh, I see. Well, if he can’t have me, then Dina can’t have you.”

“Well, thank God they have each other, then.”

#ellie williams #ellie williams x reader #ellie williams tlou #ellie williams oneshot #ellie tlou #ellie x reader #ellie the last of us #ellie x fem reader #tlou2 #the last of us 2 #gracieheartspedro #tlou ellie #ellie williams x you #ellie williams smut

[prettygiri222]

okay but imagine eren seen a video of his baby momma at the club singin sexy redd’s “ FUCK MY BABYDADDY ” 😭😭 he just brings their son or daughter to reader’s mom and goes back to reader’s house and tears them TF upppp.

i can just hear him saying “ fuck yo baby who?? oh aight. ”

I had to add rapper!Eren to this cause it's something I always wanted to write😋

Eren x Black Fem Reader, PLOT + SMUT

rapper Eren Yeager's longtime girlfriend of six years broke up with him after having his first child, Duke Yeager. Eren shared a post on instagram confirming their breakup but stated that the both of them remain in Duke’s life as co-parents. the reason why was unreleased so fans speculated that Eren must’ve cheated because why else would you willingly break up with the famous rapper. his management released a statement saying it was due to conflicting schedules but it was seen as damage control so no one believed it.

during the six years of the relationship, his management managed to keep your face out of the media. but with the way Eren was constantly posting snippets of you, fans soon discovered who you were after matching physical features, traits and location that were found on his story with the ones present on your small instagram.

you two quickly became the it couple, how the girl from nowhere pulled a famous rapper gave fans hope because they saw them reflected in you. a woman who didn’t have to undergo multiple surgeries to pull the industry's finest. but after the breakup, that image fell.

his management did their best to keep things under wraps to keep the media from tormenting you but it didn’t work. when you posted a picture of yourself postpartum your dms filled with hateful comments wondering why Eren had gotten with you in the first place. you knew it was just jealous fangirls but it still got to you, especially since you weren’t all that confident in your new body and still recovering from your pregnancy. your accounts went silent shortly after.

although the breakup was mutual, the reason why was deeper than scheduling conflicts. you needed someone who was able to be there physically, emotionally and mentally. it was hard for Eren to provide that due to his career path, always travelling the world with a packed schedule. you guys did your best to make it work but after Duke came into the world you just couldn’t handle it anymore. 

Eren was a decent baby daddy and you guys co-parented well. you had full custody of him but when Eren was in town and would have time off you would send Duke over to him. Duke loved his daddy, always wanting to watch his concerts and interviews on the TV when he wasn’t there or free to facetime. Eren always made sure to send double what was asked for in child support to make sure you took care of yourself as well as his son.

that’s why when you reposted your friend’s story of you in the club all hell broke loose. people took it as a diss to your baby daddy, which it was, but not in the way they thought.

earlier that week you had dropped Duke off at Eren’s mansion. he had just flown back in from his world tour and finally had a few weeks off. despite being exhausted he called you up and asked if you could bring Duke over, wanting to spend as much time with his son as possible during his break. he sent over an uber black to pick the two of you up.

when Eren met you two at the door, Duke jumped into his arms smiling and giggling. it’s been a while since he’s seen his daddy in person. the sight made you awe. Eren turned to you and asked if you wanted to stay over so he could spend time with the two most important people in his life but sadly you declined. you didn’t want to interrupt their father and son bonding time.

Duke was almost a clone of Eren, he had his sharp green eyes, german nose and face shape. the only hints of you in him were his full lips, darker skin and coils. Duke was your little bundle of joy but he could be a handful at times. during the few times those two got to spend together Eren spoiled him rotten, whatever he wanted he got and it showed. whenever you told him no he would throw a tantrum saying how he wanted his daddy. you knew you were a good mother but hearing him say that when you were the one who took care of him every day hurt.

---

it was a friday night and Eren was at his crib chilling with Duke. he had his phone on do now disturb so his time with his family wouldn’t be interrupted. it was a shame you weren’t here to spend time with them. after having pizza, soda and ice cream for dinner the boys passed out on the couch after staying up past midnight watching movies. 

his peace was soon interrupted by the constant buzz of his phone. it roused him from his sleep but Duke slept through it. after the third ring, he finally answered the phone. he was pissed that his manager was calling him knowing it was his time off but he figured it must be important for them to use emergency bypass to call.

“what’s going on?” his voice gruff from his slumber and irritation. he turned on his phone to see it flooded with notifications from instagram, snapchat, tiktok, twitter, messages, missed calls from his friends and one from his mom and his heart dropped to his stomach. he hadn't dropped anything new recently so he knew whatever was happening had to be bad.

“well… it’s about your baby mama… she uh…” his manager was at a loss for words. he didn't know the words to describe the situation to make it not seem as bad as the media was already making it out to be. he knew Eren would be pissed when he found out what happened and they didn't want to be on the end of it. 

Eren was extremely protective of his family and friends. when he saw the hate you were receiving after you posted a picture of yourself postpartum he took to twitter immediately. he did not play when it came to you, together or not together. you were the mother of his child and you needed your respect. so he was wondering why you were playing in his face like this.

“well what is it?” he snapped, already losing his patience. “is she ok? is she hurt?” he shot upright from his resting position on the couch. he opened up the group chat between him, Armin, Connie, Onyankopon and Jean first. all that was sent was a blurry video followed by a bunch of skull and grave emojis.

he opened the video and immediately recognized the faces of a few of the girls in it as a few of your friends, Sasha, Mikasa and Historia at a club. Sasha, Connie’s model girlfriend was the one to record them singing along to a sexyy red song. he wondered what the video had to do with him until it panned to you. you stood out with your brightly dyed red hair styled in a what he recognized as a wash-and-go.

“fuck my baby daddy! fuck my baby daddy! fuck my baby daddy!” you were shouting the lyrics a little bit too passionately. you had your middle fingers stuck up to the camera showing off your glittery red acrylic nails. you were clearly wasted, drunk off of whatever drinks Sasha managed to shove down your throat.

“yes bitch!” your friends shouted as you turned around to shake your ass sticking out your tongue. you were wearing a ripped mesh dress. one of your friends reached out to pull down the back of your dress to prevent your ass from showing but the dress was already leaving very little to the imagination. the pregnancy did your body good, you were a bit on the skinny side before but now your hips had filled out, your ass and boobs swole and your skin finally cleared up. you were glowing.

“I’m a fine ass bitch, I ain’t in the in the house sad!” you were feeling yourself. it felt nice to get out of the house and away from Duke no matter how much you loved him. having to take care of a baby by yourself was tiring, no matter how much Eren supported you from afar you needed him there with you.

your friends were hyping you up and your mind grew hazy from both the alcohol and adrenaline. you were far too gone to realize what you said when you yelled “fuck Eren!” instead of the actual lyrics. the camera quickly panned to the floor before the video stopped.

Eren had to replay the video countless times to process what he had seen and heard. but he couldn’t believe it was you. never in the eight years he’s known you have you ever picked up the phone to send a dig at him through social media. no matter how tough the going got, it’s what he respected about you. you always wanted to talk problems through and try to make it work. Eren clenched his fist looking at you now.

Eren knows how baby mamas like you are seen and treated in the industry. he’s seen how they're constantly bashed and embarrassed by the fathers of their children and the media. Eren never wanted that for you, he wanted to give you a ring before he gave you a baby but accidents happen and here you both were. instead of calling him or stopping by to talk you wanted to show out for the fans and diss him. it was stupid of you, he knew you were better than this.

“so it’s “fuck Eren” is that right,” Eren laughed to himself throwing his head back on the couch. sure he couldn’t be there for you and Duke all the time like he wanted but at least he tried. he was a very busy man. but he did what he had to to make sure his mother, Duke and you could have a nice and cozy life. where Duke didn’t have to worry about if he was going to eat dinner that night. “bet.”

“sorry little man but I have to go get your mommy. you’re going to go to stay with your grandma tonight, ok?” he cooed to Duke, waking him up. Duke slowly woke up and was trying to rub the sleep out of his eye. Eren loved his son very much he was the reason he kept this stressful life up. 

he enjoyed making music and performing but not during the days when he slept in the studio trying to find the perfect lyrics and beat or days where he hardly slept because he had to stay on his feet. it was a fast life and if he couldn’t keep up it would all come crashing down. and for you to make a dig at that knowing how he felt was fucked.

“Eren Yeager!” his manager shouted through the phone overhearing the whole thing. he needed Eren to keep a calm head and not do anything rash tonight. he didn’t need him sparking more outrage in the media or doing something that could potentially ruin the relationship you two had. “what are you going to do?”

“what else, I’m going to go fuck my baby mama,” before his manager could get another word out he hung up the phone. 

“daddy said a bad word!”

“...don’t tell your mom and I’ll bring you to the studio with me.”

---

you wobbled into your apartment with a sheepish grin. it felt like a huge weight was lifted off your shoulder tonight. it’s been a while since you went to the club and got so drunk that the world became a blur. you were slowly regaining memories of what happened that night and you couldn’t help but cringe knowing you would regret some of them in the morning. your phone died on your way home after you reposted Sasha’s story so you were oblivious to the buzz you had created.

when you went to unlock your door you found out that it was already open. you raised your brow but you brushed it off thinking you must’ve forgotten to lock it in your rush to leave the house. you knew the security for your building was tight, it was the main thing you were looking for when you were buying your apartment. it was a necessity since Duke was the son of a successful rapper. 

when you and Eren had split you bought yourself a nice little two-bedroom apartment deep in the city. Eren offered to pay for it but you immediately declined, you didn’t want anything else of yours to get attached to him. during your relationship you saved up a lot of money since Eren had always offered to buy you whatever you wanted and spoiled you rotten just like he was doing with Duke. he fueled your shopping addiction only wanting his girlfriend to have the best of the best.

you had a little side hustle as an occasional hairstylist and nail artist for your friends and family with the occasional new client. Eren told you time and time again you didn’t need to work and that he would take care of everything. but you liked having your own source of income it made you feel independent plus you enjoyed your job.

being able to close on your dream apartment was a dream come true and it left you feeling satisfied. you loved how everything was within walking distance, there was a daycare down the street along with an elementary school for when Duke got older. there was a grocery store right around the corner with a few outlets and public transit ran just outside the building, it was perfect for a single mother like you. 

“thought we were doing good with this co-parenting shit mama?” the second you opened the door you were greeted by a voice you knew better than your own. goosebumps covered your arms, ‘why is he here’ you thought.

“Eren?” you called out into the dark apartment. you felt the wall closest to the door for the switch and turned the light on. and there he was, Eren, your famous baby daddy. he turned his head to look at you from where he was seated on the couch. his eyes were extremely low, watching your every move. “are you ok? where's Duke?”

“with your mom,” Eren was having such a pleasant high, he felt so relaxed and calm in the dark room. he didn’t have the TV on and was just staring at the black screen. but the second the room lit up and you walked through the door with that tiny see-through dress on it dispersed. he narrowed his eyes down at you and you could tell you had just blown his high. his anger simmering underneath his calm demeanour. 

“how’d you even get in?” you never gave Eren the key to your apartment. having already been split and you always dropped Duke off at his place there was no reason for him to have one.

“front desk gave me a key after I flashed a couple of stacks,” he replied nonchalantly, like it wasn’t a crime on both parts. you rolled your eyes, this was how Eren fixed all his problems, with money. you get that when he was growing up it was something he didn’t have but now that he had it was like all he knew how to do was throw it at people to make his problems disappear.

“well if Duke isn’t here then there’s no reason for you to be,” you don’t know what you did to warrant this visit but you didn’t want to be in his presence any longer. you liked to keep your contact with Eren as minimal as possible. plus you didn’t have the energy to deal with him tonight, you were tired. hoping he would get the hint it was time to leave you walked away and headed towards your bedroom, “please see yourself out. we can talk another day.”

“nah, 'cause it’s “fuck Eren” right?” he got up from the couch and followed you down the hall and into your room. the wooden floor creaking under his weight. you didn’t have to turn around to know he was towering over you, you could feel him breathing down your neck. you tried to move away from him but he gripped your waist with a firm grip underneath and pulled you against him. “you must’ve gone crazy going so long with my dick huh? that must be it, acting like you lost your damn mind.”

“Eren!” you pulled away to look back at him in shock. “what are you even talking about?”

“don’t play dumb with me mama, your ass is all over the shade room talking about “fuck my baby daddy” ” he took his phone out of his pocket to show you their newest post. it was a screenshot of a video but it was clearly you, it was the same outfit and hairstyle you had on right now. you swiped the image on his phone in disbelief and the video played, “fuck Eren! fuck my baby daddy! fuck my baby daddy!”

“oh my gosh! Eren, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it like that, I was drunk and got carried away,” you looked up at him from the phone. you could tell he was pissed, his eyes darkened after hearing what you said in the video for the hundredth time. you were horrified, you didn’t mean to air out your personal problems and make Eren seem like a bad father. you knew how the public blew things out of proportion.

“they say drunk words are sober thoughts,” Eren stated, shrugging his shoulders. “I know Duke be stressing you out ma, let me fix it,” he stared down at you with a little smirk. he licked his lips, obviously checking you out. it's been a while since he's seen your body exposed, you always show up to drop Duke off in oversized sweaters and shirts. just looking at you like this made his dick hard, “plus you owe me an apology.”

that’s how you found yourself face down ass up in your bedroom with the man you’d never thought would step foot in your new apartment. Eren was behind you standing at the edge of the bed, his black and grey nike tech sweater was thrown somewhere in your room leaving him in a white wife beater and his golden cuban link chain. his grey sweats were down so that just his dick was out.

“mm fuck Eren! please,” you cried out. no matter how deeply you arched or angled your hips you couldn’t get him to reach where you needed him the most. he knew that but he loved watching you struggle and the way your brown cheeks jiggled after coming into contact with his pelvis. you were a sight to see, one that he deeply missed.

“you can do better than that mama,” he raised his pierced brow watching you. Eren stood completely still behind you, you had your face buried in the sheets as you attempted to throw it back on him. you were still dressed in your mesh dress but he ripped your thong off. “I saw you in that video. you were shaking that shit so c’mon, fuck me back ma.”

your makeup was staining your sheets but you could care less right now. the feeling of Eren stretching out your practically virginal walls was dumbfounding. he didn’t bother to stretch you out believing that your body was already moulded to his shape. but it’s been about two years since you last had sex. your tight walls were struggling to accommodate his humongous size.

“ ’m trying,” the lack of stimulation on your sweet spots had you in tears. the stretch was pleasurable but it wasn’t enough, paired with the shallow thrusts. you so desperately craved more so you reached in between your legs to play with your clit. Eren groaned at the sight of you touching yourself, not to mention you began to clench around him. 

“damn ma, now that’s what I’m talking about,” Eren gave your ass a harsh slap. you let out a little whine as you lost your rhythm because of it. but you soon found it again. your wetness was soaking his dick and you were basically twerking on his dick. Eren loved every second of it. 

he took one of your ass cheeks and pulled it to the side with his tattooed hand, he watched himself go in and out of your brown folds. feeling the unsteady approach of his orgasm watching as you struggled to fuck yourself on him he decided to finally grant you mercy. he languidly began to thrust into you. “go ahead and nut on this dick mama.”

 “o-okay” you stuttered out. you struggled to concentrate on stimulating your sensitive clit while bouncing back to meet Eren’s lazy thrusts. your fingers were covered in your own wetness while you rubbed little circles on your bud. each loop paired with the tip of his dick pressing against that spongy spot inside you brought you ever closer to your climax. “ ‘m so close!”

“let it out for me baby,” the pace became erratic, you guys’ release at its peak. sometimes his dick collided straight into your soft spot and sometimes it completely missed. but the feeling of him pummeling in and out of you had you convulsing around his dick. “keep squeezing around me like that and I'll put another baby in you, fuck.”

you let out broken whines as you struggled to continuously stimulate your bud. you were soaking wet that your fingers slipped around. “‘ren! ren!” you chanted, reaching out toward him with your slick-covered hand. Eren grabbed it and put it in his mouth. groaning deeply as he licked and sucked on your coated digits.

“don’t worry mama, I got you. let it out for me,” Eren leaned over your arched form and whispered in your ear. his husky sending shivers down your spine as he talked you through it. you listened to him feeling the wave of pleasure overwhelm you, the sensation in your stomach bursting.

“f-fuck, fuck!”

“shit,” when he felt himself about to burst he pulled out of your pussy's compelling grasp. he watched the lewd scene in front of him and used it to jerk off. he groaned out stroking his soaking dick. your pussy hole remained gaping after he pulled out and your liquids were spilling on your sheets. after a few strokes, he released all over your back onto your mesh dress staining it.

you plopped down onto your empty bed exhausted. the room filled with the sound of laboured breathing as you guys tried to catch your breath. the sound of Eren shuffling around could be heard soon after. your heart ached at the thought of him leaving you so soon but you closed your eyes, ‘it’s for the better’ you thought. you wanted a few moments of rest before you went to wash up.

but Eren wasn’t finished yet, he was shedding the remaining articles of his clothing leaving him naked. your eyes opened feeling the bed dip under the extra weight. before you could protest, Eren had already climbed on top of you, grabbing your legs and having them pushed over your head, “we’re not finished yet.”

this time Eren took the lead, he had ripped off your dress leaving you completely naked and exposed to his eyes. he had you folded over like a pretzel leaving you open for him. your legs were bent so far over your head you could see the top of your pussy and watch as Eren thrusted in and out of your overstimulated hole from above. the pleasure made you want to slither away but Eren’s strong hold kept you still.

“E-eren!” you were losing your mind from the stimulation. “too much! it’s too much!” you cried out. you reached out to push against his rock-hard abdomen. you didn’t want him to stop, not when you were so close to your second orgasm of the night but it was too much. he was being so rough with you. you didn’t think you had it in you after motherhood to be manhandled like this.

“nah, you can take it. you’re a big girl now, dissing me at the club with your friends. be glad I’m even fucking you since I’m such a “bad baby daddy.” Eren mocked you from above. he didn’t even flinch as you tried to push him away. he smiled down at you watching how easily you got fucked out. moans were no longer coming out your mouth, more like strangled sobs and whines that were being forced out after each deep thrust of his. the head of his dick battering your insides and abusing your soft spot left you tremoring underneath him.

“imsorryimsorry,” you babbled out. your mascara and eyeliner were running down your cheeks and your lipstick was smothered but you couldn’t look any prettier to Eren. he enjoyed watching as your tits bounce around. he brought his forest green eyes back up to you watching as you bit your quivering lip.

“how’d that song go again?” Eren sarcastically asked. with the number of times he replayed that video he had the lyrics, beat and rhythm all memorized. “something like this right?” pap! pap! pap! Eren changed the rhythm of his thrusts, the sound of his balls clapping against your ass and the squelching sounds of your pussy mimicked the bow bow bow of the song. he angled each thrust to deliver a particularly harsh hit to your g-spot.

without warning an intense feeling of pleasure erupted in your stomach. “imcuming!” you cried out. you could feel a liquid flow out from your pussy, completely drenching Eren’s dick. he quickly pulled out to watch you squirt, a sight he immensely missed. the translucent liquid gushed out of your hole soaking the sheets as well.

“you said fuck your baby who?” Eren smiled down at your fucked out face. you couldn’t even answer him with the overwhelming pleasure rendering all of your senses useless. your head was thrown back and your face furrowed, coming down from the high of your intense orgasm. “oh aight.”

I think I got a bit carried away🤭

#anime smut #aot smut #x black reader #aot x black reader #black reader smut #black y/n #aot #aot x reader #eren x black reader #eren smut #eren x black fem!reader #eren x reader #eren yeager smut #eren jeager smut #eren jeager x you #eren jeager x reader #eren jeager x y/n #attack on titan smut #rapper smut #attack on titan #attack on titan au #black coded reader #smut

[ellievickstar]

Bloodied Bonds

A/N: This was...fun. I wanted to fit it all into one part but it was getting too long sooooo yeah.....have fun :)

Summary: When hanahaki disease festers in your lungs, how will your family help you while you hide it from your mate?

Pairing: Azriel x Reader, Rhysand x Sister!Reader

Warnings: Elain slander, dying

⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆

There they were again.

Azriel smiled at Elain with those eyes…those eyes. And in your soul you felt the bond writhe with pain and clench in your chest. You remained still as you immediately brought your eyes to look at the ground beneath you. This hurt. This really hurt. A part of you wanted to deny it, wanted to believe that Azriel would remain faithful to you always, that he would stay true to the mating bond, something he desperately used to want before we got together.

Now, you were not so sure.

“Sweetheart…,” Cassian said from behind me, startling. He knew what you was seeing, saw it in his own brother’s eyes. Azriel may have always been a mystery to everyone else outside the inner circle, but his eyes — his beautiful hazel eyes — showed you everything you needed to know.

“I’m fine,” You waved Cassian off, bringing down shields on the bond, shutting out his emotions, the pain from it, and shutting yourself in as a stray tear slipped down your face, “I’m really fine,” You repeated.

Truth to be told, Cassian did not know what to say to you. After you had defended Azriel since you were kids, brought him to you and Rhysand’s mother, convinced her to take him in. Cassian did not know what could come over Azriel to internally betray you in this way. However as you began coughing Cassian was alarmed when you raced towards the kitchen sink and coughed out flower petals, one after another.

“What the hell-” He started, moving to pull back your hair as he observed what you had coughed out. Blood and petals coated the sink and as you choked them out one by one, slowly calming down, you waved your hand magicking it away. And it was then it hit him.

You were dying.

“Explain. Now.” He demanded. Looking away you mumbled.

“A few weeks ago after I first realised he loved her, I started coughing up flowers and my tears, my tears turned a gold colour. I asked Madja what was wrong. It’s a soul disease called hanahaki, caused by the betrayal of the heart and unrequited love. The tears were caused by the same thing, a unique symptom that is because of my magic due to being the High Lord’s sister. She said the flowers in my lungs will continue to grow until it suffocates me and I die. The star tears are just a symptom that causes physical pain, she doesn’t know if there will be any repercussions from it,” That’s all you managed to ramble out before you doubled over and heaved again, blood dripping out of your gaping mouth as you choked and coughed on the flower petals making their way up your throat.

Cassian was at a loss of words, on one hand he wanted to be angry, angry at you for keeping this from him, for not telling him sooner so he could beat the crap out of Azriel. On the other hand he was…devastated. You had always been like a sister to him, since he first met you as a kindred and fierce spirit when you were seven years old. The three of them had been twenty and Cassian had fell to his knees before the little girl with such a bright spirit, who dared to scream in Devlon’s face when he said females belonged in the kitchen.

Cassian had sworn to protect you.

And now, against a disease he felt helpless.

“Is there a cure?” He asked.

“Madja said there were two ways, either Azriel proves that he still loves me, which we both know won’t happen when he won’t stay away from Elain for more than a few hours, or I could have the flowers cut from their roots and removed, it’s a risky procedure and even successful all my feelings towards Azriel will be removed entirely, given the mating bond, she thinks it will be stripped from my soul. I….I wanted to wait.”

“So you either have your emotions robbed from you, make Azriel realise he’s an idiot, or die?”

You nod.

“Tell Azriel,” “I can’t!” You hissed, “We both know I can’t. He loves her, Cassian, I can feel it, I can see it, everytime he looks at her it’s like she’s the one who hung the stars and moon while when he looks at me that light dies!” You bang your fist on the table.

You point to where Azriel and Elain was far out in the gardens. His shadows no where to be seen, both blissfully unaware of what was going on inside with you and Cassian.

“He acts like she’s the one who went through countless of interrogation, of torture, when she got captured by enemies. He acts like she was the one who protected Velaris with Rhysand when she went under the mountain to be taken advantage of, when Amarantha held me down and tried to force answers out of me,” You let out another pained cry as you slid to the ground, “I have done everything for him, been through hell and back with him. And even after everything he still wants her, still wants to be with her, still doesn’t want me.”

Cassian brought you closer to him as he sat next to you and let you cry on his shoulder.

You cried and cried, and cried until there was nothing left. Cried until you couldn’t cry.

And when you finally fell asleep from exhaustion, Cassian glanced out the house to the gardens where his brother trailed Elain, and Cassian made a decision.

⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆

“You told my brother!?” You shrieked. Rhysand and Cassian was now sitting around you in Rhys’s study.

“You told Cassian before me?” Rhysand shot back. You rolled your eyes as you scoffed, “Oh please I didn’t tell him anything I was throwing up flowers in front of him, not much I could do except explain.”

Shaking his head, Rhys sighed as he glanced at Cassian and they both shared a look. Narrowing your eyes, the tendrils in your mind crept towards your brother and the general, and surprise coated your face when you realised they had shut you out.

“Let me remind you what I do is my choice.”

“Not when your life is at stake,” Rhysand retorted.

So he had decided something against your will already. Of course, your brother who wanted to help everyone, your brother who thought you were his responsibility, his burden to bear. Your brother who claimed to value your opinion oh so much but then never, not once, ever considered how you feel in anything that had to do with you.

“He doesn’t care. I haven’t even been actively hiding it from him, it’s just that he’s never around to notice,” You said bitterly, “Did you know he missed my birthday? You all did. Because usually he’s the one going around reminding everyone the week before. Did you know our anniversary passed and I had waited for him all day just to realise he was with her?” Stray tears slipped down your cheeks as you tried to hold them back.

Crying meant that you were weak.

And you hated being weak.

That was when Cassian spoke, “Have Madja remove the flowers.”

Rhysand shot a look at him.

“She won’t survive otherwise. Even as we discuss this now she is running out of time, Rhys. Azriel’s infatuation with Elain is unforgivable and at least this way we can save her. Their relationship might never be the same but if Azriel is truly in love with Elain as she feels, then it is possible this way everyone wins.”

“I don’t want the male who almost killed my sister in my court,” Rhys bit out.

“Convincing Azriel that what he is doing is wrong will take too long. Maybe we should have interfered when it first started but now it’s too late. We can still save her, really save her. Not their relationship but at least she’ll live,” “And live with a bond that will eventually diminish into nothing?” “Maybe it’s better that way.”

Glancing between Cassian and your brother, your own inner turmoil seemed to be playing out in front of you as they discussed everything that you had not been able to come to terms with yourself. A part of you could still hardly believe that Azriel would do something like this, hurt you in this way when he himself swore that he would be loyal for eternity.

Mates.

A sacred connection that determined your equal, your partner in everything.

But your parents were mates too…and that did not work out well. So maybe it was time for you to let your mate go.

However, as you opened your mouth to agree with Cassian, to agree that maybe the best option would be to remove the flowers directly, the consequences of your feelings being stolen be damned, a cough climbed up your throat.

And as you coughed out bloody petals onto Rhysand’s office floor….everything went dark.

⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆

It had all happened quickly, too quickly for Rhysand’s liking.

One moment he was debating with Cassian how they would save his sister’s life, the next moment as she was about to say something and he watched in horror as blood came out instead of words. Her eyes drooped and he raced to catch her from hitting her head on the hard wooden floors, and as his ears started ringing, holding his sister’s lifeless body in his arms, as he watched golden tears stream out of her eyes, he noticed there was someone screaming.

And it was not until his throat hurt, until his own throat burned, that he realised he was the one screaming, crying out loud for his sister who’s body seemed as lifeless as the one he had lost all those years ago.

“Get Madja!” He roared at Cassian, “Get her NOW!”

Less that a minute went by when Morrigan and Feyre came into the room, Feyre let out a horrified gasp as Mor took in the scene, freezing as she realised her cousin, her best friend, her only companion during the times after Eris and Keir, was in Rhysand’s arms, still and lifeless even as blood trickled out of her mouth and gold spilled form her closed eyelids.

Madja came shortly after, and Y/N’s body was moved to a different room for Madja to work, Cassian explaining what happened and the illness in Y/N’s body that was causing this. Morrigan took a few steps back, before she crashed into the wall of the hallway and let out her own sob.

And for the first time after Rhysand and Y/N had returned from the mountain, Morrigan wept.

Two days passed, and Y/N did not wake.

Madja estimated that they would have to make a decision within the week whether they would tell Azriel, or cut the flowers out.

And in those two days Azriel did not come.

It was only after Rhysand had asked him to meet, told him about Y/N did Azriel finally realised he had not seen his mate in days. That he had not even spent more than fifteen minutes with her in the past few months.

It was only after Rhysand said that Y/N was dying, did Azriel reach down the now cold and empty bond, and realise he had shut her out. And when he let his walls down, experienced the agony, the pain, the grief she felt even in her unconscious state, did Azriel regret.

“Why didn’t she tell me…” Azriel whispered.

“Because she heard you when I told you to stay away from Elain. I looked into her mind and I realised the day her disease started she went to find you, and you had been in my office, yelling at me that the cauldron had made a mistake, that you wanted Elain,” Rhysand laughed coldly. Even Rhys in all his beauty, his eyes were now red from sobbing, his voice hoarse from how he had cried, and cried.

“Good job, Azriel,” Cassian said from the doorway, “You got what you wanted. Your bond will no longer exist once she awakes…that’s if she survives even.”

“No….I don’t,” Azriel muttered, “Rhysand…what conversation?” Rhysand furrowed his eyebrows, “Are you really playing this game with me now? My sister is DYING! AND YOU WANT TO PRETEND LIKE YOU FORGOT WHAT YOU SAID!?”

Azriel’s eyes looked back and forth between his brother’s….when did he…when did he even get here?

Where was his mate?

Why did it feel like something just cleared from his head?

That was when Elain stepped in, holding a mug and what looked to be tea.

“Azriel, i heard your distress, drink this it will make you feel better,” She said softly, but as Rhysand’s eyes narrowed on the mug, it was Cassian who snatched it out of her hands, brought it to his eyes and shattered it on the already ruined hard wood floors.

“That was not just tea.”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

And as Cassian lifted his head he declared, “As General of the Night court, I arrest you for illegal possession and use of aphrodisiacs. You are charged with attempted murder of the Princess of the Night Court. You are charged with manipulation and forced betrayal of the court’s spymaster,” And with a menacing grin Cassian said, “And you are charged because you bloody annoy me and you…what you have done today makes me want to rip you to shreds.”

A beat passed.

“That is….” Cassian continued as he glanced at Azriel, with each blink clarity seemed to return to the shadowsinger as he processed everything, as he remembered everything Elain made him do, as he remembered how he had hurt his mate, “That is if Azriel decides he doesn’t want to kill you first.”

Elain let out a scoff, looking down at the spilled tea and broken pieces of ceramic in disgust, “Azriel loves me. Azriel should love me not that disgusting slut of a female, she might be a princess but she is-,” “Mine.” Azriel interrupted.

“She was mine before you interfered. She was mine before you made me break her.” Azriel turned, no doubt to go find Y/N.

“Start counting your days, Elain, because now they are numbered.”

⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆

Azriel taglist: @kemillyfreitas @going-through-shit @chessebookgirl

Part 2 coming.....tell me if you wanna be tagged :3

Love, Ellie.

#acotar #acotar fandom #acosf #azriel shadowsinger #a court of silver flames #a court of mist and fury #azriel #azriel x reader #azriel angst #azriel imagine #azriel acomaf #azriel acotar #azriel spymaster #rhysand #cassian #morrigan #feyre #elain

[normspellsman]

A Lesson in Pinky Promises

part one | part two (wip)

pairing: jake sully x daughter!reader

genre: angst to fluff & comfort (from jake to reader)

word count: 3.3k+

warning(s): mentions of reader being bullied for looks – reader has 5 fingers, kids being mean, physical + verbal harassment, reader being sad, reader feeling like she doesn’t fit in, jake calling reader babygirl (cuteness overload fr), mentions of self inflicted injuries, mentions of children hurting you, reader looks up to jake + feels unworthy of being the heir of the olo’eyktan title, jake being angry, cursing, both jake + reader crying, & reader having self-loathing thoughts / being mean to herself

request details: here!

taglist: @aonungsmate @optimisticblazetrash @dearstell @thatonegirlwiththebeanie367 @minkyungseokie @universal-s1ut @goodiesinthecloset21 @amortencjja @blushhpeachh @sweetirilly @liyahsocorro @arminsgfloll @iwannahaveaprettyaesthetic @bigdikzaddy @cheyehc @ihave500hubbiez

word bank: sempul — father, sempu — daddy (term of endearment), ‘evenge — girl, sa’nok — mother, eywa / great mother — goddess deity that the na’vi believe in, toruk — last shadow; large winged creature jake rode in the first film, syulang — flower, & ‘angtsìk — hammerhead titanothere

note: the reader is the eldest child of jake in this fic & is around 11-12 years old. set wayyy before the events of atwow. there will be a part 2 to this since someone requested something similar to this but w/ lo’ak & i couldn’t pass up the opportunity 🤭. be on the lookout for part 2 <3

You wished that you were more like your Father.

Your Father held this kind of confidence wherever he went. You guessed being Olo’eyktan would do that to you over time. He took every insult and objection to his rule with stride. You wanted to be like him one day, especially since you were the next in line for his position when he decided it was time for him to step down.

But it was hard. Really hard. The children around your age loved teasing you for your ten fingers and ten toes. They often pulled at your pinky and tried to pry it from your hand, giggling at how it looked and your reaction to it, hissing in pain as they basically almost dislocated the finger. They also reached out towards your hairy eyebrows, plucking at them to observe the strange hair further. Many had also called you demon or fake due to your mixed heritage. They loved making your life hell and took joy in hurting your feelings with their harsh words. Of course they never dared to do anything like that around your parents or siblings, deciding to do it whenever you were alone or training.

You felt insecure about your five fingers, often trying to hide it or make it look more like the other four fingered hands of your fellow acquaintances. You’ve injured yourself a couple of times trying to hide your pinky, bruising it or spraining it multiple times. You never meant to hurt yourself but it always happened whenever you did it. You just wished you looked more like the children your age than your Father.

You absolutely loved your Father and looked up to him so much. But it was hard looking like him when his past kind had caused so much pain and suffering to your Mothers people. It was a constant reminder that you had to work twice as hard as compared to your younger brother, Neteyam, to get the acceptance of The People. They always had their eyes on you, watching your every move, ready to criticize everything you did wrong. Nothing was ever good for them. Not good enough to live up to your Father, to be the next leader of your clan.

You never told your parents about how you felt or what the children your age did, dealing with it yourself. It wasn’t very good that you kept it to yourself but you felt like you had no choice. You didn’t want to worry your parents with what was happening, didn’t want to seem weak in front of them. You wanted to be strong like your Mother and Father, strong heart like those before you. Surely both of your parents experienced more traumatizing things throughout their lifetime than what you were going through. You could handle it yourself.

But, alas, you failed at having it handled.

Hours prior to where you were currently, crying as you cradled yourself with your knees to your chest, was probably one of the worst things you’ve experienced throughout your whole twelve years of life.

The regular group of bullies that teased and hurt you had taken it to the extreme, encircling you as they pushed you around and yelled insults at you, eventually grabbing at whatever body limb they could and punching it with as much strength they could muster. At the end, you were covered in bruises and bloody. You were pretty sure your right pinky was broken, it being stepped on by a kid you sure was named Keno.

You limped all the way to your secret hideout, delaying going home as much as you could. You had the plan of cleaning and patching yourself up with the limited supplies you had stashed away before going home late into the night. You were probably going to stay hidden for another hour or so, way past when you’re supposed to be home and were probably going to do that for the next couple of days before you healed completely. You didn’t need either of your parents to fret after your every move if they found out.

What you didn’t know was that your Father had seen you rush out into the thick foliage of the forest, calling out your name, which you didn’t hear. So, he followed you.

Jake had tried his best to stay quiet, expertly stepping over rogue twigs and sticks that were strewn across the forest floor. He kept his breathing steady as he urged forward, staying far enough behind you so that your enhanced senses couldn’t sense his presence but close enough to still see where you were going. He knew that he probably shouldn’t be following you, but his Father instincts were telling him to follow after you. There was something clawing at Jake that told him you were not okay.

Growing up, you told your Sempul everything. There was nothing that you kept from your Father and he felt his heart swell every time you ran up to him, bouncing with excitement as you hurriedly told him everything about your day or something new you just learned in training. He’d always scoop you up in his arms and tickle your belly before lending a listening ear to you, hanging on to every word you spoke. Jake missed the days where you would come to him and just talk. Recently, your visits had become few and far in between. Of course he acknowledged that you were growing older and needed to keep some things to yourself, but he couldn’t help but feel that there was something else that was keeping you from reaching out to your Sempul. And he knew that following you to wherever the hell you were going was most likely going to reveal the reason why. At least, he hoped so. He just wanted to help you. You were his little girl and he’d do anything to make sure that you were safe and sound.

You stopped before a small clearing, discreetly checking over your shoulders in paranoia. You knew that no one had seen you rush out to the forest, but still, you needed to make sure of it before continuing on. Once you were satisfied that no one was around, you continued forth.

Jake wasn’t necessarily shocked to say the least when he saw where you were going. He was pretty sure that some kids came out here to do whatever the hell children did, but didn’t suspect you to be one of them. Lo’ak seemed to the one who would.

A few years back, when still dealing with the aftermath of the RDA’s equipment and all the shit they left behind, the clan had decided to leave alone some of their labs or established campsites, marking it as outskirts of the forest where children were not allowed to visit. And you had claimed the closest one to Home Tree. Well, it wasn’t completely yours but you were the one who frequented it the most so you found it suiting to call it your hideout.

The Olo’eyktan shook his head as he watched you open the metal door with a small grunt, walking inside while holding your side in a pained expression that Jake missed as your back faced towards him.

Every inch of your body ached. You were more than certain that multiple bruises covered your azure skin and that scratches from your bullies' pushes and nails littered its expanse. It sucked. Being treated this way by people who you were supposed to lead one day. Feeling like you weren’t enough to become clan leader when the Great Mother deemed it necessary. It all made you feel like perhaps Neteyam was more deserving of the title, albeit him being only eight years old. In your eyes, he was the perfect image of what a true Na’vi should be. Four fingers on each hand and foot, no eyebrows on his brow bones, and he practically oozed confidence and leadership whereas you, you were you. A five-fingered freak who will only ever be seen as outcast, alien, and a monster. Your entire existence was a reminder of what the sky people did to the natives of Pandora. Of what they stole from them. Of the lives they greedily took. How could you be a leader to people who only ever saw you as such? Who didn’t even want you there in the first place?

“Fuck!” You hissed, hot electric pain shooting up your entire body as you attempted to clean the wounds scattered across your skin. It didn’t help that you only had one working hand as well. It hurt too much to move your right hand, your pinky always wanting to follow its fellow fingers in whatever movement you did. So, you opted to just use your left for addressing your wounds, which was a much harder task than you thought.

Fucking pathetic, you thought, getting angry at yourself. You couldn’t take one little beating without crying and groaning in pain. What kind of future leader are you? You’re supposed to be strong. Take beatings in stride.

You were abruptly pulled from your self-loathing thoughts with a loud cough, making you freeze in your spot. As your eyes slowly traveled to your Fathers figure in the doorway of the metal infrastructure, you knew that you were fucked. Like, really fucked.

Anxiety exploded within your chest, causing you to gulp, trying to swallow it down so you didn’t seem weak in front of your seemingly impenetrable Father. He was everything you wanted to be. Everything you couldn’t be.

“What is this?” He asks, voice surprisingly calm. He hadn’t been able to properly see your figure when he followed you through the dark forest, not seeing the full extent of your injuries. He didn’t even know that you were injured.

“Uh, nothing, just…got done with sparring and needed to clean myself up,” you responded, eyes never meeting those of Jake’s. You knew better not to. For if you did, you’d spill everything that happened to you and how you felt. You could never lie to your Sempul, which is why you tended to avoid him whenever you got into another scuffle with the other children.

Jake puts his hands on his hips as he stands there, not believing your words. You knew he wouldn’t. Your Father was great at knowing whether or not you were telling the truth, the avoidance of his gaze being one of them. His shadow from the door seemed towering and all consuming as it nearly reached your dangling toes from where you sat atop of a metal table.

“Do not lie to me, ‘evenge,” he grumbled, face scrunched into an unreadable expression. “What happened? Why are you bleeding?” He continued, serious concern laced within his voice. Jake didn’t even need to take a handful of steps before he was in front of you, kneeling to match your height.

You refused to speak, eyes looking everywhere except for your Fathers face. You just couldn’t. You needed to be strong, strong heart at this moment. For if you didn’t, you’d feel as if you were too weak for your birthright.

The man in front of you sighed out, moving his head to try to catch your gaze, “Baby girl, please. Tell me what is wrong so Sempu can fix it,” he pleaded. He was so desperate to help you, you could hear it evident in his voice.

You shook your head as tears stung your eyes, tightly screwing them shut to prevent them from spilling out. But, your Father pleaded with you again.

“Please, baby girl. What happened? Why are you hurt?” He softly asked, tears pricking his own waterline as you refused to tell him anything. He felt like he did something wrong for you to not want to tell him what happened. Like he failed at being a Father. Was he not there enough for you? Did he say something to you that made you scared to open up to him? He racked his brain for a million things.

Hearing the crack of emotion within his voice is what persuaded you to break in front of your Father, tears continuously falling down your cheeks as they escaped from the corner of your eyes.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Jake cooed, bringing you into his arms, now fully seated on the cold floor as he brought you into his lap and wrapped his arms around you, gently running a hand through your hair in hopes to calm you down. Sobs racked your body and Jake felt helpless. He wanted to help you so badly but he couldn’t do anything without knowing the reason you were upset. It broke him to see his little girl like this.

“It’s okay, princess. Whatever it is, I swear Sempu won’t be mad. I just want to make it better,” he whispered, gently and slowly rocking from side to side, something he did frequently when you were a toddler and had trouble falling asleep. It never failed to make you sleepy and passed out in his arms when you were smaller.

Eventually, you caved and told him everything. How mean the other kids are. How they like to pull and tug at your pinky. How they routinely pick at you and beat you. How they beat you an hour prior and probably severely hurt you. How they love calling you colorful names. How small and insignificant they made you feel. You told him how inadequate you felt as the heir to his title. How much of a freak you were and how the People deserve a true leader, someone like Neteyam. How it felt like the whole world was on your shoulders. You let it all out. And by the end, you ran out of tears to cry and your body stopped shaking, hiccups escaping past your lips as you laid there wrapped up in your Fathers arms.

Jake listened as you cried and sobbed out how you felt and what was going on. How you felt like you had to hide what was happening in order to seem strong and worthy of being a leader. How you wanted to be strong like him and Neytiri. How you felt like you needed to deal with all of this on your own in order to feel like you deserved the title of heir to the Olo’eyktan throne. The more you spoke, the more Jake felt his heart break into two. He felt awful for not noticing how you were struggling. He was your Dad, he was supposed to know when you weren’t feeling well and coke comforted you. But instead, he became too consumed with his duties to the clan and neglected you in the process.

“Oh, my little star, I am so sorry,” Jake utters, tears falling down his face as he finally got you to break and bare your troubled spirit to him. He felt saddened at how you felt but angry towards the children who relentlessly teased you about your differences.

“You are not a freak or a monster. You are my daughter. A product of your Sa’nok and I’s love. You are a part of me as you are your Mother. You are a result of a story that will forever be known by the people of Pandora. You are the new hope for the future. You are every part Na’vi as the rest of your siblings. You are the fruit of those who came before you and proof that you are meant to be here, to be the next leader of your people,” he gently said, tone firm and serious. He meant every word that he said.

“Your spirit is strong, so is your heart. Strong heart,” he added, making you pull away from the safety and comfort of his neck to face him. You’d never thought you’d ever hear those two words come from his mouth. You never thought you were worthy enough to bare those words on your shoulders like your Mother and Father did. You felt comforted by his words, validated by them.

“I need you to promise me that you will tell me the next time you ever feel this way again, baby girl,” he commented, bringing up one of his hands as he extended his last finger and balled the rest up into a fist, “Pinky swear it.”.

Your eyebrows furrowed at the action, not knowing what it meant or what you were supposed to do. “A what?” You questioned, voice hoarse from all the sobbing you did.

“A pinky promise,” Jake answered, a small smile on his face, “It’s something humans did back on Earth. They did it to make promises together and ensure that no one breaks it.”.

You nodded in understanding, bringing out your non-injured pinky and wrapping it around your Father’s, giggling as he slightly tugged your intertwined fingers to make sure that the promise you made him was stable and unbreakable.

“You cannot break this promise, ‘evenge, or there will be consequences,” Jake commented, tone mixed with playfulness and seriousness.

“What will happen if I break it, Sempu?” You asked, slight worry laced within your voice. Your Mother always warned you to stay away from tawtute things, or things that were foreign in general. So Jake introducing something human to you made you nervous. A million things ran through your head as to what could happen to you if you broke the promise you just made with your Father, temporarily distracting you from your chaotic thoughts.

Jake smirked, the tip of his fangs poking out from his lips and catching on the flesh of the bottom one. “If you break the greatest oath there is, the pinky promise, then the great toruk will come down and snatch you up!” He exclaimed, head going in between your neck and shoulder to blow raspberries into your jugular, causing you to shriek out a giggle.

Your feeble attempts at trying to push away your Father from your sensitive neck were all for nought, shrieky giggles escaping your lips as he continued his attack on your neck as he brought up his free hand to tickle the side of your stomach, his other one still intertwined with your pinky.

“Okay! Okay!” You panted, finally pushing your Father from your poor neck, “I won’t ever break our pinky promise!”.

Jake laughed at your reaction, smiling as he brought up your still connected pinkies, “Good, I’d hate to lose you to the mighty toruk.”.

You giggled out in response as well, wiggled your small finger from your Fathers much larger and stronger one, placing it back into your lap. You had a big smile on your face, matching the one of your Fathers as he lovingly gazed down at you.

The relaxed atmosphere didn’t last for long though, your face dropping once the painful throbbing in your body returned. You forgot about the events that happened hours prior, your Father being a great distraction. But nothing sweet lasts forever.

Jake seemed to catch onto your now saddened mood, frowning along with you. He hated seeing you in pain, whether that be physically or mentally. He hated it.

“Want me to help you clean up, syulang?” He softly asked, pushing some of your braids away from your dropped face, hooking two of his fingers underneath your chin so you looked up at him.

You only nodded in response, wrapping your arms around the back of your Fathers neck before placing your head on his shoulder, seeking his warmth as comfort. Your body was no longer running on adrenaline and all of your injuries seemed to hit you like an ‘angtsìk. Pain and sleepiness was the only thing you were able to feel in the moment, letting out a little yawn against your Fathers azure skin.

“Okay, baby girl,” he whispered, putting one of his hands behind your head as he began to sit up, “I got you. Just sleep, okay? Sempu’s got you.”.

And sleep you did. You soundly slept as Jake quietly and gently cleaned the blood and dirt off your skin, promising to deal with the children that did this to you. No one would hurt his little girl and get away with it. He’d personally see to it that they won’t.

#avatar #avatar imagine #atwow imagines #avatar x reader #avatar: the way of water #atwow #atwow x reader #atwow x you #angst #jake sully x reader #jake sully x daughter!reader #jake sully x daughter #jake sully #jake sully imagine #jake sully x y/n #jake sully x you #jake sully x daughter reader #jake sully imagines

[wasteddmoondust]

the universe || sirius black

pairing: sirius black x reader 1.2k words, soulmate au, angst (i tried, really), happy ending, some language from this request! :) a/n: AHH i hope you really like this, i haven't written this much before but i think it was a good challenge!

Sirius feels like he shouldn't have looked. But he stares at the four little paw prints tattooed on your left shoulder blade, identical to the one he has.

But that was the thing with soulmates, wasn't it? One can never control how it happens, they just do. It was already written. He was meant to see this, and he's meant to do something about it.

There's a sinking feeling in his chest. He's not sure if he wants to do something about it.

Sirius doesn't believe in soulmates. At least that's what he wants himself to think.

It's too much commitment, he usually says to himself. Why can't I choose who I want to be with?

I've been following rules my whole life. What does the universe know about me and who I'm meant to be with? For the rest of my life? Who would want to be with me that long?

I'm not a good enough person, let alone for Y/N.

Who would even want to love someone like me?

That's usually where the thinking stops.

So he decides for himself. Going out to parties to pick and choose which girls to make out with. No strings attached, just his physical desires to be satisfied.

He knows it's massed up, even more so when you're at said parties, keeping a lookout for someone with your matching tattoo. And so Sirius keeps his shoulder covered. You don't know he's your soulmate, and a part of his never wants you to.

Unfortunately, you're good friends, and he doesn't want you getting hurt over the fact he doesn't want a soulmate.

By the time he's done sticking his tongue down another girl's throat, he usually hears that you've decided to call it an early night.

It all comes crashing down one New Year's Day.

It's the adrenaline of counting down in the very crowded room, and the feeling of someone grabbing him to be their New Year's kiss. Everyone welcomes the start of a new era with a cheer.

The party goes well into the night before Sirius decides to finally crash in his room. He immediately falls asleep as his head hits the pillow.

He wakes up with the usual hangover headache, but nothing a bowl of ice water can't fix. A quick shower and a carton of juice later, he checks his phone for his missed notifications.

Moony: wake up, get to the hospital now. Moony: Sirius where are you??? Moony: we're outside room 402 when you get here. Prongs: Y/N's sick again, we're heading home Prongs: she won't stop throwing up idk what to do Prongs: we're going to the emergency room Prongs: call me when you see this Lilypad: James and i are going to the hospital with Y/N, call us when you see this Lilypad: Sirius if you do not wake the fuck up right now i will actually come for your throat.

Sirius doesn't think he's gotten ready so quickly in his life. To be fair, he was still in his pyjamas, just adding his leather jacket and running out of the door with his keys, wallet and phone in hand.

When he arrives, he sees his three friends outside of the room you're in.

"What happened?" he asks, panting from all the running.

"They don't for sure know yet," Remus says, arms crossed and leaning against the wall.

Lily is sitting on the chair, her hair is tied messily in a ponytail. "They think it's soul-repelling."

Sirius furrows his brows, "What does that mean?"

"My parents talked about it once," James says from his seat next to Lily. "They used to talk about stories of people who constantly reject the soul bond they had with their soulmate, which would cause the other person to be very sick. Or in worse cases, die."

Lily visibly hates the way James says it, and he knows it. He tries to comfort her by holding her hand, their matching flower tattoos on their hands side-by-side.

"...But she doesn't know her soulmate yet?" Sirius asks carefully, trying to sound normal.

James shrugs. "She may not, but they say the way her body is reacting means her soulmates knows it's her."

Sirius feels his breath knock out, his heart pounding, realising what he's done. He's been rejecting their bond the entire time. All the while he thought he was doing himself a favour, he made her suffer for his selfish needs.

The ache in his heart is undeniable. He grabs the fabric that covers his heart and feels his breath get heavier.

"Sirius?" Remus calls, noticing his actions.

"It's- it's my fault..." Sirius feels tears start to prick at his eyes.

"What?"

"It was me," he starts to remove his jacket and shirt, showing the tattoo on his shoulder for the first time. "It's me-" his voice cracks. He turns to the door, "I need to get in there."

"Woah wait- Sirius!"

But he bursts through the door to the ward. He runs in and the first thing he notices is you staring at him, paler than he's ever seen you before. You have eyebags and you're heaving, as if you'd just thrown up before he came in.

The nurse next to you speaks up, "Sir, you can't be in here yet-"

"I'm sorry!" he yells, grabbing your hand and bending over the bed. He buries his face in your chest.

"Sirius?" you whisper, confused, but you finally see the print on his shoulder. "Oh."

"I've known for the longest time and that was so selfish of me. And it's still so selfish of me to want you still," tears are fully flowing down his cheeks now. "I've realised I cannot lose you. But would you allow me to be selfish one more time and ask for you to forgive me?"

If anything, you're too stunned to speak. One minute you were throwing your guts up and suddenly your best friend is crying in front of you and he's also your soulmate.

But at the same time, you start to feel your body be at ease. The nausea is already starting to subside. His warm hand in your cold one feels nice. Like two puzzle pieces finding each other.

You cough, feeling your throat finally clear. You look down, and SIrius is still crying, his question still hangs in the air. He waits for your answer.

"I hope you know you have a lot of making up to do after this," you say softly, smiling.

He heaves the biggest sigh of relief. He leans towards your hands and kisses them. "Of course, anything for you. Oh thank god."

You chuckle. "I'm so glad it's you, actually. I had a feeling."

He looks up at you, "Really? How'd you know?"

You shrug. "Just a feeling I guess. Probably a soulmate thing."

He smiles, the universe has his back, he thinks. "Can I kiss you?" He asks.

"Sirius I just threw up, I'm not letting you taste whatever is in my mouth right now," you say. "But the rest of my face is available."

He opts to kiss your cheek instead. And something in him clicks. It feels normal, it feels right.

Yeah, the universe definitely knew what they were doing.

#marauders x reader #sirius black x reader #sirius black #sirius black imagine #sirius black x you #marauders imagine

[hardlyinteresting]

Personal

Aaron Hotchner x reader

A case hits a little too close to home for the reader. Hotch makes sure she knows she not alone even as they struggle to decide if they're colleagues, friends, or something more.

Warnings: female reader, (I've given her the nickname Sweets), No physical description of reader, mildly graphic descriptions of injuries, cannon-compliant themes of violence, themes of past domestic violence, mild hurt/comfort, I am not a profiler so there are likely mistakes in the profile (please let me know if there are any warnings you'd like me to add. Aaron Hotchner Masterlist | Send Requests

Word count: 3.2K

"Hope is a gift. You can't choose to have it. To believe and yet to have no hope is to thirst beside a fountain" Ann-Marie MacDonald

The case comes in early in the morning. Aaron has hardly managed a sip of his coffee when the phone rings with a call from a local P.D. in Aberdeen, Virginia. It's urgent. It always is. He cannot begrudge the haste with which his job forces him to chug down the scalding liquid in his mug as he calls upon Garcia to prep the relevant files for the case. It's not the first time, and it certainly won't be the last. Sufficiently caffeinated (albeit with a burnt tongue), and briefed on the case, Hotch calls the team to meet him in the conference room. 

His colleagues seem to be in good spirits today. With a passing glance around the room Hotch silently completes a behavioural checklist for each of them in his mind. No one on the team seems over-exhausted, overtly anxious, or withdrawn. They chat amongst themselves, teasing and joking like siblings as they wait for him to settle into the remaining seat at the table. He nods at Penelope, “Garcia, let's get started”. With a quick “yes, sir,” she presses a button on the remote to begin the briefing. 

This morning the police in Aberdeen discovered the body of a woman left propped up against the wall outside a local medical clinic. Abigail Lawson. 27 years old. She had been badly beaten. A single stab wound. No sign of sexual assault. 

“Cause of death?” Prentiss asks. 

“Blunt force trauma to the head,” Garcia supplies the response. 

“And she's the first?” Morgan follows up. 

“Two weeks ago Stella Amos, twenty-five,  was admitted to hospital with similar injuries. She passed away two hours later. A punctured lung”. 

The photographs of the injuries are disturbing. After years on the job, the images never seem to get less brutal. A chill travels down his spine as he looks over the extent of the wounds on both of the women. A hush falls over the room as everyone else takes a moment to swallow down their own shock and compartmentalize their feelings of disgust. They train themselves, scanning the photographs and notes for the facts they can work with in hopes of saving anyone else from meeting the same fate. 

“No stab wound. Are we sure these cases are connected?” Reid surveys the provided facts one more time.

“Similar age, hair colour. They were from the same neighbourhood. Steady jobs,” Rossi lists, “there's a pattern in victimology to be sure”.

“They could be unconnected acts of domestic violence,” Morgan posits before continuing, “but leaving these women at medical centres is unique. Could be remorse”.

“A man who beats women within an inch of their lives before dropping them off for medical attention. It's a big risk. Knowing they might survive to identify him”.

Hotch nods at the assessment. He had followed the same thought process himself when he got the call. 

“Maybe he's banking on them being too afraid to talk if they do pull through,” another voice in the room speaks up for the first time this morning. Sweets, the team calls her. An affectionate nickname that’s stuck since her first week on the team. “the stabbing is an escalation and these are high-risk victims. This UNSUB isn't worried about getting caught. These attacks are personal to him somehow”. It's an important assertion, and something they'll need to consider as they build and expand their working profile. 

He's glad to hear Sweets adding to the conversation. She's never been shy when contributing to the team's brainstorms, and he had begun to worry when it had taken her so long to speak up. He doesn't miss the wobble in her tone, or the way she now avoids eye contact. She’s a valuable team member, and despite being the most recent addition she’s settled herself flawlessly over the last year. Aaron is well aware of the poor retention rate for new team members in the BAU and has continued to be impressed by her ability to hang on to her brand of optimism and take their most difficult cases in stride. She’s worked hard to see the best in people, and unsurprisingly endeared herself to those around her; himself included. 

At first, Hotch had been grateful for her unique perspective from her experience working for victim services. Then, he grew to appreciate her attention to detail, and the way his piles of paperwork seemed smaller and smaller at the end of each week. She quickly became a friend and a confidant after long nights in the office, and the field. Now, their relationship lies in limbo somewhere between friends and something more. 

Lately, the tugging at his heartstrings has grown nearly painful. All the old cliches leave his heart racing and he feels like a teenager whenever her hand brushes against his own. A night out with the team had ended with her curled up in his bed the next morning, and he’s been a goner ever since. It's been weeks, she hasn’t mentioned it, so neither has he. The guise of professionalism makes it easy to shove down his insecurities, and recurring fears; his age; his scars, physical and metaphorical; the weight of his career; he pushes them to the back of his mind. He does not dare to hope. He does not allow himself to consider the reasons why she might want to keep him at arm's length. It hurts less that way. “Whatever the case we've got a week before he strikes again,” Hotch confirms, his mind focused on the case, “we should head out”.

It’s August, and the sun is nearly blinding; the heat and humidity are intolerable, but nobody complains as they split up between the most recent crime scene, the morgue, and the precinct. Hotch would never admit it, but he’s glad when the woman who occupies half his thoughts volunteers to head to the station with JJ. Not for his peace of mind, but hers. Driving into the town he had seen her hands fidgeting in the back seat of the Suburban. Something about this case is already weighing on her, and he doubts the discomfort of the summer calefaction will be much help. He tries not to think about it any more than that. 

The crime scene doesn’t tell them much more than they already knew. There’s no security footage to help them identify the UNSUB. But, the way he leans the victims to sit against the way rather than just dumping them shows some kind of warped sense of concern for their well-being. The women are likely substitutes for someone else. He was likely raised in a violent home. He can only hope that the rest of the team has managed to learn more. 

Sweets is glad that the station had the forethought to move a coffee maker into the room they’ve set up for the BAU team to work out of. In her short time on the team, she’s learned how essential caffeine is to the function of herself and her teammates. Not enjoying coffee is not an option. Cream and sugar make it tolerable to those who despise the bitter taste. As she preps her second cup of the day she watches Spencer dump 4 packets of sugar into his mug. Whatever gets you through the case. She reminds herself. 

“Defensive wounds on her arms, but her manicure wasn't chipped. There was no blood or skin under her fingernails. No bruising on her knuckles,” Morgan shares what he and Rossi learned at the morgue, “She held her arms up to protect herself, but she didn't fight back. She didn't scratch, claw, or punch her assailant”. 

“She probably knew him then,” Prentiss says, “He’s not sneaking up on these women. But, he has the advantage and control required to attack them head-on”. 

The profile continues to build and Sweets pulls further in on herself. The personal nature of the attacks leaves her nauseous. Flickers of memories she’s fought hard to forget flash behind her eyes, but she forces herself to stay in the room. Reign it in, she wills herself. Without looking across the room she knows Aaron’s eyes are on her. Her cheeks warm though she can’t be sure if it’s his gaze or her anxiety to blame. She tries not to read into it, not wanting to feel too self-important. It’s his job to watch everyone on the team, she knows that. It doesn’t mean anything, she reminds herself the same way she has since she woke up next to him all those weeks ago. She doesn't want attention because she slept with him, and she'd be silly to think it meant anything to him anyway. It's easier to ignore it. He hasn't mentioned it, so she hasn't either.

Despite her best efforts, she does like him. More than she should. Normally, the attention would leave her with butterflies fluttering in her chest, like a schoolgirl with a crush. But today, she feels too seen, too exposed. she focuses her attention on controlling the unwanted emotions this case continues to dredge up. Aaron has seen her undressed, he’s seen her let down her walls and crack jokes. He knows her better than the rest of the team, but this is not a side of her he needs to see. 

 Under the table she plants her feet, pressing the soles of her boots hard against the linoleum. She reminds herself who she’s with and why she’s here. When she’s able to breathe without gagging she speaks up, “If it looks like domestic violence maybe that’s exactly what it is”.  Hotch’s head tilts up, his eyes moving off of the files he’s been pretending to read for the hundredth time, “What do you mean?”

“This morning Morgan said these murders looked like cases of DV. Maybe that’s exactly what this is. We know he had some kind of relationship with the victims-- maybe they were dating him,” Sweets holds her breath waiting for a response.

“It would help to explain the gaps in our profile-- Prentiss, call Garcia and have her look into any recent purchases by the victims. New clothes, new shoes, restaurants, anything that might suggest they’ve been dating,” Hotch instructs, “Sweets, you and JJ should speak to their friends and family; ask if they’ve mentioned anyone new in their lives”. 

Like with any case, she hopes her insight helps, that her perspective and thinking might get them one step closer to finding the UNSUB before anyone else gets hurt; and that they might be able to bring closure to the families of the victims. 

She's learned that personal experience can help as much as it can hinder. Seeing things from an angle that no one else can is certainly an advantage, but it doesn't make it easy to live with either. But, her stomach churns. His face. His touch. The bruises he left behind. She tries to remember she has nothing to be ashamed of. She has nothing to hide. It's no secret everyone on the team struggles with different types of cases, JJ has always found it difficult working cases involving children, and Hotch becomes snappier when they're searching for family annihilators. 

She can feel Aaron's eyes on her again. She prays the twisting in her gut and the scratching in her mind are worth it. 

The next morning begins with news of a third victim. A Jane Doe was found outside the fire station. Aged between 22 and 25. Beaten beyond any kind of recognition. The M.E. will have to try to use dental records to ID her. 

The crime scene photographs are a gruesome addition to the already horrific crime board in the conference room. “It would take an incredible amount of rage and power to beat someone to death like this,” Rossi points out. 

Hotch’s fingers buzz. His usual ground method of rubbing his thumb and forefinger together isn't working. He clenches and unclenches his fist willing the memory of bone cracking, and blood splattering beneath his knuckles away. He hates that even years after his death George Foyet continues to find new ways to sink his teeth in; the mere memory of him is enough to leave bile rising in the back of Aaron's throat. 

Their profile is ready. A white male, mid 20s to early 30s. Traditionally attractive. He's well-groomed and takes pride in his appearance. He more than likely works in an office setting. At work, his desk is neat and well-organized. He does everything by the book. He aspires to a role above his own and will talk about it often. In his eyes, he's overworked and under-appreciated; but, in reality, it's his quick temper and outward frustration that have kept him in his menial role. He may be flirtatious towards the women around him but likely won't pay them any attention when it comes to business matters. As a child he would have grown up in a working-class household, and more than likely faced abuse at the hands of his father. As a teenager, he learned to place blame on his mother for this abuse and began looking down on her the same way his father did. But no amount of hatred could ever win him his father's attention. This made him hate his mother more and allowed his misogynistic views to solidify in adulthood. He will have a history of violence throughout school and early adulthood, and more than likely charges for battery or assault. 

A call from Garcia confirms that the first and second victims both had paid for dinners at restaurants within the same two-block stretch despite living and working on opposite sides of town. Their cards had been used at the restaurants only 25 minutes before their attacks. 

“And he didn’t pay for their dinners either. Chivalry really is dead,” Prentiss dismisses. Predictably, their collective disdain for the UNSUB continues to grow as they learn more about him. Penelope manages to rustle up security footage from one of the restaurants, she's unable to get a facial ID on the man leaving with the first victim but promises to search for other footage from the area and call back when she has a new lead. One step closer, Hotch reminds himself. 

Twenty minutes later word from the M.E. Office arrives. A positive ID on Jane Doe. Grace McKinney, 24. Aaron watches as Sweets pins a photograph of Grace to the victims' board. Her hands shake as she takes a step back, and then she's rushing out of the room before he can ask if she's alright. 

His body feels lead-heavy, his limbs so hebetudinous that he’d swear he was melting into the floor if it weren’t for his feet carrying him out of the room without instruction. Sweets is doubled over in the alleyway behind the station, remnants of her breakfast splashed across the ground. She has nothing left to bring up, but still she dry heaves as if trying to expel more than the contents of her stomach. He knows the feeling. 

“Sweets?” his voice starles her, and Hotch is quick to hold his hands out in a surrendering motion as he approaches, “Are you alright?” He knows the real answer, and he knows that she’ll look right at him and lie; but he asks anyway. “Are you asking as my boss, or as my friend?” She asks. “Would it make a difference?” it’s his turn to wonder. Finally close enough to touch her, he places a hand on her back. It’s impossible to miss the shiver that runs up her spine. Sweets hides her face, angling herself away from her, shrinking in on herself. She tries to hide from him, as unwilling as ever to show any kind of weakness real or perceived. “I’m asking as someone who cares,” Hotch tries again, snuffing out the burning sensation that seems to grow in his chest; his fear of vulnerability fighting hard to shut him down. He won’t let it. “It’s me,” she tells him as if it’s obvious. “Yes”. He's confused. Of course, it's her, he can see her standing right in front of him. “It's me. I'm the Jane Doe; Grace. Abigail. Stella”. His heart stops. She continues, looking at him for the first time, her eyes tearing up, “Not literally-- I just mean…”

“The victimogy. I understand. Same age, hair colour, similar backgrounds--”

“Yes,” She admits, “but we see cases with women who look like me all the time”. 

Aaron nods, taking her openness as an opportunity to guide her out of the alleyway, waiting patiently for her to continue in her own time. “I had a boyfriend a few years ago…I just-- I need some time to collect myself”. 

Again, Aaron nods, understanding, “Would you like me to leave?” 

She shakes her head, her hand shooting up to hold to his arm. She’s shaking less now than she was before. More than ever he wants to hold her, but he doesn’t want to overstep; and during a case, there are lines he cannot cross as her boss. It’s the crux of the predicament they’ve found themselves in. Their personal lives and feelings bleeding and blending to create this strait. Deep down, he’s sure that a line of open communication between them would ease this impasse, but he’s far too shy to suggest it. For now, he settles for being glad her breathing has slowed, and her tears have stopped. “Thank you,” Sweets breathes out. Her hand slips down to squeeze his before she lets go and steps away from him.  “Anytime,” he swears. He means it. 

They find their UNSUB three hours later. Garcia’s scanning of security footage gives them a few license plates from cars within a two-block radius of the restaurants the victims went to. Only one owner fits their profile. He’s at work when they find him. Sweets takes great pleasure in cuffing the man. Hotch has no complaints. 

When they arrive back in Quantico it’s nearing midnight. The team takes their leaving swearing they’ll finish their paperwork tomorrow morning. Sweets takes advantage of the rare silence in the bullpen to complete her reports. She’s not ready to go home. Not yet. At work, she has a shield, a carefully crafted persona; as cracked as it may be at the moment, it holds back the onslaught of personal fallout she’s sure waits for her at home. Sure her apartment is warmer and cozier than the office ever is. Her bed is far more comfortable than any desk chair. But, at home, she has nothing to distract her. At home, she has no obligation to maintain a facade sewn up by professional self-preservation. At home, she’ll be alone without the steady presence of Aaron Hotchner working away in his office. 

The room is bathed in warm lamplight, a comfortable difference from the overhead fluorescents down in the bullpen. Something like a moth, she’s drawn to it by an instinct stronger than her willpower. She knocks on the door frame before leaning into the room. “I finished my report,” she tells him when he looks up. “You didn’t have to finish that tonight,” he tells her with furrowed brows. He sets down his pen and shuts the file he was working on to give her his attention. She steps into the room, setting her report on the edge of his desk. “I didn’t want to go home yet”. She explains though she gets the feeling that he understands. If there’s anyone she knows with a mutual streak of using workplace responsibility to avoid personal turmoil, it’s Hotch. Still, he nods, validating her most simply. “Is there anything I can do?” 

“Are you asking as my boss or something more?” she wonders. 

“Would it make a difference?” He asks. “Yes,” She responds. Sweets watches as he swallows, his brows knitting together as he considers his answer carefully, “I’m asking as someone who cares about you very much, in whatever capacity you need me to right now”. It’s a diplomatic response. Gentle and inviting without being outright hopeful. Quintessentially Aaron Hotchner. 

“Will you come home with me,” Sweets allows herself to be bold enough to ask. 

“Yes,” he tells her simply. 

In the morning he slips away only to return with two cups of coffee and a box of breakfast pastries. They don’t need to be in the office until 10:00 and he plans on taking advantage of the time they have together until then. Sweets accepts the cup he holds out to her with an eager smile, and a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner imagine #hotch x reader #criminal minds fic

[chrollohearttags]

With AOTs last episode… Imagine if rumors spread that musician!Eren and Mikasa had something going on in the past. Then reader gets wind of it and they breakup!! I couldn’t imagine what was going through Eren’s head when the media hears about this shit!!!!!

ayooo! I swear, y’all are geniuses fr. I was thinking of something like this. And here I was needing a little drama (I’ll definitely have to do this as a full fic in the future but I gotta talk about thisss sksksjs!!)

content + themes: infidelity(?), angsty vibes, lots of drama, mentions of sex, alcohol mentions

── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.─── ── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ── ･

“Let’s get into this tea, honey. Cause it’s HOT! So boom, (influencer name) this girl right here..is engaged to this man, EJ The Don. This lady here is Mikasa Ackerman, or formerly known as MikaASH. Who is also the manager for both of them. Welllll, girl. Allegedly, she was over here hunching on Mr. EJ behind Miss (y/n)’s back! Mind you, miss girl got a whole HUSBAND herself—“

“Y’all already know what we’re gonna talk about so just buckle in. I could not believe this when I heard it. So word is going around that EJ the Don, Mr. Underground God, the Living Dead Boy..whatever the fuck his name is has been cheating on his girl. And if you don’t know who she is, this is (y/n) (l/n), leader of the Pole Assassins. Gorgeous, gorgeous woman..but this asshole decided to not only fuck around on her but with their manager nonetheless!—“

it was inescapable..every other scroll through TikTok’s feed was some person with a pair of earbuds, speaking over the static wafting through the microphone as they stood before and floated in front of a green screen..pictures and articles of the story plastered behind them. What was the latest topic of discussion and juiciest gossip for the masses; a sure fire way to get themselves circulating in the algorithm was your sad reality. A reality that you wish was all made up.

two people you loved and cared for deeply betraying you in an indescribable way. The woman who’d all but given you your start in this industry. Acting as that of a sister rather than a manager as she helped you navigate fame. And the man..you loved more than life itself. Who showed you what it meant to be happy for the first time in your life. Sleeping together behind your back…you had never felt pain quite like this. There were physical pangs in your chest, your stomach in knots and all of the air feeling as if they had dissipated from your lungs. At that moment, you wanted to disappear into nothing..fade away and never be seen again. But life went on!..you had obligations, business affairs, everything you’d work so hard to achieve. Meanwhile, your phone wouldn’t stop ringing. Missed calls and texts from them both, constantly sounding off back to back because lord knows if you answered, you’d only end up saying or doing something you’d regret. Much like you had hours ago when you stormed out of you and Eren’s home, bags packed with him running after you..tears in his eyes and the promise that nothing had ever happened. But there was proof. Pictures of them all over each other; Mikasa sporting her leather clad, skimpy attire she would wear on stage and him happily grabbing her hips as she bent over. It made you sick to your stomach. Physically ill even..it was too much for you to bare. Apologies, no matter how frequently and loud they were, would never absolve that hurt. The thought of them touching, kissing and doing god knows what behind your back..in your bed!

“Please (y/n)! I know what this seems like but that was from years ago. We were drunk, probably even high. Somebody took those of us, thinking they had something they could sell off to TMZ but you’ve gotta believe me when I tell you..nothing ever happened. I would never come between what you and Eren have—“

“Girl, please. Spare me the tears. If you wanna fuck him, he’s all yours. I’ll be damned if I ever compete for my spot. You got it.”

as much as you were trying to wear the brave face, you were torn apart and seeing her in full blown hysterics, trying to plead their case. But you were having none of it. As for Eren, he was in no better shape. He was devastated..heartbroken. More so than anyone could imagine. He wasn’t even going to bother heading to social media to clear his name as other accused cheaters had done so in the past. Rather, he downed the various bottles of liquor, stowed away in the studio’s cabinets. Angry and frustrated. More so importantly confused.

“Aren’t you going to go get her back, Mr. Jaeger? She can’t possibly believe that’s true. You guys would never..”

“Well she does and when she gets her mind set on something, there’s no changing it…”

how in the hell had a rumor like this started anyway?! Who was so bored as to drudge up old photos and post them, claiming that they had slept together. And most of all?….

how could he face you again..not knowing if it was true himself?

#cherry’s asks 🍒 #nonnies 🍒🌹 #thank you precious nonnie #you have given me plenty of fuel to be messy with!!! #🤭🤭🤭 #aot x black reader #black fem reader #attack on titan #musician x influencer au #eren x black fem!reader #aot au #black reader smut #this is my type of nonsense #I love me some drama #black reader #eren jaeger #eren jaeger x black reader #eren yeager #mikasa ackerman #eren x mikasa #mikasa aot #p2 coming soon #black fanfiction #aot drabbles #aot #snk #musician au #aot imagines #cw infidelity #cw smut

[aphroditesmoon]

you go back to the old house, but you've been locked out

jacaerys velaryon/strong x fem!reader (modern!au)

summary: when your boyfriend finds out that you have never celebrated christmas before, he invites you to have your first with his family.

warnings: *do not read if you have any of the triggers* artist!reader, poc coded reader, depictions of mental illnesses, domestic abuse, physical abuse, mentions of suicide attempts, mentions of ED, mostly fluff, NSFW (SMUT! MINORS DNI!!), blackcat!reader and goldenretriever!jace, only rhaenyra's children with harwin exists in this au, title and fic inspired by There must be more than blood by Car Seat Headrest.

wc: 17.4K

a/n: this is for my babies who think they're unlovable of some sort, you are not too much or not enough, and you are completely lovable and you will find the rght kind of love for you one day.

When you first told Jacaerys that you have never actually celebrated Christmas before, you didn't think it would pull out such an intense reaction.

You've been dating him for about 4 months now, the two of you agreed to take things slow under your request, but by this point, you both have grown comfortable enough around each other to move forwards past the small talk stage.

And it is in these moments that you genuinely wonder if all the new small details and information about yourself that you had initially held from him before would cause any issues within the relationship. For example, the fact that you've never celebrated Christmas, or how you have an antipathy for your birthday and double dates. You also don't believe in celebrating annual anniversaries.

In the second month of your relationship with Jace, you discovered how important anniversaries were to him and it was an honestly amusing idea to you. But after you noticed how disappointed he was to find out that you didn't care for the special day, you decided to let his predilection for it prevail.

Plus it was just like having an extra special date every month that you didn't have to pay for, what's the harm in that?

Upon finding out that Christmas was a foreign concept to you, he asks you if it was a religion thing at first. You weren't particularly religious, nor are you against it in any way, then he asked you if it had anything to do with the whitewashing of Jesus Christ. You laughed until you realized he was serious.

"No, it's nothing to do with the whitewashing of Jesus of Nazareth." He raised a brow in suspicion. "Are you sure? Cause if it is then I fully support you." You smiled and him and shook your head in assurance. "I've just never celebrated it for some reason."

"But why?" He asked again, pushing for a good answer. Jace loved christmas, that one was easy to tell. You're just not sure if it's because he had strong family values and loved spending time with his family or because he really loved gifts and knew that he'd get good ones every year thanks to the fact that he is rich.

"My family never celebrated christmas, so I never did." You answered decisively. "Are they superstitious or something?" You replied no. "I guess my parents just didn't see what good it can do besides making a waste of money." Your financial situation was a touchy topic, you could see him leaving it at that, ending the interrogation. "So what'll you do on this 30th?" He asks instead.

"What I always do, stay at my apartment, maybe go on a shopping trip with all the Christmas discounts." His eyes widen in horror as if you've just told him that you had killed a man. "You're spending Christmas alone?" You could laugh at his worry if you didn't think that it would hurt his feelings. "Well, my roommate is flying back to her hometown."

"So, why don't you fly back home too? It's not just christmas, the semester break is over 2 weeks." You shrugged and went over some excuses in your head before settling for one. "Believe me, they'd rather I stay here and focus on my studies. There'd be no point anyway, since you know, I don't celebrate Christmas." His lips thinned as he analyzes you in the most obvious way possible, making you groan internally in your head.

Jace was a problem solver. You learned that very quick into your relationship.

He always tries to make the best out of every condition he's put into. And you can tell how much the idea of you being alone for two weeks bugged him. "Two weeks flies faster than you'll realize, I'm telling you Jace, I'm used to this." Oh that wouldn't cut it for him. "What if you came home with me?"

You blinked at him in confusion, his words registering very slowly. "No." You say the first thing you thought of.

His mouth makes an O shape in offense. "Why not?" You rolled your eyes. "You ask that question a lot." "If you answer me for real this time, I won't ask you that again for at least 5 days." You fought back a smile. "Fine. Because it's weird." He frowned. "No it's not, why would it be?"

"Because I've never met your family before, Jace." He shrugged in a careless manner. "Well, there's no time more perfect than Christmas."

Everything is so easy with you, you thought to yourself. Sometimes you wondered if he has ever been caught up in the anxiety of things possibly not going his way for at least once in his life. You weren't bitter, it's genuine curiosity. Jacaerys looked like the type of person who has never been afraid to take a chance with new and risky opportunities. One of them being you. He is either very lucky or very positive. Which in the case of him being incredibly privileged, both.

You took a deep breath before settling your back against the plush of the cushion of your hallway. He understood the indescribable look you gave him and leaned in to place his hands on your shoulder.

"My mom has wanted to see you for ages, there's nothing to be nervous about, I swear." You cocked your head at him. "You've already told your mom about me?" He grinned. "Yeah, she thinks you're pretty. "

Your eyes widened. "You showed her my picture?" He nodded. Oh well, this was inevitable, you told yourself. Really, can you even blame him? Every course of action he has taken so far has only proved himself to be as good as you figured he was from the moment you two met each other. Well at least his mom thinks I'm pretty.

It wasn't that you hated people or disliked socializing so much, moreso that it was just state of normalcy for you. You have friends of course, and you talk to other people, but up until you met Jace, all the other people in your life have always been viewed as a convenience. Association by luck and not exactly a friendship grounded by any sort of deep connection or intimacy.

You gave up trying to pursue or look for that kind of relationship a long time ago. And just when you expected it the least, Jacaerys came into your life and somehow managed to become an intregal part of it. 4 months later, you wonder if it's too early for you to confess that you're unable to really remember your life before him.

You let out a sigh, letting him pull you closer. "Is it not too fast? If this is because you don't like me staying alone, I swear I'm used to it." He didn't say anything at first and only embraced you with his chin resting over your head.

He was either thinking deeply about whatever you just said or he's waiting for you to give in. "2 weeks is a long time, I wouldn't even want to be around my family for 2 weeks." You say, trying to get him to relent.

"We leave on the second week of the break then. We could stay here for the first." It wasn't a bad suggestion, and you know it's not fair to him for you to be holding up all the cards. He deserves to have a say in certain things, and one week with his family sounded like a good compromise.

"I'll think about it." You told him at last. And by the look of his face, he knows he has won. He lowers his head down to kiss you, and you welcome it with ardor.

—

You first met Jacaerys 6 months ago at a frat party. Your project partner Cregan had invited you over, even knowing that oarties were never really your thing. But you were having a bad day and thought, why not?

On your way to the bathroom, you bumped into him. The two of you walked in opposite ways right onto each other. He apologized profusely and had taken your abrasive wave off hand as you made your way to the bathroom as a sign that you were offended. So he waited until you were done peeing so he could apologize again.

You were 5 drinks in dazed and confused, not exactly drunk but not really sober. You figured he probably wanted to hook up because who the hell apologizes this much for bumping into someone. So you glared at him and told him to fuck off.

You never saw him again for the rest of the party. But about 30 minutes later, you decided you were done with the badly remixed disco music and alcohol that tastes like fruit punch and wanted to return to your apartment. You weren't staying in dorms since you managed to rent a place nearby with another girl who was studying at the university too. And although it was much further from campus compared to the dorms, it was considered a walking distance.

How lucky you were that he ended up driving by the road you took walking home. You were prepared to flip him off when he turned his window down, asking if you needed a ride. But once you slowed down to actually look at him, you noticed a certain kind of sincerity in his eyes and gave in.

It wasn't often that you get to meet people who were kind for the sake of being kind. Most people are leeches. But not him.

Neither of you said anything throughout the whole ride except when you thanked him before getting off the car. You didn't think you'd ever see him again after that night. But like fated ropes intertwining, he was the first person you saw in your lecture the next day.

He waved at you from the back seat. You stared at him with squinting eyes to make sure it was the right person before you went back to ignoring him. He ended up moving his seat to the front more and more everytime the two of you had the class again, until 2 weeks in, he finally seated himself next to you. "Are you always this persistently annoying?" You had asked him then. "Only with the ones I like" It was stupid, and cliche and most disgustingly, cute.

And so with every encounter, you began to let your guard down and allow the relationship to naturally take it's own course. 2 months later, you officially started dating one of the most fawned over boys on campus.

Its 6.30am on a Sunday as you jog through the quiet streets behind your apartment building. You wiped the sweat off your forehead with the back of your hand, the heat turning your face red. 30 minutes from now, the roads will begin to flood with people walking to work or going on their own daily run. You know this because you've lived here for 3 years now.

When you decided to study at King's Landing University knowing it'll cost an expensive 3 hour flight for every time you'd want to go back home, it was an obvious decision both to yourself and to your family that you weren't really planning on coming back at all.

For all of 3 years you've been studying here, you had only flown back twice. And neither of those times felt worth the money you paid them for.

If this house suffocates you so badly, we'll see how far you'll survive out there all alone. Your mother had said to you 3 days before you went to college for your first year.

You had proved her wrong with your resilience, but at what cost? Your younger sister doesn't remember how you look like, and your older brother still takes every opportunity presented to him to try and belittle you every time the two of you meet.

Your father was ignorant, uncaring. And your mother? She loves you so much, with every bitter insult she throws your way and every provocation she purposely does just to get a reaction.

When you were 13 years old, she had told you to swing yourself off the highest building in response to you accidentally breaking her favourite plate. And at 16, she found herself crying by your bedside after your failed overdose attempt. At 18, she had spat on your face and announced that for as long as she lived, you would never know a life free of guilt and pain without her blessing as a mother.

At 19, The two of you hugged each other for the last time forever before you decided to never look back at that old haunted house.

You slowed down the pace of your jog, interchanging it with casual walking as you take in the sight of the rising sun. How many times have you walked these dewy streets that smelled like trees and dried rain? Too many to count. And yet, as much as you had tried to make a home out of this place, the isolating feeling that surrounded you daily was persistent.

It was the tiny voice in the back of your head saying, don't forget, these people aren't your people, and the face you put on every day that you're here isn't your own.

Loneliness was a kind of misery, but the hollow reassurance and comfort that came with proving yourself right every time a friend leaves you, or a man you thought was interested in you doesn't stay for the night, seemed to be the only constant thing in your life. That was until you met Jacaerys, of course.

You pause the music being played through your earphones, stretching your neck right after and deciding that you're ready to go home.

The flight to Dragonstone was in 3 days and you haven't really began packing. How much stuff did you need for a one week trip anyways? It was one of those moments that made you too anxious to do anything which ends up making you feel even more anxious because you haven't done anything. You do a turnaround and start walking back to your place as you reshuffle your morning playlist. A text from Jace pops up as your phone dings;

J: want 2 get breakfast in 20?

You swiped your phone open as you keep walking on a medium pace, replying with a quick OK.

It was a routine the two of you have build for over 2 months now, you'll do your 40 minutes morning jog and he'll be outside your building just in time for you to be done with your shower, eager to get some breakfast.

You're grateful for his company, it had become something you looked forward for daily. And for someone who has went through a fair share of disappointments, you really hope that this one would work out.

Anxiety plagued your thoughts as you rethink the idea of meeting his family for Christmas, what if they all thought you looked different than your photos? What if you say the wrong things or make the wrong joke and they think you're indecent? What if you say nothing and they all think you're boring?

The walk back home tired you enough to forget about those questions momentarily, but being given enough time to overthink once you reached your apartment and jumped into the shower, you figured you'd talk this out with Jace later.

He would probably just end up saying something sweet and useless like 'don't worry, just be yourself', but it's better than nothing.

The mirror becomes your worst enemy this morning, Fill in The Blank is playing from your phone as you stare at your dead eyes and immortalized eyebags. The only thing staring back at you is a reflection of a tired child. To grow up in a constant state of pain and to still be scared and hurting even after the war has ended was an everyday battle.

Because in your head, and even when you're sleeping, the war replays itself until you're worn out from it. You constantly remind yourself that you are now free, but sometimes the memory of it feels so alive that you end up making a prison of yourself despite the falseness of the alarm going off in your head.

Slipping a black t-shirt over your head while you make an estimation of how long it would take Jace to get here, you also let your mind stray for a bit, wondering if it all would've been easier if you were someone else. If Jace had dated someone else.

Maybe, maybe not. It didn't matter, because in the end you were still you, and you've only got yourself to work with.

You were drying your hair when you received another text from Jace saying taht he had arrived. Turning off the hair dryer, you sent a quick text back telling him that you were still getting ready and that the extra key was under the mat outside your door.

You could hear the front door click open 5 minutes later as you're finally done getting ready.

Exiting your room, you found him waiting by the kitchen, helping himself on some oreos that you just bought yesterday.

"I hope you're planning on paying me back for those cookies." You joked from the hall as you pulled out your hoodie from the coat hanger, slinging it over your shoulder. "I'll be paying you with my wonderful presence." He retorted back.

Once you found your purse, the two of you finally left the house to get some real food. After a few rounds of suggestions, you opted for a nearby cafe for some pancakes, though Jace ended up ordering some waffles instead.

The whole place was very secluded and smaller compared to the other cafes and diners in the area, but the meals were good and they were cheaper than the others too. You felt beyond lucky when you realized that it was just you both there in this hour. There were two other girls seated from the opposite of your table, but it was quiet enough to your liking.

"Are you done packing?" Jace asked expectedly. He was increasingly thrilled at the prospect of celebrating Christmas together with his family and his girlfriend. You shook your head no whilst you slurp up your strawberry milkshake.

"I'll start packing this evening." "Don't forget to bring a charger, and socks, because it'll probably be cold by the time we get there- oh, also you need a winter coat, and no slippers, only boots, do you want me to make you a list?" You smiled at him in amusement and answered no.

"I already made a list, I know what to bring, don't worry." He was worried, or maybe that's not the right word. No, he was excitable. "What about your parents?" He asks suddenly, causing you to pause in surprise. "What about my parents?"

He shrugged and inched closer to the table. "Have you told them you're coming with me for the semester break?" You relaxed your face, shrugging off the shocked expression you initially wore. "I don't think it's necessary, even if I wasn't going with you, I still wouldn't be going home either."

"Oh, okay." The silence was ineffable. You could hear a silent question that he didn't dare ask; why?

Your family was a rarely spoken topic in your relationship with him. It was easy to not overthink it at first, but you knew that Jace had noticed how you try your best to never bring them up.

"Plus-" you felt the necessity to add, "-they would probably be against the idea if I did tell them about it." He shares a look of curiosity, expecting you to elaborate. "My parents are kind of a strict." You chose to say. "So, they don't know that we're dating?" You shook your head. "They sound protective of you." He says it so confidently that it made you laugh dryly.

A bitter smile was painted over your face as you kept your eyes on the food. "Controlling, would be a more fitting term."

When you finally looked up to meet his gaze, you could tell there was more he wanted to ask, or comment on, but you weren't in the mood to start explaining your lore to him. Thinking about your family made you nauseous, and you really wanted to eat the pancakes without throwing up. "Believe me, its better this way." You concluded, making sure he won't have room to continue.

"Anyways, aren't you the one who should be briefing me about your family." Jacaerys grinned and seemingly forgot about your earlier conversation immediately. "There's not really much to say, you know my brothers Luc and Joffrey? They're pretty young, little rascals but harmless most of the time." You nodded earnestly, encouraging him to go on.

"My mom and dad are excited to meet you, you have nothing to worry about, I'm honestly more scared that they'll end up preferring you than me."

You snorted at that. "Ah yes, I do have a reputation with old people. Do you think it's my beautiful face?" He pretends to think for a moment before responding, "Well it can't be your charming personality." A laugh burst out of you at his words, causing you to receive a glare from the girls from the other table. You gasped out suddenly, remembering a small detail you've never discussed before. "I should bring gifts right?" A look of realization passes over Jace's face at the same time.

"I mean it's Christmas, I've never done it before, but I know presents are a thing."

Jace was quick to interject, telling you it's no need. "They wouldn't care, our tradition is all about spending time together, presents are just courtesy." He explained.

"Yes well, I should get them gifts as a courtesy then." He opens his mouth to argue but you shut him down immediately before he could. "I won't get anything crazy, it's just courtesy like you said." A lot of people might perceive you as nonchalant and uncaring, but the truth was you've always been the person who cares too much until it backfires.And as much as you wished you weren't so desperate to make a good first impression, you do want to, deep in your heart you knew that.

"Okay, fine, if you want to. But you can just get them some keychain or mugs, especially for my brothers, they're already being spoiled enough." You smile gratefully for his cooperation and agree on his terms.

—

One of your favorite terms in the world is the term "white lie." Any lie is excusable if you call it a white lie. It was a form of manipulation that you were used to being given. At first, you implemented it in your life as a way to please other people. A way to become more likeable and less of a burden.

You spent your whole teenage life trying to earn bits and pieces of your mother's love.

No, I'm not mad that you didn't get it for me and only bought one for my brother. Yes, it is my fault that I'm too sensitive and defensive every time we argue. No, I can't remember the last time you ever hit me. Not even the one time from last week when you pulled me by my hair, dragging me to the bathroom and used the water hose on me.

The truth soon became the most dangerous thing in your life. Candor wasn't appreciated in your home. You must watch your mouth and accept what you are given gratefully.

The cycle lasted for years until you turned 16. You had grown strong enough to push her back every time she tried to land a hit on you. Strong enough to know what to say to make it hurt for her too.

The white lies soon turned into a form of protection. No, I wasn't smoking weed under the bleachers after school hours just because it felt safer there than it does in my room. No, I don't know why I'm being written down for failing several subjects consecutively for the whole year, I thought I was doing just fine. No, I know you're doing all of this because you love me.

No, I don't think I can book a flight home for 5 days. I just got a new job, there's too much shit to do.

You stare down at your phone, the unread text stared back at your face.

M: I don't blame you for not wanting to come home, but if you want to, you can.

The only message you've gotten for her for the whole year. Her ego wouldn't force her to plead for her only daughter to come back. So she plays saint and paints you as the girl who grew up too fast and forgot all about home.

I love you, mom. You wanted to say. Love wouldn't be enough.

When was the last time she ever said that she loved you? You can never recall. It definitely wasn't the day before you went to college. No, the night before was spent holding you from behind as the two of you slept in your childhood bed. She had her face in the crook of your neck and you heard her whisper when she thought you were asleep; you were my mirror, and I'm sorry I broke you into pieces just so it'd match my cracks.

She laid with you for a few more minutes before getting up to leave. You cried until dawn and never got a wink of sleep right after.

You expected the newfound freedom to feel exhilarating, but instead, you felt more out of place during the first week at the university than you did at home. It was comical, ironic, how the only pair of hands you wanted to comfort you were the same ones that had beaten bruises on your skin. I miss you, you almost texted her.

Was it still considered a white lie or a form of manipulation if the only person you wanted to trick was yourself? No, I'm not upset that she never called or texted to ask if I've safely landed. No, I never wonder if she regrets everything she's done to me. No, I don't hate her so much sometimes that it could be translated as a child throwing a tantrum just to get their parents to pay attention to her. No, I don't like having one night stands just to know what it's like to be touched without being inflicted with pain.

No, I never wake up from dreams of you loving me the same way you loved your son and consider it a nightmare instead.

But of all times you've dreamt of her, this time you woke up from it with the only person you wanted comfort from, still sleeping next to you. And for the first time since you could remember, it was not your mother.

Your eyes remained on your phone screen, hung up on every word of the message. Glancing once at your boyfriend, you turn back to your phone to switch it off before you move to lay back under the covers.

---

It was 8 days before Christmas. Watching snow fall from the sky was somehow more magical than getting to sit on a first class plane for the first time

You tried to take pictures from above, but the snow didn't look as clear and visible through the phone as it did from your eyes.

You're hands are fully gloved, with your little bunny designed ear muffs that Jace bought for you a few days ago.

"I feel like that thing from Big Hero 6." You told him before leaving. "His name is Baymax, put some respect on it." Was his response before he pinched your cheeks with both hands.

4 hours later, the two of you are strapped in comfortable seats, the cold getting stronger, and you're both grateful for the winter jackets you had on.

"It's so beautiful." You spoke, looking out from the small window. "Yeah, beautiful." When you twisted your neck to look at him, he was already staring at you. "What?" You asked. He shrugged, face blank. "Nothing."

Neither of you broke eye contact. Your frown deepens as you try to figure out what has trying to tell you. He blinked. You were gonna ask what again until it hit you. "Jace, no."

"I didn't even say anything." He whined, defending himself. "We're not having sex on a plane." "See, I didn't even have to say it, you were just thinking the same thing." You fought the urge to roll your eyes, cocking your head to the side, baffled at his suggestion.

"Do you know how many germs there are on this plane?" He shrugged again. "It's first class." You throw your hands up in frustration. "It's times like these that I remember you're a jock." He should've been offended, but he was still confused about what you mean.

"This place is full of germs, it's not even advisable to wash your face or do skin care on a plane because that's how dirty the air is." You patiently explained, watching him get more confused. "But we're not doing skincare, we're doing each other." You turned away, groaning loudly with your eyes closed.

"You're so boring." He complained like a child. "I'm also gonna snitch on your mom if you don't get your shit together." He snorted at that, pulling out his headphones out of his small slingbag. "She won't believe you, I'm her baby." "Yeah, you are a baby."

His head snapped at you immediately, before he could come up with a smart response that probably would have to do something to do with his penis, You pushed his head back to the other side, patting his cheeks like you would a toddler and quickly put on your headphones.

He turned around again and said something, but at that point you already turned up the volume. "Sorry, I can't hear you baby." He stuck his tongue out in annoyance. You thought you heard him mutter 'baymax looking ass' but didn't react as you didn't want him to think he won.

The flight was 2 and a half hours long. You were sure you could stay awake for that amount of time, but once the flight attendant brought out the heated blanket, the both of you were down in 5 minutes.

The pilot said something through the comm that you were too sleepy to hear once the plane had finally reached the destination. You wiped your eyes with the back of your fists groggily and began shaking Jace to wake up while yawning.

The first nudge did nothing, you started tapping him on the shoulder, which by the 6th tap, you finally got a response; "5 more minutes please."

Only when you leaned closer into his ears and blew air into it does he jolt up, eyes wincing. "That tickles." He murmured, wiping his hand over his tired face. "We're about to land." You informed him, taking your headphones off and passing it to him to keep in his bag. "Okay."

You were honestly eager to get your cramped ass out of the plane, but as you refresh yourself with bottled water, the realization dawned upon you. His mother, or father, would be waiting at the airport.

The comm dinged again as the pilot announced landing. The flight attendants were all quick to get to their seat once a loud zooming noise startled everyone. "There we go." You mumbled under your breath.

He helped you up once you were able to take the seat belt off. Jace slings his bag over his shoulder and uses his right hand to carry your extra duffle bag, his left hand intertwined with yours, helping you descend down the stairs before him.

"Let me hold it." You offered, but he shook his head no. "If my mom or dad saw me making you carry anything they'll strangle me." He sounded serious so you let him penguin walk with your hands still holding his, making your way over the baggage section.

"Are you excited." He asks, wiggling his eyebrows at you. "Over the moon." You answered with a tight smile. If he noticed the sarcasm, he didn't comment on it. "Good, I promise this will be your best Christmas yet." He sounded so convincing that it made you smile against your will.

"It's literally my first Christmas, so I don't think there'll be any competition yet, Jace." "Exactly." You laughed quietly, letting him take the lead as you walked through the crowded space of the airport. Once you got on the elevator, you were going to ask him if he could see his parents from here, but he cut you to it by shouting loudly and waving both your hands up in the air. "We're here!"

Jesus fuck, you thought. If you were anywhere else, you would've immediately pulled his arm down, what with everyone around you glaring at him. But his parents were watching, and you saw his parents wave back excitedly, thankfully neither were yelling back.

The first observation you make as you begin to near them was how much he looked like his father. His mother looked exquisitely different than him. She was beautiful, with platinum blonde hair tied in a bun, her eyes smiled every time her lips did. You found yourself with a small smile, beaming at their joy as his mother started walking towards you both. I don't think I've ever seen anyone's parents this happy to have their child back home.

"Finally." You hear his mother sigh out as she pulls Jacaerys in a hug. She was quick to pull away so she could get a good look at his face. "Look at you, exactly the same." He rolls his eyes. "It's been like 6 months." She ignored his wit and pushed him aside to take you in. You didn't have the time to extend a hand as she pulls you in an embrace too. You yelped at first but hugged her back easily and smiled at her.

"So this is the sweetheart Jace has been keeping from me?" She joked, holding the side of your face with her palms. "I think I should be the one saying that." You didn't know why you said that, but it made her laugh heartily, only after you said it did you realize that it sounded like you were flirting with your boyfriend's mom.

From the corner of your eyes you could see Jace walking over to you with his father. "Have you eaten yet? You must be famished."

L That's another thing you noticed about his family. They use words like famished. The way his mother spoke sounded regal, you could even say royalty.

"Oh it's fine, I've already had some cheesecake on the plane." Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say, seeing that her frown deepens. "Oh, that's barely lunch, and it's almost tea time too."

You thought tea time was a myth honestly, something British people made up to sound funny, like the monarchy. As far as you can remember, you grew up only eating one full meal a day at home. Your mother would buy you nothing else and asked if you were really that hungry, you'd assert another white lie and tell her that you really can't eat too much anyways and that your appetite is small.

As you grew older, your appetite did grow smaller, but it ended up making you feel guilty every time you wanted to eat more than once a day, as you would feel like you don't deserve it.

"It's fine, we've cooked up a nice meal back home, once you get yourself cleaned up, we can all eat together." She was incredibly soft spoken, and she looked at you in a very motherly manner. Your thank you was cut off as you hear her husband called out. "Rhaenyra-'' he appears by her side, smiling widely at you, his features remarkably similar to his son. "There you are, the prettiest girl he's ever seen, eh?" He winked at Jace, making him stutter, turning red. "Dad please-" He ignores him just like Rhaenyra did before.

"Well how do you do?" You shook hands with his father, introducing yourself. At least this time you didn't say anything that sounds like you're trying to seduce Jace's father.

Once the formalities was over, his father helped pick up the baggage that finally arrived, they have a large range rover, more than enough to fit 2 weeks worth of clothes. Jace was going to sit in the back with you, but his mother wacked him in the head and told him to sit up front. "You can't bring your girlfriend over and then hoggle her for yourself." She warned him as climbed up the back seat after you.

You're not sure if the reason you're absolutely terrified to look at Rhaenyra was because she doesn't look like a mother of 3 or because you wanted to impress her. But you tried your best to appear calm as her husband started driving. “Have you eaten anything yet sweetheart?” He asks from the front, equally as sweet as his wife.

“Uh, I had a cheesecake-” “Oh a cheesecake? For the whole day? That's not good, Jace, why didn't you buy her anything.” He scolded his son.

“She didn't want anything else-” “That can't be true, you little pig, you can't eat so much and then starve your girlfriend!”

“I'm really fine.” Your assurance wasn't acknowledged as his mother joined in. “That's right, you're lucky we cooked something up.” “She had a cheesecake-” Jace attempts to defend himself, which only made his father snort. “You know how plane foods are, they’re tiny!” You nodded in agreement, quietly whispering, “Yeah they are.” Which earned you a glare from Jace. He did try to get you to eat more, but like he said, you weren't interested. “Already teaming up against me.” He mumbled in annoyance.

The whole car ride home was peaceful. They continued to make small talk with you, asking if you've ever went skiing before, apparently it's something they did every Christmas. “Don't worry, it's quite easy, Jace could teach you when we go together.” Rhaenyra said to you later.

“Does your parents know you're here? We don't want to steal you away from them for your sem break.” Rhaenyra asked apologetically. Why did everyone care so much about whether your parents knew or not? “Oh yeah, they don't mind.” The lie came on so naturally that you forgotten about Jace being told the opposite. He snuck a glance at you but it was too quick that you didn't manage to catch his reaction. ”Good, good.” Rhaenyra concluded, relieved to hear it.

The car pulls up into a guarded neighborhood. You weren't surprised to see that most of the houses inside are mansions, perfected with their own large car porches and a garden. And you weren't surprised to see the house they finally reached in the end was as equally large as the others. The outside walls were gray and cream coloured, you could seentwo different entrances from the side and from the front by the porch.

“Home sweet home.” Jace spoke from his seat. If your house looked like that than it'd be a sweet home too.

—-

It wasn't a bad dream that jolted you awake tonight. But rather the jarring change of surrounding that you weren't used to. Jace lays on his side, an arm lazily hung over your waist. It was his snoring that pulled you out if your confusion. The white and large curtains covering the see through doors of the balcony looked unfamiliar because they aren't yours, they're Jace's.

And the reason why the floor felt so cold once you placed both your feet on the ground after you've gently push his hands off to climb off the bed was because it's made of marble, not concrete like you were used to.

Slipping into the bathroom quietly and turning on the sink tap, the brutal coldness of the water made you wince. You let your fingers familiarize with the feeling before wiping it over your dull face.

It was 2am, the clock hung on the walls of the dimly lit room read. A dreaded and fatigued part of you wanted to get back to bed, but there was a restlessness growing inside of your bones. Today is the third day that you've been here, 6 days until Christmas. You had spent the past few days helping Rhaenyra bake gingerbread cookies and joined in snowball fights with Jace and his siblings.

Your boyfriend definitely had more fun than his younger brothers. How fun it was to be able to chuck 7 snowballs in a row at his girlfriend's face before she starts chasing him into the snowflake covered woods threatening to dropkick him.

You thought things have been going pretty well so far. At first you had worried that your quiet personality would somehow make things awkward, but you seemed to have fit in rather easily with them.

You weren't shy or anything, just more reserved than most. And not that you'd ever tell Jace to his face, but Joffrey probably was your favourite. He was the youngest and the cutest. At first he had completely ignored you on the first night that you arrived, but the next day during breakfast he showingly changed his mind for his dislike or indifference for you by making Jace switch places with him to sit by your left.

It was announced on that very same day that you are to be his favourite person in that house too.

The door made a small creaking noise as you opened it to leave. Walking down the dark corridor that led downstairs, you walked yourself to the kitchen, looking for something to drink. Help yourself to the fridge, Rhaenyra had told you 2 days ago. Well, don't mind if I do.

The fridge light shone over your face like the glow of heaven as you bend down to see your choices. They had cranberry juice, which wasn't exactly your favourite, but it was better than orange juice which was another thing they had. There's bar of chocolate you're tempted to steal, but you have a feeling it's not yours to take.

Just as your hand extends to grab at the cranberry juice, the kitchen lights flicker open, making you flinch so hard that you accidentally banged your head on the upper part of the fridge. "Ow."

"Oh it's just you." Rhaenyra's voice laughed out. Pulling your head out like a snack thief, you smiled sheepishly at her.

"Sorry, was gonna grab a drink." She shook her head and head over to the kitchen sink, washing her hands. "It's fine, I thought you were Joffrey, he likes to steal his brother's chocolate bars." Well that's something the two of you have in common.

"What are you drinking?" She asks turning to look at you. "Just cranberry juice." She hummed in disagreement, shaking her head. "In this cold season? Take a seat, I'll make some tea." You have never jumped so quickly to interject anyone. "Oh no, It's fine! Really, it's 2am, I should probably get back to sleep anyways.".

She seems to take light of your argument, already pulling out a teapot and a small Camomile teabag. "Oh it's no bother, if you weren't craving anything then you wouldn't be awake rummaging through the fridge anyways." You stood awkwardly by the closed fridge watching her add hot water into the pot. "Fetch me the sugar will you?" You moved quickly to pull out the tub of sugar from one of the kitchen cabinets, passing it to her.

"So, what's keeping you up at night?" You shrugged lightly, leaning against the kitchen counter as you didn't want to sit and wait at the table like a brat. "Nothing really, I'm insomniac, so..." Her eyes widened momentarily. "Oh really?" You nodded.

"Mmhm, I take medication for it, but sometimes it doesn't work." She reacts with a string of Ooohs, stirring inside the pot with a long spoon.

"Melatonin?" You nodded again. That, and some anti psychotics.

Once she's finally done with the tea, you sat by her as she poured it into two mugs for the both of you. It was odd that she was up for small talk this late in the night, but you enjoyed conversing with her. "You know I don't think I've ever asked you what major you are, and that silly boy has never told me." "I'm an art major." You answered. She smiled so dotingly at the response, sincerely intrigued. "An art major? You can draw then?" You hummed positively. "Draw, paint a little."

She sips her hot tea patiently. "I'm a fan of art myself, have you heard of Egon Schiele?" You laughed breathily. "Of course, who doesn't?" Rhaenyra tipped her head to the side in a small nod of agreement. "I have some of his paintings on my office, his works had been a favourite. Quite an expressive man isn't he?" You considered the man's work with his personal life. "Not exactly a role model but yeah, he is."

Your tea is finished, but you remain unmoved on the chair, waiting for her to continue. "You know I believe that the arts is the heart of humanity. Some people might not agree, people who can't see beyond the techniques and brush strokes, but art is what happen when you try to make beauty out of pain, isn't it? I mean as stereotypical as it sounds."

Your eyes were no longer droopy from sleepiness, they match the pure intensity Rhaenyra's had. "It is. Without art, and I don't mean just paintings- I mean poetry and literature and theatre, pain would just be pain. Meaningless." "Exactly."

You don't know what the silent words being exchanged through your gazes actually meant, but something did cross between the two of you, an understanding of a sort, an alliance in beliefs.

"I also believe that those who dabble in art, in any mediums, are the ones who love the strongest and lose the hardest." An unintentional smile bloomed over your face. "Tell me about it." Rhaenyra laughs lightly. "Have you always dabbled in art?" She questioned.

You relive blurry memories of badly drawn trees and stick humans done when you were a child. "Sure, yeah. I've always liked it. I mean it's not just this magical talent I have or anything, as much as the arts is viewed in a much bigger scale of its effects to society as a whole, it's could also be deemed important in indivual intepretation."

Rhaenyra leans back against her chair, hands placed on her lap politely. "Like for example- art is intimate because it is yours.

- It doesn't have to have a deeper meaning all the time and neither does it have to emotionally strike you for it to be considered art. To love, some people say, is to be understood. But we can never truly understand anyone, no matter how hard we think we can.

-And so I think that art, just like people, can be loved even without context. Whatever feeling it sparks inside of you, it is intimate because it is complicated, and it is intimate because it can mean a hundred different things to a hundred different people."

Her expression was unreadable. You wondered if you have confused or overwhelmed her. But after a few minutes of silence, she asked; "And what about people?" "What about it?"

"You compared it to art, and you said art needn't be understood to be loved, does the same goes for people?" You clasped your cold hands on the warm mug and pursed your lips together, your thoughts racing each other.

"Yeah, it does. I mean I use to think that being with a person who understood you was the most important thing in the world, and though it does feel good to finally be seen by someone else, like I said before, it is nearly impossible to be truly understood. And so, the second best thing would be to be loved despite not being understood. To have someone who believes in you, even if they're not sure about the situation or the facts or your rationality, that is love. To be believed in."

"Faith?" Rhaenyra suggests. "Yes, faith."

You stood up right after, taking her empty cup to wash for too despite her complaints, hand washing them as you're not sure how to use a dishwasher. "I'm glad you're here." Rhaenyra spoke from behind you. It wasn’t the validation that had struck you so deeply in the chest, nor was it her appreciation for you, instead, ot was her acceptance. "I'm glad I'm here too."

In this small moment between 2 to 3am on a Thursday at your boyfriend's kitchen, you wonder if you've found the right kind of people to call home.

"Thanks for the tea, I hope I didn't keep you up." You thanked her in a hushed voice, genuinely grateful. She returned your smile and squeezed your shoulder softly. "You did no such thing, now go get some sleep, alright?"

When you returned to Jace's room, you find him sitting up on the bed in the dark. You closed the door behind you slowly and tiptoed towards him.

"Where'd you go?" He asks sleepily, pulling you close to his chest as he moves to lie back down. "Went to get a drink." You whispered back. "For 20 minutes?" You snorted and lifted your head up to kiss him on the cheek before placing your head back under his chin. "Your mother couldn't sleep either, she made tea."

Jace accepted the response, asking no more questions. His arms wrap around your body the way a ship holds on to an anchor. You didn't know how much you needed someone to need you until you met him.

You notice that he's still awake, with the way his finger is lightly tapping the skin of your shoulder. "Did I wake you up? Sorry." You feel him shaking his head slightly. "No, I was just thinking." He mumbled back. "About?" You inquired him.

"You, I miss you." You frowned and pulled back to look at him. "I'm right here." He shrugged. "I know, but sometimes you're not. Sometimes you're here but when I look at you, you're gone. And I don't know how to bring you back." You feel a splinter in your heart when he said that. How foolish you are to expect him to be so stupid to never notice how unstable you can be at times, how easily you dissociate and push him away before pulling him right back.

"I'm sorry." You told him sincerely, not sure what else there is that could be said.

"I'm not angry, or upset. I just want you to know that Im right here with you too, and I'm not going anywhere." You smiled sadly at him and nodded. "I know." Your noses booped together and he returns your small smile. "Anything you need me for, I'm here." Jacaerys assures you, half yawning. "I just need you to trust me, and I'll trust you. Can you do that for me?" He stared silently for a moment and then nodded once. "Okay, I trust you. But you have to honor your end."

You pecked his lips with one hand caressing his cheek. "I trust you." You promised.

—

It was 3 days before Christmas. You've spent the past week skiing and building a snowman with the kids. These past few days have been so suspiciously peaceful that it's terrifying.

You're on edge, despite the happiness this family has brought you. You like to tell yourself that you're just being careful, but the truth is that sometimes you can't tell the difference between a house fire and a small candle.

You had texted your mother 2 days ago, confessing to her that you've been spending this week with your boyfriend's family. You made sure to keep your lie about your job going, stating that this visit was a last minute kind of thing. She never answered.

She shouldn't be bothered, you soothed yourself. She never cared if you ever actually came home or not, why should this be an exception?

You and Jacaerys have spent the day going from shop to shop, eyeing beautiful Christmas lights and discounts available. You started with a bakery in the morning, Rhaenyra's suggestion. You had gotten free tastings on many of the popular cake choices before Jace finally settled on buying his mother's favourite Lemon cake.

He had urged you to pick something for yourself and you landed on some éclairs, finishing them up on the car ride to the antique gift shop a few blocks further.

The store had a giant nutcracker statue staring out from inside the windows, they reminded you of the old Christmas movies you spent watching as a child. The bell on the door jiggled loudly as you entered after Jace, a longing gaze towards the nutcracker, hints of nostalgia filling up your heart.

An elderly lady guarded the counter with a smile. "Looking for anything in particular?" She asks. Jace shook his head and smiled back. "Just looking around." He soon found himself crouching down at the snow globe sections, pulling a few out of the shelves to eye the intricate details.

You had walked to the candle shelves, admiring the colourful choices. There was another nostalgic thing on candles too. A superstitious kind. The way you used to blow on them for every birthday or random nights you remembered to lit up your rose scented candles that stays on your bedside, wishing on them like you do on a shooting star.

Asking for some kind of mercy from whichever god there was looking down at you. But in the end you had to pull yourself up without any kind of divine intervention. You had learned that there was only one god inside of you, and she was a girl fed on rage and grievance who spent her nights weeping in her empty altar.

The girl was still there, quieter now, but unflickering, unlike a candle.

You eye the red coloured candle gently, sniffing on the wax to identify the scent. Rose. You place it back on the shelf and move on to the cutlery sets.

You loved cutlery, plates and mugs. Maybe it's the 20s getting to you, but some days you feel that the house decoration section of IKEA was better than any night club you've been in. A beautiful chipped cup stared at you from the lower shelves. It was beautiful, purple flowers drawn on the curves and long thing green ropes on the holder.

You were pulling it out to look inside when your phone suddenly dinged multiple times, buzzing in the pocket of your pants. Clumsily, you pushed the cup back in and took your phone out whilst still crouching.

M: Is this some sort of tantrum you're throwing?

the first notification read, making you frown. You don't have the strength to swipe open the screen to read the full sentence, only reading what's shown on your lockscreen. Just before you could click it off after pressing mute, another notification enters, the words too bright, reading themselves aloud to you.

M: you're selfish, do you ever think about anyone else but yourself? It's always how you feel because only yo-

the full message was cut off as another notification enters. Irritation filled you the same time that your eyes pricked with angry tears. You blinked a few times to get rid of it as you shove your muted phone back in your pants.

I can't fucking deal with this right now. You told yourself. Your phone buzzed again, making you harshly take it back out to turn off the vibration.

It always has t be a problem with her. Selfish she called you? On the one time you decided to do something fo yourself?

Pulling yourself up to stand your kneed are met with the cup that's still half out from it's shelf, shoving it behind strongly, a small crash sound turned your whole body into stone.

You bend back down immediately, pulling out the chipped mug and the small broken pieces of it's corners. You could hear the owner getting up. Shit shit shit. "What was that sweetie?"

You turned to her with a saddened expression. "I'm so sorry, I'll pay for it-" the woman's eyes moved from your face to the glass pieces and gasped. "Oh my, wait here- I'll get the broom." As soon as she disappeared to the store room, Jacaerys was by your side in the next second. "What happened?" He bends down.

"It was an accident, I smashed it with my knee." Your voice was shaky and you feel your fingers prick as you try to sweep the pieces onto your left palm before the lady returned. "Baby, put it back, she's bringing the broom." He warned you. You shook your head lightly and kept picking up the tiny sharp ones. "It's fine, I got it-" Jace grabbed your hand and turned it upside down so they fall back on the ground.

"Jace what the fuck is wrong with you." You snapped, pulling your hand back. Your voice was high, close to yelling. "Your hand is fucking bleeding, there's literal cuts." He argued back, trying and failing to grab at your wounded hand.

The store room door opened loudly, the both of you turned to see the lady walking over quickly with a small broom. "Move aside you two." She ordered calmly.

"I can do it for you, it was my fault." You offered her, ignoring how Jace is trying to pull you back. "Oh no, it's fine sweetie, it happens all the time." You opened your mouth to ask again, desperate to try and fix the mess you made, but you could feel Jace's grip on your arm tightening and stayed silent.

"I didn't mean to." You whispered. His grip loosens, his hand moved from your arm to your shoulder. "It's fine, I'll pay for it." He immediately widened his eyes to warn you to keep quiet, knowing you'd argue against it. "Let me pay for it now, we'll discuss this later." He muttered closely to you. Your lips pursed together, not wanting to say or do anything you can't take back, you shush up.

There is large wave of emotion building up inside of you. It was overwhelming because it's not just one emotion. As the anger dissolves into pathetic guilt, you bite your lip from bursting out crying. Blinking fastly for a few more times, you managed to keep your breakdown from blowing up.

Standing by the door like a rock, you watch as Jace pulls out his purse to pay for the damage. You can see the lady shaking her head, denying his money. "It's old, not worth anything." You hear her say to him.

He ended up buying a tint snow globe and aa keychain anyways, to make up for the broken cup. She seemed to hold no grudge in her expression, smiling at the two of you and saving as you left.

Neither of you said anything on the walk to the car. Once you got in and strapped on the seatbelt, you twisted your face to him to see if he was upset and noticed that he was frowning. He hands you the small plastic gift, looking straight up front. A small sigh leaves him after he turns up the AC. the car engine noise filling up the tension between you.

"It was an accident." You repeated. He finally turns to you, with a look much worse than rage. Disappointment, pity. "I know." He responds softly. "I was just trying to clean it up, I felt bad." He nodded quietly, slowly averting his gaze to the steering wheel.

More silence filled the gap. When he finally steps on the pedal to reverse out of the parking, you turned away to look out the window in resolve. Nothing was said throughout the whole ride home.

Rhaenyra was excited to have you both home by evening. Her husband was quickly chastised for taking the first bite off of her cake. The sight was both amusing and endearing. You would've smiled in another scenario.

Jace talked and moved like nothing happened, offering for you to take a shower first before him, helping his mother with the dishes as the children are scolded for running around the kitchen. "Go to your room." Jace forced them with a kind of authority that you rarely see in him.

You watch the kids run up pass you, saying hi to you before they disappeared to their rooms.

Going for a shower yourself, you found solace in the privacy that his bathroom gave you. Letting the hot water run down your body along with your tears, you couldn't tell the difference between whicb and which.

Your face and eyes was red by the time you were done, the hot water obviously helped with that. But the warmth after cold skin biting walks was calming, even with the overthinking that came with today's events, the shower helped to bring down the temperature of your emotions.

Washing your face with cold water from the sink next, you avoid looking in the mirror. Shame erupted inside your chest, like a child scorned and embarrassed by their own behaviour.

You could hear Jace walk in the room from the bathroom. The door makes a sound as it's shut close. Letting your hair down for the first time today, you combed the wild strands with your fingers, lightly massaging your head as you brave yourself to face him again.

You didn't do anything wrong, why are you so scared?

You push the door open and dry your feet on the carpet outside of it. Jace was sitting on his bed, shirtless and charging his phone by the bedside.

He gives you a glance when be hears your footsteps and then turns back away like it's nothing. You're as watchful as him as you begin to dress yourself, sliding a green long-sleeved shirt over your head. You'd layer a cardigan over it later, but for now you're craving the chill after your hot shower.

He gets up to place his snow globe on his dressing table and hooked the small heart shaped keychain on his laptop bag. You sat yourself on the bed, feeling it dip and watching him still.

He turns on the small light on the front of his room after he's done closing all the curtains, and then you watch him take his trousers off before taking down his towel from the coat hanger and enter the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Hearing the sound if water begin falling from where he's in, you let your shoulder relax, a tired sigh escapes you.

You leaned back against the pillows and closed your eyes for a moment, letting the world around you turn dark.

—

The first time Jacaerys had slept over in your apartment was the first time he ever knew you were on multiple medication. It was the first time the two of you ever had sex, and he had passed out easily after. You, despite being tired, found yourself kept awake by your thoughts.

You can't remember what exactly kept you up but it was 2 hours in when he was startled awake by your shuffling around.

You had spent the last hours contemplating if you should grab a pill to help fall asleep or if it was too late and the pill would cause you to sleep in on tomorrow morning's class. And so the indecisiveness resulted in you trying your best and failing to fall asleep naturally. He looked up at you groggily and frowned.

"How you been awake the whole time?" He asked. You sighed tiredly and laid on your back.

"Yeah, sorry, did I wake you?" He shook his head and wiped a hand over his face. "You didn't, it's fine. I just thought you'd be down easy after all that."

You snorted and shook your head. "I'm insomniac."

"Oh." You nodded. "Yeah I have meds for it, but sometimes the pills all just clash together and it doesn't really work." He hummed in understanding. You noticed he doesn't ask more about the pills. It was either he didn't care or he was being respectful. You learned weeks in later that it was the latter. Unsurprisingly.

"Well, what do you do when you can't sleep?" You shrugged your shoulders. "Dunno. Watch stuff on my phone."

"What do you usually watch?" He asks, characteristically interested. "Gay sex." His head jolted forward and his eyes immediately widened. "I'm joking."

His shock immediately watered down as he gave you a faint laugh in response. "Right, of course."

You spent the rest of the night talking to him until your body gave in and you collapsed around his arm around dawn.

It's not an easy thing to forget, a man's first show of affection in small subliminal ways that some people might not notice. But you did, you always do.

That was not the last time you'd see him sacrifice his own comfort to make you feel less lonely than you already were. In a room full of people, colleagues, friends and family, you found that only he had the power to make you feel seen.

Other people looked at you and saw what you let them see. But Jacaerys was willing to pay much more attention to the things other people didn't want to. Your condition, whatever it's called (most people call it complicated), often made people uncomfortable. How is it a person like you could be so non chalant yet care so much at the same time. How was it you were reserved, but not shy or accepting of anyone's attempts to step over you?

They can't quite understand the complexity of being a damaged person that still tries their best to undo those damages on a daily. Niceties didn't always equal empathy. You learned that very early on in your life. To find someone who wouldn’t try to fix the hard parts of your self or resent you for them wasn't easy.

Most men, that you knew of, will either try to "fix" you in an attempt to make themselves feel heroic. Like a savior. And when they realise too far in that those scars you bared was unreversable, they use it againts you instead. They paint you out to be the bad guy for those same traits they promised and vowed to be so understanding of.

And for almost the only time ever in your life that night, you didn't feel like your secrets were owed to anyone. A safe space was a place you knew you could be vulnerable with, but t was also supposed to be a place where you knew you could still be caution with all your walls up and still wouldn't be judged for it.

It was him who stayed through the cold shoulders and unanswered questions. And so, it was also him who you then trusted your whole heart with.

---

You were woken up 30 minutes before dinner time. Feeling the soft nudge Jacaerys gave you, shaking you awake easily. His hand lingered on your shoulder until you were sitting up fully. You thanked him and went up to the bathroom to wash your face.

"Mom's making lasagna tonight." He says ftom outside the bathroom door. He no longer referred to Rhaenyra as 'my mom', including you as part of the family without any awkwardness.

"I love lasagna." You called back. "I know."

The cold sink water have been getting warmer and warmer as the snow outside begins to melt. The weather was still antagonizing, but driving through the wet road was easier now, and morning showers are less dreadful.

"You know, we don't really get snow back home." You quipped as you turn off the sink, making your way out. "Really?" He asked, genuinely astonished.

"Yeah, it's a much warmer climate where I'm from." He was putting on a sweater by his mirror when you came out, his eyes met yours through the reflection. "So, you've never built a snowman before?".

You smiled and nodded, walking over to the bed. "Nope, the one we did the other day was my first time." Snowman building and snowball fights were fun, though you wouldn’t admit to your boyfriend that you much preferred staying inside with the heater on as you munch on some cookies and hot chocolate.

You were layering moisturiser over your face when you hear Jace speak, "I forgot to tell you, your mom called on your phone while you were sleeping." You froze for a second before your hands resumed massaging your face with the product.

"Oh, did you talk to her?" You asked, giving him a quick glance. Jacaerys shook his head and you felt relief spread through your whole body.

He sat by your side, watching you do your skincare routine meticulously. "I muted it, but you should probably call her back, it was two misscalls." You hummed uncaringly, as if it was the least important thing in the world, not wanting to give out a suspicious reaction.

The truth was you did not have the guts to check your messages at all since you came back from the shopping trip. You had her on mute and that had helped calm your nerves. But knowing that she had went as far as calling you twice, which believe it or not, is the first time you've ever had that much attention from her, was anxiety inducing.

"I'll call her later." You stated, noticing him still staring at you from the corner of your eyes. "Why did you say that she already knew you were here when we first arrived at the airport?" He asks suddenly.

There weren't any direct correlations of this question to the current situation, but it was unsurprising that he had brought this up. In fact, you have been waiting for him to do so.

"I did tell them." You answer bluntly. "You told me a few days before that you didn't want to." You closed the cap of your face serum and stashed it back inside your small bag, taking yout time with the conversation.

"I changed my mind. I was telling the truth when I said I didn't want to tell them at first, but I figured they should know. In case of emergencies." He was content with the answer, making no more inquiries.

Dinner was quick and quiet. You helped cut the marble cake Rhaenyra had made into small square shapes before its passed around to the whole table after prayers were spoken together.

There were no leftovers of it or the lasagna by the time it was over. You could tell that the older woman was overjoyed. She was someone who put all of her love and effort into everything that she does for her family, and watching her children appreciate the hard work of a mess she made in the kitchen must've felt rewarding.

You helped her with the dishes until everyone else except Jace had left. She argued against it at first, insisting that you were a guest and shouldn't have to do anything. But you refused to leave until the kitchen was clean, so she had you sweep crumbs and pieces out of the carpet while Jace was to take out the trash.

"It's good to have another woman here." She said to you as she stacks up the dry plates back to the shelves.

Throwing out the collected trash into the dustbin, you offered her a small laugh. "I'm glad you feel so."

You went up first after the cleaning was done, leaving Jacaerys with his mother, discussing the Christmas tree arrangements.

The medium sized plastic tree they had ordered last week finally arrived, and it was up to him to fix it up on their livingroom by the end of today.

You considered your gift for his family that you had handmade a few days before you flew here. It would've been easier to buy something, but buying them all an individual gift would be costly, and Jacaerys himself have warned you against that, deeming it unnecessary.

And so your ivory and indigo themed painting of Daisies and Forget Me Not's would be enough.

It was an image that you had longed to paint for a long time, two contrasting coloured flowers tangled together. But with all the assignments and homework that your degree was already requesting of you, there hadn't be any time for you to make it up until the week before you an Jace left.

It wasn't your best work, but it was your favourite. The subtlety that tied together on the canvas satisfied you.

Jace came up shortly after you had. Mumbling something about the decorations looking shitty. Ignoring the fact that you were reading on the bed, jumped on it suddenly, making you bounce up. "Hello?" You snapped, waving your book.

He raised his brows innocently, laying down on the pillows. "All you do is read and paint." He whined. "I like reading and painting."

He poked your right thigh with his toes making you pause reading to slap his feet as a warning. "Get a hobby." You could feel his eye roll from behind you. "Loving you is my hobby."

You kept your eyes on the book as you responded, "how lifeless you must be." Your book is snatched from your hand right after your sentence is finished. "Give it back you gorilla." You twist yourself towards him, trying to reach for the book as he held it up over your head.

"No, this thing has taken over my place as the center of your attention." You let out a loud hah! Pushing him down against the bed and pried the book from his cold hands as he kept his grip on it.

"Bold of you to assume you were ever the center of my attention." He gasped and you took the opportunity to grab the book while his hand loosens.

"How can I not be the center of your attention? Look at me." He spoke seriously.

The book was safely placed by your side, but now he's grabbing you over him instead. "You know I only agreed to date you just in case I'd need to apply for a green card." You gritted out as he squeezes your face against his cheek. Jacaerys' facade of being offended broke and he threw his head back in a boisterous laugh, letting you slip away from him

Shoving him strongly while he's still choking on laughter, he fell off the bed with an oof and landed face down, drawing out a laugh from you instead.

Pulling himself back up, he squints his eyes and glared at you. "You're so boring."

What he views as boring is your kind of fun and that was just how it is. "What do you want us to do instead? Have a slumber party?" He tilt his face, genuine considering it. You cut him off before he could agree. "No- We're not doing that, because I know your definition of slumber party."

"I thought you liked my definition of a slumber party." He asks, laying his head on your lap and letting you get your few pages in for the night. "We're at your parent's house, I don't think they'd like your definition of a slumber party." He hummed and said nothing else, closing his eyes as he stays against your thighs.

You suspected it was either the white wine or the sugar rush of the three squares if marble cake that he had tonight that was making him slightly more hyper. Whatever it was, it's refraining him from being able to just sit his ass down. You once asked him if he had ADHD during your first month of dating, he vaguely answers 'probably' and started talking about something else right after.

Speedreading the last 3 pages of the chapter you're in, you thought he had fallen asleep until he turned around so he would face up to you. "Do you want to go see the Christmas lights?"

You barely heard what he said at first, trying to finish reading the last sentence of the page. "Huh?" He repeated what he said again, waiting for you to close your book and meet his eyes.

When you finally do, you looked down at him with skepticism. "Right now?" He nodded. It was around 8.30, not that late, but also pretty early. You tossed and turned the suggestion in your head until you finally just shrugged at him. "Are they really that pretty?"

"This street is full of mansions wrapped with gigantic traffic lights coloured decorations. Pretty sure the Millers have a gigantic Elf statue outside their gate." You blinked in surprise. "That's...festive."

He nodded in agreement. "Yeah, rich people stuff."

You'd counter back that he was rich too, but there aren't any weird Santa statues in this house yet, so you say nothing. "We don't have to see the ones around this neighbourhood, I know the street stalls are gonna be lit up all around tonight, We could drive around, grab a burger or something."

You were still full from the lasagna, but a burger sounded appealing. You had grown up around street foods and cheap oily burgers and fries from stalls by your house. The taste was always better than whatever clean expensive food you've ever had in your life. You were eager to get out of this place suddenly.

"Okay, sure. Let me finish one more chapter and we can go." Jacaerys cheered, fist bumping the air before he rolled off of you to go change into something thicker.

It ended up being an hour later when you were finally done with the book, managing to convince your dressed up boyfriend on his reindeer sweater that it's much too early still.

To make up for your lack of priority for the time, you were punished to wear a matching red sweater like his. Putting it on with a grumble and frown, he had no idea that you secretly liked the sweater but would rather die than confess it aloud.

You let him get downstairs first to inform his mother of your plans. He was already starting the car engine when you got down, his parents and young Joffrey were all settled on the couch, watching Bluey.

Rhaenyra smiled as you walked by. You waved at her as you're about to walk out and hear her call out to her son. "Be back before 11, or I'll lock you both out!"

"Yeah, yeah." Jace yelled back and closes the door.

You hopped on the passenger seat of his Range Rover with ease and put on the seatbelt while he starts to reverse the car out of parking.

"So, where first?" You ask.

"We could start with stalking our neighbour's houses and then go on a drive down the street- or, we could go down the street first and then stalk our neighbours." You don't miss the way he referred to his neighbours as ours. "I think we should stalk the weird elf dude first, we'll probably be starving again by the time that's done, and then we can go straight to the shops and get a burger."

"Oh wow, you had this all planned out didn't you?" He sounded amused.

"Well, better safe than sorry." He wore a puzzled expression at your words but did not ask for clarification.

The house with the 5'4 elf wasn't that far away from his, and true his words were, the elf did exist by the large gates.

It had a green pointy hat on and wore a red vest with blue buttons.

"The Italian flag?" You whispered out in confusion, watching through the binoculars Jace had stolen from his younger brother. "I think...that's the Christmas colours, not the Italian flag." He whispered back, taking the binoculars from you.

"Oh right, of course." This had to be the first and last time you said something that stupid around him. You had a reputation to keep of being the smart one

What's more terrifying than the large demonic eyes of the elf staring at you was how there were also multiple tiny elves surrounding the big one, like little elf babies with adult elf faces. They crowded around the feet of the big elf, building what seemed like an elf shrine.

"It's like a cult." Jacaerys spoke after a while. You thought the exact same thing.

"Like little cultish elves worshipping their elf messiah." Jace lowered the binocular and snapped his neck towards you. "You think this is legal?"

You frowned at him. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"I don't know, i mean it's a bit disturbing isn't it, like, doesn't this count as property damage or something, or least neighbourhood disturbance."

"The only authority figure I could imagine would have a problem with this is Santa Claus for illegal use of elves, besides that, I don't think a statue of Elf on the shelf would count as a distubance at all." He looked uncomfortable at your explanation, and only then did it click in your head.

"Jace, are you scared of the 5'4 static Elf?"

His silence and slow reaction was answer enough. You gasped in realization. "You are!"

"I'm not fucking scared of the Elf." He denied strongly as you leaned against the locked car door in shock. "I'm just...disturbed. It's almost the same height as me."

"You can't blame the elf for your growth problems." He glared at you and started the car on reverse. "That's the worst thing you've ever said to me, worse than the time you compared me to the hunchback of Notre Dame."

You burst out a giggle at the random memory. "Oh my god, the hunchback of Notre Dame!" You recalled the nickname joyfully. "Well, it made you fix your posture. Also you called me Baymax last week, so it cancels out.

Jace drives the car out of the neighbourhood, waving at the security guard who stood by the post to open the gate. Making a turn on his right, he heads straight for the streetshops.

"You called yourself Baymax, I just corrected you." He defends himself.

It took longer than usual to get there, considering that so many other people there had the same idea as them. Jace had to turn on the heater when halfway near the destination, snow began to fall down from lonely starless sky.

It was microscopic and beautiful. You had wanted to reach yout hand out through the window and grabbed one of the flakes on the palm of your hands, but you refrained from doing it

In the back of your head, you can hear the cynical voice of your mother calling your childlike awe a sign of immaturity.

People like you who thinks life is all about dreams and art and poetry are the kind of people who ends up in the street once your hopes have failed you.

You let yourself enjoy the scenery before Jace finally parks the car bynthe side of the road. He helps you get off the ride and locked it securely before intertwining your hands together and heading to the burger stall that's a block away from where you two stood.

"The traffic's gonna be crazy tomorrow." He mutters under his breath, looking up as the snowflakes continue to fall down. "Because of the snow?" You ask anyways, despite knowing the answer.

"That, and because people are going to head back home or wherever they came from for Christmas day." Ah yes, of course.

The holiday that you came here for.

"Well I can't imagine the traffic on the day after Christmas would be any more pleasing." He nods in agreement, scrunching up his nose in displease.

Thank god for their first class flight.

The burger order took less than 5 minutes. You sat down next to him by the door of a closed pawnshop as you ate it all up. The flavor of red chilli sauce and mayo filled you mouth, it felt like a reminiscent of an old memory.

You finished it faster than Jacaerys and stood up to walk over past the streetlamp to take a closer look at the glorious crescent moon that stared back at you from above.

Lifting both your hands up, you use them to cover the blurry glow of the lamp from your sides to let yourself see the moon better. You weren't sure how long you had been standing there just staring at it, but it didn't matter because even after years of knowing the exist of the moon, it's beauty never fail to leave you in awe every time you see it

"I don't think I've ever seen anyone this excited to see the moon." You hear your boyfriend tease from behind you. He must have already finished his burger. "Oh you haven't seen me with the stars yet.".

You could feel him smiling from behind as he places a hand on your shoulder. "Not much of them tonight." He noted. "Yeah, it's like they're all in hiding."

Letting your heart whisper out one last wish on the stunning moon, you turned back towards Jacaerys with pursed lips and raised brows. "Well, where are we going next?" He smiles back. "I think the bookstore up front is doing 20% off."

---

Jacaerys Strong is scared of a lot of thing. He's scared of learning new stuff. He is scared of heights and pests and gigantic sized elfs.

But his biggest fear these past few months is accidentally saying the wrong thing at the wrong time around you.

He realized very early on that when it came to being in a relationship with you, patience was a major key that was necessary. And just because he had succeeded in waiting long enough for you to finally unlock that door, it didn't mean that there were no more locks in the future.

But sometimes he's not sure which room he is in and he can't tell which key is for which. It's not that you're overly complicated, just more confusing than some. There were many times where he felt inclined to listening and studying the way you act instead of tryong to pry details out of you.

Pressuring you into opening up or trying to make whatever you two have go faster would be a recipe for disaster.

There was a discount indeed when you both got to the bookstore. Despite his reputation of being more muscles than brains, Jacaerys liked reading. He wasn't exactly an avid reader before he met you, but he enjoyed reading whatever you recommended him to so that the both of you could talk about it together afterwards.

You spent some time on the Young Adult shelf before moving onto the Classics and New Adult sections while your boyfriend strayed away to the other shelves but still remained close to you. And after 20 minutes of searching about, you finally picked up a copy of The Essex Serpent while Jace bought himself The Crucible.

"I didn't take you for a play kind of guy." You commented as you walk out the store. "I've read a few of them this year actually." He admits as the two of you make way to his car. "Really?" You sounded astonished, he couldn't blame you.

"Yeah, I actually had to read All's well that end's well and Hamlet for my lit class, but i liked them so I decided to read Macbeth too just for fun."

"You can understand Shakespeare?" You ask with a frown. He makes a face at your words. "I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not."

"I'm not. I tried Romeo and Juliet in like 11th grade, couldn't understand shit." You explained.

You liked reading and you liked literature, but you weren't good at understanding old english writing. Growing up, it felt like you weren't allowed to indulge in two kinds of hobbies that leaned more towards the artistic side of education. Your mother has always regarded your passion for the arts as a waste of times. I've never met an artists that didn't die suffering. She had told you when you were 13 years old after she had thrown out all of your drawing books because you were getting below B+ on your mathematic and science subjects.

"Did your school not have a literature class?" You shook your head no. "We had normal English for like, grammar, vocabulary, and essays. But we were never taught to read the classics or poetry like a lot of the other public schools."

Jacaerys was a private school boy, so of course his classes were much more detailed and well organized compared to the ones held in public schools.

"That sounds boring." It was boring, when you finally entered college and was able to attend literature class as an elective subject, you found that your passion for the language still burned bright even after years.

The next half an hour was spent driving down the road and looking at the fairy lights hung from streetlamp to streetlamp. A lot of the shops had plastic made snowmans guarding the door of the place.

More snow began heavily filling up the ground, it was getting the people around the place even more excited. You could see parents with their children, and teenagers with their friends running around trying to catch the snowflakes and bending down to investigate the ones that have fallen.

If it weren't for the blistering cold, you'd probably get off the vechicle to join them.

An old toyshop by the end of the road even had these stunning little rudolph the red nosed reindeer figures staring out from inside the shop. Jace suggested going in to check the place out, but you were getting comfortable in your seat, just enjoying the view from inside.

Clenching your toes tightly in an attempt to warm them up, the fuzzy pair of socks you had on were no help. "I think we should just stay inside, used enough money for today."

"Broken enough stuff too." He responds in a joking manner as he pulls over in a singular parking lot behind an empty building.

You feel a something snap in your head as you turned to him. "Are you still mad about that?" He wore a puzzled expression at the question but still kept his eyes on his front despite the car already being parked. "I'm not mad at you, I was just joking." He responds in a weary intonation.

"You don't have to lie to make me feel better." You said calmly. Sometimes people lie as not to offend the other person, but you wanted him to know that he could be honest with you on how be feels. "I know you were at least a little upset, that's why you wouldn't speak to me when we got home."

He turns off the front lights of the car and the engine, and then pulled his seat back slightly, getting more comfortable. When he finally looks at you, it was the kind of look that you have ling deciphered as a stare of commiseration. The kind that you give to starving stray dogs outside your door.

"Don't look at me like that, don't be patronizing." You warned him, leaning your back on the car door. "I'm not patronizing you, I didn't even say anything."

"You're looking at me like you feel bad, don't fucking feel bad. If you're angry at me, then tell me you're angry at me. I'm not a child, I can take it." He opened his mouth to argue against that but closed it just as fast as he opened them.

Glancing to his side like he's searching fir some sort of support, he meets your eyes again after a second, and spoke with much more confidence; "I'm not mad at you, I never was." You fold your arms together, shaking your head.

"Then why were you so silent on the way back- and don't say it's nothing, I know the difference between comfortable silence and awkward silence." He waves his arms in resignation and stutters out as he struggles to really think of a good response.

"Honestly?" You nod once. "I-I just didn't know, how to speak to you."

"What does that mean?" You pushed him to elaborate. "I mean, it's just that in certain times- certain situations, you can get so...vulnerable. Like you're seconds away from breaking. And in times like those, I'm just not sure how to approach or comfort you.

-I mean god knows I was never good with comforting people, but when you get so frustrated and upset, I'm just scared that if I say the wrong things or ask the wrong questions, I'll accidentally hurt you more and push you away from me further."

The pity in his eyes were gone, replaced with worry instead. You take in every words he says with a sharp piercing in your heart. "Oh."

A part of you is relieved to know that he was never really angry. Another part of you despises him for viewing you as something so fragile and pathetic. And then there is a third part of you from the inside, who knew that he was right. You had been compared to a ticking time bomb before, it was not new information.

"I'm sorry I made you think I was mad." He spoke again after a moment of silence. Your eyes strayed from his face to your lap, unable to meet his gaze.

He watches the way your face scrunces up in a thoughtful manner and gently places a hand on your thigh hesitantly. "I don't mean it in a bad way, I'm just, not that good with words sometimes."

Your face is relaxed as you look back up again, acceptant to the things he had said. "I get what you mean." You told him, the aggressiveness from before already melting back into passivity. "I'm sorry too, I know I can be a lot."

His free hand moved to caress the right side of your cheek. "You're not, we're both juat doing what we know as best as we can." You nodded and offered him a half smile.

He pulls you into a hug, the seating arrangement making it a bit hard, but the two of you pulled through. "My mom's angry I'm here." You mumbled into his chest.

Jacaerys' brows knitted together. "Why? She doesn't like me or something?" Be feels you shake your head no. "She doesn't even know you. She just thinks every decision I make is a bad one." He didn't know what to say to that.

He's never met your family before, but it was obvious that you were raised in a very different environment than he was.

He also understood that you've always had a certain way dealing with negative things in your life, a certain perspective that makes your choices understandable.

"Did she want you to come home?" You answered no. "She doesn't care if I come home or not, and yet for some reason she's upset that I chose to be here instead of going back home."

"She sounds like a bitch, I'm gonna be honest." You snorted out a laugh as you pulled away before he could regret his words. "She is."

"So, what are you going to do?" You shrugged with a sigh. "Nothing. That's what I always do." You've given up trying to defend yourself years ago. Arguing with your mother never ends well because she doesn't argue to understand, she argues to win. "Some people are worth fighting for, but not everyone is worth fighting with."

He says nothing, staring at you from his seat. You wanted to ask him if he understood what you mean, if he understood that the person you mentioned worth fighting for was him, but just not against your mother. But you were already so sick and tired of talking about her.

She's like some sort of negative charge around you, even the thought of her brings darkness and gloom. "It doesn't matter what she thinks. Because in the end of the day, I'm the one who chose to be here, and I haven't regret it so far." His face broke into a grin at that. "No?"

"No." You repeated surely. "Hmm." He ponders. "Does that mean you're up for a repeat next year?" You raise a brow at that. "This year's one isn't even finished, you're already planning for next year's?"

"Of course."

"How do you know if I'll still be around next year?" You weren't sure what kind of answer you were expecting. It was some sort of test, not just for him, but for you too. "Because I know I love you. And I know you love me too."

"Love is a big word." You noted after considering his confession fairly. In most situations regarding intimacy and vulnerability, you'd always find yourself to be stuck in between the flight or fight mode. But this time, you're sitting down with it and letting yourself indulge the possibilities.

"Are you making fun of my vocabulary or are you questioning my sincerity." Oh. that sentence overall were all big words for him you fought over the grin threatening to appear.

"I'm questioning your assumption that I feel the same way as you."

"Well," he starts, "-you're here with me right now aren't you?" He says it in a matter of factly tone, leaning in towards you, wiggling his brows. "That means nothing." You countered his defense.

"If I kiss you right now, would it mean nothing?" The question was so sudden, you scoffed in face for all the words you're unable to say. "If you kiss me right now, it's because I'm letting you do it."

"Because you love me." You relented and matched his smile. "I love...your mother. And I love your siblings." He eyes you suspiciously. "But what I feel for you surpasses the word love." It was cheesy, it was childish, it was you laying your heart out for him and not being ashamed of it.

"Tomato, tomahto. I call it love, you call it whatever you just did." He muttered back His lips captures yours right after. Your palms finds the sides of his face as he kisses you deeper.

You don't hesitate to climb up from your seat to his own. You feel his fingers gripping your waist as you settle yourself over his lap, pushing the headrest down with a freehand, he lets you take the lead as his fingers moves lower to grip on your hips.

There was nothing soft about the kiss, your tongues danced with his and your teeth clashes together. He made sure that there would be no gap between you two. You gasp out for air once you pull away to slip your sweater off of you. You pull your pants down easily along with your underwear.

"Thank god for tinted windows, huh?" He whispers to you breathily as he discards his own clothes and zip open his trousers.

Your response to that joke is to push him back against the seat to kiss him stronger than before. "Jesusfuckingchrist." He swore against your lips when you begin to ground yourself against his hard on.

He lifte his hips up to meet your grinding, the sensation of your bare pussy against his cock. His fingers squeezes into the skin of your ass, making you whine out loudly. "Fuck- I need you." You moaned deliriously humping on him like your life depends on it.

He pulls his cock out of his boxers fully, pushing it inside your wet squelching cunt. He groaned into your ear as you hid your head by his neck. Your hands held onto his shoulders as your hips jumped up and down on his cock. His grip on you is bruising, but it only added to the pleasure.

You feel the head of his penis hitting your clit harshly every time you sink down fully on it. Jacaerys is grunting out your name repeatedly like prayers in the dark and throwing his head back, lost in the pleasure.

"God- Ah, Jace-" He relishes the noises you make as you squeezes his cock with your warm, tight pussy. "So good." It's driving him insane and he's almost breathless as you continue to pleasure yourself using him to get yourself off. "Fuck, baby." He growled.

You held each other through your orgasm, biting into his neck when you felt relief pass through you. That's gonna leave a mark, you thought. But the night was still bright, snow still falling, and neither of you had much energy left to care.

—

“Jacaerys, we have the heater on, why are you wearing a turtleneck?” Rhaenyra asks as she bring over the big plate of lemon cake to the table. “I like this turtleneck,” was his response to her. A terrible excuse, but she asked nothing more.

You helped her set the table while Jacaerys went over to his brothers’ rooms to wake them up. You could hear him yelling from upstairs, “It’s Christmas morning, get up!”

You refuse to admit to him that te Christmas spirit had gotten into you. Preparing the plates around each seat, you are more excited for the gift unwrapping that’ll be done after breakfast. And the snowball fight. Since when did you become so excited for snowball fights? Since you closed your eyes and tried to imagine this kind of life going on for years and realized that you want nothing less than it.

The kids came running down the stairs, bouncing in every step. “Don’t jump Joffrey, you’ll fall.” Rhaenyra chastised. Lucerys and Joffrey rushed to their seat, Jace following close from behind. “Hurry up, I want to open the presents.” Luc rushed. “You’ll get your presents sooner or later. Now, please eat breakfast slowly, I don’t need you choking on your meals at 9am.” His father’s voice boomed from the hallway as he entered the kitchen.

He had been out all day, buying stocks of eggs and flour for Rhaenyra to use.

“Alright, alright-“ Rhaenyra spoke, sitting down alongside everyone at last. “Who’s gonna say the prayers today? Luc?” The boy immediately shook his head. “I’ll do it.” Jace offered, his mother looked internally grateful. “Alright, go on.”

He takes a deep breath before he holds his fists together and closed his eyes, everyone but you followed through. You watch him begin to thank god for the food on the table and for his family’s good health and fortune before he goes on to thank god for his beautiful girlfriend. Luc mutters out an ‘ew’, which Jacaerys quickly retorts back ‘You just don’t have a girlfriend that’s why you’re jealous.” In the middle of his prayer, earning a warning ‘Jace…’ from his mother.

In the meantime, you were grateful that all of their eyes were closed, so that they wouldn’t be able to see your wide smile and flushed cheeks. I don’t have much faith in god these days, but I’d burn a prayer or two for you, you thought to yourself. And you meant it.

Once he ends his prayers with an Amen, he opens his eyes to connect them with yours first before the silent moment shared was broken by everyone else’s eagerness to eat.

They had not understood the meaning between your shared glances with him. How it was a way for him to tell you that you, just like his family, is his priority. They also don’t know how you had blocked your whole family’s contact list for good. And when you had told him of your action that morning, he looked at you so reassuringly and told you that as long as is he alive, you would never be without a family.

#jacaerys velaryon x reader #house of the dragon #jacaerys velaryon #jace velaryon x reader #house of the dragon x reader #hotd x reader #game of thrones #harry collett

[bitchimasnake-sss]

"remember that time when-" ft. r.zoro!

ft. zoro x fem!reader

set-up: you're pms-ing and this man is your greatest friend and even greater enemy rn (but you know you love him); drabbles to soothe your delusional soul <3

warnings: none! very wholesome lol

-contrary to popular belief, this man actually knows what periods are (wow, the bare minimum!!!) - when he was younger, he had listened to kuina go on about being a woman and its disadvantages and all and i believe he thought she was talking smack (i mean at the end of the day, "a swordsman is just a swordsman") - so when 15 year old zoro stumbled across a library, he decided to waltz in and just pick up a random biology book to understand female anatomy (it happened one after the other, completely unplanned) - when i tell you his little fifteen year old pea-sized brain was blown away (he learnt way more than he probably should have) - (please i beg u he can read, trust me 😭😭) - but just because he knows its a thing doesn't mean he understands it. so, yeah, he actually does know what it is, he simply does not care - in his logic, he had bled multiple times and still always bounces back so like what's the big deal??? "what's the big deal? it's just blood" he's sipping on a bottle of sake, gulping down its remnants in a single breath when you had complained about cramps one evening "excuse me?" nami is ready to strike him down "i said its just blood" - nami did, infact, then strike him down - post-dating zoro still thinks its no biggie "oi, yn" he's poking your shoulder, "what's wrong?" "cramps" you grumble against the pillow he laughs, "ah, they'll go away, get up and get going now. don't sulk around, you're my fav ketchup packet" "tf did you just say?" "ketchup packet?" - you refused to talk to this man for the next two days - at the end of the second day, he had to write a formal apology (with chopper's help) and speak it out loud before you started entertaining his bullshit again - see the thing is this mf is reserved, superhuman and has an absurdly high pain tolerance so it's hard for him to sympathize exactly - he once caught you crying cause you had seen a mama chimpanzee kiss it's baby chimpanzee and hug it tightly and he will forever bring it up "zoro you remember that time you got lost in dru-" "yn, remember that time, we were passing through a jungle and you saw some chimp-" he ended up getting a sucker punch to the face he deserved it. - but just because words aren't his thing doesn't mean he isn't looking out for you - everytime you're laying there on the bed, unmoving, he'd wordlessly crawl into the bed next to you. he's give you a gentle back massage or start rubbing soothing patterns onto your belly "you want something?" he mumbles slowly, hands skimming softly over your waist - this man would not and i repeat absolutely would not allow you to do any physically demanding work though "hey, let me handle that" "zoro, i am not a child!" "you sure look like one to me." he snickers, "remember the time you saw that mom chimpan-" "zORO FUCK OFF!!" - you need something from the top shelf? he got it. you are helping ussop carry gunpowder from the storage? go sit down, your boyfriend's got it - does it sometime frustrate you? yes - does the crew use this opportunity to make his lazy ass do a fuck lot of chores? also yes - he will still 100% make ketchup jokes (he's gross like that) - but name one man who'll treat you more gently than this bozo, i dare you - it might be something as lame as a period, doesn't mean he woudn't go to the end of the world to make you feel slightly better (even if he teases you about it endlessly)

sanji's part <3 luff's part <3

#one piece #one piece zoro #one piece x reader #roronoa zoro x reader #zoro x reader #roronoa zoro #zoro one piece #op zoro #zoro headcanons #one piece headcanons #monster trio #sanji x reader #luffy x reader

[stormy-river]

Transcripts from the Humanity Hotline 7

As I finished this, I discovered it's been exactly one year since I posted the last Transcript. A lot has happened in that year; I've graduated college :) . I want to thank everyone for the support I've received, and I hope to get back into some of my creative projects and give you guys an opportunity to laugh, and maybe learn something. This one is inspired by a request from @a-romantic-twst from forever ago; I hope it was worth the wait (sorry about that). (It's about periods if anyone's uncomfortable with that and wants to skip this one.)

------

Operator: "Hi, my name is Mindy. How may I help you today?"

Caller: "Hello, Mindy, I am very concerned about one of the humans on my ship."

O: "What seems to be the problem?"

C: "Well, I'm the chief medical officer and this particular human has been on the ship for just over two Earth months now. On two separate occasions during that time, she has requested strong painkillers citing 'Shark Week' as the reason. I looked into what 'Shark Week' is, and found an Earth television special about certain aquatic predators, and I'm unsure how that could cause a human physical pain lightyears from Earth?"

O: "Interesting, is there anything else you can tell me about this human during these events?"

C: "Yes, I've also received reports from other crewmembers around these events that this human is not as outgoing as usual, and shows signs of discomfort with facial expressions and changes in appetite, but does not respond well to the standard psychological protocols for team building and social connection."

O: "What about the timing? You said this has happened twice, correct? How much time was between them?"

C: "Yes, I've documented both with dates. The human requested the painkillers twice, 28 days apart. The crew reported signs of distress for a few days following each request, and two times in the day before the first request."

O: "Alright, I believe your human is using the phrase, "Shark Week" as a euphemism for the start of the menstrual cycle, which is often referred to as a 'period'. To put it simply, one of the female reproductive organs sheds its inner lining roughly once an Earth month, lasting anywhere from a few days to a full week."

C: "Similar to how the Rythyani shed and replace their stomach linings?"

O: "Yes, though the uterus has blood vessels that extend into that lining, so shedding also causes bleeding."

C: "Bleeding? How much blood is lost? Why has she not requested bandages or a transfusion?"

O: "For most, a period is not life-threatening. The amount of blood loss does not require a transfusion to replace, or bandages to stop, though iron deficiency may be a concern for some that can be easily remedied through their diet. Ultimately, your human will know her body and how to handle her cycle best. We learn to deal with periods from a relatively young age. You should have received a human anatomy and physiology textbook when the first human joined your crew. Do you have it?"

C: "Yes, though I do admit I have not yet had the time to read it."

O: "That's alright. The chapter on human reproductive systems goes into more detail about the biology of the menstrual cycle than I can tell you. For the time being, make sure your human knows that she can ask for support if needed, and inform your crew that not all humans will be happy all the time, and they don't need to be. Over time, you will gain a better understanding your humans' patterns. Until then, trust them to express their needs, and talk to them if you have specific concerns. I can give general advice, but they will know themselves best."

C: "Thank you for clearing up the confusion, Mindy, I will look into this and update the protocols as necessary. I have no more questions for you at this time."

O: "You are very welcome, please don't hesitate to call again if something else comes up."

End Transmission

#humanity hotline #humans are space orcs #humans and aliens #humans are weird

[jangofettjamz]

Unlovable Child

Jenna Ortega x Autistic!Male!Reader

Warnings: Child abuse

2nd Person POV

"I'm going out of town for a week to see my parents" you tell Jenna. The two of you were snuggled up together on the couch, binge watching The Mandalorian on Disney+.

"Oh, do you want some company?" Jenna offered to which you shook your head no. Your parents wasn't exactly the gold standard when it comes to parenting, in fact they'd probably win an award as being one of the worst.

You've never discussed your parents with Jenna because of this, not wanting her to be involved with them due to their toxic nature. You feared that exposing them to her would only cause more trouble than its worth.

"You sure you don't want me to come with? I can--"

"No no you really don't have to" you said, cutting her off a little too quickly to go unnoticed. She gave you a look of suspicion, knowing there was likely some underlying tension between your parents and you.

You tried to put her at ease "I-I mean... they haven't seen me for a while... I wouldn't want to overwhelm them by introducing you to them... y'know given your fame and all. No offence"

Your stuttering and lack of a believable reason wasn't enough to ease Jenna's growing concern for you, but she smiled anyway, which in turn made you smile. You knew she wasn't convinced.

She pulled you in closer, making sure you were nestled into her chest. She had a feeling deep down that you were keeping something from; something terrible. Anxiousness flooded her nervous system, making her rethink about letting you go.

Her heartbeat quickened because of this, something you caught by having your head on her chest. "Jenna? Are you okay?" You asked.

She looked at you and smiled to put you at ease "Everything's fine, sweet boy. Everything's okay." She reassured, kissing your forehead to ease your worries.

But it wasn't her you were worried about, it was meeting your parents for the first time in years. The last time you spoke to your parents was 2 years prior, just before you moved out for your new job, just before you met Jenna for the first time. It didn't exactly end on the greatest of terms.

You parents were vile; abelists who took pleasure in calling you the most horrid of insults for their own sick pleasure. It made them feel better about themselves, like they were superior. They were never proud of you, even though your academics should make them so. They could never be proud of someone like you, someone who was autistic.

Of course, with many dysfunctional households come with their fair share of physical abuse, which in your case was fairly common place. The slightest of mistakes ended in severe punishment, that being knocking a drink over, talking to loudly .etc.

You were deemed a failure in the eyes of your parents despite everything you've accomplished in school, your well paying job; it meant nothing. You were never good enough for them. You were simply too much of a "spaz" to love. You were nothing to them, only when money was an issue were you of any use.

You held Jenna a little tighter just think about this. Painful memories from your past flashed through your mind, reminding you of the awful people they were.

But you maybe they had changed, maybe they realised the error of their ways, you naively thought to yourself, only setting yourself up for a meeting that would inevitably send you crashing down.

But you had to believe. "They have changed. Of course they changed, they only said and did all that stuff to make me into the man I am today. They love me. Don't they?"

- 1 day later

Jenna was on the phone with her director discussing filming dates. She was currently working multiple films at once and needed to negotiate dates so that it wouldn't impede on her schedule.

You always admired how she could do so many films at once, though, you wished she would take a break sometimes as it can tire her out.

Jenna's phone call was immediately interrupted by the sound of the door opening revealing your figure. "Mark I'm gonna have to call you back" she hangs up the phone, confused as to why you were back 6 days earlier than anticipated.

You were wearing sunglasses, unusual considering the weather outside was quite gloomy. Perhaps you just felt like wearing them, she thought to herself.

"Hi, baby boy." She kisses your cheek, but noticed that it looked awfully red and... swollen? "You're back early. Did everything go okay down there?" Jenna asked to which you nodded with a smile, albeit a dishonest smile.

"Yeah everything went great, just gad to cut the trip short because they were busy and stuff. My parents are busy people after all" you say in a somewhat cheery tone. The swollen part of your face was pulsing, as though the nerve endings in your face had been set alight.

Jenna continued to examine your face, still finding it strange that you haven't taken off your shades yet. "Wait, he wasn't even wearing shades when he left. Why was he wearing them now?" She thought, trying to ascertain the situation.

She noticed your hands were shaking; odd considering you were always calm around her most of the time and it wasn't cold indoors because of the heating. One of your arms was holding your stomach too.

All this information, combined with the fact that your back 6 days ahead of schedule is enough to tell Jenna that something was very very wrong.

"Hey babe can you take off those glasses for me? I wanna see those pretty eyes of yours." She asked sweetly, forceful was not the right approach. You looked at her, trying to strum up a lame excuse not to oblige.

"No!" He exclaims, catching Jenna off guard. You quickly try to come up with a better excuse. "I mean i-it's really bright in here Jenna, my eyes are kinda tired from driving, y'know" you play off terribly, adding a smile to try and convince otherwise.

Jenna isn't buying it, you know this. She's too smart. "Y/N your face is bright red, and swollen" His smile quickly drops. "Your hands are shaking too, and I can see a cut behind your hair. You and I both know it isn't cold in here and that cut is recent too." She exhales sadly, turning her attention too your stomach "You're holding you're stomach babe, like you're in pain. What happened over there?"

You panic, you knew she wasn't an idiot but you can't bare to let her find out about your parents, about your past. It was too embarrassing, she'd surely leave you for not being man enough to fight back. That what your father had conditioned you to believe, that you weren't a real man because of your condition, that you were sub-human.

"I-I d-dont--" "let me see your eyes, my love" bowing your head in defeat, you allowed Jenna to remove your shades, the sight horrified her, sending shivers down to the deepest depths of her soul. She gasped, her hands covering her mouth as you she saw the damage.

A massive purple bruise covered your right eye, the eye itself was completely red. The area around the eye was completely swollen too. The left eye was also bruised, not as bad but still bruised nonetheless.

Anger bubbled within Jenna, the prospect of someone hurting her baby was sickening to her, she knoew this had to be your parent's doing. "They did this to you, didn't they"

"W-what no! They would never do this to me. My family love me, Jenna. They do" you tried convince her, you tried to convince yourself mostly. Tears pricked at your eyes, stinging even more due to the beating you took.

"Honey... why would they do this to you? What happened?" She asked gently with a tinge of sadness in her tone. You couldn't keep up with the lie any longer.

You took a deep breath. You wanted to tell her what happened, tell her about the desperation you felt when your father's belt connected with your back. How your mother held you down as he did it, beating and beating and beating you for being the spaz who disappointed his parents just by looking at him. She held your hands "It's okay. It's just me. Just Jenna"

A single tear fell down your cheek causing Jenna to wipe it away. "They wanted money..." you started, taking a deep breath before continuing "They wanted money that were apparently "owed" for not getting rid of me. I said no, and I'm sure you can imagine how they reacted to that. They beat me, Jenna. They both did. I couldn't stop them, I tried as hard as I could but they kept..." you sniffled, holding back what would have been a giant sob.

"They kept pummelling me with the belt, punching me in the stomach. Mom held me down and I couldn't anything. They said I was unlovable... I'm unlovable, Jenna!" He broke down completely, falling onto his knees. Your emotions that you'd been holding since you left your parents had escaped, the dull pain now fresh again.

Jenna lifted the back of your shirt to find the purple lashes that layed there, where your father had taken out his anger with the belt. She immediately held you, her own eyes tearing up at your broken state. You clung to her like a lifeline.

"Shhhh, its okay baby. You're safe now. You're safe with me again." He whales in anguish and pain, his sobs became louder as each one left his mouth.

"Jen it hurts" you said like a scared child, exactly what you were at your parent's house.

Upon hearing this Jenna decided it was best for you to lay down on your side to avoid laying on your lashed back. "Come on, honey let's lay you on the couch. Lay on your side for me, my sweet." You did as instructed.

She lifted up your top to see the bruises on your stomach, purple and still fresh. She was going to annihilate your parents, but that comes later. "I'm gonna go get an ice pack, then we're taking you to the hospital"

"No! No! Please no doctors!" You pleaded

She knelt down and stroked your hair to out you at ease as best she could "Shh shh shh, don't think about that now okay. Let me go get an ice pack for your stomach. I'll be right back." She left quickly for the ice, returning as quickly as she left.

She lifted up your shirt and let you get ready for the ice. "On three. One. Two. Three." She presses the ice to your abdomen, the cooling sensation soothed the pain little by little bringing you great relief. "Good boy baby, you being so brave for me" she cooed, kissing the top of his head.

She held the ice pack as you writhed in pain on the couch. Her free hand alternates between rubbing your arm and combing through your hair. She placed little kisses on your swollen cheek, not hurting at all when she did.

The recollection of events that played in your mind caused you to cry again. Jenna brought your head into her neck as she held you close, her skin absorbing most of the tears. "Oh baby, please don't cry. You're not unlovable. You're my very beautiful boy who I love so very very much. They don't deserve you."

You held onto her tight, thinking how lucky you were to have such a wonderful woman in your life. Your parents would've definitely said you didn't deserve her, and maybe you didn't. But that didn't detract from how much you loved her, and appreciated her.

"I love you, Y/N. I love you with every fibre of my being" hearing this made you smile out of pure gratitude and love.

"I love you too, Jenna" you say, voice still wobbly from crying. You pulled your head from the crook of her neck and the two of you just smile at each other, you took in the beauty of her face while Jenna gazed upon your battered one. She pulls you in for a gentle kiss, a long kiss that you desperately needed.

"Bubs we do need to get your tummy looked at. We'll call my mom to have a look at you, but we may need to go to the hospital if it's bad. We can do all that tomorrow though, just rest in my arms for now. Can you do that for me?" You nodded your head "I won't let them get away with this Y/N. Mark my words they're finished."

You'd never seen Jenna this angry, but it brought a strange sense of reassurance, like everything was going to be okay. "Can we watch a movie? I wanna take my mind off of this"

"Of course we can, bubs. What do you wanna watch? Empire strikes back?" She asked, knowing how much you loved that movie. You nodded making her smile and kiss you again.

She layed down next to you, inviting you to curl up next to her and lay your head on her chest. "You're not unlovable, flower. You're a very loveable and amazing person." You smile at her words, Jenna loved you very much and today was evidence of that.

She cradles your body in her arms, still feeling you tremble from everything that has happened. It would be a long road to you heal from this but she'd be with you the whole way there.

She gently rocks you while you watch the film, the sight of Darth Vader igniting your child-like love that Jenna adored.

"Hey bubs, promise you'll never think yourself as unlovable. Promise me that my love."

"I promise." You say, even though you still didn't fully believe it. Your parents words still hurt.

"Good boy. My special beautiful boy"

#jenna ortega x reader #jenna ortega x you #jenna ortega #jenna ortega x y/n #wednesday x reader #wednesday x you #tara carpenter x y/n #tara carpenter x reader #tara carpenter x you #wednesday x y/n #male reader

[daydreaming-nerd]

The Bonds That Break Us (Rhysand x Female! Reader) Part 6

Part 1 , Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Final Part

Request: "Would you do a Rhysand x fem!reader series? Maybe fem!reader is Rhysand's mate and Tamlin's sister? So secret love?"

AN: Took a wild leap with this one...

Summary: It was almost as if the cauldron liked to play games, as if it had sensed years of boredom and predictability and begged to be entertained. Its method of absolving its melancholy? Mate the High Lord of the Night Court to the younger sister of the High Lord of Spring. 

Warnings (so far): mentions of physical abuse, mentions of SA, major sexisim, SMUT, dirty talk, angst.

Word count: 3557

(all photos are from pinterest)

“And if they win? If my brother and Beron get their way?” I ask Rhysand who is clearly lost in thought, but it’s Mor who answers.  

“Then you would be forced to marry Eris. As fucked up and sexist as it is, they’re going to call into question who had claim of you first Eris or Rhys.” Mor answered clearly, hating the words  coming out of her own mouth. 

“Oh,” I murmured, it was all I could say, the thought that all of this could have been for nothing. Those days spent in a cell, weeks keeping Rhysand and I a secret it didn’t change the outcome of my life. 

“I won’t let it come to that,” Rhys said, walling over to me and pressing his forehead to mine. “I won’t let them take you from me.” 

“You’re right I’m sure we can figure this out,” I reply, not trusting my own words.  

“Let’s go shopping girl, it will give brooding old Rhys here time to think of a plan.” Mor said, trying to lighten the mood. “You can borrow something of mine while we shop.”

“Mor’s right we should get me some clothes,” I giggle looking down at the too big shirt of Rhysand’s that I was wearing. I press a chaste kiss to his lips trying to bring a smile to his face but it doesn’t work. I move towards Mor but I feel Rhy’s hand pull me back. 

“Not without one of these,” he says, pressing his lips to mine passionately. I nearly moan at the way he is always able to kiss me into submission. I swear I’d do anything he asked me if he just kissed me like this. 

“I love you,” I smile, pulling away from the kiss. 

“I love you too,” he smiles, running his thumb over my lips. “Take care of her Mor.” 

“Like she was my own mate,” Mor smiled before leading me to her bedroom.

“This wasn’t just a shopping trip you know?” Mor says, holding up her glass of wine to her lip. “I wanted to thank you.” 

She had insisted that we go out for a drink and for dinner before turning in for the night and given the long day we had I was more than willing to do just that. 

“Thank me for what? I hardly think I’ve done anything but cause problems for your cousin and your court,” I sigh popping another grape into my mouth. 

“Yet I’ve never seen him so happy,” she sent me a knowing smile. “I’ve known Rhys my whole life, never have I seen him so at peace, so willing to live. When his parents and his sister died he was given the title of High Lord, one he never felt like he was ready for. It made him unhappy, but all that has changed because of you.” 

“How did Rhys’ family die?” I ask sipping my own glass of wine. All of the color drained from Mor’s face.

“You don’t know?” she asks bewildered. 

“No he never told me,” I answered, afraid of whatever answer she might tell me. 

“I shouldn’t tell you this,” she said, trying to resume sipping her wine. 

“Mor please, tell me.” I beg her. 

“Okay but don’t let Rhys kill me,” she starts. “200 years ago Rhys and your brother were friends, but your father figured out that Rhysand would be the most powerful High Lord and sought to bring him down a peg. So one night he and Tamlin as well as your brothers went to the Illyrian Camps and slaughtered his mother and sister in cold blood. When Rhysand’s father found out both went to the Spring Court only leaving you and Tamlin alive.” 

I could hardly believe what I was hearing Tamlin had always told me that the agents of the night court had killed our family for stealing their wings, that they were to be an enemy of our court. If I ever asked him to tell me more he would refuse. “But why would Rhys and his father leave us alive?” 

Mor let out another sigh, “Rhys was supposed to kill you. That night he stood over your bed with a dagger, the mating bond snapped into place. He told me that he fell to his knees before you. It was too late for him to rectify what he had done to your family, but when he found his father holding a dagger to Tamlin’s throat Rhys begged for him to live and he did. But Tamlin took Rhysand’s fathers own dagger and drove it through his heart anyways.” 

I nearly felt my knees give out, he had known for 200 years and said nothing. I couldn’t stop myself from reeling. My heart rate began to pick up and suddenly this dress was too tight, this room was too hot and the walls were closing in. 

“I need…I need some air,” I gasped. It was all I could say before taking off. 

I heard Mor calling for me inside the tavern but I couldn’t stop, not for anything. The chill of the night air did little to calm my heart rate down.  I wove through a sea of people, all of them balking at the unfamiliar face. I even heard murmurs of ‘that’s Tamlin’s sister’ and my gut churned. All that was going through my head was he knew, he knew, he knew. 

So I ran, and I ran, and I tried to outrun the feeling but it didn’t matter how far I went, I couldn’t escape the shocking truth I had just heard.

I found myself sitting by the edge of the river about a mile outside of town. Something about the sound of the water flowing by and the crickets chirping gave me time to think. It wasn’t agents of the night court that killed  my family, it was the High Lord, and Rhys. I supposed I should be mad, but given the events of the last few days, what Tamlin did to me, what he’s still trying to do? I’m almost glad Rhys nearly put an end to it all. But it doesn’t change one thing. He knew we were mates for almost 200 years and didn’t tell me. I had heard him calling down the bond for an hour now, but I shut him out. I needed time to process this. 

Behind me I heard the flap of massive wings and then a thud, I turned to find Azriel standing behind me. His face was kind. Not angry or upset like I thought it would be. He looked friendly. 

“It’s a bit cold out tonight, mind if I join you?” he asked, gesturing to the spot beside me. 

“I’m afraid I’m not the best company, but be my guest.” I reply, patting the spot next to me. His massive frame came to sit beside me and as the breeze floated in from my right he curled a wing around me shielding me from it.  

“So you found out how to shut Rhys out of the bond?” he smirked. 

“I guess so,” I shrugged, not taking my eyes off the river before me. 

“Nice,” he smiled like he was proud of me for doing so. 

“Is he mad?” I ask, cringing slightly. 

“No, but he is worried. The second Mor came back and told him what happened and he sent all of us out to find you. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has the whole of Velaris doing search and rescue by now.” Azriel explained casually.  

“I’m sorry. I just needed time.” I said picking at the rocks on the ground. 

“Don’t be. It was a big blow,” he started. “Are you mad at Rhys?” 

“I know I should be, but I’m not. I just wish he had told me.” I sigh.

“You know I was there that night. I was at the townhouse when he returned from the spring court. He was a wreck, an honest to gods wreck. He was so stricken with grief over what he had done that he disappeared to the Illyrian mountains for a week.” he explained. 

“But why didn’t he tell me?” I plead.

“I don’t know. I think he wanted to, but the timing was never right. He spent nearly 200 years loving you from afar and then you finally felt the bond snap. I think he was so happy that he was scared he would lose you. That you would reject the bond.” he said. 

“I suppose I don’t know what I’d do in that situation either,” I sigh.

“One thing you can be sure of is that he does love you. I’ve never seen a person love another person more. Hell he’s trying to claw into my mind as we speak but I’m not letting him,” Azriel chuckles. 

“I suppose I should go back then,” I laugh beginning to stand up. 

“I’ll take you. Do you want me to winnow you there or do you want to go the fun way?” he says, cocking an eyebrow. 

“What’s the fun way?” I ask nervously, dusting the dirt off my dress. 

He snapped his wings out in answer. 

“Oh definitely the fun way,” I smile. “I’ve never flown before.”

“Rhys will be pissed that I’m taking your flying virginity but he’ll get over it eventually.” Azriel smiles before scooping me up. “You ready?” 

“Yes!” I squeal in anticipation and excitement. 

“Hold on tight princess,” Azriel laughs, launching off the ground into the sky. 

My stomach bottoms out and my grip on his neck tightens as the river below us gets smaller and smaller. All the air leaves my lungs as we continue to ascend and then we’re soaring through the sky.  

“Oh my gods this is amazing!” I shout with joy into the night and I feel Azriel’s chuckle reverberate through my body. 

“Do you trust me?”  he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes,” I smile, still unable to  hide the joy I feel.  

“Let go of my neck, I'm going to let you free fall,” he instructs me. 

“But you’re going to catch me right?” I ask just to be sure. 

“You’re going to be my High Lady one day, I will always catch you,” he says nonchalantly.

“Okay let’s do it,” I say, removing my hands from his neck. 

“See you in a second!” he laughs before letting go. 

I feel myself falling through the sky and it’s the most freeing feeling ever. I can’t help but let an excited whoop out as the wind whips my hair about. I have never felt more powerful, more invincible than in this moment. Every worry about my brother, about Beron and the council are gone, for once my mind is clear. 

I see Azriel tucking his wings in above me diving down to meet me and in mere seconds I feel him scooping me up again. 

“That was so fun!” I shout. 

“Don’t ever tell Rhys we did that he will have my head,” Azriel laughed and I could see the townhouse below us. 

We land on the terrace and the sound of our laughter brings Rhys out to meet us. 

“Thank gods I was scared something had happened to you,” he said, rushing over to press a kiss to my forehead.  

“I’m fine you overbearing mother hen,”  I laugh putting my  hands on his forearms.  

“I’ll leave you two to talk,” Azriel said backing away. 

“Wait!” I shout before running over to throw my arms around him giving the biggest hug I possibly could. For a second he doesn’t hug me back, in shock from my sudden action but then I feel two arms wrap around me. “Thank you for everything, for the talk, for the ride.  All of it.” 

“Of course y/n any time.” he smiled. I backed away and took Rhys’ hand as he began to lead me inside. 

“Oh and Azriel!” Rhys called making Azriel turn around. “I saw that,” he smirked and I know he meant the free fall. 

“Damn,” Azriel cursed before taking off into the night. 

Rhys turned to me, mood more somber now. “I think we need to talk,”  he said quietly, like the words would hurt him if he spoke them too loud.  

“I think we do too,” I replied. 

We walked upstairs to the bedroom, everything was just as we left it this morning. Bed unmade, sheets thrown everywhere. The only noticeable difference was my new trove of dresses hanging in Rhys’ closet. My heart warmed at the sight of it. Something so small yet so meaningful at the same time, so domestic. Something I had unknowingly wanted for a long time. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask turning around to meet his violet eyes. 

“Please believe me when I say I wanted to tell you. I never planned on keeping you in the dark about it. That night I went to kill you I had such hatred in my heart, I had lost my mother and my sister and I wanted revenge. I was young and stupid and following my father blindly. But when I saw you  the bond clicked and I had never known such love. I remember it all. I fell to my knees before you and I realized what I had done. I had killed my mate's family. When I saw my father and Tamlin fighting I begged them to stop, begged my father to let him live. I couldn’t tell them why for fear that Tamlin would kill you just to hurt me. But eventually my father gave in, but Tamlin still stuck a dagger in his heart. When I got back to Velaris I had become High Lord and I couldn’t cope.” he explained, stepping closer to me to cup my cheek. “I have spent the last 200 years in agony knowing what I did to you.” 

He paused taking in my face like he might never see me again, like I might reject the mating bond, and his eyes started to glass over. 

“The day the bond snapped for  you was one of the happiest days of my life. But you were already so hesitant to let me in, you wouldn’t even let my name pass your lips. I knew I couldn’t tell you then for fear of losing you forever. I had to make you see that I wasn’t the monster Prythian paints me to be. Even though I acted like one that night. I was selfish in not telling you. You deserved to know the truth. But please forgive me, and I will spend the rest of my life making up for it in every way I know how. They might seem like empty words, but I love you so much, I don’t think I can live without you.” he finished and I saw a tear slip from his eye. 

“Rhys, I’ve already forgiven you.” I say wiping the tear from his face. “And maybe that makes me a terrible person, forgiving and loving the man who killed my family. But look at what they would’ve done, what they stood for. Tamlin locked me in a cell and was ready to sell me off to be Eris’ breeding vessel. The way my brothers and father always treated me they would’ve done the same, maybe worse.  Who knows what miserable fate you might’ve saved me from. Your true character is reflected in people like Azriel and Cassian, in this beautiful city you’ve kept secret and protected for years. I see all of you Rhysand and there is not a part of you that I don’t love with all that I am.” 

Rhys lets out a sigh of relief before smashing our lips together. I can taste the salt of his tears and the salt of my own. I throw my arms around his neck pulling him impossibly close 

“I love you so much,” he cries between kisses. 

“I love you too,” I say back smiling. I sit down on the bed and pull him down with me. 

“Wait we can’t your still hurt,” he protests. 

“Rhysand, if you don’t get on this bed and fuck me right now I swear on my life I will get myself off.” I gripe at him. 

“While I would love nothing more than to watch you play with your pretty pussy. I think I’d rather do it myself tonight. But you need to tell me if you’re hurting at all okay?” he fusses. 

“I will, I promise! Now please touch me!” I whine taking his hand and placing it on my breast. 

“With pleasure mate,”  he says, squeezing my breast. He snaps his fingers and our clothes are gone. 

“That’s a fun little trick,” I laugh pulling him down, needing to feel his skin on mine.

“Only used for times where I desperately need to be inside you,” he purrs and chills coat my body. 

I kiss him hard letting my hands caress his shoulders and arms, all of him pure muscle, lethal and totally at my mercy. He pulls my hair back to give himself access to my neck and I feel a wave of arousal flow through me as he finds that sweet spot that drives me wild. 

My hand drifts down his front  grazing every muscle on it’s way until I find his cock already hard and dripping with precum. I wrap my fingers  around it and begin stroking it. My hand feeling incredibly small compared to the size of him. His hips buck fucking himself into my hand at the contact. 

“Fuck mate,” he lets out a low groan in my ear. “How is it that even your hands feel perfect around my cock?” 

“It’s because I was made for you,” I muse nibbling his ear. 

“Hmm,” he hums in delight. “You know what was really made for me?”  

“What?” I ask as he pulls his cock from my hand. 

“This,” he smirks before plunging himself inside of me. I arch my back off the mattress in pleasure as he lets out a guttural moan. “Gods your so fucking tight!” 

“Oh fuck Rhys!” I moan, scratching my nails down his back. 

He starts fucking me hard, the mating bond glowing brightly between us. If this is how badly we need one another before the mating ceremony I shudder to think what will happen after. If he thinks a few weeks will be enough he’s dead wrong, I could do this for the rest of my life. 

He snaps his hips at an angle that hits a particularly sensitive spot and I can’t help but moan even louder. 

“Gods I love the sounds you make when I fuck you,” he says with a feral grin before sinking his teeth into my neck. 

“Oh gods Rhys I’m close!” I groan, running my hands through his hair. 

“I’m right behind you mate, make a mess on my cock,” he grunts and it’s enough to send me over the edge with his name on my lips. 

“Fuck y/n!” he screams, spilling his seed inside me.

As I feel his warm cum coat my walls he collapses on top of me and though he’s crushing me it’s an welcome weight. His skin on mine is the best feeling I’ve ever known. His shallow breaths coat my neck as I rub soothing circles on his back. We spend a few minutes catching our breath as I continue to hold him close to me. 

“Did you talk to Cassian and Az about Beron?” I ask. 

“I did and I think we have a solution.” he answers without moving his head from my chest. 

“What is it?” I inquire further, dying to know. 

“We toyed with the idea of having the mating ceremony early but with the meeting so soon it wouldn’t be safe. If we were to walk in there as a newly mated pair I would have Beron’s head ripped off within moments of him talking about you like you’re an object. It’s too dangerous,” Rhys said. 

“Agreed,” I chuckle nervously. “But if we can’t mate officially then what do we do?”

Rhys rolls over from his spot on top of me so that he can see my face, no doubt wanting to gage my reaction to his proposed solution. 

“I make you my High Lady,” he says with pride in his voice. 

I knew that Azriel had said it earlier but at the time I didn’t believe him. It didn’t seem possible. I bore no real powers besides winnowing, I had no political knowledge. How could I possibly be High Lady.  

“But do you really want that?” I ask. “I mean you’re not just doing it to make sure Beron and Tamlin don’t win right?” 

“I’ve always known you were going to be my High Lady y/n. But I knew that the title came with responsibilities. I didn’t want to pressure you into it.” he explains. “But to answer your question more directly, yes, I want it. I want you to be my equal in every way possible. Why do you think I brought up Kallias and Viviane when we were on the Summer Court terrace?”

I smile remembering the interaction.

“Then I guess I’m High Lady of the Night Court now.” I smile triumphantly. 

(I was debating wether or not to put this sort of plot twist in here so please leave some feedback because it helps me to know what you guys like and how I can write better for all you beautiful stars!)

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 @slytherintaco , @isa1b2h3 , @nickishadow139  , @sarawritestories , @coisas-da-dani ,  @lovemesomevesey ,  @graceshifts , 

#rhys acotar #rhysand #rhysand x reader #rhysand angst #rhysand fluff #rhysand smut #rhysand acotar #rhysand x reader smut

[ckret2]

Chapter 43 of suddenly human Bill Cipher is pretty eager to remain imprisoned inside the Mystery Shack:

The Eclipse: Part 1

Gravity's disappearing in Gravity Falls. Bill has an explanation for what's going on that has absolutely nothing to do with him, and also doesn't make any sense. Fiddleford has an alternate theory that makes a lot of sense, and has a whole lot to do with Bill. Ford trusts Fiddleford.

####

"An eclipse," Ford repeated. "Gravity's vanishing, you're floating, and you expect me to believe that it's due to an eclipse."

Bill shrugged. "I don't expect anything out of you. Believe whatever the heck you want. That's what it is, though."

"Even if it wasn't a ridiculous notion, there aren't any solar or lunar eclipses anywhere near Oregon this summer—"

"Did I say the eclipse was solar or lunar?" Bill asked. "No. I didn't." He breezed past Ford, heading to the kitchen. "Hey, is anybody gonna eat those pancakes?"

"Mine." Dipper ran past Bill to his abandoned plate.

"Then what kind of an eclipse is it?" Ford demanded.

Bill leaned on the kitchen counter, crossed his arms, and pursed his lips thoughtfully. Finally, he said, "Gravitational eclipse."

"There's no such thing!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Dr. I Think Having A Mere Five PhDs Means I Know Everything! Please, enlighten the trillion-year-old all-seeing eye who spent a year correcting all your math with your superior knowledge of physics!"

"It's twelve PhDs and you know it."

"Oh, so what! I can still count 'em on one hand." (Dipper gave Bill's hand a puzzled look.)

"Is that how it is!" Ford huffed angrily. "Fine, great teacher—would you be so kind as to educate your student on what the devil a 'gravitational eclipse' is!"

He fully expected Bill to start spouting some absurd science fiction explanation; but instead, Bill hesitated, gaze flicking nervously toward the ceiling. Ford looked up, but didn't see anything.

"Just don't worry about it." Bill rubbed his right eye. He turned away from Ford to watch Dipper struggle to squeeze pancake syrup out of an uncooperative bottle. "Everything will go back to normal in three days. Just—don't look at the sky."

"Why not?"

"Don't worry about it," Bill repeated.  "Hey, take off the lid and stick a knife in, you're never getting anything out that way."

"I've got it," Dipper said testily.

Soos came downstairs at about the same time Stan joined them from the hallway. "Dudes, I think something weird's going on," Soos said.

Ford turned his back on his fruitless conversation with Bill. "We've noticed. Gravity's decreasing."

Soos paused. "Oh," he said, slightly deflated. "I thought I was developing super strength."

"Sorry to disappoint."

"So what's causing it?" Stan asked.

"I don't know yet."

From the kitchen, Bill called, "I just told you!"

Ford didn't look at him. "I don't know the real reason yet."

Stan asked, "Think it might be a portal thing? When it was powering up, gravity got kinda screwy. It wasn't like this, though. Any time there was a surge, gravity hiccuped for a few seconds. It never just... went down a little."

"And not for this long, either," Soos said. "It's been like this all morning." He paused; then asked, hopefully, "You sure we aren't just all developing super strength at the same time?"

Ford shook his head apologetically.

"Aww."

"I suspected the portal first," Ford said. "But I just looked it over and checked the equipment. There's no way any of it could have powered on. It's been completely disassembled since last summer." 

Stan shrugged. "What else could it be?"

"The gravity anomalies occurred whenever the portal was connected to the Nightmare Realm. All I can think is that perhaps it's something else with a connection to the Nightmare Realm that might be having a destabilizing effect on the fabric of reality. Something much weaker, but steadily regaining power..." He turned to cast a venomous look at the kitchen. "Power like the ability to float..."

Bill had been preoccupied with dipping a strip of raw bacon into a stolen uncapped syrup bottle; but at the accusation, he stared at Ford in disbelief. "What—are you kidding me?"

"Have a better explanation for why, the moment all this starts, you can suddenly hover down the stairs?"

"Sure," Bill said. "I'm better at floating than the rest of you because I've been doing it longer."

"Oh, that's stupid!"

"You're stupid."

"You're up to something," Ford snarled. "I know it."

"What could I possibly be up to!" Bill spread his hands, exasperated. "Seriously! Tell me! What could I possibly be up to?"

Ford screwed his face into a scowl, trying to think of any way Bill could have orchestrated the gradual decline of gravity while imprisoned in the Mystery Shack. "You are up to something," he said firmly.

Bill groaned and rolled his eyes. "Well if you ever figure out what, let me know! I'm dying to find out what I'm plotting." He chugged from the syrup bottle like it was a flask. And then had to keep holding it up while he waited for the reduced gravity to work on the syrup.

"Hey, Dr. Pines?" Soos held up his phone. "Just got a text from Tate. He says Old Man McGucket wants to know if you can come discuss the gravity issue?"

"I was just thinking the same thing. Let Fiddleford know I'll be there as soon as I can. Does he want me to bring anything?"

"Nope. Just your handsome face." Soos chuckled. "He—he didn't say that part, though. I did. I just think guys should compliment each other more."

Ford nodded solemnly. "Thank you, Soos."

"Grunkle Ford, can I come too?" Dipper dumped his dirty dish in the sink. "I could—I dunno—help brainstorm solutions, or something...?"

"I'd be delighted." Ford had wanted to spend so much more time with Dipper this summer. By now, he'd thought they would have had at least one hike through the mountains around Gravity Falls and maybe dug into a couple of old mysteries he'd never solved. At least this was one mystery Ford could bring him along for.

Dipper's face lit up. "Hold on, let me go get my journal." He ran upstairs, bouncing up two steps at a time in the reduced gravity.

Ford murmured to Stan, "You can hold down the fort while I'm gone?"

Stan nodded slightly. "I'll keep a close eye on him."

"Good."

When Dipper had returned and they were headed out the door, Bill called from the kitchen, "Keep your head down out there. And get inside as soon as you can."

Ford shot a dark look at Bill, but said nothing. "Let's go." He shut the door behind them a bit harder than necessary.

Soos headed into the kitchen to make breakfast. As he passed, Bill said, "Hey. Does the 'guys complimenting guys' thing only apply to humans, or what?"

"Oh. Uh..." Soos pulled his head out of the fridge to look at Bill. "You... look good in yellow? Is—is that a good compliment? I don't know what triangle demons consider a compliment."

Bill considered it. "Sure, it'll do." He dipped another strip of bacon in the syrup. "I look even better in gold."

####

A quarter mile from the shack, Ford drove over a small bump in the road he'd gone over a hundred times before.

The car bounced so high that Ford's head hit the car roof.

Somewhere, he just knew, Bill was laughing at him.

####

Dipper's knee had been bouncing for three minutes straight by the time they approached the gate to the Northwest Manor. "Dipper, are you alright?"

"Sorry." Dipper planted his foot flat on the floor. "It's just—we're driving really slow, and this whole gravity thing is kind of an emergency..."

Just nervous. "I know," Ford sighed. "I can't go any faster without losing control. Lower gravity means lower traction between the tires and the road." But it was driving him mad.

At the manor, Tate greeted them at the door with a slight nod. "Hey. Dad's in the lab."

"Thank you, Tate. I know the way."

When they entered the lab, Fiddleford was working with a soldering iron on an electronic device the size of a toaster. He looked up as soon as they came in. "Stanford, Dipper! Good timing. Come in. How's the shack?"

"Down a few rubber balls."

Ford left Dipper to drift around the lab inspecting Fiddleford's equipment and listening in on the conversation as he and Fiddleford caught up. Fiddleford had first noticed something was wrong during his usual morning post-coffee rambunctious rollick, when he leaped high enough to bang his head on the ceiling. ("All the way to the ceiling? In this house?" "Well, I was standing on the counter, you see." "Ah, of course.") He'd immediately built a vacuum chamber he could drop various tools and cutlery in so he could measure the acceleration of gravity. Usually, objects on Earth fell 9.8 meters per second. When Fiddleford first measured, falling objects accelerated by 7.9 meters per second—almost 20% slower than they were supposed to. Now, it was 7.7 meters per second. If that rate of decline was steady, gravity must have been going down overnight without anyone noticing. By Fiddleford's calculations, gravity was decreasing by around 1.5% an hour—and, if it continued at this rate, it would be gone the day after tomorrow, by early afternoon.

(Bill had said three days. That wasn't even two and a half.)

Fiddleford had done some scans and called some old college pals down in Texas to ask if they'd noticed anything strange—and it seemed that Gravity Falls was the only place in the country experiencing anything unusual, at least according to NASA's data. Fiddleford had asked Tate to drive around town dropping things; quelle surprise, the gravitational oddity seemed perfectly contained to the circumference of the town's weirdness barrier.

"If you're in communication with NASA, I don't suppose you could ask if..." Ford winced at himself, "they've... noticed any astronomical anomalies?"

Fiddleford stroked his beard. "I reckon I could, but—why?"

Ford sighed. "Bill said this is being caused by what he calls a 'gravitational eclipse.' Which sounds like patent nonsense, but—on the one percent chance he's telling the truth..."

"I getcha. That Bill's as trustworthy as a rattlesnake with rabies—but until we know what's happening, we ought to consider every possibility."

"Yes. Precisely." Ford paused. "Can... rattlesnakes catch rabies?"

"Absolutely not! Which is why you should never trust one what says he's rabid."

"Ah. Yes. I see," Ford said uncertainly.

Like Ford, Fiddleford's first suspicion was that this had something to do with the portal—a suspicion that was scuttled when Ford informed him he'd already checked the portal. Ford's own next theory was that Bill personally was somehow behind this. His gravity already seemed to be far lighter than the rest of the town. But Ford didn't know whether that was because Bill was causing the gravity-reducing anomaly, or because the gravity-reducing anomaly was disproportionately affecting Bill. And even if Bill was causing it, as yet Ford had no idea by what mechanism he was doing it.

Fiddleford had the first idea that might explain how this was physically happening: dimensional rips.

At the end of last summer, the town and surrounding woods had been lousy with small dimensional rips torn in spacetime by Weirdmageddon and its aftermath. A few had been large enough for a grown man to stumble through, but many were barely as long as a fingernail. Ford and Stan had spent the last few days of summer running through the town and the woods with the kids, armed with alien adhesive, glueing shut the rips; and then—after traveling back and forth to California to attend Dipper's bar mitzvah and to get hollered at by Shermie for disappearing and/or faking a death—they'd spent most of the next month taking care of even more rips. (Just enough time for gnomes to steal Ford's new Journal 4.)

The remains of the rips could still be seen throughout Gravity Falls: odd invisible seams in the air that seemed to make the woods behind them bend strangely, like the transition between air and water where light refracted differently. Sometimes the sun would line up just right with a gap in the leaves so that you could see a sunbeam bending in midair.

Fiddleford had two theories:

Theory one: even after they'd sealed up all the rips, the distressed fabric of reality around Gravity Falls had grown threadbare. Rather than a few huge rips tearing through to the Nightmare Realm, countless micro-rips were forming—hundreds of thousands of holes between the fibers of reality, too tiny to be seen or detected—and they were reaching critical mass. The structural integrity of reality itself was about to catastrophically fail. The barrier between here and the Nightmare Realm could shred apart at any minute, ripping open a massive maw too wide to ever be repaired, irreversibly swallowing Gravity Falls into Bill's dying dimension of madness and leaving a frothing pustule of chaos trapped inside the weirdness barrier, ready to spread across all of Earth if anything should ever pop it!

Or two: something else was happening.

Ford thought it was worth investigating. The damage was already there; maybe Bill knew it, was exacerbating it—perhaps by his mere presence—and was just hoping the humans wouldn't figure it out before his homecoming.

"You remember the wormhole detector I built last September to sense when new dimensional rips were openin' up?" Fiddleford asked. "Well, it ain't detected a thing in town since March—but if these micro-rips are real, they'd be too little to detect from any farther than forty or fifty feet. So's I whipped up a portable scannermadoohickey!" He picked up the object he'd been working on when Ford and Dipper arrived. "You can take it to the places with the most damage and wave it around to see if it senses anything!"

Ford inspected the scanner. "It says it's detecting eighteen right now."

Fiddleford waved him off. "That's fine, a few itty bitty little tears oughta be expected for the kinda damage we got last year. But if my theory's correct, there's somewhere in Gravity Falls that'll have hundreds of thousands of tears within the scanner's radius. That's what we're looking for."

"Great. And, what do we do if we find them? Such small rips would be impossible to individually seal with my adhesive applicator."

"I thought of that, too!" Fiddleford scrambled over two tables, knocking tools on the ground as he went, to grab a plastic cone-shaped object the size of a football. He scuttled beneath the tables back to Ford. "Look! I made a glue grenade!"

"A—a what?"

"Once you figure out where the micro-rips are concentrated, just pour that alien adhesive of yours into this spout here, pull the pin, and chuck it! It'll instantly seal up all the micro-rips in the area and then cover the whole town in a cloud of alien adhesive, closing any remaining rips!"

"Hmm... It sounds risky. It would use up the rest of our andhesive all at once," Ford said. "And the environmental impact could be devastating."

Fiddleford blinked. "Environmental impact?"

"Just think of an adhesive this powerful settling over the whole town and forest in a thin film. It would glue people's pores shut! They wouldn't be able to sweat! Imagine. And that's just one example of the potential consequences."

"Hm." Fiddleford scratched his head. "I could invent a body lotion with alien adhesive solvent?"

"Or, maybe we should only use the grenade once we're sure that such an extreme measure is necessary."

"Aww." Fiddleford kicked his foot in disappointment. "Hold on—let me at least whip up a spray attachment for your adhesive gun. So's you can patch up any clusters you find as you go." He darted between several tables, searching through drawers and tool chests for supplies, and then returned to his soldering station.

"Wait, hold on," Ford said. "In the space of a morning, you've built a vacuum chamber to calculate the gravitational acceleration in Gravity Falls, called NASA to get ahold of somebody to collect data across the rest of the United States, built a handheld version of your wormhole detector, and built a grenade to distribute alien adhesive?"

"I sure did!"

"And, how long have you been awake?"

"An hour and a half!"

Ford stared. "Where do you get your coffee?"

Fiddleford glanced across the room at Dipper, and whispered, "I'll tell ya later."

Dipper had drifted over to the miniature particle accelerator and was slowly circling it, inspecting all the pipes, trying to figure out how it worked. He was leaning over the trash can when Ford drifted over to join him. "Hey, Grunkle Ford? I... think there's a cat in here?"

"You don't know that!" Fiddleford shouted. "It could be dead!"

"No it's not, I can hear it meowing."

"That might be something else! You can't tell!"

"I could just open it—"

Fiddleford chucked an empty plastic spool of solder wire toward Dipper. "Don't you touch that!"

Dipper withdrew his hand from the trash can lid and looked at Ford, baffled.

"I'll explain how it works," Ford said.

While Fiddleford worked, Ford caught Dipper up on the details of the fuel they needed for the Quantum Destabilizer, the contraption Fiddleford had built to synthesize it, and the complicated way they'd tried to paradoxically (not) observe the experiment in progress. When Fiddleford came over to offer the completed spray nozzle, Ford asked, "Any progress on figuring out how to get this thing working?"

"No," Fiddleford sighed. "I've been lookin' into more stable paradoxes to replace the cat. But as far as the observer—I'd hoped usin' twins might just get close enough, but I've redid my cac'lations three times and I'm afraid the only way to get this thing working is by gettin' one person to both observe and not observe it at the same time. If we can just do that, we'd have all the fuel we need. But for the life of me I can't figure out how."

"Maybe if we had two versions of the same person from different dimensions..." Ford mused. "But that would require opening up a portal to reach another dimension, and there's the risk that uniting parallel versions of the same person might destabilize our entire dimension. It's not worth the risk."

"It sounds like one of those impossible riddles," Dipper said. "Like, 'If only a barber shaves people who don't shave themselves, and if anyone who shaves himself isn't a barber, then who shaves the barber?' Because if he shaved himself he wouldn't be a barber but since he shaves other people he has to be a barber..."

Ford said, "A second barber shaves him."

Fiddleford said, "He just don't shave at all."

Dipper paused. "I think I told it wrong."

Ford patted his shoulder. "But I think you're on to something. We need to think of this as a riddle; and every riddle has a solution. We just need to find it."

"After we save the town, right?" Dipper asked.

Ford smiled wanly. "One crisis at a time."

####

They agreed that investigating all the potential micro-rip hotspots around town would probably necessitate a camping trip—which was the only bit of good news to come out of this mess so far. Due to all of this summer's Bill bullsoup (as Stan had taken to calling it in front of the kids), Ford and Dipper had hardly gotten to see each other so far, much less do any serious paranormal investigating together. Hiking and camping while in search of the strange sounded like exactly what they'd been missing out on—and it would've sounded even better if the situation weren't so dire.

Ford and Dipper came back in the Mystery Shack as Shandra Jimenez said on TV, "Today's top story in Gravity Falls is that gravity isn't falling. Many residents recall similar incidents around this time last summer, when gravity intermittently shut off entirely, leading many to ask: could this possibly be another devastating effect of global warming? Temperatures today are—"

Ford scoffed. "Global warming. Of all things. Gravity is probably the only part of the environment it isn't affecting."

"I dunno, Ford, maybe you oughta consider it." Bill was sitting cross-legged on the couch, chin in his hand. He had his eye patch over the eye he'd been squinting that morning. "As long as you're already rejecting the real explanation to make up one you like better, why not go whole hog? Let's adopt a real crackpot theory."

"You want to talk about 'crackpot theories'? Global warming sounds at least as likely as an eclipse."

"That says a lot more about your education than it does about the theories."

Ford grit his teeth. "You know I'm one of the most educated men on Earth."

"And that says a lot about your planet's educational system."

Stan, sitting in his armchair reading the paper, folded it down to glower at Bill. "Stop antagonizing my brother."

"Tell him to stop making it so easy."

Ford grit his teeth harder, but ignored Bill. "Dipper, go pack your backpack. I'll check the basement and meet you when I'm done."

"Right!" Dipper hurried up the stairs.

Ford crossed the living room, checking the micro-rip scanner—88 detected rips, over five times higher than at Northwest Manor, but still nowhere near the 100,000 rip danger threshold. He'd see whether that remained true next to the portal. He paused next to Stan's armchair, "Stanley, do you remember where we stored the alien adhesive applicator?"

"Uhh... when's the last time we used it?"

"Last fall, right before we headed to Seattle."

Stan lowered his paper, staring at the ceiling. "I think we stored it in one of the lockers in the basement, right?"

"It's not there," Bill said.

Ford gave him an exasperated look. "And how would you know."

"Because the first day I came here, I emptied out all those lockers and hid their contents while I was waiting for the rest of you to get downstairs."

Ford smacked the back of the armchair, making Stan start. "So that's what happened to my infinity-sided die! Where the devil did you hide it?"

"Frankly, I don't think you're responsible enough to handle that kind of power," Bill said archly.

"Where's the adhesive applicator!"

"What do you need it for?"

"That's none of your business."

"Pity." Bill turned up the volume on the news.

Ford moved between Bill and the screen. "If you don't tell me where you hid it..." What threat could he make? This was the demon willing to threaten suicide if his captors didn't keep him entertained.

"Tell me why you need it."

"As if you'd give it to me if I did!"

"Maybe I'll find your cause noble," Bill said flatly. "Try me."

Oh, what did he have to lose. "Fine. I'm testing to see if imperceptibly small rips are opening between Gravity Falls and the Nightmare Realm. If they are, I'm going to seal them shut." He hoped the revelation would throw Bill off—he hoped he was close enough to the truth to shock Bill into giving something away.

Bill's eye widened, eyebrows shooting up; and then he burst out laughing. "That's what Specs filled your head with? Embryonic wormholes? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! And you're turning to him for an explanation when you've got a being with infinite answers sitting in your living room?"

Ford scoffed. "Sure, infinite answers—and just like the infinity-sided die, whatever I get is infinitely more likely to be trouble than anything useful. Now tell me where you put my adhesive applicator."

"I didn't put it anywhere." Bill held the remote out to the side to change the channel and stared at the TV straight through Ford, as if he didn't exist. "It's still in the basement. A little adhesive leaked out, I couldn't get the locker door open."

"Ha!" Stan slapped an armrest.

Ford whirled around to glare at him.

Stan held up his hands appeasingly. "Sorry! Sorry. That's not funny. Wasn't—wasn't funny at all. How dare you, Bill."

"I know, I'm just the worst."

Ford held in a harsh sigh and stalked out of the room. He didn't have time for this—not when they were on a deadline to prevent whatever was happening. (What if it became too late to reverse before gravity even reached 0%? What if they were approaching a tipping point when the whole sky would rip open?)

He opened the vending machine and headed downstairs.

####

He had to break the locker door to get the alien adhesive applicator out. He'd have to figure out how the nozzle had leaked before he stored it again.

According to the sensor, there were over a thousand micro-rips detectable just from standing near the portal controls. The number increased as he approached the portal itself; the highest quantity the scanner detected was nearly 5,000. Over fifty times higher than on the shack's ground level. It was clear some sort of damage had been done here.

But Fiddleford had said, for them to be concerned about reality shredding, there should be hundreds of thousands of micro-rips in one location. And Ford trusted any numbers Fiddleford gave him; wherever Ford tended to double-check his math, Fiddleford quintuple-checked his.

Even at the interdimensional portal itself—the spot where the veil between Gravity Falls and the Nightmare Realm had been ripped open and stitched shut so many times, the spot where the rift that nearly ended the world had been formed—there were less than 5% of the rips they needed before they started reaching dangerous levels.

Ford looked up at the portal, frowning.

The portal's torn and crumpled pieces lay against the cavern walls where he'd left them last summer.

Never mind. There were several other places that could be hotspots for micro-rips. He couldn't draw any conclusions about what was happening here until he'd checked them too.

But whatever was happening, it certainly wasn't an eclipse.

He added Fiddleford's spray attachment to the adhesive applicator and filled the chamber with a mist of glue, until the scanner read less than 200 micro-rips; then stopped by his study to grab a couple maps of the mountains around Gravity Falls, his antique lantern, and a tent; and headed back up to the house.

####

During their past year of travels, Stan and Ford had started keeping two emergency backpacks stocked in case they needed to flee on short notice. The backpacks contained everything they'd need to survive in the wilderness or a strange city for three days; and Ford had thirty long years of experience to teach him exactly what supplies that necessitated. He grabbed his backpack out of the guest room, and then spread out his map on the kitchen table to show to Dipper.

"If our micro-rip theory is correct, there are four potential places where I suspect they'll be most densely concentrated: the place where the interdimensional rift formed; where it was unleashed; where it was suspended for the majority of Weirdmageddon; and where it was sealed."

"And you've already checked the portal where it formed," Dipper said. "What about the place it was suspended? It was floating in the sky over town. There's no way we can get up there until gravity's completely gone, and by then it'll be too late."

"I've considered that. The closest we can get is Gravity Peak, but from there we should be able to get the sensor close enough to tell if there's an unusual amount of rips." Ford circled three spots on the map, and drew a dotted line connecting them. "We're heading out late, but we should be able to hit the locations where Weirdmageddon began and ended today. We can cross the lake to camp in the cavern behind Trembley Falls, get an early start, and take the hidden cave tunnel up to Gravity Peak."

"Not the best time for a hiking trip," Bill said.

Ford shot him an exasperated look. Bill was leaning in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed, smirking condescendingly. "Or maybe it is, if you're trying to avoid as much effort as possible," he says. "But I still wouldn't go if I were you. You don't want to be outdoors during an eclipse—and you don't want to be on a mountain when gravity comes back."

"Nobody asked you," Ford said, turning his back on Bill. "Now—cooking will be difficult as gravity decreases, but not to worry—" he unzipped his backpack, "—I've already prepared everything we'll need." Grinning, he pulled out what looked like a toothpaste tube with a "beef and vegetables" label. "Astronaut food!"

Dipper grimaced. "Great."

"You should have asked me," Bill said, a bit louder. "Considering that Specs is sending you on a wild goose chase. But hey, if you're that determined to waste your time, just don't say I didn't tell you so."

"You haven't even told us what an 'eclipse' is," Dipper said. "If it's not important enough to explain, I don't see why it's important enough for us to listen to you."

"Well said," Ford muttered.

"It's too important to explain," Bill retorted. "I've told you everything you need to know!"

Ford said, "Ha," and started folding his map to pack.

There were a few seconds of blessed silence; and then Bill walked into the room, leaned on the fridge, and glowered at Ford. "Listen. As far as you're concerned, the eclipse is probably harmless. It should peak in three days—"

"Fiddleford said at its current rate of decrease, it should be the day after tomorrow."

Ford expected Bill to argue; but instead, he frowned uneasily. "I—Sure, fine, whatever, he's probably done the math, I've just been eyeballing it. Did he say what time?"

Surprised, Ford said, "early afternoon, by his measurements."

Bill nodded vaguely, glancing again toward the ceiling. "Whatever time it happens—gravity will gradually decrease until totality, and then it'll come back very quickly, so—if you want to help your town so much, tell them that they don't want to be climbing trees in zero G. Otherwise, the best thing you can do is stay inside, wait for it to pass, keep your eyes shutduring totality—and do not look up."

"Why can't we look up?" Dipper asked.

Bill laughed derisively. "Would you stare at the sun during a solar eclipse? It's like I'm talking to babies!"

The last fraying thread of Ford's patience snapped. He seized Bill's hoodie by the strings and dragged him closer. "Enough!"

Bill flailed, kicking the table as he tried to back out of Ford's grip, and ended up losing his footing and landing on the floor. It was too easy to drag him around—he was so light. Ford leaned down to glare straight in his eye. "If you're so worried about how we're handling this eclipse of yours, maybe you should come with us!"

Horror bloomed in Bill's eye. "What? No no no, that's—that's fine, I told you everything you need, I'd just slow you down, I'd really be much happier in here—"

"I bet you would be," Ford snarled. "As far as I'm concerned, the fact that you want to stay inside so much is reason enough to bring you along! Either something out there scares you, or there's something in here you want to be close to during totality! Maybe something will happen at the portal! Whatever it is you want, I don't want you to get it."

"Grunkle Ford?" Dipper had gotten out of his seat and was looking uncertainly between Bill and Ford. "I'm not sure about..."

Bill's gaze snapped from Ford's face to Dipper's, and Ford could almost see the gears shifting in his head as he latched on to a more vulnerable target. "Kid. Remember when I told you there are things out there you don't want to meet? Stay inside—let me stay inside—find a good book to distract you the next couple of days, and don't worry about things you don't want to know too much about. As far as you should be concerned, this is a weather phenomenon. You don't want to dig any deeper than that. Stay. Home."

The corners of Dipper's mouth turned down. He grabbed Ford's coat sleeve and said, voice low, "Great Uncle Ford, I... I'm not sure he's lying. I've never seen Bill scared like this before. And when he told me about things in other dimensions, this gravity thing hadn't even started, so he couldn't have..."

"Unless Bill was expecting this to happen, and everything he told you yesterday was the groundwork to make us believe whatever he wants us to believe." Bill had wormed deeper into Dipper's head than Ford had realized, if it was enough to make him consider Bill's nonsensical claims. Ford should have asked more about what Bill told him yesterday. The monster could have been filling his gnephew's head with all sorts of nightmares. "Doesn't it seem a little lucky that he told you all that one day before this?"

Dipper grimaced. "I mean..."

Ford glared at Bill again. "I'm not buying it. And the more you make up ridiculous explanations like 'gravitational eclipses' and 'things from other dimensions,' the more you insist that this is somehow both no big deal and incredibly dangerous just to witness, the less I believe this is anything but a patently ridiculous attempt to keep us from interfering with whatever is about to happen! And frankly, that makes me want to interfere even more!"

Bill let out a strangled laugh. "You've gotta be... If you think I'm that suspicious, how do you know this isn't reverse psychology?! Maybe I want you to take me outside!"

"Maybe you do. That's the awful thing about you, Bill: I can second-, third-, and fourth-guess everything you say, and I'll never be sure I've figured out the truth! At some point I just have to make an educated guess."

There was a knock at the doorway. "Hey, Dr. Pines?" Soos leaned into the kitchen. "I heard furniture and anger. Is everything... uh..." He trailed off, taking in the scene—Bill on the floor backed up against the fridge, Ford crouched over him, Dipper watching anxiously. "Everything cool here?"

Ford got to his feet. "Dipper and I are going on an expedition—and unfortunately, he has to come along. Soos, do you have a spare backpack we can use for his supplies?"

"Uh, I think so—"

"Great," Dipper snapped. "This is just perfect. I've been waiting a month and a half for us to do something cool together, and when we're finally about to go on an expedition, it's ruined by him?" He gestured angrily at Bill. "He's already ruined the rest of summer!"

Bill said, "Hey, I didn't consent to this plan either."

"You shut up," Dipper snapped. "This is all your fault! You could have just left us alone, but...!" He let out a frustrated noise. He pushed past Soos out of the room and ran up the stairs.

Ah. Ford's shoulders slumped. Sometimes he wasn't quite sure where he'd misstepped in a conversation, but this time it was pretty obvious. Between this and the nearly-disastrous trip to Portland, Ford was well in the lead for Worst Grunkle of the Summer.

"Wow. You broke that kid's heart," Bill said. "Not too late to make it up to him by going back to the original plan."

Ford shot him a dirty look.

Bill shrugged. "I'm trying anything I can think of at this point!"

Ford sighed harshly, and left to follow Dipper upstairs.

Bill sat up and waited until Ford's footsteps had receded. Voice low, he said, "Questiony, listen, I need your help. Stanford's gone completely insane. You didn't see how he was ranting and raving before you got in here. Who knows what he'll do to me if he gets me alone outside the shack with only his junior sycophant as a witness—?"

Soos looked deeply uncomfortable, but he shook his head. "Not buying it, dawg."

Bill groaned.

####

Ford knocked, and gently pushed the kids' damaged door open a crack. "Dipper?"

Dipper grunted. He was sitting on his bed, chin in his hands, glaring down at his journal in his lap.

"Can I come in?"

Dipper grunted again. Ford wasn't being ignored, so he took that as permission to enter. He delicately sat next to Dipper and tried to figure out what to say next. (He was surprised at how firm the mattress was—and then realized the real reason he wasn't sinking as far into it as he expected.) "Dipper..."

"You don't need to say anything," he sighed. "You're right—Bill probably is up to something. If he wants to be in the shack so much, and won't give us a straight answer why, then... it's probably safer to keep him out of it." But he sounded so terribly resigned.

"All the same, I understand your disappointment," Ford said. "I'd far rather go hiking with you than with him."

Dipper nodded. "Yeah. It's just..." He trailed off.

"I know. I wanted this summer to be different, too." Ford sighed. "As soon as he's gone, I owe you another hiking trip."

Dipper nodded again. He mumbled, "I've never gone hiking before."

This was some way to experience it for the first time. "We could treat this like a practice round? A warm-up with lower gravity to make it easier. Next time will be a real trip—without any crises to worry about, and without Bill."

"I don't mind the crises," Dipper said. "I'm kind of used to them, actually. They're almost fun now."

In his mind, Ford knew that this was probably another thing that should earn him a Worst Grunkle award. But in his heart, he was proud of Dipper. That was an adventurer's attitude.

"It's just... I haven't been able to get away from him all summer," Dipper said. "And even when I'm avoiding him, Mabel's spending all her free time either with her friends or trying to reform him, and you're spending all your time trying to figure out how to kill him, so I barely see you two..."

And that wasn't even something Ford could blame on Bill, was it? He hadn't been spending his time trying to figure out how to kill Bill since he'd handed over the Quantum Destabilizer design to Fiddleford. He'd simply been... obsessing. Hiding and obsessing. Ford stared down at his hands guiltily. "Tell you what. As soon as this is over, we can go do—something. I don't know what yet, but we've got a couple of days to think it up. I've spent too much time underground the last few weeks, anyway. We may not be able to go on that big adventure until Bill's gone—but it's something, for now."

"Yeah, I'd like that. Thanks, Grunkle Ford." 

Ford nudged him. "And as long as you do have to put up with Bill for this trip... look on the bright side. Haven't you been wanting to get a crack at him without your sister around? See if you can pry out any more alien wisdom before his execution?"

Dipper huffed—but one corner of his mouth reluctantly quirked up. "Thanks, but I'm starting to think that's a bad idea. Every time I try, he just says stuff that gives me nightmares."

"Well—consider it an intellectually broadening experience."

Dipper gave him a weak smile.

"Anyway, with a little luck, it won't be long before you'll never need to deal with him again."

####

Soos had an old Monster-Mon backpack with cracked vinyl around the straps that he hadn't used since he outgrew it in fifth grade. "Lucky I didn't throw it out when we moved. You never know when you're gonna need old stuff!"

Bill had no idea what he was supposed to take on a forced camping trip. He knew what humans took, but humans craved all kinds of material comforts that meant nothing to him. After a couple minutes staring at the bag forlornly, he stuck in a spare shirt and leggings—he doubted he'd need extra underwear or socks, right?—and the Pony Heist bedsheet he'd been using as his sole blanket the last month, his toothbrush and toothpaste, a cider six-pack, two boxes of cereal, a kazoo, and the TV remote.

"I need some first-aid supplies. In case of emergency," Bill told Soos.

"Sure, whaddaya need?"

"Bandages, painkillers, matches, and a knife."

"You got—" Soos paused, then pursed his lips at Bill disapprovingly.

Bill sighed. "Bandages and painkillers. And cold medicine. Woods get chilly."

He glanced up as he heard footsteps upstairs. Not much longer until he was dragged outside. He grimaced. "One more thing, Jesús. This is important."

"Whoa. Full-first-name important?" He stuck a bottle of cold syrup in the backpack, hit something hard, and peered in confusion at the six-pack.

"Stanford's being petty and refusing to believe anything I say, but I know you're not that stupid," Bill lied. "So listen: this thing will peak in a couple of days and then go back to normal. It's mostly harmless to humans—but once the peak has passed, gravity's coming back like that." Bill snapped his fingers. "So anyone you want to come out of this intact needs to do two things. One, the moment gravity completely disappears, they need to anchor themselves, as close to the ground as possible, before it comes back. And two, do not look at the sky. Got it?"

Soos hesitated; but then nodded. "Y-yeah, got it."

"Understand?"

"Understood."

"Good."

"So are you like... trying to protect the town now?"

Bill laughed bitterly. "I'm trying to cover my base. When this is all over, even if all my warnings were ignored, at least nobody will be able to say I didn't try. I could have sat on everything I know! But I didn't! And I'm going to rub. It. In. Ford's. Face." He punctuated each word with a jab to Soos's chest.

Soos endured the jabbing with a patience Bill didn't deserve. "Byyy protecting the town?"

Bill opened his mouth, reconsidered, and said, "Sure! Of course I'm protecting the town! Why would I want any harm to befall the citizens of my once and future capital?"

"I mean, no offense, but you befelled a lot of harm on us last year—"

"I did not," Bill snapped. "Everyone was perfectly comfortable in my throne of frozen human agony." He yanked the backpack's zipper shut, pulled it on, and pushed Soos aside to leave the kitchen.

Stan had stopped Ford at the foot of the stairs. "But if this is some nightmare dimension thing, isn't that just another reason not to take Bill outside? What if one of those wormholes opens up and he dives through? Maybe escaping back to his dimension will give him his power back, we don't know."

"I've considered that—but if that is what he's planning, all the more reason why he should stay with Dipper and me, so we can stop him if he tries anything."

"Are you nuts? It'll be two of you in the woods versus four of us here in the shack! We outnumber him more than you do! Plus walls and doors!"

"We have the hexed bracelets, he won't be able to escape us," Ford said.

"Aww, I get to share matching friendship bracelets with someone?" Bill gave Dipper and Ford what he hoped was his most obnoxious smile. "Who's the lucky guy?"

Scowling, Dipper raised his hand.

Bill's smile dimmed. "You are the lesser evil," he admitted grudgingly. "But I'm surprised ol' Six-Fingers doesn't want to keep as tight a grip on me as possible."

"We decided that if you try to kill your bracelet partner and escape, Grunkle Ford would have a better chance of avenging me than I would have avenging him."

Bill's brows shot up. "Ruthlessly utilitarian. Was that Stanford's idea?"

Ford ignored the question, pushing on with his conversation with Stan: "And anyway, there might be more people in the shack, but none of them would be me. I know him better than anyone else."

Bill laughed hard enough that his feet momentarily lifted off the floor. "Oh do you!"

Ford's gaze shot to Bill's face, eyes blazing with fury. "You know I do. I've spent thirty years learning every trick, every lie, every betrayal that's made you who you—"

"What's my favorite food."

Ford's mouth worked uselessly. "That—doesn't matter—"

"You think you know my innermost soul when you don't even know my favorite food?"

"Favorite... human food, or...?"

"Oh, sure, I'll give you a fighting chance. Human."

Ford chewed on the inside of his mouth for several seconds. Finally, he said, "Jalapeños."

Bill crossed the entryway, leaned into the hallway, and took a deep breath. "HEY, MABEL!"

From the far end of the house (where Mabel was seeing how high she could jump in the floor room), she shouted, "YEAH?"

"WHAT'S MY FAVORITE FOOD?"

"NACHOS WITH CHOCOLATE SAUCE AND SUMMER-SHAPED SPRINKLES!"

Bill gestured down the hall, ta-da. "THANK YOU!"

"I was close," Ford grumbled. "Nachos have jalapeños."

Stan said, "You're not even out of the house and he's getting under your skin. Are you sure you wanna—?"

"I am not," Ford said, "leaving him in the house. And if you'd heard how he was fighting to stay under this roof, you wouldn't trust him in here either."

Stan looked at Bill.

Bill looked Stan dead in the eyes and said, "I don't know what he's talking about. I agreed to go as soon as he asked."

"Oh, shut your—" Ford snatched the bracelets off the coat rack, flung one end at Bill, and handed Dipper the other. "Put these on. We're leaving."

Bill scowled, but considered his odds of successfully resisting, reluctantly put his end of the bracelet on, and yelled down the hall, "BYE, MABEL! I'M BEING KIDNAPPED BY YOUR UNCLE AGAINST MY WILL! I MAY NEVER RETURN!"

"I'LL MISS YOU FOREVER!"

Ford opened the door and gestured impatiently. Bill took a couple reluctant steps closer, but stopped to look at Soos and say, "Remember what I said. Do not let Mabel be in the air when gravity comes back, you know if someone doesn't watch her she'll launch herself as high as she can—"

Ford snapped, "Either you walk or I drag you, Cipher."

"I'm coming." He stepped outside, paused, and cast a worried look at the sky; then squeezed his eyes shut, lowered his head, and walked into the sunlight.

####

(That's this week's chapter! I'd love to hear your comments and thoughts. Next week: I'm gonna do my level best to shatter your hearts. Look forward to it!)

#bill cipher #human bill cipher #grunkle ford #stanford pines #(for the chapter) #fiddleford mcgucket #(for the art) #gravity falls #gravity falls fanart #gravity falls fic #fanart #my art #my writing #bill goldilocks cipher