#little me really just let a fictional god with depression and daddy issues take over my life huh

[ignisrose]

me, age 8, about to watch thor (2011) for the first time:

me now:

#little me really just let a fictional god with depression and daddy issues take over my life huh #loki #thor #thor (2011) #loki 2021 #mobius m mobius #tom hiddleston #loki series #marvel loki #disney plus #marvel #mcu

[wiypt-writes]

Stark Spangled Destiny

Ch 1- Breaking Point

Chapter Summary: Struggling to cope following the birth of their youngest, Katie has been hiding her feelings from Steve until an incident at home causes her to blow. Later, she takes a drive to clear her head and ends up in a familiar place, where she encounters an even more familiar face.

Chapter Warnings: Bad Language words. Deals with the subject of Post-Partum Depression so please avoid if this triggers.

Chapter Pairings:  Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark

A/N: So this little Mini-Series is coined from an idea @icanfeelastormbrewing​ sent to me a while ago. It deals with some gritty subjects and is going to be quite angsty in places. I really hope I’ve done this sensitively.

Please let me know what you think- comments and re-blogs muchly appreciated.

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. I do not own any characters in this series bar Katie Stark and the other OCs. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

Stark Spangled Destiny Masterlist // Main Masterlist

Chaos. That was the only word to describe the Rogers household at that point in time. Flossie was teething and screaming as a consequence, whilst Katie was trying her best to soothe her, but to no avail. Emmy was supposed to have taken Jamie and Rori out for the day, but she’d been invited out with friend and because Katie didn’t want her to have to spend her spare time helping her out instead of doing something fun, she’d told her not to worry about it and that she’d manage. And for the most part of the morning she had.

But not now.

Katie sighed as the yelling from the Den grew louder and rolled her eyes. She turned to the only one of her kids that was quiet at that time, Harry, who was sat at the kitchen table colouring, his little tongue poking out in concentration.

“You okay for a minute baby?” Katie looked at Harry as she juggled a very grumpy Florence in her arms.

He nodded, not looking up from his activity book. “Yup.” She looked at him, before she headed to the den to see what carnage awaited. When she walked in the door she saw Jamie stood there, the body to Rori’s Barbie doll in one hand, head in the other. Rori was screaming and stamping her feet.

“What the hell is going on?”

“HE BROKE MY ARMY BARBIE!” Rori screamed.

“Not on purpose!” Jamie countered, rolling his eyes.

“YES YOU DID!” Rori continued “You PULLED it and said that…”

“Okay, okay.” Katie sighed, cutting her off. “Jamie, why did you even take it from her in the first place?” “She was hitting me with it.” “Rori is that true?” Rori looked down at the carpet, dragging her toe slightly across the light blue rug. “Maybe.”

“You know, I don’t need this today.” Katie sighed. “Flossie’s mouth hurts, your dad is busy with stuff at work…” “It’s a Saturday.” Rori pouted “He should be with us.” “Yes, and he said he was sorry.” Katie looked at her “But he explained to you this morning he had to help some of his students as they have exams next week. He’ll be home soon and said he would make it up to you both tomorrow.” “But I want him here now.” Rori stamped her foot and Katie felt her temper starting to snap.

“Well, too bad!” She said loudly and Rori looked at her, blinking. “Sorry, but you’ll just have to put up with me, and I know I’m a huge disappointment compared to your father.” she shifted Flossie in her arms who had finally stopped crying. “Now, Jamie, go put the doll on the side in the kitchen.” Jamie walked out of the room as she turned to Rori. “Daddy will probably be able to fix it when he gets home.” “Okay.” She nodded.

“And In future, don’t hit your bother with your toys” Katie looked at her “Because then stuff like this happens.”

Rori opened her mouth to argue but one look from Katie made her shut it again. “Now, why don’t you bring the Scrapbook and do it at the table whilst Harry colours? Let Jamie play his computer in here alone.” “Okay, Momma.” Rori nodded.

Satisfied that splitting them up would at least, for the time being, solve the issue, Katie waited for her to gather the various bits of craft stuff she wanted to use and she pottered into the kitchen. Jamie was stood next to Harry who was enthusiastically pointing at something on the page and talking to him animatedly. She had to give it to her eldest son, when it came to Harry and Flossie, he had the patience of a saint but Rori…well, she pissed him off and to be honest Katie could understand why. She could be a damned nightmare and when she was in one of those moods, the only person that seemed to be able to quell her bad behaviour was Steve. One annoyed look from her Daddy and she would stop dead, it normally took Katie a little longer and as for anyone else, well, they might as well just all go to hell.

Taking a look at Flossie who was now mouthing at her collar bone, she moved to the freezer, grabbed a teething ring and settled her in the little bounce chair, the five month old seemingly calmed for the time being.

“Mom, can I see if Seb can come over?” Jamie asked.

“No chance.” Katie shook her head. “You just broke Rori’s doll, absolutely no way is your friend coming over.” “What?” Jamie blinked.

“Actions have consequences, Jamie.” She shrugged.

“But it was an accident.”

“Yeah, the doll’s head just fell off in your hands did it?” She looked at him.

“No, it was-” “Did you pull it?” “Yes, but-” “So what exactly where you trying to do if not break it?”

Jamie fell silent.

“Exactly,” Katie shrugged, “so no, he’s not coming over. If you behave then maybe tomorrow he can come stay, you can play in the pool.” “Dad said he was taking us to Coney Island tomorrow!” Jamie whined “So Seb can’t come then!” “Oh, how hard it must be to be you.” Katie rolled her eyes sarcastically “Choosing the Fair or your friend.” Jamie glared at her, folding his arms. “Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.” “My dad always said it was a metric for potential.” Katie shot back, shrugging as she turned to the dishwasher which she had been halfway through unloading before until Flossie had started screaming. “Guess I’ll be a great woman one day.”

With her back to Jamie she smiled gently at the memory of the words her father had once said, and Tony’s reaction. And had she been any deeper in her memories she wouldn’t have heard the little jab that Jamie made.

“God living here sucks.” “Well feel free to pack a bag and leave.” Katie shrugged simply as she turned round to look at her son. “In fact, tell me where you wanna go and I’ll drop you off myself.”

“Maybe I will.” He shot back.

“Like I said, go ahead, I’m not stopping you.”

“Whatever, Mom.” He rolled his eyes. “You can’t kick me out. I’m only ten!” “I’m not kicking you out. You said you wanted to go, I’m simply not stopping you.” Jamie arched an eyebrow, his action making him look even more ridiculously like Steve and his hands dropped to his hips. “Fine, then I’ll just go to Uncle Bucky’s.” “Okay,” Katie nodded, closing the dishwasher. “Go pack a bag, Uncle Buck can deal with your attitude because I don’t want to anymore.” She held Jamie’s gaze, refusing to look away. Eventually her son’s eyes flickered away from her and he turned around with a groan. “Sometimes you’re like the worse mom in the world.”

It shouldn’t have annoyed her as much as it did, because God knows she’d said far worse to Tony when she was younger, and it was a stupid flippant comment, she knew that. But, coupled with everything that had gone on that morning and how much she’d been struggling in general with the kids recently, her patience which had been hanging by a thread, finally snapped. She could quite happily have slapped him right across the face but instead she took a deep breath and shook her head, glaring at him.

“You know what? I’ve really had my fill of you today James, get up to your room.”

“What?” “You heard me!” Katie’s voice rose as she pointed to the door. “Get out of my sight and up those fucking stairs now!”

Jamie blinked at her, she had never sworn at him like that before and his mouth dropped open and he swallowed.

“I’m telling Dad you used bad language.” He stuttered in response and Katie gave a sarcastic laugh. “Oh, are you? Well guess what? I don’t give a shit. You can tell him about that one too!” She blazed “Now I won’t tell you again. Go. To. Your. Room.” “I hate you.” Jamie seethed, and with a final glare at his mom, he wheeled round and stomped from the kitchen, his feet echoing loudly down the hall and up the large staircase. Katie heard his door slam before she leaned on the kitchen counter hanging her head, her eyes filling with tears. And then Flossie started to cry again.

“Momma?” Harry asked tentatively and she wiped her eyes and looked up, smiling.

“Yes, honey?” “I no hate you.” He said softly and she gave him a little smile.

“Me neither.” Rori whispered softly. “Jamie was mean.” Katie shook her head as she crossed the room to pick Flossie up. “He’s just angry because I told him off, don’t worry about it. Now can you two just behave in here for a second whilst I take Flossie into the living room and try calm her down, please?”

“Promise, Momma.” Rori nodded and Katie smiled softly. This was the other side to her daughter, the sweet, gentle, sassy but well behaved one that nine times out of ten the little girl displayed. She took Flossie with her, gently rocking her and soothing her again until her cries became little sniffles. And then she pulled her phone out of her pocket and called Steve.

***** Steve had just finished with the last small group of Students when Katie’s call came through.

“Hey, Doll, that was good timing.” He smiled gently, “I’ve just this minute finished.” “Hi, I just wanted to check what time you’d be home.” “Oh, erm…” Steve hesitated, “look, about that. Bucky called before and asked if I fancied meeting him and Sam for a drink before I come back for pizza like we promised the kids. Just I’ve not seen them in a few weeks really and-” “Oh. Okay.”

Steve frowned, that wasn’t like her. Normally she didn’t give a shit about stuff like that, in fact half the time she encouraged him to go out and socialise. “Sweetheart, if it’s a problem I can come home straight away?” “Please, I wouldn’t normally ask but-” And then to Steve’s horror she began to cry.

“Baby, what is it?” He grabbed his car keys and his jacket before he picked up his briefcase and strode from his office, locking the door behind him.

“I just…” she took a deep shuddering breath, “the kids have been driving me crazy. Well, okay not all of them, but Flossie is teething and won’t settle, Jamie and Rori have been fighting and Jamie pulled the head off her doll…” “Hang on.” Steve frowned as he walked out of the main door to the Art Faculty and took a right towards the parking lot. “I thought Emmy was taking those two out to give you a chance to keep an eye on Floss.”

“She cancelled earlier, said she’d been invited out. I didn’t want to spoil her plans, I mean like she said, they’re not her kids to babysit-” “Woah, she said that?” Steve reached his car and unlocked it, his frown growing deeper. “She actually said those words?” “Pretty much.” Katie sighed. “But she’s right, Steve. They’re our kids, my issue to look after them. Emmy has been working all week and-” “Katie, you asked her for one favour. One favour because Flossie hasn’t been well. It’s not like you ask her all the time. She shouldn’t have said that.” Steve tossed his jacket into the back of the car, shaking his head in frustration at his eldest. “Well that’s two of us saying things we shouldn’t.” Katie sniffed

“What do you mean?”

“I really lost it at Jamie. I wouldn’t let him invite Seb over because of the doll and then when he threatened to leave I said I’d pack his back and drive him wherever he wanted to go and then he called me the worse mom in the world and-” Steve paused, leaning against the open door of his car taking a deep breath.

“He hates me too, apparently.” Katie continued with a sniff. “And I know he’s lashing out and saying stupid crap because he’s angry but I lost it at him, told him to get up the fucking stairs and, Jesus, Steve I really wanted to hit him.” She started to cry again and Steve pinched the bridge of his nose. He hated hearing her like this. She had been up and down since Flossie had been born but had insisted it was merely hormones and tiredness. As he stood there, the guilt washing over him at the fact he’d left her alone today in the first place, he was starting to wish he’d forced her to go to the Doctors months ago instead of accepting her insistence that she would be fine.

“Did you hit him?” He asked softly, already knowing the answer.

“No, of course no!” She bit back, angrily “What do you take me for?”

“I don’t take you for anything, Sweetheart.” He replied not rising to her anger, despite the fact he felt equally as pissed at his son’s attitude. “I’m merely making the point that it doesn’t matter what you felt. The fact is you didn’t.” “But-” “Honey, stop.” He spoke firmly but gently “Look, I’ll be home in about half hour. I’ll deal with him then and I’ll take them all out for a walk with Stark before dinner okay? Give you a little peace.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t want to ruin your plans or-” “You haven’t. They’re my kids too. We’re a team, we always will be.”

She sniffed again “Okay, see you soon.” “Yeah, hey. I love you.” “Love you too.” He cut the call and got in the car, starting the engine and as soon as his Bluetooth had synched up, he instructed the voice control to call Emmy.

“Hey Pops-” “Don’t hey pops me, I have a bone to pick with you Emily Jayne Rogers.” He spoke sternly as he set the car into reverse. “Did you actually say to your Ma that you weren’t helping out with Jay and Rori today because, and I quote, they’re not yours to babysit?” There was a pause “No, that’s, those weren’t my exact words.” “Well what were?” He asked, pulling the car out of the parking lot and onto the road.

Emmy sighed “I just said that I’d been invited out and seeing as I’d been working all week and they’re not actually my kids, I didn’t want-“

Steve let out a growl “For fucks sake Em!”

“Woah, hang on-” “We asked you to help us out today because Flossie’s been bad with her teeth and your mom needed a bit of time to just concentrate on her.”

There was a pause. “Well why didn’t she just say that before?” “Because she’s your Mom, and she won’t ever ask you to do something like that when you don’t want to, you know this.” Steve replied. “And now I’ve just had her on the phone, crying her eyes out as Jamie’s told her he hates her…” he sighed

“Sorry Dad.” Emmy said quietly. “I didn’t….if I’d have realised it was that big of an issue…” “We know they’re not your kids but if we ask you to help out it’s a last resort.” Steve continued, “I’m well aware you and Queens have your own life to lead too and we don’t want to take it for-granted that you can drop everything to help out, but sometimes, well, especially with everything that happened with Flossie, your Mom just needs a hand ok? She’s done enough for you over the years. She still does.”

“I know.” Emmy sighed, her tone contrite. “I’m really sorry.”

“Okay, well let’s leave it there then.” He said, his tone softer. “Are you home tonight or…” “Yeah, I’ll be home around ten. I’ll apologise to Mom then too“ “Fine, I’ll see you later.”

After another apology from Emmy, Steve cut the call and took a deep, calming breath as he slowed to a stop at a set of lights. He was dreading what he was going to walk into when he got home. He hated being ‘Bad Cop’ but there was no way Jamie was getting away with what he said, regardless of whether or not Katie had snapped at him.

True to his word he arrived home just under thirty minutes after speaking to Katie. He let himself in, giving Stark a quick pat hello before he was accosted by a flurry pink t-shirt, green corduroy dungarees and brown hair.

“Hi, Daddy!” Rori grinned at him as he swept her up into a hug.

“Hey Princess.” He smiled, giving her a kiss to her cheek. He then smiled at Harry who was toddling towards him, and with his other arm he easily picked him up too. “Hey, Buddy.”

With a kid in each arm, he followed Flossie’s soft cries to the living room.

“Hi, Sweetheart.” He said, smiling at Katie who looked at him as she gently rocked their daughter to and fro in the little rocking crib that stood by the sofa. He took a deep breath as he looked at her face. She was exhausted, he could see that. Her eyes were red from crying, she was pale but she still managed a soft smile at him.

“Listen, can you two go play and let me speak to momma for a few minutes? I promise I’ll come through in a little while okay?” Steve looked from Harry to Rori who gave a dramatic pout but one look from Steve stopped her in her tracks and she sighed.

“Ok, Daddy.” “Thank you.” He smiled as he placed them both down and they headed out of the room.

“C’mere.” He sighed to Katie as he dropped down next to her and she leaned straight into his open arms as he pressed a soft kiss to her head. “You wanna tell me properly what happened?” So she did. She explained all about the fight between Jamie and Rori, the broken doll, her argument with Jamie afterwards. She was sobbing by the time she finished, and Steve simply sat still, his arms round her as she pressed her face into his chest.

“So you cursed at him.” Steve said, and Katie nodded “I’m sure he’s heard far worse from TV and Bucky and Sam for that matter.” “That’s not the point.” Katie shook her head, pulling back. “I lost my temper, big time. I shouldn’t have done. I could have quite happily smacked him straight across the face.” She sniffed “What kind of mother feels that?”

“Katie, what he said was downright nasty. I’m not surprised you reacted the way you did.”

“I know he was pushing the boundaries and what he had said was out of order but still, he’s a kid.” Katie swallowed. “I should know better than to argue back with him or scream at him the way I did.” “Honey, you’ve had a really, really stressful year one way or another.” Steve took a deep breath and wiped her tears with his thumb. “I do think though that you should see a doctor, just to talk about things.” Katie shook her head. “I’m just tired Steve.” “Katie, you said this the other month when I suggested it and you’re clearly not just tired.” He replied, a little sternly.

“Steve I don’t need to see anyone.”

“You trying to convince me or yourself?”

“I just need a nap. I’m exhausted.”

“Katie…” “Just leave it, Steve.” She said a little louder. “Please.” Steve took a deep breath.  “Fine, I’ll leave it for tonight. But this conversation is not over.”

She looked at him, her green eyes flashing angrily before she shook her head and stood up “Whatever, I’ll be upstairs if you need me.”

“Do you want me to order you any dinner?”

She shook her head “Just get what they want, I’ll eat something later.”

He watched her go before he glanced down at Flossie who was sleeping and headed through to the kitchen.

“Daddy we get eeza?” Harry looked up at him from where he was once more sat colouring and Steve smiled, dropping his hand to the back of his head.

“Sure are.” He smiled “What kind d’ya want?”

“Ham and ‘ineapple.” He nodded.

Steve pulled a face “Pineapple does not belong on pizza.” “Does.” Harry insisted giggling. “You silly.”

“Oh am I?” Steve asked, his hands shooting down to his son’s side as he tickled him slightly, Harry giving a squeal as he squirmed away from his touch. Steve chuckled and dropped a kiss to his head as Rori watched him.

“I agree with Harry.” She said. “Ham and pineapple is the best.”

“Well I’ll get you a large one and you can both share it, that okay?” Rori nodded and Steve smiled. “Good, now Princess, I need you to do me a huge favour. I need to go and speak to Jamie. Flossie is sleeping but if you hear her wake up I need you to come get me okay?”

“He broke my doll.” Rori said, frowning, “Look.” She pointed to the side and Steve looked up, taking a deep breath as his eyes fell on the beheaded toy.

“I know, and that’s what I’m going to speak to him about.” He looked back at his daughter. “Now, Rori, I want you to tell me honestly, what were you doing to him to make him break it?” She looked at him, her green eyes round as she blinked and then looked down at the table. “I hit him with it.”

“Why?”

“He was being annoying, he wouldn’t let me watch my programme on TV.

“You shouldn’t do that.” Steve looked at her sternly. “That was naughty.”

“I know. Sorry.” She looked down again before she glanced back up. “Momma said you might be able to fix her.” “I’ll have a look.” He nodded

“If not then Jamie can buy me a new one with his allowance.” Rori shrugged.

“No he can’t.” Steve shook his head. “It serves you right for hitting him with it in the first place.” “But, Daddy!” Rori exclaimed, utterly horrified.

“Aurora,” Steve looked at her, shaking his head, “don’t argue with me.” She pouted and then let out a dramatic sigh. “Fine.” “Now, can you do what I asked whilst I go speak to your brother? And then once I’m done we can go to the park for bit before we order dinner.”

“Yay! Park!” Harry cheered as Rori nodded. Steve ruffled her hair before he headed up the stairs.

He knocked on Jamie’s door and then walked in, closing it behind him. Jamie glanced up at him from where he was sat on his bean bag playing on his Xbox, and one look at Steve’s face made the ten year old avert his eyes.

“Yeah, you might as well look like that.” Steve spoke sternly “James, I’m so disappointed in you. Do you have any idea about how upset your Mom is after you told her you hated her?”

“I didn’t mean it.” Jamie looked down at his hands, his voice quiet.

“I should hope not.” Steve shook his head, sitting down on the edge of Jamie’s bed. “Why did you say it?”

“Because she was shouting at me and she made me angry.”

“You make us angry too sometimes.” Steve looked at him. “How would you feel if we told you we hated you?”

Jamie looked down, swallowing as she shrugged a little. “Sad.”

“Exactly.” Steve watched him. “Now, you know why was your mom was shouting don’t you?” “Because I was fighting with Rori and broke her doll.” Jamie said, before he took a deep breath “But she was hitting me with…”

Steve cut him off, holding his hand up. “Yes, I know she was being a pain in the ass but she’s younger than you and sometimes you just need to rise above it. We’ve told you before, if she’s annoying you, you come find one of us to deal with her.” “But Flossie was crying so I didn’t want to give Mom more to deal with.” Jamie sniffed and Steve saw him reach up to wipe his eyes. “I’m sorry.” “It’s not me you should be apologising to.”

“I know.” Jamie looked down. “Is Mom still upset?” “Yeah, she is.” Steve nodded “But she’s gone for a nap so you can apologise later when we get dinner.”

“Okay.” Jamie nodded “Do you think she will forgive me?” “Of course she will, she’s your Mom. She loves you, we both do, more than anything.” Steve spoked softly, watching as his boy raised his head to look at him. “But that doesn’t mean what you said is okay or that it won’t hurt anymore. And if I ever hear you saying that to your Mom, or anyone of us for that matter I’m gonna be really mad, you got that?” Jamie looked down, his tears falling onto his carpet. “Yes, Dad.”

Steve took a deep breath and then spoke again, this time his voice was a lot gentler. “You know Rori wants me to make you buy her another Doll out of your allowance.”

“I will if I need to.” Jamie shrugged and Steve smiled, reaching out to gently lay his hand on his son’s head.

“Well, I’ve told her if I can’t fix her doll then its tough luck because she shouldn’t have hit you with it” Steve shook his head. Jamie looked up at him and gave a soft smile. “But that doesn’t mean you breaking it was acceptable.” Jamie nodded to show he understood.

“Okay, well, I’m gonna go check on your momma then we can take Stark for a walk. Get some fresh air at the park. But when we get back, you’re having dinner and going straight to bed. Actions…”

“…have consequences, yeah I know.” Jamie let out a sigh.

“Alright, get your stuff and grab Stark’s leash and I’ll meet you downstairs in a minute.” “Okay, Dad.”

Steve stood up and headed out of Jamie’s room, over to the landing. He quietly opened the door and as suspected Katie was curled up on the bed, the TV playing gently in the background, her eyes closed as she slept. He walked over to her, dropped a kiss to her head before he turned off the TV and headed back out of the room, closing the door behind him.

*****

When Katie woke the house was quiet and empty. It wasn’t quite six pm yet, so she assumed Steve had taken the kids out as he had suggested before. But the quiet was as suffocating as the noise had been earlier and she needed to escape. She headed into the hallway, grabbed the keys to her Range Rover before she hesitated, and with a smile took the ones to her Camero instead.

She drove and drove, not paying any attention to where she was going. Just letting the feel of her beloved car sooth her as she turned the steering wheel, the leather smooth in her hand, the noise of the engine reminding her of the day Tony had given it to her, singing along to whatever her shuffle threw up over the speakers.

When she finally focused on her surroundings, she realised she had driven herself to the old compound perimeter fence. She kept going a little further round, finding the parking lot for the Memorial Gardens before she parked and climbed out. She hadn't set foot on the Garden grounds since that day, five years ago almost, when the President has opened them. Once the rubble had been cleared from the grounds, the remaining area of the facility had been refurbished and she had agreed with Pepper to donate it to a Military Charity, although Katie had her suspicions that Ross had gotten his claws into it, even if she couldn't prove it. That area stood behind a huge fence but the rest of the grounds has been converted into public gardens. The lawns were well kept. Shrubs pruned, flower beds well-tended. You would hardly know that a brutal battle had taken place here. But Katie knew, she remembered it like yesterday, and her eyes could pick out that spot from here.

The spot she had watched her brother succumb to the injuries he sustained from wearing the gauntlet. She didn't need the little plaque that told her where it was. She could find it in her sleep. Her eyes strayed to the right, to the path that led to the woods round the side which contained the clearing where she had spent so much time with Steve and Nat, and suddenly she craved for it. She craved the peace and sanctuary that little clearing has given her. She strode over the lawns, ignoring the curious looks she was getting from some people who were out in the gardens and slipped through the gaps in the oak trees and headed along the now overgrown track until she came to the little clearing. Smiling, she saw the initials still carved into the tree. SR KS in a heart, Steve's joke one afternoon as they'd snatched half an hour at lunch between his training drills.

“Seriously?” she snorted as Steve turned to her, grinning as he folded his pocket knife up and slipped it into his utility belt.

“This is what we did in my day, Doll, no graffiti.” He grinned and she’d shook her head, snorting.

“No, just vandalism on a poor, defenceless tree.” She laughed as his arms circled her waist, his chin dropping to her shoulder.

“Not like the tree can feel it.” He replied with a shrug, kissing her neck.

She gave a little snort at that, wondering what exactly Thor’s friend Groot would do if Steve tried to carve their initials into him... The ground was dry thanks to the summer weather so she happily dropped to the grass, her back to the trunk of the aforementioned vandalised tree and pulled her knees to her chest. She took a deep breath, allowing the silence to wash over her, to calm her. She thought about all the times she had spent here and on the compound. The good times had far outweighed the bad, in fact one of the happiest days of her life had been on the lawns out there- her wedding. What a beautiful day that had been some fifteen years ago. A time before The Accords, a time before Thanos, a time before the death of her best friend and her brother had ripped a huge hole in her life. Laying her head back against the rough bark she took a deep breath and her mind flicked to the events of the day and how bad she felt about her outburst at Jamie. No one had told her motherhood would be easy. In fact, quite the opposite. But she had coped. And to be honest she thought that her and Steve had done a pretty good job so far. But Flossie had been hard work from the start. She had struggled to feed, struggled to settle at night, the only one out of her and Steve's four biological kids to ever fall sick for longer than a day at a time and all this coupled with the fact it had taken Katie almost two months to recover from her operation had left her feeling helpless.

She hadn't been able to drive to any of the paediatrician appointments, any of her follow up hospital appointments, hadn't been able to take the kids to school, sports clubs or take Flossie out anywhere to escape the house without help. Steve had stepped up, because he was that kind of man, a good one doing right by his wife and kids, but still the fact she was limited to leaving the house when Steve or someone else was there to lend a hand had been hard on her mentally. This hopeless, dark despair had festered in her chest and she felt useless because she hadn't been able to look after any of her kids alone. And then, as if by magic, the cloud had lifted. She had still been a little down on some days, but on the whole just better. She was given the all clear to exercise so threw herself back into that, losing not only the baby weight from Flossie but taking it a little further and finally ridding herself of the extra 15lb Harry had given her before that. She felt good, she looked good all things considered, and it showed. She felt happier at work, happier at home and far happier in the bedroom, Steve seemingly couldn't keep his hands off her...but she knew that he would have been like that regardless of what she looked like. That was one thing in her life she was confident in- that her soldier loved her no matter what.

All this meant the noise in her head had quietened to a point where she could shut it out completely, she could get on with life, concentrate on her husband and children, control her emotions, well, until her outburst today.

Fuck, maybe Steve was right. Maybe she did need to speak to someone. They had warned her at the hospital that she’d feel some mood swings- all part and parcel of recovery as her body went through the damned menopause, thanks to her hysterectomy, and they’d told her that support was available…but the thought needing it made her feel even worse. After everything she had faced, through her SHIELD and Avenging days, her suffering at the hands of HYDRA...she’d never once had PTSD or depression beyond a few nightmares and panic attacks. The thought that she now might need counselling of some description because she was struggling to cope with her baby and her damned emotions made her feel weak.

“What kind of mother can’t cope with her own children?” She mumbled out loud to herself. “I mean, what on Earth is the point of me even being in their lives if that’s the case?”

She fell silent again, as she wiped a tear from her cheek before she closed her eyes, remaining quiet simply listening to the birds and noises of the stream which ran through the woods to the lake…and then a voice spoke. A voice she hadn't heard for seven years bar in her dreams. A voice she had known all her life. A voice that had comforted her, disciplined her, argued with her, encouraged her...

"I like what they did with the place. A little smaller memorial than I would have liked, but, suppose it’s the thought that counts." Her breathing grew erratic and her eyes flew open, the tears now steadily pouring from them. With a shuddering breath, Katie scrambled to her feet and looked straight into the deep brown eyes of her bother.

Her dead brother.

Her dead brother who was standing in front of her, dressed in one of his usual three piece Tom Fords, that typical Tony Stark smirk on his face as he glanced at her, his smile growing even wider.

“Hey Kiddo.”

 **Orignal Posting**

#stark spangled destiny #steve rogers #Katie Stark #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers fic #steve rogers x ofc #steve rogers x original female character #mcu #mcu fanfic #chris evans #chris evans characters

[umccall71]

Chapter 16

Characters: Prince Liam and MC Lady Sexy

Rating:Mature content includes profanity, sexual content,talks about depression.

Word Count:5789

Disclaimer:All characters are property of Pixelberry except my OC Lady Saige. The use of these characters are for entertainment only and i am only borrowing them.

Summary:After a summer of a lifetime,Prince Liam thought he could have it all.He was carefree, free, and sharing time with the woman of his dreams.When life was easy, a balancing act between love and duty, he realizes his truths are lies, wrong is right, and decisions do have consequences. Lady Saige never imagined she would be one of his consequences.When an utter act horror throws her world into a tailspin.

Warning: This series contains subject matter of depression and hopelessness.The story may trigger certain individuals. Please be advised. If you are reading this series you are acknowledging you are 18+.

A/N:Sorry for the long delay.Things have been hectic in my life for a bit.I had to take some time to focus on my health. Thanks for your understanding and support.

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@eadanga @ao719 @lodberg @silviasutton1989

@rainbowsinthestorm @silverofdreams @ownworldresident @the-soot-sprite @jared2612 @sashatrr @jovialyouthmusic @smalltalk88 @custaroonie @kuladekiwi @whenyourheartskipsabeat @marietrinmimi @furiousherringoperatortoad @gibbles82 @choices97 @fantasy-of-fiction @romanticatheart-posts @drakesensworld @simsvetements @blackcoffee85 @3pawandme @indiacater @hopefulmoonobject @elles-choices @carabethpow

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It was finally here … Coronation day for the newly crowned king. Liam effortlessly moved about the palace signing off on every detail that had been planned for weeks. As much as he knew this would be a huge responsibility for him, the crown, he was more anxious what the transition would mean to his queen. Saige was already apprehensive about her new role and the pregnancy, but she was also spending more nights tossing and turning in her sleep. She hardly slept nights with this underlying fear for her boogeyman… his father and visiting the bathroom several times a night from becoming sick. He would feel her trying not to disturb him as she slowly slid out of bed making her way for her nightly ritual. Some nights Liam would lie in bed with his eyes silently listening to Saige talking to their unborn child. He did not want to encroach upon those private moments hearing the promises and hopes she had for the baby.

“Hello my little wish.. I hope that I am the mommy that you need. You are so lucky to have Liam as your daddy.”, she softly smiled while rubbing her barely there belly. “I never imagined being anyone’s mommy until I met your daddy. He makes any girl wish and dream a little bigger. He loves us so much and we can’t wait to meet you. I can imagine you being placed in his arms for the first time… the pride will be undeniable. He cannot wait to introduce you to the world.”she sighed , “I just want to keep you nestled in our arms only for us , as long as I can love.”

Liam couldn't help but feel the weight of her fears as he listened to her sniffle before drifting off to sleep.

Liam bought his thoughts back to the present day, preparing for the coronation and the grand announcement of his marriage and the next heir. He mulled around pointing and correcting the tiniest detail… everything had to be flawless… going off without a hitch. He wanted Saige’s official welcome to be seamless, the perfect welcome home. She would be spending this night … her first of many hopefully in the royal quarters. He looked forward to carrying her over the threshold to their home within the palace. He made certain that Constantine and Regina were no longer residing under the same roof. Bastien had worked around the clock with the guards and staff to get them setup in a distant property belonging to the royals, but also insuring him some distance from the former king and queen. He needed no reminders to Saige of what his father had done to her peace of mind , and stealing more of her dream state.

Liam had made arrangements for The royal Phantom Rolls Royce in White to be sent ahead to carry his queen to be and Duchess Olivia to the palace from Lythikos. Inside waiting were two dozen sterling roses wrapped in royal blue and gold , and tied with an ornate gold ribbon. He also made certain there was small spread of royal blue roses representing the royal family inside.

“Liam really went all out for you Saige. He wanted nothing but the best for his wife… his soon to be queen.”,Olivia grinned like a proud mama. “You certainly have our soon to be king head over heels in love and .. loving every minute of it. Once Cordonia learns that you are queen … it won't be long before the press and the people are hounding you both about how long until the royal heir.”,she giggled.

Saige sat silently tracing the rose closest to her.She did not respond… that caused Olivia to pause. “Wait a minute.. Your rather reserved for such a big expectation.I would think you would chewing your right arm to get away from such a pressure.” Saige looked out of the window as the Rolls Royce made its way closer to the palace.

“I wonder what time Liam wants me to start getting dressed? This is a big night for him… for us.”Her voice grew quiet thinking about the big announcement. “I just hope his father stays as far away from me as possible. Would it be too much to expect to avoid him all together?”, she spoke her private thoughts aloud, deflecting on the conversation OLivia had started about expectations of an heir. She and Liam had not shared with anyone that they were expecting a child , not even her best friend. The number of people that knew , she could count on one hand.

Olivia arched her brow staring daggers at Saige, “No comment about what i've said?”, she questioned.

“So Liv , will Drake be joining you tonight? As your date? This is a big night for Liam and myself as his … wife. When are you planning to tell Liam that your involved? He has a lot of questions and even mentioned introducing you to some eligible nobles.”

Olivia snapped her head , “he wouldn’t dare… I do not need the next king to set me up like some old spinster. I can find my own dates, thank you very much!”,she emphasized the H at the end of her statement.

“You know all of this could be squashed if he only knew that you were already spoken for.. by Drake. He’d be happy as a clam to learn two of our best friends are in love.”

“Who said anything about love Saige? We enjoy relieving stress and being a warm body every now and then.” She seemed to protest louder as the conversation steered away from an heir to her love life. “Let us not get caught up in labels, he’s a fun ride, much like this gorgeous car. As those words were spoken the car came to a stop in front of the palace doors. The ladies were greeted by several members of the royal guard. The door to the Rolls Royce opened and Saige was formally greeted, Lady Saige, your grace… I am here to escort you to the boutique per his highness order. I am instructed to not leave until he meets you .” Saige was taken aback by all the attention.. Especially now. “That won't be necessary… we can find our way.”, she spoke softly. “Maam , I do understand, but I have my orders. The king would have my head if I left you alone… I'm sorry.”, the guard lowered his eyes as the two women slid from the back seat and made their way to the front doors in similar maxi dresses until they got dolled up together for the evening.

Moments after arriving in the boutique, Saige felt her purse vibrating from her incoming call...she instantly smiled. “Hello.”, her cheeks were hurting so much from smiling.

Liam cleared his throat, “ I have it on good authority that the next queen of Cordonia has arrived.”he smirked.

Saige twirled a loose tendril of her dark hair as she listened to the deep sultry tone of her husband on the other end of the phone. “I too have it on good authority that the next king is in the building … and he is gorgeous,'' she chuckled. “Love..In about two hours the transition of power will be complete...then you and I will take reign as the future rulers of Cordonia. For now.. I will leave you to get ready with Liv. I hope you enjoy my surprise. I will meet you in an hour to personally escort my bride to the ball.”

Saige ended her call and the boutique staff approached her with garment bags, stylish shoes, and hair and make up stylist were ready. They were ready to coif the beautiful auburn hair and porcelain skin of the next queen. The transformation was underway. She felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman , without the chosen profession of the lead character.

“My God Liv… is this really happening … all these people attending to me like a ….”, she trailed off.

“You mean like a queen? That is your title within the next few hours… Liam’s queen. Get used to it, having people anticipate your every need or want. Women would fall over themselves for your life, your man… your king.”, she lowered her voice for the tail end of the statement. “Get used to the fact that he loves you and he wants you with him, by his side in every facet of his life.

“Liv I know he loves me… that’s not my issue, it’s what the other nobles will think.”

“To hell with what they think… the only people that matter are you and Liam. As long as your both making each other happy, that’s all that counts. I don’t give a damn Saige what those uptight sons of bitches think about my best friend and the man she loves and he loves the hell out of her.Saige, your no consolation prize for our soon to be king Liam… you're his prize. That man chose you because you are what makes him happy… makes him smile… makes him see a future, your his future.”

Saige fell quiet, unnoticeably touching her belly. She stood in front of the antique mirror as the staff scurried around her preparing her hair and makeup. Olivia’s words washing over her like a thunderstorm filling the night sky and bursting out of unsuspecting clouds. No corner of her mind went unoccupied as she replayed her best friends words. Saige sat in the chair as the hair stylist composed her auburn locks into a meticulously braided updo.The elegant style was finished off with majestic flowers and greenery. She sat still as her porcelain skin was accentuated with light touches of blush , eye shadow, mascara,and lip stain.

When the finishing touches were placed upon her eyes , the ocean blue popped from her eyes. “Oh Saige … you look beautiful… There will not be a closed mouth as you enter the ballroom on the arm of your king.”, such pride laced every word as Olivia beamed at her friend.

“Thanks Liv… I appreciate your kindness.”

“It’s not kindness if it’s true. Everyone will see exactly who Liam sees. He didn’t fall in love with you, he leaped in love with you.”,she smiled.

“The phrase falling in love implies that you slipped and you didn’t know where you were gonna land. It was no accident that Liam wanted to court you and eventually marry you.He saw what a phenomenal woman you are Saige.” Olivia gently grasped her friend’s hand. Moments later the royal tailor appeared with a cobalt blue gown, satin flowy, off the shoulder gown meant for a queen. There was a slender tie detailing her midsection. The seamstress helped Saige into her gown and covered her mouth in awe of the beauty before her. Saige slid on a set of rhinestone stilettos that adorn intricate details on the heel.

“Madame… his majesty will be in awe of the sight of you.”, she grinned at the reflection of the full picture of Saige standing in the mirror.

“I couldn’t agree more Celeste. My love, you look stunning. I expected nothing less from you. You always take my breath away.” Liam slid up behind her and leaned down kissing her cheek as their eyes locked upon her image standing before him. Liam was dressed in his formal Royal uniform. He wore black with a red sash and royal blue and satin metals draping the sash.

“You look so handsome Liam… then you always look so handsome.I am a lucky girl to be escorted by you for such a night.”, her smile filled her face from ear to ear. Her dimples on display as she bursted with love in her eyes.

“Are you ready my love… this is our night and no one will stand in our way. I will formally introduce you as my wife and my queen.”Liam tipped Saige’s face up to look deeply into his eyes as he whispered, “we will be celebrating the upcoming birth of our child next. I am looking forward to making love with you in our royal quarters tonight.”,he stared at her with lust blown eyes filled with desire.

“I know the way to the ballroom and… I know when I’m a third wheel”, Olivia laughed, “i'll see you two soon .” She sashayed out of the boutique and down the flight of the grand staircase.

“Our guest awaits love… come.”Liam extended his arm and Saige wove her arm through his resting her hand in the crook. They both smiled softly as they made their way down the grand staircase flanked by the royal guards. As they approached the ballroom the sound of the orchestra playing bellowed down the hall from the acoustics. The doors opened and the trumpets sounded announcing Prince Liam and his date, Lady Saige.All eyes were on them as they were surveyed from head to toe. Saige swallowed hard trying to contain her nerves. She felt Liam reassuringly squeeze her hand. “You will be fine love… this is our night. Everything was planned down to the second.”, she nodded in acceptance.

Liam ushered Saige by the hand as he made introductions and his rounds before the formal announcement was to commence. She smiled as she met everyone officially and was reintroduced to Penelope and Kiara. “It’s lovely to see you both again, they curtsied knowing that Saige and Liam were already married and she was by right royalty.

Liam led Saige out into the center of the elegantly decorated ballroom where he led her in the Cordoniam waltz. Everyone disappeared as the couple danced effortlessly around what felt like every inch of the ballroom. “ I can’t believe you get to live like this all the time.”, she leaned her head down as she giggled softly.

“This is our life and we have a lifetime of happiness to experience.”, he kissed her cheek. The music slowed and then came to a stop as the staff started circulating with flutes of champagne to every noble in the room.

Olivia stood by the bar where she inconspicuously grazed Drake’s manhood as he sported a dress suit that was a surprise. “ I never thought I’d see you in a suit.”, she shot a sly grin.

“Don’t get used to it… it was only at the request of our king to be.”, he knocked backed a glass of whiskey.

The trumpets sounded again announcing the arrival of king father Constantine and queen mother Regina.

Saige cringed at the sight of her attacker, standing in front her bold eyes and entitled. She slid slightly behind Liam as they neared the dais.Liam gripped her hand as if to send her a message… that she’s safe with him.Olivia and Drake moved closer to the front in case Liam lost it and assaulted his father again. The two of them knew what very few knew… the events of the last night she spent in this ballroom.

Saige chewed the inside of her cheek as her nerves turned into battling butterflies in her tummy. Olivia moved to her best friends side knowing her internal struggle to keep it together. “We’ve got you Saige”, she grinned in the direction of Constantine, “besides I’m wearing my knives.. we can certainly cut him down to size.”, she sneered.

“ I’m okay.. tonight is about Liam and him being crowned king. Nothing will get in the way of his big night.”, she began dusting invisible lint from her gown.

Constantine cleared his throat, “ ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for joining us on this auspicious night. We come together for the next dynasty to lead Cordonia into prosperity. I have enjoyed spending the last three decades as your monarch, and now… I look forward to passing the baton to my son… Liam. He may not have been the first crowned prince, but he is destined to lead Cordonia forward. He is the next monarch Cordonia deserves. I am proud to pass the Royal signet to my son… our next ruler. I present … King Liam .”

The room burst into thunderous applause and the clinking of champagne glasses. Liam made his way to the dais where his father and step mother hugged him and raised glasses in celebration.

He raised his hand to silence the room before he began his speech. He smiled down at Saige as she stood beside Olivia, Liam’s blue eyes veered to his side watching his father and Regina.

“Thank you all for helping to usher in the next chapter in Cordonia’s future. I only want happiness and prosperity for all our people and myself. I only want the best and brightest future as your king. I will work tirelessly to be the best leader I can be to all of Cordonia. I want a Cordonia that will be legacy to all of our children, and grandchildren. This country, this kingdom is a home I aspire to build where families can come together and help shape a brilliant path for Cordonia. I owe lady Cordonia my life, and I will be forever indebted to her for bringing me such joy and pride. I know it is tradition that when a king ascends to the throne he must be engaged or married.”, Liam smiled brightly out into the crowd watching the women adjusting their dresses and primping in hopes of being honored to participate in the next social season. “ I will honor the tradition, but I also announce that there will not be a social season . You see … There is no need for a social season… I am proud to announce that I have already found my queen. I met my queen and fell in love with her upon sight. She has shown me that I can be a better man, a better king, a better husband and, soon I will add the title as a better father.”, his blue eyes sparkled as the light of the chandelier hit the flecks in his eyes. “I would like to formally introduce my wife, my new queen and the mother to the next heir to the throne… all hail her majesty , Queen Saige.”

The room was filled with gasps and shock as their newly appointed king had revealed he had his queen and a child on the way. He managed to silence everyone, including his father. Suddenly Olivia led the round of applause and a toast to the new king and queen. Penelope, Kiara, and Drake made their way forward as Liam walked down the stairs of the dais to greet his queen. He led her back up to the dais to show off his wife to all in attendance. Saige smiled gently, trying to hide her nerves as all eyes again landed on her and Liam. She felt as though she were under a microscope as the news was sinking in that she was married to the now king and carrying his child.. the next heir to the throne.

“Liam what did you just do? She continued to smile as the crowd cheered and applauded the royals. “Love… you and our baby are nobody’s secret. I am proud to have you by side… and now you will be celebrated for the queen you are in my life.”

Liam came down on one knee, “a king only kneels to his queen.”, he bowed his head, kissing her hand. He rose to his queen and led her out onto the floor heading out to the balcony doors when they were headed off by none other than king father Constantine. Saige’s face grew white as a sheet upon laying her eyes on her perpetrator.

“Liam… I wanted to pay my respects to the new queen … I would never have thought that such a simple woman would plant herself in the path of history as a concubine to the king.”

Liam locked eyes with his father, “I would choose my next words wisely old man. Go ahead... try what little patience I have dwindling when it comes to you. You will respect my wife, my queen… your reign of terror is over Constantine . Saige is my wife and the mother of my child. You should be bowing in her presence as the mother of the next Rhys that will ascend the throne. I strongly suggest you call upon your training to show your other nobles that you are happy for us… or I shall make sure everyone in this room learn of your past transgressions.”, Liam was seething but his reaction was hidden from an untrained eye.

Regina walked up and scowled momentarily as she smiled at Saige, “ I suppose you should be congratulated on your chess moves my dear , marrying the now king and then passing off some..”, she was cut off by Liam, “we bid you both good night .”

Liam took Saige by her hand and led her out onto the balcony closing the doors behind them.

He pulled her over into the alcove and held her in his arms and chest as she released her breath and her tears that she was fighting to conceal until she was away from prying eyes. As much as she wanted to break down in front of Constantine, she couldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“It’s okay love, I’m here, I’m not going anywhere.”, he whispered into her hair as she clung tightly to him as she collapsed in his arms holding onto him for strength and to hold her up, at least until she could fall apart in his arms, in their bed.

Saige looked up at Liam through wet lashes and saddened eyes, “I’m sorry Liam.. I didn’t want to ruin this night for you.”, she fought back sobs.

“Saige, you have zero to be sorry about love. This night is for us and no.one will take our joy.”Liam met her lips with fiery passion and he found his soulmate in that moment as the night sky burst into fireworks and he wrapped her in his arms as vibrant burst of gold and blue blaze a path across the sky.

Liam took a handkerchief out and dabbed the corners of her eyes as they glided back into the ballroom and nodding as they made their way toward the door. Liam thanked his guest as the evening wound down. The new king and queen slowly walked the darkened halls of the palace toward the royal quarters. After climbing the stairs and turned a maze of hallways they reached the ornate set of golden gilded doors.He turned and landed his blue eyes upon her matching set of blue eyes. “Welcome to our new home my queen.”He lifted her in his arms and carried her across the threshold kicking the door closed behind them . His lips melded to her as he carried her down the hall and to their suite.Liam gently laid her back on the tapestry of this duvet cover and the mountain of decorative touches and pillows. He slowly eyed her beauty as he was consumed with lust and love. “God you are beautiful.” His hands ghosted over her face, her chiseled jaw, her slender neck, her ample breasts and slid around to undo her zipper. His gaze never left her eyes as his fingertips traced gently down the soft skin of her back.

Liam undid the satin wrap around Saige’s waist and slid her cobalt blue gown down her frame. His lips were soft and warm as they gently sucked and nibbled her neck , her pink buds that stood erect under his touch, and relished the sensation as he moved effortlessly down her chest and paid homage to her tiny belly that was nestling their baby away safely.

He looked up as her manicured nails teased at the nape of neck playing with his fine hairs.

“ I crave you my love… let me serve you tonight.”Liam slowly parted her thighs so warm, as he seeked solace in her center.He felt her satin thong, “your so wet for me already love.” He laid a soft kiss to her perfection over her underwear feeling how damp she was for him. “What would you like my queen?”, he whispered as he stared between her eyes and her sex.

She panted in anticipation, “ I want you, only you Liam, my king.” With those words rolling off of her tongue like a soliloquy.His teeth locked on the waistband of her underwear and guided them slowly down her thighs.

“Oh Liam”, her fingers locked into his hair as he removed her underwear that were soaked from her desire.He eased up her thighs nipping at each exposed area as he found her now bare skin lying before him.

Liam smiled at her before he worshipped her, “the things I want to do with you love… I can’t wait to pay my respects to my beautiful queen.” He rubbed soft circles on her clit and slid his fingers between her slick folds. Saige’s body relaxed under his touch, growing slightly impatient wanting to feel his lips on her . A deep breath escaped her as she finally felt his lips latch around her pearl working his magic instantly.Liam curled two fingers inside her as he increased the pressure he applied to her clit.

His eyes slowly closed as he had his way , his tongue tracing slow figure eights as it danced around her sensitive clit. Her stomach rose and fell as she felt her lips fluttering around his tongue as she neared her release. “ Liam.. oh god… I ..,”, she trailed off riding this pleasurable wave as she tipped over the edge as he continued to ride her with his tongue and lips as she came undone under him. He smiled as he watched her lift her hips off the bed .

“Good girl… I love you my queen. Just know”, he licked his lips enjoying tasting her essence on his mouth. “ I’m just getting started my love”,he smirked as he moved like a cat with his prey up here body. He nipped and sensually ran the tip of his tongue up her sides. He played with her slick folds with his impressive girth and length. Liam was no small man, but she loved the way he made her feel, not just physically, but with the love he exuded as they came together time and time again.

Liam came to hover just above her as her nipples rose to come in close contact with his chest and chiseled abs . Saige was writhing beneath Liam counting the moments he would make her his ... again... only this time in the royal boudoir.

“Are you ready for me?”, he ran the tip of his massive member along the seam of her entrance. Liam ran his thumb over the tip coming in contact with his precum. He lifted his hand to her lips, “do you want taste what you do to me love?”, he smirked as her mouth fell slightly open allowing her lips to capture his thumb as she gently sucked and licked his fresh nectar. “Tonight is about you my queen.” He nibbled her chin as he plunged deep inside pausing for a moment allowing her to adjust to the way he filled her eager sex. Liam felt her stretching and gripping around him. “Are you okay love… I’m not hurting you am I ?”, he kissed her sensitive area beneath her ear. Saige shook her head no. She lifted her hips to meet his , pleading silently for him to move. She realized how desperately she needed him, she needed to be with him. Liam obliged by slowly working his manhood deeper inside of her quivering walls. Liam watched as her head fell back each time he hit her spot perfectly as he drove himself deeper. He lifted her leg around his hip allowing himself to move his hips driving her closer to the edge again.

Liam knelt on his knees lifting her hips , legs dangling over his toned thighs as he lifted her hips repeatedly as he met her thrust gently pushing her further as the fire built in her belly each time she felt her body getting closer… wanting to scream as he grinded his hips into hers . “Liam.. I’m about to …”, her words were swallowed by his kiss. “ come for me Saige… I need to watch you cum with me love “, his eyes flashed from deep sky blue to a darkened gray as he became consumed with his body molding to hers in perfect sync. He felt his abs tightening and his breathing becoming ragged as he picked up the pace . “Fuck Saige … you feel amazing. His mouth locked on her buds as she began shaking , thighs were weak as she coated his manhood as she came undone for a second time. Liam felt his member pulsing as she fluttered and clinched as she rode her release, he picked up speed and drove deeply into her pounding her spot over and over as she screamed his name losing herself. Something about hearing his name on her lips in that sensual growl sent him over the edge and he too met his own release.

Liam held her close to him , lowering her hips, allowing her legs to go limp beneath him. He gently kissed her belly before laying his head on her stomach. His fingertips slowly played with her belly as they both slowly felt their bodies and breathing returning to normal. They both laid covered in a light slick film of sweat as evidence of their passionate love making.

He kissed her belly, “I love you… I love you both with all my heart. I can’t imagine being as happy as I am tonight… lying beside you, here in the dark , feeling your heartbeating with mine… softly hearing your shallow breathing … I know that I’m home in your arms. I promise to work faithfully to make you happier each day we spend together. I may be king… but I will first and always be your husband.”

Liam maneuvered up and behind Saige’s body, wrapping her in his arms , inhaling her scent of jasmine as he nuzzled her neck with his nose .

“Are you happy my love? I want nothing more than for you to be happy… I hope your happy with me.” Saige listened to her self assured husband flashing a morsel of doubt. He seemed to fear that she would not feel that he was going to continue to make her happy.

Saige laid there quietly before she rolled over facing her king, “Liam… you never have to doubt that your my happiness… my best friend… my soulmate. I can never imagine a life without you.. without us.” , she exhaled. “ I’m just glad that your … father is gone from here… I don’t know what I would do if he were still ...still under this roof. I want him to stay away from me… from our baby. I can’t imagine spending the next thirty three weeks fearing that he will take our child.” Liam cupped her head in his large hand as he held her close to his chest. “ shh… don’t worry… we are going to be fine. He would not dare to come back here.”

Liam would not release Saige , he laid in the dark listening to her breathing slowly calming down before falling to sleep. He thought to himself, “I hate him for this hell he cursed upon you. Baby … I’m never going to let him hurt you again.” Liam leaned back holding her tight as he stared up at the ceiling with silent tears running down his face, as he cried for the pain of his bride. “This too shall pass... I have to restore her peace of mind... at all cost.”

[aion-rsa]

The Boys Season 2 Unveils the Daddy Issues Behind the Toxic Masculinity

https://ift.tt/2GXXppR

This article contains spoilers for The Boys season 2.

Most male monsters in fiction are made by women. Or, at least, it’s women who tend to get the disproportionate share of the blame when their creations turn out to be significantly less than civilized (perhaps because, historically, most of them were written by men). The most famous examples of murderer-moulding mothers are probably Norma Bates, Cersei Lannister, Olivia Soprano and, of course, Mrs. McAllister (momma raised a real little trap-setting psycho there). In real life, too, serial killers like Ed Kemper, Ed Gein, Ted Bundy and Dennis Nilsen were all brutalized or disappointed by their mothers to such an extent that to some people the link between their formative maternal experiences and their misdeeds seems as tight and as strong as a steel cable.

This isn’t the case with Amazon’s The Boys, where it’s bad or inadequate fathers who provide male characters with the bulk of their nefarious neuroses and murderous motivations. Wee Hughie (Jack Quaid) inherited and internalized his father’s cowed outlook on the world to the point where he almost didn’t fight back when Vought tried to brush his girlfriend’s death in an A-Train wreck under the carpet. Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) was raised under the fast fists and hot temper of his old-school, tough-guy dad, whose mantra seems to have been kick first and don’t ask questions later, unless the question is: “Do you want me to fucking kick you some more?” “John” a.k.a Homelander (Antony Starr) doesn’t have a father in the conventional sense – as far as we know – but he was treated coldly, cruelly and dispassionately by his scientist ‘dad’, Jonah Vogelbaum (John Doman). So to what extent have failed father figures forged the monsters who sit upon the show’s chessboard? What else is missing from their lives? And what could prove the key to their salvations?

The previously mentioned The Sopranos is a ripe comparison, being that it also deals with familial legacies, internecine struggles, and toxic masculinity. The hallmark HBO show took the bold step of sending its proto-typical alpha-male mob boss Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) to a shrink to deal with his panic attacks and baseline depression. His sessions with his psychiatrist, Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Braco), teased out the revelation that the root of his anguish and anxieties was his own mother, the irascible and melodramatic Livia (Nancy Marchand), who in the first season shifted her life-long modus operandi from trying to kill his spirit to literally trying to kill him. It’s not hard to trace a direct line from that callous maternal influence to Tony’s behavior, and its internal and external consequences (especially when you’re dealing with Melfi’s favoured Freudian approach, for which parental trauma is its raison d’etre). But as the series – and Tony’s therapy – progressed it became clear not only that Tony’s life was richer and darker than his mother’s input allowed for, but also that Livia herself wasn’t the two-dimensional, havoc-wreaking demigod of Tony’s fears and imagination. 

She, too, had been a victim of sorts; a slave to poverty and discrimination (on grounds of both race and gender); in thrall to a violent, charismatic criminal, a man who thought nothing of throwing men a beating, chopping off their pinkies or shooting them dead; a man who was out with one of his many mistresses on the night that she miscarried a baby and needed him by her side. Tony, his son, takes these revelations and buries them, as deep as they’ll go, partly because Tony’s world is a man’s world and men get a pass, but mainly to avoid the bright bulb of introspection from falling upon his own, very similar behavior. His mother gets the blame, but who really made Tony? 

The world of The Boys is, to an extent, a man’s one, too, except that the boys here don’t get a pass. Given its title, it’s a surprisingly feminist show for one that is also, on the surface at least, a testosterone-fuelled superhero show (albeit one that takes an anti-superhero stance). The female characters are strong, but not inhumanly, infallibly strong like some of the Marvel heroes they parody. They’re flawed, human, and fascinating. They kick ass, they fuck up, but they’re never one-note or scapegoats. Of course there are bad women and mothers out there in the real world, and we shouldn’t shy away from imagining or creating those kinds of stories, but what we’ve seen on TV and film over the last decade or so is the steady opening up of a multiplicity of perspectives that’s been busy enriching our cultural currency. We should roll with that for a while. There’s a lot of lost ground to catch up on. 

Read more

TV

The Boys Season 2 Succeeds By Allowing Its Female Characters to Shine

By Lacy Baugher

TV

The Boys Season 3: What to Expect

By Lacy Baugher

Perhaps much of the appeal of stories about bad mothers relies on our preconceptions of motherhood and the expectations that have always been laid upon women to be not just good mothers, but perfect ones. A bad mother stands out more than a bad father because for much of human history it’s been almost impossible to be classed as a bad father.        

Let’s take Butcher. Without his own father’s brutality he mightn’t have been capable of becoming the effective, remorseless killing-machine we know and love, but, on the other hand, without his father’s brutality, he mightn’t felt the urge to pursue his vendetta in the first place. He might have been more like an immediately post-A-Train Hughie. But here’s the rub, because, arguably, a world with Homelanders needs Butchers, and plenty of them. There’s a weird and tragic duality at play here. Homelander is who he is largely because of his own failed father, so really the two men are destroying each other, and the world around them, because of their daddy issues.  

Butcher himself is a flawed father figure. He uses a grief-wracked Hughie as a pawn to pursue his own vendetta against The Seven, showing the same sort of callous disregard Homelander might show an underling. But through Butcher’s influence Hughie learns to be (or is forced to become) bold, assertive, even brutal; the sort of son his own father could never have let him be; wouldn’t have known how to kindle. In time, almost despite himself, Butcher comes to care about Hughie, albeit not always in a conventionally paternal way. Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) tells Butcher early on this season that Hughie is his ‘pit canary’; if something bad happens to Hughie, then Butcher will know he’s gone too far. So if Butcher can be said to be the kind of father that Hughie never had, then Hughie, in turn, can be said to be the conscience that Butcher long forsook in favor of bloodshed.  

For better and worse the men in The Boys are made by their fathers, but that only tells half the story. Their fathers, and they themselves, are aided in their osmotic, Franken-Freudian fuck-ups by the sometimes literal, sometimes figurative absence of a mother figure. Hughie’s mother? – MIA; Butcher’s mother? – passive; Homelander’s mother? – accidentally hugged to death by a young Homelander (she was a scientist Homelander had thought of as a mother, not his biological mother). 

The lack of a maternal presence bleeds most noticeably into Hughie’s and Homelander’s lives. Hughie is insecure and desperate for attachment. His romance with Starlight (Erin Moriarty) is sweet, but carries a mild undercurrent of mommy issues. What Hughie really seems to want from Starlight is words of encouragement, validation, co-dependency and a tuck-in at bedtime. Even though their relationship is sexual, there’s something charmingly chaste about it at the same time. 

It would be impossible, though, to trump Homelander’s mommy issues, manifested as they are by a fierce predilection for suckling, and a fondness for warm titty milk. Homelander may be peerlessly physically strong, but of all the show’s characters – and this is perhaps something of an understatement – he’s the most psychologically fragile.

Dr. Vogelbaum laments that the lack of a mother in Homelander’s life made him aggressive and full of hate. Putting aside for a moment this rather idealized notion of women and motherhood, if we assume that in Homelander’s case the observation is correct – and that Homelander is also on some level aware of how he’s been warped by this absence (the roots of his fetish surely can’t have escaped him) – then it’s interesting that he would choose to rob his own son, Ryan (Cameron Crovetti), of the loving maternal influence of which he himself was deprived. 

By stealing Ryan away from his mother near the end of season two – by fracturing their bond and their reality – he risks making Ryan as miserable as he was as a child; worse, in truth, because Homelander never had a loving mother to miss. While The Boys deals very well with its female characters, it hasn’t yet explored motherhood in any great depth, except to show the consequences to fatherhood when it’s absent. Season 3 may very well add some texture by exploring in flashback form Stormfront’s (Aya Cash) relationship with her now-departed daughter, or by bringing Hughie’s mother into the fold, now that we know she isn’t dead.

While Homelander’s actions vis a vis Ryan are fuelled by his malignant, myopic selfishness, and his screaming God complex, the evolution of his feelings towards the boy hinted at a capacity for redemption. As hellish as the family unit Stormfront manipulates Homelander into creating – Nazi eugenicist mother, psychopathic father, and kidnapped child – the experience of being in that family seems to soften something in him, at least for a short while. He appears receptive to and empathetic towards Ryan’s fears, and even appears not to relish the idea of Stormfront filling his head with racist propaganda. Just for a moment, salvation seems possible.

Ultimately, though, no one can allow Homelander to guide Ryan’s destiny, potential for change notwithstanding. Ryan is too powerful and volatile to risk Homelander stamping his skewed outlook upon his soul. Ironically, the act of saving his mother from Stormfront propels Ryan along the same trajectory as his father – both have now killed their mothers. I wonder if Ryan, like Dexter before him, will be born in blood, the splatter pattern arranging itself into the shape of Homelander’s cape. 

Butcher isn’t Ryan’s father, but his fealty to his dead wife and her cast-iron concept of family helps raise him from the swamp of his primal urges, resulting in him doing the right thing by both her and the boy who is the son of his greatest enemy. Clearly Butcher isn’t his own father either, his selflessness here indicating an encouraging break from the poor way he was parented. 

Perhaps The Boys isn’t trying to communicate anything about solely fatherhood or solely motherhood but rather family itself; its power to make someone belong; its power to save. The family Homelander experienced was predicated on a falsehood, but he liked the feel of it nonetheless, and it threatened to humanise him. Butcher has a family now, too – his friends, The Boys, the people around him who would die for him, and vice versa – and a surrogate son in Hughie. Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) and Frenchie (Tomer Capon), whatever faint promise of romance swirls around them, have found for now a joyous familial bond, like brother and sister. And Mother’s Milk is now back in the bosom of his estranged family, a moment that must rank among the series most touching. 

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All Happy families, then? For now. But Homelander might have something to say about that in season three.  

The post The Boys Season 2 Unveils the Daddy Issues Behind the Toxic Masculinity appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[lexalyciaclarkeliza]

What Lexa meant to me: I've shared parts of my story before but never the full thing. And I figure this is as good a time as any as this day March 3rd seems to always find a way to shatter me Lexa was special to me. She was special to me just as she was to so many others. But I saw more than just representation of myself in her. To fully understand why exactly I found so much in a fictional character, I think it'd be best to know my full story I was born in the south to two conservative but loving parents with an older sister. Since I was born I knew I was different, in more ways than one really, I just wasn't sure how. Hindsight is 20/20 so looking back it is evident that there were signs of my mental disorders, but because no one in my extended family had ever openly discussed the concept of mental illness, we thought nothing of it. 'She's shy' 'She's just sensitive' 'She just needs more exposure' All were things I heard time and time again, and even as a child I knew better; I knew there had to be more to it. But when you are raised in a traditional family with traditional values, you learn not to speak your mind and to accept what the adults have to say; they have more years on them than you after all, therefore more wisdom. The truth is, I was shy, and I was sensitive, but there was more. In the past two years I've been diagnosed with anxiety so severe that I've been passed around from psychologist to psychologist like a damn hot potato. In the past year, I've been diagnosed with a form of SPD, or sensory processing disorder. For those who don't know, SPD is a disorder which effects your senses. It can heighten some or all of your senses or deteriorate some or all of them. For those with the latter, a child may spend too long looking at bright lights because it doesn't seem to hurt them as much as others, or even attempt to hurt themselves out of curiosity for the feeling of it. For those like me with the prior form of SPD, some or all of your senses means that light is far more irritating to your eyes and can cause chronic migraines. Certain textures can be so bothersome that you may avoid wearing certain fabrics or in extreme cases, children may prefer walking around the house with nothing on. Certain smells can be so much that your gag reflexes may be over active; like smelling a strong chemical non stop. Certain tastes like spices or salts can be either ridiculously painful or necessary to taste anything at all. Loud noises can ring in your ears for hours on end. Noise in general can be hell itself because you cant determine the source. For example, a school cafeteria was always a nightmare for me because so many voices in all directions combined with the sound of dishes clashing together and food being served, it was just too much. My hearing has always been my worst sense because it was so dramatically heightened, someone right next to me could be talking and someone on the other side of the room could be having a conversation and my brain would have trouble processing which noise was coming from where. SPD can cause something called sensory overload. The concept is similar to that of a panic attack and anxiety attack, except that your senses which may already be heightened, become even more so, drastically and suddenly. Even if it was caused because of a sound issue, sight becomes a problem. Your eyes become far more sensitive to light and it can seem like the light is reflecting off of the walls and floor. Your sense of touch may become so extreme that you can feel any slight movement of your hair, pulling on your scalp. You may become hyper aware to the taste of saliva in your mouth or a faint smell becomes so much more. All of this can happen at once and your brain slows down all the while, unable to keep up. Your body tries to go into a state of shock to try and block out all the excess senses which can be terrifying if you aren't prepared for it. It is not uncommon to see someone having sensory overload covering their ears with their hands, closing their eyes tightly, curled up into the fetal position rocking themselves on the ground humming to themselves. This is typically the response that comes most naturally to try and block out the world that caused this overload. Now imagine a child growing up with these sensitivities, and anxiety severe enough to cause anxiety attacks in the middle of sleep. School was so much harder for me than the average child. In kindergarten, I was the weird quiet loner kid who refused to speak even when the teacher called on her and would stammer and splutter and whimper whenever she did have to speak. At the end of first grade, I had my first sensory overload in front of everyone in my class. I seemed to block the scene out from my memory but I remember immediately afterwards all the kids looking at me scared and confused like I was some alien. In second grade, no one had forgotten my little melt down and I was dubbed 'freakshow', a name that still can send me into a cold sweat and close to tears just hearing out of context. From 2nd grade to 5th grade, my anxiety was rapidly increasing in severity and my sensory issues certainly weren't stopping. Somewhere along the way I had picked up my very own personal bully. Sure I was already isolated from everyone, but having someone who specifically targets you and only you can be terrifying. Physical and mental abuse was daily. She would grab my arm and twist it, flip me onto my back, push me into metal polls, grab me by the collar of my shirt and throw me into the dirt or onto the concrete. She used my name freakshow constantly and managed to justify her torment by insisting I was a circus freak. The name started to be associated with pain in my mind, physical or mental. She once super glued ear buds and forced them into my ears while I was on the ground struggling to get away and then played heavy metal music on repeat on max volume for hours. I still can't hear to heavy metal music without crumpling to the floor. She made me feel like my sensitivity was undesirable and that I was a nuisance and pain to anyone and everyone around me. So I started hiding it as best I could. Middle school was so much worse. She went to the same middle school as me and there were now expectations of me. Girls were supposed to be pretty and sassy and confident and wear makeup and have boyfriends. I did not have any of those things. Of course my personal bully made it her priority to make sure everyone and their grandmothers knew that I was not Lindsay, I was 'freakshow' I got my first crush on a girl in 6th grade when she did what no one had done before by standing up for me to my bully. She told her to back off. This girl who stood up for me didn't even know me but she didn't care. She also just happened to be the most popular girl so I was dumbfounded. I had no idea people could be like that, that there were people who didn't hate me immediately. I felt safe the rest of that year by her side. And then she moved. Not only was I no longer safe from my bully but she now had spread rumors that I was in love with this girl, which wasn't entirely false. So 'freakshow' became 'rainbow freakshow' and I was the school's freakish dyke. Finally it got so bad and my suicidal thoughts were so frequent, that my sister one night found that I had cut a whole in my window screen and climbed onto the roof. She didn't tell my parents right away but she did talk to me and then told my parents how I was being bullied and needed to change schools. So I did. My new school was okay, the kids had picked up my name freakshow from friends and I was still alone, but my personal bully wasn't there. One day I met a girl named Callie. She was kind and sweet and gentle and she didn't mind that I was a little different. At the same time that I was starting to even think about considering the possibility of having my first friend, my home life started to deteriorate. My older sister moved out for college, my dad had started his own company and made some powerful social figures as friends. He let his new position in the town get to his head and he started to neglect his family. My mom by that point was handling her child's newly diagnosed anxiety and depression along with the stress of her own job, the stress of paying for therapy and college and our house while he was off spending money on new cars and trips to vegas with his friends, all while he refused to even listen when she cried for help. You have to understand that up until now, my relationship with my father was golden. He was my best friend, I was the definition of daddy's girl. I already didn't trust easy but I trusted him entirely. Which is why when he eventually snapped at me and made it clear that he cared about his work and his social status more than his family, I shattered. In my mind, if my father, my best friend, and the person whose sole job as a parent was to protect me, could hurt me so catastrophically, than anyone could. So I threw up all my walls and became numb to anyone and everyone around me. I avoided leaving the house when I could, I never left my room, I stopped showering and eating, and I was always sick but would refuse to take medicine. I didn't want to get better because i didn't think I could get better and I had yet to see a life worth being better for. My mom who was the one who cared about me the most and wanted so desperately to help me, was pushed away because I couldn't trust her if I couldn't trust him. I tried to protect myself from being hurt again but instead only isolated myself as I began to die within myself. Then one day, Callie somehow found a way to fight through my walls. I fought so desperately to keep her out and to stop her from getting into my life. I fought and fought but she was stubborn and for whatever god forsaken reason, she cared. When she finally managed to break through my walls, instead of a lecture or a cruel name like I expected, she hugged me. I wasn't a fan of touch, I never let anyone touch or hug me if I could avoid it. But when she held me tightly like she would never let me go and never leave me, I broke. I melted into her and sobbed for hours and clung to her like she was oxygen. And she just let me let out 14 years of isolation and pain. She was the kindest human being I had ever met. I was broken, shattered, disintegrated before her but she found a way to make me feel safe. And then of course, as my luck would have it- she moved. Her parents were immigrants from Togo and immigration workers were catching up with them so they had to move away. But Callie refused to leave me alone so we kept in touch, we skyped every night and it was clear that I was falling in love with her. But I grew up believing that being gay was wrong, that it wasn't valid, I was named the rainbow freak show for god sake. Callie helped me start to believe that I could be gay and still be happy. And then one day, my father decided to come around. Not really but, he showed the slightest hint that he was listening and ready to change for the better, and I took it and ran with it. I spent months prioritizing him and making him happy so that he would shut us out again. But in the meantime, Callie had come out to her parents and was kicked out of the house. Callie up until now was always the happy and ready girl who would listen for hours and stay up with me until 4 am while I sobbed, reassuring me that everything would be better eventually and that I was perfect the way I was. But now, in her time of darkness, I was prioritizing someone else, just like my own father did to us. She tried to call me a few times to talk but I hadn't answered because I was scared if I didn't spend the whole time trying to win my dad over, he would leave again. I left Callie alone after she had fought so hard to keep me from being alone. After three days, I found out that Callie, the girl I loved, the girl who made me feel safe and loved, had killed herself on March 3rd 2015. I missed her funeral, I missed her burial, I don't even know where her grave is and I can't visit her or hear her laugh or rest in her arms ever again because I didn't pick up the phone and I wasn't there for her. My dad started to get better and was trying to make amends for the damage he caused our family, but I was already broken. Callie was the only person I trusted, the only person in my life I had let in who didn't hurt me or leave me. Until I forced her to leave me because she was alone with nothing. I stopped going to school, I stopped eating, showering, and taking my medicine again. I would lock myself in my room in the dark and never leave. I stopped believing I could be happy anymore because that just wasn't an option for gay people, and clearly somewhere along the line I had done something so that I didn't deserve it even if I could have it. And then there was Lexa. She was gay, she was broken, she had lost someone she loved, she had so much baggage and she didn't think she could be loved but she managed to find Clarke. It gave me hope that I could be strong like Lexa. That I could find love again, that I could be happy even without Callie. I resonated so deeply with Lexa and I used every Thursday night as an escape, as a sanctuary and relief and I started to accept myself because of it. I stopped crying myself to sleep and even started taking my medicine and eating again. And then March 3rd 2016 came around. I was in a pit of depression because of the date and all I wanted was to forget about my life and find solace in Lexa. See how well that turned out. Again I believed i couldn't have happiness and that I didn't deserve it. Again, I broke and fell further into myself. My mom by that point was desperate, she saw her daughter become a living corpse and she finally managed to break her way into my attention, sobbing and begging for me to talk to her. I didn't talk much, I only told her three words 'Callie killed herself.' And that was enough. She tried to get me to talk more but didn't push, I gave her that small crack through my walls. After months of therapy, and my mom clawing for anything she could get out of me, I finally came undone and told her everything, even how I was in love with her. And my mom, my traditional conservative mom, thanked me for telling her and told me that all she wanted was for me to find another person like Callie who loved me and it didn't matter who or what they were. My mom helped me transition from regular school to online school where I take classes from home to avoid social interaction which can be damaging to me. My mom since then has been my rock. I still don't trust anyone, not my dad, not my therapist, not my sister, no one except my mom, and I'm still cautious with her. I don't know if I can ever trust or love again, especially since I am so broken and would need someone who would understand this and be patient enough to deal with my clinginess and desperation to feel validated. I don't know if it's possible, but I so want to now. I want to have a life again. I've found solace in Clexakru. I've read so many of your stories and seen so many people like me who resonated so deeply with Lexa they felt she was a part of them. Everyone here is kind and loving and accepting and caring and it's shocked and confused me on many occasions as I forget that people can be kind. You all have helped me so much this past year and I can't even begin to tell you all how much this community means to me. It's helped me heal in so many different ways and I pray that it will continue to do so. Like I said, i don't know where Callie's grave is, and I can't visit it, but my town does have a park, a survivors of suicide remembrance park, where I've bought a brick to be placed in honor of Callie. She was a huge supporter of LGBT movements, and she was a huge fan of Lexa before she died and she would have loved to see the movement Lexa sparked. She also had a favorite symbol, an infinite sign, which mind you wasn't even introduced to Lexa's character before Callie died, their ties together are incredibly coincidental. Or fate if you believe in it. Anyway, she also didn't like her name and I don't think she would have wanted it on her brick. So instead, i had it engraved to say 'Lexa | We Deserved Better ∞' I'm still terrified of this day, and I probably will always fear the worst from this day for years to come. A part of me is paranoid something will happen today, but I am visiting the park today in hopes that I'll find peace there. I know this story was a long one and I am incredibly thankful you took the time to read it and for just being the community you are. The picture you see above, is a painting I've done of Callie in remembrance of her. I can't wait to spend the next year and hopefully years after that without you all as you have provided me with so much this past year. I can't even begin to thank you, but I hope after reading my story, you understand how much your love and support this past year has meant to me. Ste yuj Clexakru, ai hod yu in

#clexa #clexakru #Lexa #commander lexa #heda #we deserve better #lexa deserved better #lgbt fans deserve better #lgbt #personal #my story #my art #Callie #tw: sucide mention #leskru