#the metro station for me and one other friend to go home. i do NOT need to go home. THERE WAS A FUCKING BUS STATION 2 MINUTES AWAY FROM THE

[ruthlesscore]

hello !

i’ve been enjoying your writing for sf6 lately, and i was wondering if you’d be able to write anything for ed?

i don’t have any specific scenario, but can it be with an x reader insert? haha i’m just craving any sort of ed content tbh

thanks !

Ed x Hacker!Reader - Meeting Ed

- This is my first request for SF6! I was already planning on making a Ed related post so this is like killing two birds with one stone! I hope you enjoy! <3 -

You weren't a Street Fighter. You had more brains than those ruffians that go around beating up anything that moves. As an intellectual, you're enrolled in college to peruse your dream in technology. You had friends here and there, like Li-Fen, who lived in Chinatown, and some people who worked in SiRN.

You were from a working class household, only 23, constantly having to pay off your tuition. You didn't have money to afford food sometimes. You started picking up part-time jobs, some were odd, others were impractical. They never lasted long. You frequently got fired for being late or sleeping on the job. Your excuse?

"School's got me brunt out. I'm sorry, it won't happen again!"

and it didn't happen again because now youre jobless. Sitting at home, rotting away in front of your computer, you decided you needed a new job and fast. Something more practical that didn't require you to leave the comfort of your dorm.

You serached for a week or so before coming across this group called Neo Shadoloo. You've heard about Shadoloo from your many conversations with Li-Fen. The experiments they conducted on innocent children disgust you. You were glad they were gone. But if Shadoloo was gone, who the was Neo Shadoloo?

Adding the phone number to your contacts, you messaged the individual names Ed.

I saw the flyer for Neo Shadaloo. You guys hiring?

You got a response almost immediately.

Hell yeah we are. You gotta have some sort of experience in tech. You a hacker? You legit?

Yeah. What do you need done?

Just getting information from certain databases. Anything about Shadaloo, M. Bison, the experiments, or where the remnants might be. I'll send the pay to you later.

And that's the day you started cyber attacks for this strange organization. At first, you felt guilty about this. Then you were uncertain about the job because what you were doing was illegal. But then you looked at the pay and god DAMN. Who cares about morals when this shady organization is sending you 700 zenny per task.

After your first couple of jobs, Ed started to message you about things outside of work, like the history of Shadaloo, sightseeing in Metro, your studies at university, and personal philosophies. Sometimes, when you're up at night, you'd receive a text from him. You don't know if it was because he was under the influence, or that men usually act this way past 10, but he would send messages that were so strange. You couldn't tell if he was flirting or he was telling a bad joke.

You single? Of course you are. Nobody born in the shitty ass city will treat you right.

Ed, what the hell are you talking about?

You like Bratwurst? Ever had one? I could give you one.

Please go to sleep, Ed.

Only if you're sleeping with me.

Promise you'll make me breakfast in the morning?

Yeah, you're delirious. Gtb, ____.

You didn't know him personally, so the meaning is still up for grabs. The morning after these messages, Ed wouldn't even bring it up, if anything, he was avoiding it. Maybe he was under the influence.

After working for Neo Shadaloo for about 3 months, constantly messaging Ed and feeding into his nightly banter, you received a message from Ed.

Hey. I need you to come pick something up from me. It's a hard drive we need decoded. I'll be at the station at Beat Square tonight. Pull through.

You didn't even answer the message. You put your shoes on and headed out the door that night. Of course you were carrying your handy-dandy knife, as you were no fan of fighting. Hopefully no one tries to mug you or something. Heading down into the station and getting onto the train, you ran into a problem. What the hell does Ed even look like? You've never seen a photo of him and he's never seen you. How are you going to meet with someone you don't even know? Then there was a second problem, one running right towards you, a man and Shadaloo fighters.

The man held onto the overhead railing as the train shook. You lost your footing and fell onto the window. Groaning in a tinge of pain, you sit down. The man paid no attention to you. He looked at the Shadaloo fighters.

"Bring it on."

The Shadaloo fighters tried striking him. He dodged with boxer like reflexes. You silently watched the fight go down, completely dumbfounded by how brutal street fights were. God, it was disgusting. You get it, Shadaloo was a bad organization enabling bad behavior, but doing something as petty as strert fighting? Surely, there was a more mature, more intelligent way of handling affairs, right? With god like reflexes, the boxer hit all 3 of the Shadaloo fighters, knocking them to the ground. He managed to maintain his footing, even though the train was moving so unsteadily.

All of a sudden a big fighter came out, pushing the smaller ones out of the way. You pull your knees up to your chest, hoping you'd appear so small that neither the blond boxer or the Shadaloo fighter wouldn't see you. The big one tries to grab the boxer when the train car shook. The boxer's fist was suddenly engulfed in purple flames. Punching the Shadaloo fighter to the other side of the car and using some sort of supernatural ability to pull the fighter back to him, he punched the fighter's face into the ground. There's no denying it. That was Ed and he was using Psycho Power. He didn't even look your way. Once the train stopped, he quickly got off.

Once you got off the train, you quickly looked around for him. You see him and hurriedly walked over to him. With your hood up and mask on, you stopped a few feet away from Ed and showed him your messages with him. He glanced at the message before taking the hard drive out.

"So you're ____, huh. Finally got to put a name to a face."

He looks you up and down.

"Still down for that Bratwurst?"

#sf6 #sf6 x reader #street fighter 6 #ed #ed sf6 #request #street fighter x reader

[astra-ella]

𝐙𝐎𝐄𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐏𝐄 - 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐡 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧

fandom: haikyuu ship: nishinoya yuu x oc/reader status: complete ao3 link

"I think you're really pretty. Will you go out with me?" That was the first thing he's ever said to her. And needless to say, Amari Chiyo was not impressed. So as promised, Nishinoya Yuu will get to know her better and confess again. And again. And again. And again. It'll take 6 years and 9 confessions, but he'll get there. Eventually.

⌦ content: fluff, light angst, love at first sight, friends to lover, slice of life, haikyuu manga spoilers

⌦ note: you are free to insert yourself into Chiyo, just keep in mind she has her own character/backstory. i know some people don't like that, so just a heads-up.

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The seventh time he confessed was near the end of their second year — during their overnight school trip to Tokyo.

Nishinoya had already been to Tokyo once. Due to the Karasuno volleyball team somehow coming in first during the Spring Tournament preliminaries, securing their spot as representatives of the Miyagi prefecture. Alongside the rest of the school, Chiyo went to the final qualifiers match to cheer them on. She wanted to do the same when they headed off to Tokyo but had to stay back because of school. So the only thing she could do was watch the live broadcast at home, sending the occasional encouraging text message to Nishinoya right before a match.

They did surprisingly well, losing in the quarterfinals and ranking Top 8 in the country. Chiyo made sure to congratulate Nishinoya by making him a feast of his favorite foods once he got back to Miyagi. And as he sat at the table, telling stories upon stories of the rivals he faced at the large-scale national tournament, Chiyo could tell that Kaito was becoming more and more intrigued.

Maybe to some extent due to Nishinoya's influence, Kaito began to demonstrate great interest and talent in volleyball. He even joined a youth volleyball class at the local community center and became a star member after two years of playing. Perhaps one day, he would go on to play at a national tournament just like Nishinoya did. 

Regardless, spring was right around the corner. The current third-years would be graduating in three weeks while Chiyo and Nishinoya would be moving into their final year of high school. So before their students can get too wrapped up in another wave of examination hell, the school sent them off on their final school trip — the last chance to truly let loose before exam prep starts.

“Hey, Amari-san!” A girl from her activity group called out, waving as she descended the staircase to the subway platforms. “What’d you get for lunch?”

It was the second day of the school trip, and they were on their way to visit the Tokyo Skytree when the teachers decided to stop in the metro station to let everyone take a quick lunch break. 

“Just an onigiri from the convenient store,” she swung the little plastic bag in her hand. “I’m not that hungry.”

Her classmate peered into the plastic bag. “Really? I’m absolutely starving.”

“That’s because you skipped breakfast, Kikuchi-san,” Chiyo pointed out. She was about to say more when she heard a familiar voice call out.

“Oh, it’s Chiyo!”

She turned around to see Nishinoya standing at the top of the stairway, waving at her with one arm while carrying a large collection of snacks in the other. Chiyo smiled a little and waved back.

A train pulled into the station and the metal tracks let out an ear-piercing screech. Chiyo held a hand up to her hair, holding back the long red wisps that threatened to get caught up in the heated gush.

“Nishinoya-kun from Class 2-2, right?” Kikuchi said, just loud enough for Chiyo to hear over the ensemble of footsteps of white-collar workers making their way onto the platform and up the stairs. She eyed him from head to toe. “You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you, Amari-san. There’s a rumor going around that you two are dating. Is that true?”

“N-No!” Chiyo immediately shook her head. “We’re not! We are not dating!”

“Really?” Kikuchi hummed, eyes wandering back to Nishinoya. She watched as he did his best to weave his way against the flood of people heading upstairs. 

“Then, can I have him?”

Chiyo’s eyes widened.

“Have him?” She repeated under her breath. “What do you…?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Kikuchi met her gaze pointedly. “He’s good-looking, has a cute personality, and he’s part of a sports team which is totally up my alley. Unless… he secretly has a girlfriend?”

Chiyo looked down, her grip tightening on the convenience store bag. “N-Not that I know of…”

“Then that’s perfect!” Clasping her hands together, Kikuchi’s face brightened. “Hey, will you help me put in a good word with him? I wanna try getting some alone time during the school trip.”

Chiyo’s lips parted. Suddenly, all she could see were flashes of the rest of the trip. And whenever she looked in Nishinoya’s direction, Kikuchi was somewhere nearby. She sucked in a harsh breath.

“No,” the words came out harsher than she would’ve liked, but her tone was resolute. 

“Hm?”

“You can’t have him.”

“Wha-?” Kikuchi looked confused. “But you’re not even his girlfriend. He’s not yours to give-”

“He’s not anyone’s to give,” Chiyo cut her off, her free hand clutching onto the hem of her jacket sleeve. “But even so… To me, Yuu is… special. Which is why I won’t give him to you!”

Her words were simple, but it felt as if it took all her energy to speak them.

After what felt like forever, Kikuchi finally broke the silence with a hum. “So you do like him,” she mused and by the time Chiyo looked up she was met with a smug grin.

“I figured.”

Chiyo’s face flushed a bright red. “T-That’s not what I was trying to say!”

“You know, Amari-san, you shouldn’t patronize your romantic rival like this.”

“But-!”

Kikuchi held up a hand.  “A maiden with a broken heart doesn’t need your pity,” she said with a wink.

“Hey!” By that point, Nishinoya had finally made it past the crowd and stepped onto the platform. “You wouldn’t believe what I found,” as he approached, he shifted his backpack around and began rummaging through it. “There’s this little store just a few blocks outside the station, and they were selling Calpico! I know you love this stuff so I bought two. A regular one and a peach one-” As he plucked one of the two bottles out, his brown eyes darted between the two girls, finally picking up on the awkward tension that loomed between them.

“Did something happen?” He asked.

“Nah,” Kikuchi waved nonchalantly before gently patting Chiyo on the shoulder. “Nice to meet you, by the way. My name is Kikuchi Sora. I’m part of Amari-san’s activity group.”

“Nishinoya Yuu, Class 2-2,” Nishinoya returned her greeting with a cheerful one of his own as he secured his backpack over his shoulders once more. “Thanks for taking care of Chiyo.”

“Why are you the one saying that?” The redhead raised an eyebrow and Nishinoya gave her a thumbs-up.

“Because I can!”

A loud chime echoed underground, followed by a cool female voice telling passengers that the subway doors will soon close.

“Oh,” Nishinoya glanced up at the fluorescent lights. “Let’s get on. Don’t wanna be late,” he said as he readjusted his backpack and stepped into the subway cart.

“Wait, Yuu,” Chiyo reached out after him, subconsciously taking a few steps forward. “We’re supposed to meet the teachers on the platforms, not at-”

“Doors will now be closing.”

“Amari-san!”

“Huh?” Chiyo’s eyes widened at Kikuchi’s voice. She spun around just in time to see the subway doors shut behind her. She could see her classmate staring through the glass with panicked eyes. Quickly, she pulled out her phone and mouthed ‘text me’ as the vehicle began to move.

“I can’t believe you,” Chiyo grumbled as she and Nishinoya stood by a telephone pole on the bustling streets of Tokyo. “Were you even listening to the teachers before they let us out? We were supposed to meet on the platform! Not the skytree!”

“Honestly, no,” Nishinoya admitted bluntly as he took another sip of his energy drink. “I was so hungry I could barely think about anything besides food.”

“You-!” Chiyo tried to find the words to scold him but ultimately settled for a sigh of resignation. There was no use scolding someone for a genuine mistake or someone who’s already apologized a million times. “We’re just told to meet them at the Skytree for real this time,” she scrolled through Kikuchi’s messages with an awkward laugh. “Apparently, we’re in a lot of trouble.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Nishinoya hummed. “I’ll just tell them that you only came after me 'cause I was being stupid.”

“Won’t your punishment be worse if you do that?” Chiyo pointed out and he shrugged.

“It’s the truth anyways and we have Kikuchi to back you up,” he then glanced back with a reassuring smile. “Besides, you’ve never been to Tokyo before, right? I want you to enjoy your time while you’re here.”

“But-”

“I was literally just here,” Nishinoya cut her off with a cheeky grin. “And I’ll be back this fall and the spring after that,” he paused for a second to examine Chiyo’s troubled expression. “My point is, I’ll have plenty of time to explore this city. But you only have this trip until you’re swamped with exam prep. So let me try and take the blame for this, yeah?”

Chiyo’s brows furrowed, she was about to open her mouth to protest but held her tongue. “Alright, alright,” she relented, figuring that even if she were to resist, Nishinoya would still somehow find a way to direct the teachers’ indisputably harsh punishment towards himself. “Let’s try to find a way to get to Tokyo Skytree first.”

“Yeah,” remembering their current predicament, Nishinoya rubbed the back of his neck and looked around. “Uhh, I honestly have no idea where we are right now.”

“Really? I thought you were the expert on Tokyo, considering you’ve been here once already,” Chiyo teased with a small smile tugging at her lips.

“I’ve never been in this area before, that’s all,” he retorted with a laugh. He briefly skimmed the crowd. “Want me to ask around?”

Chiyo nodded. “You do that. I’ll try to look up some directions.”

“Alright, go team!” He gave a small cheer before hurrying off, quickly finding someone to ask for directions.

“Hey, excuse me! Do you know how we can get to the Tokyo Skytree?”

Chiyo narrowed her eyes at the options her phone presented. She was about to pick the route with the fastest travel time when a familiar voice stopped her short.

“Take the Ginza line towards Asakusa and get off at Ueno station. It’s a five minute walk from there.”

“I see. Thanks!”

Chiyo looked up, easily spotting Nishinoya’s bleached tuft of hair in the crowd. And sure enough, before him stood a very familiar woman. 

Chiyo felt her entire world stutter to a halt. She couldn’t move, nor could she think. All she could do was stare blankly as the woman pointed to various spots on Nishinoya’s phone.

Sure enough, the woman soon noticed her gaze and glanced up. Her bright blue eyes widened with recognition. 

“...Chiyo?”

The world began to move again and Chiyo suddenly became acutely aware of the sea of people that crossed the little distance that separated them. She soon found her voice again and the words came out in a choked squeak.

“Mom…”

“Here’s your Sprite,” a waitress set down a tall glass on the table before him.

Nishinoya didn’t know what to do. One minute he was asking some random stranger on the street for directions, and the next he was sitting in a cafe with said stranger and Chiyo, neither of whom said a single word since they’ve sat down.

He had no clue the woman who sat before them was Harada Yuuka, the mother of the Amari siblings. But upon closer inspection, the similarities became more apparent. She had the same brown hair as her children, and her brilliant blue eyes hidden behind her metal-rimmed glasses shone with intelligence. In terms of the way they carried themselves and their overall presence, Chiyo probably resembled her the most.

“You dyed your hair red,” her voice was even, perhaps a bit robotic.

“Yes,” Chiyo replied quietly as she poured some milk into her tea. “I did it last year.”

“You should get rid of it. Universities and businesses won’t accept a delinquent with colorful hair.”

Chiyo didn’t say anything. Instead, she picked up the small, provided spoon and began to stir.

“How have you been?” Yuuka glanced at her. “Everything alright?”

Chiyo nodded as she set the spoon down and took a sip. “Yeah.”

“And your siblings? How are they doing?”

Chiyo nodded again.

“That’s good then,” Yuuka took a sip of her coffee. “As long as you’re all doing well, that’s good.”

Nishinoya shuffled in his seat. He took a sip of his drink, trying to find something to do amongst the awkward tension.

“Chiyo,” Yuuka set her cup back down onto her saucer, effectively shattering the momentary silence with the light clink of porcelain meeting porcelain. “I’ve been meaning to contact you soon, but this is perfect timing,” she set her hands down on her black pencil skirt and looked her daughter dead in the eyes. “I’ll be leaving for Iceland soon. I want you to come with me.”

Nishinoya’s eyes widened.

“Huh?”

“I’ve built some pretty strong connections there through my company. A position opened up at the main branch and I accepted it,” her eyes were clear. “Iceland is ranked second in the world in terms of education. With your exceptional academic performance, I can secure you a better future than you’ll ever get rotting away here.”

“You ran back to your father once, but I trust you see now how that was a mistake. Taking the easy path and staying in Miyagi will do nothing to help your future-”

“Hold on now-!”

Nishinoya was about to interject but Chiyo held him back with an arm over his chest.

“I still don’t think you understand,” her voice was almost as sharp as her mother’s. “I didn’t go back to dad because I was scared of going to school in Tokyo.”

Yuuka remained silent, as if asking her daughter to elaborate.

“Mom, why didn’t you ever come back to visit Hotaru and Kaito?”

Yuuka blinked a few times. Her eyes then trailed out to the large cafe window, watching as a group of rowdy schoolchildren ran past.

“I figured if I came back to visit, I’d just disrupt their adjustment to living with a single parent.”

“Then why didn’t you at least take Hotaru or Kaito?” Chiyo’s voice cracked. “I would’ve been fine. Why out of the three of us, you chose to take me?”

“When your father and I separated, I realized I couldn’t advance my career while taking care of three children. I took you with me because I didn’t want to uproot Hotaru and Kaito’s lives while they were still so young. And besides,” Yuuka turned her attention back to her daughter. “I saw the most potential in you .”

Nishinoya felt a chill run down his spine. He briefly glanced at Chiyo, whose eyes only widened.

“Hotaru is too naive and Kaito is too blunt. Neither of them would survive well in a business setting,” she interlaced her fingers. “I wanted to be sure I was making an investment that would pay off. Besides, I figured you would use your success to support your siblings anyways. So I didn’t need to worry.”

Nishinoya took it back. Chiyo was nothing like her mother after all. Throughout the years he’s gotten to know Chiyo, no matter how much she’d scold either him or her siblings there was always an underlying sense of love that accompanied her harsh words. But when Yuuka spoke, there was no tone in her voice. There was no scolding, no love. Only a cold calculating chill. It was as if she were staring at pieces on a chessboard rather than her own flesh and blood.

He figured Chiyo must’ve come to the same conclusion because he saw her lips quiver as they pressed together. Under the table, he instinctively reached out, placing a hand over her trembling one. To his surprise, she immediately latched on like he was her lifeline.

“So take your future into account and-”

“No,” Chiyo said after taking a deep breath and Yuuka’s expression soured. “I’m not going with you, mom.”

The shock was only momentary however, as a tinge of annoyance soon reflected within Yuuka’s deep blue eyes.

“Be rational, Chiyo,” she tilted her head a little. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. An exceptional secondary education will get you into a good university. And graduating from a good university will secure you a good job that pays lots of money.”

Those words rang familiar in Nishinoya’s ears. Those were almost the exact same words Chiyo repeated to him every single time the topic of the future came up. Sometimes she said it with so little enthusiasm that Nishinoya even wondered if she truly meant what she said.

As if to confirm his longtime suspicions, Chiyo gently shook her head.

“But… What if that’s not a life I want to live?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

Yuuka’s brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“What if that kind of life scares me, mom?” Chiyo replied, a little louder this time. “What if I don’t want to be trapped in an office for eight hours a day, working a job I don’t even care about?”

“What do you want to do then?”

“I-I don’t know,” Chiyo shrank a little under her mother’s sharp gaze. “Maybe I’ll travel or do something creative,” for the first time while talking about the future, Nishinoya saw a small smile playing on her lips. “Maybe I’ll open a small restaurant or bakery-”

“You do realize none of those options will make you happy, right?” Yuuka cut her off. “I’ve told you this before. Money makes the world go round. In order to be happy, you need to be successful and make money.”

“Who says?” At that point, Nishinoya had enough. He felt a light squeeze on his hand and soon he found the words tumbling out of his mouth without a second thought. “Who says you need to make money to be happy? My gramps and I aren’t loaded, but I’d say we’re doing pretty well.”

“Doing well is very different from succeeding ,” though she looked a little annoyed at his interruption, Yuuka turned towards him with a pointed look. “Doing well is being able to put food on the table, meeting the bare minimum of a person’s needs. Happiness and success is to be able to live in the lap of luxury. Do you and your grandfather have the luxury to eat out at expensive restaurants? Can you buy name-brand clothes or bags? Can you buy whatever you want, whenever you want?”

“But that’s just your idea of happiness, isn’t it?” Nishinoya retorted. He could see Chiyo watching him from the side, but he didn’t want to break eye contact with the older woman. Now that he was looking straight into them, they came off as a little empty. In comparison to Chiyo’s which were filled with warmth.

“Each person has their own idea of what happiness looks like. Even if you’re Chiyo’s mom, hers can be completely different from yours,” he said, absent-mindedly tracing his thumb over Chiyo’s knuckles as if to soothe her. “I don’t think it’s right for you to force your ideals onto your daughter like they’re facts.”

Yuuka opened her mouth to say something, but Chiyo beat her to it.

“Mom,” she took a moment to study her mother’s neutral expression. “Our family… what we want in our lives isn’t success… or a perfectly planned out future,” her voice choked a little and Nishinoya held onto her hand even tighter as if to encourage her. “What we really needed… was a normal mother who would love and accept us for who we are.”

Yuuka’s eyes widened. They wandered to the side, as if she were in deep thought.

“I do love you though. All three of you,” she said in an even tone. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t care if you three were sweeping the bathroom or the streets.”

Nishinoya frowned, he glanced over at Chiyo who took a long stare at her mother before pressing her lips together.

“Let’s talk about this when I’m older,” she sounded defeated. “Thank you for the drinks, mom.”

Nishinoya watched the back of Chiyo’s head as she focused on her phone, trying to follow the directions they received from her mother towards the Tokyo Skytree. They had since parted ways with her, apparently she had a meeting to attend soon.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, not sparing him a glance.

Nishinoya didn’t sense a lie in her voice, nor did he hear it quivering. But for some reason, he was met with an intense desire to see her face. So he grabbed her wrist to stop her in her tracks. Chiyo spun around, her face reflecting a sense of exhaustion that squeezed at his heart.

“Are you okay?” He asked again.

“I’m fine, really,” Chiyo said. “That’s just how she operates.”

“For the record,” Nishinoya took a step forward and looked straight in her eyes. “I think your plans for the future are great.”

“Thanks,” she gave a half-hearted laugh.

“No, I’m serious,” his grip tightened on her wrist, as if to convey his sincerity. “You should do what you wanna do. Not what your parents or siblings, or whatever anyone else wants. Not even me.”

Chiyo’s eyes widened.

“Be it a restaurant or bakery, or hell, even a lemonade stand on the side of the street. Whatever makes you happy,” he gave her a warmest smile he could muster on that chilly, early spring afternoon. “And you know what? If you ever get lost and don’t know what to do, I’ll be there to support you.”

He leaned down and planted a soft kiss on her knuckles. “Because that’s the least I can do for the kind and capable girl I fell in love with.”

Chiyo’s cheeks were dusted bright pink as he made that final statement. She averted her eyes downwards, but the corners of her lips soon curled upwards. “Thanks, Yuu,” she murmured before meeting his gaze with a weary smile. “That means a lot to me.”

Nishinoya hummed. She didn’t look happier, per se. But it seemed like some of the worries she’s been carrying for years had finally been relieved from her shoulders.

“Now let’s go,” releasing his grip on her arm, he nudged his head as if telling her to keep up. “We’re already late.”

Chuckling a little, Chiyo nodded.

“Okay.”

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#haikyuu #haikyuu fanfiction #haikyuu imagine #hq #haikyuu x oc #nishinoya #nishinoya x oc #nishinoya yuu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x y/n #haikyuu x you #nishinoya x y/n #nishinoya x you #nishinoya x reader #hq x reader #haikyuu fluff

[jpitha]

The Dreams of Hyacinth 8

First / Previous / Next

The three of them catch an omnibus back to Eastern's apartment. Now that they know that Houndstooth was the one going through their things their places aren't off limits anymore.

They fall into the apartment and Selkirk takes up station on the couch, while Nick uses the bathroom and then joins her. 

Once again she puts her head on his lap and he starts stroking between her ears. Eastern is in the kitchen rummaging in her refrigerator. "Cabinets are dangerously low on provisions hons. Want takeout?"

Selkirk looks up from Nick's lap. "I'm starving. I'll eat figuratively anything."

Nick nods. "It's been a day. Let's get something delivered." 

Eastern brings her pad over to the couch and flops down, leaning her back against Nick's side. She goes through the options of restaurants who will deliver to her place. In a fit of... nostalgia? Nick recommends Parvatian food. Eastern is interested, and the place nearest to them has things Selkirk can eat. 

When the food arrives, Nick is immediately transported back to his childhood. The smells, the flavors, it all reminds him of being back home and getting takeout with his parents after they had a long day at work and didn’t want to cook. Nick got Parvatian food rarely after moving to Hyacinth. At first, he wanted to cut himself off from his old life and start everything new. Eventually it would just remind him of his parents. Nick wonders if finally enough time has passed that his memories of them are comforting rather than depressing. Maybe the fact that he can share it with friends now helps.

Eastern and Selkirk had never had Parvatian before and while it was all food she could eat, Selkirk declared the spices too unfamiliar and stuck with the naan. Eastern was intrigued though and would try the different combinations that Nick would recommend. 

After dinner, they all sat together on Eastern’s couch in her tiny apartment. Eastern stretched and looked at both of them. “Now that we’ve eaten, we should think about next steps. Do we have any leads at all on Yon?”

Nick shook his head. “I don’t have any. I wouldn’t know the first place to begin looking for a missing AI.”

Selkirk smiled and flicked her ears. “I swear, it’s like you two have never done anything more advanced than boost trinkets before.”

Nick raised an eyebrow. “I mean, I haven’t really. Boost small things, poach some apps or softs from unsecured servers, a bit of light smash and grab.”

Eastern chuckled. “Okay then, Selkirk - kingpin of Hyacinth - what do we do next.”

Selkirk grinned wickedly at them. “The first thing we do is go to the bedroom. The second thing we do is have an enjoyable time learning about each other and what their likes in the bedroom are. The third thing we do is have a wild evening exploring those likes. The fourth thing we do is fall asleep in a pile, blissfully spent. The fifth thing we do is trust Kingpin Selkirk and she’ll show you the way in the morning.

A few hours later, Nick realized Selkirk was right. She had it all planned out and it went exactly according to plan.

The morning finds them sprawled out on Eastern’s bed, naked in a pile. They get up, get coffee and this time Nick recommends just some pastries as they walk.

Eastern eats her pastry in record time and she tosses the paper into a trash receptacle without even stopping. “Okay Selkirk, other than Nick’s idea for coffee and pastries, we’ve been following your plan and you haven’t lead us wrong yet.” She reaches over and - lightning quick - pinches her rear. “What’s next?”

Selkirk jumps at the touch and grins at Eastern. “Next, we’re going to the Basement.”

“The Basement?” Nick can hear Sel pronounce the proper noun. He looks at Selkirk as they’re walking. “I didn’t think where were basements on Hyacinth.”

Selkirk winks. “You just don’t know where to look. Follow me.”

Eastern and Nick followed her as she took them further up-arm. They caught a Metro and rode up to Peony square. This far north, it was mostly commuters going the other way, further down-arm towards the more built up areas near the base to their office jobs. Arriving at Peony square station, they follow the light crowds out of the metro car. 

Selkirk holds them back as the morning commute crowds flowed down the stairs towards the the next train. When the crowds were mostly gone, Selkirk dashes towards the rear of the station. With a glance back to make sure that Eastern and Nick were following her, she slapped her palm against a reader that Nick could have sworn wasn’t there earlier and a door slid open. 

“Come on, let’s go, we gotta ghost before the next train comes!” Eastern and Nick duck through the doorway and it slams shut behind them.

They were in a hall. It looked like any other maintenance tunnel that Nick had seen in his time on Hyacinth. Selkirk leads them confidently down the tunnel until they reach another anonymous door. The only sign that anything was different with this door than any of the dozens of other doors in the hall was a small sticker at K’laxi level. It’s a stylized flower. Again she palms the reader and again the door hisses open. “Come on, couple more levels to go.” Nick and Eastern follow.

It’s not like the buildings and streets were sitting on the hull of Hyacinth. If they were, there would be no place for the power lines, the sewer pipes, the water supply; all of the circulation, the veins, neurons and organs of civilization. On planets, it’s under the ground, on stations and starbases it’s usually in the walls or the ceiling. 

On Hyacinth, it’s in The Basement. 

The Basement was what everyone calls the maintenance tunnels and access halls underneath the ground floor. Most of the time, only Houndstooth maintenance techs and city workers were going to be down there. This meant that there would be long stretches of Basement that would go potentially years before someone who was supposed to be there would show up.

It was inevitable that someone was going to find and use this otherwise underutilized space.

Hyacinth is big, but it’s not so big that people don’t need a place to hide and do business out of the prying eyes of Houndstooth authorities. After going down another set of stairs, Nick looked around. Now, the walls here were unpainted panels clipped and bolted together and the signs became much more encoded. He’d see things like SECTOR X-45 RIGHT SPINWARD DEP COMP on a dusty label and realize that they were in a part of Hyacinth that is rarely officially seen. Other than people going where Selkirk was taking them, the number of official visitors was probably in the single digits in the last century.

Finally, they reach a door and Selkirk stops. She looks back at them, her eyes bright. “Look. I trust you, otherwise I wouldn’t be in a relationship with you, and I wouldn’t have taken you here. But, I need to make sure you’re ready to trust me.” Her ears twitch. “Things might get… weird.”

Nick blinked. “Of course I trust you Sel.”

Eastern agreed. “Implicitly.”

Selkirk’s ears twitch and she smiles. “Thanks. I knew it, but I needed you to say it before we go any further. This part of the Basement has a lot of K’laxi and… you might get a bit of the furry eyeball. Just remember, you’re with me, I trust you, you trust me and if things go sideways, I’ll let you know. Actually!”

Selkirk stops for a moment and slides her bag around. She opens it up and takes out the coronet that Jameson gave her. Carefully fitting it on her head she fluffs her fur to hide it a bit and then runs the wire from it back down to her bag. There’s a moment as her eyes roll and flutter and then…

“There. Can you hear me now?”

“5 by 5, you’re crystal.”

“Yeah, no worries.”

Using the cybernetic connections for speaking was odd. Nick felt like he was talking with himself, but it was Eastern’s and Selkirk’s voices who replied.

Selkirk nodded once. “Good. I’ll use that if I need to explain something quietly, or have to tell you details I don’t want to share.  If all we do is chat over the connection though, people will start looking at us oddly. There might even be some sensors that can detect the traffic, though we’re encrypted so they won’t be able to snoop. Use voices unless I initiate or you think it’s necessary.

Eastern and Nick agreed. They were going somewhere that wasn’t theirs, they’d do well to listen to someone that knew more about where they were going.

Selkirk took a breath, held it a moment, and then let it out slowly. She palmed the last door and it hissed open.

Nick’s senses were assaulted. It was noisy, it smelled of spices that he had no names for and of countless people. Eastern grinned widely as she took it all in. “Now this? This is more like it.” 

Nick tried not to wince and followed Selkirk.

It was so crowded. They were walking down what was clearly an old, wide hallway, but it had been set up with stalls and booths of people selling things. Food, goods, information. Nick looked around, it seemed like people were selling everything. 

There were more K’laxi here than Nick had ever seen. There were a decent number of K’laxi on Hyacinth but it felt like they were all here, right now.

Selkirk was in her element. Immediately after she walks in she starts waving and shouting to people who recognize her and the business of business begins. Eastern and Nick could only watch and follow her as she makes her way down the hall, using her tail and her ears and her hands to gesture while she spoke, using a patois that neither of them could even hope to replicate. 

Before too long, a fried treat on a stick is pressed into Nick’s hand and a hot drink into Eastern’s.  Nick takes a bite. It’s hot a crispy and fried and delicious. He hands it over to Eastern and she takes a big bite too. “This is amazing!” Eastern talks around the mouthful of food. “Here Nick, try my drink.” She hands it over to him and he takes a sip. It’s hot and woodsy and probably a kind of tea. He’s never had the specific flavor combination before but it’s nice. It’s a good compliment to the fried treat on a stick.\

Selkirk grins as she continues to work the crowd. “I thought you’d like that. They-“ She gestures with her tail to a stall behind them “-were trying to ingratiate themselves to me and try and wrangle a discount with someone I know.”

Nick takes another bite. “Did it work?”

She chuckles. “A bit yeah, but probably not as much as they are hoping.”

Eastern takes another sip of tea. “Did you find out anything?”

She nods. “Yeah, I have a lead. We’re headed to talk to them now.”

Selkirk leads them further down the hall and they come to an intersection. Nick is amazed at how large The Basement really is. “Sel, does The Basement run the length of Hyacinth?”

“Sort of. There are a bunch of different Basements all across Hyacinth. If it was all one continuous place it would have been found out and cleared out long ago. As it is, they get raided pretty regularly, especially the ones down-arm. This one is relatively new, so we’re hopeful it’ll be around a while. Come on, it’s this way.” Selkirk looks at the intersection and turns left.

As they walk further into the basement, things get less rowdy and quieter. The shops change from people selling food and merchandise to what looks to Nick to be like meeting rooms and offices. Some even are behind former mechanical room doors.

After another few turns they’re deep into The Basement. They get to a plain looking door, clearly a repurposed maintenance door. Selkirk walks up to it and makes another complicated gesture with her hands, ears and tail and they hear the click of a speaker.

“Yes?”

“Ral said you’d be able to help us with our problem.”

“Did they now?”

“Yes, they also said you can use this to get half off next month’s payment to them.”

After a pause, Nick hears the click of a lock. Selkirk touches the pad next to the door and it hisses open. 

The three of them step inside and it’s an office.

Just an office. Art on the walls, indirect calm lighting overhead, chairs that look comfortable but aren’t.

An office.

Sitting at a simple metal desk is a woman-shaped person. She seems older than Nick and Eastern, maybe late 30s or early 40s. She has brown hair in a loose braid and is reading a pad. She looks up at the three of them. 

“I confirmed with Ral what he’s offering and what they say you need. I’m willing to listen but I will make no guarantees about being able to help.” She stands and thrusts out her hand. “My name is - or rather was Sunny Day, but you can call me Sunny.”

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#humans are deathworlders #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #sci fi writing #writing #humans and aliens #jpitha #the k’laxiverse #The Dreams of Hyacinth

[dumplingsjinson]

Okay so a LOT happened today. This is going to be a mess, so yeah, just a heads up!

TL;DR at the very bottom, like always.

One thing before I start: Even after all of this has happened, there’s a part of me that wonders if he likes me or not but it’s definitely solidified the fact that I like him 😂

On with it!

So I met up with him at the train station, and we went to one of the art galleries located 10 minutes away from the station. Nothing much really happened here. We hugged as a way of greeting and I held back on kissing him because I didn't want to startle him, and I also wasn't sure if he'd be okay with it. I did link arms with him and shit during the start of it but eventually let go.

Anyway, we were in the city for probably an hour before we hopped on the train (I was leaning on him and everything during the ride because I was tired lol), then changed to the metro, then got to his car so he could drive us back to his suburb.

We walked around the shopping centre for like, an hour. While we were on the escalators, we would like... Lean against each other and shit; doing shit couples do. At one point, he was placing his chin on my shoulder and had his hand on my waist and I was like OMGREONGKNREG.

(Funny thing about this: his mother was also at the shopping centre, because he saw her car parked near his, and he called her about it. All I heard was him repeating my name over and over again after she asked him who he was with. He didn't address me as a friend to her, just like how he didn't address me as a friend to his other family members the last time I went to his house so like... Oop. Good sign, perhaps? I never saw her at the shopping centre, but when we got to his home, she was just pulling out of the driveway to go to a party. So I met her for like... Five seconds lmfao.)

Anyway, the house was empty. Everyone's gone. I was in his living room lounging around for a bit, and then like... 10-15 minutes of me being there, he invited me up to his room and this is where things get... Interesting.

Things after this are going to be a bit out of order lol, I'm writing them as they come to me.

We were lying on his bed and he was all snuggled against me (keep in mind, his bed is a single bed so it's quite a tight fit for two people, and it means we kinda need to be pressed up against each other so the person who's on the outer side doesn't fall off the bed lmfao). He was telling me stories about his life, I was telling him stories about my life, he told me about his exes (he's been in two relos before: first one was for 2 years, second one was for 3 years. Been like... Two years since he's been in a relo since lol, or least a serious/long term one afaik). He ended up telling me about his exes because I was kinda asking him, "So do you do this with other people?" (the cuddling and kisses on the face and stuff) just to like, see where he was at with all of this, which lead to him being like, "No, unless we're talking about exes".

I ended up telling him how I've never been in a relo before (since he asked) and have only started using these dating apps seriously at the start of this year, and that I never really met anyone interesting and then he was all like, "Until you met me." LIKE. DAMN BOI. OKAY. I SEE HOW IT IS.

He was kissing me on the face every now and then, and at one point he asked “Can I kiss you?" and I non-verbally say yes, so he leaned in and kissed me and I'm just- LEKNFEKLWNF. I wanted this so bad, and it's finally happened! (This is the first and last time of him asking me that lmfao - every other time after this is him kissing me unabashedly and me kissing back. The first time he tried to make out with me, I kinda pushed him away because I wasn't feeling it too much, but after that I was like... Fuck it. I want this. I want him in whatever way I can have him. I caved really bad lmfaoooo.)

He was telling me how I smell good (my perfume is winning me points!), and I was like "you smell good too" because fuck me, he really does smell so good wlfknewklfn.

He kept calling me cute/adorable while cuddling up against me.

I'm wearing something deemed kinda hot for a day like today (I thought it was going to be cold but I guess not), and so he asked me "You sure you don't want to take that off? Or you could wear one of my shirts instead?" and I'm like UH NO IT'S FINE LWKENFLWEKNFKLN. I literally only had my singlet on under that shirt, and I also didn't really want to change lmfao.

At one point, we napped a bit; we woke up and ended up switching positions. I'm on the outside of the bed and he's on the inside.

More cuddling ensued. And when I say cuddling, he was like... Literally pressing up against me. You know the "bodies pressed flushed against each other" type of scenario? Yeah, that. Our legs were entangled, he was combing his fingers through my hair, he kissed me every now and then: all over my face, on my lips. (At one point, he was literally on top of me while we were making out, and that was when he started peeling back my turtleneck and trailing kisses down my jaw, then down to my neck LAKEJNFEWJKLNFEKLNF. And I was like "please don't leave any marks" LMFAOOOO. And yeah, he just kept doing that over and over again. At one point I wanted to be like “Can you kiss my neck more” BUT I WAS TOO SHY SJDKDK).

Told me, and I quote, "I could kiss you forever." So yeah. I'm just going to fucking combust somewhere, thank you!

He continued to call me adorable and cute, and I'm out here being like "stop lying, I'm not cute or adorable" and he's like "I'm not lying. You are adorable." We're like basically bantering every now and again lmao, and I end up calling him adorable at one point because he kinda is tbh.

But anyway, he was all like "you're so soft" and "you're so warm and cuddly" and "you're so cozy" and I'm just l;kJEWLKFNWEKLNF plEASEEEE I LIKE HIM SO MUCH LMFAO AND HIM SAYING ALL OF THAT IS NOT HELPING MY CASE.

He continuously checked on me to make sure I'm okay with him doing all of this, which I honestly really appreciate because it's just so like... Sweet? Told me if he's being too much then to let him know. And honestly, he wasn’t. He was being just right. I loved every bit of what he was doing to/with me, not even gonna lie. So I let him know I was okay with this, and that I was comfy with what he was doing.

We both were are being really clingy with each other, and were teasing each other about it and shit HAHA.

During all of this, he slipped in a, "So where are we going for the next date?" SKGNLWNKN. SOOOOO. I guess we're dating? (As much as I wanted to ask what exactly we were while we were all snuggled up against each other, I think I'll save that for after another few dates lmao.) At one point, when I had my head on his chest, I could hear his heart beating so fast, and when I asked, "Are you okay? You nervous?" he's like "I'm fine. Pretty sure that's the normal heart rate" so I'm all like "Yeeeeah, sureeeeee. Whatever you say." (My heart rate was through the roof, I checked my Apple Watch for my heart rate while he went to the bathroom and... Yeah. It told me everything I needed to know. I could practically feel it beating out of my chest and I was hoping he wasn't able to hear it wlkfnekwlnf).

AND OH GODDWELKFNWEKN at one point, he told me "Try kissing my neck. If not, I'm going to kiss your neck" and I was like "You're saying this like you haven't been kissing my neck already" LMFAOOO.

We dozed off every now and again while snuggled up against each other, and when we woke up, we'd cuddle some more. I had my leg over him and everything, much like a koala, and he was slotting his thigh between my legs and everything. Just... Pressed up against each other. Big spooning me at one point. Back hugging me. The lot. I was DYING the whole time.

All I can say is that this man got so fucking comfortable with me, and I loved every bit of it. That's how fucked I am.

Did I mention how he kept telling me I should stay the night? And I kept saying "I want to but I can't." Like, just before I left he was like "Are you sure you don't want to stay the night?" ELWKNFEKLWN He wanted me to stay the night so bad, and I wanted to stay the night so bad (and I let him know, saying shit like "I want to so bad but I can't" and "I don't want to leave but I have to" because if I didn't, my parents would most definitely kill me lmao).

The first time he asked me that and I said no, he was like "Maybe next time", but then he kept asking me again after that anyway LMAO. I was kinda fuelling him on since I flip flopped between "Maybe I should stay" and "But nah."

And oh GoddddDDD, I was like "I won't see you again for a bit because of how busy you're going to be for the next few weeks" and he was all like "Yeah, so let's cherish this moment."

And yeah... At one point, I told him "I wanna stay here tonight because I know I'm gonna miss you once I leave but I gotta go home". So uh. Basically a confession and a half on my part LMAO.

Who knew clingy me was also very unfiltered? Though I will say, there were other things I wanted to say to/tell/ask him but I kinda held back lol.

I also was like "You're going to have to teach me a lot of things" and he was like "So what do you want me to teach you?" and I got all flustered because of that EVEN THOUGH I WAS THE ONE WHO FUCKING MENTIONED IT LWEFNKLEWN.

And I also asked if I was too boring (since we were just laying there and cuddling and shit and I wasn't really initiating much LMFAO) and he was like, "No you're not."

And oh yeah, he also asked if I was feeling shy in a playful manner and I just ran with it and used it as an excuse whenever I didn't want to do something with him lmfao. He was never pushy about the things I didn’t want to do, though, and he really did stick to the, "Don't worry, we can take things slow."

AND JEJDKS his dad came home after work with pizza and I didn’t end up going down to eat anything because I wasn’t hungry, so I didn’t meet his dad… And then just as we were leaving the house so he can drive me home, I see his dad in the newly bought massage chair, sleeping away and I was like OOP-

Thank God none of his family saw me with messy fucking hair because that would have been bad 💀💀

He drove me home after that, I hugged him good night and kissed him, told him to message me when he got back home, and yeah. He messaged me and goes “can’t wait to cuddle more 🥰” or something like that, and I replied with “sameeee. I’m always down for some cuddles” 😭😭😭

So yeah. We basically spent the whole day cuddling. He kept kissing me all over the face. He kept calling me cute/adorable and cozy and comfortable and LKNEWKLFN. Complimented me and shit ahaha. We spent our sweet time kissing again and again and again lksnfewnf. We were just very, very affectionate with each other (I told him that he was very affectionate and cuddly and he was like “anything wrong with that?” and I was like “nope. I like it that way, at least with you” and he was like “I’m glad.” I let him know time and time again I'm new to this, and he kept reassuring me about it. I was all like "I'm not familiar with this" and he was basically like "Well, get familiar with it because I'm going to be doing this a lot."

AND YEAH. THAT'S BASICALLY WHAT HAPPENED. This recount is all over the place because I'm writing everything down as they come back to me rather than having the events be in order; everything has kind of blurred together lol, and some things aren't said verbatim.

TL;DR: We went out, then we went back to his home and spent like... 5-6 hours just cuddling in his bed before he drove me home. We made out so many fucking times, to the point where I've basically lost count on how many times we did that, he was whispering sweet nothings to me, he kept playing with my hair, he kissed me all over my face, kept pecking me on my lips, he was trailing kisses down my jaw and my neck, he didn't want me to go home, we were bantering here and there AND I think he wants a fourth date... So. Yeah.

#long post #personal #love life rambles #so yeah that's where we're at #and i'm fucked #cat guy chronicles

[centralperkchenford]

Here it is. Day 1! It’s canon quote and inspired by Season 5 song. I struggled with this one! Shoutout to the anon who helped me! It was completely different when I first started. There’s actually a few quotes in there. But anyway hope you enjoy!

Day 1: Inspired by Canon Day

Canon quotes (taken out of context, favorite quotes, etc.)

Inspired by a season five song (song from 5x21)

We could build a house away from here(I just wanna get warm with you)

Lucy looks over what she has written so far, her eyes scanning over the words that she is going to say out loud to Tim on her wedding day. She’s always been good with words, has always somehow found the right thing to say. But for some reason these particular words just weren’t coming to her.

Tim. You are my best friend. My partner in crime and in life. You are steady when I need you to be and you make everything better. I’m so glad—

“Lucy? I’m home!” Tim calls from the foyer. She hears the jangle of his keys and then his footsteps in the hall. She sighs and shuts her laptop quickly before getting up to greet him.

“There you are.” He says coming into the room. She smiles making her way over to him.

“Hi.” She says standing on her toes to kiss him. “How was your day?”

“It was good. Kind of crazy towards the end. I’m just glad I’m home.” He says and he kisses her again this time longer and harder. He pulls back and looks at the laptop.

“What are you working on?” He asks. Lucy rolls her eyes and grabs his hand and pulls him out of the room.

“It’s just wedding stuff Tim.” She says easily. And that wasn’t necessarily a lie. But she didn’t want to tell Tim she had been struggling with her vows. She just knows his will be perfect and they will probably make her cry.

For being a man who didn’t necessarily like to talk a lot when he did… he always made her cry or laugh.

“Right.” Says Tim as he sits down on the couch, pulling Lucy with him. “Speaking of, guess who offered to be our DJ today?”

“We aren’t—oh god was it Smitty?” She asks slightly horrified.

Tim nods and he looks amused more than anything. “Yep! And he said because he has been rooting for us for years. He would give us half off.” Tim says and Lucy rolls her eyes.

“How generous of him.” She says drily. “As if he knows how expensive our wedding already is.”

Tim laughs and pulls her closer. “I did get a band though. Aaron’s recommendation and they are pretty good.”

“Really?” She asks looking at him surprised. “I thought you said a jukebox would be just fine?”

“But you want a band Luce. And we aren’t getting married on the beach so..” he kisses her cheek. “You are worth it.”

Lucy laughs a little and sighs happily as she leans back into Tim’s arms. They were always going the extra mile for each other since the very beginning of their relationship. Lucy was willing to change stations if it meant being with Tim. And Tim went to a desk job because he wanted to be with her. Lucy got him into metro because she hated seeing him miserable at the desk. The list went on and on and on.

Even now with the stress of planning their wedding they were doing things for each other not because they thought they had to but because they wanted to.

“Thank you.” She says looking up at him. He tilts his head at her and raises his eyebrows at her.

“For what baby? The band?” He asks. Lucy shakes her head.

“No. I mean yes. But thank you for going the extra mile for me. You always have. You always put in the effort even when it’s hard.”

Tim shifts and pulls her fully onto his lap so he can look at her. His blue eyes sparkling.

“Lucy, you are worth the effort. You always have been and you always will be. I love you and will always try to put in that extra effort for you, because you deserve it.”

Lucy cups his face and kisses him hard. Damn him and his perfect words as always.

“I think you just wrote your vows babe.”

Tim shakes his head. “Oh no my vows will have you crying.” He says teasingly. “Believe me.”

Lucy sighs and buries her face into his chest. She has no doubt that his vows will make her cry. If only she could think of the perfect words to say to him.

***

“Hey Angela.” Says Lucy and Angela turns around to face her with a smile on her face.

“What’s up Lucy?” She asks. Lucy fidgets with the piece of paper in her hands and the gives it to Angela. “I’m trying to write my vows. But everything I come up with is.. not good. And I just know Tim is going to have the perfect vows and they are going to make me cry..” She trails off and Angela raises her eyebrows at Lucy.

“Lucy, I’m pretty sure you could throw every curse word at that man and he would still appreciate it. And since when is Tim Bradford good with words?”

Lucy huffs out a laugh. “That’s not helpful. And I don’t know he just always knows what to say.” She thinks back to that day in the shop, “Lucy you deserve someone who is worth the effort.” And that’s what what really got her thinking about her relationship with Chris. They didn’t really put in the effort for each other or with each other. Lucy felt like she was just along for the ride. Nothing really happened or changed in their relationship. But with Tim, it was different from the start. They were equals from the very beginning of their relationship as a couple and they continue to be to this day.

Angela sighs and looks over the paper. “Look I can’t tell you what to say. Whatever you say needs to come from you. If it came from someone else it would be disingenuous. I know it’s hard but you will find the right words Lucy.”

Lucy sighs and takes the paper back and folds it up and puts it in her pocket. Angela is right, the right words would come to her eventually.

***

Lucy’s still struggling with her writing her vows. She’s not sure how many times she would write something and then delete and then write something else and then delete that. She’s beyond frustrated and she has a million other things to do for the wedding.

Like confirming the venue and the date for example . They had already reserved it but Lucy being the overthink that she is called just in case.

“Yes Ms Chen you are all set for December 13th.” The lady says over the phone. “Six o clock for 75 guests.”

“That’s correct. Perfect. Thank you. I’m sorry for bugging you. I just wanted to make sure.” Lucy says taking a huge breath. One thing down. 500 to go. She thinks.

Their save the dates were sent, the invitations were all set to be mailed. Neither Lucy nor Tim wanted a huge wedding. Lucy just wanted her friends to be there. And Tim’s friends were basically her friends so it made it that much easier.

She didn’t know if her parents were coming. Her aunt Amy had called the minute she got the save the date and said she would be there which Lucy appreciated. And Tim’s only family was Genny and his nephews.

Lucy grabs her laptop and pulls it onto her lap opening up the document she had named vows.

The only word on the page was Tim. Which she supposed is a good start.

She starts typing again.

Tim,

I’m not even sure I have the right words to say how much I love you. I know you know that. But what does love mean to me? Well—

“Delete. Delete. Delete.” Lucy grumbles pressing on the backspace button maybe a little too hard. She didn’t want her vows sounding like they came straight out of a cheesy Hallmark movie.

Fuck why was this so hard??

She sighs and looks at the document again before slamming her laptop in frustration. Kojo looks up from his bed and gives her a look before grunting and laying his head back down.

“Yea you don’t have to say vows you lucky bastard.” Lucy tells him. “Tim loves you even when he has to clean up your shit.”

She puts her laptop aside and lays down on the couch closing her eyes and hoping she would dream up the perfect words.

She wakes up two hours later to Tim shaking her gently.

“Hi baby.” He says kissing her forehead. “How was your nap?”

Lucy shrugs and pulls him in for another kiss. “Would you love me if I couldn’t say anything?”

Tim stares at her confusion written all over his face. “Um..” he says hesitantly. “I’m not sure what you mean Luce?”

“If I were like Kojo and you had to clean up my shit and feed me but I couldn’t talk would you love me?”

“I.. yes?” Tim says. “But I mean I feed you and I clean up all your clothes off the floor and I still love you.”

Jesus Christ

Lucy hits his arm maybe a little too hard. And then moves to get off the sofa. But Tim blocks her a concerned look on his face.

“Baby what’s going on?” He asks softly. “You have been acting weird lately.”

She shrugs. “It’s just the wedding stress. Tim, speaking of… did you send the invitations out?”

He nods. “I sure did babe. Dropped them off before work. 3 more months.” He says.

And despite her grumpy attitude and her dilemma of her vows, Lucy heart swells because in 3 more months she will be married to the love of her life.

***

Lucy asks Nolan about his vows next. She hadn’t actually heard his and Bailey’s vows they had chosen to do it privately. Out of earshot of everyone, which Lucy thought was sweet but it wasn’t really her style.

“I know you did them privately.” She says to him early one morning as he’s getting his shop ready. “But what did you say? You don’t have to say everything.. just you know the—”

“I just told her I loved her and I couldn’t wait to spend the rest of my life with her. And you know if it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t have tried all these news things. I would kind of still be stuck day in and day out. But with her I do adventures, try new foods and stuff.” Lucy nods and Nolan looks at her curiously. “Why do you want to know about my vows?”

Lucy sighs deeply. “I’m struggling with my writing my vows to Tim. I just can’t find the right words.”

“Wing it.” Nolan says shrugging his shoulders. “I know you like to plan but sometimes the best things are surprises and sometimes winging it does the trick.”

Lucy takes in his words. Sometimes the best things are surprises.

Tim did surprise her when he told her she deserved someone who was worth the effort. And then basically admitted he had feelings for her even after she said she was scared.

Tim is and always will be the most important relationship in her life. Maybe she could wing it.

“Hey.” Says Nolan gently bringing Lucy out of her thoughts. “Whatever you decide to do with your vows.. Tim will love them because they are coming from you.”

Exactly what Angela said. Maybe she should stop asking people what she should write.

***

“I love you.” She tells Tim one evening a month before their wedding. He looks up from where he is cooking dinner and gives her a small smile.

“You better. We are getting married in a month.” He says teasingly and the adds. “I love you too.” Lucy gives him a smile that she knows isn’t her normal smile and he notices right away because he’s Tim. And he can read her facial expression better than anyone she knows. He knows when she’s truly happy or sad. He knows when something is bothering her.

“Luce what’s wrong?” He asks setting the pepper he was about to cut down on the counter. And heading over to were she’s sitting on the couch with her laptop open. She doesn’t bother closing it. It’s blank just like her mind is apparently.

He sits down and glances at the computer screen before looking back at her.

“What are you doing?” He asks and she shrugs turning away from him.

“Wedding stuff.” She lies. And she knows it won’t work she has been using that excuse for the past few months. She still hasn’t written her vows and at this point she feels like she can only say I love you.

“No. That’s not it.” Says Tim and he tugs on her shoulder to get her to look at him. “You have been staring at the screen for the past two hours.”

She turns her head slightly to find him studying her intently with his blue eyes that she loves so much. She should be honest with him but she doesn’t want to admit that she didn’t write her vows knowing his vows to her would make her sob. And all she had was I love you.

So she doesn’t say anything, she just shuts her laptop and gets up from the sofa ignoring Tim’s concerned look.

“I’m going to take a shower.” She tells him. She can feel his eyes on her back as she disappears into the hallway.

***

Their first real fight happens just 2 weeks before their wedding. It’s not so much a fight than a freak out on Lucy’s part. Lucy is once again stressing about her vows albeit silently and refusing to tell Tim what’s wrong. And their photographer bailed on them last minute. And to add to all the stress, her mom called and told her they weren’t coming to a wedding that was doomed to fail.

That’s when Lucy loses it. She collapses onto the ground and hits her head on the cabinet behind her.

“Fuck.” She mutters and then attempts to get up but Kojo chooses that moment to rush over and start licking her face. Tim follows Kojo into the kitchen calling him off.

“Hey? What happened?” He asks when he spots Lucy on the floor. He bends down and tucks a loose hair behind her ear.

“My parents aren’t coming because they think our marriage is doomed to fail. And maybe they are right. I can’t even write my fucking vows.” She mutters and she doesn’t register the look on Tim’s face until he stands up.

“What-?” She asks and then she realizes what she had just said. Fuck

“Tim—” she begins. “I didn’t mean—”

But he’s shaking his head and heading towards the front door. She jumps up and rushes after him.

“Tim. I’m just stressed okay? The wedding and—”

“That’s been your excuse for weeks Lucy. So that’s not it. Do you really want to marry me?” He says and he doesn’t sound angry just resigned.

“Of course I want to marry you Tim! I love you and I want to be your wife.. I just.. I can’t.”

“You can’t what?” Tim asks and he walks closer to her. She looks up at him tears burning in her eyes.

“My parents aren’t coming and even if I don’t have the best relationship with them. I still wanted them to come to see what a wonderful man I’m marrying. Who loves me and god only knows why you do because I am kind of a mess.” She says shakily.

Tim huffs out a breath and then wraps her in his arms pulling her close. “I love you because you are worth it. You are worth the risk dating, and falling in love with. You are worth the risk of marrying even if people don’t approve. I love every single part of you Lucy. No matter what.”

Lucy is now sobbing into his shirt and Tim pulls her head up from his chest. “Now tell me what’s been bugging you for the last few months.”

She nods and she clutches his shirt tightly. “I can’t write my vows.” She admits and Tim furrows his brows.

“That’s it?” He asks a little dumbfounded. “That’s what you have been stressing about?”

“Well it’s only my declaration of love for you in front of everyone. I wanted to make sure you knew how much I love you.” She says shrugging. She’s still clutching his shirt but she’s not looking at him.

“Baby, you show me how much you love me everyday. You tell me everyday, even when we first started dating and you got me into metro? That was an act of love Luce. You do it everyday, I don’t need your vows to be perfect. You could say none sense and I would love it because it’s from you.”

“That’s what everyone keeps saying.” She grumbles. Tim laughs pressing a small kiss to the top of her head.

“Well they are right.” He says. “It doesn’t matter what you say Luce. I know you love me.”

Lucy nods feeling more relaxed than she had in weeks. In months. If she’s being completely honest.

She just needs to write how she feels about him. And she knows how she feels. She knew how she felt just from a couple weeks of dating. Best relationship she’s had been in since ever.

Tim is worth the risk. He is worth her parents not coming because she has her own found family. He is worth everything.

“I’m sorry I freaked out.” She tells him shyly. And Tim kisses her head gently one more time before leading her back into the living room and sitting on the sofa.

“It’s okay baby. I understand. But just think in two weeks we will be married and this will wedding planning stuff will be over.”

Lucy sighs and curls more into him. Yea that is a pretty good thought

***

Later that night Lucy goes into the living room and finds a blank sheet of paper. And she writes down six words, finally finding the right ones for her vows. The words weren’t fancy, but Lucy knows without a doubt they are the right ones.

Tim, you were worth the risk.

***

The day of the wedding comes and it’s chaotic like Lucy imagined it would be. But then she’s getting ready putting on her wedding dress with Tamara, Angela and Nyla helping her. She looks at herself in the mirror and smiles. She can’t wait to see Tim, they have been separated for way too long in Lucy’s opinion.

“Bradford is going to be a mess when he sees you Lucy.” Nyla says laughing a little. “You look beautiful.”

“Speaking of the groom.” Says Angela getting up from her seat. “He’s going to kill me if I’m not out there.” She looks at Lucy one more time a twinkle in her eyes.

“Nyla’s right Lucy. Tim won’t know what hit him.” She says and then gives Lucy’s arm a soft squeeze before leaving the room.

Soon it’s time and Tamara hurries them out of the room to walk down the aisle. Grey meets her right at the entrance to where Lucy can’t see Tim yet.

“Are you ready Lucy?” Grey asks and Lucy nods eternally grateful for Grey who offered to walk her down the aisle when he found out her parents wouldn’t be coming.

The music starts and Tamara and Angela walk down the aisle. Lucy and Grey follow them and Lucy sees her first glimpse of Tim.

And damn that man could wear a suit

Everyone stands up as she walks down the aisle but her focus is on Tim. His eyes never leaving her face. She finally makes it up to him and all she wants to do is reach for him but she doesn’t. She turns to face him and she can tell he has tears in his eyes which she will probably tease him for later but for right now.

Grey who also happens to be their officiant stands up at the alter and starts talking. Lucy barely heard what he is saying but is praying their videographer who did not bail is getting this. She’s so focused on Tim, she doesn’t hear Grey say it’s time for their vows until Tamara is nudging her a little.

She smiles and Grey nods at her. “Go ahead Lucy.”

She takes a deep breath and pulls out her single piece of paper.

“Tim, you were worth the risk.” She says and Tim eyes widen a bit. “I was scared but you pushed me. I said it’s not worth the risk. But you.. you said unless it is. And you were right, we wouldn’t be standing here today if you hadn’t pushed me. If we hadn’t challenged each other every step of the way. You are by far the greatest risk I have ever taken, and the most rewarding one too. You are my favorite person and the most important relationship in my life. And I love you. You make my life better and more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. I know you said I show you everyday how much I love you. But I wanted everyone to see how loved you are. By me and everyone else.” Lucy’s eyes burn with tears as she continues. “I cannot wait to do life with you. I can’t wait to show and tell you how much I love you for the rest of my life.”

She wipes the tears away and she can see Tim clearly again. He’s staring at her his eyes shiny with tears.

“Tim?” Grey says softly.

Tim nods and pulls out a piece of paper that Lucy can see has about a paragraph on it. He crumped it up and then looks at her. Lucy tilts her head at him in confusion. But he begins talking and Lucy forgets about it for a minute.

“Remember when I said you deserve someone who is worth the effort?” She nods slightly and Tim smiles. “Well I don’t know how I got so lucky that you choose me but you did and I am going to try and show you how much you are worth it. That you make my life better. You are my light on a dark day. You are my rock and my safe place to land. You are worth it Lucy. Even with Smitty being our photographer you are worth it.” There’s a few confused chuckles in the crowd and Lucy hears Smitty yell “hell yeah.”

Lucy snorts and shakes her head and looks at Tim as he continues. “You were the risk too baby. Every single day I look at you and wonder how different my life would be without you. It wouldn’t be the same. I’m so glad you are mine. And even in the hard times I know we can do it because we will always choose each other. I love you so much Luce. I can’t wait to finally be your husband.”

Lucy hears Angela mummer. Damn Bradford behind Tim and she smiles a watery smile. Grey asks for the rings and then finally as Tim slips her ring on her finger and she slips his on his finger, Grey says: “I know pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the—”

But Tim is already kissing Lucy, and dipping her down like a damn cheesy rom com but Lucy can’t imagine anything better.

Tim pulls her close as they make it down the aisle as husband and wife.

“Your vows were perfect Luce.” He says as they slide into the car that will take them to the reception hall.

Lucy smiles at him and then leans in and fixes his tie. She reached into his jacket and pulls out a piece of paper. His vows. She opens the paper up to see nothing but their grocery list.

“I thought you said you had a big ole speech planned for your vows.” She says and he grins down at her kissing her on top of her head.

“I said I would make you cry. I never said anything about a speech.”

“Ugh. You are such a jerk.” She says shoving him gently but Tim just lets out a happy laugh.

“You love me.” He mutters. “And you married me.”

“Yeah I did.” She says nuzzling into his chest again. And just breathing in him.

“Hey Tim?” Lucy says.

He turns to look at her from where he was looking outside the window. “Yeah baby?”

“I meant it. You were worth the risk. Thank you for pushing me and showing me it was worth it.”

Tim studies her for a minute before grinning and kissing her again this time for a little longer. Lucy feels the car come to a stop. “Come on Lucy. Let’s go take the next best risk of our lives.” Tim says and he holds out his hand. Lucy takes it without hesitation

It’s not worth the risk

Unless it is.

And it so was. And always will be.

fin.

#chenford #the rookie #chenford fanfic #tim bradford #tim x lucy #lucy chen #chenford fic #chenfordweek23

[stevenbasic]

Growing into the Job Post 282: Late Night TV, p1

<<go Camera 4>>

“And now a follow-up on one of our stories from last night,” announced Alicia Ray, temporary anchor for the 11 o’clock nightly news on Channel 5, “A Halloween filled with mischief has ended with possible tragedy for three families…”

Alicia felt the eyes, the attention of the whole city and surrounding metro area on her, and looked deep into Camera 4. Swollen already with pride, she nearly had to bite her lip as her confidence redoubled once again. Since she’d started filling in for the haha ‘mysteriously infirm’ Blake Rubens, ratings had been great for the late-night broadcast, every show bringing in more viewers than the night before. Some people, of course, attributed it to her tits and the new tall-woman, breast-obsessed culture that seemed to be sweeping the nation, if not the world. But others whispered that there seemed to be something else there, when Alicia smiled into the camera, something arresting, something almost magical. The cameramen certainly knew it; Alicia could see Chuck behind Camera 4, rubbing his eyes as if in disbelief, or to collect himself. Already there was buzz about not only giving her the coveted morning anchor position, but her own daytime show. Yes, they were just a local station, but it hinted at bigger things to come. Just thinking about it made her heart race, blood rush to her cheeks…and down lower.

“Let’s go to Julie Winters, who’s in Northville with our story…” the former beauty-queen concluded.

<<go Remote Feed, Truck 2>>

“Thanks Alicia,” spoke Julie Winters, roving reporter and unbeknownst-to-her-but-future midday panchor for Channel 5. Holding her mic and standing alongside a dark-haired teen in what looked to be a suburban living room, she looked serious as she appeared onscreen. “We’re at the home of Jeremy Chan, a student at Northville High School whose three friends have been missing since last night,” Julie Winters explained, “when according to Jeremy an evening of trick-or-treating became something out of a horror movie. Jeremy, can you tell us more?”

“Yeah, uh,” the teen boy began, obviously nervous on camera and seemingly half in shock as Julie Wibters shoved a mic in his face, “me and my friends, it was like eleven, eleven-thirty or something? We were just walking down the street. The lights, like the streetlights, started flickering…maybe it was closer to midnight..?”

…

It was basically midnight; I knew it because Colt had just made some joke about my curfew and I’d told him to fuck off. The streetlights had been flickering off and on for a few minutes, strangely, like something was wrong with them. But then suddenly they’d all went out except for one down the road. We all saw it, we saw her. There was a lady standing under it, in the light. It was really spooky, and the four of us froze in our tracks and stopped talking. She was looking at us, and started to walk slowly towards us. She wasn’t saying anything. It was sorta freaky.

“Is that…Mrs. Roberts?” Simon whispered to me, as the woman approached. I could hear it in his voice: he was as weirded-out as me. What was our geometry teacher doing out here??

“What are you boys doing?” the lady who looked like Mrs. Roberts said. She was wearing the same thing she wore in school today, but her eyes looked weird and her voice sounded different, like echo-y and not her own. She spoke quietly but her words carried down the street to us like they were on a wind.

The streetlight flickered off and on a bit, the street went dark for a sec, and then suddenly when the light was back she looked like my mom.

“Mom?!” Colt sputtered next to me, his eyes big and wide. Wait, what? His mom doesn’t look anything like my mom. Jackson and Simon also seemed surprised, and each took a step back.

“What are you doing out on a school night, son?” the lady who looked like my mom to me but was probably definitely not my mom and had a weird voice asked, still walking slowly towards us. The streetlight she’d been standing under when she first looked like Mrs. Roberts had gone out, and now the one right over us flicked up to life and it was like the flashing light changed her appearance again. She was now suddenly only like fifteen feet away and even though she was younger, like one of the prettiest girls I’d ever seen, I was scared of her, my heart beating really fast.

Even worse: now there were three of them. 

They were standing there, about six feet apart from one another, all facing us, casting long dark shadows under the single streetlight. All three were wearing long black dresses which seemed to flow and move with a wind that I didn’t feel. Or maybe one had just picked up? The one standing in the middle had dark hair, one had red hair, and the young one that used to look like my mom had, uh…hair that seemed to be changing color.

“Don’t you boys know mischief night was last night?” asked the red-haired lady - also reeeeeeallly pretty, and really tall. Her eyes glimmered green, and her smile made me want to run away and start crying but my feet were like cemented to the ground. She was standing to the left. The three of them looked at us, as if waiting for us to say something, but none of us could speak.

“Last night would have been safer for you ankle-biters to be out this late, to be out being dodgy,” said the young one on the right, who seemed to have an Australian accent and hair that was starting to move on its own, like serpents, green. “No night for naughty kids being goblins, this.”

“Yeah…” said the darkest one, in the center, in a voice that suddenly made all my blood cold, “…tonight is for the real monsters.” 

And then, suddenly, from her, tentacles erupted. From her back, or from her sides, four or six or ten of them, somehow growing and stretching from her. They flailed wildly around, whipping and undulating like huge but graceful things from an alien movie before surging now towards us. They were dark and strong and purple and fucking holy shit they were tentacles with suckers like from some fucking octopus from hell. They were coming out of the dark-haired lady and they were wrapping now around Colt and then holy shit tentacles burst forth from the other two women and shot through the air towards Jackson and Simon and suddenly as my friends were being pulled in towards them I was able to turn and run but I fell and looked back and-

…

“…and then they ate my friends,” Jeremy Chan said on Camera, voice shaking, to Julie Winters, the camera crew she had at his home, and the late-night viewership of Channel 5 News.

The dark-haired reporter, in a smart suit and killer heels, fought back a smile. She didn’t want anyone watching to think she was making fun of the poor boy, but of course his story was ridiculous. “You’re lucky there were four of you, and only three of them,” she said, watching as the poor boy tried to gather himself. This was great TV, if nothing else, and she was beside herself with glee that the police let her have this interview. “Did these…women say anything, before they - left?”

“They…they didn’t leave…” Jeremy answered, “They just let me get away, after Colt and Jackson and Simon were gone and the streetlights were all now surging really bright. But they did tell me something, as I was, like, standing up, stumbling, crawling away.”

“And what was that?” Julie Winters asked, “What did they say?”

“They said: ‘Tell them the witches are here.’”

======================================================

My Patreon, where all is revealed. Well, some of it. Some of it's still confusing as fuck.

#growing into the job

[chenfordspiral]

you couldn't have loved me better

warning: Major Character Death!

“We need to pull her out.”

“No, I can’t do that. We’re nowhere near close to the finish line here.”

“That doesn’t matter. What do you wanna do? Keep her under for another two, three, four months and not tell her? Let her think about what it’ll be like to come home only to then have her realize what happened months before, and that we didn't tell her? That’s not okay.”

“She needs to finish this.”

“No, she needs to know what happened before she hears it in the news or reads about it online.”

Lucy’s handler, Detective Jones, finally gives in after a long and heavy silence.

“Fine. I’ll get her out as soon as possible.”

Grey lets out a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

The next morning, Jones meets up with Lucy in a cafe. They've done this many times before, always under the pretense of two friends catching up. If anyone were to question it, they had a cover story ready. They've barely been sitting for a minute before Jones rips off the bandaid.

“We need to pull you out.”

“What? Why? We’re nowhere near close to catching these guys.”

“I know. But things have changed.”

Lucy is visibly confused. She’s thought about just leaving many times, but she knew she couldn’t. Not without drawing too much attention to herself, without risking getting killed. And she doesn’t just quit. No matter how much her heart longed to be with Tim. 

“Okay? Can you at least tell me what it’s about? Did something happen?”

“I can’t tell you here. You’ll know soon enough.”

Lucy can’t shake the uneasy feeling in her gut. Something isn’t right. She's felt weird since yesterday, and this is only making it worse. What the hell is going on? Why won't Jones just tell her?

When she walks into the station two days later, she is immediately overcome with a strange sense of wrong. Something is very, very off. She takes another look at her phone, checking if Tim has finally responded to one of the texts she’d sent to let him know she was back sooner than expected. That nagging feeling only grows once she sees Grey, Aaron and Harper together in front of Grey’s office. Aaron spots her first, and tilts his head to tell Harper and Grey that she’s here. So they were waiting for her? That cannot be good. And why do they all look so distraught?

“What’s going on? Why was I pulled out?”

“Come on, let’s talk in my office.”

“What?”

She follows him into his office, utterly confused. Aaron closes the door behind them all.

“Okay, can someone please tell me what the hell is going on? Why was I pulled out?”

The other three look at each other before Grey speaks.

“Metro raided a building a few days ago after they got a tip about a meth lab. Raid went south.”

Lucy can feel panic creeping in.

“Where’s Tim?”

Off their hesitant looks, Lucy asks again. This time with more urgency.

“Where’s Tim?!”

“I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but… Tim and two other Metro officers were shot and killed four days ago.”

Lucy’s fairly sure that she’s stopped breathing. This doesn’t make any sense. Tim can’t be gone. He just can’t. Knowing she’d be seeing him again after the op was over had been the only thing keeping her going for the last three months. This can’t be happening.

“No. No. NO!”

She hadn’t realized that her legs had given out until she felt both Aaron and Harper grabbing either one of her arms, holding her up. She can hear her own whimpers, her continued pleas of no, please, no. There’s an ache in her chest that she’s never felt before. Never. Not when Andersen died, not when she’d lost Jackson. Not any time when her parents let her know just how disappointed they were in her. She’s sure that any moment now, she’ll wake up from this horrific nightmare, this absolute hell. She can barely breathe through the panic and the tears that are freely flowing down her cheeks now.

“Please, no.”

“I’m sorry, Lucy. They did everything they could.”

She can’t stop the sob from escaping her. The only thing still holding her up are Harper and Aaron. 

The next few hours pass in a blur. Now that she knows, she can feel the sadness in everyone and everything in the station. That black ribbon across every officers badge sends a jolt of panic down her spine every time she sees it. She wants to scream and yell at everyone who looks at her with sadness in their eyes. She knows they all lost someone, too. That they all loved Tim in their own way. But he wasn’t the love of their life.

Before she knows it, she’s at the morgue with Harper and Grey. She knows Tim's body – oh god, Tim's body – has already been identified. But she won’t really believe he’s gone until she can see for herself. Even though she’s not sure she can handle seeing him like that. She remembers seeing pictures of Jake’s body months ago, remembers the nightmares that haunted her for weeks after that. Oh god. How is she supposed to survive this? How is she supposed to live in a world without Tim?

She takes a moment before nodding her head when the ME asks if she’s ready to take a look. She’s already holding her breath, not actually ready to see what’s underneath the sheet. She doesn't think she ever will. Because once she sees him with her own eyes, she won't be able to pretend anymore.

The ME slowly lifts the sheet, and just seeing the hair is enough for Lucy to know that it really is Tim. By the time his face is completely uncovered, Lucy is already crying ugly tears, whimpering Tim’s name in between sobs.

The world around her fades away as she lets her head fall to rest against his. She can't even hear her own sobs anymore. Just her mind screaming, begging for her to wake up from this nightmare.

This isn't how she imagined coming back home. He was always supposed to be there whenever she got back. But instead, he’s not here at all. Not anymore. He’ll never come back. The last three months of his life were spent worrying about her, missing her. He’d accepted her choice to go under despite all of his fears. Put her first no matter what. And what did he get in return? 

How was this fair? How could the world be so incredibly mean and cruel?

She knows that one of them getting hurt or killed was always a possibility given their job, whether she'd been undercover or not. But if she hadn't been, at least then she would’ve been there. At least they would’ve spent the last three months together, not apart. At least he would’ve known, without a single doubt, how loved he was. Because he was. He was so damn loved. Is so damn loved. 

She doesn’t know where today ends and tomorrow begins. It all just blurs together in her grief and heartbreak.

And so the funeral comes and goes. She sees everyone from work, her found family again for the first time since she'd gotten back. She sees Genny and her boys again, cries with them over their shared loss. Tries to be there for Tamara, and lets her try and be there for her, knowing that no one but Tim could make this better. He's her safe space, her anchor. Without him... she just feels utterly lost. Numb. 

In the following days, or weeks - months? - she can't tell time anymore, she spends more time sitting at his grave than is considered healthy. She knows it. She knows that everybody else knows it. But they don’t try to stop her. And she’s grateful for that. This is where she feels closest to him right now. Her apartment just feels empty without his presence. She hasn’t even set foot in his house since before she went under. And even the station, the thing that brought them together in the first place, feels suffocating knowing he’s not there anymore.

Everything reminds her of him, making her heart constrict painfully in her chest no matter where she goes, leaving a constant ache in her chest. This is the only place where she feels even an ounce of peace, no matter how weird that might sound. Because he’s not here, either. The same way he’s not at her apartment, or his house, or the station. Or anywhere. He’s gone. Another sob escapes her.

She’ll never see him again. She’s gonna have to live the rest of her life without him, longing for that future she so desperately wanted – wants – with him. But it’s all just a fever dream at this point. A what if scenario. All of her dreams for the future, gone. All of his dreams, gone. Dead. And somehow, it’s the thought of him never getting to be a father, something he’d been longing for and dreaming of for the last 20 years that has her breaking down completely. 

She so desperately wanted to make that dream come true for him, to finally give him and see him have everything he's ever wanted. 

She doesn't know how to move on from this. Doesn't think she ever can. Or wants to. Because there is no moving on from Tim Bradford. No one will ever come close to him. No one will ever support and accept her choices the way he always did, no matter how much he disliked undercover work, no matter how much he was hurting. No one will ever make her feel as loved and appreciated as Tim always did. No one will ever make her as happy as she was with Tim. 

She never even got to tell him that she loved him. Loved him more than she ever thought possible. And now he’ll never know. He’ll never know that he was more important than anyone and anything else in her life. He died possibly thinking he was less important than her career. That he was once more not put first. Oh god. No. No no no. No. She doesn’t think she can ever forgive herself for leaving him behind when she went under. For making him live with the fear of losing her when she knew, she knew, what he’d been through before. And now she can never apologize for it. Not to him in person anyway. Only to his grave.

His grave. Fuck. 

She’ll never get to see him again. Never hear his voice again. Never feel the touch of his hand in hers, or his lips on hers again. She’ll never be able to feel the warmth of his body next to hers in bed again, never feel the comfort of his hugs again. She’ll never see him smile, or hear him laugh again. All of it just – gone. Forever. The only thing she has left are her memories. Memories that she will treasure and cling to for the rest of her life. Memories she hopes never fade, but knows that they will. 

One lifetime with him wouldn’t have been enough. And she didn’t even get that. They didn’t even get to celebrate an anniversary. Nine months. That’s how long they’d been together. Three of those apart while she was under. 

It shouldn't have taken Tim dying to make her see the full picture. She never let herself think about anything happening to Tim while she was gone. She only ever reassured him that she'd be fine and just assumed he'd be okay and in one piece when she got back. But here she is. Alone. Sitting in front of the grave of the only man she ever loved. Yes, their job has always been dangerous, it's always been a possibility that one of them didn't make it home one day. But she never imagined this. It was never supposed to end like this. 

She never imagined coming back from an op, or being pulled out from one, to find her whole world turned upside down. 

She knows her life will never be the same again. She will never be the same again.

She remembers when Harris had come to her after shift days ago and told her what Tim's last words had been. Remembers how she'd thanked him for being there for him, for not letting him die alone. Remembers how she'd broken down and sobbed at the station, only calming down long after Angela had sat with her and just let her cry it out. She knows there's body cam footage of the raid, the shooting, of Tim saying those words. But she hasn't been able to make herself watch it, or even listen to it. Because she can't handle seeing the life bleed out of him knowing there's absolutely nothing she can do about it. 

But the words have been on a constant loop in her head ever since. She doesn't think she'll ever forget them. She just wishes she could've said it back to him. She'll never forgive herself for not telling him exactly how much he means to her. 

Despite everything he went through, he still said those words. She doesn't know what she ever did to deserve Tim's selfless love. But she's so damn grateful that she got to experience it, even if it was nowhere near as long as she had always imagined and hoped it would be. 

She knows he couldn't have loved her better. 

She knows no one could ever love her better than he did. 

And she knows that she could never love anyone the way she'll always love Tim. 

And as she whispers another I love you into the wind as she's sitting in front of his grave, she feels the warmth of a ray of sunshine on her skin. She can't help the little smile forming on her lips as she lets her eyes slip closed, because she knows, no matter where she goes, that Tim will always be with her.

She'll always carry him in her heart.

Tell Lucy I love her. That she's the best thing that ever happened to me.

#mychenfordstories #warning: MCD!!

[saralayne]

If You Hurt, I Hurt 🩵💜

It’s the DOD Anniversary. Tim comes home from work and comforts his girl.

It was another late night for Tim at work. A op with Metro had come up AGAIN. This was a reoccurring theme. He loved his new position. Loved the action. It’s everything he ever wanted, professionally. As great as it was, it limited his time with Lucy. Many cancelled date nights. Quietly, coming home to Lucy very late into the night. Lucy understood, she knew this was going to be their reality when she motioned for the five player trade to open up a spot. Never once did she ever hold it against him. Always leaving him dinner leftovers. Lucy only felt happy knowing he would always be coming home to her. No matter what time and what plans needed to be cancelled. They still lived in separate places. That was just a formality as they spent most nights together, rarely apart. Both had keys to one another’s places. Still, tonight Tim really wanted to have normal hours. It was the DOD anniversary for Lucy. It was always hard for her. No matter how many years have passed. She was thriving and had moved forward. The reality was it would always be on her mind when this day in December came around every year. Tim just wanted to hold her. Now, Lucy was not just his co worker, not just his friend. She was his girlfriend. Love of his life. He just wanted to be on the couch, watching one of her mindless guilty pleasure shows and showing her that not only he loved her more than life itself, more importantly she would always be safe in his arms. It was 11:30PM when he returned to the station. Tim pulled out his phone. Usually, he would have a couple texts from Lucy. Their short form, witty banter texts she would send while he was stuck at work late. Tonight, there was nothing. As he found their texting thread.

“Hey babe. I’m so sorry I’m so late. I’m leaving now. Love you”

Nothing.

Tim had a bad feeling. Even asleep, Lucy would keep her phone on and respond. Even with a emoji, Tim didn’t understand. Lucy had her own love language for Tim. Tim raced to her apartment. Probably breaking many traffic laws. Walking through the door. Lucy was laying in bed, wide awake. Lights on.

“Baby. Your awake? Why didn’t you text me back?”

“Lucy. Talk to me”

“Tim. Hi. When do you come in?”

“A few minutes ago. Are you OK?”

“Ye-Yeah. I’m fine”

“Lucy. I thought, we weren’t going to lie to each other, remember?”

“I’m not. Lying that is. I’m fine”

“Lucy, come on. Stop”

Tears falling from Lucy’s eyes down her beautiful olive skin.

“I should be fine. This damn day shouldn’t haunt me anymore. I did the therapy. I moved on. I survived. My life is so wonderful. A job I’m thriving at. Friends. And the greatest man in the world, a man who I love with my whole heart. Caleb or Rosalyn, can’t hurt me anymore”

“Oh, Baby. Come here”

Tim wrapping his arms tightly around her.

“Luc, listen to me. You are so strong and brave. This day might always cast a shadow. You have healed but that doesn’t take away what you went through, more importantly what you survived. And more than that, you have someone that loves you more than life itself, who will ALWAYS comfort you. Not just on this day but everyday for eternity”

“Tim, thank you so much for being my safe space and loving me unconditionally. Even on the hard days”

“Baby. If you hurt, I hurt”

“That’s how this goes for the rest of our lives”

#fanfic #chenford #the rookie #tim bradford #lucy chen #dod anniversary #hurt lucy chen #comforting tim bradford #emotional hurt/comfort #established relationship

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Seoul

Time for my last post of this trip. 😢

I’ve been able to spend the last 2.5 days in Seoul. I finagled my flight around purposefully to have this stopover since I was always gonna have a layover anyway flying to PDX from Xi’an so I thought I might as well use it to my advantage.

I’ve been to Seoul before, again just on a layover, back in 2017 I was there for 8 hours. We got to leave the airport and actually managed to do quite a lot in a short time (even though we almost missed our flight back home). The last 3 years or so though I’ve been really into Korean media and a lot of the TV/movies I watch and music I listen to is Korean so I’ve been itching to come to Seoul. It’s a truly amazing city and I really want to come back and spend a truly decent amount of time here, not just in Seoul but in Korea in general. I honestly could have spent a month just in Seoul and never gotten bored there is so much to do and see.

I got to Seoul on Friday evening and was immediately struck by how strange it was to see a diverse group of people. Not that Seoul is necessarily the most diverse city in the world but just after being in China where non-Chinese people were between 1-10% of the population outside of Beijing/Shanghai it was very refreshing. It was also immediately much easier to communicate and get around and no one was staring or pointing at me. Obviously Korean is the main language here but most signs and announcements are also done in English, Mandarin, and Japanese and the infrastructure is incredibly well organized, probably the best I’ve ever come across to be honest, it made everything much easier. I know 7-8 words total in Korean, I really did make a solid attempt to study it before going and I learned enough to be able to at least read it, since its at least an alphabetic language unlike Chinese, but between that and trying to learn Mandarin I couldn’t retain very much and the grammar and vocabulary was really difficult for me. Its been very simple though to get by with English here, but I hate assuming or relying on another people knowing my language when I am a guest in their country.

Korea is extremely convenient, but China still has everyone beat with the QR codes though…it was weird to go back to using my wallet to pay for things instead of my phone.

At the airport I met someone named Isaac from Kenya who asked for some help finding the metro. He seemed very lost and he had so many bags I have no idea how he was managing all of it. I showed him where to go and helped him buy a ticket and then he wanted to ride the airport train together and that’s when again I got into the dilemma of is this stranger being friendly or creepy. I helped him get his bags on the airport train because there was no way he would have been able to manage his bags by himself and over the course of that he made several friends with other passerby who helped him with directions, etc. and he would introduce me as his friend. Maybe it was a cultural thing and I am uncomfortable 100% of the time in social situations so I don’t know. He had wanted to exchange phone numbers and spend the entire weekend seeing the city together so that’s when I started feeling a weird vibe so I pretended to be asleep on the train.

The train took an hour to get from the airport to downtown and then later on in the train ride he asked how he could travel to the US and if I’d ever consider a green card marriage (I think this was said jokingly but still…that line is a red flag for me…) so at that point I got off the train because it had luckily arrived and lost him in the metro station so that was the end of that. I am really bad at making friends and talking to people but also there are creepy people out there so its always hard to know what to do in social situations. Sigh.

Anyway I made it to my hostel without incident despite at that point it being past 11pm. It’s an electronic hostel so there’s no staff except for a part time housekeeper. All the rooms have electronic locks and you only have access to the door codes during your stay and then they get changed. It was interesting. I was in a shared room with 3 Brazilians who had been there for nearly a month but they left the following morning so the rest of the time I had the giant room to myself.

I went out to the 7/11 downstairs for dinner. One of the many things I love about Korea is how accessible and convenient things tend to be. On the tiny little street I was staying on there were literally several restaurants, convenience stores, coffee shops, etc

that were all open late and very cheap. There’s always a lot of people out and about so it always felt very safe. The convenience stores here are on another level too. They usually will have eating spaces, microwaves, hot water, etc so you can buy an instant meal, cook it, and eat it all in the store. They also sell pre-packaged bagged coffees, teas, juice, etc. and cups of ice so you can make yourself iced coffee and milk tea and things like that and so even though its not the healthiest it is actually pretty high quality food and many are open 24 hours. Its not at all strange to go have your lunch break at 7/11 or go out and have a late night snack at 2am.

On Saturday I was really exhausted so despite me wanting to go out and do a bunch of stuff my body rebelled and I had a massive headache most of the morning. I finally got out and went to a coffeeshop though to revive myself. Seoul has the highest density of cafes in the world. Geographically and population wise there are definitely cities that are way bigger, but Seoul has the highest number of cafes per capita. Literally on a single city block it is not uncommon for there to be at least 3-4 cafes. A lot of them are themed and many have computerized ordering, cheap, high quality food and drinks, and many are also set up as workspaces so it is super convenient.

I was at a cafe for most of the morning and then in the afternoon I went to the Coex Mall, one of several enormous malls in Seoul. I saw the Starfield Library which is a famous library. I had thought it was a bookstore but it was literally a public library inside the mall. There was also an aquarium in the mall but I didn’t go there. I also went and saw the Barbie movie and had snacks at the food court, but was too overwhelmed by then to stay for dinner. I ended up somehow in the Gangam neighborhood which is known for high end shopping and big stores, I went to a couple of themed shops and even did a photobooth at one of them. Photobooths are super popular here and lots of places have them and will have props to dress up with, Irene even joined on a video call while I was in the photobooth so it was hilarious. I ended up buying a lot of stuff too, there is a trend in Korea for clothes with English phrases on them and a lot of them, either intentionally or unintentionally, are very bizarre and hilarious so I got a few of those.

Then I went back to my street where my hostel was and was overwhelmed by all the food options even at 11:30pm I eventually found a place and got a pork, kimchi, rice, and egg bowl that was really delicious but definitely put my spice tolerance to the test and some soju, a very popular Korean liquor that I like. The issue with soju though is that it is very light tasting, it doesn’t taste strong at all but it is in fact very very strong so it can be a bit dangerous.

On Sunday I had a ton that I wanted to do but it was raining. Its been raining a lot in Korea the last few weeks, monsoon season has hit the area badly these last few years. The rain itself wasn’t that bad it was more just drizzly but the streets aren’t really set up for rain so there are puddles everywhere and its really slippery. Also a lot of buildings are built with basements so there has been a lot of significant flood damage. The flooding was so bad a few weeks ago a train actually derailed, a bus overturned, and multiple historical monuments were completely underwater. I didn’t see much flooding myself, but my shoes absolutely got totally destroyed from 11+ hours of walking in the rain.

A lot of the street vendors in addition to selling umbrellas sell socks. I didnt understand why at first until I went through 3 pairs of socks in a day on Sunday because they kept getting soaked through. I had to throw my sneakers away by the end of the day because they were so destroyed and am down to a pair of flip flops that are barely clinging to life.

Despite the dampness, I visited a cafe called Greem 2D Cafe which is an illustration themed cafe. The whole thing from the furniture to the food looks like 2D drawings so it has a really cool kind of cartoony effect. Then later I went to the Insadong neighborhood which was historically an art and market neighborhood, so there were a lot of really cool shops there. Then I went over to one of the historic neighborhoods to look at the old houses and visited a tea house.

Then after that I did a night walking tour that I signed up for on airbnb. I hadn’t been able to do any tours at all since the one I did my first night in Beijing. A lot of international tour places I usually use don’t operate in China and even the ones that did weren’t offering tours to foreigners because there just weren’t any foreigners. There were plenty of Chinese tours but I didn’t know how to sign up for them and I didn’t think it would be very useful to join a tour I couldn’t understand anything in so I didn’t go on any.

Anyway, it was nice to not have to think about logistics and just let someone else who knew what they were doing do all the decision making and navigating for a bit as well as meet other people. I met some people from Nigeria, Singapore, and the UK on this tour. We got to see Changdeokgung Palace, one of I think 5 royal palaces from the Joseon Dynasty in Seoul.

For context, Korea was a monarchy up until I believe 1910. The Joseon Dynasty was the longest ruling dynasty for several centuries and it is considered something of a Golden Age in Korean history. In 1910 Korea was invaded and colonized by Imperial Japan who went to unspeakably cruel and horrific lengths to attempt to eradicate Korean culture and assimilate the population. Many historical artifacts/buildings were completely destroyed and others were turned into places like zoos in order to desecrate and diminish the heritage there. The surviving royal family was exiled to Japan to dilute the blood line. Thousands were killed. The Korean language was outlawed and only through courageous efforts of ordinary people was Korean language and culture preserved.

Japan released control of Korea after World War II but then Korea was used as the grounds of a proxy war between the United States controlling South Korea and the Soviet Union controlling North Korea. The country was split in half, many families were split right down the middle, with siblings, parents, children, and spouses being separated from each other to this day. Despite the peace treaty signed decades ago between the US and the Soviets and the splitting of the country in half; South Korea actually had no say in this peace treaty and wasn’t invited to sign it. Many Koreans consider the Korean War to still be ongoing, and it will only end when Korea is unified and healed back into one country. North Korea continues to struggle with dictatorship and famine; and even after the Korean War South Korea struggled with a dictatorship, government suppression of free speech, and with economic crises clear until the 90’s that led to many people immigrating to the west and lots of children being given up in international adoptions. Its only in the last few recent decades that Korea has begun to grow so astronomically, one of the biggest problems today is the same massive disparity we see in the US between the ultra rich and the poor.

Sorry for the impromptu history lesson that literally no one asked for there. All of this is a long winded way to say that Koreans are fiercely proud of and protective of their cultural heritage, and for good reason, as it has been threatened for so long.

Anyway, the main Joseon palace in Seoul is Gyeongbokgung, which I visited in 2017. The one I visited in this trip, Changdeokgung, was built as a sanctuary specifically for the women of the royal family. We learned a lot about the site from our tour guide Pearl and about some of the dramatic court history amongst the royal family during the Joseon dynasty, how the Japanese burned and destroyed a lot of the palace and turned the remnants into a zoo, and then how in recent years it was restored to look much how it did during the Joseon dynasty.

After visiting the palace we went and visited a local market and got to try 마걸리 (maekgolli, distilled rice wine served in a gold/metal flat pan) and eat 파전 (pajeon, savory Korean pancakes). It was really yummy and it was cool to eat them in the market especially because I would never have known about the place or been capable of ordering from the place on my own. While we walked to the next site the tour guide pointed out some filming spots from Korean dramas I’ve watched before so that was cool to see. Last we visited 조녀사 (Jogyesa) Temple which ia a Buddhist temple. Korea isn’t super strongly religious; it is mainly a Christian country with some traditional beliefs mixed in, but there are definitely some Buddhist temples mixed in with the churches. I always feel uncomfortable visiting a place of worship as a tourist especially if I am not of that religion, I feel like I’m intruding on something or like I’m being disrespectful by just nosing around taking photos, I’ve visited a lot of Buddhist temples before in Thailand but that was because I was invited to do so or because it was designated more as a tourist spot than an active worship site. But people were like actively praying and I didn’t want to intrude so I just looked around the outside of the building which was super pretty and waited for the tour group.

On my way back to the hostel the British lady from the tour, Nicky, invited me to Korean bbq the next day with another tour for lunch. I really wanted to go because I love kbbq and its really hard to go by yourself since the orders are so huge so I decided to accept even though that would mean maybe missing my flight the next day. I also walked down by the stream that runs right through Seoul, it was a very nice oasis to visit my last night, it had been closed due to the rain earlier.

On Monday I gathered all my crap and lugged it in the humid (thankfully no longer rainy) heat to the metro to store my luggage in a locker. The metro is super convenient here but the stations are enormous, I must have walked miles just doing transfers between stations today in my falling apart flip flops. All day today I tried to look for a place to grab a new pair of shoes but I was so pressed for time I didn’t get the chance. I very quickly joined a group for Korean barbecue, the group was also run by airbnb and Nicky from the night before had invited me to join. I stuffed myself with delicious food until I really truly had to get moving and then raced across the city and made it barely for my flight 15 minutes before the gate closed.

One day I will get to visit Seoul Incheon airport without having to sprint across it drenched in sweat, but today was not that day. I really had thought I wouldn’t repeat my mistakes from the last time I was here but I guess I never learn. There’s just something about Seoul that makes it so hard to leave.

Anyway, this has been a super long post in a series of super long posts. I’m sad this trip is ending. I really want to spend more time in Korea without feeling so rushed and there is so much more to see in China. Guess that just means I’ll have to come back.

I’m currently on a long long flight back to the US, and I’m missing Asia already.

Until next time,

🐢

#travel #solo travel #asia #korea #south korea #seoul

[justgayrevolutionnaries]

You got living to do

Or : Enjolras does too much and his friend tries to knock some sense into him.

My gift for @cherrypigeon as part of the @drinkwithme-exchange ! You requested Enjolras and Eponine friendship and I really wanted to see what I could do with them, so here you go <3

Also a big thank you to @aceofspades-smt for being an amazing beta, it was my first fic and you really helped me through it !

Enjolras doesn't really know at what point he lost track of time. Sure, after the meeting was over, he told Courfeyrac and Combeferre that he wouldn't stay here for too long, but there is just too much stuff he needs to get done. He tried to keep writing his speech for the next protest, and when he ran out of inspiration went back to reading that article about the changes in the Congress, made a note to himself that he needs to get Grantaire a birthday present for next week, then went to see if the online petition Les Amis started got more votes since the last time he checked (ten minutes ago). Then replied hotly that guy on their website who apparently had nothing better to do than to insult the group and their actions. Then-

"Earth to Enjolras, is anyone there ?"

The unexpected voice snaps him out of his thoughts.

"Sorry, you were saying something ?" The blond asks, removing his headphones and looking at the person standing next to him.

Eponine sights heavily (and, he thinks, quite dramatically).

"I was asking if you were planning to stay here all night or if, very hypothetically, part of you would be sensible enough to think about getting some sleep ?"

He shoots her a confused glance "What are you talking about ? I've been here for-"

"Three hours straight. It's almost midnight, dumbass, and I hate kicking you out but we have to close at some point."

With a look of horror, Enjolras realizes he got lost working on this for way longer than he thought.

"Shit, shit, shit", he mutters, very eloquently, while glancing at his watch. Maybe there is still a way he can make it to the metro station before it closes- he really doesn't want to walk an hour to his and Ferre's apartment in the middle of the night.

"Man, you look really bad. Like, worse than usual. Need a ride ?"

Ignoring the exhausted part of his brain that wants to accept, he shakes his head and sends her a smile that tries to look thankful, but is really just too tired to be convincing.

"I will be fine, don't bother. You need to go home, too."

"I mean, I told Gav I'd come back early, but y'know, I think the kid won't die if I leave him alone twenty more minutes. At least I'm gonna pretend I trust him not to set anything on fire while I'm not there."

Enjolras can't help but snort at this - Eponine isn't really one to talk, being on Courf's list of "people most likely to set something on fire in a kitchen" (along, for the record, with Enjolras himself).

"C'mon, Enjolras, you look ready to fall asleep on the spot. You really feel like being an idiot and refusing my help ? Because that's, like, a very stupid move."

Again, he vaguely tries to protest, or at least to sound offended, but she doesn't really sound like giving him a choice. God, I'm definitely too tired for this.

After packing all his stuff carefully (Ferre is gonna kill him if he forgets his coat again), he follows his friend outside. Part of him briefly wonders when and how Eponine got a car, but his brain is so clouded he decides it's not worth asking. Still, it feels weird to rely on Eponine for something. He is more used to arguing with her than to seeing her being helpful.

As a matter of fact, the first time Eponine showed up at a Les Amis meeting, the two of them didn't exactly get along well - Enjolras seeing her only as a lovestruck girl who came along because of Pontmercy, while Eponine already had her own not-so-positive opinion on him based on Grantaire's endless rants.

It took them exactly two weeks and a protest gone wrong to realize that maybe they needed to change their opinion on each other. Since then, they didn't exactly become friends, as they never really had a conversation that wasn't either about their actions with Les Amis or Enjolras's relationship with Grantaire, but at least they managed to get along. Kind of. Given how headstrong and outspoken they both were, their relationship was still a rather tumultuous one. The kind that involved a fair amount of annoying the hell out of each other from time to time, through almost-constant bickering and bullying (affectionate bickering, you might say, although both of them would rather die than call it that way).

But apparently, they were comfortable enough around each other to just sit in silence together without it becoming too awkward. It was one of the things Enjolras unconsciously noticed about her : since she started dating Cosette, Eponine became a lot more relaxed and easy to hang out with. They may not be close, but Enjolras is glad to see his previously morose friend looking so happy.

"Y'know, I wasn't joking earlier" Eponine suddenly says, snapping him out of his thoughts for the second time in the evening, which makes him realize he had been on the verge of falling asleep on his seat. Again. Which is a little concerning, since he has never ever been able to even come close to sleeping in a driving car.

Okay, so much for avoiding awkward conversations.

"What ?"

"Are you actually planning to get some sleep anytime soon ?"

"I am getting sleep !" snaps Enjolras, slightly annoyed by the question. How is that any of her business ? "It's just�� there is some stuff I need to finish, but it's nothing more than usual."

Again, his friend lets out a sigh while shooting him a concerned and slightly exasperated look. Enjolras staying up all night to plan a rally or some other action, or even just study something, was nothing unusual. All of les Amis knew that when their friend was getting passionate about something he could stay up for days to think about it, and they usually tried not to worry too much when that happened. But this time something felt different. The blond had been acting like this for weeks, drowning into work and not really taking time for himself or to hang out with his friends.

"Listen, Enjolras, I am your friend, okay ? I just want to help you here. I know what this means to you, but you need to understand you can not keep going like this. You can't just get caught up in the idea of saving people to the point where you forget to live your own life."

"Wha- I don't-" he feels so frustrated by what she is saying that he doesn't even know what he wants to say. "Are you serious, 'Ponine ? Who cares about my life ? When I look at the world around me, you think I want to keep living my life like nothing is happening ? People need help ! We need to do protests, tell more people to- to just do something !"

He seems to be on the verge of tears now - which is how Eponine understands that this may be worse than she thought. It's not that she thought Enjolras wasn't capable of being emotional, obviously, but he never actually showed it to people who weren't his closest friends. And even then, it took the combined forces of Courf, Combeferre and Grantaire to get him to admit what was wrong.

"Okay, listen. Just for once, don't be an idiot and listen, okay ?"

She waits until he gives her a reluctant nod to keep talking.

"You are enough, Enjolras. You are doing more than any other person I know, and - god, I can't believe I am saying this - I really, really respect you for it. I respect the way you just always try to make other people's lives better, no matter what. Trust me, what you are doing is good enough. But you need to understand that at some point you can't just always keep doing more. And most importantly, you can't take everything upon yourself, not when we are all here to help you. You aren't gonna save the world by working yourself to death, Enjolras."

He vaguely tries to say something, but Eponine shoots him a look that makes him very effectively shut his mouth. Maybe the girl seems harmless to people who didn't know her, but she could be terrifying sometimes - like when Enjolras started dating Grantaire and she showed up at his door to give him the basic "you hurt him, I kill you" talk, which the blond has absolutely no reason not to believe given the way she looked at him. Which is why, for once, Enjolras thinks it might be wise not to argue back - this, and the fact that a part of him, even if he really doesn't want to accept it, knows that she is right. But still, that doesn't make it easier to accept.

"I know how much you don't want to listen to my advice, but at least take time to think about it, okay ? And whether you like it or not, your friends care about you. So you need to understand we won't stop giving you those talks until you actually start listening, got it ?"

Enjolras still doesn't answer - but this time, it's because he has a knot in his throat that makes him feel like he is going to start crying if he says anything. Eponine is, has always been, a brutally honest person, and the way she told him that his friends care about him went right through his heart. Even if, sometimes, he still struggles with the idea of people loving him for who he is, he knows his friends care. And he knows that if he doesn't listen to them, they would very well be able to lock him up until he starts taking care of himself. And as much as that frustrates him, he really, really loves his friends for it. So yeah, maybe this one time, he can consider listening to Eponine. Maybe.

Still, when he gets out of the car, it feels like a weight has been taken off his chest.

"Thank you. Really." He doesn't add anything else, because he knows he will always be too stubborn to admit he really needed the help from Eponine Thénardier. It doesn't matter, though, because he knows his friend understands what he meant - she can't help but smirks, and he sees very well how hard she is trying not to say anything sarcastic as an answer.

"Anytime, blondie."

"Don't call- yeah, okay," he sighs. Could be worse.

#hope you enjoy it ! #i for one am pretty happy how it turned out given it's my first #*runs away and hides for the next thousand years* #platonic friendships #drinkwithme2022 #remind me to post it on ao3 when i'll have decent internet connection #i am bad at finding titles #enjolras #eponine #enjonine but platonic #les mis #platonic frienships

[kristenbouchard]

hi syd!! i'm starting mcgill law next year (i deferred so that i could move & get used to the city - if you have any recommendations for places to go for coffee in verdun/pointe saint charles or downtown, i would love to hear them!) and i have a few questions about studying & time management, if that's okay?? the thing i'm most worried about is balancing the workload & keeping a job at the same time. how manageable did you find it? was it heavy straightaway from the first term onwards? i know this probably sounds like a super weird question, but what did an average day look like for you? because one of my friends who did medicine at mcgill used to get up at 5am to memorize her textbook while on an elliptical, & i'm wondering if i'm going to have to start doing that!! i also love walking to get around mtl right now, did you find it was feasible to take the time to walk or go to the gym every day, or did you need to keep your nose to the grindstone most days? should i get into the habit of reading 500 pages a day?? i hope it's okay to ask, i'm just nervous!! and if any of this makes you uncomfortable, dw, you can def ignore me!! thank you for your time, either way :)

hi, wow, how exciting!! i’m glad to hear you’re enjoying mtl, i have been missing it so much. i wish i could be of more help but i didn’t go to mcgill nor law school, so i’m not the best person to ask for those specifics. you’ll find your own routine and workflow that best suits you and the classes you’re taking. i did my undergrad in five years instead of four which made it much easier for me to balance working at the same time — i don’t know if spreading out your credits is an option with their law program, but that’s maybe something to think about? a full course load, a job, and being very involved with an extracurricular did end up being too much for me and my pitiful mental health in my second year, which is why i did an extra year, and that was the best decision i could’ve made. but lots of people manage it! so the very helpful answer is: it depends.

an average day for me at my busiest would probably look like getting up early ish before class to do readings or finish a paper, taking the metro to campus, going for a walk between classes, doing more work between/after class at the library or a cafe, then going to a work shift or extracurriculars in the evening — not unusual to spend 12 hour days on campus being consistently busy. i did prioritize time for walking because i learned very quickly that it was necessary for me, which sometimes meant i would get home and be studying an hour later than i wanted to, but that was my choice!

cafes!!!! in verdun, my beloved: station w, pavillon, sweet lee’s, lili & oli, not sure if there’s still one in la librarie but that was good, and i miss the boys at balance torréfacteur and their coffee every day (would highly recommend buying beans from them too). just on the other side of the aqueduct is yo & co which was also my second home for a year when i lived around the corner. i don’t know pointe st charles as well but florence is good! slightly adjacent is september surf which is excellent. downtown(ish): cafe myriad, faro, shaughnessy cafe, cafe aunja, melk, humble lion, many i’m forgetting. if you haven’t been to crew collective already it’s a must. hope that helps!!

[onmywaytofanfic]

Untold (Shino x OC)

This fic actually happens way after the main cannon fic that currently has 2 chapters. This was and is me playing around with how I may make Shino and my OC Reina work as a couple. In this scenario as you may see they haven't confess their feelings yet. I am also practicing to do some +18 in the future, so any advice when it comes how to post it or not would be welcomed. This is just the beginning.

Far seem the days were at the house of Aburame hunger was the leader, however only five years have gone by. The old Aburame were getting their humble home ready to welcome Shibi, Shino, Torune and Fuu Aburame, but they were more eager to welcome their lovely ladybug, Reina. Almost two years have gone by and she could not have come sooner to her lovely house. Letters were exchanged and thanks to new inventions that Konoha had brought to their village such as the telephone they were able to listen to her joyful voice. She had kept herself prepared, she had decided to learn, practice and save money. The village was small for her, and too many sour memories brought to her; however over there in Konoha they were aware of the most sweetness. She has not confirmed nor denied her relationship with the young heir, but among fathers some letters and brief calls were made. Both of them are concerned if they were seriously trying to “mate” each other or not. The families were worried that this could be taken forever, yet they were sure that love was what they both had but were too afraid to speak of it. Even their closest friends were starting to tease them publicly, they have already started to build their families and those two were still uncertain to take a step forward for their own relationship. Too precocious? could it be, afraid? Of that everyone was certain. Both feared that what the other was feeling was not mutual. 

It was clear to whoever saw them together, that they were a couple but they kept saying that what they had was a “close friendship” – Yeah Shino “Close relationship” - He did some air quotes – Come on Shino! It is time that you confess what you two have ! – Boruto’s small cry set the attention somewhere else – Have you slept with her? – Said Naruto who tried to calm the baby, although he had already a year he was craving his mother’s touch rather than his father. – Yes – Said Shino without hesitation – What?! Since when have you two slept together?! Yes! More babies are coming! - Cried out loud Inuzuka, Shino stared at him blankly and then a subtle rubor set in his cheeks and nose – You were asking about .. “that sleeping”? - the Aburame gulps his saliva – You mean that you two have “sleep” as in “sleep” not “sleep” as in “sleep” ? - that was Shikamaru. The young Aburame tried to elude all his peers' questions as fast and effectively as he could. He started to regret that they were all going to Reina’s village to see their celebrations. He remained silent through the rest of the journey until the new metro-station. The invention of the train was a recent one that facilitated mobility among the villages, something great when you did not need to actually do a mission. 

He was carrying his own bags, the girls group was a little bit ahead of them, most of his teammates were already parents, even his brother and his partner were thinking about adopting. It was…unsettling. A laugh caught his attention, he looked in front of her and saw her. She was laughing faintly while carrying her bags, he was nervous, his father-in…. Reina’s father, Takehiko, offered his home for his family to stay with them. He felt cold in his back, it was not normal cold it was fear, but why? He could not wonder why he felt as if he should be scared. He did not want to fear that way after all it was a joyful trip with his family, sure some of his friends have tag along taking advantage of Reina’s extensive family… What was he thinking? Talking like that about them… He… he was hoping for some time alone with her. Yes, that was what he was thinking… both of them alone. Like when they were doing those night wakings, or when they lost time in the library and the book shop; they loved it. 

–Hey… Hey! Shino! - It was Kiba - Tell me, you two have not really been together? How many dates have you been together? It feels like forever that you two have been together, like for how long? You have been together for 3 years, haven't you? - Shino kept his eyebrows in an arch - We are not dating yet– he said in a subtle voice and a whisper - What were you saying? - Said Kiba - Louder I did not get it – Shino remained in silence. Were they really hanging together? Were they a couple? They did have some special days… and well.. the touches, when she grasped his hand and squeezed it just a tiny bit or when she pecked his cheek or the quick kisses in his lips that they did when no one was looking.  He felt ready but something was off.

– Shino, bud…- Kiba grasped his arm around his friend – You two should have a long talk – the bug-man, far from the days of him being a boy, felt his heart stop for a moment. His college was right, they should talk… but how? How do you start such a conversation? How will she react? How will he react? The questions were infinite and the time given was not as such. It could be perceived as infinite but he was sure that there was a limit to how much longer could both of their hearts deal without spilling all that was inside of them. The march stopped – We did it! – Yell Ino –I thought we would not made it in time – Her son Inojin was hanging on his father, Sai, who carried him delighted; the child kept munching on his father’s clothes, teething was something painful and most of his colleagues were starting to have a sore gum. Shino eluded his friends, they were all happy couples, he on the other hand was a lone wolf, like Reina. He patted her shoulder – Need help with the luggage? – A gentle smile - Don’t worry I can carry them, do you want me to help you? - He did not reply, instead took with his hand one of her bags. She refused and grasped the handle firmly - Your hand looks in pain - He whispered, she looked at them, it was true that his hand felt numb, but she could carry her own bag. – Worries none, they are numb I c - He did not let her finish and take the bag. She liked when he was such a gentleman, but it also made her feel useless, just as her siblings made her feel every time, making her remember how she spent all her youth locked in the house, away from civilization. It also reminded her that for a long time, she was only perceived useful for a short time. She started to have those feelings more frequently when she was around Shino, ever since she heard Kiba and Shino talk about Hinata, and how Shino was infatuated with her. 

She loved to spend time around him, she even thought that love was what was forging between them both, but that day everything crumpled although she keeps denying the truth. She secluded that memory in a deep corner of her mind, she did not want to be hurt however, the truth was there… She was just a play-thing to force himself to forget his unrequested love from the Byakugan princess. She knew that she could never compare herself to Hinata, she was not her and never will be. Nights were spent wondering what she would do if she could change herself for her, she would do it. She will change to make the man that she loved happy, therefore she would be unhappy. She was never enough. Not for her sibling, her family, not for him or no one. 

She was simply not enough. Knowing that simple fact hurt more than facing the destiny that she had eluded five years ago.

Reina sat near Torune and Fuu, she smiled at them and proceeded to take out of his bag a small book. She had recently found herself overjoyed everytime she opened one of those books, she had always loved them wondering about different places that she had never known or could ever get closer. Imaginary and far away places. She liked it a lot and Shino had… Shino… Shino always gave her good recommendations and most importantly accompanied her to the library and book-shops. She sat there, she could feel it, Torune staring at her. There was silence and then Fuu left both of them alone. – What’s the deal between you and my brother? – He was direct, as always, however she left traces of a futile smile just to ease the conversation. Trying to not be so direct or threatening, however he wasn’t and he did not need to do that. She held the book tight –We …we are friends… you know that– He let his true smile, the share the same smile, something most likely related with the fact that like her, they were a heart family. His upper teeth showed slightly and his cheek lifted up showing how chubby his face was in reality. That was something that she had also found with Shino and Shibi, their faces looked slender and carved in marble, but when they left their smiles shining they actually turned a little bit chubby. Their cheeks were not that thin, they were just hidden. She hid herself 

— Reina… You and my brother are friends who go to family dinners, meetings, have dates alone with no other friends and every Friday watch a movie together in one of your houses. - She kept her face hidden – When would it be official? It is hurting both of you, I can see it in your eyes and his. How you cherish each other but are afraid to show it. I was afraid too, afraid that Fuu’s and I relationship may interfere with our work. It turned out it did not, actually it made things better once we stop hiding, avoiding being sincere with our hearts – Aburame… they talk little but directly to your heart. They knew how to do it. She kept her face hidden, Torune could perceive how red it was even while she was covering it. – I just… – Torune grabbed the book down, under her lenses her eyes were about to burst into tears. She had feelings towards his brother but he did not have those feelings towards her.

– It is not that easy – He could feel her tears gulping in her eyes. There was mumbling behind them: Shino’s voice, he was helping Hinata. Her heart shrugged a little remembering that for him she was just a chick with which to take from his heart his beloved one. She did not want to eavesdrop on what they were saying, but it was almost impossible with Kiba’s shouting being heard all over the restaurant. She had decided to go there to take some take away, since her sisters were in town. She waited and thus the conversation was heard.

The chirping of glass was sensed, surely all the boys were having some dinner to catch up with their lives, adult stuff. There was drinking involved except for Shino and Lee, they were a threat for all of them if some alcohol were to be ingested by them. “I am happy that Hinata is out of your head, Shino”  That was Kiba, and those words alerted Reina. What was the meaning behind that? “She was head over heels for Naruto and you were suffering a lot because of that. Glad you found someone else to replace her.” Replace… so that is her purpose, replacement. He was not replacing anyone in her heart, he had such a big space only for him. However, she was replacing his loved one, she was there because he was rejected. She was a substitute. She was not going to tear in front of him and his friends, she was far more stronger than that. “Don’t tell me that you were after Hinata? Really? Ha ha ha ha And I must discover this after I get married to her. I always thought that you two were just friends! Did you love Hianta, Shino? “ “What a strange combination that would have been” that was Sai. 

Enough, she left the place. Surely there were more places that sold BBQ. Her sisters would not mind that it was not the fancy one, would they? She needed to get out of there… She shouldn’t have done that though. Because guess what, cliché everything was just a huge misunderstanding. Most importantly, it was a huge communicative problem. 

#shino aburame aburame clan #fanfic #naruto fanfiction #naruto series #fanfiction #aburame clan #naruto oc #oc stuff #onmywaytofanfic #naruto shippuden #shibi aburame #torune aburame #naruto the last #reina aburame #complicated love #I like to make my OC suffer #Missanderstanding #Love is tought #love #Shino x OC

[ecoamerica]

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[whimsicalworldofme]

Saving Grace: Chapter Twenty

Grace is in D.C. to speak at a college lecture series and reconnects with some old friends. But the weight of keeping her relationship with Steve secret is starting to wear on her. 

“Do you think you’ll be free for dinner tonight?”

Grace asked Steve as they both busied themselves packing up stuff in bags for their individual tasks for the day. She had been invited to speak at a symposium at Georgetown University and planned to be there all day listening to lectures on innovation in assistive technology and related medical practices, so she had her iPad, her notes for her speech, and a few other odds and ends. Steve on the other hand had put his boots and new Captain America suit into a duffel bag to take in to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. He always kept the suit and his shield at home, carrying them in a bag to change at HQ before a mission, then changing back into street clothes before coming home.

Grace eyed the new suit, which she had never actually seen him in. She’d seen him in his red, white and blue number twice, once the time Nat brought him home after he’d gotten hit by that car on a mission and the other time only briefly when he had come to retrieve her after the Battle of New York. This new suit was so dark blue it was nearly black and had a silver star and accents. He called it his stealth suit. Despite the fact that she asked sweetly, batted her eyelashes, and promised him very tantalizing rewards in exchange, he refused to put it on for her.

Catching her as she eyed the suit in his bag, he let out a chuckle, zipping it shut and effectively removing it from sight.

“Don’t go getting ideas,” he chided jokingly.

“How come I, your girlfriend, am the only one in the world who doesn’t get to see you as Captain America?” She pouted and he let out a little laugh. Stepping closer to her, he laid his hands on her hips, tugging her into him before leaning down to give her a gentle kiss.

“Because you are the only one who sees me, sees Steve, when you look at me,” he said, “not Captain America. You’re the only person alive whose view of me wouldn’t change if I was still the scrawny punk from Brooklyn. It’s the closest I get to normal life. I don’t want to taint that by bringing Captain America into the mix.”

“Urgh,” Grace groaned, frustrated. “I can’t argue with that,” she knew his reasoning was extremely valid. “I really want to, but that’s really sweet and very true,” she frowned, making him laugh and kiss her again. “I absolutely would have loved you just as much before the serum, y’know, if we’d both been around then. Because you are exactly the same person, just, taller and muscley-er,” she poked him lightly in the abs, making him laugh again. “You haven’t answered my question about dinner though.”

“I’m not sure when I’ll be home,” he admitted, grimacing slightly. “So, I probably shouldn’t make any plans.”

“It’s ok,” she reassured him, going back to getting her stuff together. “I got an invite to dinner at a former classmate’s house, after the symposium, so I will go to that instead. She lives not far from here actually.”

“Former classmates?” He raised a brow, curious. “You never talk about former classmates.”

“I know,” Grace shrugged. “They kind of treated me like a class pet or baby sister, since I was so much younger. We were in a study group together, six of us. Now that we’re adults, some of them have reached out online and I’m kind of looking forward to getting to hang out with them on new terms.”

“Sounds like it’ll be fun,” Steve went into the kitchen and grabbed the travel mug of coffee he’d made for her and brought it over, pressing it into her hands. “I’m sorry I can’t take you out for dinner though.”

“There will be other opportunities,” she smiled. “I’ll see you when you get home.”

She gave him one last kiss and headed out of the apartment to the metro station. Her speech turned out to have a standing-room only crowd. Word had gotten out that Iron Man’s daughter was going to talk about assistive tech and apparently a lot of people were interested in hearing what she had to say. She had a feeling more than a few had no idea about her or her work, but were curious to see if she was anything like Tony. Her presentation went well though the Q&A afterwards took a few turns when people wanted to know what it was like being Iron Man’s kid, living with him, and things about the Avengers. She had gotten some great coaching from Pepper beforehand on how to redirect those sorts of questions and managed it brilliantly. The rest of the day she attended other presentations, lectures, and chatting with other professionals in the medical field.

“Half pint? Is that you?”

The familiar nickname from a familiar voice, one that she hadn’t heard in nearly ten years, caught her attention while she was in line for another drink at a campus coffee shop. It was the end of the day and she was tired, but she wanted some caffeine in the hopes that she could stay up late, just in case Steve didn’t get home at a decent hour. Turning around, she saw her med school crush, Harry Harper, dressed in a pastel pink button-down shirt, tucked into nicely fitted khakis. He had on a nametag, just like her, that read Dr. Henry Harper. In school he had been twenty-two when she was sixteen, so obviously, her love had gone unrequited, but he’d been head of her study group and they’d gotten to know each other pretty well.

“Harry,” she grinned. He looked a lot like she remembered, short black hair, but now he had a beard and mustache, bright brown eyes behind black framed glasses. “I was wondering if I’d see you around.”

“It’s so good to see you,” he went for a hug and she allowed it, hugging him back. When they parted, he pushed his glasses up his nose. “I hoped I’d catch you around somewhere. I saw your speech, great stuff. The implications, I mean, you’re laying the foundation to change mobility aids as we know them. Of course, we all knew the wonder kid would go on to do great things.” He smiled brightly. “It was only a matter of time before you were putting us all to shame.”

“Hey, your work with prosthetics is nothing to shake a stick at,” Grace countered. “Are you heading to the study group reunion at Marcie’s place?” He nodded. “I’m heading that way too, but I needed some fuel first. Can you believe she went into teaching? And landed a gig here at Georgetown?”

“I always had a feeling she would wind up teaching,” he confessed. “Remember her running us ragged with test prep?” They shared a laugh at the memories. “Georgetown is a surprise though. She always talked about wanting to go back home to Minnesota.”

“Yeah,” Grace said. “I guess life has had some unexpected turns for all of us.”

She noted the line had moved up and she stepped up to the counter. Little goosebumps stood up on her arms when Harry joined her, standing unnervingly close and she felt his eyes on her, taking her in the way she had dreamt he might someday, back when she was younger. “Can I get an iced caramel macchiato with two extra shots, please?” She asked the barista, pushing thoughts of her childhood crush from her mind.

“I’ll have a small black coffee,” Harry added, pulling out his wallet before Grace could get hers and handing the barista his credit card. “She’s with me,” he tipped his head towards her and the barista nodded, ringing them both up together.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she only slightly protested. “But thank you.”

“Still trying to test the limits of caffeine consumption, I see,” he grinned and Grace smirked. Harry always used to joke that she ran on nothing but caffeine and spite for those who discredited her due to her age. With their orders placed, they moved over along the counter to wait on their drinks. “I, uh, saw in a news article a while back that you finally connected with your birth father. That must be pretty great, huh?”

Grace blushed slightly, remembering having to explain that she was adopted when her parents had come to visit her at med school for parents weekend. For one thing, she didn't look much like either of them, close but enough to notice there was something different, and they were closer to the age her grandparents would've been. Her friends hadn't meant to strike a touchy subject, but they'd been curious, so she had told them vague generalities about being adopted. Though she had known her whole life that Tony was her dad, she couldn’t tell anyone. If the wrong person found out, she could end up in danger, but even if she didn’t end up in danger, people would laugh at her. She had, at one point, opened up to Harry that she knew her biological dad was a renowned inventor but had left it at that.

“That one article was absolutely necessary,” she told him. “Dad’s PR team kept pulling stories with photos claiming I was the new girlfriend he’d ditched Pepper for. They never made it to print, but I can’t tell you how unnerving it is to see magazines trying to publish a story speculating my dad is my boyfriend,” she shuddered and Harry laughed.

The barista brought their orders to the counter and he plucked up both before passing hers over.

“Well, I look forward to catching up with you,” he grinned and Grace felt another little jolt when her hand brushed against his in taking her drink. She noted a hunger in his eyes that she recognized all too well. A couple of years ago, she might have killed for him to look at her that way.  “You want to split a cab to Marcie’s?” He asked.

“How about the metro?” Grace suggested, not sure she was comfortable with the idea of being alone in the back of a car with him looking at her like that. “I’m here a lot for work, so I know exactly how to get there from here. And it’s cheaper.”

“Still frugal, despite being a billionaire’s daughter,” Harry chuckled, shaking his head. “But sure, metro it is.”

“My dad’s the billionaire, not me,” she laughed. “So, tell me about your practice,” she hoped to get the topic of conversation off of her personal life. “Pediatric prosthetics, that’s got to be equal parts challenging and rewarding.”

They walked to the nearest metro station and passed the train ride discussing the different paths they’d taken in their careers after med school, noting similarities. They had always shared similar interests in school, though Harry had always leaned towards working with kids while Grace had always been pulled towards working with veterans and disabled adults.

“Grace, Harry, you made it!” Marcie greeted them at the door, casting a questioning little glance between them when they had shown up together. “Come on in,” she waved them inside.

She had a row house just a few streets down from Steve’s place, but unlike the little apartment, this house was luxuriously large, by big city standards. Marcie led them into the dining room where the three other members of their study group were already seated around the table, drinking wine, chatting and laughing. Everyone but Grace and Harry had a romantic partner sitting next to them. There were cheerful, delighted squeals of hello and hugs given all around. There was Jennifer and her husband Mark, Nicole and her wife Amy, Chris and his husband Anthony, and Marcie introduced her husband, Adam. Wine was poured, everyone squished around the table, and Adam, a professional chef at a highly rated restaurant in the city, brought in the most decadent meal consisting of a rack of lamb and a multitude of sides. It didn’t take long for everything to feel just like it had back in med school, though now, since Grace was an adult too, she could participate fully in all aspects of conversation. And drink. Hours passed and a chocolate souffle came out of the kitchen, paired with white chocolate ice cream. The conversation kept going strong.

“Adam, that was honestly the best meal I’ve ever had,” Grace complimented him as she polished off the last of her souffle and licked the spoon clean. “I’m going to have to make a reservation at your restaurant as soon as possible.”

“Good luck getting anything sooner than six months from now,” Marcie bragged, beaming as she rubbed her husband’s back. “Everyone in the city wants a reservation.”

“I could get you into the chef’s table any time,” Adam offered. “Especially if you wanted to bring your dad with you.”

Bold, Grace couldn’t help but chuckle as she took a sip of wine, watching Marcie swat her husband’s shoulder.

“That is rude, Adam,” she chided.

“Do you know the kind of publicity we could get if Tony Stark was seen eating there?” He asked with absolutely no remorse.

“I’m so sorry about him,” Marcie sighed.

“I’m used to it by now,” Grace snickered. “My dad is pretty chill about those sorts of things. As long as you give him really good food, which, if tonight’s dinner is any indication, you absolutely will, he’ll sing your praises to anyone who will listen.”

Truthfully, the reservation she had wanted to make would have been for her and Steve, but she couldn’t say that. She could’ve said it was for her and her boyfriend, but that would have only raised questions she wasn’t ready to answer. The burden of keeping her relationship a secret was really starting to wear on her. Steve had agreed that they should be open about it soon, but the absolute first person they had to tell was Tony and they agreed to do it together in the next week or two. It was all planned out. Steve would come to New York and they’d come clean together.

“It must be amazing,” Jennifer leaned against the table, pulling Grace out of her thoughts, “finding out you’re Tony Stark’s daughter. I mean, we all knew all along that you were brilliant of course, so it makes sense. But who’d have thought?”

“Yeah,” Grace smiled brightly. She didn’t mind talking about her dad, though she had to be cautious about the things she said to anyone, given that anything said could manage to trickle its way to a press outlet at any time. “It’s been a wild ride, meeting and then moving in with him and Pepper. It’s nice, getting to know him. We get to hang out and we build stuff together, just kind of goof off,” she laughed, thinking of her father’s antics. “I couldn’t have hoped for a better dad.”

“Have you gotten to fly around in one of his Iron Man suits?” Anthony asked excitedly.

“A few times,” she nodded. “It is not as easy as he makes it look. It takes a lot of core muscles and balance. If you aren’t in the absolute best shape, you hurt for days in muscles you didn’t know existed.”

“So do you hang out with the Avengers?” Nicole asked. Glancing briefly at her wife, she leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “And can you give me Captain America’s number? He’s my hall pass.”

“Really? Right in front of me?” Amy asked incredulously.

“Look, when you have a chance to shoot your shot, you have to go for it, babe,” Nicole shrugged.

“I’m afraid your shot would be wasted,” Grace laughed. “I have it on good authority that he’s not looking for booty calls or relationships right now.”

“What about Thor?” Nicole didn’t even hesitate to make her way down her list.

“Doesn’t have a phone,” Grace shook her head. “Plus, I think he has a girlfriend. I could introduce you to Bruce maybe, if he was interested, but he’s pretty shy.”

“All right, before this gets entirely out of hand, I think it’s time to go,” Amy sighed and pushed herself up from the table. “Marcie, Adam, it’s been lovely. Hopefully we can do this again soon.”

The party began to break up, with everyone saying their goodbyes, calling taxis or rideshare cars, or drifting towards the nearest metro station. Grace had made a point to ensure she was sober enough to walk back to Steve’s place and remain alert, not wanting to wait on a car. There were hugs all around and Harry trailed after her as she left.

“Hey, where are you staying?” He asked. “Let me make sure you get there safe,” he insisted. “Can’t have my half pint wandering through a big city at night all alone.”

“Your half pint, huh?” She raised a brow. “Where was that possessiveness in med school?”

“It was there,” he caught up to her and matched her pace. “In an appropriate big brother sort of way, mostly making sure creeps stayed away from you, cause you were just a kid. You’re not sixteen anymore though and honestly, Grace, I gotta say it, and maybe I’ll regret it, but I couldn’t take my eyes off you the minute I saw you walk on that stage this morning.”

“Oh, I wish you'd said that to me about three years ago,” Grace confessed with a half-smile, her heart doing a weird flip-flop acrobatic act, half ecstatic, half sad. “I had the biggest crush on you all through med school. Like the doodle your name in the margins of my notes, kind of crush,” she felt her face turn red in admitting it, but he beamed. “I might have melted right on sight, but I am heading back to my boyfriend’s place,” she told him and watched his face fall.

“Ah, I guess I shouldn’t have waited so long, huh?” Harry sighed and shrugged. Grace held such a deep affection for him still, she felt a pang in her chest seeing him disappointed. “Can I still walk you back to your boyfriend’s place, make sure you get there safe?”

“Of course,” she nodded. “I'd be glad for the company. It’s just a few blocks this way.” She nodded her head to the side to indicate the direction.

“So how come your boyfriend wasn’t at dinner tonight?” He asked. “I mean, I’m glad he wasn’t, since then I would’ve been the odd man out, but everyone else brought their partners.”

“He had work,” she said. “And our relationship isn’t public yet.”

“Well, that’s dumb,” Harry scoffed. “You are the kind of woman men should be bragging about. If you were my girlfriend, I wouldn’t be able to shut up about it," he stated firmly. "I'd be shouting your praises from the rooftops."

“You always were the bold, straightforward type," Grace laughed. “I’m not upset about my relationship being secret. I actually am the one who suggested it. There are just unique circumstances at play.” She paused and turned to face him. “I have no doubt you’ll find that person you can shout about from the rooftops sooner rather than later, Harry. If I wasn't already happily attached, I would be honored to be that woman. She's out there, somewhere.”

“Maybe,” he conceded and they kept walking. “It’s tough, you know, in our line of work. Not a lot of free time and all of our interests tend to be related to work.”

“Maybe you’ll meet another doctor,” she suggested as she came to a stop in front of Steve’s apartment door, fishing her keys out of her bag. “This is me.” She nodded at the door. “Thanks for making sure I got here safe.”

“Of course,” Harry smiled. He hesitated, clearly wanting to give her another hug, but after being rejected he had lost his confidence. Grace decided to take the discomfort out of the situation by hugging him and felt him almost melt into her, relieved that their confessions hadn’t changed their relationship. “Promise we’ll keep in touch? That way we’re not going nearly a decade without talking again.”

“I’ll find you on online,” she agreed. “It was great catching up.”

“Sounds good,” he nodded. “All right half pint,” he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before letting go of her and taking a step back. “Better get in to your boyfriend. Just point me in the direction of the metro station.”

She gave him directions and watched him go, thoughts of what might have been lingering in her mind.

I could’ve had a good life with Harry. An ordinary life, without having to keep secrets, without the worry of shady government cabals, she cast a glance up at the apartment windows, still dark, indicating Steve hadn’t come home yet. But I wouldn’t have Steve. And I wouldn’t trade him for anything.

Chapter Nineteen

Masterlist

Chapter Twenty-One

#marvel #marvel fanfic #marvel fic #multichapter fic #multichapter fanfic #mcu #mcu fanfic #mcu fanfiction #mcu fic #marvel oc #oc #fanfic #fanfiction #fic #Steve Rogers #Steve Rogers fanfic #Steve Rogers fic #Steve Rogers fluff #Steve Rogers x oc #Steve Rogers x ofc #Captain America #Captain America fanfic #Captain America fic #Captain America x oc #Captain America x ofc #Captain America fluff #Tony Stark #Tony Stark fanfic #dad Tony Stark #Tony Stark fic

[umichenginabroad]

Stockholm Week 13: Ready for Iceland?  

I had my full week of school after Malta -- I deeply considered going to Amsterdam, but I knew that I’d get more stressed about the work I would have to do before and after the trip than living my time in Amsterdam. Also, I need to leave a couple of reasons (Amsterdam’s tulip festival, Portugal’s egg tarts, Greece’s scenery in Santorini) to come back to Europe someday ;) 

4/8 Mon: 

I fell asleep while writing the blog last night. As soon as I woke up, I got ready to start another day. 

Although we did not have classes as it was the last day of Easter break, I still met up with my teammates at DIS for group work for the Engineering Sustainable Environment course. 

Afterward, I did homework for my online course and went to a virtual office hour to ask questions. Then, I finished reading The Wolf and the Watchman for class tomorrow.

It is important to keep track of your assignments during the study abroad semester because it is easy to lose a couple of assignments when you’re balancing life and traveling with school!  

4/9 Tue: Restaurant 

Great way to wake up: leave your wallet with all the transportation + student ID + credit cards in your house! 

As soon as I realized that I left my wallet on the desk, I ran back to my room and ran to the metro station again. 

During class while we were talking about food (daily conversational topic), my friend and I  spontaneously chose to eat out. It was very sunny outside, so we “decided” (she convinced me) to walk for 20 minutes instead of taking the bus for 15 minutes.

On the way to the restaurant, she took me to a bakery called Mr. Cake and introduced me to the red velvet croissant. It had a cream cheese filling with red velvet chocolate on top. 

I took a bite and understood the hype – so good.ᐟ.ᐟ.ᐟ 

The ramen was good but it could've been more spicy in my opinion.

I recently fell in love with being horizontal in my bed without doing anything. And that’s what I did for three hours after lunch (I blame the food coma). But as a good student, I finished what I had to do before going to bed. 

4/10 Wed: Field Study 

We had a field study about the book we are reading for class (The Wolf and the Watchman) in Gamla Stan. It was extremely windy, especially because we were right next to the water. 

I couldn’t go home without poking all the second-hand stores. Slussen was my destination for the day as it had rows of thrift stores and regular clothing stores. To start off, I got a denim jacket and jean shorts in thrift stores. Due to my forgetfulness, I didn’t bring any shorts to Stockholm – thus, I didn’t have an option other than buying the LEE shorts in perfect condition. 

With mango strawberry smoothie

Later, the sale stickers enticed me to go into stores like Monkl and Bik Bok. Monkl was on their ultimate sale before their closing in late April. This sale with an additional student discount of 11% made everything even cheaper than thrift stores. I got a pair of sunglasses in each store :) 

This is one of them

At night, we had a game night in our room. It became a chit-chat night rather than a game night, but it was fun nonetheless. 

My new favorite non-alcoholic drink!

4/11 Thu: 

Eating out two days in a row! 

I need to stop talking about food with my friends because that’s exactly what led us to get sushi for lunch. 

Noburu sushi was packed as always - we almost didn't get to sit down!

I took a short walk around our neighborhood before going home. The hill nearby has a good walking path that I should take more advantage of. 

Sprouts are sprouting 🌱

Hours passed doing homework. When I mindlessly glanced over the windows, I saw a spectacular view. I lost track of time watching outside and feeling the wind.  

I love our room – it has the best views 

4/12 Fri:

In our crime fiction class, we watched the last episode of the Netflix series The Chestnut Man. Although the end wasn’t quite how I imagined, it was still a great series. 

To satisfy my craving for bubble tea I did TooGoodToGo from Happy Sweet Potato. I was afraid that I wouldn’t get anything that I liked, but I didn’t need to worry — I got three different types of drinks, in addition to a whole cup full of coconut jelly and pudding. I gave brown sugar bubble tea to my friend, drank the fruit tea myself, and saved the last one in the refrigerator. 

I definitely will buy from here again! 

For dinner, I used up mushrooms, onions, cabbage, and one last egg to clean out the fridge before leaving for a long vacation.

Am I getting better at plating too?

4/13 Sat:

I finished upcoming assignments so that I wouldn’t have to worry about them during the long study tour. 

Packing for Iceland didn’t take long as I just had to stuff my carry-on with layers and long sleeves. I thought I was done with 30-degree weather but no :( 

4/14 Sun:  

I took the free route to the airport for the first time. DIS only provides single-way transport reimbursement and I figured I would want to take the easy way back to Stockholm after a long trip. 

It wasn’t as complicated as expected! 

We flew in through Icelandair and got a group dinner as the very first activity. Although DIS covered our dinner, I couldn’t stop getting shocked at the price. The cheapest beer was $12! Nonetheless, I got a Raspberry Sour beer and it was one of the best beers I’ve had. Not too sweet but not too sour! It refreshed my mouth and reignited my appetite :)  The best of the best was the dessert, Icelandic raspberry cheesecake. It was more like cream pie since the density wasn’t as thick as a cheesecake. I scraped every last bit of the cake off the plate. 

Iceland is an expert in desserts  

8 pm in Iceland was still bright.

A couple of us strolled around the neighborhood to see the sunset. The lake 3-minutes away from our hotel absorbed and reflected all the colors from the sunset – the silent scenery of the swimming swans and scattering sunlight was a piece of art. 

We almost discarded our original plan to see the sunset just to stay and watch the view for the rest of the night 

The sky was too cloudy to see the sunset but we still went to the viewpoint near the water.

Reflection of the cloudy sunset

We got through the wind and took some pictures before going to sleep. 

Embracing the wind <3

The first full day in Iceland will be the next post! 

Come back to check it out :) 

Thank you, 

Jiwoo Kim

Chemical Engineering

DIS Study Abroad in Stockholm, Sweden

#UmichEnginAbroad #IPEStockholm #JiwooKim #IPEWinter24 #Sweden

[minvrse]

ㅤ ♡ ͟ ׂ ㅤ2.23𝖠𝖬, l. minho

𝖧𝗂𝗌 𝖻𝗋𝖾𝖺𝗍𝗁 𝗂𝗌 𝖺𝗅𝗐𝖺𝗒𝗌 𝗍𝖺𝗄𝖾𝗇 𝖺𝗐𝖺𝗒 𝗐𝗁𝖾𝗇𝖾𝗏𝖾𝗋 𝗁𝖾 𝗌𝖾𝖾𝗌 𝗒𝗈𝗎. 𝖸𝗈𝗎’𝗋𝖾 𝗃𝗎𝗌𝗍… 𝗌𝗈 𝖾𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗋𝖾𝖺𝗅 𝗂𝗇 𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝖾𝗒𝖾𝗌. 

𝗍𝖺𝗀𝗌. non idol au, idiots in love (minho is the idiot bcs reader is throwing signals like crazy, but he's blind lmao), childhood friends, fluff, skinship. ⸻ ( 1 . 4 𝗄 )

𝗇𝗈𝗍𝖾. was supposed to go up on my old blog but I decided to post it here lmao. hope u enjoy this fluffy piece ‹𝟹 + 𝗆.𝗅𝗂𝗌𝗍

FROM: YOU | TO: MINHO [2.32 am] hey, did you get home already? [2.32 am] i’m hungry  [2.32 am] up for a late night kbbq at our usual place? [2.33 am] i’m paying ‹𝟹 [2.33 am] no pressure tho ‹/𝟹

A soft smile rises to Minho’s lips when he fishes his phone out of his back pocket and sees your name pop up on his previously dark screen. He taps on it with his thumb, his heart swelling at the sight of his lockscreen—a candid picture of the two of you asleep, cuddled up on his parent's couch with Soonie, Doongie, and Dori on your laps. His mom had sneakily taken it a few weeks back on Christmas Eve, since, last year, it was your family's turn to spend the holidays at his childhood home. 

Alternating between both of your homes whenever the holidays came around had become a tradition ever since your parents befriended his only a few months after moving nextdoor, years ago. He could still clearly remember how shy and soft-spoken you were the first time you and your family came around, how eager you were to help set up the table to make a good impression on his parents, how you timidly came up to him sitting on the couch after dinner to ask if you could play with the cat he’d brought home from the streets only a few days ago—and how was he supposed to refuse your big eyes and adorable smile?

And though years have passed since that day, your pouty lip and those wide, glossy pupils of yours are still his biggest weaknesses to this day. Ask him to bring the moon to you with this combo, and he’ll find a way to do exactly that. 

FROM: YOU | TO: MINHO [2.34 am] PHOTO ATTACHMENT

His tired eyes try to focus on the picture you sent him, and his heart does a flip in his chest when he does. It’s a photo of your beautiful face—pouty bottom lip and all. 

He internally coos at it, saving it in his gallery (moving it into its designed folder) as he holds onto one of the poles of the half-empty metro with his other hand. He’s pretty sure that if any of the students from his dance studio saw him right now—all giddy and giggly and fond of someone—they wouldn’t recognise him at all. He’s known as this cold, unreachable, mysterious, but kind mentor who rarely lets anyone inside his close circle of friends; the one that gets bashful only when you call, text, or surprise visit him during work hours.  

More times than he can count, his students asked him if the two of you were dating, be they older or younger ones, and the question never fails to make him blush—because, damn, he wishes that were the case. 

Minho’s so in love with you, with every single aspect of you, with your voice and personality and features, with all of your strengths and flaws, because they make you… well, you. And sometimes, he’d daydream about finally having the guts to confess to you, but the fear of scaring you away holds him back—he’d rather try to ignore his feelings and preserve your current relationship instead of trying to change it and losing you.

And though he is so tired, so exhausted he just wants to go home and pass out on his bed until noon, but he wouldn’t pass up on the chance of spending time with you for the world. That’s why it takes mere seconds for him to type out and send you his response.

FROM: MINHO | TO: YOU [2.35 am] want me to pick you up?

The familiar ping informing him that he finally reached his final station, the one only a few feet from his apartment, reverberates in the metro car, and he quickly walks out of it as soon as the doors open. And as he walks up the stairs leading to the exit of the building, he can barely hold back the wide smile forming on his lips at the thought of seeing you soon.

His phone vibrates in his pocket once more, and he is quick to take it out. 

FROM: YOU | TO: MINHO [2.37 am] uhm, actually… [2.37 am] i’m outside the metro station in front of your building rn, sooooo

Your texts make him quicken his pace towards the exit—and surely, there you are: sitting on a bench under a bright streetlight, eyes set on the phone in your lap, and hands wrapped around a paper takeout coffee cup. He can see the steam coming out of the small opening of the lid as he approaches. 

His breath is always taken away whenever he sees you. You’re just… so ethereal in his eyes. 

The light snow falling from the dark sky, the already settled one covering everything around you, the warm light almost seeming to reflect on your perfectly white coat (the one he gifted you this Christmas), the way you meet eyes and show him the most beautiful of smiles—you could tell him you were an angel, and he would believe you. No questions asked.

“Hi.” is what he murmurs once he stands in front of you, and he melts when you look up at him from the bench with the softest of looks, bathed in the soft light shining above you. His gloved fingers reach out to brush away the few snowflakes settled on your head, making you quietly laugh before getting up from your seat.

“Hi.” you reply, handing him the cup from your hands before swiftly taking something from your bag. The delicate peck you place on his red, hot cheek makes his skin visibly burn with shyness, though he tries to cover it by chuckling once you start unexpectedly wrapping a warm, fluffy scarf around his neck. He can feel his whole being warm up at your sweet gesture, as well as taking up the chance to admire your features from a closer point of view. 

He studies your furrowed eyebrows, your concentrated gaze, the tip of your tongue peeking out of your lips before you accidentally meet eyes, and he looks away in embarrassment. He misses the way the corners of your lips tug up in a knowing smile.

A few more moments of comfortable silence pass, until you let out a satisfied hum before starting to speak—or rather, scold him, with that cute pout on your lips, “Here. You really have to start wearing scarves when you go out; it’s too cold to walk around without one, mainly at night. You’ll get sick, and then guess who'll go out with me in the middle of the night to stuff our faces with delicious food? Let me tell you—no one.”

He barely registers your words, eyes too enthralled in staring at the way your lips move, ears too engrossed in basking in the sound of your voice; but still, he gets the gist of it, and nods. “I will. Thank you.” he breathes, taking a sip of the coffee he’s holding.

You furrow your eyebrows, and snatch the cup away from his hands with an annoyed tisk. His signature smirk makes its way on his face at your pissed off frown, though it dies down when he sees you slot your lips on the lid exactly where his were. Knowing you're indirectly tasting his lips makes him shiver.

But before Minho impulsively decides to press his lips to yours (before he gives in to his desires and lets you taste his directly), he’s quick to lean down to take your bag from the wooden bench and throw it over his shoulder. You press another peck on his cheek as a thank you when he stands back straight, flustering him further.

Minho clears his throat, “Shall we?”

You vehemently nod, linking your arm with his before starting to walk in the direction of the kbbq place. “Mhm, I’m starving!” you pout, leaning your head on his shoulder as you match his pace.

His heart pounds faster at the warmth radiating off of you, the exhaustion he previously felt in his bones completely dissipated by now. And as he intently listens to you talk about your day, he pulls his bottom lip in between his teeth in a poor attempt to conceal his growing grin. 

He really is down bad for you—astronomically so. And he’s forever glad it’s you who he fell in love with. Now, he just needs to find the courage to confess to you before it’s too late.

taglist : @moon0fthenight

#skz imagines #stray kids imagines #skz fluff #stray kids fluff #lee know #lee know fluff #lee know imagines #lee know x reader #lee minho #lee minho fluff #lee minho imagines #lee minho x reader #lee minho x you #lee know x you #kpop fluff #kpop imagines #skz soft thoughts #skz soft hours #stray kids soft hours #stray kids soft thoughts #lee know soft hours #lee know soft thoughts

[saralayne]

This Love ~ Part 8 🩵💜

In Sickness And In Health

Tim is working around the clock on a special Metro Operation. Lucy falls ill which she plays off as no big deal. Until it wasn’t.

A lot had been going on in the Bradford house. Wedding plans were now set in stone. There was just little things here and there. Tamara was now officially a Bradford. Tim and Lucy had formally adopted her. Tamara had decided to live with her Mom, Dad and Kojo for the remainder of the school year. She was contemplating living on campus next year. However, Tim and Lucy wanted her to continue living with them. Tim wanted her to fully concentrate on school and not feel stressed with finances. Tamara was on a full scholarship. Tim was more than willing to help with any finances that she had so she wouldn’t have any extra stressors. Tamara had always been independent, working many jobs but it was getting to be a lot. After many conversations, Tim and Lucy made her realize she is not a burden, she is not alone anymore. She is their daughter. They wanted the absolute best for her. She finally came around and allowed her parents to help her out financially just like any loving parent would do for their child. She still demanded to keep one part time job to feel like she was contributing. She was right at the end of her semester before winter break. She was spending a lot of time at the library, but given what had happened with her attack a few weeks prior. She promised both Tim and Lucy she would return home before dark each night and do any night studying done at home.

Tim was right in the middle of a huge operation that Metro was heading. As he was the Metro Sergeant, some nights he was literally at the station or in the field on stakeouts around the clock. He had a couch in his office where he could catch little cat naps. Tim hated being away from Lucy. This was part of the job, unfortunately. Pine had given him a few hours off to go home and check in as he had spent the better part of a week working on this op. Tim and Lucy had a nice dinner together and were catching up on some top chef episodes. Tim had noticed something was off with his fiancée. For years now, he always noticed when things were off with her. Especially, the aftermath of her being kidnapped and trapped alone in that barrel. Tim still and probably would always carry a little guilt over the trauma she endured. Tim still felt he pushed her right towards Caleb even knowing full well he could have never foreseen what could have happened. Since that time, Tim would see when Lucy was feeling off in any way even through the years where they were denying their feelings and in the friend zone. Now, even more so that they were together and about to get married, that intuition was even stronger. As he was snuggled with the love of his life. He could see her physically struggling. She was congested and on a few occasions he could hear her breathing was a little laboured. She looked pale and seemed fatigued.

“Luce, baby. Are you ok? I can tell you aren’t feeling well”

“Tim. I’m fine. I think with work and the wedding planning, I am just run down. It’s just a common cold. I promise babe, I’m ok”

“Luce. I’m just worried. I never like to see you feeling like this. Especially, when I can’t be here to take care of you”

“Tim. If something serious come up. I assure you. You will be the first to know”

“OK. I will let this go, FOR NOW. I love you”

“I love you too, my fiancée”

“I CANNOT wait for you to become Mrs. Bradford”

Just as they were almost asleep in each others arms when Tim’s phone started chiming on the coffee table. “Ugh” Tim knew who exactly was interrupting them. As he picked up his phone and saw that he was in fact right. Pine was summoning him back to the station as they had a lead.

“I’m sorry, my love. I have to go”

“I know, babe. Stay safe and I love you”

“I love you too, beautiful. Take care of yourself. Promise me? And if you start to feel any worse, I want a call”

“I promise. Now get out of here and go save the world”

Tim grabbed his bag and keys. As he opened the door and looked back, he had a tear escape his eye. He never liked leaving her. Especially, when she wasn’t feeling well. All he wanted to do was take care of his girl. In that moment, he felt like he was failing her. This was the job and they both understood the sacrifices but it still never got any easier.

Tim pulled his phone out to make a phone call to their kiddo.

Tamara answered “Hey Dad. I’m just leaving the library and on my way home. Promise”

“Good. Hey kiddo. Listen. Luce isn’t feeling well and I have been called back into work. The last thing I wanted to do was leave. Of course, your mom is being well your mom. She is downplaying how she is feeling so I won’t worry. Can you please keep an eye on her? If anything seems even a little off, please call me right away”

“Of course I will. I will stay by her side. If anything seems off I will bomb your phone”

“Thank you, kid. Get home safe and text me when you get home. And…T? I love you”

“I love you too, Dad”

Tim had been staking out a situation for a few hours. He had headed back to the station to give an update to some of the team, catch a little rest. As Tim was sitting at his desk working on some paperwork, his phone started ringing. Seeing his daughters name flash across the screen.

“Hey, kid. Is everything ok?”

Tim could hear the panic in her voice.

“Dad. Something is wrong. Mom was having trouble breathing. I found her propped up in bed. Her breathing was wheezy and she was gasping. I called an ambulance. I don’t know if that was the right thing to do but I was scared”

“NO. T. You absolutely did the right thing. They didn’t want me to come in the ambulance. I am in my car about to go to the hospital. They wouldn’t tell me anything”

“T. Listen to me. I am heading to the hospital. I will be there as soon as I can. You just wait for me, ok?”

“Ok. I will see you soon”

“Kiddo. She’s gonna be fine. I promise you. I love you and will see you very soon”

Tim found Pine in her office. Telling her the situation with Lucy. Pine didn’t even hesitate and told Tim to go. He had been on this op around the clock and somethings matter more. She assured him they would cover the op in his absence. Ordering him to go and be with his family.

Tim raced to Shaw Memorial. He put the pedal to the metal like he was in a high speed chase all to get to his family. Tim bolted through the doors where their daughter was waiting for him.

Tamara’s face was puffy and red. She had been crying and full of worry.

“They won’t tell me anything. She has been back there for almost an hour”

“Come on, kid. Let’s go get some answers”

As they approached the nursing desk.

“My name is Sergeant Tim Bradford. This is our daughter and we would like to see my fiancée, Lucy Chen…NOW”

“Ok. Sir. Let me go and see what I can find out for you”

Ten minutes later, a doctor emerged from the back.

“I’m Dr. Brody. You are Lucy Chen’s family?”

“Yes. I am her fiancée and this is our daughter. I-Is she ok?”

“So. Firstly, your daughter did absolutely the right thing getting her here. Secondly, Lucy has pneumonia. After a chest X-ray, it was found there is a significant amount of fluid surrounding her lungs. There is extensive wheezing in her breathing. Her O2 sats were very low. We now have her on IV steroidal antibiotics. This will overtime, attack the infection. She will need to stay here for a few days on a strict medication protocol. I fully expect her to make a full recovery”

“Thank you, doc. When can we see her?”

“I will send a nurse to come and escort you shortly. She is being moved to a room now”

Tamara gasped out a breath of relief. Tim swiftly grabbing her into his arms.

“You did so good, kiddo. We are so lucky to have such a smart daughter”

“Thank you, dad. That was scary. You were right to be concerned. You knew something was off with mom”

“After so many years, I tend to see things with her that she doesn’t even see or because she is so stubborn refuses to see”

“Dad, you are in a for a crazy ride”

“Am I ever. I wouldn’t change a thing. Let’s go see your stubborn mom”

Tim and Tamara entered Lucy’s room. She had an IV running from her arm giving her medication. Oxygen prongs in her nose to keep her O2 sats elevated. She looked pale and tired. Lucy hears footsteps, opening her eyes and giving a vague smile. Tamara ran over to her beside.

“T. I’m ok. Thank you for getting me here. I am sorry for scaring you”

“I was terrified but I’m just glad you’re gonna make a full recovery. You know, dad knew. He ordered me to get home because he couldn’t be there. He didn’t believe your ‘I’m fine’ bit for a second”

“Oh, I am sure that’s true. I should really know by now that I can’t get anything past him”

“Yeah, you would think after all these years. You would just stop fighting everything and reside in that fact” added Tim.

“Ok. I could use some coffee. I am going to give you some time with dad”

Tamara passed Tim “Take it easy on her”

“No promises” Tim smirking

Tim made his way towards Lucy’s bedside. Interlocking his hand with hers.

“Baby. You scared me AGAIN. This has to stop”

“I know. I am sorry. I honestly knew I didn’t feel well but I never thought I was this sick”

“Uh huh. I should’ve never left you. I knew something was wrong and every part of me hated leaving”

“Babe. You could have never seen me becoming this sick. Of course, you called for reinforcements. We do have an amazing daughter”

“We sure do”

“I’m gonna be just fine. I will follow all doctors orders and more importantly yours”

“Have I died? Are you really gonna listen to me?”

“Oh, stop”

“Luce. You have been going non stop. Work, wedding planning. It’s been too much. I am going to do a better job of helping you. Whether you want me to or not. We are a team and I am going to offload any stress. I never want to see you sick like this every again. I was trying to keep it together for T. I was terrified. I love you so much”

“I love you, Bradford. Kinda ironic the vows in regards to ‘in sickness and in health’ rings even true before we are officially married”

“Yeah. The irony is not lost on me. How about we just concentrate on the health and not the sickness for the foreseeable future”

“Sounds good to me. I am tired. I am gonna try and get some rest”

“It’s about time. You sleep, gorgeous. I will be right here when you wake up”

Tim sent Tamara home. She had finals to prepare for and needed rest. He was not only in husband (almost) but also dad mode. He promised to give her play by play updates. Tamara reluctantly left. Tim sat beside Lucy’s bed. Feeling such relief and also pure love for his perfect family. Only four weeks until Lucy would officially be Mrs. Bradford.

#fanfic #chenford #the rookie #tim bradford #lucy chen #tamara collins #established relationship #father daughter relationship #mother daughter relationship #hurt lucy chen #worried tim bradford #worried tamara collins #sickness #hospital stay #stubborn lucy chen #family #fluff