#♫ don't be suspicious ♫ don't be suspicious ♫

[transvampireboyfriend]

Sean had some thoughts and ideas

#♫ don't be suspicious ♫ don't be suspicious ♫ #sean rinaldi #wwdits spoilers #wwdits #wwditsedit #last one i promise #seeeaaniiieeeeee #wwdits fx #wwdits hulu #wwdits sean #wwdits s4 #4x07 #pine barrens #wwdits 4x07 #thinking thoughts #getting #thoughts and ideas #.

[anuntrakul]

Khun Sam, you forgot to lock the door!

#gapedit #gtsedit #thaidramaedit #wlwedit #gap the series #monsam #freen sarocha #becky armstrong #gap yuri #riah.gif #♫ don't be suspicious ♫ #dw sam you absolutely nailed it baby #love how the base of that desk is translucent and mon is wearing essentially neon glowing pink and trying to hide under/behind it

[last-words-ofashootingstar]

Cornflower Blue

SPOOKTOBER SPECIAL

❥Yandere Outlaw Song Mingi x fem reader

➯a/n: this is my darkest fic yet imo, be sure to read the contents and take care of yourself! also im super proud of this, it took like three months tbh and i still didn't get to fit in everything i wanted to. enjoy some yandere minki 💙

✃The moonlight seeps in through the sheer curtains and paints your skin in a haze of blue. The bruise on your temple like a water color bloom.

♫ "You love me 'till you wear me out, then you love me more." -Cornflower Blue, Flower Face ♫"Love's never been more than pain, so Baby, show me how bad you hurt." -Dog Days, Ethel Cain ♫"My Babe would never fret about what my hands and my body done- if The Lord don't forgive me, I'd still have my Baby." -Work Song, Hozier ♫"I just wanted to be yours. Can I be yours? Just tell me I'm yours." - Strangers, Ethel Cain ♫

✫彡wordcount: 14k

♡'･ᴗ･'♡(ಡ‸ಡ) (>ᴗ•) genre: plot heavy smut, yandere, angst

ಠ_ಠwarning/content: GOOD LORD WHAT HAVE I DONE ??? wild west au, HEAVY yandere themes, murder, reader near death experience, mingi is CRAZY, bribery, manipulation, threatening, gun violence/shoot-out, injuries, invasion of privacy, 'off-screen' death of main characters, kidnapping, NSFW; multiple sex scenes, masterbation, unprotected(BOO), first time, head(reader receiving), size difference, spit, breeding kink, overstim, biiiiiig dick mingi (i'm a sucker😞), praise, dirty talk, soft sex turned rough, extreme possessiveness

not edited, definitely grammatical errors 🥲

⁂taglist: @stvrfir3 @tunaasan @marievllr-abg @nini4m @senpai-of-doom

MATURE UNDER CUT MDNI

"Ellis~" Your sing song tone echoes out through the alleyway, crates of stored food blocking your view. "Oh, my! Is that a corn snake?" You yelled out dramatically, crouching down behind a crate.

"Where?!" The young boys voice gets closer by the second until he runs up to you and you snatch him up.

"Wraa! I got you!" He laughs loudly, an heart-full sound that rings out in the dead town. Everyone has gone besides very few to a new market up North. "I've caught you, and I'll eat you up!" You pull him up as he yells and laughs and swing him around as you twirl to the main road. "I'll have ye for supper," you laugh with your best witch-like voice.

"No, I'm not tasty!"

"No? Well... I guess I shouldn't do this then!" You playfully nom at his sweatered shoulder, tickling his ribs.

"Auntie, please, I'll do it! I'll sweep!"

You stand up like nothing ever happened and smile, "great, Miss Carmen will be most pleased." You had recruited multiple of the youngsters left behind to help you maintain the vacant homes while the market took place, and some off them were less than happy to have been roped in. "Would you like me to carry you?"

"Ye' , please!" His smile is missing a tooth, and it makes you chuckle.

You place him over your hip and begin the short walk, planning out the rest of the days chores in your head when he screams, "horsie!"

You follow the path his chubby fingers points to, and find a large figure riding in past the town sign on a similarly large white horse. His face is obscured by his large droopy hat, but that isn't what makes you suspicious at first.

The man riding into town has multiple guns on his figure.

You scramble to the side of the dirt path and hold Ellis' head to your shoulder, looking up at the stranger as he slows his horse to come to a stop right infront of you.

   "Hello, Si-"

  "Auntie, I'm scared." Despite your best efforts, the young boy had caught a glimpse of the towering and dangerous-looking man, shivering in your hold.

     You crouch down and set him down carefully, rubbing his back for a moment before you turn him in the direction you want him to go, "run off to the schoolhouse, tell Maria to come and cook up our guest a meal. You can do that, right?"

     He rubs his eyes and peeks at the man before looking back to you, nodding eagerly. "Go on and get, then." You pat his shoulder and watch him run before turning to the man.

       "Room and board, Sir?" You speak formally to the hidden man.

    "Yes." He speaks simply, swinging his leg and jumping down from the horse.

    He's no less intimidating now that he's technically level with you. He looms over you like a shadow and places a chill in your bones. "Is this place a ghost town?" He has an accent that you can't place, but you lock onto it anyhow because it's quite clear he isn't from around here. You look away from him, trying to hide your nerves at the fact that he's the first real stranger you've ever met.

    "No, Sir. Most are away to sell our spring crops." He hums shortly in response, watching you closely from under the shadow his hat casts over his eyes as you grab his horses reigns. You can feel the way his eyes bore into your every move as you begin waking, "follow me, then."

    It's a silent and most awkward walk down the deserted main street, and you can still feel his gaze burning into your back as you lead his horse into the stables.

"So, where are you from, stranger?"

     "Away." Your feeble attempt at small talk is shut down by the man immediately as he stands in the large doorway, broad shoulders nearly touching its sides.

"Very well," you step back out of the horse's temporary home, and are put in the shadow his large frame casts. "Uhm, my name is (Y/n)," you extend your hand, trying to remember your manners despite the fear in your gut.

     He takes your hand, roughly. You can't tell if he means to- or if he's just that strong. "Mingi."

     His hand is cold. It shocks you. You pull away from his grip and push past him, head lowered. You've quickly found that you don't enjoy strangers. "Miss Maria can help you get settled, show you around if you like. Nothin' much to do 'round here besides drink or play ball." You ramble on as you head to the bar, just down the road. You don't have to look behind you to know he's following. You can feel his gaze locked in on your back, that same feeling you get when men at the bar have one too many or that time when a wild boar almost got you.

      The bar isn't anything special, though nothing in the town is really. He looks around, silently. A few wooden booths and rickety tables. A pool table. A small island that separates the main floor and the bartenders area. Beyond that, he can see a kitchen. He almost thought his luck had run out when he rode into the seemingly deserted town, and then he saw you twirling the young boy into the main road.

     He nods his head, maybe subconsciously, to say he's pleased enough to stay. "Up this way," your voice echoes in the empty space, and you touch his arm ever so lightly to get his attention. The staircase is hidden by the corner, and he has to crouch to ascend them. When he does, he's pleasantly surprised.

     The room has a homey, lived in feel to it. Well, most of it. It's a large space, walls decorated with dried flowers and boxed in dead insects, chalk drawings of all kinds of things on the dark oak walls. There's a slanted shelf that's adorned with carved wooden trinkets and toys, most of which have a small layer of dust if he looks hard enough. A large open window is on the back wall, facing the town, and a dresser that fits perfectly under it. The bed on the left side of the dresser is messy, a large fur blanket that's bundled up to expose pristine white sheets.

     The part that doesn't look as lived in is on the right side of the dresser. An fresh lantern candle placed neatly on the made bed, dark red sheets and grey comforter.

     "I hope you don't mind a roommate... I'm not here for the most part, I won't be in your hair." You're shuffling around quickly, hiding a few things that he didn't get to inspect into the left side of the dresser. "You can," you gulp, clearly uncomfortable with the silent man, "you can put your things away in these drawers if you like."

He stands, like a scarecrow, holding his rucksack tightly. When he moves, you flinch, sliding closer to what he now placed together is your bed. He chooses to ignore that, sitting down on the other bed and feeling the soft fabric. "You own this place?"

You're taken aback by his unprovoked speaking, gathering you thoughts as you sit across from him on your own bed. "Uh, no. A man named Louis owns this and the bar."

"Hm. And you?"

"I work down in the bar, bartending and such. So he lets me stay."

A small smirk plays at his lips, hidden by his hat as he looks around again. You've clearly lived here a long while. There's more to your story than just working downstairs. "Kind of him."

    "Very. You may be able to thank him for his hospitality, he gets back in a few days." You pause for a moment before you ask tentatively, "how long will you be staying?"

     He stands and turns his back to you as he takes off his hat, beginning to unpack his bag. "Few weeks maybe."

    "Ah," you draw quietly, anxiety growing in your gut. The very few visitors you could remember stayed for only days, if that. Even then, they weren't total strangers. They were people that others in town knew from the market or city.

    "Hope you don't mind a roommate," he turns back around and tosses a look your way as he starts to fold his clothing into the unoccupied drawers. And if the air wasn't gone from your lungs by now, it is now. This stranger, Mingi, is the most handsome being you've ever laid your eyes upon.

     His eyebrows are softly arched, beautifully curved nose and lips. And his eyes- oh, his eyes. You swear you could get lost in them. And it seems you do, staring at the man despite the fact your intuition is telling you to look away. "Handsome, I know."

    A heat flushes your face and you force yourself to look away as he smirks your way, "w-well, you know, uh- let me go and fetch Miss Maria, you must be famished!"

     With that, you're down the stairs and out the bar. He watches as you speed walk away through the window, blissfully unaware that he's opened up your drawers to have a deeper look into his roommate.

༄

You dodged the handsome stranger until you no longer could, the sun was setting and there were no more excuses to be found to avoid going back home. He wasn't in the room when you returned, but the bathroom door was closed and you could see the flickering of a candle from the cracks.

    You lit a few candles on the dresser before the sun fully set, taking some deep breaths as you heard him moving around. You remove your boots, a groan of relief settling behind your lips as you wiggle your toes.

    As you're unfolding your night gown, the door to the bathroom creaks open. "Hello, Miss," he greets, much warmer than his earlier aura.

     "Mingi," you greet back with a small smile, "have you found your way around well?" You shift your weight uncomfortably as he tilts his head at you, as if he's trying to read you.

    "Mhm, this ghost town isn't as bad as I thought," he sits down on his bed, rolling his head with a groan.

     "Very good, maybe when the other return you'll find it even better." You can't wait for the day. His presence makes you... uneasy, is the best way to put it. You know he could easily over power you and the others. Elderly, young, and women who don't have a single idea of self defense. Maybe that was stupid on your towns part- but you needed all of the hands on deck to sell the bountiful harvest.

      You excuse yourself and lock the bathroom door behind you, double checking before you begin to remove your day clothes. As you change, you start to wonder if maybe Mingi was just uncomfortable around strangers as well. He's seemed to have warmed up quite a bit to you. You'll have to ask Maria in the morning about their encounter.

     Perhaps he won't be as bad as you expected- "Oh, dear me!" You stumble as you re-enter the room, covering your eyes with your hands. "Uhm, Mingi?"

    "I'm just cleaning my wound," he chuckles, watching you with a glint in his eyes.

      You peek through your fingers, keeping your hands to your face to hide.

    Indeed, he's shirtless. Your eyes hadn't played a trick on you.

      You swallow the gathering wetness in your mouth as you peer at his naked torso. He's slim, toned in all the right places. His arms are something of a dream to you, and you have to force yourself to look away from them as sinful thoughts begin growing in your mind.

    Instead, you take a look at the wound he referred to.  A shallow gash going from his hip around and around to his back. The edges of it are already scarring, leaving only the middle of it as a wound.

You slowly approach the end of his bed, hands resting on the metal bed frame. "May I ask?"

"Every man his enemies. Mine happen to be good with throwing knives."

"Is that why you carry all those weapons?" The question has been nagging you. He has so many. And you don't like them. You don't like that they are in your home. He's left them on his side of the dresser.

"Perhaps." He groans as he tries to reach around and clean the part of the cut that stretches onto his back. "Would... would you be so kind, (Y/n)?"

It's your turn to be the silent type. You move to sit beside him, taking the damp rag and jar of salve with shaking hands. You haven't been this close to him until now. You haven't been this close to any man, really.

He smells shockingly good.

He shivers as you begin cleaning up his wound, and you apologize under your breath.

Unbeknownst to you, that was not a shiver of pain.

He's always been the nosy type. He couldn't help himself but try to get to know you through your belongings while you were gone. And he struck a pot of gold when he found your diary.

The entries dated back seven years. And he read through all seven of them. With every word, he became more and more infatuated with you. And your touch on his body solidified that infatuation. It felt right. Your innocent, helping touch turned his infatuation into something more sinister.

So, no. It was not a shiver of pain.

"There you go," you can't help but stroke the large expanse of his back once you've finished, it's a work of art. Thankfully, he doesn't seem to notice.

But, oh, does he. He has to bite his lip to hold back a moan, looking down at his lap. His member twitching to life from the smallest, most pure of your touches. "Thank you kindly." He forces out, breathily.

You're in your own bed much to quickly for his liking, hiding under your blanket. "Goodnight, Mingi. I shall see you in the morning."

༄

     "Hello, stranger," you smile at him as steps out of the building, earning one back. "Slept well, I hope?"

    "Very, thank you." He takes a seat on the steps of the bar next to you and watches the sun grow higher in the sky. "May I ask you a personal question, (Y/n)?"

     "I suppose so," you shift slightly, toying with the strings on your boots. While your knees are pulled up to the step just below your bottom, his feet stretch all the way off of the steps and onto the dirt.

    "Where is your family?"

    "I'm sorry?"

   "Well... it's just, you're a beautiful young woman. Don't you have a husband and a couple of rug-rats?"

    "Rug-rats," you repeated with a chuckle, shaking your head. "No, no rug-rats."

"And a husband?"

"The closest I have to a husband is Castle... my mutt." You look to him with a bigger smile, your nerves and anxiety around him unwinding. When he laughs, you feel a flutter in your stomach that makes them disappear completely.

You turn back to the sun as it rises, trying to convince yourself that the heat you feel on your cheeks is from the warmness of it. "Why do you ask?"

He hums, leaning back on his elbows and allowing his eyes to flick up and down as they observe you. "Wanted to know my chances."

"Oh!" You look back at him, his eyes shining with that glint once more, "the cow boy is a flirt? I see."

"I'm not a cowboy."

"No?" You lean back and join him, crossing your legs. Maria had told you just earlier that he was strange, that she sensed a darkness about him. But you only felt warmth and light. "What are you then, Mingi?"

"An outlaw." The smirk on his lips makes you think he's joking, and you let out a laugh.

If only you knew that Mingi was being truthful.

༄

      The wagons roll into town the next morning, bright and early. You're still asleep when the first one comes, but the happy hollering from Maria wakes you and Mingi both with a start.

    He's dazed and confused, rolling around and glaring at at ceiling above him. While you, well you nearly jump out of your skin to run downstairs.

     Still in your nightgown and soft socks, you almost slip and fall as you jump off of the last stair and slide into the main area. "Lou!" You collide into him and sway happily as the older man lifts you up in his arms.

"There's my girl! You been holdin' us down?" He sets you down carefully and inspects you, making sure you've been kept safe in his time away.

"You know I have," you give him a wide and toothy smile, "how was the new market?"

"Oh, it was wonderful, dear! Next time I should take you both with me, so many new things," he reaches into his satchel, handing his wife something small and shiney.

Mingi, in his own sleep clothes- a loose pair of pants, slowly descends the stairs, silent as a mouse as he watches the three of you.

Miss Maria, the older woman with a scarf permanently affixed to her head, looks down at the ring with a teary smile. "Oh, Louis, you shouldn't have." You lift yourself up and sit on one of the tables, watching the two kiss with a small smile.

"Why shouldn't I? A man is meant to spoil his wife, isn't that what I always say? Besides, we made quite the profit this time around." His wrinkled hand cups her cheek, and you can't help but coo at their affection.

"Y'all are too stinkin' cute." Maria looks away bashfully, admiring the ring on her hand. While Louis turns to you with a smile, which fades as quickly as it came.

"And who is this?" His hand is on his belt, twitching at his pistol as he spots Mingi coming up behind you. You turn, and then back, moving his hand away from his weapon.

"That's Mingi, he got here a few days ago. A traveler." You don't know if that last part is necessarily true. Mingi never did tell you why he was passing by your isolated town. "He's quite alright."

"He's half naked- and so are you! Young lady-"

"Lou!" Maria is flabbergasted by what he seems to be implying, while you don't seem to see the innuendo. Of course you are? You just awoke.

Mingi stays silent, and simply extends his hand to Louis. When he doesn't take it, he puts it back to his side, joining you at the table. It seems to you that Mingi is indeed weary of strangers. He seems only comfortable with you. Yesterday, he followed you around almost like a lost dog. Insisting that he wanted to help you with your daily chores.

His eyes flick down to your chest. Sure, he's seen you in your nightgown. But that was in the moon or candle light. The sunlight from the many bar windows exposes just how sheer it is. He can see your nipples if he looks hard enough. And, oh, he's looking.

And Louis notices, ears flushing red with anger as the strange traveler looks you up and down. "Alright, dear, go get dressed."

"Oh, but I wish to hear of the market! Unc-"

"Now, (Y/n)."

With a sigh, you slide off of the table, patting Mingis exposed shoulder as you pass him. He goes to follow you back upstairs when Louis grips his wrist. Hard.

Maria is fiddling with her new ring, almost cowering behind her husband as she feels Mingis aura once again. She can't seem to pinpoint why. But she doesn't like this man one bit. He's done nothing to her, to anyone for that matter. But she feels an evilness seep from his gaze.

"Have a seat, Mingi." Louis doesn't seem to like him either. Maybe because of his silent demeanor or the way he was ogling you.

He does so, with a bored expression, plopping down on one of the wooden booths. Louis slides into the booth seat across from him, waving Maria off. She doesn't need to be told twice. She doesn't want to be near that man for one second more than necessary.

Alone in the seating area, the two men stare silently at one another. As if sizing each other up.

Louis is the first one to break, reaching into his pocket. A rusted old locket is slid across the scratched table top, and Mingi catches it before it falls into his lap.

As he opens it up, he sees a picture of two people in either of the slots. One, a woman with a wide smile. The other, a man looking down at the baby held to his chest. Their features seem... familiar.

"Her parents."

He looks up slowly, and sees the older man leaning back, "I'm sorry?"

"Those are her parents. My little sister and her husband. Died seven years ago. Train crash. Hit a cow on the tracks. Hate those damned things. They can't slow down quick enough to avoid hittin' something."

It's silent again, save for the sounds of Maria cooking up a storm in the back of the kitchen.

He looks down at the pictures again. Seven years ago... that's when your diary entries start. But you never mentioned the crash. Did you just decide to forget about it? Move on?

Louis can almost see the cogs turning in his brain as he looks at the worn photo. Before Mingi can ask, Louis is answering. "I seen the way you looked at my little girl. The same way I look at my Maria. So Imma tell you," he points to the locket, "I made a promise the day that train crashed. You know what that promise was?"

"No."

"That I'd gut anyone who ever laid an evil finger on that girl."

"Maria!" They hear you coming back down, and Louis snatches up the locket from Mingis hands as he stands. You stop briefly and look at them, but move on when you see Louis smiling down at him. "Have you seen my vest?" Your voice grows distant as you join your Aunt in the kitchen, unaware that the smile was followed by a threat.

"Don't make me gut you, boy."

༄

"You're so soft," you mutter as you brush the white mare with your fingers, stood just outside of her stable. She neighs loudly at you. "Oh, I know. So many strange horses, you must be frightened."

The once empty stable house was now filled again, everyone was back in town by high-noon. She seems like her owner, and like you. She doesn't like strangers. She nearly kicked the short door down when you approached with a handful of hay.

A few minutes later, she's letting you pet her. You're stood on a stool, bent over the edge of the door to dust the dirt off of her white coat. "You're a sweet girl, huh?" You smile at the animal, receiving more neighs in response.

"Who you talking to?"

The abrupt interruption makes you stumble, nearly falling off of the wobbly stool. You steady yourself on the door and look back, throwing a smile his way when you see it's Mingi. "Your horse."

He joins your side at the door, holding his hand out to his mare. "You know she can't talk back, right?"

"Don't mean she can't listen."

He smiles at your response. You really are a kind soul, giving affection to an animal that can't give you anything in return.

"Busy, Miss (Y/n)?"

You shake your head. Nobody has come by the bar yet, and you don't think anyone will for a while. They're all spending time with their families.

"How about a ride, then?" He's opening up the door before you can respond, making your upper body follow it, legs outstretched to stay on the stool.

"Oh- I don't... I don't know how."

He keeps putting the saddle on the horse despite your words, a smile playing at his lips. By the way your smiling as well, he knows you want to. "I can teach you. Are you afraid?"

     "I must admit... a bit."

    "Don't worry, I won't let you fall."

    "Really?"

    "Mhm."

      You hop down from the stool and move it out of the way as Mingi walks the mare out of her stable, following close behind him with a wide smile. You get a few strange looks from townspeople as you and the towering stranger stop in the middle of the main dirt road.

     One pair of eyes watches you even closer. Louis stands from his rocking chair on the porch of the bar, staring dumbfounded as Mingi picks you up and helps you onto the animal. Jaw dropped as he hops up and sits in the saddle right behind you, hands guiding yours to hold the reigns. Before he can even get off of the porch, the both of you are galloping out of town.

     The cool October air against your face as you slowly gain speed feels freeing, like it's washing your very soul. Your nerves are still shaking a bit, and you lean your back into Mingis chest, holding onto the reigns tightly. You jump ever so slightly when one of his hands rests over your stomach, gently holding you.

     "Don't worry," he says, "I've been riding since I was a child."

And so, you don't worry. You let the freeing feeling wash over you, relaxing into him and letting the mare take you where ever she pleases. Which just so happens to be the furthest you can ever remember being from town. You nearly forget that Mingi is even with you until you feel his hand move away from your stomach.

He grabs the reigns, his hand over yours as he pull her head back carefully, slowing her to a stop in the middle of a field. He pulls your hands back with his and settles them in your lap, atop of your bundled up skirts.

She lowers her head and starts chewing on some of the green grass. You look up at the sky, clear and bright.

"Not so scary, right?" Mingi speaks up gently, his hands never leaving your own as he looks up at the baby blue with you.

"Not at all, though maybe it's because you did all of the work," you let out a small laugh, turning your hands palms up and letting him weave his fingers into yours, enveloping you in warmth. "Is this what your life is like?"

The endless expanse of nature staring back at you, birds chirping their lovely songs.

"For the most part." He doesn't want to tell you about the other parts of his life. The bloody and harsh parts. You don't need to hear about that. Not when you're so pure and soft in comparison.

"I like it. I can see why you don't settle, cowboy."

"I'm not a cowboy."

A grin on both your faces, a comfortable silence overcomes you for a moment. He leans and slowly, almost nervously, rests his forehead on your shoulder. When you don't make a move to lean away, he absolutely melts into you. His heart beating loudly in his ears, he's shocked you haven't looked back to look for a marching band with how loud it is.

"I think I may stay a little while longer," he whispers tenderly into your back.

"I think I may like that."

You revel in each others touch for a few more moments before he moves, scooting back away from your backside. "Let's stretch our legs." Before you can complain, he's jumped off the horse and is holding out his arms for you. Deciding 'why not', you lean over and let him essentially pull you off her back.

You stretch your arms over your head as you wander, smiling back at him.

Oh, he could get addicted to that smile.

Directed at him, and him alone.

He watches with a flicker in his eyes as you start gathering wild flowers, folding up the rim of his hat to get a better look. You start braiding them together, fingers working nimbly. The song of nature overcoming you as you work, and he admires from a few feet away.

You look like an angel, the sun beaming down on you and shining from behind you like a halo as you turn and face him. "Crouch down, big boy," you tease him softly, a heat creeping up your face as you see him blushing.

He leans down, letting you affix the flowers around his hat. When he comes back up, he does a small twirl, "how do I look?"

"Pretty!" It slips your lips before you have the chance to think, and it makes him blush all the harder.

"Let me see," he takes his hat off, short hair wild and blowing with the breeze.

He pulls the hat over your head in the next second, and the large accessory falls over your eyes. He laughs, hand over his mouth as you tilt your head up and peek at him from under the rim. "How do I look?"

"Like a doll," he exclaims breathlessly, eyes not leaving you for a single second as he takes in the sight of you in his hat. The wind blowing your loose hairs and skirts. A shy smile stretching your lips as you look away, admiring the sky as he admires you.

"Oh, hush."

"It's only true." He comes behind you, wrapping his arms around your shoulders loosely.

You have to remember how to breath as he looks over your shoulder at you, shit-eating-smirk on his lips. "Doll~"

"We should head back!" You squeal, ducking out of his arms as heat overwhelms your body. He only laughs, and the melodic sound echoes in the field.

"Alright then, up you get," he hoists you back onto the saddle, hands lingering on your exposed thighs as your skirt pools around your hips while he hooks his boot into the stirrup.

And you're off again, this time slowly. Like he knows that you crave to spend time with him as much as he does you.

༄

It's a few days later when he awakes in the night. The moon his only source of light. His breaths uneven and heavy.

Why did he have to wake up? That dream was ethereal, it nearly made him ascend to the heavens.

He groans as he flips onto his stomach, not a atom of shock in his being as he feels his hardness pressing into the mattress. Not after he just experienced the wettest dream of his life.

You looked like a Goddess below him, head tossed to the side and exposing all of the marks he left on your neck. The bed rocked in time with the yells of his names that left your bruised lips. Over and over. Louder and louder. Your eyes rolled back, your chest rising and falling as you tried desperately to keep up with his pace.

He's certain that's your rightful place, taking his cock and calling his name, soul intertwined with his. "Fuck..." Just six days and you have him wrapped around your little finger. He's never felt like this. You must be the one.

    He can't help but look over at your bed across the room as his hand travels into his pants. His eyes nearly flutter shut, but he forces them open once again.

You're a restless sleeper, he's discovered. Your torso is pressed into the mattress while your hips are rotated slightly up, one leg hiked up and making your nightgown slip past the round of your ass.

God, your subconscious must know what he's doing.

That's the only 'reasonable' conclusion Mingis lustful mind can come to as you moan in your sleep, rolling onto your back and spread your legs to get comfortable. It takes every fiber of self control in him not to pounce on you and take you right there.

He's content to fuck himself silly for the moment, and he's almost ashamed at how fast his release comes- but he can't help it. You look so fucking delectable and he hasn't touched himself since before he rolled into town.

He bites into his pillow with a growl, eyes never leaving your peaceful form until he's overstimulated himself into oblivion. His arm sore and cock even sorer, he finally lets up, breathing heavily into the quiet night.

As he slinks to the bathroom and cleans himself up, he wonders what it would be like to feel your body close to him after such a release. Well-

Why not find out?

He leans over your bed with tears in his eyes, gently grabbing your arm and calling out to you.

"Min?" The nickname that you utter while half asleep almost has him ready to go again, but he pushes it away as you sit up groggily and look at him with concern written on your face.

"I don't feel too well, Doll... Can I sleep with you? Keep me warm?"

You feel his head with the back of your hand, a frown on your face as you feel his heated flesh- unknowing of the true cause.

"Mh, come on, big boy," you scoot to the wall that your beds on and lift your fur blanket, a sleepy smile on your features as he dives into the bed. The metal frame creaks under both of your weight but neither of you pay it any mind.

He melts into your body heat, wrapping his arms around your waist and keeping you close.

It's so much better than he imagined.

༄

That's the best sleep you've ever had. You felt so safe and warm. And Mingi doesn't feel any different, he hasn't had a restful sleep like that since he was only a boy. You seem to have kept his reoccurring nightmares of his past away.

All the damage he's done and all the pain he's endured, wiped away as you rested your head on his shoulder.

Your legs are tangled together, arms wrapped around one another. Your head in his neck and his chin resting gently on top of it. Soft, gentle breaths as the both of you wake.

Rain beats down on the roof, creating a soft and steady melody.

Neither of you can tell how much time has elapsed, but it doesn't seem like it's ever enough. So when you finally sit up, a pout forms on his features.

You feel his forehead, a smile on yours. "No fever."

"Hm, maybe a night bug." He sits up and swings his legs over the bed, facing into the room to hide his growing blush as the memories of his dream flood his mind.

He feels the bed shift under your weight as you crawl up behind him. "I had a dream last night," you whisper as you gently rub up his back.

"Mh?"

"Mhm." Your heart flutters as you muster up the courage to continue speaking, "a dream of you and I."

"Oh, do tell."

And tell, you do.

"Well... it began with you and I, sat in the bar. A few too many drinks in our bodies. A few kisses... A few touches... and then we came up here." His breath hitches in his throat, surely he's still dreaming. This is an elaborate trick of the brain. "Mingi?"

"Y-yes?" He wants to both explode with joy and collapse with embarrassment.

"Will you touch me? Will you kiss me? I'm sorry if that's wildly inappropriate- oh it is, I'm so ter-"

Your rambling is cut off as his lips collide with yours ever so softly. One of his hands cups your cheek, the other finds purchase on the small of your back.

He slowly pushes his weight onto you, laying you down on your back as your lips meld together. A curse falls past his lips as you ghost your fingertips over his abs.

He kisses down your jaw, savoring every inch of your skin until he reaches your covered breasts. He looks up, and the look in his eyes makes the heat in your belly grow ten-fold. "Can I see you?"

With the slightest nod of your head, he's slipped the straps of your nightgown down and tugged it down past your chest. His mind is racing. His heart is about to beat out of his chest. "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." He whispers, voice rough and barely heard over the storm raging outside.

His calloused hands trail down your chest, ghosting over the pebbled flesh on your breast and down to your skirt. You can't help the gasp that escapes you when he lifts it up, letting your entire nightdress rest in a bunch on your stomach. He's already panting, and he hasn't even touched you.

You're just so beautiful. You're a Goddess in his eyes.

He smiles up at you as he lowers himself, your legs spread by his wide shoulders. "I'm going to make you cum your brains out, Doll~"

Before you can even question what he means, his tongue is darting out and swiping up the length of your cunt. "Ah!" Your back is arched off the bed at the simple motion, and it solidifies his theory that you're a virgin. Your keening at the littlest bit of attention, your poor neglected pussy is begging for more.

You slap your hand over your mouth at the noise, looking shocked that it even came from you. He can't help the chuckle that vibrates in his throat- that is, before his taste buds register the most delicious, mind blowing juice he's ever had the pleasure of putting in his mouth. "Oh, fuck..." Then he's just as flustered as you are, diving back in between your thighs like a man starved.

     The little noises that manage to slip past your hand urge him on even more than the way that your wetness just keeps coming and coming and coming as he slurps it all up. His tongue darts and licks and rolls all over you, and you can't even register all of the pleasure you're getting from it- it feels that good.

     He slips his arms under your thighs and grips them tightly to ground himself as he allows himself to drown in you. He lets his instincts do all of the work, enjoying himself more than he ever has. His nose nudges against your clit as he slurps noisily.

     The way you taste. The way you smell. The way you sound. The way you feel.

     All of it. All of you. He's going mad with lust. With love. He's going to explode, he truly believes it. And then you call his name.

      "Mingi—"

    So sweet and desperate, absolute music to his red hot ears as he sucks the bundle of nerves above your sopping wet heat. He doesn't even register that you've cum all over his chin until youre tugging at his hair roughly and forcing him away from your throbbing pussy.

     He moans out loud as you harshly pull him away, jaw dropped as he pants. "You taste so good, Doll," he slurs drunkenly. Your essence has gotten him drunker than any alcohol ever could.

     You're panting even heavier, chest rising and falling quickly as you tremble in the aftershocks of your first orgasm that's come from another person. 

     He rubs his finger tips over your thighs gently, luring you back down to Earth as he gawks at you. You swear that there's hearts in his shining eyes.

     "W-" your attempt at words comes out as jumbled whine, and you let yourself fall back into the pillow.

     "It's okay, Baby," he coos, licking his lips as he sits up, folding his legs under him and pulling your limp hips into his lap.

     The new nickname makes your cunt twitch, and he catches it. "Oh, you like that, hm?" His index and middle finger spread you wide, and he purses his lips- spitting directly onto your sensitive hole. "C'mon, talk to me, pretty Baby."

      "G-god!" You cry out embarrassedly, forever thankful for the angry storm outside that hides your sounds from any neighbors. "Yes, I do, I really do," you draw out, grabbing the sides of his thighs as he teases your entrance. You're still hyper sensitive, twitching with every small movement he makes.

    And he absolutely revels in it.

    "Yeah? I bet no one ever made you feel that good before," he smirks, letting another wad of spit hit your hole.

     "Nuh-uh," you shake your head, peering up at him, and your next words make it hard for him to keep his composure. "Stay. Stay here and- and fuck me."

     Little do you know, after that first night- he lost any plans he had of ever leaving.

"I will never leave you," and he means it. He has no plans of ever letting you go. And he's about to let you know that.

       He slides you back off his lap and lays over you, holding your head with one hand as the other guides his leaking tip into you. "Oh, ngh," you whine, holding onto his biceps tightly. He bites his lips as he feels your walls for the first time. So warm and tight around him. So soft. "M-min, be gentle," you whimper, leaning up and hiding in his chest.

     "Don't worry, Doll, we'll go slow" he strokes your head gently, slowly -oh, so slowly- sinking into your tight core. "Such a pretty little thing, so fuckin' tight f'me," he growls, and again as the noise makes you clench around him. "Gonna have to stretch your little pussy out before I can even move, you've got me in a fucking vice, Baby."

       "Mingi, d-don't talk like that, it's dirty," you pant into his chest, the warm air making goosebumps form.

     "Well, look at you," he nearly purrs, pulling your head back from his chest gently, "look." You blink a few times, taking in the sinful scene.

    Your legs spread around his slowly moving hips. His thick monster of a cock gradually disappearing into your stretched folds.

     "Can't not be dirty while we're breaking in this cute little cunt," he says matter-of-factly, looking down at said cunt while it clenches around the half of his cock that's he's managed to sink in. A lewd moan leaves his parted lips, looking back to you as you whimper and fidget. "Hey, hey," he coos, cupping your face in his palms. "Half way there, Doll. How's it feel?"

     "Like you're gonna split me in half," you ramble out, looking up at him with the softest eyes he's ever seen. "Please, c-can we take a break? You're jus' so big..."

     "Of course, sweet girl," he leans down, careful to keep his hips locked despite how badly he just want to slam into your welcoming heat, and kisses you. Stroking your cheek bones with his thumbs. "You feel so good, like heaven." 

    The praise makes your rapidly beating heart skip a beat. "Mingi?"

    "Yes," he moans in response, looking deep into your eyes.

    "I think I'm falling in love with you." The sudden confession makes his cock twitch, his heart jumping into his throat. "Is that silly?"

     He takes a moment to gather his thoughts, which are admittedly a chaotic mess.

    "If it is, we would be silly together."

     "You mean-"

    "Yes."

    You grip his shoulders and lean up, pressing your lips to his in an act of pure desire. The both of you get lost in each other, tongues darting out and lapping at one another like a lifeline.

    Sufficiently covered in each others spit, you pull back. "Keep going, I want to take all of you." You have a newfound confidence after your short trade of admissions, demanding that he go on and fuck you.

      A few more moments of excruciating stretching pass when you suddenly feel his pelvis flush with your clit, both of you panting like wild animals as you feel each other completely.

     "Holy shit, Baby," he sneers, resting his face in the crook of your neck, taking in deep breaths of your scent to keep himself from jack hammering into you. You are truly the best thing to ever happen to him, and your cunt molding into the shape of him is just a bonus.

      There are no words that you can find in your brain. All if it is wiped away as you feel his rock hard cock stretching you out, filling you wall to wall. When he breaths out, a content sigh into your neck, you feel the veins on his length pressing into your gummy walls. "Hah~" Is all you can manage, thoughts turned into mush as he begins to slowly pull back out- just an fraction of an inch. Before sliding back in quickly. "Fuck!"

     "Doll, please, please," he whimpers, holding onto your waist tightly as he rolls his hips, "please say you're ready, I don't know how long I can take it."

    "Y-" the second the first syllable is utter from your lips, he's already pulled out half way, "yes!" He thrust back in, steady and slow at first.

Words are lost between you - minds absolutely flooding with hormones as he begins thrusting harder, faster. Moans, groans, loud whimpers. The slapping of your skin is so loud that even the rain pounding at the window can't drown it out.

He's stuffing you beyond your wildest imagination. His cock was made to stretch you so deliciously, and your pussy was made to take it.

It's his dream coming to life, quite literally, as your eyes roll back to the depths of your head and you're squeezing him tighter than before. It's almost impossible for him to keep thrusting, but he finds a way.

He grips your hips tight and is making you bounce on his cock effortlessly, all the while pounding his hips into yours. He's so deep inside of you, it feels like he can feel the same coil in your gut that you do. And it's about shatter.

He slips a hand down and begins swirling his fingers over your clit, pushing you off the edge roughly, making you cream over his member with a broken yell of his name. He leans in, all of his weight on you as fucks you through it harshly. His lips right next to your ear.

"You. Are. Mine."

And with that, a warmth like no other spreads inside of you.

༄

Nearly two months passed like they were nothing, days seemed to fly with you by his side.

     He felt he finally had a place where he belonged.

    He found himself work cleaning peoples guns in the bar, even selling and trading some.

    He had a bed to go to at the end of the day. After that first time together, you both rearranged the room. Pushing your beds together under the window and putting the dresser on the wall.

     He had the other half of his soul. You. He knew everything there was to know about you, and you knew everything there was to know about him. Well- all he was willing to tell. Sometimes, there was a dark glint in his eyes that made you feel like you didn't know the full story of the man you shared your life with. But all doubt faded away when he smiled at you.

     All was well- more than well. It was perfect.

      Until a group of strangers rode into town. Strangers to the town. But strangers to Mingi, they were not.

     He walked into the bar and Mingis heart stopped. He saw all of his hard work to get you, to settle, to make a life- all of it- vanish. It disappeared.

     "Fuck me," he groans, keeping his head low and cursing himself for not wearing his hat today. He hopes that he'll go unnoticed. But that hope is squashed when the man slides into the booth across from him.

     "Well, slap my ass and call me Pamela. Song Mingi!" The rowdy man immediately catches Louis' attention from behind the bar.

     "Why are you here, Buck?" Mingi keeps his tone low, hostile.

   "You know why I'm here. You want in?" The man, Buck, has a smirk playing mischievously on his lips.

     "No. You, and whoever else you drug into this town are leaving. This town is off limits."

     Buck lets out a shrill chuckle, "says who?"

     "Says me. This is my town. Get the fuck out before I shoot you." Mingi growls, placing his pistol on the table, finger twitching at the trigger.

      That gets Louis' full attention, his hand immediately unlocking the safety on his gun as he makes his way over. "Mingi, who's your friend?" He hates to admit, but he's grown fond of Mingi over these long winter days.

     "He's leaving. Ain't that right?" Mingi tilts his head at Buck, who takes a look around. Multiple patrons of the bar have their hands on their guns, ready to draw.

     He isn't stupid. Mingi is apart of these people now and they'll protect him.

    "Yeah, that's right." He slides out of the booth, giving Mingi a seemingly innocent smile. But Mingi knows him all too well. "I'm glad you finally found yourself a nice girl to settle down with."

      With that finally threatening congratulations, he's back out the bar the way he came. Mingi watches from the window with wide eyes as he joins the posse of men outside. As soon as they start wandering away, looking into shops and other such buildings Mingi has come to be so fond of, he snaps into action.

    He runs up the stairs, nearly bumping his head. They've been casing the town, that's the only way he'd know about you.

      "Mingi!" Louis follows after him, slowed by age.

     He finds him reaching under the bed, staring bamboozled as he places gun after gun after gun into the mattress. "Mingi!"

      He ignores the panicking man, loading all of them up. "Son!" His head snaps up, tears threatening his waterline.

      "Louis, they're going to raid the town."

"What...?"

"I don't have time to explain, I have to go- go get (Y/n). You need to gather everyone who knows how to shoot. I n-"

"Boy, I don't care much for nonsense."

"Listen to me, Louis!" He clearly panicked, an expression he's never seen from him before. "What reason do I have to lie? This is my home too! This is my home and my woman, and I'll be damned if I let Buckey fuck-face and his thugs ruin it!" In his panic, Mingi doesn't notice the ring that falls from his bag as he gets out more ammunition.

Louis bends down next to Mingi and picks it up, puzzle pieces falling together in his mind.

Mingi snatches it back and shoves it in the bag.

"You're gonna propose to my little girl?"

"Not if we all die," Mingi responds shortly, shoving an armful of guns into Louis.

   They share a look.

    It seems Mingi made a similar promise to himself about you.

"Go and fetch her, don't raise any suspicion. If the townspeople know what's coming, it'll start a panic."

Mingi gives him a short nod. To say yes, sir. To say thank you.

He keeps his head down, hat covering his face as he weaves his way to the very back of the town. Trying his damnedest to avoid everyone from his past.

When he successfully makes it to the river, he spots you and is filled with relief.

    You hum quietly to yourself, bundled up in his large poncho to protect yourself from the frigid January weather as you clean your clothes.

    The harsh winds whip your loose hairs around, makes the clothes on the line flap loudly.

"(Y/n)!"

"Hey, Darlin-" He pulls you up, holding you close to his side as he drags you away, "what're you doing?"

"Just keep your head down, when we get back to the bar, go to our room, lock yourself in the bathroom. Okay?"

"Min, you're scarin' me..."

"Do you understand?" He asks firmly, stopping at the edge of town, turning you to face him.

He looks deadly serious. You haven't seen this kind of look since the first day you met. So you nod, committing what he said to memory.

"I love you," he kisses you deeply, shortly.

And then he drags you through town, and into the bar. But he pushes you right behind him when you walk in.

Buck has Miss Maria and Louis tied up, pushed to the floor. The few patrons are gone, and the yelling outside tells him Louis' plan to keep things calm has failed. Multiple men are rummaging around the bar, cleaning out the register. He can't hear any noise above them, and he's thankful that the entrance to your small home is so well hidden by the corner. 

     He feels you grip the back of his leather jacket, and he's about to turn and tell you to run when he feels you get ripped away.

     Your scream echos in the building as one of Bucks men tears you away, and Mingi has to stop himself from shooting the man the second he puts his hands on you. Doing that will just get you all killed.

He's deadly silent as he watches the man toss you to the floor. His gun was drawn the second you got tore away, and he's itching to use it.

You try to scramble away, but Buck comes up behind you and places his boot on your back, shoving you back down with a thud. Maria is sobbing uncontrollably into her hands, Louis' jaw is locked in anger as he looks away.

He bends down, putting more pressure on your spine. He grips your hair and turns your face to the side. "Well, well," he smirks, "you're even prettier up close, ain't you?"

Everyone stops in their tracks as you spit in his face. "Fuck you!" One of the men closest to you has a gun to your head in the next second, but you refuse to break.

"Feisty, I like that," he shoves your head to the floor, hitting it against it roughly. Mingi is seeing red as the world around him resumes, men ransacking the bar and chortling at your family. His family.

      "Buck."

   "Oh?" He turns, leaving you on the floor, "got something to say, pansy?"

     "Yeah." His eyes flick to yours as you push yourself up dizzily, and over to one of the booths before Buck even realizes he's looked away. "You need a key for the safe. I gonna give it to you, and youre gonna take it and leave."

     "Is that so? That's what's gonna happen?"

   "That's what's gonna happen."

   "You really lost your guts, aye? Found a nice girl and a cozy town and decided you're too good for this life, I see."

    Mingi slips his pistol back into its holster on his hip, sauntering over to the bar with all eyes on him. He stands infront of Maria and Louis, shielding them from what's about to come. "You see it how it is, then." He lifts up the pot of dying chrysanthemums in the middle of the wooden island and scoops up the key. His eyes spot you curling up under the booth he glanced at. Thank goodness you got the message.

      Cause shit is about to hit the fan.

    He tosses the key to Buck, and as his hands raise up to catch it-

     He puts a bullet in his brain.

     You can't help the scream that rips past your lips, covering your ears and hiding your face in your knees.

    As the men behind the bar start shooting at him, he ducks, shielding the older couple as the men infront of them begin firing. But he's too quick. Only one of them gets close, grazing his shoulder and stunning him briefly. He drops his pistol and takes the larger gun off of his back, propping it up over the island blindly and spraying the rest of the men in a hail of bullets.

     And then all is silent.

    With a heavy heart, you look up from your lap. The building is covered in blood, light seeps in from the holes in the walls caused by stray bullets. Maria is crying silently. Louis is looking at Mingi in shock as he falls onto his backside, holding his bleeding shoulder. 

     "What the hell was that, boy?"

     "That was me saving your ass."

༄

    Mingi and Louis, with the help of a few good samaritans, cleared the bodies out of the bar and drug them to the outskirts of town. Leaving them for the coyotes and bears. If it were up to him, Mingi would have hung them up as an example.

     Maria, seemingly in shock, scrubs the floor with a blank face as you fix up the register and dig out all of the bars belongings from the bandits bags.

     You feel a roll of papers at the bottom of one of the bag. A silent hum of amusement leaves you as you see what it is. They kept their own wanted posters. Proud of what they've done. You flip through them. Maybe out of morbid curiosity of who your boyfriend just gunned down.  And then you get to one who you know wasn't a victim.

     Because he was the gunner.

    Mingis face in a sketch stares up at you.

    WANTED.

    DO NOT APPROACH. ALERT THE AUTHORITIES.

 DANGEROUS FUGITIVE. SONG MINGI.

    The door to the bar swings open.

   The world spins around you as you look up from the drawing. And come face to face with it, brought to life.

    "Mingi..."

    "Are you okay, Doll?"

   You can't seem to find any words that describe the way your heart is breaking. Louis approaches you first, his own heart stopping as he sees what's held in your trembling hands. He tears it from you, glaring down like it's a hallucination.

    "Who are you?" Is all you can manage to whisper, backing away with a grip on your uncles sleeve as Mingi steps forward.

     "What is that?" He nods to the paper, although deep down he has an idea of what it is.

   Maria snaps out of her trance, joining your side, a gasp leaving her lips as she looks back and forth from the paper to Mingi.

     "You get out of here, you never show your face in this town again," Louis grips the man's collar and pulls him to his level, "You're lucky my girls are watching or I'd hold true to my promise."

     Mingi shoves him away and grabs the paper from Maria, his worst thoughts come true as he sees himself staring back at him.

     "Wh..." He trails of in a whisper, heart breaking into a million pieces as you look at him fearfully. Like you did the first time you met. He thought he'd never have to see that look again. "(Y/n), please, hear me out."

     Maria holds you to her chest as he approaches. "I knew I sensed evil in you, boy." She bares her teeth at him as she seethes, like a wild mother bear.

"Leave," your voice trembles, raw with all of the emotions that are flooding you. You lean further into your aunts arms as he reaches out for you. "You lied to me! I never want to see you again! I ought to turn you in!"

    "You have to believe me, I'm not like that anymore. Baby, listen! I only did what I had to to survive, you don't understand. I'm not like them!" He fights against Louis as he drags him to the door. "Please, I love you!" He's thrown off the porch, only getting a glimpse of you as you crumble to the floor before the door is slammed in his face.

༄

Mingi drapes his mare's reigns over a poll, trudging through the snow until he's at a familiar door.

He doesn't bother knocking. He barges in and stares down at the man at the desk.

"Mingi, long time no s-"

"I have a job for you." He slaps down a wad of cash, "more where this came from when you're done."

The man sighs, but takes the cash, thumbing through it. "And why don't you do it?"

Mingi ignores the question. "Louis and Maria Donelley. Shoot them, make it quick. (Y/n) (L/n). Tie her up on the tracks."

He hesitates for a moment. But in the end, "More where this came from, huh?"

༄

     It's been three days since Mingi has gone away. Rather, since he was forced away by his past and your reaction to it.

     You've slept for most of that time. Cried the rest. You barely eat. Barely talk. You hardly even move off your side of the once-shared bed.

    Maria, Louis, all of your friends tried to comfort you. Telling you that he was just a fling. That the one for you will come around and make all of the pain Mingi left disappear.

     They don't know that Mingi was the one.

     He made you so happy. Happier than you'd ever been. He made everything seem... right.

     "Hey, Dear," Louis knocks at the wall, slowly coming ascending into the room.

     "I don't want the soup, Uncle Lou..."

     "Auntie!" Ellis comes barreling past Louis and jumps onto the bed, hugging you tightly.

     "Ellis? Hey, Buddy!" You force a smile as you hug him back, sitting up with a groan and holding the child in your lap. "How you been?"

      Ellis goes on and on about what the new teacher from the city is teaching his class, a big smile on his face. Louis sees the smile pulling at your lips in the slightest, and he excuses himself silently.

     He, admittedly, is a very good distraction from your pain.

You spend quite a few hours playing with him, catching up on the things that are going on in town. He drops the ball onto the jacks and giggles loudly as it rolls away, under the bed. "I'll get it, set us up another round."

You bend down and feel around for it blinding, heart skipping a beat as you feel Mingis bag. You haven't found the courage to touch any of his things, even if to throw them away.

You move away from it and grip the ball, rolling it back to Ellis. "El, I'm feeling a bit tired, why don't you come back tomorrow."

"Aw... okay! I'll bring Violet and we can play outside!"

"See you then, Kiddo," you ruffle his hair as he passes you to leave.

It was a nice break from your sorrows while it lasted.

You crawl back into your half of the bed as the sun sets in the window above it, pulling Mingis pillow into your arms as you sob yourself to sleep once again.

Deep into the night, you feel the bed dip. You open your eyes with the littlest inkling of hope that Mingi has returned despite your harsh words his way.

But you're only met with a stranger.

You open your mouth to scream, but only get a small squeak out before you are met with a hit on the head.

༄

You awake as your body is tossed into the air, a loud groan leaving you as you collide with something hard. Through your blurry vision, you can see the moon high above you.

You look to the side, and you put two and two together that you're in a wooden cart as you see the stranger from above your bed riding on a horse that's got you attached to it. "Hey-" You croak out, getting his attention.

"Morning!" He yells, making you wince. You have a splitting headache. "Just in time for the show," he mumbles under his breath, pulling the horse to a stop.

You can hear him shuffling around in the snow, and you try to sit up before you realize you can't. Your entire body is tied in a thick rope.

The back of the cart opens up, and you try -you try so hard- to shimmy away as he reaches in and grabs your foot. But to no avail.

      He pulls you from the cart and lets you fall into the snow. It wets the back of your nightgown and hair, soaks your thin socks and makes you shiver. You don't think you've ever been this scared. Even during the shootout, Mingi was there to protect you.

      You watch with a fresh set of tears brewing in your eyes as you watch the man double knot some ropes onto the tracks. "Oh my God..."

      He ignores as you begin to beg for your life, telling him all sorts of things about you to try and make him sympathetic. "- and his name is Louis, he took me in when my parents died! Uncle Lou and Aunt Maria, please! She'd die of heartbreak!" He scoffs, knowing she's already dead. So is Uncle Lou.

    He followed Mingis request and made it quick.

       He pulls you by your binds to the tracks, the metal on the tracks is the coldest thing you've ever felt and it makes you yelp. You cry out in the night as he begins tying the ropes on the tracks to the ropes on your body.

    "Please, why are you doing this?!" Your voice shook with pure horror, tugging at the ropes that were wrapped around your entire body and tied to the tracks by the bandit. He crouched down at your feet and smirked, his simple answer making you cry all the harder.

     "Why not?"

   All of your pleas and prayers fall to deaf ears as the man turns away and to his cart, rummaging in his chest. The tracks begins to shake and you begin to except your fate. You turn your head to the side and watch the pebbles rumble, your sobs visible in puffs of air as you exhale into the harsh winter air.

    A loud thud and a groan makes you look back, and you see a tall figure on a familiar white horse.

    "Mingi!" He drops the crowbar he used to whack the man as he rode past.

    He looks back at you briefly- his face hidden by his droopy hat. But you can tell he's pissed. His jaw clenched and shoulders tense before a gunshot rings out and he ducks and rolls off of Mare, slapping her to make her run away as he draws his own gun.

    Between the rattling of the tracks and the thrumming of your heart, you can barely force yourself to watch as he approaches the man bravely, your eyes flicking from them to the horizon repeatedly. A sob of his name makes him pause for a split second before he comes back to his body.

    "Too close," Mingi scowls at the man, using his gun to smack his hand and make him drop his, kicking it away as he scrambles for it.

    "Aye, man, I did what yo-"

    "Too close."

    "Just give me my mon-"

       His gun smokes by his side in the next second as the man drops to the desert floor dead. He takes a moment to bask in the way the blood pools in the pure white snow before the steam whistle catches his attention.

      "Mingi, please!" He drops everything and runs to the tracks, crawling over your body and looking at your binds frantically. "Mingi, oh my God, please- I'm so sorry! Please untie me, hurry," you babble on in a panic as the train appears just over the horizon, sobs wracking you body under his as he tugs at the ropes.

     Your horror breaks his heart, but he knows it's necessary. He knows he has a knife strapped to his back, but he plays the panic card and 'forgets' as he forces a false worry onto his face. He won't let anything happen to his Doll, but you're too caught up in your fight or flight to remember that.

    "I got you, I got you," he murmurs as he pulls the ropes on one of your sides undone, taking his sweet time with the other as he watches the train grow ever closer- the conductor blaring the horn.

     Your free hand grasps at him, clawing at his leather jacket, eyes wide and soaked with tears as you stare down your death as it barrels towards you. Just a few feet away.

    Mingi yanks you up and falls to the ground besides the tracks with you on top of him, hands roughly holding you to his chest as his hat blows away with the wind that the train creates. You willingly slump into him, sobbing into his warm chest as the tracks rattle loudly besides you, drowning out your cries.

     He relishes in the way you cling to him well after the train passes, not daring move away from your savior as you cry your heart out and ramble on to him about how you're so sorry and how you never would have really turned him in and on and on until he silences you with a tender hug.

    He knows all of this. His Doll would never betray him. But it's best that he get a subconscious message through your thick, naive, skull early on.

   The message being: the attempt to leave him has failed miserably. Why even try to leave when he's so clearly your fate?

༄

Mingi locks the bar door behind him as he carries you into the building. He kicks off his boots. He knows you hate the mess.

    It was silent the entire way back to town.

And it remains that was as he carries you up the stairs and to bed. He doesn't even acknowledge you as he gets you some clean, dry clothes.

"Mingi..."

He sighs, shoulders dropping.

"I'm s-"

"I thought you hated me?"

"Min... I was just- just in shock! Why didn't you tell me you were... an outlaw?"

He kneels at the bed and slips your socks off, replacing them with a warm, thick pair.

The moonlight seeps in through the sheer curtains and paints your skin in a haze of blue. The bruise on your temple like a water color bloom.

"Because I was afraid." He bites his lip as it trembles. That's the plain truth. He was afraid you'd leave if you found out all the things he'd done. But now that you know, he still doesn't plan on letting you leave. "Please forgive me, Doll."

He lowers his head into your lap and smirks as he feels your hand rest on his hair.

"Come back home, Mingi."

"Really?" He looks up with the most puppy like gaze you've ever seen.

You nod, wiping your tears away, "I don't care what the others have to say. We can leave this place if we have to, I just need to be with you, M-" His lips collide onto yours as he pounces on you, pushing you onto the bed and nipping at your lips like he's starved. And he is, because-

"I missed you so fucking much, Doll," he growls into your lips, melting into you as you wrap your arms around him. It feels like it's the first time in forever, and it is to him.

"I love you, Mingi," you whisper as you look up at him, chasing after him as he sits up on his knees.

     He lifts your ruined nightgown, looking down at you as if you're a work of art as he tosses it away. "I love you," he whispers back, cupping your breast in his warm, big hands. "I love you so much it hurts."

You lay back with a moan, arching into his touch. Your mind is so fried from this weeks events, all you want to do is disappear into him.

     And you let it be know. "Take your clothes off." You tug at his buckled belt with an utterance, licking your lips at the sight of his happy trail. "Show me how much you missed me. Show me how much you love me."

     Your sultry words have him undressing in a hurry,  slamming his pistol down on the nightstand he made and kissing you deeply as he removes his belt, heart beating rapidly as you cup his cheeks to bring him closer.

     You're the closest to heaven he's ever been. Kissing down his neck and stroking his back. He doesn't know how or why this infatuation grew into something wild and untamable. And frankly, he doesn't care.

       You are quickly working to undress his top half while he kicks his pants away, letting his larger gun clatter to the floor. You no longer care if he leaves them out. You just want him home.

      "I was so worried about you, Baby," he pants, "I know I hurt you. I'm so sorry," he places kiss after kiss after kiss on your face, rubbing your thighs as he slides between them. "I love you. I adore you. I want you. I'm yours. You're mine." Every statement is accompanied by a kiss.

      "I'm so sorry, Min," you look deep into his eyes as he rubs his member on your wetness, "you're my one and only. I don't care what you've done to get here. As long as I have you in my arms. As long as I'm in yours."

     He hugs you tightly, forehead against yours as he slips inside of you. "I will never leave you," he moans out, settling deep inside of you as you pant and whine.

    You've taken him quite a few times at this point, but never like this.

    He always takes his time sinking into you, reveling in the slow stretch.

    But not tonight. Not after what you've been through. He needs to feel you, and now.

     He needs to feel your emotional connection on a physical plane. And so do you. That's why you don't stop him or push him away as he lowers into you quickly.

     You ground yourself by wrapping your arms under his and gripping his shoulders, careful of his healing wound.

     His chest against yours, heart beats drumming together as you try to disappear into each others being.

    Affectionate touches are left all over the both of your bodies. Tender kisses and promises of love.

    "You're all I ever wanted," you whisper into his chest as he starts a languid pace. "I want to be yours, tell me I'm yours."

"You're mine, Doll, all mine." He speaks ever so softly, cradling your head to his chest. He can't believe how lucky he's gotten.

"Make me believe you, show me I'm yours."

And he does.

     God knows how or why Song Mingi has so much stamina, but no amount of time passed stops him from pounding into you, he stops when he thinks you've had enough.

     He's made you cum seven times through the night, and with the sun beginning to rise out the window, he's still at it.

     Its been hours, and his pace hasn't slowed one bit. If anything, your pants and whines stir him on and he almost hammers into you. The quick in and out rhythm makes him moan. Your heat encasing him as the cold winter air seeps in through the walls that makes him want to bury himself in your body and never leave.

    He knows he's big. He's so big and you're small compared to him. But he doesn't care when he's balls deep in your sore and swollen pussy. He makes you take it to the base and chuckles deeply when you try and crawl away.

    "Min- can't take it," you sob, but that doesn't stop him.

    He grips your hips roughly and pulls your clit flush to his pelvis, holding you there as you squeal out, banging your fists onto your shared bed.

     "Fuck you can't, your pussy was made for me to stretch out." His next thrust sends your hips into the mattress, finally able to rest your exhausted body as he plunges into you from behind.

      Each rough thrust wipes away every thought from your mind until it's all Mingi.

   Mingi is so deep.

   Mingi is so thick.

   Mingi fucks you so good.

   Mingi treats you so good.

   Mingi loves you.

   Mingi.

   Mingi.

      "Mingi!" You moan out loudly into the pillows as you seize up, eyes rolling into the back of your head as you cum all over him. Vision dark and blurry, drooling all over the place, barely conscious after your eighth orgasm around his massive girth.

     He's panting and growling into your ear, continuing to thrust. He's relentless. He's really out to break you.

      "Please," you slur, wracking your slush of a brain for a way to get him to cum. You love him, and you love fucking him. But he just won't stop until he cums. And he won't cum until you essentially force him. He's so hell bent on making you get there, he forgets about himself, like he's outside of his own body. And he's extra determined after almost losing you. Your usual tricks haven't worked. So you pull out the big guns. "Please, Min... put a baby in me." Oh, you know him all too well. He's made multiple comments about how good you are with children. How pretty you'd look with that pregnancy glow, your belly round with his baby.

    "F-fuck, Doll," it seems as if that is enough to satisfy his hunger, slamming his tip into your womb and filling you with his warm and sticky seed so much that it splashes back on him and makes a mess of his lower stomach.

Still buried deep inside of you, uncaring of the mess, he lays ontop of your back gently and wraps his arms around your shoulders, his head next to yours. You shaking breaths and trembling legs calmed by his warmth over your entire body.

     "Holy fucking shit," you whimper, making him chuckle quietly.

     He places a gently kiss to your shoulder, "I didn't go to hard, did I?"

    "You did... but I liked it."

    He smiles as he rests his head, hands rubbing up your arms and to your hands, intertwining yours fingers. "I love you." He states. Loud and proud. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to share everything with you and I don't want to keep anything from you. I want you all to myself. Will you marry me?"

    The words almost get lost in translation on their way to your endorphin flooded mind, and your silence makes him nervous. That is until- he sees the giant smile spreading on your lips. "Yes."

"Oh, thank goodness," he sighs a breath of relief followed by a soft laugh.

    "But you'd better get me a ring," you joke, groaning out as he slowly pulls out of your abused core. There's a smirk on his lips that you can't quite place as he gently turns you on your back and helps you get comfortable.

     He reaches under the bed and grabs his bag. "You didn't-"

    "I did," he has his signature shit-eating-grin on his face as he takes it out. A dainty, pretty, thing. Much like he sees you.

      He cuddles into your side, fur blanket draped over your lower halves. Calloused and rough hands take yours. Gently and loving with you. Their past of violence is lost as he slides the ring onto your finger tenderly.

     "Mrs. Song."

༄

#ateez #ateez smut #smut fic #yandere ateez #ateez mingi #song mingi #yandere mingi #mingi smau #mingi smut #ateez smau

[nteabodies]

Quinlan frowned to himself. Obi-Wan had slipped into the dingy old building all alone more than an hour ago and no one had joined him yet.

Unlike the last time, when multiple armed and dangerous individuals had arrived within minutes of each other and he had caught Obi-Wan red-handed planning a slave rebellion with a known terrorist (he ended up helping Obi-Wan instead of reporting him, but it also kickstarted his hobby of Stalking Obi-Wan Whenever He Acted Suspicious).

But back to the situation at hand. He could not sense the force presence of anyone other than Kenobi inside the building, and he was beginning to get worried. The presence of an impatient pubescent teen who had begged to tag along was not helping either.

Perhaps it was time to crash this suspicious activity. He detached himself from the shadows of the alleys, taking Anakin (who had been crouching behind a dumpster) with him.

Quinlan put a finger to his lips before slowly easing the door to the building open, wincing when it let out a loud creak. Then he had to wince again because the apparently soundproof door had masked the song that was blasting throughout the room.

♫ Unbreak my heart ♫

It was a cramped, dingy room with a large table - a panel, Quinlan corrected to himself. It looked strangely similar to the control panel of a starship, but Quinlan could not recognise any of the buttons or levers. They had strange labels like Audio Input 2 and Mic 1 and Gain.

♫ Don't betray me again ♫

Strangest of all were the music players perched on top of the control panel, blasting the unfamiliar BK song.

♫ Undo this hurt you caused when you killed all of them and you– ♫

Where was Obi-Wan?

Quinlan felt a tug on his robes and he looked down at Anakin, who was in turn staring intently at the grimy wall behind the control panel. He squinted. There was an oddly placed transparesteel window looking into the next room, almost opaque with the buildup of dirt and stains. He could somewhat make out Obi-Wan's figure behind the transparesteel.

Obi-Wan was...he was...mouthing along to the lyrics of the BK song? In front of what looked like a professionally set up microphone, complete with a pop filter and headphones.

Wait a second. An unfamiliar BK song? Quinlan prided himself on keeping track of all BK songs to annoy Obi-Wan.

The song wasn't coming from a music player. It was Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan was BK. He had been BK this whole time.

Without hesitation, Quinlan burst into the recording studio because it was so ridiculous but it made sense and oh Force he was never gonna let Obi-Wan live this down–

"Uncry these tears, I cried so many nigh– Quinlan! What the kriff are you doing here?"

"Obi-Wan! What language, and with a child present too!" Quinlan made his voice sound as disapproving as possible as he stepped aside and allowed the child in question to be in view.

Obi-Wan blanched as Anakin scowled at Quinlan.

Quinlan smirked.

"I think we both deserve an explanation, don't we, Anakin?"

Obi-Wan let out a long-suffering sigh.

"Can you let me finish recording this song, at least? I want to release BK's next album by next month, and it's not like I'm gonna have time after today what with that mission the Council's assigned me."

"Wait!" Anakin's eyes were as wide as saucers. "You're BK?!"

Obi-Wan buried his face in his hands.

#pop star wars au #star wars #obi wan kenobi #quinlan vos #anakin skywalker #fanart #art #I am obsessed with this au

[arminsumi]

Eren and prompt 14 I could die for this 🥺

Me too! :( I think of this idea so often

Twilight Time

Prompt 14 / E. Jaeger

"You two have a secret love affair in a 1930s au"

Every day at twilight-time, Eren would secretly meet you at the riverbank.

Cws; kissing, romantic atmosphere

Notes; gn!Y/n, mail carrier!Y/n

Rec ♫ : Twilight Time

"Heavenly shades of night are falling... it's twilight time."

The approach of sunset always put Eren in an enigmatic daze. Excitement fluttered in his chest, because he knew that soon he would meet you at the riverbank.

His comrades wondered what it was that put him in such a peculiar mood, but only Armin figured out that you were the reason.

You know what gave it away?

Well, it was a simple slip-up, see, Eren and Armin were talking one day, just outside the captain's headquarters, when you came with mail.

For the briefest moment, Eren softened his expression at you, and you smiled in response. No words were spoken, but still Armin understood the affectionate exchange between the two of you.

The only time your affections didn't need to be veiled was at twilight time; when for only thirty minutes or less, you and Eren would enjoy each other's companies while watching the sun sink below the horizon.

Eren would nod to his superiors on his way out, keeping his chin high and eyes fixed ahead like he was about to go on patrol. But he knew, and Armin knew, that he only had one destination in mind; you.

And each time he caught a glimpse of your silhouette contrasting against the golden light, he felt a pang of affections in his chest.

When he greeted you at last, these affections began to thump, because you reached out to graze his cheek lovingly with your fingers.

"Sir, you look as tired as ever." You frowned and caressed him caringly.

"I'm alright..." He assured, standing tall in his jade uniform.

After a pause, he jokingly asked something that completely flustered you;

"Will you still refer to me as 'sir' even when we're married?"

Your eyes lit up, "Married!?" You squeaked, "Sir, you're flustering me."

He drew closer to you, amusement showing in the creased corners of his eyes.

"Y/n," He spoke softly and slowly, "It really is alright for you to call me by my name. I don't mind at all."

You lowered your gaze. Even if he was speaking gently, his presence was still quite intense.

"... I mean to say, I would like to hear you say my name." He admitted, and then looked away.

When you brought your gaze up to him, you couldn't believe what you saw; a stoic soldier such as himself was looking down and blushing in the sunset like a boy.

"Well, alright, sir — sorry, Eren-sir — ah, goodness, it'll take some getting used-to." You laughed shyly.

"That's alright, darling." He assured.

" 'Darling!?' " You squeaked again just like before.

The glow of sunset cast over him, as golden as honey, and showed just how deeply he was blushing at that slip-of-the-lip.

"Sorry..." He mumbled shyly.

"I don't mind..." You assured him quickly.

Then, you did what he least expected right then, and stood on your tiptoes to peck his lips.

Such a brief contact had caused his whole body to buzz with dopamine.

He reciprocated with a kiss so gentle that even a poet could not describe if they tried.

The cusp of sunset was over, and for that whole time, Eren kept close to you like a lover. Only the blue flowers around you knew of the secret intimacies shared.

"I do have to go, they will become suspicious if I'm away too long." Eren said after a while, and then he reluctantly rose to his feet.

"Oh, already?" You looked at him sadly.

He met your dreamy eyes and nearly fell to pieces. You looked angelic to him.

"I'm sorry, love. But we will meet again tomorrow." He said soothingly.

He leaned in for a kiss, and made it last longer than the others. You could understand all of his deepest affections in the way he pressed his lips against yours.

After pulling away, he sighed, "I wish twilight lasted longer..." He murmured sadly against your lips.

And so you two parted ways for the day, but Eren would see you again tonight in his dreams. And that would sate his heart until your next secret meeting at twilight-time.

I absolutely did not blush while writing this! Not at all!

#˗ˏˋ꒰ 💌 ꒱ prompts #🐦 Freedom Boy #Prompt 14 #gn!Y/n #1930s au #eren #secret love #eren jaeger #eren x reader #eren jaeger x reader #wholesome #fluff #aot #snk

[faeriebabee]

blondie and tuco running around with a stretcher carrying a single box clearly labeled 'explosives': ♫ don't be suspicious don't be suspicious ♫

#its taking me 5 hours to watch this 3 hour movie bc i have to keep getting on tumblr about it #the good the bad and the ugly #gbu blondie #tuco ramirez #the dollars trilogy

[tsukidrama]

the road not taken

{I Doubted If I Should Ever Come Back}

ᴀɴɴɪᴇ ʟᴇᴏɴʜᴀʀᴅᴛ x ғᴇᴍ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ / ᴄᴀɴᴏɴ ᴄᴏᴍᴘʟɪᴀɴᴛ

ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢѕ: night terrors, manifestations of PTSD, references to (physical) abuse, suicidal ideation, angst, & hurt with very little comfort.

Chapter 9 - Bad Dreams 2: Electric Boogaloo

Summary: When Annie hits rock bottom, you're confronted with the realities of her childhood you don't like to think about.

cottagecanon | ao3 | wattpad | ♫

← Chapter 8 | Chapter 10 →

Word Count: 10.5k

Author’s Note: thank you all for being so patient! i truly adore the little community of fans this fic has attracted. it took me a little longer than usual to write this chapter because it was genuinely making me depressed irl - nothing too serious, but it was hard to depict the unhealthy headspace that reader is currently in. so happy this chapter is over! if you haven't read it yet, i started a companion piece that goes along with this fic. linking below.

off the beaten path

Annie looks at you with an amused smirk. 

“I’ve been trying to tell you for weeks now,” you insist, “You just don’t believe me, still.”

She shakes her head. “Okay, so who is she, then?” 

You falter. “Well, I’m not sure, actually…” you admit. Annoyingly, it only adds to the argument against you. 

“...because she’s not real,” Annie finishes. 

“No!” you protest yet again, “She was real, and she brought him a bunch of crap. You know how sometimes he comes home from town with a basketful of random shit?” 

She nods. 

You’ve been thinking about that encounter ever since it happened, and you’ve had time to formulate your own theories. 

“She’s got to have some kind of a connection to the place where he gets that crap. Maybe they met there, or she works there,” you say, even though Annie looks disbelieving. “I think it would be a lot weirder if she didn’t have any connection to the stuff. Then I’d really be suspicious.”

At first, all she does is stare. After a few moments when you don’t back down, she laughs again – guffaws, really. It’s the most amusement she’s gotten out of something since she’s been back. 

“You’re persistent, I’ll give you that,” she chuckles, and goes as far to wipe a tear of laughter from her eyes. 

And again you groan. “I’m not making it up!” 

She doesn’t even entertain the idea. Every time you try to bring it up she has the same reaction, barely giving you the time of day. 

Eventually, you just drop the topic entirely. You do however stay on top of watching Papa a little more closely than usual. Unfortunately nothing of interest happens in those first few weeks. 

However, it doesn’t take long for you to realize that the only person acting odd is Annie herself. One night during dinner, there’s a particularly worrying interaction. 

“Could you pass the potatoes?” she asks. It’s the first thing anyone has said in a while, so it almost makes you jump. 

Somehow in the time that she had been gone, you forgot that Leonhardt family dinner was a silent affair. On your own with either one of them, you could get them to open up. When it was you and Papa, you’d talked more during meals than you did anywhere else (maybe the barn, too, towards the end there). 

That wasn’t ever your life. As a child, the dinner table was the center of the house. Dinner was a conversational affair, always. You would be asked about your day or about school. In the best years of your life, you would often sit at the table for hours, talking with your grandparents long after you had finished your plate. 

But when all three of you are sitting at a table, it’s dead silent. They outnumber you and the silence wins. Before Annie left, you had gotten used to it. You’ll get used to it again in time. It went without saying that this was just the norm between the two of them, that Anine’s childhood had been spent in silent dinners. 

It was really lonely. Especially considering that you had gotten used to otherwise. So whenever Annie stops eating and starts talking, it catches both of you off guard before you even hear what it is that she says. 

“Do either of you ever think about where we’d be buried if we die?”

Papa’s eyes widen to the size of saucers. And shockingly, that happens to be one of the few things she could’ve said that leaves you too stunned to reply. 

She looks back and forth between the two of you before she shrugs and looks back down. “I hadn’t ever thought about it before recently,” she mutters, “Warriors didn’t get graves.”

Her dad’s face is completely drained of blood. You realize that his hands are shaking when the fork in his hand trembles, then clatters against his plate. This reaction is what sets you in motion again to redirect the conversation. 

“That’s not something that any of us need to think about right now,” you say decisively. “You and I are young and all three of us are healthy.” 

Annie nods with her brow furrowed, like she hadn’t considered that before. “I know that. I was just wondering, really.” 

Finally, Papa breaks his silence. “Okay, well, don’t,” he snaps, “Got it?” Despite the intensity that he says it with, it’s crystal clear that his emotion is coming from fear rather than anger. 

She nods again to show her understanding, though she deflates a little bit as she goes back to pushing her food around her plate. 

Nobody says anything for the rest of the meal, though the mood of the silence changes considerably after that. You’re on edge the whole time, mostly worried that one of them might lash out in pure emotion and the other misinterprets it for anger. 

Is it lucky or unlucky that they both shove their feelings down? You swear that you watch the process of each of them controlling their facial expressions carefully before they revert back to apathy. 

Neither of them cleans up their spot at the table. Papa stabs his remaining brussel sprouts and shoves them in his mouth, angrily stomping off out of the back door with his mouth full of food. At least he eats them – Annie stays at the table with you for another ten minutes, but she just continues to push her food into a different spot. 

You want to ask her if she’s alright, but you also don’t want to make her feel like she’s made anything weird. For once, you’re not sure what you should say. All you can think of is the laundry list of things of things you want to avoid saying. 

It takes so long and you come up so short that Annie is the one to finally break the silence once it becomes unbearable. 

“Maybe he should get a girlfriend…” she mutters, “If that would make him chill the fuck out for once.”

You nod so that she feels like you’re on her side. What you really want to do is point out that maye he had a point to be concerned. It wasn’t like her to bring up the topic of death so suddenly, not since you’d left Paradis and the curse ended. 

It didn’t feel like a good sign that she was talking about death from the start, but when you think about it compared to some of the stuff she’d said as a teenager you can’t find it in you to call her out. It doesn’t raise enough red flags with you that you’re particularly concerned about her state of mind, given the fact that she acts normal with you for the rest of the night. 

She’s a little quiet maybe, but she’s as affectionate as always. After you both get ready for bed she lies down with a book, and you curl up on her shoulder reading along from the side. A few chapters in you feel yourself getting tired and falling asleep on top of her, and she’s attentive enough to wake you up just enough to reposition you comfortably. 

There’s a smile on your face. The last thing you expect is for things to go off the rails, but of course life has a special way of kicking you in the ass when you’re least expecting it. 

You sleep hard that night. It feels so safe when Annie’s arms are around you and the cats snuggle in, that you let your guard down. You’re so comfortable that you fall into a much deeper sleep than you intend to. 

At some point, you’re roused from sleep, but the heaviness in your eyelids is too strong to resist. You’re vaguely aware of Annie moving beside you, but you shake off the disturbance and flip over to scoop Donut into your embrace. It’s actually only due to his claws sinking into your arm that you wake up all the way. 

“Ah fuck, nice paws – no claws,” you chide him, removing each of the tiny daggers from your skin. “Damn it, please chill out, Donut…” 

You open your eyes and sit up, losing your grip on the squirmy cat. He darts away, slinking into the shadows of the room. Only when you turn do you realize that you’re alone in bed – actually, you’re alone in the room, you realize when you glance around. Annie is nowhere to be found. 

Ah, shit. Her weird comments about death and burial from earlier that night flash in the forefront of your mind and immediately, you fear the worst. You nearly leap out of bed to check the balcony and the bathroom, and any corner of the room where she could conceivably be tucked away in. 

She’s not upstairs. There’s nothing out of place. 

The only clue to her whereabouts comes from a sound down the stairwell. The door to downstairs is wide open, and something clatters like it was knocked off of a shelf or table to thunk on the hardwood floor. 

Oh, no. Please, no. 

Your heart is in your throat as you throw on some clothes. Please, please let her just be getting a snack downstairs. The Siamese yowls at you from the bottom of the steps, probably hungry herself. You shoo her away. There are clearly more pressing things than feeding the cats right now. Fucking cats…

The kitchen is empty with the inner door open and the screen door swinging in the wind. There’s a noise in the garden, a rhythmic thumping with an odd echo that reverberates between the three buildings surrounding the area. The bad feeling that’s pulling your guts down gets so much worse when you realize that ‘echo’ you’re hearing isn’t a reflection of another noise at al, but rather quiet sobbing. 

More or less, you know what you’re walking into. Some kind of horrible nightmare manifesting in a weird way. Had she ever run out of the house before? You wrack your brains and the answer comes up no. She’s made it onto the balcony and even down the stairs, but never even onto the bottom floor, really. 

Nothing that you couldn’t fix by just pulling her back into the room afterwards. Nothing that had overwhelmed you so much you don’t know how to handle it. All of that changes tonight. 

She’s standing on the edge of the garden, kicking the shit out of the part of the fence next to the picnic table, the part that cuts out to divide the garden. She’s really pummeling the crap out of it, to the point where the wood begins to splinter. You notice that not only is she still in a sports bra and pajama shorts, but she’s also not wearing any shoes. 

Her bare foot comes down on the fence and it breaks altogether. She rips the fence post out of the ground and throws it off to the side, then graduates to pulling at individual boards. Grunting with effort amidst her crying, she dismantles it piece by piece. 

After the nose incident and talking about it was Papa, you know better than to intervene. Especially not when there are shards of wood and god knows what else flying around. So instead you remain at the bottom of the ramp crouched in shadow.

This was everything you were afraid of since she came back. You start to get a little overwhelmed by emotion, but you’re still not sure what she’s triggered about. Before you take action you need to know what you’re dealing with, to see what she’s having a nightmare about in the first place. 

You try to get closer without making any sound. Annie isn’t talking, just crying, shouting every so often, but it’s not words. After she’s ripped apart the fence as much as it will budge, she kicks aside one of the chairs. 

When she tries to get a new angle on beating the fence, she ends up backing up right into the tree, and from the sound of it, she smacks into it quite hard – you audibly wince at the thwacking noise her skull makes against the bark. Her crying grows more frantic, and you can finally hear what she’s saying clearly as she cries out to defend herself. 

“No… I’m sorry. I wasn’t slacking off,” she whimpers, “I’m not taking a break… No sir! … okay, yes… I will.” Her voice shakes, and she falls to the ground as she scrambles away from the tree. 

There’s no metaphorical expression that can describe the way it feels when it hits you. You might as well have been punched in the gut with the way it twists. You’re nauseous and dizzy and in shambles. 

“I’m sorry,” she sobs, “I won’t do it again…”

Hearing those words coming out of her mouth fogs your brain up so badly that you just stand there stunned for a few moments. This is the one thing that you can’t handle, the one thing that breaks you more than anything else. No matter how hard you try, you can’t address this with a clear head. 

Annie pulls herself to her feet, and all of a sudden to your horror, she kicks up one of the tomato plants. It goes flying through the air. In quick succession, she kicks down the entire row of plants. Bell peppers, then squash, then eggplants go flying in every direction. Some are entirely uprooted while others are kicked like a soccer ball. 

She smacks into the tree again, and it triggers another episode of hysterics. The crying starts up anew, with another sputtering of apologies and half-coherent begging. “[more horrible dialogue]”

Half of it isn’t ready to harvest yet, not as if that matters to the nightmare. Cabbage, lettuce, kale, and cauliflower all go flying around and break apart on impact. Seeing her physically rip the garden to shreds is what tips you over the edge. 

You swallow the sickness you’re feeling and slink along the fence as you creep toward the en suite. You can’t do this alone. Desperately, you wrap your knuckles against the glass of Papa’s window. It’s a lot louder than you anticipated so you duck into the shadows in fear that Annie heard you.

If she did, she doesn’t react to it. She continues screaming and kicking, spinning quickly on her feet amongst the destroyed plants. You start banging on the door now, rather insistently, until you hear rustling on the other end. 

You keep knocking even when you hear him, though a little bit more softly. Only do you stop when you hear the lock disengaging. 

The door creaks open and Papa peeks out groggily. He looks confused at first, but the second he registers that it’s you, the bleary look on his face disappears. 

“What happened?” he asks, his gaze sharpening. 

You can’t even get any words out. As soon as your mouth opens you just start sobbing. Papa is expectedly taken aback by it. His eyes widen, though by his standards you know he’s trying to control his face. He reaches out for you but then freezes in place, unsure of what to do, and flounders for a moment. 

His expression grows unreadable as you watch the worst-case scenarios flash in his mind. He looks genuinely worried as he swallows hard. You can literally the recollection of her weird comments at dinnertime dawn on him, and worry floods his expression, “...she’s not?” 

“No, not like that,” you blubber, “but I didn’t know what to do.” 

Eventually, you manage to point out in the garden as you choke on another sob. Finally, it seems to sink in for him what’s happening when Annie once again bumps into the tree and shrieks, sobbing and promising that she’ll do better. 

When you turn, you see that she’s back in the middle of the garden ripping plants straight out of the ground and hurling them against the side of the barn. Dirt splatters against the red painted wood, noisily thunking with each collision. 

You look back to Papa to see his reaction. Maybe you shouldn’t be surprised by the blank look on his face, but you are a little disappointed. Right now, you need him to be there for you. Well, what are you expecting from him exactly? After all, it is Papa. You feel bitter tears forming in your eyes as you start to realize it might be a futile effort. 

A shower of dirt rains down from a few feet away. You jump in surprise, whirling around to see that Annie’s aim has now reached the en suite. Some onions thud against the bricks again, and this time the dirt that flies off hits the both of you. 

Only the third time do you realize that Papa is somewhat frozen. A hard handful sails across the garden directly toward you, and all of a sudden the instincts you learned during that annoying month and a half where deflecting random shit became a regular thing for you. Soil rains down all over your body but you manage to successfully block whatever vegetables – radishes, maybe? – that she’d hurled over. 

Finally, it seems like Papa fully realizes that you need help. You cry out in shock and disgust, and the squealing as you try to shake off the dirt must bring him back into reality. He grabs you by the upper arm and yanks you inside his room before the next vegetable comes flying by a few seconds later. 

He shuts the door and all at once, every emotion hits you at once. It’s like as soon as you’re physically separated from the event, you start to process it. The full effect of seeing Annie in this worst-case scenario, your inability to deal with it, the fact that you had to admit that, and the fact that you’re hiding when you feel like she needs you. 

You completely lose your shit. Tears flow down your face as you blubber hopelessly. “I should’ve brought her back to bed before she was able to make it out here. I usually wake up – I don’t know how I slept through it. Is this my fault?”

“Stop that right now,” he demands, placing a hand on your shoulder, “No way this is your fault. This isn’t your mess to clean up. You were right to come to me, okay?” 

You start out sniveling, balling your hands up into fists so hard that your fingernails dig into your palms. Words don’t come out. 

“Did she hurt herself?” he asks seriously. His grip on your shoulder unintentionally tightens. 

Immediately, you shake your head. “Not beyond whatever she did to the fence. Maybe some bruises… I don’t know. Nothing intentional, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

And though Papa looks a little bit relieved, he’s still very tense. Right now he looks older than you’ve ever seen him. 

Your lip trembles as you try to say more, but what ends up coming out is so shaky that it’s nearly inaudible. “I just… god, I feel so fucking useless. I can’t help her.” 

“You’ve done a lot for her already, more than anybody else ever has,” her dad tells you, and he begins to shepherd you towards the nearby armchair. “More than I ever have, too. You never should have felt responsible for this burden. This is all on me. I need to know that you understand that.” 

More tears overwhelm you. Papa stops trying to guide you when you start to stagger. Instead, he just pulls you into a hug. 

Something broken inside of you cracks further as emotions you didn’t realize you still had come back to haunt you. You feel terrified and inadequate and like you should have done something different, or better. Is he sure that this isn’t your doing? 

The choked-back emotion suddenly becomes too much, and once again you’re sobbing. “No,” is all you’re able to get out this time, “no, no.” You say over and over again. Your vision tunnels and your limbs go weak as you start to hyperventilate. 

“Yes,” he tells you, firmly, “You’ve done a good job for a long time. Do you hear me?” 

You nod, out of instinct more than anything. It doesn’t feel like you’ve been doing anything at all. Maybe you just don’t know how to accept praise anymore. 

He pats your head affectionately, albeit a bit awkwardly. “I want you to try and let this go after tonight…It’s time I took responsibility for my actions. It’s my fault after all. There’s nothing you can do to help her.” 

Whatever endorphins that the hug releases in your brain are enough to physically calm you down enough that you can breathe a little easier. “So what am I supposed to do then?” 

“All you need to do is stay here in this chair. I’ll come to get you when it’s over.” 

Before he releases you, Papa sighs. He waits until your sobs have calmed before he lets you go with a comforting pat on your back, and then he guides you down into the large cushy armchair next to his dresser. 

He takes a moment to grab a blanket from the trunk at the end of the bed. He unfolds it halfway before draping it around your shoulders. It’s a little bit haphazard, but the gesture is received all the same. 

Now that you’re a little calmer, you let yourself relax. He adjusts the blanket around you to tuck you in, then pushes your hair out of your face. 

“Stay here,” he repeats. He looks at you with more concern in his eyes than you’ve ever seen before as he tries to read your expression. 

You sigh, and the remnants of your sobs rattle your breath. Eventually, you nod your head. 

“Okay…” you agree, and then nervously add: “Don’t take too long.” You’re not sure where it comes from. 

Papa nods, and his eyebrows knit together with emotion. “Of course not.” 

You hadn’t realized you’d had so much tension in your body still until it releases. You slump down in the chair and release a sigh – also one you didn’t realize you’d held in. 

Whenever he rises back up to his feet, he lets out an old-man grunt of effort. He hasn’t even gone outside yet and it’s obvious that he’s exhausted. Not that you can blame him, of course. And though you’d stopped counting after a while, just a few months had run you ragged. What must it be like to have your existence whittled down to the worst things you’ve done, no matter how hard you try and fix the mistakes of the past? 

It’s not like he doesn’t deserve it. He certainly reaps what he sows, but regardless you don’t envy the twenty-something-odd years of baggage that he’s carried with him all this time. He’s dug himself a hole so treacherous that he’s the only one capable of navigating out of it unharmed at this point. It must be daunting.  

Before he leaves, he takes a moment to pull himself together. You don’t think he knows that you can see around the blankets based on the way he lets his facade crack. His face visibility breaks as emotions overcome him. He takes a moment to compose himself, wiping at his eyes viciously and pushes down all his feelings.  

You recognize it all too well – of course that’s where Annie got it from. 

It makes you so genuinely sad to see Papa struggling that it sends you into another bout of hysterics. You hold it in just as long as it takes for him to leave, but as soon as the door closes you make no effort to quell your sobs anymore. 

The moment that you let the flood loose, you’re swept away in it. It’s overwhelming in the worst possible way. 

You’re plagued by the uncertainty you feel, and for a moment your brain runs wild. 

Is this really what this life has turned into? Is this actually happening to you right now? It started out so idealistic and felt so right… How could something so genuine have devolved into something that feels like a nightmare of your own? Sometimes you wonder if that’s all this is – maybe Annie was never the one with the issue. You’re the one stuck and you can’t escape. If you squeezed your eyes shut tightly enough, then maybe you can force yourself to wake up. 

Wherever, whenever you end up has got to be better than this. The things you’ve experienced in the past were objectively worse than having your girlfriend freak out on you… But it really wasn’t just that anymore, was it? 

It started before she even left, you realize. The first time you felt this way was when she found out she had to go back to Paradis. You’d been so afraid that you were going to lose her that you couldn’t recognize that she was already gone. 

She was gone the minute she knew she’d have to go back. You put your best effort forward and still, you watched as she slipped through your fingers. 

How the fuck could that NOT be your fault? How could you not blame yourself? 

It feels like the life you’ve spent so much time and effort building out here might fall apart, and you’re sickened that it makes you nostalgic for the time she spent in the crystal. At least back then, you didn’t know what it was like. Now that you’ve experienced a taste of the domestic happiness you wanted so badly with her for all those years, you can’t imagine living without it. 

You’re not entirely sure what exactly scares you so much. It’s not like you’re going to be kicked out onto the street. Annie is more than your significant other, she’s your everything. When something happens to you, she’s the first person you want to tell. You tell her everything. She’s the only person in the world who knows everything about you, and you’re the only one who knows everything about her. 

For so long you turned to one another for comfort and validation. Even just for attention – basic social needs. All three of you have a lot of time on your hands out here. A few months ago she would happily chatter on about this or that project she wanted to take on, or explain whatever she’s been working on to you. 

It feels like she never talks to you anymore. Not only that, but you hardly even see her doing the things she enjoys. She stops painting, stops carving. It was noticeably concerning, but every time you try to point out that she’s clearly not okay she just brushes you off. Asking her any questions about how she feels gets the same reaction as if you’d tried to pull teeth.  

So badly do you miss the days where she’d come to find you from across the cottage just to tell you about the plot twist in her book, or to show you something she found in the grass or from the garden. She hardly ever even looks at you anymore save for when you specifically get her attention. 

Even when she does listen, her eyes are vacant like she’s hardly paying attention. For the first time in years you feel like she doesn’t want to be around you. These days you get more from Papa than from her. It really fucking sucks. 

You miss her. You miss the life that you’d had out here, and you don’t understand why she’s gotten so depressed or what you could possibly do to help. 

After the worst of the panic passes, despair ebbs into curiosity. 

You could try and pretend like it’s for some greater purpose, that you’re listening so you can know how to better help them – after all, even if Annie was talking to you she won’t remember anything, and Papa has never been forthcoming. But honestly, that’s not why you end up choosing to snoop. 

It’s really not any more complicated than you being nosy, in the end. The context of Annie’s nightmare alone tells you what to expect from the interaction, but you want to listen in for yourself. You feel like you need to hear this. 

You’re not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s just the fear you might regret not finding out, in the end, that pushes you to get up. You keep the blanket around you snugly as you stumble to your feet and over to the door. 

Quickly you realize that the only way you’ll be able to hear anything outside from there is if you crack the door. The wood is just too thick. You’re worried that if you do that, Papa will notice. It doesn’t seem like a risk you’re willing to take. 

Instead, you waddle across the en suite into the bathroom. There, you feel a little safer away from the glaring yellow lamplight. Just the moon lights up the bathroom, dimly, and even though the glass still distorts the sound from outside, you can already tell that it’s a better option than listening from the door. You have a clear view of what’s going on in the garden. 

The first thing you noticed is that Annie has escalated to projectiles. The wooden stakes holding up beans and fruit bushes have been thrown like javelins, buried in the soil with severed vines still wrapped around some of them. Luckily, she seems to have exhausted her supply at this point. In fact, it doesn’t seem like there’s anything left for her to use at all. 

You undo the latch on the window slowly so it stays quiet, and silently push the window open so that you can finally discern the mumbles. You hear grunts of effort from Annie and the sound of blows landing, then the splintering of wood. You can’t see either her or her dad, but you’re not sure you want to. 

Maybe this was the world telling you that this is your chance to stop before your feelings get hurt. Maybe Papa had been right and you should have just stayed in the chair where he’d left you. 

No, it’s too late for that now. You’ve already seen the damage. Your heart is in your stomach. 

Quite literally, there’s nothing left. Nearly all the plants are ripped up or somehow broken. You can’t even see her at first glance, but you’re so overwhelmed that you can’t bring yourself to look. 

All of a sudden, you change your mind. You abandon the idea of snooping and run to lean against the sink. 

Tears flow down your cheeks despite trying to hold them in. It’s all too much, this night, everything about it. It destroys you that it’s happening at all, and the fact that such old wounds were still literally destroying aspects of her life. The poor garden… 

It was the heart of the home, both literally and figuratively. It connected the three buildings physically, and from the flowers and shrubs lining the fences to the garden that you eat from, it was by far the most closely-tended bit of land. It was beautiful and important to all three of you, and now it was completely and totally wrecked. There was nothing usable. No harvest to be salvaged, nothing to sustain you anymore. 

It wasn’t like you would starve or anything. You go to the market on a regular basis and you could just buy more food. It was the emotional aspect of losing everything that you worked so hard to build here with her. Right now you couldn’t even try to find a bright side. The depression overtakes you and you let yourself collapse in front of the sink in tears. 

What you want to do is embrace the emptiness. You wish you could lie down on this cold tile floor and dissolve. The wind will sweep away your body bit by bit as it erodes mountains and boulders. Tiny little pieces of you will scatter one atom at a time until you’re everywhere and everything. You’ll be strewn throughout the world in a million places at once, and most importantly, you won’t be in pain anymore. 

Even then, when you’re nothing, would you feel as lost as you do right now? This isn’t good or evil. There’s no moral decision to come to terms with, and maybe that’s why you struggle so much. You can still make a choice that will push Annie away even if you have the best intentions. 

You have nothing to win. In every scenario, you lose. Right now it feels so suffocating like there's no possible way out. 

Are you supposed to fix this, when it's so behind hope? What you wouldn't give for anything else to be happening to you right now. 

A high-pitched shriek from outside snaps you out of your thoughts. It’s clearly Annie –  you don’t even have to hear her speak to recognize her voice. You go back to peer out the window, and somehow you will yourself to look past the wreckage. Desperately, you search for movement or a familiar silhouette. 

Annie cries out again, and the noise aims you in the right direction. She’s on her hands and knees close to the barn, scrambling backward in the dirt, flinging debris left and right as she tries to avoid her dad. 

“Get away from me!” she screams. 

Papa stands with his hands up in defense about fifteen feet away. “I haven’t moved any closer,” he points out.  

It doesn’t seem to matter. She tosses a handful of ripped-up leaves and broken stems in his direction. “I said to get away from me!” 

He sighs, but he doesn’t flinch when plants shower on top of his nightclothes. He doesn’t even bother to brush them away. He just stares ahead with no expression. 

“If I stay where I am, will you stop throwing things?” 

She looks in both directions like she’s considering her options, and shrugs after a few moments. 

“Probably not,” she admits. 

Papa laughs, a little dryly. 

“Thanks for your honesty. If it makes you feel better, keep at it,” he says apathetically. He goes as far as to roll something toward her with his foot – maybe lettuce, or a head of broccoli? – from this distance, you can’t tell. 

Annie accepts the ammunition, holding it aimed, locked, and loaded. “I will not hesitate to throw this at your face,” she threatens.  

All he does is stand there. “That’s fine. You can throw it.” 

She winds herself up, cocking the vegetable above her shoulder, ready to hurl it. Now it sounds like she’s about to cry. 

“I’ll really do it!” she shrieks, her voice getting more desperate. 

Once again, her dad puts up no fight. “Okay.” 

The vegetable sails through the air, revealing itself to be broccoli as it shatters against his shoulder and flies in every direction. He barely flinches as he absorbs the entire impact of the blow, just takes it. All he does is stagger backward a few steps. 

Even from here, you can tell how hard of a collision it was, but Papa makes no sounds of complaint or pain. He holds his shoulder, though he still stands. 

There’s a long silence so oppressive and thick that you struggle to breathe. 

“So, is it helping?” he asks eventually. His voice isn’t angry or resentful, just weary. He’s sad, worn by so many years of regret, just now accepting the reality that this is where she’s ended up. 

There’s more crying and grunting from Annie on the other side of the garden, who now drops to her knees as she scrambles to find something else to throw. 

“Get it all out, there’s another pile on your left.” 

Quickly she finds the aforementioned ammo sitting a few feet over. A chunk of potatoes, roots, and dirt smacks into his stomach a few moments later. You hear an audible grunt on impact afterward. It’s not as hard of a blow, but even from across the yard it’s clear that he’s struggling to keep himself upright. Yet Papa doesn’t let himself wobble and remains as tall as he can manage. 

Just seconds later, an eggplant hurtles end-over-end to smack him right in the head. You gasp, expecting him to be hurt. Maybe it’s in the shock but he doesn’t seem to react to this blow at all. He stays there hunched over for a few moments as the garden goes quiet. 

Luckily, after this third throw, Annie gives up on attacking. She can’t seem to find anything in the general vicinity and it visibly overwhelms her. She buries her face in her hands, and defeated, she collapses to the ground. 

You watch with bated breath, not sure what to expect. The silence and stillness put you at unease. This is a loud and tumultuous affair and it doesn’t make sense. There’s a long moment where Papa just stands there, seemingly stunned. You’re right at the moment when you’re asking yourself why he isn’t doing anything when he finally does. 

Slowly and deliberately, he starts to make his way over to her. He keeps his distance at first and when he gets close enough for her to be aware of him, he calls out. “I’m coming closer now. I’m not going to hurt you.” 

“I’m not taking a break! I’ve been training this whole time,” Annie pleads, terrified. 

He sighs heavily. “I don’t care about that anymore.”

“Wh– what?” Annie asks, her voice cracking. 

There’s a long silence, and when he speaks again there’s a tremble in his voice that makes you feel even less sure than you already did. 

“You don’t have to fight anymore,” he tells her, more firmly this time, “In fact, I think you’re long overdue to take a break.”

You can barely hear her with the way she’s crying, but at some point, you hear a word squeak out amidst the heaving. “Really?” 

Papa nods as he walks a little closer. As he does, he blocks her from the view you have of her from where you sit. 

“You can rest. You’ve done perfectly,” he says. 

“...I have?” 

Although you can’t see her anymore, you can still hear everything. You want to move again so that you can see them, but you’re also frozen in place. 

“Yes. I’m proud of you, Annie. Rest, okay?” 

You can hear in the way her breathing quickens that she’s getting frantic. “I – I don’t know how…” she admits. 

Papa sinks down, presumably to his knees. “That’s alright. We’ll figure it out together.” A few long seconds pass before he asks: “Is it okay if I hug you?” 

She doesn’t respond, but the fact that she doesn’t shove him away is enough. It’s so dark that you can hardly see what’s happening aside from the vague dark shadows of movement. You hear Papa wheeze as he sits down on the grass, then Annie starts crying more intensely a few seconds later. 

“I’m sorry,” she says loudly after a few seconds. 

Her dad says something in response, but it’s too quiet for you to hear. What’s left of the fence now obscures most of your view. 

It’s not good enough. You’ve heard too much to back down now. Ever nosy, you back away from the window and walk back through the en suite. The blanket falls from your shoulders and onto the floor behind you. 

The door handle clicks and disengages quietly, but then the door creaks as you push it open. Even though you were told to stay in the chair, you’re not really afraid of being seen. Most of the reason that you stay quiet is that you don’t want to interrupt. 

You crouch behind the overturned table a few feet away to hide, willing yourself to be silent. You still can’t hear anything, so you hold your hand over your mouth to cover the sound of your breathing. Now that you’re closer the hushed whispers between them start to become audible.

It’s not just Papa talking, you realize. Annie is speaking in surprisingly full, coherent sentences. She doesn’t sound present, though. Her words are slightly slurred and empty of emotion, sleepily mumbled out.  

“No, I’m not upset at all. You’re not in trouble right now.” 

You glance around the edge of the table and catch a glimpse of Annie’s hair. Her face is buried in her dad’s shoulder, her voice so muffled that it’s barely audible. “I’m sorry. All I ever do is hurt people…”

Papa shakes his head.“That isn’t true. You have so much to offer the world and your family. You’re smart, and you’re strong. Not just your body, either. I’m so proud of the way that you take care of Y/N, and of me.” 

As she curls in further, her eyes disappear out of sight. “But I’ve hurt you.” 

“Well, I hurt you too,” he reminds her. His fingers scrunch up in her hair to comfort her as he holds her close. “It’s never something I’ve resented you for.”

She sniffles. “Really?” 

“Of course not. I was always proud, even if it wasn't for the right reasons,” he says, “At first it was just because of how much progress you made, but after a few years I realized: you proved that day you won’t let yourself be treated poorly by someone who claims to love you. That wasn’t something I taught you, for sure. But it’s come to be one of the things I admire about you most.” 

When he stops speaking for a moment, a silence so heavy and filled with uncertainty fills the air, that you’re grateful when you hear his voice again. 

“I wish that you could have had a father in me before I sent you out into the world. I was too stubborn and proud. Because of it, we both missed out on so much. I’m the one who should be apologizing.” 

Annie remains quiet. From behind the table, you're hit with another wave of emotions. The hand on your mouth tightens as your sobs threaten to burst out. 

Papa continues on. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t a good father. I’m sorry that I thought it was enough to give you food and a home, and that I made you fight instead of letting you be a kid,” Papa’s voice starts to waver, but he continues on as his daughter sobs in his arms. “I’m sorry that I did things so wrong back then that you’re still hurting now. I wish I knew how to fix it… but sometimes it feels like it can’t be fixed. You have every reason in the world to hate me–” 

“– no!” Annie interrupts, all of a sudden. It stops him dead in his tracks. 

“That’s not true,” she cries, “I don’t hate you at all.” 

Now it’s Papa’s turn to sniffle, left wordless. “Really?” 

“Never. You’re my dad…” 

You’re so upset that you throw up in your mouth a little bit. The first instinct you have is to choke it back down, but you’re so viscerally upset that you realize you’re genuinely about to hurl. It’s all you can do to aim away from the place where you’re sitting.

There’s a long silence after that, much longer than you’re comfortable with  After you manage to pull yourself together enough to move, you once again peek your head around the table.

He’s not talking because he’s crying, you realize all at once. You had barely even heard Papa’s voice break before this – you’ve never seen him lose his composure, never seen him give in to vulnerability like this. His stoicism didn’t allow for such weakness, or so he thought. Now, it seems like he’s evolving. 

“I love you, Annie,” he chokes, “I really am sorry. For everything.” 

She mutters sleepily, hardly intelligibly: “Love you too.” 

As she readjusts to a more comfortable position, you can see that the look on her face is finally peaceful. Tears still shine on her cheeks but she’s not crying anymore – it seems like she’s fallen back asleep all the way. 

It seems like it’s over. You put your hand back over your mouth again to quiet yourself, terrified to move. At this point what you’re afraid of is interrupting such an insanely personal moment for Papa. The telltale sounds of crying still echo in the garden. 

All you can think of is how you feel after Annie has a nightmare. You usually want to be left alone to wallow in your misery, so you want to respect his privacy if that’s what he wants, too. 

Unfortunately, it seems like that’s not what he needs tonight. 

“Y/N? Can you hear me?” he calls out after a few seconds, his voice still shaking, “I know you don’t listen. You’re out there somewhere, right?” 

You freeze. Maybe it’s not too late for you to creep back inside and pretend that you stayed in the chair the whole time and that you hadn’t heard a thing. Though, any potential plan is quickly foiled when you step on something that cracks loudly – either a twig or some poor uprooted plant thrown across the yard. 

Ah, shit, you think. 

“I don’t care if you heard what I said,” he says. Immediately it relieves some of the uneasiness. He sighs, “but I don’t think I’ll be able to carry Annie inside by myself... I need your help to get up.” 

Something in your gut twists at the admission. You don’t make the conscious decision to start moving, but before you know it you’re climbing to your feet. You stumble your way across the broken garden. 

When you get to where Papa can see you, you freeze. You’re overwhelmed by your emotions again at the sight of him

“Come here, please,” he asks. You can see why he won’t be able to get up on his own; Annie is basically half-draped across him, leaning. 

Her head is still on his shoulder, lolling now that she’s fully unconscious again. They’re both sitting on the ground, but all of the weight of her upper body is being supported by the fact that her arms are around his shoulders. He looks at you sadly and continues to stroke her hair. 

Again you’re completely overwhelmed by emotion, and you can’t help but fling your arms around him. It throws him a little bit off-kilter, but you have enough balance to keep all three of you upright. 

“I’m sorry…” you whisper. You don’t know what else to say, really. It occurs to you later that you could’ve thanked him, but when he’s crying the way he is you feel paralyzed. 

To your surprise, he turns around and says: “I’m sorry to you, too.” 

It catches you off guard. “Why?” you ask, and pull back so that you can see his face. 

Papa shakes his head. “This is affecting you now, too. I wish I could take away this pain, for you both. It never should have existed in the first place.” 

Your lower lip trembles as once again you feel doubt creeping into the back of your mind. This isn't your family, not really. You’re still the outsider. “You really don’t owe me anything.” 

He rolls his eyes. Not maliciously, but because his arms are still in use. “It’s not about that. It’s my job to take care of you whether you think you need me or not. That’s what fathers do for their children, and the world has decided to bring me another daughter.”

A beat of silence passes. Tears start to form in your eyes as you realize the full weight of those words. Should you hug him again? Should you tell him what he means to you, too? It takes a moment for your brain to catch up. 

“I love you too, you know,” he adds. It’s tacked on the end as if it’s a side thought. Like it’s not one of the most impactful things that an adult has ever said to you.  

A million emotions hit you at once. Despite the fact that you’re physically holding everyone up, you yourself collapse. You can’t help it. Between what you’d witnessed and what he’d just said, you’re overwhelmed.  

Papa’s hand on your back draws you back into the moment. He doesn’t let go of Annie, but he shifts most of her weight into one of his arms so that he can put the other around your shoulders. You’re conscious of his limitations as you lean into the group huddle, holding all of your own weight on your knees. 

You take the opportunity to try and center yourself again, to calm some of your less rational emotions. 

The three of you just sit there for a minute – well, it’s really just the two of you, since Annie is dead asleep. You sit there with one arm resting gently on her waist and your other around Papa’s shoulder.

Honestly, the only measure of how much time passes you notice is that it’s long enough that your knees go numb. It doesn’t feel real, any of it. For the dozenth time that night, everything hits you all over again. 

Is this going to be the new normal? You look around at the destroyed garden from the destroyed rows to the splintered fences and realize that you can’t keep doing this to yourself. No matter how high the highs are, if this is what the lows are like… it scares you.  

You need to believe that this was a freak occurrence, something that would never happen again. Yet the night she broke your nose you’d secretly hoped the same thing. As horrible as that had been, maybe you should have anticipated that it would get worse. It always does, after all. 

It’s all just too much. This is so overwhelming, to be sitting in the aftermath of… whatever this is. This horrible, horrible nightmare come to life. There’s a part of you that wants to clean it up before the sun comes up so that you don’t have to face the hard truth in the light of day. Maybe if you avoid looking at it you can ignore that it’s happening. 

You haven’t felt like this since the night your nose was broken. This time, however, you don’t have any physical pain to distract you from the gaping hole inside of you. Even after watching it, not even for the first time, there’s still a part of you that can’t comprehend that Annie was capable of hurting you. The broken nose was easy to rationalize as an accident, but this? 

This is a really, seriously tangible difference. You can’t hide the trashed garden behind a layer of concealer and an upbeat attitude. You can’t make excuses to keep people away until you’ve got your shit together. 

It’s bad this time, and the both of you know it. After he lets himself go for a moment, Papa sobers up, then sighs deeply. 

“Can’t sit here forever. You can take her into my room if you don’t want to go up the stairs,” he offers, looking up at you guiltily. His expression says what he doesn’t - that he’d be the one carrying her if he could. That he wishes he didn’t have to ask for your help, either. 

Gently, he transfers Annie into your arms. Together you both lower her onto the grass with as little turbulence as you can manage. You stand first, then extend both hands to Papa. He slowly rises to his feet with no lack of trouble, groaning and cursing all the while until you finally heave him up. 

As he limps back across the yard into his room, you keep an eye on  but you try not to stare. Instead, you consider the best way to carry her and try to judge how far you’ll have to go. She looks shockingly unbothered. 

It’s a short enough distance that you feel confident in carrying her bridal style. You scoop her up underneath her shoulders and knees and lift. You stagger forward as you struggle to gather your balance, but once you stabilize, you’re able to power on. 

Papa is holding the door to his bedroom open. By the time you stumble through the door, your strength is failing you. You drop Annie onto the bed a little harder than you intend to but she doesn’t seem affected by it. She stays in the exact same position she lands in, so you try to straighten out her body a little so she doesn’t wake up with a cramp. 

For a while, you stay on the end of the bed to watch over her. You don’t pay much attention to anything besides watching the slow rise and fall of her chest until you feel a familiar weight around your shoulders. Again a blanket is clumsily wrapped around your shoulders. 

You look up to see Papa standing above you with his arms out. He looks more broken than you’ve ever seen him. 

As he did with Annie earlier, he approaches you cautiously: “Can I hug you?” 

You’re not the same way they are. Maybe you never have been, but especially not after these past few months. He doesn’t need to ask. You don’t want to be asked. There’s this deep aching loneliness inside of you that gnaws at you – and maybe it just means that you’re soft like he always points out, but you want to be doted on unconditionally. 

You can’t manage to verbalize a response. Luckily Papa picks up on what isn’t said by the way you weakly reach out to him with tears in your eyes. He sits down on the end of the bed to hug you. 

This time, there are no tears left in you. You cry silently as you let yourself relax into the hug, gasping and shaking. It feels totally hopeless and like no amount of reassurance would help, though he does try anyway.

“It’s okay,” he says as he pats your back, “it’s over now.” 

Instead of being a comfort, his words make the dread inside of you grow exponentially. Your breathing quickens, your vision blurs, and something in your chest grows tight and painful. Even though you know you’re panicking you can’t stop yourself from spinning out and letting your emotions get the best of you. 

Papa sees your reaction and pulls you back by your shoulders. He extends one arm at a time to look you up and down – you’re a bit confused at first but also too overwhelmed to protest. 

“Are you hurt?” he asks. It’s then you realize that he’s checking you for injuries. 

You shake your head. “No, it’s not that. It’s just–” you break his gaze as you pull away. Your arms go limp at your sides. “It’s not over. Maybe it’s done for tonight, but what about the next time this happens? It’s only getting worse.” 

Papa’s lips press together tightly. He considers your words for a moment before tilting his head in acknowledgment. The fact that he doesn’t verbally respond is enough to bring tears back to your eyes. It feels like his reaction is a confirmation that it’ll be horrible forever. 

It leads you to spiral a bit. “It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair,” you spit, bitterly, “I don’t recognize this. She would never do this… Why is this happening?” 

“I wish that I had answers for you,” he tells you, “you know that I would take away her pain if I could.” 

You nod, and as you start to cry again, Papa finally catches on that you need wordless instinctive comfort. He puts his hand on your shoulder. 

“It’s going to be okay,” he repeats. 

“–is it, though?” you ask. It’s hard not to let yourself spiral, but you do your best to hold it together. 

“I hope so,” he says, though he sounds uncertain. He sighs. “Sometimes I worry that my being here is hurting her.” 

You look up at him. “What do you mean?” 

“Do I even need to explain after what we both just saw?”

“No…” you admit, but you recall the many conversations you’ve had about the subject. “She needs you, too. She’s wanted you here from the start.” 

Papa shrugs. “Hmm. Annie doesn’t always know what’s good for her.”

He’s right, but you still feel the need to defend her. “That’s not fair. She doesn’t know how.” Your lower lip trembles. “For so long she couldn’t accept that she has feelings like everyone else. She’s only just figured out how to be honest with herself.”

“I’m not disagreeing with you. If she can be honest, then maybe it’s time for her to reevaluate what she wants.”

All you can do is stare at him. “What the hell are you saying? It would be so much worse if you weren’t here. What am I supposed to do without you?”

“You saw what happened tonight,” he says sadly, “I’ve never seen her like this before. I’m worried that she needs more help than the two of us can give her by ourselves. We can’t keep doing this – not like this.” 

What you want to do is argue. He was the only person who could have possibly talked her down tonight. You couldn’t have done a thing for her and more than that, you couldn’t even bring yourself to go near her. 

You get why Annie wants him here. Nowadays, you need a parent just as much as she does. 

“I can’t take too many more beatings like that at this age,” he cracks a smile to try and break the tension, but it doesn’t work. Quickly, his face falls again. “More than that, look at you. When is the last time you slept through the night? You keep denying the toll this is taking on you but I can see how much it weighs on you. Neither of us can keep going like this.” 

He’s right, and you know it. The stakes are too high, and all the events from the night had done was put that into perspective. You knew that it was only a matter of time before things escalated. Is it really worse than you imagined it to be, or was it always going to be hard to watch no matter how it happened? 

It was bad, but you already knew that. Until now you were able to rationalize a million different reasons as to why you bottled up your own feelings. It only made things worse for everyone. 

You let out a defeated sigh as more tears roll down your cheeks. “All I’ve ever wanted is to make Annie happy.” 

He puts his arms around your shoulders. 

“I know you do, but we clearly haven’t been doing any favors for her lately,” he says, surprisingly gently. “Something needs to change.” 

“So what are we supposed to do, then?” 

“I have no idea,” he admits, “but right now I think we should sleep. It’ll be hours until the sun comes up.” 

“You’re tired?” 

“Down to my bones,” he nods wearily, “and so are you.” 

He’s right. Your eyes feel like sandpaper, but you groan in reluctance. 

Papa nods sympathetically, and re-wraps the blanket around you more snugly. “Lie down, Y/N, you need the rest.” 

He sits down in the chair a few feet away with his arms crossed. Immediately he closes his eyes and goes dead silent, and it genuinely seems like he’s already fallen asleep. 

You feel too guilty letting him sleep without saying something more. Surely he knew how much you appreciated him, and especially so after tonight… the part of you that was raised right can’t bear to not show some kind of gratitude beyond what goes unspoken. 

“Thank you for your help tonight… and I’m sorry.” Even though you try really hard to keep your voice even, it breaks anyway. 

Papa sniffs. “Of course,” he says, “I’m sorry, too.” 

You know that if you look up and see him crying that it’ll push you over the edge again. So badly you don’t want to break down again, that when more tears inevitably come, you just let them drip down into your hair as you stare blankly at the ceiling. Something deep inside of you aches. 

“I don’t want to lose the two of you,” you mumble in the midst of your existential dread. 

Papa doesn’t say anything, and for a moment you think he’s fallen asleep. Then you hear a heavy sigh float across the room followed by the comforting rumble of his voice. 

“Get some sleep, kid. We’ll both still be here when the sun is up.”  

You nod. After a few minutes of silence, you roll onto your side to look at Annie and push her hair out of her face. For a long while, you sit there staring at her and thinking. 

It makes you feel better to know that Papa is just as clueless as you are. You don’t want to be alone in this struggle. And even though you still feel absolutely horrible, you also feel slightly less alone. It was too much to handle on your own. 

All you wish is that she didn’t have to fall so low. 

In the end, if you sleep again that night at all, it’s so fitful you don’t even realize it. For a while, you close your eyes just so they won’t get so dehydrated. 

You wish you’d slept. Maybe it would have made you make better choices. 

At some point, birds start to sing and the sun begins to rise, dusking the windows and casting a pale light in through the bathroom. It’s around then that you start pulling yourself together and shoving everything down. 

It’s too much, too out of your control. Maybe there’s nothing you can do for her anymore, but you’ll be damned if you let yourself break down in front of her. It’s the worst possible choice you could’ve made, but you unhealthily rationalize that it’s better to put up a front. 

It doesn’t even occur to you at the moment how hypocritical it is, and when it hits you later you just bottle it up even harder. It makes you feel like shit – you know how it feels to be lied to and it’s not something you’d ever bring upon her. And even though you recognize it’s an issue, it feels like the right move. 

But this is different, right? You’re doing it to protect her, and it never occurs to you that maybe Annie had thought the same thing

By the time she begins to stir, you’ve plastered a fake smile on your face so convincingly that even to you it feels genuine. You don’t know what to do, but making her feel guilty can’t do anything but make the situation worse. Even if it’s to your detriment, you’ll keep pushing through. 

#please yell at me. please come into my inbox and insult me/call me names tell me that i'm evil. #i think i will die if this gets posted and there's a quiet reaction #i told y'all i was nervous about this one. aaughg h please come vent to me i need reassurance this chapter (don't we all? sorry by the way) #anyway so part of why i spent so much effort trying to get people to care about papa in the past couple of chapters #is so that y'all won't read this chapter and be convinced he's completely irredeemable. he is soooooo flawed but im fixing him 😠 #and im not done fixing him yet #TLDR TALK TO ME #annie-isms #the road not taken #trnt annie #cottagecanon #writing for my wives #annie leonhardt #annie leonhardt x reader #annie leonhardt imagine #annie leonhardt x you #annie x you #annie leonhart #annie leonhart x reader #annie leonhart x you #annie leonhart imagine #snk x reader #aot x reader #snk #aot #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #annie leonhardt headcanons #annie leonhart headcanons

[furiousgoldfish]

Hello! I’d just like to start by saying thank you! You and your system have helped me through so so much. It was thanks to this tumblr that I managed to realize my parents were abusive, and that what I was going through wasn’t normal. An online friend brought me to this blog after I had complained about my mother one too many times, and I’ve since shared this blog with all of my friends in the hopes I can help them, too. We’ve started a group chat for all my friends with abusive families (which is way too many people, sadly) and I try to send your posts often there.

I still have trouble thinking I don’t have it better than others, despite everything I’ve read about trauma not being a competition. My parents seem so much better in comparison to what other people have gone through. Even now, I’m struggling to think of the worst thing they’ve done (which is probably thanks to dissociation, but still). I’m trying to get better at it, though. If you have any advice for that, I’d love to hear it.

I have one more question, though. I’ve been trying to learn more about alters, since I believe I have one, but online resources are scarce. What’s your experience with yours, if you’re comfortable sharing (mostly how you knew you had one, I guess)? My particular suspected-alter is a voice that mostly speaks to me in “yes” or “no” and I’ve taught them to also say “heads” or “tails,” and and sometimes they front (I think, I’m not really sure what fronting feels like) and make me feel suddenly on edge and suspicious. One particular time at a café, I refused to eat a cookie a friend gave me because my instincts told me it was poisoned.

Sorry if this ask is a mess. Thank you again for having this blog, despite everyone who fights against it. I hope you guys have nothing but brighter days ahead of you!

— anon ♫

It makes me so happy that you found my blog a resource worth sharing, and that it helped you! Having an abusive-family support chat is something I've never heard about before, but it's an incredible idea! If there were a lot of local oriented groups like that, abused children could help support each other and help each other get thru it and understand, that is a great way to keep a clear head and have support on your side.

I think it's really normal to feel like things are a competition when you're an abused child, you've forced to pit against everyone all the time, you're told your worth is so bad you're always negatively compared to others, that does make it seem like the only way you'd be allowed to feel good, is to win in a competition of something, and it's okay if you feel that way. That will go away as you get older, and you realize competition brings nothing to you, it's a system with one winner and the prize is hollow. It's mutual kindness, helping others, creating something together, participating and making an environment where everyone is rewarded, that's really important in life. But it's also, impossible to get there with abusers surrounding you, and while you're in a toxic environment, everything just has to be  a competition, and it sucks.

I don't have an advice for it really, I know it's really important for us to be able to prove to ourselves that we were put thru a lot of pain, and that it is really bad, especially when the environment keeps dimissing us and shutting us down. I completely understand where you're coming from. You're just trying to prove that it's real, that it matters, that it's really bad, that you do belong in the group of survivors, and there's nothing bad about that, it's just that when it's put in that toxic context of 'but did others have it worse so you're invalid' that ends up making you feel like you didn't have it bad enough. Everyone had it bad enough. There's not a single abused person who was able to feel safe and fulfilled with their toxic parent. So of course you had it bad enough. Of course you're a part of the community. You're already struggling so bad not to see everything as a competition, that alone is a sign that you've had to compete for everything, and that's not normal or healthy way to be brought up.

Okay, so I'm still just figuring out alters, and from what I know, they can be vastly different for every person, and the experiences are massively different too, there's not just one way to have them, and also I'm not someone capable of confirming it to you. But I can share my experience. I knew I had a 'person in my head' because we talked a lot, in my head, since when I was 15, and they also switched and took control of my body sometimes, which was upsetting at first, but as we got along, it was helpful. I could tell it was another person and not just a stream of thoughts, because this person disagreed with me on almost everything, had a will of their own, had their own thought processes that were unavailable to me, knew things I didn't, and said things I would never ever say. I didn't know it was a sign of a dissociative disorder until years later, I found that information somewhere on tumblr, and started doing research. By that time, two more alters appeared.

What you're describing could be an alter experience, because the voice does seem to have a will of their own, they do want to weigh in on your decisions, and they're capable of answering questions. I can't tell if the 'instincts' are also from the alter, or just your own hunch, but I had experiences where I was sitting in a place and my alter told me 'leave now' and it was for a good reason (I didn't listen and regretted it).

It's interesting you're able to teach this voice to speak, but it's not something that can't be an alter experience, sometimes they keep quiet and don't speak, sometimes they just show images or give you inklings of their moods, it's different for everyone. If any system is reading this and can give a better insight into what the anon is dealing with, please reply to this post! I know precious little, and there's a lot of misinformation about alters out there.

Thank you for your kind words, and I sincerely hope you figure it out! Good luck.

#ask #furiousgoldfish #system #did #alters #advice needed #abuse support groups #children with abusive parents unionizing

[motownfiction]

[smashes hard mode] ♫ charlie

hard but easy but hard LMAO

1. nature boy // nat king cole: a little shy and sad of eye / but very wise was he (he thinks lol)

2. that's life // frank sinatra: but if there's nothing shaking come this here july / i'm gonna roll myself up in a big ball and die ...

3. ain't that a kick in the head // dean martin: how lucky can one guy be?

4. suspicious minds // elvis presley: we're caught in a trap / i can't walk out

5. you don't know what love is // dinah washington: do you know how a lost heart fears / the thought of reminiscing?

6. lover man // billie holiday: i go to bed with a prayer / that you'll make love to me / strange as it seems

7. i can't get started // ella fitzgerald: dream both day and night of you / and what good does it do?

8. everyone's gone to the moon // jonathan king: church full of singing out of tune / everyone's gone to the moon

9. i'm finding it harder to be a gentleman // the white stripes: all the manners that i've been taught / have slowly died away

10. spinning wheel // blood, sweat, and tears: what goes up / must come down / spinning wheel / got to go round

bonus: whipped cream // herb alpert and the tijuana brass

#asks #areiphilos #ch: charlie doyle #thank you!

[yautja-lover]

The Mysterious Package 🎃🌻🍁🍂 Part 1 Begin Again

🎃🕸️── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──🕸️🎃

Bayverse Turtles x Lucy Jones

Summary:Lucy recently just moved to New York to start a new life due to her busy work schedule and lack of social skills. Lucy has very few friends,who are the ninja turtles. After a very long shift,she comes home to find an unexpected package on her doorstep.

🕸️♫₊.°�� 🕷✩ 🕷°｡ ☕︎

Took a deep breath in the mirror He didn't like it when I wore high heels

But I do

Turn the lock and put my headphones on He always said he didn't get this song

But I do, I do

Lucy was walking home with her earbuds on listening to Taylor Swift's version of her 1989 soundtrack that's been released recently. Enjoying the autumn crisp air while humming along to her favorite song, Welcome to New York. Relaxing on the way she couldn't help but start to sing out loud during the second chorus of the song.

"Welcome to New York, it's been waitin' for you. Welcome to New York, welcome to New York. Welcome to New York, it's been waitin' for you. Welcome to New York, welcome to New York. It's a new soundtrack, I could dance to this beat (beat) forevermore. The lights are so bright, but they never blind me (me) Welcome to New York (New York) it's been waitin' for you. Welcome to New York, welcome to New York." It wasn't until the bridge of the song hit, when Lucy noticed an unexpected package sitting on her doorstep causing the young woman to stop in her tracks and pausing the song then, took out her earbuds.

"Hmm, that's... odd. I don't remember ordering anything or expecting anything in the mail today.." she trailed off while picking up the package to inspect it, unaware that two large terrapins are watching her from the distance.

Walked in expecting you'd be late But you got here early and you stand and wave

I walk to you

You pull my chair out and help me in And you don't know how nice that is

But I do

Leonardo and Donatello watched from the rooftops of an apartment building that's across the street from Lucy.

'Hmm...' the purple clad turtle thought to himself, as he watched Lucy very cautiously press her ear up to the package and relaxed her shoulders a bit before inspecting the package again for any labels on it.

"It's odd that she's doing that... why is she being so.. cautious...?" Donnie wondered out loud "She's acting as if she thinks it's a bomb or something..." The two terrain brothers continue to watch their friend inspect the package very carefully...

"Oh?... she's bringing out the big guns..." Donnie said seeing her come back outside with a metal detector to inspect the mysterious package more thoroughly "She must really think that package is suspicious..." he at Leo and asks, "Should we go and check on her?.. like talk to her or something...?" The blue clad turtle looks at the package and thinks about it for a moment "We could do that.. I mean, it wouldn't hurt..." he said to Donnie, "Should we go and check on her real quick?" Donnie chirped out watching her shrug it off and going back inside with the mysterious package in hand this time.

Leo then looks at Donnie with a small chuckle of amusement "That's Lucy for you, bro. She's always been.. different.. if that's the right way to describe it although, I'm definitely not saying there's anything wrong with her. She's cool.. socially awkward at times though... or I guess you could say, she doesn't do so well with her interactions with people."

And you throw your head back laughing Like a little kid

I think it's strange that you think I'm funny, 'cause He never did

I've been spending the last eight months Thinking all love ever does

Is break and burn, and end But on a Wednesday in a cafe

I watched it begin again

Lucy sets the package down on the counter and takes out her handy dandy pocket knife to open up the package with precaution. Once she opened the package inside was an envelope placed on top of a large pink box that smells like... cupcakes?

While the young woman was opening her package the two brothers crept in through her window. 'Wow... how cautious of her to open the package just like that... like she expected it to explode or something else...' Donnie thought with a small chuckle. "Wait?.. what's that smell...?" the two large terrapins begin to sniff when a sweet scent of aroma hit their snouts and they both smile "Cupcakes?.. I love cupcakes!"

As the two walked over to where Lucy is standing, she picked up the envelope that reads...

To my darling cupcake :)

With furrowed brows she opened the envelope to find a small letter inside that read...

Sweets for my sweet 🧁

Leonardo and Donatello watch Lucy as she looks over the letter "Oh?.." Donnie said as he and his brother raise their eye ridge in intrigue as they both look at the letter. "Who left her a letter, like that?.. was it.. nah, that's probably be a bit of a stretch..." Donatello looks over at Leonardo and asks, "What do you think?.. do you think it was.. you know?"

The two brothers watch Lucy stare at letter in shock "Hmm?.." Donnie said as the two raised their eye ridge in surprise. That letter.. it can't be..?...

The brothers look at one another "...there's no way it was who we're thinking it is.. right?..." Donnie looks at his brother while Lucy continues to stare at the letter with her mouth open. The two both look over at her, concerned and confused "Um? Lucy?.. are you, alright?" Leo asked, as they approached her looking concerned "Is it what we think it is?.. is it you know, who?" Donnie asked her with an almost nervous smirk.

You said you never met one girl who had As many James Taylor records as you

But I do

We tell stories and you don't know why I'm coming off a little shy

But I do

Lucy collapsed in her chair while dropping the letter causing the two to look at her in shock "What?.. hey.. wait, are you alright?" Donnie asked as they rushed over to her "Lucy?!" Donatello kneels in front of her immediately starts checking her vitals while Leonardo picked up the letter she dropped and read it himself to check it out. "What happened? How did you two get in here?" Donnie looks at her seeing that she's awake "Um.. you... well, you collapsed out of nowhere. Are you, okay?" Leo then walks over to her showing her the letter "Do you know, who sent you this, Lucy?" he asked curiously. Lucy glanced at the letter, as she answered both their questions "No, I'm not okay, Donnie. And no, I don't know who sent me that, Leo."

The two brothers look at Lucy with slightly concerned expressions "What... do you mean you're not, okay?" Donnie asked her slowly and softly as he looked at her with a worried expression "Is it because.. you got that letter?" he asked while pointing at the letter in his brother's hand to emphasize his point. Lucy nods in response hazel brown eyes stare back at her while Donnie continues to kneel in front of her "What do you mean by that? Why aren't you, okay?.. just because you got that letter from..." he paused looking back at the letter and read what it said turning back to Lucy to say it out loud to her "To my darling cupcake... sweets for my sweet. Oh..." he said with a slightly puzzled and confused expression "...oh..I think, I know who sent it."

"But who could've sent it?" Lucy asked completely confused and scared "Nobody knows where I live!" she exclaimed causing the two to look a little startled for a moment "Wait.. what do you mean nobody knows where you live?!..." they both asked with concerned and puzzled expressions "wait.. do you even have any friends, Lucy?" Lucy just gives them a pointed look she already mentioned that she doesn't have any friends. The two brothers look at Lucy before looking at each other with sudden looks of realization on their faces "oh.. wait..." they both looked back at Lucy again "..does this mean, no one other than us, knows you?" they asked while staring at her with a bit of concern. "Just you two and Mikey and Raph." she said with a nod, as they both look at her with a slightly concerned expression and nodded their head in understanding "That would certainly explain how you didn't know who sent you that letter and package.." Donnie said with a look of realization earning another nod from Lucy "So, we're the only friends you have, Lucy?.. is that what I'm hearing?"

"Yeah." Lucy whispered. Donnie nods again "I see... Lucy.. I think, I finally understand what you were so hesitant in telling us about..." he said remaining to kneel in front of her "...you're lonely, aren't you? You like hanging out with us and everything but.. you want to be able to have more friends, right?" Lucy shrugs and says "I spend too much time at work, anyways and by the end of the day. I'm either too tired or emotionally exhausted to interact with people." Donnie nods again as he looks up at Lucy for a moment "I think, I understand, Lucy but that's what friends are for, right?.. to be with and hangout. They're there for you for a reason even if you're exhausted by the end of the day..." he looks back at Leonardo "...she probably spends all that time working to suppress her loneliness, doesn't she?"

"Actually it's to earn money so I can fend for myself financially wise." she corrected the two brothers looked back at Lucy as they hear her clarification. "Hmmm... that's understandable. You wanna be able to not depend on anyone else. You wanna be able to look out for yourself, is that the case?" Donnie asked Lucy with a look of realization earning another nod from her. "So.. you feel as if, because of your past. You had no other choice but to make yourself independent and keep to yourself, am I correct?" Donnie asked as he remains kneeling in front of her, looking at her with a slightly concerned expression.

"My past life... all I ever wanted was freedom. To do whatever I wanted.. whenever I wanted without being criticized or judged for it. I wanted to control my own life, the way I wanted to live it.. not the way my folks wanted me to or thinks what I should do. To be able to sleep in on my days off cause I'm completely exhausted, to be able to wear pajamas or sweatpants whenever I wanted without having a good reason to. I just wanted to be happy, like my folks supposedly said they wanted me to be happy.. but, their actions didn't show it." she said while keeping back the tears that's threatening to fall. The two look over at Lucy while seeing her trying to beat to keep the tears from falling down her cheeks and looks a bit surprised. Donnie looks at his brother then, back at Lucy as he begins to realize what she went through before she came to New York. 'Woah... now we see why she didn't know much about us.. she's been working to support herself and... her parents were probably a bit controlling? She's more of an introvert because of it... but what exactly did her parents do to her?' he wondered.

But you throw your head back laughing Like a little kid

I think it's strange that you think I'm funny, 'cause He never did

I've been spending the last eight months Thinking all love ever does

Is break and burn, and end But on a Wednesday in a cafe

I watched it begin again

Lucy rubbed her eyes furiously as she got up out of her chair and walked to the pink box that's setting on the counter 'She's avoiding talking about her past she's really trying to get her mind off of certain things.' Leo thought to himself watching her while Donnie looks at the pink box "Hmmm... I wonder what's inside? I mean, the letter said, sweets for my sweet. So, maybe it's cupcakes?" he said to himself as he looked at the pink box.

Lucy opens the pink box and gasps in surprise what's inside... inside the box were multiple cupcakes put together and decorated to make it look like a bouquet of sunflowers with an orange ribbon that says...

Flowers for my flower. 🌻

And a pumpkin teddy bear perched on top of a stand wearing an orange bandana holding another envelope that says...

To my pumpkin.🎃

Donatello looks over at Lucy as she opened the box and see the elborate array of cupcakes looking shocked himself "Wh-what?!... did that ribbon really say, flowers for my flower?!.." he then looks over at the ribbon to see it says exactly that "And.. wait... is that a pumpkin teddy bear sitting on a stand, that happens to be wearing an orange bandana?..." he looks over at the teddy bear holding the envelope and reads it to himself "To my pumpkin?!" Leonardo exclaimed with a gasp.

Lucy picked up the pumpkin teddy bear that's holding the envelope and opens it as a small item fell out wrapped up in a green and orange tissue paper with a sticky note attached to it, that says...

From your favorite turtle. ;)

"Hmmm?... from your favorite turtle..." Donnie says reading what the envelope says then, looks at his brother and says "I guess that means that one of us sent her that pumpkin teddy bear..." Leo looks back at him for a moment and then looks back at Lucy "Um..." he said as while looking at her "..who would be.. your... your favorite turtle?" they both look over at her, as she shrug her shoulders in response then begins to unwrap the tissue paper and reveals...

...a gold chain with a dual nunchaku pendant attached to it. "That's... that's... that's Mikey's signature weapon..." Donnie said while staring at the gift in shock then looks over at his brother, who looked shocked as well. They both looked back at Lucy, who's staring at the pendant necklace while rubbing it gently with her thumb.

And we walked down the block, to my car And I almost brought him up

But you start to talk about the movies That your family watches every single Christmas

And I want to talk about that And for the first time

What's past is past

The two kept their eyes on Lucy as they wonder what she's doing with the pendant "Um..." Donnie said while walking over, approaching her slowly "Um... Lucy.. do.. you think you know who your secret admirer is now?" Lucy looks at the dual nunchaku pendant more closely and a small smile appeared on her face at what she found engraved on the handles "...yeah, I think... I think, I do." Donatello looks at Leonardo, who seems to have his suspicions confirmed with Lucy's answer "So... you're secret admirer is... Mikey, then?" he asked Lucy with a look of mild surprise as he turned back to look at her.

Lucy continues to look at the pendant while rubbing the handles gently and whispered to herself what's engraved on it...

Follow your own path.

They both look at her with shock their ears perked up hearing what she whispered to herself... follow your own path?... the two look at each other with an expression of realization and nod at each other "That's... Mikey's quote when he used his dual nunchakus for the first time after he found them in the sewers." Donnie said as he looked back at her.

"When we first met, we were just talking... about our likes and dislikes, and our hobbies." Lucy spoke while still admiring the pendant "I told him that I always wanted to learn martial arts as a kid but my folks didn't approve and said I didn't have a good enough reason to be taught.", "I told Mikey that I still want to learn martial arts and he told me sometimes, it's best to not listen to people and follow your own path." The two brothers look at each other again after hearing what she said, since this all confirms who her secret admirer is "So this quote Mikey gave you was basically telling you, that you can choose to follow your own path and do what you want in life... don't let anyone who's controlling your life get in the way of you living life?" Donnie said putting his thoughts into the proper words, "Mikey... that sneaky little genius..." he said while looking back at Lucy.

Lucy nods while putting on the necklace. Donnie looks down at the necklace she just put on and looks back up at Lucy with a slight grin "Well, now you can't deny it, Lucy. Your secret admirer is Mikey." Leo walks over to Lucy while carrying an envelope with him "Hey, do you mind if we look at this last envelope, Lucy?" he asked her with a slight smirk. "I don't mind..." Lucy said while taking a picture of the bouquet of sunflower cupcakes with her phone "wait... what? There's a third envelope?!" she exclaimed in surprise and confusion.

Their ears perked up again hearing that familiar clicking sound as Lucy took a picture of the bouquet of sunflower cupcakes "I guess your secret admirer just couldn't stop himself to end the romantic chase between you two." Donnie chirped out as he looked over at Leo, who walks over to Lucy and opens up the envelope carefully to see what it says inside. "So, what? Did we just become one of those cheesy love movies on the Hallmark channel that Raph likes to watch while knitting." Lucy said while eating one of the cupcakes her face covered in frosting.

They look at Lucy for a moment and chuckle "I wouldn't put it past Mikey to turn this whole thing into a cheesy love movie." said Donnie with a grin, Leo then reads the letter inside out loud...

To my sunshine🌞

He looks back at Lucy with a smug grin as he continues speaking "I guess that's what you are to Mikey... his sunshine... his love..." Lucy blushes while continuing to eat her cupcake in her hand. The two both look at each other with shocked expressions while seeing Lucy blush..suddenly, the three of them hear a familiar rough Brooklyn accent from behind them "Oooh... somebody's got a secret admirer."

They both turn around and see Raphael sitting on top of the counter looking over at them "Ooh... he's got some really big cojones, sending a bouquet of flowers and a teddy bear on her doorstep, so the whole city can see it like some cheesy romance movie." Lucy gets startled and drops her half eaten cupcake on the floor "Raph?! When did you get in?.. and why are you sitting on top of my counter?!" she exclaimed.

"I snuck in, just like we usually do... and I'm sittin' up here because I like the view." he said as he glanced over at Lucy with his signature smirk "And speakin' of views..." he gives her a sly smile while remaining perched on her counter top "..someone's got a secret admirer... and it's someone we all know.." he looks over at his two brothers with a knowingly smirk "Looks like someone's in love, which means Mikey's found himself a new girlfriend." "Snuck in?!.." Lucy squawks out, "..from where?!" she added while looking around inside her house in a panicked frenzy, trying to find out where they keep sneaking inside her home. "Through the manhole cover in the middle of the street... duh." Raph said while looking at her in confusion and raised an eye ridge "Oh, come on.. you mean you didn't know that?"

Lucy looks at the large brute terrapin feeling offended by his answer "Don't duh me. I'm aware of the whole sewer system access, Raphael. I'm talking about how are you guys getting inside my house when it's supposedly locked and secured." she said with narrowed eyes and her hands on her hips. "Oh. Uh,well.. there's this device that Don made..." Raph looks over at Donnie and Leo, who are both looking a bit nervous while he spoke "..that can create a key to any lock..." he said with a shrug "..it's pretty easy to duplicate a key using a laser scanner and a 3D printer. Don't ask me, how it works or the exact sciency shit because I don't understand it that much either." Lucy stares at him in confusion "..but my door isn't a key lock, it's a ring alarm system. Where I can lock up my house from my phone." she said. "...I uh.. may have, hacked it by turning off the alarm system whenever we enter..." Donnie confessed while glancing at Lucy with a nervous smile and guilty look "Sorry if it sounds a bit creepy, Lucy... but we just wanted to keep a little bit of an eye on you for a minute, since.. well... Mikey's our brother and I'm sure you can guess why we're being a bit overprotective of you, now." Leo explained with a nervous grin while the others nod their head, Lucy looks at them with her arms crossed.

"Hey listen, Lucy.. it's just, we just wanted to make sure you're okay. That's all,we promise." Donnie said to her softly "Come on, Lucy.. we're friends, right?" he added in his usual friendly and gentle tone with a raised eye ridge. Lucy stares at them for a moment then glanced at Raph with a defeated sigh while the large brute continues to sit on her counter top with a smirk, as he spoke "What? You think we're gonna hurt you or somethin'?" Lucy plays with her necklace while glancing down at the dual nunchaku pendant, lost in thought "..uh Luce?.." the turtles called out noticing her fiddling with the necklace that Mikey got her... 'Did she forget, that she was mad at them for entering her home without her knowledge?' they wondered "Uh, Lucy?.." Leo called out to her. "Huh?.." Lucy trailed off while finally looking away from the necklace to look at them "What we're we talking about, again?" she asked earning a slight chuckle of amusement from the three terrapins. "I was just... um.. sorry for invading your place without your knowledge... but we're friends, right?" Donnie asked sounding nervous with a hopeful look on his face, Lucy nods while picking up another sunflower cupcake from the pink box.

'Cause you throw your head back laughing Like a little kid

I think it's strange that you think I'm funny, 'cause He never did

I've been spending the last eight months Thinking all love ever does

Is break and burn, and end But on a Wednesday in a cafe

I watched it begin again

"Oh, you've got a sweet tooth?" Donnie asked with a grin "Well it's not like I got to finish the first cupcake I was eating earlier..." Lucy said while gesturing to the half-eaten cupcake on the floor that she dropped "..because of Mr. Tough as Nails here, spooked us." she added while pointing at Raph, who's still sitting on her counter top. Both Leonardo and Donatello chuckled at Lucy's comment while Raphael gives her a look "Sorry, bro.. don't blame us for not wanting to lose our brother. We're just being a bit overprotective just like you and Mikey are of Lucy, right?" Donnie asks as he looks back at Lucy, who looks at them a bit confused "Huh..." while eating her cupcake. Leo looks at her and realizes something "..wait, Lucy... you think, you and Mikey are just friends, right? That's what I'm getting from you."

Lucy looks at him and slowly nods her head, as she spoke "yeah... why?" the three brothers shared a glance at each other then looked back at Lucy with nervous grins on their face "well.. what if I told you that Mikey's been secretly crushing on you?" the three said in unision, knowing how she's gonna react to it. Lucy stares at them in shock with her jaw dropped and gasped "No way... Mikey? No way, not our little Mikey.. he's too pure and innocent.." the brothers share another look then looked back at her "Uh, there's one thing you need to know about Mikey..." Leo started off "..Mikey's not as innocent as you think, he is.." he added with a small chuckle waiting to see her reaction to that.

Lucy stares at them "What are you saying?" the brothers look at her for a moment as they process the answer to that question "..we're basically sayin'... Mikey... is in love with you.." Raph said causing Lucy's jaw to drop even more while staring at them with wide eyes. "Oh, Lucy.. are you okay?" Donnie asked her, seeing her shocked expression "Did we just blow your mind or what?"

But on a Wednesday in a cafe

I watched it begin again

"Huh.. oh, yeah, I'm okay." Lucy said while nodding her head still wide eyed "would you excuse me for a sec?" she rushed up the stairs at a rapid-like speed before they could respond back. Once Lucy reached the stairs and entered her room with the door closed, she then let out an excited squeal of delight and shouts "He loves me! Mikey is in love with me!" while bouncing up and down on her bed for an hour. Their ears perked up at the noise of excitement coming from Lucy's room then watched her go back down the stairs and joins them back in the kitchen sitting in her seat looking calm but still freaking out on the inside "So... what happens, now?"

"Oh, don't worry..." Donnie starts to say but Leo cuts him off "If he hasn't already shown up yet, Mikey's probably just gonna try to send you a message in another romantic way that only you'll understand and see." Lucy starts bouncing in her seat "Wha-?.." she paused hearing the doorbell ring causing her to jump out of her seat, so fast it falls backwards on top of her "You okay over there, Lucy?" Leo asked with wide eyes as Raph jumps off the counter and lifts the chair off of her "You a'right?" he asked as Leo helps her up "Aren't the stars lovely, tonight?" Lucy said in a dazed-like state before passing out. "Oh, crap..,uhh, what do we do now?" Donnie exclaimed seeing her pass out in front of him while checking her vitals "I've never seen a lovesick person pass out before..." he mumbled to himself as the doorbell rings, continuously.

🕸️♫₊.°｡ 🕷✩ 🕷°｡ ☕︎

To be continued...

#Spotify #lucy jones #bayverse leo #bayverse donnie #bayverse raph #bayverse mikey #bayverse turtles #the mysterious package 🎃🌻🍁🍂 #yautja lover writing #yautja lover posts

[alternias-human-encounters]

I think my (br♪nze, 8) partner’s (♪live, 6) hivemate might be secretly a human? My partner d♪esn’t kn♪w where they came fr♪m, and every time I ask them (the human, we added them t♪ ♪ur gr♪up recently) ab♪ut their bl♫d c♪l♪r, they just seem c♪nfused and tell us it’s “just red”. And every time my partner sh♪ws us a ph♪t♪ ♪f them b♪th t♪gether their face is c♪mpletely hidden ♪r turned away. What d♪ y♪u think?

THat doEs souND PREtty suspicious! tHE "IT's just rED" THing sEEms TO BE a commON HUman thing- mayBE THEy don't haVE A hEmospEctrum? honestLY WOuldn't bE tHE WEirdEst thing aboUT THEm lol. anothER THing would BE TO sEE IF THEy havE horNS, HUmans don't haVE THose for soME REason. still, BE NIce to thEM, THEy'rE probably juST TRying to stAY SAfE!

#homestuck #human encounter #alternia

[myreygn]

Something Is Off

AAAH, ok so i had this anon request for lee!kuroo in my inbox but it somehow got deleted - it’s here now but it’s been a while and idk if the anon who sent the request is actually seeing this, but whatever, here it is

an: tickle fic, kurodai

¸¸♬·¯·♩¸¸♪·¯·♫¸¸¸¸♫·¯·♪¸¸♩·¯·♬¸¸

Something was off. Akaashi couldn't quite name it, but the usual cheery and relaxed atmosphere of their extra practice in the third gym had been replaced by something a lot more tensed and weird. He didn't like it. Being used to Bokuto's and Kuroo's bullshit, the newly established silence was uncomfortable and, on top of that, awfully suspicious.

Akaashi looked at his captain intensely, who was practicing his serves. That idiot was probably planning some shenanigans with his non-better, maybe even worse Nekoma pal and they were just bad at hiding their intentions. The Setter wasn't sure what to make of the tension in the gym though – were they scared that their prank could go wrong? A cold shiver ran down his spine as he imagined the horrible stuff they could've gotten themselves into.

But alright, no need to panic, there was no evidence of a crime about to happen – yet. Akaashi put his water bottle down and walked over to Tsukishima who was taking a break as well. “Hey, you don't happen to know what's up with them, do you?”

The Karasuno Blocker just shrugged. “I'm not an expert like you in that matter, but I actually don't think there's something up with Bokuto, he's just focused.” A nod in the other direction, away from said Bokuto. “Kuroo, however, is behaving a little strange.”

Akaashi followed the gesture and furrowed his brows. Tsukishima was right and now that he had said it out loud, the second year saw it too; Bokuto was just focused on his serves, a rare but possible and very much appreciated state. Meanwhile, Kuroo hadn't made a snarky comment in over twenty minutes and was just spiking a ball against the wall again and again and again, not even really looking at what he was doing. Good to know that it wasn't something going on with the two of them, but the empty expression on Kuroo's face made Akaashi worry nevertheless. Very unusual.

“Kuroo-san?” The ball fell to the ground with a loud THUD and the Middleblocker turned around. His eyes took a second to focus on Akaashi who came closer carefully. “Are you alright?”

“Aw, Akaashi, are you worried for me?” In the blink of an eye, the usual lazy smirk returned to Kuroo's face and he leaned backwards against the wall. “Didn't know I was so important to you.”

“I'm serious, Kuroo-san. You're behaving weird.”

Akaashi noticed how the others were slowly gathering around him; let it be curiosity, like it was probably in Bokuto's case, or actual concern, like in Hinata's and Lev's. Akaashi didn't know why Tsukishima was there. Maybe he just liked having Kuroo on edge, because that was certainly what this whole movement seemed to do to Nekoma's captain. On the one hand, Akaashi felt a little guilty at the nervous flicker in Kuroo's eyes, but on the other hand, the chance that he would just shrug his concerns off was immensely limited by the sheer number of people surrounding him.

Still, he tried his best. “Tsk, wha- I'm not being weird, what are you talking about? Hey, Lev, shouldn't you be practicing receives?” Seemed like his best in a situation like this wasn't good enough though. Akaashi smirked to himself. So much for smug and manipulative.

“Yo, Kuroo, you good?” Perfect, Bokuto had caught on! Despite being a little dense from time to time, his emotional intelligence was impressive. “'Kaashi's right, you look like you saw a ghost. Hey hey hey, did ya? Did ya see a ghost?” Noticing that his friend didn't go along with the wide grin, Bokuto's face switched back to slightly concerned and he tilted his head curiously. “Bro?”

“What?!”, Kuroo snapped and if that wasn't evidence, Akaashi didn't know what would be. “It's nothing, okay? Can you all just stop bothering me and go back to practice?”

Hinata and Lev exchanged a glance, clearly intimidated and were just about to turn away and do as Kuroo said, when suddenly- “You know what I think?” The softness of Tsukishima's voice even sent a chill down Akaashi's spine. “I think you're lying.” The next sound echoing through the gym was a surprised shriek and Kuroo tumbled to the ground, his expression a mixture of withheld laughter and pure horror.

“Hgnnh- w-what are yohou doing?! Stahap! Gehet off of me!”

“No, I don't think I will.” Tsukishima leaned forward a little and now Akaashi could see that he was softly scribbling his fingers over Kuroo's sides, forcing giggles out of the Scheming Captain. “If you don't want to talk about what's concerning you, we'll make you.” Even though it seemed a lot more likely that Tsukishima just didn't want to leave out an opportunity to mess with Kuroo, but Akaashi decided to go with it anyways.

“NAha, Ahakaashi, nohoho!” The fabric of Kuroo's shirt was soft under his fingers as he experimentally dragged them over the captain's ribs. Oh, that got him cackling. Akaashi normally wasn't the type for things like this, but something told him that he wouldn't get Kuroo to talk any other way and in the end, he only wanted to help him! Kuroo might've been annoying most of the- sometimes, but they were still friends. Somehow. Actually maybe they weren't, but Akaashi couldn't stand people around him being sad. “Hohow do you knohow-”

“I saw Kenma nudge your side the other day.” Tsukishima smiled maliciously. “Hate to break it to you, but it was painfully obvious to anyone who was watching. Just as obvious that you're hiding something from us.”

Kuroo's reply was cut off by another shriek, way louder and high pitched, when Bokuto finally decided to join in on the fun, effortlessly grabbed Kuroo's wrists with one hand and stretched them out over his head, only to go directly for the armpits. That sent the Middleblocker straight to the ground and he all but howled with laughter.

Akaashi took off his hands for a second, astonished. He'd only ever seen two people being tickled (Konoha and Komi when Bokuto thought they wouldn't put enough effort into their practice) and he wasn't an expert, but judging by the amazed looks on Bokuto's and Hinata's faces, Kuroo seemed to be extraordinary ticklish under his arms. Hm. Interesting.

“NAHAHA STAHAHAP!” A glimpse over his shoulder showed Akaashi, that the two first years had joined in, curiously nudging Kuroo's hips, making him wheeze in between his fits of laughter. “PLEAHEHEASE! BOHO, DOHOHON'T!”

“So”, Tsukishima smoothly chipped in, gesturing to Bokuto so he would slow down a little, “coming back to the actual topic, what is bothering you?”

“Ihihihi... nahaha...”, Kuroo turned his head to the side as if to hide the blush spreading across his cheeks and Akaashi couldn't tell if it was from the tickling or the general embarrassment, “Ihihi cahan't, ihit's stupid...”

The others exchanged a glance and while Lev shrugged (“Well, at least it's something now.”), Bokuto leaned forwards, unusually serious. “If it makes you all sad and distracted, it's not stupid. We can't help you if you won't talk to us.”

“Mahaybe I don't wahant you toho help- AH! Nonononono, Shrimpfahahaha, stahahap!”

Hinata just smiled innocently while consistently prodding his thighs, right above his knees. “Everybody needs a little help sometimes, Kuroo-senpai. Trust me, it's for the better.”

“Yeah”, Lev agreed and Kuroo honest to God screamed when the first year wiggled his fingers right under his toes, even pulling them back a little to have better access. “And come on, I mean, whatever it is, it can't be as embarrassing as this, right?”

“He's got a point.” Tsukishima lightly shoved Bokuto's hands aside so he could tickle Kuroo's armpits instead and contrary to the Fukurodani Ace, he went soft, calculating and almost excrutiatingly slow on the elder's weakest spot and it didn't take long for Kuroo to absolutely lose it.

If he hadn't been a breathless mess before, he now definitely was and Akaashi was impressed with how long he took it, only giving in after roughly two minutes.

“AHAHAHALRIHIHIHIGHT, IHIHI GIHIHIHIVE, JUHUHUST STAHAHAHAHAP! PLEHEHEHEASE!”

They immediately let go off him, even Tsukishima, and gave Kuroo a little time to catch his breath and come to his senses again. Akaashi hastily got him a bottle of water – hydration was important and considering Kuroo's exhaustion, this must've been almost a workout – and watched as Bokuto helped his friend sitting up and soothingly rubbed all over his back. “Hey, you alright?”

“Yeah, I-I'm fine.” Kuroo leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, peeking them open for a second after a while only to shut them again immediately when he saw all the others were focused on him. “Gosh, you people suck.”

“Sorry, Senpai.” Lev scooted a little closer. “Are you going to tell us about your concern now?”

Kuroo pulled his legs closer and buried his face in his arms, hugging his knees tightly. His ears took an even darker shade of red. “Fine, but... ugh, I don't know, it's really silly. It's probably nothing. It's just embarrassing.”

“Tell us now!” Bokuto gave Kuroo's side a little nudge, making his best friend flinch hardly.

“Ohohokay, okay! I... I might... Imighthavealittlecrush...”

“What?”, Tsukishima digged deeper and Akaashi couldn't tell if he was for real or just fucking with Kuroo again if his life depended on it.

“I have a crush!”, Kuroo cried out and finally looked up, his blush intensifying even more. “I'm in love, okay, are you happy now?”

“Very”, Bokuto chirped with a satisfied grin. “Who are you in love with?”

“I- I can't tell you.” Kuroo sighed shakily and glimpsed at Tsukishima and Hinata, muttered: “If you guess right, I'll tell you tho. From Karasuno.”

“Shimizu-san? Yacchan?” When both of these guesses were met with a quiet No, Akaashi and Bokuto exchanged another glance before the latter smiled widely. “Was this the reason you were scared to tell us?”

“What?! No! … Maybe.”

“Then you really didn't have to be!” Being the touchy guy he was, Bokuto pulled Kuroo in a tight hug and ruffled his hair. “It's fine, Tetsu, really! So, who is it? Is it Sawamura?”

Kuroo didn't even need to nod, his stunned silence and tight grasping onto his fellow captain's shirt were answer enough and Akaashi could feel Hinata's excited beam before he actually saw it.

“Oooh, that would be so cool if you and Captain were a couple! You have to ask him for a date! Youhavetoyouhavetoyouhaveto-”

“Are you crazy?! No!” Kuroo ripped himself from Bokuto's hug and pushed Hinata so that the first year rolled onto the floor. “I'm not going to ask him for a date!”

Tsukishima cleared his throat softly. “You should, tho. For real.” Before anyone could wonder about where this sudden compassion came from, a typical Tsukishima-scowl appeared on his face. “If you had each other, maybe it would make both of you less of the insufferable romantics that you are now.”

Akaashi couldn't help but smile at the shock on Kuroo's face, at the vehement No and at the following laughter when he fell victim to his friends' ticklish encouragement once again.

“I will kill you, I will actually kill all of you – HEY!” No matter how tall Kuroo was, he couldn't do anything against the united strength of Bokuto and Hinata pushing him into Sawamura's direction. Luckily, the other captain just happened to turn around at that very moment and he looked mildly surprised at most – no wonder, Kuroo approaching him was a daily thing to happen at this point.

“Hi, Kuroo. Can I help you?”

“Ah, no- I mean, yeah, I mean...”, Kuroo took a deep breath and when he threw them a short glance, Akaashi made an encouraging movement with his hand, “W-would you like to... go on a date? With me?” He barely gave Sawamura time to fully comprehend his request, immediately resolving into hectic stuttering; “You don't have to tho, I mean, it's not a big deal if you don't want to, i-it's, uh, what I'm saying is, I-I'd totally understand-”

“Kuroo?”, Sawamura interrupted him and Akaashi saw Hinata and Lev share a fist bump when the Karasuno captain smiled. “I'd love to.”

#haikyuu!! #haikyuu!! fic #omg we didn't have that for a while now haha #lee!kuroo #ticklish!kuroo #kuroo tetsurou #ler!bokuto #ler!tsukishima #ler!akaashi #ler!hinata #ler!lev #bokuto koutarou #tsukishima kei #akaashi keiji #hinata shoyo #lev haiba #rey writes #tword fic

[100yearoldcomics]

January 24, 1922 Mutt and Jeff by Bud Fisher: "Jeff Must Slice His Ham with a Safety Razor"

[ID: Mutt walks up to Jeff, who stands behind a diner counter. A sign on the wall informs us that this is "Jeff's Quick Lunch Counter." /end] Mutt: Slip me a ham sandwich, Jeff! Jeff: Yes sir!

[ID: Mutt sits on a barstool and eats a small sandwich. /end] Mutt: I don't see any HAM in this here sandwich! Jeff: Oh, you ain't COME to it yet, Mutt!

[ID: Mutt takes a bite as Jeff turns around and starts singing. /end] Jeff: ♫ She was only a bird in a gilded cage... ♫

[ID: Mutt and Jeff both eye the sandwich suspiciously. /end] Mutt: Still no ham, Jeff! Jeff: Oh, you've bit OVER it now!

[ID: Mutt rips the barstool out of the floor and throws it at the back of Jeff's head before leaving. Jeff has a black eye now. /end] Mutt: Sap!

#newspaper comics #vintage #history #1922 #mutt and jeff #transcript available #1920s #ham sandwich

[fictionkinfessionsarchived]

being in a discord server for your source but it's a non-kin server so whenever people talk about your kintype you're just like ♫ don't be suspicious ♫

#fictionkinfessions #fictionkin #Anonymous #mod party cat!