#He moved out of state a few months ago to our sister company

[absolutelyhugh3s]

jersey giant | jh86

y’all i am so so sorry this took so long to get out!! i’ll try my best to start getting things out quicker and more often!!

but we’re back with the song blurbs!! i’ve recently been obsessed with jersey giant by elle king and for some reason it makes me think of the devils

pairing -> graves!sister!oc x jack hughes warnings -> mentions of blood, mentions of injury, slight cursing, mentions of death not my gif!!

word count -> 2.12k

7 months ago

since i was a little girl, I believed everything happens for a reason.

no matter how hard i search, there was no reason for this.

i remember that day like no other. i sat in the living room of my hoboken apartment, which i shared with my older brother, of course.

today my anxiety had been like no other. with ryan at hockey practice, i feared something happened to him. i texted him an upwards of 30 times, to be graced with a response of “dw cupcake i’m doing fine :)”

however, that did not calm my rambunctious mind. so i turned to my music. i’ve been writing music since i was in high school, not for the people, just for me. music was my escape, an outlet for me to express my emotions.

i don’t remember much from those few hours, the only thing i remember was my raw and bleeding fingertips after playing for so long.

it was about 3 o’clock when the front door opened. “i’m home cupcake!” ryan called, though it wasn’t his usual tone. it seemed gloomy and sad.

my brother seemed to drag himself into our shared living room, shoulders hunched, a solemn look on his face.

“how was practice?” i ask cheerfully, trying to lighten his mood. “i’m so sorry darcie” ryan croaks out, tears pooling in his eyes.

“for what ry? what’s the matter?” i ask, cupping his face and wiping the few tears that had fallen.

“they’re trading me.”

his words cut me like a freshly sharpened knife. he opens his mouth to speak once again and i brace for the impact.

“to pittsburgh”

the knife was twisted. for the past two years, i was blessed to call the garden state my home, and blessed to call the devils my family.

i was struggling with my schooling a lot a few years ago, trying to cope with the loss of my brother at home. so my parents thought it would be a good idea to send me to live with him.

so to new jersey he went, with me in toe.

i’ve made great friends while being here, johnny, dawson, nico, jesper, timo, they were all such great company.

but no one’s company could compare to that of the devils prodigy, jack hughes.

being very close in age, we became best friends immediately. we spent almost every day together except when he had morning skate or roadies.

jack was my person. at first i thought it was just platonically, but after a few months of our friendship, i developed feelings.

and after a hard loss, denying them a spot in the 2022 stanley cup playoffs, i discovered he reciprocated those same feelings.

so we started dating in secret. it wasn’t easy, but we made it work. and about 6 months in, we told our siblings. 

luke was accidentally first to know, after an awkward walk in that lacked clothes. quinn followed soon after, because jack felt guilty that the younger hughes knew but not the older hughes.

ryan was the last to know. it took a while for him to warm up to our relationship, but he eventually came around. plus, the boys became even closer than they already were. everything was perfect, until it wasn’t.

“so what does this mean” i ask, looking down at the dried blood on my fingers, my voice cracking as i try to conceal my true feelings.

“we have to leave jersey. and move to pittsburgh” he said, clearly just upset as i was. “trust me darcie i don’t want to leave” he sighs

“so don’t!” i exclaim jumping up from my place on the couch. ryan looks up at me with tears in his eyes. “darcie you know it’s not possible. if it was i wouldn’t be leaving”

“but ryan my whole life is here” i cry “my friends are here, my job is here, for fucks sake my boyfriend is here!” tears begin to stream down my face. “i cant just uproot my life because you got traded!” 

“darcie lynn graves you know we have no choice.” he says sternly. brushing his long hair out of his eyes. “better get packing” he says, looking around at the decor. “our flight leaves tomorrow night.” and with that, he walked through the apartment to his bedroom.

just as i’m about to pick up the phone and call jack, there’s a knock on the door. i look out the peephole to see non other than my boyfriend, with tear stained cheeks on the other side.

i immediately open the door to see jack still in his practice clothes. “nico was the first player to know. he told the rest of us and i came as soon as i could” his voice cracks.

i wrap my arms around his shoulders while his encircle my waist. “i don’t want you to leave me” he mumbles, placing his head in the crook of my neck. “i have no choice baby” i sigh “this is the absolute last thing i want to do”

“how long do i have?” he asks me, tears falling down his cheeks. “what?” i ask, caught off guard by the question. “until you have to leave. how long”

“my flight leaves tomorrow night” i brush the strands of his messy hair out of his face.

it looked as though that statement broke his heart. it’s scary, being young and in love, not knowing if this could possibly be the last time they ever meet face to face.

“then let’s make these next 24 hours, the best we possibly can” he says feigning confidence.

we did everything together for the next 24 hours, just as he had promised. we had the time of our lives. we went skating together, a late night 7/11 run, movies, the whole nines.

all knowing it could possibly be the last time.

then came the part i dreaded the most, leaving. ryan insisted on taking my ginormous suitcase, as jack and i walked through the airport hand in hand.

we stopped before we got to tsa. i bit my bottom lip, knowing this is what had to happen. knowing that i was leaving and he wasn’t coming with me.

jack turns to me with a sad smile on his face. “i’m gonna miss you so much baby” he says, trying to hold back tears as well.

“i’m gonna miss you too jacky” i said, my tears finally falling. he wipes them away, the sad smile remaining on his face. “i love you to the moon and saturn” he says cupping my face in his hands.

“i love you forever and always” i smile “no matter how far away i am” jack dips his head down placing a passionate and loving kiss on my lips. “dars let’s go!” ryan calls out.

“promise me you’ll call me if you need anything ok?” a big goofy smile appears on the brunette boys face. “only if you promise me the same” we laugh and share our last goodbyes as ryan and i headed towards tsa.

present time

i left jersey almost seven months ago now, but i miss jack like crazy. being without him has been really tough for me, and everyone can tell. however, i was able to spend a few weeks with him over the summer at his lake house. i met trevor, alex, cole, and ellen and jim officially, and i loved every second of it

believe it or not i’ve made some great friends in pittsburgh. if you told twelve year old me that i was friends with sidney crosby she would laugh at you and tell you you’re crazy.

“whatcha doing kid?” sid asks as he sits next to me on the couch. ryan had invited the guys and their partners to our house for a team get together. he says it’s to “celebrate the start of the new season” but i think it’s to get on their good sides.

i point to the large flat screen tv currently playing the devils game against the st. louis blues. “ohh i see” sidney chuckles “ditching the boys to watch the boyfriend”

i laugh “don’t get too pissy sid” “no no i see where i lie on your rankings of favorites” he jokes, taking a sip of his beer.

“jack hughes goes down and he’s hurt!” the broadcaster says. sid and i freeze.

“no no no”

“cmon kid get up”

“god jack get up!”

“cmon kid cmon!”

we begin to panic, yelling everything we can at the tv, as though it could be heard all the way in st. louis.

i try to hold back my tears, as i pick up my phone. as my shaky hands attempted to open my phone, jacks contact photo appears.

i look to the tv to see he’s already in the locker room. “hello?” i ask, voice shaky and palms sweaty. “hello is this darcie graves?” the man asks, clearly not jack.

“yes how can i help you?” i ask “im michael coyne, the head physical therapist for the new jersey devils. now, i’m not sure if your aware but jack sustained a significant injury to his shoulder tonight, and he keeps asking for you. and if possible we would fly you into jersey and we can meet you there. now he has informed us of your current situation, we will cover all fees needed, we just want to make sure he is ok.”

“absolutely, um- i- yeah i’ll- i’ll go” i stutter. “perfect. the flight leaves in an hour, is that alright?” he asks. “yeah that’s perfect” i sadly smile. 

“any questions?” he asks sincerely. “yes there is. can i talk to jack?” micheal almost cuts me off, “absolutely here he is now” 

“hello?” i hear my boyfriend hiss in pain. “hi jacky. i’m coming ok? they’re flying you home and i’ll meet you there. it takes to hours to get there babe, but i’ll make it to the airport in about an hour or so” i ramble.

“ok.” he hisses again “i never expected you to come back” he says. i can tell he’s frustrated by the situation, he hates being away from hockey.

“i’ll come back if you just call” i say sweetly “now i have to get packing and head down to the airport. i’ll call you as soon as i can alright?” i begin to throw my clothes into my suitcase.

“ok i love you”

“i love you more jack, i’ll be there soon.”

3.5 hours later

i landed in newark just before jack and the trainers did. although it was around 10 pm the city was still alive. so to take my mind off of the stress, i walked to the prudential center. once i arrived the trainers were already there and assessing jack.

as soon as i walked through the doors i was met by devils personnel, who ushered me into the training room. 

it was there that i saw jack sitting near a pt table with ice wrapped around his shoulder.

“you gave me the worst scare of my life” i said making my presence known to the older boy. “oh thank god your here” jack goes to get up “god fucking damn it” he hisses, sitting back in the chair.

i run to his side “can i get you anything? water, ice, a heating pad? i can order chipotle if you want? have you eaten? oh god your probably starving” i ramble.

“hey, i’m alright darcie. i’m not going anywhere” he says cupping my jaw with his healthy hand. “but what if you weren’t? something serious could have happened, you could’ve gotten a concussion, snapped your neck, jack rowden you could’ve died!”

he doesn’t respond, only chuckling under his breath at my rambling. “stop looking at me like that! it’s not funny! this is serious!” i giggle, trying my best to stay mad at him. i failed miserably.

“come sit” jack says, patting the seat next to him. as i sit down he places his good arm around my shoulders, carefully pulling me into his chest. “thank you for being here. it means a lot to me” jack says, placing a kiss on my temple.

“i’ll always be here for you baby” i smile up at him. he leans down and places a slow and sweet kiss on my lips. 

i plan to stay in newark for the next few weeks, since luke and jack have an extra room in their house. “are you gonna play doctor?” jack asks as i help him into the car. “i guess so yeah” i giggle.

“can you wear one of those sexy nurse costumes?”

“jack rowden hughes!”

#jack hughes x y/n #jack hughes imagine #jack hughes #new jersey devils

[mrsgreenworld]

Okay, I think what I initially planned as only a 2-chapter fic is going to be a three or maybe even four-parter. I also wanted to try and write this chapter from Yaman's POV.

I don't own the show or the characters, they all belong to the Yabani writers, producers and the production company. This is only fanfiction.

Time, Distance And Healing (Chapter 2)

Yaman pulls up at the main entrance to the house and kills the engine. He sneaks a glance at Alaz who's looking out of the car window thoughtfully.

"Home, sweet home" Alaz murmurs quietly.

"C'mon, let's get inside, everyone's waiting for you" Yaman says with all the enthusiasm he can master, even though he's panicking on the inside and has been in the state of paralyzing dread all their ride home.

He knows that his ever so perceptive little brother suspects something. That's why Yaman almost spilled his guts several times. He's torn between the desire to be honest and just wanting his little brother next to him. Even though they talked over the phone almost every day, they've barely seen each other over the last 5 years. Alaz came back only once, for the wedding. Yaman's visited him a few times in America, alone as well as with their siblings, and the last time a few months ago with Rüya. Those visits weren't nearly enough, leaving Yaman constantly missing his little brother. So finally having Alaz back home feels like a blessing but Yaman knows it won't last because all hell will break loose once Alaz learns the news.

Will Alaz stay once he learns the truth? Will he ever come back after that? Will he allow anyone to come to him? Will he talk to any of them ever again? Or will he consider keeping everything from him a betrayal? Yaman's so not looking forward to getting the answers to all these questions.

"Is she already here?" Alaz's voice pulls Yaman from the anxious whirlwind of his thoughts.

"Err ... Nope. Not yet. She'll come over a bit later".

Alaz just nods and climbs out of the car. Yaman follows him after drawing in a deep nervous breath. They walk to the front door and open it, only to be assaulted by loud pops of crackers and confetti raining on their heads and some flying right into their faces. Yaman's sure he's swallowed a few.

"Welcome home, Alaz!!!" their mother, sisters, Rüya and Feride Abla all scream together.

Then all of them take turns hugging Alaz. They talk over each other, shooting questions in rapid succession. But beneath the very real happiness of finally seeing Alaz, Yaman can also see everyone buzzing with the same nervous energy that he's feeling. Çağla and Ece are the worst really, both of them have panic and guilt written all over their faces. And of course Alaz catches on it immediately and just when he opens his mouth to say something about it, Yaman jumps in with:

"Alaz, güzel kardeşim benim, we forgot your bags, let's get them out of the car".

Alaz looks at him with suspicion but nods and they step out to get the bags. Yaman opens the trunk when he hears Alaz ask:

"Okay, Abisi, tell me: what's going on?"

Yaman knows it's a lost cause but he plays dumb nonetheless:

"What are you talking about? Nothing's going on".

Alaz just gives him the look.

"I swear nothing is going on".

"Really? First you were being all shifty on our ride home. Now everyone else is acting weird".

"They aren't acting weird, they're just happy to see you. They've missed you".

Yaman tosses the backpack at Alaz and then pulls out the suitcase, slamming the trunk shut.

Alaz follows Yaman's every move like a hawk and Yaman knows that his brother won't drop it. That's why he almost runs inside the house from Alaz's scrutinizing gaze. Everyone's waiting for them in the living room, exchanging nervous glances. Yaman mouthes a desperate: "Play cool!" and adds loudly for Alaz to hear:

"Kardeşim, let's get your luggage upstairs, to your room. Maybe you also want to change and get some rest after the long flight".

"I'm fine. You, - and I mean all of you - on the other hand, are up to something" Alaz says, pointing his signature finger at everyone.

"What?? No!"

"Pfff!"

"Don't be silly!"

"What do you mean? We're just happy you're home!"

Everyone's talking over each other again and playing so not cool that Yaman wants to facepalm. He pats Alaz's shoulder and says:

"C'mon, Alaz, let's go upstairs, I promise we'll talk but after you get some rest, take a shower, maybe unpack. Ok?"

Alaz narrows his eyes at him:

"I knew there's something!"

"Alaz, please, let's go. I'll tell you everything, we'll all talk together, just not right now".

"Is it about her? Is something wrong with her?” Alaz raises his voice and Yaman sees alarm in his brother's eyes.

He sees something else too: the beast that Alaz has spent the last 5 years taming and training - Yaman sees that beast pulling on its shackles.

"I swear to god, Yaman, if something ... Is Asi okay?"

It's the first time Alaz's said her name in 5 years. He's always asked about Asi but for some reason she's become the Voldemort whose name was never mentioned.

"She's okay. She'll be here soon and you'll see for yourself that she's totally fine" Yaman reassures Alaz and hears Çağla mutter:

"You won't believe how fine".

Yaman glares at his sister and focuses on Alaz again:

"She's fine, I promise. Now let's go upstairs, please".

Alaz throws a miffed look at everyone but gives a curt nod and reluctantly agrees:

"Fine! But you're all hiding something. Not for long though!"

He follows Yaman upstairs, to his old room. Yaman enters first, rolls Alaz's suitcase inside and leaves it beside the couch. He turns to Alaz who walks to the bed and drops the backpack. Yaman observes as his brother looks around the room and mutters:

"Nothing's changed. Everything's just the way I left it".

"We thought you'd like it that way. If you want to change something, it's better if you do it yourself".

Alaz just nods and then freezes. Yaman follows his gaze and sees that it's fixed on a picture on one of the bedside tables. The picture of Alaz himself ... with Asi. Yaman remembers the day the picture was taken like it was yesterday. It was him who made it. It was a rare moment of quiet and peaceful happiness that Yaman felt truly lucky to have captured. Because Alaz and Asi were never quiet or peaceful. They weren't really happy either and that was the saddest part. Because they loved each other but loving each other isn't always enough. And it broke Yaman's heart. Especially it broke for his little brother. Who couldn't be with the love of his life but also never learnt to be without her.

"Kardeşim?" Yaman says carefully.

"Hm?" is Alaz's only response, eyes still fixed on the photo.

"I love you. So very much. You know that, right? And I'm so proud of you".

The words finally catch Alaz's attention and he turns to Yaman with raised eyebrows.

"What's up with you, Abisi? Caught a love bug? Or trying to get on my good side so that you won't catch hell once I learn what you've all been hiding from me?"

Yaman lets out a short laugh at Alaz being well, Alaz.

"I've just missed you, that's all. And I feel like I don't tell you this enough".

Alaz narrows his eyes at him but Yaman sees the vulnerability beneath all the suspicion and sarcasm. Alaz's still not used to hearing people say that they love him. He's not used to people actually meaning it.

"Okay, whatever" he mutters and immediately adds:

"You wanted me to get some rest, unpack and change so badly. Why don't you leave me to it?"

Yaman nods quickly and makes a bee line for the door. Once the door closes behind him, Yaman exhales heavily:

"Oh my god, this is so not going to end well".

#yabani #yabani dizi #yabani fanfiction #yabani fanfic #yamlaz #alaz soysalan #yaman and alaz brotp #yaman ali soysalan aydın #aslaz #aslaz fanfiction #aslaz fanfic

[nurbanu22]

Chapter 5:

Masterlist.

<Chapter 4 | Chapter 6>

A/N: I hadn't noticed that been days without updating, any way, I plan to upload two more chapters this week. Is in the 6 that things are going to be more excited, I just wanted to put some Gianna's relathionships in order for a better background.

Warnings: This chapter is a bit long. There are phrases in Italian and i don't speak this language, so let me know if there are any mistakes in the words.

"Sono passati mesi Gianna, sei andata dal dottore? dovresti essere incinta ormai (It's been months, Gianna, did you go to the doctor? You should be pregnant by now)" Carmela Corleone's voice was so loud that Gianna had to move the phone away from her ear a little so it wouldn't hurt. Gianna and her mother had been talking about an hour ago; a whole hour full of scolding, for her mother had gotten so tired of not getting an answer on the Shelby Family phone in weeks, that she called her son-in-law's office and begged him to let her talk to her daughter. Thomas, who promised to call her back, called Gianna at her office not long after and put her mother on her phone, leaving her with the excuse of an important meeting somewhere else.

When Gianna stopped hearing her mother's voice, she put the phone back to her ear and answered "I know, mamma, don't worry. A few weeks ago we started trying with Thomas and you'll be the first to know, you don't have to worry about it" a true lie, since they didn't even sleep in the same room.

Her mother sighed loudly through the line "Okay, I'll pass the phone to your brother and you better get pregnant soon Gianna, children are the most important thing in a marriage, they are blessings from God."

Both Sonny's and Connie's marriages were "blessed" as her mother called it, just a few months after they were married. Gianna not only came from a large family, but as a child she also used to hear many men tell her brothers that they should look for women with wide hips; because this was better at the time of procreation. Having many children was something common in her family and it was what her mother expected the most from her; for she believed that she would give him a reason to focus on something other than her own interests.

"That's what you get for not answering her calls," Michael says with a laugh through the phone.

"Answer her sooner or later it doesn't matter, she wants grandkids" she replied as she absentmindedly wrapped the phone cord around her finger and sat down on the leather seat behind Thomas's desk.

Michael sighed "Wait a second, I'll call you from the company phone" he said in a low voice, because he wanted to give her sister a temporary option for her little problem, which required getting a little out of earshot his family.

Gianna hung up the phone and began to look around as she waited for her brother to call. Thomas's office was very different from his father's, which had several family photos on his desk and some paintings that had been given to him over the years, with a cream-colored wallpaper. While Thomas's office was filled with pictures of horses and trophies of races won, two very expensive telephones and leatherette seats straight from the United States. The black phone on Thomas's desk, a gold-trimmed wedding present, rang again and Gianna picked it up.

"Will you help your little sister?" Gianna asked with a smile on her face.

Michael sighed "I can give you a temporary option, but with a high price"

Gianna frowned "You know that money is not a problem" she says, curious about that option that her brother hadn't given her yet but it sounded not so simple.

"The payment is not money, but the feelings of our mother"

Gianna passed her hand all over her face, taking the phone away from her for a few seconds. It was an idea that she herself had considered thousands of times, but it went beyond her values ​​and, definitely, it didn't go with who she was "I think I don't like your idea Michael"

"Me neither, but you will get our mother off your back for a few weeks. That is, you will have to find a solution soon or decide if you want to be a mother in the future, our mother will not wait forever"

Gianna was about to answer her brother when Thomas walked in, Lizzie behind him with papers in hand. "Thomas è entrato in ufficio, ti chiamo più tardi, mando il mio affetto a tutti (Thomas entered the office, I'll call you later, send my love to everyone)" she said hanging up the phone.

She exaggeratedly opened her arms in welcome "Husband" Gianna said happily, still sitting in his chair.

"Wife" Thomas said in a monotone voice as he walked over to the bar he had there and poured himself a glass of whiskey, Lizzie slamming the door behind her. Thomas, glass in hand, took a seat in one of the armchairs across from his desk as he unbuttoned his jacket.

Lizzie walked over to them and handed Thomas the stack of papers he had in his hand "Thanks Lizzie" he said taking the papers and placing them in front of him on his desk.

Lizzie crossed her arms, looking between them. Thomas, who hadn't had a good night or a good morning, wasn't in the mood for another rudeness from his secretary. Unnecessary rudeness for others, because their relationship was nothing more than sexual. Thomas trusted Lizzie and she had earned, through all those sleepless nights and boring afternoons, enough appreciation to give her a job at her growing company just so she could quit the job she had. Other people would have kicked her out, Thomas instead heard every word and angry insults from her, absorbing all of her and letting go as soon as they had sex or he smoked a cigarette.

"It's funny" said Lizzie "I've never seen him let anyone sit behind the desk"

"No, he usually bends people over it" Gianna replied.

Thomas's gaze, previously focused on his glass, shifted from his wife to his mistress. Lizzie was clearly very furious, while Gianna looked unconcerned. He had already been present during this type of fight between them; bored with the same situation, but often entertained by their witty comments. It seemed that both women only fought at specific times and usually with sarcastic comments or double meanings, all of them started by Lizzie and ended by Gianna, like now.

Gianna leaned across the table to grab the papers Thomas was about to reach, causing him to freeze on the spot for a few seconds and snap back, sighing in exasperation as he pulled a cigarette and match from his inner pocket, asking Lizzie to get him a coffee. She stomped off cursing them under her breath.

"May I?" Thomas asked his wife with cigarette in hand pointing to her dress; a new habit acquired since she wouldn't let him light her cigarette in her presence, because she said that the smell would stick to her dresses, which were her newest designs. It was better to ask her than to light it and have her take it out of his mouth.

Gianna had just opened a letter, tossing the envelope onto the desk as she read what it said "It's your office, you can do whatever you want"

He smiled, his cigarette trailing from both corners of his mouth until he finally lit it "Anything interest?" He threw his box of matches next to the phone.

"Invitations, congratulations…" she tossed the papers in front of him so he could read them, bored to see nothing interesting.

"Do you trust Solomons after what happened?" she asks.

"I don't trust anyone"

"Well, it doesn't seem like it, you thought Campbell would keep his word and I think the bruises on my face are proof enough that he lied"

Thomas, who had been looking at his hand, looked at the face of his wife; whose bruises were slowly fading. She was right; the night he stayed with May Carleton she was on her way to the Small Heath residence when she was thrown into an alley and beaten up, the most noticeable blows being on her arm, next to her mouth and in her hairline.

Thomas looked into her eyes for the first time since the morning "He'll pay for it"

"I know" she whispered. Gianna still remembers that morning after she was beaten up in the alley on Small Heath. Polly had healed her face as best she could while Esme bandaged her arm. When Thomas entered the betting house, where everyone was gathered, he stopped for a few seconds to analyze those marks on her face and then turned to John. In his eyes was a silent promise to hit them back with the same blow; because whether they wanted to or not, Gianna was now a Shelby and the consequences of hurting her were the same for her as for any other member of the family.

Despite there still being some dislike between them, their moments together became a little more bearable. Their silences were no longer awkward and they were even able to have an entire conversation without him sighing from exhaustion at her comments or gestures, or her ignoring him and insulting him in Italian. They had definitely made a breakthrough so far in the last few weeks, even though this greatly surprised Thomas; the whole business with Campbell, Sabini, Solomons and the constant letters written and then burned to Grace seemed to leave no room for anything else in his life. But Gianna made sure to make room for herself by invading constantly his personal space, not caring all those times that he tried to push her away.

"What did your mother wanted?" Thomas asked changing the subject. Not having been able to prevent everything that happened to his family in the last week had made him see, once again, that he was still someone that people didn't take seriously. A puppet that they believed they could use whenever they wanted, making him feel unable to control what was happening around him and he would not let them think of him that way again.

Gianna sighed as she kicked off her black heels and walked over to Thomas's bar, taking the box of chocolates she bought and left there when she arrived at his office that morning. She offered some to Thomas as she passed, he just move his hand as a no and she settled back down, this time on her side, with her legs on her right armrest.

"She wanted to know if I was already pregnant" Gianna raised both eyebrows, taking a chocolate with mint flavor.

Thomas laughed "Perhaps one of yours adventures will make her happy" he said as a joke, because he knew of her constant adventures in and out the city.

Gianna used to leave the house in the morning and not return until the following afternoon; she will spend her nights with a famous liquor company owner, not far from where he used to meet May Carleton.

"Don't be funny" she said throwing a paper of one of the chocolates in his face "I have expectations to fulfill, fake marriage or not. But it doesn't matter, there are more important things to take care of; what will you do with Russell?"

Thomas finished his whiskey in a big sip "I'm still gathering information, but you'll find out when the decision is made; considering that you have people around me in charge of following every step I take"

Gianna stood up abruptly from the chair, making it turn at least 2 times and put on her heels "I must spend the money that you obligatorily deposit for me in a bank account. I am sorry that it is so that I can know what is happening around you, but it wouldn't be a necessity if you deigned to tell me the things that you signed in the damn contract on our wedding day" she said walking away angrily. It didn't bother her so much that Thomas didn't tell her things, it was something she expected at least for the first few months; the mistrust between the two was mutual and would be difficult to win. But it was something Gianna hoped she wouldn't get used to with important matters. Especially considering that he was a very trouble-prone man.

Thomas smiled at her clear annoyance. Despite being mostly a stoic person, she used to get annoyed with him very easily and had no qualms about showing it to him; usually answering him in what he thought were insults in Italian or throwing away all his cigarettes and whiskey once he got home "We were having a good conversation" he told Gianna that she was already heading for the door.

"I didn't ask you," she yelled back as she walked past Lizzie, taking the coffee she had in hand and throwing it into one of the trash cans as she passed.

Taglist:

@lostgirl219

Let me know if you want to be added or removed from the tag list 💗

#thomas shelby x oc #peaky blinder fanfic #original character #thomas shelby

[alliluyevas]

Prior to his mission, Joseph had taken an interest in Jane Fisher, the sister of one of his old Mill Creek chums. Apparently, he even proposed to Jane while on his mission but told her she was not to make the engagement public. When he returned, however, things were different. On 26 June, Jane wrote:

“You said you would be happy to hear from me, every month, and I was vain enough to think you ment what you said. . . .Everybody thinks you and I are engaged. Now dont think yourself insulted and trample the letter under your feet till you have finished. . . . Joseph I swear by all I hold dear that I never wronged you so much. Never did such an expression pass my lips. . . When you return, people will find they were mistaken, and pitty me. For that I do not care. I scorn their pitty, as I have their scoffs, but you too would pitty and despise me for dareing to aspire to your affection. . . . But allow me to give you the same advice you did me. Do not marry the hand alone but be Sure She has a heart.”

Uncertain of their feelings, Joseph and Jane continued to see each other through the summer, fall, and early winter. Apparently they broke up in December, about the time Joseph went to Fillmore as sergeant-at-arms for a legislative session. Two months later, Jane’s indignant father wrote him:

“You have been keeping company with my Daughter ever since your return from your Mishion & from the testimony before me you solicited her to be your wife before you returnd whitch indirectly was granted. I will here state that before the Move south you could have had my consent & from that time untill two Months ago you Could have had it grudgeingley & since that time you could not have it at all. I told her at least two months ago to not have anything more to Doo with you for it was my opinion that she would lead a Miserable life. . . . I beleive she would have maried you & Dragd out a few miserable years in broken hearted wreatchedness under the tyranical influence jelousy & self importance . . .You have stood in the way for the last 8 or 9 months when she could have Bettered herself 2 to 1 with out any trouble but your covetynes and jelous disposition would not give her up . . You say your folks are all against you. So much the more you are to be pitied for not haveing a mind of your own . . . You also state that you seen Brother kimble [Heber C. Kimball] & he has Counsald you to do as you have done.”

Three days after this rebuke, Joseph began pursuing his cousin, Levira. Trying to appear as sophisticated as he possibly could, Joseph wrote:

“It is with feelings of true emotion that I attempt to address you a few lines this morning. It is not however without embarisment & difidence that I engage in this taske. I say taske because it is a taske to me to deliniate the feelings of my beating heart, in writing. Still ‘twould be a plesurable taske, Could I but penitrate the future, and see therein, the completion and fulfillment of my ardent hope, but like the divinity of a Cato’s Immortality, “Shadows, Clouds and darkness hang about it.” I would that it was otherwise, but this is not the point. . . . I am aware that our acquaintance has been short, to you, I do not know how pleasant, but allow me to say, that since I saw you first the admiration and respect I first conceived for you have daily grown, till they have changed to something stronger and more fervent. . . . Not knowing therefore; the state of your feelings, It becomes a duty that I owe myself, to simply aske you, cousin how you feel toward me, what you think of “Cousin Joe,” or whether it is agreeable to you or not that I should encourage farther my desires, or scese to know or hope, or dream of thee, as something nearer, dearer, and more Chois than just a Cousin and a friend.”

Six weeks later, on 5 April 1859, Brigham Young married the two in his office. Joseph was twenty, Levira almost seventeen.

19th century Mormon men will get broken up with and immediately start trying to sleep with their cousins

#THIS IS ALL SO EMBARRASSING #jane dodged a fucking bullet tho good on her dad for putting his foot down. i think he was right about him being jealous and tyrannical too #considering how he treated levira #Mormonposting tag

[shima-draws]

I found out today that one of my good coworkers got into a really bad car wreck...there’s a gofundme already set up for him, so please, if you’re able to, I’d really appreciate any donations you can spare, and sharing this post also helps a lot. Thanks lovelies ♥

https://gofund.me/0a8e807c

#Donations #Gofundme #Car accident tw #Signal boost #Important #Shima speaks #I'm. Really upset #He moved out of state a few months ago to our sister company #But we were good buds. We talked about Pokemon Go a lot #He literally helped me move offices the last day he was here #I'm just. I'm so worried and anxious and just praying for his safety #I already donated but I might donate more once I get paid #It's just crazy. The last time I saw him he was fine but now... #Anyway please help out if you can! #Hopefully he makes a full recovery #Sorry I really don't want to make my page a donation hub but this is important!!! #Sends my good vibes to Phu and flowers and all of the good Pokemon captures in Go he could ever wish for

[volturiwolf]

Soulmates - A Demetri Volturi x Reader Imagine

A/N: This is the first imagine I finished and uploaded, and it came quite unexpectedly while talking with @volturidoll13 who suggested a Demetri Volturi one-shot where the reader would follow Bella and Alice to Italy and would accidentally say “wish he’d choke ME” out loud (see my post for reference). So, here it is. Also, I’m sorry if something doesn’t make sense. English is not my first langage. Enjoy :)

No of Words: 5749

Mentions of: Swear Language, Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Dying/Death, Killings, Self-doubt, Self-consciousness, Kinky Choking, Sexual Arousal

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I think I had enough of Bella. No, I know I've had enough of her. She may be my best friend, the one who truly understood me the moment I stepped foot in Forks High School, beginning of last year, but this was just too much.

I have spent countless hours trying to support her when Edward Cullen left her, 5 months ago. I was there to be her emotional support, and even spent time with Jacob Black, an old friend of Bella's, who stayed at the Quileute reservation.

Jacob seemed kind of polite, although his attempts to flirt with Bella whenever he could were cringy, to say the least. But I supported her then too, trying to be sort of the third wheel / the one who tried to show Jacob she wasn't really interested in him that way.

His friends, Embry and Quil, were as nice and polite as they were beautiful. When Embry abandoned Jacob and Quil, Bella and I were there to support him. When Jacob abandoned Bella, I was there to support her. 

Even when Bella was sad, angry and desperate to know what happened to Jacob, I was there to calm her down. I was there when she went to see him and he turned her away. I was there when she slapped Paul in the face. I was there when he turned into a huge wolf, and I couldn't help but scream.

Jacob explained everything about the wolves to both Bella and I. He told us how it's part of their DNA; how they are meant to protect the tribe from dangerous outsiders; how the metamorphosis from human to wolf can be somehow controlled over time, with practice and persistence. THAT I could understand.

What I couldn't understand was how vampires existed in this world! It wasn't Bella the one to reveal that secret to me, rather Alice, Edward's sister. Apparently, she saw Bella dying, the day she supposedly went cliff-diving, which I told her not to, having a severe fear of heights myself.

Bella took the risk, and if it weren't for Jacob, she would most likely be dead by now. That's what Alice said she "saw" - she explained to my incapable self that, as a vampire, she had a gift, the gift of predicting the future, based on others' decisions. 

All this information was overwhelming me. I could swallow the harsh reality of wolves existing, but vampires, too? It seemed too much for me in such a short period of time.

Alice quickly explained some basics to me, like the fact that the Cullens were vegetarians, but the majority of their kind fed on human blood, as well as the fact that they even had a sort-of-government of vampires, residing in Italy, the Volturi.

She then turned to Bella to scold her about her recklessness and how she was prone to "life-threatening idiocy". I couldn't agree more with the short brunette right now. Bella has been nothing but reckless the last few weeks, and she was putting her life in danger for no reason.

They were talking about Edward or whatever, but I wasn't paying any particular attention until Jacob showed up. I decided to give them some space to talk, and Alice followed behind me, stepping out of the house.

Her face was a mix of disgust and worry, not paying any particular attention to me, probably trying to hear Bella and Jacob's conversation from the kitchen. After a minute or two, I heard her taking a sharp breath, her eyes fixating on nothing in particular; they were just staring ahead of her.

She took a sharp breath, as she regained consciousness, stepping quickly into the house. She walked in quite wide and quick strides, considering her miniature figure, and, though taller than her, I had some trouble following behind her.

She ran directly to the kitchen. "Bella. Bella, it's Edward. He thinks you're dead. Rosalie told him why I came here."

They both looked at Jacob; Bella practically screaming to his face, accusing him of not giving her the telephone to speak with Edward herself.

"Bella, he's going to the Volturi. He wants to die, too." The small brunette continued.

Within a minute, Bella made her decision: she was going to Italy to save her ex-lover. She promised us that she would just make sure he lived, and then, she would go back to her "boring" life.

Alice ran outside, starting her car immediately, as Bella was followed closely by Jacob, who tried to convince her not to go, pleading with her, all in vain. Bella was as stubborn as she could get, and nobody could change her mind. 

I turned to Jacob, without really thinking about my next words. "Don't worry. I'll go with her. I'll make sure she's back safe, okay?"

All Jacob could do is nod at me, though his face was full of concern, frustration, and he was clearly distraught by Bella's decision to leave him and save Edward. As if all this time she, Jacob and, sometimes, I spent time together meant nothing to her.

I jumped in the back seat of the car, not waiting for either Bella's, or Alice's approval. I knew it would be a huge risk for me to go to the vampires' lair, but I also knew that Bella could use all the emotional support she could get. 

As much as I hated Edward for what he did and said to her, I knew that he was everything to her, like her own little haven. Her own little oasis, which I guess felt more like a tundra, compared to Jacob's flaming hot desert. I rolled my eyes at my embarrassing thoughts, but I assumed that's how she thought of them.

The drive to the airport felt like a ton of weight crushing my shoulders. I had no place to follow them to Italy, as it was truly none of my business. But I promised Jacob, and though Bella could make me so frustrated with her lack of self-confidence and self-respect, I liked her company a lot, and I needed to make sure she was alive and safe.

In the couple of months that she came out of her apathetic state, we reconnected again, reminiscing about our unorthodox friendship, both of us being new to the town, shy and not particularly sociable.

However, Bella was the ideal friend to keep you grounded and connected with reality, which I, sometimes, had trouble with; my mind was running wild and free most of the time, while my mouth was staying shut. 

So, I was willing to go across the ocean for her, to an unknown place, in a castle full of bloodsucking vampires. I wasn't pleased, but I was willing. Willing to help her save her stupid ex-boyfriend, and hopefully not get killed in the process.

During the flights, Alice tried, more or less, to explain the dynamics of the vampire world; the Volturi, being this sort of government-slash-royalty of the vampire kind, were tasked with imposing their laws over the other vampires. Their most important law? Don't expose your existence to humans, unless you want to die. Well, there goes that! 

Alice had already talked to me about their kind; Bella knew through her association with both Edward and the rest of the Cullen family. The chances of any of us making out of there alive seemed slim to none. I was literally flying towards my death. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. 

I was trying to calm down my nerves, which did not work at all, when all I could think about were those Italian vampires. Alice told me that the vampire Kings, especially Aro, who seemed to be their leader, were interested in collecting talented vampires. 

So, it was pretty obvious that he would, most likely, get rid of Bella and myself, and would gladly keep Alice and Edward, who, as Alice told me, has the gift of reading people’s minds. So, we were actually doing that Aro guy a favor there; bring him the “talents” and get rid of the “intruders”, the humans. Great. Just, great.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We were currently on our way to Volterra. Alice had stolen a yellow Porsche from the airport’s parking lot, which neither Bella, nor I opposed to, for now. It was a fast way to get to Volterra, plus I’ve never actually been in a Porsche, and I felt pretty amazing. Alice seemed like a skillful driver, and drove pretty fast, which I liked, especially if I was the one driving. Bella and Alice’s conversation interrupted my thoughts.

“What? What do you see?”

“They refused him.” That was good, right?

“So..?” Bella knew there was something else behind Alice’s vision.

“He’s gonna make a scene. Show himself to the humans.” Why the hell, Edward?!

“No! When?”

“He’s gonna wait until noon, when the sun’s at its highest.” Bella seemed more and more worried and anxious, and I heard her heavy breath, which seemed like she was starting to go on panic mode. I stroked her shoulders lightly, trying to calm her down. As much as she deserved to get worried, given the events that led us here, this was not the time to panic.

“There’s Volterra.” Alice pointed to her left, at a beautiful, picturesque town that looked as if it had jumped out of the Renaissance era. The scenery of Tuscany was beautiful, and it had always been part of my bucket list to travel across Tuscany in a small rental car. That was not how I pictured that trip, or how I pictured my last day on Earth.

Alice was running through the city’s narrow streets by now, never stopping to honk at people passing by, who moved left and right, trying to avoid the “crazy driver who decided it was a good idea to drive a sports car through such a city’s small, narrow, occupied streets”; at least, that’s how I saw it.

Alice did not back down, and continued driving skillfully through the city’s small arteries. It was odd though, the fact that everyone around us was wearing red capes, red clothes, everything was red. Bella questioned it out loud and Alice informed us that today was the celebration of Saint Marcus’ Day, the day that the Saint expelled all vampires from the town. The irony.

Bella was experiencing a full on panic attack, as we were only 5 minutes away from Edward’s shenanigans. Theoretically, everything was in order, until the moment we were stopped by the local police who refused to let us go any farther. Bella opened her door. She would go on foot, to find Edward before he exposed himself. Alice would park the car somewhere outside of the town’s walls, and we’d then go and find them.

I turned around my seat, to watch Bella running through the streets, to the plaza where the clock tower, which Edward was going to expose himself from, was located. Alice left the car outside of the walls, but still, close enough to have easy access. 

For me, it was quite easy to walk around now, as my skin was not sparkling like Alice’s was. Alice had to wrap herself around a coat, a long, thick scarf and gloves, and wear sunglasses to protect her identity even more. I was walking in the middle of the streets, watching around carefully, as good as my human eyes could see, trying to help Alice go unnoticed, as she pushed herself more towards the buildings’ walls, trying to avoid the sunlight. 

That went on for a while, until we were close enough to the clock tower, where Alice took my hand on hers and, with long strides, walked towards the main entrance, which was, thankfully, shaded enough for her to walk through. 

She must have heard the conversation inside the building, as the moment we stepped in - Alice breaking the lock that kept the door momentarily closed, she started talking to the others, who I mistook as being Bella and Edward. As another sign of my unluckiness in life, she was actually addressing two other vampires, a tall brunette and a shorter blond.

They both looked gorgeous, but they could probably kill me as easily as it was for me to blink. I instantly became stiff, and Alice must have felt it, but she kept on holding my hand, trying to play it cool in front of the others, while trying to get rid of her disguise with her free hand at the same time.

“Come on, guys. It’s a festival. You wouldn’t want to make a scene.” She tried to play it nice and cool, though I knew she was just as worried being here as the rest of us.

“We wouldn’t.” The brunette vampire responded, now looking at me, who, by now, I have lost all my confidence in coming to Italy to help Bella.

I caught the blond vampire looking me up and down my body, and felt rather self-conscious. I didn’t have the best relationship with my own body and my own self; I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror, most of the time. So, I made up for what I lacked in self-confidence with sarcasm, bad humor, honesty and snarky remarks. I would be really going off of him right now, if I wasn’t shaking.

Though beautiful, the blond vampire also scared me, just as much as his brunette partner. I stared back at him, looking at his confident stance, one hand behind his back, and a smirk across his face. 

When my (Y/E/C) eyes met with his red ones, I started shivering even more, holding on Alice tighter than before. I felt my heart beating faster, my breath became both sharper and deeper, and I felt as if I would cry, right then and there, in front of everyone. I saw the blond becoming a bit stiff, his jaw clenching, swallowing deeply, but he still wouldn’t take his eyes off of me.

Alice and Edward exchanged some looks, as if they knew what was happening, but chose to not tell anyone else. The scene in front of me was interrupted by the clicks of heeled shoes, and a blonde girl came into our view. 

“Enough.” Her voice was stern, and her stance was stoic as she came closer to us.

“Jane.” Edward recognised her and lowered his head towards the ground. He didn’t seem scared before, when it was just the two vampires in front of us, but the small woman now seemed to have him terrified.

“Aro sent me to see what was taking so long.” She looked between the two vampires of her coven, as if she was criticizing them for their incompetence to bring us all before Aro. Then, she turned to us, looking us straight in our eyes, or rather our souls, probably to warn and scare us at the same time, before walking back to where she came from. 

Alice turned towards Bella and I, the only humans there, who clearly looked more terrified than she and Edward did. “Just do as she says.” She simply said and we followed behind the girl, with the other two vampires closely behind us. 

The blond one was so close to me, I could feel the coldness radiating off his body, making me shiver. The brunette gave Edward the red robe I didn’t notice he was holding before, probably to cover himself in front of the Kings. The blonde girl moved between Bella and Edward, and Alice and I. Edward was trying to comfort Bella but I couldn’t exactly make out what they were saying, my mind making all shorts of scenarios about how the vampires would kill me and the others. The more I thought about it, the more I was shriveling on Alice’s side. 

We reached an elevator - I never thought vampires used elevators, but maybe it was for the humans around? The brunette and the blond entered first, as the blond turned around to stare at us, turning his gaze at me afterwards, before fully stepping in. Then, it was time for Edward and Bella to get in, followed by Alice and I. The blonde girl stepped in last, before the elevator’s doors closed shut.

The elevator music, an operetta, was supposed to calm peoples’ nerves. Yet, in this tight box, it had the opposite effect. Surrounded by vampires, vegetarian and non, the music was just creeping me out. 

The fact that the blond vampire was merely two inches away from me was making my knees weak and my heart pounding, though I, myself, didn’t even know if my own body was reacting out of fear or attraction towards the blond vampire. I felt him leaning closer to me and barely heard him sniff around, but I clearly saw Alice turning her head around and giving him death stares, to which he retrieved back to his original position.

The elevator stopped and we all stepped out. We walked past a receptionist’s desk, the woman standing up, smiling and wishing us a good afternoon - based on the few Italian that I knew. From what Bella and Edward said, the receptionist was a human, wishing to become a vampire, like the others.

“And so she will be.” Demetri smirked, looking at me, who I still haven't abandoned Alice’s hand.

“Or dessert.” Jane interrupted, and I felt myself losing consciousness for a split second, before I felt the blond vampire grabbing my arm to stabilize me. His hand was cold and his grip tight on me, not leaving me even after I looked at him with wide eyes. He just smiled and continued walking ahead.

Jane opened the doors in front of her, leading us to a massive room, made out of marble, and decorated with Roman columns and scriptures on the walls. Surprisingly, it was well-lit and bright, compared to the dark halls that we passed through just a minute ago.

“Sister. Send you out to get one and you bring back two. And two halves. Such a clever girl.” A brunette boy, a bit taller than Jane, called towards her, as she walked by his side.

The blond vampire let me go and walk farther into the room, still holding Alice’s hand like I was holding on her for dear life. The blond vampire now stood a few feet behind us, next to the tall brunette one.

A black-haired vampire, who seemed a bit too excited, started walking towards us. “What a happy surprise! Bella is alive after all. Isn’t that wonderful. I love a happy ending. They are so rare.” He was talking with fake happiness in his face, as if he was reading from a script, grabbing Edward’s hand in the process.

“La tua cantante.” Your singer. The vampire seemed to know how much Edward craved Bella’s blood, and questioned how Edward could do so easily. 

“Aro can read every thought I’ve ever had with one touch.” Well, that explained a lot. And now I placed who Aro was within the Volturi.

I now learned more about Edward’s gift, which was more similar to Aro’s than anyone else’s, but he couldn’t actually read Bella’s thoughts. Aro requested if he could test his own gift on Bella, probably hoping that he could read her thoughts and brag about it. But when Bella offered her hand, which he took too willingly, his face was unreadable and then, disappointed and angry, not being able to read her either.

Then, he turned towards me, still by Alice’s side. His red eyes were cold and hostile, and his face uninviting. I felt small and vulnerable, exposed, in front of his critical gaze.

“Dear (Y/N), excuse me for the waiting. Edward has presented me a very..intriguing image of you. Could you offer me your hand? I would like to get to know you, as well.”

My lips were trembling, not being able to say a word, and my eyes were glistening. Please, don’t cry. Please, don’t cry. I knew that whatever Edward had shown him I couldn’t avoid. So, I took a step forward, leaving Alice’s hand and extending the other one towards Aro. I felt a breeze behind me, as Demetri came to stand on my right side, looking closely between Aro and I.

The mind reader took my hand between his hands, and I felt my thoughts being examined and tossed around my head, like a small whisper trying to cast a spell on me. The vampire looked at me, deep in the eyes, and his face was filled with fascination for whatever he saw inside my head.

“Fascinating, indeed, dear. Your mind is just filled with thoughts and images, though they are not very distinct. You are not an easy book to read. I still haven’t figured out who you really are. Although…”. He looked at the vampire standing beside me, motioning for him to give him his hand.

The blond obeyed his master. Did he have any other choice? Probably not. Aro took the blond’s hand, and his wicked, sick smile came back.

“Oh, this suddenly became even better than I would have expected.” He turned towards the vampire sitting on the throne, looking sad. Marcus? The vampire in question nodded, and Aro turned around in an almost theatrical move, with open arms, for everyone to see. 

“It seems that our dear Demetri has finally found his mate in (Y/N). I’m so happy for the two of you!” His face was smiling, but his voice sounded as fake as ever. 

I didn’t know what “mates” meant. Alice didn’t have enough time to explain every “vampire term” to me, so I was clueless regarding this part. The blond, who I now knew as Demetri, must have seen the confusion in my face, as he leaned slightly towards me and whispered “Soulmates” in my ear. My eyes widened and he giggled lightly.

Whether it was how close he came near me, or his giggle, or the fact that we were “soulmates”, my heart responded immediately, thumbing faster in my chest, and I felt my cheeks burn - I was clearly blushing in front of everyone, as if I couldn’t be any more awkward than I was before.

Aro interrupted my embarrassment, as he turned once again towards Bella, wanting to test if she was immune to the others’ gifts as well. He turned towards the blonde girl, Jane, asking her basically to show off her own gift. Edward ran forward to stop whatever it was going to happen, only to end up in pain, writhing in an inaudible pain, as Bella was practically screaming to stop.

I honestly didn’t mind Edward suffering, even if it was for a few seconds, considering that Bella had it worse for over 5 months. He finally dropped to the floor, as Alice ran to his side, and the blonde girl’s brother ran to grab Bella, to stop her from going by her lover’s side.

I had no idea what was happening. I was just looking around, shocked and scared, as all these unfamiliar things were taking place in front of my untrained eyes. I felt a hand stroking my arm up and down. I turned around to see Demetri smiling slightly at me, trying to calm me down. I sighed a bit and felt my heart slightly at ease.

That was until the Kings decided that Bella was a liability - I wasn’t? - and Aro called out for Felix. I turned around and saw the tall brunette smiling evilly, while the shorter brunette turned Bella around and left her there, exposed, in front of the giant. Edward seemed to know what it would be happening, as he immediately stood up and ran by Bella’s side to protect her.

He immediately ran forward, attacking the tall brunette, and knocking him down. Alice ran towards Edward to help him out, but she was immediately stopped by Demetri, who I didn’t notice had left my side, grabbing her by her neck and immobilizing her, dragging her away from ever reaching her brother. 

“Alec!” Demetri shouted towards the brunette boy, who had just left Bella at Felix’s mercy, pointing towards me with his eyes. The boy, Alec, came by my side, and practically dragged me farther from the scene that took place in front of me. His grip was a bit too much as he squeezed my arm, making me slightly cry in pain. Demetri growled at him, and Alec’s grip loosened significantly, but he still kept his hand on my arm.

Felix was pissed by now, as he immediately started fighting Edward, pushing and slamming him around the room. However, I couldn’t focus my gaze on them; not because they were fast, but because I was focused on watching Demetri, and how he was still holding on Alice’s neck tightly, never letting her go.

Watching Demetri’s hand around Alice’s neck should have made me feel appalled and sorry for the small brunette girl, but it didn’t. On the contrary, I felt rather aroused, watching his strong hand wrapped around the brunette’s neck. 

Honestly, I felt a wave of jealousy and annoyance hitting me. That should have been me! Only I was worthy to be touched by this sort of demon who masked his true identity with the facade of an angel. It should be me! I couldn’t help myself, my jealousy building up inside me. 

“Wish he’d choke ME!” I told myself, getting more frustrated by the minute.

“Patience, cara mia. All in due time.” Demetri smirked at me. I did not realise I said that out loud, until Alec started snorting beside me, clearly laughing cheekily, and Felix started bursting in laughter, his grip tight on Edward’s jaw by now.

I had embarrassed myself in a room full of vampires once again, the majority of them being part of the Volturi coven. If the Earth opened in half and swallowed me, I would pretty much welcome it at that point.

Bella brought me back to reality, as she was practically screaming, begging the vampires to let go of Edward, as she looked clearly distraught and upset. She even offered herself instead of Edward! Why, Bella? Just why? I have understood by now that they were mates and they’d do anything for each other, but she would sacrifice her own life for Edward?! That didn’t make sense to me.

Aro seemed to agree with me, but he thought more of the “soulless monster” perspective, while I thought more of Edward’s character, and how much his absence had scarred Bella. Alice told me, on our way here, that he thought he was doing everything to keep her away just to protect her, that being close to him put her in danger. But, from my own experience with Bella, she was suffering more away from him than he thought she would.

Aro looked disappointed between Edward and Bella, wishing he would give her immortality, which he did not seem willing to do. Aro moved menacingly towards the terrified girl, prepared to end her life. I fell forwards, attempting to reach her, to move in between them, but Alec’s grip tightened, keeping me back, both of his hands on my arms now. Aro was basically licking his lips, when, suddenly, Alice stopped him. 

The small brunette confirmed that Bella would become a vampire like them, and that she would even be the one to change her, as she saw in her vision. Aro called her forward, and Demetri let her walk towards his Master. 

He then moved towards Alec and I, replacing the brunette boy, but, instead of grabbing my arms like Alec did, he embraced me tightly, not letting me move away from my position. His cold embrace sent shivers down my spine, but, surprisingly, I let myself relax in his arms, feeling safe, and like that was where I belonged. I felt him smiling and relaxing, as well.

Aro seemed pleased with whatever Alice had shown him, and intrigued by her own gift of predicting the future. Alice had told me that her gift was subjected to the decisions people made, and the future could just change at any point. However, if Aro believed that her vision would eventually come true, we had no reason to tell him otherwise. 

Aro turned to Bella. “Your gifts will make for an intriguing immortal.” He whispered as he touched her face, Bella clearly feeling uncomfortable under his touch. I would, too - Aro seemed creepy in his own way, his behavior and movements just as unpredictable.

He then told us to leave, and prepare for Bella’s transformation, and Felix let go of Edward. Marcus told everyone that a woman named Heidi would be coming soon and thanked us “for the visit”, as Aro said his goodbyes. Demetri walked towards the exit, me still in his arms. Edward grabbed Bella by her hand and Alice followed them behind.

As we were walking through the corridor, a beautiful woman walked past us, many people - they looked like tourists - following behind her. She had long, wavy brown hair and purple eyes, which could only mean that she was most likely wearing blue contacts over her red eyes. Her aura was full of confidence and power; she knew what she was doing and she took her job seriously.

“Nice fishing, Heidi.” I heard Demetri addressing the woman from behind me. So, that was the Heidi Marcus was referring to. Wait.. Nice..what?

“Yes, they do look rather juicy.” The beautiful woman replied, eyeing between Bella and I, as she continued leading the tourists down the hallway.

Demetri must have seen her reaction, as he brought me closer to him. I was in shock, and started trembling more than before. These people, these poor people would be the vampires’ snacks in a few seconds. Like Bella and I could have been just minutes ago. I tried to not think about it, but the screams that echoed through the hall would probably haunt me for the rest of my life.

Demetri opened another door as we approached the end of the corridor, and we found ourselves back in the reception area. The Italian woman greeted us once again, but I didn’t listen to what she said, still in shock, just waiting to leave this horrible place as soon as I could.

“Just wait here. You will be able to leave in a few hours, when it’s dark outside.” Demetri instructed Edward and Alice, and took his arms away from my body, turning to look at me. “Wait here, cara mia. I’ll be back soon.” I nodded, not being able to say a word.

Demetri turned and ran towards the throne room. I knew he left to feed, and I just couldn’t bear the thought of him killing innocent humans. I couldn’t keep myself from crying, as I started trembling and losing balance. 

Alice came by my side, trying to stabilize and calm me down, while Edward tried calming down a hyperventilating Bella. We were both losing our sanity, not being able to keep up with the Volturi’s lifestyle, as it seemed. I was craving Demetri’s touch but, at the same time, I couldn’t stop the human in me, the logic, the sense that said that I should stay away from the vampires who killed people. 

I heard Alice and Edward talking with the receptionist, but I couldn’t make out exactly what they were talking about. Alice, slowly and carefully, with her hands still on my arms, led me to a nearby bench, as the receptionist walked away. I was rocking back and forth, trying to calm down, realizing that we are still alive. I saw the receptionist coming towards us, offering a glass of water to both Bella and I.

“Grazie mille.” I thanked her, my voice barely audible.

“Prego.” She smiled at me, and walked back towards her desk.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I didn’t realise how much time passed, until I heard footsteps coming towards us. I was way more calm by now. Lifting my head towards the direction of the footsteps, I saw Demetri and Felix. I shyly smiled at Demetri, and he smiled back, with a smile wider than mine, a smile that warmed my heart.

“Hello, again, amore mio.” I felt as if my heart stopped for a split second upon hearing the words he used to address me. I would still be weak to my knees, if I didn't already sit down.

Felix was the one to inform us that we were allowed to go now, being way past nighttime. I stood up, and attempted to walk forward, towards Bella and the two Cullen siblings. I intended to leave with them, but I was stopped by Demetri’s hand on my wrist.

“Where are you going, cara?” He looked at me, knowing why I was attempting to walk away.

“I.. I thought we’d.. be leaving? That I’d be leaving? With the others?” At least, I was hoping I would be leaving with them. 

“I’m sorry, amore. I can’t let you go, not now that I found you. You’ll be staying here, with me.” Demetri sounded so natural and serious, and I could only stare at him, my mouth agape.

“But.. I thought it was okay for me to leave. I have a life behind, you know. I have a school to finish, I have my family, I have things to do.” I still looked at him dumbfounded, waiting for him to allow me to go, just for now, just for a few months at least.

“I’m sorry, (Y/N). But I cannot risk anything happening to you. I will make sure you are safe and protected here. We will arrange everything with your school and your family, and whatever else is needed. Please, stay.” Demetri’s eyes were pleading, and a shiver passed through my body, just by looking at him and hearing him talk.

It took me a few minutes to respond; nobody said a word all this time. “Okay.” I said faintly. “I will stay.. here.. with you.”

Demetri’s face lit up, and he leaned closer to me, wrapping his arms around me. He was careful to not hurt me, and I knew, at the moment, with my heart full of love and affection for that man, that that was where I was supposed to be. With Demetri. For as long as it lasted.  

#demetri volturi #volturi #demetri volturi x reader #twilight #twilight saga #twilight post #twilight renessaince

[theacevampire]

Sweet Like Chocolate V

Pairing: Tendou x fem!Reader

Genre: romance, fluff

Wordcount: ~2.7k

Warnings: language

Track: Snow Patrol – Chasing Cars

Sweet Like Chocolate masterlist

[December 24th, 2018 – 17:51 – Paris]

Fate. I never really believed in it, until a few weeks ago. I always joked about fate not wanting Satori and me to be a couple, but I recognized this was just life. But when I had received an offer from my company to work in Paris for six months just a few weeks after Satori had messaged me, it was hard to not take it as a sign the universe was giving me.

My boss had come into my office one Monday at the beginning of November and asked me if I would be willing to move to Paris, because one of their employees there had to leave for the States to support his sister who had suddenly fallen ill. I would be able to take over his apartment with furniture and everything if I wanted to, since he had explicitly given the company the permission to give it to his successor.

I had gotten a new contract, a nice salary increase and an opportunity to meet Satori again. There hadn’t been much holding me in Japan anyway – Reon had winced when I had said that – and a change of scenery sounded appealing. So, I took the offer.

Fortunately, since it was a huge matter on such short notice, they granted me December as paid time off to prepare myself and get everything going in Paris. My new contract would start with the new year, though I had already arrived yesterday, the day before Christmas Eve of all things. I had unpacked the most important things that day and decided to visit Satori’s business today. It’s address and opening hours had been the first two things Eita had blurted out after I had told them I would move to Paris. Was it kitschy to show up at his shop on Christmas Eve after we hadn’t seen each other in five years? Probably. But for once in my life, I wanted to feel like living in a romantic movie.

A sigh left my lips. Satori. Something was up. Since Halloween I was sure the boys were messing with me. The way they had acted, staring at me, grinning like stupid with their arms crossed before their chest had been more than suspicious. They were about to tell me something and they were still when someone blew up Reon’s phone, though they wavered when Hayato texted someone. By now I was convinced the person who had messaged Reon and Hayato had been Satori, but I still had no idea what had been going on. When I had asked what was there to tell me sputtered something about Satori’s business winning some prize, but that made no sense in that context. It had nothing to do with whether our relationship was close enough to call him by his given name or not and anybody could smell the bullshit from miles away. And these idiots knew it was bullshit, but still had refused to tell me what was up even until my departure to France. The only hint – if one could call it that – they had given me was an order at the airport to confess to him.

“We know you like him”, Wakatoshi had said. “Trust us.”

And at least they didn’t try to put off the fact that Satori had texted me that night as a coincidence, because I would’ve chopped their heads off, had they tried pulling that bullshit on me. Instead, they had just shrugged with these knowing smirks on their faces. All of them. Even Wakatoshi.

My heart had skipped multiple beats when I had woken up and seen Satori’s name on my phone’s display. Expecting to be dreaming deep in my slumber, I took a shower, made myself a coffee and looked at my phone again and to my surprise his message was still there. It wasn’t a long one, no wall of text, just asking how I was doing, but it got us talking again, so we had texted back and forth a little every day since Halloween. The conversations were lighthearted, nothing deep, so I didn’t mention my move to Paris – and partly because I wanted my visit to be a surprise.

Unfortunately, my confidence had vanished the second my fingers touched the cold metal of the doorhandle. Was this too much? Not even two months had passed since we started talking again. Were we close enough for this? My hand let go off the handle and I was about to turn around, when the door opened and an elderly woman left. She smiled at me and motioned me to go in, saying something like “Go in! Go in!” in French. I really needed to improve my French. There was no turning back now, so I entered.

Warmth and the scent of chocolate instantly filled my head. The store was rather small, but it added to the coziness. Racks filled with various bags and boxes of chocolates covered the walls, barely leaving room for the wallpaper to shine through. Despite it being Christmas, Satori had put up only a few Christmas decorations, only a small table next to the cash desk was filled with snowmen and reindeers made of chocolates. The counter with the cash register was right across the door and guarded the entrance to where I presumed the storage and the kitchen were. Was the place a chocolatier manufactures his creations even called a kitchen? Satori was nowhere to be seen, but I heard noises coming from the back, so I assumed he must be busy. Christmas had to be a tough time for him, so I walked around the little space that was there.

What caught my eye was one particular shelf on the left wall, as fairy lights trailed around the wooden constructs. Boxes where carefully stacked on each other, all of them labelled Paradise. Cautiously I took one and inspected it. From what I understood from the description Paradise was a collection of various shades between milk and dark chocolate. Judging by the presentation it must be his proudest creation and my heart fluttered. This wasn’t a coincidence, was it?

Too deep in my thoughts, I didn’t hear his footsteps. His voice ripped me from my rumination and my French was just good enough to understand him, when he said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I must’ve missed the doorbell.” The tone of his voice sent shivers down my spine and my heart started beating faster. He was here. Just a few feet away from me. I just had to turn around. But I didn’t. Anxiety held me back, though I knew there was no going back now. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Yeah, I’d like some of these, please.” Silence. One could hear a pin drop. When I finally turned around time stood still. Tears started burning in my eyes. It was him. It was really him. The red hair – though now shaved –, the equally red eyes and most importantly just Satori in general. Shock, confusion and disbelief were written all over his features, but slowly the sheer bliss made its way through, a smile forming on his lips. “Hey, Satori”, I greeted him with a soft smile.

He blinked. Twice. Trice. “Are my eyes deceiving me?” I shook my head and in the blink of an eye, he pulled me into a hug. “Oh my god! What are you doing here?”

“My job brought me here and some idiots threatened to rip my head off if I didn’t visit you.”

Satori’s chest shook at my cheek when he laughed. “Maybe I need to thank them – at least once in this lifetime.” Full of excitement, he pulled away, energy shining in his eyes. “This is very sudden, but do you have plans for today? I guess you must be new in Paris and I don’t want you to spent Christmas Eve by yourself. Grandmere – she’s an elderly lady working in the shop across the street – technically invited you already, so she won’t mind if I bring you along.”

I raised a questioning eyebrow at him. “She invited me? We haven’t met yet.”

Embarrassment was evident on his features, when his face turned as red as his hair and his hand subconsciously scratched the back of his neck. “I may have talked about you a few times and she’s very eager to meet you and I’m sure she’ll love you, so...”

“I’d love to, Satori.”

The smile on his face grew even wider. “Can you say that again? My name? I missed hearing it from your lips.”

True to his words, Madame Moulin welcomed me with open arms. She had prepared more than enough roasted goose for the three of us and gushed about how happy she was for every person joining her dinner party. She even said how she would rather starve to death than see someone spending Christmas alone. Hours were spent of her telling all the embarrassing tales about Satori she had, the list of times he had – apparently – gushed over me getting longer and longer and Satori getting redder and redder with each entry to the point he could beat every tomato in a contest.

And she had no problem shooing us outside on the roof when it was time to do the dishes. “Just enjoy the view! It’s truly magnificent and I’ve seen the night sky above Paris countless times, so you spring chickens go out and spend some time alone – I’m sure you have some things to talk about after not seeing each other in so long.” The auspicious smirk she gave us flustered me and one look at Satori told me I wasn’t alone. “And take these with you.” Ignoring our startled figures, she handed each of us a plate with two slices of Bûche de Noël.

Carrying my plate for me, Satori guided up to the roof where someone had placed a couch made of palettes and covered it in cushions and blankets.

The view over the nightly Paris was mesmerizing: Small, yellow lights glistered where the eye reaches, leading one’s gaze towards the brightly illuminated Eiffel tower. “It’s a beautiful sight.”

“It is”, Satori said as he stood next to me at the railing, gazing into the distance, so close I could feel his body warmth even through our thick winter clothes. “I think this is even more beautiful than the lawn near the Eiffel tower because it feels more domestic. Down there are all the tourists, it’s always busy and it’s impossible to get nice photos.” He paused for a second and sighed. “Here, it’s different. You can see the Eiffel tower but the roofs are empty and the people on the streets are out of sight. It’s quiet and the other house’s skylines add a certain flair.”

Silence took over for a little while, but neither of us minded. The atmosphere was a light one and the quiet a comfortable one, despite the thousand unspoken things hanging in the air. With every second passing I felt braver for the conversation lingering between us.

And after what felt like an eternity, I broke the silence, my voice barely above a whisper. “I missed you.” Taking a deep breath, I added things that felt right in this moment. “But I think I’m glad we didn’t go there back then.” Satori’s knuckled turned white as he gripped the railing tightly, choking it if it wasn’t an inanimate object, and my mind realized how my words could be interpreted. “Not because I didn’t want to. I just think it’s better this way. Back then we were about to graduate, take the next step in life, decide what we would do with our life.”

“Now we know”, he returned with a nod. “We both have stables lives, secure jobs and the opportunity to have unstable feelings without risking everything, because we make stupid decisions out of love. Paris would’ve driven a wedge between us.” A chuckle left his lips. “Maybe that’s what Wakatoshi meant, while he said it’s not too late.”

I turned around, leaning against balustrades and crossing my arms before my chest with a grin. “Too late for what, huh?”, I faked innocence. I knew exactly what he was talking about, but I wanted to hear it coming from his lips.

He pushed himself off, only to cage me between the railing and his body, arms on each side of my body. “To confess to you. To tell you, how much I love you. To tell you how much I want to spend every passing minute with you.”

Noses brushed against each other, lips almost touching and hot breaths forming little clouds in the cold night air. Instinctively, I closed my eyes, waiting for him to finally close that gap between us and kiss me. Unfortunately, my lips were met with freezing air as he pulled away and my eyes snapped open. His back to me, he walked over to the couch, leaving me standing on the railing.

“Tendou! You’re not leaving me hanging again!”

He raised his arms defensively and smiled at me, his eyes forming crescents. “Now, now. You waited more than five years, one more minute won’t make a difference and I’ll make it right, okay?” Grabbing on of the plates with the dessert, he came back, setting the plate on one of the balustrade’s posts. “Though my name sounds nice when yelled in your angry tone – even if it’s my family name.”

Slowly, it dawned on me what he was planning. “No! Satori, don’t you dare! No! Satori! Not again!” But to no avail. His fingers were faster, smearing the creme on my cheek and nose again. Just like five years ago. We stared into each other’s eyes, the both of us breathing heavily. “I’ll murder you, if you don’t kiss me this time.”

“Don’t worry. This time I’m certainly reading your signals right. I just want this to be perfect.” With his creme-smudged finger under my chin he lifted my head a little bit, before finally – after five years – pressing his lips on mine.

They felt divine. After thinking about how they would feel for years, when I felt it, this was the only thing I could describe them with. My mind went blank and I couldn’t fathom a single thought until he pulled away, gasping for air.

“Is that what the boys were about to tell me on Halloween? What you feel for me?”

His face twisted in pain at the reminder. “Yes”, he admitted through gritted teeth. “Coincidentally, right on that day grandmere had convinced me to text you and I wanted to after my shift – when you would be asleep – but they had other plans. I owe Hayato a lot for listening to me and convincing the others not to tell you.”

My fingers trailed through his hair. “You shaved your hair.”

Biting his lip, he avoided eye contact. “Yeah. I’d like to think I look less freaky like this. Less monster-like. Less scary.”

The words struck a chord inside me. Years of bullying and name-calling had left scars in his soul, despite my efforts to counteract it. “You were never a freak. You were never a monster. You were never scary. Never. Any of that. I love you like this, Satori, no matter what others might tell you or say about you.” My hand reached for his as I pulled him towards the couch. “Now, would you lie with me and just forget the world?”

“Are you citing song lyrics?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. It’s from a song that reminded me of you ever since that day.”

“Me too.”

With furrowed eyebrows I turned to him. “Really? That explains a lot about Eita’s comment at his concert.”

“Eita’s a little shit.”

The cushion was cold when I let myself plop down it, but I didn’t care, I pulled Satori down with me, resting his head on my thigh, so I could stroke his hair mindlessly. “They all are. But they never gave up on us – even if we did.”

Now Satori was the one shrugging. “Maybe they deserve a bit of chocolate on the house the next time they visit us.”

Us. It sounded so warm. So wonderful. These two letters filled my whole heart with warmth. Instead of Satori and I, there was an us now. A we.

#tendou x reader #tendou satori x reader #tendou satori #tendou sweet like chocolate #vampire.SSD #vampire.haikyuuOS

[tomtenadia]

Remember Us - 7

I know we are in full Rowaelin month but I thought to give you part 7 as a present...

There is a small library scene in perfect theme with Day 4. (This is not part of Rowaelin month. Just a coincidence)

The chapters are getting less angsty. As I mentioned in a post a few days ago... i Finished the story and it has 10 parts. That was the original plan and I promise a HEA

-------

Rowan had spent the entire day going through all of their albums. Evalin had offered to look after Freyja, but instead he had kept the girl in his arms while sitting on the carpet and and album in front of him.

He had just finished the one about Thomas and now opened the one dedicated to his daughter. They were both still a working in progress as it looked like Aelin would just record the stages in their lives.

“Look, who is this one?” The little girl pointed at the picture and babbled something.

“This is you.” He told her in a loving tone “the most precious thing in our lives with your brother.”

“You did it, Fireheart.” Rowan kissed the head of an exhausted Aelin, while the doctors were busy cleaning and checking on their daughter.

The nurse walked to them with a bundle in her arms and gave it to Aelin “I think your daughter is ready to meet you.” And placed the baby on Aelin’s chest.

Rowan sat at her side, his arms around her shoulder as he drew closer his two women.

“She is like you, Ro.”

He kissed her forehead “I love you both. Madly.”

In another photo he saw Thomas in the hospital bed near her mother, kissing his sister head and the caption read Thomas is officially a big brother and he finally gets to meet his sister. 

“ ‘Mas” babbled Freyja, pointing at the photo.

“Yes, that is your brother.”

Page by page he followed his daughter life and as it happened for Thomas, some moments became familiar all of a sudden.

Looking at photos had been a great idea but with Aelin’s captions had been even better as it was as if someone was actually telling him the story.

He looked at a couple of more albums but then he felt an headache coming and his vision was getting tired as well, so he grabbed Freyja and went to lie down on the sofa, making sure that she was tucked in safely between him and the back of the sofa. Evalin was busy doing chores around the house. He pulled the little girl to his chest and he started humming a tune while his hand caressed her head.

Not long after they were both asleep.

Evalin appeared back in the living room not long after and when she saw the scene in front of her she almost cried. Then she took her phone and snapped a picture and sent it to Aelin Your husband and your daughter are having some quality time together.

*

“How’s the study session going?” A younger Rowan paused beside a table in a university library.

The blonde woman in front of him groaned in exasperation “med school. Of all the degrees I choose from, I went for the worst one.” Her head collapsed heavily on the books in front of her “I want to be a neurosurgeon, I don’t care about the kidneys. Why am I studying this crap?”

Rowan smiled and placed a cup of coffee on the table “you need caffeine.”

Aelin lifted her head “yes, in IV.” She extended her arm and Rowan chuckled “you are the doctor, you will have to perform that on yourself.” He laughed and patted her head “I can tell you the legal repercussions of me performing such a procedure without a licence.”

Aelin grabbed her coffee and drank avidly “smartass.”

“A smartass you love?”

“Keep dreaming, Whitethorn.”

When he woke up again he was not ready for the splitting headache. He tried to sit up but dizziness hit him hard and then a wave of nausea. He jumped off the sofa but crashed on the carpet. Rowan fought to stand up but his body refused to obey “Evalin,” he croaked, grabbing his head in his hands.

A moment later Evalin was at his side “Rowan, are you okay?”

He crashed back down on the carpet and groaned. Evalin slowly helped him to sit back up and she felt panic rise “I should call Aelin.”

“No,” said Rowan in a whisper as he stood shakily and sat at the opposite side of the sofa away from his sleeping daughter. He should not be around the kids. No one should be around him while he was in that state.

And in that instant nausea hit again and he grabbed his stick and slowly dragged himself to the bathroom, collapsed on the floor and emptied the content of his stomach in the toilet.

***

Aelin had just finished surgery when she noticed the worried text from her mother. Rowan was not well.

She changed from the scrubs, paged her second, told him she had a family emergency and that she had to go back home. They all knew her situation and he was understanding. She had finished her surgeries for the day so finishing early was not much of an issue.

She drove home with her heart racing with panic. She knew the complications after a brain injury and she was worried. Her mother had not specified what happened but her tone seemed frantic.

Once in front of the house she parked quickly and once in the house she found it quiet. Her mother was sitting on the sofa reading to Freyja and Thomas was on the carpet playing with his toy cars.

“Where is he?”

Evalin looked up at her “in bed. He was sick, complaining of strong headaches and he said he was tired.”

Aelin dropped her backpack and ran for the bedroom and found him asleep.

She walked to him and sat at his side at the edge on the bed and slowly caressed his head. Her strong, amazing husband looked fragile, tucked in bed and sleeping on his side. The time in the hospital had left his mark and his frame was now thinner. Her hand ran through his hair once again and then deposited a gentle kiss and in that instant his eyes popped open as she chastised herself for it.

“Hi you,”

“Hi,” his voice gruff “you are home.”

“Mum texted me that you were not well.”

He tried to sit up but Aelin kept him down “you need to rest. What are your symptoms?”

Rowan’s head collapsed back on the pillow “headache, dizziness and nausea.”

Aelin’s hand was in his hair again “it’s normal. From one to ten, how bad is the headache?”

“Seven.”

She stood and came back a moment later with a glass of water and a tablet “Just a light dose to help you a bit.”

Rowan took the water and the medicine and once he was done Aelin lay down at his side, snuggling  close to him, her hand on his chest. Rowan’s arms as if on instinct went around her frame but did not hug her tight. He had no energy.

“I dreamt…” he closed his eyes for a second “I dreamt of us in the library. You were complaining about your degree and kidneys,” he told her softly “I brought you coffee.”

Aelin chuckled against his chest. She did remember exactly the day “that was when I started to fall for you.”

“Tell me,” he said, his lips brushing her hair.

“Somehow you had memorised my schedule,” she began her tale “so you would pop up in the library and keep me company studying. You with your laws and me with my crazy med stuff.” She looked up at him and found her husband staring at her “during my anatomy exam you offered to be my skeleton and I revised on you.” She flicked his nose and the gentle flinch of his nose reminded her so much of him, his usual reaction “At the end of a crazy exam you brought me cake and once my session of exams was over you asked me out.”

Rowan gave her a weak smile and she could see the tiredness in his face “you asked me to move in with you on my birthday and my present were the keys to your flat. I moved out of mine the next day and Aedion moved in with Lysandra and took my place.”

“Are we good friends with them?” He asked with interest. So far they had never discussed their friends and he thought it was time to try.

Aelin nodded “Aedion is my cousin. Lys and I were flatmates and she is my best friend.” Her hand brushed his hair once again, the gesture was relaxing and Rowan seemed to enjoy it too, his features much more relaxed “then we have Lorcan and Elide and the six of us kinda form a nice tight group.”

“Do they know about my condition?”

Aelin nodded “I explained to them and the only reason they haven’t visited is because I knew it was going to be too much so I told them to wait.”

“Thank you,” he said softly while his hand brushed her back “I can’t just yet.”

Aelin nodded again and his expression morphed as if he wanted to ask her something but hesitate. His hand moved “can I?” And Aelin knew what he meant. She took his hand and pushed it under her t-shirt and on her tiny baby bump “I don’t know yet if it’s a girl or a boy. I have a check up in two weeks and will see if we can find out the sex.”

His thumb moved gently as if to greet their child with his free hand he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said a bit too quietly.

“I should let you rest,” Aelin tried to move but his hand grabbed her writs and pulled her back down against him. He had been enjoying that moment they had shared. His arms went around her frame and pulled her to him. 

“You love to cuddle.”

“Do I?” He told her rising an eyebrow.

“Sometimes when mum takes the kids we do enjoy a lot of naked, adult cuddling.”

Rowan’s heart raced in terror “I am not…” he stopped “I can’t yet.”

“Shh…” said Aelin, placing a gentle finger on his lips “We are not doing anything you do not want to do.” She told him with love.

He pulled her even closer and tucked her head under his chin, and the position felt familiar all of a sudden, her scent enveloping his nostrils. Everything about her felt familiar, the shape of her body against his, her scent, they way she fit perfectly in his arms.

They were in silence for a moment until two small cyclones joined them.

“Dad.” Shouted Thomas quite loudly and Rowan groaned, his head not appreciating the decibels coming from his son.

“Quiet, Tom, dad is not well.”

The little boy zipped his lips and climbed in bed. Freyja padded to her father’s side and extended her arms in a gesture to be picked up. Rowan turned and lifted his daughter in his arms and pushed her under the blankets with Thomas and Aelin joined them a moment later.

“We are keeping company to dad but we need to be quiet. Can we do that?”

Thomas nodded eagerly and Freyja kept sucking on her pacifier. The little girl climbed on her father chest and Rowan rolled on his back to help her curl up properly. Thomas was tucked in at his side and Aelin’s arm reached over and enveloped them.

“Sorry, they really missed you.”

Rowan shook his head “this feels really nice and normal.”

Aelin smiled and brushed Thomas’ hair “believe me on a weekend it is, and if I am not working the four of us love a long morning in bed together.”

He chuckled and loved the image “What about the names?”

Aelin grabbed Freyja’s hand in her and kissed it “Thomas was a character in a sci-fi series that we both love. He is an Admiral and quite amazing. He is actually my fictional husband. Freyja, we took it from a mythology book.”

Rowan laughed “so I have competition.”

“Can you be an admiral?”

“I order you to kiss me, soldier.” Rowan felt a smile tug at his lips and Aelin stared at him with fondness. Then leaned forward and pressed a kiss on his lips.

“Bleah,” said Thomas in protest. Aelin stamped a big kiss on his cheek “feeling better now?” And the boy grinned and climbed down from the bed “lego.” And he ran away.

Aelin sighed “he has a lot of energy.” And now that her son space had been vacated she scooted closer to Rowan and her hand was on the girl’s back on top of Rowan’s.

“I love the kids. It’s been only a few days but I love them madly already.” He whispered looking down at his sleeping daughter. Then back at Aelin and for a brief moment he saw sadness in her eyes. Loving the kids had been easy. His feelings for her were far more complicated. He felt something but could not put a name on it yet.

“With you is…” he paused, searching for the right words. He had caused enough pain already “complicated. There is something, I can feel it, but I don’t know if it’s just the memories or my actual feelings.” His hand ran through his hair “I don’t know how to explain it clearly.”

Aelin kissed his forehead tenderly. For as much as she wanted her husband back, she was not going to rush him. He would need time and she was willing to wait. She had waited at his bedside for so long to have him awake again that she was happy to take even the small acts of affection he was willing to give her.

“I want you to have your husband back, and I am trying…”

“Shhh…” she said to him, a gentle kiss on his lips “I have him back, and I can see more of him coming back everyday. You don’t realise it but he is there.” She patted his chest “My husband is right here in my arms.”

Rowan’s hand grabbed the back of her head and pulled her to him for a fierce kiss. Aelin melted at the contact. The kiss felt like coming home and for a moment it swept away all her fears.

“Does your husband kiss you like that?” The smirk on his face and his playful tone was him and she pulled back, coming up for air. 

“Seems like you remember this part very well.”

“It does help that my wife is stunning.”

Aelin smiled. He had called her his wife. Had he accepted his life? Had he accepted them?

She looked at him in his pine green eyes looking for an answer.

“Yes.”

#rowan whitethorn #rowaelin fanfic #rowaelin fanfiction #rowan x aelin #aelin galathynius #domestic fluff

[paperpocalypse]

shoulder.

50 Wordless Ways to Say “I Love You”: 22. Listening to them while they vent.

Pairing: Five Hargreeves x Reader

Word Count: 1,554 words

Warning: Swearing

Griddy’s Doughnuts, eleven past eleven on a muggy summer night, is probably the closest you’ll ever get to the twilight zone. And you kind of like it. The white, circular ceiling lights, the generic posters of steaming pancakes and coffee, the almost-emptiness of the place – it’s so different from the bustle of city life that you feel like you’re suspended in time, existing only to drink milkshakes and eat donuts.

There are two other reasons why you go to Griddy’s, though. For one, your friend Martha. She’s an adult, which your grandmother doesn’t like because you’ve been here for four years and still haven’t made any friends at school, which would be more normal. But you’ve always been better at talking to adults than people your own age, and Martha is so nice that you don’t really care how old she is. Plus, she lets you bring leftover donuts home for free.

Reason two is more like six.

“Five! Hey!”

… Though it seems like tonight, only one of them is stopping by.

(Not that you mind his company at all.)

Martha is still in the bathroom, so you skirt behind the counter, grabbing a napkin as Five walks in and seats himself at the corner barstool.

“Where’re your siblings?” you ask, opening the donut case and grabbing an apple fritter.

Five gives you a closed-lipped smile that’s all business and no pleasure. “Sleeping,” he says. He picks up a butter knife and examines it. “It’s been a long day.”

“Yeah,” you grab a plate and put the fritter on it, “I saw it on the news. Lincoln Memorial in D.C., right?” Sliding the plate toward Five, you lean your elbows on the counter and crack a grimace. “It … looked pretty bad.”

“I’m talking about what happened afterward. D.C. was fine.” Five puts the knife down in favor of the donut. He stares at it, frown set deep onto his face, and takes a bite.

Judging by what you saw on TV this afternoon, you wouldn’t necessarily say D.C. was fine, but your definition of the word is pretty different from his. Nobody had died, so you guess in that respect it was fine. You knit your brow. “What do you mean, ‘what happened afterward’? Did any of you get hurt?”

He grunts. “Not on the mission. Dad wasn’t happy with how we did things in D.C., so he had us do extra training once we got back. Klaus threw up on the stairs.”

You gape. “… Is he okay?”

“He’ll be fine.” Five tears off a chunk of his donut and pops it into his mouth, tasting it carefully. “It happens more often than you think. And anyway, I’m more concerned about …”

He looks over your shoulder, chewing quietly. You lean in just a little closer.

“About …?”

“You mind getting me a cup of that?” he asks, gesturing to the coffee machine behind you.

You follow his gaze, bewildered. “You want caffeine right now?”

“I have work to do after I’m done here.”

That’s probably the vaguest explanation you’ve ever heard. Not that you’re surprised; Five has shared several things about his life with you, but some topics he likes to keep to himself. Briefly, you wonder if you’ll ever completely understand him. You hope so.

In any case, you pour him a mug of coffee.

“Thanks,” Five says when you hand it to him, dipping his fritter into the brew.

You walk around the counter, sitting down next to him. “You’re very welcome. I hope you won’t regret it.”

“I rarely regret anything.” His donut is now half-gone, and you know he means what he says. Exhaling, he looks into his mug and then at you, seeming to contemplate whether he should continue before doing so. “I’m talking about my sister. Vanya.”

Vanya. You search your memories and find her – quiet, doe-eyed, brown hair with bangs. She came in with Five a few months ago, just the two of them, and they didn’t stay for very long. When you had chatted with her, she proved to be very sweet but painfully shy, unused to being out and about. Five had gotten her a plain glazed donut.

“Yeah, she came here with you once.” You tilt your head, eyes narrowing in thought. “She doesn’t have any powers, right?”

Five nods his head once, slowly. “She’s … the black sheep of the family. To put it lightly. Anyway, after dinner today, she showed me this piece she’s been working on for weeks – a violin concerto by Bach.”

“Oh! Good for her.”

“It’s the closest thing she has to a special ability,” he states, not unkindly. “Vanya’s been playing for three years now, and she’s mentioned wanting to play in an orchestra. I figured that since nobody really knows about her, and she’s ordinary, it wouldn’t hurt for her to go out once or twice a week to rehearsals – as long as we had a guard or something to watch her, of course. So I went with her to ask our dad about it.”

You have a feeling how it had gone. “How’d he take it?”

“What do you think?” He smiles tightly, folding his hands. “He said no. It’s too much of a security risk for the academy. And, furthermore, she wouldn’t have time outside of studying and helping out with our training.”

Five grabs his coffee and takes a gulp. You bite your lip, thinking of the small, timid girl that didn’t know how to order a simple donut. What did she do while her siblings were out fighting criminals and doing interviews? Watch them? Stay inside, playing her violin that no one listened to except for Five?

“That sucks,” you murmur, slumping down to rest your chin on your arms. “I’m sorry.”

He puts the mug down with a hard clink. “It’s all bullshit, but what can we do? Vanya just accepted it like she usually does.”

“I wish there was a way to convince your dad.”

“Not unless Allison rumors him. But she wouldn’t do that for Vanya.” Inspecting the last bit of his fritter, Five picks it back up and finishes it in one swallow. “Like I said, black sheep.”

He wipes his hand with a napkin, placing it to the left of his plate before looking over at you, pensive. You stare back, fingers busy with the napkin crushed between them, then give him a small smile. Some of his irritation softens.

“… I’m sorry to interrupt, kids, but it’s almost midnight.”

You jump at Martha’s voice. Holy crap, how long had she been there?

The woman glances down at you, eyes crinkling from a grin as she takes Five’s plate. He looks a little miffed by the interruption. “Don’t worry, I know how customers like their privacy. I just wanted to tell you that I can drive you back, hon,” Martha continues, directing the offer to you. “Though Agnes is going to be late for her shift, so you’ll have to wait about a half hour or so.”

“No need.” Five knocks back the rest of his coffee and stands up, handing her a five-dollar bill. “I’ll walk [Y/n] back.”

“Will you?” She takes a moment to gloss over his uniform. “Well, aren’t you a dear. Would you mind going with him, hon? I don’t want you going back later than you have to.”

Five quirks an eyebrow at you when you turn to him. Your face warms unexpectedly. “I … guess so,” you answer as you leave your seat, suddenly awkward for reasons you can’t explain.

“Then that’s settled. I trust you Umbrella kids can keep your charges safe.”

“Of course.” He straightens his tie, nodding at Martha and you before turning to go.

Martha catches your arm. “Here’s something for the road.” She hands you a small paper bag, speckled with grease. You take it gratefully, about to thank her, but then she leans in and your words die on your tongue when she whispers, “Make sure to take his arm when he offers it, hon.”

Discreetly, she winks at you. Your cheeks burn hotter, much to your horror.

“[Y/n]? Are we going or what?”

“Y-Yeah, coming,” you answer, giving Martha a quick hug over the counter and hurrying over to Five, who’s holding the door open. “Bye, Martha.”

“G’night, you two.”

As the two of you pass by the windows of Griddy’s Doughnuts, you look through and see your friend wave, dishcloth in hand and a beam on her face. Her words run through your mind as you wave back. What a weird piece of advice. People don’t offer their arms anymore, and as you sneak a glance at your companion, you wonder if Five would even be the type to do so.

After a few minutes, you find that he isn’t. But he also doesn’t move away when you walk close enough for your hands to touch, and when you reach up, hesitantly, to grasp his sleeve when a car passes by – continuing to hold it until you reach your apartment – he doesn’t say a word. He says goodnight to you, voice softer than you’ve ever heard it, when the two of you stand at your door, and he makes sure you get in safely.

And for now, that’s perfectly enough.

#wordless ways to say i love you #source: @50-item-writing-prompts #five hargreeves #five hargreeves x reader #five hargreeves imagine #the umbrella academy five #the umbrella academy #tua #five x reader #five imagine #tua fanfic #fanfic #reader insert #fluff #griddy's doughnuts #five would offer his arm but #alas he is socially and emotionally constipated #when you grasp his sleeve he practically melts inside tho :'] #p.s. you give the donuts to five to bring home to vanya #poor girl needs donuts :(

[dc41896]

The Whole Time?!

Pairing: Jake JensenxBlack Reader

⚠️: Maybe a tiny bit of technical angst (🤷🏽‍♀️ lol), fluff💕

“P-Pooch?,” you stammer unable to fathom that your supposedly dead brother was standing in front of you and his wife who was about to give birth to their son in any minute.

“Hey peanut,” he smiles stepping further in the hospital room. “I’d hug you, but I’m w-,”

You didn’t even let him finish before immediately wrapping your arms around his neck and burying your face in his shoulder. Good thing he was already wet from the rain, your tears would just be a welcomed addition.

“Wait. D-Does that mean-”

“Hey babe,” the all too familiar voice speaks making more silent tears fall as you lift your head. Just as soaked as Pooch, he nervously smiles removing his hat to reveal his spiked frosted tips. He pretty much looked the same as you last saw him. Toned arms and chest shielded by his dripping jacket along with your personal favorite, his black circular frames bringing even more attention to those crystal baby blues.

There were plenty of times you thought about what you’d do if granted this moment. Cry, scream, maybe jump into his arms clinging onto him like a koala on a tree. Possibly all three even. Now, finally being granted your wish after all these months, there was one main thing on your mind.

“Wow,” he smiles as you slowly move closer to each other. “I didn’t think it was possible, but somehow you’ve gotten more beautiful.” Just as the words left his mouth, the back of your hand connecting with his abdomen in the hardest hit you could muster nearly knocks the wind out of him as he keeled forward.

“And apparently stronger too..,” he coughs.

“How could you?!”

“I didn’t do it on purpose! We had to so we could go after the guy who set us up. And why didn’t you hit Pooch?! He was in it too.”

“He’s got one coming after my nephew safely enters the world, right now though it’s your turn,” you glare before smacking him again.

“Told you she had a strong backhand,” Pooch states quickly closing the room door before his sister decided to direct her rage at him.

The rest of the team merely watch in entertainment as your hits move to his shoulders and biceps until Jensen can grab your wrists pinning them by your sides.

“I’m sorry for putting you through all that, but it’s not like I completely left! I could still see you.”

You tilt your head in confusion ready to ask what he was talking about, until seeing Clay nervously scratch the back of his neck as he and Cougar shift their gaze clues you in on what he meant.

“SERIOUSLY JAKE?!”

“Wha-? I-,”

“Did you really think that would make me feel better?!”

“...Honestly at this point I’m afraid to answer.”

Annoyed groan falling from your lips, you tried to escape his grasp, but his larger hands slightly tightening their grip on yours, along with him following your every movement, keep you in place. “When we go home I can explain everything.”

“Will you? Or are you just gonna lie some more?”

“I promise I’ll tell everything,” he whispers, leaving a chaste kiss on your temple before flashing one of his ‘please don’t stay mad at me forever because I love you’ smiles. So far, it’d gotten him out of any argument you had. Including this one.

Darn those good looks of his.

“Fine,” you reply as you cross your arms, leaving him to find a seat in the nearby waiting room.

“Any tips here Colonel?,” Jake sighs.

“I’m probably not the one you’d want relationship advice from.”

Another heavy sigh leaves his lips as he follows your path down the hall to sit next to you. That is if you’d let him.

“Okay, is anybody else stuck on the fact that Jensen actually has a girlfriend?,” Aisha states breaking the momentary silence and making both men chuckle.

———

It’s the happiest he’s ever been to walk into his small, outdated apartment. Things weren’t exactly the same as he left it with your few new decorations and pieces of furniture trying to make the place a bit of your own, but of course he didn’t mind. It actually warmed his heart that although he was “gone” you still chose to stay, sticking by his side when you easily could’ve moved on with your life.

“Jeez, the faucet always drip that loud?,” he lightly chuckles shedding his coat and placing it on the small hanger by the door.

“It started a bit after you left,” you sigh kicking off your shoes. “Think it’s loud now, it’s even louder when you’re just sitting here alone.”

Following you to the bedroom feeling like a dog with its tail between his legs, he sits at the foot of the bed looking down at his hands as you move about the bathroom getting yourself ready for bed. Your words were like the sharpest sting as his mind vividly showed an image of you just sitting in this apartment with nothing but thoughts of loosing your brother and boyfriend along with the hum of the AC. He knew for the sake of their mission, and the team, he couldn’t say anything, but it still didn’t take away his guilt of what you went through mentally and emotionally.

“I tried to write you.”

“What, your computer go down and you couldn’t watch me anymore?,” you counter over your shoulder before rinsing the soap from your face.

“That was only once okay? I was watching my niece’s soccer game and then I thought about what you were doing and kinda sorta hacked your office’s cameras, which yes I know was wrong. Speaking of, they really should update their software, a fifth grader could easily hack into it just guessing the password,” he answers making you roll your eyes with a chuckle.

“And who’s Tom?”

“Tom?”

“Yea. Curly brown haired guy, cubicle across from yours. Big head you can see a mile away.”

“I’m sorry are you somehow trying to turn things on me when you’re the one that’s supposed to be explaining why I’ve thought you were dead this whole time?,” you ask wiping the remaining moisturizer from your hands before crossing them in front of your chest as you step closer to the now nervous looking man.

“N-no, of course not! But I mean since he’s been mentioned...”

“He’s just this guy at work that apparently likes me and asked me out but I said no, because a small part of me kept hoping that you’d miraculously come back. Happy?”

“I-uh...y-yes?”

Sighing, you sit beside him tucking your bare legs under you and taking his hand in yours to trace the lines on his palm. You never knew how or why you started, but it was something you occasionally did while you two were talking or just lying next to him enjoying each other’s company. It brought a smile and giddy feeling to Jensen, just as it did to you.

“Listen, I’m sorry I’m giving you a hard time, I know you didn’t have a choice, and understand. Selfishly though, I just missed you so much and wish I could’ve known. It definitely would’ve saved some sleepless nights and tears.”

With his other hand, his thumb and index finger gently grab your chin guiding you to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry for everything I put you through having you think I was dead. The second we threw our tags in that fire you and my family were all I could think about. Like I said I wanted to write and give you some sign that I wasn’t gone, but I could never figure out how to start. Plus Clay threatened to cut off little Jensen if I did send anything back home once he found out, which only made it tougher.”

“Yea we wouldn’t want that,” you softly laugh following a short sniffle you were trying to hold back. You really were done with crying, having done so since you got that devastating call so long ago, and just wished your tear ducts would shrivel up already. “Sorry, I thought I was done with the tears.”

“Shh, don’t be.” Leaning forward, his soft as clouds lips meet the single salty droplet in the middle of you cheek erasing its presence before moving to yours in quite possibly the most delicate, tender kiss you’ve ever experienced. Any other time, you’d probably call it painfully slow, trying to take the lead to move things along. But as you both sat there taking everything in from each other’s scents to the feel of how one’s lips and mouth felt on the other, you couldn’t feel more connected.

Just barely pulling away, his swollen lips rest centimeters above yours ready to take them again as soon as he caught his breath.

“I don’t know if I should be embarrassed at myself or amazed at whatever powers you have,” he starts, a light chuckle escaping him. “But I think you just made me-,”

“Jensen!,” you laugh, playfully smacking his shoulder. “Way to ruin a romantic mood.”

“If it’s romance you want, say no more,” he smiles taking your hand in his and placing it on his chest as he clears his throat. To the best of his ability, he begins singing the opening lines to your couple’s song, as Jake proclaimed it, instantly making you fall back on the bed in laughter.

“You actin' kinda shady, ain't callin' me baby, why the sudden change. Say my name, say my name!”

“This is definitely not a couple’s song,” you laugh feeling his forearms rest on either side of your head and chest vibrate from his laughing.

“I’ll admit lyrically wise..yes, you’re right. But it’s still ours which makes it special.”

You’d never forget that day in the grocery store trying to find a pint of your favorite ice cream as the song played overhead. Without really looking, you thought you were on the freezing aisle by yourself and began singing along as you gently bobbed your head. Suddenly hearing a voice singing the background vocals made you slightly jump turning to see the taller man in a grey sweatshirt, blue and white basketball shorts, and sneakers holding up his hands.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. I-It’s Destiny’s Child, I couldn’t resist.”

“It’s okay, and I mean who can?,” you respond, both softly laughing before shyly looking back at your respective sections to get your frozen desserts.

“Soo...you like ice cream?,” he asks interrupting the momentary silence.

“Yea, um my favorite’s moose tracks,” you answer briefly holding up your pint with a smile.

“You know who has a good moose tracks? Bennie & Bailey’s downtown. They make it from scratch and I don’t know what all they put in it, but it’s amazing.”

“Oh, okay thanks. I don’t think I’ve ever been there.”

“Well you should definitely go one day. I mean if you want,” he nervously chuckles.

“Will do,” you smile. “Only if you’ll take me though?”

At first, being met with his shocked, speechless expression made your newfound confidence falter thinking you might’ve been too bold with the cute stranger, whom you hadn’t even asked if he was single or not. However seeing his eyes shine bright and adorable smile grace his pink lips, your excitement returned as he moved closer handing you his phone.

Years later, the rest is history as you lie in bed with the man you were sure was the love of your life.

“Hey what’s going on in there?,” he asks brushing his fingertips across your forehead noticing you become quiet. Lightly scratching his goatee, you feel your eyes start to water again causing you to blink a few times trying to keep them at bay.

“I just don’t want you to leave again,” you whisper, moving your fingers to card through his chestnut and blonde mixed strands.

“I’m not going anywhere unless you ask me too.”

Taglist: @fumbling-fanfics @honeydulcewrites @honeychicana @lady-olive-oil @themyscxiras @lovelymari4 @melinda-january @maxcullen @literaturefeen @damnitaa @curlyhairclub @plokyu23 @fullofmelaninsarcasmandepression @nunubug99 @felicity-x0 @ellixthea @jojolu @jnk-812 @brwn-sgr @captainsamwlsn @wildfirecracker @nina-sj @iammyownlover @chaneajoyyy @scoop93535 @secretmysteriousperson

If anybody wants to be tagged, has asked to be tagged but don’t see your name, only want to be tagged for certain people I write for (can be found in masterlist), or no longer wish to be tagged just let me know🤓!

#jakexblackreader #jakexwoc #jakexreader #jake jensen #the losers movie #chrisxwoc #chrisxblackreader #chrisxreader #chris evans

[nothingandeverythingintheworld]

I have this headcanon about how Lily found out she was pregnant

So okay context

It was the peak of the First Wizard War, Voldemort has gained so much power in the last few years, people were disappearing everyday, no one was safe, the Order was working like crazy trying to save as much life’s as possible but it was not able to save everyone

Regulus had just died and Sirius was a WRECK and James was spending a lot of time with him. Lily was taking as much missions for the order as possible in order to help people and to keep as sanity because every time she stopped to think about everything it seemed so horrifying that she just wanted to sit down and cry for days

So neither of them realized that Lily had just missed her second period because with everything that was going on her menstrual cycle was not in the top priority things to keep in mind

So one day, Lily went on a mission with a worried and scared Remus that was leaving Sirius alone after long time of keeping him company after Regulus’s death, but Remus couldn’t put out his responsibilities in the Order right now and he knew Sirius would be fine because James was with him.

It was a simple undercover mission to go to a place where death eaters were seen a few days ago. What they didn’t know was that they had just walked on a terrible trap and there was at least five of them waiting for Lily and Remus

They fought bravely and well (Remus and lily were a great duel duo just like James and Sirius) but they here highly outnumbered and there was nothing they could really do. Lily while fighting with two death eaters at the same time was hit with a weird spell in the chest that cast by a third death earter r that she hadn’t seen coming. She just fell unconscious on the ground, Remus was shocked just like the other fighters and used the split second they were stunned to just grad lily and apparate out of there

They both just arrived in the middle of Remus and Sirius apartament (that had really powerful ant-tracking spells so the death eartes couldn’t follow them there). And Sirius who was sitting in the couch with James just stared at Remus all bloody in the floor holding an unconscious Lily in his arms

They quickly called by a patronous the Order’s healer and she went to their apartment in a second and begin to try to find out what was wrong with Lily. The healer run some magical test to find out what was wrong with her and after a particular test she just stared at the result for a few seconds in shock while Remus, Sirius and James just hyperventilated around her.

James was shaking and silent tears were running down his cheek but he couldn’t loose Lily, Sirius just felt extremely guilt because he was mopping around because of his death eater brother while his brother’s friends tried to kill Lily, who was like a sister to him. Remus was still with so much adreline and couldn’t think straight, he just knew they couldn’t loose Lily because she was the best of them. Peter had just arrived what was sat in the corner patting James in the back not knowing exactly what to do but wanting to be there for his friends

Finally the healer told them Lily would be fine, she just needed to rest for a few hours but she would wake up in no time. After saying that she just kept staring at them not knowing how to give the big news, she asked to talk to James in private and everyone expected the worse, but since James couldn’t move and was in shock state, Sirius stepped up and asked the healer to tell him the news and she would pass him the news later. The healer was a little unsure but seemed like she didn’t have much of a choice, she just told him slowly what she found out while running the tests

Sirius just didn’t know what to say or how to tell the rest of them. A flow of emotions and felling flow through him, they would have a baby prongs! But it was the worst time possible for it. Sirius just sat on the side of James and said “just wanted to tell you that the marauders just got a sixth member bro”

James, Remus and Peter took a while to realize of Sirius actually was telling them and after that all had the same reaction as Sirius. It was wonderful that they were getting a tiny prongs baby but NOW?! They were just kids, how would Lily and James take care of this baby in the middle of the war?

While they were all freaking out, Lily woke up and saw these four boys with a extremely scared look at their face and she was like “Fuck I must be super fucked up”. The moment James realized she was a wake he just jumped in a huge hug and began to cry harder and Lily was like “baby, I am fine really, my heads just hurts a little” and James didn’t let go of her.

The boys stepped aside to give them some privacy and James told her the news. Needless to say, Lily wasn’t expecting that because “there was no way I wouldn’t know if I was pregnant James, I had my period just last ...?” And she began to realize it was a while since she last had cramps. As the realization came to her face she just felt so much to love for this little creature but also so much sacred for him, how could she and James have a baby right now? They were just kids and there was a war going on.

Seeing her face, James just pushed his own fears aside and told her “Evans, hey, it’s going to be fine. We are going to be great parents and this child will be so loved. We can do this, you know we were always ahead of our age” and Lily gave a little smile hearing him call her “Evans” after being a potter for a few months now. She was still pretty much terrified but felt warmer because whatever happened, she and the baby had James and as long as they had him, they would be just fine

After a while, Sirius jumped in the hug, pulling Remus by the hand with him, with a huge smile in his face (a smile they hadn’t seen in Sirius face for a really long time). Sirius just smashed both of them (carefully around Lily because she was still badly injured), he was just so happy that in the middle of all of this caos they had this new light with them, he would loved this baby so much (he already loved him) and would make sure this fine little bean was always safe and loved.

Remus gave Lily a guilty look because of the failed mission and planted a small kiss on their forehead and just said smiling “Congratulations you both! I can’t wait to meet this baby”. While Peter gave James a huge hug and cried a lit bit himself and everyone find it really cute how emotional he was about the baby

“Guys you do realize this baby is OUR baby right? It’s the first marauder’s baby. Oh gosh what nickname should we give to little prongs?” And Lily and James just looked at him and smiled because has long as they had each other and their friends, they would be just fine.

#lily evans #lily potter #lily x james #lily x remus #lily x Peter #james potter #james x sirius #james x remus #James x Peter #jily fluff #jily angst #jily headcanon #jily love #jily fanfiction #jily fic #jily textpost #the marauders #sirius black #wolfstar headcanon #wolfstar fanfiction #wolfstar #remus lupin #remus x sirius #first wizarding war rp #hogwarts #peter pettigrew #the marauders map #marauders headcanon #marauders fanfiction

[bonvoyagenoona]

i think mrs. kim lowkey felt relief none of her sons had to move away out of town far from her and her husband for a job. my mom came over to my apartment the other day and she cried from missing my sister so much (she’d moved several states for her first job right out of grad school a couple of months ago), which made me think of mrs. kim…

Agh, my heart! Can't imagine how hard it is for a caring mother to be away from a child, and what a kind thing for you to do, comforting her so warmly. I hope y'all get time to talk and catch up, even with lives being busy and spread out! It's hard when tight-knit families need to be away from one another. But it's also not set in stone, and life can change. It will change, and rather unexpectedly.

The pandemic actually did this for me. I relate a lot to your sister's experience. I moved a few states away for my first job out of grad school. Stayed there for 2 years. I was about to fly home to visit my family when we were told that we would be "working from home for 2 weeks". I asked my boss if I could change my flight and take my work laptop with me. Cut to 2 years later, and our entire company has opened up remote work for all employees. I got an extra 2 years and counting with my family as a result. You just never know.

After Mr. Kim comes home, the same night as Sunday video dinner.

Mr. Kim: (stroking Mrs. Kim's back in bed) You just never know.

Mrs. Kim: (sad, on her side, turned away from him and crying) I just really miss them.

Mrs. Kim: (pained) I miss them too, yeobo. But it won't be forever. We just have to be strong. For now. For them. Like them. Think of how strong they're being, working so hard and doing so well. Like you taught them.

Mrs. Kim: (sniffling) You're wrong.

Mr. Kim: I--- what?

Mrs. Kim wipes her face and rolls onto her back, looking over at Mr. Kim and smiling sadly. She takes his hand in hers.

Mrs. Kim: Like we taught them.

Mr. Kim smiles. And then he leans down to kiss her.

#asks #your asks #amomk #a map of mrs. kims #anon #what a sweet story anon #thank you so much for sharing it! #and for sharing your heart! #bts drabbles #bts fanfiction #bts fluff

[winterwolf0916]

𝗙𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗿

Jason Todd x Tamaran! Reader

Requested by anon: Hiya! I love your blog so much, and I just was wondering, if you're taking requests right now, could I request some Jason Todd x a Tamaranean reader? Like maybe she stowed away to earth when Kory made a trip to Tamaran and she's really cute and sweet and enthusiastic and fun and she had no family back home so Kory's like yeah alright you can be my sidekick and she has to get used to life on earth and meets Jason as Robin and they become friends to lovers to oh no he fuckin dead to lovers again?

Warning: Fluff, Angst, Language, Mentions of Death, Slow Burn & oh! did I mention fluff?

A/n: My heart... Also, I pray and hope you enjoy this one, love. This took me a while to finish but I got it done and I got carried away it. I wont lie, my writing isn’t the best but I hope this is something you what wanted or close to it.

Word Count: 3K 

Kori loves your company

You were like the little sister she never had

A better sister than Blackfire of course 

When she brought you to earth you were so amazed at everything

It looks so lively and green.

Flying around and feeling the cool waters from the ocean, the beautiful smell of the flowers and pines from the trees, and the shiny reflection on the buildings.

As Kori was going to take a visit to the cave to see Dick for a mission, she brought you along for an introduction.

He looked scary once you were brought inside.

“Kori! So nice to see you again. Oh, who’s this?” Dick glanced at your direction as you hid behind her like a scared kitten. 

“Ah, this is Y/n L/n. A Tamaranean like me.”

“Hello y/n. I’m Nightwing.” You were mostly afraid of the masks because you haven’t seen anyone like him with that sort. 

Dick noticed your fear then he took it off, causing you to relax a little, and shook your hand. “It’s so nice to have you on Earth.” You only nodded your head with a small smile. But there was a large slam of a door and stomping onto the stairs.

“Son of a bitch! Son a crusty no good bitch!” 

“Jason. We have guests.” This… ‘Jason’ took a glance at their direction before giving a frown. Once again, you hid your figure behind Kori’s, scared onto the boy

Dick apologized to the two of you and went off to lecture his younger brother. 

Kori only sighed and notified you that this was normal of him before Dick came back.

“Don’t worry about him, he’s just having another rough day with our dad. Jason please come greet them!” He rounded a corner with his mask on and his suit with an imprinted R. 

“Robin. Pleased to meet you.” He sounded so irritated that he wanted this introduction to be over with.

Still in uneasiness with the mask, Dick quickly nudged his younger brother urging him to take it off.

Jason didn’t. 

He just walked past you guys and left the cave on his motorbike.

Oh how much ass whopping he’s gonna get from Dick.

The second encounter happened at the Titans tower.

You finally learned how to control your powers and perform such combat ability that you never knew you could do.

Dick and Kori were like parents in the Tower.

You really loved the Titans

Raven may be dark but you both have such a strong friendship due to your trauma back in Tamaran and hers with her father

You suffered from a torturous experiment that left you with very similar yet slightly different powers than Kori. 

Also you both love books

Garth always makes you laugh. 

When training he turns into a gorilla to lift a good 3000 pounds while you could lift a good 70 tons making him go EEK!

He would make very disappointing puns but it always amuses you while everyone cringes at the dinner table.

Cyborg is like an older brother to you. 

You would sometimes help him with the mechanics and lift heavy parts around while he rants about his day and he would also cheer for you when you’re sparring

They were the closest friends while the rest of the members adore you and your sweet personality

But when Jason came along with Dick for a small mission for a few weeks, you immediately locked yourself in your room.

The Titans were concerned 

You were so marvelous and bubbly to all guests. Even to the infamous Batman!

Did the small bastard do something to make you like this?

Planning murder

But Dick and Kori knew why

After a lecture with the boy, Jason came by your dorm at night, still in uniform, knocking on your door, you didn’t open up, only listened from the inside

“I’m sorry.” It wasn’t sincere really. “I know we started off on the wrong foot, um…” his hand went through his hair in frustration that he needed to do this. “Since we're working together, we’re going to need to become trusting of one another….I’ll...see you tomorrow I guess.” That was awkward of him.

As footsteps faded down the hallway, you started to give a small smile.

You start to warm up to him.

But when he starts doing the little things, the two of you grew a bond. 

By little things, I mean correcting your moves when sparring, telling you stories of his previous missions, listening to you, exposing embarrassing stories about Dick, bringing you your favorite meals in a large amount because you’re a big eater, and lots of others.

When you first saw him without his mask, you were floating above him, pulling his face closer to yours while admiring the beautiful color of his eyes. 

“Your eyes are the most gorgeous color I’ve seen here on Earth.” 

Oh how your face fell when he had to leave. 

Don’t get me started with Jason, he began to be more hostile when sparring with others

There was a time when he took out his feelings on a sand bag while Garth and Cyborg were questioning what that bag ever did to him.

Of course the ‘parents’ took notice of this and Dick would purposely bring you to the cave or Jason to the tower.

The two of you have such a friendship that you would sometimes prank one another yet enjoy each other's silence.

Carnivals or nights out in the city were always a blast.

Whenever the two of you would see each other, you would fly to him in a swift manner that he would sometimes stumble back to regain balance from the impact. 

Soon, a single touch from him exchanging a book to you, caused you to feel such an electric current.

His smile and laughter made your heart paced faster than the speed of light

His cocky attitude and sweet side made your nine stomachs filled with butterflies.

You panicked and told Kori about it while she was sitting on her couch smiling as you explained.

“You like him y/n.” “Well of course! He’s my friend isn’t he?” “Oh dear, you’ll need to sit down for this.”

Wait, there is a different emotion called attraction?

AND IT DOESN’T STOP?

The more time you’ve spent with Jason, the more your ‘attraction’ feels stronger.

You would sometimes daydream the two of you blossoming into a relationship like Dick and Kori.

“Did you hear that Kori and Dick broke up again?” Raven stated before taking a sip of her tea. “What is this, ‘breaking up’ ?” you asked with curiosity yet wonder about this new term

When Raven sighed and gave details about it, you were 100x more terrified about the idea of a relationship

What if you and Jason will experience the same if you both ever become a couple?

You tried to distract the feeling of disheartenment with your enthusiasm

But of course, the feeling always returns

Your legs were pressed to your chest as you gaze at the ocean and it’s crystal shimmers of the moonlight, still in thought about your feelings. Jason found you on the rooftop of the tower since he figured something was wrong for the past week

As he questioned it, you asked, “Jason have you ever liked a girl that is a friend?” His foot on the edge of the building nearly slipped once you asked.

“I mean...yeah, there are times when I really liked her.” 

“Do you still have feelings for one?”

“Very.” 

“Really!? Who?” You were excited but felt such pain in your heart.

This boy choked onto her request. But he spoke, spoke about this ‘mystery’ girl. How adorable she is and brightening everyone’s day when it has been horrid, including his own. How he admires her caring behavior whenever someone was hurt. He really likes her and would like to take her out one day. 

“Her name is Y/n.” 

“What a wonderful name she has.”

“You do know I was talking about you, right?” 

“Yes yes, she does have- wait what?” 

Dreamy sigh

Ah yes

Young love

Kori wasn’t all surprised as she and Dick saw the two of you were walking in the streets of the city, hand in hand. She was delighted.

Dick was thrilled to see the two together yet gave Jason, the talk, if he ever does something stupid to you

The Titans congratulated the two and some exchanged money with one another after losing a bet

After a couple of months, Jason had to leave for a classified mission that’ll last a couple of weeks. 

As he said his goodbyes, you gave a kiss to his cheek before rushing back inside and leaving him smiling to himself.

It was lonely for the past couple of weeks but the worst part was when it turned to a few months.

Dick headed to Gotham four weeks after Jason left.

You were frightened about your boyfriend’s well being

As Dick returns to the tower, he doesn’t look the same.

You thought he was acting in such a behavior to surprise you that Jason is back.

“Y/n...we need to talk.”

 “Ok?” Kori gave a concerned glance at Dick’s direction, clearly unsure of how you’ll take the announcements. “What? Why are you both so silent? Please tell me.” You have had such a glowing smile, ready to hear it. The prank.

“Look, I know you and Jason are in a relationship but I have some...news.” 

“I’m listening.” Your foot tapped in excitement while Dick grew uneasy.

“Four...four weeks ago, we located Jason in an abandoned warehouse. He was held captive there for God knows how long by the Joker. And, as Bruce headed to rescue him…” you wanted to laugh at how far Dick was taking this. 

Except, he wasn’t pretending

“...He was too late. The warehouse exploded and my... Jason...passed away. I’m so sorry Y/n.” He added. You clapped your hands and giggled

“Amazing job! Brava! What an incredible and creative prank Dick. Very impressive. Now where is he so I can finally owe him a real kiss.”

The adults were silent. You took their silence as part of the prank and rushed to the bottom of the tower to find him.

But he wasn’t there. 

“Ok I checked the 50 floors below us but don’t worry, I bet he’s on the roof. He’s always there.” You returned to the room where Kori and Dick sat you in.

“This isn’t made up.” Raven and a few others entered the room, you could see it in their eyes they weren’t faking but you still denied it. “He passed away y/n.”

“No he didn't...He isn’t...Jason! You can come out now! Jason?” You flew to the roof. 

As you searched and it was empty that was when your stomach dropped. 

“Jason!” You flew around the area. The more you searched, the heavier your heart became. As you landed on the roof and heard the doors open, you glided to Dick. “Where is he?”

“I’m sorry.”

“No…no no... this is a game, right? When I check the floors again he’ll be there, right?... Dick?” He pulled your hand and placed something on your palm.

“He’s gone Y/n. I’m so...so sorry.” Glancing to the object placed on your palm, your entire being froze at the sight. 

From what you’re told, the R emblem is one of the only parts that are the easiest to clean and the least damaged on Jason’s suit after all of his missions.

What Dick gave you was the exact emblem but it was badly dented, burnt marks covered the R, scratch marks on the front and back while most of the edges are chipped.

Your legs gave weight as you fell to the floor, holding his badge close to your chest, and screamed your lungs out. Your vocals were so powerful that they made half of the windows on the Tower shatter. Tears made their way down from your cheeks to the floor as your eyes turned in a y/f/c glow. 

You flew off, for time alone to grieve it all. When Kori found you, you broke down even harder in her arms

You weren’t going to turn to revenge.

Even though you saw it in Dick and a few others, you couldn’t.

Kori taught you revenge isn’t the answer along with the new Robin or better known as Tim drake

You weren’t happy Jason was replaced but continued with your bright personality.

But during the nights, you felt so empty and numb. 

Why 

Out of all people, why did Jason leave you

Your family and friends died due to the violence of the leaders that experimented on you.

But now the person you loved most?

More pain was placed on your shoulders.

You grieved and mourned whenever you’re alone or with Kori. 

Two months later, you decided to explore the world on your own. 

Saving Earth, countries, and other planets from danger. 

Yet discovering the beauty onto nearly every destination

This continued for four years before you were called to Gotham for a meeting.

You greeted the Titans, other heroes you’ve met during your travels, and the bat family before the meeting starts

When it was over, you felt someone’s eyes on you.

As you located the orbs burning on your figure, you found a man with extreme built, a red helmet covering his entire head, a scarlet colored bat emblem imprinted on his black suit, and a coffee leather jacket.

You were confused as to why his eyes were wide and his body leaned forward as if he had found gold.

“Kori, why is he staring over here? Do I have something in my hair?” As your beloved best friend glanced at the man you were referring to, she let out a pearly smile.

“I think he likes you.” She snickered as you rolled your eyes. 

In the past, some of your friends tried to set you up with many men. Key word: tried. It’s not that you didn’t want to, it just didn’t feel right. You did try to fall for them but it just doesn’t last. 

“Very funny.”

“I’m not joking. He’s looking at you like, in slang terms, a ‘snack’.” You chuckled at her before returning your gaze to the mystery man. But the color of his helmet was not present to your sight, instead, the sight of an exit door closing.

You saw him once again during a mission on a tropical island.

Someone was making hybrids based on DNA from different heroes around the world.

So here you were… 

Approaching the scene as the infamous Red Hood was getting choked by a 9 foot tall creature before you scared it off with a blast of your powers.

“Need a hand, big boy?” You reached out your arm, waiting for him to take it. He was hesitant.

“...Sure.” He took it and you couldn’t help but feel slightly surprised of how tall he was

As you found Kori and gave her a hug, you joined the team till the mission finished.

You really loved being in the group. 

But mostly enjoyed the company of Red Hood.

There was something about him that made you smile warmly as he progressed with his idiotic plan

Kori and Roy offered for you to be an Outlaw and you gladly accepted

But the third member wasn’t all too happy about it.

The four of you all reserved an Overwater Bungalow resort on the island

A week later, you heard arguing from Kori’s home while you and Roy brought food.

“I don’t understand you, why won’t you tell her already?” Her voice muffled by the walls of the hut.

“She’s not ready.” His voice in the room as well

“Y/n has been far too ready to know who you really are.” You haven’t heard Kori this angry in ages and what did they mean about you knowing?

“You don’t understand.”

“Oh I understand plenty,” You and the red head’s eyes widen at her sass. “How long can you keep this act up? This, I want to hide this because I want to protect her, act? Your brother used that on me a few times, hmph, always knows when to make a woman angry.”

Brother? But the only brother you know she dated was-

“Don’t compare me to Dick, Kori.”

Oh...Shit…

Roy put two and two together and oh shit! He remembered his best friend mentioning a girl before his sudden death. Roy glanced at you as your eyes were wide and glossy at the truth. He kicked the door open causing the two heads to turn while you were hidden outside of the hut with your head down.

How could you not notice it before… Red Hood not revealing himself under the helmet when he was in legit trunks, constantly putting distance between the two of you, displeased when you joined the outlaws, and the worried glances between him and Kori!

“Got the food!” As Roy set the meals down and you entered the room, the air was so intense you could cut it with a knife.

“I’m not that hungry so I’m going to my room.” Kori glared at the helmet man, causing him to release a sigh.

“Do you-”

“Perfect! Now take these,” Roy gave a bag of two take outs to him and led the unresolved pair outside. “Have a good night.” He shut the door closed leaving you and the vigilante in silence.

“I can take the bag.”

“You sure?” 

“Yes.”

It was so awkward the walk back to your huts.

He tries to make the situation lighter but it was no use.

All of that pain you felt years ago, returned and after realizing who he is...It felt so much worse.

“Hey y/n, do you want to know the story of my first kiss?” What is he trying to do now?

“That's pretty sweet! Random but sweet! Go on.” He paused in place under a shadow of a hut as a thick cloud covered the sun. His hand traveled to the back of his helmet and a sudden click was heard before steam escaped from the open cracks of his mask. It was dark and you couldn’t see his full features.

“It was a normal day, I was carrying some groceries with my butler but got lost in the crowd due to my sleep deprivation. And the craziest thing happened when I was struggling to find him, a cute y/h/c girl with bright y/e/c eyes came up to me and spoke a language I’ve never heard in my life. So I tried to understand her words but I was so clueless before she pulled my face and gave me a smooch.” Your stomach did a flip as you realized why the story was so familiar to you. “She apologized when she was done but spoke english. As she left me there completely bamboozled… I wondered, ‘I don’t know what the hell that was about but will I see her again?’ then my butler found me.”

It's a memory. Your memory and his. You dropped the bag.

“Jason.” As the darkness unsheathed and the sun’s light was visible, he took a couple of steps towards you and gosh… You didn’t realize how much you missed him when your eyes began to sting, shoulders dropped, and your bottom lip shaking.

You took flight and bolted in his arms. 

“It’s you… it's really...you asshole.” you shoved him lightly while Jason expected the worst. “Asshole. Asshole. Asshole!” Every curse is a light punch on his chest. 

“Easy...Easy!” He held your two hands by the wrists. “When did you learn how to curse?!”

“When you were dead!” Your eyes were covered by your signature y/f/c glow and tears streamed down your face.

“Calm down.”

“Calm down? I may be an alien and I may be nice, but I have feelings too. Feelings when we shared that first kiss, held hands, waiting for you to come back...hearing that awful news about you…” Your arms dropped and your head lowered. “And I’m feeling angry at you right now for not saying anything!” 

In all honesty, he really wanted to tell you. But he didn’t know how you would take it. He's not the exactly the same when he was a teenager and he’s been through so much as Red Hood that he doesn’t want the bad guys to target you and your superhuman abilities. But his feelings for you didn’t shrink a single centimeter. It grew. Grew that he was so close to return to you and kiss you like there is no tomorrow. 

“Didn’t...Haven’t you felt the same of how I felt for you, Jason? Did you hate me that much to leave me and start a new life? To get away from me?” You questioned as the glow in your eyes dimmed down to your y/c/e orbs but your water works didn’t stop. You were still shaking, thinking of how Jason never loved you. How he made you feel pain for years. 

He made you feel like a human. Being an alien on Earth was quite lonely. But Kori was there with you through it all. But when Jason, a human, made you feel like you’re a human… You didn’t care about the negativity as much, you focused onto the positives. You discovered things about yourself from a different perspective. You learned how to love.

A warm embrace and the sun falling behind the horizon made your entire being warmer than the heat of the light beams. Your fingers trailed under his jacket to feel his body heat.

“Not even close.” He pulled a little before resting his forehead on yours. “It was the opposite and more. I just didn’t want you to see me in my dark life. I died and came back from the dead, every minute feeling empty. But once I learned more about myself, I wanted to change for the better. But I made so many rough decisions, that I couldn’t come back to you yet until I fixed them. I didn’t want you to love a mistake.”

“Shhh.” You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him closer, running your fingers through his hair. “You’re never a mistake, only a good man who tried his best. The only thing that matters now, is that you’re here.” His teal orbs flickered to yours, your heart skipping a beat by the sight of your favorite colored eyes once again.

The sun was engulfed, the light dimmed till the sky was navy, and the stars were sprinkled all around the two silhouettes under the moon. The lock of your lips to his were the answer to your reunion.

#jason todd x reader #jason todd x you #jason todd x y/n #red hood x reader #red hood x you #Red Hood X y/n #dc x reader #dc x y/n #dc x you #batfam x you #batfam x reader #batfamily x reader #batfamily x you #batfamily x y/n #Jason todd x tamaran! reader #Jason todd x tamaran! y/n #Jason todd x tamaran! you #red hood x tamaran! reader #tamaran reader #Starfire #kori'ander #dick grayson

[maple-the-awesome]

Be Her Guard || Chapter 4

Pairing: Sherlock Holmes x Reader

Words: 1,831

Masterlist

Throughout the past few days that you've been staying at the flat, John has found that you aren't unpleasant to be around; not even in the slightest. So far, you've proven to be shy yet polite and laid back, in fact, he sometimes forgets you're there since you're so quiet, often keeping to yourself by reading a book or browsing your phone while seated on the couch where you're out of both men's ways. No wonder Sherlock doesn't seem to mind being in your company even if there's still a mysteriously awkward and tense atmosphere often surrounding you both, one John has yet to understand the reasoning behind. To be honest, he's a bit scared to ask.

Even though Sherlock may be fine keeping from personal conversations with his guests, John is the opposite, finding it to be unbearably awkward having a stranger live under the same roof as him while not knowing much about them regardless of how pleasant they are to be around. Under that reasoning, he figures it'll be more fruitful to actually get to know you seeing that you'll be staying at the flat with them for an undetermined amount of time.

When the three of you found yourselves sitting in silence in the living room with Sherlock typing away at the laptop on the desk while you and John sat across from one another in the arm chairs, the former army doctor decided now would be the best time to hold a friendly conversation," so, tell me about yourself, (Y/n). What it was like growing up? You're American, correct?"

"Yeah, I was born in Oregon State. My childhood was pretty good. We got to grow up in the outdoors and stuff which is cool," you shift your legs under yourself," I guess the only downside was the split household. My parents divorced when I was little and, afterwards, my dad moved to Florida which meant my sister and I would have to go stay over there for a few months a year. That was rough for us as kids, I'm sure you could imagine, but we always managed."

"When did you move to England?"

"Well, I actually use to live here during my last two years of high school. My great aunt use to live in London and had been on her own ever since her husband died so my parents agreed that it would be good to send me up here to give her some company. It was scary at first, but I wouldn't change that time for the world," you steal a glance towards Sherlock who isn't paying any mind to either of you as he continues to type away," I fell in love with the country pretty quickly so it had always been apart of my plan to move back once I finished college in America. Given, my mom was pretty upset- I think she still is actually-, but it isn't as if I don't visit and besides, she still has my sisters."

"So you have a sisters then? I've got one of my own. 'don't think I could handle several of her," John chuckles, an action you repeat with a slight shake of your head.

"Oh, we used to drive each other crazy as kids, but we get along a lot better now. They're both younger than me and still live in Oregon since neither have been much for traveling far from home. The youngest, Milly, works as a vet and the oldest, Ellie, works as a teacher like our dad- Oh, Sherlock," you turn your head to him fully," Milly gave birth to a baby girl a few months ago and Ellie has three sons. Isn't that nice? And Ellie was the one always saying she wouldn't have kids."

He doesn't say anything nor show any interest, leaving John to clear his throat while giving the man a glare and a disproving shake of his head before turning to you with a smile and another question to ask," do you have any children of your own?"

That question seems to finally snap Sherlock out of it, it now being his turn to send a dark glare John's way. At first, John doesn't realize what made the detective react that way to such an innocent question when he's brushed everything else off, however, once glancing back at you, he notices the visible difference in your once perky mood.

You stare at your hands, a distant look in your eyes. Feeling the burning gazes of both males glued to you, you answer as clearly as you can, although, there's still a shake to your voice," oh, no...I mean, I've always wanted-...but um...no, I-I'm not really one to date and such. It's honestly probably best for me to stay single..."

"Here!" Sherlock announces suddenly, breaking the conversation by causing the two of you to jump. Standing from the desk sharply, he writes down a messy list on the back of a random piece of mail before extending it to John," I need you to go speak to Rick Morison at Pakenham House, Wellington Row, Bethnal Green, E2. I'll give him a call to inform him of your visit and its purpose."

"Why can't you do it?" The blond demands with irritation, completely forgetting about how sensitive the conversation had just gotten seconds before.

"If you've already let it slip your mind, I have to stay and protect (Y/n). Now go! We have not a second to waste!"

John grumbles, excusing himself before grabbing his coat and exiting the flat while cursing to himself the entire way out. As his flat mate leaves, Sherlock glances over his shoulder at you. By that time, you're already standing from your seat, quietly escaping into the kitchen to grab a glass of water and gulp it down all with your back turned to him as he watches wordlessly.

He desperately wants to say something, but what? Maybe he shouldn't have shooed John away so quickly. Chances are, the doctor would've been far more successful at cheering you up compared to Sherlock who would likely manage to make you feel worse simply by opening his mouth in relation to the given topic.

He thinks your wrong, but for once, he can't bring himself to point it out. You've always been independent, yes, but as he's learned from observing you throughout the years, you still like the idea of having someone by your side to love, in fact, when the two of you were younger, you'd tell him about your desire to one day be married and have a child, maybe even two. You even planned it out in detail which Sherlock's taken the liberty of remembering:

After finding the love of your life, you wanted to be married at that beautiful white church a few blocks down from Sherlock's childhood home, one that had unfortunately been abandoned three years ago (he wonders if you know). You'd walk down the aisle with a bouquet of lilies while wearing an exact replica of the wedding gown you've kept a picture of in your address book since you were 14. You'd glow with happiness no doubt, knowing that you'd never have to be alone again because such a thought of loneliness has always pricked your heart...and yet here you are, fully accepting it all these years later.

"He's nice," Sherlock blinks out of his Mind Palace, seeing that you are now standing in front of him with a soft smile, the glass of water held between in your hands," how long has he been your flat mate?"

"A little more than a year."

"You've managed to keep a roommate for a year?"

"You stuck around for longer."

You nod, pressing your lips together," because you've always understood me in a way no one else can. Maybe it's just your deduction ability, but either way, sometimes it's nice having someone who can read you like an open book."

Sherlock smirked a bit at the comment," I wouldn't necessarily say that."

"Why not?"

"There's plenty of things I can't read with you, Ms. (L/n). You're, shall I say, unpredictable, at times. Especially with your emotions."

"I must be like a mirror then?" You query with a soft chuckle," Mycroft always said you were emotional."

"And you believe his word?"

You stare at Sherlock for a moment, your eyes meeting his while seemly searching for something within them. Finally, you dip your head a bit, nodding," I believe that the most emotional people are those who keep everything behind a mask. The thing is, a mask doesn't cover one's eyes which allows them to give hints of your true feelings."

Sherlock wants to say he's never missed this side of you, but of course, that's a lie. The truth it, you can see through him better than you even give yourself credit for, always having a way of getting to him unlike anyone else can which was something his dear brother had always made a point of bringing up all those years ago.

"Oh, Sherlock, you let her wrap you around her finger. You may not want to admit it, but face it, you've let yourself fall into her trap: you've let her become your weakness."

"Perhaps that's true," Sherlock plops himself down in his chair, crossing his legs while you sit opposite to him in John's.

"Do you still talk to Mycroft?" You ask as if reading his mind. Sometimes he worries you actually can.

"Couldn't escape him if I tried."

For once, the two of you are able to talk without that unpleasant awkwardness getting in the way. The conversation hangs on the topic of work for some time, Sherlock insisting that you should quit since you're 'wasting your degree and intelligence' there and yet he pouts when you suggest putting your degree to use at the Scotland Yard instead. No, he refuses to risk your braincells be melted away by Anderson or Gavin. After agreeing that you'll look for a 'more suitable' job, you allow him to start doing most of the talking, listening to his every word with a smile as he fills you in on the difference cases he has done over the years, even informing you that John has a blog where he keeps track of their adventures if you ever want more details.

At one point, Mrs. Hudson comes upstairs, however, she stops herself at the doorway, smiling sweetly at the sight of the two of you getting along before descending back downstairs again to let you be. Even she's come to quickly notice the unusual way Sherlock acts around you. As you had pointed out earlier, he may not show it on the outside, but his eyes give it away. With pupils that dilate whenever setting on your form and soften far more than they do whenever he looks at anyone else, no one can deny that you truly do have the man wrapped around your finger even if you don't realize it.

NEXT CHAPTER➡️

#Sherlock x reader #sherlock holmes #x reader #bbc sherlock #sherlock fanfic #sherlock holmes x you #sherlock x y/n #sherlock bbc #sherlock holmes x reader #benedict cumberbatch

[lokis-army-77]

If You Please

Chapter eleven

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 3560

This is technically a reader insert but without the (y/n) and all that. She also has no name mentioned so feel free to imagine as you please.

Follow the reader through the events of the Captain America movies and experience her love for Bucky Barnes.

Warnings: none

Note: Honestly, this chapter reads a little weird to me but my friend who helps me edit said it was fine. IDK going from the 40s to 2012 is weird when trying to write.

<< Previous Next>>

Masterlist

Seven months had gone by since Steve and I had been unfrozen. This new world I suddenly woke up in was exhausting. Everything had changed from the simplest thing like manners to complicated things like technology.

Days after waking up, we had been sent to a place called “The Retreat” so we could catch up on the seventy years we had missed out on. There was so much that we took to writing everything down in small notebooks, so we could remember.

I caught onto using the new technology quicker than Steve since I had worked with Howard Stark for several years. Being able to adapt to strange and new tech on the fly was a requirement when working with him.

After those few weeks there, we were both moved into two separate government apartments located in New York. I wish I could say that it got easier with time, but it didn’t. Instead of going to hang out with Steve or actually trying to make acquaintances with anyone, I just stayed in my room, locked away from everything. Coping with being in the future was the easy part, learning to live without everyone I ever knew was hard.

I hadn't known peaceful sleep in a long time. Every time I closed my eyes I am met with nightmares. The softness of the mattress had made it feel like I would fall through at any moment, back into the ice. To try and combat this I pushed my bed into the far corner of the room and made a cot directly under the frame. It felt safer to lay on the hard floor in the dark. The nightmares still came through, sometimes they were battles, sometimes they were of the plane crashing, but most of the time they were about losing Bucky. Every time I woke up in a cold sweat and never went back to bed. I just stared unblinking at the metal that made the bed frame.

One night after a particularly taxing dream I decided to take a walk. It was three in the morning, so I wouldn't have to deal with a lot of people. I changed out of my pajamas into some of the clothes I had been provided. The clothes of the future were tighter than in the forties. It had taken me a while to get used to the feeling of fabric clinging to my legs and upper body. The outside world was quiet except for the occasional car passing by. I kept my eyes to the ground, not really caring where I ended up. I only looked up when I was almost run over by another late-night walker. Peering from left to right, my eyes fixed on an old faded sign hanging above me. The letters were just barely readable and said in large letters ‘Boxing gym’. With another survey of the area, I realized where I was. This was the gym that Bucky used to take Steve when teaching him self-defense. I had tagged along a couple of times before I had joined the SSR, I was surprised it was still here. I smiled weakly and turned to the door. The light inside was on, it couldn’t hurt to see if they were open. The door creaked open and I slipped in quietly. The sound of someone working out came down the long brick hallway. Hesitantly I made my way to the open doors that led to the sparring room.

Stopping just past the threshold, to my surprise, I spotted Steve, who was busy punching the life out of a punching bag. I walked through the small office and around the boxing rings before I stopped again and leaned against one of the columns a few feet away from where Steve stood. I watched him for a while before he landed a hard punch on the bag and it flew off into the distance. I started clapping slowly and he turned around in shock.

“Good job, you broke the bag, but you do know you’re gonna have to pay for that right?”

“Hey kid, I haven’t seen you in a while. I came by your apartment but you didn’t answer.”

“I know Stevie, I just haven't felt up to company since we got back to New York. I hope you can forgive me.” He looked at me with sad eyes and took three long steps in my direction. His arms came out to engulf me in a hug.

“It’s okay, I understand. Promise you’ll tell me if something's wrong, okay?” I nodded into his chest and he squeezed me tighter.

“I couldn't sleep, I guess you couldn't either.”

“No, too many thoughts.” He let go of me and went to get two more punching bags. He hung them up a few feet away from one another before turning to me and asking if I wanted to join. Pretty soon we were both laughing together if it felt almost like we were back home before everything happened. That was until the same dark-skinned man from that day seven months ago showed up. I later learned he was Nick Fury, director of SHIELD.

“I’m glad to find you both here.” He stated.

“Are you here with a mission, Sir?” Steve asked.

“I am.”

“Is this to try and get us back out in the world?” I asked.

“No, I'm trying to save it.” he thrust out an open manila folder. I grabbed it slowly and brought it to where Steve and I could both look at it. The blue cube that had evaporated Johann Schmidt was in the photograph pinned to the first page. In large bold letters beside the pictures spelled out TESSERACT. We slowly walked to a nearby bench and sat down.

“That's HYDRA’s secret weapon. I thought it fell into the ocean that day,” I whispered.

“Howard fished it out of the water when they went looking for you both. He thought what we think, that this cube could be an unlimited sustainable energy source.” Fury informed us.

“Who took it from you?” Steve questioned.

“He’s called Loki, he’s not from around here. We have a lot we're gonna need to catch you both up on if you agree to help. This world has gotten stranger than you already know.”

“I doubt anything could surprise us anymore, right Stevie?”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“Ten bucks says you’re both wrong.” Fury bet. We both got up from our seats and handed the file back. Steve went and grabbed another bag from the floor and I just headed straight for the door.

“There are debriefing packets at your apartments, read through them and get back to me by tomorrow afternoon. And before you leave, is there anything we should know about the tesseract?”

“You should have left it in the ocean.” Steve and I said at once before walking out of the gym. Once we were outside on the sidewalk we hugged and said our goodbyes for the moment and then went our separate ways.

The walk home felt longer than the walk to the gym, but this gave me time to think about what I wanted to do. Whether I wanted to go on this mission, or if I just wanted to lay low and live my life. By the time I walked through my front door I had almost made my decision, but I was waiting to read the file before I decided for good. With a quick look through the minimal information provided I sighed and threw the papers down onto my kitchen counter. Shaking my head I murmured to myself.

“No, I am not doing this. This cube is not worth it.” Rubbing my eyes I went back to my room and crawled under the bed, not caring that I was still in jeans and a t-shirt. I was not going to walk blindly into anything dealing with that cube again. I lost my fiance and everyone I have ever known because of that stupid blue thing, I'm not going to go anywhere near it again. I laid there quietly for a while before I eventually drifted off into a restless sleep.

The next morning I woke up with a start, almost hitting my head on the bed above me. Furious honking made its way from the street into my room. One thing I definitely missed from the past was how quiet it once was at seven a.m.

Along with the decision to not join the mission, I had also made up my mind about leaving New York. This had been a long decision in the making and the talk with Fury last night was enough to make the choice for me. I couldn't live in this city anymore. The places I used to hang out at were still here, but they had been renovated so many times that they were unrecognizable. Everywhere I turned It was like I was walking through a strange alternate reality. I saw glimpses of the past, like ghosts around every corner, it was worse when it was a place Bucky and I frequented.

When I had gotten back from the Retreat I made the mistake of going to mine and Steve’s old apartment. It had been torn down to construct a bookstore, along with several other retail shops. I broke down in the street when I saw it, waves upon waves of emotions crashed into me. All the memories I had there with Steve, mom, and Bucky had no place to live now other than in my mind. The next mistake I made was to go down the next few blocks to Bucky’s apartment he shared with his mom and sister, Rebecca. It was no longer there either, a bakery stood in its place. I turned and left before the onslaught of tears came. After that day I thought it would be best to go somewhere else, somewhere I had no memories.

I crawled out from under the bed and slowly moved to the bathroom to start getting ready for the long day to come. Once I had showered and gotten dressed I sat myself down on the living room sofa, looking wearily at the telephone on the end table. Hesitantly I picked up the receiver and dialed the number that had been in the tesseract briefing file. It rang twice before Nick Fury answered.

“Mr. Fury, I’m calling to tell you that I won’t be joining your team for whatever mission you have going on. I just want to lay low and rebuild my life and live it quietly without interruption.” I let out a long breath.

“Well, that’s unfortunate. Was really hoping to have you fight with us. If you change your mind, you know where to contact me. Goodbye Agent Rogers.” He hung up quickly after that, not giving me a chance to tell him goodbye as well. The next call was going to be the hard one, I had to tell Steve my plans. I dialed his number slowly as I raised the receiver to my ear. It didn’t even have time to get through the first ring before Steve picked up.

“Hello?” He asked on the other end.

“Hey, it’s me.”

“What’s up kid. Have you called Fury about joining the mission? I called about an hour ago letting them know I’d help.” He sounded a little enthusiastic.

“That’s actually what I’m calling about. I’m not sure how you’ll feel about this but I’m not going to help with the mission.”

“Oh,” he sounded surprised. “Why not? I thought you’d want to help get rid of that thing once and for all.”

“It’s not that, I want nothing more than for the tesseract to be gone for good. I just don’t think I can be a part of it, I don’t want this thing to take over my life if we can’t get rid of it. This brings me to another important thing I need to tell you. I can’t stay here in New York, so I’m moving to DC.” He was quiet for a while after I had said that, the only thing I could hear coming from his side was his breath. I grew more anxious by the minute waiting for him to say something.

“What do you mean you’re moving? Why can’t you stay here with me?”

“Don’t be selfish.” I snapped.

“I’m not being selfish, you are.” he raised his voice. I huffed through my nose, getting annoyed.

“I can’t stay here any longer. I have no idea what it is like for you, but for me, being in this city is torture. I see ghosts from the past every time I leave my house. I can’t go anywhere without seeing him, and every time I see him, I break down. I never got to say goodbye and that day plays over and over in my head. Steve, I’m being tormented with nightmares to the point where I have barely gotten five hours of sleep in the past week. I need to get out of here whether you like it or not.” Tears had started to stream down my face as I yelled into the phone.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I could have helped you, I still can help you if you let me. If you leave I can’t keep you safe, I can’t protect you like I’m supposed to.” He was using his soft “grown-up” voice he always used with me when I was younger to try and calm me down but the tears kept streaming down my cheeks at a rapid pace.

“I can protect myself, we did take the same serum,” I choked out. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to bother you with my problems, I can deal with them myself. Plus you have your own things to deal with, you don’t need to help me with mine.” My head was starting to hurt now and my cheeks and neck itched with quickly drying tears.

“Fine. The only way I will be okay with you leaving is if you promise to call me at least twice a week and you let me help you move.” I gave a strained laugh and nodded, even if he couldn't see it.

“Okay, it’s a deal. I actually already have an apartment lined up, so you can come over and help me pack everything up whenever you want to. I’m going to try and be out of New York by the end of next week.”

“I’ll be right over.” I laughed as I told him that I’d be waiting. I laid the receiver back down in its spot and stood up to go to the bathroom. I stared at myself in the mirror, thinking. I was glad my relationship with Steve could handle an argument, understand one another, then go right back to normal, I don’t think we would be this close if it couldn't. I blinked back a few stubborn tears and bent down to grab a rag from the sink cabinet, I dampened it in warm water then wiped the dried tears from my face. The warm water felt wonderful on my skin.

Over the next week and a half, Steve and I boxed up what few belongings I had and packed them and the furniture into a moving truck. I didn’t own a car so the moving truck would be my transportation to DC. One of the many things SHIELD had us do was take a modern driving test, which wasn’t hard, just a few more signs to remember and more gadgets in the car than there used to be, I ended up passing with flying colors.

By Friday morning we had everything ready to go. Steve would follow me on his motorcycle and I would drive the truck the whole three and a half hours to my new apartment.

We stopped several times on the way down, mainly so Steve didn’t have to sit on the bike for the whole three hours straight. We also stopped for lunch. All in all the trip took us about five hours, with traffic added. We made it to my new home just after two and we started moving my belongings in immediately.

Admittedly the apartment was way too big for just me but I liked the extra space, it was different from the tiny two-bedroom apartment I had grown up in. The first thing I made sure to unpack and put up was the bed. I still hadn't told Steve I wasn’t actually sleeping in the bed, but he didn’t need to know that. After that clothes were sorted through and put in their respective places. With our enhanced strength and stamina, we had the whole place relatively furnished in just under two hours. We stopped for dinner when everything had been brought up from the moving truck.

The day went by fast with us talking and laughing like we used to, it was a good change of pace from my usual aimlessly roaming around my apartment alone. But, all good things have to come to an end and Steve had to leave. He pulled me into a tight hug, almost crushing me, and wouldn’t let go until I pinky promised to call him several times a week. I just laughed and promised him I would. I was sad watching him walk down the hallway to the stairs.

I turned back into my apartment and closed the door, locking it behind me. I stared at the box littering the floor and decided to get to work unpacking the rest of what we hadn’t gotten earlier.

Most of my belongings I found in thrift stores and antique shops around the city. It may have been the twenty-first century now, but that wasn’t stopping me from making my home a comfortable, familiar space. If you walked in from the outside world, you would have thought you had been transported to the past with how much authentic 1940s and before things I had littered about. Some things had been saved from the apartment we lived in in the forties. I learned a few weeks before we came back from the retreat that Peggy had been the one to put everything in storage after they had failed to find Steve and me in the ice. I had gone through all of it and took out what I wanted to take with me and Steve had done the same. I was thankful Peggy had done what she did, otherwise, everything would have been lost to time.

That night as I tried to sleep, I realized it was a little easier to relax. DC was a whole lot quieter than New York, there was no honking or yelling every two seconds to keep me awake. I was left alone in almost complete silence, which for others may be worse than being bombarded with noise, but I didn’t mind. I fell asleep almost an hour after laying down for the night and had a restless sleep. I woke up many times in the night covered in sweat, but I couldn't remember the dreams, anything I could remember dissipated as soon as I opened my eyes.

I woke up again very early the next morning, the clock on my wall said it was four forty-five. It was still dark out, but I could hear birds starting to chirp. I crawled out from under the bed frame and went to put on some exercise clothes. Running always helped to clear my mind after not being able to get any sort of rest. The run itself didn’t take long, even though it was seven miles, any normal person would be exhausted but I had barely broken a sweat. I did get to see some nice places, taking a route around the zoo, to the National Cathedral, and then back around to the Dupont Circle neighborhood, where my apartment was. The sun was just starting to come up as I made my way back into my building.

Although I had just moved in the day before, I was ready to start finding some sort of job. The money SHIELD was giving me to help assimilate back into the world comfortably was appreciated, but I wanted to make my own way in life without their help. Finding a job was going to be harder than it used to be, but I did have expertise in several areas. Upon being unfrozen, along with the driving tests, SHIELD created a new resume for me. I had degrees in history pertaining to the 1940s, World War II, and several of the New Deal programs, with a specialty in the SSR. I was also given a Veteran ID, although I don’t really know how that one works because I definitely was not a part of the apparent ongoing fighting in Afghanistan. I still looked twenty-four, I doubt anyone would believe it.

Anyway, I had interviews lined up for today at the Smithsonian, and hopefully, the resume that SHIELD created and my knowledge would be enough to land a job. I had already figured that I would be volunteering at the local VFW. I knew I could find people there to relate to and hopefully be able to make some friends.

Tag List: @ginger-swag-rapunzel @underc0vercryptid-reads @geek-and-proud @intothesoul @leyannrae @starkleila

#james buchanan barnes #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky x female reader #bucky fic #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x rogers!reader #winter solider x reader #marvel fic #marvel fanfiction

[route22ny]

What My Korean Father Taught Me About Defending Myself in America

Born in 1939 during what would be the last years of the Japanese colonial occupation of Korea, my father, Choung Tai Chee, also called Charles or Chuck or Charlie, came to the United States in 1960. He was flashy, cocky, unafraid, it seemed, of anything. Wherever we were in the world, he seemed at home, right up until near the end of his life, when he was hospitalized after a car accident that left him in a coma. Only in that hospital bed, his head shaved for surgery, did he look out of place to me.

A tae kwon do champion by the age of 18 in Korea, he had begun studying martial arts at age 8, eventually teaching them as a way to put himself through graduate school, first in engineering and then oceanography, in Texas, California, and Rhode Island. He loved the teaching. The rising popularity of martial arts in the 1960s in Hollywood meant he made celebrity friends like Frank Sinatra Jr., Paul Lynde, Sal Mineo, and Peter Fonda, who my father said had fixed him up on a date with his sister, Jane, in the days before Barbarella. A favorite photo from his time in Texas shows him flying through the air, a human horseshoe, each of his bare feet breaking a board held shoulder high on each side by his students.

When I complained about my wet boots during the winters growing up in Maine, he told me stories about running barefoot in the snow in Korea to harden his feet for tae kwon do. His answer to many of my childhood complaints was usually that I had to be tougher, stronger, prepared for any attack or disaster. The lesson his generation took from those they lost to the Korean War was that death was always close, and I know now that he was doing all he could to teach me to protect myself. When I cried at the beach at the water’s edge, afraid of the waves, he threw me in. “No son of mine is going to be afraid of the ocean,” he said. When I first started swimming lessons, he told me I had to be a strong swimmer, in case the boat I was on went down, so I could swim to shore. When he taught me to body-surf, he taught me about how to know the approach of an undertow, and how to survive a riptide. When I lacked a competitive streak, he took to racing me at something I loved—swimming underwater while holding my breath. I was an asthmatic child, but soon, intent on beating him, I could swim 50 yards this way at a time.

For all of that, he was an exceedingly gentle father. He took me snorkeling on his back, when I was five, telling me we were playing at being dolphins. There he taught me the names of the fish along the reef where we lived in Guam. He would praise the highlights in my hair, and laugh, calling me “Apollo.” And as for any pressure regarding my future career, he offered something very rare for a Korean man of his generation. “Be whatever you want to be,” he told me. “Just be the best at it that you can possibly be.”

Only when I was older did I understand the warning about being strong enough to swim to shore in another context, when I learned the boat he and his family had fled in from what was about to become North Korea nearly sank in a storm. In Seoul as a child, he scavenged food for his family with his older brother, coming home with bags of rice found on overturned military supply trucks, while his father went to the farms, collecting gleanings. His attempts to teach me to strip a chicken clean of its meat make a different sense now. I had thought of him as an immigrant without thinking about how the Korean War made him one of the dispossessed, almost a refugee, all before he left Korea.

When I began getting into fights as a child in the U.S., he put me into classes in karate and tae kwon do for these same reasons. He loved me and he wanted me to be strong. I just wasn’t sure how I was supposed to take on a whole country.

We moved to Maine in 1973, when I was six years old. My father had taken us back to Korea after I was born, to work for his father, and then moved us around the Pacific—from Seoul to the islands of Truk, Kawaii, and Guam, in his and my mother’s attempts to set up a fisheries company. Maine was his next experiment, and not coincidentally, my mother’s home state. On my first day of the first grade, in the cafeteria, after a morning spent in what seemed like reasonably friendly classes, my troubles began when I went up to take an empty seat at a table and the blond haired, blue-eyed white boy seated there looked up with some alarm and asked me, “Are you a chink?”

“What’s a chink?” I asked, though I knew it wasn’t a compliment. I had never heard this word before.

“A Chinese person. You look like a chink. Is that why your face is so flat?”

This was also the first day I can remember being insulted about my appearance.

“I am not Chinese,” I said that day, naively. In a few years I would learn I was in fact part Chinese, 41 generations back, but at that moment, I tried to explain to him about how I was half Korean, a nationality and situation he had never heard of before. Half of what? And so this was also the first day I had to explain myself to someone who didn’t care, who had already decided against me.

He was a white boy from America, and he was repeating insults that seem to me to have come from a secret book passed out to white children everywhere in this country, telling them to call someone Asian “Chink,” to walk up to them, muttering “Ching-chong, ching-chong.” To sing a song, “My mother’s Chinese, my father’s Japanese, I’m all mixed up,” pulling their eyes first down and then up and then alternating up and down.

I was struck, watching Minari a few months ago, when the film’s Korean immigrant protagonist, David, is asked by a white boy in Arkansas in the 1980s why his face is so flat. “It’s not,” David says, forcefully—so many of us have this memory of someone saying this to us and responding that way. Why did a boy in Arkansas and a boy in Maine, in their small towns thousands of miles apart, before the internet, each know to make this insult?

When I got home from that first day at school, I asked my mother what the word “Chink” meant, and she flinched and covered her mouth in concern.

“Who said that to you?” she asked, and I told her. I don’t remember the conversation that followed, just the swift look of concern on her face. The sense that something had found us.

I was the only Asian-American student at my school in 1973, and the first many of my classmates had ever met. When my brother joined me at school three years later, he was the second. When my sister arrived, four years after him, she was the third. My mother is white, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed American, born in Maine to a settler family. I have six ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War, but none of them had to fight this. I don’t know how to separate the teasing, harassment, and bullying that marked my 12 years of life there from that first racist welcome. It makes me question whether I really had a “temper” as a child, as I was told, or whether I was merely isolated by racism among racists, afraid and angry?

My father dealt with racism throughout most of his life by acting as if it had never happened—as if admitting it made it more powerful. He knew bullies loved to see their victims react and would tell me to not let what they said upset me. “Why do you care what they think of you?” he would say, and laugh as he clapped me on the shoulder. “They’re all going to work for you someday.”

“Don’t get even, get ahead,” was another of his slogans for me at these times. As if America was a race we were going to win.

Two decades after his death, writing in my diary while on a subway in New York City, I began counting off all of my activities as a child—choir, concert band, swimming, karate and tae kwon do, clarinet, indoor track, downhill and cross country skiing—and I asked myself if my parents were trying to raise Batman. Then I looked down to the insignia on my Batman t-shirt, and I laughed.

These lessons my father gave me—to be the best you can be, to fight off your enemies and defeat them, to swim to safety if the boat sinks, and in general toughen yourself against everything that would harm you—these I had absorbed alongside certain unspoken lessons, taken from observing his life as a Korean immigrant. To have two names, one American, known to the public, and one Korean, known only to a few intimates; to get rid of your accent; and to dress well as a way to keep yourself above suspicion. Did I need to train like a superhero just to be a person in America? Maybe.

But if I thought of superheroes, it was because my father was like one to me, training me to be like him.

One legend I heard about my father when I was growing up is the story of a night he was being held up at gunpoint, while he was unpacking his car. Whoever it was asked him to shut the trunk and turn around and raise his hands in the air. He agreed to, slamming the car trunk down so forcefully, he sank his fingertips into the metal.

By the time he turned around, the would-be stick-up artist was gone.

He would often ask me and my brother to punch him, as hard as we could, in his stomach. He was proud of his abdominal strength—it was like punching a wall. We would shake our hands, howling, and he would laugh and rub our heads. One time he even used it as a gag to stop a bully.

A boy on my street had developed the habit of changing the rules during our games if his team started losing. We had fights over it that could be heard up and down the street, and one day I chased him with a Wiffle bat, him laughing as I ran. My father stepped in the next time he tried to change the rules during a game and prevented it, telling him all games in his yard had to have the same rules at the beginning as the end—you couldn’t change them when you were losing. When the boy got mad, he said, “I bet you want to hit me, you should hit me. You’ll feel better. Hit me right here, in the stomach, as hard as you can.”

The boy hauled off and punched my dad in the stomach. I knew what was coming. The boy went home crying, shaking his hand at the pain. His mom came over and they had a talk. The rule-changing stopped.

I tried teasing my classmates back after being told to by my father. Stand-up as self-defense requires practice, though: During a “Where are you from?” exercise in the second grade, I told my classmates and teacher I had “Made in Korea” stamped on my ass, which elicited shocked laughter and a punishment from my teacher. I remember the glee when I called a classmate an ignoramus, and he didn’t know what it meant—and got angrier and angrier when I wouldn’t tell him, demanding that I explain the insult. When told to go back to where I came from, I said, “You first.”

Increasingly, I just hid, in the library, in books. When given detention, I exulted in the chance to be alone and read. I was an advanced student compared to my classmates, due in part to my mother being a schoolteacher, and I learned to make my intelligence a weapon.

The day several boys held me down on my street and ran their bicycles over my legs, to see if I could take it, as if maybe I wasn’t human, that felt like some new horrible level. I don’t remember how that ended or if I ever told anyone, just the feeling of the bicycle tires rolling over the skin of my legs. The day I bragged about my father being a martial artist to my classmates, they locked me in the bathroom and told me to fight my way out with kung fu, calling me “Hong Kong Phooey,” after the cartoon character, as they held the door shut. This was the fourth grade. After I got out of that bathroom and went home, I told my father about it, and he told me it was time to take tae kwon do. I had to learn to defend myself.

I would never be like him, never break boards like him, but for a while, I tried. I still cherish the day he gave me my first gi and showed me how to tie it. I learned I had a natural flexibility, which meant I could easily kick high, and I took pride in my roundhouse and reverse roundhouse kicks. But after a few years, my father took issue with a story he’d heard about my teacher’s arrogance toward his opponents, and he pulled me out of the classes. “It is very dangerous to teach in that spirit,” he told me. And he said something I would never forget. “The best fighter in tae kwon do never fights,” he said. “He always finds another way.”

I have thought about this for a long time. For the ordinary practitioner, tae kwon do and karate prepare you to go about your life, aware of what to do in case of assault. They offer no guarantee, just chances for preparedness in the face of the violence of others as well as the violence within yourself. At the time I felt my father was describing the responsibility that comes with knowing how to hurt someone, but I came to understand it as a principled if conditional non-violence, which, in this year of quarantine and rising racist violence, is one of the clearest legacies he left to me.

Like many of us, I have been trying to write about these most recent attacks on Asian-Americans, some of them in my old neighborhood in New York, and I keep starting and stopping. How do we protect ourselves and those we love? Can writing do that? I know I learned to use my intelligence as a weapon to keep myself safe from racists, starting as a child, and suddenly it doesn’t feel like enough. The violence is like a puzzle with many moving parts, but the stakes are life and death. “You’re really going to homework your way through this one?” I keep asking myself. The people attacking Asians and Asian Americans now are like the boy I met on my first day in the first grade. They don’t care whether or not we are actually Chinese—the primary experience Asian Americans have in common is mis-identification. The person who gets a patriotic ego boost off of calling me a “chink” isn’t going to check if they’re right about me, and I don’t imagine they’ll stop their fist or their gun if I say, “You’re just doing this because of America’s history of war in Asia,” even though we both know this is true. And so I have been thinking of my father and what he taught me.

The most overt way my father fought racism in front of me involved no fighting at all. He founded a group called the Korean American Friendship Association of Maine, which helped new Korean immigrants move to Maine and find work, community, and housing, along with offering lessons on how to open bank accounts, pay taxes, file immigration paperwork, and get drivers’ licenses. For both of my parents, community organizing, activism, and mutual aid like this were commitments they shared and enjoyed and passed along to us, their children, and this led to much of my own work as an activist, teacher, and writer. I am not my father, but I am much as he made me.

There’s a difference between fighting racists and fighting racism. Where my father stayed silent, I have learned I have to speak out, which has felt, even while writing this, a little like betraying him. And as a biracial gay Korean American man, I don’t experience the same identifications or misidentifications he did. I am mistaken for white, or at least “not Asian,” as often as I’m mistaken for Chinese, and have felt like a secret agent as people speak in front of me about Asians in ways they would not otherwise. I learned most of my adult coping strategies for street violence from queer activist organizations after college.

Even as I write, “I wonder if he ever felt fear living in America,” it feels like a betrayal, especially as he isn’t around for me to ask him. I think again about how my father always made a point of dressing well, for example, but it always felt like more than that. Men wearing suits as a kind of armor, that isn’t so strange. He had his suits made at J. Press, wore handmade English leather shoes—shoes that fit me. I sometimes wear them for special occasions. Among my favorite objects of his is a monogrammed J. Press canvas briefcase, the name “CHEE” in embossed leather between the straps. After his father gave him an Omega Constellation watch when I was born, he eventually acquired others. For a time I thought he did this aspirationally, but most of his family in Korea is like this: Well-dressed, with a preference for tailoring and handmade clothes. All of my memories of my uncles coming from the airport to visit us involve them arriving in their blazers.

The first time I followed my father’s advice to wear a sports jacket when flying, I received a spontaneous upgrade. I didn’t have frequent flyer miles and the person checking me in was not flirting with me either. There was nothing but the moment of grace, and the feeling that my father, from beyond the grave, was making a point as I sat down in my new, larger, more spacious seat. Because I had never tried out this advice while he was alive.

Like much of my father’s advice, it came from his keen awareness of social contexts, and it worked. His wardrobe came from the pleasure of a dare more than a disguise. You don’t acquire a black and gold silk brocade smoking jacket in suburban Maine because you want to fit in with your white neighbors. Sometimes his clothes were a charm offensive, sometimes just a sass. The jacket advice may well have been an anticipation of racist treatment, of a piece with perfecting his English so he had no accent, and raising us to speak only English. My mother spoke more Korean to us as children than he did—a remnant of her time living in Seoul.

Now that I am old enough to choose to learn Korean, I still feel like a child disobeying him, just as I do when I dress too casually, or acknowledge that I’ve experienced racism. I know I am just making different choices, as you do when you are grown, but also, I am stepping out from behind his program to protect myself. I feel the fears he never spoke about, and instead simply addressed with what now look like tactics. At these moments I miss him as much as I ever do, but especially for how I would tell him, this may have protected you. It won’t protect me.

In my kitchen the other day, as I was making coffee, I fell into the ready stance, with my right foot back, left foot forward, and snapped my right leg up and out in a front snap kick. This is the basic first kick you learn in tae kwon do. And you do it again, and again, and again, until it is muscle memory. You move across the room this way and then turn to begin again.

I wasn’t sure if my form was exactly right, but it felt good. Memories came back of the sweaty smell of the practice room, the other students, the mirrors on the walls, the fluorescent lights. All those years ago, I had thought my father had put me in those classes in order to become him, but as I sent my practice kicks through the air, I remembered how even learning them made me feel safer, protected at least by the knowledge that he loved me. I could not have said this at the time, but after those attacks, I had feared I wasn’t strong enough to be his son.

I still fear that. I suppose it drives me, even now. It is dehumanizing to insist on your humanity, even and perhaps especially now, and so I am not doing that here. Each time I’ve tried to write even this, a rage takes over, and then the only thing I want to do with my hands doesn’t involve writing, and I stop. But I know from learning to fight that hitting someone else means using yourself to do it. My father’s advice, about fighting being the last resort, has given me another lesson: You turn yourself into the weapon when you strike someone else—in the end, another way to erase yourself—and so you do that last. In the meantime, you fight that first fight with yourself, for yourself.

You may never be able to protect what you love, but at least you can try. At least you will be ready.

Alexander Chee is most recently the author of the essay collection How to Write an Autobiographical Novel. A novelist and essayist, he teaches at Dartmouth College and lives in Vermont.

#asian-american #anti-asian hate #racism in america #alexander chee #long reads