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amyscascadingtabs · 4 years

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i’ll walk through hell with you

chapter 7. i’m gonna stand by you

read on ao3 here and read other chapter here!

the happy ending.

BONUS: i created fake social media posts for this! they’re here, look at them after or have them open in another window! you’ll get when it’s time - there are two instagram posts and a text conversation with rosa.

and when you decide, it’s your time to arrive

i’ve loved you for all of my life.

~ halsey, more

december.

Once Amy starts trusting that she is pregnant and the obsessive test-taking comes to an end, there’s the question of when to start telling people. There’s also the question of what to tell them.

“It just feels like I’m faking it,” she complains from the couch as she tries to write down ideas in her notebook. “It’s happy news, but it feels wrong to not even mention what we went through before getting here.”

“So tell people about it?” Jake shrugs, handing her the McFlurry she sent him out at ten p.m. to buy. “That's always an option.”

“I know, but how? How do I say hey, please be happy for us, but know that we went through hell to get here, without being overly dramatic or too personal?” She takes a spoon of the soft-serve, chewing on the mini smarties, and tries to stifle a moan when it feels like fireworks of pleasure are exploding in her mouth. “Oh my god, I love you.”

“Me or the ice cream? Never mind, shouldn't ask.”

“It's so good.”

“Can I try some?”

“You should have gotten your own.”

“You would have eaten that too,” he grins, taking his spot at one end of the couch and stretching his legs. “But I'm proud of you. McDonalds is at least an unhealthy craving. Grapes was just lame. You have the chance to eat whatever you want and blame it on pregnancy cravings, and you want grapes.”

She sticks out her tongue. “Screw you. Anyway - thoughts on a pregnancy reveal?”

“We make our own Die Hard-style short film with explosions and animations, the end slate says something like Peraltiago Baby number two, coming in June. Super badass.”

“Nope. We write everyone cards?”

“Lame and time-consuming. We have an announcement at work and one each with our families?”

“Maybe, but I still don’t know what to say.”

“We tell Leah and trust her to spread the news for us?”

“We definitely should tell her first, but counting on her to spread the news means they’re going to get twisted in some way. Remember when we went on vacation and she told all her teachers we were moving to Mexico?” Amy shakes her head. “It’s better if we say it ourselves. I don’t think I’m ready yet, though.”

“Okay,” Jake nods. “Let’s wait, then. Are you sure I can’t have any of that ice cream?”

“Not unless you want your hand chopped off.”

“Wow.”

Amy wishes they could hold off on telling people until she was sure she felt ready, but reality is quick to get in the way. The first-trimester nausea finally gets better around week thirteen, and suddenly the weight gain is a fact. She doesn’t mind it too much - she’s growing a human, all that matters is that they’re healthy - but it does make it increasingly difficult to hide. A size bigger uniform for work is easily solved and conceals the tiny bump rather well, but regular clothes are not as efficient. Her bras don't fit, her regular jeans won’t button, even the most flowy of shirts in her wardrobe seem to cling to the slightly rounded shape her stomach is taking. She’s running out of time.

With two days left until they're leaving to celebrate Christmas with the Santiagos, Amy realizes she has to give up. She's tried every possible outfit, considered whether she can just wear pajamas for the duration of the event, and very reluctantly accepted that it’s a bad idea. She's out of options. Both of her red dresses are too tight, she doesn't have any bras that work with anything sleeveless, and even the tasteful floral wrap dress she was hoping for manages to frame her bump in an obvious way. She tries on several blouses with a generous skirt, but it's still notable to the trained eye and her mom had eight kids. Amy’s screwed.

“This doesn't work,” she groans as she pulls off the blouse, throwing it on the growing no-pile. “I look stupid.”

“You look adorable,” Jake insists from his watching position on the bed. “I’d say go with the wrap dress.”

“It’s nice, but it shows off this.” She points demonstratively to her stomach, watching his eyes turn soft as he follows her hand. “This baby’s not hiding. I think we have to tell people.”

“Do you feel okay with that?”

She considers it for a moment. “I guess? I still don’t know what to say about the infertility stuff, but… I’ll figure that out.”

“It’s not like you have to make an official announcement, right? You could tell people privately, whenever you’re ready - if you want to.”

“That’s true. Maybe... it’s okay if we just enjoy these news?” She shrugs. “We are having another baby. That’s awesome. Seems fair for the world to know.”

Jake meets her tentative smile with a wide, goofy grin. “True that. So, how do we tell everyone? We’re not seeing the squad again until after Christmas.”

“We could take a cute picture with Leah and post it on social media? I know it’s cheesy, and a little impersonal, but it’s efficient and I can’t be bothered to plan an announcement.”

“I could totally work that Die Hard short film out -”

“No Die Hard.”

Jake grimaces. “Fine, fine. Your way, then. So, cute picture of Leah in a big sister-shirt?”

“Yeah, and she could be holding the latest sonogram pictures? And some short, sweet caption with that. We’ll think of something until tomorrow - that, and another thing.”

“What?”

“We have to tell her.”

Amy is, of course, overly prepared. She’s bought the pedagogical children’s books. She’s researched and taken notes on all the recommendations for how to manage the conversation and explain the matter in a way her three-year-old will understand. She’s made sure Leah’s not too tired, too hungry, or too grumpy for any other reason. Still, she’s never felt less prepared for a conversation with her kid, and she’s anxious as they take a break from playing with her toy dinosaurs - who either seem to run a bakery or catch criminals, or if it’s both, Amy can’t tell - to drink some water and subtly reveal the life-changing news.

Jake must pick up on her nervosity, because he’s the one to start the conversation.

“So, bumblebee,” he ruffles his daughter’s hair and laughs as she immediately pats it down again, “We’ve got something to tell you. A surprise, I guess.”

Leah shines up at the word surprise. “What?”

“Do you remember how miss Edwards at your daycare had a baby?” Amy tries to lead her on to the topic. “And her belly grew and got really big, and then she wasn’t at work for a while because she was at home taking care of the baby?”

Leah scrunches her forehead and pouts her lip in focus, but she nods.

“And you know how your cousin Maisie has a little brother, and Sarah and Samuel are getting a baby sibling soon?”

Another nod.

“Okay. Well, baby,” she says slowly, but her heart is beating fast. “You’re also getting a sibling.”

Leah looks around, as if the sibling in question would be hiding in her room somewhere.

“Oh, no, not today,” Amy adds, and the girl frowns.

“When?”

“This summer,” Jake fills in, “when it gets warm outside and you don’t have to wear a jacket anymore.”

“But where’s the baby now?”

“Right now the baby’s in here.” Amy pokes at the tiny bump, and Leah tilts her head as she tries to piece it all together. “It’s small, but it will grow, and then you can talk to it or feel it kick in there, if you want.”

“And when the baby comes out and grow bigger, they’re going to think you’re the coolest person ever and want to play with you all the time,” says Jake, catching Leah in his arms and tickling her neck so she giggles. “You two will have so much fun.”

“Like Anna and Elsa?”

“Well, we don’t know if it’s a sister or brother yet, but yeah. Like Anna and Elsa.”

“Okay!” Leah’s expression turns serious. “But I’m Elsa.”

Amy laughs. “Of course, baby, you can be Elsa.”

Leah accepts this, and insists they keep playing the dinosaur game which remains incomprehensible to everyone but her.

“I think that went pretty well,” Jake mumbles to Amy, and she nods, relieved.

“Dada?” Leah looks up from the dinosaurs.

“Yes, bee?”

“How did the baby get into mama’s tummy?”

Amy has never seen her husband look so uncomfortable before. His face goes from normal to beetroot in a matter of seconds as his eyes go wide, and she’s trying not to explode with laughter as she looks from Jake’s mortified expression to Leah’s curious eyes.

“We’ll read a book about that later,” Amy assures her daughter while Jake mumbles something about a very important call from the Captain as he looks at his blank phone screen and hurries out of the room. “I promise.”

Leah doesn’t seem particularly interested in changing from her Frozen-shirt or taking pictures with the sonogram print-outs she claims looks like a fish, mama, but then Jake promises her ice cream for dessert if she does and it’s a done deal. She tires after thirty seconds and she refuses to hold the pictures in any other way than in front of her face, but they get the shot and it’s good enough. It has to be, because only a minute later, their three-year-old has thrown off the sweatshirt and changed back into her t-shirt.

Amy types up the caption, presses share, and puts her phone in front of them on the kitchen table.

“Now we wait for Charles to call and yell at us for keeping this from him,” she states, and Jake snorts. “I’m betting four minutes.”

“I’m going to go with three.”

It takes one and a half.

It’s a great Christmas.

Sure, everyone is asking the same questions and she explains over and over that she’s feeling okay, better now that she’s in her second trimester, she doesn’t have any intuition as to what they’re having but Jake’s claiming it’s a boy, they’re excited, and they’re pretty sure Leah is, too. She clenches her fists underneath the table when her mom mentions how wonderful it is with a big family, how lovely it is that Amy and Jake finally decided to expand theirs, and she can see Jake do the same as he gets ready to defend her - their - honor, but she shakes her head and changes the topic before he has a chance.

She doesn’t want to be upset today.

There’s no point to being angry with her family all around. Not when Julian high-fives her and tells her good for her she keeps reproducing with those Peralta genes, not when Christian gives them actual useful tips on how to adjust from one to two kids. There’s no point in being upset when her brothers wives all tell her she can borrow maternity wear if she wants, or when Jake makes note of the mistletoe above their heads and kisses her so long and reverent that both Tony and Simon start wolf-whistling. There’s no point to being sad when Leah pulls at the edge of Amy’s dress, asking to go up, up, and Luis takes a picture of Amy and Jake kissing their daughter’s cheeks under the mistletoe.

She’s just happy.

She feels quick little flutters in her stomach throughout the day, a feeling she vaguely recognizes from the first times she felt Leah move inside her. They’re gone before she has the chance to lay a hand there, but she feels them.

Leah insists on sleeping in her parent’s shared bed that night, and even though it’s barely a queen-size and they’re all forced to huddle together with the three-year-old somehow taking up the most space, they give in. Jake and Leah both fall asleep in what seems like seconds, and Amy wants to join them, but her brain refuses. It’s not that she’s feeling anxious - her heart is so full from today, made fuller by her daughter’s face pressing into her shoulder and Jake’s hand reaching across her so he can rest it on the little bump - but there are some things she can’t stop thinking about.

Her mom’s comment about them finally deciding to expand their family, for example. All the congratulatory wishes streaming in after the picture - even Holt messaged them to give his well-wishes - that she can't fully take to heart, because no one sending them knows what she's gone through. She thinks of the shame and disappointment she’s felt throughout this year, of how much it would have hurt her to see a sweet announcement like this from someone else when she’d just had a miscarriage or another negative test. She wants to be honest - not just for her own sake, but also for the sake of a possible acquaintance out there who could be going through the same thing, feeling equally as alone in it as she did.

Amy grabs her phone from the nightstand, smiling at the mistletoe picture she's made her background, and tries out a few captions in the Notes app before settling on one.

She turns off the comments before anyone can react, not feeling like she needs anyone’s thoughts on this, and she's about to put her phone away again when she sees a single text from Rosa.

Proud of you.

Amy smiles.

She's just about to fall asleep when she feels the brief flutters again. This time, they don’t disappear right away, but repeat until she's certain of what they are.

She can't feel them from the outside yet, but she rests her hand below Jake's anyway, letting the reason behind the flutters know she's there.

“Hey there,” she whispers, lightly tapping her fingers against her abdomen. “Merry Christmas to you too, baby.”

The next little movement is right below her fingertips, and this time she can't stop herself from tearing up with joy.

february.

Everyone’s convinced Jake and Amy are having a boy. Jake claims he can feel it, and Amy believes him. She’s a Santiago, and two girls in a row are more or less unheard of in her family. Charles claims he can tell because of the position of her uterus, which grosses everyone out, but a vote is a vote. Rosa’s saying boy, as is Terry, as is Gina, as are all of Amy’s brothers and her parents. Karen Peralta invites them for dinner and talks for at least twenty minutes about how excited she is to have a grandson before Jake dutifully reminds her they don’t know the sex yet, and she waves it away and says she thought it was obvious.

The only person who doesn’t believe they’re having a boy is Leah. From the first time anyone asks, the three-year-old declares with absolute certainty that she’s having a sister, and doesn’t change her mind. Amy’s nervous about how they’ll manage the inevitable disappointment and tries to write down a pedagogical conversation plan in her head as they go for the anatomy scan, but she ends up never having to use it. It turns out Leah’s correct.

“So you’re going to be just like Anna and Elsa,” Jake tells her as he’s putting her to bed that evening. Amy’s secretly listening in on their conversation through the baby monitor - modern technology is the best. “How does that make you feel?”

She can see Leah holding up her hand on the little screen, doing what she thinks must be a thumbs up. Then her tone turns serious again.

“Dada, how did the baby get inside the tummy?”

“Uhm, didn’t you and mama read that book about it?”

“Tell it again,” Leah insists.

“Okay, okay. Cool, cool, cool. This is cool, Jake, you can handle this,” Amy hears her husband mumble to himself.

“What?”

“Nothing, bee, here we go. So, sometimes, when two people who are adults and love each other a lot, they decide they want to try and make a baby. So they take a part - cells, you remember? From both of them, and those, well, stick together? I guess. And sometimes that becomes a little baby that grows inside a mom’s tummy until it’s big and ready to come out.”

It’s pretty much an accurate description. Amy’s proud of him, but Leah doesn’t seem satisfied.

“But how do they take it?”

“You’ll learn about that when you’re older, bumblebee.”

“Like algebra?”

“Who told you about algebra?”

“Grandpa Holt.”

“That tracks. Ehrm, sure. Like… algebra.” Amy can see him grimace from a distance on the screen. “We’ll go with that. Anyway - all you need to know is that everytime it works, it’s a miracle. You were our first miracle.”

“Miracle,” Leah repeats, yawning. “Dada, can you sing now?”

Amy hears Jake take a deep breath of relief before he begins to sing the Tangled soundtrack.

“I’ll give it to you,” she tells him when he slinks into their bedroom ten minutes later, red in the face when she points to the baby monitor and he realizes she's been listening. “That was impressive.”

“You owe me big time,” he groans, slumping down on the mattress next to her, and she chuckles and kisses his forehead.

“Algebra, huh? Could you replace my X without asking Y?”

“If you had used that pick-up line on me, I literally never would have slept with you.”

april.

Leah's feelings about becoming a big sister are fluctuating to say the least. Some days, she'll ask how the baby is doing and press her hands to the ever growing bump, laughing when she's able to feel a kick. Some days she doesn't want to talk about it at all, and they make sure not to force it on her. Some days - and those days are the ones that break Amy's heart - she's angry, shutting Amy out and wanting only Jake to take care of her because she's not sure how to handle the fact that her mom looks different and is tired and can't pick her up like she used to. It's after one of those days Amy has her first breakdown about feeling like she's not enough for two kids, that she was stupid to think she ever could be, and maybe this was a bad idea. She cries under a blanket as Jake puts Leah to bed because Amy wasn't allowed to, and there's a series of soft kicks like her baby’s trying to comfort her, but it only serves to make her more out of breath. Her eyes are all puffy and red when the door to Leah's bedroom opens and the girl peeks out, giving her a cautious look before tiptoeing out to the couch, climbing into her mother's arms and burying her face in her chest.

“I don't want to be a big sister,” Leah confesses in a quiet voice. “I want to be little, too.”

“You're always going to be my little baby,” Amy promises her in full honesty then, hugging the girl as close as she can. “Forever.”

Other days, it's easier. They try to keep her involved as much as she wants to, letting her choose what outfit they’re bringing in the hospital bag and asking her opinion on where she thinks the crib should be. The girl definitely has an interesting taste in baby fashion and Amy ends up vetoing the suggestion that her little sister should go home from the hospital in a baby Santa suit, but as long as Leah feels she's been part of the decision-making, it’s good. One night, they go through photo albums of what she looked like when she was a baby, making the three-year-old proudly exclaim that she was so cute.

“You really were,” Jake agrees, catching her in his arms and tickling her. “You think your baby sibling will be as cute as you were?”

Leah just shakes her head at that, making them all laugh.

“Well, she sure is confident,” says Jake when he returns from putting her to bed, finding Amy still looking through the albums. “Crazy to think she used to be that tiny.”

“Even crazier to think we'll have another one that little, and one day they’ll be a three-year-old, too.” She lightly strokes the top of her bump, feeling a sharp kick way too close to her ribs.

“So many levels of crazy.” Jake shakes his head in bewilderment. “I wonder when you get used to the thought.”

“Never?” Amy shrugs. “Sometimes I still think this is a dream.” There’s another strong kick at that, making her flinch. “Oof. Fine, very real dream.”

It takes her a while to fall asleep that night, with her thoughts and a wildly moving baby helping to keep her awake for longer than she’d prefer. She thinks of how they’re nearing a year since they started fertility treatments, when she fought through the needles and bloating and hormonal chaos because she was praying for something to finally work, and she wonders what her reaction would have been if someone had told her about what she’d go through in the next months.

The events of their struggle to have another baby and her eventual spontaneous pregnancy feel entirely separate in her head, two roads not intersecting. She’s still bitter over their struggle, still wishing she could have saved her energy and frustration, still trying to forget it more days than not. The infinite gratitude she feels over the fact that they are having another child hasn’t erased those memories. It’s mitigated the pain, made the flashbacks much less frequent and helped her towards acceptance, but Amy knows part of her will always remember.

In an odd sense, she’s happy about it. It reminds her it was never a guarantee.

may.

The cat plans have been put on pause indefinitely, but it doesn’t keep Jake from bringing the topic up. One day, he’s coming home with onesies that have patterns with cats on them or a stuffed animal that looks like one, one day he’s leaving web pages with sources for why it’s good for kids to grow up with cats open on her computer, and another day, he’s coming with new name suggestions from what seems to be out of nowhere.

“So for baby names, I was originally thinking Benjamin, but since that’s no longer on the table, I’m down to Meredith and Olivia.”

“That’s a weird combination of names,” Amy huffs. Jake looks the other way, tapping his feet against the floor and whistling in a way that’s probably supposed to come off innocent, but only succeeds in making his behaviour look more conspicuous. “They’re a reference to something, aren’t they?”

“Why would you say that?” Jake snorts. “That’s crazy!” His laugh is overly loud, and she shoots him a warning glare that shuts him up in a second. She’s nearly nine months pregnant now, so her don’t fuck with me-looks are pretty scary at this point.

“Tell me what they are, Jake. I know they’re not Die Hard-characters, and they’re not from Harry Potter or Ninja Turtles, so I’m going to make an assumption and say they’ve got some kind of relation to Taylor Swift.”

“Well, that depends on how you define relation -”

“Jake.”

“Fine, they’re her cats. But they’re nice names!” He wags his index finger in front of her, a childish grin on his face. “They work for humans!”

“Let the cat thing go, babe.”

“Nuh-uh, never.” He leans down, putting his face as close as possible to her bump. “Hey, kick once if you want us to get a cat ASAP.”

It takes a couple of seconds, and Amy almost thinks she’s won, but then Jake puts his hand on her shirt and instantly there’s a kick aimed against it.

“Traitor,” she mutters to the child still trying to play football with her ribs. “I’m the one growing you, you’re supposed to side with me.”

The cat conversation might be able to wait - Jake reluctantly accepts that a three-year-old, a newborn and a kitten would be a little much to take on at one time - but the name conversation’s more urgent. They’re having a baby in a month, maybe less, and even though Amy thinks it feels like forever as she waddles around with swollen ankles, unable to see her feet anymore, she knows it’s not. They need to make a decision.

“This is hopeless,” Jake groans as they look at their handwritten lists one night. They've each written down ten names, then switched with each other and crossed over ones they disliked, leaving them with exactly zero names. “How did we even decide on Leah’s name?”

“Technically, we decided on Leo as in Leonardo like Ninja Turtles, the painter and the actor, and then we found out we were having a girl and Leo became Leah.”

“I know why, I just don't know how. You said no to all of these!” He points at a scratched-out name on the list. “What's wrong with Luna?”

“Sounds too much like Leah.”

“And Abigail?”

“Too different.”

“Meredith?”

“You’ve got to let go of the obsession with Taylor Swift’s cats, man.” Amy massages her temples. “And too Grey’s Anatomy.”

“Fine. What about Olivia, then? Come on,” he says when he sees her pressing her lips together, “no one will know that’s where it’s from. It’s a cute, normal, human name. It’ll work with both our surnames and it goes well with Leah without sounding exactly like it.”

“I don’t know…”

“If we use Liv for a nickname, they’ll be Lee and Liv, which both sounds kinda badass and kinda adorable.” Jake tilts his head to the side, giving her the puppy eyes she swears were passed down straight to their first-born daughter.

He doesn’t entirely convince her, because she doesn’t want to give in to her principle about no Taylor Swift-related names, but she doesn’t hate the sound of Leah and Olivia. Really, the more she thinks about it, the more natural it sounds. She’s not giving him that satisfaction, though, so she tries to hide the smile on her face as she takes his list and writes down OLIVIA below the scratched-out names.

“This doesn’t mean I’m agreeing,” she warns him when his face lights up in excitement. “It just means I’m considering it.”

“Oh no, you’re definitely agreeing. Just like you will with the cat,” he grins, proud of himself, and she lets him have it for about three seconds before she whacks him in the shoulder.

(One evening - almost a year later - when they’re about to move into a bigger house with a garden, and their youngest daughter has started taking her first unsteady steps, Amy does agree to the cat. It’s a moment of weakness, she argues, but she never truly ends up regretting it.)

june.

Since Leah was born a timely two weeks before her due date, Amy’s hoping for the same thing to happen again. Everything is ready as can be for the arrival of their next family member, and they're just waiting, going day out and day in hoping today will be the day, but nothing’s happening. Leah asks every morning when she wakes up if today’s the baby’s birthday, and she gets equally disappointed each time they tell her they don't know yet. She also keeps asking about when she'll get to have her sleepover at uncle Charles’, which seems more of interest to her than the actual event of becoming a big sister, and she gets more and more upset for every day they have to tell her not tonight.

Amy enters her fortieth week of pregnancy, which is the most pregnant she's ever been, and time seems to move impossibly slower. She's swollen, achy, and tired, ready for this to be over and labor to start, but their baby seems to be enjoying herself in there, because the due date comes and goes without a single contraction. No more painful Braxton-Hicks than regular, no water leakage, no nothing. When the clock passes midnight on June 23rd and Amy’s officially past her due date, she’s getting seriously frustrated.

“This baby has to get out,” she complains as Jake rubs her feet that evening. Sometimes she’s pretty sure he’s an actual angel, but also, it’s what she deserves right now. “Starting tomorrow, I'm trying all of the tricks.”

“Or you wait a few days longer? You know she’ll be born eventually.”

“Nope. I need her out of me,” she says, feeling in the exact same moment how the kid’s trying to stretch out from her curled-up position, pushing her feet to Amy’s ribs and her head somewhere seriously uncomfortable, and Amy curses in pain. “Come on, kiddo. You’re clearly uncomfortable too. Don’t wait it out.”

She gets another kick in the ribs for that.

A quick Google search informs her there are many at-home methods available to try and kickstart labor, so she starts with the least terrible ones and works her way up. Sex isn’t bad, but it’s also sweaty and impractical and has no effect whatsoever. Walking is boring and makes her feet swell up like crazy. Jake suggests they go to her favorite bookshop in New York so she can walk around there and have an awesome story to tell if labor were to start in Strand’s Bookstore, but the only thing that happens is people give her sympathetic looks and she nearly cries when a book she wants to look at is on one of the lower shelves. The spicy Chipotle takeout they bring home just gives her heartburn. Pineapple makes her tongue hurt. The raspberry leaf tea tastes like chewing on grass. She saves the castor oil for last, wanting to avoid the distasteful liquid at all costs, but even that has little to no effect and Amy’s furious. On top of it all, Jake can’t stop laughing at her as she waddles around their apartment all grumpy and uncomfortable, and his laughter makes her even angrier.

(Leah just says Amy looks like a couch. That isn’t much better of a self-confidence boost, but it does, at least, make her laugh.)

When Amy’s three days past her due date with no changes, Leah decides she can’t take the anticipation anymore and throws a full-on tantrum. It takes them nearly ten minutes to figure out that the three-year-old’s not crying because she wants the baby to come out, but because the sleepover she’s going to have when her parents are at the hospital is never happening. They try to comfort her with promises of Disney movies and ice cream at home instead, but it doesn’t work, so they give up and call Charles to see if she can stay there an extra night. Charles also cries, because unfortunately, Nikolaj has gotten a stomach bug making them unsuitable for babysitting. After a moment’s consideration and consultation with their still-sobbing daughter, they call Rosa instead, and Rosa’s confused but accepts the request.

“And you're sure you know how to take care of kids for a whole night?” Jake asks when their friend stops by to pick up Leah, who is hyped to hang out with her aunt Rosa for an evening, and drags her into her room to show all her dinosaur toys the moment she steps inside the apartment.

“I assume there's instructions,” Rosa nods to the thick babysitting binder Amy's holding. “And I’ve taken care of my nieces. I’m pretty sure I can keep her alive for a while.”

“Solid. She eats pasta and she's supposed to go bed at seven, but that usually never works, so don't get too stressed about it.”

“Great.”

“Brush her teeth before she goes to sleep and don't let her backflip off the bed,” Amy adds. “There’s lots of information in the binder and we’re a phone call away if there's any issues.”

“Send us pictures if Jocelyn braids her hair!”

“Send us pictures anyway. Please update us.”

“Got it,” says Rosa and lifts up Leah on her shoulders, making the girl scream with laughter. “Pictures, pasta, no backflips. We’ll be fine. You guys enjoy your last night alone in forever,” she grins, pointing to Amy’s baby bump. “Text me if you go into labor.”

“I wish,” Amy groans, and then they’re the overly emotional parents who kiss and hug their oldest daughter goodbye until she begs them to stop.

Rosa leaves with Leah, and the apartment turns the peaceful but unnatural kind of calm they rarely experience at daytime anymore. She guesses it will be but a memory once their second baby finally arrives, but for now, she turns to Jake and asks,

“Wanna have a date night?”

And so they do.

Their last night on their own before life with two kids is gentle and undramatic - a shared bath, a takeout dinner in front of a Harry Potter movie they’ve seen a hundred times before, cuddling and chatting on the couch before going to bed at midnight with hope of a night’s undisturbed sleep.

Nine years they’ve done this, she thinks as he kisses her, and then the bump for good measure, goodnight. Nine, crazy, ever-changing years that have turned their lives upside down more times than she can count, and every day, she wakes up grateful that it’s him she gets to do this with.

It takes her upwards an hour to fall asleep. First she has to pee, then she can’t find a comfortable position, then her back is hurting and Jake has to get her heating pad. When she finally sinks into a dreamless unconsciousness, Amy’s so tired it feels like she could sleep for days.

She sleeps for an hour.

It feels like it’s only been seconds before a dull ache in her lower back and stomach wakes her up, mild at first but increasing steadily, reaching a truly painful point and then ceasing.

Weird, she thinks, and tries to fall back asleep. She’s too tired. She just wants to sleep. Whatever’s going on can surely wait until tomorrow.

A few minutes later, the same pain appears, a little stronger this time. She opens her eyes to glance at the alarm clock - 2.04 in the morning - and shifts her position in hope for that to help, but it doesn’t.

The next time it returns, her clock says 2.08. This time it’s real painful, worse than any Braxton-Hicks she’s felt before this, and it feels a lot, too much, like how she remembers the real deal from when she was in labor with Leah.

2.11, the same sensation appears again, lasting for a full minute and forcing her to breathe real deep to manage the pain. Her belly’s going rock hard for the entire time it’s lasting, too. Definitely suspicious, but she’s still too tired to reflect over it.

2.14, it happens yet another time.

Nope, is the only thought Amy can think when she realizes how close together they’re coming. Nope, nope, nope. She’s way too exhausted. She can have a baby in the morning, when she’s slept, and she’s not a fan of the idea of doing anything before then. This isn’t happening, she tries to convey to her body. This can wait until tomorrow.

2.17. This time, she can’t be still. She tries to find a comfortable position in their bed, but it doesn’t work, she needs to lean against something for support. She slides down to the floor and puts her crossed arms on the mattress, placing her head down and lightly swaying with the rest of her body as she breathes, breathes, breathes through the wave.

2.20. Another one. Amy’s fuming; she’s not having this right now, she’s tired, and no matter how badly she wants to meet this baby, she really wants to sleep before she does.

2.23, the same thing happens again.

2.26. She tries to muffle her groan in a pillow when it’s impossible to be silent. The pain is nearing what feels like an unmanageable point, and she hears Jake stirring awake at the other edge of the bed.

“Ames? What’s happening?”

“Nothing,” she says too quickly in an exhale. “Nothing’s happening.”

“Okay,” he replies in a skeptical tone, stretching himself over the bed and looking her in the eyes. “So you’re just doing that for fun, then?”

She doesn’t reply, but she's hyper-aware of him watching her scrunching her face in god-awful pain when the next contraction hits.

“Babe,” Jake asks, giving her a look of mixed worry and entertainment when it's over, “how many times has that happened?”

“Ten,” she hisses. “It’s fine. They’ll stop. I want to go back to sleep.”

“And how close together are they?”

“Three minutes. Two.”

His eyes widen with fear.

“No.” She shakes her head. “I need to sleep. This baby waited this long, it can wait until the morning.”

“I really don’t think that’s how it works.”

“It should be.”

Jake laughs nervously, stroking her hair. “Sure, but - maybe we should really, definitely, go to the hospital?”

“No, I want to go back to sleep.”

“How exactly do you plan on doing that?”

“I don't know.”

“You know, if we go to the hospital, you could have the epidural like you did last time. Then you could probably sleep for a while.”

She stares him down. “Promise me.”

“Uh, sure. Promise.”

“Okay. Let's go. But only for the epidural,” she declares, and then another torturous contraction forces her to shut up.

A quick call to their doctor confirms they should be going in immediately if contractions are that close together, so Jake is rushing, running around the apartment like a chicken with its head cut off as he packs the final things for their bags. Amy tries to help, but she's pretty useless, because every two minutes she has to lean against the nearest piece of furniture and rock slowly from side to side until the pain subsides. She's not sure how she gets in the car, because each contraction makes her feel like everything else blurs and she can't think, can't speak, can't do anything but try her best to breathe and not faint when the pain radiates through her lower back and core, intense and demanding and so much worse than she remembered.

Only a year ago, she remembers as Jake squeezes her hand and tells her he loves her, they’d been sitting in this same front seat as she cried and cried after finding out their first IVF transfer didn't take. It feels like a lifetime ago, and at the same time, like yesterday. She wonders if she could have predicted this back then, and figures probably not.

“We're having a baby,” she whispers to Jake in a break between contractions, and he smiles so wide she thinks his face is going to break. “You ready?”

“So ready. You?”

“To meet her? Yeah. To give birth? Not really.”

“You're gonna kill it,” he tells her, and there's another contraction just then so she can't reply, only grit her teeth and squeeze his wrist really hard. “You're already killing it.”

“I really can't wait for that epidural,” she mutters through the pain, and Jake just laughs.

Amy's not sure how she gets through the twenty-minute car ride. It's absolute hell, because she can't move in any way, can't do anything except keep breathing and keep holding on to the thought of the pain relief she's going to get once they get to the hospital. She wonders why people willingly choose to put themselves through this without any drugs. She sure as hell isn't going to, not after having learnt the difference last time.

Jake gets them parked and grabs their bags as Amy maneuvers herself out of the car. She manages just in time, closing the door in the same second as there’s a sudden warmth down her thighs and she almost wonders if she’s peed herself before realising what’s happening.

“Water,” she tries to communicate to Jake, and he digs up a pink water bottle from her bag before noticing her wet leggings.

“Oh. That kind of water. Well, at least you didn’t get any on the seat? Very considerate.”

She just glares at him.

Amy guesses it’s meant to be something like a five-minute walk through the corridors, but when she has to stop every other minute for the contractions that seem to have increased fivefold in strength, bringing with them an uncomfortable pressure that she really does not like, it’s probably closer to twenty minutes before they can be guided into their room.

Their doctor - the same one she had for her first labor, an older woman with dark hair and a comforting smile who perfectly meets Amy’s rock-hard criteria for professional but nice - does a quick examination, which Amy can barely feel in comparison to how much pain she’s in by now, and then she laughs.

“Yeah, you’re having a baby tonight alright. Good job getting here in time,” she nods to Jake, who looks unsure if he should accept the compliment or freak out over the possibility of not having gotten there.

“Great,” Amy huffs. “So can I get the epidural? Because I want it now. Please.”

“Oh no,” Dr. Cowan laughs. “You’re eight centimetres dilated and this seems to be progressing quickly. My guess is you’ll be pushing in half an hour, so I’m sorry, but there’s no time for that.”

“What?”

“You could have the laughing gas, if you’d like, but anything else will just slow labor down.”

“You promised,” Amy hisses towards Jake, and he holds up his hands.

“I’m pretty sure this isn’t my fault.”

“You promised!”

“What are we fighting about here?”

“I don’t know,” she confesses, and then another brutal contraction washes over her, together with the realization that she’s going to have to do the rest of this unmedicated.

She’s not happy about it.

Really, Amy's not sure how she gets through it.

To say that it's bad is an understatement; it's excruciating, some kind of evil torture she genuinely can’t believe humans were made to be able to handle, agonizing to a point where she's nearly hoping it will render her unconscious because that means she wouldn't have to take it anymore. She tries the laughing gas, but it just makes her feel dizzy and out of control, so she powers through without it. Jake tries to tell her she's crushing it, that she's badass and strong and doing amazing, but she can't waste any focus listening and eventually she tells him - not very gently - to shut the fuck up. It makes her feel kind of bad, because she knows he’s trying to be supportive, but at the same time, she really couldn't care less about his feelings because she's pretty sure she's going to die every time the pain increases.

But somehow, she survives.

One good thing - and it's not even good, it's more like a band-aid on a gaping chest wound in comparison - about no epidural is that she's free to move around, trying different positions in hope for something to ease the pain. Nothing does, but some ways give her a little bit more power, a little more control over what's happening. Amy supposes it's worth something. She does love control, even if she’d trade it in a heartbeat for some sweet, sweet pain relief. She ends up standing sort of on her hands and knees on the bed, getting some help from gravity, and it feels like the last bit stretches on forever but later on she’ll learn it was really fast. It's scary, a surrealistic thing to feel how her body just takes over, like it knows how to do something her head definitely doesn't.

And then, right as she’s certain she's not going to make it even another second, it's over.

There’s a moment of petrifying fear that something's wrong, that her baby’s about to be taken away like Leah was for the first traumatic minutes of her life, but then she hears a sharp, gurgling cry and she's not sure what’s happening but suddenly there’s a baby on her chest and everything is so, so, right.

Her daughter's kind of purple still, a little slimy and a little bloody and completely perfect, and Amy's shaking with a mix of shock, adrenaline and tears as the newborn puts her tiny hand high up on Amy's chest and she can't help but grip it, whispering a gentle hi, baby, hi, as the child squeaks in return.

She's imagined the sensation of holding her just-born baby in her arms since the first day she started thinking of having another kid, and yet all the fantasies pale in comparison to the explosive, unyielding love she feels when the newborn opens her eyes, gazing carefully at the world for the very first time.

“You know what time it is?” Jake asks her once when they’ve been moved to the recovery room, trying to fathom what just happened. “It’s five-thirty. She was born at four-thirty. When did you say you woke up?”

“Two a.m.,” Amy mumbles, and he shakes his head.

“So you did that in, what, two and a half hours? Man, you’re insane.”

“Thanks.” She chuckles, stroking her fingers over the thick, dark hair that appears to be a dominant trait for Santiago-Peralta children. Their newborn daughter is blinking at them as she tries to figure out the whole breastfeeding thing, seeming pretty exhausted from the events of the morning but not really wanting to sleep, either. “It was awful.”

“But worth it?”

“Yeah,” Amy nods without tearing her eyes away from their hour-old miracle. “Worth it. I’m not doing it again, though.”

Jake grins and kisses the top of the newborn’s head. “Very fair. I mean, we literally have the two most perfect kids the world has ever seen, so it’s not like you have to.”

“She really is perfect, huh?”

“For sure. You really are,” he whispers to their baby, running his thumb over her round cheeks and tiny nose. “Just like your sister.”

“Leah,” Amy bursts out, sitting up a little straighter and instantly regretting it because she’s sore and ungracious in every way. “We need to tell her! We never even told anyone we were going in! Fuck, I gotta text Rosa. Can you get me my phone?”

Jake brings it to her, and Amy carefully transfers their daughter over to his chest so she can have her arms free. The newborn whimpers at first, not too happy about the move, but then Jake softly pats her back through the pink and blue hospital blanket and lets her grip onto his thumb with her fist, and she’s at peace again. Her little head snuggles into his chest as she relaxes, and Amy just watches, barely making an attempt at wiping away the happy tears.

It’s been an obvious feeling to her, to hold her children for the first time and know that they are hers in some miraculous way, that they were part of her - but it’s another unique and indescribable feeling to watch Jake hold them and know they are his just as much, always safe and loved in his presence. Although she could never have predicted the sensation, she’s always had an inkling of it - a deep conviction and a ceaseless, rightful confidence that he would make the greatest dad. It keeps being proven correct.

“I forgot how small they are,” he mumbles, and there are tears in his eyes, too.

“She’s like a pound and a half bigger than Leah was.”

“Doesn’t feel like it. Do you think they look the same?”

“A little?” Amy tilts her head. “Same hair, same nose. But so different, too.”

“I think she looks a lot more like you than Lee did,” Jake smiles, stroking the little fist holding onto his thumb before kissing it. “I’m fine with that. You look like your mom, kid. Oh, don’t look so upset,” he says when the newborn scrunches her face together, “it’s a great way to look. Would you rather have my nose? Yeah, right. I didn't think so.”

Amy laughs, letting them continue their exchange as she snaps a picture of them and then sends that and another one of the first baby pictures to Rosa.

Rosa’s reply is as instant as it is shocked. She congratulates them, tells Amy she's crazy, promises them they can talk to Leah once she wakes up and even offers to drive her there later in the afternoon “if it means she'll beat Charles to meeting this baby”.

Amy figures she should probably text more people to spread the news, but the important thing is Leah knows, or at least will know, so she puts her phone on the side table and turns back to Jake.

“Rosa’s going to call us when Leah’s awake,” she says, unable to keep herself from leaning over and kissing their baby’s cheeks when she squeaks a little again.

“Great. You want to get some sleep before?”

“Oh, so bad.” Her exhaustion faded away somewhat in the chaos, pure adrenaline and a cascade of hormones keeping her awake, but it's catching up with her now. “Promise you two are good?”

“Olivia and I are great,” he promises, and his smile and their daughter’s softly blinking eyes makes her certain he’s right. “You agreed to that name, right?”

“One condition.” Amy yawns. “You are never allowed to tell her she’s named after a cat. Ever.”

She thinks she can hear him mumbling something about not making promises he won’t be able to keep, but she’s falling asleep before she can protest.

Leah’s and Olivia’s first meeting doesn’t start out great.

Amy’s trying to be methodical and gentle, making sure Olivia’s in her bassinet and she can have both arms free to hug her three-year-old, but then the infant starts wailing the moment Leah enters the room and she gets terrified, immediately trying to run out with tears streaming down her cheeks. Jake has to chase after her while Amy tends to Olivia, who’s decided she needs to eat right this second and not a moment later, except she’s literally ten hours old and not very good at nursing just yet, which only serves to increase her frustration before she calms down enough to figure it out. When she does and Amy can take a deep breath, Jake and Leah return. Leah’s calmed down a little, but she’s still red under the eyes and skeptical to even say hi to her mom and her sister. Amy’s heartbroken as the girl wraps her arms tighter around Jake and turns her head away, and there’s a second where she wonders briefly again why she thought this was a good idea.

But then, Jake asks if Leah wants to see the gift Olivia brought her - a nifty trick Amy found on some Instagram account - and the three-year-old squeals with happiness as she unwraps a singing Elsa doll, and it’s upwards from there. She dares to climb into the hospital bed and first look at the baby, then carefully pat her head, then laugh as Olivia finishes nursing and makes another squeaking noise. Amy figures Leah won’t want to hold her sister at first, but once she’s told them all about her sleepover with Rosa - it seems to have included gymnastics, a Disney movie and cake - she’s looking at the baby with a little more interest, and then she asks the question all on her own.

“Can I hold her?”

They put a pillow in her lap and a pillow behind her back for support, and Jake holds his hand under Olivia’s head throughout, but they let her. It’s the best thing Amy’s ever seen in her life. Just when she thinks it can't get better than this, Leah leans her head down so her cheek is touching her little sister's, and Amy has no way of stopping her happy tears.

She’d never thought people were lying, per se, when they’d described how your love just doubles when you have another child. She’d been certain she would love another baby just as much. It had been part of the reason she fought so hard to have one, but she realizes now that she was never even close to understanding the full meaning of double the love. The power with which she loves Leah has grown exponentially for every day, reaching infinity and still becoming stronger, and today, it's like her love for Olivia has clocked in at the same level, stretched out a hand and increased in tandem with the love for her sister. Amy wonders how it makes sense, how it’s possible for a heart to grow that big, but she's accepted that it’s one of many questions about motherhood she’ll never know the answer too.

Instead, she just makes sure she takes a series of pictures to document the moment, and then she meets Jake's eyes for a second to mouth a silent I love you.

They get to go home the next afternoon. Amy was expecting it to feel more natural with their second child, less like they’ve stolen someone else’s baby and is pretending to know what they’re doing, but it feels just as absurd as the first time when they secure her in the car seat and carry her outside.

The sun seems to be shining particularly bright as they drive, but Olivia sleeps for the whole way home.

She does not, however, continue with that for the rest of the day. Rather, she wants to eat for most of it. Which is fine; Amy knows and remembers that’s what it’s like at first. Still, it’s exhausting and far from painless while they’re both trying to figure it out, and it keeps her stuck to her corner of the couch for hours on end. This gets Leah jealous, making her throw a tantrum because she wants Amy to play with her in her room and she can’t, and there's a moment where everyone except Jake is crying at the same time before Leah calms down and accepts the suggestion of everyone watching a movie on the couch and ordering pizza for dinner. Partly to celebrate, partly because no one has the energy to cook.

There's going to be an adjustment period for them all, Amy figures. She’s certain it will come with a cavalcade of challenges, but as Leah insists on being Jake's helper as he changes a diaper and shines with pride as she hands him too many wet wipes and picks out Olivia's pajamas, she can already tell it's going to be more than worth it.

When it’s time for Leah to go to bed, she claims she wants everyone there to read stories. Amy asks, just to make sure, if that means her sister too, and Leah nods. She’s very intent on storytime taking place in her bed, though, and so Amy ends up squeezing herself to fit in the toddler bed with Olivia on her chest and Leah on her side. Jake has to sit on the floor.

“This is unfair,” he grumbles, and Leah laughs and snuggles closer to her mom, pressing a kiss to her baby sister’s head.

“Read the story, dada.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m on it.”

They read two different stories, both of them yawning through the second one. Amy’s pretty sure Leah’s about to fall asleep, can feel the little arm draped across her stomach going heavier, more relaxed, but as Jake closes the covers to the second book, there’s a whisper.

“Another book,” it comes out in a yawn, and Jake laughs.

“Are you sure, bumblebee? I think you’re getting pretty tired.”

“No.” Leah shakes her head. “More stories.”

“Fine.” He presses a kiss to her forehead. “One more. Just for tonight.”

He begins to read, and a few minutes later, Leah’s sleeping. She has her mouth open, one arm still resting on Amy as if to hold her in place, her other arm hugging the stuffed lion animal she still sleeps with.

She seems so big in comparison to her little sister, yet so innocent and peaceful as she’s sleeping, and entirely magical to watch. Every day, Amy thanks her lucky stars that she gets to watch this child grow up and take on the world, and it blows her mind to think she’ll get to do the same with the baby curled up on her chest. It seems so far away to picture this tiny infant growing up and becoming her own unique individual, too, but she knows it will happen, and she cannot wait for the rollercoaster ride she figures raising these two children will be.

She’s squeezed into a far from comfortable position in the narrow toddler bed, she’s still sore and in pain after the nightmare that is childbirth, she's sleep-deprived and figures she's looked better after a 48 hour work shift than she does right now, but both her children are sleeping so close to her, and she's never been happier.

There’d been a time, not long ago, where she thought she’d never get to experience this. A second child had seemed like something the universe wasn't willing to give her, until it was, and now she’s living the reality she once feared would remain a dream.

She knows she’s never going to see her infertility journey as something beautiful, because it wasn’t. It was heartbreaking, soul-crushing and lonely even with Jake by her side, and the few comments she’s heard about how it must all have been worth it, though have made her want to punch someone. It was a curveball life threw her, an unfair challenge she had to go through for some reason, and she’s happy she survived it but she’s not grateful it happened. She’s simply accepted it. In the end, her life also gave her this; two objectively perfect children who are the best thing to ever happen to her, even pushing their father down to a still close second-place position. Her gratefulness for them still doesn't erase the painful experiences, but it makes them fade into the background, to a point where they’ll eventually become but a faint shadow of a memory. Amy figures that is the most she can ask for.

It takes her a moment to realize she has no idea how she's going to get up from this position. She’s closest to the wall, and she gets now that it was an unwise choice. Leah’s holding onto her arm, Olivia’s sleeping lightly and already stirring, and Amy has strong doubts in her own ability to get up without waking anyone.

She looks to Jake, hoping he might be able to help her, but finds that he’s fallen asleep on the floor using a stuffed animal as a pillow and holding his thumb between the last pages of the book they were reading. It looks ridiculous and deeply endearing at the same time, and even though it means she’s so screwed and she’s going to have to wake him somehow before Olivia starts screaming bloody murder, she can’t be mad about it.

All she can do is laugh.

and at last, i see the light

and it’s like the fog has lifted

and at last, i see the light

and it’s like the sky is new

and it’s warm, and real, and bright

and the world has somehow shifted

all at once, everything looks different

now that i see you.

~ i see the light, from tangled

#my writing #b99 #brooklyn 99 #brooklyn nine-nine #peraltiago #jake x amy #b99 fic #brooklyn 99 fic #brooklyn nine-nine fic #b99 fanfiction #brooklyn nine-nine fanfiction #jake x amy fic #jake x amy fanfiction #peraltiago fic #peraltiago fanfiction #iwthwy

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jaywhitecotton · 5 years

Text

Fuck Elvis

I used to play this terrible game with some monstrous friends at karaoke shows. It was all based on how Michael Jackson died at the right time and if he molested just one more kid we’d be screwed out of decades of music and nostalgia.

We’d then apply other artists to this molestation scale. Like if MJ set the standard at say 7 known kids we’re pretty sure he finger banged, how many could say Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler get away with?

Turns out - it’s one. One for sure, but I’m pretty sure there would have to be at least three before we as a society are willing to let go of Dream On or Bruce Willis’s meteor sacrifice.

Bob Dylan? So hard. Old white NPR people would blame the motorcycle accident and give up everything after to protect his earlier legacy, but comparing Michael Jackson to Bob Dylan’s importance? He’s got to be able to molest as many - if not three more kids - than the King of Pop, right? I mean Jewish or not, he is still white so that has to give him the edge over Jacko in what he can get away with.

Anyhoo

Comics have been acting like comedy has been bringing “truth to power!” and patting themselves on the back, but thirty years of Michael Jackson jokes couldn’t do what one documentary has done.

Proving if you really want any justice these days, you need to first invest in some production value and an editor who knows how to make criminal acts look especially bad.

The reactions are pouring in and people are very conflicted. Many questioning whether or not it’s ok to like an artist because of their lurid personal life.

Look, can we come to a consensus on just one thing?

Human beings have been giant flesh bags of hot garbage since the very beginning of our upright existence. We started out so bad, we’re not even sure of what are real beginnings were actually like.

And its not even people that are the worst either. Look at life itself.

Nature is gruesome and horrifying! Every nature documentary is inherently a horror movie missing the scary cello mood music. If you knew how much ducks gang-raped in real life you would burn any remanence of all those duck-themed shows from the 90’s.

Even the creation of space and time was the result of a destructive explosion that shit us out into the nothingness of space.

Disagree? Thinks humans are great? Cool. Keep in mind a lot of people watched a movie about a guy who sexually abused children and their first thought was “Can I still grab my dick and effeminately scream ‘ohhhhh’ whenever it gets super windy? Because I don’t want to live in a world where I can’t do that!”

To me anytime a person does something exceptional - THAT should be the thing that is celebrated. Like “Wow, you overcame being a piece of shit and had a moment of triumph for our species, well done ya piece of shit!”

Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence, Gandhi and Civil Disobedience, Beethoven’s 9th have all stood the test of time and those acts are worthy of praise.

Are we going to really miss Ignition (remix)?

I’m not saying any of these people’s flaws should be ignored, but seriously - there were plenty of slave fuckers, wife abusers, and piss-on-tweeners out there who not only did that shit - but didn’t even have the decency to form an experimental democratic republic placing power in the hands of the people, much less write a catchy tune.

We have got to start holding a higher standard for what we consider legit and meaningful art.

Is Trapped in the Closet really an achievement for humanity? Is the cinematic legacy of Space Jam ruined by the tainting of I Believe I Can Fly?

Was American Beauty and House of Cards our civilization’s finest cinematic moments? Has there been nothing else to watch?

Can we no longer backwards slide dance at house parties because a guy who dressed like a sequined private eye slept with kids?

I’m not saying you can’t still enjoy those things, or even question your feelings about them. I’m saying don’t make those things more important than they actually are. You can both think an actor should be castrated and get lost in visualized fiction.

Just as easily as you can decide to never watch again. It’s all disposable.

To me the real crime is needing a movie like American Beauty to be the pinnacle of human achievement because you got your first handy in the theater when it came out or whatever.

Not that anyone is exactly saying that, but you big bad wolves get my straw house point.

What is the value of achievement? How do we measure what’s important? I’m not sure. Maybe it’s what the consensus decides should stay. Maybe it’s the individual.

Sometimes it feels like a lot of our general arguments are between the perspectives of group thinking socialists versus self-motivated libertarians. Maybe they’re both right, I guess it depends on the situation.

Personally I think most the arguments about entertainers matters most to the people who have a vested interest in brands and making it in the ‘look at me’ industry.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m in the thick of it having done music and standup most of my life and have the same guttural need for a stranger’s approval, but sometimes I feel surrounded by people who treat every moment of their lives like a biopic. Selling themselves on social media as if they’re the subject of their own Rolling Stone exposé.

People who define themselves by the most disposable of expressions and since trying to be good and known is so difficult, decided it’s easier to just simulate success instead of working harder on the mediums.

You know, frauds.

I’m surrounded by a generation of ‘fake it til you make it’ personalities who thrive on all the shit I find utterly useless, meaningless and the worst crime - boring.

Entrepreneurs in narcissism who communicate through gossip and trade in brand expression, littering the artistic landscape with recycled lateral thinking dog turds.

It’s exhausting,debilitating, and absolutely the future as AI replaces our normal careers, forcing all of us into becoming Instagram models and Influencers.

And everyday I have to have deep sobering introspection trying to figure out if I’m not equally culpable in this terrible trap of meaningless thinking.

Not that there’s anything wrong with meaningless. Not everything has to have as everlasting an impact as Ode to Joy.

I mean really, what actually matters if we all die and whatever impact we had becomes erased regardless of whether or not it takes years, months, days or even minutes after we are laid into the ground?

Most of everyone who has been born has meant nothing and left no trace or measurement that they even existed at all. Think of all the stillborn babies who didn’t even get the chance.

Nature the cold hearted bitch strikes again!

People call me jaded and bitter for these thoughts, but I promise you - I hold no anger or selfish need to compensate my own lacking by exclaiming ‘people are mostly shit and none of this will stand the test of time’. I’m very fun at parties.

It’s just the people desperate to matter that think reality is inherently mean.

Celebrate the achievement not the person, but also - let’s not over inflate the achievement to validate our own petty need for someone to hear our folk song about getting a handy while watching American Beauty or whatever.

A quick story.

One of the most talented people I ever met was a dude from Philly named Perone.

Perone played bass and was known across the city as being this incredible player who for some reason just never found a project he clicked with.

I met him when I was 18 and homeless, living in a 24 hour diner he waited tables at. Everyone loved this dude and for some reason he took care of me. Hooking up free salads, sodas, bread. He was the coolest dude I ever met.

I was learning guitar and we both loved 70’s soul and blues music so we’d jam together which in hindsight was wild.

I had no fucking idea what I was doing and yet here was this genius jamming patiently along.

Teaching me without putting in a show that he was actually teaching me, if that makes sense?

Was he perfect? No. Not at all. He was charismatic as fuck, but obviously weighted down with some demons.

The weirdest thing I could say about him - and I don’t know how to even properly frame this was - he used to draw on bed sheets.

For years he had a dream about a woman he never met and would paint her face on the bed sheets and attach lyrics to songs he was writing next to her face. These sheets hung all over his walls.

Keep in mind he was living with a girl at the time. He had a kid, yet here were all these sheets dedicated to a fictional white woman he was obsessed with, hung like championship banners across his entire two bedroom apartment.

My last conversation with Perone was perfect. I sat strumming his guitar while he smoked meth out of a can of Pepsi, telling me how Michael Jackson was the King.

Every click of the lighter, every inhale and exhale would punctuate just how much Michael Jackson meant to the world and music.

How Motown celebrated their 25th anniversary with a tv special and Michael Jackson came out and destroyed with the moonwalk.

“Dude, (click) black people loved Michael (inhale). White people loved Michael. (exhale)Young people loved Michael. (cough) Old people loved Michael. (click) None of this race or generation shit mattered. (inhale) It was because of the music and HE did that. (exhale) He bridged everything together in that one moment. (violent cough) Michael Jackson is and will always be the King. (click) Fuck Elvis.”

That was twenty years ago. I have no idea if he’s still alive, earned a living with his music or met the woman he’d dreamt and painted for years. Or if instead he succumbed to meth, took his own life and or manages an Olive Garden.

I don’t know and I don’t have to. I miss him and appreciate the things we shared that mattered and helped me grow as a person, but that’s all it ever will be.

Let justice be done and handled by those involved in their situation and value only the things and constructs that have some permanence or growth in your own life.

Either way you will still die, and wether it’s alone and forgotten or if it takes centuries for people to forget you were a miserable deaf cunt who wrote some sweet jams - you’ll eventually be nothing.

Fuck Elvis.

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g0ldpainted · 6 years

Text

10th December - CtC’17

Prompto cheating on his S/O Part 2

Tadaa! Here it finally is! :D

1st Part ; 2nd Part ; 3rd Part // Noctis cheating 1 ; 2 ; 3 // Gladio cheating 1 ; 2 ; 3 // Ignis cheating 1 ; 2 // Ravus cheating

Words: 4600+ Genre: Angst, heartbreak, starting over, moving on Spoilers: Nope Trigger warnings: Eating disorder, depression, short depiction of sexual act (all tw’s also in the tags)

Over a year had passed since they last saw their ex-boyfriend. A lot changed. For both sides. Prompto's career skyrocketed. People were crazy for his photos, big magazines booked him, Insomnia's most famous celebrities booked him. He was invited to lots of different events.. And he always brought his girlfriend. His girlfriend, the female he had cheated on them with, so happened to be a well-established model. Sensual photos of her that, of course, Prompto took were all over various media. They caused his sudden fame. It was all thanks to that model posting them on her social media profiles. Avoiding topics related to their ex was almost impossible. May it be a magazine cover, news on TV or scrolling through the internet - he was everywhere. And not just him. They, the model and him, were everywhere. People complimented how well they fit together, said they were a wonderful couple and how their love story would be so adorable.

It hurt them greatly. But, by the six, all photos of them sharing kisses broke their empty heart all over again. They always reminded them of how they weren't good enough for him, how he betrayed them for months.

So while Prompto's life seemed to be going amazing, their life crumbled. For years they had been living with their sunshine, woke up beside him, kissed him in the morning, brought him coffee but now, half of their bed was empty. Actually, they couldn't even afford a proper bed. After two months of living with a former good friend and being unable to contribute anything to thank them, they were thrown out. Without a job and only a bit of their savings left, they managed to rent a one-room apartment. But it didn't take long before they couldn't afford it any longer. They knew they needed a job, needed to do something, otherwise, they'd be homeless. But life really wasn't on their side. Some job applications were left unanswered, some just returned with a clear no.

Feeling so incredibly lonely and useless sure was new to them. Not only did this whole situation drive them into depression, they also had a hard time dealing with their body. Now that they knew Prompto had been screwing a model while they were waiting for him at home, they believed the reason for his actions was their body. They thought they were too fat, purely unappealing and perhaps even disgusting. To them, there was no other explanation for his actions. It had to be their body. So they changed their eating habits, they simply ate less. Less to the point it was far from ideal and definitely unhealthy. On good days, they, at most, allowed themselves three buns but on her worst ones, they ate nothing. It just came in handy that they couldn’t even afford proper food anyway.

Needlessly to say, their eating behavior had a huge effect on their weight - but it also affected their energy. A lot of the time, they felt too exhausted to do anything, couldn't even force themselves to clean up.

And it was getting worse every day.

The peak was reached when Prompto dared to upload a photo showing off their body. It was taken from his side of their once shared bed, after a passionate night of lovemaking. Their naked back was revealed, the sheets barely covering their behind. Technically, it sure was a nice photograph but to them, that was a slap in the face. They only happened to find it because they were feeling especially self-destructive and wanted to check his current uploads to Instagram. They never expected to be seeing themselves. They certainly didn't want to either and actively told him back when they caught him cheating to delete the photos he took of them.

Although his caption wasn't rude, the comments were. They had stretch marks covering their butt and hip area - and people blatantly made fun of it, made them feel even more insecure about their body. To them, this was him attacking them, wanting to lash out at them and harm them - yet, they still didn't know the mistakes they ever made to deserve this.

Their night ended in tears, furiously messaging Prompto and demanding him to take it down.

They didn't know that he only uploaded it because he was trying to reach them. After they changed their number, he never got ahold of them again and after they changed their Instagram username, he lost track of them entirely. He didn't even know where they moved. And he had no idea that he was causing more harm than he ever intended. To him, the photo he took of them was beautiful and since their face was hidden, he didn't think this could offend them so much. No one aside from them knew who this person was. Aside from that, he didn't notice how rude the comments were.

To him, his former lover was still a true beauty. No, not even the model couldn't reach their level. They were only dating for the public anyway. Behind closed doors, they were barely even friends. After he was caught cheating, the whole thrill of it all disappeared. They grew tired of each other and it didn't even take a month for Prompto to realize he was genuinely missing his ex. His perfect life wasn't as perfect as it seemed to be. But his S/O didn’t know. Not yet.

Unfortunate for both sides was that Prompto didn't reply right away. He had his notifications off, didn't check his direct messages either. While his S/O absolutely crumbled to dust, felt absolutely horrible, Prompto thought they didn't care. He believed they'd, if anything, call him - but they deleted his number ages ago. It was pure luck that he eventually checked his messages and stumbled upon their complaint. With both teary eyes and a heart racing faster than his brand new car ever could, he replied. He apologized tons of times, ended up asking if he could take them out for a coffee and explain his intentions.

But they declined. Over and over again. He had to try harder to actually convince them.

Even after he stated that he considered them beautiful and never once thought anything else, they still didn't let loose, didn't believe a thing he said. He could carelessly lie in their face for four months - he could just as well be lying again. They didn't want to see his gorgeous, adorable face again. Never. Although they still loved him.

But fate wasn't on their side.

After passing out while simply walking down the stairs, Prompto's S/O was hospitalized. They officially diagnosed their eating disorder and depression then and there. On top of that, they suffered a severe concussion. Treatment began the moment they woke up. From there on out, everything became even more difficult. Doctors demanded they'd stay for at least 2 weeks. They had bills to pay but no money, were incredibly close to losing their apartment when - finally - a call asking for a job interview came through. Those were the first good news they heard in what felt like an eternity. It seemed to be their light at the end of the tunnel. All the weight of the world fell off their shoulders - soon they could finally afford to buy a nice, big bed.

Within another week, they attended their first day at their new job as a cook. While they had zero experience for that kind of job, all that really mattered to them was being able to pay the bills that were slowly but steadily crushing them. Once the majority was paid off, their life actually seemed to be going uphill. For the first time in a while, they were convinced it was all getting easier, they'd move on from the relationship they had with Prompto. Their first step was changing their hair color and buying new clothes. It was time to start over. And it was going really great. They gained some weight again, were getting closer to a healthy weight, even met someone that showed fair interest in them.

Eventually, they even hooked up with that person - which was something they never did before as Prompto was their first actual boyfriend. He was their first and they actually had hoped he would be their last, too. But experiencing physical intimacy with someone else was a nice change, too.

For a few months, they hopped from one bed to the other, searching for validation that they were indeed good looking, desirable. But no matter what, Prompto was always clouding their mind.

All the validation in the world wouldn't mean a thing if it wasn't from Prompto. They secretly still wanted him to shower them with love, even hoped they'd wake up from this ongoing nightmare and wake up beside him. So far, they couldn't move on.. No matter how hard they tried to distract themselves with other guys. Regardless of that, it was going uphill. They were getting better, even got a promotion.

It was all about to come crashing down again, though.

After their promotion, they were given a job at a gala event. They had to take care of the catering and would constantly have to refresh food - which honestly didn't sound too bad considering how much extra money they would get. Without putting much thought into it, they agreed. Not once did they consider that, perhaps, their ex could be one of the guests attending. After all, he was fairly famous now.

They should've checked beforehand.

The entire evening had been going incredibly well. The appetizer was well perceived, they got lots of compliments about how well their soup was. Preparing the main dish went just as well. No slip ups, nothing went wrong. But then it was time to deliver it to all attendees. Because they didn't have enough staff out of the kitchen, some of the kitchen staff was sent out to deliver the meals as well. And Prompto's S/O so happened to be one of them. As if fate wanted to kick them in the guts, Prompto and the model sat on the exact table they had to deliver food to. He was smiling, pretending to be happy with the perfect woman beside him. 4 other celebrities were sitting at the same table, they were all sharing laughs and interesting conversations. If Prompto's S/O could, they would've aborted their mission and would've headed right back into the kitchen. But they couldn't back down.

The moment the blonde came into their sight, they almost tripped over their feet. People were staring at her trying to hold her balance and clutch onto the food. Even though it could've been so obvious that he would attend, it simply didn't cross their mind. All they thought about was the money and how they could finally, after so long, start buying proper furniture for their apartment.

The closer they came, the sharper his facial features became, the more their heart began to race. He hadn't changed at all. The only difference was that he was wearing a little stubble - which was something he used to shave off as soon as he could. As they put down the plates, barely speaking to the celebrities receiving their food, they were shaking. While putting down Prompto's blade, they stuttered and ended up almost falling over because they stumbled. Being the kind guy he usually was, he didn't hesitate to help them, caught their arms just in time to help them stabilize before they even fell. After hastily apologizing, their eyes met. Not only did he recognize their voice, he also recognized their face. While he slowly let go of them, his mouth started falling agape. He had so many words he wanted to say but none of them came out. Prompto was in shock. Their appearance had changed so much. Their cheeks were a bit more hollow, sunken in lightly and their entire face seemed sharper. One glance at their arm was enough for him to see right through them. He could tell they had been struggling with their weight - and he immediately blamed himself.

After his fake-girlfriend gasped because her plate was still in Prompto's S/O's hands, they quickly put the plate in front of her and hurried away. Prompto was left staring after them. The celebrities on his table even asked what was going on, if he had known them. And he actually said yes.

Once they were back in the kitchen, tears threatened to fall. In their eyes, Prompto was still a very charming person - yet, he hurt them so badly. And, six, he looked so hot in that suit. A co-worker, one they had hooked up with once, came to their side, asked if everything was okay. They shook it off by saying the plates were so warm, they burned their skin. Luckily, he bought it and they could resume their work.

But from there on out, everything fell apart. Preparing the desserts was more of a struggle than it should've been. It was the easiest meal. Eventually, the same co-worker told them to clean dirty dishes instead of continue with the desserts - which was embarrassing them greatly. They were supposed to be the head of the team and order people to do stuff - not get ordered around because they couldn't cope with seeing their past boyfriend.

Nonetheless, they tried to appreciate that their co-worker was trying to help. But in return, they were sent out once again. To the same table, too. But this time, they just pretended to have forgotten which table to go to and went to a different one. Therefore someone else delivered the desserts to Prompto's table. Sure, they got in trouble for it but they were gladly taking it if it meant they wouldn't have to see Prompto and his current girlfriend.

While the entire team was already cleaning up the kitchen, including Prompto's S/O, a complaint was brought to their attention. Someone claimed to have a dessert full of hairs. Being the head of the team for the evening, Prompto's S/O was sent out to talk to the customer and find a proper solution. Although they weren't feeling up for it anymore, they went for it. Refusing it would've only caused more trouble that they really didn't need.

Preparing themselves for an angry customer, they tried to come up with nice solutions - what they didn't know was that it was Prompto complaining. He wanted to see them one more time and get a chance at talking to them. As they opened the door, the smile they had put on to seem like someone that genuinely cared about their customer's complaint faded and they eyes widened.

"I.. I need to talk to you" he said, watching them intently, gulping from fear they'd run of.

"What're you doing here?" they immediately returned, stepping out and closing the door behind them to ensure no one would witness this.

"Please.. Give me a chance to explain my situation to you" he begged, folding his hands together in a praying manner, "Let us go to a bar nearby and.. Grab a drink or something."

"Do you really think I'd go to a bar with you after what you've done?" they snapped, rolling their eyes as their body started shaking.

"I'd invite you to my place but I know that sounds wr-"

"It sure does sound like you've got wrong intentions" they interrupted him, "I-.. I'm at work right now. I won't go grab a drink with you."

"Then please let us set a date and meet up - I .. I need to speak to you" he continued to beg.

"Prompto, we're through. You chose to cheat on me for four months straight - hell, even on our 8 year anniversary. Do you really think I could just ignore this and go out with you?!" they lightly raised their voice, whisper-shouting at him.

"It's not a date of any sort, I really just want to-"

"No! You're dating that bitch anyway - I refuse to let you play with my heart again" they cut him off, frowning deeply while their heart actually fluttered.

Throughout their whole journey of getting better, he was always on their mind. They couldn't move on yet. 8 years were too hard to just forget. Not even one night stands could make them forget. No matter how hard they fought their feelings, they were still very much present. And they were well aware that, that was wrong. They shouldn't still harbor feelings for him.. But they couldn't help it. Now they just had to use their head instead of their heart, actively decide against him.

"I'm not-.. Can I at least have 5 minutes of your time? Please.. I really just want to explain this whole thing to you.." he murmured, sounding like he was about to cry, "I miss you."

Feeling their heart skip a beat, they exhaled loudly: "Goddammit, Prompto. You have 3 minutes. You already wasted 2 just talking about gibberish, get to the point."

Nodding, Prompto was quick to grab their arm. Although it was a sudden move, he was trying his best to be gentle. He in no way wanted to hurt them.

"Follow me, we.. I can't say this in public.." he murmured, striding towards a storeroom.

Even though they certainly didn't want to at first, they gave in and followed him into the room. Fortunately, no one was inside and they could lock in. And that's exactly what Prompto did to avoid anyone interrupting.

"I know this seems sketchy.. But.. I'm sure you'll understand," he breathed out, glancing around the room, checking it for possible security cameras - but none were installed.

"You better have a good explanation" they groaned, snatching their arm out of his grip.

"Oh.. I'm sorry.." he apologized the second he realized he was still holding on to them.

"Just get on with what you have to say.." they growled, "I have work to do. I'm getting paid for this."

"I'm - .. I'm not actually dating her. It's just for the public eye.. We both signed a contract over 7 months. The fans like us together and.. We're both profiting from this" he explained, biting his lip hard, "I admit, I was dating her for roughly a month after.. We.. Broke up.. But, oh, by the six, (Y/N),.. I miss you so much."

"You do realize I could expose you right about now.." they replied.

"I know how good hearted you are and that you wouldn't do that" he replied, glancing right into their eyes.

"You know nothing.." they returned, avoiding his gaze because they knew he was right.

"(Y/N), I.. I was such a fool for even thinking about hurting you this bad. And I want you to know that I..- you're the most beautiful person I've ever met. I don't know why I ever thought it'd be okay to cheat on you. I don't know what got into me.. I don't know why I did it.. Over and over again," he apologized, gently grazing against their hand with his own, "I regret everything I did and that I harmed you. I swear, if I could turn back time, I'd never touch her again.. It was the thrill, I was being stupid. So fucking stupid. I hate how much I hurt you."

Inhaling sharply from the gentle touch, their eyes started tearing up. Their walls were falling.

"This means nothing to me.." they mumbled, desperately trying to convince themselves that this was the truth, that they truly didn't care about what he said - but they did, "You just realized what you had.. Because I'm gone."

"That's true.. partly" he agreed, "What I did was indescribably wrong - I knew that the moment I saw how your world was tearing apart when you caught us. I don't know why I thought it'd be okay before. I realize now, that I never worshipped you as much as I should have. You've always been so good to me, so supportive.. You're such a wonderful person. You deserved so much better.. I really want to make everything up to you."

"You can't" they shook their head before lowering it, knowing that their heart really wanted him to find a way to make it all up but hearing their brain shout that they shouldn't give him another chance.

"Please, (Y/N). I.. I still love you" he admitted, carefully taking on of their hands in his, "Your calming voice, your lovely eyes, your adorable smile and that cute giggle.. I miss you."

Tears involuntarily streamed down their cheeks, dropping into their clothes one by one. Part of them wanted to hear all this, the other part didn't. Their heart started aching, longing for his attention while also hurting from what they witnessed.

"I miss taking photos of you, calling them my masterpiece, the project I never want to finish. And I miss going on trips with you and all the laughing when we fail to set up a tent. And all the random video games we play together.. Where it's usually you that lets me win all the games" he smiled to himself sadly, "You've always been good a champ at beating me up in Street Fighter. But I also miss watching you play Kings Knight. You were always so enthusiastic. I miss everything we did together."

With each word, they started feeling worse, yet better at the same time. All those memories warmed their heart, yet broke it seconds later. They missed him as well. He still held their heart.

"I miss holding you, cuddling with you, kissing you.." he whispered, gently leaning his forehead against theirs, "I miss you so unbelievably much. You're the light of my life. You've always been.. And I think you know how much you helped me… saved me even. I'm regret ever daring to hurt you.. You don't deserve that. You're such a diamond, so perfect. So utterly beautiful."

While they furiously wiped their tears away with their free hand, Prompto intertwined their fingers on their other hand.

"Please, give me a chance to prove my love for you. I promise, I will do everything I possibly can to help you trust me again" he begged, lifting his free hand to help them wipe their tears away.

Feeling his familiar, warm hands against their skin just made everything worse. He knew he had them wrapped around his finger.

"Prompto.. How do I know you're not lying to me again?" they whispered through their tears, "You've screwed me over for four months before - you could just be lying to me again.."

"Baby, let me show you.. Please.." he begged softly, closing his eyes as he squeezed their hand.

Closing their eyes tightly, they sobbed. Internally, they were fighting against themselves. Heart versus head. Feelings versus conscience.

"I love you. I always have. I always will" he mumbled, lifting their hands towards his chest, "My heart's beating for you."

Their knees started getting weak at the sudden feeling of his covered chest. They were overwhelmed.

"Your time's up.." they whispered, almost whining because they were so torn.

"From 9th grade until now.. You've always been my favorite.." he mumbled, "Please just one more chance.. Please.."

"Prompto your time's up.." they repeated, feeling their shell crack entirely.

"(Y/N), I'll do everything I possibly can for yo-" he whispered, but they cut him off once again.

"Your time is up!" they cried out, pushing him away lightly while their tears overwhelmed them entirely - they didn't want to hear him speak any longer.

To keep themselves from falling, they quickly clung on to his shoulders, even ended up falling against his chest. Although their body should be strong enough to hold them up, they were feeling just as weak as they did when their eating disorder was at it's worst. Prompto immediately shut up and wrapped his arms around their fragile body.

"I fucking hate you" they cried while they clutched onto his shoulders, squeezing them lightly.

"D..- Do you..?" he asked, his voice breaking at the sight of his S/O breaking down.

At that, they were quick to shake their head. They knew they loved him. There was no denying that. After they regained some strength, they put a little distance between their bodies and glanced up into his beautiful blue eyes. That he had tears in his own eyes almost made them cry again. For that moment, they completely forgot that they were still technically at work and had some cleaning to do… and that at least 15 minutes had passed by now. Even though they tried to resist, their eyes still lowered to his lips. They still seemed so kissable to them. For a split second, their feelings took over and they pressed a gentle kiss on his lips. One kiss turned into two.. Or three.. Four, five… six. They ended up making out right there in that storage room. Both their feelings for each other took over.

[slight nsfw content ahead - they do the do]

Within a few minutes, Prompto was busy nibbling on their neck, specifically caressing their favorite spot. Meanwhile, they succumbed to his touches. His hands traveled all over their body, slowly stripping them from all pieces of clothing. Their hands surely did the same. It didn't take long before the former couple was naked, surrounded by piles of clothes. Both took a moment to admire the body in front of them. Although they hoped to have all the time in the world, time wasn't exactly what they had. Nonetheless, their need for each other was stronger than ever. The desire, longing for one another was beyond obvious. After ensuring both were fine with where this was going, consent was given, they couldn't hold back any longer. The moment they felt him inside of them, they almost lost it. Keeping fairly quiet sure was a huge challenge. Him inside of them was exactly what they needed. Prompto definitely knew how to take care of them. It was truly unfortunate that they were in a hurry. After a heated 15 minutes, both were breathless but certainly satisfied.

[nsfw end]

"Oh.. Six.. Fuck.. Can I have your.. Number?" he shyly asked, trying to regain his breath while he started putting on clothes.

"Y-yeah.. It's [insert random number]" they coldly replied, in shock of what just happened, on cloud nine but unable to process that they just had sex.

Once he took out his phone, realized he had 8 missed calls by his "girlfriend" he started to panic and groaned.

"Shit, I have to hurry.." he whispered, quickly entering their number into his phone, "Please.. Stay in touch with me. We can always take this slow."

Nodding, they slowly began to process that they were getting back with their ex - which was something they originally wanted to avoid. Their conscience said no, their heart screamed yes.

"I have to go now.. That bitch is looking for me" he announced, sighing loudly while he buttoned up his shirt.

"O-okay" they stuttered, hopping into their pants.

"I'll call you later, okay?" he suggested, gently placing a hand on their upper arm.

"S-sure" they agreed, smiling lightly.

"Great" he smiled at them before kissing them quickly, "Thank you for this. I genuinely appreciate it."

"Yeah.." they just replied, unsure of what to say, still too overwhelmed.

After that, Prompto left the room and they continued to dress. The moment they headed back into the kitchen, people were glaring at them, asking where they'd been and what took so long. Thanks to a series of lies, they managed to get out of the situation.

Once they got home and patiently waited for Prompto's call, it didn't come. After waiting for hours they came to the conclusion that he used them. He didn't call them that night. All the worries and self-doubt clouded up their mind again, making them cry for the second time that night.

A/N: How do you want this story to go on? For a third and (probably) final part you can jump in action and choose their future. Click on this link (it’s a strawpoll, no registration/info needed + it’s anonymous) and vote for your choice. ^^ You have until the 19th December to vote, the poll will be deleted after that date.The poll is closed! Thank you everyone that participated! :3

I’ve always wanted to include you into how my stories progress and therefore really wanted to try this. Feel free to give me feedback :D

2nd December ; 3rd December ; 4th December ; 5th December ; 6th December ; 7th December ; 8th December ; 9th December ; 10th December ; 11th December ; 12th December ; 13th December ; 14th December ; 15th December ; 16th December ; 17th December ; 18th December ; 19th December ; 20th December ; 21st December ; 22nd December ; 23rd December ; 24th December ; 25th December

Masterlist ; 1st Part ; 2nd Part ; 3rd Part // Noctis cheating 1 ; 2 ; 3 // Gladio cheating 1 ; 2 ; 3 // Ignis cheating 1 ; 2 // Ravus cheating

#ffxv #ff15 #final fantasy #final fantasy xv #final fantasy 15 #prompto argentum #prompto #prompto x reader #countdown to christmas #tw: ed #tw: eating disorder #tw: depression #tw: graphic content #tw: cheating

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ts1989fanatic · 7 years

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SWIFT-WATCH

Where in the World Is Taylor Swift? An Investigation.

Is she hangin’ with Ed Sheeran in a mythical forest somewhere? Or being transported in a piece of luggage? One thing’s certain: The world’s biggest pop star has been very MIA.

AMY ZIMMERMAN 07.19.17 1:00 AM ET

ts1989fanatic this so called writer is no fan of Taylor Swift, so if you don’t want to almost puke and end up enraged by this TRASH read no further.

Taylor Swift is the teenage tattoo of A-List celebrities: Every so often we remember that she’s still there, and we don’t quite know what to do with her.

The pop star has been more or less MIA since last summer, when Kim Kardashian took to Snapchat to out Swift as a stack of snake emojis hiding inside a patriotic onesie.

Taylor Swift—an incredibly calculating celeb who nonetheless managed to market herself as the naïve girl next door—might be a snake, but she’s our snake. In a galaxy of eye-roll-eliciting Katy Perrys and rage-inducing Rob Kardashians, Swift always stood out as a celebrity who could generate an infinite amount of relatively inoffensive content about herself.

ts1989fanatic there are several snakes mentioned in this post including the writer, but Taylor is not one of them.

From her rotating cast of Ken doll boyfriends to her famous squad, Swift consistently made headlines. Love her or hate her, but show some freaking gratitude for a woman who would go on a double date with her friend who is currently dating her ex-boyfriend just to feed us clickbait-hungry monsters.

ts1989fanatic Calvin Harris is a Ken Doll OK sure this writer is a moron, and the double date was not to feed idiots like you.

When Swift was exposed as a liar and went into hiding, the entertainment blogosphere lost one of its brightest stars. Swift elegantly toed the line between A-list celebrity and overexposure—a line that Kim Kardashian promptly pushed her over. So it’s no surprise that the media-adept star reacted by doing a total-180, transforming from “girl who gets papp’d every day” to “mythical nocturnal creature who may or may not subsist on the burnt offerings of Ed Sheeran.”

ts1989fanatic I’m still waiting for the unedited full conversation and not the 90 seconds of chopped and edited BULLSHIT that KARTRASHIAN put out to prove Taylor as a liar (until then calling Taylor a liar is CRAP)

Keeping a low profile is one thing, but shipping yourself out of your own apartment is quite another.

ts1989fanatic This has already been proven as BULLSHIT and retracted.

Swift-Watch 2017 reached a new nadir earlier this week, when word spread that the star had been carried out of her Tribeca building in a piece of luggage. Stories like “Taylor Swift Was Definitely Not Being Carted Around in a Giant Suitcase” quickly debunked the rumors, but, still, if you have to clarify that Taylor Swift is not cramming herself into a trunk every time she wants to go to SoulCycle, clearly something is up. So how, over the course of one year, did Taylor Swift go from one of the biggest pop stars in the world to a potential human carry-on? What has this woman been up to? And why does Ed Sheeran always seem to make everything worse?

ts1989fanatic Taylor is avoiding IDIOTS like this writer so that she might actually have a normal relationship and a little privacy from being mocked by the media over everything she does.

The Crab Walk

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At this point, the story of Taylor Swift’s Snapchat outing is the stuff of celebrity lore (more specifically, North West’s bedtime story). After Swift fell back on her traditional victim narrative, complaining that Kanye Westreleased a vulgar rap about her without her permission, Kim published footage of Kanye running the offensive lyrics past Swift in the studio. Swift’s lies held up about as well as a street-cast model on an hours-long Yeezy runway, and the pop singer was quickly denounced as a calculating fake. But we didn’t understand the full weight of Kim’s public image assault until a few weeks later, when Swift was caught crab-walking out of her gym to avoid the paparazzi. I’m not saying that Kim Kardashian hypes herself up with a few lines of Pixy Stix every night and watches this video of Taylor Swift walking sideways, but I’m not not saying that.

ts1989fanatic Taylor has always tried to find different ways to avoid the paps, do you all remember walking backwards down a hiking trail I do.

‘Jury Duty’

The VMAs are a site of trauma for anyone who hates bad fashion and Canadian tuxedos. But the annual awards show is particularly triggering for Taylor Swift, whose years-long feud with Kanye West began on that very stage. So when the VMAs rolled around so quickly after Swift’s Snapchat fiasco, the star turned away from her walk-in closet full of sequined mini dresses and opted to fulfill her civic duty instead. Yes, Taylor Swift, image-crafter extraordinaire, managed to avoid a high-profile awards show appearance by claiming that she had jury duty the next day. Knowing that that was a “dog ate my homework”-level excuse, Swift obviously had to go the extra mile and actually show up to jury duty. While a Nashville judge eventually dismissed Swift as a potential juror in the case, the singer still managed to befriend a few lucky Tennesseans—including a local resident who got Swift to sign her copy of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. You truly cannot make this shit up.

ts1989fanatic It was not a claim that she had jury duty IT WAS A FUCKING FACT.

R.I.P. Hiddleswift

There are suspiciously paparazzi-friendly dates, there are fake Hollywood couples, and then there’s this. Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston announced their brand partnership when they swapped spit for the photogs on a bunch of rocks—as one does. It was perfect synergy from the very start: Tom Hiddleston wanted to become James Bond, and Taylor Swift likes white boys. The “human relationship” proceeded in a manner characteristic of typical human relationships.

They ate dinner together, held hands, and traveled the world. Swift even let Hiddleston pick out an interpersonal relationship party favor from her closet of affirmational tank tops. Unfortunately, Hiddleston didn’t appear to “heart T.S.” enough to stand by her side once her stock started plummeting—either that, or Swift realized that having such an artificial-seeming relationship was making her look even less authentic. For a deliberately manufactured relationship, Hiddleswift was pretty ill-timed.

Tom Hiddleston was not Taylor Swift’s most famous boyfriend, nor was he the pettiest. He wasn’t Harry Styles or a Kennedy. He was, however, the most willing to plant his ass on a bunch of cold pointy rocks and make out for some pictures. R.I.P., Hiddleswift: gone but, thanks to an army of dedicated paparazzi, never forgotten.

ts1989fanatic yes their relationship was short lived but this does not mean fake, only two people in the world that know the truth the rest is just Speculation.

Halloween!

Taylor Swift was Deadpool for Halloween, I guess.

ts1989fanatic And you point is you PUTZ

Decision 2017

Despite not having the balls to endorse Hillary Clinton, self-described feminist Taylor Swift urged her 102 million social media followers to “Go out and VOTE.” It worked out really well. Thanks a lot, Taylor.

ts1989fanatic Taylor could not win either way if she endorsed Hillary she would have been attacked for that. Taylor Swift is not to BLAME for TRUMP.

Two Directions

Though technically released in December, Swift’s Zayn Malik duet truly made waves when it was featured in Fifty Shades Darker, a movie about having the least kinky BDSM sex imaginable in Seattle. In January, Malik and Swift co-starred in a music video for the track. Someone on Wikipedia has written a better synopsis of this music video than I ever could: “The video starts with Zayn emerging from his car on a rainy night as the paparazzi take photos. As Zayn enters a hotel he starts singing his part and as the chorus begins he reaches the elevator with red lights and then pans over to another elevator with Swift singing her part and proceeds to her hotel room. Zayn in his room sings the chorus and Swift pours some champagne in a glass. The rest of the video is Zayn and Swift throwing objects like glasses, lamps, pillows across their rooms in anger.”

ts1989fanatic Take synopsis shine it up and stick it were the sun don’t shine.

Super Bowl Bonanza

Swift performed her first and quite possibly last concert of the year in February, telling the audience that, “By coming to this show tonight, you are attending 100 percent of this year’s tour dates.”

ts1989fanatic this part I can’t disagree with.

The Ed Sheeran Rendezvous

Who cares?

ts1989fanatic Millions of fans do you stupid fucking idiot.

Mystery Boo

In May, news broke that Taylor Swift was months-deep into a relationship with British actor Joe Alwyn. While anyone who’s familiar with Swift knows that up-and-coming Brits are her personal heroin, the real surprise was that the singer actually pulled off a secret romance. For months, Swift and Alwyn made like Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and weren’t seen. A wig was reportedly involved. By the time news leaked, Swift was allegedly already looking at houses in the U.K. (although, to be fair, buying real estate in her new boyfriends’ neighborhoods is what Taylor Swift does between following back on Instagram and going on a first date).

ts1989fanatic that crack about buying real estate is garbage that was something she did once and could easily and probably was coincidence.

The Drop

Taylor Swift will never miss a chance to screw over her enemies, even if she has to orchestrate her vengeance through a WiFi hotspot that she set up inside her giant suitcase. Taylor Swift came here to do many things—make out with the hottest guys, put more fiddles in pop music, name her cat after Olivia Benson—but she did not come here to play. Katy Perry learned this lesson the hard way in June, when Swift quietly released her entire musical catalog on Spotify the same night that Perry dropped her new album. Perry’s abysmal “Witness”—which featured a diss track about TayTay—just couldn’t compete with Swift’s entire oeuvre. It was a rough day for Katy Perry, and a great day for 15-year-olds with Spotify premium.

ts1989fanatic Sorry but KP deserved all she got.

America the Beautiful

While something has obviously been off in Taylor-world this year, nothing cemented this fact quite like Swift’s refusal to throw her annual Fourth of July party. No one event has ever encapsulated the American dream quite like Swift’s mandatory summer squad meet-ups: a mosh pit of blonde beauties with flat stomachs enjoying water sports and baking Pinterest-worthy goodies in red, white, and blue bikinis.

This year, instead of heading for Swift’s Rhode Island estate, the squad was left to their own devices. Most notably, model Karlie Kloss celebrated the Fourth by posing for an Instagram with Kendall Jenner—Kim Kardashian’s half-sister. Kudos to Kloss for finding the only other celebrity in the world who probably can’t name a Destiny’s Child song(and has been accused of a far more egregious act of cultural appropriation). Kloss’ decision to spend Swift’s favorite holiday with a Kardashian was read as an insult, leading to the possible conclusion that Kloss and Swift are no longer besties. Adding overblown insult to imagined injury, Lorde was later caught insinuating that she and Swift are no longer co-squad members.

And then there was only… Martha Hunt.

ts1989fanatic Karlie was at fashion week she’s a FUCKING MODEL that’s her job IDIOT, as for Lorde that’s already been clapped back on by Lorde herself.

For someone who gets paid to write, you suck at it maybe you should get into writing fiction that’s pretty much what this whole piece was.

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demon-vs-angel · 7 years

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Monday January 23, 2017 2:18 AM

Hey there world.

So I skipped my blog post last Thursday in case you didn't notice which probably no one did. I had been working a lot writing posts for our other site so when I was done the last thing I wanted to do was write more. I put it off until Thursday night and by the time I got to it I was way more than a little tipsy and I tried writing something worth reading and it was absolute shit.

I started my diet again on the 9th to lose some weight. I was at around 137 after the holidays which was ten pounds more than when we got married a year and a half ago. Along with a calorie deficit I was going to just give up alcohol. I had drunken a fair amount around the holidays, especially when hanging out with my in-laws which is super stressful and anxiety causing for me. Even when I wasn't doing anything with them and I was just hanging out at home I wanted to drink because I was still stressed out about things that had happened or while thinking about things that might happen in the future.

I didn't even last a week. I think at some point in the middle of that first week back on my diet I drank again. I factored it into my calories for the week and didn't skip any of my workouts to drink or because I was hung over but I wasn't crazy about having let myself down.

So I started a new standard that I discussed with my husband and he thought it was a good idea. Basically, I would eat about 100 calories less than my goal each day and then on the weekend to celebrate or have fun with him I would have around 600 calories I could eat or drink.

I didn't even last a week. When he went to his small group on Tuesday the 17th I drank and filmed some videos on my phone that no one will probably ever see. I don't know why but drinking when I am home alone and can kind of just do my own thing is a lot of fun for me. I actually planned on writing my post for Thursday on that day and I did not do that obviously.

On top of this, on Friday it was raining a whole lot and my brother in law called my husband and asked if we wanted to go hiking in the mountains with him and his gf. I had a bunch of work I wanted to get done but it doesn't normally rain out here so we decided to go. I don't know why but I thought we were going to be able to get to the mountain (which is about 50 min drive away) before it got dark even though my husband said it would be. I thought it would just be dusk which is one of my favorite times to hike so I was actually pretty excited. Well we got stuck in traffic and I started getting pissed cause I realized it would be pitch black and I no longer wanted to go at all.

Not to mention that my brother in law called again and said he was going to be like two hours late. I don't know why this even bothers me anymore, he is literally ALWAYS late. Like, every single time we plan something. At this point I was so over it and really didn't want to go because we went way out of our way to accommodate their schedule and then they are gonna pull this shit?

So me and my husband decided to go to Pizza Hut and get some dinner to kill time and I said I wished I had drunken before we left and he said we could fix that. We went to a liquor store and got a bottle of wine, picked up the pizza, and then headed to his parents' house to wait for his brother cause his parents live about 15 minutes away from where we were going to be going hiking.

When we got to their house we drank the entire bottle of wine while eating the pizza. His mom also suggested we make margaritas because she was going to make one for his dad later the celebrate inauguration of Trump. I think I ended up drinking two margaritas with only about a shot in each but that plus the wine got me pretty buzzed.

I was actually trying to drink as much as possible because I reeeeeaally didn't want to go on the hike at night. I have hiked at night in the rain a lot growing up in Oregon and I just didn't want to. I tried to get everyone to want to go the next day since it was Saturday but no one wanted to but me. I was miserable.

Over the last entire week I have also been pretty depressed which is pretty normal for me the week before I get my period (which I got yesterday) but it always makes me feel really bad about myself and life. I also cut again a few days ago for the first time in months. So on Friday night, on a hike I really didn't want to go, I was very buzzed and very uninterested in life.

We were looking for this waterfall that we had hiked to a couple other times but we missed the turn off on the trail for it so we ended up walking about two miles all the way up, all the way back down, and all the way up again before we found it.

Along the way I grabbed a rock, carried it in the pocket of my hoodie and scrapped it across my wrists while we walked while chanting in my mind “you're stupid, you're worthless, you're an idiot.”

The hike wasn't that bad actually just because I was numb to my own suffering from the alcohol and we did end up finding the waterfall. It was actually really gorgeous because there was tons of water from the rain and there were mountains all around us that had snow that looked really cool. We sat by the waterfall for a while before hiking back and then driving back to my in law's house where we had left our car.

When we got back to their house I grabbed my change out of our car and me and my husband headed inside so I could change cause I was soaked from the rain while my brother in law and his gf stayed in his truck outside.

I finished changing and then my husband came in the bathroom and we were just drying off and stuff and then his brother, after having not even come inside to say his to his dad who had not been home when we stopped by earlier or hang out at all, yelled from the front door that he and his gf were going home and for us to have a good night.

Literally every time we have gotten together, just the four of us or the whole family, they leave early and will never stay later. Earlier on in the night his gf had even suggested we hit the town later after the hike and now they leave without even coming in? I was so fucking done. I didn't even say good night or yell out “bye.” If they can't bother themselves then neither will I. I had already put a ton of work into a hike I did not want to go on for the good of the group and that is how they repay my politeness? Fuck that.

My husband went out and said bye to them, I finished drying off.

Then we made two more margaritas. I was pretty buzzed all night. My husband can drink like 5 times I can of liquor so he felt fine to drive home about 2 hours later.

We got home, changed, went to bed.

Last night (Saturday) I went and got groceries and I also got spiced rum and stuff to make pina coladas. I figured my diet was already screwed from the day before and I wanted to have fun with my husband. When I got home he wanted to clean the garage so I ended up basically drinking alone. I made us tacos for dinner which we ate together and then he got back to work and I went upstairs to go on my computer in our warm office.

I made two pina coladas with about a shot of rum in each and then took at least three single shots. I still felt really bad emotionally from the previous night and was kind of lonely and really wanted to cut again.

So, I showed and after the shower I cut again. It hurt and afterwards I kind of regretted it because it is such a pain dealing with it afterwards but at the same time it felt really good.

Here is the really fun part. I didn't drink enough water while I drank last night so I had a bad hangover today plus the fact that the first full day of my period I always get really bad cramps so I have felt like complete shit almost all day and have just been laying down, dying, sleeping, etc.

Now, my brother in law's gf, lets call her Elle, cannot function without a drink. Every time we have hung out, when she is sober she hardly talks and is so awkward. Give her a drink and she opens up, talks, laughs, makes conversation, smiles, etc. It is literally like two different people. She has admitted that she gets tired of hanging around people and just wants to be alone at the end of the day, which I have totally felt, but I don't think she can even really socialize without a drink.

I like to have a drink, it makes it way easier to deal with people like my in laws that I have a really hard time dealing with so I get her. But I do not want to be her.

Alcohol is not the answer. Lately every time we have gone out with them or my parents in law, or if anyone stops by our house without warning, I take a drink... or three.

I really hate people a lot of times. I have a lot of anxiety that plagues almost my every second.

Alcohol is becoming a crutch for me to be able to function socially. The bad part though is that it also makes my self harm addiction harder to stay away from. It makes a temporary shield against the bad parts of social encounters but all the anxious thoughts are still there later and I am not developing ways to actually deal with them, I just keep running away. One of my absolute favorite, if not my number one, place to turn to when I am running is self harm and the alcohol just encourages it.

I refuse to be Elle. I think she is weak. I hate that she calls herself this great Christian and is a school counselor and yet, I believe, has an addiction to alcohol.

I cannot describe how weak I think she is. To not even be able to hang out with us, and we are pretty chill, without a drink. I hate it. I have hung out with them plenty of times sober to try and have fun It makes it feel like she really doesn't want to be with us. Not to mention as soon as she sobers up at the end of the night it is always mysteriously when she wants to go home. Everything about her seems fake right now because I don't think she has ever been 100 percent genuine with me because the only time she seems herself is when she is drinking and that is not real, I know, I do it to hide myself and yet fit in with other people better.

So, I have decided something. I am not going to drink for a whole month.

The only exception will be if my husband wants to on Valentines day but that will be it, and it will only be with him and lead by him to make sure I don't go overboard.

I am also committing to not cutting myself again. It is not worth the stress of trying to hide it and get it to heal and it does not actually solve anything long term.

While committing to these two things I am also going to actively work on my anxiety and worry workbook and actually try to move forward with my mental health like I am with my physical health.

Alcohol isn't the worse thing ever and I think I will always like drinking. But I never want to rely on it to survive a social situation, that is how problems start. I am starting to rely on it way too much. My in laws are also drinking more than they used to which is not helping me.

I am tired of hang overs, I am tired of being unable to function socially without it, and I am tired of the depression I am left with days later because of it.

I will keep notes on how my mental and physical health are progressing and hopefully over the coming weeks and months we will see a positive change!

I will continue to update at least once a week on what I am doing, what's working, how my addictions are, etc. and if this helps out anyone else then great :) Sorry if this is kinda long, I am too good at writing too many words :/

This is my war, I'm gonna fucking win it. Goodnight.

#selfharm #anxiety #cutting #recovery #addiction #selfharmmm

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