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luveline · 9 months

Note

hey jade!! i love kisses before dinner and was wondering (if you like the idea) maybe you could write something about avery realising how scary giving birth can be and starts worry about it before the new baby arrives? <3<3<3

thank you for your request! kisses before dinner —mom!you and dad!steve comfort avery when she has concerns for your health. fem!reader, 3k

cw discussed maternal mortality and death

Steve Harrington looks out over the kitchen table that night with a great sense of success. You're sitting at the other end with Dove on your knee, feeding her bites of macaroni cheese between feigned spoonfuls given to her rainbow teddy bear. Bethie sits to his left eating without complaint (a victory considering her pickiness). Avery sits to his right, trying to pour her own glass from the juice jug. It's awesome.

Steve quickly swallows the drink he'd been sipping on and offers to help her, hand extended, "Here. I got it."

"I can do it," Avery insists, her long arms shaking under the weight.

He doesn't mind her being independent, nor her improving capabilities, but the last thing he wants to do tonight is clean up a huge juice spill. Steve takes the juice gently and refills her plastic cup.

"Dad," she whines.

"Avery," he whines back.

She huffs and grabs her fork, ignoring her fresh cup of juice to shovel in bites of broccoli and macaroni instead.

"I think I'm done," Bethie says. Steve must have jinxed it.

He attempts to do the impossible —convince Bethie to finish dinner. He takes up station by the side of her chair, having tried everything now, and only this works.

"Beth," he says, putting his hand behind her back, "Are you sure there's no room left? I don't want you to be hungry again before we go to bed 'cos you won't tell me, will you?"

"I'm full," she insists, reaching for her drink bottle.

"Is there something wrong with it?" he asks, rubbing up and down her back.

"No, daddy, it's nice," she says. She isn't quite convincing, but she tries.

Steve looks at her. She looks like Steve sometimes, like neither of you other times, but mostly he looks at her and he sees you. Your smile, your frown, Bethie's tell is the same as yours when she lies. Steve can read you both like a book.

"Is it cold?" he asks, sticking his pinky finger in the corner of her macaroni. "A little. If I heat it back up for you, would that make it better?"

"No, please," she says.

He sighs. "Make you something else? Sandwiches?"

"I'm not hungry, daddy."

Steve plasters a smile over his worries and kisses her cheek. "Okie smokie. Well done, honey, you ate lots and lots. Let's try even more for breakfast, yeah?"

"Yes!" she agrees, sliding off of her chair.

"Where are you going?" he asks.

"Need to pee!" she yells, running to the stairs. She opens the baby gate (which she’s known how to do for too many years, way before supposed to know how to —thanks so much, Avery) and Steve listens to her sprint up the stairs with a wince.

"Call me if you need help!" he yells after her.

"Okay!"

"You think that's why she didn't want to eat?" you ask, wiping the corners of Dove's mouth with her bib.

Steve stands up and stretches his arms behind his head. "I don't know," he says, rolling his neck around in a circle.

"Is it gross if I eat her leftovers?" you ask.

"I'll make you another pot, if you want it," Steve offers, arms dropping down to his side. He's been trying to get back into shape lately. It's not working out. "You having cravings?"

"I'm just hungry all the time," you say, your voice melding into a sing song as you finish wiping Dove's face. "All done! Good girl, Dovey! You're my good girl." You plaster her forehead with a layer of kisses before putting her down on the floor. She wobbles, hands on your thighs. "Okay? You want another drink?"

"Dotty Dolly," she says, taking your hand. "Please. Please, Dolly."

"Yeah, my love. I'm coming." You groan as you stand up, not quite pregnant enough to worry about popping soon but more than enough to feel exhaustion to the marrow.

"Just me and you then," Steve says to Avery, tucking in chairs and piling plates at the table.

"Me and you, sir," she agrees in a funny voice.

"Still mad at me?"

She remembers to glare at him. "Yes!" She takes another bite of macaroni. "Okay, no."

"If you're not gonna chew with your mouth closed, put your hand over your mouth. I don't wanna see your chewed up dinner." Avery pokes her tongue out, laughing when Steve says, "Ewww."

He sets the leftovers aside for you rather than waste Bethie's largely untouched pasta in the trash, stacking the dishes in the sink and wetting a cloth to wipe down the table. He cleans around Avery, squeezing her neck, shoulders and arms to make her squirm as he goes.

"You want seconds?" he asks, returning to the sink.

"I want dessert."

"Good idea. You know Mom's so pregnant all she does lately is wake me up for ice cream."

"She wakes you up?" Avery asks.

"By accident trying to put her socks on at the end of the bed. Baby's getting too big now, she can't see her toes."

"It's a good thing she has you, dad."

"Yeah, but you'd help mommy, wouldn't you? Help her put her shoes on if she couldn't reach?"

Avery hops off of her chair and passes him her plate, completely clean of food. She grows like a bamboo shoot and eats like a rabid dog. He loves it. She's evidence that he's a good cook.

"Thank you. What did you want for dessert?" he asks.

"I have something to ask you."

"Oh." Steve hates the sound of that, theorising that she wants a new something or other he'll have to say no to. He grabs her by the waist, wet hands and all, hoisting her up onto the counter by the dish rack. He puts a rag in her hands. "You dry and I'll answer."

"It's a weird question," Avery warns.

"Avery, you wouldn't believe how weird some of the questions I've asked are. Don't worry about it."

He scrunches dirty water out of the dish sponge and squirts soap onto a dirty plate. The hot water burns his fingertips. Avery dries a plastic plate diligently, her question coming out slow as running wax.

"Mom's gonna be okay, right?" she asks quietly.

Steve fights to keep his eyebrows down. They bob anyways. "Okay from what?"

"When she has the baby. She's not going to get hurt?"

"Well, having a baby really hurts. But there's medicine for her to take, and I'll be there to hold her hand."

"No," Avery says, frowning, "that's not…"

"Sorry, Ave. Ask me again, try a different word."

She puts the dried plate down to her left and picks another to dry. "Will mom die?"

"No," he says. Doesn't miss a beat, though his pulse capers. He knows that childbirth is hard, that lots of things can go wrong, but if he truly thought you might die he wouldn't have asked for another baby. And even if he did think it were going to happen, it's not a thought Avery needs to have. "She won't die, I promise you. Where'd you get that idea, honey?"

"Jordan's mom died having a baby."

Steve nods and tries to recalibrate the conversation. He knew of Jordan's mom passing away, he made a couple of trays of food for Jordan's dad and put money in the collection plate for her memorial, but he didn't know Avery knew precisely how it happened.

"Right, she did," he says gently. "And that's scary, huh?"

"Why can't it happen to mommy if it happened to her?" Avery asks.

Steve shuts off the water. Hand still wet, he rubs his forehead roughly. "Can I have that?" he asks Avery, gesturing for the dish cloth. She gives it to him, putting down her last plate, and Steve wipes his fingers dry to pick her up without getting her wet a second time.

"Let's have a talk," he says, tilting his head to the side. He sees his eyes looking back at him, smaller and softer, longer lashes but the same honeyed brown. "Me, you, and mommy. Okay?"

"Dad," she says, startled.

"It's okay, It'll be better if you talk to mom, too, because it's mom that's already had babies, not me. I think I know everything because my brain is so big and stuff, but I can't tell you what your mom is thinking."

"I don't want mommy to get upset," she says.

It's partially his fault for asking her to tell him if there's a problem rather than you a few weeks ago. He didn't want you walking up and down the stairs unnecessarily, and your blood pressure is something they've been keeping an eye on. He didn't mean for Avery to bottle things up. Every time Steve thinks he's doing something right it finds a way to bite him in the ass.

"I meant if Bethie's turned the faucet on and flooded the bathroom, or if you want to change your bed or something, not that you can't ask her things that are worrying you," he says, readjusting her weight. Her knees dig into his sides as he carries her to the living room doorway from the kitchen.

"Hey, mom?" he asks.

Your head jumps up. You're sitting on the edge of the couch with Dove's face in your knee, a dribble patch dampening your pants. Bethie has her hand in yours sitting next to you. You're still in your work clothes, your bump straining against everything now, but yet to drop. He'll have to wash your pants tonight.

"Hey?" you say, a guilty smile tugging up your pretty mouth. "I'm coming to do the dishes, I swear. My girls caught me in their net."

"Can we talk to you? For a minute," Steve says.

Your eyes widen. You stand up with a funny noise like someone's stepped on your toes, lifting Dove by the armpits to sit next to Bethie. You kiss the girls goodbye and they're too distracted by Dotty Dolly playing on the TV to mind.

"What's wrong?" you ask, following Steve back into the kitchen.

"Want me to explain?" Steve asks Avery. She nods. "Avery's a little worried about you."

"About me?" You put your hands under your face and beam at her. "What's worrying you? I've never been better."

"She's worried about when you have the baby."

"'Cos of Jordan's mom," Avery whispers.

You hear it despite her small voice, your smile sobering. "I see… I see. You know… you're a big girl, Avery. You're my big girl, and I wish I could keep you this young forever sometimes, but I know that you know that people don't get to stay with us forever, so I don't want to scare you, but I'll tell you what I think, yeah?"

Avery swallows around nothing.

Steve gives her back a sympathetic pat. "It's okay," he says to her, enthusing his voice with some pep to calm her down.

"Jordan's mommy was sick when she passed away," you say, your hand resting on your bump now, inching closer to Steve and Avery where they've paused under the kitchen light. "She knew things were going to be hard. When you have a baby, you know things won't be easy, but it's not fair. It's very sad. She," —you look at Steve with a parent familiar fear that says, Am I saying the right things?— "said goodbye before anyone wanted her too, but Avery." Steve knows what you're going to say. It's a promise he made only minutes ago, one that you have no control over keeping, but a necessary one nonetheless to make. You could very well have complications down the line, things could spin out of control, but Avery doesn't need the stress of that hanging over her. "I promise you here and now that I'm not going anywhere. Daddy won't let me."

He laughs a little breathlessly. "Damn straight."

"But daddy isn't a doctor," Avery says, holding out her arm.

You walk into Avery's reach, letting her climb from Steve's arms to yours without complaint. "He didn't have time to be a doctor, he was too busy being the best dad ever."

"Are you flirting with me?" Steve asks.

"Duh, Stevie." You turn your attention to Avery, struggling to hold her and stroke a hair from her face. "Don't worry about me. Promise me you won't, Ave."

"I just don't want you to go away," Avery says with a frown.

Steve feels an unexpected heat behind his eyes. You smile softly, your thumb on Avery's cheek. "Then I won't. I'll stay. I can't go anywhere without you, gorgeous."

Steve strokes the back of Avery's head. "And I can't be without either of you, so mom doesn't have a choice."

He wishes things were that simple. Steve has no idea what the future holds, but he chooses to believe it'll be a good one, where every one of his girls gets to grow old. But the future isn't something he can predict nor change by wishing alone.

"Did that make much sense to you, sweetheart?" you ask Avery.

"It makes sense. Sorry."

You and Steve make twin sounds of loving disbelief.

"Sorry for what?" you ask, as Steve says, "No, God, don't be sorry!"

"It's okay to ask me stuff," you say.

"That's what we're here for."

Avery wraps her arms around your neck. "Are you sure you'll be okay?" she whispers, near imperceptibly, Steve's ears straining to hear her under the sounds of the water heater and the television.

"I'm sure. I've done it three times already."

"Are you scared?"

You shake your head resolutely. "No. You know why?"

"Why?"

"'Cos I know, at the end of it I might get another little girl who's just like you. Or like Beth, or Dove. Maybe I'll get one who's nothing like any of you, but I know with such a great big sister she's going to be amazing."

Avery rests her cheek on your shoulder. "You think so?"

"I know so."

"Thank you," she says.

You laugh again. "For what?" you ask, nails raking up and down the length of her back. "Only telling you what's true. Me and daddy think you're the bestest."

Steve rubs his face with both hands rather than cry. Crying makes his eyes sore and he has to wake up at six AM tomorrow to take the girls to swimming lessons at seven thirty. (He also doesn't want Avery to see him crying and get the wrong idea, what with the previous conversation.)

"Mom?" Bethie asks in the doorway.

"Yes?" you murmur, resting your head atop Avery's gently.

"Excuse me."

You laugh a charmed laugh and scoot out of the way, resting your weight on the door jam. Bethie looks incredibly small idling at his feet, even though Dove is much smaller. She smiles nervously.

"Daddy?"

"Yes?" he asks, crossing his arms over his chest. He pretends to be nonchalant, while inside he's thinking about lots of things. Avery's huge heart and all her worries. Bethie's emerging cheekiness after years of quiet. Dove's roaring giggle when you squeeze her just right. And you, your bump, your devotion to him and the girls, but more than that —your voice and how you talk with all the good you possess. How you're talking now to Avery in dulcet tones.

Bethie takes his hand. "Can I have the rest of my mac and cheese, please?"

"Yeah, babe. Unless you want dessert instead?"

His hand sways in her grip. "I want mac and cheese if that's okay."

Steve picks her up with a typical dad groan. He'll check on Dove first, but he has no qualms with warming her mac and cheese. He'd offer to make you another helping if you weren't distracted entirely, nose bridge nuzzling into Avery's neck.

He doesn't know what the future holds, but he hopes for more of this.

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lana-llama-in-pajamas · 15 days

Text

thick as blood

sweet as milk

chapter 4 (parts seems juvenile)

a few days have passed and you finally cleaned your home, the bathroom was a lot nicer now and yes to Francis's odd dismay your apartment looked like a green house, today was rainy so you stayed in writing thank you letters to your neighbors.

Francis was at his last stop. he walked up the steps of a very nice new home, one of those buy to build homes he's seen on Sears catalogs (look it up, very cool)

he knocked on the door with his foot as he carried more milk than a normal household would use, the door opened via a very pretty woman in a blue polka dot dress and blue sweater "Francis! you got my call" she opened the door wide as he walked passed her placing the jug crate on the counter "you wouldn't believe how many cakes the school is asking of me" she continued following him in filling up a glass of lemonade "isn't your husband a baker?" he asked nodding as he took the drink from her "he's too held up with catering the convention that rolled in" she answered folding her arms standing across from him "but I did want to spring something up on you...we've known each other for a bit would you say?" she asked almost in a whisper. Francis stopped mid sip nodding slowly thinking of the million things she was about to say "right...you know my daughter Amelia" she walked passed him into the living room, Francis followed even more puzzled "she's 15 now no?" "yes" god why was she being so vague? "sit, please" she pointed to her pristine yellow couch "you see my daughter got a cat and as funny as it is now we're sad to say she's deathly allergic" she awkwardly laughed "you don't know anyone who would want one hm?" he stared blankly at her for a moment mentally cursing her for freaking him out "Joan, I don-...actually I do know someone in the need of a companion" Joan's eyes sparkled a little "great! Johnny bring the cat" she called upstairs and a few moments later a little boy still in his pajamas carried down a small kitten in his arms "milkman! your taking my sisters cat?" he asked running over to him, the poor kitten wiggling around as he did so "yes i am" "but cats are for girrrllss ewww" Johnny laughed passing the poor sleepy thing to him

"I'm giving it to a girl, but no cats are for men too." francis pet it gently "my dad says sooo" the little kid huffed "ok back to your room." Joan pulled his ear on the way back to the hallway going into his room coming back moments later with bags and a litter box "toys, litter, litter box, and food. its still too small for solid foods so, a little baby formula warm water and the kibble should be good" she pointed to each bag explaining how it worked before sitting down on the armchair beside couch. “ so we’re giving it to a girl, not to fit the stereotype, but is this lady in another home you deliver to?”Joan snickered slapping his knee, hoping that Francis will get the joke, Francis kind of did , but like everyone else Joan couldn’t read him “ She’s my door lady. She actually saved the building from an dopple attack a few nights ago.”he told Joan inspecting the small fluff ball “oh wow must be an intimidating woman” Joan said imagining a large gruff woman with a killer stare, if Francis could read her mind he would’ve laughed but he continued “she seems the type to have a pet.” He got up carrying the bags and box on his hip heading for the door “thanks for the gift Mrs. Wilde” Joan got up to open the door for him “Yaknow Francis, in old Viking tradition gifting a cat to a woman is a symbol of courtship” she said raising a brow hoping to fluster the brick wall “…I don’t think she’s of Viking origin” he said back making Joan face palm “but that is interesting, you were a mythology major?” He asked placing the items into his truck wrapping the kitten in a jacket before gently placing it in the passenger side “ I was, but you know how it goes. You think you’re going to live a life of independence and then you get married to a baker.” Joan looked at the horizon saying that. Francis looked at her with a softened gaze before she snapped to reality “sorry, I hope she loves the cat, and I hope the goddess freya doesn’t get any ideas haha” Joan turned around fixing her sweater hearing Francis as she got to her door “…..your still a mythology major.” He turned around getting into the truck driving off. Joan still at the entrance, smiling in acknowledgment.

Back at your apartment, the twins were back gossiping to you about model drama you could barely understand while they randomly asked questions about you, “ oh and Eliza got fatter so now we all have to weigh before booking! Can you believe it?? Let the girl eat a little extra cake at her mom’s funeral!” Selenne laughed sipping her tea “oh speaking of, miss mia wants us to help her with the wedding venue! Everyone in the building is invited. ” Elenois shook you a little clearly excited “I forgot they were fiancées, since they live together anyway” you giggled pouring another cup for everyone “ y/n! You didn’t tell us you were a max traditionalist~” Celine pointed at you, smiling “ of course not it’s just since they live together. My brain just automatically thinks that.” You felt a little embarrassed but the twins were known to make people sweat for fun. “ Miss Mia wants to have it during the summertime so we have a long time to prepare.” Sel sat back looking out the window “ good thing she doesn’t want it during the spring. It’s so rainy here.”

Francis knocked at the door the cat meowing, he knew it was hungry so it was a perfect opportunity to teach y/n how to care for it, you opened the door smiling then looking straight at the dramatic kitten meowing loudly “ you found a cat?” You asked getting on your toes to see it closer making Francis die of cuteness on the inside thinking to himself ‘she really did that almost automatically, how adorable’ mentally slapping himself he lowered his hand passing the kitten to her, y/n didn’t know if the cat was tiny or Francis hands were huge because it really fit in the palm of his hand only it’s a little leg spilling out, grab the sweet thing, putting it to your chest “aww poor baby, I bet your hungry” he spoke softly, almost afraid to burst its ear drums with your normal tone, Francis look down at you now getting the picture.

he was attracted to you.

You were smaller than him which every 1950s man wants from a partner and you look beautiful doing everything mundane like if he took a picture at a random moment, you would look like a model no matter what. As if someone directed you in that exact pose. And you dressed nicely. He Longed to see you in more colorful items, just to see your features shine brighter. He stared at you in his mind lovingly

But you looked back up to see the most stern look with furrowed brows “um…did I say something?” you got nervous stoking the cat for comfort “ the cat is hungry but do not feed it milk. That is a myth.” he spoke plainly opening one of the bags putting the food items on the table “ baby formula, warm water, and a little bit of kibble is good for the cat, what will you name it ?” He asked sounding pretty excited about the name part “ maybe we should feed it first and then think of a name” you said leading him into the kitchen with the supplies “hiii francy” the twins waved as he did back before they giggled to themselves “he was absolutely fucking her with his eyes “ selenne pushed her sister’s shoulder whisper yelling “ shutup, that’s so not appropriate!” El covered her mouth, both trying their hardest not to laugh too loud.

You and Francis came back from letting the cat eat sitting on the couch, the twins took the cat from you to pet and prod, “it might scratch” Francis pointed “ let them, I heard prodding pets is a good thing because it makes them more tempered” y/n poured him some tea “you had pets before?” He asked thanking her for the tea “we need to hear some y/n lore” Sel nodded “ I didn’t have pets, but my grandparents did, dogs cows, sheep, wasn’t a farm. It was more like a ranch. My parents live in the city like this one and they never really liked animals” you said studying your tea leaves “ Where is your family?” El asked rubbing the kittens belly “ across the country, I have a cousin who lives here. They are really busy.” You looked out the window at the rain. You didn’t want to tell them the whole truth. “We can understand, it seems everyone in this building has busy lives, aside from the housewives” Francis said ”your right” you nodded “oh have you heard about the wedding?” El asked Francis “no, wedding? You two are getting married?” He asked a little frantic “no no we’re not throwing out our careers yet. Mia’s and Dr. aftons wedding!” Selenne rolled her eyes “oh, yes the doctor asked me to be in the grooms party, I think his bachelor party will be at the bowling alley” "yeah sounds like Dr. afton" Sel sighed "mia still doesnt know what she wants, but she does wanna vote so we all have fun!" El smiled surveying the room, francis was staring at his tea cup but you were in the conversation completely "anyway we forgot we have a alot of calls to make love ya bye" she placed the kitten in your hands before pulling her sister out of the apartment "lets give the love birds forced time alone" she whispered to her twin closing the door behind them

"odd" francis glanced at the door

"yeah, hope everythings ok" you sighed looking down at the cat as he stared at you

“Name?” Francis asked clearing his throat “no idea…I’ll think about it” you placed the kitten on the couch as it played with the tassels on the pillow “well, I’m going to head home, tell me when you name her, I’m excited to know” he said you got up and smiled walking him to the door “of course Francis, thank you for the gift” you blushed opening the door hoping for anything “Yaknow I heard that a man giving their loved one a cat is a proposal in Norse mythology” he said grabbing your hand and kissing it “but neither of us are of Viking blood I don’t think ” (sorry if you are) he walked to his door and you stared holding your hand kissing it softly to feel his lips in spirit

A few weeks had passed and you were on a late shift again. The cat followed you around the building so in turn she now had a bed in the office, it 9pm and you had to wait for 5 of the residents to come home late from a press party

Natasha was in the office playing with the cat “do you have a name for her yet?” She asked making it chase a mouse on a string “no…suggestions?” You pulled out a list of names residents have considered passing it to the little girl “hm..” she wrote a few names even her own “…no Natasha” you said crossing out hers, she shrugged and went back to the cat, time passed and you got a little worried turning on the radio, the twins giving you which channel had the convention/press party coverage. You listened in, and rolled your eyes at the sounds of officials and other higher ups giving empty speeches, a knock at the door made you jump looking up to see natcha with her arms folded staring at her daughter “so. This is what you do at bedtime now? I thought I had more time before you started sneaking out” she held her temple sighing you got up feeling guilty for not even asking Natasha if she even asked her mom to be with you “I’m sorry I just assumed since it’s Friday um, I should have called you ma’am” you looked down seeing natcha look back at you with the ‘mom look’ “no don’t apologize, I should have checked on her earlier but I was busy cleaning, Natasha. Room. Now. And I’m taking your record player tomorrow” she said it so calmly, no yelling just a sweet calm yet stern tone “aww mom!! I’m gonna be bored all day!” Natasha folded her arms pouting “ too bad so sad. Up.” She pointed out the door and Natasha walked still pouting “so sorry you had to see punish my child y/n” natcha said fixing her house coat “no no don’t worry about, I just wish my parents were as calm as you are” you smiled seeing another resident walk over, Francis looked over “something happen?” He asked standing near natcha at the doorway, you could see her side step to not touch him. Her face contorting slightly but fixing itself “Natasha sneaked out to play with the cat n the doorman” she said side eyeing him “nat? Sneaking out? She’s 11” he said just kind of knowing? You felt your stomach drop a bit…hoping they couldn’t tell “she’s 12 in a week.” Natcha stated before walking off “goodnight everyone.” She went back to her sweet tone, there it was. The way he turned to look at her, it shot you in the heart a bit “your still working?” He asked walking in, the cat rubbing against him purring “a few of the residents are still not here, neither is the night shift” you looked away from him with a sour look on your face, you felt so stupid. You two were not a thing and also haven’t even kissed yet and here you are assuming a broken family and getting jealous of a woman who’s only ever shown you kindness not to mention fed you. Francis could tell you were reeling from something but didn’t know how to approach “…I can make you a coffee, I got donuts from a friend today” he walked over placing his hand on your arm “you look tired” his warm hand and gravily voice from just waking up made you feel better yet worse, “your one to talk” you smiled trying to let go “so mean” he let go “ I’ll be back” he walked off, you watching the way he moved Lowkey checking the sway of his ass but quickly looking away. The cat sat at the desk ‘listening’ to the radio with you as you gave it scritches “what about Lucy? Mimi? Tiger?” You read off the list of names to the feline hoping it would give some type of approval but you were sure if it nodded you would scream. Francis came back placing a coffee and a muffin and donut “pick” he said pointing, you grabbed his hand pointing it to the chocolate muffin “ I don’t want to be up all night via sugar and coffee” you smiled taking a bit “thank you” you covered your mouth he hummed taking the donut kissing your head before walking out. God you want to fly and throw yourself out a window at the same time, two people walked in, the pilots. Both disfigured and grotesque slamming the papers against the window making you jump “let us in. Miss door man.” One said somehow with a stitched mouth “eat my ass.” You said back making the younger one angry trying to get to you through the paper hole. Fuck I ran out of spa

#thats not my neighbour milkman #milkman x reader #francis mosses x you #francis mosses x reader #francis mosses #thats not my neighbor #tnmn fanart #tnmn milkman #fucking tumblr not letting me wrote a real chapter #tumblr I’m kidding I love you

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thefloatingpickle · 1 year

Text

Runcorn

Just a small one shot about Osferth and a local woman because he’s my fave. Set in the time between seasons four and the start of five. Osferth!FemaleOC

NSFW, no triggers I can think of.

After another long day on her feet working as a serving-maid in the largest tavern in Runcorn the only thing Astrid wanted to do was find her bed. She'd taken the job a few weeks ago when the owners wife had died and while the freedom to make and spend her own money had given her a sense of independence from her overbearing father, it had only added to his claims she was growing in to a spinster since she was in her early twenties with no marriage prospects. There weren't many men in town who had caught her eye, she'd had a couple of small trists but nothing that would be considered serious, that was until Uhtred of Bebbanburg had come to town with his men. Since then she had come to grow fond of the evenings that his men would frequent the establishment passing the evening drinking and enjoying eachothers company.

On this particular evening only two known as Finan and Osferth had shown up, and while Finan was invested in a particular woman that she'd seen him chatting up on several occasions, Osferth was busy drinking the evening away surrounded by several local women who had all become quite taken with the handsome man.

As she brought another jug of ale to their table Finan gave her a pleasant smile. "Long day Astrid? You look ready for bed." The exhausted woman gave a nod, "I was up with the sun again. It seems the gods don't believe I'm in need of much rest." Ingrith offered a sweet smile. "You poor thing. Maybe it's just not as comfortable in that old farm house as it used to be for you." Returning the smile with one of her own Astrid shrugged. "Sleep will find me again eventually, enjoy your ale." As she turned to go Finan teased, "You know I've heard Osferth's bed is terribly comfortable." Upon hearing his name Osferth looked over from his conversations confused. "What about my bed?" Her face turned bright red as she replied "I'm sure plenty of women would be happy to find out." She walked away, leaving Finan laughing and Osferth a picture of bewilderment.

Ingrith landed a small punch on Finan's arm. "Why would you tease the poor thing so?" "Oh come on! I know you've seen how Baby Monk's eyes follow her as she works. Not a single woman I've seen him take home has gotten as much attention." Many of the ladies sitting at the table got up and found other places to continue their evening and the young Monk looked like he was desperate to disappear in his seat. "She doesn't look twice at me." "Perhaps if you weren't constantly finding your way between the thighs of others she'd take a second glance." Finan clapped him on the shoulder with more vibrant laughter.

Astrid finished her night as peacefully as she could, unable to keep from looking over at Osferth whenever she passed by, and he was almost always looking back. It made her anxious in a way that she wasn't familiar with and she was in a rush to be out of his company. When the owner told her at last she was free to go she nearly ran out the door and headed straight for home. She was just passing the home she knew Uhtred's men stayed in when she heard a voice from behind her. "I'm sorry you were embarrassed in such a way." Spinning around she found the warrior smiling with an awkward look on his face. "It's alright. He was only teasing, he's just like that it seems." "He tends to show his affection through rudeness unfortunately. " He leaned against a nearby building seemling unsure what to do with himself. "It was an unusual jest though, seeing as you had yourself occupied with many other beautiful women." His brows furrowed at her words. "Well he's observant I suppose." She found herself confused now and sat on a nearby stack of hay. "What is it he would have observed." He kicked a bit of loose dirt on the path and spoke to the ground as he replied. "Just that I watch you I expect." "You watch me?" He straightened quickly and made his way closer to her. "Not watch, just.. notice."

She smiled at her hands in her lap feeling her cheeks flush. "What is there to notice?" "You of course. I just notice you, your beauty." He was standing directly in front of her now, looking down at her with a small grin on his face. "I don't mean to be forward, but most of the reason I patronize the tavern as often as I do is to see you." "And yet you frequently find yourself leaving with others?" She was teasing him, she didn't care that he spent his nights in the company of others. Things like that mattered little to someone of her background. He stumbled over his response. "It’s... they're of little consequence. I mean... they were lovely in their own ways. But, not you."

The blush on her face had spread and she was feeling the weight of his eyes on her. "That’s kind of you to say." He looked around seemingly unsure of where to take the conversation, "Could I walk you home?" She looked at the home he was staying in across the road and laughed. "Just to circle back and find your way home again? I think I'll be alright." His mouth drew out in a frown. "I'd like to spend more time with you. If you would. Finan won't be back tonight. If you're struggling to sleep I can offer you a fairly large bed, and I believe we have wine." He spun in place on his heels chewing his bottom lip. Astrid contemplated her options, she wasn't looking forward to returning home to her nagging father, and it had been a while since she'd let herself enjoy a nice night. "Alright, it's very kind of you." He nodded fervently. "Of course."

As they entered the small home he gestured for her to sit at the large table in the center. "I'll get the wine." Handing her a cup he sat across from her and looked around uneasy. "What would you like to talk about?" She'd always had an interest in the battles often fought over ruling the land around her home. "I'd love to hear about your time as a warrior. What a battle is like, tales of the road perhaps." He perked up at her request and the evening followed with them sharing many glasses of wine as he regaled her with stories of his time on the battlefield.

She'd nearly forgotten how tired she was until she saw the sun rising over the horizon out the window. "It seems we've talked through the night." He turned in his seat appraising the coming dawn. "You are correct it would appear. I apologize. We should get to bed." They stood and he grabbed her a blanket, "You can sleep in the bigger bed. Its just through the door there." He led her to the back of the small dwelling and as they crossed the threshold she felt as though the air in the room had grown heavy. "Thank you again, it's incredibly sweet of you to do this for me." "It was good to get the time with you, you're welcome here whenever you'd like." He went to leave but paused at the door. "If you should need anything please don't be afraid to wake me."

Placing the blanket on the bed she walked over to him in the door way. Leaning up to place a kiss on his cheek. "You're very sweet Osferth." He took one of her hands in his own and gave her a shy smile. The tension between them thickened as he bent his head down slowly, bringing his lips near her own. "Is it alright." He whispered against her lips and in reply she closed the space between their mouths. The kiss was heated instantly, his arms wrapping around her waist pulling her body flush to his. She moaned softly as he pressed small kisses down her neck, pulling her dress aside to nibble at her shoulder.

She took his hand and turned to lead him to the bed. Unlacing the sides of her dress to drop it to the ground as step out of it as he removed his many layers. He came up to her and pulled her gently to him so that his lips could meet hers again. Backing her to the bed, he helped her on the edge, stepping between her thighs. The warm length of him pressed against her core as their tongues danced. He kneaded her breasts, delicately rolling her nipples between his fingers while she placed kisses along his jaw and neck. She felt her core dampening while his hips moved gently against her, he moved his hand down between them, tips of his fingers finding her bud making small circles. She moaned, head resting on his chest.

"You're so beautiful." He spoke the words into her hair as he took his member in his hand and positioned it at her entrance. Pushing himself inside her as she sucked in a sharp breath. "God save me, you feel amazing. " She grinned and began biting gently at his jawline. He pumped inside her quickly, driving in to the hilt with every thrust. She wrapped her legs tight around him, digging her nails into his arms to brace herself. His hips were moving quickly as he pumped himself in her passionately. Taking her chin in his hand so he could press his mouth to hers once more, swallowing the sounds she made for him. Fingers coming between them again to help guide her to the edge. She felt herself tightening around as her vision blurred in pleasure, head falling back and a loud moan spilling from her. His pace sped and he was quickly shaking as he emptied himself.

She came back to herself with the feeling of his lips tenderly grazing her face and neck. "That was heavenly Astrid." She smiled at him. "It was a good night, and morning." They laid down in the bed and he pulled her in his arms. "You should stay here more often. It would be nice to spend more time together." She traced circles on his arms and hummed in small reply. "Goodnight Osferth." Then she fell into a deep sleep.

#ewan mitchell #osferth #baby monk

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xmoonfirex · 3 months

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im so tired. gramma was supposed to be gone two weeks. she came back after 5 days. a few weeks ago, we were going back and forth about our water situation. i'm tired of buying water bottles. i drink all the water, i buy all the water. i'm tired. mom said she would buy a dispenser for me and then i can just fill the big 5 gallon jugs at the store. gramma kept saying we don't need it, she doesn't want it in her house. and i'm like... $2.50 per 5 gallons is much cheaper than buying $6 worth of water bottles every couple of weeks. we have space for one. and eventually she said as long as it was mine and that it goes with me whenever i leave, then okay. so mom got me one. it came in while she was gone. now she's telling my stepdad that she never said i could have one and she wants it gone.

if i had known living with her was going to be this fucking stressful all the time, that every single little thing was going to be a fight, and that i'd spend every day being told i don't do enough and made to feel like i'm lying about all my disabilities, i'd have just taken the instability and lived with my brother in his rv as he travels for work.

like i just want to exist. i want to exist without being constantly made to feel like i'm not enough and like i'm stupid just because i'm 32 years old and haven't had any real independence bc of my disabilities. why is that asking so much?

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missgoldenboy · 1 year

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Para Mi Abuelita

My abuelita was the only person who ever let me be a kid growing up. She let me fall down and get my clothes dirty. She would take my cousins and I to the park every other day and let us play for hours. We would all go to King Taco and she would buy us each a taco with her last couple of dollars. Once a week we would all go to the lavanderia and be there all day doing laundry. On those days she would give us each a couple quarters to get temporary tattoos from those one vending machines. I know y'all know which one I'm talking about. I used to like to get these little stickers of girls you could dress up. I always liked clothes a lot since I was little. We would be there all day and if we had extra coins we could play the fighting video game they had in the lavanderia. Once we got a little older she would let us use my tio's old gameboy. He had so many games. We would each take 20-minute interval turns to play it and we would also trade around our DS. At dinnertime, she would feed us all and we would watch whatever novela she was watching with her and she wouldn't let us leave the table until we finished eating porque asi nos vamos a poner bien fuerte. My cousins and I would take turns on who got to sleep on the floor, couch, and bed with my abuelita. I never felt like we didn't have enough growing up because I always felt so rich due to my happiness. We didn't need a big house or an apartment with actual rooms because the tiny studio we lived in felt big enough for all of us. Sometimes my abuela would spend hours gambling scratchers at the little shop we would refill our water jug at. Those were honestly the longest days because she would keep winning and losing. She was certain that one day she was going to win big and get us all the toys and clothes we wanted. I never realized until I got older that she was the only person who gave me a childhood. When I lived in Vegas with my parents I grew up super hyper-independent and I was forced to grow up fast. I was pushed to be perfect because I had to be and they would accept nothing less than perfect. I am glad that I had years and summers with my abuela to teach me that it's okay to fall down as long as I can pick myself back up. Te quiero mucho Tita.

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whatib · 1 year

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I'm ready for the next level

i honestly can't wait to drop dead. I've accomplished more in my life than I ever thought possible. I've traveled the world as far West as Hong Kong and Hawaii, and East as far as Venice, Italy and Amsterdam and everywhere in between. That was my dream. I did it. I wanted to be a programmer, and I've owned my own software company for 20 yrs now. (2023 anniversary) I started a foundation that employs special needs individuals and teaches them life skills in order to be independent. My mother called me a loser my whole life. She hates me and my sister who is a nurse. We turned out to be two damn good people. My sister attempted suicide twice when I went off to college and left her in that apartment with my mother. I never found out until I was 45 yrs old. I feel so guilty for it. My sister raised 4 beautiful kids and an incredibly loving family after going thru that turmoil with our mother. She has something to live for. I'm done. I don't have any kids. I've only lived my life to enjoy it, and enjoy every minute of it. I love the animals and the trees, the grass and the Sun and the Moon. I love watching the clouds. I love biking, hiking and playing golf. I love food. I love that candy. I love women. I love putting smiles on other peoples faces. I love it when a customer calls and I answer a super complicated question and they are so grateful for me taking the time to help them that I burst out in tears from their thankfulness. Making someone else happy is the most gratifying thing to do in life. I've had so much fun in my lifetime that I feel that living and still having fun is being greedy at this point. I feel like I'm taking fun from someone else that this point. I do love life so much. But everyone needs to have fun. Enjoy what you can, enjoy what YOU LIKE. Enjoy what YOU LOVE. Forget the madness out there. If you turn off the social media and watch the sunrises and sunsets it really massages your brain and your heart. Do what YOU WANT TO DO. Fall in love with life. Always work your ass off to make the world a better place, even if you're a cashier at the grocery store. Do you know how many lives you touch every day? How many smiles you put on peoples faces? You should be proud of yourself and of all that you've accomplished in life. I'm happy as shyte and I've never earned more than 40k a year. I had that Jesus stuff bashed into my head for 12 yrs in catholic school that I became the cheapest guy on the planet. I'm the $19.99 guy, always have been always will be. But it's taken me to the 150th British Open and to the 2019 Masters where I watched Tiger Woods win. I'm grateful for every second I've had here. So many people struggle just to get a jug of water every day, I'm thankful I wound up here in the United States of America. I'm grateful for the life I've been given. My best friend of all time is a black guy, my wife is Jewish, and I have a handicapped stepdaughter who is the #1 most loving human being on the planet Earth.(literally nobody else compares to her) I have no hate towards anyone. I am disappointed in a great many people including my parents, but their hate for me, made me want to be a good person. Be good to yourself. Enjoy the things you love. Stay away from the things you don't like in life. Enjoy the food of life and do EVERYTHING in Moderation...and you'll live a long happy and healthy life....and be sure to take it all in, every moment, every breath...you can give up on the system, you can give up on the people, but never give up on yourself....

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thelovelyghostwriter · 3 years

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What your HxH waifu says about you

Since quite a few responded to the post "what hxh crush says about you" that featured guys (let's admit it, hxh is a damn sausage fest). I was thinking I should do one for the ladies.

Disclaimer: This is just for lame-ass comedy + sarcasm and not meant to offend anyone. Ehh… bonus if you know which two girls I simp for.

Bisky: I only have two questions that can lead to two VERY different conversations - which version of Bisky are you attracted to? Her original muscular form or her petite form? 🧐🧐

Machi: You like tsundere or tough girls. Her cold bitch ice queen attitude (but sweet princess on the inside) turns you on. You like how she has a nice thighs. You want her to do some weird bondage with you with her Nen threads.

Pakunoda: You probably don't look at her face most of the time. "hey, my eyes are up here perv" (she got real nice jugs though so I can't blame you) 🥵🥵 Horny-ness aside, she's loyal to death and that's a bonus for you too.

Shizuku: You're into sub girls that have huge tits and doesn't say much. You like the shy quiet ones. Cause ya know, you don't like women with loud opinions. Pfft.

Neon: Are you into DDLG? You like girls with a princess syndrome and high maintainence + daddy issues. You think her eyes has the "pls ruin my innocence". High likely you are a brat tamer. She reminds you of Botan who is such a charmer too. She has a high-pitched voice so... Naughty naughty.

Menchi: Probably wants a girl who can win your heart through your stomach. This woman can kick ass and cook meals for you, while looking hot. Real keeper there. You got good taste bro.

Mito: You probably wouldn't mind dating an older woman, maybe even those with kids. You like someone who is caring, waifu material and wants to settle down.

Baise: You like women that is confident and you might even have a "step-on-me" masochist kink. You don't mind being a slave to your mistress. You probably never cared about girls' hairstyles given that her hair looks like Hisoka's dick.

Komugi: I know it's you, Meruem, King of Ants. [I actually have real bad jokes about this but for the sake of peace, I will shut up]

Palm: You're into crazy yandere bitches and do not mind if your date changes her whole face with makeup. You probably proudly announced that you'd bone her even when she became an ant. Aye if bestiality is your thing then... go off hun.

Pitou: Uhh... No one really knows if Pitou is a dude but you don't care. You just assume Pitou is a she. You have some Neko catgirl fetish and that's what's important. You'd fuck whatever hole is available with Pitou. MEOW. Maybe you played Nekopara before? If you haven’t, I recommend it if you down real bad for cat girls.

Cheadle: You like girls who are smart, responsible and generally righteous. Independent and a leader-type too. Back in school, you probably have a crush on that one studious girl and kept annoying her to get her attention.

Cluck (Rooster Zodiac): Ok back off. That's my wife. Just kidding, she belongs to Togashi. Anyway, YOU LIKE EM FEISTY. Yum. She may get pissed at you but you find it cute when she's mad. You might also have a thing abt her outfit with the nice feathery tail (it drives me horny so maybe you two too). Anyway, you got good taste.

Pyon (Rabbit Zodiac): BOI. You down real bad for a bunny, huh? You’re just horny for some anime version of a Playboy Bunny. You probably looked at some furry porno from beastars or zootopia. Please join the rest of them Hisoka stans. Period.

Alluka/Nanika: Why you reading this bro? You wanna die by Killua’s hands?

Camilla Hui Guo Rou: Aight. She’s a sadist. Your mind probably saying “no” but because of her beauty, your hormones says “yes”

Gel (Snake Zodiac): You were probably captivated by her nice body. I don’t know if there’s x reader fics of hers but man I hope you didn’t look at her snickety-snake arm and be like “hey I want her to wrap it around my-” Yes, we know you into some tentacle porn or something.

Kite (ant form): You never simped for Kite when he was a dude but now you see her and go head-over-heels. Can’t blame you though, she’s cute. High likelihood you into red-headed girls with freckles and big eyes.

Canary: You love her dreadlocks and she has nice lips. You like Canary because of how she tries her best for Killua. Maybe you’re a Canary x Killua or Amane x Canary shipper too? She’s really loyal to Killua and likely you fell for her during the scene with Gon in the Zoldyck Family arc. You hate Kikyo because she zapped Canary with her freaky cyborg eyes.

Kikyo: I don’t know why this shouldn’t even be here.

Oito: You have a MILF kink. Seriously dude, she has a kid that is signed up for death. But man, if child support is your thing...then no one’s stopping you papa

Amane: You saw her cuteness in that one episode and that was all it took for you to decide that you’d be a simp for her.

Theta: You either ship her with Tserriednich, or you hate Tserriednich. There is no in between. You are scared of Theta’s fate, you’re scared she might die in the current arc because Tserriednich will kill her or force her to be his lover. You’re always praying that Tse’s Nen beast won’t screw her up.

Melody: You love her voice. If possible, you want to listen to an ASMR of hers. You like her because she has a big heart.

Ponzu: You're heartbroken after the CA arc

Retz: FINALLY. Someone who appreciates this pretty girl. You're the best!

Zazan: Go to a bar, get laid cause you need it if you wanna fuck someone with a scorpion tail. You’re deprived. I do NOT want to get into what you fantasize regarding that scorpion tail.

#hxh #hunterxhunter

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scorpionwins · 3 years

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Jughead and Sweet Pea, timeskip wise, have the vibe of that old married couple who got divorced, but the energies are very specific.

Sweet Pea has salty, nagging ex wife energy who can't stay away from her husband despite acting mad and Jug is just any man after a divorce honestly.

But you already know I'm riding that soft cute sunshine Jug wave, so I have the feeling he'd grab Sweet Pea by the ear in the middle of Rivermart or whatever the fuck and scold him for scaring away some rugged, tall, handsome man for flirting with Jug.

" God, you're just as mean as before, you brute!"

" oh I'M mean?! You know what's REALLY fucking mean, divorcing me and taking my heart with you so I can't give it to anyone else, that was awfully fucking mean of you" just bickering in the middle of the store, but it digresses into domesticity real quick

Sweet Pea throwing items out of the cart. " You hate these anyway, who are you buying them for?"

" Oh my GOD is that your business, what I do,-" Jug stops because there's an oil stain smudging Sweet Pea's cheek and Jug orders him to bend down so he can wet his thumb and wipe it away, and sweet pea obeys with a grumble.

" You're grubby."

" Well yeah Jughead it fucking happens when your husband leaves you and there's no one to impress."

Also like. Jug and Ronnie would make such funny roommates? Imagine Ronnie left Chad cause she's an independent woman who don't need no man!! But also Hiram cut her off for not inviting him to her wedding, and so Ronnie becomes a waitress at Pops bc Jerabitha trio.

Like? Pls, I want rich girl Ronnie to cry because she cannot fucking fathom how coupons work. She comes home disheveled and sniffing to a smiling Jug, who hisses in sympathy.

" Early Black Friday?"

" I grabbed the fucking cabbage, but Mrs. Thorne is vicious. She took out her dentures and threw them at me. "

Tabitha just laughs from her place on the couch.

" Its not funny Tabs! She has gingivitis!"

And then we get this meme:

Sweet Pea: I saw you hanging out with Lodge yesterday

Jug: I- Sweetheart its NOT what you think-

Sweet Pea, already pining him to a counter with mind already made up that he'll get his small husband back: I won't hesitate bitch *smooch*

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romance-geek · 3 years

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sleep my long, unbroken sleep (niragi x oc)

warnings: violence, blood

author’s note: it's been a long long time?? i feel like most of the hype for alice in borderland has gone now, but i've gotten the urge to write again. so sorry it took so long! i'm thinking i'll do big chapters every update since future updates will probably a while, depending on my mood. hope you like it!

summary: Kuroba Chiyori may be born in the Borderlands, but no way in hell does she want to die in it.

AO3 LINK

CHAPTER TWO: fires find a home in me

PRESENT

Chiyori crouches down behind a tree outside one of the city’s stadiums, where the lights are as bright as can be in the Borderlands, beckoning players from all over Tokyo to join. There are signs nearby to lead people into the venue. Having been a citizen for all her life and a child of two of the most ruthless Game Masters, Chiyori knows the usual haunts; where to avoid and where to flock.

As much as she likes to consider herself an independent woman (and she very much is a woman now, thank you very much!), she prefers being surrounded by people whether familiar or not. Those earlier years spent locked inside a library with only books and dust as friends truly did wonders for her touch starvation. Craving companionship, but knowing death could pry them away from her bloody fingers in a blink of an eye. Her eternal dilemma.

And that night, nearly a decade ago, a decade of murder and sin, death stole the ones who brought her to life. She who guided the fates’ scissors, who lured her parents into a game they had a hand in orchestrating.

Thus began her undoing.

She could never really recall the whole night, most of her memories were of after. Bits and pieces would flash to her mind at the most inopportune moments (resulting in many near-death experiences), and to this day she cannot say what events led to the single clear picture in her mind. Of blood, gushing like a geyser from her father’s headless neck; of his wide-eyed head with a mouth frozen in a silent scream, rolling to a still beneath the shaking legs of her mother as her pulsing entrails out of her with a katana stuck to her spine, like a sick version of a magician’s show but only nearly succeeding.

Countless deaths had she witnessed in her childhood alone, usually by the lasers that come to claim players with zero days left as she watched through her library windows while nibbling on biscuits. Yet, this was the one that had her hurling her guts, almost in tandem with her mother’s dripping entrails.

Chiyori couldn’t tell you when was the first time she witnessed death, but she remembered the first time her hands took away someone’s life.

In a bout of adrenaline, and because the rules of the game permitted her to do so (each weapon can only be used once by each player, to up the ante), Chiyori wrenched the katana her mother’s killer used and drove it straight to his heart.

Battle Royale Kill Count.

Pretty straightforward name. Like Battle Royale, except only the one with the most kills survived. It was unlike the fiction novels she had read in her little library home, not like The Hunger Games where it only mattered who survived until the end even if you barely killed anyone, or like The Lord of the Flies where an adult appears to save you in the end.

At first, no one wanted to harm her. A child in the Borderlands? Unheard of. But as the game went on, the timer ticking down, the number of players dwindling, she knew they would come for her.

So she had to come for them first.

The katana was of no use to her any longer, so she had left it on her parents’ killer’s chest as he laid facing the ceiling, like a crude cross marker for her two parents.

She spent half of the time left looking around for stray weapons, but most of what she found were close-range types. She didn’t want to risk revealing herself to the others, so she persisted in looking around.

In one of the many rooms there, she found tucked into the corner behind a pile of boxes a large jug of gasoline. Relief flooded through her body as she scrambled for it. It was perfect! She only needed to spread the gasoline around, and it would only take one match for the whole building to burn.

Speaking of matches… She smiled horrifically, her face a mess of tears and snot with blood dripping down her nose, finding a little box with a few matchsticks amidst the junk.

Chiyori ran on the tips of her toes to avoid attention, hefting the jug and pouring it everywhere she could. All of a sudden, someone violently pulled at her ponytail. The gasoline sloshed over her front and clung to her clothes as the jug crashed to the floor.

She screamed as she was dragged back by a man with desperate eyes. He held a small knife, which trembled in his hands. The man struggled to straddle her as she kicked frantically, keeping eye contact with her while seeming to be in an internal war with himself. He raised the knife up high with both hands, the dull glint of it invoking her to grasp for something, anything to defend herself with. Her fingers latched on a broken piece of wood, with splinters and nails at the other end.

With a guttural yell, akin to the sound of pigs being slaughtered, the man drops his knife to try and dislodge the wood from the side of his head. It squelched in his efforts, blood and bits of skin coating the nails. While he was distracted, she grabbed the knife and plunged it into his right eye and twisted.

Chiyori knew something was wrong with her when she relished in his pain.

He dropped to the ground as she pushed him off, taking the jug and what amount of gasoline it had left to dump it all over his writhing body. She grabbed the matchbox from her pockets. She took one stick and struck it to light.

For a moment, she stood there, transfixed in the tiny flame.

Then, she dropped it.

The man lit up in a manner of seconds, his screams reaching a crescendo as the flames enveloped him.

Vicious thoughts ran through her mind. Vengeful. Mournful.

Hysteria replaced them when the flames licked at her clothes and ignited her as well.

She tried to roll around, but the room was quickly filling up with smoke and grew with even more flames. Chiyori ran outside, flailing her arms to no avail as it only seemed to fan the fire. Finding a clear patch of floor, she dropped and rolled for what seemed like hours of agony but was probably only a few minutes until the fire was completely smothered.

Third degree burns covered her arms, part of her abdomen, and her left thigh. The clothes stuck to her skin. The smell of barbecued pork along with smoke made her dizzy.

She stood up with a pained cry and limped as fast as she could to the entrance of the game venue. From different rooms, she could hear the panic of the remaining players as they fought against the fire.

The screen that dictates the amount of kills per player chimed with each death, the only number to increase was under her name, as she lit the fire that killed them. Subsequently, the number of remaining players were slowly counting down. She kept her gaze locked onto that number. The only way the game would end was when everyone else died.

Smoke started seeping into her nostrils again. She knew it was only a matter of time until the flames were upon her once more.

Finally, the screen changed.

𝐑 𝐄 𝐌 𝐀 𝐈 𝐍 𝐈 𝐍 𝐆 𝐏 𝐋 𝐀 𝐘 𝐄 𝐑 𝐒 : 𝟎

𝐆 𝐀 𝐌 𝐄 𝐂 𝐋 𝐄 𝐀 𝐑 𝐄 𝐃

𝐂 𝐎 𝐍 𝐆 𝐑 𝐀 𝐓 𝐔 𝐋 𝐀 𝐓 𝐈 𝐎 𝐍 𝐒

The phone she grabbed at the beginning chimed in one of her cargo shorts’ pockets. When she fishes it out, the screen lit up with the following message:

【 𝙶 𝙰 𝙼 𝙴 】

♤　♤　♤　♤　♤

𝐖 𝐄 𝐖 𝐈 𝐋 𝐋 𝐒 𝐔 𝐏 𝐏 𝐋 𝐘 𝐀 𝐋 𝐋 𝐆 𝐀 𝐌 𝐄 𝐒 𝐔 𝐑 𝐕 𝐈 𝐕 𝐎 𝐑 𝐒

𝐖 𝐈 𝐓 𝐇 𝐀 𝐓 𝐄 𝐍 - 𝐃 𝐀 𝐘 𝐕 𝐈 𝐒 𝐀

The irony of her father, the King of Spades, dying at a Ten of Spades game to protect her and her mother… Were it not for Chiyori, both of her parents would still be here right now. Maybe they would’ve trained her in preparation for the games that she wanted to play since she was a child.

But now?

She wondered why she ever wanted to play.

After that game, she immediately sought help from her parents’ fellow game masters, but after her wounds were cleaned and patched she holed up in her library home with the intent to let her visa run out by itself.

Only it didn’t. Not really.

She thought she lost her sense of time when the number stayed at zero for nearly a week, only to realize that the Borderlands didn’t want its single native citizen out of its clutches. Whichever god that rules this sinful place, if there ever is one, plays with her life almost daily with its cruel tribulations, but condemns her efforts to die outside of the games. It is almost as if they want her to play in order to die.

Chiyori isn’t particularly religious, but she has often read books about religion and philosophy. When one has questions, one seeks answers, but none of the books in any library in Tokyo have ever explained the nature and laws of this place.

With the games not being necessary to her life and being the only way to die, she needn’t participate. And for a while, she didn’t want to either.

Slowly, she began to open up to her parents’ friends, but the Borderlands only took them one by one as each cycle passed until she didn’t have anyone left but herself and her books. But even books couldn’t give her the happiness it gave when she was younger. By that time, she was thirteen, still a child but now numb to the death that surrounded her. She started participating in a few games a year, to a few games a month, now nearly everyday when she realized that those deadly games were the only things that made her feel alive anymore.

Sure, she meets friends along the way, but they only die in the end. Sometimes by her hand. Such is life in the Borderlands. The sooner you accept that, the better you’ll survive.

When a good amount of people have arrived at the game venue, she stands from her hiding place and nonchalantly walks over to join them, hands tucked into her denim jacket, the leathery scar on her left thigh visible as she only wore cycling shorts.

The clunk of her combat boots prompts several of them to glance at her entrance. She coolly raises an eyebrow and runs her eyes over everybody, reading them almost like her beloved books.

Chiyori runs a finger along the table of phones, choosing one with a sleek black case. After it scans her face, she saunters to a wall and leans back to continue her survey of the other players.

“Hey, are you new here?” A guy wearing a long-sleeved neon green shirt asks her. There’s a girl with a thankfully less bright top holding his hand. Both of them are looking at Chiyori worriedly.

She gazes distastefully at his shirt. With a scoff, she asks, “What makes you say that?”

“If I may, miss,” the girl interjects, “You look like you don’t realize how dangerous these things can get… We only wish to help educate you.”

Their familiarity with each other suggests that they knew each other before ending up at the borderlands. Both of them had dyed hair, the guy sporting blond tips while the girl had long pink hair. The fact that the girl had no roots showing tells Chiyori that they must’ve only been in the Borderlands for less than three weeks.

No, Chiyori decides after a peek of inked flesh on the guy’s bicep, about as big as the size of her palm. It still has a cling film wrapped around it, so it couldn’t have been more than three to five days.

The girl knew the games were dangerous, so they played at least one, not very hard if they’re already at another. This is probably their second or third game. Most likely the second.

In spite of herself, Chiyori smiles at them. They might end up betraying her later when the game starts, but she appreciates their concern. Not that she needed it.

“Thanks,” she says. “But I think I can manage. You guys worry about yourselves, you haven’t experienced real danger yet.”

The couple looks at her, at each other, then they shrug as if to say ‘Suit yourself.’

Chiyori’s gaze drops to their locked hands as they leave to go back to their corner. A twinge of longing cuts through her.

She thinks the game should start any minute now when a guy with black hair almost to his shoulders and a few face piercings walks in hesitantly, looking around in confusion as he taps his hand against an ear. Her eyebrows go up as she checks him out appreciatively.

“He’s new,” she remarks quietly to the couple. “You guys have been here only about a few days, I can tell.”

The girl whispers, “How’d you know?”

“You guys are pretty obvious, as is that guy. How?” Chiyori nods to the guy with piercings. “Look at his hands. He’s patting his pockets, and from the shape of it it’s a phone. Where he came from, it was loud, so he’s here to watch a game but when he entered the noise was gone. So he’s new new.”

Chiyori can tell that although they’re impressed, they’re unnerved by her. As most people are. So she pushes off the wall and saunters towards the guy who is now fiddling with his phone, trying to turn it on.

The way he hunches his shoulders tells her he is a private person, so she stops a respectable distance from him. “Hey.”

He lifts his head up to look at her, eyebrows furrowed. “What?” His voice snaps, almost defensively.

She doesn’t smile at him, thinking he seemed the type of person to think it was condescending. Instead, she points with her thumb to the table where only a few more cellphones were available. “Your phone is busted. Take one of those.”

He sneered at her and says, “Fuck off.”

Rolling her eyes, she says, “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto. Take a phone or you’re disqualified and trust me, you don’t want to be disqualified.”

He still makes no move to the table, so she takes his busted phone with a quick movement and throws it to the entrance of the stadium. The other players watch them, not wanting to intervene.

“You bitch, what—?!” His enraged shout is cut off when a red laser beams down from the ceiling and puts a hole into the phone. “What the fuck?!”

Chiyori locks her eyes with his, smirking at the contempt that he displays for her. “You came here to watch a game, did you? Which teams are playing? Doesn’t matter. You’re not here to watch. You’re here to play.” She shoves a new phone in his hands. “Humor me, would you?”

With a glare, he turns on the phone. Almost as soon as his face is done scanning, everybody’s phones start chiming.

“Let the games begin,” Chiyori says, her excitement evident.

𝐑 𝐄 𝐆 𝐈 𝐒 𝐓 𝐑 𝐀 𝐓 𝐈 𝐎 𝐍 𝐇 𝐀 𝐒 𝐂 𝐋 𝐎 𝐒 𝐄 𝐃

𝐓 𝐇 𝐄 𝐆 𝐀 𝐌 𝐄 𝐖 𝐈 𝐋 𝐋 𝐍 𝐎 𝐖 𝐂 𝐎 𝐌 𝐌 𝐄 𝐍 𝐂 𝐄

𝐆 𝐀 𝐌 𝐄 : 𝟐 𝟎 𝟎 𝐌 𝐄 𝐓 𝐄 𝐑 𝐑 𝐀 𝐂 𝐄

𝐃 𝐈 𝐅 𝐅 𝐈 𝐂 𝐔 𝐋 𝐓 𝐘 : 𝐓 𝐄 𝐍 𝐎 𝐅 𝐒 𝐏 𝐀 𝐃 𝐄 𝐒

When the difficulty level is announced, almost everyone starts cussing or panicking, apart from Chiyori and the guy with piercings.

She is momentarily breathless as memories of another Ten of Spades game come to her, but she shoves them at the back of her mind and turns her attention to the guy. Hostile he may be, something in her wants to help him. “This is the last time I’m gonna warn you. It’s kill or be killed, alright?”

He looks at her almost like a puppy, the angry facade he keeps up down for a moment.

“Welcome to the Borderlands,” she tells him.

They enter through another entrance to go into the arena itself. She hears the guy mutter in shock when he sees the arena. Like the rest of the Borderlands, the fauna is overgrown intermixed with other weeds and plants, except for a rectangular patch of land in the center where it was just plain dirt. Ostensibly 200 meters wide.

At the end closest to the entrance they came through is a long table full of weapons ranging from bows and arrows to javelins to throwing daggers. No guns. There are three people wearing grotesque halloween masks and nondescript clothes behind the table, waiting patiently for the game to start with hands clasped.

There were 21 participants in total. You know what they say: the more, the deadlier.

The guy in neon moved to grab a weapon off the table, but one of the dealers stopped him from doing so by brandishing a machete to his face. “Shit!” He squeaks. “Watch where you’re pointing that thing!”

The dealer with the machete brings one finger up to the lips of his mask, as if to sush him, then wags the finger like scolding a child. The other dealers gesture for them to wait for the rules.

Their phones chime once again. “Rule: Players must race through 200 meters to get to the other side. Condition: Finish the race within ten minutes.”

Chiyori smiles grimly, realizing what the weapons were for. She drops her denim jacket to the floor, revealing the burns on her arms, and readies herself.

“Start.”

She sprints ahead of everyone else, zigzagging and changing direction at random intervals. Screams start to rise. Behind her, the familiar squelch of someone being stabbed urges her to run faster. Someone manages to run even faster than her, even with her head start, but who said the game is about how quick you can finish the race?

A javelin goes through the head of the player.

Not even sparing them a glance, she jumps over the body - because that’s all the player is anymore, a body - and nearly collides with the guy from before. He looks like he wants her to die, but contradicts himself when he pushes her away from a flying arrow.

She barely gasps out a whisper of gratitude before they both continue their run. The timer loudly ticks down from the stadium’s screens.

They are only a few meters away from the finish line when she notices a small movement from behind the tall grass at the other end. She grabs the guy’s arm and pulls him while still keeping them in motion, albeit going back in the opposite direction.

“What are you doing?! The finish line’s right there!” He growls.

“Look again,” she snaps at him. “Someone’s waiting for us.”

He glances back and confirms it for himself. “What the fuck kind of dystopian shit is going on here?”

“These games are never simple,” she says.

By now, there were only about half of them still alive. A few have run past the two of them already, but Chiyori knew they would regret not thinking twice. She runs to a body that has a throwing axe deep into the side of her neck.

A glance at the starting line lets her know that the masked people only have a few weapons left to throw at them, but she still remains cautious in her running patterns as she runs to a few more bodies to collect more light throwing weapons. The guy follows her example, a bloody machete in hand.

They run back to the finish line, where a few of the others have begun to realize that there was one more masked person to torment them. Their weapon of choice? An actual roaring chainsaw.

“I should have stayed home!” The guy with piercings groans.

“Would’ve been the better choice,” she agrees.

The masked person slashed their chainsaw with reckless abandon at whoever dared to come close. One of the players was using someone’s lifeless body as a shield to get closer. Another player runs to the side of the race track, but a laser immediately comes for them.

Chiyori glances at the guy with piercings, locking eyes with him, darts her eyes to the masked person then back at him. He nods.

Holding her breath, she assumes a throwing stance. She brings the axe behind her head, then extends her arm forward while at the same time letting go of the weapon while keeping her wrist and elbow firm. It sinks into the masked person’s jugular.

Trusting that the guy would take over, she whips back to face the starting line and grabs the small throwing daggers she collected in each hand. Just in time to dodge a masked person’s forward slash. She drops to the floor and rolls over, kicking them on the head to dizzy them. She jumps on their back and uses another dagger to cut their throat open.

With her legs wrapped around their torso, she rolls both of them over just as several arrows lodge onto the masked person’s chest. Heart pounding at the close call, Chiyori throws her remaining daggers and knives in rapid succession towards where the arrows came from, hoping to buy time.

She crawls to the nearest body, who is rendered nearly headless by a curved blade. She pulls it out, spraying even more blood all over herself and the floor. When she looks up, she finds a masked person struggling to remove a knife embedded into their eye socket. Stopping for a second to marvel at her blind but successful aim, she puts them out of their misery with a swing of the blade.

Chiyori looks around for the third masked person, finding them grappling with another player. She turns her gaze to the guy with piercings, who seems to have successfully dispatched his opponent. He has his hands cupped around his mouth, shouting at her, but she is too far away to hear him clearly.

“... over here!”

“What?!” She screams.

The guy runs a hand through his hair in frustration, then points furiously at the stadium screens. She follows the direction of his finger, to find that there is only less than a minute left for her to cross about 100 meters to the finish line.

With no time to waste, she tightens her grip on the handle of the curved blade and runs for her life.

Chiyori is only a few feet away when a javelin twirls through the air and nicks her calf. She nearly drops at the pain, but perseveres and limps as fast as she can.

The guy with piercings picks up his opponent’s chainsaw and turns it on with a loud roar.

He sprints for the masked person making their way to Chiyori and slices them in half jaggedly.

With only twenty seconds left on the clock, he barks for the two other players in the finish line to help him drag Chiyori to safety, but only one actually does.

They cross the finish line with two seconds to spare.

Their phones chime in unison.

𝐆 𝐀 𝐌 𝐄 𝐂 𝐋 𝐄 𝐀 𝐑 𝐄 𝐃

𝐂 𝐎 𝐍 𝐆 𝐑 𝐀 𝐓 𝐔 𝐋 𝐀 𝐓 𝐈 𝐎 𝐍 𝐒

They all pant in exhaustion, bodies slick with blood. Blood from the masked people, from the other players, from them. Chiyori can’t wait to go home and wash it all off, maybe take a week off from playing the games.

【 𝙶 𝙰 𝙼 𝙴 】

♤　♤　♤　♤　♤

𝐖 𝐄 𝐖 𝐈 𝐋 𝐋 𝐒 𝐔 𝐏 𝐏 𝐋 𝐘 𝐀 𝐋 𝐋 𝐆 𝐀 𝐌 𝐄 𝐒 𝐔 𝐑 𝐕 𝐈 𝐕 𝐎 𝐑 𝐒

𝐖 𝐈 𝐓 𝐇 𝐀 𝐓 𝐄 𝐍 - 𝐃 𝐀 𝐘 𝐕 𝐈 𝐒 𝐀

She struggles to stand, waving off any help offered to her.

Hand still gripping on the curved blade, she uses it to cut away at the long grass until she finds a small table with a single Ten of Spades card on it. Despite not having the need for it, she swipes it and hides it in her bra.

Chiyori limps back to where the others are. The guy with piercings has blood dripping down his nose, and a cut somewhere on his trunk causing the shirt he has on to cling to his form.

“Welcome to the Borderlands,” she repeats with a smile, referring to before the game started. “I’m Kuroba Chiyori. What’s your name?”

Warily, he considers the hand she offers for him to shake. He glances at her face, at her horrific smile, teeth stained with blood. He takes her small hand into his much larger one and slowly shakes it, feeling vaguely like he is making a deal with the devil.

“Niragi Suguru.”

#niragi suguru x reader #niragi x reader #niragi #alice in borderland #Dori Sakurada

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missroserose · 3 years

Text

Summertime Thing

Okay, so really I should be working on the first chapter of this (which I actually have a hard deadline for on the 18th, sorta—more on that later), but I promised @laveracevia and @redmyeyes and @notwhatiam (and also an anonymous Tumblr person) that I'd post the bullet point outline for my angsty wincesty teen Sam novel so here it is, all three-thousand-plus words of it. Still tentative and with a fair amount to fill in, but that's what makes it an outline. (Has anyone yet beatified the SPN showrunners for setting the bar for research so ridiculously low? Praise be unto them! 😂) So, without further ado:

• It’s the summer of 1999 and Sam is sixteen.

• They’re living in rural Arizona for the summer, in a little town in the Chiricahua Mountains called Bisbee that I definitely didn’t live in for three years.

• Bisbee’s a weird place. It used to be a wealthy mining town, but in the ‘70s the company pulled out and the economy crashed. Some of the residents are old mining families, some are old hippies and artists who moved there due to the picturesque scenery and bargain-basement real estate, some are early baby boomers looking for an inexpensive place to retire. There's a surprising amount of live music, an absolutely thriving conspiracy scene, and the local police blotter is a smorgasbord of weirdness.

⁃ John picked it because it’s the county seat (which means lots of local records) with cheap housing and residents who don’t ask too many questions. Dean loves it because it’s straight out of the a Western—several famous movies filmed on Main Street, and the theme-park-town of Tombstone is half an hour’s drive away. Sam hates it, but in fairness, Sam kind of hates everything right now.

• Sam’s getting regular beatdowns with the puberty bat—he’s growing what feels like an inch a week, his voice is randomly cracking, he’s ravenously hungry all the time, and his moods go from happy-go-lucky kid to moody teen to full-on young-adult angst on the turn of a dime.

• Most terrifying of all, his relationship with Dean is fracturing. Dean can tell he’s having a hard time of things, of course, and tries his best to cheer Sam up. Sometimes they get on great; other times, even being in the same room as Dean makes Sam feel like his skin is three sizes too small.

• The frustrating part is, no matter how much of a shit Sam is, Dean won't give up on him entirely, just gives him space for a day or two and then reaches out, like—“hey, come keep me company while I give the car an oil change,” or “hey, sounds like there’s a hell of a party going on up the gulch—let’s go sneak in, I bet they have booze, maybe we can get you laid,” or “hey, Dad said we can take the car, let’s drive to the new mall in the next town and go see a movie. Anything you want.”

⁃ Sam definitely picks Cruel Intentions, intending to make Dean sit through something he’d find boring, but it backfires—the incest subplot ends up making him even more uncomfortable and Dean, predictably, digs watching Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair make out onscreen.

• Dean is having the time of his life this summer. The town is picturesque, the bars don’t look too closely at his fake ID, Sam’s old enough to fend for himself mostly, and he even gets an evening gig as a bar back a few nights a week, which means he has a little cash. Sure, Sam’s been weirdly moodly lately, but it’s just puberty, it’ll pass.

• Sam, meanwhile, is on his own a lot, with John either out working, out drinking, or buried in his notes; he spends a lot of time walking down to the library over the post office, which is surprisingly extensive, but more importantly, air-conditioned. If he has a couple bucks he might go to the new coffee shop by the library and buy an iced tea for lunch.

• At some point when John’s gone, Dean brings home Tina, a local bartender. Weirdly, they don’t seem to be sleeping together, at least initially; mostly they just hang out, easy with each other in a way that makes Sam jealous.

⁃ Sam hates it when Dean brings home girls (for the obvious reason that he gets kicked out of the house, of course), but he actually hates it more when Tina starts hanging around regularly, all the more so because she’s always very sweet to him—but Dean’s into her and that means Dean’s attention is on someone other than him.

⁃ Tina keeps working on Sam, and eventually he confides in her—he hates their life, hates lying to people, hates the ceaseless travel and string of anonymous motel rooms and constant scrambling for cash, but Dean loves it and he loves Dean. She mentions having a sister that she has a complicated relationship with, too.

• One day John announces that they’re taking a day trip as a family together, and they drive up to the Portal-Paradise area, which is a sky island—a mountain forest surrounded by desert, surprisingly lush and peaceful, with stunning views from the peaks.

⁃ It’s also a fairly cursed place, with bullet-riddled “KNOWN HUMAN TRAFFICKING AREA” signs and a cluster of boarded-up hovels from the ghost town of Paradise that definitely don't look like a Bender compound waiting to happen

⁃ After they've wandered around a bit, taking in the gorgeous landscape and sheer relief of being amongst so much green after months in the desert, John has them all pile back into the car and takes them up to Sugarloaf Peak. As they're climbing the mountain, he mentions that the fire watch station at the peak is a great place to watch for {insert signs of supernatural phenomenon here}. Sam gets upset at that, accuses John of using their family time for hunting. Dean points out (quite reasonably) that their family time has always been hunting together. John goes into Marine mode and shuts down the conversation, Sam grumbles something about "just because it's always been that way doesn't make it right," and goes into a sulk.

⁃ As he's sulk-climbing up the peak, Sam becomes convinced at one point that he hears running water. John tells him that’s unlikely before monsoons start, and to keep climbing. Sam keeps hearing it, though, and asks Dean whether he hears it; Dean listens, but doesn't hear anything. Sam falls further behind, trying to see the source—he catches a glimpse of something shimmering amidst the few trees and strikes off looking for it—but there’s nothing there, only a cliff that he nearly goes over. Dean comes up behind him a minute later, urges Sam back up the trail.

• The next day at the library, perhaps driven by Dean giving him shit about hallucinations, Sam starts looking into the history of water in the area—they’ve driven over the San Pedro River but it always just looked to him like a muddy creek. He learns about the 1877 earthquake that broke the water table and reshaped the water in the area, lowering the San Pedro's level and transforming St. David from a malaria-ridden swamp into a town of artesian springs.

• Later that week, Sam’s sitting outside the coffeeshop possibly reading Flowers in the Attic when he hears the older woman at the table next to him insisting that mutants are living in Paradise, only coming out at night, kidnapping people and murdering them, mutilating their bodies and leaving them for the sheriffs to find (and cover up, naturally). Sam is only half-listening—conspiracy nuts are a dime a dozen in this town—until the woman's friend asks patiently where they're getting water from, and the woman says something about haunted springs in the forest. He pretends he’s Dean for a moment, cuts in on the conversation, says he’s doing an independent study project over the summer. The woman fills him in on not just the one disappearance, but several over the past decade, mostly border-jumpers and itinerants.

• Reading between the lines, Sam starts to wonder if there’s a vampire nest in Paradise; he takes down some names, starts putting the research skills he's been learning to good use. He looks up some of the newspaper records on microfilm, finding records—occasional mentions in the Bisbee Observer (and before that, the more legitimate and much less typo-filled Bisbee Daily Review) of people missing, reading up on the history of Paradise.

• He comes back from the library, excited to tell Dean and John what he’s found, only to find John gone and Dean and Tina halfway through a case of beer she brought; they invite Sam to join them, and Sam does. Drunk!Sam ends up talking a lot about how cool the sky island forest is and trying to convince Tina to come with them to see it, but Tina seems oddly resistant. She changes the subject, tells them about her sister, how she was so dominant that she couldn’t tell where her sister ended and she began. Sam starts to feel a sort of kinship with her.

• The next morning he wakes up, discovers that Tina and Dean are gone. He wanders out to where John’s working in the living room, tells him what he’s found. John, who got in late the previous night and is singularly focused on demon activity, is a little condescending towards Sam—there’s dozens of conspiracy theories circulating through town, and besides, if there were actual vampires in Paradise he'd have found some direct evidence by now, they’ve been here more than a month.

• Sam is adamant about going anyway—"you always say it's our job to look into things nobody else will"—and maybe John's a little swayed by Sam's passion (or maybe Sam threatens to steal a car if John doesn't take him). As a sop, John gives Sam the keys to the Impala and tells him to come back if he needs help; as he's about to leave, John calls Sam back, gives him a tenner and reminds him not to head out to the middle of nowhere without supplies. Sam stops at the Circle K, packs a couple jugs of water and some nuts and jerky, and takes off; he’s a little pissed at Dean for ditching him the previous night (and also for, he assumes, sleeping with Tina) so he doesn’t bring him along.

• A couple of hours later, he’s jouncing up the road. The road is empty, as usual, the sun is hot, as usual. Sam gets to the border of the sky island, where the sun is less ferocious, and pulls off at the first group of abandoned houses. He goes to investigate; the first two are empty, barely more than hovels. The third looks empty, but he spots a table with no dust on it; looking closer, he finds a trap door down to a cellar.

⁃ Sam knows he should go get Dean, but he’s still feeling jilted, so he goes and grabs a machete from the Impala’s trunk

⁃ Carefully, he makes his way down the rickety staircase into the basement, shining the flashlight around—and is nearly jumped by a middle-aged woman, yelling at him in Spanish. He has some high-school Spanish but not much; he manages to ward her off, convince her he’s not ICE or Border Patrol. She still doesn’t trust him, but he notices the two children in the corner, the chains holding them there. In Spanish: “Why are they held?” “Coyote,” the woman spits. “Went to demand more money from my family. Should have been back three days ago. Probably drowned in a bar.” Sam doesn't 100% understand but gets the gist—the empty water jug in one corner and stinking bucket in another tell most of the story. The disappearances, the mutilated bodies—it's nothing supernatural, just people doing awful things to each other.

⁃ Sam picks the locks on the chains, tells the woman to wait a moment; he goes out to the Impala, gets the food and a jug of water, gives them to the woman. She’s still wary, but accepts the gifts. She tries to give him a warning, something about water, though his Spanish isn’t quite good enough to make it out; she also presses on him a small figurine, clearly very old, something that looks like a mermaid.

• He gets back around twilight, finds Dean and John bent over photocopies of local records. John sees him come in, asks him if he found anything. Sam opens his mouth, intending to tell him about his day…then decides against it. Just says there’s no vampires. John grunts in acknowledgement, mind already elsewhere.

• The next morning, Dean's missing again, so Sam stalks off to go swimming at the community pool. He’s doing laps, trying not to think about anything, but Dean keeps coming to mind, the way his eyes met Sam’s when Tina was talking about her sister, the way they felt almost hungry. It keeps haunting him, something about that hunger—he's walking back down Main Street, past some of the shops and galleries that sell local art to tourists, when he sees a large painting of La Tlanchana that bears some resemblance to the mermaid figurine—the woman’s warning comes to him again, and two pieces click together in his mind.

• He starts researching La Tlanchana and her various legends and beliefs about her over the years, particularly drawn by the darker and more vengeful incarnations that the Aztecs worshipped. He starts formulating a theory about the disappearances, that they’re linked to…what? A haunted spring? A mermaid? He’s so tantalizingly close…

• He comes home when the library closes, all excited to tell Dean what he’s found and get his input, but John and Dean are both gone; Dean’s bed is rumpled, and the sheets smell like…well, they smell like Dean and Tina, in a way that makes Sam’s stomach flip with jealousy. It's not that he hadn't guessed that they were sleeping together, but...he’d thought Tina liked him. He’d thought…Dean belonged to him. Little things like the hollow of his hip when his jeans rode low, or the way his knees bowed out when he walked, or the tightness around his eyes when he was trying to hide something—

⁃ —does horny uncomfortable 16-year-old Sam sit on the bed and envision his brother and Tina together and end up desperately rubbing one out right there on the bed? Oh yes he does. Afterward, roiling with several emotions (of which only some are shame), he half-considers going to the bar to look for Dean—but he has more trouble passing for twenty-one, and besides, what is there even to say?

• The next day, Sam intends to sleep late to avoid Dean, but his brother comes in at ten or so, in a disgustingly good mood. “Come on, Sammy, you’ve been cooped up in that library too long. Tina was telling me about a cave up on Mule Mountain, supposed to be a great place for a picnic.” John is still gone, and Sam’s in no mood, but can’t really say no to Dean.

• The brothers strike out over Mule Mountain, watching out for snakes and wildlife, looking for deer. Sam tries to explain to Dean his half-formed La Tlanchana theory, but Dean just humors him. Sam, nettled, starts griping about Dean’s navigation skills, about the way he sounds like their father, about all the time he’s spending with Tina, etc.

⁃ Dean deflects, but Sam’s upset about a lot of things he can’t acknowledge, so he starts in on the major sore point in their relationship—ripping on John for trapping them here, for never letting Dean be a kid, for always demanding their unquestioning obedience and loyalty, etc. Dean tolerates Sam’s griping to a point but once he starts in on their father it’s only a matter of time before he’s threatening to kick Sam’s ass; when Sam gets to the “he’s never let you be independent” part, Dean informs him with no small amount of anger that John has offered to give him the Impala, let him take jobs on his own—but he refused, because he’s been taking care of Sam—

⁃ They’re so caught up in arguing that they miss the way the sky’s going dark—it’s not until the first crack of thunder splits the sky overhead that they shut up and look at the sky, which is incredibly threatening

⁃ Sure enough, a moment later it starts pouring, with all the ferocity of a full-on faucet. Dean whoops, shedding his shirt like it’s an old skin, and dashes for an overhang that might shield them from the worst of it

⁃ Sam swallows and follows, soaked to the skin and shivering as much from fear as from cold. Cue the most miserably sexually-charged moment possible—Sam tryiing desperately not to notice all those little intimate physical things about Dean that he loves, Dean oblivious and in his element watching the storm transform the landscape

⁃ There’s a moment—maybe Dean says something like “Whatever it is that’s been eating at you, spit it out, Sammy—“ where Sam almost confesses. But cowardice, or perhaps intuition, hold his tongue—some secrets don’t need to be told. So instead, he passes it off as moodiness, apologizes. Dean confesses that he’s not actually all that into Tina—she’s fun, and all, but he knows they’ll be moving on soon enough. He lets slip that John’s halfway convinced that there’s no case here, anyway; they’ll probably be moving on in a week or two. Reluctantly, they allows things to revert to the status quo; as a consolation, they find a waterfall and eat slightly soggy sandwiches alongside it.

• The next morning, Sam wakes up to an entirely different town—the hills are starting to turn green, people in town are making plans to picnic by the waterfalls, everyone’s mood is lighter. Sam realizes he’s already looking at the town differently—as yet another place that’ll be in the rear view mirror soon, not as a place he inhabits. He’s coming to terms with that—glad for it, in some ways—when something tips him off that things aren’t right. Maybe the crackpot dude tells him the cycle is beginning again, or he overhears some gossip about how Tina didn’t show up for her shift last night, or sees something in the police blotter. Regardless, he ends up convinced that Dean and Tina have run off to the sky island and that Dean is in danger. Sam once again channels Dean, steals a county truck and floors it out to the sky island, this time forgetting to bring any supplies.

• Sam arrives in Paradise but sees no sign of Dean or Tina. He realizes he's parched (even flooring it out to the sky island, it's a good hour's drive); he listens for the water sounds. Instead, he hears Dean’s laughter, low and beckoning. He follows it, finds Dean standing shirtless in a spring, the version of Dean that terrifies him, untouchable and threatening and irresistible. For a moment he's almost taken in—but he knows Dean like nobody in the world, and thus knows a copy when he sees one. Not-Dean smiles, shimmers, reforms into the more familiar mermaid form.

• La Tlanchana (or this version of her) tells Sam how he puzzles her. She usually kills violent men, and Sam has a lot of violence in his past, and a destiny of violence in his future—but he was kind to the migrant mother, and undid some of the horror she’s seen done in her land. She sings for him, a lullaby of sorts, luring him away from his life of violence and yearning—

• Sam’s about to submit to her song when Tina appears, tells her to stop, that Sam’s destiny is his own to choose. La Tlanchana sneers at her, the same way you did? and Tina says yes—I’ve chosen you. It’s been more than a hundred years, and you’ve seen so much horror, grown vengeful—but I still love you, your kindness, the way you give life in the desert. They sing together, their voices intertwining, until they turn to water, melding together.

• Sam shakes off the daze, goes back to the truck; a few minutes later, he finds the Impala, bogged down in the rutted post-monsoon roads. He shakes him awake, questions him to see what he remembers—Dean appears to have been hypnotized, or something similar. He uses the truck to pull Dean out of the rut, tells him to return to the town, everything's over. Dean will have questions later, but for now he goes.

• Once Dean is gone, Sam goes back to the pool, now a perfectly mundane little monsoon-fed spring. He takes out the little figurine of La Tlanchana, sets it on a rock nearby, tells both Tina and her sister goodbye, and thanks them for their help.

• Epilogue: Sam is beginning his junior year in yet another new school. The smell of the school is the same, as are the lights (flourescent) and the lockers (stamped metal that echoes when it slams); he finds the guidance counselor’s office, lets himself in. The counselor looks up at Sam, comments on both his excellent grades and his peripatetic record. Sam: “So, if I wanted to go to college…”

#supernatural #sam and dean #wincest #summertime thing #my writing

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stronghours · 2 years

Text

a little more fleshed out and performative hindsight thoughts and 2022 thoughts that I put up on The Other Site. sex stuff as well, beware

Future/Image/Season/2022

The 2021 Naming of Seasons was well established in theory. But Huge Jugs Summer was all manifesting, no success; Sigma Male Autumn was overtaken by a grossly overdue Huge Jugs Summer; and Neutral Crone Winter just sort of withered away with many other hobbies and priorities once my body decided it was very off-putting to not fuck for thirty years, only to be released from the bullpen to perform a full floor tumbling routine with a busted vagina and little to no self conception. I stuck the landing but my vagina is still busted.

I'm currently reading The Magic Mountain and feel a little too in solidarity with good old poor little Hans Castorp - mostly mediocre, pleasant enough, minor natural creative gifts but unimpassioned and not well-practiced (at 15, he watercolor painted the christening and departure of the double-screw steamer Hansa, which was remarked, showed potential for the artist's ability to become a talented marine painter; in high school I once made four oil-pastel portraits of pears in the style of impressionism, pointillism, "van gogh" and Lichtenstein, which my parents hung up in the kitchen and to which my dad still sometimes points and goes "I'm waiting for you to do something with that, worm" - peas in a pod!) But Hans Castorp's passivity and horror of working essentially gains him the privilege of chilling out, philosophizing, romancing, consorting richly and symbolically with post WWI Europe via alpine sanitorium for 7 years; my own led to me not fucking for 30 years. Life is not written.

I had no choice but to Name The Seasons - I'm a lesboish 30-year-old parcel who is not significantly motivated by identity, gender, sex acts, orgasms, or arousal (orgasms are whatever by myself, I cannot reach them with others, my physical arousal is nil, I do not get wet - all alarming findings I've been trying to pivot and re-perspective) and my presence here is more or less due to the calculus of physical comedy: I pratfalled into a latex dress and the other inclinations fell into place. Erotic life has the verve of a banana peel on carpeted stairs. I say this because I think it's funny; that's also why I call my vagina busted. People think I'm a woman in latex and a boy everywhere else - it's hard to get mad about it when, if they asked, I couldn't tell them what I think I am either. I picture my mind: lately, like a water well, tubular stone walls, a defined structure with plenty of empty space and no footholds and a termination one can't see. I am so rigid but it encompasses a formlessness. If I don't actively perform my little delightful kindergarten acts - Naming The Seasons, making my cute lists, bombastic and absurd fuckgoals - they would never get done. I'd probably forget them the next morning and focus on The Magic Mountain and then replace, replace, replace, replace, replace, until it's too late. Sometimes I think the only emotions I feel distinctly, to the point of malleability, are anxiety and dread.

Comes the other difference between Hans Castorp's reality and mine: Hans Castorp is a professional orphan, and he has money; if he lived modestly, carefully, he could support himself independently with the passive income his inheritance generates. He doesn't necessarily need to become a shipbuilder - but what else will keep him cozy in Maria Mancini cigars? (phoo!) He can ruminate on Time in a deckchair - I can do my dishes and worry that my love for my mom disappears anytime she is not physically or verbally on my horizon. If I'm not doing, it's already gone - and with my propensity to be still, then life can be hell. If a lesbo performs outré sex acts with no penetration or arousal in a forest and there's nobody around, has it even lost its virginity?

(some professionals would say no)

A lot of talk goes on here about motivations and identity and I relate to none of it. I worry I'll be no good to deal with. I worry I disingenuously "picked" sadism (the same way I "pick" other goals, above) because it's the way I can cooperate actively, to an intimate extent, with another human being in an adult social situation without typical sexual touch triggering more nothing-feelings and despair. Caveat Emptor!

I recently told my friend that I actively needed to remind myself that the majority of people don't, like me, have the libido of a corpse. They said that was too negative. They suggested I have the libido of a fig. This fits nicely with my efforts to change the perspective of my various emptiness-ness. No, I'm not empty - depending on The Season, I am full of dead wasps.

Anyway here's what I'm down for in 2022:

SOME OVERALL:

one drawing a day - related: sketch, oil pastels, homemade egg tempera paint & technique

daily fiction writing

herb and spice growing

chess, chess puzzles, and chess practice

german study - reading, writing, listening, talking, translation, etc.

sewing & quilting

Forest Preserve - get serious. more certifications, more independent study, more volunteer hours

attitude: self-discipline, composure, restraint, courage, integrity

SOME OUTRÉ:

Latex-making - pencil skirt, tool-carrier, handbag, gloves

Cane-A-Cunt

Latex Tea Party

Rice-pull punishment

FORNIPHILIA - furniture predicaments - I want to turn a person into a human vase - I want to arrange flowers in the human vase (scissors, tweezers, pin-pad, the shebang). forniphilia, forniphilia, forniphilia. I want to put a lampshade on someone's head. I want to turn someone into a rolling drinks cart. I'll do it with steel shackles and I do it with saranwrap. I think it's so fucking funny and I think about it all the time

scenes with no sexual component

auxiliary topping

train and collaborate with impact (giving)

canes! canes! canes!

get a sjambok/practice the sjambok

disdain, scrutiny, & cold observation

classique school discipline - like, dunce-cap level. that good old fashioned chestnut. I just think it looks fun.

go back up and look at the forniphilia entry again

another difference between myself and Hans Castorp: his fate is vaguely assured. he volunteers for war and will most likely die there.

(Ich lebe) als sprachrohr des Autoren -

I think!

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esmealux · 3 years

Photo

The Devil Doesn’t Do Children

Part: 3 / ?

Setting: About a year after 5a

Word count: 3.9K

Rating: T

Warnings: There’s a flashback to their first night together which is not exactly graphic but not entirely innocent either. Skip if you like.

Summary: ‘Yes, well, colour us both fooled, Detective,” he cuts her off, “because based on some deduction I did today, and a not entirely ludicrous theory Linda had, it might be, in fact, possible. And I… I need to know for sure, so,’—he nudges the small package further in her direction and looks back up at her with pleading eyes—‘would you care for a wee?’

Author’s note: This is all I have for now, but I’ve already got some ideas for a part 4, so stay tuned. I would love to hear your honest feedback on this and/or your wishes for what the next part should contain. (Second time posting this part, because I accidentally reported my own post and then tumblr took it down (*cosmic face palm*) — and it’d even gotten more notes than any of my other pieces and some really heart-warming comments. Alas. They can’t be deleted from my heart.)

It’s not exactly unlike Lucifer to disappear for half a day—still, it makes Chloe anxious, and she doesn’t like wasting her energy on being anxious. When she had checked if he had answered any of her calls or texts for the fifty-sixth time in an hour, Chloe had put her phone in a Tupperware, placed it on the kitchen counter and retreated to the couch with a glass of wine. She knew he would come back; he always did. But until he did, she would need a 16% Zinfandel. God knows she deserved it after a day like today.

Even wrapped in a plaid and with candles lit around her, she’d still felt restless. The wine hadn’t calmed her nerves quickly enough. She hadn’t been in the mood for watching TV or putting on her usual pick-me-up playlist—instead, she’d felt an urge to do something she rarely had time for. With her wine glass in hand, she’d gone to the bookshelf, her free hand instinctively reaching for the photo album with ‘November 2007 - May 2008’ scrawled on the back. She’d dusted it off, sat down on the couch again and carefully opened it, as if the photos she knew it held might fly out like butterflies freed from a cage.

She flips through the pages. Nostalgia flutters in her chest and her head is now comfortably fuzzy from the wine. Most of the pictures in the first half of the album are candid shots of her and Dan, together and alone. From January and onwards, the ones of her are mostly taken from her chest and up. She hadn’t wanted her body to be documented, having felt self-conscious and uncomfortable, and most of all big. Now that the bump has turned into a strong and independent teenager, she wishes she’d wallowed in it a little more, enjoyed it while it lasted. She’s proud of Trixie, of who she has become, and it is nice to do some things with her now they couldn’t do when she was small. But sometimes, just once in a blue moon, a part of Chloe kinda longs for the time when they were inseparable; when she could carry Trixie on her hip; when they would play hide ’n’ seek in their old garden; when she could feel her little monkey snuggle into her side as they both fell asleep. The latter still happens sometimes, but the once little monkey has now outgrown her soft polar bear PJ, and her hair doesn’t smell like baby anymore.

Chloe has just reached the end of February when there’s a rhythmic knock on the door. Sighing at her guest’s unnecessary (albeit heart-warmingly considerate) politeness, she puts the photo album and the glass of wine down on the coffee table, wraps the blanket tighter around herself and yells, ‘You have a key, Lucifer!’

Five seconds later, he’s standing in her living room. He’s changed his clothes, looking impeccable and completely overdressed as usual, but his hair is in a disarray, like he’s been tugging at it, and his face is grey. He looks tired.

‘Where have you been?’ she asks him, her voice softer than she expected it would be. He sits down on the couch beside her, and she grabs one of his hands with both of her own.

He studies their fingers. ‘I just had a tête-à-tête with Linda.’

He’s been gone for seven hours, but she doesn’t ask what he’s been doing apart from seeing his therapist. She trusts him, and she trusts that whatever he’s been up to, it was what he needed to do to deal with… Yes, what exactly is it he’s been dealing with?

‘Wanna talk about it?’ she asks, reaching for her wine glass and raising it to her lips in an attempt to appear nonchalant. Before the delicious, dark red Zin can flow into her waiting mouth, the glass is removed from her hand.

‘What in Dad’s name are you drinking?!’ he berates her, as if she was chugging down Roundup directly from the jug.

She stares at him with wide eyes, trying to figure him out. ‘Uhm, a small glass of wine?’

He gives her a disapproving look. ‘When you’re-’

For some reason, he doesn’t say the rest, so she finishes for him, ‘Working tomorrow? Well, yes. I am. But in my defence, I really needed it. And since when are you one to deny me alcohol anyway? Just yesterday you put whiskey in my coffee—at work!’ She reaches out to get her glass back, but before she can get a hold of it, he leans his head back and downs the rest of her drink in one go.

She closes her eyes for a second and lets out an exasperated breath through her nose. ‘Seriously, what has gotten into you?’ she inquire, her eyes narrowing as he wipes her Zinfandel off his lips with the back of his hand.

He snorts and glances down at where the throw blanket is covering her abdomen.‘You’re one to talk.’ In any other situation, she would think he was making a lewd comment, but there’s something about his tone that throws her off. Annoyance? Frustration? She opens her mouth to ask him but stops when she notices his eyes are fixed on something beside her. Turning her head to see what has caught his attention, she realises it’s the open photo album. He carefully grabs the cover between his fingers and pulls it towards himself on the table, not taking his eyes off it. She’d just turned the page when he’d knocked and hadn’t seen the photos that are now displayed in front of them. Two of them are pictures of a very new-born Trixie, both taken at the hospital. One is a close-up of her perfect, little face and the other is of Dan nervously cradling her in his arms. Chloe feels warmth prickle behind her eyes.

‘Is this you?’ Lucifer asks, pointing to the photo in the top right corner on the left page. She feels heat creeping up in her cheeks as she takes in the photograph that actually caught his eye. She’d remembered it wrong when she’d thought there weren’t any pictures of her body in her third trimester. There was—is. Just one. Dan took it a couple of nights before she (finally) went into labour, insisting they ‘commemorate her strong and beautiful body’, or something like that. (She’d only given in because he’d promised her a back rub afterwards.) The picture is taken from the side, showing her form from mid-thigh to her head. She’s practically naked, only covered by a pair of white panties and her arm as it rests across her enlarged chest. Her hair is curled up into a messy bun on top of her head, her neck bent as she smiles down at her round and enormous belly.

She senses him gulp beside her and looks over at him, expecting some comments—either in the category of ‘How many humans did you have in there?!’ or a delighted exclamation like ‘Your breasts, Detective!’—but he doesn’t say anything. He just sits there and stares at the fourteen-year-old photo of her, silent and unreadable.

‘Okay, that’s it,’ she says, a little too sharply, shutting the album. Once she’s put it back on the shelf, she comes to stand across from him on the other side of the coffee table, arms crossed. ‘What’s going on with you?’

He looks so shocked she feels a little bad, but then a mix of unsettling emotions set in his face and she knows she was right to confront him so directly.

With a deep sigh of surrender, he reaches inside his jacket, pulls out something from his pocket and places it on the table. It’s a flat and rectangular box, light blue and bright pink—medical and feminine.

‘Lucifer, I’m not in the mood for jokes right now,’ she tells him tiredly when she realises what the box contains. His brown eyes are sombre as they stare into her own.

‘As much as I wish it was, it’s not a joke.’

She eyes the small package before looking at him again. ‘So you actually think that I’m…?’ She trails off, suddenly finding it hard to pronounce the word. He nods.

Well, that explains a lot.

‘But that’s not possible,’ she states. ‘I mean, not just because you can’t, you know, but also-‘

‘Yes, well, colour us both fooled, Detective,” he cuts her off, “because based on some deduction I did today, and a not entirely ludicrous theory Linda had, it might be, in fact, possible. And I… I need to know for sure, so,’—he nudges the small package further in her direction and looks back up at her with pleading eyes—‘would you care for a wee?’

As she takes in his exhausted and anxious expression, she knows he won’t rest until they settle this once and for all. With a shrug and a ‘If it makes you feel better’ she grabs the unwrapped pregnancy test between them and climbs the stairs to go to the bathroom.

He’s pacing her living room to the point he might wear a hole in her floor, and his Italian wingtips, but he can’t find it in himself to care.

Never in Lucifer’s incalculable lifetime has he waited this long for anything. He may have waited millennia upon millennia for her—his love, his saviour, his sun—but not consciously. And that makes all the difference.

Because waiting when you know you’re waiting, is torture. So he’s come to realise during the past thirty-six seconds. (Well, one hundred and sixty-eight, if you count the time it took her to get upstairs and urinate on the stick—but only thirty-six– thirty-seven seconds have passed since he’d finally heard her flush.) And now a little more than two minutes remain before he definitively finds out whether he really has made Chloe pregnant.

He needs a drink, or a bottle. Or five.

Momentarily breaking off his aimless parading, he goes to her kitchen in search for that zinfully strong wine he’d taken away from her before. Before he can find it, he changes his mind, remembering that he’s upgraded her tea selection to a hand-plucked assortment of fine liquor. He grabs the strongest spirit in sight and gulps down a good half of it before once again finding himself pacing the floor just in front of the stairs, bottle to his lips.

Fifty-eight seconds passed.

He tries to distract himself with happy thoughts, but his happy thoughts involve sex with Chloe, and that’s what got him into this imbroglio in the first place. Oh, how tainted some of his best memories have become now. He reminisces on that... incredible first night in his penthouse a little less than a year ago, when they had—finally—given into their incandescent desire and thrown themselves at each other. He remembers, clearer than anything, how she’d lied there, naked and glowing against his dark sheets. How he’d been completely overwhelmed with awe. How he’d kissed her swollen lips and dug his fingers into the soft skin at her waist as he’d slid into her, bare; how he’d savoured the feeling of her and nothing but her—no cheaply produced rubber between them. Just lust, and love, and warmth. Because, for the first time ever, there was only one, the one, and it was her, and they could feel every inch of each other without worry.

It’s his single sweetest memory, the best night of his infinite life, and now all he can think is how moronically naïve he’d been. How utterly stupid he was to believe that the rules that applied to everyone else also applied to her—her. The one person who was immune to his charms, the one person who made him vulnerable, made him human. The person who was created with him in mind.

But alea iacta est, the Rubicon is crossed, and he’s bought a lifetime supply of condoms (he’d donated his stock to a frat house a week before the aforementioned night)—just in case she doesn’t want to stuff herself with hormones again. That is, if the damage isn’t already done.

One minute and forty-two seconds till they have an answer.

He empties the bottle nestled in his arms and goes to find another one. Even in the Detective’s proximity, the alcohol won’t have the effect he’d wish it would, but the delectable taste and the comfortable burn in his throat might get his mind off things, if only for a couple of seconds.

It doesn’t. Two empty bottles later, and he’s still walking up and down her living room floor, watching the milliseconds pass on his pocket watch.

He tries focusing on objects in his surroundings—fixating a vase, or the offspring’s artworks, or the empty wine glass on the coffee table. But his eyes keep flicking back to a certain leather-bound photo album on the bookshelf, perpetually reminding him of the picture that had aroused a polyphony of unwanted emotions in him. First came astonishment (he’d never seen a picture of her pregnant body, and Dad help him, was it in an eyeful). Then came fear, adoration, panic, lust, despair, pride, jealousy—not in any particular order, one following after the other. No, they’d washed over him all at once, like razor-sharp darts hitting him from every direction, poisoning him, each inflicting him with their own flavour of pain. He knows he’ll never forget the picture, that it’ll pop up in his mind when he least expects it, and that it’ll take his breath away every time. But he doesn’t know what to think or feel about that, so he tries not to.

One minute and three seconds to go.

He reaches into his pocket, wanting to occupy his mind with some endless scrolling through photos of beach parties and prime suits and other uncomplicated things, but remembers his phone died somewhere between flying to France for comfort foods and seeing Linda. So instead, he pictures his Detective in her bathroom, sitting on the edge of the tub, or perhaps pacing the room like himself, waiting with him. She hadn’t seemed too concerned when he’d voiced his suspicion—surprised, yes, but not concerned. Maybe she hadn’t completely believed him when he’d assured her it wasn’t in jest? Maybe she’d already been too tipsy to actually comprehend what he’d told her? It seemed implausible that she wouldn’t be the least bit anxious about the thought of a baby-Satan living in her womb. When she’d learned she was pregnant with Beatrice, she had, to quote her, been ‘absolutely terrified’. But when Lucifer, the Devil himself, had told her his progeny might be growing inside her, she’d just shrugged! Of course, genetically, she did have more to worry about with Daniel (with his unfortunate looks and all)—but still. Why hadn’t she been more scared? Why hadn’t she freaked outand stopped functioning altogether, like he had?

Had she been…

happy?

Does she want to have his baby? Is she sitting in her bathroom right now, hoping he’s right?

They’ve never talked about having children. He had, between grunts and moans and hungry kisses, assured her he was sterile, and she’d seemed more than happy to ride him bareback without getting back on the pill. But she has never told him—and he’d never seen the point in asking—whether she’d want a child together if they could.

Consequently, he has absolutely no idea what she’s feeling now that she might actually be carrying his spawn. He doesn’t even know if she’d want to keep it. He has an inkling she would.

He hopes she would.

Not because he longs to play house—he’s not insane—but because it’s always nice when people keep the gifts you give them.

Not that he sees having a dependant for eighteen years as a gift. But maybe the Detective does. After all, she does look at the urchin like she’s nothing short of a miracle—and not a messy adolescent who always throws her purple Chucks where people are bound to trip over them.

Just last week, he had (or the teenager had) ruined one of his favourite Prada shirts as he’d caught his foot on her misplaced footwear and spilt Pinot Noir all over himself.

And yet, he would do anything for the little slob. At the beginning, it’d been about keeping Chloe safe and happy, and with that came the side gig of protecting her child. But he can’t deny it’s more than that now. He doesn’t just tolerate Beatrice anymore; he likes her. Chloe would protest and say he more than likes her, but he’s not quite ready for that other L-word yet (Dad knows he doesn’t speak it easily). He must confess, however, that it’d done something to his heart when Trix, a month ago, had posted a picture on her Instagram of herself, Lucifer and Chloe on the beach, laughing about something he doesn’t remember now, and simply, without a second thought, had captioned it ‘family 💜💗🧡’.

He’d tapped the like-button but hadn’t commented something clever and witty like he usually does on her posts. Instead, he had taken a screenshot and made it his lock screen.

Even as an empty battery has left his phone screen black for the moment, he easily recalls the photo. They do resemble some sort of a family, the three of them. Trix might not have his genes, but she’d been wearing his spare pair of Ray-Bans, and the necklace he’d given her for her thirteenth birthday had, as per usual, been resting around her neck. And that is more than enough for him.

In fact, he couldn’t ask for more.

Which is why it is exceedingly exasperating and so damn confusing that this relatively new family of his may now be growing. What exactly is he supposed to think of that? He’s already struggling to not let Chloe and Beatrice down, to be as good as they so confidently believe he is—why does he have to deal with a third one? Someone who is his own flesh and blood, at that. Not that it matters; he’s learned a long time ago that blood is not always—aka. never—thicker than water. Nonetheless, he won’t let history repeat itself; he won’t– refuses to fail his child.

But what if he does?

What if he fails his own child?

What if he fails the only family he’s ever had?

‘Negative,’ the Detective’s voice suddenly sounds as she descends the stairs, startling him out of his thoughts. He gives her an apologetical look when their eyes meet. ‘I know, I’m sorry. I am trying my best. It’s just, as tiny as it is in size, it’s a lot to wrap my head around.’

‘No, the test,’ she clarifies. ‘It’s negative.’ She walks over to meet him in three steps and hands him the white stick. ‘Not pregnant’ it says on the digital display.

‘But,’ he finds himself objecting, taking his eyes off the test to look at her face, ‘your morning sickness.’

She furrows her brow. ‘It was food poisoning, like you said. Trixie got it too—at school of all places. Dan had to pick her up and take her home.’

Having witnessed her mother’s reaction to their shared dinner first-hand, Lucifer is struck by empathy for the urchin. He makes a mental note to send her a funny video—later, when he’s sorted out the more urgent matters at hand.

‘But you’re late. Your menstruation was due nine days ago,’ he informs Chloe, presenting his other piece of evidence. She doesn’t bat an eye. ‘Well, yeah, it was late, but I was probably just getting back in sync with Ella or something, ‘cause I got it yesterday.’

Annoyance simmers in his chest. ‘Well, then why didn’t you bloody say so?!’

All the trouble—all the emotional torture he could have saved himself if she’d just thought to keep him updated on her menstrual cycle.

‘I tried!’ she defends. ‘But then you cut me off, and I figured you wouldn’t believe me before you saw a negative test anyway, so…’

‘And you didn’t think to tell me yesterday?’

‘Well, I first got it when I came home from work, and you got here late.’

He’d slipped out of Lux relatively early, considering he was the owner and the host of the night’s event, but it’d still been past 3.00 before he’d arrived at her flat and had found her and Beatrice snuggling on the couch, both sound asleep. Even as he’d gathered his snoring girlfriend in his arms and carried her up to her bedroom, she hadn’t stirred (if anything, she’d snored louder) and he had, in lieu of surprising her with some late-night cunnilingus, simply slid off her sweats, left on her knickers and t-shirt, and let her sleep.

‘Still, we live in the twenty-first century, Detective; the Short Message Service has been invented,’ he reminds her.

She glares at him, as if he is the one who’s being unreasonable. ‘You want me to text you when I get my period?’ He solemnly raises an eyebrow, demanding she take him seriously. ‘Okay, fine. If it means that much to you, I promise I’ll… notify you next time.’

That only irks him even more.

‘Well, it won’t matter next time, will it?! Because, evidently, I am as sterile as a castrate!’ There’s a loud clack as he puts down the negative pregnancy test on the shelf behind her, more forcefully than he intended. She stares at him with an expression he can’t quite read.

‘Are you not happy about this?’ she asks him.

A strident snort fills the room. ‘“Not happy”? Did you hurt your head, Detective?! Of course, I’m happy! I’m thrilled as a matter of fact. I mean, can you imagine me, the Devil—Lucifer Morningstar—with a baby? Dad no!’

She steps closer to him, reaches for his hand and intertwines their fingers. Her eyes are big and clear—shining with so much sympathy it makes him uncomfortable.

‘It’s okay to be disappointed, too, you know?’ she tells him softly, staring into his eyes, reaching for his soul. He looks up at a point above her head.

‘Well, I’m not,’ he assures her, articulating each word.

He senses her nodding, but she doesn’t seem entirely convinced. Annoyed at her scepticism, he looks back down at her and opens his mouth to stress just how delighted he is with the news. But before he can say anything, she squeezes his hand and leaves him with a tender smile as she goes to discard the test. Once done with the task, she heads for the stairs, but instead of going up to her bedroom immediately she pauses at the second step, hesitating. As she turns to face him, the hint of a smile remains on her lips, even as her expression remains concerningly grave. ‘I can, by the way,’ she says.

He knits his brows, not following.

‘I can imagine you—Lucifer Morningstar—with a baby. But if you’re not ready for that conversation, that’s okay.’

And then he is left at the bottom of the stairs, breathless and paralysed. Inside him, something shifts ever so slightly—yet just enough that he will never be the same again.

#deckerstar fanfiction #writing #The Devil Doesn't Do Children #lucifer morningstar #chloe decker #trixie espinoza #lucifer x chloe #post 5a #hurt comfort #pregnancy #lucifer fanfiction #lucifer on netflix

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everydayanth · 4 years

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Academic Elitism: an institutional issue

Sorry for being so rant-y lately, but the elitism of university has been a problem for me from the exact moment I accepted my scholarship with a signature and a handshake in high school. (The scholarship was later revoked due to state up-fuckery, but that’s another story, and I was already in too deep by the time they told me).

My parent’s house was only an hour north, my younger sister had already claimed my room, but I was excited. I was in the furthest dorm building, because that’s where the scholarship kids went, it was like a poor kid diversity hall, every few doors was someone from a completely different background, but we were all poor except our Swedish RA, and there was an odd pride in that. We all had various scholarships: robotics, dance team, nerds like me, etc. (not the football or hockey athletes though, they had their own dorm next to the library for... reasons, lol).

But being the last hall, it wasn’t actually full, most of us had entire rooms to ourselves, often whole suites; our hall was co-ed, but rooms were only occupied at every-other, staggered down the corridor. Only the front two halls were used, the back two closed off for construction or codes or something. We had to hike up the hill for dining halls, which was fine until snowdays that shut the whole campus down (and I mean west Michigan ones, with 4+ feet of powder and ice underneath). I had an old computer my dad got me for graduation and I didn’t know it was old until my peers started calling it a dinosaur. I had to use the library computers to write and print papers, and most places I went, I ran into the other scholarship kids. We didn’t talk much, just a head bob here and there, awareness at our similarities and an annoyed spite at being thrown together this way. It was lonely for everyone.

I had a purple flip phone I’d gotten only that calendar year (2009) and was still learning to text with (abbreviations? instant messaging? what?). My roommate had come down from Alaska to live near her dad, we’d talked in the summer, but I never saw her. I moved my things in and her stuff was on her side, I texted her about going to turn in paperwork and when I came back, there was a note on my bed and all her things were gone, she couldn’t do it, had never been away from home for even a night. She left a few mismatched socks and a bag of junk pens that I resented for years.

Social media was mostly a way to talk to people across campus and exchange homework and party times/locations. We posted over-edited photos of our food and still jogged with our mp3 players and ipods. But within two years, I had to trade in my computer three times and upgrade to a smartphone to keep up with the expectations of communication. Professors would cancel classes by emails an hour out, and if I was on campus, I simply didn’t get the message, running between classes with 19 credit hours and three jobs. Work would call in or cancel my appointments (tutoring) and I needed to be able to communicate at the rate of my peers, so though it wasn’t something we could easily afford, my parents let me get the smartphone and my dad helped me find computers that could keep up with writing papers and researching without having to go to the lab, which saved so much time.

There was little understanding for my suffering. I didn’t have a car, I had to call my parents and organize a time to get home or take the train which was more expensive than waiting around on an empty campus. They were often things that even the wealthiest students had to deal with, but there were so much more of them for us, more stress, more problems, more solutions, more consequences, and in some ways, more determination.

I spent plenty of breaks holed up in my room, but when the swine flu/H1N1 outbreak happened, guess where they quarantined students?

In our hall.

Not the back one that was closed. In the room attached to my suite.

After half a semester alone, suddenly strangers shared my bathroom. I never saw them, I would just hear the formidable click of the bathroom lock followed by the shower. A week later I got a blue half-sheet note in my mailbox about quarantines. The other kids were as pissed off, as we watched kids escorted in with blue masks and were told to just get cleaning wipes from the front desk –they ran out in a week.

We were the recyclable students, brought in to trade scholarships for university grade averages. Many of my friends were struggling with scholarship qualifications and gpas (which only encouraged my continual obsessive perfectionism and involvement).

We were expendable.

I didn’t understand the elitism then, or I did, but I’d twisted it in my head from years tossed between private and public schools. I was an invader, I wasn’t supposed to be there, but I wanted to be. I understood that I didn’t deserve it, that I had to work harder to stay. I completed Master’s coursework for my Bachelor’s degree, finishing two BA programs (anthropology and English: creative writing) and 2 minor programs in philosophy and world lit, lead several campus groups and volunteered with honor’s societies. I spent hours on campus every day, running home just to go to one job or the other. I slept about four hours a night and I still romanticize it because I loved it. And I was good at it. It was a closed system, easy to infiltrate, easy to watch and observe and follow, to feel protected from the world, but there were always ways that I came up short.

I didn’t have leggings or Northface fleeces or Ugg boots or name brand anything (except a pair of converse I got in 8th grade from my Babcia). I had old high school sweats and soccer shirts, hand-me-down clothes from sisters and cousins that mix-matched a style I thought was unique but I now understand screamed I don’t really belong here. Example: I went to propose an independent study to a professor I really admired and I panicked about what to wear. I still cringe at the memory, gahhhhhh, but I pulled on what I thought was a decent dress because it had no rips or stains or tears and though I’d picked it up from a clearance rack, it was the newest thing and therefore the best. But in retrospect, it was definitely a “party” dress, I grabbed a sweater, hoop earrings that had always been beautiful in my neighborhood, and heels I never wore otherwise, and presented my idea. This old professor was just like��“um...did you dress up for me?” Clearly spooked by red flags and I realized my mistake. Saved by quick thinking I clarified “no, I have a presentation later,” and being a familiar face in the social sciences department, I let him assume I was dressed up as something. I just went in my sweats and t-shirts after that, got a haircut that tamed the wavy frizz and learned the importance of muted tones, cardigans, and flats.

I made a lot of interesting friends in the process, people who also stuck out from the American Academic culture: exchange students, older (non-traditional) students, rebels, and other poor kids. But that also meant that we all evolved during our time there, so friendship was quick and fleeting as we adapted or dropped out or remained oblivious, lost in our studies and dreams of changing the world or our lives.

I had no idea how to approach the dining halls because I could only afford the bronze plan that was included with my room+board scholarship. I could enter the hall ten times per week, with four included passes to the after-hours carry-out (this was an upgrade from the free high school lunch I was coming from). I met other kids on this plan and their dorm rooms had fridges and microwaves and shelves of ramen and mac’n’cheese. Mine was sparse, my fridge had jugs of water from the filtered tap in the common room, and though it had a shared kitchenette, it always smelled bad or was being used and the nearest grocery store was Meijers which was a 15-20 minute drive from campus. I used so much energy dividing up my meals and figuring out how to sneak food from the hall for later or just learn to not eat, which is another story involving malnutrition, broken bones, and the American Healthcare System.

We like to summarize the college experience with fond struggles. I went back to my old high school to watch my younger sisters’ marching band competition that first year (it’s MI, and they were good). My old art teacher (not much older than we were but she felt so much older at the time, also her maiden name was Erickson and so was her fiance’s so she didn’t “change” her name and that blows my mind to this day), anyway, she stopped me to ask how school was going, and I was not prepared to be recognized in anyway and stammered out something like “oh, yeah, stressful. Fun, cool, yeah,” like the eloquent well-educated student I was. And she said, “oh, I loved it, don’t you love it? Everything’s so charming, and being poor? Oh man, it’s hard for a while, but it’s so good to go through.”

I was dumbfounded at her reference to poverty as a thing to go through when you’re a student. I again had to remember that I was infiltrating places where people weren’t just marginally more well-off than I was, but far beyond, in a place where they couldn’t comprehend an alternative, couldn’t conceive of surviving poverty, of not having a reliable place to fall if you mess up, parents who couldn’t support you if things went wrong, who couldn’t save you from having to drop out if scholarships were canceled because the money just wasn’t there.

Talking with my parents never worked, and I recently found this video by The Financial Diet about Boomer shame in being poor, where many Millennials were united by it and it was #relatable. But all this is to say that there are so many layers and ways we develop in higher education that are often overlooked by the romantic nostalgia of the elite expectation. What we demand from education vs. what it offers us in return is rarely equal for students coming from poverty, and it starts with that first sacrifice of looking at money and deciding it has to be worth it to do something bigger, and that education is a necessary piece of that goal.

Now I live near Brown University, I’ve been to Harvard when we lived in Boston and recently took a trip to Yale with bold expectations. I am friends with several people who work at these places and I hear the same things: so many students are in a place where their obsessions are considered more important than the larger world, an argument that Shakespeare is a woman is more important to prove than the greater issues of sexism in society as a whole, while others are trained to look at data and the world as a pocketable fact-book, going to conferences and week-long summits and then off to D.C. to make important decisions about places they’ve never been to, for people they’ve never met, about problems they’ve never experienced.

It’s not new. It’s not romantic. It’s not nostalgic. It’s just sick.

I was horrified at New Haven. I have read so many social science reports and papers and experiments and academic bullshit that has come from professors at Yale with a big badge of ivy-league validation. So much of this research was focused on homelessness and culture clash and socio-economics in America, as that was my “dissertation” that got me discounted master’s classes for my BA in Anthropology. Anyway, my point was that I thought this noble, proud university that put out so much research was going to be situated in something of a utopia, where their research is put into practice. Obviously, I was wrong, but I didn’t expect how wrong. (I had also started reading Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House, so... there’s another thing).

My observations were validated by employees of ivy-league schools, who have watched over the past 2 decades as they grow more and more reclusive, hiding away from the public except through a few, probably well-intentioned, outstretched hands that do little to contribute to the world outside the university itself. These ivory towers are built by poaching: environments, observations, resources, research, and yeah, even students.

I love academia. I will sit in a library for hours just pulling down tomes (and putting them back in their proper locations like a dork) and drawing connections just for fun. But right now, I’m a bit bitter and spiteful and angry.

When something like Coronavirus sneaks up on us, we have a tendency to throw the most expendable people under the bus as quickly as we can, and all I can think about is my shadow of a suite-mate sneezing and coughing with swine flu for two weeks, at how I refused to use my own bathroom and listened to my hall-mates’ advice about showering at the rec center a mile away as we all collectively locked our bathroom doors and were left there by the university to get sick without insurance to help with any foreseeable costs.

It’s not the same now, they’ve rebuilt the entire section of the campus, it’s odd to see it, I wonder where they put the expendable kids. Or maybe they don’t accept them anymore. I’ve worked in college admissions since then, and it is a scary industry of politics and preference and hidden quotas and image-agendas. Not all schools are industry monsters, but when you’re expendable, they sure do feel like it, whether you graduate summa cum laude with two degrees, six awards, and five tasseled ropes around your neck or not.

I wish I had a positive message. I wish I was in a place to help people who feel expendable or like they can’t keep up with communications because of technology or language or network or environment. But I don’t have much right now. For all its posturing and linear progression, academia needs to create profit. All I can do is yell about this existing.

If you are feeling expandable in university, I can tell you you’re not alone. I can let you rant about all the small ways your peers don’t get it, whether its an accent they shit on or ceremonies you don’t have the right clothes for or textbooks you share with a friend to cut costs but then they hoard them. I can relate to you about guilt and that sneaking panic that fills you with anxiety at night as you question yourself and wonder if it’s worth it at all, if it’s necessary, if it’s okay to be expendable to follow something that feels bigger. I can validate your doubt and tell you that you’re not actually expendable, you’re a bridge.

I’m sorry it still works like this. I wish we figured out how to change it by now, I wish I had secret shortcuts to tell you about, that there was more accountability or hope, but I’m not seeing it lately. I hope you do. <3

#academia #anthropology #sociology #university #culture #h1n1 #coronavirus #poverty #wealth gap #elitism

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like-romeoandjuliet-love · 4 years

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Would love a fluffy Bughead fic where Gladys takes Jug to Toledo but he and JB come back after she gets arrested, just in time to find Betty in need a junio prom date so she's not the third wheel to Varchie...

Hi! Thank you for this! Hope I did it justice!

•

Being back in Riverdale feels freeing in a way. When they first left for Toledo, Jughead admits he felt like he was escaping. Escaping his father and a life that wasn’t at all what he wanted for his sister. Jellybean couldn’t grow up like he did, even at fourteen, he’d lived through things that he wouldn’t wish on anyone, things no one should ever have to deal with at such a young age. An alcoholic father who could get violent, whose loud voice was forever stuck in his mind.

His mother had packed up their things when FP was passed out on the couch, a bottle of whiskey empty on the floor. He remembers being woken up and ushered out the door and into the car. He remembers how quiet leaving was. It’s not as though he was expecting anything, it felt, though, calmer than he’d ever realized it could be. But Gladys, despite getting them out, was still Gladys. And Gladys was complicated. Nothing she did was really within the confinement of the law. Jughead realized that too soon. He didn’t want Jellybean to notice it, to be in the midst of it, but all of it was too late. He’d confronted the fact that he needed an out when he found out she’d been dealing drugs. He couldn’t possibly let Jellybean anywhere near that.

The call comes through and Jughead makes a split second decision based on a weak reassurance.

“I’m sober. I’ve been sober since you left. I go to meetings. I have an apartment. Come home.”

He doesn’t leave in the middle of the night. He sits Gladys down and tells her. What hurts the most is the understanding look on her face and how she lets them go without a fight. Somehow that’s worse than anything she could ever do.

Jellybean is fine with it. She hates Toledo.

FP picks them up at the station and he looks healthy. Jughead tries not to get his hopes up. Turns out he can.

“Jughead?”

The sweet voice that calls him out as he sits in a booth at Pop’s belongs to one Betty Cooper. His childhood crush. One third of the now dismembered three musketeers. The first friend he’d ever made.

“Hey, Betty.” He greets awkwardly.

“You’re here. You’re back.” She smiles her infamous smile and he feels himself under her spell in a second.

“Yeah, I...yeah.” He mumbles lamely, cursing himself the whole time.

“Come on, sit!” She gestures you the seat in front of her and he sits. “How are you? Are you coming to Riverdale High?”

He clears his throat, a little intimidated by having her full attention on him. “I am, yeah.”

Her eyes light up and she smiles. “That’s great, Jughead. That’s really great. How have you been?”

He shrugs. How do you phrase it? I left because of my drunk father but it turns out being out wasn’t as good because my mother sells drugs so now I’m back here to my alcoholic father because he’s sober?

“Good.” He decides to say. “How are you, Betty?”

Her smile seems to falter a tiny bit. “I’m great. Had that internship. It went great. I met Toni Morrison last summer.”

“Oh? Really? That’s great, Betty! I know how much you love her!” He smiles and Betty’s mood seems to shift as she launches into the story of how she met her favorite writer. Jughead is reminded why he pined after her for most of his childhood.

He tries to steer the conversation away from himself. It’s not as though he doesn’t want to tell her everything. He’s just not ready for all of that, things changed. They’re not kids anymore, they’re now in that weird phase where they used to be best friends but after this long, it’s not the same. He missed her but he’s embarrassed by his own life.

And then Betty’s phone rings. He hears the shrill of Alice Cooper’s voice on the other side of the line, notes how Betty’s demeanor changes as she tells him she needs to go home. She smiles at him one more time before leaving. And he saves that moment in the back of his mind.

•

“Prom is in a week, B! You have to get a date!” Veronica tells her best friend. They’re all sitting together during free period. It had been two days since he began attending Riverdale High.

Jughead is confused by Veronica’s whole being, if he’s honest. He doesn’t really understand why she wears pearls to school or heels or why she dresses like she’s some top notch CEO with an assistant following her around. Maybe it’s just his absolute inadequacy when in dealing with privileged people or maybe it’s just really that odd. But Betty loves her and Archie’s in love with her. So he doesn’t say anything. His sardonic humor might pop out at some point but he’ll save it for now.

“V, there’s still time.” Betty laughs. “And it’s fine if no one asks me, I’m totally fine with not having a date. 21st century independence and all that.”

Veronica rolls her eyes. “I refuse that idea for prom. A girl deserves a date.” The dark haired girl argues. And then the worst possible thing happens, Veronica snaps her head towards him with laser focus as he sits beside Betty, munching on his chips. “Jughead, why don’t you ask her out?”

He chokes on his chips, coughing miserably.

“Veronica! Stop that!” Betty’s eyes widen. And Jughead can’t help but feel his heart ache a little. Was the thought of going to prom with him that insane? “Jughead, it’s fine.”

The bell rings, he’s left with a bitter taste in his mouth.

•

Archie and Veronica are admittedly, from where he’s standing an annoying couple. They love each other alright but it’s the way in which they display it that kind of makes Jughead want to gag. Archie follows her around like a love sick puppy and the way Veronica calls him ‘Archiekins’ makes him want to bury himself six feet under. They’re apparently, as Veronica and Kevin had put it, Endgame. It’s all a very confusing event, especially considering the fact that Betty had a very obvious crush on Archie when he left.

Still, Betty sends him amused looks when his expressions can’t be hidden within Varchie’s vicinity, so he tries to hide it even less now that he’s noticed it makes her smile.

He walks her home everyday. And it’s easy to be back to being friends with her. It’s not like being friends with Archie. Him and Archie had grown apart a bit, different interests, and he will only say that to himself, but seriously different IQs (he loves his ginger friend but there’s no way he can lie about that). But being friends with Betty means real meaningful conversations, it means a hundred million topics as long as they keep going.

“Can I ask a question?” She looks at him, as they walk and nods. “When I left, you had a pretty obvious crush on Archie, so what happened there?”

Betty lets out a laugh. “I never had a crush on Archie.”

“You didn’t?” His eyes widen at this new bit of information.

“I mean when I was like seven, probably, but by the time you left, that was long gone.”

He’s truly flabbergasted at this new piece of information. “So, nothing on the romantic horizon?”

“Mmmh, I don’t think so.”

“How in the world has no one asked you out?” He blurts out incredulously.

Betty blushes. Had he made her blush? “Maybe I’m too boring for everyone. Next to girls like Cheryl and V, it’s easy to bypass me.” She brushes it off and he hates that.

“No fucking way.” He shakes his head, the way he says it coming out like he truly doesn’t believe anyone could ever find Betty Cooper boring. “Betty, you’re fucking incredible! You could never be boring. It’s you!”

“Jug...” She chuckles just as they stand in front of her house. She turns to face him. “You’re sweet, you know? Beneath all that broody exterior of yours.”

“Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation to maintain.” He jokes and she laughs, her beautiful face lighting up. His crush on her doubles up. “Whoever dates you, will be the luckiest guy in the world, Betty.”

“Yeah?”

He nods. “For sure.”

•

It’s a day before prom when Veronica Lodge corners him, in the Blue and Gold, bursting through the door.

“Why haven’t you asked her out?” She asks pointedly and once again, he’s so confused by her. “Betty, Forsythe!”

“How the hell do you know my real name?”

“Archie, obviously, but that is besides the point. You need to ask Betty to prom.”

He scoffs. “Veronica, no offense, but why would I do that?”

“Because she can’t be our third wheel!”

“Why would she be your third wheel?”

“Because she doesn’t have a date. And also, you need to ask her, because she wants you to.”

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, right.”

“She does. It’s very clear that she does.” Veronica tells him firmly.

“I’ve been back for a week.”

“Your point?” Veronica furrows her brows. “You know, between the pictures of you I saw from before and now. You had a glow up, Jones.” Again, complete utter confusion. “So it’s very clear that Betty is not only crushing on your brain, she’s also crushing on your physique. And she probably had a crush on you before, but I can’t get it out of her.”

He gulps, feeling like the wind was knocked off his lungs. “What?”

“And you are adorably pining after her. Probably have for a while, right?” She smirks. “Just ask her out, will you? End everyone’s suffering. The longing gaze on both your faces is painful.”

Turns out that he doesn’t have to ask her because Betty one ups him. He’s walking her home as always, he’s babbling on and on about a book he’s reading, she’s listening intently as usual, a smile on her face. When the conversation dies out, he feels her fingers softly brush against his, between them. He’s dreaming, he has to be dreaming. Betty doesn’t wait, she takes his hand, interlocking their fingers together. And holy shit, had Veronica been right?

“Betts.” He chokes out.

“Yeah?” The words seem stuck in his throat, unwilling to come out, so she stops them, turns towards him and smiles, taking care of it herself. Her hand is still gripping his so he’s sure it wasn’t a mistake. “Go to prom with me.”

“What?” He breathes out. “Betty, what?”

“Prom, Jug. I’m asking you to prom. I was waiting for you to ask me but I thought, screw it, might as well as you.”

“Are you serious?” He asks in disbelief. “Like, for real, not in a ‘let’s go as friend’ way?”

She pauses, smiling. “For real. So, is that a yes or do I have to suffer for longer?”

He laughs. “Yes, yes, it’s a yes.”

“Great. Pick me up at seven tomorrow.” She pecks his cheek and leaves him with a dumb grin on his face in the middle of the street.

What had just happened?

•

He picks her up, in the only suit he owns. She looks breathtaking. He’s pretty sure his heart might jump out of his chest when Alice waits with him in the living room. Alice is still as terrible as he remembers and he wonders how in the world Betty turned out the way she did. But Betty’s beautiful and she’s his date and when she climbs down the stairs, he’s sure he’ll remember the image forever.

“You look beautiful, Betts.”

“You don’t look too bad yourself, Juggie.”

She drives them to prom. He doesn’t have a car but he likes watching her do the most mundane things in the world, even driving so he doesn’t feel bad about it. Instead, he feels like this is the best night of his life. Because Betty Cooper is holding his hand, he keeps a hand around her shoulder as they walk around talking to people. She kisses his cheek whenever she feels like it and she holds him against her.

The first time he kisses her is the the most cliched thing he’s ever done in his life. They’re dancing, his hands on her hips, her hand around his neck. She has the most beautiful smile on her lips. ‘Work Song’ by Hozier, he later learns, is playing in the background and it’s the happiest he’s ever felt.

“I really like you, Betty.” He murmurs in her ear, his cheek against the side of her head.

She leans back to look at him. “I’ve liked you since we were twelve.”

He laughs. “That’s oddly specific.”

“It was when you put your beanie on me when I was sad because my mom yelled at me.” Her hand reaches up to run a finger across the fabric on his head.

“When you kicked Reggie in second grade because he pushed me.”

“Yeah?”

He nods. “My little seven year old self was ruined after that.”

There’s a beat and she’s just looking at him and he wants her to look at him like that forever. He wants to freeze this moment forever. As her hand moves to caress his face, he almost melts into it. Hand warm against his cheek, it’s like every dream come true. They both lean in, lips brushing tentatively at first, as he draws her nearer, arms wrapping around her. Her lips taste like strawberry and they’re soft against his. And he’s falling in love with her. He wonders when he’ll stop falling.

When they pull back because their lungs demand it, she laughs, forehead against his.

She still laughs the same way, when he kisses her again, with the same song playing, on their wedding day.

#bughead #bughead fanfiction #riverdale #ask

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sleuthingenigma · 4 years

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𝙱𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝙰𝚄

𝐉𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐡𝐢𝐦 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐲. 𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐞𝐥𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐚𝐭 𝐏𝐨𝐩'𝐬 𝐃𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐋𝐚 𝐁𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞 𝐍𝐮𝐢𝐭.

Like the true, independent force she was, Betty Cooper was seated in the driver’s seat of her mother’s car, driving herself to her “prom” — the floor length gown and heels one of the smaller inconveniences she’d had to deal with, not daring to compare to the more pressing obstacles she’d had to face in the last four years of high school.

Unlike some of her closest friends and basically everyone else in her graduating class, Betty wasn’t headed to Riverdale High for the big night. She had been banned from prom, thanks to that slimeball, Bret Weston Wallis — one of the most spineless human beings she’d ever come across, and she’d certainly met her fair share of them. But hey, why change up her totally deranged high school experience now? She may as well continue her streak straying far from the status quo.

As she pulled into the nearly empty parking lot of Pop’s Diner, only taken up by her lover’s motorcycle and Pop Tate’s dark blue van, Betty’s heart was already racing with excitement for whatever Jughead had planned. He’d insisted that she didn’t lift a finger preparing for this night. He wanted to give her a complete night off from everything. Whatever needed their attention could be dealt with after her carriage turns into a pumpkin. The only thing she could think about right now were the lips of her darling prince. Well, now her 𝙎𝙚𝙧𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙆𝙞𝙣𝙜.

After putting the car in park, Betty eased herself out of the vehicle, careful to tug the entirety of her dress out of the car so it wouldn’t get caught in the closed door. When she opened the door of the diner, that familiar smell of fresh burgers and fries wafted right into her nostrils— a specific smell no other diner could recreate. Pop’s would always stand out from the crowd, and no diner could even try to compare. She didn’t realize how much she was going to miss this place when she moved out of town, until now… so many memories were made here.

Jughead was already sitting in 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 booth, looking right at her with wide eyes nearly bursting out of his head at the sight of her. He carefully slid out of the booth, holding his hands in front of him politely. As she slowly made her way over to him, her baby blue gown just barely grazed the floor, a mix of lace floral patterns, and modest sparkles filled the entire bodice, the lacy pattern trailing down her arms in off the shoulder straps.

He didn’t waste a second before pressing multiple, eager kisses to her lips. Her hand lingered on his shoulder as he swarmed her face with his lips, a bout of giggles leaving her as she tugged away from him.

“Save some for later, handsome,” she chuckled, shaking her head at her corny darling as she carefully slid into the booth, Jughead holding her hand to steady her as she settled in.

After she was comfortable, Jughead sat across from her, and her hands immediately took his. She stared at him longingly, his thick waves slicked back with just the perfect amount of wild and tame to the look, and he wore a dapper black suit, 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 nicely fitted to his body— Jug’s tie the same soft blue as her dress.

“Jug, are you always going to take away my breath like this?” Betty blushed, caressing his hands with her thumbs.

His eyebrows shot up and a smirk worked its way across his lips. “I hope you still have that mindset when you wake up to my poofy hair and smelly breath every morning in New Haven. Just keep remembering me like this, all spruced up for you.”

Betty rolled her eyes, the smile never leaving her lips as she shook her head. “I don’t care if you’re dressed to the nines or just rolling out of bed… I’m always going to look at you fondly. Your handsomeness hasn’t faltered since the day we met. In fact, I think you somehow keep getting even 𝘩𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳. What’s your secret?”

“You know…” Jughead began, a sly look on his face as he looked over her shoulder. Pop Tate would appear a few moments later with their usual orders. “I think I’d have to credit my 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘨𝘭𝘰𝘸 to none other than Pop’s burgers. I’m doomed to wither away once we leave this town and I can’t consume my signature triple burger on the regular. Nobody makes em’ like you do, Pop.”

Pop chuckled, beaming at the compliment, looking at the two of them like he couldn’t be more proud of who they’d become. “Now, don’t you two forget about ole’ Pop… you’d better stop by here when you’re in the area for a visit. Promise me?”

Betty and Jughead gave each other endearing, heart-warmed looks, before nodding at Pop simultaneously. “We’re definitely going to stop here, 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵, Pop. You have our word,” Betty said.

The bubbly man smiled ear to ear at the two, before returning behind the counter, leaving the two of them to their meal. Betty and Jughead sat there in that booth where they’d discussed many of their theories for whatever sleuthing ordeals they’d been working on at the time, sharing milkshakes over notes they’d been comparing on cases… A few booths down was their usual spot they’d shared with Veronica and Archie, their meetups with them a reprieve from the intricate, heavy thinking that came with their sleuthing endeavors.

As Betty sat there with Jug, just about finished with her meal, she began to wonder why she didn’t feel the bittersweet feelings that were supposed to come around graduation time. There wasn’t much in this town, let alone at the school, that she was particularly sad about letting go of.

Most of her best, fondest memories were with the man sitting across from her.

A smile formed on her lips as she watched her lover pick at every last bit of food on his plate. Once he’d finished up and his attention was back on her, he gazed at her like she was the most beautiful girl in the world. The same way he looked at her when she and Veronica were sitting in the booth, and he and Archie joined them. A first glance that she had never forgotten.

“You know, Jug,” she started, letting her fingers aimlessly trail up and down his arm. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you by my side all these years. Our lives have been… constantly turned upside down, attacked from all angles… but at the end of the day, it was you that I found my solace, consistency, safety and absolute ease within. I couldn’t have gotten through any of what I did without you, Jughead.”

Jughead immediately shook his head, his eyebrows furrowing in rejection to her statement. He grabbed onto her hand, giving it a firm squeeze. “And 𝘐 couldn’t have stayed sane without you, my little enigma. Even in the darkest, most bleak times in this hellish town, you were constantly that shining light in my life— and I have always held onto that. I will always hold onto you. We have proven time and time again that we can get through anything together. I love you, Betty Cooper.”

Jughead lifted her knuckles to his mouth and peppered gentle kisses upon them, eliciting a small bit of laughter from her, closely followed by glassy eyes.

Before she could say a word, Jughead was already getting up and out of the booth, standing right at her side with his hand held out to her. “None of that, beautiful. Only smiles tonight.”

Betty took his hand and let him guide her out of the booth, and downstairs to La Bonne Nuit, giving a wink to Pop as they walked past him.

It was weird seeing the place completely empty— the chairs were stacked up on all the tables, the stage bare, no one cozied up by the bar. Jughead left her standing in the middle of the wooden dance floor as he made his way over to his laptop, typing away until music came out of the speakers surrounding them. 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐰𝐚𝐲 by Novo Amor played, as Jughead headed back to her with wide open arms, ready to take her in them.

Betty’s smile hadn’t faltered all night, beaming so much that her cheeks were beginning to hurt. She slinked her arms around his neck and took a step toward him, to close most of the space between them. His warm hands rested on the small of her back, holding her close as they swayed back and forth to the gentle rhythm of the music.

As overjoyed as Betty was, she couldn’t help the pang of pain that registered in her chest, thinking about how the two of them had been robbed of these dear, youthful experiences they should have been able to indulge in way more often than they were able to. She must have let out an audible sigh, because Jughead slowly pulled back so he could look into her eyes.

“What is it, love?” he whispered, tucking a stray, curled hair behind her ear, searching her eyes.

Betty’s shoulders dropped a bit, a frown finding her lips. “I don’t know, Jug— I just hate that some of us in this town were just forced into a nightmarish life that none of us should have had to endure. And, because of that, you and I didn’t get to have moments like this more often. We were always sleuthing, which I loved… I loved so dearly. I just wish we could’ve found a way to escape more often, you know? And not feel so much weight on our shoulders constantly? I don’t know.”

Jughead leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, running his hand down her arm to comfort her. “I know. Trust me, I know. This town has been unfair and cruel, especially to you. But… soon enough, you and I are going to be worlds away from this seventh circle of hell. You’ll be buried in your Criminal Psych books, discussing cases with me when you’re stumped, and I’ll be sharing my latest stories with you. And in between all that, we’ll indulge in the most authentic college experience we can get our hands on. Junk food, cheap beer, football games, late night wanderings around campus… finding the best pizza place in town, not stopping until we’ve tried them all. We’re going to have it all, Betty. We’re finally going to 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭. And I wouldn’t want this beautiful new beginning with anyone else but you.”

Sliding his hands around each side of her face, Jughead slowly pulled her in for a lasting kiss… which would eventually turn into quite a few opened mouth, euphoric lip locks. When they finally parted, the two nearly collapsed into each other’s arms with how breathless they were, eventually falling back into a sway with the music.

“Jughead, I already have it all… in 𝘺𝘰𝘶. But, trust me when I say that getting out of here and starting our new lives together… this is just the beginning of our adventure. Like Romeo and Juliet, but we live happily ever after instead… well, it looks like we’re on our way to doing just that.”

His lips turned up into a soft smile, chuckling fondly as she repeated the old phrase she’d spoken to him. “Only with you, Betts. It’s only ever been you, and will only ever be you.”

Betty let out a deep, endeared breath, willing herself 𝘯𝘰𝘵 to tear up again. Bringing her lips to his once more, and removing them only when she desperately needed a breath, Betty finally, for the first time in forever, felt like a real teenager.

“As much as I hated this town… I wouldn’t hesitate to do it all again. Everything that happened led us to each other— and that is the one good thing Riverdale has ever done for me,” Betty chuckled, before covering her lover’s face with little pecks.

The two lovestruck teens would spend a couple more songs getting lost in each other’s eyes, relaxing in their embrace as they moved to their own, casual pace, until Jughead’s specially curated playlist ran out. And even then, Betty would ask for just one more. One more song. One more dance. One more beautiful memory.

And just the beginning of the multitude of joyous moments to come for the two lovers. The ones who had beaten all the odds, and came out nothing short of invincible.

But until then, they were content in each other’s arms. No matter where they happened to be in the world, it could never compare to their true home that could only be found within 𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳.

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