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whereianonymouslypostfics · 1 year

Text

Not As Expected

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x reader

Word count: ~6.7k

Summary: You and Wanda have a baby

A/N: Apologies y’all. I know very little about birthgiving. also very stressed atm so I will be in and out today. Mostly out. Enjoy ...

Warnings: Angst, very vague descriptions of labor

You’re woken up from your dream about infinite dogs by a swift kick to your shin. You jump in surprise that eventually becomes pain when you open your eyes and realize what just happened. You sigh inaudibly as you look to your wife beside you who is predictably restless. She’s muttering under her breath and shifting occasionally as she dreams about something you’d probably never be able to guess.

Since reaching the third trimester, Wanda has become a regular occupant of the many different pieces of furniture in your house. She seems to have very little energy these days, and you often come home to find her sleeping on the couch in the den, or upstairs under the covers in bed. You don’t mind the sleeping because you know how tired your wife is, and honestly when she’s asleep she doesn’t have time to fret about your baby’s imminent arrival.

Despite having everything prepared, the nursery is fully stocked and decorated, and the house has been child-proofed as much as necessary for an infant, Wanda still is anxious. She often flits around the house looking for something that needs fixing, or rearranging in the already finished nursery that she’s redecorated twice. She decided that she wanted to change the theme from clouds to baby animals and you just obediently went to the store and helped her in any way possible.

You’ve been anxious throughout Wanda’s pregnancy too because despite knowing that she was mere weeks away from giving birth, the previous attempts at getting pregnant have made you fearful. You had given up trying getting pregnant, and you and Wanda had talked about adopting. You’d actually matched with several children, but they never made it to your house due to biological family conflict, or incompatibility issues. After a few months of trying that, Wanda expressed her desire to try and get pregnant. She was at the compound maybe once monthly, but otherwise she was a stay-at-home mom to their cat, two dogs and rat so she honestly had nothing better to do.

She’d posed the question like this and despite rolling your eyes at the idea, you’d eventually decided that it was worth a shot.

Your wife had been excited about the prospect of being pregnant in a way you’d never been, and you were glad that it had only taken a couple of tries with IVF for her to get to this point. She was thrilled and despite the early sickness, mood swings and now constant soreness and fatigue, Wanda was still excited. She was ready to be a mom to a human baby and she just hoped to give birth to a healthy, happy one soon.

You and Wanda had talked about it a lot, and despite being curious, you both had decided to wait to learn the sex of the baby until they arrived. It was a little difficult preparing for them this way, but you’d been against the pink vs blue thing from the start so you were all too willing to buy anything and everything for your kid. You of course had bought so many stuffed animals that they filled almost half the crib, but Wanda let you do it and enjoyed watching you excitedly arrange them around the nursery.

Overall, Wanda’s pregnancy had been pretty painless, and you were grateful for this. She’d only had mild sickness and cravings early on, and her mood swings were usually manageable and easily solved with cuddling. Your friends and brother-in-law stopped by often to check in and they all promised to help when the baby arrived. You were very grateful for this and you wouldn’t hesitate to ask for assistance because you were exhausted and Wanda was even more exhausted. You were also eager for your family to get to know your little one. You’d all been waiting a long time for this.

You had it easy compared to your wife, and you knew that. However, when nights such as this became more frequent you started to wonder if this was still true. You loved your wife, there was no question about that, but you couldn’t say that you loved being woken up in the middle of the night. Most of the time Wanda would talk in her sleep or move around so much that she jostles you. When you were particularly unfortunate like tonight, she’d hit you because she was dreaming.

You watch as she continues to dream and you consider your next move. You don’t want to wake her up because she hadn’t felt good before going to sleep, but you do try to move away a bit so you’re out of striking distance.

This works about as well as it usually does, and as soon as you pull away from your wife she stirs with an irritated whine.

“Come back.”

You’re not even sure if she’s awake when she says this, her eyes are still closed, but you know better than to try and resist. You merely sigh and move back towards your wife and pull her into your arms. Maybe if she settles, she won’t kick you again. You’re not convinced that this is the case, but you manage to fall back asleep before you’re proven wrong.

When you wake up next the sun is up and streaming in from between the curtains. You shift so it’s not shining in your face and it’s in that moment that you realize your wife isn’t in bed. You frown and sit up as you look at the clock to see that it’s late. It’s 9 am and you’re wondering how you slept in so much.

“Wands?”

You slowly get out of bed because you’re only half-awake before you glance to the bathroom. The door is closed so you knock but after a few seconds of no response you open the door carefully. You call out for Wanda again but she doesn’t answer and you quickly see the bathroom is empty. You frown before deciding to go downstairs figuring that your wife might be in the kitchen. You walk down the stairs and immediately see your two shepherds standing in the kitchen watching and waiting for something.

You realize what that is as soon as you spot Wanda standing at the counter in front of the ingredients she’d gathered to make her breakfast. Her hands are planted on the counter and she’s bending over slightly in a way that makes you think she’s going to be sick. You hurry the rest of the way to her, ignoring your two dogs, as you try to figure out what’s wrong.

“Wanda, are you okay? Are you in pain?”

You wait anxiously as Wanda takes a deep breath before shaking her head. She turns to you with a forced smile that does little to make you feel better, but you don’t have time to ask again before she’s offering an explanation.

“I’m fine, Y/n. I was just going to make breakfast, but then I started to feel weird. I’m better now though.”

Wanda is about to grab the eggs in front of her, but you’re still a little concerned so you reach out to stop her. You take her hands with a frown and wait until she’s looking at you to ask. You notice that both Rogue and Boone are anxious, and you don’t think it’s because there’s bacon nearby that you’re not sharing.

“What do you mean weird? Are you having contractions?”

You’d been worried about Wanda not telling you when she was feeling poorly since the beginning of her pregnancy. She didn’t like to bother you and you’d only tried to tell her a dozen times that it wasn’t a bother, and that you wanted to make sure she was comfortable. She’d done a good job since her second trimester, but now you’re nervous again. When you see her gaze dart away from you and to the duo on the ground that was whining at this point, you realize that something was off.

“I started having them yesterday, but they stopped fairly quickly so I thought it was nothing.”

You’re probably staring at her incredulously, but you don’t notice as you try to think about where the bag you’d packed for your sudden emergency trip to the hospital is located. It was already in the car, wasn’t it?

“You’ve been having contractions since yesterday?”

Wanda shakes her head as she tries to explain better because she can tell you’re panicking and she doesn’t want that. You don’t need to panic about this, it’s fine.

“No, just for about an hour, but then they came back just now. They’ve stopped though.”

You shoot your wife an appraising look before you nod in understanding. You look back to the food that’s out and you decide that you’re going to make breakfast. You say this and Wanda tries to argue but you shake your head before leading her over to the counter to sit down.

“If you want you can help from here, but I can handle it, Wands.”

She just sighs in defeat and you can’t help but smile victoriously as you finally take a second to greet your dogs. You scratch the two of them at once because despite learning to get along, they are very jealous whenever the other one gets attention. You’re only a little worried about how they’ll react to a baby taking all of your time.

“Hello my handsome boys, were you keeping your mommy company?”

They both try to lick you and you laugh before waving them away toward your wife. They’re not allowed to be in the kitchen and they know this, but sometimes you aren’t super strict. You’ve been trying to do better since Wanda was moving slower and didn’t need to be tripping on your dogs. She’s almost tripped over Boone when he’d snuck up on her while she was cooking once, and you’d freaked out.

You loved your pets, even Fletcher, but you had become increasingly stressed by the idea of them adjusting to your newborn. You knew none of them would be alone with them, but they were all young and energetic creatures that sometimes didn’t understand calm. You had a feeling it would be fine, and there would just be an adjustment period. However, as the vet and the main caretaker of the fur children, you felt responsible for them and their behavior. You watch as the duo leave you and walk over to Wanda who reaches down to pet them with a smile. She’s glad that Boone and Rogue were able to get past their initial disagreements and they were almost as close as Boone and Fletcher at this point. The older shepherd had gravitated more towards Wanda once he became more comfortable with you two and especially once you moved back home.

He was often found at Wanda’s side no matter where she was, and you loved that she had a good relationship with him. You would have felt guilty if both dogs had gravitated towards you. You finish washing your hands and turn to the stove which lets you face your wife and you can’t help but smile as she coos at the duo at her feet. She pats her lap as you’re mixing the eggs and you watch as both Boone and Rogue try to jump up to put their feet in Wanda’s lap.

They grumble at each other in annoyance but Wanda shifts so she can accommodate both of them and they stretch so they can lick her face in a sloppy kiss.

“Good boys. You’re going to be such good older brothers, hmm?”

The dogs just whine in response and you laugh as you check to make sure the pan in front of you is hot before pouring the eggs in. You consider what Wanda says as you start to stir absentmindedly. You imagine the three of you all cuddling with your pets as a big happy family and you find yourself smiling. It’s all you’ve ever wanted, to have a large family with your wife and be able to enjoy a life separate from the mob. You’re sure raising kids will be stressful, but as long as it’s not life-or-death stressful you’re ready for it.

“Y/n. “

You hum slightly in acknowledgement as you turn off the stove once the eggs are finished. You’ll let Wanda eat these while you make her bacon and then you’ll make yourself some. You realize that Wanda hasn’t responded and you frown slightly as you look up to see her staring at you with a slightly panicked look.

“What? What is it?”

Wanda looks down to her stomach and then the floor where the dogs are both sniffing a small puddle and she tries to take a deep breath.

“I think my water just broke.”

Natasha Romanoff was bored and it wasn’t even 9am. She had gotten up at 4 as usual, gone for her normal run and trained with her sister already. She didn’t have anything scheduled until 10, but she hated to just sit around and do nothing. It was Saturday and she should be happy to have time to relax before her day really begins. She’d spoken with Pietro yesterday, and there was way too little to do for a Saturday. She’s not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but she’s trying to figure out what she can do to fill her day when her phone rings.

She sighs as she reaches for the device with an uninterested look. She expected something work-related, but she sees it’s you and she’s quick to answer it. She sits up with a smile.

“Hey, Y/n, what’s up?”

You try to sound as calm as possible because you are really trying not to worry too much. You know that Wanda will pick up on your stress which will only increase her own, so you speak in an almost uninterested tone as you continue to speed down the road.

“Hey, Nat. I have a favor to ask if you don’t mind.”

You glance over to Wanda to see that she’s breathing deeply and trying not to flinch in pain as her contractions continue.

“Sure kid, what do you need?”

You clear your throat before speeding through a yellow light. This is a normal thing for you, so you’re not showing any signs of stress at all. Definitely not.

“Well Wanda’s in labor, and I was wondering if you could meet us at the clinic.”

Nat doesn’t register your words completely given your almost lackadaisical attitude and she just nods in confirmation. It only takes her a second to curse and jump up and find her keys before she’s rushing out the door.

“She is? Wow, ok. We’ll be there soon!”

You and Wanda had discussed at length where you should go for the redhead to give birth. The compound had been your first thought, but Wanda didn’t want that. She found it stressful to go to work where people would undoubtedly hear or see she was pregnant. She’d only been so willing to be pregnant because you both agreed to keep it a secret for as long as possible. This meant not visiting the compound after a few months when she started showing, and then not spending time out in public until they were born. You’d gone along with it because you wanted Wanda and your baby to be as safe as possible.

For this reason, you and Wanda were on the way to a smaller, private clinic that had agreed to host her when the time came. It only took the doctor you’d chosen knowing about it for the entire thing to be possible. She owned the clinic and was a good friend from a former life that could guarantee anonymity for the two of you.

Your first call had been to her to make sure that today worked, not like there was much of a choice given how things were progressing, and she’d said that she was already at work. She’d told you to come on in, but not to hurry because it sounded like it could still be a while before the baby came. You’d told Wanda this and she’d relaxed as much as possible with the sharp pains continuing to surprise her.

“Thanks, Nat.”

When you and Wanda arrive, you’re only a little surprised to see that Nat and Yelena are there already. You smile at them before you hurry to get out of the car so you can help your wife. You can tell that she’s in pain and you hate that there’s not much you can do about it. Well there’s not really anything you can do about it unless you count asking the doctor for an epidural or pain meds stat.

“Hey, Nat. Yelena. Thanks for coming so quickly.”

The duo just nods and Nat’s smiling as she helps you open the passenger-side door and reach for your wife. Wanda’s smiling but it looks vaguely like a grimace as she greets her friends who despite not showing it, in Yelena’s case at least, are excited to be here with you two.

The family has only been waiting for years to have the two of you to have a kid, and now that it was happening, they were over the moon. Wanda waddles her way across the short distance from the car to the clinic doors. Everything had already been arranged and the group of four were met by a nurse and quickly led to a room.

“Good morning, everyone. Are we ready to have a baby?”

You watch as Wanda smiles slightly as she nods in confirmation. You assist her as she’s walking and you feel your heart rate start to pick up at the realization that it’s happening. You’re about to have a baby.

“Y/n?”

Wanda’s voice breaks through your slightly panicked state and you turn to her as you help her sit down on the exam table. She’s shooting you a worried look and you frown automatically because she shouldn’t be worried right now. You want her to be as calm as possible for this sure to be stressful and physically draining process. You’re going to do your best to make sure this happens.

“Yes?”

“Are you okay?”

The question seems ridiculous to you given that your wife is the one who is about to push a baby out of her. You nearly laugh at her question but you realize why she’s asking as soon as you nod in answer.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m great. So ready for this.”

You wait as patiently as possible as things get set up and Wanda is examined. You are grateful that there’s a privacy screen because some of the noises you hear are making you nauseous. You feel like a wimp but you’re tired and you are a vet for a reason. You do your best to hide any sign of discomfort as you squeeze Wanda’s hand with a smile.

“How are you feeling, my love?”

The redhead smiles at you despite the fact that the strengthening of her contractions makes her head swim. She is glad to have you here with her despite your reservations, and she’s only a little worried about how long this is going to take.

“I’m okay, thank you for being here with me.”

You lean over to kiss your wife as you glance to your friends who are in the doorway only occasionally glancing in. You know that at least Yelena is as squeamish as you are, and Nat’s on the phone with someone, probably Pietro. She’ll keep him updated and he won’t come until closer to the delivery time. Wanda will be stressed if he’s here too early because he’s bound to rile her up one way or another. Not to mention, the older Maximoff surely doesn’t want to see this part.

“Of course, Wands. I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

Of course, as you say this you consider what you left at home and how you’re certain that someone is going to have to check on your pets. You can’t help but smile and Wanda’s watching you so she doesn’t miss it. She shoots you a curious look that turns a little pained as a particularly strong contraction hits her.

“What’s with the smile?”

You turn back to Wanda and you take a moment to brush the stray hairs from her face with a smirk.

“I was just thinking about how the boys have certainly eaten your eggs and bacon at this point. Fletcher probably helped.”

Wanda’s eyes widen as you mention your quick departure and how you hadn’t taken time to clean up breakfast before heading here. You’re not really worried. You’re more amused than anything, but Wanda is starting to stress which makes you realize you should have kept this particular thought to yourself.

“Oh no! Fletcher is going to be blocked, and the dogs are going to vomit and--.”

You shake your head as you squeeze her hand and try to distract her from the frantic thoughts as she imagines the chaos that could be happening at home right now. You kiss her cheek before reminding her that you have a lot of family, and you’d already asked someone to check on the kids at home.

“No, no. Everyone will be fine. Piet’s going to check on them. You just focus on here and now, okay Wands?”

The next five hours feel like 10 as you and Wanda wait to meet your baby. Wanda is honestly the one doing all the work, and you’re just sitting by her side as she nearly breaks your hand and cries off and on. It’s a relatively easy labor despite its seemingly daunting length, but Wanda delivers a healthy baby girl and you couldn’t be happier.

You’re exhausted, but you know that compared to your wife you had an easy time. She’s sleeping now after you reassured her that you would look after your baby, and the whole family is standing in the room as they all look at the new addition to the family.

“Oh my god.”

“She’s so tiny.”

“Are you going to tell us her name, kid?”

You can’t help but smile as you shake your head as you stand and pass your daughter to her uncle first. He’d been running back and forth between here and your house to check on your pets and to make sure he wasn’t in the way. The only ones who’d hung out for the entire time was Steve as he stayed nearby to make sure nothing went wrong. He’d been on guard for so long that he was nearly falling asleep where he stood. It’s only after Pietro was finished cooing over his niece for now that Steve perked up. The baby was passed to him and he jumped slightly as he tightened his hold on the little one.

He didn’t want to imagine what would happen to him if he’d dropped her.

“Not yet guys. Wands wants to be awake to break the news, so I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

You smile slightly as you turn away from your precious bundle that looked miniscule in Steve’s arms to look to your wife. Wanda finally looked relaxed and you brushed some of her hair out of her face. She was sweaty and undoubtedly sore, but you were going to let her sleep for a while.

Nurses would come back and take your daughter for a bit, and although you planned on staying with Wanda, you’d asked Nat to go with her and not let her out of her sight.

It was unlikely, but you wouldn’t put it past someone to try and kidnap your baby and you’d rather be paranoid than heartbroken.

Pietro sighs dramatically, but its effect is dimmed by the fact that he’s still beaming. He’s so happy for his sister, and you, because you’d waited so long for this. You finally had a kid and he couldn’t wait to spoil her. Pietro says this and everyone laughs as Yelena finally gets her turn with her niece as well. She looks to the little squishy chubby face and she falls in love immediately. She kisses her cheek before turning at the sound of the door opening behind them. She sees some nurses in scrubs and realizes that they need to do their thing. She hates to let her go, but she knows she’ll be in good hands as her sister follows the trio out of the room.

“She’ll be plenty spoiled with all of the family she has.”

Wanda’s still groggy a few hours later when she wakes up to an unexpected presence on her chest. She frowns slightly and is about to shift and roll over when she feels a hand on her arm. She opens her eyes to see you holding her still as you meet her gaze with a smile before looking back to your daughter who’s nursing.

“Sorry, she was getting fussy. Little one has an attitude already.”

Wanda smiles at this as she looks to where her daughter is cocooned in blankets and being held against her chest by her wife as she feeds. She reaches out to hold her, and at that moment she realizes how tired she still is. Her arms are sore and she almost drops them until she hears her daughter coo as her eyes open.

“Hi there little one.”

Wanda smiles widely and tearfully as she takes a moment to interact with her baby. You just watch in admiration as your daughter tries to follow your wife’s hand. She blinks and you almost cry when Wanda starts to cry again. You’re sure she has a headache from how much stress she’s been under and how much she’s cried. You’re glad to at least see that she looks happy, and you sigh in relief as you sit down next to your two girls.

“How are you feeling, love?”

Your hand is still on Wanda’s arm and she sighs happily as she turns to you with a smile. You move closer so you’re able to kiss her cheek, and she hums happily before turning back to the little bundle that’s fallen asleep at this point.

“I’m great, detka. I’m so happy…and tired.”

You smile at this and nod in understanding before looking around to see if there was anyone nearby. You are sure that Wanda would like to go home and sleep, but you honestly can’t remember if she’s supposed to stay here for a while. You are sure your friends are lurking around somewhere, at least Steve and Bucky, and you grab your phone before offering Wanda a sympathetic smile.

“I bet. You did so well though. Do you want me to see when we can go home?”

Wanda nods tiredly and you start to dial Steve’s number when you notice someone walk by the door. They glance in quickly so as not to see anything they shouldn’t but once they realize the coast is clear they’re shooting both you and Wanda a smile.

“Hey there. How’s it going in here?”

Wanda turns at the sound of her friend’s voice and she smiles as she shrugs half-heartedly. You wave Bucky in and smile as you watch him look to your daughter who you still haven’t called by her name yet. You and Wanda had talked about potential names once you realized that you were having a girl. You didn’t want to know initially, you liked the idea of being surprised, but Wanda had been adamant about needing to properly prepare, so you’d given in. In the end, the only difference between preparing for a girl vs a boy was the name. You bought many pink things, blue things, and everything in between.

Both you and Wanda were on the same page about raising a kid. You wanted to do it together and you wanted to do it in a way that would give your child a freedom that neither of you had.

“We’re getting a little tired. I was about to see when they’re all good to leave.”

Bucky nods at this as he looks over his shoulder briefly before smiling as he steps a little closer. Wanda’s stopped nursing at this point and you’re helping her hold your snoozing baby as you wait for an update. Bucky says that he’ll figure this out and he disappears leaving you to turn your attention back to your tired wife.

“We’ll get out of here soon, okay? Then you can rest as much as you want.”

Wanda smiles at this and thinks about arguing, but she stops herself when she realizes you could be telling the truth. Despite just having a baby and both of you being exhausted, you would be shocked if you didn’t get a chance to rest after this. Yelena had left earlier with a vague comment about picking up a few things, and Nat had gone with her. Pietro was back at your house and you wouldn’t be surprised if by the time you got there your friends had shown up.

They’d been adamant about helping you both once the baby arrived, and you couldn’t be more grateful. Despite wanting to spend every second with her, you are truly exhausted and would like to sleep for the next 6 days. Wanda doesn’t have that luxury, but she can still rest between feedings and take some time to recover.

You had underestimated the toll that being pregnant would take on her, and labor had somehow been more intense. You knew that she was fighting the need to sleep now as you watch her eyes flutter closed periodically. You were certain that once you got home and you were in a safer place, she’d pass out. You can’t help but reach out for her and wipe some of the sweat from her brow as you lean further into her.

“Is there anything I can do for you, Wands?”

She smiles sleepily before shaking her head and glancing at you with tired eyes before checking on her daughter.

“No thank you. You being here right now is all I need. I might fall asleep if we can’t leave soon though.”

You laugh at this and despite what you assumed earlier; Wanda does actually fall asleep right before you’re given the green light to leave. You wake her up briefly so she knows that she’s heading home, and you help her into a wheelchair before taking your family home. Steve and Bucky confirmed your suspicions that everyone is at the house, and you smile before shooting your sleepy wife a knowing look.

“That’s great. We’ll officially introduce everyone to her.”

When you’d said this, you had meant the members of your family that were people. However, now that you sat beside Wanda on the couch as the redhead carefully held your daughter out for your dogs to greet, you realize that they were an important part of this process as well. You’re pleased when Boone and Rogue sniff your daughter and don’t seem to mind the new presence in the house. Whether or not this will continue as time passes, you’ll just have to see, but for now the duo just sit at Wanda’s feet and watch as the rest of the family interacts.

“So are you going to finally tell us her name?”

This comes from Pietro who’s sitting in one of the chairs across from them with an expectant look. He’s still smiling and you’re sure that his face hurts especially after Wanda breaks the news. You honestly didn’t have a strong preference for names like she did. Your family was unfortunately mostly gone at this point, and despite wanting to remember them, you didn’t feel the need to borrow their names. Wanda on the other hand was a little more attached to the idea of giving your daughter a meaningful name, and you had no problems with this. You smile as she sits up a little and tells her brother, your friends and your dogs who are all paying close attention to you two the name she’d chosen.

“Everyone, meet Natalya Y/l/n- Maximoff.”

Everyone’s face lights up and Yelena has to bite back her initial retort of jealousy when she realizes who your daughter is named after. Although it’s very close to her sister’s name, she recognizes the twins’ mother’s name. Pietro smiles widely as he stands up to hug his sister, and he nearly trips over the dogs as he collapses next to the younger, tired Maximoff.

"That’s perfect, sestra.” He says something else in their first language that you vaguely understand. You watch as Wanda smiles brightly and kisses her brother’s cheek in thanks. He then turns his attention to his niece to play with her little fingers.

You watch him for a moment before your attention goes to your smiling friends. You can tell they are all pleased and you wonder how you’re going to tell them that you have not chosen godparents in an official way. You and Wanda had both decided that your family was unconventional and this should be no different. She wants all of your family to have important roles in your daughter’s life, so they were all going to be unofficial, official guardians.

You hug them all and Yelena sneaks behind Wanda to try and get Natalya’s attention. She can’t help but reach out and try to poke the baby’s cheeks and you just laugh at this as you address Nat’s amused look.

“Is this going to get confusing?”

Wanda catches the tail end of this question, but you laugh before she can offer the solution you came up with. You shrug slightly as you claim that it won’t be that difficult to differentiate between the two.

“Nah, you’ll be big Nat while she’s little Nat.”

Nat laughs at this as she sits down on your other side and pulls you into another hug. You relax and feel your eyes start to grow heavy, but the sound of growling catches your attention. You sit up quickly to see what the problem is, but luckily Boone and Rogue are just fighting for your wife’s attention. You keep watching them as they come to an agreement and Rogue is allowed to put his head in Wanda’s lap while Boone just sits at her feet.

Wanda smiles as she reaches out to pet the shepherd’s head which makes him pant happily. He tries to nuzzle closer to her, but he realizes that Natalya’s in the way. He whines slightly but decides to take a different approach that surprises you.

“Ow, bud, what-?”

You cringe and watch in confusion as your dog climbs into your lap so he can get closer to your wife. You’d said that you were grateful that he liked Wanda so much, but this was slightly annoying. Luckily you were too tired to care and you sigh in defeat as Rogue’s tail wags as he licks Wanda’s face with another whine.

Wanda smiles and she goes to scratch her dog with both hands once Yelena decides that she wants to hold little Nat.

“Little Nat. You’re a cute little thing, aren’t you?”

Wanda quickly gets a face full of fur and you reach out for your other dog so he doesn’t feel too left out. You scratch him with a smile before looking to Steve and Bucky.

“I might need some help getting upstairs if this keeps up.”

You’re only half kidding because by the time that everyone gets their turn to cuddle with little Nat, both you and Wanda are asleep on the couch. You’re cuddled up with Rogue who is luckily no longer sitting directly on top of you. He’s curled up next to Wanda’s side and his head is on her leg as he goes between napping and watching everyone around him.

He knows all of these people and he likes them fine, but he’s not used to having them all in his house with his people and it’s stressing him out. He’s tense where he lies protectively next to his sleeping mothers, and he can’t help but want everyone to leave.

No one notices as he looks over to where Nat is placing little Nat in her small bed. Everyone moves over to the kitchen to get drinks and discuss getting some food and groceries for you two. They are coordinating who will do what when Rogue jumps off the couch and heads toward the sleeping baby. Boone is still lying at Wanda’s feet and he sits up and watches as Rogue sniffs around the bassinet. He barks in warning when the other shepherd sticks his face in, and everyone in the kitchen turns to see what’s wrong.

You and Wanda are still asleep, but when little Nat starts crying you wake up with a groan. By the time you look over to see what’s going on, Nat is beside your dog and reaching out for him as he continues to sniff the crying baby. You fly off the couch and unfortunately wake Wanda in the process as you hurry over to make sure nothing’s wrong.

“What is it? What happened?”

You quickly realize that little Nat is just scared, but you’re not sure what set her off. You look to Rogue who is whining slightly as he’s held still by Nat’s grip on his collar. Boone is up at this point to investigate and you quickly reach out for your baby with a frown.

“I think he just scared her.”

You’re not sure which dog Nat’s talking about, but you don’t get to ask before Rogue whines louder and tries to move closer to little Nat. You frown in confusion and maybe your brain is still a little foggy from sleep but you reach out for him with a smile and scratch his head.

“You can let him go, Nat.”

“Y/n!”

You didn’t realize that Wanda was up until she’s near shouting at you. She’s wide-eyed as she walks over to where you and the rest of your friends have started to gather. They’d abandoned their plans when the dogs started to wander around. They didn’t seem super interested in Natalya initially, but they knew they needed to keep a close eye on them. They’d only looked away for a second.

“Wands, it’s okay. He was just saying hi.”

Wanda looks to you and then your shepherds nervously as she tries to figure out if you’re telling the truth. Rogue is still looking at the calming baby in your arms as you rock her gently. You might be a little tired when you kneel down on the ground so your dogs can greet their new sister, but you’ve always been a good judge of character. Whether it be people or animals, you’ve always been able to tell what they intended to do.

“Y/n…”

Wanda has to stop herself from yanking you back to your feet, but you shoot her a smile as you promise that it’s fine. You just want to see what they’ll do and you know that Nat is only a breath away from grabbing Rogue again, so you’re not worried.

“He just wants to make her feel better, isn’t that right, Rogue?”

The shepherd continues to smell the still sniffling baby before he throws out his long tongue and licks little Nat’s face. Your daughter’s eyes widen as if to say ‘what was that!?’ and you can’t help but smile as Nat sneezes when Rogue’s fur rubs against her face. You pull your daughter away and hand her over to your wife who you know is dying to look her over. You sigh as you reach out for your dog and pet him with a smile. You look over to both Nats, the younger one is sleeping in her mother’s arms, and you can’t help but lean over to kiss her before doing the same to your dog.

“I knew you’d be a good big brother.”

Masterlist

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff #wanda maximoff x female reader #wanda maximoff fanfiction #wanda x reader #wanda x you #silver springs #silver springs drabble #silver springs au

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actuallyacerrr · 16 days

Note

TELL ME ABOUT THE TMNT FAN ITERATION RIGHT NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

WHAT DO THE BOYS LOOK LIKE? WHAT DO THEY ACT LIKE? AGE ORDER? ANY NEW CHARACTERS? THE PLOT????? NOWWW

YIPPE OKAY >:]

What do they look like?

The boys do not have any art atm but!! I have ideas for species and a tiny wip sketch for Leo. (And now Raphs beta design!!)

Species + height and other:

Leonardo: Painted turtle, 5’6” he’s the tallest and a mix of skinny and buff.

Raphael: Alligator snapping turtle, 5” the shortest and buffest.

Michelangelo: Loggerhead sea turtle, 5’3” has not lost his ‘baby fat.’

Donatello: Soft shell turtle, 5’1” lanky but strong.

(^ I don’t like drawing traditionally but it’s all I have access to atm.)

Age Order?

Leonardo -> Raphael -> Michelangelo -> Donatello

Other Characters?

Besides the turtles, other characters will include: Splinter, Shredder, April, Casey, Tang Shen, Karai, and ofc Bea!

Each having an idea or completed backstory and role already planned.

How do they act?

Leo: Can go two ways. Commonly more chill and laid back in the safety of their sewer. Very caring towards his siblings. Takes the responsibility of being the oldest and leader seriously. Anyway mf is a chaos enabler. Goofs off and dies dumb shit at home. (Splinter is a good dad here, very supportive pf teen behavior because gods know he didn’t get that.)

Then- there’s him on a mission. When I say he takes the responsibility of being a leader and oldest seriously. I mean it. Especially after the incident. He will also bench members if they are hurt or if the mission would be to dangerous. Will go solo. (Self sacrificing little-)

Raph: A hot head. His temper stems from the incident, he’s mad at himself. And takes his anger out while training or fighting enemies. He needs a hug.

When home or alone very mellow. Likes romance :> and things to distract from the anger in him.

Mikey: A mix of 2012 and MM and Rise. Middle child /lh.

Donnie: Youngest, book smart, kinda like mm donnie but more sarcastic and monotone. Like a idgaf attitude.

(notice Leo is the only one really fleshed-)

April: She’s their big sis and an absolute badass (that’s all I got rn) Both book and street smart.

Casey: HOCKYYYYY, kinda a dumbass but also not. They’re street smart not book smart.

Splinter: Actually a really good dad, though training is a very big thing for him to teach his sons. He’s good though.

Shredder: Bitch /srs (I got nothing rn)

Tang Shen: Dead mom dread mooom /hj

Karai: Stepped up to take care of Bea. I can’t say much yet. But was Tang Shen’s assistant and like a daughter to her.

Bea: Accidental experiment, Hates the turtles guts (at first.) Blames them and Splinter for Tang Shen’s death. Is sun incarnated but not like MM and 2012 pre mutation. Closer to Rise and 2012 post mutation. Angry and burning like the sun. Has a goal she’ll work to complete until she burns herself out completely. Yet eventually becomes the tired and warm sun learning to settle and live without anger being her fuel.

… Like really really hates their guts. Originally didn’t have anyone to blame but herself till she saw them. And had a place to place her anger.

(Bea gets 0 breaks.)

Plot?

Current arc is focused on backstories between the turtles and Bea. Following their mutation, meeting people, basically the getting to know and set up for future conflicts.

Extra info:

Splinter and Shredder are half-brothers.

Tang Shen is not a romantic interest.

The turtles were purposely mutated.

(me realizing some lore needs to stay hush hush still 😭)

Feel free to keep asking me questions :>

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videostak · 11 months

Text

so sick of having my entire life being dictated by having to accommodate for other ppl who then go to shit on my life even more. like having to watch the doors anytime my dad is in the house having my mom keep every1 up thru out the night and acting oblivious to how someones sleep schedule is affected by the sounds of food being made in a microwave at 12 am or hearing 2hour long drunken phone calls from her room to the hallway to the bathroom to the kitchen etc and having in general let ppl know beforehand what i have planned for a day just so they can reveal that they were never even listening to what i told them or just straight up did not care and do their own random impuse thing that i then have to build my schedule around . like fuuuuuck you. only word on the tip of my tongue atm. genuinely no reason to try to be cooperative or understanding if they dont even ATTEMPT to do the same. i mean atleast i get to sleep in but thats only after they come back at like 1 or 2am. and forget abt me my sister literally works at 10 2mrw and has to get up early to get ready and my mom just shat on that despite my sister telling her immediately she brought up the idea of going somewhere for drinks. i feel so sorry for my cousin who like tries her hardest to be nice or like a inbetween ground just to have my mom creepily vent to her and overall make her feel extremely uncomfortable telling her rly in depth stories and secrets abt ppl who told my mom personal stuff in confidence not thinking my mom would immediately tell absolutely any1 the moment she felt the need to have a conversation. am p sure shes drunk rn cause she sounded very drunk and is just being v loud rn so like im sure she got drunk and then wanted to go to a bar to drink more and not have to worry abt getting caught. :| i mean idk if shell take my sister to work tomorrow but if she is too fucked up too then i guess ill just have to take her. but rly just insanely annoying shit. she refuses to go to therapy or somewhere where u address being dependent on alcohol so i think the only real tangible solution atm is to just give my all to cleaning out her room and then just monitor her like a hospital patient constantly. for the foreseeable future. its hard cause she spends all her time in her room and gets mad when i try to clean it and then my dad gets mad at me when i dont clean it and then when i do clean it my dad gets mad that we dont have any space for half the shit in her room or if we do idk where it goes cause im not even a very good cleaner its just 99% of the stuff falls on me cause no one else does it consistently. so like i just go back and forth at them both giving me shit so fuck everything huh. not in an awful bleak mood but regardless things on both fronts are v bleak. guess im not in an awful mood cause worst case scenario tomorrow i drive my sister to work which gives me more chance to drive and im rly rly looking forward to practicing in my actual manual car... cause its so pretty. so like im not at the end of my rope quite yet and dont think things will get super bleak. worst thing is me losing my job but dont think thats gonna happen quite about yet. and if it does ill atleast have the ability to drive places. so i cant say i didnt grow in some way

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hauntthebodies · 2 years

Note

ooo are you ok with describing what campaigns you’re in now? or what your characters are??

Sure! I adore them all. To be honest tho I just started playing again, so I’m not too familiar with the groups I’m playing with atm lol putting under a readmore bc this got kinda long

First one is a character I’ve had a long time and have commissions for, but no one would ever let me play him because he’s a very interesting looking tiefling that was inspired by the oni tieflings the artist kbearart created. His name is Maverick (:

Currently playing him in a call of the netherdeep module. He is a tiefling monk, born under the cursed moon or whatever and bc of it he looks, well! Interesting to say the least! He was born to a drow mom, but never knew his father or anything about him, and his mother died fairly young so he became self sufficient pretty young. Due to the fact most people treated him as an ill omen due to his birthday and bc he is like 6’5” man thing with raptor feet, he is bad at interacting with people. He’s motivated mostly by greed and his own survival, and right now he is so angry at the pretty boy drow in the party that is sooooo good at everything. He could have been that, he was supposed to be like that. What the fuck.

Art done by kbearart, bc if I’m making a character inspired by their design I’m going to pay them!!!!

Second one is my Satyr Bard, Canary. I don’t have any paid art of him, but I did use this funky little picrew to get a visual idea for him. He’s a college of lore bard from a fairly noble family. Except he’s the second son, the not so popular son, the disappointment to the family son. So he kinda just, took off to make more of a name for himself and he makes money by traveling and painting pretty things (: he joined a random party and is regretting it immensely. He’s surrounded by straight people and doesn’t know what to do, they keep getting eloped in the middle of the night and teleporting him random places ):

Third is a character I just started getting to play, but their race, class and background was already predetermined. They are a yuan-ti bloodhunter, who was steeped well into the strict militant lifestyle of their culture. They met a girl who was kind to them when they were like 14, and they didn’t understand what that was at first, but then started to see flaws within their peoples way of life and decided to leave when they turned like 18 and graduated yuan-ti military school Basically? They are emotionally stunted bc they’ve never felt concern except for when they met her, and kinda adopted her name as their own when leaving. But hey, they look cool at least. She goes by Corra but I’m already planning on transing their gender throughout the campaign bc lost adults learning who they are is so fun to mess around with. We are only level one but I plan on going order of mutagen I want to be a Witcher. Technically, they are lying about who they are and what they can do, so I’m excited to be like (: no I’m not a snake person my great grandad just fucked a dragon or whatever I’m a half elf dragonic sorcerer ignore the sword-

#ask #anon #maverick is a mess #canary is a bisexual mess and really hates that people keep just teleporting like it’s no big deal #bro ur body is being turned into like particles or what’re #Corra I’m a lil on the fence about Corra but I’m just a bit on the fence at the campaign in general #not if #dungeons and dragons

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abbysfrenchbraid · 3 years

Text

Daring - Chapter 2

This is part two of my Abby Mordern!Au, you can read Chapter 1 here.

Masterlist

Abby and the reader have dinner at Abby's place. There is music playing and referenced, so I'd recommend you listen to this playlist with all the songs playing in order as soon as the date night begins. About 10k words.

CW for alcohol consumption, mention of death/murder, mention of dubious consent (and possibly terrible grammar. It's 10pm, I just finished this, I don't have a proofreader atm)

Thyme and Tree Bark

“Don’t mess this up, airhead. Take care!”

“Yeah, yeah. Bye, idiot!”

You closed the door behind Mark as he vanished down the stairs and headed straight for your bed. Though you were less wobbly on your feet after devouring half of a perfectly cheesy pizza with just the right amount of jalapenos, it had thrown you straight into a food coma. Your angel of a brother had come over at noon with two chilled cans of coke and a large pizza from your favorite Italian place and not even ripped open the curtains as he usually did. Instead, he had thrown himself on the bed right next to you, handed you a slice, and demanded you start talking.

Of course, he already knew about Abby and your embarrassing shyness when it came to the buff blonde, so he was extremely proud of the progress you had made with your excruciating crush. You both agreed that Abby had definitely invited you over for a date this week - alone, without Manny there - and that it had to mean she was interested, too. He had laughed about the little bar stint when Abby had shut down your flirt with the hot waitress in an instant and was now 100% sure this was going to go great. As long as you kept it together and didn’t ruin everything. As you often did. This needed some tactical planning.

Mouths full of cheesy delight and laughing at each other’s stupid ideas, you and your brother had come up with a fairly foolproof plan. You would text Abby in 1-2 days, keeping it cool and asking when you should come over. Then, you would suggest making cocktails at home, already granting a fun activity and something to loosen the mood. You would keep it casual and bring over some nice liquor and maybe a bag of chips, perfect for watching a movie. You’d try to keep the conversation casual and try to speak mostly about Abby, asking lots of questions so you didn’t get tangled up in speaking about yourself. If you steered the conversation toward movies, you could watch something exciting and maybe even scary together so you could cuddle up on the couch together. And well, if you got that far, things would probably fall into place naturally. Foolproof. Y/N-proof.

You groaned as you reached over to grab your phone from your nightstand. You had a message from your mom asking if you wanted to come over for dinner next weekend and an email from your professor who wanted to submit your last essay to some kind of grant application. You’d have to answer her later, your head still felt like it was filled with cotton. Instead, you sent Leah a message.

-Hey, you still alive? There’s leftover pizza and coke over here.

Five seconds later, there was a delighted squeal at the other side of the wall and you heard the click of your roommate’s door before yours opened and Leah tiptoe-danced inside, beaming at you. She was wearing nothing but an extremely tight-fitting cropped wifebeater and a khaki thong, accentuating her long legs as she leaped right onto your bed and almost made you fly as her weight hit the mattress. You tried not to stare at her perfectly toned abs as she opened the gigantic carton and held up a slice of pizza over her head, letting the tip dangle in her mouth before biting down with a moan that made you snort awkwardly.

“Good morning, you animal.”

Leah just moaned again, making a grabbing motion with her hand and pointing toward the second can of coke on your nightstand. You laughed silently as you handed her the cold can, condensed water running down the sides and wetting your fingers. You wiped them on the blanket. The tall brunette swallowed hard and took a sip of coke.

“Good morning, womanizer.” She grinned widely. “I’m so proud of you, man. This is the first time I’ve seen you in action and I can safely say Abby was just as surprised as I was.”

You buried your face in your hands.

“Oh god, was I that obvious? Did I do anything inappropriate? I thought it went well, but now I’m not so sure.” You spread your fingers to peak at your roommate who was currently chewing on a ginormous bite, tomato juice running down her chin. No manners, that girl. She just shook her head and made a noise somewhere between protest and encouragement.

“No, you were fine,” she said with a full mouth, “very tipsy, but cute. I hope you remember Abby inviting you to her place.” She wiggled her eyebrows.

You ran your fingers through your hair, immediately getting stuck in a tangle of knots. God, you needed a shower.

“Yeah, I already went over it with Mark. We made a plan so I won’t embarrass myself.”

“Good. I hope it goes well, you two would be cute together. Hot, even. I mean, no one can deny the allure of those biceps. And her ass?! Godly.” She easily evaded the kick you aimed at her ribs, laughing and slapping your shin away.

“Come on, let’s not act like you’re not ogling her every chance you get. I am, too - the woman looks like a greek goddess!”

“That’s enough,” you giggled, aiming another playful kick in her direction but only lightly hitting her in the thigh. “I know what she looks like.”

“Right. And soon, you’ll hopefully see a lot more of her.” This time, Leah jumped off the bed before your toes could sink right into her side. You tried to suppress a grin as you two stared at each other for a moment before Leah sat back down cross-legged and began eating the last slice of pizza.

“I mean,” she said casually, “you have seen more of a woman before, right?”

You grabbed your coke and turned it in your hands before answering.

“Yeah, I have. It wasn’t… It wasn’t all that, though. Just one time and we were both so nervous it was just awkward.”

Now Leah looked at you with a mixture of shock and pity.

“Come on, Y/N. Only once? You’ve never seen stars because of a woman’s tongue? Never screamed into a pillow because of some skilled sapphic strap game? Never lost your mi-”

“Leaahhhh!” You groaned, feeling blood shoot into your cheeks. “No, okay? I… I made the other girl cum, but for me, it was just… it was too unfamiliar and I didn’t know her well enough to really let myself enjoy it.”

Suddenly a thought crossed your mind and you felt your eyes open wide.

“Wait. Has Abby…? Is she..?”

Leah paused mid-bite and thought for a second.

“Well, she does have experience with men, obviously. As far as women go… I honestly don’t know. She’s dated a few, but it never went longer than a couple of weeks. I don’t know how fast things go with her and she’s never gone into detail with me. I have to ask Nora about that.”

“Don’t you dare! She’ll know this is about me and tell Abby!”

“Oh come on, I’m interested, too.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ll tell you so you know what to prepare for, win-win!” She nudged your foot and gave you a mischievous half-smile.

“For god’s sake, do what you must.” You finished your coke and threw it perfectly into the bin beside your desk. Leah gave you an impressed nod. “And now I desperately need a shower. There is a literal nest on top of my head.”

“True,” Leah said and stood up, stretching her limbs as she walked to the door. “Thanks for the pizza. I’m gonna ask Jordan if he wants to come over, so don’t walk out naked if you don’t want a threesome.” She winked at you before closing the door, but a small part at the back of your brain knew that she wasn’t completely joking. You sighed and swung your legs off your bed. No point in lying around, it was past 3 pm anyway.

Grabbing your phone, a shirt, and some clean boxers, you headed for the bathroom. You took your time showering, detangling the mess on your head with lots of conditioner, humming along to Marika Hackman’s cover of I Follow Rivers as you stood under the hot stream of water and brushing your teeth for at least five minutes while waiting for a hair mask to do its magic. When you stepped out of the shower, the bathroom was filled with hot steam and you felt like a whole new person. You slipped into your fresh clothes and held the blow dryer to the mirror until your reflection was clear.

So. Here you were. Finally, you had spoken to the woman of your dreams and even flirted with her. She may have even been jealous of your short conversation with Ellie, the bartender. Tomorrow, you would text her, you would be brave and cool and not at all awkward. As you collected your clothes off the floor and took your phone, you suddenly realized something that would destroy your entire plan. You didn’t even have Abby’s phone number. Why hadn’t you asked her? Of course, you could ask Leah for it, but Abby would know because she knew she hadn’t given it to you. It would be a lot less cool and casual. Fuck.

You stepped into the hallway and ran straight into Jordan. Perfect. Good thing Leah had warned you.

“Oh, hi Y/N! You doing alright after all those tequila shots?” Jordan’s face was open and kind. You immediately relaxed. Just a guy, not a threat.

“Better than I thought I would, actually. What about you?”

“Well, I sent them back out the way they came as soon as I got home.” He grimaced and shrugged. “Just glad I’m still alive, to be honest.”

You had to laugh. “I’m glad, too. Leah would have been devastated.”

“I hope so.” He grinned back. The silence between you stretched a little bit too long.

“Anyways, I’m gonna see what she’s up to. See you later?”

“Yeah, sure!” You said, relieved that he didn’t make it awkward. You quickly slipped into your room and sank down on the bed, composing a text to Mark.

-Minor hiccup - I don’t have her number.

His reply came immediately.

-Shit. What now?

You let yourself fall back on the mattress and covered your face with your arm. Your phone vibrated again and you lifted it up, hoping for a brilliant idea.

-Hey, this is Abby. Are we still on for next week?

You almost dropped your phone on your face. For a minute, you just stared at the message. Then you rolled over onto your stomach and screamed into your pillow.

-Hi Abby. We absolutely are. Y/N.

You tried to suppress a fit of giggles as you texted your brother.

-Nvm, she just texted me.

-Omg what!! Play it cool, don’t answer yet. What did she say???

-Oops already answered. Still on for next week.

-Incredibly casual lol. Whatever, good for you!

-Shut up!

Another text by Abby came in and you actually started drumming your feet on the bed with excitement.

-Tuesday? I could cook for us

-Very impressive, I’ll bite. What time should I come over?

-Very clever. 6pm? Any allergies?

-Vegetarian, hope that’s okay. 6 is great, text me your address?

You watched the little text bubble pop up and vanish again for a good minute, getting more and more nervous for her answer.

- No problem. 2425 Constance.

There was nothing else to do but scream into your pillow again.

The next two days went excruciatingly slow. You spent the rest of your Sunday in bed, watching a terrible zombie movie and later ordering curry because you couldn’t be bothered with preparing any food. As it got late, you suddenly heard a knock on the wall. At first, you thought it was accidental, until the knocking started to continue in a steady rhythm. With a death glare that you hoped would reach through the concrete, you plugged your headphones into your laptop and continued watching your movie.

On Monday, you threw yourself into art history coursework and caught up on your studies, emailed your professor, and spent three hours on an essay about the depiction of blood in paintings of Judith beheading Holofernes. Lovely subject. Even though you got through a lot of your tasks for the day, you couldn’t stop yourself from looking at your phone every 10 minutes to see if you had missed a message. Of course, nothing came up. Around 4 pm, your phone buzzed and you leapt for it only to find out it was Leah asking you to buy toilet paper later. At 6pm, you shut off your laptop and grabbed your backpack to go grocery shopping.

Standing in the liquor store you realized you hadn’t asked Abby about cocktails.

“Looking for something in particular?” the elderly lady behind the counter asked. It seemed to be her own shop and to have been hers for a while, judging by the elegant wooden shelves and the warm, nice feeling of the room instead of neon lights and rows of white metal.

“Uh, yeah, actually. I have a date tomorrow and I thought we could make cocktails, but I forgot to ask what she likes. So now I don’t know what to bring.” You gave her an apologetic half smile. She stood up from her seat behind the register, growing not even 2 inches standing compared to sitting and made her way over to you. Her eyes twinkled behind thick glasses that made her look a little bit like an owl.

“Well, dear. I don’t know if I would go straight into the hard liquor on a first date. On my last first date, we had a delicious red wine, a Merlot. Couldn’t that be something? Are you going to eat anything?”

“Oh yes, she said she’d cook for us, but I don’t know what exactly.”

The shop owner gently put a hand on your arm and guided you to a shelf of dark bottles.

“Well, Merlot goes well with any food, so I think it would be perfect. Cocktails come later, when you dress up and go out together or after a night of theater.” You felt a surge of warmth spread through your chest. Theater? Well, why not? For a second, you began to trail off, imagining Abby in a perfectly tailored suit, you at her arm just as dressed up, every head turning as you entered the room and ordered Gin Tonics at the bar during the break. The voice next to you pulled you back to the present.

“If you’re cooking at home, wine is the thing to bring, trust me.”

“I trust you,” you said with a smile as you took the bottle she handed you. The label was a creamy white, with beautiful golden letters. Hopefully this wouldn’t bankrupt you. “Thank you for your help.”

The shopkeeper sat back down in her chair with a sigh and typed into the cash register. 15.99$. That wasn’t so bad. You paid and gently put the bottle inside your backpack.

“You know, you should come by soon and let me know how it went. I think that Merlot will bring you good luck. My wife and I still have it every Sunday.” Your head snapped up and your eyes met that charming, smart twinkle again, flashing at you out of dark brown irises. For a moment, all of the things you wanted to say were stuck in your throat, then you just broke into a smile.

“That’s wonderful, ma’am. I hope I can have that, in the future.”

“Of course you will, dear.” She really sounded like she meant it. A small lump suddenly appeared in your throat.

“Thank you so much. I wish you all the best.”

“Go get her!”

You laughed and waved at her again as you exited the shop, taking the warmth and comfort of it with you and tucking it right beneath the bottom of your heart and the top of your stomach where you knew it would fuel you for a few days. You had already decided that you would come back and make it your mission to befriend that old lady. What a wonderful woman.

Only 23 hours to go. That night, it was almost impossible to fall asleep.

You got through the next day by once again banning any thought of the evening from your mind and diving head first into your assignments. You were going to lead a discussion on different planes of language or communications in women’s art and literature and reading up on the historical differences between male and female narratives, beginning with the ancient poet Sappho. It was an exciting topic, something you were extremely thankful for. Otherwise you might have been looking at your phone every 3 minutes instead of every 20. Of course, no message from Abby.

The bottle of wine was standing on your nightstand, reminding you of your plans with an exciting tingle in your stomach. At 4pm, you gave up on doing anything productive. You spent forever in the shower, stealing some of Leah’s expensive pink body scrub, shaving everywhere and regretting it immediately because you felt stupid for assuming anything, entertaining the but what if thoughts while you thoroughly lathered your entire body in Leah’s shampoo and shower gel and spending a good 10 minutes just standing under the hot water because you weren’t ready to leave that fantasy yet. When you stepped out of the shower, the bathroom was an actual steam bath and you could hardly see the door through the thick waves of wonderfully scented fog. You took your time stealing some more of Leah’s skincare products, having come to the conclusion that if she noticed anything and scolded you for it, you might as well try out the whole arsenal.

When you finally opened your closet door, feeling luxurious and clean and fresh, it was 5.10pm. What the hell were you going to wear? You and Mark had agreed on casual, but what the hell did that even mean? You decided to ask him.

-Help!!! Freaking out over my outfit, need a definition for casual

-Jeans and T-Shirt, just your standard outfit. Imagine meeting me for sushi.

-I’m bringing red wine. It seems wrong to bring wine in jeans and a t-shirt..

-What happened to cocktails?? Trust me, keep it simple. You don’t wanna turn up in a dress and she opens the door in sweatpants.

-I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in sweatpants. Ughh fuck I don’t have time for this. Jeans and t-shirt it is. Lesbian grandma recommended wine, I’ll tell you about it tomorrow x

-Go get her x

You quickly slipped into some black jeans that were just the right amount of tightly fitting around your ass and a white shirt with a tiny pomegranate embroidered on the front. Then you put on your jacket and quickly threw your wallet, phone and keys into a tote before grabbing the wine and putting it in as well. With a last look into the hallway mirror and a yelled goodbye to Leah, you rushed out of your apartment.

The evening air was not as cool as you had expected and the sun was just about to set. On your way to the train station, you typed out an on my way! message to Abby and quickly deleted it again. No sense in sending it now when you hadn’t spoken since Sunday and were about to see her. The train ride was annoying, the wagon stuffed with commuters and some guy trying to convince you the apocalypse was upon you all. Zombies, not the last judgement - something different at least.

During the walk from the station to Abby’s house, you were sure it wouldn’t take much more for you to actually start levitating. Your heart was pounding in your chest and your throat was so cramped up it was hard to breathe. When you pulled out your phone, your fingers were actually shaking. Jesus Christ, get a grip. 5.58 pm.

And there it was, 2425 Constance. Just a normal suburban white house, like any other in the street. It actually seemed a bit weird, Manny and Abby living here in the midst of what seemed to be a family neighborhood with real adults . Then again, they both weren’t in college, so you supposed they actually were real adults. When you walked up to the front door, you could hear faint music from inside - jazz? You wouldn’t have guessed she was the jazz type, but then again you knew almost nothing about her. Right. Ask questions, keep the conversation about her. Be cool.

You knocked.

Abby opened the door, a wave of warm air hitting you from inside. It smelled delightful. Her face was slightly flushed, her lips parted as she took in a deep breath. She had tied her hair back in a low bun, but a few strands had fallen out and framed her face. One was standing up in a funny angle.

“Hi, Abby,” you said, trying to keep your voice level and not stare at her body. Fuck, she had dressed up. And she looked hot.

“Hi!” A smile slowly grew wide on her face. When she realized that she was blocking the door, she quickly shook her head and stepped aside. “Come in! Can I take your jacket?”

Oh God, this was hopeless. You already knew you were hers. Thanking her, you took off your jacket and she hung it in a closet next to the entrance. When she turned around, you got a chance to admire her fully. She wore wide dress pants that perfectly accentuated all of her muscles, topped with a loose white shirt with wide sleeves, reminding you a little bit of a pirate. Her jewelry rounded off the pirate look and you had to bite back a grin. She raised her eyebrows at you.

“What?” Her cheeks were still slightly red, but you attributed it to standing in a hot kitchen for probably the last hour, judging by the variety of smells overlapping and mixing together, already making your mouth water.

“Uh, I brought wine,” you said and held out the bottle. Eloquent as always. Abby took it and whistled through her teeth as she inspected the label.

“That looks classic. The sauce I made has some wine in it as well, this is perfect. Thank you, what a great idea!”

You were overwhelmed with her generous praise and didn’t know where to look, so you settled on her hands. You had always sneaked looks at her hands, at the way she held a glass or drummed on a table or clasped them when she was intently listening to someone. They looked strong and rough from work, but there was also a delicacy in their movement and you were sure her touch could be as gentle as the brush of a hummingbird flying past. Realizing you were staring, you tore your gaze away.

“It smells delicious in here, I can’t wait to see what you cooked.” You followed her into the kitchen, where she placed the bottle on the counter and took a corkscrew from a drawer. A big red pot was standing on the gas stove over a tiny flame, the lid still hiding its contents. Your stomach suddenly growled loudly into the silence.

“Someone’s hungry.” Abby gave you a side glance and an amused smirk as she screwed the silver device into the cork. “Everything’s already set, we can get started right away.”

You covered your eyes with your hand for a second before laughing.

“Yeah, I kind of forgot to have lunch earlier and then I figured I’d just wait so I could really savour this.”

“Smart thinking. I made patates au vin , a vegetarian version of coq au vin which is chicken in wine. It’s basically potatoes and vegetables in a thick brown sauce, served with some good rustic bread.” You couldn’t stop your eyes from rolling back at the thought of getting to eat home cooked french cuisine made by Abby in a few minutes.

“Oh my God, say that again.” You could barely stop yourself from moaning. Abby laughed and opened the wine with a loud pop.

“Here, take this over to the dinner table. I’m right behind you.” You took the bottle and followed her nod into the dining room. The wooden table was beautifully set with big and small plates, glasses for water and wine, candles, two blue glass bottles of water and a bowl of salad topped with what looked like apples, pomegranate seeds and feta cheese. You carefully placed the bottle of wine next to the water bottles and stepped aside for Abby, who came out of the kitchen carrying the heavy pot and placed it on a cork coaster in the middle of the table.

“Wait, let me just…” she trailed off as she grabbed her phone from the sideboard and changed the music. A saxophone led a jazz band into the song before a beautiful female voice set in, soft as butter and filling the room like the smell of roses. The voice was familiar to you, but you couldn’t quite place it. As Abby sat down, the music came to a crescendo before breaking off, the voice setting in again with a soft

is it a crime?

“Who sings this?” you asked as Abby opened the water bottle and filled your glasses.

“Oh, it’s Sade. She was my dad’s favorite.”

And I want you to want me too, the woman sang, and your eyes met over the table. You swallowed. Was? Not the right time.

“Sade? Oh, she sings Smooth Operator, right? I know that one, but I never checked out more of her music.”

Abby smiled at you and opened the lid of the pot.

“Yeah. This is the Promise album, my favorite. She is a force.”

A wave of steam erupted from the pot and you bent forward to look inside. Thick, roasted wedges of yellow potatoes lay in a bed of orange and purple carrots, mushrooms and tomatoes in a thick brown sauce, a stalk of thyme on top and a bay leaf poking out from the sauce. You weren’t sure if you were drooling, but you didn’t care.

“Abby, oh my God! This is fantastic.”

A spark had lit in her eyes when she heard you say her name. She elegantly stood up again, grabbed a serving spoon, and held out her hand for your plate. You watched her hands again as she plated an array of vegetables for you and used the spoon to draw a little sauce heart on the rim of the plate. Your ribs felt two sizes too small around your chest. This woman was actually going to be the death of you.

“Thanks,” you quietly said and waited as Abby helped herself to a plate. She sat down and gestured toward the small basket with thick slices of grey bread with a dark brown crust.

“Help yourself. Bon appétit.”

After a few moments of eating in comfortable silence before you showered the blonde in an array of compliments, this time not able to refrain from moaning when you bit into a tender, sweet purple carrot, the conversation began to flow. Abby complimented the wine, you talked about your studies, Abby told a few work stories in which both she and Nora were involved, you told her about your close relationship with your brother and she bittersweetly reminisced about her upbringing as an only child with a single dad. It had just been the two of them, moving frequently because of his changing jobs in different hospitals. He had been a neurosurgeon, and a brilliant one at that, but always humble and ready to help wherever he could. Abby sat up straighter when she talked about him, her chest actually swelling with pride when she told you about one time they had rescued an injured horse that had run away and been hit by a car in front of them.

“I think I was 16 back then. It’s one of my favorite memories of him. It actually wasn’t long before…” Her eyebrows moved into a frown and she bit her lip, pushing a small piece of onion around her plate. Fuck, maybe it would have been easier to talk about you, after all.

“We don’t have to talk about it. You can tell me when you’re ready.”

She looked up and you expected to see tears, but her eyes were full of love and her face smoothed out into a gentle smile.

“No, it’s okay. I’m still working on it, and part of my therapy is telling people who don’t know yet. You know, I don’t really have a lot of friends.” She suddenly laughed, easing the tension at the bottom of your lungs. “That sounds stupid, of course I do. I have Manny and Nora and Leah and Jordan and Owen, I guess. But the thing is, they all knew me before. I haven’t really made friends ever since my dad.. passed away. The idea of needing to open up to someone about all this so I can develop a real connection and friendship with them is just a lot to bear.”

“The mortifying ordeal of being known,” you mumbled, more to yourself, crumpling up your napkin in one hand.

“Sorry?”

“Oh, it’s this quote from a New York Times article that has been floating around the internet for a while. ‘If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known’.” You looked up at her and inhaled deeply. “It’s something I’m also terrified of. Although it seems kind of stupid sometimes, because compared to you for example, I don’t really have a good reason.”

Abby looks at you like she’s just discovered something extremely interesting. She takes a sip of her wine before answering, her silver rings blinking at you in the candlelight.

“It’s not at all stupid. I’ve always been very careful with who I open up to, even before my dad died. It’s horrifying, laying yourself bare for a person, putting yourself on a silver plate and handing it to them and saying there, now do with it what you wish. Maybe they’ll look at it and say no, thanks. Maybe they’ll call everyone and say hey, look at this mad woman with her twisted insides, isn’t that funny? Maybe they’ll see it and think, I can do this, and then after a few years they suddenly realize they actually can’t and you’re way too much and so they leave for someone with a more simple, prettier silver plate. Maybe they’ll even take a few pieces with them as they go.”

She didn’t sound bitter as she said it, and she didn’t look terribly sad either, more as if she was making an observation about something she was mildly interested in. You didn’t know what to say except for show me your silver plate, please show me your all, and I will devour it, savor it, keep it with me forever. But you stayed silent, your tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth.

“I’m quite the handful, am I? Sorry, I shouldn’t have thrown all this” - she gestured toward herself - “at you during our first date.” Then her eyes widened as she realized what she had said. “Fuck, sorry, I just assumed… you probably don’t…”

Finally, movement came back into you. You jumped from your chair and were next to her in a few paces. She lifted a hand and you took it in yours.

“Of course this is a date,” you said gently and smiled at her. “Otherwise why would I have been this nervous for the past three days, thinking of nothing but you, constantly checking my phone to see if you texted me? And I brought red wine, come on.” That brought a smile to her face. She chuckled lightly.

“So I haven’t just ruined everything?” The hope in her eyes was mixed with real, honest fear.

“No, of course not. I’m glad you’re being open with me. You know, I planned not to reveal too much about myself tonight, fearing I would scare you away or say something stupid and make you suddenly lose interest.”

The current song ended and a soft, funky beat came on. There it was again, that twinkle in Abby’s eyes. Your hands were still clasped around hers and she made no move to pull back.

“Well, now I can’t wait to see what you have in store for me. Lay it on me. Over dessert, maybe?”

You raised your eyebrows.

“There’s dessert? You’re going to have to roll me out of here later.”

She laughed, warm and genuine, and the pride you had felt back in The Closet filled your chest again. You would do anything just to be the one to make her laugh every day for the rest of your life. She got up and you both started clearing the table together.

Never going to know

What fate is going to blow

Your way, just hope that it feels right

Could that Sade lady be any more on the nose? You risked a glance at Abby, who was smiling to herself. You followed her into the kitchen and she opened the fridge to produce a large glass dish, showing the several layers of biscuit and white cream, topped with dark cacao.

“Tiramisu? Seriously Abby, how much time did you spend in the kitchen today?”

She gave you a crooked grin before exiting the kitchen.

“Took the day off.”

You just sighed and went back into the dining room.

Such a fine time as this

“Here.” Abby handed you a small plate with a piece of her gourmet tiramisu. Your fingers brushed against each other and you both paused for just the blink of an eye.

What could equal the bliss

The thrill of the first kiss

You sat down and grabbed the small fork left next to your wine glass. On second thought, you took another sip of Merlot. It really was exquisite.

“Buon’ appetito,” you said and sliced off a perfect edge of tiramisu. The soft, coffee-drenched biscuit fell apart on your tongue, mixing with the heavy vanilla-flavored mascarpone. “Did you know where the name tiramisu comes from?”

Abby lifted her fork to her mouth and softly closed her lips around the piece of creamy dessert. You were entranced, watching her hand sink down to the table again, then her jaw moving and flexing as she chewed. She raised her eyebrows questioningly and you cleared your throat, taking another piece on your fork.

“ Tira mi su is Italian for ‘pull me down’. It’s the last thing you eat after dinner and the thing that makes you tired, pulls you right into the food coma. In restaurants, it rounds off the meal and guests will probably leave in the following hour because they feel they’re ready to go home.”

Never as good as the first time

Natural as the way we came to be

“Oh,” Abby said, her voice quiet. She looked up at you through dark lashes. “And are you going home after this?”

“No.” You said it without thinking, only knowing what was true in your heart. “I don’t want to.”

“I’m glad.” Taking a deep breath, Abby straightened up, then reached a hand across the table, her palm facing up. You stared at it for a fraction of a second before placing your hand in hers, feeling something fall into place inside you. The glances you exchanged said so much more than you could possibly dare to say out loud right now.

You used your free hand to stab the last piece of tiramisu. This time it was Abby who was watching you with hungry eyes as the fork vanished between your lips and emerged clean.

“This tiramisu could be the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life,” you said after swallowing and Abby’s fingers twitched ever so slightly around your hand.

“Thank you. I’m really into French and Italian cuisine, as you may have noticed.”

You leaned back in your chair, careful not to pull back your hand.

“I couldn’t do it, honestly. Spending so much time in the kitchen. Especially not with a job like yours, on your feet all day. I’d probably survive off of pasta and takeout.”

Abby smiled and began slowly drawing circles on the back of your hand with her thumb. You were already hyper-aware of how your blood rushed through every vein of your body, a side-effect of the red wine, but now it came to a roar in your ears.

“I guess I need some kind of hobby besides lifting weights. It calms me down. And it’s not just about the end result, about getting to eat something, but also about picking the right ingredients, taking my time cutting them up, trying new recipes with new flavors, and learning more about food and culture, and honestly about myself. It’s like meditating.”

“That sounds…” you were at a loss for words, “unbelievable? I’ve never heard someone talk about cooking like that. And I’ve never felt that way about it, too. I guess I’d like to, though. It sounds nice.”

Abby brushed her thumb over your knuckles.

“Well, I could show you.” You tilted your head slightly. “I mean, we could cook together. Next time. If you want to?”

Sade’s voice, smooth as polished wood and dripping with honey cut into the moment.

How could I have doubted

Honey, it's with me that you belong

“Yeah, I’d love to. What do you have in mind?”

“Do you like lasagna? We could make a vegetable lasagna and substitute the meat for soy. I could show you how to make a béchamel.”

You laughed and squeezed her hand.

“I love lasagna, although I have no idea what a beshmel is.”

“You’ll just have to wait and see.” Abby’s face was glowing with happiness.

As the last two songs of the album played, you helped Abby clean up the table. You got into an argument about doing the dishes - Abby said she’d do it later but you insisted you would do them now or at least help because so far you had not lifted a finger.

“Come on, Abby, please let me help?” You tried your best doe eyes at her. She grinned and playfully slapped your upper arm.

“Okay. But I’ll put on different music.”

She vanished to the dining room while you began filling the sink with water. A high note filled the room before a man spoke.

You broke my heart / 'Cause I couldn't dance

You didn't even want me around

And now I'm back / To let you know

I can really shake 'em down

Abby stepped into your field of vision. The music set in, a delightful 60’s rock and roll melody, and Abby began dancing toward you with tiny steps and shaking shoulders. She was lip synching to the coarse voice of the singer and reaching out her hands for you. Snapping out of your frozen position, you shook your head, grabbed her hands, and were immediately twirled through the kitchen. A squeak escaped you as Abby pulled you back toward her and with another pirouette, you almost slammed into her chest. You both laughed out loud, continuing to dance through the kitchen with big, overexaggerated moves, flailing your arms and shuffling your feet across the tile.

I can do the twist

Now, tell me baby

Do you like it like this?

You quickly began singing along to the simple lyrics and both of you were giggling at each other’s dance moves. The next song was Stand By Me and you both settled down, beginning to clean the pots and dishes. You did the washing while Abby dried off the pieces you gave her and put them back into the right cupboards. Both of you were swaying and humming along to the music.

During the second chorus, both of you began belting along, filling the kitchen with the wonderfully familiar sound of slightly drunk women singing together. As the song ended, you both comically froze and waited for the next song to set in. When it was La Bamba by Ritchie Valens, you both continued singing along and showing off some probably terrible salsa moves. You were done in no time and Abby took your hand, pulling you into the dining room and sliding across the wooden floors with you. Your stomach hurt from laughing and you couldn’t stop smiling.

Next came the bittersweet Be My Baby by the Ronettes, a song you remembered from your childhood, vague memories of your parents slow dancing together after another terrible fight. You swallowed down the hint of bitterness creeping up from your stomach. Instead, you looked up at Abby, almost a full head taller than you, and dared yourself to step forward. You placed your right hand in Abby’s and your left on her tricep, coming unbearably and exhilaratingly close. Abby put her hand on your back, right below your shoulder blade, warming you through the fabric of your shirt. Your faces were incredibly close, her breath warm on your nose, and you could have counted every single freckle on her beautiful face. There was a slim ring of gold around her pupil, complimenting the green of her iris. She was breathtaking.

You couldn’t take this any longer. Should you kiss her? Everything inside you wanted to, but you couldn’t bring yourself to close the last inch of distance. It felt like wanting to do a handstand but pulling back at the last second every time because of a deep fear of failing and hurting yourself. It was terribly frustrating.

Instead, you leaned your head against the round muscle of Abby’s shoulder, turning your face toward her chest and pressing your temple to her collarbone. You could smell the herbs she had used to cook earlier in the fabric of her shirt, but her skin smelled like pine and something else, earthy and dark, like tree bark or wool. Abby rested her chin against your forehead and her low hum of contentment vibrated against your cheek.

A light waltz melody began, Unchained Melody, a song you knew from some commercial and had listened to for a few weeks straight after.

I need your love

God speed your love to me

You smiled to yourself and could sense Abby was doing the same. You kept slowly turning, dancing through the candle-lit room and swaying side to side. The band set in louder and you lifted your head again. Abby’s eyes were fixed to yours, but you couldn’t stop yours from wandering lower, finding those perfectly pink lips, hanging open ever so slightly. Your hand wandered upward, along her shoulder, and to the back of her neck. As the last verse of the song began, you stood on your tiptoes and brushed your lips against her. Abby inhaled sharply, her fingers spreading on your back and pressing against your skin. You gently pressed your lips to hers again and this time, she kissed you back. You dug your fingertips into the back of her neck, desperately wanting to come closer, to pull her down to you, hell, you would climb her like a tree if you had to.

Feeling courageous, you stuck your tongue out and ran the tip upward over her lips. Abby instantly reacted, opening her mouth for you and greeting your tongue with hers. She tasted like wine and cacao, and faintly like thyme. Releasing your hand, she wrapped her arms around your waist. You reached up and buried your hand in her hair. She gasped into your mouth. You tucked that sound away for later, swearing to yourself you would make her do it again as often as you could.

A few seconds of silence between songs were disrupted by your wonderfully frivolous wet kissing sounds and a small whine that escaped you when Abby’s hand wandered lower to cup your ass. The first guitar chords of Nights In White Satin vibrated through the air and Abby grabbed you tightly before lifting you off the ground and wrapping your legs around her hips. She carried you over to the dining table and set you down.

The dramatic crescendo in the song you loved so much began.

And I love you

Yes I love you

Oh, how I love you

The singer’s voice filled every corner of the room, his declaration hovering above you, the high voices of the background singers ringing in your ears and Abby’s hands everywhere, her body leaning over you, her hips pressed between your legs. You flexed your legs to pull her in closer, almost falling apart when Abby let out a low moan and rocked her hips forward against you. Then she suddenly slowed down and broke the kiss.

“Wait, let’s talk for a second.”

You kept your legs clamped around her, but relaxed back a little, brushing back a strand of hair from her forehead and giving her an encouraging nod to go ahead.

“I haven’t… I’m not that experienced with - with women. And generally. And I don’t want to rush things and do something wrong and lose you. I don’t really know how this works and I want to do it right.”

Her hands on your waist tightened slightly. You gave her a shy smile.

“Me neither. I’m scared, too.” You surprised yourself with your openness. “How about we take this slow, then? Talk about everything openly? And just go one step at a time?”

Abby nodded and pulled you closer again.

Holding Back The Years began playing.

“One kiss at a time.” She gave you a gentle peck on the lips.

“Oh, really? I would have never picked you as the sappy type,” you laughed against her lips.

“You wouldn’t?” She acted shocked. “Let me remind you of how I took the day off to cook a gourmet french dish for you.”

“True.” You shrugged and pulled her in for another kiss. “It’s probably the muscles. With those guns, you can do anything and still be taken seriously.”

Abby snorted and you realized that had been the wine talking. For a second, you were mortified, then she scooped you up again, holding your body with one arm as she ran her free hand through your hair.

“Oh, those? You know, they’re specifically for carrying you around all day. Anything for my - princess.” You had very well noticed the little pause there, but you decided not to say anything yet. Instead, you lifted your chin and eyebrows, imitating what you thought a royal would look like.

“Well, what does that make you? You’re obviously not a prince. My lady knight?”

Abby nodded solemnly.

“Sworn to protect and defend you. And to carry you wherever.”

“Well, do you have a sofa you could carry me to?” You tightened your hold on her shoulders and leaned in closer again.

“Of course, my lady.”

Abby carried you through a doorway at the back of the dining room into a cozy living room, equipped with a large sofa and a gigantic flatscreen tv, two vintage armchairs, a wooden bookshelf with at least 100 books, and a desk facing the window, medical books spread across the surface. The blonde sat down on the sofa and you knelt left and right of her hips, straddling her as you gave her another soft kiss.

“You know,” you began, “I’ve been crushing on you for months now. I thought you had absolutely no interest in me. I didn’t even know you liked women.”

Abby’s eyes widened at your confession.

“Shit, I had no idea. You weren’t exactly forward, you know. The first time we met, you already had this pull on me. But you were so shy and I didn’t want to jump you or annoy you, so I tried to keep my distance and wait if you would come around.”

“You have Leah to thank for that. Me coming around. I kind of forgot to come out to her until karaoke night and she told me you were dating women as well. She knows I’ve been a hopeless case when it comes to you, but she wanted me to figure this out on my own.”

Abby thought about this for a second.

“Yeah, Leah probably only told you because she knew I liked you, too. I haven’t been that open about dating women in the past, just because talking about dating in general was weird with Owen and Mel around and I also just don’t like everyone knowing my personal business.”

“I get that.” You nodded. “As I said, I hadn’t even been out to Leah. Mostly because I haven’t dated anyone in forever and the last time was a disaster not worth talking about.” You winced at the memory.

“You wanna tell me anyway?”

You thought about it for a second, then you climbed off Abby’s lap and laid down on the sofa, resting your head on her thigh. Her fingers immediately began brushing through your hair and massaging your scalp.

“Well, I met this girl during a freshman party at a sorority house the weekend before my first semester in college,” you began. You had felt weirdly out of place, but were determined to speak to at least one person. A few hours and an almost-lethal amount of tequila later, the girl you had talked to all night had dragged you into one of the bedrooms. You both had no previous experience, were extremely drunk and it was already 5am. You had fun making out and were both eager to try more, but it had been more out of curiosity than desire for each other and so the experience had not ended in the expected bliss of lesbian sex. Rather, she had come pretty quickly and afterward she'd begun crying and told you she had a boyfriend, and you had gotten dressed and fled the house. After that, dating in college was not really something you thought about much.

Abby listened to your story with interest and sympathy, laughing at a few parts and stroking your hair as you told her about the end of that fateful night. She felt deeply sorry for your experience of strangeness and betrayal, immediately promising to you that she would always tell you what was going on inside her head and what she wanted.

“Like you just did,” you smiled at her. “That was brave. It’s what I should have done that night.”

“I mean, I had a few weird moments, too, before I learned to speak my mind.” Abby’s gaze unfocused and she frowned as she clearly recalled some not very pleasant memories.

“Wanna tell me, too?” you asked, keeping your voice light. She nodded, looking down at you again.

“I mean, there's Owen, obviously. That didn’t work out well and now he is with Mel, leaving me wondering if he was interested in her while we were still together. After we broke up, Nora and I went on a little bender.” Your heart jumped into your throat. Did Abby and Nora...? A wave of jealousy rose from the bottom of your stomach, but you forced yourself to keep your calm, smiling at Abby as she continued.

“We spent every weekend at a different bar, and one of them was actually at The Closet. Nora was making out with a woman in actual overalls” - she snorted - “and I just hung out at the bar, drinking Long Islands and not brave enough to make eye contact with anyone. And then the bartender started talking to me.”

Suddenly realization dawned on you. You sat up and stared at Abby.

“Wait, Ellie? The short-haired one?”

Abby grimaced.

“Yeah. We talked for a while and I came back the next week with Leah and Jordan. They didn’t even notice I was spending a lot of time at the bar. Ellie and I met for coffee a few days later and I mentioned my dad and she got really quiet and strange. Turns out, she’s related to the guy that murdered my dad, so...”

You were pretty sure your heart stopped for a moment, all the air in your chest building up pressure as you tried to figure out how to breathe out. Abby noticed and gently guided you to lay back down, continuing to weave her fingers into your hair.

“It’s okay, Y/N. I’ll tell you the whole story another time. So yeah, Ellie and I. It was horrible, but we still stayed and talked for a while. She couldn’t tell me a lot about what happened, but she had no idea that I even existed and she was about to have a panic attack over it all. I helped her calm down and then she felt terrible for reacting so badly when it should be me panicking and I just told her that there’s nothing any of us can do now and we should probably leave it at that.” She sighed. “I hadn’t been to The Closet until a few days ago. I only came because I knew you’d be there.”

“Fuck, that’s terrible,” you mumbled. “I don’t think I could have gone back there. I’m still glad you did, though.”

“Me too,” Abby said, her voice gentle and honest. She leaned down to kiss you, deeply and passionately.

You stayed on the sofa for the next few hours, talking about school crushes and gay awakenings, about women constantly hitting on Abby and her being confused for a long time. She told you more about her relationship with Mel and you started to actually resent that woman. Who did she think she was? You told Abby about living with Leah and about your current research projects and she listened intently, asking a lot of questions about the art you were analyzing. You began diving into queer art and Sappho and your theory on the different languages of different social groups. Abby actually gave you some great new ideas and some good questions you couldn’t yet answer and you were actually beginning to look forward to writing tomorrow.

As the clock moved past midnight, it became clear you would have to leave at some point soon. Abby had to get up at 7 in the morning for a 10-hour shift, and you had stifled one too many yawns. You were cuddled up on the couch, kisses interchanging with long, deep conversations and more kisses.

“I can accompany you to the station,” Abby suggested as you looked up the departure times on your phone.

“You don’t have to. That’s sweet of you, but I’ll find the way.” You kissed her for her generosity, but she pulled back.

“Honestly. I don’t want you walking alone. I’ll go with you.” A sheepish smile appeared on her face and she did a tiny bow. “My lady.”

You rolled your eyes and got up, making your way to the entrance hall. Abby gently helped you into your coat and put on a black bomber jacket, a strange but hot combination with her fancy pants. She opened the door for you and you stepped out into the cold night together.

You held hands on the way to the station, stopping at every corner to make out, laughing together, and making plans for your lasagna night. You would come over on Thursday, promising to yourself you would finish all your coursework until then. Manny would come back on Friday, so you’d have the house to yourself again.

You arrived at the station way too soon, but your train was announced to arrive in two minutes. Heavy-hearted, you flung your arms around the tall blonde and she wrapped hers around your waist, lifting you up for another deep kiss.

“I can’t wait to see you again,” she whispered against your lips.

“I’ll even dress up next time,” you mumbled and she grinned at you.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in anything but jeans and a t-shirt. I’m excited.” Well, now you had to go shopping. Leah would be delighted to go with you.

You pressed a last kiss to Abby’s lips before unwrapping yourself from her arms as the train rolled into the station. As you stepped away, she caught your hand and pulled you back for another one, cheekily running her tongue over your bottom lip. You sighed and kissed her hand, wrapped firmly around yours, before stepping back and boarding the train. You waved at her through the window as you departed and watched her stand on the platform until she was out of sight.

Letting yourself fall into one of the seats, you pulled out your phone and texted your brother.

-We kissed!!!! Call me when you can

Then you texted Leah about shopping tomorrow, just able to send the text before your phone vibrated with a new message.

-You looked beautiful tonight. I’m the luckiest person in the world.

You tried to keep your squeal as quiet as possible. A woman a few seats ahead of you briefly looked up from her phone.

-Can’t believe I have a personal knight who will carry me wherever I want to go

The reply came in seconds.

-Anywhere and anything you want. Text me when you’re home!

-Can I text you before I’m home? I miss you already :(

You had to wait a few minutes before your phone vibrated again. This time, Abby was calling.

“Sorry, I was cleaning up and getting ready for bed.” She sounded a bit breathless.

“No worries,” you said. “What are you wearing for bed?”

Abby let out a surprised laugh.

“Really, now?”

“I’m serious. I want to imagine being with you.”

“Well, I’m wearing a gigantic black t-shirt with a ton of holes and boxers.”

You closed your eyes, envisioning Abby’s thighs straining against the hem of her shorts and the soft cotton of her shirt that you could bury your face in. She would smell like nature and like home somewhere far away.

“I wish I was there.” You noticed you were sounding desperate. Fucking hell, were you about to turn into a 13-year-old? You could hear the smile in Abby’s voice when she spoke.

“I wish you were here with me, too.” She paused for a moment. Then, “Do you want to sleep over on Thursday?”

“Uhm -” you had to think for a second, remembering you only had dinner plans for Friday with your mom. Before you could answer, Abby cut in again

“Fuck, am I rushing you? I didn’t mean - I just thought it would be nice, falling asleep together. But I totally get if that’s -”

“Abby! Of course I want to stay over!” You clenched your free hand into a fist, punching your thigh a few times in order to divert the explosion of energy inside your chest.

“Oh, thank god,” Abby’s shaky laugh was heart-wrenching. “I thought I messed up already.”

You stood up to exit at your station.

“No, not at all. I’d love to fall asleep with you.”

The way to your apartment was over faster than you wanted it to be.

“I’m home now. I think I should hang up, Leah is probably sleeping.”

“Yeah, don’t wake the monster.” Abby chuckled.

“Good night, Abby. Tonight was incredible.”

“Good night, Y/N. You’re incredible. Sleep tight.”

Author's note: Thank you so much for your comments and kudos! If you'd like to support me, you can buy me a coffee here

#abby anderson #abby tlou #abby tlou2 #the last of us 2 #tlou abby #abigail anderson #abby fic #abby anderson fluff #abby anderson fanfiction #ellie #ellie tlou #leah tlou #jordan tlou #owen moore #owen x mel #mel tlou #owen tlou #abby x reader #abby anderson x reader

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ennui-gt · 3 years

Text

Here it is. A Piece Of Borrower Content Written Entirely In Stream Of Consciousness:

AN: so this is incomplete and very…needs revisions to the timeline to incorporate some things I added later! It’s the original universe that Mira’s from! I edited it like Slightly to just change Ross’s name to Ross (if u see Max anywhere that’s his old one I just felt like changing it so that’s just him but different. Anyway) Everything's under the readmore tab, cheers!

The Library Fairy:

Basic Plot (Chrono, comic starts from human perspective abt the ‘legend of the library fairy’ ig maybe. Nothing here is permanent cept the characterization)

Part A

1- Mira is borrower currently chillin in a college library

2- She lives off of the cafe on the second floor nd reads lots and lots of stuff about everything when the upper floors close (lower floor open 24/7 but upper floors r vacant p much after 12:00 AM)

3- she starts getting increasingly curious about human stuff cos she’s literate nd books r pry neat

4- it starts one night when she spots an unattended notebook and a half eaten blueberry muffin, nd it’s 12:30 so nobody’s coming back in atm (it’s the 80s so no laptops for the plebians quite yet)

5- so she goes ‘welp’ nd takes part of the muffin, then sees the work on the page and goes ‘hmmmm this is incorrect’ so she helps our and leaves notes here n there to point the kid in the right direction and puts down some book refs for further study bcos at this point she’s been there for 2 years and she knows where most things are

6- she stays behind to see if the human comes back for it, hidden in a hidey hole near the desk

7- human comes in, sees notebook, practically melts w relief nd stuffs it in his bag

8- next day human comes back nd leaves nother notebook and a cookie, along w a hidden camera

9- Mira goes ‘o boy, this a trap, innit’

10- Mira then decides ‘eh whatever I haven’t had contact w anyone in years now so I might as well’

11- she steals the camera film nd leaves a lil scrap of paper saying ‘nice try ;)’ on it

12- student comes back, sees paper, goes ‘dammit’, then leaves note addressed to the ‘library fairy’ and another cookie, as well as more of their work for her to help with

13- bout a decade goes by and now the “Library Fairy” is an urban myth, it’s currently 2003 so she’s also wound up on the school’s unofficial Wikipedia page under ‘local cryptids’

14- most library employees know of her but they don’t go looking out of fear stemming from superstitions bout her, somehow the legend grew from ‘can’t be photographed’ to ‘a student once saw her and died that day’

15- there’s now a small shrine devoted to her where ppl bring offerings hoping to get good grades in return, sometimes they will leave papers for her to proofread nd stuff

16- new prof (named Alexei) finds online article thinks he Knows What’s Up bcos he had a borrower friend as a kid, but they left when borrower’s fam found out about them knowing each other

17- he leaves note wedged in one of her secret entrances behind outlet, asking if she can meet w him at some point

18- Mira, already In it, goes ‘Okay. Alright. This has gone on for long enough. Time to go and never return’ but ofc she’s curious as all hell and like she decides she will at least honor the guy’s request for a convo b4 she goes, but on her terms and w/o speaking face 2 face

19- they Talk in the library after hours, bcos he paid off the janitor to let him stay after hours nd most of the student employees recognize him as a prof nd leave him alone

20- they talk again for every subsequent night

21- she uhhhh finally decides to reveal herself nd prays that her hunch was right nd he won’t try to grab her or anything

22- he doesn’t but she’s nervous so she winds up gettin caught in her own climbing rope like idiot, is now dangling from ceiling in tangled mess

23- he stifles chuckle nd she says smthn sarcastic

24- he moves closer and offers to untangle her

25- she’s like ‘please’

26- so he do, but her grip on the rope slips nd he has to catch her

26- so now she’s in his hand and he just sets her down and now he’s a bumbling embarrassed mess bcos he said he wasn’t going to hold her and he just did and o dear pls forgib him

28- nd she’s like ‘dude u just saved my life it’s fine ur fine chill’

29- internally she’s going HOLY FUCK AAAAAAA but externally, her human’s already worked up enough as it is so she’s gotta b the level headed one

29.5- after a while they both kinda get used to each other more, he gets tenure, they celebrate, some more stuff happens, Aleksei got married (not to Mira, Mira hasn’t actually rly thought about being in a relationship w anyone cos she’s laser focused on gaining as much knowledge as possible)

30- eventually Alexei’s like ‘hey so I’m dean of faculty for the biotech branch now uhhhh would u like actual job teaching students? Cos, uh, you can do it remotely thru online lectures n stuff, no in person interaction, and I uh was just kinda wondering—‘

31- she’s like ‘yes. Yes!!! LET ME HELP PEOPLE OFFICIALLY KINDA’

32- so now she’s a professor, and has revealed her Secret a few times here n there to a number of the faculty, nd she has recorded her own findings in a personal journal

33- ‘humans will treat u like a human if they think ur human first. The kids call it ‘catfishing’’

34- enter Ross, an mall goth who accidentally tripped headfirst into a premed program

35- Mira’s favorite field of study is bio so naturally she’s his prof for a majority of his classes

36- being the good boy that he is, he now knows Mira’s secret. There is an Entire Chapter on him finding out and legit just continuing their conversation as if everything was normal bcos he thought that was how he was supposed to handle the situation

37- then she says ‘u can ask questions, u know’ he’s like OH THANK FUCK CAUSE I HAVE SEVEN HUNDRED OF THOSE

38- and now he kinda knows what to look for in terms of ‘do borrowers live here check yes or no’

39-in his apartment, the answer is yes and he mistakenly kinda stumbles upon the mom one night when he wakes up in the middle of the night for Snack and opts to pretend like its not happening. Unfortunately the thing she was trying 2 borrow (piece of crumb cake for Son Boy’s birthday) is the thing he wants 2 eat so he’s like “uh. ‘Scuse me, ma’am.” and he peels back the saran wrap on the other side of the plate, takes piece, nd then leaves some there for her

40-so now the woman is like ‘welp guess it time 2 Leave’

.1- she and husband Talk

.2-they decide it best 2 go

.3-theyre Packing

.4-lil bab Ellie confused

.5-hawk attacke

.6-cut to Ross

41- Ross also happens to work at a bar and he goes outside for a break

43- he finds smal child—smol smal—on the sidewalk and said child is missing an arm, nd has lost a lot of blood, so he’s uhhhhh Losing It highkey

43.5-parents r nowhere 2 b seen, but the hawk is nearby and circling. Ross gets an idea of what just happened

44- he up and leaves work, thankfully his apartment is above the shop so he jumps up the fire escape w the child and

45- he make tourniquet

46- he calls Mira nd asks her 2 come over to ASAP. he’s A Mess at this point

47- it is Very touch and go, kid needs blood, Mira is the only viable donor so she’s just gotta pray that the blood type is fine and won’t kill him

48- and then eventually they manage 2 stave infection thru antibiotics properly dosed to his size, Mira does Math and Prays basically

49- ‘bout a month in, kid wakes up

50- kid doesn’t rember much since he’s only 3

51- hes v scared of Ross at first but over time he gets used 2 the human

52- kid (elliot) starts 2 call Ross ‘dad’ after a while

53- Ross: *internal screaming but in a good way*

54- the end kinda for now

Part 2

A- New Borrowers In The Building

—three of em. paranoid dad, mom, nd daughter that’s Elliot’s age so he’s pumped

B- Elliot offers them a place 2 stay briefly

C- he knows by now bout like, how borrowers don’t typically interact w humans and Auntie Mira’s a bit of a weird case so he just doesn’t tell em bout his dad being the human

D- the kid finds out first nd doesn’t tell the parents, but they figure it out later kinda and think that it’s a ‘o god he’s being kept as a pet’ sitch so they’re >:| abt it

E- they move out and try to take Elliot w them (by force bcos they think he’s brainwashed) but he escapes and makes it to Ross, who’s like “uhhhhhh”

F- and the mom come out the hole near the counter n starts yelling at Ross, who is…kinda used to it since Mira brings in ppl who need help from time 2 time and they typically don’t react well when they’re lucid enough to understand what’s going on. He’s just not used to being questioned about his own kid

G- so they’re like “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING WITH HIM”

H- and he’s like “r…raising him???”

I- and Ellie steps up and he’s like “this is my dad. I decided he was my dad when I was three. He’s being a good parent”

J- and Ross is like “yeah what he said. I’m a good parent.”

K- Ross is riding that high til the end of fucking time but like back to the story at hand

L- this is when the husband comes out nd is like “lissen. wifey. ily but that is a very big human and he hasn’t grabbed us yet so let’s count our blessings and gtfo”

M- but she��s like “uh no we stay until I’m sure Elliot is Safe and fucking Sound”

N- so they stay for dinner nd stick around a little longer.

O- Val (the kid) gets closer 2 Elliot and also Ross a bit

P- Mira shows once or twice, first time she shows up they’re like “oh god it’s the crazy doctor lady this all makes sense now” (bcos Mira does check up on as many borrower families as possible in her free time so word has got around by now Of her, and the number by which to contact her in case her services r needed)

Q- After a month or so, then they decide to leave bcos they’re like “look we get that ur son is ur son and he only has one arm and in our profession that is kind of a death sentence but we can’t have our kid getting used to dealing w humans who know about our existence” so they go and leave on a kind of sour note bcos Ellie can do anything he wants to do just as well as any other borrower Thank You Very Much and Ross is ready to fite anyone who thinks otherwise

R- Elliot starts trying 2 b more independent, basically from now on he’s like ‘I can do everything my Damn Self Thanks’

S- but uh he does it to a point where he’s going out of the way to endanger himself

T- so they get into a fite about it and ross Yells and Elliot is like ‘kthxbye’

U- and the boi just. Fuckin bolts. Runs Away. Ross is a Mess, he starts smoking again (he quit cold turkey the day he took Elliot in) to curb the depression, he’s jus. Not doin good, worried that his son is dead and the last time they talked it’d ended badly

V- FREEDOM!!!1! Except Ellie doesn’t kno how to take care of himself so it’s a rough month or so and then he runs into some other borrowers livin in their own town in the wild ig, chillin, being hella independent, and he’s like “uh yes ofc I will join u, I was w my dad for a while but.........” he neither confirms nor denies that his dad’s dead but everyone kinda just assumes.

Part 3

W-anyway a year goes by and then the borrower group gets hit hard w some kind of sickness ig. Elliot gets it too he’s basically incapacitated n drifting in and out of lucidity. So. They contact the weird crazy doctor lady who hangs around humans, a.k.a. Mira, and she’s like “oh. fuck. I know this kid.” bcos she does, u kno, and she jus treats em all for their ailment and shows them how to make antibiotic poultice thing in case smthn like it happens again. Mold. Penicillin is basically what it is

X-she and Elliot hav a Chat (Mira basically yells at him a lot) once he’s fixed up and he decides he’s gonna visit his dad but he makes it very clear that he is a Grown Up (he’s not, he’s literally sixteen), and he is living on his own now

Y- he agrees to stay for a week tho since he misses his home a lot tbh and Ross is just. Over the fucking moon to know he’s ALIVE, he’s not gonna fuck up their relationship by insisting that he stay. Or like, by keeping him ofc he would never

Z- unfortunately the borrower community put two and two together and figured out his dad’s human so they have his stuff packed up when he gets back w mira, who’s ready to go the fuck off on them

End 1:

-Ellie is living at Ross’s place atm and hopeful about the future basically. He eventually will go off on his own but he’ll keep in contact w his dad and stuff

Part C.5

55- few yrs later

56- elliot is Adult now he does adult borrower stuff

57- he moves out

58- finds nice borrower gf (her name’s Tess)

59- doesn’t tell her about his dad being human but talks about his dad a LOT

60- so when she asks to meet said father he’s just like “uh. Maybe we don’t do that actually”

61- and she’s like “y tho”

62- and he’s like “bcos”

63- anyway she decides to look into it cos she knows he goes to see his dad nd keep in touch but his dad is allegedly “a recluse who lives in the big scary human’s walls to avoid other ppl”

64- which is. Not true in the slightest tbqh he’s def not an introvert he’s just a workaholic and he Is the big scary human

65- anywho they run into Val and her wife and she’s like “how’s Ross been?” And Elliot is acting Very Suspish so she, being Smart, calls it immediately and is like “oh shit u haven’t told her yet have u”

66- Tess: “told me what”

67- Val: “El’s dad is a human, bro.”

68- Tess: “I’m sorry?”

69- this results in a Big Fight and they separate for like, a month. Elliot blames Val bcos he’s being irrational and doesn’t wanna admit to the fact that lying to his girlfriend for over a year was Real Bad Actually, but over time he’s like ‘yeah it’s my fault sry for snapping at u’ cos he works thru his emotions n stuff

70- Eventually gf comes back cos she’s like “ok so. I understand why you lied to me about your dad. It was a dick move but I do get it and I still care about you a lot. I would like. To meet him.”

80- this is a lie she does not want to meet him she is doing this bcos she does not want to lose Elliot and that outweighs the fear of his dad

81- so they go to meet him but she’s just kinda. Behind the wall at first like “that’s a crazy big human this is crazy ur crazy it’s time to gO”

82- Val is also there bcos she hasn’t seen Ross in a while

83- they eventually coax her out of hiding

84- and by that I mean Val picks her up and drags her out into the open by force bcos she basically freezes up the second she catches sight of Ross and Val’s like “u didn’t come all this way for nothing, bich”

85- they have a Painfully Awkward First Meeting, Tess is trying her best but oh god he’s just too fucking. Larg. Ellie ur dad too big

86- tbh tho the ice kinda breaks after Ellie and Ross get into a fight over smthn stupid (im thinking Elliot grumbles bout Ross’s hair being unruly and he’s worried that mira’s using it like a personal storage system again and Ross is like “I’ve been keeping better track of that actually” and then like a little line of paper clips and a few hand-bound notebooks tied together w some string fall out of his fucking mane and he’s like “I can explain”

87- “dad you can’t keep letting her use your hair like a fucking NEST”

88- Tess is laughing now cos god damn this was not what she was expecting

89- that’s it the end it ends w Tess laughing at them being idiots good times r had by all

Uhhhh that’s it so far. I have More but it’s kinda jumbled rn and I need to fit stuff in places. Anyway.

#was gonna make this into a comic lawl #if I like actually manage to get off my ass over the coming weeks I probably will be able to do that! but yeah #also this was once posted b4 and I deleted it but it’s back now say hellow #Library Fairy #oc: Mira #oc: Ross #oc: Elliot #oc: Tess #oc: Val #oc: Alexei #anyway yeah here it is behold #the uhhhhh most slice of life thing I have ever created

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bettsfic · 3 years

Note

hi, i was reading your years in review and i noticed that you quit a job of many years to go your own way. i was wondering if you would mind talking about this decision/if you struggled with it? idk i've always told myself that i wouldn't let the idea of a "career" get in the way of what i want (e.g. writing) and that one day (shortly after 30?) i would just quit whatever job i had and go my own way, but as that deadline comes up i find it harder to imagine how i could just uproot myself...

yes, i very much did struggle with the decision to quit (what i thought was) my very stable and lucrative career in finance to get an MFA in creative writing. it’s a bit of a long story so i’m putting it under a cut.

warning for suicidality and sexual assault.

i used to believe i grew up poor, but it was the 90s so poverty looked very different. my dad didn’t work for a long time, and so we only had one income, and we lived in an apartment that was kind of a lowkey hoarder home. as a kid, all i knew was that i didn’t get to have toys, or my own space, and i wasn’t allowed to have friends over. the concept of an allowance was totally alien to me. but it also wasn’t like i ever went hungry. the food we had wasn’t particularly healthy but it was always there.

i didn’t really realize how much that instability affected me until much later, when i noticed other people hadn’t lived their entire lives aware of and obsessed with money. i used to compulsively count the change in my piggy bank and beg my mom to take it so she could pay her taxes (i didn’t know what taxes meant, i just assumed they were the reason we couldn’t afford nice things).

my safe haven was always my grandparents’ house, which was clean and had semi-healthy food and the door was always open. my grandpa was a high school chemistry teacher. my grandma worked at a bank. growing up, i had no idea what she did at the bank, just that it sponsored all the fun things we did, like going to amusement parks and baseball games. my parents never took my sister and i on vacation, but every year, my grandma would drive us to visit our family in missouri, which, even though it only cost the gas to get there, seemed like a wild indulgence to me.

i started working at 16 so i could have my own money. by 17 i was working illegally full-time and getting paid under the table. then i bought my own car, and shortly after i turned 18 i got my own apartment. even though i could pay my bills, i was still terrified about money. i thought about it all the time. i checked my bank account multiple times a day. i was a cashier at a restaurant and i would often open my drawer and just stare at the money or count it when i was bored.

but i hated working at the restaurant, and one day i thought to myself, how can i keep the money part of this job but lose the food part? then i remembered my grandma’s career at the bank (from which by then she’d retired), and that afternoon i sat down and applied to be a teller at the very same bank. obviously the bank was very large and it wasn’t like my grandma was in management. she worked in ATM operations. nobody on my hiring committee knew who she was, and honestly i have no idea how i got the job.

i stayed a teller through college, working 25ish hours a week. it didn’t pay very well and i was still nervous about money, so i picked up a job altering bridal gowns on evenings and weekends, and also an admin job at my university. so i was working 60ish hours a week, plus going to school full-time and trying to keep up my 4.0. in retrospect, i can’t remember how necessary all this was. i know i was living in an apartment whose rent was higher than i could afford, and i lived with my boyfriend who was struggling to find a job. anyway, it was definitely the lowest time of my life, and i was so exhausted that every day i hoped something horrible would happen to me so i could be hospitalized and rest.

then something horrible did happen. my dad died. and even though everyone in my life was telling me to please dear god take a break, i did not.

i got promoted to business finance, which paid what seemed at the time to be an ungodly amount of money. i was still part-time and finishing up my undergrad degree. once i graduated, i got promoted to full-time. for the first couple years, i really did try to be a banker. i was good at my job only insofar as someone who is left-handed can write with their right hand if forced for long enough. it felt very much like i was in the wrong place, but by that point i had so much unchecked trauma that i had convinced myself the highest human ideal was misery and deprivation. i wish i was kidding. i was the definition of ascetic and martyred myself. i didn’t believe happiness existed. work was all that mattered to me.

then i bought a house. so at this point, i had student loans, a car loan, a mortgage, and credit card debt. after my dad’s death, my mom had to file for bankruptcy because of all the medical bills. she abandoned her house. by this point i was 23, single, in six figures of debt with no familial support net, but i was making decent money at the bank, so it wasn’t like i was drowning. in fact i was doing pretty well. the bank was a rock in my very turbulent life. i got a lot of vacation time that allowed me to travel a bit. i had insurance and a matching 401(k). it was really a decent job.

but the bank was also in many ways an abusive relationship. i don’t mean that metaphorically. i had bosses who manipulated me, insulted me, humiliated me in front of other people. i had one boss who went so far as to look at my checking account and ridicule my purchases. i didn’t have any idea what it meant to stand up for myself or say no. in fact i wasn’t allowed to say no. my job at the bank involved solving other people’s problems. i could never say “i can’t solve that problem.” i could only say “i’ll figure it out.”

i had convinced myself working at the bank was a stable career because it was boring and i hated it. but actually it wasn’t stable at all. after 2008, there were mass layoffs and restructures every year while the bank tried to recover from the recession. i worked for a sales team, and so my job was dependent entirely on whether or not the salespeople did their jobs well. if they didn’t make goal, they’d get fired. if they got fired, i’d get fired.

i started trying to date again and was sexually assaulted. after that i really struggled at work because i was dissociating a lot and couldn’t focus. my team, despite my having worked there for years, instead of being concerned for me decided to start complaining about me to my boss. finally i had to tell a coworker what happened and that i wasn’t doing very well. my team started being a little nicer to me but ultimately they didn’t care about me, they cared about how effective i was at my job. my boss didn’t want to fire me, so instead i was pushed onto another team.

that move came with a raise. then that team was dismantled and i was pushed onto another team. that was a demotion, but i got to keep my raise from the previous move. by then, i was working from home, and even though i was more comfortable i was also very isolated and miserable. my “fulfillment through deprivation” attitude was destroying me. i wasn’t eating well or taking care of myself. i was isolated and lonely. i still didn’t believe happiness was real and i constantly thought about killing myself.

but i had started writing fanfiction, and even though i didn’t think i was any good at it, i was beginning to see a way out. i was beginning to learn how to dream, and want things, and give myself the things i wanted. i just couldn’t imagine leaving the bank, or selling my house, or moving out of my hometown. all of that seemed impossible to me.

then i had to go to a business conference where my team had a retirement party for one of my coworkers. she’d done what i was doing for 45 years. by that point i was at the 9 year mark. i’d spent my entire adult life at the bank. and i realized: the bank benefited from my fear and passivity, and nothing in my life was going to change unless i was willing to make sacrifices.

but i still wasn’t entirely convinced. and then came the day i had to physically hold onto my desk to keep me from killing myself. i didn’t end up trying it, because i had another realization: this was a life or death situation now. if i kept working at the bank, i knew i would die. i knew eventually i would get low enough to do it. i didn’t actually want to die; i wanted an escape and didn’t know what else to do. suddenly i was off the hook. my options were not “financial stability or imminent poverty” but “live or die.”

those were the big epiphanies i had, but the process of actually leaving the bank was a slow one. i wrote a bit about it here. i got into an MFA program basically by telling myself repeatedly i would figure out the money stuff later. when it came time to quit the bank, my boss convinced me to stay on working part-time, with the assumption i would move back to full-time once i’d graduated. i agreed to it, because just trying to quit was enough to convince me i could, and that better things were ahead of me. for a year and a half, i stayed on working two days a week while doing my MFA, which involved both coursework and teaching, and it felt a bit like it did during undergrad, having too many jobs and no time to breathe or think or feel anything.

between my first and second year, i had a looooong overdue mental breakdown. there were a lot of causes, but one of them was spreading myself too thin. shortly after, i quit for good. by then it didn’t feel like a big deal at all, i was so far removed from the work and my team and so focused on my degree. one day i turned on my work laptop and the next day i didn’t. i shipped it back to HQ and it was over.

then i graduated from the MFA and suddenly had to face the consequences of this life i’d chosen. my school kept me on as an adjunct, but it felt like being a ghost. i no longer had the community of my cohort. i had no health insurance. i was given my teaching schedule and a contract to sign, that’s it. there was no guarantee i would be getting classes the following semester, and after a year, that was what happened. i remember sitting in my favorite coffee shop trying not to cry when i got the email that said the department had nothing for me to teach the following semester.

i really wasn’t the same after the breakdown. i went from “i can do anything i put my mind to no matter how hard it is or how much it hurts” to “i have to step carefully, and treat myself gently.” i hadn’t fully realized that yet, though, so i tried to get a Real Job. i got the first and only job i applied to, because i am bad at nearly everything but somehow i’m exceptional in interviews. it wasn’t a bank but it offered the same sort of benefits package. it was a full-time salaried position at a non-profit. if i had found it earlier, i think it would have been my dream job. it was the kind of work you throw yourself into because you care so much about doing good.

i lasted a month. during the first week something happened that triggered me in a way i’m very rarely triggered. i realized i needed disability accommodations, but i needed to go to a doctor to get an assessment and i had to be on the team 60 days in order to get insurance. i thought i could white-knuckle it, and i could, sort of, but every minute i was at work, it felt like i was forced away from the thing i should have been doing. i was constantly trying to write a few paragraphs here and there on my phone when no one was looking. i had to find excuses to take breaks and go to my car and breathe. at one point i told a volunteer i was an english instructor, and she looked at me very confused, and i realized i’d said it in present tense, like it was part of who i was and not a job i did for a while. then finally, my breaking point was an after-hours function. when i left i saw a field full of fireflies and thought about how, if i’d just stayed home, i could have sat outside and enjoyed them all evening, not just a glance at them on the way to my car. i liked the job but it was making me miss all the things i’d learned to love about being alive.

i quit the next day. i’d sold my house by then (which was its own feat) and moved in with my grandma, which hadn’t been a possibility until my grandpa passed away the previous spring. i paid off my car. i figured out finally that i would probably never be able to work full-time again unless it was teaching, and that the downside to this life would be accepting fear and instability, only being able to look ahead one semester at a time. staying open to the opportunities that arise. being a little selfish.

i wrote a bit more about the financial realities of the writing life here. i can’t tell you what you should do, because the path i took definitely isn’t the path for everyone, but i do believe we all owe it to ourselves to pursue our best and happiest lives, because we only get one, and there’s no reason not to live it the way you want to.

#writing advice #the writing life #Anonymous

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buck-nialled · 4 years

Note

Hey I’ve got a request. Was wondering if you could write about the reader finding out she has endometriosis and has to have surgery to remove it and then is scared to talk to Niall about maybe never being able to have a baby. Don’t know if this makes sense but it’s something I’m going through the now xx

sincerely appreciate your patience anon, i hope you like this and are feeling good atm :) <3

NOTE: endometriosis (en-doe-me-tree-O-sis) is a disorder where the tissue lining the inside of the uterus grows on the outside. It can occur in various stages (mininal, mild, moderate, and severe) and can result in excruciating abdominal/pelvic pain during and off menstruation and also infertility.

Dream - N. Horan Imagine

Niall was an old-fashioned man. Despite being born and growing up surrounded by media platforms of all fashions, he was classic in a nutshell. He was one very few would come to know today, who met his wife in person, rather than Tinder. Their first date ended with a hug neither of them wanted to leave, and not his bedroom she would try creeping out of the following morning. The big day took place in an Ireland cathedral; the very same cathedral Niall’s brother was married to his wife.

Amidst your honeymoon, Niall brought up his life plan to you. Of course, it had not been the first time you heard the whole “white-picket-fence, soft cottage” spiel. This was, however, the first time you teared up listening to it. You played it off like the trembling of your lip and quaver of your voice when you said “that sounds perfect” were all from joy. And Niall bought the fib on the spot, pulling your body against his chest and cheering through the whole new caliber of excitement he’s never claimed to reach before.

Today marks precisely a year from that, which Niall had recited many times to be the moment he wanted to “begin trying.” Unfortunately, your period struck you (quite painfully) last week, which made asking for a raincheck impossible. Rather, tonight was when you had to inform him of your decision. You tried everything you could to lighten the blow of the news while he was cleaning up his things at the studio. You cleaned the house yourself, top to bottom through your unwanted pain. You made his favorite meal (which you had decided weeks in advance to make) but elevated the dish with the little amount of culinary skill you possessed. You even went as far as to light a few candles and douse yourself with a perfume you owned that drove him wild.

You wanted the night to end like it usually did, but you knew within you that a little part of Niall’s heart was going to break along with this idea he has fantasized over for years. The moment you laid both of the plates on the table, the front door swung open to reveal Niall with a box of sundry items from the studio, and a guitar case pressed to his back.

“Hey, love is that…” He peered into the kitchen to eye the dishes and take in the familiar aroma of both the meal and your perfume. “I thought we were going out tonight, I wanted to treat you.” He nearly whines, while you just let a small smile overtake your lips.

“You always treat me, Ni. I just wanted tonight to be more…intimate.” The failure to find a better word left you inwardly cringing. But Niall made sure to let you see the rise of his eyebrows and darkening of his eyes clear in the dim light. The candle’s flame did well to flick across his bearded jaw and present his tongue peeking out to wet his lips. With a firm not, he stepped out of the kitchen to go put his things away in your bedroom, while you stood there with a sigh.

You were certain at the doctor’s office. All week long at work, you were drowning your qualms in affirmatory thoughts that this was the best route. But seeing Niall’s blue eyes cast his gaze on you like you were practically glowing with fertility made a hand of yours come up to scrub your face. It made each doubt swamp your insides and impossible to dispel. “Ready to eat, petal?” You drop your hand and glance up when Niall’s frame was back in the kitchen and turned away as he scrubbed his hands in the sink.

“Mhm.” The two of you sat down and began eating with one hand. Your other was locked with his across the table. Soon after the first bite, Niall was moaning in satisfaction over the flavor.

“Damn this is good, baby! Gonna have to pass this recipe on to the family…what’d you do to it?”

The word family made you freeze and let your fork slip from your now shaky hand and clatter onto the tile below.

“Love? Are you alrigh’?” His brows were furrowed in an instant as he squeezed your hand. You reciprocated the action and looked up at him with a blurry shield coating both of your eyes.

“Um…Ni I need to…tell you something.” Your voice was straining through your teeth as it came out in various cracks. His eyes scan your apprehensive figure up and down in concern, and he gave your hand another squeeze as a cue to continue. “You know how I’ve been having painful…periods. You know how they’ve been hurting more than usual?” Niall nods, still looking unsure at your current state. You’ve vocalized plenty of times during your time of the month for close to a year now of how your insides felt to Niall.

At first, it was a mild increase of aches, something you brushed off along with Niall because you were certain it was normal. But as the months went on, it slowly built into anticipation of pure agony when the week from hell began. You were taking pain medication as though it were candy and have had to call out from work more than you would like to admit due to the anguish your abdomen suffered. These previous months, though, you’ve noticed the pain’s prominence at a new level entirely, and how it is present even without your period happening.

“Well…I went to the clinic a couple of weeks ago for tests, and they came back a few days ago. Do you know what endometriosis is?”

Niall felt guilty for not being well-versed with the topic. And you were expecting him to shake his head before he even did. You give a brief explanation of the diagnosis the doctor had given you a few days ago over the phone and let him sit for a few moments to soak in the new information.

“So…what does this mean?” throughout the conversation his hand never left your grasp. It was as tight as ever in your hold.

“Well…my two options were suffering or surgery. I chose the latter…” Niall nods. “But that’s not what the problem is.” He looks up from his plate into your eyes. His blues were wide and afraid of what information could follow up the good news of your pain finally coming to an end. “A possible symptom of endometriosis is infertility. But it’s also a risk factor of surgery. So, I don’t know if I can have kids now or be able to after surgery. My mom was diagnosed with it after having me…the doctor’s told her she only had a twenty percent chance and they thought she was going to lose me within the first trimester.”

Niall remained silent in his chair for a few moments. When he finally found the courage to speak up, he managed to let a single word out. “Oh…”

“Honey, I know you’ve had this big plan in your head. And I know you wanted so badly for the next part to start tonight, but Niall…I can’t live in pain any longer. I don’t know how good my chances are and I don’t know how much they could increase or decline if it does happen. But I don’t want to risk it and get our hopes up…” Your voice broke off in a whisper towards the end, as tears slid down your face in substitution of an explanation you felt guilty giving. “Chances are, I could be more fertile post-surgery but…”

“But you also couldn’t,” Niall concludes. Your streaming eyes look down at your plate of barely touched food as you send him a half-hearted nod from the table. You suck in a sharp breath and bring your hands up to your face immediately after, your grip leaving him to cover your red face dripping with searing tears.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, petal why are you apologizing—”

“Because you wanted this for so long Ni! This was like your biggest dream in the world and I am sitting here crushing it! You don’t deserve this…you don’t deserve me—”

“Stop. Stop right now, don’t even go there.” Niall orders, leaving your voice to drop. He shakes his head as you lift yours to look at him. His hand slides across the table, face-up, and ready to take yours again. When you finally did, the warmth of his grip trapped yours and brought them to the middle of the table once again.

“When I was sixteen my biggest dream was t’ make music. When I was twenty-two and met the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen in my life, my dream changed to making her fall in love with me. For months before I finally popped the question I was dreaming of scenarios in my head of which time and place would be the best to do it.” You stayed silent but felt your insides warming at all of this information. How he could still adore you with his whole heart when it felt like only moments ago you had broken it, was beyond you. “I never planned to be put in a band and go solo afterward with no words spoken. More importantly, I never planned to meet you or propose to you three years after. Things like this creep up on us and we can’t help them. Yes, I did want to have kids of my own but…I do want your health to be a top priority also.”

“Really? Y-you’re not mad?”

“Of course, I’m not mad, love. It’s a little upsetting but shit, it’s the 21st century there are a million ways to have a kid at this point. I don’t care how we have them I just want to have them with you and while you’re healthy.” More tears fall from your eyes, ones which Niall does not hesitate to lean over and brush away with his free hand.

“Oh, and uh…” you sniffle. “we can still have sex and stuff before the surgery, ya know.” You croak, leaving Niall to lightly chuckle from across the table.

“Good to know.”

you can click HERE for my masterlist full of more niall things!

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scenes-in-between · 4 years

Text

Trust No 1 (Part three)

“Who authorizes you? I mean, what gives you the right? Who ARE you?!”

“I’m the future, Agent Scully. And I risked my life being here.”

“Well then why do it? I mean, why meet me?”

“Because you can reach Mulder. Mulder needs to know what I know or he may have no future. Perhaps no one will. Another car is parked on the main road, half a mile out. If I see that you haven’t contacted Mulder in the next 24 hours, I disappear and you never see me again. Do you understand, lady?”

Scully stalks away, seething. All of the theatrics, all of the waste, and for what? A two-minute conversation that raised more questions than it answered? What was the point of any of it?

Scowling, she pulls her phone out of her jacket pocket - because apparently it was absolutely necessary to blow up her clothes and her gun and inspect her watch, but Mr. Mysterious had no qualms about letting her keep her phone? - and punches the speed dial for Monica Reyes. Monica picks up immediately.

“Dana! Thank god. We’ve been trying to reach you all day. Where are you?”

“At the end of a very long and very stupid wild goose chase,” she grumbles. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get in touch earlier. How’s William?”

“He’s just fine. John’s in the kitchen right now heating up a bottle for him.”

“Agent Doggett stayed with you?” she asks, surprised.

“Not the whole day,” Monica says. “After that couple left, he went to the office for a while, but then he came back a few hours ago when we still hadn’t heard from you. Seriously though, where have you been?”

Scully answers with a groan, then gives an abbreviated account of the day’s events as she continues making her way back to the main road. Her foot catches on something in the dark and she stumbles, cursing. Of all the times to be without a flashlight…

When she gets to the part about the car and the remote detonation, Monica says, “Holy hell, Dana! Do you need one of us to come get you?”

“No, he said there’s another car parked up the road. I’m heading toward it now.”

“But are you sure that’s safe?” Monica presses. “What if it’s rigged to explode, too?”

“Whoa, wait, what’s rigged to explode?” Scully hears Doggett say in the background, and she shudders at the thought that she spent the entire day driving around on top of a bomb. However, the fact that she’s still alive right now is a fairly good indicator that she’ll be able to get home safely.

“If he wanted me dead, he had ample opportunity,” she says. “No, what he wants is for me to contact Mulder, which I can’t very well do if I’ve been blown up. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

What she’s not sure of is exactly where she is right now. It became harder and harder to track her relative location after she left the interstate. The very notion of spending who knows how many more hours on the road fills her with a mix of exhaustion and dread, and she’s angry all over again at the phenomenal waste of time today has been.

“Maybe you can help me figure out where I am, though,” she says. “It was too dark to read the street signs, the last couple of turns he told me to make, but I was on Route 17 going north for a while, somewhere between Norfolk and Fredericksburg. It’s not much to go on, but it’s all I’ve got at the moment.”

“I’m on it,” Monica tells her. “Can I use your computer?”

“Of course.”

“Here, you can talk to John while I pull up MapQuest.”

Ahead, Scully can just make out the bulk of a vehicle in the darkness. She reaches to unsnap her holster out of habit and grimaces when her fingers catch nothing but the fabric of her waistband.

In her ear, Doggett barks, “What in the heck’s going on? Where’ve you been all day, and why is Monica talking about things being rigged to explode?”

Scully sighs. “I’m going to let her fill you in on the details because I would just as soon not go through it all again right now. Short answer is that I’m fine, just tired and frustrated. I’ll be on my way home soon, hopefully. I want to thank you, though, for helping to look after William. I really do appreciate it.”

“Well, you’re welcome, but I didn’t do all that much. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

She approaches the car, again wishing she had a flashlight. It’s too dark to see anything through the rear windows, but the front of the car at least appears to be empty. Cautiously, she reaches for the door handle; it’s unlocked, and the interior light comes on when she opens the door. There’s a piece of paper on the driver’s seat.

“Son of a bitch,” she murmurs, picking it up.

“Agent Scully?”

“You can tell Agent Reyes that I don’t need her help after all. I’ve been left a map.”

“A map?” Doggett asks. “So where are you?”

Thirty miles. She is all of thirty miles from Fredericksburg. It is going to take her less than two hours to get home. It could have taken her less than two hours to get here. Of all the stupid, pointless, absolutely and completely asinine...

“Just a bit southeast of Fredericksburg,” she says tightly, glancing at her watch. “I should be home by nine.”

“All right then. Be careful.”

“Yeah.”

***

This isn’t the first time Monica has been asked to watch William, but it is the first time she’s had to try and put him to bed.

And he is not having it.

She’s never seen him like this. She’s never felt him like this; William’s energy is always vibrant -- she’s known that since the night he was born -- but it’s usually contained, like the potential energy in a compressed spring. Tonight, it’s like a storm, howling around him as he wails in her arms.

“I don’t know what’s wrong. Should we call Dana?”

John chuckles at her, evidently unconcerned, because of course he can’t feel what she feels.

“There’s nothing wrong. And there’s nothing she could do even if there was. He’s just tired.”

“No, John, I’m telling you, something is--”

“Here,” he says, holding out his hands. “I’ll show you.”

She passes the squirming baby to her partner and steps back, nerves jangling. John gathers William against his chest and starts to walk around the living room, gently bouncing him while murmuring softly. At first, Monica can’t hear what he’s saying over the sound of William’s cries, but as the boy gradually quiets, John’s words become clearer.

“There you go, easy does it, your mama’s gonna be home soon, don’t you worry, atta boy…”

He’s asleep within minutes, energy storm subsided. Monica shakes her head, a little abashed at having so comprehensively misread the situation.

“You were right,” she says quietly.

“Eh, nothing I hadn’t seen before, that’s all.” He doesn’t meet her eyes, his gaze still trained on the top of William’s head as he slows the bouncing to a gentle sway. “Luke certainly did his share of fussing.”

She didn’t know him then, of course. She’s only ever known him as a grieving father; this is the first time she’s gotten a glimpse of what he was like as a dad, and it makes her unexpectedly emotional.

“I’m gonna see if I can go put him down,” he says, and she nods, watching him go before turning to pick up the few scattered toys and take William’s dinner bottle back to the kitchen.

***

By the time she has retrieved her own car from where she left it parked this morning, after stewing on the whole drive home and running through the day’s various cryptic conversations over and over, Scully has come to three conclusions.

Number one: nearly everything that man claimed to know about her, he could have learned by bugging her apartment and going through her garbage bins. What did he really give her that was concrete? Knowing her clothing size seemed eerie at first, until she remembered the receipts she’s thrown away from a handful of recent shopping trips. Her childhood clown phobia? She and her mom were laughing about that in her living room a month or so ago. The rest of it -- resting heart rate, ATM pin, college boyfriend, et cetera -- was only specific enough to seem unnerving without actually proving that he knew any of it.

Her emails to Mulder would require some additional access, but that could be as simple as someone following her to the cafe. It’s probably one of the “regulars” that she -- blithely, it would seem -- dismissed as a potential threat.

Number two: while her apartment has definitely been under surveillance, apparently for quite a while, Mulder’s has not. The “one lonely night” the man mentioned? She’s reasonably certain he was referring to the night she asked Mulder to stay after the IVF failed, and that was not their first time together. If, as he said, the events of that night surprised him, then he could not have known about what they had already been doing at Mulder’s place. Or, for that matter, what they had been doing at her place before that night. So now she also knows approximately when the surveillance actually began.

Number three: if this man genuinely does have useful intel about super soldiers -- and that is an extraordinarily big “if” -- then it may in fact be worthwhile to call Mulder home. The idea terrifies and thrills her in almost equal measure. On the one hand, there is nothing she wants more than to have him home. Nothing. But on the other, if she has miscalculated, and calling him out of hiding only ends up getting him killed, she will never forgive herself.

In the end, it is Agent Doggett’s words from yesterday that settle the issue for her. If we know who these super-soldiers are we can go after them. This is somebody giving us a way that can make it safe for Mulder to come home.

How else are you going to get him home?

It’s a risk, possibly a big one, but ultimately, it’s one she has to take. He has been gone for almost seven months. This is the first time in those nearly seven months that there has even been a chance he might be able to come home. If she lets this chance go by, how much more time will pass before they get another one?

She walks into her apartment having made up her mind. There is a giddy, fluttery feeling in her stomach that is only temporarily eclipsed by ravenous hunger as she steps through the door and the smell of Thai food envelops her. Reyes and Doggett look up from where they’re sitting, at her kitchen table, takeout cartons amassed between them.

“Hope you don’t mind, we got takeout,” Reyes says, standing. “We didn’t know if you’d have a chance to eat, but if you’re hungry, there’s a bunch left.”

The last thing she ate was a bag of almonds from the gas station, hours and hours ago. To say she’s hungry is a massive understatement.

“Mind? I could kiss you both right now.”

Doggett’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, and Reyes laughs. “I’ll get you a plate.”

Scully nods. “I’m just going to change and wash up.”

On her way to the bedroom, she grabs a plastic bag from the closet. The likelihood is slim that there will be much in the way of usable trace evidence on the clothes she’s wearing, but it would be irresponsible not to even look. She opens the bedroom door quietly so as not to wake William; by the soft glow of the bedside lamp, she can see him sleeping peacefully in his crib, and she smiles, some of the tension from the day melting away. Though she would love a shower, she's too hungry, so she settles for changing into sweats, carefully folding and bagging the "borrowed" outfit, then washes her hands and face before heading back to the kitchen.

Doggett and Reyes have tidied up their dishes and are in the process of putting on coats and shoes.

"We'll let you get some rest," Reyes says, though she’s looking at Doggett when she does. “Whatever else you might have to tell us about what happened today can wait until tomorrow.”

“Unless,” Doggett adds, in a tone that sounds like he’s continuing an argument from earlier, “there’s anything you think we need to know now. Or if you don’t feel safe staying here alone, knowing that this Shadow Man may well have eyes and ears on you.”

“Is that what we’re calling him?” Scully asks, arching one eyebrow. “Look, I appreciate the offer, but I’ll be fine. As violating as it feels to be surveilled by some NSA creep--” she emphasizes the words, fully assuming that she’s being listened to right now “--I don’t have any reason to believe that William and I are not safe here.”

“Well I still don’t like it,” Doggett says, frowning. “Why don’t you let us post a couple agents out front, just in case?”

“I really don’t think that’s necess--”

“That’s a good idea, actually,” Reyes interjects, then drops her voice to a murmur. “Especially in light of what happened this morning. We know you can take care of yourself, Dana, but we also don’t know exactly what we’re up against, here. Maybe the answer is to try and watch the watchers, find out who they are, see if we can figure out who else the Shadow Man is working with.”

Scully sighs but has to admit that’s a sensible course of action. Either the knowledge that she’s being watched over will deter this so-called Shadow Man and his associates, or it won’t, in which case they could be exposed and identified.

“All right,” she agrees.

“Good,” Doggett says. “I’ll take first watch until I can get someone else over here.”

As soon as they leave, Scully makes herself a plate of food and takes it to her computer desk. If the Shadow Man is able to access her emails even when she sends them from the internet cafe, it seems pointless to wait until morning to write to Mulder. The giddy feeling from earlier comes rushing back as she types.

Mr. Hale,

I am overjoyed to tell you that circumstances appear to have changed. Exercise caution, but put the plan in motion. I cannot wait to see you.

All my love,

Dana

She clicks “send” with her heart in her throat, wondering where Mulder is and when he’ll be able to read her message. How long it might take for him to make the necessary arrangements and begin the journey home. He could be in her arms as early as tomorrow, a notion that seemed impossible just 24 hours ago.

She powers down the computer -- according to their plan, his next communication will come via text message from a burner phone -- and picks up her plate to finish eating in the kitchen. A glance out the window as she stands up reveals Agent Doggett sitting in his truck across the street, cell phone held to his ear. She sighs, regretting the additional work and worry she’s given her former partner but also deeply grateful that he’s got her back, he and Reyes both. She appreciates them more than she can say.

With any luck, all of this will soon be over. Mulder will come home, the Shadow Man will give him the information they need to take down the super-soldiers, and things can go back to… well… “normal” for them, anyway. It’s maybe too much to hope for, but right now, she will allow herself to be comforted by the fantasy, at least for a little while. When she finally crawls into bed, later, she falls asleep with her cell phone on the pillow beside her, imagining the sensation of being wrapped securely in Mulder’s arms.

***

“Holy shit,” he breathes, reading her email for the third time.

The library’s just about to close, and he had checked his email one last time before leaving, more out of impulse than any actual expectation that there would be anything there. The surprise of a new email was immediately eclipsed by the surprise over its contents.

Home. He can go home. He and Gibson both, even. No more hiding in the desert. No more ache of longing binding his stomach and keeping him from sleep. It almost sounds too good to be true, but she called him Mr. Hale, the code phrase they established before he left so he’d be able to tell a genuine summons from a trap. This is the real deal.

Which means the threat is past. Maybe Skinner cut a deal, hell, maybe Kersh did. Who knows? Who cares?! He gets to go home!

The grin on his face is massive as he logs off and heads for the door.

***

“You’re leaving," Gibson says, before Mulder has even closed the front door behind himself. "You promised you wouldn’t. But I guess I shouldn’t have expected you to keep that promise.”

It's still weird, Gibson knowing what he's thinking about before he's even said anything, but it doesn't throw him for a loop the way it used to.

“No, we’re leaving, Gibson. Both of us.”

Gibson scoffs. “You know I’m not going anywhere. It’s not safe. You might be able to outrun them if they catch us, but I--”

“Scully said it’s safe. And yes, I’m sure the message really was from her.”

Gibson stares hard at him and Mulder thinks as forcefully and loudly and clearly as he can.

We can both be free. I swear. I will protect you.

“I believe that you believe that,” Gibson says finally. “But I don’t think either of us knows for sure whether that’s really true.”

“Look, I know you’re scared. And you’re right that there are no guarantees. But for the first time since I left Washington, there is at least a chance that it’s safe for us to get out of here. If we don't take it, I don't know when another one is gonna come along. Do you really want to hide here for the rest of your life?"

"If it doesn't mean dying horribly and having my head karate chopped off by an alien replicant? Yeah. I'm fine with that."

Mulder’s thoughts flicker, involuntarily, to Dr. Parenti’s severed head in a jar, to the gash in Skinner’s forehead, to his own memory of being hurled across Parenti’s lab by Billy Miles.

“Exactly,” says Gibson. “I’m not letting that happen to me.”

“I trust Scully,” Mulder says, thinks. “She wouldn’t call me home if it wasn’t safe. She’s too smart and too cautious to take a risk like that.”

This, at last, seems to convince him, if only somewhat. He may not trust Mulder’s judgment, but he apparently trusts Scully’s, at least enough to finally sigh and say, “Okay. I hope you’re right.”

Despite Gibson’s reluctance, it takes almost no time at all to pack. They don’t have much to take, not bothering with spare clothes. Mulder shoves the stuff he printed about Mount Weather into his backpack, along with a little food, the fake IDs from the Gunmen and all of their remaining cash. They’re out the door and on the road in less than twenty minutes.

On the way to the train station, Mulder stops to gas up the motorcycle and buy four prepaid cell phones from the convenience store. Two hours later, as they’re getting ready to board the train that will take them eastward, Mulder types Scully’s number into the first phone and sends a single-word text message.

“Midnight.”

Once the message sends, he opens the back of the phone, pockets the battery, and tosses the phone in a garbage can.

#x-files fanfic #TXF: Trust No 1 #scullyfic #mulderfic #gibson praise #monica whalesong reyes #john doggett #msr #mulder on the run #a/n: this installment of scenes in between was originally going to be in two parts #and then it turned into three #aaaaaand now it's gonna be four #there are just too many gaps to fill in #hopefully no one minds ;)#i promise it won't take me as long to finish and post part four #as it did to finish and post part three

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painted-crow · 4 years

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Submission Time #9

Hi, Paint! Thank you so much for letting your inbox available and taking time out of your day to read this <3 I’ll try my best to make it as short as possible, but I do tend to talk too much, so I’m sorry if this turns out a bit long. Also, sorry about my English hehe.

No way, this is really clear and well-written! You've made things easy for me here ^^

Well, guess I’ll start with what I do know sorting wise! I’m a Snake Primary with a Lion model and one thing I’m very aware of about my secondary is a Bird model that I use for basically everything lol. I think my actual secondary burned sometime around my teens and I’ve been living in this model ever since. I like it, it’s very fun and incredibly useful, but doesn’t really feel like me, you know? Getting things done can end up a bit frustrating at times, especially when I’m overthinking everything and making some half-assed planning I'll most likely end up throwing away at some point.

Okay, so leaning towards one of the Improvisational secondaries. Cool :)

When looking at other secondaries tho, I relate to some aspects of them, but not the core thing about them, if it makes any sense. I mean, I understand that as complex humans we won't relate to our sortings 100% all the time, but it seems like the key characteristic is always missing.

Like Lion, for example. I’ve been told I can give some pretty inspirational speeches and a few times after project presentations classmates told me I should probably get into theater or become a coach lmao. I’ve always been a bit of an improviser, too? I don’t tend to think much before presentations, usually there's just a guideline and then I come up with all the nice words on the spot. I seem to be able to do and learn things rather intuitively too, like getting high scores on essays about books I didn’t read or on tests I barely studied for, if at all. And still have no idea how I did that...

Almost certainly an Improvisational secondary, then. Not sure which. Either that or you have two models happening.

But the actual Lion thing, the need for integrity and being myself at all times? I don’t have it. That "inspirational" bit people mention is probably more related to me being rather good with words and voice intonation, it doesn’t necessarily come from a place of genuineness. It does feel more like a performance, I'm actively trying to be entertaining and catch people's attention while explaining the subject. Guess I also prefer to take more indirect approaches to solve problems, rather than charging.

So it sounds like Lion is less of a thing for you. Let's think about Snake instead.

As for Badger, I think there’s at least some performance going on. The thing about getting unprompted confessions and having people randomly asking for favors? Happens pretty often. I consider myself more fluid too, and I relate more to the Badger description of “mirroring” than the Snake thing of becoming someone that’s “charming” for a certain person. Especially because social cues aren’t exactly my forte haha. So it’s easier to go along with and reciprocate whatever vibe the person is giving off. I’m definitely not a community builder tho. Relying on people makes me anxious and I generally feel more comfortable with smaller groups. I would say I'm a caretaker, but that's it.

I don't think Snakes would have a hard time mirroring if they wanted to. A Snake who wants to give off chill vibes can (consciously or subconsciously) just decide to do the Badger mirror thing. And if you do that a lot, then yes, people are going to feel safe around you and you get the random confessions thing.

That's not to say you don't have any Badger, though.

The hardworking and showing up part are definitely tools I’ve used before and it’s what helped me get hired for jobs more than once now. Work ethic is important, but I guess I focus too much on the end results and “work smarter, not harder” is not a philosophy I tend to go against. As long as I can still be efficient and provide good results, I don’t mind taking shortcuts. In fact, it would feel a little selfish to me to keep up a slower, less updated method if I can be more productive and finish things faster by trying something different (really hope I'm not offending anyone by saying this, it's just a personal view).

"Tools" is the word you use, and I know you said you're thinking your secondary is Burned, but it's interesting how neutrally you talk about this. You don't seem emotionally invested in Badger, either as part of your identity or with those complex mixed feelings Burned Houses often have.

Maybe you use Badger sometimes as a performance, but from the sound of it, it doesn't feel like it's yours.

Finally, Snake. The parts where Badgers and Snakes overlap are definitely the ones I relate to the most. But, like Snakes, I don’t need to believe what I’m saying to make it work. I only have to believe I’m being convincing enough haha. The less I think about it, the better.

Hmm. I was already leaning towards Snake for you, but I wonder if "the less I think about it, the better" isn't a leftover habit you have from pushing Snake aside to use Bird. I'm probably reading too much into this.

When I was younger I used to take some pride in being a pretty good "“liar"”, but I don’t know why I started feeling like people can see right through me? That they’ll think I’m always faking everything and can’t be trusted.

Ooh, imposter syndrome. Fun.

So, you used to take pride in this, but you started feeling like you weren't good at using Snake? And you're thinking your old secondary might be Burned.

Anxiety™ definitely doesn’t help with that, however I started wondering if part of it comes from having a very, *very* loud Lion secondary mom and she always expected our relationship to be open and honest. I’m glad I can be like that with her, I even agree that when the matter is important enough, you should be honest and communicate with your loved ones.

So there's a family/community expectation that conflicts with your using Snake...

But when being so open in general isn’t in my nature and I have to force myself to be a little more like her…. Maybe I internalized that being indirect and reserved is inherently bad and I feel guilty when that’s precisely my first instinct.

So, Lion REALLY isn't your thing. I'm very much leaning towards Snake for you.

But as I said, I’m not a people charmer. More like a negotiator, maybe. And reading some Snake secondary statements, it does come across as a little… “extreme” to me. Like having multiple accounts with personas that don’t overlap? I have three atm, with a lot of overlapping, and it already feels overwhelming lmao.

There isn't a set way to use the secondaries. Snake in particular is very adaptable and it's definitely up to you how you use it. The specifics of how other Snakes use their secondary aren't a requirement for you to be one.

"Negotiator" absolutely is a form Snake can have, and if you can identify yourself with a fluid, reactive word like that, then that's a hopeful sign that you're un-Burning.

And the world better watch out when you do... A Snake with a strong Bird model? Hell yes, that's a combination :D

I wrote this trying to sort myself more than anything, but at the end of the day, guess I’m still a bit lost. If I had to pick one… Maybe I’m closer to being a Badger…. A very impatient one, if that's possible.

Aww, hon, your mom just doesn't realize how awesome Snakes can be.

I think you're slowly recovering your Snake, but you're only letting yourself adapt in ways that look Badger, because Badger is safe and socially acceptable. Especially to your family... you said you're a Snake primary and if your mom is Important to you in a loyalties way, you might find that changes how you treat your Houses.

Anyways, I was curious to know what your considerations would be! Once again, thank you so much for taking the time to read all of this mess and commenting on it. Hope you stay safe and have a great week!

This was very articulate and not a mess at all ^^ hope this helps!

-Paint

#sortinghatchats #shc secondaries #ravenclaw secondary model #burned slytherin secondary #shc burned houses #submissions #paint speaks #q #submission

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artificialqueens · 3 years

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I Just Wanna Dance With You, 1/2 (Branjie) - Athena2

Summary:

Brooke and Vanessa work at the same strip club, and Brooke takes Vanessa under her wing to help her out. But when business at the club slows and Vanessa desperately needs money, they resort to a risky scam to stay afloat.

(Hustlers au)

A/N:

Hustlers au is here! I honestly came very close to writing this last year, but decided to do Mateo’s Eight instead. It was really fun to finally take this on, and there are a lot of people to thank for this one! First off, thanks to thackeryisatop for posting about this idea, and then to Ortega for nominating that I write it. They were both super encouraging and open of me taking on the idea, and I really appreciate it. Also, thank you so much to Writ for betaing and supporting me with all of this, especially because this fic is so different from what I normally write.

I’ll be honest here: writing smut is not my thing, so there WILL NOT be any explicit sexual content in this. I wanted the sexier aspects to be vague/implied and just parts of the overall vibe. This also does differ from the movie a bit—I streamlined certain parts of the plot and removed others entirely, so it won’t follow it exactly. Regardless, you don’t need to know the movie to read this. I really hope you enjoy, and I’d appreciate any feedback you have. I’ll have the second part out as quick as I can with school starting soon.

Title from Gimme More by Britney Spears.

—

Every night, Vanessa leaves A’keria and Silky in the noisy dressing room, settles herself among half-drunk business men that are sleaze wrapped in suits, and watches her.

Every eye in the place stays locked on the stage as Britney Spears trickles over the speakers and she emerges in a glittery red panty set that matches her lips perfectly, long legs encased in fishnets that make them even longer, show off the beauty beneath those thin strands of lace. She flips her blonde hair and drops into a split that makes the men cheer, bills fluttering like confetti.

The dim stage lights brighten in the face of someone worth watching, casting a golden glow as the woman grips the pole and spins herself around. Vanessa watches with the rest of the men, jealousy curling in her stomach as they throw fresh-from-the-ATM bills stamped with double digits and pictures of old men who were just as rich as they are. Bills they don’t give Vanessa.

The woman calls herself Destiny, though Vanessa knows it’s not her real name. With the way men let their money-stained hands linger on her pale skin as they tuck bills inside her fishnets, Vanessa doesn’t blame her for using a fake name. Hell, Vanessa uses a fake name, and she’s nowhere near as popular.

Destiny leaves the stage, blowing kisses to the men still cheering. She always heads to the roof of the club in between her performances and sessions in the private rooms, and tonight, Vanessa follows, chasing that magic and mystery of her, wanting tonight to be the night she finds out more.

Destiny gazes out at the city, looking more like a person out here than she does inside, where the stage makes her a goddess. In the night air, you could almost believe she’s human. Then that eyebrow raises as she takes in Vanessa, and she’s an angel again.

“Where’s your coat?” Destiny asks.

“Left it inside.” Vanessa shivers as chilly air hits her.

“Here.” Destiny opens up her coat, a massive faux fur thing big enough for both of them.

Vanessa slips inside, her arm searing where it presses against Destiny’s. She hopes Destiny can’t feel her heart racing. Destiny has always seemed untouchable, so effortlessly beautiful that it’s slightly intimidating, especially with how she finishes her makeup before anyone else and returns with fistfuls of cash. She’s a pro, an idol to the newer girls like Vanessa, and as much as Vanessa has wanted to talk to her, get close to her, she hasn’t quite worked up the nerve. But she has the courage now, and Destiny’s face is warm and kind as she huddles beside Vanessa.

“Did you like what you saw?”

“What?” Vanessa’s face warms, because even though A’keria and Silky tease her every night and warned her that Destiny would catch her spying eventually, she didn’t really believe them.

Red lips pull into a wicked smile. “Did you like what you saw? I always see you out there with your mouth wide open, you better hope no flies come in—“

“My mouth wasn’t open that wide,” Vanessa protests feebly.

“Uh-huh.” Destiny winks, actually winks, and Vanessa has to grip the edge of the building to stay upright.

“How do you do it?” She blurts.

“Do what?”

Vanessa sighs. “You make more in one number than I do all weekend. How do you do it?”

Vanessa needs that money, needs it more than she’d care anyone to know. And no matter how much she flips her hair and winks and smiles, the money just doesn’t come the way it does for Destiny. Vanessa wants to be bitter, but she can’t deny how much Destiny deserves what she gets. Vanessa just doesn’t understand why she can’t get it too, why bills fly for Destiny but have to be wrestled from sweaty hands for her.

Destiny bites her lip, lipstick so perfect it doesn’t even get messed up. “Vanjie, right?”

Vanessa nods. “My real name is Vanessa.” She’s not sure why she says it. Maybe because underneath that perfect makeup, she knows Destiny is trustworthy somehow. Or maybe because she just wants this woman to know her, know the real person she is beyond her makeup and boots and lacy gloves.

“Vanessa,” Destiny repeats, and the name seems more special on her lips. “To answer your question, I don’t know how I do it. It helps if you treat them like friends, I guess.”

Vanessa nods. It seems so simple, but she hasn’t mastered it, can’t think of clients as anything but clients whose money she needs to help her mom. “I wish I could,” she mutters.

Destiny sighs. “Look, you’re beautiful, Vanessa,” she says, and Vanessa’s stomach leaps. “And that’s what they want–an escape with a beautiful girl. They want the fun, and that’s what you have to give, not the reminder that you’re gonna pay your bills with their tips.”

Vanessa’s heart sinks. Destiny is right.

She looks at Vanessa with the brightest green eyes Vanessa’s ever seen, smooth yet sharp like pieces of sea glass. They’re a part of her you can’t get from the stage, something you can only see if you’re close enough to her. The real person, not the illusion. “I’ll tell you what. Can you come here early tomorrow?”

Vanessa nods.

Destiny smiles, and that smile, like everything else, lures Vanessa in. “Good. I’ll teach you.”

“Thanks, Des—“

“And call me Brooke.”

—-

Vanessa doesn’t know what she’s gotten herself into when she walks into the club early the next night. It’s strange to be here during the day, the overhead lights revealing scuffs in the tables and the straws and trash littering the sticky floor. The illusion is gone, and the club is just a cold room rather than the warm fantasy it promises at night.

Brooke is in leggings and a white tank top that shows off the firm muscles peeking beneath her skin. She’s softer somehow, gentler without the hard rhinestones and blinding glitter she’s usually armored in.

“Hey, Vanessa,” Brooke says.

“Hey.”

“You ready?”

Vanessa nods firmly. “There won’t be a test or anything after, right? I’m not so good at tests.”

“There might be.” Brooke gives a mischievous wink and points to a black chair right before the stage. “Sit there. I’m gonna do one of my routines for you. Watch me, okay? Watch how I dance just for you, like me and you are the only ones here.”

“Me and you are the only ones here.” Vanessa grins, swallowing hard against the idea of them being alone.

Brooke rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean. It’s just us here now, and you want every client to feel like it’s just you and them.”

Vanessa nods, and then Brooke takes the stage. She shakes out her arms and stretches her long legs, grips the pole, and begins.

The change is jarring–she’s not Brooke anymore; she’s Destiny, both the person and the thing itself, the thing mesmerizing men and making them want to spend hundreds on her, because she’s their destiny. She’s equal parts danger and dangerous, a lit cigarette just begging you to take hold and breathe her in, even if you know it’s wrong.

Watching her this close, Vanessa is mesmerized. If she had money, she would throw every cent on the stage, but it’s more than that. It’s the way each movement is light and delicate, the way she holds you in her gaze and smiles right at you, the way she rests a hand on Vanessa’s shoulder and makes her shiver. Vanessa wants to reach out and touch her, pull her into bed and sleep beside her, all because of this dance.

“Now, these are moves for the pole, okay?” Brooke’s voice snaps Vanessa out of her dream.

She does her best to focus as Brooke shows her the different grips and spins, coaching her to smile and shake her hair through them all.

“What if I don’t have muscles?” Vanessa asks, pointing to her arms. They’re not flabby, but there’s no way in hell she can pull herself up like Brooke.

“You have muscles!” Brooke insists.

“I don’t.”

Suddenly Brooke’s hand is in hers, pulling her onstage. “Come on, you try,” Brooke coaxes. “I’ll spot you. You won’t fall, I promise.” The danger is gone and she’s just Brooke now, and Vanessa trusts the promise even if it might burn her later.

She grips the pole and pulls herself up, following Brooke’s orders to point her toes and smile as she spins around, and she’s flying. She’s a fairy flying through the air, drunk on Brooke’s smile and flashing her own to the invisible crowd.

With a burst of courage, Vanessa climbs, shimmying and twisting her way up, muscles burning. Brooke’s hands are waiting below, strong and sturdy and just waiting to catch her, and some part of Vanessa wants to fall and let those hands do what they’re waiting for. Let those hands touch her and hold her tight. But she also wants to make Brooke proud, show her she can do this, and Vanessa pulls herself up with a massive grunt.

“Lose the grunt at the end and you’re golden,” Brooke praises as Vanessa slides down, steadying hands cupping Vanessa’s hips and making her heart skip a beat.

“Will do.” They perch themselves on the edge of the stage, and Vanessa watches her legs swing a much shorter arc than Brooke’s and can’t help but smile.

“Were you at any clubs before this?” Brooke asks.

“No. This is my first … y’know … job.”

Brooke nods.

“I never really planned on this,” Vanessa continues. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it! I just–I have a day job, and my mom is sick and outta work, so she lost her work insurance, and I started doing this to get more money to cover her treatments.”

“I get it,” Brooke says. “Sorry to hear about your mom.”

“Thanks.” Vanessa sighs. She’s glad Brooke didn’t pry, because she’s sick of talking about her mom’s illness, sick of thinking about it and how it might take her mom away from her. She wants to focus on Brooke instead, because Brooke takes the weight of it all off Vanessa’s shoulders somehow. “What about you? You’ve been here a while, right?”

“You saying I look old?” Brooke teases.

“No, no! Just that you’re so good,” Vanessa says quickly.

“Nice save.” Brooke smiles, though it quickly turns to a frown. “I, uh, I used to dance with the city ballet. You hit 25 in ballet, and you’re basically ancient. I left the company five years ago and decided to keep dancing, make some good money.”

Vanessa nods, because Brooke’s toned muscles and delicate grace make sense now, another piece of the puzzle that adds up to her. And this close to Brooke, intoxicated by her perfume and the soft curves of her shoulder, Vanessa wants to find more pieces.

“Think we can do this again tomorrow?” Vanessa asks.

Brooke grins. “You got it.”

—-

Nina marches over to Brooke’s station like a woman on a mission. She’s the only decent one of the club’s owners, and would happily take things over herself if she could get the other owners to give up control. She’s a mother to the girls, always ready with a listening ear, and the click of her heels over the tile is comforting, a sound everyone counts on when they need help.

“Am I hearing things, or have you made a friend?”

Brooke sighs. “Well …“

“Brooke made a friend! Kam, Pri, Brooke made a friend!”

Kameron and Priyanka crowd around Brooke’s station, whispering in excitement. Brooke groans and hides her face in her hands.

“A friend, and she’s not even imaginary?” Priyanka squeals. “I’m so proud of you, Brookie!”

“I didn’t think I’d see the day you made friends besides us,” Kameron says.

“You’re one to talk,” Brooke shoots back. “Have you texted little Miss Asia yet—“

“Yeah, you never shut up about her,” Priyanka says.

“That’s enough of that.” Kameron quickly returns to her makeup, and Priyanka follows, using the opportunity to make fun of Kameron instead.

Brooke sighs, finally facing Nina’s broad grin. “Look, I think Vanessa’s nice. She—she reminds me of myself, when I started. Figured I’d give her some tips, look out for her.”

“You mean look at her.”

“Nina,” Brooke whines. She’s had her eye on Vanessa since she started here, she’ll admit that. Vanessa is absolutely beautiful, one of the most beautiful women Brooke’s ever seen. There’s real joy and passion in her, the kind you can’t teach, can’t really find in many people. Vanessa is a breath of fresh air over dirty money and sickly-sweet liquor, and Brooke’s had more fun with her than she has in a while. She wants to help Vanessa, make sure she keeps herself safe from the darker aspects of the club and uses the lighter parts to her advantage. Make sure she doesn’t lose that joy. Brooke’s just helping, that’s all.

“I’m just teasing, Brooke,” Nina says fondly, rolling her eyes. “It’s good that you’re getting to know her. She seems great, from what I’ve seen.”

“She is.” Vanessa really is, and Brooke can’t help but marvel at how quickly she picked up Brooke’s steps, how beautiful and free she is in her routines.

Not that Brooke has feelings for her or anything. She’s just helping.

—

Brooke decides to give Vanessa the lowdown at their next practice. Her knowledge of clients is based on years of collecting information, from each leather wallet pulled from a tailored suit to each set of eyes that seek to own her. She knows how things at the club work, and when you know the rules, you can play the game.

“There are three levels of clients,” she explains to Vanessa. “The ones at the bottom are so desperate for power, to be on top, that they’ll break out hundreds if you smile. Guys in the middle are… in the middle. They don’t do much one way or another.”

Vanessa nods, eyes wide as she waits for the rest. Brooke can’t help the thrill in her heart at having Vanessa’s eyes on nothing but her, soaking in her every word. Part of Brooke has always liked the thrill and rush of attention, whether on a fancy theatre stage in silk or a sticky club stage in fishnets. But the thrill is that more intense and intoxicating in the form of Vanessa, in the form of letting someone close to her, close enough to know her name and not the persona she creates.

“The ones on top—they’re the ones who blow thousands a night and it doesn’t even make a dent. They have a private entrance, but even if they got caught, they’d never see the consequences. They want attention, want you to show off for them. They’ll treat you like dirt but pay you like you’re gold, and you can milk them for every cent they’re worth. That’s where the real money is.”

Brooke has found her success, found a nice apartment with more than enough space for her and her cats, found security in her life, all from the bills those men in the top tier slide her way. With practice, Vanessa can get that same success.

Vanessa nods again. “I think I always get the middle guys. They all look the same. Like someone copy-pasted them or somethin’.”

Brooke snorts loudly, a far cry from the gentle laughs she does for her clients. This is her real laugh, one that hardly anyone can wrestle from her.

“Hey,” Vanessa says suddenly, “do you have time to get coffee? Then we can talk somewhere nicer than this.”

Brooke just smiles.

—

The more Vanessa watches Brooke, the more tiny signs of the real her poke through her mask of makeup and confidence. There’s the way she starts chewing on a cuticle, before looking at her manicured black nails and immediately stopping, or how she spills some coffee over the edge of her mug after an enthusiastic nod. It’s like getting a peek behind the curtain, and Vanessa is going to treasure each glimpse she can get.

It’s nice to be here and just talk to Brooke, free of dazzling lights. At the club, there’s idle gossip in the dressing room, and it’s fun, but it’s not personal. It’s a way to pass the time between numbers and client sessions, to laugh before they go out there. But now she gets to just talk to Brooke without interruptions, her heart racing with each of Brooke’s smiles.

“You said you had another job, right?” Brooke asks.

Vanessa nods.

“So, what do you do?”

“I do makeup at a department store. I like it, you know? Getting to talk to people, make them feel good.” Vanessa smiles to herself at the thought of all the clients that have sat in her makeup chair, their grins at how confident they felt after her help. “The pay is okay, but not enough for things like medical bills.”

“I get it,” Brooke says. “I’m glad you like it, though.”

“Yeah. Once I get enough money here, I should be good with just that job.” Vanessa pauses, glancing over the strange look of sadness on Brooke’s face that quickly disappears. Is Brooke sad about the idea of her leaving, or something else? Brooke doesn’t talk too much about herself, but Vanessa wants to know more about the old Brooke that used to dance, and maybe she’ll talk. “Did you have any jobs besides ballet?”

“No.” Brooke takes a sip of coffee. “I went right from that to this, and the pay’s been enough that I don’t need anything else. Don’t really know what I’d do anyway.”

Brooke still seems a little upset, and Vanessa decides not to press anymore. She really can’t see Brooke doing anything else, if she’s being honest. There’s just something about the way she moves, like the whole world aligns and stops for a moment when she’s dancing. It’s magical, and Vanessa’s heart leaps just at the thought. She changes the conversation to the cat she’s thinking of getting, and things are okay.

—

It’s a week later that Vanessa gets her first top-tier client. From what Brooke’s taught her, Vanessa is getting better at recognizing them. Every inch of their outfit is expensive, from coat to shoes. Their walk is firm and confident like they own the place. And they hold out hundreds with the casual air of a dollar bill.

She walks past the hall’s dim red floor lights, each one illuminating a plain black door. Vanessa takes a breath before the room she’s using and reminds herself to be like Brooke, to give the man attention, like he’s the only one she’s doing this for, even if she’s already done it tonight. Vanessa walks in, and she walks out with over a thousand dollars.

Rinse and repeat.

—

“It’s working, huh?”

Vanessa looks up from the stack of bills she’s struggling to stuff into her knee-high black boots. Brooke stands next to her, grinning smugly, while Brooke’s friend–Vanessa’s pretty sure the redhead with the muscles and tattoos is Kameron–grins behind her, giving Brooke a push until she bumps into Vanessa.

Vanessa laughs as Brooke swats Kameron away and turns back to her. “It sure is working,” Vanessa says. “Got so much money I can’t even get it in my boots.”

“Can I help?”

Vanessa nods, and then one of Brooke’s hands curves around the back of her knee, the other carefully unzipping her boot. Vanessa doesn’t breathe as the zipper slides down and Brooke delicately arranges bills around her calf, soft fingertips brushing over her skin. She’s close enough that Vanessa can smell her perfume, close enough to grab Brooke and maybe kiss her–the zipper screeches back into place, and Vanessa straightens up.

“Thanks,” Vanessa says, trying to remember how to breathe.

“No problem.”

“Damn, Vanj,” A'keria mutters, open-mouthed in the chair beside Vanessa. “Destiny needs to teach us all how to get that coin.”

Silky nods, swinging her hairspray in excitement. “Miss Destiny’s Stripper School. I’d sign up.”

Vanessa shushes them and finishes getting ready. Brooke winks at her after she’s done, and Vanessa pretends her next lap-dance is Brooke.

—

It happens fast.

One day, Brooke hears some news report coming from Kameron’s phone, a guy in a suit talking about fiscal collapse and crisis and economy again and again. Say economy three times, and a middle-aged white man in a business suit will appear like Beetlejuice. It’s all they ever talk about, and Brooke doesn’t think much of it, just goes to work and comes back with her usual wad of cash she had to mop off the stage floor.

A few nights later, there are empty seats in the club. When the music stops, it’s quiet enough to hear ice cubes clinking in glasses, hear the rustle of the one or two single-digit bills they hand her.

Brooke walks off stage in confusion. For the first time in over a year, her wad of tips is slim enough to fit in one hand. She heads straight to Nina’s office, where Nina is running a hand through her messy hair and drinking from a bottle of wine.

“What the hell is going on, Nina?” Brooke asks. “It’s totally dead out there.”

Nina sighs. “It’s the stock market. I don’t know what the fuck happened, but stocks are down, apparently, and those Wall Street business men aren’t coming anymore.”

“Are we … we’re not gonna close, are we?” Brooke’s stomach is twisting in knots just at the thought of losing all this. The same knot that had formed when Vanessa said she would leave after she had enough money, because Vanessa has quickly become one of Brooke’s favorite parts of the club, a part she doesn’t want to lose. But she might lose it all depending on what Nina tells her.

“No.” Nina takes another swig of wine. “We’re staying open, but your tips won’t be like they usually are. The real rich ones will still come in, but I doubt they’ll spend as much.”

“I–” Brooke shakes her head, needing to get out of here. It’s too stuffy in here, the wine burning her nose and the bright office lights burning her eyes. She runs to the roof, the coolness clearing her head and allowing some air to reach her lungs.

What is she supposed to do now? Brooke joined the strip club because it made sense–it gave her a performing outlet without the constant body aches from ballet, a chance to use the dancing ability she had trained decades to perfect. A way to keep the thrill of performing, the love of a crowd, when she couldn’t be on a theatre stage anymore. She can’t walk away from this, try to find whatever minimum wage job will hire someone whose place of employment for the last five years can’t go on a resume. She’s wondering if she’ll have enough saved up to weather the next however-many months when the roof door slams, and hoarse sobs arise.

Vanessa.

Brooke immediately forgets her problems and runs to Vanessa, who’s shaking with sobs. She wants to wrap Vanessa in a hug, let her arms circle that soft skin, but she stops herself. Touch is something they do all night. They touch bills and stripper poles and men, everything washed away with the apricot soap Nina stocks the bathroom with. But if Brooke were to touch Vanessa, it would be different from touching a client. More personal. And Brooke knows she won’t erase that touch no matter how much she scrubs her hands.

Instead, she pulls Vanessa to the edge of the building, uselessly whispering that it’s okay, even if she knows it’s not. When Vanessa is finally able to talk, she looks up at Brooke with bloodshot eyes burning with exhaustion and sorrow, and again Brooke wants to hug Vanessa and let her rest inside her arms.

“I’m guessing you heard,” Brooke prompts.

Vanessa nods. “What am I gonna do, Brooke?” she cries. “I was starting to make a lot of money, but it’s not enough. I–I don’t have enough to help my mom, and if she doesn’t get her meds and everything then she’ll …” A fresh sob erupts from Vanessa, and Brooke doesn’t hesitate this time. She pulls Vanessa into her arms and gently rubs her back as she cries. Vanessa is real and solid, realer than anything the club offers. She smells like coconut and Brooke wonders when she started liking that scent so much. Wonders when she started liking Vanessa so much, because she can’t deny it anymore. But Vanessa doesn’t need that now; she needs help.

Brooke selfishly hadn’t even thought of Vanessa and her mom when she first heard the news. Now, she has to accept how bad things are, what might happen to Vanessa’s mom without the money Vanessa needs. The money she can’t get anymore. If only they could take that money that the really rich Wall Street guys still have and give it to Vanessa and the other girls somehow …

But maybe they can.

The wheels in Brooke’s head are spinning, weaving together a plan. It’s risky, sure, but they don’t have a choice. They all have bills to pay. Some of them have relatives to care for and medication to buy, and hell, just normal lives to live. Brooke might lose her home depending on how long this lasts. The other girls might lose theirs too, might even lose their jobs if it comes to that. And Vanessa will almost surely lose her mom. Vanessa always talks about her with such love in her eyes, with such joy in the memories of the two of them cooking or dancing together. She doesn’t deserve to lose that. Brooke has to do something.

“Hey, Vanessa,” Brooke says gently, “I think I have an idea.”

#rpdr fanfiction #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #nina west #kameron michaels #priyanka #silky nutmeg ganache #akeria davenport #branjie #lesbian au #hustlers au #implied smut #i just wanna dance with you #athena2 #concrit welcome #submission

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sweetsmellosuccess · 3 years

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Sundance 2021: Day 1 & 2

Films: 5

Best Film of the Day(s): Summer of Soul

Coda: It is mostly a truism that the festival tends to start things off on Thursday night with a genial offering, to whet the appetite, as it were, for the vastly more far-reaching, and oft-madcap rest of the program. Sian Heder’s sweetly realized light drama, about Ruby (Emilia Jones), a high school senior in Gloucester, MA, who works in the early morning non-school hours on her father’s fishing boat, and full-time as the only member of her family, including mom (Marlee Matlin), father (Troy Katsur), and brother (Daniel Durant) who isn’t deaf. Balancing out her workload, she joins the choir, in order to be able to spend time with her crush, Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo), and turns out to have significant enough talent that her flinty music teacher (Eugenio Derbez), encourages her to apply to the prestigious music college in Boston of which he is an alum. Formulaic, to be certain, but moving nonetheless, with fine performances from the family — in keeping with the film’s own set-up, all but Jones actually deaf — and a strong sense of their relationships, especially between Ruby and her father. Heder’s screenplay also plays out the difficult dynamic between Ruby, and the rest of the hearing world, as the lone interpreter and defender of her family. As she puts it, they can’t hear themselves being laughed at, but she has no choice. It’s certainly glossy, but it’s also heartfelt, as in one pivotal scene, as Ruby performs a moving duet with Miles for the choir’s big show, Heder unexpectedly douses the sound for a few long moments, giving us a moving sense of what her parents get to experience during their daughter’s moment of artistic triumph.

Censor: As the title suggests, Prano Bailey-Bond’s discreet horror flick is about the idea of repression — what we want to cut away from the ugliness of the human experience. Set during the Thatcherite ‘80s, during an era where “video nasties” had become the topic du jour of cultural critics and political wankers, suggesting the sudden proliferation of demented, ultra-violent straight-to-video releases in the UK was somehow leading the country into sadistic nihilism, as opposed to their representing the result of Thatcher’s choking brand of right-wing oppression. Enid (Niamh Algar), a censor working for the government to render such films as Asunder, and Violent Coda properly palatable to the squirming masses, by excising excessive eye-gougings, brutal rapes, and disembowelments just enough to pass the board. She’s already living with her own past demons, a younger sister who disappeared in the woods under her watch years before, leaving her family shattered. Bailey-Bond shoots the film until the very end, as if underground, even while literally outside. Enid makes her way through the tube stations, and pedestrian tunnels, to her windowless office, and back again, with overhanging branches, overpasses, and canopies keeping her away from contact with the outside world. Creepy — but notably restrained in its own depictions of violence, save for the grainy, 4:3 imagery Enid has to make her way through at her job — Bailey-Bond’s film works well as a half-remembered bad dream from a similar tableau as Peter Strickland, but doesn’t quite have to chops, visually or in its surreal storytelling, to push it past those boundaries. It’s gripping enough, but doesn’t stick with you terribly long.

Summer of Soul (...Or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised): In 1969, during the Summer of Love, when white hippies and counter-culturalists were grooving to Woodstock, and NASA had successfully landed whitey on the moon, an entirely different sort of cultural fusion was taking place in Mt. Morris Park in Harlem. A performer and concert promoter named Tony Lawerence conceived of the event, a big outdoor stage where for six consecutive weekends, people could flock to the free shows that featured Jazz, Afro-beat, blues, R ‘n B, gospel, Motown, and funk. More than 300,000 attended the concerts in total to watch legendary performers including B.B. King, Mahalia Jackson, Max Roach, Mavis Staples, Gladys Knight, Hugh Masekela, a 19-year-old Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, and, in the sort of fierce performance that defined her live presence, Nina Simone, but even though the shows were meticulously filmed, the footage had never found an outlet, until now. Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s directorial debut doesn’t just present the artists’ performances (though it certainly could have), but adds insight from some of the surviving artists, and some of those in the crowd who witnessed them. He also works to put the shows into the cultural context of the time, when a rare mixture of political outrage, multicultural strength, and a dawning of the Black Pride movement created a fulcrum for Harlem, and Black people all over the world. Hippies got the press, and much of the mainstream media coverage, but Thompson makes a strong case as to how the same repressive forces that lead to the explosion of the counterculture movement amongst white college students and young people, also affected the rise of rebellion and tide-shifting in communities of color. Watching Jackson and Staples perform a riveting version of MLK’s favorite gospel song, “Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” in the wake of the black leader’s assassination, or Simone rip into “Backlash Blues” is to witness the shift of cultural winds, as they whipped across a steamy, jam-packed park in Upper Manhattan.

John and the Hole: The title is, on first blush, terrible, but as with several things in this confidently enigmatic coming-of-a-kind-of-age tale from Pascual Sisto, there’s more to it than that. What initially sounds dumpy becomes somewhat cannily constructed: It’s meant to evoke a kind of modern myth vibe, along the lines of “Jack and the Beanstalk.” As it turns out, the film’s refusal to explain itself becomes a significant strength. John (Charlie Shotwell), is a 13-year-old kid from a wealthy family outside of Boston. Skinny and stammering, he’s also difficult to read, either by his parents (Jennifer Ehle and Michael C. Hall), or his older sister (Taissa Farmiga). Which is why, when John’s family wake up one morning at the bottom of a deep, cement shaft — part of a bunker built in the woods near their house — after having been drugged, and dragged there by John, their reactions run from mildly surprised to mildly upset. John leaves them down there, occasionally stopping by the edge to drop down food, water, and jackets, while he lives on at the main house, zipping around town in the family’s Volvo SUV, and taking out cash when needed from his dad’s ATM card. At first, he finds it liberating — eating a mound of chicken nuggets, endless pizzas, and leaving the mess littered around the house, as he attempts to stave off suspicions — but, eventually, he gets lonely, and realizes he prefers their company to being on his own. There’s maliciousness implied in his actions — a frequent shot looking up at John from inside the pit keeps re-establishing the peculiar power dynamic in the family — but nothing happens, it appears, that can’t be taken back. Sisto shoots the film sumptuously, drawing out the beauty of their immaculate house in contrast to the mess it slowly becomes under John’s ambivalence (an idea neatly echoed with the rest of the family down in the bunker, who quickly become filthier and filthier until the mud and grime seems etched into their pores). What conclusions it may draw are difficult to ascertain, in keeping with the nature of the project, but there is the definite sense that the nuclear family, as rigid as the formation may seem, remains a useful tool for healthy emotional growth after all.

In the Earth: Shot in the summer of 2020, in response to the pandemic (director Ben Wheatley explained pre-screening that he wanted a film that “reflected the politics of the times”), the film is loaded with imagery of madness and obsession. Or, you know, what happens to the human mind when it’s forced to stay in place for months at a go. Set in the near future, when a different and even more deadly virus has devastated the planet, the story concerns a scientist named Martin (Joel Fry), who needs to head deep into a boreal forest to find a research lab headed by a former flame (Hayley Squires). He is aided by a guide, a forest ranger named Alma (Ellora Torchia), who takes him on the supposed two-day trek. En route, however, they run into trouble in the form of Zach (Reece Shearsmith), a crazy devotee of the forest gods, and what he believes are their ritualistic demands. Breaking free from him, they arrive at the research lab, only to find similar insanity. Wheatley’s film feels rushed in places, and is violently incoherent in others, but its sense of immediacy is acute. With its characters having plunged into bizarre cryptic conspiracy theories, having plunged deep into the Boreal heart of darkness, and the sense that reality has been splintered, it ends up being a pretty fair summation of current life and times. It might not hold up under much scrutiny years from now, but it could hardly be more of the moment in the meantime.

Sundance goes mostly virtual for this year’s edition, sparing filmgoers the altitude, long waits, standing lines, and panicked eating binges — but also, these things and more that make the festival so damn endearing. In any event, Sundance via living room is still a hell of a lot better than no Sundance. A daily report.

#sweet smell of success #ssos #piers marchant #films #movies #sundance 2021 #virtual film festival #summer of soul #in the earth #john and the hole #coda #censor

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secret-engima · 4 years

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Could.. Could I request any snippets you'd be willing to share? Or something you want to ramble about? Mom Regalia? Nox Verse? Your new LC Seer? I'm ok physically but emotionally I'm still a little shaky; my roommate and one of my best friends was wrongfully held at gunpoint this evening and I need a bit of a distraction from the fact I could've lost him.

hgffgh Of course! I’m so sorry to hear that happened to him!

Lemme see if I have anything fluffy.... I think all I have is angst rn but I’ll check-.

... (okay I have a REALLY short bit on my Seer LC one-shot, this is literally all I have on it, I’ll check for other things in just a sec but here)

Static and fire danced just below her skin, fury stealing away the pain that usually came with stomping around shelving books. Even if she had been able to feel the pain —and she would later, she was certain—, she would have done it anyway. Because it was either useful activity or closing the shop so she could go scream into her pillow and probably make the neighbors complain about her “smoking habits” again. She took a step off the stepladder, felt her ankle turn, giving underneath her for no reason other than the fact that her joints apparently hated doing what they were supposed to and she clutched the shelves with a curse and regretted leaving her cane behind the counter. That had been a stupid move of hers to be sure.

She was so caught in her own head she didn’t hear the bell tinkle. But she did feel the soft ripple of ozone and old stones that shouldn’t have been possible in her tiny nook of a shop, and she looked up hastily, still cursing and leaning desperately against the shelves in search of the source. The man who peaked around the corner was not the one she expected —that was good, she honestly didn’t know what she’d do if That Man walked into her shop—, and for a moment the two of them stared at each other. Her half on and half off a stepping stool, clutching her bookshelves like a lifeline and in the middle of swearing like a sailor in all her four foot eight inch glory, him in his casual street clothes and what she estimated to be six feet one inch of surprise.

She finished stepping off the stepladder, tested her ankles for a moment before straightening up with a wince and letting go of the shelf, “Welcome to the Second Sight second hand bookshop and cafe. Can I help you?”

The man blinked and stayed where he was, with the shelf halfway shielding him like she might bite, “Yeah, I was looking for a book?”

Cyra bit back in instinctive sarcasm of how she might need a little more clarification than that and instead gestured at the shelves around her, “Well, you’ve come to a likely place then. Do you know the title and author or are you looking to try something new? I have everything organized by genre, then alphabetically by author.”

The man dared to step around the shelf and stop in front of her and Cyra tried not to feel annoyed with how freaking tall he was. It wasn’t his fault that Cyra had inherited all the short genes of her family at once.

...(Next up is Stand Strong! I have brought you hilarity feels and a much longer snippet)

Of course, while out in the city proper and on their way to one of the few favored plotting spots that wasn’t in the Galahdian sector —less chance of Amissa stumbling across them and putting a stop to their ideas that way—, a few of the rougher Insomnian locals identified them as Galahdian. Their scents stunk of fear and disgust as they made the warding signs that were so popular in the lower sectors of Insomnia —signs to ward off evil and unnatural things, like the Galahdians were monsters in human skin to fend off rather than just refugees missing their homes—. Nyx and Crowe, as always, played along, recoiling with low hisses and quiet gurgling snarls and flashes of their teeth —because if they thought the Galahdian sector was home to horrible monsters, the gangs would stay away and leave them alone and that was worth a little public shunning—.

Behind them, Libertus kept his reaction a little more subdued, but still made a show of flinching away and growling in the back of his throat.

Tredd went overboard, shrieking and recoiling into a catlike spring-warp combination that ended with him perched on top of a lamppost in a way that attracted far more attention than Nyx’s and Crowe’s reactions. Because Tredd. He could never do things by halves, even when they weren’t actively trying to get the attention of the Insomnian passersby so much as scare off the superstitious gangsters eyeing them with pale skin and trembling scents. The gangsters hurried away, still making the warding signs, and pedestrians shuffled away from them with fear and uneasy disgust in their scents that made Nyx growl deep in his chest at them —rude, flinging their scents around was bad enough, but they could at least try to mind their own business and not take the side of the obvious gangsters that had just left—.

As they slunk away from the scene, hissing irritably at Tredd for making that much of a scene, none of them were expecting to hear the Marshal’s voice hail them from a nearby storefront, “Kingsglaives. Is there a … problem?”

Nyx startled and Tredd yipped softly, none of them had sensed the Marshal’s presence. After spending their childhoods with Axis and Amissa, being snuck up on like that was extremely rare, and while Nyx knew the Marshal was skilled, he hadn’t thought he was … that…

Nyx could sense that he was not the only one in the group staring as he blurted in Old Galahd, “Mamaí, why are you holding his hand?”

Amissa, their wayward Mamaí, didn’t even bat an eyelash at Nyx’s squawk, just slightly raised the hand in question, dragging the Marshal’s limb up with the motion because their fingers were intertwined, “This? Stealth training. He got curious. He’s a good student too, for an arrogant prodigy Insomnian.” She added that last part in Old Galahdian with an amused twitch of her lips, as if oblivious to how Nyx’s group were staring in a sort of dawning horror. Tredd took a deep whiff of the nearby air, prowled closer to the two until the Marshal stiffened warily and Amissa chuffed scoldingly at him.

Tredd slunk back and hissed, “It’s him,” in Nyx’s ear, just low enough for him, Crowe, and Libertus to hear. Nyx kept staring in a vague sort of horror as Amissa raised an eyebrow, “Stop acting like pups,” she scoffed, “I held your hands during stealth training.”

The Marshal blinked and, to Nyx’s dawning horror, looked amused beneath his solemn mask as he muttered sidelong to Amissa, “So this is your standard training method?”

“You are a unique and special man, Leonis, but not enough to warrant special treatment from me,” Amissa retorted in a bland voice that was betrayed by the way her different colored eyes twinkled in amusement.

The corner of the Marshal’s mouth ticked up and there for just the briefest flicker, Nyx caught it. The faint scent that had begun to linger on Amissa’s clothing. It was from Cor Leonis. The Marshal of the Crownsguard, the Immortal. The one man outside their Pack and their king that Titus had ever offered his throat to, even if only in a particular vicious spar several years ago. Amissa, their Amissa, was being scented by Cor Leonis.

And the worst part was … Nyx didn’t think either of them were aware of it. Or, if the Marshal was aware and doing it intentionally, he wasn’t giving any sign of it. Not physical, not vocal, and not in the tiny wisps of scent Nyx managed to pick up before they were gone again, locked down tight in that way that had made all the Glaive appreciate working with him over the rest of the Crownsguard. Which meant, if the Marshal wasn’t doing it intentionally, then it probably wasn’t just a Pack-scenting.

Astrals above please no.

Amissa narrowed her eyes at the prolonged horrified staring and the Marshal was beginning to tense again, “What’s wrong with you four? If this is about my training non-Pack-.”

Nyx felt Libertus’s hand clamp on the back of his neck in just the right place to make his knees weaken and his angry words die on his tongue —stupid Lib, abusing Nyx’s instincts like that, at least he was doing it to Tredd too—, “Nope, that’s not a problem, Mamaí. We’re just surprised is all. This where you’ve been running off to every weekend?”

A half-blink and a slow relaxing over her shoulders as she started walking, the Marshal falling in step with her far too easily for Nyx’s brain to handle, “Pretty much.” She tilted her head, “I was thinking of starting in on group training in another week or two, if Leonis has no problem with it. Do you want to help? He’ll have better luck against you than he will against Axis.” The Marshal made a low noise of protest that just made Amissa look amused. Nyx felt like he was watching a slow train wreck as pieces began to click together. The easy touching, the oddly relaxed set to the Marshal’s shoulders now that they were moving and he wasn’t being gaped at, the sandwich the Marshal had brought in all those weeks ago —just one of many, if he remembered what the Marshal had said correctly—.

Nyx groaned, “Mamaí,” he couldn’t keep his voice from a whine, “Mamaí please don’t be doing what I think you’re doing.”

She narrowed her eyes, baffled and annoyed, and Lib slapped the back of Nyx’s head and hissed a dark, “We’ll talk later, not in front of him,” then swapped back to a language the Marshal would understand, “Sure, if the Marshal wants to, we’d be happy to help. Hunt Touch to start with? Or are we going straight to Night Raid?”

“Hunt Touch to start with,” she hummed, “no need to throw him into the deep end quite yet.”

“He,” pointed out the Marshal with a tone akin to long-suffering, “is right here and can hear everything. I’m also going to need an explanation on what those training exercises are before anyone starts off with anything.”

... (and since I’m out of snips atm I shall spiral back to a few quick Nox HCs for you, all hail the Nox/Nyx romance!)

-Nyx likes to steal Nox’s shirts. She doesn’t care that she’s actually taller than him so they don’t fit right and kinda show off her middle just a bit, she likes them and its the principle of the thing.

-Nox finds this habit of hers both extremely annoying (those are his shirts!) and extremely hot (yes, okay, he likes seeing his wife in his clothes, sue him).

-Nyx likes to nip during make-outs. Nox has never been able to figure out if its a Nyx thing, an Ulric thing, or an all-out Galahd thing but when they’re getting really into a make-out, Nyx is basically guaranteed to pull away from his lips for a few seconds to nip his jawline and gently run her teeth down his throat and it always, ALWAYS makes his brain go hgfdghgfds.

-He retaliates by twisting his fingers in her hair at the base of her head and lightly squeezing, often steering her head so he can gently kiss the pulse point of her neck, and once he experimentally nipped her back on the earlobe. He could have sworn she purred, but he was a little distracted by the sudden discovery that his wife was strong enough to pick him up and pin him against the wall.

-Nox has actually worn Nyx’s shirts by accident, because Nyx doesn’t go for girly stuff, but instead goes for black with simple designs often picked out from the men’s sections of stores and her shirts always smell really nice and like her so when Nox is operating 80% asleep (read: most mornings) there is a 50/50 chance he’ll snag one of her shirts instead of his and shuffle around in it until he wakes up enough to hear her snickering.

-Nyx likes to play with Nox’s hair. Anytime, any place. His hair is wispier and silkier than hers and she’s almost jealous, but he lets her do basically whatever she wants with it so it’s fine.

-Nox has played with her hair too, but somehow this is much more likely to devolve into a make-out session than when Nyx is playing with Nox’s hair. Neither is sure why.

-Everyone pls picture Nox having an Insecure Moment, probably not long after he realized they had accidentally married, curling up against her and gently trailing kisses up her neck before breathing in her ear, “Let me love you? Please. Please, let me love you.”

-And she knows it’s not a proposition but an honest plea and so she pulls him closer and catches his lips with hers before touching their foreheads together and whispering, “Forever. Forever and more.” I will have no one else. I want you and you don’t have to be afraid of that. I’m not going anywhere.

(Hope this helps @rayearthdudette!)

#SE asks #rayearthdudette asks #Secret Engima Rambles #Melodies and Manuscripts #Nox verse #Stand Strong Verse #Seer LC verse #i hope your friend and roommate is/are okay #I will pray for the both of you

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