#if you spend your life as a teacher you can have these sort of freakouts for the rest of your life.

[jerakeenc]

many kidfics i’ve read and loved

look who’s reccing a million year old fics now. kidfics, very many. posted to dw for snowflake, thought I’d copy here as well. will be reading most, if not all. if you don’t hear from me again, this list is the culprit.

101 Ways To Get Lucky (In Love) by lenore

18,200 words | SGA, McKay/Sheppard

Rodney McKay is rich, gorgeous and at the top of his game—except someone just moved the goalposts! Now Rodney realizes he is sorely lacking the one status symbol that everybody seems to have…the perfect family. Rodney needs help, so he hires a relationship coach. Single-dad John Sheppard may be an expert, but not when it comes to his own relationships! And every day he spends with Rodney makes him wish that he could be the one to fill the vacancy in Rodney's life…

A Beautiful Lifetime Event by astolat

29,000 words | SGA, McKay/Sheppard

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.

An Earlier Heaven by regann

67,400 words | X-Men, Erik/Charles

In the wake of Cuba, Charles and his students are ready to pick up the pieces and work toward achieving Charles's dream of a safe haven for young mutants. Those plans, however, take a surprising turn thanks to a very unexpected complication. As he slowly builds a future for his students and for his child, Charles struggles with the loss of Erik and the secrets he's willing to keep to protect his family, but those strides are shattered when Erik makes a startling reappearance into his life. [mpreg, kidfic, ensemble]

And everything nice by noelia_g

30,200 words | Social Network, Mark/Eduardo

The one where Mark somehow ends up with a child and of course needs a nanny for the amount of time he spends at the office. Only problem is a string of nannys keep trying to get into his pants for what he assumes is his money. Cue Mark's assistant hiring a male nanny, enter Eduardo.

asking to be born by longtime_lurker

26,500 words | Bandom, Pete/Patrick

"Don't worry, it's probably just his big gay freakout," Andy yells cheerfully and unhelpfully into Patrick's ear as they're hustling Pete over to the nearest private clinic.

Better with You by harriet_vane

38,100 words | 1D, Liam/Louis

Based on this prompt at the kinkmeme:

Single parent and solo artist Liam Payne hires Louis Tomlinson to be a full time nanny to his four year old son Sammy. Although the two men don't quite click from the start it's love at first sight between Sammy and Louis. Eventually Louis and Liam warm up to each other and get on like a house on fire, in fact the two become a little too fond of each other.

I refuse to apologize for how sweet this ended up, okay? It's kidfic, I am forever writing kidfic, and this one is even kid-fic-ier than usual.

Can't Get Enough of You (Baby) by eternalbreath

22,100 words | Inception, Arthur/Eames

Eames vanishes from dreamshare and Arthur goes a little crazy looking for him until he stumbles across him -- with a baby.

Chelsea, Chelsea, I Believe by empathapathique

300,800 words | Hockey, Kane/Toews

Patrick meets a girl his rookie year.

Don't You Shake Alone by dsudis

62,180 words | Generation Kill, Brad/Nate

Nate looked exactly like Brad always pictured him: exhausted in the full life-in-a-combat-zone sense of the word.

Dude, what's a bulwark? by kellifer_fic

12,150 words | Teen Wolf, Derek/Stiles

Beacon Hills is the kind of small town where everybody knows everybody, and what everybody knows is that surly diner owner Derek Hale and free spirited single dad Stiles Stilinski have been in love with each other for years. If only they knew it too.

Every Other Beautiful World by rhiannonhero

43,280 words | SGA, McKay/Sheppard

Some things are unexpected but still inevitable in every beautiful world.

Forever, Now by harriet_vane

227,100 words | Bandom, Frank/Gerard, Jon/Spencer, Brendon/Ryan, Brian/Greta

Brian rescues kid!Gerard and Mikey from life on the streets, and eventually everyone finds a family.

here comes the sun by oflights

56,600 words | Social Network, Mark/Eduardo

This is a story about growing up, sad 70's rock songs, too much hair gel, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", a baby with curly hair, a Geiger counter, a dog that isn't named Max, the Chicken Dance, Cheerios, pepper-spray, drugs, sex, and a stuffed chicken named Cluckerberg, nicknamed Cluck. or: Mark raises Sean's accidental baby, and I write the fluffiest thing ever.

I Got a Love (That Keeps Me Waiting) by svmadelyn

163,700 words | Hockey, Kane/Toews

There's a lot of different ways this summary could go, like:

Patrick Kane gets more than a gold medal in Sochi.

Or, the classic: It's too late to pull out now.

Or: Patrick Kane continues to thrive in high pressure situations.

Or: Patrick Kane gets knocked up, goes to White Castle, and finds love, not necessarily in that order.

But, ultimately, all that really matters is this: Patrick Kane is keeping his baby.

I Would Be by cathalin

20,290 words | American Idol, Kris/Adam

AU. Adam and Kris meet a few years down the road, when down-on-his-luck Kris and his young daughter Katherine show up to rent a room from Adam, who never made it to an Idol audition.

Ice Ice Baby by uraneia

51,340 words | Hockey, Claude/Danny

A gold medal isn't the only souvenir Claude brings home from Prague.

OR: The one where Claude gets drunk, gets pregnant, and gets convinced to move in with Danny, whom he's been secretly in love with for years. What could possibly go wrong?

my heart is bigger than the distance in between us by estrella30

15,000 words | 1D, Nick/Harry

Nick chuckles quietly but grabs the remote and follows Emma, Aimee coming up close behind him. It’s indeed Harry on the telly, singing along to his latest radio hit and smiling slowly into the camera far too seductively for half eight on a Friday morning, if you ask Nick. He presses the volume just in time to catch the crowd’s roaring applause and see the pink flush Harry’s cheeks. Nick watches him duck his head as he gives a small wave to the audience, and it hits Nick that Harry is still the most humble and appreciative billionaire Nick’s ever met.

Good job, popstar, Nick thinks to himself.

or, Nick is a single dad and Harry is his bff and it's a bunch of years into the future and they fall in love

Once Upon a Furry Octopus by skoosiepants

11,270 words | SGA, McKay/Sheppard

He was an intelligent, intuitive pet, but he wasn’t going to start sniffing out ZPMs or hidden Ancient weaponry or detailed instructions on how to kill a Wraith with a common household item. A pen, for instance.

Reconcilable Differences by astolat

40,000 words | Smallville, Clark/Lex

Luthor Family Values.

Shelter by harriet_vane

63,500 words | Social Network, Jesse/Andrew

From the kinkmeme prompt: Some sort of AU vaguely based on Shelter! For whatever reason, Jesse has to take care of Hallie and give up his dream of being an actor. He ends up working in a dead end job when former, now successful friend (Andrew) returns home. They fall in love, etc, only Jesse can't go away with him because he has a responsibility to his family. CUE ANGST.

Show Me The Way Back Home Baby by stilinskisparkles

15,000 words | Teen Wolf, Derek/Stiles

In which Lydia and Jackson produce the world's cutest baby, and the pack goes crazy-- the good kind of crazy. Except for Derek, who is afraid of tiny cute babies and Stiles who plans to be the best Uncle ever. Even if Danny called dibs on Godfather.

Skybird by windsweptfic

33,785 words | Inception/White Collar, Arthur/Eames

Arthur and Eames adopt a kid and raise that kid into Neal Caffrey.

Small Cells and Fibers by sevenfists

7,830 words | Bandom, Frank/Gerard

Tuesdays were finger-painting days. Frank made sure to wear his oldest pair of jeans, because even with his full-length apron and his constant reminders that paint belongs on paper and not on clothing, he always ended up with tiny, multi-colored handprints all over his clothes. There wasn't a thing he could do about it, so he just wore pants from 1995.

Small Primes and Square Roots by liviapenn

12,500 words | SGA, McKay/Sheppard

"I hope you picked someone really intelligent, otherwise it seems like it would be kind of a waste. Of incubation time, if nothing else."

So Wise We Grow by deastar

81,250 words | Star Trek Reboot, Kirk/Spock

"Commander Spock, we have located your son," the Vulcan lady on the screen says, which would be great, except Jim can tell by the look on Spock's face that he's never heard of this kid before in his life. "If it is expedient, the child will be sent to join you on the Enterprise within the week."

Something Better by lovelypoet

18,350 words | Bandom, Frank/Gerard

"We all have to take jobs we don't like sometimes, you know?"

The Next Time You Say Forever by Thistlerose

27,300 words | Star Trek Reboot, Kirk/McCoy

After his ex-wife's death, McCoy is forced to leave the Enterprise to look after his teenage daughter. Under normal circumstances, this would be the end of…whatever it is he has with Kirk that's more than friendship, but less than what he wants. But the universe has other intentions.

The Reeducation of Misters Kane and Toews by jezziejay

15,900 words | Hockey, Kane/Toews

In which Kaner sort of has a kid, and Mr. Toews doesn't know which of them is the bigger brat.

AU featuring teacher!Jon and hockey-player!Kaner. With bonus 'Hawks characters, love notes, pasta jewelry, Be Better Pizzas, pirouettes, a sprinke of angst and guest appearance by Derek Jeter.

The Road Delivered Us Home by keelywolfe

117,430 words | Hobbit, Thorin/Bilbo

In the years since Bilbo left Erebor, he has lost his respectability, gained a nephew, and gotten on with life at Bag End.

He'd left aside adventure for the comforts and peace of his little Hobbit hole, and for the love of a child who needed him. Though perhaps, adventures can yet find him.

This Story Was Brought to You by Our Sponsors by scaramouche

29,500 words | Supernatural, Dean/Castiel

Dean's post-apocalyptic life is a friggin' soap opera. Romance! Angst! Separations! Reunions! Pizza Dinners! A Child Dean Never Knew He Had! It's all very dramatic.

throw a little sparkle all over it by etben

26,000 words | Bandom, Frank/Gerard

"Hey, Ma," Mikey says. "No, everything's fine—well, I mean, Gerard accidentally adopted a baby—no, he's changing her now, he can't talk."

Tiny Houses by ohmyjetsabel

77,130 words | Teen Wolf, Derek/Stiles

"So this is what Stiles does. He lies in Scott’s bed and waits for Melissa to say she’s found someone to get it out of him, to cure him of the wrongness and the bad, and he dreams.

God, he dreams.

He dreams of fire and swollen bellies and that scene in Alien, of giving birth to jackals through his urethra, the whole horrific nine yards. His head is a terrible place to be, he can’t imagine his stomach is much better, why anyone would want to put a thing inside of it."

Tip, Slide, Tumble by j_s_cavalcante

42,900 words | due South, Fraser/Kowalski

Ray knew when he found the body in the alley it was going to change someone's life. He just didn't expect that life would be his.

Turn by saras_girl

306,000 words | Harry Potter, Harry/Draco

One good turn always deserves another. Apparently.

Unless it's lies or it's love by sprat

25,300 words | American Idol, Kris/Adam

In which Adam (a rock star) meets Kris (a single dad) at an Emergency Room in Arkansas at the end of a particularly shitty night. Also features: San Francisco, fresh starts, baked goods, OCs, cameo appearances by Matt and Megan, pirates, monsters with garbage heads and a recording studio.

What Child Is This by lamardeuse

30,150 words | Merlin, Arthur/Merlin

A modern AU with Merlin, Arthur, mayhem, a baby and a jingly elf hat.

What to Expect by arsenic

29,200 words | Bandom, Bob/Mikey

Mikey has his band, and his little girl, and that's enough. Really, it is.

Winter's Children by neery

66,890 words | Marvel, Bucky/Steve

When their attempts to recreate the super soldier serum failed, Hydra started trying to breed Captain America clones from his genetic samples. Unfortunately, the serum's effects aren't passed down genetically, so instead of an army of tiny Captain Americas, they get a bunch of tow-headed, asthmatic, allergic, immuno-compromised little Steves.

And then the Winter Soldier stumbles across Hydra's failed experiment...

With Six You Get Eggroll by speranza

31,000 words | due South, Fraser/Kowalski

"Kick 'em In The Head: A Guide To Parenting."

ETA: Bonus! Because I apparently lost my bookmark for this one but have the memory of an elephant for kidfic, so it came to me eventually. :D

A Farm in Iowa 'Verse by sheafrotherdon

166,000 words | SGA, McKay/Sheppard

John inherits a farm, Rodney ends up entirely out of his element, and there is much ado about baseball.

#kidfic #recs

[aelaer]

Whumptober 15: Scars

Don’t ask me where this came from; I wanted to write something short. This is the opposite of short.

Characters: Stephen Strange, Beverly Strange, Eugene Strange, Donna Strange Warnings: Just a bucket-load of angst. Canonical death by drowning, as well.

15. Scars 

Stephen got his first scar right on his inner wrist from before his memory got particularly good, because from what he knew, he always had it. Mom claimed that it was all Aunt Nancy's fault that he fell down in the first place, but Aunt Nancy was a rather tall and somewhat scary woman, so he never pursued it when he wondered about it and forgot the story when she was less scary and more annoying.

At age twelve, the scars were the remnants of hard play found on a farm in northern Nebraska. He was particularly impressed with the one on his knee that he got from a tree at school that he successfully climbed up but not so successfully climbed down. It was bleeding everywhere and it hurt so badly but at the same time it was really cool and he couldn't stop watching the doctors as they stitched him back up. He taught himself how to stitch after that, stealing Mom's supplies and trying to copy the stitches on his jeans and shirts, then Donna's stuffed animals, and then copying the ones he saw in a book from the library about surgeons and surgery.

Even Dad was impressed when he heard that he wanted to be a doctor, after his initial freakout about him stealing Mom's supplies to learn sewing. "Doctors help a lot of people, and unlike teachers, you can make good money from it." He didn't really consider the money when he started, but that sounded like a pretty nice perk, and he really didn't want to be a teacher anyway. Donna wanted to be the teacher, and told Dad that she didn't care about the stupid money, anyway. He laughed and told her, "Okay," and the conversation ended.

He worked throughout his junior and senior years to get all the money he needed to apply to universities all around the country. His physics teacher was a decent sort and pointed out all the best schools and where he could apply for grants and financial aid. He was on track to be valedictorian of his high school graduating class of a whopping size of 26 people, and that wasn't quite like a graduating class of 100 or 600 but it was still something.

Then he got accepted into Columbia University with a full ride scholarship. He freaked out. His principal freaked out. His physics teacher freaked out. One of them told the rest of the faculty in his school, and they all freaked out.

His parents also freaked out, but not in the same way as his principal and teacher.

"Columbia," Mom said with a light frown. "Isn't that in New York?"

"Yeah," he said.

"That's a bit far, Stephen," Mom said, and something deep within him twinged with hurt.

"Don't be daft, Beverly," Dad replied. "They're offering to pay for everything. He's gonna be gone for med school anyway after."

"There's a medical school at UNO," she replied. "Also ones at USD, DMU, and UMKC. And that hardly matters for undergrad; he can go to a school in Omaha or Lincoln, or maybe somewhere in South Dakota or Iowa."

"Yeah, but they're not paying for it," Dad argued.

Stephen decidedly did not tell them when he got a full ride scholarship to USD two weeks later.

Mom eventually accepted he was going to Columbia whether she liked it or not and didn't bring it up again for a long time.

——— 

At age nineteen, his most prominent scars were internal, written by the complete anguish and fury of his younger sister's death the summer after his first year of college. He should have known something was wrong when she didn't come up from the lake immediately. He should have known and pulled her from its depths faster, performed CPR faster, and Donna would still be alive and entering her senior year of high school and figuring out where she wanted to go to college to become an elementary school teacher.

But Donna was dead. Dead, drowned Donna.

His parents never said they blamed him, but Stephen knew that they did, because he was the one studying to become a doctor and he had failed to see the signs and rescue her fast enough. Of course they blamed him.

Two weeks after they buried Donna, he couldn't stand it anymore and rescheduled his flight back to New York for that weekend. If his parents couldn't take him, he'd call for a shuttle. He didn't want to spend the money he earned tutoring on things like shuttles, but he'd rather do that than spend any more time in that house.

Two days before his flight, his parents called him down to the kitchen. Dad was holding a beer; he spent the last two weeks holding a beer.

"Stephen," Mom started, clinging her hands together. "We'd like to talk with you."

An ominous feeling settled in the depths of his gut. "About?"

"Sit down," Dad said, voice gruff with grief, and he did so.

"It's been—" Mom's voice stopped, and she cleared her throat. "It's been a very, very hard summer, Stephen. The worst four weeks of my life." He nodded in agreement, and waited patiently as Mom got a hold of her emotions again. "It's— it's a reminder to us, how— how life can change in an instant. How little time we actually have. And, and Stevie—" He froze at the nickname; she rarely used it, per his request some several years ago, and when it slipped out he often did not like what she had to say next. "We see you so rarely. You're so far."

Stephen cleared his throat. "I visit during Christmas. I made Easter, too."

Mom shook her head. "That's not enough, not when it can—" She swallowed and heaved a shuddering breath.

"What your mother is trying to say," said Dad, "is that we want you to transfer to somewhere closer. Omaha, Lincoln, South Dakota, maybe even Des Moines or Kansas City, though the first three are preferable."

He stared at them. "You want me to transfer and pay thousands of dollars to go to a worse school?" 

"They're all fine schools," Dad argued. "And— don't worry about costs. We'll handle that."

"With what money?" he asked, incredulous.

"Don't worry about it," he repeated, more strongly this time and in a tone that demanded respect. Stephen considered arguing, anyway, but Dad continued onward before he could. "The money's beside the point, anyway. The school's are a bit far to drive to every day, but you can come home on the weekends."

"You're asking me to throw away the opportunities a place like Columbia University can give me for— for what? To make yourselves feel better?"

"Stephen!" Dad shouted.

Mom put a hand on Dad's arm. "Eugene," she murmured, then looked back at him. "Family is all we have, Stephen."

"Family is all you have," he argued. "I have a future, a career waiting for me beyond all this. And I'm not going to kill my future just because Donna's dead!"

That stunned them into silence. He could tell Dad was furious, too. He continued before he could lose his nerve. "And I've already booked a flight to go back to New York on Saturday. I'm going to the airport whether you drive me or not." He stood up and ignored Dad's angry shout at his back, and he left the house to walk for a while.

Late Friday night, Mom came to his room and asked him quietly, "What time do you need to be at the airport?"

He ignored the pang of guilt in his heart at her voice. "By noon."

"We'll leave at ten," she said, and he nodded and she left without saying good night.

The next morning she drove him to Eppley Airfield in Omaha. The ride was silent and Stephen tried to banish the silence by reading one of his textbooks.

About five minutes away from the airport, Mom asked, "Are you sure about this, Stephen?"

He couldn't look at her. "I'm sure," he muttered at the window.

She told him, "Be safe," and he nodded and the conversation ended.

———— 

The scars on his heart began to harden as they took on layers. More came that Christmas, when, against his better judgement, he agreed to his mother's pleas to visit over the holiday. She asked him to stay the whole winter break, but he lied and said he had an intersession class in January and could only stay a week. He didn't want to have to reschedule for his own sanity; he wasn't sure if he could handle his mother's disappointment if he did.

She was still disappointed, but over Christmas, the disappointment was largely overwhelmed by the grief of the first Christmas without Donna. None of them attempted to really change the atmosphere, beyond his mother's half-hearted results the first two days he was back in Nebraska. But it was too difficult an illusion to continue with his sister's spectre haunting every room, every tradition, and every memory.

His father was drinking a six-pack a day throughout his time there. From what he could see, this was business as usual.

Stephen only approached him on the subject the day after Christmas. "You're going to kill your liver at the rate you're drinking those."

"It's my liver to kill," his father replied.

He fell to silence and left the matter alone after that.

When he got back to New York and the faculty was back at Columbia, he talked with his advisor on taking a full summer course and any intersession courses available to cut his already fast-tracked graduation date of three and a half years down to three.

After he told his mother that he was staying in New York over the summer to graduate even earlier than planned, her weekly calls became bi-monthly, and slowly petered out to once a month by the time he graduated.

Throughout the rest of undergrad, he never went back to Nebraska.

———— 

After graduating, he spent a year working in a laboratory as he applied for as many schools with a combined MD-PhD program as he could afford. By the end of that year, he was back at Columbia within their rigorous program.

He completed it in a new record time. His advisors called him a prodigy. One told him that if his research continued down this new, innovative path, that he may yet change the field of neurosurgery. He didn't outright say Nobel Prize, but he didn't have to.

He entered his residency at the Columbia-affiliated New York-Presbyterian Hospital while still in his mid-twenties, on track to being a full-fledged neurosurgeon in his early thirties.

The monthly calls from his mother were no longer monthly. He didn't remember the last time he talked to his father.

Not too long after he turned thirty, he got a call in between shifts from his parents' landline (as they really didn't do cellphones; the service out on the farm was apparently terrible). He answered, "Hello mother," trying to keep as polite and patient as he was able.

"Not her," came the gravelly voice of his father, and he sounded awful. "But it's about her."

"What?" Stephen straightened in his seat. "What is it?"

His father didn't say anything for a moment, then: "She's got ovarian cancer. Stage four."

Oh God. "Where is she?"

"Overnight in Omaha. I'm driving back down early tomorrow." Another pause. "Your mom wants to see you."

He swallowed. "I'll— I'll see what I can do."

And he did. Residents didn't get that much time off, but Stephen hadn't taken a day off barring a horrible flu two years ago. He was permitted a couple days leave, and at the encouragement of a fellow resident by the name of Christine, asked for a few days around Christmas as well. He was granted them.

It wasn't a very happy Christmas, but his mother seemed genuinely pleased to see him, and he did his best to keep his spirits high around her, even as his father silently drank nearby.

On Christmas Eve, he found her thumbing a card when she thought he was not looking. Stephen later picked it up and found it was a Christmas card made by him when he was seven-years-old, signed by both him and Donna's childish signatures, and addressed to Mom and Dad.

He realized he did not remember when they stopped being Mom and Dad.

———— 

Beverly Strange died in the autumn of the following year. After her funeral, he did not return to Nebraska until his father passed away two years later from liver failure.

The service was small and their assets easily determined his. For some reason, he did not immediately put the farm up for sale the moment it became his.

As his paycheck steadily increased, he paid for the farm's upkeep and for someone to maintain it, but as the idea of selling or even leasing it entered his mind, he pushed it away for another day until the maintenance just became a monthly automatic payment that left his account. It eventually stopped entering his thoughts at all.

The scars on his heart remained. Christine, fellow-resident-now-fellow-doctor, tried to chip away at it, and she was partially successful in a way that few were. But even she could only do so much and her efforts eventually fell to the wayside.

Ten years after his mother's death, the most prominent of his scars to the naked eye were the blatant lines crossing both of his malformed hands.

But they were far from the first.

———— 

Notes:

I was going to write a short thing about his hands. Then this happened instead.

I know a brother, Victor, exists, but I honestly have no idea how to incorporate him into MCU Stephen's life, so he's just… not mentioned. Sorry Victor.

I presumed that, like most schools in California, that the unis in the Midwest are referred to by their acronyms. If I'm incorrect, please let me know!

College acronyms:

UNO = University of Nebraska Omaha

USD = University of South Dakota

DMU = Des Moines University

UMKC = University of Missouri, Kansas City

For those unfamiliar with American slang, a "full ride scholarship" straight out of high school means that the university is paying for your tuition, all educational supplies, and often boarding for all four years. While universities often give grants for parts of education based on both merit and financial need (ranging from a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the university), full rides are much rarer and to the top universities in the country, even moreso. 

To put this in perspective, I have a real life example: one of my friends in high school was valedictorian of a graduating class of 600. Her merit plus her family's very poor financial status got her a full ride to Stanford. The tuition alone to Stanford (a private, world-famous university) is $50,000; with housing and supplies, it's closer to $60,000 a year. She got all of that paid by the university (yeah, these private universities have a stupid amount of money). She worked her ass off for that scholarship, though. I think she also became a medical doctor, funny enough. But anyway, I imagine Stephen getting something similar as, along with the majority of families in the US being completely unable to afford private university's astronomical costs, Nebraska's cost of living is nothing compared to New York's — wasn't in the 90's, and it's probably a larger gap now. So combined merit/financial-based scholarships for such schools are pretty common.

#whumptober2019 #no.15 #scars #stephen strange #doctor strange fanfic #genre: angst #my writing #my fanfiction