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#like. i know how both work given where i live and how long i’ve lived but

stevenose · 5 months

Text

adidas (18+)

a continuation of this blurb from july.

contains: steve x reader; shy reader; no gender descriptors for reader, word ‘hole’ is used; car sex! my fave; oral (steve receiving); heavy petting; make outs

hope u likey 🫶🏻

=====

“steve?”

he jumps when you talk to him. like he wasn’t expecting it. his face flushes a bit, matches the maroon of his shirt. “uh-huh?”

you’ve been working yourself up for this for a week. well, actually, for the last three months. since he’d parked his car in that abandoned lot and sent you home a changed person. “eddie can’t take me home tonight.”

because the plan of steve starting to pick you go and take you home fell flat on its face. robin didn’t want to ride with anyone else, which was fair. and you both weren’t exactly keen on everyone knowing. what you both wanted eventually fizzled out, and instead manifested itself in longing looks and some occasional, “accidental” touching.

the bastard still hasn’t given you your underwear back.

steve blinks once. twice. his adam’s apple bobs. he runs a hand through his hair, flustered much more than you’ve ever seen him. “good thing i know where you live, huh?”

it really has been the most aggravatingly long three months of your life. nothing has been the same and yet nothing has changed. steve still treats you like always - a friend on the very outskirts of his circle. you still stare down at his adidas when he’s a little too close to you, talking to you and someone else about work or a new movie. and eddie has been at every. single. hangout. picks you up and takes you home and you never once tell him (or robin, for that matter) to fuck off so you can get laid again.

but tonight, eddie has a gig, and no one passed the motion to reschedule.

“when?” steve asks, moving closer. “jesus, never thought you’d ask.”

your breath shakes when you inhale, looking up from the neck of his shirt to stare at his big brown eyes. you wonder what the look he gives you means. “couple minutes? up to you.”

“do you - want to?” he asks as his head tilts.

“yeah,” you whisper. your face turns hot. “want proof?”

there’s no one else in this corner of nancy’s kitchen. steve nods, almost imperceptibly so, and you gently take his wrist before guiding it towards the core of you. he takes a sharp inhale and looks around, his hair bobbing. you don’t know if you want to laugh or scream. he looks back at you and licks his lips. “now? we go now?”

“rob,” you’re saying two minutes later, “i’ve got a hell of a headache - steve’s gonna take me home. can you get a ride from nance?”

maybe you’re paranoid, but the smile she gives you is a little irritating. you’re relieved when she doesn’t argue. “hope you feel better.”

it’s quiet and tense when steve gets the passenger side door for you. you slip into the soft leather of the seat and open your mouth to say thank you, but steve’s lips are suddenly on yours. it shocks your brain - in fact, you feel a little sick, want and need rushing through you.

you shouldn’t be kissing a guy like him. and he shouldn’t be kissing you, you think. but his soft hands cup your heated cheeks, pink tongue caressing your bottom lip. he pulls away quickly, swipes his thumb across your cheekbone and nods with a little smile.

“sorry,” he whispers, eyes wandering your face. “had to.”

“that - that’s okay.”

steve jogs to his side of the door and slides in quickly. turns the key so fast the engine stalls for a second before purring to life. he giggles and reaches towards you, letting his hand fall on your thigh. again. it’s burning your skin.

you have to roll down the window.

you’re both silent. overthinking, certainly. steve bites his cheek while you stare out the window, and for a minute you think this will go nowhere. but then he speaks, his thumb rubbing circles on your leg.

“i missed you. y’know how hard it was watching you? i didn’t - i, uh, i didn’t know if you’d want to do this again. do you want to?” he asks again.

“please?”

he grins. “well, when you ask so sweet… you like the car? i can take you to a proper place, if you want.”

the car sort of invigorates you. it’s a little dirty and perverted. you aren’t either of those things - it makes you feel like a whole new person. “i kind of liked the view last time….”

steve snorts. “you’re funny.”

“so’re you.”

“hmm. how about you take a compliment without giving one back?”

it makes your skin crawl and you don’t really think before you say, “what else should i take?”

steve groans. it’s music to your ears. you’ve dreamed of it, tried to remember it at night - hell, during the afternoon, the early morning when the thought of him won’t let you sleep. you’re addicted. you’d say the sluttiest things imaginable if it kept getting that reaction.

you knew exactly what you wanted to do for him. got your lips all soft and red with cherry lip salve. you know how much he loves cherries. you’ve watched, hungry, while he bit off the flesh of one from a stem, covered in whipped cream. watched him add it to his coca cola. smelled it on his skin.

yes, indeed. you’re tasting him tonight.

his car veers off to the usual spot. at least, you’d like to call it that. the usual spot. you want to utter it to him when those tight levis break your imagination. when his big hands distract you as they slide into a bowling ball.

you’re desperate for courage when he parks, though steve feeds it to you. “can i kiss you?” and a second later, his soft lips are back on yours. he’s so good at it it makes you dizzy.

“such a pretty thing,” he whispers. “is that cherry?”

you nod, hands grabbing his shirt. as if he’d stop you from floating into space. you can’t even open your eyes. the sight of him might kill you.

“did you know i love cherries?”

“i know a lot about you.”

steve’s big hand slides up your thigh, playing with the sensitive skin on the inside. “oh, yeah?” his lips press against yours but he still talks. “like what?”

your face is so hot it’s embarrassing. you’re not even aware that you’re grinding against the seat below you. so goddamn needy for him. you speak between kisses. “like - you - suck - at - pool.”

“that - a - deal - breaker - for - you?”

you giggle. you can’t help it. “least you - can kiss.”

steve surges towards you, his chest pressed i’m against yours. you’re on fire. you might suffocate. it’s delightful. you want to feel this claustrophobic because of him all the time. your hands tangle in his hair and you pull him towards you while his fingers finally find you needy between the thighs again.

“you been thinkin’ of me like i’ve been thinkin’ of you?” he asks, pulling away. his lips are tinted red now, too. he looks a little pathetic when he asks it, excited, eager, but ready for rejection.

“of course i have,” you breathe. “every night, every morning.”

“what a romantic,” steve teases. he applies a little bit more pressure to your sensitivity. “y’know how much i’ve been thinkin’ about you? jerked myself sore after every hangout. but i’m starting to forget the taste of you.”

you’re so wildly out of your depth here. he talks about this like it’s second nature. “that’s too bad.” you’re perpetually out of breath. “i….”

steve raises his brows and inclines his head towards you, a teasing smile tugging his lips. “you….?”

you’re dizzy. “i don’t even know what you taste like.”

“huh?” he genuinely did not hear you. you’re mumbling, scared to say the wrong thing. it really riles him up, though.

you don’t want to repeat yourself, so you instead reach across the console to rub his erection with your hand. he gasps and bites his lip while his puppy dog eyes squeeze shut. “oh!”

“can i taste?” you whisper.

steve’s eyes snap open and he looks truly surprised. “oh,” he says, less slutty. “i - uh - i - are you -?”

you nod. “want to feel you in my mouth.”

it sounds so lame when it comes out but steve groans, head falling back against the window. “don’t say shit like that,” he moans, rutting up against your palm.

okay, now you’re on fire in a very different way. “like what?” you don’t really have to make yourself sound innocent. “like, i wanna feel how heavy your cock is on my tongue?”

“oh my god,” he groans. “baby - jesus christ. christ. shit. where have you been?”

“waiting,” you answer. “will you help me?”

steve gets his pants down his hips in record time. he blushes heavily, waiting for your reaction. which - your face is probably blank to him, because conceptualizing the size of him is a difficult task. he’s thick, long, the tip gently slapping against his tummy. your pipe dream of getting him in your throat is out the window. for now, you’ll have to start small.

which, he is not.

“is it okay?” steve asks.

“what?” your head snaps up to see his disheveled face and messy hair. “its - yeah. i - i might not be able to -“

“of course!” he says quickly, shaking his head. “you don’t have to do anything - kissin’ you’s more than enough - and - and you know i love tasting y-“

you lean forward and it shuts him up. he shifts so he’s facing you, so he’s closer. your hand reaches out experimentally to feel him. steve sighs when your fingers wrap around the velvet length. he’s so much warmer and harder than you ever imagined.

“and you’ve never…?” he asks hoarsely.

you look up at him through your lashes and he almost combusts. “no.”

steve shivers. his hands gently scrape through your hair, pushing it out of your pretty face. “go slow, okay? you want to stop, we stop.”

it’s almost annoying. “steve, be quiet.”

“i’m not known for th-aaaaaaaah!”

his head falls back against the window again just from you licking the tip of his cock. the salt of his precum makes your mouth water. his nails scratch gingerly at your scalp in the same way your fingers try to find purchase in his shirt when he kisses you.

you feel powerful. really, truly.

he’s saying nonsense above you when you really start your work, taking him further and further into your mouth. he’s so heavy on your tongue. tastes clean and inoffensive. you adore the way his shaft tenses up when you run your tongue over a vein or focus on the head.

“you’re so fuckin’ gorgeous,” he slurs, watching you with hooded eyes. “so good at that, honey, y’sure y’never did this?”

you pop off of him and use your hand to leisurely jerk him off. it’s much different from his ferocity when he ate you out. “why? you jealous?”

steve’s chest heaves and he tries to find words. “sometimes when eddie’d take you home i - i’d get - thinking about him touching you -“

“please don’t mention him right now,” you beg, though you’d be lying if the idea of him getting pissed over you and someone else didn’t do it for you.

he changes the subject quickly. “touch yourself.”

you pause. “i - might be hard -“

“ugh, right,” he moans. “wish - wish you - had more room. could finger that - that pretty little hole while you suck me off.”

you moan now, and lean back forward to suck him off again. you’re messy with it, letting yourself drool on him to account for what you couldn’t take. you wish he’d make you take it, his fingers bullying into you while his hips buck up. you want it so bad it has you drooling harder, your core aching. it hurts.

“miss it,” he continues, voice strained. “miss how t-tight y’were on my tongue, shit! oh, honey, we - we - should s-sixty-nine, that’d be so hot.”

you moan and, against your better judgement, take him a little deeper. you gag when he hits the back of your throat but the mini freak-out steve has when you do is so worth it. he gasps and thrashes, a long, guttural groan filling the car. “yes, fuck! fuck fuck fuckfuckfuck i’m close so close-“

and you don’t really know what to do with your hand, so it reaches down to fondle his balls, which feels dirty and makes your heart beat fast and hard. steve’s pulling you off of him so quickly you get whiplash, and then he’s cumming in thick spurts, gasping and arching and whining. you reach for him to help him finish, his big hand finding yours and helping you jerk him off. his mouth open in an “o”, his eyes staring at you with adoration, brows furrowed.

your pristine hand is covered in his cum. it’s pretty, pearlescent in the moonlight. you want to taste it but you’re not sure if that would make things awkward. your fever has vanished and you’re thinking a bit more clearly now. anxiety creeps in - but steve’s lips quickly quell it, soothing you as they move against yours.

“sorry,” he whispers. he’s very giggly. “got y’messy.”

“you’re prone to doing that.”

he laughs louder. “cute and funny?”

“and good at head?”

“that’s not a requirement.”

“an added bonus, certainly?”

steve pulls you towards him again. “you want my dirty underwear this time?”

you feel lightheaded when you say yes.

#steve harrington smut #stevenose posts #ns/fw #steve x reader

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violentdelightsandviolentends · 3 months

Note

My request could also work with carmy and Michael too btw 👀🤭 whatever tickles your muse

There Goes That Dream.

carmy berzatto x female reader, michael berzatto x female reader

warnings - pure angst. sorry about this. happy valentines day!

masterlist. inbox. valentines masterlist.

“What’s on your mind, Bear?”

Michael has been watching his little brother carefully for the last thirty minutes. Carmy’s deep in thought, lip bitten between his teeth, eyes unfocused and dissociated.

“Nothin.”

“Right.”

Michael doesn’t say anything else, just allows Carmy to sit in the silence for a minute. He knows he’ll have to fill it eventually.

“Just thinking about Valentine’s.”

“Uh oh,” Mikey laughs, shoving his brother’s shoulder. “You having big feelings, bud?”

“Shut up,” Carmy grumbles, leaning back against the kitchen counter. “I’m thinking about asking someone out, but I’ve left it too late. It’s literally tomorrow.”

“Dude. That means it isn’t too late. You’ve still got loads of time.”

Carmy looks over to where you’re laughing with Natalie, both of you giggling over something she’s showing you on her phone. It’s always been like this, for as long as he can remember. You slotted right into the Berzatto family as if it was your last name too.

Carmen fell in love with you that day. He’s loved you every day since.

It’s been ten years, give or take. He’s learned to live with the fact that he loves you, the way people adjust to new climates, or life altering injuries. He knows he has no choice but to carry on.

For the first time in what feels like forever, you’re both single. Unattached to anyone, ready for a new connection. And if that isn’t a sign from the universe, Carmy doesn’t know what is. He’s sick of waiting, sick of pretending like he wouldn’t take a bullet for you at any given moment. He figures it’s now or never. He’s waited long enough.

“Carmen,” Michael says firmly, shaking him back to reality. “Whoever it is - she’s a lucky girl. The worst thing that can happen is that she says no. You’ll be okay.”

Carmy nods, knowing that his brother doesn’t understand, not really - but he’s trying to. You’re not just some girl. You’re the girl.

“Yeah, okay. I’m gonna do it. Later tonight, I think.”

“Good man.”

Mikey leaves him alone, smacking him on the back as he goes. Carmy’s buzzing with anticipation, ready to finally commit to the one thing he’s thought about doing every single day for the better part of a decade.

He stands in the kitchen for a while, trying to concoct the perfect plan. Eventually, he figures that it is literally now or never… and he has to choose now. He makes his way out to the living room and over to Natalie.

“Sugar, have you seen-”

“She’s outside. Out front.”

She already knows who he’s looking for. Because he’s only ever looking for you.

Carmy swings open the front door, ready to yell your name, when he sees you.

You’re sat on the curb, with Mikey next to you. You look like you’re deep in conversation, your eyes never leaving the older man’s face. Carmy figures you’ll be done soon, so he waits on the front step for you.

You laugh, and Mikey gets closer to you, so your thighs are pressed together on the cold sidewalk. Your eyes are still on his, and there’s this look that Carmy can’t quite place. He’s never seen it before, but it’s intense - focused, grounded, warm. There’s a feeling in the pit of his stomach, suddenly. He doesn’t like it.

Michael cups your face in his hands, and Carmy knows exactly what’s about to happen. He can’t look away, no matter how badly he wants to.

You meet him halfway, leaning in to kiss him with a passion that can only be created by time. Yearning, pining, waiting - that’s what this kiss is. It’s an amalgamation of patience.

You separate, lungs heaving, beaming grin on both of your faces.

“I’ve been waiting for you to do that for so long,” Carmy hears you say. “Years, Mikey.”

You’re both laughing, blissfully unaware of Carmen’s heart shattering into a thousand pieces mere feet away.

Michael was wrong, earlier. The worst thing that could happen is this.

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thestarlightforge · 5 months

Text

TBOSAS Meta

This started as a couple-paragraphs-long Everlark & Coryo x Lucy Gray rant. It turned into an essay on the politics of systemic oppression and how we illustrate it in fiction, with The Hunger Games and Ballad as case studies. Regardless, I hope others enjoy, lol. This is where my brain lives, now, as I expect it will the rest of 2023. Cheers!

***

It’s been interesting, the last few days, some of the discourse that’s popped up around TBOSAS. FASCINATING political discussions, as I’ve come to expect for a Suzanne Collins release. (#1 in my heart.)

Personally, I always separate books vs. movie canon with her franchise. With the OG Hunger Games, sometimes I felt the films were better—like she got another pass at it and REALLY took advantage, and utilized the hell out of taking it out of Katniss’s first-person POV to develop other characters and the world (still without detracting from her narrative)—while for some details, I preferred the books.

With TBOSAS, though, the book and movie feel almost entirely different to me.

There are MANY shared elements, of course, and I feel either version gels quite nicely with the OG franchise. It’s not even that there’s that many continuity differences—some things cut or altered for time, sure, but the bones of the plot are the same. Both illustrate astute political commentary, Coriolanus’s descent into madness, Tigris’s shift in position on him (foreshadowing her full turn by Mockingjay), and Lucy Gray’s role in his life in both his initial downfall and his defeat by Katniss. The actors and creative team all did BEAUTIFUL work bringing it to life, and I honestly love both versions.

But fans who mainly like the book may be frustrated by the sympathy Coryo garners in the film.

Normally, I’d say this is because the book reveals more internal monologue—and it does. But honestly, one of the things I was most impressed by in this film was how legible the actors’ internal monologues were. It was clear, the amount of work they all did to that end. So I don’t know that it is just more. I think it’s also different.

Book Coriolanus devolves much earlier and more obviously. He starts from the same pressed circumstances and has moments of goodness, but he becomes the villain we know him eventually to be pretty damn fast.

Film-Coriolanus has a much slower descent. Ironic, honestly, given the film has far less time than the book does.

I think as a result of this, I’ve seen discourse comparing beats in his relationship with Lucy Gray to Katniss and Peeta. For example, that beautifully shot/choreographed/performed scene in TBOSAS with him and Lucy Gray on either side of the fence after the bombings that night, where they almost kiss and he asks her, “Is this real? If I’m going to risk everything?” being compared to Peeta’s long game of “real or not real” throughout Mockingjay. Everlark folks (rightfully) pointing out that for Peeta, the refrain is about shared trauma, especially between him and Katniss, and both of them grounding their relationship in mutual trust—while asserting that for Coryo, the same refrain comes from a place of selfishness.

I get where this opinion comes from: President Snow is probably one of the most violent, sadistic, genocidal dictators in modern popular fiction. His relationship with Lucy Gray started as transactional—even more acutely in the book. Nearly everything Book-Coryo does is for his or his family’s personal gain.

But to me, half the beauty and tragedy of the film is this delicious possibility—the hope—they showed us.

THG has always had a strong anti-war philosophy in general, with through-line commentary on showmanship, propaganda, surveillance and performance: The recurrent themes of cameras always bring on them, the arenas and entirety of Panem being a stage/game—and how those things impact authentic human relationships. Everlark hit for so many because of the ways authenticity bloomed out of that hellish, contrived pit. Coriolanus and Lucy Gray’s relationship started out similarly contrived: Thrown together by the politics of the Academy, the uprising, the districts, the Capitol and the Games—helping one another survive. Largely unlike Katniss and Peeta, they both played the game intentionally, to varying degrees. (Personality wise, these four really have almost nothing in common, lol.) Lucy Gray is a good person, both in the end and from her start (unlike the terrorist Coriolanus becomes). But she is a performer. He’s right about that.

So honestly, I don’t see much purpose in reading Peeta’s question as valid while Coryo’s wasn’t. I think that judgment is colored by dramatic irony—us knowing who they each become. But in theatre, we talk about living honestly in imagined circumstances. It’s used in a lot of acting techniques, but particularly for people playing villains. To stay grounded in the truth of it, you have to believe honestly in the imagined moment, not the gestalt; Leslie Odom Jr. was a great Aaron Burr because every performance, he believed in the whole journey, from hope to ruin. Tom Blythe was a great Coryo because he invested in the earnest reality of Snow as a young man, not the devil we know he becomes. And at that point in the story, at the cages that night with Lucy Gray, Coriolanus was honestly grounded in similar struggles as our OG heroes: Trying to provide for and protect his starving family. His family (and the Capitol at large) reeks of privilege, and his prejudices were obviously flawed. But in his developing love for her, he was steeped in starvation, the same political forces as lashed all citizens of Panem, and was clawing his way from beneath just as much Capitol propaganda as people from the Districts—perhaps even more so, given his Grandma’am and how his father died. Because of their given circumstances, politics bled into everything—but eventually, so did feeling, and they had several moments of genuine bonding, trust and connection which the actors invested in beyond their political need for each other. There’s a constant push and pull: Holding hands at the zoo for the cameras was political; her reaching for his hand in the arena visit was less so. The first “Stop treating me like I’ve already lost” in front of everyone was wit-soaked survival, while “Please don’t let me die in that arena tomorrow,” near-whispered and with hands held between them where the camera would struggle to see, bled into real vulnerability. Saving him from the other tributes in the cage-ride to the zoo was about survival; risking her life to go back for him when the arena was bombed was at least a mix. Her motivations for singing in her interview are complex—perhaps guilt that a “rebel” attack nearly killed Coriolanus, his advice she’d get the most money that way—but I feel strongly that a non-zero amount of her was motivated by wanting to demonstrate that she trusts him, which for her is even higher-prized than love. And I also feel that, after the hospital and her “final performance”—leading up to their near-kiss at the zoo—Coriolanus scoped out the arena (and ultimately took all those risks to help her cheat the Games) both because he wanted the Plinth prize, in theory, and because he increasingly desperately wanted her to live.

The waters between them were thoroughly, legitimately muddied—which I believe was intentional, that constant tension between authenticity and politics. And as much as he was falling for her, Coriolanus saw that Lucy Gray was just as clever and good at crowd-work as he was—maybe better.

So to circle all the way back to this Everlark comparison: Given the absurdly multilayered situation, is it really that selfish or unreasonable he would check in with her during that moment through the fence? That this child—wrapped in oppressive patriarchy, violence, starvation and propaganda—would ask for reassurance before he was willing to be vulnerable, or to potentially risk his family’s lives?

Some artists are hesitant to engage with the humanity of “villains,” their origins, because they feel humanizing them excuses them. In real life, I get this: Second chances aren’t always the answer, and people need to be held accountable. But isn’t it more powerful storytelling to demonstrate the corrosive nature of all systems of oppression in our fiction, to show how they can corrupt even those who try, than to condemn people before they’ve even had a chance? Isn’t the beauty of Lucy Gray’s whole thing that everyone starts out good, and it’s our job to choose to stay on the right side of that line?

And when President Coriolanus Snow finally chokes on his last rose, wouldn’t it be a more satisfying victory if we imagined him as a real-feeling person—full owner of sixty years of horrifying choices—rather than a cartoonishly evil cardboard cutout?

Book-Coryo has a more obviously manipulative/evil streak, much earlier on. To make it plain: He’s an ass, and his “love” for her reads more like obsession. But my favorite aspect of the film (and I feel one of the most compelling) was how it illustrated that these systems of oppression can make tragedies of almost anyone: All but those at the very, very top. Suzanne’s anti-capitalist politicking—how classism turns everyone below the 1% against each other, where the “upper middle class” (doctors/lawyers/actors) is vilified to the poor as a red herring while a handful of robber-baron CEOs amass almost all wealth on the planet—strikes again. She, Francis Lawrence, the film’s creative team and these actors came together to put tragically human faces on that struggle—how hard it is to stay a good person amidst intense, violent, systemic oppression.

But none of that sings quite as true if you go into it having decided that Coriolanus was evil in his bones. The stakes are so much higher, richer, otherwise. If his love—for Tigris, for his family, for Sejanus, and yes, for Lucy Gray—was, or became, authentic.

It’s not a descent into madness if he’s already mad. Or, as he put it in the original Hunger Games film: “Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear.”

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circeyoru · 3 months

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Their Twist In Time

[Time-travelled Human!Alastor x Time User!Reader]

You were the only child born into this generation’s time masters. The pressure was always on you to do this well and do that well. Even more so when you had to hide your time-travelling powers. You mostly travel to the past and only for a short while so you don’t disturb the timeline and whatever nonsense your parents drilled into your little child mind

Perhaps you should have paid attention

The lack of siblings to carry the burden with you means all that power solely rest on your shoulders. Lose control and well, you can have dire consequences. This time being you bringing back some rando with you to the present

Big oops

So here Alastor was, strolling in the Bayou when suddenly, he was now in another place! People hold black metal things and something in their ears as they walk along. Oh, and the giant metal that would travel in the streets! Almost as big as a house, if not 3 times bigger! People gave him weird looks and he had to hide in an alleyway to wake himself up

Back to you, you were panicking. You obviously brought back someone, who? Probably a small time fry. But either way, you need to find them. Just your luck that your powers weren’t working, but there was enough residual to locate the person that was out of place or time

Double luck because you couldn’t exactly contact your parents or anyone else to ask about your situation until it was that period of the year (something like a witching hour but even rarer and is cater to time masters). You were on your own for a while, long while

First things first. Locate the target. Technology was on your side at least, there had been posts and pictures of a man out of the ordinary sighted around your area. How could you not notice this man behind or near you? He was holding a hunting gun, or shotgun? For crying out loud!

“There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!” Your voice boomed as you went forward and grabbed him by the wrist, nudging him to follow. He’s stronger than he looks, given his skinny build. “Friend, are you still upset we can’t play that new game?”

“What on Earth are you talking about? Release me or I’ll be forced—”

“I’m trying to get us out of the spotlight, so just follow along, I’ll explain things once we’re somewhere private.” You whispered as your eyes darted to the nosy people with their phones out. The man got the message and came up with some story on the fly, going along as you requested

Safely the two of you made it back to your rather secluded home and you sighed, exhausted. The man more so physically and you mentally. Before you could even move from your spot, the barrel of the man’s gun was pointed in your face, him threatening you for answers

You raised your hands and explained, there was honestly no way around it, you had to tell him that you accidentally brought him to ‘the future’ in his perspective with your powers over time. When he demanded you do the same in reverse, you shamefully and embarrassingly admitted you were still inexperienced and had to wait for your parents to teach the method to you

“Why can’t you do it now?”

“They’re dead and I need to wait for that time of the year to contact them.”

“...My condocenses.”

“Thanks.”

The first few days, after the introductions and the living situation was settled, the two of you avoided each other. Only talking when the man, Alastor, wanted to know where he could find things and the like while you were still busy with your college life

Both of you were glad you didn’t have to see the other majority of the time. Since you were outside with school and part-time job, Alastor had the place to himself. Your place was big, by modern standards, and he had plenty of space to roam around. All but your room and study were off-limits to him

Unspokenly, there was a routine. Alastor would have made food by the time you were back and you’d have restocked the necessities. Then there was Alastor’s constant checking of whether you found a way to bring him home on your own and your answer was always the same ‘No, sorry’

It took one minor incident to connect you two and start opening up: Home invasion

One reason or another, the burglar thought you were an easy and perfect target since you were the only one in and out of the house, plus your place was big

The burglar forced open your door when you were entering and pinned you to the door since the two of you were inside, a hand covering your mouth to avoid attention. Your nearest neighbour was far, still better safe than sorry, right? “Give me all your valuables and money and no one gets hurt.”

Your home was your sacred place, there were traps and spells all around to ensure no one would find out your family’s secret. In fact, why Alastor was allowed to just stay at your place alone when you were out was because of your charms and traps. Any suspicious action made, you’d know and it would be dealt with

Before you could activate one, however, the burglar’s eyes rolled to the back of their head and their hold over you loose. You were grabbed by the wrist and yanked away before the unconscious body of the burglar flattened you. You looked up to your rescuer, shocked to see Alastor with his gun

“You didn’t kill him, right?”

“Only knocked him unconscious, dear.”

The process was slow, but eventually you two were enjoying meals together instead of up in your respective rooms, Alastor even followed you out and stayed around your campus to explore while waiting for you to be done with your activities

You also learned about his fancy with radios and his job as a radio host in his time, again you expressed your blues about his situations, but unlike before, now he seemed happy. What made you blush was his flirtatious words, “My dear! I call it a lucky accident! If it weren’t for your mistake, I’d have never met a gal such as yourself. You’re truly one of a kind, dear.”

In modern times, you’d rarely hear these cheesy ‘dear’ or ‘darling’ name callings, it was mostly for dramas and novels. In a way, it suited him. If he wasn’t calling everyone (girl/lady) he met that, you’d have been head over heels for him

It puzzled the Radio Host to no end, his feelings towards you. He was going to watch and see if you could defend yourself against that burglar, not rescue you like a knight in shining armour. But something ached in his chest and heart when he saw you getting manhandled like that. He needed to put that no-good crook in his place

He didn’t even realize he took a hold of his hunting gun or what he did until he had you in his arms. You were supposed (and is) to be all-powerful. You control time for heaven’s sake. A trainee time master, but still powerful in your own right. You were no damsel and you deserved some misfortune for what you did to him

Yet he still protected you and held you close. Was it because you offered the best hospitality you could offer? Bring him meals with your hard-earned money? Buy him new clothes and daily necessities because he didn’t want to share yours? Catered to his wishes when you could have ignored it all? Maybe those play a part. But what took the cake was your efforts to correct your mistake behind closed doors

He noticed late into the night the noises from your room connected to the study. You were keeping quiet, but his trained hearing could catch you rummaging around to find anything to help your/his situation. The next morning, you’d have food ready for him and give him a smile to leave for school and work

Ah. It was that smile that slowly got the better of him. That’s why. A familiar smile to hide the troubles of the mind

Note: There's part 2~ Hehe ᕦ(ò‿óˇ)ᕤ

Will be updated to Masterlist when part 2 and the random moment is out as well~! Enjoy my other stories until then! Happy reading!

Circe Y.

MASTERLIST

#alastor imagine #alastor x reader #alastor x y/n #alastor x you #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel alastor #alastor #alastor headcanons #hazbin hotel fanfiction #hazbin hotel oneshots #Circe's Nighty Writings #Their Twist In Time #human alastor

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sibsteria · 2 years

Note

hello, can you do headcanons of klaus mikaelson being a simp for you? 💘

yes of course, lovely!

Warnings: large fluff, a bit smutty, soft!klaus, protective!Mikaelsons

Summary: Klaus Mikaelson is the malewife simp of the century(ies)

not proofread, don’t kill me 😭🫶

the first time he met you, he studied you, up and down, I feel as if it would be at a Mikaelson ball, or maybe the Mystic Grill

I mean, eyes roaming

so our man just felt he had to introduce himself

he presents his hand out for you to shake

“I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before, I know I would have remember a face like yours.”

“Oh, wow, you’re charming.”

He gives an amused smile, a soft chuckle

“I prefer the name Klaus Mikaelson, please tell me what name could possibly match such a person of beauty?”

I feel as if he wouldn’t assert his name as Niklaus right off the bat ygm besties

he is leaving you blushing though

you’re probably a vamp so congrats, he’s got eternal dibs!

definitely lays a gentle kiss to your hand when you tell him your name

“I suppose I’ll be seeing you.” he lingers in your presence before slowly walking away

you’re just- astounded, who gave him the right to be so alluring?

I ain’t gonna lie to you, he went home that night and stalked for your information

he knows where you live, your next of kin, the bar you frequent

so an accidental bumpings into are already in his workings

“Ah, hello love, what a surprise!”

he’d buy you all your drinks, making sure to keep any eye on them if you left the bar for a moment if you’re human (you probs aren’t)

you would spend the whole night together

just chatting and swapping anecdotes

flirting

he charms you with poems, jewellery and just spending time getting to know you as if he didn’t know everything already

he will flaunt his money around

“I should take you to dinner, tell me love, do you enjoy pasta?”

if your answer is yes then well than enjoy your authentic italian dish! the flight wasn’t even too long

you had both fallen off the cliff, smitten for one another

when you’re dating he absolutely follows wherever you go

accidentally

but you know better

and you don’t mind, he’s always looking out for you

long parting kisses

I’m talking tongue, with his hand tangled in your hair

ass slaps as you walk away, making you present a shy smile

when your more comfortable around each other, you don’t hesitate to do it back

a faux shock face from the hybrid

“well, love, I never listed you as the kinky type. I do say, I’m quite impressed.”

get ready for marks

he litters you in hickeys, even if they might fade by the end of the day

he’s going to try

if you’re human he’ll have you wear a vial of his blood around your neck

for emergencies

and a fun conversation for anyone who comes on to you

if he’s in a heated argument discussion with someone, his face will immediately soften when you walk through the door

“hello, love.” a passion induced coma hoods his eyes

will try to protect you from violence and danger but he does know you can handle yourself

“Klaus, I can snap a neck like a motherfucker-”

“I know, darling, but why do that when I can do it for you?”

hours of cuddles

hours

just you in his arms, with his nose nuzzled into you

he’s a softy, really

you get along with his family, it’s a given

Rebekah is literally you’re sister from another mister

shopping sprees with her unlimited credit card

knowing each other’s styles

“How did you know?” She pouts as you hand her a pair of heels that she had been eying up

she’s just overjoyed she actually had a true friend that she can trust

someone she can rely on

you are inseparable

and Klaus is absolutely jealous

“may I please have my girlfriend back, dear sister?” an edge to his tone

“if you must, you annoying rat bastard.”

but you love them

Elijah is eternally grateful for your calmness

and your ability to tame the beast

“I must say, you impress me, Miss L/n.”

you’re utterly baffled

Elijah is not an easy man to impress

but your besties anyway, now 🙄🤚

you often pick up ties that you think would suit him

he smiles and shakes his head

“I do hope you insist on keeping her around, Niklaus.” he uses a low whisper to his brother.

“I don’t assume I’m ever letting her go.”

whilst you have managed to wrap him around your little finger

he won’t hesitate to rip someone’s throat out for touching you

say you’re at a bar

he left for a moment to answer a call, his mistake

he comes back, you’re face filled with discomfort and annoyance as this poor man would not stop verbally harassing you

but that was not enough of an action for you to snap his neck yourself

but as he’s walking towards the bar, he watches as the stranger lets his hand trail down your back until he reaches your-

Klaus has already sped towards him

grabbing his hair and tearing out his throat

his chin, neck and chest are dripping with blood

your surprised at the lack of screams around you, coming to the conclusion that he must have compelled the drinkers to not bat an eye at supernatural goings-on

“are you kidding-”

“sweetheart, don’t get angry-”

“I just got blood stains from last week out of that shirt!”

he pauses his spiel, a blushing smile across his face

you weren’t repulsed by the violent display he’d put on

“have I ever told you how much I love you?”

“on occasion.” you roll your eyes, pulling him in for kiss

the blood coats around your lips but you don’t mind

“I love you too, Nik.”

that was the first time you used such an intimate nickname

and he loved it

hearing such words fall from your mouth

you both get blood drunk nightly

but refusing to feed on kids, because you have some morals

and you push Klaus to erase after eating because why draw attention to himself, he already has a healthy crowd of enemies

and that is where Elijah expresses gratitude

if you ever get kidnapped on that one occasion you were caught off guard

be ready, the cavalry are coming

a crowd of angry originals, breaking down walls and tearing out hearts

“shit! I didn’t know she had all of ‘em at her beck and call-” one of your kidnappers scream, as he watches his cronies drop to the floor

“mate, I advice you shut your mouth, in fact- I’ll do it for you-” queue Kol punching his head from his shoulders, it rolls nicely onto the floor in a pool of blood

they had you on a vervain drip

“oh, love, I’m so sorry.” Klaus is by your side, ripping out the tubes, hugging you close

Kol is your annoying little brother, but mostly a sweetheart to you

you two tend to sneak out together, infiltrating house parties

“if Nik finds us, he’ll kill you!” you scream over the music

“he can try, darling!” he howls with laughter, a bottle of his chosen alcohol spilling down his throat

he does find you

“why in the world, did you think I wouldn’t notice you leaving my side?” he caresses your cheek

“don’t torture him, we just wanted a bit of fun.” you whisper, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth

“I suppose you’re right, I have faith in his protection, he loves you like family.” begrudgingly letting Kol off the hook

he has fucked you on every surface in his home

“not on the dinner table, Nik-” Beks

“I eat off that counter, pests.” Kol

“Is it a rule that you have to infect every piece of furniture in our home?” Elijah

*noises of disgust* Finn

*eye roll* Freya

still counting how many public displays he can get away with

he has tied your ex to a chair and made him watch as he gave you orgasm after orgasm

I mean, he murdered him afterwards, so-

“was there any need?”

“yes.”

in his mind, you’re already together forever

he lets you be in possession of one of his daggers, just in case his family give you any problems

“you know I won’t need to use it-”

“just humour me, keep it safe.”

it’s never boring

y’all he’s in love 😻

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writingsfromhome · 5 months

Text

If you Love Something II

A/N: okayy I’m finally going to stop overthinking and just post this one. Please note the tw in part 1. Thank you all SO much for the comments and love on the original…hope this one meets ur expectations. It’s definitely more focused on the lost daughter relationship rather than you and Harry so p dense but...here it is 🫣

——————————————

Age 36:

“Dinner’s almost ready,” Harry informs me over the phone. “I went with chicken noodle soup.”

“Mmm,” I close my eyes. “I could use something hot and hearty right now. I’m freezing my ass off.”

“I didn’t need to make dinner for that.”

“So come here, warm me up,” I crane my neck to the left again. “Stupid delays.”

“I can come get you."

I’d mapped it out before calling Harry, it would take him too long to get here. “That’s alright. Doesn’t make a difference.”

The screen on the platform showed 6 minutes…for the past 15 minutes.

“I’ve either been living in the longest minute of my fucking life,” I mutter. “Or this line is taking the piss out of all of us.”

Two dozen of us had gotten off the last train when it announced it was out of service. Now the number on the platform had tripled waiting for the next one.

“Patience,” Harry says. “Is a virtue.”

“Easy for you to say in the warm flat with the chicken noodle soup.”

“It’ll be yours soon.”

Soon. I sigh and try to release the anxious energy with it. “Thank you for taking care of dinner.”

“Of course.” He replies. Like it was that simple. But being with Harry was like that nowadays.

Despite all the catching up we had to do with the 17 years we had lived separate lives, emotionally it’s like we picked up where we last left off.

I’d be lying if I said it was smooth sailing the whole year we’d been together. There had been a hard few first months where both of us felt unnerved by the peacefulness of the relationship. We weren’t used to such an easy quiet.

I’d tried to self-sabotage first by going awol and working longer hours than I needed to. I think I was scared Harry would wake up one day and realize too much time had passed and he didn’t like who I’d become so I minimized our time together. Until Harry called me out for it.

But then he went off the rails, and for a few weeks I’d been an even bigger ball of anxiety. Ultimately I had to give him the hard truth even though the last thing I ever wanted was to convince someone to stay with an ultimatum. But I’d told him, he had to at least attempt sobriety if he wanted us to work.

There were a few sleepless nights, I didn’t know if we were going to make it. But one morning he asked me to go to an aa meeting with him.

Going together, being in the same boat as a group of people gathered in the back room of a dusty church finally gelled us together. For good. He’d been sober since.

We moved in together 7 months ago. Even though it doubled my commute time—tripled with delays, I had never been more sure that I was exactly where I needed to be.

We held space for each other. Even the heavier bits; we knew what they were. What it was like to hold them on our own. We always joked about how our loads had halved despite taking on half of the other’s. Because just like our venn diagram of love, our venn diagram of hurting was the same.

“Oh god, I better not be hallucinating.” I nearly jump up and down when the twin headlights of the next train peek in the distance. The platform board still says 6 minutes.

“You’re cutting up what?”

“Nothing! Train’s here!”

“I’ll pick you up from the station.” Harry says before I hang up.

I spend the remaining 15 minute ride going over the lecture I’d given tonight.

3 years ago when I applied to be a lecturer I didn’t actually think I’d get it. But in the 10 years of my career I had collected, I had done exceptionally well. It was ironic with all the bullshit life threw at me, I had somehow channeled it into a determined work ethic. After failing many math tests in high school I had found a love for it in uni—it made me work hard, get out of my head with its constant thoughts. Harry now took to calling me a masochist for teaching something mathematical.

In reality it wasn’t that mathematical. I taught Management Econ which was a snorefest on paper but I tried to be engaging and include a whole host of ways to teach—I knew not everyone excelled with a textbook.

It had made the course popular, it went from being offered once a semester to 3 times this year because the waitlist spoke for itself. It was one of my proudest accomplishment—getting students motivated and interested. And because it was mostly first and second year students, they were still eager and not jaded by the uni system.

That was how I spent my evenings on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Otherwise I worked for the city the same hours Harry worked his creative exec job at a major firm in the city. Sometimes we met up for lunch. It was the little things like that, making time to see each other in the middle of the day even though we woke up and fell asleep to each other, that made this relationship feel so secure.

It felt like coming home each time I caught sight of his face, and knew his smile was just for me.

My thoughts drift to our daughter. She would have celebrated her 18th birthday a few weeks ago. I always lit a birthday candle for her, this year Harry and I bought a cake and a symbolic drink for her. Our baby was old enough to drink.

“Do you think she takes after her parents?” Harry had asked.

“I think she grew up alright.” I always imagined her to have. “I hope she has no reason to drink herself silly.”

“Being 18 is reason enough.”

We talk about her often. She slips into conversation as easily as inhaling. It keeps her with us.

When I spot Harry’s car at the station I nearly weep.

“Your cheeks are so cold,” Harry says after a peck hello. He holds them both in his heated hands and plants exaggerated kisses on each cheek.

“Please sir,” I kiss his mouth and continue in what Harry called my Oliver Twist accent. “Take me to the chicken noodle soup. I hunger.”

Harry responds in the same accent (although it wasn’t as good as mine) and pretty soon I’m forgetting the 20 minute delay, the lecture with 100 technical difficulties, and anything in between.

After dinner and completing my 20 step night time routine I crawl into bed beside a cozy-looking Harry.

“Whatcha reading?” I peek at his book. I can’t believe he was the reading-before-bed type. In a way it was so different from the 17 year old guy I knew. It was also a reminder that even though we knew each other through and through, there were still so many habits and stories and quirks to discover.

“It’s a boring as hell sci-fi novel, don’t ask.”

“Then why are you reading it?”

“I accidentally joined a book club at work!?”

He tells me the story of how he told some people he enjoyed reading, and then being unable to say no when they bought this month’s book for him and presented it to him a week later.

“I bet you that’s their ponze scheme. It’s like an MLM, the latest recruit has to guilt the next joinee. You’ll be doing it soon.”

Harry laughs and holds his book out to me. “That actually brings me to my next question with this very generous gift, do you like reading?”

“Nope.” I push the book away. “I also don’t like book clubs.”

He tosses the book down lightly. “Damnit!”

We laugh. I cuddle into his side and lay my head on his chest as he finishes his chapter. His heart beat is steady, like the life he’s helped me create as we committed to each other. I listen to it as it lulls me to a calmer place.

“So how was work? How’s your students this semester?”

“Work’s good. Same old right now. Teaching was interesting. It’s the second week of classes so still seeing a lot of people come and go. You start to see the regulars by week 3.”

“Full class?”

“Almost,” I tell him. “A few empty seats. There was one girl who was obviously watching tv the whole time, another guy that fell asleep halfway, and this other kid kept looking at the door like he was physically trying to decide whether he would stay. Weird lot.”

“They won’t be there next week.”

“Nope.”

“You think she’s starting uni? I wonder what she’s decided to study.”

“Mmm, I always think it’s something creative like you.”

Harry squeezes his arm around me. “I think she’s a masochist like you.”

We talk more about her, about the upcoming weekend, and as sleep visits we drift away still intertwined like most nights.

***

“Does anyone know why?” I ask the lecture hall. Just like I predicted, most of the people I knew wouldn’t make it were gone. Now there were just under 60 students in total. What had surprised me was the guy who looked nervous the second week stayed. He’d been joined by two friends who only showed up in week 4. He was probably the designated note taker.

A girl to the left puts her hand up and I point to her. “The growing gap between upper and middle classes?”

“Yes.” I give her a reassuring smile. Until I started teaching, I forgot that most answers they gave were questions. “Anyone else?”

The girl beside nervous guy puts her hand up. “The ageing population, it skews the demographic from what was initially projected?”

“Exactly,” I try not to show favourites but that was beautifully said. Maybe she didn’t need to come to all the classes.

“That would also affect the workforce,” a guy sitting in the front pipes in. I smile, pleased that a discussion was forming.

A few others join in and I nod at each point. I loved this job.

After class is over I always got a few stragglers asking questions. The nervous guy comes up to me.

“Um professor,” he hitches his backpack and glances back at his friends. “For the assignment due next week, can groups of 3 be okay?”

I glance at his friends, it was supposed to be in pairs but what the hell. “Sure. But I’ll need extra stuffing in the assignment to make up for it.”

I say it with a joking tone but he’s so wound up that he takes me seriously.

“Of course. We’ll increase the citations and make sure to include more research-“

“Philippe,” one of the girls is suddenly a few feet away.

“Thank you.” He says, finally meeting my eye. I smile and he relaxes. I turn to his friends, to acknowledge them but they stare at me like I’d grown a second head. One of the other students asks her questions and I turn my attention away—weird.

***

“Mid-terms?” Harry asks. I’m reading a textbook while I stand over the simmering pot. We had accidentally ordered 4 times the tomatoes on our online order last week and with three still left I’d decided to batch make spaghetti sauce. It had been a long time since I made it from scratch.

“Kind of.” I push the book aside. “Someone in the department wants to update the textbooks and they left notes in the old one for what needs updating. They asked me to take a look.”

“That’s cool,” Harry walks over to me. He smelled like cologne and outside, the way he usually did right after he came home on chillier days. “That he wants your opinion?”

“She actually,” I poke him. “And it is! I can’t believe I get paid to lecture about one of my passions.”

“Economics,” Harry makes a face like he smelled something bad.

“Makes the world go round,” I smile sweetly.

“Remember when you liked things that were cool like Harry Potter and Coldplay-“

“I still like them! If I recall you’re the one who motivated me to do well in maths.”

“I did?” Harry looks off into the distance but his slow smirk is evident that he was remembering. He tilts my chin up and brushes my lips. “You’re right. So how about now? Would that still work?”

“Do you want me to stroke your ego right now?”

“Amongst other things,” he muses, his hands drop down to my hips and then lower, giving my bum a squeeze.

“Cut it out,” I scold him but it’s cancelled by the smile on my face. I shake my head and go back to the simmering pot.

“Is that tomato soup?” Harry’s suddenly distracted by the pot. We’d been having a lot of it this week because…well tomatoes.

“Nope, I’m making spaghetti sauce. From scratch.”

“Hey, didn’t you make that one time? When we were kids.”

“Hm,” I think back. It felt like so long ago but something niggles at me. “I think? I used to help my mum—it’s her recipe. Maybe you had dinner on a night we made it?”

“Yes. Dinner at your place, around Easter.”

I remember that Easter clearly but not for dinner. It was a night Harry and I had talked our lives all out.

“Aw. We were so young then.” I wrap my arms around Harry.

“I’m still young,” Harry says. “I’m in my prime.”

I pat his cheek. “Of course you are love.”

***

“Taylor I can’t really do this right now!” I tell my sister as she whines to me. No matter how old we got we were always somehow 17 and 12.

“C’mon just call mom! Tell her you met him and he’s really awesome.”

“I’m not lying to mom so you can invite your newest loser boyfriend to dinner. Anyway I can’t talk. I have to get to class!”

“I know.” She says weirdly. And I understand why when I walk into class and see her sitting in the front row. Ugh she knew I would try to blow her off!

My sister had somehow taken up the bad habit ever since her mid-20s of having a string of shitty boyfriends. We all blamed it on her longterm bloke breaking it off around her 26th. I don’t think she ever fully let herself heal from that.

After two separate guys were invited to two separate family dinners and both ended in mum or dad exploding over something, they were banned. This new guy, as she insists, was different. Mature. He deserved an invite.

She holds up 9 fingers and mouths, 9 months! That’s a long time!

I shake my head and start setting up my laptop.

“Hiya,” one of the students, Kim, walks up to me as I do so. “Sorry I was just wondering when we’re getting our assignments back? Will it be before midterms?”

Midterms were in 2 weeks for this class. The assignments were in my bag, marked and ready. I tell her and watch the relief spread through her.

I spend the next hour teaching, and before we break at the hour I announce I’d return assignments. As I call them out student walks down to me and pick them up, leaving with a smile or a frown.

“Philippe?” He had stuck to his word and his group had gone above and beyond. It was a beautiful paper, albeit overly-sourced. But I appreciated it.

“He’s not in,” one of his friends comes down to get it. She looks at me in that same way again, with just as much fear as curiosity. It’s odd.

“C’mon then,” I shake the paper I was holding out. “I don’t bite.”

“Oh sorry,” she grabs it from me in a rush I nearly get a papercut. She doesn’t even look at the grade, turning quickly away before halting, pivoting halfway, changing her mind, and running back up the steps to her seat. That group of kids were weird. Maybe they were on drugs.

I catch eyes with Taylor and she raises her brow. I shrug and continue handing out the papers.

I don’t expect the girl to come up to me after class. Her friend stays hovering behind, close to my sister who I know must be desperate to have sat here the whole lecture.

“Um ‘scuse me. Professor?”

“Yes?” She was the last person in the small line that had formed after class.

“I had a question about the assignment? You um, you said we missed the equations for our answers but they’re um-“ her hands are shaking as she flips the pages to the last page. “They’re on the bottom here.”

“Oh,” I did remember they were missing it but my pen marks were all over the back of it. “I must have missed that, bloody hell sorry about that!”

“Yeah um, do we get the extra points?”

“Of course but I-“ I glance back at Taylor. She’s talking to the friend. I had to get her out of here before she said something ridiculous. “I have office hours after my Monday class. I’ll have it remarked by then and you can pick it up?”

“Um, okay?”

I quickly shut my things down and grab my sister, getting her out as quick as possible.

“I’m a professional,” she reminds me. “Jeez. Anyway Y/n listen it’s the longest I’ve been in a relationship since, well y’know. 9 months! It’s different with this guy. He works like you! A cushy office job. He’s serious. Please!?”

I hadn’t seen Taylor since last month’s dinner when she had tried to convince me to get on board with this guy. She’d been pleading for a month. “Fine.”

“Oh I love you!” She squeezes my arm. “Text me when mom gives the okay.”

I sigh. I’d really got myself in the middle again.

I retell this to Harry when I get home.

“She’s persistent. But 9 months is a new record.”

“I know!” Harry knew all about her string of boys, I’d caught him up months ago. “Anyway I can’t believe she sat through the whole lecture.”

“Maybe this is the guy. The One.”

“You don’t believe in that do you?”

“Yeah?” He squints at me. “Of course I do?”

“So I’m The One?”

“Baby do I even need to say yes? I knew it as soon as I saw you when we were 14. You confirmed it when you kissed me on the roof that day.”

“I can’t believe I did that. I had my first drink that day by the way so I might’ve been drunk.”

“You were not drunk when you kissed me,” Harry points his fork at me.

“Look at you getting all worked up,” I tease.

“I’ll get you all worked up,” he mutters into his plate. I grin as I stretch my leg out under the table and run it up his leg. He grips my ankle when it gets too high and the look he gives me across the table sends my heart racing.

“Oops,” I drop my foot and go back to eating.

We put on a movie after, something we can zone out to. It doesn’t take Harry long to get bored and nuzzle into me, and it doesn’t take much longer after that before the movie is just for show and we’re tangled in our sheets.

There were 17 years of experience Harry showed up with now, and it was another one of those things that made catching up on lost time all the better.

***

In the first half hour of my office hours, the girl walks in. I should remember her name but I just associated her group with Philippe. I was surprised he wasn’t here actually. He seemed to be their spokesperson.

“Hi come in!” I wave her into the tiny cubicle-like room I borrowed for a few hours every Monday. “I’ve got your assignment here all done.”

“Thank you,” she hovers over my desk and I hand it over. Her fingers fidget with the strings of her hoodie and I seriously consider the drug angle. Or maybe her and her friends had serious anxiety issues. I didn’t miss that part about being a teen.

“You wanna flip through one more time? I try not to make mistakes twice but…”

She sits down tentatively and buries her head in the paper as she flips through.

“It’s alright,” she says. Her expression is so serious it nearly makes me laugh. She had pretty hair—blunt cut bangs that I remember rocking in my early 20s, but on her they hide the expression in her eyebrows. Maybe that’s why she always looked so sullen. Her lips are painted a pretty mauve colour and it complimented her green eyes.

“I really um…your class is really interesting.”

Kids saying that was like injecting pure joy right into my veins.

“I’m so glad you’re enjoying it,” I smile at her. But it still doesn’t crack a smile on her end. “It’s dense material but that’s nice to hear.”

“Yeah, I didn’t know if I was gonna keep the class.” It’s subtle but she inches back in the seat. The more she talks the more she relaxes back. “But I heard it was worth taking. And people were right.”

“Are you in your first or second year?” I ask.

“First,” she tucks her hair behind her ear. It’s covered in piercings.

“How are you liking uni so far?”

She meets my eyes for a second before they shift away. “Yeah it’s nice? I’ve never lived away from home but I have some friends here that I’ve known since before so it helps. It’s really different, less structure but I like the freedom.”

Wow, she really spoke a lot more when she was comfortable. But I find it endearing.

“That’s really nice. It’s good to have a support system, especially with such big change.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. Her eyes dart around the desk as she goes silent. I wait for her to get up and go but a minute passes and the room starts to feel even smaller.

I could ask her if she needed anything else, or maybe continue the conversation? Did she want me to ask about her? No, that would be weird.

“So um, was that your sister in class last week?”

Okay, didn’t see that coming.

“It was! My baby sister, although she’s not really a baby. Did she tell your friend that?”

She nods again. “She was talking to her.”

“You have any siblings?”

“An older sister yeah.”

“So you get it,” I say. “You love them, they get under your skin, you’d do anything for them, and the cycle continues.”

For the first time she smiles and my breath catches. For a moment…no. No, I was imagining things.

“Yeah. My sister and I were close growing up, but she’s the one person that really knows how to get under my skin. I swear she does it on purpose sometimes.”

“Probably,” I want to say something funny again. I just want to see her smile.

Back off, my inner voice says. Don’t do this again.

Some years back, when I was still in the throes of alcohol, I had followed a girl at the mall for nearly an hour. She had looked so much like my sister but with brown curly hair. I could have sworn it was her—my daughter. But after an hour of drunk stalking she had met up with her mum, a direct clone of her.

I couldn’t be obsessive again. Nobody knew about that phase. Not even Harry.

“D’you have any kids?” She asks. I don’t expect the question and it throws me off what with the thoughts looping in my head. She watches me, waiting for an answer.

“Um,” I usually answered no. To anyone who had asked in the last 18 years. But for some reason I nod today. “Yeah. One.”

I imagine it, I must have. Her face draws in for a second before she looks down. “Does she ever come to your lectures?”

“Oh no,” I feel the prick of tears and try to blink them away without being too obvious. “I’m not sure she’d find them interesting.”

“Oh.” She finally stands. “Maybe when she’s older…but I’ll see you on Thursday I guess?”

“Yeah,” I watch her go and realize she’d forgotten something. “Don’t forget your paper hon!”

She stiffens by the door before coming to get it.

“Sorry, it probably makes me a bad prof but there were two female names on the paper. Which one’s yours?”

“Bridget,” her voice cracks.

“Bridget,” I try to match the name to her face. It fit. “That’s lovely.”

She scurries out and I hear someone say “well!?” Outside followed by a “shh!”

I shake my head and try to focus back on my work, my heart racing an unusual amount.

***

It takes a couple days but I confess to Harry. He’d decided to meet up with me after class on Wednesday to eat out. We didn’t go far from the uni, a pub a few roads down. I actually spotted a couple former students there and they’d waved at me warmly.

“You’re not crazy,” Harry holds my hand on the table. “A few years ago I realized the volunteer interns we took on from the nearby school? They were the same age as her, teens? And I used to check up on them all the time, make sure they were feeling comfortable, until one of the guys on the team told me to quit being so weird and find someone my own age. I don’t know if it came across that way but…I got lost in that.”

“Oh Harry,” I squeeze his hand. “I didn’t know that.”

“I’ve never told anyone.”

“Me too,” I pop another chip into my mouth. “But really I’d kind of pushed those memories out of my head until the other day. I can’t explain it, when she smiled it just felt like I knew her.”

“Yeah. Maybe she just looks like Taylor?”

We finish dinner while Harry tells me about a story about some friends of his I knew. We reminisce about our old friends as we wrap up and head out into the brisk November air.

We’re near the station when I gasp and clutch Harry’s arm. Standing outside one of the nearby pubs, smoking with her friends, was Bridget.

“Harry! That’s her!”

“What? Who?” He’s so oblivious as he whips his head around.

“Hushhh!” I nod towards the northwest side. His eyes scan the group. “Red beanie. We have to walk past just look at her okay? Tell me if you see it.”

Harry laughs to himself, “This feels like we’re in high school walking past a crush.”

“Is that how you walked past me?” I tease.

“I did.” He looks at me in that way that still gives me butterflies. It never got old.

“Stop making me want to jump your bones out here. I have a reputation to uphold!”

“Hey I’ll still have a job to support us,” he whispers as we near closer to the group. “Feel free to do whatever you feel.”

“You’re a bad influence.” I whisper back. By now we’re a few feet away and I sense Harry slow down beside me.

Bridget’s nodding to whatever her friend is saying. Philippe is waving his drink around as he responds. We almost pass by unnoticed when someone completely different calls my name.

“Hey professor! Can we buy you a drink?”

I turn and spot a group of students I taught last semester. They were all friends, always battling out their wits during group discussions. It made my class lively, even distracting at times. But I tried going with the flow of whatever group of students I got.

“Hey kids!” I say. Then I have no choice but to acknowledge Bridget and her friends. “And more kids! Is this the new spot to be at?”

I sounded so lame but shite! We weren’t supposed to get caught.

“It’s always been popular,” one of my old students says. “Can we pick your brain? Buy you a drink? We can buy one for your friend too.”

“I uh,” I glance at Harry but he’s frozen solid. I look to what he’s looking at and it’s Bridget. They’re locked in some silent conversation and her friends eye each other. “Harry?”

“Huh?” He focuses on me, flushed and just as confused as I had looked on Monday.

“We’ve gotta get him home,” I pat Harry’s arm. “Our alcohol metabolizes differently at our age.”

“You’re not that old,” Bridget says. She seems to be surprised she said it at all and her eyes widen. “I just mean you look younger than my parents.”

“We’ll take that as a compliment.” I smile up at Harry who still looks a little lost.

“Miss aren’t you going to introduce your male friend?” One of my old student goads.

“Don’t assume,” the other chides.

“Aren’t you a nosy lot after a few drinks.” I missed dishing it back in class with them.

“Oops!” They laugh.

“Anyway. This is Harry.”

“You can call me Mr. Professor,” Harry jokes and it’s a crowd pleaser. God they were drunk. Harry leans into me, “I can see why you like teaching. They’re an ego-booster.”

“Not in a 6pm lecture on a Thursday night.” I whisper back. He hides his laugh.

“Are you guys heading home?” Now it’s Philippe. I’m surprised he was getting involved in the conversation. He was usually the quiet nervous type.

“We are. Need a good night’s rest so I’m not falling asleep in your lecture tomorrow.”

“We wouldn’t mind,” Philippe goes for joker but his face flushes. It’s cute.

“Philippe you take way too many notes during class for me to believe that.”

His two friends, Bridget and the other girl, look at each other wide-eyed before losing it. And I watch Bridget’s face transform again and I get the same feeling. I look up at Harry and he’s transfixed.

I tug his sleeve and he looks at me, swallowing like he was parched.

“Weird right?”

“Yeah,” he whispers but his mouth turns down ever so slightly.

The girls are too busy cajoling Philippe to say goodbye to so we make our exit quietly. We don’t talk much on the train ride home but Harry simple holds his hand out on my thigh, palm up, and I lock my fingers into his. Even when we didn’t have words, we never stopped staying in touch.

***

It’s exam and holiday season before I know it.

I was actually looking forward to Christmas this year. It was the first that Harry was going to join with my family. Taylor’s bloke was also showing. He had been a hit with my parents and even I could admit he was the better of all the guys she’s every brought over.

It’s the last 30 minutes of the last exam I was facilitating this year. I announce the time left to the group. There were only about 15 kids left.

Bridget is one of them. I watch her tuck her hair behind her ear and bite her lip. She’d been pretty quiet the remainder of the semester, and I tried not to let my eyes wander to her too much.

After that night, bumping into her with Harry, we hadn’t spoken much about it. The hope that was initially so buoyant turned crushing as we faced the reality that the odds were slim to none. That our wishes were just pennies tossed in a fountain, sinking to the bottom of the pool.

Dreary winter days pass by and Harry and I try to keep the seasonal depression away with regular outdoor dates, cozy nights in bed, and seeing friends as often as we could.

On Christmas we go to my parents’. It’s a loud affair as my grandparents and a few cousins join us. After dinner I go up to my childhood bedroom, it’s now a guest room but some of my things still lay around. I open the window, it was cold so I drag a blanket out and sit outside. The street is quiet, I see families in a few open windows and I watch the festivities through them. I feel a mix of nostalgia and an ache that goes even beyond that, like I was missing something.

“Y/n?” Of course Harry would find me even though I’d left the door closed and the window tilted.

“Here,” I say.

“Ah,” he struggles to hoist himself out. “Some things never change.”

“You need help?” I watch him climb on all fours.

“I’m steady,” he grins as he crawls to me. I open the blanket and he gets in.

We sit in silence for a bit.

“It was getting really loud downstairs wasn’t it?” I ask.

“I think your grandma’s in love with Taylor’s guy.” Harry says so bluntly that I burst out laughing. He joins in.

“I feel like old people get to flirt with whoever they want because it’s always harmless.”

“Maybe that’s the case with older women,” Harry grimaces. “Can’t say the same thing about old men now can we?”

“Jesus!” I laugh and then laugh even harder when Harry says: “it is his day.”

By the time I wipe my tears Harry’s gazing down at me.

“Sorry,” I lean my head against his shoulder. “You have to stop being so funny.”

“Nah,” he kisses my head. “Have I never told you how much I like your laugh?”

He had. On a night many years ago on a roof like this.

I go to remind him but he’s pulling away. I watch as he shifts to face my slowly. He pulls something out from behind him and my brain only connects the dots as he starts talking.

“Y/N, this is something I wish I could have done 18 years ago but only feels incredibly right to do now. Especially out here.”

“Harry,” I gasp. When did he get the ring? When had he planned this?

“We somehow found our way back to each other again y/n, and you know I love you more than ever before.” He clears his throat as it clouds with emotion. “Some 18 years ago I told you I knew you, because the first time I ever laid eyes on you my heart knew. You were something special. And I never ever want to spend another moment apart again. So Y/N Y/L/N, will you do me the honour and finally be mine? Will you marry me?”

“Yes!” If I wasn’t sitting on a roof I would launch myself at Harry. I settle for pulling his face down to mine and kissing it. “I’ve always been yours Harry. But yes, of course yes!”

He slides the ring on and it fits perfectly.

It was perfect.

When we go back down my mum knows right away, and if it was loud before it’s absolute chaos as everyone descends on me and demands to know how he proposed and how the ring looks.

“On the roof? When there’s a perfectly pretty tree here?” My grandma asks. Harry and I exchange a look then, trying not to laugh all over again.

We ring in the New Year with friends, as fiancés. I can hardly believe it. Apparently most of our friends knew Harry was going to propose and they all toast to us and our happiness.

Somewhere in mid-January, I drop by my parents’ house to drop off some groceries. That’s when my dad hands me a letter that had been mailed home.

“It came for you, I dunno who thinks you still live here but it looks handwritten.”

I take it from my dad as I say one last goodbye. I barely make it to the tube with wobbly legs. Because somewhere inside I know.

It’s a long and agonizing 2 hours that I wait for Harry to come home. He finds me sitting in the dark; the sun had set while I waited, and I’d been too busy staring at the feminine scrawl on the front of the letter to turn on the lights.

“Hello-y/n, what are you doing in the dark?”

Harry drops his things where they are when I look at him. “Y/n are you alright? Say something.”

I open my mouth but nothing comes out. I just push the letter forward.

He walks towards it. It’s like he hits a brick wall when he puts the pieces together, he halts a foot away.

“What is that?”

“Is was…” I try to swallow so my voice doesn’t sound so hoarse. “My dad gave it to me. It was sent to the house.”

“Is it…”

“I was waiting for you.”

Suddenly he’s in motion. He puffs his cheeks out and lets out a noisy sigh. Then he paces the floor one, two, three, four times before standing in front of the couch.

“We should read it.” I say.

“Yeah,” he deflates into the couch. I want to join him but it feels like my arse has been glued to the chair.

I inch it towards me and Harry nods. He wanted me to read it.

My mouth is parched. I can barely make out any sounds as I open it up. It’s three pages folded in two, the paper itself isn’t anything very special, it’s typed up so it’s literally just ink on paper. And yet it’s worth a whole goldmine.

“Y/n and Harry,” I read before my voice breaks and I bury my face in my hands. Our baby girl had written to us. She had reached out.

“C’mon love,” Harry’s suddenly beside me and his hand squeezes my neck. The touch gives me enough strength to stand with him. He sets me down where he just sat and leaves again, returning with water and the letter.

“Can you read it?” I ask.

He settles in beside me, we touch along every edge of us. The letter sits in between us like our love, our hurting—it’s where it belongs. He begins to read in his soothing voice.

“Y/n and Harry,

I hope it’s okay I’m calling you that. I don’t know if it’s proper but ever since I found out about you two last year that’s what I’ve been calling you.”

Harry lets out a shaky breath and I intertwine my arm through his. He kisses my temple and continues.

“When I turned 15, I asked my mum about you. I started to wonder where I came from. I knew I was adopted for as long as I could remember but it didn’t mean much to me for a long time—I had a mother, a father, and a sister. I had a family so why did I need to know where I came from?

But over the last few years it’s been like an itch I couldn’t get to. See when I was 15, what set it off is that my sister decided to look into her birth parents. They were separated, her father lived in Tokyo and her mother lived in Wales. It took her a year to convince our parents to go to Wales. I went with and I found myself in the home of a woman who looked just like the girl I grew up with. The whole time it ate away at me. I wanted this ending too.

I asked my mum and dad when I turned 15 but they were weird and evasive. I turned my skills to the internet but I didn’t really know where to start.

I felt the missing part more and more as I turned 16. I used to fall asleep thinking about you two, if you were alive, what you looked like, where you were, what you did.

I love my parents. They’re wonderful and amazing, they are supportive and never made us feel like we were anything but theirs. But I wanted to know my background.

On my 17th birthday my parents gave me a letter like the one I write today.” Harry stops reading and takes in a deep shuddering breath. “She got the letter.”

His shoulder shake and he pinches the bridge of his nose. I clench my teeth so I wouldn’t cry too. I wanted to finish this letter. I wrap my arms around him and hold him.

This was unbelievable, what we’d dreamed of. Her words, in our hands.

“Here.” I take the letter from him and continue. “Let me read it.”

Harry stays hunched over, so with my hand on his back I continue, “in it you told me how much you loved me. How much you loved each other, your families, where I came from. And Why you had to give me up. For a better life. I saw the picture of you, and I felt broken and complete at the same time. I realized I was the same age as you in the photo, I had to meet you but I was terrified. And I didn’t know how.

I spent a year agonizing and looking through every google page I could find about you. I learned a lot! But I needed to meet you.

I don’t know how to do this. I’ve made decisions that may not have been the best but I’ve left my number and a picture of me when I was 5 in the envelope.

I hope you call.”

With shaking hands I turn to the third page that has one of those polaroids taped to it and a phone number in the same handwriting as the envelope.

“She’s beautiful,” Harry says while tears continue streaming down his face. I can’t even hide mine anymore.

She was beautiful indeed. She had his eyes, and her curly locks in a deep brown frame her chubby face. She had my nose, she looked a little like my sister as a baby. A scatter of freckles over her cheeks confirm it. She was ours. Our baby had reached out. We knew what she looked like.

“We need to call her,” I say. “We need to meet.”

“Yeah,” Harry wipes his face. “We…we need to do this carefully. It’s delicate right?”

I wanted to call her right now but what would I do but cry into the phone? No, I had to wrap my head around this. Harry was right. “Right.”

“She’s out there,” Harry turns to me. “She wants to know us. Y/n she wants to meet us! She saw the picture I-“

“I can’t believe it,” I whisper. “Our daughter wants to—did she leave her name?”

We open the letter and flip over every piece of it but her name is nowhere.

“Maybe she didn’t want us looking her up?” Harry offers.

“Maybe she has an awful digital footprint.”

Something about it makes us laugh and we can’t stop. But pretty soon it shifts back into tears and we’re left holding each other on the couch, tender and content and anxious.

Our daughter had made contact. Would she like us? Would she be mad at us? What did this mean for us?

The thoughts continue to spiral the rest of the evening. We don’t make much of an effort, we reread the letter and try to get dinner in us. We face each other as we try to fall asleep, whispering questions into the darkness. The darkness doesn’t answer, it grows heavier as does the night, and we fall asleep for the first time in our lives knowing the weight of a decision so long ago was a tiny bit lighter.

***

It’s a few days later. All I’d been thinking about was the letter, when I woke up, at work, during my commute, during breaks, when I went to bed.

It sits on our dining table, we glance at it as we pass by. It becomes part of the decor, three pieces of paper and an envelope. It’s so much weightier than that.

I come home from my lecture on Wednesday, a slight buzz of anxiety humming in the background. It wasn’t unusual for Harry and I to get busy at work and not talk the whole day but today Harry had been radio silent. He hadn’t answered my texts or phone calls in a very un-Harry way.

I walk in to Harry sitting on the couch in the dark, staring at the coffee table. On it sits the letter.

“Hey,” I don’t even take off my jacket. I slide next to him. “Is everything alright?”

“Hey,” he whispers. He stays frozen sitting forward, elbows on his knees, head cradled in his hand.

I wait for him to speak, to say something about what was going on. I rub my hand over his back and he glances up. I tip forward until our foreheads touch. “What’s going on in that brain of yours? Let me help you.”

“It’s a lot,” he whispers. It tears me in two.

“Hey,” I remind him. “Just one day at a time. Let’s just talk about today.”

“I want to call her so bad,” he leans away and buries his head in his hands. I wanted to call her too, I’d been waiting for Harry to give the cue since I knew I could be rash and impulsive about something like this. But something was going on with him.

“We will.”

“We gave her up. What if she hates us?”

“She wouldn’t have written us that beautiful letter, or sent a photo, or left her number if she did.”

Harry sniffles and then asks what he really wanted to, “what if she hates me.”

“Harry look at me,” He unfolds slowly and I make sure he’s looking at me. “You’re her father, you’ve carried her with you for the last 18 years. You love her. She wants to know you. Why would she hate you?”

“I’ve fucked up so much!”

“You’re not your mistakes.” I remind him. I get teary eyed as I feel the echoes of his insecurities. I’ve thought about it too: what if I didn’t meet her expectations? “She’s not going to see you and see every good and bad decisions you’ve ever made. She’s just going to see her father—her biological father, and see where she got her eyes from and her hair from and every other quirk she has.”

“You’re not worried?” He asks, looking at me with grief.

“Of course I am,” I confess, tears leaking out of my eyes damnit. “I’m so fucking worried. But my curiosity overtakes that, my love for her is what I’m focusing on.”

“I love her,” he says.

“That’s all that matters.” I cup his face and press a reassuring kiss to his lips. “That’s all she’ll care about.”

Harry untangles himself from me and my heart sinks. He paces the length of our living room a few times, running his hand through his hair.

“We really should talk about the letter,” he says.

“Yeah. I know. I want to call. Badly.”

He pauses. It’s like all the anxious energy drains out of him at once. He sits back down beside me.

“What do we do?” I ask

“How about Saturday? She’s probably going to be home then right? No school—if she’s in school.”

Two days. Two more days of agonizing over the letter.

At this point the letter is memorized, seared into my brain like I had an exam on it. I want to know the person behind it.

When we wake on Saturday it’s a cloudy day. I don’t take it as a bad omen.

We sit with our phones out after breakfast, just staring at everything before us.

“You should do the talking,” I tell Harry. “I’m too nervous.”

“I think you should.” Harry says. “She sent the letter to you.”

“Only because that’s the address my mum gave…gave her mum.”

It hits me again in another wave I try not to drown in. She was eighteen, she’d lived a whole life with a whole family. There was everything of her we’d missed out on.

“Please Harry?” I was already overwhelmed with the realization. I just couldn’t.

He watches me, must hear the desperation in my voice, and slowly pulls his phone forward.

It rings, and rings a few more times. When it goes to voicemail he turns it off.

“I didn’t think that was an option,” Harry says and we laugh. It feels good.

“It’s only 10 maybe she’s asleep. Try one more time?”

He pulls my phone and tries again but it still goes to voicemail.

We sit there, unsure of what to do. We agree to try again later, in the afternoon.

But around half past 12, while Harry’s working in our spare room and I’m scrolling through my phone, it rings. I don’t think much of it and pick it up automatically.

“Hello?” It’s silent on the other end. “Hello?”

I wait, but as I do it dawns on me. Who called me?

I check my phone screen and swipe through as I say hello again. I match the number. It was her.

I run to Harry but the phone is still silent. I wave the paper with the number saying hello again.

“Is this…well you never gave us your name. But we got your letter. We’re so gl-“

The line goes dead and so does my heart.

“You called her again?” Harry whispers, his brows furrowing as he stares at the phone.

“She called.” I think about calling her back but that was pushy. She was backing out of this.

All of a sudden I feel myself giving out. I catch myself against the wall and slide down.

“She’s backing out. It must be…too much for her.”

Harry stares at a spot on the ground, a million thoughts flickering through. Finally it settles on acceptance. He sighs.

“We can’t force her to talk to us,” he says softly what I already know. But his words are like a saw to my resolve and I just start crying. He gathers me in his arms but the grief feels endless. It felt like she was slipping away again; I’d lost so much and I lost her again. She had been so close. How could she do this? Why did she reach out if she wasn’t ready?

Questions without answers. More of them piled on top of the lifetime of questions I’d built for her.

I know Harry feels the weight of them too. We carry them together. That’s the only reason I hadn’t broken yet.

But I come close to it that day. We don’t hear back from her. And we don’t try to call her back. It didn’t feel right.

It killed me she was so close. And something changes inside.

For weeks I feel like I’m on autopilot. It’s like my first semester of uni all over again.

Harry tries his best to keep me together but he struggles too. It makes me feel worse I was taking the bigger hit, not being there for him as much as I wanted. But life feels like a a million blankets covering me.

I try to keep my usual momentum for my classes, but I’m always exhausted after. It pulls me deeper into my sadness, something I loved made me so tried.

It’s a Thursday at the end of the semester and I’m marking exams during my study hours when there’s a light knock on the door.

I’m surprised to see an old student.

“Bridget,” I wave her in. “Come in, what can I do you for?”

“Hi professor-“

“Call me y/n, I’m not teaching you anymore am I?”

“No,” she says with a stiff smile. The last time I saw her was in February, I’d spotted her with Philippe and a few other friends at a local coffee shop. She had been explaining something to one of her friends from a textbook.

Now her hair was short and more pronounced with waves. I wonder if she styled it, her longer hair had been pin straight.

“I had a question?”

You already asked it, I want to joke. But she was usually wound up so I knew it wouldn’t land well.

“What’s that?”

“Um, well.” She perches on the chair and I wait patiently for her to continue. “Are you taking any applications for TA next year?”

I wasn’t expecting that. She always found a way to take me by surprise. I stare at her for a few seconds, trying to remember what year she was in.

“Aren’t you in first year? If I do TAs they’re usually 3rd or above.”

“I know,” she tucks her hair behind her ear. “But seeing that one of my majors is in econ and my gpa is really high, and I did well in your class, I wondered if you would consider me?”

I hadn’t done TAs since my first year of teaching. I found I liked the work because it got me more familiar with the class.

“What’s your other major?” She had said one of them was econ.

“Sociology, I’m pre-law.”

Ambitious. “Why TA for my class?”

She balks as she meets my gaze. There’s something that flits through her face that I can’t quite read before she drops eye contact.

“Um, I really enjoyed it. I did really well. I think you’re super smart and would learn a lot by TA-ing for you.”

“I don’t give special lessons to my TA,” I let her know. “You’d typically attend some of the classes, mark assignments, and maybe teach exam tutorials, and have office hours of your own for students.”

“I’m okay with that.”

“Why should I pick you?”

She pushes her shoulders back, “I’m responsible, dependable, I submit all my assignments on time and have experience teaching.”

“Teaching?”

“I used to tutor when I was in high school. I didn’t really get an allowance so I found a way to support my hobbies.”

“What are your hobbies?”

She blushes a little, was she still nervous? “I love reading, books are expensive.”

I nod. For Harry’s birthday I’d told him he could get any books from Waterstones and it had been over £100 for 3 only.

“I also enjoy cooking. And um, it’s been a while but my friends and I sometimes go to like. Do you know comic con?”

“Yes,” I’d seen things online.

“Yeah we liked to dress up for that sort of thing. We used to make our own outfits and usually the cost varies depending on what you’re making and how realistic you want it and…” she trails off as I smile. She was really enthusiastic about it. I couldn’t help it.

“Tell you what. Leave your number with me and I’ll think about it. I haven’t had a TA for the last few semesters but I am going to take this into consideration.”

“Really?!”

I laugh. “Yes. Really.”

“Um…” she starts to fidget again. “Can I leave my email? I’m getting a new phone soon so I-“

“Sure. Anywhere I can reach you.”

I expect her to get out a pen but she says it verbally and I type it out.

“Um, are you alright?” She asks out of the blue after I type in the last letter.

“Alright?” I raise my brow.

“I mean, you seem…I just heard, um.” She tries to backtrack but I ask her again and she spills. “Some people just said your last few classes seem scattered. Not that people don’t like you. I just…that’s what they were saying. And I don’t know if having a TA would help? And I just wanted to ask if you’re okay sorry I shouldn’t…it’s none of my business.”

God, this girl was so awkward. But she was sweet for caring, I think. “You’re not applying for the role because you feel bad that I seem…scattered right?”

She blushes. “Sorry. I think I said too much.”

I want to laugh but it strikes me that my students had noticed. I’d let it affect their learning. It didn’t feel very good.

“Life’s hitting me hard recently,” I tell her simply. “But I’m alright. Thank you for reaching out Bridget.”

As I finish up the semester I think about her. It wouldn’t hurt to have her TA for one of my lectures, see how she does. I didn’t care for TAs as a lecturer but something about her is compelling and I find myself emailing her in the middle of the night in June. She responds back a few minutes later,

Thank you!!! You’re the best. I’ll do whatever you need just tell me I can do anythingggh

Sent from iphone.

I laugh to myself as I put my phone away and go back to bed. My guesses were she was drunk at a party.

Harry’s asleep beside me and I reach out to touch his back but think better of it. He’d been busy at work with a project nearing its deadline and I didn’t want to accidentally wake him.

I turn around and try to drift off, thinking about my daughter, about how Harry and I hadn’t really talked much in the last two weeks, about my teaching, and my new TA.

Age 38:

It’s a depressing summer. The air of dashed hopes still hangs around Harry and I. It’s less thunder clouds and more of a fog.

One weekend morning, it’s one of those mornings that start off heavy. I can’t get out of bed, but I hear Harry pattering about doing his weekend morning thing. I hear the dishwasher turn on, and soon after he walks in with our laundry folded in a basket. I feel awful as I normally do, but not awful enough to get up and do anything about it. I think I’d have to feel less awful, to do that.

I don’t expect him to get in beside me once he’s finished putting everything away. He smells like laundry and shampoo, I must smell like rot and decay.

“Y/n,” he says gingerly. I just look at him in response. I felt too heavy to even reply. He sits up and calls my name again.

“Mm,” I say.

He sighs. Despite months of this Harry’s been nothing but understanding but this morning seems different.

Suddenly I’m being pulled up by my shoulders and I find myself sitting up in bed.

“Y/N,” Harry says again. I fold my arms as the duvet slips down and the cool air raises goosebumps. “I love you, which is why it’s so hard seeing you like this. You have to get on, my love. We have to move forward. It’s been months.”

All I could remember after our daughter hung the phone up on us was when I almost got to hold her. Right after she was born, I almost got to hold her but they took her away. And that piece of me that followed after her was nearly returned. It was that almost that was a death blow.

“It’s hard,” I feel myself tear up. It was hard not to these days.

“I know baby,” Harry scoops me into him. “I know. It’s hard for me too but we have to get better. We have to live our lives. She’ll come back to us, I just know it. She’s scared, we’re hopeful. Fear’s gonna keep her away. Hope keeps us patient.”

I cry into his shirt and he rocks me.

“I’m sorry,” I say into his shirt.

“It’s alright,” he grips the back of my neck.

So for Harry, for us, I try to get back to myself. I start to pick up my outdoor hobbies, I try to keep conversations going with Harry, I reintroduce my multi-step night routine. I look forward and re-light the candle of hope, even though I ache to blow it out before it can burn down to its wick.

My wounds inside stay tender.

We had booked our wedding for November and as the days approach we find ourselves with one thing on our mind.

Harry and I finally talk about it.

“I always thought she’d be there at the wedding once she reached out.”

We’re sat in an outdoor space near King’s Cross, coffees in hand as we people watch. We’d just come back from a cake tasting and neither of us felt like going home with such a glorious August day. Kids splash in the water sprinklers and couples sit around arm in arm. I touch shoulders with Harry unconsciously.

“Me too. I think that’s what’s kept me from mentally committing to the fact that the date is coming closer.”

“It can’t be forever,” Harry says. “She reached out. She just needs time. She’ll call again one day and we’ll meet her.”

“I know.” I lean my head on his shoulder. This was a realization I’d also been slowly digesting. I’d waited 18 years, what was a few more months, another year? Her baby picture lived on our fridge, at least we were one step closer.

And the love, I had to remind myself in these moments. Hold onto the love.

***

“I can’t stay for this class,” Bridget tells me. It’s the second week of classes and there were still 10 minutes until it officially started.

“Is everything alright?”

“Not really,” that’s when I notice her nose is red and her eyes are too. “My um, my parents had to put my dog down. She…she wasn’t feeling well yesterday and the-they found cancer? And she was in a lot of pain but she never showed it? And-“

I put my hand on Briget’s shoulder and lead her to the exit. There was no reason for the whole class to see this.

“Sorry. I’m-“

“Don’t apologize.” I rub her shoulder. “I understand. Take the time you need I have this covered.”

True to her word, Bridget had been a loyal TA over the summer. I considered it a trial run not expecting much but she had shown up, aced marking, and I’d gotten good feedback from the students at the end of the semester.

I’d also taken to her. She’d join me during my 2 hours every Monday and when no students would come she would loosen up. She’d told me all about the dog she grew up with, she showed me costumes her friends and her made, I’d asked her about the books she was reading and the classes she was taking. It was like having a younger sister again, except I was mature enough to appreciate her.

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye,” Bridget says and this statements seems to be the breaking point. She curls in on herself, shoulders shaking. I don’t even think, I just pull her into me like I would for Harry, for Taylor, for any of my friends.

“You have a lifetime of memories with her,” I hold her. At first she stiffens up and I almost let her go but she only breaks down further and wraps her arms around me. Tighter than I expected.

“I wish I said goodbye,” she says into my shoulder.

“I know hon,” I squeeze her against me, something maternal washing over me. “I know.”

After a minute or so she regains her composure, wiping her face with her sleeve. When she looks at me she looks so much younger, her face grief-stricken and regretful.

“I’m sorry-“

“Don’t be.”

She seems to want to say something more but whatever it is, she swallows it and takes a step away.

I don’t see her for two weeks and I miss her.

When she walks into the lecture the first week of October I try not to rush her but I’m overjoyed seeing her face. It had become so familiar to me.

She smiles shyly when she walks up to me and I pull her into a hug. This time she doesn’t stiffen.

“How are you?” I whisper. Students were still trickling in so I use the time to catch up.

“Okay. Better than that day I cried all over you sorry again. I went home last week, thanks for letting me take it off.”

“Of course. You forget I’ve been doing this without a TA before you. I can hold down the fort.”

She cracks a smile, her dimple making a rare appearance.

“By the way, week 10’s lecture is supposed to be cancelled.” I tell her later during office hours. “But I wondered if you wanted to hold a tutorial that week for some of the material?”

“Really?” A light comes on in her eye. It’s fiery and bright with excitement.

“Yeah! You know the material! I’ll leave you with slides and you can go about teaching them.”

“I’d love to!” She grips her laptop close to her. “Wait why is it cancelled?”

“I’m getting married that week!”

The light dims. Or maybe I imagine it.

“Oh! I thought you were married already?”

“No,” I’d referred to Harry as my partner any time he was brought up. “We’re getting married in November. You’ve met him actually, kind of, that night we ran into you and some students at the pub. Last year?”

“Oh yeah I remember,” she says but her eyes are somewhere else. “So you’re getting married?”

“Yes Bridget,” I laugh. “Married. Tying the knot. You alright?”

“Yeah,” she blinks and she’s back. “You never mentioned the wedding. Do you have a dress?”

“Yeah! Just finalized the tailoring last week. Most things are ready, we’re just finalizing the rings!”

“Cool!” She fidgets with the hem of her shirt. “Is it in London?”

“Yeah, it’s not too big but we didn’t want people travelling too far. This is where Harry and I were born and raised so this is where we want to marry too.”

“Wow,” she seems lost in thought and she stays pretty quiet the rest of the time. I didn’t realize my news was that surprising.

Maybe I still didn’t have Bridget completely figured out.

***

“Harry I can’t pick them up! I need to get home and then head back out to class!”

“Y/n it’s on your way home!”

“Not really! It’s a 30 minute detour. Why can’t you do it?”

“Because you can still get to him right before he closes. I won’t be done here until after he closes. I’m sorry love!”

“Agh and why can’t he do tomorrow?”

“He’s off until Saturday! We need it today.”

It’s the Wednesday before we marry and our rings are still at the jeweller’s. He’d finished them last weekend but we’d been so busy with other things we hadn’t had time to pick it up. And now it was either today and be late for class, or the day of the wedding.

I had gotten delayed at work and missed Harry’s texts explaining the situation. I’d only responded while on the tube, but going out of my way for 30 minutes meant I’d be 30 minutes late to get back to class. And since I’d left marked assignments at home that the kids needed for next week’s tutorial, I had no choice but to head back.

The idea hits me at once.

I hang up on Harry and ring Bridget. She picks up right away.

“Bridget, I’m on a crazy tight schedule. I’m going to be late to class by half hour at least.”

“Oh no. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah it’s just wedding thing but can you do something crazy? And feel free to say no okay?”

“Okay?”

I explain to her that if she rode to my flat, Harry would be there by then and she could pick up marked assignment. She can delay class by taking them up.

She’s silent but eventually I get a yes. “Okay. Can you text me your address?”

“Yes! Yes. Thank you Bridget. I owe you your trip fare and lunch or something. I’ll text you now, leave as soon as you can!”

I call Harry again and confirm he’d be home by the time she arrived. Everything works out.

I get the rings, and have to head home so Harry can try his on. The jeweller was expecting both of us, and let me know he couldn’t do adjustments if I didn’t text him by today. Just my luck!

When I get to the flat I tell Harry not to read his inscription but to try it on and thankfully it fits.

“Hey,” Harry calls out as I try to rush back out the door.

“What?” I was out of breath and frantic.

“Slow down,” he pulls me into a lingering kiss and despite being breathless before, I get some air into my lungs when we part.

“Sorry, so hectic.”

“I know I’m sorry,” he strokes my cheek. “I would have gone if I could make it. Also don’t be mad.”

“Be mad?” I let go of the door handle. “What did you do?”

“Your TA stopped by, Bridget. I forgot she was coming so I didn’t have your papers ready. I invited her in and she was in the living room looking at our pictures and she stopped in front of the baby picture. Of our daughter.”

“Okay,” did Harry tell her our history? I get antsy. “And?”

“Well she asked if that was our daughter. And I didn’t know what to say, if you’ve said anything to her? I panicked?” Harry runs his hand through his hair. “I just changed the subject.”

“Okay, that’s not bad. What’s the bad part I don’t get it?”

“Well. I changed the subject and told her she should come to the wedding.”

My jaw drops. “Harry.”

“I know! I know I’m sorry! I know she technically works for you, she was a student, all that! You’re so fond of her though maybe it’s not a bad thing?”

“Harry that’s…she was my student! I’m a prof at that school I…is that even allowed?”

“Yes? I panicked and googled it.”

I groan, “I swear you’re getting worse the closer we get to the wedding.”

The other week he had tried to buy out a whole bakery in case there wasn’t enough cake for our guests.

“You can tell her we have a full guest list? I don’t know what came over me! She just looked at me with those puppy eyes and she asked about the picture and I tried to talk about something else but the only thing on my mind-“

I kiss him. Just to shut him up. I was getting really late.

“This is like that book club you were tricked into joining all over again-“

“Hey I really like that book club now! It might be a good thing!”

“We’ll talk later.” I shake my head at him. “It’s fine, it’s not a big deal. It’s weird but what’s one more guest?”

“I also said plus one.”

I let out a long exhale and then kiss Harry again. I didn’t want him spiralling while I was gone.

“Baby don’t worry, it’s okay. I’m fine with it. We’ll talk when I get home?”

I mull over it on the ride to uni. But I can’t find a way to uninvite her without it being awful. I text our wedding planner if we could squeeze in two more seats and she gives me the thumbs up.

I did have a soft spot for Bridget, and technically I’ve known her for over a year now.

During office hours, we get a few people in for the first half hour. Then we’re back to just the two of us.

“Thanks for taking over today,” I tell her. “I really appreciate it.”

“That’s alright. Happy to help out.”

An awkward silence slithers in.

“So my partner invited you to our wedding.”

“Yeah! I didn’t know if that was serious am I…?”

She looked so hopeful I couldn’t shoot her down. “Yes! I have a couple people from the faculty coming. And some colleagues from my day job. You’ll probably have to sit with them but?”

“That’s fine!” She’s chirpy Bridget again. “I’d love to. That would mean a lot.”

I watch her as the smile stays on and she gets out her phone, typing away. Maybe her friends, her plus one.

I realize I’m not entirely against it. It had happened, and I was okay.

***

I stare at myself in the mirror, smoothing down my dress in a nervous habit. I never thought I’d get married twice, I always thought after Tatum I was done with marriage, but Harry would always be the exception.

I feel a flutter of nerves thinking about him. Walking down the aisle to him. We started talking on a rooftop one day, we had just been two kids.

“You better not cry,” Taylor threatens as she walks into the room. She had gone to fetch lash glue after my teary eyes loosened an edge.

“I’m not,” I say weakly.

She stands beside me in the mirror, “They’re all waiting downstairs.”

Just 30 minutes ago this room had been a chaotic mess. From my mum, to my friends, to the wedding planner. I’m kind of glad my lash came loose, I’m able to ground myself in these few minutes of silence.

Taylor talks about our family downstairs as she fixes my face. I get up with her help and she beams, but her eyes look misty.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Nothing!”

“Why do you look sad what happened?”

“Oh my god calm down, I just can’t believe you and Harry are getting your happy ending! I’m just…emotional.”

“Aww,” I cup her face even though I want to squeeze my baby sister against me. But my white dress, although not entirely traditional, would be ruined for the ceremony.

A ping on her phone—mum. We rush out. It feels like getting caught when we were younger and quickly getting away from the scene of the crime. I grip my sister’s hand until I stand in front of the doors leading down the aisle.

I don’t remember walking, it felt more like floating. Even if there was a chimpanzee and a talking dog in the pews I wouldn’t have noticed. My eyes are locked on Harry’s teary ones, they anchor me as I glide towards the man I’ve never stopped loving. Who always saw all of me.

When he reaches for my hand I grasp it and I know I made the right decisions. Even the painful ones. After all, I wanted to be nowhere but here.

“Y/N,” Harry reads his vows to me and I try not to cry as he sweeps me away with his delicate words about our love story.

“To be so deeply known by another, without even saying a word, shouldn’t make sense and yet with us we have a language that goes beyond words. A brush of your hand or a look in my direction, it can be enough to unload whatever burden I’d just been carrying. I promise to do the same for you, and to never end this dialogue between us. To love you and to cherish you forever.”

Harry couldn’t keep the tears in and they slide down his cheeks as he reads his words out to me. I reach out instinctively and brush his tear away and he laughs because I was doing it again.

“You’re can’t make me cry in my makeup,” I tell him and our guests laugh.

I had sat and thought so hard about my own vows. In the end after 50 versions, I’d settled on short and sweet.

“Harry, when we first spoke on the rooftop of that party in high school,” I say at my turn. “You told me everything you wanted. One of them was to make the world a better place. And I don’t know if you still want those things as much now as you did then, but one thing is true. You’re made my world a better place. I can’t imagine doing life without you. I love you with all of my heart, there’s no equation that could calculate how much.”

Harry grins at me and my breath catches. My man, he was my Harry.

We finish our vows with a kiss and a lot of noise from the crowd. When we turn to everyone I’m struck by how lucky we were.

The absence of our daughter was tough but when it came to love we had an abundance of it. I see it in every smiling and shiny face in the crowd. It’s like photographing a sunny day with one of those old school films, the sun is covered by a dark spot but the rays still wash everything in gold.

Harry squeezes my hand and I look up to him. He’s already looking at me.

He holds his hand up and lets out a whoop before he pulls my face towards him again for an even longer and borderline inappropriate kiss. I feel myself start to blush in front of the crowd.

We start down the aisle and this time I beam at every guest I catch eyes with.

My mum and Harry’s wave with tear-streaked faces. My friends from high school shout out, always the biggest supporters of our relationship. I catch eyes with Bridget, forgetting for a second she was here. Philippe is beside her, but what’s surprising is her blotchy face. I didn’t take her for someone who got emotional at weddings. I throw her a wave and she smiles through the tears.

Whoever ordered weddings to have a small break between the ceremony and the reception deserved a billion dollars. Harry and I spend the quiet moment doing our outfit change but afterwards we hold each other and let the moment sink in. The day sink in.

“We’re married,” Harry whispers when I tell him we should get going so we weren’t late.

“We took the long way to get here didn’t we?”

“Yeah,” he tucks me under his chin again and even though we would be late we just sway together for a little while. Our own private first dance, before the one for our family and friends.

“We did it all quite backwards actually.” I look up to him.

“Yeah, but we were never ordinary.”

“No, and I don’t think anything we’ve ever done is either.”

“Including our kid. I really wish she were here.”

“We’ll tell her all about it one day,” I promise him. His face eases into a loving smile, the fact that we’d made it to a place again where I can comfort him about this said a lot. Said we’d make it through everything, despite.

“I don’t want to do life with anyone else y/n, I have everything I need right here.”

“Remember that day at Whole Foods?” I remind him. “The first time we bumped into each other.”

“It’s a core memory,” Harry remembers. “I feel like the sun never set on that day. Getting to see you after all those years…it’s cheesy but it felt like coming home.”

“Yeah,” I nod. “Me too. I recognized you by the back of your head did I ever tell you that?”

“Stared at it enough in maths, of course you did.”

“That’s probably why I did so poorly that year remember,” I laugh. “Just staring at the back of your head.”

“That’s why I never sat anywhere but in front of you.” He swipes lightly down my nose and I smile. “Now I get to see every angle of you whenever I want.”

“Oi,” I slap his chest. “Save it for tonight.”

He brushes my cheek. Under his gaze I’m stripped naked. There was nothing to hide with him, ever.

“I understand how long it took you to get ready,” he says in his deep silky voice. My stomach flips. “So I can’t do anything right now. But y/n, our wedding night will turn into a wedding dawn, and then to day again. I promise you.”

I tip-toe, even in my heels, and brush my lips along his cheek. In his ear I whisper, “I don’t expect anything less.”

I step away, feeling unravelled by the look of desire in his eyes. I’m sure I had the same look of want. But before we can give in to what we wanted to do, I open the door to our suite and embrace the gust of cool air.

“You should get some air too,” I say and he laughs, following me behind.

***

“Bitch!” Taylor comes up to me on the dance floor later that night. We had dinner, Harry and I had our first dance, there’d been toasts and tears in between. I was finally letting loose as the wedding party crowds the dance floor. We had been taking pictures all night, after this next glass of champagne I was going to call it quits on photos lest anyone captures anything that’s not an elegant bride.

“What?” I turn away from Harry to face Taylor. She’d been running around all day making sure my wedding day was perfect and seeing her just warms me with love. I squeeze her against me despite her protests. “I love you Taylor. Thank you for everything!”

“Ugh c’mon,” she wriggles out. She’d never been very affectionate.

“Where’s your bloke?” I look out for him.

“He taking a call. Anyway don’t change the fucking subject!”

“What subject!?” I ask as someone dances past me, fluttering their fingers in my direction. I blow them a kiss.

“C’mere,” she’s annoyed I’m distracted. She drags me off to the side and I hold a finger up to Harry as he watches us. “When the fuck were you going to tell us about her? And you invite her to your wedding and everything and nobody knows anything!?”

“What?” I was drunker than I thought or Taylor was making no sense. “Wha?”

“The girl you just took a photo with? Don’t act stupid Y/N jeez I can’t believe it. You hid it from me when it happened but why are you still hiding…”

My sister grows more upset as she talks, I realize it was serious. Taylor rarely allowed herself to get this worked up in public.

I put my hand on her shoulder but she shakes it off. I think hard about who she was talking about. Who had I just taken photos with?

Some of Harry’s friends took a picture lifting us up, then there was a photo with my cousin but that can’t be who Taylor was talking about. There was Andie, a few other friends and their partners, then Bridget and Bridget and Philippe.

Bridget.

“Wait what are…who do you think that is? Taylor I work-“

“Your daughter! Why are you still acting fucking clueless!”

“What’s happening?” Harry walks in mid-way into the conversation.

“God you too!” Taylor turns to him and hits the back of her hand on his chest. He rubs the spot and stares at her like she’d gone crazy.

“Me too what?”

“Harry?” His mum walks up to us, her brows pulled together the same way Harry’s does when he’s confused.

“Yeah?”

“Who’s that girl? With the brown hair? Purple dress?”

She’s eyeing Bridget who’s laughing with Philippe.

“Bridget?” Harry glances at me and Taylor grows more pink.

“Bridget? That’s her name?” Taylor blinks away tears. “Really y/n? I get when it happened I was a child, you and mom kept it from me. But she’s, you invite her to you-“

“Invite who?!” I shout. What the hell did Taylor think.

“Y/n,” Harry puts his hand on my lower back in warning.

“Your daughter?” Taylor says with teary eyes and a look of betrayal on her face. “That’s your daughter isn’t it? She looks just like…”

“Jesus I thought the same thing,” Anne looks at all of us. “Harry?”

“That’s not-“ he stops talking and we all look over at her. I had to say, right now she really could be. With her hair curled and wearing what she’s wearing. She could be family.

“She’s my TA. I’ve known her for a couple years guys I’ve bloody taught her. That’s not our daughter. She wasn’t even supposed to be here tonight? Harry invited her last minute.”

They all turn to look at me. Taylor looks miffed, she bites her lip as she looks at her one last time.

“That’s weird. Nevermind.”

She leaves like she didn’t just make a big scene. Anne covers her hand with her mouth and shakes her head. “I’m sorry loves, I didn’t mean to upset anyone-“

“You didn’t do anything,” I reassure her. Taylor did. And she couldn’t even say sorry.

“Don’t worry mum,” Harry pays her arm. She fades into the crowd and Harry stands in front of me so all I see is him. “She’ll get air, she’ll be fine.”

“But how could she just cause such a big scene like I’d hide something like that from her? On my wedding day! And then leave without even apologizing ugh! She is still such a brat sometimes!”

“I know, she’ll apologize later just let her be.” He knew Taylor enough. He knew her at 13 and he knew her now. That’s exactly what she would do. “We’re getting you a shot.”

“That’s the last thing I need! I’m already kinda tipsy Har.”

“This won’t tip you over c’mon. Shake it off.”

He leads me to the bar and we take a shot. I nearly spill half of it, it was awful whatever it was. I lose Harry as we get back to the dancing and end up behind Bridget instead. Philippe noticed me first and slows his dancing, which signals Bridget to turn around.

“Y/n!” Her smile is so bright it hurts to look at. It dims as I just stare at her.

It would be crazy. It was a big fat coincidence. She had a mum, a dad, a sister, she told me all about them. Her childhood dog and the time she twisted her ankle playing football in year 4. She wasn’t who we wanted her to be.

“Are you alright?” I read her lips. There’s only ringing in my ears. “Hey! Y/n!”

Philippe is suddenly on my other side and I’m being led to a chair. He disappears and Bridget pulls a chair beside me.

“What’s,” my voice sticks and I clear my throat. “What’s going on between you two? He’s your date?”

“Philippe?” Bridget’s brows draw together and I can’t stop looking at where they meet. I knew her. I didn’t know her. I was too afraid to ask. “No just friends.”

“That’s not the way he’s looking at you.”

“What?” She tucks her hair back. “No we’ve been friends since high school. It’s not like that?”

“What would you do if he got a girlfriend?” It was a random conversation to have, here and right now but it helps me from tumbling anywhere else. Especially into a pool of what-ifs.

“I’d,” she shrugs but a flicker passes through her face, for a second her jaw clenches. “Be happy for him.”

“Liar!”

“I’m not! Why are you asking?”

“You two like each other. I see the way he looks at you when you’re not looking. Why did you invite him tonight?”

She shrugs, picking at something on her arm. “I dunno. He’s good at being a plus one. He always supports me? He’s always been there for me.”

“Sorry,” he shows up with a glass of water. “I swear the guy behind the bar was ignoring me.”

“Thank you Philippe,” by now I didn’t really need the water but I hold the icy glass in my hands. “Let’s see the pictures you took. I want them in my inbox or something soon. We don’t get our official photos for months.”

“Oh yeah here,” Phillipe hands over his phone after opening the photo. There are a couple of all of us, and then a few with just Bridget standing between Harry and I smiling.

I look between all three of us and feel something in my gut. But it’s too scary and big to unpack right now. I shove it away. I couldn’t do this. Not today, not tonight.

“You look beautiful Bridget,” I touch a lock of her hair. “Did I already say that?”

“Yeah,” she smiles awkwardly. “You said that before the photo.”

“You do. And so do you Philippe. Thank you for attending my wedding.”

“Thanks for inviting us,” Bridget looks at me wide-eyed, like she’s about to say something but when Philippe’s hand lands on her shoulder she looks down.

“What?” I ask anyway. Her eyes dart like prey to me, to Philippe, and down to her hands. I grab her hand and force her to look at me, like I could read something in her eyes. Like I would know. “Bridget.”

She looks up and her eyes well with tears as we look into each other’s eyes. My throat feels tight like I was having an allergic reaction, it travels down to my chest, I inadvertently feel myself squeezing her hand.

“I’m so-“

“Bridget,” Philippe’s voice cuts through whatever Bridget was going to apologize for. I look up at him and he’s burning a hole staring at her that hard. Over his head I see Harry.

“Oh look I see my husband,” Harry’s spots me too, relief in his features. His eyes stay on my face as he walks towards me and his eyes keep my steady. I want to tell him something, but everything that just happened was so non-verbal and unreal that I think I made it all up. I must be because this was insane and there was no explanation other than I was drunk, and sadder than I realized. “Gotta go kids. Have fun. I think I need another shot.”

I remember the rest of the night in snapshots. I forget myself later, giving myself up to Harry after that. We actually make it to dawn in a mixture of love and declarations, filthy words and I love yous, laughter and deeper conversations. It’s everything we were. It’s just like he promised.

***

Life moves on and I don’t bring anything up to Harry. I couldn’t, either I’m wrong and get his hopes up, or he thinks I’d gone insane in my sadness.

I feel like Bridget avoids me the week after, I return to class and she sits there, even takes questions after class, but she makes an excuse of studying during office hours and I barely get a few words with her. The week after she has an exam and she skips out after class.

I’m antsy. I want to know more about her; from her. I’m tempted to find a way to access her profile, get more info via the school. But I wait.

Harry notices, as we prep for our honeymoon booked over the holidays, he continues to ask if I was alright. And I try to convince us both I was.

About 3 weeks after the wedding, it’s a Saturday afternoon. Harry’s making lunch and I’m sitting in a pile of our books trying to decide what can be donated.

“Can you get that?” Harry asks.

“Hm?”

“The door?” He says just as there’s another knock. I’d been so entranced in the book I’d randomly started reading a passage of I hadn’t even heard.

I scramble to get it before the next knock and nearly stumble back when I find Bridget at the door.

“Hiya,” she says with an awkward wave.

“Hi…Bridget. What…come in what’s going on?”

“Sorry? Now that I’m here I should have called first.” She comes in and I go further in, waiting for her to follow. She hesitates before peeling her wet boots off.

“Harry? We have a guest,” I announce as I take her further into the home. I guess she’d already been here once before. “Bridget what can we do you for? Did you need something?”

“Bridget!” Harry pops out of the kitchen into the adjoined living room when we get closer. “Nice to see you again! I’m nearly done lunch, did you want to stay?”

What was it with Harry randomly inviting Bridget to things that were not pre-discussed.

“Um, I no. I probably shouldn’t. I just, came by to talk?”

“Sure,” I lead her to our dining table. “Is it about school? Did something happen?”

I sit across from her and Harry mumbles something, turning the dials down on the stovetop before sitting beside me.

Bridget’s eyes dart everywhere, from me to Harry, to the pictures on the wall, the kitchen, the books all over the floor.

“I was just doing a clearout,” I say to fill the silence. “Hey you like books right? Look through that pile there later if you want any of ‘em.”

“Actually,” she tucks her hair behind her ear. I feel Harry tense beside me. “I have a book for you.”

She leans down to where her tote rests and pulls something out. She lays it on her lap first, where we can’t see it. When she looks up to us she has tears in her eyes and her chin quivers.

“Please,” she whispers before pausing. My stomach drops as I take her in. Her face is blotchy and her hair hangs around her face, hiding half of it. She’s definitely cried before coming here, and I almost feel like deja vu as she places the book on the table. “Please don’t hate me.”

She slides it across to us. It’s just a simple leather hardcover, about 30cm by 30cm. The thing in my gut, the suspicion or the intuition, it turns into a cackling ball of energy and moves up to my sternum. I put my hand over it, and then move it to Harry’s leg. He’s frozen like a statue, staring at the book.

“Please open it?” Bridget says with tears streaking her face.

When Harry doesn’t make a move I pull it the rest of the way towards us. I open the first page to a few baby pictures.

I’d never held her in my hands, never even saw her. I’d pushed her out into this world, into another’s arms. But somehow I know who this is.

“Bridget,” I don’t even look at her. I start to frantically flip through the pages. The baby grows, 2 months, 6 months, 1 years old. Another girl joins in some photos, she always has an arm around the other child. I flip and flip and flip and even though I’m expecting it the photo stops my breathing.

I stare at the clone, or the original, of the photo on my fridge.

I’m frozen until another photo is slid towards us. It comes into view: two teenagers on Halloween night. The guy is dressed like the girl, the girl is dressed like the guy.

I throw my chair back and in the time it takes to walk to Bridget she stands too.

“I’m so sorry,” she sobs but I just do what I wanted to do the second she was born.

I hug her. I hold her to my chest the way I never got to over 19 years ago. She belonged here. She never got to be here.

She was finally home. My daughter.

“Bridget,” I cry into her hair. Harry’s hair. She had Harry’s hair, his eyes. She got my nose and everything else. I was holding my daughter. She was in my arms, finally.

She really did look like Taylor as a baby.

“I’m sorry,” she cries again. “I was so scared and I screwed up and-“

“No.” I say fiercely. I push her out of the hug so I can grab her face. I wipe her tears and I nearly cry again. How many tears had I missed? Over skinned knees, playground taunts, first crushes and friendship breakups. How many tears had I missed? “Don’t say that. You’re here. You’re—Harry!”

I turn to him, why wasn’t he here?

He’s sat exactly where he was before. Frozen, staring at a spot between the picture of us and Bridget.

I let go of Bridget and move back to him.

“Baby,” I touch his arm and he springs up. Tears coat his lashes.

“‘Scuse me,” he brushes past me and heads out into the hall. Away from us. I want to go after him but I don’t want to leave Bridget—our daughter, alone.

“I’m sorry I knew I would ruin things I-“

“Please,” I want to go after him so bad but I go to Bridget and pull her into a gentler hug. When we part I keep hold of her shoulders. I never wanted to let her go. “He’s just processing it. He’s fine. He’s not mad at you I promise. Promise.”

She bites her lip, it reminds me of Taylor. She was a bit of everyone I knew and loved. She was the love that Harry and I always had. She was ours.

“I just got so scared when I tried to reach…I didn’t mean to deceive you. I didn’t. I felt terrible every day.”

“It’s okay,” I tuck her hair behind her ear. “There’s nothing to be sorry about-“

“But I saw you,” she cuts me off. “After I finally called you back and then just like, ghosted you. And every time I saw you at school it was like…I knew I was to blame. And it made me want to tell you even more but I got more scared any time I came close to it. I almost said it at your wedding—it would have been so stupid. Philippe stopped me.”

“I understand,” I did. I also didn’t care about any of it. She was here. That’s all I cared about. I wanted to know everything about her, I needed Harry here though. “Look Harry…your…Harry. I’m just going to check on him. You stay here and just…”

I trail off and leave. I had to be sure he was okay.

He’s not in the bedroom, or the office. I try the door to the toilet and it opens, he’s sitting on the edge of the tub with his head in his hands.

“She leave?” He asks in a hoarse voice.

“Oh baby,” I crouch in front of him. “No. She’s still here but I just wanted to check on you.”

“I’m pathetic,” he buries his hands in his hair. “I’ve been waiting my whole adult life for this and all I do is freeze. Her first impression is of her dad just freezing and then running away.”

I try not to laugh at his dramatic retelling. “Har you know that’s not true. She’s known you before this. It was a shock-“

“You were fine.”

“You know I…always suspected. Especially after the wedding.”

He looks up at that, finally. “You never said.”

“Harry, I felt crazy. Saying it out loud would have forced me to check myself into the psych ward. We all react differently, it doesn’t matter though. Our baby girl is here. The day we talked about!”

He takes a deep breath, and then another one. I guide him to stand and he looks so limp and sad that I squeeze him in a hug. “She doesn’t care how you reacted. She just wants to know you.”

Harry sighs again, he splashes his face with water and we walk out. I was nervous for him.

We walk back into the living room and my heart sinks when Bridget isn’t there. But her things are?

A few steps further and she’s at the stovetop, stirring a pot.

“Oh sorry,” she steps back and nearly throws the spatula into the pot. “It was boiling a lot and-“

“Bridget,” Harry ignores most of what she’s saying and she freezes at the sound of her name. He’s a foot away from her now. I watch him raise a hand to her face and then drop it. His face is a cross between heartbreak and awe as they drink each other in. I wait in anticipation.

“Hi,” she finally says shyly. But it breaks the ice. Harry pulls her into a hug and she returns it tenfold from the looks of it. I can’t tell who’s crying, but I give them their moment as I turn the dials off on the stovetop.

It was just a regular Saturday, except it wasn’t. Our worlds exploded with our past and was putting itself back together again, all the old broken pieces were being mended back together with love. My chest drowns in it, I can barely breathe. In Harry’s arms, there’s no denying she’s ours.

***

“Thank you,” Bridget says as we tuck into dinner. Harry’s lunch prep had gone cold as we’d all sat down and talked about how Bridget found us (looking me up, finding out I was teaching a course she was interested in, forcing her friend Philippe to take it to see if I was who she thought I was), and going through her album. I found out more about her sister Louisa and her parents. It was weird seeing pictures of them, in my mind they were the people that took my baby as their own and for Bridget they were mum and dad.

We finally decide to do something about food when our stomachs rumble. Harry goes back to cooking, showing Bridget what he’s doing until she leaves to take a call. I recognize Philippe on the caller ID.

I take Bridget’s place but I’m more of an extra weight tied to Harry’s back as I hug hun from behind. We don’t even have words on what this all means to us. For now, just touching each other keeps us grounded, it keeps is in what was happening together.

Bridget comes back from the call when we’re nearly done.

“I just want to say I am sorry—and I know you said not to be,” Bridget says quickly before I can get a word in. “But I never meant to deceive the both of you. My plan was to take your class, leave the letter and then talk. I Googled you so much it felt like I knew you. Yet when we spoke in your office that day, you felt familiar but In a different way than the person I studied. I just liked you so much, and I wanted you to like me. I was scared maybe you wouldn’t. So I just screwed the plan and messed up everything.”

“Hey,” Harry hands her a tissue and she takes it. Under the table he squeezes my hand. “It’s in the past.”

“I know. Still made me feel awful. And I couldn’t tell you but I also couldn’t stay away. I applied for TA and, it felt like having a friend and a sister and a mentor all in one. And I…I screwed up. I took it too far. And then you invited me to your wedding—I got to attend my parents’ wedding! It was so absurd. I couldn’t stop crying.”

Sounded like me. But I don’t say anything. We listen to her attentively.

“I only told my sister. I wanted to tell you two before I told my parents.”

I think about my parents. Harry’s. I didn’t want to overwhelm her but I couldn’t wait to introduce her to everyone that already loved her.

“I just hope…no, I know I hurt you two a lot. I didn’t mean to. I am really sorry about it all.”

“Bridget,” Harry’s hand comes down on hers. “What’s done is over. There are so many things we wish we did differently but ultimately it’s all done. All that matters is you’re here, now. You’re our daughter we never got to meet and you’re finally here.”

Harry’s voice cracks on the last word and he sits back and laughs away the tears. “Sorry. I’m a mess today aren’t I? Your first impression of me is a crying mess.”

“That’s not my first impression,” Bridget laughs but her eyes also fill with tears. “That night at the pub. When I saw you two together I nearly bloody fainted! When I looked you up y/n, there’d been an old wedding registry with another bloke. But then seeing you two together?! I just couldn’t believe it—I thought I dreamed it. And then I nearly cried because my bio parents were somehow together?? And the way you just stared into my soul it felt like you knew who I was.”

I laugh, remembering but also knowing exactly what look Bridget was talking about. “He does have a piercing look doesn’t he?”

“Yeah. It could gut someone!”

“That makes it sound awful!” Harry laughs. “Don’t say that.”

“It nearly gutted me! I really thought oh shite—“ Bridget freezes and looks between us like we were gonna scold her for swearing and I nearly leap across the table to hug her again then. “I uhm, I thought you knew who I was.”

“We thought it then,” I let my eyes roam over her. I realize I’d always been a mother, despite not having my daughter. Holding her earlier had awoken an instinct in me and now every time I look at her I feel a rush of love and something fierce. I wonder if Harry felt it too. “But we thought we were mental!”

Her phone chimes as we laugh. She flips it around and then tucks it into her purse.

“You need to take that?” Harry asks.

“No it’s just Philippe. He was at the wedding? I was just talking to him, I hadn’t texted him in a while he wanted to know how it went.”

“Philippe,” I say with a knowing smile. Bridget blushes and Harry asks what he’s missing out on so I fill him in.

“He sounds like a good lad,” Harry comments.

“A good lad?” I repeat. “Are you hearing him?”

Bridget laughs behind her hand and I can’t stop staring at her. I have to force myself to go back to eating.

“He is. I might have told him about how I felt?”

“Wow,” I put my fork down. “You’re confessing an awful lot lately.”

She blushes even deeper. And suddenly I’m grateful of the weird and layered way she’d come into our lives. Despite hiding the truth, it had allowed us to get to know each other as people first. Without any baggage or give me any inclination to fit who I thought she should be onto who was in front of me.

I got to know her for the young woman she was first, so did Harry in a way. And I would be forever grateful for that despite all the pain in between.

“Sorry,” I get up. The affection was overflowing from my cup. “I’m going to give you another hug because I just can’t believe all this.”

“Ohh,” Bridget stands to meet me and we wrap our arms around each other. Here was a girl I already knew, here was my daughter waiting to be known.

“God, she really is our daughter.” Harry quips from his side of the table. He explains when Bridget looks over at him, “y/n is known to be a big touchy person, I’m kinda like that too.”

“Oh my god,” she smiles at us. “I’m like that too! My sister hates hugs. My dad’s 2 pats on the back man, 3 if he’s feeling a lot. I always wondered if…”

She trails off. It seems to hit all of us all over again every so often. For me it’s when she talks about her mum and dad and it’s not Harry and I. The reminder that she went 19 years becoming her own person that we now were catching up on.

For her, it seems it was realizing all the parts of us that were in her.

“You got Harry’s hair, and eyes.” I comment.

“I did! I realized that as soon as I saw a photo online. But I do look a bit like you.”

“You do! I should show you some younger pictures of us and our families. You’ll see more similarities.”

“Wow. So you have a younger sister. How about you Harry?”

“Older sister. Seems we all have sisters.”

Bridget and I make eye contact, remembering a conversation we had what feels like ages ago about having sisters.

We continue our dinner, swapping stories and filling her in on anything she wants to know. She leaves after, claiming to have to get back home, she had an exam on Monday to study for.

When she leaves Harry and I can’t stop talking about her. Or gushing would be more accurate.

“Did you see the way she laughs?” I’d tell him. “Pure you!”

“The way she tucks her hair back,” he would retaliate. “Just like you. You did that especially back in secondary.”

We talk until we’re exhausted, crawling into bed just staring in wonder. There were still so many details to figure out, so many things to cover, it could drown a person thinking of it all.

But like an anchor in the sea, Harry and I fall asleep with hand clasped together. We keep each other buoyed amidst it all.

It was going to take time for this all to sink in but all I’ve ever had was time, and questions. I think I was finally getting time and answers.

Age 39:

Harry’s pov: Having our daughter in our lives is simple and complicated at the same time. At first there were a lot of things to untangle but as time went on, the knots loosened until our lives became their own knots, tangled into each other.

Meeting her parents, the people I met once many years ago, was likely the strangest part. They already felt so familiar as soon as they greeted us in a warm embrace, as if we were there own children. I guess the last time they saw us we were.

“Oh look at you,” Bridget’s mum had squeezed us tight. Her dad had pat us three times and we took it to mean as much as a hug.

In my mind they were always the age they had been then. They were probably around the age we are now. Seeing them sport greys and fine lines, it was like stepping into a time portal.

Lou, Bridget’s sister, eyes us for the first little while before warming up and sharing all kinds of stories—especially the embarrassing kind with us.

When Bridget meets Y/n’s family, I can tell they’re loud and overwhelming at first but we’re all surprised when Taylor embraces Bridget and takes to her immediately.

She brings out old pictures they had of Y/N and I, but every time she says, “your mum and dad…” when she talks about us through the pictures, I notice y/n protesting less and less.

It makes me feel funny, I keep thinking I was going to wake up and find out it had all been a dream.

“This feels very full circle to me,” y/n’s mum says. She’s watching Taylor talk about her baby bump—she was 3 months along. “I saw Bridget as a wee baby when they handed her over to her parents. I remember running late to hospital and making it to the room just in time to see it. I blinked and now she’s in my living room!”

“Sometimes I feel the same way,” I confess.

My family is slightly quietier but they all fuss over our daughter. They ask a million questions and when it’s all over we take Bridget for ice cream. It’s a pseudo-recreation of a life we never had.

Bridget eases into it too. At first she had bouts of disappearing on us. No more than a couple days. But we give her space, understanding it was overwhelming.

Every time I see her, I see her mum—y/n. I was never there when y/n gave birth. We had to drive up from London when we got the news and by the time I got there the dust had settled.

I never even had the potential of seeing her. I’d always been more sympathetic of y/n; her loss had been physical, mine was slightly more abstract.

Even though I’d spent every year since regretting that I wasn’t there to at least glimpse her, I’m glad now I hadn’t been there to see her. If I had to live the last 18 years with this feeling in my chest I don’t think I could have lasted that long. I don’t know how y/n did it. It’s a concoction of deep unconditional love, and tenderness, and recognition, wrapped in a shell of protectiveness. It took me a while to sort through it all but I had a conversation with my parents one night at dinner Y/n and I had visited. And they’d laughed because they had told me that was simply what being a parent was.

“Maybe she regrets it,” I had said the second time she ghosted us. Really it had just been over a day where she hadn’t gotten back to us. But I couldn’t help the overthinking, being tuned into any potential of loss with our daughter.

Somehow, y/n was the cool headed between us two in these moments. Maybe it was being a mum, maybe it was knowing Bridget beforehand, but she was very in sync with her.

“She needs space. The last thing we want her to be is overwhelmed too. Now don’t overwhelm yourself love, at least she’s in our lives.” She’d say.

It takes us the start of the summer and all those meets later for Bridget to finally feel at ease.

We invite her on a road trip, we were renting a place in the Cotswold for a few days and told her to bring Philippe. When she doesn’t even hesitate to say yes Y/n tells me we’d done it: she was finally more comfortable than overwhelmed.

“Y/N made me a better man,” I say after a couple drinks. We’re all sat around a fire outside the house. Despite it being a warm day of hiking the night had cooled significantly and we’d decided that boozy hot cocoas was the way to go. “I’ve lost my ways a lot of times as an adult. But she’s always been my north star. Even when we got back together she led me to being sober and getting my shite together.”

“Oh…” Philippe looks down at his drink. “Are you…”

“No,” I laugh, Philippe was the most-conscientious teen I’d ever met. “I got sober to get my life in order. But…it’s in order now. I haven’t done anything crazy for over a year now.”

A little before our wedding I decided I wanted to end my sobriety. It had been a thought for months, and I had waited before giving in. But I really felt more in control of my life. I faced my life decisions head on, I confronted my past with y/n’s help, and I didn’t think I’d lose control again. It had been a shaky first week but I was right. It was a proud moment for me.

“You two really have something special,” Bridget comments.

“They do,” Philippe adds. “I can’t believe you got your happy ending after so many years!”

“Yeah,” y/n says as I lay my hand on her thigh, palm up. “Y’know what they say about loving someone and letting them go.”

“I guess you did that with me,” Bridget says so quietly we almost don’t hear her. But out here in the countryside we do.

“We didn’t want to,” I remind her.

“No I know.” She smiles, it’s a bit sad. Philippe tugs her closer. I could see how much he cared for her in that small gesture. “I’m not saying it like that. I hear your story and I just imagine how different my life would have been if I was raised by my, by you two. I wouldn’t have this life. And I really like this life.”

She looks at Philippe and I feel y/n squeeze my hand. She often said they reminded her of us when we were younger; the kind of love you’d do anything for.

“But you two loved me enough to let me go. To let each other go. It’s fucking sad but it’s beautiful. Life’s weird.”

“Here here,” Y/N raises her nearly empty cup of hot cocoa. “Life’s weird, sad, beautiful, but lately my life’s been full of so much love. I wish I could sell all the excess, I think I could solve a lot of world problems with it.”

“Wow,” I lean over and kiss the top of her head. “That’s one hell of a speech.”

“I have a speech,” Philippe stands, a little tipsy, and clears his throat. Bridget rolls her eyes but they shine for him. “Bridget you’re the love of my life. Since we were 13. But Harry and Y/N, I think I love you too. Ever since we were 15, I’ve watched Bridge struggle for answers about her past. And you two have given her all the answers, welcomed her—and me actually, into your lovely life. I’ve watched her become old Bridge but even more confident. I’m falling harder for her these days. And I can’t thank you guys enough.”

“Aw Philippe come here,” y/n lets of my hand to walk around and give him a hug. How quickly strangers became family.

Bridget grumbles about being left out and joins the hug. Soon I join in too. I want to create a mold of this moment, I think as I squeeze them against me, I’d make it out of plaster and let it dry. Any time we wanted, we could always find our way back to this moment here.

Age 40:

Y/N and I watch our daughter cross the stage. Beside us are our parents and in front of us sits Bridget’s parents and her sister. She has a whole army cheering for her. This was the first milestone event we could all really show up for, and show up we did.

“I can’t believe this,” I was so proud of her. I know the kudos went to her parents, and herself, but I beam with pride. Honestly Bridget could spin in a circle in front of me and I would be a proud dad.

“We need to get photos,” mum leans over and says so seriously, as if we hadn’t planned on getting a million already.

We have a framed picture in our hall, Y/N and I on our wedding day, our daughter in between us. Her graduation photo is definitely making it. She makes fun of this wall, calls it the Styles hall of fame, and I never mention it but she always lingers a few second longer in front of the photo of the three of us.

I do too.

“It makes me so sad you won’t be so close to me anymore,” my mum tells Bridget later. We’re all piled in our flat, drinks and celebratory cake in everyone’s hands.

It reminds me of mine and y/n’s 40th birthday, we had gathered our family and friends here and it was some of their first times meeting our daughter. Today is more intimate, and focused on Bridget.

“I know it makes me sad too, but I’ll be here often, visiting Philippe.”

“Only visiting Philippe?” I raise a brow.

“Is there someone else I’m supposed to be visiting?” She mirrors my raised brow.

As Bridget’s gotten more comfortable, me and her could banter for hours if you let us, it’s one of those things that brought us closer together—having the same sense of humour. It’s allowed us to have just as deep heart-to-hearts, a handy joke always close to the surface.

Y/N always says seeing me like that, thoughtful and silly, reminds her of the boy she fell for. I can’t deny that I’ve been feeling closer to my 20 year old self than my 40 year old self lately.

“She’s too cheeky,” Bridget’s mum says. “But I have to say I’ll be glad to have her back.”

Lou, Bridget’s sister, was moving to Wales. Apparently she wanted to know more about her background, and take a trip with her bio mum to visit her bio dad.

I think Bridget was moving back to Coventry to keep her parents’ loneliness away; she said she would commute to Birmingham for school. Even though she got accepted into law schools in London, going to a uni close to her parents just showed me how close she was to her parents. It was a bittersweet feeling.

“I’ll have somebody to watch cricket with again,” her dad says.

“Ohh,” Bridget throws her sister a side-eye. “I love cricket…”

We all laugh at her complete lack of concealing her true feelings.

Later that night, it’s just Bridget’s parents and us. The kids are on the balcony talking.

“I know we’ve said it before,” I say after a long silence. We’d just been watching the kids talk and laugh outside. “But I want to say thank you again.”

Bridget’s dad shakes his head. “It was the greatest pleasure of our lives getting to raise those two girls.”

He looks over at his wife and they smile at one another. Seeing them interact, I’m grateful that somehow fate had led us to them. While Y/N and I were figuring life out, while I fucked up a lot of things, she was raised on a steady and stable foundation.

“She’s incredible,” I murmur. “She’s gonna be a lawyer. She’s going to change the world.”

“She sure will,” her mum says. “We should be thanking you two. For giving us Bridget. I know it wasn’t easy, you told me you thought about her nearly every day. But we can’t imagine our lives without her.”

We sit in a comfortable silence, looking out at the kids until they notice and start to ask questions through the glass.

“She’s happier,” her mum says smiling at Bridget and Lou exaggerating their words through the glass. “She stopped being like this before she left for uni. We thought we lost her but…I think everything worked out for the best.”

Y/N glances at me. Her eyes crinkle when she finds me looking at her first, her eyes steady me as she says what I was thinking, “I think so too.”

Age 45

Your pov: “When did she say she would be here?”

“6?” Harry says for the tenth time.

“It’s 6:20 do you think something happened? She hasn’t texted has she?”

“My love,” Harry puts down the cutlery he was arranging on the table and holds my face in his hands. “They’re driving from Coventry, they probably hit some traffic.”

“Maybe I should call her?”

Harry sighs and squishes my face.

“Don’t! You’ll make more wrinkles.” I warn.

“I love your wrinkles,” Harry kisses my forehead right where the pesky wrinkles had been growing deeper over the last few years despite the additions to my night routine.

Harry always said our wrinkles were just the stories of our lives showing through. I told him to get himself undereye cream.

“You don’t think I’m aging handsomely?” He strokes the moustache he started growing last year. At this age, even I couldn’t deny it made him even more attractive.

“Well it’s no good if you’re ageing handsomely and I age like a troll.”

“I will love you if you age into a troll.”

“But will you love me if I turn into a worm?”

“Do you even have to ask? I’d buy you the best soil and keep you in a beautiful pot.”

“You wouldn’t take me fishing?” I ask. He sighs. Last year while we were taking a trip up north for Lou’s wedding, we’d gotten into a fight and when I asked him the question while he was still stewing he said he’d take me fishing. It had, ironically, broken the iciness of his anger and we’d laughed about it so hard he’d nearly had to pull over.

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” he wraps me into his chest nearly suffocating me.

I’d spent half my life with a lot of difficulties, but life now felt easy compared to it. I had the privilege of getting older with the man I adored, got to watch my daughter flourish as an adult and a lawyer, watch her get married to the love of her life, and all the while live comfortably in the heart of this city I called home.

When Bruno starts barking though, I gasp and push myself off of Harry, “that’s them!”

Bruno continues to bark as I rush to the door. We’d got him a couple years ago as a pup and I can’t believe it had taken us that long to get a dog. He filled our lives with laughter and long walks. We loved him.

“Down.” I say to him. I open the door and hold my hands out while Bruno runs in circles beside me.

“Ahhh sorry we’re late!” Bridget steps into my hug and I tug Philippe’s hood so he can join. Bruno goes for Philippe when they walk in, he’d gotten obsessed with him after Philippe took care of him while Harry and I took an anniversary trip last year.

“Where are my hellos!?” Bridget says to Bruno and he barks, standing on his back legs to paw at her leg.

I hadn’t seen the two of them since March, that was 6 months ago. It had been their wedding, and they’d gone on a month long honeymoon after that, after which Harry and I had taken time off to road trip around Europe with Bruno, and then time had just zipped by.

After a hearty dinner, Harry and I carry out the birthday cake we’d been hiding.

“You didn’t have to do this!” Bridget fans her face but we treat it like we do any special occasion, plus making up for all the ones we’d missed. We get photos and exchange presents, she cries reading the cards and the whole time she says she had a present for us.

It’s a small bag, Harry and I guess that it was something for Bruno but when we take out a box it doesn’t sound like much when we shake it.

“Is this a prank gift? There’s nothing in it?” Harry asks.

“Open it!” He was making me antsy.

“You open it,” he hands me the box. Bridget and Philippe stare intently at my hands.

I undo the bow and slowly open the box. There’s a small square of tissue paper, and then a piece of paper. I remove both but something catches my eye.

I flip the paper over and stop breathing.

“Is that-“ Harry stops talking too. We stare at the piece of paper in our hands. It looks so much like one I had held 28 years ago. But it’s not.

“Bridge,” I look up at the couple. The parents-to-be.

“We’re having a baby,” Bridget says. Philippe and her are gripping hands and I throw everything off of me to launch myself at her.

“A baby!” I hear Harry say and joining us. “You’re having a baby! Y/n!”

“I never thought we’d be grandparents,” I look up at Harry.

“Those wrinkles were coming in for a reason,” he teases.

We never did have any other kids. Quite frankly, neither of us wanted any. When we first got together we were just starting to get comfortable with the reminder that we had a daughter out there and we could talk about her freely with each other. It felt like having a third person in our little family.

After Harry proposed, while we planned our wedding, we talked about it but we never thought it felt right. We both had first marriages where a lack of conceiving had just put a strain on the relationship we didn’t think we needed. We’d also felt like it was betraying something, before we met our first child.

When Bridget did reach out, it became about catching up on lost time. And then with her in our lives we knew what we suspected all along. We had each other, and that was enough. Bridge was our bonus. And getting to be aunt and uncle to our nieces and nephews it was enough. It was a full enough life.

We never even dreamed in our 20s we’d get to be parents and now we would get to be grandparents! I never realized until this moment that I wanted this. Really wanted it.

“Do you know the gender?” Harry asks.

“No,” Philippe answers. “We were thinking of doing one of those reveal parties? But not for a couple months.”

“Wow,” my hands drift down to Bridget’s belly and I remember I had something. I leap away from the group and find the box in my closet, it’s painted pink with random collages from old magazines. It hosts old diaries, photos, a hospital bracelet, and an ultrasound.

“This was you once,” I show her the picture when I get back. “I carried you like that once upon a time.”

She takes it with teary eyes, holding it close to her face to make out the shape of her. She hands it to Philippe and grabs my hands.

“I’ve thought about it before, but when I got pregnant I couldn’t wait to tell you-“

“She kept telling me I had to make a trip out to London just so she could give you the news.” Philippe interrupts, eyes scanning the ultrasound still.

“No really,” Bridget laughs. “I did. It’s like I got this new perspective.”

She puts my hands on her belly and covers mine with hers. I feel everything at once then, all the heartbreak I ever went through to get here.

“I can’t imagine giving this baby up. And it’s barely 3 months. What you were willing to do to give me a better life-“

She breaks off and Philippe squeezes her shoulder. I watch my daughter try to gain control of her emotions. I remember when I was pregnant with her, anything would set me off.

“It must not have been easy. After carrying me like this for 9 whole months. Thank you-“ she looks up to where Harry’s standing. I barely register his hand on my shoulder. “Thank you as my mum and dad, for making the hardest decision I can imagine ever making, so I could have something you knew you couldn’t provide.”

I reel my tears in, save them for later that night in bed while Harry holds me tight against him.

Right now I kiss my daughter and tell her what a good mother she will make. I tell her and Philippe how proud I was of them, how excited, how wonderful this was.

Age 46

The day we meet our granddaughter is seared into my brain. We get the call at 8:35pm, Harry and I were staying in a B&B in Coventry despite Bridget’s mum insisting we stay with her. We’d been here all weekend, booked it all week, not wanting to miss Bridget’s delivery date.

“Y/N she’s here,” her mum whispers into the phone. Her voice is filled with joy and giddiness. “She’s here.”

“We’re coming,” I say. Harry’s already at the door and we rush out into the night to see our granddaughter.

She has the perfect little face, and when she finally wakes up I gasp when I see Harry’s eyes looking back at me. I turn to him, to see if he noticed, but he’s teary-eyed and gazing at the baby in awe. I soak it in for a second, imagining this exact look if we’d kept our baby so many years ago.

Bridget’s parents had given us the room, to give us a moment alone, and I can’t be more grateful. Bridget encourages us to hold her and as her soft body is pressed into my body I let out a sob and hand her over to Harry. I excuse myself and step outside the room.

Lou’s kids sit on the floor outside, playing with whatever toys are spilling out of a miniature backpack. I focus on the flashy colours, trying to calm down, counting the number of toys falling out.

My life was a 180 from 10 years ago. This moment would go down in our history books as one of the best days of our lives.

But I can’t deny the bittersweet. The experience threatens to push me into the bitter past of not even getting to hold Baby Bridget. But with it comes an undeniable sweetness of getting to experience this now.

I take a deep breath and walk back in. Harry and Bridget stop mid-sentence and turn to me. Bridget’s face is streaked with tears, Harry’s looks concerned but I smile. He sits with the pink bundle to his chest and I ache.

“Don’t look so obvious you were talking about me,” I try a joke.

“Are you alright?” Bridget asks.

“May I hold her?” I ask in return.

I sit on the edge of the bed and she’s placed in my arms; she’s perfect. Just as perfect as Bridget must have been.

“She’s got Philippe’s hair,” I gently stroke the wispy blonde strands.

“She’s got my eyes, her grandpa’s eyes.”

I look at Harry. And he catches the stricken look on my face when Bridget tips forward and whispers to her baby.

“Look baby, this is your mumma’s mum, and your mumma’s dad. You’ve got his beautiful eyes. Say hi to grandma!”

My throat tightens. “Bridge.”

She leans away, her eyes dart between us. “I know I call you Y/N and Harry. It made it easier at first but…you are my mum and dad. Even though I have another pair. You are my mum and dad. And I want her to know you like that.”

“Oh love,” Harry leans down and kisses the top of our daughter’s head. She keeps her green eyes trained on me, grasping my hand that’s wrapped under her baby’s.

I mouth a thank you, my voice couldn’t pass through the block in my throat. She squeezes my hand and it sets the baby off. Remembering when my nephews were this young, I just hand her back to Bridget knowing she only wanted her mum.

Harry and I stay in the waiting room. We couldn’t go home, even though we had spent our allotted time we had inside the room, we stay there.

We watch Lou’s kids as Bridget’s family gathers in her room. We stay as they fall asleep, draped over us. I remember when Taylor’s kids were this small, they would fall asleep anywhere.

We talk in whispers, I don’t remember what about exactly. Mostly how excited we were. How there was so much to look forward to. How different our lives looked a decade ago.

“One day we’ll tell our grandkids,” I remember Harry saying. “We’ll tell them all about us, how we met, how our love burned so bright it shone in the sky. We lost each other but our love was always there to guide us back home.”

“We’ll see them grow up, all the memories we missed.”

“We’ll change diapers.”

“We’ll change diapers,” I giggle, half-delirious by the lack of sleep. It was probably 2am and I was tired.

When I gaze up at Harry I remember him holding our granddaughter. I replace her with Bridget. For a minute I allow myself to imagine how that would have been.

“I think you would have made an amazing mum if we did things differently,” Harry whispers into my hair.

“You too.” I whisper back.

“An amazing mum? You think?” The edge of his lips tug upwards.

“Harry,” I warn. We had kids sleeping on us we were trying not to wake.

“I love you.” He says in response. “To the stars and back.”

On our drive home I can’t stop looking at him. I always wondered how it would be like to grow old with someone; when I was younger and watch my own parents celebrate anniversaries. And then when I was older and my first marriage was so rocky.

But thinking about it now is like a simple mathematical equation. You take two lives, two individuals, and you bracket them in love. You add an exponent—the decision to continue choosing each other. And you get a lifelong commitment. No matter the situation, no matter the challenges or the changes, you choose to choose each other.

His side profile lights up by an oncoming car. For a second he’s the same boy I feel in love with, a few more gray hairs, a few more wrinkles, and a moustache. But he’d always be the boy I followed out to the roof, who held my hand in our high school hallway, the one who turned an I into a we when I got pregnant, I see the man I had coffee with after a run-in at the Whole Foods, I see the broken heart from a harsh life sitting on the steps of a church, I see a bookworm, I see a father, a husband, and now a grandfather. I see the one person who knows me like the back of his hand. The one I am home with always.

“What is it?” Harry asks as we pull into our b&b. “Have you been asleep this whole ride or have you been staring at me?”

“Staring at you?” I ask. “You think I was staring at you the whole ride?”

“Well you were really silent. And facing me

“I was thinking.”

“About me?”

“Why are you so desparate!? Do I not show you enough love regularly?”

“I could always use more,” Harry looks half asleep as we reach our door.

“The people are right: you give someone a hand and watch as they take the whole arm,” I tease.

“When you gave me your hand, I made you a wife.” Harry retorts.

“Ooh,” I poke him. “I have to say that’s a good comeback for being half-asleep.”

Harry grins back. “You keep me sharp.”

“And you keep me happy. Now open the door so I can stop freezing out here!”

We walk into the warmth of our b&b.

For so much of our lives, our past decisions haunted us. We let so much go. Now life was repaying us, returning it all back, with interest.

***

In a small b&b in the middle of a town called Coventry, two lovers crawl into bed. They’d just become grandparents and they carry an exhausted buzz about them as they try to fall asleep. They’re both thinking of the other, of their daughter, of the tiny bundle they held in their arms today.

Some 20 minutes away their daughter lays in a hospital bed, an exhausted buzz putting her to sleep. She dreams of her mother who gave her up, how she had found her parents in the end, and dreams about the kind of mother she’ll be.

A few doors down lay her newborn daughter, she doesn’t dream of much, not yet, but she’s in for a lifetime of love.

Most of life is what we made it. Y/N and Harry loved deeply enough to make it.

———————————————

TAGLIST: @quinnwritezz @unknownnbihh @dilfhrrys @umadirectioner @hermionelove @anonymous-91 @meganxfddf

#harry styles fic #harry styles x reader #writingsfromhome #harry styles #harry styles fanfic #harry styles imagine #fic #harry styles angst #harry styles fluff #harry styles series #if you love something #dad!harry #its not my fave but I was getting tired of tweaking it #to shorten it #theres just so much to catch up on #kinda nervous #but also kinda done

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racefortheironthrone · 6 months

Note

Hello, I’ve a part asoiaf part medieval history question. So despite the strict gender roles, we know that women (at least noble women) can enjoy some “male” activities like horse riding and some kinds of hunting (Cat says Arya can have a hunting hawk). Are there any other “male” activities women can partake too without being judged about it, or even encouraged to do so (both in Westeros and real world)?

So as medievalists and historians of gender have pointed out, ASOIAF is far more restrictive for women than actual medieval Europe. I'm actually going to leave aside the situation of noblewoman for a second, because the vast majority of women were not nobles and their experience of gender would be radically different.

What counted as "male activities" for example would vary enormously by location (rural vs. urban) and thus occupation (farmer vs. artisan). Among the peasantry, while men tended to work in the fields and concentrated on cereal-crop production and women tended to do the manifold work of maintaining the home, the reality is that the irregular nature of agricultural labor meant that in times of high demand (especially spring sowing and autumn harvest) it was a matter of survival for every single member of the household to work in the fields. So women absolutely knew how to work a plow, and swing a scythe.

As for the urban worker, while there was also a high degree of gender segregation by occupation and guilds could often be quite misogynistic when it came to trying to masculinize trades (especially those involving higher rates of capital investment), it was also true that the entire household was expected to contribute their labor, so that wives, daughters, collateral female relatives, and female servants picked up the trade alongside their male counterpart. Moreover, as biased towards men as guilds could be, they were even more committed to the principle that guild businesses were family businesses, and so in situations where a master artisan had only daughters or died childless or died with underage heirs, it was absolutely routine for guilds to admit daughters and widows as guild members, indeed usually at the rank of master, all so that the business could remain in the same family. This is why medievalists can point to so many examples of women who worked in skilled trades, often at a high level.

That's what I think GRRM's portrait of medieval society is missing: an entire world of women in business, working elbow-to-elbow with men to make a living.

As for noblewomen, part of the difficulty is that a big part of being a noble was not doing stuff - not working for a living, chiefly - and instead engaging in leisure activities as much as possible. And women were very much a part of those activities (indeed, for many of them the point was to mingle with eligible people of the opposite gender), whether that's feasting, dancing, hunting, hawking, theater and other entertainments, fireworks, tourneys and jousts, etc.

However, women were also engaged in the main "occupations" of the nobility - estate management and politics - way more than GRRM really takes note of. To begin with, as even GRRM acknowledges to some extent, the lady of the house was expected to take an active role in running the house, which meant managing servants, keeping track of accounts payable and receivable, making sure the supplies arrive on time and in the right quality and quantity, keeping an eye on maintenance and repairs (with the help of servants, natch), etc.

Given that even the manor houses of the nobility were units of economic production, the lady of the house would also be responsible for oversight of how the house was doing with its pigs, goats, chickens and pigeons and geese, bees (because beeswax and honey were really important commodities), sheep, and so on, and what kind of figures they were pulling down at the mill and the weir, and so forth.

As medievalists have known for a long time, this list of duties got even longer whenever the lord of the house was away at war or on business, when the lady would be expected to pick up all his work too - which means making sure the rents and taxes get paid, deciding which fields to distribute manpower to and when, dealing with legal disputes in the manorial court, and so on. And if the war came home, the lady of the house was expected to lead the defense of the castle and there are many, many examples of noblewomen who had to organize sieges that lasted months and even years.

However, we also have to consider the impact of inheritance by birth and the inherent randomness of sex at birth - as much as they tried to avoid it, plenty of noble houses ended up with female heirs or in the hands of widows. Most of the time in most countries, women could and did inherit (or at the very least their male children and relatives could inherit through them) titles and fiefdoms, and while their husbands would often take on overlordship de jure uxoris, unmarried women and widows very much exercised their authority as the Lady or Baroness or Countess or whatever, and history is also full of women who were extremely influential in medieval politics and backed up their influence by any means necessary.

#history #medieval history #feudalism #history of gender #westerosi feudalism #westerosi gender roles #asoiaf #asoiaf meta #race for the iron throne #historical analysis

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captianprices40thson · 5 months

Note

good morning good fellow could you write more about Graves x male!reader? I love your writing and 🫡🫡🫡 this american twink makes me feel things I don't like.

It's only right to think about the guy you love and hold him tight.

Warnings: None. Very fluffy. There is a little bit of internalised homophobia but that’s only if you squint and use a magnifying glass. A swear word or two. Not edited.

Requested: Yes!

Words: 1.5k

Pairing: Phillip Graves x M!Reader

Pronouns used: You/Yourself. Reader is male and receives masculine compliments.

AAAAA SORRY I’VE BEEN GONE FOREVER. School caught up to me (you know how finals are in my country.) But I’m nearly on break and will be able to write a lot more. Enjoy this extravaganza of bullshit and pain.

“Phillip-” You groaned as he dragged you through the home you shared, blindfolded. Of course, you knew where he was taking you, you had walked this path a million times before…but he still wanted you blindfolded.

“Almost there, handsome.”

“Why am I blindfolded?” You asked, curiosity getting the best of you. Sure, you didn’t ask any questions when he put it on you from behind, but it felt like he was dragging you around for a good seven hundred minutes.

“Because I have a surpriseee.” He responded and you could practically hear the grin in his voice. The American man continued to hold your hand with his own, which was surprisingly soft for a man like him who spent his days in gloves and handing things rather rough.

“Phillip, I have to cook dinner.” You mumbled, getting the slightest bit frustrated. Yes, you loved this man with all your heart, but he really needed to stop doing this shit when you had just gotten home after a long day.

“Okay, okay…we’re here.” He smiled and let go of your hand, leaving you in the darkness that was the blindfold. You were left alone for a moment, before his reassuring hands came from behind to remind you that you were not alone, and that he would be taking it off now.

“Surprise.” He smiled as the blindfold came off and your eyes scanned around the room. It was what was previously the living room, now turned into an assortment of pillows, blankets, a few stuffed animals that came from both you and him, and overall just a comfortable ass looking room. The TV and coffee table were not covered, although the coffee table had an assortment of food he knew you loved.

“I know you had a rough day at work and…figured you might just want to relax.” He continued, walking further into the room. He had taken his shoes off, revealing he was wearing cat paw print socks you had gotten for him ages ago as a joke. You were going to mention it, but he spoke first, handing you a pair of matching socks, although they were black and pink instead of his white and pink.

“Don’t think your amazing and totally cool husband would let things like a bad day slide. It's relaxing time, big guy.” He smiled and you felt like he could not have said anything more cringe. Though, that’s why you liked him. He was cringe and to be honest, so were you.

“Jesus Christ, Phillip.” You smiled, taking your socks off. “You’re so cheesy, you know that?”

“So are you? Remember what you did when I kissed you the first time?” He retorted, sitting down on the couch which was currently covered in a blanket with a stupid amount of pillows.

“Yes, I understand. I said crikey. I was seventeen. It was cool back then.” You responded, taking off your own shoes and socks in order to put on the pair your husband had given you.

“Was it though?” He asked, picking up the remote and turning the Tv on.

“Oh like you can talk, Mr ‘Totally straight until you met me.’” You smiled as you sat down on the comfortable couch next to him.

“Oh you know what?” He groaned and before you could say anything, he tackled you on the couch, ending up on top of you with his head in your neck. You both laughed, his body pressing on top of yours was comforting and felt like home. The weight of his body on yours was a reminder that you were very real and very loved.

“Wanna watch YellowJackets?” He whispered, knowing that you had a strange fascination with Jeff. When you had first watched it, you had thought that the man was your husband due to them looking so similar. He didn’t see it. You wondered if he had a twin named Warren that he either didn’t know or didn’t tell you about.

“Absolutely.” You mused, watching him sit up and lie down on the other side of the couch. He invited you over to lay next to him, your body pressed against his. You could feel his body pressed against yours, his arm snaking around your waist in order to hold you tight.

“This feels…out of character for you.” You told him, looking around at the pillows and blankets strewn all over the place. You were right, he would never usually do this for you…what changed? You turned your body over to face him, his features changing from resting to deep thought and finally, a loving look that said more than words. “I had a…realisation at work today. Nothing big but…my time with you is precious. I don’t want to constantly be Graves around you…I want to be Phillip. And Phillip doesn’t want his husband to come home to no comfort after what I heard was a shitty day.” He told you, moving his hand to hold your face, gently moving his thumb up and down your features. He was right, this was Phillip. Not Commander Graves that you knew so well...the Phillip who you married.

“Romantic.” You murmured, going in for a kiss. He reciprocated, holding you as your lips touched. It was a shitty day, but you were pretty sure this man could make anything better if he put the effort in. He was just like that.

____

Long after you had fallen asleep and he had turned the TV off, Phillip lay awake, still holding you close to him. You were facing him, so he was able to study your features. God, you were so handsome. In his eyes, there was literally no one else more beautiful than you (and he’s met Gaz so that is huge.) His eyes looked over your lips, your perfect nose, your closed eyes and soft breathing as you slept. Could he have anyone more perfect than you?

“I am so lucky…” He whispered, moving a hand to rest against your cheek, caressing your face.

“You are so easy to love…and I was not. And yet you loved me anyways…god, I don’t deserve you.” He mumbled, a small smile on his face as he spoke to himself. He wanted you to hear him say that…but he didn’t think he was ready to admit this stuff aloud. The Phillip you knew was still under a protective layer of Graves.

“You are also very easy to please…and you’re a great cuddler…you’re just…amazing.” He told you, almost waiting for you to open your eyes and reveal you were awake the whole time.

“And…I want to be there for you more.” He continued to whisper, the ring finger on his hand suddenly feeling a whole lot heavier than it did before. He took a breath, ready to say it aloud for the first time.

“I want people to know we’re married. I don’t want this to be hidden anymore…I want to tell my shadows, I want to wear my wedding ring to work…I want to be romantic with you publicly. I don’t want to hide you anymore.” He admitted, a small tear in his eyes forming. “Starting tomorrow…I will be Phillip…the Phillip that loves you and wants you to know. The Phillip that isn't scared anymore.” He affirmed, the tears now rolling down his face. You continued to sleep, you dumbass, not knowing that this man was confessing his heart out to you right now. But not in the way he did when you were both nineteen.

A small kiss on your forehead was felt, making your unconscious form form a small smile, before he wrapped his arms around you and fell asleep, feeling like he had gotten such a big weight off of his chest…and he had.

____

“I’m headed out. I'll be home late tonight so don’t wait for me.” He told you as you entered the kitchen, having gotten dressed into your own work clothes.

“M’kay. Love you handsome. Thankyou for last night.” You smiled, walking up to him and kissing him on the lips. He nodded, then turned to go and leave the house, opening and closing the door…and he was gone.

You took a sigh, holding up your wedding ring hand. You also took it off every morning before work. It was something you hated doing but…you understood it was not ideal to be queer in your work environment. You took off the golden ring, moving over to the small wooden tray in the kitchen where you both placed yours every morning. You placed it down next to…no. His wasn’t there. He had taken his own to work. A wave of serotonin rushed through you as you realised what he had done.

You picked yours back up, a moment of hesitance. Do you take yours with you as well, or put it back? If he was brave enough to do the act, why weren’t you?

A moment of thought, tossing the ring back and forth in your hands. Then, you made your choice.

HAHAHA SCREW YOU. CLIFFHANGER. This is like inception. It's up to interpretationnnnn~.

#call of duty #cod x reader #cod #fanfiction #fluff #writers on tumblr #phillip graves x reader #graves x reader #graves x male reader #phillip graves x you #graves cod #male reader #phillip graves x male reader #very fluffy don't worry #internalized homophobia but only a little bit guys #GAY #fiction

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thecuriousquest · 6 months

Text

Reaching into the Fire

Tag List: @issamomma @repostingmyfavs @chickennugnugnug

Warnings: Platonic yandere themes, brutal spanking/beating, child abuse, wounded reader, slight manipulation, Enji is an asshole, kidnapping, ass kicking threats (towards you), death threats (towards someone else)

Summary: What happens when Touya-nii comes home to find you a mess after a severe punishment from your father?

NOTES: Reader is thirteen years old. Reader has red hair. Like other works of mine concerning Platonic Yandere Dabi, he is in the LOV and living with his dad and siblings. Idfk, don’t come at me with plot holes.

Master List here.

—————————————————————————

Looking out the window, you don’t understand. What’s taking him so long to get back? Touya should be home by now. He should have been home two hours ago.

“Get your elbows off the table, and eat your food, Y/N,” your father, Enji, Endeavor, orders you in a nasty snarl.

As if you’re not eating because you’re an ungrateful brat.

As if you’re not eating to spite him in some horrible way.

After all I’ve done for you! You can hear his distant voice ringing in your head like an explosion that has almost just settled but not quite.

You glare at your redheaded father with a dark and deep stare that’s too young for thirteen years old.

“Don’t look at me like that, and I won’t tell you again. Do as I say and eat.”

“Where’s Touya-nii?”

It’s all you ever say to him when he’s not here to act as your savior, the buffer between your hot head and your hot headed father.

Your fiery red hair isn’t the only thing you inherited from him.

Your father curses your disobedience, slamming his hand down on the table.

“That’s it, young lady! Either eat or go to your room.”

“Touya-nii would never talk to me like this!”

That’s not exactly true. There are many occasions where he, himself, drifts from his cool nature and is overcome with anger from some of your “dumbass antics” as he calls them.

He’ll hug you with a fierce possessiveness after he calms down and reverts to his level headedness. He’ll tell you that he’s just looking out for you, tells you that he needs you to understand just how precious you are to him. He tells you you’re his baby sister, and he’ll always be here to protect you.

You never heard a semblance of something like that come from your father’s mouth.

Not that it matters. No, you’ve given up on that long ago.

Your father, in all of his mighty glory as the patriarch of the Todoroki household, slams both his hands on the table and stands up. He towers over you like a massive boulder. It’s unsettling.

“Well, Touya’s not your father!”

You’re in dangerous territory.

“I fucking wish he was…”

And his quirk intensifies. He grabs you by the collar of your school shirt, roughly yanking you out of your seat.

Shoto looks shocked, Fuyumi looks like she’s about to say something, and Natsuo puts a hand on both of his siblings’ arms to keep them in their seats.

He knows that if someone does something against their father, then the entire house might burn down with everyone in it.

You feel your father’s flames lick the backs of your bare ankles as you traverse the stairs with him holding onto you firmly. You don’t wince, you don’t struggle, you’re used to this by now.

The door to your room busts open, oh so close to being torn off of its hinges. A knee jabs right into your stomach as you find yourself face down over his bulky thigh, just a giant mass of muscle.

“You’re so ungrateful.”

He spanks you hard with his flat palm.

“After everything I do for you!”

Your poor skin isn’t even kept safe from his hellflames. The fire scorches your bottom in ways you’ve never felt before. His quirk extending, amplifying with his brute anger.

You are what he chooses to release his frustrations upon this time.

How utterly fucking convenient.

You scream into your sheets, kicking your legs wildly.

You hear movement from above you, but you’re in so much pain that you think one slight shift might cause your ass to slide off of your body.

No, you would like very much for your poor butt to remain intact.

And then something even worse is hitting your backside in an angry barrage, and this time, oh this time you have to look — ass sliding off be damned.

It’s a leather belt. Well, that’s new. You’ve never had that before.

Touya-nii always fought for you over this, telling his father that you’re too damn young for the belt.

“If she’s old enough to mouth off, then she’s old enough to accept the consequences!” Your father had shouted right back in Touya’s scarred face.

Your father, up until now, never used the belt on you though, even after all of those arguments with your big brother.

Guess you went too far tonight.

“You act grown, so take it like a big girl if that’s how you want to behave!”

And the belt stings, stings more than you could ever imagine, causes throbbing and aching deep in your muscles, causes the tears already streaming down your cheeks to flow like rapid waters.

You ball your fists up, punching your mattress, pushing at your father’s knee with a weak grip. There’s nothing you can do to escape as he holds you down with one massive paw on the middle of your back.

You wheeze with the cracks in your heart growing deeper, growing wider. The hitched wail tumbling forth from your lungs like a desperate plea for a love reprieve that you know you’ll never get.

And then he’s standing up, letting you fall to the floor with a loud thud. And then he’s putting his belt back on, glaring down at you like a mighty warrior who has just defeated a rebel army. And then he’s leaving you all alone without a word.

And you ball your hands up, cross your arms on the wooden floor, and sob inconsolably.

———

It’s late at night having just woken up from a terrible dream on the floor of your bedroom. It takes so long to move to the banister, down the steps, into the kitchen. You can’t even be bothered to turn the light on. Takes so much for your muscles to drag a chair over to the giant refrigerator. You wish you were tall, something Touya-nii and Natsuo inherited from their father, one of the rare good qualities.

All of a sudden, a lanky arm wraps around your waist, and you cry out, not from surprise, but from the contact of your ass against someone’s front.

When you’re set down on your feet in the kitchen, you turn around and look up at Touya with watery eyes.

“Whatchya lookin’ for, squirt?” He ask absentmindedly as he rummages through the freezer for some microwave dinner to heat up.

You gulp down an onslaught of emotions trying to purge before you find composure.

“Ice.”

“Ah, woke up thirsty, huh? You get like that after having a bad dream. What? Was I chasing you around? Trying to tickle you until you piss yourself?” He snickers at his own version of a joke.

You rub your arms. “Something like that.”

Touya puts the ice in a glass for you, setting his microwaveable dinner aside on the counter so that he can take care of you first.

He moves to fill the glass with water, but you stop him.

“Wait, you don’t need to do that. You can just leave it as it is. I only wanted ice.”

You can’t manage eye contact. His eyes are too…intense. Too blue. That bright electric blue that cuts through you, can always tell when something’s wrong.

You don’t want him to find something wrong.

You don’t want something to be wrong.

Everything is okay now that the beating is over.

Ice. You just need ice. Ice and a goodnight hug from Touya will fix everything.

It always does.

But he grabs your chin and forces you to look at him, forces you to look into his vibrant cobalt eyes that cut through you like a knife dicing fruit.

Slices through you like it’s nothing.

Like you’re soft.

And maybe you are soft, too soft for your own good.

“What happened?” He shakes your jaw gently in his grasp.

And he sees them, sees the tears welling up in your eyes like a geyser by the light of the full moon shining in through the kitchen window.

And you see something gnarling, brewing, melting together behind that intense gaze of his, the only kind your big brother can carry. It screams danger and rage.

But you don’t want to say what’s wrong because nothing is supposed to be wrong. Everything is supposed to be okay.

Ice and a hug will make everything okay, but it’s never that easy for some reason.

Touya knows how to pull answers from you, even if it’s like pulling teeth. He always gets what he wants because he’s stubborn, just like you, just like your father.

“I…” You shake your head and advert your eyes, trying to pry his hand off of you.

But he’s your big brother, and your big brother is determined to know what’s bothering you. Deep down, you know you should just answer him, but you don’t want to. You want to rebel and get away with it!

When do you ever?

Why can’t things just be different sometimes?

“What. Happened?” Is his steady reply, putting emphasis on each word, slowly drawing it out between gnashed teeth.

And his eyes, those eyes filled with storms of his own, look at you like he NEEDS to know what’s causing yours to fill with tears so that he can destroy them.

“Dad-”

It’s all you had to say. He turns the light on, and then he’s yanking at your school uniform, trying to find the marks, trying to find anything that will cement even further just how much of a fucking monster, fucking piece of shit asshole their father is.

You don’t like having your sleeves all but torn off of you. And then he’s looking at your legs, lifting them hem of your skirt in a way you don’t like, trying to push it back down in place.

He doesn’t care. He needs to know where you’ve been hurt, needs to know so he can make it better. Not anyone else. Only he gets to make things better for you.

You hope that what you say next might make him stop shoving at your clothes, but you’re so wrong.

“Touya-nii! Stop it! He spanked me!” You snivel into your hands.

You’re spun around, the back of your skirt lifted up to the small of your back, pinned there by a warm hand that you can feel through your untucked shirt. There’s a heavy whimper caught in your throat as he digs one finger into the waistband of your panties and drags them all the way down to the middle of your thighs.

And it’s all over for him.

The welts. The bruises. The scorch marks. The blisters. The blood smeared across the curve of your bottom.

You don’t like it. You knew this would happen. This makes things feel not okay!

You know Touya-nii is probably so worried.

You never want him to be worried because he’s so good to you, the best sibling you could ever hope for.

But the longer he stands there looking at your beaten and raw ass, the more he stands there in complete silence, that’s how you really know things aren’t okay.

You step out of his hold, his grip on your shirt lax enough for you to wriggle out of. You right your underwear and adjust your skirt before turning to look at him with your arms crossed.

“That…that was not from a spanking. What the fuck did he do to you, baby?”

He pulls you into a tight hug, and this is exactly what you wanted — no, needed.

“I think he was so mad that his fire got on me, and he used his belt at the end.” You press your cheek against his chest.

There’s that silence again. A full five heartbeats go by where nothing is said. It doesn’t bother you. You don’t really want to talk about it anymore. Just want to be held by Touya-nii, the best big brother you could ever ask for, hope for, pray for.

Someone out there knew what you needed.

His arms around you are tighter, and you can tell he’s thinking…planning. Planning what, you don’t know.

“Everything will be alright. Your big brother is right here. He’s got you, baby.”

Baby. That’s right. You’re his baby. His baby sister who can do no wrong in his eyes. He knows when to stop being mean and coddle you, and right now is a time where you most definitely need his warmth instead of the venom laced through his teasing words.

———

All you know is that you’re too sore to be riding on a train, too damn sore to be walking around, too damn tired for whatever journey your big brother is taking you on.

And then you arrive at a rundown bar, and he’s taking you down the steps. The staircase seems like it goes on forever. You pass a lot of doors, walk even further and further down the hall until he stops and opens one.

The room is…dank to say the least. Rundown is a better description.

But so are you, right? Who are you to judge this room? It feels like a reflection of your insides.

Big brother Touya, with his hand still wrapped around your wrist, tugs you into the room and over to the bed where he has you lie down so that you can go to sleep.

You don’t at first. The place is entirely new. You don’t even really understand what this place is.

“Touya-nii, where are we? Why did you bring me here?”

He shakes his mass of black hair at you, sighing in his early twenty years. You understand the depth of which that sigh is coming from.

You sigh just like Touya-nii too.

“Go to sleep,” is all he says as he unties your black shoes, pulling them off of your feet. He lets them drop to the floor, and you cringe at the sound of the dull thud.

The fall from your father’s lap is too fresh in your memory.

“But, I wanna know-“

You don’t get the chance to finish your sentence. He’s already tucking the blanket in around you and pushing your face down against the scratchy pillow.

Huffing with the manhandling, you try to push his rough hands away.

“Okay, I’ll go to sleep, but you better answer my questions in the morning.”

“You’re my good girl, you know that?” His fingers brush your fiery red hair behind your ear. “I’m proud of you. I know you were real tired tonight, but you listened to me. You did everything I asked you to do without complaining or fighting me.”

Your cheeks blush. Of course you’re Touya’s good girl! You’d never deliberately disobey him. All you want is his praise, and here he is, offering it to you on a golden platter.

You take it with a hungry appetite.

He presses a kiss against your forehead and lies down next to you.

You know he runs warm, hot even, but you can’t help but feel bad for hogging the blanket.

“Move your fat ass, Touya-nii,” you tell him as you try to pull the blanket out from under him.

He huffs and flicks your cheek before acquiescing. He turns over only slightly, deciding to make things a bit easier but not entirely, still trying to make you work for the blanket even with a bit of his weight taken off.

He can’t help it. He’s still your big brother after all.

You grumble and puff, but you’re too stubborn to give in. It takes all of your effort just to gracelessly pull the blanket out from underneath your big brother and half hazardly throw it over him before lying down on your stomach.

“God, you’re so annoying, Touya-nii.”

“Why don’t you go cry about it, baby?”

And you smile before drifting off to sleep.

———

“You brought a kid here?!”

Your eyes immediately open. You blink, adjusting to your surroundings, remembering that Touya brought you here last night.

You stand up from the bed, walking closer to the door, pressing your ear up against it.

“Why would you bring a child here?!” The voice sounds like it’s cracking, crazed.

He sounds like he could use some water.

“I had to. There was nowhere else to take her. She won’t be a problem here.”

Touya-nii!

You open the door and step out into the hallway. Your eyes land on several people, all of them strangers. There’s a girl who looks about your age, but most of them are older men.

“Touya-nii, what’s going on?”

Stern. He looks at you with stern eyes and a pointed finger. “Get back in the room and shut the door.”

“But-“

“Listen to me or so help me, I will kick your ass.”

Oh, you know he most definitely will, but he doesn’t mean it in the way your father kicks your ass. No, never. He means he’ll tackle you, wrestle you, pinch you, maybe ground you to your room for a few hours if you piss him off enough. Never the brutal spankings, beatings, of your father. No, Touya-nii would never.

But you’re his good girl. His good baby, so you obediently tuck yourself away in the rundown room.

The conversation moves away from you. It’s obvious because you can’t hear voices outside of the door. You’re forced to lie down on the creaky bed, trying to shut your eyes.

———

It takes what feels like forever and a day for your brother to come back and get you. He sits down beside you, placing a hand on your back.

“So, you wanna know why I brought you here?”

You nod your head as if he just asked you such a stupid question because it is a stupid question.

You asked him that just last night!

“You’ll be staying here with me. This is…where I work, I guess you could say. Dad doesn’t know, and he’s not going to. He won’t be able to find you here. You’ll be safe here.”

“What about school? I left all of my things at the house.”

“You’ll have to forget about your stuff and school. I’m more worried about protecting you than seeing what kind of grades you bring home. I’m not letting him or anyone hurt you ever again. Dad can fucking go to hell. He had no right to do that to you, and I won’t let it happen again.”

“But, Touya! I need to go to school.”

He grabs your chin, forcing you to look into his eyes, determined azure seeping deeply into your soul.

“Fuck school. I don’t give a damn about school. You’re not going anymore and that’s final. This is your new home now. I can’t let you get caught. I won’t let you go back. I’ll keep you safe here.”

A lonely tear drips from your eye, turning into a cascade down both cheeks. “I don’t understand!”

And his palms are on your face, cupping your wet cheeks. His hands both warm and warn. The familiarity of it all trying to overwhelm you.

He’s trying to calm you.

It’s only making things worse.

“You don’t need to understand, baby. Your big brother is here. He’s got you. I’ll always be here to protect you. He’ll never hurt you again because I’m going to keep you safe here with me, and I’m going to kill that fucking bastard.”

351 notes · View notes

minustwofingers · 11 months

Text

exoplanet p.6 (ellie’s journals)

summary: you’ve won the life lottery as one of the few people on earth with parents who gained admittance to the most prestigous safezone in the world after the outbreak. but after a lab accident sends you out to jackson, wyoming, real life hits you fast. it’s a good thing that a hot lesbian finds u. (lol). mean ellie at first, slowburn, enemies to friends to lovers, fem reader asf

warnings: a significantly different writing voice! this is going to be a very different vibe from the other chapters since i had to write it as i imagine ellie would (which is a lot different than i do). slight nsfw content (mdni), language, mentions of violence/gore, angst, ellie’s pov is actually really depressing

a/n: soooo i know it’s been almost 3 months...and i’m really sorry about that! a lot of stuff happened in my life and i kind of fell off writing for quite some time. but i finish series, so i’m going to get through exoplanet in its entirety so i can finally give you all closure. some preliminary notes: know that these are modeled after how i imagine ellie would journal if she did journal this much. canonically she didn’t do that much writing that follows a narrative like it does here. i think it’s honestly a little ooc for her to be emotionally responsible enough to talk out her feelings, but given that there’s no other way to tell her side of the story (save for legit rewriting it from her perspective, which would take another 6 months or so and be horrifically repetitive), i decided to just suck it up and write it. i’m sorry if it sounds awkward, since she definitely doesn’t write in a voice that i have much experience with. the next chapter will be better!

word count: 5.5k

tags~ @intrnetdoll @dazedshoon @lovecaraya @pctcr @sariyaflowr @loser-keiji @prettyplant0 @666findgod @sawaagyapong @rystarkov @buzzybuzzsposts @addisonnie @galacticstxrdust @elliesbabygirl @pinkazelma @ariianelle @lu002 @blairfox04 @sparkleswonderland @elliesflower @muthafuckingstargirl @elliewilliamsissubermommyoml @eviestevie-14 @quicksilversg1rl @guacala @crtcrp @overtrred28

(i haven’t updated this yet bc my tags aren’t working)

a special special SPECIAL thanks to both @roarriita and @elliesflower for being soooo sexy and betaing for me. you both are so wonderful and helped me sm in feeling good enough to post this :)

without further ado, enjoy ellie’s journals!

January 20th, 2038

Today’s been…fucking…

I don’t even know where to start. I don’t get why this sort of shit always happens to me. First it was being bit and somehow surviving. Then it was getting carted off across the country. And now some girl basically falls out of the sky, claiming that she comes from some sort of paradise up North?

I’ll spare the immediate details. I don’t think I’ll forget the basic stuff—her name, the way she looked clutching at her knees in the clearing and shaking. That stupid shirt she had on and that expensive scarf.

I still want to believe that she’s just a liar who happened to get lucky with running into us, but even without Joel vouching for her story, I don’t think I’d ever be able to buy that she’d been living in the same world as us. I’ve never met someone without scars before. I didn’t know that there were people out there who didn’t have marked up arms and faces. Or people without calluses. Did you know that hands can be totally smooth?

Anyway. Tommy says that he’ll try and reach out across the contacts he has. Joel has her living right down the hall from me in the meantime, so now I have to share my bathroom. Hopefully the Terranovan authorities are good at finding people. She takes so fucking long to shower. It’s a wonder the whole compound still has hot water.

[One page of drawings follows: Dina smiling in the snow on her horse, Joel playing his guitar]

January 25th, 2038

Maria says that they’re thinking about breeding Shimmer soon. I know she told me because that means I’ll need to ride another horse for a little until she recovers and I know that we need another generation of foals, but it still made me cringe for Shimmer’s sake. She’s too free-spirited to be a mother. She doesn’t deserve that.

I went stargazing last night. It was pretty. Lots of shooting stars. I ran into the girl while I was coming back from the meadow. She gave me a weird look, and I could tell she wanted to ask me where I’d been but kept her mouth shut. Sometimes I regret dropping off that bag of clothes. I really fucking liked that gray sweatshirt, actually. I’m not even joking. It looks weird to see it on someone else.

[Half a page of drawing follows of the night sky with labeled constellations]

February 5th, 2038

Long time no see. I’ve been pretty busy with patrols and helping Maria with securing the walls. Joel made me try some of that coffee that our new house guest brought. It was just as awful as I remembered, but he seemed happy. So one point for the space girl. I guess.

Dina’s been hanging around more. She just broke up with Jessie (yes, again). She swears that it’s for good this time, but I’m not so sure. She also talks a lot about Y/N and what little detail she’s gathered about her life back in Terranova. I thought teasing her by asking her if she had a crush on Y/N would make her talk less about it, but it just made things worse.

I miss when things were normal.

[One page of drawings follows: one of Shimmer in cross-ties, another of a girl’s face, half-finished with the face scribbled out]

February 12th, 2038

Today I’m sad. I’m in bed with that book about astronomy that Joel nabbed for me on patrol a while ago and there’s a section I wanted to read that’s completely waterlogged. It shouldn't be a surprise. It’s decades old and has survived through an apocalypse. Normally things like this don’t bug me much because I’m so used to it. Half of my Savage Starlight collection is damaged. I don’t think I’ll ever find the first book to actually complete the series, and that’s okay, because I’ve never expected anything more. But now that I know that there’s a world out there where I’d never have problems like this, stuff like this hurts. It’s so stupid. I’m lucky to be alive. Compared to what’s left of the world population, I live a much cushier life than most. But for the first time in a while, I’m wishing for more.

“Greed is the enemy of happiness” is what Maria would say if I ever said this kind of shit out loud. But is it really? Or is it just realizing what life can be?

[Half a page of a drawing of the solar system, with each planet labeled]

February 22nd, 2038

Maria let me pick the sire for Shimmer’s foal. It felt kind of gross, to be honest. I asked Maria if there was any way for Shimmer to choose and I was only sort of joking, but she just laughed anyway and patted my back. I won’t have to worry about finding a new horse for another two seasons or so, she told me. It’ll be weird not having her for a little.

She also told me that there was still no word from anyone who knew anything about Terranova. She said this to me in this placating voice, like she thought that I was going to punch a hole in the wall or something after hearing it. That seems to be common when it comes to people talking about Y/N and me. I don’t know why so many people think I don’t like her staying with us.

I don’t, by the way. Let me be clear. But I mostly feel indifferent about her now. She doesn’t bother me as much anymore, not since she started getting out of the house. I think she might be helping in the gardens, but I’ve never actually asked. We don’t talk a whole ton. I don’t think she likes me all that much.

[A drawing of Shimmer’s head poking over her stall door that takes up one page]

March 2nd, 2038

Today was finally our first nice day of the year. I would’ve enjoyed it more if the bird that lives in the tree outside my window hadn’t blown me out of bed at 4 in the fucking morning. I’m exhausted now. It’s been a long day. Joel says I need to take Y/N out on patrol soon. Why, I have no idea. Maybe he just wants me to actually befriend her or something, and I do nothing but patrols now. He can’t possibly expect her to be a good patrol partner.

Thankfully, I checked the logs when I came back. The route he wants me to cover with her has been the quietest all season. I doubt we’ll run into anything. If we do, I’ll probably be able to handle it. Hopefully.

[Half a page of doodles, mostly of nature and wildlife with the exception of a half-finished doodle of an arm clad in a fabric that drapes like silk and a hand with polished nails]

March 3rd, 2038

Many surprising things were learned today. I can’t believe it’s illegal to be gay in Terranova. Sorry. I shouldn’t laugh. It’s just—out of all the things they could be bothered by, it’s that? Really?

March 12th, 2038

I haven’t been good at journaling recently. I don’t really want to talk about why. You know why.

[Six pages of drawings, with many unfinished doodles of Y/N—including but not limited to her on her horse, her reading on the couch, and one with her sitting in what is a very loose interpretation of a classroom, taking notes]

March 13th, 2038

I will feel more normal tomorrow. Hopefully.

[Two pages of drawings, all of Y/N. One is her bent over a book, the other is her smiling up at you]

March 14th, 2038

I did something really stupid. I think I should probably just document this here so I don’t accidentally drunkenly spill it all out to Dina at the next bonfire. This is so embarrassing. I don’t get why I feel this way. It’s so stupid, you know? To feel anything towards someone who’s so��I don’t know. Different.

She gives me the weirdest looks sometimes. I can’t tell what they mean. It feels like she’s judging me. And why wouldn’t she be? I bet all the girls she spends her time around back home are just like her—perfect, orderly, pretty, proper. The day before I took her patrolling she gawked at the shorts I was wearing. It was borderline offensive. Actually, fuck that. It wasn’t borderline. It was offensive. You don’t just stare at people like that. She should know that.

Anyway, I invited her over to my room last night. Normal, right? Because we’ve been doing that a little since I took her on patrol, by the way. I’m not sure if I mentioned that before. But this time I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m…I don’t know. Creepy? Strange? Scary? She told me that she thought I was intimidating. And then I called her “untouched”, like how some old-timer devout Christian wackjob or whatever would describe virginity. It was so fucking weird of me. I don’t know what got into me, but she kept doing this thing where she kicked my foot with hers or touched my knee and it just threw me off. It took me forever to fall asleep last night—I kept replaying what I’d said to her, especially how I’d told her that she wouldn’t have made it if she were me like I was some sort of hardcore survivalist. I think I embarrassed her. I’m never doing anything like this again. I’m going to be dead sober every time I see her from now on.

I’ll stop talking about that. Y/N did come back after I’d made a fool of myself and showed me her collection of movies, so maybe it wasn’t so bad. I haven’t watched any movies since I was with Cat. When we first started dating, I’d invite her over and she’d sit right where Y/N did last night. I’m trying to not think of the implications, because it’s space girl, and she’s going home sometime soon.

[Three pages of drawings follow—some nature drawings of ferns and moths, others of Y/N with wet hair, her knees tucked up to her chin like she’d been in Ellie’s bed that night]

March 19th, 2038

It’s the Spring Equinox. That’s the first thing Y/N told me this morning when she saw me in the kitchen this morning. She gave me a mini lecture on what that meant for the planet’s axis tilt and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I already knew, since she seemed really excited to tell me.

I made a horrible discovery yesterday, by the way. Maria came up to me and told me that Tommy had decided to reach out to some of his other buddies up North to see if they had any connections to Terranova, and for the first time, I felt myself hoping that it wouldn’t work.

It’s awful. I shouldn’t be thinking like this. Even in Jackson, where things are comparatively much better than the rest of the world, there’s risk. Just this winter, one family had to be kicked out when they were found hiding an infected son. No one here is completely safe, just safer. I shouldn’t be selfish. Y/N needs to go where she’s meant to be, where there’s no chance of infection or invasion. I’ll be fine. I just need to get over whatever this is.

Speaking of her, I need to go get her to tell her that we’re heading out on patrol in just a few minutes. Fingers crossed she doesn’t accidentally shoot me, but Joel swore up and down that she knows how to handle a gun now. Sure. Haha.

I’m back. It’s the middle of the night and she only just left my room. I don’t know how much detail I need to go into—chances are I won’t forget this. But for bookkeeping purposes: patrol did not go so hot. I had to give her stitches without any local anesthesia. I’ve never given stitches to anyone nearly in my lap before. I was really nervous, too. I don’t think I’ve ever had to focus so much on keeping my hands steady when it came to stitching someone up before, not even with Joel.

I’m starting to think that maybe I was wrong about thinking that she didn’t like me. I still can’t tell exactly what she thinks of me, and I know that it’s a really bad fucking idea to be entertaining thoughts like these, but tonight she did something that made me reconsider. She got under the covers with me, and instead of moving away to keep us from touching, she rested her head next to mine on the pillow.

I hope she couldn’t hear how much my heart was racing. People can’t hear that kind of stuff, right? Even if they’re close?

I’m being ridiculous. There’s no way she—No. She doesn’t see me like that.

March 21st, 2038

She rested her head on my shoulder today. I don’t know what to think of it. If she was normal and grew up like the rest of us did, I would know exactly what to think. But she’s not normal, and it’s not fair of me to treat her like she is. Maybe this is, like, a culturally acceptable thing back from where she grew up. Maybe rich people just cuddle each other all the time. I wouldn’t fucking know, and unfortunately no one in this godforsaken town can help, because there’s a distinct lack of what Maria calls the “bourgeoisie”. They’re all either dead or back where Y/N grew up, doing whatever rich snobs do.

Even if it is normal for her, I feel like I can’t stop analyzing everything she does. She seems more nervous around me than she does anyone else, but she lingers like she can’t help herself. I’ve noticed that she stumbles over her words and touches me much more than is really necessary. Or at least I think she does—maybe I’m just imagining things.

But even if it means what I think it does, I can’t let myself think like this. It’s not fair to her. No one deserves to live here if they have the choice. At least the people out here know how to handle it. She doesn’t, and I don’t want her to turn into the type of person who does.

When I stitched her up and teased her about being weak and sensitive, I think she thought I was insulting her. I try not to think about it, but if I let myself wallow too much, I’ll wonder what kind of person I’d be if I wasn’t so jaded. Maybe I’d draw more, or read more, or write more. Maybe I’d be an easier person to love. I didn’t get to choose how I turned out. It just happened to me.

So if she has the choice, I’m going to do everything I can to help her make the right one. I don’t want her to be like this.

March 29th, 2038

I had a dream about Riley last night. I haven’t had one of those in years, not since I was traveling with Joel. We were back in the mall, and Riley had just turned the lights on as a surprise. I had this feeling then, like I was being given a second chance. That I could set things straight and do what was right. I woke up before I could insist that we leave.

[A drawing takes up half of the next page. It’s a crude depiction of the mall Riley turned in.]

April 4th, 2038

It’s the middle of the night again. I can’t sleep. I’m so disappointed with myself about what I did tonight with Y/N. At the time, it seemed like a really good idea. She likes me back, apparently. I was right about everything that I wrote about earlier, I guess. But it certainly doesn’t feel like I thought it would.

It’s not like there’s no part of me that isn’t thrilled that she feels the same way. That’s why I gave in and slept with her. But even when she told me how she felt, even before I completely lost my self-control, something heavy was already hanging over me. Regret, maybe. Or guilt. I don’t know. What I do know is that this can’t last. I can’t make this good for her like I want to. She needs to go back, and she needs to be able to feel like she can make that choice without feeling like she’s leaving anything good behind.

I’m not a spiritual person. but even so, I can’t help but feel like that dream of Riley was a sign. This is my second chance. I’m not going to fuck it up this time. I’ve already been an accomplice of so much suffering. Y/N is going home, and I’ll never see her again when she does. That’s that.

It took all I had left in me in the end to kick her out. She looked so hurt, and the fact that she tried to hide it made it even worse. I wish I could tell her why this can’t work, but I don’t think she’d understand.

[A drawing of Y/N kissing Ellie’s palm follows, her hair slightly mussed]

April 6th, 2038

I need to stop making rash decisions like knocking on her door late at night and asking her to come over. I really don’t know what’s gotten into me, because whenever I see her now, I can’t help but freeze up. Like last night, when she kissed me and touched my face and told me she thought I was a good person. I panicked and told her—well, nevermind. I don’t really want to repeat it here. It was mean, but I didn’t know what else I could do to get her to stop.

She was already tearing up by the time she left. I had to sit down and breathe deeply for a few minutes before I was sure I wasn’t going to be sick. I don’t really think I want to write more about this right now. It just makes me sad how unfair this all is. Of course the one time after Cat that I meet someone I really like it just has to be in one of the cruelest scenarios possible. I just have no idea what to do.

[Five pages of drawings follow of Y/N in bed, her head tilted back against the pillow, her eye’s half lidded, and her mouth slightly agape. Ellie redraws this multiple times, x-ing out parts that don’t seem quite right]

April 10th, 2038

I know this is none of my business, but she’s been spending a lot of time with Dina lately. She nearly got herself killed getting a gift for me with Dina yesterday, which feels like some sort of especially cruel joke. The universe isn’t being very fucking subtle right now.

If what I’m worried about is right, at least Dina has the option to come with her up North. She’d test negative.

April 20th, 2038

I would really like it if I could have one short break from the misery that’s my life right now. I turned 20 yesterday, accidentally introduced Y/N to my ex, proceeded to get much drunker than I meant to, completely fell off my rocker and asked Y/N to stay the night, and then discovered this morning that not only has Terranova found Y/N but that my strategy of keeping Y/N at arm’s length completely failed.

She wants me to come with her, and she’s threatening to stay here otherwise. I did the only thing that I could think to do and snapped at her.

I’m so tired of this. I hate having to act like I don’t care. This is the third time now that I’ve had to say something nasty to her to keep her from getting too close. I just want to get in bed and sleep until she leaves and I can pretend like nothing ever happened and that everything is normal.

[One page of drawings of Y/N passed out in her bed and Y/N grinning while holding a lopsided cake]

April 28th, 2038

I know I haven’t been writing much again. Sorry about that. I just can’t bear to think about my life right now. I know I should be relieved—this is what I wanted. I wanted her to go where it’s best for her.

But there’s still that selfish part of me that keeps me up at night. Y/N is going to leave this place never knowing how I feel about her. Logically, that should be what I want. This way I won’t need to say a real goodbye. I know I won’t need to now, since she doesn’t want to talk to me anymore. It’s really fucking immature of me to be so hurt by what she must think of me now, but I can’t stop.

I wonder how long it will take for me to stop feeling sad about this. I’ve never had to process anything like this where there’s nothing I can do. With Riley and Sam, I at least got to heal from the knowledge that I was going to help make the vaccine to save the world. But losing Y/N just because of where we come from is totally meaningless. I can go forward knowing that I made it easy for her to make the right decision, but that only goes so far.

I don’t know how I’m going to handle this. I’m going to practically live with Dina so I don’t need to be alone for the first few weeks.

I wish May 8th would just come already so she can go away and I can get on with my life.

May 1st, 2038

Things have changed some. Joel cornered me in the kitchen last night and told me that I needed to grow up and just appreciate the rest of the time I had left with Y/N. I was going to agree and try to walk past him, but he stopped me and told me that he needed me to escort Y/N. I guess he’s right. She can’t go alone, and Joel and Tommy are getting a little too old for week-long expeditions into the wilderness.

He also told me that I need to apologize to her and make things right, saying shit like I’d regret it forever if things ended between us like this. I don’t want to admit it, but I think he’s right. When I told him that she’d originally threatened to stay if I didn’t go with her, he blinked, hard. Then he told me that he had an idea.

I’m faking it. I’m telling her that I’m going, even though I’m going to leave her when she gets picked up. I don’t know how I’m going to pull it off. When I told her in the meadow last night, she was so happy. I know it’s really sappy and cliche to say this, but I felt my heart shatter, bit by bit. I’m not a very good liar, not to people who are important to me. But I suppose I’ve been lying to her all this time, kicking her out of my room and telling her that I didn’t want anything more with her.

I can do this, I think. I have to do this, or else she might threaten to stay, and I don’t think I have it in me to be cruel again. Not to her. I guess I’ll just trick myself into feeling like I’m actually coming with her, like we have a chance of actually being together. I don’t know. We’ll see.

[One drawing of Y/N laying down in the meadow that takes up half a page]

May 3rd, 2038

It’s easier than I expected. Y/N sleeps over in my room at night, and if I don’t think too hard about it, I can pretend like things will always be like this.

I’m getting to be such a sap, though. I almost broke down in the bathroom today while I was getting ready. It was over the stupidest thing—a toothpaste bottle. Y/N always folds it so neatly, making a perfect, tight spiral of plastic near the end. It used to really bother me when I first had to share with her (because who does that—it’s weird and doesn’t do anything since she doesn’t manage to squeeze out the extra in the bottom anyways), but the thought of throwing it out when it finally emptied and having to find another one that’ll never be folded again hit me and suddenly I was counting my inhales and exhales. I don’t really give a shit about toothpaste. It’s just that it was the moment that I realized that she’s really going to be gone soon, you know? Slowly but surely, the evidence of her stay here will be wiped away and replaced. Someday I’ll forget all the little details about her.

She’s knocking on my door. I need to stop being so depressed and go see her before she picks up that something’s wrong.

[One small doodle of Y/N smiling and rolling her eyes while brushing her teeth]

May 6th, 2038

Dina’s coming now. Y/N told me this morning after she went to say goodbye. I feel really shitty about this. I guess I should tell her that I’m not going now, because this way Y/N needs to go home to get Dina the help she needs, but I just can’t bring myself to. I’ll have to escort both of them to the pickup spot anyway since Dina’s weaker now that she’s pregnant, and the thought of having to spend a full week with Y/N after she knew I lied to her makes my skin crawl. I can’t tell who I’m trying to protect by doing this—me or her. Maybe both.

I’m losing my two favorite people here, and they don’t even know it yet. But this is the best option. This is my chance to finally do some good in the world.

May 7th, 2038

I’m about to go stargazing with Y/N for the last time. I don’t think I’ll be writing in here again until I get back. I don’t want to risk losing this while I’m out in case something crazy happens. Which it probably will, but I canonically happen to be really good at living when shit hits the fan. Also—I don’t imagine Y/N to be a particularly nosy person, but if she ever came across this and thought it was a book or something, it would make things really awkward. So, you’re staying tucked carefully under my bed until I come back later this month.

I don’t know how to handle this sort of goodbye. I don’t really know how to handle any sort of goodbye, I guess, but at least I’ve been through them before. I may not do it well, but I know how to live when people I love die. But this isn’t like that. No one is dying (hopefully), and more importantly, I know it’s a goodbye this time. I see it coming on the horizon and I can’t even tell anyone about it. How does anyone deal with that? How does anyone cope?

Y/N’s knocking on my door now. I need to go before I start thinking even more and do something stupid like start crying or whatever.

I’ll be back in about two weeks.

June 1st, 2038

Sorry for not writing. It’s been pretty shitty, actually. It took me 5 extra days to get home because some scavengers gave me trouble. I hardly slept for most of them. I ran out of ammo about 4 days out and had to use my knife for everything I ran into until I was able to raid the cabinets of this abandoned cabin. Nearly got taken out by a clicker, too. It was not fun. It was especially not fun because I was not feeling super great to begin with, for obvious reasons.

Things haven’t gotten any better since getting back to Jackson. Y/N didn’t take her stupid Exoplanetary Systems textbook and now I’m struggling with whether or not I should throw it out. The rational side of me says to keep it because it was published after the outbreak and probably contains updated information that isn’t anywhere else. The rest of me doesn’t even want to look at the stars anymore because it reminds me of her.

It’s really hard not to blame her for ruining everything. I can’t go out and ride my own horse without thinking about the first time we went on patrol together and she dropped my gun and nearly killed one of us. And I can’t even relax in my own home, because I’ve spent almost every night with her since March in my bed. Sometimes when I hear a creak in the middle of the night I assume it’s her walking down to the bathroom or getting water until it hits me again that she’s never coming back.

I know I’m being melodramatic. There are many other worse problems I could be having right now. But I don’t even have my best friend anymore. I wonder if Dina and Y/N are angry with me for lying. I wonder if they’re settling in okay. I hope that Y/N manages to fix whatever her research was and that Dina gets better.

[Twenty pages of drawings of Y/N and Dina together. Some are snippets of them on their expedition to the pickup site. Others are pictures of Y/N and Dina walking around with smiles on their faces in what looks to be a city]

June 21st, 2038

It’s been over a month since I’ve last seen her. I had a breakdown while getting ready for bed when I realized that I didn’t remember what her voice sounded like anymore.

[Ten pages of half-finished drawings, each with its face scribbled over]

June 28th, 2038

I don’t think I really remember what she looks like—not exactly. I’ve been trying to draw her because I’m still in the habit of making decisions that are definitely not good for my mental state. I just can’t do it, and it isn’t for the lack of trying. Every time I get to her eyes I keep drawing something that looks wrong, but I can never tell why. I compare it to my earlier drawings of her from when we first met and it feels like meeting her for the first time again.

Joel says it’ll pass and that he’s proud of me for doing the right thing. Jessie and I have been hanging out more. Even if he won’t admit it, I can tell he’s miserable without Dina. But he understands why she had to go—just like how I feel about Y/N. And Dina too, of course. Jackson feels like a ghost town without her.

July 17th, 2038

I haven’t been writing or drawing in here for a while, I know. I was going to just go ahead and start a new journal—you know the one that Maria gave me for Christmas with the dark blue cover—but it didn’t feel right to just stop without explaining. Otherwise I’ll feel like an asshole for wasting so much paper.

I don’t want to move on from what happened with Y/N and Dina. I really don’t, but I don't think I have a choice. If I keep going on like this, I’ll never be able to live normally again. I’m just sick and tired of being sad all of the time. So I’m not going to write here anymore. I don’t think it’s realistic for me to forget all about it, because I don’t want to forget her. Not really. But I guess if I want to get better, I’ll need something different. So, here’s that. The beginning of my fresh start. “Fresh start” and you call me overdramatic!! haha. Y/N was here!

(You left this on your nightstand. I promise I didn’t read too much. I opened it because I thought it was your sketchbook. I’m going to put this back since I hear you walking down the hall now.)

ok as an aside my blog is broken so my stuff isn’t notifying people when i tag/showing up on dashes or in tags. please reblog if you’re comfortable so people can actually find this! thank you!

final a/n: i totally get it if this wasn’t quite your cup of tea this time—i just really wanted to iron out ellie’s pov before their reunion in the end. which is happening and not a spoiler because i have always promised a hea! this was a change in pace for the story and i promise you that the next chapter will be more normal/align more with my normal writing style. i have also changed my mind (probably) and have decided to stick with writing an epilogue! so two more chapters are coming before this is totally over. thank you so much for waiting and being so patient! i love you all dearly ok bye bye now

#ellie williams x reader #exoplanet #not adding tags because i’ll eventually repost #this is just for people who want to read!

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lightlycareless · 2 months

Text

while I work on requests, I shall share a little something that crossed my mind the other day :)

warnings: fluff. but hints of smut. like really small. naoya and y/n are happily married with 3 kids. mentions of pregnancy. a bit related to this.

happy reading!

To say that you’ve been married for almost 20 years with the love of your life, Naoya, is a feat that not many would be able to replicate.

It almost felt like a dream, and looking back on it, it certainly was.

You got to create a beautiful family of your own through 3 kids— 1 daughter, 2 twins, a boy, and a girl— as well as seeing them grow into the accomplished, talented people you always knew they were bound to become.

And let’s not forget, of course, that you also got to see Naoya become leader of the Zen’in clan, the position he always strived to achieve since the moment he met you, his birthright; after long and exhausting efforts, days away and countless sacrifices… Naoya finally obtained his great reward, and you were there to support him every step of the way.

Life wasn’t to become any easier for either when he eventually took on the role of head of the clan, just as both imagined; there were even moments where your marriage was deemed afflicted…

But the two managed to work it out, as love always did, and how they strived for it to be for the years to come.

These changes weren’t all bad, though, for the highest positions at the estate had to come with some perks.

For Naoya, it was the capability of spending much more time at home, no longer needed to go out on missions after missions in name of his family, he could just send someone else; while he stayed behind, for a more political approach.

Equally tedious, but it still gave him the opportunity to make up for all his absences with his family.

As well as remind you that even when the years passed, his desire for you was just as lively as ever.

“Come on, Y/N… just one, for a little bit…” he murmurs hotly against your skin, nibbling your ear as his hands began to undo the careful work of your staff, making you squirm in reaction, hands feebly attempting to stop him.

“N—No, Naoya…” you whine, doing your best to hold back your moans. It’s endearing that even after all these years of marriage, you’re still shy with him—but truth to be told, Naoya is content that it remains that way, his wife adorable as ever. “It’s… It’s risky.”

“But you’ve always loved a little bit of risk, haven’t you?” he purrs against your neck. “Don’t I deserve this, after all I’ve done for the clan?”

Your lip trembles, waves of heat traveling across your body and down to your core; the simplest of touch, the faintest of hints of his desire, was enough to have you delirious, succumbing to his request because at the end of the day, deep within... you knew he was stating the truth.

“Ju—Just once, ok…?” you murmur. “After that, it’ll have to be outside, or—or with the condom.”

“More than enough.” Naoya smiles, taking your lips into a heated kiss, guiding you into what would be a long night, the type of nights you’ve had more of as of recently, given his new availability as the leader of the clan.

But not quite as this one.

No, not at all. And perhaps it was never intended to be like the others, starting from how Naoya broke his promise soon after, with your permission… and the consequences to be suffered in due time.

“A baby?!” Naomi, the oldest of your kids, shrieks. “You’re having another baby?!”

“Yes, we are.” You say, a bright smile on your lips as you tightly hold onto Naoya’s hand.

“How did this—no, I don’t want to know actually.” She scowls in disgust; she’s at the age where she knows just exactly what transpired, after all.

Her siblings though, 8-year-old twins Naoko and Naoyuki, were still oblivious to that fact, and couldn’t be any more elated to welcome another addition to the family.

“I want it to be a girl!” Naoko cries.

“No, a boy!” Naoyuki adds. “I don’t want any more girls!!”

As the only boy in the family, it would make sense he’d want such a thing.

“I’m fine with whatever.” Naomi adds, moving on from her initial disgust, and allowing her true feelings to flourish, happiness. Although secretly hoping for another boy too. “What happens next, then? You better not leave mom alone, dad!”

“No, of course not. I wouldn’t even dream it.” Naoya frowns, her words lightly stinging his heart.

He knows that in the past, when he was still heir to the clan, his duties would often, if not always, pull him away from his family.

Your husband always tried his best to make up for this fact, tormented with the notion that he was slowly becoming like Naobito. And though you’d’ reassure him otherwise, reminding him that his children loved him unconditionally, and that he was far away from anything remotely like him…

Naomi’s commentary, and her unspoken truth, tells him that she might still resent him for it.

But with his new position, that is something that will no longer go unattended.

He will simply relegate most of his duties to someone else and spend all of his time tending to you, your pregnancy, all the risks that entail due to the circumstances, as well as guiding his children through this new stage of their life.

“Yeah right… we shall see.” Naomi pouts, redirecting her gaze to you. “What about you mom? How are you feeling?”

“Well, I’m very excited! I didn’t think I’d be having another baby at this age… but I’m happy either way. Home has been quite lonely; with you going out for missions, and your siblings going to school…”

“Ah, so you wanted to replace me?!” Naomi frets.

“Of course not, my little pumpkin.” You giggle, walking towards Naomi and pinching her right cheek; she’s barely 15, but she’s already around Naoya’s height—oh, how you miss the days where you could just pick her up and kiss her. “You’ll always be my first love.”

“…you didn’t have to say it like that.” she murmurs, cheeks red as she slowly melted over your gestures. Not enough to stop her teasing though, she’s truly Naoya’s daughter. “Now you’re going to make dad all jealous.”

“Hey!” Naoya gasps, you and Naomi laugh.

“Have you thought of a name, mama?” Naoko wonders, gently placing her small hand over your still flat stomach, Naoyuki doing the same soon after, only he has another question in mind.

“And where is the baby?” he says. “I thought the baby is supposed to be here…”

“We have yet to decide how we want the baby to look like.” Naoya responds, still suffering from having to explain to Naomi how babies come to be. He hopes that this answer will delay their natural curiosity for a bit longer. “As for the name—”

“We haven’t decided that one yet either.” You add. “Although…”

“What is it?” Naoya asks, a twinkle on his eyes at the prospect of you already choosing a name.

“Oh, nothing.” You smile. “We can think about it later on.”

Although the truth was completely different; for everything in fact.

From the fact that you’ve already chosen a name, for a while now actually, since you might’ve or might’ve not planned to have another baby, or at least dreamed about it for a while now, since the house felt… like it was lacking a certain charm; hoping that Naoya would also feel the same…

Which you correctly assumed, given the enthusiasm he irradiated when you came back with a positive result; he’s at the estate much more often than before, after all, a change that might’ve… persuaded him to experience what he couldn’t back in the day.

Yet, that is something that both will find out much later, or probably never, since it wasn’t that important compared to the present; preferring to enjoy this heartwarming celebration with their family, already thinking how they’d reveal the news to both his and your clan, anticipating the emotional outburst your father is to have for becoming a grandfather for the nth time, Naobito’s unexpected… acceptance, and of course, all the gifts that customarily come soon after.

But above all, the overwhelming excitement to receive little Naohime into the home, a baby they had no idea whom she’ll take after, or what kind of person she’ll become when she grows up—

All that they know is that they already love her unconditionally.

#naoya zenin #naoya zen'in #naoya x reader #naoya zenin x reader #naoya zenin x you #jjk naoya #naoya zen'in x reader #jjk x reader #jjk fluff #jjk x you #prompt series: jujutsu kaisen

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jake-webber · 2 months

Note

I am weak for vampire!Sam and demon!Colby if you want to write something 'bout that

the way my mind already knew who im associating this au with. @samandcolby-ownme my beloved thank you for introducing this au to me. i give all credits to you for vampsam and demcolby

content warning: kinda mean dom reader but very much sub SnC, Colby has a tail,,…, fem reader, near death experience (briefly mentioned), implied stripper!reader, BAD sex dialogue i think, if you’re more used to @samandcolby-ownme’s writing style for the boys, this one is very diff.

VERY MUCH UNEDITED

no smut, meaning no peen in vag but very sexual stuff under the cut. 18+ only!!

You were absolutely drained, both mentally and physically. Your whole body aches and you walk around the room as if you were anemic (which you could be at this point). As much as you loved your boyfriends, you’re high maintenance lovers, it’s taking a toll on you.

Other than the heavenly yet punishing sex they both give you, they keep forgetting to mention their other personal and unnatural needs as, well, not natural beings.

Consent and boundaries were set up before the three of yours’ relationships began. Their needs and your needs, as long as asked for permission, is given green light to the other. This applies for Sam’s request of sucking your blood which you don’t usually so no to and Colby’s demonic need of sucking the energy out of you by ‘absorbing your essence’ (you’re still not 100% sure how it works since he usually just closes his eyes as you stand there, feeling every bit of your serotonin slowly leaving your body).

Lately, for some reason, their needs doubled. Sam sucked your blood half to death if it weren’t for Colby snapping him out of his senses when you began losing color and consciousness. Colby was no better though. Unbeknownst to you, he’s been absorbing to much of your essence that it leaves you in such a worn out state.

You were angry and easily irritable, like a ticking time bomb. Just like right now.

As soon as you opened the door to your shared home, you were overwhelmed with the smell of their perfumes, telling you that they’ve been in the house the whole time while you were away, and the scent usually sends you into a calmer mood knowing your boys were here, but in your state right now?

“Sam? Colby! Sam!” You yelled from the living room, a striking headache already on its way as soon as the two appeared out of thin air.

“Baby, I’ve missed you.” Sam approached you with an arm reaching for you neck, rubbing the holes that showed his constant penetration on your poor skin. You could tell from the way he’s licking his lips, eyes not meeting yours, that Sam was going to ask for your blood. Again.

You scoffed, something you’ve never done towards them, swatted his hand away from. This caused for the blonde boy to flinch, red eyes flashing in the dim lighting. You could see Colby reacting to the unfamiliar reaction from your peripheral vision.

“Bad day at work?” He asked, arms crossed as he walked towards the both of you.

You ran a hand against your head, combing your already disheveled. “I don’t know, you tell me.” You didn’t know what came over to you, eyebrows arching in sarcasm. “Fucked up week would be a better way to describe it.”

Sam, unbeknownst to you, felt something crushing in his undead heart, like chains being harshly twisted and pulled at every bad energy you were sending out. Of course, you were unaware of that, continuing to do so. Colby, on the other hand, felt his eyes twitching, not from anger, but at his lack of breath as if he was being choked. His necklace hung low on his neck, there was nothing else that should be making him felt this way.

Despite all this, you began talking when they didn’t, oblivious to their pain. “I don’t know if you’ve been noticing but for whatever fucked up reason, the two of you have been taking too much from me.” Sam clenched the spot on his shirt where his heart would be residing, feeling it beat once again. He doesn’t remember it hurting like this.

Colby was fast on his feet to take your hands, releasing the grip of your unwelcoming crossed arms. “We didn’t know— We aren’t supposed to be here and we aren’t used to it.”

“As much as we hate it, it’s kind of— like, our way of having our powers work here.” Sam explained further, somehow compelled to telling you.

Their words didn’t seem to work to calm you down you rolled your eyes.

“Right, as if that’s any of my fault.” You replied, taking your hand back from Colby’s. His eyes widened at your action, feeling as though he’s made a grave mistake.

You’re disappointing her.

They both felt agonizing pain in their entire bodies at the same, especially on Colby’s neck and Sam’s chest. Colby held onto himself as he tried to catch his breath while Sam was clenching his fist to his chest.

“I mean, seriously, it’s been affecting me so much. I could barely do any of my choreographies without getting dizzy, I accidentally snapped at a costumer— not to mention, our highest paying.” You continued your tangent, eyes anywhere but on your boyfriends’ withering state. Your words struck them like lightning coursing through their body, making Sam the first to fall on his knees.

It was only when you heard a second thud when you turned back around. Your eyes widened at the sight of both Sam and Colby on their knees, their inhuman traits were out in the open.

“Sam? Colby? What the fuck is happening?” You knelt down to their level, trying to lift their heads up. Colby harshly grabbed your arm as soon you got closer, making you wince in pain as his sharp nails dug in your skin. Your reaction immediately made the boy struggle even further.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” The boy chanted to himself. “Fuck, I didn’t mean it, please.” Colby pleaded to you as if you were the one hurting him.

“Please, forgive us. We didn’t mean to anger you, make it stop.” Sam wheezed, his eyes having the brightest shade of red you’ve ever seen him have. The only time you’ve seen a glimpse of it was during sex.

Their words confused you as concern began washing over your anger. “Wait– guys–” Before you could even start talking to them, a voice in began to ring in the back of your head.

They deserve this.

The voice awfully sounded like you.

“You deserve this.” You said towards the both of them. Sam, despite his pain and being the rationale of your relationship, took notice of how your voice didn’t sound like you. It was you, you were speaking, but another voice, much darker and lower, was speaking for you.

The boys felt your fingers wrap around their chin, lifting them without much hardship. Colby’s watering eyes widened at your different eye color.

He wasn’t able to focus any further when he felt yet another sharp on his neck. “Focusing on useless things, you tend to do that, don’t you, Colby?” Instead of just the new voice, your real voice began overlapping with it. Somehow, it doubled the fear the boys were feeling for the first time again.

“As for you, Sam, you think you control this relationship, don’t you? Having made the first move on me, I can’t blame you if you did.” You chuckled. “Oh, how long I’ve been wanting to tell you this,” You inched closer to the boy, ghosting his sensitive sense of hearing on his now pointed ears. “You never were.”

You simultaneously let them both go and immediately grabbing a fistful of Sam’s hair. “You’re always one to talk. Better make that tongue to good use.” Without much warning, you placed two of your fingers inside him. “Suck.” You ordered.

Sam couldn’t do anything but comply, licking and sucking every inch of what you gave him. The pain in his heart was lessening by the second, making his actions more messy and desperate. Colby looked over at your lustful expression as you watched Sam, feeling his pants tightening at the sight.

“You never left me alone when I’m soaked,” Despite your distance from him, Colby heard your voice against his ear, making shivers run down his spine to his penis, pre cum staining his pants. He could feel your chuckles on his bare neck. “Don’t worry, baby, I won’t be doing the same thing you.”

With half lidded eyes, Sam watched as you reached over to Colby, his demon tail immediately wrapping itself around you, as if guiding you to where you should be. You clicked your tongue, making both of them wince in pain at your displeasure. “Still trying to take control?”

You could hear Colby mumbling ‘no’s under his labored breathes along with Sam’s muffled ones, knowing what’s coming. You retracted your fingers from the blonde boy’s mouth and stood up.

“Look at me, Colby.” Your voice was gone again, voice void of any emotion but command. As soon as he did, he groaned in pain and pleasure as your feet lands on his hard on. The heels you were still wearing from the club stabbed on every part of him, his whines of pain slowly turning to a mix of his moans.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He gasped as pushed your heels even further, “Please, it hurts so much. It hurts,” Tears, which was something you’ve never seen come out of the both of them, began falling down on his scaled cheeks.

You remained unfazed, eyes glistening in excitement. Was it even you?

“Hurts more than getting choked?” You taunted and Colby immediately shakes his head. “If anything, you’re luckier than Sam. I like it when I’m being fucked and losing my breath.” Which both Sam and Colby knew all too well.

Speaking of, your eyes moved towards to Sam who was pathetically palm himself beside Colby. It almost made you wanted to laugh that this was the same man that stalked you, hunted you, and claimed you.

“God, you look good like this.” You smirked, grabbing his chin once again and pulling his head towards yours. Your lips move in a familiar rhythm, only this time you were taking the lead of exploring every inches of the boy’s mouth. Your tongue grazed his sharp canines, purposely piercing yourself to let blood run. Sam’s eyes widened, eyes glistening.

“You’re so spoiled.” You said as soon your lips parted ways with his, wiping the blood residue on your mouth and watched as Sam immediately started to lick it if off of your thumb.

“I’m gonna– fuck, fuck, I’m–“ Colby moaned as his hips grinds against your stilettos. He tried to chase his high but you removed your legs before he could, making him groan in pain. “No, no, please.” He cried, more tears spilling down from his darkened pupils.

You had to step back to look at the mess you’ve created. Sam was in his own high as the smallest amount of your blood intoxicated his entire being, leaving his pants severely damped while Colby couldn’t even move in inch from how painful you left him, something in him refusing to cum if it wasn’t against you.

You ran your fingers in your hair. “Ah, fuck— this definitely gave my energy back.”

Their eyes made contact with yours and they could see your natural eye color mixing with your new one. Colby, being a demon himself, knew what’s happening.

Because of your lack of blood, your own blood, and your humanly essence he’s been selfishly taking, a demonic spirit strong enough to conquer one and an ancient vampire made its way to your weakened self and made itself feel at home inside you.

That also meant this dynamic, these invisible chains you’ve placed on them, wouldn’t disappear any time soon.

#colby brock #colby brock x reader #colby brock imagine #sam and colby #sam golbach imagine #sam golbach x reader #sam and colby x reader #vampire!sam golbach #demon!colby brock

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ledalasombra · 1 year

Text

The Granddaughter

Chapter 1 - Reunion

The motorcycle cut through the city traffic passing through different scenarios from the fashion district to the noblest region, stopping in front of the big gates of the Wayne mansion. She rang the intercom looking at the mansion in front of her through the gate.

“How can I help you?” She was slightly startled by the sound of the intercom that didn't take long to be answered.

“Ahn... I'm here to see Alfred Pennyworth? Sorry, this was a little awkward” She took a deep breath, removing her helmet “My name is Marinette Pe… Marinette Dupain-Cheng, I am here to talk to Alfred Pennyworth.”

Marinette can hear the sound of something breaking on the other end of the line, frowning “Monsier, is everything alright?

“Marinette? When did you arrive in Gotham?” There was a pause and she sighed lightly “Enter and follow until a little after the main entrance. There is a place where you can stop the bike. I'll meet you there.”

“I'm on my way...” she replied, giving a slight smile, knowing that she managed the feat of surprising him. She replaced the helmet quickly, redirecting the bike to the indicated place, looking with great admiration at the whole place. The front gardens and the mansion building were beautiful. She removed her helmet after getting off the bike, attaching it to the bike and grabbing her purse afterward.

“Grandpa!” She said, hugging him next with a wide smile on her face and her eyes full of tears “it's so good to finally be able to see you!”

Alfred smiled as he hugged the young woman in front of him. She was so much like her mother Julia that he felt as if he had been given a new lease on life.

“I didn't know you were coming to Gotham... Sabine and Tom didn't tell me anything. Let's go inside, I'll make us both some tea, and in the meantime we'll talk and I'll finish up dinner.”

“ Can I help you?” she smiled while holding his arm “ This place is amazing grandpa! So much to be inspired by... The architecture, the details and that garden! Wow, that place is beautiful!” She spoke with eyes shining like a child, as they walked through the halls of the mansion.

Alfred gave a slight smile at the enthusiasm of the granddaughter he hadn't seen in almost a year. And despite the long time without seeing each other, the bond between them was strong. They constantly spoke through voice and video calls, she sent constant photos about everything that happened in her life and Alfred was happy about that. Everything he lacked with Julia, all the closeness and trust he would have liked with his late daughter, he gained with his granddaughter. Not even the distance allowed them to be separated or absent from each other's lives. Though only Bruce knew of her existence, they shared a unique family bond. He would have liked to be physically present in Marinette's life, but he knew it wasn't fair to make a 4-year-old child live in the chaos that was Gotham, the chaos that was the Wayne family.

When they reached the kitchen, Alfred indicated a chair for her to sit on, immediately putting the water on to heat, then bringing all the material to prepare tea for both of them.

“And then, mademoiselle, to what do I owe the honor of your visit? Why didn't you say you were coming to Gotham? I would have picked you up at the airport” he asked sitting down opposite her, she immediately took his hand. Alfred smiled at the gesture, knowing how much she liked and asked for physical contact.

"If I had, it wouldn't have been a surprise." her smile fell quickly, becoming slightly anxious “shouldn't I have come? Oh, I'm interfering with your work, aren't I? Oh my god I should have warned you and not just knocked on your employer's door...”

“It's okay my dear, I'm sure Master Bruce won't mind. He will certainly want to meet you” she said patting her hand lightly, seeing her expression calm down.

“I came to see how you were doing and to give you the news that I've moved on to the University of Gotham” she said extremely excited about the matter “and I start classes next month! I arrived in the city two days ago and it's been so busy. Everything is so different around here...”

“I thought you liked living with Sabine and Tom? I thought you were going to do Esmond, as you commented several times…”

"Paris has been my home for years, but I can't stay there after everything that's happened... With the whole Hawkmorth affair and I don't have that many friends to lock me up there..." Marinette looked at her grandfather with sad and tired eyes, taking a deep breath. She had already told him everything she could and what had happened to her from the beginning. Alfred was her only blood family, all she had that was related to her mother. For years, even apart, she formed a relationship of trust and friendship with her grandfather, telling him practically everything. She trusted him as much as she trusted Tikki and hoped that one day she would be able to open up to him the only part of her life he wasn't yet aware of.

The young woman took a deep breath, hearing the noise coming from the kettle and getting up “let me prepare it. I brought an herbal preparation that my old Mandarin teacher taught me. I know you don't like just any tea, but for some reason whenever Master Fu made it for me I was reminded of you.” she said as she walked over to the stove, bringing the kettle over to the table, failing to notice how her grandfather made her back stiff and tense with the comment.

Alfred watched his granddaughter take a can from inside her bag, opening it carefully, giving a slight sad smile with the memory that came through the aroma of tea. She put a little of the mixture on the porcelain, adding the water next, looking at the clock so that she wouldn't waste the preparation time. He was intrigued by the name quoted by his granddaughter. It couldn't just be coincidence, but he saved that information for now.

“And what happened to him?” he asked seeing her give a sad smile.

“He passed away in London together with his wife 2 years ago. I visited them from time to time, they were quite old.” she sighed looking at the clock again. “According to him, the secret of a well-made tea is not only the herbs used, but also the time for it not to become bitter and, above all, the energy we put into it when we prepare it. He helped me a lot when Hawkmorth came along, especially with my anxiety attacks. He helped me with some self-defense classes as well. In return I helped him with the massage shop schedule and some shopping.”

Alfred drank some of his tea and smiled. It tasted great and took him back to a past he hadn't told anyone about. He looked at the can that was on the table, smelling the herbs, realizing in his memory the same preparation he hadn't seen since his youth. He took a deep breath looking at his granddaughter weighing what he should say or not, taking her hand he saw her eyes go towards him.

“When I was in the war many years ago, before I met your grandmother Marie, I met a man named Wang Fu.” He paused, watching his granddaughter hold her breath, “he made that same tea and said that, like everything else in life, nature requires balance. For a good tea, we need good leaves, which require time and patience, the latter being a virtue. I confess that this was a quality I lacked at the time” he smiled slightly at the memory “We met a few times, until one day he found me seriously injured. He took care of me for 3 days until I was able to recover.” she paused, adjusting her posture, “Fu was a rather peculiar man, you might say. He followed the war from afar, although he tried not to intervene. In those three days that we were together, I met his fiancée, Marianne. She was part of the French resistance, just like her grandmother.” He paused with a sad look on his face, patting his granddaughter's hand lightly, "He gave me a second chance, which completely changed the course of the war."

Marinette took a quick breath at the two words spoken by Alfred and he couldn't help but show his surprise when he heard what her granddaughter mumbled. “Sass?” she spoke Kwami's name almost instinctively, bringing her hand to her mouth right after. She saw Alfred smile slightly, placing her hand between his two.

“Certainly he was very agreeable company for several months, until the war was over. Wang Fu said it was too dangerous to remain where he was and left a few days later with our mutual friend.” he smiled slightly patting the hand he was holding “We kept in touch after many years. It was Fu who told me about the existence of his mother, Julia, who until that moment was unknown to me. He was a great friend and is an irreparable loss.” Alfred make a pause, looking Marinette in the eyes “But what intrigues me at the moment my dear is how you met him and know that name.” he said letting go of her hand, hearing a faint alarm coming from the direction of the oven. He got up then to check on dinner.

Marinette was speechless upon hearing her grandfather's story. She held her teacup in both hands, trying to center herself and think of what to say. At least that explains the protective aura coming from Alfred that she always felt when she was with him. She takes a sip from her tea, and close her eyes quickly, sucking in air and concentrating. When she opened it she could see Sass's aura around her grandfather, letting a tear flow. Alfred, like Luka, was one of the true holders of Sass, which explained so much on her mind. She got up going to the island in the middle of the kitchen and pulling the bench to sit down, seeing the door open then, turning her attention to the person who entered.

"Alfred, I'm going to need..." Bruce stopped talking as soon as he saw that Alfred wasn't alone. He adjusted his posture giving his charismatic smile, watching the young woman who was sitting, apparently talking to the butler. "I didn't know I was interrupting, sorry Alfred."

Alfred finished removing the dinner that was almost complete from the oven, seeing the door open and hearing Bruce come in, he sighed deeply, shaking his head, and approaching his granddaughter, putting his hand on her shoulder.

“Master Bruce, let me introduce you to my granddaughter Marinette Pennyworth Dupain-Cheng. Mari, this is Bruce Wayne. Every male in our family has worked here at some point.”

Bruce flashed a wide smile that Marinette found forced, but ignored in favor of Alfred. However, what bothered her was the aura that emanated from him. She closed her eyes briefly, taking his hand towards the man in front of him, giving a slight smile.

“It is a pleasure to meet you Mr Wayne. My grandfather spoke a few times about you.” she said squeezing his hand.

“The pleasure is all mine, Miss Dupain-Cheng. Alfred told me about you, although he is very secretive about his own family.” Bruce responded with great enthusiasm, which made Marinette tilt her head slightly and Bruce slightly raise his eyebrow.

"Marinette, please behave yourself..." Alfred caught her attention with a slightly raised eyebrow, looking at her and then at Bruce. His granddaughter just sighed, looking at him.

“I'll ignore it this time. I have to go, I have dinner with Uncle Jagged tonight and if I don't make it on time, I'm sure I'll get several calls from him coming to the restaurant.” She saw Alfred nod, realizing he recognized the name from conversations they'd had earlier. She went to the table, picking up her bag and stopping again in front of Bruce who looked at her intrigued. “It was a pleasure to finally meet you. I hope we can talk more properly next time” She gave a slight smile and turned her attention to Alfred. “I need to use the restroom before I go.”

“As soon as you leave the kitchen, it's the second door on the left.” He watched her leave, turning his attention back to Bruce, “Master Bruce, I'm going to ask you two important things: the first is that you be original with her, Marinette can see right through all this media act. Second and most important, my granddaughter has had some very difficult things in her life and I would like you to make a big effort not to start an investigation into her life. She is a strong and very sensitive person, you will realize that over time...”

#mlbxdc #mlb x dc #dc x mlb #daminette #damian x marinette #maridami #maribat #marinette x damian #damianette #damimari

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judyfromfinance · 4 months

Text

See You Again

(Heimdall/Reader SongFic)

I’m trying to jump back into writing for my boy again. This song has been stuck in my head and it’s so beautiful that everyone needs to hear it. This will be like an AU to my long fic “Olden Times. Modern Thinking.” It’s the same reader but anything that happens in this fic does not impact the main storyline. It’s just supposed to be a cute lil thing for y’all.

Special shout out to my queen @engardeitsme for always slaying the writing scene and being a big inspiration for me~

The song is See You Again by Tyler, The Creator ft. Kali Uchis.

You live in my dream state.

Relocate my fantasy.

It was so reckless of you to have followed Atreus to Freya’s old abandoned home. And even more so when you jumped through that vortex of ravens. When you realized they dropped you both off at the top of the wall instead of the outskirts of Asgard you knew things were going to be different than the game. Especially when you lifted your head and found yourself staring directly into the most beautiful violet galaxies to bless this world. Thank god for Santa Monica Studio.

“I don’t know who that is, but I assure you… they have nothing to do with my godly appearance.” Heimdall preened after reading your unmitigated thoughts. You should probably try to keep your thoughts under lock and key.

“You can try but I think we both know that won’t work.” He smirked down at you after he offered you a hand. Only one more thought crossed your mind as you could feel his unadulterated godly power beneath his skin. If he had wanted to, all he had to do was pull a little bit more on your hand and you’d be down an arm. Oh fuck.

Heimdall’s eyes filled up with mirth as he let go of your hand, perhaps a bit more gently then he had grabbed it.

“Yes, ‘oh fuck’ indeed.”

I stay in reality.

You live in my dream state.

It was, to put it mildly, fucking annoying to have someone be able to read your every thought. Especially when that person was a dickhead like Heimdall. Why was that prick allowed to be gorgeous? Like who gave him the right?

“You know it’s honestly quite pathetic how often your thoughts linger on me. Though I can’t blame you. I am, oh how did you put it…” he took a bite of his apple as he failed to look like he was actually thinking. “… oh right, gorgeous.” He tossed his half eaten apple aside as he smirked down at you. Eyes crinkled with amusement. You rolled your own as you shot back your own retort.

“You know it’s honestly quite pathetic how often you linger around me. Though I can’t blame you. You probably don’t get many compliments do you?” You uttered, trying to mock him. His mouth fell into a flat line as he walked closer towards you. He bent down to be closer to your height. Your eyes fell to Gjallarhorn before you quickly moved them back to meet his eyes as you made a conscious effort to not think about the game you were currently residing in. Their future.

Heimdall narrowed his eyes before immediately rolling them and standing back up to his full height. He immediately turned and walked away but not before slightly turning his head back towards you as he threw out the first backhanded compliment he’s ever given you.

“No need to be so feisty. All though your nothing compared to all the goddesses I’ve seen, you’re not too bad. For a mortal.” Despite being no where near nice, you felt your face heat up anyways. God he’s such an ass. And you fucking like him.

2020 2020 vision.

Cupid hit me, Cupid hit me with precision eye…

It’s been a week. A full week of being stuck in Asgard doing fuck all as Atreus went and did his little magic lessons with Odin. You tried to help out the staff here and there but it seemed they didn’t want you to. You couldn’t tell if it was because they saw you as a guest and therefore shouldn’t be doing chores or because they saw you as human and therefore were inept at even doing chores. Either way, you were stuck with nothing to do. Occasionally Thrud would show up to hang with you but for the most part, she also had her own things to do. So that left you alone with your thoughts.

Heimdall would often come by to annoy you. But for some reason his teasing had become more bearable. You can tell it was all on his part too. His snide remarks would hit less. He’s even slowed down on the constant reading of your thoughts. Though you don’t understand why. You huffed as you sat down on a bench just outside of a field of crops. Your mind began to wander to your home. And of all the things you were missing as your brain filled this void with music.

“…wonder if you look both ways when you cross my mind.”

The song and the beautiful music video played in your mind as you lost yourself to the beat, not knowing someone was watching it with you.

The video began to shift in your mind as you thought about the past week. Heimdall taking you on patrol so he could keep an eye on you, or so he says. You wondering out loud in the silence on why he would need to keep such a close eye on you, a measly mortal. Him not giving you an answer as he crossed his arms and looked over the New Midgard settlement. And that non-answer being answer enough for you.

You trying to find Heimdall in the humdrum of Gladsheim. Thinking about how maybe if you thought about him hard enough he might show up and whether or not that constitutes as praying. Heimdall showing up immediately after, answering your question that yes at least for him, it counts as praying. Heimdall then trying to poke fun at you by saying how none of your friends had time for you but never got to it as he saw in your mind that for some reason you came looking for him first. You frowned up at his frozen face as he backtracked and instead said if you had nothing better to do then at least be useful and help him brush Gulltoppr.

The past immediately transformed into the future in your minds eye as your heart beat quickened with images of what’s to come. Kratos, the intimidating yet kind god who took you in, pummeling Heimdall’s face into the ground.

Heimdall grasped his throat as these images played in your mind. The God Killer once again living up to his name as he squeezed the life out of him. Heimdall didn’t want to believe that was him on the ground. Couldn’t believe he was covered in his own blood. Missing an arm even. These images flashing through your mind seemed too real to be just visions of a potential future. It’s like you’ve witnessed them before. He noticed in this vision that you weren’t there when it happened. In this image you were holding onto some strange device. Your thumbs moving these strange black levers as a blue light emitted from it. There was a strong connection between you and Kratos in that moment. But before he can try to figure out what exactly was happening your mind warped once more.

You now were thinking about ways to alter this future. What could you say? What could you do? Is there anything you could do to persuade Heimdall that you didn’t want him to die? That for some ungodly reason, you actually like him and believed that he could be more than what his father wants him to be.

Heimdall felt a wave of emotions crash over him as he stared into the back of your head. He listened carefully to the next words you sung under your breath, hoping the breeze would carry them away from you, along with all the emotions tied to them. The breeze instead carried them straight to the man, the god, they were sung for.

“Can I get a kiss? And can you make it last forever?…”

Heimdall then wondered in his very long, very loyal life… if he was truly doing the right thing. He glanced towards the sky as black feathers danced together. Almost mocking him with the simple fact that he would never be able to dance with you. Not in the way you’d want him too.

“…I said I’m ‘bout to go to war. And I don’t know if ima see you again.”

No. Heimdall wouldn’t let you go to war. This war was his to fight in and his alone. He couldn’t be with you in the way he desperately wanted to. Lest you both face the ire of the All-Father. But he will make sure that you stay safe.

Heimdall turned on his heel as he left you to think. After all, he was given a mission by the All-Father. Shouldn’t be too hard, it’s only in Vanaheim after all.

Just a short and cute lil oneshot to get back in the groove~ (о´∀`о)

Taglist: @sumebuddy @sissontrinity123 @different4black @r6co @slaying69696969 @dijanur @frog-cultist @jamellemal @star-angel1 @mrsurrealism @ladysaribu @shirocchi13 @noxiemoon @fullmoonwolfer1 @forg1 @onix-a @silvergoldraeven @inky-weeaboo-weirdo14 @fandomcatchall @Imorg149 @doubledaredevil @screaming-potato @6demonica9 @einsvei @mad4hugs @oreocookie24 @lunaryasha @rustypotatospork @love-giselle @entityunbound @nixeustheclamity @majestichugs @blazingstarsblog @cheesewithasideofcheese @photos-fantasy-and-scifi @shycandykitty @photographykomiko @snoriander @lunamomos @rowanlovesmoonknight @fairytale202 @cbradio18 @fantasticcollectordefendor @coochie-crawler @booksandblanketnests @sun-bae @anything-scary @frida-oydna @couldyoutellmewhatsreal @damonsalavatore-best @tnnadia @dddraven @longshlong2 @crunchychicken1231 @multifangrell @actualhawkesworld @coralpositivityclassroomsoul @pugger775 @mr-trick @romanzpixxablog @violet2507 @bonsaijoons @the-broken-faucet @missmannequin @chaoticlandsoul @a-bunny13 @httptaegi @utterlynuts @blarba-girl @jellyedkazoo @lynn-haitani @pandoras-box2 @fugtrap

#See You Again #Heimdall/Reader SongFic #heimdall x reader #god of war ragnarok x reader #heimdall gow x reader #god of war x reader

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whoisshel · 4 months

Text

Stuck on You

Honey was given the nickname for a reason; she’s sweet and sticky like honey. Memories of her will stick with you forever, and after meeting her, you’ll want to stick by her side. Most people know her by Honey more than they do her own name. The whole town of Hawkins was surprised when they learned who she allowed to stick by her at all times.

If there was ever a person to be considered an opposite of Honey, it was Eddie “The Freak” Munson. Eddie wore black and leather while Honey wore white and soft cotton. Eddie lived in a one-bedroom trailer with his Uncle, Honey grew up with both her parents and was surrounded by siblings in the house neighboring the Harrington’s. Eddie couldn't care less about the number of eyes that fell on him for being loud and different than everyone else in town, and Honey tried to shield herself from the eyes that peered at her being the town's sweetheart.

Yet, besides those differences, and more, the two found each other and haven’t left that feeling behind. Eddie and Honey started dating during Eddie’s second senior year and Honey’s first. They both knew of each other, of course, from being Hawkins’ freak and sweetheart. They officially met in their English class when Honey noticed Eddie looking confused while reading Catcher in the Rye, so she went over to see if she could be of any help.

“Hi,” Hones shyly said standing over the desk he sat at, “I saw that you seemed confused by the book, and was wondering if you’d like some help. Catcher in the Rye is one of my favorite books, I’ve read it like a million times.”

Eddie just stared at Honey as she rambled on. He took in her shy appearance as she swayed nervously with her hands linked behind her back. Eddie was mostly surprised that a girl who was dressed in a white sweater and short plaid skirt would willingly want to help him, not to mention this girl was loved by everyone in town.

“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie finally sputtered out, “I would love your help.”

Not long after that, the two began to date, and the town erupted. Everyone talked about how surprised they were about the two teens dating. No one’s opinion was split though, it was probably the first the town could agree on something, Honey was too good for that “Freak.”

The town didn’t care to get to know Honey, because if they did they’d see that she’s not that different from Eddie.

Honey loves Rock music, what else is going to tune her parents’ shouting. She also enjoyed reading The Hobbit, she and Eddie loved reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series over and over again together. While Honey didn’t know anything about Dungeons and Dragons before Eddie, she loved to listen to him talk about it and watch him play. Maybe she loved it because he loved it and would enthusiastically talk about it, or maybe because the game was actually fun.

The Dungeons and Dragons club members were very surprised when Honey showed up to one of the meetings. They heard the rumors but didn't believe them until the day they showed up to what was supposed to be a regular meeting but there Honey was all smiles and sitting comfortably on Eddie’s lap. The members were also surprised by how much patience Eddie had when teaching Honey the game. Usually, Eddie hated newbies that knew nothing, trying to play but when it came to Honey he was calm and collected, helping her every step of the way.

“Hey Eddie,” Honey unknowingly interrupted Eddie in the middle of telling another member his damage.

While everyone else froze, Eddie turned to Honey with the gentle list smile, “Yeah, babe?”

“Can you explain her powers to me again?”

Everyone assumed Eddie and Honey wouldn’t last longer than two months, but they were so wrong.

They’ve been together for three years now, Honey has graduated and is now a Junior in college while Eddie took another year to graduate High School where he met all their new friends. Eddie now works as a mechanic at a shop near Honey’s school. The two had even saved up enough money to move into an apartment and seemed like they weren’t going to be breaking up any time soon.

Honey and Eddie were happy that their place would give them space from the talk in their town but not too much that they couldn’t see friends or family. They would make the trip to visit Wayne and Honey’s siblings when they had time and would occasionally visit friends but most of the time they prioritized family. Their friends would visit them so much that they never needed to worry; especially when it came to Dustin, Steve, and Robin. Dustin practically lived with them from how often he would visit, and now that it’s his Junior year of High School all he can talk about is that once he graduated, he wants to go to the same college as Honey so they always be together.

“And then, I can get an apartment in the same building as yours so we can visit each other every day!” Dustin enthusiastically ranted.

Eddie looked over at Honey with wide eyes, while she just continued smiling. Eddie turned back to give Dustin a strained smile along with a nod, “That sounds great.”

The sarcasm was dripping off of Eddie’s extended “great” but that just went past Dustin as he continued with his plan.

“Oh, oh, even better idea. We should all move in together.”

It actually wasn’t too long after this conversation that three familiar faces became their neighbor six doors down.

Robin did attend the same college as Honey, and at first, she was just commuting but she wanted to live a shorter distance away. Robin and Vickie started looking for close apartments when Honey told her about a place that opened up in her building. One problem was that the place was a bit out of their price range and a two-bedroom. The place was really nice though and in walking distance to school so they wouldn’t have to pay for the parking pass. That’s when the third familiar face named Steve Harrington joined and now Honey and Eddie lived next to their friends.

Maybe living next to Dustin wouldn’t be so bad. Wrong!

In the morning, everyone stayed in their own apartments, giving Eddie and Honey time to enjoy each other's company. Every morning was pretty much the same for them. Honey was a big morning person, she loved to sit on the couch, placed perfectly near a window so she could watch the sun change from dark blue to orange to pink while she sipped on her Earl Grey Tea in her favorite Golden Girls mug. This gave Eddie time to sleep in because once the sun was shining Honey had nothing else to do but get Eddie up.

Eddie was not a morning person like his girlfriend but he couldn’t afford staying in bed; literally. Eddie had to be at work by nine a.m. which was luckier than the opener. Getting up at seven was made easier by the beautiful sight he saw every morning and the coffee that came with it.

Eddie stirred at the light caress he felt on his cheek, and what sounded to be an angel calling his name, “Eddie, it’s time to get up.”

When he realized what he was hearing, he scrunched his face in protest keeping his eyes shut tight trying to bring his sleep back.

“Come on, Eddie,” Honey chuckled at the cute face he made, “I’ve already let you sleep in. You’ve got to get ready for work.”

Eddie ended his protest, opening his eyes. As soon as he saw his beautiful girlfriend, a soft smile made its way on his face and to his eyes, “Good morning, beautiful.”

“Good morning, handsome.” Honey still had a hand on his cheek, stroking a thumb across his cheekbone, “I brought your coffee.”

Eddie sat up, leaning against the wall their bed was against. He reached over to the bedside table and grabbed the mug filled with coffee, taking a small sip, His face filled with disgust, pushing the mug towards Honey, “Bleh, not sweet enough.”

Honey just rolled her eyes, trying to hide the smile creeping its way onto her face. Eddie made this joke every morning; and yet, Honey never grew tired of it. Neither did Eddie, seeing the same reluctant smile turn into one of joy. So Honey did what she does every morning, and stuck her finger into his coffee.

Taking the mug back, Eddie took another sip, “That’s better.”

The two have heard everything there could be said about how they would never make it and they were too different from each other. Even though Honey continued to dress in white sweaters and Eddie in his black leather vest, the two could never be more alike or in love.

Eddie knew that, and so did the small felt box he kept stashed away.

#stranger things x reader #eddie munson x reader #stranger things #eddie munson #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson imagines #eddie munson x fem!reader #stranger things fanfic #stranger things imagines #stranger things imagine #joseph quinn imagines #joseph quinn x reader #joseph quinn imagine #joseph quinn

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