#I like to believe Michael still loves his siblings

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF Circus baby or not, she’s still Michael’s little sister,,

[quietwingsinthesky]

prev post I don’t want to bother op with this but. that is why s5 lucifer is so good too.

[orionlain]

𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐦 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐩! 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐦 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐨𝐧, 𝐬𝐦𝐮𝐭, 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐝𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐧𝐨𝐧-𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐨𝐮𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐠𝐚𝐩, 𝐦𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐞𝐥 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐡 𝐨𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫. 𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝 note: i love you michael i rlly do but i gotta put ur dad first and reader is of age

𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐥𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝. 𝐍𝐨, 𝐖𝐢𝐟𝐞

It was sickening how much William couldn’t stop having eyes on you.

You were his son's best friend, Michael, a total opposite of him. He believed that you were too cheerful, too kind, too good for a boy like him. He believed that you were being rotted away by his disgusting influence, knowing how much Michael can be seen within the school alleys smoking away and giving side eyes to people.

He believed that one day you will realize how much of a pain he was, how much of a deluded sack of dissatisfaction he could be at times. He needs you to realize how much Michael’s pitiful Jean jackets and edgy outfits were horrendous compared to your beautiful, sweet, modest outfits that (hug your breasts tightly) compliment your face.

Tonight you were sleeping over in the Afton’s house, after you visited a couple times to help with your best friend's homework. It's been a long time since a guest arrived at the place after the mother died, and you were quite the breath of fresh air that helped to brighten the room filled with glum. You filled the space that she had made, and Michael appreciated the company that was now present again.

A Friday night as well, both of you just came right after school. Even with him hanging out with his friends, you still had close contact with him while you were hanging out with your classmates. To be fair, he did mention many times how much you mean to him, even if you were totally different from each other. He always takes pride in how you were his first friend he made when moving here, how you greeted him with no hesitation even with his stoic expression. How you simply treat him like a being when others are giving whispers across the hallways. You were always there, saying hello and teaching him how to do certain topics in literature, smiling at him and comforting him even with his most gravest mistakes. You were always there.

And now you’re here in front of the lawn of the Aftons, treating it as a second home at this point. You open the door after getting your luggage of clothes and toiletries, and greet the house. First one to respond back was his brother. With how close you were with Michael, you treat him as a sibling in law, and you always had an issue with Michael treating him so harshly.

“Hello.” He mumbled, tightly holding his golden teddy bear.

“Hi Evan! Where’s your brother, little guy?” You spoke with enthusiasm, you were clearly a mood-brighter, which was shown right now with Evans frown turning into a smile as you ruffle his hair.

“He will be coming late. He got in trouble with a teacher.”

Oh!

“Ah- Mr. Afton. I’m so sorry- I didn’t know you weren’t working today.” Stumbling with your words as you spoke, you were quite taken aback. If you were being honest, you had never really talked to Michael's father that much. Even with how polite and nice he treated you, your throat always tightened due to the anxiety he gave you. Not to mention, Michael was always talking about him, how much he despised his father and the constant fights they had together. It gave a poor light onto the older man, but you digress, he was a kind man you thought, and also a very hard working one. Many times he came into the house, with his back limping from the work he had done, Michael insists that he isn’t that great and yet you had always felt sympathetic towards him. And he was quite attractive, but you dislike thinking about that due to being so close to your friend.

“It’s fine darling.” That pet name again. He uses it a lot as a name for you, it stirred many emotions. Happiness, disgust, pride, pleasure? You couldn’t tell, but you were too much of a pushover to ever ask him why he uses it, or to stop calling you that.

“How’s school?” He’s chatty today. Unusual, he had never really asked you questions but you still answered happily knowing out of character it is. “Oh, it’s good! Actually, I’m gonna help Michael a little with his English assignment tonight before we do anything fun with Evan. But otherwise, it’s been nice!”

“He really doesn’t deserve you. You treat him very well even though he is difficult.” William always insists that you’re not a perfect fit for Michael. You were too lovely, and to be helping out his terrible, troublemaker son, worries him a little. You need to find someone more, (you need him instead) you need someone who is able to keep up with school, who doesn’t drown himself in junk food and stolen cigarettes, who wasn’t such a lazy older brother that never cared for his siblings.

“Michael doesn’t realize how much of a favor you’re doing him, how much of a sweetheart you are.” He punctuated his pet name at the end of his sentence with his accent. This surprising praise caught you off guard, and you had no idea how to respond with it. Evan looked at you, noticing your blush rising on to your cheeks as you tried to take your jacket off to soak in with his response. You don’t really take compliments that well, especially when it comes from guys.

“Um, thank you Mr. Afton.” Was that a glint in his eyes?

“Mhm, no worries love. Speaking of the devil, I believe that’s Michael walking up.” As he says that, you look to your back and there was Michael. Seemingly in a grumpy mood after his teacher held him up.

“Sorry I’m late.” He said to you, not directing to his father at all. “I swear that teacher always has her panties in a twist, so annoying.”

“What did you even do?” You asked, laughing as you were playing around with Evans bear. “It was not even that bad. Forget about it at this point, not my problem!” He smiled it off, but his father who was in the kitchen, who looked at him, was not amused.

“Alright then, let’s work on that assignment you've been begging me to help you with.” You responded, signaling him to come upstairs with you as you held your copy of Frankenstein at the side of your hip.

“Mr. Afton, don’t worry about food! I’ll cook dinner for all of you guys once I’m done with this.” As you were on the stairs you had to announce it to the crowd. You felt guilty for taking a lot of snacks from the fridge, so in return you wanted to do something for the house. Maybe you can lift a burden off Mr. Afton. And from the way he was staring at you, tells you that he enjoys that idea of you helping around the house. Though, it’s a little frightening, there’s not a single light in his eyes and he looks to you as if there’s something more that will happen soon.

“Really? What is it!” Elizabeth popped out of nowhere, which presumed she was on the couch the whole time as you came in. Probably too invested in the cartoons she was watching on the television.

“Well hello missy!” You greet her, now knowing she was here as well.

“Let’s see, I found this recipe, with mini pizzas and all of that. As well with fettuccine pasta on the side if you’re not really into that.”

“Sounds good.” Michael responded. “Yeah, but you have to wash the dishes. I can’t trust you to cook with me after last time.” “What? I’m telling you that it was a slip up.” You both nudged and teased at each other. Michael really wasn’t the best at cooking, which can be traced back to Williams cooking skills. With that, the kids seem pleased that you were going to make the meal. Many times you bring snacks and desserts you made back to your place, and they always enjoy it. The sparkle in Elizabeth’s eyes could tell you how excited she was to eat the dinner you’re going to prepare, and Evans' smile represented his thanks to you. William though, just nodded with a little smile. Well, at least you know he trusted you with his kitchen enough to make a meal for the family.

“Alright, I’ll be coming down at 4 to cook, I just need to help your loser brother over here.” You giggled. The kids responded with chuckles, and Michael sighed at your nudge to him. But he seemed happy, which was nice. You really hope for your friend to genuinely smile at times because it looks the best on him. And you grabbed your best friend's hand, and continued to go upstairs, promising the family members that you’d come back to help out.

William had a plan to also help you out with your preparation. As a surprise for the family, but more so, for you.

————————————————————

After a session of you studying with Michael, you finally put your brain to rest. He was now taking a nap on his messy bed filled with clothes he didn’t put in the laundry basket, and left the copious amounts of markers and snacks on his table unclean. He was tired from school and your chattering of what to do in his segment of essays and writings, but he still was grateful for your help and effort.

Although, you could feel he was tense. For what reason? You couldn’t tell, but with his little blurbs about his father, you could say that was his worry.

“My father is not always what he seems to be.”

He told you after you said that he was a polite man. There was always something bubbling underneath your best friend's thoughts, is there something that you don’t know? His legs trembling and his fingers fiddling with his pencil anxiously, every time you brought him up. His brows that would furrow and his immediate smile turning into disgust when you mention if there was anything wrong. With all of that, you were concerned, and even more so, he wouldn’t tell why he was held back by his teacher. There was something so off with him today, as if he was scared for you. Scared for what to be exact?

But you left him to rest. You didn’t want to wake him up and interview his weird behavior throughout the first hours of the sleepover. You did also promise as well to cook something up for his siblings, and well, his father as well. So you left him on the bed, and put a blanket on top of him, even with his fully clothed ripped jeans and jacket that he hadn’t changed from, you could tell it would be better for him if he had a comforter.

You stepped out of the room and went down the stairs. The kids were gone?

“They’re playing outside with the neighbors.”

There he goes again, frightening you out of nowhere with his voice. You thought he wouldn’t be in the living room, rather down that suspicious basement he always works in. You never seem to be bothered by his lack of presence and working down there, but there was always this lingering feeling of unpleasant death every time you pass by his work area.

“Oh! Hi Mr. Afton” You greeted him. You wish for Michaels siblings to be in the living room at least, because you don’t know how to strike conversations up with this man alone. But you digress, you step out of the place close to the windows and come to the kitchen where he resided within its seats. He seemed to be writing some papers on the kitchen table. You had shopping bags near the couch filled with ingredients you brought from home, and continued to place them onto the tabletops. You had the cheeses, pasta, sauces and spices, the only thing you were missing was flour, you forgot to pass by your house and get a small container of it before going here. Maybe you were gonna scratch the idea of mini pizzas, you didn’t want to bug Mr. Afton that much.

“Forgot something?” Can he read your mind, or did he notice your staring at the ingredients that lasted for long seconds? He probably noticed your face of concern, and your hands going in a frenzy as you harshly tug into your shopping bags. “Ah. It’s flour, I forgot about it.”

“You can use the flour. It’s in the upper cover boards.” “Oh! Thank you.” You were pleasantly surprised, you didn’t assume the family was interested in baking, let alone cooking it all. You walked towards the coverboards and opened it up, but due to its height, you had to tip-toe a little. Although, the bag of flour was all the way in the back, making you have to rummage around the space as you desperately try to heighten yourself up. Your hand gripping onto the tabletop could start feeling the strong pressure as you try further and further back yourself into it.

“Let me help” What?

In a flash of a second, his body was behind you. You could feel yourself cowering from how his frame encapsulated to yours. His shoulders and chest were pressed against your back, as he leaned into getting the ingredient. You could feel your breath tightening up, your face flushing from the close contact. And his scent, the musky cologne was plaguing into your nose, and all you could think about was him. He had gone so close, you could feel his legs within yours, your bottom pressing against his crotch, and being positioned in such a lewd manner that it could be compared to one of those movies. You were so confused, and yet, disgustingly attracted to it.

“Alright, there you go love.” He finally let you go from his entrapment. You were still catching your breath after holding for a good minute or so. “Th-thanks.” was all you could muster, not even questioning why he did such an inappropriate thing to you.

From that, you carried on to cooking, even with the bizarre incident you just had with your best friend's father. He as well, casually came back to the dinner table and continued with his work. You tried to ignore your urges to ask why he did that to you, or tried to not look at him at all. You wouldn’t want your face to blush again, reminiscing about what just happened. But as you were grating the cheeses, facing the behind, you swear that he was staring at you. With that same glint, that same strange look in his eyes. You really hoped Elizabeth and Evan would come back home soon and Michael to wake up, because you felt your body becoming small and fragile like a bunny to this older man. You could just feel his touch creeping into you, even if he was far away writing on the table.

“It smells good.” He complimented. It was really smelling good, with the combination of the pizza rising in the oven and the fettuccine sauce simmering in the pan, you could tell this would be a hit for all of the family.

“Tell me.” He’s standing up again.

This time, he positioned himself beside you. He wasn’t all up in your behind, and you couldn’t tell you were grateful or a little dissapointed.

“What did you put in it?” He questioned. “Oh, uh, I started with butter and then added parmesan gradually. I put in heavy cream at the end to make it thicker, and of course, add spices to it.” You explained, you never really had to give details with your cooking, it just came to mind to you. After all those retro recipe books your mom stored in the cabinets, it now gave you the chance to help cook for your family and friends. But you wish you didn’t for tonight, mainly because of the strange things you couldn’t tell if they weren’t actual advances from this man

“I must say darling. You would be a great girlfriend for Michael.”

“Oh?” You commented with your eyes furrowing out of confusion.

“Don’t tell him, I told you this.” He motioned with his hands to signal for it to be a secret. His body was now fully facing towards you, and his silver eyes stared into your face. His brunet locks droop down as he chuckles a bit, before he reveals what he was going to say. “Michael has a crush on you.”

“Wait- really?” You audibly yelped. To be honest, you had a feeling this was going to happen, but you thought it was just delusional. Even though he was a friend, you do sometimes admire him and adore him a bit. He has always given you such a gentle look whenever you talk, and you could tell that he smiles genuinely everytime you help him out. Now it was just revealed suddenly to you, when you thought it you’ll only find out what he truly thinks years later.

“Oh love, it's embarrassing how much he talks about you around the house. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if he worships you.” He laughs, and he puts his hands on your shoulder. Crying out in hilarity as you stood in shock. Though, it was suddenly cut short, with the bell ringing. Telling that the siblings are finally back from playing outside.

As you both dust off, and him telling you to keep the secret, you prepare the plates and the utensils onto the dinner table while he opens the door for the kids. You slowly took the two mini pizzas onto the serving plates, and sided it with the plaster filled with long strained pasta. When you were finally done, you went upstairs and called out for Michael to join in dinner. Trying to ignore that you know his true feelings about you from his father, and brush off those weird flirtatious actions from earlier, you both come to the dinner table. Smiling as much as you can.

It was a hit, the two kids fully finished their meals and scarfed up till there were no crumbs on the plates. Michael enjoyed the meal to the point where he took two servings of the pasta, while his father just nodded in agreement. You chatted away and made jokes with your friend, pushing away those earlier moments that were strange.

When you all had finished, just as you said earlier, made MIchael wash the dishes. As he was doing that, you were playing board games with the two siblings, while WIlliam finally left the area to go downstairs. You weren’t going to see him for the rest of the night, and you were glad but also curious if there will be more.

Otherwise, the whole evening was filled with laughter. You and your arguments with Michael had made both of the kids chuckle. You had popcorn and chocolate pretzels spread out on the side as well with large amounts of coke on top of the table. Your favorite slasher film was playing onto the screen, watching Krueger dismantle victims as you try to shoo away Evan and cover Elizabeth's eyes as you were watching. You were having so much fun, you forgot about the secret at that point. And if you did, you came to the conclusion that it's probably much better to address it to him later on.

It was then 12, and both of the kids were passed out. You and Michael carried them back to their rooms as you made fun of the students and teachers in your school. Talking and bringing up funny things that happened during the week while you were both left alone. Though, Michael was pretty zoned out, and you told him to go to sleep. He tried to resist, but he gave up and finally put out the mattresses in his bedroom. Making him drop out down to the floor as you were given his bed. As you were laying down on the bed, you saw Michael turn to you and gently smiled.

“Thanks for being with me.” He quietly whispered. With that, he turned his back toward you and quickly fell asleep. You could feel your throat choked up, feeling guilty of thinking about his father in such ways, when he was there. You wish you could tell how much Michael means to you, but he was already deep in his sleep. Sighing with shame, you accepted that you’ll confront another time. Now, you just lay there on your back in response, staring at the celing while you ponder. Slowly, while your eyes blanking into darkness.

————————————————————

You woke up, it was late midnight.

Your throat was parched, aching for a drink of water. While you tried to rummage around in the bedroom, there wasn’t a single glass or bottle filled with liquid. You had to go downstairs then, you didn’t mind though, knowing that everyone in the house is asleep. You then silently creaked out of the bedroom while Micheal slept peacefully, hoping to not wake him up. Going down to the stairs slowly, to not disturb any of the family members.

As you looked around, the light was still on. Michael might have left it on before you went up.

“Darling, why are you awake?” Oh no.

“Mr. Afton- I didn’t know you were still up, I’m so sorry!” You apologized, looking at the man who sat resting on the chairs. He was drinking, shots of whiskey surrounding him and a cigarette peeking through his fingers, which left bits onto the floor. His purple shirt was unbuttoned, messy, and with his other running down his gray streaked hair, contrasting from the clean and tidy look it was hours ago. You stood in surprise, you thought at least he would still be in the basement or sleeping up in his bedroom. But you were instead greeted with the older man in a hazy mess.

“Come here a sec, would you?” You listened to him, you went out of the living area to his spot. He sat on the bar stool, just staring at you as you came closer and closer to him. You don’t know why you obeyed his order, was it just out of instinct or some sick curiosity?

As you stand in front of him, you both look at each other in silence. He finally got off from the stool, and now you had to face the man who towers over you so much by height. He really did make you feel little, and with his glowing eyes, it made you feel so much more tiny than him. You tried to break eye contact with him multiple times, trying to look at the nearest potted plant or salt shaker to get away from his piercing glare, but he continues to check you down and up. Suddenly, he pulled your body closer to his by grabbing your wrist, and you were face to face with his chest. You had to move your neck to at least have a good look at him.

“I said you would be a great girlfriend. But I think you would be a very, very, good wife as well.” Oh fuck.

He cups your cheeks, forcing your lips to pucker up to him. He was taunting you, grinning how much he enjoys seeing you in such a position. “You’re adorable.” He laughed, and with no warning, he pushed his leg underneath your crotch. He took advantage of how much bigger he was compared to you, and he was pleased every second of it.

“S’ Mr. Afton?” You slurred your words as he grips harder on your face. There was heat rising upon your body, and you didn’t know how to deal with it. You tried to escape his hold, but all it did was make you shift on his thigh, rubbing your clothed slit. Accidentally giving a little whimper, even when you try as much as you can to get away.

“I always love it when you call me that.” He grins. “I wonder what it sounds like when you’re begging me.” His other hand slowly rises up onto your shirt, pressing onto your chests, fondling little by little. “Mr- Mr. Afton!” He laughs even more, happy with how you try to cover your face away from embarrassment looking to the other side. You were fidgeting so much, unbeknownst that you were sliding up and down on his legs while he was playing with you. You tried to close your eyes while you were creating a little wet spot on his pants.

“Darling, darling, you’re being so needy. I don’t think my son would like to see me having you whimper like a sheep.” He snickered. Tears started to bile up onto your eyelids, either from stimulation or from the amount of guilt you had felt. But that was soon cut off when he stopped holding your face up and went down to your crotch. It was all so sudden, eliciting a little moan out of your mouth.

“Mmhm- Mr. Afton please I don’t-“

“Shh, shush. I know, I know.” He shut you up by covering your lips. At this point you were sobbing out of how much it was, even if it was a simple flickering back and forth.

“You know how many times I had to restrain myself every time you visit? How many times you come into my home with those cute outfits you wore. How many times you look at me with that horrific doe eyes of yours.” He sighed, continuing to put his vigorous assault on you.

“Ha, if it wasn’t for my son. I would’ve fuck you for days love,”

“But I don’t care anymore. It seems like I lost the ability to resist myself. Now, be a good girl for me, yeah?” He shoved his hand down into your shorts, and quickly put your panties to the side. Slowly playing around your pussy and teasing around your clit. You were bucking into his hands at this point, and he noticed your desperation for something to fill you inside. It was disgusting how good it all felt, you felt so dirty and unclean, but he grins all the while doing so, pleased to see you in such a mess. His fingers had you in such a state, you didn’t realize he uncovered your mouth to answer a question.

“Tell me doll, have you had anything inside your cunt?” He plunged his fingers into you with short notice. You shrieked with the foreign feeling, violating your virgin insides. You blabber in an incoherent mumble, showing how this is all new to you in an embarrassing matter. “Answer my question.” He slapped your clit, and you yelled even more loudly, forgetting that it was midnight and his children were sleeping.

“No! I-I’m a virgin!” He chuckled at your cute answer. He was amused to know that he’ll be the first to ruin you, not some stupid boy in your high school, or his brat of a son, it was him, a man years your senior. You were a possession now, his to keep and use. His to dismantle and ravage from each part in your little body. With that, he made his pace faster and faster, giving you the urge to cum. You sob in response to the newfound attention, and addition to that was his large hands grabbing a fist full of your tits. Your body was being abused, and yet you can’t help but to feel so turned on, so full and so desperate for him to do more and more.

“Are you close sweetheart?” You pay no attention to his question, too busy babbling over his movement. He let go of your breasts and forcibly grabbed your face instead, demanding you to look at him and his eyes. “I said whore, are you close?” He asked for a second time in a more degrading manner, and somehow that made you even more wetter.

“Yes! Yes! Yes, Mr. Afton.” Poor you, you were so needy and terrified that he’ll stop you from cumming, that it made you answer in such a desperate shameful way. He hummed to your pathetic response, and made the pace even more rougher. Then, William quickly took your shorts off and finally left you bare in the cold kitchen, only leaving you in your ribbon bra.

“Doll, you wanna come for me?” You nodded vigorously to his question. God, you were so hungry for a release. At this point, you knew that there won’t be any other guy out there that can make you feel so fucking good. Your thighs were shaking and closing in and out, as you came near to your finish. More, more, more!

“Bloody christ, can you keep your legs open? You’re shaking like a bitch.” He remarked in his husky accent. You open your thighs, and with that, he finally gives you the extra push to your release by circling on your clit. As much as it made you cry out in hiccups from the stimulation, you were so pleased to finally, finally finish.

You came undone. Your legs were at a limit that made you drop down on the floor. Although, William held you up, forcing you to stand tall even more.

“That was barely anything sweetheart. Yet you’re shaking like a bunny. How cute.”

“But I’m not finished. It’s my turn.” Oh god.

He flipped you over, forcing you to go onto the kitchen bar, where he sat earlier. You were spread out like a meal, with your cute bra tied with a ribbon, he probably would’ve guessed you planned such a thing for him. You look at him helpless, wondering what's next as he stares at you like a fruit waiting to be open and devoured. He massages your thighs and pats your face in an adoring manner. You tried to look at the side, hoping that you wouldn't stare into his icy cold eyes. But he slapped your face, making you shriek with a loud whimper and causing you to face directly at him.

“It's so pitiful really. Imagine what your friends would think, what would Michael think? Hm? But you don’t care, don’t you love.” He unzips his slacks, finally giving space for his erection to breathe out. Ever since you came to the house, he had an animalistic urges within his desires. Wanted to put his hands all over you. Wanted to fuck you senseless until all you can utter is Mr. Afton. Wanted to ruin you and your cute little young innocence you had. Wanted to destroy you.

“And to think, I’ll be your first. You’re so desperate, you would fuck a man like me, old enough to be your father.” He laughs. “But I don’t mind, darling. I always wanted to ruin you. As much as you wanted me.” He knows. He knew it all along. He knew it from your slight stare at him, your cute curiosity hoping if he could answer your question. He knew it from the way you would glance at his features, his hands, his arms and his lips. He knew it from the way you said his name in such a nervous honey touched tone. It was all so adorable to him.

Playing around with your bare pussy, he slides his dick up and down. Preparing you. “Can you really be able to take it baby?” He chuckles. To be honest, you don’t know. It was big, the kind that you would see in the magazines. You were a bit shocked, pondering if you actually can take it.

“Oh don’t worry. We’ll see.” He puts it in.

Oh god, oh god.

It was so tight, even William grunted after feeling the way it pulsed around you. It was way too much, and you gripped onto the table, to have sort of stability. You tried to resist your moans to be audibly voiced out of your mouth, but the pressure in your belly stopped you from doing that. Even as slow as he puts it in, you felt like you couldn’t breathe. But you felt so full, so complete. He thinks you were made for him, made to be his little girl, taking his cock out and in.

“My god, darling. You’re being so, so good for me.” His praises that he sung always gave you joy. It was so sweet, it rolled off his tongue so smoothly as well, and hearing how much you were doing for him, made you giggle.

“Good, good slut. My fucking whore.” He degrades you, but you also love it as well. It didn’t matter, all the words that came out of his mouth felt like hot liquid on you. And the way he was thrusting in while also massaging your clit, you couldn’t help to not care. He keeps talking to you, degrading you how much of a slut you were, but from the constant stimulation, all you hear was ringing. Though you were coming so close again, so close to spasming from his dick assaulting you.

“Mm, you’re getting tighter darling. Are you cumming?”

“Ha- yes! Yes I am, Mr. Afton please, please let me!” He awed at your begging. He knew his name would sound good when you pleaded and screamed for him. With that, he circled his fingers even more, he thrusted and penetrated your pussy even more, he abused your body more, more and more. God, you were so full, so ruined.

“Mhm!” You yelped. You spasm around his shaft inside you. Your toes curled and you twitched your head side by side. It felt so good. But, he was still going. He was still thrusting you. He was still fondling your skins, still ramming you. “W-wait. No-no!”

“Shut the fuck up.” He flipped you over once more. This time you laid on your stomach, and your ass was in full view in front of him. As much as you begged him to stop, as much as you grasp onto his unbuttoned dress shirt, hoping him to notice your distress, he ignored it all. And continued to just pound you, now from behind. Your bottom suddenly was faced with a slap, reddening your skin. You mumbled and blabbled, you didn’t even know if you wanted him to stop or continue.

He took your body, making you get up from the table and lean closer into his chest. He was grabbing your tits and stomach. Giving in more of a harsher angle to thrust into. You moaned all

the while louder. His face was in a condescending grin, loving how much that he did this to you

“My slut. You know that? I hope you fucking do. I hope when you see my bastard of a son, you think about the time I ruined you. The time that my touch made you scream. The time that you were begging me.” He pulled onto your hair. It burned your scalp but it added so much more to the pain and pleasure that you were given too. There was so much happening, to the constant slapping beneath your thighs, to you grabbing onto his thighs, to him having his voice breathe so near to your body. The sweat between you two was becoming more prominent, and you could feel your eyes rolling up to the ceiling.

“Ha- Mr. Afton. Mhhm- please! Please!”

“God you’re pathetic, I could hear you coming soon again. Ah, ah Mr. Afton!” He mocked your noises, he found your little cute gasp and moans so endearing to his ears. He taunted you by calling you names in a more whinier manner, laughing at how much power he has over you. “Fucking whore, you’re my whore right?” He asked. You, once again, couldn’t hear what he had said. Because of this, he stopped immediately. Making you cry and shriek from the sudden stop.

“I said, you’re my whore. Right?” He repeated once more, holding your hair and feeling his hand going up to your throat, tightly squeezing it.

“Yes! I-I’m yours.”

He put his hand even harsher around your neck. “Say it.” He thrusted powerfully into you. Ramming you at full speed now.

“Say it.” Harder and harder, you could feel your thighs failing on you with the constant movement. You were having to grip the table even more, leading you to having your nails scratch the surface hoping for some grip. You bailed out, and finally yelped.

“Yours! I’m yours! Im fucking yours Mr. Afton! Please-mhm- don’t- don’t stop!” You begged desperately. Now you lost it. Forget about all those guys in your highschool, forget about what dignity you had still inside of you, you just wanted his cock. You just wanted to be filled up in ways that finally had completed you.

“That’s it baby, that’s it. Beg me. Beg me with that stupid cockdrunk mouth of yours.” This guy had completely ruined you. Now you were pleading with tears, moaning his name as if that was the only word you knew. Now all you could think in your foggy fucked brain about him, your best friends father. He gutted you out, to the point where he started to groan as well, feeling how much your pussy was convulsing within him. You were so close. So close.

“Awh! Mr. Afton, Im- gonna cum!”

“Oh darling, go ahead. Go ahead, my slutty little wife.”

That was it. You then orgasm and spasm around him, causing him to also spill out as well. Your legs tremble and your hands pitifully grab on his body. You were now finished, filled with liquid seeping out of you. As your brain was hazy and foggy from the vigorous ramming, he grabbed your face another time. Taking a good look at your submissive and meek state.

“You’re my little wife, yeah?” You didn’t know you could answer that.

And you passed out onto the counter, your head dizzy and gone from what just happened. As much William had robbed you of your virginity, there's so much more he has to do with you. The man needed you to be his instead, he needed you to be far more than a girlfriend of a boy, either from some classmate you had, or Michaels, he needed you to be his wife instead. It was intoxicating how much more William needed you.

He thinks how much better it would be if you were branded by an Afton. And it wouldn’t be your best friend at all.

[bosbas]

Epilogue: quiet my fears with the touch of your hand

series masterlist previous part || alt ending

pairing: benedict bridgerton x best friend!fem!reader WC: 2.2k words

Warnings: period-typical gender roles, idiots in love being idiots in love (except not really anymore), alluding to sex, benedict being so down bad for this woman (like down horrendous), this woman being so down bad for benedict, pregnancy and discussions around pregnancy

Summary: You and Benedict have been best friends since childhood, but things change dramatically once you come out in society. You’re struggling to find someone you’re as compatible with and who knows you as well as Benedict, all while trying to quell your ever-growing feelings for him. Shenanigans ensue.

A/N: i am so sad to let these bbs go i love them so much!! i will simply have to write drabbles because they are so dear to me oh my

January 3, 1819 – Y/N

A happy new year indeed! I missed you all terribly during the holiday season this year, but John and I had a wonderful time here in Scotland with Michael. It snowed beautifully on Christmas Day, and it made me think of all of you and our often violent snowball fights on your birthday.

In fact, I believe this letter should reach you at around that time, so I am sending you the brightest of birthday wishes as well! While I won’t be able to attend your celebration this year, seeing how we’ll still be at Kilmartin House, I am sending you a wonderfully tight hug and hoping your day is incredibly special. Hit one of my siblings with a snowball for me, please! Preferably one of the boys, but really anyone will do. 

Love from your sister, Francesca

You squinted your eyes in your dimly candlelit bedroom, unsuccessfully attempting to undo the tiny buttons on your dress. Perhaps it was the undercurrent of nervousness that had been moving through you the whole day, but you found your fingers were shaking so much that you couldn’t hold them still for long enough to unclasp the buttons on your back. A deep sigh escaped your lips as you accepted that you were simply not going to be able to do this by yourself, and you gripped the edge of the chest of drawers in front of you as you willed your voice to come out sounding more carefree than you were feeling at the moment.

“Ben, darling, are you still upset about earlier?” you called across the room.

A small huff escaped his lips as he shifted on an armchair in the corner, murmuring something about betrayal and honor without looking up from his book. You smiled and held back a laugh, anxieties momentarily soothed. Per Francesca’s request, you had hit Benedict less-than-gently in the chest with a tightly packed snowball during your annual snowball fight earlier today, and he had taken it quite to heart. Well, that and the fact that you had sneakily teamed up with Hyacinth and Gregory without telling him. It really wasn’t your fault, you reasoned. Benedict had thought you would go easy on him simply because you were married to him, which, of course, was a foolish thing to think. Though he wasn’t as competitive as you were, evident in your much more successful Pall Mall record, you knew today’s loss still stung.

“Well, do you think could find it in you to help me with my dress?” you raised your eyebrows pointedly. “Or are you still feeling too betrayed?”

He immediately looked to meet your eyes, grudge completely forgotten as he nodded excitedly and rushed over to you from the armchair he had previously been sitting in. It was rather endearing that Ben was still giddy every time you asked for his help undressing, even after four years of marriage. 

After a few moments of Benedict concentrating intensely on the buttons on your back, you teased, “Are you enjoying yourself?”

He hummed in assent and smiled at you, meeting your eyes in the mirror. “Oh, immensely. It certainly makes up for earlier, I think,” he winked as he fiddled with the buttons. 

Honestly, you were inclined to think that Benedict had been secretly asking your seamstress to make the buttons smaller on each new dress she made you so you would have no option but to ask for his help. Even so, you wouldn’t have minded. You, too, enjoyed his sturdy hands on your back, his deft fingers fiddling with your dress and his lips softly kissing your shoulders as you told him about your day.

“A well-deserved win today, Mrs Bridgerton,” he said, never quite growing tired of how sweet the title sounded coming from his mouth. “And on your birthday no less. A stellar performance. I suppose I’ll have to start recruiting Simon and Daphne’s children to help me against the lot of you from now on. And then when we have ones of our own I can form a small army and I will never lose again.”

Your heartbeat sped up a fraction, but you were saved from having to answer when he undid the last button and your dress fell to the floor. Benedict placed his hands on your shoulders and gingerly turned you around to face him, drawing in a sharp breath as he took in your figure covered by nothing but your chemise, completely mesmerized by you. But he was quickly drawn out of his awe when he noticed your nervous eyes shifting around the room. 

“Darling, what’s wrong?” he asked, placing a gentle hand on your elbow and drawing you closer. “I wasn’t truly upset about today, I promise. I rather enjoyed seeing you, Gregory, and Hyacinth absolutely obliterate everyone else. It was only a slight inconvenience that I was one of the people you were obliterating.”

You shook your head, sending him a small smile. “No, no don’t worry, Ben. It’s not that at all,” you said, laying your head on his shoulder tiredly, an entire day of worrying having taken a toll on you.

“But it is something, then,” he prodded, desperate to find out what was making you so anxious. 

You said nothing, fiddling nervously with the hem of his waistcoat instead. Benedict, on his part, was growing increasingly alarmed. Usually, he could instantly tell exactly what was plaguing you, but you were being oddly evasive, and he was at a loss. Perhaps the best thing to do was to let you rest and broach the subject tomorrow morning, so he tugged on your hand and sat you down on the bed.

“It’s alright, darling,” he said, softly kissing your forehead. “I’ll ring for some tea, and we can get ready for bed.”

“I think I’m pregnant,” you blurted out before he could let go of your hand to go ask for some tea from the kitchen. Your shoulders sagged in relief, and you immediately felt a weight lifted off your shoulders as you said the words aloud.

“What?” he asked, eyes wide.

“Pregnant. With child.” 

“With my child?”

“Well, I certainly hope so,” you responded, laughing.

He instantly relaxed, rolling his eyes and engulfing you in a tight hug. “Oh, shut up, woman! I was merely trying to process the news,” he laughed, ecstatic that there would soon be a tiny version of one of you running around the house. He looked at you, eyes shining, and shook his head as if he couldn’t quite believe it. 

“So, you’re happy?” you asked, anxiety still lingering in the back of your mind. It had been four years, after all. Your marriage had happened rather hastily, considering the years the two of you had spent pining after one another, and you had decided to revel in your romance for a while before having children. And eventually, you had wanted them. It was just slightly frightening to know that the time had actually come. You were excited, of course. You couldn’t imagine a better life than one where you raised children alongside your best friend, but you couldn’t help the nervousness you felt as you locked eyes with Ben.

“Happy? I’m over the moon, darling,” he said giddily and pushed you back on the bed so he could plant kisses all over your face. 

“If I knew it would be like this I would’ve gotten pregnant earlier,” you joked as Benedict moved on to kiss your neck and your breathing got heavier. 

---

You awoke quite suddenly, sitting up in bed so abruptly that Ben’s arm, which had previously been wrapped around you with his hand placed on your stomach, fell away from your body entirely.

Benedict grumbled in protest, noticing your absence even in his sleep. Typically, you slept on your side, with Benedict wrapped around you until the moment you woke up. Despite your racing heart, you smiled down at him, placing a soft kiss on his temple and sliding yourself back into his arms. 

But your attempts to fall back asleep were futile. You had stopped tossing and turning but found yourself lying on your side, staring at the wall opposite you while you felt Benedict’s chest rising and falling against your back as he breathed. 

“S’wrong?” Benedict asked sleepily, sensing that you were still awake.

Not wanting to disturb his sleep more than you had already, you whispered, “No, it’s nothing, Ben. You can go back to sleep.”

But Benedict was having none of it. He rubbed his eyes and blinked a few times, turning you around to face him. “That’s alright. I was awake anyway,” he lied, voice husky with sleep. “What’s wrong? I’m incredibly awake. Awake. I am awake.” 

“Sounds like it,” you said, laughing at him softly. You leaned up and pecked him on the lips, secretly thankful for his unrelenting line of questioning. 

Blinking the sleep from his eyes and leaning on his arm to face you, Ben looked at you and smiled fondly. “I am! Promise.” Then, tracing his fingertips on your arm, he pressed you a bit more. “It’s just me, darling. What’s on your mind?”

“I’m a bit scared,” you whispered. “Actually, I’m terrified. Terrified of becoming a mother, and of having to take care of an entire other human being, and of what it might change between us. Is this what you really want? Having a child?”

Benedict’s fingers never stopped moving as he thought of how to best address your fears, knowing the motion calmed you down. “Having a child with you,” he corrected. “Of course it’s what I want! I get to see a little bit of you in an entirely different person. And you’re my favorite person. So, I don’t really see a downside.”

You hummed thoughtfully, feeling slightly calmer. “But what if I’m a bad mother? What if our child is unhappy?” you cried, tears brimming your eyes as you thought of the endless scenarios in which you failed as a mother.

“What if you’re a great mother? And our child is happy?” Ben countered. “Look at how you are with Gregory and Hyacinth. How you’ve always been with them. You’re going to be a wonderful mother, Y/N. Besides, we’ll learn how to be parents at the same time and it’ll be something we do together.”

Nodding thoughtfully, you interlocked your fingers with Benedict’s. “I suppose you’re right,” you conceded. “It will certainly be a hell of an adventure.”

Sensing that you had calmed down significantly, Ben added cheekily, “Don’t forget you’ll finally have someone else you can force to listen to your ramblings about literature.”

You smacked Benedict playfully. “You enjoy the ramblings, might I remind you,” you replied airily. 

Kissing the top of your nose, he tucked your hair behind your ear and winked. ”Mm, I believe I did admit to this, yes.” Then, after a few moments of comfortable silence, he spoke up gently, “What about you?”

“What about me?” you asked.

“Is having a child what you really want?”

Your heart melted a bit. Even after he woke up in the middle of the night to have a chat with you and was clearly exhausted, he was still making sure you were alright. “Well, obviously. I’m thrilled! Especially now you’ve brought up the fact that I can have a book club of my own. If it’s a boy, I bet he’ll be just like you. A tiny Benedict running around the house ruining our expensive furniture with acrylic paint.”

“And if it’s a girl we’ll name her Daisy, right? Flower names and all that,” he replied sleepily, relieved you were finally easing into the idea of motherhood. “She’ll be just as smart as you are, I bet. I’ll give her the flower encyclopedia as well so she can know where her name came from. I think the one I gave you is still at Bridgerton House. I’m sure we could find it if we look.”

You gasped, having forgotten about your childhood plans to name your daughter after a flower. “Oh, that would be so darling!”

Benedict laughed softly, kissing you and pulling you back into his arms. “It would, wouldn’t it? Do you want to go back to sleep?” he asked, burying his nose in your hair as his eyes fluttered shut. You nodded, squeezing the hand that was nearest to you and interlocking your fingers. 

Ben was fast asleep soon after, but you spent a few moments looking at his sleeping form, chest rising and falling as his breathing deepened. Your heart swelled with love for this silly boy you had fallen in love with all those years ago. He was your husband now! Even after four years, you couldn’t quite believe how lucky you’d gotten. And you would get to raise a child together now. You really couldn't imagine anything better.

—

previous part || alt ending || buy me a ko-fi!

Tag List (lmk if you want to be added!): @bellahadidnt16 @like-gabriel-and-castiel @riverraingrayworld @5sos-calm @elissanatok @titanicnerd-blog @noonenuts @moonwayne @lilasblogg @mmontgomeryb @fulltacoparadise @joyfullymulti @sopanngon @fanfiction-she-wrote @aureolinb @ambitionspassionscoffee @bbubbllejisoo @marvelspogue @avengersgirlloriannaa @loliakeoghan23 @cierrajhilll @sadprose-auroras @merlieve @khaylin27 @cherrytop02 @little-duck @angerpearl @shondlenoodle @lyssamay52 @bags10 @angerpearl

[runnning-outof-time]

Thanks for sending another GIFt my way, Cia!! 🥰 I know I say it every time, but these little surprise presents put the biggest smile on my face! I decided to write a little something with John on this one because I’m currently in Tommy land with my requests and wanted a little break. I…I’m not quite sure what it is, but it was fun to write. Enjoy!

PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!

Stop Showing Them!

John Shelby

Warnings: death-threats jokingly made

(Y/N) gets the embarrassment of a lifetime when she finds her boyfriend showing his family her childhood pictures.

“What’re we all doing in here?” Tommy Shelby questioned as he entered the living room of his family home to see that it was packed with people.

“Come take a look at this, Tom!” John waved him over with one of his hands while the other balanced the large book he was holding.

“What’s that?” the older of the two questioned, his eyebrows furrowed as he moved to his brother’s side. It didn’t take him long to realize that what John was holding was a picture book, full of pictures of a young girl. He couldn’t help but laugh at some of the things John was explaining to him.

“And you see this one is…”

“What have you got there, John?” (Y/N)’s voice came from the archway to the kitchen, cutting John off and making the room go silent.

“Nothing…” John trailed off, shutting the book quickly, making it let out a loud clap.

“John…” she looked at him with a deadpan stare, like a predator that had eyes set on its prey.

“There ain’t nothin’ in this book, love,” he insisted, trying to smoothly transfer both his hands and the book behind his back. His attempts failed though, so he just awkwardly held it at his side, like a schoolboy would hold his materials between classes.

“Then why are you hiding it? Hmm?” she questioned him, popping her right hip out so that she could rest her hand on it, her eyebrows raising as she did so. John let out a sheepish chuckle, looking down at the ground as he nervously scratched his top lip with his thumb. “John Michael Shelby, tell me what’s inside that book,” she demanded now, her voice flat.

“I’d give it up, John, before you make things any worse,” Polly suggested from where she was sitting, an amused smirk present as she watched the couple go at it.

“She’s going to give you hell if you don’t tell her, John,” Ada added in, also invested in the situation that was unfolding.

John looked from his aunt and sister to his brother, who was still standing by his side. He hoped that Tommy would have some guidance, but he knew he was on his own the second the elder Shelby sibling raised both of his hands. “This isn’t my war,” he mumbled, unable to stop himself from chuckling at his younger brother’s misfortune. John sure knew how to get himself into the worst of situations. He was going to have to get out of this one by himself.

“Well?” (Y/N) asked again, waiting for him to give her an answer.

“Your mum gave it to me…the last time we visited her,” he offered some details, but not the ones (Y/N) was looking for.

“What’s in the book, John?”

“It may or may not be pictures from when you were younger,” he spoke quickly and in a low voice as he scratched the back of his neck, hoping all of the things he was doing would have made it hard for her to hear him.

“You’re kidding,” she gasped, telling him that she heard his words loud and clear as she rushed over to grab the book out of his hands. “John!” she shrieked as she flipped through it, seeing all of the embarrassing portraits that had been taken of her throughout her younger years. She immediately knew that this was the book that her mother had kept of all of the ‘mess-ups’; of all of the purposefully terrible pictures.

“It was your mum who gave it to me,” he stated, holding his hands up in surrender while trying hard to conceal the grin that was threatening to break onto his features.

“I can’t believe you went and showed them to your family though!” she exclaimed, trying (and failing terribly) to not let her flustered nature show.

“It was so hard not to,” he defended himself.

Arthur and Michael walked into the house then, and were immediately confused by the situation that greeted them. “What’s going on in here?” Arthur was the one to ask.

“(Y/N)’s got some pictures from when she was younger…she was just showing them to us,” John stated, a smug grin now present as he gave them a botched description of what was going on.

“No, that is absolutely not what was going…John!” she stopped herself when John took the book from her hands and began walking over to where the other two men were standing.

“Wanna see them?” he asked, glancing behind him and hurrying up his step when he saw that she was following him.

“Stop showing them!” she exclaimed, smacking his shoulder and grabbing the book back from his hands just as he started showing them the photographs. “I’m going to kill you, John Shelby…and I’m going to use this book to do it! Ugh!” she exclaimed, wielding the book as she showed him what she meant.

“Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s told me that, sweetheart,” John brushed her statement off, grinning at her.

“I can’t believe you,” she huffed, shaking her head and rolling her eyes as a smile tugged the corners of her lips upwards.

———

Tagged: @the-anxious-youth @mystcldydrms @look-at-the-soul @mrsalwayswrite @julkaamazing @evita-shelby @lilyrachelcassidy @shelbydelrey @december16-1991 @onlydeadcells @peakyswritings @watercolorskyy @strayrockette @peakyduchesss @alexxavicry @stevie75 @dark-academia-slut @zablife @cillmequick @letal-y-poetica @depxiety @shelundeadxxxx @areyenotfondofmelobster @padfootdaredmetoo @crabat-the-queen @sebastianstangirl01 @valentinabloom @wildheartsalwaysburn @dragons-are-my-favorite

MASTERLIST

[kisskiss-slashslash]

Hey 🙂

Really enjoying your writings.

May I request the slashers - the usual suspects (Jason/Michael/Sinclairs/Thomas) and anyone else if you want, mistaking their fem s.o for being romantic with someone else (like the situation with this other person looks totally sketch and could be construed for something not so innocent but its absolutely innocent - s.o would never cheat).

How would the slashers initially react and how would they feel and go about the situation.

❤

Warnings: Implied sexual harassment

Slashers and mistaking their s/o for being romantic with someone else

Jason Voorhees

He sees you holding a male camper’s hand as you walk away from the camp, and finds his heart breaking. Is he not enough? And if he isn’t, why would *that one* be?

Jason follows the two of you quietly, trying to see where this is going. He does not want to believe that you would truly cheat on him. But you give that camper sultry looks, and every time you do, Jason’s heart breaks a little more.

Finally, you arrive at a small clearing, far away from the camp.

“Now come on, honey, let daddy have some sugar”, the guy says, making grabby hands in the general direction of your chest.

“Oh I’ll let you have *something*, alright”, you say with a grin and, in one fluid motion, pull the small knife from your pocket and bury the blade in his throat.

“Shhh, no screaming, we don’t want to alert the others now, do we?”, you coo in a faux-comforting tone while his yellow camp shirt slowly turns red.

Jason comes out from between the trees and looks at you, bewildered.

You give him an apologetic smile. “There you are, love. Did you see all of that? Sorry. But this one was so gross that I just had to kill him myself.”

Now Jason just feels silly for ever doubting you.

Vincent Sinclair

He finally leaves his workshop for the day and wants to spend the rest of it with you, only to find you on the couch, with Lester leaning on you. It definitely looks like you’re cuddling.

Vincent feels like someone pulled the rug from under him. If you were to ever leave him, he would expect it to maybe be for Bo, but for Lester?

You and Lester both look up, and now Vincent notices that his youngest brother looks, quite frankly, miserable.

“Lester isn’t feeling well”, you tell Vincent in a soft voice. “Bo just left to the next town over, to get some meds, and asked me to take care of him until then.”

Lester coughs heavily. “Sorry, Bro. Didn’t mean to hog your girl.”

With his jealously forgotten, his protective older sibling instincts kick in, and he quickly sits down on Lester’s other side, putting his hand on his forehead. The youngest Sinclair is definitely running a decently high fever.

“If you let him lean on you for a bit, I can get up and make him some tea”, you say, and Vincent immediately agrees.

Freddy Krueger

He does not like you cozying up to other people, and being stuck in your subconscious, unable to do anything unless you fall asleep, sure isn’t helping.

Why are you watching horror movies with this loser? Why are you laughing so much? There you are, even casually mentioning Freddy by name, that should be enough of an indicator that you are unavailable, so why is this idiot still here?!

Once you fall asleep, Freddy confronts you about it. “I’ve killed significant others for less petty reasons before, bitch.”

“Okay? Sorry that I was trying to help you, I guess.”

“Help me?”

“Uhm, yeah? Did you not hear me tell him about you? Take a wild guess who the guy is gonna be thinking about when he goes to sleep tonight, and how those thoughts are gonna make him feel.”

Freddy presses his lips together. “...Fine, I guess. But next time, find a way to tell people about me without whoring yourself out to them, got it?”

Brahms Heelshire

You are getting just a tad to friendly with the new grocery delivery guy, and Brahms does not like that. It gives him flashbacks to Greta. So he tries to keep your attention away from the guy as well as he can. He unplugs the phone every time he calls, he demands your full attention during the times the man would be there and just generally tries to keep your eyes where they should be.

Finally, you have enough.

“Brahms, what is going on?!”

He keeps his eyes fixed on the ground. “Do you love him?”

“Huh?”

“The delivery man. Do you love him?”

“Wha- Oh. Is this what this is about?” You sit down on Brahms’ bed and gesture for him to do the same.

“That man is my cousin”, you finally tell him. “Kinda distant though. I found out when I did one of those genetics tests you can order from the internet for fun.”

“So… You’re not gonna leave with him?”

“Hell no. I told him I got a great thing going here. But he’s also the only blood related family I have any real access to here, so I’m trying to maintain a good relationship with him.”

“Oh… okay, I think I understand.”

Bubba Sawyer

Subtle flirting is kind of part of business, especially when dealing with customers as a woman. You explained as much to Bubba when Drayton had the idea of you earning your keep by helping out with peddling his chili to people. But that doesn’t mean he has to like it. In the rare cases where he gets to watch from afar as you charm the customers into getting seconds, he finds himself irritatedly fiddling with his chainsaw.

One night, you come home, pull the hair net from your head and heavily sit down next to Bubba.

“What a day”, you grumble. “I swear, some of these people think they can treat me however they like just because they pay some chump change for Drayton’s chili.”

Now that catches Bubba’s attention. He looks at you, confused.

“What, you didn’t think that I *like* getting hit on by randos every day, did you?”, you say. “I want to tell them that I am married, but Drayton doesn’t want me to. Says they’re paying for the view and that feeling like they’re encroaching on another guy’s territory is going to scare them away.”

Now Bubba coos empathetically and begins rubbing small circles on your back, to help you relax. Now that he knows that you don’t like it, he feels a lot better about it.

[carrotkicks]

HI!! I’m the original anon that asked abt the bsd fnaf au and!!! Oh my god it’s so interesting!!! I love your choices for the characters… especially Yosano as the puppet and dazai as Michael afton it fits both of their characters so well and just !!!!

YEah so Dazai was definitely the original reason I started thinking about this au. Firstly to give him unnecessary trauma, but also I think Dazai being in a hero/protagonist role is far more interesting than him being the mastermind to the plans. Need more of Dazai getting rough and dirty. Actively grabbing the plot by the reins. I'm tired of how he gets used by asagiri. I NEED HIM TO FAIL.

So firstly, Michael is a really cool character (for such a barely present one) because he's simultaneously a bad guy but also a person trying to do good, and definitely not a hero. It fits well with Dazai's premise. Alternatively I think Michael being a zombie, a ghost possessing his own corpse, would be an interesting concept to apply onto Dazai. Dazai who believe he's No Longer Human, and craves death because he doesn't want to exist, because living is painful. Now in this au Dazai actually died, but he didn't stop existing. He should be dead and gone but he isn't, he survived, but he's still undead and decaying. He is literally no longer human but now he longs to be human. Life was painful but death is Excruciating, and Dazai never liked pain.

I also think the dynamic between Dazai and Q is far more darker twisted than whatever Mike and Crying Child had (considering Q said Dazai was the reason of their suffering, and Daz seems to genuinely detest Q). But if you recontext them into a normal sibling dynamic, it really could end with Dazai accidently killing Q.

Anyways misc things about fnaf!Dazai: I think the timeline would be: 14 during 1983, 16 in 1985, 17 when Elise dies, 18 in 1987 (in order to get an overnight security job), between 18-22 for Sister Location when he dies, and 24 for Fnaf 1 in 1992. All the dead kids have a personal connection to Dazai in a way, which is why he continues on with his mission. Shortly after Elise's death, Dazai learns about Mori's crimes and tries to get Fukuzawa to help him take him down, but Fukuzawa refuses, so for majority of the story, Dazai is on his own, until he finally reconciles with Golden Feddy (aka ghost Q and Aku) and they team up.

here's him. He usually has a security uniform jacket on but I wanted to make it known that he still does the bandages. He wears a wig and illusion disks(lmao. if you know, you know) to look a little more human. And Dazai never wore bandages except for his arms before he died, and he always covered the bandages with his sleeves. After being scooped, Dazai wears bandages more to hold his body together. He has a lot of exposed leftover wires from Ennard and a lot of torn up patches of skin. He also has the hollow possessed eyes like the other ghosts.

Onto Yosano as the Puppet! I don't have as much to say because I thought this was a relatively obvious decision. Mori's first victim. Her healing powers can fit in a way to the Puppets life/possession giving powers. She's Fukuzawa's daughter in this universe. she's 11 when she dies.

Here's her Ghost Form :)

[still-a-morosexual-help]

So how much of this do you think is real?

Because it ain't time travel so MC & Number 2 weren't really there when this really happened, which means in reality Lucifer didn't cave into Mammon's requests as easily as he does in this memory

In S2 Asmo says it's Michael who goes to Lucifer and asks him to take Mammon because Mammon won't stop acting up

So presumably, what really happened would be closer to that, than what we see happen when MC & Number 2 are present - Mammon keeps acting up (like mentioned in S2 & S3), Michael's punishments doesn't stop him from doing so despite them being harsh (like mentioned in S3) and Michael eventually goes to Lucifer for help & Lucifer ends up taking Mammon under his wing after spending a day/having a converstaion with him (like mentioned in S2) and Lucifer might give him the rose challenge as well

Also, considering these are Mammon's memories, they're likely more subjectively skewered than what actually happened

Anyway, here's how "Lucifer took them on while they were still kids" can still win

No but for real, I knew they'd never give us kid sprites of the characters but I refuse to believe they weren't children when they met Lucifer

Luckily, the idea of Mammon remembering the memory but with his present day self actually fits? Like, it's something you can pull meaning out of - I love the idea of him switching from his "adult self" to his "child self" inside his memory while arguing about staying with Lucifer

So my current theory was that;

In reality, this whole thing happened when Mammon was a child (think Luke's age or younger)

In the memory, Mammon's an adult, the same age as he is in Nightbringer, but he's following the script laid out my his child-self

Since MC & Number 2 weren't present during the actual events of this memory, he breaks out of the script when talking to them but still takes cues from his younger self on how he would have done things back then (eg: repeatedly calling Lucifer badass*)

I know that's not what Solmare intended but luckily the choices they made during this actually fit with this theory;

• Mammon who's good at high-speed driving surfing, flying, the trapeze falling out of a pegasus chariot is questionable. Consider, he was a child when that actually happened and.....

• *The limited vocabulary that Number 2 mentioned, when we've seen, multiple times, just how well Mammon can explain why he likes Lucifer so much without having to use "badass" over and over as a descriptor

• This might be a stretch because Mammon can act childish, specially when interacting with Lucifer, But his entire interaction with Lucifer

• Luke got a guardian at "age 10" (which took him hundreds? thousands? of years to reach). Assuming all angels get guardians at around the same age that means that Mammon had Michael from around "age 10" to adulthood (this would have take thousands? hundreds of thousands? of years) - there's no way Mammon would have lasted that long with Michael as a guardian, given how hard he was trying to make Lucifer take him on, given that at one point pre-Lucifer he was acting up so much the others thought he would Fall

• Levi and the others weren't even born at this time, if Mammon was an adult it'd make their age difference a lot larger than it seems (Mammon & Levi act like siblings who are relatively close in age vs Lucifer & the others who act like an adult and his kids - something the game has commented on a few times as well)

• This + all the stories Simeon was telling about when Mammon was "cute and did everything to impress Lucifer or make Lucifer happy" :

[misshoneyimhome]

So glad requests are open again…I’ve got a list of thoughts but I’ll do them on by one - spread the Willy love out😂

But we’ve talked about meeting the family for the first time, but in all those scenarios it’s the girls and parents so what about meeting Alex for the first time! He’s in Pittsburg so he’s rarely able to gather all together during the season. I feel like of all the family members his approval would mean the most (to both you and Will) and I think he’d be the most wary too of his big bros significant other…not that he’s mean or dislikes you but he’s definitely more quiet at first meeting than the rest of the Nylander clan! But as you host dinner for him with his favorite dishes when the Penguins are in Toronto and Willy does his best to wash dishes and dance with you in the kitchen to calm you down, Alex realized how down bad his bro is!

Yes, so much Willy love in here!  Oh, now I’m def curious about what you’ve got in mind 🙌🏼 I love this so so much babe 😍 Alex’s opinion of Willy’s girl is def important if not the most important - I mean those boys have such a connection and I feel like if Alex can see how down Willy is for a girl, it means something 😉 furthermore, he’d also be the one to like tell Willy directly if she’s good or bad for him - he can be really honest despite how hurtful it can be but he can also truly see the love and affection between Willy and his girlfriend ❤️ (According to my thoughts 😉)

・✶ ｡ﾟ

Hey brother, do you still believe in one another?

"Hey, take it easy, baby," your boyfriend attempted to soothe your nerves with a chuckle as you awaited the arrival of his brother today. You were casually hanging out in the kitchen, both savouring a morning coffee while seated at the counter.

"I'm perfectly calm," you tried to reassure him, but he could see right through you, raising an eyebrow as he met your gaze.

"What's the problem?" he chuckled. "I mean, you've already met my parents…"

"Yeah, but this is your brother Willy," you responded with a soft yet apprehensive smile. "He's like your closest friend beside Sandy, and I just really hope he’ll like me."

"Hey, he'll definitely like you... I love you, and he knows that."

“But still…”

“No buts, babe he’ll like you! Don’t worry about it.”

And slowly, your boyfriend's words began to reassure you, as you made an effort to ease your nerves.

**

Your boyfriend was William Nylander, and his brother was Alex Nylander. 

While you had already crossed paths with most of the Nylander family during their frequent casual trips to Toronto, you hadn't yet had the chance to meet the younger sibling.

Just like to William, Alex was an NHL hockey player, but being on an opposing team — playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins — often meant he didn't have the same availability to join the rest of his clan, making him the last one you were to meet.

And he was also the most nerve wracking one to me. At least in your opinion.

His father, Michael, you clicked with straight away, as you both shared a great sense of humour, and he was nothing but impressed by your extensive hockey knowledge. You even bonded while sharing your passion for cooking and prepared the family’s meals together.

William's mum, Camilla, was real sweetheart. And right from the first meeting, she’d noticed how much William cherished you, how protective he was of you, and how much you cared for her eldest son.

As for William's sisters? They were more fun than a hassle. Sure, they'd ask a bunch of tough questions, showing their protective side towards their brother, trying to figure out if you had any ulterior motives besides being in a relationship with him. But there was nothing like that. You loved William from the start, just the way he was.

However, the girls did mention how many girls had pretended to be interested in William and other hockey players just for the fame. Some might've genuinely liked him at first, but when things got serious and the hockey life made demands on the relationship, they slowly faded away.

But not you.

Despite the late-night chats, casual hook-ups, rare lazy mornings, and almost-romantic dinners at odd hours, you’d stayed. 

And truth be told, you actually found it quite amusing and interesting. Being with William was never dull, and even though hockey was his top priority, you’d always find ways to work your schedule around his.

And his family could do nothing but respect you for that. You showed genuine commitment and deep feelings for their cherished son and brother. And they all understood that while hockey was demanding and kept William busy, it also tested relationships, and you’d naturally excelled in navigating those challenges.

You weren't entirely sure what specifically had impressed them so much. Sure, dating William hadn't been a walk in the park, but since you hadn’t been living under a rock, you sort of knew what you signed up for when he first asked you out. He was a fairly well-known hockey player, after all.

Though initially, you had hesitated, unsure if you wanted to immerse yourself in such a lifestyle. But then you’d figured that if it was really meant to be, you'd find your way, and eventually, you grew to truly enjoy his way of life. The highs, the lows, and everything in between.

**

And today, Alex was coming to town.

The Penguins and Leafs were set to face off against each other tomorrow night, so William had arranged for the two of you to finally meet.

And since it was Friday and you'd taken the day off work, you offered to cook dinner after both teams' training sessions.

While William naturally suggested ordering takeout, his forte, you felt the need to keep yourself occupied throughout the day. Besides, you enjoyed cooking for William anyway. And since his favourite meal coincided with Alex's, you saw a sneaky opportunity to perhaps score some easy points with the younger brother.

And as William was busy with training during the day, you took care of your self-appointed housekeeping duties, went grocery shopping, and took the dogs for a good run. Upon returning home, you spruced up the guest room to make it cosy and nice, just in case Alex decided to stay over instead of heading back to the hotel. Then, you began preparing dinner.

It had become a ritual for you to put on your favourite tunes and dance around the kitchen as you cooked. Since your boyfriend wasn't exactly a culinary expert, you had swiftly made the kitchen your domain after moving in.

And as the aroma of the cooking food filled the air, and with William and Alex due to arrive any moment, you took a few minutes to relax and gather the courage to face the Pittsburgh forward.

"Hey, he'll definitely like you... I love you, and he knows that," you reminded yourself of William's reassuring words. "No buts, babe he’ll like you! Don’t worry about it."

And shortly after, you heard the front door unlock.

"Hey, babe," William's voice echoed through the condo, prompting you to get up from your seat and greet them with a chuckle.

"Hey, boys."

"Alex, meet y/n - y/n, Alex," your boyfriend casually introduced the two of you, and you shook hands, officially marking your first meeting.

"It's lovely to meet you, Alex. I've heard so much about you," you flashed him a warm smile, earning one in return.

"Likewise," he replied succinctly before the boys then moved into the living area, where William gestured for Alex to join him on the sofa.

"How long before dinner, babe?"

"Just a few more minutes," you smiled. "You can squeeze in a round of NHL if you'd like," you suggested before heading to the kitchen.

And the boys eagerly fired up the PS5 to settle in for a gaming session.

"Var snäll mot henne. hon är lite nervös,”(Be nice to her. she's a little nervous.) William spoke to his brother in Swedish, using a hushed tone.

"Jag är snäll mot henne. Jag ser bara till att hon är bra för dig," (I am nice to her. I'm just making sure she's all good for you.) Alex chuckled back, occasionally glancing at you in the kitchen. 

"Oroa dig inte - det är hon," (Don't worry - she is.) William reassured his brother. 

The clicking sounds of the joysticks filled the air as they got engrossed in the video game while you finished up the final touches for dinner.

"Alrighty, boys, dinner's ready," you proudly announced, serving the dish you had poured your heart and soul into. And with smiles lighting up their faces, they quickly joined you, both starving after their training sessions.

The dinner went smoothly, or so you hoped, as Alex wasn't particularly talkative, yet his gaze frequently landed on you. You couldn't quite tell if it was because you were talking too much or if he was silently judging you.

But you just hated awkward silences.

And since William wasn't taking the lead in conversation, it felt natural for you to steer the discussions, keeping things flowing to avoid any discomfort.

William found it both slightly amusing and utterly adorable. He knew you well enough by now to understand that you weren't being rude or hogging the conversation intentionally; you were just nervous and eager to be a great hostess, especially keen on showing your best side to his brother.

And once the delicious meal was finished, you once again took the lead, clearing the plates and heading back to the kitchen. The boys expressed their gratitude for the fantastic meal before you left them to their own devices once more.

"Hon är trevlig," (She’s nice) Alex chuckled lightly, casting a glance at his brother.

"Hon brukar inte prata så mycket, men hon är som sagt lite nervös," (She doesn't usually talk that much, but as I said, she's a bit nervous.) William returned a smile, briefly glancing at you as you tidied up in the kitchen. 

And Alex simply nodded and smiled at his brother before William then excused himself to lend you a hand in the kitchen.

"He hates me, doesn't he?" you nervously asked as William gently wrapped his arms around you, planting soft kisses on your neck, enveloping you in his embrace from behind.

"Not at all, babe," he chuckled softly.

"But he thinks I talk too much," you timidly stated, slowly turning within the arms of your caring boyfriend to face him, leaning against the counter and gazing up at him.

"Well, maybe you did chat a bit too much," William chuckled again before planting a gentle kiss on your lips. "But you're cute when you talk a lot."

"Willy, it's not funny..."

"It's a bit funny, but babe, Alex likes you - trust me, you'd know if he didn't," he softly explained, reassuring you that you’d been more than accepted into his close-knit family. By every single one. 

You let out a soft sigh of relief, flashing him a sweet smile as you listened to his words.

"Good... because I do plan on staying your girlfriend regardless," you cheekily remarked, earning a chuckle from the man in front of you.

"Oh, I wouldn't want anything else," William replied warmly.

And amidst the dishes and soft tunes playing from the speakers, you shared a tender moment of intimacy while Alex remained seated at the dinner table. 

"How about you go and entertain your brother while I clean up the rest?" you suggested with a loving smile.

"Hmm, no, let me help you out - then we're done quicker, and you can come and chill with us," William proposed, a suggestion too inviting to decline.

So, you both turned to finish up the dishes and tidy the kitchen, moving around each other, lightly swaying to the tunes, and sharing giggles at each other's little dance moves.

Meanwhile, Alex observed you intensely, not in a creepy way, but more in an admiring manner.

He had never seen his brother this happy with someone, at least not with a girlfriend.

Alex had never witnessed William in love before, perhaps because William had never actually been in love. But there was a feeling within him that confirmed that he might just be so now.

Observing the way William's face lit up completely upon greeting you as they entered the condo, and how he'd envelop you in his arms, offering tender kisses and gentle hugs at every opportunity. His eyes filled with desire and admiration as you talked during dinner. And seeing the two of you slowly dancing around in the kitchen left him entirely convinced.

You were undeniably the one for his brother.

Finally, Alex had had the chance to witness what the rest of the family saw in you, and there was no doubt in his mind about your genuine feelings and pure intentions. Your smile appeared so sincere and authentic. And one thing Alex had picked up on while listening to you talk during dinner was how much you spoke about William and your life together, expressing heartfelt appreciation for him, instead of only talking about yourself. 

And after finishing the dishes, William and Alex then settled back on the sofa while you quickly went to the bathroom.

"So, vad är domen?" (So, what's the verdict?) William casually joked as the two boys made themselves comfortable.

Alex let out a soft sigh, glancing mischievously at his brother with a smile. 

"Hon är ganska fantastisk," (She's pretty amazing.) he replied with a light chuckle, which prompted William to let out a soft laugh too. "Och låt oss inse det, du är definitivt kär i henne." (And let's face it, you're definitely head over heels in love with her.)

"Åh, absolut," William agreed.

"Och..." (And…) Alex added, a mischievous grin on his lips, "hon är långt utanför din liga!" (she's way out of your league!)

William couldn't help but agree with his brother's remark and simply responded with another heartfelt laugh before you returned and joined the lads.

[ananke-xiii]

About Sam Winchester.

[This post has been edited after my discussion with @samjgirl , @sam-winchester-admiration-league and after @adaav 's comment to my post. I really want to thank them for their time and for pointing many interesting points out. I wasn't well informed about the techniques of storytelling and I believe I lost a bit of focus after season 11. Now I'm actually happier as I've started to even more appreciate this character, so win-win for me!]

The character of Sam Winchester was my biggest surprise and my biggest disappointment while watching Supernatural (but it's not his fault). [EDIT: while I still don't particularly like (for now) s12-15, I've realized that my disappoint was more due to my ignonorance of storytelling techniques rather than by the way the character was written]

It was my biggest surprise because I had never related to a fictional character this much before. I think you just have to both be the younger sibling of a dysfunctional nuclear family and be trauma-bonded to your elder sibling to get it. I won't go into further details about it because it's a whole essay, but I have to mention it because I need to state that I feel a deep connection to Sam. We both made the same choices, the same "mistakes", the same sacrifices.

So I was astonished when I started Supernatural because of the way it felt true and real. I don't know if the writers lived similar experiences and were therefore able to tell this story truthfully, but they nevertheless did a hell of a job in describing the unique bond of two siblings trying their best to navigate their traumas.

From season 1 to 8-9ish, we see Sam morphing from being the hero of the story to one of the two main characters. [EDIT: this is incorrect, Sam has always been the hero of the story. I think I felt like he was "shifting" into a slightly less prominent role because Dean, as supporting protagonist, was given more space in order to proceed with the filler episodes]Slowly but surely, Dean also becomes the hero and I think that was fair. [EDIT: see above, technically this is incorrect, sorry lol!]You can't fully narrate the story of a bond withouth fully integrate one part of it. I loved all the parallels to Michael/Lucifer and Cain/Abel. I thought they were brilliant. The show allowed me to go deep inside and start sorting out some stuff I've lived. It really made me think a lot.

It's fair to say that the brothers' codependency was the crux of their problem. It was painful to watch and sometimed downright awkward but the writers got it all right: the otherwise unxeplicable and toxic jealousy they felt for one another, the inability to share their deepest feelings in way other than fighting, and hell yes, even Sam's decision to run away and not look for his brother after season 7. It was not OOC, it's exactly what he did when he was 18 and what John did as well 4 years after that. As a matter of fact, Sam is more similar to John than Dean could ever be.

It's definitely been a long journey but I find that the resolution of their codependency (in season ELEVEN!) was cleverly thought-out and brilliantly executed. It couldn't have happened before, the two bothers must have been either already in or close to their 30s to confront the knot, to acknwoledge the grip the trauma they've lived had on their life. Sometimes getting older does help and give you perspective. This might be why (as I've stated here) season 11 is my favourite one: it gives a sense of closure and hope.

However, here comes the biggest disappointment part. [EDIT: this is due to the fact that in part, I didn't fully get it]

After season 11 Sam morphs from one of the two main characters to a side character. [EDIT: incorrect, as per previous EDIT, Sam is always the hero and lead protagonist]The show must be about the brothers' bond and I'm okay with that. However, it looks like after season 11 the writers couldn't come up with new ideas to talk about this kind of bond. It felt like, other than co-dependency, the bond didn't have much to say. Therefore, both Sam and Dean almost go back to square one while they had all the possibilities to explore a new aspect of their relationship.

What could've been this new aspect? Easy: making them realize that the family they each wanted was, simply, different. This is just my opinion on the subject and how I've felt about season 12-15 so it's okay if you disagree. [EDIT: well, this is still my opinion, although it has nothing to do with Sam's narrative role in the story and more about my personal preference, so I think this is where I got confused]

In my opinion, from season 12 Sam is just a part of Dean's family. It's not "Sam&Dean"'s family. It's just Dean's. And I think the writers could've explored that in a more meaningful way. Let me explain: let's take Cas since he makes the perfect example for this scenario. Dean has repeatedly included Cas in the "family", he's called him not just his brother but "our brother". He includes Sam in the equation but I personally don't think Sam feels the same way. Sure, Sam cares for Cas and thinks he's family, but I think his idea of family is "Cas is my brother's husbandbest friend and therefore he's part of the family". He's extended family, kind of. [EDIT: this is still just my opinion and has nothing to do with Sam's narrative role. Although "family" is one of the themes of the show, it was not the only one]

My opinion is canonically backed because, aside from Rowena, all the members of the Winchesters Found Family are part of the family because Dean has allowed them, Dean has a deeper relatioship to them and ultimately because Dean decides who can enter the circle. This is totally in character and I love Dean for his ability to care and form deep bonds. [EDIT: this was also needed for Dean as a character because he's not the lead protagonist so he had to have something else in the story that was not necessarily connected to the mytharc]

However, this is not in Sam's character: Sam is the one who runs away, the one who wants to create his own family, the one who really needs to emancipate himself from his older brother. I truly wished the writers explored his passivity in "accepting" the status quo and made him, if not rebel, at least express his wants.

It would have been a moment in Sam's growth if he could've just, instead of running away, confronted his brother and stated that his desires were different, that he was part of Dean's family but it was not his family. Instead, we only have glimpes of what Sam really feels: he doesn't think of the bunker as his home, he doesn't ever say that he has a family (not surprisingly it's Dean that in "Lebanon" tells John "I have a family" and not Sam), he doesn't really have any other meaningful relationship aside from his brother.

Supernatural ending did him dirty, too. Not just for the awful wig and make-up but because the ending framed Sam as a two-dimensional character: "freed" from his brother and his brother's family, he finds a blurry wife, a dog, a son, a white picket fence. How sad is that? We never get to see Sam really connecting with anyone: all (and by all I really mean ALL) the women in his life, from his mother to one-night-stands while on the road passing through Ruby, end up dead (RIP Sarah Blake). Of course his wife at the end had to be a blurry figure in the backfround (she was not even besides him on his deathbed!): she was a testament to all of his past relationships. Like, seriously, apart from Dean, the ONLY lasting relationship Sam has throughout the whole series is with LUCIFER and this alone, I think, speaks volume. [EDIT: again this just relates to the fact that I'm not particularly fond of s12-15 and of the overall ending. Technically speaking, the ending makes sense. Whether I liked it or not is another issue]

In conclusion, after season 11 Sam is no longer an interesting character because the writers both downright refused to give him another substantial character to interact with and insisted once again on his codependency with Dean (which was already resolved). [EDIT, tbh it was a weak ending to begin with, LOL, I didn't like it even after I wrote it hahahhaa, but yeah, as this whole post proves Sam Winchester is far from being an uninteresting character because I just spent a frigging afternoon learning new things thanks to him so I guess he's like the gift that keeps on giving!]

Having said that, in my heart of hearts, Sam Winchester will always have a special place because I get him, I really do.

[luckykittysshowerthoughts]

Micheal's character is so depressing and so relatable at the same time. Also I wonder what your take is on his and luci's relationship, since they seem pretty close in celestial realm then in nb we see Michael highkey struggling which i don't blame bc he essentially lost 7 siblings at once (including lilith) then in og micheal is still very attached even though he isn't as bad as in nb. I just want your thoughts (you're the only one of 3 including my friend that I trust on Michael analysis/characterization)

First off, thank you so much for listening to my ramblings and praising them so. It's making this hyperfixating little freak very happy

Now, into the analysis. Though, this one is less an analysis and more me compiling everything canon has told us so far, because there's actually a lot there. It's just so spread apart over the course of the story that a lot of people miss the forest for the trees (which I think is another reason Michael as a whole is so misunderstood by the fandom), so it's nice to have a little overview.

Michael and Lucifer's Relationship

It was very nice to see the brotherly tones of Lucifer and Michael's relationship before the war. They seemed to have a typical friendly rivalry, and it was really cute to hear of the two messing with each other in very sibling-like ways.

One example I can think of off the top of my head was angel Lucifer camping out at the site of Michael's new observatory on the night before its grand opening, just to stick it to Michael that he got to his much-anticipated event first. That felt very much like a "little shit sibling" moment.

There was also Michael teasing Lucifer about his wings:

There was also the two of them attempting to pin Father's assignments onto each other, as Lucifer explains here:

They seemed to have a healthy dose of sibling rivalry to their relationship, and it was honestly really adorable.

It's also very clear that the two respected each other greatly. In Season 3, Mammon goes into detail about how much Michael loved Lucifer:

And in Nightbringer, angel Lucifer clearly held Michael in high regard- he seemed to believe Michael was more worthy mentor of Mammon, that he could give Mammon a better shot than he could.

However... I also think their relationship was always a bit dysfunctional. In Nightbringer we see a lot more of how obsessive Michael is- not even just in the wake of his grief after the fall, but even before that. Like this anecdote of Michael constantly sneaking into Lucifer's room:

Now, that's a clear violation of boundaries if I ever did see one. While the two were close, I think it's pretty clear Michael was a little too attached to Lucifer, and that likely caused problems in their relationship even before war broke out. We did get an explanation for this behavior in Season 3 of the OG, though that only paints an even more dysfunctional picture:

Michael idolizing Lucifer to this degree, and projecting himself onto him, is clearly not healthy. And I think Lucifer very well understood that, considering Satan is speaking from his memories of Lucifer's perspective here.

Another remark in Season 3 from angel Lucifer himself indicates that Lucifer didn't exactly see Michael as someone he could confide in:

All in all, I think their relationship was very complicated- as most relationships in Obey Me are. I think they both loved each other deeply, but Michael is the type of person to love a little too hard and that created problems.

Going into speculation territory now, I also think their relationship was tainted by their status in the Celestial Realm and the expectations that were placed upon them. I elaborated on this a little more in this post, but to summarize, I believe Michael is the eldest brother who had a rough time living up to the title while watching Lucifer become everything an eldest sibling "should" be. I think Michael was under a lot of pressure that he wasn't quite mature enough to handle properly, and he knew it. Meanwhile, Lucifer was also pushed to be a perfect, flawless Seraph, the pride and joy of the Celestial Realm- and the perfectionism instilled in him by their father only promoted Michael's idolization of him. We have one brother incredibly insecure with the way he presents himself, leaning on the image of perfection created by an equally insecure brother. It's a self-perpetuating cycle.

I also suspect that Father may have played favorites between the two. I don't have any real concrete evidence of this, but something I've been thinking about lately are the Ring of Light and the Ring of Wisdom, which were created for Lucifer and Michael respectively. In official merch (and possibly in-story as well I don't remember), the Ring of Light is shown to be gold, while the Ring of Wisdom is described to be made of brass and iron. Yeah... if this was intentional I think it's pretty clear who the favorite was here. Come on, at least give Michael silver. I don't think Michael is petty enough to be upset about this specifically, he's not Barb, but it might be indicative of a larger problem in the family dynamic. If Father favored Lucifer, that could also be an explanation for Michael's strange idolization of him.

[phoenix--flying]

side character titan war aftermath vibes

(i do not know what i need to put TW for so pls tell me if i need to add something)

The Apollo cabin has hundreds of CDs, most of which they lose. Will keeps a few in the infirmary; Michael and Lee both burned CDs with their music and he plays those often when he's cleaning or alone. Both of those CDs had Stayin' Alive by Bees Gees since both of them liked it. Will forgot this little fact.

He'd been alone cleaning the infirmary after the titan war, playing music as usual when a certain song comes on. At first, he doesn't pay it any mind, then realizes what it is. Suddenly he's back in the elevator, covered in blood with a few bodies wrapped in different shrouds.

He finds out quickly enough that he's not the only person who can't listen to the song anymore.

bonus leo tries to play it in bunker nine with nyssa and jake once and jake just turns it off and whenever leo tries to play it again nyssa just stares at him Leo: ???? Nyssa: No.

Connor doesn't like Luke. Hates him, in fact. He's a monster, a traitor and a murderer. There's nothing else to it. He's not sad Lukes dead, why would he be? That's not his brother anymore. He stopped being his older brother the minute he started listening to Kronos. Luke deserves to be dead, and he's not sad. End of story.

He finds a photo of him and Luke. It was from before Connor had been claimed - Travis had been, he was still a little jealous of that one(did hermes just like travis more??). It was a bad photo, shaky since Luke had almost fallen while taking it. But the joy in the two boys' faces was evident. It was before Luke's quest, his face lacked the telltale scar Connor grew to hate. This photo was still his brother. His hero.

If Travis found him in the cabin, clutching the photo and sobbing, he didn't question it. Just provided the comfort his little brother required.

Jake can't stand being in the forges alone. A place he used to consider a safe place, it was like a second home. He loved the place, the heat was harsh, sure, but he'd found comfort in it. He couldn't be there alone anymore.

Being alone meant he had time to think about the space around him, remember. He couldn't stand hearing his late brother's voice, the memories of all that he was taught. Everything he knew, everything he taught his siblings, was all Beckendorf. Jake wasn't him, he never would be, he never wanted to be. He was nothing but a fraud. He couldn't handle the cabin like Beckendorf did, he wasn't a leader.

Nyssa never questioned it when he would ask her to accompany him to the forges late at night when they should definitely be asleep. She hated being alone there too.

Drew hated Silena, it was a known fact. Everything the late Aphrodite girl did, Drew hated. Of course, none of the new campers knew of her sudden shift in attitude, but then again, none of the older campers questioned it.

Drew loved Silena, she was her older sister, her best friend. She wanted to be exactly like her, her every move was fascinating. Silena was a goddess in the eyes of her younger sister. That image was forever marred.

How could someone so loving, so nurturing, do something like this? Drew didn't want to believe it. Silena had gone to get the Ares campers, she had been helping them, how could she be the spy? It wasn't possible.

She resented the fact. It shouldn't have been possible. Silena was too kind, to caring to betray them like this. Was it all a lie? Did she ever truly care about them? Her entire world felt upside down, nothing was right. If Silena was capable of something like this, was everyone around her? Who could she trust? She couldn't trust anyone.

Drew hated Silena. She hated the fact that her sister left her alone, she hated the fact that she could never get a proper answer. She hated that she didn't know why she would do this. She hated that she didn't know how she felt. She hated that she still loved her sister, hated that she missed her and hated that she felt empty without her.

Clarisse hates being alone. Being alone means remembering her voice, remembering her own mistakes. If she'd backed down and forked over the chariot, would he still be dead? Would she still be dead? Would they have had less casualties if she'd just swallowed her pride and sucked it up? She gave it to Apollo in the end, so what was the point? Why had it been Silena? Why couldn't it have been herself? She'd lost her own siblings, she hated that, watching her own sibling get eaten?

Ares doesn't show weakness, so she couldn't either. She was the Drakon slayer, but everyone around her was angry with her. Pulling out of the battle was a stupid decision, but all sense seemed to go out the window when it came to arguing with Michael. He'd just gotten much more irritable since the Labyrinth. She hated it.

She hated being alone.

Malcom didn't know how she did it. Annabeth carried their cabin with such strength and confidence. He wanted so badly to be upset with her, but he knew she couldn't lead their cabin. He hated that he wanted her to feel the guilt he felt watching their siblings die. But he had to, he was he second in command, it was his job to lead the cabin when she couldn't. But he wanted so badly, for her to feel how he felt. And it was wrong. She'd suffered so much for them, so why did he want to be upset with her?

He wanted to be upset with her but he didn't want to let her go. So when either of them woke up, panicking and crying from a nightmare, the other was right there. They may understand the others guilt, they may not. It didn't matter.

ignore my silly little drew rant. She deserved better writing, she was only there to make Piper look better(No hate to Piper I love her) and so many people forget her older sister literally got her face melted off. Not to mention the only cabin we know was there was Ares, pretty sure the other cabins were covering tunnels and bridges again. I might be wrong. Either way ✨️

I don't know if Malcom or Clarisse's made much sense. I feel like Malcom would have a lot of guilt in not being able to save his siblings in Manhattan since he's the one that lead them. He's aware Annabeth has her own guilt but he's young yk? He was like 13(inmyheadcannonsatleast) and leading his siblings to their deaths. Annabeth isn't much older but she has more experience leading their cabin. But in the end shes his older sister and he loves her. Clarisse has her own guilt about Silena and the chariot feud. Like if she'd given the chariot to Michael would he still be dead, would Silena be dead? If her cabin fought would the amount of death be lessened? Dunno

[dokoni-mo]

Just to be clear, this isn’t a request, this is a thirst with a question!

So say it’s Halloween in the bunny universe, and Micheal leaves to go spend it with his siblings. So naturally, our favorite Peepaw Afton invites his darling little bunny over, because he just misses them so much. And maybe they haven’t been able to see each other for a little, so William daddy is certainly pent up and just want to feel bunny again

Bunny knows this. They’ve missed him too, and they want to surprise him. Really surprise him. So how will they do it?

Purple Playboy bunny suit. A purple playboy bunny suit. The ears, the tail, the bow tie, and the cuff bracelets all, of it.

Bunny might end up giving him a heart attack

There is something I’d like your opinion on. I can’t decide if William would prefer fishnets, regular tights, or bare legs. I’m kinda leaning towards regular tights, I feel like he would love to rip them to get to his bunny faster 💜

cherry my beloved you are gonna be the death of me /pos

minors dni

warnings: just some word vomit loll, age-gap relationship (reader 20 will almost 40 you know the deal), swearing, sensual touching, sir kink, dom/sub understones, established relationship, not proofread bc i was typing this at like 3872 words per second aklsdfj

Will is definitely definitely a see-through tights kinda guy. Like you know the ones that are kinda sheer, but still have some color to them? He definitely likes those. Fishnets are just a pain to take off. And bare legs are fine of course, but there's just something about the tights that really get him going. Maybe its the fact that they're just barely covering what he wants? Or just likes the look to them? Maybe. But in my opinion, it would be more so because he could rip them off, and he likes the way the plush of your thighs pokes out of them when he does. He loves how soft his bunny is, and unwrapping them like a present just for him is a (not-so) guilty pleasure of his.

I can also see him as like the type of person where like he thinks he's expected to come up with all the surprises and all that in the relationship. He very much likes to wear the pants, and what he says goes. He just wants his bunny to be good for him and love him unconditionally. That's all he ever asks. And when little bunny is good for him, that's when he gets to spoil them.

So if you were to show up in such a surprise for him?? Oh my goodness gracious. He'd be fucking floored.

When Michael told him that he'd be taking out Liz and Evan for halloween, William just knew it was the perfect opportunity to see you. Around the holiday, the diner gets busier than ever decorating and doing on-brand things in celebration. William is an old fart that hates both kids and halloween, so that week is always super stressful for him. Adding on to the stress, he barely gets a chance to see his bunny. Can't even call them on the phone. He gets really fucking frustrated. To the point he can't even relieve himself. When you finally come over halloween night, he's already drooling over having you in his bed again, imagining all the different ways he'll get to play with his bunny.

I can imagine you showing up in like,, an almost comically large coat trynna keep the outfit a secret,, so when he opens the door he's just like,

"Bunny? Are you alright? I don't believe it's that cold... Are you not feeling well, love?"

You scuttle inside and he shuts the door behind you, "No, no, It's just... I didn't know how else to keep your surprise a surprise."

"A surprise? For me? My darling, you know you don't have to do anything like that. Just having you here is all I need, sweet thing."

You take him by the hand and drag him into his bedroom, your cheeks heated in your embarrassment, "Just... trust me, okay? I think you're gonna like it."

He sits on the edge of his bed as you stand in front of him, too nervous to make any sort of eye contact. He watches as you slowly but surely take off your coat and drop it to the floor, feeling heat creeping down his neck as you put on your little bunny-ear headband.

Fucking god you're so cute to him. And purple too? You payed attention well, didn't you bunny? You picked that color for him, didn't you? Oh, his precious little one. His sweet adorable rabbit. You missed him too, didn't you? Of course you did. He missed you just as much. Can't you see it? Especially in the way his pants were already staring to tent?

"I-I'm sorry if you don't like it, but..." you peeped out, "I just saw it at the store and... You always say I'm your bunny, so..."

William didn't say a word as he stood up from his seat, reaching out and grabbing you by the waist and pulling you close. His large, strong hands were already wandering your body, feeling the fabric of your little costume on his fingertips. Pressed against him, you could already feel the effect your little surprise had on him against your thigh as he whispered to you.

"You have five seconds to get on that bed. Now. Or sir won't be very kind to you tonight, bunny."

[heartsofminds]

Pink Stripes

Jake rolls his eyes. “I need to come over.”

“Is that how you talk to your hook-ups? Cause if so, I’m still not seeing the appeal.” or Jake Seresin’s upbringing shapes him into the best Navy pilot there is and also the best dad ever. 

i. 

There’s something about watching a stiff ceiling fan turn in the middle of a heat wave while it storms outside in July. 

The soft “swoosh” the panels make can be mistaken for the subtle breeze outside as the rain taps on the windows relentlessly. The sound is extremely reminiscent of the knock of an annoying younger sibling wanting access to your room; the softness due to their developing muscles and the persistence because they tend to have one-track minds. 

Stained glass windows of the Southern Baptist Church hide the dreariness outside but if you had been attending there long enough (which most of its patrons had been; newcomers and visitors were far and few between) the overcast was extremely obvious. 

Webster, Texas was the hottest it had ever been and this fact proved evident to sixteen-year-old Jacob Michael Seresin who was sitting in a church pew with slacks that are way too big around his waist and a white button-down that is way too starchy for his liking. The shirt is translucent around his armpits and the small of his back; the wife beater underneath sticking to his skin like a shitty temporary tattoo. 

So much for thanking God for the rain and the cooler weather it supposedly brings. 

Jake liked to think that he believed in God, that he was a good enough Christian that if he died today he would find himself in the line that got him a seat in Heaven. But he knows that he falls short in comparison to the people who he goes to church with. 

He doesn’t read his Bible the way his mother and father had wanted him to. He cursed quite a lot whenever his parents weren’t around. He was an asshole to his sisters more often than not. He gets distracted when he prays before bed; oftentimes floating off into Dreamland before he can say “amen.” 

Worst of all, he thinks, is that he can’t stay focused on the sermon to save his life. 

His MeeMaw always used to tell him that his mind was fast; that he was always thinking so much and so quickly that it was almost impossible for everyone else around him to keep up. So when his thoughts start to drift off into what he’s going to eat for lunch or what path to run will serve him best as the quarterback on Friday night or even how he can avoid his obnoxious little sisters once he returns home, he lets it slide because, after all, he does have Meemaw’s blessing. 

Right? 

His grandfather, the Pastor of the small church that his family had been attending since before he was born, reads off a verse from the Book of Philemon and Jake studies the people around him. 

He sees Miss Mary Lou who is well in her eighties with her church hat on and her little paper fan that supplies a placebo of cool air. She used to sit with him and his sisters in the nursery when they were younger and spoil them rotten with butterscotches and those strange strawberry candies that stores never seemed to sell. 

She still lays on her blue eyeshadow thick and her red lipstick even thicker and although it may look cheap and tacky and so grandma-ish to anyone else looking at her, it warms Jake’s heart; good childhood memories brandished in the bow of vacation Bible school and “Jesus Loves Me” sang softly to him whenever he was cradled in her lap. He often pitched fits after his mother would leave him in the nursery (call him a Momma’s boy because it’s simply the truth) and that was the only thing that could calm him down.

He sees Bria Grace McLeod sitting all prim and proper with her perfect blue sundress on and her perfect white cardigan hiding her exposed shoulders. Her perfect blonde hair sits with clear butterfly clips holding up the front two pieces and she looks so angelic, but Jake knows it’s all a facade. Just the night before she was on her knees for him in the corn field that all the teenagers in Webster hung out in. 

He was leaning against his truck and she was going to work on his cock; sloppy and amateur as all get out but who was Jake to complain? Bria Grace was a bit of a biter and he was scared that if he commented on it she would bite him intentionally, so he stayed quiet, busted in her mouth, and drove her home. 

He sees the way her face softens at the mentions of “living like the world” and how the “world” is littered with sex and homosexuality and abortions. The sensitivity on her face shows Jake that she’s feeling remorseful. Shameful. Dirty, even, for what she had done with him last night. 

Jake wants to feel bad for her, wants to push her butter yellow hair back behind her ears and tell her that it’s alright, but he knows that it won’t change anything. He was a horny boy and Bria Grace was a horny girl. She’ll be in his backseat with her legs pushed up to her chest come Friday night. She only feels guilty in the moment, but it’ll cease to exist once church lets out and she gabs with her friends on the landline about who she blew last night.

Guilt.

It’s quite a humorous thing, Jake thinks as his eyes find his father, the assistant Pastor of Webster First Baptist, sitting on the stage behind his grandfather at the pulpit. His suit coat is unbuttoned and fat bullets of sweat stream down his face. 

Call it a sixth sense or a superpower or a gift (as MeeMaw liked to call it) but it never took Jake longer than a few seconds to drink someone in and see how they were feeling. And if he had a dollar for every time his dad sat on that church stage and looked guilty as fuck, he would have enough money to shove up the asses of those fuckers who had good ole Texas oil money and never seemed to shut up about it.

Jake always found himself equal parts confused and angry at how hypocritical his father could be. When his dad wasn’t ignoring him and his sisters, he was belittling Jake for coming home late and drinking beer in the cornfields with his friends; telling him how disobedience is a sin and how if he truly gave a fuck about going to the Naval Academy, he wouldn’t put that shit into his body. 

And Jake used to always repent and feel guilty. His old man was right, he used to think, until he realized that his dad was nothing more than a cheater who was routinely moaning the name of his eldest daughter’s nineteen-year-old roommate behind his children’s mother’s back. 

How drinking underage was a sin but adultery was fair game never seemed to sit right with Jake, but he chalks it all down to the fact that he’s no Aristotle or God or whatever the hell is more powerful than God. He just figures that if his dad were as much of a Godly man as he claimed to be, he would know that wrong is wrong no matter what. 

Jake Seresin doesn’t claim to be a righteous Christian, but fucking your daughter’s barely legal friend unbeknownst to your wife has got to get you extra hell points than underage drinking with your friends, he would assume. 

He doesn’t quite know for sure, though. 

God is funny like that sometimes. 

The choir director sitting beside Jake and his family catches his gaze and sends the boy a tight-lipped smile. Jake doesn’t return it; just sends daggers his way before moving his eyes elsewhere. He tended to do that a lot, nowadays. His eyes often swam in the ocean of his surroundings only to be met with nothing than dryer than dry Webster, Texas. At least with the pouring rain around him, he can pretend like the town he resides in isn’t a shitty mock-up of the movie Holes. 

Jake feels his mother pinch his side subtly. The almond shape of her maroon-colored fingernails paints a stark contrast to the shiny gold of his grandmother’s pearl ring perched on her pointer finger. He tries to ignore the wedding band that shines brightly even in the dreariness of the church. He doesn’t need reminders of his father’s infidelity. 

“Your daddy wouldn’t be happy that you’re noddin’ off during church, Jakey,” she whispers in a sweet tone. Her mouth barely opens and she remains looking straight ahead at his grandpa with her Bible in her lap and a tissue clutched in her other hand. 

Jake freezes; his breath catching in his throat and his mouth going numb like it does when he’s had one too many shots. If his mom told his dad that he wasn’t paying attention in church today, he would surely be in for an earful of hurtful words later. 

He likes to pretend that he’s big and bad and that words don’t hurt but he’s come to realize a long time ago that he internalizes everything; every utterance, every look, every vocal fry embedded in his book of ways to make himself less of a nuisance. It’s a survival guide to help him not look like an idiot, and even though he’s the coolest guy in school, can have any girl he wants, and isn’t too bad on the eyes (It’s cocky to think that, but from the way he hears his sisters’ friends giggling down the hall from his room, he knows it’s true), his father’s approval is the only thing he truly cares about. 

He can never put it into words; can never explain how he hates his dad so much but wants to please him so badly. 

Dads are supposed to care. Dads are supposed to love you unconditionally. Dads are supposed to have a hard time showing emotion and that they care, but somehow will always have your back. 

And despite that being what the norm is and wishing for it while blowing out his candles on his cake every birthday up until this past year, his dad always made him feel small. Inadequate. Hard to be around. Downright un-fucking-lovable. 

Reverend John Marshall Seresin is a hometown hero; the town’s golden boy before he went off to the Naval Academy like his father and his grandfather and generations upon generations of Seresin men before him. He was a carbon copy of his father, Marshall John, and Marshall was a carbon copy of his father, John Michael.

And with faces that told the story of a legacy crafted decades and decades before Jake was even thought of (he’s not even sure he can even begin to fathom how many years of difference are between his great great great grandfather and he) invited the pressure. 

All Seresins were Texas born and raised with Navy blood running rampant through their veins. Jake’s father (and grandfather, and great grandfather, and great great grandfather, and every other son of a bitch who shared the same last name as him) was the star quarterback of Webster High turned Naval Academy graduate turned Rear Admiral turned Southern Baptist Preacher. 

Jake’s just not so sure that “turned cheating low-life who steps out on his wife and four kids to play House with his daughter’s college roommate” is a life achievement that everyone in his family shared as well. 

The cheating was something that Jake found out by accident; sneaking in hours after his curfew and walking by his dad’s shed on the way to crawl into his bedroom window with shrieks and moans from a voice that was certainly not his mom’s. And he tried to ignore it; tried not to let the idea that his dad may or may not have cheated on his mom escape his mind but he kept finding himself in the same situation every Friday evening when he was sneaking back in from getting lucky in the cornfield with his hookup for the night. 

He pieced together that the mistress was his sister’s college roommate (Natalie, he thinks her name is) during Christmas break a few months ago; the hickies she had on her neck were concealed to the untrained eye but noticeable to someone looking for clues. Her voice matched the one he had heard screaming in the shed for weeks and her frame matched what would have fit into the baby blue bra he had found stuffed in his dad’s toolbox. 

The realization had made him physically ill. Fuck them for making him miss out on MeeMaw’s Christmas ham. 

The worst part wasn’t the fact that his dad was a cheater or that his mom was oblivious. The worst part for Jake was knowing that he was the only one who knew, and as much as he liked to hold things over people’s heads or revel in the fact that he knew a secret that no one else was even slightly aware of and the burden weighs heavy in his chest. 

How long does he let it fester? How would he even go about telling his mom? Would she even believe him? Would his father skin him alive if he knew that his son knew everything about his affair? If his parents divorced, where would that leave his sisters? Him, even? 

The questions filled his mind like a twelve-foot pool, yet every time he thinks he has an answer, he’s diving into the shallow end and screwing himself over. He guesses his theoretical spinal injury is significantly better than all the drama that would ensue from the word about his father’s extramarital affair. 

If he could just keep it buried long enough, he would be fine. 

That’s how Seresins stayed afloat. 

That’s how all of Webster stayed afloat if he’s being honest. You let bygones be bygones and hope to God no one knows. 

But you know that you’ll be talked about ruthlessly by those sweet, old Southern ladies during their Wednesday night Bible studies because they tend to gossip and scheme and come up with scenarios that aren’t too far off from the truth. 

And they’ll call their kids and tell them and then said kids who are on the PTA make it school-wide gossip and before you know it, you’re the talk of the town in every hairdresser, barber shop, grocery convenience store, and small prayer group within a fifteen-mile radius, but it’s not like anyone really cares. 

Except they do. 

And they’re judgmental. 

And even though the downfall of his family hasn’t happened yet and if it did, it would be no one’s fault but his father’s, Jake doesn’t know if he could handle the aftermath. 

He knows he’s not ready to tuck his mom into bed after she cried so hard she blacked out. He knows he’s not ready to put every guy his little sisters bring home under the microscope with the prayer that they’ll be nothing like their shitty, cheating dad. He certainly isn’t ready for the freezer full of casseroles and the hushed whispers paired with the “bless their hearts” as he and his family walk by a group of women in the grocery store.  

The saying is sweet to an outsider, but it says all that Jake needs to know. 

“Well, aren’t they shit out of luck?” And he figures that at that point, he wouldn’t be able to do anything but agree. How lucky would he be to have to pick up the pieces of his parents’ messy divorce? How lucky would he be to have to scoop his sisters off the floor after being thrown away so carelessly by their sweet daddy who used to do anything for them? 

How lucky is he now to know something that no one but God knows, and feel like he has an atomic bomb strapped to his chest? 

Jake thinks the only lottery he’ll ever have the pleasure of winning is the shitty hand of cards he’s been dealt by being born a Seresin. 

Honor, courage, and commitment; “Go Navy” his ass. 

He feels his mother pinch the side of his thigh and a small puff of air signifying her annoyance in his ear. He can see her lips stretch into a thin line at the sight of her son ignoring her earlier request. 

Jake’s for sure in some deep shit with his father later. There’s no way his mom is going to let this slide. He can already envision his father’s glare from the rearview mirror on the way home from church; his dad’s ears bright pink from both the humidity outside and the pure rage that Jake seems to strike in him. 

His dad wouldn’t start yelling at him until he turned down the dirt road near Prickett Street where there were only longhorns, wheat, and longhorn shit for miles. Just miles upon miles of nothing; not even golden rod-colored paint marking the road for two lanes of traffic. 

John Marshall never liked for people to see him in any way that could be construed as negative. His dark side was a secret that was meant to be kept within the confines of their home (and his Chevy Tahoe, apparently). Jake’s scoldings often occurred on the drive home or in the sanctuary of his dad’s tool shed outside; outbursts of anger followed by apathy. 

His dad would damn near shun him after he finished giving him a stern talking to. The lack of attention, the lack of feeling like his dad even gives a shit that he has a son that wants to be loved and accepted by him; still makes Jake’s eyes water despite losing the ability to cry over his dad’s treatment years ago. 

There’s just something about a black hole of a heart that comes to mind when he cries; especially the skin-melting pain that was felt to rip a hole in the fabric of the universe (which in this case, is Jake Seresin’s heart). 

The lump in his throat makes him feel small again even though he stands six feet even and is the same height as his dad. It transports him back to the more than unfavorable moments in his life and his world is blacked out by flashbacks of his father’s disappointment. 

He’s six and being given the silent treatment after his first flag football game for not running the ball to the end zone. He’s ten and his dad lays into him about striking out during his travel baseball game despite hitting two home runs in the last three innings. 

He’s twelve and being told that he’s stupid; that he won’t amount to anything if he tried, and that he “Should’ve been a girl if you were gonna be this goddamn useless!”

Now he’s sixteen, sitting on the fear of being berated on the ride home later and trying to keep it all together. 

“And all of God’s people said.” 

“Amen!” 

The rush of people getting up to go to the back of the church can be heard and despite his entire family getting up, Jake remains frozen in place. He can’t move. He can’t breathe. His mind is moving faster than his body. 

MeeMaw waltzes past him. She puts her bony hand on his shoulder and squeezes it. 

“It’s okay to not want to get your hair wet, baby. Know you Seresin men spend so much time on it,” she teases, smile grazing her sunken in features and church hat perfectly placed on her head. 

Jake offers her a small chuckle, the apples of his cheeks rising and falling. “Is this the nice way of calling me conceited?” he asks, voice small but a teasing edge to it. 

MeeMaw laughs before pressing a kiss to his cheek. Her magenta lipstick is sure to leave a print on his face until he can use some of his sister’s makeup remover later. 

“No, it’s the Southern way of sayin’ it. Now, come help your MeeMaw to the car before I say something unkind to MaryLou about her eyeshadow.” 

Jake takes his grandma’s arm and catches his father’s gaze in passing before quickly averting his eyes elsewhere. His confidence dwindles significantly when he’s aware of his father’s presence. 

The fifteen-minute drive from the church to his home is always uneventful unless he was getting screamed, at which he’s sure is happening at some point.

He takes his seat between his two little sisters. If Anna Caroline was here, she would bully the youngest two to squeeze in the middle so she and Jake could have the two window seats. Being the oldest and the oldest sister seemed to always get you what you want. 

But with AC moving to college this past year and leaving him alone with two girls who could barely even be considered teenagers, Jake is outnumbered. Arguing with his little sisters is another losing battle he has to face regularly, and Jake thinks his time is better spent keeping his mouth shut rather than getting into screaming matches with people who had to look up at him to make eye contact. 

Sitting in the middle seat was torture though because Jake had a front row seat to his father’s eyes through the rearview mirror. Jake’s father is equally as introspective and knit-picky as his son. Jake’s entire personality is built around walking on eggshells around his dad. 

He wonders if in another life he would be less of an ass but quickly dismisses the thought. It’s hard to believe that his father can be nice to him written anywhere in his psyche; even a make-believe one. 

His mother sits with a scowl on her face. She’s made it clear that she’s upset with his father because he forgot to shut their bedroom window this morning like she had asked. There’s no way that with the storm being as harsh as it is that the carpet near the window is anything synonymous to dry. She also is pretty annoyed at Jake for not listening earlier and nodding off during the sermon. 

His mother usually handled him with grace. She knows her husband can be a lot and Jake is a momma’s boy to the max. But she does keep him in check and she’s not afraid to let his father deal with him if she has to. 

What she doesn’t know is how awful his father truly treats him. 

Jake will never say anything and his father sure as hell would never tell on himself. How he’s treated is their dirty little secret. 

“Your son wasn’t paying attention to the message today,” his mother speaks and Jake’s shoulders tighten at the sound of her voice. 

His dad has his right hand on the steering wheel and his left fiddling with the toothpick sticking out of the side of his teeth. “Hmm,” is all he says. His mom runs her fingers through her bleach blonde hair and she sighs. 

Her annoyance is obvious and he knows that she’ll go to their room and take a nap before they’re due back at the church for the evening service. “Are you even listening to me?” she whispers, turning her body to be closer to the passenger side door. 

His father shifts his stance, his right hand abandoning the wheel and resting on his mother’s thigh. “When have I ever ignored you, honey?” 

Jake has to stop himself from rolling his eyes. He has to withhold a gag when his dad brings his mom’s knuckles up to his hand and kisses them. The only reason why the younger Seresin’s eyeballs aren’t looking at the tops of his occipital bones right now is the fact that his dad could see him. He doesn’t want to take the chance of his dad coming unglued on him.

All he can think about is how those lips were on another person; another woman (if a nineteen-year-old could even be considered that, of course) feeling the same facial feature in places way less holy and pure as his mom’s hands. 

He can hear the grunts and can see the subtle shaking of the tool shed in the backyard; the light beaming a soft yellow from some of the small holes in the wood and the indigo sky swallowing it like an abyss. 

Jake’s had his fair share of shitty feelings and, of course, evoking those shitty feelings onto other people but he knows for a fact that he could never live like this; the sneaking around and the lying. The crazed caution and the heavyweight in his chest of knowing that what he’s doing is wrong. Jake knows he’s a sinner, but he could never be a sinner like his father. And if he ever finds it within his poor, damaged, and disgusting soul to cheat on his wife one day? 

He’ll knock on hell’s door his damn self. 

Jake clenches his fists at his sides and grinds his teeth. He figures the best way to keep from violently outbursting and confessing his father’s sins for him is to tune out his surroundings. 

He focuses on the environment around him; how the pleather of the car seat feels against his church slacks, how his little sister’s elbow pokes into his ribs despite having all the room in the world near the window seat she so ruthlessly stripped him of. He focuses on the sound of small gravel stones being kicked up from the wheels of the car and flung to the side of the road. 

He thinks back to a time when this wasn’t his life; where he wasn’t the crypt keeper of secrets and things were fine and dandy and he didn’t have to worry about slouching or winning the football game or studying his ass off for his ASVAB and ACT so he could get into the Academy. He thinks back to when he was a kid and the harsh reality of life was banned from infiltrating his perfect bubble filled with Arthur reruns and lukewarm apple juice. 

Sunday afternoons were his favorite when he was little. His siblings would scatter around their house finding things to do and doing as they pleased. His parents would always take a nap; his mom on top of the duvet in their bedroom and curled up with a throw blanket and their dad passed out in the recliner, their family dog Chaps sitting at his feet and soft snores coming from both of them. 

He and AC would terrorize their little sisters; chasing them around outside with bugs and frogs in their hands. Sometimes when he wasn’t feeling like being a God-awful older brother he would bring out his baseball and play catch with them. He even taught them how to play Chess and Go-Fish. On the rare occasion when they begged hard enough, he would find himself in a ridiculous church hat of his MeeMaw’s that she “donated” to her granddaughters to play dress-up in, pinkie up and sipping imaginary tea on a small, pastel pink stool. 

Now Sunday afternoons give him the shakes. He knows that he has about fifteen minutes to hop in his truck and leave the house before his father came to find him and work his nerves. His brain doesn’t even process that his dad has pulled into the driveway of their home until his little sister, Maggie, closes the car door a little too hard. 

“God, almighty,” his mother sighs, shaking her head at her daughter’s roughness. 

The family treks inside and goes their separate ways. The creaky floorboards signify the movement in different spots in the house and Jake bolts to his room; taking off his church clothes at lightning speed and throwing on a sweatshirt and some shorts. He damn near breaks his neck running to the shoe rack by the front door with his keys in his hand before he feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. 

Most people get that goose-pimpled feeling whenever they’re nervous or chilled beyond belief. Jake seemed to always get that feeling around his father; when it was just Jake, him, and God with no bystanders. 

The unthinkable always had a propensity to happen in settings like these. 

“Need you to come out back to the shed with me, son.”

Jake pushes his foot into his Nike. He feels frozen. 

“You not gonna say anything?” his father chides, loosening his tie and crumpling the object in his hand. Jake’s father meant business and he’s extremely curious to know what his deal is with him now. 

“Yes, sir,” Jake manages to speak and he hears the light tap of his father’s church shoes getting smaller and smaller as the distance between them widens. 

Jake pushes himself off of the floor, heart heavy with nerves and stomach tied in knots tighter than any Cub Scout leader could bear to manage. His feet feel like they’ve been forced into slabs of concrete as he grabs his rain jacket and heads to the Pandora's Box of secrets; his dad’s tool shed. 

His father is already in the back, the lightbulb sticking out of the ceiling lit and casting a golden hue across the small building. Jake can’t hear himself think. Moments like these, ones where it’s just him and his dad, send him into flight mode. 

His father stands with a tarnished yellow cloth in his hand; wiping down some part that was supposed to be put in MeeMaw’s car later this week. 

“Shut the door,” his father says, not once acknowledging Jake in the mere thirty seconds he had been standing in front of him. 

Jake nods and grips the handle of the shed with shaky hands. His mind is screaming at him to run and scolding him for not telling his mother he was going out back with his dad. He had noticed whenever he made a point to let his mother know where he was when he was to be alone with his dad that his father wasn’t nearly as harsh as he usually was. 

The silence is ominous; harrowing in the worst way possible. Jake almost has the nerve to speak up and ask what the hell his dad needed him here for, but alas, his mouth is dryer than dry and his words get caught in his throat. 

This can’t be good. This can’t be good. This cannot be good at all.

The frenzy of thoughts his mind sends him into is cut short by the slam of metal on the janky table that homes all of his father’s tools and “Honey, do” projects. 

“You wanna tell me why David McLeod is runnin’ round my fuckin’ church? Knockin’ on my goddamn door sayin’ that he caught my son bending his sweet daughter over in their front yard two nights ago?” his father’s voice booms. 

And there it is. 

Jake bites his lip to keep from laughing. His dad has quite the nerve when two nights ago, he caught him screwing AC’s roommate’s brains out. Who the hell is he to be screaming at him for enjoying himself? 

Jake shakes his head and continues to bite his lip; his eyebrows pent upwards to withhold the smart allecky comment he has brewing in his mouth. 

“You not gonna say anything, kid?” his father throws down the rag and stomps closer to his son, “I’m fucking talking to you!” 

Jake swallows before he lets his comment loose. He knows he shouldn’t; knows that disobeying your parents and talking back is a violation of the Ten Commandments or whatever (Baptist Christians are batshit crazy, he’s determined a long time ago). He knows he shouldn’t, but he does. 

“Just think it’s funny you keep saying your church when it’s Papaw’s.” 

John Marshall Seresin, does in fact, hate that answer. 

“Listen here and listen fucking good, kid,” his father spits, grabbing the shirt of his collar and pushing him up against the door. “You better not go ‘round here fucking that girl and lettin’ her daddy catch ya. They’re a bunch of low lives anyway.” 

The way his father is so easily ready to demean someone else; to talk down on them as if they amount to nothing yet be a smiling plastic figure in their faces come Sunday morning strikes a match in the flame that resides in Jake’s stomach. 

Jake shakes his head, a sarcastic laugh sitting on his lips and falling off his lips faster than he can register. 

“What’s so fuckin’ funny, Jakey?” his father sneers. 

And Jake knows that he should stop. He knows that speaking his mind isn’t the brightest idea he’s had. But Jake chalks it all down to the fact that he’s smart. Wise is something that he never claimed to be. 

“It’s just hilarious that you’re calling them low lives for what?” he pushes his father off of him before backing his old man into a corner, “Because they’re poor? Because they’re not “Navy” bred? David is a piece of work, but at least he’s not fucking his daughter’s friend.” 

John Marshall’s eyes widen the size of a full moon at his son’s admission of knowledge. He knew that someone had noticed and he had figured it was a matter of time until one of his children (preferably any of his children that weren’t Jake) would find out. 

“You don’t know jack shit, young man,” his father demands, face as bright red as the tomatoes in his mother’s garden. 

Jake is beyond terrified. He knows that he’s in for some deep shit and that his father’s words will cut deep. Despite his brain screaming at him to diffuse the situation, to walk with his tail between his legs and carry on as if nothing happened, he ignores it. 

Above all else, he’s angry. He’s angry that he lets his father talk to him the way that he does. He’s angry that his father gets a free pass to act however he wants with no one there to check him. He’s angry that his father will inevitably tear the family apart that Jake’s spent the better half of fifteen years attempting to keep together. 

So he doesn’t bite his tongue this time around. He doesn’t shy away from being the true smart-ass everyone in Webster knew him as. He rolls his shoulders back and clenches his fists at his sides. 

“What I do know is that this is awful and mom doesn’t deserve that,” he calmly speaks. He braces himself for his father’s touch bulldozing him through the wall or a punch to the gut. Jake’s dad very rarely put his hands on his son, but on the handful of occasions that he had, Jake always walked away with some kind of bruise that his mother would pester him about until it healed. 

The push or smack or punch doesn’t come and Jake almost relaxes before he jumps out of his skin at the sound of his father’s hands slamming on the metal table. 

“You’re just fucking stupid, aren’t ya?” His dad shakes his head and laughs, a deep chuckle coming from his belly as if Jake had just told him the funniest goddamn joke in the entire world. 

“Stupid enough to nod off during church. Stupid enough to fuck that no-good tramp. Wonder if you’re stupid enough to ruin your mama’s life, son,” he gripes. “If I go down, so does this whole family.” 

And Jake thinks that his father is wrong about a lot of things, but he has to give him credit where it’s due. The revelation would tear his family to absolute shreds. MeeMaw and Papaw would be judged for raising such an awful son. His mother would be laughed at behind her back with the embarrassment hanging over her like a raincloud. “How could she not have known?” being thrown around every hairdresser and nail salon in the area. AC would lose her mind, he’s sure. He can’t even be somewhat delusional with himself and think that she wouldn’t do anything slight of going fucking bananas. 

“But it’s your move, Ace. If I were you, I’d keep quiet. Especially if you want a shot of getting out of this hellhole like you told Bria Grace.”  His dad fixes the tools haphazardly on the table; trying to make it look as uniform as possible; as perfect as possible. Just like his family on the outside. 

His father walks to the door before stopping and turning to his son whose blond hair looks white in comparison to how pink his face is. “That bitch ain’t as good of a secret keeper as you thought she was. How the hell do you think David found out?” 

The door slams before Jake can even react and for the millionth time in his life, Jake feels small. All he can manage to do is hold his cries in until he starts to hiccup and the flow of his tears streaming down his face match the rainfall gracing dryer than dry Webster, Texas. 

So much for thanking God for the rain and the blessings it was supposed to bring. 

ii. 

Today is Jacob Seresin’s eighteenth birthday. 

Although he thoroughly believed that birthday wishes were a scam and that people treating you slightly better on your “special day” was bullshit, some part of him still enjoyed the fact that it was his birthday every year. 

He can’t decide if it’s the overwhelming amount of love his mom and sisters gift him on the morning of his birthday or if it’s because he’s one year closer to distancing himself from his father’s wrath. 

And as Jake’s alarm clock sounds and he’s formally shaken awake by his mom and sisters busting open his door, his heart aches for moments like these that he’ll miss once he moves out of the house. 

There’s just something about waking up on the morning of your birthday at home and having happy birthday sang to you before you can even blink the sleep out of your eyes. The small moments like these make his life not so much of a living hell and he can almost gaslight himself into not wanting to go so far away; to defer his acceptance into the Naval Academy and to stay at home for another year. 

His mom would always make her infamous banana walnut pancakes and pair it with an awful rendition of “Happy Birthday.” She would joke that God didn’t bless her with good vocal cords but did bless her with good cooking. And with one bite of her pancakes, Jake decides why he loves his birthday. 

Simply just because of his mom’s banana pancakes. 

He loved the cards his sisters would hand make him every year too. They would corral his bed and wait with their eyes wide open as if they hadn’t been born with eyelids to see how he reacted to their cards. AC’s always having some cartoonish drawing of him that was slightly offensive and Maggie and Rosie are always having words misspelled in a stew of comically large vowels and consonants. 

He can never figure out if they actually enjoy making him cards or if it’s some sick, twisted, girlish game that they play to determine which card he likes the most that year. 

Jake almost is a good brother and plays into it, before he decides that his job as a brother is to be annoying, and dutifully says that he loves them all equally even though they all know (him included) that he’s lying straight through his teeth. 

If he had to pick, he would always pick AC (though he does admit, Rosie has been giving her a run for her money as of late). 

And because of these festivities and because of the unconditional love his mom and sisters give him, he almost would be content staying in Webster for the rest of his life. 

He dreams of having a big house with a big dog and a big yard and a wrap-around porch down the street from his parents’ house. He dreams of Saturday night football being watched with his pretty wife and his precious babies and then those precious babies growing up and making him a grandpa and he and his wife growing old. 

The fantasy he creates in his head is almost perfect and he almost considers it until he waltzes into his kitchen to find his dad reading the paper in his pajamas with a solemn silence surrounding him like a plague. 

And it’s then that Jake realizes why he longed for this day since he was eleven and why the only college he applied to out of state was the Academy. 

He tries to tiptoe around his dad like an utter dumbass and he knows that he isn’t tiny or quiet in the slightest and when his plate and fork clatter in the sink louder than he anticipated, he’s met with the quick rustle of newspaper and the sunken in green eyes of his father peering back into his identical ones. 

His dad clears his throat before taking a sip of his coffee. Jake wonders if his dad is stalling if he was planning on avoiding his son just as he was planning on avoiding his dad today. 

“Anna Caroline is coming in tonight for your birthday dinner,” his father speaks barely above a whisper. 

Jake nods before turning on his heel to head back upstairs to get ready for school. “Noted, sir. Thank you.” 

His father offers a straight-lipped smile before turning his attention back to the paper. The creaks that shadow Jake’s movement toward the stairs seem louder than any fighter jet or rock concert even though they could barely be heard between Maggie and Rosie’s arguing and Chaps’s barking. 

“Happy eighteenth, Ace,” his father manages to say before dumping the rest of his coffee in the sink and resorting back to the master bedroom to get ready for the day. 

Jake just nods and feels an eerie sense of calm run up his arms. He just had a feeling; something in his gut telling him that something wasn’t right, that something really, really bad was set to happen but he boils it down to the Calculus test he had later today during fourth period. 

Only girls got gut feelings, he remembered AC saying to him once. So he shrugs and heads up to his room before hopping in his truck to make the ten-minute drive up the road to stroll into Webster High School.

Jake can’t shake that eerie feeling all day. It makes it hard to eat, to think, even to write. His hand shook horribly whenever he went to write the sign for a derivative during his math test and he erased the goddamn thing at least five times until he was sure one more fuck up would leave a hole in his paper.  

He ends up leaving the question blank. He has a ninety-seven percent in the class and already got into all the colleges he applied to anyway. It’s not like a measly three points is going to be the end of the world for him. 

Jake still feels the knots in his stomach as he hops into his truck to drive home after football practice and no matter what he does, he can’t exactly put his finger on what would make him feel like this. He almost has half the mind to whip out his cell phone and call AC to talk about it, but he knows that she’ll go into older sister mode once she hears any slight indication that he’s in the car and will go off about texting and driving and how immature her brother is even being eighteen years old today. 

He can practically see her caramel brown hair pulled up in a ponytail and a summer dress on her body while she shouts at him through the phone about any and every grievance she has ever had with him because once Anna Caroline gets started, she never stops. People who think that Jake is a firecracker have never been in the same room as AC because she was a goddamn nuclear bomb compared to him. 

He grins when he sees her white Jeep Cherokee in the gravel of their driveway with a sorority sticker embellishing the back window. 

Jake damn near sprints into the house to hug his older sister before he stops cold in his tracks and sees her. 

Anna Caroline brought her roommate home to celebrate Jake’s eighteenth birthday with his family, and it’s then when he determines that life could not fuck him forwards, backward, upside down, and right side up more than it currently is with his dad subtly trying to eye her tits and Jake trying to bite his tongue. 

The freckled, teeny, tiny strawberry blonde who was the owner of the light blue B cup bra Jake had found in his dad’s toolbox and probably the owner of a magenta thong he had found tucked in the driver’s pocket of his dad’s car a few weeks ago. 

And as she waves to Jake and gives him a slight hug and an even slighter, “Happy birthday,” attached to it, Jake decides that the girl is pretty. She’s certainly not a stranger as she’s been to the Seresin home a multitude of times since rooming with Anna Caroline freshman year of college. She’s sweet, friendly, and a tried and true friend of his sister’s. In another world, Jake thinks she would be his type, but only if that other world is one where she’s not fucking his married fifty-five-year-old father behind his eldest sister’s back. 

“Jakey!” Anna Caroline hollers, running towards her younger brother and wrapping her arms around his neck like a boa constrictor. Jake swears she does this shit on purpose; playing “nice” but torturing him so secretly that he could never say anything without being called a drama queen. 

He chuckles before forcibly unclasping her hands from cutting off his breathing. “Don’t choke me out. I’ll punch you in your throat if you do.”  

His mother gasps and hits his shoulder with a dishtowel. “Jacob Michael! That is no way to talk to a woman.” 

Jake and AC share a conniving grin before his dad clears his throat and starts his journey toward the dinner table. The soft squeak of the wooden oak chair sliding across the floor signifies that his father was ready to eat, which means everyone should be ready to eat. 

The awkward silence fills the gap of what should be a happy birthday; a day spent celebrating Jake and his last year at home and stories of his growing up to this point in his life. But it’s far from being about Jake at all, he realizes, as he catches his father’s gaze; his sea glass eyes throwing the stone in to the river of possibilities that Jake very much could blow the roof off of his house of secrets.

After his father blesses the food, a regal quietness plagues the table; the sounds of forks and knives on his mom’s good Chinaware mixed in with the quiet giggles of Rosie and Maggie and the eyes of Natalie who looks like she’s about to throw up at any second. 

And Jake wants to turn his brain off, wants to rid himself of that stupid skill he has of reading people like a goddamn People magazine headline, but he can’t. 

All it takes is one look and Jake sees in her what he sees in his dad every Sunday sitting behind his grandfather on the stage. 

Guilt. 

And if this was on one of those shitty sitcoms his sisters liked to watch on Wednesday nights after church and in between homework time and bedtime, he would almost laugh and plead with someone to change the channel. 

But it isn’t an episode of Gilmore Girls or One Tree Hill, and he can’t even fool himself to pretend like it is. The ten-pound heap of bricks of his father’s infidelity sits on his chest and ruins the ability for him to even imagine that completely. 

Jake is lost in his train of thought as he mindlessly chews on his steak before his arm is haphazardly knocked off the table by AC. His fork clatters on the ground and she sends him a shit-eating grin; one that older sisters only have the capability of sending with just the right amount of childishness but also holding an heir of authority. She holds in her giggle before answering their mother about her boyfriend she has back at A&M and Jake is sent shaking his head before lowering himself beneath the table cloth to retrieve his utensil. 

Although being tall was something that most certainly worked in his favor more often than not, Jake wishes his height didn’t make small things like this so difficult. He holds in a grunt as he gets down on the floor beneath the tablecloth and stretches as far as he can go to retrieve the fork that falls in between the chairs of his father and Natalie. 

His eyes catch the slight glimmer of his dad’s wedding ring and he can see his father’s hand rubbing Natalie’s bare knee. He sees his dad’s hand slide farther and farther up Natalie’s leg and Jake feels his face getting hot; the weight of the secret he had been keeping for two years now choking him. 

His head catches on the table with a loud thud and the dishes and silverware clank as a result. His mother gasps and his sisters laugh as he rubs his temple harshly, his fork gripped in his palm like a vice.

“Came out screamin’ and you’re still making a ruckus. What am I gonna do without you here next year?” his mom comments, her manicured fingers coming across the table to pinch his cheeks like how she used to when he was little. 

“Jump for joy and pray he never comes back,” Anna Caroline remarks, purposefully biting her fork and letting the metal scrape her teeth. She knows the sound grinds Jake’s gears like no other.

“You know, there was a time when you weren’t a bitch,” he says quietly, hoping that his mother and father don’t hear the curse word slip from his lips. As far as they’re concerned, he’s never smoked, drank, cursed, or had sex before in his life. 

His father straightens in his seat, his hand still hidden underneath the blue gingham table cloth covering the dinner table. He shoots his son a knowing look; one that has “Watch your mouth” written all over it. 

He cowers in his seat and tries to cover his uneasiness with a cough.

The table falls silent once again before his father decides to perk up and start a conversation. 

But the problem with that is that no conversation is ever truly a conversation with John Marshall. Every speaking point somehow turned into a lecture or a gloat or some kind of pointed remark that made you feel small inside, and Jake’s not sure how he got through the Naval Academy with an attitude like that or how he was so well-liked, but for some reason, he always made it work. 

“You ready for this week’s game, Ace?” he asks and Jake’s face pales because he knows that he’s soon to be met with confrontation. 

The pause before his answer is pregnant and as he opens his mouth to say something, his dad beats him to fill the air with his voice. 

“You and this delayed speech. Would think I was raisin’ a Helen Keller the way you go about ignoring adults.” 

Jake was told that he was a very calm and mellow baby and despite his asshole-ish nature that’s developed alongside his God complex the older he’s gotten, it still remains somewhat true. And he knows that what his father said wasn’t even the worst of things that have ever been said to him and he knows that he has no right to blow the lid off Webster, Texas’s new cover story (especially at his eighteenth birthday dinner over steak and potatoes), but something in Jake snaps. 

He thinks about not saying what he’s about to say; about not breaking the dam of tears that will flood his house, but he ignores the caution sign anyway and forces the comment out of his throat instead. 

“Yeah, well, at least you ain’t raisin’ a cheater.” 

He can see AC raise her brows at him in a “what the fuck” manner. His dad chokes on his water before clearing his throat. He sends his son an aggravated look before sighing and rubbing his temples with his hands. Natalie looks pale completely; her hazel eyes wide with guilt and fear as if she had seen God himself in front of her and turning her away from Heaven. 

His mother purses her lips before clutching her napkin in her hands. “What do you mean by that, Jakey?” 

And Jake really should stop. He knows that this is unfair. He knows that he’s being unreasonable. He knows that this will be the end, but he can’t bring himself to give any less of a fuck than he does right at this second. 

“Oh, you know. Just think it’s nice to know that you and your husband aren’t raising a guy who cheats on his wife and fucks his daughter’s roommate every Friday night, is all.” 

The silence around them crafts a bubble of disbelief. 

No one dares to say anything. No one dares to move. No one attempts to look anyone else in the eye. 

The world has officially stopped turning. 

The tears in his mother’s eyes freeze and create an ocean in her sockets. She sniffles before sliding her chair back and escaping quietly to the back bedroom. The door slams shut and click with a lock before Jake is really aware of what he had done. 

Natalie runs to the nearest bathroom, the sound of her retching into the toilet echoing through the house like a tornado siren. 

His dad kicks the kitchen table and he and his siblings jump at his action. His face is bright red and the veins encasing his temples bulge out like a warning. 

“Good job, Ace,” he says, patting his son's shoulder with the force of an anchor before grabbing his keys and speeding off from their driveway to God knows where.

His youngest sisters sit at the table shocked; not quite old enough to understand what Jake was implying with his words but knowing that whatever just occurred in front of them at their dining table was bad. AC shakes as she gets up to usher them to their room. 

One look at her pink ears and the hairs at the base of her neck sticking to her skin with angry perspiration makes Jake wish he could take it back; that he could hold the secret in for a few more years until it eventually came out. But what’s done is done, and he can’t even really believe the avalanche of what he had done with just a compound statement. 

He sits at the table in disbelief for what feels like hours before Anna Caroline rounds about the corner and places her hands on the chair furthest away from him. Her head is bowed as she sniffles, gray mascara tears running down her face and stopping at her chin. 

“Do you have any fucking clue what you just did?” she asks weakly, her voice nasally with sadness and betrayal. 

Jake shakes his head slightly. He’s never been good at being guilty. “It just came out.” 

Anna Caroline whips her head up, her face back to bright pink and her eyes narrowed as sharp as daggers. 

“It just came out? It just came out my ass! You fucking knew for two whole years,” she screams, stepping closer to him to where Jake can feel the blistering heat radiate off of her body, “Two whole fucking years and you didn’t think to tell me about it?” 

Now is Jake’s turn to be pissed off. “You weren’t fucking here! You went off to college and got to pretend like you only had a family when you weren’t too hungover to drive home!” His chest heaves up and down and he has to take deep breaths through his nose.  

Anna Caroline gets in his face; her anger is reminiscent of their father’s when he was really pissed off. “I know for a goddamn fact that you’re not calling me selfish when this whole fucking episode of yours just imploded our family from the inside out,” she spits, her forehead damn near touching Jake’s, “All you ever seem to fucking do is think about yourself, Jacob.” 

Jake pushes himself backward in his chair to create some space between himself and his sister. “Think about my- Anna Caroline, you were the first person I fucking thought of!” 

She scoffs and rolls her eyes, her nostrils flaring slightly to allow more air into her lungs before she explodes. “Obviously, you didn’t think enough because while you’re away at the Academy this summer, I’m gonna be sitting here in this hellhole with a fucking civil engineering degree playing Mommy Homemaker until our parents’ divorce is finalized.” 

Jake opens his mouth to shoot back a charged comment, but he closes it. He’s done enough damage tonight. 

“You were “thinking” about me, yeah. You were thinking about how somehow you were gonna make this my problem while you get to do fuck-all in Annapolis,” she accuses. 

“Why are you-” 

“And did you think about how unfair that was to mom? To Natalie? To our fucking little sisters?” she puts her hands on her hips as she paces back and forth near their kitchen table, “No and you know why? Because Jacob Seresin can’t stand having dirt on someone and not humiliating them for the sake of his own entertainment.” 

“AC it’s not even-” he starts, but his sister’s nuclear bomb-like anger beat him to it. 

The guilt-ridden expression Jake wears on his face makes Anna Caroline even angrier, as she moves toward him to push him back in his chair. 

“Just,” she shoves her finger in his chest, “Like. Dad.” And her palm lands flat on his chest before forcibly pushing him back farther in the oak seat than he had sat before. 

The wind is knocked out of his ribcage before he can even process what’s going on. She stomps her way up the staircase before pausing halfway and leaning down to scream at him once more. 

“You’re fucking dead to this family, Jacob,” she seethes, “And you’re fucking dead to me.” With that, she turns on her heel and like their mother hours before, slams the door of her childhood bedroom shut. 

Today is Jacob Michael Seresin’s eighteenth birthday, and is also the day he tore his family apart. 

iii. 

Jake Seresin always dreamed of being a dad, but he had never anticipated that he would become a father as instantaneously as he is right now. 

Jake is thirty-two years old and is a man who has had sex. A lot of sex, may he add, and being deployed and single as one of the world’s greatest naval aviators was a dangerous setup for him to limit the number of hook-ups he currently had tallied. 

There were some pretty great ones that he can recall and even though he was raised by great Southern women and with sisters, he can’t help but fall into the misogynistic trap that is the military every now and again, and he’ll find himself getting into the nitty gritty of who he last fucked with his friends after a couple of straight whiskeys at whichever bar was accessible to them at the time. 

And Jake’s not disgusting with it; never says anything demeaning but he’s sure that if the girl he had hooked up with heard how he was describing her flexibility or how she was able to give him some of the best head of his life, he knows her face would be flushed bright red. 

Although getting married and having kids is a dream of Jake’s, he thought that for his age and for his status, it was a pipe dream. 

That is until one fateful morning a full week and a half before he’s due to report back to Lemoore from sunny San Diego he hears a knock on his door. 

Jake gets up off the floor from doing his morning ab workout before he checks the clock on his stove. 

“6:21 AM,” it reads. 

And although the neighborhood he was staying in was filled to the brim with families that had young children and older people (who had certainly been awake for at least two hours now), he can’t think of anyone he had encountered that would knock on his door at this hour. 

He peeps through the peephole to see if he can catch a glimpse of a girl scout or a teenager who happened to accidentally hit his car with their bicycle on the way to school or something, but he’s met with the absence of a person on his front porch. 

He figures it must be a package he had forgotten he ordered or a newspaper that was to be delivered to the people next door, but his eyes damn near pop out of his skull once he peels the door open. 

There’s a little pink car seat with a baby that couldn’t have been more than five months old; purple nubby binky plunged in between her lips and a pink onesie adorning her slim torso. 

This can’t be one of those things; one of those plots to those TV shows where a guy fucks around and gets a girl pregnant and she leaves a baby at his doorstep when he’s least expecting it. He rubs his eyes ferociously with his hands to see if his knuckles would make the kid go away, but as he blinks away the white spots in his vision, the baby is still there. 

She blinks up at him with sea glass eyes and a face that looks just like his. Her tan skin and the soft caramel curls tell Jake who the counterpart of his creation would had to have been and his mind instantly flips back to a girl he had been casually seeing at USC a year ago. 

Her name was Talia (he thinks) and she was a graduate student who could’ve put any US Olympic gymnast to shame by how goddamn bendy she was, but alas, Jake wasn’t looking for anything serious and the distance between Lemoore and LA proved itself to be too far to keep anything sustainable besides a few quickies every couple of weeks. 

And while Jake was always careful and more than cautious with girls he was hooking up with, he can remember taking the riskier side a couple times with this chick which is why he’s looking at a tanned and curly-haired reincarnate of himself sitting in a goddamn baby carrier wondering how the hell she got dropped off at this dumbass’s doorstep and not someone who was capable of actually taking care of a kid. 

Beside her is a manila envelope with a brief note from Talia explaining how she couldn’t take care of her anymore, a birth certificate, a social security card, and a shot record. 

Jake can’t pretend like he isn’t somewhat surprised that for a girl who isn’t a day over twenty-three, she had all of these things together and was able to track him down and leave before he even noticed. 

Jake picks up the car seat and drops it into the doorway of his home before doing what any sensible person would do. He whips out his phone, scrolls through the millions of contacts he has, and starts to dial the kid’s mother. 

He almost grins to himself because he’s a genius and is calm, cool, and collected. He rehearses his lines for what he’ll tell her; that he’s about to get stationed somewhere in Florida and that he can’t take care of a baby by himself. He even puts a mental note in the back of his mind to meet with a lawyer about child support and setting that up before the dial tone sounds and all thoughts he has of this possibly working out the way he wants it to ends. 

“The number you are calling is no longer in service. Good-bye.” 

Oh shit. 

And the panic starts to kick in. He starts to pace back and forth before doing something he would’ve never thought to do ever in a million years before a few days prior. 

He dials Bradley Bradshaw’s phone number. 

“Please pick up. Please pick up. Please pick up.” 

Bradley answers his phone with a slight grunt signifying that he was just now rolling out of bed. “What the hell is it?” he asks, and it’s no secret that despite being called Rooster, Bradley was anything but a morning person. 

“Bradshaw, I have an SOS. I repeat, I have a fucking SOS,” Jake says, a sense of urgency plaguing his tone. 

Jake can hear bedsheets rustling on the other end of the line. “Jesus, Hangman. What did you do? Do you need bond money or something?” 

Jake rolls his eyes. “I need to come over.” 

“Is that how you talk to your hook-ups? Cause if so, I’m still not seeing the appeal.” 

“Bradshaw, you know that I would take you up on any opportunity to brag about my bangin’ sex life, but right now, I really need your fucking help,” he sighs, fixing his gaze back to the baby sitting in the carrier, “Can I please come over?” 

Bradley lets out a pensive sigh before finally giving Jake the answer he wants. “Sure. I’ll see you in ten.” 

Before Jake can thank him repeatedly, Bradley hangs up. 

At the sound of the dial tone, Jake pulls up a YouTube video on his phone about how to buckle in a car seat and he’s about eighty percent sure he did it wrong and is one hundred percent sure that he has no fucking idea what he’s doing at all, but he’s sliding into the front seat of his truck and racing down the street and around the corner to Bradley Bradshaw’s childhood home. 

He slams the door shut and grabs the baby with lightning speed, his fists banging on the door and almost knocking Bradley dead in the nose as he opens it with an irritated grunt. 

“Why are you knocking like the goddamn poli-” Bradley pauses, hand still on the door and eyebrows raised in disbelief, “What the fuck is that?” 

Jake rolls his eyes before pushing past the sandy-haired pilot and plopping down on his living room couch, the baby carrier taking a seat next to him. 

“It’s a baby, Bradshaw,” he rolls his eyes, “God, I thought you were smarter than this.” 

Bradley scoffs before closing the door and leaning on the wall in front of his living room. “Well I thought you were smarter than having raw sex with all your random hook-ups, but clearly I’m seeing evidence that you’re not.” 

Jake shakes his head and rakes his hands through his hair. ‘That’s so not the poin- I’m screwed here, Bradshaw!” 

Bradley lets out a slight laugh that he didn’t know he was holding in. “I mean, yeah. But you came to the right place. I love babies.” 

He makes his way over to the blond sitting on his couch and touches the car seat holding the baby and before he can move his hands down to the black plastic securing her chest, Jake slaps his hands away. 

“My baby,” he says and Bradley rolls his eyes. 

“Yeah, but my house,” he retorts. 

“But my baby,” Jake reiterates and a purple binky is spit out and a loud wail fills the space of Rooster’s living room; her little voice so loud that it echoes. 

“Jesus, she’s definitely your kid,” Bradley jokes, “Loud as hell and doesn’t have any interest in shutting up just like her dad.” 

Jake takes her out of the carrier and cradles her to his chest, his finger holding the silicone pacifier to her lips before she takes it out of his grasp and continues sucking on it. 

Bradley watches in awe because in the past three days, he’s seen more character development in Hangman than he has in the past twelve years of knowing him. Bradley and Jake are snapped out of their own respective worlds at the sound of a knock on his door. 

“Who the hell did you invite over to my home?” he asks and Jake shrugs. 

“Well, I did text a few people about coming over here because I had news.” 

Bradley sighs before opening his front door to see the entire Dagger Squad before him and stepping aside to let them in without a greeting. 

“What the fuck!” they all yell in unison, and Jake doesn’t even look up because he’s too busy staring into the eyes of a little girl whom he had fallen in love with in only fifteen minutes. 

Jake Seresin was certainly not ready to be a dad when he woke up this morning, but he feels more than ready now. 

[bobgasm]

present day | the chest [01/04]

pairing: robert “bob” floyd x reader word count: 2062 warnings: loss, grieving, backstory,

summary: in which you find some old letters while cleaning

author’s note: sorry this took so long, i wrote a 15k oneshot that consumed my life momentarily

the chest | sincerely, | the namesake

The house was quiet when you arrived just before nine. Thankfully, it didn’t stay quiet for long. You set up your speaker, played the top 100, and got to work.

You’d always hated cleaning, but found it calming and therapeutic when you were stressed. Your mum had always sounded crazy when she said it was therapeutic, but now you were a firm believer in her method to madness.

Your dad and his siblings had been busy over the last couple of weeks trying to pack up the house. They’d gone room by room sorting and organizing your grandpa Michael’s belongings. Getting rid of old bedding or donating old clothes and furniture. The house was now bare, aside from the last few pieces of furniture that your dad would be taking to your place in the coming days.

Great-grandma June had been a spitfire of a woman. Growing up, she’d told you stories of her childhood. How her family had immigrated from Ireland in the early 1930’s. How she’d met her husband not long before he got drafted to fight in the war. How they relocated from Boston to San Diego when she was pregnant with your grandfather, Michael. 

She’d been your best friend when you were younger. You always loved going to her place to bake cookies or help her in the garden. She’d never seemed old to you. Always keeping up with you and your siblings whenever you went around to visit. 

When she passed away in early 2016, it had been a shock to everyone. Her son, your grandpa Michael, had moved in with her in her final days, and once she passed, he had to reason to leave. He missed his mum. 

Now he was being moved into a care home not too far away, and the house was being stripped and cleaned for auction. He needed the money from the house to pay for his stay at the care home, and while this house held memories you’d cherish forever, you knew you’d still have them. Even if you didn’t have the house.

You started cleaning in the kitchen and slowly made your way through the rest of the house. Making sure every room was spotless before heading up to the attic to make sure nothing else had been left there.

There were a few boxes of board games and a chest with old toys. You took them back downstairs and put them in your car, figuring you’d ask your dad what you should do with them later. Just wanting to get them out of the house for the time being, since the agents would go through tomorrow to take pictures for the listing. 

You gave the attic one final sweep after dusting and found a small chest tucked away near the overhang of the roof. You almost missed it, but it looked out of place. Carefully, you pulled it from its spot and opened it, sitting on the floor as you pulled the stack of letters from inside.

The papers were frail and wilting around the edges. Some of the writing was illegible, but from the few you could read, you wondered who Bob and Evelyn Floyd were. Were they friends of Michael’s, or of June?

The first letter was dated 1944, from Bob Floyd to his darling Evelyn. He expressed his fears, his sorrow at the loss of his brother, and his elation for their expected baby. 

You swiped at your eyes after finishing the first letter, and was already picking up the next. You felt weird for reading their private letters, but why were they in the attic of your family’s home?

The next letter was one that Evelyn had written back. Her words were sweet and expressed just as much sorrow and elation. Asking Bob if they could name their child after his brother if the baby was a boy, or if he liked the name Louise if they were a girl.

Your heart felt heavy as you opened the next letter, almost laughing as Bob told Evelyn the story of how he got his call sign, Pirate. Because he was nursing a little bird back to health and it sat perched on his shoulder while he taught. But then the tears were back as he pondered if he’d be a good father, before professing he couldn’t think of any better names for their baby then their own. Evie Louise, or Robert Lonnie Floyd.

By the time you reached for the next letter, the tears rolled down your cheeks with no intervention from you. Even if you wanted to stop them, stop reading the letters, you couldn’t.

It was when Evelyn wrote about your great-grandma June that you sobbed. Placing a hand over your mouth as you read how Evelyn watched Amelia while June was in hospital giving birth to Michael. 

They’d become friends. June and Evelyn were friends, and that was why the letters had been in the attic.

Had Evelyn asked June to give them to her baby? Why hadn’t she?

The next letter was from Bob telling Evelyn he’d be home soon. That he had a mission to complete before he’d be home, but he’d tell her more when he knew.

You couldn’t shake the sinking feeling in your stomach. Dear god, please let Bob come home safely. He has a new baby, for crying out loud!

You wipe at your tears and try to get a hold of yourself before starting on the next letter, but your attempts and gaining control of your emotions are futile. Evelyn is asking whether Bob received her last letter, and that she’s worried because she hasn’t heard from him in a while. 

She gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Robert Lonnie Floyd. Evelyn and June are planning a joint Christmas for their kids, and she’s hoping that they’ll all be together if Bob and June’s husband can’t make it. She hopes they do make it, though. 

The letter is signed by Evelyn and Robbie, and your tears fall faster. Your heart aches, because you can see the next letter in the chest. It’s typed out, rather than handwritten like the rest, and you know. You know what’s coming, but you still torture yourself by reading it.

It’s from Fleet Admiral Blair, and he’s telling Evelyn that her husband, Robert Floyd was killed in action only a few days after she sent her last letter.

You wished things had ended differently for them. You wished Bob got to meet his son, and that Evelyn never had to live through the pain of losing her husband. You wished you knew why June had their letters. 

Carefully, you put the letters back into the chest and closed it. You dried your face with the hem of your shirt and tried to calm your breathing. 

You didn’t know what to do. Did you call your dad and ask if he knew about the letters? Did you go and see your grandpa and ask if he knew about them, or if he knew where Evelyn and Robbie were? Since he was born about a month before Robbie, surely they were close? That they had grown up together?

Rising to your feet, you tucked the small chest under your arm and climbed back down the stairs. Tucking them back up before grabbing the last of your things and locking up before climbing into your car. The chest of letters sat on the passenger seat as you drove to the local watering hole, The Hard Deck, and pulled into a free park. 

The first thing you wanted to do was have a drink for Bob and Evelyn, and their son wherever he may be. Then, you planned on enjoying a burger before you decided what to do next. With the time being a little before eight, it was too late to bother your grandpa Michael. It could wait another day. The letters had already been sitting in the attic collecting dust for a good seventy years. Another day wouldn’t seem like much in the grand scheme of things.

The Hard Deck was a hotspot for the local Navy men and women. It wasn’t your first choice, but since Bob had been in the Navy, you felt like having a drink somewhere he might’ve frequented. Especially after a long day of cleaning.

You’d been here a few times before, when you were home for college break and wanted to see if any of the Navy guys looked good enough to let them buy you a drink. Sure, there were some strikingly attractive men, but their egos were on a whole other planet. Each time they proved to you why you should stay away, and you’d heeded their warning. 

Today, you were here to celebrate Bob and Evelyn Floyd. Today, you were grieving their love, their lives. 

You ordered a drink. Just a beer since you still had to drive home. Picking at the label as the moisture softened it until all the edges were loose. 

“Rough day?” The bartender asked you.

You looked up at her and gave her a weak smile, hoping you didn’t look as rough as you felt.

“Something like that,” you admitted. “I found some old letters in my grandfather’s attic while cleaning today. They’re from World War Two.”

“Love letters?”

“Yeah,” you replied, taking a sip of beer. “It seemed like my grandfather’s mom was looking after them for her friend, possibly to pass them on to her son. I don’t know if she forgot, or the son moved away, or why they were still sitting there after seventy-odd years.”

“Wow, that’s, wow,” she said.

You chuckled out a small laugh. “Yeah, I feel kind of bad for reading them. Like they weren’t meant for me. But my great grandfather fought in the war, too. I thought maybe they were theirs. Now I feel bad for invading their privacy, but also for their loss. He died, the husband. After the wife had just given birth to a little boy.”

“Oh, that’s heartbreaking.” She placed a hand over her chest as you swiped at your eyes.

“I felt like I needed to have a drink for them, you know? In case the world forgot about them.”

She smiled at you and handed you a napkin from nearby. “That’s sweet,” she said. “You sit tight, I’ll be right back.”

You dabbed at your eyes with the napkin, willing yourself to stop crying. You gulped down more of your drink, letting your eyes fall back to the bar. Reading the sign that was hung up and barely able to crack a smile. Remembering the first time you saw the sign and had witnessed a few Naval officers carrying out a patron because of it. 

You looked up when the bartender came back, placing another beer in front of you.

“Courtesy of the man in the glasses,” she told you.

Your eyes quickly found the man in the glasses slowly turning away. Dressed in a neatly pressed khaki uniform. Barely a strand of hair out of place. A solemn nod in your direction, all the acknowledgement he needed that you’d received his gift. 

“Oh, that was nice of him,” you told her.

“I thanked him for you,” she continued, offering you a smile. “He’s not expecting anything in return, either. Wanted me to make sure you knew that.”

“Huh? That’s new,” you replied, finishing the last of your first beer before toying with the new one. “Usually they all want something.”

She chuckled at your reaction. “Normally I’d agree, so trust me when I say it’s all good. Can I get you anything else, hon?”

“I’m good, thank you.” You replied with a smile. “How much for the first beer?”

“He took care of that, too.”

“Cute bastard. Thank him again for me, will you?”

She laughed. “Of course. Hope you feel better, hon.”

She left you to enjoy the next beer, and you savoured it. Unlike the first where you couldn’t drink it fast enough, you took your time with this one. Hoping the cute guy with the glasses would come back to the bar so you could strike up a conversation and thank him yourself. 

The kindness of a stranger was always something you found weird. But there was something about this stranger that had you finding it endearing. 

[disabled-dean]

Asterism of an F-Series Ford Pick Up- 17k

Now with BELOVED amv by @butch--dean 🖤

Summary: When you've been to hell, desire is isolating and ugly.

Or: Cas drives his truck for a case and Dean is exceptionally horny about it.

“Once on a hunt when he was a teenager, Dean had been caught too close to an explosive when it had gone off. There had been the moment when the projectile hit, and the moment when it had detonated. And just before it had, there had also been a moment when he had believed that maybe it wouldn’t.

He had thought about that moment for years, over and over again, until something else had taken its place. And the way that that moment was quiet, the way it was still- that is how this feels. To lie beside Cas in the bed of his truck, their shoulders barely touching.”

Follow @deancastruckwip for bonus content <3

Ten Minutes From Home [Lebanon Coda] WIP 30k

We've truly come a long way since the iconic:

"Physically restraining myself from writing a coda fic for Lebanon, where John stays over at the bunker, Cas comes home in the middle of the night & there's tension between him and Dean over whether or not they will still share a room, and then 29-year-old Mary has to sit through Thee most homophobic breakfast with her dead ex-husband, closeted son, and his common law married, ancient eldrich boyfriend."

This fic is a deep dive into some of the juicier elements of Lebanon, including- justice for Mary Winchester and her rich internal life, the intricate dance constructed around Dean's homosexuality and John's neglectful/abusive parenting and the impact of the Michael arc on Dean and Cas' relationship. Also features: recovering!alcoholic dean, a staggering amount of risky bunker sex, biblically accurate sibling interactions, and studies on objectification. Also Sam is practicing witchcraft as a treat, and I put that guy in eating disorder recovery (because he fucking needs it) <3

Haven't started posting this one! But you can follow @lebanon-wip for excerpts, inspo, and bonus content <3

An Easier Softer Way WIP 38k

Recovery!natural. Injured after the hell rescue goes wrong, Dean ends up disabled and living in a small rural town in Eastern Washington. With Sam fucked off to god knows where and without the fight to distract him, Dean has nothing left to focus on but his burgeoning sobriety, and persistent dreams of hell.

Set in the arid low-lands of the river valley, surrounded by apple orchards and twisting irrigation canals, Dean becomes convinced he can see a great beast stalking through the hills bordering the town. The same beast he has dreamt of since returning from hell, the same one he can sometimes feel beside him when he knows that he’s alone.

Walking the line between grief and reality, isolation and community, Dean has to pull together what's real and what isn't as he adjust to his disability, and finds faith that he is capable of building lasting relationships and creating a life for himself worth loving.

Also eventually Cas shows up, and they save the world.

He’s still debating just getting the fuck out of there when a women at the head of the long table clears her throat, and starts to read from a laminated print out. The edges of Dean’s vision blur out a little. He has to leave. He has to- the woman is still reading. Dean tunes back in in time to hear, “-At some of these we balked. We thought that we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not."  Here, the speaker pauses, and Dean feels like she looks right at him. But she doesn't. She just gives the laminated sheet a little shake, clears her throat and continues, "With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start.” And no one could ever call him a coward. So he stays.

Honestly the most plot I've ever worked with (and very deeply personal) so this one could be a while. @aneasiersofterway for inspo, vibes, and bonus content.