#I like to think that Frank sometimes calls him his “best friend in law”

[the-wandering-blob]

*Proudly holds up drawing like that one scene in The Lion King* THIS IS MY WELCOME HOME OC!! 🗣️🗣️🗣️

His name is Andy Anderson. He is an elf and really likes space! He is also Eddie’s best friend ^^

He’s very energetic and rambuncious, but is still really sweet:) In the show, he would teach the kids watching about how space works and how big the universe is! :D A little running joke with him is that he’s pretty scared of Sally because since stars are made of burning gas and are really hot, he always put on a gas mask before interacting with her✨

He’s REALLY scared of Home. Rightfully so in my opinion. Especially after the Homewarming party! It scaring Eddie only lowered his impression of it😤

I’m probably gonna post more information about him once I decide on his quote, house design, bio, ect. 😗

[romanarose]

Cleaning out my Closet (Passover)

Marc Spector

Summary: Years ahead of the events of Moon Knight, Marc Spector is happy. He's happily married, has three children he adores, has a good relationship with his dad, Steven, Jake, Layla, and his brother-in-law. Still, none of it erases what happened to him, and in entering his childhood home again, he must grapple with feelings he still has. As he packs up his childhood home, he unpacks his past.

A/N: This fic serves as a epilogue to Seattle (linking to the AO3 bc tumblr messed up my links, and everything on my masterlist is under construction. If you like it, please consider leaving a kudos!) but is specifically written to stand alone. Seattle has an OC, Rebecca, not a reader, however, this fic is meant to serve as a one shot, but id dint want to do reader, the OC is just referred to as her/she, but I capitalized the pronounce to differentiate for simplicities sake.

HOPE YOU ENJOY!!! Pesach Sameach!!!!!

Warnings: References to child abuse and death of a child (the usual stuff for Randall's death and Marc's abuse), mentions of ableism on Wendy's part talking about Marc being autistic (vague). I think that's it? This is Jewish as fuck. Seattle has had episodes with Rosh Hashanah, Purim, and Hannukah so I thought it was fitting to write for Passover too. Maybe we'll have something for Yom Kippur, who knows. Any antisemitism will simply be blocked.

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I'm sorry, Mama I never meant to hurt you I never meant to make you cry But tonight I'm cleanin' out my closet

Marc Specter hung in the doorway of his childhood bedroom, taking deep breaths as he worked up the courage to enter. She had offered to come with him, but Marc told her he needed to do this himself. Together, with the kids, Marc and Her had come to the home he grew up in to help his dad move. In recent years, Marc had come back into contact with Elias, frequent phone calls and occasional visits, although usually with Elias visiting him and his little family, as traveling with kids is a struggle. There was, also, the fact Marc didn't really enjoy coming to Chicago. He had been, here and there, but She went more than him to visit Her brother who had moved back to the city.

Things had been much better, great, even. Marc was married and in love with his childhood best friend. Her brother, Asa, and him had reconnected again, becoming once more the little brother that Marc always thought of him as, and a name on the list of several close friends he had; a life he never expected for himself. Him, Steven and Jake were as close as brothers and fought alongside Matty, Peter, and Frank, keeping New York safe on a small scale the avengers couldn’t be bothered with. Marc had forgiven his dad, and had a life now where he could really call himself happy.

Going to Chicago again, however, was still a struggle. He hadn’t been in this house for years now, and hadn’t really planned to ever again, but he had a duty as a son to help his dad. Elias had mentioned hiring movers when it was decided that he needed to downsize after a minor fall attempting to get upstairs. Her and Marc decided this was an undertaking they couldn’t just leave him to, and made the 800 mile car trip with two five year olds and a baby in the car to help move. Entering the place him and Randel grew up in, a place that once was happy and loving, and turned into his own personal hell… it was difficult, but he did it. 

It was soon to be passover weekend, they had driven a few days before and planned to get some packing done before celebrations, and they got a good chunk of the first floor packed up, Marc not daring to enter upstairs, not yet. Frequently, he had to take breathers. Sometimes he’d go for a walk alone, sometimes She would come outside to talk or sit with him, or Steven or Jake might take over for a while. Marc’s son, AJ, always seemed to have a sense for when his dad needed him. Marc hated the idea that he couldn’t always be strong for his kids, he never wanted them to feel like his emotions were their responsibility, but She said it just meant AJ was empathetic, which was a good thing.

Marc kept working as She and Elias got going on the Passover Seder, but Marc was too in his thoughts, damn near obsessive as he packed things, almost a cleanse of sorts. A set of fancy wine glasses, one missing that Wendy threw at him and shattered; pack it away, it's over, it’s done. Pictures of their family before Randell’s death; pack it away, it’s over, it’s done. The knife set Marc was washing as his mom screamed at him, wondering if he used them for self defense, if he’d go away to prison forever… pack it away, it’s over, it’s done. Piece by piece, Marc sorted through parts of his life he had always thought better left alone. Marc tried not to react heavily around his dad; they made amends and he loved Elias, he didn’t want to hurt him more, not again… She, his dad, Steven and Jake seemed to recognize this fact, and allowed him the space he needed to get through this daunting task, taking care of the heavy lifting while Marc went through the smaller things, sometimes sitting in silence for several minutes just staring at an item or two.

That’s how he ended up here. He had to get to his bedroom at some point, it may as well be now. Him and Randell shared a bedroom growing up, so when he drowned, his stuff had been packed away. That would be a task to go through for another day, for now, Marc was just focusing on not throwing up. Everything looked the same as the day he left, no doubt the room had been shut away after he ran away, Wendy attempting to pretend he had never existed most days. She had her moments, moments she was a good mom... Even in before she always favored Randell, but how could you not? He was an easy kid. Randell didn’t melt down when is clothing was a bad texture or things were too loud, Randell didn’t refuse to eat for days until something was made he could stand to taste, Randell didn’t need to stim or fidget, Randell acted exactly as Elias and Wendy expected for a child, eye contact and hugs and normal ways of playing… Marc wasn’t that. 

But none of that is to say things were bad in the first 8 years, things were good, actually. Elias was a patient man and Wendy tried her best, she showered Marc in affection and praise… but that almost made it worse, didn’t it? Marc often wondered how his psyche would have been if he hadn’t been given a happy family at the start, if he didn’t know a mothers love, if he didn’t have to wonder which version of his mom he’d come home to after school. Marc learned early on that love was conditional, and that had very much played into his relationship with Her. He struggled to believe She could love him in all his flaws when his own mother couldn't? But that wasn't entirely fair… Wendy had moments, she tried. A few days in a row she might sober up and there would be a bit of hope, no matter how much Marc had been played, for years when she’d suddenly act nice, taking him to the zoo or to a movie… he’d always think ‘maybe this is it, maybe she’s changed…’ but she never did, and a few days later he’d be trying to sooth lash marks from a belt.

Looking around, Marc saw a room that was so incredible… normal. There was a Star Wars poster with a very sexy princess leia in a dress she absolutely did not wear in A New Hope and very muscular Luke Skywalker despite the fact Marc knew damn well Mark Hamil did not have a 6 pack in that movie. There was a Cubs poster and a signed bat hanging on the wall (the bat was Randell from a game they went to for his birthday.). Finally taking a step in, Marc slowly wandered around the place he spent most of his time in the house, hoping to stay out of her way.

Wendy violated the sanctuary of his room, however, so this was far from a safe place. It was here that Steven first appeared, necessary to his survival, during a particularly vicious attack, Steven protecting him like his father never could.

There was a thin layer of dust on the surfaces, but light enough to know that Elias apparently learned in there, took care of it. Looking over to his book of baseball cards, he saw clearly it had been touched recently. How often, over the last 20 years, had Elias come in here and reminisced? Marc knew he had regrets, he knew Elias wished he had done something… but there's no use thinking on that now. Still, the idea of his dad missing him so much he’d come to his room just to feel a semblance of him was comforting.

Packing all this would have to wait for another day, it was taking a heavy toll just being here, refamiliarizing himself with his room again. He wanted to be able to celebrate Passover properly, She loves this holiday, and he wanted to pass on the importance of it to their children. It wasn’t lost on him, the irony of serving under an egyptian god, but a deal had been made; no killing. He did things the way Matty did, and felt damn good about it; the bad people were punished and his conscience rested clean. What Jake did… that was his own business.

Marc wandered over to his closet, looking over the clothing he left behind years ago, clothes that wouldn’t fit anymore but would be in good donating condition. On the shelf on top, Marc grabbed a poster and unrolled it. ‘When danger is near, Steven Grant has no fear’ the poster read, and Marc smiled, just a bit. All the bad that happened, he always had Steven, and Jake, although he didn’t know it at the time. Kneeling down, Marc began to look through the boxes on the floor, old toys he grew out of, many of which he played with Randell; the wooden train set, his lite bright, long dead tamagotchi, and the Mouse Trap that was never touched after Randell died.

It wasn’t fair, really, it wasn’t. He didn’t care how long it had been, how his mom had been dead for years now, he was angry. Not the all consuming anger he used to feel, not to ever present over-boiling rage, but the anger that was usually at a simmer, a low simmer, that only came out when prompted… He was good at keeping it at bay, he refused to raise his kids like that. The twins had seen him vulnerable, to be sure, and he tried to remind himself mistakes happened, but if he ever thought for a moment that they feared him, he wouldn’t know how to react, and it would take everything in him not to run away.

As he kept sorting through his old things, thinking about just having a huge bonfire and burning it all, when he heard footsteps in the hallway.

She stopped at the doorway. “Hi, sweetheart, can I come in?” 

Marc’s sweater was on the floor, he had clearly been crying a bit and it had been… fuck, had it been an hour? “Yeah”

Slow, She walked over to him, sitting on the floor where he was “Do you want to talk about anything in here?”

Marc shook his head. “No. I think this room is gonna be hard to pack up.”

Nodding, She pulled Marc into a side hug. “It’s okay, we can take it slow.” She patted his head softly. “Layla’s here, Asa said he’ll be here in ten”

Pulling himself off her, he wiped his eyes. “Right, sorry, I’ll get it together”

“No, no” She assured him. “I was just telling you, there's no hurry, baby.”

“Where are the kids?” Marc said with a soft sniffle.

“Layla’s in the backyard with AJ and Ester, Rachel fell asleep in your dads arms, it’s pretty sweet.”

Marc nodded, taking a breather for asking. “Is the food ready?” 

Bursting into a laugh, She leaned into Marc who smiled and wrapped an arm around her. “Would some food and wine make you feel better, sweetheart?”

“Yeah” Marc chuckled. “Yeah I think that would cure me.”

She kissed his forehead. “Remember the story behind Pesach, my love. It’s about hope, faith, community…”

“I know” Marc sighed. “I didn’t have a lot of hope growing up… but I do now” For a long time, his faith in Her was what kept him going, but in recent years he found his faith in God again. Growing up and for years after, Marc regarded Passover with disdain. A holiday that commemorates the Passing over of Jewish first born sons struck him with anger. He was saved from the floods in the cave, but he would have traded all that in a moment to have Randell alive. Randell wouldn’t have been beaten for Marc’s death… Marc shook his head. It was done, there was no going back. 

Gently, She touched his back. “I’ll be downstairs, honey. We’ll all sit down when you’re ready. Oh, and Elias found that book he wanted to give Steven, make sure he doesn’t forget it, or the cookbook for Jake.” She stood up to go.

“Honey?” He asked, staring into the closet still.

“When we get back to New York… I think I’d like to go to a Mikvah bath.”

She paused at that. “Really? You know you… you have to be-”

“Fully submerged, yeah, I know. I want to.”

“Are you… are you doing alright, Marc?”

He nodded. “I’ll be okay. Just… after all this is over, I want to be… cleansed. I’m packing this all away, and when it’s done… I want it washed out”

Smiling softly, She nodded. “That sounds like a good idea, sweetie pie.” She bent down and kissed his forehead. “You are doing so good, you are so strong, and I am so proud of you.”

Marc smiled up at the love of his life. “Thank you, baby. I’ll be down in a minute.”

With loving eyes, She smiled back at him before heading down stairs, and Marc heard the sound of her greeting her brother at the door.

Staring into the abyss of his closet, a place he used to hide in that was now piled high with boxes of broken memories, he spoke to someone he didn’t know could hear him or not.

“It didn’t work, ma. You didn’t win. I know you wanted me to hurt, to hurt the way you were…” His voice wavered. “But I already was! I was a kid! A kid whose brother died and I was left to deal with it alone! You left!” Marc took a steadying breath, composing himself. “And for a long time, it worked, you made me as angry and miserable as you were, I let myself become what you always said I was. Angry, jealous, a killer.” Marc shook his head, closing his eyes. Could she hear him? Wherever she was, would she know? He wasn’t sure. Not a lot of emphasis on the afterlife in Judaism, and the whole run-in with Taweret complicated matters on what Marc believed happened, but that wasn’t really the point. 

“I got out, I got better. I’m married and got three beautiful, perfect kids. Esther looks a lot like you, if I’m being honest.” He sighed a quick laugh to himself. “You’d love her, she’s incredibly bright, always dragging AJ around everywhere, always getting into things… AJ is her anchor though, always making sure she doesn’t get hurt, he’s always thinking of others… Takes after his mom like that. AJ's real name is Asa, I don't know if you know that or not. I don't know what you know, honestly. We named him after his uncle, Her brother. Esther is probably obvious, She always loved Purim, t was her favorite holiday, the first one we celebrated together once She and I were reunited...Rachel’s just a baby right now, but she’s got her mom’s hair, looking like she got my height right now” A genuine smile appeared on Marc’s face as he talked about his family, relaxing. "She's named after Randell. Maybe it's a bit of a stretch, Rachel, Randell, but it sounds similar, and She and I planned to stop at three kids... we might still have another, I don't know, but I wanted to name one of them after Randell, but I just... I wasn't ready when the twins were born." A loud, deep sigh.

"I guess I don’t know what you wanted for my life. You tried, sometimes, even if it wasn’t a lot, even if it wasn’t for long, you tried… but it wasn’t fair to me, it wasn’t fair to dad, and it wasn’t fair to you, holding on to all that anger… I hope…” Marc’s body shook with anxiety as he desperately tried to speak his piece. “I hope you found some kind of peace in the end, mom. I do. I hope you found peace wherever you are now. Because I did. I’m happy, I have friends, I have a family, I have a life I’m proud of… I hope we were that for you, in the beginning… there were good years, weren’t there? Yeah. There were. The Four of us, a happy family… Then everything changed in an instant…” He shook his head. “What’s done is done, I’ve moved on. It still hurts, and I think it will always hurt, but I’ve moved on. Shalom, ma, Baruch Dayan Ha’emet”

Marc Spector stood in the stairwell of his childhood home. Decades ago, this is where his mom first screamed at him, but now, things were so, so different.  Layla was putting Rachel in her high chair, Asa was getting Esther down from precarious surface she had climbed up on, AJ helped Her and Elias set up the table… Things were so different now, so, so much better. He was cleansed, he was happy, he was hopeful...

Free.

I guess we are who we are Headlights shining in the dark night I drive on Maybe we took this too far

I want a new life, one without a cause So I'm coming home tonight, well, no matter what the cost And if the plane goes down, or if the crew can't wake me up Well, just know that I'm alright, I was not afraid to die Oh, even if there's songs to sing, well my children will carry me Just know that I'm alright, I was not afraid to die Because I put my faith in my little Girls, so I never say goodbye cruel world Just know that I'm alright, I am not afraid to die

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Thank you for reading!!!! I love any content that highlights that the boys are Jewish so if you got anything like that for passover send it my way!!

Wish me luck bc I got a paper due tonight I havn't started and I still got serivices tonight lol

Anyway Im excited this is my first passover and my temple is having a community seder so im super excited!!!!

For those who aren't familiar with eminem lore, (im so sorry but i love his music) the title and first lyric in this fic are from his song, cleaning out my closet, which is a very angry song about Eminem's moms abuse. It was so bad she actually tried to sue him over it. The second set of lyrics comes from an album about 11 years later, a reflection of their relationship after Eminem got sober. It a great song detailing the complexities of a relationship with an abusive parent who you still love. I like it because it doesnt make excuses, but understands the external factors that lead to how he was treated.

None of this fic is meant to tell anyone how to fell about thier abusive parent, it's simply how I think marc might feel years on when he is in a better place, and somewhat my feelings too.

@welcometostayingawake @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction @ninebluehearts @sofi786 @myfandomlikesandstories @tippycakes26 @ahookedheroespureheart @arsonfrogger @milkymoon2483 @0bsessedwithfictionalcharacters @miraclesabound

[gaemkyuu]

Mommy, Can We Keep Him? (Charlie Gillespie x Original Character

Warnings: mention of teenage pregnancy A/N: I was inspired to write a character like Lilo from Lilo and Stitch and thought of what if Charlie had a daughter like that? Then I thought about Dad! Charlie.... Here is my inspired writing piece! Let me know if you want a follow up wedding piece! Disclaimer: This is a FICITONAL writing piece! In no way do I claim characters in this piece act this way in real life.

Masterlist *now taking requests ;)

Mommy, Can We Keep Him? (Charlie Gillespie x Original Character)

Riley King started working for Netflix when she was 18 and impressed everyone at the head office with her hard work and dedication. With her motivation and work ethic, she managed to climb her way to be part of the executive management team all at the ripe age of 21. People often asked Riley how she climbed the ladder so quickly, or what was the secret to her success. No one ever guessed that her motivation came from a little girl who looked exactly like her.

Emerson Gianna King was born on August 31st of 2014 when Riley was 16 years old. She had quite the wild nature to herself, always sneaking out and illegally partying with her friends. It was only a matter of time that she would be blinded by love and give her virginity to a boy she swore would get married. He was 17 at the time and she was head over heels for him. One drink too many and a poor judgement call resulted in Riley’s teenage pregnancy.

Her one true love broke up with her a week after they had had sex, stating that his dad had had gotten a job at a law firm in Miami and that a long distance relationship wouldn’t work. She didn’t know that she was pregnant at the time, but when she did, she tried to reach out to him. His family thought it was stupid attempt at getting back together and claimed that the baby wasn’t his. They were ready to launch a full lawsuit in order to protect their family’s reputation, something that Riley and her single mom couldn’t afford to do. So they dropped it, signing legal papers that they would never contact them again and that their son wasn’t responsible for paying any child support.

This heartbreak and her daughter made Riley clean up her act and graduate high school a year ahead of her friends. She quickly started working for various companies, taking night classes at the local college campus in hopes to get her foot in the door for a bigger company and work her way up. Which is exactly what she did and how she ended up working for Netflix. That’s how she met Kenny Ortega, who introduced her to the actors of Julie and the Phantoms. She mostly worked with Netflix, but she was assigned to be there every day of boot camp to watch and monitor the development of the TV show, making projections about how their viewers would receive the new show. She didn’t anticipate to be a part of the small family that was created behind the scene with the cast and crew, and she certainly didn’t anticipate falling for one of the lead actors Charlie Gillespie.

They had been dating for three months before Riley told him about Emmerson. She had expected that he call off the entire relationship, understanding that not everyone wanted to be with someone who had a baby at sixteen. They were 22 at the time and Riley explained that she was looking to be in a serious relationship for her daughter’s sake. While Charlie couldn’t promise that this relationship would go in the direction they both wanted, he did promise that he would do his best to be there for her. He didn’t know that winning over the little girl’s heart would prove to be difficult.

Emerson wasn’t like all the other kids. For one thing, she was very mature for her age. She was potty trained at two years old and started to learn how to read basic books at the age of 4. She developed her speech quickly and often looked to use specific words that kids her age rarely heard or understand. She was a perceptive little girl and sometimes she was a little too smart and observant for her own good. This made it difficult for her to make friends at daycare because everyone thought she was weird. Riley would often catch her talking to Lilo whenever she put Lilo and Stitch on for her to watch. She would tell Lilo about the frustrating girls at her daycare and how they too “need to be punished”.

So it was no surprise to her that when Emerson first met Charlie, she would be grilling him. Charlie had expected her to be a cute little girl that likes to play with dolls. Instead, he was met with a perceptive toddler that made him question his own intelligence at times. She was very standoffish when she met him, afraid that this man was going to hurt her mommy, but over time Emerson began to open up and trust Charlie. One night, when they were six months into dating, they had to cancel their dinner plans as Riley’s babysitter came down with a flu and no one else could babysit. Therefore, their dinner plans were changed to ordering pizza and having a movie night with Emerson. Riley groaned partly through the beginning of Lilo and Stitch when her work called, excusing herself as it was an important phone call. 

This left Emerson and Charlie alone for the first time.

“Charlie, who’s Elvis Presley?” Charlie’s eyes grew big like teacup saucers.

“Your mom hasn’t shown you who Elvis Presley is?! How many times have you watched this movie?!” Emerson shrugged, not taking her eyes off the screen, popping a piece of popcorn into her mouth and chewing.

“Do you want the real answer?” he was caught off guard at the frankness in her tone, starting to wonder just how many times she had watched the film. He shrugged it off and paused the movie, pulling his phone out and opening Youtube to educate the child on the legend, Elvis Presley.

When Riley returned to the living room, she was shocked to see Emerson sitting in Charlie’s lap, holding the phone, staring intently at the screen and listening to the music that played out of the speaker. She had never seen her daughter so focused before. She looked at Charlie who was equally focused on the screen of the phone as well, and she smiled to herself enjoying the view. Out of defense, Riley quickly shrugged off the creeping thought that this could be her family. After all, her and Charlie had only been dating for 6 months.

“How have you not shown her who Elvis Presley is?” he exclaimed, noticing her presence. Emerson looked at her with questioning eyes as well, feeling slightly betrayed that her mother withheld such precious information away from her. 

“I’m not really a big music person! I kinda just listen to songs I like rather than musicians” she shrugged sheepishly.

“Mommy, Charlie said there’s a documentary on Netflix about Elvis Presley. Can we watch that instead of Lilo and Stitch?” Riley’s jaw dropped at the fact that her daughter was more interested in watching something other than her favorite comfort Disney movie. She silently nodded and changed the settings on the TV, starting the Elvis Presley documentary. This was the first time her daughter ever really opened up to someone and found something in common.

Emerson absolutely loved the documentary and would go on for weeks listening to Elvis Presley nonstop. After Riley waved goodbye to Charlie and closed the door, Emerson sat patiently on the entryway bench for her mother.

“Mommy, can we keep him?”

“Yeah, Emmy. I think we can”

***

It soon became a regular thing to have Charlie stay the night at Riley’s house. He woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, but on his way back to the bedroom he heard soft whimpers and sniffles coming from Emerson’s bedroom. He stood outside her door, debating if he should go get Riley or if he should go in himself. He knew Riley was exhausted having had a full day of work and meetings, so he opted to let her sleep and peek into Emerson’s room. He thought that if it was out of his control, he could always go and get her. The sight of the little girl broke his heart.

Emerson was fast asleep, but she was trembling and clutching onto her stuffed bunny for dear life. She whimpered and tears fell from her closed eyes. Charlie quietly moved to her side and sat on her bed, softly rubbing her back, whispering her name to break her out of her nightmare. It worked, but when she woke up, she jumped into Charlie’s arms and softly cried. He was surprised at first,  but quickly snapped out of it hugging the girl and rubbing her back.

“It’s okay Emmy... It was just a bad dream... It wasn’t real... you’re okay... you’re safe” the little girl started to calm down as Charlie soothed her and rocked her side to side a bit.

“They took me away from mommy...” she whimpered and nid her face in Charlie’s neck. He felt the collar of his shirt dampen as she cried, but he picked her up and moved to the armchair she had in her room. He sat down and held her tightly in his arms.

“No one is ever going to take you away from mommy, okay? I won’t let that happen” he didn’t know where these words were coming from or where he got the confidence to say them, but in that moment he knew that he would do whatever he could for Emerson.

“Promise?”

“I promise.” he whispered, kissing her head and rubbing her back. She settled comfortably in his chest and took deep breaths. Charlie instinctively started to hum a song softly as he rubbed her back, until her breathing steadied and soft snores came from the small figure. Charlie smiled to himself that he was able to handle the situation alone, but he realized he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to put her back in bed, or if he had to hold her for the rest of the night. Not wanting to wake her up, he carefully reached for the knitted quilt beside the armchair and draped it over them. Guess he was sleeping in the armchair that night. His neck would hate him in the morning. 

Riley woke up early that morning when she rolled over to cuddle the missing Charlie. She bolted up and threw on her housecoat to search for him, but stopped when she noticed Emerson’s door cracked open. The sight inside the bedroom brought tears to her eyes and she covered her mouth to avoid making any sound that would wake them. There was Charlie sleeping in the armchair holding a sleeping Emerson in his arms. They were both fast asleep and quietly snoring.

For the first time, in their nine months of dating, Riley let herself see the possibility of Charlie being the man who could be Emerson’s dad.

***

Charlie fiddled with his collar nervously, holding flowers in the other hand. He took a deep breath and shook off his nerves before pressing on the door bell. He waited patiently and anxiously outside, only to be greeted by his beautiful girlfriend, Riley. She smiled brightly at him and he stood there blown away by her beauty. They were both dressed up semi-formally tonight as Charlie insisted on taking Riley out for a fancy dinner to recreate a cheesy romcom movie date for their anniversary. Their usual dates consisted of hiking or lounging at the beach, so Charlie figured it would be nice to dress up for once, especially since Riley rarely dressed fancy.

“Hey! Come on in, I’m just finishing up debriefing the babysitter” Charlie kissed her cheek quickly and stepped inside, shutting the door behind him as she rushed back to the kitchen. Charlie waited by the front door patiently for her to finish up.

“Where are you taking mommy tonight, Charlie?” he jumped at the voice from behind, turning around to see Emerson sitting on the entryway bench. She looked up at the man who waited for her mom, bunny beside her in one hand and her blanket in the other. Charlie smiled at her presence and squatted down to her level, petting her bunny on the head.

“I’m taking mommy on a fancy dinner. You off to bed?” she nodded and opened her arms, to which Charlie gladly received her hug, only, he didn’t expect her to awkwardly latch herself on to him. Thinking quickly, he adjusted himself and picked her up. She was short and thin, so it was no problem carrying her. Her small stature always made her mother worry that she wasn’t getting enough nutrients. “I guess I couldn’t let you sleep without some snuggles could I?” she nodded as she laid her head on his chest, something her and Charlie had in common was that their love language was physical touch.

“It’s nice to see mommy in something other than jeans or sweats. I like your bowtie too” Emerson fiddled with said bow tie as Charlie gently rocked her. He was always so surprised at how observant she was and how she was able to clearly articulate her thoughts for being six years old. She was very bright and quick to understand situations, which made it hard for her to make friends at daycare. Another thing that Riley worried about often.

“You want me to tuck you in Emmy?” she shook her head against his chest and wiggled, signifying that she was okay with being put down. Charlie obeyed her wish and set her down on the floor, sitting on the entryway bench like she once did. “You’re looking a little sleepy squirt” he chuckled, clearing the hair from her face.

“Mommy said the babysitter and I get to watch a movie of my choice before bed time since it’s Friday. I wanted to watch Big Daddy but mommy said the babysitter might question her parenting choices” he let out a big laugh and Emerson giggled back.

“Having fun you two?” Riley appeared in the entryway with the babysitter. Riley crouched down and opened her arms wide to hug Emerson. The little girl jumped into her mom’s arms, nearly knocking her to the floor. “Love you Emmy. Please listen to the babysitter and go to bed on time” Riley knew she wouldn’t put up a fuss, but she figured she would remind her anyways.

“Love you mommy” she smiled as she kissed her mom’s cheek and walked to Charlie. “Love you Charlie” she tiptoed so that she could reach the man’s cheek, who also gave her a big hug. “Don’t be out too late!” she called skipping into the living room, the babysitter following after. The couple stood in the entryway thinking about Emerson’s last remarks before disappearing. 

“Ready to go, my love?” Charlie cleared his throat, opening the door and gesturing for Riley to go first. She playfully rolled her eyes and they stepped out of the house towards the vehicle. Emerson waved at them from the front window, and they waved back, until she couldn’t see them any more. 

***

“Remind me again what time you fly in?” Riley wiped some of the water that splashed on her face as she washed the dishes. Like all mothers, she was multitasking. Cleaning the house for Emerson’s birthday and trying to figure out her schedule considering Charlie was flying in from Canada. Emerson sat at the kitchen table quietly coloring while her mother was on the phone.

“Don’t worry about picking me up. You already have so much to do! I’ll just get an uber to your place” Riley toweled off her hands and took Charlie off speaker phone, holding the phone to her ear. Despite dating for a year and a half, they hadn’t officially moved in together. Charlie still had his place with all of his things, but half of his stuff was at Riley’s. “Plus I don’t want Emmy catching on to my surprise for her.”

“Right. Okay, well I’ll keep the door unlocked, since we’re home all day. I gotta go though, I still have to call the bakery to set up a pick up time for her cake and cupcakes” the couple said their quick ‘I love yous’ while Emerson shouted hers from the kitchen. Riley took a moment to herself and sighed against the wall in the corridor. Between everything at work and Emerson’s birthday, she had quite a lot on her plate but she was relieved that Charlie was able to come home a little earlier to help her out. She straightened her spine and returned to the kitchen, kissing her daughter’s head. “Emmy, mommy has to jump on to a zoom meeting in the office, are you okay to color for 30 more minutes?”

“Mommy, when can I go on a date with Charlie?” her mother froze mid movement around the kitchen, the question catching her off guard. “I know we go on dates together, but you always look like you have way more fun when it’s just you and Charlie. I wanna have fun with Charlie too” she smiled at her daughter and sat down beside her.

“Well, why not ask Charlie on a date? You can make him a little card before he gets in tonight and while I do my meeting.” her eyes lit up at the suggestion and she quickly got to work, making her mother smile. Riley got up and headed to her office, not wanting to disturb the project her daughter had started.

Riley’s meeting lasted an hour, much to her displeasure, but it was a productive one. It worked out for Emerson as she had made an elaborate card to give Charlie when he came home that night. Riley helped her daughter take a bath and ordered Sugarfish for dinner, both of them anticipating the arrival of their favorite guy. As soon as Emerson heard the door creak open, she bolted for the entryway and jumped into Charlie’s awaiting arms. He peppered her face with kisses and tickled her until Riley came along, who he kissed deeply and earned a “yuck!” from Emerson. Their dinner arrived soon after Charlie’s arrival and they all sat around the dinner table, Emerson lost in Charlie’s stories of his hometown.

“Emmy, don’t you have something for Charlie?” she perked up remembering and clumsily got out of her chair, putting her chopsticks down to run to the office. She grabbed her card for Charlie and skipped back to the dining room, placing the card beside his bento box.

“Oh? What’s this Emmy? Can I open it?” she nodded her head enthusiastically and sat back in her place at the table. Charlie’s smile wavered as he read the card, feeling slightly emotional. On the front was a picture of the three of them and inside the card read:

Dear Charlie,

Will u go on a date with me?

Love, Emmy

Hearts, flowers and smiley faces decorated the inside of the card, but the text was written in big bold letters. He could tell a lot of effort went into making the card judging by all the neatly placed stickers and carefully drawn pictures and patterns. It still amazed him that for a six year old, turning seven, that she could write so neatly. 

“Mommy helped me with some of the spelling, but I mostly did it myself” she smiled, anticipating his response. “What do you think?”

“It’s beautiful Emmy. I would love to go on a date with you” she clapped her hands and bounced in her seat, her reaction causing everyone at the table to smile and laugh. They continued to eat their dinner while planning things that they could do together, as Riley sat there watching and admiring the relationship that was unfolding before her eyes. How did she get so fortunate to find a man like Charlie? 

***

Charlie ended up taking Emerson to Disneyland and even though Riley accompanied them, Charlie and her went on all the rides together. Riley took pictures and held onto their things as the two enjoyed themselves around the theme park. Charlie knew it would be a good thing to have Riley around because she was the voice of reason when Emerson and Charlie thought of having their third Dole Whip of the day. The two of them laughed and had the time of their lives. When supper time came, Riley planned to meet a client over super at downtown Disney, planning on meeting her boyfriend and daughter later on in the evening. This left the two of them to have dinner with Goofy at Goofy’s Kitchen. 

As they enjoyed each other’s company and visits from Goofy, Charlie helped Emerson pick out her dinner and order it. Charlie could honestly say this was the most fun that he had had in a long time, but he should’ve known that with Emerson’s intelligence, there was more to this date than just having fun.

“Charlie, when are you going to ask mommy to marry you?” Charlie choked on his water, not expecting the question from the curious little girl. “Mommy said I wasn’t allowed to ask you because it was rude”

“Not rude at all Emmy, but why are you asking me that?” he was genuinely curious, thinking that maybe Riley had been venting to her subconsciously again, or that Emerson overheard a conversation with one of her friends. 

“I heard Aunty Savannah teasing her the other day over the phone and mommy got really red in the face. I think you should ask her, I know she’d say yes” Charlie’s eyes grew wide as Emerson nonchalantly recounted the conversation her mother had the other day. Emerson continued to color in the coloring book Charlie bought her earlier.

“Do you want me to ask mommy to marry me?” Emerson nodded her head as soon as the question came out of his mouth. “How come?” the question was meant to be playful, but Emerson’s reply was serious.

“Because I want to be able to call you daddy.” 

Charlie felt a lump in his throat.

“I’ve never had a daddy. It’s always been mommy and me. If you marry mommy, then you can be my daddy.” she paused to take a sip of her juice. “I think you’d make a great daddy”.

Charlie wiped away a tear that threatened to fall from his eyes and cleared his throat, feeling emotional. He took a sip from his water and took a deep breath. “You think so, Emmy?”

She nodded her head, continuing to color in her book. “Plus Justina at daycare said that in order for me to have a little brother or a little sister, you have to have a daddy AND a mommy.” Charlie chuckled at the little girl, and got up to kiss her on the head, hugging her too. 

“Got any ideas on how I should ask Mommy to marry me?” Emerson forgot about her coloring in that moment as her eyes sparkled with excitement over Charlie’s question.

“Well...I have a couple ideas...”

[pollyna]

Fem!verse: ace!Mickirk+ Enterprise crew edition.

• Jim full name is James Tiberia Kirk. James because George said so before he died and Tiberia because people seriously have sense of humor. She hates when people calls her with her full name and loves Jim, because Jim fits her better than anything. The only person who can call her James is Leo;

• Leo goes for Leonora Horatia Mccoy, because every single Mccoy needs to have Horatio before the surname. It's the law. Everyone calls her Leo or Nora but in the middle of a shuttle ride Jim Kirk decided she was going to be Bones and that's that;

• Leo's the best dancer of all Georgia and she ends breaking everyone heart between the steps. She met Jocelyn on the dance floor and they are sixteen, marries at 20, becomes parents at 23, divorced by 26. They kiss one last time when they are 24 and half and then they fight, fight, fight, while Leo drowns herself into work and Jocelyn in Clay's bed;

• Jim was born in space but lives all her life in Iowa with Frank and Sam, util Sam leaves them when she's 11 and he's 16. Tarsus IV is just a year later;

• Leo is 6'5 ft tall where Jim is 6' (5'9 Jim, don't bullshit yoursel). Leo hates her hair longer than ten centimeter and loves all the kind of undercuts- she actually learned to cut them herself during med school because if she didn't have time to sleep she surely didn't have time to go to the hairdressers-, where Jim always have them long and longer, forgetting her hair tie in every single room of the Academy and then on the ship, on planets and one memorable time even in a volcano;

• when they met Bones was 26, recently divorced and it was almost six month since the last time she saw her baby girl, while Jim was 22 and just met the floor of a bar;

• Leo loves Joanna. She loves her little girl and would do anything for her. But she didn't really want her at the beginning, she did it mostly because Jocelyn wanted to a baby and her mom always seemed sad when she tought about her not having a children;

• Leo comes out in the middle of a study session because a guy from her xenomed course invited her for dinner and dessert and honest to God with people are always thinking about sex. Jim looks at her for a long moment before asking for something more (first year);

• Jim comes out while she is drunk because how could she not. She says, holding her hand out, as if she was counting to not forget how many words she has to pronounce: I'm non binary, biromantic and asexual. What's your prognosis doctor? Leo orders another round of drinks and sleeps in Jim bed, holding her tight against her chest that night. The next morning she asks Jim what pronouns prefers. (she/they; secone year);

• they start dating almost at the end of their third year, after the most intense friendship both of them ever had. It's not like one of them says to the other we're together, they just kiss once before class and then the same night before going to bed and every other day from that moment on. Theoretically they have two different dorm with different roommates but they sleep in the same single bed for months. Sometimes in Leo's dormitory, sometime in Jim's;

• Leo finishes her (second) PhD during the second years and Jim is awestruck with how clever her best friend is and she gets a thank you at the end of the thesis because I wouldn't even got very far without you. It's almost a love confession;

[• Pike always looks out for them and a part of him looks at Jim and see George, almost twenty years before. He rembers how they used to spend hours in the simulator because George wanted to teach him how to fly every single ship he could find and Christopher used to follow him around. He wasn't in love with him but he could be easily been the case if it wasn't for Winona. (bi!Christopher Pike; one-side!Chris/George (was it really one-side?); George/Winona; dadmiral)];

• they end up on the Enterprise because of Nero and now she is Captain James Tiberia Kirk and her girlfriend is the CMO of a boat she hates half of the time, but she couldn't be happy anywhere else;

• between Leo and Spock is not love at the first sight and not even at the second, or a thousand, sight. It's not love at all but their frenemies relationship is the most awsome thing in her life after Joanna&Jim. Spock needs a hand but he doesn't know how to ask for it and then Geoffrey M'Benga arrives with all their knowledge on Vulcans and stuff just falls in the right place. He tells her he's trans and wants to transition but Vulcan is still not the most open place about it so he would like to be helped. Leo can tell him no;

[• Geoffrey M'Benga is 32 years old, non-binary and use they/them as pronouns. Everyone calls them GF. People really freaks out when they have to meet them because they never know who are going to meet. With him it comes Christine Chapel, the queen of lesbians and with her all the best of Starfleet Medical are together];

• Spock and Nyota become a couple when Jim/Leo are fighting and then a trouple when Gaila gets a post on the Enterprise. Leo is still angry and honestly she could care less of everyone and their lives (Nyota is bi, Gaila aromantic, Spock kisses them with his fingers and with his mouth and it's one of the best thing of the day);

• they are fighting because Jim is reackless and Leo would like to not see her in the infermery every other week and, on the last planet they visit, the prime minister flirted with her and Jim almost let herself be kissed. She doesn't know with whom begin more pissed, herself for believing they could last or herself, again, for believing they could fail so easly;

• they both miss Chehkov's freak out on the bridge because he looks at Hikaru and oh yeah, but then he looks at Leo and he got the crush for her but then there's the alien with three genders and the one after that that as none. They all make Chehkov hot hot hot. And he is 18 and wants answers and to try everything at least once. Okay, maybe it's better if he doesn't say a word about the crush he has for Dr. McCoy but for the rest;

• it takes two weeks to find the way to solve this particular fight because talking is so difficult when you never had to.

Probably will be more.

[corinnesamuels]

Guarding the Gates, Chapter 10: A Question of Legacy

Cover art by the amazing @the-dream-team!

“I’m surprised you came.” Regulus says as he turns back to observe the ducks. 

“I am too.” Sirius replies. “Though, if you could get on with it, I do have things to do today.” Sirius hates how easily his voice slips back into the cadence his family had beaten into him growing up but sounding like a detached aristocrat was usually the best course of action for conversations like these. 

Regulus hums lightly. “Carrying out Dumbledore’s bidding, I presume?”

Sirius rolls his eyes in exasperation. “What is it you called me here for? It isn’t to kill me because we both know you don’t have the stomach for that. Did your master want to send a message, then?”

Regulus gives an incredulous laugh as he turns to face his brother fully. “You think you’re important enough to receive a message from the Dark Lord?”

“Surely, I’ve taken down enough of his followers to have caught his attention by now.” Sirius makes a show of idly scanning the crossword.

“Enough for him to wonder why you’re turning your back on the people of our birth and the legacy of our house, perhaps.” Regulus brushes an invisible piece of lint from his sleeve. “But no, I’m here on my own accord.”

“And the purpose is?”

“My purpose is to discover why you always insist on playing for the losing side.” Regulus says. It surprises Sirius to realize how well he still knows his brother. He recognized the slight hitch in his voice. Others may have thought Regulus was taunting him, but it isn’t a taunt in his voice. It’s concern.

“Don’t tell me you’re worried about me? Mother and father will be apoplectic when they find out.” 

“Yes, because you have shunned everything they wanted for you!” Regulus grips the back of the bench tightly before dropping his head in frustration.

“What they wanted for me? Pureblood fanaticism, inbreeding, and a penchant for dark magic? I’ll pass on that if you don’t mind.” Sirius tucks his newspaper into his jacket pocket and begins to stand. “Well, if that’s all—”

“Legacy, Sirius.” Regulus cuts in through bared teeth. “Does that mean nothing to you?”

“What in our legacy do we have to be proud of, Regulus?” Sirius barks out. “The only things worth mentioning are things our parents despise. I only learned those things  because  they despised them.”

“Our parents wanted so much for you.” Regulus shakes his head in exasperation. “The named you after the brightest star in the night sky—”

“Here we go again with this bollocks—”

“They placed their hopes for our family’s legacy on you. And you have treated it with scorn since the very beginning.” Regulus says. “And spending all of your time with Potter has only made it worse.”

“I treated it with scorn because that’s what any decent person would have done, Regulus. I’d tell you to try it sometime, but you love taking up the mantle I left behind, don’t you?” Sirius says it sarcastically, but something clicks in his mind as soon as the words leave his mouth. He whips his head back to Regulus. “You don’t.” 

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Regulus says dismissively, but Sirius knows better.

“Mummy and Daddy’s expectations are weighing on you more than you’d care to admit.” Sirius says as he walks closer to his brother. “Their hopes and dreams suddenly feel like burdens to you, too, don’t they?”

Regulus doesn’t answer. He just stares across the park as a means of avoiding eye contact with Sirius. Sirius takes a deep breath and takes another step closer.

“You don’t have to fight for him just because they tell you to.” he says. 

“What, you want me to come to the losing side? You want me to believe that your friends will welcome a Death Eater into the ranks?” Regulus shakes his head and laughs in disbelief.

“Who said we’re losing?”

“The people that keep deciding the terms of the fighting.”

The two brothers stared at each other defiantly, though neither of them knew quite why. It was a posture they had adopted once Sirius had moved out at 16, one that made little sense then and made even less now.

“It seems as if we disagree on who is losing.” Sirius says before giving Regulus a questioning glance. “Is that the only reason you joined them, then? Self-preservation and our parents’ expectations?”

“I couldn’t care less about power, Sirius.” Regulus waves a hand dismissively at the thought. “What else is there besides self-preservation and our family’s legacy?”

“Deciding to do the right thing.”

“The concepts of right and wrong always were so black and white with you. Until the day you found yourself in the grey area.”

Sirius clenches his fist and just barely refrains from punching Regulus, though he desperately wants to. “We have a chance to make sure our family’s legacy includes being on the right side of this.” He says through gritted teeth before sighing and running a hand roughly over his mouth. “Look, Reg, come with me to Dumbledore. He can keep you protected, and you can see what life is like when you aren’t being forced into things you know are bollocks. You don’t have to keep doing our parents’ bidding.”

“You’re willing to die behind this…this folly?” Regulus asks quietly. 

“Yes.” Sirius says simply. For a moment, he thinks he may have won Regulus over. But then he sees his brother’s eyes glaze over into the aloof unbotheredness that was the Black family’s emotional default—when they weren’t deranged and sadistic like Bellatrix or Walburga. 

They stand there for a while in silence before Regulus takes a step backward.

“Be careful, Brother.” Regulus says. Sirius shakes his head and begins to stalk away when Regulus calls out to him. “I’m surprised you haven’t changed your last name to ‘Potter’ considering how much you’ve taken to acting like them.”

Sirius stops to turn to Regulus once more and laughs in spite of himself. “And miss out on the opportunity to piss off Mother and Father by dragging the family name through the mud? Never.”

   The War was becoming more tense by the day. There were more Death Eater attacks of muggle villages, more disappearances, more suspicions of Ministry officials being under the Imperius Curse. The Order of the Phoenix was often tired, and there had been several close calls, but their resolve remained. 

Despite the dark cloud hovering over the wizarding world, or maybe because of it, many young couples were cutting their engagements short, choosing to get married quickly because they saw every day just how short life could be. People the Marauders, Lily, Dorcas, Marlene, and Mary knew from school joined in the fray. Henry MacMillan and Aurora Gade married just two months after getting engaged. Penelope Parkin and Ian Abbot married after just two months of dating. So it wasn’t much of a surprise when Alice and Frank announced after an Order meeting that they would be doing the same. They’d held hands while making the announcement, exchanging looks that were equal parts adoring, frightened, and resolved. It was new for many of the Order to see them like that. It was no secret that the two had been dating, and in the rare instances when they all gathered to let down their collective hair, the couple looked as smitten and loving any other young couple looked. But in Order meetings, they were fighters, Aurors on a secret mission flying below the Ministry’s radar. To see them this way was a rare glimpse of their private selves, the ones they reserved only for each other.

When Dorcas made a statement about it being swoon-worthy a little too casually, Lily knew her friend was refraining from letting her eyes drift over to Remus Lupin. Lily couldn’t really say for sure, though, because she had been too busy trying not to let hers drift over to the man standing next to him. Lily was happy for Frank and Alice, and she loved that they had found love in each other in ways that worked for them. A part of her wishes she felt that it was something she could have for herself, but how could she risk that now? As a muggle-born? As a member of a resistance group operating outside the confines of the law? As someone who had seen how love can be used to break people in ways that still haunt her nightmares?

Read the rest at ao3!

Start from the beginning

[thesassenachswiftie]

A Preview of Reputation (Lover Prequel)

The chaos of progress report grades, the holidays and you know, surviving a global pandemic have been keeping the muses away, so I haven’t been writing much. A few months ago I started writing the prequal to “Lover” where Claire and Jamie first meet. I haven’t been able to start posting it yet because the first couple pre-Jamie chapters involve Claire and Frank being very much in love and it’s not something I’ve been super inspired to write. However, I did write the scene where Claire and Jamie meet, and since it takes place on New Year’s Eve, I figured I post a preview! Without further ado, here’s a rough, unedited preview of Reputation: Chapter 3 “Gorgeous”

Claire was on her second glass of wine when she heard footsteps coming down the stairs. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t ken anyone would be down here, they’re all outta whiskey upstairs and I was told there was more down here.”

Fuck. You’re so gorgeous it actually hurts. Claire couldn’t believe the man she’d been avoiding all night was standing before her, alone in the basement, lit only by the backlight of the bar.  “Help yourself” she answered, gesturing behind the bar with a flourish. “You ken?” she giggled “What is that, Sco’ish?” she mimicked in a poor, slightly tipsy attempt at his accent. 

He slipped behind the bar and pulled the whiskey bottle off the shelf. “Are you making fun of the way I talk, lass?” he chucked with a twinkle in his eye, picking up a glass as well. 

“You should take it as a compliment.” she lilted with a flirtatious smile. “By the way, There’s ice in the fridge if you need it” She didn’t want to flirt with him, but it seemed to come out naturally--and being several drinks in, she didn’t have much restraint.

“Thanks. You don’t exactly sound like yer from around here either, Sassenach” he pondered. Heading towards the ice maker with his glass.

“Sass-a-nack.” she pronounced slowly, savoring each syllable on the tip of her tongue. “What on earth does that mean?”

“It means something akin to ‘outlander’ it’s just that ye don’t really seem like you quite belong here, perhaps that’s why yer hiding in the basement? Where are you from anyway? I can’t quite pin down your accent.”  He was back at the bar now, setting his glass down.

“Allow me” she implored, taking the bottle from him and pouring. “My parents were English, but they raised me in Boston, after they died when I was 14 I traveled the world with my Uncle, I suppose I picked up on a little bit of everything.”  She handed him the glass, “one whiskey on ice, sir.”

“Ah, so you’re a true Sassanach then? From everywhere and nowhere all at once” They were drawing in closer, Jamie drawing closer to where Claire was perched atop the bar. 

“I suppose you’re right, I never thought about it that way...” she trailed off.  God, how did he seem to understand everything about her moments after meeting her? 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend, sometimes I let my mouth run off without thinking” he apologized, touching her hand in the darkened room.  The moment he touched her, it was like electricity surging through her veins.  Her face was flushed, her pulse was quickening.  Those ocean blue eyes were looking straight into hers. I think I might sink and drown and die. She couldn’t say anything to his face, cause look at your face, you’re gorgeous.  Their eyes and hands lingered on each other as they sat there in silence.  After what could have been a moment or an eternity, he lifted his hand from hers.  “Christ Sassanach, say something, if I’ve offended ye badly I’ll leave.”

“What can I say? I’m fine, no harm done, I’m just not used to people really seeing me like that is all.  I promise I’m not upset.”

“Good. I’d hate to hurt ya.” he said, finishing his whiskey and giving her a stunning smile that made her feel butterflies in the pit of her stomach.  It was getting too intimate and she had to change the subject.  

“So what brings a Scotsman to our lovely cul-de-sac?”

“Well, I’m just visiting my sister for the holidays right now, but I’ll be spending my summers here for the foreseeable future as well.  Ya see, my brother-in-law, who also happens to be my childhood best friend was in an accident.” he saw the look of concern on her face “don’t worry, he’s fine, just he injured his leg pretty badly and can’t do the farm work he used to. I came down this summer to help him plant and harvest before I had to go back to my wee tree farm.”

“In Scotland?” questioned Claire. 

“In England actually, not too far outside of London.” corrected Jamie.

“Ah, the motherland, that’s respectable.” she replied “It isn’t too much, managing two places so far from each other?”

“My godfather Murtagh oversees my place back home while I’m gone, the thing about trees is, they pretty much grow themselves.  I really just need to be there for the holiday rush.”  Claire looked at him quizzically “It’s a Christmas tree farm, ya ken?”  Claire could picture it perfectly: rolling snow covered hills,  families dragging small children along on sleds, trees being twined up on top of cars, twinkling lights decorating a barn.

“Sounds lovely” she expressed. She found she was noticing how large his hand was around the whiskey glass, wondering what it would feel like to have it wrapped around around her waist, gently caressing her face, what those fingers would feel like tangled up in her curls, what they would feel like inside her--

“Oh Claire, there you are.” Frank interrupted coming to the bottom of the basement steps, “What are you doing down here?”

“Frank, darling” she beamed, her face flushing. She felt like she’d been caught although she did nothing wrong. “I just needed to take a break from these heels for a few moments.”

“Who’s this?” Frank asked, eyeing the imposing Scotsman who abruptly sprang upright from his position leaning at the bar as soon as he heard that beautiful woman call this man ‘darling’.

“This is Laoghaire’s date, Mr….”

“Fraser. Jamie Fraser. Pleased to meet ye.” he stammered, extending a hand towards Frank. “Frank, was it?” 

“Frank Randall” he replied, accepting the handshake. They were polite to each other, but Claire felt a tension between the two of them, as if they were trying to one up each other, staring each other down.  Claire couldn’t help but picture them snorting and stamping like bulls, which it seemed could happen at any moment. 

“Ah Randall! This wouldn’t happen to be your lovely abode, would it?”

“As a matter of fact, it is, and my lovely fiancee’s, of course.” he professed smugly, sidling over to Claire, who was still seated on the bar and wrapping an arm around her waist, claiming his territory. 

“Aye, it’s a lovely home--you’ve both done a great job, great bar as well.” He said, gesturing to the whiskey bottle and heading towards the stairs, understanding the implicit message Frank was sending.

“Darling, we really should get back to our guests, it’s not appropriate for the hostess to be hiding in the basement.” Frank chided, helping Claire off the bar, and casting a cold glance in Jamie’s direction. 

[liusaidh-writing]

Call it True - Chapter 3

[Prefer AO3?]

[Chapter 1] [Chapter 2]

Here is Chapter 3! I am sorry it’s so late. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy. Chapter Four is on its way soon, too!

*****************************

Claire and Jamie exchanged texts and phone calls in the following days and nights. Unable to connect in person, they did what they could to remain close. Claire's night shifts ended after a week, and she was relieved to be back in the world of daylight once again. She also hoped this meant she and Jamie could get together again. And soon. 

I'm free! Well, until my time rolls around again, anyway. Next two days off, and not a single thing planned!

She hit send with a grin and imagined what she and Jamie might do on her time off. Go to dinner? Watch a movie, preferably curled up on a couch. What movies did he like? She started compiling a list of possible options while she rode along in Lesley's car after her final night shift had ended in the early morning hours. They’d picked up a grumbly Harry at the sitters before heading to Claire’s flat.

Lesley, in the driver's seat, reached back to grab Harry's snack cup before it was flung to the floor by a frustrated toddler.  The car swerved slightly as she turned back in her seat, causing Claire to gasp before Lesley set it right again. 

Lesley thrust the snack cup at Claire, snapping, "Did you not hear me? I was asking you to grab it from him! Where's your mind been these last few days, anyway?" 

Claire grasped the cup in her hands, dropping the phone in her lap. "Sorry! I just...didn't hear you! I’d rather the snack cup take the hit next time instead of us!" 

"You're sitting right next to me, and unless you've gone deaf in the last ten minutes, you're just not paying attention," Lesley said in a sing-songy voice, ignoring Claire’s comment regarding her driving, but making an obvious effort to keep her tone light. She sighed, flipping the wipers on to clear the windshield of mist. It was annoyingly rainy, only a mere drizzle, but oddly cold for a spring morning. "Feels like winter outside, does it not," she remarked, attempting to change the subject.  

"Yep...pretty cold." 

Claire's mind wandered back to Jamie in the sweater he'd worn on their date. It had looked so cozy, and Claire wondered how it would feel on her. She blinked rapidly, forcing herself back to the present.

"So, you had been telling me earlier about...custody?" 

Lesley sighed, grudgingly answering Claire's question. 

"Yes...I told you everything, but you were off in lala land half the time. Not surprised you don't remember. If you're here with me now, I'll tell you again."

"Yes, please, I'm really listening." Claire shoved her phone between her leg and the seat, hoping that having it out of sight would help her stay focused on what her friend was saying. 

"Well, Frank has decided he wants full custody of Harry. Make me some kind of weekend Mum." Lesley gritted her teeth thinking about the very idea of it. "Like he's capable of taking him on full time," she said, gesturing at Harry in the back, who'd fallen asleep. “He wouldn’t last an hour before he was calling me, begging for help.”

"He doesn't have grounds, surely! He can't just...make stuff up!" Claire was indignant, knowing how great of a mother Lesley was, and how perfectly lousy Frank was at everything from keeping Harry fed when he had him to keeping promises to Lesley about drop off times. 

Lesley shook her head and rested her left elbow on the car door as they sat at a stoplight. "It's absolutely insane. He thinks because he makes more money that he should have Harry. That my schedule at the hospital isn't 'suitable for a toddler.’  He's just making sure I waste my money on legal fees fighting him instead of spending it on taking care of Harry so I'll look bad," she finished, glancing at Claire with an incredulous expression. 

"Well, you know I'll do anything to help, Lesley!" 

They had reached Claire's building, and as Claire got out she reached back and lightly ruffled Harry's hair, giving Lesley a smile and thanked her for the ride. She grabbed her things and headed to her door, feeling her phone signal that she had a text message as she walked. She quickly unlocked her door, slung them to the floor and hungrily unlocked her phone to see a message from Jamie waiting to be read.

Good to hear, Sassenach. I suppose you’ll need to go home and sleep. How about I come by later this evening? 

Claire quickly sent a reply and beamed at...well, no-one. She locked her door and dreamily waltzed to the shower, eager to strip off her scrubs and wash the night away.

“Jamie and I are hanging out tonight!” she squealed, raising her arms in victory over her head. She gave a little twirl as she moved past her bedroom. Taking off her top, she flung it on her bed. Claire felt like a teenager - she was sure her cheeks were pink and her mind raced with all the possibilities of the evening. She nearly replied to Jamie that she didn’t need to sleep, but...that wasn’t true. She was dead on her feet and her shift last night had been especially brutal with several stressful patients. She sighed,  realizing she deeply regretted not having made the effort to really meet Jamie earlier. Why had she wasted so much time? Now that they were friendly, she couldn’t seem to get him out of her mind.  Lesley hadn’t been wrong when she’d said Claire had been in la-la land. She reminded herself to thank Lesley for saving her ass more than once at work in the past week. If it wasn’t Jamie’s calls or texts, it was her own imagination getting her in trouble. Over the phone, Jamie had told her all about his family, his nieces and nephews and sister. He had a best friend named Ian, who happened to be his brother-in-law. And a father he clearly cared a lot about. Claire had never known that sort of reality, growing up as she had. She revelled in Jamie’s stories of his boyhood, clinging to bits of him that he unknowingly exposed.

For instance, Claire was sure that Jamie was secretly in love with his father’s farm, though he had claimed he didn’t care to run things when the time came, that he’d gotten his flat in the city to escape that reality. He talked of it with such pride, and Claire wondered why he didn’t live there full time, as much as he was there. It held fond memories of his mother, and it was his connection to his extended family, and she knew family meant a lot to him. 

She couldn’t exactly relate - though she had loved her uncle a great deal - but it was almost surreal hearing about hectic holidays or birthday celebrations Jamie got to experience growing up. Claire was rather envious at times.  Her holidays usually involved Uncle Lamb flat-out forgetting them, and though he always remembered her birthday, he wasn’t the greatest at remembering to mark the date in any meaningful way other than a sweet ‘Happy Birthday, darling,’ and a pat on the cheek.  She quickly made a mental note to ask Jamie about his birthday sometime. 

Pulling back the shower curtain, she sighed as the steamy hot water washed away the night at the hospital; it succeeded in making her drowsy enough to fall quickly asleep. 

---

Claire woke to a rather loud knock at her door. She rolled out of bed, hair all akimbo, eyes squinting as she opened her room darkening curtains. Padding towards the door, she quickly wrapped herself in the throw from the couch before turning the knob. There stood Jamie, a slight smile on his face that immediately fell when he caught sight of her. 

"Oh God--" 

"I'm sorry--" 

They both spoke at the same time, Claire wrapping the blanket more securely around her shoulders.  She had shorts and a small tee-shirt on, but no bra.  She began to speak again, wondering if she looked as horrible as she feared. Jamie grimaced and took a breath. 

"I am so sorry, I didn't wake you did I?" 

"Oh, no. It's fine, really! I must look frightening..." Claire carefully took one arm out of her wrap and tried to smooth her hair in an attempt to calm her curls. 

 "NO! You look...stunning!"  His eyes were wide, as though he’d seen a ghost.

 "Oh, God no.  Would you like to...?" 

She gestured him inside, and quickly caught that he was holding a few things in his hands.  A wad of blankets and a small thermal lunch bag were clutched in his arms as he shuffled inside. 

"Let me just...go change. Have a seat, will you?" She moved towards her bedroom as she watched Jamie sit on her sofa, placing his things on the cushion beside him. 

She closed her bedroom door, tossed the throw on her bed and leaned heavily against the door, her head making a distinct thumping sound as it hit. "Ow..." she muttered.  "Hope he didn't hear that..." 

She was jittery and her mouth was dry. He had that effect on her - one she couldn't put into words.  Her stomach was consumed by a swarm of butterflies as she got dressed, brushing her teeth and washing her face. She raised her arms over her head checking her armpits for odor, and swiped on some deodorant, finishing with a quick spray of her favorite perfume with a flourish. She didn’t dare go back out there smelling like a hospital. She wasn’t entirely trusting of the shower she’d taken.

Taking a few deep, but not-so-calming breaths, she went back out to her living room, where Jamie waited patiently, thumbing through a magazine on her coffee table. 

“I’m all for color in a room, but this shade of green makes me think of vomit.” Jamie was pointing at a photo of a painted room in some home decor article, curling his lip up in disgust at said shade of green.

He smiled at Claire, dropping the magazine and taking her in slowly, his eyes large and bright. 

Claire looked down at her outfit - Jeans and a warm, deep red top. She’d been told it ‘brought out her eyes’, whatever the hell that meant, so she figured it was a good choice. She smoothed her shirt down and gestured at the magazine.

“Well, we don’t have to worry about that - I asked if I could paint when I moved in and was told no. Can’t wait to be able to live somewhere without blank white walls.” She waved haphazardly around the room, devoid of artwork, save for several of her own photos from various trips, and a few of Uncle Lamb, of course.

“It’s good to see you again, Claire.” Jamie stood up, moving towards her with his hand out. She wasn’t sure what he was going for, so she moved with him, meeting him in the middle. He clasped her hand in his, and they both paused for a moment, Claire watching his eyes dance as he gazed at her. He gave a small smile with one corner of his mouth, and quickly kissed her cheek. 

“It’s good to see you again, too,” Claire sighed, her breath coming out in spurts. She felt him relinquish her hand, and she glanced at it, half expecting it to be bright red the way it radiated his lingering warmth. He stepped back just a bit, and gestured to the items he’d brought with him.

“It’s a little wet outside, but there’s a free concert at the park. Would you like to come? If you don’t want to sit on the ground, I have chairs.” He raked a hand through his hair and tapped the fingers of his right hand against his thigh. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her.

Jamie’s voice was shaky with nerves, and Claire quickly tried to put him at ease.

“I don’t mind the ground!” She figured Jamie could offer her spikes to sit on and she’d accept them if that meant he’d be there, too. “Let’s go, it’ll be fun!” 

Jamie nodded, picking up the blanket and lunch bag. “Brought some goodies for us to snack on, too.” 

“Oh, good. I’m starving! Haven’t eaten all day!” 

Claire grabbed her purse as they walked to the door together, slinging it over her shoulder and grabbing her keys from the counter. She didn’t know what kind of music would be playing at this concert, but she didn’t care in the slightest. She was also rather eager to find out what was in that lunch bag. Her stomach gurgled, and she made a face as Jamie hid a smile.

He took her hand again, pulling her toward the door and out into the damp night. It was about 7 in the evening, and though the days were getting longer, the rain clouds obscured any remaining sunlight. 

-----

Having picked the driest bit of ground he could, Jamie spread out one warm wool blanket, gesturing for Claire to take a seat while he unfolded the other one. It was as large as the one they sat on, and doubly thick. Claire shivered slightly as she watched him swirl the blanket around her shoulders. He sat down next to her - quite closely, so she could feel the heat coming off him, and he wrapped the other half of the blanket around his own shoulders, meeting the two ends in the middle between them. It was cozy, and the band had just started. She looked around, wishing they weren’t surrounded by other people at the moment. Claire looked at Jamie - who had been casually checking out the band. He glanced at her, then reached for the lunch bag.

“What do you have for us?” Claire’s stomach growled again, and Jamie chuckled as he unzipped the bag while Claire held the blanket in place. 

“Erm...not much. Some crackers, cheese, grapes. A small bag of chips, if you’re in the mood for junk food?” He held the chips out to her and she hungrily ripped it open, popping one in her mouth with a satisfied grin. 

“Mmmm...so good. I’ve not had anything to eat since about 6 this morning. I forgot to eat when I got home from work.” Because you texted me, she added in her head, and I wanted nothing more than to go to sleep quickly so I could see you. 

Jamie went for a few grapes, munching them as he watched her devour the chips. She offered him one, holding it up to his mouth. 

“Have one!” she exclaimed, wiggling it in front of him.

He went for it, and she quickly pulled it away. She laughed as he pursed his lips in mock irritation. “Give me that,” he said, pulling her hand towards his mouth again, taking the chip between his teeth. His lips slightly brushed Claire’s finger tips, and a shiver traveled through her body as they laughed together. 

Their bodies were touching entirely now, from shoulder to toes, and Claire didn’t want to be anywhere else. She leaned against him, and he let her put her weight against his chest as he held the blanket with his left hand. His right arm wrapped around her waist. Claire felt flush, slightly feverish, silently basking in his glow. The rain was cold, the ground was colder, but she wouldn’t have known it with Jamie securely keeping them both comfortably warm.  

The band played on, the bass pulsing through her. She didn’t know the songs, but nodded her head with the beat periodically. For all the sound, though, her mind was somewhere else entirely. She wanted nothing more than to turn around, place her lips on his, and fall into him. She glanced at the people around her again, most of them chit-chatting, drinking, or eating. She felt him squirm slightly, and glanced back at him as best she could in her position. She felt his arm leave her side, make its way up her arm to her shoulder, and then into her hair. He played with her curls as he stretched one long leg out in front of them, where his boot got wet with rain. Claire’s hands were in her lap - she was entirely unsure what she should do with them, so she clutched her middle as the swarm of butterflies (more like angry hornets, if she was honest with herself) engulfed her middle. Her eyes fluttered closed as Jamie continued twirling her curls around his finger.

“Hey, Sassenach, are you thirsty? I could go get us some drinks at the food cart?” Jamie gestured with his head, back behind them where beer and soda was sold at an exorbitant price. 

Claire turned slightly and looked at him, his brows raised in question.

She took a breath, swallowing all her fear and uncertainty. The hornets in her stomach faded to a dull ache as she turned some more, raising her hands to his face.  She’d caught him off guard, and as her lips enveloped his own, he was still for a split second before deepening the kiss with his hand still in her hair, clutching her curls now, tugging slightly. Claire breathed in deeply, the noises of the band and people around them fading into oblivion, a fuzzy mirage at the corner of her vision as she closed her eyes, unwilling to break their connection. His tongue danced with hers briefly before he pulled away. Claire, with her eyes still closed, felt him rubbing her cheek with his thumb. 

“Oi, if we wanted to see that, we’d have gone to see a movie!” 

Claire’s eyes snapped open, her head whirling around to her right searching for the person that matched the voice. A young teenage boy smirked in their direction, sniggering a bit as she eyed him. He held a full pint of beer in one hand, and cocked his head, daring her to say something in return.

“He’ll break up with ya tomorrow,” the boy said, laughing with his mates, one of them slapping him on the shoulder in congratulations for his stupendous observation. Claire’s brow knit in confusion.

“Why don’t you-” she was cut off by Jamie, who stood up quickly, pulling the blanket that was around them up into a ball. He put it down, and stretched his arms over his head, making himself appear even larger. The kid with the beer blanched, spilling a bit in his lap as he involuntarily jerked away at Jamie’s stone cold glare. 

“Come on, Sassenach. Let’s go…” He gathered up the lunch bag, and offered her his hand. She took it, letting him pull her up. She was shivering now, his warmth having left her. She moved so he could pick up the other blanket, and they slowly picked their way through the crowd. 

Claire was surprised to feel her chin trembling a bit. Was she going to...cry? God, not now, she thought. How silly. It had just been a kid trying to stir up trouble for a laugh. It wasn’t funny, though, Claire thought angrily. It made her feel ashamed, but for what? She’d simply kissed Jamie. She held her breath for a moment, as she wondered if Jamie had minded that she’d done that - in the middle of the park, surrounded by people. She let her breath out again as she felt him grab her elbow and tug her closer. Perhaps he hadn’t minded afterall. He wasn’t making excuses to leave, anyway, she thought with some relief. 

She felt Jamie put her hand through the crook of his elbow as he guided her back towards their building. She still shivered, and Jamie pulled her in, their shoes meeting the pavement in unison. 

“Don’t worry about him, Sassenach.” 

Claire looked up when he spoke, gave a small smile, and leaned her head against his shoulder. 

“It’s ok…” she mumbled, wondering what the rest of the night would hold. She’d be up all night now, and didn’t particularly want her time with Jamie to come to an end. 

“How about we get that full meal in you? You must still be hungry,” Jamie offered. “Let me drop these things by my flat and we’ll go, yeah?” 

Claire nodded. “Sounds good, Jamie.” 

[kcnnedys]

(  logan  lerman  ,  29  ,  cisman  ,  he  /  him  )  *  hey  ,  i’m  looking  for  the  office  of  KENNEDY  CRAWFORD  .  they’re  the  EMPLOYEE  who’s  known  around  the  office  as  THE  PEOPLE  -  PLEASER  ,  if  that  helps  ?  not  to  be  a  gossip  ,  but  i’ve  heard  that  they’re  CHARISMATIC  but  RUTHLESS  ,  is  that  true  ?  i  also  heard  that  they’re  the  one  who  STAYS  UP  ALL  NIGHT  AND  ENDS  UP  FALLING  ASLEEP  ON  MR  .  MASTERS'  OFFICE  .  anyways  ,  here’s  the  coffee  they  ordered  .

hellooo  everyone  !!  this  is  fleur  (  gmt  -3  ,  she  /  her  ,  23  )  bringing  you  a  new  muse  :  mr  .  kennedy  crawford  .  he  is  one  of  masters  international’s  in  -  house  lawyers  and  i  can’t  wait  to  see  him  interact  with  everyone  here  &  develop  him  .  under  the  cut  ,  you’ll  find  all  the  info  you  need  while  i  fix  his  pages  .  if  you  wanna  plot  ,  hit  the  like  button  here  or  hmu  on  discord  !!

*     ⸻     𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐄𝐑  𝐎𝐍𝐄  .

name  :  kennedy  thomas  crawford  . nickname  (  s  )  :  ken  ,  kenny  ,  kt  ,  kc  . date  of  birth  :  april  7  ,  1993  (  28  years  old  )  . zodiac  sign  :  aries  sun  ,  virgo  rising  ,  saggitarius  moon  . place  of  birth  :  new  york  city  ,  new  york  ,  usa  . occupation  :  masters  international’s  in  -  house  lawyer  . education  :  columbia  university  . sexuality  :  heterosexual  . relationship  status  :  single  ,  not  interested  . social  status  :  upper  -  middle  class . living  condition  :  studio  apartment  in  brooklyn  . height  :  180  cm  /  6  ft  . weight  :  74  kg  .

*     ⸻     𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐄𝐑  𝐓𝐖𝐎  .

positive  traits  :  charismatic  ,  good  listener  ,  friendly  ,  easygoing  ,  adaptable  . neutral  traits  :  observant  ,  quick  -  witted  ,  flirtatious  . negative  traits  :  ruthless  ,  jealous  ,  manipulative  ,  easily  upset  ,  greedy  . labels  :  the  people  -  pleaser  ,  the  seducer  ,  the  know  -  it  -  all  . likes  :  parties  and  clubs  ,  walking  in  manhattan  late  at  night  ,  chai  latte  ,  white  shirts  ,  playing  the  guitar  ,  late  night  drives  ,  cats  ,  crime  shows  and  documentaries  . dislikes  :  rainy  days  ,  new  york’s  traffic  ,  crowded  places  ,  cold  coffee  ,  long  phone  calls  ,  babies  ,  small  elevator  talk  ,  romantic  movies  . music  :  indie  rock  ,  rock  ,  hip  -  hop  and  r&b  . food  :  nathan’s  hot  dogs  ,  sushi  ,  pasta  (  aka  instant  noodles  are  lifesavers  )  ,  steak  /  barbecue  . drinks  :  negronis  ,  vodka  ,  soju  ,  black  unsweetened  coffee  ,  cranberry  juice  ,  black  tea  with  almond  milk  . habits  :  running  almost  late  ,  clicking  his  tongue  ,  smirking  ,  tapping  his  foot  . alcohol  ?  cigarettes  ?  drugs  ?  yes .  sometimes  .  sometimes  (  weed  ,  cocaine  )  . character  inspirations  :  frank  vernon  ,  roman  roy  and  kendall  roy  (  succession  )  ,  robert  spearing  (  industry  )  ,  nate  archibald  (  gossip  girl  )  ,  harvey specter  (  suits  )  ,  bobby  axelrod  (  billions  )  ,  fleabag  (  fleabag  )  ,  can’t  think  of  others  right  now  lmao  .

*     ⸻     𝐁𝐈𝐎𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐏𝐇𝐘  .

kennedy  was  born  the  oldest  son  of  a  greedy  couple  who  was  rising  in  their  career  .  his  father  was  also  an  in  -  house  lawyer  for  a  big  corporation  while  his  mother  worked  in  an  investment  bank  .  growing  up  in  such  an  environment  ,  he  has  always  been  encouraged  to  chase  his  dreams  and  not  let  anyone  or  anything  stop  him  from  getting  what  he  wants  .  from  a  very  young  age  ,  he  developed  skills  such  as  public  speaking  ,  strategizing  and  arguing  /  convincing  people  around  him  .  of  course  becoming  manipulative  also  came  in  that  package  .  he’s  always  been  ruthless  .

a  very  bright  student  ,  kennedy  attended  columbia  university  and  specialized  in  corporate  law  .  he  was  an  intern  in  a  top  law  firm  before  he  applied  to  masters  .  after  he  got  in  ,  his  goal  is  now  to  become  general  counsel  .  although  it  is  a  challenge  ,  he  is  confident  he  will  make  it  ,  no  matter  what  is  needed  to  get  there  .

*     ⸻     𝐓𝐈𝐃𝐁𝐈𝐓𝐒  .

very  much  of  a  night  owl  ,  he  struggles  to  get  up  in  the  morning  .

he  takes  the  public  transportation  to  work  ,  which  surprises  a  lot  of  people  ,  considering  he  sounds  like  a  spoiled  asshole  sometimes  .

his  friendliness  doesn’t  always  mean  he  wants  something  from  you  .  he  loves  socializing  and  considers  himself  someone  who  has  many  friends  but  also  many  enemies  .

his  favorite  color  is  green  .  it  matches  his  eyes  ,  he  says  .  when  it  comes  to  clothes  ,  he  prefers  neutral  tones  .

although  he  is  a  lawyer  ,  there  is  a  very  “  indie  ”  side  to  him  when  he’s  out  of  the  office  .  he  likes  playing  the  guitar  and  going  to  underground  parties  and  bars  .

a  massive  flirt  ,  it’s  a  form  of  cheap  entertainment  .  he  doesn’t  care  for  a  romantic  relationship  and  avoids  that  at  all  costs  .

*     ⸻     𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃  𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒  .

IN  -  HOUSE  LAWYERS  :  they  could  be  friends  ,  rivals  ,  frenemies  .  .  .  i  love  some unhealthy  competition  among  lawyers  in  this  firm  .

FLIRTATIONSHIP  :  well  ,  he  hits  on  every  pretty  girl  in  the  firm  basically  .  this  can  be  kind  of  a  game  for  them  .

UNLIKELY  FRIENDS  :  they  belong  to  different  worlds  but  still  get  along  pretty  well  .  maybe  they  meet  outside  master  at  first  and  then  realize  they  work  for  the  same  company  .

SECRET  RELATIONSHIP  :  they’re  supposed  to  hate  each  other  but  still  are  drawn  to  each  other  (  can  be  romantic  or  not  )  .

BEST  FRIENDS  :  kennedy’s  go  -  to  people  at  the  company  ,  the  ones  that  he  gossips  to  and  shares  secrets  with  .

DRINKING  /  PARTY  BUDDIES  :  happy  hour  means  these  two  are  gonna  meet  and  make  one  hell  of  a  mess  .  and  have  the  time  of  their  lives  ,  of  course  .

ONE  NIGHT  STAND  :  they  probably  hooked  up  and  it  was  good  ,  but  it’s  all  a  blur  when  they  wake  up  the  next  morning  at  one  of  their  apartments  .  oh  ,  and  they’re  late  for  work  .

OTHER  DESIRED  RELATIONSHIPS  :  frenemies  ,  enemies  with  benefits  ,  wingman  /  wingwoman  ,  someone  he  is  manipulating  or  vice  -  versa  ,  leading  on  ,  crush  (  one  -  sided  or  not  )  ,  someone  he  shares  a  secret  with  .  or  anything  ,  really  !!

[whatdoesshedotothem]

Tuesday 15 November 1836

8 ¾

12

No kiss ready in ¾ hour - fine morning wrote the last 4 ¼ lines of yesterday - F41° at 9 40 am breakfast till 10 20 - A- read a little French - meant to have gone to Little Marsh to look after the quarry holes but writing out (inking over) pencil account in my rough book took me till 11 and then the morning was become so damp and hazy determined to go tomorrow - went out and off in spite of damp and small rain at 11 20 to Little marsh quarry-holes - looked about there and at the Upper place quarry - sent for Dobson - has not got to the bottom of the stone - thinks it may be bottomed in another week if the weather permit - afraid of water - being fast in water - would like very much to agree for the stone in Little marsh land where Mr. Freeman made the hole - but could not pay a price down - would pay £40 a year - no! said I that wont do - you valued it at £600 down (vid. my Journal sometime back) and £40 a year = £600 in 15 years - widow Hall came out to speak to me - said her selling off which she had no right to do under the lease, had annoyed me - I would have nothing more to do with the thing - should leave it to Mr. Washington to settle - sure he would not be too hard with her - I did not wish him to be so - I should leave it to him, and ‘probably should not contrary her much’ - home about 1 10 met Robert Mann coming from towards Mytholm - talked over the small engine and inclined plane into Godley lane - then in the stable and about and in the Conery Ing - the gardener + 3 and Robert Mann + 3 (in 2 parties all Robert Mann’s men) trenching along the north side for planting - had turned up an old pit hill burnt red, at the bottom end of the field - then in the stable - George did not like having to ride the pony and Frank taking the 2 bays out in the cart - George asked if they were to be under Frank’s care or his - who to groom them - George to do as he did before and John groom the rest as he had done before - if this did not suit George - he had only to make up his mind about it - ½ a word sometimes less enough for me - then had David Booth explaining about the west tower stairs - then took him into the cellar and explained my plan of an underground communication with the west tower-stairs to avoid the housemaids having to pass along the open gallery to the red room and north chamber - DB. saw no difficulty in my plan - it is to be done - then had Mr. Husband a minute or 2 about Susanna Wilkinson taking one of the Hatters’ street cottages till A- returned at 4 35 - dressed - wrote all but the 1st 3 lines of today till 5 25 then wrote 3 ¾ pp. to M- thanks for her letter last night - glad she had arrived safe - ‘to the best of our knowledge we have no knowledge of your mail-Park-friend’ obliged for her interest in the place etc ‘I think tonight as I thought last night on reading your letter, that, were I à votre place, I should not attempt the Ford just now - Give the waters of stiff time to subside - wait till your return home - then make such inquires as may seem called for - Perhaps the paper threatened to be put on the church-door, was not put up - But if you would like to investigate the tenor of Ecclesiastical law, it is sufficiently within your reach at present - to say nothing of greater people, there is your namesake, the proctor, who might be no

SH:7/ML/E/19/0144

‘imprudent counsellor - I shall feel interested in the result - Perhaps you have done better than I should have done in such a case; but, as I observed to you when here, my line of tactique would have varied a little from years’ - sent off my letter 3 ¾ pp. to ‘Mrs. Lawton at Mrs. Belcombe’s Minster-court York’ - dinner at 6 ½ - A- read French - I ½ asleep for some while on the sofa - then coffee and read tonight’s London paper (Morning Herald) till 9 ½ - then came into my study - musing over the plans of the house and alterations till 10 ¾ at which hour F46° - damp hazy morning with small rain, till heavier rain drove off the gardener and Robert Mann and c° from trenching in the Conery Ing - Damp rainy evening

[queensofthekastle]

For the dialogue prompt -- how's about 42?? :]

HOLY SHIT OK IT TOOK ME A MONTH BUT I'VE DONE IT. FINALLY. Life was just happening everywhere, thanks for waiting me out. 🙏

TW: descriptions and references to racist police violence.

The prompt was "I'm only here to establish an alibi." I was totally stuck--what could be blamed on Frank that he wouldn't have actually done? Canonically to the comics (though I commend the show for not giving a flying fuck about whether Frank went after glorified DHS cops who were dirty) the only things Frank won't touch are bystanders, cops, and active duty military.

And then I had it. Because 2020 has been A Year and I'm still processing some shit. So, here we go.

-Stellar

************************************

The door rattles under a succinct knock at 2:45 am—just when Karen had been so close to falling asleep, caught in that limbo of vague consciousness and wandering thoughts just on the cusp of falling into dreams. So, it’s with more irritation than concern that she drags herself out of bed after the second round of door-bludgeoning. It being post-closing time on a Friday—well, Saturday now—she's fairly confident what she’ll find through the peephole will be a drunk neighbor with the wrong apartment. It wouldn’t be the first time, nor, probably, the last.

A cautious look through the peephole does not reveal one of her gregarious bar-hopping neighbors though, but a still figure; hood pulled close around his face to shadow shifting eyes that look black as ink in the low, shit light of the apartment hallway. Frank has a lovely mouth, but it’s set now in a tense line. Karen’s heart picks up speed, a fullness in her chest and a pressure in her veins—middle of the night, tense Frank is never a good sign. Though he doesn’t seem to be bleeding from anywhere, which is more than can be said for some of his other visits.

She undoes the door chain, and she’s quietly but earnestly asking “what’s going on?” before she even has the door open wide enough for him to see her face.

“Nothing.” He says, voice rough and low, but calm. “I just need someone to know it’s nothing.”

He looks askance, looks at her. She allows herself a sigh.

“What does that even mean, Frank?”

He shifts his weight and looks at her from under the shadow of his hood. 

“I’m only here to establish an alibi.”

“Because you didn’t do something, or because you did?”

“Didn’t,” he says, and she believes him. She always does. It’s one piece of why he’s so dear to her: Frank never lies to her, and she never lies to him.

“This should be interesting,” she says, and opens the door far enough for him to step through. When she’s closed it behind him she asks if he’d like a drink. He answers without looking her in the eye, mind working on something else far away from her little apartment—he asks for his usual, of course. Only Frank would suggest coffee this near to 3:00 am.

“Not sleeping tonight?” she asks. He shrugs one shoulder.

“Guess not.”

“Uh-huh. So you didn’t do anything, but you’re pulling an all-nighter in my apartment? I’m going to need an explanation here soon, Frank.”

He hovers beside the hutch that acts as her kitchen island without looking any more settled than he had out in the hall. His jaw works for a moment before he answers.

“I don’t know how much you want to know. Let's just say I ran into someone with a mission about like mine and I’m giving her space to work.”

“Oh. God. A Punisher copycat? Jesus, Frank. The law turns a blind eye to one of you, I doubt you’ll get away with two.”

“Nah,” he says, “nothing like that. I’m it. This is a one-time thing—lady's got some things to get out of her system. I only found out because she was after the same supply chain I was.”

“Supply chain?”

“Ammo,” he says flatly. Karen holds her next blink a little too hard and a little too long. But he is what he is—she accepts that again every time she opens her door to him—and she doesn’t comment except to ask:

“Who is this person after that you aren’t?”

“It’s probably better you don't ask. If someone comes sniffing after me about it you should be able to say you didn’t know anything.”

“So if one of your Homeland ‘friends' shows up to see if you’re testing their good graces what do I tell them, then? That you just showed up at three in the morning for a chat? No one is going to buy that.”

He shifts, not quite shrugging, looking off into space with the raised eyebrows of feigned innocence.

“Just say I saw your light on, came to say hi.”

“Right. And you were walking around Hell’s Kitchen to see my light on in the first place because . . .?”

“Couldn’t sleep. Hoping maybe if I tried my luck with a walk I’d find you up.”

Karen sighs, turning away to pour his coffee. She’s made it thick as hot asphalt for him, in part because she knows he likes that, in part because she’s so damn tired she’d lost track of how many grounds she was piling into the coffeemaker. Frank takes the mug she offers him with a low “thank you.” And sure enough, after a sip, he smiles.

“You always make my kind of coffee,” he says.

“It’s an easy recipe,” she says, leaning over the counter opposite him, “just make it so no sane person would drink it.”

He laughs, a very short, low sound that rumbles in his chest and rasps in his throat. 

“Dare I ask what you were actually in the neighborhood for?” She asks. “If insomnia is your alibi?”

“Probably shouldn't. Let’s just say I had a meeting.”

Karen quirks an eyebrow, conveying as much skepticism with the look as she can.

“Meeting as in you’re probably accessory to whatever it is this friend of yours is doing?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

Karen fixes him with her best piercing journalist stare. He drinks his coffee. They stalemate that way in silence for a minute or so before he meets her eyes and speaks.

“There are some things I don’t touch,” he says. “People doing their jobs, following shit orders and shit training and fucking up in the process—shit I’ve done, Afghanistan . . . I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Would be a hypocrite. It’s not my place. And I guess you could call it self-preservation, too. Doesn’t mean I don’t think about it, though.”

“Think about…?”

He takes a long drink, eyeing her over the top of the mug, making some calculation she can’t guess at.

“You know any Latin?” he says finally. “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes mean anything to you?”

It does, and for a moment, she’s sure her heart has stopped.

“Oh, no,” she says. “Who watches the watchmen. Tell me this is what I think it is.”

“I’m not telling you anything, don’t worry.”

“Frank,” she hisses. She doesn’t need his sarcasm right now. She thinks she knows what it could be that he won’t touch and still endorse: with Frank it’s always either war or justice, and every headline for the last month has been about the absence of justice on a battlefield where he could never hope to win. Cops in the city conveniently overlook Frank. He gets the ones they can’t, they have no vested interest in handing him over so long as he doesn’t mess with them. It’s an unspoken arrangement that lets Frank do what he does—and what he does lets him stand to live. Karen knows that. They’ve been over it enough. The police let Frank slip through their fingers and he doesn’t pick a fight in exchange.

But it’s been a long summer, and every day of it has been a fight with police for the thousands of protesters gathering over and over throughout the city. In early June a beat cop—White, of course—used a kind of handheld Taser repeatedly on an unarmed Black man “resisting arrest" for a crime he didn’t commit. Cell phone footage from witnesses made it online despite the NYPD's best efforts, and all anyone saw when watching it wasn’t a criminal resisting, but a victim on his knees, clutching his chest, begging please, please, I have a heart condition, I have a pacemaker, before the cop shocked him again. And again. Until he wasn’t on his knees but prone on the ground, gone still and silent.

The officer was reinstated after a paid leave six days ago. The DA declined to prosecute. 

And yesterday, the innocent man, having spent weeks in a coma induced by heart failure, was declared dead.

Frank looks Karen hard in the eye, an unflinching stare that says he knows she understands. She puts her face in her hands.

“There’s shitstorm coming, isn’t there?” she says.

“Probably.”

She shakes her head, drops it into her hands again. She can feel him watching her. A minute ticks by. Maybe two.

“Karen.”

She lifts her eyes just enough to meet his.

“You feel you gotta do something with this?” he asks. It neither a judgement nor a threat. She worries her lip for a moment before answering.

“This person you know of,” she says slowly, “they won’t implicate you?”

“No.”

“And do you know enough of their plan that you could stop them? Tip someone off?”

He takes a long drink, holding her with those deep inkdark eyes, and for the first time, he lies to her.

“No. Nothing.”

She knows it’s a lie. She knows he wants her to know. She could call him on it and he wouldn’t deny it. But she doesn’t. 

All she says is “then I guess there’s nothing we could do,” holding his eyes while she speaks, making sure he understands what’s happening here.

Frank nods. It’s enough.

Karen looks away, stares at her hands folded in front of her, tracing the patterns of veins under pale skin.

After a moment she asks, “would you like anything stronger?”

Frank looks at her with cool appraisal that says what he won’t out loud—that somehow, on some level, he helped with what’s to come. And he knows she’s letting him get away with it.

“No thanks,” he says. “But you go ahead.”

And she does. She falls asleep beside him on the couch, drunk with her head resting on his shoulder, sometime after 4:30, an economy bottle of wine that started full and is now half gone still out on the coffee table.

On Monday, Ellison will ask her to look into the story of a body found charred beyond recognition in an NYPD patrol car.

She’ll tell him there was nothing she could dig up, and never mention it again. 

[helahades]

the sexiest wip list

alright! reminder that this is a dark fic blog. dark fics are not just noncon, but uncomfortable subject matter and questionable thought processes and unreliable povs. control your media experience and read warnings carefully! they’ll be updated when the actual story releases, but these are wips, and i don’t know them all bc I simply have not finished these stories!

some darker warnings on this list include: threats of sexual violence, obsession, death, and previously mentioned unreliable povs from obsessive characters who justify themselves.

final reminder to read warnings! some of these are intense.

1) Jealous Thor (Untitled)

warnings: cheating, mean!reader, angst

You’re falling for Steve right under his nose. Each day, Thor feels you pull farther away. Each night, he squeezes his eyes shut as you lie asleep next to him, and tries to forget the way you lookat Steve these days with hunger and adoration that you once gave to him.

“He is earthly. For all his body’s and mind’s possession of unnatural experimental growth, he is earthly and limited, so Thor can’t understand why you’re drawing away from him, and telling Steve the jokes, giving Steve all the looks that had him hooked. The lingering eyes and touches… they ride the line of decency.”

—

2) Heimdall Angst (Untitled)

warnings: major character death, grief, existentialism, out of body experiences

Connected by incredible wisdom and duty to fate, you and The Gatekeeper of Asgard are pulled together by the unique pairing of your mutual seeing abilities—made for greatness, and destined for tragedy.

This story stretches from the moment that catalyzes your meeting, across the years of loving him, to the moment you lose him.

“A fateful tragedy. He sees an arrow through a dove.

He wonders how he missed your encounter with him in the whispers of the cosmos.

“—They’re star deaths,” you say abruptly, “the ones that move and change color. They speed up when you watch them—show their whole life to come...I read about them. Most can’t ever see them life this”.

Turning to where you stand beside him, his eyes swirl with the magic of knowing you, of your destinies combined. He sees you stare at his stars like they’re new.

“Only us.”

—

3) Away from the Party - Steve Smut

warnings: smut, dubcon, roughness, manipulation, unintentional exhibition

Steve hates these parties. After a mission, the work has just begun, and he fumes at the impossible way that Tony covers all problems in diamonds and pearls. Some things aren’t meant to be pretty.

You are. You’re soft, and kind, and you coax him gently away from the party—the source of his frustrations, with promises of leaving early, of calming down. Oh. He’ll calm down. And you’re just the toy to help. In a closet a corner away from the government’s finest, America’s golden boy has a hand on your throat and one demand.

“Keep quiet.”

“Of course, you both ended up at the party anyway, but with you swirling cool fingertips at his aching temples and rubbing softly over the stretch marks on his chest, he couldn’t find anything in heart to disagree with you then.

Even now with his erection pressed to you through barriers of clothing, with scarcely retrained and monstrous lust, he is steadily calmed by your presence. This rush, the secrecy—it excites him. And you pull him through the haze of it.”

—

4) Monster Thor Headcanons

warnings: wound and gore descriptions, some sadness

The fantasy of it all. Aesthetic, Lifestyle, Behavior. Some talking points include: hair, horns, hints about how he was influenced by a soft and charming lover many years ago, general horniness. Also spoiler that I’ve decided that He is 8ft tall

“Thor is...ancient. he is a being of war and folklore and raw energy and he’s earthy and elemental and connected. and form follows function. (and also whatever horny thoughts we want )”

—

5) The Call

warnings: voyeurism, death threats, obsession, implied sexual assault threats

When Frank comes to visit you, you beam like a sunflower. You’ve rearranged your room, and you’re excited about it. He would like to revel in the moment with you...but he’s caught up in one detail. Your bed is pushed against the window...and he can’t convince you to let him move it.

After a night of sin and wild lovemaking, you lie asleep bathed in moonlight, and Frank wakes to a call. Billy. He’s set up on a rooftop miles away, and he’s got things to say about Frank’s girl and what he’d like to do to her. A red dot on his chest means he can only listen. To your gentle snoring, and to the twisted fantasy of a brother unhinged.

“Black silk pajamas. Hair wrapped up in satin. Yellow light almost like sun stretches to the ceiling, but not quite over the rolling hills of your silhouette turned away from him in quiet sleep.

Frank’s hardly got the time to wonder why he’s awake, because his phone buzzes slow again. Pulls the moment he realizes he will have to break this magic peace to molasses and he half fills his lungs before huffing it out and flipping the phone open and tucked between his ear and shoulder.

“What.”

“She’s a reaaaaal pretty one, Frankie boy. You sure know how to pick em.”

—

6) Loki Longing (Untitled)

warnings: pregnant!fem reader, angst

On the Eve of the birth of Asgard’s heir, Thor is away. In a bath of flowers and magic to ease your pain, maidens worry over you, and Loki rescues you away, letting you rest in bed, and dreaming of the days when you were his lover instead.

“I’d like to rest…in my bed now, please.”

The ladies look to each other. It hasn’t been long enough for the herbs to take effect.

“My Queen,” the eldest starts—

“She is certainly your queen,” a silky silver timbre interrupts, “I’ve learned it’s best to mind her.”

His eyes fall to your form, and some blocked conflict—some guarded affection rests there. Some longing tucked in a pocket like an impossible secret.

—

7) With Child - Obsessive Steve

warnings: pregnant!fem reader, obsessive Steve

Watching you content, and very pregnant, as you gaze adoringly at your husband Thor from where you rest, half in his lap, Steve can’t help but fantasize. He thinks about impregnating you, the mechanics of sex with a pregnant woman, and being the god who does it all.

“Do you have to lie on your side? Is Thor just behind you, spooning you, fucking with desperate thrusts because you drive him so crazy this way? Steve has heard—and he doesn’t know where—that women get wetter when with child. Steve can’t help but wonder...does Thor need to hold one leg up for you—to save your back that’s so often heavy with the weight of supporting his legacy?”

—

8) Dean’s Girl

warnings: unreliable pov (john), voyeurism, masturbation + voyeurism

John notices the way you avoid him. You always seem to leave a room just as he’s coming into it. He’s living in the bunker now, and having to realize a lot of things that have changed for the both of his sons.

For example, his oldest, the last he’d ever think would fall in love, has got a pretty girl that dismisses her practical father in law with pointed boredom. She’s protective—how can he blame her after all that he’d put Dean through?

She’s pretty, and John is only a man, and can’t stop himself from just...looking. It starts with a convenient bend as she unloads the dishwasher...then he..can’t help that the door was open and she happened to be changing right there. He also can’t help it the next time when he’s just a little too obvious, pleasuring himself to the smell of her pretty lace panties.

—

9) Operator, Operator - Steve Smut

warnings: smut, financial troubles?, mentions of creepiness against and danger to sex workers, exhibitionism via phone call

Underpaid and overworked, you along with your roommate/secret crush/ best friend Steve have trouble making ends meet on minimum wage + his art commissions. When you start picking up calls on a phone sex line, he’s able to reason. It’s quick cash, and Steve is mature enough to keep his thoughts appropriate...at first.

One day, he wakes to the sound of breathy moans and a faked orgasms. He wonders how you would sound if only you were high on real pleasure...and there’s no time like the present. Don’t hang up. This call has only just started.

“By the time this year—junior year—swung around, Steve realized he was only catching glimpses of you. He would hear the shake of your keys when you tossed them on the counter, your backpack when it thudded to the floor, and most recently—your moans.

You must not know he’s home. Ever since you started online sex work, specifically being a phone sex operator, you seemed to also make the silent choice that more graphic calls would be saved for when he’s not around.

He gets it. You both split the rent, and Steve has done jobs he’d rather not mention in desperate times, when commissions came short. Still, sometimes you can’t tell when he’s here, and despite his best efforts to push down his arousal, to tell himself you’re his best friend...he’s an artist, and he can’t help but listen, and certainly not the wandering of his imagination.”

—

10) Professor Steve Medfet - (Untitled)

In an alternate timeline, a washed up Steve Rogers starts a new life in a run down city as an art / anatomy teacher. A class of hungry college students is filled to the brim each year, expecting the unspoken promise of their favorite hands on lab. You.

You keep his class sated, in turn giving the professor job security for funding his simple life out of the public eye. Each year when he calls, you come. Each year the students find a new way to tear you embarrass and degrade, much to the pleasure of the professor.

“Same speech. Same meaningless words. Focusing on the stillness of your skin and how it feels to be alone, you can almost drown out the way his tone edges toward excitement, the way the chairs shift and squeak—the anticipation.

Pretending your heart doesn’t send heat and cold flashes through you and run your breathing shallow, you look at the nicks in the door and try to guess their stories.

But then the metal frame clicks, the door unlatches. Professor Rogers wears a gentle smirk. It doesn’t ease your mind one bit.”

—

11) Swelter - Forest God Thor

warnings: sexual scenes, time limited conflict, religious themes

With a sickness overtaking nearby villages, yours is next, and has decided to sacrifice you to the cause of foraging for preventative herbs. You venture into the ancient woods after a rare vine of flowers, but leave with much more after encountering Thor.

After disturbing him where he lies cooling in the bank of a stream, you vow to prove the true intention of your soul—that you aren’t a hunter, or witch after his form or faculty, but a pious girl, also needing to escape the heat.

“You’re in the old woods now, and aside from the trees and the mossy nature tangled around them, there is only Him. Thor.

God of the harvest, bringer of land’s wealth, fertility, and vitality. You know of the sacrifices, of the woods where He is rumored to live in an unseen form, of livid white fire in the sky if He is severely displeased.

His name must not be spoken outside of prayer or ritual, and even now, you stutter to think it, and wonder if you are alone in your thoughts.”

[...]

“The frustration and the fear in your dilemma disturb the air, disquieting the otherwise enduring peace of the old woods, which rouses a large form in the cool muddy bank of the stream. It is only leaves shifting at first. Faded pumpkin and dried oak scatter—and suddenly the air smells like rain and your mouth sets around the tastes of copper and sage. Then, the leaves tumble off of a beast of a mass that rises slowly, and you note that it felt like the atmosphere changed to accommodate its awakening.”

—

12) Halloween Party - Thor Smut (Untitled)

warnings: smut, heartbreak, depressed!reader

An exclusive and mysterious Halloween party is still on this year—and you’re invited. It’s meant to be so extravagant and flashy an Avenger will one day attend, and all attendees decorate themselves in costumes inspired by the heroes, hoping to be noticed.

Fresh after a breakup with your boyfriend Brock, you take one half of the preordered couples costume and dress up as a goddess, determined to have a good night with your friends, find some excitement, and most importantly, a new god to match.

“Standing solemn, floor to ceiling windows allow in a few milky rays reflected by the moon, but they’re all the gems of your bodice need to gleam to a suitor's eye. Tonight, while you plan to rid your soul of another, you are welcomed with open arms and careful consideration as the final offering at an altar. You are seen by a god.”

—

13) Grief

warnings: dead!reader, guilt, grief, scary science, how do i say this... smut that is borderline necroph—there’s a replica of you, dark!steve, tony lives, pepper dies

Steve’s world is upside down. He’s lost the light of his life, and is completely in the dark. Luckily for him, Tony is back in the business of reality rejecting technology, and has found a way for him to be with you again.

At an abandoned cottage, Steve brings an armful of your scents to give the Tony’s invention sensory data, and faces the strange reality of what’s always been his worst stage...his worst trait. Denial.

“Dozens of test bottles full of manufactured scents, the kind of thing you smell borrowing a sweater, or with your face in the crook of someone’s neck. Essentially, the sort of organic thing that cannot be recaptured.

Steve’s got an armful of perfume and body wash. Of conditioner and deodorant, of all the elements he can think that make you smell the way you would—the way you do.

He wills the thoughts to be present tense. If he pretends you are alive, maybe it will look like it is you only sleeping. He wonders how well Tony knows the texture of your hair suddenly, because if it isn’t right, the experience will fall to shambles. It currently walks a plank over shambles. One wrong interpretation or surprise, and Steve will find himself spinning and burning with the fall into a new and uncharted taboo.”

14) Night Drive - Dean Smut

warnings: road head

On a long overnight drive, your back pressed into the seat of the impala makes you miss lying in bed with your lover, makes you miss his gentle caress right next to you...so you remind him how good it is to be close.

“You think about it when he hums a little tune. When he hums the song he wishes would play and thinks will come up next, it is eerily soft, and eerily similar to the soft contentment he sighs when you kiss on his neck.

When he reaches for your hand to hold, it makes you consider the shortness of the distance between you, and you think of pulling his cock out right here, giving him head that melts him here on this endless road.

Looking at him, he senses your interest—he turns his head to meet your eyes, throws up a grin of boyish charm. He’s happy to be here with you. These night drives are fine. He’s never minded them. But they’re even lovelier when in your company.”

—

15) Shadow - The Bucky Mystery

warnings: stalking, injury, sexual assault, canon typical hydra torture, mentions of bucky being forced to assault people, traumatized reader

On the run from Hydra, there aren’t many things that Bucky can remember. Inside his mind, there aren’t many feelings that make sense. Mostly, he feels guilt. Horror.

Following you to the gym where you practice ballet alone in the nights is all that makes sense, and for reasons he can’t explain, he feels drawn to you.

As time goes on, Bucky feels more enticed by his desire, you start to feel eyes staring from the walls, motivations and traumas are revealed, and in a horrible symphony, you both remember your connection.

“He’s a matte shadow against the noir shine of metal walls—an observer in the unlit quiet on his side of the room.

And he feels his unimportance. It’s humbling. Holds up the room like chunky beams and high rafters, dressed in the same layered neutrals. Framing the same cotton candy dancer, silent as the pad of her slippers when she turns her weight onto a straight leg, other coming up with her ankle pointed to the bend of her knee.

She spins, she spins and she whips her head around with each one, but it’s Bucky who gets dizzy.”

send an ask with any questions, or for more details about a particular story!

[calypsoff]

Fifty Nine. Part 2

Clinton honestly plays at my heartstrings with Chris, just to see a good father. He is ever so attentive towards Chris and I love to see it, he just comes out with the most random things too which makes me laugh but to see a father, it’s nice to see. I don’t know what one is, it’s been tainted for me because of my own and I don’t think I know what a real father should be doing “you good now yeah? No more tears” Clinton placed his arm around Chris and patted his shoulder “no more, I’m good now. I ain’t seen y’all in a while, I missed it. You know how much I missed you when I was locked up but yeah, I’m good” Chris makes me so proud, he really does. He just so open with his emotions with his family, even with me but I love that “so what is happening in the family, how is the baby? Tell me” Clinton asked Chris, he probably wants to hear what he has to say which I don’t mind “good, erm me and Barry aren’t friends anymore. I’m not sure what he is on at all, we just not speaking anymore. He was saying things that angered me that I ended up beating him, in the middle of iHop and I got arrested and now I got a court case. So that happened” Clinton looks horrified “again!? What did I say to you about letting anyone get to you! Seriously, you have so much going for you. I said it to you when you were first time arrested, I said to you that you are not like those boys out there that need to do these types of things. Barry isn’t proceeding the way you are Chris; you need to make new friends in that field. The people of VA you leave behind, nobody is happy for you” Clinton was harsh there “we understand why you both didn’t come to the home and we appreciate that you even came to VA, I’m very happy to see you both even came but we will come to you both” Joyce added “I’m not hiding though, fuck them” Chris said “you’re not hiding son, you’re fully there and we see it” Clinton is right “move to Cali, then I can see you when I want and then when Robyn isn’t speaking to me I can see you all” Chris would mention that “no baby, your sister is here” Chris pulled a face “but I would like you to be safe, you know Robb is throwing threats” Clinton looked at Joyce “I think your mother wants to stay in VA; our family is here. Only you are in Cali” Chris shrugged his dad’ arm off “yeah the family that don’t fuck with your son, ok. It’s just me” Chris is offended by what was said, I don’t blame him.

Chris as he does he’s walked off because he’s not happy, I’m not going to get myself involved because it’s his family “Clinton leave him, he needs space and we give him that” Joyce said as Clinton was going to get up and follow him “I just don’t want him to be sad, it’s a lovely day. Seeing each other” taking in a deep breath “do you all still speak to the family still? It’s just Chris?” I questioned, I want to know more actually “they speak to us yes, but when it comes to Chris he is a bit of a taboo, Robb is the first born grandchild. Spoilt, so when that all happened they took sides and it hurts me so much because he’s my only son, but I also want my family, We decided to just keep both sides happy and not speak on either, I know my son feels I am betraying him. I don’t know what else I can do without losing the family I got and have nothing” pressing my lips into a hard thin line “but then Chris had nothing besides you three? How was that fair on him. In that situation, coming out of jail and he came back to nasty behaviour. I just feel it’s hard for him, he did what he needed to do to be out, I won’t ever say he did wrong. You both got your boy back and that alone should be praised but how you think he feels when now he’s between you and that family you want” I shouldn’t be involved in this because it’s not my issue at all “it’s ok because I will have my own family” oh Chris heard then “son, you’re taking it the wrong way. You knew this, you knew the family didn’t forgive. We would always choose you over them, it is never like that but we are ok in VA, we really are so please let’s not argue, can we not” Chris made his way over to me and sat next to me “I have no family” looking over at Chris “stop” I don’t want this to be an argument, we didn’t come here for that.

Both Clinton and Chris went out to get some groceries, they took Frank with them. I wasn’t letting them go alone, I’m not risking it at all “Joyce, it’s playing on my mind and you can tell me to mind my business but. They want to kill your son, does that not hurt you and want you to not deal with them anymore?” I’m still on it “kills me deep inside. My sister came and she said my son is suffering, I said to her so is my son as you all wish nothing but bad on him so all he keeps getting is bad, I told Chris to go to church more, he needs the blessing because there is nasty people out there that are wishing it, those people is my family. I do want a change but all I know is VA, I am comfortable here” as a mother I can imagine how hurt she is about it all “all I knew is Barbados Joyce, but I did it and I was happier, hand on my heart a change could be best for you all because he wants to protect you all too, but that’s something you all want. Chris is a hurt man and I see it sometimes, he loves Barbados, he loves my family and minus my dad but how close we are. I see his smile and then he comes here, and he has no family around, it’s a shame. All they are doing now is selling stories about him, my publicist told me, and I said deny it all, he doesn’t know that, but I do. It’s just a nasty situation where now his cousin is threatening him, I feel like someone has put some witchcraft on him, you’re right. All those bad wishes add up and maybe we need to go church, but I think if you really want a change, make it” they are thinking on moving then they need to do that now before Chris gets the house for them.

Joyce touched my bump and it made me giggle “my mother would be jealous right now, she just calls me on FaceTime to stare at my bump. She’s so excited about this, she’s telling me she will move in for me and she will do this and that and I’m like hold on mommy, I am ok. Chris and I are ok, I just know Chris is going to be so supportive. But I think I will let her stay for a few days and then she needs to go home, she will take over. The baby is going to be so loved, I can’t wait” she cooed out “what you guessing? My mother said boy weird enough, she said the way I am carrying so I am so unsure, also Chris and I met this guy in Jamaica called captain and he knew so much, he turned around to me and said girl, I was so freaked out” Joyce gasped “wow, well I think girl. Oh baby I hope it is a girl, daughters are a pleasure. Such beautiful, spirited kids, boys are a pain. I enjoyed my daughter then I did my son but Chris himself, he was clingy to me, forever wanting me to pick him up but I feel like when boys grow up, they grow up to not be yours” Joyce has got a point “he also said we have four kids but one is vague and I questioned and said was one a miscarriage and he said no so that scared me, I don’t know. I hope it’s not anything awful” I sighed out “impressive” Joyce said and I laughed “well” I dragged out, her son has super sperm so it could be a thing actually “would you want that many? You’re a very busy woman” I chuckled “with the help and support from the love of my life yes it can happen, even if god blessed me once I am happy” Joyce cooed out “I am so excited for you both” this baby is going to be so loved and I can’t wait.

Sweet of Joyce, she cooked for us and I wasn’t expecting that at all. She made me sit down and not do anything at all, it’s nice “you know what, this was so nice. Thank you, but leave the dishes, Chris will clean up” I grinned at Chris “what?” He said confused “you heard me but it’s getting late, I don’t want you driving home and it’s too dark for you” Chris chuckled “she is trying to make you both leave, she is bored of you” Chris is such a liar “don’t listen to him please, he is a liar. But anyways, can we take a picture together, just before you depart. I want a in-law’s picture, I’ll get Rich to come and take it” getting up from the seat “oh god my hair is not done?” Waving Joyce off “stop it” making my way to the living room to get Rich so he can take this picture of us “Rich, can you take a picture” walking back on myself “what’s bout your bump?” Chris asked “your jacket” taking his jacket from the back of his chair, I just really don’t care about hiding about the fact I’m with my in-law. Putting Chris’ jacket on and zipping it up “don’t you think it looks better on me?” I smiled at Chris “mhmmm nah, better on me” Chris wrapped his arms around my shoulders “Rich can you notice my bump? Anything at all?” I asked as he aimed the camera up “erm no, the counter covers it” shuffling to Joyce and placing my around her “ok smile” I grinned wide, I probably look a mess but who cares “done” Rich made his way over to us, taking my phone from him “awwww thank you, I love this picture. I don’t look pregnant here at all, ok family” pressing next and adding a caption ‘I have the cutest in-laws’ pressing send on the picture “it’s been honestly so nice to see you both, but honestly. Chris will clean” I am being deadass, he thinks I am joking “awww, how long you both staying for?” Joyce asked “erm, I would say a few days. Spending some quality time together” I laughed to myself because that sounds stupid, we see each other anyways.

Chris is downstairs trying to figure which home he wants to get for his parents, I spoke to Chris last night about them remaining here, they are happy to be here so why change that for them. Even though for Chris I would have liked them to come to Cali but it’s fine, just because they are happy here so he is downstairs looking at different homes, he changed his mind on what he wants to get and I don’t mind because I need sort out his birthday gift or gifts anyways, but I don’t know what I am doing with this shit so I am getting my brother to help me, I have not a clue about this shit so while he is down there I am calling him “nigga, why you take so long to pick up” I scolded him “sorry, man I was just going to have a nap under the sun” he knows damn well I miss Barbados “asshole, so anyways. Have you done your investigation for me? I told you, if I say it to him he will clock on so I don’t want to ask” he better have spoken to him “yeah, I text him and said well lied to him. I said I am moving to Cali to be closer, and I am looking to get a car, well at first we spoke about sports and then I turned it into about cars, then he said oh my car is just an Uber which made me laugh but he spoke on Lamborghini, he said once he makes his money up he will get that for himself, so there. I did it” I have no idea about cars, they cute whatever but I don’t. I have that Porsche that is in a garage that I don’t even use “right so now what? Rorrey please, you got to do this for me” he has no choice he has too “right there is a few models but I am flying over sis so we can both go and look, don’t worry about it I got you” thank god he is coming.

As I come down the door knocked at the same time “I will get it” Rich said as he got up, I need to make some lunch actually, I am hungry. Slowly walking down the last step as Rich walked by me “you don’t look happy” I said, “I was having a nap” I gasped “so in that nap you were saving me from what?” Rich chuckled as he opened the door “oh wow, hi” letting out an oh, it’s TJ “I come in peace, honestly big man” Chris jogged by me “is that you TJ?” Rich moved to the side, TJ stood awkwardly with a car seat in hand but then he placed it on the floor as Chris jumped on him, giving him the biggest hug “oh man, it’s the married man” I smiled seeing them both hugging, seeing Chris happy with his friend “oh shit, oh my god. Is this Camron? Holy shit, who this white boy” Chris crouched down to the car seat “hi Rihanna” TJ waved at me “hey, come in. Chris bring the baby, come in. I am going to make lunch, you want some?” I asked “no thank you, I just ate. I really wanted Chris to meet my son, like I am so excited about this” watching Chris as he bought the car seat over to me “look at him, he fat and white” I cooed out looking into the car seat seeing this chubby little thing with the lightest hair “wow TJ, he is you!” I spat “he is so cute” now I am jealous, I Want my bbay with me now, Camron is so cute.

Walking into the living room and sitting next to Chris “ugh, I cannot wait for our baby to be here. Look at you being all daddy, TJ your son is beautiful. He is really you’re twin, god bless him” TJ laughed “thank you, I just wanted Chris to meet him, and it happened. I just wanted this moment, when he’s older I can start taking him to Cali, he will have someone to play with when little Breezy comes along but thank you” poking my lips out “come here, you are so precious” picking Camron off of Chris, slowly placing him in my arms “you really are a charmer staring at me with those big brown eyes” I should have known, like he’s a baby and they can sniff milk “aye, wait. No, those nipples are mine” I snorted laughing moving him away from my breast, this baby is ready for milk “oh shit, I just fed him, he probably senses it” lifting him up and sat him up on my lap with my hand behind his head “take a picture for me, do you mind?” I asked TJ “I don’t, I mean after the breast thing. You can” Chris aimed the camera, placing my hand just under his chin “mind the stomach” I added “Camron, hey nephew! Yeah, you going to smile at me, awww look at that” Chris turned my phone to me “cute, post it please and put. Just had a baby the world thinks I am pregnant with, I want to annoy the rumours floating around. This will throw them off” also just that alone will upset Seiko, she will be so angry about me posting her son.

[mychemicalficrecs]

Frank/Gerard Slow Burn

Your Heart The Only Place That I Call Home by dear_monday, 30k, Explicit. When Frank and his crew of morally ambiguous ethernauts (pirates, as Imperial law would have it, but that's such an ugly word) fetch up on the doorstep of the fabled Sanctuary, they aren't expecting to find much - least of all a long-lost brother, a garden in a box and the key to an ancient riddle.

Only Going One Way by ataratah, jjtaylor, 73k, Mature. Crossover with due South. Constable Gerard Way of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Detective Frank Iero of the Chicago PD team up find Mikey Way in a city where bowling alley score cards hide secret codes, where the good guys are either lying or undercover (and sometimes lying about being undercover), and where criminal bakers make drug-laced frosting.

Gerard Way's (Vampire) Detective Agency by jjtaylor, Pennyplainknits, 128k [plus some additional stuff], Mature. Pete, in Decaydance Mansion, with a yarrow stake. Frank and Gerard, in the greenhouse, with a plant of questionable origin. Bob, everywhere you look, with a gang of assassins for justice. Vampires, valets, pamphlets, haunted furniture, dub-thrall, disembodied voices, zombie couriers, and sinister rituals.

Unholyverse by Bexless, 187k, Mature, Explicit. Religion! Horror! Exorcisms! Piercings! And Gerard is a priest.

We're All Just Born to Descend by cedarbranch, 112k, Teen And Up. Better Living didn't keep Party Poison alive as a kindness. "Rehabilitation," they called it. Slowly eating away at his identity, removing all the pieces they didn't like, then filling in the gaps until he was a normal, healthy citizen. But while they could silence his mind, there would always be music in his heart. There would always be a spirit that couldn't be crushed by pills or empty words. Even if Poison wasn't Poison anymore, he couldn't stop fighting if he tried.

Desecrated Kids by wellthisisprettyrisque (collettephinz), 144k, Explicit. Everyone moves into a new town and thinks it's strange. Stepping out of the car with a weird feeling tingling down the back of your neck isn't actually that unheard of, but finding that unmarked grave in the woods behind your house is. Frank Iero wonders if his mother moved him here so he'd disappear off the face of the planet, or if she actually wants the body to be found. All he knows is that this town has some horrible things happening to it, and no one seems to care enough to lift their heads and actually see. He has no idea what's going on, and is one of the few people that wants to find out. Luckily, Gerard is a few steps ahead of him.

Take Me By The Hand by MyChemicalRachel, Frank/Gerard, Frank/Zacky Vengeance, 134k, Explicit. Screw the fluffy cute crap and let's get straight to the point; Pregnancy sucks. And it's only worse when you're a man. Frank finds himself at the party of the year with the guy of his dreams. After only one night, Frank finds himself falling hard for Zacky, and it seems like Zacky feels the same way, until Frank's friends jokingly convince him to take a pregnancy test... That turns out positive. Frank can't be pregnant though-- He's a boy! Suddenly, Frank's life is turned upside down, becoming the center of attention when everyone wants to know the same thing; How does a teenage boy become pregnant? Governmental testing, news vans parked on his lawn, an apathetic boyfriend, and morning sickness seem to all become overwhelming and Frank only has one person he can turn to. His best friend, Mikey. But what happens when Mikey's older brother, Gerard, comes into the picture? Can he help save Frank, in more ways than one?

I Believe We're The Enemy by Test_subject_306, 104k, Teen And Up. "You know what?" Frank snaps, glaring at the person who used to be Party Poison. "You know, sometimes I wish they'd just killed you instead."

Shadowplay by findingsaturn, 147k, Explicit. Malimore is a small town in Southern California where ghosts are as common as any other household pest and vampires come out to steal the souls of humans at midnight. Frank Iero is a young paranormal investigator whose interest in the supernatural began after the bizarre and untimely death of his parents. One day, when he and his partner take on a particularly gruesome case, all hell breaks loose with Frank caught at the very center. This is the story of how it all happened.

Heaven's Grief= Hell's Rain by Honestmouse, 109k, Teen And Up. Gerard's your typical college drop out. He lives in his parent's basement. His best friend is his little brother. He has a whole truck load of shit wrong with his head and a past he doesn't want to talk about. While Frank, on the other hand, isn't quite as average. He's a demon, hundreds of years old. He loves his job, really he does. He's on Hell's Guard, after all. So, how hard would the world shake if the two meet?

There Is Something Wrong About Our Roommate by seawhore, 55k [WIP], Mature. Gerard moves to Vermont to study, only to find that only one of his two roommates seems to live in their shared apartment. And when he gets curious, he enters a world he had never expected to find in such a small town.

I Saw You There by starryfrens, 67k [WIP], Explicit. Gerard's been a vampire for five years. The isolation was starting to get to him; the perpetual loneliness, the never ending misery- all of it- and he was becoming increasingly wary of letting anyone else know that. On his way back home one night, he passes by the house of a man he plans to make his next feed and stops by every night for six months to watch him. As you can probably imagine, this can only go poorly because, as it turns out, Gerard's a lot more human that he thought. Make sure to refer back to the series cover (link in description) to access the content warnings for this book.

[george-mackay-macfine]

Dear Diary,

A/N - This has taken me a hot minute to get this done. Also hasn’t been proof read. 

Request 

Word Count: 4,289

Synopsis: George cheers Y/N up after she’s cheated on. 

July 26th 2011, 

Dear Diary, 

That’s how these things work right? I start each entry by saying ‘Dear Diary’ and then verbally purging my innermost thoughts onto these painfully white pages in hopes of a self soothe type therapy? I guess it’s something I’ll have to try to work out any sort of lifetime trauma I’ve undoubtedly built up over the years, and there is the saying don’t knock it till you try it? Well, here we go. 

I’m sure no one is curious as to why I’d be starting a diary at seventeen, nearly eighteen years into my life and that's because Y/N no one but you should be reading this diary, but on the off chance someone is, It’s probably definitely because I can’t afford therapy, and for as long as I’ve known Bridget Jones always found it helpful in her later years to write down the events of her life in her diary. Heck, they even helped her lose some weight, Christ knows I could probably use that, Of course, her life was undoubtedly a lot more interesting than mine will ever be, but either way she found sense in writing her memories down, So why would she lead me astray. 

If anyone ever asks I’ll say I’m doing it so when I’m old and grey I can look back on all the memories and think about my life, how I spent it, how far I’ve come. 

But if they dug a little deeper, not even that much deeper, like an inch tops, you’d see it’s because I don’t ever want to forget a detail about him, Georgeander Richards, the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen. 

Meeting him happened at Ben Daniels’ end of year party, but since I’ve only decided to start a diary today. I guess we’ll need to take a jump back in time. Ben always throws the first party at the end of the year, and now as graduates, everyone had more reason to party. His parties were renowned for being the place to be if you wanted to; 

Lose your virginity.

Take someone's virginity

Get over a horrendous break up by getting absolutely shit faced

Forget about how badly you did in your tests.

Mourn the loss of your formative years and in turn your youth.

Or you’d attend to witness the utter demise of your faith in humanity. 

I was here for the third reason. 

July 16th 2011, Ben Daniel’s Start of Summer Party. 

Smoke filled the air, thick and hazy. I couldn’t be sure if it was coming from the smoke machine Ben had hired to add to the ‘atmosphere’, or if it was coming from the cigarettes that everyone seemed to be chain-smoking,  It could also be coming from the bong that Freddie Ashby was using.

Either way, the source of the smoke was unclear. 

“Have you seen Sarah?” I asked Freddie as I asked him. He looked up from his bong, eyes wide and filled with humour. He nodded his head a stupid bloody smile on his face. God Freddie, you were literally the stereotypical stoner that was in EVERY bloody American High School movie. “Well, where is she?” I asked the irritation that clipped my tone was lost on Freddie. 

“Oh, she’s in the lounge room.” He extended the bong out to me. “Take a hit, for old times?” I pushed it back against his chest gently. Freddie was always nice I guess but right now I was on a mission. 

“Maybe later Fred, I just need to find Sarah first.” Freddie nodded his head, Lips wrapping around the mouthpiece, black lighter lit in his hands going to the bowl. I didn’t stay to watch Freddie light up. Instead, I pushed through the solid crowd into the living room. Hannah Jamieson saw me first. She tapped her boyfriend Connor Hughes on the shoulder, One by one people turned. I smiled at the all, confused as I made my way around the living room. It wasn’t until I was in front of Ben’s mum's floral settee did I stop.

My heart dropped through my ass, out of my chest cavity and right through. Hitting the floor before being tramped on my a storm of hippos. That’s how it felt at least, and no amount of smoke was thick enough to hide the act of deceit happening on Ben’s mum's floral settee. 

Julian McDonald, my boyfriend of six months and my best friend of eleven fucking years Sarah Olsen, making out in front of everyone. Julian was shoving his tongue down Sarah’s throat while Sarah copped a feel of what Julian had to offer the world through his signature black skinny jeans. I was sure if she kept rubbing she’d wear a hole in the worn denim. 

“Isn’t that…” Morgan Franks, the other oblivious stoner of our school pointed to the two, as if everyones attention wasn’t already on them. 

“Yeah.” I breathed out looking as Julian’s hand snaked up to cop a feel of Sarah’s boob, much to the entertainment of everyone in the room who whooped and hollered in approval suddenly forgetting that I was there and that was my boyfriend and best friend making out. “Sure is.” I turned on my heel, my old ratty converses squeaking as I turned, walking back the way I’d came. Nobody bothered watching me this time. Things had heated up between Julian and Sarah enough to keep their attention.

“Watch where you’re going.” Someone yelled as I pushed through the growing crowd of horny seventeen and eighteen-year-olds who were desperate for a sneak peek at the live porn show currently unfolding on Ben’s mum's bloody floral settee.

I want to burn the fucking thing.

I’d decided there was only one place I could be right now, and that was the patio on the roof. Snagging an unopened bottle of vodka as I went I rushed up the three flights of stairs. Anyone who’d ever been to one of Ben’s parties in the past knew about the rules of the roof. It was the only place in the whole house where you could sit and have a quiet conversation without anyone disturbing you, bumping into you, or in some cases groping you. It was party law that if you were on the roof you were quiet, and that is why the roof was always relatively empty. Maybe a random couple hooking up in the corner, or the emo-loner kid who wanted to be included without actually being included sat up here. 

Now I joined them. The brokenhearted girl who was now planning on getting completely shit faced on a full bottle of Vodka. 

“Ah fuck.” The ground was uneven at the top of the stairs where the door jamb and the concrete didn’t quite level out together, the bottle of vodka I’d grabbed nearly hit the ground had I not been able to grab onto the neck of the bottle seconds before it smashed into the concrete.  

“Rough night?” I jumped, heart racing out of my chest, shock coursing through my veins. I looked up, across the roof near the ledge stood a boy, casually dressed in jeans and a t-shirt with a cigarette hanging from his left hand. He was the only one up here, no random couple, no emo-loner kid, Just the boy with the cigarette. He turned more towards me, bringing the cigarette to his lips. “Or do you always nearly drop a full bottle of vodka the minute you walk into a room.” 

“This isn’t a room,” I called cockily, as I stood up, balance restored. The stranger looked around, a tooth filled smile creeping up onto his face. “It’s a roof.” 

“Touche.” He extends his hand towards the space next to him, an unspoken invitation for me to join him. Slowly, cautiously I walk towards the stranger. We were the only two on the roof, he maintains his eye contact with me until I’m standing beside him. I take a good look at him. His jaw was square and sharp. His cheeks lightly tanned and covered in a days worth of stubble. His eyes were big, round… Childlike and welcoming. In the dark light I could barley see the beautiful blue of his eyes as I stood by him. “So, has it been a rough night.” I chuckled in self pity before plonking down by his feet. Vodka bottle in front of me. 

“My boyfriend is cheating on me.” I twisted the lid of the bottle. “With my best-friend… Right now.” I moved the bottle towards my lips. “Actually if you’re interested they’re giving everyone the opportunity to catch a free, live porn show… Just go down and ask Ben where his mums bloody floral settee is.” I chugged down some of the clear liquid as the boy sat beside me. Coughing as it burned its way down my throat. “Other than that, it’s a pretty stock standard Ben Daniel’s party. Music is too loud, too shitty and everyone’s packed in like sardines.” I held the bottle out to him. In return he offered his cigarette. 

“I’ll admit, Ben does always over extend the invite.” He looked around us. “This is the only place you can really move.” I extended the bottle to him. He took it, exchanging it for his cigarette. “But I did hear yelling’s of the porn show from down below.” He tipped his head back, swallowing some of the liquid as I took a drag of his cigarette. I was never one to smoke, apart from social situations, and this I suppose one would consider to be a social situation. “Sounds like a shitty best-friend and a really fucking shit boyfriend…” 

“Ex-best-friend, and I guess ex-boyfriend.” I exhaled the smoke. The burning filled my lungs. I coughed a little at the very end, lungs burning.

“Sorry, Ex-best-friend.” He took another swig of the vodka. “I’m George.” 

“Y/N.” We swapped items again. “You don’t go to our school do you? I mean with Ben…” George shook his head. 

“Nah, I go to the private school.” Holy shit, this was George  MacKay, the same George MacKay that Sarah was in obsessed with.

“Christ on a bike, You’re that George.” He turned to me. 

“That George? I didn’t know I was deserving of a that before my name.” He chuckled. 

“Of course, you need context, sorry…” I cleared my throat. “Sarah, the ex-best-friend, the one making out with the ex-boyfriend, she has the BIGGEST crush on you… She’d always go to any of the parties in town in hopes of seeing you there… If only she were here now.” I shook my head, karma sometimes was a bitch. 

“Your best-friend —.”

“Ex,” I mumbled as I tipped the bottle up to my lips. 

“Sorry, your ex-best-friend is Sarah Olsen… Stalker Sarah…” Vodka flew out of my mouth, not exactly the most lady-like of things when you’re sitting with one of the hottest boys in your town, alone on a roof… Great job Y/N.

“I’m sorry, but what did you just call her.” I spun on my legs a little, my body facing his. He mirrored my actions. I wiped the vodka from my face, ladylike. 

“Stalker Sarah, it’s the name my mates came up with for her… I had no part in it.” He held his hands up in defence. 

“Jesus, why’d you call her that?”

“Well, like you said she’d come to all the parties in town. When she was there she wouldn’t dance, she wouldn’t drink… She’d just stand there and stare at me. She didn’t blink for five minutes once… It was like she was waiting for me to talk to her.” He shook of the memories. “God, it was so uncomfortable.” 

“My god, seriously.”  George nodded his head feverishly.  He grabbed the vodka from between us, bringing it to his lips. 

“You know I never thought it’d be sat here at one of Ben Daniel’s parties with Stalker Sarah’s ex-best-friend.” There was a moment of silence between us. I guess we were both wrapped up in the revelations. 

“You look different to how she described you.” George shook his head.

“She described what I looked like to you?” I nodded my head. “Why?”

“Case I ever saw you at a party, I was to tell her immediately.” 

“Did you?” I shook my head no. “She’s insane you know. One time she told a girl I was seeing that she was pregnant with my kid, and the girl was stopping us being together.” 

“Are you fucking serious.” George nodded his head. “I’m sorry she did that to you.” 

“Not your fault, you don’t control her…” He stamped out his cigarette as he passed the bottle back. “You think you’ll ever forgive them?”

“To quote Hamlet, Act three, Scene three, Line 87… No.” Another smile broke across his face, this one bigger than the first. 

“You can really quote Hamlet down to the line numbers?” I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s true what they say about you Y/N Y/L/N, you are one of a kind.” 

“How do you know my last name?” 

“I knew who you were the second you step out onto this roof.” He motioned for me to lean in closer to him as if he were about to tell me a national secret. “I familiarised myself with all of Stalker Sarah’s friends, incase any of them ever came up to me at a party and tried to tell me ALL about their great friend, and how wonderful we’d be together. I didn’t realise you were the ‘best’ friend’ though.” I shrugged my shoulders. 

“Not anymore… But she did try to get me to do that once ya know…” I lent in closer to him, ready to unload my own confession. “But I told her I was going to be sick and got out of there before you even showed up.” 

“Smart girl.” 

“So my grades say.” 

“So I’ve heard.” My eyebrow raised. “I’ve heard a few things about you actually…”

“You have?” He nodded his head, a sinful smirk covering on his lips. 

“Best-friends with stalker Sarah, now ex.” He corrected himself when my mouth opened to correct him. “Smart as all hell, probably going to be doctor or a lawyer, and you were dating THE biggest jackass in your school.” Part of me couldn’t believe that George MacKay, the boy Sarah had always gone on and on about knew so many things about me. I know their not major things, but its still something. 

“That’s a lot of things,” He chuckled, laying back on the floor of the roof eyes cast upwards towards the star filled sky. “Not nearly as many things as I’ve heard about you, but still a lot.”

“What have you heard about me then?” 

“George MacKay, you’re the ‘it’ boy of your school.” He scoffed at the title.  “Every girl from my school, your school the school in the next town over wants to date you.” I laid down beside him. “You’re also rather smart… You get good grades, play football. Everyone thinks you’re going to be a model right out of school.” 

“Basic things then.”

“You’re the not so bad, ‘bad boy’ that all the girls want to be good for them.” I rolled my eyes in disgust over the strong of words I’d heard come out of Sarah’s mouth one too many times. “It’s a rather romantic notion really, if you’re fourteen.”

“You know what they say about bad boys.” George whispered I felt his breath against my cheek. “Bad boys do it better.” 

“Oh my god.” I chuckled. “You say stuff like that to girls? Does that work for you?” I turned to look at him, our noses now touching. 

“You tell me.” He smiled again, my breathing hitched slightly. I looked at him again, this was George MacKay, the boy that Sarah told me I would never have a chance with, no matter how much makeup I wore, how much weight I lost, how much I pushed my tits up. He would only ever be interested in a girl like her, not me. Yet, here he was. 

“Try another one.” My voice came out barley above a whisper, my bottom lip slipping between my teeth. George grabbed my hand, pulling it onto his chest, he started to lead it downwards. He didn’t break eye contact with me, and that only made the whole situation one hundred times more intense. Julian had never done this before, He’d never be able to have this effect on me. 

“Do you want to see what you do to me.” He whispered, stopping right at his belt buckle. He smiled, head inching forward a little more. “How was that?” The look on his face told me he knew what he was doing to me, how his was making my heart skip every second beat. 

“I can see why you got your reputation.” He moved his head closer to mine, just by a milli-meter, if either of us moved our lips would touch. His hand still held onto mine resting on his belt buckle. He didn’t make a move to move them, and if I was honest with myself. I didn't want too. The logical part of my brain told me I was doing this as payback for Sarah hooking up with Julian, the vodka filled side of me did it because I wanted to see where this could go. 

“Y/N.” My fingertips unconsciously gripped onto his belt. His eyes dropped to my lips, only for a second. If I’d been blinking I’d have surly missed it. “You’re cute when you’re flirting.”

“I wasn’t flirting.” I pulled my hand away from his belt. The warmth of his body leaving my forearm. I wrapped it under myself. Watching him as he turned away and looked up at the sky once more. 

“I wish you had been.” God, if I were a petty bitch I would run down those stairs and yell this story in Sarah’s face, while Julian watches on with that stupid look of his. “Why in the world did Julian McDonald break up with you? Apart from being one of the biggest idiots in town,” 

“I didn’t want to sleep with him.” I whispered, rolling back so I was also watching the stars. “He got mad that we’d been dating for six months, and I don’t think I’m ready to lose my virginity.” 

“You mean you’ve never had sex?” 

“I do believe that is the common definition of the word.” I laughed. “But I know, how lame am I. I’m seventeen and I’ve never slept with anyone.”

“I don’t think it’s lame.” 

“Yeah right. I’ve heard the stories about you, and your assembly of women.” 

“Firstly it’s more of a line… not an assembly. Secondly, I’m serious. You wouldn’t want to lose your virginity to that arsehole anyway.” He cocked a smile. “Probably wouldn’t even had a dick big enough to feel it.” He snorted out a laugh, trying to hold it in. “I’ve heard some pretty serious allegations over the size of that guys dick.” 

“George.” I turned to look at him, unable to stop myself from staring for a moment. “Thanks for making me feel less shit about my life.” He turned to face me now. “I’m sorry I’m such a drunken mess.” I picked up the bottle of vodka, it was two-thirds empty. 

“Well that was going to be my next question. Are you always like this or is it just the vodka?” 

“It’s definitely the vodka.” I sat up, trying to hide the blush that was flooding my cheeks. “Normally, if my boyfriend…”

“Ex,”

“Thank-you, Ex-boyfriend hadn’t been making out with my best-friend”

“Ex,”

“Ex-best-friend on that bloody floral settee feeling up each others…” I waved my hands in front of my boobs, the frustration overtaking me. “Bits… I wouldn’t be up here, wasted on half a bottle of vodka.” From down the stairs there was a loud eruption of voices. The music swelled drowning out any chance I had on making out what the voices were saying. 

“But then if they weren’t down stairs making fools of themselves you wouldn’t be up here.” George voiced as he sat up. Arm brushing mine. 

“That’s true.” I turned to face him. Chin resting on my arm. “And wouldn’t that be a shame.” George smiled and lent down a little. Eyes levelling out with mine, he ducked in a little closer, once again we were nearly lips to lips. “Why are you up here George?” He smiled, his lips brushed mine ever so softly. I almost thought it didn’t happen.

“I’m hiding from Stalker Sarah.” He whispered, breath fanning over my lips. 

“MacKay where are you.” I pulled away, turning towards the door to the roof. “MacKay” 

“I think someone wants you.” I turned back to George who was looking at the door. 

“I think you’re right.” He stood up and extended his hand down to me. “Do you need a ride home?” I’d come with Sarah… There was no way I was leaving with her. 

“I can walk.” I smiled standing.

“MACKAY.” The voice hollered again. If Sarah didn’t know George was here tonight, she sure would now.

“You’re not walking, we can take you.” 

“George, it’s fine.”

“Y/N, We’re driving you.” He smiled grabbing onto my hand, Holding it tightly in his. “Now, the important part of this mission,” He started as he pulled us towards the door back into the house. "Is making sure neither of your ex’s see us.”

“You make me sound like I’m a floozy with multiple ex’s. Besides, they’re probably still busy on the floral settee,” George threw his head back and let out a deep chuckle as he opened the door and holding it with his left hand. His right still firmly gripping mine. 

“Y/N.” We both pulled to a stop, Our laughter cutting off, Dying like my last hopes of being able to get out of this house without seeing either Sarah or Julian again. Sarah stepped forward smiling. She looked George up and down like he was a snack. 

“We’ve been looking for you.” Julian smiled reaching out for my hand, trying to pull me away from George. 

“Sarah,” I looked at my ex-best-friend whose eyes were downcast at mine and George’s interlaced hands. “Julian,” Julian’s eyes were on George, sizing him up. 

“Y/N,” Sarah clenched out, eyes leaving mine and George’s hand. “Whose your friend?” She smiled sweetly. George wrapped an arm around my shoulder, pulling me into his chest.  

“No one, just the guy whose taking her home.” He looked down the stairs, my eyes followed his. At the bottom of the stair case stood two guys, they’re waving at George. He nods his head in acknowledgement at the two. “Come on,” George lead me through the pair, down one step, two, three.

“Y/N,” I stopped, George stopped on the step below me. I turned, looking back up at the girl who used to be my best-friend. “Are you really going to do this to me?” I let out a self pitying laugh. 

“Honestly Sarah, compared to what you and Julian did together on the settee, George taking me home, is nothing.” They both looked down. “You should have charged for the show, you would have made a killing.” I went to turn again. 

“You leave with him and you can kiss goodbye our friendship.”

“You kissed that good bye the minute you kissed my boyfriend.” I turned, this time not stopping when she called out again. “Let’s go.” I whispered in his ear, stepping down onto his step. When we got to his friends he smiled at them, not explain who I was. I guessed he was waiting till we were in the safety of the car George had arrived here in. 

“You alright?” The taller of the pair asked. His eyes flicked over to me, before turning back to George as we made our way past him. 

“Yeah, I’ll explain in the car.” He replied softly. None of us talked as we followed George out of the house, his hand still holding tightly onto mine. People parted as we walked through the crowd. I could see at least three different girls who’d joined Sarah in her talks about George giving me the up and down before they looked away, their eyes betraying them in the second they turned. They wished they were me, holding his hand….I understood why. 

“I’m Mason.” The shorter one smiled as we neared the car. “Since this jackass won’t introduce us.” He extended his hand out to me. He seemed nice enough. “You are?”

“Y/N Y/L/N.” I smiled shaking his hand. “Ex-best-friend of Stalker Sarah, Ex-girlfriend of Julian McDonald.” Mason’s eyes widened he turned to George who was still next to me, hand still firmly grasping mine. “It’s okay, you don’t need to worry about me trying to convert George into hooking up with her.” I lent towards him. “And if you made up the nickname, you’re totally right.” I whispered a little. 

“Speaking of McDonalds,” The taller of the two smiled. “How about we get some?” He held his hand out across the roof of the car. “I’m Taylor, designated driver of these two assholes tonight.” I reached across, shaking his hand. “Pleasure.” He hit the roof of the car. “McDonalds, let’s go.” 

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Dear Diary pt.2.  - https://george-mackay-macfine.tumblr.com/post/612006567009714176/dear-diary

Dear Diary pt.3.  - https://george-mackay-macfine.tumblr.com/post/612353107904593920/dear-diary-pt3

Dear Diary pt.4.  - https://george-mackay-macfine.tumblr.com/post/612426076500656129/dear-diary-pt-4

[rosesvioletshardy]

life as we know it - b.h. chapter 4

you guys are in for a treat this chapter also sorry for the long wait on this i’m finally done with the semester and i don’t think i will be able to take all my classes online ever again it’s literally the worst but yeah i’ll hopefully will post more

i don’t think i’ve said this but for sean i’ve based him off of armie hammer’s character in nocturnal animals in a way i guess like looks wise

but anywho y’all might need some tissues for this

ps: note i am american so i don’t know exactly how the laws are in england and i tried my best to search them up

masterlist

summary: when their best friends die, it’s up to ben and y/n to take care of their goddaughter and face the challenges  that come with it 

# of words: 3,465

warnings: angst

taglist: @myfatbottomedgirls , @evemarie05

message me or inbox me if you want to be added to the taglist

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Things have been different for y/n and ben ever since they hooked up at new years. secrets that didn’t mean to be revealed were revealed. it caused a great amount of weird, sexual tension for them whenever they were in a room. it took their best friends a while to understand what happened between them.

They’ve ignored every possible situation and haven’t talked about it since christian and lennon found out about it and went back to seeing whoever they were originally seeing. at first sean wasn’t happy that she kissed ben and went back to his place instead of it being him but he quickly let it go and they’ve been together since and promised to tell each other everything. Occasionally there were times where sean didn’t allow her to go anywhere that ben would be and it was almost constantly unless he was with her. sean trusted her but sometimes he didn’t, but she didn't mind but it meant she understood where he was coming from. ben didn’t like it at all. he didn’t like how someone can force another person to stop seeing them and it took a toll on their relationship and their jobs as godparents. 

the tension also affected their personal relationship. they didn’t make any sly remarks back to each other, most of the time when they talked, they had one worded answers to each other and it depended on if there were other people with them. ben would sometimes go to her bakery and every time he saw her, she looked miserable, or from what he could tell. whenever she interacted with customers she would have this smile on her face and it was real, she loved her customers whenever they entered her shop and bought something or just to come and work. she wouldn’t give up her shop for anything else in the world. she didn’t know if it was because of what happened or it was her relationship with sean was the reason. y/n knew what was going on but she couldn’t bear to tell anyone or else she 

now she was working and helping customers, until ben walked in. this was the fourth time in a row during the week that he's come in and she’s managed to avoid him every time he came in by going in the back and helping tyler and the other bakers or by going into her office. She did a good job at avoiding him but today they were short staffed and she couldn’t ask anyone else to take over the front so she’s stuck having to talk to him. ben could see the look in her eyes that she was trying not to talk but he needed to because not talking for weeks was killing him and he didn’t even care what they talked about, so he walked up to the counter and started to order

“Hey”

“hi, welcome to Eats ‘n’ Treats, how can i help you today?” she asked trying to avoid ben

“listen we need to talk”

“no, we don’t. we were both drunk and i don’t want to talk about it. now, are you going to order something or not? you’re holding up the line” she said as they both look behind him to see no one there

“that’s bullshit and we both know it. i know you really don’t want to be with him and you keep putting yourself over this and pretending everything is fine when it isn’t. please. i just want to go back to how things were, me annoying you and you ignoring me at every point you get. c’mon, please.” he pleaded tears already pooling his eyes

“no. i’m sorry but i’m perfectly happy with sean and how everything is. now please, either order something or just leave.”

“fine. i’ll just take a coffee.” ben told her already paying

the two didn’t say anything else to each other after their encounter at the bakery. they both continued their day and never talked to each other, not for even any small talk. y/n was back at her apartment cooking dinner for both her and sean. there was a voice in her head telling her that there was something wrong and that she needed to do something about her situation but she ignored it, just like all of her problems. snapping out of her thoughts, she heard a knock on her door. putting everything in its place and soothing out her outfit, she opened the door to find sean.

“hey! how are you?” she asked him stepping away so he could enter

“i’m good, you? it smells great in here.” sean told her giving her a kiss

“i’m good. well i just finished making dinner”

“so, how was your day?” “it was good, you know the usual. people come in, order treats and baked goods. how was work for you?”

“it was tough, got a new case today about a couple wanting a divorce and jesus it’s a tough one. i’m defending the wife and she’s a workload. saying it’s the husbands fault their marriage came to be what it is.” sean said cutting into the piece of chicken before continuing

y/n wanted to say something but she knew if she did, she wouldn’t hear the end of it.

“did you see ben today? i thought i saw him leaving your shop when i was coming back from my lunch.” 

“no, i must’ve been in my office or in the back baking. could’ve been someone who looked like him” she told him taking a small sip of her water knowing what would happen if she told him the truth

“hmm. alright.”  

the night went on with the both of them soon cuddling on the couch watching some tv. y/n wasn’t paying attention because all she could think about was what ben said to her. she did feel miserable and she didn’t regret what they did but she had to. the night went on until the both of them went back to her room for the night. 

the same routine carried on for another month. wake up, work, home, date night, sleep. every now and then she would be with lennon and she could see the pain through her best friend's face. lennon had asked christian to talk to sean to make sure everything was alright with them because she knew that something was wrong. when christian had reported back to her, he had said that everything was fine and nothing was wrong with their relationship at all.

“no that can’t be right. listen, i know her. Something is wrong with her. i mean ben had called me god knows how many times or asked me whether she was happy with him. After new years, they stopped talking to each other and she avoids him every time they’re near each other or when she’s with sean. i don’t know anymore. i just want what’s best for all of us.” lennon told him as she set charlie down for the night

“look,, i love her too, but we can’t fight this battle for her and we can’t do it for ben either. we have to let them solve it on their own. i’ll talk to sean again. if he gives the same answer, i’ll do something. i promise.” christian told her holding up his pinkie

lennon only sighed and then laughed at her husband. she knew he was right as much as she wanted to admit it. she took his pinkie and promised him she wouldn’t interfere with the relationship. she knew that y/n was strong and could fight her own battles, but she desperately wanted to help before something bad happened to anyone. 

ben was in his apartment, practicing over lines for a new movie. while going over them, he couldn’t help but think about his last encounter with her. after his years of acting, he could tell whether someone was acting or lying, well not so well, but he knew the difference. he threw the script across the room causing frankie to look up at her owner and start whining. ben looked at her and gave her the signal to jump onto his bed.

“i don’t know frank. i know that something is wrong but she won’t tell me. did you know what one of the last things she told me? she said she regretted what happened and i know she didn’t but i can’t force her to say what she really feels. this sean guy, i’ve seen him. at the wedding last year. Didn’t think that they would be dating by now. i just thought it would be a one night stand but every event that lennon and christian have, he’s always there even before they started dating. he wasn’t even one of the groomsmen, just a guest.” ben started to rant before he looked down to see frankie sleeping 

“alright then, i guess i’m talking to myself now.” ben told himself and slowly got out of his bed carefully to go eat seeing he hasn’t eaten all day.

everything seemed to go smoothly up until one night.

y/n and sean were on another date, christian and lennon finally got to have a night out since charlie got sick on valentines’ day and they had to postpone it, and ben was out with his friends but didn’t feel like drinking and decided to be the sober one this time.

when lennon and christian left the restaurant they took a small walk before going back to their car and back to see charlie and make sure their babysitter went home safely. on the way back to their home, a driver didn’t see them clearly and hit them causing both cars to crash. people around them started to call the cops and everyone tried to surround them to see what had just happened. y/n and ben were busy until an hour later they both got phone calls telling them to go to the police station. they didn’t know why they were being called at a late such a late hour 

“sorry sean, this will be quick.”

“Who is it?”

“the police.” she told him as she got up and went to somewhere private to talk 

“what do the police need with her?” sean asked himself confused before going back to his food

“Hello?”

“Hello is this y/n l/n?”

“yes this is she. may i ask why you’re calling?” 

“it’s best if you come down to the station. is there any chance a ben jones or hardy is with you?” the woman asked

“no he isn’t with me at the moment.” she told her confused on why they would need ben 

“alright. thank you. we’ll see you soon.” and just like that the phone call ended 

y/n walked back into sean’s dining room before she started to look for her things frantically

“everything alright? what did they need?” sean asked after seeing her worried state

“i-i really don’t know. i just needed to get down there and they didn’t say anything.” she told him opening her purse to look for her keys.

“hey, it’s okay. i’m sure everything's fine and that it was just a mistake. now c’mon, i have this dessert you’re absolutely going to love.” he told her smiling

“no it didn’t sound like a mistake i could sense the sadness in her voice. i’m really sorry sean but i have to leave. i’ll call you soon” she told him giving him a kiss on his cheek and leaving his house

the call to ben worried him as well, first he was listening to his drunk friends tell a story and then he got pulled out mid conversation by his phone ringing

“who is that? is it that one girl you’re obsessing over jonesy?” his friend teased

“no it’s not and i don’t obsess over her piss off. it’s the police” ben told them as he started to leave the table

“oh shit what’d you do?”

“Nothing that i know of. Now shush.” ben told them as he answered

“hello?”

“hi is this ben jones?” the woman asked

“yes this is he”

“we need you to come down here. we have some news.” 

“What’s this all about?” 

“It’s better if we tell you in person”

“alright. i’ll be there soon.”

ben turned his phone off before grabbing out his wallet and paying for the drinks and giving extra so his friends could call a cab

“where you going?”

“the station. they said it was important and they needed to tell me in person. i’ll see you guys soon. don’t drink too much, there’s extra for a cab” ben told them putting his jacket back on and leaving 

“alright then, see ya mate.”

ben walked back to his car and drove to the station. he couldn’t help but feel this wave of anxiety rush over him. he didn’t know what could have happened that would cause him to go down there but he knew something wasn't right.

as soon as he parked his car, he saw y/n’s car and wondered why she was there and it caused his panic to rise even more thinking it had something to do with her. rushing in, he looked around before a police officer stopped him seeing him confused and looking around.

“hi can i help you?” he asked

“yeah, um, i was called and told to be here. my names ben har- i mean jones” ben stuttered out

“right, follow me.” 

ben followed the officer to a secluded hallway with chairs against the wall and an empty desk and saw y/n pacing back and forth biting on her nails. when noticing two faint shadows, she looked up from the tiled floor and saw the officer who brought her there first and ben as well. she wasn’t sure as to why ben was there until his voice snapped her out of her thoughts

“hey you okay? what are you doing here?” he asked her grabbing her arms checking for anything

“i’m fine and i don’t know. they called me down here and i thought there was a mix up.” she told him

“then why did they call us here?” ben asked before the officer spoke up

“you both know lennon and christian wakes, yes?” 

“yeah, they’re our best friends.” she told him worried something might have happened

“they were stuck by a drunk driver causing both cars to crash and flipped.” the officer told them and gave out a deep sigh before continuing

“the officer at the scene, found both of your names and numbers on an insurance card in mrs. wakes wallet. i’m sorry, they didn’t make it.”

in that moment, y/n felt like her legs turned to jelly as her stomach dropped when hearing those words. ben quickly noticed and grabbed her and sat her down on one of the chairs before she fell to the ground

 “now, we need numbers for the nearest next of kin. Can you supply those?” he finished

Neither one of them could breathe properly and already had tears falling from their eyes

“yeah-, um, you said the car flipped? it-it flipped when it hit the-they have a daughter. a baby.” she managed to squeak out before ben interrupted her

“charlie um charlotte. was she in the car with them?” ben asked knowing y/n wouldn’t be able to

“no but because she was in the care of a minor, a babysitter, when the accident occurred. so the officers placed with the NSPCC for the night. she’s perfectly fine.” 

“NSPCC?” y/n asked still not used to the fact she was living in another country

“National society for the prevention of cruelty of children.”ben said not wanting to look up

“where they take cases like this. she’s perfectly safe.”

when they found out that charlie was safe, ben and y/n let out a thoughtful sigh, but it didn’t stop them both from crying.

“what do you mean by cases like this?”

“Orphaned children”

when the officer told the two that, it caused them to break down even more. the thought of their best friends gone and their daughter without any parents hurt them too much to even move. the officer left to give them their privacy. ben hugged her as they both continued to cry into each other's arms.

“they’re gone. i don’t want them to be gone. this has to be some sort of sick joke. it’s not real..” she cried out

“it’s not. it’s-” ben managed to choke out

after staying there and crying for a few more minutes, they both managed to get up and walk out the station. she went back to her car and began fumbling through her purse looking for keys before dropping it causing a few things to spill out. ben noticed her behavior and decided that she wasn’t stable enough to drive and went up to her.

“c’mon i’ll take you. you can’t drive in this condition.” ben told her sincerely as he sat down next to her on the ground. 

y/n didn’t argue with him and only nodded before getting up and following ben to his car. the entire ride back to their friends house was silent with the occasional sniffles from them. when they arrived, they stayed in the car before getting the courage to walk up to the door. she took her spare key and put it up to the lock, missing it the first time due to her hands shaking before ben lightly grabbed her hand and helped her. they stepped inside and turned the lights on to see how it was left before christian and lennon, and their babysitter left. there was a laundry basket in the hallway filled with charlie’s clothes and bibs, her toys on the floor in the living room, everything in the kitchen neatly put away.

as they stepped into the living room, y/n took as seat on the couch, and ben got out his phone 

“who are you calling?” 

“NSPCC” 

“they have charlie and she’s safe. Ben-”

“What?” he yelled at her

“i’m sorry. i just need to make sure.” he whispered as tears started to form in his eyes again

y/n didn’t say anything but instead nodded in understanding. a million thoughts began to run through her mind until she started to cry again. 

“no, i-i just don’t understand why we can’t see her tonight. Listen no, ma’am i don’t care about your protocol or any policies. this-yes. i will be here at this number and i suppose you have her godmother’s number as well? yes.” ben said into his phone then hung up

“they won’t do anything. not until 8 tomorrow morning.” ben said pacing while running his hand through his hair

“okay, you heard what they told us. she’s fine. we can’t keep thinking about the negatives as much as i want to admit it.” she told him. she understood where he was coming from and wanted to feel the same way but the both of them knew they had to stay strong for the three of them and that this isn’t what their friends would want them to worry about.

“i know. i know. it’s just everything that has happened between all of us, i can’t stop thinking about what would’ve happened if charlie was with them.” ben sighed out before continuing

“we have to stay here tonight, that way we’re here in the morning if they call, and i just- i know that if i- i just can’t be alone right now and i know you can’t either.” he finished

he was right. she knew that if she went back to her apartment she would feel empty while knowing her other half was gone and she needed to be with someone who cared about her.

“yeah. okay.” 

“go and take the guest bedroom” ben told her

“okay, you can take their room if you want.” 

“no, i don’t think i can do that. i’ll just sleep over here.”

“are you sure?”

“yeah. i’ll see you in the morning. goodnight y/n.” ben told her as she started to walk away

“goodnight ben.” y/n said with a whisper as she turned around and looked at him  

as ben sat back down on the couch, he picked up the stuffed animal that he gave to charlie a month after she was born and smiled down at it before putting it on the coffee table. he then laid down after fixing the pillow before he started to cry all over again, as she was doing the same in the guest bedroom before they soon fell asleep hoping that it was all a bad dream and that christian and lennon would call them the next day inviting them for a barbeque.

[binbons-character-stuff]

Hell Hath No Fury

My contribution to @daffodilsbucky‘s 1k Follower Challenge! Congratulations!!!

My trope was #12 Body Swap.

Dinah Madani was a woman scorned. 

There was more to it, of course. Her career was in ruins. She was a laughingstock among her former co-workers and bosses. Her parents had stood by her publicly, of course, but she saw them, sometimes. They would just look at her, wondering where they had gone wrong with their child. 

Her life was a joke – she was a joke. And it was all because of one man. 

Billy Russo.

Dinah Madani never looked in the mirror and saw a woman who compromised her own values, used herself and Billy Russo sexually to find out information about Frank Castle and Cerberus. She didn’t see someone who played fast and loose with the law; she saw a victim. She saw a woman who had been dishonored, a woman who had been played for a fool. 

A woman who needed revenge.

And she didn’t want revenge from Frank Castle, the man who had pulled the trigger on her partner in Kandahar, or his boss, the man who had actually given the order to murder Zubair. She didn’t want revenge on her boss or her boss’s boss that gave Russo and Castle sweetheart deals for helping to take Rawlins down. Hell, she didn’t even blame David Leiberman for sending her the video in the first place. She blamed Billy Russo, because he had realized her game and beat her at it; because he had been able to compartmentalize dealing with Madani after he found out that she had been using him to get to Frank. 

Because he had been able to find love with someone else, when Madani herself had loved him: at least her version of love. More like want, really, but still, Madani owed him. So, yeah, Billy and you were the object of her sick fascination and utter hatred.

It was Billy Russo who needed to pay. And, if things went as she hoped, pay he would, and you right along with him.

Madame Gao had been hard to find, but Madani was determined. When she had found her, Gao had been indifferent to her. Russo and Castle were troublesome but nothing that her Hand members couldn’t handle. 

In the end, Madani had pledged herself to the Hand for Madame Gao’s help in getting revenge on Billy. And, in order to be completely certain of Madani’s loyalty, Gao had placed a geas on Dinah. She was now magically bonded to Madame Gao until her death or release.

It was a small price to pay to make Russo’s life a living hell before she finally ended it. 

This was going to be fun.

“Honey, I’m home!” Billy called when he stepped into your shared apartment and laid his keys in the bowl that was kept there for general pocket clutter. 

“In the kitchen,” you called out, though he had already figured that out from the delicious aromas and the music playing.

Billy tossed his suit jacket over a dining chair and strolled into the kitchen, loosening his tie as he entered his favorite room of your shared home. 

Leaning his chin on your shoulder as he snuggled up behind you, Billy pulled you close and kisses your neck a bunch of times until you giggled and turned to kiss him properly, knowing that he would continue to harass you delightfully until he got a proper smooch.

“How was your day, love?” you said after a sweet kiss.

“Not too shabby. Better now that I’m with you,” he said warmly.

You looked into his deep brown eyes and marveled that you had ever doubted this man’s feelings for you. “I love you so much, Russo,” you said sincerely. 

Billy kissed your nose with his special crinkly-eyed smile. “I love you, too,” he replied. “Whatcha makin’?”

“Just some quick sausage and peppers with pasta. Wanna set the table while I put the garlic bread in the oven?”

“Sure,” he answered, stealing one more kiss before he went to grab dishes and flatware.

Billy was still getting used to having a woman in his space; you were worth it and he would lie down in a puddle so you wouldn’t get your feet wet, but there was still a lot to get used to, y'know?

This was a man who never lived alone his entire life, going from foster homes to group homes to the Marines. When he finally got out and started his business, he got his first place alone – and he fucking loved it. He didn’t have to worry about his shit getting moved, busted or stolen. Hell, he didn’t even have to deal with Frankie stealing his toothpaste. In a burst of excessive hubris, he had gotten all of the things that he thought would show people how far he’d come in life from the foster kid whose junkie mother safe-havened him at a fire station.

When Bastion Security took off and made it through the government oversight after he and Frank and Curtis had done the CIA’s dirty work and took out Rawlins, he was able to grow the business honestly, not having to worry about Black ops that were too dirty for Feds. His jobs were aboveboard and his money was clean.

Clean money meant less money, though, so the penthouse had been traded for a normal apartment, his closets filled with nice but not bespoke suits and his parking space with the Wraith was now occupied with a Land Rover. After life settled into routine, after all the testifying before the Senate, after he paid back the dirty money he used to start Anvil, well, he realized that while it was nice to have his own space and things, they didn’t have to be the most expensive just for the sake of having the highest price tag. 

And now that he didn’t have to maintain strictest privacy at all times lest his not-so-squeaky-clean business practices came to light, he didn’t necessarily love being alone all the time.

You and he were the last of your friends who were still single; Karen and Frank were together, Foggy and Marci were engaged, Curtis had started dating a girl he’d met at the gym and Matt was getting serious with a social worker he’d met on a case where he’d been guardian ad litem for a boy who had lost his parents.

So, after the first few times that you and Billy were the only ones to show up for a group outing, or were the last ones left after everyone went on with their couples plans, you decided you may as well hang out with each other. One thing had led to another, you’d asked him to be your plus one for a work thing, he’d asked you to go with him to a mix and mingle thing so he wouldn’t threaten husbands. You never expected anything, of course; Billy was famously single and you certainly didn’t think you’d be the one to change that.

But you were. Billy finally quit pretending he needed you to accompany him as a friend and told you he wanted more. 

“What?” you asked with a nervous chuckle. “Is this a joke?”

Billy looked offended. “No,” he said stiffly. “It was not intended as such.”

“I mean, you’re famously unfunny, Russo. You sure?” you said, giving him an out.

Suddenly Billy was feeling more vulnerable than he had as a kid. He decided to go for bravado. With a half-smile, he said, “Yeah, that’s a pretty stupid idea, huh? I just thought that y'know since we been spending so much time together –”

“Bill!” you interrupted. 

“What?” he growled, cheeks a bit flushed with embarrassment.

You smiled and stepped closer, tentatively putting your hands on his shoulders. Looking into his eyes, you whispered, “It’s a great idea, Billy.”

He breathed a sigh of relief and put his hands on your hips, pulling you a bit closer and leaning in to drop a gentle kiss on your lips. 

Your eyelids fluttered open and you smiled happily. “Best idea ever.”

Frank and Curtis had known Billy for a lot longer than any of his other friends, and neither of them could get over the change in him. Outwardly, Billy told them to screw off, he had always been the same guy, but inside – well, inside, Billy knew that he was different. You had seen the person who had always worried that he wasn’t worth anything deeper than his looks. 

But you looked past his exterior, past his sins and loved the man that he had never before had the courage to be. You became his friend after he lost the money and the car and suits, and you never seemed all that impressed with his looks. Oh, you thought he was gorgeous; you weren’t blind. But that wasn’t enough for you. You’d needed to get to know the real William Russo, not the image he showed the world. Only then did you fall for him.

There was a freedom that accompanied someone knowing the real Billy. He had never known true acceptance before, had never understood that concept because no one had ever wanted what was beneath the facade he showed the world. When he was a Marine, he was the best goddamn sniper there was. When he was a businessman, he was the best bullshit artist and salesman he could be. When he was with a woman, he was the best lover he could be, leaving every partner exhausted and satisfied.

But he had never really allowed anyone to see the man he was before. Only you understood the little boy who had been abandoned that still lived inside Billy, and only you had ever been able to make him understand that it had not been his failing, that his mother had been an addict and unable to care for him. 

For the first time, Billy thought that maybe there could be more to his life than resentment and anger; you gave him love and acceptance.

Madani had gathered all of the necessary components for the spell and it was time. She had been very careful not to let Billy see her as she tailed him, learning his and your routines by heart. She had spy training, after all – even someone trained as Billy had been unprepared for the Killing Eve disguises and infiltration shit Madani was pulling. Madame Gao had also loaned her some manpower, so there wasn’t always a small woman around, regardless of her hair color or clothing.

Madame Gao herself was going to perform the spell. Later, Madani would apprentice in spellcraft, but for now she would simply be the subject of the spell.

It had been so easy to get close to you to get something personal to use for the spell component. You were truly and completely a civilian, a trusting fool. What did Russo even see in you?

Madani was currently bound to a sturdy chair, arms and legs lashed down securely. She couldn’t get out of it herself, she had no doubt that it would hold a weakling like you. 

Madame Gao began chanting and threw a lit match into a bowl, fragrant smoke surrounding Madani, clouding her vision and making her dizzy. As her eyes fluttered closed, she felt herself drifting away…

You were having the strangest dream. The sounds and smells were completely foreign to you. There was a strange voice chanting and it was as if you were drunk or high. You muttered in your sleep, and the feel of Billy’s heart beating against your cheek was growing fainter, as if you were being pulled away from his embrace. 

Suddenly, you gasped as your eyes opened to a strange room where an elderly Asian woman was looking you over with a matter-of-fact expression on her wrinkled face. 

“You do not seem worthy of such hatred as my apprentice holds for you,” she said disdainfully.

You were still woozy and completely confused. “Who are you? Where am I?”

“I think the more important question for you is, ‘Who are you?’” she replied, gesturing across from you.

You looked in the direction and saw a woman bound to a chair. Disturbing, but you couldn’t see how it pertained to you. You turned to look at the woman and saw the woman across from you mirror your move. You looked back and so did she – you began to make faces and she mimicked each one. Finally your brain caught up with the evidence before you and you looked down, finding your hands bound to a chair – but they were not your hands!

“What – what the hell is going on?” you asked, panicking and pulling against your bonds. “What is happening to me? BILLY!!”

“You may continue to scream if that is your wish, but there is no one to come to your aid. Ms. Madani was very careful in her planning. Your Mr. Russo should be waking up next to her any time now.”

“Madani? That crazy bitch who tried to kill Billy?” you asked, real fear in your eyes as you looked into the mirror more closely. The hair was short and blond now, but the eyes and face, the beauty mark – you were indeed trapped in the body of Dinah Madani.

And your love was snuggled in bed with a woman who blamed him for every bad thing that had ever happened to her – and had been trained to kill.

Billy woke abruptly, the feel of fingernails digging into his skin jolting him from sleep. He jumped from the bed in fight-mode but saw no threat. “Babe?” he said, half asleep and confused. You usually woke him up sweetly, knowing that he had PTSD from growing up in foster care and serving in the Middle East – startling Billy awake was not a great idea.

“Hey,” Madani purred, “no talking, just make me feel good.”

Billy was wide awake at that, skin almost crawling as he jumped out of bed and away from the hands trying to get inside the boxer briefs he had worn to sleep. “Ah, sorry, no can do,” he said, backing away from what certainly looked like the woman he loved. “Got an early meeting.”

“Ugh,” she practically sneered at Billy. “Fine, Russo. Go to work – as usual.”

Billy visibly flinched and said, “Ah, gonna hit the shower.”

Madani realized that maybe, just maybe she had come on a bit strong. She hadn’t really put any thought into how you and Billy were when you were alone together, and surprisingly, you spent most of your off time alone in your shared apartment. No, she only thought about getting revenge. But Billy had definitely been confused, and though she knew she was smarter and he couldn’t possibly expect this, he wasn’t a stupid man. 

She would have to be softer. It just hadn’t occurred to her that Billy Russo would want to be with a rag doll, she assumed that he would be with a woman more…well, more like Madani. She had been his type once, but it seemed that these days he liked his tail with a side of submission. 

Billy was in the shower quietly freaking out. You were behaving strangely; it was like you were a different person entirely. 

Get ahold of yourself, Russo, he berated himself. So your girl woke up horny and tried to jump you? Most guys would be grateful, and it isn’t like you never woke her up for sex! 

Billy shook his head and hurried through his shower. He had no idea what you saw in him, but you were so tender-hearted that you were probably some combination of hurt and embarrassed because he’d run off like a blushing virgin.

Billy came back to the bedroom wrapped in a towel, an apology loaded for his weird exit, but you weren’t there. He perked his ear in the direction of the kitchen and heard you opening cabinets and shrugged. Morning weirdness aside, he really did have an early meeting.

He got dressed and came out to the dining room to find you drinking coffee. He bent over to drop a kiss on your cheek. “Gotta go,” he said. “See you at 7 for Karen’s thing, right?”

“Oh, right!” Madani exclaimed. “You’re picking me up, right?”

“No,” Billy drawled slowly. “We’re meeting at Kashkaval Garden. Remember?”

Madani made a 'silly me’ face and said, “Right, of course! Absolutely.”

“Great,” Billy replied a bit suspiciously. “You OK?”

“I’m fine,” Madani replied. “Weird dreams, feel like I could sleep some more. Better hit the coffee!”

“K,” Billy agreed reluctantly, then sent you the special smile that he deserved for you. “Love you, babe.”

Madani felt her stomach churn. Really? He loved this little Mary Sue? “Back atcha,” she said with a tense smile.

Billy’s eyebrows went up slightly, but then he smiled and said, “See ya tonight.”

“Yup.”

Billy closed the door behind him, actually shaking. You had never failed to tell him to have a great day when he left for work. He’d been called out of bed in the middle of the night and you’d told him to have a great day in your sleep! And, 'Back atcha’ when he’d said he loved you?

Something is wrong. Something is very wrong.

Madani knew that Billy had been weirded out by her behavior, though she wasn’t sure what precisely she did wrong. He’d liked her well enough when they had been together, how much different could you be? Yes, you were a pediatrician, so you obviously liked children, whereas Madani wanted nothing to do with any ankle biters, even if they were family. Maybe he found something in you that he had missed out on being raised in the foster system? That made sense; it wasn’t you, but what you represented.

What possible other reason could there be for him to be with Madani’s polar opposite?

Billy had been distracted all day. From the first minute of the 7 a.m. meeting where David and Curtis had gone over the company’s quarterly financials and the prospects for the upcoming months, he’d been somewhere else. 

“Billy!” Curtis said loudly, knocking on the table in the conference room. “This is where you talk.”

“Shit, sorry, guys. Weird morning,” he apologized. “Ah, we have eight ongoing personal security jobs stateside and I’ve been trying to get us contracts for overseas security, too. If any of that starts looking positive, we’re going to need to hire and train more ground crew. And we could actually use some tech crew now, Micro.”

“That’s…wow,” David Leiberman exclaimed. “I’ll put out some feelers. This is great news, guys!”

“Yeah,” Billy said with a surprised chuckle. “Y'know, I think we might just make a go of this thing.”

Frank slapped the tabletop and said, “Damn straight!” he agreed heartily. “Drinks are on me tonight.”

“It’s your girlfriend’s party, weren’t they already?” Curt heckled Frank.

“Yeah, ya cheap bastard!” David joined in as Billy chuckled at their ribbing of their friend.

“Eh, shut it!” Frank clapped back happily. “Bastion Security Incorporated is here to stay!”

Billy was planning to talk to Frank about your strange behavior, but he didn’t want to bring down the vibe of the partners after the meeting, and he had a lot of work to do around three meetings and two conference calls. I’m probably overreacting, anyways, he reassured himself. Just a weird morning.

Still, the feeling that something was wrong nagged at him all day. To top it off, he had texted you several times and you hadn’t answered him once. You always answered him, even if it was just a few words to say you were busy and you loved him.

He was utterly disgusted with himself for feeling like a clingy teenager, but damn, you were the best part of his life. What if you really had been keeping from him resentment over how much he worked? You always said you understood, even when he had been completely honest about all the stupid, awful things he had done. He was utterly overwhelmed with the grace and forgiveness his found family had blessed him with, but they had already been friends. For them it was a continuance of a relationship and therefore they found good in him to outweigh the bad that he had done. 

With you, he had been honest early on; he needed to know that you could bear to look at him with his sins laid bare, because he knew almost from the beginning that you were special. The fact that you loved him knowing what he had done never ceased to amaze him – and he didn’t think he could make it without that love. Your love had changed him, made him able to return love. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t the most important person to him.

Christ, I feel like a twelve year old girl, he thought to himself disgustedly. 

He picked up his phone and looked again. Still no texts.

Billy sighed and tried to focus on the resumes in front of him. They needed to hire new employees whether or not his love life was making him weepy.

Billy had arrived a few minutes early, but the hostess said the Garden Room was ready and led him back. Frank and Karen greeted him warmly, Billy congratulating Karen on her book deal. As if being a partner in Nelson, Murdock & Page wasn’t enough to keep her busy, she had submitted a manuscript for a mystery novel to a publishing house and had been offered a contract.

“Promise me you’ll only describe a character based on me as 'devastatingly handsome’,” Billy demanded playfully.

“How about, 'chronic bedwetter’,” Frank suggested.

“Or 'high-maintenance mirror hog’?” Curtis chimed in.

“'Technologically challenged!’” David piped up, loathe to be left out and giving the worst playful insult he could think of.

“Or 'terrible, inattentive boyfriend?’” he heard your voice add in the midst of laughing off his buddies’ roasting.

His eyes went wide and he spun around, and yeah, you looked pissed. “Hey, babe,” he said carefully, leaning over to kiss your cheek, which you accepted stiffly.

“I’ve been sitting out front waiting for a while, babe,” Madani said with saccharine sweetness and a big smile. “If Sarah hadn’t grabbed me on the way in, I’d still be waiting.”

“I mean, I thought you’d come on back,” Billy said quietly, smiling thinly, aware that all of your friends were watching. “Not like this is the first time we’ve used this room for our group.”

Madani looked around and saw the questioning looks pointed her way and let it go. “Of course. Long day,” she said, hopefully placatingly.

“Did you bring the gift?” Billy whispered as people began to mingle again.

“Gift?” Madani replied absently.

Billy’s eyebrows beetled his brows and he frowned as he said, “Are you kidding me? I said that we didn’t need a gift and you spent hours picking things out and paid extra for fast shipping!”

Just as Madani opened her mouth to snap back, Matt said, “Billy, got a minute?”

Billy closed his eyes briefly before smiling and turning to face the group. “Sup, Matt?" 

"I heard you were hiring and I have a friend who might be a good fit.”

“You have friends who aren’t here?” Billy said with feigned amazement in his voice.

“Ha ha.” Matt held out his hand and said, “Come over here so we don’t bore everyone?”

Billy was surprised but said, “OK,” and put his arm under Matt’s hand and walked over to the far side of the room.

Matt smiled and said quietly, “Who the hell is that?”

Madani watched Billy lead Matt over to the other side of the room. She had been worried when Matt had asked Billy to talk, but then Billy had served him up snark like he did to the other guys so she figured it must really be normal.

She really was making him suspicious, though. She wasn’t going to be able to drag this out and enjoy torturing him, as much as it pained her to admit it. She had put so much thought into the method of her revenge that she didn’t research the means.

She smiled and joined the crowd, hanging back to learn the names of the people she didn’t know. She regretted letting her obsession with revenge cloud her judgment and keep her from doing better background. 

You were actually being treated fairly well. Aside from some self-defense moves that Billy had insisted upon teaching you, you were absolutely not a threat. You were more of a throw-your-handbag-then-run-away-yelling, “Street Smarts” than a hand-gesture-like-Neo-while-screaming, “Come Get A Taste” kinda girl.

The elderly Chinese woman had dismissed you to the care of a group of guards with a full-on bad guy monologue. “The rest of your life does not promise to be pleasant, but it is up to you how you will be treated while you are my guest. Obey my simple rules and you will have the freedom of this room, you will be allowed to watch television and have access to bathing facilities. Your meals will be brought to you and if you are a well-behaved guest, you will be treated as such.

"However, if you get any ideas about escaping, then of course you will be returned to this chair and these bindings. Tell me, child, have you a preference?”

“I will behave until Billy comes for me,” you said, chin raised proudly. “You’re right, I am absolutely no threat, but Billy…he allows himself to care for very few people. You have the misfortune to be holding one of them as an honored but unwilling guest. Let’s hope the insane obsession of an off-balance woman scorned is worth the trouble it will bring to your door.”

Madame Gao smiled condescendingly. “I think we will be able to manage a few toy soldiers, child. Do not worry about my health when yours is in so much more peril.”

Billy smiled tensely at Matt. “What the hell do you mean, man?”

“I mean,” Matt bit out, “that woman may physically be your girlfriend, but somehow, that’s not who is currently inside her.”

Billy was dumbfounded. He knew of Matt’s alter ego and therefore understood that Matt had talents and powers far beyond his experience, but for there to be a completely different person inside your body? The same body, incidentally, that he had been inside on countless occasions?

“Matt,” Billy bit out a moment later, “man, I can’t wrap my head around this. You saying there are two people inside her?”

“No, Billy,” Matt replied ominously. “She’s completely gone.”

Madani figured she should stop staring holes into the back of Billy’s head and mingle a bit. She’d met Karen and Sarah before, albeit in a rather interrogate-y way, but still – she figured she could handle small talk with them.

Madani walked over to the edge of the group of friends and edged in until she was next to Karen. 

Karen turned to her a bit and gave her a one-armed hug. “So glad you got here! Boys are so dumb, right?”

“Tell me about it!” Madani replied with an exasperated smile. “I feel like such a dunce, I left your present at home!”

Karen waved her concern away. “You don’t need to get me a present, silly! I just want to celebrate with all my friends.”

“Still,” Madani said ruefully, “happy birthday!”

And there was silence. And it was not good.

Frank cleared his throat. “Ah, we’re celebrating Karen’s book deal, kiddo! Did you pre-game some white wine before you got here?” he joked.

Madani was mortified. 

Karen laughed. “Oh, you goofball!” she announced. “This is an old joke, like Frosty the Snowman, we say 'Happy Birthday’ for everything!" 

Billy and Matt had returned to the group in time to hear Karen blatantly lie to help fake-you save face. 

William Russo had seen a lot of things. He’d been to war, he’d killed men, he’d seen his friends die – hell, he’d almost had his own ticket punched more than a few times. But he had never, never experienced a horror so visceral before in his life.

You had never had an enemy in your life. Hell, when he’d first met you he’d been suspicious as hell, not believing anyone could be so goddamn nice. But the more he got to know you, the more he realized you were simply a caring, kind individual.

And you would have to have one hell of a case of amnesia to forget one of your dearest friend’s birthday. 

"Karen, I am so sorry, but I just got word that I have to go into work,” Billy said regretfully. “And I really hate to say it, but I need my team.”

Frank, David and Curtis all groaned at that announcement, but they knew that Billy wouldn’t disrupt something like this for no reason.

“I’m really sorry, Karen” he said, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “I’m so proud of you. I promise I’ll make it up to you.’

Karen hugged him back, whispering, "What is going on?”

“Dunno,” Billy whispered back, knowing she was talking about you. “Gotta find out.”

Billy needed confirmation before he left. He walked over to fake-you and said, “Sorry, lovebug,” knowing that you absolutely loathed that particular term of endearment. He leaned over to kiss her cheek, feeling the anger rolling off fake-you in waves. “Can you get home OK?”

Madani almost snapped at him, but judging by the nauseating nickname knew that you wouldn’t respond that way. “Of course,” she said sweetly. 

Billy stood and waited expectantly for a moment, but you never told him to be safe.

You always told him to be safe when he had to go on a job.

By the time the four of them had gathered at Bastion’s office, Billy had pulled his shit together, but there was still a part of him that was reeling. He’d seen a lot in his time on this green earth, but nothing else had come close to this shit.

“What the hell, Bill?” Frank growled as he entered the conference room at Bastion.

Usually the richly appointed room made Billy feel a sense of pride. This was where he brought new clients to discuss their needs with the team. It was a combination of high tech and dark wood, the perfect blend of science and class that said that the company was competent and successful. Now, he could have been sitting in a junkyard for all he cared. “Brother, I’m so sorry to fuck up Karen’s party –" 

"That ain’t what I’m talking about, Bill,” Frank interrupted as Curtis and David entered the room. 

“I think he means, what the hell is wrong with your girl?” Curtis said quietly.

Billy’s shoulders sagged as his chin hit his chest in defeat. “I wish I knew,” he said quietly, then looked up. “Matt said – he said that there’s someone else inside her? I mean, what the fuck does that even mean?”

Frank whistled. “Matt’s seen some shit,” he commented quietly. “Nightmare shit.”

Billy slammed his hand onto the conference table he leaned against. “What, like some voodoo shit?" 

"Ancient Chinese mysticism, actually,” Matt said from the doorway.

Billy jerked to attention. Frank, Curtis and David spun to face Matt and saw two people with him: a young man with curly blonde hair and a young Asian woman.

“This is Danny Rand and Colleen Wing,” Matt announced. “This is Billy Russo, Frank Castle, Curtis Hoyle and David Lieberman. Billy’s girlfriend is the one I was telling you about.”

Billy was quiet for a moment. The girl was Asian, but the white kid? “Ah, pleasure to meet you. But what exactly do you bring to the table?” he asked bluntly.

“I am the Immortal Iron Fist.”

You had been pacing your chamber pretty much non-stop. It was decorated nicely in soothing shades of blue and was much homier than a hotel and certainly better than a dungeon. Knowing that it was your prison didn’t make you appreciate the color scheme, pleasant or not. They could hang silk curtains on the windows, but it didn’t change the fact that there were also bars.

This was so not your thing. Billy probably would have found a way to weaponize the TV remote or built a bazooka out of a toilet tissue tube by now, but aside from making bandages out of the embroidered pillow covers, your DIY skills were strictly decorative. 

You had no idea how long you were to be a guest, either. Knowing that your stay would most likely end with either the man you loved more than life or you dead or critically wounded didn’t make you anxious to end your forced vacation with the elderly Asian woman and her silent minions.

“It sounds as though she has been placed under a spell which removes her soul with her body and replaces it with that of another person,” Danny said. “How long has this been going on?”

Billy scrubbed his face with his hand, utterly heartsick and defeated by the situation. “This morning. It was like she was a different person from the second she woke up.” He laughed humorously. “Little did I know she was literally a different person.”

Danny traded a look with Colleen. “There are only a few people in the world that could cast a spell like that, and most of them are in K'un-Lun.”

“What, now?” David sputtered in amazement. “I’m sorry, but are we really talking spells and and and magic? I mean, I know that there are things out there that we can’t explain but –”

“This is not the time to have 'The Talk’ about the world being larger than you know, David,” Matt said harshly. “Our friend is missing.”

“Shit,” Billy hissed as the pain of those words, resisting the need to double over from the gut punch they brought. “She’s missing. Jesus.”

Curtis clapped a hand on Billy’s shoulder and said, “We’re gonna get her back, man.”

“Damn straight,” Frank swore.

You were being punished. Apparently trying to keep the plastic knife from your dinner was not acceptable. You didn’t even know what the hell you were going to do with it; for Christ’s sake, you had literally fallen over when you got your toe stuck in the elastic while putting on your underwear the other day! Still, you felt like you should at least try. 

“What did you hope to accomplish?” Madame Gao snapped at you disapprovingly, almost as if she was addressing a naughty child.

You chuckled bitterly. “I honestly don’t know. I just feel wrong sitting here waiting for the man I love to be murdered by his crazy ex-girlfriend while she’s wearing my body like a Halloween costume,” you railed, beginning to cry. “Why are you helping her?”

“She has pledged herself to me for this favor,” Madame Gao said stiffly.

You scoffed. “I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. She practically whored herself out when she worked for Homeland, why wouldn’t she sell her soul, too?”

“You should mind your tongue,” Madame Gao warned. 

“Or what?” you sneered. “You’ll kill me? If you let her kill Billy, I don’t really care what happens to me.”

“You hold your life cheap.”

“I don’t. I just hold Billy’s more dear.”

“He wronged my new apprentice,” she said imperiously.

You laughed bitterly at that. “He outplayed your apprentice,” you spat. “She used sex to get information out of Billy and found out he played her back. She just can’t accept that he outsmarted her.”

She stiffened. “Perhaps your information is untrustworthy.”

“Yeah, maybe,” you countered. “But what if it’s yours that’s wrong?”

She paused as if pondering your words and then turned to leave, stopping at the door to say, “Since you cannot be trusted with eating utensils, you will not be allowed them for future meals. If there are any more incidents of pointless defiance such as this, you will be given neither utensils nor food. Do I make myself clear?”

“Abundantly,” you answered coldly.

She nodded once, looking at you consideringly for a moment before turning to leave without another word.

You waited until she was gone to sob in earnest.

“How the hell do we find out what we’re dealing with here?” Billy asked.

“Or who, for that matter,” Matt said. “Who hates you enough to do something like this, Bill? Crazy ex?”

Billy exchanged a look with Frank. “Do you think?” he began.

Frank shook his head in disbelief. “She really hates you, that I know.”

“Who are we talking about?” David demanded. Then, as if struck with the knowledge, he blurted, “Wait, Madani?”

“Hold up, you sayin’ you think a Homeland agent did this?” Curtis said in amazement. 

Billy was shaking his head in disbelief. “She lost her job when all the shit went down. You think she’d go this far off the rails, Frank?”

“Hell hath no fury, brother.”

You laid awake, trying to think of something, anything you could do to escape. 

Had Billy even missed you yet? Was Madani playing some sick mind games with him? God, had she seduced him? You wouldn’t blame Billy of course – hell, as far as he knew, you were you. 

You’d had moments of insecurity when you had first gotten together, of course. Billy was an absolutely stunning man: physically breathtaking, intelligent and charming. He had been around the block so many times you were surprised that the city of New York hadn’t renamed it in his honor. 

And that was exactly what he had told you. You had been sitting next to each other on your sofa watching a movie together when he had asked you what was wrong.

“I just…Billy, you’ve been with so many women. How am I ever gonna be enough?”

He smiled sweetly and kissed your nose. “Sweetheart, I have never been a guy to settle down, and yeah, I’ve had my share of sex. I’m not gonna pretend that I don’t know I’m hot. I can get laid pretty much any time I want.”

“Wow, thanks for this pep talk,” you muttered sarcastically.

Billy had smiled at your snark. “So, doesn’t the fact that I want to be only with you tell you that I’m only gonna be with you?”

You’d thought about it for a minute. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

“Damn right.”

“Probably doesn’t hurt that Frank and Matt would castrate you if you cheated on me, either,” you’d said with a wicked grin.

“There’s my girl,” he’d said with a chuckle.

You came back to the present, even though you’d so much rather stay wrapped in the warmth of your memories with Billy. 

From what you had been told, you didn’t expect to come out of this alive. If you did and Billy had slept with Madani, well, you would forgive him. But, goddamn, you really wished you knew what that crazy bitch’s game was. 

And you really hoped Billy realized that she wasn’t you.

Danny and Colleen needed to gather some spell components of their own to divine what magic had been used, and Matt had gone off to see if he could drum up any leads on Hand activities. Billy, Frank and Curtis had changed into combat gear, ready to go at a moment’s notice, while David was digging into Madani’s affairs as deeply as he could.

Billy had been pacing the floor, so much nervous energy that he felt like he was about to lift off.

“Hey, I think I got something!” David called out.

Billy dashed over to where David was peering into his computer screen. “What?”

“I picked up a video of her leaving her apartment a few months ago and have been running a GAIT tracer on her like how I found Frank.”

“And?” Billy said impatiently.

“And she’s been going in and out of this building every day for the last few weeks, until yesterday. She went in and hasn’t come back out.”

“Micro, you brilliant son of a bitch, I could kiss you!” Billy yelled. “Frank, get on the horn with Matt, tell him to get Rand and Wing back here. We have an op to plan.”

You awoke with a start. It was still pitch dark in your room and you didn’t hear so much as a whisper of breath or shuffle of fabric.

“Who’s there?” you said quietly, hating the waver in your voice.

“It would seem I have misjudged you,” the disembodied voice of the elderly woman. “I saw nothing to inspire such hatred in you, but neither did I see the potential for you to inspire such love, either.”

“What do you mean? What are you talking about?” you asked, attempting to peer into the darkness and see her.

“You have friends in high places. And I underestimated your toy soldier,” she said, voice almost fading away at the end.

“Billy? Is Billy here?” you asked frantically, but there was no answer, and when you scrambled out of bed and over to the light switch, you were alone in the room.

But the door was slightly open.

You crept out into the hallway, terrified but not missing the opportunity to sneak out. As you moved away from your room, you began to hear what sounded like a fight – and then you heard a gunshot.

“Where is she?” you heard Billy scream.

“Billy!!” you yelled as loud as you could, moving toward the sound of his voice.

You reached a room at the end of the hallway where there was what could only be called a battle in progress. Billy, Frank, Daredevil?, a blonde kid you didn’t recognize and an Asian woman were fighting the elderly Asian woman’s guards, Billy and Frank slashing madly with knives while Curtis stayed behind them with a rifle.

You stayed back so that you couldn’t be used against them by being a human shield, but not running to Billy and being quiet so you didn’t distract them was the hardest thing you had ever done.

Finally, the last of the guards dropped and you stepped out of hiding so Billy could see you.

Billy looked at you and you nodded, ready to face your abductor.

“Honey, I’m home,” Billy called out as he entered your shared apartment.

Madani jumped up from where she had been sitting on the couch waiting for Billy to return. “It’s after 3, where the hell have you been?” she asked angrily.

“Aww honeybunch, were you worried about me?” Billy said with what almost seemed to Madani like…sarcasm?

Just then there was a brief knock followed by Frank, Curtis and Micro letting themselves in.

“Oh, hey, I told the guys you’d make us something to eat,” Billy said with a big smile. “You don’t mind, do ya Buttercup?”

Madani narrowed her eyes and bit her tongue.

“Billy, you know how much I hate sappy pet names like that,” you said in Madani’s voice.

Billy’s voice was cold as he, Curtis and Frank all pulled guns on faux-you. “Don’t move, Madani,” he growled.

“Yeah,” you said as she watched her tiny body emerge from behind the large men. “He won’t kill that body, but I told him it was OK to put a couple bullet holes in discreetly.”

Behind you was Daredevil, of all people, and a blond kid that looked slightly familiar. 

Madani looked over at Billy and sneered, “I really didn’t think you were smart enough to figure this out at all, let alone in one day.”

“That’s funny, I always gave you credit for being smart enough to do some investigating before running into a situation,” he said with an icy smile. “I knew something was up before I even opened my eyes this morning.”

You watched Madani’s hateful expression on your face and said, “Damn, babe, do I look that ugly when I’m mad at you or is she just radiating her inner bitch that much?”

“All her, hon,” Billy replied with a small smile.

“In that case, I think it’s time we put her inner bitch back in her outer bitch, don’t you?”

Danny had performed the ritual to return you to your body and then had taken Madani with him, saying he would take her to a place called K'un-Lun to be tried for using dark magic. He assured you that you would never have to worry about Madani coming after either of you for misdirected revenge again.

You had taken a hot shower after they had gone and had been so relieved to feel your own skin, scars and cellulite that you almost cried. But what actually did make you cry in the shower was the fact that while you could tell he was happy to have you back, Billy had made no move to kiss you or touch you in any way. 

Had Madani ruined what you had with Billy?

You were sitting on the edge of the bed, still wrapped in a towel, hair dripping down your back and shoulders as you stared into space.

“Hon?” Billy said gently, standing right in front of you. He knelt before you and ran his thumbs over your cheeks. “I’m so sorry this happened to you because of me. I know you’re probably furious with me –”

“What?” you interrupted, surprised. “I’m not mad at you, love.”

“I understand if you are,” he whispered, not meeting your eyes.

“William, look at me,” you said firmly. When his big brown eyes met yours, you saw pain and fear in their depths. “I don’t blame you for this.”

“How can you not?” he whispered.

“Hey,” you said, “this is on that crazy bitch, not you.”

“I brought this home to you. I should have never gotten involved with you, you’re too g–”

You grabbed his hair and pulled him into a kiss, silencing him and showing him how wrong he was. When you pulled apart you were both panting. 

“William Russo, I never want to hear you say you aren’t good enough or you shouldn’t be with me, because I love you more than anyone else in the world.” You leaned forward and kissed the tip of his nose, then gently said, “So shut the hell up, OK?”

Billy grinned. “Yes, ma'am.”

“You knew before you even opened your eyes, huh?” you asked, part shy and somehow part smug.

Billy chuckled. “Yeah, she might have stolen your body, but she could never be you. You’re beautiful physically, yes, but your inner beauty shines brighter than anything,” he said almost reverently. “So, yeah, I knew something was wrong right away, because your touch just radiates love, and that was missing.”

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that, Billy,” you whispered,caressing his beard.

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Honey, you were the one in danger! I don’t know what I would do without you.”

You threw yourself into Billy’s arms. “You never have to find out,” you said. Then you kissed him and you held one another until you fell asleep wrapped around each other, both thankful to be together and safe.

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