#PAIN SAME DAY AND OVERNIGHT DELIVERY

[riahlynn101]

"The Caretaker's Keeper" (1).

Summary: Based on a prompt from GoofyBoss about All for One hiring Izuku as a caretaker for his brother.

Trigger warnings: Trigger warnings: child abandonment, swearing, All for One being his usual creepy, possessive self, implied/referenced murder, and implied self-harm - nothing graphic but please don't risk your mental health to read this. I'm always more than happy to give people a TL;DR if they're curious and want to avoid triggering topics.

Chapter 1

--

Izuku taps a pen to his bottom lip, thinking. Some would say looking through the newspaper for jobs was old fashioned, but usually the job offers put out into the paper didn’t ask for much information on the person they’re hiring. 

The last job he got was as a delivery person, though he still doesn’t know what he delivered from one side of the city to the other. And he doesn’t want to know. His employer for that particular job kept to themselves and only spoke to Izuku long enough to, one, give vague threats to not tell anyone, and two, to give Izuku a wad of cash. Which helped pay for groceries for the upcoming week. 

Ever since his deadbeat father left them, citing some excuse about “needing to find himself,” because “Izuku is clearly not his,” his poor mom has had to take on extra shifts at her job at the local hospital, as well as picking up a second job as a receptionist for a dental office. 

It makes him unspeakably angry. 

How was it fair that his father could continue his life, unbothered, when both his mom and Izuku were struggling to get by? 

They downsized, moving from the apartment he knew all his life to a one-bedroom apartment on the sketchier side of the city. His mom tried to give him the bedroom, but he couldn’t bring himself to take his mom’s last comfort away from her. She thought the same way, just in the opposite direction, so they compromised. On the days she had to work a double, Izuku could have the bed (at least on the doubles she worked overnight). And on the nights, she was home, Izuku would refuse to step foot in the bedroom (lest his mom somehow convince him to take the bed, while she took the floor or couch). She needed rest, and Izuku would be damned if he didn’t make sure she got it. 

Even worse than being forced to relocate from his childhood home-and maybe this is childish of him-was him having to sell his merch collection. His mom didn’t ask that of him, but at the time he hadn’t been able to work (being only eleven). 

He felt useless (just as Kacchan always said he was). 

So, he decided to pawn anything of value. 

He still attends Aldera, though now he has to get up even earlier and ride the city bus. The other kids make fun of him - thankfully (and he uses that word loosely) still only for his quirklessness. Either they have no idea he’s been knocked down a class or two, or they don’t care about that. 

Kacchan, to his credit, has backed off (to some extent). But every so often he’ll corner Izuku, and do his usual spiel on all the ways Izuku's useless, worthless, and can’t possibly become a hero. 

And, while it hurts to admit, Izuku agrees with him. 

Not because he’s quirkless, but because even if he does get in, he won’t be able to afford to attend. There are scholarships, but none of them would be nearly enough. So, he spares himself the emotional pain of almost making it (or being straight-up rejected), and applies to an affordable, normal-enough highschool closer to their apartment. 

After school, he browses through the daily newspaper, circling and highlighting jobs that look somewhat legit. He might be desperate, but he would very much like to not be kidnapped by some creep and kept in a basement. 

“Huh, caretaker?” Izuku briefly skims the listing. It looks….simple enough. 

He highlights the phone number. 

-x-x-x-

Mikumo Atakani crosses off yet another name. He sighs heavily, leaning back in his swivel chair. How hard is it to find someone that is both authoritative enough to take care of his hard-headed little brother and pliant enough to do whatever he says?

A knock on his office door shakes him from his reverie. 

He straightens up. “Come in,” he orders.

One of his minions-some nobody with a flexibility quirk-steps into his office. “Hello, master, another applicant for the job posting you put out is here.”

“Well? Bring them in. I don’t have all day.”

The minion nods frantically. It’s so fun to see them get so worked up. He hadn’t even threatened him. 

A young boy with curly, green hair and green eyes is pushed into his office before the doors are once again shut. 

“H-hello, sir.”

It might be rude of Mikumo, but he can’t stop staring at the boy in front of him. There’s something about him….

He snaps back to reality, realizing the boy is staring at him. He coughs to disguise his moment of absentmindedness. “Hello…..” 

The boy trembles a little, fidgeting with his hands. “Midoriya Izuku….sir.”

He chuckles. “Let’s chat, Midoriya Izuku.”

-x-x-x-

Izuku is sure he has the wrong address. The house is about twenty miles outside the city, and has a tall wrought-iron gate surrounding the premises. There’s even a tower overlooking everything with people carrying weapons of all sorts. 

His gut twists.

But his mom needs the money. And this job might even help her be able to quit her receptionist job. He knows she hates it there. Her boss is overtly misogynistic, and her coworkers are cruel. He’s heard her cry herself to sleep enough for a lifetime. 

Izuku needs to do this. He owes it to the woman who has raised him (and continues to whenever she has the time). 

He approaches the gate, still wearing his backpack (the only bus that could bring him this far ran twice a day - once at three in the afternoon, and once at ten at night). He at least remembered a change of clothes, so he doesn’t have to show up in his high school uniform. Though, his button-up dress shirt (the one thing his father forgot in his haste to abandon their family) and black slacks that he has to roll up to keep from stepping on the ends, aren’t much of an improvement. Especially when he still has his red sneakers on. 

Someone shoves a gun in his face. “Identify yourself!”

“I-Izuku Midoriya! I called earlier about the job posting.” He holds his hands in front of his chest, trying desperately not to look at the gun dangerously close to his head. 

The guard eyes him, muttering something into his com. They stand there for a moment, eyeing each other, before a garble reply comes through. 

“Let him in.”

He’s led to a set of double, extra-tall, doors. The guard who accosted him outside confiscated his bag, so he has nothing on him. He was reassured by the person leading him inside that he would get it back after the interview. 

The person-a much kinder-looking man with hair the color of a campfire-knocks on the door. 

Idly, Izuku wonders what kind of quirk the man has. Something fire related? Those weren’t particularly rare. Hell, his own father has one. 

Before he can ask, Izuku is pulled into the office. The person whispers good luck to him, scampering off. 

A man behind a large oak desk. He’s…..

….tall. 

Very tall, and suddenly, all the high shelves and doorways make sense. 

“Hello, sir,” he says. 

But the man just continues to stare at him. 

Did he do something wrong? He fidgets with his hands - a nervous habit he’s never been able to break. 

Finally, he speaks. “Hello…” The man raises an eyebrow, obviously expecting Izuku to introduce himself.

Oops! How could Izuku be so stupid! 

He stands straight, forcing his arms to his sides. “Midoriya Izuku…..sir.”

The man leans in, the corners of his mouth uptick into a small smile. “Let’s chat, Midoriya Izuku.”

Izuku nods, staying put. 

“Take a seat,” the man says, motioning to a chair in front of his desk. 

“O-of course, sir.”

The minute he takes a seat, the man is back to staring at him in silence. Which makes Izuku feel a little awkward, but he’s not in any position to say so. He squirms in the chair. 

“How old are you, Izuku-Kun?” He asks, which is a little forward. Most people don’t just use first names during a first meeting, but once again Izuku can’t say anything about it. 

At least it’s better than Deku.

“Fifteen, sir. I’ll be sixteen in July.”

The man nods, jotting something down on the paper in front of him. “And what about your family? Tell me about them.”

Izuku clamps up. This person seems….very powerful. What if he messes up and they hurt his mom? 

“You can trust me, Izuku-Kun. I only ask because the position requires you to take care of a family member of mine.”

That eases Izuku up just the tiniest bit. “I’m an only child and live with my mom.”

“No one else…?”

“No- uh…uh my father…he’s not around.” Izuku fights back the tears. One would think, after four years of this, he would be used to it. He isn’t. 

If the man notices him tearing up, he says nothing. “Okay, and two more questions. One, what’s your quirk?”

In a voice more befitting for a mouse than a fifteen-year-old, Izuku says, “I’m….uh…quirkless.”

The man looks at him strangely-not the way others do (which is usually a mix of disgust and pity)-but in a way that indicates interest. 

“Oh?”

“I-is that going to be a problem?”

“No.” The answer comes without hesitation. “I was simply curious. Last question, what made you want to apply?”

Izuku squirms. The chair he sits in dwarfs him, as does everything else in this house. It makes him feel….small. 

He takes time to process what the man asked. 

Why did he want to apply for this job? It was one of many job postings in the daily paper, there had been no information on what benefits he would be receiving, nor pay or the duration of how long he was to work. Just a small blurb about needing a “caretaker” and a phone number. 

He took it on a whim. 

He applied because someone hiring out for a caretaker likely has some money, and not the kind that’s handed off to him in a off-white envelope. 

He applied because they’re short five hundred for this month’s rent (partially due to being short last month), and their landlord is starting to run out of patience. 

He applied because his mom routinely works seventy-two hours straight with less than two hours of sleep. 

“I didn’t want to apply, sir,” he says, summoning the courage to look the man in the eyes.

“Really now?”

“I needed to apply.”

“Do go on.”

Izuku takes that as permission to continue. “To put it bluntly, my mom works herself nearly to death to provide for us both. I find work where I can, but there’s not many places hiring a quirkless teen. Or a quirkless person in general.”

The man nods. “Family-oriented, good. Hypothetically speaking, what would you do if your mom was a danger to herself, or something was a danger to her?”

Izuku hums. It’s an odd question for sure, but he likes abstract questions (even if this particular one is kind of upsetting). “I suppose I would have to lock her in a room without sharp objects and padding on the walls. At least until the danger passed.”

“And what if it didn’t?”

“Then…I guess, she would stay there until it did. She’s all I have.”

The man smiles at him. “Hired.”

Izuku perks up, edging closer to the desk. “Really!?” In his excitement, his volume goes up more than is strictly necessary. He clears his throat. “Sorry, I got a little excited there.”

“That’s quite alright. I’d rather have someone be over-eager than someone reluctant.” He grabs a pile of papers off his desk, handing it over to Izuku. “Now, we’ll go over rules and expectations, as well as benefits and pay.”

Izuku looks over the papers. 

“Starting with your pay. A thousand per day, but that can be more or less depending on the mood my…family member is in.”

That- that would be enough to cover rent, and that’s just for a single day? He finally processes the man’s last sentence. 

“What does the last thing you said mean?”

“Well, my family member is….let’s just say finicky. He’s prone to going on hunger strikes, and trying to escape his room.” The man fixes Izuku with a serious expression. “Under no circumstances, are you to allow him to leave his room. Failure to comply with that rule will result in severe punishment. Failure to get him to eat a meal will result in lost wages. Three hundred per meal not eaten, so it would be in your best interest to make sure he eats.”

That certainly didn’t sound pleasant. But a thousand dollars a day…..

“Understood, sir.”

“What’s the soonest you can be here?”

“The bus runs at three, so probably four? And the last bus leaves around ten at night.”

“Hm. Well, I guess 4:15 to 9:45 is decent enough coverage.” He jots some more stuff on the paper. “Can you start today?”

-x-x-x-

Mikumo can’t believe his luck! This kid-Izuku-couldn’t be more perfect to help care for his stubborn little brother. 

Yoichi may not take kindly to his goons. They’re Mikumo’s mouthpieces, there only to force him to eat, change his clothes, or go to sleep. But Izuku is different. Sure, he will be under Mikumo’s control (otherwise suffer the consequences), but knowing his brother, he’ll overlook that. 

Oh, he’ll still try the same tired tricks. Things like, trying to make the guard feel bad. Or threatening to harm himself (ways in which he does so has varied throughout the two hundred years Yoichi’s been under his care). There has even been a time or two that he’s played dead.

Mikumo’s ashamed to say he’s fallen for that trick both times. 

He exits the elevator taking them nearly a thousand meters below ground. After his brother escaped (with help) the last time, he’s been forced to take more “extreme” measures. 

Clearly just keeping his brother in a vault in their basement wasn’t enough. 

While designing this house, he made sure to make the vault deeper underground. And the only way to enter or exit is via elevator which is monitored closely, and the corridor is lined with motion-sensor cameras.

They stand before the vault door. It’s reinforced steel with tungsten in the very middle. Strong and will definitely stand up to any vigilantes, or heroes that may, or may not want to kick it open. 

“Here we are,” he says, entering the necessary code into the panel. He then puts his thumb on the scanner. “I’ll have to give you the code and enter your prints into the system before you leave.”

The boy nods. His bright green eyes go between him and the door. 

Awww, Mikumo thinks, opening the door the rest of the way. He’s nervous. 

He ushers Izuku inside, lest his little brother get the drop on them and escape. 

“Little brother,” he calls, shutting the door behind them. “I found you a new caregiver.”

The room is nicely furnished, at least in comparison to the last vault. Mostly due to the fact that he isn’t ever going to let Yoichi leave here. And he kind of likes his brother not being totally and utterly insane. 

There’s a twin bed in the corner of the room, with a small nightstand right beside it. A desk for writing or drawing (when his idiot of a brother isn’t threatening self-harm), a bookshelf filled with books, and various supplies for arts and crafts (all of which Mikumo has to be present for, though now that could extend to Izuku if all goes well). There’s also a full bathroom in a connected room. 

Izuku, whether he means to or not, clings to his side. He kind of reminds Mikumo of a frightened rabbit, or a little duckling (what, with his fluffy hair, wide, innocent eyes, and skittish demeanor). 

His brother finally pops up from underneath the bed. 

Izuku screams, jolting backwards. 

Instantly, Yoichi is scrambling for the kid. He waves his hands frantically. “Ohmygoodness-”

“Little brother,” Mikumo says, pleased to be able to lure him out. 

Yoichi fixes him with a sour look. “What do you want?”

“As I said, I hired a new caregiver.” He pulls Izuku closer to him by his shirt collar. “Introduce yourself,” he orders. 

Izuku is still trembling but does as Mikumo says. “Midoriya Izuku.”

His brother tilts his head, hair falling over one of his eyes. “How old are you?”

Izuku looks up at him-and, oh, this one is definitely a keeper. He hands over control so easily. He’s practically wet sand, just waiting to be formed into something magnificent-and he nods his approval. 

“I’m fifteen, sir.” 

Yoichi’s eyes soften. “You-you’re so young.” He turns to Mikumo, snarling. “How dare you hire a child!”

“But I needed this job,” Izuku pipes up before Mikumo can defend himself. “My mom and I were going to be evicted if I didn’t find a better paying job.”

Once again, his little brother softens. “Oh.”

Mikumo claps his hands. “This is fun. I should warn you, though, Izuku-Kun, my little brother, isn't usually this well composed. Actually I don’t think I’ve heard him say anything besides vulgarities since his first escape attempt.”

“Fuck you, Mikumo.” 

“Ah, and there he is.” He looks at Izuku. “Don’t take it to heart. I’m afraid it’s just his way of getting back at the world for making him so frail.” He pointedly ignores Yoichi’s indignant huff. “Anyways,” he starts, ushering Izuku towards the door, “I still need to put you in the system, give you the codes and keys relevant to your job, and show you how to get to and from the kitchen.”

“Wait!” His brother calls out, arm outstretched. 

Mikumo pauses. “Izuku-Kun will be here every day from four to nine. I have a meeting to attend to after I send him off, but I’ll be sure to bring dinner down before bedtime.”

“Brother-”

The door shuts and locks.

-x-x-x-

“It’s not too late to quit,” his boss’ brother murmurs. “

“Are you finished with your dinner?” He asks, only taking the plate once he receives a nod. 

His boss told Izuku over and over that any attempt to help his brother outside of assigned tasks would be punished with garnished wages. 

His mom had been so happy when she found a thousand dollars stashed in her purse. Hiding money in her stuff is the only way to make her accept it. She eyed him suspiciously but asked no questions. They even had enough to put towards the debt they had slowly been gathering since the day his father abandoned them. 

Izuku, even though it hurts to see Yoichi’s (the name he insisted on being called. Though, he only refers to him as such in his head. His boss might get angry otherwise) downcast expression whenever he refuses to engage, cannot afford to lose out on that money. His mom’s happiness and their precarious financial situation depend on it. 

“Why are you being so cold?” Yoichi asks. 

“I’m sorry.”

“If you’re really sorry, then please, just talk to me.”

Izuku puts the tray of dirty dishes on the desk. He’ll take them to the kitchen to be washed before he leaves. He makes eye contact with the camera in the corner of the room. He feels bad for Yoichi. His every move is recorded and meticulously controlled. 

It’s easier to ignore his pleas than to indulge them. 

“It’s time to take your meds.”

“I understand you want to help your mother. That’s admirable, but my brother will only take advantage of that kindness.”

Izuku stares at him. 

He sighs, bowing his head. “I left them in the bathroom. Can you fetch them for me?”

Finally, something that doesn’t involve pretending to be a robot. His emotions are frayed and he’s had to bite back tears twenty times just in the past hour. Which is one time more than usual. 

He goes to the bathroom and flips on the light. There’s no mirror, or anything pointy. One of his jobs is to check and make sure none of the items in Yoichi’s room have been made into weapons. 

There is, however, a wooden cabinet in place of the mirror. He goes to check inside when he’s shoved to the floor. He thankfully doesn’t hit his head on the toilet or bathtub, but his back aches when he sits up. He hears the door shut.

Yoichi and he make eye contact. 

“Wha-” 

“Shut up,” Yoichi demands. His tone is not unkind, but it also brings about a sense of impatient urgency. “We don’t have much time. I can play this off as me helping you find my medicine, but anything over five minutes will be suspicious.” 

He offers Izuku his hand, which is accepted without a second thought.

When he checks Izuku over and sees he has no serious injuries, he continues on. “I apologize for pushing you, but I couldn’t risk you running away. I understand money is important, but it certainly can't be worth this.”

“My mom….her happiness is worth everything to me.”

“And that comes at the cost of what? Becoming a villain?”

Izuku wrinkles his nose. “I’m not a villain,” he protests. 

“You like heroes, right?”  

The change in direction throws Izuku for a loop. His obsession with heroes never really ended, but it’s been hard to keep up on the different battles and debuts. “They’re okay.”

Yoichi gives him a knowing smile. “Your words say one thing, but the light in your eyes when I asked you said another.”

He frowns. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll never be a hero regardless.”

“Never say never.”

Izuku opens his mouth, confused beyond belief, and is immediately interrupted by the sound of the vault door being slammed open. It bangs against the wall. 

“Little brother! Izuku-Kun!” He hears his boss call out. 

“All is not lost,” Yoichi murmurs, before grabbing the necessary meds out of his pocket and opening the door. “In here, brother. We were looking for my medicine.”

Izuku stands in the bathroom, processing what just happened. 

-x-x-x-

“I like your eyes,” his boss compliments. 

It’s out of the blue, but it seems innocuous enough. “Thank you, boss,” he chirps. Better to be overly eager than reluctant, right?

His boss laughs a little at that. “Do you get them from your mom, or dad?”

Izuku shifts in his seat, pausing his homework. Yoichi had (what his boss calls) a temper tantrum earlier, so he’s still under the effects of a sedative. A baby monitor sits on the corner of his boss’ desk, so they can tell when he’s awake. 

“Um, mom, I think. But her’s are darker and her pupils are black.”

“And your father?”

“I never looked into my father’s eyes, sir.”

His boss sighs, chin resting on his hands. “That’s a shame.”

“What the-”

“Ah, someone’s awake,” his boss says, snatching up the baby monitor. “You can bring his lunch down when you go.”

“Yes, sir.” Izuku shuffles his homework back into his bag. With his boss’ permission, he keeps it hidden in the closet in his office. 

“Oh, and Izuku-Kun?”

He freezes in place. “Yes?”

“If I ever catch you being caught off guard by my brother again, you won’t like the consequence that follows.”

Izuku clenches his hands into fists. 

“Yes, sir,” he says. “It was my mistake.”

“Good boy.”

-x-x-x-

Izuku is shaking with unbridled anger the whole way down. He does his best to act composed, as the cameras capture everything. But no matter how big he smiles, the tray in his hand still shakes ever so slightly, sloshing the soup. 

His boss had really said “good boy” to him. Like- like he’s a dog that’s learned a new trick. 

Yoichi is sitting at his desk when he enters the room. A book older than Izuku’s grandparents sits nestled in his hands. “I’ve brought food.”

“I see that, thank you, Izu.”

He feels some of the residual anger slide off him. The nickname reminds him of his mom. “I made sure the cooks left out the cilantro this time.”

Yoichi makes a face. “Thanks. Big brother always forgets how much I hate that.”

He watches Yoichi eat his lunch, standing-as instructed-next to his desk. The food smells amazing and Yoichi seems like a good conversationalist, but his boss is already upset at him enough. 

Besides, he really doesn’t want to know what someone like him considers a severe consequence.

“You look upset, Izu,” Yoichi says, stacking his dishes. “Did my brother dig into you about the whole bathroom-thing?”

“Yes, but it was nothing I couldn’t take. My one and only gripe was him being overly condescending.”

“That’s his natural state, though.”

The noise Izuku makes fighting back laughter can barely be classified as human. He hides his mouth behind his hands and turns from the camera. After feeling so humiliated it’s nice that, at the very least, Yoichi has his back. 

“I won’t do that again,” Yoichi promises him. “I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble. Big brother has a tendency to overreact.

And isn’t that an oversimplification. His boss is one incident away from making Izuku into a pair of leather boots. But he has no energy to argue (not that he could if he wanted to), so he nods at Yoichi, makes sure his desk is cleaned up, and moves to the next activity.

-x-x-x-

“You like him.” 

All for One-his brother in only blood-stands before him. He wears his usual smug smile. It annoys Yoichi to no end that trying to punch him only ends with being sedated. He misses when they were kids, and he was a whole head taller than his older brother. 

It had been easier to deal with him then, even if Yoichi had been extremely sickly and weak. 

“Why? Because I’m cooperating?” He pretends to read his book, scanning the words more than reading them. His brother has always been particular in how Yoichi responds to people. More specifically, his brother hates when he likes someone more than him (which isn’t hard but the last time he was honest about not hating one of his caregivers, his brother “fired” them on the spot. Yoichi looks at the reddish-brown spot he tried so hard to scrub out on the carpet). It’s better that he plays it safe.

“Yes and no. It's a combination of many things. You cooperate: eating your food with a fuss, taking your meds, and even making your bed. The latter of which you haven’t done since we were kids. Not to mention the one sided conversations you get into with the boy.”

Yoichi puts his book down. “Please, don’t punish the kid for that. I get lonely, and he’s been following your stupid rules to the letter.”

“I’m aware. Wasn’t planning on punishing anyone, though if you want to continue to insult the rules and structure I put in place, then I might reconsider that-”

“No! No, please don’t. I’m sorry.”

All for One chuckles, tilting his head to the side. “You do like the boy.”

“He’s just so….young. I still don’t like that you’ve hired a child, but….”

“But?” His brother presses.

“But as long as he’s here, I will do everything in my power to make sure he’s safe. He needs someone to look out for him.”

“Like a big brother?”

“Like a big- wait, no.”

His brother looks amused. “It’s fine. Now, if you thought of him as an older brother, then we would have some issues. But Izuku-Kun is still younger than the age I gave you that immortality quirk. He’s no threat to me. And, if I’m honest, I find myself growing fond of the boy.” His brother sighs. “He reminds me of you.”

Yoichi hunches into himself. “But he isn’t me, big brother.” He doesn’t like where this is going. 

“No, no he isn’t. But he has all the qualities.”

“Please, fire him if you must.”

“Why would I fire him? I just said I’m fond of him.” All for One hums, reaching out to stroke his face with his thumb. “You always used to complain about being the youngest in the family.”

Yoichi fights back tears. He promised himself a long time ago-after his boyfriend had been brutally murdered by his brother-that he would never, ever give him the satisfaction of seeing him cry. To see him weak and needy. 

“Leave him alone. He has a mother who loves him.”

“Does she?” He pulls away, and Yoichi instantly feels the tension in his body relax. “He has to give all his earnings to her, when he should be saving them so he can attend college.”

He bristles. “Because they’re dirt poor!? Don’t act like you don’t remember the days when we were poorer than that!”

“I remember those days well,” his brother answers him in a calm tone, which only makes Yoichi even angrier. “But if you’ll remember, I never once put that burden on you. It was I, your caregiver, that shouldered that responsibility.”

“It should have been on mom’s and dad’s shoulders.”

His brother ducks his head, before looking at Yoichi once again. He doesn’t smile when he says, “maybe they should have. Which is why it's hard for me to see someone so young and so full of life being put in a similar situation. I look into that boy’s eyes and see-”

“Me?” 

“Myself,” his brother finishes. “I see you in his eyes and his mannerism, but I must admit, I see myself more often than not.”

“And you think holding onto him will do what? Solve all our childhood trauma? Newsflash, Izuku-Kun isn’t you! He isn’t me! He’s his own person, who has a mother whom he loves very much!”

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

“I do,” his brother snaps, patience evidently wearing thin. “I simply wish for him to have a better upbringing than we had.”

“He’s fifteen.”

His brother shrugs. “My decision is final. I’m lifting the conversation ban, and you’ll be responsible for helping him complete his homework. He will still be in charge of making sure you behave and follow my rules, but I will allow you two to converse.”

“How thoughtful,” Yoichi snarks, head in hands. 

His brother heads for the door. “Oh, and I shouldn’t have to tell you, I’m always listening.” They both look towards the camera, always recording in the corner of the room. “Breathe a word of this conversation to him, or try to warn him in any way, and you won’t like what happens.”

Yoichi watches his brother open the door in mute horror. 

“Sleep well, little brother. I love you very much.”

The door shuts and locks, leaving Yoichi in stunned, horrified silence.

[s-creations]

Broken Fragments Put Together

MK finds that, even with Lady Bone Demon gone, that doesn't mean he gets to forget about everything. Finding that it's hard to look at himself in the mirror now.

Partnered Story to ‘He Took My Place’ and ‘The Cold and Quiet Calm’

Fandom: LEGO Monkie Kid         Rating: General Audience           Relationships: MK&SunWukong, MK&Macaque, Shadowpeach (light)     Warnings/Additional Tags: Strange Transformations, Side Effects, Hurt/Comfort, Keeping Secrets, No one’s having a good day, Macaque’s kind of the acting adult

MK didn’t notice it at first. Probably because his headband was able to hide the start of it. He was too tired in the morning to really pay attention to what was happening. It did become apparent when it started to peek out beyond the thin strip of fabric. MK took it off as quickly as he could when he first saw the change. Moving and parting his hair to see the damage. 

 Starting from the roots, his hair had started to turn white. Not all of it, just some parts. But enough that it stood out in a shocking way. Especially against his naturally deep black hair. Leaning so close to the mirror, MK discovered another surprise. His eyes, a normal warm but dark brown, were now flecked with icy blue. Areas that seemed to shimmer against the dark color. 

 MK felt as if there was a hand around his throat. Finding it hard to breathe as he flattened and shifted his hair. As if that would somehow erase the changes. Eventually turning to ripping the changing hair out. The bathroom sink and floor soon covered with said item. The scalp that had the roots pulled out became deep red and irritated. But he could deal with that. Moving the remainder of his hair in a way to sort of cover up the bald patches. Tying the headband back in place before deciding ‘This was fine!’ and left. 

 He tried to be as casual as possible as he descended the stairs to the shop. Giving a warm greeting upon seeing Tang and Pigsy. The human, who was nose deep in a new book, gave a reply but didn’t look up. Pigsy, on the other hand, paused in his chopping. Eyes instantly narrowing the overly messy hair the teen had. 

 MK wasn’t able to get his question of ‘What?’ out before Pigsy was moving the teen’s head. Frown deepening seeing the bald patches littered over the teen’s scalp. “Kid, you haven’t been making clones again, have you?”

 “What- No! No, just…had a bit of a weird dream last night.” 

 “What dream causes you to lose your hair?” Tang asked, finally looking up from his book. 

 “Uh…a bad one.”

 MK felt himself shrink at the disapproving looks the other two were sending. But neither party moved. So it was dropped. The teen fully thought he’d dodged what was going to become a bigger issue. It was weird to feel air passing over his bare scalp as he did his deliveries. However, MK decided this was the better outcome for what the alternative was. The day ended as a success when, looking back in the mirror, there were still no other strands of white hair. The patches were still painful, but MK decided it was the better outcome.

 Letting out a happy sigh, MK collapsed into his bed and fell asleep. 

 Only for the calm inside to be shattered once more. 

 Eyes wide with fear as MK could only stare back into the mirror the next morning. The patches he’d pulled out the morning before had returned. The same length as they were before, now fully stark white. The flecks of blue in his eyes seemed to have grown overnight as well. As if it was another form of punishment for him to hide away. 

 Taking a deep breath, MK went for another plan. He pulled out his phone and dialed a familiar number. Eyes going back to the mirror as he waited for a reply. 

 “Hey MK, what’s up?”

 “Uh, h-hey Mei, can you do me a favor?”

 “...Sure… You okay? You sound upset.”

 “Um…I’m-” Fine? Going through something? My hair’s turning white and I think that means the Lady Bone Demon is back- “Something weird’s just come up.”

 “Mystic monkey business?”

 “Uh…s-sure. We can go with that.”

 “Okay…so, what’s the favor?”

 “Can you go to the store and grab me some hair dye? Black hair dye, like…like my hair.”

 “...Yeah, I can pick that up. Um, just a box?” 

 “Yeah, just… Well, maybe a few boxes?”

 “Okay, sure, I’ll be over soon.”

 “Okay- Wait! Wait, can you not tell Pigsy about this.”

 “MK, you’re kind of freaking me out.”

 “Please Mei?”

 “...Yeah, yeah okay. I’ll sneak my way in. Leave your window unlocked.” 

 MK exited his bathroom just to do what was asked before locking himself away again. Covering the mirror with a towel before he curled into a corner of the room. Back pressed against the edge of the tub. Making sure not to catch his reflection on his phone screen.

 It was another hour before Mei arrived. MK looked up hearing the window slide open. Followed by the thump of Mei no doubt collapsing into the room, before footsteps drew closer. The locked doorknob jiggled before the door was knocked on. 

 “MK? You in there?” Mei called out.

 “Yeah…” the teen got up and inches closer to the door, “Yeah, I’m in here.”

 “You gonna unlock the door?”

 “...Have you dyed your hair before?”

“Uh, sure have! Pretty skilled at it. Are you planning on pranking someone?” Mei attempted to make the situation a little more lighthearted. 

 “...Please don’t freak out Mei.”

 “...Okay. I won’t.”

 MK let out a deep breath before opening the door, unable to look up. He heard Mei hold back a gasp, coughing when it was halfway out. Unsure if she just choked on the air or was attempting to cover up the previous noise. “Um, hey! You sure you didn’t already use dye? It looks…pretty awesome.”

 “I hate it.” MK said shortly.

 “Then let’s get started! Uh, sit on the edge of the tub. Let’s try and keep this as clean as possible…”

 They fell quiet as Mei started to work. The dragon girl attempted a few times to start a conversation. But MK only offered a few noises as a reply, so the other teen let it drop. Mei was soon wrapping the other teen’s hair up in a plastic bag. Going over to the sink to wash her hands, frowning softly at the towel over the mirror.

 “Why…do you think this happened?”

 “I don’t know.” MK replied weakly.

 “Do you think it has something to do with Lady-”

 “I don’t want to talk about it right now Mei.”

 The dragon girl looked over to MK seeing him hunch over more. Nodding slowly before letting out a sigh. “Okay, we won’t…”

 They waited for the appropriate time, Mei sat on the bed while MK took a shower. Humming softly as she waited for the other to come out. Heart hammering in worry as she heard the water get turned off. Standing up as her nerves got the better of her, waiting on the edge to see if it turned out. The door opened, steam rolled out, and MK emerged. 

 “Oh MK…” Mei said softly. MK’s hair just as it was before. The dye having done nothing to hide the pure white color. “...It doesn’t look that bad.”

 She wrapped her arms around the other teen the moment MK let out a heavy sob. 

 Unsure of what else she could do.

 ______________________

 Wukong was about to snap. 

 It had only been a few days since he’d last seen MK and he had no idea what was going on. The kid wasn’t answering his phone. Even Pigsy and Tang had no clue what was happening. All they were aware of was that MK walked down one morning with bald patches on his head. Claiming it was due to a bad dream and not from making clones, but that was all they knew. MK had locked them out of his life as well. Mei was uncomfortably quiet. But getting her to spill was not going to happen.

 Which left Wukong no choice. 

 “We’re breaking into MK’s room.” Wukong announced to Macaque. Who looked absolutely confused. 

 “Are you sure that’s a smart idea Peaches?”

 “I don’t know what else to do, I’m losing my mind over here! Is he deathly sick? Did he get stuck in a transformation and can’t fix it? …Does he not trust me?”

 “Okay,” Macaque stood up quickly and took Wukong’s hand, having the golden monkey look at him. “Okay, I’m going to need you to take a deep breath for me. You’re overthinking this. MK’s a teenager, maybe it’s a stupid teenage thing. …Those can still be an issue, right?”

 “If it was just that simple, MK would still show up. Just playing it off before an easy solution is found. This is something more, I know it is! I just…I need to see my kid…” Wukong’s shoulders slumped, pressing his forehead into Macaque’s shoulder. 

 The Shadow Warrior gave a sigh before wrapping his arms around the other. “I know you’re worried. But…breaking the kid’s privacy is not the way to do it.”

 “Then what do I do?”

 “I don’t know… How about we wait a few more days for MK to come to us. If that doesn't happen, then we break down the door. After we pay Pigsy back because he’s not going to be happy if we do that.”

 Wukong laughed. Pulling back to kiss Macaque softly. “Okay, my voice of reason.”

 “Huh, never thought I’d be called that.”

 The break finally came at the end of the week. But not from MK, or from Wukong, but from Mei. Wukong was a little confused seeing her id appear on his phone. Answering it with Macaque watching on with a raised brow. 

 “Uh, hey Mei?”

 “MK’s hair is white.”

 “I- What?”

 “His hair is white- well, not full white. It’s like little patches and streaks. But it’s freaking him out because I think this is only happening because of what happened between him and the Lady Bone Demon and-”

 “Mei, please, you need to slow down. MK has white hair and that’s why he’s been locking himself away?”

 “He’s freaking out because he thinks Lady Bone Demon is back and is trying to take him over again. And his eyes have blue in them now and…and I don’t know what to do.”

 “Do you know where MK is now?”

 “His room.”

 “Okay, thanks Mei. Macaque and I will handle this.”

 “OOOOOH! You AND Macaque? Are you two DATING?”

 “Mei…you already knew this.”

 “And it’s hilarious every time I say it.”

 Wukong merely sighed before hanging up, turning towards the Shadow Warrior. “Think you could warp us over to the shop?”

 “You don’t need to tell me twice.”

 Stomach flipping uncomfortably as they traveled, Wukong was thrilled to see the familiar shop around him. Pigsy was at the counter. Looking disgruntled as he cooked. Narrowed eyes turning towards the new arrivals. 

 “Mei call you?” The chef asked. 

 “Yeah. Is MK-”

 “Still up in his room… Tell the kid we’re worried about him, all of us, alright?”

 “Yeah… Can do.” 

 Wukong led the way upstairs towards a familiar room, Macaque close behind. The door separating him from his kid seemed unmovable. Seeming to be a solid slab of stone instead of just a piece of wood. Taking a deep breath, Wukong reached up to knock on the door.

 “I don’t want to talk Mei.” MK called out from inside.

 “Not Mei kid.” Wukong replied back. 

 There was a small gasp heard from inside before MK said, “M-Monkey King? What are you doing here?”

 “I thought we were passed titles MK?” Wukong attempted to sound casual, “Was kind of used to hearing you say ‘dad’.”

 “...Sorry.”

 The golden monkey faltered hearing this. Turning back to Macaque, who merely shrugged, Wukong faced the door once more. “Um, there’s nothing to apologize for. Just… Look, Mei called me. She told me what’s been happening.”

 “W-What! She promised she wouldn’t!”

 “Kid, I think she’s worried about you, like I am. …Can you let me in? I think this conversation would be better if I could see you.”

 “...I don’t want you to.”

 “MK, I’m not going to think less of you.”

 There was a deep sigh before the doorknob turned. Wukong held himself back from both rushing in and letting out a noise of shock. Eyes did widen a bit upon seeing the shocking white hair that stood out harshly against the natural black. The teen gave a small smile when he finally looked up. MK looked exhausted with the dark bags under his eyes, which had shines of blue flashing in the normally warm brown color. 

 “Hey dad…”

 “Oh kid.” Wukong stepped forward, pulling the teen into a tight hug. Relaxing slightly upon finally having his kid back in his arms. “Come on, let's sit down and we can talk.”

 MK nodded, eyes widening slightly seeing Macaque standing not too far behind. “Hi Macaque…”

 “Hey kid.”

 The teen didn’t argue as he was led into his room. Sitting at the edge of his bed with Wukong next to him. Macaque preferred to lean against the wall across from the other two. Which MK was happy for as he didn’t want to feel crowded at that moment. 

 “Alright MK, what’s going on?”

 “...I have white hair.” 

 “Mhm, can see that. But I doubt that’s the end of the issues here. Mei said something about the Lady Bone Demon.”

 “...I was scared that she was coming back. I thought…I thought she was coming back through me and that…she was going to possess me again. And all I can think about is going back to…that void. That place of absolute nothingness, of just bone deep cold, where I couldn’t find my way out, and that I could hurt my friends again and-”

 “MK, I need you to breathe.” 

 Feeling the hand gently placed on his back, MK quickly turned to wrap his arms around Wukong. Who immediately pulled the teen closer. Pressing his cheek against MK’s forehead. The teen calmed feeling the warmth, the sturdy hold keeping him grounded, smiling weakly smelling the hint of peaches. “I don’t want to go back.”

 “And you’re not going to. She’s gone, for good, you know she is.”

 “I know…but seeing this and my eyes… It was just so strange and different. I know it wasn’t monkey related so…she’s what I landed on.” MK took a shaky breath as he pressed closer. Shutting his eyes to just focus on the other. “It reminds me…of her…of what she made me do. I was doing fine for a while. Then…Then this happened and it feels like I can’t escape her. I hate looking at myself now…”

 Wukong’s mouth opened, only to pause when Macaque walked forward. The Shadow Warrior kneels down, placing a hand on MK’s knee to draw the teen’s attention to him. Giving a huff, Macaque closes his eyes, letting a number of his glamours down. MK let out a small gasp seeing the right side of Macaque was pure white. Not patches, full on white. His six ears appeared as well, a nasty scar over the black furred right eye that stood out harshly against this normally smooth skin. 

 “You…” MK swallowed weakly, unable to get another sound out. 

 “I know what it’s like, more than I’d like to admit. I’m still not comfortable looking at my true self and having other people see these changes… It all makes my skin crawl.” Macaque’s good eye flickered up to Wukong, who looked upset, knowing it was about the damaged eye. The golden monkey leaned into the touch as the Shadow Warrior’s hand cupped his cheek. “But…it helps to have people on your side. That you know that they care for you and won’t judge you no matter how you look. It’s…scary letting your defenses down. It’s worth it though.”

 “It’s true. Personally, I love your natural ears.” Wukong cooed, reaching out to scratch behind them. MK laughed when Macaque actually purred from the contact.

 “Peaches, really? This was supposed to be heartfelt!”

 “It still works, I'm just happy to see them!” 

 “Why do you keep ruining everything.”

 “I do not, how dare you!”

 MK couldn’t help but break out into full laughter, falling back onto the bed as he held his sides. Tears started to flow, unable to stop as he curled on his side. 

 “See, you broke the kid. I hope you’re happy Wukong.”

 “Don’t even put this on me. How dare you.”

 “Wait, wait!” MK called out, taking deep breaths to calm himself down. “Wait, please, I can’t take it. You’re both acting like a married couple.” 

 “Married couple, huh? Guess that means…” MK let out a small noise of surprise as he was suddenly picked up. Laughing again as he was cradled in Wukong’s arms. Who was puffed up proudly. “You count as our kid.”

 Macaque laughed at this as well, but stood and ruffled MK’s hair. “Huh, I feel like we’re missing a few years, but whatever. Definitely has my hair!”

 “A mix of our eyes.”

 “Your stubbornness, Peaches.”

 “Got your over-dramatic nature, My Shadow.”

 “Dad and dad, don’t start fighting.” MK said, placing his hands on the other’s faces, pushing against them. 

 “Kid, don’t get between us.”

 “Yes, we’re picking out which qualities were passed onto you and from whom.”

 “You’re both being so weird!”

 It was scary when MK decided to tell the rest what was happening. But it helped that Wukong and Macaque stayed at his side. Mei nodded in determination and a smile to show her support. The rest took the news differently, but didn’t freak out as MK was worried about. 

 Pigsy and Tang merely asked that, please, the next time something like this happens to just tell everyone what was wrong. The chef even grumbled that he was being pushed closer to the grave with these antics. Sandy merely nodded and patted the teen’s head. Giving thanks for feeling close enough that the teen trusted him with this information and that it was good for MK to let this out. Mei merely gave a smile and thumbs up. Redson huffed at this information, as if this meeting wasn’t necessary. But added before leaving that he knew MK was strong enough to keep the Lady Bone Demon away if she ever dared to come back. Whispering that he needed to talk to his parents to see if there was a way to get rid of the changes. If MK really wanted it. 

 MK looked up feeling someone push his shoulder gently. Looking up to Macaque, who smirked back. “See? Nothing to worry about. It’ll be fine.”

 The teen smiled back. Happily accepting another hug from Wukong. 

 “Yeah…it’ll be fine.”

[catching-kisses]

Aspen’s here! She’s actually 19 days old today, born on July 5 at 2:03 am at 41 weeks and 6 days. She was a whopping 10 lbs 2 oz at birth, 20 inches long, and her head and chest circumferences were 14 and 14 1/2 inches. She was born en caul which they say means she’s lucky and good luck for the rest of us. My labor was pretty low key, on July 4 my midwives helped me out with some mild induction methods and I went for a couple walks. I had two membrane strips, two doses of midwives brew, and one stretch with the second strip. First in the morning I went and had the first tonic and the first membrane strip. I was at a 2 for cervical dilation and Penny’s head was applying pressure to my cervix so I’m pretty sure she was engaged and I probably was going to go into labor within the next couple days anyway. I wanted to have my home birth though and not deliver at the hospital so I’m happy I did what I did. After my appointment I went home and had some good contractions for a handful of hours but they ended up dying out. I talked to Sophie the midwife I was working with that day and my favorite at the clinic and we decided to wait for me to come in for a second dose of the tonics so I could see if I could rest and walk and see if they came back. So my mom and I went to the store to grab some last minute food stuff and to walk, but nothing started back up again. I laid down for a while and then called Sophie to tell her. She asked if I wanted to come in a little later or if I wanted to wait til tomorrow, but I spent the day contracting and wanted to get the show on the road. I figured I’d have the same experience and just wanted to get a bit farther overnight, but boy was I wrong! My sister and I walked for a little bit before that appointment at 8:30 and when we were there they asked if I wanted to do another strip and a stretch this time. I was like hell yeah let’s do it, I had thought I would have to wait to have that done again until the next day. So at that point I was 3 1/2 cm dilated and the student midwife Senora stretched me to a 5. After that appointment Sophie was going off call and Bri was going on, but Senora was on all night. So my sister and I went home and must have got there by 9:15pm and I was having some good contractions again. I laid down for a half hour, but I was having regular contractions every 10 minutes until 11 and they started getting more and more painful. Around midnight I had my sister tell the midwives to get coming over because it was ramping up and they started coming faster and more painful. They showed up around 1 and within 30 minutes I was in transition. Through transition I swayed side to side while kneeling and did hip shakes and when there was more pressure I moved into a lunge through two contractions one of which Soraya listened to Aspen’s heart rate and was able to catch the shift of her body turning with the doppler which I could also feel. After the shift I then went back up kneeling and I think just had a couple more contractions before the ejection reflex started up. I think it was just two pushes for her head, two for her shoulders, and then one for the rest of her. My god was that painful. Waiting to get her shoulders out and waiting again after her shoulders was insane. My body was screaming at me to get her out but with a few words from the midwives telling me to wait for the next surge I was able to pause. She came out pretty dang blue which is probably because she was getting squeezed and probably was lacking some oxygen there for the minute between her head coming out and the rest of her. I think that’s why my body was telling me to get her out, but that was why it so important to trust your birth team. I had complete trust in my midwives to take care of us so I was able to turn off that instinct and listen to what they suggested. I had a postpartum hemorrhage which I needed two shots of pitocin for and had an actively managed delivery of my placenta, but it went well. Overall though this birth was intense and fast, it was lovely.

[suckitsurveys]

Do you enjoy receiving souvenirs? I do. I love getting magnets and shot glasses from places.

Do you get angry with people easily? Not really, no.

Have you ever had the flu? Probably as a kid.

What about strep throat? Yes, several times as a child.

What would you say is the worst kind of emotional pain? Losing people you’re close to. And not just from death, but in general.

Have you ever been to a psychologist? No, just a counselor.

What’s the worst part about school? Literally everything.

Do you normally have a lot of homework, if you’re still in school? --

When was your last vacation? The end of September. Mark and I took a little trip for his birthday.

Would you ever consider going on a cruise? I would never do an overnight cruise.

What did you last buy from the store? Groceries.

Would you say you enjoy being single or in a relationship more? I definitely enjoy being in a relationship.

Do you try to stay busy a lot? No. I really enjoy doing nothing lol.

What’s your favorite quote? “Love her, but leave her wild”

Do you lie a lot? No.

Do you still act childish most of the time? Not most of the time, no, but I definitely have my child-like moments.

Did you ever enjoy gym class? In elementary school it meant I got to play with my friends, so yes. What is your biggest insecurity? My body.

Have you ever painted a room alone? Not alone, no.

Speaking of which, when did you last paint your room? I haven’t.

What does your favorite jacket / hoodie look like? My favorite hoodie is black and has the TGS with Tracy Jordan logo on the back and a smaller logo with “STAFF” under it on the front. It’s 30 Rock merch and I love it so much. 

What’s for dinner tonight? I’m not sure. One of our meal delivery kit dinners. I can’t remember which ones we have though.

Do you ever drink alcohol? I do.

Have you ever had a terrible hangover? Oh yes.

Do you ever get migraines? Yes. They’re awful, but I can usually catch them because I get the tunnel vision before the pain and I take something right away. If I wake up with one, though, it’s game over.

Do you know how to garden? Yes.

What was the last thing you plugged into an outlet? The coffee maker this morning.

Do people consider you to be a funny person? I think so.

Do you have any bad habits? Oh yes.

Do you like children? I LOVE my nieces. They are my whole WORLD and their happiness and health is the most important thing to me. I love spending time with them and listening to them and watching them grow and become smarter and funnier every day. And I am a HUGE advocate for children and them being treating fairly and appropriately. Children did not ask to be brought into this world. You decided to have a child, now it’s your responsibility to care for a nurture and love that child. You need to adapt to them, not the other way around. There are too many children being abused and neglected and put into foster care systems that do much of the same. That being said, I can recognize that having a child of my own is NOT for me. I can hardly take care of myself and I know, 100%, I could not mentally, emotionally, or physically raise one of my own properly, and there are things about myself I am unwilling to change for the sake of another human. I think if more people recognized this (and abortion wasn’t still so fucking regulated), there would be less abused/neglected children in this world. Sorry to go off on that tangent lol.

If not, why is this? I realized I never actually answered the question asked above lol. Overall, yes, I like children and will always advocate for them, but as a human who loves peace and quiet, holy shit can they be annoying as hell hahahaha.

What is your favorite snack? Chips and dips; mainly tortilla chips and guac/salsa. And popcorn.

Do you own any gaming systems? We have a Wii, lol.

How old were your parents when they had you? My mom was 37 and my dad was 39.

Is there a big age difference between you and the person you like? Mark is 5 years older, which, according to TikTok, is a big age difference.......we met when I was 21 and he was 26, and I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Do you trash talk people a lot? Every now and then, usually just in a joking way.

What is the most amusing thing on the internet, in your opinion? I mean, a lot of things on the internet amuse me, which is why I spend so much time there, lol.

Does the future excite you or scare you? Both, which is how it should be.

Have you ever been to Disney World? Nope.

If so, how many times have you been? ---

Do you try to spend a lot of time with family? Yes.

How often do you shower? Every other day.

What would you say is your favorite genre of music? I am so bad with genres. I just like what I like and I don’t feel the need to categorize it.

Do you need to clean your bedroom? Yes. What do you plan on doing with the rest of your life? Live?

Do you enjoy Chinese food? It’s not usually my first choice, but there are some dishes I enjoy. I also notice there is some over-lap in Asian cuisine. Like, I feel like almost every Chinese restaurant has crab rangoon, but I have also seen that at Thai and Japanese places as well. Same with egg rolls. And I’ve also seen pad thai served at Chinese places, too.

Do you smile a lot? Sure. What is your favorite movie from the nineties? Clueless or Romy and Michele.

Which decade were you born in? The 80s, technically. Near the very very end of it.

Are you good at giving advice to people? Depends.

How many huge secrets do you have? None.

How many people know these secrets? ---

How many times a day do you brush your teeth? Twice, usually. I’m better about it at night because I don’t want shit sitting in my teeth all night lol. Do you ever floss? I use those little toothpicks with the floss in them

Have you ever been in a long-term relationship? Yeah, I am in one now. We’ve been together for 11 years and married for 5.

Ever considered suicide? Yes.

If so, did you try to commit suicide? No.

Is there anyone out there who makes you feel completely useless? I mean, it’s not really specific to a person, but anyone can potentially make me feel useless in certain situations. Do you like texting or calling people more? Texting.

What’s your favorite band? Probably Vampire Weekend.

Do you have a lot of friends? I have a good handful.

Have you ever painted something and been impressed by it? Not really.

Would you rather go out to eat or stay in? I like both.

When did you last babysit, if ever? Last month, but I am actually babysitting tomorrow.

Do you have any younger siblings? Nope. Have you ever thought of someone as useless? Yes, my brother in law is useless. He brings absolutely nothing to the table and he’s a huge fucking piece of fucking garbage.

Have you ever considered bleaching your hair? It’s currently bleached.

Do you drink vitamin water? No.

Do you ever straighten your hair? No, it’s already pretty straight. What’s the best way to end a conversation? Totally depends.

Are there any old movies you absolutely love? Of course.

Have you ever had a Big Mac before? I have..  

Do you think you attract the opposite sex at a reasonable rate? I only need to attract my husband and I seem to have done a pretty good job at that lol.

Where is your favorite place to travel? I like going to new places but I have a handful of places I frequent.

What is your goal for the next few months? Workout in one way or another every day (with some exceptions) for the next 4 weeks, and then 8 weeks, and then 12 weeks, and so on. And eat better.

Can you count to ten in another language other than your own? Yes.

Do you own a lot of shoes? No, just a handful of pairs. What is your favorite season and why? I’m into the latter half of the year. Like, June-December. I LOVE summer and all it’s nostalgia and activities, and Fall is gorgeous and beautiful and has Halloween, and the first couple weeks of winter aren’t too horrible and Christmas happens, but then January-May are always HORRIBLE weather and otherwise and I want to throw them in a dumpster fire.

Have you ever played on a sports team before? No.

If you have, what was that sport and when? ---

Have you ever filed a lawsuit on someone? No.

Do you think you’re a good singer? No.

Would you rather wear jeans or sweatpants? Leggings.

Do you think you have a good sense of style? No.

Do you enjoy reading often? No.

Have you ever had a deadly illness? I probably have one right now hahahahaha.

Ever had food-poisoning before? Nope.

Where did you last eat dinner at? My house.

Have you ever shot a gun before? A bb gun.

[chromiwrites]

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Today has been a bit tricky. I noticed that Max's hyperthyroid meds were running very low last night. It's a twist applicator and it has stickers all over it, so it's like... impossible to see what level the ointment is at, and I don't know how to even eyeball the amount. And --- I'm getting frantic. I'm afraid that she's going to run out of meds. I probably wrote about this last night. I ordered overnight delivery, the pharmacy says it shipped and I did 1 day delivery, like I shelled out $30 for that shit... But I can't see tracking info, it just gives me an error. I'm just flying by the seat of my pants here, I am praying it gets here tomorrow before 1PM, or that I even have enough meds for tonight - let alone tomorrow morning, too.

It's the not knowing that gets me. And kicking myself. "I can't believe I didn't think to refill this sooner." "How did I not notice?" "I'm a bad pet parent." "She's going to have to be in physical pain, possibly get more sick, because of my inability to manage my life."

I have no idea why I am so afraid of the criticism of others, no one could kick my ass a fraction as bad as I kick my own ass every day. I don't think anyone has even come close. Like... when people try to make fun of me or mock me or criticize me... I'm not even exaggerating, it sounds comical. It sounds like a Kidz Bop version of an insult. Because inside my head... inside my head is an improv stand-up comedian who's been doing crowd-work in my head for over 30 years. Who knows all the ins and outs of my personality, every weak point, every insecurity, every chink in the armor to slip that dagger in. He rolls nat 20s in his fuckin sleep. So seriously, I have no idea why I give a shit about the superficial, juvenile judgements of outsiders when I have this demon to deal with.

Maybe that's why isolation is so hard for me. It's not being by myself, that's never been an issue, I kinda prefer it in a lot of ways. It's being stuck with that motherfucker. Having the only critique of my work being: "Welp, you just sank like 2-3 hours into polishing this piece of cool green mineral and... your dumb ass decided to use purple Sharpie to mark bevel lines. Purple. Remember color theory? Remember how that's a complimentary color? Like the highest contrast, most out-of-place color you could use? Yeah, did you... um... think to check if the mineral was porous or not? Nope, of course not, why would we do that... Now your hours and hours of work have resulted in a beautiful green mirror-surfaced mineral with big purple splotches soaked into it. Way to piss the day away dude, you could've done wood carving, you could've worked on that weird goat skull project, you could've drawn on your tablet. Now your arm is completely worn out. Way to go. <slow clap>"

When that's the only feedback you get on your work... How long can you keep going?

But with something like this, like caring for a loved one, like medical stuff, executive functioning stuff, life stuff. It's just whole other ball game. And I just feel like a complete sack of shit. Like how the fuck... Okay, you know what, I'm going to give the real second half to that sentence. Not "how the fuck do I keep fucking up so bad." Nope. It's "how the fuck do people keep track of all this shit?" "How do 'normal' people function?" It legit blows my mind, probably the same way it blows their mind that I can draw the way I can. I just can't keep up, I can't keep track of all this stuff. It took me like an hour to just figure out what the hell I was doing for dinner, and I was trying to do something easy. I tried to do Grubhub and just kept getting distracted, then I couldn't make up my mind, then the clock was ticking and I had to order before a specific time, then I think about how expensive this is getting and rabbit-hole on that for a while. Then eventually I'm just like "fuck it, I'm just making ramen, this is dumb." After like an hour of not being able to find anything appealing. It's obnoxious and it's like... every fucking day.

Can you tell I'm stressed out? XD

So... my cat's fate on this is really in the hands of the delivery people. This needs to be an act of faith. I did my best here. And I --- okay, you know what, I'm telling the story.

I used to be on Lamictal. I was on a bunch of different meds, one was some fucking anti-psychotic med they give to people in retirement homes (I was told after I got off it) that I was taking for the side-effects to help me sleep... yeah... Not even gonna tangent on that one, I'm sure you can go on your own personal journey of medical outrage. And I was on a titanic dose of Xanax just for daily functioning. If you want to call it that... All this from a psychiatrist who wore more makeup than any person I've met in my whole life. I was neurotic about my meds. I had the fear of God put in me with a bunch of side-effect scares - serotonin syndrome being one of the biggest, but not the only one. After not being able to move my eyes without vomiting for hours, trauma ground the lesson in my head that you do. not. fuck. with. meds. You take them on time. You do not miss doses. The side effects can be life-threatening, and you don't know how bad it is for you personally until you're there. So... what happened?

I forgot to get my prescription refilled. And it was a Sunday afternoon. I remember it clear as day, it was a cloudy afternoon, it looked like a storm was rolling in from the South. It was summer of 2019, probably around... May or June. It was like 4 in the afternoon, that was when my med time was and I just flat-out did not notice that I need a refill until I opened my med container thing and there was nothing there. I fucking lost my shit. I called every pharmacy I could find, nothing was open. I called places up to like 45 minutes away. I was driving around town while calling these places, saying "I'm in my car right now, I can be there in X minutes." Nothing, no one could help me. I panicked so much, I shit you not, I went to the police station. God, this is so embarrassing, but like... when you don't have any friends and no one picks up the phone, and no professional will help you... and you're afraid for your life... what do you do? I panicked. Maybe I should've gone to the hospital? Nearest one was 40 minutes away. Anyway, they didn't know how to help me either. No duh there, I guess. So eventually I just was out of options and I went home. This part of the story feels weird to tell because... well... in the past, it might have gotten someone into trouble. At least that's what he thought, I disagree, but whatever. I called up an old friend of mine that I recently reconnected with briefly. He mentioned he was on Lamictal at one point, we connected on that. I... asked him if he could spot me one so I didn't go into withdrawal. And, because he worked at a mental health facility (as a like... handyman, but still...) he was unsure if that would be okay. Like... it was weird, and he was afraid he'd get fired for it if anyone found out. He hasn't worked there in a few years so I feel okay telling this now, and it's not like I'm naming him or anything. See how fucking paranoid we all have to be nowadays?! This isn't even a controlled substance!!! Like I really don't think you can abuse Lamictal... But yeah, he bailed me out with one dose so I didn't freak out. And I guess that was like... one of the biggest friend moments I've ever had. Though I wish we could've been less afraid of the cops showing up or some shit. It's so stupid looking back at it, like... all of it. But, this is a big one for me.

So, I'm dealing with a similar story with my cat now... At least, it feels the same. Where, despite my best efforts, I have managed to overlook med details, forget to keep up with them, and I'm praying to any deity that will listen for her to not have to go an extended period of time without the med in her system. But it hits different. See, when it was me... it was fear of mortality, fear of death. With her? It's fear of guilt, of having to live a life with that blood on my hands. In my fucked up imagination, she's already dead from thyroid imbalances somehow cascading and leading to organ failure. And it's all my fault. And I have to live with that survivor's guilt for the rest of my life. Dark as fuck, right?

See, that's why I don't like isolation. I don't have anyone else in the world to say, "Hey, look, it's probably not as bad as you think. Let's do some research on this." So I can feel my feelings fully, which all stem in intensity from how much I care about her, and not deny or suppress them. But also make informed, logical decisions. God fucking damn is it hard to do both at the same time. And I see so many people take this insanely valuable asset - another human perspective, emotional grounding, compassion, comfort, reassurance, support, stuff like that - for granted. It's the piece that's missing for me right now, and I really don't know where to go to find it. I mean that. Instagram? Feels weird. Here? How? Dating apps? Feels even weirder, somehow. At this point in the list... I just start getting really depressed and resign to my current situation.

I wrote to my social worker today. I told him about the ADHD stuff. I tried to keep it brief and ended up writing at least a full page, it's hard to really gauge how much I write in a digital format, I guess that's why they're switching from "pages" to "minutes" as a way of telling how long a read things are nowadays. I'll see how he responds.

I'm afraid I'm just... too fucked up. I struggle with too many things, and I have for too long. The system doesn't seem to be designed to help people like me, I guess. Like... it's supposed to be like a social support system, social services, right? But everyone I talk to just gives me tips on positive self-talk, how to set healthy boundaries with people and encourages me to exercise and meditate. All of which I work on, and none of which are fixing the massive gaping holes in my life like... I've been living out of piles of cardboard boxes for like 6 years. It takes about a week for me to lose my structure and my dishes pile up to the ceiling. I build up my self-confidence into a freight train of motivation, then go to a job interview, feel like I did a great fucking job and then... it goes nowhere. Rarely even a call-back. Same for applications, I write this legendary cover letter, something heartfelt, conversational, personal, real. And I don't even get a fucking "sorry, we're not interested." And I try to set up my own businesses, and somehow... no one can help me with... any of them? Like... at all? It's fucking weird, it's like I'm radioactive. Naw. It's like I'm cursed. It's like I was hexed by the Witch of the Woods and everyone got the memo like 10 minutes before I showed up, so they hide the memo behind their backs and go "hey, _____, nice to meet you!" With a big fake smile that my naïve and insanely emotionally overwhelmed ass reads as completely legit, and then they nod and smile as I do my best to confidently, honestly stroll through the interview. Meanwhile they're checking the clock the whole time, because they made up their mind before I walked in the door.

I feel like no one. Not my family, not my friends, not therapists, not mentors, not potential employers, not potential business partners. No one wants to take a chance on me. And I don't know why. Maybe it's because I have too much to say? Maybe my constantly racing mind is too overwhelming for them? Maybe it's my strong emotions? Maybe they're intimidated by me? I have no idea, this is all 100% speculation.

Can you tell I'm depressed? XD

So yeah, I don't have huge hopes that he will be able to support me in the way I need it. And, despite browsing two dating apps every morning, I feel like if I were to date someone, I would seriously just be giving them a big list of chores. Like... dating me would be a job. Make sure he doesn't forget that the daily alert to start his sleep routine went off in his pocket, but he got distracted and wandered off to dig through a random box for something he hasn't used in 4 years. Make sure he's actually eaten food and drank water today. It's 2AM, tell him to go to bed. I would do these things for a girlfriend in a heartbeat. I mean that sincerely, and I have. I've actually been denied the ability to do that by my ex, due to her pride, and it made me feel like I wasn't allowed to be a good boyfriend. And it sucked. I know how much these and other gestures mean, especially to people like me. Like... it's life-changing. But it still feels like a tall order.

So yeah, difficult day. But I sanded down an agate today - it's really pretty, pink and purple and white - the best I could until my arm wore out, then I played Rimworld, smoked a tiny tiny bit and took a shower, then worked on sanding another piece of that green stuff, I still don't know what it is, I think it's fluorite but it's very grainy and opaque. And I worked on a small triangular piece of reddish... I'm guessing sandstone or something, it was very easy to polish, much more pleasant to work with. And here I am.

I'm gonna dig up a midnight snack. I guess this brain dump was helpful, I don't know, this kinda just felt like my depression jacking off. Like... I'm very conflicted on this. I have a lot of deep gut instincts that have been telling me for a long time that the solution to most of my problems would be to get in a healthy relationship with someone where I can help them in ways that they lack, and they can help me with the things that I struggle with. And every time I float this idea, people look at me like I have 40 heads. Like I should have 20 friends before I even start looking for a girlfriend. Well... who is going to go out and meet people with me?

I have always been the tag-along. Any time I moved, it was because I had a friend there. Any time I went to an event or a party or... anything, really... it was because someone I knew was there. I have always functioned atrociously when I don't have someone else there.

Someone was being really loud in the hallway and decided of all walls to bang against... to do it on mine... Made me jump. Still not used to being in close proximity to other humans. Maybe I don't function atrociously when I'm alone. I function differently. I don't think in social-mode. Because the majority of my experience on a daily level is... internal. It's in my head. It's not interactive. I shift purely into introspective mode. Where, when I'm in regular social interactions, I have outside stimuli to pull me out of my head. When that's absent, I have a tendency to go through gigantic creative growth spurts... I fucking wonder why... but also, all the shit you're seeing here tonight, that runs rampant. Like a cartoon of Halloween or some shit, all my demons and depressions and anxieties and panics and inner-critiques and all that shit are just swooping around and divebombing poor me as I'm just trying to go throughout my day. I think it's a BIG reason why people like me tend to impulsively just jump from relationship to relationship, without even noticing it, without even thinking about it. To avoid that. The alone scaries. Being stuck with their own thoughts. Alone.

So yeah, good night! Sleep tight! XD

I try so hard to end on a good note with these things, or at least a mic drop or something, but yeah. Fuck it. Today is just a weird one. Fingers crossed I get some good sleep, and here's hoping for a better tomorrow.

[crispybelieverperfection]

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Yeah... I'm the worst...

*Redid the tags, got told some weren’t working. Sorry*

~ Masterlist ~

~~~~~

There was an ugly silence in the room, no one quite knowing how to break it. A small sob had Rowan looking back at Lyria, her hand cradling her stomach. The gesture caused a pain so sharp in Rowan’s chest that he choked on it because of the lies that rested beneath her hand. He had no real sense of reality as he stood there looking between his wife and the man she had been unfaithful to him with. His brain was still processing what he had overheard.

“You never gave me a chance.”

“Have you told him that the baby may not even be his?”

Rowan’s knees went weak and he thought he may start vomiting. This was a joke. Some sick cruel joke his friends had decided to play on him, Aelin always liked to pull a good prank. But the longer he looked at Lyria and from the look on her face the way she was trembling… this was no joke.

“Rowan. We–”

“No,” Rowan said, not bothering to look at the other man in the room. “This is not coming from you.”

Rowan’s brain was finally catching up with him and he had so many questions. The first and foremost was how exactly Sam rutting Cortland got to be standing in his kitchen as a possible father of the baby his wife was carrying.

“I want you to leave,” Rowan said to Sam. “I’m leaving this room and I want you gone.”

He didn’t bother to address Lyria as he left the kitchen and started down the hallway. She had two options here, she could come and find once showing her guest out or she could leave. Rowan hoped that for the sake of his sanity she chose the former. A dilemma struck Rowan as he stood in the hallway, only overhearing hushed sounds of conversation through his home. Where was he going to go? He didn’t want to have this conversation in the bedroom, it felt too intimate as the ravine between him and Lyria was gaping wider by the second. He wasn’t going to go back out to any of the rooms beyond the hallway and risk running into Sam again. That really only left him one option.

Rowan turned the door handle of the baby’s room and stepped inside.

The walls were painted a soft yellow, bits and pieces of baby paraphernalia were stacked in piles around the room that they hadn’t got around to sorting through. Seems they had a few more things they needed to sort through.

The fact that Sam was possibly the father of the baby had him reeling. Aelin and Sam had been broken up for a while now. Rowan had liked the guy, but he could tell that the two of them weren't meant to be. Sam and him were close to friends by the time the relationship fell apart, not enough that once Aelin had let him go Rowan had kept in contact. There's was a lot of missing information between then and now. Gods, had Aelin known and not told him? Is that why she had been getting progressively more distant over these past months?

Rowan waited, the feeling of wanting to empty the contents of his stomach returning in full force. His ears were straining for any indication that Lyria was still house. The front door closed and then he heard soft footsteps. She went to the bedroom first, saying his name softly–her voice wavering. She obviously didn’t find him there so she finally came to him. The door squeaked as she pushed it open and Rowan made a mental note to fix that before the baby came, he didn’t want them waking up because of the noise. That thought had him closing his eyes and leaning on the box that held the pieces of the cot, not even knowing where his future was heading.

Lyria was silent, waiting for Rowan to say something. So he did.

“Why?” he asked simply.

“I don’t know,” Lyria said quietly.

“Yes you do,” Rowan said coldly. “Stop trying to spare my feelings. Just tell me.”

Lyria walked over to the rocking chair in the corner, the only real piece of furniture in the room and eased herself down. At any other time Rowan would be over there, helping and hovering. But right now he was rooted to the spot.

“It was just after we had that big fight, the one about my car,” Lyria explained. That had been well over a year ago, this wasn’t the cause of the current problem. “I went out and I randomly ran into Sam. We got talking, he’d just had that messy breakup with Aelin so we were commiserating together. We exchanged numbers.”

“And then what? Swapping numbers doesn’t get you pregnant,” Rowan said as he finally turned around.

He saw Lyria in the chair, head tipped back as tears ran down her cheeks. “It was another fight, over something stupid I can’t remember now, and I told Sam and we went out and we got drunk. We’d been texting for a while, we had become friends and talking almost every day. Then suddenly that line blurred and we were more than that and that night he asked me to come back to his place, you’d headed out of town so I said yes. We had sex back at his place, and it was the worst mistake of my life.”

Rowan remembered that, he had the same blip in his memory over what exactly the fight was over, but he remembered leaving town overnight for work. He had tried to call Lyria so many times but eventually giving her the space he interpreted her silence to be asking for. And the truth of it was worse than he could have ever imagined.

“He loves you,” Rowan said, even though they broke his own heart.

“Yes.” Lyria’s reply came out with a sob.

“And do you love him?” At this point Rowan felt as though he was digging his own grave, each question and answer taking him deeper.

Another sob tore from Lyria and Rowan’s heart betrayed him, forgetting about his own pain and anger. All he wanted to do was hold his wife, kiss her and dry her tears, tell her none of it mattered. But still, he held back. He wanted to hear the answer first.

“No,” Lyria said but it lacked conviction. “I don’t know. But I know that I love you more.”

“That’s no consolation prize there, Ria,” Rowan said bitterly.

Lyria didn’t say anything, she just continued to cry and now was rubbing her stomach. Rowan had done that countless times, he had felt that baby move, talked to them, assured them that no matter what as their father he would always be there. But now…

That final question loomed in front of him, ready to drag him over the precipice of no return. Despite it all, Rowan couldn’t explain how the smile appeared on his face as he readied to say the words that could potentially haunt him for the rest of his life. He wouldn’t ask directly, he couldn't. Instead he’d delay the swing of the axe.

“Do you know?” He was a coward for delaying. “Do you know who the father is?”

Lyria nodded tears cascading over her cheeks, he watched them fall one after the other as she nodded, and he could tell her lies had reached their end. Hoping, more than believing that she was resolute in giving him an answer.

Rowan’s voice was so hollow he barely recognised it in his own ears as he said, “Tell me.”

~~~~~

There was a sturdy knock at the door and Aelin pushed Fleetfoot off her lap as she went to answer it. The food had arrived much quicker than she thought, she was always far too impatient to watch the actual delivery process on her phone. She tended to just get angry at the route her driver made or yelled when the wait time would randomly fluctuate. So instead she would place her order and just wait for the text. Aelin smiled at the prospect at take-out arriving, though on her way she realised that she hadn’t actually received the text indicating it was in fact here. Shrugging to herself as she swung the door open, assuming that the delivery guy had just forgotten. However, that smile fell when she saw who stood in her doorway.

It was Rowan.

~~~~~

Yeah, I'm definitely the worst. This one seems short but I promise the next one will make up for it. 

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[winterscaptain]

redamancy.

Aaron Hotchner x Female Reader a joyful future fic

a/n: the moment you’ve all been waiting for...#5 makes an appearance! (thanks to kira @good-heavens-chris-evans for helping me not be a liar and gassing me up so i could post this tonight like i promised xoxo i love you so much) words: 5.56k warnings: descriptions of childbirth (nothing too gross or graphic), swearing, disgustingly sweet family content

summary: “what strange creatures brothers are!” - jane austen. au!august 2022

masterlist | a joyful future masterlist | ajf faq | taglist edited: january 9th, 2021

“Hey, Aaron?” You peer around the wall to the bedroom from your place on the master bath toilet. There isn't any urgency to your query, which would later make you both laugh until you can't breathe. 

Aaron has a book in his lap and reading glasses resting on his perfect nose, as is usual for bedtime. He turns a page. “Hm?”

“When you get to a good stopping point, can you grab the go bag?” 

“Yeah.” He gets up on autopilot, setting his book down. When he reaches the bedroom doorway, he freezes and turns over his shoulder “Wait. Why?”

“Oh, nothing extreme,” you say, your voice light. “My water just broke and I figured we might -“

Your name leaves his mouth in a laugh, and he trots back to you, helping you up and kneeling to assist you with your comfiest pair of pajama pants. You steady yourself with a hand on his shoulder, stepping into one leg, then the other. Playfully, he snaps the stretchy waistband around you. He's still kneeling before you when he says, “You’re insane, you know that?”

You smile down at him and scrub your fingers through his hair. He leans into your touch like a cat and closes his eyes. “You are too, I’d like to point out.”

He sighs, kissing your belly and resting his cheek on it. “Never said I wasn’t.” He looks up at you. “Is it weird that I’m...a little sad? I’ve loved this part of our lives so much.”

You shake your head. “Me too, my love. And no, It isn’t weird.” 

He holds your hands as he stands and kisses your forehead. 

“We should probably tell Jack it's go time so he can help the little ones when they get up.”

Aaron pauses for a moment, thinking. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. Isaac isn’t going to clearly remember last time, so he’ll probably be nervous, and this is totally new to the girls.” You reach up and he plants a kiss on your lips. You smile, pleased. 

A little contraction wave hits, and one side of your face screwed up in discomfort. 

Aaron kisses your cheek and says, “I’ll get the rest of the toiletries together.”

You nod, and padded down the hallway, your socked feet swishing a little against the hardwood floors. You knocked twice on Jack’s door, quietly, and waited for his groggy, “Yeah?”

With access granted, you open the door with a little smile, and Jack sits straight up.  You cross to his bed and sit down on the edge, opening your arm to him. Though he’s almost seventeen, he scrambled out from under the covers and tucked in close to you. 

“Your dad and I are headed to the hospital, and Aunt Jess and Em are on their way okay? If you need anything big, dad has his phone and -“

“Mom, we’ve done this before,” he says with a grin. “I know the drill.”

You push the hair off his forehead and kiss him. “I know it, but it makes me feel better. The little ones haven’t done this before, and they’ll probably be a little nervous. Please help your aunts so they aren’t driven to the drink by your sisters.”

He laughs a little, and surprises you by wrapping his arms around your shoulders and pulling you close to him. “Be safe, mom. I love you.” 

Tears prick at your eyes, and you hold him tight. “I love you so much, Jack.”

“Are you scared?”

You press a hand to the back of his head, and he burrows into your neck. “Only a little. I know I’m older, which can make some things difficult, but I’ll always come home to you.”

He nods. “Promise?”

“I promise as much as I can.”

Jack pulls away and swipes quickly at his eyes with the back of his hand. 

“Hey,” your brow crinkles in lighthearted concern. “What’s gotcha?”

He shakes his head. “It’s stupid”

“I can guarantee you it’s not.” While still a bit of a boy, Jack looks very much a man in the dark, lit only by the light of the hallway as the wheels turn in his head. You pick up one of his hands, and he places your linked fingers over your belly. 

“I just - I don’t - Ugh. It’s morbid - Nevermind.”

You huff a laugh. “Baby, remember that one-third of this house hunts serial killers for a living. Nothing is morbid.”

A smile quirks at his lips, but it doesn’t really reach his eyes. “Just be okay? Please?”

You sober and nod, pressing a hand to his cheek. “Jack, do you think I would ever put you or your father into a position that can result in leaving either one of you?”

He shakes his head. “But things happen.”

“They sure do. Your dad will be with me the whole time and he can send you hourly updates if you want. I promise promise promise you’ll be in the loop, baby. I know you like to know.”

Your son’s eyes flicker to the doorway, where a shadow appears. It's Aaron, his backpack on and your go bag in his hand. 

“Ready?” 

You nod, stand (not without effort), and press another kiss to Jack’s head. “I love you bud. I’ll see you when our plus one arrives.” 

The plan is easy: Emily and Jessica are on their way over for the kids, and Dave and Spencer will relieve them after 12 hours. Derek, Savannah, JJ, and Will are only called when the baby arrives, to save them the angst of prematurely wrangling four children between them. 

The hospital is only eighteen minutes away, but with the way Aaron drives, it's more like ten. 

Time is fairly important - with your body accustomed to delivering babies, having done it twice before, there’s a very big chance active labor would only take a few hours, if that. 

Emily and Jess pull up to the house at the same time, both in their pajamas, holding their overnight bags.

“Ready?” Jess asks, kissing your cheek. 

You laugh. “Don’t have much of a choice now, do I?” 

Emily sets her things down and wordlessly hugs you. You wrap your arms around her as best you can. 

“Walk me out?” You ask. 

She slings an arm around your shoulders and you walk back out the front door. She situates you in the passenger seat, and you offer her a small smile. 

“You know,” she starts with a bit of a laugh, “every single time I’m just as nervous as I was when Henry was born.” 

You reach for her hand, and kiss the back of it. “Me too.” 

Everything goes according to plan after that. You sit in the car with your stopwatch while Aaron packs the car, checking the car seat base and putting everything that needs to go up with you in the trunk. Jess and Emily get set up on the couches in the living room, ready to settle in for the night. 

You're uncomfortable, sure, but it isn't unbearable yet. This is the tedious part. 

Miraculously, none of the little ones wake up in the commotion. The magic of white noise machines is never to be underestimated. 

“Time?” He calls from where he leans into the back of the car. He's handling the last details, in full field operations mode. 

You turn around. “5 minutes, 15 seconds.”

“Alright,” he looks up at you and grins widely. “Let’s go, baby.”

+++

Brienne breezes in and checks your charts and your dilation. “It’s go, time, here I think, Momma.”

You sigh and readjust. “Do I have to lay down?” Comfortable as you are, epidural all finished, you still feel a little restless. The alternative is worse - you’d delivered Isaac without any pain management, and thought it was the end of days. You didn’t, and won’t, make that mistake again. 

“Not necessarily, but if you’re going to shuffle around I would suggest a squat for the sake of your blood pressure.”

Another contraction hits, and it knocks the wind out of you. You squeeze Aaron’s hand so hard you fear you’ll break it, and inform him for the third time that morning that you hate his guts. 

“I know, honey. I’m sorry. I know. I’m the worst. Just breathe, okay?” He presses his forehead to your temple, giving you something to focus on. 

It sounds like you tell him to fuck off, but you aren’t sure. The wave crests and then falls, and you slump back against the pillows. “Okay, maybe I do want to lie down.” 

Everyone stifles a chuckle, but you didn't have it in you to be prideful. While you still have a few seconds, you double-check the plan. “Hey Brienne, we’re still good to tie today, right?” 

“Yes, ma’am!” she says, way too chipper for the small morning hour. She speaks quickly, knowing she has to finish her thought before your next contraction. “Soon as we’re all done, we’ll do a really quick procedure and everything will be squared away. If, for some reason, we have to do an emergency cesarean, we can do it right then as well.” 

Brienne is a great obstetrician - she never pulls punches when the news is difficult or stressful. Her straightforward nature immediately endeared her to your whole family. 

It's too much to think about, seeing as another contraction sneaks up on you as you ponder. It felt like only seconds since the last one. 

You're so tired. 

Brienne gestures to Aaron. They developed a bit of a language over the last two deliveries, and he presses a kiss to your temple. “You gotta push, babe.” 

“God, Fuck. I hate you, Aaron. Goddamn you. I’m never letting you near me ever again. Fuck.” A stream of expletives continues to leave you as you push and push and push. 

He only holds your hand and reminds you to breathe and push. He also tells you how much he loves you in between agreeing with your damning assessments. 

If he's honest, he always thinks your ire during childbirth is hilarious. It is kind of his fault, and he can't fathom the physical trauma, so he figures this is a fair role to fill while you do the hard work. 

On a small trough in your final set of contractions, you catch your breath enough to ask for his other hand. This is the hardest part, and it always makes you a little nervous. 

“Aaron, come here. Please.” He drapes his arm around your shoulders, and you grab his hand where it hangs by your collarbone. 

“You’re almost there, darlin’! We’re gonna be crowning here in a second.” You can't see Brienne, totally locked into her task, but her update is a relief. 

You lean heavily into Aaron and he rests his cheek against yours. While this is a shorter labor than both Isaac and the girls’, you're exhausted. Bone-deep tired and hot and cold all at once. 

“You’re doing so well. You’re a superhero. I love you so much.” He whispers his words against you, and you wail as another contraction hit.  Your choice of a walking epidural doesn’t knock the pain out entirely, and it still totally sucks. But again, better than the alternative.

“We’ve got a little Hotchner head! Keep going!” Brienne pats your knee and grins at you, and you follow instructions. “Do you want to catch, Dad?”

Before he can answer, you tell him, “If you move, I’ll kill you,” through your teeth. Aaron shrugs and looks over your head at Brienne, who suppresses a smile. 

There can't be any blood left in Aaron’s upper extremities at this point. In the midst of actively disliking him and your presence in your life in that particular moment, you're so grateful for him you could cry. 

Well, you could cry for a great number of reasons, but that’s definitely one of them. 

A few minutes and a pretty bad time later, a strong cry fills the room and you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. Aaron releases you as you unbutton your gown to expose your chest. 

“Your time to shine, Aaron.” Brienne holds up the umbilical cord clamp and snaps it together twice like a dad at a barbecue. With a smile, he stands and rounds the bed. 

You tried to peer over to see, but you're only able to see Aaron and Brienne.

A smile eats up his whole face. 

“Hi!” His voice pitches up, and you start to cry. 

You just love him so much your chest could just burst. Aaron is always the first person to greet your children as they come into the world, and he never fails to deliver a warm welcome. 

“Right here, right?” He looks to Brienne, and she nods. He cuts the cord, and the nurse crosses the room for measurements. 

Aaron returns to you and removes his own shirt, ready to take the little one while you finish delivery. After his crew neck is thrown to the side, he gathers you up in his arms again. 

There’s nothing you can do but melt into him. His skin is warm and he smells good, whereas your skin felt clammy and you probably smell like a horse’s ass. 

Brienne’s voice comes to you faintly from the other side of the room, iterating the specs of the newest addition. “Baby Boy Hotchner, 5:37am, August 13th, 8 pounds, 14 ounces, 21 inches.”

Okay I'm not crazy. He’s actually huge. 

Aaron scoots even closer as you lean away to get a better look. Brienne sets the still-squalling infant on your chest with gentle, warm hands. Your eyes blur with tears. Aaron isn't any better off, keeping one hand on you and another on your son, his own tears tracking quietly down his cheeks. 

Your son. 

Brienne sighs and says, “Alright, last bit here, and then you’re done.” 

You nod and Aaron takes him off your chest, leaning back with one hand under him and one hand over him. Fluid and other questionable grossness be damned, he ducks his head and presses his cheek to his son’s head, an ineffable joy radiating through his body. 

Aaron’s hands almost completely cover him - with his little knees tucked to his chest, he looks like an angry little loaf of bread. 

The afterbirth is the easy part, but then it was before, too. All the Hotchner kids are massive - even the girls were bigger for twins. 

You always make fun of Aaron for “ripping me to shreds, and not in a fun way.” 

(Okay, fine. Maybe a little in a fun way. Sometimes.)

There’s a little more pressure, and you look down at Brienne’s outline behind that infernal green medical paper shit. “How’s it going down there?”

“I’m getting these suckers tied off so we don’t have any more happy accidents. Don’t mind me.” 

Aaron stifles a laugh and you roll your eyes, still weepy. The nurse passes him a warm, wet washcloth, and he begins to wipe the ick from his son’s skin. 

Brienne finishes up and helps you get adjusted with ice packs and that excellent postpartum underwear. When she's satisfied, she removes her gloves and presses a hand to your bare shoulder. “Beautiful work, momma. He’s perfect.” 

You put a shaky hand over hers. “Thanks.” A little watery laugh leaves you. Ouch. “I’ll miss you.” 

And it's true. Brienne has been a semi-permanent fixture in your life for close to six years and has become a friend. You wouldn’t have any reason to see her again outside of regular check-ups. 

She squeezes your shoulder twice. “You ever need anything, you know who to call. Let someone know when you’re ready to put his name down, and they’ll finish off the birth certificate.” 

With that, she shepherds the nurse out the door, and you're alone with Aaron. 

“So,” you say. 

He smiles, his eyes still trained on the little body who has quickly quieted and is snoozing on his chest. “So?”

“Gimme that.” 

His laugh is warm, and he places little one on your chest again. You prod him awake, feeling only a touch bad about it, and offer him a snack. He latches right away, and you tip your head back in sheer relief. 

“Thank God.” 

Aaron nods in agreement. “That’s one less thing to worry about.” He shakes his head as if shaking something off - no doubt remembering the meltdowns night after night trying to nurse Isaac. 

Little one is still naked to the world, so you point at the little blue blanket folded across the room. “Can you grab that for me?” 

Aaron just looks at you for a second, as if seeing you for the first time.  “Of course.” 

He crosses the room, throws the blanket over his shoulder, and grabs a diaper. While the little one is distracted, he deftly maneuvers the diaper into place and drapes the blanket over him to keep the chill off while maintaining skin-to-skin.

You pull the blanket back a little so you can see his squishy little face. “Can you call Jack?” 

“Do we want to call him now? It’s pretty early.” Aaron leans over to his backpack and pulls his phone out, finding a couple requests for updates from Jess. First things first, he turns the camera on you, and you give him a thumbs up. You detach the little one from your nipple for a second, framing his face with the blanket. Aaron gets a good photo of a yawn and fires both pictures off to the BAU group chat before checking Jess’s messages. 

4:12am How we doin? 4:18am Jack’s up with me. He can’t sleep. Em is dead to the world - she gave up about an hour ago. Give us an update when you can. 

6:02am He’s adorable!!! He’s got your nose though, which is unfortunate. 6:02am Kidding. Maybe. 

Aaron laughs a little, and he looks at you. “He’s up with Jess.”

You nod. “Go ahead and call him. He’ll worry, honey.” 

He nods, and dials the second number on his speed dial. Jack picks up on the first ring. “Dad?”

“Hey, bud.” Aaron can't hide the smile in his voice. “Your brother is here and your mom wants to talk to you.” 

“Can I come see you?” Jack’s voice wavers a little, and Aaron knows it's relief, rather than anxiety. Much like his son, he was more than a little concerned for your safety. Now that it's over, he can finally relax. 

That alone is enough to make anyone emotional. 

Aaron checks his watch. “Are you too tired to drive?” 

“No, no. I’m good. I slept a little after you guys left.” he's quiet for a second. “Can you hand me to mom?”

“Sure, bud.” Aaron nods at you and you smile. He starts to pass the phone over to you then -

“Oh, dad?” Jack’s voice is only a little urgent. 

Aaron pulls the phone back to his ear. “Yeah?”

“I love you.” 

“I love you too, bud. I want to talk to Aunt Jess when you’re done with mom, so don’t hang up, okay?” 

With that, he hands you the phone and fresh tears roll down your cheeks. You know this part comes in waves - the emotions. Your hormones are in shambles, and you forget how intense it is every time. 

“Hey, Jack.” 

“Are you okay how did it go what happened?” All the questions come out in a rush.

You chuckle. Ouch. “Slow down there, kiddo. We’re just fine. It went really smoothly, but the last part happened kind of all at once and I denied your father personal freedom and geographic agency, so we didn’t get a chance to update you.” 

He laughs, and it warms you. “It’s okay. I’m really excited to meet him.” There’s a shuffle, and you assume it's his keys. 

Baby boy is finished eating, just nosing around your chest at this point. You shift, and Hotch catches the phone and holds it to your ear so you can use two hands, bringing little one’s head right under your collarbone, tucking him up again. “He’s excited to meet you, too.”

After Aaron has a chance to debrief and game-plan with Jess (“If you bring the little ones over here before 10am, nobody will have any fun.”), Jack is on his way. 

In the meantime, Aaron sets his phone on the side table and sits on the edge of your bed. “Are we sticking to the name we picked? Does it feel right?”

You nod. “I think so. What do you think?”

You do your best to inch yourself over - Ouch - so Aaron can have a little more space. He stretches out on the bed next to you, on his side with his arm folded under his head. A very large hand covers yours, pulling the blanket down to little one’s chin. 

“He looks like you,” he says. 

You snort. Ouch. “Don’t lie. All your damn kids look like you.”

“Alright, fine.” He relents with a wide smile. “He looks like me.” 

He's quiet for a moment, tracing the apple of little one’s cheek with his finger.  His smile morphs into something soft, pensive. It's the look he always has when he's in awe of his children. “What do you think, little man? Is your name Elliot David? How’s that sitting with you?”

The Elliot David in question just makes contented little staccato sounds from his chest, his brown eyes looking here and there, surprisingly alert. He lets out a little cough, and both you and Aaron let out an, “Oh!” simultaneously in that drawn-out way parents do when their kids surprise themselves. 

You look at him and stifle a laugh just for the sake of your exhausted muscles. Aaron’s smile soon turns shaky, and tears fall onto his elbow where it rests under his head. He takes a big breath, and it catches on the way out. 

“Oh, honey. Come here.” 

You adjust again, bringing the head of the bed down with the little remote. As you recline, you only need one hand to keep Elliot secure. You raise your other arm, and Aaron scoots under it, resting his head in the crook of your chest and shoulder. He snaps some buttons on your gown in the absent-minded interest of keeping Jack relatively unscarred. 

Aaron’s bare arm is warm under your fingers. You trace little patterns into his skin as he stares at the back of his son’s head. Elliot’s impossibly small hand catches Aaron’s finger in that death grip only babies seem to have. 

Aaron doesn’t care he's nearly twenty-four hours without sleep, missing a shirt, and really hungry. The only things that matter in this moment are right here in front of him. 

There’s no need to speak. 

A nurse stops by and drops off the bedside cradle, speaking quietly. “You can put him in here when you’re ready to get some rest.” 

You look up and thank him. “Oh, and we’d like to finish the birth certificate in a few hours. Will that be alright?”

He nods. “Just fine.” He checks your charts and leaves a few moments later. 

Soon after, the door slips open, and Jack’s head pops in. “Hi!” He stage-whispers. “Lemme see him.” 

Aaron is stuck where he is, still locked in by Elliot’s grip, so Jack crosses to your other side, pulling up a chair as close as he can get it. 

There is a sense of finality to this meeting. Elliot is your last child, and this is the last time the Three Musketeers will sit together, meeting the newest member of their family. 

“Oh man, Mom. He’s so cute.” Jack coos and ducks so he's eye-level with his baby brother. He traces a finger along Elliot’s tiny, straight nose. When he rests his head on your upper arm, you kiss his head. All three of you sit there until the sun rises, watching Elliot fall asleep. Aaron follows suit eventually, his breath fanning slow and even across your chest. 

+++

The three of you are relatively well-rested by the time your family comes to bombard you. 

Elliot woke twice in the early morning - once to be fed and the other to be changed. Jack retreated to the recliner after a certain point, and Aaron threw on a sweatshirt and curled up next to you for the duration. They're still out cold, while you rest somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. 

One of the nurses on rotation pops her head in. You wave at her with the tips of your fingers. 

“Your family is here to see you.” 

That wakes you up. You make an ‘eek’ face. “All of them?”

She nods. “Three at a time?” 

“Please.” You reach over and pick up a neatly-swaddled Elliot and tuck him into your elbow. You check the corner, where Jack still sleeps. You're sure a train could drive through the room and he’d still be out. That kid has sleeping superpowers - being sixteen only helped.  

Jess is first, holding the girls’ hands while Isaac trails a little behind. 

You put a finger to your lips and point to Elliot. “He’s sleeping, so you have to be really quiet, okay?”

Caroline clambers up on the bed with a few reminders to “be gentle with Mom and don’t lean on her too much,” and peers over you. “Is Daddy sleeping?”

You look to your right, and sure enough, Aaron is out like a light again, performance evaluations on his chest, his hand relaxed around his pen. “Yeah, baby. Daddy’s sleeping because he's awake for a really long time helping me with Elliot.” 

Newly reminded of the main event, Caro plants herself by your knee while Sophia sits by your hip, taking the good real estate. You look over at Jess and wink. She slips out, closing the door softly behind her. 

You scoot over so you're flush with Aaron’s side. “Come on up here, bubba.” 

Isaac gives you a little smile and perches at your side. “He’s so small.” 

“Yep. And look at that,” you brush your fingers down Elliot’s nose and tap his cupid bow before doing the same to Isaac. “You have the same nose.” 

Isaac smiles and raises a tentative hand. He hesitates right before he reaches the dark brown peach fuzz that sits in unmanageable cowlicks on Elliot’s head. 

“You can touch him, bub. Just be gentle.” Isaac’s hand smooths over Elliot’s head with next-to-no pressure. “Do you remember when Sophia and Caroline were born?” 

Isaac nods. “It was super cool.”

“It was super cool.” You kiss his forehead and adjust your hold on Elliot. “Sophia, love, can you hand me the pillow that’s by Daddy’s knee.” 

She nods and very carefully presents it to you. You show her how to stuff it under your elbow so you can relax while supporting Elliot’s head. Caro is clearly enamored, her eyes never leaving Elliot’s face. 

“Babies are really delicate,” you remind a wiggling Sophia. “Their heads are too heavy for their little necks, so sometimes they need a little help.” 

At the mention of ‘help,’ Aaron’s eyes snap open. “What’s up?”  

You suppress a laugh as he realizes all of his kids surround him like the children of the corn. He presses a hand to his face, recovering. “Oh. Hi.”

Caro beams at him, and he beams right back. He puts his files down and pats his lap. “Come here, my little love. I’ve got a really good view over here.” 

She very mindfully picks her way over your shins and into her father’s lap. He lifts her so she's flush to his chest. His cheek presses into her hair, and he shows her where to find Elliot’s little baby toes under the blanket. 

“Are his feet very very small?” Caroline’s whispered question almost makes Aaron cry again. 

“Yes. They are very very small. So are his hands. Here, look.” 

He reaches over and peels back a layer of blanket, exposing one of Elliot’s (very very) small hands, pressed flat against the fabric. Aaron wiggles his finger under it and presents it to the kids. “If you look really carefully, you all have the same hands.” 

All at once, three pairs of hands appear, flipping their palms up and down as each one individually assesses the similarities. 

“And if you look even closer,” he says, flipping his palm down, but keeping Elliot’s hand aloft, “I have the same hands as all of you, too.”

Caroline looks up at him, awestruck and he nods. She places her hand on the back of Aaron’s and - lo and behold - they're the same shape, just significantly different sizes. 

Satisfied, Sophia drops her hands, leaning on them to get a closer, yet stable, look at Elliot’s fingers. 

She gasps, but to her credit, keeps her voice soft as she says, “Look at his tiny little nails!” 

“Lemme see!” Aaron supports Caro as she thrusts her body forward to get a better look. 

Jack stirs in the corner, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. In full voice, he says, “Oh, hey guys.” 

Three big shushes come from the kids, and it takes everything in you to keep your laugh locked away. You keep your eyes trained on Sophia (who looks downright offended at Jack’s volume) knowing if you look at Aaron you’d be done for. 

Jack makes the same ‘eek’ face you made earlier. “Sorry, sorry.” He creeps over, standing behind Sophia and putting his hands on her shoulders. She giggles quietly as he drops close to her ear. “Cute, huh?”

She wrinkles her nose. “He looks a little funny.” 

“He’ll start to look more like a person in a few weeks,” Aaron says with a smile. “You looked pretty funny the day you're born, maybe even funnier.”

He winks at her, and she dissolves into a fit of giggles again, leaning back against Jack. As she did so, her brother wrapped her in his arms and rested his chin on her head. 

Isaac runs his hand over Elliot’s hair, gentle and repetitive. He, like Jack did hours earlier, rests his head against your shoulder. You press your cheek to the crown of his head, soaking it in. 

“I like him.” 

A smile breaks your face in half, and you peer around to look at Isaac’s face. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. He’s cool.” 

Your bottom lip disappears into your mouth as you fight back tears, still ready to flow without fair warning. You don’t want to scare them. “I’m so glad you think so, bubba.” 

Elliot has once again taken Aaron’s finger hostage, and it takes more than a little negotiation to get him unwrapped and tucked back into his blanket. You have no idea how Elliot manages to sleep through all the commotion, but then again, he’ll have to get used to it. 

Jess pokes her head back in. “Ready for some lunch?”

Four heads whip around and nod vigorously. Aaron deposits Caro on the floor, while Isaac presses a heart-wrenching kiss to Elliot’s head before gingerly getting his feet back under him. Jack just lifts Sophia and she hangs off his hip, only a little too big. 

He walks to you and kisses your cheek. “I love you, Mom.”

You bring your hand up to his temple, the back of your fingers brushing his hair back. “I love you too, my Jack.” 

One side of his mouth turns up in a smile, and he leaves the room with Sophia, leading the rest of the pack down the hallway. 

+++

It's safe to say Dave immediately covets his namesake. You plop Elliot into his arms right away, and say, “This is Elliot David Hotchner. He’s been very excited to meet you.”

Dave full-on cries, letting the tears just fall onto his shirt as he bounces Elliot all around the room, talking to him about all the ways he’ll spoil him rotten. 

It’s easy to name him after Rossi. When you finally decided on a couple of first names, it was a no-brainer to pair them up with David. He’s your family, like they all are, but you're acutely aware that Elliot will have the smallest amount of time with Dave, no matter how much time that will be. 

When Dave is ready to give him up, he reluctantly passes him back to Aaron. Dave crosses to you while Aaron offers Elliot a knuckle to mouth around on. 

Dave kisses your cheeks and embraces you. He leans back to look at you, keeping his hands on your face. You cover his hands with your own and close your eyes. 

You're taking a lot of mental pictures today. 

He presses a kiss to your forehead, and you're sure you see Aaron’s one-handed camera work out of the corner of your eye. 

“Thank you, bellissima.” 

“You’ve more than earned it,” you remind him.  

“Dealing with you two for fifteen years? You’re damn right I have.”

+++

a joyful future tag list:  @arganfics @quillvine @stxrryspencer @agenthotchner @wandaswitxh @hurricanejjareau @fics-ilike @ange-must-die @ughitsbaby @rousethemouse @criminalsmarts @dr-reid-ismyspiritanimal @shrimpyblog @genevievedarcygranger @ssaic-jareau @saintd0lce @good-heavens-chris-evans @angelsbabey @gublergirls @writefasttalkevenfaster @venusbarnes @vintagecaptainspidey @micaiahmoonheart @ogmilkis @thatreallyis-americas-ass @marvels-agents100 @newtslatte @risenfox @mrs-dr-reid @captain-christopher-pike @joemazzello-imagines @pinkdiamond1016 @sebbybaby0 @pan-pride-12 @hotchlinebling @lee-rin-ah @sunshine-em @word-scribbless @jdougl-love @sageellsworth05 @emmice9 @nohalohoseok @giveusbackourbucky @bauslut @yourlovelynewsbian @sparklingkeylimepie @aili28 @kingandrear @reader4027 @spnobsessedmemes @rogers-mouth @dreila03 @forgottenword @aaronhotchnerr @ssa-morgan @hotchnersgoddess @buckybau @phoenixfyre374 @sana-li @tegggeeee @abschaffer2 @ssacandi-ass-prentiss @thatinspiredgirl @songbird400 @dontkissthewriter @ellyhotchner @a-dorky-book-keeper @lotties-journey-abroad @mrs-joel-pimentel-23-25 @laneygthememequeen @ahopelessromantic @violentvulgarvolatile @andreasworlsboring101 @mooneylupinblack @ssareidbby @violet-amxthyst @bwbatta @roses-and-grasses @synonymforlame @lcvischmitt

[thecampbellfam]

Alright, the infamous birth story is ready to be shared. A heads up that there are aspects of this story that are TMI (too much information) so read at your own risk. Birth can be messy. ;) It’s a long read so buckle up.

For the week leading up to D’s birth I experienced mild contractions and cramping. Baby was very low in my pelvis and my midwife said at my 38 week appointment that she anticipated me birthing prior to my 39 week appointment (spoiler alert: she was right!). On Sunday, March 21st I woke up to mild contractions. The contractions continued every 3-10 minutes from 6:30-9:30am. These abruptly stopped when the boys came in the bedroom and needed my help and attention while Nic had a shower. During the 3 hours of contractions I made the decision to cancel a lash extension appointment that I had later that day. I texted my housemate and friend, M, to see if she was free to help me power through the open jar orders that I had in case the labour picked up again.

I had a long lull between contractions so decided to capitalize on that time. M and I finished jar orders. I packed all the orders up and scheduled a Canada Post pick up for the next day. I baked myself some lactation cookies. And Nic and I cleaned the bathroom, did the dishes, washed laundry, put last minute items in the hospital bag, organized a few areas of the house, and kept the kids occupied. I had the odd contraction here or there but nothing consistent or overly painful.

By 4pm I was tired and decided to lay down. I looked up something called the Mile’s Circuit and decided to try out the recommended rest positions while I had a nap. The positions in the Mile’s Circuit are known to help reposition baby if they’re sitting off in your pelvis. This seemed to work because by 4:30pm I was having regular contractions again. Contractions were irregular in length and time between, but were coming. This continued ALL evening. The contractions started to get a bit more painful as the evening went on but were never rhythmic enough or painful enough to transfer to the hospital. I was in touch with my doula and midwife who confirmed the same information.

By 11:30pm I was exhausted, discouraged, and the contractions were beginning to get a bit more painful (though still irregular in length and time between). At midnight my doula, K, headed over. She was my saving grace. She encouraged me to labour in a few different positions, took me for a curb walk in the rain, and helped prop me up with pillows when I got tired in a way that would keep my pelvis open while I laid down. I asked her when I should head to the hospital and she said that though the contractions were strong, they were not quite rhythmic enough and I was still too coherent between them.

But at around 1:30am everything changed. I had 3-4 huge contractions laying down and then got up to use the washroom. There I entirely lost my mucus plug (up till that point I had had zero bloody show or fluid loss). I called out for K to tell her about the mucus plug, then stood up and immediately vomited excessively. I told K that we needed to leave now! Nic had been resting and quickly got up to help me to the car. Thankfully I’d had him load up the majority of our hospital items a few hours earlier *just in case* things went quickly.

By 1:54am we were on the road to the hospital with K trailing closely behind. We turned onto the main road and I had a big contraction that I couldn’t speak through while my midwife was trying to call me. When the contraction ended she said she’d meet me at the entrance of the ER. We passed a bridge and I reclined my seat as I had another massive contraction. With this one I started yelling in pain. My body was experiencing fetal ejection reflex and was trying to push baby out while I was simultaneously trying to fight to keep baby in. The feeling of fighting your own body’s urges is one I’ll never ever forget. After that contraction was an odd lull and for a moment I thought we’d make it to the hospital. However, the next contraction hit just as we were passing the pedestrian overpass along the Bypass. I yelled “Uh oh! Uh ohhh! <words I can’t repeat> Nic you need to pull over NOW!” He quickly pulled over, gestured for K to come to the car, and reached to help me. I was fully clothed and frantically needed help pulling my pants down. We got them down just enough as K came to my side. K saw that baby was crowning and with one big push she was out. K was there just in time to catch her. So at 2:05am baby girl was brought up to my chest and Nic and K quickly grabbed whatever they could from the backseat of the car to keep baby warm. A towel and Nic’s infamous highlighter yellow hoodie were the winners. K helped rub baby down to ensure she was warm and checked that she was breathing. From there we impulsively decided to continue on driving. We were in a place that would have taken an ambulance some time to get to plus it was 2am so there was nobody on the roads. I had something called Marginal Cord Insertion which can cause hemorrhaging with the birth of the placenta so I was keen to get to the hospital as soon as possible. Baby on my chest, cord still pulsing and placenta intact, and onward to the hospital we continued. It ended up being the calmest ride and I kept remarking at how amazing it was to have her out while Nic kept commenting on how insane and badass this all was. The relief of having baby girl out was incredible. I’ve been asked a lot if I have trauma from the car birth and I honestly don’t. It was such a relief to have baby out and that she and I were healthy.

We pulled up the hospital shortly after and were greeted by our midwife and a team of nurses ready with a wheelchair, warm towels and blankets. They helped me out of the car and then wheeled us up to the delivery floor. I was greeted by a lot of surprised and impressed nurses. Baby and I got checked over, the cord was cut, and I birthed the placenta. I was stitched up and then we spent a couple hours in the birthing room for monitoring. Afterwards we were transferred to a maternity room and spent a quiet morning and early afternoon snuggling baby girl, having cat naps, watching the sun come up, and even sneaking in a shower. Our short hospital stay was so calm and relaxing so I’m glad we weren’t discharged as early as I was initially hoping. Given that it was baby #3 for us the nursing staff really only came in to go over what’s required and we were largely left alone. Baby and I were deemed healthy and we were discharged at 2:30pm.

We took our time heading home to give my sister time to be there first. She photographed our oldest meeting his brother for the first time and offered to do the same when we brought baby girl home. The photos from both of these photoshoots are cherished and I’m beyond grateful for my sister making the time to capture them.

A few fun facts:

* I selfishly didn’t want to share my birthday with baby girl. Shared birthdays can be tricky and I wanted her birthdate to be her own. She was born 5 days after my birthday allowing us both our own days. I had told Nic that I wanted to be done having kids by 30 so her arriving 5 days past my 30th was pretty bang on.

* Midway through my pregnancy my midwife recommended that I pack an “if I birth in the car” kit for the car, given how quick my active labours were with my last two births. This recommendation put a bug in my ear that my baby could be born in the car.

* A week and a bit before baby girl was born I sobbed listened to a Birth Hour episode about a car birth. I often tear up listening to birth stories but this particular story struck me differently.

* Our doula knew things weren’t going great on the hospital drive because Nic kept slowing down and speeding up (which correlated with my contractions).

* Many have asked about how Nic’s car fared in the birth. This is wild. When Nic got home from work on Saturday he let the boys come out and play in the car for a few minutes with him. Our younger son accidentally left the passenger door open a crack. Not enough to drain the battery but enough for the passenger seat to get absolutely soaked in the overnight downpour. Nic saw that the seat was wet when he loaded up the car with hospital bags and put one of our (new) thick towels on the seat so that my butt wouldn’t get wet. When I was transferred to a wheelchair at the ER entrance, Nic lifted the towel and the seat was COMPLETELY DRY AND CLEAN!

* Baby girl was born at the perfect time. Nic was on his weekend, our housemates were free to watch the boys, K was available to attend the birth and my sister was free to photograph the boys meeting their sister.

* Registering baby’s birth was fun. I had to call up Vital Statistics who had to look on a map to figure out the postal code for the area that I birthed in, since she wasn’t born at a fixed address.

[xtruss]

The Fascinating History of Shopping and Its Influence on How We Buy Stuff Today

From pop-ups to fast fashion to same-day delivery, every retail innovation is reminiscent of one that came before.

— Saturday March 19, 2022 | Fast Company | By Rachel Bowlby

Source Photos: Sainsbury Archive and Rawpixel

It’s a sunny, spring Saturday morning in early 2019, and I’m having coffee in Brentwood, England, a small Essex town where I’ve never been before. I have a couple of hours to spare, so I’m planning to wander around and have a look in the shops. Then my phone pings: “Surprise!” It’s a promotion from M&S. “Here’s 20% off when you shop online.”

The Brentwood branch of M&S is just a couple of doors down from where I am. But the notification isn’t suggesting I go there. On the contrary, this special offer will deter me from shopping in an actual shop, on an actual high street, where I know I’d now be paying 25% more than if I bought online. It is, in effect, a counter-advertisement—taking me away from the shops and toward a virtual, online-only future.

Around this time, M&S had been closing stores in numerous locations. Many of these shops had been there for as long as people could remember, and were part of the towns’ identity. Like “our” NHS, and unlike most other commercial brands, M&S evokes a feeling of belonging to a shared history.

Looking back, my little counter-epiphany now seems to encapsulate something of the fraught shopping mood of three years ago. The incident felt like a painful sign of the contradictory state of British retail—and especially that part of it that is commonly known as the high street.

The choice on offer was absurd for both the customers (only one rational way to go), and the company (why push customers away from the stores that are still in use?). But it was somehow feasible then, in those innocent pre-pandemic times, to take for granted the inevitable triumph of online retail, even if it brought with it the destruction of most other modes of buying and selling.

From Street Peddlers To Supermarkets

Online shopping seemed to be the next and natural step along the path that began with the introduction of self-service. I started charting these developments more than 20 years ago when I wrote, Carried Away: The Invention of Modern Shopping. And a year after the sad Brentwood episode, at the start of 2020, I was coming to the end of writing my new book, Back to the Shops: The High Street in History and the Future. This investigates the different stages of shopping, from its early beginnings to the present.

This history stretches back to peddlers and weekly markets and runs through small fixed shops in towns and villages to the grand “destination” city department stores of the last part of the 19th century. Then, in the later 20th century, came self-service, to be followed in recent years by the move online.

But shopping history never moves in one single direction or all at once. There have always been regional and chronological divergences from mainstream developments. There are also retailing modes that fall by the wayside and then return at a later date in new guises or with new names. They often have every appearance of being newly invented.

Take fast fashion, for instance. We think of fast fashion as inseparable from a contemporary culture of rapid turnover. But a version of it can be found as far back as the 18th century, well before garments were mass-produced in factories. Clothes at this time were all sewn by hand.

In late 18th century London, a new type of shop appeared where, for a price, a lady or gentleman could commission a customized outfit that would be made up for them overnight. It offered an instant transformation into the style and class of the best social circles. But unlike modern fast fashion, it wasn’t cheap, and the clothes weren’t flimsy or soon discarded.

The same period also saw the arrival of short-term shops, not unlike those that we now call pop-ups. They might appear in any village, when an itinerant salesman rented a room in the local pub as a temporary location for what he’d present as a flash sale: “now or never.” In the 1760s, for example, Thomas Turner, who kept the main shop in the small Sussex village of East Hoathly, complained in his diary about just such a character zooming into the area—and taking away attention, and trade, from his own steady service.

Mail-order shopping also has a rich history that seems to anticipate later developments. Catalogue companies, like Freeman’s or Kay’s, were massively popular in the middle of the 20th century. But despite its popularity, “the book” (the affectionate name for the big, “full color” catalogue) never posed a threat to the shops. Nevertheless, mail order was a form of virtual shopping at a distance, and now looks like a striking precursor to online shopping.

Perhaps the most surprising example of an early retail development whose beginnings have now disappeared from view, is the chain store. We tend to think of chain stores as having pushed independent shops out of the way in the late 20th century, with the result that every shopping mall and every High Street (if it survives at all) looks like all the rest. But, in fact, chain stores were everywhere a century earlier, including some of the names that are still well-known today.

Chains took off in the second half of the 19th century. Of the early grocery chains (or “multiples,” as they were then called), only the Co-op remains. The Co-op no longer maintains the cultural and trading preeminence it had from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. But unlike the other dominant chains of that era, it has endured. It even pioneered the move to self-service in the middle of the 20th century, and it remains a significant player among the biggest supermarket chains of today.

WHSmith, the newsagent and bookseller, developed from the late 1840s alongside the growing railway network. There was soon a stall to be seen inside every station of any size, providing the passenger with novels or newspapers for their journey. In 1900, there were no fewer than 800 branches nationwide. From the beginning of the 20th century, Smith’s also had outlets on town shopping streets.

Boots the chemist was another 19th century chain that is still a standard High Street presence. The first Boots shop opened in Nottingham in 1849. By the turn of the century, there were around 250 branches—and 1,000 by the early 1930s.

Numerous small and large chains, selling many types of commodity, faded away, died, or were taken over. But the striking point is that chain store Britain is nothing new. It dates back well over a century.

The Self-Service Revolution

If online retail was the new feature of early 21st century shopping, self-service was the shopping revolution of the 20th century.

Self-service reached Europe after the Second World War. In the U.S., it had been an accidental invention of the Great Depression, when abandoned factories and warehouses were turned into makeshift, cut-price outlets. Customers picked out goods as they walked around and paid for everything at the end. By the 1940s, this new type of store was well established, often in regional chains, as the “super market.” Postwar, this new American mode of retail operation was exported to the rest of the world.

Information leaflet from 1950s describes how to use a supermarket. Photo: Sainsbury Archive

Promoted as a modern, efficient way to shop, self-service entailed both a different type of store layout and new norms of customer and shop-worker behavior. Before this, every purchase was asked for over the counter, item by item, and the assistant “served” the customer personally. Few goods were packaged, so every order was literally customized: measured or weighed and then wrapped.

But self-service did away with all this. There was no need for counter service if customers were making their own selections. All available goods were put out on display, within reach. No need to ask someone to fetch them. And there was no one else waiting behind you for their turn to be served. You could take your time, look around, or get it done at speed. It was your choice.

This was a newly impersonal shopping environment. The customer was in control of the pace and the selection, but they were on their own and there was no longer someone standing there to serve them. For shop workers, meanwhile, the abolition of counter service meant that their various skills, including their people skills, were made redundant. So too was their often detailed knowledge of the products they sold.

When the customer did encounter a person across a counter, it was not to ask for advice about what to buy; it was simply to pay and get out. Nor was the checkout for chatting. Like factory workers, cashiers had to keep up to speed.

The whole process was meant to be more efficient, a saving of time and money for businesses and customers alike. The customer, notably, was seen now as someone for whom time was a finite and valuable resource. In this way, the shift to self-service perfectly matched with some large social changes of the postwar decades.

As late as the 1960s, for example, “housewife” was the default designation for women over the age of 16 (even though many had part- or full-time jobs). But the “housewife” would soon be replaced by the double-shift working woman, eternally “juggling” the demands of both home and work. By the end of the 20th century, now with the help of a fridge and a car, the daily walk to the local shops had been replaced by a weekly trip to the supermarket, where everything was available under one roof, and the shopping was now a substantial task.

A 1970s supermarket flyer advertising jobs for women. Photo: Sainsbury Archive

The first 1950s self-service stores are distant enough today to have become the subject of mild nostalgia, obscuring the original picture of smart efficiency. Black-and-white photos from the archives show people (particularly women) of every social type gamely learning to manage the curious “basket” containers provided for them to carry around on their arms and fill up as they walked around the shop. What looks odd now, many decades later, is how little they’re buying—just a few jars and tins.

Archive image of shoppers in a supermarket. Photo: Sainsbury Archive

Save Time Online

With self-service firmly established to assist supposedly “time-poor” consumers, the stage was set for internet shopping to promise an even more efficient way of doing things.

An Ocado flyer from early 2019 displays the caption: “More time living, less time shopping,” as if living and shopping have become mutually exclusive. And crucially, it is not money but time that is the quantifiable currency of the promotion.

In this way, the online upgrade appears to remove all remaining real-life interference from the task of shopping. You don’t have to take yourself anywhere to get to the store, which never closes. There are no empty shelves; everything is always there on the screen. There is still a trolley or basket, but not one that you have to push or carry, and it will hold whatever you “add” to it, irrespective of volume or quantity.

The shop assistant is wholly absent from the screen, although there are downgraded virtual versions available in the form of programmed chat-bots. With online shopping, the backstage work that “fulfills” an order occurs in a storage facility far away and is invisible to the customer. But in large self-service settings, like supermarkets and DIY mega-stores, the role of the checkout cashier had already been reduced to that single scanning function, requiring no specialist range of skills and no particular knowledge of any one of the thousands of possible things, from bananas to baby wipes, that they might be rapidly moving along.

Back To The “Real” Shops?

Town centers had been dying a much discussed death for years, as more and more shops were being closed down and stayed unused.

But amid the doom and gloom, some towns were taking action to resist the trend, battling back with collective imagination and sometimes with significant financial backing. Shrewsbury Town Council revitalized a 1970s market building to make it a thriving center for food stalls, cafés, and specialist shops. The council also bought a couple of rundown indoor shopping centers in the town, which can now be redeveloped with community interests in mind.

On a smaller scale is Treorchy in South Wales, which won a national best High Street prize in 2019, thanks to its flourishing independent shops and cafés. They all worked together to organize cultural events with the help of an enterprising chamber of commerce.

Still, initiatives like these were the exception. For the places at the other extreme, where boarded-up units were everywhere, the call to keep shops open could sound like a hopeless plea, and too late to make a difference.

Lockdown’s Impact

In the first weeks of lockdown, it seemed that the pandemic would hasten the move online, by closing down most of the shops that were left and seemingly leaving online as the only option. But as that slow, strange time went on, it became clear that something quite different was going on. Two years later, we can see that the lockdowns brought about a return to slower, more local, and personal modes of shopping.

The shops still open for normal business—those that officially qualified as providers of “essential” goods—were being used in new (and yet old) ways. They became places to go for some vital variation in our daily routines.

People also began to make a point of supporting and using independent local shops. At the same time, home deliveries were being organized by these smaller shops, often working together in groups. This was the case with Heathfield, a few miles from Thomas Turner’s village in East Sussex. And it had nothing to do with the networks set up by the supermarkets and other big chains.

In the media, shop assistants, working on checkouts or filling shelves, began to be referred to as “frontline workers.” The implication of this “promotion” was that they were doing invaluable work that was comparable to the public-spirited dedication of NHS employees.

The local high street seemed to be benefitting from renewed appreciation. It was as if the pandemic had demonstrated what shops were really for, and why we should not let them go. To say that shops—real shops—are a much-needed community resource used to sound worthy and well-meaning. Now it just states the obvious.

A Return To Home Delivery

Meanwhile, another related revival is happening: home delivery. This is often assumed to have been an online invention, promoted by big supermarkets as the latest expansion of their networks and by big stores of all kinds.

But until the middle of the 20th century, most shops offered home delivery as a matter of course. For many food products, like milk or meat, this arrangement was the default. The butcher’s boy brought round the tray of meat, and the milkman delivered the bottles direct to your doorstep every morning.

With self-service came the end of most home delivery services, too. When bigger supermarkets were built on the edges of towns, in the 1980s and 1990s, the basket became a big trolley, and people put all the bags they came out with into their car. As with all the other changes associated with “self”-service, the difference was that customers were doing this work themselves.

The new delivery services offered by smaller, independent stores that started up during lockdown represented a return to local arrangements that were standard before the arrival of self-service. Yet, orders are often now made online. In this case, then, new technology has actively contributed to the revival of an older form of shopping.

In the East Sussex village of Rushlake Green, for example, the local shop began to offer home deliveries. This was so successful that they acquired a new delivery van with their name on the side. This marked something of a return to the 1930s, when local shops first started investing in a “motor van” to make deliveries (a new trend much remarked on in the trade handbooks of the time).

As it happens, this joining of the traditional with the latest tech is itself a long established phenomenon in the history of retail distribution. New modes of transport and communication have repeatedly modified the existing conditions of shopping, and the current manifestation has striking antecedents.

Virginia Woolf’s last novel, Between the Acts, offers a nice illustration of this. It is set at the end of the 1930s, when the installation of domestic telephones was beginning to make it possible for affluent customers to ring up the shop and order their meat or groceries for delivery without having to leave the house or send a servant.

One scene in the novel has a country lady distractedly ordering fish “in time for lunch” while she brushes her hair in front of the mirror and murmurs lines of poetry to herself. A few pages later, just as she requested, “The fish had been delivered. Mitchell’s boy, holding them in a crook of his arm, jumped off his motorbike.”

In Woolf’s time, this mode of transport, along with the phoned-in order, was a notable innovation, allowing just-in-time gourmet food deliveries. Almost a century later, the exclusive telephone is now the semi-universal smartphone, but the method of ordering at a distance is the same. And as it turns out, the motorbike has not been superseded in the online age of Deliveroo.

— Rachel Bowlby is a professor of comparative literature at University College London.

[theivfdiaries]

19w4d

We had a terrifying day yesterday. I went to the bathroom and when I looked down saw the water was red and I had passed a quarter-sized clot of blood. It felt like a nightmare, I couldn’t believe this was happening. I screamed for my husband, called my midwife, and she told us to head to the hospital immediately. We ran out of the house, I grabbed the Doppler on my way out, and my husband drove at 90mph+ to the hospital. I started having period-like cramps in the car. I did do the Doppler in the car and found baby’s heartbeat, so I knew he was ok at least for the time being.

We got to the hospital and were sent down to Labor and Delivery. We had to wait at least 20 minutes or so in the waiting room for them to clear a room for us. I had been trying to stay calm and I had done well so far. But in the waiting room I just broke down and started sobbing. I felt like we were losing him and I had no idea what I was going to do if we did. It felt like I was trapped in my worst nightmare.

Finally we were brought into a room. I couldn’t figure out how to put the gown on and neither could my husband. I started sobbing again. We had an amazing nurse who came in and helped me put it on. Coincidentally, she has the same name we have picked out for our future daughter. It felt really serendipitous.

As soon as I laid down in the bed, I started feeling baby kick, which was hugely reassuring. But I also felt more blood come out. My midwife came in and checked his heart rate. She found his heartbeat quickly and said it was in the 140s, which is what it usually is, so we could tell he wasn’t in obvious distress.

We waited a little longer and finally the doctors came in. They did a cervical exam which was super painful, but they said my cervix was totally closed and not at all dilated, so I wasn’t at risk of going into labor. They also saw some brown blood in my vagina but no blood in my cervix, which was also a good sign.

They did an ultrasound and said everything looked perfect there too. My placenta is posterior and in a perfect position. Fluid around the baby was the right amount. No sign of any distress, and baby was kicking and flipping around like crazy. He kept kicking at the doctor and at the ultrasound machine, which was pretty funny. We didn’t get to see much of him, other than his beating heart, and then at one point he stretched out his arm and I got to see his whole little hand. Then he put it in front of his face, I’m pretty sure to suck his thumb as usual.

With no sign of anything discernibly wrong and baby doing perfectly, they said whatever was causing the bleeding obviously wasn’t affecting him and that we had done the right thing by coming in, but they weren’t concerned at all. They checked with the doctor who works with my midwives if he wanted to keep me overnight for monitoring (the doctors who checked me were residents) and he said definitely not, and discharged me right away.

Weirdly, even though we had been terrified to go to the hospital (especially with covid), we found ourselves not wanting to leave. We felt so safe there. We had a private room and saw only one other couple in the waiting room. The staff was so amazingly kind. We both feel really good about the fact that that’s where we’ll be going when it is time to deliver.

When we got home, I started bleeding again. Called my midwife back, and she said not to worry unless I bleed more than half a cup at this point. So I spent the entire evening being terrified to go to the bathroom. At one point when I did, I passed another bright red clot. But when I laid down again, baby was still kicking like crazy.

We went over to my mom’s house and decided to stay over, because I always feel calmer there and my mom is such a comforting presence for me. I was terrified to go to bed because I kept having visions of waking up in a pool of blood. But I was so beyond exhausted that I fell asleep on the couch for an hour. Then when I woke up, we went up to bed. I had to pee twice in the middle of the night, and the blood was brown both times. I was so exhausted that I actually slept pretty well, but my husband barely slept because he was so anxious and terrified.

All day today, I’ve had super mild cramps and some dark brown spotting. It seems like it’s wrapping up. Baby is also kicking a ton. I have a feeling it was a subchrionic hematoma that was so small that the ultrasound didn’t pick it up. But we’ll probably never know.

One weird thing that came out of yesterday is that when we were in the hospital, my husband and I both felt like we knew baby’s name. We planned to wait until he was born to name him, and we still will wait to make it official, but we both felt so close to him yesterday when faced with the idea of losing him and knowing how grateful we were that he was ok, and both of us kept thinking of him with the same name.

Thank goodness our anatomy scan is tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll get some much-needed reassurance then.

[writes-eat-sleep-repeat]

Seeing Red

Prompt: PMS days

Pairing: Spooky x Reader

Warning/ notes: Major fluff. Not grammatically correct. Currently on my menses which inspired this one shot. Hope it can comfort other spooky lovers during their time of the month. Enjoy ;)

Summary: Spooky takes care of his girlfriend when she’s on her menses. Just him and her!

Word count: 2063

As you opened your eyes you peered through the curtains of your room and noticed it was a rainy day outside in LA. The sky was somewhere between a light gray and the cusp of a white. They kind of color that hurt your eyes if you stared at it to long. Rubbing the sleep out of your eyes you rolled over on your back and instantaneously felt the stinging in our stomach. It was day two of your menses. They worst day of them all. often you thought about what it might feel like to get shot and came to the conclusion it couldn’t possibly be any worse than this. While you laid back staring up at the ceiling you heard your phone vibrate. Looking over all you could mutter was “shit” 8 miss calls and 15 text. You looked at the clock on the nightstand to your left 10:00 am. Opening the text you scroll to the top and began reading

‘Hey mama’-3:15 pm

Missed call 3:30 pm

‘Hello’-4:00pm

Missed call 5:00 pm

‘Y/N’-5:30 pm

Missed call 6:00 pm

‘Y/N pick up the phone’- 6:30 pm

The calls and messages entwined like this for the next couple of hours until you guess your boyfriend finally fell asleep. You cant believe you slept for basically 19 hours straight. Aside from a few bathroom and water breaks where you had to use all the power you could muster up to complete those task, you somehow forgot to check your phone. Throwing your arm over your face to block out what little light was peaking through the window you could hear your roommate/ best friend Rebecca getting ready for work. BUZZZZ someone rang the doorbell. You heard him before you saw him. Out in the living room talking with you bestie, ‘where is Y/N’ he asked her. Oh no. He sounds pissed.

You laid frozen with your hand over your arm wanting the earth to swallow you whole. ‘She’s not feeling well’ you heard Rebecca respond. You always avoided Oscar on days like this because you were afraid to get mad and finally scare him away with your crazy . He burst into your room bringing the bright light from the hallway with him. You felt the irritation slowly building. Removing your hand with a sigh you look over to your right at the door. ‘Couldn’t pick up your phone’ he asked with a particular edge to his voice that brought out your annoyance to what seemed to be instantaneously. ‘I was sleeping’ you said letting acid seep into your voice. ‘For a fucking day’ he yelled. That’s it, you thought sitting up it bed which was followed by a gush of blood below causing you further annoyance.

“I’m not dealing with your shit today. 1. I spoke to you yesterday afternoon and its only 10 am meaning it wasn’t a whole fucking day. 2. Becca told you I wasn’t feeling well and instead of coming in here and asking if I’m okay you choose too come in here and yell at me like your my daddy. 3. Your not my daddy 4. My hormones are all over the place and I literally feel like i am dying so unless you plan on helping and not being an ass I suggest you leave.’ Oscar who you never ever send away looked more hurt than even mad that you yelled at him. He never took that kind of disrespect from anyone being the gang leader he is. ‘Okay, well.. what’s wrong? ummm... how can I help?’ he asked. ‘ you cant’ you replied. “Y?N...” ‘I have to go to the store and get some stuff.’ You swung you legs of the bed and tried to stand up only to be meet with crippling pain. Before you could even fully bend over to hold your stomach Oscar was there pushing you back onto the bed. ‘Your not driving like this’ he said. ‘Tell me what you need and ill get it for you’ he finished. ‘ you cant, ok its personal girl stuff’ you replied shyly. ‘ I didn’t ask you what it was. I said to tell me what you need’ he sternly answered. After writing a list that and handing it to him he said he’ll be back in 15 minutes. You took this time to take some pain medication and crawl to the bathroom just barely managing to take a shower while he was gone. Rebecca poked her head in to let you know she was heading out so you knew it was time to leave the shower so you could let Oscar back in. Standing in your room trying to figure out what to wear you decided on a pair of black leggings and one of oscars hoodie that you stole from him. You just needed to be comfy. As you were pulling the hoodie down over your head you heard the door buzzz. Heading out the the front door you pulled it open to find Oscar with 4 shopping bags. He walked past you to the kitchen and put them on the counter. ‘What exactly did you buy Oscar I only asked for a pack of pads and a soda” you asked quizzically, with what you were sure was a confused look on your face.

‘Well you said always overnight but they had 2 different kinds and I didn’t want to call you so I got both and then i got you some Advil, i mean I don’t know if that works for that kind of pain’ he said gesturing towards your stomach ‘but, i got it anyway and the lady at the store said it was good and suggested i get you something sweet and I couldn’t decide on one, so i bought one of every candy and...’ he didn’t get to finish his rambling because you walked over to him and kissed him lovingly to interrupting, he responded by holding your neck firmly in place and meeting you with the same level of passion. Pulling away for oxygen you looked up into the liquid brown eyes of Oscar Diaz and all you could say is ‘I love You’. “Go sit down mama I’m making breakfast” was his response. “Ummmm...I kinda wanted ice cream for breakfast’ you said. ‘Ice cream is not breakfast. No wonder i cant get cesear to eat any real food’ he teased you. Knowing you looked after the younger Diaz while he was locked up. ‘Hey. I eat real food but today my a baby maker wants ice cream so, I eat ice cream’ you joked. Walking over to the couch in the living room knowing he will never let you eat the ice cream first.

Settling down under the black throw that was on the couch you began to flick through Netflix trying to find something to watch. Settling on a romantic comedy. It wasn’t t long before Oscar walked over with your plate in hand. You couldn’t help but laugh as he approached you in Rebecca’s -queen of the kitchen-apron. Your attention then turned on the intoxicating smell drifting off the plate in his hand and settling in your nose. Homemade fluffy pancakes, eggs and fried salami (Oscar knew you weren’t a bacon person). He handed you the plate and placed his on the coffee table before heading back to the kitchen to remove the apron and grab your drinks. By the time he returned you were already half way through your meal. As he sat down to begin his meal. You were full and much more happy, you still couldn’t escape what you could only assume to be a stabbing taking place in your stomach but this is as happy as you were gonna get. You were content. Watching Oscar eat you eyes drifted to the santos tattoo on is neck and dirty thoughts began popping into your head. Just filthy thoughts, scooting a little closer to your man you kissed it midway him bringing some eggs to his mouth. He paused looking at you from the side through those long eyelashes with a lifted eyebrow.

That put your hormones in overdrive, you wanted him now! ‘ I liked the breakfast’ was all you could manage. Shaking his head he returned to his meal. You kissed his tattoo again, then licked it and then began sucking it. You hadn’t realized Oscar had put his dish down when he lifted you onto his lap. You were face to face, sitting on his lap you noticed he was a little hard. Biting your lip and now staring at his lips thinking of all the possibilities you could do with his mouth he smiled. Damnit the dimples. At this point you couldn’t blame the full wetness on the blood. Ugh, why did you have to have a period. ‘Hi’ he said still smiling. “Hi” you smiled back, clearing your throat “ummm... I really, really liked the breakfast” you continued. “I appreciate the gratitude and the delivery of it but, I don’t think you should start something you cant finish right now in your current state” he replied. ‘Oh’ you answered climbing off of him bringing you knees to your chest. You know his rejection was well placed and he was right but with your hormones all over the place it hit you harder than you expected. ‘Hey, hey he said moving it closer to you. You know I would do absolutely terrible things to you Mi amor, but your not at 100 right now and I don’t want you feel like you have to have sex for me to stay. Okay? He asked. ‘Yeah, umm.. that wasn’t for you but, Okay.’ nodding you moved over to curl up next to him as he finished his meal. Peaking up at him every now ad then you started thinking about how you both had changed.

You knew Oscar essentially Your entire life. Your dad’s were cool and so Oscar spent a lot of time in your fathers auto shop learning, since your dad never had a son he welcomed the apprenticeship. You were no tomboy and completely against anything other than reading. It wasn’t that far fetched you and Oscar began dating in high school. You remembered the first time getting your period and trying to explain what was happening to him; you not even knowing yourself. ‘So your bleeding’ twelve year old Oscar asked. ‘Yes’ you replied. ‘From your Vagina’ he whispered. ‘ yes’ you whispered back. “So... why does this happen?’ He asked. ‘Well my mom said when you are growing up it happens when you don’t have a baby. I think’ you replied. ‘So, your body is hurting you because you don’t have a baby?’he asked. ‘Ummm... yeah, I guess’ you answered. ‘So why not just have a baby? Said Oscar ‘ I asked that too, my dad said because he’ll kill me. So I guess I’m suppose to just suffer in silence’ you answered.

The memory bought a smile to your face and a small giggle escaped your lips causing Oscar to glance down quizzically at you now cuddled up next to him with your head on his shoulders. “ I was just remembering the first time I got my period and you thought having a baby would be the answer to all my menses related problems” you answered his unspoken question. ‘It still could be’ was all he replied shaking his head’ Smiling, most likely remembering the memory too. ‘I’m sorry I yelled at you earlier’ he continued. ‘It’s just being me...well people... its hard...-I know’ you cut him of. ‘Being you is hard and you not only have to think about you but the gang as well , Cesar....Me. I know you, your head goes to the worst possible scenario automatically. I know how worried you get. I should have checked my phone. I’m sorry too” you said pecking him on the cheek. With a quick nod of the head he returned his attention back to the screen. He wasn’t a man of many words. You two watched movies for the rest of the night. There were far and few instances when you had Oscar to yourself. When he was Oscar and not spooky. You relished these moments, these feelings and saved them for times when being is girlfriend seems less than ideal. For tonight, it’s enough to just cuddle up with your man and watch a movie.

[crispybelieverperfection]

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[bluewhale52]

The History of Us - Ch. 32

Synopsis: You have built your career and you have 2 rising hip hop superstars as your besties. Life is pretty good, until one drunken night that derails your life plan. How would you survive?

Pairing: ?? x OC , main characters are mostly Namjoon, Yoongi and Tae, but all 7 are present now

Fic type: text

WC: 1.9k

Genre: Strangers to Lovers!AU, fluff, angst, NSFW

Rated: R

Warning: pregnancy, labor, swearing, JK is just the best

Disclaimer: photos are not mine, and of course characterization and scenarios of the boys are purely of my imagination

Masterlist  |  Next>>

Ch. 32 - Let’s Get It

28 June 2019, 9:35pm

Jungkook and Taehyun sit on your sofa, frozen in place, eyes wide and full of fear. You get off the phone with the hospital, and signal to them that you are ready to leave. The boys immediately jump up- Taehyun grabs your overnight bag, while Jungkook gingerly supports you. Slowly you make your way to Taehyun’s car (well Jin’s really, he has entrusted his car to his PA for an emergency such as this), stopping  a few times when you have to endure and breathe through your contractions. 

The cramps started in the late morning with little bearable aches on your lower back and lower abdomen, nothing too different than the monthly period cramps. Then those aches gradually picked up their intensity, and by dinner, you were wailing in your apartment. 

Jungkook has stayed with you all day and witnessed first hand the pre-labour process. You have forbidden him to tell anyone in the group chat, not wanting to worry your friends. When evening came, Jungkook could not take it anymore and called Taehyun. Lucky that he did, as the contractions were getting even worse, and at least Jungkook has a friend to freak out together with. 

And now, here you are in the backseat, giving Jungkook’s hand a deadly grip whenever the pains come on. Taehyun is driving, going as fast as he can within the speed limits, panicking every time he hears you wail and curse.  

Arriving at the hospital, Taehyun haphazardly parks the car in front of the ER and shoots out to find a wheelchair. Jungkook helps you get out, wrapping you in his arms as you cry through another contraction.

Jungkook has never seen you like this. A bawling mess and completely helpless. Even during the period when you were broken up with Taehyung, which Jungkook knows to be one of the hardest moments in your life, you were stoic, strong and in control. But now, Jungkook feels utterly hopeless.

At the maternity ward, the midwife only allows one person to accompany you, so Taehyun stays outside at the waiting area. She then quickly checks on you and preps you for labour. Jungkook turns away when you are changed into a hospital gown, but he stays by your side, probably because you haven’t eased up your grip on his hand. 

“Your water has not broken yet, and you’re only dilated 7cm.” The midwife announces. Then she turns to Jungkook, “You’re dad?”

Jungkook shakes his head, eyes still wide in fear and confusion.

“No,” you gasp, “dad is not here.” 

“OK, we’re going to roll you in to wait for labour to commence. You want him to come in with you till Dad arrives?” The midwife asks gently.

You nod your head. Jungkook gulps.

--

28 June 2019, 10:05pm

You’re clutching onto Jungkook as another bout of pain courses through you. He hugs you, rubbing your shoulders gently. It is the only thing he can do, wishing somehow it helps. 

You feel the cold sensation of the antiseptic on your spine. You sense Jungkook’s body tensing. You have seen the needles used in epidural, and how it is injected into the body. But all this is new to Jungkook.

“Kook,” you whisper, “just close your eyes.”

He whimpers like a scared puppy, but he can’t help himself to look. “Oh my god Noona, it’s so long.”

“Yes,” you pant, “I know. Just don’t look, OK, it’s not pretty.”

The anaesthetist is ready. “OK, let’s wait for this contraction to pass... and now, hold on to him and take a deep breath...” You feel the metal tip of the needle pricks your skin, but you don’t feel the needle going in, you don’t feel any pain other than the severe pressure on your lower back and abdomen. 

Jungkook continues to whimper, a series of ‘Oh my God’ continue leaving his mouth. You are starting to worry if he is going to faint, so you pinch his arm sharply.

“Ouch!” Jungkook yelps. “That hurts, Noona!”

The midwife next to you laughs. “Oh honey, don’t talk about pain to a woman in labour.”

You glare at Jungkook. “Don’t. Fucking. Faint. On. Me.”

Jungkook wants to throw up. The whole epidural injection is making his stomach queasy. But he swallows his bile and continues to hold you, humming a song you recognise as Jimin’s, to distract himself.

Once the epidural kicks in, you feel somewhat normal, and Jungkook can breathe easily again. 

“You’re still not fully dilated yet, so we’re going to wait for a couple more hours, OK? Meanwhile, try to get some sleep.” The midwife suggests.

You settle on your bed. exhausted. “Fuck, Jungkook. Don’t have kids.”

Jungkook buries his face in his hands. “Noona, that was so scary. Do you know how long that needle was? And it went right into your spine!”

You laugh weakly as you pat his head. “Any news from Tae or Jin?”

Jungkook takes out his phone. There are a flurry of messages from Taehyun and in the group chat. He skims through them. “Taehyun said Jin Hyung should be able to fly out in the morning, so he'll be here by tomorrow night.” He scrolls further. “Taehyung Hyung may take longer, Noona. Maybe two days from now.”

Your first child together with those two men and none of them is here with you. Jungkook sees your face crumple and immediately strokes your hair. “Noona, don’t cry please.”

You take a deep breath. “Then it’s just you and me, Kookie.” 

He smiles nervously, but his doe eyes are full of sincerity. “You got me Noona. I’ll stay by your side till Little Miss arrives.”

~~~

29 June 2019, 0145am

You wake up in a daze, almost forgetting where you are. You hear the beeping sound of the machine next to you. You rub your belly as you coo to your baby. “How long more do we need to wait, baby? I can't wait to see you.”

Jungkook is fast asleep in his chair, right next to your bed. You reach out and play with his hair, thankful for his presence at the absence of your lover and your baby daddy. He jerks awake however, at the sounds coming into the delivery room.

Dr Choi enters with the midwife. After a quick update on your condition, he positions himself before you. “OK, you’re dilated fully now, but your water still hasn’t broken yet. Everything else points to baby getting ready to pop out, so we’re going to break your water.”

Jungkook immediately straightens up. Dr Choi looks at him. “He’s new.” The ob-gyn points out to you.

“They're not here,” you feel the need to clarify, your doctor obviously expected to see Taehyung or Jin, “and this one is a friend.”

Dr Choi nods. “OK then, young man, let’s meet baby!”

Jungkook looks at you and takes a deep breath. “Let’s get it.” He says nervously.

~~~

29 June 2019, 0230am

You collapse onto the bed. You feel like you have been pushing and pushing for hours, but there is no progress. The baby just will not come out. Jungkook tightens his arm around your shoulders, supporting you as you try to push again at the midwife’s command.

Dr Choi asks for forceps, and Jungkook’s eyes widen at the sight of the tool. “Noona, what’s that for...” He whispers.

“Shut up Jungkook, just hold my hand!” You shout at him in frustration.

He obediently secures his grip on your hand, and while he is horrified by the whole labour procedure, curiosity is starting to get the better of him. He tries to peek at what is happening between your legs. 

Dr Choi pulls the forceps out, blood staining the metal. Jungkook gasps. “Noona, there’s blood..” He stops as he sees you glaring at him. 

Dr Choi’s face indicates the tool has not helped to progress the delivery either. “I’m afraid we’ll have to do an episiotomy.” 

You nod your head, trusting him and his years of experience to get your baby out. Jungkook turns to you. “What.. what is that?”

“You don’t want to know.” You mutter.

Dr Choi however, is pleased to describe what he is doing, to Jungkook. “I’m going to cut the skin between her vaginal opening and her anus, to enlarge the opening for baby.” Dr Choi smiles. “Don’t worry, she won’t feel a thing, the epidural is in full force here.”

Jungkook squeezes your shoulders in fright. “Oh my god, Noona, he’s going to cut you down there, are y-”

“JUNGKOOK JUST SHUT UP!” you scold him. 

“But Noona, that's so fucked up, it’s down there..”

You grab his shirt. “SHUT. UP.”

“OK!” Dr Choi exclaims, almost cheerfully. “This should do the trick. OK, ready to push on the next contraction?”

~~~

29 June 2019, 02:51am

“OK, the head is here, just one more push!” 

Jungkook is now sitting behind you, his broad chest supporting you and his hands have become your anchor. “You can do it, Noona, she’s almost here.”

He has transformed from a blubbering, nervous delivery partner to your loudest cheerleader. You want to punch and kiss him at the same time.

At the midwife’s signal to push, you push again with all your might. In doing so, you squeeze Jungkook’s hands even harder, and he swallows his yelp, too excited to see your baby soon, and also too scared at the possibility you would shout at him again.

“Shoulders... and there she is!” Dr Choi announces.

You feel a massive relief on your lower abdomen as your baby is born, and you collapse onto Jungkook’s chest, finally letting out all the tears. Congratulations are going all around, but you notice you hear no crying from your baby.

“Jungkook, she’s not crying. She's not crying.” You start to panic.

Jungkook rubs your arms. “The nurses are taking her away to check her Noona.” He says soothingly. “I’m sure Little Miss is fine.”

You continue holding onto his hands tightly, worry and fear now in full swing. Dr Choi returns to his seat before you, and explains in a much calmer tone that he is going to get your placenta out, before sewing the incision that he had to do earlier. 

You start crying into Jungkook’s neck, all you want to do now is hold your baby. You are aware of the risk of giving birth a month earlier than your due date, and you cannot help but think of the worst. Jungkook cradles you, singing to you to calm you down.

A few minutes later, the midwife comes back with your baby loosely wrapped in a swaddle. She eases your worry by telling you that Little Miss has passed all the checks, and despite being premature, she is as healthy as they come. You sob in relief, and you ask Jungkook to continue staying by your side even as the midwife removes your gown for your long awaited skin-to-skin contact with Little Miss.

“Noona, she’s tiny.” Jungkook whispers, eyes hypnotised by the baby on your bosom. 

“How big do you think she’d be, Jungkook?” you tease him between your happy tears. 

“She’ll fit in my palm.” You turn to look at him and smile affectionally as he wipes his tears. “Noona, thank you for letting me be here.”

~~~

29 June 2019, 03:12am

Published 29012021