#Preschool Fall Coloring Sheets | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tear-stained-blankie · 3 years

Text

I've been meaning to do this forever and I'm bored/can't sleep so...

MLQC Boys as CG's!

⭐💗⭐💗⭐💗⭐💗⭐💗⭐💗⭐💗⭐💗⭐

Victor

At first he'd think you were joking about your regression or just pretending to act younger for attention (ouch.)

Don't worry, it wouldn't take him long to realize that he totally screwed up in making that assumption.

He's a busy CG and has to work a lot, but he loves you very much and makes as much time for you as he can.

Very protective of you. He tells you to hold his hand when crossing the street, makes you wear coats or bring them 'just in case,' and brings the entire house with you when you leave because you might need anything.

The only thing he can't handle is tantrums. (Panic attacks/meltdowns don't count as tantrums, he knows you can't help those.)

Takes you to souvenir all the time and makes sure he knows exactly how to make all your favorite foods.

He's too scared to wash your comfort items, so he asks someone else to do it for him, but only because he doesn't want to mess up.

He teases you a lot, but he means we'll by it and really doesn't mean to offend you.

Not strict, but he's not chill either. He has a specific set of rules for you, but nothing out of your comfort zone.

He's actually a big softie (don't tell him I said that.)

He's open to any male CG names (daddy, dada, papa, etc.)

Calls you: pumpkin pie, muffin, sweetie, boo, etc.

Would be best with littles 5+

Gavin

Doesn't have a clue what littles are.

It takes him forever to understand, but once he gets it, he makes sure he does a good job being your CG.

He secretly holds you a little tighter and is a little more protective of you than before.

Let's you go to the police station and meet the other officers that he works with. They all know you by name, get you presents and always have a lollipop ready when you come to visit.

He lets you sit in his police car and start the siren if you want.

If you want to, but the siren scares you, he's got noise cancelling headphones handy.

He is such a fun CG, he'll make everything into a game so that it'll be fun for you.

If you're fussy/can't sleep, since Gavin can control the wind, he takes you for 'uppies' where the two of you just fly around until you feel better or fall asleep.

Tries to teach you new things and constantly tries to keep you engaged in things. "What color is that, little one?" "Can you tell me how many that is?" "Can you tell me about (insert thing here)?"

When you cry or get upset, he pulls you into his lap and bumps his knee up and down while you sit on it to calm you down.

He always tries to make you giggle.

He is perfectly fine with any caregiver names you give him (masculine, feminine or gender neutral.)

Calls you: giggles, sweetheart, bubs, junior, little one, etc.

He's best with littles 3+

Lucien

Oh my goodness, he loves being a caregiver.

He's pretty childish himself in a way, so he'd be super good with caring for his little.

He would immediately sit down with you and ask why you didn't tell him sooner. Then, he'd ask you if he'd ever said anything that made you feel upset and try to get things right immediately.

Arranges all your comfort items the way you want them because he loves putting things in order.

Very paitent. If he has a chatty little, he'll listen. If he has a quiet or nonverbal little, he'll try to find out what you need by asking questions or by telling you to point. If you're fussy, he immediately puts his focus on finding out why. He's amazing, okay?

Loves taking you to the children's museum. He gets to teach you about science and animals and you get to have fun. He'd even buy you a stuffy afterwards.

Loves to color with you and he loves to watch you color. If you're too little to color when little, he teaches you how to grip a pencil and let's you draw.

Keeps all your coloring pages and drawings, he loves them.

Is fine with being called dada, papa, mama, etc. Just not daddy or mommy.

He calls you his little fool (like the game but this time for real because you are his little.) He also calls you cutie, baby (gender,) bug, princess/prince/royal, etc.

He's good with any little, he just wants someone to love and make happy.

Shaw

Oh gosh, his initial reaction is not great (he doesn't understand.)

*laughs a bit* "Is this a joke?" "Are you trying to tell me you want a baby?"

He calls his brother, Gavin to see if he understands what you're going on about. Then he realizes he was a big ole jerk.

Immediately apologizes and agrees to be your caregiver.

He's not good at it at first, he really is trying, he just doesn't know what he's doing. "Oh, you're little now? Cool! So uh, we still making dinner or no?"

Gavin bonks him on the head a couple of times and shows his brother how to properly care for you and he's much better after that.

He likes doing preschool activity sheets/books with you. He even plays preschool with you. He's the teacher and your toys are your classmates.

Swears up and down that he doesn't really care for watching little shows with you but he loves it. You've even caught him once or twice singing the theme song to your favorite little shows.

(Not really a fitting headcanon for this post, but I'm putting it in anyway.) If you guys watch Hurcules or Descendants 3 when you're regressed, he thinks Hades is the coolest character he's ever seen.

Since he has the power to control storms, if you like them, he can make that happen. If you don't like them, he can make storms go away.

Prefers daddy or dada as a CG name for him, but is okay with anything really.

Calls you: lightning bug, little lightning, thunderbolt, little lion, firefly, angel, sweet baby, etc.

Is good with littles 3 and 1/2+

Kiro

Oh boy, oh boy, my favorite! (I'll shut up now and get back to the HC's xD)

Have you seen how childish he is? He would think your regression is the cutest thing he's ever seen.

Makes you a 'baby' room and a 'big' room.

Likes making you cute foods like Mickey Mouse pancakes, Octopus hotdogs, etc.

Is so understanding about everything, most of the time he knows when something is bothering you. You don't even have to tell him.

Let's you help him write some music with him and pick instruments you like to be in his songs.

The king of lullibies, he loves singing to you and it sounds precious when he does it.

He's also really good at reading and telling bedtime stories. He loves doing voices and making you smile.

When he has to leave to go on tour, he asks Gavin to babysit. When he comes back, he brings you a present everytime.

Teaches you little songs about everything like how to set the table, going to bed, different stuff.

Makes your stuffies talk a lot and almost always gives them accurate voices.

He's a reward chart kinda CG's, he has a reward chart for you in just about everything from self care to eating your veggies.

He doesn't care if it's three in the morning, if his baby needs something, he gets it for you.

Is okay with all caregiver names except 'daddy."

Calls you: baby chips, chocolate chip, little biscuit, little rockstar, (insert cg nicknames here's) little one, etc.

Is good with any littles, but the younger the headspace, the better he is.

#sfw interaction only #sfw agere #sfw little community #sfw little blog #sfw little one #sfw little stuff #comfort character #kiro mlqc #mlqc #mlqc headcanon

32 notes · View notes

harrysgoldenbum · 4 years

Text

Little Hands

His kids woke up early. He knows this because he can hear them talking to each other through the thin walls. He can hear their little kid voices getting animated as the sun slowly continues to rise. He can hear them giggle, gasp, and groan.

Harry looks over his shoulder to see Y/N past out, oblivious to what her children are up to so early in the morning. She back is to him with her legs intertwined with his and her bum pressed to the small of his back.

Harry lays there for a moment, taking in the quiet humming his son and daughter are projecting into the house, he feels this peacefulness take over his mind and body. He watches the fan that hangs above him and his wife while he listens to his daughter telling her brother about the dream she had. He listens to his son return the favor. Telling her about the dinosaur that became his friend.

There is a couple of hours before the alarm goes off, when Harry decides to get out of bed and join his kids. He turns off the alarm that way Y/N can sleep longer while he takes on the mission to entertain their young ones. Pulling on some sweats and a shirt, Harry walks over to his son’s room and sees the two of them laying in one bed staring up at the glow in the dark stars Y/N had glued on the ceiling. His baby girl had her stuffed elephant under her arm, while his little man had his stuffed T-Rex next to his head.

“G’ morning bubs,” Harry rasps.

“Papa! You’re awake!” his little girl cries out. She slides out the sheets and toddles over to Harry. She wraps her arms around Harry’s leg and presses her cheek to his thigh. Looking up at him with her big doe eyes that are blessed with the same jade color as her papa and her mama’s thick lashes. A small smile tugs it’s way onto her lips.

Harry gently runs his fingers through her dark locks. Her crazy bed head is just like her mother’s. Tangled and all over the place.

His son sits on his own bed with a pillow in his lap with a smile that shows his missing tooth. His eyes are the same color as his mama’s, and his eyes were the gateway that showed all his emotions. It was that every trait that had caught Harry’s attention when he met Y/N. So knowing when his son had the same trait and color, Harry’s heart always soften. Picking up his youngest, Harry walks over to the twin size bed and drops onto it. Making the bed bounce and his kids giggle. Moving to the head of the bed, Harry lays flat on his back while his son and daughter climb around him and get comfortable with their heads on his chest. His son’s arms wrap around his waist while his daughter’s hand went to Harry’s ear lobe.

“What do we want to have for breakfast today, hmm?” he asks. Knowing that they usually get oatmeal, eggs, or some other nutritional breakfast. So wanting to make it a fun and special day, he wanted to see what they would pick, and he would make it happen.

“Waffles!” his son exclaimed. Twirling his finger around Harry’s shirt, “with blackberries and blueberries and strawberries.”

“Mmmhh, blackberries. Papa! I want blackberries too!”

With a light chuckle, he agrees.

After a few minutes of laying there, Harry urges his kiddos to get up.

“We have to make waffles, don’t we?”

With a shriek, his daughter scrambles out of bed, with his son following behind her. He can hear them stomping down the stairs. At a slower pace, he moves to join them. Just before the kids made it to the first floor, Harry watched his son hold his little sister’s hand as they walked down the stairs.

Walking into the kitchen, Harry gets everything his needs and assigns his kids small tasks. With his baby girl sitting on the counter (under Harry’s supervision of course), she washes the fruit as his son brings out the maple syrup, butter, and whipped cream.

When that is done, Harry has them help him measure out the ingredients to make the batter. The two take turns mixing and pouring. When time comes to prep the waffle iron, he lifts his daughter off the counter and tells them to sit on the island stools.

Harry carefully pours the batter on the waffle iron as he listens to his daughter kick the cupboards near her feet. His son is talking to her about preschool and the recital they are working on.

“Papa!” Exclaimed his eldest. “Missus Teacher told me yesterday that I am going to sing the first song!”

“Really bub! That’s exciting! Soon you’ll take me job and then Papa won’t have anything to do!”

“You really think so!”

“Sure do! You’ll probably steal all my fans!”

Looking over to his bub’s sister, Harry sees her looking at bub with a wide grin.

“What about you, angel? Hmm, are you going to be a singer like Papa?”

“No! I’m going to be like mamma.” She says sternly. “I want to dress people up and make them princesses!”

Y/N is a bridal designer, and often brings her projects home. And sure enough, Harry’s daughter will sit with her at the table and watch Y/N sketch, sew, and trim her latest gown.

Once the first few waffles are done, Harry helps his kids pick the berries the want, the topping on their waffles, and poured them a cup and sippy cup of milk. Cutting their waffle into manageable pieces, the trio starts to eat.

“Oh-oh!” whispers the little angel, “Papa! The blackberry went squish!” referring to the berry stain on her nightshirt.

Using his thumb to wipe off the berry juice that stained his daughter’s face, “It’s okay angel, it happens.”

Taking a glance at his son, Harry realizes that he too has blackberry stains on his dinosaur shirt. The juice is dripping down his chin and onto his matching dino shorts.

Harry knew he should have known better. When it came to eating fruit of any kind, his kids were messy eaters. Y/N puts the blame of that trait on him, seeing that she has wiped fruit juice Harry’s face numerous times.

Going to eat his last few berries, Harry stabs them with his fork, only for the blueberry and blackberry to explode and squirts all three of them.

The group breaks into laughter, as Harry tries to wipe up what he can.

It’s minutes later when his princess burps and announces that she doesn’t want to eat anymore. With a cackle, Harry’s bub releases a loud, obnoxious burp. “Excuse me.” He requests with a smug smile.

“What happened to your manners!” Harry playfully scolds.

“They’re with mamma, they’re still asleep” the little man jokes.

Clearing the counter and covering that batter for later, Harry and the kids go into the living room, where Harry is sitting on the couch, with his son sitting next to him doodling in Harry’s journal with Harry’s around his shoulders. Nodding his head along to the children’s TV show that’s playing on the screen.

And his princess is standing on the couch, leaning into Harry while her little fingers run through his hair. Her legs rest along Harry’s side, and his arm is wrapped around her short legs. Her lips are puckered up in concentration.

“Like a monkey aren’t ya. Lookin for treasure and bugs.”

“I’m no monkey Papa! I’m a princess!” She responds in complete seriousness.

With a chuckle bubbling out of Harry’s throat, “that you are, my darlin’ girl.”

For a short few minutes, Harry watches the children’s show quietly. Until his son asks Harry if he can use his left hand. Turning his head, Harry watches his little man trace his hand on the paper. But, his daughter wraps her arms around his head and demands him stop moving. Her skinny bicep squeezes his nose and her hands grasp his forehead and the back of his head.

“I’m doing your hair, Papa!”

“Sorry, sorry.” turning back to face the screen, from the corner of his eye Harry watches his son complete the outline of his hand. The black ink stands out on one side of the paper. Harry watches his son place his left hand in the middle of his and starts to trace.

Once his son is finished with his little hand, Harry decides that he is going to take that page out of the journal and get it framed.

Harry watches his son write out his name and papa.

Harry knows that his babies know how to pull his heartstrings but watching his son’s mind and creativity at work and making such a doodle has Harry tearing up.

Once satisfied with his drawing, Harry’s little man gently closes the journal and places it on the coffee table. Cuddling into Harry’s side, he turns his attention to the TV show. He clings to Harry’s arm and rests his head on his bicep.

All the while, His daughter gently scratches his scalp. Melting Harry’s body onto the couch, he tightens his hold on her. He feels her tiny child like fingers run through his long, dark locks and undoing the knots that were formed from his sleep.

Her face is scrunched up in concentration. She eventually pushes his hair off his shoulder, and rests her head there. With her finger still in his hair she quietly starts cooing.

Harry feels her body getting heavier, and her breathing slows. He gently brings her legs down and tuck her into her side. With the TV show playing in the background, her doe eyes slowly start to shut. Her little hands fist his shirt, and her mouth drops open as she falls asleep.

During this time Harry’s a son, lets out little snores. Indicating that he too has fallen asleep.

Harry lets the feeling of peacefulness wash over him, just before he too closes his eyes and joins his little angels in a morning nap.

My works

568 notes · View notes

amanda-glassen · 3 years

Text

Mommy’s Personal Assistant

Written for my beautiful tumblr wife @ghostwritingcabenson because she and I are deep in our Serena and Baby Liv feels right now.

April 1973

Five-year-old Olivia spent her mornings as a preschool student, but once the bell rang to signal the end of the school day, she began her most important role of all: her mommy’s assistant. Her mommy worked a lot and spent most of her time in a classroom or at the library which meant Olivia would spend those afternoons with her babysitter or at daycare, so the days when her mommy got to do her work from home were an extra special treat for Olivia.

Olivia never understood why grownups hated the commute to work. Her commute was always the highlight of her day. She would exit the school grounds and see her mommy waiting there for her and smiling. Her mommy would then crouch down to give her a hug and she would take in the comforting scent of her mommy’s floral perfume. Olivia didn’t know what type of flower it smelled like but she knew it had to be pretty like her mommy. They’d walk home hand-in-hand and her mommy would ask Olivia’s favorite question to answer, ‘What was your favorite thing that you learned in school today?’ She’d also talk about the games she played with her best friends Alex, Casey, Elliot, and Fin during free-play. If her mommy was in a particularly good mood that day, they’d stop for ice cream along the way.

But as soon as she got home or to the office as she liked to call it, Olivia knew it was time to get down to business. If they didn’t stop for ice cream, her mommy would make her lunch and, during that time, Olivia would go to her mommy’s desk and take stock of what needed to be replenished. First, she’d take the cover off of the typewriter and load a sheet of paper in it. Her mommy went through so much paper, especially when she’d get frustrated with what she typed. She’d crumble the paper and toss it in the wastebasket. Olivia didn’t understand why her mommy would get so frustrated but she figured it was probably because of those really big words that she had to type－words that Olivia couldn’t even pronounce, let alone know the definition of.

Next, she’d get a stack of paper for the typewriter and some notebooks and make sure her mommy had enough pens and pencils within reach. On the first blank page of her notebook, Olivia would always write ‘I love you, Mommy’ because she knew it would make her mom smile when she saw it. “I love you, too, Livvy Bee,” her mommy would always tell her after reading it.

When the desk was ready, that meant it was time for her lunch and time for her mommy to get to work. Olivia knew her mommy was a teaching assistant and working on her dissertation. What it was about, Olivia had no idea, but last week her mommy had brought home a literary journal and told her to turn to page 10. On that page was an article written by Serena Benson. “Mommy, that’s you!” Olivia beamed with pride. “That’s me, darling,” Serena had told her. “...and I couldn’t have done it without you and the important job that you do.”

Olivia knew she played an integral role in their two-person team so as soon as she was finished with her peanut butter and jelly sandwich, she’d go back to her mommy’s desk and sit next to her. Olivia would bring her favorite books and some crayons and a coloring book to keep herself entertained during the next part of her job. The next couple of hours were the easy part because they mainly involved watching over her mommy and seeing if she needed anything. She liked bringing cookies and juice or veggies because it meant her mommy would take a break and eat with her, but Olivia’s favorite snack was potato chips because her mommy would make her laugh by making the chips look like a duck’s beak in her mouth. “You’re silly, Mommy! I wanna do it, too,” Olivia would tell her.

As time passed, Olivia noticed her mommy’s desk would get messy. There was paper and books and pencils scattered and her mommy would start to act differently. Her mommy who would usually act silly to make her laugh would start to become more serious. That was the time when Olivia would go to her room and play with her toys to give her mommy some more space to work. More than anything, she wished her mommy could play Hot Wheels or Tonka trucks with her, but because it was just the two of them, she knew her mommy had to work more than most mommies, so Olivia played in her room until it was time for bed.

Not wanting to bother her mommy, Olivia would usually change into her favorite Sesame Street pajamas, brush her teeth, and go to bed, but that night was different.

“Livvy Bee, come here,” her mom called out to her when Olivia finished brushing her teeth.

Instead of sitting at her desk, her mommy was getting ready for bed and smiling again. “Yes, Mommy?”

“Do you want to sleep with me tonight?” her mommy asked her.

Olivia immediately grabbed her teddy bear and returned to her mommy’s room to find her mommy sitting up in bed. “Can we read a book together?”

“Anything you want, darling.”

Olivia scanned the bookshelf, skipping over her mommy’s books because she thought they were boring. How anyone could like books with tiny print, long words, and no pictures was beyond Olivia. Instead, she grabbed a Paddington Bear book and sat down on the bed next to her mommy. She made sure to cuddle up as close as she could so she could rest her head on her mommy’s chest as she read the book to her. Whenever she did this, her mommy would give her kisses on the top of her head and playful little squeezes in between turning the page.

“Mommy, can I ask you something?”

“You can always ask me anything, Olivia.”

Olivia looked up at her mommy. “Why do you work so much? Is it because you’re not married to my daddy? Where is he?”

She noticed her mommy looked sad all of a sudden. “Sweetheart, your daddy…it’s hard for me to talk about him.”

Olivia got up so she could kiss her mommy’s tears. “I love you, Mommy. I just need you and not my daddy.”

Even though she was crying, her mommy started to smile again, which made Olivia wonder how grown ups could do that. “I just need you, too, Livvy Bee. And I’m not working a lot because you don’t have a daddy. I’m working a lot because this has been my goal since I was in high school. I’ve never needed a man in my life before and I don’t need one now. When you made that big LEGO tower, did you need a boy to help you?”

“No way!” Olivia scowled. “I can build a tower all by myself. I don’t need a boy to help me.”

“That’s exactly how I feel!” Her mommy started to tickle her which made her laugh until her tummy hurt.

“Mommy!” Olivia finally managed to say through her laughter.

“Olivia, there’s something I have to tell you,” her mommy said once they both stopped laughing. “It’s something I wish my mom would have told me when I was your age. Never let anyone tell you you can’t do something because you’re a girl. Girls can do anything boys can do, most of the time even better. When I was a little girl, I was told there were a lot of things I couldn’t do and now that I’m a grown woman I’m still being told there are things I can’t do, but there’s a lot of women in my generation that are trying to make it better so that when your generation of little girls is grown up, the world will be different and you’ll feel like you can be anything you want to be, even things that people right now say are only for boys.”

“Can I be a police officer?” Olivia asked.

Her mommy gave her little kisses on the cheek that made Olivia giggle. “You’re the bravest and most caring kid I know so of course you can, Officer Benson.”

After one more story, it was time for what Olivia considered to be the most important part of her job. She had to make sure her mommy got a good night’s sleep so she let her cuddle her extra close because it helped her mommy fall asleep.

“I love you, Mommy,” Olivia whispered after her mommy had closed her eyes.

But her mommy wasn’t asleep yet. Instead, she opened her eyes and smiled that smile that made Olivia feel warm and cozy inside because it meant that her mommy was happy. “I love you, too, Livvy Bee.”

#olivia benson #baby liv #law and order svu

22 notes · View notes

iamakiller · 4 years

Text

owl always love you

Wordcount: 2000

Notes & Warnings: It has been far too long since I shared any of my fiction with you, hasn’t it? Well, how about five unhappy memories of Valentines past, and one that went perfectly to plan (... or did it?)

As for warnings, there is no sex at all, but there is an unfortunate accident, and a hint of murder. Hmm, I must be going soft in my old age ...

Five unhappy memories ...

Charlie is four.

Today feels like a very special day. There were flowers and a card on the kitchen table this morning, and no arguments over breakfast. It was almost like last night’s fight didn’t happen.

At preschool, the classroom has been decorated with red and pink hearts because it’s Valentine’s Day. The teacher reads the class a picture book about an owl who was looking for love, and then they all do a craft based on the story. The teacher has drawn the owl’s face and body on card for everyone, but they have to color it in and try to write a message on the owl’s tummy. Charlie writes “Owl always love you Mommy” in purple crayon – his mother’s favorite color.

The next part of the craft is very hard. They have to trace the outline of their hands onto card, color it in, and then cut it out. They stick the hands onto the owl with glue, and fold them over, and it looks kind of like wings. Charlie is very proud of himself, because he did it without any help, and unlike the boy who sits next to him, he didn’t try to eat any of the glue.

At going home time, he presents the card to his mother. She glances at it, and puts it in her handbag.

“Do you like it, Mommy?” Charlie asks, but she doesn’t say anything. Maybe she didn’t hear him.

The next morning, he finds it in the trash.

Oh.

Well, it wasn’t very good, he realizes. His coloring wasn’t neat enough, and one of the thumbs was missing because of a mishap he had when he was cutting it out. Maybe if he’d tried harder, she would have liked it.

Maybe if he tries harder, she’ll like him ...

Charlie is eight.

Valentine’s Day has been the main topic of conversation on the playground ever since the beginning of February. It’s not like anybody ever talks to Charlie, but there are some advantages to being invisible. He hears everything. He knows exactly who is getting a Valentine, and – most crucially – who isn’t.

On the night of February thirteenth, he stays up very late. It isn’t like anyone is checking what time he goes to bed anyway, so he pulls together the materials he’s “borrowed” from his teacher over the past few days, and works until the early hours of the morning.

The next day, everyone in the class has at least one little handmade card on their desk by the end of the day.

… except Charlie.

And that’s one of the disadvantages of being invisible.

Nobody knows he exists ...

Charlie is thirteen.

According to his research, it is puberty that has turned the majority of his classmates into mindless, giggling idiots. Thankfully, he seems to be immune to this plague, and the hours he spends staring at the long, golden hair of the girl who sits in front of him in class is perfectly normal, thank you very much.

Melissa is the prettiest girl in the class by far. Charlie thinks she looks just like an elven queen ... if Galadriel had a Midwestern accent and a mother who was the head of the PTA. She is also constantly accompanied by a group of four uglier girls, who all stare at Charlie as he makes his approach, the poem he wrote for her clutched in a hand that seems to be permanently sweaty these days.

She accepts the token of his affection with the carelessness of one who is accustomed to such things, and doesn’t even say thank you. At lunchtime, Charlie overhears her reading excerpts of it to her gaggle of friends. She tosses her lovely, blonde hair back, and laughs scornfully, before tearing it up into tiny pieces and leaving it on her lunch tray for the cafeteria staff to clear away.

And suddenly, Charlie realizes how ugly she is.

At the end of February, poor Melissa has a terrible accident. One of the teachers finds her unconscious at the bottom of the stairwell hours after school has finished for the day. She must have tripped and fallen down the stairs somehow.

She makes a full recovery, but she never remembers what happened that day ...

Charlie is seventeen.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come to the dance?” asks cousin Pat from where he’s leaning in the doorway of Charlie’s bedroom. He’s dressed to impress, and Charlie can smell the terrible cologne he’s wearing from all the way on the other side of the room. “I can wait for you to get changed, I don’t mind.”

“I’m too busy,” says Charlie, staring up at the ceiling. Soon, it will be time for him to turn over and stare at the wall. “And I don’t like parties.”

“I don’t like parties either,” Pat reminds him, fidgeting with the cuffs of his blue button-down. “But you’ll never meet someone special if you don’t leave your room.”

Charlie responds by making a noise like someone being sick, and turns over to show Pat his back. “Bye. Have fun at the shitty Valentine’s dance.” He can feel his cousin’s gaze on the back of his head – can picture the annoying look of concern on his face – but he doesn’t move or say anything, and finally he hears the door close, and then Pat’s footsteps lumbering down the stairs.

Fuck Valentine’s Day, Charlie thinks. Fuck parties, and fuck ever finding someone special.

Charlie is 27.

This might be his first ever Valentine’s Day in a relationship, but he’s done his research into What Women Want, and blown a small fortune on trying to make the day special. A hundred red roses, delivered to Nicole on set. Reservations at the hottest restaurant in town. A pair of Chanel earrings, so expensive he actually choked on his own saliva when they told him the price, and had to be brought a glass of water to help him recover.

At the restaurant, Nicole opens the earrings, and stares at them for a long time. Her expression is completely unreadable, which is usually the case with her. They have been dating for two and a half months, and with every day that passes, Charlie feels like he knows less about her, which should surely be impossible.

“Don’t you like them?” Charlie asks, after the silence has gone on for so long that even the people at the next table have glanced over to see what’s going on.

Nicole closes the lid of the box with a snap, and looks up at him. “So you aren’t going to propose to me, then?”

Charlie blinks. “I – Wait, what?”

And then it all goes south very quickly from there.

The next day, there’s a blind item online about it:

Which C-list celebrity currently filming a procedural drama in New York was seen arguing with an unknown male at a local celeb hotspot last night? With a string of broken engagements already behind her, it looks like this feisty young starlet is single once more after dousing her hapless companion in Veuve Clicquot!

Unknown? Hapless? How rude!

He complains at length about the injustice of it all to the cocktail waitress he brought home last night, after he had sloped off to a bar to drown his sorrows and soothe the burn of his humiliation. Naturally, she has nothing to add to the conversation – having passed away six hours or so ago – but he appreciates her presence nevertheless. So much so that before he prepares her for disposal, he takes out her fake diamond earrings, and replaces them with the Chanel ones.

“I know I’m a day late,” he tells her. “But … happy Valentine’s Day.”

It’s the thought that counts, anyway ...

And then ...

Charlie is 37.

He is awakened at 5:30 a.m. on Valentine’s Day morning by his son barging in to the master bedroom. Without saying anything, Henry climbs onto the bed next to him, and falls asleep almost instantly. Charlie throws an arm over him, in the hopes of stopping him from tossing and turning like he often does.

Behind him, there’s a rustle of sheets “What’s happening?” Kitten asks, her voice thick with sleep.

“We have our usual Sunday morning visitor,” Charlie mumbles. “It’s still early, go back to sleep.”

A leg hooks over his, an arm curls around his middle, and Kitten lets out a happy sigh before falling asleep again.

Charlie closes his eyes, but it barely seems like a moment has passed before he’s being shaken awake by a very excited Henry. “Dad. DAD! Can we give Britt the card now?”

The digital display on the clock says eight, still an ungodly hour to be awake on a Sunday, but when Charlie rolls over, Kitten is already sitting up against the headboard, with her phone out. “A card?” she says, feigning surprise, as though she wasn’t banned from the kitchen for four hours the previous day, and hadn’t noticed the layer of glitter Henry was covered in when he emerged, which necessitated a dreaded bath.

“If we must,” grumbles Charlie, astonished at the speed with which Henry scrambles out of bed and sprints out of the room. He thunders downstairs, in search of the spot where they left their work of art to dry out after its completion.

Charlie rolls over onto his back, and stares up at Kitten. “Remember last year, when we stayed in bed all day?” he asks, mournfully. “That was the best Valentine’s Day I’ve ever had.”

“Mm, same.” Kitten leans down to kiss him, probably intending it to be just a peck on the lips. But Charlie wraps his hand around the back of her head to keep her there, deepening the kiss until a gagging sound from the doorway interrupts them and they break apart to find Henry watching them from the doorway, looking slightly green.

“You guys are gross!” he scolds them, in a tone not dissimilar to Sandra when she is upset about something.

Charlie sits up, and scowls. “That’s not in keeping with the spirit of the day.”

“The spirit of the day is chocolate,” says Henry, approaching Kitten’s side of the bed, with one hand behind his back. “Ta-daaaaa!” he shouts, and pulls out the card, waving it in her face. A hefty sprinkle of glitter falls on the sheets, and Charlie winces.

“This looks very impressive,” says Kitten, glancing sideways at Charlie to check his reaction to the glitter, and stifling a smile. “Can I take a closer look?”

On closer inspection, the card is very large, and is a rather well-drawn and extremely glittery looking owl which looks to be a combination of about three different species. Its wings – which look suspiciously like the outline of Charlie’s hands – are wrapped around itself.

“Open it, open it,” says Henry, climbing onto the bed, and bouncing slightly, causing more glitter to be dislodged.

When Kitten carefully opens the wings, she finds another, smaller pair of hand-shaped wings underneath. “Yours?” she asks Henry, who nods vigorously. When she opens those, there is a ridiculously tiny pair of hands underneath. One has been colored blue, and the other pink.

“Little B,” says Henry. “We looked up online how small their hands would be. I drew them, and Dad cut them out. He said we should do one hand in each color since we don’t know whether Little b is a boy or a girl yet. And wait, there’s a message. Read the message!”

“Owl always love you,” Kitten reads, her voice trembling slightly. “From Charlie, Henry and Little B. Oh Henry, thank you! The owl, the hands, the sweet message. It’s perfect!”

She pulls Henry into a hug, which he tolerates for a moment or two before asking, “Can I go watch cartoons now?” with all the tact typical of an eight year-old boy.

“It was all Henry’s idea, of course,” says Charlie, once the young man in question has bounced out of the room. He tries to brush some of the glitter off the bed, and succeeds only in getting it stuck all over his hand. “I was but an unwitting accomplice to this madness.”

“Is that so?” asks Kitten, with a smile. She sets the card on the nightstand so she can see it, and curls against Charlie, who wraps an arm around her shoulder, and rests his other hand on her stomach. “You know, it reminds me of this book I read when I was little. About an owl who was searching for love. It was a really cute story.”

“Never heard of it,” says Charlie, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “But it sounds like a real hoot.”

“Oh god, not the owl puns.”

“There’s plenty more where that came from,” says Charlie, but somehow he finds himself lapsing into silence instead of releasing the string of dreadful jokes that are on the tip of his tongue. “Do you -” he begins, and then sighs, and runs his hand through his hair, inadvertently spreading multi-colored glitter quite liberally through it. He chews on the inside of his cheek before continuing. “Do you really like it?”

Is it good enough?

Am I trying hard enough?

Do you like me?

A gentle hand against his cheek brings him back to the present. “I don’t just like it, I love it,” Kitten reassures him. “And I love you very much, too. I know it’s a little rough at the moment with me working from home, but I’m still feeling very lucky. Who would have thought six months ago that we would be here? We’ve come so far, Charlie. I’m so proud of us. I’m so proud of you. Especially now you’re back in therapy again.”

Charlie holds her a little more tightly, and she tucks her head under his chin and settles her hand on his chest, over his heart, which is beating too quickly for his liking. “I’m trying, my love,” he says softly, taking slow, deep breaths to try to control the speed of his heart. “I never want to let you down again ...”

He closes his eyes, breathes in Kitten’s familiar, comforting scent, and tells himself that he’s just holding her, not clinging to her. I’m okay, he tells himself, over and over again. We’re okay.

I just have to try harder, and it will all be okay ...

#valentine's day #tw: bad parenting #tw: assault #tw: implied murder #B+C #direnightshade #tw: pregnancy #tw: angst #glitter should have a trigger warning

27 notes · View notes

brokutosan · 4 years

Text

Title. Burnt Out, Part Two

Pairing. Suna Rintaro x Fem!Reader

Summary. In which he’s intoxicated and opens up about things he never got the chance to. Part two of Burnt Out, Suna Rintaro’s point of view.

Warnings. Excessive intake of alcohol, cursing, and manga spoilers.

Suna Rintaro started dating his long-term girlfriend L/N Y/N in highschool. She was the type who kept to herself and had a small, yet golden, circle of friends. She got along well with his volleyball team because she had a great personality, and she went along with teasing their friend Miya Atsumu.

He met her when he was in preschool and he made her cry because he accidentally took her chuupet. His mom made him apologize and they bonded over a whole pack his mom bought for them to share. A few years later, he realized he liked her in his last year of middle school, when he got upset over losing his last competition with the team and she was there to cheer him up with a pack of chuupet.

He admits he’s not one for romantic gestures, but his feelings for her were always sincere. Growing up, Suna lacked the energy nor the personality to make much friends, so he was always relieved knowing she was there. They grew up together, and that’s something Suna would never replace. He associates his childhood with her and their love for chuupets.

Throughout their relationship he tried his best to show he appreciated her. Though what he liked best about her was that he didn’t need to try. He always assumed she knew and she understood his actions. After joining a pro team he got a bit busier, but he assumed she would understand.

“Quit assuming Y/N-chan’s gonna stick around for your shit. Sure, she’s always been the best of us for understanding your...detachment to everyone else, but she ain’t a saint. Get ‘yer shit together or she might just finally up and leave.” Atsumu once told him, but Suna tries not to dwell in anything the piss haired dumbass tells him. But what he said was true.

Which is why Suna decided to gamble. He told his teammates and the twins that if he won the next three consecutive games and the team placed top three in the league, he’d finally propose. Osamu told him not to gamble with life, his teammates told him not to blame them if they lose, and Atsumu rejoiced and called him brilliant. Suna’s not sure how he feels about their response, but he’s willing to risk it. Because it’s for her.

After the third win Suna went with his team to celebrate, mostly because he was in a good mood and because he was nervous yet excited at the same time. But then she called.

What if she found the ring he loosely hid in his sock drawer? What if she thinks it’s for someone else? Oh god, what if she thinks he’s cheating on her? What if-

“Actually-” “By the way-”

He lets her go first because he cares like that. But suddenly he wishes he didn’t.

“I don’t think we’re in love anymore.” Oh. With that one sentence all the pride and joy brimming up his body is flushed down by sorrow and dread. Color drains from his face and he feels like he’d stopped breathing. Suddenly all those “what-ifs” didn’t sound so bad anymore.

“I’ll pack my bags while you’re at work tomorrow.” Suna ends the call there because he’s scared she might hear his life crashing down through the phone. Still a bit shocked, Suna lets his body slide down the dingy alleyway. No tears fall because he’s not an emotional person like that, but the turmoil in his head makes him itch for a distraction.

He hears the loud cheers of his teammates inside the bar and finds the perfect solution.

“Rintaro-kun, get ahold of yourself!” Komori Motoya whisper-yells at his intoxicated teammate. Said intoxicated teammate is currently stumbling over his own two feet as he tries to walk in a straight line with one arm slung over Komori’s shoulders.

Komori mumbles a few strings of curses as he drags the man to the elevator. “Why did you even drink this much?” He asks no one in particular, mainly because the man in question was too busy laughing at his own reflection in the elevator mirror.

Komori remembers that MSBY has an away game, which probably means they’re all together in a hotel or probably running late with practice, and decides to call Sakusa for help. Much needed help, as he hears another groan from Suna. If he pukes - no, he won’t even think about it. Shaking his head, Komori pulls out his phone and dials a number. It rings four times, before his cousin’s cranky voice mumbles out, “Hello?”

“Sakusa! Is Miya still around?” Komori urgently grunts out, simultaneously hoisting up his teammate who’s currently being dragged down by gravity and alcohol. “What could you possibly need from that moron?” He can imagine the scowl on his cousin’s face, but he decides to focus on more important matters.

Like the idiot now hanging loosely on his shoulders. Suna’s a bit taller, so Komori has to drag his feet through the floor with one arm and keep his phone pressed to his ear with one hand. “Tell him it’s about Rintaro-kun.” There’s rustling and the sound of the phone being handed off to someone else, and then Atsumu’s croaking out a, “What-,” obvious that he was awoken from his sleep.

Komori’s not in the right state of mind to feel any remorse, so he gets to the point. “Miya, do you know Rintaro-kun’s girlfriend’s number?”

“Why?” Atsumu grumbles, still half asleep. The sound of a boisterous laughter through the phone snaps him awake, though, as he recognizes the familiar sound. “Holy shit!” He shoots up, sheets strewn on the floor. Sakusa looks like he’s about to commit a crime.

“Komori, listen - whatever he does, make sure you get it on camera!” (Komori hears Sakusa mumble, “You’re a shitty person,” and Atsumu bark back with a, “Shut ‘yer trap, Omi-kun!”) Choosing to ignore his idiocy, Komori urges on, “Do you know her number or not?”

“I mean yeah, but if ‘Taro’s that drunk then I’m pretty there’s problems with Y/N-chan.” Komori feels a vein pop, both because Suna’s weight is really starting to push down on his shoulders, and because Atsumu’s proving himself to be pretty useless in this situation.

“I don’t care anymore! Can you just text me her number so I can drop this idiot off?” Komori huffs. Atsumu hums and hangs up, seconds later texting him Y/N’s number. He hands Sakusa (who’s now unsurprisingly wearing gloves) back his phone and plops back down to his comfy hotel room bed, remembering to check on his friend the next morning.

Komori finally makes it to the address sent to him by Suna’s girlfriend after about thirty minutes of dragging the said man through crowds and avoiding the judgemental looks from people passing by.

He wastes no time in pressing the doorbell before he’s met face to face with the girlfriend-in-question. Her eyes are red and puffy, and she looks about as bad as Suna does, though a lot more sober. Miya was right. He thinks to himself. Relationship problems, huh?

“Ah, thank you for bringing him home safely, Komori-san!” She bows. Her voice is strangled and hoarsed, but the politeness is still there. “I’m so sorry for bothering you, I can take him from here.” Y/N holds out her arms, and perhaps because of how heartbroken she looks, Komori gently shakes his head.

“I can set him down on the couch. He’s not exactly lightweight, you see.” She simply nods, not having enough energy to go back and forth over the matter. “Thank you so much.” She says with another bow. Once Suna’s bodyweight is off his shoulders and he can feel his full body again, Komori waves his hand to show that it was no big deal.

He silently hopes he’s not overstepping, before mumbling on his way out, “I hope you two work it out.” She responds with a weak smile and another bow before locking the door behind him.

Finally alone again, Y/N steps towards her now-ex boyfriend, and decides to help him feel more comfortable by removing his shoes. Suna complies by grumbling something that can’t be understood, so Y/N continues with cleaning him up.

“Sit up real quick, ‘Taro.” She whispers. Suna obeys and sits up with his eyes still closed. His movement releases a whiff of beer and his usual cologne. Y/N has to hold her breath because of the pungent scent, but she continues to care for him with gentle hands.

Suna opens his eyes and though everything is still blurry, he could easily recognize her anywhere. He grabs hold of one of wrist that was busy yanking off his coat from his body and pulls her closer to him. She slightly falls down on where he’s seated on the couch, but she catches herself before she could completely crash down on him.

“Hi.” Suna mumbles into her neck.

“Hey. Let’s get you into some more comfortable clothes, ‘Taro.” Y/N tries to pry herself off him, but his hold on her tightens and now she finds herself engulfed into his chest with two strong arms wrapping around her frame. “Don’t wanna. Just wanna stay here.”

“Okay.” Y/N decides there’s point arguing with an intoxicated man and allows herself to melt into his hold.

But then she remembers their conversation from earlier, and her cruel decision of breaking it off without an explanation. Guilt overwhelms her and soon she attempts to pry herself off again, and this time she’s successful. Suna whines.

“Come back.” His voice is an unfamiliar pitch higher and he’s making grabby motions at her with his arms. “Try to sober up a little first, okay?” Y/N calms him down before heading into the kitchen to grab a glass of water.

It only took ten seconds for Suna to follow suit, albeit still drunk and wobbly, but he is able to hold himself up until he grabs hold of her from behind, her warmth heating up his frozen body once again. “Don’t leave me.” Y/N’s not sure if he means now, or in general. Does he even remember their phone call?

Nontheless, he isn’t in his right mind, and Y/N doesn’t want to say anything that might cause him to react wildly. “Okay, let’s sit down though, yeah?” Suna nods, and his hair tickles the back of her neck. They awkwardly shuffle through the kitchen back to the couch, where Suna continues to snuggle into her chest. Y/N finds herself combing her hand through his tangled hair, somehow finding comfort in this rare display of affection.

They stay like that for a couple minutes, Y/N sitting awkwardly down on the couch and Suna’s overgrown body slumped over hers as he clings onto her waist for dear life. Y/N decides not to beat around the bush and tries to clear the elephant in the room.

“Did this happen because of what I said?” It’s a stupid question, and Y/N knows the answer to it, but she doesn’t know why she needs to hear it coming from him. Suna only nods, not once breaking away from his hold on her.

“Do you want to talk about it now?” Y/N offers. Maybe, if he’s being this uncharacteristically clingy right now, then he’d be more comfortable with opening up.

“Don’t leave me.” Suna mumbles again, this time Y/N can feel the desperation in his voice.

“I won’t. Not right now, at least. But we need to talk about it.” Y/N’s hand is still combing through his dark locks, and for a second she thinks he fell asleep because of it, but he speaks up again.

“If I ignore it will you take back what you said?” Suna tries to bargain. Y/N lets herself laugh, though it comes out choked because of how dry her throat was from crying. The sound however, makes Suna lift his head up from its place on her chest, his chin resting just above her breasts as he stares straight into her eyes.

“I’m being serious right now.” Everything about him is delirious, but his eyes scream that she should listen to what he’s about to say.

“I don’t know what changed, but I’m sorry if it’s because of something I did.” Y/N can easily tell that he’s just starting to sober up, but not enough for him to totally pull away or stop talking yet. “It was because of something Atsumu said,” She finds herself confessing. Perhaps she hasn’t totally sobered up from the bottle of wine she finished a few hours ago.

“That bastard.”

“- back in highschool.” Suna shows no remose towards what he said. Highschool school or now, Atsumu is still Atsumu, and he said what he said.

“When you guys fought over who’s fault it was when you lost a game, he told me I was dating a rock.” Suna tilts his head in confusion (and Y/N tries not to make it too obvious that she’s getting ticklish every time he moves). “A rock?” He grumbles with a scowl on his face. (He totally looks like an angry puppy right now, but Y/N decides that this isn’t the right time to gush over it).

“And then I got a wedding invitation from Mika and Daishou-kun. I drank a little too much too, so my thoughts just spiraled down negatively.” Y/N sighs as she relives the emotional turmoil she went through that evening. “I let my emotions and something Atsumu said years ago get the best of me, and I really hurt you. I’m sorry, ‘Taro.” Y/N doesn’t notice the tears streaming down her face as she cups his face in her hands. Suna leans into her touch and hums.

“I think I can understand what Atsumu said, though.” Suna mumbles out. He gets up from his comfortable spot, and Y/N feels herself missing his warmth right away.

And then he heads into the bedroom, much more sober now, and Y/N stares at him him out of curiosity. He comes back out within seconds with something in his hand and sets it down on the coffee table as he sits back down next to her. Y/N gasps.

“I told myself that I was gonna do this after winning three consecutive games. I think I was gonna do it even if we didn’t, though.” Y/N switches her gaze between her lover and the velvet box that contained a ring.

The ring itself was simple, yet elegant. There’s a single big diamond sitting in the middle of a silver band, and its beauty makes up for its simplicity. The ring is true to Suna’s character, though she suspects some of his friends had a say in picking the ring (there’s no way Suna would have been able to decide on it himself).

“This wasn’t how I planned for it to go down, but I feel like if I don’t do it now, I might not get another chance.” There’s a certain sincerity in his eyes and desperation in his voice that makes Y/N’s heart ache, both out of happiness and guilt for what she did earlier that night.

“I know I’m not gonna be the best husband - hell, I wasn’t even close to being the best boyfriend - but what I do know for sure is that there’s no one else I’d want to be with other than you.” Suna grabs the box from the table and gets down on one knee in front of the couch, where she’s still seated with tears streaming down her face.

“I promise I’ll try my best to open up more. I won’t let you get bothered by something that idiot said in highschool again, and I’ll make sure you’ll never have to question my love again.” Suna finishes with a smile, “So, Y/N, will you marry me?”

Y/N doesn’t trust her voice so she chooses to nod vigorously instead, launching herself into his welcoming arms. He falls back from the impact but his hold on her is still tight. Everything is in place again, and the figurative fire between them sparks again. If they tried hard enough, even a burnt out match can still be relit.

“Wanna mess around and pretend we broke up because of what Atsumu said?”

A/N. Also another re-uplod. Thank you for reading! You can tell I was pushing my ‘komori is team mom’ agenda bc I love my boy. Anyways, sorry if the ending got a bit cheesy but I don’t really know how to write it without making it cheesy - chuu

#haikyuu #haikyuu!!#hq #hq!!#haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu oneshot #haikyuu x reader #hq imagines #hq scenarios #hq oneshot #hq x reader #haikyuu angst #suna rintarou #suna rintaro imagine #suna rintaro scenario #suna rintaro oneshot #suna rintaro x reader

182 notes · View notes

be-ready-when-i-say-go · 5 years

Note

coloring book by the regrettes with calum :)

Thanks for the suggestion and all your patience! (It’s a black reader insert, and I hope that’s okay! I normally try to keep my reader inserts open-ended on the race front. But I got carried away this time.)

Support me on Ko-fi! It ensures that I can continue to provide this content for you all and helps me save up some cash for my flight out for graduate school!

Requesting for song blurbs is closed. Thanks for all the love.

_________________________________________________

A World In Color

If anyone told Calum that he would be sitting on his living room floor surrounded by crayons, printer paper, coloring books, a plush Tweety Bird in his lap and a hyped up on sugar four-year-old and actually enjoying his life, he would’ve laughed a little but made it clear that he was a few years off from all that happening.

That would’ve been the case. If not for the fact that he is actually surrounded by crayons, printer paper, coloring books, a plus Tweety Bird in his lap, and a four-year-old who is hopped up on life more so than sugar, but the lollipop he snuck her is probably adding to the mixture as well. And he’s actually enjoying his life and her story.

“But of course he does because he’s mean,” Ysobel continues on. She’s currently explaining the stick figure with some bubble features that is her mother in the middle of an epic battle as the sun sets and her mother has to defeat the dragon burning all of the town’s crop. It’s veered a little from the townspeople and now she’s just bouncing on her feet, talking with her hands, much like her mother and leaning across his coffee table. “I want swords like Mommy. So I can big and strong, and be in movies like her too!”

Calum nods, his own attempts at coloring in the rose he’s doodled, are slowed making sure Ysobel doesn’t get too excited and bump her head on the edge of the coffee table. She did it once today and it still makes Calum’s heart race to see her rolling around so close to the corner. “So what happened to being Tweety Bird?”

“People can’t actually fly, slily. I don’t have wings.”

“You could always make wings, like some sort of wingsuit that helps you fly. You like building stuff.”

Her nod is vigorous and shakes the beads on the ends of her braids. “Mommy said she would paint a wall in my room to look like legos building a tower!”

Calum had heard of this plan and readily offered his help next week to help execute the plan. “Really? Did you draw the tower by chance?”

Ysobel nods, running over to her backpack situated against the legs of the couch. “Uh-huh, I did like forever ago in arts and crafts time! Mommy was so proud of it!”

He can only smile, watching her pull out the orange folder and flipping through all the drawings and homework sheets. She looks everything like you. And Calum was used to the whole spiel about how he and his mother looked so much alike, but he could see it between you and Ysobel. He understood it, the same nose, big eyes, and bushy brows. Ysobel’s skin is darker than yours by a good ways but she is absolutely your twin. Ysobel smiled like you too. Whenever the little girl happened to catch him with a big smile, something in his chest always felt a little more at ease.

And maybe it’s you. Maybe it’s because whenever he sees Ysobel he knows you weren’t too far behind. Your whole world is her and he adores the love you had for her. There wasn’t a thing you wouldn’t do for her. You had stayed up every night the monsters made her scared. You soothed every tummyache. You cried at every nick and scrap that Ysobel endured.

Calum would be lying if he said that he hadn’t fantasized for quick moments what it would be like to come home to you and Ysobel. Though she wasn’t his biological, he loved her just the same. Offering to pick her up from school, or be there when she got off the school bus. He bought her little treats, sometimes a toy, sometimes candy. Whenever he got you a bouquet, he ordered a second one with a special note just for Ysobel.

Calum is so taken with you and Ysobel. You two met by his work. They wanted some fight choreography in a video and by way of a friend of a friend they were recommended to you. At the time, you had given up on too many serious hopes of making it big in the Hollywood realm because of Ysobel and stuck with instructing classes at a dojo and local gigs. You took the occasional job on a movie set or maybe one that took you out of town for a couple weeks but you made sure to keep all your trips short. You didn’t want Ysobel thinking that she would grow up without a father and without a mother that wasn’t present enough.

While you’re older than he is, it hadn’t mattered. He was still enamored with your skill and beauty. It wouldn’t be the whole truth if Calum didn’t admit that he initially sought after you because of your looks, but soon, watching the way you carried yourself, he knew he was a slippery slope of falling for you. And it’s been a fun trip down.

It took a year before you introduced them. Ysobel knew you were seeing Calum and Calum knew about Ysobel, but there were plenty of dates in your living room late into the evening, within earshot if Ysobel needed you and lunch dates while Ysobel was at her preschool before you were worn down by Ysobel’s curiosity to meet the man that you were dating. Calum could tell you were nervous, sitting on the park bench, fingers wriggling around each other. However, Ysobel was fearless and when approached right after her turn on the slide. She extended her hand, the other one still on her hip, “I’m Ysobel. It’s with a Y, and an O.”

Calum trying hard to keep the laughter from shaking his body took her hand and shook it. There was no doubt that she was your daughter. He was a goner from the start.

“May I have a snack, please?” Ysobel, now pressed up into his dining room table with her penmanship workbook nestled in front of her, turns to the kitchen to face Calum.

She knows her routine better than anyone. She comes home, talks about her day, gets half an hour to draw, run around and play before she had to do work. It wasn’t a fun routine in all respects by Ysobel stuck to it, even in her mother’s absence.

“Of course.” With the fridge opens, he rattles what he has. He’s mindful not to offer a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or not to snack on the can he bought last week because of her allergy. She’s fine with other nuts, but Calum worries and tries his best not to cross-contaminate with any kind of nut to be safe.

“What kind of apples do you have?”

“Pink ladies,” he grins, knowing those are her favorite. “And I have granny smith as well.”

“Pink lady please!”

“Your wish is my command.”

“Thanks, Calum! You’re the best.” He’s relieved that the ‘Mr.’ has been dropped. There was nothing faster to make him feel well over his 24 years than when Ysobel called him Mr. Calum for the first two months. It showed her manners of course, but by god, he did not need mister in front of his name for at least another fifteen years.

There’s a soft clicking as Duke trots over and when Calum turns for just a moment he spies Ysobel slipping out of the seat to pet him. He doesn’t say anything about the work. But when he turns to find her giggling with Duke on her lap, he sets the bowl of diced apples down and shakes his head. “You know you have to do your work.”

“Oh, please, Calum. Duke just wanted some pets.”

“A compromise.” Ysobel sits up straighter, the beads clicking together again. Calum continues. “He sits on your lap while you work. But you have to makes sure he doesn’t eat your apples. He’s a greedy baby grandpa.”

“Deal,” she giggles and climbs back up into the chair. Calum scopes up Duke and then deposits him into her lap.

The house falls silent, only quickly and quietly cut by Ysobel’s giggles. Calum leans into the counter of the kitchen, watching her work. Duke takes a particular interest in her paper. It warms his chest to watch her diligently work. He could get used to this sight. He wants to get used to this sight. He wants to get Ysobel ready in the morning and he wants to laugh at the way you look before having your morning coffee with tired eyes squinting against the world and the bonnet secure around your head.

He’s only witnessed that sight once when Ysobel was scoped up by your best friend for the weekend. Saturday morning rolled around and even though Calum’s own internal clock liked to wake him much later in the day, yours woke you up bright and early–as always. He woke with you and when you practically begged him to climb back into your sheets, he simply shook his head and said he was going to spend every second with you that he could consciously.

“Calum, you never shared your drawing.” It’s an observation Ysobel makes absentmindedly. She sets her pencil down and pushes the workbook to the side of her. For Calum to check over it. He can’t initial her homework page, a rule he didn’t think would end the world if broken. But he respected your wishes and never signed off on the homework. He only checked it over.

“That cursive is coming along really well, kiddo,” he praises, flipping over the page. It too is lined up with cursive traced and freehanded to put his own handwriting to shame.

“Thanks.” It’s a chipper tone and he knows without looking there is a smile to match too.

Calum takes a moment to look over the homework sheet, part of it is to ensure that he’s keeping her on track and the other part is to avoid her question. Ysobel was placed in a gift course. So usually there’s more than Calum remembers having to do at her age. But thankfully, the program doesn’t seem too intense. It worried him just a little when you mentioned it and he wanted her to feel like a kid, not a machine just yet. He even toured the schools with you. The stress of making sure you were doing the best for your child was evident and Calum knew he had to help any way he could. The final decision was always yours but even he had to admit that where she attends now, seemed like the best fit for her ability and age.

When Calum finds not much left, besides a worksheet, he takes a pause and knows she’ll breeze through that. And if he’s going to show her the picture he drew, then there’s no more homework getting done today. “I’ll tell you after you finish this last thing, okay?”

“No fun.”

“I’m always fun!”

“No, you sound like Mommy.”

He doesn’t want to spoil her now with the question. But he knows he has to ask soon. Ysobel has to be on board with this because if not, it won’t matter. He knows you. If Ysobel is not on board, you won’t be on board. It’s like, when he thinks about his time with you two, that before his life was black and white. Now with you two, it’s full of color and he never wants to lose that. He doesn’t want to ever not see color again.

“I probably sound like a dad.” Calum tests the water with the statement, just wanting to see how she reacts. There’s a frown that pulls down her face. You and Ysobel both have a more slender nose than Calum but the moment her lips pull down he can already imagine a sniffly red nose. He’s worried about the tears. “Hey, no, I’m sorry.”

Ysobel shakes her head. She looks down at Duke, resting the side of her face into his fur. Calum can see the prickle of tears. “Sometimes I wish I had a dad. Mommy’s great and she can beat up anyone who’s mean to me. But I can’t go to the father-daughter dance.”

“Oh, sweetheart, no, don’t say that. You can go.”

She shakes her head. “I can’t.” The tears are hitting her skin. They tract down her face and Calum takes his thumb to quickly wipe them away.

“I can go with you if you want to go.”

She smiles, though her chin wobbles. “I lov-like you Calum. But you’re not my dad. It wouldn’t work.”

Calum hears the slip-up and his own tears are forming. He knows he and Ysobel got along well and she was respectful of him just as much as she was able to convince him to be mischievous. All the times he told you that he loved you and your daughter, he truly did mean it. “I love you too Ysobel.” He takes a moment to inhale deeply. “Okay, I’m going to show you want I drew. Hopefully, then, that changes your mind about the father-daughter dance.”

Her brows spell out her confusion but she watches Calum return to the coffee table, dig up the drawings and hold his behind his back. She can only see the red from the crayon and some black but she’s not sure. When Calum returns to the table, squatting again to her level he slides the paper, face down. “So,” he starts, wiping more of her tears. “Your mom and I have been dating for a while.”

“A year and eight months.” Calum nods with a tiny smile. “I asked Mommy once. Now she tells me when every month passes.”

“Yeah, a year and eight months. I’m going to tell you a secret.” Ysobel nods, the tears and sadness seeming to fall away as she perks up to catch all the details. “I’ve wanted to marry your mom for a long time now.” Her eyes light up, and she hugs Duke closer to her body.

“She wants to marry you too.” The bright eyes widen and she covers her mouth for a moment. He figures that wasn’t supposed to be for his ears just yet. But it’s a relief. “I didn’t tell you that! I didn’t say it.”

Calum laughs, miming that his lips are zipped close. “I don’t know a thing. But before I can ask your mom, I want to ask you something.”

Before he can exhale, before the words can even think about falling over his lips, Ysobel shrieks. “Does that mean you want to be my dad?” Duke barks, squirming a little and then leaps from her arms. Ysobel lets them fall, heavy into her lap.

“I do.” He flips over the paper and a red rose in a field of sunflowers looks back up at Ysobel. Written in black sharpie is Calum’s question, May I be your dad? “I do want to be your dad.”

The tears are forming again. Both of them watching the other in watery vision. “Yeah, you’re going to be the best dad ever,” Ysobel whispers before wrapping her arms around Calum’s neck.

He holds her close, letting the tears fall down his chest. “Thank you, Ysobel. With a Y.”

“And an O,” she finishes. “You do love me.”

“Yes, very much,” Calum says kissing her forehead.

It takes maybe too much convincing and a promise of ice cream to get Ysobel to finish her work and not call you during your meeting. Normally you were always there to get her off the bus or to pick her up. But this particular meeting had already been rescheduled twice and Calum was more than happy to pick Ysobel up from the bus stop. He had her bus pass so the driver knew she was safe to go with him. From there, it was only a ten-minute drive to his place. He had a key to your place but Ysobel asked about seeing Duke and he couldn’t really say no to her request.

When you knock at the door, Ysobel grins, so wide he’s sure it’s going to split her full cheeks. You look a little frazzled when he opens the door and he frowns a little. “What’s the matter, baby?”

You fall into his chest. “Long day.”

He hums and gently guides you wrapped around him into the house before shutting the door. His world feels so complete even though you’re sluggish to cross the room and greet Ysobel, he knows this is his whole world in front of him. “Hi, baby.” The kiss to her forehead is overdramatic as always. You fall into the chair next to her. “How was school?”

“Really good. I won in hide and seek during recess!”

You laugh, smoothing over the cornrows. The frizz is showing through, thanks to her wild sleeping and her bonnet always missing in the morning. You’ll have to do something different to her hair here soon. Saturday you have to get the paint for her room and Sunday you’re going to church. Monday’s terrible and you pray that maybe service ends on Sunday early enough to wash it and give her some twists or maybe even space buns.

“I’m proud,” you hum. “Finish all your homework?”

Ysobel nods, opening to the pages. “Da-Calum looked over it!”

Your eyes widen at her slip and turn to Calum. His back faces the both of you, facing the faucet instead. And you’re pounding heart is thumping in your ears. Maybe he didn’t hear it. You knew she had been down about the upcoming father-daughter dance and you weren’t sure about bringing it up to Calum. He did well with Ysobel but it’s not easy diving into a relationship with someone that as a kid. With Ysobel being so much older you were afraid that she’d ask questions about her dad and Calum.

“Looks great to me, baby.” You initial the pages and the homework assignment sheet. “What do you want for dinner? Spaghetti? Burgers?” Maybe it was a bad idea to get involved with anyone. Maybe you should’ve just stuck it out with just you and Ysobel. Now Calum would feel pressured and that’s the last thing you needed on your plate today.

“I can cook if you want,” Calum offers. He keeps his cool but the side glance to Ysobel shows she’s going to crack at any second.

“Oh, I don’t want to worry you,” you counter, pulling your keys back out of your purse. “You go get your things together, baby.” Ysobel starts to argue but you fix her with a pointed glare and she sighs and nods.

Calum notices that you’re not looking him in the eye. Once Ysobel leaves the chair, he slips into it. Ysobel fakes a scream, miming something behind your back but Calum tries not to stare for too long. “It’s not a worry, love.”

“Still, I know you probably have things going on. Thanks for watching Ysobel. I really appreciate it.”

“Please, look at me,” he urges.

“Look what Calum drew for me.” Ysobel’s lifting the picture before Calum can stop her.

“Belle,” he sighs, shoulders turning down. “You promised to let me actually ask the question first.”

“You weren’t doing anything!” She argues. “Mommy was going to make us leave before you could ask.”

And you hear them bickering but all you can do is stare down at the beautiful vibrant picture. You always felt like you and Calum were down the path to be serious. But your doubts were always crawling up into your brain. They were always trying to put a cloud of the rainbow forming. But seeing Calum asking Ysobel if she was okay with this, seeing him take that much thought about your daughter, it makes you weep.

Full-on sobs crush your chest in their wake to be free of your chest. As the first one crosses your throat, both of them look up to you. You clutch the picture to your chest, tears falling from your eyes. “Oh my god.”

Calum sets Ysobel back down, after jokingly picking her up to attack her with tickles and kneels next to you. “What’s wrong?”

“I-You-,” the words don’t ever fully form. The sentences are too jumbled to come out.

He brings your head into his chest and quietly shushes. You do your best to swallow down the sobs and you do have a moment’s clarity to put the picture down as to not ruin it. Calum feels you shaking in his arms and he can only pray that you find peace soon.

It comes but not without a few tissues and Ysobel climbing into your lap. “I love you,” he whispers, cupping your face. “And I love Ysobel too. You guys are my world. It’s like seeing in color with you two around. Marry me, please?”

“Do I get a picture too?” you joke, voice a little hoarse from the crying.

Calum grins but pulls the box from his pocket. “I think a ring is better. So that’s a yes?”

“Yes, Calum. That’s a yes.” He slips it on, kissing you gingerly. “I want a picture too though.”

“Yeah, Mommy deserves a picture too. But with all three of us. As a family.”

Calum kisses Ysobel’s forehead again. “Sounds like a job for you and your crayons, huh?”

“You got it! I’m on the case.”

-H

95 notes · View notes

animalsatwildlilac · 4 years

Text

Power Outage with Bearded Dragon

This beardie has a job. His name is Stripy, and he is a working lizard. His life is full of adventure at Wild Lilac preschool. But he does get weekends off, vacations, and even mental health days, just like me. I think he is lonely when we are not together.

On Thursday, when WL announced an early release because of the winter storm warning, I got the whole day off because I only teach in the afternoons. But I still needed to go in, briefly -- to tend to the animals before the roads got messy.

On the way there, I stopped for supplies at my local pet store, Tropical Hut. I bought 100 crickets and a package of frozen bloodworms.

When I parked in front of the school, rain was falling and the temperature was dropping. Masked parents were picking up their unmasked kids. I left 50 of the crickets in my car with plans to take them home for Stripy, my bearded dragon, and then I went to the animal room.

I fed and tucked our critters in –

Two cubes of bloodworms for the Axolotl;

Cucumber and carrots for the just-hatched baby snails;

Fresh pinecones and toilet paper rolls for the gerbils;

Hay for the new-found guinea pigs (see previous post);

Crickets in with the animals that eat crickets: the tarantula, the geckos, and the cane toad;

And food for the crickets themselves (some apple, some dog food);

The Madagascan Hissing cockroaches still had food;

The walking sticks are all out of bramble – I’m sorry, but they will be okay for a few days without food.

I headed home.

As I brought the deli container of crickets into my house (they had been in my car for about 45 minutes) I realized something was tragically wrong -- all 50 of them were on their backs, heels to heaven. My first though was carbon monoxide. How could they all have DIED in such a short time? Then I realized maybe they weren’t dead – they were cold! Or did they freeze to death? It just hadn’t been that long. Such drama! I set them on a table and watched them, and as they warmed, they started to move. First a leg twitched, then another, then one flipped over. I was thinking how cool is this! Definitely something to explore with the kids – the freezing and warming of crickets.

And then, as I was deep in contemplation watching the flipping crickets, it’s 3 in the afternoon and -- the power goes out! There was no accumulation of ice or snow. The storm had hardly started. PGE said the power would be back on at 5pm. But at 5, they said 6, and at 6, it was 8.

When the temperature in Stripy’s tank dropped to 65 degrees, I had lifted him out and put him on my chest, zipped up a fleece vest over him, and put a fuzzy blanket around my shoulders.

My husband ventured out into the cold night to find a restaurant with power. He arrived home with salted peppered cod and garlic broccoli and kung pao shrimp from Powell Seafood, and the news that there were now 100,000 people without power in the greater Portland area.

At 8:03 our lights came on! Stripy was glad to get into his warm tank and eat some crickets. The humans were glad to catch up on what we had missed electronically in the past five hours.

Stripy poops biweekly, and does so in a predictable way – pretty much every time I put him in the bathtub; warm water brings it on for him like coffee does for me.

His poop in interesting. Part of it is white and rubbery, part of it loose and greenish brown.

At 2 in the morning my partner woke me. The power is off again, he says. PGE says the cause is under investigation and there is no estimated time for the power to return. In my Ambien induced slumber, I mumbled, “Please … bring me Stripy…”.

Stripy settled on my chest and closed his eyes. He clung to my nightie like a bur on a wool sweater, both of us covered with the duvet. Our dogs are not happy about Stripy joining us in the bed, and they move as close to my head as they can.

My partner kept checking on Stripy, to make sure he was staying on me, not straying into the sheets. But he needn’t worried. Why would this lizard leave the best heat source in the house -- a woman going through a menopausal transition?

Flanked by dogs, a lizard, and my partner who at this point in the pandemic has not just a beard, but a full wizard’s beard, we sleep. But not well. Our thermostat now says 54 degrees. I am worried about the crickets -- they are no longer chirping. but I am not going to snuggle them.

It is windy. My neighbor's roof is covered with snow and smoke is coming out of her chimney. Branches come down from the weight of ice. A car explodes and burns when a power line falls on it. All over Portland, people are lighting candles and caressing their reptiles, trying to keep them warm.

Stripy has two tanks – one at school, and one at home. His at-school tank is what I think of as his studio apartment; it’s furnished with a doll’s bed covered with a patchwork quilt, a hammock, a tiny ceramic toilet, and a small, hard copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. At home, he has a “desert” tank where I’ve built him tunnels and hillocks out of excavator sand.

In the summer, at the end of the day, he likes to join my family on the patio. We have cheese and crackers and glasses of chardonnay, and Stripy gets his own glass platter of mealworms. Yes, I know the mealworms are fatty and are supposed to be a treat, not a regular staple, which is why I’ve been trying to transition him to crickets. I want Stripy to chase crickets like how the beardie in the YouTube video chases blueberries, but he doesn’t.

I believe he doesn’t chase his food because he doesn’t have to.

He waits until a cricket crawls up on his hillock and then -- a quick snap nom nom nom -- he chomps on them. A drop of cricket juice spatters from his mouth.

But I know he still has his instincts, because I have watched him shoot across the patio to catch and eat a bee.

At school, the kids touch Stripy with one finger, and they know not to pet his head. Heads are personal spaces, and plus, that third eye! The first time I saw his third eye, I thought a child had drawn on him with marker.

When not roaming about the animal room, or sunning himself under a UV light, Stripy is carried in a woven sea grass basket filled with silks. He has castles built for him out of Magnatiles. The children pick fresh arugula for him from the garden and hand feed it to him. They sketch pictures of him that are pinned to the wall. The kids love him. They tell him this on a daily basis. They don’t imbue him with meaning, they just recognize him as sentient being.

The kids marvel at how his spikes look so sharp but are actually soft. They touch him and talk about his textures and colors, the orange rings encircling his eyes, his soft belly, his pointy tail. We watch his torso expand as he sighs, relaxing into his body.

What are those holes in the sides of his head?

What do you think they are?

Can he hear me? Why aren’t his ears on the outside like mine?

Will he lick me?

He might.

Why did he lick me!

He is tasting you. He’s finding out who you are.

This bearded dragon, does he know how to fly?

Not yet.

Well, his mommy needs to teach him!

I ask him questions in front of the kids … Stripy, do you want some dandelion greens? Oh, you do! Oh, Stripy, I can see you don’t want to be held right now. You want to move across the floor on your own!

I regularly give animacy to inanimate objects, too.

What is he saying now, Teacher Nikki?

What do you think he is saying?

Caring for animals helps us to build compassion. I want the kids to know that the animals are communicating with us, we just have to listen.

Sometimes, on my way home from work when I stop at Trader Joes, Stripy tells me that he doesn’t want to be left alone in the car, so I set him on my shoulder and he lies very still (but is supremely alert and watches everything) as I walk around the frozen foods and the wine aisles. Kids always notice him and want to connect. The crew usually notice him, too, and greet him with a wink. My sister, who likes animals but doesn’t have any, when I tell her about my experiences in Trader Joes with Stripy, says “Oh, Nik-Nac, you’ve become one of those people.”

And yes, I guess I have, it’s true. I have become that lady with the bearded dragon.

No, we are not supposed to have a lizard in a preschool -- because of the salmonella risk. However, I believe that risk is an inherent and natural consequence of childhood. Our preschoolers take turns on a broken seesaw that was homemade to begin with. They build with crates and cardboard boxes we scavenge from the furniture store on the corner. There is sometimes a sprinkling of nails in our sandbox. We have earthquakes here, and floods, and ice-storms. Our children breathe harmful air from wildfires. We have lockdown drills to prepare us for potential active shooters in our schools – a little salmonella isn’t going to shut things down for us!

In my more than 30 years of teaching with animals, I have probably exposed thousands of children to salmonella. It will be okay. For those of you who are still worried, let me tell you a little story.

I hosted a special COVID sleepover for some school-age kids recently (the kids were all from the same pod) and when it was discovered that one child had forgotten to bring a tooth brush, I said, “that’s okay, just borrow someone’s toothpaste and brush with your finger.” I mimed a demonstration and all the kids made faces of disgust. “I would never brush my teeth with my finger,” I heard. “I put my fingers in my butt too much!”

We do wash our hands as often as possible.

2 notes · View notes

talkingismylifewrites · 4 years

Note

I find myself wanting some OT4 quarantine parenting with Roger and John being Good Dads. Say one of the kids has chicken pox or there’s a bad flu going around and they have a houseful of children who can’t go out for a few weeks and between the schoolwork and the cancelled birthday party there are things to get frustrated about...

oh my god it would be hell on earth

let’s say it is the chicken pox

ha #1 (henry) and ha #2 (hannah) come home from preschool with a letter that says there’s been an outbreak and to look out for symptoms

“this will never happen to us,” thinks john confidently

SURPRISE

three days later HaHa are both spotted and feverish

roger had the chicken pox one terrible summer when he was seven, dom had it when she was four, and john when he was five

veronica, however, is pregnant with baby #7 (jupiter) and also never had it

“don’t you have like, five siblings?” dominique asks, squinting.

ronnie shrugs, “we got lucky, i guess. ate a lot of soup.”

so ronnie gets her bags packed and is banished to garden lodge to spend two weeks quarantined with freddie and jim

it’s just john, roger, and dominique staring down the worst two weeks of their lives

literally

so HaHa are first quarantined to their room, which appears to work great, right? like just toss the twins-that-aren’t-twins in the same room, feed them soup and ginger ale, bring them to the bathroom for oatmeal baths when they itch

WRONG

it gets transferred to daisy

(how they honestly have no idea they thought they were SO GOOD about it)

so daisy gets like....two spots

really, like, the mildest case

half inch on her back, barely even itches, minor fever, she hides it well

BUT

she gives it to robbie, who in turn gives it to vera

this all happens in like......five days

vera is just knocked out with a fever, vomiting everywhere, she’s COVERED in spots, gets oven mitts duct taped to her to stop her from itching

robbie doesn’t have a bad fever persay? but he’s got the itchies and he’s DYING

so he and vera get thrown onto the couches in the den and they’re like covered in calamine lotion that dom has to reapply every 30 min

she has an egg timer just for them

robbie had to be shoved into socks when they realized he was using his feet to itch at his pox

(“it’s almost impressive,” roger breathes, watching robbie hook his foot over his shoulder to itch his neck. “who knew he was that flexible?”

“he gets it from veronica,” john say sagely. )

their pediatrician HATES them

“anOTHER kid?? another one. seriously??? how???”

meanwhile, at casa freddie

veronica is feeling v guilty that she’s having as good of a time as she is

freddie is like oMG A BABY!! and is going haywire getting her anything she could ever want or need

veronica’s hungry?

she gets an entire charcuterie platter just for her

(”does freddie know i can’t eat half of this?” she asks jim, nearly on the verge of hormonal pregancy tears.

“i’ll eat it, don’t worry,” says jim, pretending like he’s doing her a favor.

jim loves charcuterie

“does baby want caviar????” freddie bellows from the pantry)

her feet hurt??

freddie himself is rubbing them for her with this excellent cream he bought in la, think it’s made with bulls testicles but its lovely darling

on day 6 of the nightmare, daisy wakes up with a nightmare and the only person who will soothe her is veronica

literally

no one else

john, roger, and dom are all cuddling her in bed, trying to get her to stop crying because its 2:17am and the other kids are all asleep but no

ronnie and ronnie alone will calm her down

so roger bites the bullet and calls ronnie

ronnie, who is sleeping star fished out with no one and nothing touching her for the first time in ten years, her back supported by fifteen pillows and the silk sheets/goose feather duvet, is awoken by jim shaking her awake

“who is it?” ronnie grumbles, pushing back the silk eye mask that freddie so lovingly let her borrow

“mama?” daisy whimpers before descending into gut wrenching sobs

now, ronnie has been calling the kids every single day twice a day (breakfast and dinner) but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t miss them

she does

terribly

and she, too, starts tearing up as she shushes daisy, promising her it’s okay, no, scooby do doesn’t live in your closet, he can’t hurt you

it takes her thirty minutes to settle her down enough to go back to bed, and then another forty-five min for ronnie to stop crying herself

the next morning, she calls the other three and spends hours on the phone with each of the kids

even though kitty is only 2 years old and disinterested in anything other than playing with the chord

and that vera is still highly feverish and spends the entire phone call snoring in between furious boughs of itching

on day 8, HaHa are finally symptom free

“it’s going to take us eight days,” dom says, dazed, slathering a fresh batch of calamine onto vera’s back. on the floor, robbie is making like a dog and wriggling on the carpet in the hopes that it will quell the itching

“lord have mercy,” says roger, arms full of oatmeal as he rushes upstairs to where john had wrangled kitty into the tub

robbie manages to scab over, which they thought was great until they realize they shed

(roger pukes when he realizes it)

(the less said about it the better)

soon, all the healthy kids (daisy and haha) get stuck in one wing of the house while the others (robbie, vera, and kitty) get put in the other

roger, john, and dom take turns sleeping in opposite wings so that the kids are never alone

on day 10, vera’s fever breaks in time for her to experience a new round of blisters

(“can’t we just, i don’t know, knock her out?” dom asks over her crying. “might be more humane.”)

meanwhile, ronnie is depressed and missing her kids

phone calls just aren’t the same

so she escapes from garden lodge and runs away back home

knocking on the windows, she stands in the garden and waves to the kids, letting them open the windows so they can shout down to her

robbie, vaguely pink from the frankly terrifying amount of calamine lotion he’s been slathered in, hangs out the window

“mama!” he shouts. “i had thirty-seven scabs fall off today!! thirty-seven!”

“that’s wonderful, baby!” ronnie says, though she feels a little sick at the thought of it. “how are your sisters and brother?”

“mama, kitty broke my barbie and ha #1 threw up on my slippers,” daisy informs her from the other wing of the house. “daddy said shit when ha#1 threw up and then told me i wasn’t allowed to repeat it or tell you that he said shit....what does shit mean?”

ha #1 gets a boost from roger to look out the window. ronnie waves back at him before frowning, squinting up at him

“roger, i thought henry was better? why is he covered in spots?!”

“he missed his spots so he used a marker to color them in,” roger hollers back, hiking him up high on his hip. “john thinks it’ll wash off in a few days.”

ha#2 gets so excited at the sight of veronica that she runs right into the sliding glass door and fucking bounces off it

roger has to spend the whole visit soothing her and giving her one of the popsicles they bought for vera’s fever

meanwhile, dom is on the phone calming freddie down that “no, ronnie didn’t get kidnapped, she’s just visiting...”

john is holding kitty and having her wave down at ronnie while propping up a half-conscious vera who is immensely spotted and miserable, still wearing the oven mitts

which, in hindsight, is the kiss of death

turns out, john didn’t actually get the chicken pox at age five like he thought he did

JULIE got the chicken pox, and john spent the week at his grandma’s house getting fed ice cream and hobnobs

the next morning, the first spot appears

then another

and another

and before they know it

john is quarantined to the same wing of the house as vera, robbie, and kitty

“you’re an idiot,” dom sighs as she spoon feeds him chicken noodle soup while roger uses a cotton ball to spot calamine lotion on the worst of his blisters

“this is the worst thing thats ever happened to me,” bitches john, trying not to itch at his stomach

“papa, i don’t feel so good,” moans vera right before unleashing hell on the bedding

kitty and robbie heal up, and they advance to the healed wing of the house where roger spends his days enforcing naps (so he can nap) and playing monopoly

(he loses to robbie every round, even when he TRIES to win)

vera gets two more days in isolation before she’s deemed healthy, leaving just john to lay in quarantine alone, catching up on coronation street and his sleep

ronnie comes home after seventeen days bearing lots and lots of gifts for the kids

they all clamber all over her like puppies, each talking over the other as they talk about everything that they’ve done, what she missed, who had the most scabs (it was a tie between robbie and john), who threw up the most (vera), who had the highest fever (ha #2), and who ate the most oatmeal while in the bath (kitty).

that night, she is the only one allowed to put the kids to bed, tucking them each into bed with a kiss and a story

by the time she’s done, robbie snoring into his pillow, she’s exhausted

after seventeen days of pampering, she’s almost annoyed at having to share a bed again

she didn’t realize how lovely silk sheets were, or how nice it was to sleep diagonal

and did roger always run this hot at night??

but then dom curls up close next to her, her hand on her bump, and roger fluffs her pillows before she goes to sleep

and john slips his leg between hers to support her legs and she realizes that she’s never slept better

(that is until ha#1 throws himself into the middle of the bed announcing that he’d peed himself and no he hasn’t changed his pajamas)

#ot4 #john/ronnie/roger/dominiqe #the chicken pox incident #roger taylor #john deacon #caro writes #veronica tetzlaff #dominique beyrand

14 notes · View notes

justoneday-namjoonii · 6 years

Text

Midnight Circus pt.7

☾pairing: Jungkook(?)♡→ reader ☾genre: Angst. Fluff. Mature content. bad boy summer fling au ☾summary: “You’re ten times hotter this summer, you know that?” ☾Series status statement: “She is?” a/n: This is a lil shorter than most chapters and I just want to say I’ve enjoyed going on this story’s journey with you all, it’s been an emo time and I love it^^

| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | coming soon

Lying on a yellow blanket in the park, pretty hands combing through his hair like a lullaby. A sweet scent of flowers and churro vendors engulfed his nostrils, reminding him of the confectionaries served at the county fair.

That’s what he so desperately wanted to make his reality, but instead, he stood in the back alley of the vinyl record and music shop, smelling old sweets from the bakery next door. The wind tousled with his hair and the brisk air threatened to nip at the tip of his nose. He was texting a friend but on his way to the sweet escape of his car. When he finally took a seat in the vehicle, he set his phone down and turned on some soft music.

Lately, music has consumed the majority of his time. That, school, and his new job. The bowling alley was nice and all but he decided he should venture into different things in this season of his life. He’s been drawing a lot, thinking, singing, little things that make him feel a tinge of happiness inside—that’s what the counselor said to do anyway. He’s been seeing a counselor secretly, Namjoon suggested it because of the divorce and emotional problems he’s been dealing with. He was reluctant at first, he didn’t feel the need to go to someone with his baggage, but after that episode with you, he felt like he should try it out. And it helped him deal with himself. More importantly, it helped him deal with losing you. He never had you, it was hard for him to say that out loud, but it’s true.

What you two had was so wrong, in the beginning, it was wrong. That’s what you said, you said you regretted it and if you had the chance to do it again, you’d say no in a heartbeat. He went home to try and forget about it, about you. But oh how very difficult that turned out to be. He wants to know how you are and how your life has been. Somewhere deep down inside of him, he felt like he should be forgiven. He’s demonstrated that a mistake isn’t all he is—he screws up sometimes, but he’s only human.

His phone buzzed and he quickly picked it up.

“Hey,” It was Namjoon on the line, “what’s up?”

By the wind in the background, he was in the park, walking his dog probably.

“Would you happen to have any acrylic painting paper?”

“Uh, yeah, I should have a few sheets at my place.” That was an odd request. “I can bring them to you or-”

“No!” He sounded almost alarmed. “I’ll come over and get it this evening.”

“Okay,” Jungkook furrowed his brows in suspicion but went with it anyway. “I’ll see you later then.”

Namjoon sighed, slipping his phone into his pocket as he sat back in the park bench.

“I got them! They only had two left too.” You smile, skipping over to him with two sweet soft pretzels in your hands. “I don’t know how I got them.”

“Because you’re a lucky girl.” He smiles, dimples deep and pretty as always when he reaches out for one of the treats.

“Yeah, that’s true, I am pretty lucky.” You beam, sitting beside him and tearing a piece of your pretzel to give to the cute ball of fluff sitting next to his feet. “Here puppy, have some yummy pretzel-”

“Sweets aren’t good for dogs,” He looks at you, giggling when you give it to RM anyway, “you’re gonna spoil him.”

“Like you don’t spoil him already,” You roll your eyes, “he practically thinks you’re his maid.” RM reaches up to like your hand and you return his affection with a well-deserved ear rub. You coo to that little bundle of cuteness. “You love me, don’t you puppy?”

“Yes, he does.” Namjoon suddenly turns your jaw, the sweetest grin on his face when you tilt your head to him. He leans in and kisses you, a peck on the check that made your heart flutter.

He smiles at your rosy cheeks, that color had to be the prettiest thing in the world to him. “We both do.”

He helps you reach the stars.

Flashback

The prison they call school is now back in session. The break was nice, you spent a lot of time with family and you even went out with your close friends a few times. On New Year's day, you actually went to a party. There were actually quite a few people you’ve never seen before, but one person, in particular, was there—Jungkook.

The entire night, you did everything in your power to avoid him, but it was inevitable when you were re-introduced to each other by a mutual friend who was unaware of your pre-existing relationship.

“Jungkook,” He shuffled him over to where you were, safely in the corner with a bowl of trail mix, “have you met Y/n? She’s a friend from school, we go way back.”

You were stunned and quickly tried to chew and swallow the pretzel in your mouth. Sitting the trail mix down, you stand up, mouth opening to say something but nothing comes out, your friend probably thinks your just flustered but that’s not the case.

“We, um, we know each other actually,” Jungkook clears his throat, speaking to lessen the awkward silence. “we’ve gone to the same school since preschool.” He glances at you.

“Y-yeah.” You nod in agreeance.

“Really? Wow, small world.” He laughs, “Well I’ll leave you two to catch up then.”

He leaves you and Jungkook, still completely unaware of the tension in the air.

Jungkook stands in front of you, eyes hesitant to scan you but he did so anyway. “I haven’t seen you in a while,” He moves to sit on the couch, next to where you were sitting, “how are you?”

“I’m fine, thanks.” You don’t look at him when you say that, you know better than anyone that he rather forget the meeting you had ever happened, that’s why he’s trying not to sound awkward. It’s hard for you to sit here, just to be near him is difficult to stomach. He looks different from the last time you saw him, almost brighter as if he’s decided to hydrate himself with water instead of cola.

It’s just silence after that, a silence that brings the thought of what he’s been doing lately to your mind. Honestly, this is the longest you’ve gone without speaking to him, it’s been a few months. Fall had passed, winter came and school started again.

After what happened during the summer, there was no way you were gonna come out of that the same, there were too many changes. For one, surprisingly, Jimin still contacts you when he gets the chance and you don’t know how to feel about it. Jen often reminds you of the good things Jungkook has done to keep you from completely ripping him in your frequent conversations about him. And then there’s Namjoon—he seems too good to be true, doesn’t he? He listens to you, he wants to help you get over what you went through, and he defends you at all costs. He’s still a confidant to Jungkook and they talk but he never tells you what they talk about.

One day, he told you that he hadn’t told Jungkook about you two going out after that New Year’s party. He was the first person you kissed to begin the year, it was as magical as they make it look in Manhattan, maybe even more so. That night, you promised yourself that you’d never settle. You’d never open your heart to someone who justs wants to play with it.

Because let’s be real, Jungkook likes to play, he always has. If it means he can get a little rush or a good feeling out of it, he’ll do it. In this case, he recognized that he felt an attraction towards you and acted on it instantly, and you being the person to Jungkook that you are, you let him.

Just this is just as much of his fault as it is yours. His habit of playing with females was gonna bite him in the butt and it did—he caught feelings. Hilarious. The Casanova, the man with not a single soul tying him down, decided to catch feelings. And not with just anyone, with you of all people, his once mortal enemy. Now he’s really in trouble because you didn’t return those feelings the way he thought you would. So he acted out, tried to take you by force, tried just about anything to get you, but it only pushed you further away. Now you’re living your own life. You’re not letting your past with him dictate your life, he can see that clearly.

“Are you here alone?” He asks, his words somewhat muffled by the pin the tail on the donkey game in the background.

“No, I’m here with Jen.” You take a bite of your trail mix. “You?”

“Tae’s here somewhere.” You nod at that. ”Namjoon too.”

You brighten up at the mention. “Namjoon is here?” You look around for him. “I haven’t seen him...”

“Yeah, he’s somewhere.” After a moment of silence, you get up to go look for him and Jungkook’s heart breaks out in a thousand hairline fractures and he merely watches you for the rest of the night. You were able to track down Namjoon, and when you did, you two started to drink a little. Your outfit is flattering, distracting even. Distracting, that seemed to be the only word that came to his mind. He played beer pong, croquet, table tennis, but he kept looking for you, looking to see if you’de be looking at him...

Namjoon pulled you away and it was beautiful. The two of you talked and laughed about everything, he is even more hilarious at night. You two weren’t drunk but your red faces would beg to differ.

Within the hour, everyone huddles around the TV for the countdown. When the clock strikes twelve you all scream happy new year. Jungkook watches from the sidelines and when he sees you jumping around looking—genuiniely happy—something in him becomes uneasy and he goes outside on the porch to get some fresh air. Just as he does that, Namjoon cups your face with the softest smile and kisses you.

After that night, Jungkook doesn’t see you again and it tries not to let it tear him apart.

- Flashback End -

You lay sprawled out on your bed, a Greek history book in your hand, and your eyes slowly falling victim to sleep. The plan was to go study with Namjoon but you ended up on a little date at the park—you didn’t mind that though. Just as your eyes were about to close, you hear your phone buzz and you quickly bring it to your ear.

“Hello?” You frown a little bit, sleepiness wearing off almost immediately when you realize that it was a freaking text message, not a phone call. “Hugh...” You bring the phone down to look to see who it’s from and you do a double-take—Jungkook. You distinctly remember telling him to lose your number...

Jungkook [11:23]: i think. i need need u to cakll me

You’re taken aback, completely confused as to why he would be texting you some gibberish like this at this time of night. For a moment, you wait to see if he’s gonna text you back but the typing bubble disappears and you’re getting a phone call from him.

“Oh God no, no.” You stare at your phone, just waiting for it to stop ringing. “Not tonight, we’re not doing this tonight.” You’re saying that more to yourself than anything. After ignoring the call, he calls again and you ignore it, then he calls again, and again, and again, and you cave in. You pick up the phone and hold to your ear.

“What do you want Jungkook? Why do you keep calling me? Do you know what time it is?” You don’t shout, but you do speak with a blunt delivery.

“I need you...I miss, miss you- h-how are you by the way?...” His words are slurred, making him sound odd. “Y/n...” He draws your name out with a tug in his voice—he’s drunk, that is the only reasonable explanation for this.

“Jungkook,” You sigh, “are you drunk?”

“No, I’m not d- drunk,” He chokes, “I-” He sounds like he’s drinking something at that very minute, “I’m sorry, I’m- so, so- I’m stupid, I’m so stupid, but I need you, I need you bad...Please, please tell me you want me, please...” Now it sounds like he’s crying and you panic, you need to get off this phone.

“Stop that, you need to get off of this phone, I’m gonna hang up, okay? I need to go to bed.”

“I’m coming over your house,” He pants into the phone for a moment, “I’ll come and do whatever you, whatever you want...please, please...I-...I love you...”

You bite your lip, your heart aching at the drunken rambling. “Jungkook, you drank too much, you need to go to sleep and sober up...”

“Only i- if you tell me you love me, I need you,” He sounds like he’s crying again, “I want you to love me, I know I’m an idiot but I can’t take this, I can’t take it...”

“You don’t love me Jungkook.” You shake your head when you hear him let out a small sob. “We don’t love each other and it’s okay. It’s for the better. Now, I’m gonna hang up, alright?” He doesn’t say anything but you can hear his attempts to steady his breathing. “...Okay, goodnight.”

Long gone is your voice, all he hears is a dial tone taunting him. He tips up a bottle of soju and blinks back some tears. He’s at Yoongi’s place, again. His plan was to go home but he couldn’t resist drinks with Yoongi and Hoseok. But Yoongi was in the shower and Hoseok ran out to get something from the store.

”Jungkook,” Yoongi steps out of the bathroom, eyes scrutinizing a disheveled Jungkook, “what’s the matter?”

Jungkook sniffles, eyes and nose tinted a rosy pink. “She hates me...She fucking hates me.”

“Who?” Just as Yoongi asks that Hoseok walks in, plastic bags in hand.

“Y/n...” Jungkook said your name as if it was painful.

“Oh my God Kook,” Yoongi sighs, “did you call her?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?” Hoseok joined the conversation.

“I wanted to talk to her.” He sighs, mind still not processing the problematic appearance of it all.

“At this time of night? Why would you think it was okay to call her Jungkook? And what did she say?”

“She said doesn’t love me.”

“You told her that you love her?... “ Jungkook nodded, “Do you love her?”

“I don’t know, I think so- I know I care about her, y’know? Like, I care about what happens to her...”

“She’s been going out with Namjoon for the past few weeks, you know that right?”

“She has?” Jungkook’s eyes were glossy and he looked like someone had just taken a dagger to his heart.

“Well, I saw them out a the movies one night and the other day he said they were going for a run together. If that’s not going out, I guess they’re just really close friends.”

“Jungkook, this might be for the better,” Yoongi interjects. “You two were never together in the first place, so why are you so heartbroken about this?”

That was just it, you two were never together in the first place. There is no logical reason as to why he’s behaving as if that were the case, it’s not. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s trying to get over it, and it’s just taking a while. “I’m not, I’m just trying to stop thinking about her like we had something, I thought we had something, I don’t know why.”

“You need to sleep it off Jungkook, your life doesn’t depend on Y/n.” Hoseok pats his shoulder and heads off to the guest bedroom to get some sleep himself. And Jungkook, after an hour or so of trying to find something on tv, he fell asleep and the world pitied him

You put on your nice top and best jeans because your mom said she had some friends coming over for Sunday dinner. You, of course, weren’t going to stay for the whole thing, due to your social anxiety around friends that aren’t really your own. So, you said you’d stay for a little while, then go out.

“Y/n! You’ve turned out to be such a beautiful young lady.” Mrs. Belle, she’s a long time family friend and she says that every time she sees you.

“Thank you, Mrs. Belle.” She’s sitting next to you at the dinner table as you eat the last few bites of your beans and rice.

“And you’re taking college courses now, right?”

“Yes, I’m just getting my A.A right now, I’ll figure out the rest of my plans when the time comes.” You smile, making sure you cut off any opportunities to talk about your major.

Shen went on about how great that was and how she hopes I can meet up with her son soon and help him out. You said you’d be more than willing to but the fact of the matter is, her son is more of the free-spirit time. In fact, you know Brian well and you know he rather play sports and find vegan burgers rather than talk about college.

Soon, you’re able to break away from the table and tell your mother you’ll be back soon. Jen texted you early this week, saying she was going on a picnic and a movie screening with Naeun, Nayeon, some other girls and guys. She also said Namjoon would be there. You wondered why he didn’t tell you himself, but you pushed that thought aside and ran upstairs to slip into a cute little sundress. You ran downstairs, bid farewell to your family and hoped in your car. She sent you the location and you put it in your GPS. The drive wasn’t too long, maybe 30 to 40 minutes, give or take a few minutes. When you pulled into the parking lot for the hilly park, you suddenly got a little nervous. Sure, these are your friends and all, but still, they make you nervous sometimes.

With courage, you get out of your car and bring your little cooler of fruit with you. There are quite a few couples having romantic little picnics, and families as well, your heart swells at the sight. You’re guilty of being a bit of a hopeless romantic and you think it probably shows. Because in reality, you don’t know if you’ve ever had a real boyfriend. You’ve gone on dates but never committed, it’s not a bad thing though, it’s just how it is.

“Y/n! Over here!” Jen waves you over and you see everyone else wave as well. There were about five blankets around, all with people you know and you greeted all of them.

“Hey,” You take a seat next to Jen and Jin—apparently they’re a thing now—you smile, “how are you guys?”

“Good, you?” Jin responds.

“Great.” You look around, hoping to see Namjoon heading your way but he’s no where to be seen. And in just the nick of time, you get a phone call from him

“Hello?”

“Hey, Jen told me she told you about the picnic, I’m sorry I can’t make it.”

“It’s okay, I understand.” You try not to sound too disappointed. “I’m good.”

“Okay, I’ll see you in class on Tuesday, alright?”

“Alright.” You say goodbye and you settle into a comfortable sitting position as you think of how you wished Namjoon was here, he made you feel really comfortable.

“I’ve missed you bestie.” Suddenly, Jen wraps her arms around you, so tight that you feel like she was probably doing it on purpose.

“How? I see you all the time Jen.” You giggle, unpacking your fruit and setting it out for whoever wants it.

“I know but you’ve been busier these days, which isn’t a bad thing, but we don’t get as much time anymore.” She lets you go and leans back on her hands. “We’ll have to do another trip soon.”

Never.

“I don’t know if I could do another summer like that Jen, maybe with just us girls.” Your tone is a bit bitter and she catches on immediately

“You mean?-”

“You know what I mean.” You look up at the screen the people are setting up. “I can’t do that again.”

“Y/n,” She frowns, knowing you were just at the point of ripping Jungkook apart, “you and Jungkook settled your differences, right?”

“I mean yeah, but-” You pause and look her in the eyes. “He called me last night, but he was drunk.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, he was rambling about how he needed me and asking me to love him, I couldn’t believe it.”

“That’s crazy...He must-” She cuts off what she was about to say and you narrow your brow.

“He must what?”

“Nothing!”

“You said that too quick, say what you were going to say. He must what?”

She’s hesitant to say something, but she caves under your scrutinizing glint. “He must just, miss you.”

You scoff. “No, he doesn’t know what he wants Jen...I honestly think he’s confused and I just hope he can get through it.” You two sort of end the conversation on that, but you don’t stop thinking about it. You never thought Jungkook could really, genuinely miss you, it didn’t sound right in your head. But it could happen, he could somehow feel like there’s a void in his life and it’s because of you. Jungkook did a lot of crap to you that just wasn’t right, but you gave in every time when you could have easily said no, and he used that against you.

But it’s okay now.

You’ve healed and now it’s Jungkook’s turn to do the same.

But no matter where you go, or what you do, Jungkook will be not too far behind. After the movie had started, you saw him arrive with Yoongi and Hoseok, your heart dropped at the sight of him. Every time you see him unexpectedly, you feel yourself panic a little bit. It’s obvious that he hasn’t yet seen you, and you want to keep it that way.

Little did you know, he sees you but he does his best not to make that known, he doesn’t want to suffer any more awkward meetings. He settles at a spot on one of the huge blankets and tries to watch the movie. You, on the other hand, you’re scared that he might see you and get embarrassed about what happened last night. Wouldn’t that bruise his ego to know you heard him like that? You thought so.

The night goes on, people end up talking during the movie and Jen asks if anyone will go get some paper plates from the little shop over the hill. You volunteer and scurry off to get the plates.

When you arrive at the little vendor, you have to get in a short line—that’s not too bad. Well, not until you realize who’s standing in front of you.

Jungkook.

And to make matters worse, he glances back at you and you can practically see the blood leave his face.

“Hey.” You’re the first to say something, in hopes that the silence and staring is put to an end.

“H-hey, we seem to keep meeting...” He breathes, referring to the many times you two arrived at the same function by sheer coincidence.

“Yeah....”

He clears his throat. “So, how have you been? I know we haven’t talked since New Year’s”

No, you two have definitely talked since then.

“Um, pretty good, how about you?”

“I’ve been fine, can’t really complain I guess.” He turns from you so he can purchase some bottles of water from the cashier. Now it’s your turn.

“Five plates please.” You smile and the man promptly takes your money and gives you the plates in exchange. When you look up, Jungkook is standing there, just looking at you.

“What’re you doing?”

“I’ll walk back with you, if you’re okay with that,” He rushes to make sure this is something you don’t mind. “It’s dark out.” He has a fair point. Instead of saying something, you begin to walk back and he walks beside you, eyes stealing small glances at your dress. You look really pretty tonight, he can’t deny that. But he wills himself to look at his feet, or at anything else, he can’t afford to have you catch him staring.

You’re feeling so, so awkward. Does he not realize that he called you last night? You were starting to think he was completely unaware of it because he didn’t look uneasy, ashamed, nothing, he acted like the last time you two talked was on New Year’s Day. You two go your separate ways to your own blankets and your mind is spinning with one conclusion.

He doesn’t know he called you.

#bts smut #bts angst #bts fluff #bts fanfic #bts imagine #jungkook #jungkook angst #Jungkook smut #jungkook fluff #jungkook scenario #jungkook imagine #Midnight Circus #midnight circus is back #this is what you've all been waiting for #it is finished #this is my most popular fic #i was so shook when i looked back and saw 800+ notes #❤️thank u so much❤️

299 notes · View notes

akitokihojo · 5 years

Text

In Between: Chapter 6

Hello! I’m super excited with the direction this story is going in, and I just wanted to thank all of you for keeping up with it! It means the world! All of your reviews and comments keep me alive! Thank you again!

Previous chapters can be found in my fic masterlist, as well as on AO3 and ff.net

------------

Tree of Young Ages Preschool Academy

Kagome relished in the quiet of her empty classroom, the large clock on the far wall loudly ticking seconds away. She'd opted for staying late, finding more peace and comfort in the confinement of her work than in the one-bedroom apartment she'd been renting out for the past five years. What was initially supposed to only be thirty minutes so that she could finish up the lesson plan she was preparing for the next week easily turned into four hours, the sunlight long gone as the street lamps illuminated the sidewalks outside her school.

There was an eerie sensation crawling up her spine as she stared through the open blinds of the large windows, her brown eyes fixed on the dark shadows filling corners and crevices behind trees and bushes. The uneasy feeling fluttering through Kagome's mind had her anxiously tapping the butt of her pen against her notebook. She'd been telling herself over and over that she needed to start heading home but remained seated through the chanting until the sting in her unblinking eyes was enough to tear her vision away.

Before she allowed herself to fall back into her reverie, Kagome began throwing her belongings into her bag, sighing out as much tension as she could. It was no surprise she'd been on edge since this whole mess began, but over the last twelve hours she felt herself growing more and more fearful for no reason. During the kids' recess, she found herself looking over her shoulder more often than usual, and even now she couldn't help but watch the shadows to see if someone would walk out from them to greet her. Swallowing thickly, Kagome threw her bag over her shoulder, adjusting her hair around the thick strap, and grabbed her keys, stepping out into the chilly night air and locking the classroom door as it shut.

She couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched. Hoping it would help, she kept her eyes solely on the path before her, making her way out of the playground gate and heading down the curb in the direction she lived in. The sensation was intensifying as she walked, her heart unsteady, beating quickly against her ribcage as she tried to gather her wits. She was telling herself she was being paranoid. She was telling herself nothing was amidst. She'd walked home at night so many times in the last few months, all the while she'd had a stalker - unbeknownst to her, of course - and nothing had happened. She was in her own head, psyching herself out. Nothing was wrong.

And if something was wrong, she'd jab and run. Just like Inuyasha had taught. Jab and run. Jab and run. Jab and run.

Just as a hand landed on her shoulder, unleashing the trepidation she'd been trying so hard to bite back, Kagome spun around and punched, the hard ball of an Adam's apple landing just between her knuckles. Spittle landed on her cheek while Inuyasha doubled over, clutching his throat as he fell into a coughing attack, his reddened face noticeable even in the dim lighting.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! I thought you were-" She was silenced by his large hand, grabbing her face and pushing her back in an effort to shut her up while he worked to gain his bearings back, coughing and wheezing until he could finally breath easier.

"I'm sorry." Kagome tried again sheepishly. "Are you okay?"

"I was." He responded, his tone broken and husky as he continued to rub his neck.

"I'm sorry!"

"It's fine." He grunted, clearing his throat a few times over. "Why haven't you been answering your phone? I've been calling you."

"Oh, it was silenced." She mentioned, digging into the pocket of her bag to fish out her cellphone. The screen lit up as she hit the home button, six missed calls and a few text messages sitting among her notifications.

"Why the hell are you here so late?" There was a bite in his tone that was impossible to miss, but Kagome did her best to move past it.

"I had some work that needed to get done."

"You should have taken it home!"

"I didn't think it would take that long."

"I went by your apartment and you weren't there, you weren't answering your phone - Jesus, Kagome! If there's ever a time to be responsive, it's now!"

"What's your problem? I'm fine!"

"Fine!? You just punched me in the fucking throat, and I know for a fact that's never been your first reaction to jump scares! You're not fine!"

"What are you talking about? You're the one that taught me the jab and run!"

"Except you didn't jab and you didn't run! Look, I know you're stressed but you need to be more aware! You would have seen me there if you didn't have your eyes glued to the ground!"

"Did you just come here to lecture me, because I'm not really in the mood."

"No, I came to find you!"

"Well, you found me."

Inuyasha took in a stiff breath, clenching his jaw as he observed the empty streets around them.

"Were you worried?" Kagome's tone peaked in curiosity, the frustration fading away as she took in the color of his evading eyes.

"Do you have to ask?" It was defensive, but still something she'd secretly wanted to hear. She didn't want to reach for much, everything was still so muddled, but his language of affection provided her with a sheet of comfort she couldn't help but be grateful for at a time like this.

"I'm sorry," Kagome said again, stepping forward. "I didn't mean to."

"It's fine." Inuyasha sighed, sliding his fingers through her bangs, this time without apprehension. "Come on, get in the car."

"It's not that far of a walk."

"I wasn't asking." He responded sternly, grabbing her by the upper arm as a way of guiding.

She didn't fight him. Instead she walked at his side, understanding by the look on his face that something was on his mind. As they approached his car, she felts his fingers gently glide down the inside of her arm, tickling the crook of her elbow, and circling just above her wrist, letting her go only when he had the passenger side door opened for her.

Inuyasha crossed the front of the car, swiftly opening his own door and dropping into his seat. He was quiet, the purr of the vehicle soothing as they rode without the radio. As peaceful as it was, though, there was still a concerning crease in the half demon's brow and Kagome wanted to make alleviate them.

"So, not sure if you noticed, but something pretty cool happened." She tried, speaking softly to break the silence. Inuyasha cocked a brow, not removing his eyes from the road as his features slowly unfurled. "I kept my wrist straight when I punched you."

He couldn't bite back the chuckle in time, "I'm proud of you."

As selfish and unfitting as it seemed, considering she was trying to provide for him, it gave her a sense of ease when she saw him smile.

"Look," Inuyasha sighed as he pulled into a guest parking spot, killing the engine. "We need to talk when we get upstairs."

"Is everything okay?"

"No." He answered bluntly, throwing his door open and hopping out. Kagome followed suit, perturbed by his demeanor, a sense of dread creeping up and over her chest. He waited at the front of the car for her, and walked directly behind as she lead the way into her complex, acting like a hired bodyguard for the queen, his ears turned outward and hypervigilant of his surroundings.

"Okay, what is it?" Kagome asked as soon as they were in her apartment, turning on the living room lamp and crossing the room to drop her keys on the small, circular dining table at the edge of the kitchen. Inuyasha shut the door, holding for a moment after locking the deadbolt, the white appendages atop his head flicking as she assumed he was listening for anyone that may have followed before he turned to face her. Clearly, nothing had but just the additional alertness from him managed to give Kagome the heebie jeebies.

"Pack your things." He said, his expression as straight as ever.

"What?"

"You heard me. I'm not going to argue with you."

"Wait, what's going on?"

He hesitated, hating the concern marring her features. He hated that she was going through this, and he hated that he had to rip her out of her home. He hated that this fucker was antagonizing Kagome, and he hated that it just had to be the toughest and most sadistic criminal he'd ever been up against. This was the best he could do right now, though, and he was allowed to do it. He never liked admitting Koga was right, but there was no denying it. Inuyasha not being on the case opened up the door that he could personally protect her, and he'd be damned if anything got in the way of that now.

"Koga and Hojo went down to the psychiatric facility Naraku was placed in." He explained, watching as her deep brown eyes lit up in understanding immediately. Still, she didn't stop him. It was obvious she was waiting for the verbal confirmation. "They thought they had him in confinement, but somehow he'd managed to switch places with another inmate. The whole situation is still under observation, but the important thing is this means Naraku's free, Kagome. Naraku is Onigumo."

There was a brief moment of stillness where he could practically see it all processing, her eyes falling from his face to the floor, her chest rising with slow, steady inhales, her pink lips pressing into a thin line before parting when she was ready to speak.

"Okay." Kagome gave a curt nod, meeting his gaze with a stability he hadn't expected. "Where am I supposed to go?"

"You'll be staying with me."

Her brows pinched together audaciously as she quickly shook her head. "No."

"It's not up for debate." Inuyasha said, unfazed. That he had expected.

"I'm not staying with you, Inuyasha. Can - open, worms - everywhere. Imagine the mess."

"I'm serious, Kagome." He half growled, crossing his arms and rolling his eyes at her dramatic expression.

"So am I! Hello, don't pretend like you haven't noticed the giant elephant taking up most of the room! We've been pretty good at avoiding it so far, but-"

"Fine, lets talk about it."

That took her by surprise, silencing her briefly. He could tell by her sudden shift in demeanor and the small twitch of her eyebrow that she was nervous, but he was over the consternation and the constant dancing over eggshells. This was a conversation they should have had long ago, anyway. It never should have impeded their relationship, and it definitely never should have lasted for so many months. It was his fault she was hesitant to go with him, something she would have never second guessed before, and he was fucking done with the mess that had been created. Sure, he'd be delighted if the issue would dissolve on its own never to reappear again, but clearly that wasn't going to happen. This wasn't some small scrape that was set to heal without leaving a lasting mark on the marred flesh. This entire clusterfuck of a situation was a fully opened wound that couldn't recover because the scab was picked at over and over and over again, irritated and oozing, making it impossible to scar. What made it worse and all the more mind boggling was that it was caused over a simple miscommunication that could have been solved with a text or a phone call that neither of them bothered to make.

"I don't..."

"Then quit fussing and pack your shit!"

"Can't I just stay at a motel or something?"

"Sure, that's fine!" He shrugged. "I'll be there with you, though!"

"Why!?"

"Because if I'm not, then it makes it all the more harder to protect you, stupid! I'll take you wherever you want to go, but you aren't staying here and you aren't going anywhere without me, got it!? You said you'd cooperate last night, so hold up your end and pack your things! If I have to talk about the whole Kikyo thing to make it an easier process, I will! I don't care anymore! Compared to this, it isn't a big fucking deal!" Inuyasha stepped toward her in his heat, noticing her tense slightly but never move away. "I wasn't lying, nothing happened between us! I never chose her over you, I never went back to her, I was only trying to help her! I should have told you, yes! I fucking get that! But I wasn't thinking about your feelings and I definitely wasn't thinking about my feelings, I was thinking about her health! That was what mattered in the moment! She needed my help and I wasn't about to turn her away! We never had sex, we never kissed, we never even fucking hugged! What you and I had - I wanted that! I wasn't thinking about the infidelity of what I was doing, because I honestly - honestly - was only trying to help Kikyo! So, to me, I wasn't pushing you aside or cheating or whatever the hell else you want to call what I did! I was just doing what I thought was right! There! That's what happened! If you want a play-by-play of every event, I'll give it to you in the car, but in the mean time pack your shit and get ready to go! Now!"

"Wait, are you serious? What happened with her? What was wrong?"

Inuyasha ground his teeth, a steaming huff leaving his nose, still furious about the entire thing. Undoubtedly, he didn't like talking about it, not just for what happened with Kagome, but because of the sensitivity of what took place with his ex. To this day, he couldn't get the puncture marks and track lines on her thin, pale arms out of his head. Her deteriorating state was etched into every corner of his mind, burned into his eyelids, and it fucking killed him seeing her cradled in the corner of his hallway, sweating and jonesing, asking for money, begging for help. She'd left him for drugs, and came back when she couldn't afford her love affair any longer.

"Inuyasha?" Kagome inched in carefully, her big, brown eyes wide with concern, searching his face for a way in to hear his thoughts. It should have made it easier; her compassion. Of course, she would immediately worry about the people involved, dropping or even missing what he'd said about wanting her. That's how Kagome worked, though. Even if she had been wronged in the mixup, she still put others before herself. Inuyasha should have known. If he had been open with his best friend of so many years, she would have been compassionate then too. All she had asked for was honesty, but he'd gotten so caught up and concerned and infected with cruel emotions, he'd closed up. As per usual, things got conflicting, and Inuyasha shuts out from the world to handle it all on his own thinking no one would be affected. He honestly wasn't thinking, and that's what brought their already-confusing, yet surprisingly simple, relationship crumbling down.

"She was shooting up." Inuyasha answered. "She came back to break the habit."

Kagome paused, allowing his words to sink through, a heavy weight settling into the center of her chest cavity, filling the space with a thick, gelatinous feeling that was hard to breath through. She was wrong. She was so, so wrong, and she'd managed to hurt Inuyasha even further than he must have already been hurting in that moment with her assumptions. She knew he had a habit to conceal his struggles, but at that time, in her irate and betrayed state, she couldn't bring herself to rationalize the predicament and ask questions. Instead, Kagome had thrown it all in his face. She'd let her emotions get the better of her. She wished he would have told her. She would have helped. Even if he'd waited until she walked into his apartment as she had, she still would have understood. Helping Kikyo was so much more important than anything else.

"Is - is she okay?"

"Don't know. Woke up one morning and she was gone." Inuyasha's glowing eyes faced her bedroom door, hardened, sad but guarded.

"Was she okay before she left?"

"Hard to say. She'd had an easier night than the one before. She wasn't vomiting anymore, and she only had minor sweats. I got up the next morning and she was gone. Haven't heard from her since."

"And you've checked-"

"She's not in the system and she hasn't rolled into any morgues lately. Yeah, I've checked."

Without apprehension, Kagome closed most of the distance between them, her fingers gently clutching to one of the long sleeves of the hoodie he wore, feeling his forearm beneath her hold. Inuyasha never flinched or pulled away, never grunted or growled in disapproval. Instead, he sighed out, his eyes finally meeting her attentive gaze. As much as she wanted to remind him that she would have respected their situation, it wasn't appropriate or necessary. Those little details didn't matter anymore. What did was that by the minor downturn of his lips and the stiffness in his muscles, Kagome could tell it still impacted him greatly.

"I'm so sorry." She whispered, finding those words dominating the forefront of her mind. "It must have been really hard for you to see her that way and... and I'm sorry, Inuyasha."

He shook his head, long silver locks hanging from his ponytail swaying slightly with the movement.

"No, look at me." And he did. She slid one of her hands down into his open palm, squeezing comfortingly. "I shouldn't have made things harder on you. I could have asked just as easily as you could have explained."

"Kagome," He breathed, gently petting the crown of her head. She leaned into his touch. "I don't want you to worry about it anymore, okay? Can we finally drop this? Please?"

"Yeah."

"I never meant to hurt you. You get that now, don't you?"

Kagome nodded, releasing him and taking a few steps back. "I'll go get my things together."

SVU Precinct

"So what'd they say at the coffee shop?" Inuyasha gruffly asked, finding himself too agitated to sit. He slid his chair over to their captain, gesturing for the old man to take it as he observed from the sidelines.

"Once again, they couldn't give me anything valuable." Sango huffed, hating how antsy the detective opposite her got during stressful times. Understandably, he wanted answers but he was searching in all the wrong places. Granted, he could only reach so far before the restriction smacked him back into place.

"Tell me everything they said, Sango!"

"I already have."

"Again!"

"They don't know anything about Onigumo. They don't know if he's married, or if he has children, or anything about his past. He's never once asked or spoken to them about Kagome, or anyone else specifically for that matter. All they know is he carries a camera around at all times and prefers tea to coffee. They think pretty highly of him, too. Every single one of them found him to be nothing short of sweet."

"Fuck. What about that guy that gave Kagome the pictures in broad daylight?"

"They didn't notice him at all, and when they looked back on their security footage, not a single person recognized him."

"And the psychiatric facility?"

"Still under investigation, and the commanding officers in charge of his confinement have been suspended without pay." Hojo answered, shifting through the thick, open file containing all of the information for the original case involving Naraku. His blue eyes never left the paperwork, studying and memorizing everything he could from a case that took place while he was in the academy. Nonetheless, as long ago as it was, he vividly remembered the reports about this criminal on the news and the missing boy's pictures plastered statewide. It was heart-wrenching. The boy's parents put out several pleas for the return of their son on national television, offered a reward, cried and begged for help with anyone that would listen only to find that the finally-caught suspect smiled and laughed while law enforcement and volunteers searched endlessly. No wonder Inuyasha was so on edge. He couldn't blame the guy. He was the lead investigator on the case, entirely new to the precinct at the time, and basically inducted ceremoniously by being thrown right into the burning pit of what Special Victim's Unit actually stood for.

"But," Koga chimed from his spot at his desk, his face unnaturally straight. He'd made sure to be the number one point of contact pertaining to the incident at the psych ward, and had been ripping officer after officer a new one for the past day and a half just trying to figure out where the mistake was made. He was exhausted and frustrated, but his efforts were finally beginning to pay off. "We've found out who the inpatient was that got caught in Naraku's web. His first name is Muso, and he was supposed to be released August seventeenth of last year. He was incarcerated for a petty theft and diagnosed with schizophrenia, causing him to be stuck in the system when he should have only had to deal with court dates and fines. Our guess is Naraku swapped places with him that very day. So, Muso screaming, "I don't belong here," over and over and over wasn't him just being a lunatic as they'd originally brushed it off as. It was a cry for help because he literally wasn't supposed to be there."

Inuyasha paused, a series of emotions fluttering over his face. This Muso guy was supposed to have been released. He'd done time that didn't even belong to him. As far as the system was concerned, he was healthier; in better shape. He was looking at a relatively positive future away from isolation and overloads of medication, back with his family, building himself up with responsible dosages and check ins, and just about had it all ripped away by the filthiest criminal harboring a vendetta. Lord knows how his mentality is fairing now after the additional trauma has sunken in.

Then, the bigger information started to seep through, causing his stomach to feel heavy within his abdomen, sinking lower and lower. His throat felt thick as he swallowed, preparing to speak. "Naraku's been free since August?"

"Presumably, yes."

"Wait, didn't Miroku mention something like this?" Sango inquired, leaning forward over the copies of reports spread about her desk. "That he believed whoever Kagome's stalker was had to have been at this for a while, and we only knew now because they wanted us to know? Because they were about to strike, or something?"

No one answered, the tension in the air of the office growing denser, resembling the awful humidity before a Georgian storm.

"If he's been out since August," She continued, pushing through their cautious and anxious stares. "If he's been out for seven months roosting and plotting, what do you think he's got up his sleeves?"

Still, the pressing silence trudged on, the precinct mostly empty due to the later hour. With an agitated grunt, Koga rose from his seat, his chair rolling away from his fervency, the entire group watching him. He stomped over to the monitor screens nearby, typing in the info he needed and littering the screens with dozens of pictures of bodies found from Naraku's crime scenes. Taking out the photos of childrens' remains, Koga concentrated on the ones of the murdered women zooming in on a few so their wounds were enhanced. Strangulation marks and gashes stood out monstrously on their pale, cold flesh. Suddenly, the pictures of the found women took on a much more personal effect.

Koga turned around, eyes colliding with widened ember. He could tell his partner would rather look at him than the screen in the background, but by the crinkle in his brow and the quickened pace to his breathing he could tell his peripherals were focused on the destruction. "This is it."

"Koga-" Hojo spoke carefully, cut off by the demon's snarl.

"No, we all needed to see this! We all need to be aware that history is about to repeat itself if we don't catch this mother fucker as soon as possible! Inuyasha, you know him best! Where was he apprehended the first time around?"

"In the woods next to a cabin his family owned. He'd buried the boy's body in the backyard." Inuyasha answered begrudgingly, a hint of venom to his tone.

"Do you remember anyone who played a key factor in locating him?"

"Yeah, his girlfriend or wife or whatever."

"He reportedly had a girlfriend. Abi Phoenix." Hojo filled in, the file still wide open in front of him.

"Anyone else affiliated with him in there?"

"Everyone else in his life was a dead end. He didn't have a relationship with his parents or brother. Looks like he was in and out of juvenile detention centers growing up, and was incredibly destructive. They'd noticed his mental stability slipping as a teenager when he began to torture small animals, and his parents ended up kicking him out after his third indictment saying they didn't want that around his younger sibling." Hojo said. "No friends, coworkers didn't know anything about him, and it looks like his downfall was solely thanks to his significant other that seemed entirely ignorant to his psychotic diagnosis."

"Which means she could be in danger, as well." Sango added, standing from her seat with a heated expression.

"Sango and Hojo, I want you to head to Miss Phoenix's house. Now." Totosai ordered, rising from his seat as the duo quickly gave a half-assed effort into clearing their desks, yanked their coats off the backs of their chairs, and headed through the exit. "Koga, you and I will head to Naraku's parent's resident first thing in the morning. Inuyasha, go home."

"What!?"

"Go home!" Koga echoed, pushing him aside as he gathered his own shit from his desk, preparing to leave.

"No! Give me something to do! I need to help! I can't just sit here and wait-"

"You want something to do? Protect Kagome! Stop trying to take a mile when we give you an inch! And stop defying my orders!" Totosai barked, his buggy eyes shadowed by the twisted scowl on his face.

"Where is she right now?" Koga asked, pulling his arms through the sleeves of his jacket as he moved closer.

"My apartment. We checked in with each other an hour ago."

"Go home, dude." The wolf demon suggested sincerely this time, his blue eyes studying the half demon's troubled expression. Knowing his partner, there wasn't anything he could do to soften the blows of how helpless he felt and how terrified he discretely was - he could see right through his friend's defenses. To him, telling Inuyasha to go home wasn't telling him to stay out of their way. He was telling him to be with her, personally catering to her safety. Yes, it was perfectly understandable that he wanted to be involved in the madman's takedown, and the deeper they got into this case, the more Koga was capable of putting himself in the half demon's shoes. If his girlfriend, Ayame, were in this much danger, he'd be furious and adamant in playing a role in making sure the threat was apprehended. Of course, while their dedication to the ones they cared for were similar, the difference between the two men was that Koga could settle for being kept in the loop and sticking by his woman's side to be her personal body guard. Inuyasha on the other hand couldn't sit still with this much anxiety rolling through. This was where his human half intruded, as the half demon would put it. He felt more than your average demon, the pure bloods being able to block out distressing emotions to rationalize evenly. For Inuyasha, things were intense. He felt strongly, he was as loyal as an actual Akita pup, and his thoughts were hardly ever clear. The guy had the powers of a demon and the passionate heart of a human, which Koga would argue made him stronger than anyone in the force.

Inuyasha sighed out heatedly, looking away, hating how vulnerable he felt in this entire ordeal when he wasn't technically the one being targeted. Giving in, he grabbed his coat and headed out the door without a single glance back toward his captain and partner.

Inuyasha's Residence

Kagome was curled up on the couch, a thin blanket wrapped around her to resemble a burrito as she sunk into the cushions, the only light in the living room coming from the television on the wall. Though she'd been to Inuyasha's place numerous times before, at the moment it felt nothing short of unfamiliar to her. It was larger and more open. The bedroom wasn't separated by a door, it was just around the corner, slightly tucked out of view from her position on the long sofa. The floor was wooden, the ceilings were high, the kitchen was spacious, and every settling creek of the beams only served to unsettle her. It would take a couple more days to fully adjust, to fully accept that there was some degree of comfort within his walls.

Tucking her face further into the blanket she was tangled in, Kagome allowed her eyes to drift closed as a commercial stole her show away, the sting behind her heavy lids withering slowly. She'd hardly heard the footsteps leading up the hall, stalling just outside the door before the jingle of keys caught her attention and brought her tired vision to center on the twisting knob. Inuyasha stood in the doorway, quietly entering and shutting the door behind him. It seemed like his movements were slow. Careful. Distinguished, but sluggish. Was he tired? She wouldn't blame him. He was capable of staying up for days on end, but when his body was finally ready for sleep it meant he was beyond exhausted. She sat up giving a quiet greeting, confused when he didn't seem to notice her from her spot across the room. Inuyasha set his keys down on the entryway table, looking straight ahead - maybe at an angle so his eyes were directed at the far ground, she couldn't tell. Trying again, she muted the television and gently said his name only to receive the same response.

He couldn't get the images out of his head. The women. Mutilated. Devoured. Eyelids still at half mast. Colorless. Dead. If they failed, Kagome could end up just like that. He couldn't manage to concentrate on anything else. He couldn't get the image of her in their place out of his mind. It made him want to vomit where he stood, his stomach leadened and weak, churning violently beneath the muscular shield of his abdomen. Kagome didn't deserve this. Naraku wanted him. She was caught in between. This was his fault. How did things get so twisted? He should have been the one with the threats surrounding his life, not Kagome. God, not her. She wasn't sleeping well, she was scared, she was anxious, and he just wanted to take that all away because she didn't deserve this. How could he fix the problem if he wasn't allowed in the immediate investigation? Inuyasha knew he was about to be cut out of just about everything alluding to the case. They weren't going to tell him anything pertaining to where they may think Naraku's hiding out when they catch on, or what their next move may be, or who's helping him, because that's protocol. The higher the stakes, the less you know. The higher the stakes, the less chances they'll take of a temperamental half demon getting in the way. All he could do was see to Kagome's safety, and he was aware that should have been satisfactory enough. But it wasn't. It never would be. Kagome wasn't just anybody to Inuyasha. Kagome was...

A light touch on his bicep reopened his mind, bringing him springing back to the present. The soft fingers glided over his jacket, carefully gathering his attention. He could feel his heart pounding erratically, his pulse ignited beneath his skin. When had he grasped onto the edge of the table his keys sat on? His claws had scraped into the furniture, the cheap gloss of the wood wounded. Kagome was standing before him now, her makeup-less face shadowed from the darkened room. He could make her out, though. Even if he couldn't see very well at the moment, concern rolled off of her like irate waves of an ocean.

"Is everything okay?" She asked, caressing up and down his arm, the small amount of friction building heat within his coat. Inuyasha sighed out, trying to find his bearings but they were nowhere in sight. Those images collided with the circumstances at hand had done him in. The reality of the situation was dire. Critical. Kagome was in so much fucking danger. He clenched his fists, still trying to build a facade, lips twitching. She was scared enough as it was, why would he add his own trepidation to the weight on her shoulders?

But he couldn't do it. His nails were pinching into his palms, harder and harder. His chest was squeezing against him, inward, feeling as if his ribcage was collapsing against his lungs. The unavoidable thought of Kagome lost, gone, taken, hurt, lids open with lackluster irises, the pink on her cheeks whenever she grew flustered or excited washed away, still, her life stolen.

It was too goddamn much.

"Inuyasha?"

His hands hovered around her shoulders, a ghost of a touch, fingers curling around the sides of her neck as he reached her warm flesh. Slowly, his spine curved, allowing their foreheads to press together, the heat from her capturing him entirely. There was a hitch in her breathing, a small gasp maybe, and he wanted to cling to her for dear life as he felt her muscles tense beneath him.

"Please don’t," He spoke, voice more broken than intended. "Please don't pull away."

Something was wrong. Kagome had never seen him this way, never felt this quiver in his muscles. He was crumbling when she'd always seen him try to be the hero at all hours of the day. Even if you'd had a nightmare while sharing the same bed with him, Inuyasha was there to fight those fears away. It seemed, though, as he leaned more weight on her, breathing unsteadily, fingers threading into the hair at the nape of her neck, he was living a nightmare right now, searching for something to feel that could bring him home. What could possibly bring a man like him down? He was unquenchable fire, burning through the night to light your torch and scorch your enemies. He was a beautiful midnight storm, thunder blaring overhead that ironically calmed your nerves. Yet, right now, Inuyasha was scared. That was it. He was nothing more than scared.

"What happened?" She whispered. He shook his head against hers.

"Are you hurt?" She tried again, and again he shook his head.

"Talk to me."

He sniffled, and she could have sworn it was the kind where he was fighting off tears. Her half demon was deteriorating before her and she wasn't doing anything to help. Tired of holding back, tired of the stupid, invisible boundary that wasn't doing any good right now, Kagome broke his hold on her, wrapping her arms around his neck to clutch him. His own arms flung around her waist, hoisting her up slightly, crushing her to his chest. He buried his face in her neck, his exhale choppy and steaming.

"I just need you with me right now, okay?" It was muffled, but still clear. "Please don't pull away. I need you, Kagome."

#Inuyasha #Kagome #Kagome Higurashi #inukag #Inuyasha fanfiction #Inuyasha fanfic #Inuyasha fic #inukag fanfiction #inukag fanfic #inukag fic #hojo #sango #koga #in between #my writing #akitokihojo #chapter 6

53 notes · View notes