#Sol's Father wc

[shallowbreeze]

Sol's Father

Sol's father is a long-furred, brownish-gray tom with a paler muzzle and orange eyes

[howler-moon]

HIIII CHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! correct me if someone has done this before but here's my theory/ au idea because the Erin's would never do this

"Sol is Moonpaw's father" WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sol IS Moonpaw. Sol was reincarnated Cinderpelt-Cinderheart style so he could have another chance at becoming a true warrior. Why? Idfk why did Midnight tell him about the eclipse. The reflection Moonpaw sees in the Moonpool instead of her own is SOL!!! because the Moonpool is freaky like that (I imagine it would have also shown Cinderpelt to Cinderheart before they split). Sol uses his alleged master manipulator skills and tries to get Moonpaw to do SIN!!!!!!!! When its revealed that Moonpaw is Sol is creates interesting conflict for the other two protagonists, Leafstar and Tawnypelt as they were directly affected by Sol and his shenanigans in the past. Sol feeds dirty lies to Moonpaw about Leafstar specifically because he HATES her for banishing him

lord forgive me for i have sinned

[averagewriter-inthedark]

To Be Loved is To Be Seen 👑 | Gladiator II Imagine

My Masterlists

Characters & Pairings: Emperor Geta x Empress!reader

Content Warnings: fluff, mentions of violence and insinuated murder. morally ambiguous reader (They match each other's freak), slight NSFW—MDNI 18+, mentions of pregnancy, soft!Geta, historical refences and mythology (not completely accurate to the timeline) | female!reader (she/her) no use of Y/n | wc: 3.6k

Requested 📨 yes/no (rules for requests)

Premise: On the evening of their son's first name day, the Imperial couple of Rome find solace and comfort in the rare moment their afforded when keeping the order of the Empire on their shoulders. Basking in the genuine softness that is only reserved for each other, away from the preying eyes of their court who constantly test their patience and bring upon the wrath of Mars and Venus.

Note: my love for Joseph Quinn has returned full force and it makes me hate Stanger Things again for killing Eddie off.

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

Under the stars and Gods of the Roman night sky, the Empress stood on the balcony of the Royal chambers overlooking the beautiful city. A symphony of music and chatter from the people below, filling the streets as torches light the pathways and far beyond. The Colosseum, the battleground for Rome’s gladiators, once consumed by spectators to witness the blood and glory of her fighters now remained silent and steadfast as the day’s celebration came to an end. 

And the Empress, adorning in the comfort of her nightwear and robes, held the celebrations honoree in her arms. Pius Septimus Caius. The one-year-old Caesar, heir apparent to the Roman Empire, stared up at his mother with wide eyes full of wonder. Reaching up with a chubby hand to grasp her hair, freed from its braids, pins, and curls. 

“One day, this will all be yours,” she declared, adjusting the child so he was perched on her elbow, leaning his entire weight onto her side. Her mouth pressed to his head as she cradled him, “Everything the night touches, and what the sun shines upon when Sol comes to claim the sky from Nox, belongs to us.” Tiny fingers play with the seam of her robe, the young heir fixated on the gold detail. 

Down below the Empress heard cheers erupt, peering to find citizens by the gates of the palace dancing and waving to the ruler. “Blessed be the Caesar on his first natalicium!” “Empress, may the Gods bestow great fortune to you and his Grace!”

Grinning, she raised her hand, fingers cupped to wave at the crowd, who grew in size--all vying to catch a glimpse of the Empress and Caesar before they retreated into the chambers. The balcony stood high off the ground and yards away from the streets, but the guards stood firmly with their weapons ready for any threat. Caius mimicked his mother. Arm moving up and down, igniting more cheer from their subjects.

“And when you’re older,” her voice dropped an octave, despite no soul in proximity. A menacing shift in tone all while the smile remained on her face. “Your father and I will teach you the ways of ruling this great empire with an iron fist and the secrets to prevailing without bringing destruction onto yourself. Where the people of Rome shall adore you, worship the ground you walk on, and stay loyal to you even when their hearts scream at them to run.”

Giving one last wave and shielding the boy from the cool breeze, the Empress retreats inside, the smile dropping to a dubious smirk, reflected in the way her eyes seem to darken now she is away from prying eyes. “You’re too young to understand, my dear Caius, the lengths your father, uncle, and I have gone to keep the favor of the people while hiding the truth of certain matters they surely would spread fire to the streets if they discovered.” Her chuckle echoes with the sound of the doors shutting. Sealing the chambers from the outside world. 

“Gods be damned, the lengths I went to secure my position could bring upon ruin.” The bodies of the Senator and his daughter, who plotted to usurp her betrothal to the Emperor, now rotted to bone and dust beneath the Colosseum. “Not to mention the lengths your father went to ensure my hand.” At the bottom of the sea laid the box containing the man her father initially betrothed her to. Who’s life was forfeit the moment Geta laid eyes upon the woman he vowed would be his Empress. 

And any and all Concubines knew not to dare breach the boundaries of the Imperial couple. Certain actions and intimacies were reserved for each other. 

Do not kiss the Emperor or the Empress on thy lips.

The Emperor takes pleasure, he does not give. Only to her.

The Empress does not lay below, she remains above. Except for him.

The Emperor does not allow anyone on top of him, only her.

The Empress takes no seed but his. He releases in no one, but her. 

The one time a brave soul attempted, ended with their passage to the Underworld. 

Pulling back the duvet, the Empress settled into her side of the bed. Back pressed against the headboard and Caius tucked in her lap, she lit the candles on the nightstand for more the light the flames of the fireplace were unable to reach. 

“Let me tell you a little story, my son, of the love between two Gods that is not so far from your father and I. Mars and Venus.” Eyes full of intrigued, the boy babbled in approval and snuggled closer into her embrace. Warmth of the duvet and fire hugging him alongside her skin. “The tale goes like,” she began hoarsely, “there was once a beautiful Goddess. More beautiful than any Goddess in Mount Olympus and the lands below, who held the bounds of love like no other. Venus. And every man, God and mortal, wanted Venus to be theirs. But she was married to Vulcan, the blacksmith God, who relished in being the one to have secured her hand by the order of her father, Caelus.” 

The Empress’s jaw tightened, tone hardening at the last sentence as she thought of her father and former betrothed. The Senator twice her age whom her father agreed to marry her too once she reached marriage potential. Sentencing her to a life where the home he built would be her own personal prison. Hidden away from the likes of preying men, but would show her off as a prized gift from the Gods when he desired satisfaction from his peers.

Gods be damned he’d be her husband. She would’ve slit his throat on their marriage bed the night of the wedding. But alas, Mars rescued her. 

“Venus spent every waking moment planning to rid Caelus from her life. Leaving Mount Olympus to live among the mortals. Drown herself in the sea. Poison him little by little until his body could no longer put up a fight.” The Empress had been so lost in her rising anger, staring at the flames of the fire, that she forgot what she was talking about. It wasn’t until hands brushed her cheek, and she glanced away to find her son tilting his head, wondering why she stopped the story.

“But one day while attending a feast, just when the Goddess believed all hope was lost, she was visited by Mars, the God of War.” Caius’ awed expression made her smirk, falling to a whisper, “and in that moment Venus knew her prayers had been answered.”

The smooth surface of the pillar beneath her finger guided her with each step, the column the only thing between the two as they circled each other. Eyes locked, drawing out the voices of the guests in the dining hall yards away. Leaving them the only two, standing on the balcony as they welcomed the cool night breeze and allowed Nox to be their only witness to the instant connection they both met the others gaze.  

“You should not be without your guards, my Imperator. Tis a foolish thing to do when so many souls occupy your home.”

“Sounds as though you have plans to strike me down, my Lady.” His smirk indicated he did not feel threatened at all by her. Continuing to circle the pillar, he moved at the same pace as though not to lose sight of her face. Her entire being beckoning him like a siren luring their prey. 

“Oh no,” she purred, lips curling up to match his smirk. Sending heat up his spine as the air around them shifted. “I wouldn’t dare dream of striking the likes of you down. 

“No?” came his mock, like he didn’t believe her. “Is that not why you lured me out here?”

“Who said I lured you?”

“Ah, so it was luck you betted on that I’d follow you.” Geta suddenly stopped and turned to intercept her, the woman nearly running into his chest. But she made no sound of surprise, expecting him to eventually end their dance around the pillar. 

The moonlight shined against her eyes, mimicking the twinkle of the stars above. “I did not have to bet on luck. You’ve been waiting the whole night to have me alone.” 

Geta’s expression shifted to a mix of intrigue and lust, mesmerized by her confidence of speaking so freeling in front of him, knowing he’s killed men who’ve dared to do the same. “Is that so, my Lady? Care to enlighten me what assured you I’d leave the company of my guests to follow you into the night alone without my guards.”

Leaning closer, enough for him to feel the heat radiating off her body, she lifted a finger to trace the image of Mars on his golden chest plate. Smooth metal beneath her fingertip. 

“I’ve felt your eyes trail me the moment I stepped through those doors,” she spoke into the night, never straying her intense gaze from him. “You may be good at masking your thoughts, my Emperor, in front of your subjects and Senators. But when that man introduced me as his intended….” her head tilted, challenging him to reject the claim about to leave her lips. “You appeared rather displeased.”

Geta’s hand came up to her arm, trailing up until it reached her neck to cup her jaw, rather rough yet she showed no trace of fear. In fact, she appeared aroused. It enticed him.

“Any man would when they are in the presence of Venus herself.”

“I’m flattered by your kind words, my Emperor. And if I may, being in your presence feels as though I've been visited by Mars.”

“Does that frighten you?” He questioned.

“On the contrary, I’m pleased,” she didn’t hesitate, making his grin widen. 

“And like Venus, Vulcan has claimed you as his own.”

“He has not claimed me and never will.”

“You intend to kill him then? Before your wedding?” A trace of surprise laced his tone, but more so amusement.

Once again, she challenged him with her eyes, hand coming up to his own on her neck, “Would that please you, my Emperor.”

Geta’s eyes were as dark as hers, the tension between the two thickening as their goals of the night since the feast started finally came together. She was in his arms, and he was wrapped around her finger. 

He brought his head to hers, leaving his mouth roughly centimeters from hers, giving her the promise she prayed to the Gods in the image of Mars himself. 

“Very much so, but leave him to me, my Lady, I rather enjoy removing those standing in the way of what I want. And what I want, is you,” Their lips brushed together, sealing the vow in a single kiss, “Swear yourself to me, and I shall free you from him. You will be my Empress.” 

“Mars and Venus loved in the shadows until they finally could show the world they belonged together. Vulcan was indisposed, thanks to Mars,” The Empress’ finger was grasped, Caius attempting to take her ring that caught his attention. It made her grin, letting the boy take her hand to inspect the jewelry. “And Venus made sure the maidens and Goddess alike knew better than to tempt Mars with their seduction,” voice dropping to a murmur, she added with a smirk, “those who dared were removed with ease.”

A squeal left Caius when he was suddenly lifted in the air, waving his arms rapidly as giggles echoed against the walls of the chambers. The Empress stared up with adoration, “and born from Venus and Mars’ love was their son, Cupid. The winged God of affection.” 

Caught up in the moment, the little prince giggling as his mother continued to hold in the air as though he was flying, the Empress did not hear the chamber doors opening. The troubled expression on Geta’s face wondering why his son wasn’t in the nursery vanished upon his eyes landing on the scene before him. A sudden warmth filled his veins hearing Caius’ laughter, followed by the view of a beaming smile on his wife. 

“Make no mistake, Cupid was as clever and mischievous as his parents. They say that when struck by his golden arrow, one is gifted with uncontrollable desire. But when he sends his arrow tipped with lead, they flee with great aversion.” Returning the boy back down, the Empress nuzzles her nose against his. Giggles still falling from his mouth he nearly drowns her voice out, but Geta manages to hear her. “And let us not forget dear Cupid was known to steal honey straight from the hives of bees. The sweetness too tempting to resist.” 

The Empress swore she saw Caius’ brown eyes light up at the mention of honey. For he, too, loved the golden liquid. Especially when infused with bread or cookies. 

Geta, who’d been watching from a distance fondly, finally made his appearance known, “and when Cupid’s stung by the bees he’s stolen from,” the Empress does not even flinch by the sudden intrusion. Having felt her husband’s eyes on them when he entered the chamber. 

She turns Caius in her arms as her gaze shifts to Geta’s, smirking at the sight of him strolling to his side of the bed, robes clasping his figure and leaving nothing to the imagination. The light of the candles illuminated his gorgeous face, the vision of Mars, her Mars. 

Caius reaches out to his father. Escaping the Empress’ hold when Geta settles onto the mattress. Letting his son fall into his arms while he continued, “he ran to his mother Venus claiming no creature that small should bring upon such pain. But Venus did not consol the young God like he hoped, no…” Geta’s eyes fixed on his wife, who met his gaze, their expressions full of delight. “She reminded Cupid how he was not so different from the bee’s. He was small, like them, and he delivered the sting of love.” 

Of course, Caius was too young to understand the extent of his parents' stories. Just one year old and yet to speak his first words to the world. But he was captivated nonetheless, eyes big with awe and wonder. 

“Poetic justice at best,” The Empress whispered, smirk never faltering as she leaned closer, her lavender aroma filling his nostrils. Leaving little room between the two now that Caius laid claim to sitting on Geta’s chest. The Emperor held him upright with one hand under his armpit and the other on his side. 

“You gave me a fright, wife,” Geta remarked, tauntingly. “I went to the nursery, and imagine my surprise when I looked in my son’s cradle to find it was empty. Then I heard the guards chattering about how the front gates were flooded by citizens shouting their desire to see the Empress and Caesar.”

  Chuckling, the Empress returned his playful smile, “My apologies, husband. Caius and I were enjoying the view of Rome at night Nox has blessed us with. I was showing him what will be his one day.” 

Geta lifts a brow, “already preparing him for the throne? My dear, I thought you’d wait at least until his second name day.” 

A hand lightly taps his shoulder in offense, though it does no damage and Geta simply laughs at the action. Caius, the bold prince, reaches his chubby arm to swat at his mother as to protect his father, making the two gasp with grins etched on their visage. 

“Such loyalty, my son!” Geta lifts him up, causing giggles to erupt. “I shall dismiss my Praetorian guards and make you my sworn protector. No man shall harm the Emperors of Rome so long as the mighty Septimus Caius is by their side.” 

Laughter echoes along the walls of the Royal chamber that any passersby outside, servant or guard, stopped momentarily on their journey just to hear the joyous sound of their Caesar. Geta brought his son back down only to bestow soft kisses against his soft cheek. The Empress gazing upon the scene with deep reverence. 

Moments like these were rare. With the state of the Empire constantly on the shoulders of Geta and his brother and the Empress maintaining their facade of benevolent rulers to the public as to keep their favor, finding time to be a family proved rather difficult than they intended. Caius often got the attention of one parent at a time during busy days. Either Geta tucking him in at night before bed after a days worth of politics and scheming, or the Empress bringing the boy alongside when attending her duties. Hardly allowing the servants to care for him. Going as far as to refuse the wet-nurse when she birthed the child to feed him from her own breast. 

An action that appalled the Senate and ladies of the court, but garnered the affection of Rome’s people. 

Caius' laughter settled, the boy nuzzling into Geta’s chest as his mother brought her hand to caress his cheek. Lulling him to sleep. “Tis unfair you know,” she spoke softly, though Geta recognized the mischief in her eyes. “I held him in my womb for nine moons and he betrays me by having all your features and no trace of mine.” 

Melted chocolate for eyes, hair reddish golden like the setting sun, and skin light as peaches from their garden trees, Caius was the spitting image of his father. He had plump lips and freckles adorning his tiny face. The only attribute he took from his mother was her nose. Other than that, he could be mistaken for the offspring of a concubine had the servants not attended the Empress first hand during her labors and subsequently the birth. 

A chuckle left Geta’s lips, stroking his son’s hair as said matching eyes fluttered shut to find slumber. “He might have the likes of me physically, but rest assured wife, he’ll take on after you in every other way.”

“How so?”

“He’ll have your ambition,” he drawled, looking down at his son. “Your assertiveness and confidence. He’ll know to love no one but his family, and to remain loyal to them above all else. He’ll know how to sniff out traitors.” Geta’s voice is serene, his attention now toward his wife. “No one will ever deceive him. He will be the greatest ruler Rome has ever seen. All because he has you as his mother.” Tears pricked in her eyes, heart full of love and feeling butterflies in her stomach by his words. 

Hand coming to his cheek, the Empress pressed her forehead against his temple, her voice featherlike against his ear, “and with you as his father, he’ll prevail. He’ll know how to be a fearless emperor, a doting father, and devoted husband. And maybe…” she trailed off, biting her lip as a smile threatened to grace her face. “A loving brother as well.”

The air caught in the back of Geta’s throat. Eyes wide and moving down her figure to follow her free hand trailing to cradle her stomach. “Are you…you’re certain?” The Empress confirmed his suspicion, kissing his lips as the lone tear fell from her eye. 

“Yes, my love.” she whispers against his lips with a slight nod, careful to not wake the sleeping prince. “I have not bled in two moons. You’ve blessed me again with the honor of carrying your child.” 

Overcome with emotion, Geta carefully sits up, holding Caius against his chest as he pulls his wife up as well to crash his mouth against hers. The passion filled kiss made her head spin, enough to make her fall had his one arm not wrapped around her waist to keep her upright. The kiss was wet, sloppy. Full of love, full of devotion. A kiss actors at the theater could never accurately portray. As the feelings behind it are what truly brings it to life.

Pulling away after a minute, flustered and consumed with lust, Geta holds her gently by the neck, forehead pressed against her own. “The Gods have granted me you, my Venus, and I cannot thank them enough for the gift you’ve given me. Our son, and the child in your womb. I need not anything else in this world but you and our children.”

Cupping his cheeks in her hands, she uttered, “I love you, Geta,” kissing him again with the same amount of passion as before, which he met feverishly.

When they pulled apart once more, Geta let his lips trail to her forehead before leaning back to announce, “I’m going to escort our little prince back to the nursery. I’ll only be a moment.” Adjusting his body, Geta lifted himself off the bed, a sleeping Caius pressed tightly to his chest. The soft patter of his footsteps headed for the chamber door, his wife watching him depart. However when he was about to open the door, Geta stopped and turned back to face her, a lewd smile painting his features. 

“When I return, you shall take your place on top of me,” arousal flooded the Empress, his order producing the wetness between her thighs on command as it always did. Igniting the fire boiling within her stomach. Geta licked his lips, blood rushing to his groin by the predatory glint in her eyes. “Then I’ll have you under me after I’ve feasted upon your cunt. We have much to celebrate tonight.” 

“Much to celebrate indeed….” Sinking back into the cushions of the bed while teasing the opening of her robes, the Empress sighed in content. Pleasure forming at what’s to come in the next five minutes. “I’ll be waiting.”

[unmotivatedwrit3r]

Cloudy Christmastime

damian wayne x reader x jonathan kent

(A/N): Before anyone protests, I headcanon the Wayne family as celebrating both Jewish holidays like Yom Kippur and Hanukkah as well as Christmas and Easter because yes, Bruce is ethnically Jewish (though may have done Christmas as well) but Dick/Jason/Tim/Steph would have likely celebrated Christmas. So they do both.

Anyway, this is a christmas gift for @glorified-red and literally the 5th take on this fic bc they first said Hallmark movie, then damijon hallmark movie, then whump. And then it took me three tries to get something I was close to happy with so I hope you enjoy. This ended up being a mix of domestic fluff and h/c.

warnings: sensory overload

wc: ~2600

~~

“Tell me again why Santa doesn’t bring us gifts if he’s real. Like our dads have met him. And he still doesn’t bring us presents,” Jon lamented from the couch, bundled up in four blankets. 

From your spot on the floor by the tree, you looked up, an eyebrow raised in amusement. “Because we’re not kids anymore? And how do you know Santa ever brought us gifts?” 

“Perhaps,” Damian added, passing Jon a cup of hot chocolate. He placed a second cup on the coffee table and lifted one to his lips. “He only brought gifts to people to make a point. I never received any from him as a child but father has gotten many over the years.” 

Jon listed to the side, head landing on Damian’s shoulder. “I think that’s worse.”

For the first time in a while, Jon felt Damian’s huff of laughter more than he heard it. Your small chuckle was similarly inaudible. Jon hated solar flaring. Not only was it a pain to deal with for the day and change—one could argue he got either lucky or really unlucky by solar flaring the morning of Christmas Eve—but it always threw his senses out of whack as they trickled back in. And, with the gray skies of Gotham’s winter, Jon was expecting it to be even weirder than usual. It was worth it though, to him, in order to spend the day itself with his partners. It was enough that the Kent family Christmas Eve was ruined by Lex Luthor. He wasn’t going to let his Christmas day be ruined too. 

“I’m sorry, mi sol,” you offered with a shrug and a smile. Jon met your grin with his own. A full-body shiver wracked his frame. Your gaze turned concerned. “You okay?” 

“Yeah,” Jon agreed, “Just chilly.” Damian’s arm wrapped further around Jon, pulling their sides flush against each other. Jon maneuvered the blankets away to soak in his warmth. 

“Ameli, we can turn the heat up,” Damian offered. 

“Nope,” Jon argued, nuzzling into Damian’s neck. “This is good.” Damian’s resulting huff of air teased at the hair on the top of Jon’s head. 

“Mi luna?” You asked from the floor. Damian turned to look at you. Jon followed, eyes traveling over the mound of presents arranged under the tree. There was a pile around the back of the tree against the wall for Damian’s family (Jon still needed to give Dick his gift from the Hanukkah celebration a couple weeks ago. The blue dreidel paper was obvious against the sea of brown, red, and green wrapping paper.), and a smaller one for yours. The empty gap left behind after the Kent Christmas was already filled in with a large box Jon was like ninety percent sure was a new easel for Damian. You ordered it, not him, but Jon couldn’t think of anything else on any of your lists that was even close to that size. “Can you hand me that please?” You gestured to a precarious stack on the coffee table. 

Damian acquiesced, passing over a teetering pile of vaguely book-shaped items. Who those were for was anyone’s guess. Jon was grateful Alfred had helped you and him pay for some of the gifts for Damian. Looking at the gift tags, it otherwise would have been horribly uneven. And Damian himself wouldn’t have minded, Jon knew, but you and him would have been upset about it anyway. He deserves the world, your rohi. Damian pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of you, still arranging presents under the tree. He showed it quickly to Jon before texting it to him immediately. 

“This look okay?” You asked, peeking out from behind the tree. Jon looked it over. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for exactly, but he also wasn’t exactly the reigning opinion on artistic presentation. 

“It looks fine, hayati” Damian said, eyes still trained on his phone. You narrowed your eyes at him. 

“You didn't even look.” 

Damian turned to look at you. “Because I knew it looked fine, beloved.” His eyes scanned the presents. “And it does.” 

You shook your head at him, exasperated, before conceding and sitting heavily on the couch. Scooching in, you nearly pressed up against Jon’s other side. 

“Come closer,” He whined, untangling a hand from the blankets to grab yours. “You’re warm.” 

Jon could feel the look exchanged over his head. 

“I’m not that warm,” you argued even as you grabbed the TV remote from the coffee table and arranged the blankets so that you could fit underneath. “You’re just cold.” 

Jon shrugged. The hand that wasn’t holding yours reached underneath Damian’s shirt and he swore, grabbing Jon’s wrist to keep its chill away. Another look passed over Jon’s head. He wondered sometimes if the two of you were aware he knew what you were doing and just didn’t care. Probably. 

“Are you sure you’re okay, amorcito?” You asked. Jon shrugged. 

“It’s cold outside and I’m human but otherwise yeah. I have you two,” he added smugly. Damian’s playful shoulder hit came at the same time as your muttered “sap.” Jon grinned. “So because I’m sick—sort of—I get to pick the movie. And we’re watching Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” Despite the protests on both sides, the movie was playing before Damian could even get up to turn the lights off. To the side of the couch, the lights on the Christmas tree bathed the room in a soft white glow. 

~

Jon awoke to a cold bed. On a good day, he’d wake with the sun—or whenever it wormed its way through the bedroom’s black out curtains—or to an international emergency. Okay, not that the emergency was good, just that he was feeling good enough to know it was happening. On a bad day, all bets were off. Jon stuck his hand out of the covers, searching blindly for his phone. After a moment of finding nothing but the wood of the end table, the scratchiness of the sheets was unignorable and he gave up, flinging back the covers to get out of bed. Hanging over the side of the dresser was a dark red sweatshirt. Jon grabbed it and tugged it on, rubbing his arms to get the lingering echo of the sheets off his skin. His off kilter super hearing zeroed in on the crooning of Michael Bublé before zooming back out into the general background noise coming from the kitchen. Jon winced, squaring his shoulders. That was a bad sign. But it was Christmas; he’d be fine. 

A quick squint at his phone told Jon that it was just after noon. No wonder the bed was cold. Jon shivered, then grabbed a pair of your fuzzy socks before opening the bedroom door. 

The smell of cinnamon and chocolate coming from the kitchen was pleasant rather than unbearable. Jon let himself breathe it in as he approached quietly. He didn’t even notice you behind him—though that was often true of an average day—before there were arms around his waist and a head on his shoulder. He let himself lean back into the warmth of you. 

“Merry Christmas, mi amor. How are you feeling?” you inquired. Hot breath ghosted across his neck. Jon shrugged. 

“Fine. Excited for today.” He spun around to face you, eyes taking in your christmas pj pants and sweater with a Robin logo. Over your shoulder, Jon could see flashes of blue, likely Damian’s nightwing sweatshirt. “Merry Christmas,” he added, tucking his nose into the spot just underneath your ear for just a moment. No matter what his super senses were like, he took comfort in the smell of the two of you. A hand weaved through his hair, a kiss pressed to the top of his head. Jon pulled back just enough to give you a peck on the lips before being spun around into a kiss from Damian. 

“Merry Christmas, my heart,” Jon muttered, pressing a second lingering kiss to Damian’s jawline. A steady heartbeat pulsed under his fingers, wrapped around Damian’s wrist. 

“Good morning,” Damian said, wrapping an arm around Jon to keep him close. Jon blindly reached out and a second calloused hand found his. A second warm body curled around him. He missed your heartbeats’ song in his ears, but Damian’s pounding steadily under his ear and yours fluttering underneath his fingertips was good enough for right then. “Are you alright?” Damian continued. “It’s late.” His voice was echoey underneath Jon’s ear and Jon flinched instinctively. The two of you reacted immediately, pulling back. 

“Jon?” you asked, voice laced with concern. 

“Yeah,” he managed. “I’m mostly good. About as expected, you know?” Jon offered up a smile. By the looks on your faces, it didn’t do as much reassurance as he’d hoped. “I’m sorry I slept so late.” 

“Don’t apologize,” Damian argued. “There is no reason to.” 

“Yeah, I guess,” Jon sighed. 

“How are you feeling about breakfast, mi sol?” You asked, tangling your fingers with his. 

“Sounds good,” Jon agreed. 

~

“Oh yeah I should definitely send Dick a text to thank him. And also say Merry Christmas,” Jon said, flopping down on the couch after breakfast. With his partners looking happy, Christmas music in the background, and a breakfast of vegan pancakes in his stomach, Jon could almost forget about the buzzing under his skin. 

“Tt,” Damian scoffed. “He would have swapped with me anyway. Gordon and Father are both working tonight so it was pointless for him to have the evening off.”

Jon shrugged. “Still, doesn’t hurt to say thanks.” 

“Say hi from me too,” you yelled over the running kitchen sink. After a moment more, the water shut off and Jon released a silent sigh at the absence of an irritating bit of noise. He was lucky the x-ray vision hadn’t started acting up. Not only was that like the antithesis of Christmas presents (his mom kept presents out of the house or in a lead box until morning for that very reason), but it was also a huge pain and the hardest to hide. Screwy touch and hearing was more than enough. Dishware clanked around in the kitchen as Damian sat beside Jon on the couch. 

“No change?” He asked, reaching for a Nightwing mug of cider on the coffee table. 

Jon shrugged. “Nope, nothing yet.” Damian narrowed his eyes and Jon attempted to start coming up with excuses. At the very least, he could probably get Damian to leave it alone until after gifts. Less so if you noticed too and started teaming up on him. 

“Ready for presents?” You asked, sitting down on the other side of Damian. You raised the untouched Superman mug to your lips, eyes scanning over Jon. 

“Yes!” Jon butt in before you could say anything. “Let’s do it.” 

You and Damian exchanged a look. On the floor below, the elevator dinged, releasing a family with a horde of kids. “Okay,” you conceded, standing to grab the first load of presents.

In the apartment directly underneath, the front door squealed open. A load of presents was slammed down on the floor beside him. Three kids squealed “gramma!” in unison. Jon’s hoodie was all of the sudden suffocating him. 

Jon jumped up and yanked the sweatshirt over his head, pawing the sleeves off before yanking his socks off too. He didn’t care where they ended up. His hands went up to press against his ears. Stumbling over his own feet, Jon meandered backwards until his back slammed into a wall and then slid down, knees up and head with ears still covered in between them. Sounds zoomed in and out. All of the sudden, he could hear Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer playing eight floors down, then A Christmas Carol on someone’s TV across the street. Focus! Jon yelled at himself through all the noise. One steady beat came into focus, then another. 

Until there was a soft item brushing his feet, Jon didn’t realize he had company. A steady beat pulsed in his ears, too loud even for its familiarity. He pulled the blanket close. Something plastic nudged his shoulder and Jon grabbed it instinctively, slamming special-made headphones over his ears. The sounds faded down into something manageable. Jon took a deep breath. And then another. He didn’t need to hear to know that the two of you were there. When he reached out tentatively with his sense of smell, the usual wave of cinnamon-vanilla-brown sugar-clove and somethings just the two of you tempered by pine and peppermint was comforting rather than overwhelming. Jon let it wash over him, clutching the soft weighted blanket to his chest. 

When he cracked his eyes open, two blurs blinked into focus as his partners, leaning against the back of the couch and hands linked. Damian’s head rested on your shoulder, one of your hands tangled in his hair. Jon noticed as soon as Damian saw he was up. He almost slammed his head into your chin as he shot up and Jon huffed a laugh.  

“Ameli?” Damian asked. Your eyes locked onto Jon’s. 

“You guys shouldn’t sit on the floor,” Jon responded. “It’s bad for your backs.”

You offered Jon a hand, ignoring his remark completely. Jon’s chest ached. If you weren’t willing to banter, he’d scared you. “How are you feeling?”   

Jon took the hand and stood, adjusting the headphones so they stayed on his head. He tossed the blanket over his shoulder and reached his other hand out towards Damian before tugging the both of you up and towards the couch. 

“I’m okay,” Jon reassured you, sitting down on the couch. “I promise.” When neither of you moved, he tugged you both down on top of him, interrupting the bat-assessment written all over Damian’s face.  

“Promise like this morning?” Damian argued. Jon winced. 

“Okay, yeah maybe I shouldn’t have—”

“Been a self-sacrificial dumbass as if we don’t a) know you and b) want you to talk to us?” You cut in. Jon could read the hurt underneath the anger clear as day. His fingers brushed over two sets of knuckles, one scarred from years of fighting without protective gear, the other dry from the winter air. 

“I know. I just wanted today to be a good day, you know? We never get uninterrupted holidays.” Jon resisted the urge to pull his hands away from yours and curl into himself. The two burning gazes on him were ones of love and concern, though, not judgment. 

“And for some reason you think accommodating you makes the day worse, why?” Damian asked. Jon didn’t have an answer. 

“We love you, Jon. Eres nuestro pareja. We picked ‘partners’ for a reason, yeah?”  You squeezed his hand in yours. 

“Yeah,” he agreed, head dropping to your shoulder. Silence was heavy in the room for a moment. 

“You choose what we do next,” Damian stated, tugging the blacket from its bundled blob to instead cover you and Jon. 

Jon moved from your shoulder to halfway on top of Damian, tugging you on top of him. “You guys are going to squish me in between you while we watch a movie and then we can do presents?” 

You shot him a wicked smile. Jon shrieked as Damian pulled him bodily half on top of him along the couch, cut off when you landed nearly on top of Jon. 

“Good?” You asked. Jon let himself sink into Damian, arms coming up to wrap around your waist. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Good.”

Damian grabbed the remote. “We’re not watching Elf.”

Jon stuck his tongue out at him.  

[skrs-cats]

I have reread sunrise (the first actual wc book I've ever owned) and it's been WILD reliving a few of my memories with all the made up stuff I've accumulated in brainrot over the three, now I have all these thoughts that I have to vomit out. Aka a REALLY LONG incomprehensible ramble post abt the ending book of po3. Mostly about lionblaze though. I'm sory

*IDK how many times I've mentioned this, but chapter 1 starting out w lion leaving the df for good and beating tigerstar in a fight ALWAYS makes me wonder how things would have been affected if he just straight up went for the killing blow. I've only ever read books 1-5 once, so I don't have the best memory, but I think it's interesting to note that tigerstar managed to actually injure him, and lion was scared that if he died here he'd be dead for real, and then lion was surprised to see the wound when he woke up. I'm just wondering if these facts were first introduced here or if I just have tunnel vision towards this book (which is also true)

*'lionblaze always knew there was something wrong between him and ashfur' no shit bitch 😩😩😩😩😩 and then there's lion wondering if cats suspect him as ashfurs killer, something to do about everyone realizing how they never got along. and NOW I'm thinking about lion ending his df dream w tigerstars blood on his paws, and how that might have made the READERS suspect HIM to be the killer (leafpool prolouge chapter contributing to this supicion seeing as lion is also her kit) Only to end as a red herring when Holly is revealed to be the girlie w mascara running down her face (u can't see it clearly but my point stands)

*interesting lines about ashfurs death that I think about regarding what a warrior means for the clan (nonverbatim):

-'Ashfur never mattered this much when he was alive'

-'Ashfur's murder now made the clan determined to make him into a hero.'

*lion is posited to be the brave one of the three, in regards to physical danger and such. I am taking this character trait and cranking it up to a million

*I forgot smoky and floss existed :( IDK if they're still alive in the latest arcs but I hope they're doing ok

*brambleclaw trying 2 be nice to his kids and tell them that they can confide in him bc clearly they're all hung up about something but being denied it is funny and sad to me personally. He didn't talk w Jay, just as leaf didn't talk much w lion in this book, but I think it's given an interesting ending when in the end, its officially revealed even squirrel didn't tell him of the truth, which ends their relationship for the most part. I really do wonder how well he could have taken this if he was in on the secret from the very start.

*outside of that they sure do like to crank up the dramatics and mention bramble / squirrel as their parents any chance they get so that the three can be Emo about it like. 'THEYRE NOT MY MOTHER/FATHER.' 'WHATEVER SKILLS WE HAVE DIDNT COME FROM YOU.' 'WHY DO YOU CARE SO MUCH? WE'RE NOT EVEN KIN!' last one is abt leafpool which is honestly a lot. I think.

* one of the saddest parts about this book was how lonely they made purdy 😭😭😭 this poor old man. I'm glad they brought him back to the clan. But also I think they just forgot about him bc for someone being so vocal in defending Sol, he was outright just not mentioned when it was revealed Sol 'escaped'

* more lines that I think about regarding clan cats (also nonverbatim)

- Clan cats' instinctive distrust of outsiders

- why do clan cats have to think they always know what's best?

* Sol. He's just there to me ig.

* I liked jingo. I hope she's doing ok even now

*criminal how this book barely has any sibling bonding w the three when that is my blood sweat and tears. Maybes that's why I got so obsessed w the three of them being happy together bc I was STARVED.

* honeyfern 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

* call it the thunderclan bias in me but I was sorta annoyed when the three other clans walked in and told them that they should get rid of Sol or else. But also thunderclans reaction to Sol seemingly having run away is like. Giving back stolen candy to pre schooler vibes. Or something. This makes no sense I'm sorry

*I think it's interesting that Jay and Holly manage to find out who their mother is thru their own way. With the former deducing it on his own (I actually enjoyed the detective esque work he did in doing it) and Holly straight up asking leafpool. So now I propose lion being informed someway or other thru SQUIRRELFLIGHT BC I WANT FOR HER TO TALK W ANY OF THEM AND THAT LION FIINDING OUT THRU HIS SIBS WAS SO BORING OKAY I WANT HIM TO HAVE A SHOCKING REVELATION TOO-

* ahem. Also can I mention Holly confronting leaf abt who their parents were and leaf thinking it was about ashfur is so unbelievably ????? KHADHD, I'm not saying it was bad. but MAN. Talk about awkward huh

* anyways. When they all find out that leaf is their mom and then squirrel and leaf are mentioned to have looked at the three in the same familiar expression they have always had; love. And that line hurt me as much as Holly refusing to acknowledge or listen to it and running away. Lion and Jay werent against listening to what their 'mothers' had to say, but they loved Holly more than to just let her go on her own

* I always blabber about how they should have tried to talk thru their issues but man. They tried multiple times. They tried so hard. I'm not gonna specify who but they tried.

* Holly and lion changing their view of Sol in opposite ways in the two instances they meet w him is interesting but also a bit confusing. The last time we get a pov of lion is when he helped Sol escape so we don't really get a clear idea of his own thoughts anymore w everything after. That's why I can't help but just think abt him I guess

* reading Hollyleaf spiral more and more into her grief and despair sure was something.

* out of the three, jayfeather was actually the calmest in this book. Which is saying something, I think. I'm now taking this and making it my mission to have all the three of them as short tempered grumpy schmucks.

there's a lot more to talk about for me regarding these three, but I think I've used up all the words in my brain. My last thought though, is that after going through All That as an ending, it was really funny to just have this as a preview of the next book.

Also a bonus picture of what this book looks like too, sorry if it hurts u but it's testament to me on how much I adored this thing when I was younger </3

[canarygcld]

the canary - marisol larrazabal

ORIGINS & FAMILY:

Name: Marisol Alba Larrazabal ( formerly Kastings )

Nicknames:  Mari, Sol, Bambi ( only by Randall )

Birthday: December 3, 1989

Place of Birth: Mexico City, Mexico

Places Lived Since: Paxton, AZ

Current Residence: Paxton, AZ

Notable Family Members: Santiago Larrazabal ( father ) ; Camilia Larrazabal ( mother ) ; TBD Larrazabal ( younger brother, wc ) ; Joel Aguilar ( uncle ) ; Randall Kastings ( late/ex husband )

PHYSICAL:

Faceclaim: Melissa Barrera

Height: 5’7

Build: slim

Hair Color: dark brown  

Eye Color: brown

Jewelry? Tattoos? Piercings?: multiple piercings in both ears, several tattoos ( will expand upon later ), wedding ring worn on a chain around her neck

Unique Mannerisms/Physical Habits: picking at her fingernails, talking with her hands, pathological people pleaser

PERSONALITY:

Occupation: nurse

Affiliation: affiliate for the cowboy mafia

Languages Spoken: Spanish, English

Positive Traits: outgoing, emotive, devoted, trusting, forgiving

Negative Traits: naive, passive, mercurial, easily manipulated  

Likes: sunrise, overly sweet coffee made the proper way, sappy romance novels

Dislikes: being lied to, places that lack history and heart, horror movies

Aesthetic: the inherent hubris of young love; this house is not haunted – you are; physical intimacy like a drug—he loves you, he loves you not; glorious, satisfied exhaustion after a long shift; a face crafted for tragedy and a heart built for love; craving the ephemeral taste of early spring precisely because it will not last; is it worse to be doomed by the narrative or haunted by it?  

HISTORY: ( tw vague mentions of racism, tw drug use, tw affair, tw death )

The story goes…they are high school sweethearts, but really she’s loved him for far longer. Marisol, named for the sea and the sun, then brought to a place with a whole lot of one and very little of the other. She’s so bright and expressive, friendly and shining – but children are cruel, and English is her second language. She’s eight and he’s nine ( nearly ten, as he insisted ) and he made them all apologize, her valiant knight in hand-me-down flannels.

Her father is a doctor, moving his family to a sleepy small town in the US in the hopes that he can actually help people – deliver babies and treat the flu, developing relationships with patients instead of the chaos and anonymity of a trauma surgeon in the capital. Her mother is a professor, but there’s no university in Paxton and so she settles for making high schoolers read Isabel Allende and Octavia Butler. Marisol grows up adored and encouraged and challenged, she can be anything she wants – and she wants to help people the way her parents do.

Randall is her best friend, her protector, and then when they are older – much more. It's a cliché and she knows it, but can’t bring herself to care. He’s sixteen when the bank takes his family’s ranch and he starts spending more time with the Larazabals. Her parents adore him, even before they become more than best friends. He never leaves without a tupperware full of ‘leftovers’ ( her mother always makes extra for his siblings ). When his father dies, Marisol holds him and confesses her love. And for a time, things are perfect.

Marisol goes to nursing school – the perfect balance between her father’s medical career and the more personal connection she craves. Randall starts rodeoing, far too proud to ask for help and too protective to allow his siblings to struggle. It takes and takes from him, Marisol giving everything she can but she can’t quite fix the way it breaks his body. Her father is the first to prescribe him pain pills, a little favor for the man his daughter loves. If only they knew.

He gets involved with dealing, with the Cowboy Mafia and all those things that are only whispered about behind locked doors or in shabby confessionals. Marisol loves him and hates herself, choking on her guilt late at night alone in the bed she bans him from when he’s high. Guilt that she’s enabling him, guilt that she might love him too much to care. Guilt over all of the things she cannot change, all of the suffering in this town, and all of the people she will not be able to save. Fear and guilt are sisters, or so the saying goes – fear sits in her chest, in that hollowed out space between her ribs, holding space for the heart she’s already given away.

He gets clean and proposes for the fourth time – she finally accepts, and they marry in her parents’ backyard. It's perfect for a shining golden moment. But these things come at a cost, something she should know by now. He’s in deep with the Cowboy Mafia, so deep that it's now the family he’s chosen. Lovely, darling, way too trusting Marisol patches up his friends in their kitchen for far too long before she realizes that he’s promised her services along with his own. Even this can’t make her hate him.

It was as if the creator made a mistake with her, placing her heart firmly upon her sleeve instead of safely encased in her ribcage. Darling girl, lovely little fool – did she learn nothing from that first lie? That candy apple kiss to knock her off guard, to soften the blow of the poison he presses to her skin with lips that taste of another. Heartache – that shattering, gaping feeling is something she’s only read about, until it is not and that dark thing inside of him that she’s always been drawn too threatens to swallow her sunshine entirely. He cheats and she finds out, forcing him to the couch for an entire week but caving after two nights. He might still be her knight, she rationalizes, and doesn’t the heroine have to suffer, to lose something in order to make the happily ever after mean anything? Fall apart and come back together, that’s how the story always goes. So she swallows his honeyed apologies, lets him confess his sins against her skin, running her fingers through his hair and promising him the future. And what a gift it was, to love so freely as she always has, made all the more crucial by this devastating sorrow. Forgiveness is not weakness, she fundamentally believes. So when he holds out his bloodstained hands, she picks up the knife herself to offer up her bruised heart.

He possesses her heart, he’s hijacked her career, and it's still not enough. Marisol finds a new friend; Alicia is so lovely and understanding – they have a glass of wine too many and she confesses her own fears and frustrations. Later, when it all comes crashing down – Marisol isn’t sure which betrayal hurts the most. She just knows that it hurts, and it doesn’t stop hurting. Randall, who she’s loved most of her life, who she’s sat with on the bathroom floor through detox and withdraw, who dragged her into his violence and secrecy. And maybe that’s the worst bit, Marisol, with her bleeding heart and sunshine, grew attached to each and every person she treats at her kitchen table at his request. Randall coaxed her into involvement with the Cowboys without her knowing, but now Marisol knows them too well, and loves them in the way she loves all her people. She hates him for that, hates him for being a fucking coward and leaving.

She keeps the house that her parents bought them and continues to treat whoever shows up at her backdoor. Marisol does not learn the circumstances of how he was found until much later, only that he was dead and she’s the number one suspect. She’s never been all that good at lying, and spends harrowing hours in custody tearfully confessing about his affairs while protecting the Cowboys she’s treated. They come for her soon enough, and the DNA evidence is overwhelming – Marisol’s never set foot in that resort, nor would she ever wear such a gaudy shade. They take her back to that empty house and suddenly it seems so full of reminders of him, and she breaks down wrapped up in an old flannel. Marisol hated him for what he did but missed him like a little kid. Of such banality was grief made.

PLOT ARC: The Canary is a nurse for the Cowboys; she knows them all well. She’s suspected to have worked with a Hand to arrange for Alicia’s disappearance. Since Randall’s affair, she’s been in a weird place of: how many of them knew and how could they? As well as the feeling that these people were her family too. She absolutely has come to love those people that she treats because of Randall and reckoning with her grief and guilt and anger will be super fun to write. <3

[wcrldend]

ARMAGEDDON’S TASK 001: INTRODUCTIONS

( laura harrier, 35, cis woman, she/her ) — Look who it is! If you take a look at our database, you’ll find that ODETTE "ODIE" SIKORA is a a CYBERNETICS SPECIALIST that works in SECTOR 7. According to the file, they’re a mutant with the power of INVISIBILITY. That must be why they’re STEADY and UNREMARKABLE. If you ask me, they remind me of quiet footsteps in the din of night, the overlooked detail, whispered secrets in the night. They are affiliated with THE MONTELL SYNDICATE . . . written by yvvy

basic information:

character name: odette sikora

nickname (s): odie, sikora, sik (whatever your muses might call her)

face claim: laura harrier

mutation status: invisibility

birthday: march 13th

sexuality: demisexual

moral alignment: true neutral

occupation: cybernetics specialist

work sector: sector 7

affiliation: the montell syndicate

3 positive traits: steady, attentive, reliable

3 negative traits: unremarkable, bias, hyper-independent

biography (optional): wip

questionnaire:

how do they feel about living in sol city? have they always lived there or did they travel from another settlement? odette travelled from another settlement to escape raiders who took one of her father's (gen i mutant) and other mutants of that settlement away to serve some nefarious purpose. she arrived with other refuges at the door step of sol city and was raised by someone (wc) in the montell syndicate who helped her develop her love for cybernetics. her ability did not manifest until in her mid twenties and that was when she was officially inducted into the syndicate.

do they trust the council’s leadership? why or why not? odette believes whatever her mentor (wc) has told her to believe so it would be dependent on that. most likely she does trust the council's leadership but because she is part of the syndicate she is in opposition to them on principle.

if they chose their sector and profession, why did they make that choice? if they didn’t, why not? were they happy with their assignment or not? it was by choice that she found her sector and profession, the cybernetics field something she's been interested in ever since arriving in sol city.

what’s one object that they always keep on their person? she keeps a family portrait drawn by a friend in her old settlement, it depicts her and her fathers. it is etched on palm sized sheet of metal and it is always in the breast pocket of her jacket.

(mutant only section)

what is your character’s ability (or abilities)? invisibility

are they gen i or gen ii? gen ii

what can your character do? what are their strengths? she and any natural fiber that's on her person becomes invisible at will. her strengths include her ability to blend in, her unremarkable-ness, and her attention to detail/memory.

what can’t they do? what are their weaknesses? she may be able to be invisible but she still leaves marks such as footprints in dirt, or sounds. she is more an observer than a fighter, more the impassive bystander which may be good for survival but it does not fair well in making and keeping connections.

is there anything else you’d like to specify about them? will edit this later.

[lockandkeyhyena]

ok fine. making a cinders map

[exocynraku]

ew

[everybody-loves-purdy]

I really hope Tree’s Roots has some kind of bombshell not mentioned in Squirrelflight’s Hope. I mean we basically know this guys backstory, hopefully this novella will add something interesting rather than give an extended version of what we’ve already been told.

[bayheart]

warriors quarantine challenge day 8: least favorite cat

again sliding this one in at the end of the day after rushing it out-- i spent way too long deciding on a character for this. i wanted to pick a character that i’d never seen ANYONE try to redeem, and it came down to this man so obscure that he doesn’t even have a name. it seems a bit like cinders has a fluffy tailtip so i figured i’d give the fluffy mane to sol���s father to even out the inheritance. in any case, this man literally left his ex and kids to die, so. genuinely a bastard all around!

[Image ID: drawing of Sol’s father from Warriors on a dark green background. he is standing, mostly facing the right of the image. his fur is brown in varying hues, and relatively short except for a large, fluffy mane around his neck. he has pale orange eyes. his ears are pinned back and he is growling with teeth bared, looking to the left of the image with an angry expression. beside him is a simple graphic depicting different phases of the moon; a white full moon, then a black and white third quarter, then a black and white solar eclipse, then a black and white first quarter, then a black new moon, all in a straight line from top to bottom. to his other side is handwritten text reading “Sol’s Father” in the color of his eyes./.End ID]

[seasonsbloom]

ocean in a seashell . ( rooster )

pairing ; bradley bradshaw x female!reader

synopsis ; bradley has lived with his father’s ghost for long enough to know he’ll never make the same mistakes he did. and then he meets you.

wc ; 10.5k i'm sorry

warnings ; 18+ only, minors do NOT interact; bradley bradshaw's sad, sad life; angst, literally SO much angst; mentions of canon past character death; near-death experience; alcohol abuse; explicit language; explicit sexual content (breeding kink, cumplay, p in v, dirty talk, fingering, idk?)

note: ... yeah i don't fucking know either goodbye. stole the title from "sidelines" by phoebe bridgers aka god.

sol. sunderlust... none of this would be possible without you, thank you forever.

Bradley doesn’t remember much about his father.

These days, he recalls him only in fractions: Hawaiian shirts, mustache, hair that stood up spikey like grass covered in the first tentative November frost. He had big hands, Bradley remembers that, and he used to swing him up on his shoulders and let him ride around living rooms in Army commissioned houses they never stayed in longer than a few months. He always smelled of engine oil, and he played pianos like he didn’t even know the meaning of the word embarrassment.

Bradley based his whole life on the fading glimpses of that man he carries locked in the chambers of his heart. The older he gets, the more gaps he finds.

Suddenly he’s taller than Goose ever was, older, ranked higher. He wants to say, wait, hold on, go back. Wants to rewind to a time when he felt closer to his father, when he could remember what his voice sounded like, what it felt like when he tucked him into bed. When he thought if he just sat by the front door long enough, his father would inevitably walk through it again, hoist him into the air, and press tickling kisses to his cheeks.

Sometimes, Bradley wishes he could go back to when he thought bad things happened only in movies. When he had a father and a mother and an uncle and the bone-deep, unconscious conviction that things would always stay this way.

He can’t remember the day Goose died. Can’t remember Mav coming to the house, can’t remember the dog tags pressed into his mother’s hands. Strange how the most significant day of his little life remains in his memory as just another day - morning cartoons and PB&J sandwiches and his mom reading him a bedtime story. Part of Bradley thinks it’s unfair, his whole world crashing down and him not even remembering it. Like he’s arriving late for a movie and can’t make sense of the plot.

Not once did he see his mother cry over his father. He’s sure she must have shed tears, remembers now the empty tissue boxes and the eyes rimmed in red, understands now what he was too young to see then. But Carol carried her grief like a secret. She locked it behind the mahogany of her bedroom door, she hid it behind the veneer of her smile.

Bradley is nineteen, standing at his mother’s open grave, when he decides he’s never going to do to someone what Goose did to her. What he did to him.

For a while, he wants nothing to do with the memory of that man. Wraps himself in his mother, toys with the idea of taking her maiden name. Goes to college and gets drunk, gets high, gets himself into trouble. Thinks sometimes, in his very darkest moments, that maybe the best thing he could do for the world is to stop existing.

One night lands him at the police station. And it’s not like he got arrested or anything, they just take him in to sober up and tell him to call somebody to come get him. Mav is in town, thank God, and he comes in wearing his old aviator jacket and a wistful expression. Bradley’s call probably pulled him out of some bar or some girl or both.

Mav doesn’t say much, just drives him back to his college dorm and pulls over to the curb, doesn’t even turn off the car. They sit there in silence, with the blinker going and the engine purring.

Finally, Mav says, “Sometimes, you remind me so much of your father, it scares me.”

Bradley doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing. Sits there for a little longer and watches as frat bros and law students and cheerleaders cross the street on their way to hook-ups, to parties, to midnight fast food runs. Envies them just for a moment. Then, without saying goodbye, gets out of the car, goes to his room, and buries himself beneath the weight of his blankets.

So it’s like Bradley always suspected. It really is a futile thing, trying to escape the memory of his father. His ghost lives inside Bradley’s chest. Rattles against his bones.

And he loves him, even if he doesn’t remember him. Thinks that love is some intrinsic, primordial thing. Something that was there before he was born and will be there after he dies. Something he can’t fight. Unstoppable like the tide.

So he embraces it instead. Tries growing a mustache he’ll only be able to pull off much later in life, gets those old Hawaiian shirts out of storage. Decides to give into the underlying current of longing he’s felt every time he tipped his head back and looked at the sky.

Accepting that he loves his father is much easier than he thought it would be. Much easier than hating him.

It’s good for a while because it feels like he has a purpose, a goal. For so long, Bradley has been drifting at sea, unmoored, unbound, with no sense of direction. Now he’s swimming toward something, broad strokes, every move deliberate.

Then Mav pulls his papers.

The worst part of it all, worse than the betrayal, worse than the anger, is the confusion. He thought Mav would understand. Mav of all people. 

(It’s his mother, setting a casserole on the table, smiling at Bradley and saying Pete over here, he’s the craziest pilot the Navy’s ever seen. It’s his sixth Christmas, the second one without his dad, and Mav gives him a model of a plane they’ll build together. It’s Mav staring at him with eyes gleaming with moisture the time he stole the Navy hat from his uncle’s head. It’s Mav in every memory of his life, laced so tightly to him he thought they were inseparable, woven together. Now the seams are coming apart.)

Mav, who keeps flying, who seems only to be a real, complete person for those few, short, fleeting moments just after he steps off a plane. Who’s never happy unless he’s going break-neck speed miles and miles above the ground, jumping off death’s shovel, laughing, flipping the bird, and saying look, I can fly!

If Maverick doesn’t understand why Bradley wants to fly, why he needs to fly, then who ever could?

Mav wants to explain it, calls him, shows up at his apartment. Bradley declines the calls, turns off all the lights, and sits on his couch in perfect silence, pretending he isn’t in.

He doesn’t want to hear explanations, doesn’t want to listen to excuses. He wants to fly.

Back when his mother was alive, she wouldn’t even let him get on an airplane. His whole childhood, they only left their state once to go to a funeral of some distant aunt or cousin or uncle, Bradley can’t remember, and his mother drove the whole ten hours there and back. It didn’t even register as anything weird to him - it was all juice boxes and gas station ice cream and goldies on the radio. It was his mom’s laughter and her smile and her fingers carding strands of hair warmed by the sun out of his eyes.

So Bradley remembers his mother every time he gets into a car. But his dad? Him, he can only get above the clouds.

He doesn’t give up. He finishes college, works odd jobs for some money, drifts further and further from the orbit he used to inhabit. And then he applies to the academy again, and then he goes to Top Gun, and he graduates top of his class and wonders what it would feel like if there were somebody to be proud of him. If somebody were congratulating him, taking him out for a celebratory dinner, or just somebody to hug him. What it would feel like if he weren’t so alone.

It’s what he dreams about sometimes, in the very darkest pockets of the night. A house with a swing set and a big, smiling, dumb dog and a pretty wife and a whole gaggle of children running through the garden. Bradley would teach them how to throw a football, and he’d carry them to bed at night, and his wife would smile at him, and there would always be food in the fridge and brownies on the table, and every room would be filled with love, and there would be no ghosts to haunt him.

It’s a dangerous fantasy. It’s a trap door, a slippery slope, it’s a snare, it’s a cliff’s edge. If he stays in it too long, he’ll be lost.

His mother always used to say he was a functional dreamer. He had his head stuck in the clouds, sure, but he knew exactly when to pull it out of there too. Maybe that’s why he’s such a good pilot.

So Bradley still is a functional dreamer. He knows that this is something he can never have, can never allow himself to have. He knows the pain of it too well, too intimately, still feels it every time he catches sight of his reflection in a mirror, the golden streaks of sun in his hair, the mustache, the split second of pure, blank horror, of oh god I look like him, I look so much like him, and feels it slice right through him like a knife through butter. He’s been carrying his father’s ghost for so long, sometimes it feels like his spine will crack under the weight.

Maybe people that live life like he does, like Mav does, like his father did - up in the sky, heads in the clouds - aren’t meant to have anything on the ground. Inevitably, they always end up leaving it.

He decided the day of his mother’s funeral, before the long procession of I’m sorrys and If you need anythings, before he let real estate agents into a house overflowing with cards and flowers - flowers in every room, flowers blooming and wilting and dying like a garden watered by his grief, like a garden watered by his ghosts - that he would never have a family. Not a wife to mourn him, not a child to miss him.

So there’ll be nobody to carry the burden of him.

And then he meets you.

It’s not momentous - it’s easy. Natural. Quicker than he thought possible. It’s stolen glances across a room and a smile that brands him like a mark, that cuts right through to the bone. A smile that settles in his heart. A smile that’ll never leave again.

In the beginning, he tries to fight it. Tells himself not to engage, not to get involved, to stay out of the mess he knows he’ll make here inevitably. To shield him, but to shield you too, to protect you from whatever hurt he’s going to inflict sooner or later.

But then it goes like this:

“Are you never going to ask me out, Bradshaw?” you ask him, smiling as you pluck his Ray Bans from him, as you place them on your own nose, and blink at him from over the rims.

The sun is casting you in gold. Bradley wants to catch the moment in a mason jar and put it on his bedside table. Let the glow illuminate his nights.

“I don’t think….” He trails off, wonders why it’s so easy for him to talk to you, why he can’t stop spilling truths like leaking water taps. “I don’t think I’ll be good for you.”

You don’t miss a beat. One eyebrow raising, you say, “And don’t you think that should be my decision?”

That’s when he knows that for him, you will always be it. That it’ll never be this way again with someone else. It’s not even a question. It’s just the truth.

When he’s with you, for the first time since he sat shotgun in a car with his mother, head nodding along to Elvis on the radio, Bradley feels like he belongs somewhere. Like he’s reached a shore, maybe. Like he can breathe.

For the first time, it feels like he knows peace, even with his feet on the ground.

His mother would have loved you.

You have a long conversation about it. About how he knows you want it - the diapers and the first days of school and the family Christmases. The pitter-patter of children’s feet, the cribs, the tiny fingers curling around your thumb. He knows you’ve dreamed of it all your life. And Bradley also knows, as much as it hurts, as much as it aches, that he can never give it to you.

He needs to be honest. He needs to put all the cards on the table so you know your options, see the truth about him. So you can walk away before you get any deeper into this.

Part of him is sure you will. Thinks it might be better, the safest option for both of you. Hopes you will, fears you will.

It doesn’t matter that he loves you. It doesn’t matter that he only feels at peace when he’s with you. It doesn’t matter that for the first time since he was four years old, the ghosts have gone quiet.

What matters is that he wants you to be happy. What matters is that if that happiness lies somewhere else, with someone else, with someone who’ll give you everything you dream of, give you a life, give you a child… Bradley will let you go. It’ll be the hardest thing he’s ever done, but he will.

Only you don’t leave.

You think about it for a very, very long time. Sit at his kitchen table with your hands folded on the tablecloth like you’re praying, with your head turned down, without looking at him, and then finally you say, “Alright. Fine with me.”

And Bradley’s protesting, pushing, saying, “Honey, you want this, I know you do, you want a family, you….”

“I want you more,” you say, and that’s that.

There’s no lie to it. It’s the truth, naked and beautiful and awful.

And Bradley - selfish as he is - accepts it. Because he doesn’t want to lose you. Because as much as he tries to convince himself of the opposite, deep down, he knows he’s not a good man. Just like his father wasn’t. They’re both just men willing to leave the people they love behind. Brave enough to fight for the “greater good”, but never brave enough to stay.

Regardless of it all, it’s the happiest Bradley has been in years. With you, he doesn’t feel like something is missing from him. He actually feels whole.

Your job as a freelancer allows you to travel with him, and he’s unspeakably grateful for it. He tries to show you, tries to be good about bringing flowers and cooking dinner, thinks if he can make you even a fraction as happy as you make him, he’ll have succeeded. When he gets deployed, he spends days memorizing your face, the shape of your throat where your pulse point jumps, the pattern of your heartbeat, the feeling of you beneath his arm.

And sometimes, when you’re asleep, Bradley puts his hand on your stomach and imagines a bump there, imagines a baby growing beneath it, and that’s when the ache gets so strong he thinks he can’t breathe.

That’s when he hates himself for not being something else: a doctor, an accountant, a real estate agent. Anything other than what he is. Could he have it then, this thing you both want so much? Could he let himself have it?

But eventually, when the fantasies fade, he always circles back to the truth: Bradley isn’t a doctor or an accountant or a real estate agent. He’s a pilot. Always has been, always will be.

He’s just too much like his father. That’s the whole point.

When he gets called back to Top Gun, three years after he met you, something shifts. He doesn’t know to explain it, but from the very first moment he sets foot on North Island again, something about it tastes like the beginning of an end. At night, he can’t settle, roams through the little house you rent off base like a sleepwalker. Checks in on you like he’s afraid you’re going to disappear. Can’t concentrate up in the air, can’t shut his brain off.

It’s like his father’s ghost travels with him in his suitcases, tucked between his neatly folded shirts, climbs out when no one’s looking. No matter where he goes, that ghost goes too. He can’t shake him.

You love California. You like the sunshine and the ocean. Like the Hard Deck and Penny and Phoenix. Turn your face into the warmth like a sunflower, and then you bloom, go brighter and brighter as Bradley goes the opposite direction. As something in him dims.

“Is it because of Mav?” you ask him softly, in the quiet of your bedroom. You’re carding hair from his forehead, fingers gentle, voice gentler.

Bradley can’t look at you. Shame coils low in his stomach.

“Yes,” he says, even if it feels like a lie in his mouth.

You sigh, no annoyance, only affection. Your head is heavy on his shoulder as you press the shape of a yawn into his skin.

“I know he hurt you, Bradley,” you whisper. “It’s okay to be hurt. But I think you need to talk to him.”

He nods into the darkness. You’re right. You’re always right.

“I know,” he agrees, even though he knows he won’t.

When you’re asleep, Bradley slips out of bed. Pats into the living room and sits on the floor, back leaning against the couch. Pulls his knees up to his chest, closes his eyes, and then he dreams.

He dreams he’s four riding on his father’s shoulders through the living room. He dreams he’s ten, in a car with his mother, turning up the radio. He dreams he’s twenty, and he lets Mav explain. He dreams he’s thirty-five, and he marries you. He dreams he’s thirty-six and holding his baby. He dreams it’s a little girl with your smile and his eyes, and he loves her more than he thought he was capable of, so much it almost breaks him apart, so much it puts him back together. So much it’s worth it all.

Bradley’s earliest memory is of the giant, bone-white seashell on his grandmother’s mantlepiece. He remembers how heavy it was, remembers how cold it felt against the side of his face when he pressed it to his ear. He remembers hearing the distant, muffled hum of the waves, the song of the sea, remembers imagining what it might look like. 

It’s no comparison to the real thing, years and years and years later, he knows this, but it’s something. It’s better than nothing.

It’s all he can allow himself—an ocean in a seashell.

The mission is a disaster, even if it is successful. Later, Bradley won’t remember what he was thinking up in the air, when he hit the target, when Mav went down, when he decided to go after him. He won’t even be able to tell if that is because he’s in shock or because he really wasn’t thinking anything. Maybe for the first time in his life.

If he had been thinking, Bradley likes to believe he would have kept his plane on course. Would have flown back to the carrier and then back to you, home, home, home. Wouldn’t have gone back for a man he still hasn’t spoken to, not properly, someone he loved once and now barely knows.

But all the ghosts of the people he’s loved and lost crowd up on him in that cockpit - his father and his mother and even Admiral Kazansky and their sad, sad eyes. There’s no room for Mav to be up there, too, he thinks.

So at first, you don’t cross his mind at all. He just follows his instincts like he’s never done before, could never bring himself to do. So much of Bradley’s life has been about dissecting just those urges, dismantling them, disabling them. Making himself into a creature of logic and second-guessing. Now, for the first time, he gives in to the currents and lets himself be rushed away.

And then his plane goes down, and he drifts into the white white white of snow he hasn’t felt in so long - and still, he doesn’t think. But every instinct from the moment of impact on, the moment his feet hit the ground, every instinct centers on you.

Home, he thinks. I need to get home to her.

Up in that F-14, that’s when he realizes. The brink of death is a bleak place. It’s a place of memories, a place of despair. It’s a place of hope.

All he can think of is you. How he’s leaving you with nothing. How he’s going to die here, miles above the ocean, and what will happen then? Who’s going to bring you his dog tags, the way Mav had brought his father’s to Carole all those years ago? Phoenix? Hangman? How are they even going to retrieve them if he goes down in enemy territory? Will anybody even remember the girl in that house, the one he didn’t even marry? And why didn’t he anyway? Why didn’t he put a ring on your finger, buy you a house, get you a dog, give you a baby?

What will remain of him now, in this world after he’s gone?

Nothing, he thinks, and his lungs fill with water, high up in the sky. You made damn sure of that, Bradley.

There will be nobody to haunt. He will disappear, and he will take his mother with him, will take his father with him, will take Mav with him. Nobody to remember him. Nobody to mourn him except you, all alone, carrying the terrible burden of his ghost.

It used to be a relief. Nobody to mourn me after I’m gone. Now it feels like a punishment.

Home, he thinks, remembering the content of your smile and your eyes gleaming in the darkness and your face turning, always turning, toward the sun. Like a child, as he closes his eyes, as he tries to accept the inevitable, he thinks, I want to go home. I just want to go home.

And then that’s what he does—he and Mav. Incredibly, inexplicably, illogically, they go home.

From far away, as he walks up the driveway, the little house with the gardenias you planted blooming pink and red in front of the windows looks like an oasis at first. Then it seems to grow longer, taller, goes from beckoning to daunting. He almost doesn’t make it inside. Almost doesn’t dare to get out his keys, unlock the front door, push through and toe off his shoes. Feels like he’s doing something forbidden, like he’s an unwanted guest in his own home.

You’re in the kitchen, elbows deep in sudsy dishwater, and when he walks through the doorway, when you hear the pat of his socked feet against the tiled floors, you look up at him with an open face full of love, full of relief. It almost bowls him over.

“Bradley,” you whisper, voice soft, and then you’re crossing the room, bubbles and foam and water dripping from your wrists across the tile, and he blinks at the trail you leave for a moment. Then you’re there, arms wrapping around his neck, face pressing against his shoulder, saying his name again and again, like a benediction, like a prayer of thanks.

Automatically, he pulls you against him with both arms crossed over your hips. Inhales deep, lets the familiar scent of you envelop him. Listens to your breath echoing against the dip of his collarbone, to the steady rhythm of your heart.

Your hands leave wet prints against the fabric of his shirt, like something primeval pressed to cave walls, like something that’s been happening for centuries, something that is happening right now, something that will happen again tomorrow and next year and the year after that, and distantly, dumbly, Bradley thinks, Oh. I’m alive. I’m here.

He feels packed in cotton. He feels submerged. He feels not-real, not-present, not-normal. He feels like he’s going to fall apart, and no one will notice.

When you draw back, it takes you only a split second to realize something’s wrong. You frown, the furrow Bradley likes to smooth out with his thumb appearing between your eyebrows, eyes swimming with a concern he doesn’t deserve.

“What happened?”

It’s classified, all of it. There’s so much of his life Bradley isn’t allowed to share with you, even if he wants to. There’s so much he doesn’t want to share but knows he should.

From far away, he hears himself say, “My plane went down.”

He can feel the panic in your body, feels it go through you like a spasm. You try to draw back, but he holds you where you are, afraid he’s going to shatter all across the kitchen floor the moment you’re gone.

It’s not fair, he thinks, how he keeps looking to you to hold him together. It’s just that at the end of the day, you’ve always been so much stronger than him.

“Bradley…” you begin to say, but he can’t hear it. He doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want to hear how scared you are every time he leaves, he doesn’t want to hear how it made you feel to know that he almost died because he already knows. He knows.

“I want…” he says into your hair, a fragment of a sentence, a statement that trails off halfway, that goes nowhere. He doesn’t even know what he’s trying to say.

In some ways, he feels stuck in that F-14. Like time kept moving, but he didn’t, remained static and crystallized like somebody dipped the moment in amber and preserved it on a bookshelf. Nothing makes sense to him. Rationally, he knows he’s standing here in his kitchen with you in his arms, knows he isn’t dead, knows he survived, but it doesn’t feel like it. 

So Bradley tries to remember grounding exercises, focuses on little things, mundane things, things that shouldn’t exist on the verge of death. The bubbles popping in the sink. The specks of dust dancing through the room. The curve of your spine beneath the worn fabric of his Navy shirt.

Suddenly, the thought of you alone in this house is unbearable. Waiting for a man that never comes back. History repeating itself in the worst of ways.

“I want to have a baby,” he says, out of nowhere, out of some madness that took hold of him up in the air, or maybe when he touched the ground, or maybe at some other point he can’t name, can’t even think.

And it’s not a conscious thought. It’s not a decision he makes. It’s just something that spills from him, something that has been there unnoticed all along, words taking shape on his tongue before he can overthink their meaning, but then they’re out, and they drop between you like an anvil, and it’s like a relief, it’s like a breath he’s been holding for years, it’s like a sigh, something inside of him finally unlatching, finally escaping the shackles he put on it himself.

Oh, he thinks. He’s known this about himself, always, but it’s the first time he says it out loud. It’s always been a want, an ache, a yearning, but now it goes from all that to a need, a thrumming inside of him, something that cannot be ignored. Something that demands to be felt instead of thought.

In his arms, you stiffen.

With your palms on his chest, you push him away from you, take a step back, take the warmth and the scent and the anchor with you. Bradley is surprised he doesn’t float right up to the ceiling.

The openness of your face has shuttered now. You look at him with something unreadable crossing your features, something unfamiliar, and say, “What did you just say?”

Bradley swallows around a lump in his throat. “I want to have a baby,” he repeats, his voice smaller now, quieter, but the words more assured.

Because he does. Because it’s true. Because he’s always wanted this and doesn’t know how to explain to you that now he needs it. How now it’s the only thing that makes sense in a world that’s gone off the rails.

Your face falls, something crumbles, and it hits him like a punch to the gut. 

“No,” you say, turning away from him. You step right into the trail of water you left earlier, it soaks into your socks, and then you’re leaving footprints too. Everywhere you go, you leave your mark like a brand. Not one part of Bradley has been left untouched.

Confusion zaps through him, but it’s a muted feeling. Muffled by all the chaos.

“I thought you….” It’s a great effort to form words, like pulling teeth. “You want children. Don’t you want this?”

“Not like…” You pause, rake your fingers through your hair, exasperation crackling from you like sparks from a burned-out socket, and Bradley can’t make sense of it.

You want this, he knows you do. So what’s the problem now? What did he do wrong?

“I don’t….”

“Don’t go there.”

There’s a finality to your voice, and he sees you drawing back from him, sees your shoulders come up, your face turning away, something wilting.

The idea of losing you, of pushing you away now that he’s finally decided to let you in, really let you in, the panic of it finally slices through the haze. Lifts the fog.

Bradley crosses the room and says, “It’s your decision too, honey, of course, it is, but I love you, and I want this, and….”

You whirl on him, and it punches the air out of his lungs. There’s real anger on your face now, your eyes sparkling with unshed tears, and Bradley’s heart clenches in answer.

“You don’t get to do this,” you say, voice heaving with the barely contained emotion, a ship on a stormy sea, “not after I compromised, not after I spent so long trying to get used to the idea of not having a baby, not after giving that up for you, Bradley. You don’t… don’t get to just come in here and change your mind just because it suits you, because you had some near-death experience and you’re full of adrenaline and… and….”

Bradley frowns, moves to touch you, but you flinch away from him, one arm going up to hug your own ribcage. As if you have to shield yourself from him.

Suddenly, he feels a sob building in his throat. To realize how much he’s hurt you, not just today by springing this on you, but by how selfish he was, again and again. By letting his past stand in the way of your future.

“It’s not that I changed my mind,” he begins, trying to string together something that will make you see the truth of it, make you understand what he means.

You interrupt, “You said you didn’t want kids.”

Bradley pauses. Did he say that? If he did… 

“And it…” You gasp for breath, the tears now streaming freely down your face, and god, it hurts, it hurts worse than thinking he lost Mav, hurts worse than thinking he’d die in that F-14 because all of that he’d been prepared for, had been practicing for his whole life. Losing Maverick, losing himself, all of that had been inevitable. But losing you… Bradley always assumed he was going to be the one to go first. 

“It’s fine,” you go on. “I was fine with it, Bradley, I gave that dream up because… because I wanted you more, and I was okay with it. It was my decision, and I don’t regret it, but for you to just… to just….”

“I do want children,” he says because he doesn’t know what to do except explain it, except make you see the truth of it all. “I’ve always… I’ve always wanted children, honey. I just… after what happened to my dad, after what that did to me, what it did to my mother, I didn’t… I didn’t want to do that to you. I couldn’t do that to you.”

For a moment, you say nothing, eyebrows furrowed, lower lip caught between your teeth.

“You…” You look like you’re trying very hard to understand it. “Are you saying you decided not to have children with me because you thought it would hurt me too much if you died?”

When you say it like that, out loud, logically, through your tears, it sounds so incredibly stupid.

Bradley opens and closes his mouth, once, twice. Finally, he nods.

He expects you to start crying harder, to hit him (all valid reactions, really), but instead, you do the one thing he doesn’t expect: You laugh. It’s a watery sound, barely amused, but it is a laugh.

You bury your face in your hands, then reemerge after a moment, eyes rimmed in red, and say, “God, Bradley, you’re so stupid.”

“I…” He doesn’t know what to say to that. Probably, you’re right. “What?”

“You just…” You exhale a long, shuddering breath. “You keep trying to make decisions without me.”

“... I do?”

“Yeah!” Your voice rises a little, then settles, and you say, “This is my decision as much as it’s yours. If I say I want it, if I say I know the risk and I know the danger, then you don’t get to tell me no. Do you think I’m dumb? Do you think I don’t understand what goes on when you get deployed? Do you think I don’t know that you’re risking your life all the time?”

“No, I… I know you know that.”

You shrug, and it’s a gesture of such helplessness that Bradley’s knees almost buckle.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. I don’t know if… if one day there’s going to be a mission you don’t come back from. I don’t know that, Bradley. I can’t know that. But until then… can’t you just let us be happy?”

Bradley’s shaking. Head to toe, tremors that run through him like the tides. Unstoppable. Unrelenting.

“I…” And he knows he’s the one who brought it up, but suddenly all the doubts come crashing down. Suddenly the ghosts crowd around him. “What if I die? What if I leave you? What if we have a baby and I’m not… there?”

“Oh, Bradley…” Something on your face melts. You step closer, put a hand on his cheek, fingertips still pruned from the water, and say, so gently it breaks something open inside of him, “Bradley. You’re not your father.”

And Bradley can’t help it - he cries. It’s an ugly sort of crying, the sort that leaves you with a headache and snot dripping down your face and eyes that hurt. The one you feel in the morning. But it’s a relief too. A release. Rain after years and years of drought.

For so long, Bradley was trying to let go of a world that didn’t want him to leave. He’s been preparing for an early exit since he entered, has been so caught up in dreaming he forgot to live. So caught up in thinking he forgot to do. He thought he would be content to go out of this world and leave nothing behind, to disappear without a trace, without a word, without a ghost.

But now he sees it clearly. Now he understands.

Bradley doesn’t want to stop existing. He wants to cling to this world like someone clinging to the edge of a cliff, like a leech, like a cancer. He wants to haunt someone.

Only there’s something else, too. 

A week before his mother died, when she had gone all quiet, when she had lost the vibrancy she used to carry around like a glow, when she had slept longer and spoke less and Bradley had known, somewhere deep inside of him, that things were ending, that they were truly ending, he’d gathered all his courage and asked a question he’d been rehearsing for weeks, months, years.

“Do you regret it?”

Do you regret loving my father now, knowing all that would come after? Knowing the landslide it really was?

And Carol had just smiled, something of that old light returning for a moment, a tenderness so big it felt like violence, and she’d said, “I could never regret him. Not even the heartbreak or the grief or the pain. After all, he gave me you, didn’t he?”

Maybe, he thinks, it’s time to let the past be in the past. Maybe it’s time to let himself have a future.

Maybe it’s time to let go of the ghost.

And you just hold him as he cries like he hasn’t since he locked himself in a bathroom stall after his mother’s funeral, cries until it feels like he’s going to throw up, cries until the gnashing teeth of grief of pain of hurt of anger finally leave him be.

After half an eternity, you pull away, warm hands cupping his face, tugging him gently away from the crook of your neck, so he has to look at you, can’t look anywhere but at you, and then you say, “Bradley, what happened to your father was a horrible, terrible accident. But he loved you. You know that, don’t you?”

He nods. His father, the hazy shape of him, the ghost he’s carried for so long - frosted tips and Hawaiian shirts and the smell of motor oil. Large hands and a mustache and rides around living rooms. So much of him is shadowed, fractioned, incomplete, but not this. This he knows. When he thinks of his father, there’s nothing now but the hazy, easy warmth of love. 

“Do you really think,” you say softly, “that they made a mistake when they had you? Your parents? Do you really think they shouldn’t have done it?”

Bradley has thought about his life in boxes. Big cardboard ones, the kind you get when you move apartments. He tucks the good parts away beneath his bed, stows them, hoards them like a secret. Like his mother kept her grief. But all the bad parts - the pain and the sadness and the sorrow - those he lets pile up everywhere, in hallways, in living rooms, on kitchen tables. He stumbles over them on his way to the bathroom. He stubs his toe halfway to the closet.

He never looks at those good parts, afraid they’ll become tainted somehow if he thinks about them for too long, afraid they’ll lose their appeal or their strength. But there’s so much good there too.

Goose loved him, he knows this without a doubt. Carole loved him. Mav loves him, Phoenix loves him, you love him… At the end of it all, even despite all the terrible things that have happened to him, even with the ghosts that have haunted him for so long, Bradley has been loved, and he has lived, and he has been happy.

Shouldn’t that be worth something, too?

“No,” he says, voice soft, “no, I’m glad they had me.”

His life has been a long, long road. Difficult to walk sometimes, full of potholes, some as big as canyons. But there’s so much happiness there, too - car rides with his mother, Mav telling him stories about his father, the moment when the wheels lift off the tarmac at take-off. This long, terrible, winding road that led him here. That led him to you.

You brush your fingertips across his cheekbone, and Bradley capsizes.

“I love you,” he says, and it’s the truest thing he’s ever said. It’s the truest thing he’s ever known. “I want… I want to have a life with you.”

“You do,” you answer. “You have one.”

Bradley’s tears have dried so the sound he makes isn’t really a sob, but it’s damn close to one. 

“Do you…” He clears his throat. “You love me, too?”

It’s a dumb question, unnecessary because he already knows the answer. But he needs to hear you say it anyway.

And when you smile, your whole face lights up. It echoes somewhere inside Bradley, somewhere at his core, goes through him like a current.

“Bradley Bradshaw,” you say, and there’s only a little bit of amusement in your voice, “you’re the love of my life.”

His heart jumps like a jackknife in his chest.

Before he recognizes that he’s made the conscious decision to do so, he’s bridged the space between you and has pulled you into a searing, soaring, slow kiss. He fumbles it a little, teeth knocking against yours, but you just laugh into it, going up on your tiptoes, arms wrapping around his neck, pulling yourself closer to him like you want to meld yourself to his bones. Bradley feels like somebody’s poured liquid sunlight into his chest.

Somewhere it goes heated, goes desperate, goes near frantic, all the adrenaline, all the fear, everything pouring from him in a shower of want. Somehow he’s got you pressed up against the counter, tongue tangled with yours, fingers in your hair, fingers on your back, fingers pulling up the edge of the shirt you’ve stolen from him to find the warm, soft skin beneath.

Breathless, heart stuttering, Bradley pulls away, looks at your lips swollen from the tug of his teeth, your eyes with the heavy lids, the hair mussed by his fingers, and he needs to hear it. Needs to know you want this as much as he does. The ache in him twists like a knife between the ribs.

“Tell me,” he whispers, afraid the moment will shatter if he makes a wrong move, speaks too loudly. It’s so fragile - he wants to protect it so fiercely. Presses the tips of his fingers into the place where your pulse hammers away. “Tell me you want to have a baby with me.”

“I want…” And you sigh, a sound like a spring day, a sound like a rushing mountain stream. “I want it.”

He surges forward, lips against yours again, and you’re so alive beneath him, heart racing, breath heaving, fingers grappling along his neck, his shoulders, his chest, his arms, and Bradley wants to devour you. Wants to sink his teeth into all this life and never let it go again. He wants to exist, right here, in this moment with you forever.

“I love you,” he mumbles into your neck, lets his mouth move over the column of your throat, down to the sharp points of your collarbones beneath the soft skin. Sinks to his knees on the kitchen tiles like he’s kneeling at an altar to pray.

“Bradley,” you whisper, fingers going to tangle in his hair, to smooth along the sides of his face, and the softness in your voice cracks something in him. He swears he could cry again.

He doesn’t even know what he’s doing as he nuzzles his nose against the sloping curve of your upper thigh, as his fingers tighten on your hips. He just wants to be close to you. And you’re so soft, so warm, you smell like home, and it tears through him, blazes everything in its wake, to realize just how close he came to losing it all.

“I’m gonna marry you,” he whispers, babbles, barely coherent, pressing his face against the fabric of your panties, inhaling your scent, opening his mouth to push his tongue where he knows your clit is. “Gonna make you so happy, baby, I promise, it’s all I want. I’m never letting you go again, I’m never….”

Above him, you whimper, hips knocking forward, arching into the movement of his tongue for a moment, and he wonders if you’re wet, thinks about the hot, tight vice of your cunt, and groans against you. His cock jumps.

Then you’re tugging him away from you by the hair, and Bradley goes reluctantly, mouth still open, wishing he could stay where he was forever. Drowning in you. 

You’re looking down at him with eyes blown wide.

“Bradley,” you say, and there’s something unsteady to your voice. “Take me to bed.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. It’s a tumble all the way to your bedroom - he kicks off his shoes on the way, you lose your shirt, and he’s somehow, miraculously, gotten down to his boxers by the time he drags you backward with him onto the mattress.

“I love you,” he says as he drags you on top of him, your legs opening around his hips like the petals of a flower. The mattress dips where your knees press against the springs, your weight grounds him. “I love you, you’re so perfect, you’re….”

He has no idea what he’s saying. His brain checked out a while ago, and it’s all just feelings now, just emotions coursing through him, and every once in a while, one will plunge its head through the surface, and then he’ll tell you something nonsensical, something dumb, something important, something he needs you to know, something…

You lean down to kiss him, to shut him up, his brain buzzes, your breasts press to his bare chest, and he’s so hard in his boxers it hurts.

“I love you, too,” you whisper against his lips, smile into the kiss. The curve of it burns against Bradley’s face.

He sits up, grasps you by the thighs to drag you closer, drag your core across his cock, and you both moan against each other. Your fingernails scrape over the back of his neck, where his hair is buzzed so short he knows it feels like prickles, and he shudders, sighs, lets his tongue run across your teeth.

For a while, you just stay like that, rutting against each other like fucking teenagers, tongues lazy, fingers eager, mouths hungry. Even through your panties, he can feel your wetness, wonders if it’s going to leave stains on his underwear, across his thighs. Bradley thinks he’s going to die, but this time it’s nothing like it was up in the F-14.

It’s difficult in your position, awkward, but he gets a finger first on your clit, and then, when he finds you wet and swollen and open, he slides it right inside you. Watches your face as you squeeze your eyes shut, as your mouth falls open on a muffled gasp, as your head tips backward.

You’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

He fucks his finger in and out slowly, adds a second to stretch you, and then he’s saying, “Baby, honey, you’re so tight, you’re so fucking wet, god I….”

You whimper, and then you’re pulling off him, shimmying out of your panties, leaning down to tug his boxers off.

“Gotta have…” Your throat moves when you swallow as you clamber back into his lap. “Want you inside me, please, Bradley. I’m ready.”

He groans, something in his stomach yanking tight, and he’s pretty sure he’s leaking precum steadily by now.

There’s no time to tease, no need for it either, not when you’re both aching for it, not after what you’ve just gone through. The hot slide of him inside you, feeling you all around him, Bradley thinks that might be the only thing that could make him realize he’s actually back here, that it isn’t all just a dream, that he didn’t actually go down in that plane and has been stuck in some kind of cruel limbo for the past few days.

But there’s the other thing too. The need he can’t explain. The selfish, horrible, depraved thing he can share with nobody but you. That nobody but you would ever understand.

Slowly, tentatively, he places his palm on your stomach, fingers splaying wide, and leaves it there. He’s too scared to look at you, too scared of what you’ll think of him, too scared of what you’ll do once you find out how deep his desire runs, how desperately he wants this. Will you hate him? Will you be disgusted? Will you draw back, pull away, leave him alone with all his depravity and all his fears and all his sorrow? 

“I need… I want…” He can’t even finish the sentence, brain too foggy. Too scared to meet your eyes, Bradley just blinks at the sight in front of him, his big hand on your skin, and his heart seizes, his insides clench, and he can’t breathe, can’t, he’s going to…

Slowly, your fingers wrap around his wrist.

“Yes,” you breathe above him.

It’s a visceral thing. The words burn through him, wrap around him, curl into him. He surges forward to kiss you, desperate, a choked sound escaping him, and licks into your mouth. Around his wrist, your fingers tighten.

He pushes you back into the sheets, crawls over you and spreads your legs, slides between them where he belongs. When his gaze falls to your face, there’s so much trust there, so much love, and it cleaves him in two, just how much he loves you, just how much he needs you. He doesn’t have the words to express it, can only hope you understand what he means when he plunges into you without preamble, when he whispers your name against the shell of your ear, when he curves around you like he wants to shield you from everything bad in the world.

You moan, fingers coming up to grasp his arm where he’s balancing his weight on the elbows. Your mouth tips open, your eyes not straying from his for a second as he goes slow, as he goes deep, as he goes home. There’s an answer in that too.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says, voice choked as he bottoms out, as he holds himself perfectly still. “So tight and beautiful, and you’re all mine, and I’m yours and….”

“Bradley,” you stop him. Wrap your legs around his hips and pull him in. “It’s okay. You can move now.”

So he does.

It’s frantic from the first moment. It’s all the tension that’s been building up for years and years inside of him, all his love and all his longing finally laid open, and he can’t hold back anymore, not when he feels like he’s going to burst out of his own skin at any moment now.

The wet squeeze of your walls around his cock has his eyes rolling into the back of his head.

“Fuck,” he curses, hips pushing forward at an unsteady pace, as he leans down to kiss you again, as you open your mouth for him easily, as he nips at your lower lip.

And it’s so dumb - he’s inside of you, curled around you, his tongue tangled with your own, but Bradley wants you closer, still. Needs to know that you’re there with him, that he’s here with you, that he came home and he is letting himself have this, you’re letting him have it, and he loves you, he loves you, he…

Bradley takes his weight off his elbows, gets his arms around you, plasters himself to you, chest to chest, hip to hip, mouth finding the side of your neck, your collarbones. Like this, with his arms around your shoulders, it feels almost like he’s pulling you down to him with every thrust, like he slides just half an inch deeper into you.

You try to muffle a moan into his hair, but Bradley pulls your face away, keeps his pace as he says, “Wanna hear you. Let me hear you, baby, tell me how much you like it. You love it, don’t you? Love my cock, yeah? Love it when I fuck you?”

Maybe it’s pathetic, but Bradley needs to hear it. Needs to know you’re as desperate for him as he is for you. Needs to know you want it just as much.

On a thrust in, your walls flutter around him, and you whine, back arching a little, head sliding across the pillow as you nod.

“Yes,” you gasp, “I love it, Bradley, I love your cock. Thought about it while you were gone all the time, every night, I….”

Bradley groans, shudders, suddenly so close to the brink he needs to squeeze his eyes shut against the image of you - the glossy eyes, the swollen lips, the absolute ruin he’s reduced you to.

“Can’t say shit like that, baby,” he whispers, leaning to press tender kisses to the column of your throat. “Not when you’re this fucking wet, not when you’re making these sounds… you’re gonna make me cum.”

You giggle, then moan, head lolling to the side to give him better access. 

“Good,” you say, legs hiking higher up on his hips, his cock sliding deeper, “that’s the plan, isn’t it?”

If there were any air left in his lungs, Bradley would laugh with you. As it stands, he just ups the ante, going a little harder, watching as your eyelashes flutter, feeling your fingers spasm against the skin of his back.

It’s so hot in the room, both of you sticking to each other with sweat, and maybe that, too, should be disgusting, but Bradley doesn’t care. When he leans down to lick a long, wet stripe along the edge of your jaw, he tastes salt on his tongue.

“I’m gonna….” When he glances down at you, at the eyes wide with that much trust, as he realizes you would let him do just about anything to you, that you’ve both opened yourself to each other completely now, no barriers and no ghosts standing between you, it’s like a dam breaking. He moans, so loud it echoes through the room, leans to plunge his tongue into your mouth, desperate, and then he’s saying into it, “God, I’m gonna fuck you so full, honey, gonna fuck you until it takes, yeah? Gonna keep you right here and fill you up, again and again, gonna make sure to get a baby in you, fuck, you’d be so fucking pretty, honey, so pretty all full of me, I know it, I can….”

And you sob. Full-on. Back arching off the bed, legs sliding off his hips, spreading so wide it must hurt.

“Bradley,” you say, fingernails breaking skin, forehead pressing against his throat to hide your face. “Bradley, fuck, I… the pill….”

He’s shaking his head, cutting you off with his mouth on yours. Conveying what he can’t speak, what he’s too far gone to formulate, here where logic has become a distant, remote concept, here between your legs. Don’t say it. Let me live in this fantasy. Let me dream a little longer.

It’s the thought of it all - a bump beneath your dresses, a baby in your arms, tiny fingers wrapping around his thumb, it’s about the long, long stretch of life ahead of the two of you. It’s about a house filled with love and free of ghosts. It’s about the first glimpse of the ocean after listening to its roar in seashells all his life. It’s about giving himself over to you completely, after years of only dreaming of it.

Do you know? he wonders. Do you know that you’re holding his whole life in your hands?

“I love you,” he mumbles, repeats it as he sinks into you again and again, as he buries himself in you, as he holds onto you like he’ll be back in the cold, cold, cold of all that snow the moment he lets go, like he’ll go back to the cockpit with the ghosts like jailors around him, like he’ll float right off the face off the earth. You have always been his anchor. “I’m gonna give you a baby, honey, I promise, gonna cum inside of you, you want that, right? You want me to come right here in this pretty pussy, fill you up all nice and wet, and….”

Your mouth moves against his clavicle, the feel of it spreading like wildfire through him, and you’re saying, “Yes, yes, Bradley, give it to me, please, I wanna feel it, want you to come inside me, please, please, I need it, I….”

A yell punches from him as he thrusts inside one last time, buries himself to the hilt in your warmth, and then he’s panting, his ears are ringing, his veins are buzzing as he cums, as he paints you with his release. He can’t do anything except hold onto you, bury his face in your hair, inhaling your scent, jerking his hips forward erratically, little sounds escaping him. It’s never felt like this before - like dying and coming back alive. The release of it is so big he feels shattered under its weight. 

And you’re saying something to him, whispering words sticky with honey into his ear, pouring them right into his heart, and he can barely hear you over the hammering of his own heart, but it doesn’t matter. You hold him as he trembles, as he shakes, as he tries to collect himself, to control his breathing, hold him and stroke lazy, soft circles up and down his back, trace patterns against his spine, leave soft kisses on any inch of skin you can reach, trapped beneath his weight as you are.

Finally, after an eternity, Bradley pulls away an inch or two, careful not to let his cock slip out. There’s a little embarrassment spreading through his stomach now because he can’t believe he came that fast, can’t believe he didn’t even make sure to take you over the edge with him.

But you barely seem to think about your own lack of an orgasm.

“Are you okay?” you ask, voice gentle, face full of concern.

Bradley’s heart clenches. Maybe, he thinks, his ribcage is going to crack open. It seems impossible for one person to hold so much love inside.

“Are…” He clears his throat, suddenly unsure. “Are you?”

You nod immediately, smile, and the relief floods him. Then you shift, gasp, muscles fluttering around his softening cock.

“Well… I…”

He doesn’t let you finish, shakes his head, says, “You did so good for me, baby. Let me take care of you, yeah?”

He’s already looking at the place where you’re still connected, where his cum is beginning to drip from you in silvery trails. The sight of it is enough to make something like madness descend again, something like that earlier haze, the frenzy of the heat.

Bradley pulls out, sighs at the feeling, and your mouth opens as if in protest, but before you can form any words, he’s replaced his cock with two fingers.

You whimper, eyes closing, a muscle in your stomach jumping.

“I got you,” he says, keeps his eyes on the mess of your swollen cunt, the wet spot soaking into the mattress just beneath, the evidence of his pleasure, smooths his free hand over your chest to settle you. “Relax, honey. I got you.”

Your answer is a moan of his name, fingers twisting into the sheets. He can feel your walls bearing down on the motion of his fingers and knows you’re close, desperately, frantically, torturously close to the brink.

So he speeds up the movement of his digits, swipes his thumb through the sopping wetness, and then across your clit as he fucks his cum back into you. Not letting a single drop go to waste.

“Bradley,” you sob, mouth opening, fingers grappling for something.

Knowing what you need, knowing without you asking for it, he catches your hand with his own and interlaces your fingers. Then he leans down, leans over you, leans in. Finds the seam of your mouth with his own. It’s less of a kiss than both of you panting against each other, finding the same rhythm.

“You can let go now,” he whispers into you. “I’m here. I’ve got you, honey. My perfect girl.”

You come with his name on your lips, cunt clenching around his fingers, arching off the bed and into him, and it’s like a prayer. It’s like a song. 

It takes you a while to come down, and he coaxes you through it, brushes kisses against your lips and your jaw and your ear. Hopes he can ground you the same way you ground him.

Finally, softly, voice faint and fragile, you say, “That was… intense.”

Bradley hums in agreement, and then a laugh rips from him. Because it’s all so ridiculous and so monumental, and he doesn’t know where to go with all these emotions.

“I… yeah. It really was.” He pauses, feels shame curling through him. “I’m sorry I sprung that on you.”

You shake your head, lift one hand to run a finger across his mustache the way you like to do sometimes. 

“It’s okay,” you say, and he knows you mean it. “You must have carried that for a long time.”

It chokes him up, the way you know him so well. Better than anybody else.

“Yeah,” he agrees, drops his head into the crook of your neck. “It… I want you to know that I really want this. It’s not… it’s not adrenaline, and it’s not just almost dying, it’s… It’s you. I want this with you. Only with you.”

He can feel the curve of your smile against his temple, can hear it in your voice.

“I want it with you too, Bradley. Only with you.”

Bradley’s so afraid he’s going to start crying again that he springs into action instead. Reaches around you for a pillow to push beneath your hips, angle your lower body upwards.

“What are you doing?” you ask, laughing a little.

“I’m trying to keep my cum in you. Maybe we’re like super extra lucky, and it works out on the first try.”

Now you’re laughing in earnest, and he gets the impression it might be at his expanse.

“Still on the pill, Bradley,” you remind him, eyes luminous with your happiness.

Feeling a little sheepish, a little embarrassed, a little elated, he shrugs helplessly.

“Can’t hurt,” he says. Then adds, “Besides… I don’t want all my hard work to go to waste.”

Then you’re laughing together, breathless, loud laughter, the bending-at-the-waist kind. The belly-hurting kind. The kind that doesn’t come often.

And it’s good. It’s beautiful. It’s the kind of peace he’s never known before but has wanted always, always, always.

It’s so much better than anything he could have ever dreamed. Because it’s real. Because it’s true.

All his life, Bradley thinks, he’s been listening to oceans in seashells. It’s good, fun even, for a while, but it’s no replacement for the real thing. It’s no comparison to standing at the shore of the Pacific Ocean, watching waves crest and crash and throw themselves against the beach again and again, like a devotion that never ends. How big and beautiful and terrible the truth of it is.

And he’d thought the whole world was in that seashell.

Once the laughter has died down, once you’ve fallen back into the kind of comfortable silence that can exist only between people that really, truly love each other, Bradley strokes his thumb against your cheekbone, watches your eyes flutter closed.

“I love you,” he says, “more than I thought I could love someone. Thanks for loving me back.”

It’s bumbling, and it’s inadequate, and it doesn’t convey half of what it should.

But you smile at him, eyes opening, face so tender his heart stutters, and you whisper, “It’s an honor, Lieutenant Bradshaw.”

For the first time, Bradley doesn’t think about dying, doesn’t think about leaving. He thinks about living. He thinks about staying.

[drippingsunflwrs]

Is that SOLEDAD  YILDAZ that I see over there? You know they have quite the reputation of being the THE SWEETHEART around town. The 28 year old has been around these parts for  2 YEARS  and within that timeframe has landed themselves a job as a/an BARISTA AT ONCE UPON A TART while living in CHESTNUT APARTMENTS I overheard that they can be quite STUBBORN but their saving grace is that they are KIND HEARTED. They remind me of  COFFEE RINGS ON A WOODEN TABLE, SUNSHINE MIXED WITH A LITTLE HURRICANE, AND LEATHER-BOUND BOOKS but you’ll have to decide that for yourself. 

tw: death mention, bullying mention

Soledad was born to two loving parents, both of who adored their daughter with everything they had. She was the only child of Carmen and Ömer Yildiz. Shortly after her arrival into this world, the Yildiz’s moved from Turkey to Boston, Massachusetts, when her father got the opportunity for an excellent traveling salesman position and the move had been planned for a while now.

Growing up, Soledad was a happy child at home. She was so infectious with her laughter and smile that her family quickly nicknamed her “Sol,” and the name was one she fell in love with from a young age.  She tried her hardest to live up to it every day.

Despite the loving household Sol had, things at school were different for her. For some reason, one Sol couldn’t seem to understand, the kids in her grade always looked at her funny. The girls never wanted to talk to her about anything, no-one made an effort to sit with her at lunch, during gym she would always get picked last, and her locker usually had some sort of goop or slime smeared on it as ‘the prank of the day.’

She found her escape in books. One day she picked up a copy of ‘Harry Potter’ and the brunette was hooked since. It wasn’t long before she was trying to read as many books as possible, from all different genres.  Thanks to her books, the older she got, the tougher her shell began to get towards the world around her.

Her real escape came when she left Boston to attend university at NYU. She chose to take the business path like her father. Starting her second year of school, she met someone and the pair dated for just shy of one year. They was her first love, first one (and only) to have ever slept with,  and heartbreak. During her third year at school, her mother ended up passing due to complications with heart surgery. She was devastated and kept to herself even more than ever. It wasn’t long before her relationship came to an end, closing her happily ever after, though she used the sadness she felt towards motivating herself to study harder.

With a lot of hard work, she ended up graduating top of her class. After graduation Sol took some time to travel around Europe for a bit. She did some backpacking and in her adventures met many lovely, and not so lovely, people along the way. She went to places like Paris, Peru, Japan, China, Egypt, Prague,  but her biggest dream has always been London. For some reason or another she just can’t seem to get there.  

Now, a bit new(ish) (2yrs) to Ravenswood, Vermont, Sol is ready to make her mark in the town and the small business. She always tries to show up with a smile on her face and a bright personality.

She can come off as shy at time but once you get past her shell she is extremely friendly and always ready to talk your ear off about her newest book she’s reading.

fun facts:

she may not be too outspoken about it, but she is a gamer.

loves music, late night talks, and laughing

she is always ready to lend a helping hand or shoulder to lean on

she will keep your secret and take it to the grave

her favorite customer is (wc) and she often tries to have their cup of coffee always ready for them when they makes their daily visit to once upon a tart. .

she has made (wc) her unofficial roommate as she has given them a key they can freely use to enter her home whenever htheye needs it. she’s used to them coming over needing to be stitched up, fed, or just wanting to hang out. all in all she cares about them.

[mntsolace]

alex fitzalan, bisexual, male + he/him ― hey look, it’s monty solace! they’re twenty six years old, they’ve lived in shrike heights for one week (moved away when he was 18), and they’re currently working at lapaws. i heard they’re pretty impulsive, but i think they’re so charismatic at the same time. can they make it out alive? || k, 22, she/her

name: monty solace

nicknames: "mon" "sol"

age: twenty six

pronouns: he/him

birthplace: perth, australia

birthday: november 11

zodiac: scorpio

sexuality: bisexual

job: lapaws

height: 6'

scars: small scar that starts on cheekbone down to jawline, scar on knee from acl surgery

about

just kind of blurbing at this point. bare with me.

monty was born in perth (my little aussie) but moved to shrike heights after his father accepted a job offer in town when he was 8. monty was a shy child so making friends at first was difficult but after finding a love for ice hockey for a club at a rink in town, he found a family outside of his own.

throughout his time at shrike heights, monty became more of the himbo/ golden retriever archetype. he was smart, but he was most reliant on his athletic abilities to get him into a good college.

he barely saw his father so he grew much closer to his mother and grandmother- who still lives in town.

when it comes to relationships- monty had many growing up. he found he either grew bored or got finnicky when things started getting serious. he swears he doesn't have commitment issues at his grown age but he's also a bad liar (his mother says his eyebrows get twitchy when he's in too deep of a lie).

when monty was 18, he father got a much better offer back home in perth and was forced to uproot yet again. monty, being the great communicator he is, barely said a goodbye to all of his friends and even left a romantic partner in the dark before he finally called a week later to break things off.

monty continued his hockey career back home, using it to pay for his schooling and soon after graduating picked up a pro contract in canada- which is his next destination. for now, he spends time at the ice rink training for his season in the upcoming spring.

now, monty's mother has willed him to come back to town to check in on his grandmother, whose condition is getting worse (per his mother but don't you dare tell grandma solace who denies her declining health). he swears he wasn't excited to hopefully rekindle his friendships (despite his rude departure) but monty couldn't sleep on his long plane ride overseas.

now, he picked up his old job at lapaws for the time he's here. he's heard of the chaos in his old town but has yet to gain a true experience with it. who knows how long monty will stay this time.

wcs

ex-besties who he left in the dark

friends who he still kept in contact with after leaving

the partner whom he broke up with once he was gone.

old hockey teammates

frenemies

exes (good or bad terms)

friends with benefits

childhood friends (can tie into any of the first two wcs)

will they wont they?

roomies(??)

seriously open to about anything please come throw your ideas at me :)

[archonssun]

Chocobo and His Chocobean(s)

Chocobo and His Chocobean(s)

Chocobo and His Chocobean(s)

Yeah, this is a bit late for Father’s Day, but I couldn’t help myself 😋

WC: 1116

“Papa!” Your daughter giggled, her blonde hair streaming behind her like a banner as she ran up to her father. A smile split your face as she launched herself into Prompto’s arms, laughing uncontrollably as she latched onto him.

“Hey there, Chocobean,” the gunslinger chuckled, holding your daughter close. You watched the two with a smile, chin resting in the palm of your hand. Just a few years ago, you never thought that you and Prompto would be here, living in Insomnia with your daughter. Ever since Noct had brought the dawn back and had taken his rightful place as king, life had been a dream. After finding out you were pregnant shortly after the dawn, everything had progressed very quickly. Prompto had always wanted to marry you -- preferably before you two started a family -- but when Noct had come back and they were to leave for the city the next day, that plan was quickly scrapped. Neither of you knew whether he would be coming back or not. And by the end of the first month after the sun returned, you and the king’s best friend were wed.

Now, you watched Prompto with his carbon-copy, happier now than you had ever been before. When Solis had been born -- gods, has it already been five years? -- you had known immediately that she would look exactly like her father, and turns out you had been right. She had his bright blond hair and blue-violet eyes -- even had a light dusting of freckles over her cheeks.

“Papa, come play with me!” Solis squealed as Prompto attacked her with kisses. Just watching them caused you to squint -- it was too much like looking into direct sunlight.

“In a little bit, Chocobean,” Prompto’s voice was level, and Solis used her trump card -- the signature Argentum pout. But her father had long since gotten used to it -- he did it to you whenever he wanted something, too -- and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Don’t worry. I promise, I’ll play with you soon. I just need to talk to Mama for a second, ‘kay?”

Solis’s pout never left her lips as Prompto set her down, making his way towards you. He wrapped you in his arms, noses touching and breaths mingling together.

“Hey, Sunshine,” you cooed, arms coming to rest on your husband’s shoulders. Prompto hummed as he slouched slightly, pressing a kiss to the corner of your mouth. A giggle escaped your lips at his display of affection. “Good day, I take it?”

“One of the best,” he muttered. His lips captured yours in a proper kiss, smiling against yours.

“Hope you’re ready for it to get better.”

***

“I never asked, how were you today?” Prompto’s arms wrapped around your middle, pulling you into his chest. His nose nuzzled against your neck, and his lips grazed your skin. The feel of his breath against your skin sent a shiver down your spine.

“We were good,” you smiled. You felt his chest puff out before he sighed against your shoulder.

“That’s good…” Prompto’s forehead found its place on your shoulder as his arms tightened around you. Shaking your head at your cuddlebug of a husband, you continued working on dinner -- Peppery Daggerquill Rice. After having begged Ignis for the recipe years back, you really only make it for special occasions, such as today. Knowing the blond behind you, he probably thought that it was because it was Father’s Day. Oh, how wrong he would be…

“Dinner’s almost ready, Sunshine. Could you go get Sol?” you asked. Prompto groaned, wanting nothing more than to keep holding you, but untangled himself regardless. He knew better than most anyone how much your daughter loved spicy foods -- no doubt because of her father. You plated the food, balancing three plates in your arms. Thank the Six I used to work at a diner, you thought as you made your way to the dining table. Seconds later, Prompto appeared with Solis on his shoulders, the two smiling broadly.

“Ready to eat, you two?” Not like you had to ask, as both quickly took their seats. Shaking your head and smiling to yourself, you took your own seat -- across from Prompto and to Solis’s right.

Dinner was filled with chatter, from Prompto telling you two about his day, to Solis chattering animatedly about school. Before you knew it, all three of you had finished your food. You were standing in the kitchen and washing the dishes when you felt a tug on your shirt. Looking down into bright blue-violet hues, you smiled. Solis motioned for you to crouch down, and you did. She cupped her small hands around your ear.

“Can I show Papa now?” she whispered, causing you to smile. You nodded quickly, watching as her face was split with a brilliant smile before she raced to her room. Prompto watched her, brows furrowed in confusion as his eyes met yours. But you refused to clarify, and heard your daughter’s footsteps as she flew down the stairs.

“Papa, Papa! Look!” she jumped around excitedly, a piece of paper in her hands and a smile on her face. “Happy Father’s Day, Papa!”

You finished wiping off the last dish and dried off your hands, walking into the living room to watch the gunslinger’s reaction. The tender smile on his face as he took Solis’s drawing made your heart melt on the spot as you leaned against the doorframe. Blue-violet eyes scanned over the drawing -- the four figures that stood in front of a big house. His smile fell slightly as realization hit him. Four figures?

Face screwed up in confusion, Prompto’s eyes lifted to yours, taking in your relaxed smile but still getting no answer. Instead, he turned to his daughter.

“Who’s this?” he asked, pointing at the smallest figure. He was nearly blinded by her smile.

“My baby brother!”

***

“(Y/n)?” Prompto’s voice was uncertain as he approached you. He was coming towards you slowly, as if you were a wild beast. Arms outstretched, his fingers finally curled around your forearms, eyes pleading with you for an answer. “What’s going on? Are you alright?”

Giving him your brightest smile, you threw your arms around him, a laugh bubbling from your throat when he stumbled backwards a few steps. He was quick to regain his balance, calloused hands gripping your waist.

“I hope you wanted more than one kid, Sunshine,” you laughed, bringing his face to yours. His eyes were wide, and he almost looked … scared, scared that this was a dream. Pressing a kiss to his nose, you whispered, “Happy Father’s Day, Prompto.”

[thatesqcrush]

Señorita Redux, 2

Rafael Barba x Reader. CW: Smut, language - NSFW! 

WC: 1808 

Tags: @madpanda75 @ottosuricato @delia26 @dreila03 @sass-and-suspenders @glimmerglittergirl @melsquared79 @mommakat32 @garturbo @southern-magnolia @niyashell @tropes-and-tales @imjustreallynosy @whyissvuruiningmylovelife @sweetsummertime99 @evee87 @scarletsoldierrr @cesarofangirl78 @redlipstickandplaid  @redlipstickandblacktea @zoeykaytesmom @differentshadesofgray @letty-o @neely1177 @lovesomerafipapi @thefanficfaerie @amirightcounselor @infiniteoddball @xemopeachx @theenchantedgalleryofstories @fanficfaeriesrafaelbarbalibrary @esparza-army - anyone else just ask.

***

Two weeks came and went. You giggled as you sat on the bed watching Rafael frantically pack. “Where are my swim trunks?” Rafael questioned loudly as he poked his head out of the master closet. “I just had them!”

 “You mean these?” you asked lifting up the trunks with your index finger before tossing them at him.

 Rafael narrowed his eyes at you as he caught them. “Did you have them the whole time?”

 You half shrugged. “Maybe I was hoping you’d forget them. I mean there is that playa nudista.”

 There was a glint in Rafael’s green eyes. “I was hoping you’d say something like that.”

Six hours later - two of which were due to a flight delay out of Queens thanks to a random, passing storm - you and Rafael were back at Sol Cayo Largo, a beautiful beachfront hotel on Cayo Lago del Sur.

 “Gosh, the memories,” you murmured as your eyes swept the view in front of you. Rafael chit chatted with the woman at the front desk. Your eyes traveled to the restaurant that was a few feet away. There had been updates made and sure it was even more modern from three years prior, but you knew if you closed your eyes, it would be like nothing changed.

 You felt a pair of eyes on you. Swiveling in your seat, you locked eyes with Rafael. Your breath hitched as you were taken aback by his handsome features. A waiter stopped at Rafael’s table and he motioned to you. The waiter nodded before disappearing and returning with a drink for you, which you accepted. Rafael raised his glass to yours from the distance and you made your way to his table.

 So, do you always buy women drinks at the bar?” you asked cheekily. “No disrespect, but that’s a bit cliché.”

 Rafael laughed before downing the last of his drink and leaned forward. “Rafael Barba,” he introduced himself.

 You smirked. “Y/F/N Y/L/N; encantado de conocerte. Here on business or pleasure?”

 Rafael hummed, before motioning to the waiter to bring another drink over. On the table was a small bowl of Spanish olives. He popped one in his mouth and he chewed thoughtfully before answering. “Placer.”

 The live band began to play again, and you looked longingly at the small dance floor. “Do you dance Mr. Barba?” you asked.

 Rafael nodded eagerly. “Yeah. Yeah I do.” Rafael popped another olive in his mouth and took your hand, leading you to the dance floor.

“Y/N? Earth to Y/N. Es la hora de despertar,” Rafael snapped his fingers in front of your eyes and you blinked rapidly, returning to the present. You felt your cheeks flush.

 “I got the key - the room is ready,” Rafael continued. “What were you thinking about?”

 “I was remembering when we first met. Right there. That bar.” You pointed towards the restaurant. Rafael took your outstretched hand into his and brought it up to his lips to kiss it. It was 90° and the humidity was oppressive, yet you shivered.

 “That was the most wonderful night of my life,” Rafael replied. “Don’t get me wrong - becoming a father, becoming a judge - those were wonderful too. But they wouldn’t have happened without you. Cada día te quiero más que ayer y menos que mañana.”

 You weren’t sure if it was the pregnancy hormones or his endearing words - maybe it was a combination of both - but you felt your eyes water. “Raf,” you drew out his name.

 “Es la verdad,” Rafael replied, bringing you close to him. He pressed a kiss to your lips. “Vamos.”

 ***

 The sun bore down on your skin, but it wasn’t what was getting you hot. Rather, it was Rafael. You sat in between his legs, your back against his chest with your legs splayed completely open. Your sundress was hoisted up, and the top of your dress was pulled down, your breasts exposed. Your underwear was tossed to the side. When Rafael requested for you to join him on the balcony, this wasn’t exactly what you had in mind, yet you weren’t complaining.

 Rafael nipped at your neck as his hands cupped your breasts. He used his forefingers and thumbs to tug and pinch your nipples, until they were taut. Your head lolled forward and he pulled your head back so that it leaned against his shoulder, turning it to the side as he murmured all the filthy things he wanted to do you in Spanish. One hand continued to massage your breasts while the other snaked down to cup your soaking cunt. Rafael used two fingers to slide them along your lips, coating them in your essence.

 “You’re so wet already and I haven’t even started yet,” Rafael noted. “Fuck,” you muttered as two fingers slipped inside of your sheath, pumping in and out languidly. He continued to tease you, his thumb ghosting your clit while his fingers twisted and stroked inside of you. Your breath became more and more shallow as his fingers worked you. You could feel your orgasm build like a crescendo and just as you were about to peak, he slid his fingers out. You whined at the loss.

 “Hold it muñeca. Don’t cum just yet,” Rafael ordered. “Otra vez.”

 Again, Rafael slipped his fingers inside of you. They went in with much more ease and you gasped as his thumb pressed more firmly on your clit. You squirmed against his hand, desperately wanting more inside of you. “You like it when I am finger fucking you?” Rafael murmured, as he playfully pinched a nipple. You could feel how hard his cock was against your back. Rafael again worked you closer and closer to the precipice. “I’m going to cum,” you moaned. Rafael slipped his fingers out once more before landing a sharp spank to your cunt. You gasped once more, your eyes squeezing shut.

 “Hold it,” Rafael replied sternly. “You’ll come when papi says you can come.”

 You groaned, nodding. Rafael turned your face to him and he held your chin as he kissed you hard. The kiss was all teeth and tongue. He pulled away breathless and made a show of sucking your essence off of his fingers. You kissed him again, tasting yourself on his tongue. “Por favor,” you begged, breaking the kiss. “Tocame.”

 Rafael grinned, his eyes dark. “Claro.” His large, veiny hands slipped down to your pussy again and he sucked on the sweet spot along your neck as he continued his torture of pleasure. You moaned, feeling your orgasm quickly build. “¿Te gusta?” Rafael questioned.

 “Yes, yes, yes, give it to me,” you sobbed, desperate to come. “Por favor papi.”

 Your pussy clenched around his fingers and just as the coil in your belly was about to snap, Rafael returned to a slow teasing pace. A sheen of sweat coated your body and your lungs burned as Rafael continued his ministrations, repeatedly ripping orgasm and orgasm and orgasm from you. You were so desperate to come; your mind was fuzzy.

 “I’m going to fuck you now,” Rafael replied in your ear. You nodded “Haz lo que quieras,” you mumbled in your haze, your knees wobbling as you stood. “Quiero sentir tu cuerpo en mi, estás temblando.”

 Rafael kept you steady and he had you bend over, bracing your hands on the banister of the balcony. Rafael delivered a large spank on your ass and grabbed a fistful of flesh before spanking you once more, causing you to squeal.

 “Damelo duro,” you requested and Rafael was all too happy to oblige. He reached into his pants and removed his cock, which was angry and red. He used the pre-cum that had weeped out to stroke himself before lining himself up to your entrance. Rafael thrusted his hips, his cock was deep and he nudged at your cervix with every forward motion. No one ever fucked you as well as he did. A dreamy smile spread on your face as Rafael filled you with his cock - his balls smacked your pussy with every thrust. The stretch his girth gave you was delicious as he worked your overstimulated pussy to another orgasm.

 “Dios mio, your pussy is so good. Going to make me come,” Rafael groaned, his hands pulling your hips down on every stroke.

 “Fuck me papi. Don’t stop,” you moaned loudly.

 “Never,” Rafael promised, picking up the momentum, fucking you harder. You were certain the sounds of your lovemaking could be heard by all of the hotel guests as Rafael continued to fuck you out in the open, on the balcony. Part of you wondered if the hotel guests could see you two - part of you was discomfited - but there was another part of you that didn’t care.

 Rafael smacked your ass again, driving into you hard and relentless. You were certain you would wake up with his finger prints on you and that you’d feel it tomorrow.

 “You feel so good,” he crooned. “So wet, so tight. He wrapped a hand in your hair and tugged.

 “I am going to...” he warned, his thrusts becoming more frantic. “Nadie me lo das como tu,” you moaned. “¡Dame esa leche, ven conmigo.”

 Rafael took the opportunity to reach around to rub your clitoris. “Cream on this cock cariño. I’m going to fill you up with my come.”

 You were happy to obey, feeling your walls clench around Rafael as you came undone. Rafael came with a roar, your name spilling from his lips as he came inside of you. Rafael coming made you come again once more; the walls of your pussy clenched around him tightly, milking his release. Rafael grunted your name as he slowed down before one final snap of his hips brought him to a still.

 You both stayed there, basking in the moment. He slumped over you and placed soft kisses across your shoulder blades. His hands cupped your breasts softly before running them down to your belly, caressing you tenderly.

Rafael slipped out and tucked himself back into his pants. You stood back up and felt his come drip between your thighs and you bit your lip, stifling a moan.

 You turned around and found Rafael smirking at you like the cat who caught the canary.

 Reaching down you lifted the hem of your dress up and flung it off. “I’m a sticky mess. Want to help me in the shower?”

 Rafael’s eyes lit up once more and he made quick do his clothes. “Por supuesto.”

 “I knew I could count on you guapo.”

 TBC.