#and he loves his mom and sisters i will shred you to pieces.

[spacestationstorybook]

i HAAAAAATE‏‏‎ ‎lackadaisy‏‏‎ ‎fans‏‏‎ ‎just saw the world's‏‏‎ ‎STUPIDEST meme. can you explode!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[this-aint-massachusetts]

more FNaF hcs because the tism™️ is telling me to info dump

sorry if some of these are the same as the last one I forget which ones I put before 🙁

-When Mike was chasing after the car he tripped scraped his knee broke his ankle and busted his kneecap and just gave up on life right then and there

-Mike smokes weed but he could take the tiniest tinniest hit of a bong and he’d cough up a lung so he just mainly sticks to blunts or bowls

-Abby has called 911 multiple times because she wanted to contact Vanessa but it obviously didn’t work. 

-Vanessa used to dye her hair fun colors but she can’t anymore cuz of her job but she wears colorful extensions 

-Abby’s therapist has tried so hard to hint at Mike that he should get an autism diagnosis because his sister has one and he still hasn’t picked up on it despite showing clear traits of autism 

-When golden Freddy and Abby left the cab he just handed Cory a piece of paper with ‘one million dollars’ scribbled on it in green crayon. Cory was to scared to say no he just was like “yeah ok sure” and then cried 

-Mike and Abby did not go to Aunt Janes funeral they instead went to Dave and Busters and played arcade games while their entire extended family blew up Mikes Nokia phone

-Aunt Jane was a “wine mom” and was in heavy denial of being an alcoholic 

-Abby really likes bugs and puts them in her pockets but Mike is terrified of bugs so he freaks out whenever he sees them crawling on her or in her laundry 

-Vanessa apologizes to people while arresting them

-The animatronics consider the cupcake to be their puppy and get confused when people think he’s a menace

-One time Doug ran into Mike and Abby at Walmart once and he just threw his thick ass lawyer wallet at then then ran away to have a panic attack. Mike and Abby bought a blow up pool that day

-Doug had to go to therapy due to Aunt Jane being an absolute fucking Karen

-Doug’s now a regular at Sparkys and is besties with Ness, he considers Ness “The son he never had”

-Bonnie kid (Jeremy) really liked Spider-Man

-Vanessa has a pitbull named Princess that she took home from an animal control call. (The dog is a fucking danger to society)

-Abby picked up on some 80s slang from the animatronics and now just says radical to everything 

-Max and her friends would be doing TikTok trends before TikTok was even a thing (stealing soap dispensers from public bathrooms, sticking pennies in electrical sockets ect)

-Vanessa is a Disney adult/hj

-There’s a rubix cube in the pizzeria that the animatronics have been trying to solve since they’ve been dead basically 

-Every night after Abby goes to bed Mike goes to the kitchen and eats shredded cheese by the handful. Abby caught him once and he cried.

-Mike is the type of person to ask those weird questions while watching movies, like: “If their underwater how are they drinking soda?”

-Mike would stuff all his emotions and feelings down till he bursts and it usually results in him locking himself in his room while having a panic attack

-Max was also a weed dealer so Mikes out of a babysitter and a plug. 

-Vanessa hates soda, loves tea tho

-Mike really likes the Care Bears and uses Abby as an excuse for liking it

-Ness uses those really cheesy pet names for Mike, some of them southern originated because I believe in southern Ness solidarity. Ex: Sweetie pie, Sugar, Doe

-Abby is really good at hide and seek but caused Mike a few panic attacks because of how well she hides

-After Freddy’s neither Mike or Abby could sleep without a nightlight so she lent Mike hers on the agreement she could sleep in his room with him. (He of course accepted)

-Mike: Where’s my Diet Coke?

Vanessa: Oh I threw it away, sodas not good for you.

Mike: Oh ok- WHAT.

-Abby still asks Mike to tie her shoes for her even though he already taught her how to tie them herself

-Mike has a very particular morning routine that he has to follow every morning and feels icky if it gets interrupted for any reason 

-Mike is more noise sensitive and Abby is more texture sensitive but Mike still hates certain textures (ex: olives)

-Mike has considered owning chickens and even went with Abby to look at little chicks but she soon started sneezing and feeling sick and that's when they found out she's allergic so that quickly got shut down

-Abby gives her stuffed animals lore and hierarchies and Ness is always asking her about it when her and Mike go into the diner

-Vanessa Has a very minimalist style not because she likes it but because she's scared of getting attached to anything she calls home which at times worries her when she's with Mike, Abby and Ness. This results in her sitting in bed, chewing on her lip thinking of constant escape plans and emergency exits in case her father ever returns, if something bad happens, etc.

-Mike likes seeing Abby draw him and pretends not to notice when she stares and tries to get the color of his shirt just right (he buys clothing in colors she has to make it easier)

-Abby is the type to point out cows and horses and will repeatedly kick Mike's seat even while he's driving until he acknowledges them

-Abby doesn’t understand why her and Mike can’t just print more money to make them rich and Mike has had to explain to to her 12837383838 times

-Ness is a theater kid (yeah if you didn’t see this coming I think you need glasses)

-Ness and Mike play lps with Abby, Abby explains all of her lps lore extensively and Ness listens to every bit of it while Mike is just like: “I love you both but wtf”

-Mike sometimes age regresses sometimes when put under pressure and Ness is literally the best caretaker ever (this one’s based on a Dreamtheory fic I read once and I fell in love with the idea)

-Ness and Mike call each other every night before going to sleep and once Mike forgot so he woke up the next morning to 300+ voicemails from Ness asking if he’s ok

okay that’s all i have for now I’ll post more later when i feel like it oki byeee 😘✌️

[basedkikuenjoyer]

Who knows what they’re looking at here? Both are covers of Weekly Shonen Jump, circa 1981-82. A young Akira Toriyama was making waves with his breakout hit Dr. Slump, and our guy Eiichiro Oda would have been about 6, 7ish? Okay, neat...so who’s blondie up there?  Name’s Hibari, a name we’ve been thinking about lately in terms of One Piece. Titular character of a series called Stop!! Hibari-kun, one much more influential than most Western anime fans realize. 

Newest love Commander Hibari does seem like the right design to be a reference, but truth is this series was always one worth looking at through the lens of being an influence on a young Eiichiro Oda. It also has a pretty wild tale in its own right, so let’s have some fun with it!

We’ll call this “Exhibit A.” The loach scooping dance is a thing, the chopsticks up the nose are a thing, the combo is something I’ve only been able to source to Hibari & One Piece. I’d also just point out that a One Piece fan today reading would be hard-pressed not to see elements of Luffy and Nami in our leading lady. Mind you, this series was a huge deal when Oda was a child even if it was short-lived. Western anime fans now have stumbled across it as a niche interest, but this was author Hisashi Eiguchi’s second manga in WSJ. His first, a baseball comedy named Susume Pirates, was the workhorse for the magazine in the mid-late 70s. Keep in mind, this is the era the magazine was making a name for itself. 

This was pretty groundbreaking territory for shonen manga. Even just having a cast of mostly women. Young, stylish women being real and having their own fleshed out stories beyond just being a prop. It’s a romcom but the originator of a lot of tropes that make up the backbone of those today. Our actual MC is an everyboy named Kosaku. Mom dies, gets sent to live with a Yakuza boss and his four daughters. The third, Hibari, is trans as fuck. She likes Kosaku, he likes her, doesn’t know how he feels about it. Easy setup, easy one to go wrong...but Stop!! Hibari-kun never really does.

That’s about as far as we go trying to “explain” her. The pushy sister is fussy about Hibari’s “deviance” but honestly pretty damn helpful. Dad fumes but at the end of the day holds true to what he said at the start; its more about being bummed he thought he had at least one son to bond with. Kosaku ends up filling that role, the family relaxes over the course of the series and regularly comments on how Hibari used to be a lot more withdrawn. Hibari herself is always the coolest person in the room, a borderline Mary Sue but it works because there’s the implied idea she’s inherently a deviant to play off of.  Especially for the time. It doesn’t really faze her much though, or maybe she isn’t going to let it show. Hey, there’s an idea we’re used to. There are glimpses, you do see here and there the girl has a fair amount of what we’d call dysphoria now and a tendency to spend a lot of time hidden away in her room like a certain matrimonial bird motif I won’t shut up about. By all accounts it just seems like a way of cluing you in on how much time she needs to keep up appearances.

This is where Kiku’s story really does start to feel like one inspired by fond memories of this one from Oda’s childhood. So much of what you take away from Hibari-kun sorta depends on how you feel about that one particular trait going in. Did you see the whiplash in parts of the fandom after what we learned about Kiku in Udon? The same people who were quick to piece together “Oda’s Trap Card” based on clues no more difficult to understand than the implied subtleties of scenes we’ve looked at...suddenly couldn’t see any of that. Nope! Gotta take her super literal now because thinking about these things hurts some people’s feelings. If you have a shred of empathy or even legitimately don’t care either way, the undercurrent writes itself.  

Hibari does it under silly Yakuza/romcom antics, Kiku does it by ultimately being a small “role” in Wano’s grand play who keeps having an outsized impact for us. Both are lovely show-stealers. Anytime we wanted to have a big moment for Kiku in Wano she could punch even with about anything else going on. Usually with fewer panels. That’s all for today, but I’ll have a part 2 tomorrow.

[bazwillendinflames]

3. Crush Culture (The Quarry au)

Part One | Part Two | Part Three

Read on AO3

Maybe it was conceited but the truth was that Emma, with her charm and good looks, had never been the one doing the chasing. But after falling for cool, confident Kaitlyn, suddenly getting a date isn’t as easy.

After confiding in Ryan, who has an equally daunting crush, they decide to help each other out. After all, it can’t go any worse than facing it alone.

They weren’t the only tipsy college students in the diner. The waitress took one look at them, sighed, and directed them to a booth in the corner. Emma was still in her pyjamas, her hair a mess, but the promise of waffles had been more alluring. Ryan was in his usual all black outfit and they probably made an odd pairing. Emma looked like she was deep in final weeks; Ryan like he was coming back from a grunge concert. 

The fresh air of the walk and the smell of warm, greasy comfort foods sobered them up well. Which only served to remind Emma why they had got tipsy in the first place. 

“How did Dylan feel like this for so long and stay so cheery?” Ryan asked. He was rather sombre despite the plate of pancakes and bacon in front of him. He poked it with a fork. “Having feelings is so hard.” 

Emma nodded in agreement, swallowing her waffles before answering. “He’s a saint.” 

They picked at their food a little longer. It helped clear Emma’s head, along with the much needed coffee refill. 

“How do people do this?” Emma asked, once it became clear Ryan wasn’t going to be the one to break the silence. “The closest thing I’ve had to unrequited love is fifth grade Valentines.” 

Ryan snorted. “I remember my sister doing that. ‘Do you like me? Tick yes or no.’”

“Let’s call that plan B,” Emma suggested. “I think maybe… and I hate to say it. I’m the problem.” 

He didn’t seem to get it. “Yeah. I mean, that’s why we’re doing this.” 

“No,” Emma said, more firmly. “I feel bad… about liking Kaitlyn. It’s Jacob. I’d feel shitty doing that for him.” She groaned. “I didn’t even like him this much when we were dating! Why is this holding me back?” 

Ryan sighed. “We need to let go of our emotional baggage, before we can move forward. My grandparents made me see a therapist. She was always saying stuff like that.” 

Emma hadn’t known Ryan was in therapy. Maybe there was more to his broody, quiet persona than they’d all thought. 

“Emotional baggage sounds right. This is bad to admit but…” she trailed off, “I have dumped every boy I dated by text since I got a phone in middle school.” Emma pushed her waffle away, suddenly having lost her appetite. 

“Every one?” Ryan asked. “Uh, sorry,” he added, looking away. 

“I don’t like the way they look at me after! Jacob’s just as bad with his big sad eyes.” Emma finally found the right word for the heaviness it left her with: guilt. 

She looked at Ryan, half-expecting judgement. But he didn’t say anything. He didn’t even roll his eyes, which was his usual move. 

“Huh,” he said, although quietly. 

“Your turn,” Emma encouraged, unable to bear the silence stretching out between them again. “It might help you to place it.” 

Ryan took a long pause before he answered, ripping a napkin to pieces and only answering when he was left with grease coated confetti and twitching fingers. He looked down at his hands. 

“Uh, my Mom left me and my sister. I had just started in high school, she was ten. Since then it’s hard to trust people to stick around.” Ryan drew a pattern in the flutters of shredded napkins. “I guess if you never ask people to stay, you can’t be disappointed by their answer.” 

“You seem pretty disappointed anyway,” Emma noted. 

She wanted to reach out and take Ryan’s hands in hers like she had the first night they made their deal. But this was less lighthearted than their first confession. She offered her palm anyway, surprised when Ryan squeezed back, even if only briefly. He went back to the scraps of the napkin. 

“For what it’s worth,” Emma tried, because no one else was there to say the right thing. “Dylan’s pretty stubborn. I don’t think he’d go anywhere.” 

Ryan let himself smile at that. “Yeah. You’re right.” 

“I should talk to Jacob,” Emma said. “Let’s meet here tomorrow once we’ve done it, to keep each other accountable.” 

“Deal,” Ryan agreed. 

They shook hands over empty plates and two cold mugs of coffee.

 ---

  Faced with the double doors of Dylan’s dorm building, Ryan was rudely reminded of exactly why he had never gotten this far before. He had thought about asking Dylan out a dozen times since their trip. He had even gotten in the car once but had turned and looped back.. Despite being as hesitant as he was, standing at the bottom of the stairs outside his dorm, Ryan had never gotten this far. A cheery, Emma-esque voice, cheered him on, even if she had already left. 

“What are you doing creep?” A voice asked. 

If it had been an unfamiliar one, Ryan might have stuttered out an excuse, aware of how shifty he looked. But it was only Kaitlyn, leaning against her car, an eyebrow perfectly arched in amusement. 

“I, um-” Ryan scratched the bag of his neck. Even if it was only Kaitlyn, he was still a little tongue tied. “It’s a surprise.” 

“Sure,” Kaitlyn said. She stepped forward, her expression a little more serious. “Hey, I’m sure you two are keeping it low-key but I’m happy for you. Weird pairing but I guess opposites attract. At least I know why Emma cared so much if I liked you or not.” 

Ryan frowned. He’d thought that Kaitlyn had guessed he was here for Dylan but her comment about Emma confused him. Unless Emma had let their plan spill. 

Kaitlyn took pity on his clear bewilderment. “You are here for Emma, right?” 

“No,” he replied. “We’re not dating. Why would you think that?” 

Kaitlyn didn’t seem to fully believe him. “Come on dude. You and Emma never hung out together before a week ago. You two keep asking weird questions about our dating lives. And I saw you walk her back from a date yesterday when I dropped Dylan home.” 

Ryan shook his head. “We’re not dating.” 

“Really? What were you up to then?” 

“It’s a little embarrassing,” he admitted. “It was a pep talk, I guess. Emma’s been giving me some dating advice. There’s someone I like and-” 

Kaitlyn’s face split into a big grin. “Shut up! You’re here for Dylan?” Not even giving him time to answer, she broke out into a dorky celebratory dance. “Finally! I’m going to buy Emma a drink… Uh, for helping.” 

“I haven’t done it yet.” Ryan looked back at the entrance. 

“You’re nervous,” Kaitlyn observed. She was still smiling. “I’m going to make fun of you so bad later.” 

“I saw that coming.” 

“Why Emma?” Kaitlyn asked. “I mean, I am kind of a Dylan expert.” 

“We’re in the same position. Mutual wingmanning.” Ryan winced. “Ignore that, Emma asked me to keep it a secret.” 

Kaitlyn’s smile dropped a little. “Who is Emma’s next victim?” 

“Her feelings are a little more serious than that,” Ryan said. Maybe he could help hype Emma up a little. “We both fell for a close friend. It was nice - having someone who got it.” 

The little left of Kaitlyn’s smile dropped completely. “Oh. Interesting.” 

“That was meant to be secret. If you could…” Ryan mimed zipping his lips. 

Kaitlyn copied him, zipping her own mouth, topping it off with a wink. “Got you. Okay, please go ask Dylan out already. Poor guy’s been waiting long enough for you.” 

Ryan agreed with the sentiment, finally pushing through the doors. He could feel Kaitlyn’s stare on him, even as he took the stairs up to the first floor and navigated the winding corridors. Ryan counted to three and knocked on Dylan’s door before he could over think it any further. 

“You’re not Kaitlyn,” Dylan said when he opened the door. “I mean, hi.” 

Ryan bounced on his heels, slightly embarrassed by the flush of warmth he could feel in his face. “I brought you something.” 

“Okay.” Dylan stepped back into his room. “Uh, come in.” 

Ryan followed him in, watching as Dylan kicked a pile of socks under his bed and straightened up the array of scattered papers and pens on his desk. He glanced over his shoulder as he made his bed, then flushed pink, and looked away. Once it was tidy, he sat on the edge of his bed, offering Ryan the desk chair. 

  Ryan reached for the bundle in the pocket of his leather jacket. He felt the cold plastic case against his hands, but hesitated. It would be weird, but not too late, to run away and keep his heart safe. One look at Dylan’s big eyes full of the same hope and wonder as that night by the bonfire and he suddenly found himself unable to move. 

  “I made you a mixtape,” Ryan blurted. “Like, on an actual tape. And then also on a CD because I wasn’t sure if you had a tape player. And actually I wasn’t sure if you even had a CD player so I put it on spotify too-” He dropped the bundle into Dylan’s lap and forced himself to take another breath. “Shit, I meant to build up to this.” 

Dylan held the tape, examining it with a little smile. “You made this for me?” 

“I’m not good at this,” Ryan said, although that much was painfully obvious already. Here it goes. “I like you. I have liked you for a while but I’m not as brave as you and I couldn’t figure out how to just say it.” 

“What?” Dylan looked away from the list of tracks at the back of the tape to Ryan again. “You drove all the way here to tell me you like me. You made me a tape and a CD and a playlist because you like me. Me?”

“Yeah. Am I doing a good job?” 

Dylan laughed, the happy sound easing Ryan’s nerves a little. “My heart might explode, so yeah. Good job. But I am… okay, I swear this is the last time I’ll ask. You like me? For reals?” 

Ryan wheeled the chair closer. He was close enough to make out a little hint of green in Dylan’s brown eyes. He was close enough to notice the exact charm on the chain he wore - a silver coin. He was close enough that he would only have to move an inch to close the gap between them. So he did. 

Dylan’s hand was warm against his neck as they kissed. Their legs bumped and the chair hit the bed, uncomfortably squishing his legs, but Ryan barely noticed, so caught up in the warmth and ease of the kiss. 

When they pulled apart, Dylan laughed again. “Holy shit,” he whispered. It was so quiet that Ryan might have missed it if their faces weren’t so close. 

“This is so much easier than talking,” Ryan said. “Why did I overcomplicate things?” 

Dylan pulled on his hand, so they were sitting by each other, instead of opposite. Ryan finally let himself give into the gravitational pull of Dylan’s space. He could feel himself smiling in a way that hurt his cheeks a little but he didn’t try and hide it like usual. 

Ryan wanted to lean over and kiss Dylan again but the burst of bravery left him. So they sat together, catching their breath instead. 

“I have a CD player,” Dylan said. “On my laptop.” 

Ryan missed his warmth as he got up to collect it from his desk. The first track played a Kevin Atwater song that he’d heard in passing at a party and made him think of Dylan every time. It was soft and full of pining. 

“I like it,” Dylan said. “I like you too, if that wasn’t obvious already.” 

Dylan moved his laptop aside and leaned forward again, this time taking the lead with the kiss. The music melted away into nothing but a soft twinkling background noise. 

 ---

  Ryan’s talk with Dylan must have gone well. After thirteen texts about being nervous, Emma hadn’t heard anything from him at all. Emma had never been so pleased to be ghosted. 

She hoped her own talk with Jacob would be as successful, although Emma had her own reason to be worried. There was a reason she took the easy way out by texting him before. She didn’t like looking at people when she gave them bad news. 

They had broken up almost a year ago by now and were at least on speaking terms, but not enough that Emma made a habit of dropping by his frat house for a visit. Still, Jacob was a good host, offering her soda and letting her ramble an apology out without interrupting. 

“Why now?” Jacob asked, once Emma had finished. 

“I’m righting wrongs. I don’t want to keep being a shitty girlfriend,” Emma said. 

“I guess I was a bad boyfriend too,” Jacob said. “After we broke up, Kaitlyn forced me to watch that Zooey Deschanel film about a guy who’s a shitty boyfriend to her because he doesn’t listen.” 

Emma hadn’t realised that Kaitlyn took her side in the break up. It didn’t explain the evils that Kaitlyn kept sending in her direction for the weeks after though. 

“I was hoping we could be friends,” Emma offered. 

“Deal,” Jacob agreed. “So, is there someone you want to be a good girlfriend for?” 

Emma ignored the way he waggled his eyebrows at her after. It was a good sign that Jacob was even asking. She didn’t need his permission to ask out Kaitlyn but Emma had a feeling Kaitlyn might need it to accept. 

“It’s a work in progress,” Emma said. 

Jacob considered it. “Well, whoever it is, they’re pretty lucky.” 

He walked her out. They hesitated at the front step before Jacob gave her a hug. Emma had missed Jacob’s hugs. He was generous with them and she laughed as he spun her around before letting her go. 

Emma was still laughing at it as Jacob waved her away. She opened her phone to text Ryan the update, although she doubted she’d get a response. 

“What the hell Emma?” 

She looked up from her phone. Kaitlyn was marching towards her, a fierce look in eyes she usually had during her games. 

Kaitlyn didn’t give her a chance to answer. Not that Emma knew what to say. 

“It’s like you can help yourself from leading people on! You already broke Jake’s heart once, don’t mess with his feelings again.” 

“What?” Emma took a step back. “I’m not here for that-” 

“I had to put the piece back together last time and I will not do it again! I thought-” She sighed, losing steam. 

“You thought what?” Emma prompted. 

“Fuck this,” Kaitlyn said. “I can’t believe I thought I misjudged you.” 

She pushed past Emma and then Jacob, who had been watching everything from his doorstep, his forehead wrinkled in confusion. He shot Emma a concerned look before following Kaitlyn inside. 

Emma sank to the curb and wiped her face. She had come to make things right and somehow completely fucked things up. 

 --- 

Emma walked back to her dorm, feeling defeated. She had called Ryan and only gotten voicemail. She took a guess and knocked on Dylan’s room, just a hall away from her own. 

He answered, looking so happy that it had to be hurting his face. 

“Emma, I owe you my first born.” 

Even Dylan’s usually infectious energy couldn’t cheer her up. Emma didn’t even have the energy to pretend to smile. 

“Is Ryan in?” She asked. 

“He went out for coffee. He’ll be back soon.” 

Dylan looked at her, finally noticing te black smudges of makeup under her eyes. “What…” 

“It’s a long story,” Emma said. She finally managed a bright, but fake, smile. “But congrats guys! Took you long enough.” 

“Emma, seriously- Are you okay?” Dylan asked. “Is that a dumb question?” 

“No and yes.” Emma stepped back. “I’ll leave you love birds to it-” 

Dylan shook his head, grabbing her hand. “Come on Emma, I just promised you my first born child. I can spare a minute.” 

It was better than wallowing alone, so she took his offer, letting Dylan pull her inside. He paused the song that was playing and closed his laptop, patting the space on the bed next to him. 

“I guess Ryan told you our plan?” Emma asked. 

Dylan nodded. “Yeah. I forced it out of him. I couldn’t believe it, even after we made out for like, half an hour. Ryan got all embarrassed. It was super cute.” 

Emma wasn’t annoyed. If it was the opposite way round, she doubted she’d be good at saying no to Kaitlyn. But it wasn’t like that for her - that was the problem. 

“I didn’t get so lucky. Kaitlyn just ripped into me for messing with people’s feelings. She doesn’t have to like me back but I thought we were at least friends.” 

Dylan’s grip on her hand tightened. “Kaitlyn is the person you like?” 

“I didn’t tell him everything,” Ryan said dryly. 

They both looked over to the door, where he was standing, an iced coffee in each hand. Ryan didn’t look surprised, or (thankfully) annoyed, to see Emma sitting in his spot. He didn’t even seem ruffled that she was resting her head against the shoulder of his (presumably new and official) boyfriend. 

“Kaitlyn.” Dylan repeated. He was more fixed on that than the offered coffee or the fond look Ryan gave him when he handed it over. “No fucking way.” 

“I can’t catch a break today,” Emma groaned. She hid her face in her hands, smearing them with black makeup. 

“So, I take it the talk with Jacob didn’t go so well,” Ryan guessed. 

“No, that went fine. Until Kaitlyn saw us together and flipped her shit.” Emma groaned again. “I knew it would be too complicated. I knew she hadn’t forgiven me for the break up.” 

“Kaitlyn forgave you,” Dylan cut in. “She was more pissed at Jacob for not listening when you said you weren’t looking for anything serious.” 

Emma shook her head, confused. “She was glaring at me for weeks.” 

“Out of principle,” he said. “What did she actually say to you?” 

“Not to break Jacob’s heart again.” 

“Uh, that might have been my fault.” Emma whipped her head to look at Ryan, now looking a little guilty himself. “I spoke to Kaitlyn this morning and she assumed we were dating. I told her we weren’t because we both liked someone else.” 

“And then she saw me at Jacob’s,” Emma finished. “I still don’t get why she was so fucking mad. She went full Carrie evil eyes.” 

Dylan bit his lip. “Well- Look, I was sworn to secrecy. But maybe not telling you is worse than telling you? I wish I took an ethics class because this is-” 

“What is it?” Emma asked, all but shaking his shoulders. 

Dylan shrugged her off, shooting a look at Ryan. “Okay, okay! Kaitlyn might or might not have said she has the hots for someone. She kept saying it was bad timing to ask her out though. I assumed it was one of her teammates. But now, I was thinking, what if it’s you?” Dylan finished. 

Emma blinked. “Are you for real?” 

Dylan nodded. “Yeah. I think that’s why she went to Jacob’s in the first place.”

“She wanted advice and you were, uh busy,” Ryan finished. 

“Yeah, exactly.” He turned to Emma with big eyes. “Please never tell Kaitlyn I told you any of that. She’ll kill me and cover up the crime.I’ll end up on Ryan’s podcasts! I’m not ready to die yet, I just got a boyfriend.” 

“Boyfriend?” Ryan repeated, smiling. 

Dylan hid his face in his pillow. “Nevermind, let her murder me. As long as it’s fast and painless.” 

Ryan sat by him, pulling the pillow away. Predictably, Dylan had gone pink in the face. “How about you live long enough for us to have a date first?” 

“Yeah, cool, whatever man,” he replied, his voice a little high pitched. 

Emma laughed and they both looked over as if they had forgotten she was even there. 

“I think we have something to do first,” Ryan suggested. 

 --- 

Emma fidgeted in the booth. The diner which had felt cosy earlier now felt claustrophobic. Her eyes kept flicking to the door everytime the bell rang, no matter how calm she tried to be. She had picked up Ryan’s napkin shredding habit as the minutes ticked on. She’d arrived early anyway, but it did little to settle her nerves. By the time Kaitlyn actually arrived, Emma almost fell out of her seat.

It was a small consolation that she looked as rough as Emma did, even after redoing her makeup and changing into a new sweater without mascara stains. Kaitlyn’s hair was messy, as if she had run her hands through it over and over. 

Kaitlyn scanned the diner before her eyes landed on Emma. She headed over, sitting opposite her. 

“I knew Dylan was up to something.” 

He had texted Kaitlyn with the promise of giving her an update on Ryan. Obviously the promise had worked. 

“They are here,” Emma said. She nodded at them, watching unsubtly from behind their menus. “Weird first date.” 

Kaitlyn flipped off Dylan. “Yeah. So Jake explained that-” She looked over her shoulder again. “I can’t do this when they’re listening. Can we go for a walk?” 

Emma nodded. She had wanted waffles but she wanted to fix things with Kaitlyn more. A moonlight walk with the girl she was hopelessly crushing on seemed like a better option. They passed Ryan and Dylan on the way out. 

“Ah man,” Dylan said. 

“I knew you were listening, dipshit,” Kaitlyn replied, although fondly. “Enjoy your date.” 

Once they were outside, Kaitlyn tucked her hands into her jacket. “Do you want to get boba?” 

Emma followed her lead. They passed a whole block before Kaitlyn began again. 

“Jake told me you apologised,” she started again. “That was good of you, considering the breakup was only half your fault.” 

“I wanted to make things right,” Emma offered. “I was feeling really good about it until-” 

“Until I acted like a dick,” Kaitlyn finished, with a grimace. “I’m sorry. I’ve known Jacob since we were five so I’m pretty protective. I didn’t misjudge you. I don’t know why I said that. I see how you are with Abi, even Ryan now, and you’re a good friend to them.” 

“That’s a nice apology,” Emma said. “Accepted?”  

“I practised in my car,” Kaitlyn explained with a shrug. “Are we good?” 

Emma smiled. “We’re good. You were way off though. I don’t have a thing for Jacob anymore.” 

“I figured.” Kaitlyn was looking at her from the corner of her eye, almost missing the turning. Once they were on the right street, Kaitlyn looked at her again. “Do I have to force it out of you? Who is it?” 

This was Emma’s opening and after everything she had been through, she would take it. No more miscommunications. No more pinning from afar. No more using her hotness and inexperience as an excuse. No more holding her feelings back. 

“Oh just this totally gorgeous girl I know. She’s small but feisty. She’s a loyal friend. She makes me act like an idiot.” 

“Abi?” 

Emma shook her head. “No. This girl is single, I am just intimidated.” Then, when the silence stretched out between them. “It’s you, okay! I was trying to be cute about it and it wasn’t working-” 

Kaitlyn stopped mid step and turned to look at Emma properly. “Are you fucking with me?” 

Emma stepped closer too. “Do I look like I’m kidding? I know I seem confident but I have been so lost when it came to asking you out!” 

In one graceful move, Kaitlyn stood on her toes, took her hands out her pockets and pulled on Emma’s jacket into a long awaited kiss. The force of it almost took Emma off her feet but Kailyn’s grip was strong and steadying. They broke away for air. 

Emma’s head was spinning and she was glad for the stability of Kaitlyn’s hand still bunched in her jacket. “That went better than planned.” 

Kaitlyn smiled at her, a soft giddiness to her Emma had never seen before. She wiped at a smear of lip gloss on her lip. “That is why I didn't want Dylan around.” 

“No objections,” Emma said. “Any more life changing kisses where that came from?” 

“Life changing?” Kaitlyn asked. 

“Life ruining,” she said. “You can be the cool girl in this relationship. I’m the dork.” 

Kaitlyn laughed. “I am not cool. I get, like, ugly jealous.” 

Emma nudged her, already missing the contact between them. “I noticed. But there’s nothing ugly about you.” 

“Are you sure you’re not the cool one? That was pretty smooth.” 

“I don’t know how to do this. I’ve liked people but never so much that it made me nervous. I had to ask Ryan for help!” 

Kaitlyn laughed again. “Now that’s a story I’ve got to hear.” 

They had reached the Boba place, the neon pink sign flickering above them. Emma held open the door, smiling when Kaitlyn pulled her inside after her. 

“It’s a date.”

 ---

  Ryan and Dylan waited outside the diner until Kaitlyn and Emma returned. It had been a strange first date but Ryan had been all too happy to drag it out for as long as possible with the excuse of waiting for their friends. 

“There they are,” Dylan said, waving at their figures across the street. 

Emma and Kaitlyn waved back, meeting them outside the diner. The tension between them from earlier had eased and they leaned into each other’s space with the same newfound ease Ryan found with Dylan. 

“Hey,” Emma said. “You waited for us?” 

“Have you met this nosey bitch?” Kaitlyn asked. 

Dylan flicked a spot on her cheek that was the same glittery shade of pink as Emma’s lipgloss. “I should have put money on this.” 

Kaitlyn looked unimpressed, flicking him back. “So, Dylan, want to tell me exactly how Emma knew I liked her?” 

Dylan retreated back to Ryan’s side. “Lucky guess?” 

Emma nudged her. “Hey, we wouldn’t be here without these two.” 

“Thanks Ryan,” Kaitlyn said. She jabbed her finger in Dylan’s direction. “You’re still on thin ice, Lenivy.” 

Dylan rested his head against Ryan’s shoulder. “Save me.” 

“I’ll listen to your episode.” 

Dylan gasped. “Betrayal!” 

Whilst he and Kaitlyn fell into their usual bickering, Emma hooked her arm into Ryan’s other side. “Mission accomplished.” 

“Thanks,” Ryan said. “I had my doubts but I couldn’t have done this without you.” 

“We overcame the hotness curse,” Emma said solemnly. 

“So, double date next?” Dylan asked. He waggled his eyebrows at Kaitlyn. 

“Lame,” she said. Kaitlyn looked back at Emma and then relented. “Maybe.” 

“I like this look on you,” Dylan noted. “I have a lot of crush related teasing to catch up on.” 

“Did you not hear ‘thin ice’?” Kaitlyn shot back. 

“This is our life now,” Emma muttered to Ryan, although she sounded more delighted than annoyed about it. He shared the sentiment. 

Kaitlyn made a point of not offering them a lift, even though they were all heading to the same place. Despite the cold, Ryan didn’t mind walking back. It was an extra twenty minutes of time alone with Dylan, which he doubted would lose its novelty. 

Away from Kaitlyn, Dylan relaxed a little, a glimpse into the more authentic side of him Ryan had first fallen for. It was endearing to see him be so shy. 

“So, guess I owe you a mixtape,” Dylan said. 

Ryan only smiled in response, making no complaints when they ended up circling the block again, hand in hand. 

[noro-noro-noro]

3 dreams!

1. lady i’m spectating causes problems in the pregnancy commune

2. mom’s new kitchen & then easter eggs from the future

3. it’s reigen’s fault i’m stuck in this base building game where if everybody except me if die in game the die in real life! not me though

1. part of my dream took place in a like post apocalyptic survival horror movie thing that was also a book. iknew at the end of the book the female lead got pregnant & found this one area in a big clearing in the woods with her companions, but it was ruled by this other pregnant lady who was like totally isnane but in the way where you didn't realize at first til one of the companions got in afight with her bf and found him impaled ass to head on a fallen log the next day. then the mai character wanted to escape the compound since she had visions of what her baby would be like - it would be great and powerful. no time to let the weird prefnancy cult dull her mind when she was lireeally carrying a demon. anyway she had visions of swttinf the area on fire, escaping on foot, avoiding the ??? & meeting up with another group who told her she'd probably die I n childbirth but she did not care.

anyway slight scene shift now I'm a person in that cult it's my life so I don't question it. I'm there with a female friend. every day we do the same task without fail I walk to the north sise area. I saw a girl I knew in highschool that does a lot of cosplay now dressed as vocaloid Luka for "interview a waifu in TV day". anyway some guynthat was following me & seemed like he wanted to be my friend but he was being weird about it..he asked if he could use my last name on the paper version of the test instead of his own & is was like no??? no way. and he became grumpy and standoffish.

later everything exploded and we were under fucking attack. there were these three headed angel things from the sky about the size of large dogs there was the dark magenta vortex woman standing behind me shredding the skin off my back there was a dark purple rree similar to the one lobcoro one that wasclalinf people into irs range there were so many Angels. it went ok at first I was scalinf well & equipped into new drops when rhey happened, upgraded my other armor and weapons like in terraria. got the damaging harp weapon somehow. but the angel zombies kept spawning. the vortex woman grew larger. she said her mother always hoped for a son but she was stuck with this. everyone else died the blood on the ground was ankle deep I felt like there was a huge weight on my back from the strength of the vortex cutting through my armor and flesh and bone.

I finally conceded defeat when I saw no other survivors except for the creepy guy that had selected & told the vortex woman I'd walk into her peacefully if sheblwt me text my sister & friends that I loves them and tols them what happened. she was okay with it so I opened up discord and then woke up.

2. WAIT i remembered another part of this dream ooohhh it’s on the tip of my tongue ooooo okay. first i was in my mom’s house, but the layout was drastically different - instead of the stairs by the garabge there was a new kitchen area that had pots hanging from the ceiling at head height, and also a lot of price tags. my mom didn’t want to share the kitchen with my dad so she used this one. i was gonna take a shower in her bathroom since that one had just been renovated & i wanted to see it, btu i walked in & she was taking a nap & i was like oops!! shh. but she got up to make me a snack anyway. then when i was upstairs in a room that doesn’t exist, i recieved three plastic eggs from the yearr 2927 sent back here to me. i opened them. there were little plstic animals inside that you had to punch the pieces out of a plastic thing. the eggs were light yellow, light green, and pale pink. i remembered thinking that specifically. i don’t remember which had which, but the creatures inside were like the john cooney blue elephant, a large beetle, & one more thing....it was another large land creature. i put them together and then put them back in the eggs with the remnants of the plastic so they could eat it & grow stronger, like when snakes or whatever hatch and then eat the eggshell. when i came back they were palm sized and walking around. theey shared knowledge with me.  

3. then it was like a 2D base building game. the premise started out that i was trapped ? in some area. it was controlled by reigen, who would start each day with a live broadcast on one of those shitty TVs they had in elementary school. we all hated him for not fucking letting us out of hre. anyway, base building, wave fighting, etc. people would show up & most of them were stardew valley sprites. some weren’t! it was pretty harsh. people would die permanently if i wasn’t careful. it was supposed to autosave also, but it wasn’t doing that properly & i didn’t realize that until later. anyway, it was going alright. i remember i had abigail, maru, sdv sam (recent arrival!), & harvey specifically, though there were probably more. i also got a pair of twins with like really dark skin & really light eyes on day 30. they left fire where they walked. my neighbor from real life showed up with his two daughters & demanded i execute the demon twins & i was like no i need them to man the turrets in the wasteland bro. and then he started fucking my whole shit up with a laser gun. he kept pulling out increasingly large guns as he was busting into my base until he was holding some kind of rocket laser blast thing tthat was larger tan his body & he absolutely just destroyed all my furniture & killed everyone i knew. the house was empty & collapsed. game over! this part was where i found out the autosave  wasn’tw orking properly, and even though i reloaded day 30 half the house was still missing & everyone was like when you revive someome from a corpse badly. this was scary to me obviously. also it was 3d now. 

anyway as we were reloading the day i remembered there was a random band event that came through the garage and like played us a little song and then left, and i saw 1 of the band members walk past reigen during his daily stream. i realized where he was. there was a fake wall in the garage, but i tore it down with my bare hands & saw him & everyboyd outside was scared. it was like a truman show incident. the queen of england as a woman in her 40s was there. there was also a portable guillotine. i coulldn’t figure out how to unfold it without hurting myself. nobody really knew wht to do with me now that i was out. then i woke up again

[no-ctrl]

I wish you were still my person but realistically I really don’t. I am tired of being alone. I hate expressing these feelings because realistically I’m not alone, I have my sister Jessica, I have my mom, I have my best friends Frida and Ruby. I am not alone but I am lonely. I miss having a person to text, someone to share my everyday life events even the most insignificant parts bc to them they won’t be insignificant bc I’m me. I miss having someone to rely on when I’m not 100% I’m tired of holding down my end of the bargain but get less 5% back in return (excluding my people) I am sad. Deep down I just want to be taken care, i want to be looked after, I want to be considered, I want to be valued, I want to be respected, I want to be genuinely and purely loved. Im tired of the hidden agendas or lack of consideration. I want to feel lovable. Im tired of feeling like I have to prove myself. I am lovable just as I am I don’t have to excel at everything and be perfect to be lovable I am enough as I am but some days im surrounded by people that make me feel as if im not. I want to be held. I miss Israel when he genuinely cared about me not the monster of a person he became. He hurt me to deeply in the end. He treated me like I was nothing and body to him. He had no respect to even give me a goodbye. He just ghosted me like we had not been together for nearly 6 years. I can’t help but feel so sad. I stood by his side for all the bad yet he could not give an ounce of love back. Im not even asking for him to be there in the bad time but he could not even give me love when I had none for myself. Instead he exploited that, he took advantage of my lack of self love and used me for his benefit whether tht be for sex, a ride, a free meal. He truly embarrassed me as a person, I am embarrassed that I also lacked so much self love, respect and discipline to stand by a person who did not care to look me in the face while taking advantage of me. I wish there was at least an ounce of remorse in his mind but knowing him there probably isn’t. At the end of the day it’s none of my business what he does or thinks but what I do know is it’s officially 8 months no contact. Soon to be 1 year. I guess if I could say anything to him is I hope you’re well, I’m good health physically and mentally, I wish you luck on your future, you don’t have to prove yourself to anyone, nothing in your past defines your current life. Respect although it’s all love too please leave me alone forever even if it kills me on the inside. Each day with no contact a piece of my heart dies, the place that hold the space of you. It needs to completely die, you have no place in living in my heart anymore. You don’t deserve space in my big sweet heart. You had it and instead of handling with care you ripped my heart to shreds then laughed in my face as you walked away. You left me and I don’t care how hard you life was bc mine was too but I never let that be an excuse to mistreat you. I don’t care what the reason was bc I deserve to be treated properly not what you did. The most I can do for myself right now is pursue my goals and achieve them for ME! I deserve to succeed in this life. I deserve to defy the odds. Life has put me through a tough walk of life at only 22 years old but I know my purpose in this life is to heal and blossom past the constraints life tries to shackle me in. I’m not defined by you Israel. I’m not defined by what you did to me. I’m not defined by all the terrible things in my past. I’m defined by the beauty I care from within and out. I am meant to shine in this life and I will not be dimmed by a guy. You’re just a guy. I am a humble, intelligent, charismatic, sweet, genuine, loving, thoughtful, considerate, caring person. That’s all me. You don’t just fake those sorts of things, that’s something I care within myself. And if I’m too much for you then you walking away was the best thing you could have done for yourself. Go find less elsewhere but you are no longer welcome in knowing who Jaymee is.

[ameliagiovanna0]

Mamas Halstead

Jay and Hailey visit Mama Halstead’s grave. 

(I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve rewritten this, but I’m finally happy with it)

Word count: 1007

AO3

“You should be here.”

 Jay looked over his shoulder to where Hailey was leaning against his truck. 

He surveyed the headstone in front of him. 

 Sionainn Byrne Halstead 

Loving daughter, sister, friend, wife, and mother

1959 - 2008

 His hands were stuffed securely in his pockets, the seems leaving indentations in his skin. He hoped she was proud of him. He let out a breath, looking up and back down at the headstone, trying to control the emotion overtaking him. 

“You really would have loved her. God, she’s everything.” He told his mom about Hailey countless times before. Whenever he visited her grave, he talked about Hailey, nearly since she joined Intelligence. 

“She calls me on my shit, she’s saved my life more times than I can count. She really was the light at the end of my tunnel… and, ugh, so easy to love.”

“You’d have been absolutely impossible together,” he let out a watery chuckle, “Between the three of you, I’d never have a moment of peace.”

Even just the two of them, Jay knew he was going to have his hands full, but he loved the idea. Hailey was twenty weeks pregnant, and their baby girl was already a wild child. Hailey had horrible morning sickness and the most bizarre cravings. Zoe was most active in the evening. Almost every night since she started feeling her move, just as Hailey was falling asleep, she would be kicked in whichever organ her daughter found most appropriate. She was convinced their little one was going to be an athlete like both her parents; she certainly had the strength for it. 

 Jay’s thoughts tore through him. He shuddered, bittersweet tears falling down his cheeks. He was exhilarated at the prospect of having a child of his own, but a part of him wished he could have all of it. He wished his wife and his mother could have been able to make fun of him together, see them get married, see the world they’d created for themselves. And meet their baby girl. 

“I wish you could meet her,” he paused, allowing himself the moment, “I wish you could meet them both.” He crouched down, one hand on the top of the headstone and his head hanging low. 

 Hailey always knew when Jay needed her. Her ocean eyes stared into his green. He felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked at her through tears. Despite herself, she squatted beside her husband, pressing a kiss to his upper arm, her hand having moved to rub soothing circles on his back. It was different now, talking with his mom. Jay felt like he finally got a shred of the perspective she had as a parent.

 Hailey’s hand fell from his back, and Jay took it in his own as they stood. He turned just enough to face her. She cupped his face, thumbs brushing away the tears that stained his cheeks and desperately trying not to bawl herself. He pressed his forehead against hers, his hands landing on her bump. Seeming to know him just as well as her mom, their baby kicked his hand. He couldn’t help the dopey grin that crossed his features. 

“She wants to say ‘hi.’” Hailey said, smiling, placing her hands over his.

“Hi, baby.”

Hailey had been feeling her move for about two weeks, but the past few days were the first time Jay felt her movement as well. The maneuvering he felt was slight, but he cherished the experience nonetheless.

He leaned forward to press a kiss to Hailey’s forehead, moving his hand over her midsection. He allowed himself to linger there. Eventually forcing himself away, Hailey took the opportunity to observe the piece of carved marble she’d only seen a handful of times. 

Jay followed her eye line, “She would have loved you.” It wasn’t the first time he expressed the sentiment to his wife, but he wanted to make sure she felt it in her bones the same way he felt it in his. 

She smiled, brushing a thumb over the hand on her belly, “I’d like to think we have a connection.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re half her,” she looked at her bump, “This little girl is 25% her. I live with her son, I’ve known him for seven years and loved him for five. She created the best person I’ve ever met. And even though I’ll only ever know her through you, I’ll at least have a connection with the part of her in you and the part of her in our little girl.”

Hardly the first time Hailey had surprised him, Jay felt like he couldn’t breathe. He never thought about Hailey knowing his mother through him. They’d spoken of his mom before, but Hailey always let him do the majority of the talking. He did the best he could to share the good memories, the wistful memories, and the painful ones, telling her everything he could about her. Apart from voicing her opinion on how Sionainn must have been a saint for putting up with both Jay and Will at the same time and how much of a kind and loving of a person she seemed to have been, Hailey never said much else. 

Their baby kicked her parents’ hands once again. Jay choked back a sob as he looked at his everything.

 He rested his head atop hers, “I love you… so much.” 

“I love you, too.”

Hailey pulled away to look up her husband, “What if Zoe’s middle name was Byrne?”

While Will and their mom didn’t have middle names, Jay and Hailey did, and they liked the idea of Zoe having one as well, “Zoe Byrne Halstead,” she repeated, her eyes glassy and her voice thick with emotions she couldn’t quite put names to.

 “It’s perfect.”

Jay held her in his arms, his chin on her shoulder. A breeze passed over them. He wasn’t a particularly religious or spiritual person, but in that moment, he knew it was his mom’s way of giving her approval.

Notes: I'm seriously winging it here. This is all guess work, because none of these dates, even Jay and Will's birthdays, are ever talked about on screen. 

My version:

Mama Halstead's name is pronounced "Shannon," and it means "wise river". She was born in 1959. Byrne is an Anglicised version of the Irish name Ó Broin (Sionainn is also Irish, if you couldn't tell). I chose to go with Byrne being Sionainn's maiden name. She chose to use it as her middle name after she got married. She had Will in 1983 when she was 24 and Jay in 1985 when she was 26. As of 2022, Jay would be 37, and Will would be 39. Jay enlisted in the Army in 2003 when he was 18. We know Jay served for five years. That would mean he got discharged in 2008. We know he left the Army, or at least a deployment, to take care of Mama Halstead when she had cancer, so I'm just guesstimating saying she died in 2008 or 2009, but that doesn't exactly line up with Jay's police career. We know Jay went into the police academy fairly soon after leaving the Army. Generally, police academies are six months. Most officers can make detective after about four-ish years. Then, we know Jay was with Organized Crime for a year or two. Considering the time between leaving the Army and joining the police academy, caring for his mom, completing the police academy, spending enough time on patrol to make detective, and being with OC for a year or two, we should be looking at a timespan of about five-ish years, but it's really closer to three or four with the show having started in 2012. With Jay having been in the Army, it could have expedited his training and not required him as much time in the academy or as a patrol officer before making detective. He also could have just made detective faster than normal.  Halstead is English in origin. I'm choosing to believe that the name Halstead came to be generations ago when Pat's family came to the US, as immigrants' names were often changed or Anglicised/Americanized. I wanted to include parts of Jay and Hailey's heritage or family into their daughter's name. I chose the name Zoe because I read it in something completely unrelated the other day and decided I liked it for Upstead's daughter. I got lucky, and it turned out to be Greek. It means "life."  *takes a breath* Again, it's all guess work. *wipes brow*

[alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer]

champagne problems (part 1)

here's my first part of my modern no magic "champagne problems" singer-songwriter quarantine thomastair AU! happy birthday to @foxglove-airmid even though I don't think it's your birthday where you live anymore (and I still haven't posted zia's birthday fic, it'll happen I swear)!

no content warnings for this part (besides maybe quarantine), but future parts will include discussions of mental illness, substance abuse, and a suicide attempt

obviously, the song alastair "wrote" in the fic is not mine, it's by taylor swift! and a few of the lyrics have been changed!

Masterlist | AO3

Thomas breathed out a sigh of relief as he lugged his suitcase up onto the fifth floor landing.

“‘Ere we are,” Piers announced as he unlocked the door.

Thomas was utterly exhausted, such was the result of taking a redeye flight across the Atlantic during a global pandemic, but any idea of rest that he’d had was interrupted when he heard the sound of piano flood the apartment.

“Ah, sorry about that,” Piers nodded, “One of my flatmates, the walls are paper thin. He can’t record at the studio right now, but he’s trying to finish his EP, so it’s been a bit noisier around here. He’ll take a break soon, hopefully.”

Thomas shook his head. “It’s no problem. Thank you, again, for allowing me to stay here. I’ll be looking for my own place as soon as the quarantine is up.”

“Of course. You’ve got the couch as long as you need it. Couldn’t just hang you out to dry, could I? Although, you did pick a god awful time to move to the city, if I do say so myself.”

Thomas sat down on the couch and tried to make himself comfortable. It was more comfortable than the flight or the airport, at least. “I know… I considered postponing the move, but the visa was so difficult to get, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity. They say this will all blow over in a couple of weeks, but borders are closing and I heard talk of them suspending all pending visa applications. I didn't know how long it would be if I waited, if the job was even still here for me at all.” Although at first entrance, the music had seemed to be a nuisance, it now comforted him. It wasn’t bad at all, in fact, it quite reminded him of the days Alastair’s playing had filled their flat…

“Where did you say you were working again? At a record company?”

“Yeah. I’m just doing pretty basic stuff for now, but if I ever do want to record my own music, I’ve got to start somewhere.”

“Hm,” Piers said, gesturing to the room the music was coming from. “Perhaps you’ll get on with him well, then. Would you like some tea?”

Thomas nodded and Piers went to start the teapot. Piers continued, “Though I suppose he's more of the tortured artist type. Very reserved, quite prickly. I didn't even meet him until a couple weeks after I moved in here because he was off in some psychiatric hospital.” Thomas shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He was never one for gossip. “My other roommate’s nice, though, I think you’ll like him. He-”

“How did you end up in New York, again? I don’t think I ever asked.”

Piers dove into the subject change quite readily, explaining his uni - or college - years in New York City and his decision to stay afterwards. Thomas had tuned most of it out, truthfully. It wasn’t that he was trying to be rude, but he was rather exhausted, and Piers was wearing thin on his patience.

As the kettle started to whine, Thomas heard the musician begin to sing, and he froze. It sounded so much like Alastair. But it couldn't be, could it? With over 8 million people living in the city, he would not end up in Alastair's apartment by accident. His Alastair was certainly reserved and prickly, but it wasn't possible. It must be like all those times he thought he saw him on a street he'd never walked or heard his laugh in a café he'd never been to. Just his mind, tricking him. Even if he knew that voice so well, despite not hearing it in so long.

“It’s quite good, isn’t it? His first single just dropped.” Piers asked, bringing over his cup of tea. He hadn’t realized it, but he’d been staring intently at the door.

Thomas took the cup. “Hm? Yeah, I guess. Thanks.”

“You should look it up. It’s called “champagne problems” by Simurgh. That’s spelled- Well, it should come up.”

The name Simurgh sounded familiar, but Thomas couldn’t put his finger on where he knew it from. At Piers’ insistence, he pulled out his phone and brought up the song. As he skimmed through the first few lines, a cold feeling settled in his stomach.

“You booked the night train for a reason So you could sit there in this hurt Bustling crowds or silent sleepers You're not sure which is worse”

“Simurgh,” Thomas realized.

“Yeah, I think it’s Arabic or something.”

It took Thomas a moment to process that Piers was responding to him. “It’s Persian.” He was certain that Alastair would have some very stern words to say if he heard Piers confusing the two, actually. Thomas had admittedly let his Farsi skills deteriorate quite a bit since the breakup, but he was fairly certain the name came from the Shahnameh. There was no doubt in Thomas’ mind now: he was staying in Alastair’s apartment, and Alastair’s first single was about one of the most painful days in Thomas’ life. “I, er, I used to study it.”

“Oh, yes, that’s right!” Piers launched into a tangent that Thomas tuned out as he read through the rest of the page.

“Because I dropped your hand while dancing Left you out there standing Crestfallen on the landing Champagne problems”

“Thomas? Are you alright?”

He realized then that his hand was trembling so badly that his tea nearly spilled. He used his other hand to steady it. “Oh, uh, yes, I’m just tired.”

“Perhaps you should rest. I can ask Alastair to quiet down for a while-”

“No!” he exclaimed rather too forcefully. “No, that’s not necessary. I’d just rather not talk, if that’s alright.”

Piers nodded.

Thomas kept reading.

“Your mom's ring in your pocket My picture in your wallet Your heart was glass, I dropped it Champagne problems”

Of all the songs, why did he release the one about him? Why was it about a memory still so painful in Thomas’ heart, all of these years later? He remembered it so well, standing there, alone, shattered into a million pieces.

“You told your family for a reason You couldn't keep it in Your sister splashed out on the bottle Now no one's celebrating”

He was fairly certain that Barbara had been more excited than even he was, confident that Alastair would accept, and so very proud of her baby brother, all grown up. She’d been furious when it fell apart, but it was her who stood with him during the aftermath, who boarded him onto a train to Edinburgh to visit Eugenia when he couldn’t stand to be in the same city as him any longer, who went through his phone, blocking all of Alastair’s accounts so that he could obsess over him no longer, who comforted him as he wept and held him as he picked the pieces of himself back up again.

And all the more sour was the memory in light of her death.

“Dom Pérignon, you brought it No crowd of friends applauded Your hometown skeptics called it Champagne problems”

He looked up at Piers, who had fortunately become enthralled with something on his phone and was no longer paying Thomas any mind. He lifted the teacup gingerly to his lips, but he felt far too sick to take a drink.

“You had a speech, you're speechless Love slipped beyond your reaches And I couldn't give a reason Champagne problems”

A reason, that’s all Thomas had wanted. Just any explanation. He understood if they were moving too fast, or perhaps he’d misread something, but he just didn’t understand it.

Why? Why can’t you tell me why? I deserve an explanation, Alastair. Please, anything.

I… I’m sorry, Thomas.

Stop it! Stop apologizing! We can just go home and pretend this never happened, please, forget about all of it, it was a stupid idea-

Thomas, stop. I shouldn’t’ve… This was a mistake. I’m sorry I didn’t see that sooner.

That was the moment Thomas felt his heart stop beating.

“Your Midas touch on the Chevy door November flush and your flannel cure "This dorm was once a madhouse" I made a joke, "Well, it's made for me" How evergreen, our group of friends Don't think we'll say that word again And soon they'll have the nerve to deck the halls That we once walked through”

Despite the nearly two decades Thomas had spent in London before Alastair, it was never the same without him. He saw him everywhere he went, despite knowing he was thousands of miles away. After graduating uni that May, he accepted a spot at a graduate program in Spain and didn’t look back.

“One for the money, two for the show I never was ready so I watch you go Sometimes you just don't know the answer 'Til someone's on their knees and asks you "You’re the only one I want by my side, What a shame you’re fucked in the head," you said”

Those were the words that haunted Thomas’ nightmares, even now.

It’s you! It’s only you for me! It was always going to be you! But I can see now that I was never going to be enough for you, you and your secrets and walls and your lies. It’s a shame… it’s a shame you’re so fucked in the head, Alastair. You’ll never truly love anyone, will you? You’re not physically capable of it.

Alastair hadn’t responded. Thomas had wanted a rise out of him, any reaction at all, despite knowing how lethal and volatile Alastair could become when provoked. But there was nothing. Not a flicker of anything in his steeled expression. He’d simply looked down, apologized again for any pain that he’d caused, and left.

That was the last time they’d spoken.

Thomas and his sister left for Edinburgh that night, and when he’d returned to London, Alastair was gone.

“Well, you'll find the real thing instead Who'll patch up your tapestry that I shred And hold your hand while dancing Never leave you standing Crestfallen on the landing With champagne problems”

Thomas couldn’t imagine giving his heart to anyone again, not now and certainly not then. He’d dated in Madrid, but it had always stayed casual. He’d made sure of it. He could see now that he and Alastair had gotten together quickly, moved in together quickly, done all of it very quickly. After all, he’d fallen hard and fast. He gave all of himself to Alastair, and he’d nearly lost all of himself in the process.

“Your mom's ring in your pocket New picture in your wallet You won't remember all my Champagne problems

“You won't remember all my Champagne problems”

Now, he wondered what the rest of the story was. He’d convinced himself that Alastair had never loved him, that he was heartless and cruel, though he’d known that wasn’t true. Could Alastair have written this song if he’d never truly loved him? Perhaps he was a sociopath.

Thomas felt like he should run. Like he should pick up his bag and dart out of the apartment before Alastair could notice him, find some hotel somewhere with undoubtedly extraordinary high rates and just pretend like this never happened. He could get back on a plane and go back home to his parents and delete his phone browser history and pretend like this was all just a bad dream. But he could not move.

He didn’t know how many minutes had passed before Alastair’s door opened. He looked up with a start.

“Thomas,” Alastair breathed. He stood wide eyed, flushed.

“Do you two already know each other then?” Piers asked.

There was a moment of silence before Thomas cleared his throat. “We used to,” he said, looking down.

“I, er, I forgot that your friend was coming today,” Alastair told Piers. “It’s quite a long journey from London, you should have told me, I would have been quieter.”

Thomas considered correcting him for a moment, but decided not to. “Don’t worry about it. I heard you had your first big release. Congratulations.”

Alastair gave an awkward nod. “Thank you. Right, well, I’ll just…” He rushed over to the kitchen and pulled a bottle of water from the fridge. “I’ll try to be a bit quieter.”

“Don’t- It’s fine, really. In fact, I’m sure there’s some hotel in the area I can stay at for now, actually-”

“Well, don’t leave on my account,” Alastair interrupted. “We agreed to let you stay here, and the city’s a bloody mess right now. I’ll stay out of your hair, Thomas.”

Thomas only nodded as Alastair disappeared back behind his bedroom door.

Thanks for reading! Taglist (ask to be +/-): @stxr-thxif @chaos-and-starlight @zosiaenrique @lifewouldbebetteronmars @littlx-songbxrd @dianasarrow @eugeniaslongsword @bookswitchcraftandcats @jamesherondaleofficial @thomas-gaypanic-lightwood @livingformyself @anarmorofwords @foxglove-airmid @writeforjordelia @sapphic-in @jem-nasium @fortheloveofthecarstairs @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @shadowrunner2000 @thewarthatsavedmylife @fair-childd @itsjusta-j-really

[thepeakygurl]

Well I'm here. I wanted to tell you what a sucker I'm for some good fluff Tommy Shelby fluff..

I had this idea at the back of my mind where the Tommy married the reader as a formality because Polly had been constantly nagging him to get Charles a mother.(Like after Grace dies). Now he makes it clear that he cannot give her "love" and she should not expect it but she should be a dutiful wife (I know, patriarchy) and take care of Charlie. Reader decides to give the marriage a try.. and thinks it's not always love that builds marriage. As long as Tommy keeps her safe, it's fine.. It's only when the reader gets pregnant with Tommy's kid, the way her body starts changing, Tommy's heart starts changing as well and he starts falling in love with her as her pregnancy progresses..

I'm sorry if this is too much. 🙊🥺

A/N: I’m so in love with this one, I really, really hope you like it!🥺 thank you for requesting this amazing piece✨ honestly this one gave me so much life that I could wrote a whole series out of it!

Another Day

Thomas Shelby x Fem!Reader

Word count: 1,834

When Grace died, Thomas knew that a part of himself went with her. Part of his heart and his capacity of loving followed the woman who owned that same heart into the abyss of death. And he was fine with it, the only reasonable thing to do was to let his heart rest next to his beloved wife, that was alright with him.

Everyday that went by Thomas felt as his life were slowly drowning into a whirlwind of inconsolable sorrow. Nevertheless, he was trying his best for Charlie and he was darned proud of how such a sweet boy he happened to become. So mannered and so caring that sometimes he almost failed to believe he was his son, this was his only spiral of joy. Every time Ada would come around with Karl, Charlie wouldn’t help, but ask about his mommy and why him and daddy were always alone. And he was right, Thomas and Charlie were always going to be alone in a way, that thought was so dreadful and achingly painful that one morning he did what he had to do. Polly spent the last few weeks begging him to meet the daughter of this friends of hers, single and behaved, What more could you ask for? Polly would always end up saying. A question he would have promptly answer with Grace.

The first time he laid eyes on you, he couldn’t help but think how pretty you were. He was a man with pride, but he also had eyes and he would never say something that he doesn’t mean so he said it “You are a very beautiful woman” in a tone so cold and unemotional that made you laugh, clearly he was forced into this meeting as well. Marriage was the last thing in your list: Travel and study the art of painting that was your dream and see it being crushed by the economical need of your family almost crushed you a well. Being the respectful and obedient wife of Thomas Shelby was never part of your plan, but you weren’t selfish enough to say no and let your family sink in debt. And while Polly was taking your mom’s arm and pulling her aways from you two for some intimacy, you look at time a stare that he didn’t give back and said “Next time be more convincing.”

The wedding came soon enough, everyone on your side of the family was happy, excited and hopeful for the future that this union would bring. The Shelby’s on the other side, they weren’t allowed to celebrate as this wasn’t a marriage of love, but need. A small wedding, no reception. You never really thought about marriage, but somehow it made you sad how so careless this man was. How cruel he was to care so little about something that for you could have a meaning.

On the night of your wedding Thomas didn’t talking much, if anything at all. Some candles were lit on the side of the bed, they smelled nice you remember, but nothing could ease up the tension in that room. You in your night gown standing in front of him as he close the door behind him while he enters the room. His eyes locked in yours but it’s hard to tell whether he wants this or it’s just a duty. A step after another he finally was in front of you, so close that he could easily hear your heart racing on your chest. His hand slowly reached your cheek and he smiled a small imperceptible smile “Love is a tricky thing. From this night on I will respect you, protect you, but love...” he eyes were now somewhere else, they were still looking at you, but you could tell they were elsewhere. That was enough for you, or so you thought.

Time passed and the only thing that made those miserable day bearable was Charlie. You saw in him a lot of Thomas, but there was also a side of him that you didn’t quite get, probably from his mom. Grace a woman that was still an important presence in the house, in their life. Charlie would sometimes stare at the paint of him, Thomas and Grace and would point and her, asking where she is. You would then proceed to sit next to his and point at his chest close to where his heart his “She is here. She’s in here everyday, even if you don’t see her” you would say smiling at him. She was beautiful, so beautiful and so much loved that you would pity yourself, a resentment that caused you to be sickened by yourself, at some point in time you realised that you started to compete with the death and that feeling brought so much shame that you decided it was time to get back at your art. So you did, painting and looking after Charlie. When the Sun would disappear in order for the Moon to gloriously take its place, Thomas would come home, sometimes even later than that. He would kiss Charlie on the forehead, then he would smile at you. After all expectations, Thomas had no problem in engaging in a conversation with you, however he never talked to you as his wife, more like a newfound acquaintance and that again was alright with you.

Then one day you found out you were pregnant. You had all the signs, morning sickness, late period, body changing, but a part of you didn’t want it to be true. You were so afraid of bring to Earth a creature that was not made out of love that you took quite enough time to tell Thomas, the enough time it took you to start showing and made it impossible for you to hide it longer. Your heart was racing as fast as the horses that Thomas so much loved, when one night he grabbed you by your hand and pulled you closer to him, not a moment of love, but a need. And while a hand slowly caressed your arms, the other was finding his way under your night gown but stopped as soon as he felt your stomach. Surprised as it was he went from looking at your body to staring at your face, while you were nervously biting your lips “I’m pregnant” you said in a whisper. His hand fell down as soon as those words left your mouth and he quickly stepped back. He didn’t want another child, not like this, but he was not going to say it. In fact he didn’t say anything and went to bed.

Weeks after that Thomas didn’t touch you, or talked to you. He even barely looked at you. He felt as if he was betraying Grace, as this baby could bring an end to the connection he had with her. He wasn’t ready for any of that, but neither were you and so the hostility between you two grew. Charlie however was super excited to have a little brother or sister. Seeing his son so excited about the news made him think that maybe that was such a bad news, after all that’s what he wanted for the both of them, not being alone.

And the baby was growing, strong as ever. Polly and Ada started to come visit more and you liked that, that made you feel less alone.

“Don’t worry he will come along someday” Polly would always say to you and you would always smile repeating yourself that you didn’t need his love, that this was a marriage without love, but now with this baby inside you, you couldn’t help but thinking if he was ever going to love your baby.

Thomas was now at home more often “I do not have so many employees for nothing now eh?” He would say every time you would wake up in the morning and see him already on his feet preparing Charlie for the day. The truth was that Thomas knew you had trouble sleeping since the baby, he woke up sometimes during the night to see you walking around the room while moaning in pain. He knew how stressful it could be to not having enough sleep, carrying a baby and providing for another one, so he decided to stick around for a while. Seeing your daily routine, how you would play with Charlie, sit in front of the painting of hi late mom, telling him those kind word and seeing you meticulously give time to your own passion, that did something to him. Perhaps it was just time what he needed, perhaps love was something that he could feel again, because now every time he looked at you, he felt alive again.

“What now? Are you going to do the laundry as well?” You jokingly said while you were having breakfast.

He looked and you and chuckled “No, I pay other people to do that. But you are more than welcome to do it yourself, it’s money that I can save” and as he saw you rolling your eyes in response he smiled “I got you something” he said talking a little bag under the table and placing it in front of you.

You almost gasped in surprise, Thomas Shelby caring to waste a bit of his time to buy you something? Not even your birthday made him turn around like that. You were almost scolding yourself out loud for how much you were smiling at that gesture. You carefully opening the bag to reveal a pair of white baby shoes, the most precious thing he could ever get you. Thomas looked at you with the same big smile that was on your lips and he hold your hand, he didn’t say much after, but your hand on his meant something for the both of you.

You gave birth to the most beautiful and precious baby girl. Polly and Ada were at tears when they first saw her and you could tell to have seen even Arthur shredding some tears and being scolded by John. You even shredded some tears. The love that you thought you couldn’t get and that you were never going to experience, it was all there in this tiny little girl. Charlie was absolutely in love with her, so much that it was hard to convince him that he was to big to sleep in the crib with her. You were looking at your baby girl, sleeping peacefully and there it was, the most beautiful piece of art you ever made. While this thought slid through your mind, Thomas wrapped his arms around your waste in a hug from behind, resting his chin on your shoulder and he smiled looking at his daughter “So darned beautiful” he whispered while looking at her, he was completely astonished and happy, so darned happy. “You both are” he then said holding you a bit tighter than before and this time, you believed him.

[just-dreaming-marvel]

Love and Medicine ~ 3

MASTERLIST

< previous chapter

Word Count: 4,600ish

Summary: The beginning of your intern year continues.

Warnings: man parts (lol) and talk about rape

You really tried your best, but you couldn’t get the image of a naked Dr. Steve Rogers on the floor of your living room out of your head. You had decided one night that, to help get the image out of your head, you needed roommates. The house that you had inherited was big enough and the longer you lived there, the lonelier it became. So, you created a ‘roommates wanted’ sign and posted it in the locker room before your shift.

You had several interns come up to you explaining why they would be the perfect roommate for you within the first few hours of your shift. It was annoying and you turned every single one of them down, being very particular about who was going to live with you.

“Why do you put up posters for roommates if you don’t want roommates?” Val asked as you, her, and Scott walked down a corridor.

“I do want roommates,” you defended. 

“And why can’t we be those roommates?” Scott wondered

“We’re just together a hundred hours a week, you want to live together too?”

“No,” Natasha responded, walking up to the group. “Ooh, you’re bringing bribes now?” She motioned to the cup of coffee in your hand.

“I need a place to live,” Scott rambled. “My mom irons my scrubs. I have to get out of there.”

“It’s not a bride,” you told Natasha before turning to Scott. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“But I can’t put down last, first, and deposit,” Scott argued.

“It’s totally a bride,” Natasha scoffed.

“I can cook,” Val added. “And I can clean.”

“No,” you stated. “I just want two total strangers who I don't have to talk to, or be nice to, and it's not a bribe, it's a mocha latte.”

“Clint, you’re running the code team,” Gamora ordered as you all walked up to her. “Y/N, take the trauma patients, Natasha, deliver the weekend labs to patients, Val, you’re on sutures, and Scott, you’re on scut.”

“Dr. Gamora,” you called. “I was hoping to assist you in the OR today, maybe do a minor procedure? I think I'm ready. Mocha latte?” You held the cup out for her.

“If she gets to cut, I want to cut too,” Natasha added.

“Yeah, me too,” Val joined in.

“I wouldn’t mind another shot,” Scott shrugged.

“And if everybody else gets one, then I do too!” Clint said.

“Stop talking,” Gamora demanded. You all fell silent. “Every intern wants to perform their first surgery, that's not your job. Do you know what your job is? To make your resident happy. Do I look happy? No. Why? Because my interns are whining. You know what will make me look happy? Having the code team staffed, having the trauma patients taken care of, having the weekend labs delivered, and having someone down in the Pit, doing the sutures.” She swiped the mocha latte from your hand. “No one holds a scalpel until I'm so happy I'm Mary freakin' Poppins.”

“Mocha latte my ass,” Natasha grumbled.

“Why’re y’all still standing there? Move!”

Everyone moved, you heading to the elevator with a few files. You paused in your steps when you noticed who was waiting at the elevator. Dr. Steve Rogers. You took a deep breath, trying to calm yourself, before making your way to stand and wait next to him. When he noticed you, he tried to hide the pleasant smile that wanted to take over his face.

“New York has ferry boats,” he stated.

“Yes,” you replied, a bit confused.

“I didn’t remember that. I grew up here then left, now I’ve been living here for six weeks, and I didn’t remember there were ferry boats.”

“Well, Manhattan is an island.”

“Hence the ferry boats.” The elevator arrived and the two of you stepped onto it. “Now I have to like it here. I wasn’t planning on liking it here. I just moved here from the country. I’m supposed to not like big cities like Manhattan. But I have a thing for ferry boats.”

The elevators doors closed, leaving them alone in the elevator. He was leaning against the wall behind you as you stood in the middle, holding the files to your body. You hoped that he couldn’t hear your heart pounding in your chest. 

“I’m not going out with you,” you blurted. You don’t know if you were trying to tell him that or if you were trying to convince yourself that you weren’t interested.

“Did I ask you to go out with me?” He questioned. He paused before asking the next, “Do you want to go out with me?”

“I'm not dating you. And I'm definitely not sleeping with you again. You're my boss.”

“I'm your boss's boss.”

“You're my teacher. And my teacher's teacher. And you're my teacher.”

“I'm your sister, I'm your daughter,” he joked.

“You're sexually harassing me.”

“I'm riding an elevator.” He stepped towards you, you could practically feel him breathing down your neck. You spun around to face him.

“Look, I'm drawing a line. The line is drawn. There's a big line.”

“So, this line. Is it imaginary, or do I need to get you a marker?”

You stared at him for a second, basking in all his attractiveness. It didn’t take you very long to go ‘screw it’ and drop the files you were holding and kiss him. Steve was a tad surprised but caught on quickly. When the elevator dinged, you quickly crouched down to pick up the files and rushed out of the elevator. Steve stood there, looking amused.

“We’ll talk later?” He called after you. You ignored him and he chuckled to himself. “Definitely, later.”

~~~

In between taking care of patients, you had interns begging you to let them be your roommate. You were slowly regretting the idea of roommates the longer the day went on. Thankfully, your pager rang and requested you down in the ER.

“You the surgeon?” A nurse asked as you entered the room.

“Yes,” you replied.

“We’ve got a rape victim. 21-year-old female found down at the park, status: post-trauma, she came in with a GCS of 6, BP 80 over 60, head trauma, unequal breath sounds, right pupil is dilated, and she's ready for x-ray. You ready to roll?” You were listening but also focused on the girl’s shoes. They were the same ones you had worn to work. “Hey!”

“Uh, sorry,” you stumbled. “Yeah. Call it in to clear CT, let them know I'm coming, load up the portable monitor, call respiratory for a ventilator, I'll get x-rays while I'm down there.”

You quickly learned that the girls name was Mallory and, just by you reading the scans alone, she would be needing surgery. Dr. Banner and Dr. Rogers were both called in while you were allowed to watch and hopefully assist.

“She’s going to spend a hell of a lot of time in recovery and rehab,” Dr. Rogers stated.

“If she survives,” Dr. Banner added.

“What is she, like, 5'2", a hundred pounds, she's still breathing after what this guy did to her? If they catch the guy, they should castrate him.”

“See how shredded her hands are? She tried to fight back.”

“Tried to?” Dr. Stark repeated, walking into the room. “Rape kit came back negative. She kicked his ass.”

“So, we have a warrior amount us, huh?” Rogers questioned. 

“Hell yeah we do! I just came in to tell you about the rape kit and to see if you needed me anytime soon. Can’t have the poor girl be reminded of the incident with so many scars.”

“Mallory,” you interrupted. “Her—her name is Mallory.”

“Mallory,” Rogers and Stark repeated. 

“I think I may have found the cause of our rupture,” Banner said, pulling out a piece of flesh. “What is this?” He held it up. “Does anyone know what this is?”

“Oh my gosh,” you gasped, with Dr. Stark snickering from the sidelines.

“What? Spit it out, L/N.”

“She bit it off.”

“Bit off what?”

“That’s his…” You swallowed. “His penis.” Shocked groans filled the OR. “She bit off his penis.”

“Told you she kicked his ass!” Stark exclaimed as Banner couldn’t toss the piece of flesh into the try fast enough. 

~~~

After the surgery, the penis was placed in a small cooler. You were tasked to bring it to Fury for the police. You knocked at the door of his office, where an older woman is in there.

“Hi, is the chief in?” You asked.

“He’s on his way,” she responded. “Is that it?”

“Can I see it?” You looked down at the box and then up again. “No, forget I asked.”

“Y/N, it’s good to see you,” Fury greeted as he entered, going to his desk.

“You too, sir,” you responded with a nod. “Listen, so they said to bring this to you,” you lifted up the cooler. “So…?”

“Yes, for the police,” Fury responded.

“Right.”

“When did the police say they'll come?” Fury asked his assistant.

“You know how slow they are,” she answered. “So, she’d better take it with her.”

“What?” You questioned.

“You have to take it with you.”

“Chain of custody rules,” Fury explained. “All medical matter in a rape must stay with the person who collected it, until it's placed in police custody.”

“You collected the specimen, so you have custody.”

“Custody of a penis…” You said.

“Yes,” Fury answered. “Until the cops come for it.”

“Okay. Well, what am I supposed to do with the penis?”

Fury simply shrugged before excusing you. You huffed, leaving the office with the cooler. You wandered the halls until you saw Clint working at a desk. You walked over, setting the cooler down and causing Clint to look up at you.

“What’s that?” He pointed to the cooler as he asked.

“Don’t ask, you don’t want to know,” you responded.

“I do want to know. Really.”

“You really want to know?” Clint nodded. “It’s a severed penis.”

“Okay… I didn’t really want to know.”

“Told you.”

“I didn’t know why I have to be the one who gets hugged,” Natasha complained to Peter as they walked up.

“Because, I don’t do that,” Peter replied. “Besides, you're the ovarian sister here.”

“Did you just call me an ovarian sis— an ovarian— since when has the possession of ovaries become an insult?”

“Y/N’s carrying a penis around in a jar,” Clint interrupted.

“Oh, from the rape surgery?” Natasha looked around.

“Yeah,” you answered. “And it’s not a jar, it’s a cooler.”

“Talk about taking a bite out of crime.” Natasha chuckled as she left.

You were suddenly lost in your head, unable to stop thinking about Mallory’s shoes. They were the same as yours. You had worn them to work today, which was weird. You never really wear them.

“You okay?” Clint asked.

“Yeah… it’s just… Mallory's shoes. The rape victim, Mallory, her shoes. I have the same ones. In my locker. And I normally never wear them, because they're not comfortable, but today I did, and she was wearing the same shoes, and it's just… stupid, and I'm tired, and forget it.”

“You know what you need?” Clint stared at you.

“No. It’s stick and twisted. We said last time was the last time.” Clint looked away. “You’ve been doing it without me?”

“Nancy Reagan lied. You can't just say no. Come on.”

“Do you know what would happen if anyone knew?”

“I'm doing it. You can come with me… or you can stay here, and be miserable.”

“Fine,” you tried to hold back a smile as you followed Clint. 

He led you to the nursery, where you two stood at the window and watched the babies. You laughed as Clint did some baby talk.

“You are such a woman,” you laughed.

Clint’s pager beeped before he could retorted. “It’s a code,” he sighed. “I gotta go.” 

He left, leaving you to sigh as you watched the babies.

“You are really cute,” you whispered as you looked at them.

As you watched them, you noticed at one of the babies was struggling. His face was slowly turning blue. You quickly entered the nursery, setting the cooler to the side before checking the babies chart. Then you sided your stethoscope to check on the babies heart.

“What are you doing in here?” A Peds Intern asked, walking into the room.

“There were no tests ordered,” you answered. “And the baby has a murmur.”

“I know.”

“He turned blue.”

“You're surgery, you're not authorized to be in here. Do you know how much trouble you can get into for this?”

“Are you going to do any tests?”

“It's a benign systolic ejection murmur. It goes away with age.”

“So you're not going to do any tests.”

“He's not your patient, he's not even on your service.”

“Are you sure it’s benign?”

“I'm a doctor too, you know. You should get out of here.”

Deciding you’d rather not get in trouble, you grabbed the cooler and left. You were stopped along your wandering by more interns who wanted to room with you. After having listened to three of them, you walked away, still unimpressed, and went to Mallory’s room. You were looking at her through the window when Dr. Rogers came up.

“Y/N,” he greeted. “I've called every hospital in the county. Sooner or later, the guy that did this is going to seek medical attention, and when he does, that penis you're carrying around is going to nail him.”

“Where is her family?” You asked.

“Doesn’t have any.”

“No siblings?”

“No. Both parents are dead. She just moved to New York three weeks ago. Welcome to the city.” When you didn’t give a response he turned to look at you. You were lost in your thoughts. “Y/N, you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. I just… I just have to do something. I have to go.”

“Right. I’m going to sit with her.”

You nodded before rushing away to find Dr. Banner.

“Dr. Banner?” You called when you saw him.

“Mmm?” He hummed, turning to face you.

“There's a baby up in peds, I saw him have a tet spell, and I think I hear a murmur.”

“Mmm. Did peds call us for a consult?”

“Actually, no. They’re not doing anything about it—“

“So you want me to what?”

“If you could just go up and look at him—“

“Mm-hmm, not without a Peds consult.”

“Yeah, but—“

“I’m a busy man, L/N, and there are rules. Look, it’s not like I’m the Chief or something.”

Then he stocked off, leaving you frustrated. 

“Stupid rules.”

~~~

Eventually, you found a spot in the lobby to sit. Just waiting for the cops to show up.

“What’re you doing down here?” Natasha asked when she came across you.

“Just sitting here with my penis,” you responded. “What about you?”

“Hiding from Peter.” She sat beside you.

“I kissed Steve.”

“You kissed Steve.”

“In the elevator.”

“Oh, you kissed him in the elevator.”

“I was having a bad day. I am having a bad day.”

“Oh, so this is what you do on your bad days. Make out with Captain McDreamy.” You both stood up.

“Well, that, and you know, carrying around a penis just makes everything seem so shiny and happy.”

“Mmm. Clint said Mallory was wearing your shoes.”

“Yeah. It’s weird, right?”

“I think it’s weird that you care.”

“I think it’s weird.”

From outside, a car swerves. You and Natasha could hear it from inside, causing you to rush out. A man staggered out of the car, clothes soaked in blood, mainly around his crotch. He collapses. Other doctors and nurses followed you out and immediately began checking on him. You immediately knew that the guy was the owner of the penis you had been carrying around all day. The other doctors brought him into a trauma room. You followed, quickly calling security.

“So, what’ve we got?” Gamora asked as she entered.

“Take a look,” you responded.

“What?” She leaned closer. “Alright, let’s get him to OR 1. Y/N, you call the Chief and let him know we got the rapist.”

~~~

You and Natasha were in the OR with Gamora and Stark. They were working on the rapist.

“I saw Mallory,” you said, eyes on the operating table. “You can’t believe the beating that she took. And then to see this…”

“It's like that old saying, you should see the other guy,” Natasha said.

“Okay, kiddos, why are we not attempting to reattach the severed penis?” Dr. Stark asked.

“Teeth don’t slice, they tear. You can only reattach with a clean cut. If she wanted to slice him off with a knife…”

“Besides,” you continued for Natasha, “the digestive juices didn't leave much of the flesh to work with.”

“Right,” Gamora agreed, “so what do we do?”

“Sew him up minus a large part of the family jewels,” Natasha answered.

“And his outlook?”

“He'll be urinating out of a bag for a very, very long time,” Natasha added.

“Oh, too bad.”

“Shame.”

“I can’t imagine not having sex,” Stark commented. “I think that I would just end my life if I couldn’t do a round every day.” Everyone looked at him. “What? It shouldn’t be that surprising.”

“No wonder, Dr. Potts keeps turning you down,” Gamora said.

“I’ll get her one day. Just you wait. I’m going to marry that woman if it’s the last thing I do.”

~~~

You met with the police after the surgery where they told you that they couldn’t send their crime scene guy down for hours. Annoyed, you searched for your intern friends. You found them in the empty corridor, sitting on the beds.

“So, the police say that they can’t send down the crack crime scene guy for hours,” you told them as you entered, sitting down beside Natasha. “So I have to spend the night with a penis. Peter, don’t say it.”

“Ahh, it was too easy anyway,” Peter responded.

“Who here feels like they have no idea what they’re doing?” Scott asked. Everyone of you, but Peter, raised a hand.

“I mean, are we supposed to be learning something?” Clint wondered. “Because I don’t feel like I’m learning anything.”

“Except how not to sleep,” Val added.

“It’s like there’s this wall,” Natasha said, “and the attending and the residents are over there, being surgeons, and we’re over here, being—“

“Suturing, code running, lab delivering penis-minders,” you grumbled.

“I hate being an intern,” Peter stated.

Gamora walked into the hallway, looking expectant. All of you interns quickly got up and took your leave. All the others had things to do, so you found yourself in front of the babies again. As you looked at the baby you’re so worried about, you noticed the parents. Taking a deep breath, you decided to go up to them.

“Hi,” you greeted with a soft smile.

“Hi,” the mother greeted back.

“Is he yours?” You nodded to the baby.

“Yeah,” the mother smiled.

“He’s adorable… Have you noticed anything that would concern you?”

“No,” the father responded. “Have you?”

“Earlier today I noticed him turning blue.”

“Blue?” The mother repeated.

“Yes. I checked him and I heard a murmur.”

“We were told that the murmur was benign,” the father stated.

“I don’t think it is. I think—“

“You are so out of line,” the Peds Intern interrupted.

“She says the murmur might not be benign,” the father said.

“I think we should do an echo, to check,” you suggested.

“This is your career,” the intern said, going to get her resident.

“There’s really no reason to get alarmed,” you told the parents.

“What’s the problem?” The resident asked, coming back with the intern.

“If our baby is sick, we want him treated,” the mother ordered. “Now.”

“Who said your baby was sick?”

“Her,” the Peds Intern answered, pointing to you. “The surgical intern who has no business on our service.”

“Who authorized you being here?”

“I was just,” you began, “actually—“

“I did,” Dr. Banner came up from behind you. “Could you excuse us for a second?” Dr. Banner took the resident to the side, but not far enough for you to not hear. “Are you messing with my intern, Dr. Keener?”

“No, sir,” the resident responded.

Dr. Banner turned back to you and the other intern. “Give me the chart.”

“There’s nothing wrong with him,” the intern said, giving up the chart, “I checked.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You can guarantee that he is fine, you are 100% sure.”

The intern looked hesitant.

“How sure are you?” The resident questioned.

“I don’t know,” the intern responded. “75%.”

“Not good enough,” Banner said. “He’s my patient now. That okay with you, Dr. K?”

“Absolutely,” the resident responded.

“He can take our patient?” The intern asked.

“He’s an attending.”

“Which means I can do whatever I want,” Banner replied before heading to the parents. “Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, I’m Dr. Banner, head of cardio. We’re going to run some tests and give you an answer within the hour. Excuse me.” He turned to you. “L/N.” He motioned for you to follow, which you quickly did. “I want an EKG, a chest x-ray, and an ECHO. I don’t have all day.”

“You’re a busy man.”

“I’m a busy man.”

You quickly ordered the tests then wandered the hospital more, since you weren’t allowed to do anything while you were watching the penis. After a little while, you found Dr. Banner again.

“Well?” You asked as you walked up to him.

“It’s a birth defect,” Dr. Banner replied. “Tetrology affirmed lower pulmonary artresia. You were right. I'm booking the OR for tomorrow.”

“Thank you for backing me up on this.”

“Whoa, whoa, wait, whoa. You were right. But if you ever pull a stunt like that again...going to the parents behind a doctor's back? Trying to steal a patient from another service? I will make your residency year hell on earth.”

He walked off and you smiled slightly to yourself. You made your way back to the babies, where you watched, from the other side of the window, Banner talk to the parents.

“His heart surgery is scheduled for the morning,” the Peds Intern told you. “I really did think I was right, you know.”

“I know. We almost never are. We're interns,” you responded. “We're not supposed to be right. And when we are, it's completely shocking.”

“Are you— I mean, being an intern, do you feel…”

“Terrified. 100% of the time.”

“Good, it’s not just me.”

“No.”

You decided, after finishing up with the babies, to go check on Mallory. When you arrived, you realized that Steve was still in there.

“How is she?” You asked, standing in the doorway.

“No change,” Steve answered with a sigh.

“Have you been here all night?”

“Mm-hmm. Yup… If I was in a comma, I’d want someone to be here. I know I would have people there. Having no one? Can’t imagine that.”

“I can.”

“Don’t you have any family?”

“I do. Just… I don’t think they’d come.”

Steve watched you carefully before speaking again. “So… we’re kissing but we’re not dating?”

“I knew that was going to come up.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I like the kissing. I’m all for the kissing. More kissing, I say.”

“I have no idea what that was about.”

“Is it going to happen again? Because if it is, I need to bring breath mints. Put a condom in my wallet.”

“Shut up now.” Steve laughed. “There was this baby up in the nursery. He's brand new. No one's neglected him or damaged him yet. How do we get from there to here? She's wearing my shoes and someone's beat the crap out of her, and she's got nobody.”

Suddenly, Mallory’s machine’s began beeping. You quickly hit an alarm on the wall.

“Her ICP’s double, get an OR!” Steve yelled. “Put her in for a craniotomy!”

~~~

You waited outside the OR, still watching over the stupid penis, while Steve operated on Mallory. You were nervous for her and felt bad that no one was there for her. Once the surgery was over, Steve exited the OR, walking past you. When he noticed you were there, he turned back.

“Hey,” he greeted. “I, uh, I had to leave her skull flap off, till the pressure in her brain goes down.”

“She’s not going to make it, is she?” You asked.

“She’s going to be fine.”

“If she ever wakes up.”

Steve nodded. “If she ever wakes up.” You nodded, biting your lip as you looked away. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” Your pager went off. You looked down to see it was the Chief. “I’ve gotta go. That’s the Chief. Maybe I can finally get rid of this thing.” You lifted the cooler slightly.

“Yeah,” Steve chuckled. “Good luck.”

~~~

“So here is where you put the signature, down here, the initials,” Fury’s assistant pointed out on a paper.

“Mmm,” you hummed with a nod, taking the paper and pen from her. “Okay.”

“It just says that the penis was never out of your sight.”

“Of course.” You sighed and handed over the paper. “There you go. One penis.” You glanced at the clock and realized that it was time for the baby’s surgery. “Am I all done here? I kinda want to go watch a surgery.”

“Sure.”

You tried to rush, but not rush, to the OR Dr. Banner was working in. When you arrived, you found a spot in the back.

“We'll be using a medium approach for a trans-ventricular repair with a right ventriculostomy,” Banner explained. “Let’s open him up. L/N!” He looked around for you.

“Yes, sir?” You replied.

“Go scrub in. When we've finished cracking the baby's chest, I'll let you hold the clamp.”

“Seriously?” You tried to contain your excitement.

“Don’t make me change my mind.”

You rushed to scrubbed in. And, let’s just say, holding onto that clamp was a rush and just what you needed to help brighten your shift. After that, you went to watch the babies, Val, Clint, and Scott all joining you.

You let out a sigh. “Okay, fine,” you relented. “You guys can move into the house.”

“Yes! Yes!” The guys shouted.

“I can’t believe you caved!” Val laughed.

“I can’t believe it either,” you mumbled, trying to hide the smile.

~~~

You changed out of your scrubs and stared at the shoes in your locker. You couldn’t stop thinking about how weird it was that you had decided to wear those shoes today. With determination, you shut the locker on your shoes and went to the elevator. Steve was there waiting.

“So… it’s intense…” he started. “This thing I have for, ah, ferry boats… I mean.”

You smiled at him. “I’m so taking the stairs this time.” You walked off.

“No self-control,” he called after you. “It’s sad. Really.” He chuckled to himself as you continued to walk away. “Wow… this is so—“

“Weird. It’s weird,” Dr. Stark came up, ready to go too. “Like I said before, that look is bad news. And you—“

“Didn’t I already tell you to shut it Tony?”

“Fine.” Tony held his hands up. “But, seriously, don’t come crying to me when it all blows up in your face.”

next chapter >

NOTES: from now on the taglist when be added by a reblog. I will reblog it using my second account, @just-dreaming-marvel-2​​. Just so that my main page doesn’t get too cluttered.

If you want to be added to the tag list, please dm me or send in an ask.

[abarbaricyalp]

I wish you would write a fic where Sam and Bucky have to hide in a super small closet during a mission and ~feelings~ happen

Ohohohoho, I also wish for me to write this fic

*Am always taking prompts for just about anything on my page*

Read on AO3

A Conversion of Worry and Love

Sam had told Bucky to just wear a coat instead of relying on the cybernetic mesh to hide his arm. But, no, Bucky wanted to test out the new tech himself.

It’s a gala, Sam, what could go wrong?

What a fucking asshole.

Sam skittered around a corner in the grand home of some shady diplomat, champagne and not much else sloshing in his stomach as he took off down the hall. The sounds of the chasing party were growing a little more distant--security guards trying to save face in front of the rest of the guests more than they were trying to catch Sam. He ducked down another hallway, a little darker, a little more off the path of the dinner, and leaned on his knees heavily to catch his breath.

Almost instantly, there were hands on him, yanking him off his feet and into a room. The door locked sinisterly behind him. When Sam tried to scramble away, he realized it was less a room and more of a closet. He fell into a shelf of furs and dust wafted into the air thickly, sending Sam into a coughing fit. It only earned a hand over his mouth.

But it was a hand he knew. Metal and gun oil and a slight golden glint in the light leaking in from the door.

“Mmmcky?” Sam asked and then gasped in a few more breaths when the hand finally fell away.

“I take it people saw the arm then?” Bucky said. Sam had never been so happy to hear a familiar voice. Sam heard Bucky shuffle around, more dust, and then a faint light from a small flashlight on one of the shelves. “I don’t want it to be visible under the door,” he explained.

“Yeah, people realized the Winter Soldier was at dinner with them,” Sam said drily. “And they came after Captain America when they couldn’t find you.”

Bucky tsked a little. “One day, someone’ll recognize us by face alone.” Suddenly he grimaced and reached for his side, sliding down the layers of shelves until he was sitting on the floor.

“Bucky? What’s wrong?” Sam asked as he tried to kneel by Bucky’s side. The closet was small and the protruding shelves didn’t help anything. Every shift of his body sent a shoulder or a knee crashing into something. The harder he tried to make sure that that something wasn’t Bucky, the more bruises he gave himself.

“It’s nothing, Sam,” Bucky answered. He fought Sam for a second when Sam reached over to pull his hand away from his side, but must’ve ultimately decided it wasn’t worth the effort and let Sam expose the tacky mess staining his shirt.

“Jesus, Barnes, you’ve been shot.”

“Grazed. I told you, it’s fine. It’ll heal.”

“Not if you bleed out all over this closet. Shit.” Sam shifted to straddle Bucky’s thighs, tugging his own jacket off and working on Bucky's button down shirt as carefully as he could. His knuckles scraped the wall, Bucky’s metal shoulder hit a shelf. They both smacked the door trying to get the shirt sleeve off of Bucky’s wrist.

Bucky couldn’t think about anything at all beyond the press of Sam’s legs against his, the brush of his arms as he worked, the touch of his fingers. He blamed all of it on the light headedness that was crawling through his skull.

“Can’t wait to tell the gossip rags about how you couldn’t wait to undress me at this dinner,” Bucky joked. He notably did not look down at the wound. Sam couldn’t look away from it.

“You don’t suppose there’s a first aid kit in here, do you?” he asked, chewing on his lower lip as he rifled through the stacks of coats and blankets around them.

“Oh, wait, I can probably help,” Bucky offered. He shifted and hissed in pain and reached into his pants pocket, producing three mini-bottles of alcohol.

“You’re kidding me,” Sam deadpanned.

“They were by the door! What, I wasn’t supposed to take any? You said we were supposed to act like this was just a party.”

Sam glared at him and grabbed the whisky bottle. “You couldn’t have grabbed water or something. There’s no soap or hand sanitizer in your endless pockets?”

“Someone said I couldn’t wear tac pants and soap isn’t as fun as alcohol,” Bucky defended.

They both stilled and fell silent as boots stormed past the door. Sam could feel Bucky’s breath on his cheek, his blood slick fingers curled around Sam's wrist, the heat pooling around them.

“All clear. Keep someone posted in the hall,” a voice barked and boots stormed past again.

Sam shifted away for a second, let Bucky’s hand fall to his thigh instead, and freed his shoulder holster. “Here, bite on this,” he ordered quietly. “We can’t risk you making noise while I work.”

Real terror flashed over Bucky’s face as he looked at the holster. His jaw tightened and he jerkily shook his head. “Could you just…” He trailed off and then reached for Sam’s wrist again, bringing Sam’s hand up to his mouth.

Sam let out an aggrieved breath and nodded, pressing his hand more firmly over Bucky’s mouth before opening the bottle with his teeth and then pouring the contents over Bucky’s side. Bucky strained under him, but Sam was able to hold him still enough until Bucky remembered that he was trained for this, that he could grit his teeth and fight through pain and be quiet.

“There’s got to be something in here we can shred and use as a bandage,” Sam said a few breaths later. His hand fell from Bucky’s mouth and Bucky dropped his head back against the shelf behind him. He tried to focus on the burning in his side and not the scalding memory of Sam’s palm over his jaw.

“All this fur isn’t gonna help shit,” Sam continued, tossing aside coats and wraps and scarves. “And all the rest is so damn dusty I’d probably give you an infection.”

“It’s fine,” Bucky reminded again. “I’ll heal.”

“Shut up, Barnes. Give me that jacket.” They'd both be bloody by the time they had to leave and ruining the jacket would mean they couldn't hide it, but it was the only material Sam had to work with

Bucky passed over Sam's jacket and Sam kneeled over Bucky’s thighs again, holding the balled up material against the wound firmly. Bucky’s hands fluttered over his before finally settling on Sam’s forearm.

The noise of a group walking down the far hallway floated under the door and then dissipated. “Why are you doing this? You’ve seen me take worse,” Bucky pointed out finally.

“Just because you can handle it doesn’t mean you have to. I have the training to make it hurt less,” Sam said. He looked away from Bucky’s face to watch the light strip under the door. In the blue glow of the flashlight, Bucky looked more pallid than he should and Sam didn’t want to see it.

“I have the training too. Sometimes resources don’t have to be wasted.”

Bucky felt something thrill all the way through him at the way Sam’s eyes snapped back to his face. “You’re not a waste of resources, Bucky,” he said so seriously that Bucky had to laugh. Sam’s hand was back over his mouth, warm and firm and grounding. “I’m serious. Be quiet.”

Bucky pulled Sam’s hand away. “You’d be the only person to think a man who can heal himself isn’t a waste of medical supplies.”

“I’m using a three ounce bottle of whisky and a ripped suit jacket. It’s hardly a hospital grade job we’re doing here. And even if I was…” Sam’s eyes slid away and he chewed on his lip again. “It’d still be worth it, alright?”

Bucky brought his fingers up to Sam’s jaw, tracing along the curve of it slowly. Then he patted Sam’s cheek and closed his eyes. “You’re insane,” he said.

Sam rolled his eyes and shifted around to grab the jacket again. He carefully wrapped it around Bucky’s waist and tied the pieces of what was left together to hold the ball in place. Bucky grabbed his arm again, one hand going to the back of Sam’s head to hold him close. Sam tensed for a second before he relaxed, dropped his head to Bucky’s shoulder, wrapped an arm around his back.

“Relax, Sam,” he sighed softly. “I’m fine.” Sam didn’t sit back, didn’t look over at Bucky. “You know, I had a little sister. And Steve, but if I panicked every time he got hurt, I’d have had an aneurysm before I turned fourteen. Anyway, I had a little sister. She was six years younger than me, which gave me a lot of time to worry about her when I didn’t know how to worry.

“Mom always said I never let anyone else hold her. I always said someone was hurting her head or pinching her arm. She said Becca never actually hit the ground when she was learning to walk because I was always there to catch her.”

Sam snorted and turned his head against Bucky’s shoulder. It was an awkward angle and he mostly got stubble in his line of sight. The closet was getting too warm to be sitting like this and he knew he shouldn’t be putting undue stress on Bucky’s abdomen but he couldn’t convince himself to peel away from being able to feel Bucky’s pulse under his cheek.

“I remember one time, when I was sixteen and working on the docks, I came home late. I’d been out with Steve or something. And no one had told me Becca was gonna be home alone and she’d hurt herself earlier the day. Cut up her leg something bad. She wouldn’t tell me what she’d done, so she’d probably been climbing in our parents’ closet, looking for hidden treasures, y’know. And I remember looking at her and this bruise crawling over her leg and then I passed out ‘cause I forgot to breathe.”

“Is there a point to this story, Barnes?”

“Yeah, yeah, the point is that she was just about totally fine. She’d been home all day, hadn’t gotten help from a neighbor, had cleaned the cuts herself, was running around with friends the day after while I was confined to my bed ‘cause they couldn’t tell if I had a concussion from hitting my head. The point is, all that worry didn’t do anyone any good. No amount of trynna protect her beforehand kept her from climbing in the house while she was alone. When I did get home and saw it, I wasn’t any use to her ‘cause I was panicking so bad, so it didn’t matter. She actually ended up running out on that bad leg to get Steve to help wake me up.

“I think--and stop me if I’m getting too deep for you, Wilson--but I think that worry is just an overflow of helplessness and...love. Loving something and knowing you can’t always be there to protect it. Her. Him. Me. Whatever. Maybe it would’ve been more useful to let Becca skin her knees while she was learning to walk so she’d know the perils of adventuring. Maybe I should’ve let someone else hold her and catch her for when I couldn’t be there. Maybe I should’ve let someone else share that worry, take some off my shoulders.

“Becca could scrap with the best of them. She was constantly bruised and scraped up, like a half-decade-younger Steve. No matter how many people I yanked aside by a collar or shouted at across the street, she always found trouble to get into. And she didn’t learn it on her own, y’know. She learned it from following me around. She was copying me. All that worry, all that protection, and she’d always rather just love me and be loved by me. She just wanted to spend time with her brother and grow up like him.

“I can’t change who we are, Sam. This profession we’re in, or the fact that people are gonna manage to spill their drinks on incredibly expensive cybernetic mesh when I didn’t even earn having a drink thrown in my face,” Bucky said, brushing his hand over the back of Sam’s head, down to his neck to massage a knot, and then back up. “But I can tell you that I’m not gonna try’n give you any more reason to worry about me than you need. I can tell you I know when I need to go get help from the neighbors and when I can just throw some rubbing alcohol on it and get back to looking for Christmas presents. It kinda feels like it’s just us sometimes. I don’t have a Steve to go run to when you pass out from anxiety over something that isn’t worth it. And, honestly Sammy, I can name about a thousand other ways you can put all that extra love to use.”

Sam hadn’t even realized his eyes had fallen shut listening to Bucky talk, that the racing of his heart had changed course from a building panic attack he hadn’t even been able to recognize to something that was blooming between his ribs. A heart not racing away from something but towards something, always towards the same thing recently.

He sat back enough to finally look at Bucky again. Some of the color had come back to cheeks during his speech and his eyes were damn near glowing in the light from the flashlight. “I don’t have panic attacks over you,” he lied, “but if I did, they’d be worth it. You’ve got to stop saying you’re not worth things. You’re worth it to a lot of people. You’re worth a lot of shit to a lot of people. And I don’t mean you’re a valuable...asset or whatever. You’re worth the worry and the love, Bucky. You’re worth taking care of. You always have been.”

Bucky brought his hand back to Sam’s cheek, curling the tips of his fingers behind his jaw and pulled him forward. Their mouths managed to meet without noses or teeth getting in the way. Sam’s hand found Bucky’s ribs, the opposite side of the graze, and Sam just about let himself melt against Bucky as Bucky leaned up into him.

Sam couldn’t tell if he gasped or Bucky, but they both pulled back enough to rest their foreheads together. “Do you feel better?” Bucky asked with a small smile.

“I think I’ve still got some of that excess love-worry to work through. Why don’t we try burning some more up?” he suggested with his own grin.

His mouth met Bucky’s again.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

"you're not helping..."

CW: Teenage OCs (Izzy is 17, Jamie is 14), children of whumper and whumpee, trauma response, referenced past captivity with parental whumper/child abuse but the references are vague

Jax Gallager (referenced) belongs to @comfy-whumpee

Izzy is seventeen years old when she grabs the post to bring it inside on her way in after school and comes to a sudden stop just outside the door, staring down at the envelope, battered and beaten after its long journey not just across a country but over an ocean and through customs, too.

Her little brother Jamie very nearly walks into her, lost in his own game on his phone, and he just barely swings to the side to avoid her. “Iz!” When she doesn’t react, he pauses. He’s taller than she is already, and sure to be even taller before he’s done growing. 

Where Izzy is all skinny knees and sharp elbows, her brother has the sort of bulk that’ll turn to muscle with time. He’s a gentle sort of giant, and it’s concern and not annoyance that shifts in his expression as he reads the wide-eyed stare in hers. “Izzy? What’s up?”

Izzy swallows, her throat clicking so loud she’s surprised the flock of birds lurking in the gutters and on the roof of the place next door don’t take off startled by the sound. She can’t, for a moment, remember how to speak.

She can’t remember how to breathe.

She just holds the card out for Jamie to look at as heat burns behind her eyes, her heart racing. She feels inside her the absurd urge to be polite and sweet and well-mannered. To somehow try to ensure safety in an unsafe space.

But she’s not there anymore.

She’s not there. She’s here.

And still... 

Jamie takes the envelope slowly, looking over it himself, his lips moving as he reads the return address. Then he pales, lips thinning. “How-”

“I don’t know,” Izzy whispers. “She’s not supposed to know where we live, Jamie. She-... she’s n-not allowed, but that’s... that’s her handwriting, that’s-... she isn’t supposed to know-”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, Iz.” Jamie glances towards the door - Jax is inside, and he’ll know if they’re more than ten minutes late either way, he’ll be looking at the clock and thinking about their safety, worrying over them the way Izzy worries over everything, too. “Look, hide it and we’ll look at it in your room, yeah? I’ll handle Dad.”

She nods, a jerky sort of motion, but she stuffs the envelope into her school bag and the two of them head inside. Izzy blames a headache for being quiet and if their dad suspects, he doesn’t say anything, just lets her go to lie down in her room. Jamie takes more time, talking about his day, getting something to eat and drink.

His skin prickles with impatience, with the need to go look. Izzy’s terror doesn’t translate to him - he mostly feels curious about the woman who makes up half his genes, who he has no memory of at all. Curious, and angry on behalf of a father and sister who struggle with what she did to them. Maybe a little angry that this shadowy woman built the boundaries of his life and made the fears that keep his father and sister up at night, and he doesn’t even remember her. 

Plus, he doesn’t want Izzy to be scared alone. That’s been their deal his whole life, their agreement - Izzy doesn’t have to be scared alone. They’re scared together, and brave together. 

His lips move in memorized words like a prayer as he heads down the hall. He’s been prepared for them to have to be brave together his entire life, urged on by Izzy’s careful planning, the go-bags they still keep hidden from their fathers, just in case. 

My name is James Timothy Gallagher and my sister is Isabella Nicole Gallagher...

Please don’t let this be something like that.

She’s not on the bed when he comes in with a bag of crisps and some water. He finds her pushed against the wall under a blanket between the bed and her desk with a flashlight, still staring at the writing on the envelope.

“Someone e-else wrote the address,” She says when Jamie pulls up the edge of the blanket and sits beside her, squeezing into the tiny space as best he can. Her voice is shaking and her eyes are red-rimmed but dry. “Not M-Mom. She wrote my name, but... but that’s it. Oh, God, she started writing Isabella M-Marcoset and had to cross it out-”

“Bint,” Jamie says amiably. “Everything’s Gallagher now. But there you go.” He nudges her with an elbow. “She doesn’t know where we are, still, right? Someone else wrote it for her.”

“That’s n-not helping,” Izzy says, and sniffs. “That means someone helped her send it, someone who does know, someone w-who-... I can’t. I can’t look.”

“Probably her lawyers or something, they’d have our address I guess. If we tell Dad he’ll rip them to shreds over it, you know his lawyer chews them up for breakfast. If you can’t look, I can.” Jamie takes the envelope from her before she can stop him and tears it open, casually ripping half the envelope apart to get to what’s inside. 

When he finds it, he blinks. “What the fuck?”

“Don’t let Dad hear y-you say that,” Izzy says automatically, with a weak smile.

“Like he’s one to say much. I think you mean don’t let Kie hear me say that.” Jamie’s eyes roam over the contents of the envelope. “Iz, this is a card for you.”

Izzy looks slowly over, peering through her fingers.

On the front, it’s pastel pink bordering a black-and-white print of a child’s chubby hand against a polka-dot dress. 

It’s okay to miss your mom, the outside of the card reads.

Izzy’s lips pull back from her teeth in a snarl.

Jamie opens the card to read what’s inside, in his soft voice. He might look more like the Marcoset side than his sister does, but his voice is nearly indistinguishable from his father’s when he speaks softly like this. “... Because she sure misses you. Though we've grown apart, I really do miss you. I remember my sweet little girl on her special day. Happy birthday, Isabella. And she wrote in here her prison address to write back. Tell me about you. Love, Mom.”

He sits there for a second in silence and then says, slightly dumbfounded, “Well, shit.”

Izzy starts to cry, hands pressed over her mouth to keep it silent.

The tears run in a waterfall, burying themselves in the minute space between hands and skin. She tastes salt at the corners of her lips. Jamie slides an arm around her shoulders and pulls her close, pressing a kiss to her chopped-short hair, starting to slowly grow out on one side. 

“Oh, Iz. D’you want me to get Dad?”

She shakes her head viciously, little hitched sobs and half-sounds coming from her and little more. Even if Jax had his ear pressed to her door, he wouldn’t hear her, Jamie thinks. His big sister learned how to cry silently, to keep herself safe by not doing anything to bring her mother’s attention on her.

She knew how to be silent out of fear before she learned how to speak in full sentences. Jamie heard someone say that, once, he can’t remember who. He wasn’t supposed to hear it.

They tried not to let him see how hurt she was, but Jamie has always known his sister was shattered and he wasn’t, and he’s always felt like he has to be the one who stays whole for her. 

“Please, Iz. He’ll know what to say. I, I don’t know what to do-”

“It’s not my birthday.”

Her words are muffled behind her hands at first, and so quiet he nearly misses them even in the stuffy silence under the blanket.

“What?”

“The-... the c-card said happy birthday, but my birthday was... was seven m-months ago.” Izzy’s tears turn to bitter, cynical laughter, no less worrying than the crying had been, still nearly soundless. “She doesn’t even know when my fucking b-birthday is. You’d think since s-s-she’s the one who fucking made me-... oh, my God. She doesn’t even know my birthday.”

“No, I-... I guess she... doesn’t.” Jamie opens the card again to look it over. He hadn’t even thought about that, but now looking, he can’t help but start to laugh, too. “Iz, why’d she-... she could have just asked someone when your birthday was, it’d be in the court stuff, right? Birth certificate and shit?”

“Right. She wouldn’t want people to kn-know she didn’t remember. Or she just didn’t care.” Izzy’s shoulders shake, now, laughter or tears or both. “She doesn’t want to know me, she can’t even bother to know my fucking birthday. She’ll just-”

“Ask about Dad,” Jamie whispers.

“Right.” Izzy stares down at the card, then hands Jamie the flashlight and takes the card right out of Jamie’s hands and tears it right down the center, then again, and again, and again. The sound of the thick cardstock paper shredding is the loudest sound in the room.

“She doesn’t fucking know me, she doesn’t know anything about me, she doesn’t know she doesn’t know me and she doesn’t even fucking want to try-”

Finally, when all that’s left is a scattering of little bits of paper with the occasional visible word, like the world’s most irritating puzzle, Izzy shoves the blanket off entirely, picks up the pile in both hands and throws it up into the air, giving another bitter laugh as the pieces float down like confetti. 

“She can’t even be scary right,” Izzy declares, and Jamie watches his big sister force down her fear to mock the monster under the bed, the nightmare mother who never quite leaves her mind. “That’s how awful Mom is. Even when she’s trying to scare me, she can’t do it r-right.”

“I don’t think she meant to be scary,” Jamie says, a little hesitantly. “I think that was her trying to be our mam and fucking that up.”

“Well, she’s not a mam, is she? She’s not. She’s a fucking... she’s... Fuck her!” Izzy sweeps up the scattered bits of card and dumps them into the little bin she keeps by her bed, covers them with some tissues to hide them from anyone who might see. 

She turns to look at Jamie. “Don’t tell Dad, okay? He doesn’t need to know about this.”

“Iz...” Jamie stands and reaches out to pluck a piece of card that had gotten stuck in her hair. There’s a clearly recognizable Isab- visible on it. “You should tell him.”

“But you won’t.” Izzy’s eyes search his, looking up at her younger brother. They’ve always trusted each other, been each other’s backup more than anyone else, in the way of children who know they might have to keep each other safe when adults can’t. “Promise, Jamie. Promise you won’t tell Dad.”

“I promise,” Jamie says, uneasily. “I won’t tell, Iz. But you still should. Or at least tell therapy, or... something. Not just sit on this like it didn’t happen.”

Izzy doesn’t say anything either way, half-chasing him from her room so she can duck into the little bathroom and wash her face, wiping away the evidence of her tears, leaving only the hint of red in the corners of her eyes to give her away. 

She comes out and blames it on her headache, promises Jax she’s taken something for it, disappears back into her room. He can’t tell if Jax believes her - their dad is hard to read sometimes. But... Jamie thinks maybe he knows something’s up. 

Jamie settles down to play his game on his phone a while longer in the living room, and he wonders if she’s in there digging the pieces of the card back out to put in the box under her bed she thinks nobody else knows about.

But he knows.

He’s seen the CD cases, printed out photos from old interviews, an old magazine she’d nicked from a hair place after getting her hair cut once. Their mother’s face again and again and again, younger or older, in prison and before prison and between prison, too. 

The monster literally under the bed. 

He should tell Jax, probably. It can’t be healthy, to keep all those things. Right? But he can’t bring himself to break her trust, when Izzy trusts almost nothing and no one outside her own home. He can’t be the one to wreck even that for her. 

He can’t.

He promised. 

Jamie glares down at his game, the little tinny sound coming from his phone’s speakers, a repetitive melody, the soft sound of explosions. 

He should tell Jax.

He should tell Kieran, maybe.

But he swore he wouldn’t, and they’ve always been there for each other even when no one else could be, and so Jamie doesn’t tell anyone at all.

-

@astrobly @finder-of-rings @burtlederp @wildfaewhump @moose-teeth @orchidscript @sableflynn @raigash @whumptywhumpdump  @eatyourdamnpears @pretty-face-breaker 

[jugandbettsdetectiveagency]

nancy/ace; 2x12 drabble

Nancy always believed in what she could see.

It was one of the reasons she loved mysteries so much. Picking up on the trail of evidence that got left behind, no matter how hard the culprit tried to cover their tracks, piecing it together like a boxless jigsaw until the last clue snapped into place to reveal the whole picture. Something that had always existed before it was scattered for her to find. Things you could touch and look at and hold in your hands beyond dispute.

Even when the supernatural introduced itself Nancy still clung to those last shreds of disbelief, waiting until the thing stepped directly into her path and shoved seaweed down her throat.

It’s why she could never reconcile herself with the idea of fate. The tapestry of the universe wasn’t woven with invisible threads of sitting back and letting things happen to you. She hated that phrase; what will be will be, said the receptionist at her dad’s old law offices when Nancy told her she was hoping to get into Columbia.

No, thought Nancy. What will be is what she will make happen. Or not, as turned out to be the case a year later.

Her staying in Horseshoe Bay, taking a job at The Claw, solving the mysteries of Lucy Sable and Tiffany Hudson (the mystery of herself), were direct consequences of her actions, and she had to own up to that and all that followed or she’d never be able to keep everything straight in her head.

Only that hard line of decisions seemed to be getting harder to walk these days.

Nancy didn’t believe in fate, but then it dressed itself up as a lunch table on a drab day on the coast of Maine. Rain tapping gently at the windows. Perfectly cooked, fresh clam chowder steaming in a bowl on the counter, and a group of friends that shouldn’t all be sitting where they’re sitting, indulging in each other’s company simply because they can. Because they want to.

It felt impossible, to have fallen into a family she hadn’t even known she’d been looking for. Except she couldn’t walk it back. Nancy had tried, in moments of quiet between one murderous entity and the next, to follow the line back that led her to deserving this. To have found best friends, and confidants, and sisters, and—

—And now...

She’s having trouble believing that Ace is okay. Even though he’s there. Sitting on the bench in the middle of the locker room when she pushes the door open slowly, drawing the moment of anticipation out in case it was all just a dream. They didn’t get there in time, or she didn’t call Celia. Didn’t bargain away her only chip against the Hudsons without a second of hesitation.

But he’s right here and she’s sitting so close to him before she even realises what she’s doing, can feel the heat coming off his back in steady waves. She can still remember the force of his embrace, returning hers in equal measure. Can still feel the pounding of his heart against her chest as she held on like he was still balanced on that ledge, poised to fall.

She can still remember that feeling, a blow to the stomach, winding her. A helpless realisation, like she’s the one that just stepped off a precipice and the ground is rushing up to meet her.

The disappointment colouring Ace’s expression is the one thing that refuses to fade as she runs her eyes over the back of his head and the sliver of his face she can see from where he sits, still turned away from her.

His anger towards her is rolling off him in quiet pulses.

Any other day, any other situation, she’d have no qualms about cornering him, forcing his attention, and asking just where he thinks he gets off making her feel guilty for saving him over someone else. Like there was ever another option. Like, despite every belief she’s ever held, she had a choice other than keeping him.

But no matter how many times she imagines rounding the bench and letting her frustrations flow out of her until she’s hollow, it doesn’t come.

If only she could see his eyes. The one part of his face he can’t keep closed off even when the rest of him is carefully stoic.

He won’t look her in the eye and she can’t see that he just intrinsically understands why she had to do it. Needs to see that he’s still there, still Ace, still the person—

All she needs is for Ace to look her in the eye.

A brief flicker in her direction. Not enough.

She feels sufficiently chastised and the need to get away flares hotly in her cheeks.

“You—” Nancy starts, rising quickly from the bench. Ace turns his head subtly, enough to let her know he’s listening. “You’ll keep digging with The Road Back? Keep me up to date with anything you find?”

Ace nods, a terse movement that wedges something thick in the back of her throat. “Of course.” He turns the device over in his hands sombrely.

Nancy blinks rapidly, pulling in a shallow breath. “I’m glad your mom’s safe,” she says to Grant, a wobbly smile dragging itself to her lips.

If Grant can sense how off kilter they are he’s gracious enough not to mention it. “Me too. Thank you, seriously. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without your help. Both of you.”

Any more words escape her after that, so Nancy just nods and turns to leave.

The air inside her car is cold but she doesn’t start the engine right away. Her head is a whirlpool of conflicting emotions and she has nowhere to put them other than—

She pulls her phone out of her bag and dials.

“Hey, it’s me. Are you busy tonight?”

“Coming over?” Gil asks, an uptick of excitement in his voice.

Nancy closes her eyes and leans her head back. “Yeah. Be right there.”

[mothandpidgeon]

THE SINS OF THE FATHER - a Molly York story

(gif by @pajamasecrets)

PROLOGUE

MASTERLIST

Characters: Dave York, Molly York (Carol and Alice, too)

Words: 1400

Rating: T

Warnings: character death (canon), loss of a parent, angst, training your daughter to be an assassin?

Summary: Dave York starts training his daughters young. One day Molly might have to put her training to good use...Grappling with the sudden death of her father, Molly York grows up trying to fill the gap he left in her life. And looks for answers.

a/n: So I wrote this drabble the other morning and it got stuck in my head and so here is a Molly York revenge story. I didn't mean for this to be a series but I think I will be posting this in 3 parts so stay tuned for the rest.

Thanks @purplepascal042 for reading this over and being so kind I almost cried!

“Molly, without turning around, how many people are sitting behind you,” Dave asks at the restaurant.

Molly pulls the straw of her milkshake away from her lips, her eyes sliding to their peripheries.

“I don’t remember,” she tells him.

“Sure you do. Trust your gut.”

She sighs and thinks hard, he can see it on her face, recalling the fat couple and the table of teenagers and the bald man sitting at the bar.

“Seven?”

Dave smiles. “Just checking how observant you are. Do you know what observant means?”

“Yeah, Dad,” Molly says, rolling her eyes. She turns around to check her work and Dave can see she’s satisfied with herself when she goes back to her milkshake.

Molly knew it was bullshit even before Capra. She could just feel it.

“An accident.” That’s what Mom had said when she sat Molly and Alice down to break the news to them. Their father, David York, was dead.

“Is he in the hospital?” Alice asked, confusion pulling at her little features.

Mom tried to hold back the fresh round of tears that the question elicited.

“No, baby. I’m sorry, baby,” she said.

Alice was too young to understand and Mom was too broken hearted to explain it. Molly didn’t ask any questions because she didn’t believe it. Dad didn’t have accidents. She’d never seen him trip or drop anything or even stumble over a word. A dark, slick feeling in the pit of her stomach told her something terrible had happened.

“He loved you both very much,” Mom said. And when Molly didn’t respond she asked, “Did you hear me?”

“We were going to play softball on Saturday,” Molly said.

She was lying even now that he was gone. They never played softball or went rollerblading or spent the afternoon at the air and space museum. They had their own adventures. That’s how Molly saw them. Dad sometimes called them missions. He liked to take her shooting on the weekends. Or they’d go hiking. Occasionally they would just go for a jog in the park and then Molly would practice her karate. She loved sharing these secrets with her dad. And if she kept on lying about their missions, maybe they didn’t have to be over.

Molly felt numb. She kept waiting for Dad to come back. But he never did.

“Where are you going, Daddy?” Molly asks on an afternoon together.

“On business, kiddo,” Dave tells her.

“Yeah but where?”

“I’m going to the beach.”

“Can I come?” she asks.

“No, baby, I’m going to be working,” he says and when she huffs he laughs.

Something comes over him, a bittersweet feeling. He has it often around the girls, when he remembers they won’t be so little forever. Just yesterday he was carrying Molly to the nursery in the hospital, small enough to fit in the crook of his arm. But this feels stronger than usual. He tries to memorize how she looks right now. He runs his hand over her long hair.

“Maybe next time,” he says. “Will you take care of Mommy and Alice when I’m gone?”

Molly promised she would. She made that her mission. She kept her grades up so that Mom never had to worry. She could tell when the weight of being a single mother was too much on Carol’s shoulders. If her mother’s eyes were ringed with red, the next day Molly would surprise her by doing all of the dishes before she got home from work.

She took care of Alice, too. When her sister was in the school play, Molly didn’t miss a single performance. She beat up one of the girls that bullied Alice. And, in high school, when she found out Alice’s boyfriend cheated on her, Molly filled his gas tank with sugar.

Molly went from karate to Krav Maga. She wanted to be able to take care of herself, too. She joined an archery team. She went on long runs when she felt lonely.

Years passed and Molly saw more and more of her father when she looked at herself in the mirror. She’d inherited his soft eyes and she had dimples in both of her cheeks. She’d also gotten his nose which she would have hated if it hadn’t reminded her of him.

Molly was packing for college, her 18th birthday on the horizon, when she found the note. She’d been worried about leaving home, leaving Mom and Alice on their own. But it had gotten harder here. Molly’s energy was more and more restless and some days she just wanted to disappear.

She ran her fingers nostalgically over the things she was leaving behind in her room. A music box, a medal, an ugly ceramic bowl she’d made in art class.

At the end of her bookshelf was a hardcover that hadn’t been touched in years. Dad had been reading Harriet the Spy with her. They’d never finished it and Molly had never been able to bring herself to open it again. Carefully, she lifted it off of the shelf, the dust jacket sticking slightly to the book beside it. Maybe she would take it with her and finish reading it. She flipped through the pages, admiring the little illustrations. The book fell open to the page they’d left off on, a little piece of note paper stuck in as a bookmark. Molly saw the handwriting on it and immediately recognized it.

It always shook Molly to see her father’s writing. She would turn over every scribble she found for secret meaning. This was just a phone number and the name Capra. Molly suddenly remembered her father giving it to her before he left on one of his business trips.

If anything happens and you can’t reach me, call this number.

She stared at it for a long time wondering what would’ve happened if she’d called that number all those years ago. Before she knew what she was doing, Molly was dialing it on her cell phone. It rang for a long time before someone answered.

“Yeah?”

It was a woman’s voice. For a second, Molly had an awful thought, her heart plummeting. But Dad wouldn’t have given her this woman’s phone number if something...like that was going on, right?

“Is this Capra?” Molly finally found her voice.

“Who is this?” the woman asked.

“I think you knew my dad. Dave York?” Molly said.

There was a pause and then, “You’ve got the wrong number.”

And she hung up.

“Molly Carolina, what are you doing in here?” Dave growls when he finds Molly in his study.

“I need a piece of paper,” she explains.

She’s got a file in her hand and Dave knows what’s inside of it. His whole body tenses. He keeps those things locked in a drawer, shreds them as soon as he’s finished with them. He’d just stepped out of the room for a minute.

“If you need something, ask for it,” he tells her. “What have I told you about privacy?”

Molly swallows.

“Would you like it if I went in your room and read your diary?”

Molly’s eyes flash with anxiety. “No.”

“May I have that?” Dave asks.

She hands over the file, whispers, “Sorry,” and scuttles out of the room.

It was so mysterious. Molly had dialed correctly. And she knew the woman on the other end was Capra. She felt it in her gut. Molly was about to dial again when her phone rang. Blocked.

“How did you get my number?” Capra asked.

“My, my dad gave it to me...when I was a kid,” Molly stammered.

“What do you want?” the woman asked.

Molly didn’t know. She hadn’t had a plan. Christ, had she called hoping this Capra person could turn back time?

“Did you know my dad?” Molly asked.

As the years went by, she’d realized there were pieces of him that she’d never gotten to see. Mom had filled in some blanks but Molly was never satisfied. If she’d shared missions with him, he must have had other secrets.

“I didn’t think I’d hear from you,” Capra sighed.

Capra offered a time and place to meet and quickly got off of the phone. Molly was dumbfounded but she had an old feeling creep over her– an excitement and eagerness that she felt on weekend adventures with Dad. She was going on a mission.

/ / / / / / / part 2

let me know if you'd like to be tagged!

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[sweetyyhippyy]

Part of You. Spencer Reid x OC! Character. Chapter 6.

Chapter 6: Birthday

(not my gif)

Summary: The morning after last chapter. Spencer and Bridgett spend the day together, being cute, having breakfast, and talking about the future. 

Pairing: Season 6 Spencer Reid x OC! Plus size character, Bridgett Mendez.

TW: Small talk about the night before, start of sexy time, a cuss word I think? 

Word count: 2.4k

A.N.: I’m really sorry, this chapter is filler so it’s not the best. There is some fluff sprinkled throughout the chapter so hopefully you’ll like it! This is still season 6 Spencer! Also, if you reblog this chapter I will follow you!! 

______

Spencer turns over, stretching his body and opening his eyes to see the back of Bridgett’s head next to him, her hair tied up on her head. She managed to push the covers down from around her body to her hip, her entire back exposed to him while she was sleeping away. She ran hot most nights, especially when Spencer was cuddled up behind her.

Spencer wraps his arms around her, moving closer to her naked body. Bridgett was cold to the touch as he hugged her close. His fingers trace from her hip bone, up her curves and across her back over a red bite mark on her right shoulder from last night, then around to the side of her neck to the hickies he had left on his girlfriend, kind of concerned he had hurt her. Bridgett’s body shutters next to him, a low moan coming from her as she stirs next to him.

“Shhh, go back to bed.” He whispers in her ear, rubbing her shoulder lightly.

“That tickles, I can’t go back to bed.” Bridgett mutters despite her eyes still being closed. She lets out a laugh feeling how softly his fingers were touching her bruised skin, feeling the dull soreness on the side of her neck.

Spencer leans on his arm and drops down to kiss her cheek multiple times. She hums in happiness finally opening her eyes and laying on her back to face Spencer. Bridgett lightly touches Spencer’s exposed collarbone with her fingers, making him shiver in return. Spencer moves to lay his body on top of Bridgett, resting his head in between her shoulder and neck, leaving little kisses on her skin.

“Good morning.” She smiles, grabbing the sheets and pulling them up over both of them. “I’m cold.” Bridgett says, playing with his hair.

Spencer wraps his arms around her and holds her tight, giving her a squeeze. “Probably since you slept naked.” He teases.

“Or because you weren’t cuddling with me.” She pokes back. Spencer laughs, kissing the top of her head twice.

“You’re right, you’re cold because I wasn’t touching you.”

“I’m glad you agree.”

Brat.

“Hey,” He starts, picking his head up to look at Bridgett’s face. “Did I hurt you last night?”

Bridgett cocks her head to the side, giving him a questioning look. “No? Why?”

Spencer moves the necklace over carefully and lightly runs his hands over the two bruises on her neck, his eyes not leaving hers.

“Oh, Spence, baby no.” Bridgett coos, touching his cheek lightly. “No you didn’t hurt me. I like when you leave marks on me. It’s a pain to cover them up, but I do like them.” Bridgett can tell Spencer isn’t 100% content with her answer, he still felt a little guilty leaving such ugly purple-black bruises on her. She grabs his face, making him look at her. “Hey, don’t make that face at me. I’m telling you I’m okay. Plus, I would have used the safeword if I wanted you to stop.”

“You hate using the safeword.” He says, furrowing his brows.

“Because I can handle a lot more than you think I can, doctor. You think I’m a fragile little flower who can’t handle you being rough and nasty to me.” She smiles devilishly.

He bites onto his bottom lip to hide his smile, rolling his eyes playfully at her. “So do you want to go into town and get some stuff to make breakfast and some dinner? I’ll make waffles, eggs, and bacon. And you could make that fajita pasta tonight?”

It was Spencer’s favorite thing to eat that she cooked.

“Only if you give me a kiss.” Bridgett says, puckering her lips. Spencer kisses her back with a smile, lingering a little longer than he should have.

“Okay, let’s get showered and let’s go.” Spencer throws the covers off his body and rolls out of bed.

“Shared shower?” Bridgett questions, smiling at her boyfriend, making grabby hands up at him.

Spencer cocks his eyebrow at her, not being able to keep his smile in. He holds his hand out while she gets out of bed, grabbing his hand and heading off for their shower.

***

A few hours had passed, they got enough food for the rest of the night and some snacks for the next day.

They ate brunch in bed, Spencer trying to steal strawberries off Bridgett’s plate because he ate all of his. Bridgett yells jokingly as Spencer weasels his fork across her plate, impaling 2 of her strawberries.

“Excuse me!” Bridgett complains. “You should have cut yourself more strawberries if you wanted them, these are mine.” She taunts him, moving her strawberries away from close to him.

“Couples share!” Spencer says, shoving the whole berry in his mouth.

“They do but I don’t share strawberries. Just like you don’t share your jello. I learned that lesson the hard way.”

Spencer laughs, remembering when he basically interrogated Bridgett when he saw a jello cup missing from the fridge. The one freaking time she craves jello and Spencer turns bad cop on her.

“I have a question.” Spencer says, stuffing his face with a piece of waffle.

“Okay.”

“Is there any fixing the relationship you and your parents have? Or is that broken beyond repair?”

Bridgett stops chewing, looking over at Spencer, completely taken back by his question.

“Where is this coming from? Before I answer.”

He shrugs his shoulders, “I dunno, I was curious about if you would ever take me home to meet your parents.”

Bridgett sighs, thinking about the answer to her question. To be honest, she hadn't even thought about Spencer meeting her parents. Mostly because she didn’t want them to scare Spencer away.

“Well, I don’t know. I haven’t given it thought until 5 seconds ago if I’m being honest. If my parents weren’t… how my parents are, and we had a good relationship, I would have taken you to meet them a long time ago. I know how they are and I don’t want them to do or say anything that’ll make you uncomfortable or upset you.The only person I can see you meeting is my sister, Celeste.”

“Upset me how?”

“I never told you, but there was a boy back when I was a junior, I had a huge crush on him, his name was Cruz, and we weren’t ever boyfriend and girlfriend or anything, but he took me out on a few dates. Anyway, my mom saw us out one night at a mall, and she started tearing him to shreds. Calling him a ‘hoodlum’, ‘gang banger’, any other insensitive name she could call him because he had a tattoo and his ears were pierced. And she said all of that to his face. I was mortified, he was pissed, and we never went out after that. I just don’t want them to treat you horribly. You don’t deserve that.”

“I get it, it’s okay if it doesn’t happen, but you know I can handle it, right?”

“I know, babe, but then I’m going to get mad and it’s just going to end in the three of us yelling and I don’t want that. I’m not counting it out completely just… not yet. And since you brought it up, have you ever thought about me meeting your mom?”

“Yeah of course. It might be further down the road, but yes I do want you two to meet. You two are both very important to me.”

“Unfortunately neither of us have a normal family.” Bridgett jokes.

“We can make our own normal family.” Spencer says nonchalantly, making Bridgett turn her head quickly toward him. Spencer feels her eyes on him, making him look back at her. “What?”

“You know what you just said right? You’ve thought about us having our own family?”

Spencer breaks eye contact, his cheeks getting a little red. “Well yeah. I’ve thought a lot about marrying you, us having kids. We’ve both talked about wanting families one day, and it was before we got together that we had that conversation, but it still stands at least for me.”

Bridgett smiles at him, kissing his lips, a hint of strawberry on them. “What’s stopping you from marrying me right now?”

“Not much, honestly. But we’re only in our 20s. I think we should wait a little while longer before we get married.”

“I’m imagining you in a nice tuxedo,” Bridgett grabs both of their plates of food, placing them on the nightstand, and climbs onto Spencer’s lap, straddling him.

Spencer raises his eyebrows, resting both of his hands on her hips, and a peaceful smile on his face.

“Your hair combed back, looking like SuperMan in your glasses, because you know what your glasses do to me.” She whispers, kissing him again.

Spencer pulls back from the kiss first, a smile on his face. “Actually, Clark Kent wore glasses to cover up the fact he was SuperMan. But glasses aren’t much of a disguise, if I put glasses on you I would still be able to tell that it was you. Even if he was a strang-“

Bridgett kisses him again, lingering for a few extra seconds before pulling back. “I love when you info drop, I think it’s very cute and I love hearing you go on about stuff you know a lot about, but I was trying to be sexy.”

Spencer laughs, cupping Bridgett’s face in his hands. “You don’t have to try hard, my love.”

***

Bridgett’s body shutters, making her wake up. She grabs for the blanket that she pushed off her body during the night. As she pulled the blanket it wouldn’t come up further than her stomach, making her whine.

“Spencer you’re on the blanket. You’re being a blanket hog.” She mumbles, turning around to lay on his chest to wake him up but the spot next to her was empty. Bridgett opens her eyes, lifting her head up off the pillow and looking at the empty bed.

“Spence?” Bridgett calls out, sitting up on the bed to find her discarded clothes on the floor. She slips her underwear on, putting her long sleeve sweatshirt over her bare torso to go find Spencer.

She walks around the cabin, finding a yellow heart shaped balloon and a birthday cake balloon swaying back and forth on the counter in the kitchen, the ribbon tied to the handle of the overhead cabinet. Bridgett smiles as she sees Spencer sitting on the couch, bringing his coffee mug to his lips. She walks up behind him, leaning down and runs her hands down both sides of his chest and enveloping him in a hug.

“Good morning, hermoso.” Bridgett whispers in his ear, kissing the spot below his ear.

“Good morning.” Spencer smiles, putting his coffee down on the table next to him. He motions for her to come over to him, holding his arms out.

Bridgett rounds the couch, sitting next to him, and placing her legs in his lap, kissing his cheek.

“Happy birthday, babe.” He says, giving her a peck on the lips.

Bridgett gives him a kiss back, smiling into his lips as they pull back. “Thank you. I love my balloons.” Kissing him again. “And you.”

“I love you too. I have another present I want to give you. Well technically it’s two, but one is more symbolic. Well, symbolic is the wrong word, one is romantic, and the other is a gesture. I don’t know if that’s the right wo-.”

Bridgett laughs, grabbing his face and making him look at her. “Your brain is working faster than your mouth baby. Relax.”

He presses his nose against hers and reaches behind the pillow next to him. “The romantic gift first.” He says, handing her a CD case with a yellow piece of construction paper taped on the inside with the words written in his chicken scratch, “Songs That Remind me of You” with a heart on it.

Bridgett pouts her lip out and makes soft eyes at him. “Babe!” She says in a whiny voice, hugging his waist.

“This can be our playlist for tonight. And I have something else for you.” He says, handing her a key.

Bridgett smiles at him, raising an eyebrow to him. “What’s this for?”

“I could say something cheesy that I had seen on the internet when I was looking up cute ideas for gifts for you, but it’s a key to my apartment. I figured you’re already at my place more often than not so, yeah.” He smiles.

Bridgett takes his face in between her hands again, bringing his face close to hers and kisses him passionately. “I love you so much, Spencer. I’m so lucky.”

“I was nervous that giving you the key was going to freak you out.”

“Why would it freak me out?”

Spencer shrugs his shoulders, looking down at the coffee table trying to sort through the thoughts in his head. “I’ve never done the relationship thing before. I don’t know how soon is too soon to do things, and I don’t want to hold off on doing things because I get in my head about rushing into things… but I don’t want to freak you out and make you feel pressured into something you don’t want to do just to make me happy.” Spencer clears his throat, narrowing his eyes. “You can tell me to stop talking.”

Bridgett giggles, bringing his face closer to hers, her thumb rubs his cheek lovingly. “You know that I would tell you if things were moving too fast, right? Plus, we’ve never had a normal moving relationship in case you haven’t noticed. And I kinda like it… just like I kinda like you.”

Spencer lets out a deep laugh, his eyes scrunching up as she smiles. “You just like me? That’s it?”

“Yup. A strong admiration.” She giggles, bopping her nose against his. “I’m fond of you.”

“Alright, let’s see how fond you are.” He says, shifting his body against the couch and making her lay down on her back against the cushions.

Bridgett wraps her legs around his waist, putting her hands on both sides of his face. “First one to say I love you loses.” She says.

“What's the punishment for losing?”

“The loser has to give the other head… twice.”

“I love you. I love you so much. The love of my life. I love you.” Spencer says, kissing all over her face.

[misfits1a]

HIDE AND SEEK. rory keaner x reader

angst

posted. 16 september 2020

notes. if you want to listen to the podcast episode mentioned in this piece, here you are! i absolutely love crime junkie, and i give it a 100/10 if you’re a true crime fan; one hundred and ten percent recommend!

banner inspired by & template from @cafekitsune​

cw. ⚠️ mentions of child abduction / murder; language; unedited

wc. 978

it starts innocently enough.

you and rory had been babysitting your nephew for the last five hours, as your sister and her husband were out on a double date with your parents.

you’d leaned down, pushing some of your little nephew’s brown curls back from his face, and pressed your lips against his forehead. he shifted in the bed, but his eyes stay closed.

rory was leaning against the doorframe, watching you. you stuck your tongue out at him, and he smiled at you, adjusting his glasses.

“let’s go.” you said, and the two of you stepped out of the spare room of your upstairs and into the hall.

you had closed the door behind you, leaving it slightly ajar, knowing your nephew would freak out if he woke up and the door was closed.

the two of you headed downstairs.

“so what do you want to do?” you ask rory, walking around the kitchen counter to open the fridge.

“let’s make nacho pizza,” your loveable idiot of a boyfriend suggests. “and we can listen to an episode of that podcast you like while we do it. what is it, crime junkie?”

god, you love your boyfriend.

he takes his phone out, opens spotify, and turns on a random episode of the podcast while you take out the prebaked pizza crust from your cabinet. you grab a bag of tortilla chips, a can of salsa, some shredded cheese and place it all on the counter.

“i’m your host ashley flowers,” the episode begins. “and i’m brit.”

“and today’s story is a terrifying one,” flowers’ voice continues. “one that, if you’re a parent, will have you double checking your windows before you put your kids to bed tonight because it’s the story of an eight year old girl named kirsten hatfield who was taken from her bedroom in the middle of the night with her mom just in the next room.”

you freeze for a second at the introduction for the episode but shake your head, quickly snapping out of it when you remember none of the windows in your house had been opened since last summer.

the story continues on as you and rory get to making the nacho pizzas. every once in a while, your heart stops at the details in the story, and you have to remind yourself your nephew is okay.

it’s about half an hour into the episode; your pizzas are now baking in the oven, ashley flowers is replaying tapes from the police interviews.

finally unable to take it, the gnawing feeling in your chest too much, you pause the episode and sprint upstairs to check on your nephew in the spare bedroom.

what you see causes your heart to fall to your butt. or rather, what you don’t see.

your nephew is not in bed.

“riley?” you call out. no answer. thinking maybe he rolled out of and under the bed, you get on your hands and knees and peek under the bedskirt. “riley?”

the lump in your throat seems to grow larger.

you smack down in the bed, stupidily thinking he’d manifest under the covers. but he doesn’t.

you check the window. it’s unlocked but closed tight.

“riley?”

the closet next.

“riley?!”

you hear footsteps coming up the stairs and getting closer. rory appears in the doorway.

“what is it?”

“i can’t find riley!” you cry, now on the verge of hysteria.

“what?”

“he was just here!” you gasp, covering your mouth with one hand. you don’t need to cry now; no, your nephew needs you in the clearest state of mind you can be. “and now- now i can’t find him!”

rory pushes past you, checking under the bed and even smacking on the covers like you had.

“oh god,” you hiccup. “oh fuck, what will i tell lyla and joe? mom and dad?”

rory turns to you, placing his hands on your shoulders to ground you. one of his hands comes to rest of the side of your face, the pad of his thumb stroking your cheek.

“we’ll find him,” he says. “i promise.”

and with that, the two of you get to tearing the house inside out. you call over your other friends, benny and ethan, to come help look for him and they’re there in record time.

it’s two hours since your nephew had disappeared from his bed and you’re just thinking you should call the police.

you’ve wasted two hours already on what could have been time to find him, so why waste anymore?

you’re just about to press the “9” when ethan calls out, “found him!”

you drop your phone. the sound of glass cracking is nothing to you, as opposed to the huge wave of relief flooding over you.

rory is sitting on the floor in front of the dryer, holding a curled up riley in his lap.

“you guys took too long,” riley yawns in his little voice.

and you can’t help it. now you’re seething.

“what the hell?!”

“i woke up and wanted to play hide and seek,” riley mumbles, burying his face into rory’s blue and gray sweatshirt.

“mmph! and you didn’t tell us?!”

“y/n—” rory tries to say something, but you shoot him a glare that immediately shuts him up.

“riley, you can’t just do that! if you want to play hide and seek, you have to tell me! do you know how scared i was? i was so scared something bad had happened to you!”

and now you’re crying.

“i’m sorry, auntie y/n.” riley says, his voice trembling.

he climbs out of rory’s lap and walks up to you, wrapping his small arms around your legs. you take a deep breath, trying to reel yourself in, and lean down to pick him up.

“it’s okay,” you say. “i just love you so much. i’m glad you’re okay.”

© 2020 misfits1a. all rights reserved. do not repost, translate or claim my work as yours; please credit if you want to repost my work in a fic rec

taglists. @biqherosix @anything-and-everything-20 @allthatgl1tters-1sgold​