Tumgik
#and my dad has to have kraft singles on his
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That leaf looks like its screaming
Same, leaf, same.
#was gonna go out to get bagels tea and toilet paper#mom gave me a list of other things to also get#its raining so i was like ''eh store shouldnt be too busy right? who wants to be out running errands in the rain?''#apparently the answer to that is ''old people''#specifically old people stocking up on everything since apparently rain means the apocalypse is imminent#i didnt grab a basket cuz othe than the tea i was getting mostly small things and not many of them so i#figured i could carry it all#idk why. this line of thinking has never worked out for me in the past.#theyre totally out of my bagels. fine. im gonna go to dillons next anyway cuz walmart doesn't have the big bottles of gatorade#in the flavor i like#besides. one less thing for me to carry here. probably for the best#so i picked out some bread i thought would be good for grilled cheese and went and got the tomato soup we like#got my tea. this is where things started to get dicey. i still needed two types of sliced cheese cuz i prefer sharp cheddar#and my dad has to have kraft singles on his#AND i needed cream cheese for my bagels#all of these things are in the back of the store btw. i had to stop multiple times to readjust things so i wouldnt drop them#made it to self check out and theres a line and i immediately dropped the soup. some lady almost stole my place in line#then at dillons there were even more old people stocking up on canned goods. and they were also out of my bagels#so i got the extra expensive ones (daves bread brand) cuz i like them better anyway i wanted a treat after today#got maybe one too many gatorades tho cuz it was kind of a pain to carry them all to self checkout#where an old couple was monopolizing 2 of the self checkout machines to scan all their canned goods#and the other ones were all taken up by people doing their regular shopping#so the self checkout attendant had to ring me up herself which sort of defeated the purpose of going through self checkout#then the sandwhich bread got squished on the way home cuz my tea fell on it#i did get a chewby hug and kisses when i got home tho so that helped#ive missed having a dog man#also having a 50 pound pitbull launch herself at you cuz she wants to give you a hug and lick your face is always nice#10/10 highly recommend
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strawberryjamsara · 3 years
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Yttd headcanon compilation from ask memes
-Anzu is CONVINCED that Hatsune Miku is real and coming to kill her because Kurumada told her she made her angry and Sara needs to snap her out of it.
-Keiji constantly buys Kai aprons with cheesy sayings like “Kiss the trained assassin.” And “I 🍳eggs” and Kai loves them
-“Ranmaru you don’t appreciate my gifts!” “I already thanked you for the ‘who farted’ baseball cap Anzu.” “And yet you never wear it.”
-Alice has a YouTube channel and everyone thinks his personality is just a persona he puts on for his videos but he’s just honest to god Like That
-Years down the line people spread rumors that the women who own maiple bakery don’t seem to age at all! Now why is that?
-Gin wants a pet but can’t get one because of his drunkard dad
-Sara is like a huge stickler for eating healthy and constantly drinks those white mom kale smoothies but also she constantly orders big giant deserts for her
-Joe makes it his mission to take Ranmaru to the mall and gyaru-fy him so he can be one with him and Sara
-Qtaro at a baseball game: “This ones for you Keiji!” (Completely misses the swing)
-Alice forgot about the bongoes after using Safalins machine.
-Kurumada sometimes carries Shin around on his shoulders. 1. It makes Shin feel Tall to be on boyfriends shoulders and 2. He really didn’t feel like walking man
-Kugiesara originally started dating to piss off Shin then caught real feelings. Fake dating fic when?
-Nao helps Sara actually improve on her art skills!
-Since shes a rising star Reko has been asked to have roles in a few blockbusters. She usually rejects.
-Shins compulsive lying habit partly came from Midori. People in abusive relationships tend to take up lying to try and protect themselves, and you bet that in a death game he’s gonna take up those same defense mechanisms.
-Sara and Anzu draw Madoka Magica ocs together!
- Qtaro thinks he can cook just as well as Kai. Kai looks at the unevenly cooked burgers he made with Kraft singles on top and goes full Gordon Ramsay.
-Alice took care of a lot of PR for Samurai Yaiba. Since Reko was pretty aggressive for the most part he’d often have to pick up the pieces.
-Nao and Shin could totally make a game if they wanted. Shin could program it and Nao could do the art. Just think about that.
-Sara knows Ranmaru is helping her win against everyone during board game night he ain’t slick
-Joe collects Pokémon cards
-Mai and Maple can’t dance.
-Not really a hc but I’d kill for a non-death game au where Kai goes up to Keiji and goes “Stay away from Ms Sara.” And Keiji pretty suspicious of Kai himself goes “No <3” and thus begins the greatest enemies to lovers fic in history
-Sara is really into fashion. This girl obsessed over uniforms enough to pick her school based off them, she probably fucking LOVES looking through fashion magazines.
-Kurumada knows his way around a first aid kit. He can treat minor wounds pretty well. He has to since he’s a boxer and all.
-Mai bakes the cake for guests and Maple makes the tea. They get very upset if you like one over their wives.
-Ranmaru watches a LOT of anime.
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stardew-mermaid · 3 years
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im WEAK for my faves as parents and i know lots of y'all are too so here are
bachelors as dads vibes
(bachelorettes as moms will come soon too ❤️ under cut cause it got very long lol)
sebastian
a chill dad. when u were very little he'd let u sit in his lap while he codes and consequently u find heavy metal soothing cause he would be playing it while he works and u would always fall asleep against him
if he wasn't using his second computer u could play around on it while he works. 'existing in each other's company while u both do stuff' time becomes a regular thing even as u get older, u would do ur homework next to him at his desk and he'd help if u were confused
the first time u were deemed old enough to go for a ride on his motorcycle u were SO fucking hyped even if u had to be absolutely decked out in protective gear. sometimes while u were in high school he'd help you flex by picking you up/dropping you off on the bike
would bundle u up in his hoodies as a toddler and there's a few pics of u absolutely SWIMMING in them with the hood all the way over ur face pretending to be the grim reaper. he'd never been so proud
elliott
an eloquent dad, but still has goofy dadlike tendencies. he may be the picture of a dark academia dilf with his slacks and button ups sipping coffee in the morning over a manuscript, but he'll still make the jokes. calls u things like little one and taught u to play piano
he got u ur own little bookshelf for all ur baby books and he'd read to you every single night without fail. he'd make up stories too and u would help and make a collab tho it often got u more excited than relaxed for bed but it was worth it!!! when u were grown up u helped him compile the short stories u made up together and published it. he'd also share with u poems he wrote for you and about you over the years, lots of them to do with the wonder of watching a whole tiny person grow into a big person
would always take u on nature walks and play at the beach!!! u would find shells and rocks to give to him and he'd always look like u just handed him pure gold
u made a pact that u would sit still for him while he did ur hair if u could braid his hair in turn. u both looked very stylish
sam
cool dad!!! fun dad!!!! watches anime with u when u get into it and is forever ur player 2. if u had a skateboard or a scooter he'd always show u up by pulling off sick tricks and it became a friendly rivalry. taught u to stick it to the man at a very early age. teaches u to play guitar and took u to ur first rock concert when u were like 8
there are baby photos of u wearing sunglasses that cover half ur face and when asked about it he'd say 'u were just a rly cool baby!!!!' in some of them he's wearing matching sunglasses and carrying u in one of those front baby pouches. he'd also always sing to you as a baby and still does it idly sometimes and has written songs for u!!!!
ur #1 hypeman. praises u for everything and always makes sure u know how cool u are just for existing. he loses his mind at ur grade school talent show and at ur graduation he's there holding up his phone and crying like FUCK IT UP KENNETH!!!!! 😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️
tho alongside all the fun he teaches u to be very responsible and polite and above all extremely kind!!!!
shane
has the most potent typical dad energy. the socks with sandals, the jokes, the ac/dc, the funny hobby projects, the rivalry with other pta parents, all of it. calls u squirt and kiddo and the kind to ruffle ur hair. always gives u piggy back rides even as u get older, says it helps him stay in shape. when u were little you'd always bap ur baby hands against his stubble cause heehee funny scratchy face
u loved when he was in charge of dinner growing up cause it was often takeout pizza/burgers. 'hey im making a pot of kraft dinner should i double it for u' kind of guy, adds cut up hot dogs and after ur other parent voices a need for nutrition adds frozen veggies too. VERY good at cooking all kinds of eggs tho, would always feed u eggs from his own chickens and would accept nothing less!!!
teaches u a lot about chickens and some of ur fave memories with him are in the coop or chillin in a field in spring with him and the new chicks. some other faves include the regular tea parties with him and cousin jas, and even as u both get older u all sit down and have tea together sometimes and occasionally break out one of the old barbie movies for funsies
u learned how to say fuck from him when u were 3 and he died laughing. if called and told that u got into a fight at school would reply with 'did they win'
harvey
sweet, dorky doctor dad. would get SUPER worried whenever u got so much as a cold, made u stay home and rest and HYDRATE. taught u proper medical standard handwashing from when u first learned how to turn on the tap, also taught u a lot of basic first aid. when u were fussy he would read u his old textbooks from med school and it'd get you to sleep in minutes
refuses to let u leave the house without eating something first and would often get up early to make u a big breakfast before school (it's the most important meal of the day!!!!). yes it's ok if ur late ur english teacher can wait until you've had ur veggies. when u were a baby his standard of keeping u fed was 'if i had to change less than five diapers a day it wasn't enough'. encourages taking a snack and water everywhere
as u got older u realized how hardworking he is so u make sure he knows how much u love and appreciate him, goes all out for his bday and father's day like how he goes all out for u every day and it makes him cry. he cries at ur first birthday and ur graduation too, cried when u got him a #1 DAD mug specifically for his morning coffee, he just cries a lot and it's very endearing, dad taught u it's okay to be emotional. u also gift him funky socks to wear at work and he goes bananas for them
he taught u how to assemble model planes and u would sit with him while he tuned his old radio, u liked the bwee bwee sounds. he would play jazz and swing and dance with u standing on his feet. when u were little u liked to play with his moustache and occasionally he would fall asleep while watching u but the most u ever did was add a goatee to the stache with washable marker which he thought was pretty funny
alex
strong dad!!! jock dad!!!!! would flex and let u hang off his bicep, play wrestle (u would always win), sit u on his shoulders and run around making airplane noises, play sportsball in the yard and would come up with fun challenges for u if u got bored of catch. pretty much the master of keeping ur baby self entertained and was always there to tuck u in for a nap when u got tired out
makes an extra protein shake for u every morning and loads of scrambled eggs, will also sneak u a cookie tho
he's always super encouraging and positive and enthusiastic about everything u do which u pick up fast. u go to his games and even if sports turns out not to be ur thing the fact that ur there rooting for him makes him put in 1000% effort, calls u his good luck charm!!!! he will also throw u over his shoulders and use u for weightlifting while u shout encouragement directly into his ear. this continues until ur grown up (and sometimes even then so he can flex even as an 'old man')
gets really really worried about you whenever ur sick or get hurt and will lose sleep over it but stays upbeat for ur sake. he will cuddle u tho. sometimes you'll ask for stories about ur grandma and he'll tell u and it's so nice to him to talk about his mother and smile instead of being sad, you help him heal because it's so wonderful to think of her as a grandmother and how proud she'd be. he plays her music box for u to help u sleep when ur little and it still makes u feel sleepy and safe when ur older
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world-of-aus · 4 years
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New Beginnings
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Pairing: Mobster!Bucky Barnes x Mobster!Reader / Mobster!Brock Rumlow x Mobster!Reader
Word Count: 4,837
Warnings: talk of domestic abuse(it hints at it so if you are not comfortable i would recommend not reading, Brock being an ass, some wholesome Bucky Barnes content, and reader being a badass.
Author’s Note: My third request sent in by the lovely @morganclaire4​! Two more requests sit in my inbox, almost there! This was so much fun to write and i can’t thank you enough for sending this in! I’m trying daily to improve on my storytelling and i couldn’t help but to spice it up a bit and add some story for you! I hope you enjoy what i compiled for you! There will be an update for Behind the Screen Tomorrow, Family Matters the day after, and my fourth request will be out after that!
“ Hey! I have a request for Mob!Bucky. I was thinking maybe Bucky is married to the reader. Shes always been in a mob and she was married off to another man but Bucky got her out. Whenever Bucky comes home, she is always dressed up (makeup and everything) even if she didn’t go anywhere and she always has dinner made when he walks in. One day he asks her why she’s always doing that. She tells him that it was always expected of her. He tells her that she doesn’t have to do that every night.”
Find My Other Works Here: Main Masterlist
Your heels clicked against the tiled floor, a determination in your stride. The Kraft clasp envelope weighing heavy in your hand as you move forward. You passed the common room Steve and Sam spotting you. “Good morning boys,” was your simple yet quick greeting as you walked past them.
Hurried feet chased after you, Steve’s hand falling to your shoulder bringing you to an abrupt stop, “Steven let me go,” you murmured eyes falling to his hand before sliding up to meet his.
“Y/n he’s in a meeting,” he tried.
“I’m well aware Steve, but he’s also in a meeting with my father, and my scum of an ex-husband those are the ones I’m here to see, not him,”
“Y/n-”
“Steve just like you are Bucky’s right-hand man, I am my father’s, and as my father’s right hand I must inform him of any occurrences going on that could be affecting family business and or bringing harm to one of our own, now if you would please, I need to step into that office to speak with my father,”
He’s eyeing you then, before a sigh is leaving his lips, Bucky could very well have his head for interrupting them, “fine but I'm coming with, at least so it looks like I tried to stop you,”
A smile is tugging at your lips, “oh Steven there is no stopping the hell that is about to rain down on him,”
Steve shocked by your words watches you slide his hand from your shoulder before continuing down the hall. Your head is turning slightly, “You coming Steve,”
You make it to the end of the hall your manicured hand wrapping around the doorknob, as you twist it open the force in which you push it causes it to bang against the wall. Three sets of eyes fall to your calm form, “Father, James, Brock,” you hiss through your teeth, eyes turning to slits as they fall to him.
“Y/n sweetheart,” you father coughs, “to what do we owe the pleasure, we’re just finishing wrapping up a meeting, can this wait” you’ve embarrassed him, good.
Your eyes turn to your fathers a sickening sweet smile pulling at your lips, “actually father, it can’t, you s-”
“y/n sweetheart, the men are talking, I'm sure whatever meaningless thing you have to say can wait till we’re done,” Your eyes are fitting back to Rumlow the grip on the envelope tightening.
“that’s sweet,” you coo, “but you lost the privilege to so much as utter one word to me the second you laid a hand on me,” you flung the envelope at him, “sign the papers Brock!”
Your father is sitting up straighter in his seat, and you can visibly see Bucky’s jaw clenching, “excuse me,” your father speaks up, “what is this about, sign what papers?”
“I’m sorry but it seems your daughter has lost her damn mind,” Rumlow hisses eyes glaring daggers.
“oh fuck you Brock!”
“y/n,” your dad is seething, “that is enough you will not speak to him like that, that is your husband and you must respect him!”
“It’s ex-husband,” you grunt “or at least it should have been,” you muttered looking at your father, lI'm not going to be silenced anymore father, not by you, and definitely not by you,” you hiss pointing an accusing finger at Brock.
Rumlow is standing then the chair he previously occupied falling to the floor with a loud bang as he moves over to you hands gripping your face roughly. Your father and Bucky push to their feet, your father shouting angrily, Bucky about ready to leap over his desk and murder Brock where he stands. Steve is pressed up against your back, “go ahead Rumlow,” you grit, “show them what really went on behind closed doors, show them why because of you I was never able to physically present myself at meetings because there wasn’t enough makeup to cover the bruising you left behind,”
“Brock what is she talking about,” your father growled behind him, “did you lay a hand on her?” your father’s question went unanswered.
“What the fuck do you want y/n,” he hisses voice low, “did I not give you enough, was there not enough money to buy your fucking happiness,”
“Our marriage was one of convenience Brock, an agreement between our fathers so that they could continue to do shady shit without losing any more men,” you hissed, “I didn’t have a say in my future, much less the man I was to spend the rest of my days with, it wasn’t even a marriage certificate I signed that afternoon, it was a damn contract that was written up in the small office of the towns lawyer,”
“Marrying me should have been enough y/n,” he grunted shaking your chin with the hold he had on you, “you had all the money happiness could buy you,”
“Our marriage,” you growled, “should have been a deep and loving friendship, one so strong that you would give your life for me, the way I was to do for you, instead I overlooked your shady lies and “in the dark” actions opting to turn the other eye, I overlooked how you enjoyed the company of various other women more than my own, you made a mockery of me, blaming me for the beatings you would bestow on me, you abused my innocence, abused the love I tried so hard to have for you, well no more Brock,” you grunted pushing your hands into his chest roughly to send him back, Steve moved to the front of you then still leaving Brock in your sight, “I will no longer allow you to hold me bound to you, I no longer want any association with you, and if that means breaking that contract, then so be it, my father and I can find another way to deal with the likes of your men, now sign the damn papers!”
The room fell into silence, “what the hell is going on Rumlow,” Bucky questioned from in front of you, he looks absolutely deadly.
Brock is still staring you down, his tongue running along the inside of his mouth, “apparently y/n felt the need to air the dirty laundry,” a laugh escapes his lips, “bitch didn’t know how to get rid of me, guess she felt the need to go to extreme measures,”
“Did you lay a hand on my daughter,” your father is grunting moving towards the taller man,” Brock is turning to face your father than, “did much more than that,” he hissed, “had her begging me every night to-”
“chose your next words carefully Brock,” Bucky growled eyes growing dark, “unless you’d like me to unload a bullet right between your eyes.”
Four sets of eyes watched Brock move back to where he had sat, hands picking up the envelope as he tore into it. A moment of relief washed over you as he snatched a pen from Bucky’s desk black ink running over the contract. Throwing the pen back onto the desk he moved over to you crowding your and Steve’s space, “he’ll grow tired of you two you know, preparing dinner each night, and making yourself up every single day will only get you so far y/n, there was a reason I found comfort in other women, they provided me the one thing you couldn’t,” he leaned in further.
“ENOUGH RUMLOW!” Bucky growled as he rounded the desk appearing on the opposite side of where your now ex-husband stood. Brock raised his hands in mock defense as he backed away from you, feet moving him towards the door, “I can take a hint Barnes,” he muttered as he stepped out of the room, “gentleman I would say it was a pleasure doing business with you, and I look forward to seeing you again, but that won’t be the case,” he turns to lock eyes with you one last time, “I do hope ridding yourself of me was worth it y/n.”
The room falls quiet at the sound of the door clicking closed behind him, “Steve get her home, her father and I need to have a word,” your eyes are shooting to Bucky, though for the first time since you could remember he’s refusing to meet yours.
“Bucky, I-”
“Steve now please.” Bucky gets out in a strained voice.
You don’t get the chance to argue as Steve turns his body into yours, hands guiding you out of the room.
Your quiet as Steve guides you out of the office, quiet when he tucks you into the car, quiet when he leads you into your shared home with Bucky.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Is his question from where he stands at the door.
A sigh leaves your lips, the truth was out there, no need to hide it now, “I lived in fear Steve,” you began, “I’d be lucky if there was a day or two between his lash-outs, I felt weak, alone, he really did buy my silence,”
“Why didn’t you say just say something to Bucky, he would of done something from the very start, he was taken with you from the very beginning y/n, you know that,”
How could you forget.
“Don’t stray to far y/n, I have some business to attend to,” Brock grunted low in your ear before he was removing himself from you. You made your way towards the bar, but your eyes remained  trained on his back.
“So is your husband the only one allowed to have fun at these things?”
A smile pulls at the corner of your lips but you hide it well behind a glass of wine, “do you have a death wish Barnes, or do you just like to play with fire?” You questioned eyes still trained on Brocks back where’s he crowding one of the many girls in Pierces area.
A low chuckle is leaving his lips, one that has a shiver rolling down your exposed back, “we all know this life can be short, so why not have some fun.”
“Flirting with a married woman is not my definition of fun,”  
He’s sliding closer to you his back to the scene your watching closely, “well lucky for you I’m not a woman, nor am I married,”
Soft laughter fell from your lips, “always the charmer,”
“It’s a shame, your father and my father couldn’t meet, I’d be walking you around this room like a crowned jewel,”
Your heart skipped a beat in your chest, “James,” it comes as a warning.
He leans further into the bar the coat of his jacket brushing your arm, “your unhappy doll, he doesn’t treat you right, look where you are and where he is, in the arms of another women, a damn shame if you ask me,” you have no idea you thought.
“Well then it’s a damn shame your father didn’t meet with my father sooner,”
Bucky chuckled a shake of his head, “someday soon you’re going to see your worth y/n and I’m going to be the one to show it to you.”
And for the first time since Brock left your side since arriving your eyes are finally leaving his back to flit over to the man next to you, “don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep Buck,” you murmured voice low.
His eyes are finding yours in the dim room, his face illuminated by the low lights of the bar, “I’m a man of my word y/n, and you and I both now I don’t back down on my promises,” he leans in towards you, “especially if that promises involves you,”
Your breath catches in your throat, your heart steadily beating away in your chest. You watch him push off the bar, fingers curling around his drink, “I’ll see you around y/n,” he murmurs a sly grin and wink thrown in your direction.
“He knew how Rumlow was, he just didn’t know to what extent, nobody knew though,” you argued, “not even my own father knew,”
“Is that why you would push him away, fight his advances,” he questions, “because if you say you weren’t taken with him from the beginning as well I’d say you were a horrible liar,”
“I was taken with him Steve and that was the problem,” you cried, “Rumlow picked up on the happiness Bucky brought me, as much as I wanted to run into his arms Rumlow had eyes everywhere!”
“goddamnit y/n,” Bucky growled, “why are you fighting this so hard, why can’t you just admit you feel it too,”
Your heart raced away in your chest, “James, you don’t know what you’re feeling, what I'm feeling,” what I'm going through you thought, “I can’t keep doing this.”
“So then why are you here?” he questioned angrily, “why do you come when I call, tell me why?”
Tears pulled at your eyes, you were hurting in more ways than one, “I don’t know,” you whispered voice wavering from the tears threatening to spill over.  
“Bullshit y/n, you know why, why do you keep doing this,” he questioned exasperatedly, “why do you keep pushing me away just tell me why,”
The first tear fell then, another, and another, “look at you y/n,” he murmured, “your hurting, and I know it’s not because of me, what is he doing to you?”
You wanted to tell him, wanted to scream it out to the world what he was doing, but who would believe you? Brock had assured you every night that nobody would believe you, so why would Bucky be any exception.
Bucky crossed the carpeted room, hands finding there way to your face where he wiped away the tears from your cheeks, “tell me what you need me to do y/n, you know I’ll do anything for you, you just have to say the word,”
More tears filled your eyes sliding down your cheeks, “you can’t Bucky,” you murmured lips wobbling, “you need to go,”you whispered hand finding its way to Bucky’s chest, heart beating steadily under your fingers.
“You don’t mean that y/n,” he tries.
Your shaking your head, the tears still streaming steadily, “please Bucky I can’t, I can’t do this anymore,”
His face falls, and it pains your heart more than any pain Rumlow could ever inflict on you, “you don’t mean that y/n, you know you don’t,”
A sob tears through you, “Bucky please.”
“Is that what you really want,” he questions quietly, “do you really want me to go, because if this is it, this is it y/n, I don’t have it in me to keep doing this back and forth with you,” your heart breaks in your chest because you don’t want this to be the end, but you need to do things right, you won’t have a man fight your battle for you, you won’t be weak any longer.
“i’m sorry Bucky.”
“He shakes his head, “I’m sorry too,” he murmurs pressing a kiss to your head, he moves away from you his feet carrying him towards the door, how badly you wanted to go with him, he turns to face you one last time, “I'll see you around doll, sorry I couldn’t hold up my end of the promise.”
More tears fall from your eyes, a choked sob of his name falls from your lips as you restrain yourself from running to him, it had to be like this, you had to do this right.
He gives you one last teary smile before the door is closing behind him.
“He was a mess you know, that night after you told him you couldn’t see him anymore, I had never seen a man more distraught, and I just couldn’t understand why, I saw the love you had for him,”
A shaky sigh leaves your lips as you wipe away at the tears you hadn’t realized stained your cheeks, “that night that I told Bucky I couldn’t do this anymore I was really telling myself I couldn’t,” you pause, “I couldn’t take anymore of Rumlow’s abuse whether it had been emotional or physical I just couldn’t Bucky had shown me what real love was, how I should be loved,”
“so then why did you push him away?” he questioned.
“had Bucky found out what Rumlow was doing, he would have had him six feet under before he could even give an explanation, much less a single word out, I didn’t want Bucky to know because this was my battle to fight, I had been weak for so long, having Bucky fight this for me would only add to it, and I wanted to go about it right Steve, I wanted to do it so I no longer had any tie to Rumlow, if I wanted to do this with Bucky which I did, I wanted to do it right,”
“so that evening you showed up to the office when I was heading out you had settled things,”
“yeah, or at least I thought I had,” you murmured.  
Shaky legs lead you to the building doors, your heart racing away in your weary chest. Your hands reach for the brass handles but the door pushing open has you stepping back. Steve appearing, he takes a look at you and you catch the moment his defenses go up, “what are you doing here y/n?”
“I need to talk to Bucky,”
Steve’s shaking his head as he steps out of the building his body blocking your entrance, “I think you said enough, I'm not letting you hurt him anymore y/n, he hasn’t been himself and it's been a month!”
Your heart is breaking in your chest, “Steve I just need to talk to him, five minutes that’s all I'm asking, I need to explain myself to him, at least give me that,” you tried.
“why should I give you that chance, when you couldn’t even give him the chance y/n, It wouldn’t be fair, you’re just going to break him further If I let you go in there,” Steve argued.
“Steve please,” you pleaded, “I promise, I just need five minutes, I'm not going to do anything to hurt him any further, I just need five minutes,”
A sigh is leaving Steve’s lips, his demeanor falling, “five minutes y/n,” he grunts moving aside to pull open the door, “but I swear if you leave him in worse condition than he already is, I won’t hesitate to send Romanoff to pay you a visit,”
Any other day you would have thrown him a sarcastic remark in regards to his threat about Natasha, but with the situation between you and Bucky you knew his words were not to be taken lightly.
“he’s in his office,” he adds as you walk past him, “I hope you fix whatever is going on between the both of you, for both of your sake’s”
“I hope so too,” you murmur the shuts softly as you continue forward. The closer you get to his office the more your legs threaten to give in from under you. You could do this, if you were able to overcome all the hell Rumlow had put you through, you could surely do this.
Bringing a shaky hand up to the door, you knocked softly, Bucky’s muffled voice calling you in. You sucked in a breath before moving forward your hand twisting the knob. The air around you grew tense as you walked into the office, the door falling closed behind you. Bucky’s eyes were unreadable, his glare intent on your unmoving form. “what are you doing here y/n?”
“I need to talk to you,”
He scoffed fingers rubbing at his eyes as he pushed away from the desk to stand from his cushioned chair, “you want to talk now, you had the chance a little more than a month ago to talk,”  
You watch him move around his desk as he gather’s his things, “Just give me five minutes to explain myself please,”
His eyes glance up at you, his expression bored, “now why should I do that, y/n when I told you this was it, I meant it, I can’t do this,” he gestured between the two of you, “anymore,”
“Bucky please,” you plead, “five minutes that’s all I'm asking,”
“why y/n, why?” he grunts, “I constantly asked and asked things of you, for you, and you never gave me the time, now why should I do it for you?”
“Because I just need you to listen, I need you to listen because I love you,”
The papers he had in his hands fall to the desk, his jaw clenching, “don’t you dare y/n,” he growls, “don’t you dare throw those words around if you don’t-” he looks away from you fists clenching as he tries to contain himself.
You breathed in deeply, if you were going to say something, now was the time, you only hoped he would hear you.
“Bucky the last time we met, I know I hurt you, but you have to understand it was hurting me to do what I had to do I-”
“Then why did you do it?” he growled, “why are you standing here right now confessing your love for me, it surely wasn’t there a month ago, what changed?”
“I had to do it because I needed to do things right” you argued, “I was going through things James, and I needed to do things right for my sake,”
“you say you needed to do things right yet you were willing to mess up the ONE thing that was going right for you?”
Your anger and frustration were boiling to the surface, this was not how you wanted things to go, “It was a risk I was willing to take,” you hissed, “You don’t know the type of man Rumlow can be Bucky -”
He scoffed cutting you off, “oh I don’t” he hummed, “I know exactly the man he is, yet you still chose him over me, you were hurting and yet you still chose him over me, over us,”
“I didn’t!” you yelled, “if you would just stop interrupting me,” you hissed, “Bucky that night when I said ‘I can’t keep doing this’ that was meant more for me than you, I couldn’t deal with the unhappiness Rumlow brought me when I would return home after being with you, I didn’t want to return to home that was so dark, so lonely, so loveless,” you paused your eyes watering, “I wanted to return to a home that was full of light, full of love, I wanted to return to a home that had you,”
Bucky lips are parting, his posture falling, “then why did you-”
“I needed to do things right Bucky, I didn’t want to have any sort of tie to Rumlow if I was going to chase my happiness with you, I wanted everything you had to offer, I wanted to be loved the way I deserved, I wanted you, but I needed to end things with Brock before I could chase after my own happiness.”
“So, did you?” his question hangs in the air because he doesn’t want to have any hope just yet, he can’t let himself fall again.
Your nodding through a teary half smile, “His lawyer spoke to mine this afternoon, and said they had been signed and sealed,”
He’s moving around to the front of the desk feet away from you, “y/n,” he murmurs shakily, “you better not be joking right now sweetheart, because I swear to-”
“I’m not,” you cut him off, “bucky it has been an unbearable month of not being in your arms, but I'm not going to waste one more second,”
Bucky’s chuckling low, his head shaking, “come here,” and you almost don’t catch his words if it hadn’t been for his arms opening up to you. You couldn’t close the distance between you fast enough as you crashed into his arms. Your arms were wrapped tightly around him, his embrace just as tight, as the tension in him melted away.
“I missed you so much,” he murmured into your hair, “there was so many days I wanted to give in and call, but I couldn’t find it in me,” He’s pulling away from you, his hands finding their way to your face, “why couldn’t you just tell me what you were doing y/n, why go through this alone,”
Your hands rest over his, “Because I knew what you would do if I told you, and this was something I needed to do for me,”
His eyes are staring deeply into yours, fingers running over your cheek, “did you mean what you said earlier?” and there's a hint of a teasing smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.
“I did,” you whisper.
His head is falling to yours, lips inches from your own, “say it again,” he grins.
“I love you,” you murmur closing the last bit of space left between your lips.
“So he never actually signed them till today,” Steve murmured more to himself than you, “I just wish you would have said something to Bucky earlier y/n, but I understand why you didn’t because if I were Bucky Rumlow wouldn’t have made it out of that office in one piece today,”
“I just hope Bucky can be as understanding as you are, I should have never kept any of this from him, but I was scared,”
Steve’s moving over to you then his hand coming to rest on your shoulder, “he loves you more than you know y/n, I promise you he’s going to understand,” he reassures.
A shaky sigh leaves your lips, “I hope your right Steve, I hope your right,”
Your setting the kitchen table when the front door is opening, Bucky walks through, door closing softly behind him as he makes his way over to you. He stops in the entrance of the kitchen, eyes on you, his hand stretches out towards you. You swallow the knot in your throat as you place the utensils down onto the table your feet carrying you to him.
His arms are around you in an instant, his lips pressed to your hair, “I understand why you couldn’t tell me, I just wish you would have doll, god to think he ever laid a hand on you I could have,”
Your moving your head away to look up at him, “and that’s why I couldn’t tell you, I felt weak Bucky, he took away my strength, he took everything from me, so when I finally made the decision to leave, I needed to do that for myself, you had already done so much for me, you had showed me love, love that I deserved, and I didn’t need Rumlow tainting that for me as well,”
His hands are coming to rest on your cheek, “I just wish I could have taken you away from all that pain and hurt sooner, someone like you should never know a pain like that,”
Your hands come up to rest on his chest, “and with you I never will,”
A loving smile stretches across his face, “I was going to wait off on doing this a little longer, but after the events of today, I don’t think there is a better time than now,” your head tilts in question.
His hands are sliding from your face, as he slips to the floor, a shaky hand comes up to your mouth as he pulls a black box from his slacks.
“Y/n I remember promising you that I would show you your worth, I remember telling you that you should be walked around the room like crown jewl, and I remember promising you that I would be me the one to do all this for you, well sweetheart I'm a man of my word, and I'm also a man that would love to spend the rest of my day showing you just that,” he pauses as he snaps the box open a beautiful diamond staring back at you, “will you marry me?”
A choked sob is falling from your lips, your head nodding furiously.
He’s standing then as he pulls the ring from its box, “it was my ma’s,” he whispers as he slides it onto your awaiting finger.
“Oh Bucky,” you murmur looking from the ring, then back to him, “I love you so much,” you’re laughing through your tears as you jump into his embrace your lips melting with his.
A year later
It’s in his embrace, and the eyes of your closest friends and family when he finally shows you off like a crowned jewel, the two of you swaying to your favorite song.
“you look absolutely breathtaking tonight Mrs. Barnes,” he murmurs into your ear.
You pull away to look at him, painted red lips pulled into a grin, “like a crowned jewel?” you questioned.
He’s grinning then too, “a crowned jewel finally getting what she deserves,” he murmured his lips pressing to yours lovingly.
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rahleeyah · 3 years
Text
Ok @racethewind10 and @featherpluckn svu polycule barbeque here we gooooooo
It's labor day. And Elliot and Liv have been working a lot and they both want to spend time with Kathy and the kids and Maureen is coming to spend the weekend with her boyfriend and Kathy tells Liv to invite Alex bc she knows how those two are together and she figures if Mo sees Liv and Alex together she won't notice how Kathy/Elliot/Liv are together. It's a faint hope
When Alex gets there, in like. Linen pants and an expensive blouse, she finds Liv in cut off jeans and a tank top playing football with the kids (Katie and Lizzie vs Dickie and Liv) and her hair is tied back in a ponytail and her necklaces are bouncing against her tanned skin and for a second Alex fully hates herself for being in love with a woman who's wearing jorts.
Kathy is sitting in a lawn chair with little Eli asleep on her lap.
Elliot is by the grill.
"Cabot! Now the party's started. Lemme get you beer"
"who are you and what have you done with Elliot Stabler"
He grins and as he walks by her on his way to the cooler he smacks her ass.
No one notices but Kathy, who rolls her eyes
"he's in a mood" she says. "Come sit in the shade with me"
So Alex - who is so pale she'll burn if she doesn't close the blinds on her office windows - sits next to Kathy, big straw hat on her head to protect her nose, and Elliot brings her a beer, kisses Kathy's forehead and ruffles Eli's hair while he's there
"they look happy" Alex says, while they're all watching Olivia playing with the kids.
"yeah she does" Elliot says.
Kathy and Alex know what he means. Liv has had a hard road. But there, in the sunshine, laughing, ponytail bouncing, she just looks. Happy.
The game breaks up about the time Mo and her boyfriend get there. They're making introductions when Liv comes up and takes the beer right out of Elliot's hand and takes a long drink.
Literally no one thinks this is weird except Mo's boyfriend.
Then again after everything she told him about her parents, he didn't expect her parents to be best friends with a lesbian couple either so he figures maybe he was just being judgmental
Kathy goes inside to get the rest of the fixings for the burgers and Alex volunteers to help bc she wants to be in the AC for a minute.
Kathy gives the baby to Olivia.
Maureen watches this. She has never seen them like this, Liv with the baby on her hip like he belongs there, standing by the grill, laughing with Elliot, the four of them so easy together, and it's freaking her out a little
Kathleen notices
"don't make it weird. It works for them."
Elliot takes the beer out of Liv's hand
"what works for them"
Kathy and Alex emerge from the house carrying lettuce and kraft singles and ketchup and mustard and tomatoes and whatever else and Alex is exasperatedly trying to explain to Kathy about cheese and their shoulders are brushing and
"Katie what the hell is-"
"don't make it weird"
Mo decides that discretion is the better part of valor
Meanwhile, at the grill
"you gonna flip those any time soon"
"do you want to do this?"
"well I mean yeah if you're offering"
"like you know how to grill a burger"
"I know you need to flip them"
"I'll flip them when I'm good and ready"
Kathy and Alex are setting things up on a picnic table and Kathy rolls her eyes at them
"are they like this at work?"
"honestly? They're worse. At work they're carrying guns"
"ok children" Kathy says. She steps up between them and settles a hand on each of their backs. "Are they close?"
"yeah, go ahead and get the kids to the table"
Liv and Kathy and Alex shuffle everybody to the table, make the younger kids wash their hands, pour drinks. Liv is still holding Eli. Elliot discreetly flips the burgers while she's not watching
They all cheer when he brings them to the table, and it's all easy laughter and hands reaching and Liv is holding the baby and Mo realizes Kathleen was right. This is working for them. They're happy.
Alex gets em going with some story about something stupid Elliot did and Mo's boyfriend is watching these three women tease him mercilessly and wondering how it's possible that he still looks smug
"was that more or less stupid than the time Cupid threw you through a plate glass window"
"I'm not the one who accidentally got stoned on mushrooms"
"hey I wasn't stoned I was really sick!!"
"I'm not the one who stabbed the captain with a pickle. I swear to God Liv I thought you'd lost it"
"they're kinda cute" Mo's boyfriend tells her in a whisper. She shoots him a murderous look and he wisely takes a drink instead
"so" Alex turns to him and he wishes she wouldn't bc God is she pretty and her top is low cut but she's got eyes like a shark "tell us a little bit about yourself"
And all four of them are looking at him now and he gulps bc it was bad enough when he'd thought he had to impress Maureen's parents, but now he's got the killer lesbians to worry about too
But they have a nice time. The sun goes down, everybody who can is drinking - Liv slips Lizzie a sip of her beer and Alex feels bad for Dickie so she does the same while giving him a lecture about underage drinking - and the kids are running over the grass and Elliot and Liv and Kathy and Alex and Maureen and her boyfriend linger at the table. Eli is now asleep on his dad. It's nice.
They send everybody off to bed and the grownups start to clean up. Boyfriend offers to help, but quickly realizes they don't need him, and he goes to find Mo.
They don't mean to. Kathy has put Eli down and the kids are all in bed, Maureen's boyfriend has been relegated to the sofa but he's in the bathroom when they linger by the door. They need to call a cab for Alex and Liv, but...
"it's late" Kathy says, and she tangles her fingers with Liv's and looks up at Elliot with that pretty little pout he can't say no to.
"you think you can be quiet?" He says to Alex.
"you wanna find out?"
They tiptoe up the stairs together.
They strip each other bare. There's no rhyme or reason to it; just hands and lips trailing against skin and there's a king size bed they all go tumbling into, but they're trying not to move too much and they're all a little drunk and a little tired and they just end up a tangle of limbs and gently exploring fingers, whispers turning into light snores
Maureen's boyfriend sneaks into her bedroom
"my dad is gonna kill you if he catches you"
"trust me, he's not gonna. He's busy"
"what do you-"
"they didn't leave, Mo"
She groans and buries her face in his chest
She's up with the sun, a little stressed, a little confused, and she goes into the kitchen where she finds Liv, wearing one of Elliot's shirts over her jorts, Eli on her hip, making coffee
"you want some" she asks, very gently
She looks soft, and sweet, and happy, so Maureen just says yes. She'll worry about the rest of it later.
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rora-s · 3 years
Text
The Derivative  Chapter 8: Sports
Chapter 1 <- Chapter 7
“Do I even need to ask?” David snapped. Uncle Charlie just smiled smugly turning his hand around. The entire table groaned in annoyance. 
“It’s not what it looks like, promise” Don spoke up. 
“You brother hustling us?” one of Don’s friends Mike muttered. 
“I’ve only played once before” Charlie informed as they collected the cards to deal another round of poker. “I actually have a one in eight chance of hitting a set when I’m holding a pocket pair. I’m about 50/50 to draw a flush with suited cards in my hand, two off the draw. I also count my outs I- I multiply by two. I add one. That’s roughly my percentage of hitting.” he explained. 
“Card math” I muttered over my father’s shoulder as I walked past the table. Leaning over to snag some chips out of the snack bowl. 
“Mr. Eppes you need to take my seat, your son is killing us” David declared as Alan brought out more chips. 
“No, not me” Gramps objected “the only other time Charlie played, I learned my lesson about gambling with a mathematician” 
“Hey could I-” 
“No” Don cut me off “Ms. I-can’t-help-but-card-count” 
“Not my fault I was born with perfect visual memory” I muttered as my father got up and headed to the kitchen. 
“Hey weren’t we playing with bottle caps?” Charlie pointed out to his father.
“Yeah or else you’d have walked away with the pink slip to my car” Alan informed. 
“You know, there is some element of chance here” Charlie explained “you know I- I may just be getting lucky.” 
“Or you're just unlucky,” David joked to Mike. 
“That’s funny Sinclair keep that up. It comes back to me when baseball starts” Mike countered taking a swig of his beer as dad returned and handed me a Mountain Dew as he sat down with his glass of water. 
“Baseball?” Charlie questioned “”the FBI have a team?” 
“Yeah, we got a whole league.” David explained “there’s, uh, LAPD, Sheriffs’ department” 
“D.A.’s got the killer squad” Mike commented “Now that Kraft’s in San Diego, you guys don’t have a power hitter.” 
“What about Don?” Charlie suggested. 
“It’s not my thing” Don objected 
“Oh, you play?” Mike inquired. 
“Don went to college on a baseball scholarship,” Charlie informed. “What are you talking about? You played pro second base.” 
“Single A about a million years ago” Don muttered. 
“That’s great. It means you’re this year’s ringer.” Mike grumbled. 
“Nope. I’m sorry.” Don objected quickly “not interest buddy” 
“Come on, you gotta do it” David asked hopefully as Don’s phone rang. 
“Excuse me” he murmured to us answering it. “Eppes… we’ll be right there” he declared, getting to his feet. 
I sighed and shuffled back toward the kitchen where Alan was. “Looks like I’m spending the night,” I informed. 
He looked up at me confused “really? Why?” 
Just then Don popped into the doorway pulling on a jacket “hey dad I just got called in can she stay here tonight?” 
I gave my grandfather a look who sighed “yes of course” 
“Thanks,” Don murmured heading out. 
______________
3rd POV. 
“I’ve never seen him before,” Mr. Bayle declared, handing Don back the photo of Salazar. 
“Are you sure?” the agent asked. 
“Yeah” the man confirmed. 
“I mean, maybe he did some work for you guys around here.” Don persisted. 
“Yeah, he could have. I wouldn’t know” Bayle explained “Lisa was in charge of all that.” 
“I’m just trying to figure out if there’s any possibility that this man knew your wife.” Don insisted as they stepped from the other man’s kitchen into his living room. 
“Why?” Bayle inquired with a shrug as he stopped to face Don. 
“You’re not going to want to hear this” Don prefaced reluctantly “but there are some questions about Cliff Howard’s conviction” 
“The bastard said he did it,” Bayle scoffed. 
“I know,” Don nodded. 
“I haven’t seen you in a year” Bayle continued “I haven’t seen you since you interrogated me for 48 hours.” 
“Sir..” Don tried to speak up but the other man continued. 
“I had to call the funeral home handcuffed to a table.” 
“I was pursuing your wife’s murder wherever it took me” Don attempted to explain his actions. “So help me..” he paused shaking his head and biting his lip and Bayle took the moment to speak again.
“Now you want to tear these wounds open again.” 
“I don’t want to do that,” Don objected adamantly. 
Both men paused to breathe and Don’s eyes wandered over to the mantel where he spotted a picture he recognized he shuffled over to point at it “that’s your, uh, your daughter. What’s her name? Paula?” he asked, trying to remember. 
“Yes” Jonas answered, his voice still tense with emotion. 
“Right. May I?” Don gestured to the photo. 
“Go ahead,” Bayle allowed. Don took the photo from the mantel and looked at the young girl. “She’s a sophomore now.” 
“Yeah, so is my daughter,” Don admitted. 
“You have a daughter?” Jonas asked, surprised. 
Don nodded “her names Abby.” he chuckled slightly with a bittersweet spike in his gut “yeah she came to live with me not too long ago after her mother died, car crash” 
“I’m sorry” Bayle murmured, shifting on his feet. 
Don replaced the photo and turned to face the other man. “Jonas, don’t you want to know the truth about your wife’s death?” 
“Cliff Howard is the truth,” Bayle insisted. 
______________
Abby POV. 
“Okay tell me I’m crazy” Larry declared, setting his pencil down and rubbing his face with his hands. “I think I’ve just found a way to express Calabi-Yau manifolds in a way that goes beyond the existence of a nonvanishing harmonic spinor.” 
“You're crazy,” I muttered, taking another bite of my food. 
“Ch- Charles” Larry whined when he received no response from his fellow mathematician. 
“Has he been out there all night?” Uncle C questioned turning away from the window he had been gazing out of. Watching my father play basketball. 
“Well, on the bright side it seems like Don’s taken up an interest in sports again.” Alan commented. 
Charlie sighed taking the seat next to me “it’s like the evidence proves him right and wrong at the same time” 
“Oh, yeah, the old paradox of Schroedinger’s cat.” Larry murmured. 
“Is that that persian that keeps hiding out in our garage?” Alan inquired. 
“No, that's the Myers down the street’s cat” I muttered, taking a sip of my drink. 
“It’s an intellectual exercise,” Charlie explained. 
“I knew that,” Alan lied. 
“Okay this is vastly simplified” Larry prompted “there’s a cat in a box. 50/50 chance it’s been poisoned, but now here’s the paradox: until such time as we can open the box and observe the cat, for that time, that cat is both alive and dead.” 
“Larry I-I fail to see the analogy, though.” Charlie objected “I mean, in reality Don can’t be both right and wrong at the same time.” 
“Well, of course not.” Alan chimed in “I mean, if a man is both right and wrong, then something’s gotta be wrong.” 
“Positive and a negative equal a negative?” I scoffed. 
“No. the truth of Schroedinger’s cat is that the question itself is meaningless until we look inside the box.” Larry informed. 
“So you could ask a whole different question” I voiced. 
“For a whole different result” Larry finished. Uncle Charlie immediately straightened and turned to look at the window again. Before getting up and heading outside after his brother. “Well and off he goes again to help solve the unjust of the world” 
“You can always tell when he gets an idea he spaces out then runs” I muttered. 
Larry hummed in agreement “you know you are quite insightful young enigma quite like your uncle I’m surprised you’ve yet to push ahead of your peers in academia like he so did” 
“Oh here we go” Alan muttered. 
“Well I’ve tried they won’t put me in advanced classes because I wasn’t in school consistently as a kid.” I explained. 
“Well that’s absurd a brilliant mind shouldn’t be held back by the amount of desks they haven’t sat at or lectures they’ve witnessed” Larry voiced in annoyance. 
“Preaching to the choir,” I told him. 
“Yes but do me a favor and don’t get on the soap box of yours again” Gramps asked me. 
I nodded in agreement and picked at the last bits of food on my plate. “You know what?” Larry spoke up causing me and Alan to look at him but his eyes were trained on me “you should attend CalSci once you’ve escaped high school. We have no such requirements if you show the aptitude” 
“I don’t know I’m still looking at quite a bit of time being forced to look at this stuff in school let alone do I want to keep having to do school work beyond it.” I pointed out. 
“No no no” Larry objected waving his hands “it’s not like that at CalSci you can learn what you want and gain knowledge and work to gather more knowledge of the universe itself with a very hands on approach” 
I sighed finishing off my dinner and gathered my dishes. “I’ll think about it” 
“Very well” Larry accepted the answer as I stood up. 
“You done?” Alan asked. 
“Yeah” I murmured, taking my dishes into the kitchen. I glanced out the window and spotted my Uncle joining my father in his basketball playing. I loved basketball. The one sport I was decent at. As I watched my mind different back to just shortly before I went to live with my father here. 
~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~
3rd POV. 
“Yo Calvin” Abby looked up from where she was sitting with her back to a wall in the courtyard book in hand. A girl named Naomi was looking at her from the basketball court with the ball tucked under her arm. Other girls around her were glancing in Abby’s direction and muttering to each other. “We need a even number get over here” 
Abby hesitated. Veronica was standing on the court eyeing her with the same hate in her eyes. However after one of her accomplices came over and whispered in her ear she nodded her agreement with the situation.  
Abby sighed and closed her book getting up and heading to the court. “‘ight y’all line up me and V will choose the teams,” Naomi declared. 
Abby stood in line with the seven other girls they had goated into playing with them. Veronica stuck to choosing her pals and Naomi was smart enough not to choose them but Veronica only had three friends and Abby ended up being the last one on the line as Naomi chose the girl next to her. 
“Calvin and V on the same team” one of the girls on Naomi’s team voiced “this’ll be interesting.” 
Abby scoffed and took her position on the court. “Hey bookworm don’t get in the way” Veronica snapped. 
“Then stay out of mine” Abby shrugged. Veronica shot her a glare as the other girls jeered. 
“Hey let’s play” Naomi called everyone’s attention. 
The game started out easy. Naomi had the ball and was heading down the court. Abby intercepted her snagging the ball easily and heading down the court when she was slammed in the side hitting the ground. Veronica had the ball now and shot it into the hoop. 
“Hey!” Abby yelled getting back to her feet “thought we were on the same team” 
“Thought I said stay out of my way” Veronica retaliated coming up to get Abby’s face. 
“Hey knock it off” Naomi pushed between the girls “either play or leave and sort your shit out the way you normally do and land in the infirmary” 
“You telling me what to do, china?” Veronica snarled at Naomi. 
Naomi shifted back a bit “I’m actually Korean not that it matters but what I’m trying to do is play some basketball. Now you two can go duke it out if you want at least it’ll keep the teams even” 
Veronica scoffed “whatever” she stalked back onto the court. 
Abby sighed and followed the game started up again and Abby barely touched the ball as it was passed from player to player. Until it got to a point where they had five minutes left of courtyard time and Naomi’s team was up by one. 
“We need to score. You beat Naomi at ball, that's a serious brag even with dead weights like Harp and Richards on her team” Veronica’s lacky Fiona stated. 
“Yeah well we aren’t going to if Veronica tries to score again” Abby muttered to the rest of the huddle. 
“You saying I can’t shoot Calvin?” Veronica turned to her angry. 
“No I’m saying our entire strategy has been geared to give you glory this entire time and they’ve figured that out” Abby explained “that’s why they’ve blocked our last five attempts.” 
“What? You want us to pass it to you?” Veronica asked “that ain’t how that works Calvin” 
“I don’t care who you pass it to” Abby shrugged “you just gotta pass it” 
Veronica thought about it a moment “Alright Fi you take it” she declared. “Let’s go” 
“Okay” Fiona muttered, sounding unsure. 
The game started and Naomi’s team got the ball dribbling down the court. Veronica intercepted as Abby and Fiona headed down opposite sides of the court. Veronica looked to pass it and saw Naomi guarding Fiona who was looking less than confident. Then she saw Calvin raise her hand. She was completely open. No one expected Veronica to pass the ball to the one girl she beat up every other day. 
Veronica passed the ball. Abby caught it easy and dribbled it a step before shooting it circled the hoop before dropping in to the cheers of the team.
“Alright ladies time to get inside” one of the matron’s called from the door the girls shuffled to the door Naomi scooping the ball. 
“Nice shot Calvin” Naomi told her, shoving her shoulder as she passed. 
Abby grabbed her book and headed inside. She was heading down the hall at a casual pace before she was pinned to the wall. Veronica had her collar. “That was a one time thing you got that?” 
Abby blinked at the other girl “really? You're so insecure about your status you have to make that point?” she asked with every ounce of sass she could muster. 
Veronica growled and threw her to the floor Abby got on her feet and shoved Veronica’s middle. The bigger girl pushed her away and soon they were grabbing at each other pulling hair and scratching. Soon someone was there to pull them apart. 
“Why do any of us expect different of those two?” Abby heard Naomi mutter to Fiona as Abby and Veronica were led to the infirmary.  
~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_
Abby POV.
“Bye Uncle Charlie” I called from the shade as the mathematician peeled off the fence of the batting cages and headed back to his car. 
“Bye Abbs” Charlie replied with a wave. I glanced over at my father as another crack of baseball on bat sounded. He was really starting to get into a rhythm, a proud smile on his face. I smiled lightly and returned to my reading. However there was only a moment of peace before Don appeared grabbing his water bottle and taking a swig.
“You want to take a few whacks?” He asked, gesturing to the batting cage. 
I shot another look over at the ball spitter. “Uh no thanks I’ve never really..” I trailed off gesturing at the cage with an implied statement and apathetic wave. 
Don looked at the cage then back at me with a small amount of shock evident in his face. “You’ve never played baseball before?” He asked in disbelief. 
“Maybe once in gym class” I shrugged answering honestly. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed Donald but I’m kinda on the nerd side of things” 
Don scoffed. “Come on” he grabbed my book and much to my relief remembered to put the bookmark in its place before closing it. “No daughter of mine is going to go through life without playing baseball”
I scoffed as I was pulled to my feet and given a helmet. I would normally put up a bit more of a fight but I knew that this sport meant a lot to him. So I kept my remarks to myself and went along with it. We headed out to the cage. He showed me what position to take. How to hold the bat properly and watch the ball. 
Even with his coaching it took a while before I actually hit the ball. When I did it was quite auspicious to us both. Despite it not going anywhere near where we wanted it to go. There was a lot of laughing and joking and we both left happy reliving the events in story with some subtle elaborations. Don excited to take me back some time.
Chapter 9 -> 
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albedoszn · 4 years
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another samsamu post because i know no ones getting tired of these >:) 
(jk, i know you guys are. but i’m doing these for my own self indulgence.)
like one suggestive thing
sends me songs that remind him of me ;; “(sends “iris”) idk dis kinda reminds me of u lolll”
(was kinda inspired by that one post i rb’d but) i draw on his napkins
also! i like to draw him a lot, too. whenever we facetime, i’ll say, “‘samu, look at me. i’m gonna draw u” or even when we’re at school, i’ll say, “‘samu, look at me. just-- don’t move.” he moves . a lot.
when we r in bed, he buries his face into my stomach especially when i get insecure abt that part of myself :(( sometimes blows raspberries there
i ramble a lot to him and all he does is stare while he listens. sometimes he’ll put his chin on his palm and smiles at me.
we hide the condoms underneath cereal boxes on the conveyor belt when we go to purchase them. 
holds my face in his hands, sometimes caresses my cheek softly with his thumb.
he’d bury his face in my hair, too, and uses the insult my mom tells me: “you smell like the sun.”
speaking of compliments!!! he tells me the generics: “you look pretty today,” “you look beautiful today,” “wow.... there’s my girlfriend... there she goes..!”
but one time he said, “your eyes hold the galaxy” when he interrupted me after i was rambling about something i was interested in. i forgot what it was because that threw me off guard and then we made out after that 
things that i tell him are (they’re more cheesy since im a writer... and i say pretty cheesy things) “you mean the world to me,” “you’re my everything,” “there he is, mr. hot stuff.” --> of course, the first two are ALWAYS said over text. i could never have the confidence to say that out loud. that’s only for the fics. 
condemns me for eating kraft mac n cheese... with hot dogs
makes takoyaki for me, refuses to make it if we don’t have the takoyaki sauce
likes attending my family/friend parties, especially the christmas ones where it’s a whole potluck. also, he has a whole field day at my family friend christmas party, since all the kids are there and it’s just a blast.
for context, i’d go on and on about these parties, but to keep it simple, my mom has a group of friends and we have annual parties at my house. there’s a theme every year and it’s encouraged we dress up according to the theme, because who knows? there might be a $100 prize waiting for the best dressed!
but yeah... osamu and i would TOTALLY win each dress-up competition because we go as matching outfits. ANDDD he would get along with everyone there. even though he stays by my side the entire time. (DEF wouldn’t get along with chrollo pfp guy bc of obvious reasons. and also i just don’t think they would click very well)
I THINK OSAMU WOULD LIKE MY DAD 
asks my mom for recipes
but is closest with my sister <3 they make fun of me a lot
kinda wanna describe how we were before we starting dating, so....
pining!!!!!! longing stares!!!!!! 
we look at each other like we’re each other’s worlds........ then look away if we make eye contact.
uh we were probably classmates which is how we met
omg it was prob because i was secretly eating in class and then osamu tapped on my shoulder. and then i was like omg he’s gonna snitch on me for eating during class. so i turned around and there he has a kinda pleading look in his eyes and he has an empty hand out for me to place a single potato chip in his hand....... from there we become GOOD FRIENDS <3 <3 <3
and then later we just share our love for food by, well, sharing food and it just gets to the point where he is like yo theres this cool cafe by my house, do u wanna ummmm perhaps come with me and check it out 
and im like DUH cuz i KINDAAAA grew feelings for him perhaps
but idk i think it would be pretty pog if we were childhood friends but we prob wouldnt be 
so we have friends to lovers trope <3
yeahh but before like any of that happened we were just soooo into eachother like we were the epitome of mutual pining to the point where it hurts everyone else around us cuz it’s so blatantly obvious that we like each other but the both of us are too scared to make a move
i scream about him all the time to my friends
like, i’d text my friends, saying “YOU GUYS! I THINK HE LOOKED AT ME!!!!!!!!” silly me. he was. but i was doubtful. 
but ummm yeah our “pining” consists of us looking at each other
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2p-hcmaker · 4 years
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Hi! May I please have some parental headcanons for 2p north italy with a daughter? This man as a dad has all my uwus, thank you so much! 🥺🥺
PFFFFTTT “has all my uwus”?????????? what does that mEaN?
Anyways...
2p Italy as a father
Of course he would never say it but he’s relieved its a little girl
He wants a princess to spoil
And he cannot deal with a boy because he is one and he knows that guys a gross (sorry fellas)
Luciano has issues settling down, the relationship with the mother may not last too long
If a divorce does happen, it will be amicable, but he’ll fight to be apart of his daughters life
Either way he’s going pamper his daughter
The nicest clothes
The best made toys
Did you guys know that like Gucci, Prada, and Versace have baby clothes??? 
That’s what that baby would wear
Well not Versace
Because that’s what Flavio likes to wear
Interior designer has visited the house three times to completely redecorate the room
Pink is too girly and blue doesn’t match the rest of the house
He settles for a creme color 
“No Flavio nothing you give me will be put in her room”
Luciano would eat up being a single father
The ladies love it but he’s not doing it to find a girl
He just likes the attention
But his little principessa has his full attention
As she grows he’s going to be very relaxed
He wants her to be her own person
But if she needs anything he’s there
The relationship would be good
He might not understand the trends and fads but he’ll do his best to listen 
“Allen its an emergency what does UwU mean????”
He and his daughter will be inseparable
The bestest of buds 
“Shit” “HEY! Where did you learn that?!” “You, dad” “oh right lol”
As she gets more responsibility, he’s going to impress on her the importance of accountability 
If she gets a bad grade, he expects her to be upfront about it and fix the problem
If she lies, not only will she not get what she wants, but he’ll start getting in her business to show he’s not messing around
You don’t want him in your business
So you better do what your supposed to
Hopefully, this will lead to his daughter being responsible
As she gets older he hopes he’s done a good job
She’s a young woman now and he hopes to god she doesn’t forget him
Despite this, he knows he can’t hold her back
Sending her to college will be hard, he hopes she won’t make the mistakes he did at that age
He doesn’t want to be too overbearing, so he limits calls to every 2 days
Then slowly, once a week
Then once every two weeks
Then every now and then
Despite the growing time in between Luciano will be fine
He trusts her
But let me warn you
If his daughter decides to get married
Not only will it be the biggest, best wedding ever to happen
He will be crying so much but desperately try to hide it
He so happy and proud, no matter his daughters choice
He’ll tease the lucky partner though
“You know your entering an Italian family right???”
“If you break her heart I will go full Godfather on you.”
“If you feed her Chef BoyRD or Kraft even once I SwEAR-”
Any possible grandchildren will be spoiled probably more than he spoiled his own daughter
He’s “Skinny Santa” now in December
and no matter what, when he looks at his daughter, he’ll feel happy
He’s made so many mistakes
How did he get blessed with such an angel?
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wannabemerida · 5 years
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I had so much fun writing my first kid fic with the help of my beta, @heartthrobphilly  and basing it off of @bluevlvvt ’s artwork (the link above!) —— Word count: 2.6k Prompt: Phil offers to drive his friends daughter (lola) to her ballet lesson. he runs into a cute dad with his daughter rosie. he offers to drive lola to her ballet lessons every week after that. (slow plot development lol) Warnings: light cursing, angst —— It’s 3:02pm as Phil waits outside of Brookside Elementary School. According to Ian, Lola usually exits through this door and waits to be retrieved from the playground. So far, there’s no sign of the little blonde girl playing outside.
A shout of “Uncle Phil!” catches his attention and he turns around to the soccer pitch just in time to see the kindergartener running at him, embracing him in a hug when they collide. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m taking care of you tonight, remember? Your dad has a big business dinner, and your mom is in Wolverhampton for her job, yeah?”
“Ohhhhh, I just thought Grandma would be taking care of me again,” the six year old explains, not seeming particularly fussed.
“C’mon, let’s head home.”
Two hours later when Phil suggests they order Chinese to the brick house, Lola quickly shuts his craving down. “Uncle Phil, we can’t have Chinese tonight, Thursdays are always Kraft Dinner nights, dummy!”
“Hey Lola, are you done with your dinner? You have ballet soon and still need to get ready!” Seeing Lola’s face that has a bit of the cheesy noodles left on it from quickly scarfing down her meal, Phil grabs a paper towel from the roll on the kitchen counter.
“Yeah! Do you have my leotard?” Phil grabs the light green leotard out of the overnight bag that Lola had brought along, handing it to her with the napkin, (“Lols, you’re a mess!”) her slippers, and a pair of tights.
The drive to the Portner Ballet Studio takes about 15 minutes, with Phil accidentally hitting every red light possible. This causes Lola some distress, claiming that the five minutes she has before class “isn’t enough to talk to Rosie, and she’s the only nice one there that I like.”
Nevertheless, when the raven-haired man and his favorite “niece” enter the building, a small girl with fluffy brown hair immediately runs up to Lola and hugs her. “Rosie, this is my Uncle Phil!
“Lola! You’re finally here! Daddy said you might not be coming today because you’re normally here before me,” the brunette pauses, “but you’re here now, see, Daddy? I told you she would come!”
Phil is frozen. The man who walks up behind Rosie is the most beautiful person Phil has seen, and that’s saying something, considering that Chris Hemsworth exists. But no, the curly brown fringe, hazel eyes, tall, lanky stature, and his soft face (not to mention his monochrome aesthetic and “best dad in the world” travel mug) easily outrank even the likes of Thor.
“Um, hey?” Phil is snapped out of his trance, needing to be able to respond to the greeting. “You’re Lola’s uncle?”
“Well, um, sort of? I’m really good family friends with Lola’s dad, and so I’m kind of an unofficial uncle to her.” Had he been responding to anything else, Phil probably would’ve stuttered, but the number of times he’s had to explain the title makes it so he can explain perfectly, even in front of someone this stunning.
“I’m- I’m Dan.” The two men glance over at the young girls who are chattering animatedly.
“Oh, yeah, Phil Lester.” Dan holds his hand out for a handshake.
“Rosie’s my daughter,” he says quietly, but there’s no mistaking the fondness he has when he says it.
“I can tell, she looks just like you, without the black and white.”
“Oh, I guess we do? My parents keep saying she looks like, um, Angie-” Dan’s voice decrescendos as he gets further along his sentence.
“Angie … is Rosie’s mom?”
“Oh, um, yeah.” Phil’s heart drops.
“Cool.” Not cool. Dan has a wife. Dan had a kid. With his wife.
“Have you got any kids?” Dan asks, a light blush still visible across his cheeks.
“Ah, no, I didn’t have time to find someone in Uni and now I’m single with 2 masters degrees.” Phil unconsciously plots a way to make himself seem more interesting.
“What are they in?” Dan asks, looking genuinely curious.
“I got my first one in English language and linguistics, and my second in post-production editing.”
“What do you do with those? How do they fit together?”
“I’m a special effects engineer for Disney, and they don’t really fit together to be honest,” Phil pauses, “although I do make YouTube videos and that kind of meshes them together,”
“Wow, um, cool,” Dan stutters.
“So what about you?”
“Huh?”
“What’s your job, besides ‘best dad in the world’?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m stupid.” Phil giggles, thinking of how his father would reply with ‘Hi stupid, I’m dad!’. “But I’m a writer for Vogue and I dabble in fashion photography. It’s mainly just taking photos of Rosie if I’m being honest, but the photographers sometimes get sick and I end up doing the shoot.”
“Vogue? Like, the fashion magazine?” Phil doesn’t know much about fashion, but he’s seen the magazine numerous times in the Tesco checkout lane.
“Yeah, well, technically it’s British Vogue, but…”
“Yeah.”
There’s a calm but slightly awkward silence as the conversation loses direction. The two men avoid eye contact, not wanting to make it worse.
The silence is broken by Dan’s tenor voice. “So what films have you worked on?”
“I got to work a bit on Spiderman: Homecoming, but the Live-action Beauty and the Beast was pretty fun. You know the scene where the gold leaf comes off of the ceiling to go on Belle’s dress?” When Dan nods, Phil breaks out into a grin. “That was me.”
“Wow.” Dan breathes out. “After she saw that, she kept trying to put stickers on her ceiling in the hopes that they would transfer to her shirt. It was a nightmare.”
“Ah, sorry.”
“Nah mate, it was kind of funny as well. I’ve got a few photos that I’ll save for when she graduates.”
“She’ll love that,” Phil chuckles, and the deep, throaty sound makes Dan’s heart stutter. “So you’re into fashion?”
Dan blushes. “Yeah? I mean I can’t really afford any designers, but I’ll turn into a fanboy at times.”
“Why do they charge so much? Like, half of the suits these designers make look identical to something I could buy from a department store for thousands of dollars less.”
“Well, a lot of designers carefully hand-make every piece, whereas the stuff you get in a store has probably been made by a pre-programmed machine and poorly paid workers in a factory. There’s also differences in fabric types, quality, and origins. And, a lot of designers will tailor the suit to perfectly fit you for a slightly higher price. If you go to a department store-”
“I see what you mean when you say you turn into a fanboy, but thank you for the mini lesson on why celebrities are willing to spend so much money on a navy tux. Your insights are amusing.” Phil grins.
“Did you also know that navy suits are better investments than black ones? It’s because the blue fits into so many more settings than a black one.”
While Phil could watch Dan talk about his passions for hours, just watching and memorizing how the lines change across his face, and God, that dimple, Phil supposes his relentless staring would get a bit creepy. “So what are the ballet lessons like? I’ve only been to a few of Lola’s performances.”
“Oh, um, well, they spend the first 20 minutes warming up, and then they move to the barre where they practice a bunch of stuff that’s in French that I can’t remember, and then they start to go over the routine for their next performance.”
“What is it?”
“What?”
“Their next performance?”
“Yeah! Sorry, I’m stupid,” Dan blushes for what must be the fiftieth time since he first met Phil. “The studio is putting on The Firebird.”
“No! Um, I mean, you’re not stupid. I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with The Firebird. What is it about?” Phil has heard the name before, but only in the context of movie scores resembling Stravinsky’s composition. “It sounds kind of intense, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, um, I don’t know much, but from what Rosie’s told me, the firebird gets caught by a prince and when he lets her go she helps him defeat the magician to save some princess, but I’m pretty sure I’m missing like half of the plot. I would say to just Google it and not to go by my word,” The nervous laughter emitted by Dan makes Phil instantly worry that he might have made the brunet uncomfortable or misread Dan’s friendliness as a blossoming friendship when it might have been a ploy to gather gossip for the nosy ballet moms.
“Thanks, I think I’ll trust you on that.” Dan offers a small smile at Phil’s response, letting the two men fall into silence as they watch the group of young girls and 3 boys practice their pliés and dégagés. An hour and a half later, the children exit the studio and find their guardians to go home.
“It was nice meeting you, Phil,’’ Dan admits as Rosie and Lola exchange a goodbye hug. The six words send Phil’s heart into overdrive and he feels his cheeks heating up.
“Yeah, you too, Dan,” Phil replies, proud of himself for not tripping over his words. Looking back, Phil’s whole interaction was impressive, considering his track record of ending up injured in some way.
Last time, Phil wound up with a broken ankle, having paid more attention to the cute digital renderer than the set of stairs they were walking down. It wasn’t all for nothing, though, Phil having gained the cute man’s phone number. Not that that did much for his love life, finding out two days that the boy he had his eyes on was dating the very female gaffer of their most recent movie, but that’s not the point.
This time, nothing will happen, because a) Phil dropping Lola off at ballet was a one time thing, so most likely, he’ll never see Dan again, and b) Dan has a daughter, who is his genetically, which means he has (or had) a wife, all summarizing that no matter how cute the brunet is, Dan is straight.
Not that Phil’s brain will accept that Dan is off-limits as a possible partner. Over the next few days, the image of soft brown eyes, curly fringes, and lanky limbs continuously make appearances in the back of Phil’s head. The very effective distractions cause Phil’s co-workers to worry, and PJ’s repetitive “have you been sleeping okay?”s have driven Phil to the point of insanity.
The answer to PJ’s question is quite easily “no”, Phil having only slept well once that week (he refused to admit it but that was the night that he got off to the image of a faceless figure who looked suspiciously like the boy who wouldn’t leave his head.)
By Wednesday, Phil was fed up with his brain’s reaction to not having seen Dan since the previous Thursday. Pulling out his phone, he does the only thing he can think of to satisfy his hungry mind. He calls Ian.
“Phil? Do you need something?” is the answer he gets when Ian finally picks up.
“No, um, I was just wondering, would you like me to take Lola to ballet again tomorrow?” Phil looks at the lines he had written down on a notepad, an effort to keep himself from going into a 20-minute rant about how in love with Dan he is.
“Sure, I guess? Why are you offering?”
“Just thought that you and Pam could use a break,”
“Oh, okay then, thanks! Same as last week?”
“Sure! Talk to you later!”
Phil’s convinced that his squeal of excitement was the reason that the people who lived across the street turned their lights on and not the fact that their smoke detector went off. He probably set that off too, in hindsight. And caused the stove fire.
23 hours later, Phil finds himself standing inside the dance studio again, surrounded by shrieking kids, chattering parents, and the faint sound of the top 20 radio playing in the background.
“Mister Phil! Where’s Lola?” Rosie pulls on Phil’s sleeve, stopping when she sees her best friend walk out of the bathroom.
“Why, Miss Rosie, she’s right there!” Rosie giggles, pulling out of a hug with Lola.
“I know that now, silly.” She and Lola run into the studio, eager to get to do the optional partner stretches before class starts.
“Are you Lola’s father?” A woman dressed in a skirt suit and heels walks up behind Phil.
“Oh, no, I’m just a family friend. I occasionally take Lola to ballet to give her parents some alone time.”
“Ah.” The woman sticks her hand out for a handshake. “I’m Angela Wright, Rosie’s mom.”
Had there been a small creature under it, Phil’s heart would have killed it from the speed at which it fell. He knew that Rosie had a mom, that Dan had a wife, that Dan wasn’t available. So why did it still hurt so much?
“Oh, cool,” Phil responds a moment later, his voice considerably deflated.
Phil’s unspoken question is answered right as it pops into is head. “Dan contracted the flu, and is stuck at home in bed, which is why I’m here this week. I’m normally responsible for taking Rosie to taekwondo while he takes care of ballet lessons, but that evidently won’t work this week. Honestly, it’s just like Dan to get a winter disease in the middle of summer.”
“I was going to ask about setting up a playdate between Rosie and Lola, but…” Angie trails off.
“Yeah,” Phil nods in understanding, not liking this woman any more than he did a minute ago. “I’m gonna go sit down.” No response comes from the woman, but Phil’s not particularly bothered.
Maybe he should be nicer to the wife of the man he’s stupidly trying to woo, but he just can’t. How is he supposed to be nice to his competition, who’s already clearly won?
When he vaguely notices the ballet instructor make a big motion with her arms, Phil decides that watching a group of five and six year olds is an adequate distraction from the turmoil in his brain. After 10 minutes of watching the kids do various tasks, jumping and prancing around the room, he zones off.
“Uncle Phillll, come onnnnnnn!” wakes Phil from his trance, no longer seeing the ballet students in the studio but now milling around the lobby and leaving. “Class ended like, forever ago! Can we leave? I wanna go get ice cream!”
A quick look at the clock told Phil that class had only ended 5 minutes ago, but to an antsy six-year-old, he supposed that could feel like an eternity.
“Lola, we aren’t getting ice cream. I’d rather not have your parents be mad at me for loading you up on sugar, right?” The small girl pouts but grabs Phil’s hand, dragging him to the car.
While it was easy getting Lola into her car seat, getting her out was a whole other task. It took Phil, Ian, Pamela, a blanket, 2 stuffed animals, and a lullaby to successfully remove the sleeping child out of the carseat, into the house, and onto her bed where she could sleep without interruption.
Once he was back in his car, Phil sat in the driveway, resting his head on the steering wheel, regretting ever offering to take Lola to dance lessons at all. Remember back in college when all those crushes were single? You fucked up, bud.
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specialmindz · 5 years
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“NYEH HEE HEE HEE!”
“*Sigh* Why...why do you do this? You know that’s not right.”
“...I’s ready to go Daddy...”
“No. No you’re not.”
“I’s ready to pay in da’ snow...”
“We’re visiting the king,” said Gaster, taking Papyrus’s boots and putting them on correctly.
He should be doing this himself.
“The king in the snow pace?”
“No.”
“He building a snowman?”
“NO.”
“alphys is sick baby bro,” said Sans opening a cabinet. “so i have to help dad work for the next few days. the king volunteered to babysit you for a while-”
“HE GONNA SIT ON DA’ BABY?!”
“no pap-”
“HE GONNA SIT ON DA’ BABY!”
“papyrus…”
“YOU GOTS TO TELL HIM I’S NOT AN EGG BIG BUTHER!”
“what...?”
“You gots to tell him I’s not an egg! The king be reeeaal tall and stuff so when he sees a tiny skelly baby such as myself, he only see mah bald widdle baby head and he probably think ‘wowie, I find-ed a tiny widdle egg on mah doorstep! I bet there be a baby chicken inside...I bedder sit on it, or is gonna get cold-”
“you’re wearing clothes bro.”
“Yeah, but he can’t sees em’ cause’ he too big...Imma draw a smiley face on my head. Where the markers be?”
“You’re not allowed to have markers.”  
“Dat don’t mean I doesn’t need em’. Baby is NOT a butt-plug.”
“what’s a butt-plug?”
Gaster sighed, already exhausted. He didn’t want to bring Papyrus all the way to New Home, and he wanted to leave him there even less. King Asgore was the Underground’s only hope of escape at the moment...the only solid one at least. He was Gaster’s safety net of sorts if Sans turned out to be unable to teleport his brother past the barrier. Without the king, the royal scientist would be an even bigger nervous wreck then he was now, but no one else was willing to watch Papyrus and there was no way on earth the little troublemaker would leave them alone while they worked. 
Picking up the baby bones with his wingdings so as to avoid being bitten, he looked the infant in the eye. “His Highness is very lonely Papyrus,” he said gravely. “and what’s worse is he doesn’t know the full extent of your horrendous behavior. That means he’s going to be spending a lot of time with you rather than simply leaving you to play his lost children’s video games; that being said, you need to be kind to him. If he dies, there will be no one strong enough to wield the human souls and break the barrier, understand?”
“Ooooh! Fluffy Buns gonna pay wit da’ baby?!”
“yep, so be nice to him bro. no hitting, no biting, no tearing anything up-”
“Okay, okay. I’s gonna be nice and quiet and just read books like a good bae.”
“NO BOOKS. Do you hear me? NONE. Do not read him ANY stories. He can read to you, but do NOT read to him, do I make myself clear?” 
The last thing I need is an hour-long phone call from the old fool trying to find the right words to tell me how to raise my child.
Gaster got a lot of those from the queen long ago if he remembered correctly and they annoyed him to no end. Not just because she took forever to get to the point, but because she refused to even consider the possibility that HER kids were the ones that needed a talking to. In her eyes, it was always Gaster’s fault, not her precious Asriel or Chara. 
Even though Papyrus spent most of his time around those two and I’M always working, it’s still somehow more likely MY influence, right. 
I do wonder though, whatever happened to the old hag?
I know she abandoned her husband and the kingdom, but where exactly did she run off to?
“I can pay wit da’ snails?”
“You’ll do what he asks you to do.”
Papyrus blew a raspberry in the scientist’s direction, splattering him with drool.
“NYEH HEE HEE HEE HEE!”
“have fun baby bro, and tell me everything when you get back okay? maybe if you’re reeeeally good, the king will help you get into daycare!”
“Absolutely not,” said Gaster, placing the baby bones under his arm. “sending him to daycare is out of the question with its current management.”
“huh? why? what’s wrong with undyne’s mom?”
His father shook his head. “I know the woman who works there personally. She uses her child’s temper as a tool for suing parents who leave their children at the daycare she now runs. Whenever Undyne throws a tantrum and hurts someone there, her mother accuses the parents of child abuse, claiming that despite Undyne’s reputation, the children keep trying to play with her because their parents order them to. She has the king completely convinced that they’re getting their kids hurt on purpose so they can sue her. It’s a complete lie of course, she used to work at the lab pulling the same money-grubbing stunts until I fired her.” 
And this was BEFORE the Underground was such a poverty pot.
No doubt she’ll try to use Papyrus somehow, wretched woman…
“Her husband fought and died in the war and so Asgore not only sees her as a lover of children who does everything in her power to enrich their lives, but also sympathizes with her. He sees her as a single-parent with a troubled child living in a bad economy and thinks she’s selfless and kind, when in reality she’s as greedy as they come.”     
“well...she can’t go doing that forever and ever and ever though right? even if everyone’s poor, the king will eventually figure out she’s lying. he can’t believe the ENTIRE underground’s out to rob her.” 
Even if everybody IS poor, he should know he’s being punked. Not EVERYONE is gonna gang up on ONE person, especially if they need that person to watch their kids.
“He’ll figure it out eventually, yes...but for now, Papyrus needs you. He’s better behaved when you’re watching him anyway; now I expect the beakers to be in place by the time I get back Sans-”
“Nyeh? Snas not gonna tellyport da’ baby?”
“nope. dad wants to make me do all the prep work and use your trip to asgore’s as an excuse.”
Gaster rolled his eyes and left the lab. There was no point in retorting, Sans would never understand how lucky he was compared to the other children in the Underground. Unlike them and himself, he wasn’t a victim of poverty and no amount of arguing on Gaster’s part would rid the boy of the entitled attitude that came with living comfortably.  
Lazy ungrateful brat...he really thinks every kid sits on their ass all day while their parents work. Preposterous. Back in MY day, we used to work in mines and factories at his age and both places were messier than the Nursery. We spent most of the money we earned on medicine just so we could work more and he’s complaining about setting up a few beakers...? 
“I thought Sans Serifs made up for their lack of strength with superior intellect, but clearly I was wrong. Damn that Charles Dickens and his god-awful Oliver Twist novel! If Sans hadn’t gotten ahold of that book-”
“To be, or not to be! Nyeh hee hee!”
“That’s Shakespeare.”
“I has look-ed upon all da’ universe has to hold of horror, and even the skies of spring and flowers of summer must ever afterward be poison to me.” 
“And that’s Lovercraft.”
“Waz Lovecafe?”
“Dr. Seuss for adults; you know what it is, you just quoted it.”
“Is mac and cheese?”
“YOU JUST QUOTED IT.”
“Yeah, but maybe I read-ed it off the box?”
 “I highly doubt any form of Kraft Mac and Cheese would put the words ‘horror’ and ‘poison’ on their box,” said Gaster tightening his grip on the baby bones. The spring platforms were dangerous in Hotland when you were carrying things. It made him (and a lot of other people he imagined) wish that the elevators were better maintained as good food was only really found at the Resort or in Snowdin. That meant people who lived in Waterfall not only had to brave the harsh climate of Hotland, but also somehow carry their groceries back home across the springboards if ever the elevators were to break down, which was often...and today.
“WHEEEEEEE! DO A FLIP DADDY!”
Despite the overpopulation problem, there just weren’t many people who knew anything about complex machinery. Some monsters knew about the compromise Asgore had made with the humans long ago, but most did not. The deal was if he worked together with them to destroy the Horrors, they would refrain from mass genocide and settle for the monster’s self-imprisonment within Mt. Ebott. The king, in his cowardice, took the agreement and kept it secret from all his people, aside from the handful of Boss monsters he needed to raise the barrier itself...Boss monsters that had to put the barrier up from the outside in order to get it to work, which resulted in their destruction. His Highness, claiming the reason for the team up was because the Horrors posed a bigger threat to the earth, was left with weak monsters of all sorts with different backgrounds. None were prepared for Mt. Ebott. They weren’t a group of scientists, engineers, or soldiers, they were simply confused citizens who were one day told to gather inside a mountain by their king before being sealed inside and fed a bunch of lies.
There’s no one left down here who knows how to fix the elevators except me now, thanks to Papyrus. Asgore’s lucky I was already in here before this place was sealed, or he’d have quite a problem.
It would’ve been nice if he could go back to what he was doing BEFORE the monster came to Mt. Ebott and began piling work on top of him. He wanted and had been studying the strange climate changes within the mountain, trying to hypothesize if the volcanic activity had anything to do with the strange weather and if the source of all magic really stemmed from the Earth’s core, or if it was just a chemical reaction; but it had been so long since he’d seen his notes, he doubted they hadn’t already been chewed up by the hellspawn under his arm. Luckily, skeletons had the lifespan of a monster, and Asgore not only knew about the lack of educated monsters in the Underground, but was doing something about it, putting emphasis on certain subjects in schools and introducing the students to daily logic puzzles so that the next generation would be more tech savvy. It would take a while, but by the time most of the children in the Underground reached adulthood, most of them would know the basics of at LEAST electrical engineering and be able to fix those damn elevators.
If Sans didn’t have one hp I’d absolutely enroll him, but I need someone to watch Papyrus and he’d most likely be killed by one of those bratty school children. He’s too shy, small, and weak to be near anyone immature...I can’t risk it. Especially when I’m so swamped with work.
“It almost makes me want to try again...make a new clone and split it in half, this time the RIGHT way...but if I make another mistake, I’ll have FOUR children...”
“Nyeh?! You’s gonna make more babies?!”
“Absolutely not.”
“I wish to have a widdle sister. Not like Snas, I mean a REAL sissy-”
“Sans is the closest thing to a girl that will ever come near you, and I can say that with the utmost confidence.”
“Undyne a girl...”
“You heard what I said.”
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!
“Who there?”
“What?”
“Snas say, when he do dat, I’s supposed to say ‘who there.”
“...”
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!
“Who there?”
“Stop that.”
Opening the door, Asgore greeted the two with a warm smile. “Welcome Gaster, I’m so glad you decided to bring your little one in person rather than having Sans simply teleport him here.” He bent down until he was eye level with Papyrus. “You’re looking adorable as ever Papyrus, it’s nice to see you too! You look like you’ve gotten a bit bigger since we last saw each other, ho ho ho!”
“You too.”
“PAPYRUS! I’m so sorry your Highness-”
“Oh don’t worry about it, I’m sure he means well.”
“NYEH HEE HEE!”
Handing Papyrus to Asgore, Gaster frowned as he watched the baby bones snuggle into the king’s chest...a tactic the infant usually used to distract the people he was trying to steal from.
“Get your wingdings out of his pocket. I told you to behave yourself!”
“He’s only curious my friend! I remember when my little Chara was still alive, they used to go through everything-”
“Where all da’ monies at? You’s a king aren’t you? You’s supposed to be wich!” 
“Ho ho ho, you’ve got your brother’s sense of humor I see!” 
“YOU’S NOT FUNNY!”
“We’re gonna have such a fun day!”
“ERRRNNN!”
“Alright, I’m heading off. I’ll return for Papyrus as soon as you call me,” said Gaster turning to leave.
“As soon as I call you?”
“Correct. When you reach the point where you no longer wish to watch him, give me a call and I’ll pick him up. One, two days would be nice, or whenever you feel like your life is in danger-”
“NYEHHHHHHH!”
“Ah! Oh dear, it’s alright little one, I’m sure he was only joking,” said the king, bobbing the infant up and down in his arms.
“He’s not upset. He’s only crying because that’s what babies do when their parents leave for work, or in my case, to go shopping. Papyrus will do what’s expected of other babies, as long as you’re watching him, in order to convince you he’s a normal infant…despite his exceptional talents. If he gets hungry, simply leave him by himself and he’ll fetch his own food, in fact, leaving him to his own devices is probably the best thing to do in general, especially if you’re at a loss.”
“Leave him by himself? That’s madness! I know he’s not a monster Mr. Wingdings and so should thus be raised differently, but my house is built for large creatures…my cabinets may as well be closets in his eyes! What if he gets into my cleaning supplies? He could be poisoned!”
“I’s going straight for da’ soap!”
“NO you’re not. He’s not your Highness. Remember, he’s a natural born liar and unfortunately, another trait he shares with his brother is he’s very attention-seeking.”
“Is you seeking mah foot up yo’ ass? Cause’ dat’s what it sounds like douche Daddy…”
Gaster didn’t respond. He simply turned and left, leaving behind a very confused and concerned king.
“We’s gonna read a book Fluffy Buns? Daddy said I could read alllll the books I wanted while I’s here…”
“Um…s-sure…” said Asgore, carrying the Horror into the living room. He sat down into his chair and watched as the baby bones used his wingdings to grab a random book from the shelf, all the while struggling to shake the uneasy feeling that had been steadily growing within him since he picked the infant up.
He was familiar with Horrors…he had fought them in the war after all, but he had little to no experience with their children. Apparently, the majority of baby bones were supposedly more intelligent than monster babies, though it did differ with each infant and had a lot to do with their typing. Verbal Fonts, which is what Papyrus was if he recalled, were the first to learn language and so were able to hold entire conversations at a very young age; entire coherent conversations. While other children struggled with multiple lisps, Verbal Fonts would speak clearly and be careful to only alter their speech enough to sound cute and maintain the love of the adults around them.
An intelligent infant is a dangerous thing…combine that with Papyrus’s ability and my love for children in general, and I’m at even greater risk.
I must be very careful of what I say…
“So Papyrus, if I recall correctly, each time you’ve visited my home you’ve crawled straight for my children’s room to play. We’ve never really gotten to know one another, have we?”
Papyrus stopped flipping through the book. “Nyeh?”  
“Why don’t you tell me about yourself little one?”
The baby bones looked at his book and then back at the king as if he were unsure of what to say. For a moment Asgore thought he wasn’t going to speak at all; perhaps talking to Papyrus like an adult wasn’t the best idea. Gaster DID say he tended to act like a regular baby in front of others…
Did I make a mistake?
“*Ahem* My name be Papyrus and I’s two years old,” said the baby bones holding up two fingers. “I enjoy cuhwering, long crawls on da’ beach, and my big Buther’s company…his peasants I mean, he not own a company.”
“Heh heh ha ha!”
“As for my own endevors, I help the Underground by selling cheap affordable drugs to junkies so they overdose and die…or I WOULD do dat, if SOMEBODY would stop cutting off my supply.”
“…”
“Dat someone be YOU Fluffy Buns…”
“…I would appreciate it if you’d get out of the drug trade Papyrus,” said Asgore averting his eyes.
“Well I would appeciate it if you’d stop fuking wit my job security, NYEH!” Papyrus threw the book he was holding onto the floor. It didn’t have any pictures, so it was basically useless.
Not something meant for babies anyway.
“Dis book suck! Where da’ pictures at Fluffy Buns? You get dis from the weird part of the library?”
“Seriously Papyrus, about your job-”
“One time I went to the library to get some books for Snas, and I found a book just like this…cept’ it wasn’t like this, it was all soft like a blankey!” exclaimed the tiny skeleton hugging his Highnesses beard.
“Papyrus.”
“Dis book was weird as hell Mr. Buns! I open it up and it had zippers and buttons in it! BUTTONS! Who puts buttons in a book? They didn’t do nothing either! I undid the zipper AND the buttons and there no pockets or nothin’. What dat spose’ to teach the baby? How that edgy-cation-al? I thought it would at LEAST have pockets with stuff in em’ but it didn’t have CWAP!” yelled the baby kicking his tiny legs.
“…”
“I talked to Dirt-Butt about dis and he said the book was a met-a-phor about life. He said is supposed to teach you that life is full of disappointment and people who look for free hand-outs deserve to BE disappointed-”
“What? No!” cried Asgore horrified. “The book you’re describing is most likely a sensory book. It’s a book that acts as a toy for-who is this ‘Dirt-Butt?’ Why would he say something like that to you?!”
What kind of-
“…I thought it was deep.” Papyrus picked the abandoned book back up. “Dis a meta-book too? What it mean?”
“It…it doesn’t mean anything. It’s a book about snails.”
“I think it mean…exercising yo’ ima-gin-ation be more important than relying on someone else’s. Dat’s why it don’t gots pictures. Is saying ‘exercise your ima-gin-ation and make yo’ own pictures. Make your own books wit pictures so OTHER peoples can enjoy them. Give back to da’ community.’ What you think Fluffy Buns?”
“I think it’s a book about snails.”
CA-CLACK!
Papyrus dropped the book again.
“…”
“I liked dat book, is easy to read.”
“You didn’t read it.”
“There was dis one meta-book I find-ed that I still can’t read dough. Is hard like dis one, made of wood, but it had weird stuffs inside dat was scratchy and rubbery and foamy and-”
“That’s another sensory book. Babies are supposed to touch the things inside the book to learn what they feel like.”
“Even the dead kitty?!”
“Dead kitty?”
What?
“There be a page inside that say ‘kitty’s are soft, feel how soft the kitty is?’ and there be fur sticking out page! I touched it and it was real fur Fluffy Buns! Someone squished a cat in a book and put it on the shelf!”
“No.”
“They squished it flat like Undyne…”
“No, also don’t talk about Undyne’s chest like that…it’s not nice.”
“Why not? She do! I ask her one time, ‘hey Fish-Lady, where your boobs be? Yo’ muder gots boobs, so where yours?’ and she go, ‘I don’t know, I think they ran away while I’s sweeping. My mama keeps hers in a hammock cage thing so they don’t get away, but she never bought me one cause’ she cheap.”
Asgore rubbed at his temples as if trying to will away a headache. He didn’t know if it was Papyrus’s seemingly boundless energy, continuous change in subject matter, or lack of listening skills, but the boss monster was feeling more and more drained as the conversation continued.
He expected a Verbal Font to be a chatterbox of sorts, but he didn’t expect it to physically affect him. It felt as if his mind were currently running a marathon whilst leaving his body behind.
Perhaps I’m just getting old, it’s not as if Asriel didn’t ask a million questions when HE was younger after all…though he wasn’t anywhere NEAR as bad as this. I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised however, toddlers are one thing, but babies are quite another; they know even LESS about the world around them. Everything is new and exciting for a baby, so of course a Verbal Font like Papyrus is going to want to talk nonstop about even the smallest of occurrences.
Peeking through his fingers, the king watched Papyrus chatter on, seemingly oblivious to the world around him.
Stars above, I can only imagine how tired Mr. Wingdings must be on a regular basis. Perhaps I’ve been pushing him too hard with all these demands…as important as they are, his children should come first.
“…So I say, ‘you needs boobs Fish-Lady for your footure babies! Erybody knows muder milk be the most nutritious!’ and then she did dat thing where her eyes get real big and her voice get loud and she scream, ‘OH MY GOD! WHAT IF SOMEONE STOLE MY BOOBIES WHILE I WAS SWEEPING SO THEY COULD HAVE FREE MILK?! WE MUST CAPTURE THESE VILLAINS AND BRING THEM TO JUSTICE!”
Asgore brought his hands down. “Was this last week?”
“Nyeh? I don’t know, why?”
“Because I got a lot of complaints about Undyne last week. That’s why.”
“Then yep, probably, cause’ she and I went around asking people bout’ her boobs and she beat up lossa people. The ones who laughed. She said only bad guys laugh at the unfor-tune-ate.”
“That’s,” the king groaned pitifully. “That’s not a good reason to assault people…”
“Is good enough for her.”
“I CAN SEE THAT,” said Asgore loudly before quickly catching himself and correcting his volume. “How about I make us some tea?” Getting up, he sat the baby bones on the chair behind him and headed towards the kitchen, a tactic he often used whenever he was in an uncomfortable situation, however he didn’t miss the glare the little Horror shot him on his way there.
“Babies don’t dwink tea! Babies dwink MILK! Dat’s why Undyne’s boobies be so important! Why you no listen?”
“I’m listening…”
“No you’re not, you weave right in da’ middle of mah story!”
“You’ve told many stories already, why not take a break?”
“A bake? I don’t need no bake! I gots to pactice my font daily or I’ll be weak when I gets big!”
His Highness glanced over his shoulder, placing a full kettle of water on the stove. “I see…so these stories of yours are a way for you to practice your lying without suffering any severe long-term consequences. I suppose it’s safe to assume then that most of what you’ve said about Undyne’s…rampage, is entirely false?”
“I doesn’t remember ERYTHING she say, or the EXACT words she used, but I’s still telling the tooth. I’s a good bae, ya’ know? I help Undyne when she was feeling sad about not finding her boobies even dough I didn’t have to. I told her mah Daddy could make her some new boobs wit his science and then she was happy, all cause’ of me.”
“Your father eh? So if I call your father, he’ll tell me the same thing?”
“Yep. I aspect so. He the one who solved da’ mystery of the missing boobies too! My Daddy a hero even dough he suck.”
“Right.” The king stood in near the stove watching the kettle, he was torn between going back to the living room and hiding in the kitchen. He WANTED to keep listening to Papyrus, but he was tired and the infant’s loud high-pitched voice was becoming unbearable. He wasn’t sure how much helium Gaster was pumping into that baby’s room, but it sounded lethal, which was too bad because one of the few things Asgore took pride in was the fact that he was a much better listener than his wife. He loved her, but he was all too aware of her awful tendency to jump to conclusions before hearing an entire story and how much pain it could bring others, so he made it a point to do better. To BE better. It was almost like a secret and silent competition of sorts where he would struggle to become the prince’s favorite parent…though it was embarrassing to admit and deep down, he knew it wasn’t right.
There was even a shameful time when he went overboard and blamed her a bit for their children’s deaths, though he NEVER said anything about it verbally. As king, he had to work most of the time to maintain the Underground, especially considering the shape it was currently in, which meant TORIEL was in charge of watching the children throughout the day. He didn’t know exactly WHEN Asriel left for the human village, but there was a time when he suspected it was while his wife was supposed to be keeping an eye on them. The idea should have made angry or sad, but instead he only felt an embarrassing sense of triumph that he hated himself for.
That is, until Gaster set him straight one night at Grillby’s.
“Don’t be a fool. Your child left in the middle of the night; it was no one’s fault, much less your own, unless you make a habit out of watching your offspring sleep.”
“How can you be so sure? We don’t have cameras around our house OR the barrier.”
“Common sense. Her Highness homeschools them in the morning so it’d be impossible to leave at that time and had the prince left in the afternoon, it would have taken him hours to traverse his way down the mountain due to the unfamiliar terrain and to even FIND the village. He’d only be able to reach it by nightfall when most of the humans sleep.”
“I…I see.”
“You’ve spent most of your life in the countryside, you must know what it’s like. The small villages that dot such places usually comprise of farmers…an early to bed, early to rise type of people. There’s little to no chance that there’d be enough of them awake to swarm your son, unless he left in the middle of the night and arrived at the village in the morning. Blaming yourself is irrational behavior, as is drinking away your day at the bar.”
“Y-You’re right…thank you.”
“…Then I tell Undyne to use her cute voice cause’ my stink Daddy don’t look up from his papers, but she still scu it up. She go ‘peas mister science man, can you make me some new boobies? I needs em’ for my wife and kids.” Papyrus shook his head. “Stupid Fish-Lady, I told her she stupid too. Wives don’t need milk, BABIES need milk, but she call me a clown fish and told me to shut my cwap mouth. ‘You doesn’t know ANYTHING stupid baby! I saw my mama use milk for her coffee and big people LOVE coffee, so he gonna feel bad for mah wife and kids and give me boobs for a bargain!”
“…I’m curious as to what your father’s response was.”
“Daddy told her dat she took after her muder and to ask HER where her boobies were.”
Asgore nodded, though the baby couldn’t see him.
Ahh, the old ask-your-mother response. I remember using that many a time.
If he recalled however, it never ended well. Passing uncomfortable situations like that onto his wife proved to be...problematic, as the queen was stubborn in her ways.    
“I do hope you didn’t bother that poor woman Papyrus.”
“Nyeh? Poor?” Papyrus looked confused. “She not poor! Undyne’s muder wich! I knows cause’ she gots vases with no flowers in them. I asked her why that be and she said it was none of my beeswax and to not come in her house when the door be locked…I think she sold Undyne’s boobies Mr. Buns, but I can’t proves nothing…I think dat’s what Daddy was trying to tell us.”
“I assure you, she did nothing of the sort-”
“Can I borrow yo’ boobs Fluffy? You doesn’t need them no more right? You give them to Undyne?”
“I don’t…I don’t have those things,” said Asgore, wincing as he heard the pitter patter of tiny boots headed towards the kitchen.
“You look like you do…” said the baby peeking around the corner.
“WELL I DON’T.”
“But you look like you do…hey, what chu doing?” asked Papyrus tilting his head.
Picking up the infant, Asgore began carrying the Horror towards the room he was currently renovating. “Why don’t we go play a game while the water’s boiling, hm? I’m sure you’d rather spend time playing than talking to an old man like me. I’ll even play with you! How’s that sound?”
“Annoying…”
“Ho ho ho!”
As his Highness began to set up the game counsel (something that had to be done every time his children played a game), Papyrus glanced around the room, the previous conversation forgotten. Nothing had really changed since he’d last been in here…in a sense anyway. Chara and Asriel had always been very competitive and it continuously resulted in the destruction of everything in the area except the game counsels they were using. The place itself was a mess of broken toys like the Nursery, but there were scorch marks every which way and bits of splintered wood from destroyed furniture. To his right he could see something that may have once been a table of sorts, so he imagined the princes might have been eating and gaming in the same place; a practice he THOUGHT their mother had banned long ago due to the stains on the wall from food that had no doubt been thrown in a rage after one of the children’s gaming sessions.
Despite spending so much time together, the two had personality traits that contrasted greatly with one another. Asriel was a coward and Chara wasn’t.
That being said, the little goat monster had a tendency to use underhanded tactics to win games when he saw he was losing, such as complaining to their mother about Chara killing Yoshi so he could keep his high score in Mario, or pretending to “accidently” pull his controller out of its socket so his loss wouldn’t count. It infuriated Chara, who was much more mature when gaming, and it often led to violent fights and ultimately their games being taken away for a week or so while the king and queen had the game room repaired.
As a baby that valued courage more than most, Asriel’s behavior disgusted Papyrus, but he stayed quiet about it while he was over. After all, the baby was a guest and no one was perfect. He suspected that Asriel’s parents and environment in general played a big part in feeding his friend’s cowardice, that and monster babies weren’t like skelly babies. They didn’t seem to have the natural instinct Papyrus had to try and grow up properly. They weren’t born with a sense of discipline or ambition; In fact, from what he DID see, all monster babies did was sit around and wait for others to do things for them. He knew because they didn’t change when they became toddlers or even children like Asriel. They still spent all day playing for fun and making demands instead of practicing their magic or trying to intentionally learn new things.
“They spoiled.”
“Hm?” Asgore turned from the counsel and looked around. “Yes, I suppose we did spoil our children a bit. There are times when I wonder in fact, if they’d still be alive if I had been stricter with them…made them afraid to leave the house without permission.” He chuckled and sat on the floor next to Papyrus. “Then again, children will be children and Asriel shared his mother’s stubbornness. He’d of left no matter what I threatened him with.”    
Papyrus took up a Gamecube controller and glanced doubtfully at the king. “You know how to pay dis game, or is you gonna be an old person da’ whole time?”
“Excuse me? I set up the game-box didn’t I? Just because I’m old, doesn’t mean ALL technology eludes me young man!” Turning on the game, they watched through the cinematics until only the title screen SUPER SMASH BROS MELEE remained with the words “PRESS START” fading in and out at the bottom.
“…”
“…”
“…”
“…Why isn’t it starting?”
“See dat button in the middle of the controller there?”
“Which button?”
“The only one in da’ middle. The one that say ‘start.”
“This one?”
“Pess it.”
Asgore pressed the start button and they were taken to another screen with multiple choices that immediately made the infant regret keeping quiet about the choice of game.
“So this is that Super Smashing Fighters game you all love so much! Look at all these options…since I’m a ‘noob’ heh heh heh, I think I need some training…what does ‘1-P’ mean?”
“Go to ‘VS. Mode.”
“Alright…oh. Oh I see,” said Asgore as he was taken to the character screen. “Going straight to the game are we? You’re like Asriel it seems. You don’t want to give me a chance to learn how to play, you just want to win.”
“No Fluffy.”
“You wish to take advantage of my old age and lack of understanding.”
“No. We’s gonna fight as a team. Pick yo’ peoples.”
“OH! OH I KNOW THIS MONSTER! IT’S PIKACHU!”
“Pick yo’ peoples.”
“How do I pick Pikachu?”
Taking the controller from Asgore, Papyrus hovered over the yellow mouse and pressed the ‘A’ button. “You see dis button Mr. Buns? See how it gween like a stop light? Think of dis button as the ‘yes button’ If you want something you use the ‘yes button’ to get it. The red button here be the ‘no button’ if you don’t want something, you pess the ‘no button’ kay’? Cause’ red be a bad color dat means STOP like a stop sign.”
“What?”
“Use dis to pick stuff and dis to go back.”
“Oh alright.”
So as to avoid more annoyances, Papyrus went ahead and made the proper arrangements for their team battle, choosing Kirby as his character.
“Dis game needs more babies…”
“Papyrus. Papyrus look.” Asgore pressed a button on his controller. “He’s got a little hat, ho ho ho!”
“…”
“Aren’t you going to dress up your pink guy?”
“He don’t get clothes till he eat you.”
“Oh my goodness, there’s a princess in the game! Papyrus choose the princess, I bet she has nice clothes…oh no wait, be Pichu! That’s Pikachu’s baby right? We can be a family of fighters!”
“Pichu sucks.”
“But we can be father and son and-”
Papyrus quickly changed his character to Pichu and put Princess Peach and Kirby in the other two slots as their opponents. “Okay, there. I’s Pichu. We pay now?”
“Does he have any-”
The baby bones changed his costume.
“How adorable! This game is so very very cute! I don’t see why Tori had such a problem with it…maybe she didn’t know about the outfits? She had a habit of making mountains out of mole hills that woman…how do we proceed?”
Pressing ‘Start’ they made it to the stage selection screen where, thankfully, the king immediately chose the one with the giant pokeball on it, having apparently recognized the object from an old video series his children had found miraculously intact at the Dump.
As the game began, Papyrus’s annoyance faded a bit as he watched Asgore test out the controls without asking about them. He may not have known much about technology, but obviously his battle instincts transferred into the game, as he seemed to instinctively know not to distract Papyrus during the fight…that is…until he noticed their opponents where no match for the Horror.
“How do I catch you?”
“Nyeh?”
“How do I catch Pichu? Every time I throw these pokeball things at you they turn out to have someone in them already. Where are the empty ones, or how do I empty them out before catching you?”
“DON’T CATCH DA’ BABY!”
“You’ll be safe in the pokeball. It’s part of a grand strategy-”
“Dis not Pokemon! Dis MELEE! You just supposed to kill da’ pencess and the pink bae-”
“What? Killing?! This is a FIGHTING game Papyrus, we’re supposed to be JUST fighting, not killing!” His highness grumbled in frustration as the princess sent him flying into the abyss.
BOOSH!
“Is just a game Mr. Buns.”
“There are more important things in life than winning, child. Don’t-DON’T YOU PICK UP THAT HAMMER PAPYRUS! Did you not get in trouble for using such a thing in real life?!”
BOOSH!
Once again, Pikachu met his end to a frying pan.
The baby bones patted the king’s arm in an attempt to comfort the agitated monster. “Don’t be mad Fluffy, you do bedder next time!”
“What? I’m not angry! I’m not angry and that’s not the point!”
“You are. You’s mad cause’ the pencess be kicking you in your asshole.”
“She’s not-she’s not beating me, I’m letting her win because she’s a woman. It’s not good to hit women Papyrus, that’s not how a gentleman behaves!”
“Liar. She kick yo’ ass and now you’s mad.”
“I’m NOT angry. There’s nothing to be ANGRY about! This isn’t even a real GAME child! I told you I didn’t know how to play, so I need training. This game doesn’t count, it’s merely a learning experience!”
“A learning ah-sperience?”
“Quite.”
“Hm…then perhaps during dis game you can learn to be less of a bitch.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“…What?”
“I’m calling your father.”  
“Nyeh? Why? What I do?”
“You’re using naughty words and doing naughty things.”
“Ohhh, you wanna cry to my Daddy cause’ you feel embarrassed and you wants time to get good.”
“That’s not what I said!”
“You wanna send baby home so you can pactice.”
“Absolutely not!”
REEEEEEEEEE!  
“Oh look, yo’ tea be done! Now you can go to da’ kitchen and peetend mah Daddy just called to check up on things!”
“PERHAPS HE WILL CALL!”
CA-THUM!
As Asgore stormed away, slamming the door behind him, Papyrus crawled over to the prince’s toy chest to scavenge for new crayons to take home with him.
It was unfortunate that Asgore and Asriel were so very much alike when it came to anything competitive, but that didn’t mean he and Papyrus couldn’t get along in general. He had had a good time talking to the king and even though he was mad, the infant wasn’t worried in the slightest. His Highness was upset, but he wouldn’t stay that way forever. Despite the fact that he was definitely going home, he knew he and the king would play again some other day and the baby was looking forward to it.
And as for Asgore himself, he decided allowing Papyrus to ingest a bit of soap wasn’t the worst idea in the world.
Merry Christmas everyone! Sorry for the wait, I had a computer error that erased ALL of my progress. Even if I did make the one month deadline, this still should have been done earlier, so I made it longer as compensation. 
Also I finished another chapter of Fonttale 3, so there’s that too. I hope you all have a good holiday with your loved ones and remember to cherish them while they’re still around.
On another important note, I’ve no idea who drew this, but appreciate it’s existence. I tried looking it up through reverse image searching, but after it showed me a ton of results and I clicked on one, Norton freaked out and warned me that it had just blocked something...so if you want to know who drew this, reverse image search is NOT the way to go, otherwise you’ll risk your shit. Just thought I’d warn people who don’t have computer protection. 
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justpeachyshua · 6 years
Text
part time
pairing: joshua x female reader characters: joshua hong, kwon soonyoung rating/warnings: teen+ for language; no warnings au: convenience store workers, college/university word count: 4,549 summary: “Working at a convenience store is about as easy a job as you can get. People come in and out, stopping on their way to bigger and better things, getting gas or food. Never did I think that working at a job like this could be remotely fun. Not until I began working alongside a guy so gentle, thoughtful, and oh so gorgeous. The only thing is, I don’t know his name.” 
note: hey guys!! this is my first one shot and svt fic in general, so i hope you enjoy it! i am fairly new to the fic community on tumblr, though i’ve had my ao3 account for a while and i’ve been working on a the boyz chat fic on there. i decided that i wanted to try to open up a tumblr dedicated to one shots and shorter fics and other things about my faves, so here it is! just about everything i post here will be on my ao3, but i might include some bonuses or extras here. anyways, on to the fic! 
Locking my phone and tossing it onto my bed, I let out a groan at the realization that this night would truly be one of the most boring nights of my life.
“I need you and the new guy to watch the store tonight. I’ve gotta take my son to the orthodontist at 5 and I don’t think I’ll be back in time to close the store. It’ll just be a few hours so I hope you guys don’t burn the place down.”
While in the middle of an intense Mario Kart race with my roommate, Soonyoung, I received that text from my boss and almost immediately wanted to fling my body into the sun. After quickly collecting myself and sending a polite yet casual response saying that of course I’d look after the store and of course I’d try to stay out of the break room and of course I’d be sure to card anyone looking to buy liquor and just about every precaution I could imagine, I settled back into my spot on the floor.
“Work?” My roommate muttered, eyes unmoving from the TV.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “He wants me to come in tonight because his son has an appointment. I guess we have to cancel movie night.”
“This is the third night you’ve cancelled though!” He set the controller down after finishing in 8th place. “Can he get off your ass? I swear you’re always out working.”
“Well, I mean, if it wasn’t clear from the fact that our fridge contains only juice boxes, milk, leftover pizza, and half a container of butter, we need money.”
He chuckled, turning the Wii and TV off. “Fine, fine, go. But bring me back some ice cream, kay?”
“I’m not gonna steal from the store just so you can have some mint chocolate chip ice cream.” I checked my phone and saw that it was already 4:30, then grabbed my coat and headed for the door. “Nice try, though.”
Soonyoung called out to me, stopping me before I left. “Wait! You gotta promise me you’ll actually talk to that guy today, okay? It’s been weeks.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sure, sure. I’ll try. Just go back to playing Mario Kart and let me go to work.”
As I made my usual trek to the bus stop headed for the store, I thought about Soonyoung’s words. There was, indeed, a new guy at the store and a fairly cute one at that. He had joined as the only other employee just a few weeks ago and was still a bit inexperienced and shy. He never spoke much in the store other than simple greetings and questions like “Have you stocked the chips yet?” and “Do you have the key to the cigarette case?” Still, he was definitely a nice guy. Whenever he could, he did a little extra cleaning and always made sure that his area of the store was completely organized before clocking out.
Even though we’d been coworkers for a while, we still hadn’t properly introduced ourselves to each other, partially because the store was so hectic the day he joined, what with our boss’s wife going into labor with their second kid that day and leaving the store in our hands for the first time. Since then, there just hadn’t been a good enough moment to ask without it being awkward. I liked to speculate what his name could be, especially when I brought the subject up with Soonyoung. While I thought he looked more like a Tae, Soonyoung stood by his belief that he was a Jae, especially after getting to see him in person while visiting me at work.
“Even if he isn’t a Jae, I’m telling you he’s a J guy,” Soonyoung stated with confidence and a mouthful of cookie when we got home that day. “I can feel it in my bones. Like a sixth sense or something.”
“I think that’s a sugar high, Soonyoung.”
Whether or not Soonyoung’s “sixth sense” was anything to go off of or not, I did feel the urge to finally start talking to this kid. Surely Soonyoung was tired of hearing me talk about how this guy was “pretty cute” and nothing much else so, if not for my sake then for his, I decided I would learn more about this kid. It definitely had nothing to do with the fact that I had to prove to Soonyoung that I was right about his name and it most definitely had nothing to do with the fact that any moment in the store not spent lazily milling around was spent staring and daydreaming about him. Absolutely not.
The bus ride to the store took only about 25 minutes, so I entered with a couple of minutes to spare which I used to scan for the best spots I could stock while avoiding the most customers later on. Mr. Han, the boss of the store, interrupted my search, telling me to put my vest on so he could go. I heeded his words and headed to the back of the shop where we kept employee goods like an old TV and DVD player and a couple snacks. The new guy was already there, sliding his own vest on and staring down at his phone. Without a word, I grabbed my vest and quickly went back out with the new guy trailing behind me.
“Alright kids, you pretty much already know how to run the store. I won’t be back for the rest of the night, but be sure to lock up before 10:00. I don’t want to keep you guys here for too long on a Saturday night and there shouldn’t be too many customers anyways.”
We nodded along.
“Well, I’m off. Good luck and make wise choices!” He waved goodbye as he let the glass door shut behind him, the sound of the chimes above trailing off as well. Almost immediately, we went to our usual posts - me by the register and him milling about the aisles. We were completely silent for the most part. We stayed to ourselves, like usual, letting customers flow in and out every few minutes and attending to them as necessary. The store wasn’t particularly busy, though we were kept working long enough that we still hadn’t found the time to say a single word to each other by the time the clock struck 6:10, about an hour later.
I swiped the credit card of the last customer in line and handed him his bag of snacks. As he walked away, I was worried that another customer might enter and delay mine and the new guy’s introductions - maybe even causing me to lose the opportunity altogether - but no one came in. The store was quiet for a minute or two then. Awkwardly quiet.
With nothing to do, I realized I had my chance to talk. “So… what’s up?” I clumsily sat on the wooden stool behind me. Smooth...
I watched as the new guy paced around, poking at the shelves of ramen and mac and cheese. His long sleeve shirt wasn’t quite his size, so his sleeves came up to his palms as he extended his hands to the various boxes thoughtlessly. It was honestly pretty charming. “Not much. Missing out on a couple boring documentaries at home, but otherwise not a whole lot.” He picked a box up, shifting it around. “You?”
“Well, I could be with my roommate watching shitty horror movies and playing video games, but instead I’m here watching the store with some guy.”
With a box of Kraft in hand, he clutched his chest. “Just some guy? I’ll have you know I have a name.”
I smiled at his attempt at humor so early into the conversation. “I’m sure you do. But do you even know mine?” He looked down at the Kraft box as though it would give him the answer. “Ah, so you don’t.”
“I mean, neither of us has really asked,” he pointed out.
“Fair. Well, guy, I’m Y/N.” I stuck my hand out across the counter, which he strided over to in order to complete the handshake.
“Well, Y/N, I’m--”
“Mommy, can I get the Oreos?!” We both turned our heads towards the door which had just begun to chime at the entrance of new customers - those customers being a couple and their daughter. The mom looked stressed, the daughter hyperactive, and the dad fairly indifferent.
The mom grabbed the daughter’s arm, leading her away from the snacks aisle. “No, sweetie, we’re only going to be here for a short time, okay?” The little girl huffed and continued to tug at her mom’s arm.
The dad approached me and calmly asked where the bathroom was. I pointed him past the ice cream refrigerator and he briskly walked away. I made eye contact with the new guy once he left and shrugged my shoulders before walking around the counter to “inspect” some of the bottles of nonprescription medicine. Soon enough, the little girl was making another fuss, this time stamping her feet on the ground as she begged her mom for the Oreos. Among the loud shouts from the girl and the sound of little boots hitting the floor, the mom was clearly trying to quiet her down. This quickly proved to be unsuccessful when the loud thud of a large box falling resounded throughout the store, immediately followed by the sound of small items scattering across the floor. I rushed over to the aisle the two were walking through and noticed the jumbo box of cereal spilling out and the mother holding her daughter up off the floor.
“I am so so sorry! I was trying to take her away from this aisle and she pulled the box down. Oh my gosh, I am so sorry, I’ll clean it up.” The mother began to profusely apologize, her daughter sitting in her arms looking passive.
“It’s alright, don’t worry about it.” I politely smiled, already reaching for the broom and dustpan in the corner of the store and beginning to sweep up the colorful pieces of cereal. “It was cheap anyways,” I reassured her.
She ran her free hand through her hair in frustration and took out her wallet. “I’ll pay for it up front, I promise. I feel so bad for making you sweep this up.” She rushed to the front counter and the new guy quickly met her there, ringing up the price of the cereal and accepting her payment. As I finished sweeping up and hid the cereal box where I could find it later and reminded myself to check the seals on the other boxes, I watched him carefully count out change for the mom. His hands lingered over the tray in the register and delicately picked out the appropriate coins before he handed them to her, letting them fall from his fingers.
He walked around the counter and plucked a lollipop from a display we had set up, bending down and handing it to the little girl. She immediately quieted and a grin spread across her face. “I know it’s not Oreos, but, in my opinion, they’re just as good,” he smiled. He looked up at the mom standing beside her. “Ah, don’t worry. These things have basically no added sugar in them, they’re as clean as you can get them.”
The mom gave a tired smile. “Thank you so, so much. Again, I’m sorry for causing you two any trouble.”
“It’s no problem at all!” He beamed. He looked down at the little girl again. “Now, make sure you thank your mom for letting you keep the lollipop, okay?”
The little girl nodded enthusiastically in response and her father finally returned from the restroom and thanked us. As they left the store, the girl turned back and waved. “Bye bye, pretty man!”
I scoffed as I tried to hold in my laughter and I could see the new guy’s eyes widen in shock, caught off guard by the innocent compliment. I walked back over to the counter and perched myself onto the stool again. “I hope you know those things are packed full of sugar and preservatives.”
He sighed while he watched the chimes above the door slow to a halt. “I know. I just told her that so she wouldn’t get too upset over the lollipop. It’s pretty clear that girl wasn’t going to stop without getting some kind of candy.” He rused.
My eyes traveled over to the chimes as well. When they finally fell back into place, I looked back at him. “I see you’re good with kids.”
“I guess I am. I mean, back home I used to babysit the neighborhood kids a lot so I guess I just got used to being around children.”
“And where’s back home?” I inquired, leaning my elbows on my knees.
“Los Angeles. Cali boy in the flesh,” he gestured over himself.
“L.A., huh? That’s kinda fancy.” I looked him up and down. “I mean, now that I really take a look at you, I can totally see it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean the carefully-messy hair, the ripped jeans, the sun-tanned skin, just the way you talk - it’s sooo ‘Cali.’” I put air quotes around the word, mocking his use of it.
He stood up straight, making himself just taller than me when sitting on the stool. “You know, I bet you’ve never even been to California.”
I sat in thought for a second before hopping off the stool. “Hmm, you’re right. I haven’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know how L.A. boys act. I’ve done plenty of research.” I wandered the store again, eyes traveling over various sweets.
“Research?”
“You know, movies, shows, dumb YouTubers with cult followings, good sources,” I joked.
He chortled. “Oh, please. I promise I’m not like that.”
“Mmhmm, we’ll see. Next time I see you, you’ll have dropped a diss track on Soundcloud and I’ll have to pretend like I don’t know you, right?” I called back at him as I pulled a bag of cookies off the shelf for myself.
“Yup, and it’ll be entirely about you. I’ll be dropping hot bars on how the girl at the convenience store’s been taking shots at me,” he played along.
“See, the sad part is I can totally see you doing that.” I walked back towards him, opening the bag and pulling a chocolate chip cookie out. “Want one?”
He nodded, taking the cookie out of my hand and making me realize just how cold my hands were in comparison to his which were incredibly warm. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the warmth of his hands seemed right considering how warm he looked. A warm sweater, warm brown eyes, warm laughter, warm smile on warm pink lips. His lips, when I looked at them closely, were really endearing, curling up at the corners like a kitten’s. Seconds passed and I realized I had been staring for far longer than acceptable.
Looking away, I stuttered, “So, uh, what do you do? Besides work here, I mean.”
“Well, I go to university, study, and attend parties I shouldn’t really go to.”
“You local?”
“Actually, I go to Korea University.”
“Are you a genius? How the hell did you manage to get into KU?” I gaped.
He shrugged. “Just worked hard to get where I wanted, I guess.”
“Are you in any clubs or anything?”
“Hmm, not really, but I play music with friends every now and then. Nothing serious, just casual gigs at house parties.”
“What do you play?”
He hesitated quickly before settling on his answer. “Just guitar.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “Just guitar? I doubt that.”
“I sing too, sometimes.” I began to speak when he interjected, “I’m not gonna sing now, though. Not happening.”
I snickered. “I wasn’t going to ask that, actually. I was gonna ask if you’d take me to one of those house parties. For the experience, you know.”
He looked taken aback by my question and took a moment to think before responding, “I’ll consider. I don’t even have a way to reach you, though.”
“Is this you asking for my number?” I joked.
“Is this you suggesting that you’d give it to me?”
I looked up at him, seeing his eyes move around the room in what seemed to be nervousness. They landed on me for a moment and I swore I saw a hint of uncertainty in his look.
“Are you flirting with me right now?” I stepped closer to him.
“I-”
The light sound of the storefront chimes sounded again. My eyes cast down and I took a step back. I could vaguely hear him mumble a frustrated “Again?” under his breath before he stepped out from behind the counter, changing face to become the polite store employee he normally was. I turned to see who was entering the store and saw a group of about seven teenagers flooding in through the door. I sighed and took my spot behind the register, disappointed at the lost moment.
The kids wandered about the store in their little group and chattered to themselves. After a couple seconds, I pulled my phone out and began scrolling through Twitter to pass the time. Soon enough, someone was standing in front of me and I looked up to see one of the kids, a girl with clearly bleached hair.
“How can I help you?”
“Can I get a pack of Marlboro Silvers?” She asked, looking me in the eyes.
I furrowed my brow. She was clearly a high schooler, probably not older than a junior. “I’ll need to see some ID.” She swiftly pulled a card out from her pocket and handed it to me. Upon close inspection, I saw a small corner of the card peeling up. I ran my finger over it and put two and two together: it was a fake ID, and a poorly made one at that. I quirked an eyebrow and slid the card over to her. “I can’t get that for you.”
“I think you should take a better look at it.”
“You should get a more convincing ID before you suggest that.”
She huffed and angrily took the card back. I rolled my eyes as she walked back to the group, shaking her head. Mr. Han had advised us to ID everyone but I didn’t think anyone would actually try to buy cigs illegally. It just seemed dumb, walking up to a store clerk as if you aren’t obviously an acne-sprouting teenager and trying to convince them that you’re a legal adult. But then again, people do dumb things to get what they want all the time.
I looked around the store. In the corner, the kids were looking through various refrigerators, picking out sodas and ice creams. Just a few feet away, the new guy stood, wiping down some of the refrigerator doors that didn’t need wiping down. I could tell he was just giving himself something to do while those kids were around, not wanting to particularly interact with them. I almost wanted to laugh at how obviously he was wasting time, doing such a useless task. To be fair, I did it all the time, but I noticed he was especially distracted as he looked back at me every now and then.
In the midst of watching him move the towel over the same spot for the tenth time, he whipped his head and shouted. “Hey, what are you doing?!” I jumped, thinking he was talking to me, before I realized he was looking directly at the group of kids. From where I was standing, I could see one of them was carefully putting something into her backpack and I realized it was a large bottle of, presumably, alcohol. As soon as they heard the new guy’s exclamation, they bolted for the door and, by the time I could even process what was happening, he was already chasing them out of the store. I rushed out to see where they had gone, but all I saw was the guy, about five yards away, hunched over and out of breath. Scanning the area, I concluded that the kids were already long gone.
“You okay?” I called out to him.
He turned around, continuing to huff. He seemed like he was going to have an asthma attack at any second, so I jogged over to him and placed my hand on his shoulder. Upon contact, he stood back up and nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”
“They ran,” I said awkwardly.
“I know.” He shook his head. “If I was just a little faster, maybe I could’ve stopped them.”
“I mean, at least they’re gone now,” I offered. I motioned for him to follow me back into the store. “I’ll pay for the drink, it’s no big deal. How much was it?”
“Fifteen, I think. I don’t know, I’m just disappointed that I let them go like that.”
“It’s not your fault,” I insisted, dropping a ten and a five in the register. “They’re just a bunch of hoodlums.”
He chuckled. “Hoodlums. Haven’t heard that one used since the 20s.”
“It’s just what they are, man. Kids these days have no respect!” I exclaimed, pointing a finger in the air.
Laughing, he said, “We’re only, like, a couple of years older than them.”
I lowered my finger. “Still, I don’t associate with them.” He only continued to laugh and soon I was smiling and giggling too. His amusement was just so infectious and I couldn’t hold back. At some point in his laughing fit he let out a loud snort and I knew at that moment that I was way too enamored with him.
After calming down and catching my breath I picked my phone up once again, unlocking to check for any notifications. My eyes lit up as soon as they landed on the first notification, reading:
“Hey! We just got out of the appointment. Sorry it took so long, he ended up getting his braces put on today. You guys should probably go ahead and lock the store up now that it’s getting late. Hope you guys held the fort down well. See you Monday.”
I looked up at the time displayed at the top of my screen, seeing that it was already 9:46.
“What?” The guy asked, noticing my eyes glued to my phone. “What’s up?”
“Mr. Han said we can lock up and head home now,” I explained, shoving my phone into my back pocket and making a beeline for the break room and shrugging my vest off. “God, I am so ready to get back to wasting time at home.”
He, too, came to the back of the store with me, taking his uniform off and gathering his belongings. “What, did you not like hanging out with me for the last four and a half hours?”
I smiled to myself as I grabbed my bag. “No, quite the opposite actually.” I turned back to face him. “I had a pretty good time.”
“I had a good time, too.” He paused for a few seconds, remaining looking at me. He cleared his throat. “Let’s head to the bus stop.”
“You ride the bus, too? I always see you walking the opposite direction.”
“I thought I’d speed up the ride home,” he excused. I squinted, not totally convinced, but let it slide anyways.
We walked side by side in silence until we reached the bus stop, only a few blocks away. We stood there for a while, a foot apart, comfortable. I looked up at him and saw him staring into space, lost in thought. I tapped his shoulder. He looked at me with wide, curious eyes. “Hmm?”
“Earlier, before those kids came in, I asked if you were flirting with me. What was your answer going to be?”
“Ah, that.” He looked away sheepishly. “What would you do if I was?”
I paused to consider my response. “I think I would like it.” He turned back to me, shocked. “And I would probably flirt back and ask if you wanna hang out someplace other than a dingy convenience store.”
He nodded, looking away again. “Nice, nice. Well now I know for future reference.” I smiled at his awkwardness. “I’ll be sure to let you know if I’m ever flirting with you. So you know, of course.”
The bus pulled up a few moments later, signalling the end of this long night. I began to walk towards the bus, but he, for the first time in the past four and a half hours, wasn’t trailing behind me. “You coming?”
“Oh. Uh, I don’t actually ride the bus home. I only live a couple of minutes away, but maybe I wanted to walk you to the stop and talk for a couple of minutes more. Potentially. Hypothetically.”
“Then thanks. Hypothetically.” My grin stayed glued to my face as he ran through his explanation. I knew the bus would be leaving in only a few seconds more, so I had to turn and step on, but I didn’t want to leave this guy at all. Reluctantly, I started to take the first few steps on board. I turned back at the last second. “Wait, you never got to tell me your name.”
“It’s Joshua! Josh, for short, whatever works for you.” That kitten-like curl of his lip happened again and I wanted to melt. Joshua, of course. I don’t know how I could’ve expected his name to be anything else. It was sweet, gentle, and charming. It fit him perfectly.
“Well, Josh, I’ll see you Monday.” I waved while the bus door closed behind me and I made my way to an empty seat, sure that he was waving back at me. I thought about his earlier words - his semi-confession - and I could tell my face was heating up. It was almost childlike, the way I was getting so flustered. I sent a quick text to Soonyoung a few minutes before my arrival at the stop.
“Hey Soonyoung, I’m almost home. Go ahead and start making some ramen so we can pick a movie as soon as I’m in”
He responded within seconds.
“Lol you got it.”
I hesitated before sending another message.
“Oh and Soon? I learned his name today”
“It's Joshua”
The next couple of messages were sent in quick succession, each one in all caps and containing a variety of keyboard smashes, including one very long “I TOLD YOU SOOOOLKHJLKGDJHLK.” I chuckled to myself and shut my phone off, putting it away in my bag. The rest of the ride was short and sweet as I reminisced on the events that had unfolded. The spilled cereal, the little girl, the lollipop, the cigarettes, the alcohol, the flirting, the laughter - it all felt like a dream. The night was so simultaneously long and quick and all the best parts consisted of interactions with him - Josh. It felt odd knowing his name finally, but I never wanted that name to leave my mind. I wanted to remember it for as long as I could.
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ultratesterthings · 4 years
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‘Humanity is doomed’: People keep throwing cheese on babies’ faces for social media likes - The Washington Post
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It all started with a dad in Michigan. Now people all over the country are hurling cheese slices at their babies and sharing the result on social media. (Michael Tsang via Storyful.)
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What happens if you throw a slice of cheese at a baby’s face?
Some laugh and shake it off. Others grimace, stumble around blindly, recoil like they’ve been hit by a truck, flail their arms, or stare reproachfully at the cheese-thrower. Some eat the cheese. Generally, all look confused.
We know this thanks to a week-old viral phenomenon called the “cheese challenge,” in which people toss shiny slices of processed cheese at unsuspecting infants and share their reactions on social media. Depending on whom you ask, it’s either extremely hilarious or proof that the Internet should never have been invented.
The highlight of my day was watching this video of someone throwing a slice of cheese on their baby.... what’s wrong with me and why am I still laughing? pic.twitter.com/ZHUB421SG2
— madi (@Madison_Combs1)
According to Eater, the craze started with Charles Amara, a dad living in Michigan. Last Tuesday, he posted a short video on his Facebook page, captioning it “Attack of the cheese Episode 2” and adding, “He wasn’t happy after this one.” In it, a baby seated in a high chair and clutching a sippy cup looks increasingly nervous as a luminous yellow slice of cheese gets closer and closer, then lands squarely on his face. Remarkably, the slice — which has not been identified but resembles Kraft Singles, a processed American cheese — proves to be extremely adhesive. As the baby blinks, his facial expressions revealing what seems to be a mixture of surprise and dismay, the cheese remains firmly plastered to his face, covering his nose and right eyelid.
Two days later, as the footage was shared hundreds of thousands of times on Facebook, a man using the handle @unclehxlmes posted the same clip on Twitter and added the caption “just cheesed my little brother.” Eight million views later, he felt compelled to clarify that the small boy in the video was not, in fact, his younger brother. He had deleted the tweet and apologized to the child’s mother for invading the family’s privacy, he wrote on Friday, explaining that the response “genuinely got way out of hand” and that he had never imagined that throwing cheese on babies would turn into a trend.
Introducing Logan, the Cheese Ninja -#cheesechallenge pic.twitter.com/xxXnHO1ou5
— Michael Tsang (@mtsang8)
But by then, it was too late. Under the hashtags #cheesechallenge or #cheesedchallenge, parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles and babysitters were eagerly tossing cheese at babies and documenting the results for posterity (and for likes on Twitter and Instagram). Others tested it out with toddlers, full-grown adults, disgruntled cats and even a Jonas brother. Amara, meanwhile, has taken down the video that started it all and did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday night.
In certain corners of the Internet, news of the cheese-throwing fad was received as a sign that we are heading toward societal collapse. Meanwhile, unlikely alliances were forged as people normally on opposite sides of the partisan political and cultural divide were forced to acknowledge that they agreed on something: Hurling dairy products at a baby for social media clout is really, really stupid.
“I’m not sure anything better sums up the current moment we’re living in than the fact that adults are throwing cheese onto toddlers’ faces for attention online,” tweeted the Daily Caller reporter Peter J. Hasson.
The liberal writer Molly Jong-Fast concurred: “I can’t help but feel humanity is doomed.”
#cheesechallenge thanks for participating kendall pic.twitter.com/RdtOfQWsnJ
— kailey reau (@kailey_reau)
As Mashable points out, the cheese challenge bears a certain resemblance to “dog cheese,” a short-lived meme from last November that involved — you guessed it — lobbing slices of cheese at dogs. But while the dogs definitely liked it, it’s not so clear how babies feel about having things thrown on them for the entertainment of Internet strangers.
Scroll through the comments on any popular #cheesechallenge Instagram post, and you’ll find an all-out war: While some commenters feel that tossing cheese at a child’s face and posting the video online without their consent humiliates them and is akin to bullying, others insist that it’s ultimately harmless and the kids are having fun. One mother, responding to criticism on Instagram, fired back, “Maybe you could try smiling or heaven forbid laughing one day! You might like it!”
Somewhat surprisingly, so-called influencers have been among the most vocal critics of the trend. Social media personalities like Casey Neistat and Kalen Allen have politely asked parents not to throw cheese at their pre-verbal children, while model and cookbook author Chrissy Teigen wrote, “I love a prank as much as anybody but I cannot get myself to throw cheese at my adorable, unsuspecting baby who has all the hope and trust in the world in me.”
Others were much less restrained. “DO NOT THROW CHEESE AT A BABY,” tweeted the British actress India de Beaufort. “What is happening?!?! How is this a ‘challenge.’ It’s not funny. Your baby trusts you and has no ability to ask you not to mistreat them so just DON’T. I can’t even believe this has to be said?!?!?!”
this is my family lol 🤪🧀 @WaleTrent #Cheesed pic.twitter.com/klPlBuXffM
— bailey gottschalk (@bgottschalkk)
Apparently, it does need to be said. But there is good news for babies who are tired of appearing in viral videos with cheese on their faces: Internet fads are mercifully brief, and the cheese challenge will likely go the way of the mannequin challenge in no time.
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This content was originally published here.
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kickassgrandma911 · 7 years
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I Have Been Collecting...
So, I’ve been collecting quotes from all my friends for almost a year now, under this post is a list of way too many quotes. Enjoy you beautiful boys
"I'm cold, I'm wet, BUT I HAVE A LEMON!" "Snuff on these kinkboy" "This motherfucker has a white house!" "Condom Fighters." "I wake up, I hit my head, and then I die" "Uhm... Aargh?" "I guess I'd get kicked" "Spooky cave whack time" "Hi, sex please?" "They bit that poor dolphin right on the dick" "They're even cute when they're humping each other" "Oh, 'I'M SORRY GOD. YOU KNOW ME.' " "Cindy Lou Who is thicc" "My pot stickers attacked me" "Don't talk while your mouth is open" "I've always wanted a restraining order" "Please think before you speak" "Wait, I need to get the walnuts" "I always touch it" "yeah dude other than the fact that they kill your grandpa and take all the wonderbread from your house and leave you with like 3 toasters but no bread" "Okay we need to talk about who put the jellyfish in my bed" "You can call the cops, just don't tell your mom" "OOHOOHOHO YEAH I KNOW HOW TO SKIP!" "Wigger." "Stop fingering my pizza" "Let's go sell my pants and learn how to pick flowers." "I love war!" "I don't endorse suicide but she should consider it." "Ah no! He has his pants back on." "Peepee battleboys" "So today I lit two flies on fire and then pissed on them." "Cereal only tastes good if you're stealing it from Matthew's house." "Just pee on the damn insects" "Alright, I need to kill the gnomes" "I'm so ethnic. I'm eating a crepe" "It smells like wind" "There's a movie called bagel.. Batman?" "Yeah! I love bein' grumpy." -stealing all the napkins at a DQ- "These are free right?" "When it rains crusty nut" "There was pain" "Fuck it I hate money anyway." "Remember the time Ben Old Yellered Timmy?" "Ben you're the most homosexual straight man I've ever met." "You either hang yourself or you don't." "Grant did you just get door dash at 2AM?" "What kind of bitch uses one swipe of chapstick!?" "I need my human!" "PUT EM IN! PUT EM IN HER MOUTH!!!" "I love coffee and I wanna kill myself" "Dog! Fake dog. that is a horse..." "That is a very sad penis..." "These strawberries make me hard" "OOOAAAOOHH! ..... She licked me with her warm moist tongue" "Its not alcohol.... so I don't want any" "Okay that's enough 'Fuck's' out of you" "If a white person whips it's called slavery" "Hello! And Oh no, there's a tiddy!" "Michael Cera, standing behind you, denying the holocaust" "Did you just take a SINGLE fucking cinnamon toast crunch!?" "You're a special kind of Thot Rory. You're The Honest Obligated Toucher" "You're doing me a heckin' fright!" "I could do math on her nose" "Hype men are people, not objects." "I'm not hitting on you I just wanna see you shirtless" "I just wanna buy my rocks, leave me alone!!!" "I'm trying but my white blood cells aren't nearly as ripped as yours" "I'm not a fuckboy I just don't wanna be lonely" "HOW DO YOU MAKE THE HOLOCAUST FAMILY FRIENDLY KYLE!?!?" "You can take my life, you can take my liberties, you can take everything I love, BUT YOU CAN'T TAKE MY SHOES!!!" "Are you excited about your bread?" "She just wants some dirty rubz" "IT'S THE NEVER ENDING NUT!!!" "Your face aren't in my tiddies" "I was watching my ultrasound, EXCUSE ME!" "YOU PUT A GRAPE IN MY DR PEPPER!?" "I'm sorry but every group needs a vagina." "Then Matthew just busts a nut out of his fucking facial holes!" "It's stuck in my nostrils!!!" "Frog. Man. At. Me." "You can create your own dong when you get home" "Holy shit.. well fuck drugs, I'll just wear these." "Gas leaks are cool" -Taylor 2k17 "Economically, I'm a jew." "SpongeBob Squarecunt" "Sex and a BLT" "Your beard is like a piggu that's been conditioning" "Challenge him to a lumberjackoff" "You can nut while doing your homework" "He ate dirt, ketchup and peanut shells." "I love moist." "Family communal bong" "WHO ATE MY CORN PLANT!?!?" "Stop bustin' my chops!!!" "Y'all mind if I juice?" "Shhh! I'm trying to watch Hacker 3!!!" "I CONTROL THE TREES WITH MY MIND!" "He's a monster! That bow-tied fuck!" "Tupac hologram is the Hatsune Miku of America" "I feel like Kyle has no problems with taking his pants off." "Dude, imagine Jews." "Your WCW doesn't go to soda..."
That was all page 1, now, page 2
"Oh I wouldn't even fight them we'd already be in the bedroom snoggin'" "In the middle of doing it while drunk I said 'prove to me you destroyed the death star'" BROTHER!!!" "Yo, you wanna eat my nuts?" "I come bearing burritos!" "YOU'RE SELLING MY SOUL TO FUCKING COMCAST!?" "Sourdough is the taste of San Francisco" "Why would you want a white, pasty Jesus when you could have a smelly fish one?" "He's gonna be my throne of minorities." "Hey pretty lady, wanna.. share a lunchables sometime?" "IT'S WHEN YOU WANNA FUCK YOUR MOM!!!" "A whopper in disguise." "Anneversary of womb escape" "I feel like Waluigi vapes..." "STOP MAKIN' FUN OF PEOPLE WITH TRAIN TRACKS!!!" "I'm not fat shaming Bigfoot!" "It's not herpes if you don't get tested!" "I can't believe you smoke palm tree..." "Monica Lewinsky succed the soul out of him." "Whoopi Goldbergs autistic stepson." "A fuckin chicken bake from Costco MAAAANNNN" "In the words of William Shakespeare, eat shit faggot" "He making me sticky!!!!!" "AP Satanism." "What..? You guys don't have urges to smack things too..?" "Mr Bengford looks like the kinda guy to eat at the Chum Bucket." "I LOVE THE MUSH!!!" "My elbow is African American" "RORY!!!! I NEED YOUR FACE!!" "... can you open a dick ?" "Dog shit needs no pants" "You need to craft a bunch of iron daggers." "... are you calling Raven thicc..?" "The only one that can touch my boob is my dad." "I need something in my mouth.." "Poke my hole" "Gimme a sec I gotta take a wicked piss." "Just ignore Bens suffering" "I FORGOT I HAD ASTHMA!" "We Are Never Naked Together. Okay???" "I hope god is real so I can go to hell." "Yeah, you were kinda a butthole freshman year" "ShUT THE FUCK UP I'M TALKING ABOUT KRAFT DINNER!" "He has the personality of a saltine cracker." "Bang-la-DESH!" "Did you fuck her hair yet?" "I just put a pussy sign..." "it's hard to climb the tiny peepee..?" "I'm actually watching gay porn for the plot right now." "please don't ruin Kirby.." "don't vape on the fucking pizza!" 
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theshipsfirstmate · 7 years
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Pitch Fic: Breathless Trains and Worn Down Glories
Valentine’s Day exchange gift for @maybetwice. Post-s1, Mike pays a visit to Ginny’s new place.
Title from “We Don’t Eat” by James Vincent McMorrow.
Breathless Trains and Worn Down Glories (AO3)
He shows up 40 minutes late, of course he does. Not that it really makes a difference either way, Ginny’s sullen subconscious reminds her. She’s been in a bad mood since the movers showed up at her doorstep hours ago, and she tries in vain to ignore the part of her that's genuinely buoyed by the sight of Mike Lawson on her new front stoop.
“Party’s cancelled,” she snaps, in spite of herself. “Did you not get the Facebook message?” As the words leave her mouth, before the confused frown even has a chance to wrinkle Mike’s face, she realizes her mistake.
“Of course you didn’t.” Sigh. “Check your phone once in awhile, grandpa.”
The captain’s expression twists even further in confusion, and when he glances down to palm at his jeans pocket, Ginny notices a few new streaks of grey in his beard. It’s strange, not seeing him every day in the off-season, but she'd never admit to missing him.
“I saw Blip’s car out front,” he points out, giving up on his phone almost as quickly as he started. She doubts he'd even be able to figure out which app to look at to find the now-deleted invite for what was supposed to be her housewarming party.
“Yeah well, Blip and Evy are here because I guilted them into helping--”
“Helping?” he interrupts. “What’s wrong?”
Mike looks at her, with that scrunchy, concerned face he points her way far too often, and her stupid heart does another little flip. She relaxes just a little, enough to open the door and take a step back, revealing that the entryway of her modest condo is stacked high with brown cardboard boxes.
“This is how my mother announces that she’s moving in with her boyfriend,” she sighs, again. “Or, fiance, I guess…”
“She got engaged?”
The word sounds foreign to Ginny’s ears and she realizes that some stubborn part of her brain was just refusing to put the pieces together. “She called to tell me they’re getting married,” she admits. “I guess so.”
She actually hadn't given it much thought until that moment, distracted by the U-Haul of a task at hand. She wonders if Kevin got down on one knee. She wonders if her mother cried.
“Anyway, she sent me like, half the stuff from the house so she can get it ready to put on the market.” Ginny’s eyes regain their focus and Mike’s looking right at her, almost through her, like he’s trying to figure something out. “And since all the boxes arrived today, and since I can’t really lift anything,” she motions to her immobilized arm, “it’s not really a great time for a party.”
He waits a beat before he speaks, and she expects something about how he didn’t cross the Coronado Bridge tonight just to be denied a celebratory bash. Not for the first time, he surprises her.
“Blip and Evelyn are helping, I assume.”
“Yeah.” She finally steps back enough to let him in, and he accepts the unspoken invitation. “Evy’s unpacking the kitchen stuff that I can actually use-”
“Could use, if you knew the first thing about cooking.” Evelyn materializes, poking at Ginny with a rubber spatula as Mike follows her through the front room into the kitchen, which she loves, even if her friend is right about her culinary skills. “There's some nice stuff in here and I'd hate to see you use it just to burn Kraft macaroni.”
Ginny ignores her, turning back to Mike, who’s appraising the room silently. She finds herself wondering what he thinks, daring herself to ask outright. “You want a beer?”
“Sure.” He nods, and gives her another smile that makes her knees wobble just slightly. “Where's Blip?”
“Carrying the rest of the boxes up to the empty guest room,” she answers, popping open two beers and handing them both to him. “You’re welcome to help him, back permitting of course.”
Mike just rolls his eyes and heads up the stairs with the drinks. A few seconds later, she hears him and Blip bound back down to the first floor, trash-talking as they try to one-up each other in a box-carrying contest. Evelyn's focus, however, as it has been since Ginny told her about the night outside Boardner’s, is singularly honed in on Mike's arrival. Or rather, Ginny's reaction to Mike's arrival.
“So he came over, huh?” Her friend poses it like a harmless question, back turned as she sorts through a box of flatware, though it's far from an innocent inquiry.
She rolls her eyes. “Just cause he's the oldest man in the whole world and didn't get the message that the party was cancelled.”
“So he came over,” Evelyn repeats with emphasis, drama practically dripping from her multiple innuendos.
“We're not doing this,” Ginny answers defiantly, her new mantra when it comes to her friend’s ceaseless questions.
Mercifully, Blip pops downstairs to ask Evy something about bathroom storage, and instead of listening, Ginny takes advantage of the distraction to escape the kitchen. Heading up the stairs and rounding the corner to the spare room, she sputters to a dead stop at the sight of Mike Lawson lining her Little League trophies up on top of one of her bookcases.
“You're opening my boxes? Seriously?”
“It was marked ‘baseball,’’ he admits with a shrug . At least he has the decency to look a little sheepish. “Figured you could put some stuff up in here, make this a display room.”
“This is a guest room and an office.” She argues because that's what they do, not because she's really bothered by it. And, if she's being honest, the baseball memorabilia makes the place feel homier than it has since she moved in two weeks ago. “I don't think we need every single participation ribbon up on the walls.”
He chuckles, digging out a few more trophies before diving into the box with both hands to pull out a tattered navy binder she remembers all too well.
It’s bigger than she remembers, and it looks heavy. Mike's biceps flex as he sets it down on the desk. Not that she’s watching Mike’s biceps. Not that she noticed when he shrugged out of his leather jacket to start unpacking her mementos, as if that's something teammates do for one another.
“Well then, what's this thing?” He cracks open the binder and Ginny shudders at the first page, a team picture from her junior year of high school.
“That’s the Ginny Baker Book,” she answers, matter-of-factly. “Stat sheets, press clippings, scouting reports, letters of recommendation. Everything you need to sell someone on Ginny Baker in twenty minutes or less.”
“Aw, it's kind of nice,” Mike muses softly, flipping through the pages. If she didn't know better, she'd say he sounds a little wistful.
Come to think of it, she doesn't know better. No one seems to know that much about the Lawson family, besides the fact that there doesn't appear to be one. Moments like these are when Ginny finds herself wondering the most.
“You parents made this?” he asks while she wonders.
“My dad used to keep this thing buckled in the backseat of his car.” That seems to break the spell, he looks up at her and laughs a little. “I'm not kidding. He'd keep it updated too, so he could show off all the stats from the game of the week.”
Then it's Ginny's turn to trail off, remembering her father in that way she always does when she thinks about the baseball she's played since he was there to watch.
Perhaps sensing that she needs a distraction, Mike leaves the book on the desk, diving back into the memories and coming back up with a smaller, white box that looks like it came from a department store.
“What is this?” He pulls out the contents to dangle his fingers, and wags his eyebrows at her. “Ooh, you gonna try this on for me?”
Ginny recognizes the dress immediately, and chokes out a laugh that tastes bitter. “That's the dress my mother bought me for my first school dance”
Mike must mistake her reaction to the memory for something else, because he stammers, awkwardly offering, “C’mon, I bet you were adorable.”
“Yeah,” she fake-laughs again for just a second before deciding, without really knowing why, to tell him the truth. “No actually, I uh, I never got to wear it.”
He watches her closely, obviously expecting more to the answer. She feels lame when she adds, “Baseball stuff, you know.”
She remembers the burn of that day so clearly, even now. Running home from school, ready to quit the game entirely for the sake of a life not lived. Finding her mother wrapped up with a man who wasn't her father and deciding, right then and there that her allegiance had to belong to one side or the other. Baseball or boys, sports or romance, talent or heart. Pick one, and own that choice.
It wasn't until adulthood that she started to look back at the other side of the story, the path she could have taken. It's not until moments like this one when she thinks about her mother being left out of the shorthand existence she and her father turned into a routine: staying home alone during week-long travel team road trips and working extra hours so they could keep Ginny in new cleats and pay for a private pitching coach.
It's not until recently that she’s realized she's not the only one who was lonely.
“For a long time, I blamed my mom for that.” Ginny tells Mike, thinking back to the dance, the first of many missed. “It just made sense, I was already blaming her for everything else.”
He snorts out a humorless laugh that sounds like he's familiar with the feeling. She looks up at him and he just nods tersely before turning his attention back to smoothing the dress back into its box.
“We were so close when I was younger.” She tells him more, because having him this close to these pieces of her childhood has opened some sort of floodgate. “Then, I don't know, we just kind of gave up on each other.”
“Still, I kept her secret for all those years,” she continues, tangent devolving past the point of Mike’s understanding, but unable to stop herself, “and now I'm supposed to stand there and smile while she marries him, like it's totally normal?”
He's quiet for a long moment after her little rant and Ginny feels that specific kind of embarrassed guilt that comes when you've said more than you should have. She also finds herself trying to predict him again, despite knowing that it's an exercise in futility.
“Sometimes, all we can do for the people we love is be completely selfless.” The words grate from Mike's lips and she finds herself watching them, hoping there's a caveat coming, even if she's not entirely sure why.
“And sometimes,” he takes a step closer and it feels like the temperature in the room goes up, “we have to be selfish.”
She knows that they’re talking about her mother -- who, in hindsight, held her family together for as long as she could, despite her husband’s singular focus and in spite of her own happiness -- but Ginny wonders if there isn’t something more to it. Something that would explain the feeling in the pit of her stomach at Mike’s words, something that would explain the way he's looking at her.
He lifts a hand to cup her cheek, using his thumb to wipe away a tear she hadn't noticed falling. He's close, when Ginny looks up to meet his eyes, she wonders if he's closer now than he was that night outside the bar. Her breath hitches when she realizes that he's looking at her the same way, too. That's when she runs.
She flees back downstairs to the kitchen, where Evy's pouring another glass of wine.
“Me too, please.”
“OK, now are we doing this?” Evelyn hands over her own goblet, clearly able to see something written all over her face. Ginny wishes she knew what it said.
“No... I don't know,” She answers almost to herself, mentally sorting through how she came so close to kissing Mike Lawson again. It may be the most she's ever wanted something she knew was terrible for her. “Things are getting a little intense.”
“Like intense, intense?” Evy’s ready to pry, but when Ginny screws up her face, trying to better articulate the way she's feeling about her teammate’s physical and emotional proximity, something changes.
“Oh my god, OK, message received.” her friend flutters her hands and practically squeals, but she doesn’t explain herself. “I'm going to… We're going right now. We're gone. Blip ?”
Evy's husband appears from around the corner, but her voice inadvertently summons Mike from upstairs at the same time.
“You guys leaving?” Ginny can feel his eyes on her as he descends the stairs, but when she finally glances back up at him, he's looking at his feet, seemingly as shell-shocked as she feels. “I guess I’ll walk out with you.”
She's the one who ran first and yet, Ginny's stomach twists at the idea he might leave. This time, she doesn't even pretend not to know why.
“Yeah, I uh... I guess I’m in good shape.” She presses her lips into a tight smile and looks everywhere but Mike’s face. “Thanks for all your help, guys.”
She hugs Blip before Evy hustles him out the door, leaving her hanging with a kiss on the cheek and a not-so-subtle punch to her good arm. And then there were two.
“So, thanks for for coming to my housewarming party,” Ginny quips because it’s easy. Jokes are good. Jokes are what they need if they're going to move from stalemate back to teammates, to return to a place where every single moment isn't fraught with this heavy kind of tension.
“Always happy to help warm a house,” he replies, like he's aware of her inner monologue. They're pretending to watch Blip and Evelyn drive away, but she wonders if Mike’s as aware of her standing next to him as she is of his presence. “Congrats rookie, it's a really nice place.”
“Season's over, Cap. I'm not your rookie anymore.”
Ginny says it almost unconsciously, but even if she had planned it, she'd never have expected him to look so… stricken? He masks it after a moment, shaking his head a little, but there's no denying what she saw. It makes her heart twist to the wrong side of painful.
“You should take a look at the rest of that scrapbook.” Mike offers finally, giving her one last look at that indecipherable smile. “Read it all the way to the end.”
It's not anywhere near what she was expecting him to say, and so it freezes her in place, long enough for him to turn and stride down her front path to the driveway. She watches him walk all the way out to the street, and it's hard to tell in the dark, but she's pretty sure he looks back at her before sliding in the driver's side door.
Ginny shuts her front door behind him with her eyebrows still furrowed and actually pretends to go to the kitchen, fighting her curiosity for all of 30 seconds before she's racing up the stairs, flipping open the binder on her pre-assembled Ikea desk and turning to the last page.
It's a newspaper clipping for one of her games, just like hundreds of others in the book. But it’s not yellowed yet, not worn or delicate like the older mementos. There's a pink post-it on the page, and her throat closes up when she recognizes the handwriting: “Last game of Ginny’s MLB rookie season.”
She flips backwards through the book, watching her rookie year flash by in reverse rapid fire as she realizes. She's bolting down the stairs before she hits the minors, flinging the front door open before she even realizes what she's doing.
Mike’s car is still there, parked right in front of her mailbox. She's surprised to find that she expected it to be. The only thing she’s not sure of -- Ginny realizes, as she takes purposeful strides towards him -- is what to do next.
Something changes inside her when her bare feet pad across the smooth stones that lead to her driveway, when she's close enough to meet his eyes as he steps out of the car. This is her house, and there's a man waiting for her, and the thrilling novelty of both of those things has her ready to make what might be a very bad decision in a very big way.  And then, all of a sudden, she's right in front of him.
“My mother...” He smiles at her, sweetly, because he knows , Ginny realizes. “Thank you, for that.”
“Not a problem.” This time, the smile almost turns into a smirk, and she doesn’t mind it. But she's too knotted up inside to find something clever, and then she's just staring, stuck between the things she wants to say and the things she wants to do.
“We gonna go through this again?” Mike finally wonders aloud. “Standing here in front of each other when there's a car I should be getting into?”
She's a little stunned by the boldness of his callback, but her feet take another step closer and her tongue offers up the response like she's had it planned this whole time. “No. Because we’re really gonna do it this time.”
Sometimes you have to be selfish , that's what he'd said.
“Yeah?” A full, brilliant smile suddenly stretches across Mike’s face and Ginny wonders if he even tried to stop it. “I gotta admit, rook, glad as I am to still be a Padre, I've found myself wondering what might have happened if Oscar had called just like, five minutes later.”
“Soon as you're done waxing poetic on it, old man.” She takes another step forward and a deep breath, because between his admission and her adrenaline, she can practically hear her heart thudding in her ears. “Kind of need your lips for this next part.”
He does stop, pausing and watching her with wide eyes, as if to show her he's ready, and Ginny has a split second of panic laced with deja vu. She's so close to him now, so close she can feel the warm of his chest and smell a hint of hops on his breath, and he’s leaning in, waiting for her to meet him halfway. It’s just the two of them, without a ticking clock, the possibilities are infinite until...
Ginny thinks about consequences, about their teammates, about the odds that one of her neighbors is going to put this on Snapchat -- then she remembers Mike’s phone buzzing in his pocket outside Boardner's, breaking the moment they could have had. It's all the motivation she needs to close the distance and press her lips to his.
His reaction is immediate, deepening the kiss until she can feel it in her knees. He tugs her close but not too tight, aware of her arm awkwardly pinned between them as his hands wrap around her waist and squeeze, fingers pressing in like there’s something he’s trying to keep. She loses herself in it, anchoring her free arm around his broad shoulders and letting her heart take over for the first time in over a decade.
They pull back but not away after a long moment, foreheads pressed against one another, taking in oxygen and each other.
“I'm glad you didn't go,” Ginny admits breathlessly, hoping he can hear the unspoken desire laced through her confession.
“Me too,” Mike whispers back, before capturing her lips again. “But I'm sorry I didn't get to kiss you like I was leaving.”
She wonders what the difference is, until the slow drag of his mouth against hers, the tease of his tongue against her lower lip, spells it all out.
There will be consequences, she's sure of it. But not yet. Not tonight. For now, there's just the sound he makes when her fingers tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck, the prickle of his beard surrounding the softness of his lips, and the feeling that she's finally home.
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flauntpage · 6 years
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Your Wednesday Morning Roundup
Zach Eflin started perfect. But the Phillies floundered against the fish in Miami in a 2-1 loss in 10 innings.
Eflin took a perfect game into the sixth inning before giving up a leadoff double to Miguel Rojas. It later ended with a pinch-hit home run to Justin Bour to tie the game at one. Eflin finished giving up that one run on three hits and four strikeouts in his season debut.
But the Phillies couldn’t get any offense going, save for Rhys Hoskins breaking his slump with an RBI double in the fifth.
Yadiel Rivera recorded the game-winning RBI in the 10th with a walk-off single.
The team also had another scare with Scott Kingery getting hit by a pitch and did not return. Let’s hope for nothing serious from the rookie.
With or without Kingery, the Phils take on Miami to wrap up their three-game series tonight at 7:10 PM. They will look to snap their four-game losing streak and end Miami’s four-game winning streak with Aaron Nola on the mound.
The Roundup:
Want to win tickets to Monday night’s Game 4 against the Celtics? Enter here to do just that.
We’re not see a ton of at-bats with Nick Williams, so could a demotion to Triple-A happen soon?
“I don’t think there’s a point at which that decision has to be made,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “I’ll say that the most important thing is that he continues to work a strong process every day, that he continues to focus on his professionalism, and that when he gets his opportunities, he’s ready for them.”
As one player is struggling, another in Clearwater is catching Kapler’s eye.
Mike Schmidt apologized for a statement he made during Sunday’s telecast.
Check out a brand new episode of Crossed Up!
After a bad first game against Boston, the Sixers try to put that in the rearview mirror with Game 2 on the horizon.
It was more of a problem for the team’s defense than offense. In fact, they did pretty decent on offense.
There were also some knee jerk reactions, such as the lack of Markelle Fultz and Robert Kraft cheering for the Celtics.
Brett Brown wanted to let everyone know Fultz could still have a role in this series:
Brett Brown said his decision to give T.J. McConnell the backup point guard minutes over  Fultz, the first overall pick in last year’s draft, “shouldn’t shock anybody, given how we arrived and where we’ve arrived.”
“To say he’s dead and buried, that’s not true,” he said. “But I got a decision to make, and I’ve made a decision,
“That doesn’t mean it’s etched in stone.  It’s always something that you review and I think about. And the care for Markelle Fultz and his future is always on my mind.”
Could Kawhi Leonard to the Sixers actually be possible?
What Popovich did not say at the time, however, was that while Leonard was in New York, he saw Dr. Jonathan Glashow, an orthopedic surgeon and co-chair of Sports Medicine at New York City’s Mount Sinai Medical Center who has professional affiliations with the New Jersey Devils and Philadelphia 76ers.
Frankel and Robertson arranged the consultation, according to multiple sources, and the Spurs were informed of the decision and the doctor’s recommendations. From this point forward, Glashow and his team have guided the rehabilitation program, sources said. The Spurs have had staffers in New York to observe and assist in Leonard’s work, which has primarily taken place at the NBA Players Association headquarters in midtown Manhattan.
Multiple league sources also told ESPN that the Spurs have grown worried that Leonard’s group has an ulterior motive to fray the relationship and get Leonard traded to a larger market such as Los Angeles (Leonard’s hometown) or New York or Philadelphia (Robertson lives in New Jersey).
One source close to Buford said the longtime executive admitted to him that he’s constantly losing sleep over how and why the relationship with Leonard has disintegrated.
The team’s Gaming Club team unveiled their digital uniforms and court.
Add Timmy Jernigan to the list of players who had offseason surgery. According to Howard Eskin, he had back surgery for a herniated disc.
The Eagles view Sidney Jones as part of their 2018 Draft Class, despite playing in one game last year.
Doug Pederson is writing a memoir.
Excited to announce I’m working with Eagles coach Doug Pederson on his memoir—Fearless, out Aug. 28. pic.twitter.com/i7nYfXbsiz
— Dan Pompei (@danpompei) May 1, 2018
With two picks inside the top 20, could the Flyers be aggressive in this year’s NHL Draft and make a move up?
Temple’s new kicker got some advice from Meek Mill:
Recently, the father and son attended the Owls’ spring game, held on campus in April. And on the way home, they stopped to see a friend who, at the time, was still working on his release from prison.
“We went to visit Meek after the game,” Joe Tacopina the lawyer said, adding that the Philly rapper has already offered to speak to the team at some point before next season. “Meek said to Joe, ‘Listen, you just be careful in this city. With your first name and your last name, since it’s the same [as your dad’s]. You show up late to class, and you’re going to get two to four [years].’ … But [Joe’s] his own person and can stand on his own two feet. I’m very proud of him.”
And if he hits a big field goal for the Owls?
“He won’t be the son of Meek Mill’s lawyer anymore,” he said with a laugh. “I think in short time, I’ll be the father of the Temple kicker, not the other way around.”
Josh Innes is back in some hot water in Houston!
In other sports news, the Cavs completed a big come-from-behind victory to beat the Raptors by one in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.
But Kendrick Perkins and Drake got involved in some beef:
"I don't think Drake want that one."
KG, @Lakers' @kylekuzma, Rasheed Wallace & @AlabamaMBB head coach, @CoachAvery6 talk @Drake and Kendrick Perkins talking during Game 1
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. #KGArea21 pic.twitter.com/0aLxPwW2YG
— KG's Area 21 (@KGArea21) May 2, 2018
Drake and Kendrick Perkins exchanged more words postgame pic.twitter.com/Z0rdXDe1uL
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) May 2, 2018
This went all the way into the tunnel, with Drake calling Perkins a "f—— p—-" and calling for him to come out. "I'm here in real life," he said. He was mad. https://t.co/3DJ2HBvrWN
— Bruce Arthur (@bruce_arthur) May 2, 2018
Kendrick Perkins on the Drake confrontation: “I was f—ing with Serge (Ibaka), my old teammate” Perkins said after the game. “I wasn’t talking to (Drake). He said something slick so I said something back: ‘Sit your ass down and watch the game.’”
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) May 2, 2018
Steph Curry made his return and scored 28 points to lead the Warriors to a Game 2 victory over the Pelicans.
I love Dirk:
I got inspired by @VicOladipo. I also texted my trainer. Here is his response… @HoopConsultants pic.twitter.com/Wgo1p0dmh1
— Dirk Nowitzki (@swish41) May 1, 2018
In the Stanley Cup playoffs, Washington and Winnipeg each took home wins to take 2-1 series leads.
Tom Wilson: Still an ass.
Tom Wilson LEVELS Pittsburgh's Aston-Reese with a high hit to the shoulder/head area..
Will we see any disciplinary action out of @NHLPlayerSafety? pic.twitter.com/TfWQTBbgJW
— NHL Daily 365 (@NHLDaily365) May 2, 2018
Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger thinks he can play 3-5 more years if he stays healthy.
In the news, Camden Catholic’s head football coach was fired, as he alleged racism as the school’s president wanted him to get more white players.
An Abington Township man is carrying an AR-15 in public, making a political statement for his Second Amendment rights.
Kanye West said 400 years of slavery was a choice and can we just ignore everything he says for now on? Why are we giving this guy and his wife and sisters who are famous for no reason except for Rob Kardashian any attention?
Gibson guitar company has filed for bankruptcy.
Your Wednesday Morning Roundup published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/
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