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barbiewritesstuff · 2 years

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Church Encounters: Chapter 21

-- They're here!

This fic is written in collaboration with @lgg5989 , who is posting this on her tumblr and her AO3! Go give her some love!!

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Taglist: @acarboni21 @unsurebuttrying @dempy @peaches-1998 @bbooks-and-teas @roosterscock @positivelyholland --

“Right. So, I was thinking we could do one last retreat weekend thing so we can say goodbye to Jake and wish him well in this new and exciting season of life,” Father Daniel said, leaning across the dining table chair with a grin.

The meeting had been going on for the past two hours. As the last meeting before Thanksgiving and Christmas and before Jake was finally set to step down as youth minister, they had all decided to make it a little less formal than the usual affair. Instead of meeting at the church, they had all come to yours to sit round the dining room table and discuss things over coffee, cake, and cookies.

“Guys, it’s not -- you don’t have to,” Jake said, feeling bashful, a light pink blush spreading across his cheeks.

“No, we have to celebrate properly! You’ve been a youth minister for about what? Six, seven years? That’s the longest tenure I’ve seen so far. I think,” Father Dan replied, bending down to get something from his backpack, “I think it warrants a jumper,” he said, holding up a bubblegum pink hoodie that matched all of Jake’s counsellor of the year shirts. In barely legible grey letters, whoever had designed the monstrosity had written “We will miss you!” in big bubbly letters slightly bent above the circular logo of the church and got all the children to sign it in markers of differing visibility. Mike Watts had written his name in pure white, making it the only properly distinguishable name of the lot.

“That is possibly the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” Jake said tearfully. He removed the hoodie he had already been wearing and immediately put on the new one, scrunching his nose at the slightly off smell of new clothes, permanent marker and plastic bags.

“Well, don’t you look…visible,” you teased, entering the room from behind Jake, bringing a tray of white chocolate and cranberry cookies and a large pot of coffee. You had largely gotten over the coffee aversion by now, your body preparing itself for the gallons you would drink -- and no doubt need -- as soon as you gave birth. Your due date was in little over a month and you felt ready to pop.

“It looks good,” you said, rolling the material of the hood in your fingers. It felt soft and fluffy, and despite the painfully pink colour of the garment, it genuinely looked quite good.

“Lying is a sin, Y/n,” Father Dan laughed.

“No I mean it, it’s not that bad once your eyes adjust,” you replied.

“It’s giving ‘graphic design is my passion’ vibes,” Matt giggled.

“I will have you all know that it is purposefully bad,” Daniel chuckled, “So don’t feel bad for roasting it.”

“It’s…an acquired taste,” Bob said, “But it really makes your eyes pop, buddy.”

“Shut up, you’re just jealous because the kids love me,” Jake said, a smug smile on his face.

Bob let out a huff before responding, “I was counsellor of the year this year!”

“Only because you can’t get elected four times in a row!” Jake laughed, “Face it buddy, you’re the consolation prize,” he said, shooting his friend a wink.

“Not what your sister said,” Bob mumbled.

“How does that even make sense as a comeback?” Jake retorted, “You’re an idiot.”

“No, you are,” Bob bit back.

“Bob, we can’t be friends if this is the best you can come up with. Also, as this parish’s spiritual leader, I am going to have to strip you of your ‘counsellor of the year’ shirt,” Father Dan said with a laugh.

“What?! You can’t do that!” Bob exclaimed, his eyes growing wide behind his glasses.

“I sure can,” Dan replied, a mischievous smile on his face.

“On what grounds?” Bob asked, sounding outraged.

Jake cut in, his voice filled with laughter, “Crappy comeback grounds!”

“Okay!” Matt shouted above the noise, “Guys, I have to go home. Mrs. Seresin, thank you very much for the coffee and the cake and everything,” he said, turning to you with a nod, “Jake sorry to see you go, but I’m happy I now have a chance to wipe the floor with Bob’s ass when we play Mario,” he said before walking off towards the front door.

“You not going to say goodbye to us?” Bob asked.

“I see y’all too often!” Matt laughed, “I called my cat Freddie this morning!”

“Freddie and Matthew sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” Bob singsonged after him.

“Goodbye!” Matthew shouted from the doorstep

“And I’m the annoying one in the family?” you asked Bob.

“Shut up,” he replied, his ears turning red.

“Right, okay your comebacks are just getting worse. I’m going home,” Freddie said, exiting his seat and leaving too after a few calmer goodbyes.

“I’m staying for a bit,” Father Dan said once it was just Jake, Bob and him round the table. Both you and Bob got the message loud and clear and moved towards the kitchen to do the dishes.

----

“You okay?” Father Dan asked him, once you and Bob were out of ear shot.

“Do we have to do the retreat?” Jake asked, “Can’t we just do it here?”

“What’s bothering you?” Dan asked.

Jake sighed but didn’t respond. Instead, he lifted his head to stare at the ceiling, hoping that avoiding Daniel’s gaze would keep him from crying, “I just -- I’d like to avoid…water,” he eventually said.

“Ah,” Daniel responded, “Jake, are you seeing someone?” he asked after a pause.

“What?!” Jake exclaimed, suddenly looking at Dan, offended that he would even think he might be cheating and thoroughly confused about what it had to do with anything.

Dan let out a little chuckle before clarifying, “A therapist, Jake. Are you seeing a therapist?”

“Oh. Yeah. About twice a week,” Jake admitted, “I’m not sure I like him though,” he said, looking down to his shoes.

“I don’t want to overstep, but I made a couple of calls so I didn’t start this conversation without having anything that could help,” Father Daniel said, pulling his backpack onto his knees and rummaging through it. He pulled out a little black notebook and opened it where his bookmark poked out. On that page, a neat list of names and phone numbers had been written in dark blue ink, “These are some PTSD specialised therapists I have been recommended to give you. They’ve all got great reviews and friends who have needed them say they know what they’re doing. I figured you might want to take a look at them.”

“How did you know?” Jake asked.

“You kind of … shut down when we mention certain things…” Daniel sighed. Jake nodded, grateful he hadn’t elaborated, he saw the flashbacks enough during the night, no need to relive them during the day too.

“I’ll call them, thank you,” he said.

Dan’s eyes shot to the kitchen before he asked, “Does Y/n know?”

Jake shrugged, “Some of it, but I don’t want to worry her unnecessarily. Not with the baby’s arrival getting closer.”

“So you’re going to wait till you’re sleep deprived and with a crying newborn?” He regarded Jake with a raised eyebrow, concern written on his face.

“Not my best idea… but it’s a tough situation. I have to think about what’s best for everyone,” Jake said, “I can’t just think of myself anymore. I have Y/n to think of and the kid, I can’t just do the easy thing. I have responsibilities,” he sighed, “Can’t just leave people hanging and save myself.”

“Would you want to?” Daniel asked.

“Fuck no,” Jake replied, the thought of hanging you out to dry made his heart clench uncomfortably in his chest.

“Language,” Father Dan chided, an amused smile on his face, “I know the saying is swearing like a sailor but you don’t need to personify it.”

“Oh dear, of course not, my dearest friend,” Jake replied in a mock English accent.

Daniel rolled his eyes, “I’m just saying, you have a month to stop.”

“Dude, it’s swearing, not cigarettes. It’ll be fine,” Jake laughed and then grew serious once more, “No. I wouldn’t change a thing. I’m happy, I like this. In all honesty, I didn’t think I’d get to have all of this, so I’m trying to do a good job, I don’t want to mess it all up.”

“I’m sure you won’t,” Daniel winked. He clapped his hands against his thighs and stood up, “I’m going to go back, I think. I have a homily to practice,” he said and Jake nodded.

Father Daniel moved to the kitchen, crossing Bob in the hallway as he dried his hands. He bid him goodbye and went looking for you. He eventually found you in the laundry room, loading the last basket of baby clothes into the washer.

These last few months, Jake had been on laundry duty. The washer was a top load and with your ever expanding belly and the rather large basket, putting things in had been difficult. Removing things had been nigh on impossible. This was your first time using it in weeks, but with Jake occupied in the dining room, you decided not to disturb him.

“Need help?” Daniel said, startling you badly enough that the wireless earbud you had put on to listen to your podcast fell to the ground.

“No, it’s okay,” you laughed, “I’ll ask Jake. You scared me,”

“I didn’t mean to,” he smiled, “I wanted to say thank you for this afternoon. It was nice to be able to do it here, and the cake and cookies were amazing. I need you to give me that recipe,” he said.

“It’s our pleasure, thank you for coming,” you replied, taking a few steps forward, reaching for the door. Father Dan backed away and you both made your way back down the corridor and back to the kitchen. He touched your arm just before you spilled back in and held you back.

“Look, I just wanted to make sure things were okay with you. That you were happy,” he said.

“Everything’s fine,” you smiled, rubbing a hand over your stomach, a muscle spasm causing you a bit of discomfort.

“I know talking about these things is hard sometimes, but if you’re ever feeling shy about telling Jake anything, I’m happy to work as a go-between,” he offered.

“I’m not sure I understand,” you said.

“That because I am doing a spectacularly bad job of telling you things, maybe don’t use me as a go-between,” he joked, “What I’m trying to say is that we are both aware of how we as Christians see the family and how it’s meant to run. I know you and Jake are fairly traditional people and I know Jake would never abuse his power in any way, but I want you to know that if you ever feel shy or uncertain about certain things, I will happily help in any way I can.”

“Oh,” you said, “No, you don’t need to worry. Jake is very considerate, and he always makes sure I’m okay with decisions he takes. He wants what’s best for all of us, and I trust his judgement completely. I do appreciate it, though. We’re all very lucky to have you as head of our church.”

“Stop, you’re making me blush,” he chuckled, “I’m just doing my job, nothing special,” he added, looking at his shoes, “One last thing. Jake’s going through a lot right now. I know you know he is, but -- just … don’t forget to help him sometimes. I know you’ll be busy but make sure he doesn’t get too overwhelmed. I want him to enjoy this next season too.”

“You don’t think he will?” you asked.

“I think he will,” Father Dan reassured, placing a friendly hand on your shoulder, “I also think with what he’s just lived through, that things might be difficult for him. Less sleep, more stress. He just needs more support than he wants to ask for or admit to needing.”

“Don’t worry, I will,” you replied. He grabbed your hand and squeezed and looking to change the subject, he said, “So, how about that recipe?”

You chuckled, moving through to the kitchen. You looked through drawers and cupboards until you found your recipe book. While your coffee tolerance was back to normal, pregnancy brain was still in full force and keeping track of things was an impossible task. You fished the card for your chocolate cake out and then for your cookies and handed them both to Father Dan.

He thanked you and bid you goodbye, walking out of your house a few moments later, leaving you with Jake in a quiet house for the first time in a while.

----

The silence was short lived. As soon as Maria came home from her day out running errands, she joined you in the kitchen to start on Thanksgiving dinner. It was only Wednesday, but with you being easily tired and heavily pregnant, you preferred doing as much as possible in advance.

Tonight, you were starting on the green bean casserole, and pies. You had prepared the turkey to brine the day before so it would be ready for Thanksgiving day. This would leave you with the turkey, rolls, mashed potatoes, and corn to do on the day.

You sliced the apples with precision, keeping them all the same thickness so that the pie would cook evenly as Maria prepared the pecans for the pie. Your eyes widened when you noticed that what she had essentially made was pecan dust, the small chunks you had seen earlier were gone under the hand chopper Maria had plucked from your cabinet.

You reached out a hand, grabbing her own in yours, the action causing your belly to twinge again. Your action seemed to startle her, and she turned to look at you with wide eyes.

“Are you okay?” you asked, searching her face for any sign that something was wrong.

“I…um…yeah, I’m fine,” she said, an unconvincing smile coming over her face.

You regarded her a moment longer before letting her hand go, “Maybe you should take a break for a minute, I can chop the pecans once I’m done with these apples.”

“I can do it, Y/n,” she insisted as she lifted the chopper up revealing the finely powdered pecans underneath.

You looked between her and the powder on the cutting board before replying, “I think you need to take a break.”

Maria slumped down in the chair beside you, her head resting on her crossed arms as she watched you continue to slice the apples. You glanced over at her from time to time, wondering when she would tell you what was going on, but not wanting to push too much.

Just as you thought she was going to share what was on her mind, Jake and Bob appeared in the kitchen.

“Hey honey?” Jake asked, glancing around the messy counter that you were using as a workspace.

“Yes my love,” you said to him, not looking up from the apples you were almost finished with.

There was a pause before, “What do we have to eat?”

You let out a laugh as you looked up at him, “There is some leftover stew in the fridge, or you can order pizza.”

Jake opened the fridge and pulled out the container you had packed away a few nights ago. He made portions for himself and Bob before they wandered back out into the living room as you and Maria continued your standoff at the kitchen counter.

She rolled her eyes, “He is so helpless.”

You let out a laugh, “He isn’t helpless, he just knows its better to ask the pregnant lady before you go eating her leftovers.”

Maria didn’t laugh with you at your statement, and her face seemed to pale at the thought.

“What’s the matter?” you pressed again as you stood up to move the apples from the bowl you had placed them in into the pie pan that was on the counter.

“I…um…” she started, taking a deep breath before coming to stand by you, “I need to talk to you about something.”

You looked at her, confused, “You can talk to me about anything, we are sisters, maybe not by blood, but I would never treat you any different than Annie or Audrey,” you reassured her, “So tell me what’s wrong, maybe I can help?”

“I don’t think you can help,” she said, her eyes not quite meeting yours.

“Well you won’t know that until you tell me what’s wrong,” you insisted as you sealed the top of the pie with its crust.

Maria leaned in close to you, removing the pie pan from your hands, her voice a whisper as she said, “I…um…I’m pregnant.”

You stared at her with shock, “Are you sure?” you questioned quickly.

“Pretty sure,” she said, “I did a test.”

“How many tests? Sometimes they’re wrong,” you explained quickly, rubbing a hand over the tight spot in your stomach.

“Three,” she replied. When she looked up at you there were tears in her eyes. You took one of her hands into your own, squeezing it gently.

“Hey, it’s going to be alright,” you reassured her, bringing her hand up to eye level, you rubbed a finger over the ring on her finger, “You and Bob are getting married. He won’t care when the baby is born, as long as he or she is healthy and so are you. God has a plan, we can’t pretend to know it, but He thinks that it’s your time for a lil’ nugget.”

She just nodded, so you pulled her into a hug. Trying to stay calm and quiet so that you didn’t risk telling the boys what was transpiring right under their noses.

Finally Maria spoke, her breaths coming in gasps, “I know, I went to church. Not our church, a different one. I prayed, and I cried, and I just…I feel like I’ve disappointed Him. What if Bob isn’t ready? What if we aren’t ready?”

“You can’t doubt Him, you can only have faith that he has you on the path you are meant to walk,” you said, rubbing her back, trying not to let the now searing pain at your side pull your attention from your words, “Have you seen Bob with Beau’s kids? With the youth ministry group? He is wonderful with them, and you are going to make terrific parents, I have no doubt in my mind.”

Maria pulled you to her, her arms tight around your midsection. Suddenly a warm feeling spread down your legs and you let out a gasp. Looking down, your pants were soaked through with water.

“Oh no,” you said, a now stabbing pain shooting through your back, “Jake!”

The tone of your voice must have alerted him that something was not right, because two seconds later he was standing in the kitchen, the half eaten bowl of stew in his hand. With one look at you, and your now soaked through sweatpants, his mouth fell open, “That…I…It’s not time,” he said, his voice low.

You bent over, your back flaring with another contraction, your face contorting in pain, “It is time!” you said through gritted teeth, “Get my bag,” you managed to stutter out as the wave of pain slowly dissipated. You grabbed onto Maria’s arm to keep yourself upright as Jake flew up the stairs and into your bedroom to fetch the go-bag.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Maria whispered to you, tears rolling down her cheeks, her face pale, “I’m so sorry, Y/n, I didn’t mean to. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” you tried to tell her, the pain now almost gone. Time was limited, however, and you knew another contraction was soon to come, “Maria, listen to me. This is not your fault, I have been feeling funny all day, it’s not your fault,” you said but she didn’t seem to listen.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated again but when you opened your mouth to reply, Bob appeared at the door.

“What’s going on?” he asked, stepping into the puddle your waters had made, “Fucking shit,” he swore.

“LANGUAGE,” Jake shouted from the first floor, and you rolled your eyes. You had barely finished when a pressure travelled from your back to the front of your lower abdomen. The first one had been painful but for this one, it felt like your body had turned up the dial. Your knees buckled and you almost fell, the only thing keeping you from hitting the ground being one of Bob’s strong arms keeping you upright.

“Hurry up Jake!” he shouted. Seconds later, he was answered by the sound of Jake barreling down the stairs.

“Let’s get you in the car,” Jake said, handing the bag over to Bob and guiding you out of the door and into the driveway.

Bob had run out of the door as soon as the go-bag had been placed in his hands and by the time you waddled out, bent over due to the lengthening contractions, he had already opened the back doors of his Astra and shoved your bag in the boot.

“Get in,” he said, jumping into the driver’s seat, “Angel, can you call Dad and tell him to get his ass over to Jake’s house. There’s a casserole in the oven and we left the door unlocked,” he said, swinging one hand over Maria’s head and the headrest behind her to back out of your driveway, sending gravel flying everywhere as he spoke. She nodded quickly, fishing her phone out of her pocket and pressing the Admiral’s number.

She tried to explain as best she could, but halfway through, you cut her off with a wail as the worst contraction yet washed over you. Adrenaline flooded your body, making you shake and shiver as you held onto Jake’s hand.

“Try to breathe baby,” he said, desperately trying to be helpful and failing miserably. Keeping that in mind, you attempted to keep the intensity of the glare down, but the feeling of building pressure made anything but crying out in pain very difficult.

Seeing as gently asking you to stay calm wasn’t working, Jake tried a different approach, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee, Blessed art Thou amongst women, and Blessed is the fruit of Thy womb Jesus,” he said, picturing a rosary in his mind so as to not lose count, “Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, Amen.”

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee, Blessed art Thou amongst women, and Blessed is the fruit of Thy womb Jesus,” he repeated, “Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, Amen,” he continued, your broken voice now joining in.

You took a couple of deep breaths, and shifted in your seat. Sitting down was uncomfortable at best, but you found a little relief when you leaned slightly across the bench, lifting one leg to rest over Jake’s own. He placed one of his hands against your thighs and squeezed ever so gently, so careful not to hurt you.

“Hail Mary,” you both kept going, Maria and Bob soon joining in simultaneously to finish the first decade. By the time you were done, Bob had parked into the A&E parking lot. Always-late Bob had somehow managed to drive a forty five minute journey in about twenty minutes. When you got out of the car, you could have sworn the tires were smoking.

----

“Ten centimetres, we’ll be able to start pushing now,” the nurse smiled, finishing her exam.

She was nice, barely older than you. Her face was round and the corners of her eyes already showed some smile lines. Despite the fact that she had been nothing but respectful of your choices and incredibly kind in the face of your panic, you still felt strange and wanted nothing more than to clamp your legs shut and tell the baby to deal with things themselves, your pain addled brain thought.

You breathed in the nitrous oxide and the pain diminished, the fog cleared in your head and you managed to nod at her. She gently patted your shin, “It’ll be okay, darling,” she said and you managed a nod again, “Grab on to hubby’s hand,” she told you. Jake, who had not left your side since the moment you had gone into labour, stuck out his hand for you. You grabbed it and he gave you a reassuring smile and a wink.

“You look beautiful,” he said, his voice soft and genuine

“I’m sweaty and gross,” you replied. Your hair was stuck to your forehead, sweat pearling above your lip, your hands were moist and you had never been more uncomfortable, and yet, for some reason, you had never felt more at peace in your life. Despite the panic, and adrenaline making you want to run a mile in under a second flat, this felt like something you were meant to do, like you were on the brink of fulfilling a lifelong dream.

“I never said you weren’t,” Jake smiled, “I said you were beautiful.”

“Ma’am?” the nurse called your attention back to her, “On your next contraction, you’ll feel the urge to push, don’t hold back,” she said. You got into position, turning around to squat at the side of the bed, one hand tangling in the sheets to get a decent grip. As soon as the next wave washed over you, you pushed, your face grimacing in effort.

“That’s it, great job!” the nurse praised, “You’re doing wonderful,”

The contraction went and you breathed in deeply, concentrating on preparing yourself for the next one and trying to think positive thoughts, a few images of your soon-to-be-there baby lying in your arms.

“I can see them crowning!” the nurse said after four more contractions came and went. She smiled at you and squeezed your leg. You braced yourself for another push and when it was time, you gave one last hard push and felt a strange sensation before a strangled cry filled the room. The nurse held the baby in her arms before swaddling them in a white towel and giving them to Jake.

“It’s a little girl,” she said.

You and Jake shared a confused look. He moved to hand you the baby, but the nurse stopped him, placing a hand on his arm.

“Keep her for the moment, the next one will be here soon,” she said gently.

“I beg your pardon?” you asked, certain you had misheard.

“The second twin…” she said, then turning white as a sheet, she asked, “You do know you’re having twins, right?”

“Absolutely, that’s why we’re acting so surprised,” you snarked, the midwife laughed as you clapped a hand over your mouth, “I am so sorry, I’m not usually this rude. I am so sorry,” you apologised, genuinely ashamed of your reactions.

“No worries, I can’t guarantee I would have been polite had I been in your spot for my first,” she smiled, “This is a nice reaction too, usually we get cussed out during childbirth. I got bit last week,” she shrugged. You made a mental note of sending her a gift basket as soon as you were able to.

You briefly turned your thoughts to Audrey and her shifts at the maternity ward of her own hospital but they were interrupted by another contraction. Despite having laboured for nigh on twelve hours and having given birth to a baby already, you hadn’t yet gotten used to contractions, and honestly you didn’t think you ever would. Luckily, this baby, passing in the wake of their sister, came into the world rather quickly. After ten more minutes of pushing a little boy came into the world, screaming louder and harder than you thought a newborn ever could, his little voice high and shrill. He calmed down as soon as the nurse placed him in your arms.

With great difficulty, you laid down on the bed and pulled the covers over your legs. Cradling your baby boy in your arms while Jake held your little girl. Ripping your gaze away from your baby, you reached over to gently caress his twin’s red cheek.

“They look just like you,” Jake whispered, running a finger from her forehead to the tip of her nose, her little eyes flew open as she, with her blurry vision tried to see who had disturbed her peaceful snoozing, “She looks like a Charlotte,” he said, still speaking quietly, an enamoured smile plastered on his face. You stretched your legs and placed Christopher on your lap, holding his little neck stable with one hand.

“I think he’s a Christopher,” you said, turning your attention back to the little boy. He looked around at the room, his gaze settling on your smiling face every few minutes, giving what you thought was a small smile back.

“Hi,” you cooed, “Hi, my name’s Mama,” you said, caressing his little cheek.

“I’m Daddy,” Jake added, putting Charlotte right next to Christopher, “Welcome to the family.”

“Jacob,” you whispered, “How do we tell everyone?”

He chuckled, “How about we don’t? We surprise them when they come in?”

“Uh huh,” you agreed, not having listened to a word he had said, as he spoke, both babies simultaneously yawned and you were sure your heart had melted.

----

Once your sweet babies were checked by the doctor and cleaned, you watched as the nurse placed their hospital bracelets on their ankles. As they slept, your eyes drifted closed against your fighting, your body was exhausted from the long hours of labouring, but you didn’t want to sleep and risk this all being a dream.

Jake pressed a kiss to your forehead as your head bobbed again, “Sleep, I promise they will be here when you wake up.”

“You’re just saying that so you can keep them all to yourself,” you joked, a sleepy smile forming on your lips.

“Absolutely I am,” he said, the rest of his reply dying on his lips as your eyes closed and you drifted off to sleep. He placed a kiss on your forehead and whispered an ‘I love you’ into your skin before making his way to the large, clear plastic crib they had placed the babies in. He placed one of his hands on each of the babies, savouring the feeling of their tiny beating hearts.

Tears threatened to fall as he opened his mouth and whispered, “Lord Jesus Christ, give Your light to my children. I entrust them to You. You gave them to me, but I am weak and unable to guide them, so, please, illuminate them. Amen.”

His phone buzzed in his pocket with a text from Cyclone, “Everything okay? Can we call?”

“All good, delivery went well. She’s sleeping. My parents are getting here in 1h, meet up at hospital?” he replied, too shy to ask if they could bring food.

Maria and Bob had been God sent during your labour. They had called, messaged and arranged flights for the entire Seresin clan and kept the dagger squad and the Simpsons up to date so that you wouldn’t be disturbed. They had even supplied him with a steady stream of coffee and bowls of ice chips for you.

They had briefly gone home for a nap and a shower, but now, as evidenced by a “On our way to the airport!” from Bob, they had left home to pick up his parents, the rest of his siblings having had to book later flights due to a shortage of seats. It was a miracle they would even be there so soon, Jake thought, considering his parents had just turned up and bought tickets at the gate.

Jake had never felt this happy. He knelt down in front of the crib, intent on praying again, but for the first time in his life, he couldn’t find the words to express how truly grateful he was. He had never believed he would ever get to have the life he had now, that he was undeserving of the love and opportunities he had been presented, and while he still agreed with it, he was ever so happy that the Lord saw fit to bless him in that way. His hallucination of Mount Moriah floated through his mind, accompanied by the words of God, “The pain that you've been feeling, can't compare to the joy that's coming”.

He had known as soon as the midwife had told them they were having twins that that was what the Lord had meant. You had panicked and snapped but he had felt a strange sense of calm. He hadn’t expected to be thrown into the deep end of parenting with the first pregnancy, but he felt oddly okay about it. He knew that with you by his side, you could do anything.

----

You awoke with a start, the sound of Charlotte crying causing you to look over to the crib she was in with concern. Jake was asleep on the couch, but with the soreness you were feeling from delivery, there was no way you were going to trust yourself to get out of bed and carry her from her hospital bassinet back to your bed.

“Jake,” you stage whispered, trying to ensure he heard you over the crying baby.

When he didn’t move, you tried again, “Lieutenant Seresin!” you said, your voice slightly raised. Jake’s eyes flew open and he was off the couch in a moment, “Yes ma’am!” he said, his whole form at attention. You let out a peal of laughter at his response and Jake broke the stance easily, his eyes snapping to your crying daughter.

“I think she’s hungry, bring her to me?” you asked him, pulling open the top of your hospital gown so that you could use the technique the specialist had shown you for feeding.

Jake carefully picked her up, her cries quieting some, but when he placed her in your arms, they quit all together. You nudged her little head towards your breast and when you felt her latch, you turned your attention back to your husband.

“Where are Bob and Maria?” you asked him.

Jake stretched and rubbed his head, “They’re coming with Mom and Dad, should be here in,” he paused to check his watch, “Well right about now actually. Beau and Lizzie are coming too,” he added sheepishly, taking in your current state, “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” you replied, “Could you just have a nurse bring us a blanket? I don’t want to give everyone dinner and a show.”

He laughed at your joke, “What? I don’t at least get a show?”

You shook your head at him, “The only ones getting a show for the next six weeks are going to be this nugget and beanie over there,” you said with a laugh, “Now go get me a blanket please!”

“I will,” Jake said, pausing at your bedside to caress Lottie’s hair, “But first, I need a kiss from my beautiful wife.”

You felt yourself blush at his words, even after witnessing you give birth only hours before, Jake still thought the world of you. Through the tears and sweat and screaming, he was your rock, and you couldn’t have been luckier.

Leaning into him, you pressed a kiss to his lips and watched as he walked to the door, pulling it open and immediately closed once he was out of the room, not wanting to flash you to the rest of the hospital.

A few minutes later the door opened again, revealing Jake with a blanket thrown over his shoulder. He approached you at the bed and carefully tied two of the ends together, making it more of a bib than a blanket.

Holding the opening in his hands, Jake slid it carefully over your messy bun so that the blanket sat like a necklace, covering you and Charlotte from anyone who might come into the room.

“Thank you,” you said, taking in your covering, “You are smarter than they give you credit for Hangman.”

Jake grinned at you, “I have to keep something secret to impress the ladies,” he said.

You let out a laugh at him, just as you were about to open your mouth to respond, Chris, your sweet Beanie, let out an ear piercing cry. Your eyes widened at your son’s lungs, how a baby could make such a loud noise you would never know.

Jake picked him up, cradling him gently in his large arms and rocking back and forth, “Hey little man, it’s okay. Mommy is almost done and then it's your turn.”

When Charlotte was fed, you and Jake traded babies, him burping and you feeding. A few minutes after you traded, there was a knock on the door.

Jake shared a look with you before you readjusted the blankets on the bed, making it appear more like you were cold and not like you had another baby tucked underneath.

“Come in!” Jake called out, his large hand gently patting Charlotte’s back.

Isabella and Lizzie came into the room first, both of their faces alight with bright smiles. Beau and Gio followed closely behind, closing the door behind themselves.

“Where is my grandbaby?” Isabella asked, her eyes on Jake.

“Our little princess is right here,” he replied, leaning forward to shift Charlotte into his arms. The two pairs gathered around him, looking down at your sweet girl, “This is Charlotte Mary Seresin,” Jake announced proudly.

The sound of Beau’s voice made you smile, “Hello there little lady,” he said quietly, you imagined he was running one finger carefully along the top of her soft head.

“Would you like to hold her?” Jake asked him. With a quiet nod, Beau held out his arms. Charlotte fussed for only a moment before settling into her grandpa’s hold, her small eyes fluttering closed as she fell back asleep.

At that moment the group turned to you, “And how are you doing dear?” Giovanni asked, “Twelve hours is a long time.”

Isabella smacked his chest, “Don’t ask stupid questions, the poor girl is probably exhausted!” she exclaimed.

You smiled at them both, “I’m okay, tired for sure, but the end result is so worth it.”

At that moment, Christopher decided that he was done eating. You glanced at Jake, his eyes catching yours for only a moment and immediately knowing what you were trying to tell him.

“We actually have a surprise for you!” Jake said, drawing everyone’s attention away from you as he pretended to dig through your hospital bag on the floor.

While he did that, you carefully pulled your little boy out from your covering and brought him up to your chest, patting his back gently so that he would burp. Jake pretended to struggle for a moment, muttering a few, ‘where is it?’s before you coughed quietly, both to signal him and to hold in your laughter.

“Honey, do you know where we put the - Oh! There he is!” Jake said, and at that moment several things happened. The first of which was Lizzie catching sight of you, holding another baby, she let out a shrill exclamation of, “Oh goodness!”

Beau turned at that moment and you were worried for only a second that he would drop Charlotte before you watched his knuckles turn white, “I think I need to sit down,” he whispered before sinking into the chair Jake had been sleeping in previously.

Giovanni turned to pull Jake into a hug, but before he could manage that much, Isabella caught up to what was going on, “Dio mio! Dio mio! Non può essere! Gemelli? Sei serio? Dio mio…” the loud Italian cut through the room and you leaned forward with concern as Isabella’s eyes rolled up into her head. Giovanni was quick and grabbed her as she started to slump towards the floor. (Oh my God! Oh my God! It can't be! Twins? Are you serious? Oh my God…)

Gio sighed deeply, “I’m sorry, she promised she wouldn’t faint this time,” he explained, “I thought we were doing so well, but you just had to pull out that surprise didn’t you Jacob?” he asked, humour in his voice as he looked at his youngest son.

“Hey! The little man deserved a special entrance!” Jake defended, a smile on his face.

Isabella let out a groan as Gio deposited her on the couch, “It’s twins?” she asked, looking up at him.

“Yes Bella, it’s twins,” he said, a smile on his face, “Cosa è successo a 'Non svengo questa volta!'?” he asked. (What happened to 'I won't faint this time!'?)

“It’s twins! I should get a pass this time!” she exclaimed, suddenly back to life.

You laughed, so happy at all of their reactions. Your family might not all be blood, but you couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to call your own.

Isabella was suddenly off the couch and standing next to you, “My goodness dear, tired may be an understatement,” she said, concern in her eyes.

“They made it worth it,” you reassured her with a smile.

She nodded, placing a motherly hand on your shoulder, “Now, who might this young man be?” she asked.

“This is Christopher Emanuel Seresin,” you said, gazing down on your sweet boy, now sleeping in your arms comfortably. As much as you didn’t want to part with your baby boy, you gently lifted him into Isabella’s arms.

You watched closely as Beau and Isabella cooed over your babies, so closely that you didn’t notice the concern flash across Jake’s face. When they handed the babies off to Lizzie and Giovanni, your heart pounded in your chest. Logically, you knew that your children were safe in the arms of their grandparents, but you were still nervous about being parted from them, even if they were still a few feet away.

When you started to doze off, your eyes fighting hard to stay open, everyone bid you goodbye. After being sworn to secrecy they quietly filed out of the room. Jake came to your side, both of your babies laid out on the bed in front of you sleeping soundly.

“They’re wonderful,” he said, his head resting on top of yours, “You did such a good job.”

You let out a quiet laugh, “I don’t think I had much choice in the matter, but I am glad they are both cute.”

“How could they be anything else? They are half me,” Jake replied, earning him an elbow to the ribs.

“I knew when I married you that you had a big head, let’s just be glad these two didn’t inherit that,” you mumbled out, your eyes flicking open and closed.

Jake laughed lowly before pressing a kiss to your forehead, “Sleep, I’ll watch these two.”

You cracked your eyes open just enough to watch him put your babies in their bassinets before you were lost to the world hoping for at least an hour before one of them was hungry again. When you woke next, the room was quiet except for Jake’s small snores. Trying to determine what woke you, you heard a vibrating sound.

Your phone was placed on the over-bed table. You reached for it, seeing Maria calling, “Hello?” you whispered into the device, not wanting to wake Jake or the babies.

“Hey!” she greeted you, “I know mom and dad were probably a little overwhelming this morning, but Bob and I were wondering if you and Jake wanted some food? It is Thanksgiving after all.”

You pulled the phone from your face, checking the time. It was now well into the afternoon on Thursday, you let out a sigh, not realising the time that had passed since you had come to the hospital the night before.

“Y/n?” Maria asked.

“Yes, sorry, that would be great! I don’t know what we have or-” you started.

“It’s alright, me and mom cooked the rest of the food for today, so I will bring you two a spread,” she said quickly, “We figure this way you will have plenty of leftovers once you’re home.”

“That sounds delicious,” you said, a smile coming over your face, “Come by in about an hour?”

“We will see you then,” Maria answered, “Do you need anything else?”

“Not right now, but when you get here we will have a favour to ask,” you said, glancing over at Jake, who was watching you from his position on the couch.

You heard some mumbling on the line before Maria answered, “Okay, we will see you in an hour then!”

With that the line went dead and you laid your head back against your pillow once more.

“Who was that?” Jake asked, rolling from his side to his back on the couch, his wide body causing one arm to hang down, off the side.

“Maria, she and Bob are going to come by in an hour or so. Your mom insisted on making the dinner we had prepared so they’re bringing us food too,” you answered with a soft sigh.

Jake was quiet for a minute before asking, “What’s wrong?”

You shrugged from your spot on the bed, “Nothing, I just wish we could keep them as only ours for a little while, ya know?”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, a small sigh escaping him before, “But we were always going to have to share them.”

You nodded, your gaze turning towards the bassinets that were next to your bed. Charlotte and Christopher were sleeping soundly. Reaching out, you stroked your fingers over their little noses, each dressed in their hospital clothes, pink and blue hats now covering their little heads. Their soft skin and little breaths made you smile.

You heard the shutter of a camera and when you looked up, you saw Jake, his phone stretched out in front of him and a smile on his own face.

“My new phone background,” he explained.

“I’m sure I look lovely,” you replied, running your fingers through your hair.

Jake got up from the couch, stopping to pull your hairbrush from your bag before coming to sit behind you on the bed, “I think you look beautiful.”

You closed your eyes as he brushed through your hair gently, taking his time with the knots tugging hard enough to get them out, but not so hard that it hurt. When he was done, you were impressed when he managed to pull your hair back into a ponytail. It was simple and a little loose, but you felt like you looked less like Albert Einstein and more like yourself.

“Thank you,” you said, leaning back against him.

He leaned down, pressing a kiss to your shoulder, “Anything for you princess.”

The two of you sat there, basking in the silence of the room. Your eyes fluttered closed, and immediately flew back open at the sound of Christopher’s cries. You leaned forward, scooping him out of the bassinet and rocking him against you gently, your eyes on Charlotte’s stirring form.

Just as she started to stir, a foul smell hit your nose.

“Oh my, it seems that you are daddy’s problem now aren’t you baby?” you asked Chris before handing him over to Jake, who looked at you confused before his eyes widened.

“You didn’t just do that,” he said seriously.

You let out a laugh, “I think I just did,” you confirmed for him, picking up Lottie, “I feed them and you change them, I think it's only fair.”

Jake sighed before pulling a chair up to the side of your bed. He grabbed a few diapers that the hospital had provided as well as the package of wipes. You looked on as he did surprisingly well for his first time changing an actual baby’s diaper, the classes you took always used babydolls.

When he had finished with Chris, you passed him Lottie. Chris began to fuss so you unbuttoned your gown to feed him once again. Once you were adjusted, you smiled at Jake, who was now entertaining Charlotte.

“You are such a pretty baby girl, I’m gonna have to beat off all the boys one day, won’t I?” he asked her, “Yes I will,” he continued, nodding his head, “No matter how much you complain.”

Just then she started to let out small cries, her little lip quivering, “Oh no baby don’t cry, daddy’s here, daddy’s got you,” he cooed, picking her up from the bed and cradling her in his arms.

“She’s been here for less than a day and she already has you wrapped around her finger,” you chuckled. Jake tore his gaze away from Charlotte to smile at you

“You’re just jealous that another pretty lady has caught my eye,” he said with a wink.

You laughed at him, “I could never be jealous as long as I am always your number two.”

Jake raised a brow at you, “I can’t promise that baby.”

“And why not?” you questioned, disappointment welling up inside of you.

“Well darlin’, what if we have another little lady? Then you’d have to be number three…” he started, a sly smile on his face.

“Jacob Seresin, you knew what I meant!” you chided him, laughing.

He leaned over to kiss you, and it brought a smile to your face. When Chris was done eating, you traded him for Charlotte.

Just as you were placing Charlotte up on your chest to burp her, there was a knock on the door. Your eyes widened and you looked at Jake, unsure of how to surprise Maria and Bob with your twins.

“I’ll burp her, and you put Chris next to you,” he instructed, a smile on his face.

You shifted the babies around quickly before calling out, “Come in!”

Bob and Maria came through the doors, the smell of Thanksgiving dinner coming in with them causing your stomach to grumble, “Oh that smells delicious,” you said.

Maria smiled at you, “Hey there momma, I heard you wanted some dinner.”

You let out a laugh, “Dinner sounds wonderful, I heard you wanted to meet your goddaughter!”

Maria’s eyes widened as she looked to Jake who was holding Charlotte in her pink blanket.

“Is this her? Oh my goodness,” she said, moving to stand in front of her brother, “She’s so precious, oh my. Bobby look at her little fingers!”

“I see them,” he said, “They are definitely little.”

“Can I hold her?” Maria asked, looking between you and Jake for approval.

You paused for only a second before answering, in your best Billy Mays voice, “But wait! There’s more!”

Maria and Bob’s eyes shot to you as you picked Chris up from the bed, cradling him in your arms.

“Twins?” Bob asked, his voice a little higher than you remember it being before.

“Twins,” Jake confirmed, “This,” he said, holding his arms out a little, “Is Charlotte Mary Seresin.”

“And this,” you continued, nodding down with your head, “Is Christopher Emanuel Seresin.”

Maria gaped at you, “They’re perfect,” she said, “I’m so happy for you two!”

“We are so happy too!” you said, “We have been blessed, truly.”

“Speaking of blessings,” Jake added, “We are in need of the blessing of your help.”

Bob raised an eyebrow at him, “If you’re asking me to take your first born-”

Jake let out a laugh, “Over my cold, dead body Bobby. I need you to pick us up another crib, and assemble it…”

Before Bob could answer, you added in, “Also, we need another car seat.”

Bob nodded, “I think Maria and I can take care of that, just the same ones you have?”

“That would be great, I think the boxes are still in the garage if you need the brands,” you said, gently transferring Christoper to Maria’s hold. She sat down next to you on the bed and you took the opportunity to stroke over Chris’ head.

“Here’s dinner,” Bob added, “We may have slipped some contraband in there.”

You opened the bag up, pulling out two warm containers of food, and at the bottom was a small bottle of champagne.

Pulling the bubbly from the bag, you getured to the bathroom, “There’s a few cups in there, grab four for me?”

Bob came back a few seconds later, four cups in hand. You screwed off the top of the bottle, the pressurised cap more difficult than you were used to with your ten dollar bottles of Costco wine. As you began to pour the liquid into cups, serving Bob and Jake more than yourself, you paused. Maria was pregnant, that is what started this whole thing in the first place.

You caught her eye and she gulped, “You know, I don’t think I’m feeling wine at the moment, maybe just some water for me?” she suggested.

You watched Jake squint at her, “Maria did you just turn down a glass of wine?”

“Um, yes I believe I did,” she answered, her voice nervous.

All eyes were on Maria for a few moments as she tried to come up with something else to say. You held your arms out, taking back Chris so she could get up. You settled him into one arm before reaching out with your other hand and holding hers.

Quietly you said, “You need to tell them.”

Maria nodded once, and you squeezed her hand in yours.

“I, um, I have something to tell you both,” she said, her voice quivering.

Bob looked at her concerned before pulling her into a hug, “What’s wrong?” he whispered.

“I’m sorry Bobby,” she said, tears springing to her eyes.

“Sorry for what?” he asked, confused at her rapid change of emotion.

“What’s going on?” Jake asked, his eyes on you.

Maria took a deep, shaky breath. She pulled back from Bob’s arms, her hand still entwined in his, her knuckles white from the force of her grip.

“I’m pregnant,” she whispered, her eyes on Bob’s.

Your eyes were on your husband, taking in the emotions that ran wild over his face.

“You’re pregnant,” Bob repeated, his face blank. You were worried that he wasn’t happy for half a second before he picked Maria up in his arms and pressed a kiss to her lips, “I love you,” he whispered to her, “I know you’re worried but it's going to be okay. We are getting married in a month and no one is going to care when he or she is born, just that we are happy and you and the baby are healthy.”

Maria nodded, tears streaming down her face, her smile was brilliant. She buried her head into Bob’s shoulder and he spun her around again, her feet coming off the floor. You couldn’t hear what he was saying to her, but you were sure it was sweet because a few seconds later, she pulled back and kissed him again.

You turned away from the scene in front of you to look at Jake, his eyes were wide, but he looked happy.

Maria eyed her brother nervously before asking, “Are you upset?”

Jake shook his head, glancing down at Charlotte, “I really don’t have a right to be do I? I mean, I am your older brother, but you are an adult, who is engaged to the man you are pregnant by so why should I care when you have a baby? I’m just happy that you’re happy.”

Maria nodded before pulling Jake into a hug. Charlotte got jostled a little and she let out a whimper, but Jake turned to the side, allowing him to hug Maria with one hand and hold your baby girl in the other.

Jake looked over at Bob, “You on the other hand, I’m allowed to be mad at,” he said jokingly, “What happened to, “listen to Galatians 6:9, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time-”” Jake teased.

“Hey, in your own words, I can’t be responsible for what my hot wife does to me,” Bob quipped back.

“You aren’t married yet!” Jake said, his voice raised slightly.

Bob’s mouth opened and then closed, opened again and closed again before finally, “Okay you have a point there, but I am going to marry her and I do love her more than life itself so that should count for something.”

Jake huffed out a sigh and deposited Charlotte into Bob’s arms, “Hold her a moment? You’ll need the practice anyway,” he said before walking back to you, opening up the plate of food they had brought.

It was then that you remembered the champagne in front of you, “Ah, let me make a toast, to our healthy babies, and to Bob and Maria’s little one!” you said excitedly, holding up your cup into the air before downing the sweet wine quickly.

Jake did the same and Bob carefully followed suit. Maria just took a seat on the edge of your bed and with a sigh said, “I’m participating in my mind.”

You let out a laugh as you opened the container with your dinner, “I honestly didn’t miss it that much,” you told her.

She just hummed, looking down at Christopher, “At least it will be worth it, in the end.”

Bob and Maria stayed a while longer, talking with the both of you before agreeing to return in the morning with the extra car seat. You and Jake had bouts of rest through the night, though you were the one feeding the babies, he would sit up with you, reading to you or them.

When the morning came, you were more than ready to go home. While delivering in the hospital had been a good experience, you were tired of the random people coming in and out of your room constantly.

Bob and Maria were right on time for your afternoon departure, they met Jake with his truck, and waited with him as he strapped the base of the car seat into the back seat. As they wheeled you out of the hospital, Jake pulled around, cutting the engine quickly so the noise wouldn’t startle Chris or Charlotte.

You handed him one baby carrier and then the next, watching as he clipped them into their spots in the backseat before he turned back to you.

“Do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?” he asked, a sly smile on his face.

“Um, the easy way?” you suggested, not sure of his intentions.

You let out a small squeal when he stooped down to pick you up. One hand behind your back and the other under your knees, he lifted you into the passenger’s seat of the truck like you weighed nothing.

“You are ridiculous,” you said, pressing a kiss to his cheek as he leaned over to buckle you in.

“I think you mispronounced wonderful,” he said, smiling brightly at you before carefully closing the door. He put your bag on the floor behind your seat before making his way around to the driver’s seat.

—

The ride home was slow. You’ve never seen Jake drive so slow in the whole time you had known him.

“Is everything alright?” you asked, as you got repeatedly honked at and passed aggressively on the highway.

Jake nodded, “Yeah, just have some precious cargo is all.”

You laughed, “Honey, nothing bad is going to happen if you go the speed limit.”

“We aren’t in a hurry, they can go around me,” he said nonchalantly.

Taking his hand in your own, you leaned your head back and closed your eyes, figuring you could at least get some more sleep on the long ride home.

—

The house was quiet when you arrived, and it stayed that way for the rest of the night, outside of Charlotte and Christopher’s periodic cries. Jake heated up dinner when you got home, and when it was time to put the babies to bed, he took a seat in one of the now two rocking chairs in the nursery, Christopher in one arm.

In the other hand he was holding a book. You smiled at the familiar classic, Goodnight Moon, was one of your favourite stories growing up.

Jake’s deep voice was soft as he read, “In the great green room there was a telephone and a red balloon. And a picture of the cow jumping over the moon.

And there were three little bears sitting on chairs, and two little kittens, and a pair of mittens, and a little toyhouse, and a young mouse, and a comb and a brush and a bowl full of mush, and a quiet old lady who was whispering “hush”.”

You watched as he turned page after page, his calming voice making you want to fall asleep in the rocker with Charlotte, “Goodnight room, Goodnight moon, Goodnight cow jumping over the moon, Goodnight light and the red balloon. Goodnight bears, Goodnight chairs, Goodnight kittens, And goodnight mittens.”

You let out a quiet yawn as he continued, looking down you realised that Charlotte had fallen asleep, her small body rising and flailing with each of her little breaths, “Goodnight clocks, and goodnight socks, Goodnight little house, And goodnight mouse. Goodnight comb, And goodnight brush, Goodnight nobody, Goodnight mush, And goodnight to the old lady whispering “hush”.”

As he started on the last pages of the book, you rose from the rocker, gently transferring Charlotte to her crib. You smiled at the mural Maria had painted, while you were in the hospital, she added another small plane, with a second banner and on both of them, she painted your children’s names.

Jake’s voice got closer to you as he carefully placed Christopher into his crib, “Goodnight stars, Goodnight air, Goodnight noises everywhere.”

As the babes slept, you and Jake stood watch for a few minutes, his arm wrapped around your shoulders and your head resting on his chest.

When the two of you made it back to your room, the baby monitor turned on high and placed on your nightstand, you collapsed on your bed and let out a groan.

“What’s wrong?” Jake asked, his head appeared above yours and you felt him balance his weight above you on the edge of the mattress.

“My back hurts and I am so tired,” you whined, a pouty look crossing your face.

Jake gave you a sad smile, “I’m sorry honey, why don’t you change and I can rub your back?” he asked.

“That would be heavenly,” you said, your eyes closing. You felt Jake trail a finger down your cheek before pressing a soft kiss to your lips.

“Come on beautiful girl, let’s get you changed,” he said softly, his hand entangling with yours before he pulled you up. You weren’t sure how other women handled giving birth, but with how attentive Jake was being, you couldn’t imagine doing it alone.

He helped you change, and you watched from the bed as Jake peeled off his shirt and pants, climbing into bed in just his underwear. He sat behind you and carefully massaged his calloused fingers into the muscles of your back and you let out a quiet moan as you felt the knots loosen.

When he was done, you turned out the light and snuggled into his arms.

“I missed sleeping next to you,” he whispered into your ear, his head resting just above yours on the pillow, “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

You let out a breathy laugh, “Who has ever slept well on a hospital couch?”

Jake shook his head, “No, it's not just that. Whenever I’m away, I never sleep well. Not without you in my arms.”

You hummed, your mind going to the next time Jake would be deployed. Beau had promised to delay it as long as he could, but there was no guarantee that you wouldn’t be left home with two newborns. Jake had been out of his cast for a few weeks, and just last week they had cleared him to fly, his injuries healed from his experience almost three months ago.

“I thought,” he started, but stopped, his voice barely a whisper.

“What?” you asked, pulling back to look up at him.

Jake looked down at you, his hand trailing through your hair, “I thought I could put in for an instructor’s position, at Top Gun.”

You nodded, “I think that’s a good idea, but would you be happy? You wouldn’t get to be the hero, no more saving the world with a smile.”

He shrugged, “My world is a lot smaller now,” he confessed, “I think I would be happier knowing that I would come home to you, and our children every night and not in a body bag.”

Your breath hitched at his description, “I think if you can do it, then you should.”

Jake nodded, “I’ll talk to the Admiral tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” you whispered, pressing your face into his shoulder.

“Anything for you baby,” he whispered back.

A weight you didn’t know you had been carrying fell off your shoulders and you let out a sigh. Sleep came quickly, your body knowing that soon you would have to be up again to feed two fussy babies. With Jake’s warm arms wrapped around you, you dropped off into the abyss, only to be woken by the sound of your little blessings.

#fanfic #top gun fanfiction #top gun maverick #top gun x reader #fanfiction #original fic #hangman x reader #jake hangman seresin #jake seresin #hangman top gun

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highwaytothedangerzone502 · 11 months

Text

Foxtrot Alpha Alpha - Chapter 10

Pairing: Hangman x Female OC

Word Count: 1973

Warnings: Discussion of bad home life, pregnancy complication

Summary: Hangman learned his lesson a long time ago to never show his true feelings when someone's words or actions hurt him. To do so showed weakness that could be exploited, and Seresin men couldn't show weakness. Of course, there was an exception to every rule, and Jake's always came in the form of women, three in particular: his mom, Juliette Kazansky, and the girl whose name he could no longer bring himself to speak. She was the girl that got away; she was his biggest 'what if' and his biggest regret; she would forever be the ghost that haunted his dreams. Jake believed that's where she'd stay, for he would surely never see her again after what he did.

Or so he thought.

Notes: This is the sequel to India Lima Yankee; I'm using the same callsign for the Female OC as in Ghost Story because I just really like it, but they are different characters; chapters in italics are flashbacks.

Chapter Songs: Closure Low

****

Hangman

Where had they gone so wrong? Jake had only one idea, but if that was the case, then he had no hope of ever formulating an apology that could suffice to make up for it. Besides, Annalise seemed perfectly content to act like he didn't exist, now or in the past and future. The behavior threatened to shatter him, but he was Jake Seresin, and Seresin men didn't break. So he sucked it up, pretended to be absolutely fine, and kept his aviators on so no one could see the pain in his eyes.

He did stay uncharacteristically quiet, so much so that he received a text from Juliette stating: You're quiet. You okay?

He sent a quick one back that said he was, but judging by her expression reading it, she didn't wholly believe him. Juliette relented for now, but Hangman kept an eye on her. Even underneath her makeup, she appeared pale. Rooster must've noticed, too, because he continually looked over at her even when she wasn't speaking. It prompted him to text Juliette almost the same question: You okay?

I'm really hot, and I have a stupid migraine. That's all.

Been getting those a lot?

Yes... I'm heading to the doctor's tomorrow. Be on standby in case it ends up being bad, and I need someone to help me calm him down.

Jake smothered a snort by clearing his throat. Not sure I have a calming effect on Bradshaw. Ghost or Phoenix might be a better option there, but I can be there to support you if you need it.

Thank you :)

Hangman shoved his phone back into his pocket. Rooster mumbled a question to Juliette, who whispered the answer in his ear and placed a comforting hand on his thigh. He covered it with his own, lacing their fingers together. Jake's gaze involuntarily shifted to Ghost, who sat next to Juliette. He ached to reach for her hand, to whisk her away and talk everything out until they were back on more than just speaking terms. He wanted to go back to the way they were before with the inside jokes, the time spent together, and their own personal, secret way of saying "I love you."

Ghost excused herself to go to the bathroom, and it took all of Hangman's willpower not to lie and say he needed it to, just to go confront her again, ask what he could do to make her forgive him, but he didn't. However, his buzzing phone and the surprising name flashing on the screen forced him to get up and head inside for privacy. Reluctantly, Hangman answered the call with a gruff "Hey."

Matt Seresin's tired voice replied, "Hey, can you talk?"

"I wouldn't have answered if I couldn't, but do I want to? No."

"I know you don't, but Dad told me he called you last week."

"Yeah. What about it?"

"What did he tell you?"

"Uh, nothing, really. He was asking how I was doing and if I was coming home to visit any time soon, which was really weird, come to think of it."

Matt sighed. "He's not doing well, Jake. Dad had a massive heart attack two weeks ago, and he's in kidney failure. Doctors are trying to save him, but in the event they can't... I'm just saying now might be the time to come see him and maybe say your goodbyes."

"Dad hasn't called me since I joined the Navy. He never even came to my graduation. Dad wants nothing to do with me, and I want nothing to do with him. Besides, he could've asked me to visit when he called me last week, and he didn't, so no. I'm not coming down. If that's all you had to say-"

"There's more," Matt interrupted. "I caught Nick embezzling funds from the company. I alerted the cops, and he's on the lam. I know you two were never close, but-"

"I was never close with either of you," Jake snapped more harshly than he intended. Reining in his temper, he said more calmly, "But if I see him, trust me, I'll call the cops on him and will let you know."

"Thank you, but be wary, Jake. Nick's armed, and he was always the most volatile. He has Dad's temper. I'm worried about what he might be capable of, and soon, you might be the only family I have left."

"Don't tell me you want to try and make amends now?"

"It's late in the game, but you and I have talked more since you left than you have to Nick and Dad combined. I'd like to think there's some hope for us, man. Besides, I'd like you to meet your niece one day. Sophie asks about you whenever she sees pictures of us from when we were kids, and she always loves the gifts you send her for holidays and her birthday. Don't make her pay for the sins of her father."

Jake sighed, leaning against the bar. He hated how his brother made a point. "I'll look at my schedule, see what I can swing, but only to visit her. I'm not seeing Dad. Maybe you can come here too. Disney isn't far from here; I think Sophie would like that."

"We've already been looking. I didn't think it wise to tell you until I was sure you wouldn't mind us coming to visit. Hey, uh, on a different note, I saw Coyote's post that Annalise was in town. You two talking again?"

Jake scoffed. "Pretty sure she'd rather talk to a wall than to me."

"I'm going to take that as a no. I'm sorry, man. I know how much she meant to you."

"Yeah, well, I caused the accident, so I don't blame her. Did you know she dated Kyle?"

"Yeah. It was only a few dates, but she dumped him, thank God. From what I've heard, he hasn't taken it too well. I swear that guy has a screw loose and will become unhinged sooner or later. Tell her to be careful and watch out. If he and Nick pair up-"

Jake pinched the bridge of his nose. "Ghost might be in danger."

"Why am I in danger?" Annalise queried, causing Jake to whirl around. He'd completely forgotten she'd gone to the bathroom.

"Is that her?" his brother asked, bringing Jake back to the conversation, but his gaze never left Ghost's.

"Yeah. I gotta go. Talk to you later, Matt." Hangman hung up his phone and fiddled with it.

"So? Why am I in danger?" Ghost repeated, maneuvering behind the counter and grabbing a glass of water.

Hangman sighed, unsure of how she'd react to the news. "Long story short, Matt's worried Kyle will become unhinged and that you'll be in danger if that's the case, especially if he pairs up with Nick, who's currently on the lam. He wanted me to tell you to be careful and watch out."

Puzzlement etched itself onto her face. "Why is Nick on the lam?"

"Matt reported him to the cops because he caught him embezzling funds from the company."

"Oh, shit," Ghost breathed. "When did that happen?"

"Not sure, just that it's recent." An awkward silence fell over them. Jake pondered what he should do or say, knowing the things he desired to do or say would do nothing to help the situation, that they'd most likely earn him a slap from Ghost more than anything.

"I'm sorry," she said genuinely sympathetically, which took him aback. He hadn't heard her use such a tone with him since before they'd parted ways. He never thought he'd hear it again.

He offered her a small smile. "Thanks. Certainly not the call I was expecting from him. Between Nick and Dad-"

"What's going on with your dad?"

"Nothing. Not going to burden you with that whole thing."

"Burdens aren't meant to be carried alone."

For some unfathomable reason, her words ignited an anger in him. How dare she pretend to care for him when she'd treated him like shit since she'd arrived? Stoically, he replied, "You're right; it's meant to be shared with someone who cares for me, but that's not you. Not anymore. You've made that explicitly clear since you arrived here."

Before she could respond, he turned on his heel and walked out. Jake realized by the time he set foot onto the sand that he'd taken his anger over his family situation out on her, which had been the last thing he should've done. If he had even the slimmest of chances of reconciling with Ghost, he'd probably lost it in that very moment. However, he didn't have long to mull over that because Juliette's panicked voice saying "Bradley" caught his attention. His eyes barely fell on her before she slumped forward. Rooster caught his fiancée before her face smashed into the table.

"Jules?!" Rooster exclaimed, cupping her face and turning it toward his. "Jules!"

Hangman froze at the sight, a flood of memories crashing over him. Ghost rushed past him, barking orders. "Get her on the ground and lay her on her back. Coyote, grab an umbrella and get her shaded. Phoenix, prop her legs up twelve inches. Rooster, keep her head and neck still. Mav, can you check her pulse?"

Maverick did as ordered, staying silent momentarily before confirming it was there and steady if not a little fast. Ghost nodded, checking the time on her phone. "If she doesn't wake up in a minute, we need to call emergency services."

"Already have the number dialed. Let me know when to hit call," Penny said, kneeling beside Mav. Hangman sank to his knees next to Ghost, casually placing his fingers on Juliette's wrist to check the pulse himself. As Maverick said, it beat steadily and swiftly. Meanwhile, the rest of the Daggers crowded around, blocking the view from passersby and staring worriedly at the friend.

Near the forty-second mark, Juliette's eyes fluttered open, and a small groan escaped her lips. Ghost placed a gentle but firm hand on her friend's shoulder and said, "Hey, you're okay. You passed out. I need you to stay still for a bit, okay? Can you tell me your name?"

Juliette stated her name weakly, then added, "Surname is Kazansky, but it'll... it'll be Bradshaw soon."

Rooster chuckled and said shakily, "Yes. Yes, it will be."

Ghost smiled. "And we can't wait to see you two get married. What's your fiancé's name?"

"Bradley," Jules answered. "Callsign Rooster."

"Very good. And you know where you're at?"

"On the ground."

"Well, you're not wrong. I'll let that answer slide. Last question: when's your birthday?"

"February 2."

"All right, you seem pretty coherent. That's a good sign," Ghost said, sighing in relief. "Jules, you need to stay lying down for a bit, okay? We don't want to move you too soon, but once we can, I think the best course of action is to get you to a hospital."

"Bob, can you bring my Bronco over here?" Rooster requested, tossing his keys to the WSO, who deftly caught them. "Mav and Ghost, can you come with me?"

"Of course," Maverick and Ghost said immediately. The former's face was a deathly shade of white as he held Juliette's hand.

Ghost's head turned to Hangman. "Jake, you want to come too?"

Her question took him aback, but he managed to reply, "No, no, I'll, uh, I'll get Raptor and Lightning back to the house and watch over them until y'all get back."

"Here," Rooster said, handing the house key over. Hangman took it and swallowed the rising fear in his chest. Of course he wanted to go to the hospital with Juliette, but at the idea, he quickly reminded himself: I'll be the death of her if I do.

****

Tags: @lgg5989 @shanimallina87 @polikszena @summ3rlotus @icemansgirl1999 @supernaturaldawning @thedarkinmansfield @lyannaforpresident @lapilark @getmyprettynameoutofyourmouth @simpofthecentury @shadeops21 @pansexualwitchwhoneedstherapy @double-j @bradshawsandbridgetons @catsandgeekyandnerd @peachiicherries @multifandomcnova @fandomsstolemylife00 @bookloverhorses @mak-32 @midnightmagpiemama @luckyladycreator2 @ellamae021 @genius2050

Chapters: Chp 1 Chp 2 Chp 3 Chp 4 Chp 5 Chp 6 Chp 7 Chp 8 Chp 9 Chp 10

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dyns33 · 2 years

Text

Little Soulmate AU

(You know, Marc with Layla, Jake with Matt, and Steven with Y/N... who was a child soldier, in a way)

When they were little, Y/N was thinking about two things.

One day, I'll meet my soulmate, Steven Grant, and I need to finish my missions if I don't want to die.

Most of the kids were only thinking about the missions. The training taught them that. But if Y/N didn't have Steven's name, they would have lost their mind. And maybe it would have been better, to be a perfect hitman.

Y/N was good with separating the job and private life. They were doing what they had to do, then they would take a shower, go in their bed, and kiss the mark.

"One day Steven. One day, I'll find you, and I'll protect you. I'll never hurt you, never."

During a mission, a target asked them if their soulmate loved them despite what they were.

Y/N killed him quickly, and took a very long shower.

One of the trainees, Y/N never asked for her name, asked them later what they thought about soulmates. The girl really wanted to meet hers, Carla, saying she pictures her as tall, blonde with a big smile. She died weeks later during a mission.

Y/N wasn't so sure if they wanted to find Steven anymore. They'll have to lie and hide things. Steven would wonder where they were doing all the time. Why they were hurt. It'll be difficult.

"How do you imagine them ?"

"I hope he's a murderer."

"What ? Why ?!"

"Because a good man will never love someone like me. He'll deserve better."

Steven Grant ended up to be not only a good man, but the sweetest man ever. Y/N loved him right away, and took very long shower evertytime they had to see him.

His life was not easy. He was the avatar of a God and he had DID. Y/N knew what DID was, some of the kids were not strong enough during the training to endure all this. They couldn't do this alone. Most of them died at the end.

No God never came to help them.

Marc and Jake were special. And they both had soulmates. Layla and Matt.

Steven, even if he liked his alters like brothers, was complaining a lot about them. Because they were killers. Yes, they were killing bad people, because Khonshu told them to, or as self defence, but Steven didn't like it.

Murder was bad, always, period.

Y/N was always feeling bad when he was talking about that. The other's soulmates were fighters too, but like Steven, they refused to kill. Layla was using her brain, when Matt was only throwing punches until the punution was enough.

They were perfect. Much better than Y/N.

Y/N loved them all. Like a family. Their first and only family. Which they had to protect. It was hard, with their nocturnal activities.

Of course, the secret came out at some point. After Y/N killed men because they refused to tell where Steven and the others were.

And Steven arrived, when Y/N was taking care of the last one.

"Y/N..."

"Steven. You're okay ?"

"... You killed them. You... No. No, you can't. Tell me this is a joke."

Y/N didn't tell him it was a joke. They didn't look for excuse, didn't try to say it was not what he thought. Steven was clever, they refused to insult him. He has eyes, he could see. It was too late.

He cried, he screamed, he was hurt, and Y/N hated themselves for that.

Y/N knew what he was thinking. They remembered what he said about Marc, but mostly about Jake. Jake was a lot like them.

Jake, who took control, because it was too much for Steven. He asked questions, staring at them with dark eyes, and when he demanded if all this was a lie, if they were even really Y/N, Steven's soulmate, they said no.

No, I'm not Steven's soulmate. I can't be. He's the sweetest man in the world, he deserves better.

I have no idea where his real soulmate is. I didn't kill Y/N. Maybe they're alive, somewhere, waiting for him. They'll be happy together.

It was another lie. Steven told them how he hated when Marc and Jake lied to him and hide things, to protect him and give him a normal happy life.

But he deserved a normal happy life.

So Y/N lied, and ran when Jake tried to kill them, sure that they were an impostor, send to sabotage them all.

It was fine. Steven was better without them.

At the end, it was a shitty plan. It was not really a surprise. Steven deserved to be happy, and for that he couldn't stay alone. Yes, he had Marc and Jake, and Layla, and Matt, but he wanted his soulmate.

And so he looked for them. And he was sad when he was not finding anything. Not knowing if Y/N was dead, or not wanting him, or something else.

Y/N was hurting him by being here, and hurting him by not being here.

They decided to and his suffering for good. They waiting for him in his flat, on his bed, raising their hands when he entered to show that they were not hostile.

"I'll answer your questions. If you want me gone after, I'll go. If you want to kill me, you can. I'll understand."

"... Are you my Y/N ?"

"Yes. Steven, I..."

He hugged them, crying on their shoulders.

He didn't ask anything else.

The others had questions. Matt already knew most of the answers, smiling at them, a sad smile. He kept their secrets. Marc and Layla were careful, but they accepted Steven's decision to let Y/N come back. They could guess something happened to them.

Jake wanted to know. Even if Matt told him to be nice.

Jake was not nice. Y/N knew why. They would have done the same in his situation.

So they told him, when they were alone, and Jake hugged them, not like Steven hugged them, because it was clear that Jake was not the sweet one and not familiar with cuddles.

He called them his "twin", his "mini him", saying they'll protect the family together now. He didn't talk about what he knew to Steven.

Y/N told him, later. Because Steven Grant was brave, he has no fear, and he deserved to know. He listened to them with a silent respect, nodded when they were done, kissed them softly and made tea, to never talk about that ever again, as if it was gone now that they found each other.

The sweetest man in the world indeed.

#moon knight #steven grant #Marc Spector #jake lockley #matt murdock #layla el faouly #steven grant x reader #soulmate au

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jupitercomet · 1 year

Note

for the second husband olympics (that’ll hopefully never take place because i’ll peck rooster to death myself if he upsets dove again) i give you anthony bridgerton, draco malfoy, and maybe even bucky barnes/some other toxic king to stay on brand but also: matt murdock (i like the whole he’s blind she sees beauty thing), peter parker (especially of the tasm! variety because andrew garfield, he’s a photographer, and they can bond over having dead lovers), jake seresin (i know he’s got something else going on for him in this universe but this is also the only one where rooster isn’t chicken dinner, i know jake is petty enough to pluck his feathers even if dove isn’t, and ahh i could go on but i’m not biased about any of these entries obviously).

is laurie an option? or just timothee chalamet as a victorian ghost or something? i’m starting to think of royalty/edwardian(?) au!s for every fictional man i know so i’ll stop here. i also don’t see steve with dove but i don’t want us to fight 😭

okay

I've never seen Bridgerton (I have my own thoughts but I digress) but if Anthony Bridgerton is Regé-Jean Page's character then he's in

personally, I find Draco Malfoy to be a little bitch boy and he was a bit too much of a death eater for me to trust him, so I'm gonna veto that one (sorry draco girlies)

I think we should swap Bucky and Steve

the Matt Murdock one is so cute 🥺

I think it definitely has to be Andrew Garfield's Peter bc I feel like Tom Holland's Peter would be really good friends with Dove but I don't see them being like in love (also "bond over dead lovers" omfg 💀)

I am a Jake girlie till I die, I will defend everything that man has ever done ever,,, but I'm starting to map out "How Do I Love Thee" and they're already so cute and I think suit each other better than Dove would

and idk is Laurie an option?? that's a good question

also, since we got so many Marvel boys, I nominate Loki (please he needs someone so soft) and Aaron Taylor-Johnson's Pietro mayhaps?

I also don't really see Steve with Dove, but Steve is my favorite boy so I cannot help but make him win everything forever and ever and ever

#second husband olympics #what’s up doc

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imaginesbymonika · 2 years

Text

Mischief and Bagels | Part 6

A humor B99 x Marvel Crossover.

Plot: Loki fleed Asgard and he is now roaming the earth. Only the mightiest heroes on earth could stop him- with the help of the world's mightiest detective (in his opinion), who knows the streets of Brooklyn like the back of his hand.

Characters: Y/N x various marvel characters, Y/N x The Squad of the 99, might some Y/N x Matt Murdock and Y/N x Jake Peralta who does his best at flirting.

masterlist | previous chapter

Bucky, who sits in the corner glances around the division. He could practically smell the fear and nervousness coming from the detectives. After all, he had seen the way, their hands would immediately move towards their guns when he simply walked past them. He wasn’t blind.

The only person who wasn't doing that happened to be Rosa Diaz. But the ex-assassin understands, she only happens to like him for something he no longer was. He desires to be a better person, desperately, but no matter how often he smiled at people, or how often he waved … all they ever saw in him was the Winter Soldier.

“Do you think they’re okay?”

His therapist repeatedly told him, to try to ignore it. But how was he supposed to ignore the sheer terror in other people’s eyes and the gossip they shared surrounding his past?

“Sam states that they are, but I’m still terrified thinking about what could happen to them.”

Some people are even saying that he assassinated JFK?! Why would-

“James?”

Bucky’s eyes widen and he turns his head. Charles sits right next to him, his eyes are filled with a kind of anxiety that Bucky couldn’t quite identify. The detective wasn’t scared of him. No, not at all, he was only scared for his two friends.

“Oh my- you’re talking to me.”, he says and his eyes widen before he awkwardly shifts in his chair to entirely face him. “Yeah- why wouldn’t I?”

He sees how Bucky’s eyes begin to roam the room and when Charles follows his gaze he detects what the long-haired man meant by that. Everyone around them appeared to have stopped doing what they were doing to observe them, their hands hovering above their guns.

Without wasting a second, Charles stands up. “Would you please stop that?!”, he proclaims loudly and points at Bucky:” This man is trying to help us save the city and you all act as if he is going to bite my head off any second!”

“I- I never did that!”

“Now, would you please put away your guns and behave like normal people?!”, Charles shakes his head:” You all are being unbelievable!” With that, he sits back down.

“Thank you.”, Bucky says and a soft, but genuine smile appears on his lips:” And don’t worry, we will find your friends! I promise. As Sam said, he never wins.”

A moment later the doors of the elevator open up and Y/N steps out, followed by Matt Murdock, who holds onto her arm. “Sam!”, she says out loud and when the young man looks up from the map, his eyes widen.

“Y/N”, he says, a shit-eating grin on his face:” Oh me oh my, could it be? Is that really Matt Murdock? The guy you are never shutting up about.”

“Never shut up about?”, Matt whispers. “Shut up.”

Y/N rolls her eyes as they both make their way towards her friends. “It’s very nice to meet you!”, Steve says softly:” My name is Steve Rogers. Please excuse my friend Sam over here, he doesn’t know how to behave.”

“Oh, you’re that Sam guy Y/N told me about.”, Matt simply replies and holds his hand out. Sam’s smile slowly fades away. “It’s very nice to finally meet you.”

Sam stares at the lawyer for a couple of seconds before he reaches for his hand. Bucky, who stands right behind him, bursts into laughter before he pats his back.

Steve pulls his friend closer:” What is he doing here?” “I thought we might need more help.” Steve wrinkles his forehead and clears his throat before he moves closer:” No offense, but a blind guy?”

“All you guys do is define him by his blindness, why don’t you think outside the box for once?”, she says and turns to face Matt, who is patiently looking in her direction:” Have some faith.”

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ashintheairlikesnow · 3 years

Note

For Vampire Chris! What if he and Jake went to a museum and came across some of Tooley's paintings? And Chris has a panic attack! We would finally get some Jake comfort. And maybe Chris would reveal more horrible things that Tooley had done to him.

CW: Discussion of death, blood, vampire whumpee, caretaker and whumpee

The sun sets early in the winter, and it's the only reason they can make this work.

Chris is barely awake even so, sipping from a coffee cup Jake filled with the contents of one of his blood packs, hoping he doesn't trip and spill and lead to Jake having some very awkward, panicked explanations to make to anyone nearby.

He'd slept in the truck Jake borrowed from Nat most of the way over here, curled in the passenger seat. He looks for all the world like any high schooler who stayed up too late the night before, dragged out by his family, forced to go learn when all he wants is rest.

Chris is draped in a hooded sweatshirt pulled on over his head, hair mussed from sleeping in the closet in the little nest-bed he made for himself in there. It sticks out like stray from beneath the hood he's pulled up, coppery strands occasionally covering his eyes and making him shove them out of the way with a snort that has no right to be as adorable as it is, considering the monster who makes the sound.

Not a monster, no. Not really.

Or his monster, anyway, the same way his mother is his mother. Jake is starting to understand the little vampire - more than three times his own age - has chosen him for family now.

The sweater he wears is kind of a joke, actually. Jake bought it weeks ago from a website that puts the covers of books on clothes, and it's an old cover image from Dracula.

Jake thought it was funny, anyway. Nat was less amused. Chris only smiled and said something about being happy the hairy palms thing isn't true.

The air is chilly, and Jake shivers a little as they head in from the parking lot across a small sidewalk next to a park and toward the museum itself, but of course Chris doesn't even notice. He seems to be enjoying it, the way it blows around his hair as they make their way slowly up the steps and past the row of Grecian-style columns that mark the entrance.

Jake has to visit for one of his classes, an extra-credit something-or-other, and Chris had asked to go along with him.

Jake had been hesitant, but seeing the way the vampire's green eyes sparkle as he moves around in public like any other person, well... he feels like he made the right choice to bring him along now.

"Finish up your drink, you can't take anything in once we pay and get past the lobby," Jake says, and Chris nods, gulping the last of the blood as fast as he can as they push through wide double-doors. Jake tries not to imagine how it must feel, swallowing thick congealing cooled blood. Someone's life, someone's heartbeat, down your throat...

Really, is he that much different? Jake has eaten a dozen cows' worth of beef in his life.

Does Chris see them all as just livestock? He doesn't act like it, but then, there are people who treat pigs or cows like pets and not like food...

His stomach flips a little and he forces himself to look around, up at the chandelier at the high ceiling, the heavy wooden desk they have to walk to off to the side to get their tickets. To stop trying to understand if Chris is a sort of stray they've adopted, or if he's a higher-level predator living with prey.

Once Chris drops the cup into a trash can, Jake throwing a couple wadded-up tissues on top so no one can accidentally see the smear of red around the edge of the lid, they buy their tickets, and wind their way through and past the little velvet ropes that mark off the entrance.

The museum opens before them into a grand hall, with paintings the size of two-story buildings on either side, permanent installations in the museum. Commissioned for its opening, sometime back in the 70's.

Jake picks up a brochure so they know which way to go - LGBTQ+ Art in Pre-War America is the temporary exhibit he's here to see, traveling work that is usually housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

"Oh, nice, it's on the first floor. Looks like you go through a couple of 'specialty' rooms, just showing off stuff from the in-house collection. Sounds cool, right?"

Chris, looking from side to side at the gigantic paintings that hang on the walls in the opening hall, hums softly, a tuneless constant sound. He doesn't answer Jake's question. He hums often, and Jake barely notices any longer, but there's something edged to it, now. As if just being around the paintings is making him nervous.

"Okay, little man, let's go over here." He touches Chris's arm, lightly, through the thick fabric of his sweater. The vampire looks over at him, smiling with his lips pressed together to hide his teeth from any potential prying eyes.

He follows easily, but he sticks closer to Jake than he normally does, and his eyes are constantly roving. They move through an exhibit of Pre-Colombian pottery first, on their way to the room in the back where the temporary showcase is.

Jake watches Chris's fingers twitch with the urge to touch, to learn by feeling the bumps and ridges in the ancient clay, and how he holds back as best he can. His urge to lift the clear protective plastic boxes right off the pottery so he can get at it is nearly physically painful.

Jake pretends not to see it when Chris's fingers trail along a column, settling for the white-painted rectangle the pottery is balanced on, taking in the rough texture smoothed by the matte paint.

"Did you ever meet anyone like you that was old enough to have made stuff like this?" Jake asks, stopping in front of a water jug in the shape of a man playing a flute with a dog at his feet. The dog wears a carved smile marked with disturbingly human-looking teeth. The paint it must have been covered in is worn by time, leaving the reddish-brown of the clay behind, with the faintest streaks of white still in the crevices.

"No," Chris replies, tilting his head, making direct eye contact with the statue in a way he never quite can do with any real person. Not comfortably, anyway. Jake has seen him force it and shudder afterwards, overwhelmed. When he'd asked about it, Chris had said he never liked looking at anyone's eyes, even before, when he was alive. It's too much, was all he would say. It's always too much. "None, um, none of us live that long."

"Why not?" They're alone in the room. It's the only reason Jake feels safe asking.

Chris's tongue runs over the sharpening bumps of his growing-in fangs, pressing against them, easing the itch and the ache of their return. After a second, he pulls a plastic bat on a cord from inside his sweater and puts the bat into his mouth, chewing on it idly, jaw working. "I, I, I don't know. That's just what what what my, my, my pack told me."

"I thought vampires lived in covens."

"No." Chris doesn't elaborate on this one. He can be weirdly secretive about how he lived before he came to Nat's, before he was pulled out of a basement, a living drug for a wealthy asshole.

Secretive, or just forgetting whatever wasn't essential.

He moves away to another pedestal, a shard broken off of a larger vessel, marked with a deep white and intense black angular design. He hums again, and Jake takes the hint and leaves him alone.

They spend several more minutes looking over the pottery before they head through a second room full of what must just be the favorite pieces of museum employees, as there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason, and each little card with the name of the piece and its maker has a paper next to it with a note on why each employee loves this piece in particular. Chris lingers around older things, a woven tapestry from medieval England, landscapes from the 19th century. He stares for a while at a painting called The Country Path by Joseph Poole Addy, a pale watercolor of winter trees with bare branches breaking the line of sky and a woman bundled in a coat carrying a basket down an equally colorless road.

Chris's humming getting louder, and he rocks a little, forward and back, his eyes moving again and again through the lines of the painting.

Jake wonders what it is about this one specifically that catches Chris like that, and when the vampire finally moves on he checks the employee's statement. Joseph Poole Addy, Irish painter in the 19th and 20th centuries, blah blah, something something countryside... Jake frowns, and glances over at Chris, who isn't looking back. He's moved on to something else.

Jake decides to ask him later.

They make it to the exhibit they're here to see, and Jake whistles under his breath as he enters. There are vibrant, saturated paintings lining the walls, a couple of large sculptures on the floor that still are taller than he is, a few smaller ones on pedestals. The work is mostly figurative, although there's some early abstraction there, a hint of the contemporary push to take even figurative work out of simply being an echo of a real life thing.

Chris looks at a sculpture, his head cocked so far to the side it looks almost birdlike, not quite human. Jake thinks his own neck would ache for days if he tried to do that. "Must've been, um, later," He mumbles to himself.

Jake files that away in his mental list of things to talk to Chris about later.

He walks slowly along the line of paintings. The whole point of being here is that he's supposed to pick a specific piece and write a short essay about it and the artist who made it, prove he saw it in person.

The class itself is about how to encourage better outcomes for healthcare in marginalized populations - but if she's giving out extra-credit for looking at queer art, well, Jake is happy to spend an hour in a museum.

After his dismal performance on the last test, he could use whatever credit he can get. Besides, the exhibit is actually kind of cool with that in mind. Every one of these artists was in some way outside of the sort of het ideal, and Jake smiles a little as he catches the heaviness of a look between two men seated across a table from one another, looks over the clasped hands of women, sitting with everything from shoulder to hip touching, who are listed as 'friends visiting the riverbank'.

Art that celebrates, hidden in plain sight. Art that rebels by sliding details in under the surface where only those looking for them will find them.

Each piece has another little paper, although this just has details about the artist and their work, what they were known for. He can use it as a jumping-off point for his paper, anyway.

"You, you, you finished her," Chris whispers, standing in front of a sculpture of a woman with her head thrown back as if in uproarious laughter, a woman with curls expertly carved so that her hair seems to have been there before the stone it's made of somehow. "I wonder if she, um, if if if she saw it."

"What'd you say, Chris?" Jake blinks, pulled out of his own internal reverie.

"Nothing," Chris responds, and walks slowly around the statue. The woman's smile is a shining light in the room. No one could carve like that without being at least a little in love with the subject.

Jake wanders away and then comes to an abrupt stop before a large painting, probably taller than Chris is. The background is near-total darkness with only a suggestion of stone, a single beam of light shining down to illuminate the central figure.

A naked boy clothed only in scraps of torn cloth that only emphasize his nakedness everywhere else is crouched in terror. His knees are bent and his feet are on the floor, one hand holding his weight with fingers slightly curled, his spine bent and arched as if he is caught in the midst of turning to look up to find the direction of the light. His other hand is thrown out, as if trying to ward off an attack.

He bleeds from a dozen or more places, the blood curving perfectly around his form, giving it extra weight and heft that makes it seem like he'll step out of the canvas, grab Jake, and shake him.

Jake's heart starts to race as he stares.

There are bones littering the ground around the thin, wasted boy, not bleached but sort of yellowed, marked with little notches as if cut with a knife. There might still be bits of skin attached to some of them, a hint of muscle. The detail makes Jake sick, but his panic, that comes from something else entirely. Just behind the panicked boy there is a body, as if just fallen, the eyes still open in the final terrified throes of death. The body's fingers are still dug into the dirt floor as if the dead man had been trying to pull himself somewhere, to escape.

A skull watches with eerie cheer from one corner of the painting, a few teeth missing and knocked out from its garish grin.

Barely visible, a thin wash of grayish-white, there is a pale, gnarled hand near the bottom reaching out from the background as if to grab the boy's ankle and drag him into the darkness.

Count Ugolino's Last Son, oils, 1932, reads the little plaque beside the painting. Its faint brassy shine glints in the carefully calibrated light. Edward Tooley, 1907 - 1936.

Jake swallows, but the lump in his throat doesn't budge, and he swallows again. And again. He can't take his eyes off the boy's painted hair, a dirtied copper, strawberry-blond badly in need of a wash. The wide green eyes with their terror writ large and clear, painted with lovingly perfect detail.

The boy in the painting is the perfect identical twin of the vampire who is still staring at the sculpture on the other side of the room. The fear in his face is so expertly done as to seem more photographic than painted in oil. The blood that drips to the ground follows his anatomy with absolute perfection. The bones are not bleached by they so often are in paintings, no, these...

These...

Jake holds his phone up and takes a photo, and then another of the little plaque.

"Chris." His voice cracks and Jake clears his throat. His heart is still pounding. "Chris, come look at this."

"Yes, Jake," Chris answers, sounding a little faint, and then he seems to simply appear at Jake's elbow, the teenage boy who has seen two world wars and a half-dozen smaller, stupider ones.

He goes still at Jake's side when he looks up. Jake looks over, just slightly, glancing sidelong to see a look of something like... wistfulness on the vampire boy's face.

"Tooley," He breathes. His hand goes up, and out, and he would have touched the canvas if Jake hadn't reached out and grabbed on to stop him. Chris jumps a little and turns to meet Jake's gaze. His eyes are pink-tinged in the whites, as if he's holding back tears. "Is, is, is he famous?"

"I guess. He's... he's here, isn't he?"

"He always wanted to, um, to to to to be famous." Chris's eyes move over the details, but it's not with surprise, it's with easy familiarity. He's seen this painting before.

He's been this painting before.

"That's you, isn't it?" Jake asks in a hushed voice. "Like, that was really you."

Chris looks away again, a faint flush in his cheeks. He's full enough of blood for it to happen, and you'd never know he isn't alive if you didn't already. "Yes," He whispers, and wipes at the corner of his eye with one hand. "That, that, that's me."

"Were you his model?" Jake blinks, looking back over the painted twin of the vampire beside him. The fear in the boy's face, woven in with a kind of awful resignation. It's all so perfectly rendered.

"Yes. Sort, um. Sort of. He, he, he kept me in a room." Chris exhales, slowly, and his eyes shift over to the paper with the little bit of biographical information on it. Edward Tooley's early works focused on landscapes or retreads of common historical subjects, only to find greater excellence and focus when he began to paint, again and again, the same figure - a representation of the darkness of the human soul - he stated appeared to him and demanded to be portrayed... art historians believe Tooley was driven by the demons of the Great War that had taken his family from him one by one to seek out uncomfortable subjects that force viewers to see the damage humans do to one another...

Chris's nose wrinkles as he reads, his lips moving slightly with the words as he takes them in. "I never did that. Never, um, wanted to be painted. Also, um this, um. He was... wasn't... he wasn't... wasn't like the paper says."

Jake looks over, reads it himself. Gregarious, sociable, popular with the libertine art crowd... he frowns. "What part is wrong?"

"This." Chris points, this at least he can safely make contact with, and presses the pad of his finger under a sentence that reads took inspiration from the ugly side of the city hidden under its shining lights. "He, he, he he didn't care about anyone in the city. He thought everyone who, who who who who-who wasn't him was, um, was stupid."

"What did he care about?" Jake imagines telling his professor that instead of an essay, he's going to bring in a vampire who literally knew one of the artists in person. How she might react.

Probably call the cops and report an unsecured vampire loose on the streets. But maybe she'd listen to what Chris had to say first.

"Blood," Chris says, softly. His voice is getting lower and lower, until it's barely more than a whisper. "Pain. Fear. Being... being the the the the last person who, who saw someone. He, he, he, he liked to lay them out and paint them, liked me to, to, to... arrange them for him."

Jake's eyes go unwillingly back to the dead body behind the scared boy in the painting. The grasping fingers, the open eyes that look sightless, lifeless, at nothing at all. When he looks, he can see - more suggestion than made clear - that the body's throat is torn open, as if by an animal's teeth.

Now, only now that he's looking for it, does he realize there is the slightest hint of red tears on the cheeks of the painted boy, a sheen of pink on his teeth where he begs for mercy from the grasping singular hand coming out of the dark.

His stomach flips again. "Chris, are you saying-"

"His, his, his name was Ben." Chris nods at the dead body in the painting. "I asked. Before..." He gestures, a little vaguely. "That."

Jake feels a sudden, wild urge to look up missing persons cases from New York City in 1932. See if there's anyone named Ben on there. He knows without having to do so that there definitely will be.

"What happened to him... after?"

"I don't know. I, I, I was never let out when Tooley was gone. I... wonder how, how, how many of me there are." Chris looks up at the echo of his own face, his head tilting again. His lips tremble, just a little, and then part to show the hint of white teeth wet with pinkish saliva. "On walls, in houses, in... in places like, um. Like this. How many there are... is, is, is, is that what I still look like?"

Jake clears his throat again, looks down at his feet. This feels, suddenly, like he's walked in on someone looking down at his own dead body in a funeral home. Interrupting a moment so immensely private it shouldn't even exist.

"Yeah," he says, a little gruffly. "Yeah, that's it. More or less. Except I hope I scare you less than that. Also you wear a lot more clothes with us."

Chris laughs - it's a huff of sound, barely-there. Then he turns away from himself. "We, we, we can't see ourselves, in mirrors," He says, and he's got the little plastic bat back in his hand, rubbing his thumb over the carved silicone. "But I have mirrors everywhere. On these walls."

He goes suddenly terribly still. He isn't breathing.

He doesn't have to, but the realization that he isn't even pretending is a jolt of awareness of exactly how dead Chris is. He leaves the exhibit, and Jake is left to scramble after him, struggling to catch up to someone he should be able to easily outrun.

He breaks into a flat run when they get outside the double-doors, jumps the steps three at a time with grace, and runs across the grass and towards the stand of trees halfway across the park. Even Jake, who works out four days a week, is breathing hard and has a hitch in his rib by the time he catches up.

He finds Chris curled up under a tree in the evening dark, the stars starting to twinkle overhead as the sun finally allows them a clear night sky to shine in.

Jake drops to his knees, ignoring the damp that seeps into his jeans from soil that still hasn't dried since yesterday's rains, and he leans over, putting a warm hand to either side of the vampire's face.

Chris looks up, his eyes glinting like a cat's briefly in the dark, and there are trails down his cheeks, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl that is anything but angry.

No, this is grief.

This is loss.

Jake knows the feeling.

"Talk to me," Jake says softly. "Tell me what it was like, what it's been like for you. Tell me about the life you've lived before I knew you."

"It, it, it hurt," Chris whispers, and his own hands cover Jake's. They're the same temperature as the air around them, and Jake shivers a little. It's almost a chill. "Every time. I, I, I try not to kill, Jake, I try so hard, but but but he would keep me so hungry and I couldn't-... stop..."

Jake thinks about the robbers Chris killed - for him, to save him from them - and how he'd locked himself in the closet afterward. Had he cried like this, over taking lives even when in defense?

"The museum thing said this guy Tooley died in 1936. He was only, what, twenty-nine? Did... did you-"

"Yes." Chris's voice is thick but it's not quite with regret. "I was hungry. He, he he he he didn't bring food. I was so hungry... then I was, um, was alone for a while... then, then, then, then then then I was taken for, for, for the, um, the trade, for my v-venom, and..."

"Got it. I got it, Chris. It's okay," Jake says, softly. "It's going to be okay. You're with us, now. And we'll never, ever make you hurt someone that way. We'll never make you go hungry. We'll never hurt you or use you."

Chris ducks his head, rocking forward until it knocks into Jake's shoulder, and Jake slides his arms around the vampire's shoulders, listening to his soft, muffled sobs, wondering how red his shirt will be stained by the time the vampire's tears have been cried out.

The same mouth that tore out the throat of a dead body that lays in a painting on the wall is so close to his neck it would take less than an inch for him to bite down. Even without fangs, he could lock his jaw and break the skin.

The same dangerous monster that has killed likely dozens to stay alive, the same stalking predator that has been the last sight of far too many, cries in his arms. Just a teenage boy who has been lonely, and terrified, and hurt for too long.

A teenager... and a monster that hunts prey after dark. Jake tightens his arms around Chris, holds him tighter.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter how long he's been alive, not really.

He's just Chris.

That matters more.

@mylifeisonthebookshelf @insaneinthepaingame @keeper-of-all-the-random-things @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @newandfiguringitout @astrobly @endless-whump @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @doveotions @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @downriver914 @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @nonsensical-whump @outofangband @what-a-whump

#whump #vampire whump #vampire whumpee #blood tw #recovering whumpee #caretaker and whumpee #nonhuman whumpee #immortal whumpee #vampire #vampirism #vampire fiction #horror fiction #original fiction #whump writing #chris the strawberry blond romantic #vampire chris au #past torture

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bratzforchris · 1 month

Note

Can you do dad headcanons for Nick? (Obviously not female reader I was thinking adoption or something)

Or uncle headcanons for any of them!

-🎀

Dad Life

Dad!Nick headcanons because this fandom is SEVERELY lacking dad!Nick content :) There are two parts here: one of dad!Nick to younger kids, and one of dad!Nick to older kids because I feel like he would be the type of person to foster/adopt teens. No warnings!

Dad!Nick with younger kids ♡

☆ when nick decides that he wants to have kids, he genuinely does so much research and makes a well informed decision!

☆ whether through adoption or a surrogate mother (remember, there are different ways people can have kids <3), he is genuinely so excited to meet his baby and falls in love with them immediately

☆ the "newborn scrunch" his baby does on his chest the first time would definitely make nick cry

☆ matt and chris are always willing to help out during the first few months of the baby being home

☆ "oh my god, how did your blowout get through your onesie?"

"welcome to fatherhood, man"

☆ once he gets the hang of it, nick is genuinely the baby whisperer. whenever baby sturniolo wakes up in the middle of the crying, all it takes is some funny faces and an ariana grande lullaby in the rocking chair to get them right back to sleep

☆ nick leans more towards girl dad, but he would be happy and love his child any way <3

☆ even when the terrible toddler phase comes along, he always keeps his cool and makes it a point to never shout/get overly angry, which is a large contrast to his youtube days

☆ genuinely one of those dads who is always doing cute little handprint crafts with his baby

☆ "i'll give you a dollar if you tell your uncle chris he has a big forehead"

☆ nick's kid(s) know how to stand up for themselves. their daddy teaches them to always be kind, but not let people walk all over you. no one is bullying them off the swings

☆ he loves to play pretend with his kids because he usually ends up laughing too. pirates, princesses, you name it

☆ "daddy! i'm a princess locked in a class, save me!"

"weren't you just a ninja, honey?"

☆ running after his kids is 100% a full time job, because they take after their daddy with sassy mouths and chaotic behavior

☆ on a serious note, nick never shies away from hard conversations. he's always honest and explains everything as best as he can to his babies

Dad!Nick with older kids ♡

☆ nick gives off foster/adopt for teens, mostly because he knows teens can feel excluded since a lot of people want babies, and that's just unacceptable

☆ he's actually so accepting of all the kids that come into his home, no matter what

☆ he makes sure they have everything they need to feel confident, because he knows how hard high school can be

☆ always makes sure they get their driver's license if they want, have a working cell phone, and have money to go out with friends

☆ "dad, this guy broke up with me because i 'wear too much makeup'"

"honey, looking like THAT...he should be trying to learn from you"

☆ as much as he tries not to be, he's the parent that cries ar every homecoming, prom, graduation, etc

☆ definitely lets his teens have their style (within reason). he'd definitely be okay with fun hair colors and certain piercings

☆ nick loves to be of homework help where he can. it's an easy in to get his teens talking to him about how they feel

☆ overall, nick is just genuinely the best dad anyone could ever ask for, no matter how old his kids are <3

tags ♡: @aemrsy @jake-and-johnnies-slut @mattsfavwh3re @suyqa @chrissturnswife @mbsbaby @herxyz @ilovejohnnieg @lovingchrissposts @caffeinatedscorpio @bunny-cotton @emmagirouard @athaliahxoxo @bitchydragonparadise @dumpling-to-eat @ilydeaky @soggyslugg169 @not-phone-guy @books0fever @stingerayyy2 @strnlvr @sunsetsturniolos @mimi-luvzyu @mayhem-72 @faygo-frog @oobleoob @idek3000hi @runasvengence

note ♡: if you'd like to be added to my tag list, click here <3

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withcolebrock · 3 years

Text

Lover of Mine- Chapter Thirteen

Lover of mine~5 seconds of summer

Masterlist

Warnings: suggestive language and swears I believe

Word Count: 2,207

Author’s Note: Things are starting to get a bit interesting with these two, finally. The next chapter is where most things start to kick off. But as of right now, dig a bit deeper into the friendship of Jake and Y/N. I do like this chapter and I hope you guys too and I’m sorry it is taking me so long, I have rewrote the ending of this chapter like a thousand times lol. This chapter may feel rushed from the previous chapter but this is a few months after her break up with Mike. Hopefully it will not be confusing.. Anywayssss This is my gif!

“No, that thing is gonna stab my eye out,” Jake groaned while gently pushing her hand away. Y/N sighed while she giggled, she turned her head towards the camera. She lifted her hand towards his eye again before Jake shoved her hand away again. “Isn’t my face fine without it?” he begged while he titled his head back, “My face itches.”

He reached his hand up as he attempted to scratch his skin, “No don’t!” she begged while she took his hand away, “You’ll ruin my work, plus we are almost done you can wait.” she smiled softly towards him while she shifted her gaze back towards the camera.

“Well, what am I supposed to do? It hurts,” he continued to whine. Before she had a chance to respond, her bedroom door was pushed open without warning. Colby stood in the doorway, staring towards Jake and herself.

“Oh, sorry, didn’t realize you were making a video,” He stuttered while he shifted his gaze towards the back of the camera; taking note how close Jake and Y/N were sitting. He pressed his lips together as he held shifty eye contact with Jake and Y/N. “What are you filming exactly?” He cleared his throat.

“Oh I saw Franny do it, she did all of her guy roommates makeup. I thought it was funny,” she explained while she turned her gaze strictly towards Colby. Jake turned his head away from them both as he scratched his skin in desperation.

“That’s cool, didn’t think you’d start with Jake though,” he joked while he tapped his fingers against the door. Y/N smilied awkwardly towards him while she tilted her head to the side. She shrugged her shoulders while she looked away from him.

“He was home, so I had just asked him, it was no big deal,” she explained awkwardly. He nodded. “But we are almost done filming, so if you-”

“Yeah, of course, uh. Yeah see you, yeah-” he shut the door before he could finish his sentence. Y/N and Jake looked towards each other nervously as they sat in a moment of awkwards silence.

She twisted off the mascara and held it towards his face. Jake hesitantly nodded while he stared towards the tube with his eyes slowly squinting. His face twisted slightly as he watched Y/N lean it close to his eye. “Blink slowly,” she instructed.

“Are you guys, like, okay?” Jake asked cautiously after he followed her instructions. He tilted his head back while she closed the mascara tube. She glanced towards the camera.

“You know, I can’t use any of this in the video right?” She avoided the question while she picked up a few of her lipsticks, trying to decide which color would be best for the look she decided.

“So what happened? You guys seemed fine last night,” he shrugged while he pointed towards the black lipstick.

“I’ll tell you later, can we finish this please?” she responded quickly while she raised her eyebrows. A small frustrated sigh leaves her lips while she pretends to hold the lipsticks up again for him to choose. Jake nodded while he took a long breath, to try and get more energy into his system.

“This one,” he said cheerfully while he pointed to the black lipstick. She smiled while she placed the red one down while she began to untwist the matte lipstick.

~~~

She threw away the paper plate while picking up her bottle of water from the counter while she walked towards the stairs, she glanced towards the backyard door. She saw Sam and Colby talking towards the camera Sam was holding. She shook her head, a quiet laugh leaves her lips as she walks up the stairs slowly.

She took a sip of her water bottle while she walked towards Jake’s open door. He was laying on his bed while he was scrolling through twitter on his computer. He lifts his head, seeing her standing in the doorway. “What’s going on with you and Colby?” Jake whispered while Y/N walked into his room. She shut the door behind herself, she sat down beside Jake on his bed.

“I don’t even know, Jake,” she sighed while rubbing her eye delicately while she pulled her lips in between her teeth. “We haven’t hung out in over a month because of Olivia,”

~~~

There were three knocks on her already open door, she pulled off her headphones while pausing the video she was editing. Colby stood in her doorway, glancing towards her bed. He quickly walked into the room. “I rescheduled that date with that girl from the other night,” he said simply.

Y/N held her breath briefly while she spun her chair around to face Colby. Her eyes squinted while she looked Colby up and down. “Okay, that’s good, right?” she whispered, her voice cracked slightly.

“I mean yeah, of course, but like do you think I should still go?” he asked while he rubbed his hands together nervously.

“Yeah, you like her so, why not?” she rushed out while she brushed a few pieces behind her hair. She looked into Colby’s eyes for a moment before turning away towards her computer screen.

“The date is tomorrow, I know it’s on movie night, but-”

“It’s just one night, Colby, go have fun,”

“Are you sure? I mean it’s only been a week since everything with Mike-”

~~~

“And it’s like ever since that night, he has only hung out with Olivia. Which I get it, that’s his girlfriend but you still need to make time for your friends. The whole movie night thing was made in high school so we wouldn’t forget each other when we got into relationships,” she sighs, “It sounds dumb when I explain it,”

“It’s not, I get it. He’s barely home anymore, can’t even make content with the guy. Can’t imagine how Sam feels, being in business with him and all,” he leans back on his hands while maintaining eye contact with her, “But it’s totally Olivia doing that though. She probably can’t be left alone longer than two hours,” he chuckles.

She joins in while shaking her head, “I don’t understand why people drop their friends all because of a relationship, he barely knows her,” she continued to rant to Jake.

“Have you talked to him about this?”

“He’s never home to even talk about it,” she leaned her head back groaning.

“Are you sure, this isn’t anything more?” Jake raised his eyebrow towards her, she huffed while rolling her eyes.

“Have you asked out that girl yet?” she switched the conversation. Jake rolled his eyes while laughing.

“Don’t turn this around on me, that is not fair,” he giggled. “You’re just jealous Colby is dating someone that is not you,” he smiled confidently.

“I still regret ever telling you that.”

They both sat in silence while thinking over everything. She realized that she doesn’t even go to Colby about her problems anymore ever since the night Mike and her broke up. It seemed like her life blew up in shambles and there isn’t a way to return to how she felt before everything happened.

Her eyes lit up as she hit Jake on his arm to grasp his attention. His mouth fell open as he reached over and held the spot where she hit him. “Oh stop that,” she giggled, “You ask out Tara on a date and I’ll talk to Colby about how I’m feeling.”

“Sure, whatever, but what am I supposed to say to Tara, anyway,” he asked.

She spent a while explaining and helping Jake out with what he should tell Tara. Y/N knew that Tara was head over heels for Jake. It took a while to convince him to finally call her. He gave Y/N a thumbs up and she walked out of the room, towards her own. She stopped for a moment to check to see who was sprinting up the stairs.

“Colby, what are you doing?” she asked while she leaned against her door. His head lifted up in shock while looking towards her. His lips curled up into a smile once he saw it was her. He pushed himself off of the final step while he walked towards her.

“I was actually looking for you, I need to talk to you,” he motioned towards her room. She nodded hesitantly while her skin arose in goosebumps. She pushed the door open, allowing Colby to walk into the room and relax down onto her bed.

“I needed to talk to you too, so perfect,” she smiled widely while she shut the door. She sat down on her desk chair. He smiled softly while he leaned back onto his arms.

“Do you have feelings for Jake?” he said out of nowhere. Her eyes widened while she stared towards him. At first she didn’t know if she misheard the words that fell from his lips.

“Sorry?” she asked leaning her body towards him slightly, her eyebrows raised while she maintained eye contact with him. His lips parted slightly as he looked away from her towards his lap.

“Do you have feelings for Jake?”

“No, why do you think that?” she shook her head while crossing her arms over her chest. He shrugged his shoulders while he rested his hands behind him and leaned his body back onto his hands. Her heart began to beat quickly as she watched him. The way his gaze lingered on her, the way his body looked. She forced herself to control her gaze.

“You guys are just hanging out a lot,” he said matter of factly. He let out a long sigh while he looked into her eyes.

“We are always home alone together, so of course we are going to hang out,”

“What do you mean? Sam and I are here like all of the time,” he protests. She didn’t know why he was set on the idea. “If you have feelings for Jake, just tell me,”

“I don’t have feelings for Jake!” she said a bit louder than she wanted. Her lips clasped together, “Everyone has someone in the house,” she started while avoiding his gaze, “Corey and Devyn, Sam and Katrina, You and Olivia, Jake and I were sort of forced to hang out together. Jake and I just needed someone to hang out with while everyone else was busy,” she explained. Colby nodded his head, “I mean now I won’t have anyone since he’s asking Tara out on a date,” she said.

Colby rolled his eyes, “You have me,” he whispered. She knew he meant it as a friend but the butterflies in her stomach started fluttering. Heat rushed to her cheeks as she thought about climbing on top of him and kissing his lips. It was something about the way he was looking at her, she wished she knew the way he was thinking. He lifted his hand and rubbed his chin while he leaned forward.

“You also have Olivia,” Y/N said, wishing she didn’t. He deflated slightly while he stood up from her bed, adjusting his shorts as he walked towards her. He pulled his lips between his teeth while he looked into her eyes.

“But you’ll always have me,” he whispered. She felt like she was being drawn to him like a magnet. Her mind was escalating as quickly as her body was. She was feeling a bit intoxicated the more she looked towards him, maybe now. Maybe now was the time. His phone vibrated consistently in his pocket, he shifted his gaze as he pulled his phone from his pocket. “Olivia, hey,” he spoke. He cleared his throat while he rolled his eyes at something she said. “Yeah, you can come over tomorrow.” His tone was annoyed.

She will never understand why he wanted to be with a girl like that. Sam mentioned Colby was not thinking with his head or heart when he decided to start dating her. Of course that was the reason, something she lacked. He put the phone back in his pocket while he lifted his gaze towards hers. “I’ve missed you, Colby,” her voice broke slightly while her eyes lowered to his lips. She was tired of hiding it. For a second it looked like he was leaning towards her, the tension in her stomach was filling. Her cheeks were flushed as she tapped her fingers on her desk beside her.

“Oh my god!” Jake shouted from outside of the room, he bursted through her bedroom door. Colby jolted out of his way, knocking into Y/N in the process. He muttered an apology as they looked towards Jake. “Tara said yes!” he said excitedly. Y/N walked towards Jake and gave him a hug and congratulated him while Colby stayed back. Looking towards Y/N, he wanted to kick Jake out of the room and kiss her but he couldn’t. He didn’t know how much longer he could pretend to like Olivia and not be completely in love with Y/N.

For a few long seconds his mind wandered and believed she felt the same way. The way she looked at him, she had to. He wanted to find out.

I know it'd be such a shame

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1234-angelika · 3 years

Text

Park Picnic

an:Hey y'all! I'm back from my unplanned hiatus and I have been catching up on all the stories I have fallen behind on. So, I have a new Matt fic for y'all. This is the third installment of the Happily Ever After fic for Matt. As always, hope y'all enjoy!

words:1.1k

warnings: mentions of food

summary:"The purpose of our lives is to be happy." -Dalai Lama

masterpost|taglist|have an idea

After Kristy stormed out of the room, the weather outside changed like a bad green screen from a movie, and you couldn’t help yourself; you let out a laugh.

You had a smile on your face, just at the idea of going on a date with Matt. As you walked to the coatroom alongside Matt and the kids, he looked over at you and, noticing the smile on your face, he broke into a broad grin of his own. Packing up the children went as fast as it usually did, meaning not at all. But before you knew it, you were all in the car getting ready to go on the date.

After buckling in the kids, a task in and of itself, you and Matt got into the car. He turned the key in the ignition, and the car roared to life. Turning to face him, you asked,

“So, where are we going?”

“Well since the kids are with us, I was thinking we could grab some food and have a picnic in the park—“

“That sounds lovely.” You tried to respond while he paused but, he just kept going.

“—but if you would rather do something else, we can reschedule….”

He finally stopped talking, and you took a moment to make sure he was actually finished before you answered.

“It’s perfect!” You said wistfully. “I love the idea and, it’s important to include your kids.”

He gave you a soft smile and looked back at his kids before turning back to look at you.

“Is Waffle House okay? That’s the only fast-food David will eat at the moment.”

You nodded, saying, “Wafflehouse it is then.”

Matt drove out of the parking lot, and you guys were on your way. You knew the closest Waffle House was about twenty minutes away on a good day, so you were prepared to keep the kids entertained for the drive. Eight minutes in, and you were right. The kids had already started saying that they were bored and asking if you were there yet. The ride to the drive-thru was full of games of i-spy, kid-friendly trivia (based on cartoons and their favourite characters), and storytelling. The time went quickly, and then, you were at the drive-thru. After collecting the food, Matt parked in the lot and turned to you.

“Do you have a park in mind?”

You thought for a moment before saying, “What about Alum?

“The park not too far from my place?” Matt asked, surprised you even knew about that park.

“Yeah, it’s easier for you then when you need to get home and it’s a beautiful park.”

As you drove through the neighbourhoods, you couldn’t help but notice the vibrant colours and charm coming from the communities. When the car passed his house, you knew you were almost there, and you got a little nervous. You liked Matt a lot and didn’t want to screw it up.

He parked the car under a grove of trees just at the edge of the park, and the two of you got out to help the kids. You set up shop at one of the picnic tables and got them all situated before handing out the food. They ate quickly, and Matt made them wait a few minutes before running off to play. Just as the boys were about to take off, Matt made sure to tell them,

“Jake and David, the two of you are responsible for your sisters. Make sure you stay where I can see you okay?”

To hurry their dad along, the boys grabbed the hands of their sisters before running to the playground. Once you cleaned up the kids’ mess, you finally took a seat at the picnic table. And though your food was cold, you didn’t mind one bit. You were already having a great time. Grabbing the food that was left, you divided it between you and Matt. He walked back to the table and sat down across from you, still keeping an eye on the kids while conversing with you. You guys ate in comfortable silence, occasional conversation drifting in and out effortlessly. Being with Matt was easy. It didn’t feel forced.

Hours went by, and the kids were still playing, and you and Matt were still talking. Once the sun started to go down, it got a little more chilly. You shivered slightly, and Matt, keen eye as always, offered you his jacket. You accepted, and he gently draped it over your shoulders. As happy as the action made you, you couldn’t help but internally roll your eyes at how the cliche move gave you such a serotonin boost. Only a little after that, the girls came back to the table and sat down. Lily, beside you and Chloe beside Matt, leaned against you guys, obviously tired from the long day.

It was only about half an hour later when the boys ran up to the table.

“Daddy, Miss Y/N, can you play?” David asked, looking at Matt. The puppy eyes the boys were sporting were guaranteed to work on Matt. The girls seemed to perk up at this.

You nodded, and just as you were going to answer, your phone started ringing. You frowned at the caller id before answering the boys.

“Daddy can go play. I need to make a call and then I can come okay?”

He nodded his head vigorously and ran back to the playground, siblings in tow. Matt turned to look at you before joining them.

“Are you sure Y/N?” He asked, a little worried about your reaction to the phone call.

“I’m sure. It should be quick and then I’ll come join you guys.”

He gave you one last look before taking off after the kids.

“Matt?” You called out.

“Yeah?” He asked, turning back to look at you.

“This is the best first date I’ve been on.” You said with a smile on your face.

You could just make out the smile on his face in the dusk lighting before he turned back and continued for the playground. You made your phone call, and as you were waiting for the person to answer, you watched them play. And the smile from not long ago made its way back to your face. This was a perfect first date. You couldn’t have asked for anything better.

taglist:@multixfandomwriter

@gspenc @myescapefromthislife

#criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #matt simmons #matt simmons x reader #happilyeverafter #hea

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dulcettonesofmattsimmons · 3 years

Text

Talks (Matt Simmons x Reader)

Prompts / MasterList

It sorry that it took me forever t post, decemeber was such a crazy month but I’m back.

When Matt turns around to pull Y/N closer to him. He felt nothing but empty sheets. He looked over and saw Y/N wasn’t next to him. He looked over to the clock and saw that he managed to sleep in. He stood up wanting to check on Joe to see how his side is doing. He opened the door and saw Joe’s bed empty. He walked to the kitchen and saw Joe sitting at the table eating some cut up bananas.

For a second, he forgot that Joe ever got hurt since he looked so happy eating bananas. They were his favorite thing to eat. Like nothing happened just the night before. Y/N walked in and saw Matt standing there. “Hey” Y/N spoke, making Joe look up and see Matt. He quickly gave him a huge smile. “Daddy you’re awake” Joe spoke excitedly. Matt smiles and nods. “I am,” Matt replied, walking to him and sitting to him. “What time did you wake up bubba,” Matt asked, playing with Joe's hair. “I woke up at nine” Joe answered, pushing the plate to be in the middle of them. “Here we can share daddy,” Joe said looking up at Matt. “Thank you bubba'' Matt smile at Joe. Joe raises a piece of banana to Matt’s mouth.

Matt just takes it and smiles. Joe kicks his feet happily and takes a piece for himself. Matt smiles and gives him a kiss on the head. Y/N walks over and puts her hands on Matt’s shoulder and begins to massage him. “How did you sleep?” Y/N whisper into Matt’s ear. “Okay, I guess,” Matt answers looking up at Y/N.

They stayed like that for a while, sometimes Joe would raise a piece for Matt and Y/N. They both gave them a smile and took the piece. “When are you going to head over to talk to Jake?” Y/N asked quietly. “Later, I want to stay a bit with Joe,” Matt answered. “It’s okay, he’s okay you know” Y/N spoke. Matt smiles and kisses Y/N on the cheek.

Later in the day, Matt started to get ready to head over to Kristy. He had texted her that he was on his way. When he arrived, he was nervous, how can he approach this right. He knew that maybe keeping Jake and Joe apart for a bit could work but how long? Y/N already said that he didn’t need to do that.

He walked up to the door and knocked. Kristy opens it, letting him walk in. Jake is in his room, the others are outside in the backyard.” Kristy said not knowing if Matt was going to jake first or the rest. “I will go out in a bit. I want to talk with Jake first” Matt said, walking towards Jake’s room.

He knocks on the door, opening it a little to Jake in his bed. Jake looked up and Matt. He so badly wanted to run up to Matt and hug him but he doesn't know if he’s still mad. “Hey, bud,” Matt whispered, sitting on his bed. “Hi” Jake answered. They stayed like for a while silent until Matt just sighed. “What happened last night?” Matt asked looking over at Jake. “I did make Joe fall off of the chair but I didn’t mean to make him hurt himself,” Jake explained, wiping his tears. Matt helped him by pulling him into a hug. “I know that you didn’t want him to get hurt” Matt spoke. “I got jealous. He has you all the time. Even holidays, I just want you like we used to. “ Jake spoke.

“I understand and Y/N and I have always tried to make Joe understand that when you and your siblings are around to be understanding towards why you guys are all over me. I’m sorry if I have made you feel second to Joe. I love you guys equally. You guys are my world.” Matt whispers, kissing Jake’s temple. “Are Y/N and Joe mad at me?” Jake asked, scared. “No bud. They love you and could never get mad at you. They understand that you didn’t mean to hurt anyone.” Matt answer

“But I hurt Y/N’s baby” Jake spoke, “Y/N loves you guys just as much as Joe. She has told me many times that even though she is not your mom, she loves you guys like if you are her own. She will never leave you guys alone.” Matt answers, making Jake smile that Y/N and Joe aren’t mad at him. Jake cuddles closer to Matt and smiles. “Okay dad”

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@witteksquad

@pan-pride-12

#matt #Matt Simmons #Matthew Simmons #matthew simmons x reader #matthew simmons imagines #matt simmons x reader #matt simmons imagine #matt simmons imagines #Matthew Matt Simmons #Matthew Matt Simmons x reader #criminal #Criminal Minds #cm

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its-my-little-dumpster-fire · 3 years

Text

Let it Burn ( t w e n t y n i n e )

Billy Russo x Reader, 6.7k

A/N: I don't know what to say about this one, just that it's been a long time coming and I'm equal parts excited and terrified of being this close to the end. So if even one person asks for a nice interlude, I'll friggin do it, because there aren't many sweet moments left. Not that there are any in this chapter? idk. You decide.

Warnings: Death. Talks of death. Violence. Poorly written fight sequences (I'm sorry @the-blind-assassin-12).

Summary: Billy's past comes knocking and you're thrown head first into a future you weren't expecting.

“I’ll get the car,” Matt volunteered the second your little group exited the bar. He was quick to turn away, leaving you with Noah and Libby on the sidewalk. The air thrummed around you with bass tones from leaking out onto the street. Combined with the alcohol in your system, you felt warm despite the chill in the air. Noah had his arm looped around Libby, holding her close and holding her up as her head lulled sleepily into his shoulder. Her hand stuck out, blindly grasping at the air behind her until you caught it in yours and she turned her face to smile. It was good to be with friends. Shocking, how normal it felt to be with people who knew you in college. Libby was there in your dorm room, laughing mercilessly at the sharp tingling in your legs after sprinting through the snow in shorts. A boy at the gym tried asking you out and your eighteen year old brain only came up with the dumbest responses to his flirting, prompting you high tail it out of there before pulling your sweats back on. Matt was there the Thanksgiving after you turned 21, carrying you on his back after too many spiked ciders, when you needed a break. Noah… well thankfully you hadn’t done anything remorseful in front of him that week, a sign you were getting older, but his presence in the group was a welcome one. Even if some days you looked at him and half expected your brother to be in his seat again, rubbing the back of Libby’s neck and calling Matt an asshole for wearing a Tom Brady jersey in public. It struck you that someday soon, these friends would have to move on from you too, keeping you and your brother as memories and nothing more.

Unwilling to let another string of macabre thoughts could kill the lingering comforts of the evening, you glanced up and down the street mindlessly taking in the city you once called home. It certainly wasn’t New York, but it had its own pulse. You couldn’t help wondering if it was the last night you’d ever get there and wanted to soak up every second. In your reverie, you floated away from Noah and Libby, kicking the pavement gently, eyes closed and heart content. Dying girls are allowed to romanticize whatever they want, you reasoned without paying attention where you were standing. It was your own fault that you were nearly knocked over by the broad shoulder of a passerby.

Noah hollered out in your defense, telling the man to watch where he was going, but one look up into familiar black irises told you the “stranger” was watching his step… and yours apparently.

“Sorry about that,” he whispered, a smile growing under rounded cheeks and puckered pink lines torn by glass.

You tried and failed to school your features into something slightly less glowy, but your soulmate’s hands were on you, steadying you, just feet from your friends. If you closed your eyes again, it might feel like a normal night out. A double date. Billy propped up against the wall, his arm stretched out over the plastic seating of a diner booth. You next him, stealing french fries off his plate and apologetically kissing his cheek after he slapped your hand away. Noah and Libby would be on the other side of the table, being their own kind of adorable, sharing a milkshake or something like it was the fifties. Oh god, you shivered, imagining Billy Russo in a leather jacket, driving you home after parking over in some poorly lit part of town, where his hand felt completely at home under your sweater.

“You okay, ma’am?” he asked, squeezing your arms and angling his face away from your friends, so only you could see or hear him.

“Yeah,” you sighed, disappointed your soulmate wasn’t a greaser, but still amazed he made such a brazen attempt to see you before you went home with your friends. “I’m swell.”

Billy chuckled at that, catching the sound in his throat so all that escaped was a huff. He nodded and licked his lips, looking down at the pavement between your shoes. Your eyes were still on his face, darker under the hood he’d pulled up, but you felt the toe of his boot nudge yours affectionately. “Swell, huh.” You nodded. “Alright,” he nodded in the direction of your friends, already releasing you and pushing you back toward them. “Keep your eyes open.”

“Thanks,” you called out, backpedalling until Libby caught your arm again and Noah stared down the stranger like any tough guy should. It wasn’t his fault that he had no idea who he was glaring at. If he did, he certainly wouldn’t linger.

“Russo!” you heard someone yell and immediately your blood ran cold. Libby and Matt were still trying to herd you away from where you’d been so rudely bumped, but you were immovable.

You heard Billy’s hissed ‘shit’ as the man with the thick black beard stalked over from the bar’s entrance. Shit, you repeated in your head, had this guy seen Billy in there and followed him out?

“You got the wrong guy.”

“Nah,” this man shook his head, “I don’t.” A terrifying smile appeared on his face as he approached Billy. “I’d know that fucked up mug anywhere.” He looked your soulmate up and down, all too satisfied with what he found. “Thought I was seeing a goddamn ghost,” he announced, before lowering his voice considerably. “Last I heard, they dragged your ass out of the river…” he scoffed. “Guess not, huh?”

In the presence of a rising conflict, Noah and Libby turned away, tugging you along with them. Your body followed them toward the lit yellow circle under a streetlamp to wait for Matt and the car, but your senses belonged to Billy. Always.

You had to believe that he was armed and clearly more than able to defend himself. Even strolling along the Adriatic, where time moved slower and the locals cared more about their afternoon cappuccino than the scarred face watching the water over your head, Billy had been prepared for the worst. There wasn’t a cell in your body that feared for him in these moments, but the second his name was spoken out loud… there was a new fear. Your life over the last 6 months was not safe anymore, Billy was not safe anymore. Everything you knew up until this point relied on anonymity and that was gone. Your soulmate could survive a street fight, but could he live beyond one where his ability to remain invisible was compromised?

The argument over your shoulder escalated and when you turned back to observe them again, what you found was more startling than a simple scuffle.

Billy was evenly matched and that alone was enough to scare you. He’s Billy Russo. Any conflict that comes his way should be easily snuffed out. He’s been fighting his entire life. First with broken broom handles and the grace of a boy who hadn’t grown into his limbs, but abandonment and terror look a lot like rage against hungry cheeks. No matter how “pretty” he’d been, there was a fight in Billy begging to come out. Surely the fight enticed a young Billy into service. The power, the training, the knowledge that he’d never be a victim again once his fists knew where to strike. With a scope, he could fight without getting his hands dirty. With a Ka-bar… he didn’t seem to mind that either. And you knew first hand that the fight followed Billy home, where his enemies were chosen for him and in exchange, he maintained his power. That Billy shouldn’t have equals, but somehow on this street, an equal had found him.

“They’re all dead,” the man spit then shouted, feet shuffling as he and your soulmate circled each other. “Geno, Todd, Bobby, Moke.” He lunged forward and Billy’s hands came down on his wrist, blocking the blade out in front of him. At first, you hadn’t noticed the black carbon steel in the dark, but when Billy took hold of his wrist in one hand, it was clearly visible under streetlights and gasps skittered through the small crowd gathering outside the bar.

“That’s on them,” Billy ground out, keeping his attacker’s arm straight up over their hands as he went for the knee with his other hand. Off balance, the man was forced onto his back and Libby’s audible gasp pulled your attention at the same time her hands were pulling back on your shoulders. Completely unaware of your own posture, as you stumbled backwards a step, you realized that you’d been moving closer to the fight since it broke.

“You pissed off the Punisher, Russo.” At the mention of Frank Castle, you turned back again, watching Billy’s hand come down on the man’s neck and jaw. You cringed at the way his voice gurgled and strained, but he kept taunting. “Jake’s dead.”

“He’s a fucking tweaker who didn’t know when to quit,” Billy insisted, struggling to dodge a knee to the liver while still pinning his assailant. The knife finally fell from the man’s hand, but neither he nor your soulmate lunged for it as you expected. Two men as deadly as this needn’t concern themselves with a sharp edge when their bodies were well honed weapons. You assumed this man must have been military too, with the pace at which they were anticipating the other’s movements, blocking and striking with disturbingly natural ease. He never would, but a part of you, a very small part, wished Billy would just run.

“Castle wanted you, Billy! Wanted to crush what you started!” Another series of punches that sounded painful. Everytime Billy drew blood, you noticed more of his own, a cut over the eye, redness that would bloom into dark purple before tomorrow. “You were a coward, Russo. Leaving everything you built,” the man was winded and you hoped that meant he’d slow down, but neither of them had that kind of quit in them. Not when face to face with an enemy. “We kept going, we could have run that city! But your buddy Frank Castle wouldn’t sleep until every of the boys was dead. Spunk, Manny, Vincent.” The man spit blood from his red stained teeth as he seethed through the names of fallen comrades. “That psycho went after Jimbo, that dumb kid didn’t stand a chance. I never thought I’d get my chance with Billy Russo…” he laughed, a little manic as that confident veneer he’d worn just a minute ago was broken. “But here we are, Billy. You and me.” He was using Billy’s name frequently and loudly. His eyes were as black as Billy’s and you watched them dart around to the handful of cellphone cameras pointed directly at the scene. The smirk on his face was unsettling and suddenly you knew what was happening. This man didn’t care if he died as long as he took Billy down with him. Billy, observant, but ever the predator was more concerned with eliminating the physical threat than his name going viral. The man wasn’t down for long before sweeping Billy’s leg and rolling away. Knife forgotten and fists flying into every inch of tender flesh, just like they were trained. Behind you, Noah described the scene in alarming detail while on the phone with local dispatch, making sure an officer en route knew exactly where they were needed and everything you were certain of two minutes ago was in jeopardy.

“Borrowed time, remember?” the man seethed, hunched over a heavy breathing Billy Russo who’d just taken a shot to the ear. “It was always gonna end this way.”

Falling from the top bunk and breaking your arm. Graduation. Your parents’ funeral. Your brother and Libby’s wedding. Meeting Billy. Standing outside a building that erupted in flames from the inside. The oncologist sat before you with a sour expression. Waiting for Billy in every new country, wringing your hands as if he might not come. So many life changing moments and yet, they were all a blur. This moment, however, was painfully clear.

You felt the tension in your toes as heeled feet moved toward the fray. The burn in your legs as you squatted after a day standing to accept goodbyes followed by a night of dancing poorly. The knife’s weight in your palm as you adjusted your grip to something that felt more solid. You’d bought cans of soup that were heavier than the blade wrapped in your fingers and that surprised you. No wonder these looked like an extension of Billy’s hand when he wielded them. Despite the relative lightness, you looked awkward holding on to it. Not like Billy. Through the blood rush behind your ears, the heavy throb of your own pulse drowning everything out, Libby’s voice screamed your name. Billy looked shocked, a marvel in itself as it seemed so little could surprise him, to hear your name and his eyes landed on yours, wide, but narrowing as the blade sank into his opponent’s side.

The man wheeled back quickly, his elbow landing hard in your chest and knocking the wind from you. Someone Billy’s height would have doubled over groaning after a shot to the gut, but when you hit the ground, no sounds came out as you tried to call out to Billy. He acted without your cries and while you stared at the ground spinning between your knees, the sound of the fight grew louder, more urgent. As unseen hands guided you back to your feet, your legs shook at the sight of blood splattered on your hands and bare shins. In your struggle, the knife remained in your grasp and the sight of it, shimmering red in moon and street light, made you feel dizzy.

It was Billy to say your name next, loud and strained. When you looked back toward him, he was on his back, thumbs digging into the man’s cheekbones as his head thrashed. The scars on Billy’s face seemed to give way to the veins bulging in his forehead until they were all you could see, evidence of his struggle to take in breath with hands pressing down on his windpipe. The last time you were in this scenario, Billy hadn’t struggled at all. Your attacker was a bum compared to the marine and when your soulmate sliced his fingers clean from his hand, you didn’t even stop to wonder if you’d done the right thing assisting Billy. As if a practiced dance, you approached again with shaky steps, to drop the knife in Billy’s outstretched hand. You watched as a red faced Billy Russo lifted the knife and plunged it directly into the side of the man’s neck. Blood flowed from the artery when Billy removed the blade and struck him again and again. He shoved the man from his body and rose with a face, reddened by blood splatter instead.

The world slowed to a stop as you fell forward and Billy caught you, widening his feet to adjust your body against his so that you both stayed up right. His whispering disappeared into your hair and you heard nothing that was said, until a new voice cut through the night.

“What the hell?!” Matt called your name, wide eyed and confused by the blood covering both you and the man that held you. He’d only been gone a few minutes and everything had gone to shit in his absence. At the sound of sirens just around the block, your eyes flew from your friends back to Billy’s, dark and conspiring as the next few seconds proved most pivotal.

Clutching the front of Billy’s jacket, you jostled him until his eyes fell upon yours. “Don’t you leave me here, Russo,” your head shook desperately, as did your voice. “Don’t.”

Without saying a word, Billy’s jaw tightened and he was off, all but carrying you toward Matt and the car that couldn’t have come at a better or worse moment. Your friend, too noble for his own good, stupidly resisted the man on a mission and Libby shrieked when Billy’s fist landed against Matt’s cheek. He shoved your friend toward the sidewalk where his sister cried and got into the driver’s seat like it was his plan all along. Libby tried to pull you back with them, insisting it was self defense and you didn’t have to run, but one look and she knew.

The second your door shut behind you, Billy pulled away, blessedly unnoticed by the blue lights approaching from the opposite direction. You were shocked when your getaway driver stopped the car after only a few blocks, slipping into an open spot in front of a fire hydrant and stepping out of the car without explanation. He opened your door and pulled you out when you didn’t immediately follow, dropping Matt’s keys in your seat before slamming the door behind you. A half turn over your shoulder and the blue from the responders’ lights bathed the buildings on the corner. You were far too close to be safe, but Billy pressed on, walking so close behind you that his chest moved you forward more than his hands. Around one more corner and it all made sense. There was already a plan in place, a car stowed safely within walking distance of the bar meant to carry Billy away before he was jumped and his identity exposed.

You settled uncomfortably in the front seat of a sedan that -under any other circumstance- would make you laugh to see Billy behind the wheel of it. “We can’t travel like this,” you gestured down to your short dress and blood stained skin. The man next to you made a disgruntled noise, but flipped on the turn signal all the same when you pointed out Libby’s street upcoming.

Billy stood watch at the large front windows, peeking through the curtains suspiciously and giving you commands from the other room. There wasn’t time for you to change clothes, which you hated, but you were allowed 5 minutes to grab whatever you’d need so you shoved what belongings you didn’t have to dig for into a bag, flying from every corner of your guest room. Job’s excitement at seeing you and Billy, together and walking through the front door like you’d been invited rather than pillaging through the flower bed for a false bottomed rock, lasted only the length of the entry before even the dog decided that your frantic packing was too much for him. With your bag slung over one shoulder, you scribbled the quickest apology onto a pad of paper in Libby’s junk drawer, hoping she wouldn’t find it until you were long gone. You trusted she and Matt and Noah to do the right thing, to tell the truth about what they saw. You weren’t sure what to expect of the bachelorette party that watched like a herd of scared sheep, phone out and backs hunched as they gasped and gawked at the death befalling tiny screens. There was time to spare one final glance toward the refrigerator, normal clippings and wedding announcements and grocery lists. Your friends would slide back into their normal lives soon enough. They’d feel the need to mourn again, despite attending your funeral just hours ago, but they’d be forced back into work, obligations, other friendships.

You had no such luxury. There was no normal from here on out. Whatever you thought you’d been running from in Europe was soon to be clawing at your door. It was impossible not to recognize that your journey with Billy so far had been easy compared to what was coming next. He was going to be hunted, while your dying slowed him down, dragged more like. The humble bag of belongings over your shoulder suddenly weighed a thousand pounds and the strap dug into your skin. In your haste to be close to Billy, your desperation to stay with him, you hadn’t stopped to consider what a cruel fate you were damning him to. Libby lit the spark, a guilty smoldering in your chest, thinking about Billy losing you the way your best friend had lost your brother. She was broken and changed, but you couldn’t fathom what Billy would do once you were gone. Torn between wanting to spend every waking second with him until your last and letting him run without you there to complicate his survival, you didn’t notice him moving through the house to find you and hurry you along.

“Let’s go,” he said sharply, urging you with his eyebrows and an extended hand, but his other hand was not empty and it amused you more than it should.

“What are you doing?” you asked, seeing the answer for yourself without addressing it. Billy shook his head and furrowed his brows like he didn’t know what he meant. You nodded at his hip, but he ignored the gesture completely, passing Job’s black leather leash from his left to his right hand, and walked out.

“Time’s up,” he announced again without further explanation and the dog behind him was more than pleased to be included. Job had no idea where he was headed or the dangerous circumstances that had brought his two favorite people back to him and for a moment, you allowed yourself to be like Job. You fought back your amusement and nodded solemnly, following Billy and his beast out of your friends’ home, apology tucked into a drawer and bag drawn up over your shoulder. Just before exiting, you stopped at the front door to kick off your heels and slide your bare feet into a pair of Libby’s walking shoes. She wouldn’t miss them and you were in greater need at the moment. This way, you hoped, she’d know you were safe upon entering, even before finding the note with half assed explanations. With the door closed behind you and the hide a key back in its place, Billy loaded Job into the back seat while you settled into the front. It could have been the start of a road trip, if you let it. Man, woman, dog, all piled into a car and headed for the next adventure.

Billy leaned over and you didn’t even try to hide the tears tracking down your face, overcome by the idea that your only normal moments would have to be imagined from now on. Usually one to prefer silence in these complex situations, you were surprised when Billy started to speak. Jose was the man’s name. He’d been involved with Billy’s tiny army, plundering New York City and taking back what they felt was owed to them after sacrificing so much in service. Jose, Billy explained, was the only member of their gang that questioned his decision to leave the game when he did. He didn’t explicitly say it, but her name hung in the air anyways.

“A lot of people died because of me…” Billy continued and you turned to face him in your seat. His eyes were forward, occasionally drifting toward dark mirrors, but never toward you. “Frank… if what Jose said is true… Frankie’s on a fucking spree.”

“Is that any different than before?” you asked honestly. You didn’t know Frank that well, or at all, minus a handful of meetings that always left you feeling nauseous before, during, and after. He was the Punisher, famed for clearing the streets of those that crossed him or his moral compass. Watching the Boondock Saints with your brother was one thing, knowing someone with twice the training and fire power was loose in New York with your soulmate’s name at the top of his list was something else entirely. Billy wasn’t the good guy in this story, you loved him, but your brain hadn’t disintegrated that much yet. Given another opportunity, Frank Castle would end Billy’s life without pause. That wasn’t a fact easily forgotten, or forgotten at all, but knowing that even one person blamed Billy for Frank’s less than judicious behavior was terrifying.

The steering wheel squeaked under the tight flexing of his fingers. You knew him well enough to know that Billy didn’t feel responsible for their deaths, not really. He was smart enough to draw conclusions about how they ended up on Frank Castle’s hit list, but he wouldn’t lose any sleep over them either. The only thing that worried you was if Billy was looking for a reason to fight Frank one more time, this would be as good a reason as any. You reached over to touch his arm and as awkward as it was to hold onto his elbow when Billy made no moves to reciprocate or accept the touch, you left your hand where it was. Only when Job’s snout shot up from between your seats and bumped the back of his arm did Billy react, dropping his right arm to trap Job’s face between his arm and his ribs. He looked up then, meeting your eyes for the first time since getting into the car. His expression was unreadable in the dark, but you disregarded the voice in your head that told you not to push him. “You’re not going after him are you?”

Billy’s eyes drifted purposefully back to the road ahead and you expected your question to linger without ever being answered. An unspoken confirmation of your worst fears. “I’ve got other shit to do,” he answered suddenly, releasing Job’s head from its hold and sliding his arm through your hand until your fingers fell in the spaces between his. Billy tightened his hold, fingertips digging into the back of your hand, then let go completely, switching hands to steer with his right. His elbow rested by the window and he cupped his own chin, covering his mouth with his forefinger as if deep in thought.

You. You were the other shit to do. You had to be.

On the one hand, overlooking his choice of phrasing, you were encouraged. He’d planned to keep you around and knew he couldn’t be with you while successfully hunting Frank Castle. That was… nice. In a way. There was a time when Billy’s feud -if you could call it that- with the Punisher took precedence over you and the trust he placed in you. Somewhere over the last year, Billy learned of your importance to him. Of course he didn’t share this as he was discovering it, but the night he held you and forced you to look at the passports he’d secured for you both before blowing Anvil to the ground, he’d laid it out clearly. You meant something to him and without his memories, he had to be sure. Once he was sure, he was all in. Or so he said.

Which made everything else harder. How could Billy Russo be all in when he had no idea what was coming next? A few months in Europe away from the US government and the Punisher, your brain was changing, but that was nothing compared to what he’d have to deal with soon. You and your doctors had discussed end of life expectations, but how much was Billy ready to shoulder. Would he regret his choices when you couldn’t keep your eyes open anymore? When you couldn’t get to the bathroom by yourself? When your throat rattled with every labored breath? When you weren’t sure where you were or who he was? How much of your dying could Billy stand before he took Job for a walk and never came back?

You’d meant to talk to him about it back at the bar- god, could that really have been an hour ago? Hearing Libby’s heartbreak as she talked about losing your brother was too much already. How much worse would it be when the goodbye was drawn out and by the end, he was so sick of caring for you that your departure was more of a relief than a loss?

“Billy, pull over,” you demanded suddenly.

He ignored your warning, but the churning in your stomach wasn’t waiting on your soulmate.

“Billy!”

“We gotta- SHIT!” You felt the car slide over to the shoulder when you lurched forward, hand over your mouth too late as the contents of your stomach emptied through your fingers and onto the thick rubber mat between your stolen shoes. When the car finally stopped, you were quick to exit, heaving twice more before falling backwards. Your butt hit the damp grass and your body slumped into the slope of the ditch until you were flat on your back. Slow breaths pushed whatever was left back down and when you were feeling brave enough to open your eyes again, you focused on a familiar cluster of stars to keep the rest of the galaxy from spinning away. The archer was facing back the way you’d come stumbling, taunting you, daring you to rise and face Billy Russo after throwing up in his getaway car. He could wait a few more breaths. When the sticky sweet scent of alcohol soaked soil wafted up into your nose, you frowned, wiped your wet hand in the grass, and stood, not really ready to face him, but unwilling to lie out in the cold smelling your own sick any longer.

Billy was watching you, one arm bent over the hood while he stood between the door and the driver’s seat. He didn’t strike you as the hold your hair back guy, but seeing him out of the car at all was a surprise. Your embarrassed shuffle back toward the vehicle was met with silence, only the thud of the door closing behind you and the click of your seatbelt broke it. Billy pulled himself back in once you were situated and in a matter of seconds, you were rolling again. The puddle by your feet was even worse than the wet ground you’d left in the ditch and Billy didn’t hesitate to roll every window down. The wind whipping through the front seat did little to cover his scoffing.

“Smells like death.”

“Get used to it,” you murmured back and waited for Billy to reply with something smart. The rebuttal never came, but he sat straight up after it, left fist clenched against his thigh while his right hand kept the car steady. He heard and you knew you’d need to talk to him again, seriously, but the adrenaline was well and truly worn off and the sickness wasn’t exactly invigorating. What a mess. You briefly imagined what Kathleen would say about it all before remembering that your phone was safely tucked into your purse, dropped at Libby’s feet in the middle of the night’s chaos and with it… shit.

“The address,” you said quietly. Billy’s eyes flitted up to the rearview, without responding. “The address you gave me, we can’t go there. Libby has it.”

“I put it in your bra,” Billy stated, already sounding frustrated.

“I put it in my purse so I wouldn’t lose it and…” you gestured vaguely. You honestly couldn’t remember the last time you were holding it. Maybe when Billy bumped into you on the street? Once the fight broke out, your attention was not on your belongings.

Billy took a deep breath through his nose, shaking his head as he dug his own burner out of his back pocket. He nodded to the backseat, “gimme that blue pouch back there.” You turned onto your left hip and opened the duffle he always had with him. Along the front side of the bag, you felt a leathery pouch.

“With the zipper?” Billy hummed and you pulled it out for him. Job whined quietly from the backseat, clearly not pleased that you were rummaging around in his space without even petting him. While Billy had the pouch between his legs, looking for something, you stayed turned toward Job, reaching out to run one of his ears between your fingers. He relaxed again, laying across the bench seat, so you rested the side of your head against your seat to watch him sleep and within seconds, you too were out cold.

Before you knew it, your eyes were flying open at the gentle vibration of the trunk slamming shut behind you. Looking around, it was impossible to tell how long you’d been out. The sky was just as black as it was before, but nothing outside the windows looked familiar and you were definitely in the car alone.

Billy was loading his bags and yours into a gray pick up that was so comically large you weren’t sure his long legs could pull him into the cab, let alone yours. You could make out at least two more men from their silhouettes, black against the glare of the truck’s headlights, exchanging words and something else with Billy before he turned back toward you. Unsure what was happening or who the men were, you waited in your seat for Billy to retrieve you, which soon enough he did. You hadn’t even noticed his jacket draped over your front until he slid it off your chest, placing it back around your shoulders once you were out of the car and standing with him. He didn’t touch you much, didn’t even wait for you before starting his march back toward the truck. You followed awkwardly, dodging the uncomfortable stares from the men he’d just been talking to and helped yourself into the passenger seat with about as much difficulty as you were expecting, especially in a short dress that still had tiny, but pungent vomit splatters on it and needed to be burned. It was probably a faux pas to wear the dress you wore to your own funeral anywhere else and you weren’t worried about missing it. Billy spoke with the men once more, pointing to the car that had gotten you here. The men weren’t interested in the car, stealing glances through the windshield at you. One had the audacity to wink before rolling his neck to smirk at Billy. You watched your soulmate’s face lift in one of his signature snarls before taking a total 180 into a similar sadistic sort of smile. He tilted his head toward the windshield, not even really looking at you before turning back and saying something that made the men roar in laughter. Through the thick glass and over the loud engine, you could hear their response and you were thankful you couldn’t hear what he’d said to be so entertaining. Instead of watching them through the windshield, you turned a bit to look in the backseat. Job was stretched comfortably across the bench, his big block head supported by Billy’s duffel bag, which left his snout right in between your seat and the driver’s. You scratched his head, amazed that the dog seemed to be adapting to this on the run business much easier than you were. He trusted you and he trusted Billy. The details weren’t anything for Job to be concerned with, so he nodded off again without trouble. You could stand to learn a thing or two from the mutt.

By the time Billy was back in the driver’s seat next to you, you had surpassed uncomfortable and settled well into ‘about to throw up’ territory again. The way the mean leered at you was chilling, but the way Billy let them, almost encouraging them, was ultimately what made your insides crawl. His head hit the seat behind him with a thud and he waited until the men, driving the first car away, were completely out of sight, not even the faint red spot of tail lights on the black highway ahead of you.

You had questions. Loads. Who were those men? Where were they going? Whose truck were you in? Where were YOU going? What did Billy say to make them laugh? Were you in danger? Was this always the plan or was Billy really so resourceful to pull off this swap all while you slept next to him?

And yet, none of them came out.

“Billy…” his head lulled to the side, looking at you dutifully without moving any other part of his body. “We need to talk.”

Billy’s huff was clearly annoyed and he straightened immediately, reaching for the gear shift and ignoring you.

“Billy-“

“They were guys from Anvil,” okay one answer. “They’re going ahead to set up a place for us in Buffalo. It’ll take a couple of days, but they got connections to get us across the border. Anything else you need to know?” His stare was hard. Impatient.

You swallowed and nodded. His nostrils flared but he didn’t say anything, so you continued. “Can we trust them?”

Of all things. That made Billy Russo smile. He licked his lips before answering. “Not at all,” he said, finally shifting into drive. “That’s why we aren’t going to Buffalo.”

The relief you felt at his words was enough to put you right back to sleep, but suddenly you felt wide awake. You even sat up a little straighter, turning a bit in your seat to look at Billy easier. The truck was pointed West, the ugliness of the night left back in Philly. Your poor friends would be left to pick up the pieces of the evening and you suddenly remembered why you’d run off on a grand adventure in the first place. Dying just left so much trouble for the ones left… which reminded you....

“Billy, we still need to talk.”

“I didn’t tell them who you were,” he assured you, derailing your thoughts entirely.

“Who did they think I was?” You asked.

Billy shrugged. “A hooker.”

“And that was believable??” Billy’s annoying smirk said it all, but he took a moment to look you up and down, lifting his eyebrows once his eyes made it back up to yours. “Ugh,” you whined. “Don’t answer that.” You tugged the hem of your dress down over your thighs as far as it would go. You were still in his jacket, a little black dress that stunk of sweat and booze and vomit, boots that didn’t belong to you. You hadn’t had a good look at your hair or makeup since before Billy fucked you in an office and there was no way your makeup had survived an evening of drinking, dancing, Billy’s rough kisses, manslaughter, and throwing up on the side of the road. The little pull down mirror above your head wasn’t even tempting at this point and Billy’s smug chuckle next to you was bad enough. You shrunk down, wedging yourself firmly between the back of your seat and the door, and Billy glanced over barely containing his amusement.

“Aw, c’mon baby, don’t be like that,” he teased in that thick accent of his and you glared at him from your little corner, pulling his jacket tighter with your crossed arms. He reached out across the console between you and unfortunately you had nowhere to go. His fingers wrapped around your shoulder and he barely had to tug before you were shifting in your seat to lean closer to him. Billy dipped his hand into the back of his jacket, rubbing your neck as you leaned further in. At his gentle kneading and pulling, you finally relented and let your head fall into his shoulder. It was an uncomfortable angle with the wide center piece between you, but totally worth it when you felt Billy’s lips brush your forehead. “You smell like a 4, but I know you taste like a 8.”

“I’m a 10,” you argued and he laughed above you. His arm was all the way behind your neck now, holding you against him as he maneuvered the giant vehicle with his left hand.

“Mmm,” he hummed. “I dunno about that. How bout we find you a shower and some toothpaste, then I can have another taste, just to be sure.”

You shook your head in complete disbelief. How dizzyingly quick could he switch from hardened criminal on the run to this flirt. Too fast. Hard day behind you and hard conversations ahead, but both forgotten for the time being. The ride was quiet and you were bound to fall back asleep before too long, Job’s snoring behind your head as comforting as Billy’s long fingers rubbing your scalp. Just before consciousness evaded again, you felt Billy turn his face into your hair, mumbling something too low to be understood.You hummed a bit to question it, but were out before hearing him repeat it.

YEAH WE KNOW BILLY. ITS ONLY MOSTLY YOUR FAULT.

Idk how y'all still put up with me and this story. Its too long. You can say it.

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#billy russo x reader #billy russo x you #jigsaw!billy #jigsaw!billy x reader #billy russo fanfiction #ben barnes character #ben barnes character fic #Job is a good boy #that's actually all that matters here

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