#but I need to trust Daniel got his confidence back after today

[rickybaby]

Hard on de Vries, hard for Ricciardo

[nerdieforpedro]

Part Five of “The Lake Between Us”

Closing the Distance

Ezra AU x Seraphina (plus size OFC)

This fic is for those 18+ MDNI

Word Count: about 1.2k

Warnings: Ezra is a warning, alcohol use, food mention (I finally got him to cook!), tension of various kinds 👀

Summary: Ezra and Seraphina have agreed to dinner. He cooks, she serves the liquor.

Notes: More interaction with these two and I’m getting more used to writing Ezra’s speech pattern as I understand it. 🥸 Might be a time skip

Main Masterlist / Ezra Masterlist/ The Lake Between Us Series

Ezra was two minutes early. He’d made his shrimp gumbo, the fragrance of the spices seeped out from under the top that jiggled when he walked up her stairs. Seraphina insisted that he come in through the front.

“Guests come in through the front door. Those you want to hide enter in the back.” She told him as they planned for the evening.

Ezra retorted, “Even if I were to enter from the rear my dear Sundrop, my presence would be known no matter my status. I don’t mind if you feel the need to hide me, as long as I am allowed in.” He’d left her with that line after they made plans to have dinner that night.

His wore a pair of black slacks with a white t-shirt, it hugged his biceps and chest, with a v-neck that dipped and exposed his collarbone. It glistened with the humidity almost as brightly as the smile he had when he stood on her front porch, a bottle of Jack Daniels was under his arm. The nurse opened the door, took the bottle and stepped back to allow him in. Her guest was right on time, a good thing as she’d just taken the biscuits out of the oven and buttered them.

Ezra removed his black shoes and followed her into the kitchen, the smell of the bread dancing on his nose, more powerful than that, was whatever perfume or oil that his Sundrop was wearing. It smelled the same as when he met her in person earlier today. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail this time, not in a tight bun. It lightly swayed along with her hips as she walked, her left shoulder had a mole that he noted, no tattoos that he saw. The dress she wore was bright, a royal blue draped across her curves. She might say too generous and too chunky, Ezra felt they were just fine, more for him to hold and explore - when the time was right.

Setting his pot on the stove, she asked if he wanted a plate or a bowel for his gumbo. He chuckled and told her bowel of course. Full lips formed a smile as she shook her head, the muted red on her lips drew his eyes to them.

The pair sat down to eat, starting with the basics, last names, birthdays, and favorite liquor. Neither of them mentioned why they ended up on their respective spots across the lake yet. The conversation then shifted to family, Sera described her parents and brothers. Ezra was estranged from his and wasn’t sure if he was alive or not. They were never close. His charge Cee or his ‘Birdie’ is his family now. He expressed that he wasn’t never sure he would ever feel truly proud in life but he did with her. His eyes that had twinkles of lust changed to excitement in regaling Seraphina with her accomplishments.

Watching him become so animated where he’s been relaxed was a treat to see so the nurse enjoyed. He spoke a bit about his airboat captain and touring before inquiring as to what she did. She left it as being a medical- surgical nurse in a hospital. He could he feelings were mixed, but he didn’t press. It was still too early. Instead it switched to relationships which neither of them were in.

“Ezra, I don’t know if I should trust a man who can cook so well.” Sera sighs after finishing a second helping of the shrimp gumbo. She shouldn’t haven’t eaten so much but it was delicious along with the lemonade she made.

Ezra swallowed the last spoons of his second bowel and sat back, full of confidence, “It would be wise to be wary but you can enjoy the food you have now. You might find you want another taste later Sundrop.” He picked up a biscuit and split it open, drizzling honey on it and biting into it, licking the sticky substance off his lip. “I find myself with an ache to sample a vision I’ve often seen. I wager it would hands down beat that flavor of this honey.” A drop had stuck to his finger so he sucked it off, audibly.

Seraphina knew it was a dangerous game inviting a man like Ezra into her home. It had been a bad idea to keep watching him from her porch but she still did that as well. She had remained curious about him, the familiarity of his hunted look. She went to wash dishes which Ezra soundly told her “No Seraphina I’ll take care of them.” He’d been calling her different nicknames during the evening and it was their first time since the afternoon he’s said her name, she thanked him and grabbed two glasses with the liquor gifted by her guest and headed to her back porch where he joined moments later.

“Join me on the porch since you like to be licking your fingers like that. Acting like you’re a savory nightcap you rascal.” Her chuckle as they plopped down on the whicker bench led the airboat captain to speak after he observed the sky, the sun had long dipped beneath the horizon and small stars dotted the darkening canvas above them.

“We’ve been each other’s nightcap for six weeks Moonbeam. I don’t foresee that changing in the immediate future. Our distance has decreased.” Sipping on his first glass of the night, his arm extended along the back of the bench, not touching Sera’s shoulders but close enough where she could sense his heat.

“It has. I am eager to know why you’re up in the late hours like I am,” her inquiry began, “since you’ve warned me to be wary.” The slow gulp from her liquor had Ezra contemplate how much to say if anything at all, even where to start.

“That I did Moonbeam. You should be cautious of my motives, but I can start at the beginning of my troubles for you if you like.” He placed his hand on hers, running up her arm to her shoulder and drew a small circle around her mole. “Be forewarned, the past is neither rosy nor glamorous. It is fraught with hardship, double-crosses and some death.”

Moonbeam grinned, nodding as he spoke, “Sounds like a thriller Ezra. I’m all ears. Add a dash of romance and some mistaken identity and you have yourself a movie marathon.”

“I’m sure you’d be riveted to hear it.”

“That I would.” Moonbeam crosses her legs and leans forward, touching his chin with a finger, “Speak.”

The night continued into the daylight as they sat exchanging stories, laughing as they drank. Eventually they parted, with Ezra heading back to his home as they waved at each other from the respective screen doors. This time, there was a definite promise to meet again and they would in a few days. This time his house would be open to Seraphina and he’d welcome her with warm food, open arms and more laughter.

These nights turned into days over the subsequent weeks with greater frequency as Ezra and Seraphina spent more time together.

Part Four Part Six

Interlude One

Taste-testers of Ezra’s gumbo 🍤: @rav3n-pascal22 @maggiemayhemnj @morallyinept @survivingandenduring @bonezone44 @magpiepillsjunior @yorksgirl @gemmahale @missredherring @missladym1981 @alltheglitterandtheroar @megamindsecretlair @readingiskeepingmegoing @pedroshotwifey @tinytinymenace @inept-the-magnificent @vivian-pascal @jessthebaker

[charlewiss-writes]

what matters / daniel ricciardo

masterlist

day 10: weight (part of one-word november prompts!)

pairing: daniel ricciardo x reader

word count: 0.7k

warnings: mention of a dead parent.

summary: the season has been too tough on your boyfriend. you decide to take him on a roadtrip.

inspired lightly by

"what's on your mind today, love?"

since arriving at your house ahead of the austin gp, dan had been weird. in fact, weird would've been an understatement: he seemed to be on a completely different place, like even if he was there physically, his mind was somewhere else. you could almost see how his wheels where turning inside his head from where you were, cuddled into his chest as you two layed on the couch watching some movie that you weren't truly paying attention to.

"next year, baby." you felt how his jaw tensed, so you redirected your hands that where previously massaging his hair, to his jawline, trying to ease some tension. he continued short after. "I think it'll be best to take a sabbatical. it all got so heavy lately, I'm not enjoying it like I used to. I honestly think I can't take it anymore". he looked broken, and whats worse is that you didn't know how to truly help him. even though you knew eachother for some time now, dan had always this bubbly personality that made it seem like he was always alright. so now, seeing him look so hopeless, you didn't know what he truly needed from you: if he wanted someone to be by his side when things went sour, or if he preferred to get some space. so you went by what your gut was telling you to do.

"can I take some weight?" you whispered, almost inaudibly. he had heard you, but didn't understand your question at first until you clarified what you meant. "if it's heavy, love, can I take some weight?". he smiled at your suggestion, and nodded his head, his body relaxing from below yours. after a few seconds, you added "do you trust me?"

"of course, baby".

—

so you woke him up at 5 am sharp. he had fallen asleep a few hours before, but you couldn't truly fall asleep as your thoughts were racing. what can I do to make him forget about all of this, at least for a day?

then, you thought about what you did when things got too much back when you were young. since your mother's death when you were little, your dad had always been there to recognize your signals when it was all getting a bit too heavy: how you closed off suddenly, how you didn't focus too much in school, how your weren't truly there with him, even when your body was in the same room. he used to take you on long trips across the country, seeing new places you haven't seen before. he thought that connecting again with nature was the key to bringing you back to the version of yourself that didn't hide inside herself. so you thought that, maybe, that's what dan needed: a little trip to clear his mind.

"what time is it, baby?" he asked groggily, still with his eyes closed while patting the side of the bed where you were supposed to be. instead, you were too busy moving across the whole room, getting both his things and yours ready for the trip. "early. I want to go on a trip, love, let's go".

so that's how your day went.

you two, in the car, for hours. sometimes in silence, enjoying eachothers presence, sometimes singing to songs together, out of tune but laughing about it. stopping at the side of the road to enjoy the view, taking pictures of things dan found interesting with his new hobbie: his camera, a gift from lando.

after a while, with his camera roll full of pictures, new memories created and hearts growing twice its size, you two came back home after a day filled with anything that didn't include racing and the overwhelming thought of what the future might hold.

at last, you two where back where it all started: on the couch, enjoying some cuddles and watching mindlessly a film. after a few minutes just sharing gentle touches and snuggles, your boyfriend softly whispered "thank you for today. it reminded me that i still have other things to look forward to, a life, outside of f1. I'm not just a racing driver. I'm also a son, a brother, a boyfriend, now a photographer" he laughed at the last one, trying to joke a bit to lighten up the mood, to avoid getting too into it.

"I still need to enjoy and live my life. thanks for taking off some of the weight, for reminding me of what matters, baby."

you smiled at that, and lifted your head from his chest to look at him, fully. "I'm always here, dan. don't doubt it for a second".

[simslegacy5083]

Not So Berry (Straud Descendants) Gen 9

Today's (8/13/2024) Episode: Making The Pitch

When Luigi put his mind to something it usually wasn’t long before he’d achieved his goal, and his proposal for Noemi’s boss was no exception.

Working late into the night he outlined his idea for a new life sim. He’d played Sims Forever since he was young and had been programming mods to enhance his gameplay almost as long. The popularity of those mods made him confident that he understood what would appeal to other gamers.

Noemi had been right that Luigi’s name being attached to the project would get her bosses attention.

Her supervisor had looked skeptical when she’d dropped a proposal from her fiancée off that morning, but by lunchtime Patricia caught her in the breakroom with quite a different attitude. “I looked into your boy’s plan.” She said, wolfing down a quick sandwich between meetings.

“A respected Sims Forever modder with a couple other claims to fame developing a competitor to the classic game?” She rapped her knuckles on the table for emphasis and pointed. “Get him here ASAP for a meeting with me and Daniel from investment! I’m positive the community will eat this up.”

A couple days later Luigi found himself in the conference room of Rainy Day’s downtown headquarters. He and Noemi worked for different branches of the same parent company, and he’d met her boss a couple times in passing, but the investment guy was new to him.

Used to public performances he was at ease, smiling brightly as he shook hands and settled down across from the other two sims.

“So…” Patrica began “I read your proposal and I’m intrigued. I want to hear more about what you think you can bring to the table to set your game apart from Sims Forever. We’ll want to attract its audience and bring in new players – how do you intend to do that”?

As he’d gotten older Luigi had learned how to use his cheerful nature to his advantage. To that end he didn’t attempt to hide his enthusiasm, letting his excitement shine through and captivating his audience as he launched into an explanation.

"Sims Forever has been my favorite videogame for as long as I can remember. I love it, but I’m also very aware of what it lacks, the things I got into modding to fix. I want to develop a game that has options for more control, and more chaos. One with randomly generated NPCs that didn’t dress themselves in the dark, who have skills and backstories to match their traits and preferences.” 

Luigi paused to take a breath, but before he could continue Daniel held up a hand to stop him. "I've heard enough. Your project writeup outlined this quite nicely. It’s clear you have the passion to execute your vision; and I’ll be counting on Noemi here to manage the team needed to back you up."

Luigi gave Daniel a sincerely thankful smile as they discussed the contractual details, but Patricia didn’t let him escape on a high note.

"Before you go, there is one issue we need to talk about. You got yourself into quite the pickle the other night with that little mouse fiasco. I trust the PR department is helping you clean up that mess?“ She looked at him expectantly as he did his best to suppress a flash of irritation and shame. 

"Of course," he lied "they're all over it.“ In reality, the “damage control” team were all over him to address it publicly, but he’d been stonewalling them. He’d hoped the whole thing would just blow over in time without requiring him to take an active and risky role in repairing his reputation.

 As he and Noemi walked out to grab lunch, Luigi’s excitement at his win was dampened by worrying about what he was going to say to the team’s publicist later that evening. It looked like he was going to need to cooperate with them after all.

View The Full Story of My Not So Berry Challenge Here

[fandomfiish]

I am too much in Herald, Daniel Sullivan and Fallen Hero brain rot right now, so here ya go folks. My OC x Herald shenanigans

"It has always been black and white out there, if you're a villain you're evil, and good if you're a hero. That's what it's always been."

Daniel looked below the busy streets of the place he now calls home. Los Diabolos, the only place he could go after taking the hero serum and moving away from his parents after what happened with his brother, the place where he'll get a new start and get a name for himself by saving people, and the place where his hero Sidestep resides.

No … not Sidestep, he goes by Von now.

An hour ago, Wei dismissed Daniel and told him to go rest and be ready for tomorrow. Daniel took the command with no question as he felt both physically and mentally tired. Today was a shitty day there was no sugarcoating from the normally positive Ranger. With a nod from Wei, he leaves the building and flew up to the rooftop entrance of his own abode.

He really needed rest, he can feel it in his bones, maybe a drink or two as well but as he enters his room before he could do anything of what he was planning his thoughts stop when he sees it. The lone folded sweater that Von left the night he slept here, Daniel was supposed to give it back to him today before he got the text of Ortega being in an accident. And then everything else about Von comes to focus on Daniel's mind, the way their skins have touched as they made love, the way Von told him that he loved him, and the room started to feel suffocating as he could swear he could still smell him, this was supposed to be his place to rest, to feel safe and yet his bedroom reeks of Von and he needed to get away, Daniel didn't even notice he was already hovering until he made the move himself to get as far away from his own room. Flying from his rooftop entrance to god knows where just somewhere where he can breathe and think. He needs to rest, he needs to stop thinking about what happened today, and he needs to stop thinking of Von.

But that's the problem because Daniel never stopped thinking about Von.

It all started when Von agreed to start training with him, sure he was already attracted to Von at that time but his intention was always wanting him to help him train in combat, he knew he needed it, and he couldn't make the same mistake again, and Von might be his best bet in helping him get the upper hand against K.

But during their training, Daniel never went intentionally hurt Von despite the other not pulling any punches, he just thinks that Von has already been hurt so much before, so much so that the secrecy behind whatever happened during Heartbreak is well kept to themselves by the three remaining people who were involved fateful day. Daniel tried to respect their want to keep it to themselves but he can't help it, a part of him wants to help Von, he doesn't know how but he just wants to help. And seeing Von look so tired and hurt, and fight like he can't afford to lose makes him hope that one day Von will trust him enough to confide in him.

Maybe it was his want to care for Von that urged him to ask Von to have coffee with him, but he knew it was more than that, at that point he already liked Von, and he was ecstatic when Von accepts the invitation and flirts back with him. He felt like a high schooler asking his crush again, and he couldn't deny how handsome Von was when he actually smiles.

Then it was the night of their date, and Von dressed for the occasion and it stirred something inside him, Von looked at him with the smile he's grown to love, although he looked quite troubled and more tired than usual. The night went as smoothly as Daniel could get when it comes to Von, what he didn't expect was taking him home back to his own place, nor the fact that Von will confide to him that he was a Re-gene, it was a surprise but the fact that Von trusted him enough to tell him was telling to him how much Von felt for him, he hated how Von talked about himself like he's something that can be thrown away after he's been used, it caused rage inside him to those who made Von think like that, but he cast those feelings away to tell Von how much human he is then he thinks, and maybe his speech was more grandiose than he though from the way Von looked at him in awe, and when his lips met Daniel's, he thinks he said the right words. The kiss was perfect, Von was perfect and everything about him is perfect, and as they make love that night he made sure that Von knew that to him he was perfect his heart swell when Von told him how much he loved him, and Daniel told him how he loves him back, and as they lay there together under his sheets, tired but satisfied Daniel was ecstatic with how things are going and he was looking forward to his future with Von.

Then the message from his phone arrives as he folds the sweater that Von left on his house, telling him that Ortega was injured.

And that Von is K.

And Daniel's life starts to fall apart.

K, the villain who decides to show up uninvited, decides to cause mayhem and steal from the museum, the same K who he fought and lost to, the reason he was in rehab, the same K who gave him nightmares as he tries to forget how he completely lost to him, the same K he was afraid of because he knew where to hit on their weaknesses. Daniel quickly flew to the headquarters, hoping this is just some kind of sick joke but it isn't, Von was there talking to Ortega and everything hit all at once.

He felt angry, betrayed, and most of all hurt. How can Von do this to him? To them? Daniel couldn't help but feel like he's been played, the person who was training him was the person he wanted to defeat, the person he talked to every day was the person he fucking feared, and the person he fell in love was the villain was supposed to fall apart. Was everything they had a lie? Just a way for Von to get info about them? Was he just a pawn in his plans? Was anything they had even real?

He should hate Von, he really should.

He can't.

That night was far too real for it to be fake, that night was when he saw Von fully, that Von was the one that told him he loved him, and Daniel loves him back.

It shows when he all but ran to Von's room when he saw what Angie was about to do, and he felt his blood boil when he arrived too late when the all too familiar smell permeates the room. He tells Angie to leave, he'll talk to her later but for now…

"Don't move," Daniel says as he tries not to meet Von's eyes which is almost impossible with the wound being just under it.

"Danny-"

"No." Daniel cuts him off, trying to calm his heart from Von's nickname of him. "Don't talk, please." Von listens … and as Daniel does what he can tending to what Angie did Von looked at him, and as much as Von would say he's an open book Daniel has gotten a better read on him too. There was a look of regret, of fear, and lo- He quickly moves back when the thought arrives in his head, seeing as he's done what he can he decides moves to leave, not wanting to stay there.

But when Von held his arms and called out for him, he stopped. "Please Danny we need to talk." Von's voice was desperate as he looks at him, he knew that look, it was the same look that Von did when he told him he was a re-gene, and he tries his damnest not to just rush onto Von's side and hug him, not this time. He needed to let out his frustrations, and if Von wanted to talk, then they'll talk.

"What's more to talk about, you used me, manipulated me and you think I'll listen to what you'll say?" Daniel begins. "I was scared of you, I had to go to rehab because of you, you knew all of this, you know how much you had hurt me and yet you still went on to train me, for what to know how to fight back when we inevitably fight again? Or were you just using that so you could gossip about the happenings with the Rangers?"

"I trained you because I genuinely wanted to help you, Danny."

"I needed training because of you."

"I had no choice, Danny!" Von raised his voice and Daniel couldn't but feel frustrated.

"You always have a choice, Von."

"I need to do this!" Von all but shouts, as tears fell from his eyes as his hands move to hug himself. "I don't want to go back there."

The Farm, Daniel guesses. He heard it from Von himself, and he knew how much that place has caused Von to be like this, and the logical side of himself reminds him of the pain Von has dealt him but he cared too much for Von

"You should've just let Argent kill me, at least I'll die by my choice," Von spoke, so silent and yet so loud in the room their in.

"No." Von looks up to stare at Daniel, who looked at him. "I'm not gonna let you do that."

"Why? I'm not even huma-"

"You are, you are more human than you ever think you were," Herald said as he finally lets go as he moved his hands to wipe some of the tears on Von's face.

"You told me that."

Daniel finally looks at Von. "Do you believe me?"

A beat. "I'm starting to."

Daniel smiles for the first time they've seen each other. "Good."

Daniel removes his hands from Von's face before standing up straight. "I need to go call the nurse to make sure that what Angie did to you gets fixed alright?" He spoke as he starts to move towards the door.

"Danny it's dangerous for me to stay here," Von speaks right before his hands reach the doorknob.

Danny doesn't turn but stops to answer. "We'll handle them when they arrive."

"Listen to me Danny they won't care if you can handle them, I'm their property. They can do whatever they want with you guys and would just chalk it up as an unfortunate accident that caused your deaths, I don't want them to hurt you." Von was begging, but Daniel knew it was not his call to make but Chen's.

"It's Chen's call." He says, and he could feel the other deflating behind his back.

He takes the silence as the end of their discussion, but Daniel had one more question.

"Was it real?" He asks the question that was burning in his mind, turning his head to look at Von who looked at him in confusion. "Us, you loving me, that night, was all of that real?"

Von looked at him, and they stared at each other as Daniel watches Von's eyes soften. "It's real, all of it is."

Danny tries to calm how his heart soars at hearing it, he knows Von's mean it but he wants to make sure. "Why should I believe you?" "Because," Von begins as he takes a breath. "You got to know me when I was already a mess, unlike Ortega or Chen we don't have any past baggage to move past on." He looks at Daniel to see if he's listening, Daniel only nods, motioning him to continue. "You're a breath of fresh air, you're the only person who made me feel like I was someone, not something. You feel like the sun, it was warm and bright, and if I stay too long I might burn but the burn was worth it if it mean feeling your warmth." Von stops, and he sees Daniel staring at him agape. "You mean that?" Daniel asks. "I do," Von said, resolute. And Daniel all but grins, the usual smile he gives him when he meets him at the Ranger headquarters. "That's all I wanted to hear." he finally opens the door. "I'll see what I can do, but it's Chen's final order." He sees Von nod and he finally closes the door. Once he was out of the room he felt overwhelming emotions, the hurt and betrayal are still there, he knows it'll take time for that to be mended. But he also felt happiness, that somehow despite everything what they had was real, and if Daniel was being honest, or perhaps crazy, he was happy. But for now, he needs to look for Angie, they need to talk. Daniel takes a deep breath, he is now back in the skies. He's done reminiscing about what happened the whole day between him and Von. And what he's about to do next. It's stupid, probably the craziest idea ever in his life. Even crazier than him taking the hero pill with his brother. But he's been thinking about it for hours, and he's resolute about it. He grabs his phone as he slowly descends until he was sure he had service and pressed the number he memorized. It rang only once before the other picks up. "I told you to rest Daniel." "Chen I-" Daniel starts but finds himself not knowing what to say. Shit, I should've practiced what I wanted to say huh? He thought as he hears Chen sigh from the other line clearing his thoughts. "I'm giving you 30 minutes." Huh? Did he hear him correctly? "What?" Daniel couldn't help but ask. "I know why you called me," Chen said. "If you're going on with this you need to be quick and careful, Ortega's gonna take care of Angie, and I'm gonna make sure no one knows you're leaving." Daniel couldn't believe what he was hearing, Marshal Steel is helping him break out a villain. Though he would guess this is a very special exception, he couldn't help but ask. "Why help me?" The line went silent for a couple of seconds before Chen speaks, and Daniel might be hearing things but it sounded soft. "You're not the only one who cares about Von." Daniel smiles. "Does he know?" "No, he doesn't," Chen replies. "I thought you might like being the one to tell him." "I do," Daniel replies and he was already flying back to the headquarters, give or take within five minutes. "Thanks, Chen." "Don't thank me yet." Chen's voice was back to being the Marshal now. "I can see you approaching, remember thirty minutes, taking him to your apartment would be safer since he's been there right?" Daniel nods. "Good, you both take care. We'll try to visit later the day." "Yes Sir," Daniel replies before flying faster now ending the call with Chen and focusing on the task at hand, on the way to get Von out. He arrives two minutes later, and the place is deserted like Chen said. And he sees the door to Von's room.

He doesn't knock, and knowing that the emitters are closed then Von definitely knows it's him. And once he enters he was right, Von was already looking at him scared but also confused. "What's happening?" He asks. "I'm getting you out of here." Daniel tries to hide the grin when he sees Von look at him incredulously. "How?" "Chen and Ortega helped," Daniel replies and he could see how Von's expressions soften at the mention of the two. "They care about you too, I care about you. So don't you forget that." Daniel said and Von all but nodded, awestruck but maybe starting to believe the words that Daniel just said.

"Where are we going?" Von asks instead.

"My place," Daniel replies and Von nods. "Alright, but I just want to make sure you're okay with this. Are you sure about this?" Von asked, and as much as Daniel is committed to this, there's still a part of him that bitter and hurt, but it'll heal. "I am sure."

"Alright, then Romeo."

"Romeo?"

"Just sounded fitting."

Daniel smiles while making sure that everything has been removed so he can properly carry Von. "Wouldn't it be Sleeping Beauty instead?"

"Are you making fun of my caffeine addiction again?"

Daniel laughs. "I would never." Everything is prepared. Von looks at him with uncertainty about what will happen, but the way his hold was tight means he trusts him.

"You ready?" He asks Von before they take off.

"As I'll ever be," Von says and takes that answer and flies off the building through the window.

True to Chen's words no one saw them, and the two find themselves back in Daniel's place after ten minutes. With Von already resting on Herald's bed.

"This is…" Von trails off as he sees the neatly folded jacket. "I was gonna return it to you today," Daniel confesses, and Von nods before he looks at Daniel.

"Take it, Danny, it's yours now." Daniel's eyes widen before he smiles.

"Why?" He couldn't help but ask.

"I …" Von starts. "I want to make it up to you."

"Thank you." Is all Daniel replies, before moving to the door to let Von rest, taking the sweater with him.

"Wait, Danny." He stops and looks at Von. "Can you stay? I don't wanna sleep alone." Von looks small lying there on Daniel's bed and he couldn't but nod.

"I'll stay, I'll just do something first then join you." He said as he opens the door. "For now rest alright? I'll be back."

"I love you." Von suddenly says, soft and quiet, and if Daniel wasn't listening clearly he would've missed it, Von looks surprised himself when he said it, before looking sheepish.

Daniel smiles. "I love you too." He said and then closes the door.

[jdgo51]

What’s the Best Christmas Gift for Your Kids?

Today's inspiration comes from:

Praying the Scriptures for Your Children

by Jodie Berndt

"'Good question.

I’ve tried everything, from ridiculously expensive “must-have” toys like My Size Barbie (a gift that was abandoned as soon as our four-year-old stole all her clothes) to a posture brace for our teenagers that was not, as the advertisement optimistically proclaimed, “virtually invisible” under your clothing.

Praying the Scriptures for Your Children Looking back on our family’s growing up years, I can’t help but think that a lot of my Christmas mistakes could have been avoided had I stuck with my grandmother's gift-giving strategy. Gammy never gave us anything, at least nothing you could wrap. Instead, she asked her grandkids to memorize a Bible verse for her every year and, in return, she promised to pray for us.

I will admit that, as a teenager, I was less-than-enthused by my grandmother’s scheme. I don't know how I ever memorized any verses, given that my eyes were rolled so far back into my head. Today, though, many of these nuggets are still locked in, and in terms of things like wisdom, joy, and peace I can promise you this: The Bible verses have been a far better — and infinitely more comfortable — support system than even the most discreet posture brace.

I will never know the full impact of Gammy’s prayers, but I am confident that her gift to her grandchildren protected us from all manner of evil we likely deserved — and opened the door to immeasurable blessings we didn’t. And now that I’ve got grandkids of my own, I can’t think of anything I’d rather give them than prayer — the same gift I (finally) learned to give to my children.

So what does it look like, in practical terms, to “give the gift of prayer”?

Every December, I spend some time thinking about each of our kids and grandkids. I consider where they are (spiritually, as well as socially, physically, emotionally, and in other ways), and I ask God to clue me in as to what He might want to do in their lives. And then, because I love the power that comes with praying the scriptures, I go poking around in the Bible. When I find a verse that seems to speak to a child’s particular situation or need, I pick that as an “annual prayer,” personalizing it with his or her name.

Here are a handful of the prayers I’ve relied on over the years:

For a child’s academic or career success: May _______ show aptitude for every kind of learning, be well informed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve. (Daniel 1:4) For a child who needs wisdom and guidance: Instruct and teach _______ in the way they should go. (Psalm 32:8) For a child who wants friends: Surround _______ with good friends who are kind and compassionate, and quick to forgive. (Ephesians 4:32) For a child to live out their faith in a winsome way: May _______ be wise, shining like the brightness of the heavens and leading many to righteousness. (Daniel 12:3)

When our children were little, I’d trace their hands on a piece of colored cardstock and write out the verse, along with the date. I’d cut out the hand, laminate it, and stick it on the refrigerator, where they’d serve as a visible reminder to me (and to my kids) that God was at work.

Hand Romans 12:10 After a while, when the kids’ hands got so big that they were more creepy than cute on the fridge, I began making bookmarks with the verses instead. And after doing this now for more than twenty years, here is what I’ve discovered.

I’ve discovered that when you commit to spending a whole year praying about one particular thing, you learn to wait well, trusting God even when you can’t see what He is doing. You give Him time to work. And you get out of the way so that He can weave in answers and blessings that you had not even thought to pray for, or that your children needed.

For instance, one year I chose Isaiah 62:2-4 as a prayer verse for our daughter, Hillary. “You will be called by a new name,” this passage says. “No longer will they call you Deserted or name your land Desolate... the Lord will take delight in you and your land will be married.” Hillary was facing some uncertainty in her job at the time, and I wanted her to know that God delighted in her. I wanted God to give her a new name — a new “sense of identity” — and let her know how much she was loved.

God did that, all right. He filled my girl with purpose and joy. He gave her favor at work. And he introduced a young man into the picture — one who became her fiancé that year and then literally gave her his name. Marriage was not even on my radar when I picked that prayer verse — but it was on God’s!

Truth be told, I love gifts you can wrap and tuck under the tree (and if nothing else, the posture brace made every other gift shine by comparison). But as I think about the varied ways we can shower our children with love, I’m increasingly convinced that prayer is the best gift of all. It’s a gift that lasts. It’s one that comes with the power to influence and shape lives. And it brings peace and joy to the giver, knowing that when we come before our heavenly Father on behalf of our children, He can be trusted to accomplish good things in their lives."'

Jodie Berndt Written for Devotionals Daily by Jodie Berndt, author of Praying the Scriptures for Your Children (20th Anniversary Edition), Praying the Scriptures for Your Teens, and Praying the Scriptures for Your Adult Children.

[expansionofsoul]

I Feel It Everywhere - Daniel Wagner x Reader

Author’s note: Sometimes, I feel like my stories lack action. Especially because most of what’s written about the boys is so amazing and so much fun. But, for Danny, I needed it to be short and sweet. Hope you enjoy it! As always, requests are open if you’d like to see anything specific :).

Couple: Danny Wagner/Original Female Character

Words: 2576

Synopsis: When no one shows up for your book release, the kind boy who helped you at the bookstore is the only one to give you attention.

Warnings: None! Just fluff :)

Right now, there was only one topic keeping you from being completely happy and content with how your life was going. The book cover you had chosen, helped design and approved a few weeks ago seemed boring. It not only looked boring, but tacky too. You could imagine a young teen coming into the bookstore, looking at you in your fancy work clothes, looking at the book cover and laughing without any sense of secrecy. The yellow screamed ‘I’m a desperate author trying to sell poetry books, please have mercy’, and the way you had dressed to the occasion made you look like an old secretary. 

The bookstore was especially empty today. You knew from the start they wouldn’t give you a good day, because poetry books didn’t exactly gather big amounts of people and money. Still, you wished it wasn’t a monday, so you could have a few bored couples paying you a slight amount of attention. You looked to your sides, desperately trying to find another person, with no success. 

Something, this squeaky little voice that refused to leave, no matter how hard you tried, was saying this wasn’t worth it. You knew being a writer wouldn’t make you rich, but you didn’t expect to be this broke. In fact, you had no idea if you would have enough money by the end of the week. The voice mixed itself with your mother’s voice, telling you how much she expected from you when you were a kid, and how much you had disappointed her by doing the exact opposite. It was funny, actually, how even your own mother missed your book release. She wasn’t the most affectionate person in the world, but it still hurt not to see a familiar face walking in, with a kind smile on her face, telling you that it was alright, and that someday you would have something to be proud of. 

“I’m sure they’ll arrive soon”, a now familiar voice said. You looked up to see a mess of curly hair trying to fit itself inside of a tiny hat. He looked at the table, set with his help, and back at you, with a kind smile that you weren’t used to seeing lately. “Sometimes releases can be tough. People are too shy to approach the writer, so they’ll wait until the next day to check the book out. I’ve seen it happen a million times before.” 

“Or maybe they’re not interested”, you contest, making sure your back was straight, to give you an illusion of power and confidence that would end up only making you seem more nervous. He caught that immediately, his facial expression telling you that he knew just how much you were suffering. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but I would very much like to be left alone right now.”

“Isn’t that what got you upset in the first place?”, he asked. With your furrowed brows, he continued soon after. “Being alone. You didn’t seem too happy about it before.” 

You weren’t shy when you looked him in the eye, trying to get a sense of his appearance before you decided to truly trust him. The first thing that came to mind was that he looked like an old painting, features so prominent and noticeable that it was impossible to miss him. Still, he seemed shy enough to go unnoticed until he finally decided to show himself. You thought about it, noticing his long nose, his kind, deep eyes and the hair that desperately needed some special attention. 

Over analyzing people was your special gift. He didn’t need to say anything when you first saw him, and opinions about him were already settled. The only real fact you knew about him was that he was called Daniel and he worked at the bookstore, but that was enough.

You could tell that he was the one they called when no one else wanted to do the job, and he would be nice enough to never say no. In fact, it seemed as if he carried himself with so much joy and pride that you even considered that he might as well enjoy doing the hard work, standing in an empty bookstore for hours in the company of someone who wasn’t exactly the most exciting person in the world. He helped you set your space with so much care and attention that you didn’t remember feeling tired at all. The look on his face right now, as you looked at him with so much patience and no particular shame, proved to you that he was exactly what he looked to be: someone to count on. 

“What is it about?”, he asked, breaking the silence that filled the room as soon as you started analyzing him profoundly. “I like the cover, it’s very… happy!”

You giggled at his comment, and he followed you as soon as he noticed it was okay to do so. “I know, I guess I was inspired when I approved it”, you said, grabbing one of the books, acting as if he was a client, a potential reader. “It’s about my connection with nature and myself, I would say. I’m not a particularly positive person, so it took me a while to finally understand that I was put in this world to enjoy it to its full capacity.” 

Daniel seemed as interesting as someone could get about poetry, his polite eyes glued to your hands as you showed him the different poems you had written. He tried asking questions about each and every one of them, suddenly taking your focus out of the empty bookstore. You read some of the poetry for him, your eyes never leaving the pages as a way to avoid seeing his face when he reacted to the words that came out of your mouth. 

“You know, I think sometimes we are too focused on how busy we are to really understand how beautiful this world is”, he said. By the end of your reading session, he was sitting beside you, with his legs crossed and his face resting on his hands. He had taken off his hat, making his messy, full hair hug his features even more. You noticed how you couldn’t stop looking at him, a magnetism so unknown that it scared you. “It’s hard to understand the capacity of the Earth when you’re stuck here, cleaning dusty books and trying to find the perfect french dictionary for an old lady.” 

“The world truly is a beautiful place, Daniel”, you explained. You could feel your body trying to get closer to his, desperate for his warmth and his kindness. You could feel it everywhere. “It can get harder to recognize it when we’re used to sad moments. Not so easy to think about flowers and stars and the moon when all you can see in front of you is a table filled with books that will never be bought.” 

“Don’t say that”, he scolded you, making you laugh while you looked at his serious face, eyes almost closed. “I’m going to force every single customer to buy this. You’re gonna come back here and see them all gone.” 

“What would you like to be doing right now, Daniel?”, you asked. He waited for you to continue your idea. “If you weren’t stuck here with me, looking at that door and waiting for the day to end. What would you like to be doing?”

He thought for a second. You couldn’t stop thinking about how lovely he looked right there, with his features so relaxed with the slight break he got from work, a tired look that made his mouth drop to a frown and his eyes look even deeper. Even then, stressed and tired, he looked precious. 

“I wish I could be doing something else for work”, he explained. “I’ve always wanted to play in a band. My friends and I started one, but it’s not working at all.”

“Why isn’t it working?”, you asked. 

“None of us have time or money to invest”, Daniel said. “We’re pretty good, but that’s not enough nowadays. We need contacts, money for better instruments, places to play in and fans.”

You laughed. You could tell he didn’t understand why. “I guess we’re both failed artists, aren’t we?”

“You’re not failing”, he said. You felt the sudden urge to hug him, to stay next to him as you waited for time to go by. He was inviting like no one you knew, and it was almost impossible to control yourself. “Look at you, with your fancy outfit and all your books. This is not what someone who’s failing looks like.”

“Do you mind sitting on the floor with me, Daniel?”, you asked. He looked as if he was just waiting for you to ask him to do it. “I don’t think anyone is coming anyways.” 

Daniel took his time finding a place for the both of you to sit comfortably, enjoying each other’s company in the best way possible. His arm surrounded your shoulders as you sat down, every movement feeling so natural and common that neither of you seemed to question or even notice it at all. You stopped to think of a moment in your life when you felt this comfortable around someone you didn’t know, but nothing came to your head. 

“Thank you for saying that. About the books”, you clarified. “Being a writer can be really painful and lonely sometimes, and I don’t particularly enjoy being alone.”

“There is something you’re not considering”, he said, letting his head rest on your shoulder. You resisted the urge to play with his fluffy hair, committing to simply enjoying the smell of his shampoo. “Art is never a lonely concept. When you’re writing, it doesn’t matter if it’s a book or a song, you’re interacting with the world somehow, even if no one seems to notice you.”

“I don’t think someone ever noticed me, to be honest”, you explained. 

“I did, didn’t I?”, you nodded, making him laugh. “I think you’re just scared to show yourself to the world, to make sure they hear you when you scream your beautiful words about nature and how you interact with it. Everyone has a public, Y/N, you just need to find it.” 

Conscience was becoming harder and harder to achieve, his touch and warmth so inviting that you could feel yourself getting sleepy. You wondered if you could fall asleep with him, platonically, just to know what it felt like to be held by open arms and an open heart. “Do you think you’ll ever find your public in time to feel good about your art?”

“Yeah, I think so. People love music”, Daniel explained. “Sometimes, when we have the opportunity to play somewhere, we finish our set and I look at the crowd and see one face that looks satisfied with what they heard. That’s all you need, at the end of the day, to be perceived and to let yourself be perceived in a way that’s not controlled by you, but caused by something you did.”

“I think you should be a writer, Dan”, he giggled, pressing a kiss to your head. You were surprised by his gesture, but you didn’t need him to know. “Maybe you’re better at my job than I will ever be.”

“No, I think you’re the better writer. It takes strength to write a book, and even more to show up and let people react to your feelings”, he said. 

“Well, no one is reacting to it”, his body felt tighter next to yours, as if the mention of your failure made him tense. “I’m sorry, I’ll stop mentioning it.”

Daniel hugged your body tighter, like he wanted to protect you from the bookshelves. “It’s alright. I’m just sad no one else is here to enjoy it.” 

You didn’t feel the need to reply. In fact, it was probably your body giving up, making you so comfortable that it would be impossible to stay awake at that moment. You never took naps, but this time, it felt like a necessity. Daniel felt it too, your bodies and minds connected in a way that felt like home. 

When you woke up, you were both lying on the ground, legs intertwined and kind, soft hands pressed to your back. You carefully lifted your head to watch as he slept, but his body knew you were awake before his mind came back to life. It took you both time to adjust to the situation, and when Daniel realized where you were, his whole face became contorted into a panic you hadn’t seen before. 

“Fuck, Y/N, we forgot to lock the doors”, he said, his voice desperate and low at the same time. “I’m gonna check the cashier, you stay right here until I come back.” 

When Daniel came back, his face seemed a little calmer. “I guess no one came in at all”, he explained. “Don’t you just love mondays?”

‘Oh, I do, but don’t you think your boss is gonna freak out? You fell asleep during your shift, I am so terribly sorry for that”, you tried justifying yourself. 

“Don’t worry about it, it felt nice to relax after all.”

Deja vu hit you like a rock when the both of you started taking your books from the table, Daniel carefully organizing them in one of the bookshelves. You watched as he worked, muscles relaxed and a calm expression. “I think I have to go”, you explained. He stopped what he was doing to look at you. 

“Oh, okay”, his voice was high. “Look, I know this was an atypical way of meeting, but I would love to see you again sometime, if that’s fine by you.” 

You nodded, trying not to look like a teenager, so excited about a date that you could scream. “Yeah, that sounds great! Can you give me your number?”

Daniel took your phone, typing as you watched. “It was great meeting you, Y/N.”

“It felt amazing being heard, Dan.”

- - -

The familiar room now seemed filled with people. It was a Saturday, and everyone was suddenly interested in books. Your jeans were tight around your hips, and you wished you had chosen something else to wear. It didn’t take you long to find him, his hair on a ponytail and his work uniform making him look a little silly. He didn’t see you, but you saw everything about him. Especially, you saw the thing in his hand, as he talked to one of the customers. The vibrant yellow cover seemed recognizable from miles away, but now it didn’t look too bad. The customer paid attention to him as he passionately described something, not even looking at them anymore. He seemed lost inside his own world, and he looked amazing. You saw as the customer nodded and took your book from his hands, thanking him. 

You silently approached him. “I should be paying you 10% for all of your marketing work”. His whole body jumped as he heard your voice from behind him. 

“Just doing my job”, he explained. “As your number one fan.” 

You laughed at his comment, hugging him tight. His warm skin brushing against yours in a delicious way you were starting to get used to. You felt it everywhere, in your arms, your tummy, your face and your heart. “Are you ready to go?”

@doodle417​ 

[happyselves]

Law of Attraction { Lando Norris x reader }

Disclamer : Swearing !!!

It was a busy weekend for the Mclaren team, they were about to get associated with a new partner. It was a huge contract and it was your first big deal. Mclaren just hired you, you were on probation before your contract will be real. You couldn’t mess up, you needed this job, needed to make your proof. You just got your law degree and it was your first job as a lawyer and you got lucky that you found yourself working as a Mclaren F1 Team new attorney.

This contract was important for both parties and it would go to the press as well. You were set to make your client sign during the next grand prix weekend and it was this weekend.

You spend hours and hours in your office reading the partner offer but something was bugging you and you couldn’t put your finger on it . You had to fly this afternoon to join all the team in Austria and you were starting to feel stress because you knew you had to put that deal on your boss table for him to sign, but that it wasn’t a good one and that we would basically get screw over by some clause or something, you knew it in your guts, you just need to find which pieces of puzzle you were missing. If the partner attorney thought he could easily screw you over like this because you were in your first year of work, he was wrong. You might be a newbie but one thing your mentor had taught you was to never show your weakness. That’s why you spend all night writing a new contract, word by word like the original, to find that little detail and you end up finding it. You were ehausted and tomorrow was the signing day, but now you were ready to show that we can’t fuck you over easily and that nobody should ever underestimated you. That was probably why mister Brown had give you the job, hearing things from is old attorney and your mentor was one thing, but proving how worth of the job you were is another and it will be soon be your moment of glory, but you couldn’t celebrate victory to soon, another thing you mentor had teach you.

Today was the day of the signing, you were stressed, you didn’t know how this would turn out. You were scared to have made a mistake and the lack of sleep was starting to rub on you. You had your plan in your mind, letting the other party think they had the upper hand and not tell them you had found the hair in the soup that will make your client profit and not lose all his money. It was important for you to not show your whole game to the adversary, but let him build his ego before you put that last card that will make you win the whole game in hand.

To make it official, Mclaren had to make the deal in their motorhome, Mister Brown wanted his two drivers to be there with him while signing as well because it was an important partnership for the whole team. It will be your first time seeing them since you entered the company, you were based in the factory back in Woking, but never had met any of them. You were quite intimidated, but the job was coming before anything else, no matter how many hours you spend in your free time to search about these two drivers, focusing on one in particular because he was around your age and something was telling you that the two of you were somewhat alike in certain ways of your life. You would lie to yourself if you didn’t find him attractive as well, but your personal preference when it comes to man can’t interfere with your work, it was your first and most important rule in your code of conduct you had set yourself on when you started studying law.

You arrive early in the paddock, hoping to visit around and discover this whole new world that you knew nothing about. You gotta visit the garage of your team, mechanics were happy to explain to you one thing or two, having a silent competition between them for the one that will have the testosterone level at his highness and find a way to make you fall for them. You already know their little trick going to law school with men, nothing could surprise you anymore. You knew you were pretty or had a little something more perhaps, but seeing gentlemans thinking the same was actually really flattering. After this pleasant little escapade, you find yourself walking the stairs of the Mclaren motorhome reading to meet everyone in the meeting room. You were the last one to enter the room, but you could give yourself the right to make an entrance after the thing you discovered during your sleepless night of searching dirt on the company represented by the douchebag sitting on the opposite side of the table. By his face you knew this man was an asshole and that it wasn’t his first rodeo and you were ready to put a stop into his little illegal business.

However when your eyes meet the drivers, especially the youngest one, your heart skips a bit, before you turn yourself and find your boss judging your rather late presence. You quickly apologize with a nod of the head before inviting them all to sit around the table and start the meeting.

Everything was going smoothly, everyone was happy, except you. You already hated what you were about to do,but you had to act fast otherwise it will be too late and the papers would be signed in front of your eyes.

“ Excuse me, I have one more question before we head toward the signature. “ You interrupted the conversation, looking at your boss, waiting for his approval to continue. After all you were only doing your job to assure everything is well covered, he couldn’t argue on that. The opposite camp didn’t have any objection for you to give a go to your wonder, thinking it would be innocent coming from a young lawyer that is still learning about the job. He made a gesture toward you, avoiding getting over this.

“ Well, mister Backfield, without due respect I was wondering why you were so eager to help our company, I did some research, you know. Usually you are investing in smaller businesses, which will lower profit. Why show the Mclaren F1 Team when it's new territory for you ? “

And action, you knew that every word that was about to leave this man’s mouth would only be total lies, but he didn’t know that. You had the upper hand by far and you won’t give him the satisfaction to put down this team and family.

And he tried hard to explain, save his case, defend himself and if you were naive you would have believed the guy but you weren't and could give a shit about his speech.

" Well I'm afraid I can't let this go on further. "

Everyone around the table was stunted, not knowing what to say. Mister Brown was reading to make you go before you heard him a piece of paper and that's when his face changed and he let you continue.

" You see Mister Backfield, you thought you could screw us over and try to go fish at a bigger price. Unfortunately for you I find out who you truly are. A piece of garbage buying company when they must need it, making them believe you will help them develop until somehow by some miracle they are forced to declare bankruptcy a couple years ago and then you buy them twice the price they truly worth before miraculously going back on the high to sell them three times the price. I don't know you but I call that stealing and corruption and I'm not ready to let my company get fucked over by an asshole like you so you can take you goddamn deal, walk away from here and never show your face around us again or I can talk to the press and trust me they are going to love it. One thing for sure is that if it happens I might win big and no negotiation put on the table will make me give you your money back. " You threw him middle fingers as you stood up and showed him the door.

Everyone was so shocked they couldn't speak, not because of the revelation in itself but how you had handled the whole situation like a true boss, with confidence and pride.

Someone in the room was even more impressed and couldn't even close his mouth, clearly admiring you. If you knew better you would say that right there Lando Norris was falling in love with you and if that wasn't boasting your ego then you didn't know what will.

Mr Brown was the first one to come to you as you all watched the security guys escorting Mr Backfield out of the paddock. He was about to say something but the rush of adrenaline was making you bold and you beat him to it.

" I am so sorry mister Brown I know I should have informed you before the meeting, but honestly I wasn't even sure before entering in that room that my information was right and I only received the confirmation a minute before being here, explaining why I was late. Truly I'm sorry if I put your entire team in a difficult position, I will try to find the best replacement for you I promise you. " You were almost out of breath as you finish you log apologize but realize soon enough that it didn't really matter here.

" I am impressed with you, first month on the job and you are already making yourself irreplaceable, you shouldn't have to apologize and I certainly should be thanking you and giving you a raise. Your mentor was right to gush about you. You are someone else." Proud could be seen in his eyes and his smile couldn't leave his face as he hugged you awkwardly saying thank you one more time before leaving and going back to the garage with Daniel who made sure to wink at you and make a big thumbs up at you before heading out.

However, someone hadn't left his seat, Lando. You thought he was just going to stay there and ignore you but as you were opening the door he smashed it back close behind you.

" I observed you all weekend, wondering why such a little fragile person was headlining such a big deal like this but it turns out I was wrong, never judge a book by it's cover. I'm learning it the hard way. "

You turn to face him ready to get back at him but his lips on you made you shut up. He pushes you against that door again, putting his hands on your lower back. At first you were confused as to why he was kissing but eventually you just stopped resisting and let yourself enjoy the moment. You had a thing for him and you were now sure that these weird eye contacts weren't that innocent. He had a thing for you too.

His kiss could make you reach the roof, you never felt something like that before, not that you had much experience, he knew exactly what would make you moan into his lips and lose balance so he could tighten the grip around you. You needed air but you would not allow it to yourself, you wanted more, you wanted him.

The adrenaline in your system was still pumping through your veins and you couldn't really think straight, your hands found the back of his head, playing with his loose locks of hair. You were holding on for dear life on this ride despite the fact you barely knew the guy.

Lando ends up breaking it up and you realise you were hooked around him as he put you down on your feet again.

" Just for the record, what you did before was so fucking hot that I would gladly be a criminal if that means you would be the one to put me in jail. "

He made you laugh, you were gasping for air, messy hair, swallow lips and redness on the cheeks, no speaking of your clothes being runned and unfolding and your shoes not even on your feet anymore. Everyone knows what they say about aan that can make a woman laugh and you wouldn't argue on that, not with him anyway.

Now that you had a taste of Lando, you wanted more, so much more and by the look on his eyes he was willing to explore the " more " area with you too.

" Okay that was unexpected, but the good kind, so here's what we're going to do. You will knock twice on my door at 23pm tonight, room 344, not a minute before and not a minute after, hope you know what punctuality is because you won't get a second chance. " You gathered all your things, trying to clean yourself to make it look like nothing had happened before you caught Lando's chin in your palm.

" Hope you will have a good defense, because tonight is going to be the trial of your life " You blow him a kiss before leaving his sight, a pride face drawing on you.

MASTERLIST

[daisybeewrites]

Academy Blues

sometimes you punch the bag, sometimes to bag punches you

word count: 4.5k

warnings: none. heavy handed use of italics

ship: Dousy (Daniel Sousa/Daisy Johnson), background Fitzsimmons and Philinda

ahaha.. and the fun begins (the cryptic-ness is for a reason i promise)

“Ow!!” Daisy exclaimed. This was the second time today she had gotten distracted and let the punching bag swing into her. Sans Bobbi or Mack, her usual workout partners, there was no one to hold the bag still while she was pummeling it. Her side of the gym was entirely void of people, most opting to use the treadmills or other cardio machines lining the wall of large windows that faced the forest to the south, or stick to circuits on the resistance machines throughout the middle of the gym. The universe seemed to be telling her to get in some boxing, so she walked over to the bag with the intention of punching until her arms hurt.

Now her nose hurts, too.

“You need a spot?” May asked, silently crossing the padded floor to Daisy.

She nodded. Waiting for May to get into position, Daisy stretched out her arms over her head and across her body, twisting her torso to feel her abs stretch. When May gave her a thumbs up, Daisy started to punch the heavy bag again, this time with a little more force now that she knew it wouldn’t fly back and hit her in the face.

“Something on your mind?”

“No,” Daisy grunted. “Just slacked off the last few weeks. With everyone gone on break there wasn’t as much of... everything, I guess, to keep me in a routine.”

May nodded. “Breaks can be tough. No classes, schedule disrupted, more free time than you know what to do with. I get it. If you ever want a time-filler, text and I’ll be there.”

Daisy nodded, going back to silently punching. The breaks weren’t all bad. They only happened eight times a year, five two-week breaks and three three-week breaks. Enough time that those with families and lives outside of SHIELD could visit and vacation, but not fall behind. Plus, it gave Daisy the campus pretty much to herself. Only about forty students stayed at The Academy over breaks, and it seemed to decrease every time.

Another good thing about breaks was that Daisy got to know more people personally. Whether it was how the tall, fifth-year red head took her morning coffee or that the new group of first-years liked to run the same trails through the forest as she did. So, when an entirely new face had cropped up out of nowhere, Daisy was intrigued. He walked with a limp, had nice hair and kind eyes. She didn’t recognize him, and despite the fact that he had arrived the same day as the rest of the first-years, he was definitely the oldest of the pack. That was unusual, Daisy had thought, SHIELD almost always recruits directly out of high school or college. The last time anyone over the age of twenty-five had been accepted to the Academy was when Daisy herself had started. However, that was a bit of a… special situation.

Every morning, New Guy crossed through the computer lab and waved, smiling confidently at Daisy. His sudden appearance and amicable interactions confused her. Classes weren’t in session, but he always had a backpack with him. Maybe he had tutoring with one of the professors? A new student trying to catch up before the term even began — an enigma.

Once classes had started, he still came by everyday. Daisy liked to think it was because he wanted to see her. They had never spoken more than tired greetings to each other, and yet Daisy felt herself pulled towards him. She shook off the thought. It made her skin crawl, thinking about the last time she felt such a magnetic attraction to someone.

She realized May was studying her through the mirrors lining the wall next to the row of punching bags. She cleared her throat and asked, “Is my form okay?”

May gave her a long look that clearly said, ‘You know that your form is fine.’

Daisy pulled her eyes away from May’s stare, announcing, “I’m going to fill up my water, do you need any?”

May shook her head, pulling out her phone.

Daisy bent down to grab her water and headed to the back of the gym, towards the locker rooms. A couple of reusable bottle-filler stations were stuck into the wall, right next to the PT rooms. Daisy couldn’t help but peer into the closest one as she listened to the sound of water streaming into her bottle. It was filled with floor ladders, yoga balls, sports med supplies... New Guy. Huh.

Wondering why he would be sitting in a dark PT room by himself, Daisy took a swig of her water before continuing to fill it up. He hopped off the table as the lights came on, a young doctor-type walking in a smiling. She was reminded of his limp when he walked towards her, shaking her hand and flashing a large smile. Cute, Daisy noticed. Wait, no, what?

Daisy promptly turned and headed back to the wall of mirrors, choosing to ignore the smirk on May’s face.

“Ready?” Daisy asked.

“Actually,” May began, “Why don’t we get in some sparring? You’ve been at this for over an hour.”

Daisy caught the glance May threw at the half-assed wraps on her hands and nodded. With only a few jitters, Daisy quickly helped May unroll the sparring mats onto the floor. Daisy had only sparred with Yo-Yo since she got back from Columbia visiting her cousin. Sparring with May was an entirely different level.

After some warm-up drills, May silently took charge and got into a fighting stance. Daisy rose up on her tip-toes, then rocked backwards. The grey padding beneath her looked a lot softer than it felt while being slammed onto it. A quick lunge from Daisy and a swift deflection by May, and the two women were off.

Across the gym, Daniel Sousa and the doctor were chatting, watching Daisy and May.

“They look like they’re barely breaking a sweat,” Daniel commented after May leaped off Daisy’s leg, flipping forwards and attempting to grab Daisy around the shoulders. Daisy rolled backward, throwing May over her and getting to her feet as the shorter woman jumped up into a wide stance.

“You’ll get back to that level,” The physical therapist assured him.

Daniel shook his head. “Maybe. I hope so. If not, I’m a damn good shot, anyway.”

The doctor chuckled before motioning back to the PT room. “C’mon, you still have thirty minutes stuck with me before I release you from daily therapy.”

“It’s only been three weeks?” Daniel questioned, confused. They walked through a black door to a small room. Grey cabinets on one side, a black table on the other, physical therapy tools lined up in organized sections.

“Most of which was just assessing you. You already know the exercises and stretches, and you completed the physical therapy recommended by your primary care physician before you came to us. You have the strength mostly back in your residual limb, at least to the point where sparring shouldn’t do any damage. I still expect you to show up at least twice a week. Especially since you’re starting field training with May.”

He smiled. “How do you know about that?”

“I have access to your file, Sousa,” She reminded him, “I also know you were late to her class on the first day. Not a smart move, in my opinion.”

Daniel cringed at the memory of heads turning his way, watching him limp to the only open seat in the very front. May’s comment— “Thoughtful of you to join us, Agent Sousa,” —still turned his face a slightly embarrassing shade of red when he thought about it.

Noticing his uncomfortable silence, the physical therapist put on a sympathetic face. “I’m sure you’ll be fine. I was late to my first class, too. Professor Martin, advanced physiology. Granted, I was seventeen...”

Daniel playfully glared at her.

“...but I suppose that’s no excuse. Let’s get started.”

The rest of the day went by without Daisy or Daniel seeing much of each other besides a fleeting glimpse while changing classes. Not that they were looking for the other, or anything.

A few hours later, before dinner, Daisy was sitting on the counter in the girls’ dorm bathroom, watching Jemma curl her hair.

Jemma Simmons was one of the only people she immediately loved at SHIELD, and the first person she had trusted on Coulson’s team. Over the course of a couple months, they became closer than Daisy had ever been with anyone, spending almost every waking moment together. Over time, Daisy had grown to love the rest of the team, too, learning that they had also been hand picked by Coulson. Though, technically, Daisy hadn’t been chosen for the team. She was picked up as a consultant. But it didn’t matter, as the ragtag team had quickly been disbanded.

Knives shoved into your back can have that effect.

After the end of the team, Code-named Bus Kids, Daisy, Fitzsimmons, Tripp, and May and Coulson had come to the Academy to continue working with SHIELD. Daisy and Tripp were assigned as partners in their ops training, Fitzsimmons were partners in the lab, and May and Coulson still checked on them as if nothing had changed.

But people get busy, and it had been awhile since Jemma and Daisy had properly talked to each other.

“Does the bruise on my nose look like it’ll go away any time soon?”

Jemma glanced up through the mirror, shrugging. “It should. What did you do to it?”

Daisy fiddled with her hands, only answering when Jemma turned to face her fully.

“I kinda, uhm, got punched...”

The stern look Jemma gave Daisy quickly melted into laughter as the brunette added, “...by a punching bag.”

Reaching up to turn Daisy’s face towards the fluorescent bathroom lighting, Jemma gently ran a finger along the angry red splotch on the top of Daisy’s nose. She jerked her head a bit, wincing at the contact.

“You should be fine, I’ll grab some of the good anti-inflammatory meds from the medical storage.”

Daisy thanked her, hopping off the counter to grab an eyeliner pen. “So, how is Fitz? Is this a real date night or are you guys ‘just hanging out’?”

Jemma smiled at his name and rubbed her neck. Daisy smiled back at the subconscious reaction.

“You two are so meant for each other,” She teased.

Jemma tilted her face up towards Daisy, allowing her to start applying eyeliner.

“He hasn’t really defined it. We’re ‘going out’, but we aren’t dating.”

Daisy finished the subtle cat eye, shaking her head. When would he learn that Jemma would only believe they were together if he said, ‘Hey, Jems, I’m completely and totally in love with you and I want you and I to live happily ever after!’

Daisy watched Jemma inspect herself in the mirror, touching up her mascara.

“You look amazing. He’s a fool if he doesn’t see it,” Daisy assured.

Jemma smiled. Her Sheffield accent had gotten thicker over break, Daisy noticed, as Jemma responded, “He does, I know he does. We both just have trouble, you know? Voicing our thoughts and feelings.”

Daisy definitely knew…

“Well, he could do with a good reminder sometimes. If y’all are going to keep going on these not-dates, you might as well show him what he’s missing by staying just friends!”

Jemma laughed, smiling gratefully. She took one final look in the mirror, swishing her knee-length royal blue dress and fluffing her hair. “Okay, well, off I go. Have a good night, Daisy.”

Daisy gave her a thumbs up and went to watch out her window as Fitz handed Jemma a hand-picked bouquet of (slightly squished) wildflowers and took her arm to lead her to the parking lot.

Daisy sighed and turned away from the gold and pink sunset. She opened her personal laptop, immediately bombarded by three windows running programs. One was running an innocent algorithm to clean all the useless, unused files from her computer, one was a simulation that could (hypothetically, no harm no foul) hack the Pentagon, and another was trying to find video and audio feed from Los Angeles, four months ago.

Daisy’s gaze lingered on the last one, not expecting anything new. She sighed and picked up her laptop, deciding to go visit Mack in the garage. It was only seven on a Friday, he’d probably be there working on the run-down, close to falling apart Harley he had bought off an old friend for $200. Mack had been working on it for months. Daisy wasn’t even sure it had half its original parts.

A short trip across the grounds and a trek over a winding path cut through a field of thick tallgrass later, Daisy arrived at the garage.

The monstrous steel and concrete building was like a plane hangar and mechanics lab forged into one. Workstations around the edge were strewn with tools, motors, and half-finished pieces of tech. Shining black SHIELD vehicles and even two quinjets sat in the middle, outlined by rectangular blocks of tape and paint. Catwalks crossed the upper level so that mechanics could reach the tops of planes when necessary, though SHIELD planes hardly ever came to The Academy unless they were being used for a lesson.

Daisy followed the sounds of tinkering and the quietly moving shadows to Mack’s workstation. She carefully leaned against a nearby SHIELD van, not wanting to interrupt his work.

Now, to say that Mack wasn’t easily frightened was an understatement. Daisy had hardly ever seen the muscled giant of a man so much as jump. Ever since discovering this, Daisy had taken every opportunity to try to scare Mack. It was not going great.

Daisy pulled out her phone, silently thumbing through emails and checking Instagram. She was about to walk over and tap him on the shoulder when Mack turned around and screamed.

Clutching his chest, Mack exclaimed, “Tremors, what the hell?!”

“I just wanted to come check in,” Daisy giggled, happy that she had finally snuck up on Mack.

Mack stood with his hands on his hips, smiling wide, before cocking one thick eyebrow and gesturing at her face.

“What happened to your nose?”

“Punching bag won this morning,” She shrugged.

Mack shook his head, laughing in a deep rumble. “You wanna help me with this?” He asked, pointing to the small device on his desk.

She didn’t answer, just reached out to take a small screwdriver from Mack’s very large hand. He showed her how to twist it to create leverage without it slipping while he messed with some wires, and eventually he seemed satisfied.

“Have you eaten dinner?” Mack asked casually.

Daisy nodded, her grumbling stomach betraying her.

Mack eyed her up and down. “Sure. Well, I’m hungry, so let's get something to eat and then we can take the bikes out.”

Daisy liked the feeling of being on a bike, the wind in her hair and steady vibrations from the engine soothing her ever-present headache. Ever since this revelation, if Mack went out on his motorcycle, he invited Daisy to ride with him.

At first, Daisy had been skeptical. What was so great about a two-wheel speeding death trap? One of her best friends had driven a gleaming 1969 Dodge Charger, and she had enjoyed riding with the windows down, but it still wasn’t the absolute best experience of her life, like most motorcyclists claimed a ride could be. However, once Daisy had finally taken Mack up on his offer, she was never hesitant to accept another invitation.

In the canteen, Mack piled a plate high with salad ingredients and baked spaghetti, scooping some off into a bowl for Daisy once he got back to the table. She took a fork and picked at it, chewing the crisp lettuce slowly.

Once they were both finished, Mack put his plate and utensils on the circling dish belt. He let Daisy lead the way back to the garage. She immediately grabbed two helmets and Mack’s gloves.

“That leather jacket gonna be enough to keep you warm? I have a couple old flannels in my bag if you want one.” Mack offered.

Daisy picked at a loose thread on the worn black jacket, nodding and throwing a ‘Thanks’ over her shoulder. She quickly rifled through his duffel bag, pulling out a faded black and blue flannel and shrugging it on under her jacket.

Mack mounted his black and silver bike, Daisy choosing a smaller SHIELD one. She kicked the kickstand back with her foot, finding her balance. She followed Mack as he revved the engine and took off out of the garage. Daisy heard him speak into the helmet’s mic.

“I upgraded the bikes, bigger tires and a better visor. It’s more efficient. Plus, when I’m out on the highway, cars don’t push me around.”

Daisy gave him a thumbs up, focusing on the feeling of air flowing around her. She sped up as she reached the road. She felt as if she was flying high into the air, fighting the laws of physics. On the back roads surrounding the Academy, as familiar as the back of her hand, Daisy relaxed and let herself fall into autopilot.

She heard Mack in her ear, still talking about the bike. She had heard it all before, but there was something centering about listening to Mack retell the evolution of his bike for the hundredth time, like a kid who begged to hear the same bedtime story every night.

It was freeing, speeding down a deserted road on the bike, stars above and pavement below. Pine trees reached for the sky on each side of her. Shrubbery and grass waved to Mack and Daisy as they raced forward.

A slight burn pricked her eyes that she knew wasn’t from the wind. Daisy needed this after a stressful first couple weeks back in class. To be honest, it was what she needed all the time. Daisy was exhausted. Her powers may not be visible, but they were always on, always bouncing around her body. Times like these, though, Daisy felt free. Releasing the constant grip she had on her self-control, she let the vibrations of the engine flow through her. Slowly, surely, Daisy let her guard down. A whispering warble crept into her ears over the wind. She could feel the way the pavement below and the humid late-August air around her absorbed the miniscule quakes, bouncing lightly off the tall trees like a quiet laugh reflecting off the walls of an echo-chamber.

About an hour later, Daisy and Mack were rolling back into the garage. Daisy couldn’t hide the slight redness in her eyes, but the smile on her face told Mack he didn’t need to worry. The pair silently did maintenance on the motorcycles, re-fueling them for later use and checking for any loose parts on Daisy’s.

Daisy headed back to campus, refusing Mack’s offer to walk her back to the dorms. She would be fine on her own. Besides, Jems might be back by now, she could ask about Fitzsimmons’ date. Or she could wait until breakfast tomorrow and tease them both.

Daisy stopped in her tracks. Out of the corner of her eye, a shadow slipped behind a building. Daisy felt her back tense, her hands curling into fists.

Any remainder of twilight light had faded while Mack and Daisy maintenanced the bikes. Daisy couldn’t imagine that any of the trainees that went to parties at the nearby universities were back yet, but no student in their right mind would want to simply walk around the dark campus of the Academy.

She kept walking, more alert. No sounds apart from her steady breathing and the rustle of grass beneath her feet reached her ears. She walked slowly toward where the shadow had disappeared. It looked as if it was headed to the biochem building. Daisy raised her hands, quietly running towards the white building, slightly crouched. She circled it once, twice, before deciding she had been imagining things, the shadow was only a trick of the light. It seemed so real though, so solid…

Daisy shook her head and crossed the courtyard, heading towards the dorms. It was late, and she had important things to do tomorrow. She was probably just tired from her ride with Mack.

Behind her, unnoticed by Daisy, the shadow quickly crossed the field behind the biochem building, slinking into the tallgrass.

The next day, Daisy woke to the sound of her alarm blaring 90’s RnB at six thirty AM, sharp. She quickly shut it off and stared at the ceiling for a moment before groaning and dragging herself out of bed. She hadn’t gotten much sleep last night after her encounter with the shadow.

The sun was slowly ascending in the sky, golden light filtering into her windows. It was early, but she didn’t have the energy to go workout. Instead, Daisy stretched on her bed and sent a quick text to Jemma asking to meet up later to gossip about her date.

She grabbed shorts and a cropped sweatshirt, quickly dressing and making her way to the bathroom. She clipped her hair back, brushed her teeth, washed her face and headed back to her room. Trying her best to cover the bruise that had turned from red-violet to a blue-ish tinted black, she did minimal makeup. It’s not like it could get any worse, she thought bitterly. The concealer wasn’t much use.

Deciding to ignore the bruise, Daisy stood up, grabbed her backpack with her personal laptop and journal and headed to the canteen.

There weren’t many students around campus this early in the morning. Most were either asleep or nursing a hangover in their dorms. A few dedicated trainees were scattered amongst the different buildings, either in the gym or studying on their favourite bench. Daisy made a beeline for the canteen, hoping that no one had drank all the fresh coffee yet.

She slipped through the doors, sending small smiles to the students she made eye-contact with, faltering when her roving gaze reached a set of twinkling eyes the color of coffee. Maybe, she thought, I should go over and talk to him. What’s the worst that can happen?

She quickly poured herself a cup of coffee and grabbed a cinnamon raisin bagel from the pastry cart. Checking to be sure he wasn’t sitting with anyone (she wouldn’t want to intrude), Daisy walked around to the back of the large room, sitting in a spot diagonal from him.

After a few minutes of silence where Daisy ate her bagel and pretended not to feel his eyes on her, she turned and faced him.

“Good morning,” she said.

He dipped his head and raised his paper cup of coffee at the same time in response.

Does he not want to talk to me? Daisy questioned herself. She tried again. “So, is the coffee good?” He glanced at her cup that she had been sipping. Daisy recovered, “You know, in your opinion. I love the coffee here, the slightly burned aftertaste goes well with cream and sugar.΅

To her relief, he smiled. “Yeah, it’s good. I don’t usually use cream or sugar.”

Daisy raised her eyebrows, impressed. “Ah, more of a bare necessities, no-nonsense guy?”

His nose scrunched a little in thought, as if he was assessing his entire personality to see if it aligned with Daisy’s coffee psychology. He nodded finally, elaborating, “I was in the army. Most of us drank it black while deployed. I never got out of the habit. But, to answer your question, I like to think of myself as low maintenance.”

He sent her a small smile that had her insides melting just a bit. Daisy hid behind the rim of her coffee cup, trying to think of a response. Luckily, New Guy saved her.

“How do you drink your coffee?”

Daisy lowered her own paper cup, clearing her throat. “One half and half, just a bit of sugar. If I’m super tired I’ll add more.”

“So you probably adapt easily and have a deep hunger for answers to all your questions?”

Daisy’s eyes quickly flicked down to her coffee, wondering if her coffee order really exposed that much about her. Daniel laughed, his shoulders shaking with mirth. “I’m kidding. I noticed how you’re always in the computer lab before class, and Yo-Yo told me that you use that time to research.”

Daisy felt a blush creep up her neck. Yo-Yo knew New Guy? And gave him information about her schedule?

Daniel quickly explained, “We see each other in the halls a lot. And we have a class together. She noticed me in the lab and thought I knew you.”

Daisy relaxed. Yo-Yo had become increasingly more friendly to strangers the longer she spent at the Academy.

“I remember the first time I met her. She was so angry that SHIELD had stopped her from exposing the police in her city as corrupt. Our team was sent in to help her finish what she had started, destroy weapons and take down the corrupt members of the department. It was fun,” She chuckled.

Daniel watched her through his thin clear-frame glasses. She winced a little as her nose scrunched with laughter, recalling another story about a mission gone awry that Yo-Yo saved.

“How did you get that bruise?”

“What?”

He pointed to the spot on his face that mirrored the position of the bruise on hers. “The bruise. It looks like it hurts.”

Daisy shrugged, “Not as badly as getting shot. But you know, sometimes you punch the bag, sometimes the bag punches you.”

Despite the playful nature of the statement, Daniel couldn’t help but hear alarm bells in the back of his mind. She had been shot?!

Daisy noticed the change in Daniel’s demeanor and switched tactics, “It’s just a bruise. I wasn’t paying attention and the punching bag flew back and hit me in the face.”

Daniel laughed, becoming more and more intrigued with the enigma sitting across from him. Well, at least this enigma was beautiful, even if she had lost a fight to a punching bag.

A look of pure confusion overtook Daisy’s features. “Excuse me?”

Daniel’s face flushed bright red. He said that out loud. Daisy was still smiling though, Daniel let out a nervous chuckle. The two lapsed into an awkward silence. Daisy was finishing her bagel when he spoke up again.

“It was good talking to you,” he said softly.

Daisy’s eyes wandered his face with an unreadable expression. “Yeah, it was.”

He resisted the urge to offer to walk Daisy to wherever she was going as she headed out of the doors of the canteen, coffee with one half and half and pinch of sugar in hand.

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hi hellooo! whatd you think? comments and notes are appreciated! (will go back and edit this later, for now i sleep)

tag list: @jaanulore

[scullydubois]

Only the Light Ch. 14

14/? | AU where Melissa moves in with Scully after Scully’s abduction | angst, msr slow-burn, occasional fluff | currently: early 1995 (Humbug adjacent) | T | 5k | previous chapters | read on ao3 | tagging: @today-in-fic <3

As the new year beckons Scully to put her life back together, she and Mulder share a Valentine's 'anti-date' on the Hoover Building rooftop.

TW for brief discussion of disordered eating.

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The new year struck Scully with a particular melancholy. 1994 was, to put it plainly, one of the worst--if not the worst--year of her life. Even without her disappearance, it would earn that title. Her father’s untimely passing and the brief but brutal closure of the X-Files wrenched the few good things left from her fingers. Factor in the four weeks in late summer that she has no memory nor knowledge of, and you’ll understand why Scully has taken to calling it her year on the dark side of the moon.

Of course, the aftershocks of her abduction are still felt every day. Flipping the calendar does nothing to remedy that. At her last appointment, Dr. Zapolsky noticed that Scully’s weight had decreased rather sharply from previous visits and made the point that “rapid weight loss can stop ovulation,” which Scully interpreted as kicking her while she was down. That’s not exactly fair, after all. Technically, her period stopped well before she decided to restrict herself. 

It’s odd how it happened. Her weight was fine before her abduction; slender but within the healthy range for her height. Even when she was returned, it had only dropped a couple pounds, as if they fed her...as if they cared. She found that hard to believe. In the months afterward, she sought a physical representation of her mental anguish, and since she and food were never on the best terms to begin with, the choice was simple.

The other day, she had to punch an extra hole in all her belts to hold them steady on her hips. She knows the consequences of this; she’ll live them and accept it. 

There has been some beneficial progress. Dr. Zapolsky started Scully on low-dose birth control around Thanksgiving, hoping that it would balance her hormones and regulate her periods. It has, in fact, brought back her cycle, something that Scully did not expect. She gave Melissa her leftover tampons in October. Now Melissa buys enough for the two of them and insists that Scully doesn’t owe her a dime. Scully is too grateful for this to speak about it.

Her downward spiral reached a snag when she realized that smoking would make her birth control ineffective, shortly after her and Mulder’s Christmas Eve smoke break. She ditched the cigarettes, mad at herself for taking a month to read the disclaimer (she’s a doctor for god’s sake, she should know better!), yet glad to have an out. Smoking was a habit she exercised because she could. It won’t hurt her anytime soon, and millions of others do it, so where’s the harm? That was her thinking. As soon as she had a reason to stop, she did, and it felt a bit like jumping from a runaway train just before it skids off the tracks. 

So she is better, and she is worse. Which really means she is the same as she was. That is the conclusion she carries into 1995’s frosts and thaws. 

There is one thing she is certain of, something that she hadn’t given much thought to until the one year anniversary of her father’s death. She needs her faith back. She’s always practiced in a cyclical pattern, her devoutness orbiting in and out like the moon around the Earth. Sometimes closer and brighter, sometimes farther away, sometimes nowhere to be found.

She has to believe it will come back; it always does. She was made in God’s image, and her father’s. This is both a blessing and a curse.

But no one can be God, and she can’t be her father either. His faith never wavered. If hers was the moon--fickle and subject to doubt--his was the sun, steady and warming everything around it. This was a quality she was envious of, and then guilty in her blasphemy. She has never managed to feel completely content inside the bounds of piety like he could. She’s constantly shaking the devil off her back, then repenting for it, then wondering if it were all worth it. What if...what if...what if...she isn’t fully persuaded in her beliefs, and she knows that this is the worst sin of all. Like Mulder though, she wants to believe, and shouldn’t that count for something?

Imperfection is allowed. Understood, even. Doubt is not as permissible. “He who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind,” the Bible says. Sometimes Scully takes that to mean she should walk into the ocean. Then she realizes that would be blasphemous too. 

Some people believe without trying. Her father was one of those. Mulder too, in a different way. She used to think that she was too. Now she’s not so sure. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” How many times has she read that line? Has she ever lived up to it? She’s seen and still not believed. Certainly that means she’s going to Hell.

Or is she already there?...She wonders that sometimes. Maybe she didn’t make it back from the other side. Maybe the devil just wanted her to believe that she had, and so he’d constructed some kind of diorama of Scully’s life that would go wrong bit by bit, boiling her like a gradually heated bathtub. No resting in peace for the unbeliever.

She can’t imagine a worse punishment than all the potentially good things in her life getting dismantled beyond her control. She’d rather never experience them at all than know their joy then watch them fall apart. Missy would kill her if she heard this, but you can’t please everybody.

It is at this point that Scully embarks on her chosen method of religious self-flagellation: going through the Ten Commandments and determining whether she’s violated them. Count up your sins and God won’t have to; practically the tagline of the Catholic faith.

She thinks she does okay with the first few. She has no idols, she honors her mother and father, and Mulder knows not to call her on Sunday mornings. Of course, the part about not taking the Lord’s name in vain can be tricky, but she’s working on it. 

Number five is where it gets dicey. Thou shalt not kill. She imagines that she wouldn’t, not on purpose, but the circumstances of her job worry her. God makes no exceptions for self-defense. And what if she were ever to be a true doctor? If she couldn’t save a patient, does that mean she killed them? 

Her father was in the Navy. He never killed anyone.

Number six...well, she doesn’t mention that often. Few people know about Daniel. Missy is one. Scully harbors a genuine shame regarding that time in her life, not so much because of Daniel, but because she was complicit in hurting his wife and daughter. It was a young, foolish mistake that she never wants to make again. 

She feels pretty good about number seven. The only thing she has ever stolen is one of Charlie’s matchbox cars when they were kids. She was uninterested in Missy’s hand-me-down Barbies and Raggedy Ann dolls. The boys’ toys were much cooler. She trusted the Lord enough to know that He wouldn’t hold something she did when she was seven against her. Besides, she gave it back when Charlie figured out it was missing. She just wishes he had let her play with him after that.

Number eight: thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. She considers honesty one of her best qualities. She sure hopes God does too. She’s not the most open person, but that’s different from lying…

Nine is a lost cause, considering six had been broken. This was her least favorite part of her family’s religion: the power it had to cause her shame about her own body, her own desires. She had her first crisis of faith over this at age 14. Missy comforted her with something she has never forgotten: “The original sin was the serpent’s deception, not Eve’s desire. Even God pins it on the woman.” She knew her sister could only say that because she didn’t truly believe and wasn’t trying to, but it had stuck with Scully through many moments when she needed it. 

And finally, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods. She supposes she did this with the matchbox cars when she was seven, but in literal terms that’s about it. Metaphorically, she does this all the time and struggles with why she feels so inadequate. Her sister’s confidence, Mulder’s tenacity, her father’s faith...The ideal Dana Scully would have all of these. The real one is a work in progress.

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

So it goes that she finds herself prepping a case in the office on Valentine’s Day. Mulder’s scheduled to fly to Florida the next morning to investigate attacks in a community of circus performers. He’s convinced it’s the Fiji Mermaid, she’s convinced he needs to get his head checked; the usual. This is one comfort Scully can always rely on. No matter how utterly twisted her life gets, she will always think Mulder is crazy, and he will always go along with it. 

The occasion of the day goes unmentioned until what Mulder lovingly refers to as “closing time,” which is not a specific time but rather the point that he finally gives up for the day, usually hastened by his partner’s prodding. Scully has learned the signs of his dwindling tenacity by now. She glances at the clock as he pulls his glasses off his head and tosses a sunflower seed in the wastebasket, pleasantly surprised that it reads only 5:15. He catches her checking, his eyes--amber today--meeting hers.

His lips curl in amusement. “You got a date or something?” 

“No,” she blinks, feeling like a child caught taking a cookie from the jar. Her cheeks grow hot, threatening to make a scene. “I figured you did, since you’re finishing up so early.”

Mulder straightens his stack of papers, clinking them against the desk obnoxiously. “Think again, buckaroo.”

He’s taken to calling her that lately. Neither one of them is sure why, it just popped into his mind one day and stuck. It makes her feel like a heroine in some 70s Western shoot-out flick who wrangles all the bad guys and locks’em in the county jail. She’s thankful that someone can see her for what she could be rather than what she is. It helps her see that too. 

He stuffs his papers in a manila folder, then rises from behind the desk and stoops toward the backpack he prefers to a briefcase. (She called him a kindergartener once because of it and he remarked that he’d ‘rather be a kindergartener than an adult.’ She couldn’t argue with that.) “Valentine’s Day isn’t really observed under the Fox Mulder calendar,” he says, unzipping the bag and putting the folder in. “Halloween and Thanksgiving, those are my holy days.” 

“You worship at the shrine of the food pyramid,” Scully smirks. 

“Yes indeed. Wait--” Scully’s gaze flicks to him, genuinely concerned. He dissolves her uncertainty with a boyish grin. “--does the food pyramid include candy?”

She rolls her eyes, but it’s not deeply felt. She misses these flat-lining comedic routines of his, usually at their best when they’re putzing through some tumble-weed town where the bathroom stalls at the gas station don’t lock. He loves being the funniest person in a ten-mile radius, and that’s not a satisfaction he can have in DC. She wonders if he tells these lame jokes to strangers now, or if they were just for her. 

“Speaking of food,” he says, brushing a hand through his hair, “you wanna grab dinner?”

Scully’s forehead creases. “Like, in a restaurant?”

“I mean, I wasn’t gonna be that forward, but I guess we could take it to yours or mine...”

Scully laughs lightly, wrapping her arms around herself, fingers caressing her bony elbows. “We’ve already covered what day it is,” she demures. “Everyone having dinner is going to be on a date.”

“You’re right...the restaurant probably won’t let us in unless we make out in front of the hostess,” he deadpans. 

“Not to mention that we don’t have any reservations…”

“Well, making out might remedy that, depending on the hostess.”

She gives him her ‘last straw’ look--crossed arms, arched eyebrow, stinging glare--and he raises his hands in surrender. “I’ll stick to slipping a twenty, then.”

Scully uncrosses her arms and slinks toward her purse rather languishly. “No restaurants, Mulder. It’s too much trouble on a holiday.”

“I sure hope you didn’t mistake my suggestion as an invitation to Mulder’s Downhome Country Kitchen, cause that place is not Michelin star rated.”

“I’m well aware. I’ve seen the menu.”

“Is Chateau de Scully open tonight?” he asks with an eyebrow raise that his partner couldn’t have missed if she tried--and she did. 

“Well, the chef is celebrating Valentine’s Day with her girlfriend in Oregon, so you’d be waiting awhile for your meal.”

“There’s no back-up chef? I don’t know, someone who may need to feed herself while the chef is away?”

“Yes, but she doesn’t serve the public.”

“Ouch.”

He plucks their respective coats off the rack, folding his own over his arm and throwing his partner’s over her shoulders. She jumps just the tiniest bit--she probably thinks he didn’t notice, so he’ll pretend he didn’t--then slips her arms in the sleeves and pulls it on properly.

“Thanks,” she murmurs, avoiding eye contact.

After he’s put his own jacket on, he hoists up his backpack, fielding off his partner’s near swerve into laughter. She’s barely maintaining a straight face, and even if it’s at his expense, he loves it because unadulterated joy is something she deserves so much. 

“You know what, I’ve got just the solution,” he says as he strolls out the doorway, flipping the light switch as he goes, leaving Scully scrambling in the dark. 

“Hey!” 

He hears her petulant voice, followed quickly by the laugh he was looking for. When she turns to him after locking the office door, her eyes are still shining from the momentary euphoria. He is so happy to know her.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this place is the Smithsonian of vending machines.”

“Mm-hm.”

“And I know a door to the rooftop that never gets locked.” He flashes her a sly look, his intentions pure despite himself. 

“It’s 40 degrees outside,” she counters before he can even voice his proposal.

“Sure, but we can make some fresh coffee, and there’s gotta be blankets in that storage closet of ours.” Ours. Very few things are theirs. She wishes he would say it again.

As much as her instinct is to protest, she can’t quite muster the resolve to. I mean, it checks all the boxes. It’s not a restaurant, she’d only have to eat a snack from the vending machine, and she wouldn’t have to spend Valentine’s night alone, which is a sneaky sadness that had been pressing at the back of her mind.

“Fine,” she bluffs, as if it were a great inconvenience to her. She enjoys the cat-and-mouse game, what can she say? “You find the blankets, I’ll get the coffee.”

Mulder smiles, his lips edging over his teeth in an aesthetically pleasing way that makes Scully feel like he missed his calling as a male model. Of course, this smile isn’t posed. The constant in his life is his partner’s unpredictability. Everyone thinks she’s a stone-cold skeptic, but he knows she’s an uncertain believer, and there’s no one harder to pin down than that. Her yes to his Valentine plans may as well be an admission that Bigfoot exists. 

“Let’s meet by the sixth floor stairwell, okay?” he prompts, laying a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

Flashes of Christmas Eve sabotage her thoughts--her mother’s kitchen, her untidy tipsiness, Mulder just trying to iron things out. He’d touched her, and she’d lashed out at him. Reaction formation, that was the term for the defense mechanism she’d used. He knew it, probably studied it extensively. Concealing an impulse by acting out its opposite.

Instead of mentioning this, she looks him in the eyes and says, “Okay, I’ll use the coffee machine on the sixth floor then,” as if his touch hadn’t brought forth both memory and desire. 

“Great. See you there.” He pulls finger guns, and she thinks that maybe this is already her best Valentine’s Day yet.

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

Five stories of stairs is a long way to go with two hot mugs of coffee. Scully had hoped there would be some styrofoam cups--something she could put a lid on--but the Bureau is stingy, so she had to go all the way back to the basement, grab their coffee mugs, take the elevator back to the sixth floor, brew some dark roast (to Mulder’s probable discontent), then hope that by some miracle, they could make it to the roof. 

Ever the idealist, Mulder takes the challenge in stride. Though his arms are already bundled with some comforters he found tucked away in storage (he shudders to think how old they must be), he takes the handle of his mug, squeezing the blankets snug against his chest. 

“Are you sure about this?” his partner asks with her usual uneven tone. “What if we get all the way up there and the door is locked?”

“We knock and get the snipers to open the door for us,” he answers matter-of-factly.

Scully’s eyebrows shoot up. “Snipers?”

“Oh yeah, did I forget to mention? There’s a longstanding rumor about snipers on the roof that I’d like to get to the bottom of.”

His demeanor is just loose enough to make Scully question whether he is in fact kidding. A conversational casualness permeates all of his sensational soliloquies because to him, the phenomena he’s discussing should be regarded as a fact of the world. If he ever launched into an indifferent lecture on the subject, she’d know he was bluffing.

Having never heard the rumor herself, she decides this is simply a figment of his overactive imagination. She’ll play along. “Well, if it’s anything like the talk of you being spooky, then it doesn’t look good for us…” she teases, her own smirk eliciting an identical one from her partner. 

Masking his impatience by embodying the role of the gentleman, Mulder uses his free hand to prop open the stairwell door, ushering his partner through. The landing of each story has one stray light bulb, there for show more than anything. Most of them are either flickering or burned out, the agents discover as they inch their way up, one slowly taken step at a time. Step, pause for the coffee to settle, hope it doesn’t breach its container, step: that’s the process they adopt for approximately 100 steps in the cold Hoover stairwell. There are many ways to show love; Mulder bets that you wouldn’t find this in any lame self-help book. 

“Do you think Romeo would have done this for Juliet?” he muses.

“Depends on what he was expecting once they made it to the top,” Scully quips, the edges of her lips turning up slightly.

Mulder nods, perpetually amused by her (too) infrequent jaunts into suggestive territory. “My man really got ahead of himself with the whole ‘dying for her’ schtick.” 

“You’re one to talk.” 

Mulder eyes her. “Actually, I think it was you who was going to die for me.”

“Not for you, because of you.” Her statement is neither packed with malice nor free of blame. “There’s a difference.”

She may as well have shot him at point blank range; then at least she could see the bleeding. She didn’t mean to be so blunt, but he gave her the perfect setup. Mulder cauterizes his own wound, disguising his pain as a joke. “Damn, I was finally moving past that!”

“At least one of us was,” she says, her voice fluttering, and he knows she’s just teasing, but god, what if she’s cauterizing her own hidden wounds?

They reach the door labelled ‘roof,’ and Mulder can’t decipher what happens first, him putting his hand on the door handle or her placing a chilly hand on his cheek. Playing it back in his head later on he won’t even be able to figure it out-- it cut time loose from its axes in such a way. 

“Are you okay, Scully?” He’s not sure why this is the first question out of his mouth, but it is.

“I need a hand warmer,” she murmurs. “The coffee’s already cooling off.”

All the while, Mulder is acutely aware that her hand’s still on his cheek and she’s got him propped against the door, and what does she want him to do with that information?

Her thumb grazes his mole, and it becomes clear to him that there are two ways this scenario could go, and if she doesn’t want the second one it’s imperative that she stop rubbing rhythmic circles into his skin.

He clears his throat. “Do you want to...do you want me to check for snipers?” Her touch continues, uninterrupted. 

“Is the door unlocked?” Her voice sounds airy and far away. She probably didn’t even hear his question. 

He pushes on the handle, confirming their freedom. “Yes ma’am,” he answers, fear of a sort edging him into total politeness. He is twelve tiptoeing through the too empty halls of his house, again.

“Let’s have a picnic,” she says, still light and airy, as if that weren’t the plan the entire time. Then, she breaks into sudden laughter, pulling her hand away from Mulder’s cheek in her fit. “We forgot the food!” 

She is back to normal now, his steadfast Scully with a side of joy. 

Half of him mourning for the otherworldly Scully and the moment that could have been, he laughs too. “There may have been some lapses in planning.”

“We can make do, can’t we?” There’s a glimmer in her eyes that suggests the moment is not as far gone as he believed.

“Cold coffee sounds like an enduring Valentine’s tradition,” he affirms.

They choose not to dwell on words like “enduring” and “tradition,” entering the chill of the Hoover Building rooftop on Valentine’s night. 

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

They’re not that far above the city really--the Hoover’s no NYC skyscraper--but their heads are in the clouds, that’s for sure. It’s not the typical dinner date complete with melted candles and overpriced dessert and overly attentive waiters, but as it turns out, they would both hate that. After all, this is not a date, it’s a casual hangout between two coworkers who don’t have dates on Valentine’s Day. If anything, it’s an anti-date. That’s what they tell themselves.

February’s unrelenting chill swirls around them, catching Scully’s hair in playful tantrums and turning the two of them into life-size paperweights atop the blankets. More sensible people may call the night a bust, but not the Prince of Halloweentown and his esteemed guest. This unconventional adventure is exactly what they bargained for.

Scully looks to Mulder, who’s holding his coffee like it’s a beer. She smiles. That is so him.

She exhales, and her breath spells itself out on the air. She tilts her face to the sky, as if the sun might suddenly rise and bask her in its heat. Mulder notices and fixes his attention there too, happy to have an excuse to look skyward. It’s his outlet, like hers is the sea her father dedicated his life to. His preferred escape method is to fly away; hers is to drift off.

He forces himself back into the moment, here, with her, and the expanse of the sky. “I once spent fifty bucks on one of those ‘name a star’ certificates, and I can’t even see it because of the goddamn light pollution.”

“I think that’s really more about the gesture than anything else,” Scully replies, trying to soothe him as if this were actually a pressing problem. “Unless you bought it for yourself...?”

Mulder chuckles. “No, no. It was for an old girlfriend.”

Scully raises her eyebrows in amusement. “Did you name it after her?”

“No, we named it the Rhine star.”

A puzzled look passes between them. It gives him a twinge of joy that his partner is not the encyclopedia she seems to be. 

“After Joseph Banks Rhine, the founder of parapsychology,” he clarifies. “We were both fascinated by the field.”

“Oh.” She turns her face back toward the sky with the feeling of a kid who missed the winning word of the spelling bee. There are times when she is grateful she does not know everything, and times when she is not. Somehow, this is both. 

“I’ve thought about buying another one and naming it after Samantha,” Mulder continues, “but it feels too much like a grave marker.”

“I’d consider it a lovely tribute,” Scully counters, used to doing so. “But I’m thirty and I own my own gravestone, so take that with a grain of salt.”

It’s true--once Dana was returned, her mother couldn’t bear to look at the gravestone she’d had engraved in memory of her missing daughter, so she gave it to Mulder, who saw no logical place for it to go except the woman whose name it bore. Margaret hadn’t wanted her to know that it existed, that they’d gotten so far as considering her gone. While it brought Mulder no joy to present it to his partner, it served as a reminder of the miracle her survival was, and in such bleak times, they had both needed that. 

“It doesn’t scare me--the thought of dying,” Scully says to the stars. Mulder wonders if she meant for him to hear it. He wishes he hadn’t, but he’s met with the realization that she is trying to start a conversation when her eyes look into his.

He doesn’t know where to go with this, so he toes the line between deep and sarcastic. “I thought Catholics were all about that heaven and hell stuff.”

“Yes, but…” where is the line between truth and blasphemy, she wonders? Settling herself, she starts over. “I’ve lived both on Earth, so what have I got to fear?” She turns her glance to the blanket, as if shrinking out of the Lord’s sight. “Besides, sometimes I think I’m already there.” 

“Heaven?”

“No, Hell.”

He should have known. He grips the edge of his blanket, wondering why his parents had prioritized the sex talk but never explained what to do in a situation like this. He has a psychology degree, sure, but he’s as much a psychologist as she’s a physicist. 

“There are periods of life, I think, where everyone feels like that,” he says in the most earnest voice he can conjure. “It’s just that nobody ever talks about it.”

“Did you feel like that with Samantha?” 

Leave it to Scully to turn a personal conversation back on him.

He bites his lip. “Yeah, yeah, I did. Still do, if I think about it too long.”

“How did you...move past it?” The lights of nearby buildings reflect off her blue eyes, galaxies to his black holes. He’d give anything to sluice the pain right from her heart. 

He’ll rely on his words instead, despite knowing there are depths they cannot touch. “I, uh, I didn’t really move past it, I just moved. Kept moving, I guess. I found a place where I could make progress out of my pain. Here--the X-Files.”

Scully swallows hard, knocking back tears. "That’s the issue. I feel stuck. Just completely unable to go forward. There’s a current in my brain that keeps pushing me backward.”

Mulder lets out a deep breath, trying to take both their pain with it. “Have you considered seeing a therapist?” he asks delicately. “It sounds like you may have PTSD.”

“Over what?” she practically snaps. “I don’t remember a thing.”

“That doesn’t mean you have no memories. Regression hypnosis could help recover repressed or unconscious memories, so you could understand exactly what’s bothering you.”

“You think I haven’t heard this spiel from Melissa?”

“I bet Melissa doesn’t have first-hand experience with it.”

“No, she doesn’t,” she murmurs in the tone of an apology. She knew that he had it, she had listened to the tapes. How could she let it slip her mind? It is uncouth of her to look down on his chosen method of healing.

Mulder isn’t bothered. He continues, “It helped me. Both in recalling the details of the experience, and in having a recorded recollection of it. It helped me feel less...insane.”

“Mmm.” If he were just a bit closer, she’d reach out and touch his hand.

“If anything, I wish I did it earlier.”

Scully’s understanding of him sharpens, like an ophthalmologist flipping the lens, making her vision clearer. Her gaze probes him, mutual souls recognizing mutual pain. 

“Hey.” He uses his extended wingspan to touch her shoulder with the care an older sibling would show holding their baby brother for the first time. She turns her head, their faces mere inches away from each other. His eyes are a dopey brown, his breath scented with coffee.

“Yes?” she says with a coquettish flitting of her eyelashes. 

“You should come back out on the road. I could use someone to shoot down all my wild whims.”

She can’t help but smile, though she keeps her mouth closed. “Tired of telling jokes to strangers who don’t laugh, are you?”

He smirks. “Well, yeah, that too.” He leans back a bit, putting enough distance between them to keep the sparks in check. “Of course, if you’re not ready, there’s no pressure. I just think you could use the change of scenery and--you know--companionship.”

She nods, looks out into the night. He’s got the pulse of her problems and the salve that could soothe them. “You’re right.” How often does he get to hear those beautiful words come out of her mouth? “I need to get out of my cocoon, and I think I’m okay enough to do that now.”

“Yeah?” There’s a twinkle in his eyes, something like hope.

She laughs--catharsis manifest--and it’s like a sheen of light coming through a crack in her jagged surface. “Yeah, Mulder. I’ll make the arrangements with Skinner.”

He pumps his fists in the air. “Hallelujah!” 

She hadn’t realized how much he’d missed her. Any stray thoughts she had of him being lonely she chalked up to her own delusions. 

“Florida is probably a lost cause,” she notes, “but after that…”

He nods, pats her shoulder. “After that.”

To have her back meant something like freedom. The X-Files had never been anything without her. He had never been anything without her. 

[jdgo51]

What’s the Best Christmas Gift for Your Kids?

Today's inspiration comes from:

Praying the Scriptures for Your Children

by Jodie Berndt

Good question.

"'I’ve tried everything, from ridiculously expensive “must-have” toys like My Size Barbie (a gift that was abandoned as soon as our four-year-old stole all her clothes) to a posture brace for our teenagers that was not, as the advertisement optimistically proclaimed, “virtually invisible” under your clothing.

Praying the Scriptures for Your Children Looking back on our family’s growing up years, I can’t help but think that a lot of my Christmas mistakes could have been avoided had I stuck with my grandmother's gift-giving strategy. Gammy never gave us anything, at least nothing you could wrap. Instead, she asked her grandkids to memorize a Bible verse for her every year and, in return, she promised to pray for us.

I will admit that, as a teenager, I was less-than-enthused by my grandmother’s scheme. I don't know how I ever memorized any verses, given that my eyes were rolled so far back into my head. Today, though, many of these nuggets are still locked in, and in terms of things like wisdom, joy, and peace I can promise you this: The Bible verses have been a far better — and infinitely more comfortable — support system than even the most discreet posture brace.

I will never know the full impact of Gammy’s prayers, but I am confident that her gift to her grandchildren protected us from all manner of evil we likely deserved — and opened the door to immeasurable blessings we didn’t. And now that I’ve got grandkids of my own, I can’t think of anything I’d rather give them than prayer — the same gift I (finally) learned to give to my children.

So what does it look like, in practical terms, to “give the gift of prayer”?

Every December, I spend some time thinking about each of our kids and grandkids. I consider where they are (spiritually, as well as socially, physically, emotionally, and in other ways), and I ask God to clue me in as to what He might want to do in their lives. And then, because I love the power that comes with praying the scriptures, I go poking around in the Bible. When I find a verse that seems to speak to a child’s particular situation or need, I pick that as an “annual prayer,” personalizing it with his or her name.

Here are a handful of the prayers I’ve relied on over the years:

For a child’s academic or career success: May _______ show aptitude for every kind of learning, be well informed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve. (Daniel 1:4) For a child who needs wisdom and guidance: Instruct and teach _______ in the way they should go. (Psalm 32:8) For a child who wants friends: Surround _______ with good friends who are kind and compassionate, and quick to forgive. (Ephesians 4:32) For a child to live out their faith in a winsome way: May _______ be wise, shining like the brightness of the heavens and leading many to righteousness. (Daniel 12:3)

When our children were little, I’d trace their hands on a piece of colored cardstock and write out the verse, along with the date. I’d cut out the hand, laminate it, and stick it on the refrigerator, where they’d serve as a visible reminder to me (and to my kids) that God was at work.

Hand Romans 12:10

After a while, when the kids’ hands got so big that they were more creepy than cute on the fridge, I began making bookmarks with the verses instead. And after doing this now for more than twenty years, here is what I’ve discovered.

I’ve discovered that when you commit to spending a whole year praying about one particular thing, you learn to wait well, trusting God even when you can’t see what He is doing. You give Him time to work. And you get out of the way so that He can weave in answers and blessings that you had not even thought to pray for, or that your children needed.

For instance, one year I chose Isaiah 62:2-4 as a prayer verse for our daughter, Hillary. “You will be called by a new name,” this passage says. “No longer will they call you Deserted or name your land Desolate... the Lord will take delight in you and your land will be married.” Hillary was facing some uncertainty in her job at the time, and I wanted her to know that God delighted in her. I wanted God to give her a new name — a new “sense of identity” — and let her know how much she was loved.

God did that, all right. He filled my girl with purpose and joy. He gave her favor at work. And he introduced a young man into the picture — one who became her fiancé that year and then literally gave her his name. Marriage was not even on my radar when I picked that prayer verse — but it was on God’s!

Truth be told, I love gifts you can wrap and tuck under the tree (and if nothing else, the posture brace made every other gift shine by comparison). But as I think about the varied ways we can shower our children with love, I’m increasingly convinced that prayer is the best gift of all. It’s a gift that lasts. It’s one that comes with the power to influence and shape lives. And it brings peace and joy to the giver, knowing that when we come before our heavenly Father on behalf of our children, He can be trusted to accomplish good things in their lives."'

Jodie Berndt Written for Devotionals Daily by Jodie Berndt, author of Praying the Scriptures for Your Children (20th Anniversary Edition), Praying the Scriptures for Your Teens, and Praying the Scriptures for Your Adult Children.

[booksncoffee]

get lonely with me, four

the one with the difficult scene

“You didn’t answer Heather,” Iris points out. Only because she’s curious to know the answer. Tom looks at her, confused. “Are you secretly a romantic?”

His grin appears and he raises an eyebrow at her, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Iris is pretty sure she’s never been this nervous. She was nervous for her chemistry test — before and after she found out she’d be running her lines with Tom. She was nervous for her first day of filming — because she’s working with Tom and she could feel his eyes on her when they’re on set. But if you ask her, she’d tell you that it’s because she’s working with Kim Davison. 

Not Tom Holland. 

Who she’ll have to kiss today. 

The scene they’ll be acting out is the one where Sabrina and Leon realise that they actually have a lot in common — apart from them not liking each other — and they realise that they’re drawn to each other, both literally and metaphorically. It’s one of Iris’ favourite scenes from the book because it’s such a soft, tender moment between those two. A complete opposite of how they usually act around each other. There’s tension there, but there’s also understanding. 

It’s The Moment for Sabrina and Leon. And Iris has a feeling everyone wants it to be perfect. 

This time, she’ll openly admit that she’s nervous because of Tom. 

She’s kissed actors on screen before — several times. But she wasn’t as nervous as she is right now as she sits in her trailer, trying but failing to keep her knees from bumping up and down, up and down, up and do—

“Everything alright, sweetheart?” Her makeup artist, Julie, asks her, snapping her out of her thoughts. 

“Sorry,” Iris apologises as she stops bumping her knees, cheeks heating up with embarrassment.

Julie smiles at her as she goes back to applying concealer under her eyes. “What’s wrong? Are you nervous?”

“Mhmm,” Iris answers. She doesn’t trust her voice all that much today, afraid that it’ll betray her. 

Her hand itches to reach for her phone and ring her mum, but she’s not sure if her mum will be much help when it comes to this. She’ll probably just ask her why she’s so nervous about it when she’s kissed people on screen before and Iris really doesn’t want to go there. Her mum is convinced that she still has a crush on Tom and if she rings her and tells her how nervous she is for the kissing scene, it’ll just confirm her mum’s suspicion.

“About today’s scene?” Julie asks. 

“Yeah, it’s just… It needs to be perfect.” 

“And it’ll be,” Julie reassures her. “You and Tom will do the scene justice.”

The mention of Tom’s name makes Iris’ heart beat faster. She can’t help but wonder if he’s nervous too. She bets he’s not. Just like her, he’s kissed actresses on screen before. But unlike her, he’s probably not nervous about today’s scene. Sure he seemed nervous on the first day of filming but that’s normal. Everyone gets first day jitters, she learns, even the Tom Holland.

The production team had an intimate coordinator come in a couple of days ago to help them with the scene and to choreograph Sabrina and Leon’s first onscreen kiss. It was nerve wracking but the coordinator was so friendly, so bubbly that she made Iris forget about how nervous she was about kissing Tom. They started by asking the people involved about the context — why is the kissing scene there, if they think it’s necessary for the story as well as for the characters — and once they’d gotten that out of the way, they started working on the choreography. 

Iris couldn’t tell back then if Tom was nervous. He’s an actor, after all, so he’s good at masking his emotions. And he’s a professional. Iris likes to think that she is too but when the coordinator, Heather, told Iris to press one hand on Tom’s — Leon’s — chest and the other on his cheek, her hands shook. She quickly apologised but Heather brushed it off and Tom, well, she’s pretty sure he was laughing at her. But then he also messed up his lines and it was Iris’ turn to laugh at him. 

All laughters aside, they managed to nail the choreography down by the end of the day. It took many tries, many corrections — Heather changing her mind several times to make sure they’ll get the scene right for the day of filming — but in the end, they got it. 

Still, Iris’ heart jumps to the base of her throat when she’s told she’s needed at the set and when she sees Tom already on the set talking to Kim, she thinks she might throw up. 

“Nervous?” Harrison asks as he sidles up to her out of nowhere.

“Jesus,” Iris mutters to herself, clutching her chest. “Where’d you come from?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Harrison answers. “Are you nervous for the scene?”

Iris presses her lips together, considering. Harrison is Tom’s best friend so she has a feeling that whatever she tells him, it’ll get to Tom. But Harrison has also become her friend because they’ve spent loads of time together on and off set. And because there are occasions when Harrison would take her side instead of his best friend’s. 

“I am,” Iris admits before she can change her mind. 

“Tom will kill me if I tell you this,” Harrison says, dropping his voice a little, as he shifts closer to her. “But he’s nervous too.”

Iris looks over at Tom just in time for him to look over at them. He has a smile on his face but it disappears when he catches Harrison standing next to her. Then, he says something to Kim, probably to excuse himself, because seconds later, he’s stalking towards them.

“Hey, guys, what’re you two talking about?” Tom asks, his eyes darting from Harrison to Iris. There’s an edge to his voice like he already knows what they’re talking about but he wants to ask anyway. 

“Nothing,” Harrison grins. “Just wishing her good luck for today’s scene.” Then he turns to Iris and smiles, “Good luck.”

“Thank you.”

“You too, mate,” Harrison says to Tom, squeezing his shoulder as he walks past his best friend. 

As soon as Harrison is out of earshot, Tom turns to Iris. “Are you ready?”

Iris swallows the lump in her throat. “Yeah. You?”

Tom cracks his knuckles and nods, “Yeah, yeah, I guess. I just hope I won’t mess up my lines again.”

“You won’t and I hope I won’t too,” Iris tells him because if either one of them messes up their lines, they’ll have to redo the scene over and over again. Which means they’ll have to kiss each other a lot of times before they get the perfect shot. They didn’t practice the kiss with Heather, only the choreography leading up to the kiss, so today will be the first time they’ll kiss. She just hopes that they won’t mess up. 

Iris might or might not have thought about kissing Tom and not just as Leon. How it’d be like to have her lips pressed against his. Where his hands would be like when they kiss — would he put them on her cheeks? Jaws? Neck? Or would he wrap his arms around her whilst they kiss—

Iris snaps out of her thoughts, shaking her head, willing those thoughts to leave her mind. 

Tom looks at her, brows furrowing in confusion. “Are you okay?”

Iris nods.

“Shall we?” Tom asks, gesturing towards the set. 

The scene they’ll be playing out today is set in Leon’s bedroom. Sabrina was there because Ruby made her come with her for a movie night at her boyfriend, Daniel and Leon’s shared flat, and against her better judgment, Sabrina found herself in Leon’s bedroom because both her and Leon couldn’t stand the movie Daniel and Ruby had chosen to watch. There, Sabrina learned more about Leon and they started talking, realised they had a lot in common and then, the kiss happened. 

“Iris! Tom!” Heather greets the both of them with a hug and airy kisses. “How are we feeling today?”

“Nervous,” Iris and Tom answer at the same time. They share a look and then crack a smile. 

“You’ll do great — both of you,” Heather tells them. “You remember the choreography, yeah?” 

Iris nods. “Yeah.”

“I just…” Tom scratches his head. Everyone turns to look at him. “I may have a suggestion as to how we could make this scene better.”

Heather frowns. “And you didn’t think to tell me about this at least 24 hours before we film the scene?”

Tom flushes. “You’re right. Nevermind. Forget I said anything about it. It’s a stupid suggestion anyway.”

“But I didn’t say you can’t tell me what this suggestion is,” Heather continues. “Go on. Share with us.”

Tom looks at Iris briefly, cheeks still red. “Erm, so can I…” Tom trails off, pointing at the script in Heather’s hands. Heather hands it to him. He opens to the page where the kissing scene happens and then points to the line before Leon pulls Sabrina in for a kiss after they both opened up to each other. “Right. So I think there should be a bit more hesitancy? I know they opened up before that kiss but uh, up until this moment, they thought they hate each other so I just think instead of Leon kissing Sabrina just like that, he should maybe move closer and when she doesn’t budge he’d tuck her hair behind her ear, because we know how much he loves Ir-Sabrina’s hair and he should leave his hand on her cheek and he’d lean slowly and when Sabrina still doesn’t move—”

“They kiss.” Heather finishes the sentence for him. “Thomas Stanley Holland, are you secretly a romantic? I’ll let Kim know about this and if she says it’s good then we’ll go with it.”

Heather disappears and Iris turns to Tom. “That’s… amazing.”

Tom finally meets her eyes again. “What is?”

“That suggestion. It shows that despite how confident he is and how open he’s always been, he is still a vulnerable person after all. He’s still scared. And in that scene, Sabrina scares him.” 

“Yeah,” Tom says, swallowing. “And besides, he doesn’t really want to ruin what they have, you know?”

Iris agrees. The transition between enemies to lovers isn’t easy — it should be well executed for people to not feel as though the characters go from hating each other to liking each other in the blink of an eye. There should be hesitancy, doubts — lots of them.

“You didn’t answer Heather,” Iris points out. Only because she’s curious to know the answer. Tom looks at her, confused. “Are you secretly a romantic?”

His grin appears and he raises an eyebrow at her, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Iris lets out a surprised laugh and that seems to put Tom at ease. Before Iris can tell Tom to be more serious and answer her question, they’re called to set and Iris’ heart speeds as they near Leon’s bedroom. 

Before they step into Leon’s bedroom, Iris takes a deep breath, clears her head and counts to three. When she walks into Leon’s room, she’s no longer Iris Liu, she’s Sabrina Woods. And Tom isn’t Tom, he’s Leon James. 

Kim gives the cue and Sabrina looks around Leon’s room, taking everything in. She’s never been in here before and she can’t believe that she’s here. In her nemesis’ room. Her eyes land on a stack of vinyls next to his drawer. She crouches down in front of it and starts browsing. 

“You know I’ve always wished you’d stay quiet more but now that you’re so quiet, I’m scared,” Leon says behind her. He’s sitting on the edge of his bed, his eyes following her every move. She thinks he’s nervous to have her in here but he’s doing a great job at hiding his emotions. “Are you plotting my death?”

Sabrina cuts her eyes at him. “Death by vinyls?”

“Hmm doesn’t sound so bad,” Leon grins. 

“I can’t believe we like the same music,” Sabrina says as she stands up and moves to his drawer. “Disgusting.”

“What, you’re the only one allowed to have taste?”

Again, Sabrina glances over her shoulder and narrows her eyes at him. “It’s just surprising,” she says with a shrug. “I thought your music taste is more like Daniel’s.”

Leon recoils with disgust. “How dare you…”

“Huh, look at that,” Sabrina picks up a picture frame. “You were… cute.”

Leon gets up from his bed and makes his way over to her, looking at the same from over her shoulder. “I was, wasn’t I?”

Sabrina lets out a small laugh. Before she puts down the frame, she points at the couple standing behind him. “Your parents?” He nods. Sabrina notices the slight tick in his jaw. “You guys aren’t… close?”

“You could say that,” Leon answers. “They, uh, got divorced when I was 11.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

Leon brushes it off with a shake of his head. “I was close with my dad,” he shares, surprising Sabrina. For someone who’s an open book, Leon doesn’t talk about his family much. “He’s the one who introduced me to those bands. I used to hate them—”

“I knew it,” Sabrina mutters. “You didn’t actually have taste.”

Leon chuckles. “But I guess they grew on me. It reminds me of when things were good, you know? When my dad would take me to the record store ‘round the corner every weekend and we’d pick a vinyl or two and then we’d spend the rest of the day listening to these songs.”

“That sounds nice.”

“It was,” he agrees grimly. “So, what about you? What’s your story, Sabrina Woods?” 

“My parents aren’t divorced if that’s what you’re wondering.” 

“Lucky, but that’s not what I wanted to know.”

Sabrina raises an eyebrow at him. “Then, what do you wanna know?”

“I want to know why you’re here.” 

“Because I can’t stand that atrocious movie they’re watching,” Sabrina answers. “I’m pretty sure they’re just making out right now.”

“Wanna check?”

Sabrina crinkles her nose in disgust. “No, you pervert.”

Leon laughs. “Do you have any family tradition?”

Sabrina shakes her head. “I’m… not exactly close to my parents.”

“You’re not?” 

“Guess that’s one thing we have in common,” Sabrina admits.

“And that we have the same music taste,” Leon grins. 

Sabrina makes a disgusted face. 

“And that we hate the same movie,” Leon adds. 

Now Sabrina pretends to throw up at the only plant in his room and that makes him laugh.

“Accept it, Woods, we have a lot in common.”

“Eh,” Sabrina shrugs. She walks over to the stacks of vinyls again and before she can stop herself, she finds herself saying, “You know, there’s a record store near my neighbourhood.”

“I know.”

Sabrina rolls her eyes at him. “You should go there. Keep up the tradition.”

“It won’t feel the same going there alone.”

Sabrina takes a step closer and Leon looks at her, confused but not at all against the idea of her getting closer to him. It’s a strange thought because most days, he can’t stand her. The only reason he spends time with her is because Daniel is always around Ruby and Sabrina comes with her. He’s pretty sure she feels the same way. 

“Take Daniel.”

“I think we’ve established that he has shitty taste in music.”

Sabrina chuckles. “Or you could… take me.”

Leon raises an eyebrow at her. “You’d spend your weekend with your nemesis?”

“Would you?” She asks. There’s a challenge in her voice. A twinkle in her eyes. 

“Do you know what we’re doing right now?”

“What?”

“We’re… bonding.”

“Disgusting.”

“And for once, I’m gonna agree with you,” Leon says as he moves closer. Their fingers on top of his drawer touch and he’s pretty sure Sabrina feels it too. The electric running down their spine. Leon takes another step forward and when Sabrina doesn’t move, he swallows and takes another step until there’s barely any space between them. Then, he reaches for a strand of her hair and tucks it behind her ear, his hand lingering at her cheek. He loves her hair. It’s so beautiful. She’s so beautiful. Leon swallows again. “Sabrina…”

Sabrina doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t move either. She just stares at him like she’s waiting for his next move. 

Leon starts to lean in and he expects her to move. She’s going to push him away, remind him that they hate each other, but she doesn’t. She lifts her chin up towards him, places one hand against his chest, the touch sending shivers down Leon’s spine. Their eyes meet, an unspoken confirmation that this is really happening. That Sabrina and Leon are crossing the enemies line. Then, in one single smooth move, their mouths meet in the middle. 

At that moment, Iris has to consciously remind herself to stay in character. That although she’s kissing Tom, she’s not really kissing him. And he’s not really kissing her. Their characters are kissing. So she shouldn’t be wondering if this is how Tom kisses or if this is just Leon. The thoughts of Tom shouldn’t at all invade her mind. And she shouldn’t be thinking as Iris. She’s Sabrina Woods and the guy she’s kissing is Leon James. 

“So that’s what it feels like to kiss Sabrina Woods,” Leon says breathily, breaking away at the right time. 

Sabrina shakes her head at him and is about to turn around and leave his room because what the hell were they thinking and holy shit did she really just kiss Leon James? Leon James, her freaking nemesis. 

But before she can reach for his door, he pulls her by her hand, spinning her to him until their fronts meet. The collision takes the breath out of Sabrina’s lungs and before she has a chance to react, Leon wraps his arms around her waist and says, “You didn’t let me finish.”

“Save it.” Sabrina flushes with embarrassment. He’s going to taunt her, she just knows it. And right now, she doesn’t need that.

“You don’t want to hear me tell you that you’re a great kisser?”

Sabrina kinks an eyebrow at him. “I’m sorry, what?”

“That was… quite literally the best kiss I’ve ever had.” 

Sabrina’s face breaks into a smile and then:

“Cut!”

Tom lets go of her and clears his throat while Iris takes a couple of steps back, putting as much distance as she could without making it seem like she can’t get away from him fast enough. 

Kim and Heather walk over to them. “That was great.” Heather says. 

“I like the hesitancy,” Kim continues. 

“But I think you could do the kiss better,” Heather adds. “It was good. But it was not great.”

Iris’ heart drops. This is what she fears. Tom isn’t a bad kisser, not at all, but kissing him… that was, well, it messed with her head, so much so that she broke character for a moment. That had never happened before. When she had to kiss another actor, not once had she ever stopped and wondered: so this is what it feels like to kiss him? 

But with Tom, fuck, why did she stop and wonder if this is how he kisses in real life? 

“Let’s do it one more time,” Kim says. “Or more if we need to.” 

When Heather and Kim return to the camera crews, Iris turns to Tom. “I’m sorry. It was my fault.”

“No, it’s probably mine,” Tom replies. “I think I didn’t hesitate enough. I guess I got carried away.”

Iris wants to ask Tom what he meant by that but they’re called to set and the question takes a backseat in her mind as she frets over kissing him again. And how her mum might be right: she still has a crush on Tom.

[himbothomas]

Video Games || 2018 || PT. 1

“Your house is nice.” 

Dean says, mostly to be polite but also cause he means it. Levi scoffs, leading him around the cluttered kitchen island towards the basement steps. His older sister, Sabrina, had already stalked upstairs, but she’d smiled when Dean told her she was a good driver, and had let him pick out which Paramore CD to play. She smelled really good, too, but Dean wasn’t about to risk one of the only friendships he had. And, until yesterday when he asked him to hang out after school today, Levi had been strictly a practice and class friend. They usually had to run laps together for dicking around between drills and usually got detention together for dicking around between classes, but this was different. It’s not like Dean was hurting for friends-everyone liked him and he and most of the other 11th graders on the football team hung out together in a big group, but no one has ever invited him over to their house. Just him. 

And Levi. Dean really likes Levi. Really likes him. He, Dean notices as they settle on the well worn couch, also smells really good. 

Shit. Fuck. Dean stops just short of shaking himself. He-well he wasn’t gay. He likes girls. But he also likes…Levi. It’s stupid and Dean knows it-the best thing that could come out of acting on those sorts of feelings is getting completely ostrichized. He’d be lucky if he didn’t end up hospitalized, for that matter. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t look. Or think about him before he falls asleep. Or purposefully get detention for the third time in a week so they could keep hanging out. Levi settles next to him, and it’s not weird for Dean to look, so he does. Curly black hair and eyes that were green in the right light. A tan that was half freckles and a quarter Puerto Rico and a smile that keeps Dean up at night, one he returns easily. 

“Oh.” Levi says, standing again to grab the Xbox controllers. Dean tries not to look at his ass but it’s right there. Maybe he just likes nice asses. That’s not that weird. 

Levi hands him the controller and continues to fuck with his Xbox. 

“Madden or call of duty?” 

Dean scoffs “You think after finally being done with football season, I wanna play football on screen?”

“So you suck at Madden?” Levi responds, booting up the game and laughing when Dean flips him off. 

“No I’m just trying to be a good guest-“

“You just flipped me the bird-“

“I don’t think it’s polite to kick your host’s ass within 20 minutes of arrival.”

“Whatever.” Levi says, sitting back on the couch and closer to Dean. It’s just because he has wired controllers and doesn’t want to stretch the cord out. Dean has to stop from physically yelping when their knees touch. He shifts away. Levi, for his part, is texting. 

“My mom says you can eat dinner with us if you want.”

The thought of processed food not from the organic grocery store is even more attractive than his friend or his sister. 

“Oh cool. Sure, thanks.”

Levi raises an eyebrow. “You’re not even gonna ask your parents?”

“Do they still hold your hand when you cross the street, little boy?”

“Fuck off. “Levi shoves him and Dean laughs

“Nah I don’t have to do shit. My mom doesn’t care about me and Kenny forgets my name once football is over.”

“Oh shut up, sad sack your mom cares about you.” Levi rolls his eyes and picks the Dallas Cowboys as his team. Dean let’s him and picks the Patriots simply because-

“Why the fuck did you pick the worst team to ever fucking exist?”

“I figured if you’re gonna insist that I kick your ass I might as well break your spirit too.”

Levi shoves him again and Dean’s mission is accomplished. “Bastard.”

“Yeah, technically.”

Levi rolls his eyes again and they start to play. When Levi is down 40 points, Dean speaks. 

“She really doesn’t care though. My mom. Which is cool most of the time cause I can do whatever I want,  but last year she forgot about my birthday until it was 6 weeks later.” 

Levi turns his head to look at him.  “Oh you’re not kidding, are you?”

“Why do you think she bought me a car before I could drive?”

He’d failed his test twice at this point but that didn’t matter. 

“That’s uh…pretty fucked, man.”

Dean shrugs. “It is what it is. I’m just wall decor unless there’s football talk or she needs to prove to someone she was once liberal enough to fuck a black guy.” Levi chokes a little on the Gatorade he's drinking.

 “Jesus.”

“Nah, his name is Rodney.”

“Do you see him ever?” Levi asks. Something about the genuine curiosity in his voice is so nice that Dean lets him get a first down. 

“Ha!” 

“Nah. He took off when I was like…4? 5? And then we lived with my grandparents for a bit, which was cool. My grandpa was fucking awesome. But he died when I was like, 9 and mom was already with Kenny at that point so I never felt like I could ask about my dad.”

“You ever wanna meet him?”

Usually people express some sort of false sympathy for him, but Levi is too focused on making passes Dean is letting slide.

 “Oh I did. Last Christmas. We met at Waffle House.  He asked me for money.”

“What?!” Levi pauses the game and stares at him. “Whatd you do?”

Dean shrugs.  “I had like $50 on me so I uh…gave it to him.”

The tips of his ears burn with shame and he looks away, suddenly uncomfortable. 

“Jesus I-I’m sorry I didn’t mean to like-Thats some tough shit, Deanie.” 

Levi had been the first to call him that. Dean has been pretending for almost two and a half years that it didn’t make his heart race. 

“It’s ok. Really. It sort of…I know now. It sucks but I can’t do a whole lot about it.”

Levi sighs. “Yeah but I shouldn’t have, like,  forced you to tell me.” 

“You didn’t.” Dean says easily. “It was actually nice to tell someone that.”

“Thomas.”

“Sanchez.”

“You’ve never told anyone that before?” No one’s eyes have any business looking that pretty when they’re sad. Especially Levi’s. Dean shrugs again, his voice a little lower.

 “My mom doesn’t even know I met him. She’d just get pissed at me anyway so like…” he shrugs again. He feels Levi’s eyes on him and it makes his stomach tighten. “Do you wanna get back to the game or is therapy Levi still happening?”

“Stop being an asshole. That’s…so much, dude.”

“Yeah, a real winner runs through my DNA. Glad I kept his name.”

Levi groans. “You make me feel like a dick for being unhappy here.”

“You are a dick. Your mom lets you have video games and a whole basement that I’m guessing you decorated unless she’s a Kate Upton fan.” 

Levi snorts. “I don’t entirely feel bad for you and your step dad’s fucking fortune and mansion.”

Dean doesn’t say anything because he knows Levi is right. “I dunno man, I’d give it all up for there to be bacon in the house.”

“What?!”

They keep talking as they play the game. Levi asks questions that are direct without prying. Dean tries to ask them back. He is shortly losing by 70 points. When the cowboys win, he does his best to demand a rematch, which, really, means he gets to keep talking to Levi. 

“So-“ Levi says. “I think it’s only fair since you told me your secret, I'll tell you one of mine.” 

Dean snorts. “This isn’t a friendship based on transactions you weirdo.” 

“Right, yeah. Then I’m gonna be super narcissistic and make it about me.” Dean laughs at this and it’s  his turn to pause the game. 

“You uh, told me all that stuff because why?” Levi’s voice is different. Less confidence. Dean slowly realizes he’s nervous.

“I trust you.” Dean says, realizing he does as he says it. 

“You do?”

“Should I not? Are you as shitty at keeping secrets as you are at realizing things?”

When Levi doesn’t laugh, Dean puts his controller down fully and turns to him. “Dude are you ok?”

“Yeah I  uh-so what I told you before was a secret isn’t exactly secret it’s just…something I wanna ask about to see if it’s uh, normal.”

Something small and evil like a shred of hope crawls into Dean's stomach. 

“Even if it’s not, Levi, I wouldnt you know, treat you differently for it.”

Levi scoffs again and Dean frowns. “What? I mean it. Have you ever known me to like, you know, judge people or whatever?”

Levi considers this and, as he strokes his thumb slowly up and down his index finger, his voice relaxes.  “No. I guess I haven’t. You’re even nice to Dan-Danielle Stevens.”

Danielle was openly trans and braver than anyone else Dean knew.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“We live in Texas.”

“And I’m Black. And from Wisconsin.” 

Levi laughs. “Two things I always say about you.”

Dean can’t help himself.  “You talk about me a lot?”

He could be mistaken, but some of Levi’s freckles darken. “That’s not-do you want me to tell you the question or not?”

“Ask me the question, Leev.” Dean says, hoping he’s right. 

Levi takes a breath. They’re facing each other on the couch now, controllers as abandoned as their math homework. 

“I was just uh, you know, wondering if you-or if it’s normal or whatever... to think what it’d be like to you know…kiss another guy or something.”

All the blood leaves Dean’s upper body and rushes south. 

“I think that’s normal.” Dean says, hoping he didn’t pause too long or answer too eagerly. “I mean it’s 2018, you know. Like all that gay shit is way more accepted so like, we see it more and maybe it sparks some inspiration or something.” 

“Right. Ok. Yeah. Like when you see an ad for something a bunch of times and then you finally buy it. “ 

Dean laughs. “Yeah. Curiosity isn’t bad unless you’re a cat or like, a guy who defuses bombs.”

Levi laughs and moves a bit closer. 

 “Can I ask you one more thing?”

“You’re getting really close to your allotted time slot being up but I’ll see what I can do.”

“I hate you.” Levi says, his smile directed just at Dean is too much to handle. 

“Have you ever thought about-”

Before Levi finishes, Dean closes the distance between them, stretching out on the couch and very carefully and purposefully placing his lips on Levi’s. 

And its right. It’s so right Dean almost feels bad for being so ashamed of all the times he’s thought about it. 

Levi pulls away just slightly and when his thumb comes up to trace Dean’s cheekbone, that evil shred of hope doubles in size. 

They stay like that for an hour, getting bolder and more confident with each kiss, their hands firmly on each other’s. When his mom comes home with the smell of pizza lingering with her and calls down the stairs, they pull apart. Without speaking, Dean knows they’re not going to talk about it, but he can’t even bring himself to care-everything he’d been fantasizing about was so much better in practice. Even if Levi never wants to see him again-

“You wanna come over again tomorrow?” Levi says, clearing his throat. His hand covers Dean’s on the couch and gives him a squeeze. 

Dean’s fate is sealed before he can even finish saying “Sure.”

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

kiss me in the d-a-r-k .3.

monday

part 1 part 2

Warnings: non/dub con sex (some naughty talk and naughty touching :o)

This is dark!(dad)Steve and explicit. 18+ only.

Summary: A pool party, several awkward encounters, and our reader’s endless struggle.

Note: Okay, part 3! Let’s get wild. But we’re still at a steady pace here so don’t get too far! Steve’s closing in and our reader’s in a corner! 

I really hope you enjoy. 💋

<3 Let me know what you think!

...

You were far from relaxed. Your night had been spent sleepless and your morning was off to a rocky start. Kylie, as usual, was intent on sleeping til noon. You knocked on her door and tried to wake her but she sleepily batted you away and rolled over. So much for your vacation.

You returned to your room and texted your mom. Ten minutes, no answer. She was probably already at work. 

You thought about sneaking down for coffee but the memory of the previous morning deterred you. What would you do if you were caught alone with Steve? What would you say?

You thought about calling the visit short but how would you explain that to Kylie? Aside from her accusations of you being a party pooper, you might actually lose your only friend on campus. And if you did tell her why, you weren't so sure she'd believe you. It was her dad after all.

When Kylie awoke, you were relieved when she announced a shopping trip. Supplies for the party. It was a welcome distraction from your thoughts and much needed escape from the house.

You didn't need to worry about evading Steve or confronting him. You could just focus on the list and trust in Kylie's fake I.D. 

You ate a late lunch at a bistro and on your way back stopped to pick up two of Kylie's friends. Jenny and Danielle were kindred spirits to Kylie. You were starting to figure out the type of girl she was in high school. How did she end up with you?

You didn't mull it for to long. You and Kylie might have been complete opposites but she still enjoyed your company. You recalled the few nights you had torn yourself away from studying to join her at a house party or sneak in the back door of the club. She brought the worst out of you. That part you had repressed for honours and hopefully, a future.

Back at the house, Jenny and Danielle didn't waste time making themselves comfortable. They knew the house better than you and figured they had spent many after school hours there. You were an outsider again.

"We should set up the yard." Jenny announced. "Dani, you can get the drinks in the fridge."

"Dad says we can use the mini fridge," Kylie offered as she shifted the loaded paper bag across the counter. "He says once it's full, that's it. He doesn't want a rave."

"Cool. My mom won't even let us look at a drink," Jenny said, "You're dad's always so chill."

"He wasn't even suppose to be here," Kylie bemoaned. "I swear he stayed just to be a pain."

"Are my ears ringing or are you talking about me?" Steve stepped through the open glass door, his hair mussed and his body still damp from the pool. "Was just getting in a swim before my exile begins."

"Dad," Kylie actually looked close to smiling, "We were just saying how nice it is of you to let us have the party."

"We'll see how nice I feel in the morning," He shook his head, "The moment something's broke or there's vomit in my yard, you're done. Capacity is twelve….including the four of you." 

"Nice-ish," Kylie muttered. "Alright, let's get to work." She clapped her hands as she turned away from her dad. "Dani, drinks. Me and Jenny will start on the food and, um, oh, we need the table set up by the pool."

"I think I can handle that," You tried not to acknowledge Steve as he crossed the kitchen.

"Awesome," Kylie said as she began to unpack your wares, "Tables in the garage."

"Shed, actually," Steve paused in the doorway. "I moved it last week. I'll show you."

"I'm sure she can find it," Kylie shook her head.

"And how's she supposed to move it?" He challenged. "Let me get some shoes and I'll meet you out there."

Steve left and Kylie rolled her eyes. It was more playful than irritated. "Sometimes I can't tell if he's trying to be helpful or a pain in the ass."

You wondered the same and you tried to hide your dread. Was he trying to get you alone or was this just your usual misfortune?

"Uh, where's the shed?" You felt even dumber as Danielle was already carrying the drinks to the garage and Jenny was casually setting out a cutting board and knife.

"Round the side. Opposite side from the garage. Easiest is to go through the front." She explained as she unlocked her phone and searched for a playlist. "Let's get this party started." 

She hit play and forgot about you. You reluctantly left her as she began to sing along with Jenny. All you had to do was get the table set up. Easy. Quick.

You hopped down the cobble steps and crossed the grass to the side of the house. The shed was just beside a cottage style gate, hidden subtly in the shade of a weeping elm tree. It was almost like a quaint little cabin.

You heard footsteps and Steve appeared from around the front of the house. He had pulled on sneakers and a tee that clung to his broad torso. You stared at the vines that crawled up the side of the house and stepped back.

"Almost forgot the key," He held up a copper key and brushed by you. He unlocked the door easily and dropped the key in his shorts pocket. "It's buried in the back."

He ducked inside and jostled around a few bins of miscellany and squeezed past the riding mower. He grunted as he lifted the folding table and carefully guided it back.

"Used to have these big barbecues for Kylie's birthday," He stepped out and leaned the table against the shed. He closed the door without locking it. "Whole neighbourhood would come."

"Oh," You replied dully.

He lifted the table again. "You wanna get the gate?"

You scurried to the gate and stood on tiptoes as you felt around the other side for the latch. You popped it and pulled back the wooden door. He smiled at you as you waited for him to lead the way.

"So where do you want it?" He asked as he neared the pool.

"Just by the chairs I guess." You supposed it was the most practical place for it.

You followed and he set it down and unhooked the clasp to unfold it. He locked a pair of legs in place as you did the same. "Okay, on three." He counted and you flipped the table together.

"You're quiet today," He commented as you clapped your hands off. "Aren't you excited for the party?"

"Yeah, I guess," You shrugged.

"A lot of strangers, eh?" He asked.

"Lots of strangers at uni too," You countered.

"There would be," He was unfazed by your indifference. "You're welcome to hang out with me if it gets too much. I'll just be making myself invisible."

"Uh huh," You looked to the sliding glass door. "Thanks for the offer...I should go help them."

You brusquely walked away and felt his gaze follow you. You were more frustrated at his aloofness than the events of the night before. He didn't even seem to remember.

-

Taylor was the first to show up and Kylie was quickly distracted with her baser desires. Jenny and Danielle knew most of the other guests and quickly attached themselves to similar partners. Jenny with Jesse and Danielle with her old high school girlfriend Mia. 

There were two other guys who came with Taylor; Brent and Carlos. Plus two more of Kylie's friends from her old job; Anette and Danai. You were almost at capacity and you found yourself in a corner.

"Hey," Kylie had finally detached her mouth from Taylor's. "You wanna go grab the rest of the vodka. Punch is running low."

"Yes, my lady," You jibed.

"Well, I wouldn't ask if you were busy but you've barely said hi." She frowned.

"I did actually but no one heard me." You grumbled. "I'm good. I'll probably just take a dip."

"Or maybe try the punch once you top it up," She trilled, "Loosen up a bit."

"Alright," You shook your head and she wandered back to her date.

You were relieved to be free of the music and chatter that formed a wall around the pool. The voices were muffled as you slid close the kitchen door. You sighed and carried on down the hall to the garage.

It was cool inside and smelled of oil and must. Like any garage. You stomped down the three steps and headed for the fridge in the other corner. A wrench clicked and you noticed the shadow near the door. 

Steve looked over and smiled as he sat on the rolling stool and tinkered with the underbelly of a motorbike. You gulped and strode to the fridge. You opened it and squatted to search out the bottle of vodka.

You heard him stand, the wrench set aside on the stool. His footsteps neared the other side of the fridge door and you kept your eyes on the rows of cans and bottles.

"Hope you're not getting too wild," He leaned on the fridge as he spoke. You grabbed the neck of the bottle and stood.

"No," You replied meekly.

"Any cute boys?" He asked. You grimaced. "Nah, didn't think so…you seem the type to prefer someone a little more mature."

"Would you stop?" You turned on him and shut the fridge. He released it in surprise. "Why...Why did you do it?"

"It was just a kiss," He shrugged. You looked away. You recalled the warmth of his lips on yours. The silence filled with tension. "Wait...You're not...Are you a virgin? Oh, shit."

"Don't--" Your voice caught in your throat. It was all the confirmation he needed. "Is this what you do?"

"You think I'm an old pervert or something." He shook his head. "No, I never...before, I…"

"Why?"

"You're a pretty young woman. You're sweet and...I guess I'm lonely," He resigned, "Can you blame me? I mean, look at you."

"It's wrong," You asserted. "Kylie--"

"Is having her own fun. She's got her boy here. I'm not stupid," He said, "She's young, she's enjoying her life. Maybe you should try it, too."

"Maybe I should get back to the party," You backed away. He had gotten so close. "They're waiting."

"Alright," He was nonchalant. Confident, almost. "Have fun...don't get into too much trouble."

-

For once, Kylie was right. Drinking was the solution. After returning from the garage, you were so on edge that you could barely stand still. You changed into your two-piece and treated yourself to a healthy cup of punch. And another.

You ended up in the pool with Kylie and several other girls. Your giggles carried into the dark night as you indulged and tried to forget about the night before. The vodka helped. The company more. In a way, Steve's advice had worked. You should enjoy yourself. Get over your stupid shyness and live.

When at last you climbed out, you hiccuped and reached for your towel. The party was thinning out. Kylie bent to kiss Taylor as he lazed across a beach chair and you dried yourself off. Danielle and Jenny called there goodbyes from the sliding door and dragged their dates with them. A reminder that you were the only one leaving stag. Well, except Kylie.

"Hey," Her whisper was loud. It was more a hiss. "I'm gonna sneak out with Taylor."

"What?" Your heart dropped. "But...your dad--"

"He's probably already asleep," She laughed, "Just open and close my door so he thinks I'm in bed."

"Kylie," You sighed.

"Come on," She whined, "I'm leaving in less than two weeks. I won't see Taylor for the rest of the summer."

"You know, you asked me to come here," You slurred and steadied yourself on the table. "And you just leave me all the time."

"Oh, Jesus, I promise, tomorrow we'll hang out," Taylor pulled at her hand as he stood. "Just you and me. I'll even do all the cleaning up."

You huffed and looked around. Everyone else was gone.

"Can't he just stay and sneak out in the morning?" You asked.

"No way. My dad would kill me."

"And if you sneak out?" You snapped.

"It's fine. Stop worrying so much." She started to pull Taylor toward to the gate. "We'll even go around so we don't wake him up, okay?"

"You owe me," You relented. There was no winning this fight. "Now go before you get yourself in trouble. Call a cab."

"We're walking," She called as you watched her go and she leaned on Taylor. Would they even make it to his place? He was relatively sober. At least steadier on his feet than her.

You tramped across the stone to the sliding door. It took you a few tries to click the lock into place. The climb up the staircase was daunting. Your head began to spin as you latched onto the rail. The vodka sank in your stomach and dulled your nerves. You quickly forgot about your anger.

The hall seemed longer than usual. You hiccuped loudly and cursed under your breath. You held onto the wall as you clung to the towel hanging loosely around your still damp body. You leaned on your door heavily and turned the handle. It took a few tries and you fell through onto your side. 

You giggled across the floor, your legs still in the hallway. Okay, you were drunk. You sat up and grabbed onto the door frame. You pulled yourself up and before you could sink back down, you felt a hand on your elbow. You turned as Steve kept you from toppling again.

"Woah, be careful," He said. "Don't hurt yourself."

"Wh-where did you come from?" You asked. A voice in the back of your head told you to pull away but you feared another fall.

"I was just in my room and I heard you," He explained, "I thought you were Kylie."

"Sh-she's in bed," You said a bit too abruptly. Did he know you were lying? Surely those deep blue eyes saw right through you. "Which is where I'm headed."

"Oh, are you now? You think you'll make it?" He challenged.

"I can do it myself," You tore your arm from him and stumbled into your room. You caught the door before you could crash back into the floor. You leaned dangerously against it. "You...you…" 

The thought floated away as he neared and took your arm again. You shivered and his other hand felt the side of your bathing suit. "You're wet."

"I was swimming, duh," You spat. "I'm fine."

"Just let me help you," He said exasperated.

You harrumphed but let go of the door. He guided you to the bed and you collapsed onto it sloppily. He chuckled and you listened to his footsteps. You turned to watch him pick up the towel where it lay strewn across the threshold. He closed the door and hung it over a chair.

"What are you--I gotta sleep!" You wriggled across the bed and buried your head in the pillows as if to hide.

"Not in a wet bathing suit," He said. "You'll get sick."

"I told you, I'm fine." You lifted your head. "Now go."

You heard him moving around. His weight shifted the bed and you tried to shimmy away. His large hand settled on your hip and he turned you over. You swallowed a belch as he did. 

"Come on, sit up." He pulled you up and you hung limp from his grasp. "Let's get you changed." He leaned you against his shoulder and his fingers deftly rolled up the top of your swimsuit. "Arms up." 

Dazed, you did as he said and he slipped your top past your head. You fell back and your tits jiggled. You didn't miss his stare as you blinked. You crossed your arms to cover yourself. His fingers glided over your waist, you felt his warmth as he moved closer and bent over you.

He kissed you again. Deeper than the night before. His hand moved along your torso and up your arms. He pulled them away from your chest. You groaned and his lips trailed to your cheek and down your neck. You murmured at the tickle within your core.

"What are you doing?" You whispered. He dragged his mouth along your throat and his hand squeezed your tit. Your back arched without thinking. "Steve…"

"Shh," He looked up at your as he went lower. 

His blue eyes flared and he bent his head over your chest. His golden hair fell forward as he pushed your tits against his face and took a nipple in his mouth. You pushed on his head but he didn't even notice.

He lifted his body over yours. He pressed his knee between your legs and forced them apart as he did. His tongue swirled around your nipple and you moaned. You clasped your hand over your mouth in surprise. Shame.

"Please, you can't--"

"It's okay, sweetie," He fondled your tit as he looked up at you. "I just want you to have a little fun...show you what you're missing."

He grabbed your bottoms and his hands slid over your ass as he yanked them down. He sat up as he brought your legs up to free them from your swimsuit and you gasp. He dropped your legs around him as he stared at your body. His fingers traced the lines of your pelvis and he bent over you again.

He stifled your protest with his lips. He kissed you roughly as he felt around. His fingers tickled your stomach and thighs as they danced around your pussy. You squeezed your legs around him. He took it as permission and rubbed two fingers against your lips. He moaned into your mouth as he pressed between your folds.

You trembled and he started to caress you. Gently at first. You moaned again and he parted from your lips. His other hand cradled your face as he nuzzled your neck. You wiggled beneath him but it only intensified his touch. He played with your clit and you whimpered. 

It was too much. 

Your breath hitched and he started to kiss your neck, little nibbles along the flesh. You felt the orgasm building. Bigger than any you had experienced before. Hotter than that felt at your own touch. You bit your lip and his fingers sped up.

The noise that came from you was humiliating. You cried out and your thighs tensed. You tilted your pelvis against his hand as you climaxed. Your mewls pierced your rampant breaths and his fingers eased you through your peak.

Slowly, he sat up. He dragged his slick fingers down your thighs and left a trail of your juices along your skin. You could see his arousal through his pajamas. He reached for a familiar pair of leopard print shorts and backed up. He hooked them around your feet and tugged them up your legs.

He dressed you carefully in the pajamas he had set beside you. He took your swimsuit bottoms and rubbed the crotch between his thumb and index. He smirked and stood. You were out of breath and spinning. You watched his blurry figure as he moved around the room. 

He disappeared through the door of the bathroom before he returned. He still held your bathing suit. He neared the door with one last look over his shoulder. In your haze, you couldn't make out his face, only heard his voice. 

"Good night, sweetie." He flicked the light off and the door opened and closed. 

You laid in the dark, drunk on vodka and bliss, and the heat between your legs lulled you into a stupor. The world faded to black as the memories melted to dreams.

-

tags to be added in reblog

[lilacyennefer]

Hurricane — Part 9

A/N: So, I've tried something new in this chapter, you'll see what, and I'm really insecure about it so feedback is appreciated <3

TW: language, blood, mention of death

“I’m gonna be in the hospital for late night, I have some surgeries to do and a bunch of paperwork.” You tell Jax as you pour yourself a cup of coffee. 

“Do you want me to give you a lift?” Jax asks you.

“Maybe. I probably will be really tired.”

“Okay, what time I should pick you up?”

“Uggh, around 11pm, I think.” you say as you take a sip from your coffee. You walk behind Jax and you wrap your free hand around his neck, hugging him and kissing his forehead. Jax turns his face towards yours to kiss you on your mouth, and you both smile into the kiss. Despite the arguments and the violence what happened in the last few days after you got back from Vegas, both of you were in your happy bubble because of your marriage.

“You take care of yourself today.” you mutter against Jax’s lips before you place several small kisses on his lips until both of your smiles grow bigger.

“I will, I promise.” he replies. You drink the rest of your coffee and kiss Jax on the mouth before you head to work.

It’s almost 11pm when you finally finished with the paperwork and you’re stepping out of the building. You stop, look up at the dark sky and close your eyes while you take a deep breath. You’ve been in the building for more than 12 hours, not having any time to have a bigger break. You skim your eyes across the parking lot and see Jax leaning on his bike, smoking a cigarette as he waits for you. He noticed you standing at the door and you feel yourself smiling, he probably can’t see it, but you’re so happy to see him and you finally can wrap your arms around him and kiss him. You start slowly walking towards him when a black car stops in front of you and a man jumps out. His face is covered, but he wears a cut what you would recognise anywhere. He jumps out of the car and you feel a sharp pain under your left breast, and before you could do anything, or react in some way, the man is back in the car and drives away. You hit the floor and the whole world is spinning and the last thing you see and hear is Jax calling your name and running towards you.

Jax’s POV

I’m standing in this fucking corridor since hours and no one came out of the operating room yet to tell us anything. After the car left and Tate fell on the floor, heavily bleeding and barely being alive, I rushed back to the hospital with her in my arms, yelling for help, begging someone to help her. After they took her to the operating room, I called her brother and told him to come here, alone, and don’t tell anyone what happened. We don’t know who wanted to see my wife dead, and until we know things certainly, I don’t want anyone else to know this.

“How is she?” Daniel asked me when he arrived at the hospital.

“I don’t know, no one is fucking telling me anything!” I say angrily, I didn’t care who hears it.

“What the fuck happened exactly?” Dan asked again and I told him what I saw.

“Retaliation?” he whispers. I shake my head.

“The beefs we had are all sorted out. And honestly, who knew about her? I tried to keep her away from all this shit exactly because of this.” I say and I feel tears filling my eyes. “If anything happens to her, I will never forgive this to myself.” Dan places a hand on my shoulder, squeezing it.

“She’s strong as fuck. Nothing will happen, she will be fine.” he says, trying to calm both of us. 

“I feel like this is personal.” I start “If it was aimed at the club, someone else would be here and not Tate. This has to be personal, and whoever did this, I’m gonna find them and kill them myself.” I say angrily and see Dan shift his weight from one leg to his other, hesitating whether he should say what he wants, or not.

“What is it?” I ask him and step closer to him.

“What if it was Clay?” he whispers and I look at him confused, and he continues “It’s not a secret he doesn’t like Tate. He doesn’t like her since she’s here and you two got close, you constantly question his decisions and try to take SAMCRO out of the gun business, and he knows that Tate is behind all of this. And now with you marrying her behind your mother’s back-” he says, but I stop him.

“My mother has nothing to do with this!” I say firmly, and try to be confident, but the truth is, Dan made me think. What if it really was Clay and my mother who did this? 

“Jax, all I’m saying is, someone wanted to see my sister, your wife, dead, and only these people had the reasons for that. Just think about it. With Tate being gone, you’d get angry and the only thing you’d have left is the club, so Clay would get what he wanted. And your mom? We all know that she will never get over this whole wedding thing.” I take a deep breath to calm myself down, but tears are still in my eyes and my heart is racing with fear and anger.

“If it really was Clay, we have to be smart.” I start, but stop when a doctor approached us.

“Mr, Teller?” 

“Yes, that’s me. How’s my wife?” I ask nervously.

“The bullet damaged her heart a bit, we did everything we could, and now we wait for her to recover. If nothing will happen in the next 48 hours, then she’ll make it, so will the baby.” He says and I felt myself relax a bit, but when he says the last words I freeze.

“Baby?” I ask “What baby?”

“Your wife is 5 weeks pregant. You didn’t know it?” the doctor says. Pregnant? Tate is pregnant? Did she know it? My head keeps spinning with questions, and I have to sit down for the first time since hours.

“No.” I mutter, and I hear Dan thank the doctor and ask if we can see her, and he says only one of us can, then he leaves.

“Jax.” Dan calling my name snapped me out of my thoughts. “You okay, man?”

I shake my head “I didn’t know she was pregnant.” I whisper. I feel Dan’s hand on my shoulder, squeezing it.

“Go and see her.” he says and I look up at him.

“Are you sure?” I ask, but he just nods.

“You need this more than I do. I know her, and I know how strong she is, besides, she’s pregnant with your child.” The words ‘pregnant’ and ‘child’ keep echoing in my mind. I get up from the chair and nod, and I start walking towards the room where Tate is. When I step in, I can’t help, but start crying as I see her laying there, looking really weak and hooked on all these machines what keeping her alive right now. I sit down on the chair what’s next to her bed, and I take her small hand in mine gently, lacing our fingers together. I place a kiss on it gently, and her hand is so cold, so different from her usual warm skin. I keep crying as I look at her, feeling sad, angry, worried, and guilty at the same time. I can’t stop thinking about that I should’ve gone to the door and wait for her there, if I was there, maybe I could see who did this, or it wouldn’t happen at all. I keep thinking that it’s all my fault, and I’m the reason why my love and my unborn child is laying here, fighting for their life. I can’t lose her, she’s my everything. This last almost 2 years has been my happiest, best years of my life. At first I wasn’t expecting to love her this much, but the more time I spent with her and I got to know her, I kept falling for her harder and harder, until I can’t exist without her, I feel like nothing makes sense when she’s not next to me. I feel like I never actually told her how much she means to me, sure I always told her I love her and she means a lot to me, but I never knew how to show her how much she actually means to me. And now she’s here fighting for her life, and our baby's life. Baby. A child. We’re gonna have a baby. I have so many questions about this, I wonder if Tate knew, or if she wants this child. If we were in any other situation, I would panic and freak out, not sure I’d want to be a dad yet, but right here, right now, I want my wife and child to be fine, I want to raise this baby with my wife, the love of my life. 

“Please forgive me.” I mutter against her soft hand. “I’ll try to do a better job at keeping you and the baby safe, just please, don’t leave me.” I cry against her hand, and place a soft kiss on it. Dan and I spend the night at the hospital, next to Tate.

“Do you have any plan?” Dan asks me. I shake my head.

“We will wait until she wakes up, maybe she remembers something.” I answer. 24 hours have passed since Tate got into the hospital, and things have been okay, she’s stable, so we only can hope that she’ll stay like this in the next 24 hours. Dan and I never left her side, which earned angry phone calls from Clay and other club members, but none of us cared at the moment. Even my mother called me to ask what’s going on, but I told her to leave me alone right now. Not long after some phone calls, Dan and I see Chibs and Opie heading towards us. 

“What the hell are you guys doing here?” Chibs asks. Dan and I look at each other, silently discussing if we should tell them what happened. If anyone else who I trust now that’s Chibs and Opie, so I start talking. 

“I need you guys to promise me that, what we’re about to say, stays between us. No one can know it.” I say firmly and they both nod, so I continue “Tate got shot last night. Right here in front of the hospital. A black van passed in front of her before she fell on the floor, almost dead. We don’t know who did this, but we have a good tip.”

“Shit, Jackie. How’s she?” Chibs asks.

“Still critical. We still have the next 24 hours to see if she and the baby will be fine.”

“Baby?” Opie and Chibs ask at the same time. I nod, a small smile tugging at the corner of my lips, but it fades quickly when I remember they both can be gone anytime.

“Just figured she’s pregnant, the doctor told us after the surgeries.”

“Shit. I hope both of them will be fine, man.” Opie says and I nod, and say ‘thank you’. 

“So, who do you think did it?” Chibs whispers as he steps closer to me.

“We want to wait until Tate wakes up, to make sure we’re right, but we have a good guess that it was Clay.” Both have a shocked expression on their face with a bit of doubt. 

“You guys know exactly how fed up Clay was with me, and it’s Tate who stood behind this. This wasn’t retaliation, it was personal.” 

“It would make sense.” Chibs says, quietly. We keep standing there, none of us says a word, but I can see Chibs and Opie thinking about what I said. 

“Jackie.” Chibs breaks the silence “You stay with her. Opie and I will make sure that Clay will leave you alone until Tate wakes up. The same goes to you, Dan.”

“Thank you.” I say gratefully.

“We have never been here. Never found the two of you.” Opie agrees with Chibs.

“By the way, how did you guys found us?” Dan asks.

“The bikes.” Chibs points out.

“Right.” I nod. Chibs and Opie left a little bit later, meanwhile Dan and I stayed next to Tate, hoping for the best.

Tag list: @innerpaperexpertcloud @lady-evans @agirllovespasta @claudiahxrdy @mheart27 @oldstuffnewstuff (message me, comment, or send an ask if you want to get tagged)

[cecevolume]

On The List (Part One)

Prompt from @halfbloodfox:  I’m looking for something where Lucifer has to take care of Trixie. Maybe, Decker is stuck at court testifying on a case, Dan is whothefuckknowswhere, Maze is on a hunt and at school Trixie gets hurt or sick. Surprise, Lucifer gets the call. He’s on The List? Since when? During Season 2 or 3, pre 4 nonsense at least. What do you think?

This was...unexpected.  And perhaps a little unprecedented.

Just a half hour before, it had been a semi-normal day for he and the detective, dressed in their best--well, not him, but the respect for the court was there--as Chloe waited to be called to testify.  Per usual, he tagged along, a charming ace in the hole, just in case.

But then his shirt had started buzzing outside the large double doors; to be more exact, his phone was ringing.

“Lucifer,” Chloe hissed as a clerk eyed them while they passed by, “turn it off vibrate!”

Smiling winningly, he reached for his chest pocket, purring, “An honest mistake, Detective; I assure you, I know proper procedure for the courtroom.”  He glanced at the screen, eyebrow raising as a bell of familiarity rang in his head.  “Should I know this number?” he asked, turning the screen towards Chloe.

She frowned, taking the phone from him as she murmured, “That’s Trixie’s school.”

“But why--”

Holding up a hand to stop him, she answered, “Hello?  Yes, Ms. Hendersen, I’m being brought to testify today.  Uh huh.  Oh, no, did you try Dan?  Of course not.  No, no, it’s not a problem; I’ll send Lucifer to pick her up.”  She paused for a long time, a muscle ticking in her brow.  “That’s a question for him at another time, don’t you think?  Uh huh.  Yeah, goodbye.”

Tilting his head, Lucifer asked, “Was that Trixie’s lovely school administrator--”

“Don’t.  Even.  Star,” Chloe growled, handing him back his phone.  The door beside them opened just a crack and the DA motioned for her to join them.  With a nod, she didn’t spare Lucifer a glance as she moved to the doors.  “I need you to pick up Trixie; she threw up in math class.  I’ll leave here as soon as I get the okay.”  Before she squeezed in the door, she muttered quickly, “Ginger ale--she likes Canada Dry best--for her stomach, some toast or crackers to have in her system.  Make sure she takes little sips.  This should be done in a couple hours and then I’ll be home.”

“Detective--” he said in alarm, reaching towards her, but the door was already closed.  For a moment, he just stood there, wondering two things simultaneously: did Chloe really trust him with her sick offspring and why did the school call his phone?

It hardly mattered now, however, what made sense.  Sitting in his Corvette outside an elementary school, he found that he was...uncomfortable.  It wasn’t often there was a situation he found himself unable to figure out--in fact, the first hadn’t been until he’d met the detective two years before--yet here he was.  Sure, he’d learned how to occupy Trixie, but this was new territory.

How did one pick up a sick child from their school and adequately take care of them?

Taking a deep breath, he got out of his car, striding towards the doors.  How hard can it truly be? he wondered, confidence growing the closer he got to the building.  If Daniel can do it, of course I’ll be able to.

Following the signs to the “office”--a large, gray room with children’s paintings hanging everywhere, most of the space taken up by a quadruple desk with five women squished side by side at their computers--Lucifer idly took out his handkerchief, wiping his hands as he eyed several of the drawings.

Surprisingly, there were a few that showed a real talent, should they continue honing the craft.

“Hello?” one of the women greeted hesitantly to his back.  “Can I help you?”

He turned with a charming grin, noting the immediate softening of all the secretaries’ faces.  “Hello, ladies,” he answered, strolling to the desk with his hands in his pockets.  “I actually received a call from Debra--Ms. Hendersen, asking that I pick up Beatrice Decker-Espinoza.  I know I’m not her parent--”

“Oh, you’re the infamous Lucifer Morningstar!” the first woman cried, nearly tipping her chair backwards as she stood.  Holding out a hand, she added, “Trixie is through that door, in the nurse’s office.  Karen will go and grab her while you sign her out.”  She shoved a clipboard with an attached pen under his nose.  “Just her name, your name, why you’re picking her up, and the time.”

Holding the pen, he raised an eyebrow at the woman.  That was certainly easy.  Did she already know to expect a deal?  Or was this her idea of flirting?  The memory of Malcolm Graham flashed through his mind and his gaze turned foreboding.  “Is it truly that easy to just pluck a child from your facilities?” he demanded, anger burning in his belly.

“Oh, my, you’re right!  I do need your picture ID to compare your information to what we have in the system,” she answered quickly, blushing wildly.  “I’m so sorry, it’s just that Debra gave such a...thorough description of you, I completely forgot!”

He slowly reached for his wallet, pulling out his license and handing it to her.  “Why would a primary school have my information?”

“Well, after the...kidnapping,” she said slowly, peeking a quick glance at one of the other women, who dropped her head, “Ms. Decker updated the people on Trixie’s approved list.  We aren’t supposed to release her to anyone other than her parents, her grandparents, or you.  There is a Mazikeen Smith on here, too, but that’s on a call ahead basis.  But if Ms. Decker and Mr. Espinoza aren’t available, we’re to contact you first.”

Blinking in shock, he made a noncommittal noise in his throat, taking back his ID and signing out the urchin.  “I, uh, thank you for your diligence,” he murmured, spinning on his foot to stride towards the chairs lining the windowed walls.  He was allowed to just come to the school and pick up Chloe’s child whenever he felt like?  No permission, no questions, no call aheads necessary?

Chloe Decker trusted the life of her offspring in the hands of the Devil?

“Lucifer?” a small voice whined from behind him, making him turn back around.

Straightening his jacket and cuffs, he answered, “Your mother has been held up in court today, Spawn.  So she sent me with clear instructions.”  He’d already called Patrick at LUX to provide the Canada Dry and crackers.  “I’ll be taking care of you this afternoon, until she is finished.  Is that all right?”

The little girl nodded her head slowly, face pale as she reached for his hand.  When he didn’t immediately take it, tears started to fill her eyes and he panicked.

Taking her hand gingerly, he raised the other to wave at the women.  “Thank you very much for your help.”

Then they were off.

-.-

If she hadn’t felt so gross, Trixie might have giggled at the scene before her.  

Lucifer had brought her back to his penthouse, explaining that it was closer to both the courthouse and school, that her mother wouldn’t be too much longer.  She’d thrown up during the elevator ride, only half-listening as he tried desperately to comfort her in the weirdest ways--“I’ll have the cleaners come straight away; you don’t have to worry about cleaning it yourself”--when he’d picked her up, rushing her through the doors to the bathroom.

He’d waited there, awkwardly patting her back until she was finished.  He’d then ushered her through to the couch, saying, “Don’t worry, urchin; I’m sure I have a bowl somewhere, or at least something similar.”

And there he’d left her, bringing them to now.  His suit jacket was gone, the sleeves of his white undershirt rolled up.  He held a fuzzy black blanket in one hand, a paint bucket in the other, holding them out to her.  “I’m sorry it took so long; I had to go into LUX’s storage to find a...vomit receptacle.”  When she didn’t take it from him, he placed it directly beside her face on the floor, gripping both edges of the blanket to lay it over her.  “I don’t know if you have a fever or not, but I’ve noticed you and your mother enjoy your ‘snuggle blankets’, as it were.  This is the softest one I could find; I hope it’s...snuggly enough for you.”

She giggled a bit, sniffling.  “Thank you, Lucifer,” she murmured.  “Can I have some ginger ale?  And something to eat?”

Nodding curtly, he turned towards the hallway that led to his mysterious kitchen.  “I have a variety of crackers, from wheat to sesame to pepper; do you have a preference in this state?” he called from the other room, the sound of cabinets closing echoing his words.

“Do you have saltines?  Or the Ritz circle ones?” she asked.

He was silent for a long time before she saw him come back around the corner.  “Well, there’s no accounting for taste,” he sighed striding back in to the room.  Brandishing a crystal plate that held at least half a box of both saltines and Ritz crackers, he set it on the coffee table.  “And Patrick will be bringing your ginger ale up; I assume a case should be adequate for just a few hours?”

Smiling, she said, “That’s actually way too much.”  He started to open his mouth, but Trixie knew better than to push the teasing with him.  “Will you turn on the TV and watch with me?  My mom usually rubs my back when I’m sick.”

After a moment, he nodded, crossing to the mantle to grab the remote.  He sat on the opposite side of the couch, pressing some buttons as a projection screen rolled out from the ceiling, a projector starting to whirl from behind them.  “Is there a particular show or movie that you prefer?”

“Can we watch Secret Life of Pets?  It’s funny and it’s on Netflix,” she added when his jaw clenched.  “It’ll help me fall asleep.”

He perked up at that.  “Is sleep good for you at this point?  At some of my...parties, you’re supposed to keep the humans awake until they have finished vomiting.”

Nodding, she answered, “As long as you help me if I wake up and have to puke again, I should be fine.”

“Then I suppose I’ll just sit here and keep watch.”

She smiled as he pulled up the movie, though she really missed her parents.  Lucifer was doing a great job, but he didn’t know what he was doing.  Her mom knew right when she needed snuggles and gave them to her without her asking.  She might be nine years old, but that didn’t mean being sick wasn’t scary.  Especially when her stomach was still roiling and her throat and mouth burned....

“Are you all right, spawn?” he asked immediately, making her realize that she had started to silently cry.  “Are you going to be sick again?”

She shook her head, but that’s when the sobs started.  “I miss my mom,” she whispered between savage breaths.  “She always strokes my hair so I can fall asleep.”

While she got control of herself, Trixie felt him leave the couch for a minute, making her feel even more alone.  He was really trying, but he didn’t know what to do, and her mom didn’t have to ask her how to take care of her, and she wasn’t left alone to cry--

Hands gently pulled her off the throw pillow she’d been using, only to deposit her head on sweatpants-clad thighs.  She tilted her head back to see Lucifer wearing a bright green T-shirt and gray sweatpants (they still had a tag on them).  “I needed to change in case you don’t make it to the bucket,” he explained easily, reaching over for the remote once again.  “Now, lay back; I’ll attempt to stroke your hair, but you may need to direct me.”

Shocked, Trixie did as he said without a word, feeling his hand gently rest on her head.

She fell asleep to the sound of the elevator dinging.

This will be getting a part two shortly because it is getting very long! That will be Deckerstar though. :)