#i don’t get my hormones until monday but i’ve made it this far without them i can wait another ~48 hours

[seveneyesoup]

i am, regrettably, feeling hopeful

[dovechim]

a remedy for mondays 04 (m)

01 | 02 | 03 | 04 (final)

➾ 10.1k

➾ summary: all you wanted was just one day off work. but for that to happen, you need to invent a plausible reason. and then somehow, somewhere along the way, things get out of hand, and now people think you’re having a baby with your co-worker Park Jimin after a one-night stand. confused? join the club.

➾ warnings: romantic sex, unprotected/ pregnancy sex, creampie, cum eating... the usuals

➾ a/n: thank you for following through with this series so far. im sorry for the wait, but here is the final part :) I also realised that part 3 was not on my master list, but that has been fixed. I hope everyone is keeping safe during these times.

enjoy, and a happy Monday to you :)

(some people asked to be tagged in this, I think @pjmcth​... I and forgot who else 😅)

The first Monday off work, you have grand plans for yourself.

Grand plans that include sleeping in until noon, getting up only to stuff yourself with whatever is left in the kitchen, and then going back to sleep until its dark outside.

It’s your first off day in the longest time that you can remember, and you’ll be damned if you have to move any more than strictly necessary. Finally, it’s time for you to lead the lazy life that you’ve always craved for.

But the best laid plans never come to fruition, and you are left staring miserably at the clock at 7am, wide awake and unable to go back to sleep. Your body clock has been honed after all these years, and it simply will not let you rest. Instead of feeling warm and content, snuggled up in your bed under the covers, you just feel empty and wronged.

Scrolling through social media only delays the inevitable for so long. Looking at all the meaningless memes and watching countless video after video until you finally cry yourself back to sleep again.

When you next wake, it’s noon. You still have the leftovers of the stew that Jimin made the last time he was here, and you spoon it miserably into your mouth after heating it up, but everything tastes like sawdust. The side dishes from Granny are lying untouched in your fridge, and you can’t bear to look at it for a moment longer.

When you lie in bed, you stare at the ceiling motionlessly. Your thoughts are scattered and you can’t help but feel as if your body is not your own anymore. Maybe if you close your eyes, everything will go away when you open them next and this will be just a bad dream.

The first Monday you have without work was supposed to be the best one you’ve had in ages, but instead it passes over in a blur of misery.

The days blur into each other as you cage yourself up in your home, too tired to go out, but too awake to sleep either. It’s only by some primal survival instinct that you keep yourself fed, not to satiate the hunger pangs, but with the lingering consciousness in the back of your mind that whatever is growing inside you at this very moment needs sustenance too, even if you do end up throwing it all up anyway. You’re far too gone to cook anything for yourself, so at this point it’s only Granny’s side dishes that are keeping you alive. What you’ll do when they run out, you have no idea.

You actively avoid thinking about the pea sized bundle of cells growing inside you that very moment. Maybe it’s because you’re scared of having to face a reality where you really might be a single mother, or perhaps it’s because they remind you of a certain man that you loved and lost.

On the third day, your routine of lying in bed is interrupted by a loud and insistent knock on the door that doesn’t go away even when you attempt to ignore it. Dragging yourself to your feet, you pull on a sweater that you pick up from the ground, aware that you haven’t showered or combed your hair in days, but you don’t have any energy to spare in making yourself presentable.

You answer the door, already opening your mouth to tell the delivery person or salesman or whoever that they’ve got the wrong unit.

But it isn’t some stranger. It’s Granny’s kind, smiling face beaming at you as she reaches forward to grasp your hand through the bars of your gate.

“_______!” The way she greets you is as if she hasn’t seen you in years. She looks so happy to see you that it feels as if the whole world brightens up a couple of notches just from her smile alone.

“Gr-Granny! What are you doing here?” Her grip on your hand is warm and reassuring, and she only lets you go for a moment as you move to unlock the gate and usher her in hurriedly.

You’re ashamed at the state of your house. Dirty plates and cups everywhere, empty containers of food dumped in the sink. You are a mess.

But Granny doesn’t say a single word about it as she bustles in, and that’s when you notice that she’s carrying a large bag that she carts over to the kitchen. It’s once again filled with her side dishes, and she stocks all of them into your near empty fridge without a word.

“Granny… that must have been heavy to carry all alone. You shouldn’t have come all the way…” You hesitantly watch her as she organises your fridge for you.

“Nonsense. I only tried that delivery service that one time because all my friends were raving about it. But it turned out to be such a hassle to pack and address everything. I rather do it myself!” She says in a matter of fact tone as she finishes stacking the containers and turns around to face you with a fond smile. “And this way, I get to see how you’re doing too.”

Your eyes brim with tears almost immediately, and you inwardly curse the stupid hormones.

“How did you… how did you know my address?” You watch Granny, and she doesn’t seem to stop moving as she picks up plates, containers and cups, puts them in the sink and wipes down the table counter.

“I squeezed it out from Jimin, of course,” she chuckles at the memory. “Silly boy tried to stop me from coming all the way down here by myself, but when I said I wanted to bring you food…”

Your heart skips a beat at the mention of him.

“But why me? What about Jimin? Shouldn’t you be bringing him food instead of me?” Worse still, the guilt threatens to overwhelm you with how selfless Granny is being, putting you over her grandson when you’ve been nothing but a curse to him.

Granny looks over at you with a confused frown on her face. “What? Jimin? He can take care of himself.” Her kind eyes are smiling as she turns to look at you.

And then it hits you, that she’s only being this nice because she thinks you’re pregnant. A lump forms in your throat as your eyes drop to your midriff. You can’t lead her on any longer. Granny deserves to know the truth, and like Jimin, she shouldn’t have been dragged into this whole mess in the first place.

“Granny… I have something to tell you.”

“Hmm? What is it, Puppy?” Her nickname for Jimin makes your chest ache, and you have to sit down for this. She is scrubbing the dishes at your sink, and the casual, fond way that she gives you his nickname makes what’s coming even worse. God knows you aren’t ready for the impending look of disappointment and anger on her face.

She’ll probably curse you and storm out. Maybe she’ll slap you with the kimchi she brought. Either way, you deserve it.

“Granny, I…” The words are stuck in your throat, and you just can’t find a way to word it. “We lied to you. Back when Jimin and I visited you and your family, and even before that. We… I wasn’t pregnant. We were only pretending to be so that…”

Your voice trails off, and you tire to think of explaining the whole story behind why you even pretended to be pregnant in the first place. You can’t think of a single thing to say that might explain why you deserve her forgiveness.

“I know,” Granny puts down the soapy plate that she was scrubbing. “I didn’t come here to bring you food just because of the baby. Or just because I thought you were pregnant. I came because I wanted to see you, and my silly boy was being so vague and avoiding my questions about you over the phone that I had to come down and see you myself.”

Her response catches you off guard. “Wait, you knew that we were pretending all along?”

Granny only smiles. “Not all along, dear. But when you were at my house, I was packing up the room that the both of you stayed in, and I found your bag of pads and tampons. Now, that wasn’t enough to make any solid conclusions, but combined with the fact that you weren’t showing yet…”

Your shoulders slump. “So you knew. Why didn’t you call us out on it? We were… we lied to you. No, actually, it was me all along. I dragged Jimin into this and made him lie to you. You should hate me, curse me, anything-!”

But Granny doesn’t do any of that. Instead, she approaches you, placing her hand on your shoulder in a warm, reassuring touch. “I could never hate you, Puppy. Not after I’ve seen how much Jimin likes you. You know, he used to be such a shy little thing. But after he met you, I saw how happy you made him. It’s like we all saw a side of him that only you could bring out.”

There is a moment of silence as you digest all this.

“And it’s not just because you made him happy either,” Granny continues. “______, it would be an honour to have you as an addition to my family. Baby or not. We all really like you. You’re strong, you work hard and you’re an intelligent young woman. What more could we want?”

“Granny…” your eyes brim with tears and they spill over, as you clutch her hand, feeling the guilt squeeze your heart over and over. Granny has treated you as part of the family from day one. She saw the good in you even when you couldn’t see it yourself. Her kind eyes and warm embrace makes you feel safe enough to pour everything out to her. The years of mistreatment at your job, all the humiliation that you endured from Bae Joohyun, how you got fired for committing fraud, and the ultimate irony of it all…

“Granny, I messed up. With Jimin. With everything. We said we’d try for a baby for real so that we wouldn’t get in trouble with the company, but they ended up finding out anyway, and now I’m really…” you stop to wipe your cheeks. “Really pregnant.”

A chuckle of disbelief leaves your lips. This is the first time you’ve said the words out loud, instead of just denying it and hoping that it will just go away on its own. You expect Granny to jump for joy or cry with happiness, but instead, she squeezes your hand.

“Does Jimin know?” She asks gently, handing you some tissues and stroking your hair.

Granny’s tender loving touch makes more tears well in your eyes. It’s been forever since you received the love and care that only a maternal figure can provide, and the thought itself reminds you of the tiny little spore that is probably growing inside you at this very moment. Your emotions are just all over the place, and one thought easily snowballs into another.

“No, he doesn’t,” you press the tissue to your damp cheeks, and it soaks through instantly. “I couldn’t tell him… not after everything I put him through. What kind of sick game would I be playing on him?”

Granny only lets you wallow in your ocean of self-pity for a tad longer before she tsks under her breath, straightening up.

“Well, that’s the least of your worries for now. If I were you, sweetheart, I’d think about suing that company of yours. Or at the very least, getting some kind of compensation from them.” Granny’s voice is a no-nonsense one, and it reawakens the rage and indignance that had been drowned out.

She’s right. Being down and feeling sorry for yourself like this is not going to accomplish anything. You’ve never been one to take things lying down, to take the cards as you’re dealt them, but somehow, somewhere along the way after working at this company, you changed. You got beaten down, slowly but surely, and you didn’t even realise it.

Hastily, you wipe your cheeks dry and try to push yourself to your feet. Your movements are fumbling. Where is that notebook with the evidence of all the mistreatments and humiliations you’ve endured over the years? If you’re going to retaliate, might as well mount a full scale attack against those corporate bastards.

But the lack of nutrition over the past few days gets to you, and your vision blacks out for a moment when you stand up, causing you to wobble dangerously on your feet.

Granny sees the look of resolute determination that comes over your face, and she reaches out to steady you. You make a weak attempt at reassuring her that you are alright, taking a few steps forward, but she stops you again.

“Where do you think you’re going, Puppy?”

“To- to get my notebook. And then… I need to get dressed.” Thoughts are racing through your mind of how you’ll storm into the office, fling the doors open with a cup of hot, steaming black coffee in hand and not-so-accidentally-

“You’re not going anywhere,” she says with a firmness in her voice that matches her grip as she forces you to sit back down.

Appalled, you open your mouth to argue back, but Granny shakes her head.

“Not until you’re eating properly and regaining your strength,” she clarifies, pushing up her sleeves once more. “And I’m here to make sure of that.”

The next few days, you’re treated like royalty. Even though you feel bad for making a woman of her age do all the housework, cook you meals with ten side dishes three times a day, Granny won’t have it any other way. Even when you try to sneakily help out with folding a piece of clothing or washing the dishes, all you get are looks of disapproval from the warm old woman, and you feel too bad to keep going.

You’ve never eaten so well before. Chicken, beef, fish, pork. Vegetables of every kind, roasted, stir fried, steamed and blanched, and plenty of fruits too. And along with all that are all the essential pre-natal vitamins that you’ve neglected to take up until now. Granny feeds you better than you could ever feed yourself, and you wonder how you lived without her all these years.

No wonder Jimin turned out so well.

Slowly, the colour begins to reappear in your cheeks. Your hollow, sunken face begins to fill out again, and you find yourself more energetic. Granny looks on with approval as you work at your desk, writing down a long list of everything you’ve ever wanted to say to Bae Joohyun. She listens with a beaming, proud smile on her face as you rehearse your figurative war cry, giving suggestions on where to embellish with more emotion, where to really let them feel the full extent of your wrath.

And on the day itself, she helps you pick out your outfit.

“This one, you look good in this,” Granny says finally, after you have tried on five different outfits.

You look at yourself uncertainly in the mirror, not used to what you see. The light makeup that you had applied for the first time in ages sits unfamiliar on your face. You’d given up on wearing makeup to work a long time ago. Your figure is clad in black from head to toe, dressed in a power suit that you could never bring yourself to wear. You had bought it on impulse years ago when it was on sale, and ever since then it has lived in the back of your closet, waiting to see the light of day. The lapels are made of satin, the suit jacket nips in at your waist snugly (thankfully not toosnugly, considering your current condition) and your legs are somehow longer than you remember them being in the tapered, slim fit dress pants.

Your hands linger on your lower belly for a moment, self-consciously turning to the side to see if it protrudes visibly. But at this stage, it’s barely visible. Then your gaze travels down to your bare feet, and Granny’s voice matches your thoughts.

“You should wear those,” she suggests, pointing to a pair of strappy, low heels that would compliment the outfit, lengthening your legs even more but still providing enough support so that you’ll be comfortable.

But you had something else in mind, and you have to tear your eyes away from the pair of plain old battered flats that you used to wear every day without fail. Similar to the power suit, that pair of heels has been sitting in your cabinet for as long as you can remember, never having the courage to wear it out.

“Women who wear heels with a suit are dressed to kill,” she says by way of explanation, and she sounds so logical that you can’t turn her down.

You bend down to pick up the pair of heels, placing them by the door as you head back to the kitchen, ushered by Granny, to finish the breakfast she made. Today it’s an omelette egg roll and soft tofu soup with pork slices. The egg roll has ketchup squirted on it in a smiley face, and you can’t help but laugh when you see it.

“Granny, I’m not five years old you know,” you pout at her, folding your arms in a gesture that would suggest otherwise. But the following grin on your face as you stuff your mouth with the warm, soft and savoury egg roll is unstoppable.

Granny only laughs as she sits down beside you with her own portion. “You and Jimin are the same. That’s how he likes his ketchup too.”

At the mention of Jimin, your chopsticks freeze in the midst of spearing another egg roll. Your hand shakes a little as you set the utensils down. The thought of running into him only to be faced with his cold look of rejection just chills you to the bone. There’s no way you could stomach that from him.

“What if… what if I see him?” You say in a small voice.

In all your practice runs, you had only gone over what to say to Bae Joohyun and HR. You kept yourself focused on the task ahead, not sparing yourself even a moment to indulge your emotions. But you hadn’t thought of what would happen if you run into Jimin, how you’ll tell him about the baby, or how you’ll make everything right again.

When you start to think about running into Jimin, your mind starts to overthink about what it’ll be like to step foot into that place again. The workplace that you suffered at for years, enduring all sorts of humiliation and injustice just to get to where you are right now. Your breathing involuntarily speeds up- some kind of post-traumatic response, and for a second, you think you might just chicken out of all this.

Just then, your phone placed on the table beside you lights up with a text.

Kim Taehyung: hey… um… i know it’s weird of me to be asking this since u already left us but… Kim Taehyung: if u can, can u come in today? we r rly shorthanded and could use ur help. Kim Taehyung: if it helps, bae joohyun said she’ll buy you a nice lunch if u can come in today. Kim Taehyung: please?

And then just like that, all the feelings of insecurity and cowardice disappear. The nerve of this fucking company. They fire you for fraud and then beg for you to come back and work for them for free? You honestly doubt that Bae Joohyun actually said that, but that’s not the point.

You can almost feel the rage heating up your entire body. Granny takes a look at your screen and tsks under her breath.

“I don’t know what kind of company that is, Puppy, but I’ve never seen one that treats its employees like that.”

Your fingers are trembling as you type back a reply. First, you type out a curt rejection, adrenaline filling your entire body as you imagine what Bae Joohyun’s reaction might be when she learns that for once in your entire miserable career working for her; you turned her down. But there is also a chord of fear that strikes you through the heart, borne out of an ingrained instinct to submit to your inner yes-man in order to please them.

You hesitate before pressing send, taking a moment to compartmentalise your emotions and think this through. There’s a chance that when you get to the office building, you might be turned away by security because you don’t have your access card anymore.

Deleting your entire message, you rack your brains to figure out how to field this situation to your advantage.

Up till now, they still think you’re this pathetic little girl who’d roll belly up to please them at a moment’s notice. They don’t even have the decency to feel a shred of guilt for asking you to come in and work practically for free.

Except you’re not intimidated by them anymore. Now, you are in the position of power.

And this is how you’ll take them down.

Holding your breath, you type out a short reply to Kim Taehyung.

You: I’ll be there at 10.

Granny nods her approval over your shoulder as you put your phone face down, not even bothering to check when Taehyung’s reply comes back.

“You know… I don’t think you’ll have to worry about Jimin. When he sees you dressed like that, he won’t be able to resist. He’ll fall at your feet,” Granny says with a mischievous smirk.

“Granny!” You chide her with a blush heating your cheeks.

“What? It’s true,” she says with a pout that looks oh-so-familiar. “Just be natural, Puppy. Say whatever that comes to mind. That silly boy is probably dying to see you but is too stubborn to come all the way here. Why, he probably looks a right mess too. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s been crying his heart out the past week.”

You start to open your mouth to contradict her, but all Granny does is push another egg roll into your mouth as she urges you to finish your breakfast. “Eat up, Puppy. You don’t want to be late.”

*

It’s funny what a change of outfit and shoes can do to a woman. It makes you feel like an entirely different person as you walk into the office building at 10 am on the dot. You’re no longer the meek little employee stuck in a dead-end job who can’t stand up for herself.

No, today you are brave, you are confident, and you are here to give back everything that’s been dealt to you all this while.

Security stops you as you enter. You’re already kind of used to this, since you were never once assigned with your own photo pass in all the time you worked here. Everyday, you had to sign in as a visitor and go through the security checks only for visitors, which more often than not, made you late for work when they hit a snag in the process every now and then. Being made to feel like a visitor at your own workplace does things to a person’s self-esteem, but you grit your teeth and remind yourself that this is the last time you’ll be doing this.

“Who are you here for?” A burly security guard asks you with a stern expression, even though he must have seen your face on a daily basis for the past few years.

“Kim Taehyung.” You say truthfully, and the guard just nods as he waves at you to put your bag through the scanning machine.

Waiting at the other end after having stepped through the metal detecting gates, you scoop up your bag and walk to the elevator. Seeing as it’s past the usual reporting time, it is empty, and your heart pounds in your chest as you watch the numbers go by on the elevator display.

When the doors open, you have composed yourself again, a straight face as you stride towards the doors. You wave your temporary access card and enter, once again struck by the ominous familiarity of the entire place.

Kim Taehyung spots you from his workstation immediately. “______!” He calls out your name in nothing short of a yell, and you fight the urge to cringe, watching as multiple heads turn around to look at you.

Including Park Jimin’s.

Granny was right. He does look a lot worse for wear. He resorts to hiding behind his enormous geek glasses again, blonde hair limp and dull over his forehead, his pretty brown eyes no longer have that warmth anymore. His usually plush, luscious lips are pale, and he looks as if he hasn’t slept in days.

Out of the whole office, even with multiple eyes on you and voices whispering out of curiosity, he is the only one you can look at.

“I’m so glad you could make it!” Kim Taehyung is almost at your side as he spreads his arms in welcome. There is a wide grin across his face, not unlike how he was before. “We really, really need you here.”

Hearing those words makes you break the eye contact with Park Jimin to look at Taehyung. For a moment, you desperately want to believe that those words are true. And it makes you doubt yourself, makes you think that maybe this company isn’t so bad after all, maybe they do treasure you after all. If Taehyung says he needs you, then maybe they really do need you to help them out with a piece of work that no one else can do.

But no. They had years to realise your worth. Why are they only doing it now, after they fired you so unceremoniously?

So you placate him with a bland smile. “Sure. What would you like me to do?”

Taehyung practically skips to his desk. “Ok so we need you to go through some of the brochure material that we’ll be pushing out soon. Just another pair of eyes to make sure that we didn’t miss anything. I know you don’t have your laptop anymore, so you can borrow mine. Oh, and…”

You watch his eyes slide awkwardly to where your old desk used to be. In your absence, they had replaced the smaller desk with a full sized one, currently occupied by someone you don’t recognise.

“…uh, we’ll get you one of the empty meeting rooms to work in,” Taehyung motions for you to follow him, and it’s all you can do not to look in Park Jimin’s direction as you turn away. “You look great, by the way. Hardly recognised you.”

You clear your throat awkwardly as a way of responding as Taehyung sets his laptop on the table for you and plugs it in. He opens the required documents for you as you seat yourself in the hardbacked chair.

“So… here are all the things we need you to look through. Let me know when you’re done, okay? Thanks again, ______!” Taehyung beams at you as he lets himself out of the room.

Left alone, you relax a little. At least things seem to be going your way for now, even the parts you didn’t plan for. Minimizing the word document window, you open Microsoft Outlook and navigate over to Taehyung’s calendar. There, you scroll down to find Bae Joohyun’s calendar and all her appointments and meetings for today.

There. At 11.30am, she has a meeting with the Policy team, with HR in attendance. When you scroll down to the meeting details, you see that Park Jimin has been appointed secretariat for this meeting. You ignore the flutter of nerves that arise at the sight of his name to open up Taehyung’s instant messenger. What you’re doing could really get him in trouble, but then again, a part of you simply doesn’t care. He was complicit in all of this. You have no sympathy for him at all.

You send a quick instant message to one of the Policy team to let them know that the meeting has been cancelled so that you can hijack it for your own purposes. When they reply with an acknowledgement, you sit back in your chair, letting out a sigh of relief before quickly deleting any signs of evidence from his chat log history.

You spend some time going over what you prepared to say when you finally meet the witch, everything from past payrolls where you were underpaid for your overtime work, a draft from a lawyer threatening to sue for illegally divulging your medical information to a doctor’s letter proving your current pregnancy. Everything you need to take that witch on is right here.

A soft, timid knock sounds at the door, and you hurriedly gather everything into a pile and shove it into your bag. Can’t have your plan given away before you’re ready. You expect it to be Taehyung coming to check on your progress, but when the door cracks open, you see a flash of blonde hair, followed by a soft, sweet voice that you missed so much.

“Can I come in?” Jimin asks with his eyes trained on the floor in front of you.

“Come in,” your hands twist together out of nervousness, and you see that Jimin is carrying a cup in his hands as he approaches you.

“I uh… I brought you this. I know you need coffee every day at around this time, so…” Jimin gingerly places the cup on the table without taking a single step forward so that he remains as far away from you as possible. You can see that he is nervous, all the tell-tale signs are there. From the way he keeps running his fingers through his hair to the way he bites his bottom lip and avoids eye contact.

You never really realised it, but you do always go to the pantry at around this time for your before lunch coffee. It gets worse when you realise that Jimin used his cup to make you coffee, and as you stare at his beloved One Piece mug, you have to stop yourself from crying.

Jimin mistakes your silence for something else, and he clears his throat awkwardly as he takes another step backwards. “Well um… let me know if you need anything. I’ll just be… I’ll be outside.”

A part of you wants to call out after him. There are so many things you want to tell him, but before you can gather your scattered wits, he lets himself out of the room.

It’s okay. It’s the wrong timing anyway, you tell yourself in an attempt to calm down and put all thoughts of his sad puppy eyes out of your mind. There will be enough time to talk to him when this is all over. Right now, you have to gear up for the biggest battle of your life.

When 11.30am comes, you shut the lid on Taehyung’s laptop and let yourself out of the room. You know Bae Joohyun always likes to stroll into her meetings exactly 2 minutes late, so you take your time walking to the meeting room. When you are 10 steps away, you see her black clad figure just ahead of you. You watch her push open the meeting door, and you have to consciously fight against back the pulse of intimidation that runs through your entire body. You quicken your steps and push the door open after her.

Just as you’d hoped, the only people in the room are the witch herself, Kim Namjoon from HR, and… Park Jimin as the note taker. He looks surprised to see you in the room as he straightens his posture, eyes widened almost comically in the way that you’ve become all too familiar with.

“What’s this?” Bae Joohyun doesn’t look the least bit bothered, just continues to tap away on her special iPad without even looking up. “Why is she here? Isn’t this meeting with the Policy unit?”

Kim Namjoon looks flustered as he looks at you, gesturing with his chin for you to get out. When you don’t make a single move, he turns back to Bae Joohyun, visibly sweating. “Um… there must be some kind of mistake… _____, we could talk about this later?”

The way his voice rises in a desperate plea only makes the victory even sweeter.

“No. It’s not a mistake. I’m here to dispute the terms of my termination.” You take out your folder of evidence from your bag and drop it on the table. “Of course, we could invite our colleagues from the Policy Unit to sit in on this meeting as well, but something tells me that you won’t want them to hear about what I have to say.”

There is a beat of tense silence as Bae Joohyun contemplates what’s on her iPad screen. She hasn’t looked up even once since you walked into the room. She lets out a soft sigh, as if all this is beneath her and just a waste of her time. Seeing as you aren’t about to get her attention any time soon, you shift your gaze to Kim Namjoon.

“First of all, I would like to bring your attention to the unfair compensation that I have been subject to all these years. According to my calculations, I have yet to be compensated for 136 hours of overtime.” You push a stack of timesheets towards Kim Namjoon’s shocked face. “Time and time again I’ve submitted these, only for them to be rejected.”

Bae Joohyun doesn’t react at all.

“Secondly, I have consulted my lawyer about the illegal release of my medical information. He has advised me to take legal action both against the doctor who allowed my medical information to be leaked, as well as the company itself who illegally utilised the information.”

You pause for a moment to let the words sink in, and at the very same moment, you see Kim Namjoon’s face turn slightly green as he processes the meaning of this.

“Sure, you might be thinking that it’ll be easy to win a lawsuit against an individual like me, being a huge company and all that. But I don’t think it will reflect too well on your organisation as a whole, will it?”

Bae Joohyun blinks once, then taps a few times on her iPad so that the screen goes black. Then, she shifts her gaze to you, her face still unreadable, but you detect a hint of uncertainty in her eyes.

“So? What’s your point?” She folds her arms and addresses you directly.

A good sign. A very good sign.

It’s time for the final blow. You brace yourself with your fists clenched by your side, aware of the mounting tension in the room. Namjoon is practically holding his breath, you can see him shaking in his seat with his eyes darting back and forth between you and Bae Joohyun. Jimin has given up all pretence of typing and hiding behind his laptop, and he is looking at you with nothing short of awe on his face.

You reach in for your last piece of evidence. “You are aware that in this country it is against the law to terminate a pregnant woman without a thorough inquiry? And if a pregnant employee must be dismissed, it has to be based on relevant and objective performance criteria?”

A small raise of her eyebrow as her head nods imperceptibly, but you can see Bae Joohyun’s expression waver.

“Yes… we are well aware of that. It is a policy I have helped to implement,” the witch says with a hint of pride in her voice.

A satisfied smile spreads across your face as you draw out the doctor’s letter. You can hear Jimin’s sharp intake of breath in the otherwise silent room, and the shifting in his seat as he leans his elbows on the table. His mouth is slightly open, but no words are coming out.

“According to this letter, you’ll find that I am currently almost 2 months pregnant. As such, having been terminated whilst pregnant without further inquiry or offer of wage compensation, I am entitled to further legal action against you and the company.”

You toss the letter directly to Bae Joohyun, and it lands heavily in front of her. You can see Jimin’s fingers twitch as his stare burns a hole into the letter, before looking back at you with an unreadable expression on his face. The witch herself lets out another sigh before meeting your eyes, completely ignoring the letter.

“We will look into raising a fair and just inquiry.” Her words are brief, and she casts a sideways glance at Namjoon as she says this, as if this was all his fault to begin with.

Namjoon, on the other hand, rushes to accept the blame. “O-of course! We will ensure that the entire process is as transparent and fair as possible.”

“No need for that,” you say with an indifferent wave of your hand, and the satisfaction grows when the witch herself does a double take.

“What… what exactly do you mean by that?” Bae Joohyun is unable to believe her ears.

Jimin is looking at you as if you just saved the world from total destruction. The admiration in his eyes can’t be hidden as he grins. Namjoon looks sick.

“No need for the inquiry,” you say just to make things clear. “I’m aware of how things are done at this company, and sad to say that it’s anything but fair. I’m quitting. Notice effective immediately. You’ll hear from my lawyer regarding the compensation that I owe for my notice period.”

You reach into your bag for the last envelope, tossing your resignation letter onto the table with a practiced ease. Then, you gather your bag and make your way out the door, Bae Joohyun’s shocked expression burned into your retinas.

It feels like you’re walking away from an explosion like the cool guys do in the movies. For once in your life, you feel like the protagonist of your own movie rather than the side character.

Everyone else in the office is still working quietly, so you escape the office without being pursued further. When you stop to press the lift button, you hear the doors fling open, and a panting Park Jimin appears.

“Wait!” Jimin has his hands on his knees. “Le-let me drive you home.”

His eyes grow desperate as the lift doors open.

You owe him an explanation too. You hold the lift button as you turn towards him. “Will you?”

*

The drive home is silent up until he parks in front of your apartment. Neither of you make a move.

“2 months?” Jimin finally breaks the silence. “When did you find out?”

“After… after they fired me. They called me with the results from the free checkup. That’s how I found out.”

“So you knew when I called you?” Jimin’s heartbroken voice stabs you right in the gut.

There’s no excuse you could make for yourself. “It- it’s true though. Everything I said.”

“What?” Jimin looks and sounds like a puppy that’s been kicked.

“I did drag you into all of this. It was selfish to use you as my excuse the first time, and I couldn’t let myself go down that road anymore. You made all my Mondays better, but I made yours worse. You don’t deserve this. You deserve so much better than me, than all of this-“

“-but I want this,” Jimin grasps your hand and pulls it to his chest. “I don’t care if it’s selfish. All this while you’ve been assuming that you dragged me into this, that I was the unwilling party all along. But have you ever stopped to consider for one second that I might want this too? With you? That you made my Mondays better too?”

When you take a moment to look at his face, the Park Jimin that you’ve come to know and love over the past few months, the familiarity of him soothes you. The plump cheeks, rounded eyes, and the special smile he always has just for you. And he’s right. Never had you thought that he might want this- because why would he? How could he?

“You want this? But… why?” You are incredulous, unwilling to believe.

“Because I love you. And the thing growing inside you right now,” Jimin lets his emotions get the best of him, all the better to say the words he’s been struggling to say ever since he saw you that morning. And maybe it’s not the most romantic, but it’s filled with sincerity at the very least. “I’m in love with you, rash decisions and all. The day where you dragged me into your mess was the best day of my life. My Mondays have never been the same since.”

You can’t help but laugh aloud at how realistic his confession is. Classic Jimin style, savage as always. At the sound of your laughter, Jimin grins also, slightly shy from just pouring out his feelings like that, but proud of himself all the same.

“Granny knows, you know,” you say in between your laughter. “She knows we were faking it all along. And- oh! She came to visit me, you should come in and say hi to her.”

“What?” His comical gasp only sends you into another laughing fit. “Since when?! You could have told me sooner! She’ll spank me so hard for lying to her…”

“She’s not the only one who’ll be spanking you,” you can’t help but tease him, the opportunity is just too perfect.

“Agh! Don’t talk like that when my Granny is involved!!” Jimin buries his head in his hands in embarrassment.

You tug at his hands, opening your side of the door. “You have to come in, at least! She’ll be so happy to see you. To see us together again. She was the one who helped me with all of this you know.”

You drag a grumbling and still embarrassed Jimin inside, stopping every few seconds to tease him about his red ears and pinch his cheeks.

“Oh come on, Granny won’t be mad when she sees how cute you look. Wait, no. She’ll insist to feed us like there’s no tomorrow. She’ll say you lost your chubby cheeks,” you grin at him as you unlock the door, fully savouring the bubbly feeling in your stomach that makes you feel as if you are floating.

“Isn’t it good, though? It means I lost weight,” Jimin places a hand on his own face, as if to gauge whether his cheeks have slimmed down or not, still fretting over how Granny will react when she sees him.

“No! Of course it’s not good! You shouldn’t be losing any more weight, you’re perfect as is,” you drop your bag at the door and kick off your heels, groaning in relief. “Granny! We’re home!”

“That should be my line,” Jimin mutters under his breath as he braces himself to see Granny. But minutes pass, and he doesn’t see his beloved Granny.

“Hmm? That’s strange. Where did she go? She was just here this morning,” you mumble to yourself, walking towards the kitchen and wondering if she might be too immersed in cooking, but then you spot a scribbled note tacked to your fridge.

I left for Busan already, Puppy. You did well… I’ll leave you two alone. Side dishes in the fridge! Stay safe!

“Oh? Puppy? Why did she write that note to me? How did she know I’d be here?” Jimin is confused as he reads the note from over your shoulder.

You can’t help but smirk at his confusion. “Sorry, but Granny decided that the nickname belongs to me now.”

As Jimin protests with a pout, you can’t help but smile at Granny’s thoughtfulness. Seeing that your thoughts are somewhere else, Jimin rests his chin on your shoulder to demand for your attention like a cute puppy.

You turn to him and your attention is drawn to one of your favourite parts of him- his lips. Noticing that they are still a little dry, you frown and reach inside your pocket, taking out your favourite lip balm.

“Hold still. I’ve wanted to do this since this morning,” you place a hand on his chin and uncap the lip balm, dabbing and swiping it gently across his full lips. Though slightly dry, his lips are so soft and pliable under your touch, and the way he closes his eyes to enjoy your touch has you clenching your thighs together. With every swipe of the lip balm, his bottom lip looks plumper, and you can’t help yourself any longer.

Carelessly tossing aside the lip balm, you chase after his lips with your own, tasting the sweet peach flavour of the lip balm and feeling just how soft and cushiony Park Jimin’s lips are. He makes the cutest surprised little sound, eyes open for a second before he kisses you back with equal fervour.

You make sure to scrape your teeth against his plush bottom lip, fulfilling one of the fantasies you’d been dreaming about since this morning.

When you break away, Park Jimin has a teasing smile on his slightly swollen lips. “I guess that’s an efficient way to put lip balm on for two people.”

“Shut up already,” you say before you start to giggle all over again, and Jimin takes this as an invitation to go in for seconds.

“Since… since Granny said she’d leave us alone… shall we?” Jimin is somehow endearingly shy even though the two of you aren’t strangers to this.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

He tugs you into your bedroom eagerly, and on the way, you can’t help but grab a handful of his ass through his dress pants. Park Jimin pretends to be shocked as he turns around, arms around your waist as he makes you sit down on the bed gently.

“That’s sexual harassment, Ms.” His words contradict his actions as he runs his palms down your thighs, fingers dancing up your inner thigh.

“But I like your ass,” you say with a pout, imitating him and the way his cheeks puff up.

“I like yours better,” he says with an unabashed grin. “And I fucking love this suit on you. The moment you walked in this morning… I think Taehyung saw my boner.”

You can’t hide your squeal of embarrassment as you clasp a hand to your mouth, but Park Jimin only grins as he invites himself to undo the button on your pants.

“I said I really liked it… but I’m changing my mind. I want it off, now.” He bids you to lift your hips so that he can peel the pants off your legs, exposing your bare skin. His fingers on your skin makes your temperature skyrocket, and even more so when they tease at the edges of your underwear. He sees the damp patch in the centre, and glances upwards with raised eyebrows. “Are you wet already? I haven’t even done much yet…”

The cute way he glances through his bangs with the slight smirk on his lips makes you feel brazen. “I’m pregnant… I’m always wet these days.”

Park Jimin lets out a sharp exhale as he drags his thumb against the wet patch to feel for himself. You would be embarrassed were he not so clearly turned on by this, demonstrated by the urgency with which he pulls your underwear down and wedges his shoulders between your thighs. Without a single word, he kisses the inner flesh of your thighs, working his way up to where you need him the most.

It’s torture to watch his plush lips get closer and closer to your centre, until they finally envelope your swollen and aching clit. He wraps his lips around them and sucks, thick fingers digging into your inner thighs to keep them spread as he licks up every drop of your arousal. He eats you like a man starved, and your back arches under his ministrations. He gives your poor clit a break as he switches to broad flat licks with his tongue, and everything just becomes so much wetter. You can see that his chin is glistening, but he doesn’t mind in the slightest as he only spreads your legs wider, one thigh on each shoulder.

The lewd position in which you are in, seeing his golden head in between your thighs makes you want him even more. You are aching to feel him, to be closer than physically possible to him.

Jimin satisfies your hunger by introducing two fingers into you, and you whine at the stretch. His fingers have always been so deliciously thick, and he basks in your reaction.

“You like that? Like being filled with my fingers? Tell me how much you like it.” His vulnerable side shows through as he glances up at you while you thread your fingers through his soft hair.

“I missed this… missed you so much,” you voice comes out in a breathless whisper as you clench around him. You glance at him to see how he’s rolled back his sleeves to above the elbow, using his other hand to push his hair back and show off his forehead glistening with sweat and you swear you get a million times wetter at the sight.

“Like what you see baby?” Park Jimin shows off with a cocky little smile, pushing his hair back again just for good measure. He can feel how much wetter you are, and you can bet he’s not going to let this go just like that.

“Good looking bastard,” you swear under your breath as he rubs your clit with his thumb. “I sure hope our baby takes after you.”

“The good-looking part or the cocky part?” Jimin has the nerve to tease you, but you don’t have your wits to answer any more as he flattens his tongue against your clit, driving his fingers inside you just to send you over the edge.

Maybe it’s because you were deprived of his presence for the past week that this orgasm makes you realise how much you were starving for Park Jimin. Your thighs clench around him, shaking with mind numbing pleasure as he continues to thrust his fingers inside you.

He shows you no mercy as he continues to rub your clit slowly, the other hand stroking your inner thigh to soothe you. It’s characteristic of him, getting you used to the overstimulation whilst comforting you at the same time.

You push yourself up on your elbows, seeing the bulge in his dress pants and feeling the impatience fuel your actions. “I want to see you. Why are you still wearing these?”

He is preoccupied with licking the rest of you off his fingers as you struggle with the button on his pants, setting him free and reaching past his underwear to grasp his cock. The feeling of his thick length in your hands ignites a hunger inside you as you stroke him, running your thumb across his tip as he kicks away his pants. His abs tense as you palm his cock, and your mouth waters at the thought of running your tongue across them.

“I can’t wait to see you round and swollen with our baby,” Park Jimin says out of nowhere, his eyes hungry as he pushes your blazer off your shoulders, fingers working magic on the buttons of your shirt. He pushes that off your shoulders as well, eyes feasting on your breasts sitting so prettily in the cups of your bra. “And these. They’ll look so beautiful leaking with milk just for me.”

Jimin undoes your bra with ease, slipping the straps down your shoulders. He drags his thumb across your peaked nipple painfully slowly, then he pinches it sharply, eliciting a cry from you.

“The milk isn’t for you, it’s for our baby,” you remind him with a warning squeeze to his cock, sliding your own thumb through the messy tip.

Jimin meets your eyes with the cutest pout ever. “The baby can share. They’re not getting here for another few months yet.”

How he can look like a kicked puppy with your hands around his cock, you have no idea. The duality of Park Jimin will be the death of you someday. He crawls forward as your hands rid him of his last article of clothing, hungry to touch his bare skin and feel it against your own. Jimin makes sure your head is nestled comfortably against the pillows as he kisses his way down your body to your breasts, taking one nipple into his mouth and sucking, giving you a glimpse of what it would feel like when you do start producing milk later on.

You can feel his cock against your inner thighs as you cradle him with your body, feeling the hardness of his abs against your softer body, the curve of his ass. Jimin is still satisfying himself with sucking on your breasts, licking and teasing you to his heart’s content.

You twitch in response, feeling much more sensitive now that you’re a few months along, but Jimin looks as if he’s enjoying your breasts so much that you don’t have the heart to stop him. His fingers are delicately stroking your lower belly as he worships your breasts, muttering sweet nothings about how perfect you’ll be as the mother of his baby.

“Want your cock, now,” you urge him with your voice and reinforce it with your thighs nudging him into position. You feel the head of his cock blunt against you, and without taking his mouth off your nipple, he positions himself with one hand and enters you with a fluid thrust of his hips. As if he can’t take his mouth off your breasts for one second.

He continues to suck at your breasts as he fucks into you, the stretch of his cock and the welcome burn making you curl your thighs around him. Once he’s certain that you can take it, Park Jimin starts to pound into you with his cock, his rough thrusts contrasting with his gentle sucking and kissing.

He finally lets up with the assault against your breasts, pushing your thighs together and putting them on one shoulder. This suddenly display of strength has you gushing on his cock, and it only strokes his ego even more.

“You like getting fucked like this? Hm?” Jimin punctuates his filthy words with a particularly hard thrust that you can feel all the way to your cervix. “You like getting fucked so much, it was only a matter of time till you got knocked up like this.”

He watches your breasts bounce so deliciously, knowing that it is because of his fucking.

“I love it, fucking love it. Love you,” your reply is disjointed, every thrust of his hips sends his cock so deep inside you. “Want you to keep fucking me.”

“I will, baby don’t worry,” he places one hand on your hip and the other just under your breasts as he buries himself deep. “Give you all the babies you want.”

“Want you to cum inside me, give me all your cum,” you watch as his expression twists in pleasure, his cock twitching inside you as he pulls out almost all the way, only to slam back in. “Fill me up the way you did when you fucked a baby into me. Then I want you to fuck your cum into me.”

“Ahh, fuck,” he swears harshly under his breath, you always know just how to get him. Your cunt is so tight and warm around him, everything is so wet and he’s missed the feeling of you wrapped around him. He holds a tender hand to your lower belly. The thought that you’re giving him a baby, and he gets to be the one to hold you and fuck you and kiss you makes him feel like the luckiest man in the world. “I’ll come so soon.”

“Cum for me baby please,” you play with your nipples, putting on a show for him as he groans, thumb finding your clit as he struggles to hold himself back. “Want to feel your cum inside me. I want to be dripping with your cum.”

Jimin quickens his pace on your clit as his thrusts start to become sloppy, and he throws back his head as his abs tighten. With three more thrusts, he buries himself as deep as possible into your warm cunt, feeling himself unleash ropes of cum into your depths. You can feel how warm and sticky everything is, and the feeling of his cock pulsing inside you sends you into another orgasm as well.

True to his word, Jimin doesn’t pull out immediately, giving you lazy little thrusts to fuck his cum back into you as if the two of you were still trying to get pregnant. It’s the little, silly things that he does- making you prop your hips up, pulling out his cock so slowly and plugging you up with his fingers that makes you fall even deeper in love with this fool.

“I heard cum is good for the cervix if you’re pregnant,” he says by way of explanation as he watches globs of cum escape from your lips. He indulges himself by spreading it a little, before pushing it all inside you. “Softens it so you’ll have an easier birth.”

“Bullshit,” you giggle at him. “Next thing you’ll be telling me is that cum facials make me look younger.”

Jimin frowns indignantly. “I would never say something as ridiculous as that!” He’s never really been into painting your face white with cum, he’d rather save it all for your sweet pussy. “But that cervix one really is true- I read it on the internet!”

Jimin swipes two fingers through the mess that is your pussy, bringing it to his lips for one last suck before he cuddles in beside you. Suddenly, he freezes.

“I wasn’t too rough, was I? I didn’t hurt you?” He runs his hands down your body as if to check for any sore spots.

“It’ll be a while before I’m at that stage- so we should have all the kinky sex now before I’m too fat for you to tie me up,” you reassure him with your hand over his.

Jimin releases a breath against the back of your neck. “Kinky sex hm? I could be down for that.” There is a moment of silence as he draws mindless patterns on your lower belly, and your eyes flutter closed before you hear his soothing voice again. “I’m so excited to see our baby. I want more babies after this. Hey, we should have a gender reveal party. Or a baby shower. For real this time.”

It’s so adorable that he’s so excited about all this. “We should invite Yoongi too. I think they should have popped out their baby by now. I want to put Yeji to shame by being hotter than she was when she was pregnant.”

“Of course baby,” Jimin muffles his laughter into your shoulder. “We’ll do that.”

You hear your phone ping from somewhere far away, and it wakes you up just as you’re about to drift off to sleep. You stir Jimin awake with your elbow and make him fetch your phone for you. With many grumbles about how he better get extra kisses for this, he leaves the bed for a moment, and deposits your phone in your hands before snuggling back under the covers.

You unlock your phone and open your mail app. Your delighted gasp wakes Jimin once more, and he’s wide awake the next moment.

“What is it!? Did the baby kick?” He doesn’t stop to think when he’s alarmed, but it’s adorable.

“It’s too early for that,” you say as you do a double take at the words on your screen. You can feel the smile spreading across your face as you read the email again. Jimin sits up in bed and squints at your phone screen.

“I got a job offer!”

[aquaticalay]

F.R.I.D.A.Y. I'm in Love (Bucky Barnes x Reader)

Summary: While singing 'Friday, I'm in love' by The Cure in the kitchen to yourself, a certain AI thinks you're talking to her. She tells you something you didn't know, and decides to play matchmaker on Christmas morning, because why not?

Genre: christmas fluff :)

Word count: 2.5k

Song: Friday, I'm in Love by The Cure

Note: Merry Xmas! This is my last fic before vacation! This is also my first one shot in a while. Hope you like it!!

You were the first one awake at the compound, but that wasn't anything out of the usual. You always wake up at least half an hour earlier than anybody else in the compound without fail, every single day. It was simply an old habit you can't seem to get rid of, no matter how tired you were or how late you slept the night before.

The only thing that made a difference was that it's the day before christmas. Since you and Bucky were the only people with no family to celebrate it with, the two of you stayed behind to keep an eye on the compound. You had somehow convinced Bucky to agree on helping you set up decorations today. Besides, you also need help setting up the realistic-looking artificial pine tree at the corner of the common room. You already had a vision: green, white, and red ribbons filling up the ceiling and fairy lights as far as the eye can see. 

But that was your plan for later in the afternoon. Right now, the sun had just barely began to rise.

You made your way to the kitchen, thinking of making pancakes for breakfast. You hummed a tune as you opened the cupboards for a pan and ingredients. You eyeballed the flour and sugar, sifted them in a bowl and went to the fridge to get the rest of the contents needed.

Lost in your own world, the tunes you hummed turned into cohesive words, an actual song that you had been listening to lately and can't seem to get out of your head.

"I don't care if Monday's blue," you sang, cracking the eggs, making sure the shell stayed out of the batter, "Tuesday's gray and Wednesday too."

You poured the milk and butter, "Thursday, I don't care about you," you grabbed a whisk and pretended it was a microphone, "It's Friday, I'm in love."

"May I guess with who?" FRIDAY quipped suddenly.

You yelped in shock and dropped the whisk into the batter, some of it splattering to your shirt and face. Just a little, but enough to piss you off.

"What?" You asked, slightly annoyed.

"You told me you were in love," you heard the AI say through the built in speakers of the room, "may I guess with who?".

You let out a lighthearted laugh, "First of all, it's just a song," you rolled your eyes with a smile, amused by the misunderstanding of the supposedly smart AI. "Secondly," you continued, "I am not in love with anybody at the moment."

FRIDAY then said, in a matter-of-factly manner, "But you are."

Furrowing your eyebrows, annoyed, you stubbornly told her, "No, I'm not."

"You are," the AI insisted, and before you can deny it once again, she told you, "You show all physical and hormonal signs of being in love— increased levels of dopamine, adrenaline, and norepinephrine, increased heart rate, and dilated pupils— in the presence of Sergeant James Barnes."

Your mind stopped just enough to catch up with what FRIDAY. was telling you. 

"What?" You asked, flustered, as blood rushed to your cheeks, "No!"

"It's true," said the AI calmly, then displayed a panel of hologram on the island kitchen, usually used for mission briefings— your vitals, including your hormone levels. "These are your average body scans whenever you are in the same room as Sergeant Barnes," she said.

"That's enough, Friday!" you exclaimed, almost squeaking, embarrassed. She then took down the hologram, to your relief.

You admit, you have always been fond of Bucky, and dare you say, quite attached to him, but it never occurred to you that you loved him, mostly because everytime you even thought of the four-letter terrifying word, you pushed it to the deepest, darkest corner of your mind, lock it in a glass box and throw away the key, never to be seen again. The subject of love terrifies you, though the thought of being romantically involved with Bucky did give you a certain feeling of satisfaction and comfort, and maybe, just maybe, hope of it being able to work out.

Oops, there's the thought again.

Time to bury it six feet underground.

"In case you're curious, Sergeant Barnes also—" the AI started, but you shushed her furiously, "Fri, I don't want to hear it."

"But—" she began, but you cut her off again, "Please don't."

Sensing your discomfort, she stopped saying whatever she was about to say.

You continued to make your pancakes in peace, if there was ever any. 

You hummed the tune of the same song, careful not to say the actual words to it. You turned on the stove an put a frying pan on it measuring your batter out for an even and fluffy pancake. 

The automatic door opened, and Bucky entered the room, yawning. He was wearing a grey shirt and shorts. As he smelled the sweet aroma of the batter cooking, his gaze turned to you. 

"Mornin' doll," he smiled lazily, greeting you. He seemed to be in an especially good mood today. Ever since you joined almost a year ago, he had given you the nickname, and you adapted to it quickly. 

"Morning, Buck," you hummed, flipping the pancakes. Bucky walked towards you and took in the smell exaggeratingly. "Hope you made some for me."

You chuckled, "Of course." 

You stacked the first three pancakes on an empty plate and handed it to Bucky, who gave you a chaste kiss on the side of your head.

This type of casual affection has been going on for a while now, a little over five months. He'd kiss you on the cheeks or forehead whenever he said thank you, hello, or goodbye. You'd also cuddle against him on movie nights and lean on his shoulder while sitting on the dinner table, but neither of you ever spoke about it. You never wanted to think much about these flirtatious exchanges. You assumed this was just who he was, and you were just playing his game. He was a ladies' man in the 40s, after all, and you were just all-all round playful person.

You stacked your own pancakes and turned off the stove. 

You sat next to Bucky on the couch, who was currently pouring a shit ton of maple syrup on his pancakes, squeezing the bottle with his metal arm.

You chuckled at his behaviour, and he raised his eyebrows at you.

"What are you laughing at?" He tried to pretend to be serious, but he can't help but show a hint of a grin on his adorable face.

"Nothing," you shook your head playfully and started eating the sugar-filled breakfast.

Deciding it was too quiet, Bucky decided to ask FRIDAY a favor. "Friday," Bucky called, "play some music, please."

FRIDAY complied almost immediately, and the tune of the song she played was too familiar.

Your cheeks turned bright red in a matter of seconds. Why would she play that?

"I don't care if Monday's blue

Tuesday's grey and Wednesday, too

Thursday I don't care about you

It's Friday, I'm in love"

Bucky stuffed pancakes in his mouth as he listened to the song, "I've never heard this song before," he mentioned, his head moving subtly to the tempo of the song, "It's nice."

"Uh, yeah," you managed to nervously blurt out.

Bucky turned his head to you, "You cold, doll?" He asked, concern in his voice.

"No, why?" 

"You're red," he pointed out worriedly, "Are you sure you're not sick?"

"No, I'm just—" you started, trying to find an excuse, but nothing comes to mind. You couldn't tell him you're embarrassed, and you already told him you weren't cold, "—I don't know."

As the song continued playing, Bucky placed the back of his hand on your forehead to check for a fever, but he was met with a normal, cool skin. He tried not to think too much about it. He shrugged and told you, "Just let me know if you feel unwell, okay? I know where Scott keeps his emergency cold medicine."

You managed a nod, and tried to distract yourself by eating your pancakes.

You started to feel relief wash over you as the song came to an end, but when it did end, it started to play again, as if FRIDAY had it on loop.

"Weird," Bucky quipped.

"Yeah, weird," you said, a little quieter than usual, "Friday, please play another song," you said, but Bucky cut you off, "No, I want to listen to it again," he said, "One more time? I really like it."

You sunk into your seat, having forced to suffer through this song again.

-

That afternoon, Bucky helped you set up the ribbons and lights, and now he was helping you with the tree ornaments.

The time you spent together were spent in laughter and joy, playfully teasing each other. He told you a lot about his old family traditions, how his little sister Rebecca and him would use their spare money to get their mother a gift every year. In return, you made him hot chocolate, made from your grandma's special recipe.

"Bucky," you called, "give me a boost so I can get the star on top of the tree." 

You showed him the star. It was brilliant red. He chuckled to himself, wondering if you intentionally got it to match his old logo.

Without warning, he grabbed your waist, and spun you around playfully. You yelped in shock, steadying yourself by putting a hand on his shoulder. You laughed a little, "The tree, Buck," you reminded him, and he chuckled, rolling his eyes. "okay, okay."

You placed the star on top, and he set you down gently. You were facing him, and for a split second, you nose touched his and you were looking straight into his icy orbs. 

You looked away, pretending it didn't happen. 

"Help me with the ribbons," you quipped. Bucky grabbed the box full of colorful decorations. "Okay," he replied. You weren't sure, but you could've sworn he sounded a little bit disappointed.

The rest of the afternoon was spent decorating the tree, and it was all fun and games until Bucky started humming 'Friday, I'm in love,' under his breath, a song that seems to be stuck in his head.

-

You and Bucky fell asleep on the couch after a Christmas movie marathon. You woke up in the same position you fell asleep: cuddled up against Bucky, you head on his shoulder and his human arm wrapped contently around your waist. You adjusted your eyes to the light coming in from the big glass windows, and tugged on Bucky's side, "wake up."

He groaned a little, his eyes blinking to life. 

"Merry Christmas," you smiled, still leaning your head on his shoulder, too lazy to get up.

"Merry Christmas, doll," he replied, a sleepy but sincere smile on his face.

You mustered enough energy to look at the Christmas tree, and was shocked to see one small red box under the tree, decorated with a fittingly small green bow. It was empty the last time you saw it.

"Did you–" you turned to Bucky, who nodded right away, "How?" You asked curiously.

"I slipped it there before we started the movie," he admitted, a slightly rosy color on his cheeks.

"Is that for me?" You asked, and he nodded.

"I- I've got a present for you in my room," you told him, half-way panicked that you've forgotten his present in your quarters.

Rushing out of the common room, Bucky watched you as a sigh left his lips. 

He found himself humming the song he heard yesterday again. He took the present from under the tree to give it to you first hand, then walked to the island kitchen to get some water. He doesn't remember all the words, except the ones at the very end of the chorus.

He mumbled a string of noises, but lightly sang the last part in his best singing voice, "Friday, I'm in love."

"I know," Friday said through the speakers. It surprised Bucky, but he didn't show it. Sitting down on the bar stool of the island, Bucky asked, "What?"

"I know you're in love, Sergeant Barnes," the AI said.

Bucky let a heavy breath out. Friday was right. He was in love. With you. "How did you know?"

"Your physical and hormonal body scans when you're around Miss (Y/n)."

Bucky only chuckled dryly. It was nothing he didn't already know, "Too bad she doesn't feel the same, huh?" 

"Actually—" the AI started, but suddenly stopped when you rushed back in the room, a heavy box decorated with a patterned white wrapper in your arms. It was huge compared to the gift he got you. You put on the marble countertop and climbed on the stool next to his.

"Here," you said excitedly, "open it!"

Your excitement was contagious. He gave you a hearty laugh and ripped the wrapping paper. When he was finished, he realized what it was. A record player.

"Wow, (Y/n)," he said, twinkle in his eyes. He raised it so he could see it better, "I- thank you."

"You've been telling me about how you used to listen to music," you told him, "So I got you a more modern one."

"Your turn," Bucky said, giving you your present.

It wasn't wrapped, it was just a red box with a bow. You opened it and you looked to him for explanation.

It was a necklace with a dark silver star pendant.

"It's beautiful," you sighed, admiring the jewelry, "Thank you."

He gently took the necklace in his fingers, and looped it behind your neck, hooking it so now you were wearing it.

"I asked Shuri to make it from the scrap vibranium used to make my metal arm," he told you, a warm and loving smile on his mouth, "So you can have a piece of me with you."

Suddenly, you wondered if FRIDAY was right about you being in love with him.

"Ahem," said a human-like voice from the ceiling. It was FRIDAY, calling so you would look up.

The two of you saw a holographic mistletoe from the projector above you.

Damn, FRIDAY.

You smiled. It was a good excuse to kiss him, right? Wasn't that the rules of the mistletoe?

You reached up a little to press a short but sweet kiss on his lips, catching him off-guard. 

"I-" Bucky turned beet red, "can you do that again please?"

Pleasantly surprised, you nod as you let him caress your cheeks, and pull you in for a longer kiss, his lips moving against yours in sync, like you were pieces of a puzzle. You melted into his arms and laid a hand on his thigh for support.

"I love you," Bucky said as he pulled away. Wait, he thought to himself, I love you?! 

He meant to say merry christmas! 

In his mind, you only kissed him because of his mistletoe. He was seconds away from apologizing, but then a content sigh left your lips, "I love you, too," you admitted shyly

He looked at you with a loving look that has always been there, yet you've only noticed it now. His thumb stroke your cheek softly, the contrast of metal and flesh strangely comforting.

"What is it?" You asked.

He cracked a smile. "My dad used to spend christmas morning with my ma," he said, "She told me one day I'd find someone to spend it, too."

"Would she have approved of me?" You asked, curiosity laced im you silky voice.

"I swear to god she'd love you," he cupped both your cheek and pressed a kiss on the tip of your nose, "Merry Christmas, doll."

"Merry Christmas, James."

You made an internal note to self to thank FRIDAY later.

-end.

[let-it-raines]

another kind of green (5/10)

Emma Swan spends her days in pretty white dresses and heavy layers of makeup. Day after day and dress after dress, she poses for pictures and acts like she’s in love and having the happiest day of her life with the man standing next to her.

It’s not. This is all a gig, and at the end of the day, she’s no longer the girl in the pretty dress who’s faking getting married for a magazine cover or a wedding convention. Instead, she’s the girl who probably never wants to get married.

Little does she know, she already is.

Rating: Mature

a/n: I hope everyone is having a good weekend! 💚

AO3: Beginning | Current

Tumblr: 1 | 2| 3 | 4 | 5 |

-/-

Emma filed for an annulment of her accidental drunken marriage yesterday.

She also took a pregnancy test.

Neither of those things were exactly in her life plan. Or whatever hypothetical life plan she’s supposed to have.

Luckily, that test (and the three she took after it because she does not trust those things) all came back negative because if getting accidentally hitched isn’t bad enough, getting accidentally knocked up would be even worse. That’s significantly more permanent and time consuming than marrying someone she doesn’t have to see every day, and she’d pass out from stress if she was actually pregnant.

And the extra-large margarita she had two days ago would have been a pretty big mistake.

(It was already a pretty big mistake when it made her a sloppy kind of intoxicated that had her telling Killian Jones that she liked the smell of his hair.)

(Ruby and Mulan have not stopped making fun of her for that.)

(Killian Jones, Emma Swan, and alcohol are obviously not a good combination.)

But she’s not pregnant, started her period today actually, and after going downtown to the family clerk’s office and having the nicest clerk in existence help Emma fill out the request for annulment papers, she’s officially got that off of her to-do list, which had quite possibly been the biggest weight off of her shoulder in years. Walking inside of the courthouse hadn’t been the best time, giving her flashbacks to being seventeen and having to go to trial (and jail) over those damn stolen watches that Neal set her up for, but at least she didn’t have to have a lawyer.

She stressed over that way too much, but it’s all in the past now. She’s got to keep that stress there.

Fucking Neal. He’s the scum of the earth, and that doesn’t even describe him. She wants to – no, she can’t. she can’t go there.

Positives. She has to focus on the positives, and not all of the memories she’s been tormented with over the past few days. There have been flashbacks of spending her days in a small cell and marking down the days until she could get out, her eighteenth birthday passing by her without her truly realizing it because she’d missed a few days on her chart. The flashbacks of the pregnancy test are the worst, however. The test she’d taken in jail was cheap, something not entirely reliable, and for a brief moment, Emma thought she was pregnant.

For an even briefer moment, she was happy about it because it meant she still had a connection with Neal. How messed up was she that she still wanted to be connected to the man that betrayed her trust and her heart? Why would anyone sane want that?

Why would anyone want to be connected to the man who ruined their life?

Because she loved him, let him tell her that things in her life were going to turn out right, and listening to him was her first mistake.

Emma wasn’t pregnant then and isn’t pregnant now, and she’s thankful for both negative tests even if things would have been different this time. It wouldn’t have been great, but at least she wouldn’t be a teenager in jail scared shitless over how the hell she’s going to do anything with her life because no one she cares about seems to stay. She’s got people now. It’s not a lot, but it’s something. That’s all that matters to her.

She’s got to stop focusing on those awful memories that make her stomach churn and nausea bubble up, and she needs to focus on something productive.

Like serving Killian Jones with his annulment papers.

The clerk has given her options to do that, including paying a courier to do it, but that had cost money and she figured it would be just as easy to give it over to them himself and ask for his half of the two hundred bucks she had to shell out for this. She meant to text him yesterday morning to arrange a time, but the whole pregnancy test thing threw her off. There was no way in hell she was going to talk to him after all of that. Today, however, she’s going to get her shit done and get this whole thing over with.

Emma Swan: Can you meet today?

The little bubbles pop up two seconds later.

Killian Jones: I’m booked all day today. Tomorrow?

Emma Swan: I’m booked all day tomorrow.

Killian Jones: Saturday then?

Emma Swan: I can do Saturday. What time?

Killian Jones: My place? Around noon?

Emma Swan: Send me your address.

She realizes that she never tells him why she wants to meet, but he probably knows. Despite them spending the entire evening together Monday night, they’re not casual friends who meet up to get something to eat or go to a concert together. They’re…acquaintances. She’s got no clue, isn’t really interested in defining it, and she’ll leave it at that. Their “whatever” is short term and will be ending soon anyways. There’s no need to get any kind of attached.

Her phone starts ringing, a picture of she and David from last year’s Christmas popping up, and she slides the bar across the screen to answer the phone.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” David sighs, “this is your daily reminder that you have to file your annulment papers.”

“It’s really a shame that you and Marg haven’t procreated yet because you’re such a dad.”

“How could I have a baby when I’m too worried about you? So I think we’ll keep using condoms for now.”

“Oh my God,” Emma grumbles, getting up from her bed and walking the few feet to her kitchen, which is really more of a kitchenette that can barely fit food than anything. She needs to get a bigger place, but she doesn’t mind living here. Having a savings account to fall back on is far more important than an apartment with actual walls around her bedroom. “I don’t need to know about your sex life.”

“I know for a fact Mary Margaret talks to you about it.” “That’s different.” “How?”

“So, I filed the papers,” she blurts out, changing the subject.

“Did you really?”

“Mhm, yesterday, and I’ve already texted Killian so I can give him the papers in case he wants to contest it or anything.”

“Do you think he will?” “What? No. Neither of us want to be married. It was literally a drunken mistake. Nothing about it was sane. We both want it behind us.”

“Is that Emma?” Mary Margaret says.

“Yes.”

“Can I talk to her?”

“Wait,” Emma starts, “aren’t you at work? How is Marg there?”

“I’m home on my lunch break. I – ”

“Emma,” Mary Margaret gasps, her voice coming in clear in the phone. “I had no idea Killian was one of Ariel’s clients. I don’t know how I didn’t realize that when we did the convention. I called Ariel yesterday, and I just had to talk to her about how funny the whole thing was with the two of you getting married. We – ”

“Wait,” Emma gasps, dropping her package of Pop-Tarts to the counter, “you talked to Ariel about it? Did she know or did you tell her?”

“Well, I told her.”

Shit, Marg. “Marg, Killian hadn’t told anyone about it! I don’t think he wanted to! What happened to not telling anyone?”

“I assumed she knew.” “Did you having to tell her about it not clue you in that maybe you shouldn’t have told her?”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry. I guess I wasn’t thinking. That’s been happening so much lately. God, Emma, these pregnancy hormones will make you insane. It’s, like, shit, my brain isn’t even my brain even more. I’ve been all over the place. I promise I didn’t mean to screw that up. It didn’t even cross my mind. Will you apologize to Killian for me?”

“Mary Margaret Nolan,” Emma whispers, “did you just say that you’re pregnant?”

“Fuck, I did, didn’t I?”

Emma barks out a laugh, leaning forward to rest her arms and her forehead against the countertop. She was just teasing David about this, and then…they’re having a baby. For all the screwed-up thoughts Emma has over her own experiences in this area, she knows this is a good, wonderful thing that David and Mary Margaret deserve.

Damn.

They’re going to be great parents.

“Congratulations, lady! I’m so happy for you guys, and I forgive you for being even more scatterbrained than normal.”

“Says the most unorganized person I know.”

“I get shit done.”

“That you do…most of the time.” Mary Margaret sighs. “I’m so happy, Emma.”

“As you should be. You guys are going to be the best parents.”

“Thank you. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Tell David congrats on knocking you up.”

“What a graceful way to put that my wife is pregnant,” David grumbles, his voice muffled. “Real classy.” “That’s me. Marg, are you going to be at any of my shoots tomorrow? I think I need to hug you.”

“I will be at your two o’clock appointment because I need to go over some of the paperwork for you.”

“Perfect. Expect the biggest hug of your life.”

-/-

“How the hell does Ariel know that I got married?”

“Well, hello to you too, Jones.”

Emma side steps around Killian and lets herself into his apartment, her eyes scanning over the place. It’s clean a lot cleaner than her place, and she wonders if it’s always like this or if he cleaned specifically because she was coming over. But that would be ridiculous, and she doubts Killian would have straightened up his bookshelves and dusted his TV off just because she was here.

“Hi, Swan,” he sighs, closing the door behind her before walking back to the kitchen where something that smells ridiculously good is cooking on the stove. “It’s nice to see you. You’re looking as beautiful as ever. How the hell does Ariel know that I got married?”

Emma sighs and pulls out a barstool to sit down, dropping the envelope of papers on the countertop. “Mary Margaret can’t keep a secret, and she told Ariel. I’m really sorry about that.”

“I mean, it’s fine. Honestly. Ariel and Eric have always been like older siblings to me, but they can get a little…”

“Overbearing, protective, annoying as hell?”

“Yeah,” Killian laughs, turning around and crossing his arms so that the muscles in his arms flex underneath his t-shirt. “You know the type?”

“My friends are the exact same way, which makes sense that they’re friends with Ariel and Eric.”

“Small worlds and all that.” “That seems to be happening lately.” Emma sighs and pushes the papers over the countertop. “So, we are officially a pair of fools whose annulment papers are somewhere bustling around in the family council office of Boston.”

His brow arches. “Yeah?”

“Mhm. I didn’t get an attorney. I filed the papers out myself I didn’t ask the split any assets or anything…since we don’t actually share any. I don’t think you have to do anything unless you see something ghastly wrong in these papers, but we have to wait at least twenty-one days before it’ll get looked at. That’s how long you have if you dispute anything.”

“I’m not going to dispute anything, love.” Emma opens her mouth to dispute his little name, but she stops herself. It’s just how he is, and there’s no reason for her to be rude to him no matter how fun that could be. He’s never actually done anything wrong to her. “The only reason I’d dispute the disappearance of our marriage is the fact that I know how you kiss, and it’d be such a shame to not get to do that again.”

She takes back every nice thought about him she’s ever had. She gained a few new ones Monday night, but they’re all about to fly out the window.

“If I had something to throw at you, I would.”

“Such a violent lass.”

“I am what I am.”

Killian chuckles and turns back around to the pot he has on the stove. “I’ve got some spinach and ricotta tortellini if you want to stay for lunch.”

“Oh, I, um, I really shouldn’t.”

“Have you eaten lunch?”

“No.”

“Do you have plans to eat lunch?” He turns around to look at her, and all she can do is shrug. “Exactly what I thought. C’mon, darling. We’ll call it a celebratory lunch that we’re soon to be free of what was quite frankly a nasty marriage. I mean, my wife kept trying to throw things at me.”

“Shut up, Jones, or I’ll actually throw something at you.”

“You think that’s a threat, but really, I see it as a promise.”

The bastard winks. He’s got to stop doing that.

Killian keeps talking, asking her about her shoot yesterday and how it went. He apparently hasn’t been working as much lately but does do the occasional job like the other day to keep paying the bills until he can officially start at the Academy and get a paycheck like normal people do. Emma’s never liked talking about her job because it always seems to lead into conversations about if this is what she really wanted to do with her life. It’s not, never has been, but considering everything, this is so much better than she should have it. Maybe one day she’ll branch out into something more normal and a little calmer, but googling jobs that hire ex-convicts with a GED has never been something she particularly enjoys.

“So, how’d you get into this whole thing?” Killian asks her when he slides her a plate and hands her a bottle of water. “Someone saw you and thought they just had to have your face in an ad in a magazine?”

Emma hums, cutting a tortellini in half. “There was an ad in the paper, which makes me sound so old, for a local dress designer who wanted someone to do a shoot for some of her dresses. There was no experience required. I just needed to be the right size, and I was. I think I maybe got paid two hundred bucks for that shoot, but it opened me up to the whole industry. You?”

If she’s got to answer these questions, he does as well. Tit for tat and all that.

He hesitates. He tries to cover it up, but she can tell. He’s trying to be a cop, so obviously this whole modeling thing isn’t what he’s always wanted to do. Emma may not be some kind of genius, but she knows people pretty damn well.

“Ariel got me into it. I’d known her forever, needed some money, and it just kind of happened. I’d been piddling around in construction and bartending before that.”

“Ariel’s a good friend.”

“Yeah, she’s one of the good ones, always keeping me on track.”

Killian smiles, something soft that makes the crinkles around his eyes show up where they normally wouldn’t, and Emma’s stomach flips. It’s probably because this food is really good. That has to be it.

“So, did you make these from scratch? They’re really good.”

“I bought them from Whole Foods. It’s simple, Swan. I think anyone can make it.”

“That’s because you don’t know how unfortunate of a cook I am.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, I’m the worst. I won’t admit that to anyone who has seen me cook, but I’m definitely the worst. I could mess up boiling water.”

“That’s pathetic.”

“Hey,” Emma scoffs, flicking a piece of the bread off her plate at him. “I can say it. You can’t say it.”

“Are these in the unwritten rules of Emma?”

“Oh, absolutely. And they constantly change, so you’ll never really know.”

“Bloody hell,” he mumbles, leaning forward to press his forehead to the counter and hiding his face in his hands. She can see his smile peeking through. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

“Well, I assume at some point we did say ‘til death do us part.’”

“Does that mean you’re going to murder me before our papers are processed?” he laughs, those crinkles showing up again as she feels her own lips curling up to the sides.

“Obviously that’s exactly what I meant. Gonna finally put all of my police connections into use.”

“What the hell is going on out here?” someone groans, and Emma nearly falls off of her stool as someone walks down the hallway in a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt that’s got to be fifteen years old from all of the holes and faded letters. “Who the hell are you?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“You’re in my apartment.”

“You have a roommate?” Emma asks Killian, turning to look at him as he’s still got this shit-eating grin on his face. “You never mentioned that.”

“You never asked. Emma, this is Will Scarlet, my roommate. Will, this is – ”

“Holy shit,” Will gasps, “you’re the girl he married. I couldn’t believe it when Ariel told me. Sorry about that, lass. He’s a real piece of work, and I’m sure he didn’t get you satisfied on your wedding night.”

He did, but that was technically before the wedding, and she’s not saying any of that out loud.

“Oh, I think I’m going to like you,” Emma laughs, shoveling some more food in her mouth. “Can you tell me every weird thing Killian does?”

“How long do you have?”

“All day.”

“Bloody hell,” Killian grumbles, pushing his hair back, “I don’t need to be here for this.”

“You do if you don’t want me to tell her about the time you went blonde.”

“Oh, I definitely have to hear that,” Emma sighs. “Tell me everything. I hope you have pictures.”

“Digital and print versions.”

“Perfect.”

-/-

-/-

Tag list:  @xemmaloveskillianx​ @stahlop @shardminds @carpedzem @captainsjedi  @galaxyzxstark @thejollyroger-writer @kmomof4 @tiganasummertree @xellewoods @idristardis @karenfrommisthaven @shireness-says @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @a-faekindagirl @ultimiflos @jamif @dreameronarooftop15 @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke  @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @teamhook @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @superchocovian @ultraluckycatnd @cs-forlife @andiirivera @qualitycoffeethings @jonirobinson64 @mariakov81 @spartanguard @snowbellewells @therealstartraveller776​ @onepunintendid​ @bluewildcatfanatic​

[califaro]

PCOS

Poly-Cystic Ovary Syndrome is a hormonal disorder common among women of reproductive age. Women with PCOS may have infrequent or prolonged menstrual periods or excess male hormone levels. The ovaries may develop numerous small collections of fluid and fail to regularly release eggs. The exact cause of PCOS is unknown.

When I was sixteen, I gained 100lbs in two months and the only thing doctors would tell me was, “Go on a diet.” No one cared to listen to my complaints of hair loss and sudden hair growth on my face and chest. They didn't believe me when I told them I worked out and ate healthy. I developed an eating disorder and still, no one believed anything I said. It's embarrassing to admit...but at seventeen years old, I gave up. Eating whatever I wanted and giving up exercising felt oddly comforting. It stopped hurting so badly to get on the scale and see the numbers going up, to see the disbelief in professionals eyes, especially once I stopped trying so hard and caring so much. I was tired of arguing and defending myself when no one else would.

At twenty, I became very concerned about my health. My thinning hair had left me with bald spots. My weight had reached an all time high. I didn't recover from simple wounds and bruises the way I should have. There was also the fact that I had gone well over a year without a single menstrual cycle. I won't lie, I enjoyed not having one and it wasn't a concern until my relationship with my then boyfriend became a lot more serious.

The first doctor I saw told me, “Sometimes we just lose our hair and get fat.”

The second doctor told me, “You need to take responsibility for your weight problems. Once you lose the weight, the rest will get better.”

The third doctor took one look at my lab results and said, “Wait a minute..that's not right.”

She ignored my weight completely and focused on the fact that my testosterone was extraordinarily high. For the first time, it felt like I might have an answer, so I started eating healthy again and working out, despite feeling like it didn't help with anything. Fast forward to three months later and there I am, sitting in a specialist's office when he tells me, “All of these problems are likely because of this,” he shows me a scan of my reproductive system and even without medical training, I spot something weird. I had a very large tumor sitting on my right ovary and from what he could tell, it was likely cancerous. That was a Monday. My surgery was on Wednesday, just two days later. All went accordingly but...because I was at a learning hospital, they decided to cut me from my belly button to several inches past my bikini line, just to examine my insides. While that sounds far fetched, I actually have the transcripts that details it every minute of their unnecessary exploration. Oh well. The scar is pretty gnarly.

It turns out that the tumor was, indeed, cancerous and very heavy. It was secreting all sorts of nasty things and I kept being told, “Everything will go back to normal now that the tumor has been removed.” You can imagine how good I felt when my hair started growing back and I started losing weight...and the horror I felt when it all just stopped. My hair never really grew back to its original thickness and my periods were months apart. To make matters worse, I was growing facial hair faster than ever. I lost and gained weight so fast that my skin kind of...stopped adjusting. It was all so exhausting, embarrassing, depressing. It made me feel crazy.

After four long years of misery, I was finally diagnosed with PCOS. It was a hard diagnosis at the time because there really wasn't that much solid information about it and I felt like I couldn't catch a break. It might be a little bit late to mention it, but I haven't had a very medically healthy life, so being diagnosed with something like this was like another slap in the face.

I'm now a week away from turning thirty two and I wish so badly I could say life is so much better and I'm so much happier but...not much is better and I feel so utterly defeated. I've done every PCOS friendly diet and I've taken every medication, every vitamin that is supposed to help. I'm still losing my hair. My weight is unpredictable. A close inspection of my lower face is necessary before leaving the house. It hurts to work so hard at being healthy only to get ridiculed nonstop, especially by friends and family. More than anything, I wish there was some place I could run and hide from the world. I wish I could be happy with myself and celebrate the victories and odds that I've beaten.

When I really think about it, I'd be okay with being fat or having sagging skin or having to shave my face if it meant I had hair. The unpredictable weight shifts can go fuck itself, though. That's something I'll never get used to. Above all...above everything else...I just wish I could feel normal.

I don't know what possessed me to write this and maybe I'll delete it come morning, but for right now...it makes me hurt a little less.

[throwawayov]

The Case of You, Who Saved Me on Mondays

ReiRan Omegaverse AU. Not proof-read yet. Apologize for horrible grammar this is written at 2 AM lol not really intended for being published as well buttt yeahhh

TRIGGER WARNING : substance abuse

 --Sunday, Ranmaru Kurosaki POV--

"Ranran, are you perhaps...an omega?"

Fuck.

Ranmaru had played this scenario over and over in his head for countless times. What to say when someone suspects something. What to answer when someone asks. What to say when someone confronted him. What to do when some batshit insane alpha attack him. What to do when someone smells something…

But he didn’t quite prepare when Reiji was the one who asked. Reiji, of all people. The only person Ranmaru ever respect in the industry so far… his most endearing and strong Reiji.

He then counted the pills in his head. The shot. The supporting ointment. All the nasty chemicals he took in the morning as his usual buzz. All seemed fine. All should be fine. But the fact that they just finished a very tiring live concert concerned him. Is it my sweat?

No, no. This is Reiji, afterall. Ranmaru knew full well how the guy can say the most random thing just to annoy him without batting an eye.

I’m fine. I’m fine.

He put down his bottled water carefully on the table. He glanced at his own hand, making sure he’s not trembling even the slightest.

“What nonsense are you talking about? Stupid.”

He walked to the sofa and threw himself without even looking at Reiji. “I’m taking a nap,” he covered his eyes with his arm. His mind is still racing. Thank God Camus and Ai went out of the room already, else they would’ve picked up his crazy loud heartbeat when they sat on the sofa.

A couple of seconds passed. The lack of response from the oldest Quartet Night member disturbed his act.

God fucking dammit say something, Reiji. Or should I say something? No. No. But—

“Ahahaa, sorry sorry! I just want to see your reaction! Don’t be maad~”

Ranmaru can hear Reiji sat down on the sofa across him. Ranmaru didn’t move. His heartbeat and breath were suddenly a lot steadier. He wanted to take a nap for real now.

“Maybe you’re stronger than I thought?” Reiji said suddenly.

Ranmaru moved his arm from his eyes as he tilted his face. “What?”

Reiji smiled, “Nothing!”

Ranmaru knew it was Reiji’s stage smile. And he’s got a bad feeling over this.

---

--Sunday, Reiji Kotobuki POV--

Reiji Kotobuki never really liked being an Alpha. 

The pressure, the expectations, the way society treated him as the leader of the pack…it’s suffocating. The way some people smell so good that he needed to hold back his primal urge was maddening. He hates holding back. Yet he hates letting himself out bare. It’s disgusting.

His only channel to let out all his suppressed emotions were singing. The lights, the sound, the cheer, the dance, the team…they are his ultimate pills. On the stage, he never had to notice any tempting smells he always tried so hard to ignore. It feels so liberating.

And then here he was. On the locker room with just his teammate, the beta-rocker Ranmaru Kurosaki.

Reiji really liked the guy. What started as an admiration of the younger’s work ethics now already became something more… precious. He’s still not sure what to label this feeling as. It always fascinated Reiji; the way Ranmaru sings wholeheartedly on the stage, moves his body around with rough yet gentle precision, his rare but tender smiles, his smell…

Wait, did I just think smell? Gosh. There’s that smell again.

Sometimes Reiji can smell something when he’s alone with Ranmaru. It was always faint. At first, Reiji just thought it’s the former’s perfume. But this time it is far from faint and more than just perfume.

Ranmaru just exudes a really really alluring scent around him.

"Ranran, are you perhaps...an omega?"

Ah shit. Why did I say that out loud?

“What nonsense are you talking about? Stupid.”

He watched as Ranmaru threw himself on to the sofa. “I’m taking a nap,”

Reiji couldn’t believe himself, but the smell is getting stronger. It’s definitely coming from Ranmaru. It matched perfectly with his reaction; it’s the smell of omegas when they are very nervous. Unfortunately, Reiji knew this smell too well.

He is an omega, alright. How—Wha-Why is he hiding this? D-Does anyone else know? Isn’t it dangero—

His mind halted. To hide the fact that you’re an omega is an enormous, if not impossible, task. Alphas can sense omegas presence in a heartbeat. Reiji is an Alpha. Hyuuga is an Alpha. God, they even worked closely with four freaking alphas in STARISH on daily basis. There’s no way none of them never picked this up these past 5 years.

But then again, Reiji never really sensed anything strong either, until now.

“Ahahaa, sorry sorry! I just want to see your reaction! Don’t be maad~”

He slowly walked to the sofa across Ranmaru and sat down. He studied the younger’s face intently, as Ranmaru covered it with his arm anyway so he wouldn’t noticed. The smell didn’t go away…

He didn’t want to think about it. If Ranmaru is a beta, then that means Reiji can now even smell a beta’s pheromones, which is very unheard of, but… it’s plausible. And it made Reiji want to throw up. Really? Even beta? I’ve evolved into something more disgusting than I already am.

But if Ranmaru is indeed an omega… Reiji didn’t want to imagine what crazy stuffs Ranmaru had done to cover this up really well for so long. That must’ve been extremely difficult and painful.

“Maybe you’re stronger than I thought?”

Oh, fuck me and my blabber mouth. Why Reiji, whyyyy…

“What?” Ranmaru tilted his head and looked straight at Reiji’s face.

Reiji tried his best to act natural. “Nothing!”

---

--Monday dawn, Ranmaru Kurosaki POV--

Ranmaru Kurosaki really hates being an omega.

The day they announced his secondary gender result was the worst day of Ranmaru’s life. His parents were both alphas so the result was crazy upsetting for his whole family. No one wanted to admit this. An omega? In Kurosaki family? It must be a fluke. They proceeded to test him 3 more times.

The result was always the same; a full-fledged omega. Cue the cymbals, a joke of the century for the family.

He still remembered how his parents told him during middle school that they found a way to help him cover this up. To convert him into a beta. To patch the embarrassing stuff. To basically neuter him of his being. It was risky and cost a fortune…but his father was willing to pay anything for it.

In the end, the procedure was botched. Literally nothing came out of it. If anything, it created a deep emotional scar for Ranmaru rather than physical one.

Then his parents business crumbled with all the financial and emotional burden it created and the story went on just like a fucked up drama that is Ranmaru’s life.

Ranmaru Kurosaki really despises being an omega.

Right after arriving in his apartment, Ranmaru ransacked through his medicine cabinet. One, two, four, eight… he gulped them all. All these disgusting pills that keep me sane.

He coughed and almost threw up. He held himself together over the sink.

They are really just normal pills omega used to suppress their hormones. Normally omegas only took two kinds of medicine; hormone suppressants and birth control pills if they are sexually active.

Ranmaru is a virgin and he took 4 kinds of birth control just for the heck of it.

Sigh…now comes the hard part.

He steadied his breath. He glanced at three blue vials in front of him. This stuff is the most expensive thing on his chemical cocktails. The experimental drug his fellow bandmates introduced him. The holy grail for omegas like him, the ultimate suppressant.

Even someone who is physically strong like Ranmaru dreaded the aftereffect of this drug. It made him want to claw out his insides just to stop the scorching sensations it caused.

Just stop thinking and get this over with. He injected himself with the blue liquid quickly on his upper arm. He squirms. It’s painful. It’s painful. I’m dying. No—

He threw up on to the sink. Today is going to be great.

---

--Monday evening, Reiji Kotobuki POV--

“So, Kotobuki-kun, what is it like, being the only alpha of the group? You’re doing such a great job bringing the pack together nee~”

Reiji’s smile grew wider.

I want to punch this interviewer’s face right fucking now. Pack? Are we dogs now, bitch?

“Ah weeeeell, it’s just really fun because we are all friends, you know! It doesn’t matter whether you’re alpha or beta or omega, riiiight guys?” Reiji winked to all his teammates besides him.

Camus let out a scoff. “Hmpf. We never see him as an alpha anyways,”

“I believe we are a group of 4 betas here,” Ai added with a nod.

“Come on, guuyysss, why are you so meeeaaan!” Reiji pretended to cry. As usual.

The interviewer just laughed and move along with other questions. Reiji silently relieved that this antic never failed to please the outsiders. He glanced over to Ranmaru and caught the silver-haired staring at his face intently. That caught Reiji off guard.

“What is it, Ranran?” Reiji asked when both of them were in the changing room. Camus and Ai went out already for another interview regarding their duet project.

“What is what?” Ranmaru asked from the sofa in front of Reiji. He looked really tired his literal color almost gone from his face.

“The whole interview you’re just straight up staring at me and not saying much! Is there something wrong with my face? Or you just want to admit now that I look cool?? Is that it? Aaaww I’m so flattered, Ranran!”

Ranmaru put his palm over his face. “Ugh, just drop the act already,”

Reiji smirked. He knew already that Ranmaru is sharp. “Yeah yeah, but you know me, we need to be professionals,”

“You need to tell them to stop asking that kind of questions,” Ranmaru sighed. “You hate being an alpha, don’t you,”

Oh wow, it stings. “Hmm? Nooo? I never hated it?”

“I told you to drop the act. Just like me, you’re disgusted with yourself,”

Reiji drew his brows together. What feels like an eternity was only 5 seconds of silence. “What do you mean, just like you?”

Suddenly the room is filled with a really strong smell it almost suffocated Reiji. He put his hands over his nose and mouth, “What the—“ he saw Ranmaru on the sofa, clenching his chest. He didn’t know what happen but he looked so…red. And in pain. And breathless.

“Ranran, oh my God, are you okay??” Reiji stood up and tried to reach him. But the smell now literally suffocated him. It’s like a really strong chemical trying to burn and poison his head, but it felt so good.

What the hell—

“Get out, Reiji,” Ranmaru whispers under his labored breath. He’s drenched in sweat.

Reiji froze. His mind went blank but his body is burning for some reason.

“GET OUT, NOW!” Ranmaru now screamed. In pain.

Reiji took a step back. He clawed on his own head trying to control himself. What the hell what the hell what the hell—

“NO! Ranmaru where’s your medicine?? Where is it??” Reiji ran to the vanity desk and scrambled through all the bags on it. He trembled so bad he knocked everything off the desk. “RAN YOU BETTER TELL ME YOU BROUGHT YOUR MEDICINES,” He looked back quickly and noticed Ranmaru was crawling on the ground, both his arm clenching tight on his chest. He’s drooling a lot and struggled to breathe.

“My jacket,” Ranmaru whimpered. “—pocket,”

Reiji practically flied through the other side of the room to the hanger and scrambled through all the jackets in lightning speed. “This blue vial?? Is this it??” Reiji pull out something that looked like a strange blue epi-pen.

Ranmaru didn’t respond. His breaths become shallower and shallower. “Ranmaru!!” Reiji grabbed Ranmaru’s shoulder and shaking him hard. Though in this close distance Reiji actually almost fainted himself trying to keep his sanity intact.

He couldn’t think anymore. He administered the injection into Ranmaru’s outer thigh with haste. “UGH—” Reiji closed his eyes. He couldn’t take it anymore. This smell. This heat. He bit on his own lips hard.

“FUCK!” Ranmaru suddenly jolted open his eyes and screamed. He sat up and moved Reiji out of his way. He leaned on the wall and tried to catch his breath.

Reiji tried so hard to calm himself down. His labored breath and bleeding lips aside, his mind slowly creeped back to sanity. A minute passed just for them to slowly steadied their breath. “Ranmaru, listen to me, you fucker,” Reiji scratched his own head hard. “You are an omega, are you not?”

Ranmaru didn’t answer.

“That,” Reiji gulped. “That is a freaking heat if I knew one. That’s one violent heat. I never see an omega went into heat that sudden and look like they’re dying at the same time. And then, and then—What—What the fuck, Ran?”

“Shut up,” Ranmaru muttered.

“NO, I WILL NOT SHUT UP!!” Reiji screamed. “The-Then—What fucked up drugs did you just take? It went away just like that, Ran. What the hell? That’s not normal!”

“SHUT UP, I AM NOT NORMAL, OKAY?” Ranmaru screamed on the top of his lungs. “What do you want me to say? Oh yes I’m sorry I’m an omega guys, please be careful around me I am craving to be filled all the time yada yada yada?”

Reiji was still trying to catch his breath. His mind is a lot calmer now. “No—no, I’m sorry that’s not what I’m trying to say, okay?” He stood up and walked slowly to Ranmaru. “I’m—I’m just worried about you,” he extended his hand to help Ranmaru stand up.

Ranmaru looked up. “I don’t need your pity,” he said while slapping Reiji’s hand away. He stood up by himself slowly.

“I need to take a shower” Ranmaru said before opening the door. “Reiji, can I trust you not to tell anyone about this?”

Reiji couldn’t say anything. “Please?” Ranmaru added.

“…Okay,” that’s all Reiji could muster up.

This is just too much for me to handle.

---

Tuesday Dawn, Ranmaru Kurosaki POV

Ranmaru stood in front of his sink for a whole minute without even moving a single muscle. He looked horrible. He didn’t get a blink of sleep last night and the black lines around his puffy eyes looked worse than his ghostly Halloween makeup last year.

Out of all people, why Reiji?

He couldn’t stop asking this question in his head. His precious Reiji. The one who taught him how to be a professional on the stage. The one who smiled through all the sleepless nights just to not disappoint his fans. The one who showed him how to keep on going through anguish and distress. The one with the gentlest touch, literally and figuratively, out of all the people in the universe…

The only person who made Ranmaru want to appear strong every day.

The embarrassment of showing Reiji his weakest and most disgusting side had grown into gnawing pain in Ranmaru’s whole being. He always wanted to catch up to Reiji… It’s useless now isn’t it?

His eyes locked into his pills on his hand without care.

One, two, three…four…eight…

He fought back a sharp pain inside.

…twelve, thirteen…

And Ranmaru gulped them all.

---

Tuesday Dawn, Reiji Kotobuki POV

Reiji was driving way above the speed limit for the most of his sudden early morning trip. He kept one of his hand on his phone’s handsfree, trying to call Ranmaru for the bazillionth time.

Still, no answer. Goddamit Ran please answer my call I know you’re always up early…

Since last night Reiji couldn’t sleep at all. His mind wandered to the big revelation that is Ranmaru being an omega after all this time. He couldn’t stop thinking about the weird drugs. He was extremely worried.

When his morning alarm suddenly blazed off, Reiji decided to check on Ranmaru by calling him. He didn’t answer. At the beginning Reiji just thought he’s still asleep…

But then he remembered how Ranmaru is. His Ranmaru who always put his pride on his performance above all. His confidence and rock-solid belief in his performance he always gives on the stage… his most beloved and strong Ranmaru. What happened last night must’ve been really took a toll on him, right?

He called again and again, but no answer still. He became extremely worried.

And now here he was putting the pedal to the metal trying to reach Ranmaru’s place.

Please please please please I hope I’m just being a paranoid…

He reached Ranmaru’s place in record time and bolted to the door. He knocked slowly. “Ranran? It’s me, Reiji. Let’s go to work together?” Reiji called.

He knocked again, louder. “Ranran?? Are you okay??”

Silence. He tried to call Ranmaru’s phone again and listened carefully at the door. Ranmaru’s phone ringtone can be heard from outside.

He’s inside. Damn it—

“Ranmaru, please open the door before I open it by force!” He banged on the door again.

The lack of sound except the ringing phone put Reiji on edge. He took a couple steps backward and readied himself. “I’m coming in!”

He put all of his strength to his shoulders and threw himself on to the door.

It didn’t budge. Fuuuuuck it huuuurts, it looks easier in the movies…

He tried again. Twice, thrice…

The door finally gave in on Reiji’s sixth try. “Ranmaru!!” He screamed when he got inside.

He looked around the spacious flat and found no one there. He checked the doors hastily before finally opening the bathroom door.

What Reiji found inside was a scene from his true nightmare.

--- TBC soon

[along-the-devils-backbone]

This entire fucking month can eat my ENTIRE ass

What the fuck is it about August that made it decide to fuck my life entirely, and without pause, for this WHOLE goddamn month!? 

So far this month: 

Had a MASSIVE flare-up of arthritis in my back and hip

Mystery leg swelling to the point where i can’t even wear pants half the time

Jim suddenly got migraines and a mouth full of blood blisters

While we were on vacation, we got chewed out by Jim’s parents because we couldn’t find their car insurance information fast enough and they had to pay a massive fee to rent a car on their vacation, even though none of that shit was our fault, but we still got screamed at for it -- and for “tearing up the house” looking for their paperwork, which was not organized in any way shape or form

Had to put our dog Boo Down

MASSIVE ear-infection. Am currently on seven fucking medications to handle this. If it gets worse by Sunday, i have to go to the hospital for it. I can’t close my jaw all the way, i can’t chew food, i can’t lay on my right side, i can’t wear headphones, and i constantly feel like someone is trying to jab a dough hook into my ear and turning the mixer on high every time i turn my head. 

My brother’s $2000 custom-built computer decided to die, without warning, and we have no idea why. 

Replacement tower we bought from a guy ALSO doesn’t work. Again, we have no idea WHY, and neither does the guy. 

Pharmacy keeps fucking up my & my mum’s medications, needing “prior authorization” for routine meds we’ve been on for over a year. Mine aren’t even narcotics. 

My doctor decided 1) he no longer accepts my insurance now that he’s a private physician, and 2) Even if he DID, he’s fucked off to Vietnam for a 6 month vacation, and didn’t bother to let us know who his backup/replacement was. Since he’s also moving buildings, we have no new number to call to ask. He’s just fucking GONE. So i’ve had to go to a walk-in clinic for everything and pray i get the help i need. Also have to start the search over for a doctor that doesn’t treat me like a fat lazy drug-addict with hypochondria AND accepts my insurance!

I keep vomiting acid in my sleep and i wake up aspirating bile and i’m drinking fucking pepto like water trying to get it to stop. 

My super important packages i ordered wound up being forwarded to my old house that i haven’t lived at for over a year now. No idea how or why that happened. Had to beg a family friend to drive me out to the middle of nowhere to go pick them up, and argued with the lady who lives there that the packages, which are CLEARLY in my name, are not hers, and that she, a size 0, does not wear a fucking 5x dress that is clearly meant for a fucking wedding. 

My uncle came to visit and ate so much of our fucking food. He just showed up without warning, argued with mum constantly and was rude as fuck. Didn’t like what we were eating? Bought himself delivery food, when we were struggling to feed him and us. Never bothered to offer us anything, and then threw a fit and got offended because I refused to come out of my room to talk to him. Last time i did, he told me to “shut up & stop talking” because i apparently “talk too fucking much, oh my god you never shut up”. 

My hormones have been absolutely insane, switching between “Cry over everything, good or bad” and “You are so fucking horny, you’re going to explode” and there’s NO IN-BETWEEN. 

My other boyfriend’s been going hungry and been sick as a dog because all he’s been eating is Ramen, and i don’t really have a way to fix it, so we tried to send him $20USD to help, and his paypal was like “nah” and it fucked up, so he didn’t get it until way later and i felt fucking awful 

Our fucking house is FILLED WITH FLIES??? and we have no idea why??? We keep everything super clean at this new house and we don’t leave windows/doors open, but somehow we have a fucking swarm of flies and gnats all over the kitchen and they’re sneaking into my bedroom too and it’s a nightmare and the landlord won’t do anything about it. 

I lost my checkbook. My ONLY checkbook. On a day that i have to go to the check cashers & re-borrow. We discovered it was missing halfway to he place, and had to turn around and come home. Parents tore my room apart looking for it or the backup. Both are gone. Ordered new checks -- but they won’t be here until the 10th. Can’t get a counter check, because My bank is 100% online -- no physical branches! They also don’t do emergency delivery on checks. ALSO it’s Saturday, so banks in town are closed at noon (and it’s 1pm now) so i can’t open a new one until tuesday, because monday is labor-day. The check-cashers said if we don’t get to them on Tuesday, they’re cashing my check -- but my money isn’t going to be there yet, so if they DO cash it i’m going to bounce over $500 + overdraft fees, and this will be the 3rd time i’ve gone into overdraft, and i’ll risk losing my ENTIRE bank account which i rely on for everything. 

Like, i don’t know how the fuck we got so goddamn cursed all in one month... but holy shit. I need the whole universe to take a goddamn break and let me breathe. I’m having such a massive panic attack right now and i don’t know what the fuck to do about the check shit right now. Parents are screaming back and forth because I fucked shit up, and it’s all entirely my fault. Fucking Super. 

[the-fiction-witch]

Dirty Boy!

TV SHOW: GODLESS COUPLE: WHITEY WINN X READER RATING: SMUT

Okay, first hello everyone! This was meant to be 1 long fic but apparently Tumblr has new max limits? Which is odd as I don't think this is as long as like jojen lady? But anyway so there will be more to this as I had to decide it up.

Y/n Pov:

Saturday:

I stretched out my leg as I had my little bath starting to wash down my leg for a while trying to relax in my nice bath until I heard a loud couple of knocks on my door

BANG! BANG! BANG!

“Who is it?” I ask

“It’s me Y/n let me in its an emergency” I heard whitey yell from outside my door

“Alright give me a second” I sigh getting out my bath and wrapping a towel around my body “Fine come in” I sigh and he came in and froze as he saw me

“Uhhhhh....Hi” He smirks looking at me alot

“What do you wan’t whitey?” I ask him

“Ohhh... uhh Maggie...needs uhh needs ya" he says

“Right thank you” I smile and he just leaned on my door looking at me in my little towel

“WHITEY!” I yell making him flinch back realizing he was looking at me “Thank you, bye” I tell him and he quickly ran off back to the office.

Sunday:

I stood hanging hanging my wet laundry on the line for it to dry every time I moved I felt eyes on me I felt eyes burn into my skin the most whenever I had to bend to get another bit of clothing from my laundry basket I turned and saw whitey sat outside the sheriffs office on that little chair he often sleeps in, one of his elbows on the arm of the chair his head resting on his arm the other hand sat happily on the pocket close to his gun where it sat in his belt he was looking at me for sure watching me so I hung up the last of my laundry and marched over

"whitey!" I yell making him slightly jump

"ohhh Hiya y/n, somethin' the matter?" He asks not moving at all

"where you starring at me while I did my washing?" I ask him

"hummm... Ohh no I was just starring into space y/n" he shrugs getting up from his chair and I noticed it his tight brown pants hardly concealed the obvious long shape of his erect cock

"WHITEY!" I Yell as I noticed which made him notice it too

"ohhh! I uhh I was just" he stuttered

"alright I'll give you a chance explain your dam self Mr Winn" I purpose

"i-i-i I wasn't lookin' at you!" He answered "I was just... Uhh day dreamin'" he stutters very obviously lieing to me lieing badly

"day dreaming about what whitey?" I ask "be honest" I warn

"bout... About ya bendin over so much in ya garden and dreamin sexy stuff like bendin you over myself" he admits very guilty

"you dirty boy!" I complain lightly slapping the side off his face

"ooowww!" He complained holding his check where I slapped him as I went off back to my little house... 

Monday:

I wondered thought town having got all my shopping and noticing the little mason jar of cookies and other little bits In my bag I always drop a jar of cookies off at the office on a Monday morning for bill and whitey during the week so I popped in. the cells empty as normal but just whitey sat in his little seat reading his little book with his legs crossed on top of the desk

"ohh mornin miss Y/n" he smiles at me putting his feet down and putting his book with the other clutter on his desk.

"hello whitey, where's bill this morning?" I ask

"ya know as much as I do y/n" he shrugs "maybe he's staying with his children today or somein'" he says

"well anyhow I have you boys stuff" I smile going and getting the old jar empty but a few stray cookie crumbs in the bottom from the side table and replacing it with this new one putting the old back in my basket

"ohh what do we get this week?" He asked excitedly coming over to see

"blueberry cookies" I answer

"aww you always make my favorite" he smiles

"well it's your or bills and bills favorite are hard to make they always burn" I sigh

"well thank you y/n" he smiles trying to get one out the jar but I slapped his hand "oww!" He complains

"not till bill gets here" I tell him as I did there other bits the water, the whiskey and making sure all there little plates and glasses where clean

"you take mighty good care of us y/n" he smiles giving me a little cuddle

"aww well I have to, you boys would starve without me" I smile nuzzling into the rough fabric of his jumper even if I wasn't the really very high on him when we hug problem with being so much smaller then him I guess we stood like this for a while until I noticed his hand slipping down "whitey" I warn but he ignored me he looked in his own little world as I felt his big yet skinny hand grab my arse cheek firmly he grunted in his own mouth as he gripped me he clearly was trying to be sneaky hoping I wouldn't notice him grabbing my arse I would have let him off it it wasn't for

"ummmmm... Ohh yeah! Ya got a sexy ass baby" he smirked almost more muttering to himself or just in general then actually to me as he moved his other hand down to grip my other arse cheek and slowly and slyly groping me I admit it was enjoyable to some extent and I can let him off for his little sexy grunting but- "ohh god! I want to fuck ya so bad" he moaned making me instantly push away from him

"ohh and you didn't mean to do that?" I began

"I uhh..." He stutters unsure how to talk himself out of that

"dirty boy" I yell slapping his face

"owww! That one really hurt" he complains so I grabbed my basket and left "y/n I'm sorry" I heard him yell from the door but I ignored him...

Tuesday:

I knelled on the floor fixing my flower beds in my garden I saw a mouse run past my gardens edge but my cat Milly got it

"Hiya y/n" I heard whitey say behind me still sounding worried as he had the last few days given the two slaps he had already gotten from me this week

"hello Mr Winn" I sigh

"did ya want any help?" He offers

"sure, why not come on help me weed" I tell him and he happily knelled beside me helping me weed the flower bed for a while until I noticed him looking at me "what?" I ask

"nothin, your dress looks pretty, I've not seen that one before?" He answered

"it's a new one" I smile

"why are ya out gardenin’ in a new dress?" He asks

"all I have clean, I need to do my laundry" I answer

"AHH, but didn't ya do a hole bunch of laundry on Sunday?" he asks

"that was all bedding whitey" I laugh

"ohh, I thought it was like your uhh..." He began before he coughed nervously "never mind" he added

"you upset you got an erection from my bedding? You though it was my undergarments I know exactly what you though whitey" I warn

"I uhhhhh I uhhh" he stuttered

"don't even think about it, I'm still mad at you for yesterday" I warn

"I said I was sorry y/n" he says "I really am I didn't mean to, I just... I just got a little desperate" he answers

"well control yourself whitey, you live in a town of almost all ladies now you can go about with your hormones so out of wack you'll be attacking every girl in town" I laugh

"I really am sorry y/n" he says "I'll make it up to you somehow? Like I'll clean your house? Or I'll do your laundry for ya?" He suggests

"it's alright whitey I forgive you, you don't mean it really your just a horny little boy" I smile giving his cheek a kiss as I return to sorting my plants

"when exactly was over the line because ya didn't instantly slap me?" He asks

"you where gone up to wanting to fuck me" I answer as I work

"I was!" He asks in shock and I nod "should have kept my dam mouth shut" he sighed as we finished up and I wiped my hands clean off the garden dirt as I did I noticed whitey looking around not sure why my little house sits behind the school house with the office just across the way at an angle built in by the other little buildings or by the vast open hills my garden completely concealed to everyone but anyone outside the office he chewed on his bottom lip as he glanced around

"what is it Whitey?" I ask confused incase he saw something I didn't but he leaped forward pushing me tight against the outside wall off my house his lips attached to mine his skin soft against me and his facial hair tickling my skin when he moved, he moved his lips against mine constantly even if I wasn't kissing him back he got close to me one of his feet between mine so I had no way of escape and he could push his body against without having his crotch on mine I assume to not let me know of the rock hard erection in his tight pants even if I could feel it against my leg a little his hands settled on my waist he often had little groans and grunts into my mouth as he kissed me he seemed very happy kissing me I just relaxed going to let him have his fun for a little while

That was until once again I felt those sly hands of his moving, at first down like with the information of how far yesterday went he was going to grope my arse again but he must have realized I he where to do that then I would be a little more off the wall and his hands slipped up and each grabbed one of my boobs though my dress

"uhh ummmm" he groaned into the kiss it was kinda funny having so much power over him until I realized

The top of my dress like most is white and whitey has been gardening with me so I pushed him away completely and noticed he had now put huge dirty hand prints on my nice new dress

"Whitey!" I yell

"I'm sorry y/n I forgot, I'll clean it for ya" he says his hands instantly going for my chest again

"no whitey!" I tell him

"ohh y/n I'm sorry I really am, I'll make it up to ya I promise" he says "just... Just let me have another feel" he groans

"no you've done enough damage this week and it's only Tuesday" I complain

"but y/n look look my hands are clean" he says quickly wiping then on his pants and jumper so they where clean or well as clean as whiteys hands get "just... Just one more please just a little one?" He begs

"ohh alright" I sigh

"ohh thank you so much y/n" he smiles cuddling close to me nuzzling his head into my neck and grabbing my boobs again as he wasn't kissing me this time I caught his sharp breaths and little grunts much more them being a inch from my ear and all "ummm they.... there so good, so round so perfect" he mutters making me giggle a little as he gropes my chest "will ya be mad at me if I said that... I very very badly wanna titty fuck your gorgeous breasts?" He moans

"yes" I warn

"I won't say it then" he groans "but by God I will be thinkin it fuckin loudly!" He moans before I felt him undoing the ties on my dress

"whitey!" I began but he forced me up against the wall again hard as he undid my ties enough to get both his hands in to grip my boobs now only having my undergarments between my skin and his hand

"ohh my god! There so big! Uhhhhh! Oh god I - Ummmm" he moans gropeing me harshly a slave to his hormones "ohh yeah, it's all I want, I'll be dreamin' bout it for weeks now slipping my cock between your perfect breasts, getting to grope them while I fuck them uhhh! I need it so bad baby! I need you!" He growled "I'm sorry I'm sorry y/n but I- I have to" he smirked

"Whitey get off!" I tell him

"I have to I have to see them please im so close" he begs his hands that where violently groping my chest now had hold of the soft thin cotton of my undergarments and it began to ripp

"WHITEY!" I scream pushing him completely off me and slapping his face hard! I did up my dress as fast as I could trying to save it as the tiny tear will get bigger now the longer I stand in it

"y/n I'm sorry, I Lost control I'm so sorry" he pleads

"save it you dirty bastard!" I yell going inside and locking up my doors ....

P2 coming Soon

[deepbluexsea]

Secrets

Rating: PG-13 (language, adult discussion). Relationships: Jonathan/Gabriel, Gabriel/Jillynn (past). Recurring Characters: Johnny, Briel, Dr. Williams, Bella (mentioned). Warning/Notes: Marriage therapy. Mention of physical intimacy (non-descriptive). I wrote Gabriel’s parts; his writer is much better at portraying him than I am.

PRESENT(ISH)

On only the third time Johnny was on his way to meet the marriage therapist with his husband, he was running behind schedule. This behavior was something Briel had cited as an issue in their relationship on their intake paperwork: Johnny’s career sometimes had to come first (even if he didn’t want it to). He had tried to work on the things Briel considered a problem before they ever started therapy and despite this small slip up today, he still thought he was doing fairly well.

It was nine minutes past 12:00 PM. The sessions were only an hour during his lunch break once a month, but here he was… late.

“I’m so sorry,” Johnny said breathlessly as he slipped into the therapist’s cozy, ambient office. Briel was already in his place on the loveseat. Taking the spot next to his husband, he smoothed out his slacks and ran his hands through his hair to tame it from his mad dash here.

“We know it’s out of your control sometimes,” Dr. Williams nodded with a gentle smile. “Perhaps you might consider directing your apology to your husband instead of to me. Just to increase the discourse on these difficult issues.”

In the way they’d practiced during the very first session, Johnny turned toward Briel and took his hands, meeting his gaze. They were taught to explain themselves in full while also acknowledging the other’s emotions, all the while increasing the happy ‘bonding’ hormones by touching. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it on time. The judge ran over on his ruling. I tried to get here as fast as I could. I know it’s disappointing to you, and…” He glanced at Dr. Williams, trying to find the right words. “And… probably reminds you of how you felt when I worked so much in the past. I’m going to keep trying to do better.”

“Excellent, Jonathan,” the therapist validated. “Gabriel, how do you feel about responding in kind?”

Briel took a deep breath and seemed to think for a minute. His slight irritation seemed to wane. “It’s okay, Jay. I mean, I know it’s going to happen every now and then. It’s not what I’m worried about right now.”

The two of them slowly pulled apart. Johnny knew exactly what was going to come next. Currently, the fact that Johnny hadn’t filed their divorce papers and didn’t tell anyone was seemingly a bigger dilemma than any of the ones they’d divorced over in the first place. Even though it had been a topic of heavy discussion at each of their appointments so far, it was still nowhere near resolved.

“What’s bothering you most lately, Gabriel?” Dr. Williams asked politely.

They waited for him to gather his words, but Johnny couldn’t help himself after a few moments. 

“Can I guess?” There were no objections. “It feels like he’s still very upset about the divorce papers. I told him I could file them any time, but he told me not to – which is really confusing to me. If he wants to start over from scratch, then I’m ready. If he wants to stay married, obviously, I’m ready. It’s like, we need to take a swing or get off the plate, you know? I don’t want to stay in limbo. We did that for a year after separating and it was tough.”

Before Briel could counter that, Dr. Williams tried to diffuse the tension. “Gabriel, I’m going to take a shot at what I’ve observed, but you tell me if this doesn’t sound right.” The other man nodded in agreement. “Jonathan, I don’t think that’s what Gabriel is saying. I think Gabriel has expressed his intent to be with you while also trying to communicate that lying about and concealing such a huge matter isn’t acceptable.”

Briel threw his hands in the air. “Yes! Thank you!”

“You don’t think I know that, though?” Johnny asked genuinely. He felt defensive, but he schooled his tone by keeping in mind what the doctor had said at their initial meeting: We’ve all agreed that your goal for attending therapy is to keep your marriage intact, so these conversations are to find solutions – not to blame or fight.

“I didn’t want to lie to you, Briel. I didn’t sit down one day and make the decision not to file the papers. I just couldn’t at first. Every time I tried, I felt so sick that it was hard to even go to work. It was like my chest was breaking in half all the time. And then I started drinking too much…”

Too much – an extent to which Briel probably didn’t realize.

“…it just wasn’t even on my radar by that point.” And fuck, why did Johnny feel like he was going to cry? “Then I was so busy putting my life back together that I forgot. But when I heard you were getting married, I remembered. I started the process again. And I never would have let it go on long enough to risk your marriage with Jill. I mean, I did push it off a couple of times after that but then I had a consultation about it. I got the document sealed and ready to be walked upstairs on a Friday evening, but the office was already closed so I had to wait until Monday. And that was the weekend you showed back up at home.”

It was quiet in the room for a long time after Johnny spilled his guts. All of the actions he’d detailed were so out of character for him that he didn’t expect Briel to fully believe him, but he had been through hell and back trying to get over this man. 2018-2019 Johnny wasn’t the same Johnny that he had been when they were still married.

“That’s it. That’s the whole truth,” he finally exhaled heavily, feeling like an increasingly unappealing human being because of how abysmal his conduct was during that time. Even though he was deeply afraid that Briel would be turned off by it, he knew that his husband deserved to know every last bit of it.

Dr. Williams let Johnny’s monologue sink in before she made her observations. “That was a brave confession, Jonathan. Thank you for sharing. While the two of you don’t seem to have any struggles with physical intimacy, keep in mind that the degree of emotional intimacy in a relationship is determined by the vulnerability you have with each other. This was a really great example. Gabriel, it’s my hope that this weekend you will take time to reflect on what your husband said today.”

Ten minutes later, the couple stood outside of the therapist’s building about to part ways: Johnny back to work and Briel back home to babysit Bella. They shared a quick kiss (as had become customary after these appointments), but afterward Johnny kept the other man close to him.

“I’m sorry, Briel. I didn’t think you’d ever know about this, so I didn’t think it would ever be able to hurt you. I hope you know I wouldn’t keep anything like that from you anymore.”

He kissed his husband again without hesitance before framing his face with his hands. “And now it’s no secret that I never stopped loving you.”

[inside-of-a-fangirls-mind]

Nothing But Trouble

Brief Summary; You cannot spell trouble without you James and Sirius and the whole school knows it. Will you get away with you newest prank or will you lose points for Gryffindor? 

Words; 1435

Warnings; Teasing and slight mentions of bullying(dont bully it’s not cool no matter who you are!)

Pairing; None, just a group of friends.

James Potter;

Sirius Black;

Remus Lupin;

Peter Pettigrew;

It was just supposed to be another ordinary Saturday. You were sitting in the common room trying to catch up on your DADA homework when Sirius and James run in roaring their heads off. You glance up and raise your eyebrow at your fellow Gryffindors. They don’t even explain as they sit on either side of you squishing you in the middle.

“What did you two do now?” You giggle closing your textbook and looking from James to Sirius. Neither of them spoke a word before Remus and Pete walked in all wide-eyed.

“Someone put a Cantis curse on a Slytherin. Professor Slughorn isn’t happy about it.” Remus murmured before glaring to James and Sirius.

“Just wait till you see what we have planned for dinner!” Sirius almost screeched as he hopped up pulling you from the couch laughing softly.

“Planning on a little musical, boys?” You kidded before James leaped up as well and smirked.

“Those Slytherin’s always look so mean. Might as well give them a song to sing and be happy!” James laughed before swinging his arm around your shoulder. You looked over to Remus and Peter who didn’t look too pleased.

“Oh, cmon boys. It will be fun. Might as well get Ravenclaw as well! They have been really stuck up recently!” You supported before James and Sirius did too. It was many times that the boys didn’t find trouble without you.

“Wings, I knew you’d see it our way.” Sirius laughed and patted your shoulder. He loved referring to you as your marauder’s nickname. Your Patronus was an eagle and it was like the best thing to Sirius who always wanted to play with his tiny bird friend.

“Whatever you say Padfoot.” You mocked back before throwing your textbook onto the couch. “Shall we attend dinner than boys?”

With that all 5 of you were off, Remus was just going along to enjoy the show no doubt. At least this time it didn’t hurt anyone. Peter was just eager to be able to attempt to do the spell. You all entered the Great Hall like any other day, now pulling this off without getting caught required a little distraction.

Sirius said he could handle that, little did you all know what he had in mind.

Dinner started the normal way, nothing really unique until Sirius flew in on his broom next to naked screaming at the top of his lungs.

“So much for not getting caught.” You smiled to James before the 3 of you, Remus stayed seated, started shooting out Cantis spells at every Slytherin and Ravenclaw in the great hall. McGonagall and Dumbledore were trying to get Sirius to stop before they heard the two tables break out in song. Disney songs at that. Being a muggle-born did have some fun.

All the pure blooded Hufflepuff and Gryffindor watched and laughed as their fellow houses sing silly songs which only muggle born and half-bloods knew.

It was fun none the less and with the teachers now distracted by the singing students, Sirius got away to redress. But it went terribly wrong when James shot the Cantis spell at McGonagall. Every Gryffindor froze as they watched the head of their house break out in song.

Laughter then erupted again and you looked at James before grabbing Peter and Remus running out of the dinner hall as students started dancing and singing on tables.

It was quite a show. Once back in your common rooms you all laughed and collapsed on the various couches and chairs.

“I cannot believe you hit McGonagall!” You almost shouted with laughter as you held your stomach. A poorly redressed Sirius went wide-eyed before roaring with laughter as well. Remus looked at his friend and couldn’t suppress a light chuckle. It had been pretty funny after all. Peter laughed whole heartedly and James pulled you close into a laughing hug so you two could die of laughter together.

This had to be the best prank of your lives, that was until McGonagall was standing in front of all of you scowling. James was the first to notice and elbowed you before you kicked Sirius who glared at you before looking to the head of Gryffindor. Remus and Peter followed and seemed to sink into their chairs trying to hide.

James put on a brave face while you tried to fix your appearance knowing this was going to end badly.

“10 points from all of you for turning the Great Hall into a  foolish flamboyance hodgepodge.” She nearly growled before starring at you, James and Sirius. “As far for you three. For no uncertainty influencing this mayhem. Detention for this following week. Every evening at 8.” And with that, she was leaving.

You and James let out a soft sigh you didn’t know you were holding in as she turned around in the doorway. “Oh. And by the way. 50 points to Gryffindor for the enormously entertaining evening.” She smiled proudly at her students before leaving.

Sirius sprung up and basically cheered as he pulled you up and started to dance around the room like an idiot. “I KNEW SHE COULDN’T STAY MAD AT US.”

You just giggled and pulled him into a hug. “You are by far the worst at distractions. We need to work on that.”

“It worked didn’t it Wings? Unless you were too distracted of course.” He wiggled his eyebrows before you shoved him so he fell on the couch.

“You wish Sirius.” You huffed crossing your arms with a grin as James stood up.

“She’s right Sirius why would she want you when she could have Lucius.” He teased before pretending to swoon. “Oh, Lucius tell me again how pretty I am. Tell me how pretty I make you feel. Tell me how we will rule the school. Put your snake tongue down my throat!” James practically moaned acting like a teenage hormonal girl.

Your cheeks went hot pink before shoving him. “Hey! Piss off! I’ve only even talked to him once!” You pouted slightly before glaring at your friends. You knew it was all fun and games until Peter stood up to join in.

“Her crush isn’t even Lucius! It’s Snivellus!” Peter shouted before you turned around and glowered at him as he sunk back down to hide behind the chair Remus was seated in.

“Y/n? Liking Snivellus! You’re out of your mind Peter!” Sirius shouted before laughing. “As much as we mess with him? I don’t think any girl would want that greasy haired monstrous nincompoop.”

You rolled your eyes at Sirius. At a lot of the time, you didn’t let the boys pick on one student. A lot of the teasing of Severus had stopped when you befriended the boys. But you couldn’t show weakness.

“Who says I even like a Slytherin? Maybe it’s a Gryffindor.” You taunted, caressing Remus’ scarred cheek before winking and leaving the common room.

Everyone went wide eyed, and a blush spread on Remus’s cheeks as everyone stared at him. “HOW THE HELL DOES SHE FANCY MOONY AND NOT ME?” You overheard Sirius scream before giggling before popping your head back in the room.

“Anyone up for some Quidditch practices? I feel like beating the shit out of all of you.” You harassed before winking.

“Oh. You’re not gonna be able too if I knock you off your broom first!” James laughed before rushing out of the room to go get his Quidditch gear first.

“Last one there has to bath Professor Slughorn!” You yelled before chasing down the hall after James. The three boys looked at each other before sprinting out of the common room to try and caught up with you and James.

You loved your boys and they loved you. However, you couldn’t help but glare at James and Sirius come Monday at 8 pm. When the three of you were scrubbing the floors in the dungeon for several hours.

“Hey. I got this idea. What if we made all the 7th years shrink.” James whispered to you as you both scrubbed the floors.

“Haven’t we got in enough trouble?” you teased before glancing towards where McGonagall was reading. “What if we did it to all the teachers too?” You grinned devilishly.

“I like the way you think Wings.” James smiled as you all scrubbed the floors with happy smiles. Oh, you were fine with detention for the rest of the year with these beautiful pranks.

[rowanstories-blog]

Forgotten

The fourth part of school began with as much excitement and joy as the last three had begun, which is to say none at all. The first part, morning classes, only had a mild buzz of enthusiasm as the halls filled with mumbling voices, spilling the latest news of who said what through texts and Internet memes the night before. Lunch followed as the second part, which would be an excellent time if not for the new rules preventing students from leaving the cafeteria without supervision. They all had Jamie Winston to thank for that, after a stunt involving Coke, Mentos, and, when those didn't give a satisfactory result, a cigarette and a fire cracker. The third part, afternoon classes, had all the dull expectations of the previous parts, without the drama of morning classes or the sub-par food of lunch to look forward to. All of these lead to the fourth inevitable part of the school day: detention.

Jamie tapped their pen on the desk, trying to get their taps to sync perfectly with the second hand on what was probably the last analog clock that could actually give an accurate time. That would probably end soon. The single nail holding it to the wall, after years of unquestioned servitude, would one day give out and fall, taking its time-telling master down with it. Well, if the school's walls didn't go down first.

"No tapping! What did I say about the tapping?"

Jamie rolled their eyes, showing just how absurd they thought the command was despite their outward obedience. Wasn't an hour of sitting in an empty, unused room with a clock from a long-past era and a teacher aged about the same punishment enough?

"Now don't roll your eyes at me, you. You're the one who got yourself put here."

Technically, it was the system who did the putting. All Jamie did was make the science of Coke and Mentos more interesting. Before Jamie could give a snarky one-liner about that, as all teens love to do, the intercom system by the clock sparked to life, summoning the human-disguised dinosaur to an office on the floor above them. The teacher obeyed without question, reminding Jamie of a dog running when it heard the command 'come,' not thinking of all why it should obey at all. Jamie didn't much care for dogs, so they had no problem thinking of the teacher, who they also didn't care for, in that frame of mind. They vastly preferred the independence of cats, who obeyed no one.

The empty classroom quickly bored Jamie, so they did what they did best- the first thing to come to mind. With a quick jolt to the window's frame, the 'child-proof' locks clicked open, proving that the high school should have sprung for 'teen-proof' locks instead. The window slid open with ease, and Jamie jumped out, sliding between the school's brick exterior and the hedges around it until they made it to the back of the building, where their buddies all gathered every day to trade smoke brands and determine which part of town they'd loiter in that day.

If Jamie had listened to the announcement given on the intercoms just a few minutes prior, they would have made a note that every authority figure in the building had been summoned to the back parking lot. Jamie, as usual, did not give their full attention to the words, so they got caught completely off guard as they slipped out from literal weeds into metaphorical ones.

---

"All you had to do was sit in a chair! How could you mess that up?"

Jamie replied to their father's tirade with the trademark move of those their age: an angst-filled shrug.

"Please," the principal said, as if attempting to relax a toddler, "sit down." He did, once again proving to Jamie that the all-encompassing system created by the illusion of authority turned teenage independent cats into adult obedient dogs. "Now, to review, Jamie got five months of detention for the... incident. We're barely two weeks in. Jamie, care to explain?"

Jamie hated to reduce the impact of their signature move by using it too often, but they couldn't resist thrusting their angst through their shoulders at someone so high up the imaginary authority ladder.

Their father huffed. "If you keep this up, you'll be thirty years old with no degree and no job! Do we need to ground you too? Is that what you want?" As if a workaholic authority-kiss-ass dad and mother of twin toddlers could ever keep Jamie's free spirit contained. They liked not having a plan for the future. Plans were just another form of systematic containment; living moment to moment suited the independent soul far better.

The door flew open, sending a jolt through the room. Jamie, used to the slow and predictable nature of these meetings, couldn't help but uncross their arms in surprise at the sudden and unexpected event, but quickly regained their composure.

The school guidance counselor, known to the hormone-fueled student body as Lady Tits, strut into the room, her dress's collar giving an excellent view of her namesake. Jamie's eyes caught on the cleavage, unable to unhook themselves.

"I'm very sorry to intrude," Lady Tits said, with a little bounce at the end of her sentence, "but when I heard about Jamie again, I thought I'd re-introduce my idea." She turned to Jamie. "You're not a fan of being all cooped up in a classroom, right? What would you say if you could spend detention another way?"

Her proposal interested Jamie more than her figure, but just barely. They managed to release their eyes from the low-cut dress and look up, eyebrows twitching. Jamie always tried to raise their eyebrow in times like these, but their muscles betrayed them. Still, that didn't stop them from trying.

Before anyone could ask for clarification, Lady Tits placed a large binder on the principal's desk with a comedic thud. She sat on the edge of the desk, legs crossed and hands holding down her dress, and began. "As the school guidance counselor, part of my job is understanding the students and their needs, especially those who are having trouble reaching their full potential. I've been working my way through many studies, which you-" she gave a pointed glance to the principal- "can review in this binder here. The studies clearly show what should be obvious to us in the education profession: detention does nothing. Students don't spend that time feeling bad about what they did or learning for the future, it just leads to brooding." Her next glance targeted Jamie. "And as we know, brooding only leads to bad behavior in the future. So what I've done is designed a new system: the Remedial Employment Experience, or R.E.E."

Jamie tried to stifle a laugh as they made the connection between the acronym and the sound of a screeching frog.

"And what is this R.E.E.?" their father asked.

"I'll put it very simply, and explain after." Lady Tits leaned toward Jamie, putting her assets on full display. "Jamie, you're getting a job."

---

Jamie leafed through the comically large binder, mumbling a number of profanities to themself. The binder, in addition to the 'studies' Lady Tits collected to shove in the principal's face, contained a long list of 'remedial employment experiences' that Jamie could choose from to partake in instead of attending detention. In all truth, they would prefer to sit in the room for the rest of the year rather than become a part of the capitalist system without the monetary benefit of capitalistic labor, but Lady Tits made a strong argument for having them be the test run for the detention-replacing system.

Their phone buzzed with snarky comments and linked memes once their friends caught wind of the 'screeching frog experience,' asking what job they'd be stuck doing.

"Just pick something you're interested in," Lady Tits had said during that meeting. "Consider it practice for your real future," the principal added. Neither of these statements helped Jamie, who prided themself on not having future plans.

Jamie prepared to reply to the group chat with a list of the lamest jobs they found, which was hard to quantify since they all were pretty terrible, when one caught their eye.

"Graveyard Assistant. 9pm to midnight, Monday through Wednesday. Assist the groundskeeper with miscellaneous tasks and keep watch over the property."

Jamie couldn't believe that such a job existed, and their friends in the group chats couldn't either. After several observed benefits revealed themselves, including having a secret drinking spot and scaring the more cowardly students by making them stay over on the grounds, Jamie knew they made the perfect choice.

---

The bike lock click echoed across the hills, making Jamie realize just how quiet the last ten minutes of their ride to the outskirts graveyard had been. The feeling of solitude only pleased Jamie all the more, making their heart pound with anticipation as they left their bike on one of the few still-standing fences and approached the main building. Jamie had to assume that the building was the main one, anyway, since it was the only building in view, made from the same gray stone that stuck up from the ground in slabs across the surrounding hills. The wood door groaned as it opened, acting as a thematic alarm system for anyone inside.

"Yo," Jamie called out, their voice booming in the surrounding silence. The interior of the building was as bright as an abandoned basement, with all the cleanliness of a barnyard after a tornado. The shadowed forms of various tools lay scattered along the floor and walls, with piles of grass clippings and tree branches piled in an unrecognizable system around the room.

Jamie thought back to their last social interaction, if family could be defined as a social experience. Their mom read off the directions to the graveyard from a print out, another vestige of ancient technology that now only served to show the previous generation's wastefulness of resources. Left, right, forward, whatever. There could only be so many graveyards up north of town, after all.

A loud clang rang out, not from Jamie's doing. They turned and leaned out of the old building toward the source, and noticed a tall figure on a nearby hill, form surrounded by moonlight.

"Hey! Are you the boss or whatever?" Jamie called out.

The form rose its head and turned, dragging a tool in its hand along with it. The tool rose and waved.

Perhaps the groundskeeper was hard of hearing, or lost its voice in some sort of graveyard-related accident. Jamie had imagined the job to be vaguely creepy, but they began to consider that perhaps they underestimated how much of the unsettling feeling of graveyards in movies was based in reality. Nevertheless, they slid down the stairs and approached the figure. The proximity and shifting of visual angle allowed Jamie to identify the tool the figure used as a large shovel, forcing itself into the ground and tossing loose dirt and rocks as it rose. The figure wore a tight dress shirt and pants, as if they planned to finish up their work here and head right over to the spring gala.

"Are you the boss around here?" Jamie asked again, still speaking loudly in case they couldn't hear well.

The figure's eyes looked to Jamie as their body continued to work. "Something like that," they replied slowly. "What brings you here?"

"I'm doing that anti-detention thing for the school. They're giving us jobs because they don't want to pay the teachers for detention-sitting or whatever."

The figure let out a low laugh, as if someone took a regular laugh, slowed it down, and added a bass underlay in preparation for an EDM mix. "Ah, to be young again." They paused their digging. "So that means you are here to assist me?"

"Guess so."

"Very well," the figure said. "Go get a shovel and come back here. We have much to do."

The two dug in silence as the moon rode across the sky, moving so much smoother than the second hand of the analog clock Jamie was accustomed to. The lack of noise began to ring in their ears, consuming the space around them. Their breathing and heartbeat rose to max volume in comparison, making Jamie painfully aware of the noises their body made to keep them alive.

"So," Jamie said to break the silence, "how much does this gig pay, usually? I don't get anything since it's a punishment."

"The satisfaction is pay enough," the figure replied, "and I hope you grow to think of this not as punishment, but as giving back."

"Sounds like something my dad would say," Jamie grumbled during an eye roll. "So do they actually not pay you?"

"The dead have nothing, and belong to no one."

Jamie didn't understand, but decided to drop the topic. They probably were getting paid by the government or something and didn't want to explain.

"It is finished," the figure remarked, examining the edges of the grave they dug together with long fingertips.

"Cool, so am I done?" Jamie turned to face the figure, but quickly realized their solitude in the bottom of the grave. Their heart began to race as their eyes darted around the hole. In a panic, they jumped up and grabbed protruding roots, using them to pull themself out of the hole and onto the cold grass above. They jumped up just in time to see the figure approaching the hole with a large black bag.

"We are not yet finished," the figure explained. "They deserve more respect and patience from you if you are to help them rest."

The figure motioned to Jamie to grab the top portion of the bag, while the figure held on to the back. Together, they led the bag to the edge of the hole. Before Jamie fully realized what they were doing, the figure told them to let go, and the bag fell into the hole, opening slightly at the top during its descent. Two glazed over eyes stared up at Jamie, sunk deep into a pale, thin face, with its mouth hung open, eternally caught mid-word. The rest of the body remained hidden from the bag, but Jamie's mind filled in the possible details at lightning speed.

"What the-" Jamie jumped back, catching themself pre-swear. "You didn't say we'd be burying bodies!"

"What did you expect?" the figure asked, without a hint of sarcasm.

Jamie fumbled with their words for a moment. "I mean, don't the bodies get buried, you know, at funerals? With the family and everything around? Not, you know, the dead of night, alone?"

The figure gave a long, forlorn sigh. "For those that are remembered, yes. But there are a great many who die forgotten, their names never to be spoken again, their stories lost at the end of their life. I am the one who remembers them, who gives them their final farewell, in place of any others in this world."

"So you bury people with no family or anything?" Jamie asked to clarify.

"Essentially. No one deserves to move to the next life without recognition."

Jamie's eyes skimmed along the empty hills around them, gravestones accented with the light of the moon, acting as beacons for each and every ended life surrounding them, then came to rest on the body below. They avoided looking into the eyes again, but their eyes moved to their long, ragged hair, their scarred skin, the hint of dirty and ripped clothing just barely revealed at the edge of the bag. The person, whoever they were, appeared homeless, or poor at the very least. And, according to the figure, they had died alone and entirely forgotten. Jamie's heart felt a pang of soreness from the thought.

They kept their mouth shut as the figure began reading from a tiny purple and gold book held entirely in one hand, saying the dead's name and speaking of her life. The words shone on the story as rays of the sun, basking it in the light of loving parents, and honest efforts, and wonderful talents. The sunshine then began to dim in the clouds of economic hardship, becoming darker still as the clouds moved on the winds of personal loss, bringing with it the thunder of grief. The rains of drug use poured down on the story, washing away the stable rocks of family, friends, and home. The rains poured down and the waters rose, and in the end, she drowned.

The figure closed the book, sending Jamie back to reality. They wiped away the stray tears quickly, not wanting the figure to see.

"Tears are a compliment," the figure replied to his thought. "They mean that you care."

The two worked in silence as their shovels moved the dirt back into the hole, moving the body away from the light of the moon for a final time. The two stood by the fresh mound of dirt in silence as the skies above continued to move around them. Jamie could hear their heart and breathing again, but they didn't care so much this time.

"It is late," the figure finally spoke. "I suppose it is time for you to go."

"Yeah," Jamie mumbled, unable to speak any louder.

"I wish to give you something, as thanks for helping me tonight."

Jamie opened their mouth to protest, to explain they only came from obligation, but the figure motioned for their silence. Their long fingers slid into one of their front pockets and pulled out another book, red in hue but otherwise identical to the book the figure read from previously. Their hand extended, and Jamie's hand reacted without thought to take it into their own. Their fingers ran along the wordless cover, making note of the golden patterns on the cover and bands along the spine, adorned themselves with tiny symbols they'd never seen before. Their thumb ran through the pages, expecting pages of information on funeral proceedings and the like, but found them all empty. They looked up, ready to attempt speaking once more, but found themself alone in the expanse of the cemetery.

---

Jamie returned home from their first night on the job to find their mother crying and their father on the phone with the police. They got a call from the cemetery director, their mother explained through tears, asking where they were, since they never arrived for the job. They expected as much, as tardiness is in the nature of teenage rebellion, but when their friends claimed they went to the job and hadn't seen them since school, worry consumed them. They cried of joy, then later of frustration as Jamie repeated the same story over and over, despite there being no cemetery so far from town. The police even checked the region to be sure that no one had set one up as a prank or something more sinister, but their searches, even with Jamie leading the way, found nothing.

Melina Ludwig, the school's guidance counselor for seven years after a brief stint in law, refused to give up hope in her R.E.E. program. She convinced the principal, Robert Brown, who once spent a month backpacking across Europe, to give it a second chance. The two requested that Howard Winston, Jamie's father and manager of a nearby warehouse, and on the off chance of his absence his mother Emilia Winston, who gave up her maiden name of O'Brierly after a long argument with her at-the-time-future-in-laws, drive Jamie to and from the job at the cemetery, to be sure of their whereabouts.

On the first day Jamie asked the groundskeeper Matthew Swint, who hadn't graduated high school due to his now ex-girlfriend's demands, when they would bury a body together. They got only a hearty laugh as reply, and spent the hours pulling weeds and chasing rabbits away from the flowers that loved ones left behind.

Over the weeks that Jamie worked, their mind routinely returned to that night, performing a ceremony for someone the world forgot. Sometimes people would visit a grave during Jamie's shift, and they would feel a pang of sadness for the ones who would never have someone look back on their memory. They hated seeing the flowers, too; they only reminded them of the emptiness between the rows of graves they had seen that night.

Despite the claims that the R.E.E. would help Jamie, their grades and focus only got worse in class. They focused instead on socialization, catching other's attention and absorbing as much as they could from observing and speaking to others. Their dreams filled with the image of the woman's face, mouth hanging open, eyes sunken and void. They would look into her grave and see their own face instead, visited by no one but the figure, reading off words of solitude and despair. Despite trying to fight the feeling with social graces and get-to-know-yous, the feeling of meaninglessness and absence of direction plagued Jamie, who now more than ever felt they lived without a future waiting, trapped in a story without a plot.

One night, almost two months after their experience, Jamie got a text relaying that both of their parents, who met during an Irish bar dance two years before marriage, couldn't make it to pick them up. They snuck a bike in the storage shed and made their way back home on their own, trying to remember the twists and turns that marked the way.

As they rode, they felt an increasing warmth in their left pocket. They worried about the cause, thinking of overheating phones and possible fires, until they realized that their phone rested safely and cooly in their right pocket. Stopping the bike, they pulled something they never went without from the left pocket: the red book from that night. The golden marks felt warm to the touch, and as their fingers ran over them, Jamie felt a deep feeling that they never felt before, giving them direction. They followed the feeling to the path's ledge, where, just beside the road, their eyes locked on to the silhouette of a human figure, crumpled and limp in the gravel hillside. Their eyes traced the ground from the figure to the road, marked with thick lines and circles of deep red across the pavement, telling the story of a single life-ending impact.

The book felt as if ablaze, but not painfully so. Jamie opened it, as they had a thousand times to observe the blank pages, only to find them now filled with line and lines of symbols saturated with meaning their eyes could now understand. When their view rose, they saw the familiar sight of gravestones lining the hills in the distance, surrounding a single building that appeared glowing in the night's dim light.

Jamie's eyes moved from the book, to the graveyard, to the body. In that moment, they knew what to do. Their story had found its plot.

[jesseneufeld]

Feeling Happy and Healthy, Medication-Free

It’s Monday, everyone! And that means another Primal Blueprint Real Life Story from a Mark’s Daily Apple reader. If you have your own success story and would like to share it with me and the Mark’s Daily Apple community please contact me here. I’ll continue to publish these each Monday as long as they keep coming in. Thank you for reading!

Folks, I have been grateful for every story that has come my way over the years. It’s an incredible privilege being on the receiving end of your reflections and evolutions, and they are why I’ve kept at it all these years—knowing the message and information have made a difference in people’s lives. I appreciate every single one. I’ll add that today’s has inspired me on a new level. It’s a powerful narrative and huge testament to the impact of diet and lifestyle on our mental well-being. Thank you to reader, Megan, for sharing her strength, tenacity and hope with others today. 

Hi everyone. Mark recently requested success stories and work-in-progress stories. I’ve been meaning to write for a while, and took that to be my personal kick in the butt. I am a work-in-progress story. I was waiting until I was a success story, but as you will see even though my journey isn’t complete, I already am a success story. I have found inspiration from other stories, even the work-in-progress and failure stories; it is good to see that imperfections exist, and it is ok to fail. I can only hope to inspire others. Because, my story is one of hope—hope for myself and hope for others like me.

I had a difficult upbringing with a mother who had an undiagnosed and unmedicated mental illness. She tried the best she could to be a mother, but she was overly critical toward me and even competitive with me. I would hide in the outdoors, books and food. Secretly eating a bag of cookies by myself or hiding Halloween candy that I would binge off of when she wasn’t looking. I lived solely off macaroni and cheese for dinner (yes, every night) for about a year and a half in fourth and fifth grade until I suddenly couldn’t stomach the smell anymore (At 40, I still can’t to this day). Friends in middle school and high school thought it was amusing how hyper I would get from sugar and would feed me pixie sticks and other candies on purpose. You would think that I was extremely overweight with these eating habits, but I was active as a child through high school (marching band, track, hiking, cycling) and looked every bit the “normal kid,” albeit an emotionally scarred one; I was happy and bubbly on the exterior but falling apart inside. I was regularly sick with sinus infections or bronchitis. When I hit puberty, my mother’s criticism’s turned to fat shaming me even though I was actually technically underweight. I refused to eat healthy foods as a way to rebel against my mom. I excelled in school and read more books than ever as a way to escape.

I started to exhibit signs of a mood disorder when I was in high school with extreme bouts of depression and some episodes of rage, typically around “that time of the month.” The beginnings of grandiose ideas also manifested, on occasion. The depression was severe enough for me to have suicidal ideations, but no actual attempts. The depressive lows continued into college, but then the highs started to come. I would not be able to sleep until 3 or 4 in the morning and then wake up ready to go at 6 am for days on end. Then I would crash and swing back to extreme lows and want to sleep for hours. I didn’t realize anything was wrong until I went to the health fair at school. On a whim I filled out a “how are you feeling questionnaire.” I checked off a few boxes, handed it over and thought nothing of it. I was so used to feeling the mood swings; including extreme depression that I thought that feeling that way was “normal.” The staff at the tent looked over the results and was so concerned that they would not let me leave. They walked me right over to the mental health clinic to get checked out. That fall (2000), I was diagnosed with Bipolar I. Around the same time I also was diagnosed with an underactive thyroid and began thyroid hormone support.

Enter a series of different cocktails of psychiatric medications. My weight yo-yo’d along with all the side effects of the various medications (mood stabilizers, anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, benzodiazepines). I continued to have all the classic symptoms of Bipolar I, grandiose ideas, paranoia, severe depression, anxiety. I wouldn’t allow myself to have a credit card because I couldn’t trust that I wouldn’t spend the whole thing in a matter of a couple of months. I made one major attempt to take my life by intentionally overdosing on about 40 slow-release lithium tablets (please do not try this; after dialysis I am lucky to be alive and not a vegetable). I was also hospitalized on several occasions for short inpatient psychiatric treatment stays. I didn’t have many friends because I wasn’t stable enough to be a reliable friend. People didn’t know how to behave around me and treated me differently, like someone who needed extra care instead of just like anyone else. I went through various cocktails of medications and found I responded better to the older, but that I was never truly “stable.” I tell this part of my life story not to shock, but to say that there is hope for healing. I want to show how far I have come and how far it is possible for others to go by adopting the Primal Blueprint. Photo: me in 2007 after several years of medication.

I went back and forth with running over the years as a way to lose the weight that the medications put on. Running also became an addiction and a meditation for me; a different way to escape reality. Add in my rescue border collie to run with, and I was in heaven. Running with her was my happy place. It saw me through broken friendships, a divorce and meeting the incredibly supportive and loving husband I have been with for the past 10 years. On the first date I told him my diagnosis, and he said “ok, let’s do this.” My friends told me I was crazy to tell him. I guess they didn’t know my diagnosis…. Photo: happy wedding day. (Me in 2013.)

Without realizing it, running made me sick with more inflammation. I ran six half marathons and one full marathon before quitting due to severe tendonitis in one ankle. At this point I was frustrated. I had been heavily medicated for over 15 years and never really felt well; I felt like I was hiding behind a veil and not letting people see my true self. I started doing research on scholarly articles for how gluten and casein could play a role in exacerbating mood disorders. I decided to eliminate gluten from my diet. Within a week my husband asked where my stomach had gone. I had been so bloated for as long as I could remember that I thought it was normal.

Nursing my ankle back to health and still feeling frustrated, I continued with my research and somehow stumbled on Mark’s Daily Apple in early 2016. AND IT ALL CLICKED. The pieces of the puzzle finally came together. The health and environmental impacts of following the PB made complete sense and I was all in. I was already GF, but I started adopting more of the PB principles. We bought organic grass-fed meats from the local farm, ate organic veggies. I ditched process foods and sugar. I stopped drinking caffeine. I identified that gluten, caffeine and sugar gave me anxiety, and that dairy gave me depression. I eventually also ditched alcohol, which I realized also caused depression and sleep disturbances. I went from brittle nails to being irritated with how often I had to trim them. The extra 25 pounds slowly fell off over the next year and a half. I was on the lowest maintenance doses of my medications ever. My period was normal for the first time in my life ever, regular and with no PMS.

This is me on vacation in St. Croix in 2017 – I’m at my healthiest ever but still medicated.

I was doing kundalini yoga at the time and without realizing the power of the practice, I put myself into a manic state. Despite my pleas not to, I finally agreed with the psychiatrist to go back on Zyprexa. This medication destroyed my gut microbiome I had worked so hard to repair, and I gained 20 pounds back in a matter of two months. Once I was off the Zyprexa, I continued to eat Primally, but not as well as I had been. My psychiatrist is thankfully one who is a bit more progressive than most. He listened to me tell him that I felt like I was pinging back and forth on low doses of mood stabilizers to anti-depressants. He decided to take me off medication and see what happens. After 17 years of psychiatric medications, I took my last dose Thanksgiving of 2017. If that isn’t a success story, then I don’t know what is.

A year and a half later, I am still struggling to lose the weight, and have my periods back to normal. I struggle with sleep on a regular basis. I am working with a naturopath to identify supplements that support the methylation pathway issues we identified, and sleep is slowly normalizing. But I am still off psychiatric medication and my thyroid hormone medication dose has slowly been lowered by a third of what it was two years ago. I have had no paranoia, and no mania. I have not been hospitalized in almost three years. I have had only minor bouts of depression, mostly associated with hormones.

I can’t do the 80/20 rule like most folks can and am much closer to a 100% rule. That works for me, but doesn’t work for everyone. I do not eat gluten, except for maybe one special “treat” while on vacation once or twice a year. I do not eat dairy. I meditate and practice mindfulness and compassion. I do yoga, hike, walk, play with my dogs, and do body weight exercises when I am up for them. I use a kettlebell for my sprints once every week or two. I run a 5k once a month to get my running in but won’t allow myself to do more than that. I have embraced minimalist shoes 100% of the time, if I am not allowed to be barefoot (happy ankles and feet again). I have slowly been reducing my need for glasses for myopia. I began removing environmental toxins from my life years before I discovered the PB. Allergies are less severe and I have much less frequent sinus infections, and, when I get them I recover much quicker. So, while I feel like I am struggling to get back to where I was and feeling really frustrated, I have to remind myself that I already am a success story. My psychiatrist now jokes that I am a boring person for him and has discussed discharging me. He asked what I think precipitated the illness. I really don’t know the answer, but my guess is an unchecked thyroid condition (my antibodies were negative the one time I checked, so I don’t know if I have an autoimmune condition), a really bad diet, emotional trauma as a child and extreme stress. I don’t know the answer, but I guess it doesn’t really matter because I have a way to manage my symptoms.

This is me in the early morning after hiking to the top of Moro Rock in Sequoia NP in 2018. Feeling healthy and happy being medication free! Mark, my husband, my dogs, my family, my friends and I thank you for saving my life. My psychiatrist told me several years ago that of all the people he treats with Bipolar I, only about 25% are able to function in society (complete college and hold a successful and functional place in the career world/society). Statistics indicate that I would have eventually either taken my life or the psychiatric medications would have done it for me. Thank you again for saving my life and giving hope to others. I’ve often been told that I am strong to have been through so much and made it this far. My husband tells me how much he admires that I get up and face the world every day even though all I want to do is curl up with the dogs and a book in bed. He asked if I was scared what people might say if they found my story. It doesn’t matter. I’ve found that people are too quick to dismiss me because of a label. I’m sick of being a label and an outcast. If my story is out there and can help one person, then I feel fulfilled. Because maybe someone else is out there looking for another way, but they can’t find it because someone didn’t speak up to tell them that there might be. I really appreciate you giving me a way to take back control of my life. Thank you for giving me the means to help myself. Hopefully my story can provide help and hope for others.

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[lauramalchowblog]

Feeling Happy and Healthy, Medication-Free

It’s Monday, everyone! And that means another Primal Blueprint Real Life Story from a Mark’s Daily Apple reader. If you have your own success story and would like to share it with me and the Mark’s Daily Apple community please contact me here. I’ll continue to publish these each Monday as long as they keep coming in. Thank you for reading!

Folks, I have been grateful for every story that has come my way over the years. It’s an incredible privilege being on the receiving end of your reflections and evolutions, and they are why I’ve kept at it all these years—knowing the message and information have made a difference in people’s lives. I appreciate every single one. I’ll add that today’s has inspired me on a new level. It’s a powerful narrative and huge testament to the impact of diet and lifestyle on our mental well-being. Thank you to reader, Megan, for sharing her strength, tenacity and hope with others today. 

Hi everyone. Mark recently requested success stories and work-in-progress stories. I’ve been meaning to write for a while, and took that to be my personal kick in the butt. I am a work-in-progress story. I was waiting until I was a success story, but as you will see even though my journey isn’t complete, I already am a success story. I have found inspiration from other stories, even the work-in-progress and failure stories; it is good to see that imperfections exist, and it is ok to fail. I can only hope to inspire others. Because, my story is one of hope—hope for myself and hope for others like me.

I had a difficult upbringing with a mother who had an undiagnosed and unmedicated mental illness. She tried the best she could to be a mother, but she was overly critical toward me and even competitive with me. I would hide in the outdoors, books and food. Secretly eating a bag of cookies by myself or hiding Halloween candy that I would binge off of when she wasn’t looking. I lived solely off macaroni and cheese for dinner (yes, every night) for about a year and a half in fourth and fifth grade until I suddenly couldn’t stomach the smell anymore (At 40, I still can’t to this day). Friends in middle school and high school thought it was amusing how hyper I would get from sugar and would feed me pixie sticks and other candies on purpose. You would think that I was extremely overweight with these eating habits, but I was active as a child through high school (marching band, track, hiking, cycling) and looked every bit the “normal kid,” albeit an emotionally scarred one; I was happy and bubbly on the exterior but falling apart inside. I was regularly sick with sinus infections or bronchitis. When I hit puberty, my mother’s criticism’s turned to fat shaming me even though I was actually technically underweight. I refused to eat healthy foods as a way to rebel against my mom. I excelled in school and read more books than ever as a way to escape.

I started to exhibit signs of a mood disorder when I was in high school with extreme bouts of depression and some episodes of rage, typically around “that time of the month.” The beginnings of grandiose ideas also manifested, on occasion. The depression was severe enough for me to have suicidal ideations, but no actual attempts. The depressive lows continued into college, but then the highs started to come. I would not be able to sleep until 3 or 4 in the morning and then wake up ready to go at 6 am for days on end. Then I would crash and swing back to extreme lows and want to sleep for hours. I didn’t realize anything was wrong until I went to the health fair at school. On a whim I filled out a “how are you feeling questionnaire.” I checked off a few boxes, handed it over and thought nothing of it. I was so used to feeling the mood swings; including extreme depression that I thought that feeling that way was “normal.” The staff at the tent looked over the results and was so concerned that they would not let me leave. They walked me right over to the mental health clinic to get checked out. That fall (2000), I was diagnosed with Bipolar I. Around the same time I also was diagnosed with an underactive thyroid and began thyroid hormone support.

Enter a series of different cocktails of psychiatric medications. My weight yo-yo’d along with all the side effects of the various medications (mood stabilizers, anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, benzodiazepines). I continued to have all the classic symptoms of Bipolar I, grandiose ideas, paranoia, severe depression, anxiety. I wouldn’t allow myself to have a credit card because I couldn’t trust that I wouldn’t spend the whole thing in a matter of a couple of months. I made one major attempt to take my life by intentionally overdosing on about 40 slow-release lithium tablets (please do not try this; after dialysis I am lucky to be alive and not a vegetable). I was also hospitalized on several occasions for short inpatient psychiatric treatment stays. I didn’t have many friends because I wasn’t stable enough to be a reliable friend. People didn’t know how to behave around me and treated me differently, like someone who needed extra care instead of just like anyone else. I went through various cocktails of medications and found I responded better to the older, but that I was never truly “stable.” I tell this part of my life story not to shock, but to say that there is hope for healing. I want to show how far I have come and how far it is possible for others to go by adopting the Primal Blueprint. Photo: me in 2007 after several years of medication.

I went back and forth with running over the years as a way to lose the weight that the medications put on. Running also became an addiction and a meditation for me; a different way to escape reality. Add in my rescue border collie to run with, and I was in heaven. Running with her was my happy place. It saw me through broken friendships, a divorce and meeting the incredibly supportive and loving husband I have been with for the past 10 years. On the first date I told him my diagnosis, and he said “ok, let’s do this.” My friends told me I was crazy to tell him. I guess they didn’t know my diagnosis…. Photo: happy wedding day. (Me in 2013.)

Without realizing it, running made me sick with more inflammation. I ran six half marathons and one full marathon before quitting due to severe tendonitis in one ankle. At this point I was frustrated. I had been heavily medicated for over 15 years and never really felt well; I felt like I was hiding behind a veil and not letting people see my true self. I started doing research on scholarly articles for how gluten and casein could play a role in exacerbating mood disorders. I decided to eliminate gluten from my diet. Within a week my husband asked where my stomach had gone. I had been so bloated for as long as I could remember that I thought it was normal.

Nursing my ankle back to health and still feeling frustrated, I continued with my research and somehow stumbled on Mark’s Daily Apple in early 2016. AND IT ALL CLICKED. The pieces of the puzzle finally came together. The health and environmental impacts of following the PB made complete sense and I was all in. I was already GF, but I started adopting more of the PB principles. We bought organic grass-fed meats from the local farm, ate organic veggies. I ditched process foods and sugar. I stopped drinking caffeine. I identified that gluten, caffeine and sugar gave me anxiety, and that dairy gave me depression. I eventually also ditched alcohol, which I realized also caused depression and sleep disturbances. I went from brittle nails to being irritated with how often I had to trim them. The extra 25 pounds slowly fell off over the next year and a half. I was on the lowest maintenance doses of my medications ever. My period was normal for the first time in my life ever, regular and with no PMS.

This is me on vacation in St. Croix in 2017 – I’m at my healthiest ever but still medicated.

I was doing kundalini yoga at the time and without realizing the power of the practice, I put myself into a manic state. Despite my pleas not to, I finally agreed with the psychiatrist to go back on Zyprexa. This medication destroyed my gut microbiome I had worked so hard to repair, and I gained 20 pounds back in a matter of two months. Once I was off the Zyprexa, I continued to eat Primally, but not as well as I had been. My psychiatrist is thankfully one who is a bit more progressive than most. He listened to me tell him that I felt like I was pinging back and forth on low doses of mood stabilizers to anti-depressants. He decided to take me off medication and see what happens. After 17 years of psychiatric medications, I took my last dose Thanksgiving of 2017. If that isn’t a success story, then I don’t know what is.

A year and a half later, I am still struggling to lose the weight, and have my periods back to normal. I struggle with sleep on a regular basis. I am working with a naturopath to identify supplements that support the methylation pathway issues we identified, and sleep is slowly normalizing. But I am still off psychiatric medication and my thyroid hormone medication dose has slowly been lowered by a third of what it was two years ago. I have had no paranoia, and no mania. I have not been hospitalized in almost three years. I have had only minor bouts of depression, mostly associated with hormones.

I can’t do the 80/20 rule like most folks can and am much closer to a 100% rule. That works for me, but doesn’t work for everyone. I do not eat gluten, except for maybe one special “treat” while on vacation once or twice a year. I do not eat dairy. I meditate and practice mindfulness and compassion. I do yoga, hike, walk, play with my dogs, and do body weight exercises when I am up for them. I use a kettlebell for my sprints once every week or two. I run a 5k once a month to get my running in but won’t allow myself to do more than that. I have embraced minimalist shoes 100% of the time, if I am not allowed to be barefoot (happy ankles and feet again). I have slowly been reducing my need for glasses for myopia. I began removing environmental toxins from my life years before I discovered the PB. Allergies are less severe and I have much less frequent sinus infections, and, when I get them I recover much quicker. So, while I feel like I am struggling to get back to where I was and feeling really frustrated, I have to remind myself that I already am a success story. My psychiatrist now jokes that I am a boring person for him and has discussed discharging me. He asked what I think precipitated the illness. I really don’t know the answer, but my guess is an unchecked thyroid condition (my antibodies were negative the one time I checked, so I don’t know if I have an autoimmune condition), a really bad diet, emotional trauma as a child and extreme stress. I don’t know the answer, but I guess it doesn’t really matter because I have a way to manage my symptoms.

This is me in the early morning after hiking to the top of Moro Rock in Sequoia NP in 2018. Feeling healthy and happy being medication free! Mark, my husband, my dogs, my family, my friends and I thank you for saving my life. My psychiatrist told me several years ago that of all the people he treats with Bipolar I, only about 25% are able to function in society (complete college and hold a successful and functional place in the career world/society). Statistics indicate that I would have eventually either taken my life or the psychiatric medications would have done it for me. Thank you again for saving my life and giving hope to others. I’ve often been told that I am strong to have been through so much and made it this far. My husband tells me how much he admires that I get up and face the world every day even though all I want to do is curl up with the dogs and a book in bed. He asked if I was scared what people might say if they found my story. It doesn’t matter. I’ve found that people are too quick to dismiss me because of a label. I’m sick of being a label and an outcast. If my story is out there and can help one person, then I feel fulfilled. Because maybe someone else is out there looking for another way, but they can’t find it because someone didn’t speak up to tell them that there might be. I really appreciate you giving me a way to take back control of my life. Thank you for giving me the means to help myself. Hopefully my story can provide help and hope for others.

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[smallsipsandginger-blog]

Baby's Birth

We’re now 7 months pp and it’s taken time for life to settle down. The last posts seemed as though the end of HG was in sight but, if you’re a HG sufferer starting out and wanting a story of hope then this is not it - although they do exist, just not for me.

I developed Gestational Diabetes during my pregnancy too, so along with HG I should have probably just curled up in a ball and not moved really, it was miserable. I hardly ate anyway but when I did I needed carbs to not be sick which proved a problem. Every consultant I saw kept telling me to eat more, that I shouldn’t be losing weight and in the end I was on more medication to allow me to eat more carbs and balance things out. I’m currently diabetes free but I don’t know what I would have done without the great advice and support from Gestational Diabetes UK (website and Facebook Group). We made it, no big, bloated baby or health issues from my time with GD and I put a huge amount of that down to forward thinking NHS consultants but also Gestational Diabetes UK's founder, Jo, who rocks for all the research she’s done.

At 27 weeks, I went to my GP as I was warned my medication was not safe in the last trimester. She took me off my very wonderful miracle drug, Ondansetron (which I had to beg for as it's expensive), and told me to only take the new tablets when I’d been sick. I looked at her with side eye, she wanted me to open the gates of hell. I sought confirmation of what she meant and she confirmed again, “don’t take them until you’re sick, no medication is safe for your baby really”. Less than 24 hours later it started again, it was like the wave machine at a holiday resort swimming pool. Hello darkness, my old friend! I drove to work the next day and puked all over myself in the car park, then all the way home on the A road going home to get changed. Within a week I was back in hospital on IV fluids but when I finally saw my consultant, she almost imploded when I told her I was taken off my medication. This lovely, smiley, Spanish lady sat in front of me turned into my fierce warrior, she angrily scribbled out a demand that I was placed back on my tablets and huffed as she caught her breath from her dismay. It was too late. My body had to readjust to the tablets again, I was stressed and so unwell and after multiple attempts at returning to work full time, a couple of weeks later I had to bring my maternity leave forwards. The thing with HG is, rest is so important! You may feel guilty for not being at work, not getting housework done, not cooking or being there for family and friends but the more you stress, the worse you will get.

I was eventually induced at 38 weeks although I was initially cleared to be assessed again at 40 weeks because me and baby were doing quite well on the GD front and healthiest we could be. However, the week before our pea was born, fetal weight dropped. On a Friday I was prodded and unexpectedly swept by a man who didn’t even buy me a drink first, then told that I would be induced the following Monday. The induction wasn’t very pleasant but nor is giving birth, I reasoned. Hours later, I was contracting so regularly that the doctor asked me if I wanted drugs, I tried to be polite but it was more of a bark, “yes please!” On gas and air, I asked my husband to write down very important epiphanies such as ‘All the tweenies are worth it.’ He asked what it meant and I replied, “I’ll know.” The world seemed very simple on a tank of drugs. I ended up having multiple failed inductions hours in after each, which means all of the hormones and nothing to show for it. I was in pain and high on gas and air for 3 days. I thought “fuck it” and did 4 laps of a entire outside of the hospital with my husband and still nada after Day 1. This baby was stubborn but I was going to win this battle. 

Day 2, I chundered everywhere, multiple times, just like if you imagine that iconic scene from Carrie was a girl vomming over everything. This continued until 24 hours after my pea was born. I peed myself multiple times* and the lovely midwife that kept coming to my aid was still interested in visiting me and cooing over my newborn little pea. Midwives can be like that, strange and lovely people, they can look right in your fanjo, clear your sick and your wee and still smile and look you in your eyes. 

It was when fever hit on Day 3 that the ward sister started to panic about sepsis. I was delirious and my temperature had hit 40, I got moved quickly to the delivery suite but when my temperature came down, and they told me they would like to put me on a hormone drip, I demanded an epidural. The anesthesiologist reminded me of Dr. Nick from The Simpsons doing a Carry On comedy routine with his assistant who kept both walking in and out of the room looking for one another. This man was my favourite, he had the good stuff. I don’t remember much after this apart from a trainee midwife I disliked because she looked like Taylor Swift (and bless her soul she was so nice), she kept giving me sick bowls and I kept screaming that I couldn’t do it. I tell my husband now that the 20 minutes of pushing after my days of labour were nothing, ‘a piece of piss’ I say. Every time he smiles and pulls a face that’s says all of it was pure hell. I think mothers tend to forget the reality of the situation, their bundle of joy comes in and wipes our minds like little aliens with mind altering capabilities. 

My baby was born with the cord wrapped around the neck but after that was freed, the midwives place the tiny little love on my chest. “The cry will come any second now.” Nothing. I hold my breath too. The midwife watches. This kid is stubborn, definitely mine. After what felt like a billion years, the Midwife says, “We’ll just help baby along,” and it was at that moment that my pea let out a big loud cry to tell the world to get ready.

Motherhood so far has been eventful but that’s a post for another day. Would I do it again? Sure! I have the most precious thing to make up for all of it. Now pour yourself a gin and have a good lie down. Maybe add some ginger too.

*It’s OK, I can tell you these things, I’m a mother now. I’ve lost most of my dignity during childbirth and the rest through the latch being checked (a million times, it seems, by doctors, midwives, paediatric nurses, Tom, Dick AND Harry) whilst breastfeeding and my child pulling up my breastfeeding cover in Costa mid feed.

[electronspeed]

How small is small?

Monday, 13 Nov., 2017.  Cool, grey in Vancouver.  Windy in the afternoon.  I got up at 8am but went back to bed at 10 and up again at 12.  I'm on day 4 of my 12 day hormone cycle and day 3 and 4 are the low points.  I'm doing two 10 day cycles in a row... this is the first, to bring my levels up a bit... my hormone levels.  My body is old and not functioning at 100% without help from a needle in the bum every 10-12 days.

I've been working on my theory about the Speed of Light which is based upon the concept that the physical size of the particle called the Electron, its actual size, is the clock that sets the speed of light.  It is also a repercussion of the fact that Electrons are N/S pole magnets and, also, that absolutely NO information can reach our brains EXCEPT by way of an Electron.  Every single bit of information that goes through your brain is 100% dependent on the motion and size of Electrons.  Light travels just under one foot in one Nano Second (billionth of a second).

We don't know how large an Electron is.  In Quantum Physics it has no size, it has wavelength which can vary.  There is no explanation why it can do that, it's just accepted in order for the math to work.  In Quantum Physics, and in Quantum Field Theory, Electrons are a point source with wave properties.  Although we know that Electrons have spin, from Particle Physics, Quantum Physics can't allow for spin because a point source can't have spin.  That is one of the major despreptancies which are basic problems in modern physics.

We already accept that there is 'missing' stuff which we label Black Energy and BLACK MATTER.  What is important, here, is that they can easily exist with Electrons and are, likely the 'matter' from which Electrons are constructed... anything that takes up space and has shape needs 'parts' and spheres are the worst choice of all because spheres require infinite numbers of 'parts' to be a sphere.

So... Dark Matter can, easily, be SMALLER magnets which power the Electrons and ALL motion.  The energy source comes from 'within' in small parts.  This allows for an infinite universe... no end, whatsoever.  It also doesn't matter that Electrons set the Speed of Light FOR US... remember, it's a perception caused by the speed of Electronic WAVES, not electrons.  Waves are made up of parts... such as ELECTRONS.  The Electrons need not be THE WAVE, but the parts... kinda like a WAVE in a GRANDSTAND.  The people are the Electrons, standing up and down... they don't go anywhere... it's the WAVE that TRAVELS.  Get it?

The Speed of Light is set by our Brains and ELECTRONS.  Smaller bits, than Electrons, would have to EXCEED their limit of size to be HERE and THERE at the SAME TIME as an ELECTRON can be HERE and THERE... i.e, have shape and volume in space/time.  Get it?  Just ponder it longer.

When one proposes a theory, or hypothesis, in Science, the Scientific Method requires that one must provide things that can be tested... to make predictions which may be tested.  It's important for you to know that the Theory of Relativity is inconsistent with Quantum Physics and has never been proven.  It is important for you to know that Quantum Physics is a METHOD of quantifying everything and is entirely dependent upon the Electron being a point source with wave qualities... it, however, has no ability to allow for spin over time.  To get around this, Quantum Physics has a new system called Quantum Field Theory where things that can't be measured, easily or at all,  are put inside an arena (field) and treated as a unit... you don't worry about what's inside the field while you do the math.  It's a kind of Calculus idea taken to 3D reality.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch... If we picked an arbitrary size, for the Electron which seemed, to us, to be a reasonably small size, then we can calculate the number of Electrons, lined side by each, it would take to conduct light at the speed of light.  It's all rather easy to do.  For simplicity's sake, I wll round up the Speed of Light to 300,000KMS.  For this argument, it is not important, just now, how big the Electron, actually, is.  No matter what its size, the validity of the hyposthesis remains the same.  The actual size is not that important... you use the clock you have and that's our clock... the Electron is our clock.  It can transmit frequency, wave length, and intensity.  It needs to work in groups, to do that, but it works very well.  For frequencies smaller than it's size/wave length, it need only increase its spin rate.  In order to increase its wavelength, it need only join up with more Electrons like spectators in the Grand Stand standing up and down to make a wave.  There is no longest wave in the universe because it would have to be infinitely long in time.  Instead, the universe is like a great ocean with currents, and tides which move about.

Where was I?

We need to bring the Speed of Light down to numbers easier to deal with because the next numbers are going to become very large.  Light travels,  if you do the math, at just less than 30cm per Nano Second.  

Now, there are 10,000,000,000,000 Femto Metres (Fermi's) in One Centimetre.  You do the math... I already have.

Next... How many Fermi/Femtometres are in 30cm?  Do the math...  there will be 300,000,000,000,000 of them.  i.e.  we could count Electrons.  We have no way to measure the size of Electrons because we use them to see everything, including other Electrons which don't sit still.

Electrons rarely, actually, move very far.  One would think that, in DIRECT CURRENT, that they are moving at light speed through a wire... but they aren't.  The energy wave is moving at light speed, but the Electrons don't much go anywhere.   They spin and vibrate and change shell levels in the atoms in which they reside.  Free Electrons will move about under the influence of Electricity and Magnetism.  By the way, we know a lot about magnetism except what it, actually, is... what it actually is and why.  Interestingly, RADIO WAVES that are readily detected begin around 100,000 cycles per second.

Magnetism seems to have no frequency but can be modulated... we do it with things like microwaves.  The atoms being microwaved react by vibrating and cook themselves quite nicely.  Heat is a wavelength of around one micron, 950 nano metres.  The eye nerve is about one Micron in length... long enough to resonate/vibrate with all colours.  Your body cells can be as large as 3 microns in diameter.  The water within those cells can be vibrated at one micron wavelengths and you become heated.

While the Electron will move through a wire with Direct Current, it is not quickly.  Fast moving Electrons are VERY dangerous and we call it RADIATION... BETA RADIATION and PLASMA.  The resistance to Electron movement is so severe that the material will heat up from the movement... how we make light bulbs and heater elements.  You really don't want to be caught between high voltage contacts and have plasma... moving Electrons in air, pass through your body.  You won't wake up.

The only time Electrons move quickly, under control, is inside old school TV cathode tubes and such.   There they were under the control of Voltage and Magnets and moving in a near vacuum.  What happens is the Electrons MIGRATE towards the positive source... a source with a severe Electron SHORTAGE.  The particle called the Proton is not happy unless it has the company of an Electron and we call that arrangement HYDROGEN, the most abundant atoms in all of existence.  There are more Hydrogen atoms than all other atoms combined.  There are, also, more Electrons in existence than ALL other particles, combined, in the entire universe.

Electrons are key to our universe and we couldn't exist without them, our bodies would not work without them, and no information, of any kind would reach your brain except by one Electron at a time... one after the other, passing those wave information bits to your central processor, your brain.

I'm working on making videos about all of this, shortly... about the Speed of Light and what causes it.  Meanwhile... http://ElectronSpeed.Tumblr.com

Scientists first raised the alarm about CLIMATE CHANGE and GLOBAL WARMING in 1992.  Nobody is much listening, it seems.  Since then, hundreds of animal and plant species have become extinct, and we have lost enough forest to cover the ENTIRE CONTINENT OF SOUTH AMERICA.  Let that sink in, all of the boneheads, out there, who think we have lots of trees and fresh water.  Oh... forgot that one.  We have lost about 10% of the planet's fresh water since 1992.  Dat's a lot of water and you might want to remember that much of what is remaining is heavily polluted.  Yup... think about that.  I'm just a single guy seriously into physics, art and photography doing what I can to inform you.  You can listen, or not.  I really don't give a fuck... really, I don't.  I consider humans to be hopeless barbarians and I've no desire to be here.  I just keep busy and try to be useful.

I predict global starvation and nuclear wars in the near future.  The country, most likely, to recover first is China.  The rest of the planet is screwed for the next few hundred years.

I expect the West Coast of North America to be a single country with a Capital in California and the West Coast remnants of the former USA Armed Forces, which will possess enough nuclear warheads to kill off what's left of the planet, will bring a peace that will last several hundred years, until China falls into severe climate change issues... severe drought, most likely, or a new ice age.

http://The-Shape-Of-God.Tumblr.com

THIS IS THE END OF THE DAILY GRIND.

.............................

"I always hoped we wouldn't be one of those restraining order families"  Marge Simpson

If you don't know me, the following might help you get to know what kind of person I am.  I don't expect you to understand me.  I can be a bit OCD and ADHD.

"Make me proud or, at least, less ashamed"  Grandpa Simpson

l'm here to teach you things.  While I appreciate other people's opinions, I really don't give a crap what anyone thinks.  Until you prove your worth, I will be nice but you have to earn my respect.  You should assume that I don't trust anyone.  I've not met a single trustworthy person in my entire life.  I've met nice people who aren't too bright... well intentioned folk who know little about anything, people who are nice, most of the time, until you say something that offends them.  Honourable people agree to disagree.