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lillaxtrigger · 3 years

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Young Hope: Chapter 40

The afternoon sun beats down upon the planes of suburbia just outside of Townsville; some of its warming light beaming straight through the window of a residence and cast upon the bottom half of a blue haired woman, who stands atop a step stool as she reaches up to her kitchen ceiling fan. Carefully does she continue to unscrew the fan’s frame keeping it atop the kitchen, each screw she twists out dropping down into the palm of her hand; one of them winds up slipping out from her grasp and falling to the tile floor. As she peers down to the screw that had just dropped, the woman is left astonished when finding a lone limb of pure black slither through the air underneath; the shock alone upsetting her balance and causing her to fall right off the stool and onto the floor. Amidst shaking off the short fall does the blue haired woman then watch’s the slithering limb split apart into two; one part reaching over to the fridge while the other heads up to the cabinet beside. From within the fridge does one strand pull out the jug of whole milk while the other takes out a tall glass out from the cabinet; pouring the milk right up near the rim of the glass before neatly putting the galleon right back inside before slithering back through the kitchen with glass in hand.

With a short breath escaping from her lips does the woman’s daughter race right on into the kitchen; giving the woman a hand as she asks:

“Mom! You alright?”

“Yeah Mally. Just got a little spooked by Roy’s new arm is all.” the mother explains as she’s pulled back onto her feet. “Oh yeah. It’s taking me a little bit longer to get used to too.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m so glad for Roy getting a brand new arm to replace the old one he lost several months back, but the way you described how it just came bursting out from his arm socket still has me concerned. Have you at least talked to him about it yet?” “I’ve been giving him some time to enjoy having both arms again before spoiling the fun. It’s been only a week now since we got back home.”

“Well when do you think it might be time to let the party train grind to a halt to check the cargo its got in the back?” “I think I might just start.” the orange girl answers before strolling off towards the hall.

Waltzing right through their hallway does Mally head towards the slightly cracked open door set along the very end of the hall; the roller bladder slowly pushing the door open and letting the hallway light seep into the darkened room. “Roy...You in here?” she says out tot he dark, baiting nothing but silence. Among peering through the dark recesses do a pair of violet glowing eyes emerge from the void; the silhouette they belong to lumbering closer as they stare upon the young lady. Finally pushing the bedroom wide open does the hallway light flood through the room and reveal the purple angel himself standing before the girl; Roy looking to her with a calming smile and uttering:

“Hey there.”

As the merc starts to drink the glass of milk held in his arm of pure black, the orange lass slowly steps into his bedroom as she asks:

“Hey Roy...So uh, h-how have ya been feeling this past week with your new arm?”

“Holy shit. It’s been so fucking great. I didn’t think I’d miss having both arms this badly. Plus with all that my new arm is capable off, I’m finding new ways to put it to use that his old limb could only gestural feint over; some uses far more pleasurable than before.”

“Yeah, I get it. You can have sex with people using your arm. What I’m really asking here is if you’ve felt even the slightest bit off since it came bursting out yer side? Any odd or upsetting thoughts going through your head...like more depraving than usual?” Mally retells. “Eh...outside of wondering if a dead body could be stuffed inconspicuously inside a recliner for about a week without no one noticing, haven’t really had much like that on the mind.” “Any physical pain or altercations?”

“Hmm...Nope.”

“Really?...Take your hoodie off then.”

“Whoa, whoa, Mal. I know were not blood related. But I still see you as a little sister so that’d be pretty damn wro-”

“Just take it off!”

“Alright, fine. Jesus.” the merc complies with, starting to slip off his treasure purple hood.

Upon finally beholding her brother’s bare chest do the skater’s eyes widen as her pupils shrink, nearly falling over as she screams out through the house:

“Holy shit!”

“Mally! What did I say about cussing in the hou- Oh my god!” the mom comes over to scold, though left just as taken aback when beholding the same sight as her daughter. Both of them are left horrified when discovering numerous black veins that run right across the purple merc’s bare chest like an encroaching infection and covering his upper body; Roy left wondering to both of them:

“The hell are you girl’s screaming about?” “You can’t be serious.” Mally utters.

“Honey, have you checked yourself in the mirror lately?” the mom questions with quiet worry. “Oh, you mean all these going through my bod. Pretty damn cool, right?”

“No!” the blue haired mother blurts out.

“I-is-is that-I Iiis all that even hurting you, making you bleed out or something!” Mally asks. “Chill, alright. I’ve never felt better. All this is just fine.”

“It’s pulsating veins are literally rooting through your body!” the mom adds.

“Oh my god. I seriously can’t believe you two. I finally gotten a break after all the messed up bull I gone through and your practically demonizing the prize I won at the end. Can’t you people be happy that I got an arm again, one that’s better than the old one?” Roy complains. “Roy, were not worried about you having a new arm. We’re worried about what it’s doing to you.” the mom specifies. “How do you two know it ain’t doing anything bad, maybe all this black veins going through my bod is improving me like nanomachines making him stronger; like that one guy in Metal Gear Rising. What was his name again? How the hell am I forgetting his name?” “We need to see a doctor about this.” the mom claims. “Mom, what would a doctor even start to make of this? I doubt they could give a feasible diagnosis over something this outlandishly dark appendage that came spurting out.” her daughter mentions. “What else can we do about it?” the blue haired woman questions back. ‘Uh...Alex said that this thing was made up of the same stuff he was. But that really doesn’t say much. Roy, you got his number right? Think giving him a call might be best on the table.” the skater comes to. “Already tried. Every call just goes to voice mail. Can’t sense him anywhere in Town either. Fact, he’s been off the grid since we got back. Hope the little gremlin hasn’t gotten into anything serious.”

“Right, fine. With that option out, we’ll just have to stop by a couple friends to see if they can help. But who to see first?” the skater wonders aloud. The merc suddenly snaps his fingers as he flashes a smile, stating how:

“Senator Armstrong! That’s what his name was.”

The very first stop that both Roy and Mally take under this investigation is with the potion witch herself, Serena; who they meet in the Townsville Library. More specifically within the recently uncovered underbelly of the library filled with enchanting books and mystical tomes. Sliding her finely polished nail across the wall of ancient hardback, the witch pulls out a lone book straight from the shelves; all the while telling the two behind her how:

“I seriously can’t thank you two enough for discovering this incredible collection hidden away underneath the library. All the new potion recipes that I’ve gotten from their pages have been one hot seller after another since you two dug it up.” “Ain’t no big deal. Really we just stumbled onto this by complete accident. I just hope the clean up crew removed all the trap set up in here.” the orange skater responds. Right on that mark do they all then here the sound of a magical explosion go off along the side; all of them peeking right over to find one of the library goers having his lower torso replaced with that of a spider, all while scream out in an utter panic. “Ah! Ah! Oh god! Why!?” the poor bastard shouts as a batch of silk spews out from his fresh new abdomen.

“So...What’s this little book stop gotta do with what came bursting out my side?” Roy get back on track with. “During one of my little glazes through this uncovered library, I stumbled across a tome of Mythological Chinese stories. One of them kinda reminds me of your arm in a strange way.”

“Where’s that.” Mally questions. “Think I last saw that Tome along the very back of the right side of the library. It might be the one sitting in the middle of the shelf.” “Kay, gimme a sec here.” the purple merc tells them, casting forth his arm of pitch black out beyond the railing and right across the outlook; stretching straight out to the other side. Slithering through sections does the arm slide past several other library goers, each one of them left astonished as the limb moves past. Skimming along the spines of every single book on the shelf does the merc finally pull out one in particular labeled as “The mythical fables of the ancient east” and withdraws the tome back to his side. “This it?” “Yep. The very same one.” the potion witch confirms. “You know what that story you mentioned says?” Mally asks. “Mm. I’ve olny read about a paragraph or two while on my recipe hunt.”

“That case. Guess we better just crack this thing open and feast on the festering brain food dwelling inside.” the merc goes. “Roy, dial it down for god sake.” his sister tells him as they both head over towards a desk.

Slapping the old book right onto the ancient stone library desk do the two of them get started in the table of context as Serena tells them that:

“Alright you two. I’ll be looking through more of the shelves if you need me.” “Careful of tripwires along the floor.” Mally warns her with as they part. Cracking the tome right open, the two of them immediately begin their search through the table of contents; reading out the titles of numerous legends such as: “The Oni and the flowerpot” “The natural Maiden of white snow” “The myth of the True eye Hawk bow” “The meeting of the Nord and the Imperial Lord”. “Ah...Oh, here might be something, “The tale of the Samurai and the black demon.” the orange young lady grabs her brother’s attention with.

“Long ago in an ancient land, a great and powerful mass of black had descended from the heavens and arose as a powerful shape shifting master of darkness; determined to dominate the land of China and all who dwell within with unspeakable evil power unmatched. Before the mystical land could be swallowed by such unrelenting darkness, the land’s lord sent away his only son and the one katana of evil’s bane out from their homeland so that his heir would escape to one day defeat this powerful and liberate his homeland. Through out every corner of the globe has this young heir hone his skills with many masters as his guide; his abilities and way of the blade growing alongside his age throughout the many years.

After a long 15 years of grueling training, the boy, now a fully fledged samurai, was ready to return home; determined to free his people from the monstrous evil that had scarred the land of the east. Among his return upon a horse of white; the powerful demon stared down upon the Samurai as he had stepped forth to appose him; the monster burning eyes staring down upon the Samurai as he unsheathed the blade of evil’s bane. The battle for not just the Samurai’s homeland, but for the world over had finally begun its finale.

Long and harrowing was their fight, the demon assuming many forms in opposition to the Samurai; who with fleet foot, tore through the monster’s very form that no other mortal could. No matter what form the demon had taken, no matter what trickery or power it had fought back with, the monster of darkness could not stand against the holy weapon of the Samurai; the katana slicing off piece after piece of the demon’s body. In the final moments of the grueling battle did the demon lay helpless before the Samurai; it body scattering to dust when the last blow had been struck. Finally, after decades of suffering had the demon been defeated and the land of the east free from its harrowing evil; the Samurai, reclaiming his kingdom and bringing forth a long awaited age of prosperity and peace.

Yet despite this victory over the demon of evil, its remains are left scattered throughout the world; ever seeking, ever yearning to be whole once more with its very kin. Yet for what reason does it continue to live? To regain control over the world it once sought to rule, or to return from the very stars it once came to be. Only time shall bestow upon us all such an answer.”

Upon finishing this tale of triumph and warning, Mally is left taken aback by all that they have read; sitting back along the side of a stone shelf as she goes:

“My god. Can’t believe that demon just came down and took over China in just a day. If Serena thinks that monster might be related, what’s that even say about what’s attached to your side?...What’s it even say about Alex?” “Come on Mal. You’re taking this way too seriously. You really think this charcoal Spaghetti strand attached to my side is gonna turn me into an unsympathetic horrible tyrant?”

In thinking over this does Mally try to take a few moments to think over her brother’s answer; Roy’s expression souring with each passing second. “For fuck sa-. Fine, if you still on the fence, then how bout we stop over at Hank’s and have him call up Melvin. That boy got a sweet set of demon hands like my arm and the worst he’s ever been was a compact ball of insecurity and anger issues wrapped up on a 14 year old twinkus. And that was even before he got them.”

“Checking up on him might not be a bad idea. Last time we hung out wasn’t exactly a pleasant spelunking trip.” the orange skater agrees.

Along the suburban skies above does a young boy strapped into a decked out wheelchair glide through the clear blue skies; the chair bound boy yipping and cheering with the sort of glee a 10 year old on Christmas would make after seeing all the presents in the living room. Right below this airborne lad does both Mally and Roy finish up speaking to the chairbound pilots cousin; Melvin leaning along the side of Hank’s abode as the orange skater finishes explaining how:

“That’s pretty much how Roy’s new arm came out. Came straight out of his side like an actual chestburster.”

“Shit man. Way I wound up getting my hands ain’t nowhere as gory as that. Worse I got was some broken bones and bruises.” the young man claims. “Think you could go into detail about how ya got them?” the merc request. “Nah, fuck that. I ain’t tellin.”

“Can you at least tell us if you’ve felt anything strange or off since ya gottem. Any physical pains or strange thoughts going through your head.” Mally then asks. “Outside a couple of mildly weird dream. Got nothin going on.” Melvin ultimately concludes. “Huh...good to here at least.”

Its then that their attention is drawn up to the young man gliding in the skies above them, pulling off rolls and loop de loops as his cheering echoes across the neighborhood. “The hell he’s so giddy for.” Roy wonders. “Couple a guys came over the other day and asked him to join in some little club and he’s been flying high since.” Melvin answers. “Who came over?”

“The Vanguard League!” all of them hear he chairbound genius cry out, the three peering over to watch as Hank comes in for a landing; his wheels kicking up a cloud of dirt as he skids to a stop before them all.

“They came over!? That’s incredible, Hank! What position did you land a spot in?” Mally ecstatically questions. “Ya’ll looking at the new head of the Technological Department. Making new gadgets and inventions to help fight crime, save lives, and help people worldwide; all alongside the greatest of young minds this generation has to offer. I can’t wait to get started after the announcement this coming weekend.” “Had a feeling they’d come around to check you out sooner or later. I don’t think they picked a better boy for the job.” Mally congratulates Hank with, the chair bound genius letting out a bright smile. “What about you Melvin, you think about standing alongside your cuz and the other heroes?” the boy then questions. “You shitting me, right? You think you’d catch me being bossed around like that? Hell no.”

“What about you Mal?” “Uh. Leaning on it, but I ain’t too sure which department to join.”

“Hey, no pressure; just good luck with whatever ya choose. Meantime, I better spruce up and polish up my equipment before the weekend announcement comes around. Catch you later.” the chairbound genius bids farewell with as he presses a couple of buttons on his chair; an exhaust along the back firing out and rocketing him right on inside. From listening to several things crash and break from inside, Melvin decides to race right on after while exclaiming:

“Dammit, the hell did we talk about doing that indoors!?”

“Whelp, guess we don’t got anything to worry about. See ya.” Roy claims while in the midst of taking off out into the air. Before the violet angel could ascend too far up into the cloudless skies, the shell of a yo yo wraps itself right around the merc’s very leg; Roy peering down from the string to see Mally ready to bring him right back down. With but a single tug does the skater manage to send the purple merc straight down towards the earth; the angel crashing right down into the grassy backyard in a plume of dirt. “Yeah, were nowhere near done yet. We ain’t closing this case til we figure out what this arm of yours is made of and where it came from.” the orange lass claims. “Agh! That book we read up on said that whatever it was came from space; serious fucking doubt you know anyone else that came from beyond the star.” Roy explains while climbing out from the dirt, soon finding his sister wearing a knowing smile.

Traveling deep within the very heart of the woodlands just outside the city, the two of them step right on inside of a downed space ship; whereupon the violet angel beholds the alien trio that his sister had befriended.

“Hot damn, Mally. Can’t believe you were keepin this little part of the woods all to yourselves and didn’t bother saying a thing to us.” Roy smoothly exclaims. “Figured you might’ve sensed them all out anyway. Surprised you didn’t know until now.” Mally acknowledges. “You kidding. With all the weird shit that goes on in this town already? How you figure I was gonna stumble on this?” “Also thought they might enjoy the privacy and not have every government agent or crackpot conspiracy nutter come knocking at their door and demand to know what sort of part of congress they control or whatever excuse they pull outta their ass.”

“Still, not hard to imagine why you and your teach would want to keep these choice pieces of intergalactic intimates all to themselves; you serious stumbled onto one hell of a galactic goldmine with this set of sweet sweet alien asses. Definitely like to double down on the fish guy and the girl with the eyeliner in an intergalactic seafood platter; maybe finish off with the hooded piece of alien booty as dessert right there. This spread here’s the fucking motherload, and papa Roy here don’t want a piece, he want’s the whole fucking buffet.” the purple angel elaborates aloud, the three growing further upset and creeped out as she continues speaking.

Amidst the merc’s overwhelming horniness does a comically oversized wrench come flying and hits the back of the violet angel’s head; Roy holding the spot he got struck as he violently trembles. “Fucking…”

“While it’s flattering that you primates have at least decent tastes in knowing a fine catch when you see one. I am very aware when the line of thirst starts to cross harassment territory.” Vain assures. “Seriously kid, did you really just stop by just to have this purple prick gawk at us like an overly excited Splartian Hound in heat; ready to thrust its privates into anything that can bother pulsating in view. Cause I thought the fact that were stuck on this damn rock was getting you off enough.” Catastrophe questions. “Actually, we were hoping you three wound help us out with trying to figure out what exactly my bro’s new arm is made of.” the orange skater finally answers. “Really? I thought that human’s just grow their limbs back when one of them’s broken, just rip it right off to have another one come in the following week.” the charming alien fish boy comments. “That is...nowhere near how human biology works. Seriously hope you weren’t planning on testing that.” Mally worries. Right on that very queue does one of the boxes in the room tip over and partially reveal an unconscious man stowed away within; moaning aloud as he attempts to climb out with one of his arms taken away and stitched up wounds. Discovering this, Mally turns her upset glare over to the trio, Cat claiming that:

“Hey, don’t give us any bull. Dumbass just seriously wondered in here.”

“We gave him some amnesics to make him forget.” Tizzy adds. Clutching the barely conscious man by his shoulders does Cat stroll over to the door while dragging the poor guy along the floor; the alien girl tossing the guy straight out into the woods.

“Why you up and figure it was best to come here to try a figure out the hell is your bro’s arm.” Tizzy asks. “Well, one book we read on it mentioned that this stuff wound up coming from the depths of space and was hoping that-”

“Oh yes, I see. Since were not from your planet, that would make us the knowledge keepers of all that occupy alongside the stars. Is that it?” Vain accuses. “I was thinking since your parents were intergalactic conquerors, figured that maybe they’ve seen something like this before during a conquest.” Mally quickly gives context for. “Afraid your shit outta like, neither of our mom’s speak a mere mention of whatever disgusting growth came out of your brother’s side; pretty sure if we did, they’d tell us in the form of a terrifying bedtime story told to make ya piss yourself.” Cat explains. “Indeed. Truly humiliating.” “Vain, didn’t you wind up soaking your entire mattress once?” Tizzy wonders. “That was when we got back from swimming and you know it!”

“Kay here. Doesn’t this ship has some advance tech straight out from the realms of a shitty 90’s cartoon? You guys gotta at least got anything that can tell us what his arm’s made off?” Roy then interjects with. “If this ship didn’t take a crashing nosedive straight down into your planets crap that you call soil, we wouldn’t be talking right now. You really think that they wound up getting anything working in the span of a month since we touched down on this overpopulated rock in the middle of the space boonies?”

“Actually, I just finished getting the Material Analyzer up and running a few days ago. We could try that?” Tizzy then mentions.

“Ugh, fine whatever. The sooner you start, the sooner you leave. Make it quick.”

Somewhere within the ship does Roy have his arm of demonic pure black stuck right in a spherical chamber as numerous lasers and lights scan every single inch of them limb; all the data it collects showing up on a screen outside the chamber that Tizzy carefully observe. From this high tech device, a small beep them sounds off; queuing Tizzy to tell them:

“And the analysis is finished. You can take it out now.” “Holy shit finally. Started getting numb after the last half hour. Stuck my hand up something longer, but that’s a story for another day.” Roy states as he slithers his fresh pitch black arm out of the analysis machine’s inner chamber. “So, whatcha come up with?” the orange skater asks. “Well, there doesn’t seem to be anything else belonging to your brother inside. No bones, veins, blood, nothing. Kinda shocking given how close to unstable it is.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, there’s one detail that popped up that bothered me. The genetic make up of his arm primarily consists of strung together chemicals compounds such as Epinephrine, glutamate, Cortisol, Adrenaline, and slight traces of Serotonin. The stuff in your brains that make you feel angry, sad, and scared.” “Is that seriously... why did a bunch of emotional brain juice burst out from Roy’s side and solidify into a working appendage?”

“Maybe that’s something you should ask him.”

The alien suggesting this, the orange skater turns over to her purple brother to ask of him:

“Roy, what might’ve been going through your head moments before that thing came out of you ?” “Well...ya know how we were fighting that giant wood guardian in that hidden Jurassic land and how Alex got fucking impaled right through the stomach?”

“Yeah. I still remember how I felt when I saw that. But how did that wind up triggering you to grow an arm?”

“When I beheld the site of the little devil on a stick, something flashed before my eyes; an image that I felt burst out from the depths of my soul. Two figures, one stabbing the other through the stomach, one wearing a gleeful smile while the other leaked tears from above its horrified frown; both staring out with their hollow white eyes. That alone reminded me of a site that I kept buried deep down for years; and it all suddenly just came up at once like an explosion of confusion, regret, and rage. The closest I could describe it being like would be his mind of the proverbial traumatic edge; teetering on the cusp of madness.”

Upon hearing the purple merc elaborate on the thoughts going through his head is the entire room left at a complete silence; Mally gazing to her violet brother with a mixture of remorse, pity and regretful guilt. Before the orange girl could give even a little word of comfort to him do all of them hear a sharp whistle cut straight through the quiet; the three peering back towards the door to discover Catastrophe leaning against the doorway. “Now that shit’s a full season of a show right there. Closest thing to entertainment I got since crash down on this pathetic little rock.”

“Cat.” Tizzy lightly snaps out. “Something about my emotional trauma funny to ya?” Roy then questions. “You kidding? It’s like one of those shitty characters with a bad backstory crowbarred in to make idiots think they’re deep. Fucking riot right there.”

Amidsts stepping up against the hooded alien girl, the violet angel’s wings sprout forth as the fingers along his pitch black arm starts to get antsy; going on to trash talk on how:

“Guess being on your mama’s little warship for most of your life, ya never really got to feel what its like to be on the other end of life’s massive jackboot. Never really feeling what its like have shit throw right at ya. The fucked up thoughts going through yer head as the memories of all that ya lost come flooding out and crashing onto your psyche til your heads on the verge of melting from the madness…You wanna know what that sort of self inflicting degradation can feel like?”

“That a threat?” Cat wonders with a confident smirk; both of them stand face to face one another as the two give off an overgrowing sense of rising tension. Right as Roy was in the midst of transforming his new arm, something along his other side takes a gentle hold upon the merc’s other limb and breaches through to him, quelling the building rage within; the purple angel gazing off to the side to discover his little sister staring up to him with the look of “Please don’t do it” in her eyes.

In seeing the desperate plea set in his sisters eyes does the purple merc let out a small sigh as he finally breaks away from the antagonizing alien, marching right past Catastrophe and out to the corridor; the violet angel punching the side of the doorway hard enough to leave a hell of a dent. As Mally takes her leave after her pissed off brother, Tizzy approaches her sister with a hammer and tells her to: “Come on. You’re helping me hammer that dent out.” “Like hell I am. Why the hell should I fix something that our guest broke in his little pissy fit?” “Pretty sure you threw a pretty similar one when vain used your little blanket as a dung disposal cleaner.” “You swore never to bring that up!” the two of them hear their semi aquatic brother shout out to them.

As both brother and sister exit out from the downed spacecraft, the orange lass between them starts to apologize with:

“Roy...I-I’m so sorry. I just can’t believe that I didn’t catch on what was bugging you sooner than later. I-I didn’t realize that you were thinking about what happened at-”

“Mally, chill. Ain’t know way you could’ve known the sort of shit that was going through my head. I get you were just worried. But I’ll be just fine. Kay?”

“Hey! What happened back then effected Tore and I too. You ain’t alone on this...Anything ya wanna talk about, we’re here for ya.” “Hm hm hm...Thank’s Mal.” Roy returns with, a heartwarming smile etched across the merc’s face. “No prob...So...You thinkin about headin home?”

“Nah. Still got some stuff to take care of. I’ll be home a little later.”

“Kay. Just don’t get into too much trouble.”

Warning her brother of this does the orange skater swiftly don her skating gear and take off out into the woods; Roy in turn sprouting forth his angelic black wings and taking off into the orange twilight skies.

Among his glide above the nearly thick woodlands, Roy flies back out towards the city of Townsville with the setting sun glistening its twilight gaze at his back; his smile starting to dissipate the farther he flies. “You’ve been awfully quiet about all this.” he suddenly says aloud to break the silence. Out from the depths of his mind does a woman’s voice echo through the merc’s head; responding in kind to him with:

“What do you mean by that?”

“Hera, you usually just chime in in the middle of all this to give some sort of support or to stop me from doing something arguably reprehensible. What’s the deal this time?”

“Roy, have you ever thought a goddess such as I has other duties and responsibilities to tend to then communing with the only mortal I can converse with?”

“...You hiding something aren’t ya?”

“What!? Preposterous! What would urge you to accuse me of something like that?”

“Even with only having clocked in about 16 and a half years in this fucked up game some of us have to call life; I’ve been around long enough to see the warming signs of someone having a long list of secrets hidden somewhere in the bunkers of their head. And a goddess like you without a hell of a doubt’s gotta have some stowed away that vault ya call a head. With what’s on me having been once part of a mighty monster that nearly overtook the world; you think that keeping an eye on even a piece of it would warrant obligation. But Guess not, guess we’ll just blind move along through life; leaving me ignorant of what a threat this could possibly grow into until its far too late and lives are lost. But hey, what’s it with mortals wanting to question what may become of them midst affairs which affect their world, right?”

“Roy, believe me when I say I can’t bring myself to simply tell you with my own words. But if you really wish for the truth and what your arm has to do with me; then I can point you in the right direction.” the goddess in his head assures. “Eh, fair enough. Lead the way.”

The night upon Townsville had come to blanket the city in a think darkness, with nothing but the shadows to accompany the roaming night owls. Atop the mayor building, a dark winged figure hovers down to the very top of its dome rooftop; where upon its arm transforms into a sharp blade that cuts right through its very stone. Cutting a piece right off the roof, the figure lifts the piece right off and slips right on inside.

Along the inside the main office is the door unlocked when a substance of black fills the hole and turns the lock; letting the door creak open and letting the figure walk right in. Within does the figure behold the usual fittings of a mayoral office; books, chairs, desk, computer, bowl of mints, nothing out of the ordinary. And nothing to stop the intruder from venturing over to the desktop and taking a seat behind the screen. With the press of a button does the entire monitor let out an incredible bright light; Roy shielding his site from the intense glow as his eyes adjust to the glow, peeking between his fingers to behold his first obstacle. The password. Rather than blindly attempting to guess the password locking the desktop, the purple merc instead shoves his hand right into his pants pocket and pulls out what appears to be a lone thumb drive; plugging the drive right in and watching the password box fill with numerous letters and numbers until coming to the right code. As the desktop starts to load in, Roy is met with a site that honest to god just baffles him to no end. Is...is this seriously running on Windows 7? That’s 2010’s old. This a government owned desktop! Why the fuck haven’t they updated it yet for security!? Everytime on one of these government owned consoles, they always just have the most out dated Operating systems. One of the computers in the France federal agent building was running on Windows XP for shit sake!? Why!? It doesn’t make any god damn-...Gah! Whatever, not the problem here.

Getting over that strange conundrum, Roy takes the mouse and clicks right into the file explorer, where he starts his search right into the documents. See here...Billing info, Construction plans, Federal investigation, Homoerotic Fanfiction...Incident report. Clicking onto this folder is the purple merc astonished to discover the list of city incidents a literal mile long, the square of the scroll bar being absolutely tiny. Hmm...Dino monster attack, Fire monster attack, slime monster attack, Alien monster attack. Shit, alotta monster attacks here; practically makes up most of the list. Lets try sorting by date. Rearranging the reports by the date they had been documented, one title in particular catches the merc’s attention. “The lady of pink against the Cerberus. 1984” Interesting...Let’s have ourselves a peek here. Clicking right on this title, the document soon loads and present its very text through a writing application, starting his read on the incident beginning with:

“A terrible storm bellows from the east as horrible fires burn through Townsville, centers and businesses crumbling at the seems as a gigantic, dark three headed beast topples everything over in its rampage. Police and military efforts seemed ineffective as fired ammunition seemed to be devoured under the horrible cerberus’s tar like hide. Despite efforts to evacuate, few people escapes from the Chaos as dozens were left injured or burned; or a rather cruel mix of both. As hope for the city had waned to its worst, a female figure donning a heavenly pink glow had flown out from the roaring flames to face the terrible beast; her long blonde hair flowing in the wind. The best this report could describe the ensuing battle was of gods straight from tales of greek mythology; a recreation of the gods against the titans playing out before mortal eyes. With the godly woman of bright pink keeping the terrible beast of black at bay, officials were able to effectively evacuate civilians more effectively.

From what military that stayed behind described, the woman in pink had battled the vicious beast of dark with energy of bright light; her conjured weapons seemingly damaging the monster than any of our conventional weapons could only hope to do. Yet despite the warriors best efforts to defeat this great evil that had descended down upon the city, beast had ultimately worn down the woman midst hours of fighting; the horrible monster in the end devouring the woman in but a single gulp. All hope had seemed utterly crushed as the black demon had cackled upon its very victory; soon turning its burning eyes to the units that had stayed behind. All three of its heads bored a sinister smile as it crawled its way out towards the military unit; some of them fleeing from the seems on its approach while other’s stood their ground, knowing full well there was little they could do to escape from its wrath. Just as the three headed beast was on the verge of striking down the unit, the bowels of its stomach had began to glow a light of faint pink; a glow that quickly began to grow larger and brighter every passing second. In a matter of seconds did this very light explode in a flash of bright pink; blinding every single soldier that stood before the beast of darkness. Once the overwhelming glow had finally dimmed, the unit peered back to find the Cerberus that had terrorized the city was now but in pieces; all with no sign of the brave woman in bright pink light nowhere seen among the remains.

When the cleanup crew had arrived on the seen, most of the remains of the beast had been successfully picked up and stored away from researching purposes; those on the scene had described each piece of the monster as alive, pulsating and wriggling like worms plucked out from the soil. Other’s had witnessed some parts of the monster’s remains slipping away into the night and had attempted to contain every piece before they could escape; while most of the creatures remains had been successfully stowed away in containment, staff have admitted that few pieces had escaped into the unknown. What those pieces of the terrible beast had fled to or what they plan to do is as of yet unknown; something of which may never be realized, else that night may just be only the beginning.”

Its after having read every single paragraph of this report does Roy slump down into the office chair; processing every single detail that he had just read. “Can’t believe it…You gave up living alongside your family just so they could have a future.” Roy awe’s aloud.

“Indeed. And it was with that very sacrifice that I had been chosen to become a goddess.” Its in the midst of this realization that a small, uneasy chuckle starts to escape from him as he leans forward onto the mayor’s desk, Hera wondering in worry:

“Roy?...What’s wrong?” “What’s it worth becoming a god if it meant you couldn’t hold the people you love in your arms anymore; to not longer cherish their very presence as they take in yours? Why not just move on? Why not end it? Suppose those were your final moments inside that thing, weren’t they?” “Roy, when I was offered the position of a goddess. I was told it would involve ensuring the balance of the magical through the universe. Doing such, I could ensure those she left behind had a chance to live for themselves. It has not been easy since then...everyday, I wish to speak them once more, to hold my precious daughter and grandchildren in her arms.”

With all that he had discovered of the very beast that his new arm was once a part of, the violet angel gazes into the dark abyss held within the palm of his hand. “What do ya want done with it?”

“Pardon?” Hera questions. “Its thanks to the monster this arm came from that ya can’t go back to her family; to embrace the ones you loves in you hands. Just knowing that a piece of it is attached to the only person of this world you can converse with must piss you off to no end. Wanting to make sure what happened that night doesn’t befall anyone else.” “I assure to you Roy, that what happened to me that night was something I had decided for myself. I had chosen to give up my life so that others could live. But to make that choice for someone else...it something she could never bring myself to do. Whatever you decide, I’ll stand with you on it.” “No matter where it had came from, this damn thing had taken all the grief and anger that had wielded inside me and had given it a form; but only under my rage has it appeared and obeyed. With what Tore said he could do with life. I wonder if this is what I can do with what’s here?” “And is that what you wish out of it?” the goddess questions. Its in being asked this does the merc’s arm of pitch black clutch into a tight fist, the angel’s uncertain glare transforming into a determined grin. “That’s what it should be.”

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Thought that a little downtime would be appropriate here after the last chapter. Not a lot going on here beside a quick piece of lore and chemistry between characters. Though I purposely set this Chapter up as a repeat of the one where Roy was coping with the loss of his arm, thought it'd be thematically appropriate here.

#lillaxtrigger #Young Hope #callyieverse

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sierraraeck · 4 years

Text

How to Make Friends (Pt.1)

Spencer x OC Aundreya

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Summary: Spencer’s had a problem with Aundreya since the start. How is she going to earn his respect? Story four.

Category: Some angst, some fluff.

Warnings: Cussing. Quick mention of normal CM stuff and the quick retelling of two rough childhoods. Mentions of bullying.

Word Count: 5.3k

So I’d been going about this all wrong. The whole time that I’d observed the FBI from the outside, they all seemed to be strictly business. I knew they cared about each other but I never expected them to be family. I was going to have to start slowly nudging my way in if I ever wanted to earn respect and do what I was hired to do. I had to stop thinking about this like a co-worker situation and had to start thinking about it like a client situation.

I had good social skills, I just hadn’t been using them correctly thus far. Whenever I needed to talk to someone that was vital for my survival, or the survival of my ring or gang, I could always be very charming. Usually, I would take them to a high end restaurant and we would talk things over. That’s what I decided I needed to do with each member of the team. They were my clients, and I was going to sell them Aundreya Chambers.

The first person I decided to take to dinner was Aaron. He was the nicest to me, by force or by choice I didn’t know, but either way, he’d be the most inclined to accept my offer. Plus, if it was okay for the Unit Chief to go to dinner with me, hopefully it would show that it was okay for the rest of the team to go to dinner with me. The night with him went well. We talked about work of course, but I also got to know about his family. He already knew what happened to mine, so he didn’t ask about it. That’s probably another reason I picked him first. I knew I wouldn’t have to answer as many questions.

Next I asked Emily. She was the first to voluntarily share a personal story with me about her tattoo, and I figured she’d be the next I could get to accept. She was also a big personality on the team so getting to know her would only be helpful. Emily was a lot of fun to go out with. She ordered wine for us, something Aaron did not do, and we talked until the restaurant closed at 11. I learned about her childhood, she taught me some French, and I heard all about her new cat, Sergio. She didn’t tell me about her time with Interpol (a fact I’d learned when I was privately investigating each member), which I knew she wouldn’t, but it was still interesting hearing about everything else she’d done. She asked me about my childhood so I told her and got the same sappy reaction I got from everyone. As much as I hated being pitied, I needed the team to soften their view of me. My childhood story was the most efficient way to do that.

After that, I asked Penelope, then David, then Jennifer. That’s when the easy part ended.

By the time I got to Derek, he already knew I was going to ask. Apparently, the rest of the team had already filled him in. I was just curious to see how much they told him. He clearly wasn’t ashamed to let on that he’d heard a lot, because he started asking me deeper questions, skipping over the surface level talk. I didn’t mind. Why repeat the same conversation I’d already had four times? For the first hour, he didn’t have any reaction towards what I told him, but as my backstory kept going, I could tell that he was softening up, just like everyone else. However, I saw something different in his eyes that I hadn’t in the others’. He was relating to me. He finally let me ask him questions, and I learned about his father’s death, how it was living with three girls, and how he worked hard to move up the ranks in Chicago PD to eventually get to the FBI. He didn’t neglect to remind me how much of a pain in his ass I was though, running around as The Figure. I joked that I made him a better investigator and he finally cracked a smile.

So that left one more person to win over. Doctor Spencer Reid. I was leaving the best, and the hardest, for last.

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

I was sitting with Derek and Emily while I waited for Spencer to show up.

“So is it finally pretty boy’s turn to have to suffer through dinner with you?” Morgan teased.

“Oh come on. You know you enjoyed my company,” I said to him with a wink. Ever since getting to know one another better, Morgan was more inclined to tease me like he had when we first met.

“Or maybe you just aren’t as good at profiling as you think,” Derek replied.

“Oh, there he is,” Emily said before I could respond. I watched Spencer casually walk into the bullpen, then pick up the pace when he saw me watching. And those goddamn back muscles were twitching again.

Look, I understand that I make people uncomfortable. Some I make really uncomfortable. And I know that Reid is kind of awkward around a lot of people, but come on. After five weeks of me constantly being around, he still could barely stand to be in the same room as me. What was going on?

He rushed right past us to his own desk, not even stopping to say hi to Derek or Emily.

“Woah, woah woah. What’s going on, kid? Where’s the fire?” Morgan said, brow furrowed. I gave Emily a knowing look.

“Nothing. No fire,” Reid said, setting his bag down, then quickly moving toward the pot of coffee across the room from us.

Derek turned to look at me. “You sure you want to take him out?”

“We’ll see. First I gotta keep him in my vicinity long enough so I can actually ask him,” I retorted.

“What? Three seconds isn’t long enough to ask him to dinner?” Morgan said sarcastically. I rolled my eyes at him and sighed.

“What is it?” Prentiss asked.

I laughed. “I’ve been in a gang, an underground ring, drugged, hunted by the police, trapped by the FBI, and sent to prison. But of all things, what’s really going to stop me in my tracks … is an angry genius?”

Morgan laughed with me. “He can be pretty feisty.”

“But hey. You have made it all the way to the FBI, far enough so that you can even consider that a problem of yours,” Prentiss pointed out. I nodded along as she spoke, “And you're still alive.”

“That’s true,” I agreed. “I mean, it only cost me four ER visits, three ribs, two bullets, and a knife. Well, and now an angry genius.” Both of them whipped their heads toward me, shock taking over their face. I wish I could have captured their priceless reactions on tape.

“W-Wh-What?” Derek said through a confused laugh. Emily just stared at me open mouthed.

“But you’re right,” I casually continued, “being alive is important.”

“Guys we have a case,” Hotch strode into the room, holding up a case file. Morgan and Prentiss were still just staring at me. I tilted one side of my mouth up and shrugged at them, leaving our spot to head to the briefing room.

“You can’t just leave us hanging like that?” Derek called after me.

I turned around while walking so I could face them, putting my hands up in surrender. I tried to sound as innocent as possible. “We have a case.”

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

The case was standard, you know, just your usual headless bodies in a lake. The unsub was quickly devolving, so it wouldn’t be long until he made a mistake and we could catch him. I was getting the silent treatment from Reid, as always. On day two, him and Jareau went on air to alert people in the area.

The very next day, we had an odd visitor come into the precinct. And by ‘we’ I mean ‘Reid’. She was about average height, blonde, probably five years Spencer’s senior, and enthusiastic. Too enthusiastic for a person in a precinct.

She walked right up to him and started talking to him. I couldn’t really hear what they were talking about, and I couldn’t see her face because Spencer’s back was shielding it. Across the room, I saw JJ look over at them, but then quickly dismiss it. I was about to do the same when a familiar sight caught my eye. Spencer’s back was twitching.

He had a variety of tells of discomfort, but when he wanted to, he could keep himself completely composed. Except for his back muscles. They had become the number one thing I looked for every time I saw him, because every single time, they told me he was uncomfortable.

The longer he talked to this woman, the worse the twitching became. I was initially going to just leave it alone and let him figure it out, but my curiosity got the best of me. Who was she and why was he so uneasy?

I decided I’d pull one of the oldest tricks in the book, and hoped he’d pick up on it.

I approached the two of them, placing my left hand on Spencer’s right shoulder blade, slowly moving it up his back to rest on his shoulder. I knew he had a germ thing, so I didn’t want to get too cozy. I interlaced my fingers so it looked like I was leaning on him. I could feel the twitching beneath my fingertips, but he didn’t flinch or faulter at my sudden presence. I peered up at him through my eyelashes. “Hey,” I tried to sound as seductive as possible. “Who’s this?”

He cleared his throat. “Oh, uh, this is-”

“I’m Kristy,” Kristy said, holding her hand out to me. I ignored it and instead looked her over.

“I wasn’t asking you, sweetie,” I said. She opened her mouth and let out a noise of offense. She practically had the words ‘shallow bitch’ written on her forehead. I turned my attention back to Spencer.

“She and I went to CalTech together,” his voice was dry and he swallowed, like he was in desperate need of water. I hadn’t gotten the whole story, but I knew that he was relentlessly bullied in high school, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it continued on in college. If I had to guess, this girl fell into that category.

“Oh really?” I asked. I turned toward her again and she nodded at me eagerly. The level of fake radiating off of her definitely equalled ‘mean girl’, which to me meant she deserved to taste some of her own medicine. I aimed to be as demeaning as possible. “So, Kathy-”

“Actually, my name is Kristy.”

“Whatever,” I said, fluttering my eyelashes. I could already tell I was getting under her skin. “What brings you in?”

“Well, I work for a magazine, The Triplehorn Tribune, you’ve probably heard of it-”

“Nope,” I interrupted. It took all of my willpower to not roll my eyes.

“Anyways,” she said slowly, about to continue on.

“Anyway,” I corrected. She looked at me confused. “You meant to say ‘anyway’. ‘Anyways’ isn’t a word and is grammatically incorrect.” Out of my peripheral, I saw Spencer quickly press his lips together, fighting a smile. I’d just pulled his signature move. At this point, JJ had looked back to see what was going on, and had nudged Prentiss to pay attention. It wouldn’t be long before the rest of the team was watching.

Meanwhile, Kristy-bitch was starting to fume. She released an annoyed breath through her teeth. “Anyway, I’m here because we want to do a story on what it’s like to be in the FBI. I saw Spencer on the tv yesterday and figured he’d be the perfect person to interview.”

“Oh, so you only want to talk to him now that he’s been on tv?” I asked.

“What? No! It’s not like that-”

“Then what is it like?” I asked. When she didn’t respond quickly enough for my liking, I decided I’d answer for her. “See, I think that you’re only here for you. I think that you got out of college and got a crappy job working for a crappy magazine. You want to be recognized and appreciated which means you need an interesting article. This serial killer thing would be big, but what would be even bigger would be interviewing one of the top profilers in the top unit of the FBI about the serial killer, who has also been on tv for press conferences. Lucky for you, this top profiler just so happens to be the easily manipulated kid you bullied in college, so you think that you can just show up here out of nowhere and request he give you the big break you supposedly deserve. How’m I doing so far?”

Her mouth dropped in unspoken shock. She was floundering and I was more than happy to let her. Behind her I saw the team and at least half of the precinct watching. I hadn’t noticed that Reid’s back stopped twitching for a while until it started back up again at the increased attention. I gently squeezed his shoulder, trying to help him calm back down. Kristy finally regained her ground.

“What are you, his possessive girlfriend?” she spat, incredulous.

“Something like that,” I said. I could barely get the words out before I was left speechless by the arm that wrapped around my waist. His hand landed just above my hip and subconsciously brought us closer together. I was surprised, even more so at the slight swimming in my head, but I forced myself to keep my wits about me. So he did figure out what I was going for. I smirked at her.

“Well why don’t you let Spencer speak for himself,” Kristy hissed at me.

“Why don’t you show Doctor Reid the respect you neglected to give him years ago,” I returned, just as fiery. I felt Spencer’s shoulders straighten just slightly at my comment. I removed my hands from his shoulder and reluctantly moved my body out of his grasp so that I could step forward and look down at her.

“Look, Cassy-”

“Kristy.”

“Whatever. You clearly are one of the bitches that thought it’d be funny to pick on the young kid in your class. You didn’t accept him for who he was then, so you sure as hell don’t deserve him for who he is now. I think you should go.” I stared her down, and I have to admit, girl’s got balls to continue to stand her ground.

“I’m only asking for a simple favor-” she started.

I took another step forward, cutting her off. “Back off, he doesn’t owe you anything!”

She took a step back, clearly surprised by my sudden change in volume. “You need to control your girlfriend! She’s a psycho!” She gave Reid a quick glance before marching toward the door.

“That’s what makes me good at catching them, Misty!” I called after her.

“My name is Kristy!” she yelled as she stamped out the door like a toddler. It made her look like the pathetic, insecure fool she was.

Once the door shut behind her, I couldn’t help but start laughing. I turned to look at Spencer who was still in shock. I scanned the room and saw that the entire precinct had stopped what they were doing to observe the scene that I helped create. I made eye contact with the rest of the team, all of whom were gaping at me. I stopped laughing.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, turning back to Spencer. I was starting to worry that I’d misread the whole situation and just caused something to go horribly wrong. “I hope you don’t mind that I did that. I could just tell that she was making you uncomfortable and I figured that I could-” I was cut off mid-sentence. Spencer had suddenly erupted in laughter, which triggered an entire laughing fit to wash over the whole precinct. Even Aaron was laughing, which never happened. I let the joyful feeling I’d felt moments ago fall back into my grasp.

“I absolutely didn’t mind you stepping in. You have nothing to apologize for,” he said to me with a smile. The first one I’d ever received from him. It was contagious and I couldn’t help but return it.

“Thank god, I was starting to worry. I’m glad you picked up on what I was putting down,” I stated.

“Oh, yeah. The fake girlfriend trick, one of the oldest in the book.”

“It was the best one I could think of on short notice,” I joked.

“How could you tell he was feeling uncomfortable?” Jennifer asked, approaching the two of us. The rest of the precinct had gone back to what they were doing, but the team’s attention was still on us.

“Yeah, I looked over at them and all I saw was the normal level of awkward,” Derek stated. Spencer glared at him.

“That’s because you were looking at him from the front,” I said, raising my eyebrows.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Reid asked, his voice raising an octave.

“It just means that I’ve gotten very accustomed to your tells of discomfort, from all angles.” The mood of the group shifted at my reminder of the reality that Reid still had a very high level of dislike for me.

“Sure, but that still doesn’t make sense. Reid does a great job composing himself, but I think we all know him well enough to detect if he’s uncomfortable,” JJ pressed. I just shrugged my shoulders, not really knowing how to respond.

“Okay, let’s refocus,” Hotch said to us with a serious nod. I could tell when I made eye contact with him that I was in trouble. “Aundreya, that was inappropriate.”

“I know. That was well deserved, though,” I pointed out, unapologetic.

Aaron toyed with a half smile and let out a sigh. “Let’s just get back to work?”

“Fine with me,” I said with a grin. I got a nod from him and Rossi, a smile from the ladies and a clap on the back from Morgan. Reid gave me a small, closed-lipped smile, and directed his attention back to the maps and pictures hanging on the board.

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

It took us the next three days to find and catch the killer. Three days full of Reid avoiding me at all costs. Maybe I was crazy, maybe I was hallucinating, but I thought we had a moment. I thought that I’d done something good for once, something to prove to him that I wasn’t a terrible human. But no. Nope. Not a chance, because for the rest of that afternoon and the three days following, the avoidance was actually worse than it was before. I didn’t even think that was possible. It had earned me more respect from the rest of them, but not him himself. Did I embarrass him? Was he weirded out that I touched him? Was his loathing for me just that strong? It didn’t make any sense and by day three, I was at my wits end.

“Emily.” I stated.

“What?” she asked me.

“What did I do wrong?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. Our profile is good and we hav-”

“No, not about the profile. About Reid.”

“Oh,” she said, seemingly surprised. “How do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I get it, I’m bad news, but this feels like more. Was it something I said the other day with Kristy..?”

“Ha! So you do know her name,” she said with a grin. I rolled my eyes. She was trying to get me off topic.

“Seriously, though. He’s not this cold to everyone.”

“Well, he can be a hard person to get to know,” she said, avoiding the breadth of my questions.

“But not this hard?” I tried to finish.

“No, not usually,” she replied. She clearly knew something I didn’t, and was very hesitant to give it up.

“If you aren’t going to tell me, at least tell me it wasn’t something I did the other day.”

“No, not really.” She was keeping herself distracted with the pictures in front of us, even though they were useless considering the rest of the team was already headed to a barn where the unsub kept his victims before decapitating them.

I sighed. “Fine.”

She looked over at me. “Sorry.”

It was all she had to say.

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

They ended up finding the killer in the barn with his next victim, and were forced to fire because he refused to put the machete down. It was late Thursday night when we were getting on the jet to go home. We were all exhausted.

“Shouldn’t you be doing something?” Derek came to ask me a few minutes into the ride.

“Huh?” I asked, completely confused.

“With pretty boy?” he prompted. I’d lost all hope, at that point, of ever getting to know him. Even after he thanked me for swooping in and saving him from that bitch, he still seemed utterly disinterested.

“Probably not,” I said, tiredness running through my voice. Other thing: since when did Derek Morgan suddenly care and become my friend? The dinners must really work. All the more reason to lift myself out of my chair and go talk to Reid.

Morgan was still staring at me expectantly.

“Ok, alright, I’m going,” I said, getting up. He raised his eyebrows at me and flashed me that pearly smile of his. It made me want to praise him and hit him all at the same time.

I walked over to where Reid was sitting, thankful that no one else decided to sit across from him.

“Friday or Saturday?” I asked.

He looked up at me, puzzled. “What?”

“Friday. Or Saturday?”

“What are you asking me for?”

“Why can’t you just answer the damn question?” I asked a little too harshly, sliding into the seat across from him. He leaned back in his chair, putting as much distance between us as he could without just getting up and leaving. It seemed to me he’d rather just be swallowed up by the wall.

“Look,” I tried starting over with a softer tone. “Clearly you have something against me. Something more than the criminal thing. I’ve been killing myself for the past six weeks trying to figure out what it is but I’m at a loss.”

He scoffed, “Yeah, I’m sure.”

That set me off. I was trying to be nice, make an effort, but he just kept shooting me down. So I decided I was done being nice.

“Okay, Doctor Reid. I’ve been refraining from judgements because, who knows? Maybe I remind you of someone who hurt you. Maybe I remind you of someone you lost. I don’t want to push it if that’s the case. And, hell! If anything, you guys are the ones who are supposed to be judging me, not the other way around. You all have a six to ten year head start on making connections with each other. I’ve been here for six weeks. I’ve been doing this dinner thing with everyone because I’m trying to get to know the members of this team. I mean, you are considered part of the team right?” I looked around the jet to the audience I knew I had. “He is considered a part of this team, right?” It was rhetorical and they all knew it. Even if it wasn’t, I think they were all too flabbergasted that I was going after their baby to actually answer. I turned back to him.

“Like, I understand that you are up here in ‘Genius Stratosphere’,” I said, waving my hand around above my head, “but if I were to make a list of all the team members, you would be on it, right?”

“Yes!” he finally answered, exasperated.

“Great. So go to dinner with me,” I said. It was the most compelling argument I could make in the moment.

“Why?”

I sighed. He was not making this easy for me. Not like I expected him to.

I tried to make my voice sound neutral again. “I’m just trying to get to know you. If you ever decide to stop acting like a little bitch about it, or you finally wanna help me out and tell what your problem is … or just tell me exactly what you need from me, even if that is avoidance, let me know. Because I’m getting pretty sick and tired of … all this,” I said, gesturing to the air. Spencer was looking down again, and I figured he would continue to ignore me.

I got halfway out of the seat and was about to turn away when he said, “Friday.” It was barely more than a whisper and he was still looking down when I turned to face him.

“What?” I demanded.

“Friday,” he said with more confidence this time, meeting my eyes.

“Spectacular choice,” I said, lacking any emotion. I reached for the napkin sitting next to his coffee cup and the pen I had in my jacket pocket. I scratched my number on it. “That’s my personal number. I gave it to everyone in case you can’t reach me on my work one or it is for something non-work related, which this occasion would be. Text me the place. I wouldn’t want you to have to suffer through bad food you didn’t like, as well,” I stated, crossing my arms. I walked back toward my seat, Morgan long since evacuated. I gaged the reactions around me as I walked, and clearly no one had ever talked to Reid like that before. It didn’t surprise me since he seemed like golden boy number one and no one ever had any reason to get short with him. But I didn’t feel bad. He’d treated me like a pile of shit, almost less than human, and I was over it. I was going to earn my respect from him one way or the other, and it was now up to him to decide. We were either going to be working friends, or working enemies.

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

Spencer just sat there the rest of the plane ride home, not really being able to focus on the book in front of him. No one had ever snapped at him like that, or at least, not in the last few years, and definitely not from a teammate. But she was not their typical teammate. She was not their typical anything. He may have been in ‘Genius Stratosphere’ but she was in a whole new stratosphere of her own.

He didn’t know why she got to him so much. Well, he did, but he wasn’t willing to admit it. Not even to himself. Plus, he didn’t have to justify why he didn’t like a top-notch criminal. She’d killed people and that in itself was enough reason. But the fact that she seemed bothered by him not liking her, and her genuine confusion and interest as to what was going on struck a chord. Maybe he had been too harsh in his treatment of her.

Spencer was sitting there recounting all of their interactions, or lack thereof, and started to question himself. Especially once he got to their more recent interactions.

Reid was bewildered, which rarely ever happened, and it made him all the more annoyed. Why’d she step in to help me? Did she really mean everything she said? Why was her touch so calming? The last thought took him by surprise, and he tried to shake the feeling.

He could remember the way she just lightly brushed up against him, resting her hand on his shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world. He could also tell that she was being as delicate and considerate of his ‘not-a-fan-of-touching’ thing as she could while also selling the illusion. He remembered how it felt to have his arm around her and that slight squeeze she gave him to let him know she was there to help…

He forced himself to snap out of it. He could hardly stand to be in the same room as her, yet having her right next to him was fine? It didn’t make any sense. But the one thought that was driving him crazier than the rest was why, out of all the people on the team, was she able to detect his discomfort better and faster than anyone else? Yes, like she said, she’d gotten quite used to seeing him uncomfortable, but so had the rest of the team. They’d known him for six years plus and she’d only known him for six weeks. How was it that they couldn’t pick up on it and she could? Had she really been paying that much attention to him?

No, he concluded, definitely not. Someone like Aundreya would not care enough to pay that much attention to me. She was probably just doing her job. She was very skilled, after all.

But he still felt weird.

Once the plane landed, Aundreya bolted like her life depended on it. She’d never been one for sticking around longer than necessary. It made sense, considering she had gotten used to avoiding the police and now she was constantly surrounded by, not just police, but FBI. The rest of the team slowly made their way to their cars, and Spencer decided to stop Derek and ask him about it.

“Hey Morgan,” he said. Derek turned around to face him.

“What’s up, pretty boy?”

“Have I really been that awful to her?” That caught Emily and JJ’s attention, who turned around to walk a few paces back to where Spencer and Derek were standing.

“Are you asking about Aundreya?” Derek asked. Spencer nodded. “I mean, I get where you’re coming from.”

“That wasn’t my question,” Reid pointed out. The three of them stared at him, but he waited for an answer.

“Maybe a little bit,” JJ said.

“Look, Reid, we all had reservations about her going into this. But Hotch was right, she’s had a troubled background but she’s not a horrible person. I think it would benefit both of you, and the team, if you just tried getting to know her,” Emily said. She was always so good at making sense out of every situation without seeming to take sides.

“I know. I just feel … weird about it,” Reid stated. It was hard for him to describe what he was feeling and what the issue was.

“I understand how you feel. I didn’t want to go to dinner either because I just kept telling myself that she’s a criminal and I didn’t want to get involved,” Derek said. Spencer was looking at him intently. “But it was actually kinda good. It helped me understand her, and it’s been a lot better coming to work now that I feel like I can at least somewhat rely on her to help us out.”

“I agree. Talking to each other will only help,” JJ reminded him. They were right. It would help him feel more comfortable at work if he felt more comfortable with her.

“Okay. Thank you,” he said to them. He turned to walk toward his car when Derek’s voice stopped him.

“Oh, and uh, Reid,” he said, “Clearly she’s willing to put in the effort to make it work. She did step in to help you out the other day. I don’t think a cold-hearted criminal would’ve done that.”

Spencer nodded at Derek and he nodded back. Spencer got into his car and started driving back to his apartment, trying to think of the best place he could, to meet Aundreya for dinner.

Part 2

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johannstutt413 · 4 years

Text

(requested by anonymous)

Flamebringer walked into the Doctor’s office with an annoyed expression. “Doctor.”

“Ah, yes, Flamebringer.” She tapped her notes, a smile on her face. “As I’m sure you’re aware, you were reprimanded by your squad lead for gross misconduct in the field. You’re here for your sentencing.”

“I did nothing wrong, and you know it-”

The Doctor held up her hand. “This is not about your guilt, only your punishment. Which, in this case, is this: You will be spending the next two months out of the field minding Ifrit.”

“...Babysitting?” His left eye began twitching. “You want me to spend the next two months babysitting-”

“Be glad that’s all I’m doing, Flamebringer; last time something like this happened, the guilty party lost a week’s pay.”

He sighed. “This is bullshit.”

“Tell it to your team lead.” The Doctor checked her notes. “Ifrit should be in her room right now. Get to it.”

“I swear by my ever-thirsting blade, you’ll pay for this.” With that Flamebringer left to find his charge, cursing his luck. He’d heard about Ifrit from some of the other Operators, and while he’d never met her...He had his concerns.

He found her in her room as suggested, writing in a notebook. “Ifrit?”

“What do you want-” She looked up at him, blinking twice. “I don’t know you.”

“I’m not surprised. The Doctor said I’m looking after you for the next two months.”

Ifrit’s eyes lit up. “They sent another one? Yes! I love when they give me victims!”

“Victims?” Flamebringer scoffed. “What do you do to these caretakers of yours?”

“Put them through a trial by fire.” She snapped her fingers, and a small flame appeared on her fingertips.

He smiled. “So you like to make trouble, then?”

“I like doing what I want and having no one stop me!” Ifrit’s hand snuffed out as she turned back to her paper. “Which, right now, is coloring this picture for Silence.”

“Heh...Alright. Let me know when that changes.” With that, Flamebringer closed the door behind him and leaned against the wall.

She looked back at him. “You mean you’re not gonna try and tell me what to do?”

“Why should I stop you from coloring?” He shrugged. “Just don’t make things worse for me, and we won’t have any problems.”

“Huh. Guess they’re getting soft, aren’t they?”

Flamebringer sighed. “If this is soft, I’d rather they just flay me.”

“Hey, I’m not that bad-”

“Not about you,” he interrupted. “I have battles to fight and foes to slay, but instead I’m watching a devil-child play.”

Ifrit set her colored pencil down. “That’s rough, buddy. They’ve kept me cooped up in here since I burnt down the cafeteria that one time.”

“That was you? They had fish tacos that day, so I didn’t eat there, but it sounded like a roaring good fire.”

“They didn’t give me my second pudding,” she smirked. “You mess with the Ifrit, you get the inferno! Fwoosh!” As she made the sound, she threw her hands in front of her, and a gout of fire rushed towards the ceiling to no detrimental effect.

Flamebringer nodded. “Relatable...I’ll be here if you need me.”

“I won’t, but thanks!”

A few weeks later, Flamebringer took Ifrit with him to the Garden. “You promise you won’t set anything on fire?”

“Why would I? I like plants.” She had one hand in his, the other swinging back and forth merrily. “Besides, we’re going to see your girlfriend, right?”

“That we are,” he admitted.

“Hey, I get it. Don’t wanna spend all your time with me, so I get a field trip and you get a little alone time with your girl.” Ifrit smirked. “Not the first time my ‘sitter’s done that one.”

He laughed. “I thought you put them through ‘trials by fire?’”

“Well, yeah, but after awhile you gotta let them off the hook so the next time you get them, it stings more.”

“You’re a devilish girl, aren’t you?” Flamebringer ruffled her hair, earning a glare but no burns. “If you behave, we’ll get ice cream later.”

She saluted him. “I’ll be an absolute Sankta.”

“Good...Before you run off, though, let me introduce her to you.”

“Oh! Okay.” Ifrit squeezed his hand. “You know, I heard some people talking about you at lunch awhile ago. Said you were a hothead yourself. Is that why they put you in charge of me?”

He glared in the general direction of reality. “They framed me for destroying something that wasn’t my fault. I think they do it whenever Silence is going out of town.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right...I wouldn’t mind if you stuck around after she came back, though.”

“Oh yeah?” The glare disappeared, replaced with a smirk. “Because I don’t give a damn about your threats and treat you like a person?”

She winked. “Because you give me ice cream.”

“About the same, really. Lena, I’m here!” Flamebringer called out into the verdant paradise called the Garden.

“Flame?” She peered out from behind a nearby rhododendron. “Ah. I see you brought a guest?”

He nodded. “Lena, this is Ifrit, my ward for the next month or so; Ifrit, this is Lena, whom I love very much.”

“Hi!” Ifrit beamed at her.

Perfumer glanced between the two of them. “Flame, can I talk to you for a moment?”

“That’s why I’m here,” he agreed before turning to Ifrit. “Remember: no fire, ice cream afterward.”

“How could I forget?” With that, she wandered off into the greenery, and Flamebringer was left alone with his beloved.

Lena kissed his cheek before looking off in the direction the fire-breather had run off along. “Is it safe to let her freely roam the Garden like this? If I remember correctly, she doesn’t have the best control of her abilities.”

“Her control is fine. It’s her temper that bests her most often.” He smiled. “However, if this experience has taught me anything, it’s that I’m more than prepared for fatherhood when the time comes.”

“Fu-fu-fu. Is that a proposal I hear?”

Flamebringer’s face fell slightly. “Once I have a ring, it will be-”

“Hey, Flamebringer!” Footsteps dashed over to them, followed by an Ifrit. “Miss Lena, can I take a flower with me? I wanna give it to Silence when she gets back.”

“Hmm...Show us the one you want, and we’ll see what we can do.”

She walked them over to a sunflower fully in bloom. “I want this one!”

“That’s...difficult.” Lena looked to Flamebringer. “Are you willing to help her keep it alive that long?”

“It’ll be a good project for her. You willing to take care of it yourself?”

Ifrit nodded. “You make it sound fun.”

“Flame,” Lena gently scolded him, “you shouldn’t lie to children.”

“She’s not a child in that sense, and I didn’t lie.”

She sighed. “No, but I imagine you made it sound easier than it will be for her.”

“Hey, I can take care of things!” Ifrit took a crayon out of her pocket. “I’d had this for over a month and haven’t melted it yet.”

“...Heaven help you, Flame. We’ll set it up so you can take it home.”

Ifrit nodded. “Thanks! You can go back to your alone time, though. Find me when you’re done!”

Over a month later, and still, Flamebringer hadn’t had a single issue with Ifrit. She was temperamental, but so was he; she’d suffered some outright egregious things, but so had he; she loved burning Reunion goons to a crisp, and he relished the chance to cut them down. It was good conversation, good training for when he was ready to start his life with Perfumer, and most importantly, it wasn’t nearly as punishing as the Doctor had made it out to be.

Until, that is, on the last day of their allotted time together, when he walked into her room and found the sunflower they’d work so hard to care for the past month in ashes, and Ifrit crying on her bed. Flamebringer took a deep breath, channeled it into a deep sigh, and walked over to her. “I see the flower is dead. What happened?”

“She’s not going to be back for another month,” she sulked. “She promised to take me to the festival, and she’s not going to be back for another month.”

“And what did the flower do?”

Ifrit turned to glare at him. “The flower did...nothing.”

“That’s right.” He sighed. “We worked really hard on that, didn’t we?”

“We did...I’m s-sorry.” She pulled him towards her to bury her face in his jacket, crying.

Flamebringer, a little awkwardly at first, wrapped her into a proper hug. “It’s alright, Ifrit. I understand.”

“B-but today’s your last day with me, and that was all I had to remember it by!” She cried harder. “I didn’t mean to kill it, I promise!”

“I know, I know...Is that really all you had of our time together?”

Ifrit’s response was a chorus of sobs.

“Well, then.” He let her finish the worst of it before pulling away to look her in the eye, wiping stray tears with his hand. “We should fix that.”

“What do you mean? What can we do in one day?”

Flamebringer smiled. “We can go to this festival of yours.”

“B-but it’s off-base, and tomorrow, and-”

“So what?” He ran a hand through her hair. “You want to go, don’t you?”

She nodded.

“Then we’re going. I’ll be back tomorrow, alright?”

“Okay.” Ifrit by this point had calmed down. “I’m going to draw you a picture today, then.”

He smiled. “Alright. Can I have a pencil and a paper as well?”

“Yeah...so long as it’s not red.”

“Hmm...” Flamebringer sighed. “Black will be fine then.”

She grabbed a paper and a black pencil, but before she handed them to him, she gave him another hug. “You’re the best, bro.”

“Bro?”

“You’re way better than any of the other people who’ve come to take care of me,” she asserted, “and I’ve always wanted a brother, which won’t happen since Saria and Silence won’t stop fighting, so...You’re Bro now.”

He thought about it for a moment before smirking. “Whatever you say, Sis. Whatever you say.”

#arknights #flamebringer (arknights)#ifrit (arknights)#i've had things like this happen to me #not the punishment part #but the taking care of kids and becoming surrogate siblings thing #good experience #would recommend #arknights fic

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ellewritesathing · 5 years

Text

So Close - S.S. XI

Summary: The universe has a funny way of putting the things you want right in front of you, but just out of reach. Stiles and Y/N have been best friends ever since Scott brought him home, but when Stiles realizes that he might want to be something other than best friends, she leaves to go to some fancy private school up North. Now that she’s back though … maybe he’s got a shot? A Teen Wolf AU in which the reader has always been so close to Stiles and yet so far.

Prologue - S2E1 Part 1 - S2E2 + S2E3 Part 2 - S2E4 + S2E5 + S2E6 Part 3 - S2E7 +S2E8 Part 4 - S2E9 + S2E10 Part 5 - S2E11 + S2E12 Part 6 Part 7 - S3AE1 Part 8 - S3AE2 + S3AE3 Part 9 - S3AE4 Part 10 - S3AE5 + S3AE6 Part 11 - S3AE7 + S3AE8

Word-count: 4.6k+

A/N: Guess who’s been working on fics instead of doing their planning for preptober!! Anyway, hope you guys like it :) feedback is always appreciated

You got together with Scott and Stiles to have dinner and talk things over. Things had been a quiet type of different since getting back from the cross country meet, but it was difficult enough to talk about without all the other alpha-and-darach-related things going on as well.

“At least Derek’s alive,” you said after a while, cracking open your fortune cookie as you did.

“Yeah, well Derek’s never been a real help to us so forgive me if I’m not jumping for joy,” Stiles said. He reached out and snatched the fortune out of your hand. “‘Exciting times lie ahead.’ Hey, these really are accurate!”

You rolled your eyes and stood to clear the plates. Scott took Melissa’s food out of the fridge and then the three of you piled into the Jeep to take it to her at the hospital. You waited with Stiles in the car and the two of you talked about Scott. He seemed to be doing better, but it was no secret that he was still stressed.

You stopped mid-analysis when you saw Scott storming out of the hospital with Ethan right behind him. “Uh oh,” you hummed as you opened your door. “This isn’t gonna end well.”

Before you could get to them, a car crashed into one of the parked cars on your right. You looked at Scott for a second before the three of you ran over to see if the driver was okay - Stiles running a few feet behind because ‘the damn door wouldn’t open.’ When you got there, you found the car empty. Another sacrifice.

Ethan left before the cops got there, so you, Scott, Stiles, and Melissa tried to explain what happened to Noah - Dr. Hilyard was the one whose car crashed in the parking lot, and the ER Attending was the one that never even made it in - but he was having a hard time focusing with all of you speaking at once. Eventually, he just sighed and held up a hand in defeat.

“Let me just focus on getting your story first, alright?” Noah said to your mom. Melissa nodded. “Kids, give us a second.”

Stiles started complaining, but you and Scott each took an arm and walked a few feet away. You took a breath and crossed your arms over your chest before speaking. “So we all agree that these two are definitely sacrifices, right?” you asked. “I mean cars don’t just drive themselves.”

“Or crash themselves,” Scott said with a sigh. He put his hands in his pockets.

“Yeah, it’s gotta be one that Deaton mentioned: Healers,” Stiles said.

“But what about Danny? He threw up mistletoe. That’s not a coincidence.” Scott shook his head. “And if he hadn’t been with Ethan, he probably would’ve died. Danny’s not a healer.”

“Yeah, Danny’s a lot of things but-”

“Can you hear that?” Stiles asked Scott, tilting his head in the direction of your parents. When he saw the look you were giving him for interrupting, he mumbled an apology and squeezed your arm.

“Well?” you asked, decidedly on Stiles’ side.

“They found a body,” Scott said looking more haunted with every word.

---

You stayed with Melissa until her shift ended, drove home with her, and didn’t leave her alone until it was time to say goodnight. You didn’t explain that your clinginess was because you thought some crazy ex-druid was going to kidnap her and ritually kill her, instead opting for an excuse that vaguely sounded like: ‘Scott didn’t want to share his room with Isaac and I don’t want to sleep next to him.’

You actually slept pretty well, given the circumstances, but Melissa’s sudden movement woke you up. You grabbed your knife as you asked what was wrong.

She shook her head. “Look at them.” She pointed to where Scott and Isaac laid (passed out on the chair and asleep on the floor, respectively). “Boys! What do you think you’re doing?”

The two of them jumped to their feet, but they were still clearly half-asleep and very surprised that Melissa got the drop on them. She raised an eyebrow while they stammered out their explanation and you laughed.

“Uh, we were watching over you,” Isaac explained, looking at Scott for backup.

“We wanted to make sure you weren’t the third sacrifice,” Scott agreed, nodding slightly.

You frowned, shifting closer to hug Melissa from behind. “But you were both asleep?”

Scott turned to Isaac and they argued over who was on watch last.

You rolled your eyes and kissed your mom’s cheek before rolling out of bed. By the time you were standing and stretching, they finally decided that Isaac was on watch last.

“My heroes,” Melissa laughed. “Wait, didn’t you say that they were all doctors? I mean, I haven’t had an MD recently attached to the end of my name so I think I’m in the clear.”

“A healer doesn’t have to be someone with a degree,” you yawned.

“And you were definitely a healer last night,” Scott said.

“Yeah, well, I’m not gonna be anyone’s human sacrifice today, so all three of you need to get your butts to school.”

You gave your mom a mock salute on your way out, dragging Isaac and Scott behind you.

---

During the change of periods, you saw Scott and Stiles rushing towards the parking lot. You followed them and caught Stiles by the arm. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“Deaton’s been taken. I’m going with Scott to-” The two of you watched as Scott sped past on the bike and Stiles sighed. “And clearly, we’re not carpooling anymore.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” you asked.

“Nah. Just do me a favor and tell the others?”

You nodded and watched him push open the doors to follow Scott and took a breath before going to find your friends. Isaac and Boyd were on their way out to help Derek, Allison was more worried about Scott than Deaton when she heard the news, and Lydia was nowhere to be seen. You saw Aiden when the fire alarm went off and you asked if he’d seen her. He told you to check Coach’s office.

When you got there, you found Lydia and Cora in the middle of an argument. Cora was gripping Lydia's forearm and Lydia was telling her to let go.

“Hey, you guys okay here?” you asked, closing the distance between you and then. You’d barely spoken to Cora since her mysterious arrival, but you thought that she respected you at the very least.

“We’re fine,” she told you, dropping Lydia’s arm.

Lydia rubbed her arm with a frown on her face before looking up to snap at her, ‘If that’s your definition of fine-”

“There you are!”

You heard Stiles before you saw him. The three of you stopped arguing to look at him.

“Well, don't just stare at me. Come on, we've got work to do.”

He didn’t elaborate on what he meant by having work to do, but the three of you followed him to the empty chemistry classroom nonetheless. When he was sure you were alone, he pulled out an ouija board.

“Seriously?” you asked.

“It’s worth a shot,” Stiles said, unpacking the board.

“A shot in the dark,” Lydia mumbled. She ignored the look Stiles gave her.

“Could you just try it, please? Okay? Let’s not forget who this is for: Scott’s boss, the guy who has saved our collective asses on more than one occasion,” he said.

Stiles was already frustrated, and combined with the mood Lydia was in and Cora’s general demeanor, this was going to be a fun little experiment.

“Oh, wait, should we all do this?” Cora asked.

Stiles thought you should, so you all placed your hands on the pointer and waited for something to happen. He asked where Deaton was, and when nothing happened you all looked over at Lydia carefully. She asked what you were staring at.

“It’s just… Lyd, aren’t you gonna do something?” you asked gently.

“Oh, I don’t know the answer,” she told you. She pulled away. “I thought we were asking some sort of spirit?”

“Well, do you know any spirits?” Cora asked.

Lydia paused, taking a moment to frown at both you and Stiles before asking, “Is she for real?”

Stiles was getting increasingly frustrated so you suggested a new method before someone started yelling. He dangled Deaton’s keys in the air and asked Lydia to try and feel out his location with them. To which Lydia argued that she wasn’t a psychic, and Stiles yelled that she was something. You groaned and rubbed your head, sensing Cora making similar annoyed movements on your left.

When psychometry didn’t yield results, you moved onto automatic writing. This was more of a psychological tool than a supernatural one, but it was another way of trying to find Deaton so you gave it a shot. You peered over Lydia’s shoulder and watched as she started drawing a tree.

“Lydia, you’re supposed to be writing words. Like in sentences. Something like a location.” Stiles was almost ready to start yelling again. “Something that would maybe tell us where he is!”

“Well, maybe you should’ve said that,” Lydia said defensively.

“Isn’t she supposed to be some kind of genius?” Cora asked you in a disbelieving tone.

“Lydia’s the smartest person I know,” you said carefully. “But there isn’t really a Divination For Dummies handbook that we can use, so maybe you guys could cut her some slack.”

“Some slack?” Stiles repeated. “Y/N, Deaton is missing. Taken. Morrell told us that Lydia’s our only chance at finding him and you want us to cut her some slack?”

“Honestly, I don’t even know why you’re bothering with me anyway,” Lydia said before you could argue with him. “I mean, especially since it’s obvious you should be talking to Danny.”

“What? Why Danny?” Stiles asked, immediately dropping his defensive attitude.

“Because-” Scott came in, holding his left shoulder “-Last night, he was a target, but it wasn’t a sacrifice.”

“Isn’t Danny still in the hospital?” Cora asked. The bell had rung so you were all following Scott into the hallway.

“Yeah, that’s where we’re going right now,” Stiles answered.

“I’ll meet you there,” Scott said.

You asked why and he showed you a text from Allison saying that she found something. You shrugged and walked with him to the parking lot before you, Cora, Lydia, and Stiles all crammed into his Jeep. Stiles insisted on going in alone so the three of you had some more painfully awkward bonding time in the car.

“I haven’t heard from Boyd and Isaac in a while,” you said eventually. “I hope their plan is working.”

“Derek won’t let anything happen to them,” Cora said. Maybe it was just the light but you could’ve sworn she smiled at you. Was she trying to comfort you?

“Yeah, I know.” You reached for her hand and she tensed, so you dropped it.

“Although this heart to heart is comforting,” Lydia said from the front. “Stiles is coming back and he’s on the phone. You mind putting those werewolf powers to use and telling me what he says?”

Cora told you that Danny was doing a project on telluric currents running through Beacon Hills. They wanted yo guys to meet up with Scott at the animal clinic to discuss it and then try to find Deaton.

“So telluric currents are geomagnetic fields that flow through the earth. They can even be affected by lunar phases,” Stiles recapped.

“They’re like ley lines,” you said. “You know, what druids used to organize pilgrimage and their sacred sites.”

“Yeah, but now look at this.” Stiles flipped open Danny’s homework and pointed to the words scribbled in red in the top right corner. “This is a note from Harris on Danny’s proposal.”

“I strongly advise you to choose another subject,” Lydia read, “The ideas here, while innovative and thoughtful, border on pseudoscience. Not suitable for class.”

“Harris wasn’t just a sacrifice. He knew something,” Scott said.

“Yeah, now check this out,” Stiles said, unfolding Danny’s map that he marked the currents on. You overlayed Chris’ map and Stiles copied the markings. The bodies were found directly on top of telluric currents.

“Stop.” Cora reached out for Stiles’ hand and moved it over to Beacon Hills First National Bank. “He’s in the vault. He’s in the same vault.”

Everyone started scrambling but Cora wasn’t moving. You yelled at them to wait but they weren’t listening. Cora looked up from her phone and she seemed scared.

“It’s Boyd,” she said. “The plan didn’t work. They cut the power.”

“It’s just like he said.” Scott’s voice was soft as he spoke, but then he was forceful. “Go. I can save Deaton myself.

“What? Scott, what about us?” Stiles asked.

“Derek needs all the help he can get,” you argued. “And Cora’s fast but she won’t make it there on foot.”

“Go! We can save both of them,” Scott said, turning to leave. The rest of you ran to and piled into the Jeep again.

---

When you got there, Stiles, Cora, and Lydia ran to the maintenance hallway but you darted to the elevator. Stiles tried to catch your arm but you were too fast for him. You slammed the buttons and looked over your shoulder. Stiles was still right behind you.

“Go switch the power on! They need me,” you told him.

“Y/N, you’re-”

“Tell Isaac when you switch the power on.”

Stiles was still arguing with you when the elevator doors closed. You felt like an idiot standing there, waiting to get to the right floor, but you knew you couldn’t run up all the stairs and make it there in time.

When you got there, Kali had impaled Boyd on Derek’s claws and the twins were holding Derek in place. They were killing him. You ran forward, needing to do something - anything - but stopped when Isaac gripped your wrist so tightly that you had to fight the urge to cry out. Kali and the twins walked out, and you made sure to make eye contact with all of them. They would pay for this.

Derek was trying his best to keep Boyd alive, but you knew you were watching him die. It felt like someone was ripping your heart out of your chest as you watched him slump down and fall to the ground. The sound of the water splashing around him was deafening. You ran forward, going to hold him, to make sure he wouldn’t be alone, but Cora made it there first.

She was sobbing as she leaned over him and cradled his body. You placed a hand on her back, trying to comfort her, but the gesture was hollow. So you sat in the water and wept with her. He didn’t deserve to die the way he did, but at least he was with Erica again, running through the stars and in the moonlight.

---

“Okay, so is two days like standard, then? Or are we thinking Derek’s on like some extended getaway?” Stiles asked.

Cora had just told the two of you a story about Derek and Peter when they were younger. They’d been ambushed by hunters and had to hide in a root cellar until they healed. You know, the normal response to being asked ‘where the hell is your brother? We need to talk.’

“Why do you care?” Cora asked, turning away from the window.

“Why do I care?” Stiles asked. “Hm. Let’s see: over the last few weeks, my best friend tried to kill himself, his boss nearly got ritually sacrificed, a girl that I’ve known since I was three was ritually sacrificed, Boyd was killed by alphas, I- do you want me to keep going? Because I can, alright? For like an hour.”

“Stiles, I think we get the point,” you said gently, trying to make him less hostile. He took a breath and you watched Cora walk closer to you.

“And you two think Derek can do anything about all that?” she asked.

“Well, since he’s the one everyone seems to be after, it’s more like he should do something about it,” Stiles clarified.

“Look, Derek’s not the strongest leader but he always comes through in the end. If we can find him, I really think he can fix this.” You sat down on the couch, looking to Stiles or Cora to say something.

“I don’t know,” she said eventually. “There’s something different about him now. He wasn’t like this when we knew him.”

“Then what was he like?” Stiles asked, sitting next to you.

“A lot like Scott, actually,” Peter said as he descended the staircase. “A lot like most teenagers: unbearably romantic, profoundly narcissistic, and tolerable really only to other teenagers.”

“So when you grew up, you decided to pick ‘profoundly narcissistic’ as your trait to develop?” you asked. Peter looked ready to snap at you but you shrugged as Stiles spoke.

“Wait, so what happened? What changed him?” he asked.

“Well, the same thing that changes a lot of young men… a girl.”

“You’re telling me some girl broke his little heart? That’s why Derek is the way he is?” Stiles was squirming next to you so you put an arm around him to keep still. This would go a lot smoother if one of the Hales didn’t punch him for annoying them.

“Do you remember Derek before he was an alpha, he had blue eyes?” Peter asked. “Do you know why some wolves have blue eyes.”

“Jackson had blue eyes when he turned,” you said, frowning. “But none of the others betas did. Cora doesn’t. But you- you have blue eyes.”

“I just always thought it was like a genetic thing,” Stiles said.

“If you want to know what changed Derek,” Cora ignored Stiles and looked at you as she spoke, “You need to know what changed the color of his eyes.”

---

At some point during Peter’s retelling of Derek and Paige’s epic teen romance, your group had changed positions. Stiles sat on the chair next to the table, you sat next to him on the tabletop, with your crossed leg touching Cora’s because she sat next to you on the table, and Peter was pacing or sitting or standing whenever the mood fit. You thought the story was sweet but Stiles and Cora didn’t look as enamored. Stiles just kept trying to hammer out the details and Cora looked like she was grieving for the person her brother used to be.

Peter told you about the night that the hunters ambushed them; they managed to get away but another beta wasn’t so lucky. Ennis’ beta. Ennis wanted revenge but Deucalion wanted peace … but Deucalion’s vision didn’t stop Ennis from marking the distillery wall with their symbol for vendetta.

“Man, you guys really take that ‘revenge’ thing to like a whole new level, don’t you?” Stiles asked.

“It’s not just revenge,” Cora explained. “Losing a member of your pack isn’t like losing family. It’s like you lose a limb.”

You looked down at your hands. Sometimes it still felt like Boyd’s blood was there, stuck between your fingers. You still felt Erica’s death, but at least with her you didn’t have Lady Macbeth syndrome with her.

“They wouldn’t even let him see the body.” You couldn’t tell if Peter was ignoring you, or using your emotions to bolster his story. “Said they weren’t related - Ennis didn’t have a claim to the body.”

“I don’t get it,” Cora interrupted. “What does this have to do with Derek?”

“Everything,” Peter said. “It’s never just a single moment. It’s a confluence of events. Personally, I looked at Ennis’ circumstances, and I saw a profound loss. Derek saw something different. He saw opportunity.”

You tried to hide the frown that spread across your face. “Opportunity to do what?”

“To always be with her,” Peter explained. “But the thing was, he had this constant fear. He was obsessing over it, thinking about it all night and all day, always on his mind. And I kept telling him not to do it, but every day the more he thought about turning her, the more convinced he became.” He looked up at you. “And you know teenagers. I bet he even blames me. He’s probably even convinced himself the whole thing was my idea.”

If Derek was anything like Scott, you knew he wouldn’t blame Peter for anything. He would blame himself. And Peter was the guy who killed his own niece for a shot at being an alpha, who’s to say he wouldn’t hurt an innocent girl to get Derek on his side?

---

Ennis had agreed to turn Paige as a favor for Derek and as a way to get on Talia’s good side, but he refused to back down when Derek changed his mind. It was too late anyway, Paige had already been bitten.

“So did she turn?” Cora asked.

“She should have,” Peter answered. “Most of the time, the bite takes. Most of the time.”

“When you offered it to me,” Stiles started, “You said, ‘If it doesn’t kill you.’”

“If.” Peter’s voice was quiet and he paused for a few seconds, replaying some memory in his head, before continuing, “Some people just aren’t made for this.” He looked at you. “I remember taking her body from his arms to the woods, to a place where I knew that it would be found … Another in a long line of Beacon Hills animal attacks.”

“And what about Derek?” Cora asked. Maybe it was the light again, but you could have sworn there were tears in her eyes.

“Taking an innocent life takes something from you as well; a bit of your soul, darkening it, dimming the once brilliant, golden yellow to a cold, steel blue.” Peter looked up from where he sat and showed you all his werewolf eyes. A cold, steel blue. “Like mine.”

“Okay, so that was a lot,” Stiles said abruptly, standing up and holding a hand out to you. “Dinner?”

You blinked a few times in the moment it took you to understand what he meant. He wanted to talk about it somewhere Peter couldn’t hear. “Uh, yeah,” you said, sliding off the table to your feet. “Cora, you wanna join us?”

“Why would I-” Your back was to Peter, so you tried to mouth the words ‘to talk.’ It seemed like she got the gist because she straightened up. “Fine. But I’m not getting in that crappy Jeep again.”

“Hey, that crappy Jeep-”

“Deal,” you cut Stiles off. “We’ll meet you there?”

Cora nodded in response and you started walking away with Stiles, him mumbling about this not being a very fuel-efficient way of traveling as you left.

---

“What?” Cora asked, looking at Stiles. He’d barely touched his food since you sat down. “What’s this- this look on your face?”

“What look?” Stiles asked, seemingly recovered and shoving a handful of fries in his mouth.

“The kind of look that makes me want to punch you,” Cora said, rolling her eyes.

“Oh my god, you are so Derek’s sister.” Stiles took a slurp of his milkshake and you put a hand on Cora’s arm to keep her from lunging over the table to punch him.

“I think we just want to know what you think of Derek and Peter: The Golden Years,” you said.

“I don’t believe him,” Stiles said, setting down the shake. “It’s like … in Ms. Blake’s class we’re reading The Heart of Darkness, and it’s in first person, right? Narrated by Marlow. The thing is he’s an unreliable narrator. You know the details of it have changed just because of his perspective.”

“Well, then we heard the story from Peter’s perspective,” Cora said.

“I don’t particularly trust Peter’s perspective.” You twirled your straw around in your drink. “There’s a few things there that just don’t make sense.”

“Exactly! I don’t think we got the whole story,” Stiles said.

“So, what, are you guys just gonna ask Derek about the girl he fell in love with and then killed?” Cora asked.

“If I have to … Yeah.”

You sighed and finished your food. The story was muddled and complicated, and you needed time to think about it before any of you could make your moves - the only problem was that you didn’t have time. You looked over and saw Cora watching Stiles clear the trays so you nudged her lightly with your elbow. “Hey, how are you doing?” you asked gently.

“How am I doing?” Cora repeated slowly, sarcastically.

“Yeah, I mean you’ve been through a lot lately. Finding out you're not the only Hale, being kidnapped, Erica and Boyd…” You shrugged. “It’s a lot. How are you dealing with it?”

“Fine, I guess,” Cora mumbled.

Stiles came back and clapped his hands together to get your attention. “So, we ready to go? I gotta get you home before Melissa kills me.”

“Actually, I'm gonna take Y/N home,” Cora said, standing up. You were surprised but didn't fight it.

“Yeah, we just talked about it,” you lied. “Besides, I love you and all but I’ve really gotta spend more time with other girls.”

“And this is your top choice?” Stiles asked.

Cora glared at him and he rushed out an apology, which made you laugh. You walked around Cora and patted Stiles’ shoulder on your way out. “See you around, Stilinski.”

---

Derek’s Porsche was exactly how you remembered it: expensive and by far the nicest car you’d ever been in. You had to restrain yourself from fiddling with all the buttons and settings, but Cora’s voice drew you out of your concentration.

“I thought I was doing fine,” she said. “With the change. With everything.” She paused. “But when they killed Boyd …” She trailed off, not sure how to finish.

“It made you realize that nothing was fine,” you finished. You shook your head. “Stiles- he doesn’t get it. He’s lost a lot in his life, but he wasn’t close with them.”

“He wasn’t part of the pack like you were.” Cora’s words were simple, but you knew the weight they carried. She took a shaky breath and the car slowly picked up speed as she spoke, “That’s why he doesn’t understand the vendetta. It’s not revenge, it’s-”

“A promise that you won’t forget,” you said. “A promise to make them understand what it’s like living with an open wound.”

Cora looked at you for a second before turning back to the road. The car slowed. “Yeah.”

The rest of the drive home was quiet. You were too busy thinking about what you said and what Cora had said. You figured she was probably doing the same. And when she stopped the car in your driveway, she looked ready to say something about it. You pretended not to notice.

“You know, it drives me crazy that they’re not doing anything about it,” you said. “The sacrifices are because of the alphas. The alphas that killed Erica and just let her rot. That killed Boyd. I know we can’t kill them but-”

“I have an idea,” Cora cut you off. She looked excited but scared. “You don’t have to be a part of it but-”

“I’m in,” you said. “Whatever it is. I’m in.”

And that's how you and Cora came up with a plan to get even. It was messy and wouldn’t hurt all of them, but it was enough. Enough to quiet the rage that burned inside so that you could sleep that night.

Part 12

#stiles stilinski #stiles stilinksi x reader #stiles slow burn #stiles stilinksi imagine #mccall!reader #teen wolf #teen wolf au #teen wolf rewrite #so close

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365daysofsasuhina · 5 years

Text

[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Three Hundred Fifty-Eight: Surprises ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata ] [ SasuHina, pregnancy ] [ Verse: Best Years of Your Life ] [ AO3 Link ]

He’s always done his best to be careful. Sasuke has never been a fan of surprises. Everything in its proper order, proper place, with proper planning and thus his ability to know how to react.

...but Life doesn’t always work that way. Life, as full of patterns as it can be, is still ultimately chaos.

Working on a rather lengthy assignment for his engineering class, dark eyes flicker up as his computer makes an all too familiar sound of receiving a message.

Hey, you busy?

A corner of his lips quirk as his girlfriend pokes in to check on him. His pencil is abandoned, keyboard taken up as he replies, Just typical homework. Need something?

No, just kinda lonely. My class for today got cancelled and I’m all caught up with coursework. But I won’t bug you if you’re busy <3

A brow perks. ...you can come over it you want. At least that way you wouldn’t be alone. It’s just engineering - I can chat and work at the same time.

A minute passes with no reply. But before he can add something else, she offers, ...oh...okay.

...okay, something is up. What’s wrong?

Nothing!

Nothing my ass. I know your disappointed texting tone by now. Just be frank with me, Hinata. What’s up?

Another minute of silence. I just, um...wanted to spend some time with you.

...meaning? By now he has an idea of what she’s getting at, but he wants to make her admit it. He’s never above flustering her, after all. She was such a timid, prude little thing when they met.

She sends a pouting emote. :T Sasukeee…

Don’t ‘Sasukeee’ me. Communicate with me, babe. Tell me what you want.

...I...want to fool around a bit…

There we go. The truth comes out. Smirking at his screen, he replies, ...I think I can take a break enough for that. You just get yourself over here and we’ll figure the rest out.

Okay…! Um...should I bring anything…?

Nah, I’ve got it covered. All I need is you.

Signing off to begin crossing from her dorm to his, Hinata’s status goes offline, and Sasuke decides to call it quits a little early. Tidy as he is, there’s a bit to be picked up in his (thankfully solo) dorm room. Gotta have everything just right, after all. Once clothes are picked up, trash binned, and bed made, he lounges at his desk until a soft knock sounds.

“Come on in.”

Hinata peers around a bit sheepishly, stepping in and closing the door. “Hey…”

“Hey gorgeous.”

“Sasuke…”

“What? Just being honest.”

“You’re r-ridiculous.”

“And yet you love me anyway,” he retorts lowly, grinning as she crosses the room.

“Somehow, yes,” she replies, smiling warmly at him. Knowing his chair isn’t exactly built for two people, she instead grips the arms, leaning over him coyly. “So...ready to take a study break…?”

“For you, any time.” Hands lift to cup at her cheeks, pulling her down to mesh their lips. Hinata breathes a soft sigh, smelling like lilac as she always does. If she ever changes body wash, he’ll be glaringly disappointed. Kissing her slowly until she’s out of breath, he then abandons his seat and stands, grip moving to her waist. The feeling of her hands on his chest - even atop his shirt - makes the skin beneath them warm. “I think your classes need to get cancelled more often,” he murmurs against her mouth, shifting to pay attention to the curve of her jaw.

“I w-wouldn’t mind it,” she agrees, tilting her head for his access. “But I can’t take you away from your homework all the time, can I…? You can’t start failing your classes over a girl, silly.”

“I’m used to crunch time. It’d be worth it…”

Giggling, Hinata lets him push her over atop his mattress, eyes warm with affection as he crawls over. “Then I guess I won’t feel bad.”

“Oh no...you’re going to feel anything but bad…” he rumbles, smirking as her cheeks flush pink.

Once all is said and done, the pair of them tired and satisfied, Sasuke hauls himself up and tidies again, leaving Hinata to sleep as he cracks away at more of his assignment. It’s not due until midnight - he’s got plenty of time. And now he’s got a freshly-bolstered mood on top of it all.

No sweat.

...well, some sweat. But not at all homework related.

From there, life goes on as normal. Classes, homework, visits home...and across campus to invade one another’s dorm rooms. They’re both in their last years, and while the pressure is indeed ramping up, they try to take things one day at a time.

But just as graduation looms...something changes. Texts go unanswered, calls go straight to voicemail...and no matter the hour of the day, Hinata isn’t online.

While Sasuke at first puts it down to crunch time...after a few days, he starts to seriously worry. His messages get a little more desperate, asking her to please reply. But still nothing. A visit to her dorm find it empty...either that, or she’s refusing to answer.

What the hell is going on?

Finally fed up one day, he lurks outside her door for hours, waiting for her to either come in or go out. Other students give him odd looks as they pass, but he ignores them. Something is wrong, and he needs to know what.

“S...Sasuke…?”

Head snapping up, his eyes go wide as Hinata stares at him from the end of the hall. Immediately, he frowns. Her body language is all sorts of closed off. If anything...she looks ready to bolt. “...Hinata? Shit Hinata, where have you been? Have you been getting my messages?”

“...I -?”

“I’ve been worried sick! I thought something happened to you!” Abandoning his leaned perch against the wall, he jogs to meet her, slowing and gripping her upper arms firmly. “...are you okay?”

At the question, her eyes suddenly tear up, shoulders shaking against withheld sobs.

Okay, red flag, what the hell?

“...here, let’s - let’s get inside your dorm and talk, okay? Everything’s going to be okay. I’ve got you.” Putting an arm around her, he gently leads her to the proper door, which she unlocks and then locks behind them. “Hinata, babe...what’s wrong? Please, talk to me.”

Arms hugging herself tightly, she seems to struggle against her emotions. “I...I-I went home. I, um...I wasn’t feeling well. So...I went to see a doctor - a l-lady that I know.”

“...are you all right?”

“I...y-yeah? I mean...technically, yeah, I’m...I’m fine. But Sasuke, I…” Her breath hitches, and a moment passes as she pauses. “...I-I’m really scared…!”

“What do you mean? Why would you be scared?”

Lip trembling, she stares at him as though weighing her words. “...Sasuke, I’m...I’m pregnant.”

His face immediately slackens in surprise. She...but...they’ve always...? “...you’re sure?”

She gives a shaky nod. “...I took t-three at home tests, and then...a clinic test. I’m sure.”

He...isn’t sure what to say. “...w...what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know…!”

“Okay, okay! We’ve...we’ve got time to figure this out. Uh…” A hand rubs at his chin, brain too stuck in its initial panic to really think. “...well...whatever you decide, that’s your decision, Hinata. Not mine. This is your, uh...deal.”

Her gaze averts. “...I-I mean...I’ve always wanted kids, just...I wasn’t really p-planning on it...now.”

“...well, it doesn’t have to be now.”

“...I know. B-but…” She bites her lip. “...in a perfect world, I...I’d like to keep them.”

He gives a slow nod. “...all right. How do we want to make this work?”

At that, Hinata pauses, seemingly taken aback. “Y...you mean you…?”

“What, you think I’m going to run on you now?” he asks. “I thought you knew me better than that.”

“N-no! I...I just...this isn’t exactly the b-best time, and…” Hinata trails off, not sure how to voice her thoughts. “...I thought maybe...maybe it would be...too much.”

Sasuke sighs. “...I mean yeah, it’s...definitely a surprise. But Hinata...look. I…” It’s his turn to fumble. “...I love you. We’ve been together pretty much our entire college careers. And I wasn’t planning on that going away once we graduate. Maybe it’s not how we planned it, but I mean…” He gestures to her. “...I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you. A bump in the road isn’t going to scare me that easily. I’ve already got work lined up. You’ll have a bit of a late start, but...we can make this work. If that’s what you want.”

“...is it...what you want?”

“...yeah,” he agrees after a pause. “...I love you, Hinata Hyūga. And if things kept working out, then...yeah, I wanted things to progress between us. Kids, marriage, the whole thing. Just because it’s a little soon doesn’t mean I’m against it. Things will be tougher, but...I can do tough.”

Expression crumbling, Hinata crosses to him, arms curled against his chest as she sobs in his arms. “Oh my g-god, I was so worried…”

“...is that why you went AWOL?”

“...I’m sorry...I was just so scared...I-I had to have time to think, and...f-figure out how to talk to you about it.”

“It’s okay...I mean I was worried as hell, but I understand. Just...know you never have to be scared to talk to me, okay? About anything.”

“...I know…”

Sighing, he tucks his chin atop the crown of her head. Well...so much for having a five year plan. But he will make this work.

He’s not the sort to back away from a challenge, after all.

.oOo.

SORRY GUYS I know this isn't more of the soulmate AU, but...I couldn't quite figure out how to make this prompt work for it, I'm sorry ;w; I hope this is still enjoyable - a friendo helped me with a plot, and...here we are, lol! I know the tags kinda gave it away, but...I don't want someone stumbling across something they wouldn't want to read, eh heh~ I know some might be disappointed there wasn't more, uh.../nitty gritty/, but I want this series to be able to be read by pretty much everybody in the SH fandom, including those under 18, so...we kinda skipped over that part. I MIGHT do more mature stuff in the future, but...sometimes I'm not the best at it /)///(\ It's a bit of a long reason why, but nsfw stuff isn't always within my ability, I hope you understand! ANYWAY! I've never really done the whole 'whoops' plot before (well...kinda, but not this ship and not this way). I'm not sure it's very...IC for either of them, since I see Hinata as rather prudish and Sasuke as a bit too careful, but I mean...it's not TOO out there, right? But I think if things DID go awry, they'd handle it...about like this, lol Anywho...it's VERY late cuz I was working on another project this evening, so I'm gonna head to bed~ Thanks for reading!

#sasuhina #uchiha sasuke #hyūga hinata #pregnancy //#best years of your life [ au ]#365daysofsasuhina

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dazzlingfantasiesblogs · 6 years

Text

Dreams come true

Juice x Reader

WArnings/Triggers: Implied smut. 18+. If under kindely unfollow me.

Requested by the wonderful @trina44sb

Hope you love it!!

Running your fingers through your hair you were getting frustrated. Looking at the numbers and how much you could pay for your dream house was unreasonable. For months you had been looking at this house on the market, and you were sure that any day now it would be sold. “Hey baby..” you looked over to Juice walking into the spare bedroom you made an office for your work. “Hey..” you kept clicking on the pictures, trying continuously not to tear up. You never wanted much in life, just a fantastic lover, a sturdy house and career. You wanted world peace, but you knew that was asking for too much. You had the lover and career. Juice walked over to you handing you an ice coffee he picked up. He leaned down, kissing your cheek, peering over you shoulder. He knew you loved this house. You continually looked at it. Never expressing to Juice you wanted it. However, he hurd the conversations with a relator. Both of you talked about getting a house in your budget, but one thing your never did was throw a fit about something materialistic. Taking a sip of the coffee, you stood up hugging him tightly. “Thanks Juan.” He smiled at the use of his name, coming from your perfect lips. “I gotta go back to the club, just needed to see your beautiful face.” Laughing slightly you kissed him deeply. He was always so sweet and gentle, except when it came to protecting you. The club even getting shook when it came to you in trouble. “Mm… make love to me first..” smirking Juice knew he could not miss this appointment with the ‘club’. “Sorry baby, gotta go..” he bit your neck gently, hugging you.

“Sorry for running late..” Jax was waiting for him at the club. “What did you need to talk to me about?” Jax popped a cig between his lips. “Y/N has her eyes on this.” Juice opened his phone showing Jax the house. “We need the room, because eventually I wanna start a family. She never asks for anything and she is so supportive.” “Yes she is, always there for the club.” Jax grabbed his phone, scrolling through the pictures. “Nice house.. let me call the clubs realtor.” Juice smiled nodding.

Two hours later, the realtor showed up. “Hey Juice, my name is Mike.” Juice shook his hand. “So the house on maple street huh? Been on the list for a bit. Wanna go see it?” Juice nodded. “Cool, follow me.” Juice walked to his bike following Mikes car.

Arriving at the house. Juice shut off his bike and took off his helmet. He smiled seeing the huge oak tree in the front and wrap around porch. He could see you two sitting there in your old age, god forbid anything happens to him or you. He followed Mike to the front door. Opening it Juice gasped at how much more beautiful it was in person. The dark hardwood floors, everything was re-done so it seemed. “So four bedrooms, three bathrooms, an office area and the basement is furnished. You have parties here for the club.” Juice laughed a bit and walked around. He walked to the kitchen and freaked internally. If you seen the kitchen you would die of happiness, Juice was sure. Following it up stairs he seen the master bedroom and bathroom. It having a walk out balcony. Juice walked to the other bedrooms, he thought that would be filled with your kids. He went down the stairs to the office. He smiled seeing the French doors to the back yard that was huge and fenced in. He could picture the dogs running around with your someday kids. Juice looked around for place to hide guns and the necessitys. He seen that everything had high quality locks. “There is a security system installed. It use to be an old police officers home. He ended up moving to Flordia.” Nodding juice walked down stairs seeing the furnished downstairs. There was a small kitchen and bar area. He would love to have get togethers with his brothers here, shooting the shit and having some beers. Juice walked up to see Mike leaning against the counter in the kitchen. “Is there any problems with the house?” “One, needs a new roof. However the man just put new everything in. including electrical because the house is older.” “It has character” Juice looked around. “How much?”

One week later.

Walking into your shared apartment, you flicked on the light too see everything gone. You screamed a bit running around the apartment. Juice appeared from the bedroom. “Juice.. our stuff.. what happened?” Juice held up a bandanna. “Trust me?” You nodded taking a deep breath. Slight worried he moved to another apartment since this one had a few problems. However you loved the apartment too. Just for the simple fact it was your first one together.

Juice drove in your truck to the new house. “Open your hands.” You did and he set something metal in it. It was too big to be a ring you thought. He opened his door and you hurd it slam. He walked around to your side, opening your door and helping you out. “Take the bandana off.” You slid it off and seen the house you loved in front of you. You where confused. Was this a cheap joke? You looked down to the keys with a keychain that said ‘Welcome Home!’. “What?!” “It is ours..” tears sprang to your eyes immediately. “Baby!” you jumped in his arms kissing him. He held your hand pulling away. Walking to the front door, you slid the key in. You grabbed Juices hand to help you open the door for the first time. Opening it you seen your furniture already placed. “SURPRISE!!” the whole club was there. They held present in there arms. “You ran over hugging Jax and then Gemma. “You deserve it baby..” Gemma kissed your head. The whole club sweaty from helping Juice move.

After everyone was relaxing and you got the tour of the house by the realtor who was very nice you and Juice sat on the couch. “How can we afford this.?.” “Well.. the officer was friends with Mark I guess. Plus.. I saved up $75,000. That business I invested in, got bought out a few days ago. I still hold some shares though.” You looked at him surprised. “I only put down about 50,000. So we can go get some more furniture if you want.” He kissed your lips. “Or we can put it away for a college fund for our little one.” Juice looked at you confused and so did the club. You grabbed his hand, putting it over your tummy. “No..” He had a huge smile on his face. “Sorry I couldn’t tell you in private, I wanted the club to be apart of it.” Juice grabbed your face kissing you hard. “I am going to be a dad!!!!!!” He yelled looking at you. “Sorry for ruining the moment.” JAx laughed a bit. “Not what I ment Jax, we need the club.” You smiled to everyone. “The club needs you two.”

That night, you and Juice marked the whole house. Both of you laid on the floor of the office, covered in sweat. “Geez..” you laughed a bit looking over to the love of your life. “Well.. your already pregnant.. gotta mark this house..” laughing you nodded, curling in his chest. You looked out the French doors to see the stars in the sky. “One thing I wanted to be quite about is.. it is a baby girl…” Juice looked at you shocked. “Really?!” you nodded kissing his lips. “I am three months. I have no clue how I didn’t feel it. The doctor said it was normal at times. Good think I have not drank much.” He kissed your face nodding. “So you love the house?” “More than anything.. well beside you and our baby and dogs..” he kissed your forehead. “Your amazing Juan.”

#soa #soa imagine #sons of anarchy #sons of anarchy imagine #Jax Teller #juice ortiz #gemma teller

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builder051 · 7 years

Text

Dodging bullets with your broken past

Thank you so much, anon, for suggesting this! The story ran away from me a little bit, and it stretched out to 2600 words (exactly).

This is in the same AU ‘verse as Ignite your bones, and unfortunately it won’t make a ton of sense unless you’ve read that 33k word monster. (Access it on AO3 here.)

All the usual sickish and mental healthish warnings apply, plus tw for hospitals this time around.

_____

STEVE. FRIDAY, 08 May 2015. 2102 Hours. Lighthouse Landing Apartments.

Steve’s turning down the bed when he hears it. The dreadful sound of a body slapping against the floor of the shower. “Shit,” he hisses.

It had been a peaceful night in. He and James made milkshakes for dinner and drank them on the balcony while they watched cars tool around the parking lot. A tame lineup for a Friday night, but it had been nice. James had told him most of a story about a pet scorpion from his second tour. It hadn’t mattered that he’d forgotten the ending. It was still progress. And beyond that, it was funny.

They turn in early most nights, since Steve likes to hit the gym at dawn and nightmares bother James more often than not. So Steve had grabbed a book while James commandeered the shower.

The John Grisham paperback hits the carpet as Steve tears into the bathroom. “Bucky? You ok?” he calls over the roar of shower water. There isn’t the scrabbling noise of someone standing up.

“Buck?” Steve hesitates before pulling back the shower curtain. James prefers to take care of himself most of the time. Wait, let me try has become a common phrase in their household. But it doesn’t sound like James is trying right now.

“You alright?” Steve asks again.

No response. He hooks his fingers around the edge of the curtain and peers into the steam. James is crumpled on his side in the too-short tub. Water pounds down, plastering his hair all over his face.

“Oh, god. Bucky. Can you hear me?”

James’s chest moves shallowly up and down.

Steve can barely hear himself over the deluge of the shower, so he reaches in to turn it off. It doesn’t matter that his head and arm are soaked in the process.

“Alright,” he says in the sudden, oppressive quiet. “You with me?”

James’s eyelids flutter. A soft groan escapes between his lips.

“Yeah.” Steve tries not to be overcome with relief. Consciousness is good. But it’s not everything. “Do you know what happened?”

Steve assumes James passed out. It seems more likely than a seizure. And he’s too drowsy for it to just have been a fall. But, based on his position, he probably hit his head, regardless.

“I don’t know,” James mumbles. His arm is pinned beneath him, and he shifts heavily to free it. “I, uh. Hurts.” He shakily shoves strands of hair off his forehead.

“What does?” Probably everything, Steve thinks.

“My head? I…I don’t know.” His words come out slurred. It’s not a good sign. None of it is good, but that seems particularly indicative of damage done.

“Alright. Do you think you can try to sit up?” Steve reaches over the lip of the tub. James latches onto his arm, and Steve heaves him upright. “Ok. Good.”

James lowers his chin toward his chest, swallowing thickly. The heat of the shower had brought up a flush of pink in his skin, but it’s rapidly fading to ghostly pallor. He looks sick. Steve begins to fear the worst. James is still recovering from a traumatic brain injury. The last thing he needs is another brain injury, no matter how mild.

James inclines his head toward his stump shoulder. His shoulders hunch as he fights down a gag.

“Hey, if you’re not feeling—”

James vomits down the side of the tub.

“Alright. It’s ok.” Steve awkwardly pats him on the back. When James is done and coughing breathily, Steve says, “Let’s get you out of here.”

James nods woozily and tightens his grip on Steve’s arm.

Steve could probably lift him up bridal-style, but he wants to give James as much dignity as possible. He settles for taking him around the waist and hoisting him to his feet, then guiding his legs over the edge of the tub. “There you go.” Steve helps him sit atop the closed toilet.

James blinks hard a few times and reaches for the corner of the counter to stabilize himself. “Sorry,” he chokes. “I…I don’t know what happened…”

“It’s alright,” Steve says, grabbing a washcloth. He wipes sick from James’s chin and shoulder. “I think you fell. Do you remember that?”

“No…” He inhales and swallows as if he’s suppressing a gag.

“D’you still feel sick?”

James shakes his head, then leans into Steve. “Tired,” he murmurs.

“Ok,” Steve says, thinking quickly. “Let’s not go to sleep just yet, though.” If he has a concussion, James should go to the hospital. But he’s not going to be too pleased if Steve tells him that. “How about drying off and putting on some clothes?”

“Yeah, alright.”

James takes the towel Steve hands him, but his hand shakes as he drags it over his hair. “Tired,” he whispers again.

“I know,” Steve says, his heart tearing to see James struggle. “But I think you might’ve hurt yourself, Buck. I gotta make sure you’re ok before you go to bed.”

“My head hurts.” James pushes the towel back at Steve.

“Can I look at it?”

James barely nods.

Steve gently pulls his fingers through the tangles of James’s hair, then palpates the back of his head, moving up and sideways. James inhales sharply just as Steve brushes the bump rising a couple inches above his right ear. “Sorry,” Steve says, withdrawing his touch. “You hit pretty hard.”

“I guess,” James sighs.

“You really don’t remember,” Steve muses. “Do you know what you were doing before you went down?”

“…shower?”

“Yeah. Good,” Steve says. Then, “Buck, I’m really sorry, but you’re gonna have to see a doctor about this.”

“Oh.” James face falls. Or maybe he just looks sick again. “Like, an appointment…?”

“No, like right now. Before you go to sleep.”

James looks like he’s struggling to understand. “I…uh. Ok. I don’t…feel very good.”

“Ok.” Steve gives him a sad smile. “I’ll get you some clothes.”

James is surprisingly compliant as Steve manhandles him into a t-shirt and sweats. Steve asks him questions all the while, feeling out his cognitive faculties. But James doesn’t always remember who the president is anyway, so he doesn’t know whether or not to panic when James hesitates over the answers.

James throws up again in the car on the way to the hospital. Steve stupidly forgot to bring a trash can or even a plastic bag, so all he can do is mutter sympathies as he pulls over and dabs at the mess in James’s lap with fast-food napkins from the glove box.

“Sorry,” Steve says. He hopes James doesn’t notice him dropping the soiled napkins into the grass at the side of the road. He feels bad for littering, but it’s low on his list of priorities at the moment.

“Naw, my fault,” James rasps.

“Not your fault at all.” Steve pats his arm.

They make it to the VA with no more incidents. Steve keeps James’s unsteady gait in check as they approach the front desk in the ER. He sits James down first, then goes for paperwork.

Steve’s explaining the situation to the woman behind the counter when he realizes he doesn’t know what to call James in relation to himself. They’ve only been together again for a few months, but he’s tempted to count the last decade as part of the total relationship. “My, uh, my partner,” he starts. “Passed out in the shower. I think he has a concussion, and he already has a TBI.”

The woman nods, then types something on her computer. “His name?”

“James Barnes.”

She pushes a clipboard toward Steve. “Go ahead and fill this out.”

“He’s uh, not feeling so good. He got sick in the car. Do you have, like, something…?”

The woman grabs a pink plastic basin from a stack behind her and slaps it down on top of the clipboard with a compassionate expression.

“Thanks.” Steve returns the smile and heads back to James.

“Here,” he says, edging the basin into James’s lap.

“God, really?” James asks, his expression holding a mixture of humor, annoyance, and illness.

“Just in case. I’d rather you didn’t need it just as much as you do.”

It takes the better part of an hour for James to get called back. He lays his head on Steve’s shoulder, saying again that he’s tired.

“I know,” Steve says, interlacing his fingers with James’s. “But you can’t go to sleep. Not yet.”

Finally they relocate to a curtained exam room. Steve remembers clearly the last time they were in one, and oddly enough, so does the doctor.

“I’m Dr. Hill,” she introduces herself without looking up from James’s chart. “James Barnes… I remember treating you a few months ago. For a seizure, right?” She glances to Steve for confirmation.

Steve nods.

“Another one tonight?” Dr. Hill asks.

“I actually don’t know,” Steve admits. “He was in the shower, and he fell. He was groggy when I went to check.”

“Do you remember?” the doc addresses James.

He shakes his head, then grimaces.

“Feeling pretty sick?”

James inhales and swallows.

“Right.” Dr. Hill scribbles something on her clipboard. “Well, let’s take a look.”

She examines the bump on James’s head first, then shines a light in his eyes. “Your pupils are reacting differently,” she reports. “Looks like a concussion to me.” She turns to address Steve again. “I’d like to do an MRI. It’s probably the last thing you want tonight, but…”

“Yeah, won’t hurt,” Steve says. “What do you say?” he asks James.

“Ugh,” James sighs. “Does it matter what I say?”

“Even when you have a head injury, you’re still funny,” Steve teases. “That gives me hope.”

The MRI takes another hour, and it’s past midnight by the time they finally leave the hospital. James is practically asleep on his feet and doubly unsteady as Steve buckles him into the car.

“Hold onto this, ok?” Steve hands him the emesis basin again.

“Really?”

“Just hold onto it.”

“You’re stealing from the VA,” James accuses. “You’re not supposed to take these home.”

“You are when you’re afraid your boyfriend’s going to make a mess of your car.” There he goes with relationship terms again. Given everything they’ve been through tonight, what does it really matter? But Steve makes a note to straighten it out later.

“’M your boyfriend?” James slurs.

Scratch that, he’ll straighten it out right now. “What would you call it? What would you call us?” Steve’s curious to know. The concussion is making James fuzzy, but it’s also taking away his pretenses.

“Huh?”

“You know, boyfriend. Partner. What would you call me if you were talking to someone else?”

“I don’t know. You’re like, just…you’re everything.”

Steve laughs.

They arrive back at the apartment more or less in one piece. Bucky has a white-knuckled grip on the basin, but his stomach seems to be under control.

“Ready to finally go to bed?” Steve asks. He slips his arm around James’s waist.

“Mm. Yeah.”

Dr. Hill had verbally prescribed rest and ibuprofen. “He’s going to be fuzzy. Forgetful, mixed up, whatever you want to call it. But he’s going to be fine.”

Steve had breathed a sigh of relief.

He leaves James to sit on the bed while he finds meds in the bathroom. “Alright, here you go, Buck.” Steve offers him the pills and a cup of water.

“Hold on…” James is halfway through taking off his shirt. He has it over his stump arm and his head, but can’t seem to wiggle it down his right shoulder. “I’m…I don’t know.”

“Here, I’ll get it.” Steve sets the meds and water on the bedside table and comes to the rescue. “There.” He tosses the shirt into the laundry, then looks to the crusted stains of vomit on James’s thighs. “D’you want to get out of those pants too?”

“Yeah. But…I’m tired.”

“That’s at least the fourth time you’ve told me,” Steve murmurs. But he kisses James’s cheek and helps him finish disrobing. “Take your meds. Go to sleep.”

James does.

It’s after 9:00 the next morning when he stirs. Steve’s standing at the counter in the bathroom, but he whips his gaze toward the bed when he sees James sitting up.

“Hey, Buck. How’re you feeling?” Steve asks, setting the vial and syringe down beside the sink and stepping to James’s side.

“Hm.” He seems to consider for a moment. “My head hurts,” he says sleepily.

“I’m not surprised.” Steve smiles and shakes his head. “Do you remember what happened last night?”

“Mm. I had…an MRI?”

“Yeah. You have a concussion.”

“Oh.” James blinks a few times. Then cocks his head at Steve. “What were you doing? With the…” He gestures through the open bathroom door.

“They syringe and stuff?” Steve clarifies.

James nods.

“Testosterone,” he says simply.

“Ok. Yeah,” James murmurs blankly. It’s clear he has no idea what Steve’s talking about.

“It’s ok if you don’t remember.” Steve sits on the edge of the bed. “The doc said you’d need some time to let your brain reset.” But bubbles of concern are rising in his chest. What if James doesn’t remember him all over again? If he doesn’t remember this about Steve, what else has he forgotten?

“Sorry,” James mutters, drawing his knees up under the blankets.

“Don’t worry about it. Give it a little time,” Steve says. “I was gonna finish getting ready and start some breakfast. You hungry?”

James slowly shakes his head. “Not…not really.”

“Well, you were pretty sick last night. But you need to have something soon, just to keep your strength up.”

James doesn’t reply. His brow furrows as he looks down at the quilt covering his lap.

“Want to give it a few minutes?” Steve asks, standing up.

James nods.

“Ok. I’ll come back and bother you.”

Steve retreats into the bathroom again with a sigh. As the needle bites through the skin of his thigh, he grits his teeth. Not in pain from the puncture, but in concern. Confusion. Frustration. And a desperate desire to act, to fix whatever’s gone off in James’s head when it hit the floor of the bathtub and put a dent in the chrome finish of his recovery.

Steve brushes his teeth and puts on clothes without looking toward the bed, then goes to the kitchen. He’s too anxious to cook. And James isn’t a big breakfast eater anyway. He paces impatiently while coffee brews, then takes two mugs and two granola bars back into the bedroom.

“Hey,” Steve greets. He hands over one of the mugs. “Gotta get your caffeine fix, right? Might help your headache.”

“Hm. Yeah.” James smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Can I open this for you?” Steve holds up a granola bar.

James stares for a moment. “That…um. The girl. In the cafeteria. She’d do that.”

“Darcy?” Steve supplies. “I think you guys had quite a routine going before you moved in here.”

“Yeah…” James trails off. He looks up at Steve. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, there’s nothing to be sorry for.” Steve puts James’s coffee on the bedside table and hands over the granola bar, wrapper peeled back.

“I feel bad, I thought I was getting somewhere, and I’m not.”

“You’re allowed to have setbacks,” Steve says. “We’ll keep trying. We’ll get you back to where you were.”

“I don’t even remember what happened,” James admits. “I just know…something did, and you took care of it. And…thank you. You’re…everything to me, but…” He shakes his head.

“Hey.” Steve puts his hand on James’s stump shoulder. “You’re everything to me too.”

#fanfic #fanfiction #mcu #marvel #captain america #au #whoa bessie #steve rogers #bucky barnes #stucky #sickfic #emeto #emetophilia #concussion #hospitals tw

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megaphonemonday · 7 years

Text

hashtag blessed

approximately forever ago (I’m real slow filling these prompts in case none of you have noticed) @alwayskels sent me this: Ginny is pregnant with Bawson's first baby and her appetite is insatiable! It turns into a thing where like fans take pics with her at restaurants #EatWithBabyBawson. It's all one big joke in good fun. Mike and the team have a field day with it.

And I have wanted to do a multimedia fic for a long long time. I sensed my opportunity and took it. This was a labor of love and I’m actually really happy with the way it turned out. Hope you like it, too!!

read on ao3 | version with image descriptions

The fact that everyone, from bloggers to commentators to fans to people who’d never actually watched a game of baseball in their life, immediately read into Ginny’s placement on the 60-Day DL shouldn’t have been such a surprise. It seemed like every time Ginny so much as changed her coffee order, the public at large was eager to dissect and discuss the incident ad nauseam.

This was no different.

Another elbow strain. Tommy John for sure. She’s out for the season.

No, it’s just a jammed finger I think. They probably wanna make room on the roster, try out some of the newer prospects in AAA.

But did you see her favor her left hip last week? Her landing was off the entire game against the Rockies. It’s gotta be that.

And, of course: Well, what if she’s pregnant?

By far, that was the most popular explanation.

If it weren’t also 100% correct, Ginny probably wouldn’t be so annoyed about it all.

Then again, the sheer number of times a possible Ginny Baker pregnancy had been rumored and reported on—She walked out of a restaurant with her hand on her stomach? Pregnant. Had a less than stellar outing on the mound? Super pregnant. Sent Mike out to CVS to get tampons because she couldn’t be bothered to pull herself together enough to leave the house? Obviously trying to cover up the fact that she was, you guessed it: pregnant—someone had to hit on the truth eventually.

It was cold comfort.

It’d be a little funny if it wasn’t her uterus constantly under such scrutiny. And if she hadn’t had all these hormones flooding her system for the past three months.

As it was, Mike was much better situated to find the humor in the situation. He was currently sitting by her side on the couch, one arm draped casually over her shoulders, reading out the responses he liked the most and counting the number of people who’d finally gotten it right. He could afford to find it all funny, though. He’d only been involved in the parts that were fun for them both.

Which wasn’t precisely fair, Ginny knew.

In the three or so weeks since Ginny’d told him the news, her husband had been on cloud nine. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t been trying for this in the general sense—they both wanted kids, but Ginny was still going strong and Mike was willing to wait—but they hadn’t put a lot of effort into it. (Aside from getting as much practice in the baby-making department as they could.)

So, Ginny’d gone off to Spring Training, not once suspecting what might be forming somewhere behind her belly button.

Not until she couldn’t stop throwing up.

It was so bad, she’d had to skip a start. She’d told Al it was just the stomach flu, and even believed it. Only his skeptical smile and insistence on a doctor’s appointment made her wonder if it was something else.

Needless to say, the skipper’s suspicions paid off. She was pregnant. Nearly nine weeks along.

Ginny will never, as long as she lives, forget the look of awe and tender devotion that took over Mike’s face as she told him, shell-shocked and jittery and still happy as hell, that he was going to be a dad.

His hand came up to cup her cheek, and Ginny could feel the way his fingers trembled. Just like his lips as he swallowed, eyes shining. “I’m gonna be a dad?” he repeated, like he needed to hear it again, just to be sure.

She nodded, covering his hand with hers, and finally letting the brilliant, excited grin spread across her face. “Yeah,” she breathed, just before he crashed into her, his lips stretched just as wide as hers.

And how could she help but laugh when he wrenched himself away, his hands fluttering uncertainly near her stomach. “Shit! Are you all right?”

“I’m pregnant, not fragile,” Ginny promised, though Mike still looked doubtful. To prove her point, she pulled him back in and set about showing him how tough she was.

Since then, Mike had been pretty reluctant to leave her side. Which made the one road trip she’d been on something of an experience. He hadn’t been able to come up with a plausible reason to follow the team to New York and Philadelphia, but Ginny had no doubt that he’d really tried. He’d had to settle for hourly text updates, and when she was too busy to reply, pumping his former teammates as subtly as possible for information on her condition. Since more than one of those teammates asked when Mike had gotten such separation anxiety, Ginny figured he was semi-successful.

Which was why she knew that Mike was secretly relieved the team had elected to put her on the DL rather than risk complications.

If she was being honest, Ginny was relieved, too. Unexpected or not, she’d already grown attached to the little bundle of cells growing inside her. Much as she loved her job, she wasn’t as disappointed to give up a season as she’d once thought she’d be. Then again, after four seasons in the show, Ginny no longer had to battle and grind and push to keep her spot in the rotation. No, she’d probably never move much beyond her spot as the number five starter, but her ERA and win-loss record spoke for itself. She wasn’t going anywhere.

Even after a baby.

So, the public could speculate and take to Facebook and Twitter to talk about her all they liked. They couldn’t change the fact that Ginny Baker was living the dream: a starting pitcher in MLB, married to the love of her life, and expecting her first child.

That was real. That was tangible, unlike all the talk currently flooding the internet.

And real life, the life where Mike’s fingers were toying with her hair and she could smell their dinner simmering away on the stove, that was what mattered.

People said pregnancy was magical.

Ginny had more than a few doubts on that front.

Going into this, she had no illusions that her North Carolina public school sex education had been anything close to adequate. Which was why she’d set out to fill in the gaps in her understanding.

(Not the process of making the baby—she had plenty of experience with that, thank you—but what came after.)

And the more she read about pregnancy, with all its potential dangers and complications—the more horrified she became.

“Did you read this?” she demanded throwing What To Expect When You’re Expecting on Mike’s cluttered desk.

He peered at the book for a second before glancing up to her, his reading glasses slipping down his nose. Which just wasn’t playing fair. He knew how Ginny felt about his glasses.

(In fact, it was potentially those exact feelings that would wind up taking all of Ginny’s research out of the realm of theoretical and landing it squarely in reality.)

“Which part?” he hedged, closing his laptop and giving her his full attention.

That was one of the things about Mike. It didn’t matter how irrational Ginny knew she was being, he always treated her concerns and fears with nothing but complete gravity. And he never tried to talk her down without knowing what those concerns were.

She swallowed. “All of it?”

“Not yet,” he answered honestly. “I kind of figured we had time on that front.” His eyes narrowed and darted down to her flat stomach before landing back on her face. “We do have time, right?”

“Yeah,” she laughed, which was apparently all she’d needed to let this pile of worries melt away for the time being. Ginny wouldn’t forget the things that’d scared her, but Mike was right. She didn’t need to worry about them now. “We’ve got time.”

But that was before she found out she was pregnant.

In the after, Ginny had become remarkably zen about it all. Sure, she’d probably see pimples in places there hadn’t been since she was an acne-prone teenager and later she’d need to pee every fifteen minutes and the mood swings didn’t sound like a walk in the park, which was to say nothing about the changes she’d have to make to her diet, but—

(And it was a pretty big “but.”)

But at the end of it all, she’d have someone who was the perfect blend of her and Mike. Someone who was proof positive of how much they loved each other. Someone to add to their family.

And that was a fair payoff for what Ginny would have to go through to get to that point, she thought.

Just. She didn’t always have to be reasonable about it, did she?

In retrospect, Ginny would acknowledge that she could’ve been less dramatic. But her whole life, she hadn’t been able to eat cilantro without thinking about the time her pop washed her mouth out with soap for repeating the curse Evan Larson had taught her in pre-K Sunday School. Now, she nearly ate half of Livan’s sopes before he remembered to tell her he’d asked for extra of the disgusting herb.

What the hell had pregnancy done to her taste buds?

She’d honestly thought Mike would find the story funny, maybe even figure out how to get it down to 140 characters so he could tweet about it.

(He’d really gotten into social media post-retirement. Eliot had been more than delighted to give him a tutorial that first winter, and soon, Mike could give the best of them a run for their money. Privately, Ginny thought he mostly used it to avoid finishing the memoir he’d insisted on writing himself, but whatever made him happy.)

She certainly hadn’t expected him to send out a panicked group text to nearly every one of their friends and acquaintances asking if they knew of her whereabouts. Since she’d been in the clubhouse, trying to keep up appearances that this assignment to the DL was injury-related, approximately half her teammates came rushing into the dining area to check on her and make sure Livan wasn’t in the process of murdering her or something.

Since the Cuban was too busy laughing his ass off at Ginny’s distress, which, while rude as hell, wasn’t going to kill her, most of them wandered off to finish their pre-game prep. Still, not a single Padre had any desire for their former captain to burst into the clubhouse in a haze of Ginny-induced panic. As team captain, Blip took it upon himself to inform his predecessor that his wife and future offspring were fine and headed home.

It wasn’t that Ginny didn’t feel bad for worrying him, but she also felt he could afford to take a step away from the edge of constant panic. Some time after that haze of blissful anticipation wore off, Mike dove headfirst into preparation mode. He called it nesting; Ginny'd call it something else. Currently, he was in the midst of trying to baby-proof the entire house and refusing to believe that they didn’t need a toilet lock for at least six more months.

(Ginny did her best to distract him when he really got going, and while there was a certain novelty in being the calm and steady one now, there were only so many times she could lure him back to bed—or the couch or the shower—without raising his suspicions.)

So, she listened to her captain and went home to talk Mike down. After all, the team wasn’t wrong in assuming it was only a matter of time before Mike burst into his former domain, wild-eyed and terrified.

When she walked in the door, it was to that exact sight.

Mike had clearly been pacing a hole in the floor, his car keys clutched in one hand, like he didn’t quite trust Blip’s report and was fully prepared to rush out if Ginny didn’t make it home quick enough. Any exasperation she might have felt faded away at the palpable fear etched across her husband’s face.

The keys dropped to the floor when he caught sight of her. In no time at all, he had Ginny wrapped up in his arms, his face pressed into her hair as shuddering breaths wracked his frame.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, smoothing her hands up and down his back. The muscles there didn’t quite relax, so she rucked up his shirt, laying her palms against his warm skin. By degrees, his breathing evened out, all while Ginny promised, low and sure, “I’m fine. We’re fine.”

He nodded but didn’t loosen his grip on her.

“Are you okay?”

Mike nodded again, and Ginny felt the precise effort it took for him to make the high-wire tension of his muscles loosen, approaching something close to normal. She pressed a kiss to his collar bone and another to the base of his throat, waiting until he sighed.

Finally, she tipped her head back to look him in the eye. There were still more than a few jitters clanging around somewhere in that head of his, but he looked far more settled than he had been.

“The sky’s not falling, Mike. I’m not gonna tell you not to worry, but this is a good thing, what we’ve done. Let’s enjoy it.”

“Okay, Gin,” he said, nodding his agreement. He’d follow her calls for this. There was still a hint of uncertainty in his eyes, but his smile was steady.

That was a start, and, with them, a start was all they needed.

After Ginny asked Amelia to issue a statement about the impending addition to the Baker-Lawson family, she sort of expected to be done publicly talking about the state of her uterus.

She was pregnant. She and Mike were very happy about it. She and the developing fetus renting out her womb for the next however many weeks were healthy.

What else did anyone need to know?

How she’d ever deluded herself, Ginny would never know because within minutes of the statement going live, the news had exploded across the internet. It probably didn’t help that it wasn’t just ESPN and Fox Sports reporting on it. No, gossip sites and blogs had picked it up, too, and run with it.

Which was to say nothing about Twitter.

All it took for people Ginny had never heard of, people she’d never meet or even pass on the street, to weigh in on her pregnancy was a valid email address and an internet connection.

And they were all led by none other than her husband and his crusade to make #BabyBawson a thing.

If Mike was disappointed that she’d nixed all of his social media-based pregnancy announcements, he’d gotten over it quickly. He didn’t respond to every congratulatory tweet, but only because it was an impossible task. As soon as he’d get done with the last of them, a hundred more would’ve been posted.

When Ginny’d asked him to enjoy the ride, she was pretty sure this wasn’t what she meant.

But, he was happy, and it was hard to argue with that.

In fact, a lot of people were happy about this baby. People were excited for her, which was a gratifying change from the usual reaction when Ginny’s name was in the news.

It was pretty overwhelming, too, if Ginny was being honest. Overwhelming enough that she mostly elected to stay off social media.

If only her friends had gotten the memo.

Not that Ginny even minded Evelyn sharing this. It was different when it was her closest friend sharing her excitement.

Ever since she first found out, Evelyn had been her rock. Evelyn was her only good friend who was also a mom. She was the only person Ginny could talk to about all the changes her body was going through or about what to expect next.

After the requisite congratulatory hugs and celebrations and check ins, Evelyn Sanders got down to business, peppering Ginny with enough information to make her head spin. Everything from the various pros and cons of a midwife versus a doula to the nitty gritty details of breastfeeding to the best yoga positions to keep her back from getting too sore once she'd swelled up like a blimp was laid on the table.

“Oh, and we still have all the parenting and pregnancy books, so don’t worry about buying those, either.”

Ginny laughed, the weight of keeping this secret from her best friend lifting off her shoulders. “Ev, the boys are twelve! Were you just waiting for this moment?”

“Yes,” she responded immediately, setting Ginny off again. “I tried to donate them once, but Blip snuck them out of the box like I wouldn’t notice. I don’t think he’ll mind them going to you two, though.”

Blip hadn’t quite given up the dream of a baby girl Sanders, but he’d gotten much more philosophical about it all. With Ev back in school, and getting her business up and running, he could admit that the past few years wouldn’t have been ideal timing to add on to the Sanders clan. Anyway, he and Evelyn were still young; they had time.

Maybe—just maybe—by the time Mike and Ginny were done with the books, Blip and Ev would need them again.

After all, it'd be kind of nice for their families to have two generations and three sets of best friends.

So, the fact that Evelyn was ecstatic for her, that was nice to know, nice to have everlasting proof of, even if the world got to know about it, too.

And anyway, Evelyn’s online exuberance didn’t have anything on Mike’s.

He was an excited first time dad. How could Ginny blame him?

Honestly, though, it didn’t bother her that people were talking about her. Not really. Sure, it was one thing for her husband and friend to talk about how excited they were and an entirely different one for a stranger to do it. That was more than a little strange, but she’d mostly accepted that that kind of attention was a part of her life now; ever since Ginny first started making waves in the minors, people had been talking about her. If she let it bug her, she’d never get anything done.

Just, she didn’t particularly want to deal with it herself.

So, she did her best to shrug off her clogged notifications on Twitter and Instagram and go about the business of growing another person inside of her.

And, lately, fending off some of the truly ridiculous cravings that had taken over her refrigerator and life.

The cravings, when they came, were no surprise. Remember, Ginny’d done her research. If anything, she’d been looking forward to them. Someone who’d already enjoyed her food, Ginny looked forward to a period of judgment-free eating. After all, was eating banana peppers on everything for a week straight that much stranger than some of the “health” foods her trainer had tried to convince her to eat?

She knew what Mike would say, but the little disagreements were what made a marriage interesting.

But while Ginny—and Mike, who had cheerfully taken on the sudden increase in grocery store runs—took these cravings in stride, the same couldn’t be said for the public at large.

Ginny’d always liked food and had never bothered to pretend she didn’t. But, since she was a woman in the public eye, this was often treated as some sort of alien anomaly. People always wanted to know what she was eating: her game day meals, what she had on cheat days, secret diet tips.

Of course her cravings were no different.

Between Ev and Mike, people had definitely clued in and picked up on the fact that Ginny had really settled into the inexplicable cravings stage of pregnancy. There was tons of advice pouring in from all over the world. How to deal with it and what to do when they were impossible to sate. It was all incredibly sweet, even if Ginny couldn’t sympathize with the impulse to send a total stranger pregnancy advice..

Less sweet—more puzzling—was how invested people continued to be in these cravings of hers.

In retrospect, it shouldn’t have been so surprising that run of the mill pregnancy cravings had become such a fixation for people. The public at large was hungry for details—#BabyBawson had trended at least three times—that Mike and Ginny just weren’t providing. Since they’d chosen not to find out the sex of the baby, debates about possible names or future careers were too theoretical to keep anyone’s attention, and even though her and Mike’s relationship had caused something of a stir when they first went public, they’d now settled hard into boring domesticity. Well, Ginny wouldn’t call it boring, but she could see how cozy dinners at home and trips to the farmers market didn’t exactly make for riveting news.

Aside from Mike’s unbridled excitement, the only information anyone really had about Ginny’s pregnancy were the cravings. Where else would all that curiosity fixate?

It wasn’t until she came across Mike taking a picture of their grocery list, though, that Ginny realized just how fixated it was.

He frowned down at the pad of paper sitting on their kitchen table, next to the neglected bags of groceries and his keys. As Ginny started putting things away, approvingly noting that he’d anticipated her sudden desire for Nutella and bananas on toast, Mike squinted up at the overhead light and shifted, his shadow moving away from the table.

“What are you doing?” she asked, already unscrewing the jar. Why wait for toast, anyway? A spoon was good enough.

“Taking a picture,” he replied absently.

Ginny rolled her eyes, not that Mike noticed. She drifted over to his side and propped her chin on his shoulder, peering down at the phone in his hand.

“Are you seriously posting our grocery list to instagram?”

“Our third grocery list this week,” he corrected, bumping her hip with his, but failing to dislodge her.

Ginny just laughed, leaning harder into his side. She didn’t pay much attention as he picked his filter and fiddled with the settings; she was too busy planning on getting him back in bed for an afternoon nap. When he made a satisfied noise, though, she turned her attention back to the screen and couldn’t help but laugh again.

“What?” Mike asked, grinning down at her.

“Our unborn baby does not need two hashtags. It doesn’t even need one!”

He laughed, too, and kissed her forehead. “That’s not what the internet thinks, Gin,” he said, and sent the picture out into the world.

Whether he meant to or not, with just one post, Mike set off a verifiable social media movement. Seriously, when Eliot looked into it, he couldn’t help but be impressed by how quickly the hashtag took off.

The one time she brought herself to look at the search results, it was mostly full of people talking about how cute it all was, how excited Mike was about her pregnancy.

Ginny couldn’t disagree.

He was cute. Ginny’d lost track of the number of pictures of onesies and maternity shirts he’d texted her, mostly without comment but the intent clear. Still, she had every single one saved in a folder on her phone. Going to Target with him had become next to impossible since he always ended up in the baby aisle, staring in awe at all the tiny shoes and blankets and toys.

If Ginny’d thought about it, a picture of that—bearded, take no shit Mike Lawson undone by the sight of some baby essentials—would’ve blown #EatWithBabyBawson out of the water.

As it was, she liked getting to keep that part of him all to herself.

Even if the internet was blowing up with her eating habits as fast as Mike could supply them. She’d leave the social media stuff to him.

But then her teammates had to go and get involved.

Technically, there was no reason for Ginny to keep going into Petco. She wasn’t actually injured. It wasn’t like she had to check in with the team trainers or make sure she was keeping up with her workouts. Which she was; Ginny might be taking more naps than she was used to, but even pregnancy couldn’t completely erase her practically boundless energy.

Then again, she’d spent her entire adult life in and out of stadiums. It didn’t feel right to be anywhere else during baseball season.

Her teammates were generally pretty good about her and her growing baby bump’s presence in the clubhouse. There were enough dads on the team that no one hassled her.

Well, not in ways she couldn’t take.

Ginny didn’t care what anyone said. That omelette was delicious. She even got Jean-Luc to try it and in spite of his refined Parisian sensibilities, he’d admitted she was on to something.

So had every Padre that she’d convinced to take a bite.

Which was, admittedly, a pretty small group. Not that she could blame them considering how territorial she’d been over her bag of Funyuns the other day. Sonny was just too busy smarting from the way she’d smacked the snack out of his hands to admit to her culinary genius.

And really, they were just lucky she hadn’t shown up with the peanut butter and olive kick she’d been on the week before.

In protest, Ginny resolved to steer clear of the clubhouse for a while. See how much they liked having the clubhouse menu go back to skinless chicken breasts and steamed vegetables every meal. They’d beg to have her back in no time flat.

Habit was a hard thing to break, though, and the following day, Ginny found herself back at Petco Park. Frowning, she stared up at the familiar facade outside the players’ entrance. She couldn’t go inside. Not if she wanted to teach her ungrateful teammates a lesson.

So, rather than winding her way to the clubhouse, deep below the stands and concession booths, Ginny decided to stay well above ground. Cheerfully, she circled around to the front gates, calling Eliot as she walked.

It’d been a long time since she’d actually had the chance to sit and watch a game; she might as well take advantage of the opportunity. And since Mike was knee deep in edits to his memoirs, Ginny figured her beleaguered social media manager was the perfect recipient for her second standing ticket.

After all, she’d put him through quite a bit lately. Even though Ginny still replied to the tweets and Instagram posts from her friends and teammates and whoever else Eliot deemed appropriate on her own, he took care of the rest.

And the rest was substantial.

Technically, this was well above his pay grade. As Vice President of New Media in the Slater Management Group, monitoring one client’s social media presence should’ve been well beneath his notice. But Ginny didn’t quite trust the horde of interns and associates Amelia’d hired to form the base of her sports agency empire.

And anyway, Eliot was a bit of a pushover. Supply him with enough snacks, and he’d do anything.

Ginny wasn’t exaggerating. She really could only go so fast, which was its own adjustment to make. In spite of all the eating she’d been doing, she hadn’t put on a ton of weight. It was the bump that slowed her down. Practically overnight, it’d blown up, delighting Mike who already had a hard time keeping his hands off her.

Where before she’d been able to hide the swell in loose tops and baggy sweatshirts, there was now no denying that Ginny Baker had been knocked up, and Mike couldn’t be any more smug about it.

“You popped,” he grinned, coming up behind her as she frowned at her reflection in the mirror. This shirt had fit just last week. How was it pulled so tight now?

His hands landed on the fullest part of her belly, and Ginny couldn’t even bring herself to roll her eyes. Instead, she turned slightly to the side to better observe the molehill that’d become something of a mountain.

“I guess I did,” she finally laughed, leaning back against Mike. “It’s not so bad, right? I mean, as long as I don’t get bigger.”

Wishful thinking.

That’d been a few weeks ago and it seemed like all Ginny’d done since then was get bigger.

She didn’t feel slow per se, but she was suddenly so much more conscious of how she had to navigate spaces. Not only did she have to escape the grasping hands of strangers—Seriously, what about a pregnant woman’s stomach made people so eager to reach out and touch?—she had to plan her routes differently, allow herself more time to make it from Point A to Point B. Ginny could no longer slip through crowds or skip down the stadium stairs without a second thought. Maybe Mike and his worries had rubbed off on her, but she was conscious of every step she took now, careful in the extreme.

If some of her teammates were more than willing to poke fun at her for this, Ginny didn’t really mind.

After all, she was more than capable of getting them back.

(Like he could’ve said anything else when she knew exactly where he slept. Still, Ginny made sure he knew exactly how happy his response had made her the first chance she got.)

And he didn’t keep his petty vengeances to the internet, either.

He did look to it for his inspiration, though.

During the All-Star Break, for those Padres unlucky enough to neither be selected to the team nor have any real plans to get out of it, Mike hosted what he named: “Top Chef: Not-So All-Stars.”

He thought it was funny, at least.

It was less a cooking competition than an excuse to make his former teammates come congratulate him on his impending fatherhood and bring food along with them.

Ginny did taste test every dish, though. Less because she wanted to rank them and more because she wanted to see what their wives and girlfriends had to put up with on a regular basis.

Either being pregnant was messing with her tastebuds more than she’d thought, or her teammates were less of a disaster in the kitchen than she’d expected. Nearly every single one of them produced something that Ginny wouldn’t mind eating. Most of it even passed Mike’s more exacting standards.

“Did you seriously make Lorena eat this last time she was pregnant?” he asked Salvi, peering suspiciously at the casserole dish.

“Make her? It was all she’d eat for four days straight. I though I was going to have to invest in Ore-Ida to keep enough tater tots in her house to keep her and the boys fed.”

Mike still looked skeptical.

“Just try it, old man,” Ginny teased, already trying to decide which of her teammates’ cooking she was going to try next. Omar’s ropa villeja looked pretty promising. “Or Salvi’s gonna think you’re chicken.”

When the first baseman started clucking under his breath, Mike swept a mutinous glare between him and his wife, who definitely wasn’t holding in a burst of laughter, and scooped a heaping forkful into his mouth. After a long moment of thoughtful chewing, he swallowed and pronounced, “That was disgusting.”

Ginny didn’t bother reining in her laughter after that.

It wasn’t just her teammates and friends that got in on the fun, though. Ever since Mike had created #EatWithBabyBawson, people had been adding to it like crazy. Eliot always made sure to tell her when it trended in San Diego.

Which was essentially every other day.

Mostly, it was people documenting their sightings of Ginny in the wilds of the city, creating a spotty map of her movements and the evolution of her cravings from day to day.

Needless to say, as Ginny’s food swings (as Evelyn had taken to calling them) rolled on and on, there were many points of data to add. Hundreds of little incidents between Ginny and fans, all documented for posterity on social media.

And Mike encouraged them.

If they were approached in a restaurant and Ginny was feeling up to it, he always cheerfully took a picture of his wife and her fan and often even sweet talked his way into getting a copy of the photo for himself. Ginny wasn’t unconvinced he wasn’t saving them in a scrapbook somewhere.

He certainly had more than enough material.

If Ginny wasn’t feeling up to it, though, Mike was the best buffer in the world. Even if he weren’t naturally charming, he’d learned over his close to two decades in the show how to interact with fans, how to joke and cajole and make a stellar first impression without doing all that much. It was one of the things Ginny admired about him. While she could fake her way through any number of uncomfortable interactions, Mike hardly ever got uncomfortable in the first place. He was too easy in his skin for that.

Either way, the sheer number of positive Ginny-and-Mike interactions with the citizens of San Diego certainly had to be laid at Mike’s door. The bigger Ginny’s belly grew, the testier she got.

While she was always grateful for fans and their support, she was more than happy to leave their appeasement to Mike. After all, he wasn’t the one growing a whole new person.

And he was more than happy to take that responsibility. Especially since it meant he got to trawl the internet for more fodder for the scrapbooks he swore he wasn’t making.

He showed the last one to her as they sat in bed at the end of a long day at the beginning of August. There were still two months to go until Ginny’s due date, but she couldn’t imagine getting bigger. Lying flat and looking down her body, she couldn’t see her toes unless she lifted one swollen ankle into the air. Which she did to frown at how fat her feet had gotten.

She paused in this endeavor, though, when Mike waved his tablet at her. Ginny obligingly took it and skimmed over the story. When she was done, she handed it back and informed him, “I don’t even wanna know how you find this stuff.”

“Then I won’t tell you,” he replied, prompt, before raising one eyebrow at her. The grin on his face had her melting even before he teased, “Sounds like someone’s got a crush on you. Should I be worried?”

Laughing, even as a little foot drummed away inside her belly, Ginny teased, “As long as you don’t cut off my animal style fries like you did all my cheese plates.”

“Listeria’s no joke, Baker.”

She waved him off, but plucked one hand from his tablet and laid it low against her stomach. What only a few months ago had been a slight flutter against her insides had become a definite kick. Mike’s face lit up and he abandoned his device and scooted down the bed so he could press his ear to the dome of her belly. Ginny watched fondly, even when the kicks shifted to her kidneys.

“Once this thing’s out of me, I’m eating so much brie, Lawson,” she promised.

“I’ll buy up all the cheese in France if that’s what you want,”

“And the wine, too?”

“So greedy,” he laughed, lifting up so he could press a kiss against her smiling mouth. When he pulled away, he said, “Whatever you want, Gin. It’s yours.”

“Just you. Just you and this one,” she said, laying her hand back against her stomach, right next to his.

“Sounds good to me.”

By the end, Ginny wouldn’t say that she completely understood the dynamics of #EatWithBabyBawson, but she’d also accepted that that was okay. It didn’t matter that she had no clue what most of these people got out of it.

There was something, and it didn’t matter that she was on the outside of it.

What she did know was how lucky she and her unborn baby were to have so many people in the world who cared so deeply about them. These were good people who wanted only the best for her and her family, and were trying to make sure, in whatever small ways they could, that she had an easy pregnancy.

(And if she got some excellent restaurant recommendations out of it, that was just a bonus.

Ginny’d be lying if she said she didn’t go out and try each and every one of these. They did not disappoint, either.)

So while her cravings had settled down and she was back to mostly eating like herself, she still appreciated the fact that people took time out of their day to worry about her.

These were good eggs. Ginny didn’t completely understand them, but she was grateful for them nonetheless.

Which was why, even minutes after her water broke, while Mike dashed around the house collecting her go bag and going through his three separate checklists, Ginny sat down at the kitchen table.

Waiting at her place was the snack she’d just made for herself. Nothing fancy— the opposite of fancy, in reality—but she’d really been looking forward to eating it. Maybe it was the prospect of her own child’s nearing due date, but Ginny’d been thinking about her own childhood lately, and an after school classic sounded delicious.

She was just coming back to the table with a glass of water when she felt something wet spill down her legs.

Frowning at the still full glass, reality didn’t set in until Mike cursed behind her.

“Did your water break?” he asked, faint.

“I think it did,” she replied.

And he was off, leaving Ginny to contemplate her uneaten snack.

Mike rushed back into the kitchen, looking pale and eager and vaguely nauseous, just as Ginny fished her phone from her pocket and gingerly eased into her waiting chair.

“Ginny, what are you doing?” he demanded, sounding like he’d love nothing more than to pick her up bodily and deposit her in the car so they could dash off to the hospital.

“Taking a picture,” she snarked back. Her fingers flew over the keyboard as Mike shifted impatiently at her side. Once everything was just how she wanted, she tapped the screen one last time and sent the picture out into the world.

Only then did she turn to look at Mike and, with a smile, say, “What are you waiting for? Let’s go have a baby.”

#Bawson fic #Bawson #Pitch #Pitch fic #i wrote something #slash it should also be #i made a thing #like why was a fic this photoshop intensive?#because i wanted to do the Most™#that's why #it was fun though #i don't recommend reading this on mobile #thanks to everyone who #made sure i didn't have to come up with #usernames

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cosmosogler · 7 years

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hi guys. it’s already ten!!!

i went to bed later than i wanted to last night. then snoopy yowled all night. it woke me up 5-10 times. i lost count. i also didn’t know what time it was. i was just in limbo hell of “doze off, get immediately woken up by repeated and continuous meowing, still dark out.”

i was so tired when i got to class. i was so tired. i was only five minutes late. today i put on a light jacket and some gloves so the wind wouldn’t be miserable.

i met with my professors after class... the quantum mechanics professor gave me a Look. the classical mechanics professor told me this is becoming a problem because he can’t post the homework solutions for my classmates. it was... kinda stressful, i guess, honestly. i ended up caving and just asking suzanne for her solutions this evening when it became clear that i did not have time to sit and even start working yet again.

after my first two classes and the professor meetings my friends and i headed out for spaghetti day. it was great. we got there at a reasonable time and we had like 45 minutes to just relax in the grass and eat some spaghetti.

every week harrison has been asking how many regretti i have at the end of each meal when i split off for group therapy. i have been slowly increasing the amount in my reply.

oh yeah between classes luis was sitting at the desk next to me. i think one time he noticed when i was lost in thought because he held out his arm for a high five at the edge of my field of view. but anyway he said i was a northerner and i said arizona wasn’t really that far north of florida. he said i am sitting in the desk to the north of him so that makes me a northerner. i put my face in my hands.

group therapy went really well this week. the others seemed to think we didn’t talk about “anything heavy” but i think tax worries can get pretty heavy... i got to share some of my achievements over the last week and talk about advice i’ve been trying to implement.

like when i was advised to start periodically writing down all my feelings in a notebook or a phone memo, i started stopping myself sometimes during the day and mentally scrolling through all the words for feelings that i could think of. i’d ask myself why i feel this way or that way, if that word fit how i was feeling... it’s not really making feelings come back? but it’s helping me kind of redefine the parameters i want to use for these feelings i guess. i said i haven’t been writing them down yet though, because i haven’t. i should do check ins a little more often even if i don’t put them here.

after group i went to get a hair cut!!! i just got a few inches off, to get my hair above my shoulders. on the way back to the department i noticed when people were looking at me way more than i usually notice. i was really worried something was wrong with my hair, or my face, or whatever i guess. when i finally did get back to the department i went in the bathroom to check the mirror and my brain said “oh!! it is my hair but shorter!” and that was a relief. when i was walking into the building my hair had formed a perfect ringlet directly into my eyeball so i put my bow back in. i had to wait for it to dry is all.

the other students were still all in class so i watched a youtube video. well, i watched two, since they were both around 20 minutes. after that keegan asked if i wanted to play smash and i said yes. harrison also joined us.

we finally figured out a really good system. harrison and i are put on a team (with team attack on) against keegan and that way we win sometimes. actually as we kept playing harrison and i both got a lot better at working together and we started winning more often. we took out keegan when he was trying his hardest as, i think, marth, so he switched to captain falcon and kneed us both in the face until we flew off the edges.

i really want to switch to smash 4 but neither harrison nor keegan have a 3ds.

keegan showed me how to... jump cancel dash grab? i think that’s what it’s called. it made me actually able to grab other characters in the game hahaha. i don’t use grabs very much but with a much quicker option that helped a lot so i could hold him in the way of harrison’s attacks. or just throw him at harrison.

we played right up until the extra quantum lecture at 6. so, an hour and a half. which is not actually that long, game session wise.

i told keegan later that i find it kind of astonishing that, like... it’s not surprising that i feel better after playing a video game with my friends. but the amount that i feel better is really something. i’ve been picking up new moves and hitting more “frame perfect” attacks every time we play and we barely even play once a week. it’s just... nice to be able to learn fast and retain a lot of information really quickly again, i guess.

i realized a little too late that the pace of smash bros is comparable to that of fencing. i’d tell harrison to do something or to cover me and i’d feel like i gave him so much time and he just stood there, but thinking about it i probably gave him less than half a second to react before it was too late. i have to remember he’s a beginner, both to smash and to the gamecube controller. reflexes are something you build up over, you know, twenty-five years of playing video games i guess.

actually keegan was better at reacting to my communication than harrison was and i ended up missing a lot of big charged attacks because i’d try to warn the kid to get out of the way. team combos were a lot of fun though.

i do need to practice melee a little bit though... keegan said he was very interested in one-on-one fights because he would also get to do combos. i’ve gotten a lot better at them in the last few months but i still can’t take him on head to head haha.

that sure was a lot of time i just spent talking about smash!!!

i think i was the only one in our whole class who was actually taking notes in quantum at 6 pm. i was starving and exhausted though. i think everyone else (including the professor) was too. taylor may have fallen asleep.

after class taylor and i talked to harrison for a little bit and then we all went home. when i got home i popped some veggie corn dogs in the microwave and hid some cookies for snoopy. when i went to brush her i think i hit a tangle because she hissed at me again. she didn’t bite though! and i didn’t flinch away, i just moved my hand away and then put the brush down where she could see it. i’m glad that she trusts me enough to just hiss angrily instead of biting me and THEN hissing. she knows i’ll stop whatever i’m doing now.

i cleaned her food bowl... and did some to-do list organization. i’m... worried. i feel like i took too many breaks today, even though it was only, like three. lunch, the videos after my haircut, and then playing melee for a while. everything else was class, doctor, or maintenance.

tomorrow’s going to be just as bad. i’m teaching four hours from 9:30 to 1:45. i might get out a little less late since my slower student isn’t at my section this week... but then from 2 to 4 i’m at the drc. when am i gonna do homework...? suzanne sent me a guide but i don’t even have time to just sit down and follow that. and it’s not just blindly writing down everything because i gotta try to catch mistakes she made. and i also need to understand the material if i’m going to pass the class. it’s more like a hand rail while i go up the stairs.

i guess.

i just want to be caught up to my classmates again... i want to be part of the peer group instead of behind it. i’ve been struggling so hard with the homework that i haven’t been able to contribute and answer other people’s questions even in quantum. and i only have three weeks left to do that before finals. i’m scared. i still need to retake my quantum midterm but i haven’t had time to sit down to review my notes for that either.

sometimes i feel that if i had two more hours each day i could get everything that needed doing done. i’m starting to learn that a big part of grad school is accepting that not everything is going to get done on your preferred schedule. ESPECIALLY for me. so even with an extra two hours i probably just... wouldn’t be able to work for the whole extra two hours. i’m already exhausted by the end of the day. i can’t even do anything after like 8:30 unless it’s home-related and i can knock it out in 10 minutes.

anyway a good thing today is that i got the self esteem boost of participating positively in group therapy today during the discussion, and also of realizing that i am remembering everything i learn during our bouts of smash even though they are kind of short and spaced very thinly.

it’s probably because i am actively doing the stuff i’m learning instead of trying to get it out of a book and lecture. it would probably help if i did physics practice problems. that’s always been a problem.

um... i guess writing it all down like this i did a lot today. it just wasn’t class work, which is what i need to be getting done. maybe tomorrow will be better. i’ll just have to try again. maybe i can bully harrison into grabbing an extra meal with me or something since hunger is a big issue when i’m thinking really hard.

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omnical · 7 years

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I Sing the Body Electric... (1/?)

( Next )

Summary: All her life, forensic pathologist Dr. Angela Ziegler has dabbled much with the dead. After a bout of self-realization, she decides it was time she learned how to deal with the living.

And maybe ask her colleague out for a date somehow.

Genre: AU, Romance. Dark humor. Oh, and ghosts and psychics (anyone a fan of pushing daisies?)

Characters/Pairings: Angela, Lucio, Fareeha (mentioned), Pharmercy

Rating: T, mentions of body gore and third party violence, dark humor.

Links: AO3

Victim died from a singular sharp force: a penetrating wound to the head, resulting in cranial injury.

Left side, approximately 1.53 inches superior to the left orbit.

No murder weapon discovered in the crime scene.

Angela hummed, tapping her lip with the pen.

She paused the voice recorder and wrote her thoughts down on a yellow notebook, leg bobbing, her mind sinking deeper into concentration. By her elbow, a steaming cup of coffee remained untouched, and a nine-hour-old, empty sandwich wrapper laid crumpled up in a ball. Empty coffee cups littered her desk, alongside a mess of sticky notes with crucial thoughts written on them, such as: ‘the nasal cavity?’ and ‘lentil soup’.

Her uniform smelled freshly of antiseptic and murk from the examination they had performed earlier today. It sunk into her skin, her hair; lingering under her nose. Nothing she wasn’t used to, but being used to the smell did not mean she wouldn’t enjoy a long, hot shower back home. Finally, wiping biscuit crumbs off her wobbling keyboard and cracking her long, crooked fingers -- Angela got to work threading the details together. Her peering blue eyes did not break away from the notes and sketches she accumulated, as she typed down her meticulous observations regarding the case. And after what felt like hours, Dr. Ziegler sat back stiffly, curled hands hovering above the keyboard as she skimmed through her official autopsy report, eyes straining from overexposure to the monitor light.

She needed a few more moments of scribbling and typing and biting her pen. Playing the recorder again, keeping it on repeat; she listened to the sound of her voice, crackling and interspersed with static:

Body was found by janitorial staff at 1:30 PM.

According to the man in question, he was lying face-down on his desk, his pose suggesting a struggle, which explains various points of discoloration on his skin…

Blunt force trauma found on abdomen… bruising prominent beneath the left rib –

Where was his position when he received that bruise again?

Angela hummed, her thumbs tapping a random rhythm on the keyboard's space-key.

Once she reached the end of the tape for the third time, marked by a soft ‘click’, afternoon had already come and gone, her desktop monitor the only light bathing her in blue. She hid the recorder in the drawer, her free hand busy alternating between drafting a few rough sketches on paper, and typing exact details on the autopsy report. The doctor took a moment to grab a folder for Case #765 on top of a pile, opening it and flipping over to the photos of the crime scene: dried blood splattered outwards in every chaotic direction on the victim’s mahogany desk; his leather writing pad askew, probably because of how the body fell upon its expiry. She pinched her pen idly between her nose and upper lip, noting how neat the rest of the victim’s desk looked otherwise. She wondered what Satya would say about that particular pattern of blood. It looked like a bunny rabbit.

“Doc Ziegler?”

Cutting herself off in the middle of her thoughts before it drifted too far, Angela reached out to grab her coffee cup, not minding its ice-cold contents, and re-read her notes during their Internal Examination. Angela could only imagine what kind of weapon the murderer used. Or get an idea of what it was, at least, after seeing the results of the death blow herself. This seemed like a tricky one.

“Doc?”

Now if she were to make a guess, it would have been an extremely sharp knife with a serrated edge or…

Angela blindly grabbed for her pen, cocking her head when she realized, during her feverish thought process, she had lost the blasted thing somewhere and could not for the life of her remember where…

“Yo, Dr. Ziegler!” Angela blinked rapidly when Dr. dos Santos’ face appeared in front of her peripheral vision, her blurry sight sharpening until she could see the quirk of his eyebrow and his amused smirk up close. “Busy?” After a pause, a few seconds spent allowing her mind to buffer as she forcefully snapped herself back into reality, Angela jumped in her chair and uttered a small and startled ‘oh’. Her speeding thoughts halting violently in its tracks, not unlike a race car screeching out of the road in a rabble of chaos. She blinked again and, similar to the spread of colored dye blooming in water, her mind began to consciously feel the kinks and aches in her bones ignored for too long. A beat, and she realized her stomach had also released an embarrassing rumble on top of it all. She sent Lucio a sheepish look.

“Doctor, I’m sorry, I -- ” Angela shoved her skewed glasses up her nose, “You startled me.”

Lucio shook his head and rested hands on his hips while he regarded his frazzled mentor. There were biscuit crumbs dotting the corners of her mouth, and her blonde hair stuck up in several different directions all at once. Her clothing was rumpled and frayed, high heels pushed to the corner of her desk, leaving her feet covered in wrinkled stockings, and -- there were coffee stains on her shirt. He sighed, wondering who was really looking after who, in their professional relationship.

“So,” he said, elongating the word into a drawl, “Please tell me you ate lunch?”

Dr. Ziegler cleared her throat, “Yes, of course I had lunch.” she said, wiping crumbs off her chin. “I had something hot and soup-like almost an hour ago, and – “

“I don’t think coffee counts as ‘lunch’, Angela.”

Angela groaned in defeat and closed her eyes, watching bright spots dance beneath her eyelids as her body melted into the chair like putty. She breathed in deep, then stretched her legs out with an exhale. “Just finishing up on some paperwork, that’s all. You know how I get carried away sometimes.”

“How about all the time? And I think ‘carried away’ wasn’t exactly the term I was looking for. Try ‘workaholic’, or ‘perfectionist’.” Lucio leaned his hip against Angela’s desk, crossing his arms, and peering down at her with a mock frown, his neon green headset bunched up around his neck. Even if Dr. Lucio dos Santos was many years younger than her, and technically working under her, Angela hunkered down into her seat feeling much like a child under the watchful eyes of a parent. “When was the last time you took a ten-minute break, young lady?”

“I am not working too hard,” Angela groused. She sat back up in her seat with a grunt, feeling her back and neck pop. “This is just regular me, doing my regular me things,” She shot him a look. “Mom.”

“Don’t give me lip, young lady, you know you’re wrong about this,” Lucio said, “As your colleague, you know I respect and look up to you. But as your friend? You gotta start taking care of yourself, Angela.”

Angela huffed through her nose and began to get her hands busy, stacking the mess of reports which covered her desk into a neat-ish pile, and actively trying to avoid the look Lucio was giving her. “Just be glad I am out of my funk, Dr. dos Santos. I am happy, motivated, and ready to take on the next seventeen cases.” Even the smile on her face felt fake. “Bring it on.”

“Uhuh.” Lucio wryly glanced at the mess of documents under her desk. “Angela, I’m sorry I gotta tell you this, but you have got to get a hobby. Doing something other than work might help you more with this midlife crisis thing.”

“I am not having a midlife crisis thing. I’m not that old, doctor. And–” Angela raised her eyebrows, denial written plainly across her face, “I do have a hobby,” she said with a shrug, “It just so happens that my hobby is related to my work.”

“Your hobby is dead bodies.” Lucio muttered.

“Solving problems. Discovering the unknown.”

“… About dead bodies.”

“Now, if you would kindly excuse me,” Angela threw her entire weight into tossing a giant, teetering stack of documents on the floor next to her feet with a huff. “I was, in fact, about to go and take my break.” she said, dusting her hands together, “Want to have lunch with me, doctor? It will be my treat.”

“It’s seven-thirty in the evening, Doc.”

“Oh, well, time flies I suppose.” Angela said, opening one of her desk drawers, then absentmindedly shoving Jim Jam wrappers and empty coffee cups inside. As if that would make her trash disappear in the morning.

After six months working in King’s Row Forensics Department, the terrifying sight of Dr. Ziegler’s desk hygiene was common enough for Dr. dos Santos to see. He learned early from older residents how futile it was to drag Dr. Ziegler away from a job, and Dr. dos Santos no longer stared at her and her atrocious, self-destructive habits in awe. Their student-mentor positions didn’t stop Lucio from chastising her about her work ethic, especially after witnessing drawn shadows prominent under her eyes everyday, and her smudged make up only completed Angela's usual look. Now one of Lucio’s many fears was finding Angela Ziegler in their morgue someday.

However.

Dr. dos Santos peered at her above the rim of his glasses, and noted the glow about her cheeks with a raised brow.

"Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen you this excited about solving a case since…”

“I am always excited about solving cases.”

“But where was that Doc Ziegler who was ‘tired of it all’ and who ‘wanted to do something new with her life’?” he asked, “Someone who wanted nothing to do with ‘death and dead stuff’? Don't give me that look, you know what I'm talkin' about."

"Lucio--"

"Where was that Angela Ziegler who was planning to quit and maybe try being a football coach or a field medic or something?”

“She is still here, and she happened to get a grip on reality after a lot of thinking.” Angela said, ducking her head, as if that would hide the dusting of red on her cheeks. “Besides, I am already finished with this case. The precinct needs it urgently tomorrow, and, you know…” she stumbled on her words.

“And?”

“I had to finish it quickly.” Angela finished lamely, her voice raising an octave higher as if that would make her sound innocent with her intentions. “Detective Amari was asking about it this morning, and I felt compelled to help her crack this case as soon as possible.”

Lucio felt both his eyebrows reach up his hairline. “Oh. I see. I see.” he said, a twinkle reaching his eye while he casually turned to check his nails, trying to appear more interested with its polish rather than the conversation itself, “Detective Dimples is an awesome source of motivation, isn’t she? Hoping to share a hobby with her, huh?”

“Oh, Lucio!” Angela almost jumped out of her chair, smacking his shoulder with a manila folder. “Don’t call her Detective Dimples.”

“Hey, you were the one swooning over her ‘smoky voice‘ and ‘beautiful smile’ a few days ago.” Lucio laughed, rubbing at the spot she slapped. “Admit it, doc, you’re too gay to handle another meeting with her.”

Angela exhaled, and schooled her features before she became too flustered; raking her fingers through her hair, and hoping the red flush now covering her neck down would fade before another nosy nancy came into the office.

Relax. You are a doctor. You are a professional.

She straightened up in her chair, and folded her hands together in her lap. “I wanted to make sure I handed it in right away, that is all.” she said, managing an impressive professional lull in the tone of her voice. “I didn’t want to make our relationship with the precinct worse than it already is. And secondly,” Angela’s brows pinched in annoyance, and pointed at her office with a sharp jab of her forefinger: “‘Detective Dimples’ stays inside this room, doctor.”

“Detective Amari’s bone structure and cheekbones are so sharp and prominent–“

“Lucio.”

“It makes me want to take up anthropology. Oh Detective.”

“Lucio!”

“Fine, fine, I promise I won’t bring it up again.” he said, trying not to double up in laughter, his poor attempt almost making him slip off her desk. “Professional reasons my ass, though, I know you’re her favorite in the lab. Always asking about you and your ‘thoughts’.” he waggled his eyebrows, “You should ask her out instead of doing this–” he motioned his hands at her vaguely, “Weird flirting ritual thing you’re doing. I doubt you can woo her by talking about dead bodies, Doc Ziegler.”

“I do no such thing, doctor.”

“You need to get out there and get a life. Any life. Get a hobby. Get some friends. Ask Detective A out on a sweet date. Live a little.”

“I do have friends. You’re my friend, yes? Sometimes I even read books.”

“Thrilling.”

“And the detective and I do connect, socially, but just as acquaintances and nothing more.” Angela said, pulling her fingers thoughtfully, “I am a grown woman, doctor, I have complete control of my life.”

“Last time you spoke to her, you struck up a conversation about bile.”

“Well, I thought it was fascinating.” Angela grabbed the rest of her documents and began to rearrange them in a tray next to her monitor, this time with less gusto, feeling herself hunch over as her mind began to conjure up depressing thoughts. “I don’t think I am her type, anyways.”

“Oh, nonsense.”

But it was true. Whether Angela liked it or not, why would anybody consider dating a frumpy, high-strung workaholic, who liked to open up dead bodies for a living?

Dr. Ziegler and Detective Amari were connected through their profession only, no matter what her feelings were. They barely did anything beyond striking awkward pleasantries and empty conversations with each other. Trying anything more proved too much for her to handle. She found it difficult navigating through compelling words above work jargon, while stuttering and pushing through her infuriating and terrifying feelings. Not even the universe was kind enough to let them to meet on different circumstances, thus, they only ever saw each other to discuss murder cases among... other things.

Angela’s eyes, tired and unfocused, turned to look back at the autopsy report, wishing she could get sucked back into its world, where things had more clarity and sense and nothing was embarrassing.

Angela wondered when speaking with the dead became easier for her than dealing with the living.

She checked the time on her digital clock, blinking when she read it was now seven-forty six in the evening. The lights from the city cast a glow over the smoggy horizon, and as Angela listened carefully, she could hear police sirens echo off from a distance. She wondered if it was going to be another case they would eventually find through their doors.

Another body, another life ended.

She felt a hand on her shoulder ground her, all teasing gone from Lucio’s voice. “You won’t know unless you try, Doc.”

EDITED (26/09/17): Just the pacing and switched some words :) Thank you!

#pharmercy #pharmercy fanfiction #pharah #mercy #pharmercy roulette #my fics

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hunterbahamut · 7 years

Text

Part 1

Here is Part 2 of “Back in Action”.

This is a bit of a short chapter, a “calm before the storm”, if you will, heh.

I hope you enjoy!

"You know, you don't have to watch me that close."

Phineas stood close by as he watched Zech in the pilot seat on the bridge of the Leviathan. "I don't feel exactly comfortable knowing that you or Sparks have been piloting my ship."

Zech huffed, "We've been treating her fine."

"Hey! I think we've gotten pretty good at it over the years!" Sparks said, grinning wide.

"And we've done plenty of piloting in the shuttle before hand." Zech interjected, "Besides, it's not like we had much of a choice in the matter."

Phineas grumbled, "Maybe not, but I am still the one responsible for repairing the damage any of you guys have done. I do keep track of all of that stuff."

Zech shook his head, "Just relax, I think I've gotten pretty good at this sort of thing."

"I would hope so." Tero said, "I haven't made any plans on doing any piloting again."

"Thank goodness." Phineas grumbled. "I never liked the idea of you flying my ship!"

Nix shook her head a little, but then walked over towards Tero as he sat at his station on the bridge. "Do you know much about this Gorm Viktor? You seemed to have something against him during the briefing."

"Not directly, no. I just know what I was informed of." Tero was quiet for a moment, "When he was kicked out of the research facility, he had stolen a lot of information from several of the doctors and researchers there, including Doctor Resh, Doctor Drexel, and a few others. I was told that he could have stolen information related to the project I am a part of, so...the idea of someone out there potentially having information on me is unsettling."

Zech twitched is ears a little when he heard that. "All the more reason to find him." He said, trying to hide his sudden, unnerved tone.

"What about this system we're headed to?" Phin asked, "Does anyone know what's up with that?"

"A bit actually!" Sparks said, "It's a system that Buzz, Zech and I had planned on visiting before, but never got around to it!"

"It's a system that's kind of on the border of explored space." Zech explained, "It was an area of interest since the second and third planets are habitable worlds, and the first scout teams had reported that there were ruins of a civilization on one of them. We had wanted to go check it out, but...well...things got busy."

Phin raised a brow, "And by busy you mean-"

"You know what I mean."

Nix blinked and looked at them, "What do you mean?"

Zech sunk in his seat a little, "I...I'll...uh...I'll explain that later...after we're done here." He let out a cough, "But...yeah, far as I know, the system has been left mostly unexplored."

"A perfect place for someone to hide away." Tero grumbled. "Assuming that he really is in there."

Phineas grumbled a little, but he stayed mostly quiet before he spoke quietly to Zech. "Kid, you're gonna tell her about your thing anyway, yeah? Why not do it now?"

Zech twitched an ear, "Cause...I...I dunno if I want to do it now during a mission and all. Plus..." He sighed, "And I dunno if I want to tell Tero yet."

"I thought he was the one person you didn't want to know?"

"He's one of them," Zech said, trying to peer around the pilot console to see if either Nix or Tero were listening in. "Just...now I dunno if I should keep it quiet or not. The one person I -really- don't want to know is Wart! Who knows what he'd ask me to do.” He sighed, “Not like I haven't profited from this already."

“I suppose so.” Phin grumbled, “I know it was to help us, but that was still damn gutsy." He looked over to him, "But you gotta tell her at some point."

"I know, I know..." Zech sighed, "Just...later."

"Will you two stop your whispering already?" Tero spoke up, "We're approaching the system."

"Right, roger." Zech said, sitting up again and working the controls to bring the ship out of hyperspeed and into the system proper. "I'm gonna head to the second planet first, it's the most obvious place someone may hide out at."

Tero nodded and he activated the ships sensors, looking over the information as the ship flew closer to the blue-green planet. "We're not picking up any abnormal readings from the planet; no unusual life-signs, no energy signatures, it seems like no one has been here for a while."

"That's good." Sparks said, "Guess that's one down!"

The next habitable world they approached was a smaller world of red-orange and blue, with a moon on orbit. "Same results." Tero said, "Nothing unusual on this planet either. Scanning the moon next, but so far there isn't anything there either, though I'm not getting clear readings on the far side."

"I'll take us in closer," Zech said, "But I get the feeling that we're not gonna find anything there..."

"Perhaps not, but-" Tero started to say, but he paused. "Okay, now I am picking up something unusual."

"What is it?" Sparks asked, "Is it coming from the moon?"

"Negative." Tero tapped away at the console, "Further into the system, there is a lot of heavy interference, I don't think I've seen anything like this before."

"Interference?" Nix asked, looking at the readout, "...wow, I don't know what that could be."

"I have an idea." Tero said, "But we'll need to move in closer to get a better look."

"Right." Zech said, "Geez...you're not kidding, I'm already seeing it on my console here as well!"

The ship headed to the outer reaches of the system, but slowed to a stop when they all saw a large amber and red cloud ahead of them, hanging in space like a big nebula.

"What is that?" Phineas asked, "That doesn't look like any normal nebula I've seen."

"It isn't." Tero said, "The composition isn't normal for standard nebula. However, it is composed of material found in this system from what we've gathered from the previous scans."

Nix frowned, "Because of those particles, flying through that is going to cause some havoc with our systems; sensors and communications would be pretty much useless, and it could mess with our engines."

Sparks looked at the cloud through the main viewer, "If that's the case...that means anything could be hiding in there, or beyond!"

Phineas grumbled a bit before he turned and started to head out, "Right, well if we are gonna fly through that thing, then lemme head down and play with some things. I might be able to adjust the engines so we can filter some of that crud and make flying through it a lot easier."

"Right..." Zech replied back and he watched him go before he turned back to look out at the cloud. "Do you think this is why they lost contact with that team?"

"I don't think so." Nix said, "At least, I don’t think this is solely responsible. They must have known the dangers, so if they had to go in there, they would gotten in touch with them as soon as they were out."

"Besides, one of their team is an engineer." Tero grumbled, "If Phineas can make any adjustments, I'm sure anyone could."

Zech twitched his ears and looked over to Sparks, "So...that means that they could till be in there."

"Either something happened and they got stranded, or they found something in there." Sparks nodded, "Either way, that means we're going in too!"

As soon as they got the okay from Phineas in engineering, Zech started to move the ship into the cloud. The ship left a trail behind them as they flew through, pushing the particles away and forming wakes like a ship through water. Their sensors were nearly useless, so it took everyone to try and guide visually, trying to find any sign of anything.

"Whoa." Sparks said, watching the sparkling particles flying up around them, "When was the last time we did something like this?"

"I hate to think." Phineas said, twitching a bit as he watched, "Whoa, okay, careful there kid, we have debris coming up."

"It looks like we're coming up on a small asteroid field." Nix said, maybe this is what's causing this cloud formation; something could have broken up."

"Would have been a large body to create this big a cloud." Tero said.

"It had to have happened recently." Zech said, trying his best to navigate around, "Far as I know, there wasn't any reports of anything like this before."

"How recent I wonder then..." Nix wondered, looking out the screen before she noticed something. "Okay, there's something out there, something really big, about two o'clock below us."

Zech nodded and he moved the ship slowly through the cloud, moving closer towards what appeared to be a much larger chunk of rock. The asteroid was much larger than the rest of the floating debris; about the size of a planetoid from the looks of it. They moved in closer, and they started to see something else; something was built into the asteroid. They could see a metal construction built into the asteroid itself, looking like some kind of docking area leading into some kind of facility that was obscured by the rock face, and in the docking area, they could see another ship.

The bridge was quiet as they all looked at the asteroid base. "I guess we found where they must have gone..." Zech said.

"And we gotta go in after them." Sparks said, "There's no where else they could have gone."

"Great..." Phineas said, "This doesn't seem ominous at all."

#bahamut writing #team prototype #sparks #nix #phneas #tero #zech #back in action

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poison--pals · 3 years

Text

cold hearts | rosalie hale

CHAPTER ONE -

"I can't thank you enough, Charlie,"I say, fervent in gratitude.

I give the awkward, introverted, man a hug. He reacts like I usually do-frozen and tense.

However, I'm simply too filled with temporary happiness and gratitude to care.

My parents died last week, and well, I'm not about to let my aunt house me. So when Charlie heard the news, he offered to take me in.

So I've been shipped across the country to stay with my childhood best friend, Bella Swan. I know this girl more than she does herself, which just goes to show that our relationship is extraordinary.

We met in Phoenix, where I had just moved at age 7. Since then, we had hung out and texted forever, even when I moved back to Atlanta at age 16. Safe to say I haven't seen Bella in a good two years, but I missed her so much that I've just been pining to hug her again.

Bella and Charlie are the only people that know about my family's ... predicament. A town this small though, I won't be surprised if someone reads it out of our minds.

The two of us slide into the police cruiser, and I relax on the familiar seat. Sure, I've been seated on the backseat more then the front, but Charlie doesn't need to know that.

I peer out of the window at the dark small town, taking in its imperfections.

We chat like old friends, and silence takes over comfortably. "How is she?" I ask, referring to Bella. Charlie grimaces.

"She's great. Her boyfriend isn't, though." And I perk up in interest.

"Old Bella's got a boyfriend, does she?" I smile. "Hey, what happened to her converting to lesbian and marrying me?"

Charlie smirks. "Guess you can surprise her, Ti. She still doesn't know that you're here."

It's been a running joke for a long time. After I told Bella that I was a lesbian, she embraced it accordingly. Just goes to show that when a straight girl can be friends with a boy, a gay girl can be friends with a girl too.

Charlie frowns. "You know, I'm worried. Bella's pretty clumsy, but she was almost killed on the second week of school."

My head almost hits the roof. "She what?"

I swing out of the cruiser as we pull up to the quaint yellow home. Bounding up the stairs, still high on fear and worry, I slam the unlocked door against the wall and scream up the stairs, "BELLA SWAN! GET YOUR BUTT DOWN HERE!"

A couple of seconds later, a groggy Bella rolls down the stairs, wearing earbuds and a drool spot on her chin.

Bella wipes at her face with sweater paws, and squints her eyes, trying to wake up. "Ti-Tiana...?" She whispers in disbelief.

"Duh, how many friends do you have named Tiana> Do you even have friends?" I tease as she squeals and jumps up from halfway down the stairs.

Now, because this is Bella Swan we are talking about, she naturally has to fall down the rest, tripping and breaking her arm with a sighing Charlie Swan behind me.

Naturally.

Disappointed, but not surprised, I massage my head in exasperation. "I'll take her, Charlie, just get me the keys,"

He throws them to me, and I pick Bella up "Let's go, bestie. You owe me an explanation and a hug."

CHAPTER TWO -

And that, my dears, is why we are sitting in a hospital.

The doctor tending to Bella, a Dr.Cullen, smiles at us, "Only a sprained wrist, though it looks much worse then it is. I can get get you a cast; green, blue, black or white?"

I snort quietly. Bella's going for the least inconspicuous one, I guarantee it.

"Green," She says. I choke on my snort, coughing a little. "Seriously?" I ask her.

"No, " Bella replies, laughing. "White please." Dr. Cullen nods and leaves.

That's the thing with our friendship, Bella and I; we'll never worry about being black and white.

We love each other more for it.

We head home, Tiana driving my truck.

As she parks at our house, lifts me out of the truck, and we enter the living room.

Charlie takes one look and sighs into his hand condescendingly. Tiana rubs his back teasingly. "I don't know how you deal with her, Charlie. I could never."

"Oh save it," I retort, while hugging my dad close. I know he's been worried ever since the car accident with Tyler, and I love him and relate so much to him that no one except Tiana can replicate.

He hugs me back awkwardly, and me and Tiana begin the spaghetti.

I may be straight, and my best friend may be lesbian, but we've made a cuddle rule at the young age of 7, and have yet to break it.

We eat dinner happily, revelling in each other's aura, and fall asleep together, cuddling like always.

- ONE WEEK EARLIER-

Playing with Jasper's hair in the few moments he lets me, I stare sourly at the scene in front of me; Carlisle and Esme staring into eachother's eyes.

Like I need more romance right now, Edward and Bella disgust me enough. Ella and Emmett were shopping, and Alice was... well I had no idea.

Edward was busy playing the piano, trying to impress Bella even more. Like that could happen; the girl was already smitten.

Edward let out a snort, then shot me a pitiful look, reading my bitter mind.

How ironic, the two unmated vampires in the house, until a human of all things comes and claims one of them. Even more painful when the other vampire is, well, bisexual.

I didn't even really hate the girl, it was just...

I just wish I could've died when I was supposed to. It's not like there'll be anyone for me.

Alice burst through the door breezily. "She's coming!" My sister sang.

"Who?" Bella and I asked at the same time.

"Tiana. Tiana Melrone" Alice answered back.

Bella shot up from the desk, hitting her knee one the piano's bench. "Owww," She groaned. "When?"

Alice smiled. "That's for me to know and you to find out, dear future sister."

"Edward?" Bella turned around, still clutching her knee.

He held his hands up innocently. "Hey, I don't know everything!" He protested.

"And why do we care again?" I asked dryly. "Oh yeah! We don't," Before turning back to Jazz.

Bella scrunched her nose at me, "Well, she's my best friend... I'd better go home and yell at Charlie not telling me sooner. Say hi to Ella and Emmett for me,"

Bella hugged Alice, Esme and Carlisle before leaving, shooting me and Jasper a smile.

Alice smirked at me. "Moody already, it hasn't even started, " She sighed in anticipation.

"Mary Alice Brandon Cullen, reveal your secret at once," I demanded.

Ella (Emmett's mate) and Emmett decided to show up at that crucial moment, lugging bags of clothing in.

"Hey, just passed Edward and Bella-" Ella was cut off by Alice.

"La. Tua. Cantanteeee" She trilled, and the whole family snapped her heads up to look at her.

"What? Again?" Carlisle whispered.

"Oh yeah," Alice grinned. "Here's the plan."

CHAPTER THREE -

I roll over, yawning lazily, sunlight streaming through Bella's old white blinds.

"Bells, babe, you gotta get up," I unstick my taller form from the tiny brunette, eyebrows creased in worry.

I check my watch; 7:15 AM. Eh, I'll let her have her sleep.

"Just a couple of minutes, mkay?" I lean over and kiss Bella softly on the forehead. I know I'm acting like we're married, but although Bella is beautiful, I'm simply not attracted to her.

I grab a blanket, and walk down the stairs, sighing softly.

Staring at the small kitchen, gleaming in the sunrise's effect, I slide over to the cupboards, pulling a waffle maker from the first shelf.

I whistle softly while I make the waffles, Charlie having already left. Just how happy is Bella?

I get the chance to ask her when she tramps down the staircase, brown hair neatly behind a red headband, and sporting jeans and a black sweatshirt.

"Oh hell no," I remark, and slide the waffles onto the plates, allowing them to cool off. "You've got a man, right? That is not how you dress, sweetheart."

"It's the only thing I have," Bella wheedles, but I'm not having it.

I run upstairs, view her embarrassment of a closet, grab a couple things from my suitcase, and push Bella into the bathroom with the articles of clothing.

"Tian- TIANA! YOU EXPECT ME TO WEAR THIS?!" Bella screams from inside. I only giggle.

"The red looks really good with your type of brown hair, Bells. Just like how I look good in green." I yell back.

I hear a sigh of defeat. "Fine. But one day, Ti, and if Jessica of all people doesn't compliment it, I'm never wearing this again."

I chuckle softly, then stop. "Wait, who's Jessica?"

I can her laugh softly. "This girl from Trig. She thinks I'm going to steal Mike from under her-"

I rest my head against the door softly. "Lemme know all of the dirt in that high school on the way there, Bella. Don't you try to change the subject on me, come on out."

I can practically feel her biting her nails, and swings the door open.

I check her out, then do a double take and check my best friend out again. I sigh, "Dammit, Bells, you're going to make me catch feelings, and then where will we be?"

She chuckles, looking like a goddess.

Bella's dark red headband sits perfectly on her flowing, glossy hair from the oil I gave her. At her throat, a red, glass, circle pendant sits.

Her dark red sweater wraps just the right way around her, accentuating her curves and slimness. Black skinny jeans hug her thighs, and make her legs look longer then they are.

And finally, laced boots that I bought a couple of weeks ago, black with red laces.

Bella offers me a shy smile, and I nod. "Yes. This is it. Oh my gosh!" I squeal.

"You don't look too bad yourself, Ti." Bella looks me over. "Looking like a meal."

I keel over laughing. "It's lookin' like a snacc, Bells. Oh, you'd think that you just turned 39 instead of 17."

She slaps me on the arm teasingly. "Be grateful you're hot, Ti."

I mean, I do look pretty good. A green crop top with black sleeves and a black undershirt, green jeans and green laces on my black lace -ups.

Then, three green bracelets and a green clip in my hair. Overboard? Yes.

I'm a black girl in a white world. Like my wardrobe could do anything to change that.

CHAPTER FOUR -

I get out of the red Chevy, feeling eyes burning into my skull, scouring every part of my body where my skin is visible.

The chatter is silenced, and I see people sneering at me.

I knew this would happen, and I still thought that people would accept me in this white-washed town.

I hold my head up, and sashay towards the office building, Bella walking beside me.

Once we are safely inside, I turn to her and whisper, "You can go, Bells. You know me, I'll be fine"

Bella hesitates, then hugs me. I wrap my arms around her. "I'll talk to you at lunch. Text me if you need anything." She says into my shoulder.

"Okay, love you," I let go of her hand.

She mouths 'Love you too' and then she's gone, walking back towards the entrance.

I set my arms on the office desk causally, and the secretary, an old white woman with permed blonde hair in a purple tee hung her phone up and glared at me.

"Hi, I'll be attending here for the next couple of months," I smiled kindly, "I'm Tiana Melrone,"

"Is that so?" She asked, drawing out every word.

"Yes. I actually need to go to my next class in 5 minutes, can I have my schedule and map?" My smile grew wider.

"Of course! Just give me a couple of minutes to draw one up for you," Mrs. Pine bared her teeth at me and bent down, completely ignoring the stack of maps beside her.

She perused the files for several minutes, muttering quietly, "Melrone, Melrone, Melrone," As I watched her passed the "M" section several times.

I tapped my foot angrily, clenching my jaw. The unabashed disrespect was voluminous, and when Mrs. Pine finally set my schedule down, I left, pulling Bella's old map out.

I checked it briefly, and then headed to the gymnasium, or whatever the little room was called here.

I breathed out thankfully; I still had 30 seconds until class started. The last thing I needed was detention.

I rushed to the gym as quickly as possible, and burst through the gym door right before the bell rang, huffing in annoyance and irritation.

- F O R K S H I G H S C H O O L - G Y M N A S I U M -

It was awkward.

Those were the words I'd use to describe trying to get changed in the small change room.

I was currently hushed in the crook of the locker room, trying to slip off my sweater and replace it with a t-shirt as soon as possible. I decided to take my high-rise jeans on, it would hurt my performance too much.

I practically sprinted out of the room, relief spreading as I ignored the baleful stares.

"Who does she think she is?" I heard, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a blonde with a lip ring place her hand on her exposed hip in utter annoyance.

Great. It appeared that the little crook was actually "Her Spot". Perfect.

I smoothed out my leggings, and made my way to the gym floor, where everyone was setting up the nets.

There was apparently one good thing about Forks after all; it played volleyball.

- G Y M N A S I U M-

I was holding back, as per usual.

Years of playing volleyball at a high level made me really competitive at the sport, and the absolute incompetency of my peers disgusted me.

I was leaning to spike over the net to my opponent before the coach blew his whistle and announced that we were going to start playing couples against couples.

Just perfect.

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munchkinxcop-blog · 7 years

Text

Erin

For the last fourteen months, Erin had spent much of every day wrapped up in the arms of the man she was now engaged to marry. Her life had changed drastically since the night she finally took him up on his offer to go out, only after a difficult day at work, leading into a night that would be the turning point she never saw coming. Something shifted between them and all along, he seemed to know, yet it all came as a surprise to her. Every step of the way, things were drawing them closer and closer. Every step in their relationship had been due to something heavily driven by some other force up until the night he proposed to her, which was all him. It did not come because of any outside influence, just simply his desire to spend his life with her, which to this day she still wasn’t sure how she got so lucky that it would be her.

Friday night, October 23, Erin ran to the store to grab some coffee for the morning. At least that was the story she would pitch. In truth, she was late. She knew she needed to face the facts and find out for sure. The purchase was made and she returned home. The coffee placed in the cupboard, the pregnancy test beneath the bathroom sink. As C.J. came downstairs from putting the boys to bed, she was coming out of the bathroom, changed into her pajamas. Slipping into bed, she pulled the blanket over herself, meeting his eyes as he came into the room, pulling the blanket back for him to join her. She did her best to keep her demeanor even, though she was worried for what the morning would bring.

The next morning, she woke up early having barely slept at all. Instead of waking him up like she normally would have should she awaken first, she went to the bathroom instead, shutting and locking the door. Pulling the pregnancy test from the box, she read over the instructions once more, finally committing to doing it. After taking the test, she closed the lid on it, placing it to the edge of the bathroom counter as she stared at the screen, awaiting the results in what felt like the longest three minutes of her life. Finally deciding to look away, hoping if she did the time would pass faster, she couldn’t help but wonder which way she even wanted it to be. At one time, she would have prayed for the negative, but now? She wasn’t so sure if she’d be upset with a positive either, not that they had been trying, but the idea of having children wasn’t quite so scary to her anymore after being part of the family unit with the two boys. She’d found something more important than just her career.

After three minutes, she turned around, peering over at the screen with a held breath. Placing the test back in the box it was originally packaged within, she placed it in the trash can, heading back to the bed in her place at C.J.’s side. She drew the blanket back up over herself as she battled with how she felt for the result of the test, not sure if she should say anything, but as the man started to wake, her emotions were worn plainly against her features. “Good morning,” she whispered, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. Normally she would greet him with a ‘happy anniversary’, but this morning, she was far too distracted by other things to be able to say that which she had greeted him with for the previous fourteen months religiously. “I’m late… so I took a pregnancy test…” she began, not exactly the smoothest way to wake the man, but surely effective. “It was negative.” She offered quickly, though it was clear that she had mixed feelings on the fact. Though she knew they weren’t planning to extend their family yet, it was hard to not feel some disappointment by the test, though had it been positive, there would have been a sea of worry wrapped in such a small word.

Trying to convince herself that this was fine and she couldn’t necessarily go changing up the game plan on him, she forced a smile to come through, giving up words she thought perhaps he’d want to hear. “So, happy anniversary. You won’t have a fat fiancé that has crazy mood swings and cravings.” She teased, though her mood was less than jovial. She didn’t know what else to say, knowing well that what she had said had fallen rather flat, so instead, she opted for a silent pause to wait to see what his thoughts on that even were. It wasn’t a topic they had discussed much, but this would prove to be the first time she actually showed interest in potentially extending their family together.

C.J. His eyes were not even open by the time the word 'pregnancy' penetrated his sleepy atmosphere. Taking a moment to remember what that word meant. He had definitely heard it before but it had been sometime. Her offering. Still needed to be translated through the fuzziness. Her teasing luring his hand to lift and rub over his face. Not able to open his eyes for another moment as he exhaled a low breath. "Aren't the rules that you gotta be woken up with a blowjob if you are going to mention pregnancy?" The man playfully yet dryly asked as he lifted his head. Luring it back go the headboard. Glancing down towards her as the words translated. The slight disappointment in her voice evident even as he was still trying to wake up. "Did you just take one test?"

Erin “’Fraid I don’t know the rules…” she whispered honestly. Now that she did though, even if he was just teasing, she’d be sure the next time the word was spoken it was after he had been properly taken care of. As he came to life there beside her, she instantly regretted waking him in this manner. Attempting to mask any disappointment there in her tone, she slipped back from him, resting her head against her own pillow though it was barely ever used. “Yeah… but it was negative. Not sure why they put two in the box, really. Isn’t one no enough for anyone?” She asked, shrugging her shoulders as she let her eyes fall closed. “I guess it’s just a work-stress late.” She spoke honestly as that was all she could imagine would have affected her cycle, having seen it happen once or twice a few years back when the cases were especially heavy. This only standing to be the first irregularity while with him, thankfully so as she wasn’t sure she could handle such monthly. “You want to take the other?” She teased, trying to find that comic relief he had gone for with his blowjob question moments before, searching for something a bit lighter.

C.J. He shook his head at the suggestion of two being enough though the option of it being stress related was always a valid one. God knows he never knew someone who took their job so seriously. Who lived and breathed it. "There can be false negatives..." he confessed as he gave up a loud yawn. A momentary pause in speech to allow it. "With Bash, she had to take 6-7 of those fuckers over a few week time period until she finally went to the doctors who confirmed it." He confessed, arm extending. Gesturing for her to find his side.

Erin The words ‘false negative’ had her opening her eyes once more, finding his arm outstretched for her to come within. She was feeling closed off at the moment, not quite sure of how she felt about any of this, but as she saw him open up his span to her, she couldn’t not go into him. Moving from her own pillow to rest her head against his chest, her body pressing to his side as she curled into him, finally allowing herself a bit more transparency in her feelings on the matter. “We weren’t ready for that anyways,” she whispered, resolving herself to what she thought to be true, words she thought might ease them out of this topic and on to something real. All the while facing a feeling of loss where there had been nothing to begin with. “I don’t think we need that many tests. Those things are supposed to be pretty accurate nowadays. I just… I don’t know. It wasn’t the worst idea ever, I guess.” She added, recalling her nerves the night before when she laid down in bed, thinking it was a maybe. “We haven’t even talked about it.” She reminded him, tilting her head slightly upwards as she took in his facial profile. “Are you… disappointed?” She asked, realizing his tone seemed to indicate a possibility, as though he were looking for one.

C.J. Feeling her against his chest, his arm curled around her shoulders. Leaning his head against hers briefly before he turned his head once more. Kissing her temple. Reaching down for the blanket to pull it onto both of them. Hearing her suggest that they were not ready, the man didn't flinch. It wasn't meant to hurt him. Even if he was already a father twice over and had all the faith in the world in this relationship. Glancing down towards her upon her question. A shrug of his shoulders. "It depends. Would it have been happy news? Sure but...when it's ready to happen, it'll happen. Either way, we'd be fine." He stated as he pressed his forehead to hers. Having a hardtime keeping his eyes open. "We can talk about it though...anytime you want. No topic is off the table, sweetheart."

Erin As his arm wrapped around her, she felt that kiss to her temple, prompting a soft smile there on her face for a fleeting moment. As he spoke, she was forced to face some of her feelings on the matter. Though it hadn’t been something they were trying for by any means, when the thought passed her mind the day before that she was late and maybe they were, she had found a bit of excitement in that. It was why she hadn’t bought anything for their anniversary or planned some elaborate show of affection for him. She had thought maybe she’d be presenting him with something else. Something money couldn’t buy. Something more. Though she knew if that test had been positive, it might’ve been a stress of its own, though laced in this concrete evidence of their love and relationship. She’d already thought of how the boys might feel. She’d worked through it silently in far more intricate manners than would be appropriate for just a what if. “Is it wrong I kind of… hoped it would be?” She asked, finally giving firm evidence to that which she had thought about. A statement that would contradict everything she had said a moment before as she attempted to smooth it over with the both of them, making it as though they weren’t ready when the entire time it had been her fear of not being ready to put down the badge. A lot had changed in her over the last few months. She’d made leaps towards this family life and found herself quite fond of it in ways she’d not overly expected. Now, it felt like a loss that the test had been negative, though she wasn’t entirely sure planning for an extension of the family was something they should be looking at yet. A part of her wanted to. “Do you… want more kids?” She asked, her eyes lifting to find his, a topic that needed discussion, even if a few months before she might’ve freaked out over the mere mention.

C.J. “No, of course not.” he concluded upon her question of what was right and wrong here. A shake of his head. He knew what it was to be with someone facing potential pregnancy and not wanting it. It was a difficult feeling as a man. An odd sense of guilt accompanied it for being the one to cause it. Even if it did, indeed, take two to tango. He saw her working around those few emotions yet somehow seemed to understand what was going on in that head of hers. Her follow up statement had his eyes meeting hers. Pressing a kiss to her forehead before he spoke. “With you? Yes…with anyone else…no.” he confessed, having honestly thought about this. “Before I met you, wasn’t really something i thought about but with you…I’ve been thinking about dimpled babies for a long time.” he confessed with a smirk, flashing his own set of dimples. “Wouldn’t it be hilarious if one day, we did have a kid and it didn’t have dimples? I’d have to look at you a little funny for that one, hun.”

Erin Confirmation that he wanted children with her but no one other than her had her instantly presenting that trademark half-smile. It might’ve been the most intimate sentiment for her to hear he had been contemplating those dimpled children for a while now. She recalled him teasing before they were even a thought in her mind about the dimpled babies and how he had been battle tested as if it would be the sole reason she’d agree to go out with him, but now it didn’t seem quite so come-on’ish and far more endearing. As that smirk presented his dimples on display, she already knew that whatever would follow was entertaining to him before it passed through his lips. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s even a possibility… genetically speaking.” She agreed, as the degree of his dimples was far more prominent than her own, but the child would have gotten them from both sides. “Be testing every male I am in contact with, eh?” She added, as though it would alter the paternity of the child. The more playful demeanor finding them had her opening up a little more, her stance against him not nearly so closed off. Molding closer to him as she propped her chin against his chest to be able to maintain sight with him, though at the moment her eyes were to those damned dimples. “You know how much I love you?” She asked, her hand finding the side of his face as she felt true appreciation for the man as he took a situation that had her feeling truly raw emotions within it and finding a way to make her smile even through what felt like a surprising sadness that had washed over her in light of the negative test. “So much that having babies with you doesn’t scare the shit outta me.” She confessed with a fuller smile, her own dimples showing themselves as her fingertip rounded his own.

C.J. “Yeah, I don’t think so either. You figure…the other two got ‘em and they only got half dimpled genes.” he reminded her, shaking his head at the concept of ‘testing.’ “If that’s what you want to call it…” he teased, giving up a soft laugh as it would be less of testing and more of killing but he’d roll with it, hearing her question as she found the side of his face. He nodded. “I know you do.” he confessed, the follow up question bringing a grateful smile. “and it shouldn’t. We’ll be alright. Whether that day or tomorrow or a few years in the future.” he assured her simply.

Erin “True,” she stated as the other kids had them with half the genes, thus proving just how strong C.J.’s genes were in that equation. As he suggested it might not be testing, she let him have that one, knowing he’d have nothing to worry about. If one thing was for sure, she wasn’t an easy one to get with, and C.J. could attest to that. That smile there at his lips as he made promises of the future had her returning that full smile of her own. Lifting upwards, her lips found his in a soft exchange there at his lips before she withdrew slowly, though not returning to his chest again yet. “So what if it’s not a few years from now?” She asked, giving a slight indication there that she might be contemplating something a little sooner. Even if she kept dragging her feet on the wedding date, this would prove that she didn’t actually want that to be so far off either.

C.J. Hearing her question as she pressed her lips to his, meeting her eyes upon her question. Cocking a brow. Ironic considering. “Well, if it’s not tomorrow and you are not pregnant now then…” he paused, he was by no means a traditional man. It was no surprise that he did want to marry her before they went there yet it was so difficult for him to deny her of anything. “Not to be the killjoy but there are alot of things that would have to be worked out. I know you are in no big rush to take up desk duty…” he reminded her, flashing another quick smile to get him out of what he was going to say. “Not to mention I’d atleast like to have a ring on your finger by then.”

Erin “Yeah…” she offered, resolving herself to that which he said. He was right. It wasn’t anything either of them needed to fall into right now when they still had other things pressing and needing their attention. That ring had been on her finger for a bit now with no date even being entertained. She’d jokingly offer 2029, but they both knew that wasn’t realistic. Everything within her mind was starting to feel a bit heavy as she found herself rushing full throttle into a life with the man, ignoring everything along the way. Her commitment to this life with him taking over in multiple ways, engulfing her, pushing her to entertain thought processes she’d never been much into before. Marriage. Children. Desk duty. A life that she couldn’t even fully comprehend, probably better guided off into the future by the words of the man she laid against. “You make me think of things I didn’t know I wanted,” she confessed, stealing his lips once more, attempting to silence not only her words, but her thoughts as well.

C.J. Hearing her statement, not quite sure that sounded like a good thing and he might have asked if she wasn’t pressing her lips to his. His intentions had never been to overwhelm her life and maybe he was asking too much. Pushing her too hard. Maybe he needed to take a step back and tell her what it was that she wanted. His hand slipped up, finding the side of her neck as he pressed his lips a bit harder back to her. Pulling back only when he needed to speak. “I love you so much, Erin. You have no idea.”

Erin The firmness in his kiss was almost enough to silence the conversation she was having within herself until his lips parted from her own. Her eyes still closed in that second he spoke, only opening upon his final words. A soft smile there at her lips as she nodded her head. “I think I do, but if you’d like to remind me, I won’t be opposed,” she teased, nudging her nose to the side of his. The ring on her finger spoke volumes to that which he was proclaiming now. The fact that she was entertaining any of the ideas in her head, actually being slightly disappointed about a negative pregnancy test, all attributing to proof of that which she felt for him. The life she never knew she wanted all unfolding before her, none of which was causing her to run in the opposite direction. Quite the contrary was true. She wanted this life with him a little more every day, investing herself so deeply that a loss would be life shattering. Making herself vulnerable to him, to the relationship, showed the utmost trust she had in who they were and where they were in their lives together. The girl who once claimed she was okay on her own, reminding him constantly of her independence, now felt no need for the concept at all. Clinging to the life here with him and the boys, even beyond those already within the walls of the home. It was a lot, but for the first time, the weight didn’t have her running for the door. Instead, she was clinging tightly to the man, allowing herself to experience those emotions and feelings right along with him.

C.J. “If only there was a way to explain it to you…” he sighed honestly, knowing where words failed him, music did not. Yet, even with that, he had difficulty expressing it. It was an overpowering, awe-inspiring love. Terrifying yet brilliant all at once. “You think you know but you don’t know…” he teased. “I just know how much you’ve sacrificed to get here and how much faith you have in me and that makes me love you harder because you should have that faith. Because there is nothing that could come infront of us that we couldn’t handle…” he confessed as he met her eyes. “Unless you cheat on me of course, then we’d have some issues but anything other than that…” he stated with a wink, knowing that was not likely.

Erin “C.J…” she whispered, her heart instantly filled with his words. “I haven’t sacrificed anything. I’ve gained the world.” Her words were completely honest to her as she felt them to her core. Her faith was there and inspired by this man and his faithfulness to her in every way. Both professionally and personally, he had gained her trust completely, showing her every step of the way that he would be there for her without failure even once. He had been constant with her in ways she couldn’t have ever anticipated someone offering her. She had once seen herself as so damaged, yet he was able to see past all of it, find the good, all while reassuring her that she was worth it all. There were simply no words to fully thank the man for seeing something in herself that she never could see. “I believe in us.” She whispered, as it was the root of it all. Stealing his lips once more, yet briefly before she’d offer him that smile again. “Nah, don’t think you’ll ever be facing that one. I’m a lifer,” her words paired with a nod of her head as she brought herself flush against him, easing over the man, both hands taking to either side of his face. “Who would’ve thought it?” She asked, suddenly making a dramatic gasp there at her lips as she brought her fingertip to the tip of his nose. “Mmm, I think you did.” She reminded him, as he seemed to have it all figured out long before she had. “You’re my everything,” she confessed, lips passing his once more. “And I will spend the rest of my life loving you and only you. I’m yours.”

C.J. “Glad to hear it.” he commented as she mentioned being a ‘lifer.’ Feeling her at the sides of his face, her question luring a telling smile out of him even before she hit her punchline. A nod of his head. “Damn straight I did.” he commented, rather proud of himself for that fact. Not for knowing it but convincing her to take the shot. Tasting her words as her lips passed his and gave up that memorable ‘I’m yours’ phrase. “Mmm…you are…” he commented honestly, pressing his lips back to hers for another series of slow and lingering kisses.

Erin There was no way she’d interrupt those kisses he was offering her. Her hands relinquishing their hold on his face, her forearms finding the pillow on either side of his head, her lips there at his own. A slowly building intensity between each kiss, not quite sure how she went from bordering depression over the negative test to this, but the woman wasn’t complaining in the slightest. The night before, she’d been off. Claiming fatigue, though her mind was in overdrive. The case load as of late having taken a toll on the both of them, to which there had been many nights of falling into bed exhausted. In this moment though, there was a feeling of complete relaxation as the two spent their waking moments facing facts and transitioning into one of the best anniversary revelations to date, truly expressing themselves freely as they marked a day that a hypothetical would change the landscape of their lives from that point forward. Slowly retreating from his lips, sealing that kiss with one last one, a whisper there at her lips. “No more 2029 talk… How’s your 2016 looking?”

C.J. Savoring each kiss before he felt her backing from them. Not quite yet opening his eyes to meet hers as he felt her lingering there. Debating on whether to pull back or not. Smirking softly at her statement. Still quite amazed he had gotten her to give there. He nodded slowly. “All yours, Munchkin.” he added honestly, no bookings to date unless it would be one very specific day he got to share with this woman. Everything else in the world could wait.

Erin A hum met her lips as he agreed to the year being open to them, along with a little pet name it had been a while since she had heard. Drawing back from his lips entirely, sitting upright over top of him, her eyes set to his as she ventured into territory she’d fought tooth and nail. “Alright… so… sooner or later?” She asked, her hands finding his, linking her fingers through his own. A conversation she’d pushed off yet now she was willingly entering into, surprising herself slightly, but going with it.

C.J. Feeling her hand find his, he tugged the one over to guide her overtop of him. Hearing her question, weighing his options before a shrug seemed the best choice. “I don’t know, that’s what we have to discuss. Working out what time we want to do it, how we want to do it. All that fun stuff…then after that, I say we just screw the middle shit and hire a wedding planner because if you do want to go that route…I’m not going to be alot of help to you with picking out napkin color.” he added honestly, figuring it was better said sooner than later.

Erin Coming over him, her lips drawn in to his neck. Taking advantage of this access as it seemed far better to speak of such things while well distracted, thus keeping the importance and weight of it to a minimum, allowing them to just enjoy the more playful side of things. “Hmm…” she managed there at his neck as she put her focus to his flesh for a short moment. “You think I give a shit what color the napkins are?” A teasing question there as she was not that much of a perfectionist. The little things didn’t matter to her at all, nor would they. All that would matter was the four of them becoming a family. “The only thing I want is my three guys. And my new hyphenated last name…”

C.J. “I sure hope not…” he returned at the napkin color debate and how it continued onto her follow up. Smirking softly as he nodded. Already having mentioned that he would not mind if she didn’t take up some part of his last name. Yet, it would be an honor should she choose it but necessarily a necessity. “I think we can manage that.” he offered up honestly as his hands settled to her sides.

Erin “Or…” she paused there after that word, her teeth lightly teasing against the curve of his neck, leaving the man to wonder just what might come beyond that word as she shifted her hips lower on him, her path taking a turn for his chest. “Maybe…” she continued, now on a mission to keep him guessing as her lips took liberties against his flesh. “I don’t know…” The blanket slipping down her back as she continued that lower venture, her hand tightening in his as she paused mid-chest, her eyes darting up to his. “Erin Lindsay-Luciano… a little lengthy, don’t ya think?” She offered, a knowing smile there on her lips as she suggested something she’d stood against from the get go. A carefree shrug of her shoulders as if it was no big deal what she was suggesting.

C.J. Feeling her slipping down his chest, eyeing her as she offered up a smile following her statement. "Maybe but...if anyone could pull it off, it would be you..." he reminded her, not quite putting together the offer as he had never thought she'd suggest it. Watching her shrug her shoulders as his hand passed down the back of her neck. "Alot of L's though..." he hummed in thought.

Erin “Mmm, maybe…” she reasoned to his mention that she could pull it off, realizing either he missed the offer or wasn’t interested in it. Either way, she’d leave that one be for the moment as she pressed another kiss to his chest before laying down against him, stopping mid-pursuit. “Then we could name our kid some L name. Leslie or Luca or something. Luca Lindsay-Luciano.” She teased as she felt his hand to the back of her neck.

C.J. Hearing her suggestion, he has to laugh with a shake of his head. "I think you'd like your kid a little more than that." He confessed as his fingers drifted down the backs of her shoulders. Keeping his eyes on her as she took her rest. A moment of silence before something began to catch up with him. "Wait...are you suggesting you'd..."

Erin “Suggesting I’d like to lay here on top of you for the rest of the day? Why yes, yes I am.” She teased, lifting her eyes to his, a smile radiating through her hues to prove she was teasing him and clearly onto his line of thinking on this one. Dragging her lower lip through her teeth, she offered a bit of a shrug there at her shoulder beneath his fingertips. “I don’t know… am I?” She asked, far more serious as that bite to her lower lip told stories she’d not tell yet with her mouth.

C.J. Not quite laughing at her suggestion as his thought process was somewhere else entirely. Meeting her eyes, despite her smile, not going to be able to give one of his own. Her question causing a shrug of his shoulders. "I don't know, hun. You tell me..." he stated, as he couldn't make that decision for her but was curious to her thoughts on it.

Erin Bringing one hand to his chest there beside her face, shapes drawn at her fingertip as she eyed him, finding him irresistible in his present state. “Tell you that maybe I think it might be something else if I were to perhaps not continue to carry my prior name and maybe just go by yours, when that day comes, somewhere in the next… year or so… and not have so many L’s going?” She asked, her words circling that which she was saying when it could have come out far more simple than that. “Maybe the idea of Erin Luciano…” she added, pausing there after it to allow that smile to seep through once more. “If you’d give it to me, that is.”

C.J. "Yeah?" He asked at the suggestion of limiting the L's. The sound of his voice showing the tone of surprise that was evident in him. The sound of Erin Luciano dragged a smirk from him. "It's yours for the taking." He reminded her, having offered it the moment she got his ring. "I just never wanted you to feel like you have to because you don't but...if you wanted to..." he paused, teeth finding his bottom lip. "I would like that..."

Erin Watching him navigate through that one, her smile was never ceasing as she found the man completely adorable as he offered up that he would like it, but always with the respect for her own decision on the matter just as it was in most everything along the way. It always seemed to take her a little longer to get there, but without fail, she almost always warmed up to something over time. Her own teeth taking to her lower lip as she lifted upwards, her hand taking the side of his neck as she pulled herself up to him, stealing his lips with her own for a long moment before breaking that kiss, though not fully pulling back. “I do want to,” she confirmed before her lips were right back to his again.

C.J. Pressing his lips back go hers as she slipped back up him, hand at the side of his neck as his thumb passed her jawline. Meeting her eyes briefly at her confession before allowing his lips back to here. Arm slipping around her waist as his other hand remained to the side of her neck. Pulling her into him even closer than she already was if at all possible.

Erin The depth of that kiss spoke volumes to that which was felt between them in the reveal of the formerly sensitive subject. Her own emotions running up and down thus far that morning between talks of wedding dates, last name changes, and negative pregnancy tests. The girl was changing right before his very own eyes, only leaving her to hope she wasn’t changing too much too fast. Simply unable to think or act like the girl she once was as the cracks were filled in and she was made whole by the man there at her lips. Drawing in as close as he would prompt her, the pull of his arm around her waist and there at her neck, her own hand to the side of his neck as her free hand gripped his upper arm, encouraging that hold he had on her at that point. Her lips softly to his, matching the touch of her hand.

C.J. Humming to her lips, quite content with the embrace and all the things they had laid out there. Calmly. With ease. No tension. Something that, without a doubt, made them work in all the right ways through out the occasional hitches. His lips drawing through the warmth of her kiss as his tongue parted his lips. Drifting across the part of her own for that non-verbal permission.

Erin Allowing that brush of his tongue to the part of her lips for a moment as she offered a soft hum as though she might need to think that one over. A small smile forming there at the corners of her mouth as she parted her lips to his, permitting that access as he would already know she would, only making him wait but a moment. Her own tongue breeching the part of her own lips to meet his as she tilted her head to the side, allowing for fuller access. Her lips pressed firmly to his own as her tongue smoothed over his, a union that would send chills down her spine upon the stimulation of his taste flooding her senses.

C.J. Feeling her lips part for him. Something that would have blatantly shocked him if it didn't happen, he felt the motion of her tongue over him as he leaned further into her kiss. Fingertips revisiting the back of her neck where he had previously been. Kneading gently into any source of tension he found there. His head tilt mirroring hers in the opposite direction.

Erin The absence the night before out of her own nervousness masked as exhaustion had her slightly more eager than was typical for the woman. Feeling him deepen that kiss in the movement of his fingers and the tilt of his head. Her hand vacating his upper arm to slip beneath his neck, supporting him there as she withdrew her tongue, luring him within the confines of her own mouth should he choose to take it. Her hand slipping from the side of his neck to his chest, down his side as she shifted her hips against him. The strap of the silken camisole slipping from her shoulder as she leaned further to one side, attempting to draw him overtop of her.

C.J. Feeling her natural lean, he recognized it. Easily using it to slip them over with ease, getting her onto her back as he slipped overtop of her. Feeling her at the back of his neck as his own hand found the side of her neck. Drifting down her shoulder. He had notched up a bit of distance the night before to her just being tired yet was now beginning to conclude it might have been something a bit deeper. Making him glad he had allowed her her space as his tongue drew into her mouth. Giving chase as she so desired.

Erin Maintaining that kiss as they shifted position naturally, the new position affording her to slip her hand from the back of his neck into the short locks at the back of his head, drawing deeper into that kiss as his tongue joined her own within the confines of her own mouth. Her knees bent to either side of him as the blanket became tangled in the shift. Her free hand slipping down his side to grip at his lower back as she held to the man’s frame. Though the weight of that test hadn’t come out quite like she had worked herself up to, leaps and bounds were made that morning in their engagement, appropriately so on the morning of their anniversary. Just as she was losing herself in that kiss, the knock at the locked door would interrupt all forward progress from a little hand. Drawing back from the kiss, her forehead met his shoulder as she took in a deep breath there for a moment, a screeching halt with a sigh at her lips as she attempted to come down from the height of that kiss.

C.J. Feeling her pull back from the kiss as the knock came, he couldn't help but laugh at her reaction. Pressing his lips to her temple. "Just remember these moments when you want a positive pregnancy test." He teased as he pressed another lingering kiss to her temple as he leaned up from her and the bed. Winking playfully as he got up. Giving her a moment to cover up whatever she felt necessary as he cracked open the door just enough to answer it.

Erin A grumble was there at her lips to his reminder as he pressed a kiss to her temple. As he slipped from the bed, she caught that wink of his eye, having to shake her head to it. “I hear you,” she managed as she lifted the strap of her camisole back to her shoulder, sitting up in the bed as she drew the blanket over herself, though clothed in the tank and shorts, still doing so out of sheer habit at this point. As he cracked the door, she couldn’t help but snicker at the thought within her mind, that the little knock had not been from the coffee delivery service.

C.J. The exchange was brief, a nod. A few words as he spoke to his youngest who informed him that he had been sent down by their grandmother to inform him that they'd be spending sometime out. Errands with their grandmother with the promise of a park trip. Giving his understanding. He watched him running off to the other room to collect the flavor of the week toy to be brought with. Smirking to himself, he closed the door. "You got lucky on that one."

Erin Hearing the excitement from the little one there at the door, Erin couldn’t even be mad they were interrupted. There was something about seeing those boys happy that had grown on her in ways she couldn’t begin to explain. As he closed the door, it was written all over her face that her moment of disappointment for the interruption was long gone. “Oh? Did I?” She asked playfully as she lifted a finger to motion for him to return to her. “Let’s find out just how lucky, huh?” A slight bite there to her lower lip as her finger gestured for him, quite pleased to find out they would have a few hours of the house just to themselves, something of a miracle in its own right.

C.J. "You did." He confirmed, turning the lock on the door just in time to see that motion of her finger. Luring an audible groan out of him as he just about jumped back into bed with an all too familiar enthusiasm. Flashing her a quick smirk before his lips took to the side of her neck. "Mmm...not fair when you do that." He uttered between kisses to her skin.

Erin That groan had her smile breaking free that bite to her lower lip. As he nearly jumped back into the bed, she gave up an instant laugh, having no idea just why this man was still just as into her as he had been their first night together, but knowing she was the luckiest girl in the world for it. A hum taking her lips as the laughter faded to the feeling of his lips to the side of her neck, leaning her head to the side to grant him this access. “When I do what?” She asked innocently, though partially truly not knowing what it was she had done. “Whatever it is, I need to know… so I can do it more often.” Teasing him as her hand found the back of his neck, her eyes falling closed as she simply enjoyed the pass of his lips to her flesh.

C.J. If at all possible, he only seemed to become more and more attracted to her each passing day. What had once been a sheerly physical lust had evolved as he maintained that infatuation with her physically building the foundation for what he adored about her everywhere else. Hearing her question, he hummed to her skin. Teeth grazing where her neck and ear met. "You know what." He reminded her, pressing another firm kiss to that same spot. "Everything you do, somehow...it's not even fair."

Erin “I didn’t…” she managed as she felt his teeth exchanged for his lips once more, causing her to draw in a breath through parted lips. “I didn’t do anything…” she argued, drawing her lower tier between her teeth. Melting into those kisses at her neck, her lower body shifting in response. She’d not ever understand certain things about this man, but they all seemed to work in their joint favor regardless. She could only imagine that which she felt for him was something like what he felt for her, though she’d always be slightly envious of how freely he seemed to portray it whereas she struggled with the conversion of thoughts to words and actions. “I think I could literally lay here all day, just let you do that, and be the happiest woman in the world,” she confessed as that touch was perhaps beyond any other to her.

C.J. "You're always doing something." He playfully reminded her as the woman was never innocent for too long, his hand slipping down to press up the side of her thigh. Hearing her confession which made him smirk as his lips found her ear. A kiss to the shell before he was speaking. "Well, I don't know about all day but I got a few hours of you'd like me to kiss your neck the entire time..." he teasingly added right beside her ear.

Erin She might have been satisfied for just that if it weren’t for that wandering hand venturing up her thigh towards that silken fabric of her shorts. The addition of this touch had her drawing her knee upwards, a hum there at her lips at his suggestion of meeting that which she had requested. “Mmm, I don’t know about that now…” she confessed, her hand finding the curve of his shoulder. “Although, it is cold as hell outside,” she reminded him, which meant marks would not be as clearly on display outside of that room of theirs. A swift turn of her head would have her lips stealing his with a firm kiss as her fingertips gripped to that curve of his shoulder before promptly breaking off the kiss almost as soon as it started. “How’d I get so lucky?”

C.J. Feeling her knee draw as his fingers chased under her shorts, he heard her statement about it being cold bringing him to smirk softly as it was. Everyone was binded to the chin and it was as good a time as any as he felt her lips seek out his. Pressing his own back to hers before hearing her question. Smirking softly to her lips. "I don't know how lucky you are..." he confessed as his lips slipped down to her chest. Finding the bit of her cleavage above her shirt.

Erin His wandering hand and wandering lips had her hazing over as she so often did when the two actually found the time to take their time with one another. “Oh, I’m very, very lucky actually,” she managed, attempting to keep up this line of communication for as long as she possibly could. Her hands slipping from him as he was granted uncontrolled reign over her, at least for the time being. “I get to love the most amazing man in the world, and he loves me back.” A smile crossed her lips as she spoke her honest take on their relationship at its very core. “He’s even going to let me have his name.”

C.J. "Loves you very much." He reminded her as to put it so simply seemed like a miscarriage of his true feelings. He more than loved this woman. He worshipped the air she breathed as his lips were momentarily distracted from her chest before returning. Smirking at the mention of his name. "I'm the lucky one for that." He reminded her, teeth tugging playfully at the top of the linen keeping him from accessing her fully.

Erin Her eyes drifting down towards him as his teeth took the fabric of her top, finding him absolutely irresistible in that moment. Slowly bringing her hands to either side of her, pushing against the bed to lift up there. Her hands moving to take the bottom hem of her top, slipping it up and over her head for him, revealing her flesh fully to him in that moment as she tossed the top off to the side. “Can we agree that we’re both equally lucky?” She reasoned, both hands taking the sides of his face as though to stop him from taking to her flesh until they met some form of agreement on the matter.

C.J. Feeling her at the sides of his face as if she'd keep him there on her terms. He flashed her a telling, mischievous smirk. His hands slipping up for the band of her shorts as he disobediently dipped his head forward. Daring her to tell him no as he took advantage of her chest. Lips pressing to her bare skin now as he assured not an inch of her went without the touch of his lips. Not quite willing to agree. Atleast not yet.

Erin “C.J….” she warned as she felt the full trouble behind that smirk before it even fully set on. As he slipped through her hands, taking to her chest, she could only give in to that touch as his hands made that move for the removal of her shorts as well. She’d make him figure that one out as there was now no way she’d be standing up to do it herself. Sitting upright before him, her hands finding the bed behind her, slightly leaning back, though not allowing her back to touch the bed just yet. Her eyes falling closed as she realized she was losing this battle for a truce on the topic of them both being lucky, though just his touch in that moment proved she was the lucky one as far as she was concerned.

C.J. Her warning brought a slow laugh to him as he blatantly disregarded it. Never claiming to be good at direction as his mouth surrounded one of her nipples. Feeling her lean back as his tongue swept her. Mouth gently suckling against her hardening peak under constant supervision of his tongue as it smoothed over her. Fingers still at her bottoms seeing he'd get no help there.

Erin The laugh was damn near sinister as it filtered through her own ears, already knowing he would not heed her warning before it had ever left her lips. The way his mouth worked there at her nipple had her back arching, her head tilting further back as she leaned into that touch, surrendering to it for a moment. A hard bite there at her lower lip as she brought one hand to the back of his neck, fingertips pressing firmly into his flesh before rapidly sitting upright again, her hand flattening against the back of his neck, drawing him in tighter there to her breast directly contradicting her warning moments before as he fully won her over.

C.J. Feeling her lean up, his eyes smoothed up. Finding hers as she encouraged him this time around. Not sure what was more satisfying. Not listening to her or listening to her. Regardless, he allowed it as it worked to his advantage. A vacuum created with his lips before the thick of his tongue was back to circling her. His hands smoothing up her sides. Determined to get those shorts off eventually.

Erin An intensity there at her hold, driven by his own actions, luring her from a place of contentment to one filled with an engaging desire for the man. Her hands taking to either side of his face again, this time forcing his lips back from her, that suction he had formed causing a draw as she pulled him away as a whine fell against her lips. A power drawn up in her as she brought her hands to his chest, pushing against him as she finagled her way out from under him, backing against the headboard, drawing in deep breaths as she met his eyes. Rising to her knees, her fingertips taking to the sides of those shorts he wanted gone so badly, slowing down the moment as she allowed him to simply look over her as she inched those shorts down, deciding to torment him with the slower speed there, all the while torturing herself a bit in the absence of his lips.

C.J. Feeling her both draw his head and push from him in about a moment flat, he had to smirk as he watched her hit the headboard. Rolling onto his side to watch her lure down her shorts as she slowed them down a bit. Hand slipping up the side of her thigh as a bit of encouragement as his fingers gently tugged at the fabric.

Erin Fingers hooking through the waist of the silken shorts, taking the small band of her panties along with them, she inched them down slowly as she felt his hand there at her thigh. Her eyes set to his, she wouldn’t try to stop him as she lifted one knee and then the other, allowing the passage of both articles to vacate her flesh entirely. Sitting back onto her calves on bent knee before him on the bed, a slow drag of her teeth against her lower lip as her half-smile took her features. Her hand seeking his as she ever so patiently sat before him, making no attempt to bridge the gap between herself and where he laid against his side. “Better now?” She asked, referencing those shorts finally being gone as he wished.

C.J. Hearing her question, his eyes already drinking her in. He nodded as he leaned up on his forearm. The other hand still passing over the side of her leg as he smirked softly. "Absolutely...it could be better though..." he reminded her, a waggle of his brows as she was still too damn far away.

Erin “Oh could it?” She returned playfully. Feeling his hand there over the side of her leg, so tempted to cross that divide between them, yet seeing that look in his eyes was well worth holding out. “What would make it better?” A tilt of her head while that telling smile took her features. Her hand finding his there at her leg, stealing it for herself as she limited his contact. Stretching her fingers through his as she took full possession, at least for the moment.

C.J. "You...right here." He added, giving her hand a squeeze and a gentle tug. Free hand patting his stomach to illustrate where he wanted her in that moment. Meeting her eyes as he was a moment away from pouting at her but still taking the opposite approach. For now.

Erin Eyeing him there as he gestured to where he wanted her, taking that moment to resist if only to torture him further. A mischievous grin there at her lips to suggest her playful demeanor. “Are you thinking like… now? Or in a few minutes? Maybe later?” She teased, that bite to her lower lip returning as she started to falter in her stance, unable to resist the man for too long, though still toying with him while she was losing her own inner battle on the matter. That tug to her hand nearly doing the trick as she sat back on her feet, anchoring herself as best she could. “You drive a hard bargain, Detective,” she teased.

C.J. "Drive a hard something else too." He remarked as she gave some, another tug of her hand as he laid onto his stomach. Exhaling a low breath as his teeth settled on his bottom lip. "You should be eager to figure out about that offer..."

Erin His mention of driving something else, she couldn't even hide that telling grin. She should've seen that opening she had given him, yet missed it entirely until he drove right through that too. As he recommended she reconsider his offer, she eyed him closely. "I should, huh? But you blocked it..." She reminded him as he took to his stomach. Finally giving in to the man, she released his hand entirely, both of her hands taking to his shoulders as she attempted to turn him over. "Change your mind on me?"

C.J. "Nope." He stated at her reminder, shaking his head as if it had never happened. Feeling her at his stomach as his hands found her hips as she took to his shoulders. Thumb rolling over her bone structure as he glanced up towards her. Feeling her attempt to tilt as he gave some at her willing. "I don't know what you are talking about..."

Erin “I’m talking about… you needing to get over on your back.” She continued prodding there at his shoulders as he started to give a little. Something that had never been introduced into the bedroom, though that small window gave her just enough. A strong maneuver as she swiftly landed him on his back, straddling over him as she crossed his wrists as though they were awaiting cuffs. Looking down at him with a sly grin as he had seen this maneuver of hers used on criminals, yet never had experienced it firsthand. “So… better now?” She asked, a smirk there to her lips as she looked down upon his face, her eyes set to his.

C.J. Always slightly amazed by her strength upon seeing it, now he was feeling it as he felt her against him and at his wrists. A slow smile crossing his lips as he shook his head at her. “Stronger than you look…” he remarked honestly, though the lift of his wrists suggesting he was resisting arrest. Hearing her question, his jaw tightened. “And if I say ‘no’ detective?”

Erin That slow smile at his lips noted the playfulness there between them, his words there furthering her actions in the persona of detective. Another swift move of her hands against his wrists, pinning each to the bed to either side of his head further restraining him. “Then I suppose you are forcing my hand here.” She decided with a nod of her head as she leaned down, her lips quickly stealing his before robbing him of that contact almost as soon as it had begun. “So how about you tell me just what it is that you want to happen here and I’ll see what I can do to potentially accommodate you?” Her teeth stealing his lower lip as she tugged back against it slightly, her grip there at his wrists tightening. “Could always find those cuffs from your birthday and do that to you again…” she reminded him as she eyed him suggestively.

C.J. Feeling her pinning his wrists, he could still resist her if he really felt inclined but he’d let her think she had some pull here from now. At mention of the cuffs, he had to smirk lightly. Not thinking she’d go that far here. Feeling her against his lower lip, his tongue sweeping over the area a moment later. “I want my fiance.” he reasoned in return, making sure to use as often as possible. “and I don’t think she’s got the nerve for that so she better quit with the idle threats…”

Erin Instantly releasing both of his hands in complete and utter shock that he thought she was offering idle threats. “You want your fiancé but you don’t think she has it in her, but the same girl who is your fiancé that was once your girlfriend absolutely had it in her and if memory serves… handcuffed you to her bed and tortured you for hours on end?” She reminded him, a certain look there in her eye as though she were being dared. “Where are the cuffs?” She asked point blank, showing she was making no idle threats and would not be backing down at any point in time from such a challenge, nor had she been speaking in idle threats of anything, willing to completely back up her own words.

C.J. Feeling her release his hands, he had to laugh at how seriously she was taking his playful response yet it had worked better than expected. Making her eyes, hearing her question. A shake of his head before he was gripping her sides and flipping them over. Having sufficiently distracted her as his lower body slipped between her legs. Hand finding the side of her neck as he leaned in. Firmly pressing his lips back to hers to get them back to where they had been without hesitation as it all had come along fairly well.

Erin A squeal there at her lips as he flipped them over, finding his place there overtop of her. Feeling his lips take hers, there was no resisting or playing with this man any further as he had found and taken the upper hand there. A delay in her reaction before she was pressing her lips into his. The feel of his hand to the side of her neck prompting her own hand to take the opposing side of his. A hum at her lips of congratulations at his ability to find her weakness and leave her unguarded to his own antics in that moment. A momentary separation of her lips would allow her tongue to ease through the part to his own, only to retract a moment later as though it had never happened.

-October 24, 2015

#lincianolife #2015 #dimplesfordays #lindsayxquitxlollygagging #addicteddetectives

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