#i tried to get into bullet journaling but it was too much

[thedisablednaturalist]

I've been making worksheets to map out thoughts for different situations and they've been really helpful for my adhd and chronic illness brainfog. I might put them up on kofi eventually idk.

[phonydiaries]

Beautiful Dreamer - P x Reader

Notes: This is a bit of a shorter fic from me and it's pure unadulterated fluff and sap and nobody gets stabbed! Which is really stretching myself as a writer, to be honest. You guys know I love nothing more than a good life-threatening injury. Anyways, no warnings for this one! Enjoy the cozy vibes <3 

---

It seemed somewhat magical in the beginning. 

Pino came running to you once, at the very break of dawn when you had just barely opened your eyes; too-bright sunlight stinging them as the puppet shook you from sleep. It was difficult for you to grasp what he meant, at first, to wrap your head around what he was trying to describe. His speechless manner of communication and your general grogginess certainly didn’t help matters. But through a series of signs and expressions from Pinocchio, you came to understand. In his slow but sure gaining of humanity the boy had begun to dream at night. 

You were vaguely aware that he did not dream before, and didn’t exactly sleep in the way humans did (although he did something similar enough that you personally couldn’t tell the difference). 

“Is it… pleasant?” You asked him, genuinely quite curious as to what a strange thing dreams must seem to someone who had never known them. It had the potential to be wondrous and peaceful, but at the same overwhelming and utterly confusing. P seemed to take your question into careful consideration, really mulling it over. His eyes shone bright as he finally nodded decisively. 

For all his excitement over this newfound ability, Pinocchio was frankly dreadful in his attempts at describing his dreams to you. You tried earnestly to follow along, but his gestures and expressions would eventually become too complicated and frenetic for you to follow and so you found yourself utterly lost in his recollections. It was after one such frustrating night that you gifted him a pocket journal to write in. This was much preferred for both of you, and you came to enjoy the routine of him eagerly handing off his scribblings for you to interpret in the morning. You would sit elbow to elbow at the table, sipping morning tea and reading his writing aloud, while he listened and nodded along captivated, his chin resting over his hands on the table. 

His writing was uncharacteristically scratchy, with words often misspelled or crossed out implying that he was simply transcribing for speed and not coherence. Now and then there would be an addition of a crude drawing, sometimes the vague outline of a rabbit or a rushed impression of beaming stars. 

One day, when it was particularly gloomy, you and Pino wandered to the library. Silence between the two of you was not uncommon, nor was it in any way awkward or uncomfortable. With the heavy fall of rain against the roof on this day, you found the quiet between the shelves especially peaceful. By the orange glow of a lantern, you turned the pages of a dream-interpretation guide. It was a small and somewhat battered thing and had been picked up eagerly by Pinocchio of course, who sat on the floor with crossed legs, chin resting in the heels of his hands as he listened to you, enthralled. In hushed tones, you ran down bulleted lists of common dreams and all the cryptic mysteries they may contain. 

“Here, how about this one, have you ever dreamed that your teeth were falling out?” You asked, pointing to a passage in the book. P slapped a hand over his mouth and shook his head vigorously, looking suddenly very concerned with keeping said teeth firmly in his mouth. You couldn’t help chucking as you turned the page. 

The day wore on, and the oil in your lantern burned down to nothing, the dim light flickering across an eerie illustration. You’d been leafing through an art book of the romantic era painters and left off on a Fuseli painting of a tormented woman being peered upon unknowingly by some manner of devil. You found the page quite off putting honestly, and closed the book. 

“I figure that’s enough of that. What do you say, Pino-oh.” 

As you addressed your puppet companion in the dark, you came to see that he sat on the floor still, slumped against the foot of your chair. His cheek was sunk into his left shoulder, eyes shut, breathing soft and shallow. The serenity of the scene warmed your heart some, and you leaned down to press a kiss to his forehead. “Pino…” you whispered, and ran a hand through his hair in an effort to wake him. But he didn’t stir, seemingly in a deep sleep. You were sorry for the uncomfortable condition he seemed to be posed in, but you didn’t want to disturb the poor puppet. You gathered your things and left quietly, shuffling off to your quarters. 

It was around midnight that the puppet woke with a panicked gasp. He was surprised to find his legion arm held up defensively, as if in anticipation of an invisible attack. His eyes searched his surroundings frantically, and only when he recognized the library did he hesitantly lower his arm. In the darkness he felt quite uneasy and disoriented. He tried to recall your soothing hushed voice. It had put him into quite a state it seemed before he eventually drifted off. It was in stark contrast to the current thrumming of his mechanical heart and the uncomfortable quickness of his breaths. He had dreamed something wholly unpleasant, and with some sadness realized this new facet of humanity came with drawbacks. He did not care much for these dreams at all.

Pinocchio made his way down the corridor to your quarters, his steps echoing eerily. He threw pointed glances over his shoulder frequently, half expecting some monstrous creature to appear suddenly in the halls of Hotel Krat. The simple casting of shadows had never before made him so on-edge. When he reached your room, he opened the door slowly and peered inside. You lay there in the dark beneath silk sheets, curled in on yourself and sleeping soundly. With great care not to startle you, he knelt by your bedside and nudged you in the back. Your head flinched momentarily, but you otherwise remained still. With some urgency he took your shoulder and shook until you stirred. Rubbing your eyes wearily, you rolled over to face him. 

“Pino, it’s ah…it’s late isn’t it? Can’t it wait til morning..?” You grumbled. He shook his head almost apologetically and squeezed your shoulder. As your eyes adjusted to the darkness, you were able to make out unfamiliar anxious creases in his expression. You willed yourself into a greater awareness and sat up promptly. “What is it, what’s wrong?” You asked, your tone softening significantly. P gestured in the direction of the library and rummaged around in his pocket for a moment. He retrieved the pocket journal you’d given him and pointed several times at the most recent entry. You squinted. On the left page he had simply blacked out the entire thing with a pen, and on the right page the phrase “strung up” was written several frantic times with increasing disregard for legibility. 

When you looked up at him to clarify, he raised his hands limp above his head and dropped his chin to his chest. The image was admittedly shuddersome and he cast a long and spindly shadow across the wall. 

“I see.” You said, closing the journal. “You had a nightmare, hm? All strung up like an ordinary puppet.” Your heart fell for the poor boy. It must’ve been terribly frightening for him. 

Pinocchio nodded solemnly, not meeting your eyes. He stared off blankly and rubbed his wrists, as if easing a phantom feeling of restraints. You took note of this and hummed softly. 

“Here, may I see?” You asked, and pulled his arm towards you. You made a show of inspecting it and tapping your chin thoughtfully. Holding his arm with one hand, you stuck up two fingers like a pair of scissors and pretended to snip the invisible puppet string. You repeated this mimic on his other arm and then took his hands in yours, placing a kiss on the back of each. 

“All gone.” 

Pinocchio looked at you with a kind of boyish wonder. He raised one fist to the crown of his head with a smile, making a  pshhh sound and opening his hand, giving the impression of a miniature explosion.

“Think you’ll be alright for the rest of the night?”

At this he shifted a little. His fingers busied themselves, twisting in the bedsheets. He was obviously still shaken up somewhat. You could understand that, although it was a bit of a surprise to learn that someone so nearly indestructible could be afraid of the dark. 

“Alright,” you sighed, lifting the sheets. “Get in here.” 

P’s chin jutted forward and his brow furrowed at your offer. You just gestured to the space beside you with your head. “Go on, before I change my mind.” You teased. At this, Pinocchio clambered up into your bed and nuzzled his face into the pillow. As he got settled. You pulled the sheet over his shoulders and snaked your arm up around him from behind. Your nose pressed against the nape of his neck and you breathed in the smell of him, like fresh rain. 

“Have no fear, my puppet.” You said sleepily against his skin. “Your trusty human won’t let anything steal you away from me in the night.” You heard him snicker at this, but you knew without a doubt he felt safer here with you and vice versa. It was sweet, really. 

By the time the sun rose you were both still sound asleep, all tangled in each other’s limbs, looking like lovers in the warm morning light. The day could wait a little longer. 

[kodared]

✰ Stanford & Borrower/Anomaly Reader ✰

fears not enough they have to tear him apart.

Chapter 2/?

Wordcount: 2,684 / 4,741

➤ Summary Based on the borrowers of many universes! I hope you enjoy it, and if you don't know about borrowers, let me be your guide into a world I've loved since I was young. ✰Written because I saw the severe lack of borrower content in Gravity Falls fanfic, i hope you enjoy <3 ✰ - ★Updates irregularly! I write when I want ★ ★ - Also on AO3! - ★

You had spent the better half of that night scheming of ways actually to put your plan into motion. Sure the basic idea sounded easy enough, but you were only about 6 inches tall. His journal might even be taller than you. You tried not to let that thought bother you. 

You had even turned the string lights in your makeshift home on. If you were to think of ways to get the page you needed a comfortable space. You never liked sitting in the dark. 

The only sound in your room was your feet hitting the wooden plank you used as a floor while you paced in a circle. It had to be late at this point, and you could check and see if Ford was still awake, but you knew he’d still be up. 

Once he was enamored by something he stayed up studying, it felt weird for you to be that something, but here you were. 

If you were to take the page out of his journal, you needed something sharp to rip it out. Your needle wouldn’t work, it would take too long to rip the paper. You weren’t too keen on the idea of being caught by the scientist. 

You needed something more similar to a knife a human would use. You knew better than to think of making your own. You weren’t much of a blacksmith or crafter, you tinkered with a lot of things sure, but nothing extravagant. 

Finally getting bored of the scenery of your room, you decided that if you were going to brainstorm anything it would help to look around first. 

You clicked your string lights off and set off into the walls. Your hand fidgets with the needle on your hip anxiously. 

You always had a problem with twiddling with things. Your mother even had to put poison ivy on your nails once so you’d stop picking them and the skin around them. …You still had small scars but you tried not to pick them as bad. 

Absentmindedly walking the dark corridors of the inner walls wasn’t bad now and again. The cottage didn't have any mice, so you didn't have to worry about predators or bugs for that matter.

You wouldn’t have minded befriending a pill bug though, those little critters were always friendly as long as you had a treat for them. 

Your dreams of settling down with a bug friend though would have to wait. Reminding yourself why you came here, you finally felt along the wall for anything that could help. 

You were on the first floor. Meaning you were on the right track to the perfect spot to go looking for scraps the human wouldn’t miss. 

Not that it mattered if he noticed items going missing anymore, he already knew you were here. It was always best to avoid confrontation though.

Gently tapping on the wall as you went, you felt your body stiffening and halting right as you passed the humans room. 

If that was the noise you thought you heard, maybe the plan would be put in action sooner than expected. 

Halting in your tapping you gently pressed your body against the wall, hearing the faint whispers of a snore from beyond the wood. 

Deciding to bite the bullet you pressed harder, feeling the thin wood bend so you could peek. 

True to what you heard, you could see the human, Ford. Passed out at his desk, and even better, the Journal. 

Unguarded and open on his desk next to his hand. He must have been taking notes and fallen asleep. 

If there was any time to waste you weren’t going to be the one to waste it. Quickly pushing off the wall you took off towards the storage room he kept full of random items. 

Usually just rubbish of whatever he was working on at the time, sometimes wires, and more than often boxes full of who knows what. But that didn't matter, because you knew what you were after. 

Cramming yourself against the wall once more you operated quickly. Squeezing through the small crack made by pushing you landed on a box. Quickly you brought your sleeved arm up to stifle your coughing from the sheer amount of dust. 

Would it kill him to dust now and again or was he only interested in studying???

Pushing past your internal cussing you scanned the floor for what you came for to begin with. A small black screw lay on the floor exactly where you recognized it being. Still sharp at the end from disuse, overlooked on the floor for weeks. 

Bingo.

You jumped off of the box, ignoring the protests from your still sprained ankle as you speed walked over to the screw. 

Picking it up it felt cool in your hands. A comforting feeling in the stuffy and still dark room. The only light was from the moonlight that drifted from the window up high. 

Sometimes you wondered if your family was still okay in the woods. If sometimes when you looked at the moon, they where looking at it too. 

You began the long trek back to the humans room, debating whether or not it would be worth it to go back through the walls or just walk on foot. 

Eventually, you decided to just go back through the vent. Climbing back up the box and weaseling your way into the wall would be too much work. Plus the vents usually were easy enough to navigate. 

You used the screw to pry the grate up ever so slightly before using your hands to pull it up the rest of the way. Your wrist also protesting from where you fell on it. You seriously needed to take better care of yourself once this was all over. 

Dropping down into the vents you made sure to pull the grate shut behind you before crawling through the cramped space. Even for you, it was a bit uncomfortable but the cold on your stomach was oddly comforting. 

You oddly preferred a cold room over a warm one, even better if you had a warm piece of cloth. Even as a kid you much liked it better in the early months of fall than in the middle of summer. 

Finally, you could hear the humans' faint snoring from above you, confirming the vents were a pretty straightforward path to his room. 

Taking a deep breath you pushed the grate up. Timing it with his deep snores to make sure he stayed fast asleep.

Clambering up into the open space you could see Ford sleeping at his desk still. His body was uncomfortably curled around and resting on his desk. 

You were no fool. You made sure to plan an escape route just in case he did wake up, quickly scanning the room you could see a small hole in the floorboard. Probably made by the natural cut of the wood, but perfect for you to drop into at a moment's notice. 

You then looked at his desk. Trying to figure out a safe way to travel up it without your fishhook and thread. When something caught your eye. 

The bastard had kept your fishhook. There it lay on his workspace, just barely discernable from your angle on the floor as it glinted in the moonlight. Almost as if it was taunting you. 

Suddenly all the nerves you had were ebbing away into frustration. Who gave him the right to keep your things. You worked hard on getting the proper supplies, and he never noticed. So what gave him the right to pocket it like he made it? 

You made quick work of walking across the floor and getting your footing on the desk leg. The unpolished wood was rough enough to support your hands and feet as you climbed. 

If you could get your fishhook back on top of taking the page you would be ecstatic. Then you could move without worry and find a new place to move into. This would all be behind you and you could talk about it like it was all some bad dream. 

Now was a time for the present though as you neared the top of his desk. You had almost forgotten the human was resting just beside you, frightening yourself as you pulled yourself onto the desk and saw his arm right next to you. 

…You almost forgot how large this guy was. 

He was tall by human standards, you saw him standing next to his assistant before. 

Pushing down your curiosity you peeled your eyes away from the human. 

Quickly scooping up the fishhook and thread that was so rightfully yours. You took one more glance at him to make sure he was asleep. 

By human standards he was attractive. Hell, even by borrower standards he was mildly satisfying. You weren't one of those borrowers who actively sought out humans, but you could admit when someone was pleasing to the eyes. 

He had short brown hair that slightly curled at the ends. His glasses were now crooked with how he pressed his face on top of his arm as a makeshift pillow. You allowed your eyes to scan over him a bit longer. 

Taking in his outfit as well, a simple brown sweater with a collared shirt poking from above it. His usual trenchcoat was hung on the chair he sat on. 

His hands rested on top of his forearms, which- 

… Don't humans usually only have five fingers? 

You could've sworn they had only five. Raising your own you looked back and forth at it. 

You remembered your mother mentioning humans were genetically very similar to borrowers. The only difference is the height, which should mean he would have only five fingers. Not the six he seemed to have on both hands. 

You were getting sidetracked. Soon you wouldn't even be living with this weird scientist, so why did it matter if he had an extra finger? 

Finally focusing on what you came for, you turned your attention to the journal. That cursed, stupid, red journal. The cause of all your anxiety for the past few days. 

He's lucky you're not just burning the entire thing. You weren't above arson, but you didn't want to kill him if the fire got too big. Despite how much you loathed humans. 

You walked over to the journal and skimmed over the page it was open to. To no one's shock, it was open on the page you despised the most. 

Over the top of the pristine white paper was the name he had given you and your species. 

‘Parva persona’. Whatever that meant you didn't care. 

Below it was a crude sketch of what you could only assume was your shadowy figure slinking off into the wall. You thought you dressed better than that in all honesty. He could have atleast drawn you in detail. 

Whatever. Didnt matter as long as the page was gone. He could always rewrite it but you doubt he would remember everything. 

And the more that was lost to time the better in your opinion. 

You placed your foot on the page to hold it down as you positioned the screw at the top of the page. Pressing your whole body weight on it as you dragged it down, it worked beautifully. Leaving a messy tear in its wake. 

You almost forgot about the snoring behind you. 

Until it stopped. 

About halfway through slicing into the cursed paper you heard it. The slight intake of breath. The stutter was all you needed to whip around just in time to catch the human sitting up slightly. 

His eyes were wide as he looked down at you, the holds of sleep still gripping him tightly as he moved sluggishly. 

Screw the page. You dropped the screw and took off to the side of the desk. Already planning on using the hook to drop off the desk and disappear back into the walls before promptly packing your bags and going back to your parents. 

As you were about to drop your hook and use it to swing off the desk, you felt the warmth of his hand on your back once more before those damned fingers curled around your entire being. 

The human wasnt speaking yet but you didn't want to wait to hear him. Thrashing as hard as you could you tried desperately to grab your needle on your hip, but his hand was quick to squish your arms to your sides. 

The dizzying feeling of being lifted off the desk was the next thing you felt. You felt nauseous at the mental image of being manhandled. 

The human was stunned into silence as you screwed your eyes shut, still desperately kicking at his pinkie that held your thighs down. His thumb pressed against your neck and shoulders, almost as if he was examining you. 

Finally, you opened your eyes, and you wished you hadnt. His other hand held his glasses up, pressing them firmly against the bridge of his nose, as if he was afraid he wasnt seeing right. 

His hair messily framed his face as his mouth hung open just a bit. Clearly in awe at what he was seeing. Your heart hammered quickly against your chest as you feared you might die from shock and horror. 

You were stuck. Trapped by a scientist. The most dangerous human to exist to your kind. 

His grip tightened ever so slightly as he tilted you to the left, looking at the items you had on your hip as he lifted his middle finger. Your thighs and shoulder are still pinned to his palm. 

His palm was uncomfortably warm against your back. You hated the feeling of his skin against your clothes. Absentmindedly he used his other hand to poke at the needle on your hip. You contemplated trying to bite him. 

Your blood was rushing past your ears as the effects of vertigo hit your body in full swing once more as he moved. His head tilted to look somewhere beside the desk before you heard him rummaging. 

It was a wonder you weren't passed out at this point as his hand swayed. The motion was natural to him, but entirely foreign to the small sentient being he held in the palm of his hand. 

His eyes focused back on your form as you felt him press something against your side, it was cold and plastic. 

Craning your neck you could see him pressing what appeared to be a ruler to your side. His thumb pressed against your shoulder moving to press against your neck as he held you straight. 

“...6 and a half inches.. That should be impossible..” 

His voice boomed in your ears as you felt the beginnings of a headache nagging at the back of your eyes. In all reality, he was probably whispering. It didn't matter though combined with the closeness he held you at. 

His thumb was beginning to press a bit too hard into your neck and you saw spots forming in your vision. Your body kicked up in squirms as you desperately tried to squeeze in another full breath of air. 

He was quick to notice as he moved his thumb back to your shoulder. 

“Sorry!- I didn't realize, maybe I could..” 

He sat down the ruler before taking a few quick notes. Your vision cleared as you sucked in precious oxygen again. 

Your vision was just starting to clear fully as your brain caught up with his rummaging. He was once again rifling beside his desk. When you saw him pull a jar up into your vision you felt your blood run cold. 

You did not want to be put in a jar. Going into a jar meant transporting you. Which meant you where going down into that lab. 

   “Stop!-” 

The frantic words left your mouth before you could stop them, and you felt the human practically completely freeze. His calculating eyes pierced into your very soul as you felt him grip you ever so slightly tighter.  “You can talk!”

-- --- - - - --

Hope you enjoyed!! Will ford be nicer next chapter? Who knows!! I sure dont!!! ✰ Let me know if you enjoyed in the comments!!! I love reading them :)!!! Feel free to send me any asks in my askbox if you want as well! ✰

╱|、♡ (` - 7 |、⁻〵 じしˍ,)ノ

[pearlessance]

Dig Two Graves - Idle Threats [vii]

Series Summary — Joel has watch duty with Jackson’s twenty-year old, smart-mouthed brat and gets more than he bargained for.

Chapter Summary — Joel relives the worst moment of his life and finally reads your journal.

Pairing — Joel Miller/Reader

Warnings — Explicit sexual content MDNI (no smut in this part, but in almost every other in the series), brat taming, age gap, mean!Joel, religious imagery and symbolism, catholic guilt, angst, canon typical violence, joel and reader fight the rat king, reader has an added backstory to progress the plot

SERIES MASTERLIST

[cross posted to AO3]

There’s a certain sort of amazement in your horror. Joel watches you take everything in—watches you sift through trashed rooms, taking what hasn’t already been picked over. Scalpels, expired vitamins, and gauze all wind up in your pockets or your backpack.

You only encounter two clickers on the main floor, and they likely wandered in through the bomb-sized hole that’s been blown through the side of the hospital. 

He thought you were quick with the bow of yours, but it’s nothing compared to how lethal you are with that sawback knife. Before you even make it to the second floor, there’s blood splattered on your cheek and a murderous glint in your eye. When you take down the second clicker and turn to see him with his rifle raised, you draw a new, crystal clear rule. “We don’t use bullets unless we absolutely have to. We don’t use guns unless we have to. The less noise we make here the better.”

“‘Course,” he says.

But you narrow your eyes at him, unrelenting. “I’m serious, Joel. I’ll tell you when I need help. If you fire that thing every infected in this place will be on us in a second.”

He almost hears the echo of his own voice in your words. It makes him smile. There’s a sign hanging above the stairwell. Joel nods to it and says, “You got that list of stuff you need for Maria? Can probably find most of it in the labor and delivery wing. Third floor.” 

You nod in agreement and find the scrap of paper you’ve kept safely stored these last few days. It’s crinkled but still legible, the smeared ink list covering both front and back. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

There are spores on the third floor. Joel helps you secure your mask, tightening it maybe a little too tightly, and can’t help but smile to himself as you look up at him through the clear glass over your eyes. You look so innocent, so sweet—and he might die today and so he says, “You’re so beautiful, baby. You know that?”

You shove his shoulder playfully and scoff at his compliments, but your cheeks turn a shade of crimson he’s never seen before and he knows it’s gotten to you. “Shut up.”

The two of you slink through the halls on the third floor, and at this point, Joel feels like you’ve gotten too lucky on this trip. There haven't been any bad moments, any close calls. And you find a quarter of your list in just one room behind the nurse's station that Joel has to break into with brute force. But it works, and he tries not to think about how everything on the list for Maria had been easily accessible. 

He’s still bitter about this whole trip, in truth. Joel’s glad to have this time with you, glad to have gotten to know the most hidden parts of you. It’s all made him understand you better, made him see who you really are beneath the bratty facade you wear.

You’re different out here. And not just because of the inherent danger that comes with being outside the walls. You’re different with Joel. And he knows it’s likely because your rigid exterior has kept everyone else in Jackson from getting too close to you. Everyone except Maria.

Joel wonders if she knows how lucky she is, how fortunate someone like you has decided to love Jackson as much as its creator. Because if it were him, if it were Ellie in your position, Joel would never let her lift another finger for Maria even if she begged on her knees. You’re worth more than this. Your life matters beyond what you can provide. 

And he vows to remind Maria of it the moment the two of you return. He promises to put an end to this parasitic relationship formed between the two of you.

“Hey,” you say. “Look.” You pull something from a drawer behind the nurse's station. It’s an old folded paper, yellowed around its edges.

It’s a map of the hospital. Joel stands beside you, so close he can feel the heat of your body through the sleeve of his flannel. He scans the map briefly, taps his middle and index finger against the lowest level labeled operations. “That’s where we can find the rest,” he says.

“How do you know?” 

He doesn’t. Not for certain. “Operating rooms,” he explains. “They were always stocked with supplies, oxygen tanks, stuff like that. There was a cart full of things for anesthesia. Could be someplace else but it’s likely there. Maybe secured in some closet or somethin’ down there.”

You nod slowly in contemplation. He watches your profile, savoring the sight, watches you gnaw on your bottom lip. He can tell you’re nervous. He is, too. 

Joel presses a kiss against your hairline. “We’re gonna make it back home,” he says. But he can’t promise it, even though he wants to. 

Something is weighing on you. Your eyes are far away, misty. He wants to prod for answers but knows better. “Yeah. We will. Let’s go.”

The north stairwell past the third flood is blocked by rubble and debris, likely caused by the explosion from the bombings.

You end up doubling back, winding through the hallways down to the lobby and to the opposite side of the hospital. The south side of the building is in better shape but must have been where the quarantine rooms for Casper began because the infected are everywhere. A dozen clickers roam the halls, some hidden between solid steel doors or plastic sheets to section off makeshift rooms.

Thankfully, the task of eradication proves relatively easy. Until the last three, anyway. 

Joel’s crouched low, knife in hand, stalking slowly behind a clicker with fresh blood on its mangy shirt when a test tube shatters beneath his boot. 

The infected turns its head and lets out an ear piercing screech, gathering the attention of the other three clickers left. They descend upon him, and Joel is readying himself to jam his knife through the head of whichever one’s closest—but then he hears your voice. 

“Hey! Hey, over here!” 

And all three of them change course. You’re like a magnet drawing in death. Joel feels everything slow in an instant. 

It’s like he’s right back in that capitol building, leaving Tess behind as if she meant nothing. And Joel had never told her otherwise because he’d been too afraid of caring and losing. But then came you, who obliterated all of his defenses and wriggled your way into his worm-eaten heart anyway. 

And yet somehow Joel ends up in the same predicament. 

He abandons his knife altogether in favor of his rifle. He looks through the scope, aims, and the shot echoes off the hospital walls.

You’ve got your knife in the neck of one clicker but it still thrashes in your grip. You just missed the spinal cord—the first time he’s seen you miss any of your strikes. 

It’s too close for him to shoot without potentially hitting you in the process.

The other isn’t, though, and Joel looses another bullet that pierces true. 

He slings his rifle back over his shoulder and he’s only two yards away from you when you stumble backward, losing your balance, the clicker’s strength overpowering yours. 

You’ve got both hands holding its mouth just out of range of your face, knife still stuck in its neck, and Joel’s ears begin to ring.

He doesn’t remember reaching you. He doesn’t remember ripping the clicker off of you and onto the floor. He doesn’t remember shoving the heel of his boot through its softened, decayed skull.

All Joel can recall is the sound of your fearful scream in his ears. 

But when he comes back and the color red bleeds from the edges of his vision, the evidence is there. The infected brain matter has splashed across the white tile and his boot is covered in blood and gore. 

Your chest is heaving when he turns to look at you. You’re still sitting on the floor, arms stretched out behind you as you try and fail to catch your breath.

His voice is calm, and steady as he asks, “You wanna tell me what the hell that was?”

“Me? What about you, Joel? I said no fucking guns!”

He doesn’t know what to expect when you speak. But it certainly isn’t that. “I wouldn’t have had to use it if you didn’t try to get yourself killed,” he says, biting anger in his voice. Residual fear from the clicker, he tells himself. 

But it feels like a lie even in his own head. His fury has nothing to do with the clicker and everything to do with your brush with death, Joel knows.

“I told you if I needed help I would say so! I had it!”

Joel leans down and plucks your bloody knife from the dead clicker’s neck and hands it to you. “Did you? Cause it didn’t look like it from here.”

You push yourself to your feet furiously. “Yes, I did! And I don’t need you making decisions like that on a whim! It’s too goddamn dangerous out here. What happened to my run, my fucking rules? Hm? What about that?”

He’s never seen you this angry before. Even with Maria, you’d been more lax. It doesn’t bother him, though—because he’s just as furious. “A whim?” He scoffs. “You wanna talk about rash decisions? Alright—what about that stunt you pulled that got you into this mess in the first place? Yelling’ and hollerin’ like some banshee in the middle of a bunch of clickers and for what?”

“What was I supposed to do, Joel? Let them swarm you, kill you? Are you delusional? I—!”

He closes the space between you and takes your arm between his fingers, squeezing tight enough to bruise. Whatever you’d meant to say, whatever insult you’d had full intentions of hurling at him, lodges itself and stays stuck in your throat. “Don’t you ever do somethin’ like that again, you hear me?”

“What am I doing, then? Protecting you? Oh, sorry! I guess that’s my bad!” You raise your bloody hands in mock surrender. “Next time I should let them tear you apart, is that it?”

“Next time you don’t put yourself between me and a threat,” he says firmly. “I don’t care if it’s a clicker or the barrel of a gun. Your life fucking matters.”

You flinch as if he’d struck you in the face. It takes you a minute to come back from it, to gather yourself enough to respond. But the moment a crease forms between your brows Joel can sense a coming argument, and he cuts it down before giving you a chance to breathe life into it. 

“It matters,” he says again. “It might not to you, but it does to Ellie, to Tommy, to everyone in that town.” He doesn’t say Maria’s name, but he knows you mean something to her just as well. His voice cracks as he admits, “You matter to me.”

You search his face frantically, trying to find a lie when there isn’t one. He watches tears well that refuse to fall, watches your throat bob as you swallow down that fight in you. Your silence speaks volumes to him. 

Still, it’s not enough to settle the fear that’s curdled in his gut. “Promise me,” he says. “Promise me you’ll never do something stupid like that again.”

It takes a moment, but then you relent. “Okay. Okay, I promise.”

Joel releases his hold on your arm, and as his panic begins to subside, it’s replaced with urgency. He wants to get out of here, to make it back to Jackson. He wants to move all of your things into his two story colonial, wants to see you writing in that journal of yours on the porch while he sits beside you and strums his guitar. He wants to see you wearing nothing but his tshirt, padding barefoot into the kitchen while the moonlight streams in through the window. He wants to see you laughing with Ellie over a strawberry scone, wants the subtle sound of your breathing to lull him to sleep in the comfort of his bed. 

He wants to live.

As if you’d read his mind, you say, “C’mon. Let’s get this over with, I’m ready to go home.”

The south side of the hospital, while in better shape than the north, was still affected by the bombings. The descent proves treacherous, and more than once Joel has to hand you his rifle while he lowers himself down a steep drop in the rubble. When it’s your turn to climb down, he takes his rifle in addition to your bow and quiver, and stretches his arms out to ensure your safe drop. 

It must look much more daunting for you, he thinks. You move slowly, carefully, wiggling the heels of your boots between the unwavering stones.

“I’ve got you,” he promises, and gives a low grunt when you push yourself off the rubble slope and stumble into his waiting arms.

Once you’re on the lowest level of the hospital, you’re able to navigate through the building from the crumbled but still legible directories posted on the wall.

Your feet are silent as you round every corner carefully, an arrow knocked the whole time. Joel trails behind you, rifle poised against his shoulder, finger a hair's breadth away from the trigger.

The two of you clear the hallway that consists of only two runners—and it raises a bit of a red flag when you realize they’ve been infected fairly recently. You slaughter them both with your knife silently and send him a weary look over your shoulder. Joel knows, even though neither of you speak, that you’re thinking the same thing he is. 

What killed them?

But you discover nothing remaining in the hall. And the first operating room you investigate proves fruitful. Joel clicks on the flashlight tied to the strap of his backpack and closes the door behind him. “There,” he whispers, pointing to the cart behind the operating table. “An anesthesia cart.”

Unease creeps up his spine because this trip has been made easy. Too easy. But the cart has everything you need, and he’s not in a place to question the hand of God. Not anymore.

You place your bag on the floor between your feet and begin rifling through the cart’s contents. Joel watches you place viles, needles, surgical tubes, and a container of some sort of compressed gas all into your bag. Twice you have to readjust its contents to fit more into it. And when you’re finished, he switches you and lets you fill his just as full.

It doesn’t take long until everything on your list has been crossed off twice. You’re placing one last glass vile into his bag, trying to wiggle it into the pocket on the side. But you fail, and the vile slips through your fingers, shattering on the concrete floor. 

That’s the first time he hears it. 

A feral, angry sort of screech—deafening in the hospital’s silence. 

Joel’s eyes find yours, and he wonders if the terror on your face is reflected on his, too.

It’s a foreign sound. Not runners or clickers or bloaters—and Joel has absolutely no interest in making a new discovery. He tightens his hand around his rifle and nods towards the door. 

But the two of you don’t make it more than three feet before the wall standing between you and safety erupts into pieces, revealing the most monstrous thing Joel has seen in all his life.

It’s a massive, fleshy creature, and before the dust even settles he can see not one or two faces but four—bodies all held together by overgrown masses of cordyceps.

Joel can feel the icy fingers of death wrapping around his neck. He has only his rifle and your sure-fired arrows, both of which don’t have nearly enough ammunition for his liking. He knows, sure as rain, that he’s not getting out of this alive. 

But that doesn’t mean you have to die here. 

“Stay behind me,” he orders. “I’m going to clear a path—distract it, you go around and get out that door.”

He knows you’ll fight him on it but Joel doesn’t give you the chance. He aims for one of the heads and pulls the trigger. 

The creature wails and thrashes and charges forward blindly, teeth gnashing in the air. 

Joel fires again, but it barely registers. The first bullet seems to have made it somehow more lethal, movements harsh and angry. 

He realizes you’ve completely ignored his direction and instead have saddled up to his side, bow in hand with an arrow knocked. “You’ll have to shoot me, Joel,” you say over the clamor, and it makes his stomach turn. And then again, “If you want me to leave this place without you, you’re gonna have to shoot me.”

You’re not bluffing, he realizes when you loose your arrow and it buries itself deep within the creature’s mangled form. He needs you safe, he needs you out of here, far away from this place. Joel turns his rifle towards you, heart hammering behind his ribcage. He tries not to think about the way your eyes widen as he turns and aims for your thigh. 

But before he can pull the trigger the monstrous things charges towards the both of you. Joel surges to the left, pushing you out of harm's way and narrowly missing the onslaught himself. 

In a second you're back on your feet with another arrow whizzing through the air, piercing true. In that moment you remind him a little of Tess, and the thought crosses his mind that she would have adored you but he can’t linger in it long. Joel raises his gun and empties his magazine into the mass of infected.

He reloads and empties another. The creature slows but doesn’t stop and Joel begins to panic at the rapidly dwindling amount of ammunition. His heart is beating so fast that he worries it might burst. His palms are perspiring, sliding against the cold metal of his gun. 

“Joel!” Your voice cuts through the fog in his brain. “You think you can distract it for a minute?”

“I got it,” he says. He kicks the hospital bed in the center of the room and the mass of infected turns its gruesome head. He fires again and again and again, aiming for the several heads stuck between clumps of cordyceps.

He can’t see you but he can hear you fumbling with things on the anesthesia cart, can hear the soft click of a lighter through the cacophony. And then your sweet voice. 

“Hey, asshole!” An arrowhead drenched in blue flame flies through the air, landing true right in the creature’s center. 

It lets out a wail of agony, stumbles, and then charges towards you. 

Joel sees you falter, watches you become a deer in the headlights in real time. It reminds him so much of the look on Sarah’s face when she witnessed Joel’s first kill in their front room when Jimmy Cooper broke through the glass door; frightened, terrified. His chest pulls tight. 

He empties another round into its head, distracting it just long enough for you to come back to reality, to knock another arrow, light it, and release.

It takes every last one of your fiery arrows and all but six of Joel’s bullets before the creature falls to the floor in a mass of blood and flesh and fungus. 

He slings his rifle over his shoulder and tries to catch his breath, tries to accept the impossible reality before him. 

You’re alive. Alive, and safe, and he is too. It’s the first time in a long time Joel has felt this happy, this elated. His eyes connect with yours and you’re covered in blood splatter and grime but he thinks you’ve never looked so beautiful as the moment that pretty smile stretches wide across your face. 

You laugh, and he does, too. The sound fills the space with warmth and light and love. Joel swims in it, basks in it, savors the moment because it’s the best thing to happen to him in years. 

But then a clicker peels itself from the mass of decay on the floor and it’s on you in a second. 

Your laughter turns to blood-curdling screams, bow clattering to the floor and you tumble right along with it. 

Joel runs to you, shoving any fallen debris that stands in his way.  He angles himself just right, Aims. Shoots. 

The clicker falls limp over you. Your screams stop. Joel thinks his heart does, too. 

You don’t move. Even when he finally manages to get to you and shove the clicker away, your eyes are misty, far away. 

Your chest rises and falls with each ragged breath, which is a relief, but you don’t look at him. He places both hands on either side of your face, eyes burning with unshed tears. “You’re okay,” he says, more for himself than for you. “You’re okay, baby, you’re okay.”

He begins to wonder if he was too late. Maybe you’ve been scratched or bitten or—

That’s when he sees it. The blood covering your shirt, pooled in the center of your belly. And all he can think is not again. 

Please, God, if you’re listening, don’t do this to me again. 

It’s all too familiar. 

And suddenly Joel Miller isn’t in a hospital at all. He’s back in Austin, in the middle of that field, so goddamn close to the highway, so close to freedom. And that blinding light is being shined in his eyes again but this time it’s not his daughter dying in his arms, it’s you.

He must have missed. Must have shot right through the clicker. This is his fault.

Joel peels the wet cotton of your shirt up and doesn’t see any injuries. No scratches, bite marks or bullet wounds. But there’s so much blood it covers his hands now.

“Sarah,” you choke out. 

He freezes, trembling fingers still intertwined in the hem of your blood-soaked shirt.

It doesn’t feel real. You don’t feel real. Joel’s grip on reality is swaying. He must have heard you wrong, right? He must have. 

But then you speak again, voice stronger this time. “My sister’s name was Sarah.”

He says nothing. What can he say, anyway? 

Your eyes are still clouded when you finally look up at him. “Maria doesn’t talk about her. I…I want to, I should. I don’t want to forget her name.” The confession is broken in your mouth, breathless. “Please, Joel. Don’t let me forget her. Don’t let me forget—“

“I won’t,” he says. He swears he’ll circle back, swears to let you talk about this later. Promises it to himself, in fact. But right now he needs to get you to safety, needs to get you far from here. 

He helps pull you to your feet and doesn’t look away from you for more than two seconds while he searches for both abandoned backpacks full of supplies.

Joel carries them both and then wraps a tight arm around your shoulders, half carrying you. The ascent back up to the street takes longer, but he manages. And when you come upon two runners just outside the hospital, Joel wastes them easily even with extra weight on his back. 

It’s not the weight or the runners or the two mile distance between the hospital and the house where you’d stashed your horses and supplies that bother him though. It’s your complete and total silence that does. 

He doesn’t want to make things worse for you. Doesn’t want to get involved if you’re not ready to share. But he can tell something’s weighing heavily on your shoulders and the urge within him to fix it chafes him raw. 

By the time you make it half a mile from the hospital, it begins to rain. It’s a spring rain but still cold enough to make you shiver. Joel gives you his canvas coat, but it doesn’t have a hood. And you’re leaving a murky blood trail with every step you take. He thinks about clearing a house somewhere closer but knows even being away from the horses this long is a risk for thievery.

So, he forces himself to power through it, to watch you suffer silently while he can do nothing. Even though exhaustion is heavy in your bones, on your face, in your heart. And when you do finally arrive back at the house, the ends of your hair are plastered to your neck and the majority of the blood on your clothes has vanished.

He orders you to sit with the horses as he rummages through the bedrooms in search of something warm and dry. Joel returns with a pair of black jeans, an oversized sweater, and two towels to dry you off. “Stand up,” he says. 

And you obey wordlessly, which breaks his heart because he wants to hear some bratty remark, some unhinged comment. But you give him nothing but compliance. 

He strips you of your clothes, uses one towel to dry your skin and the other to ring as much rainwater from your hair as possible. He works slowly, gently. And then he maneuvers your limbs of his own accord, running two fingers over every inch of your bare skin. 

Your voice is broken and you sound so tired as you ask, “What are you doing?”

“Checking for bites,” he explains softly. “Maybe scratches.” He can feel your gaze on the side of his face, but Joel doesn’t stop until he’s satisfied with his inspection.  He dresses you in the clothes he found. The jeans are a little tight and the ivory sweater has a moth-eaten hole in the sleeve, but your shivering lessens.

He knows it’s risky, but he breaks apart the crumbling oak dining chair and tosses the wood into the fireplace. He’s already striking a match and trying to light it before you catch onto what he’s doing. 

“No fire,” you tell him, a frantic tone slipping into your voice. It’s the first emotion you’ve shown since the hospital. “Joel, what if someone—?”

“Then I’ll deal with it,” he says, leaving no room for argument. You’re cold, and he has the tools to fix it. What kind of man would he be if he chose not to? 

The fire catches, illuminating the dark room in orange and yellow hues. He doesn’t want to leave you but he does for only long enough to feed the horses, bring them fresh water, and find dry clothes for himself. While sifting through one of the dressers he discovers more than just jeans and a black tshirt, though. 

When he returns to the main room, you’ve moved to sit in front of the fireplace, hands held out in front of the flames.

He moves the rickety old coffee table towards you and sits on the other side of it. “Look what I found,” he says, holding up the set of fifty-two playing cards. They’re no longer shiny and white, weathered and yellowed now with age. But they’ll still serve their purpose. Joel begins to shuffle the deck as he asks, “Is there anything you know how to play?”

You take your hands reluctantly away from the fire and tuck them beneath your legs instead. “Rummy,” you answer quietly. “Maria taught me.”

Joel nods and begins to deal out ten cards to the both of you. He can feel your stare, heavy and weighted, but doesn’t meet it until he’s lifted his cards to observe them. 

He’s got shit for luck. Always has. “Went out to a casino once with Tommy,” he says, smiling fondly at the memory. “Promised myself I’d only spend a hundred bucks but ended up spending double and left with less than fifty cents that night.”

You start a discard pile. Joel picks up your eight of hearts. “I’m okay,” you say. “You don’t need to do…whatever it is you’re trying to do.”

A crease forms between his brows. “And what’s that, exactly?”

“Distracting me,” you tell him, drawing from the stack of cards. “Trying to make me feel better. I’m just saying you don’t have to. I’d tell you if I needed to talk.”

He doesn’t believe it for a second. Because you might have a foul mouth and a habit of thievery but you’re also the most selfless person he’s ever met. You didn’t tell Maria you didn’t want to go on that run for her pregnancy craving, you didn’t tell him you needed him with a clicker trying to tear you apart, you didn’t ask for a fire or dry clothes while you shivered in the dark. Joel Miller doesn’t think you’d say a goddamn word even if you were drowning. “Would you?”

You don’t answer. You discard a three of clubs instead.

Joel discards and draws. He inhales deeply and lets out a slow breath. “You don’t have to do things alone anymore,” he says. “Supply runs, life riskin,’ grief…whatever it is, I’m with you.”

“Even back in Jackson?” There’s disbelief in your tone as you draw a new card. “People are gonna talk, Joel. You said it yourself.”

He nods slowly. “Yeah, yeah I did.” He discards his ace of spades. “Turns out, I care less about them and more about you.”

You don’t say anything. Joel wishes so badly that you would give him just an inch of an idea as to what’s going on inside your head. You pick up his discard and get rid of the two of clubs.

“That alright with you?”

“I don’t care about what the people of Jackson think or say about me. I already told you that.”

“I’m not askin’ about them I’m askin’ about you,” he says. Joel wonders how long you’ve been forced to put all your wants and needs aside for them. Long enough that it’s become a habit, even here when it’s just the two of you. 

“What about me?” There’s genuine confusion on your face, which only further proves his point. You discard a nine of hearts.

He picks it up. “I’m old,” he says, discarding his four of clubs. “Got a good fifteen years left in me, twenty if I’m lucky. You gotta whole lot more than that. An’ I don’t live on the exciting side of things much anymore. That really what you want?”

You roll your eyes and Joel feels warmth bloom in his chest at the sight. It’s something. 

“You could die tomorrow and so could I,” you say. “You know that as well as I do. Something as trivial as age doesn’t matter. Maybe it used to, but things are different now.”

He nods contemplatively and draws another card. “That’s true enough.”

“And you won’t ever hear me complaining about monotony,” you say, a little quieter. “Never had much stability. Doesn’t seem like a bad thing to me.”

It’s not meant to provoke sympathy but he feels it anyway. Joel wants to provide that for you more than anything. But he doesn't want to be the kind of man that keeps things from you. He learned his lesson the hard way with Ellie. “My, uh…my daughter. Her name was Sarah, too.” Joel lays his cards down on the table, displaying a perfect ace through king run of hearts.

You don’t even register the fact that he’s won the game. Your cards tremble in your fingers. He knows you won’t speak, so he decides to instead. 

“I think I’ve known for…for quite some time. Just didn’t want to admit it to myself s’all. But the minute you looked at me and said her name?” He shakes his head in disbelief. “When I realized we shared this loss, you and I…that we were…connected somehow—I knew there’d never been another option. No goin’ back. It’s when I knew it without a doubt.”

You lay your hand down this time, a perfect run of spades.

A tie.

“Knew what?”

“That I love you.” It surprises him how easy it feels to say it, how naturally it flows from the tongue.

You tense up, muscles going rigid at his words. He watches the orange flames reflect and flicker in your eyes, watches you hesitate to speak.

He doesn’t expect you to say it back. Doesn’t matter to him whether or not you ever do, in truth. Because he doesn’t love you for what you can provide, he just loves who you are. He just loves you. 

You make a sudden decision and stand to your feet, crossing the room to rummage through your backpack. It takes you a minute, but you finally pull the battered leather journal from the bottom and then you return to your spot. “Goodnight, Joel,” you say, tossing the journal into his lap and lying on your side in front of the fire. “You’ve got the first watch.”

He spends it learning everything about you. The entries are vague, details omitted. But it fills in the gaps left behind by what he already knows. He gets a glimpse of who your Sarah was, and in those entries, he sees bits and pieces of you within her. He sees your distrust of Maria spiral into acceptance and then into attachment, sees your view of Tommy’s arrival and your apprehension to trust him, too. 

He learns that ultimately it was a day you spent on patrol together that his little brother won your faith. Tommy told you all about his sibling he would kill and die for, a conversation that must have struck you deep enough to decide to protect Tommy the same way you protect the whole of Jackson.

One of the older entries shocks him. The first interaction you ever had with Ellie, it seems, was the night after they returned to Jackson when he followed her back to the hospital in Salt Lake City. Joel remembers very vividly how awful he felt back then. And Ellie, it seems, was much the same.

In the entry, you say you find her sitting beneath the willow tree across the street from your home. You find her crying, alone, and so frustrated and confused that she’s barely making sense. You bring her inside, and she confesses all to you. Ellie tells you about the hospital, about how she both loves and hates Joel at that moment. She tells you about her friend Riley, about Marlene and Tess and Sam and Henry. She tells you she’s immune.

And in the next sentence, you make a confession in ink that you would do no differently than Joel had. You say that you would damn everyone else if it meant the safety of this crying girl at your kitchen table, and Joel’s eyes begin to sting the longer he reads. 

You document a run that happened seven years ago in which you made your first human kill at fourteen. You reference it in several other entries as The Dying. It takes Joel until halfway through the journal before he realizes you formulate several things in this dramatic metaphorical way. 

Discovering Jackson is The Finding, you call your bow The Cursor and sometimes refer to Maria as The Director. Your sister’s death is referred to simply as The End.

With less than a quarter of the journal left to read, he finds an entry dated the day before he was assigned to watch duty with you. You refer to yourself as The Wraith, comparing yourself to the dead, to a ghost. You express your longing to be a sibling again, despite that fact never changing even after enduring such a heavy loss. 

And then the next entry, dated the day after your shift in the watchtower, is an almost blank page. In the center, there’s a hand-drawn moth, the only thing within the journal’s entirety drawn in color. Below it, a single word is written.

Joel.

[part six] [part eight]

taglist; @heartbrokenlilbitch-nef

[let me know if you'd like to be added!]

[thedollhousediaries]

The Dollhouse Diaries

Real Life In Plastic Tip #6:

ෆTime Management for Neurodivergent Girly Girls and Boujie Hyperfemmesෆ

This is the pretty girl era of having time management under control. The key is to learn how to live in the moment while also being discipline enough to move on to the next task as needed. I know that sentence was as daunting to read as it was for me to write ૮꒰ྀི⊃⸝ ⸝ ⸝⊂꒱ྀིა I guarantee I gotcha *Chaeyoung voice*

First Things First: Go 1 Week At a Time!! (every 3 days if an entire 7 is too much or your schedule is unpredictable, like mine)

Build a simple list of all the things you have to do and that you would like to do. Its much easier to get it all out on the table so you can donate more of your brain power to sorting things, rather than holding things.

Put all of the things listed on a calendar: Most important first things first! This means things like health appointments,work schedule, birthdays, holidays that you celebrate, classes, or anything that involves not only your time but other’s as well. Then after that put the elective things second; Nail appointments, shopping trips, dates with friends, etc. Lastly, put the things you would like to incorporate into your daily routine; We talking skincare, any hobbies you may have like drawing/painting/sculpting/reading/blogging, any form of exercise, etc.

Once the week or however much time you have scheduled out is done on your overall calendar, then its time for marrying it to your life.

Marrying your schedule: Planner apps, Physical Planner, Dry Erase Boards and Bullet Journals

Choosing your medium at keeping up with your schedule is very important. You may have to try them all before you get comfortable with something. I have tried them all and I’ve found that the main one that truly stuck with me was the app/website Notion. I like it because its fully customizable and you can use it at your own pace. Every week or every day may not be super eventful and so it drops the guilt and shameful feeling of not filling up pages every single day.

Here is what all I use and the way I use them:

Notion <3 I use it as my overall journal. I use the apps on my ipad/phone to check if I’m not home and I can use the website on my PC when I’m home and relaxing. I like it because its very versatile. Think of it as a digital journal combined with similar mechanics of tumblr. I use it for literally everything. There are a lot of videos that can show off all of the cool things Notion can be used for but this is the video that personally helped me learn it quickly

Bullet Journals <3 I have about 3 journals and I love them because I get to customize things with cute stickers and it gives very fun scrapbooking vibes. Because I use Notion as a all over planner I can use my BUJO’s for more fun and creative things. I usually use these for all of my cute ideas and things thats in my mind and aesthetic wishlists and such. Its very therapeutic to take time out to be kawaii and glamorous and just put cute thoughts on to paper! I mainly use it for kpop inputs, my fav shows, wishlists, dates and etc.

Dry erase board <3 I use this as a overall daily top important to-do list! Sometimes I dont always open my notion if I dont have anything extremely important coming up but there may be some things I need to keep on my mind to do for that day. The way my neurodivergency is set up I need to keep the most important things always in my face or I could forget everything. So, I put things on there like get a new tire, pick up order from bath & bodyworks, put clothes in the dryer, wash dishes, and etc. Daily tasks like that usually goes on my dry erase board

Remember at the end of the day dont be too hard on yourself and your schedule! Move at your own pace and always set yourself up for success. Scheduling is ideally suppose to calm you and be a tool to improve your life; not stress you out. If at any point you begin to feel overwhelmed just stop and recenter yourself and your life. I felt overwhelmed at first myself and that was because I was trying to keep up with a hyper organized and productive version of myself that I needed to give more patience to develop. Let this come organically to you and not because you are trying to keep up with what u feel everyone else is doing, or to the future self you are going to inevitably become. Happy scheduling, Dollmate!

[middlingmay]

Horse Trainer Gale x Veteran Buck AU Part 2

Read Part I here.

John's not at the hospital long. He doesn't need surgery or even so much as a stitch.

The psychiatrists who'd been on him ever since his ma spilled the beans about his struggles after coming home from the Air Force finally ease up when he tells them about Cleven Ranch, and that another vet is going to take him there once he's out and up and around. He isn't 100% sure he's going to take Curt up on his offer, but if it gets them off his back.

But then he sees his ma's relief and that convinces him to at least think about it a little more before writing it off entirely.

He and Curt meet up as soon as walking around doesn't feel like dragging a sack full of bruises around.

He tells himself he'll ask Curt about the Ranch but can't quite bring himself to. And it turns out they have plenty to talk about anyway. They swap stories, some lighter, some morbid and they laugh at them anyway. Curt tells him about how his brief encounter with the Air Force during an evac had him bailing out over Scotland, and John tells him about the time Benny smuggled a dog home from Iceland and made him everybody's problem.

It becomes a regular thing. They meet up at bars and restaurants and cafes. They go to a few local sports games. Curt eventually meets John's ma. He'd been frightened to meet her after practically running her son over, but she sweeps him into a hug because she's seen more of her son in the last few weeks than she has since he's been back. What are a few bruises compared to that?

A couple of months go by before John bites the bullet as says to Curt, "So this ranch. Is it a bunch of hippy dippy docs gettin' ya to weave straw baskets and daisy chains, and wanting you to talk about your feelings?"

Curt snorts at him. "Sure. If by that you mean shovelling wheelbarrows full of shit - literal wheelbarrows - and labouring in the middle of the afternoon in the heat, with the most uncommunicative man you're ever going to meet."

And John smells a scam. Some rancher using vets struggling with civilian life for free labour under the guise of therapy. Or, he would have, if Curt hadn't looked so damn sincere. And Curt doesn't strike him as someone easy to fool. Or someone who'd tolerate it.

She he gives in and agrees to visit and see what it's like. Curt picks him up and John's ma sends them off with a thermos full of coffee, a full crumb cake, and sandwiches laden heavy with fillings.

God John loves her.

It takes over an hour to get there. John's silent on the ride and Curt lets him be.

Eventually, they pull up a dirt track through land choc full of fields and paddocks and woody patches. It's a decent stretch of land - a few acres at least.

The main building is a generous stone cottage, and there's an eve bigger two-storey barn right next door. Curt tells him the barn is mostly accommodation for clients and storage, and the cottage is for meals, socialising and is where Gale sleeps - as well as any staff who needs bed for the night. The stables with the horses are further into the property, and John feels relief at that and tries not to let it show.

Curt stops a woman and asks where Gale is. She's beautiful and holds herself like a General or two John has known in his time. When she clocks John she turns to Curt and says, "This him?"

So it's also the day he finds out Curt is a total gossip.

Marge sends them into the barn. It's not too busy. Mostly full of people working: carrying, fixing and cleaning things. Others simply talk it up, or sit squashed into corners scribbling in journals.

Right at the back is a man surrounded by equestrian equipment. He looks up when they approach and John tries not to swallow his own tongue.

Because this alone is worth the trip. This might be the most beautiful man John's ever seen.

He has golden hair and tanned skin dotted with dark spots that make John want to play connect the dots. His lips are pursed around a toothpick. His jaw is sharp, his neck slender and long, and he has good wide shoulders and long legs encased in denim that had no business wrapping around a man's ass like that.

There there are his eyes. John has seen the bluest skies and flown over the bluest oceans, and not one of them were as bright and crystal clear as Gale's eyes.

"Right, Bucky." Curt elbows him and John comes back to earth. Gale's assessing him, up and down, and John is faced with the rare urge to shy away.

Curt rolls his eyes and introduces them properly. John is so distracted by the length of Gale's fingers and the grace of his hands and the low timbre of his voice as he tells John it's nice to meet him, that it takes a minute to sink in.

"Cleven? As in Cleven Ranch?"

Gale nods. "That's right. S'my ranch."

And John could cry because of course he's found the most beautiful creature on this earth, only to find out he's essentially long to be his therapist if he sticks with this.

And he needs to stick with this. He can't keep doing this to his ma.

Gale takes one look at John's shoulders and he's smothering a smile and beckoning John to follow him. John's feet obey without his input.

Gale leads them outside to a pile of strong wooden beams, and tells them they're building a medical station for the horses to treat any minor issues that come up.

Curt and John are put to work loading the beams onto a truck and then dragging them off again and onto the build site.

And because John is a social sort, he talks to everyone and learns that most of his assumptions about this place are wrong.

Gale isn't a therapist. he's genuinely just a rancher and business owner. No one here is forced to talk, and if they want to it's normally to each other.

The idea behind the place is the hard physical work it takes to keep it running tires out the body and quietens the mind, Then, over time, this helps people reach the emotional stability required to work with the horses. They dook donations, not fees, and people were only required to pay if they stayed the night - for food and utilities.

John also learns that Gale rarely speaks and rarely socialises with the clients. But he's everyone's favourite and leads by a steady, confident example that folks here wanted to follow.

Throughout the afternoon John catches Gale watching, or working nearby. Curt sees it too and looks at him funny. But when he calls out for Gale to join them, Gale ducks his head and shuffles off.

At the end of the day when Curt's saying his goodbyes and John's waiting for him by his car, his sun is blocked out and he looks up to see Gale with his hands in his pockets (seriously, how do they fit in jeans that tight?), rocking on the heels of his boots.

John, unusually tongue-ties only manages a garbled "Hey." But it makes Gale smile at his boots and look up at him through gold flecked lashes.

After a few moments of silence, as John's brain screams at him to say something, Gale asks, "What do you think of the ranch?"

"It's not what I thought it'd be, I'll admit." And when John tells Gale about what he had expected - all the emotional poking and prodding he wasn't comfortable with - Gale rolls his eyes but can't fight down a little laugh.

"I can't imagine anything worse," he says. "People prying into a man's business like that."

John thinks it's a good thing, too. if it's Gale doing the asking, he might just tell him anything.

"You, uh," Gale kicks some gravel around. "You think you'll come back? Looked like you were getting on with everyone."

John tries not to look smug that Gale has been paying attention to him so much today. So instead he smiles crooked, his dimples running deep on one side, and says, "Count on it, Buck. I'll be here."

[rekursor]

i still can't figure out how i wanna take notes and journal (physical/notion/obsidian)

i've spent what the last 3 years of my life? trying to figure out the "way that works for me" to write things down and i CAN'T

i've tried notion, notion is great, i can make databases and write notes anywhere and have a decent structure but i always feel like redoing and improving and the constant "improvements" take up so much time. not to mention i'm so bad at making things look pretty

there's obsidian which is great for my adhd bc lack of structure

OR IS IT?

it took me like idk a year and half to actually be able to use obsidian somewhat healthily but the anxiety of losing things is still there bc now i have a very loose structure

now ofc the last option is the one i've tried the hardest to stick to, a physical diary. this ones appealing bc PHYSICAL DIARIES ARE SO PRETTYYYYYY but also notion has its own aesthetic bc of how much online spaces have romanticized it

the problem with a physical book is the lack of organization and ability to change / edit things and not being able to search efficiently. this is why i keep getting turned off by it. i've tried bullet journalling but even that gives me too much anxiety

ultimately i need to balance all my aesthetic desire (physical diaries are cute to write itno, notion lets you make REALLY pretty pages and obsidian makes me feel really smart but the last isn't as improtant so it's more notion vs physical for aesthetics)

on the other hand organizing information is an issue. notion is easy to organize into but i constantly rework systems which takes too much time, physical books are REALLY hard to organize a lot of info in. obsidian is great bc i can throw things in and find SOME way back i guess

the BIGGEST issue is searching old information, this partially depends on your structure and how well defined it is but like a physical system is simply NOT going to work. you'll have to index like crazy, notion can help with a structure and some searching, obsidian is great for this as long as you link smartly or find a somewhat basic system to retrieve information

but having a lot of lists, juggling hobbies, needing to write informational notes, track friendships over time, remember what i did throughout the day, having short stories about things that happened to me, writing notes on videos i saw and papers i read... all of this is so hard to boil down into a single system and hard to divide into multiple bc i can't figure out where to draw the line.

in conclucions my adhd sucks i hate it.

[mister-president-lost-his-phone]

ALERT: Mister President has uploaded a reel

It’s been a bit since I’ve written in this magical journal. I think the little ghosts or people trapped inside this device took a nap. The magical device became a brick after a while…Ren and I had to configure an electrical circuit with enough power to wake it up again. But powering up this memory saver and journal was a fun time. I built a stationary bike, that when connected to this device with a fabrikated cord (I made all of this and it took a few tries to get everything right), it powered this journal. In exchange for my energy…I bet I cycled 100 miles to get this magical device back in order!

Anyways;

Mama and I went out shooting before I leave for Kerch. She’s helping me sneak my revolvers in my suitcase so I have them in case trouble arises. “You need to keep your wits about you,” she said, “Ketterdam has far too much Fjerdan and Shu traffic for my liking.”

And after all these months of lectures on how to make gun powder or bullets (Mama was not pleased when I pointed out I probably would not have access to this many materials at school) she shook her head and told me, “I just don’t want to come to Ketterdam and have to detail your face for missing person flyers, Little Rabbit.” (Maybe if the flyers were exclaiming how great I am then…that would be fine)

There’s all this pressure from my parents about being safe or about what I’ll study and how that will effect my future, but I know I can handle it.

I’m grateful to have my revolvers, they’re a perfect piece of home. Because with them I’m in control of any situation Mama and Da are dreaming up. With them I have a future. If school doesn’t pan out—Saints forbid—someone’s always looking for a hired gun.

Somehow every time Da starts on about maybe staying here…I just want to leave more. With this opportunity I put our family on the map. I make connections so maybe one day our farms will go international. Maybe I can get Mama and Da to invest in the oil reserves up north. Oh! Maybe I’ll make my way onto the Zemeni delegation and catch the eye of some Kerch girl! That would be something!

Mama and Da don’t need to worry. I’m ready. No Druskelle or scientists can catch Jesper Fahey!

[princess-of-the-corner]

ML Plot points: Nooroo

Nooroo’s relationship to Gabriel is not explored beyond “Gabriel abuses him” and his personality can be boiled down to wallflower.

I don’t like that.

When you think about it, he’s one of the three main kwamis of the show alongside Tikki and Plagg and yet he has practically no scenes dedicated to his personality. What does he think about Emilie? What does he think about Fu? Would he be ok with bringing Emilie back with the wish if it wasn’t for the akumas? These questions are never answered, so here’s my take:

Nooroo’s mannerisms are the same as canon; shy, polite, nice… Also slow to anger, but when someone does make him mad, he holds grudges beyond what would be reasonable. Bad news for Fu, the man who lost him and who Nooroo blames for every shitty holder he’s had in the 150 wish years between the fall of the Order and the Agrestes getting him.

My version of Nooroo is as honest about things as he’s physically capable of. He believes that open communication is the best way to solve most problems and encourages Gabriel to try and be more sociable (a social butterfly if you will, aren’t I hilarious?), even if he wasn’t successful.

When Emilie started falling ill, he tried to help Gabriel and Nathalie deal with it. He couldn’t translate the journal, but he could give ideas; a healing akuma, an akuma that reverts time on a person’s body, and akuma that can send magical side effects from one person to another. All of his ideas either didn’t work or were temporary at best.

After a short while of this, he bit the bullet and helped the Agrestes trek down the Guardian to see if he could help them. They always met him through an akuma, because just because they were negotiating doesn’t mean they were any less cautious.

It went… It went. The Guardian was very tight lipped, which he saw coming, but he never really gave solutions. He just.. placated them. He gave long explanations about what they could do but it was always vague.

It was Nathalie that noticed he was closer to Paris every time they talked to him. Once she pointed it out, it became too obvious to ignore. He was tracking them. Hawkmoth sent one more akuma to confront them. Jade Turtle tried to placate them once more, but they pushed. And pushed. And pushed… Until it slipped out that he never intended to help them.

Noor was furious. This man lost him and Duusuu. He left them to their fate and when someone reaches out to him for help, he rejects and deceives them.

Nooroo can hold a grudge. He can also force the old man’s hand. If he won’t help them they’ll just get the other kwamis to see if they have ideas. And while he detests using the wish, if all other options fail, he understands if Gabriel uses it. He misses Emilie too.

There’s my take on Nooroo. I might have put a bit too much emotion with the end part, but for this one I kinda like it.

-

OKAY BUT HELL YEAH THOUGH

[counsellorerestor]

For the headcanon meme: 📖 👻 🥀 🏭 🏛️

[ 📖 ] does your muse keep a diary or journal? what do they, or would they, write in a journal?

Yes and no. Erestor keeps a leatherbound journal on the desk in his office. It is, essentially, the equivalent of a modern bullet-journal; it is a planner with his tasks and appointments for each week and day, and sometimes he makes notes on how something went.

The only thing it would tell you about him is what he is doing and whether it went well.

Erestor is not someone to write his personal thoughts and feelings down. He is often introspective, and will take some time to sit and mentally work through things and process what he's thinking and feeling. But he keeps that to himself and, to some extent, his inner circle of friends.

[ 👻 ] what decisions have your muse made that they regret?

If asked today, Erestor would shrug and say he cannot regret the paths he took because they led him here, to a place where he is happy and content.

If probed deeper, Erestor would say he deeply regrets the Second Kinslaying most of all. The First Kinslaying was a horrific, tragic incident, but he was young and swept along and he believed, at the time, that he was doing the right thing. He regrets it, of course; what Noldo does not? He also regrets leaving his family behind.

At Doriath, however, he ought to have known better. He thinks they all ought to have known better.

He did argue against it, but it was hard to sway the sons of Fëanor when the Silmarils were involved. Ultimately, despite his misgivings, Erestor accompanied his lords out of loyalty. He fought in self-defence, but people still died.

He regrets not being able to sway them, and he regrets going.

[ 🥀 ] what are your muse’s standards for a romantic partner? are they realistic? why do they have these standards?

I knew you would ask this. :P

Erestor says he has high standards, but really it's no different from most other people; he just rarely gets quite that close to people. He must find them attractive, of course, but that does not necessarily mean conventionally attractive; if he likes you, your face is dear to him. He had a lover in Himring who was scarred, but Erestor liked him and found him attractive. (That Elf died in the Nirnaeth.)

He does like sex, so they must be compatible in bed.

The good values and principles likely go without saying.

He likes a good sense of humour; he himself is a fairly serious person by nature, but he values someone who can make him laugh.

Having some interests and inclinations in common would be important, although perhaps with just enough difference to keep things interesting. Erestor and his friend Iorissel once tried romance for a while, but frankly they were far too similar and it did not work.

On that note, his partner must have a strong sense of duty and understand the importance of his responsibilities, and take their own duties seriously; they would need to understand that sometimes his work comes first. At the same time, Erestor would not want to always put his work first; if he loves you he should prioritise you, and similarly he would want to be prioritised. This is a hard balance to strike, and he wonders if it is realistic.

Erestor's mind is always whirring, always thinking of what to do next and what might come and how to prepare, even when relaxing. He wants someone who is easy to be with, who can make him relax so much that his mind quietens. If he has already found this quality in his friendship with a certain Captain, he does not say.

[ 🏭 ] is your muse happy with their job or career path? why or why not?

Of course!

Erestor may sometimes act a little put-upon, and he takes so much work upon himself that sometimes he can be a little harried. But he would not do that if he did not want to; if he did not, ultimately, derive satisfaction from it.

Erestor was a hard worker in Lindon, and he respected Gil-galad. But he truly loves Imladris. He helped Elrond build it. He feels a certain sense of stewardship and responsibility towards it. It is his home, and he does what he does to keep it running as smoothly as possible so that all its denizens can be happy and peaceful, sheltered and well-fed.

He helped build Himring too, but those were different, stressful times, and he did not truly enjoy the work he did then. (Additionally, despite being Seneschal of Himring, he still had to do what amounted to military service. He was good at it, but it is not his chosen profession.)

In between being an administrator and counsellor, Erestor is a scholar of lore. He occasionally teaches some of the students (as somewhat of a guest lecturer), and he has contributed to the library. This straddles the line between hobby and career path, admittedly.

[ 🏛 ] does your muse have any strange interests? do they keep these interests to themselves, or are they comfortable sharing them with others?

Not particularly strange. Erestor is a curious person and enjoys learning about the world. He likes learning about other peoples and cultures. He has a passing interest in natural history, or the study of the world around them, though his true passions are history and literature. He has written a few historical analyses and treatises, and sometimes teaches. He is happy to share all these interests.

He does take a special interest in Númenor, because of Elros. Most people assume he is just doing his job, but it is very personal.

[rainy-sel]

my interactions with mads at dallas fan expo 2024:

the photo op 11:30

I was there with my great grandma, and we went to the photo ops for mads mikkelsen. i was terrified. to make matters worse, when we were standing in line two, i realized i forgot something in the car, and that my great grandpa left with my dog so i couldn’t get it back. this was devastating but we’ll come back to it later. when it was my turn a crew member told me to put anything i didn’t want in the photo on a table, so i carefully put everything down and went into the curtained off room. there was a small line i waited in until it was my turn. when my turn came mads held his arm out for a side hug, and i had no idea where the camera was so i looked at the lighting umbrellas. then i ran off because i thought the photo was over but they called me back halfway through me grabbing my things. i tried to set them back down but they slipped off the table and onto the floor. i panicked but luckily my great grandma was there and she picked it up while i retook the photo. the camera man said look here and i took a breath*, then he took the picture. i slowly drifted away with my arm outstretched, he was reaching out to me too, it was like we were mirroring each other as i waited for the camera man to tell me the photo was good. my hand grazed his forearm and hand lightly, it was like a dream. then i got the ok and I dropped my arm and began to leave. as i glanced back he was smiling, and i ran off to collect and check in my things while buzzing with joy.

the autograph 1:15-1:40

after the photo op i briefly looked around the vendors, then got in line at 1:15ish. i stood in line for about an hour and 30 minutes, while my great grandma found a chair to wait in. i feel a bit bad for mads considering some people in line were talking about getting refunded if they didn’t get an autograph** and he was still in the photo area with a bunch of photo groups all until a rumored time of 1:20, though he may have taken some photo groups sooner considering what time he got back to the autographs. mads made it to the autographs at about 1:15. once i was at the front of the line a nice crew lady ushered me to get my name spelled. i was excited and scared. i walked to the man writing and gave him my name and spelling (a-k-s-e-l) and he wrote it on a sticky note, placing it on my bullet journal and sent me to wait in the smaller line. i originally was going to do a section of duolingo*** and tell mads that i aspire to be like him as an actor, but having left my art in the car that i spent hours and hours to draw for him, i scrapped that plan and pulled the art up on my phone, thinking i’d have no chance to get it back and give it to him personally. i gave mads my journal to sign and told him my predicament. i showed him the art and asked if there was any way i could mail or email it to him. upon seeing it he said it looked nice and said i could get in contact with the people running the con and that they could get it to him. as he spoke he had a concerned look in his eyes, like he didn’t want my hard work to be all for naught. then he smiled and handed me my book as i said thank you with a relieved smile, taking my book and walking away.

(image 1) journal with “lecter-graham butchery, est. 2015 ‘ethically sourced’” printed on the cover.

(image 2) inside cover of the journal in image 1 with “to aksel…” and mads mikkelsen so signature on it.

panel 2:45

my great grandma and i were general admission, but we got to sit in the front row because my great grandma was with me and the people on either side of us weren’t the type to call others out for breaking a rule like that. not much happened with me and mads during this panel, i didnt ask a question, but i did sit in his “look off into the distance and think” spot. he reacted to me once i think. near the beginning of the panel he looked at me and i raised my eyebrows at him, then he raised his eyebrows lightly back at me, but looked away before it could turn into a competition. this could’ve been him thinking about something and raising his brows once he got an idea or something but that’s my perspective.

art gift! 3:25-4:01

after the panel i asked mads’ crew if he’d be back for more signings and they said yes, so my great grandma and i fast walked 5 blocks away from the convention center in dallas summer heat, which was about 99 degrees fahrenheit at the time, then my great grandpa drove us and dropped me off back at the con center, and i booked it inside and fast walked through security, the vendors and back to mads’ signing desk. it was 4:01 when i arrived and i was winded, standing there holding it at my chest, waiting to be noticed, unsure if i was too late. i’m pretty sure mads made eye contact with me then the group noticed another guy walking up behind me with a walker, and the nice lady from the autographs spoke with me while another spoke with them. she asked me if i wanted the art signed and i shook my head, trying to breathe, and said no, i just want to give it to mads, so she got permission for me as long as i kept it short and sweet and ushered me back to his table. the crew must not have realized i was trying to breathe, and thought i was scared again. one told me not to be scared or anxious, and i said, i’m not scared. i just ran 5 blocks outside, which while hyperbole, felt true to my lungs. i waited my turn and gave him the art, to which he smiled softly and said “it looks like my wife.” i think i said it was, then i thanked him for making my birthday wonderful. he did not respond. he was too busy looking at my art, then he looked up, smiled more genuinely, and thanked me while offering me his hand to shake. i think he’s left handed, because when i looked down at our hands, i saw mine had graphite on it****. i smiled and i think i nodded but i can’t be sure that i gave a verbal response. then, finally, i walked away.

(image 3) top left corner says “mads og hanne er søde sammen” which should mean they are cute together, and to the right of the dog is it’s name from what i can tell: “messi”

real photo of me trudging away:

ignore that other dude

[aria-ashryver]

ive had Ollie for ten seconds and they are my child. I love aer. Cinnamon roll of all time. Perpetually too cold. If any side characters in The Ghost Of Us say anything mean to them, I will cry and so will they. (Please enjoy a little intro (w edits) bc once again I couldn't resist yeeting the "Generic" body type and replacing it with "Lady")

Oleander Woods (they/them, occasionally uses ae/aer) | Demigirl | Allo

🧡 Vibes!🧡 dimples, freckles, tea, fuzzy socks, anxiety, thrifted grandpa sweaters, excessive apologies, baby animal enthusiast, timid, excessively helpful, has never raised their voice (probably doesn't know how), bullet journalling, optimistic, easily the softest MC I have ever made.

✨ Goes by Ollie (Lee or Lea are fine too!). Entirely mindblown that between all four of aer parents, they somehow decided Oleander Woods was in any way a good name for a child??? (They think that sounds like a landmark)

✨ Ollie grew up in a loving household with two mums and two dads. It always amused them when all four of their parents would turn up to parent-teacher conferences at school, only to have people think "oh its so nice that people can get divorced and still make an effort to accept their ex's new partners for the sake of their child!". Yeah, no, Ollie's parents are poly. None of them are sure who got Mum #1 pregnant --Mum #2 is trans-- so they all claim Ollie as their baby and absolutely dote on aer and smother aer with affection.

✨ There is not a single ghost they will not help. They are selfless to a fault, and still feel like they aren't doing enough.

✨ Was overwhelmingly sad when they got mugged in the subway, not because their wallet was stolen, but because that person probably really needed the money.

✨ Will gently carry bugs outside. Tried to adopt every stray animal ever, in their youth. Volunteers at an animal shelter in their adulthood.

✨They know they are naïve, and that will lead to people taking advantage of them, but they don't really care if it means they can help people who actually need it.

✨ Worried about being misunderstood so they ramble and over-explain a lot.

✨ Really wants to get a tattoo (or several) but they are scared of how much it will hurt. Also the reason ae has no piercings.

✨ Their main goal in life (beyond helping as many ghosts find peace as possible) is simply to be comfy and warm. The ghosts trying to make and interrupt existing psychic connections tend to cause the air temperature around them to plummet --which is fine! Its not the ghosties fault!-- but it does mean they are forever in pursuit of a good woolen jumper.

✨ Their fav colours are orange, yellow, and green.

[theambitiouswoman]

hey,

idk if i should ask this but there's things really messed up for me and i really need some advice and get out of this.

*i always see many different kinds of posts about self improvement and self care and after seeing that i make many goals for myself that i will implement all of these. But i just dont know how to do these and how to start and what to start i just want to do all of the things in one day which i will never do.

*i am a high school student, this is my last year of school and also it is really important and this is the only very long vacation i got and i am very weak in studies also i have very less knowledge about many things (like i am just dumb?). My school is gng to reopen on 28 august and when my school is closed i planned various things that i will improve to do to improve myself and become a completely different person (like have a glow up). But i did nthng for like whole one month and just watched kdramas and stuff. i also have many things to study and complete stuffs.

*i jst dnt knw hw to do like planning and stuffs and do my works according to it. bcz i tried making notion templates regarding everything and do all the stuffs in one day and bcm a wonder women in one day but i did nthng. and then i deleted my whole notion page bcz i jst dk hw to do. i also tried bullet journaling that didn't work s well. i jst dk wht do everything is jst messed up.

*also i feel so embarrassing talking to someone verbally in english bcz idk i jst start saying nonsense words like i realy dk hw to speak english even though I've been speaking since i was 4.

*i am just struggling with all the aspects of my life. and idk hw to just start.

*also like i jst be scared to talk to someone or even speaking in class or anything i jst stand there being embarrased and getting weird looks from everyone in my class. no one even asks me anything bcz they know tht idk anything and everyone looks down at me like my own parents too.

*and my sleep schedule is also a mess rn. and like the whole day i jst keep making fake scenarios in my mind tht i dnt feel like i am in the prsent my brain jst gets numb and i dnt feel any thing in the present its jst like yea the prsenet is somewht gng on but i hv no idea wht is gng on i jst forget everything. this is gng on since many years. evn at school i jst dont listn to any lecturs bcz of this. i think my thinkinh capabilities has also gone. i jst forget things very easily.

*i wanna workout to remove my leg fat but i end up planning many thiings in one day like focusing my whole body this and that and then i give up that toooo.

i hope i get a reply from you :(

Hey! Just saw this part of your question.

I get what you're going through. You want to make things better, but you're not sure where to start.

If planning tools like Notion or bullet journaling don't work for you, that's fine. Try making a list or using your phone's notes section. That's what I do.

When it comes to talking in English, it's okay if you feel scared or mess up sometimes. You're being tough on yourself and caring too much about what others might say. This is something many people go through. But let's shift our attention away from others and focus on how you can handle this feeling of not being sure about yourself.

Are you truly putting effort into improving yourself, or do you give up as soon as things get tough? This matters a lot because you need to make a real commitment. If not, you'll just keep going around in circles of negativity. If you want to exercise, then go ahead and exercise. What is stopping you? Think about it? Just yourself. That is quite literally it.

If your sleep schedule is messed up and you feel disconnected, try setting a routine for sleep and doing things that help you stay present, like meditation or going for a walk.

I can tell you're feeling pretty down and everything seems gloomy right now. I understand, and it's not a good feeling. But there will come a time, and it looks like you're getting there, when you'll need to stand up and take charge of your life again.

If you really want to work on all of these things, you need to cut/stop doing all of the negative things you are doing now and only focusing on the version of you that you want to identify with. Change might feel tough, but staying stuck in one place is tough too. You get to pick which kind of tough you want to deal with.

I am going to teach you right now what you need to do if you really do want to work on yourself.

Write down things that make you feel not so good that you want to change.

Next to each item, write down how you can make these things better. For example, if you're not exercising enough, you could start taking short walks every day.

Forget the old version of you exists. Imagine you used to eat a lot of junk food and that made you feel tired. Decide that you won't go back to eating junk food even when you feel like it. You need to really have a vision for yourself and who you want to be. This is important because it will be how you motivate yourself.

Keep finding new ways to make your situation better. If you're trying to be more social, maybe you could join a club or group where you can meet new people.

Exercise and incorporate more healthy meals into your diet. Exercising will not only make you feel good but it will also help you look good.

Take care of your appearance. When you look good you feel good and vice versa. You will become more motivated and confident.

Stop procrastinating. Set realistic and achievable goals. This will help you boost your confidence as well as increase your levels of productivity and discipline.

Get hobbies. Learn new things, figure out your passions and pursue them. Live a life of purpose so you don't continue to feel like you are just floating through life.

Avoid negative content or really anything that no longer aligns with the version of you that you want to be. You want to change your life? You want to be a different version of yourself? What does that person look like? How do they act? What do they do? Your whole life should be consumed with those examples and those examples ONLY.

Learn a new skill and practice it daily. This will help you grow as a person. Develop critical thinking skills. You learn new things and become smarter. It will make life more interesting and exciting for you.

Keep promises to yourself. If you don't take care of yourself, who will? People will treat you how you treat yourself.

REPLACE NEGATIVE THOUGHTS WITH POSITIVE ONES. Pay attention to how you talk to yourself because you are listening and your mind is normalizing these ideas.

By doing these things, you can feel better, be more confident, do well in your tasks, try new stuff, have good relationships, make good choices, stay positive, and be someone others trust. It helps you have a happy life where you learn and grow while being kind to yourself and others around you <3

[littlestsnicket]

TIL that photographing journal pages is a lot harder than i suspected and the lighting at my office is particularly garbage for it.

anyway, i was talking to @kuwdora about trying to harness all of the productivity skills one picks up to put processes in place to allow yourself to be more creative, so i made a commitment to experiment with using my scrum master skills into making it easier to finish this fic.

the first task was to decide on a backlog management tool. my primary concerns were portability and that i like tactile things, so i went back to basics and decided against using a backlog management tool at all. so now my backlog lives in my bullet journal.

more scrum related rambling under the cut:

in my professional opinion, the point of scrum is to make (and deliver on) clearly defined commitments. i’m still working through how much commitment making i want to do, because writing is a hobby and i don’t want it to feel like a job, but it’s also a hobby that i want to get better at and make easier for myself to still do when i’m tried or have decision paralysis or whatever else stops me from writing. we’ll see how it goes.

if nothing else, just going through the exercise of making a backlog was helpful. since i usually write such short things, i don’t have a lot of coping mechanisms for dealing with a 35 page google doc and the start at the beginning and hope you get to an interesting note or piece of beta reading feedback was getting daunting and unproductive.

now that i have provided some introduction, i’ll move on to an abbreviated team charter, since team is just me (and maybe @soymimikyu, my beta reader, but mostly just me).

mission statement: discover and use effective processes to write more and finish the fucking fic!

scrum rituals:

sprint: i’m going to try single week sprints starting/ending on wednesdays. i think making smaller commitments for a shorter period of time is going to work better for me, but i can come back to this if i change my mind.

daily standup: i was initially thinking, no i’m not doing that, but i’m going make a commitment to look at the sprint board at least once a day

refining: i don’t think i need dedicated time for this. if i try using scrum for something that has more undefined scope this might be useful, but i don’t expect that i will add anything to the backlog (just break down some of the stuff under needs refining into smaller pieces)

retro: i do want to set aside some time on wednesdays to reflect and see if this is working from a process perspective

review/planning: usually those don’t really go together, but i think they should. this gets glossed over a lot in practice (in my experience) but the purpose of a sprint review is to update the backlog based on stakeholder feedback, and given the lack of stakeholders outside of myself and my beta reader, update the backlog and make a new commitment for next sprint do naturally go together.

we can skip the conflict resolution bit too. (conflict resolution is that it’s my fic and soymimiku’s opinions about parentheticals are silly.)

i think that’s enough defining to get started. i’m a huge process nerd so i’m kind of excited about this. we’ll see if it works!

[anon-horsey]

bringing the bullet journal back

The first time I started bullet journaling was in 2020. I was severely depressed and suicidal and started bullet journaling at the suggestion of my therapist. I had friends who were going through similar stuff at the time so it was an activity we did together (over Zoom, usually, because pandemic). I kept doing it through the lockdown and kind of stopped around the end of 2021/beginning of 2022. I don't know exactly why I stopped but I definitely have a few theories. One, being that ironically, I had too much stuff to do to spend time bullet journaling. Which makes sense- all I was doing during the pandemic was online school, some internships, and being depressed. Once it was "over" (no, its not really over; covid is still very much a thing), I started going back to hobbies, social stuff, etc. But its still kind of ironic that getting more thing to do made me not have time to do the thing that would help me plan said things to do. I think there's an explanation though. I was doing too much. I was so far down the aesthetic bujo side of social media that I was doing way more than I needed to. I didn't need 3 pages of fancy artsy spreads just for the aesthetic. Don't get me wrong, if that's your thing and it brings you joy, more power to you. Personally, I was so stressed about making the perfect spread, I would rather have not had a spread than have an imperfect spread. So, what's new? Well, first off, I tried using Notion. Hell, I still use Notion. And I freaking love it. But there was still a gap. Notion is great for planning, organizing all of that. I use it for all of that, too. But I realized, there was some bit of that artsy bullet journal spread that I was still missing out on. And so, I'm bringing the bullet journal back. With a LOT of changes. First off, screw all the pretty pages from Pinterest, Instagram, etc. No fancy notebook either- just an unruled composition book. I want to keep this as simple (or complicated) as I want. I'm getting rid of all the trackers that I never used. It's just going to be a giant, messy, chaotic to-do list, with some aspects of the bullet journal still in it. I'm keeping my monthly spread and possibly adding a finance tracker because I'm way more in charge of my own finances now. The rest of it, however, is going to be raw, unstructured chaos. I want to be able to scribble down ideas that came to me at 3AM without having to find 30 brush pens and a pack of supertips, y'know. Raw, unstructured chaos. And hell, if I want to be artistic at some point, no one is stopping me from doing that either.

Let's hope it goes better this time (and that I rip out less pages from that notebook).

[smurphyse]

Desert Petrichor | S.R.

Smurph’s Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Chapter 13 of Operation: Sand Leopard

Warnings: canon typical stories, grief, crying, funerals, shower boners

Summary: You accidentally show too much of yourself to Spencer, and he's such a good guy about it... you just can't take it.

A few weeks after you set Spencer up on his call with his family, you still couldn't sleep. 

You'd think the exciting events of the last month and a half would knock you out nightly, but the darkness wasn't your friend and never had been. 

Plus, it was Teddy's birthday today. He would have been thirty eight. 

You'd only been married two years when he died, and on nights like this, heady with memory, you couldn't help but think of the life you'd lost with him. 

You'd planned for a family, a big one you'd dreamed of. You spent days putting together a room for Alijah to have when she came home with Teddy, proud and excited and ready to be a mother for her. 

I tried to go easy on the pink, but it's such a pretty shade, Ted. Do you think she'll like it?

I know she will. We can't wait to see it, angel. 

But then you'd been called up for duty, went to Afghanistan, and you got shot in the darkness. They pulled Teddy early from his mission so he could be by your side, and his plane exploded on its way to the military hospital in Germany. 

They said it was mechanical failure, an accident. You didn't believe that for a second. 

Before he died Teddy sent you a notebook, coded in the cipher he'd created as a kid so his brothers couldn't read his journals. He said he thought someone on his team was feeding information to Sayeed and his merry band of drug traffickers. Two weeks later he was dead. 

Alijah's case was immediately pulled from the urgent pile, and she was sent back to Sayeed. She was twelve years old at the time, and they sent your daughter back into the arms of a child molester and murderer. 

You'd die yourself before that happened to her again. 

It was why you kept a stranglehold on who knew she was there. You didn't trust anyone, not even your unit, to visit her. It took a year for you to entertain the idea that Peanut could be someone in the room, and even then you'd changed your mind a million times. 

The decision to let Spencer do it was a calculated one. Luke Alvez had served with Teddy in Iraq, and you'd come across him over the years on missions and the like. If Teddy trusted him, so did you, and now Spencer had proven himself to you so many times you couldn't help but do so. 

You didn't think you could be Alijah's mother without Teddy being her father. You just didn't have it in you anymore. You'd woken up alone in that hospital bed in Germany with a bullet just missing your heart, and then it had been shattered irreparably when two Marines in Service Alpha uniform walked somberly in and told you he was dead. 

You didn't have anything to offer her except to keep Teddy's promise and bring her to safety in the States. 

You were sitting outside, drawing Teddy's face from memory and leaning against the CHU, wallowing instead of getting some sleep. You didn't notice Spencer until he sat down beside you, startling you and making you drop your pen. 

"Jesus!" you gasped, slapping a hand over your chest as your heart beat wildly. 

Spencer flashed you a sleepy sheepish grin that only made it pound even harder, "Sorry. I thought you heard me."

"Put a fucking bell on," you grumbled, snatching your pen from the ground and snapping your journal shut. 

Spencer just watched you, his brow cocked and an unamused expression on his face. You groaned and rolled your eyes, "Sorry. I'm just not in a great mood."

“Well, this might make you feel better,” Spencer said excitedly. He dug through his pockets and fished out a notebook, flashing it at you. “I finally figured out the code.”

You hoped the shock of terror that burst through you didn’t show on your face. Luke had told you he was smart but… Jesus fuck, who could crack a code by hand that fast without writing anything down?

Spencer flipped through the book to a post-it marked page and pointed at a passage, “This says, ‘I’m scared for her, Angel. Somehow the suspect is always one step ahead of me. I think I’m being watched… or I’m going crazy. Could be one of each or both.’”

You’d read all the journals thousands of times at this point. You could recite it word for word.

“Teddy thought there was a mole in the unit,” Spencer mumbled quietly, then looked up at you. “But you already knew that.”

You swallowed the lump in your throat and nodded, "Every move I make, Sayeed seems to know before I even make it."

"Then how'd you find Alijah again?"

"I didn't tell anyone, not even the unit, where we were going," you started slowly. You licked your lips and watched him in the moonlight. You hated how little you could trust those around you. It wasn't how you were trained. 

As a Marine, and as a soldier, you were taught to trust your unit. The bond between people serving with one another was strong, even when you didn't like someone. These people had to have your backs and you had to have theirs otherwise nobody would survive out here. 

"My team didn't have access to comms until we arrived at the hideout I heard Sayeed was at. When we got there, the only people there were his followers and Alijah." You rubbed your face roughly as the memory surfaced, groaning, "They tried to kill her to keep her from us. They knew she had information and had been turned before. Sayeed didn't kill her because apparently she's his favorite…

"We did what we had to. The mission changed as soon as I laid eyes on Alijah," you finished, staring down at your hands as the image of her in that dim old house came to the surface. "It was like Teddy was calling me from beyond the grave. I mean, she was right there… she wasn't even supposed to be there."

"Did you serve with him?" Spencer asked, making you look up at him with a furrowed brow. He pointed at the notebook he held, so similar to the one you'd been drawing your husband's face in, "Teddy."

"Uh, no, but Alvez did," you murmured. You couldn't let Spencer know how personal this was for you, not now that he knew about Teddy's plan to adopt Alijah. "I met him on liberty in Dubai. We kept in touch and I served with Alvez on my last bit with the Marines before I got shot."

Spencer smiled dreamily and leaned his head on the CHU siding, "I've never been to Dubai."

You glanced down at your hands again, scarred and damaged from years of putting your body through abuse in warzones. The new one on the side of your head throbbed. You'd never get to show Teddy your new scars like you had that night in Dubai. 

"It's beautiful," you grumbled at the dirt. Your chin wobbled against your permission, and you had to clap your hand over your mouth to suppress it. 

Spencer was watching you, and you could feel the weight of his concern soaking you in that softness of his as you tried to hold back your tears. There was no hiding them, though, and they spilled down your cheeks in rivulets of hot streaks through the dirt.

"He was a good man," you whispered shakily, moving your hand just enough to let the words out. "He didn't deserve what happened to him. His family deserved better."

I deserved better, you thought selfishly. Alijah and I deserved better, dammit! 

Warmth flooded your shoulders as Spencer's arm wrapped around you. He didn't say anything, just let you know he was there as you cried. 

When he pulled you close, the cinnamon and musk of his aftershave flooded your nose with his comforting scent, your arms wrapped around his waist without thought. One of his hands trailed up your arm and into your hair, sliding your head into the crook of his neck. 

With your nose underneath his jugular, you melted into him. You hadn't had a real hug in so long, and on a night like this you needed it more than ever. Spencer's strong chest beat in time with your own, seemingly deafening in the desert silence until your tears subsided. 

You couldn't bring yourself to pull away, and instead as shame blossomed in your belly at finding comfort in another man on your husband's birthday, you nestled into Spencer Reid.

He held you for a long time, his thumbs rubbing soothing lines into your skin even long after you'd calmed down. It felt good to cry around someone you trusted, as odd as that sounded. For so long, you'd hidden your grief, not even letting it show at Teddy's funeral. 

Instead, in your Marine dress blues and with a cane as you still couldn't stand easily from your wound, you'd stood as tall and straight as you could while you watched his coffin lower into a grave at Arlington National Cemetery. His mother and brothers had cried even though the boys were in uniform as well, but not you. 

When the gun salute rang out, booming loud and causing everyone there who was not in the military to flinch, you'd saluted his coffin. You let Luke Alvez guide you to your car, and when the driver dropped you off at your now empty hole of a home, you dropped to your knees in the foyer and sobbed for hours. 

You always regretted not crying for him there, for letting the shame of being seen consume you. 

But…Spencer saw you. Without any effort at all he saw you, and he liked what he saw. He gave up his precious free time to hang out most of the night with you. You couldn't help but see the crush he had on you, and with horrified shock you realized you felt it too. 

After a while, you pulled yourself from Spencer’s arms and grabbed your notebook, leaving him in the dirt and fleeing inside. Shutting the door behind you, you leaned against it and dove under the covers on your cot, hiding from the world and the desert and Spencer Reid… everything that hurt and frightened you. 

You heard Spencer's boots clunk down the hall, flinched when his knuckles tapped softly on the door, but you didn't move. Instead, you curled up into a ball and coiled your muscles so tightly you were sure your bones would snap. You almost hoped they would. 

At least then they would send you home and you wouldn't have to see Spencer or the unit for a while. You wouldn't have to worry about bringing them home. 

It would be someone else's problem. 

But then…you'd lose Alijah, again. You'd lose Sivan. 

Lying on your cot and staring at the ceiling, you knew you couldn't let that happen. You weren't going to let the shame of being seen destroy these good things in your life. 

You loved Alijah. Without knowing her, you had loved her all those years ago. Love, in its unbreakable true to form self, that had only changed shape. 

It had made room for Sivan… and Spencer. 

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

Spencer got exactly zero sleep last night. 

He'd thought, perhaps foolishly, that cracking Teddy's code would make you happy. His crush-addled brain had conjured images of you laughing and smiling, maybe even hugging him. He had not thought for even a moment that the night would end with you crying and his hug being used for comfort instead of joy. 

You had already cracked the code, and you'd tested him…again. He was prepared to be a little snippy about it, but as soon as he spotted you drawing somberly in the moonlight he couldn't quite bring himself to act like that. 

Your hair had fallen over your shoulders, the pale wash of the moon mixing with the harsh overhead lights of the base and illuminating you in a glow that had stilled his good for nothing romantic heart in the darkness. He chose to make you smile instead, but it hadn't worked out like that. 

When you pulled away he knew you were embarrassed, and he didn't want to push you any further. You were a private person, and he wanted to respect that, so when he walked quietly to your door he didn't really expect you to answer, just wanted you to know you could if you wanted to. 

You didn't say much at the DFAC that morning, just leaned against Barretti's burly frame with your sunglasses on and drank your coffee while the unit joked around as they usually did. They didn't push you to talk, it seemed they knew better. 

You didn't have a new FRAGO today, so you let them have a day off before heading off toward your office. Spencer was going to spend the day with the unit but he only lasted a few hours before he went to find you. 

Spencer expected you to be at your desk, but when he opened the flimsy metal door to the trailer he found you lying on the floor with your legs propped up against the wall, snoring loudly. 

He smiled to himself as he leaned against the frame. You were ridiculous, with your arms crossed over your chest and your mouth open wide enough to catch flies, rattling the metal frame of the trailer with those sunglasses still propped on your nose. 

He decided to leave you be, and pulled out a chair as quietly as he could to sit at the table. Your snoring became the background noise of his research as he went over satellite data and Sayeed reports and case history. He didn't even notice you'd woken up until your palm slammed the side of the table in a death grip as you hauled yourself up from the floor. 

Spencer jumped in surprise as his face was reflected in your lenses. You grumbled to yourself, dragging your body into a chair and resting your head in your hands. 

"Why don't you just sleep in your CHU?" Spencer asked with a small chuckle. 

"You keep me up at night," you growled into the table, making him laugh again. You looked up enough to scowl at him, snatching your glasses off your face and letting them clatter to the table, "You never shut the fuck up, Doc."

"Well if you snored like that next door I wouldn't be able to sleep anyway. We both might as well be awake," he snarked back, and finally you smiled. 

You tugged on a file and pulled it close, squinting down at the information inside, "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"I wanted to talk to you."

You sighed and scrubbed your face with one of your hands, letting it drag down and pull on your jaw. "Look, I'm sorry I lost it. I had a bad day, is all."

"You don't have anything to apologize for," Spencer told you softly, and he reached out to bump his knuckle against one of yours. "People cry sometimes, and it's not a bad thing."

You bristled immediately, your shoulders coiling and your jaw tightening. You leaned forward and squinted at him, "Do you know where we are right now? You lose it, you get killed out here."

"We weren't outside the wire, Y/N," Spencer scoffed, leaning forward as well just to prove to you he wasn't scared of you. "But you wanna talk about getting killed? Not trusting your team is what gets you killed, and hiding information from me is a surefire way to send me home in a box."

You flinched, and Spencer regretted his words in an instant. He sighed and without much thought, reached out his finger to loop around one of yours. To his surprise you let him. 

"You keep testing me, to see if you can trust me. That's fine, after reading Teddy's suspicions, I understand," he muttered, squeezing your finger lightly, and you squeezed back. "But I'd rather just do the thing I need to do to prove myself once and for all rather than digging up the same information you've already discovered."

You watched him for a long moment, your eyes heavy and your mind obviously full as it churned through the thoughts inside. 

"I do trust you, Spencer," you told him, hardly above a whisper, as if you couldn't believe you said it out loud. "It's me that's the problem. I need to make sure you all make it home alive, and not in one of those fucking flag covered boxes. I need to stay… focused."

"I shouldn't have said that-," he started, but you waved your free hand at him to stop him. 

"This mission has killed enough people. Hell, even I wanna go home after this and stay there."

"You and Teddy were closer than you admitted last night," he said, and you nodded. 

"He was my best friend," you whispered, looking away. He could tell you were holding something back, so he found himself reaching out to cup your jaw to force you to catch his eye again. 

"Then all we need to do is find Sayeed and take Alijah home to Angel. That's what he wanted, and that's what we'll do."

Your eyes welled with grief, and your tongue darted out to lick your bottom lip like you always seemed to do when the words got caught in your throat. 

"I need to tell yo-," you started, but the door suddenly flung open to reveal a panting Morello covered in water stains. 

You and Spencer flew apart like you'd been burned, caught and embarrassed at the act of intimacy in a warzone seen by anyone else. He missed the feeling of your calloused fingers against his skin immediately, longing to reach out and grab your hand and never let go. 

"It's… it's fucking raining!" Morello gasped, not seeming to notice anything out of the ordinary at all. 

You stood sharply from the chair, letting it clatter behind you. Grinning, you grabbed Spencer by the wrist and dragged him from the trailer and into the downpour. 

Spencer had only been here a few months, so he hadn't thought much of the lack of rain, but by the giddy shouts and grown men and women running around it must have been a long time since anyone had seen it. 

People rushed about, wrestling in the fast forming mud puddles and plopping down in the water in glee. You giggled madly as you dashed after Morello, Spencer struggling to keep up as he gawked at all the normally fierce soldiers running around like children. 

He followed you to the makeshift soccer field the unit played on so often, and they were already running around and kicking a ball back and forth. 

Garrett held up his fists in triumph as he spotted you, "I'm ready to drown in this shit!"

Peanut dashed over and snatched the ball from him, and soon enough they were all wrestling around in the mud and dirt, caked all over and panting excitedly. You tried to tackle Barretti for the ball and he simply remained his usual brick wall self and grabbed you and tossed you over his shoulder. 

When he dropped you in a mud puddle, Morello was there in an instant to plop a handful of the muck into your hair. Garrett shoved Spencer squarely in the back and he fell over you and into the dirt. 

He looked up just in time to see Peanut and Garrett descending into the pile, holding out his hands and cackling madly, "No, no, no, wait!"

It was too late, and the soccer game dissolved into a wrestling pit of them all shoving one another into the mud until they all eventually lay gasping and laughing on the ground. You slung your legs over his sweaty wet chest and crossed your arms under your head, grinning up at the rain as it poured over you all. 

When it stopped after a mere hour, a chorus of groans and curses echoed around the base. The sun was beginning to set, arid heat rising again as it baked the mud into hard cakes along Spencer's clothes. 

One by one the unit filtered out until only you and Spencer remained, heading out to clean up for dinner. The weight of your heavy boots on his chest was comforting in the dying daylight, and he could have fallen asleep like that in the mud. 

"You miss home, Doc?" you asked quietly. 

Spencer looked over but he couldn't see your face, just the bottom of your jaw and the steady rise and fall of your chest. 

"Not like I thought I would," he replied. "I miss my books, though."

"You got a lot of those?"

Spencer chuckled and brushed back some of his dried dirty hair, wincing when his fingers caught in the thick paste. "I have seven bookshelves filled to the brim, and piles everywhere."

"Mmm," you hummed, then waved a lazy dirt caked hand, "what else?"

Spencer furrowed his brows at you, but you didn't even look his way. He didn't understand why you even wanted to know, and of course you didn't give much away. You never did. 

"I have… a record player, a pretty nice clawfoot tub-."

"You a bath guy, Doc?" you interrupted him, sitting up on your elbows to flash him a mischievous grin. 

Spencer got up on his own to wink at you, "Oh yeah, the best place to read is in a hot bath."

"Wow. You really are a giant nerd." You moved your foot enough to tap him on the jaw, and he playfully swatted it away. 

You hoisted your feet from him and turned to plop next to him on the ground, sighing and looking up at the flashes of purple and blue etching their way across the fading blue sky. 

"I would kill for a bubble bath right now." 

"Same," you grumbled.

"You were going to say something earlier, before Morello came in," Spencer started, the feeling of your heat next to him reminding him of your earlier conversation…and the wondrous sensation of his hand touching your skin. 

"Oh," you breathed shakily, and he could have sworn you blushed beneath the mud streaks on your face. "Just that… I think Angel is still going to adopt Alijah."

"Good!" Spencer smiled, but then frowned. "What about Sivan?"

"Her too, we just gotta find her first."

"At least Alijah will have the mom she wanted…" he murmured. Spencer broke out into a hearty laugh and you glared at him. 

"What?"

"Nothing, it's just… Angel will become a mom and a grandma at the same time."

You blanched, "Oh dear God. She's only thirty two!"

You sat up sharply, staring wide eyed across the base. Spencer sat up with you and set a hand on your shoulder, "What’s wrong?"

"Uhm… nothing, " you blatantly lied. "I gotta go. I need to shower."

You got to your feet and hurried off without a backward glance. It wasn't like the usual way you walked away from him, it was anxious and you were twitchy with nerves. 

Spencer followed a few minutes later, and he went to knock on your door to check on you but the shower in the latrine was already running, so he went to his own CHU and washed the muck from his body. 

You were so strange, all the time. He couldn't seem to get a good read on you, and it bothered him. 

Your caginess reminded him of Maeve. Though you were really nothing like her, your fierce protectiveness of your privacy was the same. He was trying to be respectful of it, but as had happened with Maeve he was infatuated with you, and it made him want to know more. 

Spencer took a deep breath and let the lukewarm water flow over his shoulders. The dried dirt turned to rivulets of mud, and he watched it trail down his body and down the drain. 

He tried to envision it washing away the queries in his mind, taking his crush on you and letting it go with the water and disappear into the pipes below. Soon enough, your face popped up in his mind, and as it had since he'd seen you in your underwear a few precious weeks ago, his body reacted to the image. 

"Go away," he grumbled to his growing hard on. 

That damned memory of you in your green Marines tee and black panties didn't want to dissipate, the clinking of your dogtags and the blush on your cheeks stained on the backs of his eyelids forever. You had tried not to appear embarrassed, but he could tell you didn't really mind if he saw you like that…and that was why he couldn't forget it. 

Over the last few weeks your touches had started to linger, fingertips brushing skin and your body relaxing into him just before pulling away as you sat closer than colleagues outside your CHUs, talking and laughing into the night like teenagers. Each time another of your walls came down, another went up, but what he saw behind them was worth the aching in his chest every time he thought about you. 

It had been so long since Spencer had looked at another person as anything but another human existing in this life. He saw you as an equal, a friend, and someone he trusted with his entire being. 

Spencer even seemed to trust you with his heart, even though something told him it was dangerous, and you had too. He could realistically die out here, or you could, or the unit, and it would scar him forever. It would probably be the final crack in his facade of sanity. 

But when he saw you smile… when your eyes crinkled at the edges and you let out those ridiculous guffaws of yours… when your snoring rattled the windows… when you bumped your shoulder with his and made a joke at his expense… it just ignited that flame in his belly that told him to ignore his screaming instincts. 

You were going to break his heart. Spencer was going to let you. 

Notes: How long do you think it'll take these two to jump eachothers bones?? How does it feel to realize reader will be a mother and a grandmother all at once??

Series Masterlist | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

CM Forever Tag: @thedancingcostumeyoungadult @muffin-cup @simplyparker @spencerreidsmommy @hotchandspencearedilfs @gspenc @kbakery @nomajdetective @givemeth @hoshihiime @halloween-is-my-nationality @reidselle @thisiscalmanditsdoctorreid @dreatine @thebloomingeagle @fortheloveofwonderland @theforgottenwinter @parkerreidnorth @reidselle @randomhoex @scargarcia-magshotchner @stitchwrites @pygmygoat-bicyclehelmet @cle13 @aysixdy @elhotchner @directioner5life @elhotchner @loveeee2134 @preciousbabypeter @la-stuffs @stories-you-wont-hear @hotchlover @fortheloveofwonderland @lokiandhisdagger @bellanutellababyyy @dark-night-sky-99 @straightforbuckybutgayfornatasha @maltamurdock @charelletjee @kansas-reid @zephyrmonkey @spencer-reid-wonderland @spencersprettyslut @im-sure-its-fine @tvdstelenaforever @teddylupintonks  @lilibet261 @kneelforloki @dirtytissuebox @almostgenerallyalways @whovian378 @cl0udyqu33n