#my mother found out about me being able to make jewelry and she wants me to open up an etsy and make money

[stuckyslut8]

THE WICKED WITCH .

pairing : orc!ari levinson x witch reader. King steve rogers x witch reader .(medieval au)

Summary :years after being betrayed by your lover steve, you seek the forest orc's help to give you an heir.

Warning: 18+ .angst.smut. breeding kink(just ari pounding you with his monstrous cock) .monsterfucking.period typical sexism. Fluff.

Part 2

There are not a lot of people in this town that cared for you, most detested you for your fate. you didn't mind them, what else was left for you to do anyway, apart from your apothecary business.

Still there are some who have grown fond of you, like the old lady who owns the jewelry store,sally ,and pete the baker, the town's drunk but wise man seth, with whom you've found comfort in many lonely nights , he was a gentle, tender lover ,he was one of a kind truly.

But you needed more than that, more than desperate affairs with the townfolks,more than broken promises from a man who you wish to not speak of and he rather not of you.

"It's only for your safety dove" ,he insisted, "they would kill you if they found out, but i will sort it out, i will marry you one day and make you mine in front of the whole kingdom i promise." But the day never came.

"All men are the same y/n, a prince is no different, or a king as they call him now." Sally said as she heard your misery,which was not a huge secret anyway ,there were always rumours about prince steven rogers getting involved with the evil witch, just to sow his wild oats some say , others say she enchanted him, but only you both know the truth and neither of you were going to speak of it now.

Steven was fine, he was betrothed to princess Margaret of the neighbouring kingdom as soon as his mother found out about the affair, and just like that he was gone , away to the kingdom of carter ,and when he returned he was no longer the steve you knew, he was a married man , then soon his father died and he became the new king. Not that any of that mattered now.

Now you were all alone ,a spinster, a wicked one ,as they say. So in this world full of hatred you wanted something to love, something to call your own ,which is why you had embarked om this journey now.

A rather dangerous one , "be careful y/n orcs are wild creatures, dangerous beasts ."

You thanked sally for her concern and led on with your journey.

Just as you entered the unexplored territory of the mystical forest, you saw it, a giant cottage protected by magical shields, of course you were able to break through it easily, you hoped you don't upset the orc so easily. But oh boy you were wrong, as you moved forward you were yanked back by a large arm to your neck and pinned against a tree. You came face to face with probably the most gorgeous mythical creature ever created, with his long locks, hairy chest, chiseled abs and thick arms, he was only covered by a cloth wrapped around his lower body .

"What are you doing here little witch?" His grip on your neck tightened ,you immediately used your powers to get him off of you. He stepped back picking up the knife that was hidden under his cloth.

"Stop, I'm not here to hurt you." You tried to calm him.

"Then what are you doing here, how did you break my barrier." He questioned you angrily.

"Oh please I'm the wicked witch of the west, this is beneath me." Your words only seem to agitate him more. So you switched your tone. "Anyway I'm only here to ask for your help. " i even brought you offerings" you laid out your bag which was full of things orcs liked.

he looked at it,expression remaining the same, "help? What help could a witch possibly want from an orc?" He realized what you wanted as he completed the sentence, it could only be one thing.

"I uh want you to-"

"You want me to breed you." He said in his deep voice which made slick pool in your core.

"Well if you put it plainly then yes." You said, currently ogling his form more than ever.

"Or Would you like to call it love making,like the humans do?." You noticed the shift in his tone now.

You stepped forward,making the first move boldly as you captured his lips in a fiery kiss, you moaned into it as his thick orc tongue explored your mouth.

"You can call it whatever you want as long as you fuck me with your big orc cock." You said out of breath from the kiss. This made him laugh out loud. "You do have a dirty mouth on you little witch, i like it." He said as he cupped your breast through your thin barely there linen dress you wore on purpose.

"I will breed you." He said at once. ",but under one condition. " you were no longer paying attention to his words as his fingers explored your body. "You will have to live with me "

"What? Here?" You asked looking around.

"Yes, where else?"

"What about my home?"

"Where do you live?"

"In the town nearby, brookenhaim." Ari huffed in response, "with humans? ,i thought they didn't like your kind." He said.

"They uh..we get along fine, i own an apothecary so uh yes......i live there, i can't just leave it all behind and come here and live with you in the middle of nowhere."

"Where's your coven? Or any family?" You went silent for a moment not knowing what to say ,you didn't come here to be questioned like this ,you came here to fuck.

"Where's yours?" You were met with the same silence.

"Look we dont have to do it this way mister.."

"Ari..ari levinson." You gave him your name in return.

"Right..ari " you poked a finger to his chest, as he looked at you mockingly, for your desperate attempts to intimidate him. "We're not getting married for fucks sake,so don't think much about my predicament, i just want a quick fuck ,get knocked up and leave." He smirked again at your words."what?"

"I didn't know witches were so uncivilized, and for one living with humans, you sound far from it."

"Uncivilized? You're a fucking orc ,living in the middle of nowhere, don't talk to me about being civil." You were furious now, ari could sense it,so he tried to soothe you.

"Alright, alright, i didn't mean to judge little witch, you can do whatever you want, but listen a mating period is very important for orcs, so atleast until you get pregnant i want you to be with me and that would also be convenient for breeding you i hope."

You thought about it for a moment, "alright, i dont think it'll take too long for me to get pregnant anyway, that is if you do a good enough job." You were back in your seductive mood now.

"Oh you worry about yourself little witch." He said giving you his signature smile and placing a kiss to he back of your palm.

You went back to town immediately, closed your apothecary ,took your precious belongings which was not much by the way, and your necessities for your stay with the orc and returned to his cottage. You looked forwards to saying goodbye to sally and pete , but were disappointed when you learnt that they were at the town festival dancing the night away, one which you were not a part of anyway, and would mostly be greeted by frowns, so you never bothered going again.

So here you were, alone in ari's cottage, you'd offered to make dinner with your homemade pasta you brought from town, while ari was out chopping woods for the night.

Ari came back after a while,looking all sweaty and worked up , you almost dropped the pot looking at him.

He ate the dinner you made, "hmm that's really good sweetheart, haven't eaten like this in a long time." You didn't know what he means by a long time, but didn't wanna pester him with more personal questions. So you questioned him about what you came for,

"So when are you gonna fuck me orc?" You asked teasingly.

"Eager aren't we pretty girl?" You almsot blushed at the nicknames he's been giving you, you. "Go wait for me on the bed...naked."

You nodded and proceeded to do as he said , taking of your dress and your undergarments, standing on your hands and knees , presenting yourself for him like an orc mate would.

Ari barged in the door , awestruck as he looked at your form, "hmm didn't know you knew about orc mating postions, little witch." He commented as he neared you, hands gripping your hips, positioning you for his comfort.

"I came prepared orc." You said as he toyed with your clit ,other hand moving to your breasts, lips leaving a trail of wet kisses on your shoulder.

You could do nothing but moan, and try to stop your knees from wobbling. Just then his mouth reached your pussy, his thick tongue licking a long stripe , spreading your wetness everywhere. "Hmm that's the prettiest pussy ever sweetheart. " you whimpered as he pushed his tongue into your hole, "hmm the tightest too, I've only ever fucked orcs, and they could barely take me, i don't know how this tight little witch cunt is gonna take all of me pretty girl."

His words only turned you on more, "but don't worry I'll stretch you out real good and leave you begging for more." He landed a sharp smack to your ass, the pleasure of which went striaght to your core.

Ari kept his promise and stretched you out, first with his finger, and then his massive orc tongue, then added more fingers, until you cried from the pleasure begging him to let you cum, and he did eventually after edginf you on for an hour. You fell onto your stomach as you orgasmed, losing your position that the orc seemed to love so much. So he brougt you back on your hands and knees, supporting you with his arms so you stay in position.

"I was just getting started little witch, now show me how badly you wanna take my seed, show me how good you can take this cock." He pushed the tip into you slowly, letting you adjust to his size, once you got comfortable, he started pounding into you, with such brutal force you gripped the sheets as you writhed in pleasure, you could hear his grunts too and filthy words that slipped his mouth as he fucked into you. 'You're taking me so good lottle witch, that pretty cunt is gripping me so good.' 'Aagh tightest pussy I've ever had, just the way i like it.'

"Fuck ,fuck ari I'm gonna cum." You cried out as you neared your orgasm, "cum for me little witch." And you did for the fitth time that night, you could feel ari getting sloppy, he was nraring his orgasm too, but he picked up his phase again and fucked into you real good, with a lpud grunt he came in you without warning, filling you up to the brim with his warm cum.

You both laid in bed facing the ceiling, caching your breath,ari turned his head towords you ,"so it's true what they say about witches."

"What ?" You raised your eyebrows.

"You have the tightest pussies out of all the creatures in the mystical forest." He daid jokingly.

You slapped his arm, lightly too fucked out of your brains to respond to orc's comment properly. "You like tight pussies?" You aksed after a moment.

"They're the best." You huffed at his response."is that the only thing you look for in a woman?"

"Hmm only you could turn a compliment into a debate little witch....No,There's much more obviously."

"And what if she didn't have a tight cunt, what then."

"It doesn't matter ,when you accept someone as your mate, you don't care about anything else, you only care about cherishing them with all you have."

The next morning you woke up to an empty bed ,you looked around to see ari already in the kitchen making breakfast.

"Good morning little witch. " he stood there in all his glory.

"Good morning ari."

"I can't cook like you but i made something with the berries i gathered, here have a taste." He fed you his berry custard with a spoon, which you licked and hummed at the taste.

"It tastes so sweet ari." You moaned ,"but i think i need something salty to start the morning."

"I'm afraid i dont have anything salty to offer you sweetheart." He said genuinely. "This isn't the town where you can get-"

Just then you sank to your knees and pulled off ari's only clothing covering his body, "hmm i think you have plenty to offer me orc."

Ari's words died down in his throat. You took the tip of his member in your mouth, sucking it sweetly ,all the while looking at ari, you saw his pupils dilate, eye's turning dark filled with lust and pleasure.

He groaned in pleasure, as you licked a lond stripe along his cock the same way you licked the custard off the spoon. You used your hands to play with his balls, adding to his pleasure.

Ari knew he wasn't gonna last, he was thinking about you all morning, wanting to fuck you in your sleep, but he didn't wanna come of as being so desperate, he wanted to maintain his composure, so he opted to cooking instead, but here you were sucking his cock first thing in the morning ,bobbing your head up and down his member ,barley fitting in all of him in your mouth.

He came fast ,hard, spurting his ropes of white cum into your throat, which you swallowed willingly. "Hmm tastes so delicious orc..so it's true what hey say about orc's semen too huh? Tastes so good. Leaves you wanting for more." You said as you took him in your mouth one more time.

"Save some for that pretty cunt of yours little witch -oh just like that keep going." You slowed down your pace giving him kitten licks ,teasing him and having him on edge, likw he did to you last night, just then ari took control, he grabbed you by your hair and started fuckint your mouth roughly, you couldn't help but grind yourself on his leg at the same time.

He moaned your name as ge was about to come in your mouth you were ready to taste him, but he pulled out just in time to come all over your face and chest. "Hmm you look sp pretty like this little witch, painted in my cum."

You pouted, "but i wanted to taste your cum." Ari simply laughed at your pouting.

"Later little witch, let me fuck you now." He gave you his hand to lift you off your feet.

A/N : pls do reblog and let me know if you need more of this series.

[dreamwritersworld]

On the Run (? X reader)

Neteyam POV

When I watched Y/n, all I could hear was sounds of gentle pianos…she brought that beautiful side of life out despite all she’s been through. We went through the same amount of harsh training to be perfect leaders of the clan and yet we had to throw out entire lives away.

In the back of my head I knew my only plan with her was to run away…but I never found the strength to say so, not when she fit in perfectly for our clan.

*

“Y/n! Please help us demonstrate!”

“Of course!”

Y/n respectfully stopped her conversation with the elders as she walked to the teachers who were teaching the younger generation how to hem jewelry

“Y/n is the best at jewelry making kids!”

All the small children laughed and threw their arms out for Y/n to come towards them and assist, Y/n laughed at their eagerness and spent her evening playing and giggling with the children, she was always meant to be a mother and a leader..by the end of the class the children made the jewelry easily as if they had done it their entire life.

*

At times I think in silence of how much I crave her affection..she gave up on that awhile ago. I realize that it’s my fault, I was never one to accept our promise..

*

I lied in the worst ways a man could, I never slept with anyone or craved anything for another women. There would just be some nights where I’d lay beside them or discuss with them and just imagine Y/n as them.. I refused to do anything with her, only because I wanted it to feel real and not forced.

My ideal life would be me being the one to choose her as my mate, and have it all on our terms…it didn’t work out that way. In reality I had so much time to choose her, we were both just kids…we still are. Navi’s get mated much later on in life compared to us.

One night a Navi women slipped a letter into our maui, and I was by myself trying to help figure out new war plans so I could tell my father…everyone had been gone.

That was until Y/n walked in, she had went to grab a blanket for Tuk or something i heard her ruffling of searching come to a stop..

She came out of the corner, staring at me holding up the paper..

“Now don’t go imagining things..”

“Like Elfí..”

I had gotten annoyed and overwhelmed, frustrated that she had found of about my sneaking. We were still so young I felt I should’ve been able to go with whomever and that’d be fine.

“…baby?..”

Y/n voice broke saying the name Elfí had called me. I walked away attempting to keep everything under wraps.

“I don’t want to hear another word Y/n please.”

I tried to get away but Y/n didn’t allow it, she followed me into another part of the maui..

“Well is there something your hiding?”

“I don’t got a thing to hide! You’re just being to demanding!..you know I think you should go back to parading the clan.”

It was wrong yes, but in the moment I used what was most important to Y/n..the clan. Looking back at the argument now it was obvious it wasn’t her main priority..

“What?…well I’m not going!”

…our relationship was her main priority. Y/n was always one to remain mature about situations. And she was willing to stay if it meant that much to her..my sweet girl.

“I think you should! Just go!”

I threw the blanket in her direction as she scrambled for all the items Tuk requested for her..she sat on the floor sobbing next to them

Our arguments portrayed the innocence and immaturity of the both of us.

I, was retaliating aggressively and Y/n stayed.

*

I don’t deserve her, yes i know that. But all i hope for now is another way to fix this relationship; to fix how we are. I don’t enjoy this silence and I never liked it, I just felt like the relationship was too damaged to be fixed. We’re still young but at least now we can make an effort to fall in love again.

It will be so difficult to fix us though..today I’ll make the first step..

-Y/n’s Pov-

I woke up early, moving out of Neteyam’s arm..walking towards the sunset. Nothing was more beautiful than seeing the ocean, they reminded me of Ao’nung..

Theres no denying that you had fallen for him, he was perfect. He had given you the right amount of attention and respect..everything you wanted. There was guilt in this feelings though, you were supposed to be in love with Neteyam..but was this so bad? He snuck around you all the time.

So what if everyone wanted you and Neteyam together? So what if they believed you were the perfect love story? It was a cliche anyway. Neteyam only ever wanted to be a leader, who wants a man with just that as his personality? What about Ao’nung ? He was willing to get in trouble while fulfilling the clans needs..

You found yourself walking to Ao’nung and his family’s Maui in the early morning, knowing he’d be up for his duties..

“Hi!”

“Y/n! I just finished up, wanna go for a walk?”

“Of course!”

The two walked in silence, content and engaged with the sunrise..

“You know with all these weeks we’ve spent together, and I realized the way I treated you before I got to know you was wrong, i’m sorry”

“What? Why are you sorry?”

“Because I made fun of your family, I know it’s been awhile since the whole Lo’ak situation-“

“It’s fine Ao’nung I promise. As long as you treat them good now, everything’s fine.”

The two smiled at each other overlapping hands..and suddenly they gently pulled each other in, they had shared a kiss.

“..Ao’nung..im promised to Neteyam. I’m so sorry..”

There was fear hidden in Y/n’s eyes but beneath all of it she had a desire..desire to be with him, to love all of him and have him show her the greater experiences in life. Ao’nung knew this, he saw all of her..

“..I know Y/n, and if we can escape all of this and run away together? I would. You don’t know what I’d do for you Y/n.”

That’s all Y/n needed to hear before she went in for another kiss..and another, laughing in between.

“I don’t care if we’re on the run, as long as im next to you! Although we should keep this relationship a secret..just until we’re ready.”

“Of course my love, we don’t need to rush anything. You’re all I’ve ever wanted.”

The couple laid on the sand, smiling at the sky in their secluded area..they knew if the clan found out they were together and realized that Neteyam and Y/n were promised it’d be considered a crime…but if it was, why did Y/n bring out the best in Ao’nung?

Soon enough the time came for Y/n and Lo’ak to head to Ao’nung and Tsireya families Maui. There was a sense of awkwardness in the air however.

“..so..Ao’nung just invited you and me over?..and not the others?”

“Yea I suppose he did, mentioned something about them two being closest to us so it fit the occasion..”

“…right..and this isn’t because he likes you-“

“Likes me? Lo’ak please-“

“No im serious! Bros pinning on you!”

“Not as much as Tsireya is pinning you!”

The nervousness and flustering emotions cleared out Lo’aks need to ask questions, and he no longer thought more of the situation.

When it came time to enter Lo’ak eagerly walked in, yanking on me to follow.

The rest of the night was filled with laughter. Ronal was quiet and not willing to open up, but when she saw the interest and eagerness from Y/n to learn about her culture, she was spilling all her knowledge. It wasn’t the fact that Y/n was a perfect leader that interested Ronal, it was the way Ao’nung looked at her. The love was so clearly in her sons eye, she didn’t like it until she realized Ao’nung had been exceeding in everything lately and especially since he had been with her..maybe she wasn’t so bad?..though she had deals to situate with Ao’nung, because she wasn’t so sure about Y/n’s intentions

Later in the night when it was just them two cleaning up Ronal brought up the topic..

“..you like that girl-“

“What girl mother? I wouldn’t possibly know who you-“

“My child, if you’re going to lie do it right. That girl holds your heart and you’re willing to let her swallow it whole if it meant she was yours..so be it. She makes you happy? Have her. But just remember that these things always comes with deals..”

Ao’nungs heart struck with frustration witnessing his mother dangle Y/n over him.

“..no mom-“

“No? Wow. I guess Ao’nung knows best, fine if you’re so mature now.”

“I am mother-“

“She came with nothing on her back from a clan she was meant to be a leader to! You think that she doesn’t want that still? Go ahead and give it to her, but don’t let her deceive you!”

“She won’t mother-“

“Of course she won’t, she has nowhere else to go. She must learn our way and perfect them. You must remain focused on your leadership position. This relationship doesn’t go out to the public until you’re ready.”

“Yes mother.”

The conversation ended at that and Ao’nung remained frustrated..

*Neteyams POV*

I hadn’t seen Y/n all day, and suddenly she’s coming home with Lo’ak laughing about the dinner they spent at Ao’nungs home?..

The laughter of the pair died down as they went their separate ways to bed and Y/n couldn’t even bear to look at me

“Y/n-“

“Keep quiet.”

I spoke with a hushed voice and Y/n still shushed me

“Where have you been? All day I’ve gone looking for you, and you were nowhere to be found. Now im hearing that you were at Ao’nung families Mauri.”

“Please Neteyam just keep quiet. I don’t want to argue about this-“

“I’m not arguing, if you feel guilty about it-“

“I don’t. I’ll never will feel guilty about it Neteyam. It’s not like im sneaking around; yes I went to his families Maui. The siblings invited us to their Maui, it was an invitation. This isn’t just a regular family, they are the leaders of this clan-“

“I’m tired of that excuse Y/n, we are-“

“We are what? Mated? We are nothing yet Neteyam, you know that. We don’t even have a clan anymore.”

I watched as tears had slipped from Y/n’s eyes, she was hurt. Having to drop everything she worked for hadn’t been easy for her either..

“I know that Y/n..I just..”

There I was, frozen again. I was at a loss of words and I couldn’t find the ways to express my feelings.

“It’s fine..I just need to rest.”

Y/n laid down facing away from me scooting farther then she had before..it felt like she was miles away. I just need something..someone to hold..

*Y/n POV*

Days passed by and i grew accustomed to waking up earlier than everyone, this had become my regular routine. My first thought was to head over to Ao’nung but it seemed as though he was already coming over, he had grazed my arm and guided me back to our area. I didn’t speak the entire time, afraid he’d end our relationship. He looked so angry, it was like nothing I’d ever seen before.

“What’s wrong..?”

“My mother.”

“..did you tell her? Did she deny us..”

My heart had shattered even at the thought of our relationship ending.

“No! She just, she’s dangling you right over me. These past weeks shes been telling me about how she wants you perfected, worked to the bone as if you’re not doing enough.”

“Oh Ao’nung I’d knew that’d be an obstacle we’d have to overcome..this isn’t my home, your clan would want a perfect leader..someone to fit your environment.”

“I won’t allow their opinions to swarm you Y/n! I just won’t! It’s not right. I’m the one who needs to be perfect for you-“

“You’re perfect for me Ao’nung, what do you mean?”

“I mean that I need you to have someone who’s worthy of you, I will work on myself in the meanwhile.”

“It’s feels as though it’s been so long Ao’nung…we’ll need to tell the clan eventually. This sneaking around isn’t doing the clan good, you know that. I’ve told you before so many times, and you ignore it. I’m frustrated and I haven’t said anything to keep you calm. You act as though they’re going to believe I committed a crime by falling in love with you-“

“You don’t think that’s this isn’t harder on me than it is you? You don’t think that I don’t want to dedicate myself to being the future leader? You don’t think that I want to be honorable enough to be the man that is going to be controlling this clan that might I add WILL protect you? I love you. I’m in love with you.”

“…I love you too Ao’nung..but im just sick of hiding it. I need you Ao’nung. You’re perfect for me, your it.”

“Oh Y/n don’t cry..”

Tears of expressing those deep emotions had fallen, the strength of their love was far to strong for Y/n to express without getting emotional

“I can’t help it..I feel horrible and I don’t know what to do..”

“What do you mean? What’s going on?”

“I-I still go to the same bed every night, lay with Neteyam and he doesn’t know that im seeing you or that I love you..and I want so badly to just tell him it’s over..I can’t hide my love for you and it feels so wrong to be with someone else while im promised to him..”

“Y/n..im sorry. Our time will come, when we’re both ready. I trust you and I know your heart, I knew something like this would bother you and trust me I’ll work as hard as I can to find a way for us to get out of this..ok?”

“Ok Ao’nung!”

The two snuggled before going their separate ways, it was so obviously written on Y/n’s face. She had a glow, something exciting was occurring in her like and it was a sacred secret..

When Y/n was walking to the Maui, she had walked past a familiar voice..Neteyam’s.

“Maybe..I can come over, we can hang out, do whatever you like..”

Those familiar underlying words and tones that she heard his say to other women far to many times no longer hurt her as much..although she can’t deny that she still felt betrayed.

Yes, she was doing that same…but it’s only happening now. After so many years…how long could Y/n wait before she went off to find someone to love? Neteyam had always had someone to fondle with, to commit infedelity with..

She wouldn’t deny that the sneaking around she was doing was wrong, but she had her reason as much as he did. Except Neteyam’s were far too unreasonable to even listen to…and to think Y/n felt guilty? How pathetic.

Y/n walked right past him and her figure caught his eye..

“Y/n? Wait Y/n!”

Her eyes widened at his voice, usually he would ignore her and allow the continue the flirtatious conversation..he had no shame normally.

“..yes?”

Y/n tried remaining with a calm voice. She spoke in short words to keep it under wraps.

“What you saw there…that isn’t me anymore. I just-“

“Neteyam, I do not care what you do anymore. I don’t care who you sleep with, or who you’ll be laying next to. I have stayed loyal to you for far too long, and we both know that-“

“I know..I know Y/n! But you have to understand I just..i don’t know how to express myself to you. I have loved you since the beginning..I have loved you all my life. But when our parents dropped the bomb on us and promising us to mating; I felt like I had no choice. I thought you felt the same so I denied our relationship, I denied your love. I thought I’d be just fine without you but…I can’t Y/n..these past weeks that you been so distant I have come to realize that I need you more than ever..”

The silence was deafening, nothing would prepare Neteyam for Y/n’s response.

“No..no..”

“Yes.”

“…you’re being mean stop it! Stop it!”

Neteyam reached out for Y/n, while she pushed it away. He knew that he had made her wait far too long and her response was killing him.

“..I have been second since the moment we were promised. I was second to all the women, the clan, everything…I can’t do this anymore, I won’t. I have been loyal and I waited for you, but did you seriously expect me to take you back after all of it? After this much time? I-I won’t do it. Not when I spent my entire life loving you.”

There it was…the words Y/n so desperately wanted to release. It was true that she had fallen out of love with Neteyam..he just didn’t see it, and that wasn’t her fault.

“Y/n..? What-what are you saying?”

That’s when a mountain of tears started to drip from his eyes, realizing the love he had for Y/n would never amount of nothing and it’d remain forever a unrequited love.

“Our relationship is over. I break this promise to you Neteyam. I am no longer willing to put up with you , we’re done. My things will be gone in the morning.”

Y/n turned away, allowing her tears to fall as she walked away. She was not willing to look him in the eyes any longer or listen to his pleas. Those tears weren’t because she was leaving Neteyam, it was because she realized she was leaving something she had wasted so much time on hoping for..all those youthful years were gone. There was hope in her eyes though, hope and prosperity for a better future with Ao’nung..

!💕!

so sorry it’s been awhile 🥲 I’ve been busy and I wanted this to be at least decent 🏂

@jackiehollanderr @itsemy01 @norbis-h @ratchetprime211

[jordanianroyals]

Princess Nejla bint Asem for Vogue Arabia February 2023

By Gina Tadros & Nadine El Chaer

Photograher: Bader Sounnoqrot

Princess Nejla, daughter of Prince Assem, is one of the distinguished women who managed to manage their lives brilliantly, so she succeeded in overcoming all obstacles and challenges and was able to reconcile her work in the field of jewelry design with her status as a member of the royal family in Jordan and her role as a mother.

Princess Nejla went to study media and obtained a degree from Goldsmith University Dubai, but she chose jewelry design because of her passion for this field. Of course, the princess was not satisfied with her passion, so after graduating from the College of Mass Communication, she traveled to Florence, Italy, to study design and wax carving at Le Arti Orafe School, before returning to Dubai to study diamonds at AGI. Thus, the Jordanian princess would have refined her passion and armed herself with knowledge and knowledge to launch into a world of her passion and love since her childhood.

As a child, the princess used to wander downtown in the Jordanian capital, Amman, looking for the magic of the luster and colors of precious stones, and she was often amazed by the splendor of oriental antiques. The Jordanian princess remembers how she used to "exaggerate" the rosaries that fell under her hands to make a necklace or bracelet out of her imagination from her beads. The princess considers that her grandmother, Sultan Mihrimah, was the first to encourage her, and expressed his admiration for what she makes of rosary beads, and her latest fans are her own family, that is, her husband and children. Her husband, Nasser, supports her to be always superior and successful, and due to his work in the field of business administration, he supported and pushed her to transform her passion and ideas into a company.

In the beginning, Nejla designed for her family members and friends, and most of her jewelry was from her designs. She decided to settle in Jordan because of the encouragement and welcome she found from her surroundings, and with this decision she had to find a way to promote her business away from her name as a member of the royal family. One day she wanted to take advantage of her position to increase her aura or to raise her status among people, and she says in this regard: “There is no doubt that my family has given me a lot of confidence and contributed to the development of the designs that I am doing. High artistic taste. As for my title, I do not employ it in my professional life. I like to start from being an artist and creator to present what satisfies tastes and satisfies my artistic ambition. Perhaps the best evidence that she does not rely on her surname is her distancing from the illustrious names even in clothing. When asked about the brands she likes, she simply replied: “I do not have a specific brand. I love what suits me and what satisfies my taste. As for jewelry, I love modern designers who have their own fingerprints, and at the same time their designs touch a special feeling in me.

When drawing designs, Nejla takes inspiration first from her affectionate mother, and she always talks about her with pride, saying: “Perhaps the secret of my success is due to my mother (Sana Kalimat)’s constant care for me and her blessing for all my successes and her continuous prayers. My mother and father (Asim bin Nayef bin Abdullah) are My first inspiration in my work, because they are the first to see the designs and have a good taste that supports me in all situations.” The designer princess is also inspired by her surroundings, such as nature, as she loves nature and perseveres in doing activities in her bosom, so she contemplates its details, walks among its parts, and isolates herself in her arms, away from the crowds. She also loves adventure, learning new languages and new skills in an effort to always be positive and enthusiastic. Historical artifacts and geometric shapes, as well as the memories in her imagination, and her ideas regarding the future are all also sources of inspiration that enrich the imagination of the princess.

She confirms that a person is the son of his environment, in addition to her past and her surroundings, she was affected by all that her eyes saw in Jordan of the civilizations of successive ages and what was left of the effects of the Romans and Islamic civilization and its richness in architectural monuments that still dazzle the eyes such as Petra, Jerash, Umm Qais and many others, and all that Jordan contains of treasures. Traveling in the life of the princess is also a source of inspiration, as it is an opportunity to stay in constant contact with ideas that you had not thought of before, and to learn new things, contemplating the beauty of nature that creates inspiration, energy and creativity.

Nejla seeks to choose what suits women's taste, and her designs often meet with admiration and acceptance by her customers. What she hopes most is to encourage women to work and produce and to develop their ideas. In her view, women are the epitome of strength, tenderness and giving, and she admires those who know their goal in life and move towards it with confidence. She explains: “If she is a mother, then her goal is to take care of her children and her home, instill in them the values of goodness and virtue, and contain them with her tenderness. At every stage of a woman’s life, her message differs, but she must at all stages strive for science and culture because we are in an era where it is not appropriate for a woman to be without a cultural and scientific identity.” She bears it from transmitting these values to her children, and she lacks a sense of this greatness to feel that she has a great role in life, and the world is beginning to wake up and feel her greatness and the importance of her role in society, family cohesion, and women’s support for women is a great thing, and it helps this success, and our ambition is to see greater support for Arab women.

In addition to her work in the field of jewelry design, Princess Nejla is the mother of two daughters, Karima and Shayma, and she is keen to plant many principles in them, the most important of which are religion, humanity, honesty, honesty, perfection in work, respect for the other, and taking responsibility for the service of humanity. Anything that contradicts these values is a red line that she totally refuses to cross. The two girls, as she admires the ancestors, their values, and their strength, and is optimistic about the future and the coming generations, and looks forward to the coherent personality of the values.

Translated from Original Article in Arabic

[mylkimatcha]

The Breast Milk Market is Disgusting

When I became pregnant, I had every intention to be able to feed my baby breast milk. I did all the research, followed everyone's advice, and prepared for birth. When I had my son, for the whole first month I spent hours and hours trying to make it work, but my milk never came in and I was devastated.

Still wanting my child to have breastmilk, I turned to a friend who was over producing and was able to feed him on her donor milk for three months. Then out of nowhere, she started to dry up, and I had to look for donor milk elsewhere.

As a side note, some blood banks are now taking breast milk donations as well so if you are in desperate need and your baby is an NICU baby and very newborn, you should be able to get your milk from a donor bank. Where my baby was healthier, we would have been charged over $5 an oz and that just wasn't sustainable.

Anyway, at first I was able to find a few donors that provided us with a half month or so of milk - but to do this, I had to post in groups, turn alert on, and basically be on FB consistently to catch milk - otherwise I would be snatched up within a small window of time. The same people would claim the milk over and over again to where others in the groups barely got a chance to respond. This was so stressful and for most of these, I had to drive over an hour to pick up the milk.

Then I moved states away and began heavily researching where I could find more donor milk, and I was shocked at everything I found. In short, on Craigslist women are selling gallons of breast milk to body builders marketed as "growth milk" for hundreds of dollars. Women are making jewelry or soap out of their breast milk and selling it for over fifty dollars. I even found on two occasions women selling their milk as a sexual fetish. The frustration I felt could not be named. Here I was, a struggling mother working a full time job and trying to find food for my child, while other women had more than enough to share and were selling it to the highest bidder.

Let me first say, I understand what it takes to make breast milk so I know the effort that goes into pumping and everything so yes, I'm not mad that money is being charged for the milk. I am mad because I am in groups specific for donor milk and every day, the stipulations to get the milk I need for my child are getting higher and higher to where I still haven't been able to get him milk since we moved.

One person posted on FB marketplace said they had 2000 oz of milk in their freezer and to message for pricing. The posting had been up for over a month so I reached out and asked for what I needed only. I was sent a pricing chart and told the milk was "organic" so the price per oz would be $10. For my monthly need, that would have been $5,000 -which is absolutely absurd.

Another person posted that they needed to clean out their freezer and had 700 oz. Again the post had no traction for over a month and no price was listed. I reached out and asked if they were willing to donate any. I was met with absolute rudeness and basically told "I don't want to go back to work so I'm using my milk to make money and if you don't have money, go on then." That person was selling theirs for $20 per 6 oz bag.

I've had people that don't want to drive, people that have all these crazy rules about meeting up, and it has literally become so hard to find the milk to begin with that is willingly being donated that I am feeling like giving up. My son is awful on formula and it makes him sick regardless of how we do it - but the options we have are limited. I came into the community of mothers here with hope everyone would be kind and sharing and yet, all I've found is just another way people have found to divide. I never would have thought finding milk was going to be an issue, but now I know.

[casicroaks]

Tiffany Valentine has two things in her mind: love and murder. The origins of the brains behind the infamous Lakeshore Strangler and the string of broken hearts she left along her way to Chicago, interwoven with the development of the tempestuous relationship between her and a certain Charles Lee Ray.

CHAPTER 3

[ CHAPTER 1 // CHAPTER 2 // CHAPTER 3 // CHAPTER 4 // CHAPTER 5 // CHAPTER 6 // CHAPTER 7 // CHAPTER 8 // CHAPTER 9 // CHAPTER 10 // CHAPTER 11 // CHAPTER 12 // CHAPTER 13 // CHAPTER 14 // CHAPTER 15 // CHAPTER 16 ]

NEW JERSEY, 1966

I woke up to a radio broadcast of a new draft being put into effect for soldiers to be deployed somewhere outside the US. For a moment I wondered if dad would have to go. Unlike mom, he did talk a lot about his life before marrying her, about his mother and his brothers and his father’s barber shop and his grandma’s stories of Calabria and his own stories growing up in Newark before moving to Hackensack. He had gone to war back in the day, like his brothers. He lost a couple. He ended up staying a longer while abroad than what his parents had hoped for, dad told me and Bri. When mom wasn’t around, dad told us his parents had wanted him to get to Calabria and find himself a good wife there. But he wasn’t good at speaking Italian, though, and didn’t find himself a woman who liked him enough to marry, even though he had a uniform and a medal for something. He eventually came back home. And then, he met our mother. And they married. And now, he’s just our dad. Dad always sounds disappointed when he gets to the end of these stories.

Bri had already had breakfast and was now watching TV in the living room. My mother had to renew her driving license, since dad wouldn’t be able to take us himself to Gladys Buckman’s garden party. I didn’t understand why. He said he was busy, and then mom got angry and began arguing with him, and then they were shouting about something else entirely. He left to meet with some friends, and mom stormed off the house and into the car, grumbling curses.

Anyways, it was another Sunday afternoon in which Bri and I were left alone at home. But I had a plan. I always had to find projects to entertain myself with, and this afternoon was no different. As soon as mom left the house, I rushed upstairs and into her bedroom, and opened her vanity where she kept all her makeup and jewelry. I remember being amazed by it all when I saw it. Little shiny tubes of lipstick, and elegant round boxes of eyeshadow, and cases of fake eyelashes, and pots of cream and brushes of different sizes. There had to be a way that, with all of that, I could make myself look truly pretty.

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying it all out, starting with the lipsticks. I found two that I liked the most, one that was this lovely deep red, like a ripe cherry, and one that was really dark, almost purple, which seemed to have almost no wear. Those two, surely my mother wouldn’t notice them missing.

“Tiffy, what are you doing?”

Bri startled me –I almost dropped one of the round powder compacts, it could have been a mess.

“Buzz off, weirdo,” I grumbled.

“Is that mom’s makeup?”

“I said buzz off!”

“I don’t think mom would be okay with you doing this…”

She always knew what mom would think of things. Mom wouldn’t allow this, she would want you to do that… I huffed, ignored her, and continued trying on the makeup. From watching our mom I knew that there was some powder that went on the cheeks and some that went on the eyelids, but which one was which was hard to say. Using one of the brushes I patted bright pink dust on what someday would be my cheekbones, carefully watching my reflection in the cracked vanity mirror to guess when it would be enough… Which was sort of hard to say, with the bad lighting in the bedroom and how I already was looking pretty pink. At some point I gave up on the blush and decided to go with the eyeshadow, with a blueish-purple one just like what the pop stars in the dentist office’s magazines wore. Smiling at my reflection I admired what I thought was a pretty neat job. I opened my eyes as wide as I could. There was still a strip of color below my eyebrows. I thought, it was not as difficult as it seemed. Then it was time for mascara, which was definitely the hardest, and I finished it off with the lipstick. I had always wanted to put on lipstick. I remember watching my mother pressing the waxy red bar against her lips, and doing the same with my favorite crayon. Lipsticks, though, stained a lot more a lot faster.

Barely had any time to admire my work, when Bri came back into our parents’ bedroom.

“Tiffy, I’m hungry.”

“So?”

“Mom’s not home yet.”

I looked back at the alarm clock on the bedside table. “Huh. She’s taking her time.”

“I’m so hungry…!”

Bri was already doing that thing she did with her face when she was about to throw a tantrum. It was the only moment in which she wasn’t looking cute.

“Alright,” I sighed, leaving all the things on the vanity table. “I’m pretty hungry myself.”

Mom hadn’t left any food cooking for us, so I improvised. We had some ham slices and cheese and some bread. I used what was left of butter in the fridge to warm it up in a pan and make some nice fried toast for sandwiches. Bri watched along, her eyes growing wide, bouncing and tapping the counter with her hands. She wanted to put mayonnaise and peas on hers, so I let her put as much as she wanted. And then, because she insisted we needed to have something for dessert, we raided all the kitchen cabinets in search of something we could use. We finally found some slightly stale vanilla cookies forgotten behind soup cans. They were really crumbly, so in order to make them a bit sturdier we slathered strawberry jam on them, and topped it off with a dollop of whipped cream that was left in the bottom of a bottle. It wasn’t exactly chiffon pie, but I was quite proud with the little lunch I had managed to make for the two of us.

We filled our glasses with milk and watched cartoons while gobbling down our food, the cheese having melted on the warm bread and making a gooey mess, and we laughed. Bri was an unbearable little sister, no doubt about it, but sometimes it felt like she was the only person I could laugh with. Maybe it was because we were forced to live together. We were like two jail mates who had no choice but to coexist. If she hadn’t been my sister, I knew for a fact that I would never have exchanged a word with her.

Our dishes were empty, Bri was having her second glass of milk, and the mascara was beginning to itch my eyes –when there were the familiar heeled steps on the porch signaling mom was home. I ran back into her bedroom, put the two lipsticks in my pocket, and grabbed a couple of random boxes of eyeshadow, and quickly rearranged everything so as to leave as little evidence as possible of me sticking my hands in there. Then I blew on the vanity, just to make sure there wasn’t any eyeshadow dust on there that could give me away, and I ran toward the toilet and closed the door. I kept quiet for a while, waiting for her to go to her room, waiting with bated breath for her to notice something out of place. But there was nothing. I got a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The makeup didn’t look half as nice as I had thought it did an hour ago. I washed my face and scrubbed it as best as I could to wash away all traces of the makeup, which wasn’t easy because I was definitely a beginner and didn’t know shit about how to apply it, even less how to remove it. It took a while and I ended up sopping wet, but with a clean face. Out of sight, out of mind.

Bri startled me with a loud knock on the bathroom door. “Tiffy, I need to use the toilet!”

“Leave me alone, dork!”

When I finally came out of the bathroom mom told me off for making such a mess in the kitchen, and ordered me to wash the frying pan, the dishes and the counter. All the while Bri lounged on her chair and kept watching cartoons. It was her who was hungry. I told mom this, but she said I had been the one who made the meals and therefore I had to clean it up.

“Do I need your arms around me? Do I live my life for you?” I hummed to myself as quietly as I could, under the warbling of the tap water dousing the soap off the greasy dishes, to focus on the task at hand and to keep my mind from wandering away to the TV behind me. “Do I always feel so warm each time I look in your eyes of blue?”

Mom had taken the remote control off Bri’s hands, and was now watching some soap opera while my sister played in our bedroom. I watched some of the show with mom but got bored pretty quickly. I went back to my room, singing the Ronettes song under my breath, and distracted myself by spinning one of the lipstick tubes up and down, up and down, admiring the metallic details in the fading light from our little window.

I had a plan for the next day at school. For some stupid reason, I was convinced that my best chance at making friends was to show the other girls in my class that I was actually really pretty, as pretty as they were, and if they just realized that then they would stop bothering me. And that tube of lipstick in my pocket was gonna help me do just that.

After brushing my teeth and combing my hair into the two pigtails I always wore, I made the decision to apply some of the lipstick before boarding the school bus. I had to make a good first impression from the get go. But I couldn’t go too wild too soon, or my mother would notice. There would be time for me to retouch it, like movie stars did, at the school’s bathroom. I grinned, liking the idea. All the girls gossiping in the bathroom, and then I would walk in, just to put a brighter layer of color on my lips. They would ask me where I had gotten the lipstick, and I would tell them it was a gift from my mother. They would think, wow, isn’t she grownup? I would tell them how to properly put lipstick on, and we might take turns each helping the other. And we would leave the bathroom a little bit friendlier with one another, and maybe by the end of the day the girls would say goodbye to me, for once, and call me Tiffy instead of Whiffy. I grinned, blowing my reflection a kiss. Yes, that would make for a wonderful day at school for once.

“Wait—” As I was walking out the house my mother grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back. I tried to look away from her, but she grabbed my chin and noticed what I had done with wide open eyes. “Are you wearing makeup, Tiffany!?”

“No…”

She didn’t buy it for a second. Immediately she pulled from the corner of her apron and scrubbed my mouth with it, wiping the painstakingly-applied lipstick away. “Have you gone mad!? Wearing makeup –at your age –to go to school!? What will people think of you!?”

“I just wanted to look pretty—!”

“Pretty? You look like a painted woman –like a floozy! Good God, Tiffany…” She licked her thumb and rubbed my cheeks to clean off whatever was left. “Sometimes I wonder what goes through that head of yours, child…”

“You wear makeup all the time, though…” I said, putting my palm against my cheek, feeling it hot. “I just wanted to look pretty, like you do…”

She scoffed. Compliments worked with some teachers, they used to work with mean girls like Peggy Buckman, but they had never worked with my mother. She saw right through them.

“Well, why is it wrong when I do it, then?” I insisted. “When you wear it always –aren’t you a painted woman, too?”

“How dare you say that,” she said, becoming as red as I was. “Apologize to me, Tiffany, right now.”

I kept silent, with my hand on my cheek, curling my fingers and cupping it. I had my mother’s fat face. I looked up at her. Someday I would end up looking just like her. I had just said I wanted to look pretty like she did –but she wasn’t pretty, and she hadn’t been pretty for a long time now. There was only her wedding picture as proof of it.

“Can’t you just be nice, for once, and apologize?”

I looked down. I think she thought I was covering my ear with my hand and she grabbed my wrist, hard enough I let out a little cry, and pulled my arm away from my face.

“Apologize!”

I didn’t yield. I pouted and kept staring down at my feet. There was a honking –the school bus was about to leave –and mom finally let me go. I ran away towards the street and away from her, grabbing my wrist, rubbing it and feeling the pain become softer and more constant.

Little did she know that I had managed to hide one other little tube of lipstick in my backpack, in my pencil case.

“You got a job at the circus, Whiffy?” Johnny laughed once I got out of the school bathroom. I had applied the lipstick as best as I could, and after quite some minutes of checking it and comparing it to a mental image I had of Marilyn Monroe at all times in my head I thought it was quite an improvement over my first attempt. Clearly, though, it wasn’t good enough.

Miss Collins, of course, had to have a problem with it. She ordered me to wipe it off my face this instant. I asked to go to the bathroom to wash it off, but she said I was not excused from class. I had to rub it off with the side of my arm, and by the burst of laughter when I was done I had to guess I had only made a mess of it. There were no mirrors in the classroom, obviously, but I managed to get a glimpse of myself in one of the windows. Even in the hazy reflection I could see it was a real mess.

It had to have been Bri, right? She had seen me putting makeup on the day before. Surely she had ratted me out to mom, the little bitch. I redirected the anger I felt towards Miss Collins into something more productive: a plan to take revenge on my little sister. Nothing too violent, just a good scare. Something we could laugh about in a few years’ time. Something, though, that would scare the shit out of her for now.

After Miss Collins’ class we had art class with Miss Klasky. She was soft-spoken and thin as a twig, and looked like a soft shove would snap her in half. Looking at her for too long could make you want to cry. I pitied her, her and her big bulging watery eyes, her sunken cheeks and bony fingers, but most other kids just found her funny-looking. Regardless, she was probably the teacher who we were the least afraid of, and that was close enough to mean she was the teacher we liked the most. She never sent anyone directly to the principal’s office, she never raised her voice, she just watched in horror with her big eyes open wide when something went down. Perfect for me to take advantage of the inevitable distraction Darry Cade and Bobby Farrell would make –that day it was a chalk fight, in which each one threw pieces of chalk at each other until one of them landed in the other’s eye and someone was sent to the nurse –and pocket a small jar of red paint for my revenge plan. But it seemed I wasn’t the only one with a plan. While Miss Klasky tried to stand between the two boys without having one of her own eyes poked out by a piece of chalk, and while I made sure the paint jar was closed tight enough to not spill and stain my dress, the other kids at art class opened their own paint jars.

When I looked up at the rest of the desks, I realized, too late, what was going on. And, since I was the only one without a paint jar open at the ready…

Everyone I could see, from Susie Hines and Steven Ciccone to Amy McNab and Johnny Curtis, grabbed their jars and, at Peggy Buckman’s command, they splattered the paint all over me, from my position in the middle of the room. The first splotch of yellow paint fell square on my head, like yolk from an egg, and the shock made me open my mouth –big mistake –because the next one was a green blob that landed on the right side of my face. I tried to cover myself with my arms. That didn’t stop them in the slightest. They kept throwing the contents of their paint jars on me, orange and pink and violet and red and blue, laughing louder and louder. I tried to scream but I had paint in my mouth. I tried to spit it out but there was so much of it…

“What is going on here!?” Miss Klasky exclaimed.

Only then it stopped. I realized I was sobbing, and I got furious at myself for not being able to keep it together, at least until I was alone. There was a silence now, but some kids were still giggling and chuckling behind their hands. I didn’t need a mirror to know I looked like a weird modern painting.

“Whiffy started the paint fight!” Johnny Curtis cried, pointing a finger at me. “We saw her opening a jar of red paint—”

“Yes, she was about to throw it to me!” Peggy Buckman lied shamelessly.

“I wasn’t—!”

“Miss Valentine, I’m afraid I’ll have to send you to the principal’s office,” she said in a tired sigh. “This is… Goodness, this is a mess. Why do you kids do this? What could you even gain from this?” she continued saying in her teary voice. “Why can’t you all be kind and sweet to each other? You don’t understand how difficult it is to be a teacher, to try and keep these sorts of situations under control…”

I just sighed and tried to stop crying, feeling paint dripping down my nape, under my dress, down my neck, down my arms. It was hard to blink with yellow paint over my eyes.

“Go on, Valentine!” Miss Klasky insisted, pointing at the door. “To the principal’s office!”

I huffed and left the room, fidgeting with the little red jar of paint in my pocket, but I stopped right on my heels once I was out of the art classroom. Miss Klasky wasn’t escorting me. I didn’t have to do what she said.

And, before some other teacher saw me running in the halls, I rushed out the backdoor of the school, deciding against wasting even one more second in there, even only to wash my face in the bathroom.

That ugly dark area behind the school was where students came to smoke, make out and not be seen by the teachers. I had heard stuff about fights going on there, about one kid from the eight-grade biting another kid’s ear off a year ago. It was the sort of place Bri wouldn’t set a foot in. It was not the sort of place I would have expected to find the janitor I shared my lunches with.

I stood there for a moment, watching her smoking with her back to me and sitting very still. She eventually turned around and glanced at me with one raised eyebrow.

“Don’t you have class, you?” the janitor said.

“… Don’t you have work?”

There was a silence, but then the janitor smiled, giving me a flash of her rotting teeth, and let out a throaty laugh. “Alright. Do whatever you want, sweetface.”

I looked back at the hall, where any moment now a teacher might pass by and notice me out of the classroom. I decided to sit down beside the janitor, on the concrete steps. It was better to spend that time I needed to kill with her than alone, I thought. She was in her cigarette break, it seemed, but then again it could be she was skipping work too. I didn’t ask her about it.

“Can I have a drag?” I did ask her. She shot me a glance. I smiled as innocently as I could. She sighed and handed me her cigarette.

“You kids start smoking too young.”

“At what age did you start?”

She didn’t answer me. I had started that same year, mostly because Lisa Altomare had started, too, and I thought it would give me something to talk about with her. It really didn’t.

“Do you hear a lot of student gossip, as a janitor?” I insisted.

She let out a hearty laugh. “Are you looking for something to challenge princess Peggy Buckman, Miss Valentine?”

I blushed, gritting my teeth. The janitor just gave me a strong shoulder squeeze that hurt a little.

“I can’t fault you for it,” she said. “I see what these girls do to you, what they do to the other kids. But I promise you, sweetface: nothing I can tell you is strong enough to get Buckman down a peg.”

I let out a small scoff. “Well, I would like to know regardless.”

The janitor took a long drag. “… Amanda McNab practices her crying in the bathroom every morning before anyone else arrives. Movie actress-style,” she told me quietly. “She stares at her reflection in the mirror and begins to sob, and if she doesn’t like it so far she stops and starts over again.”

“How do you know that? Does she do that while you’re still cleaning the bathroom?”

“Indeed she does,” she grinned. She had really bad teeth, yellowing with black gums. Still, I rarely ever saw the janitor smiling, so I was happy to see that. “Are you that surprised to know most people barely register me being there?”

I thought of that for a moment. Of course I wasn’t surprised, when I only had realized the janitor was even a person since I had to have lunch at the same table as her. I was even less surprised for someone like Amy McNab to be so self-centered to not realize there was someone else in the room with her. Still… Didn’t it bother the janitor? I knew I hated it when people ignored me. I was used to it, partly, yes… But that didn’t mean I was alright with it. I was just a kid, though. Nobody cared about what I had to say. The janitor was a grown woman. Shouldn’t she have a way to demand more respect?

“What about Peggy Buckman?” I asked her, scooting a bit closer to her. She smelled rather strongly of bleach. “What weird things does she do?”

“Margaret Buckman… I’m sorry, sweetface,” she sighed. “What can I tell you? Buckman keeps her secrets well hidden, well off this school’s grounds. She complains about her parents to her friends. She discusses whether or not John Curtis is cheating on her. She insults Amanda McNab and Lisa Altomare when they try to joke with her. She’s been calling little Steven Ciccone a fag lately, along with the other boys in the fourth grade. Amanda McNab has been telling her to add Susan Hines to their little clique, but Buckman seems more interested in rejecting her for the time being. But I have a feeling you already know all that.”

I did, mostly, except that last thing about Susie Hines. She was this very pretty girl with soft blue eyes and natural red hair, not like my mom’s but much softer, like copper, and who had joined the school this year. I thought that since she didn’t know anyone else yet, I could be her friend. But Peggy made sure that first thing she knew was that I was a freak and that nobody would like her if she spend any time with me. Since then, apparently, she had decided Susie was a potential enemy.

“… Were you ever bothered by girls like Peggy and Amy, back when you were in school?”

She looked at me with sad eyes, like a cow’s, leaning her head against her hand that held the cigarette. It almost seemed like the smoke was coming out of her right temple. Like she was sad, but somehow still furious, like when cartoon characters were fuming like a steam train. “Yeah, something of the sort.”

I nodded. I wouldn’t end up a janitor, but if I did, I would try to help other girls like me.

“Can’t you tell Principal Hughes about the horrible things they do?” I asked her. “They would listen to you.”

“No, they wouldn’t,” she said, shaking her head. “I barely talk with Hughes. None of the teachers give a single shit about what I think or what I do. As long as the bathrooms are clean and the halls are waxed, I’m like a ghost with a wage.”

“You think they would fire you, if you told them about Peggy Buckman?”

“No. If I pressed enough, they would, of course. They don’t want me being a bother. But… I really can’t do much to help you, sweetface. I’m simply this school’s janitor. That’s just a fact of life.”

The janitor gave me another of her very sad looks. I didn’t want her sympathy. I wanted her help, and I refused to believe that she was as powerless as she said she was. At the very least, she had experience. If she couldn’t do anything about my situation, she surely knew something about what I could do.

“At the end of the day, the only one you can count on is yourself,” she sighed, as she puffed a big cloud of smoke.

“How did you get through school, when you were my age?”

I wondered if I was annoying her. Most of the time I do, and grownups told me so –usually much earlier into the conversation. By this point, though, I had a feeling the janitor was alright with me asking such questions. If she was bothered by them, after all, she would probably have said something about it. She was a tough-looking woman. She was big and fat and strong. If she smacked me on the back of the head, I knew it would truly hurt. If she grabbed my arm and squeezed hard, she might manage to break it.

“First of all, you must not show fear. That’s how the bullies get off,” she said, putting out the cigarette against the cement steps. “You can’t let them know you’re afraid.”

I wasn’t afraid. I was angry. But in this case, it felt like the distinction didn’t make any difference. “That sounds a lot like what the principal says,” I huffed. “‘Just ignore them’…”

“Well then, sweetface, you go to step two,” she said, and turned to face me. She had a few warts on her face, which made me think of the cardboard witches that decorated the town during Halloween. It felt like she had some sort of ancient wisdom to her. “Make them afraid. Make them wish they never crossed you in the first place.”

I examined her face more closely. Apart from the warts, I noticed some scars on her hands and on her right cheek that I couldn’t see before, because of how she was sitting beside me. I wondered how she got them.

“… I can do that,” I said with a smile.

The janitor kept smoking in silence for a few minutes more before telling me she needed to go back in. I nodded, and told her I was going to skip school for the day. She said nothing to this. I told her I hoped to see her again next day at lunchtime. To that she smiled, and said she hoped the same. While I walked away from school, I wondered if the janitor was my only friend at school. I thought that sounded pretty pathetic, and decided I would not consider her a friend. It would be weird –like considering a teacher a friend. It was just weird.

I had to walk home, since I wasn’t gonna stay around and wait for the school bus to take me home. I knew the way back; it went back to the town center, and from there to the suburbs where most of us lived. That didn’t change the fact that it was a long walk. There was time, though, I told myself. There was no rush to get home.

I rubbed my face with the sleeve of my dress. The paint had already dried, but I still wanted to at least be more or less clear-faced. I was going to be moving across town, and even if it was a weekday, I had the feeling I would come across plenty of people who would look at me funny, with how I was looking.

I passed by the town center just as the church bells rang three in the afternoon. I had no money for an ice cream. The toy store had a sign that said ‘WILL BE BACK IN ‘5’, but I had a feeling they wouldn’t even let me in in the state I was. I wondered if I could sneak into the little cinema on the next block, that I knew was probably open at that time, without paying the ticket; but I really didn’t feel like watching a movie right then.

So, with nothing to do, I decided to hunt for spiders again. The one I had caught the other day hadn’t returned to its web. I wondered what would happen to it, if another spider would take advantage of a fully formed home and move in. That’s what I would do, if I was a spider.

A radio was turned on out of a sudden, startling me, and began playing some music. I didn’t know the song, but I recognized the voice humming along to it.

“Wild thing, you make my heart sing… You make everything groovy… Wild thing…”

It came from the auto shop nearby. My heart made a leap in my chest. Heath was there, his forehead beaded with sweat, his hands dirty with car grease. He took occasional gulps from a coke bottle he left right by the toolbox. The orange afternoon sun shone on him and made him glow. He really was the most beautiful man I had seen.

“Wild thing, I think I love you… But I wanna know for sure,” he said, echoing the words from the radio. “So come on and hold me tight… I love you.”

‘I love you’. When Heath sang it, I could almost imagine he was saying it to me, quietly and softly and sweetly, just to me and me alone.

And I was standing there, looking like a dirty paintbrush, with my sticky pigtails and my ugly dress and my face crossed by color blotches. I was so entranced by the sight of him that I didn’t even have time to run away and hide when he noticed me.

“Hey, you, kid,” he said, crouching down, looking at me with the curiosity of one who finds a weird bug in their backyard. “Are you lost?”

“No…”

“What happened to you?”

I didn’t want to say. Mostly, I didn’t want the first thing Heath knew about me to be how I had no friends at school. I just kept silent, desperately trying to think of something clever to say. He went back into the house, though, and I silently cursed myself for being such an idiot… And he came back, carrying a wet rag, which he kindly handed to me.

“Here, wash yourself up,” he said with a smile. “You went headfirst into an art project, or something?”

I smiled and nodded. “Yes, that’s what happened.”

After rubbing my face thoroughly with the rag, wiping as much dry paint off my face as I could, I just had to hope that Heath would believe that ‘art project’ story. I wondered if he liked creative girls the best.

“Thank you,” I said, handing back the rag. My face felt a lot better, even if I still felt some paint itching behind my ears and under my chin. I ran my hands through my hair with the hope that at least that way I would manage to smooth it out.

He glanced at me up and down. I stood very still, throwing my shoulders back very slowly. My mother often criticized my posture, and I didn’t want Heath to think I was a hunched-over creep. He probably already had a pretty skewed first impression of me anyway, though.

“What’s your name, doll?”

It was the first time anyone had called me doll. I grinned even wider. That probably meant he liked me already. “… Tiffany,” I replied, before realizing I should probably speak up. “Tiffany Valentine.”

Heath raised his eyebrows before letting out a little scoff. “Tiffany. Bit of a mouthful. What do your friends call you?”

After considering lying to him for a moment, I couldn’t quite decide what I would like for him to call me. If he was really going to call me at all. “… I don’t have a lot of friends,” I finally admitted. Tiffy was too childish. And I definitely wasn’t gonna tell him what my classmates called me.

“Hm. How old’re you?”

I was about to answer him, but thought it over. “… How old do you think I am?”

Heath laughed, throwing his head back and scratching his chin. God, he was so cute. “Hard to say… You kinda sound like a five-year-old.”

I touched my throat. Did I really sound that childish?

“Here,” he said, handing me the cigarette. “This’ll help you get your voice to catch up with the rest of you.”

I took the cigarette and glanced at him again, wondering what he was thinking about me. I took a drag, making sure to hold the cigarette between my index and middle finger, like I had seen it in movies, and blow the smoke up, like my mother did. When I looked back at Heath’s face he had this rather surprised expression. “I steal cigarettes from my mother,” I explained.

“Huh,” he said simply, taking the cigarette back, looking sort of disappointed. “I wouldn’t have guessed it from the look of you.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked, a bit worried. “What do I look like?”

He laughed. “Hard to say. I guess…” Heath glanced at me up and down again. It didn’t feel like he was judging me, like the kids at school did. It felt like he was appreciating me. I felt so glad about it, even though I was still an awkward-looking, paint-splattered fourth-grade kid. “… I guess you don’t look like anyone I know.”

I giggled. The way he said it, it sounded like a compliment.

“You, um… You live here?” I asked him, pointing at the auto shop.

He smiled and nodded. “My very own castle.”

“You live on your own?”

“No, not yet, luck has it,” he sighed, patting the brick wall. “With the old man, he’s back there. He’s deaf, though. An old war wound. So I help him out in whatever way I can… And in return I can do whatever I want.”

“That sounds great,” I smiled.

“Yeah, guess it is,” he shrugged. “Especially for a kid like you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well… I see you, passing by after school,” he said, lowering his voice. “I see your angry face. You make this sort of pout, you see,” And he imitated the pout, frowning hard, puffing his cheeks. I giggled. He had noticed me! “I guess you’re pretty unhappy at school. Makes sense. I hated school.”

“You did?”

“Those who don’t are just lying to themselves.”

“But… Don’t you go to school anymore?”

“Fuck no,” he said, acting offended. “Dropped out in the ninth grade. I’m much more useful here, with my old man.”

I blinked. I knew that kids skipped school, but not that they could drop out entirely. “I want to drop out,” I declared.

“Would your parents be okay with that?”

“No…” I muttered. “But I don’t care. They’re not okay with anything I do anyway.”

“One of those families, hm?”

I didn’t know what he meant with that. It seemed like he had a pretty perfect family. He helped his father around, and his father didn’t bother him. I didn’t think his father would yell at him for forgetting to tidy his room or for not having the best grades or for not getting along with a sibling. Then again, Heath seemed to be pretty sociable. This was one of the rare times in which there wasn’t another guy his age helping him around with a car, laughing with him, sharing a smoke. Maybe those other boys had a family like mine. Maybe we all wanted to be friends with Heath, to have a moment in which we felt like he was part of our family, and that everything was alright. I knew I wish I could have stayed with him there, at the auto shop, and reinvent myself.

“I’d like to learn to drive,” I said out of a sudden.

He laughed again. “You? I don’t think you’d manage to hit the pedals, Tiffany. You still got some growing up to do.”

“Well, I gotta learn someday…”

“Surely you’ll eventually get yourself a nice guy who’ll drive you around,” he said, leaning back against the hood of the car.

“Maybe… But I’d like to know, anyway. I wanna be able to get into a car and leave… To go anywhere I want.”

Heath nodded with a sigh. “That’s the dream, isn’t it?”

So he understood. “Yes.”

“To be free.”

“Yes, exactly!”

“Where would you like to go?” he asked me.

“Um… I would love to go to Hollywood,” I admitted. “I would like to be an actress, a glamorous one, like Marilyn Monroe. Or to go to New York. I heard it’s full of big shows, and there’s ballet and music and places to go to dance…”

He handed me the soda bottle. There was still some of it left. I took a tiny sip. It was a bit warm, sickly syrupy sweet, and the bubbles tickled my nose. We didn’t have soda at home. It was an unnecessary expense, dad said, only fitting for birthdays or special occasions.

“So, you got it all figured out already, huh?” Heath said with one of his beautiful bright smiles.

Feeling emboldened by his words, I dared to take back the cigarette from his hand. “… I guess I do, sweetface,” I said, stealing the expression from the janitor, keeping my voice low, imitating something I saw on TV. In my mind I was older, and my badly-painted smile was close to seductive, and my voice was not squeaky and baby-like anymore. It was the sort of voice you could say one was using on purpose.

He laughed out loud. I laughed along. “Yeah, you certainly seem to know what you want to be,” he told me. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but I kept the smile on my face, believing myself to be quite charming, and nodded.

I wondered once again what Heath thought of me. Did he think I was silly, for showing up to talk to a stranger almost twice my age, about family and cars and running away? Did he find it pitiable? Did he find it relatable? I had a feeling he understood me. He had shared a cigarette and a coke with me. I felt like that was the sort of thing you did with someone you considered a kindred spirit. Maybe, even with me looking like I did, Heath would start to consider me a friend.

“I’m… I’m sorry for showing up looking like this,” I blurted, making a quick vague gesture at my paint-splattered dress. “I know I’m a mess.”

“C’mon, as if I could judge you on that,” he chuckled sweetly.

I frowned, not really understanding what he meant. He smiled a bit wider, and rubbed his hand against his cheek. Only then I remembered he had black car grease all over him. I giggled.

“Now we’re matching,” he chuckled along.

I giggled some more. For a moment I couldn’t look away from his face, his perfect face, how beautiful it seemed even when covered with grease and sweat. I had been watching him ever since I came along with my father to get the car checked, something around a year or two ago. Ever since, Heath had been my image of a perfect man. When I fantasized about being swept off my feet, the prince who did the sweeping off had his features. When I dreamed about a romantic encounter like those in the movies, in which nothing could be said outright but everything was silently understood, it was with a man who looked much like Heath. I wanted him so badly, even as a bratty kid. I wanted someone like him, who understood me and loved me, so desperately. And now that I knew his name, and that I knew what my name sounded when said by him, I felt like I was so much closer to him than ever before.

Eventually I had to said goodbye and get going. However happy I was for that one good thing that had happened that day, I was so tired from walking that, by the time I arrived home, I couldn’t even try to slip in without my mother noticing. And I didn’t really need to. Before I could open the door, it swung open by itself –and my mom stood there right between the porch and the living room. I looked up at her, gathering whatever strength I had left to say hello…

But she didn’t say anything, she just turned bright red and grabbed my wrist and dragged me to the bathroom. She turned on the faucet of the bathtub, shot me one of her glares, and left –and I heard the clicking of the door being locked.

“Mom?”

I banged on the door. I couldn’t open it.

“Mom!”

I paced back and forth, using all my willpower to avoid looking at myself in the mirror. I finally took off my clothes and decided to take that bath that my mother had implied I should take. Joke was on her, I actually wanted to take a bath as soon as I got home. She just didn’t need to lock me up in there for me to do so.

When the bathtub was full, I stepped in. The dry paint peeled off of me and dissolved into the water, making colorful swirls that kept me entertained for a while. Half an hour later or so, though, the colors had all mixed together to make this sort of ugly greyish, dark brownish shade. The water was no longer warm and my fingers were all pruned. I sighed. With the water being that dirty that quick, I thought, I wasn’t gonna get any cleaner. Still, I knew I had paint on my hair, and after putting on some shampoo (we were running out, and to make the most of it dad usually watered it down before we finally threw it away and got more from the store) and washing it as thoroughly as I could, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and dipped my head under water. I loved doing that. I imagined that the sounds I heard while doing that were not too different from those from the ocean. I think what I heard was actually just the rumbling of pipes and sewage system, but in my mind, it was all much more interesting.

I got out of the bathtub, pulled out the drain plug and watched the water being sucked out. When I began being called Whiffy at school, I actually took really long baths every day, and if I hadn’t classes so early in the morning I would have probably taken baths before school too. I used to be worried that I actually did stink. Even mom noticed I ended up all red after my baths after scrubbing myself so hard. She had told me that I didn’t smell bad, that it was just something kids said to annoy me. Now I wondered if my mother smelled something rotten about me.

There was a click on the door. It opened, and mom handed me my pajamas and underwear in silence before leaving back to the kitchen. I put the dirty dress in the laundry basket, but remembered to take the little paint jar and the soda bottle out of my pocket and, before going to the kitchen for dinner, I hid them under my pillow.

“… Where’s my dinner?” I asked once I sat at the table.

Dad, Bri and mom were already halfway through the meal. I had no dish, no glass of milk, nothing. Had mom forgot?

Bri glanced up at me, playing with the peas in her plate. Dad kept on eating as if he hadn’t heard me. Mom stared at me for a moment longer, but sighed and took a sip of her glass. I felt a little nudge against my knee. There was a bread roll, being handed by a small hand across my chair. I shot Bri a little surprised look, but took the bread. Mom noticed, though, and snatched it right out of my hungry fingers, leaving me only with crumbs.

“But—!”

“How was the office today, dear?” mom said mechanically, turning to her husband.

Dad shrugged. “Same old, same old. Rob’s due for a promotion, it seems –though God knows what he has done to earn it.”

“I learnt how to spell my name today in class!” Bri exclaimed.

Dad gave Bri a little smile and continued eating his dinner. Mom kept looking directly at me.

“What about your grades, Tiffany?” she asked me.

“They’re alright,” I said, looking down at my lack of a dish. They weren’t, but I didn’t want to admit it out loud.

“You used to be so smart,” she sighed. “What happened?”

I shrugged. At some point growing up I lost whatever ability I had to keep focused on something. Sounds were all too loud for me, too loud to ignore. Every little movement called my attention. And literally everything, from a lice crawling through Mark Hawkins’s hair to a new mole on Amy McNab’s shoulder, was more interesting than whatever Miss Collins was yapping about. I knew that if I said anything about this, though, mom would say I was just being difficult. Good grades were extremely important for her. She often said a good education lasts forever. I was sure Bri was going to take that advice to heart: even as young as she was, she was already getting the best grades. Me, I was a lost case. I think everyone at my house knew that already, even if we all preferred to pretend it wasn’t an issue.

“You should get a hobby, or something along the lines,” my mother said, serving dad some more mashed potatoes. “Maybe that’s how you can make some friends.”

“Yeah, find some people who share your interests,” dad said.

“Well… I do like baking—” I said with a shrug.

“A hobby that’s not baking,” mom interrupted with a glare. “You bake for others, and if you don’t have friends for baking right away, I know you’ll…” She let out a big puff of cigarette smoke. “… You’ll just eat it all up by yourself.”

“But… There’s not much else I’m that interested in,” I said.

“So, you find something,” dad said, shoveling forkfuls of potatoes into his mouth.

“What was your hobby when you were my age, mom?”

“I didn’t have any hobbies. I had work to do.”

I frowned. “Well, there must have been something you liked to do—”

“I didn’t have time for hobbies, Tiffany.”

“What about sewing?” I asked her, lilting my voice higher, to sound more like Bri. Sweeter, nicer. “You know so much about sewing… You probably sew since you were my age, right?”

“I learnt to sew since I was your age because I needed to, Tiffany, not because I enjoyed it. I needed to make clothes for myself. I needed to earn money to help buy us a meal.”

“Besides, sewing’s probably not the sort of activity you can learn with other kids,” dad commented. “Nowadays you can just do everything with a sewing machine. Think of something like… I don’t know. What do kids do nowadays, Bri?”

“Some of my friends are joining the Girl Scouts,” she said chipperly. “It sounds pretty fun! You could join too, Tiffy.”

“I’m not joining the goddamn Girl Scouts,” I groaned, watching the warm mashed potatoes with hungry eyes. “They wear that silly uniform, and they have to work… And I’m definitely not joining if you’re joining too.”

Mom pursed her lips, but I think she gave up on trying to get me to behave. I knew now that she could just decide for me not to have dinner, though. So, whether I wanted to or not, I had to behave, at least so I could make sure I would have a plate waiting for me the next night. The rest of the dinner, while Bri told us about some dumb thing that a friend of hers did during recess, I kept absolutely silent, lost in thoughts of Heath’s smile and a shiny new car that would take me away from that place.

After dinnertime mom watched us carefully while we changed into our pajamas. I guess she wanted to make sure I didn’t lose my temper with Bri and try to shove her again. When my sister and I got into bed, she had one last drag of her cigarette, turned off the lights and went back to her own bedroom. I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep, counting silently to myself as far as I could count. Once I couldn’t hear Bri tossing and turning anymore, I decided it was time.

“Psst… Bri!” I called in a whisper. “Are you up?”

Silence.

“Bri, you little bitch, wake up!”

She still said nothing. I got out of bed and into the hallway, from where I could see my parents’ bedroom. I could hear them snoring. They were all asleep.

I took out my love altar from my closet, and the matchbox I had hidden in my sock drawer. I carefully lit the candles in my little altar and placed the soda bottle in the middle of it, touching the lip of it with the tip of my finger. It was still somewhat sticky. I thought of how Heath looked that afternoon, glowing in the sunlight like in a TV ad, drinking straight out of it, like a kiss. Like I wanted him to kiss me someday.

“Please, please, make Heath love me…” I pleaded in a whisper, my eyes tightly shut, my hands intertwined in a prayer. “Make him fall in love me… Let us be together and in love. Please, please, please…”

The flickering light of the candles made shadows dance on the face of my little Marilyn Monroe cutout doll, on the plastic skulls, shining on the sequins of my altar. It felt religious indeed. Having the sense that something was missing, I picked one of those candy hearts I had sprinkled around, closed my eyes, and laid it on the tip of my tongue, like the Eucharist wafers at church. The ceremony, then, was complete.

I didn’t have much of an opportunity to see if it had changed anything in Heath’s feelings towards me. Soon we had Gladys Buckman’s garden party, and that was the sole center of my mother’s attention (and, therefore, me and Bri’s) for the remaining week leading up to the eventful Saturday.

That morning dad had to leave to do something at work, that excuse that made mom angry but which she said nothing about. While mom finished cooking the casserole she had decided to bring along as a gift and Bri had her bath, I found the perfect moment to put my revenge plan into action. I grabbed all the baby dolls that I had to share with my sister and brought them to the garage, where dad had his tools and all the stuff for fixing his car (he didn’t know how to do it, but he had the tools to show he intended to) and for eventually fixing the lawn mower (which he hadn’t shown any interest in fixing in the last two years). I found a funnel that would work perfectly to what I had in mind. Holding each doll as still as I could, I made the little holes in their mouths just the tiniest bit bigger with a nail and a hammer. Then, I mixed the red paint I had smuggled out of school with a little water in a bucket, to make it liquid enough for it not to dry too soon. I looked around for something to make it less of a bright red, and found a bottle of something called Danish Oil that had a slightly brown color, perfect to darken my paint. I mixed it in (it had a horrible smell) and was delighted to realize that it even made the mixture a bit thicker. Perfect. Now all I had to do was mix like one would mix cake batter, and use the funnel to carefully fill the heads of the baby dolls with the resulting liquid. I couldn’t fill their heads up, of course, because then it wouldn’t be a surprise at all. It had to be just enough so that nothing would be evident while they were sitting down on the shelf –but just enough that they would puke blood when Bri tried to bring them down to play.

“Tiffany!” mom called me while I was making sure the dolls were sitting just like when I had found them. “Come here.”

I had a wave of fear wash over me, wondering if she had seen me. But, as I walked to her bedroom, I realized it was nothing of the sort. It was almost midday but the room was almost dark: she had drawn the thin orange curtains, and she seemed like a hazy silhouette among the cigarette smoke.

“Did you brush your teeth?” she asked me.

“Yes, mom.”

“Did you make sure your nails are clean?”

“Yes.”

“And behind your ears?”

“Yes, mom.”

She nodded in silence. The curlers piled up under the net in her head made her look taller. When she took the cigarette off her lips, I got a glimpse of her mouth. Mom often forgot to buy floss at the store, so she often simply plucked a hair off her head and used that to clean between her teeth. I knew when she did it because her pink gums would have little bursts of blood, like lipstick stains.

“Zip me up, Tiffany.”

I nodded. She turned around and I saw the dress she was wearing under her dress, a skin-colored thing made of elastic and stretchy fabric that, I had to assume, was worn to dissimulate the rolls that apparently popped out right after being taken her wedding picture. If she was to wear a tight dress like that which she had prepared for the occasion, it made sense for mom to want to appear as smooth as possible.

“Remember to be extra polite today, do you hear me, Tiffany?” she said while I struggled with the zipper. A drop of sweat fell down her back and under the floral fabric of her dress. “And don’t forget to smile. Remember, the face you give the world tells the world how to treat you. And don’t take more than two pieces of food from the buffet. And don’t wolf things down like you often do, eat slowly and properly. And always say please and thank you. Our behavior will be closely watched by the Buckmans. We need to make a good impression.”

There was a fat pink mole on my mother’s back, like a weirdly placed nipple, squeezed upward by the collar of her dress. I wondered if mom knew about it. Then I realized that of course she did, and that she probably had tried to hide it under the dress. What she probably did not know was that it had reared its head back out.

“Done,” I said, staring at the mole. Mom sighed and took the net off her head, and began removing the curlers. I watched her, trying to remember how she did it. Someday I would wear curlers too, and my hair wouldn’t be straight and dull anymore.

It was too late for curlers then, but still, I wondered if my mother, in her experience, had something she could do for me. “Um… Could you do my hair, please?” I asked her. Even a ponytail would be better than what I had. Two pigtails, a crooked fringe, and a forgettable face.

Mom the tried to brush my hair and make it so that it curled inwards at the end, like the pretty little girls in the fashion catalogue magazines at the dentist’s. Problem was, my hair didn’t seem to want to stay any other way but straight. So I sat on her lap while she pulled and brushed and brushed, trying to force it into shape. By the time she was done and hair-sprayed it securely in place, I had tears in my eyes and felt like I had just been scalped.

“Mom, how do I look?” Bri asked, coming into the bedroom, twirling in her new dress. Mom smiled at her, bringing her hands together.

“Lovely, dear,” she said, kneeling carefully as to not rip any seams in her tight floral dress (she had already hurriedly mended the sleeve of my pink dress that Bri had ripped before, and I assumed she didn’t want to have to do that all over again), and adjusted the waistband of Bri’s skirt. “This needs to be worn higher, though…”

She pulled it up and Bri winced. Higher and it clearly squeezed her too much. Bri was still pretty small, and she didn’t even have a semblance of a waist. The dress was meant to create an illusion of one –though it wasn’t very successful. Still, mom tried. She huffed quietly and undid the bow at the waist to tighten it. Bri groaned; mom shushed her.

“Now, that’s better. You look like a doll,” she said with a smaller smile. She didn’t seem to really think it was any better. Bri did look more like a doll, though, for what that was worth. Not like one of those beautiful Barbies, of course –more like the misshapen baby dolls I had just improved.

“What about me, mom?” I asked as I barely dared to touch the hair she had tried so hard to make pretty. “How do I look?”

Pursing her lips, she gave me a look up and down.

“You look… Acceptable.”

Bri and I sat on the bed while she redid her makeup. I thought of what she had told me, about the painted women, the floozies. I had looked up that word in the dictionary in the tiny bookshelf we had in our own bedroom. It read, ‘a vulgar or sexually promiscuous woman’; I wondered if mom really thought I was vulgar or sexually promiscuous. I wasn’t even a woman yet! Still, I didn’t understand why the way someone looked would reveal how someone behaved. Peggy Buckman, after all, was as pretty as could be, and she was easily one of the most awful people alive.

Finally, mom decided she had done the best she could, pulled at a couple of red curls to properly frame her face, and turned to us with a new cigarette between her fingers. “Are we ready, girls?”

Peggy Buckman’s house was huge, the largest in the neighborhood. The Buckmans lived in an angular piece of work that tried very hard to mesh some old style with the new modernism that was predominant. They had a big roomy lawn, though, surrounded by trees, with a little blue pool, a grill and a few lawn chairs, which seemed to have been plucked out of Better Homes and Gardens. There was a greenhouse worth of flowers all around the house, in the foyer (the house was so big it had a foyer), in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in vases adorning the few little garden tables.

“Tell your mama, girl, I can’t stay long… We got things we gotta catch up on,” sang the music on the radio. I tapped my feet, bopping my head along, just to not appear too serious or too nervous. “Mm, you know, you know what I’m sayin’… Can’t stand still while the music’s playin’…”

All the women announced themselves by clicking of heels and a big heavy cloud of strong perfume. Each varied in scent but it was mostly fresh flowers and bright citric, reminding me of that little spray of juice an orange has when peeled. At some point it all mixed together though. I sniffed myself from time to time, wondering if any of it had rubbed off on me, whether I should have stolen a spritz of my mother's before coming. For all that was worth, Peggy smelled like roses, even from a distance.

My mother’s bright red hair, so bright it seemed unnatural, were in curls so tight that it made it all look like a wig. There weren’t other red headed women at the party. There were light brunettes and blondes of different shades, maybe a strawberry blonde (what a wonderful little expression for something so mediocre) here or there, but mostly things that don’t defy belief. It was easy to spot my mom in a crowd. Maybe that was why I immediately walked away from her when she began socializing with the other parents, even though I didn’t really want to socialize with my classmates myself. Still, I looked pretty. Prettier than what I usually looked, at least, which wasn’t much; but I had my lovely pink dress on, and my hair was brushed nicely, and I had practiced my smile in front of the mirror every morning this week for the specific purpose of improving the relationship between me and the girls at school. The cigarette smoking hadn’t worked, the makeup wearing hadn’t worked either. I was running out of patience and of options. Regardless, I had to try.

“Hello,” I said, approaching the group of girls, with my rehearsed smile. They all just stared at me, at my audacity. “Um… Peggy, I want to say something to you.”

She exchanged a slightly surprised look with Amy, who just giggled nervously. Peggy turned back her attention to me. “Go ahead, Whiffy.”

I swallowed my anger, like I had done so many times before. I kept in mind what mom had said about being polite, and what Heath had said about my voice sounding like that of a younger child. For them to take me seriously, I made an attempt to lower my voice just a bit, just enough so that they could understand I was being a hundred percent honest. “I wanted to apologize for what I said to you back in school. When I called you the ugliest bitch in the world. It was mean of me to say so—”

“You don’t say.”

“And so I wanted to say that I’m truly sorry for what I did, and that I hope you can forgive me,” I finally said. I didn’t really feel sorry for what I did, but if it took me to lie about it for Peggy to forgive me and realize that maybe she didn’t need to keep calling me names and mocking me, then it would have been worth it.

Unfortunately, that it very much not what happened.

As soon as I finished talking, Peggy, Amy, Lisa and all the other girls burst out laughing.

“You, Whiffy, sorry?”

“Do you think we’re stupid?”

“You’re crazy! As if you could ever be anything other than a crazy ugly weirdo!”

“Apology not accepted,” Peggy said coldly. “I don’t even know why my mother invited you here.”

“Yeah, go away!”

“Go back to the farm where you were born!”

“Yeah, look at that dress!”

“Look at that hair!”

“She looks like an old ragdoll!”

“Is that what you think people in parties wear?”

“You never go to parties, clearly!”

“It’s like a dress from a hundred years ago!”

“You look ridiculous, Whiffy!”

“Go back to the circus, Whiffy!”

I felt my eyes becoming hot and glassy. I was about to cry. The janitor had told me, to not show fear. And I wasn’t afraid. I was angry. I was sad. But I wasn’t afraid –but I was crying, and I knew what they would think about it. I wanted to say something clever and curse them and insult them, but I knew that whatever I said they could tell their parents, and they would tell my mom, and I would end up looking like the bad girl. There was nothing I could do. There was never anything I could do: if Peggy Buckman and Amy McNab and the rest of the girls called me Whiffy, then there was nothing I could do about it, no amount of smiles and apologies and kindness that would change that.

Feeling dizzy, I tried to run away. Where, it didn’t matter –anywhere but next to the cackling crowd of girls. I tried to spot my mom in the crowd, and I saw her red curls pretty far away, inside the house, far from the yard. Some other kids were now coming closer, having heard the laughs, and were probably wanting to laugh, too. I turned around and tried to find some other direction to run towards –when I stumbled –I tripped –and next thing I knew I was hitting my shoulder against something hard and I had first my head, then my body, and lastly my feet underwater. I had fallen in the little blue pool. Too shocked to do anything, I sank to the shallow end, looking up at the sky, at the blurry faces of the kids watching me watching them. Underwater, I couldn’t hear anything but the rushing of my blood thumping in my head and the echoes of faraway voices. I wished I could stay there, hidden from the others. But I had to breathe at some point –and I pushed myself upwards –and took one big gasp of air –and suddenly I heard all the laughter, all the music, all the noise, and my own desperate sobbing and coughing.

“Hey, she got the way to move me, Cherry… She got the way to groove me…”

I dragged myself out of the pool. I was sopping wet, my hair all ruined, my pink dress clinging to me, no longer puffy and cute –though, apparently, I had been the only one who had thought it looked cute. A few hands reached out to me, pulling my hair, my dress, and I tried to swat them off. I hoped that the water streaming down my face from my fringe would hide my crying.

“God, you’re a mess, Whiffy,” Peggy laughed loudest of all. “Where are you going, now? Cry into a piece of cake?”

“Go back to the circus, Whiffy!”

“Look at the sad clown!”

“Gonna eat some cake to cheer you up, Whiffy?”

“You should leave,” Peggy said, now walking beside me while still keeping a bit of distance just so she didn’t get water on her own stylish and modern green dress. “What are you even gonna do here? Keep being laughed at?”

I said nothing. What could I possibly say?

“Grab your little sister, your ugly fat mother, and leave.”

“Yeah, Whiffy, leave!”

“Shut up, Amy,” Peggy said, giving her a shove, before turning back to me. “So? What are you gonna do?” she insisted. “You’re gonna leave, right?”

‘You fucking ugly bitch’, I thought, my hands curling into fists. Thinking it didn’t make me feel any better. I needed to scream it to her face. But I couldn’t not think of the consequences. I knew what would happen if I dared.

“Yeah –what are you gonna do?” Amy yelled.

What could I do? I was about to cry again. But what would that do? I would just keep feeling shitty. Nothing would change. Peggy and Amy and her other toadies would keep on bothering me, and I would have to see them every day of school, and every day this would all happen again, and nothing I ever did would change that. Nothing. Nothing, except…

“Hey, Whiffy!” Amy shouted. “I’m talking to you!”

And then it happened, like a sudden switch. My patience snapped.

It was like with Bri –but worse, because at least Bri was my own blood. Amy, however –oh, she just deserved a good pummeling.

I jumped towards her like a frenzied animal. I barely gave her a moment to react. Before she knew it she was with her back to the lawn and I was sitting on top of her, straddling her waist and raising my small eight-year-old fists. And, with a furious howl, I punched her directly on the nose. No slaps, no hair-pulling, no name-calling anymore. Full on blows.

There was a cracking sound. I felt a sting in my knuckles. I didn’t stop.

I continued punching her with all the strength I had. She tried to push me away like Bri had done. As soon as she got a hand on me I gave it a bite –she shrieked in pain –but another punch shut her up, now straight to the teeth. Couldn’t see anything but her oh-so-pretty face, now bloodied and bruised, her mouth half open, covered in drool, teeth crooked and one chipped, one eye half-closed and becoming red, her nose all fucked up –and kept on punching it, growing more and more ferocious, hitting faster and faster. Even as I felt the strain in my arms I didn’t feel tired at all. I just felt this burst of energy, this exhilaration. I even smiled. I was happy. Shit, I wasn’t happy –I was ecstatic. It was as if I couldn’t stop even if I tried.

I didn’t, certainly. I wanted to beat Amy McNab into a bloody pulp. I wanted to beat her within an inch of her life.

Maybe I could have been able to do it, if only the noise of the kids gathered around us, watching the show, hadn’t called the attention of the parents.

[omishu]

Ask meme: 1, 3, 9, 18, 21, 24, 33, 42, 44 (you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to), 46

Phew, boy howdy! there's a lot going on here, but ily, boo *gen-z style finger hearts* Thank you for the asks, m'buddy *tips hand-steamed ten-gallon hat at you*

1. who is/are your comfort character(s)?

Haruhi Fujioka from Ouran High School Host Club, Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, the Pokemon eevee, Rapunzel from Tangled, Elsa from Frozen, Baymax from Big Hero 6. Yes, a lot of these are Disney; it was my hyperfixation for at least a decade, don't @ me.

3. do you leave the window open at night?

As much as possible, yes. BUT my parents don’t like me having my bedroom door and window open at the same time. So if I want Lewis to be able to freely come and go from my room, I have to keep the window closed. If I really want it open, then Lewis gets locked either in or out, which is kind of a bummer since his litterbox and food/water are in the laundry room across the hall. He also likes it being open, though, because it's about as close to being outside as he cares to get, even with a leash and harness; it makes him feel adventurous to hear the waterfalls, rustling trees, and various wildlife outside from the comfort of my ultraplush bed lol he can also smell things and feel the breeze/heat, but more on a sample/trial basis.

9. which do you prefer, hot coffee or cold coffee?

I guess if I HAD to pick a form to drink coffee, it'd be cold. As you know, I really don't care for the stuff, but I get a shit-ton of Starbucks giftcards and their frapps are basically milkshakes.

18. what hair products do you use?

Oh boy, I have QUITE the repertoire, but I barely use any of it. A lot of it is for specific styles for specific events, so I just have all kinds of pins, mouses, gels, sprays, combs/brushes, heat tools, etc, etc. My sister got my whole family on Monat, but I'm broke af so I buy a normalizing shampoo from my stylist because my thin, fine, flat, straight-ass hair gets oily af unless I use that. I like to use a leave-in conditioner spray too, because it isn't too heavy and also keeps the oils under control better. If I blowdry or curl my hair (with a straightening iron), I like to use some strong-hold hairspray (no particular brand) that I brush out, just so it stays looking nice longer.

21. something you’ve kept since childhood?

I have a little teddy bear in a flower hat and dress that my mother's mother gave me ages ago. It's probably the only plushie to survive all of my purges and definitely the only gift I've kept from any of my grandparents, besides like ... heirloom jewelry. My oldest sister used to always call me her dolly-bear because she loved cuddling me and dressing me up (my autistic tomboy ass hated that shit sm istg). The nickname has kinda grown on me, now that I've embraced my gender non comformity, because I 1) think it's funny to imagine an actual bear wearing a dress and 2) have reclaimed my own sense of femininity in a way that wields it as a weapon in my own arsenal rather than against me while also embracing my somewhat aggressive/rough-around-the-edges approach to. Lot of things. But during a senior trip with my highschool church youth group, we went to a flee market and were given a $2 bill with some change (to match our grad year) and told to pick something to represent ourselves, and then over the course of the weekend had to give it away to a stranger we met at one of our activities and explain it. I found a similar bear and had a hard time finding anyone or working up the nerve to give it away, so I carried it around everywhere - amusement park, Wal-Mart runs, hiking, etc. The day we headed back to our town, we visited a church for their service, and a little girl there got upset that she lost her toy. I gave her my dolly-bear, and she looked so awestruck. That was a pretty cool moment for me, because giving her basically myself (metaphorically) brought her so much joy and comfort. I still think about that sometimes. You've probably seen the bear from my Grandmother because I had it in my dorm.

24. if we were together on a rooftop, what would we be doing?

Gosh, right now? Probably sweating and getting sunburned lol maybe jumping into my family's in-ground pool if it was closer to the actual house haha but fr maybe have my beach umbrella set up in a stand with beach towels under us and electric fans blowing on us, drinking beer and eating ice cream bars, laughing and reminiscing and dreaming and commiserating. God, I miss you so much.

33. the last adventure you’ve been on?

Gotta check my calendar fr because work has been insane lately. I do have a lot of adventures planned for the next few months though. Hopefully one or more involves you visiting! *eyes* hm been doing a lot of pool party cookouts for family birthdays lately and been to a few special screenings for films in cosplay. But my last legit adventure was probably last month when I took my friend to her first ever RenFaire. Or maybe my city's annual Bee Festival. Idk ask me again around Thanksgiving because by then I'll have a ton under my belt for the year. The first half of this year has severely lacked any quality adventures.

42. an app you frequently use besides this godforsaken site?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again!! Ni no Kuni: Crossworlds is my favorite mobile game ever!!! I mean c'mon it's got Ghibli art, and even Joe Hisaishi does the freaking music! The story is cool, the characters are cool, the monsters/fighting are cool. I freaking love this game. It has a lot going on, so I only do like the dailies/weeklies, but they have regular events going, like, all the time. I love it so much, and I want all my friends to play with me, so we can have our own Kingdom and do party dungeons together. It's a fantasy MMORPG, which is my fave genre, and is also an isekai.

44. you get a free pass to kill anyone, who is it?

[SoundCloud Rapper voice] YOU ALREADY KNOW WHO IT IS: my mother.

46. favorite holiday film?

Which holiday are we talking about? If you mean like ... winter holidays, then ... idk there're a lot of Christmas movies I try to watch every year; Elf, The Nativity Story, White Christmas, KLAUS, Jingle Jangle, etc. Idk if I really have a true favorite though (Klaus, probably)

[viciousgold]

@silvertonguc​ asked:  “  i keep waiting for you to hurt me.  ”

“I know.” Marisa responded. “I think everyone’s been waiting for that.” It had been almost a year of her being on the ship now, and it was strange, but somehow she had been given more freedom with the passing of time. Maybe because they were so far out in the ocean, they knew she had nowhere to go. If she managed to escape, she would only find hundreds of miles of water and likely drown or freeze to death before ever making it close to shore. So, she was allowed to roam the ship, provided she did her work, and her guard remained with her to make sure she didn’t try anything. This freedom allowed for two things; To everyone’s surprise, some people hesitantly even began having regular interactions with Marisa. 

For example, Marisa had begun regularly giving one of the engineer’s kids an extra portion of food because she had figured out that his brother always stole his. When realizing what Marisa was doing, at first the boy’s mother thought Marisa was trying to manipulate him into doing something. After a month of nothing, as well as the two women talking every now and then, Marisa and the boy’s mother found themselves regularly chatting. Things about the weather, about work, basic things. Little by little, people were very cautiously starting to warm to her. Working in the canteen most days, she knew how most people liked their coffee, what sides they preferred, and in rare occasions, what liquor people liked to drink. Surprisingly, in one of these rare occasions, a sailor had even offered whiskey to Marisa. She had sipped it as cautiously as he had offered it, worried it might be poisoned, but it wasn’t. 

The other result of her freedom, of course, was being able to interact with Lyra, should Lyra be willing. And after a while, the girl seemed to be more so. Like the others, little by little. To Marisa’s biggest surprise, while she missed the glamour of London, while she missed her extravagant clothes and jewelry and makeup, as well as her power, there was a warm quaintness to gyptian life. And she was with Lyra. That made everything worthwhile. So here they were now. Marisa leaning over the ship railing, her guard a few feet away like always, talking to Lyra. 

“I don’t want to hurt anyone, Lyra. I’m... slowly accepting that this is the way things are just going to be from now on. That this is my life now. As long as you’re in it, Lyra, I can accept that. So I won’t break the already fragile trust that’s been given to me by hurting you or anyone.”

[jaymarlowgirlinnovators]

I AM MALALA: Changing the World Through Girls Education

I want to start by saying thank you for this assignment this week...

Part 1

Period: End of a Sentence is an amazing initiative that goes beyond being able to provide women with necessary products that will elevate their health. They strive to educate communities and provide support to those especially where there is shame around menstruation. There are many places in the world where women are meant to serve a specific role and are not encouraged to ask questions. Continuing to shame women for experiencing something that is natural is what divides communities. Imposing shame around menstruation gives men the idea that because they don’t go through it, they must be superior and that’s most certainly not the case. Having equal access to these products and this knowledge is not only helpful, it is essential. 

Part 2

1. If you could describe this book in one word what would that be?

The one world that I would use would be HOPE. This book was so descriptive about her home. I found many moments where I would shut my eyes and try to envision what she was seeing. I also found that as negative aspects of her life, such as conflict arose, she would revert back to those descriptive words providing the reader with a sense of “it’s going to be okay.” Her relationship with her parents, especially her father, is extremely important to her development. In Chapter 4, her father tells her “I will protect your freedom, Malala. Carry on with your dreams.” Her father took notice of the power that she had to make a difference and wanted to afford her every opportunity to turn those dreams into a reality. 

2. What does this book reveal about Islam, women, girls and education?

Women are not given the same opportunities as men are. Malala is extremely aware of the outdated customs. She speaks out on injustice and leads her life outside of the general mold that is set for her (within reason)  On pg. 54, she writes “ I am very proud to be a Pashtun, but sometimes I think our code of conduct has a lot to answer for, particularly where the treatment of women is concerned.”  

Within the household, women are responsible for cooking, cleaning and making sure the men in the house are provided for. She makes mention that women are rarely given the prime cut of meat and don’t receive cream for their tea until the men have had theirs. Education for women is far from prioritized. She writes “There seemed no point in going to school to just end up cooking, cleaning and bringing up children…” (pg. 32) 

Arranged marriages are the custom and women are often treated as currency to resolve civil disputes. I found it heartbreaking that the mind of a woman is not valued outside of the meals that they cook or producing children. The pressures of quality wedding jewlery stood out to me and to read that women would sell their jewelry to help their husbands open their businesses affirms the notion that the husband is the priority and women giving up their rights and freedoms was seen as a sign of devotion. 

Side note: there are many examples of this throughout several cultures. I come from a Puerto Rican household and my mother and aunts were raised to think their place is the kitchen preparing dinner for the brothers and husbands. There are outdated customs in wedding vows (the use fo the word obey) from the wife’s side insinuates that a woman’s place is to do whatever the husband tells her. I’m glad these trends are changing as time goes on and the mold of a “perfect household” changes. 

3. What elements of chance are crucial to her story? 

On pg. 45, Hidayatullah says “Malala was a lucky girl. When she was born our luck changed.” I think the inspiration shared between Malala and her father was reciprocated. Watching him go through his journey to fight for education influenced her decisions. His unwavering support allowed her to think that there are no limits to what she could do. Another example is her entering the public speaking competition and the topic being “Honesty is the best policy.” This was a topic that she was very passionate about as she worked on being the best daughter and friend possible. Delivering the speech also influenced the way she wrote speeches in the future. Instead of having a man write the speech for her, she wrote her own. 

4. Unesco estimates over 160 million girls worldwide are not educated due to refugee status, war relocation, poverty and gender preference.  What would the world look like if all girls were educated? What do you think would change?

I think there would be an initial shock because men have this idea that they created this world and they should dictate what should happen in it. No one likes change at first and they need to be subject to change to realize the positive outcomes that can come from it. Ultimately, this would be extremely beneficial for a multitude of reasons. Having more educated women leads to more women in power. Women having a “seat at the table” of change would offer a perspective that many men were either too stubborn or too uneducated to see the value in. Women like Vice President Kamala Harris and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson are paving the way for women and women of color to bring this world into a new era. I believe that with more educated women, leading to more women in power that there would still be conflict in the world, but there would be less casualties as a result of the conflict.  

5. What is your favorite quote from the book? Please explain why.

“Teach him it is far more honorable to fail than to cheat.” This quote stuck out to me and is so prevalent to what we are going through today with the Jan. 6th hearings and our former president’s claims. We’re constantly inundated with news coverage that a peaceful transition of power was not achieved and had it been, a lot of legal action could have been avoided. 

 Malala continues to write that we are human and humans make mistakes. I think this quote teaches us that we should honor history. Learning from the past, both from victories and atrocities is the only way we will know what worked and what didn’t. Another great quote that I liked was when Malala says “No, the chicken is innocent, we should not kill her.” There is a purity to the way she sees the world. She’s obviously beyond her years and understands a lot more than what people give her credit for. She believes that just because it is custom, doesn’t mean it’s right. 

6. What positive global messages does this book provide, and why does it continue to be relevant? 

This book can be seen from multiple angles. For me, it was her relationship with her parents that allowed her to step outside of what was initially expected of her. A great passage from the book is when she was caught stealing from Safina. The guilt that she had for the act and for lying to her parents led her to a life of honesty and purity. I think it’s interesting that she doesn’t wear jewelry today and it strengthens her message that the most powerful thing a woman can have is her mind. The Ghandi quote her father passed on to her was spot on in the way she lives her life: “Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.” (pg. 58) This adds to what makes her so special because she chooses forgiveness and empathy as she navigates her world. She knows that there is a lot of work to be done to correct the mistakes of the past and with encouragement from her parents, she takes on the task and leads the charge. I think everyone should read this book (it’s also on audible) more than once because there is so much descriptive language and she takes us down so many moments of her history that we’re bound to learn more with each time we read it.

[chaos-nblm]

If I made an Etsy for four dollar worm on a string and gummy bear chokers would you go feral or kin

[vintageaustin]

fuck it i love you pt 2

Part 2/?

(Austin! Elvis x reader)

Summary; sugar! daddy Elvis basically starting a relationship between 34-year-old Elvis and 19-year-old reader, who’s the colonel’s step daughter... it starts of pretty innocent but soon turns into allot more

Tw; tooth rotting fluff age difference sexual tension,some swearing that’s about it reader is still annoyingly naïve at first bare with me

Smut warning for part 3

Note: priscilla doesn’t exist so he ain’t married….. might get dark from time to time

it’s been a few weeks since you and Elvis met for the first time and since then you were inseparable. He always looked out for you he made sure his little dove got anything her little heart wanted. Even if she wasn’t asking for anything Elvis still made sure she had the prettiest dresses and the nicest jewelry.

You were currently sat on your bed waiting for your bedside phone to ring you had never been more eager for, someone to call you. As you were now if you were being completely honest to yourself you were falling for Elvis Presley and my oh my were you falling hard.

But so was Elvis himself he was currently giving a show at the new international hotel in vegas. Since it was at least a four hour drive from LA to VEGAS you sadly couldn’t go see your… was he your boyfriend you didn’t even know. All you knew was that you couldn’t go see him so waited eagerly by the phone for his call.

You looked at the clock as you laid on your bed. Time was going to slow for your idea you wanted to talk to him. tell him about school how you outsmarted one of the boys who were rude to you. He cared about you he really did he loved to listen to what you had to say even if you talked nonsense sometimes.

So when that godforsaken phone finally ringed you sat up as you called out to your mother. “it’s for me!!!” you could see her eye roll even if she was downstairs. Did she approve of whatever was going on between you and Elvis? No. did you care? Also no. you were turning 20 I a few months you should be able to make your own decisions.

You sat on your be and picked up the phone. “hi Elvis” you said as a small giggle escaped your lips and you could practically hear his smile trough the phone when he heard you sweet voice. “hi little dove how are ya? How was school?” He asked as he got ready for bed.

“it was okay…. My teacher was on my back tho cus I was late but it wasn’t even my fault the bus was late how could I know.” You sighed softly and muttered into the phone. Making Elvis chuckle before speaking again “maybe it’s time we get you a car hm baby?” he asked.

You giggled and let out another sigh “if i knew how to drive…” you admit quietly. Elvis let out a small laugh and shook his head. “ay don’t worry about it little dove I’ll teach you how to drive, I’ll get you a plane ticket and fly you over how does tomorrow afternoon sound.

‘round one…. I miss you baby I miss your smile your voice your goddamn pretty face miss seeing you wear the presents I get you. “ he said lowly a soft groan that you found yourself blushing at.

“ye  that sounds good Elvis I miss you too allot I can’t wait to see you.” You hummed into the phone with a soft but sweet voice.

Elvis smirked  ever so lightly to himself before he spoke again, “well then better get some sleep baby I’ll sent a car to bring you to the airport and I’ll come pick you up from the airport here okay.”

 He said in a smooth but deep voice you yawned softly and nodded your head as if he could see it.  Before you answered him sleepily “ okay I’ll see you tomorrow goodnight Elvis” you mumbled softly trough the phone earning a soft smile from im even tho you couldn’t see him. “okay goodnight my little dove”.

was the last thing he said before you both drifted off to sleep with one another on your mind.

Hi creator here this is my new series fuck it I love you   I hope you guys like it feedback is always welcome requests are open and pls let me know if I missed triggers or grammar mistakes

also say thank you to @asshlyyyy bc she is the reason im posting hahsha

[klaus-littlestwolf]

The Curator-Alpha!Bucky Barnes

Bucky Barnes Alpha/Omega Oneshot

As an Omega people always expected you to be something you weren't. They expected flirty and sweet, cheerful and bubbly as most Omegas are, but that just wasn't you. You knew it disappointed your mother, she had all Alpha boys until you, her only girl and only child not born an Alpha. She dressed you up all your life, never letting you express yourself in the least, pink dresses and heels, fruity perfumes that 'enhanced Omega scents' and 'pretty' jewelry, she made you everything you hated and it made you hate her. You fought against everything she wanted and it made her hate you. When you left high school and decided not to travel in search of your Alpha as so many did but instead get a job and an apartment in the city she was livid and she told you not to come back until you were ready to cooperate or you found your Alpha and he fixed your behavior.

You found a roommate who became your best friend, Natasha, and got a job as an art curator. Your boss was quite a dick, making you do all the work and taking all the credit but the pay was good, at least for your half of the job, and you were able to get your paintings on display every now and again.

It's not that you didn't want an Alpha, but you didn't want to be controlled anymore, you wanted someone to love you, not own you and you couldn't see any modern Alpha doing that. So when the day came that you smelled your Alpha for the first time you did what no Omega has ever done in the history of human kind, you ran.

You were at the opening of a new art gallery, having hired an assistant for the event to take care of sales of paintings so you could handle everything else, meeting clients and making sure artists were happy was your main goal until you smelled it. It was a rush of firewood, pine trees and gunpowder. It was delicious and you turned, running into the kitchen quickly.

You used the other exit, continuing to work while trying to avoid the smell and being so busy walking around that you didn't notice until the party was almost over as you passed it that someone had bought your painting.

"Kelly! Someone bought my painting?" The girl grinned.

"Yes, he was very taken with it, and so unbelievably hot! He asked if you were here actually, he wanted to meet you." You smelled it again when you got close to the painting and instantly knowing your Alpha had smelled you on it. "There he is. Mr. Barnes!" She waved someone over and you looked up to see a man with just shy of shoulder length brown hair, a dark beard and bright blue eyes, even if he wasn't your Alpha this man would have caught your attention. "This is Y/n, you bought her painting." He wasn't listening to a thing Kelly said as he stared at you, 2 men walking behind him as if body guards.

"Hello Y/n. I'm James, I've been looking for you all night." I shook myself out of my daze as he took my hand, kissing my knuckle and turned my hand, smelling the scent gland at my wrist. His eyes rolled back into his head as he did, his body relaxing visibly and a smile making its way to his face.

"Yes well, tons to do when it's your party, actually I should be going." I tried to walk away but he grabbed my upper arm, quite gently but enough to let me know he wanted me to stay.

"Please? Don't go? I've been looking all night-actually I've been searching for years. Let me get you a drink?" I found myself nodding before I could stop and he tucked my arm into his delicately. He led me over to the bar, gesturing for his men to stay behind.  "Tell me why you're running from me gorgeous."  I looked up from my drink, stunned and just as I was about to lie he held up his hand.  "Don't lie, please?  Our bond is still growing but I learned to spot a lie in anyone quite a long time ago, I just ask for the truth Y/n, please?"

I hesitated but took a deep breath, deciding to go with the truth.  "I spent my entire life being told what an Omega should be, how I should act and dress and talk and it wasn't me, I felt like I was being suffocated in so much shit that everyone else wanted me to be and I don't want an Alpha because I don't want it to happen all over again."  He didn't interrupt me, didn't laugh or even smile, he just listened which was strange for me from an Alpha.

"I'm sorry that's how you grew up, it does sound uncomfortable.  I don't want to control you however.  I want my Omega to be just who she is, because who she is should be perfect for me, right?"  I nodded, unsure of what else to do, completely shocked by this.  "The only time I need you to act a certain way is when I'm in a business meeting and that, for the most part, won't concern you one bit.  I never want you to be anything but happy with me, I also need to know that my Omega wants me to be myself as well-"

"Of course I do.  It's not exactly like an Alpha needs to hide though, shouldn't you be that way all the time?"  He shook his head.

"I run several companies, who I am to customers and employees and business partners, that's work me, I...I want to come home to someone I can just exist with and be happy."  In that moment I was hit with a rush of longing and loneliness that caused me to whine audibly, putting down my glass and moving to hug my Alpha. He wrapped his arms around me as I did, burying his nose into my neck and breathing me in deeply having not an ounce of shame in it, so I did the same.

"I'm sorry you feel like that." I mumbled before feeling him kiss the side of my head.

"I'm sorry you do too my sweet girl.  You're Alpha is going to take care of you, I promise.  Please let me?"  I whined again, nodding into his neck, content to stay in this position for the rest of my life.

"Y/n!"  I heard my boss' voice scream and I groaned, tightening my hold on James.  "Y/n!  There you are!  There are buyers upstairs-"

"Kelly is taking care of that tonight, remember?  I'm doing everything else."

"Well it certainly looks like you've found something to do but may I remind you that you're on the clock." I was about to snap back at the man, suddenly pissed off at being treated like this to a level I never had before. That was when I realized it wasn't my emotions.

"If I ever hear you talk to her like that again I will be sure that you lose much more than your job." James snarled at him, his scent shifting and showing how angry he is, a scent that made me weak at the knees.

"Mr.Barnes! I'm so terribly sorry, I didn't recognize you-"

"So you treat all Omegas like that?"

"N-No! I mean, I-"

"So just my Omega?" The Beta who likes to think himself an Alpha was cowering like an Omega, and I was loving it.

"No!  Of course not!  I didn't know she was your Omega, she's not mated-she wasn't!  I just need her to do her job-"

"She's been doing her job, so much so that she hasn't had 10 seconds to stop moving and take a breath to even meet me, do you think that's a good working environment?  'Cause I don't, you can go help that customer purchase something, can't you?  Or do you not know how to do that?"

"Of course I do!"  He snapped, not being able to resist being who he is, which is a bully.  James didn't say anything else, pulling me closer to his side and just staring at the man who seemed to realize what he had done.  "I apologize Mr. Barnes, I didn't mean-"

"My Omega is done for the night.  From what I understand from everyone else that works here she runs this entire place, doing your job and hers and gets paid half the money.  She is done here and I will be speaking to your bosses...and their bosses.  Come my love, let's get you something to eat, you're starving."  My mind questioned for a moment how he could tell before having a dumb moment and realizing he could feel it as he took my hand and pulled me away from my boss to the platters.

"Did you just quit my job for me?  That's exactly the kind of behavior I meant when I-"

"I’m sorry."  He cut me off, taking my face into his hands.  "I know that that wasn't a great start but I refuse to let my Omega be abused and belittled.  I have a new job for you, one that if everyone here is right about what you do, will be perfect for you and will pay you accordingly.  I need a new curator at my gallery in the city, you'll have your own office, what that asshole was supposed to do will be done by a coworker and you'll just be doing what you're supposed to do, plus, your boss is a great guy, doesn't yell at his staff, pays appropriately, offers sick leave when needed for all designations, and I'm told he's pretty easy on the eyes."  He blinked at me rapidly and I couldn't help my giggle, leaning my head onto his shoulder.

"You're sweet but I don't just want to be offered a job because I'm your Omega-"

"I understand, and you're not.  I'm here tonight to meet the curator of this gallery and offer her a job, I've heard wonderful things about her and not so wonderful things about how she's treated, figured I could poach her easily you see...even easier still, it turns out she's my Omega.  See how that works out?"  He pulled out his phone and showed me his schedule that said at the bottom- 6pm: Meet with curator of Avengers gallery.  "I've been looking for 2 people all night and only realized 5 minutes before I found you that they were the same person.  Funny how things work out."

"It really is.  What the hell, come here."  I grabbed his jacket, pulling him down to me and pressing my lips to his hard, hearing him groan contently.  "In that case, can we go get real food somewhere?"

"I would love to treat my Omega to dinner."

Bucky Barnes Masterlist

[nonokoko13]

Child!reader being adopted by spy x family characters Pt. 2

As I said in the previous part, these adoption headcanons are really specific, including your hypothetical pronouns and name; these two are extra so you can imagine yourself with your name and desired gender. You can ask for less specific headcanons if you want too. Part 1 here

Enjoy!

Sylvia Sherwood

How you met

She carries the responsibility of WISE, she needs to be committed to it. More than ever now that the peace was threatened every day by those who wanted war to arise again

She missed her family, but she overcame it. Just like the HQ she had to be impenetrable

At least, that's what she thought

Because right in front of her there was the question which answers she wanted to hear. A kid.

It would be normal to see one if she wasn't at the HQ

It didn't help no one knew there was a kid there until you spoke up

The camera system didn't record you and there wasn't any entrance to the agency that had been forced. You weren't any employee's kid either

After scolding them and order to search your parents she met you again

"Hello little one. May I ask you how did you get in here?"

You smiled, seeming to have been waiting her to ask

"Because I like to play and explore! And I'm really good at hide and seek"

Sylvia raised an eyebrow. No matter how well someone was good at hiding there was no way you could break into the HQ; it sounded surrealistic

"But how did you find this place?"

"Because it was easy to find"

"Don't you think you could end bad breaking into unknown places?"

"If I don't know what isthis place how I'd know that?"

Fair enough

That conversation wasn't going anywhere, yet she was angrier with the security staff than you. You didn't look worried though

You gave her an idea

"Do you want to play with me?"

Both entered in the nearest police station, she talked with the officers before telling you to count until 1000 while she was going to hide. You started the count facing a wall

She felt bad, but there were some traffickers she had to catch before they made the exchange

She was following their car; everything fine until she believed to see a small hand greeting her from the car's trunk

She returned to the police station to find out that moments later of her departure you disappeared without anyone realizing. She went to the point where the delivery would be made

Outside the abandoned warehouse there was no signal that you were there until she saw you getting out from under the car on the other side

Something caused a shooting that would make the police come and caught her at any moment. The bands kept shooting at each other while you were behind a transport container

"What were you thinking?! I told you to stay with the police!"

"I'm sorry, I counted until I know, then I saw you following the car, so I followed too. But before they caught me I hid in there...I'm sorry..." You pulled out a walkie-talkie

"I got two from the police station. I left one in there so the others thought the guys of that car were betraying them, it should have worked to scape with no bad guys seeing us"

She was impressed. However, there was no time to ask where you learn that from

Analyzing the situation the principal scape was blocked, fortunately they hadn't noticed you yet so–

You pulled her shirt, pointing somewhere else

"Let's get out"

General headcanons

Sylvia was still surprised that your plan of exiting through a rear window she hadn't seen and walk away without hurry could work

She stopped walking to watch you smash the walkie-talkie and take out some matches to burn it

"Now they can't find footprints!"

The police may not get answers about it but she had many questions for you

She lied to you about the HQ, after the shooting her lie was on the floor. Thenceforth Sylvia's not able to tell if you were playing along and keeping her secret or you have no idea what's all about

You thought her name was Handler. When you knew she was called Sylvia Sherwood you pointed your hoody logo and say "S of Super, you're superman–Superwoman!"

That's how she begun to be mistaken with an endearing mother and her son. She was superwoman and you "kid", because you said that's how you were called, along with child, shrimp, demon...

"That's unacceptable". She handed you lists of names to choose, unfortunately no one convinced you

It wasn't until you two went to a jewelry store that you found the name

The casual way you break in HQ when you want still frustrates her, how do you do it?? You don't see big deal though

Fullmetal lady didn't remember how tough was motherhood

Anyone would freak out if they found out about spies. Yet there you are, admiring flying guys in underpants

Sylvia asked you about your family, but you always tell the same: you lived with dad until he left you with a woman that he said was your mom

The Handler found out your father is a repeat offender, currently on a maximum security prison in another country. Both him and the woman without offspring legally

"Please, don't tell me one of his criminal records is jailbreaking"

The informant doubted "Actually, that's the main one"

"..."

The Forgers

Scenario where it's up to both of them to adopt you. To keep Loid's mental sanity safe it will be independent of the timeline where Yor has a kid on her own, feel free to imagine both kids being Anya's siblings at the same time. You can ask me to include that idea if I write more about this

How you met

As I said before Twilight wouldn't adopt anyone due his job, only one kid for Operation Strix and that was Anya. For now Yor didn't want more kids, she loves Anya and that's enough for them

Not for Anya. She wanted a little sibling

All started talking with Becky when Damian mentioned his brother. Back at home she brought the topic and neither Pa or Ma were giving her an answer of where babies come from

That's when she begun to feel like being a sister. Any plan helped her to convince her parents though

Anya remembered something Mr Henderson told them. "If you want something, take it into your own hands"

And she took it too seriously

Next day Anya and Bond disappeared, she was in the dogs park with Yor

While Mrs Forger panicked Anya had returned to the place she met Twilight

As the time passed the Forgers worried more. When they found Anya and Bond at their building's door they felt relieved

Your presence didn't make things better

They asked Anya where she had been and where did you come from. She said she adopted you

Of course Anya wasn't going to say she broke into an orphanage and took you

Loid's scolding made you cry

"Anya, we aren't adopting–"

"If she's not my sister I won't go to school ever again!!"

"Just for a trial period" that's what Loid hoped

General headcanons

Loid thought babies were easy because it's unnecessary (more impossible) communication with a living being that can't talk; after all babies only have basic needs. He was wrong

It would be easier if you could talk. Why are you crying? You have eaten! Are you sad? Cold? You dislike him?

Yor is not better either. Because her parents died when Yuri was a kid Yor didn't have experience with changing diapers, or anything related with babies

She was more scared than Loid to the point she didn't want to hold you. She broke Yuri's ribs with a hug when he was a toddler, what if she kills you with few contact?

In less than 24 hours you already had a crib and all kinds of things a baby would need. However, having three bedrooms and parents sleeping in separate rooms meant all your things ended in Anya's room

You cried at night until they discovered you calmed down when Anya let you a plushie to hug

She can't wait for the day pa and ma share bed to take back her bedroom

The second night Anya had an idea

Ma is scared of being your mom, solution? Leave you in her bed while Yor is asleep imagining that would work

Thanks God Yor doesn't move much when sleeping. On the other hand Yor is a light sleeper due not being used to sleep with someone so she woke up minutes later

She almost jump out of the bed, realizing that would make you cry made her contain. You groaned, did she wake you up? Yor wasn't sure of holding you, instead she laid down again and approached you to her chest

Seeing you so peaceful by her side melted her, thinking about it you looked a bit like her and Loid.. She blushed at the embarrassing thought

Bold of them to not imagine that's why Anya chose you

In the morning Loid discovered what happened and had a little words with Anya during breakfast before she went to school

Yor went to work and he decided to take a day off from his work to spend the morning with you. The Handler said the first days you should see them to recognize faces

Walks with Bond, buying toys, trying to teach you sign language...Normal stuff

Loid is glad you don't do anything but sleep and eat, except your obsession with munching. When you first kissed Yor he found it normal until you munched her cheek and now you do that to everyone; probably you're teething

Yor found it really cute, but you shouldn't go kissing and chewing cheeks. Anya thinks is funny just don't try to chew her hair again please

Another problem came with names. Loid was going through a list of 850 names in alphabetical order, meanings included; Yor didn't take it to the extreme

"Hum, what about Rose? I think it's a cute name, I mean it's both decision and I'm not good with names Loid–"

Welcome to the family Rose

A spy, an assassin, a telepath and... Well, a baby. Seems like a good mix

Yor Briar

As we know Twilight only would adopt for Operation Strix's sake. Yor became mother by marrying Loid, but what if she had already a kid before being Mrs Forger?

Inspired by this post of @say-seira

How you met

Long ago before Twilight adopted the identity of Loid Forger, the Briars moved to a flat in Berlint

While the eldest sibling had recently become an adult Yuri was only a kid, Yor decided to move to the city so he had nearer his school. It was possible due her proper salary as Thorn Princess

This change would make her job easier too. She had a new client which death could pay Yuri's entrance to a good university

There was a politician who negotiated with terrorists, helping them to get into Ostania and providing them with weapons in exchange to gain good propaganda abroad and getting rid of competition

Knowing this was enough to make Yor's blood boil. He deserved to die, she was sure of it

Struggling with the security around him, Yor finally killed the target without leaving trace

The only inconvenience was a bad injury made by a bullet that she received. After removing the bullet the wound got worse

She went to the hospital to avoid an infection. In the waiting room she met a kind lady, Yor swore that she had seen her before

The woman was scared, but Yor reassured her she will wait her

While Yor was attended the girl was taken to another room. As she promised, Yor waited in the hall after her wound was treated; with a buttoned medical gown on because she didn't want to attract more attention due the bandaged wound in sight

Time passed and many people enter and exit from the room, but she didn't. A nurse carrying something mistook her for one of the staff and scolded her for standing there

"Here, take the baby to the nursery"

"Me? But— wait! What about the woman? Is she okay?"

From afar she heard the answer, but before Yor could explain the error the woman had left. She was shocked, how? She seemed fine

Against her will the dark-haired looked at the lump she was holding: rosy cheeks babbling in dreams, you were in peace

Her shock grew when she saw you shared the username that the man she killed had. That's why the woman was familiar: she was the politician's daughter

Yor searched someone who hand the baby when she recognized the doctor that guided the woman to the room, he was talking with a masked nurse

The fact they went to a private place and maintained their voices low made her suspect

"Did you take care of the mother?" the nurse asked

"Yes, they got ahead of us with her father but I think they will pay us anyway. When they found it was a medical negligence we'll be far from here"

Yor understood they were assassins as well, probably paid by a rival. Luckily they hadn't seen her yet

"Heh, do you they will pay more if we got rid of the baby?"

Yor left the hospital with you, unsure of what to do. Did you have more relatives? The widowed politician didn't have more kids, and your mother came alone. What if they wanted to kill the rest of the family?

A small hand grabbed hers, and every fear disappeared. Looking at each other, she knew you were safer with her. Perhaps it was only guilt or sympathy, but she would try

General headcanons

The moment Yuri saw Yor holding you was in disbelief. Yor said she found you in the streets and he believed it

At first he tried to convince her sister to leave you in a orphanage but once scolding was enough to cease

Still disliking you for the first months. It took some time until he saw you like one of his family

Yuri helped, although they had a rough time because you refused to eat Yor's purees. Your endurance might grew up to make you the only person who can eat her food without bleeding but it doesn't mean you like its flavor

She viewed you as a sibling until you were two, being called mom made Yor too happy to correct you. Yuri was just Yuri, you never feel like using formalities with him or addressing "Uncle" everytime you talked

Yor decided to let your belongings, it was better that way. When you were older, and only if you wanted, she would tell you the truth

She's bad with names, Rose was the only name she could think of but you're a boy. Yor's parents loved that Yuri and her had matching names, therefore you would be the sweet addition to it

The only name I could think of is Yuu because it's gender neutral and means "you" sorry

During the first year of your life she didn't try to hide the blood of her clothes from you. Yuri never suspected either and you wouldn't remember it when you grow up

Your lack of childhood amnesia was something she didn't have in count. Not that she knows you know anyway

Yor has been training you since you were able to walk, if she wasn't there when you needed at least you would be ready to defend yourself. Proud to say you're her strong boy

That said, if the assassins that tried to killed you found were you lived it's something you ignore. Being the protective mother Yor is they could be dead by now

Six years later, it was still Yor and you against the world, with Yuri being the only paternal figure you had. Before one day she met a man and everything changed

She said he will help her by accompanying her to a party so Yuri stopped worrying about her. She said it would be one night, and the next morning you woke up with Yor waiting to talk with you

In part she accepted because of you; you passed the Eden exam before knowing you needed a dad for it. That requisite seemed stupid for you, as you reassured her you could go to any other school; now you would be accepted into the best school!

You agreed and started packing. What else you could do? The decision was made before you were asked anyway, and you didn't want to argue with your mom because she was doing it for your future too

Of course it affected you. No matter how nice they were it was a huge change; in one day you had to move to a new place which didn't feel like home and live with strangers who you'll have to share mom with isn't easy

Anya was nervous too, but for different reasons. She was so excited to meet her soon-to-be sibling! For her, who was an orphan last week, having a pa, a ma and a friend to play with was great

Her expectations went down when she read your mind. You didn't think bad of them, but excited wasn't the word to describe your emotional state either

Loid may not be good at understanding children, but it was clear for him you wasn't comfortable. For him would be weirder if you didn't seem affected at all

On the contrary, Yor seemed cool with all of this to you. Even without any idea of how to be a wife or mother for Anya she enjoyed her time as Forger, which confused you a bit

Yor is happier, not only because she didn't have to worry about the SSS or Yuri anymore. They make her happier, it's just matter of time she could fall for Loid and have a baby that was her own, real kid

Being sure Yor loves you and your new family want you to feel welcomed doesn't make disappear the feelings you carry with. Still, if mom is happy you prefer to keep it to yourself and try to maker her smile too

If it wasn't because Yuri hates the idea of her sister hiding her marriage for a year and sympathized your situation he would have laughed at the irony when you told him during your uncle-nephew walk the next day of his meeting with "Loiloi"

He doesn't know they got married before you attended school so he assumed you had been holding it for a long time. He passed his fingers through your hair

"I understand it's difficult, but I'll be for you whenever you need me"

+ Honorable mention to compensate you for the mild ansgt without warning

Daybreak

We don't know much about him but I included this dork for fun

Thinking about "Daybreak" and "parenthood" makes anyone's mind stopped working

Mainly because it's difficult to say which one would be the child

Not "How you met headcanons" because he wouldn't be able to adopt to begin with

From what we saw in chapter 27 he seems to live alone, depending on his amazing spy career to afford pork steak for dinner. So he must not live too good given that after his first mission he was fired

If he had a child, it would be likely because of a previous relationship he had and didn't end well

He didn't adopt you. You're his biological kid, the only not adopted of this gang

Sorry we can't choose our family good luck ig

Not necessarily ended bad, even remaining as friends, your mother took a different path and is happily married with another man

If she knew he wanted to be a spy either thought "it's a joke" or *sigh*

She was who brought money in the relationship, now you live with her and your step-dad but at the beginning you didn't want to

Daybreak talked with you and promised you could visit each other and even live with him when he could afford it

They don't get it

Who would take care of him? The idea of living on his own was frightening to you

Imagine being father and is your kid who worries about whether pops know how to pay taxes without mom

You took after him in terms of appearance. Any signal of intelligence was from your mother

Average smart but surely smarter than him

Probably he thanked God that you were a boy. He will love whatever you are but he was relieved of saving himself of buying female products when you were on that time of the month and guide you through puberty

As much as he says to be a charming man he's not good with women either so

Your name is Sunny. Guess who chose it

Probably you see him more on weekends than during the week

Until you showed him Spy Wars he didn't have no idea that existed such good series

Of course not cooler than the legend he is but Daybreak jokes about how reading that and seeing your cool pops in action would make you half as good spy as he is someday

Quite sad is that your common sense along with the things you see on TV are enough to be better spy material

You try to watch it with him to see if he learns something

Unsure of what you'll be in the future but in the mean time you had fun watching cartoons and liking kids stuff like dinosaurs and skateboard

Current status: Busy with your first year at school and getting him out of trouble

[neoncrowpen]

I adore you and your writing! Is it possible for you to do a part 3 for Thomas Shelby and Michael Gray fighting over who gets dibs on you? Maybe the reader chooses who she really wants? Thank you so much 🥰

This is the final Part. [Part One Here] [Part Two Here]

The boiling point was reached three days ago. Michael threw a punch into Tommy’s cheek after he heard more rumors that he put his hands on you again. The punch never reached its destination. Instead, more glass was broken and angry words were exchanged until Polly got involved. She told them exactly what to do and to handle it now.

So, here you were. Sitting opposite Thomas Shelby and Michael Gray in an empty pub, you touched your pint. The coldness of the glass reminded you of how the cousins looked at each other. You blamed yourself. None of this would have happened if you listened to your father and kept your head down when a Peaky Blinder spoke to you. Instead, you welcomed their presence with warm, open arms.

“Michael and I have a proposition for you,” Thomas began. His tongue ran along his bottom lip before he licked the cigarette, methodically putting it into his mouth. “Michael will give you his offer, and I’ll give you mine. You choose one of us, and then it’s settled.”

It sounded far too simple. Why didn’t they think about this before? Especially after the heated moments you shared with Tommy in his office? After six months of this, you started to catch on the Shelby family always had another agenda hiding from everyone else. “What’s the catch?” you said.

“No catch,” Thomas lied.

“Whoever you don’t choose, you can never speak to them again,” Michael told you. His eyes easily found yours. You imagined it burned him to say that. How badly did you divide this family? You nodded your head. Shifting in your seat, Michael went first. “I’m going to America. For the company. I want you to come with me. You won’t ever have to work another day in your life. A new country where you’ll be so spoiled with the newest clothes, jewelry, and whatever you wanted.”

“Where in America?”

“Where else?” Michael smirked. “New York.” Temptation’s fingers reached out to you from the darkness. A chance to get out of dirty Birmingham, corrupted London, and bleak England was placed in front of you like a hot dinner. You didn’t have to save up any money or worry over what to do with yourself. All you had to do was say yes. Say yes and become Michael’s spoiled thing.

“My offer isn’t as exotic,” Thomas said. Your attention snapped away from Michael’s fantasy and towards Thomas’ face. There was something so tragic about him you wanted to know. Something inside you that called out to him like beacon. Thomas shifted in his spot, placing a small box on the table in front of you. “Shame on me for not being able to ask you properly. I want to marry you.”

Michael’s eyes went wide. His gaze switched between the box, you, and Thomas. He opened his mouth to speak, but Thomas shot warning glance.

“I’m not done.” He said. When his gaze returned to yours, you noticed how hard his jaw set. “Marry me and you’ll have Arrow House. I know your family won’t exactly like the idea of you raising my son, but he deserves a mother like you. And as a Shelby, you’ll be entitled to a share of the company.” You sat there in a perfect daze. New York was tempting, but you never expected this. Marriage. Promised wealth to you. Motherhood and a country home.

“You told me you were going to make her a mother.” Michael’s words burned. “You didn’t say you were going to marry her.”

“How else do we make women mothers, Michael?” Thomas sat back. From the pieces you had, you assumed Thomas lied to Michael about his intentions with you.

“That’s unfair.” Michael argued.

“That’s business.”

“Does she look like a business deal to you?” Michael stood up. The chair legs sharply dragged across the floor.

“No,” Thomas answered, “She looks like someone who loves her family.” He was right. You did. It was why you worked at your family’s restaurant. It was why you stayed close. Why you spent so many evenings writing down recipes, looking after your nieces and nephews, and more. Suddenly, the choice seemed clear.

“Michael,” you said. Michael’s eyes looked to you with joy. Relief spread across his features. Your stomach turned into knots as the words came out. “I’m sorry. I can’t go with you. America is too far. My family needs me here.”

You wished you could take the last six months back. You wished you never looked at Michael first. You never realized how addictive his smile, his laugh, his hungry eyes were until now. It all shut off in the last second. Like a snap, his joy turned to wrath. You were told to never anger any of the Shelbys, but no one ever thought to warn you about Michael.

His gaze burned on you like fingers to a hot pan. It sizzled your skin. Then, it all went cold as he left the Garrison Pub. He said nothing to you. You moved to go after him. Thomas’ hand shot out, grabbing your arm. You looked at your slowing feet. You didn’t realize you made it halfway across the pub.

“We made a deal, remember?” Thomas said. “You can’t speak to him anymore.” You bit your lip down hard. A deal was a deal. That is, until you repeated the events in your mind. Not speaking to Michael ever again. Michael leaving for New York without any return date, if ever. Thomas’ reminder about how your family needs you. It felt like less than a fair deal, and more like a set up.

[raibebe]

The reclusive Waterbender - Jaemin

Genre: fluff Words: 1.123 Prompt: The group rests at a peaceful inn. But the inn keeper's son seems to have some sort of secret.

The group surrounding the Avatar meets Jaemin when they come across his mother's inn. Mark can tell there's more to Jaemin than the boy lets on with his calm demeanor and gentle smiles. He gets an inkling that the boy's family might belong to the water tribe by how fondly Jaemin looks at Jisung's futile attempts at defending himself against Donghyuck’s fire in the nearby lake where he's supposed to wash his clothes and oversee the group's antics. So that evening after dinner, Mark catches Jaemin in the hallway before he can disappear into his room. “Did you need anything else?” Jaemin asks politely, “Your clothes are still drying outside.” “You’re a waterbender, right?” “Excuse me?” “I can tell you are. By the way you look at Jisung and I can feel it. I’m the avatar after all,” Mark replies cheerfully. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jaemin deflects again, crossing his arms in front of his chest, “I’m not a bender.” “Why are you denying it? Bending is a gift. And me being the avatar, you know, I can feel it. You’re a strong bender and-” Furrowing his brow, Jaemin pushes past the avatar, “My grandmother needs me, she’s very old and bedridden. You should get some sleep as well.”

Of course Mark tells the group about the possibility of Jaemin being a waterbender that evening when he steps into their room and Jisung is over the hills about it, claiming he has finally found a teacher who is better at explaining than Mark who is not native to waterbending and is very far from mastering the element himself.

“You have to teach me!” Jisung shouts as he’s running at Jaemin who had left early that morning to take care of more washing at the lake. “Teach you what? Hanging the laundry?” Jaemin jokes, resting the basket of laundry against his hip before stepping around the house where they had helped him build a place to hang the wet cloth. “Waterbending of course!” Jaemin barely is able to control his facial expression before he molds it into a fond smile. “I’d have to be a bender to help you out with that, silly” he speaks, ruffling the taller boy’s hair. “But you are! Mark told me all about it. Show me something. I know you can,” the boy beams. “Well he’s wrong, I don’t know what exactly he’s feeling,” Jaemin grits out, putting down the basket with a little more force than necessary. “But your grandmother is wearing a traditional water tribe betrothal necklace,” Renjun butts in. Jaemin hadn’t even noticed the rest of the group stepping outside. “How do you know my-” “We drank a very nice cup of tea yesterday. She’s a lovely lady.” “Well, I don’t know about her jewelry,” Jaemin blocks off yet again. “If the little water boy doesn’t want to show, I surely can figure out how,” Donghyuck grins, a bright orange flame dancing along his fingertips, “What was the saying? You gotta fight fire with water?” “Donghyuck I don’t-” his earthbender friend tries to diffuse the situation but Jaemin is faster, grabbing the firebender by his collar to yank him close. “If you dare to play with fire in my home just one more time, I swear I will make you sleep on the hard forest floor,” he spits before fluidly throwing the other to the ground. 

“But you are a water bender,” Jisung argues when Jaemin walks back into the house, “You could help us all.” "Continue with your journey, my family needs me here and I won't leave them to fend for themselves. It’s not sunshine and rainbows everywhere," Jaemin speaks with determination, slamming the door of his room into their faces. "Give him some time," Jeno suggests calmly, "Not everyone can just leave their life behind on the spot. We will find another teacher for you two on our journey to the Northpole." Sighing, the others agree that they have spent a lot of time at the peaceful inn already and that it's time to move on. Through his door, Jaemin was able to hear every softly spoken word but he can't quite seem to figure out why his chest aches at the thought of the group of friends leaving and taking all the laughter with them that had filled the usually so quiet inn. 

The next morning over breakfast, Jaemin is utterly silent, simply accepting Mark's apology on behalf of the group for their behavior yesterday with a quick nod when the avatar steps into the kitchen where he's washing the dishes with his mother, announcing that they’ll take their leave and thanking his mother for the kind hospitality she had offered the group. "You're not leaving with them?" She asks quietly. "I'm not leaving you alone. And I'm not who they're looking for. I'm no waterbending protege who should teach the avatar. I haven't bended in years and I didn't plan on doing so anytime soon. I made my decision years back. They'll find many masters willing to teach the avatar at the Northpole." His mother simply nods, gently taking the plate he was washing from trembling his hands. “Be a dear and see if your grandma needs anything,” she speaks softly, accepting the kiss her son plants on her forehead. 

As if sensing the trouble inside Jaemin’s heart, his grandma simply pats the bed beside her when he opens the door to her room. “Why are you still here?” She asks him after taking his hand in hers. “What do you mean?” “Your friends are leaving today, the quiet firebender told me.” “They’re not-” “They aren’t your friends?” His grandma laughs, “Jaemin, I haven’t seen you so happy in years. It’s your destiny to teach the avatar and the young waterbender.” “I can’t leave you alone,” he whispers, tears welling up in his eyes when he thinks back to the fateful night that had changed his life, “What if they come back?” “Jaemin,” the woman smiles, gently cupping her grandson’s cheek, “You’re a very skilled waterbender but your mother and I can fend for ourselves. And there haven't been any unwelcome guests here since that night. The avatar and his friends need you more than we do.” “Grandma I-” “Go, Jaemin,” she smiles again, “Teach the avatar all that you know and pay us a visit once he has mastered our element.” 

Not much later, the young waterbender is leaving his home with hurried steps, his grandma’s necklace wrapped around his throat and his forgotten water skin strung to his back. “Take me with you,” he demands loudly when he finally catches up with the avatar’s group in the forest surrounding the inn, panting loudly. “I’ll teach you.”

[megan-is-mia]

Could I ask for Peacock Vil with #209? Like he's in his mating season and she is rejecting all his advances.

(This one is kind of long sorry) 209. “The way you say my name feel so fucking good…keep saying it.” (Yandere! Peacock Vil Schoenheit x Fem! S/o) (WARNING NSFW AND NON-CON AHEAD!)

Ever since she was a young girl (Y/n) had known what her future would be. Born to a concubine in the Peacock King’s harem there was only one fate open to her: to become a harem-girl like her mother before her and serve her master obediently. This fact had been drilled into her since toddlerhood. Yet there was something that gave her hope and kept her from fully accepting her destiny. She had a special friend, a secret friend who lived in the castle as well. They’d never seen each other’s faces but spoke to one another every day through a hole in the wall between the two grand gardens of the palace. Her friend called themself Scélérat, and they loved two things: knowledge and beauty. Each day they would teach (Y/n) new things they’d learned from the books in the library.

With every scrap of knowledge (Y/n) gained she found new strength in herself. When she was with Scélérat she wasn’t just a lowly harem girl, she was a person who mattered in this world. Yet as the years went by things began to change, she began to be plagued with more and more duties to make her into the ideal concubine. Even worse the Peacock King’s son Vil demanded that she become his personal servant and tend to him daily.

“(Y/n) why do you stand so far from my side? Come closer darling I won’t bite” Vil cooed as he lounged back on the chaise longue and gestured for the servant to come closer. (Y/n) grit her teeth but obeyed, she despised the peacock-man and his father and everything they stood for. If it wasn’t for the king and the prince, she and her mother would not be bound to a life of sexual servitude.

Vil pulled (Y/n) down into his lap as she came closer, she had grown more beautiful than he could ever have hoped for. He still remembered with total clarity when he’d first met her, back when they were children still innocent of heart. She’d been crying in the garden and he’d spoken to her through the wall. (Y/n) had spilled out her sorrows to him and he felt his heartache for the first time in his life.

He hadn’t told her his name then, for that would have ruined everything. To her, he would be Scélérat, someone she could always depend on to be there for her and lift her up. But as time has gone by their meetings had grown shorter and less frequent, it was not her fault that she wasn’t able to meet him. (Y/n) was blooming into a beautiful young woman and therefore she had to know her duties as a concubine.

That didn’t mean he would let her slip away from him. Sure for now she may not love him as Prince Vil, but he would win her yet. He was sure of it, she had no choice in the matter. When he became king he would dismiss most of the harem that his father had amassed. Of course, he would make sure the concubines went to good homes but he would not need so many women to keep him happy. The only woman he needed to be happy was (Y/n), she would be his queen in all but name. He wished he could make her queen proper but he knew patience would be key to being successful in his endeavors. If he gave her that power before he knew for certain that she was loyal to him everything could go down in flames. Vil could not let the love in his heart cloud his judgment on the matter.

(Y/n) hated how intimately the prince touched her. His hands made her skin crawl and she felt like she needed to scrub her skin clean after every encounter with him. The other harem girls gossiped that she must be his favorite since she was the only girl he’d ever called to his chambers. However, she did not care whether or not she was the prince’s favorite for she would never care for him.

For her heart already belonged to another, her beloved Scélérat, yes they were her beloved. Though she had never had the courage to tell them of her feelings for them and now she was unlikely to ever have the chance to tell them with the prince hoarding her time and body. The only relief she had was the fact the prince and king’s mating season would soon start and none would be allowed near their rooms nor them. Perhaps in this downtime (Y/n) would gain from the prince’s season she’d be able to speak to Scélérat again and set things straight. However, until the season started she would be quite busy with Prince Vil. In the week leading up to his mating season, the prince began acting strangely towards her. One could almost call it affectionate, the way he spoke to her and tried to shower her in gifts of clothes and jewelry. “He must be trying to court you” another harem girl suggested when (Y/n) spoke of her concerns one evening. “The gift-giving, the affectionate words, the only sensible explanation is that his more bestial brain is piloting and he wants you to be his mate” she added making (Y/n) cringe with disgust. Her? The prince’s mate? No way! There was no way she would ever become the prince’s mate!

Yet despite her unwillingness, she found herself being locked in with the prince on the day his rut started. At first, he seemed totally unaware of her presence in the room, jerking furiously on his bed and grunting in a low voice. This was a side of Vil she’d never seen before, who was this unrefined creature unable to think of anything but sex? She could almost feel pity for him, almost.

(Y/n) was so deep in her thoughts that she didn’t even notice when the prince had given up trying to pleasure himself and was creeping towards her. Suddenly she found herself being pulled and forced down on the bed as Vil climbed atop of her with a lecherous grin. (Y/n) grimaced and tried to kick him off even as he leaned down to capture her lips in a hungry kiss and ran his hands down her sides.

“Finally, I have you where I want you… I’ve been waiting for this day for years” Vil said in a coo as he pulled away from the kiss. “Ever since we were young I knew you were the one for me my darling” he added leaning in for another kiss. (Y/n) turned her head away confused by the prince’s words. “What… What are you talking about! You aren’t making any sense!” she said, trying to kick him again. “Even when we’re this close to one another you still don’t recognize me? You cannot recognize your oldest friend?” the prince said, leaning down to speak in (Y/n)’s ear. “Your dear Scélérat sits before you and yet you do not see?” he whispered before pressing a kiss to her ear. This revelation froze (Y/n) to her core, the prince… he was the one she’d loved for so long? Impossible! She could not accept, she would not accept this to be true!

“I don’t believe you! You must be lying! Scélérat is a good person, unlike you! He would never let me remain a harem girl if he had the power to free me like you do!” (Y/n) said in a hiss. “Oh I have every intention of freeing you, just not yet… first I must become king so I can make you my wife” Vil said nuzzling the young woman playfully. “But such serious matters can wait until another day, let us enjoy each other’s company” he concluded.

(Y/n) knew exactly what he meant by “enjoy each other’s company” and she wanted none of it. She tried to push him away again even as he kissed down her front, yanking her top down to lavish her breasts with attention. (Y/n) had never had the curiosity to try touching herself in such a matter and as such her body jolted with the new sensations Vil forced upon her with his mouth and hands.

“You saved yourself for me didn’t you darling?” the peacock-man said with a croon, his hands darting further down (Y/n)’s body to run down her thighs. “I wish I had the patience to wait until our wedding night to do this… but I suppose there really is nothing wrong with getting started on making an heir right?” he mused to himself as the young woman below him felt her blood run cold. Her? Carry the prince’s heir? She couldn’t think of many things worse than bearing a child for this man! Perhaps she could stop him from doing this tonight? Maybe she could spare herself such a fate by taking command now? (Y/n) reached down clumsily searching for the prince’s cock and taking it firmly in her grip. Without hesitation, she began jerking him off quickly as he began to buck into her hold. “Mmmph fuck that feels so good” Vil said, his tail feathers spreading behind him as he fucked himself into the girl’s fist and let his head lol back in pleasure. It didn’t take long for him to cum messily onto (Y/n)’s body with a weak grin. “That was delightful darling, now allow me to return the favor” the prince said situating himself between the girl’s thighs. He pulled her undergarments aside before pressing his mouth to her cunt. This was not what she had wanted to have happen! She’d touched him hoping that it would be enough to please him so he wouldn’t impregnate her. He wasn’t supposed to try and return the favor of pleasuring! (Y/n) weakly kicked at the prince as he sucked on her clit and drove his tongue deep into her cunt. It felt like he was trying to clean her insides out with his mouth and she could feel her eyes rolling back in her skull. “P-puh-prince Vil!” (Y/n) squealed desperately and to her surprise, the peacock-man stopped. “The way you say my name feel so fucking good…keep saying it” the prince groaned out before he began tongue-fucking her again. It didn’t take long until the harem girl was seeing white and cumming all over Vil’s face. He licked up her release greedily before spreading her legs and scooting so his cock brushed against her pussy.

“I’ll try to be gentle, considering this is your first time… but I can't promise I won’t lose control” Vil cooed before starting to sink into (Y/n)’s depths. It didn’t take much before the young woman was squirming with discomfort. The prince was so big compared to her and his cock was just as proportionally big. The kisses that he pressed to her face did nothing to ease the pain he was causing her at this moment. “Hold on for me darling… I just need to get all the way in and then I'll make you feel really good” the prince promised. He continued to sink into her, stretching her like she’d never been stretched before. His fingers teased her clit made it almost bearable but still it wasnt enough to take the pain away. Finally, Vil was all the way in and let out a long gasp. He nuzzled (Y/n)’s shoulder before kissing it.

“You feel so tight around me… it feels amazing… I'm going to make you feel amazing too” the peacock-man said, his tail feathers shaking with delight. He pulled back a little bit before slamming back into (Y/n) with a grunt. He repeated this action over and over again each time striking a spot deep inside the harem girl’s cunt that made her see stars and moan for him like he wanted. Gradually Vil’s movements got faster and faster, gripping the bedframe as he fucked (Y/n) with all his might. The young woman came so many times yet the prince showed no signs of wearing out despite the many times he had also cum as he pounded her into the bed. “I’m gonna plant an entire nest in your womb darling… you’ll like that won’t you? Soon you’ll be a wife, a mother, and a queen just like you deserve…” THE END

[skzsauce01]

For You

Anniversary Request Special

Description: You and Minho are a little more than just an heiress and her bodyguard, but you know your parents would never approve of a relationship like this unless...

Warning: anxiety, injury

Word Count: 2.1k

Pairing: fem!reader x bodyguard!Minho

He is buttoning up his shirt after a warm shower when his phone buzzes. He smirks at your caller ID on the screen before picking it up. “What, miss me alr—”

“Hi. Sorry to bother you.”

Minho drops his smile and grips his phone tighter at the tone of your voice. Panic bubbles in his chest. “Is something wrong?”

“No, it’s not like that. I’m just… out right now, and it got dark a little quicker than I thought. I know you’re off the clock on Sundays, but—”

“It’s okay. I'm coming to get you. Where are you?”

“I’m near the 7-11 near your house. The one with the blue umbrellas in front.”

“Okay. Go inside for now. I’m coming.”

“Alright. Thank you, Minho. And sorry.”

“Don’t be; it’s my job. Call again if something happens before I get there.”

“Okay.”

“Alright, I’ll be there shortly.”

Minho doesn’t even bother drying his hair and dashes out the door. He runs and runs, unease crawling up his skin, but when he sees you through the window of the convenience store, his stomach completely drops. There you stand with your shoulders hunched, arms wrapped around yourself, and knees bowed in, a stark contrast to the proud heiress he is used to seeing. 

The worker who is leaning over the counter seems to be saying something as Minho bursts in. “If you aren’t buyin’, pay for your loitering with cha number, sugar.”

Minho slaps a bill on the counter and takes a bag of chocolates. “There. She’s a customer,” he hisses. Turning to you who looks shocked by his sudden appearance, he asks, “Are you okay?”

You nod dumbly. 

“Okay. Let’s get out of here.” He puts a hand on the small of your back and guides you to the door, using himself to shield you from the eyes of the worker.

He thought you’d relax a little after getting away from the creep, but your posture remains closed off. He wants to ask why but does not know if you’re ready for that yet. Instead, you break the silence first.

“Thank you for coming, and sorry for ruining your Sunday.”

“Y/N, you know I’m always ready to be by your side.” 

He looks for clues. You have on a deep blue dress, minimal jewelry, and light makeup. In other words, effortlessly enchanting, but that’s not important; you went to something fancy but not overly formal. A first date? Minho’s heart starts racing at the thought. He needs to know. “What were you doing out here by yourself?”

You bite your lip. Instead of answering, you tug on the cuff of his shirt gingerly with the tips of your fingers. “I-is it alright if I don’t talk about it?”

His chest breaks at how fragile your voice is. He stops in his tracks and looks at you.

“I-is it not?” you squeak.

“Of course it is.”

“Then why are you—”

“You look like you need this.”

He steps up to you under the streetlight and wraps you into a hug, gently stroking your back.

“Minho!” you gasp. “What if someone sees?”

You’re an heiress. Your choices of men are Chan from JY Group, Changbin from Seo Enterprise, or even Jisung from Han Motors. Lee Minho the bodyguard is definitely not on that list even if your heart is taking flight from this small gesture of endearment.

“Why does that matter?” he hushes you.

“If Father finds out, you’d lose your job.”

“I’d rather that than not be able to be here for you when you need it,” he says plainly and holds you tighter when you try to push him away.

Gradually, he feels you give up and give in to his embrace. Finally, he feels you begin to shake as tears escape your eyes.

“It was so scary,” you whimper. “I was so scared.”

Your words are like hammers battering his chest,making it impossible to breathe. He holds you tighter and speaks quietly, letting the vibration of his voice calm you.

“It’s okay. You’re okay now. I’m right here. Nothing can hurt you.”

You arrive at the gates of your house, an empty bag of convenience store chocolates between your fingers.

“Minho?”

“Yes?”

“Father can’t know what happened. Are my eyes swollen?”

He turns you by the shoulder so he is directly looking into them. “Not at all. They’re—”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees your father approaching, and cuts his sentence short. “Good evening, Mister L/N,” he greets.

“Ah, Minho. What are you doing here on a Sunday?”

“I found Miss Y/N around my neighborhood and thought it best to escort her home.”

“You found her around your neighborhood?” 

“Yes, I was just taking an evening stroll.”

“Evening stroll?” he echoes yet again. The old man looks at the younger one’s wet, unbrushed hair.

Minho can’t do a thing but cough nervously, knowing how weak his lie is.

Thankfully, your father does not comment further. He looks between the two of you and smiles to himself. “Alright. Since you’re here, you should escort her all the way to the house.”

“Yes, sir,” Minho bows. When he straightens up again, he grins at you. “Shall we go?”

You nod with a smile of your own. “Thank you, Minho. Really.”

“Like I said, I’m always here for you.”

He cheekily takes your hand in his and hides it behind his back in case your father turns around.

“Oh, and Y/N?” he whispers.

“Hm?” 

He swipes an eyelash that fell with your tears from your cheek. “They’re not swollen; they’re beautiful.”

Your father coughs loudly in front of you.

The following week, you accompany your parents to a showing of the latest models of Han Motors. Of course, this means Minho is to lurk around in the shadows and follow you all night. At least, that’s what he’s supposed to do instead of being dragged out to the main floor by you to discuss which refreshment tastes the best.

“You know, if you wanted to spend time with me, you could have just said so,” Minho teasingly whispers into your ear.

“Shush and try this.” You roll your eyes and stuff a truffle-topped cracker between his lips. 

Minho chews for a moment before commenting, “Not great. Better than the cherry thing earlier, but the truffles your uncle gave you last time was better.”

You take one and mull over it yourself. “You’re right. This one’s too sweet.”

“Like someone I know,” he sighs off-handedly.

You snort. “I can’t tell if you’re talking about me or yourself.”

He raises a brow. “Oh, so you think I’m worthy of being called ‘sweet?’”

“Good gracious,” you roll your eyes.

The two of you have tried less and less to suppress your flirting. Thankfully, most of your comments are made in indecipherable whispers or behind closed doors, so most people haven’t noticed, but those who did definitely have a thing or two to say about it.

“Y/N!” Your mother’s voice breaks your conversation. 

You walk quickly past displays of shiny luxury cars to where she is. “Yes, Mother?”

She looks past you at Minho. “This does not involve you.”

Without missing a beat, he bows. Before he leaves though, you flash him a hand signal. Stay nearby. 

“You should meet the Hans’ son tonight,” your mother tells you after Minho is gone from her sight.

“Mother, I’ve already met him at my birthday party last year.”

“Yes, but this time, meet him as a man like you’re supposed to, you understand?”

“Mother, Jisung already has his eyes on—”

“Madam Han!” your mother calls before you can even finish your sentence. You close your eyes to roll them and let your shoulders slouch, knowing exactly what is going to happen.

The said woman walks over, her son in tow to help his mother introduce new cars. “Madam L/N! It is good to see you.”

First the sweet talk.

“Your face is smaller every time I see it. How do you do it?”

“Oh, you flatter me!”

Then an indirect indication of true intentions.

“It’s the truth! You simply must tell me your secrets. In the meantime, let’s have our children play amongst themselves.”

Madam Han quickly understands her implication. “Of course! They must be bored being around us old ladies. Jisung dear, take care of Miss Y/N, won’t you?”

“Yes, Mother,” he promises obediently.

You watch as the two women walk away in a fit of faux compliments. Despite leaving the two of you alone, you know they have hawk eyes on you to make sure you do as they intend.

“So,” you decide to play along, “we, uh, meet again, Jisung.”

“Yep.” He clasps his hands in front of him and looks around nervously. Not much of a conversationalist, you note.

“Tell me about this car.” You motion towards a blue SUV nearby.

“Ah, yes!” You can see the boy light up from having something he can actually talk about. “This is the Model YG. It is a family car, but it certainly does not leave out the power and class of a…”

You soon tune him out. You both know you have no interest in cars anyway, and he’s just glad to have something to fill the silence with. Your eyes begin to wander, and you catch sight of something darting around. You first pass it off as your imagination, but when you see it again, alarms go off in your head.

You grab the arm next to you. “Minho.”

Jisung looks at you inquisitively. “I’m Jisung.”

“Sorry,” you apologize. “I need to find my bodyguard. I think there’s something—”

Just then, a low whistle cuts through the air. You look up and see the giant chandelier above you beginning to tilt.

“Run!”

Unfortunately, you are right at the center of the whole structure. You bolt away right behind Jisung, but there is just no way your stupid heels can keep up with his powerful strides. There isn’t much time. You aren’t going to make it. You can hear the lower hanging parts of the light structure crashing and shattering when someone tackles you to the floor, shielding you with his own body.

“Minho!”

He lets out a hallowed gasp as a metal rod strikes him in the back. He struggles to regain his breath but keeps his eyes trained on you.

“I’m okay. I’m okay,” you repeat, knowing that’s what he wants to hear most. 

It’s your turn to worry about him now as he continues struggling to breathe. You help him sit upright, trying to avoid touching the million shards of glass impaling his skin. 

“Miss L/N!” You turn and see Jisung calling you from the perimeter of the mess. Thankfully, he does not look too scathed. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m—”

“Get away from my daughter!”

Amidst the panic and army of security running about, everyone looks up at your mother fuming on the second floor. It is only then you realize how intimate your position with Minho is. You’re seated between his legs, turned towards him, and he has his arms around you, using your body to press on his spazzing diaphragm.

A new voice directs everyone’s attention. “Are you crazy?” It is your father this time, pulling his wife away from the railings. “He just saved her! What are you doing?”

“Jisung was supposed to save her!”

“Jisung saved himself! Can’t you see? Minho’s the one who’s willing to risk himself for our daughter. What more do you have against that?”

You blush under the eyes your parents’ conversation has put on you, but Minho does not back down. He keeps you covered as you shrink in embarrassment. 

“Jisung just needs more time with her!” your mother continues. “He’ll learn to love her!”

“Like you ever learned to love me? How many years have we been married? How many years have we tried to learn to love? Do you really wish the same thing for our daughter?”

A wave of gasps ripple through the building. Security has caught the criminals who sabotaged the convention, but no one cares. You can feel your stock prices dropping. You and your family are going to be on the front cover of every gossip magazine tomorrow. You struggle to find something— anything— to distract the crowd from what was just said. You need something big— something even bigger than your father’s confession.

In the midst of your dilemma, it is Minho who speaks first. “Let’s date.”

Another gasp echoes across the crowd. At least that did the trick.

“What are you doing?” you whisper-scream at him.

“What?” he says not-so-quietly. “Your father’s giving me permission. We might as well make it official. I promise to protect you and cherish you for the rest of our lives. What do you say, Y/N?”

Jisung is the first to start chanting, “Say yes! Say yes!” and is soon joined by the rest of the party-goers. Your mother nearly faints and your father beams proudly.

“Okay,” you finally agree.

“Then kiss me,” he prompts, and you do.