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takeeachdayonebookatatime · 7 months

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Why did you elbow me? 187

Achilles Castle part 89

Lemonade and lies PART 32

Castle: pov me and Kate made plans with Alexis and Dave tonight to look at the photos and videos from when Kate was recovering this might be rough for Kate. Doesn't like other people to see her weak and vulnerable.

Ryan: pov it's getting closer to the baby being born. Jenny is finishing the final touches before the baby is born. We still have about a month or two before the baby arrives but Jenny can go into early labor at any time. She will be taking some extra birthing classes since she is almost at the end of her pregnancy and we will be touring some hospitals and birthing centers. I'm going to be working late a few days a week that way when the baby is born I can take longer off. With Kate's health she is our main priority and gets days off first no matter what.

Esposito: pov It's so exciting that I'm going to be an uncle again, me and Lanie aren't ready for kids yet. Let alone marriage. So far my morning is going okay. While Ryan is talking about touring hospitals and birthing centers I can see that Kate definitely looks a little sad. I ask if she is okay.

Kate: pov yes Esposito thanks for asking, just a little sad because I might not be able to experience those things and it makes me a little sad. I don't want to ruin Ryan's happy moment. What do you boys want for lunch? I have to pick up Castle soon anyway. After taking their orders I head to my office to make some phone calls. I have an appointment with an allergy specialist coming up, my Dr suggested it after I had that bad rash from the pineapple.

Tanner: pov first we stretch then we can start on your physical therapy. Just a few more steps Mr Castle you're doing amazing. You can take a break for a few minutes, would you like something to drink? I grab him a water bottle so we can get back to it.

Castle: pov Kate walks in and asks how therapy was today, it was great, I can't believe I just said that. Tanner talks with her and tells her how good I did today. Kate has a weird look on her face, hey are you okay she says it's nothing just something stupid.

Kate: pov I know you have a different injury but.

Castle: pov you can't help but worry or think how easy I have it.

Tanner: pov Kate I understand you have concerns but Mr Castle is doing well and physical therapy is going great. You really have nothing to worry about.

Castle: pov once in the car I mention to Kate I think you need to talk to Dr Burke about this fear you have about something bad happening to me, also you need to talk to him about looking through the photos and videos better prepare him advance. Since we are doing that tonight.

Kate: pov I will call him after lunch when I have a few minutes. The boys want subs, so I pull into the sub shop parking lot and tell Castle to wait in the car. It might be easier for me to just run in and pick up the food.

Ryan: pov Kate is back with the food, I ordered the corn beef sub, Esposito ordered a taquito type wrap, Lanie ordered the spicy wrap, and Castle ordered the BBQ sandwich. Kate got a free strawberry smoothie with her healthy sandwich. It's so nice of him to throw in the free smoothie with our food. The 5 of us chat while we eat. Castle mentions that since Jenny is about to have the baby in a month or 2 he suggests that me and Jenny head up to his house in the Hamptons for the weekend. It would be a great family vacation before the baby arrives and you wouldn't have to travel far. If you leave after work on a Friday and return Sunday night or early Monday and come into work later in the day it could work. I like the idea, Castle. I will ask Jenny later.

Kate: pov Esposito is cleaning up the mess from our lunch while I'm on the phone with Dr Burke explaining our plans for tonight. I made an appointment with him for the day after tomorrow during my lunch break. Tonight is definitely going to be hard on me and my dad. He said it would be extremely hard for him to handle but he will be there for me.

Esposito: pov Kate gave Ryan an hour and a half off to go with Jenny to tour a maternity ward at a hospital nearby. Their last birthing experience was okay but they want to see all of the options. Maybe try something different. Lanie actually delivered Sarah Grace in the back of an ambulance last time so maybe this time a hospital would be nice.

Ryan: pov I pick Jenny up on the way to the hospital, the traffic isn't so bad on the way there. When I talked to Kate about this she said I could make the appointment during work hours, her and Esposito can cover for me. Thankfully we don't have a case. At the hospital the walk to the maternity ward is short and a woman named Gwen is giving us a tour.

Gwen: pov so this is your second baby, Detective Ryan says yes. What type of birthing plan did you have last time?

Jenny: pov well we were supposed to have the baby at the hospital but Ryan got trapped in a burning building. I wound up having Sarah Grace in the back of an ambulance and Lanie Parish, who is a medical examiner for the 12th precinct, delivered her. Wow this hospital is nice, this might be the place we have the baby. I still want to check out the birthing center. I hear they are amazing. But that will be for another day.

Ryan: pov I have to get back to work, on the ride back to the precinct I drop Jenny at the house. to be continued. .................

#fanfiction #tvshow #castle #stanakatic #katebeckett #richardcastle #nathanfillion #jonhuertas #javieresposito #lanieparish #tamalajones #kevinryan #seamusdever #jennyryan #alexiscastle #mollyquinn

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dailyaudiobiblechronological · 1 year

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8/21/2023 DAB Chronological Transcription part 5

Good morning. Daily Audio Bible Chronological. This is Nicole Simone from Brooklyn, NY, East New York. Last and most of my days it is officially August 16th, but I just listened to August 15th and reminded about August 14th. Well, Lady of Victory.Access to come and pray Hallelujah for a miracle, Lord. And as she presents the five of those and the two fishes to you, Lord Jesus, and you took it, and you blessed it, and it became more. That's what we need for this.Aspiring Dr. of philosophy we we want that blessing for her. Oh boy. And have your way, if it be that well, for her to continue on in the time that she would like to continue on.Um, we ask that you, you bless her. I'm also want to lift up.Tiara from Chicago. Her little man on the behalf of her friend who called for little man. Lord, we ask for healing. Complete healing through and through. Also want to lift a pure heart from Tennessee. Her babies, they have a Brandon and Sofia pray. The Ephesians 6.Scripture over all of them right now in the name of Jesus and we suffer. Florida. I believe it was her nephew AJ So we we we we're we're we're believing in God to.Have a Nat guilty verdict right now in the name of Jesus. Lord, we thank you. We're thanking you in advance. And I'm Simone from Texas. So good to hear your voice where it up. Love you all. Thank you for loving me and welcoming me again into daily Audio Bible Chronological.Family, It is truly a blessing. Oh LB, please tell Tina I hope she can share you with me. Probably with all of us. Love you all until.Hello my dear BC this is Minita. Today August 15th I was reading along with Jill and this were impacted impacted my heart captivated my attention. Umm.It's so good. It's just so the word of God is just so good.Yes, sometimes it's really hard to admit that we have taken a long way instead of the way they got once us to take. And I'm tired to pretending and afraid to admit our mistakes and our failures and Oh my gosh and just God, just just call my attention.With this at the end of the readings Jill your reflection was amazing was powerful. We all we all humans we all go through situations and we are afraid to to admit that we are weak and I was ashamed of something and.I got just.Really caught my attention and I drop on my knees and repentance and um.I mean all praying for others, so for God to give.The eyes to see and ears to to listen. And now I asked the Lord, Lord, I've been asking him too, for my soul open my ears to listen with Lord, my eyes to see God and my heart.Get my heart closer to you, Father. And he did answer. And today he just set me free. You know this is the truth. And the truth has set me free. He is the truth. And I am so grateful for this, for this reading today and every day. I love you.My sister Jill. I love you. My siblings. God bless you. Have a nice day. Hi there, my dab See family. This is Carrie from Baltimore.Just wanted to check back in. It's been a little bit since I talked to you guys about my son-in-law, Russell, who was paralyzed in a mountain biking accident back in June.So he did get discharged from rehab and Chicago, and he is now in Baltimore.And they are staying in a hotel until we figure out an apartment situation. But he will be starting outpatient therapy. His first appointment is next week, so just asking for continued prayers for his spiritual health, his physical health and his.Emotional health is an incredible life change for them as not only.His accident and now being paralyzed, but the loss of a job, the loss of their home that they can't return to. They used to live in the Bronx and now having to move to a whole new city to be close to family. So a lot of newness changes. My daughter has to find a new job.As well. So luckily she is a nurse. Not even luckily, thankfully, thank to the Lord that she is a nurse and she can get a job anywhere, so we're super thankful for that.So thank you guys. Thank you for reaching out and praying and I am praying for you all as well. Thank you so much.

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nimedhel09 · 3 years

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Dragon Ball headcanons - Part two (of many more, I'm sure)

And I'm back! I think I'll, once again, talk more about Saiyans than anything else, but can you really blame me?

- Saiyans have to work way more to be able to meditate. Meditation demands to be too still, too calm. Their instincts are not ok with that, since Saiyans have always been more of the physical and instinctual kind of people.

- Yamcha is the most well adjusted out of the whole Earthling Z fighter gang. He has a steady job (which he started doing at the end of DB, and decided to go steady after he was revived after the Namek debacle) and decided to go to therapy for his PTSD (caused by, you know, dying). Although he's not as steady when it comes to relationships. He's not found someone that can understand and accept all facets of him yet.

- And yes, no, Bulma is definitely NOT the most well-adjusted. I mean, for one: she's filthy RICH. Her husband is a genocidal alien prince, she GOES towards danger even though she's weak AF and cannot defend herself (her going to Amenbo island with baby Trunks, anyone????), she bosses superpowered aliens around like it's her job, and she asks the freaking god of DESTRUCTION to babysit her infant daughter??????? A fine queen for the saiyans, though, lol.

- Yamcha is also bisexual. As is Bulma. Ten Shin Han is asexual and aromantic. Krillin and Chaozu are both heterosexual (and Chaozu is an emperor who has a wife, which still boggles my mind).

- Saiyan matings. Yeah, that's a whole thing. There are different levels of commitments in Saiyans and all of them have their significance, and all of them are respected in Saiyan society.

First off, there's the casual hook-up kind. Also the most practiced one under the Cold empire. You get the idea, so no need to explain further. Although I'd say that Saiyans don't care about the gender or sex of their partners. Attraction is attraction, pleasure is pleasure, all that jazz (though they don't have a word for "love" per se, but I'll explain some of their language at a later date. It's still a WIP haha).

Then, there's the more serious kind of relationship, which is usually exclusive to two or more Saiyans. Because, yes, polygamy/polyamory is a thing. Usually, it's several males with one female or intersex Saiyan. The males can have relationships between themselves in those kinds of relationships too, since, you know, Saiyans don't care about gender. Sometimes, polygamorous couples can consiste of only males. It's totally not seen as weird, because pleasure is pleasure, Saiyan is Saiyan, and they are advanced enough to create babies in labs (but they don't do it often, because it's kind of seen as blasphemous to the Moon Goddess, who I need to name at one point).

For more serious relationships, ones that last until the end of a Saiyan's life and are mostly monogamous (though not always), there are two options: the mating or the linking (rough translation from the original Saiyago - which is also a thing that I have thought about way too much lol).

The mating is done when two saiyans have sex and bite their mate's shoulder deep enough that it will leave a scar. It's a relationship that will last until one or both of the Saiyans die (usually, a Saiyan will not take another mate if theirs has died).

The one that lasts until forever, aka the "linking" is also done in the same manner, but the Saiyans also put a bit of their ki in the bite, linking them to their mate. Noone outside of those "linked" pairs really know exactly what it entails, so no Saiyan does that without thinking about it very hard and for very long even. It was quite rare even when Saiyans were at their cultural peak, but it was nearly unheard of by the time of the genocide by Frieza.

- Gine and Bardock are mated, but not linked.

- Frieza, Cold and Cooler are the strongest members of their race, the Arcosian (yes, I'm going with that tidbit in the anime except instead of being weird aliens that work for the Cold Empire, they're actually the ice lizards and I don't caaaare if it's not canon), also known are the frost demons or frost lizards. Their race is on the brink of extinction, though, because of infighting, and also because they breed very slowly, as they are very long-lived.

- On the topic of the Legendary super Saiyan (aka Broly). The green-haired berserker is born with a very high potential, battle power and heightened instincts. If they (and everyone, really) do not want to destroy everything around them and themselves, the Legendary needs to have a particular upbrining where they put a lot of effort into mastering control over their energy, which is horribly difficult, even more so when they are cubs and through their puberty (aka the worst). Both Brolys have not had such upbringing, they never learnt how to harness their potential and strength in a non-aggressive or healthy manner, which explains why they're complete monsters when they go full power. Kale, on the other hand, grew up in an environment that helped her control her transformation somewhat when she did go Legendary. Although no Saiyan of Universe 6 know that she's one (the legends got lost along the way, as did their tails).

- Tsufuls were not the poor victims the North Kai made them out to be. They were warmongering little midgets that used technology to destroy themselves. And then the Saiyans came and they started using them as their weapons, and then became arrogant and started to experiment on the weaker Saiyans, until the stronger ones discovered it and Saiyans lead by Vegeta I led the genocide of the Tsufuls as revenge for their brethren and renamed the planet in his honour and made him the official king of all the tribes (another thing I need to touch on later on).

- Saiyans were also not the bloodthirsty evil eeeeeevil creatures they were made out to be. They didn't really like battling and killing abysmally weaker opponents, but they did NOT have a choice. They were freaking slaves of the Cold empire. They relish in a good challenge, they don't mind killing, they like blood, they are violent, but they're also prideful and stick up to their race. What Cold and Frieza did? It would be seen as heretical, weak and non-Saiyan by the ancient Saiyans.

- Namekians are natural empaths. You're near one of them? They know and feel what you're feeling. You can't lie to them either.

- Saiyans, on the other hand, will smell it if you lie. So don't do it.

- Tails are very significant in Saiyan society. Losing one's tail is seen as a handicap, because it's a member like an arm or leg. It can grow back under certain circumstances. Tails regrow naturally until a Saiyan has gone through puberty. After that, it takes a certain technique of applying pressure on a specific place in the lower back for a tail to regrow (cf. Turles regrowing Gohan's tail). But if the vertebrae near the tail are in any way damaged, it is impossible.

- However, a tail is even more important than that, because it's useful for mating rituals, but also knowing a Saiyan's state of mind. Saiyans don't keep their tails around their waists 24/7. They do that mostly in battle or when they are in unkown environments or don't feel safe. But the tail can unwound itself from the waist if the Saiyan has strong feelings about something. You can know if a Saiyan is feeling playful or annoyed by looking at the way their tail is moving.

- Also, Saiyans will only let a veeeeeery few people touch their tails. Family (if they're close, and usually the cubs, because it's important to create a relationship and they need it to soothe them babies), significant others (if they're really serious and comfortable and trust each other) and maybe, possibly, their crew if they have a close enough relationship (again, trust, very important).

- On the topic of tails, the worst kind of shameful punishment is the removal of the tail. Permanently. It's done for Saiyans who have dishonored themselves horribly in one way or another. Fortunately, it's quite the rare punishment, since Saiyans are such proud people (and value their tails a LOT).

- Gohan is the only hybrid to be born with a tail. Bulma still does not understand why the tail gene is absent from Goten and Trunks.

- Saiyans are very long-lived for hot-blooded, mammalian species. They are in their prime until they are around 80-100 years old, and only then begin to show signs of age. The more powerful, the more long-lived (because a lot of Saiyans kind of die in battle/from long-lasting issues caused by battle).

- Beards/facial hair. So, for a species that tranforms into hairy giant apes, Saiyans are kind of not that hairy? They have hair on their head (but can become bald even if it is quite rare, like Nappa, though they have to be pretty old for it to happen, and Nappa is ancient, though still in his prime by the time of his death), their eyebrows, eylashes and pubic areas, under the arms and a mostly fuzz on their arms and legs (and of course the tails), but they are kind of hairless anywhere else. Some males do have hair on their chest area, but it's not the norm. That is, until male Saiyans get to a certain age. Usually when they hit their 50's (earth age), they begin to develop facial hair, but not all of them, and not always. The legendary, for example (aka the Brocoli bois, lol), will not develop facial hair until most male saiyans will begin to go white or bald.

- Time is counted differently for Saiyans. They don't follow the revolution of their planet around their red sun, but the revolution of the moon around Vegeta. So they count in cycles. Their time keeping also includes their seasons (rain season and dry season).

- The days on planet Vegeta are quite a bit longer than on Earth.

- When the first rain of the season comes, all Saiyans stop working and go out to embrace the rain. Because the rain brings fertile lands, and that's very important in Saiyan cultures. During the Rain Season, festivities are organized. Even Saiyans off-world try to quicken their missions so that they can go enjoy all the fun things on their planet. Cold tried to suppress that tradition, but it backfired spectacularly with a full-on insurrection (and even if Saiyans are weak compared to the lizards, when they band together and go Oozaru, you better believe even the "emperor of the universe" is in dire danger). Cold was able to calm down the warrior race eventually, and decided to just let them to their stupid cultural stuff. That event also spurred Frieza's worry and fear of the warrior race.

- It is believed that children conceived during the Rain season will become exceptional warrior. Broly, Vegeta and Goku were conceived during that period (lol).

- Female Saiyans are very protective of their young (maternal instinct to help their progeny survive and help the species thrive, you know, like in nature). They are extremely aggressive when they have cubs and feel they are threatened. You DO NOT cross female Saiyans if you don't want to lose a limb or die. This also applis to when they are close to somebody. They have no pity. NONE. Male Saiyans are rightfully weary of crossing their females, which also explains why Goku and Vegeta listen so carefully to their wives: survival instinct.

- And yes, even sweet adorable Gine is scary if she's ever mad. She will use her chopping knife and hurt you. It's rare, but it has happened. Bardock likes it when she's mad (not at him, of course). Beware of your tail too, lol.

- With the technological advances of the Cold Empire brought to them, Saiyans were able to put Saiyan fetuses into nursing pods to be fed and such. That made the females and intersex Saiyans ready for more battles, although it also deprived them of the zenkai they got when giving birth naturally and developping the nurturing instincts.

- Cubs, before the Cold empire's enslavement, were taken care of by their whole group. They were also fed by all the Saiyans able to lactate, as the presence of a Saiyan cub in a group would stimulate the hormones for lactation. It was sorely needs, as even infant Saiyans have a huge appetite and their mothers weren't always able to provide enough sustenance for them.

- When I say group, I'm not only talking about familial groups, but something like a clan? But it's more vaporous. Saiyans that had strong bonds would create nests together and live there. Sometimes, the grown up cubs would leave the nest to create or join a new one where they felt more comfortable. Those "nests" vary from as small as 5 Saiyans to around 20. More than that would be unsustainable.

#dragon ball headcanons #saiyan headcanons #dbz #dragon ball #dragon ball z #saiyans #mostly headcanons for the saiyans #broly #Nim rambles #Nim loves dragon ball way too much #Nim loves Dragon Ball #namekians #Saiyan culture #yamcha #bulma #yamcha appreciation #bulma is a queen

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writing-in-lesbian · 3 years

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You wanted to sleep with a goddess but instead had to settle for a priestess

Pairing: Yelena / F!Reader

Tags: angst, fluff, happy ending, mentions of alcohol

Rating: PG-15 (I guess?)

Word count: 2.5k

Translation: Pridurok = jerk

Disclaimer: all the Marvel characters mentioned don’t belong to me (if they did, Nat would be alive and Wanda would be hugged and in therapy!)

Synopsis: Inspired on an episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S “You and Yelena have been dating for almost 3 years and you plan on proposing on your anniversary, but the universe has other plans and after a game of true or dare game you have to confess who you were actually looking to hook up the night you and Yelena did it.”

AN2: English is not my first language so I apologize in advance for any mistake. I’m also on AO3 as: writinginlesbian

~~~~~~~

The light coming through the windows is the first thing you notice, the warm sensation on your skin rousing you from your deep slumber. Groaning a little, you refuse to open your eyes, instead cuddling further into the cozy feel next to you. Now that sleeps is evasive, the second thing you notice is your bladder demanding you take a trip to the washroom.

Opening your eyes reluctantly, the third thing you notice is the mass of sand blond hair in front of you, tightening your hold on her you smile and hum contentedly, earning a little grunt from the body in front of you.

Chuckling, your lips place a kiss on her bare shoulder before you finally release her. Stretching your body, your neck and back crack a little making you moan softly at the relaxation.

“You better keep quiet y/l/n or I won’t be hold responsible if I keep you hostage in bed all day” a groggily raspy little voice informs you, her Russian accent thicker in the mornings.

Smiling and shaking your head, you get up from the bed and march to the in-suite bathroom, hearing Yelena mumble something similar to spoilsport before closing the door as quiet as possibly.

Yelena Belova. Your girlfriend.

A little angry ball on the outside but a total dorky cinnamon roll on the inside (although she would never admit this to anyone), came into your life like a hurricane. Her sarcastic side and dark humor was one of the things you noticed right away, followed by those musky green eyes, capable of grounding and keeping you in your toes with just one look. How you got her to agree to date you after hooking up one night, is still something you have troubles believing it but here you are, sharing an apartment with her, a dog named Fanny (which she got to name) and just a week away of your three year anniversary… the one where you plan on proposing.

You got the ring ready, specially custom made to your request, paid by Tony (as annoying he can be, he’s been more family to you than your blood family). He squealed (actually squealed) when you told him about your plan for proposing and insisted on being your “best man of honor”.

Finishing your business, you wash your hands and clean your face with cold water, staring at your reflection in the mirror and smiling at the sight of Yelena’s creams and her messy side compared to the organized one of yours. You can’t wait for Saturday to get here soon enough.

The sound of the alarm from your cellphone can be heard through the door, followed by a thud and then silence. You forgot to change it last night, so of course it ringed at 7am disturbing the dreams of the beauty in your bed.

“You better not have broken my phone again Yelena” you try to be serious while walking back to the bed.

“So it’s more important a phone than my sleep time? Okey, I see how it is, pridurok” she says covered in blankets, but you know she’s pouting.

You get back to bed, picking up your phone quickly inspecting it placing it on the nightstand, kneeling in front of her and slowly you take the covers off her face. She’s looking at you with and unreadable expression and you can’t think how it’s so similar to the one her sister often gives you during training sessions.

“No, you’re more important to me love… but this would be the third phone screen you break and I doubt Tony would be happy about it” you said while bopping her nose with your finger.

Yelena looks at you and cracks a tiny smile. You kiss her forehead, standing up you try to leave but her hand at your wrist stops you. You turn to her… only to find her middle finger directed at you.

“Still that damned thing woke me up and you weren’t here, so it deserves the fall” You chuckle as you see Yelena rolls off and pretends going back to sleep.

You go downstairs and start preparing breakfast after turning on the coffee machine. You know Yelena needs a little bit of a kick to fully wake up. While you wait, you open the “just add water pancake mixture” opting to add half milk and half water with a little bit of melted butter for extra fluffiness. After getting the pancakes ready, you go to the fridge to pick some fruit before placing it at the counter to be chopped.

Hearing soft padded steps nearing the kitchen, you grab a plate and put some pancakes on it, grabbing some strawberries and quickly cutting them in four, adding it to the plate along with some blueberries. The coffee pot indicates it’s ready so you grab a blue mug and fill it with the exquisite elixir, snatching some clutter, you place everything except the cup on the table just as Yelena enters the room.

Without a word she grabs the cup form your hands inhaling it before taking a sip. A hum and nod of approval is all you receive before a peck on your lips. Smiling you gather a plate for yourself and proceed to seat with her at the table. You both make small talk while eating before she asks your plans for the day.

“I’m supposed to meet with your sister in about an hour and then lunch with Wands and Bucky. Might get to see Tony in the afternoon though, depending on how my cellphone is” you try to be serious but the smirk on your face gives you away.

“Your phone is fine pridurok, I checked it before coming downstairs”

“Okey, then I shall be back around 6ish. Wanna do something babes? Get advantage of the weekend and that?”

“Maybe”

Before you can propose a plan, Yelena’s phone sounds. She looks at the display before answering.

“Hey mama”

You wave at her and she catches your intention, passing your regards to Melina before leaving the room. You decided to send a quick text to Natasha before texting Tony telling him you’ll meet him quick before heading to your lunch date to pick up the ring.

Cleaning up the table and putting the rest of the pancakes and fruit back on the fridge, you leave the kitchen and find Yelena still talking on the living room. You finish getting ready as you don’t wanna be late with Nat. This might be the most important coffee date you have with her, you know, since you’ll be asking for her little sister hand in marriage, so you don’t want to risk it by making her angry by being late.

Of all of Yelena’s family, Nat is the one you worry must about. She’s so fierce and protective when it comes to her baby sister. Despite being reluctant at first, (she’s your BFF so she knows all your dating history) she approved of you once she saw how happy you made Yelena, not before giving you the scariest shovel talk anyone can give. Melina and Alexei both agreed immediately, both of them giving you a slightly (emphasis on slightly) less frightening talk of “you hurt my baby daughter I won’t hesitate to kill you” talk than Natasha’s. You tried to joke by saying that if you ever hurt Yelena, she would be the first one to chop your head off before them. It didn’t make them laugh.

Grabbing the keys, you check your cellphone to see Tony’s reply consisting of only a thumbs up emoji. Making your way to the living room, you wave in front of Yelena, giving her a quick peck on her lips before whispering a “see ya later babes. Love you” before leaving.

// // //

You can’t help being nervous. In all your life you never imagined thinking of getting married. You liked your space and time alone, you weren’t afraid of intimacy or commitment, but you never quite connected with your past partners in the level you connected with Yelena. Strange thing honestly, considering how you started dating: hooking up after Steve and Peggy’s wedding. You both tried to keep it casual and secret, not wanting to make a huge deal about it. And you were fine with it until one day when you were having lunch with all your friends at Natasha’s place, you saw Yelena and your breath caught in your throat and you knew, you just knew you were in love with her.

“What has you smiling like an idiot?” A raspy voice brings you back to the present.

Noticing just now, Natasha is seated in front of you cup of coffee in her hands. You must have spaced out more than you thought since there is a refilled cup where your last empty one was.

“Yelena” you said it without a doubt, a smile on your lips.

Natasha smiled amused by it. In all of the years she has known you, she never saw you this smitten and happy with someone. And honestly she was happy it was with her baby sister. You both were a cute couple, with their ups and downs, but were still going strong and you both took care of each other.

“So where did you left her? It’s weird to see you without her attached to your side”

“She’s at home. I know she wouldn’t like to be up and out this early being Saturday”

“You asked me for coffee this early on purpose”

It’s meant to be said as a joke but giving the current topic you want to talk with her you don’t laugh.

“I did actually. I wanted to talk with you about something”

Natasha sees the seriousness on your face. She stares you for a little bit before her curiosity gets the best of her.

“Okey”

Your leg stars bouncing and Nat takes notice of it. Your hands grab the cup in front of you to avoid drumming the table with your fingers, a habit you do when your nervous.

“It’s about Yelena”

Nat’s brow furrowed slightly in confusion. You were smiling a few minutes ago so it shouldn’t be nothing bad, right?

“What about her?” You can’t help to flinch a little bit with the hardness of her tone.

Your fingers drum a little on the cup, you open your mouth but no words came out. You sigh.

Nat is silently observing you, giving the benefit of the doubt and actually waiting for you to speak, but since is her little sister you wanted to talk about, she can’t help but get impatient.

You heard her huff in annoyance after what seems seconds but it has been a few minutes, you got lost in your mind again.

“Iwanttoaskforyourpermissiontomarryher” you say in one breath, taking half of your coffee in one gulp and not looking at her.

Natasha blinks in surprise, trying to decipher what you just said. Her mouth opens slightly once she process what you just dropped on her.

“You… you want to marry her. My little sister, Yelena… you want to marry her?”

Finally looking up you see Natasha is a little bit speechless. Something you haven’t seen in like never. You try to gauge her reaction but she’s a master in hiding her emotions, so you opt to answer her honestly any question she might have.

“Yeah, I do”

“Have you proposed to her though?” a fair question.

“No. I wanted to talk with you first”

“Why?”

“You’re her big sister, your blessing is important to me Tasha. I know that we both think that this tradition of asking for someone’s hand in marriage is an archaic thing and that and Yelena would probably get angry if she knew I did this, but you mean a lot to her, she adores you and respects you a lot. I know I could work around your parents but if you were to oppose, I don’t think Yelena would be as happy. Plus you’re my best friend Nat, I care about you”

Natasha stays silent thinking in what you just said. Basically, you gave her a lot of power here, if she were to say no, would you really not propose? She has seen you grow by Yelena’s side and has seen the same with her sister. She knows you never would hurt her.

“So if I would to say no?”

Your stomach hurts at hearing that. You drop your eyes to the table before answering.

“I might postpone proposing but I would still do it”

“You really love her”

“More than anything, I’m in love with her Tasha” the smile on your face and the brightness of your eyes give her all the answers to the questions she might have.

When she found out you were hooking up with Yelena she was so mad and furious with you, more so when you denied it when she confronted you about it. She was on her way to forbid you to see her sister when she caught you both asleep on the couch. Yelena had her head on your chest while you hold her securely in your arms. Both your faces were peaceful and happy.

“When are you planning on doing it?”

You looked up surprised.

“Saturday at-”

“Your dinner anniversary”

“Yeah… how-”

“It’s all I’ve been hearing Lena talk about for the last week, this big dinner plan you have for it and how you won’t tell her what it is, so she doesn’t know what to wear and is a ball of nerves, is kinda annoying actually”

You can’t help but blush at hearing that. You know the Romanoff-Belova sisters are reserved so the fact that Yelena has been gushing about your relationship to her sister has your stomach doing flops and your heart beating harder.

Natasha studies your face and can’t help but smile with you.

“Alright y/l/n, you have my blessing to marry my sister. Don’t fuck it up okey? It’s my baby sister I’m trusting you with”

You are speechless for a moment. You know deep down that she would say yes, but hearing it saying it it’s another thing. You stand up and grab her in a bone crushing hug.

“O…key… need… to breath…”

“Sorry, sorry… thank you Nat, really, you don’t know what it means to me, truly”

“So you have a ring picked yet?”

“Yes. Actually, I’m meeting Tony before lunch to pick it up, wanna come?”

“Of course, I need to make sure my baby sister gets the best of the best”

You laugh and throw the napkin at her, she catches easily but laughs with you. You’re not nervous anymore, at least for the moment.

Now, you only need to ask Yelena… easy right?

#yelena belova x female reader #yelena belova x reader #yelena belova x y/n #first work for this fandom #au #fanfic #ao3 fanfic #cross posted on ao3

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sxfik · 3 years

Note

I have an idea!

Ok so we all know that Hanseo is abused by his big brother, and if i remember correctly, the jipuragi trio found out about it from the guillotine file for the first time.

Now hear me out, what if the jipuragi trio found out about the abuse from Hanseo himself, not from the guillotine file??

After failing to burn down geumga plaza, Hanseok threw that object at Hanseo, telling him not to dodge it, and it left a scar on his forehead. When Hanseo visited jipuragi, he seemed proud of that scar, right?? Because thats what he got from saving geumga plaza, and he hoped that the scar would show them that he wants to be on their side.

BUT lets forget about all those stuff for a moment.

Hanseok loves to strangle, threaten, and hit Hanseo with the hockey stick. It certainly happens more than once, so i figured that there must be a bunch of scars and bruises on his body right?? What if the jipuragi trio noticed one of his scars/bruises?? I know Hanseo always wear long-sleeved stuff, so its not exactly visible, but what if someone caught a glimpse of it??? Perhaps the scar/bruise was on his arm???

Maybe when Hanseo visits jipuragi, Vincenzo asks him to wash some coffee mugs, and as Hanseo is rolling up his sleeves...

"yo whats that on your arm??"

And maybe Hanseo is like "thats a bruise..? Do you not know what a bruise is??"

Okay, idk. I have no idea how he's gonna react if that happens. I just feel like Hanseo wouldnt be proud of his scars if he didnt get them from trying to save geumga/jipuragi people.

And now im just wondering, what do you think? How would Hanseo react, in your opinion? If the jipuragi trio really did find out about the abuse from Hanseo himself, how would that affect their relationship? Im really curious about what you think

Hhhhhhhh sorry if its too long. I just thought that this might be a good way for Hanseo and jipuragi to kinda get closer with each other...

han seo headcanons (part one)

helloooo, thank you for sending an ask in :D

SORRY this answer is super long and for some reason my phone isn't allowing me to add a keep reading cut thingy, apologies in advance to the amount scrolling you have to do

tw: abuse

i've been thinking so much about this ask and just how han-seo would react to them finding out, and honestly i never really took note of how many long sleeved shirts he wears. i believe han-seok has switched a lot more into emotional manipulation and abuse than physical abuse but he has a lot of anger issues. i'd honestly imagine him using han seo as a punching bag for any and every inconvinence that happens to him, even as an intern.

i also agree with you, han seo is someone who is a very bright personality who tends to hide his hurt and emotions, and he's very very good at it as he has been living under a psychopath his whole life. he's good at hiding his anger (although it definetly bubbles over in smaller outbursts) and especially his hurt (i.e. the scene that han seok throws that candle holder at him and he just smiles back). han seo has a lot of anger at himself for not speaking back or being able to act like himself. like in that scene in the office, you can tell as he curls his fist that he wanted to speak back so badly. even when he finally snaps against han seok, he said "i'm getting tired of being afraid of you." i feel like he'd be embarrassed that even after years, he hasn't been able to escape his abuse

next>

(you can also read the following on ao3)

i feel like this scene and their dynamic would play out something similar to this:

han seo joined the team and has been working with vincenzo and cha-young for around a month. at this point han seo isn't walking on eggshells with both of them, he's a lot more comfortable and visiting their office regularly without choi/han/han seok finding out.

sometimes it's vincenzo and cha-young providing him books to study economics from, maybe even giving some brotherly/sisterly advice to him. every couple weeks, vin and cha-young give him quizzes and slowly, he's getting better and better

over time, he even got closer to the plaza residents (even though the residents were definetly cold to him in the beginning, miri scaring the shit out of him by doing her ghost thing, the lady with the lipstick from bye bye balloon staring him down, snack bar lady refusing to serve him, larry also scaring the shit out of him by doing his zombie routine)

but despite this, they adopt him into their family, han seo doing small errands for the residents, him buying the best coffee, food and getting camera equipment for the snack bar lady's son. han seo gifting the pawnshop couple with cute baby items etc.

(obviously he buys the most expensive shit bc he's still a rich boy, but they dont have to know)

(side note: he'd be fucking adorable with a baby, imagine him being the babies "uncle han seo" who gets them the best gifts !!)

even though he was comfortable with all of them, every once in a while his facade would slip.

every once in a while, someone would make a sharp movement towards him and he'd flinch. or if someone makes a quick step towards him, he'd back up and stiffen up on instinct

even if it was someone patting his back or just making a quick movement, he'd react on instinct from the years of abuse from han seok. but no one ever said anything about it if they noticed.

one afternoon after lunch, they were washing dishes, han seo on washing duty and cha-young drying and placing them back. and han seo was in his full sleeves and cha-young notices his sleeves getting wet

"yah, roll your sleeves back, by the end of this your whole sleeve will be wet! you know how uncomfortable those sleeves would be?"

"ahaha, it's alright noona, i'll be fine"

han seo tries to laugh it off, grining at her with one of his wide grins but there's something off about this one. but cha-young gives one of her patented glares and he rolls them up carefully, shielding his arms from her view, and continues washing the rest.

cha-young doesn't take note of his bruises at first, but noted the care he went through to shield his arms from her. his arms were posed almost awkwardly and he was on high alert

it wasn't until after they both finished and he was drying his hands that cha-young saw the massive bruises he had, climbing up his forearms and under the sleeves

he stiffens when he sees her stare, and quickly tries to cover them but she grabs them before he could hide it

she's completely quiet while she stares at his arms. after a moment, he speaks up

"oh i accidentally banged these against my doorway, they're just small bruises. it's go away in a couple days" he smiles at her again but she could tell from the way his shoulders were frozen and the wavering of his voice that it wasn't the truth

"did he do these?" she asked him, her face completely neutral and her voice barely a whisper. she's still looking at his forearms, her fingers ghosting over the bruises.

han seo just looks down and the silence is enough of an answer for cha-young. he walks away, embarrassed that she found out about it, even though his years of therapy told him that it wasn't never his fault, he still felt the shame and anger of not being able to break free.

he's quiet for the rest of the time, feigning tiredness and finding an excuse to leave the plaza

that night, it was just vincenzo and her working at the office late, in preparation for babel. cha-young's mind was still on what she saw that afternoon. abruptly, she stands up, her hand gripping the pen in her hand as she turned to vincenzo sitting at the other desk.

"did you know that bastard hurt him? he's been abusing han seo this whole time?" she asked vincenzo, her voice seething with anger

"i know."

"you know??? why didn't you ever say anything?"

vincenzo looks up at her from his stack of papers, setting his pen down.

"it wasn't my place. i picked up on it when he flinched when mr. tak reached toward him to place a hand on his shoulder."

cha-young sat back down then, her lips pressed together, and vin went back to his paperwork

"we should get him out of there. who knows what han seok would do in one of his rages?"

"couple nights ago, we went to drink makgeolli and i offered him a way out. i told him if he ever needs to leave, and if he's ready to leave, he has a place at the plaza."

"and is he? leaving that is?"

"no. he thanked me, but said that he needed to stay until his brother and his group crumbles to the ground."

cha-young let out a sigh, biting her lip, the worry on her face all too evident

"hong cha-young byeonosa-nim, we shouldn't baby him. jang han seo deserves revenge against his brother just like we do and the choice is ultimately up to him."

"i know. i just worry."

they stayed quiet for the rest of the night, working late but the topic never leaves cha-young or vincenzo's minds

the next day, han seo avoided her like the plague, not wanting to talk about what she saw yesterday

but while he was studying, she approached him, a glass of juice and a snack in hand, setting it next to him. she checked over his work quietly as he took a break and glanced at his arms, doing a once over just to make sure he didn't get any new ones.

"well done, han seo, you're doing well" she smiled at him and ruffled his hair and han seo let out a breath of relief and gratefulness that she hadn't treated him any different

from then, cha-young and vin only got fonder of han seo and han seo was pretty much adopted by them. after the battle and han seok is in jail permanently, he moves out of his apartment, and gets one closer to the plaza.

mr. nam would show him how the organization worked at jipuragi and put him to work, the paralegal grateful to have an extra hand around the office

eventually, even han seo grows an affection to the instant coffee and buys more for himself and his apartment

vin would take him shopping for suits, both rich boys obsessed with their sleek looks. they take cha-young with them once but she manages to sleep off at every shop they go to.

vincenzo also plays hockey with him regularly and the plaza invites him to plaza game nights. they get up to all kinds of mischief,

han seo loves spicy food, just like cha-young so they make it their mission to go to try every restaurant and compete to see just how much spice they can handle. obviously vincenzo doesn't even make it past the first round of the spice competitions but cha-young and han seo have the same competitive streak that keeps them going

han seo is also dropping hints to both of cha-young and vincenzo that they should get married. constantly teasing vincenzo about cha-young in the way only younger brothers do

obviously on one of cha-young and han seo’s days out, han seo drops hints CONSTANTLY, trying to get her to admit cha young likes vincenzo

and OBVIOUSLY she slips up, and han seo doesn’t let go of it

he does the whole younger brother teasing every single time he catches cha-young glancing at vincenzo at the firm

“cha-young noona and vin hyung, sitting in a tree. K I S S I N—” “HAN SEO!!!”

obviously chayenzo eventually get together but decide to keep it a secret (and of course, they were awful at it)

eventually when they reveal it to the office, mr. nam and han seo react like that one scene in suspicious partner (“quick, act surprised” “*gasp* you guys are together??????? we had no idea!!”)

han seo is basically adopted as a younger brother to both cha-young and vincenzo and even the plaza loves his presence and he gets to have a peaceful existence for the rest of his life

anyways han seo deserves a happy ending with a good family. he deserves a second chance with a family that LOVES AND CARES FOR HIM AND GIVES HIM CHOICES AND ALLOWS HIM TO BE HIMSELF. (and yes this covered more than just one scene but I HAVE MANY THOUGHTS ON HIM) as always feel free to add on :D

#yes han seo calls her noona #they’re attached at the hip okay #both of them are chaos machines #literally vin cha young and han seo are the definetion of *too much energy* *too much energy* *calm*#mine #vincenzo #vincenzo cassano #chayenzo #hong cha young #song joong ki #tvn vincenzo #jeon yeo been #vincenzo x cha young #jang han seo #jang han seok #kwak dong yeon #ok taecyeon

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georgiapeach30513 · 3 years

Note

Ok so this is probably going to be long so I’d like to apologize in advance and also tell you English is not my first language so there might be some wrong grammar

I feel so sad for Iris. I am just like her, always the sweet and forgiving girl that everyone can rely on, everyone knows that she’s going to be the first to forgive anyone in case they make a mistake and they don’t really care if she said it’s ok but it’s not actually ok. The problem with people like us is that most of the time we forgive but don’t forget and move on, it keeps nagging us, it keeps hurting us and we’re all alone dealing with all this sadness and not having anyone to talk to because no one will understand because if we’re so understanding why are we still upset over something? It gets to the point where our feelings don’t get validated, no one will come up to us and ask us how we’re really feeling once they hurt us, they think a simple sorry is enough. It isn’t! We need time to heal!

We keep putting other people’s feeling over ours until we can’t take it anymore and we snap, hence why Iris still hasn’t forgiven Story and why she’s acting weird around Ransom. She feels like she is different from her siblings, she’s not actually a Drysdale, and god knows how long she has felt like an outsider to her family, like she’s bothering them, like she’s not supposed to be there. Right now, with everything that has happened with Story, she is probably thinking “what if had been me? What if I had been the one to go say all of those horrible things to my mom and then compare ransom to the man who was abusive towards her? Would they have forgiven me as quickly as they forgave her?” And she probably thinks they wouldn’t because she feels like she doesn’t truly belong. And the fact that Story was so dismissive of what Iris said about Andy having tried to kill her and her sister when they were babies is only weighting it more on her.

I hate the fact that everyone is pushing Iris to forgive Story so quickly. Just because they were able to, it doesn’t mean she has to do the same! Everyone process emotions in different ways and she needs time to heal. She needs all the time necessary to forgive, forget and move on. She has feelings too and just because Story was going trough shit it does not excuse the fact that she hurt Iris’s feelings and she has the right to not speak to her sister for as long as she needs to if she is aware of the fact that the situation isn’t good to her. And the fact that Ransom told her that she never visited the state anymore and she said it’s because of story just made me more sad because I remember all of the times people told me that I had disappeared simply because I stopped reaching out to them but a relationship goes both ways, why are they only waiting for Iris to go to them when they can go to her too?

They need to stop pushing her to mend her relationship with her sister and try to understand why she isn’t ready for that yet. If Iris is anything like myself (and I relate A LOT to her) she probably doesn’t allow herself to cry and vent to people about how she’s actually feeling, she only does it alone, and people mistake us being sad and hurt and not being able to move on from a certain situation for being petty annoying and a bitch.

Anyway. I hope going to therapy help Iris a lot, and I hope her family start to understand her and respect her feelings and actions and stop pushing her and arguing with her to do what they want her to do. Right now, I am all for Iris staying away from her family because they are hurting her more every time they tell her to forgive story, making her feel guilty from feeling hurt (not to mention her depression which makes all these feelings much worse) and she shouldn’t feel guilty or ashamed for feeling this way.

Sorry again for writing such a long rant, but as I said before, I’ve been relating to Iris a lot and lately my mental health hasn’t been the best and I started to realize the most of the things that make me feel sad this days are hurtful things people did and said to me years ago that I just forgave quickly and never got the chance to talk about how they made me feel.

💙🥰🥺😘

First off nonnie I want to give you the biggest of virtual hugs EVER! I too, am very much like Iris. I'm quiet and forgiving to a fault. The problem with that is that constant forgiveness sometimes does wear on you. Forgiveness is fine, but sometimes people take advantage of the fact that you're forgiving.

Kitten being the same type of person just wants to be around her daughter and grand-daughter. We know Ransom is very oblivious to things, so he probably doesn't even know there's a problem, other than Iris doesn't want to be around Story.

Iris has always struggled with her identity and anxiety. Not that it's been mentioned, but Kitten sometimes wonders if having Frank as an uncle and not letting Iris know about who her real father is would have been a better option. It's something that is constantly thrown up in her face, and Andy was her uncle. You know Iris also has to think about the part that Frank played in the whole situation.

Iris is spending more time with her Pops, step mom, and siblings, and also with Uncle Airy. Let's not forget that Story used Beau, which is Iris's little brother. Iris is also dealing with fertility issues. She made herself believe that her then fiance and sister had a form of an affair. Let me make it clear James and Story have never and will never cross that line, but a woman suffering with PPD, her boyfriend just came home and is dealing with PTSD and he's refusing to touch her, of course she projected that.

But let's take another look at what Iris is going through when she's with her family.

🖤🖤🖤🖤

All Ransom Drysdale

Summary: Iris's thoughts

Pairings: Iris Drysdale Rogers X Frank Adler

Rating: Angst, can be triggering

Warnings: mentions of infertility, mentions of fertility treatment, mentions of Andy, mentions of Andy's abuse, threats against a baby, 18+ ONLY

Word Count: 1.1K

Desperate Lives AU Masterlist

Iris Drysdale Masterlist

"And the test was negative?" the doctor asks with a sorrowful look at Iris. She gets tears in her eyes but refuses to let them fall. With a solemn nod, Iris takes a chance to look at her. "Okay, we can do another round of treatments, or would you want to consider IVF or there's also surrogacy. "

Iris hates this. The first time around everything was easy. She denied the fact that she was pregnant. She felt the little flutters of Posie, and still wanted to believe she wasn't pregnant. This time around, she wants James with her, she wants to experience every part of pregnancy, and it still just won't work. "I'd like..."

"There's no wrong answer. I know you're getting tired of these treatments. Do you think you want to talk to your husband?"

Iris's lip starts to tremble, and she hates that a single tear that falls, wiping it away quickly with a sniffle, "Jamey, he...he would be okay with anything."

"I'm going to give you some pamphlets, you take your time in deciding what the right decision is. There's no rush."

She takes a deep breath before jumping off the exam table, her hand resting on her empty womb, and she can't help but wonder if maybe she is the problem. Andy wasn't able to get her mom pregnant, even though he had tried, so maybe she's the problem in this relationship.

_____________________________________________________________

Iris flips through her Pops' pictures of her and Aster when they were babies. You don't keep the photos that include Frank or Andy at the estate because they hurt too much. Too many bad memories associated with the man in some of the photos. Frank had even kept photos he knew were in fact Andy and you. "Who's this one?" Iris asks looking up at Frank.

Frank releases a deep sigh, wanting to just close the book. The older Iris got the more curious she got. They're painful memories for Frank too, but he uses them to remind him at one point, the two of you were in love. "That's Andy."

"Did he ever really love me?" after having Posie, Iris could never imagine someone not loving their kids. But then again she wasn't actually ever Andy's.

"I guess in the only way Andy knew how. He loved your mom in the most sick way. Loved controlling her. You and Aster were the easiest way to control both of us."

"He would've done it, wouldn't he?" Frank nods his head yes. There's not a moment that Andy had threatened the life of the girls that Frank doubted him. Not that he would ever say anything to Iris, but Andy was especially viscous with his threats concerning her. Frank knew the moment Iris was born, that she was his. When Andy finally seen her, he knew she was his or Frank's. Knowing that threatening the sweet Iris would hurt Frank like no other.

Iris the baby that always wanted to be held. The baby that was so sweet and loved her naps. But to hear Andy talk, Iris and Aster were crying brats. "You cried a lot with Andy. After you two were born, I spent more time with your mom. The crying stressed him out," Frank rolls his eyes flipping to another page of photos, all of them Andy with you and the kids. All of them he actually seems happy. His eyes beaming at you, while you smile down at your daughters.

"I didn't think you cried that much. But then again, your mom wasn't as stressed when I was around."

"You kept her alive."

"I kept her and my kids in therapy for life. There's a part of me that still considers you and Aster mine."

"I am," she finally looks up at her Pops with a sad smile. Turning the page to see more photos. "What about these?"

"Andy. Not all times with him were bad. He just manipulated his way to happy moments."

"Do you think mom ever loved him? Or was it always just you?"

Frank flips the album over a few pages, showing her a picture of him with you and the girls. Taking the picture out, he finds the happiest photo of you and Andy. "Can you tell a difference?" Iris studies the two pictures. Not having looked at them near as many times as Frank she doesn't see the small differences. "Look at her hands how tense they are with Andy. Even her body language, it's turned away from him. She's not looking at him, she's looking at you two. Her head is tilted away from him. This is just a photo, but your mom's body knew the difference. I think once Andy got her where he wanted her, she didn't truly love him."

"Do you ever wish she would have made it work with you?"

Frank returns the photo, and closes the album. Leaning back he relaxes on the couch. "So much of the first few years as Frank I wanted nothing more. I became pushy with my need to be with her, and because of that, I pushed her further away. Your mom and I could have made it work, but you know as well as I do, her heart belongs to Ransom. She might have been happy with me, but it's like they revolve around the other. They can argue, and make up within a few minutes. There's a lot of things I would do differently, and the main one is never allowing Andy in her life."

"How's Beau doing since..."

Frank rolls his eyes. If he had known all that was going on with Story he would have said something to you. Story's relationship with Carter was kept so private, he didn't know she had turned to Beau to try and forget. "He's heartbroken. Your brother has loved Story, about as long as she's loved Carter. He adores her. I think in time he'll be okay. He might even be okay that Story was his first."

"I'm being ridiculous aren't I?"

"I don't think so. People get over things in different ways, and different times. Do you think you're being ridiculous?" she shrugs her shoulders. Putting her hand down to the floor she looks for that tan and white ball of fluff, and as if knowing that she needs him his sweet face pops up in her eyesight.

"I think someone bringing up your family brought up a lot of feelings. You didn't ask to be brought into this world, just like you didn't get to choose your family. Your family doesn't make you who you are, Icy. Andy isn't you. In time Story will realize how messed up what she said is. And in time, your time, you will forgive her and move past this, okay?"

"Does the stubbornness come from you?" she looks up at him with a laugh.

"That is all Ransom Drysdale sweetheart."

Masterlist

#desperate lives #desperate lives au #desperate affairs #desperate affairs au #desperate verse #evanstan #evanstan verse #evanstanverse #DA AU #DA AU chat #DA AU ask #iris drysdale #story drysdale #andy barber #frank adler

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messedupfan · 3 years

Text

Infinity & Beyond (Wanda Maximoff x Reader) Chapter 4

Summary: This chapter focuses on the journey of the reader during the five years without Wanda.

A/N: Thank you for the likes and reblogs! Hope that you are all enjoying the story.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You wake up a few months later in the Avengers compound once again. This time with your memories intact and feeling unbelievably disappointed. “She found him,” you find yourself saying to whoever was in the room as you involuntarily sit up on the bed. The nurse brushes it off as some weird superhero thing and not something to address. But then you repeat yourself again and again until she alerts Bruce who grabs the attention of the other remaining Avengers.

"What do you think she means?" Natasha questions as you make the statement again.

"Maybe she's talking about Wanda and Vision?" Steve chimes in with a concerned look on his face and his arms crossed over his chest.

"Why would she be talking about Wanda and Vision? Vision was an advanced robot with a stone in his head, he had no soul for Wanda to find. If any of that exists," Bruce points out.

"I don't know then," Steve shrugs. Then you repeat the phrase again. "Maybe it's Wanda and her brother? I don't know, maybe we're too focused on the cloudy eyes thing. We could be thinking about this too hard."

Then Rhodey comes into the room to inform the members that the radar has picked up a signal of an unidentified flying object. He thinks that Carol might be back. "Just say UFO," Natasha rolls her eyes as she follows the guys out of the building. On their way out she spots a worried Pepper Pots and quirks her lips into a reassuring smile. "I think she found him," she says to the woman and leads her to the landing zone of the compound. It's only then that Natasha realizes what you meant. Sure enough, a woman is carrying a ship into the landing zone with Tony Stark and someone named Nebula. Pepper wraps her arms around Tony in tears and relief. He is quickly brought to the medical wing where you remain. Somehow having watched the whole thing from your bed.

When you come out of it the nurse informs you that your eyes had gone cloudy for a moment and you had predicted the return of your father. "He isn't my father," you grouched. Huh, must be another ability, you think to yourself.

Later, after passing a few diagnostic exams with flying colors, you are discharged from your hospital room and are eating across from a very serious Thor as people argue and yell at each other. It was weird to eat actual food. Thor was almost amused watching you figure out how to hold your sandwich.

Tony is then rolled into the room with a furious energy. You can tell that he is really hurting from this loss, that he is frustrated and you can even feel betrayal radiating off of him somehow. Of course, it's not until he's shouting at the Captain that you realize you are feeling his emotions. You were feeling everyone's defeated emotions and it was beginning to suffocate you. As you try to distract yourself with the food, your mind wanders to how overwhelmed Wanda must've felt being able to read people's minds. That leads to the memory of Wanda slipping from you and it's almost too much to handle. You toss the plate in front of you, disrupting the ongoing argument. You’re squeezing your skull as the tears come and you scream for it all to stop. Natasha and Steve fall to your side as they do their best to calm you down. Once the memory leaves you and you've settled, everyone in the room gets serious about finding Thanos.

Nebula is useful as she provides the only lead to finding Thanos and you join them on the spaceship, brushing off everyone's concerns. The talking racoon asks how many of you haven’t been to space before, you raise your hand among the others which seems to be enough to make him laugh. You don't understand why until the ship rushes off to space.

Arriving just outside the planet, a floating woman you hadn't been introduced to yet appears at the front window and is surprised to report that the planet is just Thanos. Along with everyone else, you are heart broken to find out that he had destroyed the stones. You feel for Thor when he says he went for the head and shed another tear for the woman that Thanos had taken from you. It feels like you just lost her all over again.

The first year is the longest. The days feel never ending and drag on. Most nights were spent jolting out of bed in a cold sweat as you're being haunted by memories. It often felt like you were back in the hands of Hydra being electrocuted and injected, spoken to in a language you didn't know, probably German. Everything that was done to you in the time you were captured, everything that your mind had originally suppressed, was attacking you each night. Going through it alone made you miss Wanda even more. So once you could remind yourself that you were safe, you had also been reminded that you were alone. Lots of tears were shed in the night.

After Tony built up enough strength to leave the compound he did but he never stayed gone long. He would return often to attempt to build a relationship with you. It wasn’t easy trying to let him in, the lack of sleep being no help, so you didn’t. Your resistance never stopped him from making the effort to get to know you. Now that he knew you existed, he wanted to be part of your life. Tony knew that you needed family and he was all you had left, even if you didn't want to accept it. He promised to never abandon you ever again.

That didn’t mean he stopped living his life. Within a few months of his recovery, Tony invited you to his surprisingly low-key wedding which you begrudgingly attended with Natasha and Steve. They had been helping you out a lot with coping and figuring out whether or not you wanted Tony in your life. Steve often joked about fighting him again to get him to back off, but you never took the offer. You did your best to enjoy yourself at the wedding but it only reminded you of what you couldn’t have.

You smiled your way through the night as you thought about Wanda.

Her smile, the dress she would’ve worn, her laugh, that look in her eyes that is so full of love and only reserved for you. Your mind went even further back to a time when Pietro was alive and how they would’ve danced together and how happy he would have been for the two of you. You even imagine the wide grin he would have walking Wanda down the aisle and the single tear he would shed. Once he found that ring of yours he was constantly harassing you about when and how you were going to ask his twin. Even giving unwanted advice and ideas. It was all so consuming. That night you fell asleep crying in Natasha’s arms.

Months later, while Tony was visiting you he included you in on a secret. Pepper was pregnant. You didn’t exactly give the most joyous reaction but you were happy for him and Pepper. “When she’s born, promise me you won’t come back here,” you find yourself saying.

“Well I don’t know if she’s a girl yet but… why don’t you want me to come around here?” Tony asks as he returns the ultrasound image to his pocket.

“I want the three of you to be happy. I don’t want you to worry about me. Besides, I’m thinking of asking Nat to start assigning me to missions. I probably won’t be around as much and I really just need to get my mind off of the things I lost and the things I can’t have.” You keep your eyes on the promise ring Wanda had given you on your first anniversary. “But I want you and Pepper to be happy. Enjoy your life Tony. You don’t need to make things right with me to do that.” Tony disagrees but hugs you as he says his goodbyes and you find Natasha for your first assignment.

You are there for the birth of Morgan Stark. You forge her a special necklace from your powers and smile at the little bundle of joy. “Congrats you guys, she is so precious,” you say as you hold the baby.

“Thank you, Y/N,” Pepper says with hooded eyes and a tired smile. You hand the baby back to Tony and leave before thoughts of Wanda could invade and cloud your head. She always wanted a family. She used to fantasize about the kinds of parents the two of you would be. The types of kids you guys would raise. Baby names… Being away allowed you to forget her. But moments like these threatened to tear you down.

More years pass and Natasha is forced to ground you from missions because you have become too mentally unstable and a major liability. Steve drags you to his group therapy sessions but you hardly pay attention or contribute. You just miss Wanda and you allow yourself to feel that pain because running from it has only made it grow. For the most part you spent your time sitting in meetings with Steve or Nat. You preferred being in Natasha’s meetings since they were about mission updates and strategy and not about people crying over first dates. Shortly after that particular meeting Steve began to hint that maybe you should give it a try, you shut him down and turned it around on him. He quickly dropped the subject.

Among that daily schedule you would end your nights curled up on your bed in the room Wanda stayed in while she was waiting for you to come back to her. You would hold some clothes that still smelled like her to your nose as you listened to sad songs. For a while you’re stuck listening to Little Talks wondering if her spirit was lying by your side trying to reach out to you. Some of the things you felt were too painful to keep around and you had them stored at a special place far enough from here. One of them being the old computer. Well, they had been stored away for you but sometimes you convinced yourself that you made the call on your own. Not that Natasha arranged a team to steal most of your belongings.

Tony was generous enough to copy every video and photo file from the computer and put them into your phone. They helped you go to sleep at night.

Then one day, a man you swore had to have been on the vanished list that Nat viewed often, appears at the gate. “Is this old?” Steve asks.

“This is live,” Natasha says. They let him in and the three of you stand around as he explains how he can help. You, Nat, and Steve are skeptical but not so much that you guys don’t have hope it won’t work. Immediately you guys are on the road to find Tony Stark.

Over the years you tried to visit between missions, when you could. Not for Tony but for Morgan. You couldn’t help but fall for the little girl, she was your sister and you wanted to be the best big sister you could be for her. You also wanted to make sure she knew how many people cared for her and that she would always be safe and protected. Natasha was also captivated by her and would sometimes join you on the visits. You girls would play once she was able to run around and you even showed her some of your powers. During this time you finally allowed Tony in and even established a healthy relationship with him and Pepper because whether or not you wanted to accept it, they were your family.

When you arrive at the cabin, Morgan jumps out of Tony’s arms and runs into yours. “Y/N/N!” She shouts happily. You greet her with just as much energy and take her into the house to let them do the talking.

Pepper prepares some drinks and has you take them out to everyone. You re-enter the kitchen to help her with lunch. “Why aren’t you out there with the rest of them?” Pepper asks conversationally.

“Because my powers are connected to my emotions and if your husband says no… I might accidentally blow him into bits and pieces,” you sigh.

Despite herself, Pepper laughs a little. “You know,” she starts. “If you called him dad, he won’t have any other choice than to say yes.”

You shake your head, not this again. “Not going to happen.” Tony hasn’t directly asked you to say it but Pepper has and she keeps bringing up how much it would mean to him to hear you say it. “Besides with what we’re trying to do there’s a chance that he might lose all of this. I’m not even sure if I want him to say yes.” Your gaze lands on Morgan playing with her toys. Pepper follows your gaze and smiles softly.

“Hey Morgan, sweetie?” Pepper calls attention to her daughter who curiously looks up at her mother. “You should go out there and rescue daddy,” Pepper says. The little girl's face lights up as she stands to run to the front door. “Knowing Tony, he will find a way to protect everything he loves and save the world. Even if it kills him,” there is something in the way she says those words that causes the two of you to share a look. A hopeful let’s hope it doesn’t come down to that.

She then gives you a hug and tells you to stop by more often, she wishes you luck, and you leave the warmth of the home to the frowns of your rejected friends. You don’t look at Tony when you bid him goodbye.

Next you find yourself in Bruce’s diner and watch as Scott Lang fails to be recognized as Ant-Man by some kids. Bruce is willing to give the time travel a try and on the day the test run is done, you begin to lose hope again. You eat your taco near a window as you observe Scott set up in the landing zone. You laugh when Nebula and Rocket arrive blowing away his food. You almost can’t believe that is the guy who had access to the closest thing they had to a time machine. Steve walks in smiling at your laugh, you don’t do that often, with Tony barking orders behind him. People get to work on the machine and that pesky flicker of hope is restored.

As you work on things Tony is by your side teaching you about every part you are using and putting together. You just let him rattle on and on as you let yourself fantasize about holding Wanda in your arms again. Before you know it they are doing the first test run with Clint Barton. He disappears and instantly reappears with a baseball glove and a stunned expression. “It works,” he says and that feeling of hope causes your heart to pound in your chest. You are going to see her again. Now to find out when to travel to.

“See you in a minute,” Nat says with contained excitement. She is just as excited to complete this mission as you are. After a lot of thinking and planning they separated into three teams of people. Tony, Steve, Bruce, and Scott leave to 2012 to retrieve the tesseract, scepter, and the time stone. Nat, Clint, Nebula, and Rhodey vanish to 2014 to grab the power stone and the soul stone. The last team is just Thor and Rocket to grab the reality stone that is apparently inside of Thor’s former girlfriend. Tony, Steve, and Nat wouldn’t let you go on the mission because they still think you’re a liability. You argue that Thor isn’t exactly the picture of mental stability but they point out that Thor is the only one on their team that knows Asgard and where that stone is.

So you sit and pout in a chair for the quick minute that everyone is gone. Part of what has you so pissed off is that you didn’t get to experience time traveling. All because of a few bad missions. You watch them disappear and stare at the platform but time seems to drag on and you look down at your phone with a sigh. In that second everyone has returned with their stones and your heart drops. You notice one person missing and frown. “Where’s Nat?” You ask. Clint wears a broken expression and takes a breath before explaining how he received the stone. “Oh,” is all you can come up with.

Clint felt that it should’ve been him and you didn’t disagree but you understood why Natasha sacrificed herself. She confided in you a few times about how she felt like a monster because of what she was forced to do when she was being raised in the Red Room. She even talked about the mandatory hysterectomy and hated that she could never carry kids of her own. You did your best to try and cheer her up by telling her that adoption was always an option. “No agency is going to allow a former assassin to adopt a kid. Trust me… I tried.” She then boasted about Clint and his family, she loved them as if they were her own family. “I’ll deny it if you tell anyone but I cried like a baby the first time his daughter called me aunty Nat,” she got teary eyed and you passed her another shot of vodka.

Natasha missed them so much and you knew she would sacrifice herself to get them back. She wouldn’t have been able to live with herself if his family came back and she had to inform them that he died to save her. She probably would have felt like a bigger monster than she already thought she was. You stood up and left the room to collect yourself and get as far away from everyone’s grief as possible. Natasha had easily become your best friend these past few years. In the past year that you’ve been stuck at the compound there were days when it felt like all you had was each other. You can’t believe she’s gone but you have to hope that there is still a way to bring her back.

Banner finds you later and makes you some food and Rocket sits with you and the rest of the guys sit by the dock to talk. You force the comfort food down despite feeling too sad to eat and notice Nebula walking back into the time machine area. They call you into another room where they’re going to put the stones together but you ignore them and follow Nebula. They let you go, assuming that you’re still upset about losing Natasha. The first time you went on an actual mission with Nebula, you were put off with how serious she was so you came up with random nicknames to call her. She was annoyed initially but eventually she mentioned how funny she thought it was. Her tone had remained emotionless as she told you that and you had to refrain from laughing because it felt rude to do so as she was opening up. Nebula was still a very serious person to be around but she loosened up a bit around you, even called you her friend.

“Hey Neb-Neb!” You called out after her but she ignored you. “Bu-Bu! Hello?” You followed her to the control panel, “Nella, what’s going on with yo–” she cuts you off by wrapping her hand around your throat and speaking to you through gritted teeth. There was definitely something off about Nebula but you couldn’t quite figure it out. So you fought back because you weren’t fighting your friend, you were fighting a stranger. The two of you go hand in hand until she slips out of your hold and goes back to the control panel. You move to stop her but are too late. Next thing you know, you are waking up in rubble.

With a groan you sit up and dust yourself off then quickly panic, you don’t even know if they had time to do the reverse snap. You crawl your way out of the rubble and find Steve, Tony, and Thor speaking in hushed tones. “Did you guys do the snap? What happened?” You ask frantically, you need to know that you’ll be seeing Wanda again. Losing her a third time was simply not an option. Then you see a very alive Thanos just sitting there. That’s when it connects in your head. It was a different Nebula and she was getting a past version of Thanos into this present. “Please tell me you guys did the snap,” you look at Tony and he nods. But the look on everyone's faces told you that they didn’t know if it worked.

You join them as they attack Thanos but he is powerful and not easy to bring down. You’re tossed into another pile of rubble and shake your head, annoyed with yourself because you felt useless. Your powers were failing you and you couldn’t fathom as to why. Out of nowhere you see portals open up one by one, the people that had vanished and the people that hadn’t stepped through each portal. Then an enormous Ant-Man emerges from the ground and drops off a few more people that must’ve been trapped from the destruction of the compound. You gather with the rest of them and really focus to activate your powers as Steve grabs Mjolnir and shouts, “Avengers… Assemble!” Despite the unsuccessful attempt, you still charge along with the rest of them to fight against Thanos’ army.

Without seeing her, you could just sense that Wanda is among the rest and as much as you want a reunion, saving the world takes precedence at the moment. You could practically hear her telling you to go be a hero anyway. As you fight against Thanos’ army, using the hand to hand combat skills Natasha and Steve taught you, a part of you is still distracted and searches for Wanda. Regardless of where you want your focus at the moment. You make your way around the battlefield hoping to knock into her or something so that you don't get yourself killed trying to find her. Then you hear her.

“You took everything from me,” her tone is heavy and her eyes are glowing. You come to the conclusion that she must not know whether or not you are alive. So you don’t let her know and wait to find out what she does.

“I don’t even know who you are,” Thanos responds, angered by the woman's threatening glare.

“You will,” she says before she starts attacking him with her powers. Discreetly killing off a large gathering of Outriders hurtling towards you, you watch Wanda as she comes very close to killing Thanos herself. He calls for the ships to rain fire on everyone and that’s when you finally make yourself present to her. You jump from your spot and land right beside her and create a force field to protect the both of you. Other members are being protected by the sorcerers and it isn’t until Captain Marvel comes flying through that the bullets stop coming down and people are trying to get the gauntlet out of there. You turn towards Wanda and feel her mixed emotions, you wink at her with a smile as you let the barrier go.

“It’s time to be a hero right now, love. We can say hello later,” you tell her before you go back into the fight, the adrenaline rushing through you as your powers have finally activated. Each member does their best to keep the gauntlet out of Thanos’ reach but sadly no one succeeds and he holds the extreme amount of power once again. Carol fights him with as much power as she has to keep him from snapping his fingers but eventually gets tossed aside. You step up next using everything that you have inside of you, using abilities you had no idea you even possessed. But in the end you are tossed onto a metal rod that had been protruding out from the destroyed building. It had stabbed you through your side making it difficult to breathe. As you fight for air you look around to watch Thanos and his army disappear. Tony collapses beside you. “No,” you cough out weakly. You reach out for him and luckily he was close enough for you to touch his shoulder. “Tony,” you gasp as the tears sting your eyes. His eyes follow the sound but you can tell that he’s not actually looking at you.

“Mr. Stark, we won. Mr. Stark,” Peter says as he tries to grab Tony’s attention. Rhodey lands beside his best friend with understanding and sadness in his eyes. Yours tighten shut for a moment as your tears start to fall. You want to wake up from this horrible nightmare but this is reality, a piece of you knew that you couldn’t avoid. Then Pepper arrives and pulls the boy in the spider suit away from her husband. You look up and see that he has finally returned somewhat enough to recognize his wife.

She tells him that he can rest now, then she looks over to you so that you know that now is the time to say something so you don’t regret it later. With a weak grip on his shoulder you nudge him to return his attention to you. It looks like he’s trying to smile at you but is obviously far too weak to do as such. You offer him the best one that you could muster in your current state. “I love you, dad. It’s okay, we’ll be okay,” your hand lands in his and he gives it the lightest squeeze before it falls limp.

Wanda makes her way over to you and panics at the amount of blood you’ve lost but at the moment you don’t feel anything. Not even the pain of losing your father. You just feel… numb. It dawns on you that your body must be failing but that doesn’t scare you. She takes your hand as your loud thoughts of just letting go enter her mind. “No,” she starts through frustrated teeth. “You can’t leave, Y/N. Please, keep fighting. This can’t be our ending. I need you, please don’t leave me,” she sounds so broken but equally determined to keep you alive. As you hold her gaze she lets out a broken sob and tenderly whispers, “I love you to infinity.” She continues to beg, depositing small kisses to the back of your hand. As her words sink in, you find the strength that you need to fight off the thoughts of letting go. Then, with your heightened vision, you look around and find every remaining Avenger kneeling out of respect for your father and you have the urge to join them. You struggle to get up from your position, Pepper and Wanda try to stop you from moving but all rational thought has left you.

“I’m not dying right here,” you grumble as you reach behind you and cut the rod. You shift your position and Pepper sprays your wound to close it around the remaining bits of the rod that was still in you so that the bleeding would stop until you could get it properly treated. Then you kneel for your father to show your respect for him in his death that you failed to show while he was alive. You think about how grateful you were for the last five years and how much you appreciated that he never gave up on you. You silently thank him just as the adrenaline leaves your body and it succumbs to the full extent of your injuries causing you to collapse and pass out.

Chapter 5

#wanda maximoff imagine #wanda marvel #wanda x fem!reader #wanda x you #the scarlet witch #wanda mcu #wanda x y/n #wanda x reader #wanda maximoff #fanfic fanfiction #fanfic #mcu #marvel

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luci-in-trenchcoats · 4 years

Text

By My Side (Part 7)

Summary: Jensen hires a team to help watch over the reader after the events of the night before but his suspicions are high and that might not have been the smartest move on his part...

Masterlist

Pairing: Bodyguard!Jensen x reader

Word Count: 3,700ish

Warnings: language, angst, minor violence

A/N: Enjoy!

_________

Four Hours Later

“Hi,” you said, sat on the end of your bed as Jensen quietly walked inside and closed the door after himself. “Is your shoulder-”

“I gave you a direct order. I know you heard me. I know you purposefully ignored me. I-”

“You were losing.”

“It doesn’t matter if I’m losing the fight, if I’m winning it, you get your ass away from the fight.”

“I was okay though. I-”

“Damnit Y/N!” he shouted. You went quiet, Jensen’s chest puffed out, his hands on his hips. “You promised you would listen to me. You promised.”

“I did listen. I-”

“If I can’t trust you to listen to me, then you’re a risk to the both of us. I will stay on as your bodyguard until I can find a suitable replacement.”

“What?”

“I’m giving my notice. We’re done.”

You stared at him and he narrowed his eyes.

“Oh don’t you-”

“I saved your fucking life!” you said, standing and poking him in the chest.

“I told you to run!” he shouted. You got in his face, brushing your nose against his. “You little...I told-”

“He wasn’t after me,” you said. You backed off as you rubbed the back of your head. “Me he wanted out of the way. He wanted you, didn’t he.”

Jensen bit his bottom lip and looked away but you grabbed his jaw and forced him to look at you.

“Why?”

“Word is out about your bodyguard boyfriend. You have money. I’m ransom money to some people.”

“You’re a shitty liar yourself, Jensen,” you said. You walked away from him and went out to your private balcony overlooking the pool. The door opened after a moment and you crossed your arms, leaning against the railing. A hand ran over your head and tucked a piece of hair behind your ear. “You can’t quit. Why did that person want you?”

“Truthfully, they probably wanted the both of us. I was the bigger threat so the guy went after me first. Next time it won’t just be one guy. Whoever is behind all of this will fork over more money for a team. You need your own team to stop that.”

“Why both of us?”

“I’m a soft spot of yours. Next time though they won’t try to take me probably. They’ll kill me outright. I’m too much hassle to try and deal with.”

“Someone wants to hurt me then?”

“I think a few things but I can’t know for sure. I think your life isn’t in danger. Your safety and the circumstances in which you live the rest of your life are but no, this person doesn’t want you dead. The gun didn’t come into play until you were clear of it. This person very much wants to be in my position.”

“My boyfriend?”

“Your protector. I’ll hire a team tomorrow. I know a guy that would be a good fit for your personal guard.”

“I thought I told you that you couldn’t quit.”

“I told you that when I say run, you run. You didn’t listen to me.”

“I’d make the same decision again.”

“Why?”

“Because he was hurting you and I’ve never been that angry in my life. Even the man that killed my father...maybe it’s because this was right in front of me but as long as I had the chance to help, I was going to help. Any bodyguard of mine is going to deal with that so get used to it.”

He leaned back against the railing, staring into the bedroom. He took a deep breath and rubbed his cut shoulder, sliding his hand over to your arm. He unfolded it and took your hand in his, giving it a squeeze.

“I would have liked to have met your father. It sounds like he raised an incredibly brave person like himself.”

“I run if you run too. I hide if you hide,” you said, turning your head. “New rules.”

“Alright. I still want a team. I have a feeling tomorrow night is going to be bad again.”

“I’m supposed to go to Gen’s baby shower,” you said.

“Do you want gun’s around your pregnant best friend?” he asked. You shook your head and he nodded. “They’ll need to reschedule anyways.”

“Why?”

“I need Jared on this with me and he won’t leave his wife and child. They-”

“Jensen. Leave them be. Jared needs to take care of his family. You’ll find a good team. We’ll just...take it one day at a time,” you said.

“You should get some sleep.” He pulled you gently backwards until you spun around and followed him inside. You crawled under the covers, Jensen dragging a chair you had over to your small desk.

“You’re not sleeping?”

“I need to work. I’ll sleep in the morning once I have a hire here to take over for me. You go ahead. I’ll keep an eye out.”

“Jensen,” you said as you lay down. He hummed and stopped the side of the bed before going off to get his laptop you assumed. “Make sure whoever you hires knows to keep an eye out for you too.”

“Yes mam,” he said softly. “Get some rest, honey.”

You woke up late the next day, Jensen passed out in his room when you trodded down the hall. There were five guys and a woman sitting at your dining room table, one of them standing as you gave a wave to them.

“Ms. Y/L/N. Good morning. I’m Brock Finley. I am your second in command and this is my team,” he said.

“I have two rules. Don’t drink all of my coffee and dudes, don’t leave the seat up and clean up after yourselves.”

“Yes, Mr. Ackles did go over your...requests earlier this morning,” said Brock.

“Walk with me, Mr. Finely,” you said, curling a finger. You walked him over to the kitchen, Brock reminding you a bit like Jensen when you first met him. “How do you know Jensen?”

“We served at the same time. I was injured on an operation with him, we recovered in the medical hospital in the same ward and grew to know one another.”

“Keep him safe,” you said. “As safe as me. I’m scared for him.”

“Mr. Ackles is in charge of-”

“I know. But keep him safe. Please.”

“We’ll do our best. The team’s been investigating possible leads and working with your manager to comb through any threats you may have received that seemed minor or even infatuations with you. I think Mr. Ackles is onto something with that track.”

“I honestly have no idea what’s going on anymore,” you laughed. “If you need anything from me, let me know. I plan on staying home today. My step-brother will dropping by shortly.”

“In the future please let us know in advance when guests will be…” he said as he saw the look on your face. “I’m going to return to work. There’s a team of eighteen on the premise, nineteen including Mr. Ackles. Don’t be alarmed if you see people outside.”

“Good to know,” you said, shaking your head as he left. “Eighteen? Really Jensen? I’m barely a B list actor on a good day.”

The doorbell rang and you caught the clock, nearly noon as you groaned. You rushed over and pulled it open, Nick standing there with a very confused look on his face and backpack over his shoulders.

“Hey,” you said as you let him inside.

“Nice SWAT team. Something going on?” he asked.

“Let’s go swimming. Better to talk there.”

“Wow,” said Nick twenty minutes later after you’d told him everything that had happened recently.

“Yup. I didn’t call you to come over cause of that though. I was...I’m nervous that with everyone moving out here you’re gonna be alone back home and it...scares me when...Jensen said something about us loving each other even if we don’t like one another and I think he had a point. I don’t want you to go to a dark place again Nick.”

“Y/N, could you slow down for a second? I know you move at a faster pace than most of us but I’m still on the fact you shot a gun last night. The chick that cried that time she thought she hit a squirrel in the road and she didn’t.”

“Oh. Sorry,” you said. You sat on the steps in the shallow end, Nick wading over and joining you. He sat back and played with the water in front of him for a moment before he let out a deep sigh.

“I like you, Y/N. Michael and I both do. We love you.”

“Why are you two so mean all the time then? It’s not teasing. It’s mean.”

“Cause you’re dad’s favorite. We know it. He never hid it from us. When we needed him, he was always with you and your mom. We think of her as our mom now and you our little sister but god we needed him and we were left on our own. You were an easy target to make us feel more in control. Instead of bonding with you, someone who understood exactly what we felt, we took advantage and we never bothered to stop. You were tough and could take it and we’re assholes. I’m sorry. The only reason I’m alive is because of you. You got me help. You still pay for my therapy. Shit I call you in the middle of the night and you pick up every time and just listen to me. You’re always going to be a better person than I am, Y/N. I suck at saying it but I’ve always been grateful to have you as my sister.”

“Could have just said that in the first place,” you said, wiping your face with the back of your hand for a second. “Come out here, Nick. You’d put my mind at rest.”

“I was never coming,” he said with a smile. “I sort of have a place already lined up back home with a roommate.”

“Yeah but I’m sure…” you said, catching the look on his face. “Oh. A roommate. Oh. Oh.”

“Yeah, hi, I’m bi in case you weren’t aware,” he chuckled. “Michael’s known since we were teenagers but I swore him to secrecy.”

“If we’re gonna have secrets, can we at least just keep them from the parents from now on?” you asked.

“Yeah, I’d like that,” said Nick. “Seriously don’t know you how didn’t catch on that I hang out with my best friend like all the time. Like all the time. And I sleep at his apartment all the-”

“I get it,” you said, Nick smiling. “He good to you?”

“Yeah. You don’t have to worry so much. You’re not the only one watching out for me,” he said. “But you though...what are you involved in?”

“I don’t know,” you said. “Last night got way too close for...say that again.”

“What are you involved in?” he asked.

“Nick, can you do me a favor, like a monumentally huge favor and not tell anyone else about what I said. This is gonna be over tonight anyways.”

“What’s going on?” he asked as you stood.

“I know who wants to kidnap me.”

“Who?”

“My old manager of course. Can you keep everybody away from here the rest of the day? I have a feeling this is going to be messy.”

“She has a point,” said Jensen, half dressed ten minutes later as you spoke to him and Brock, the floor still a bit wet from where Nick had walked out the front door to head back to the hotel. “She did ruin his career.”

“But why escalate?”

“He wants money and his career back...and she is smarter than both of us put together,” said Jensen as it clicked for him.

“You got it?” you asked as he nodded.

“Involved Inn. It’s the firm your manager used to work with. It’s the firm your current manager works with.”

“Inside man,” said Brock. “How’d he know you’d hire him?”

“He knows the kind of person I like to work with and he was smart enough to research Jensen and know that a military background wouldn’t hurt.”

“Oh fuck,” said Jensen, his face going white.

“What?” you asked. He swallowed as he looked around, putting his hand on his holster and pulling out his gun. He undid the clip and showed you that it was empty. “Don’t you need bullets in that?”

“There were bullets,” said Jensen, grabbing your hand and pulling you away from Brock. “Finely Associates. They’re hooked up with Involved Inn. Very, very closely involved.”

“You chose the absolute worst possible group of people to hire you know,” said Brock. Jensen walked backwards with you into the living area, the both of you catching sight of the various guards around. “Two against eighteen is not very good odds.”

“Let me talk to your boss, we can-” you said.

“Kid was unknowingly in on it. Didn’t think his old mentor would screw him over like that,” said Brock. “So here’s how it goes. We-“

“This doesn’t add up. People don’t admit to shit in real life like that. No one’s forcing you to say a thing. This is a paycheck for you. No, something else is going on. You just want us to think it was my old manager, don’t you?” you said. Brock tilted his chin up and you crossed your arms. “You knew Jensen would hire your team and we’d make a connection. So here’s how it really goes. I guarantee I got more money than whatever you’re being paid. You drop this little charade, I pay you, and we get down to the issue of who hired you.”

“Mr. Ackles hired us.”

“You know what I mean. Who-”

“Mr. Ack-”

“I didn’t hire you to do this,” said Jensen. “I said...you got a second phone call, didn’t you. One saying you wanted to perform a live test, didn’t you.”

Brock was silent and Jensen made a face.

“Tell me the truth or you’re all fired and being brought up on charges immediately,” said Jensen. Brock looked nervous for the first time and you pouted.

“You said-”

“Dammit, Finley. You’re all fired. Leave. Now.”

“But sir you said-”

“I hired you to protect her, not play games. All of you, get the fuck out.”

Brock nodded and the team all left, Jensen getting in Brock’s face.

“You are always so gullible. Always. It’s what landed your ass in that hospital. You never verify information. Just go in head first. I-” said Jensen, Brock’s jaw clenching.

“At least my whole unit wasn’t corrupt behind my back! At least I didn’t wind up living in a hole in the ground for weeks because I was too stupid to see-”

“Get the fuck out of my house.” Jensen’s whole body was tense as Brock left, his hands clenched by his sides. The house was eerily still, the only sound was Jensen’s harsh breathing.

After a moment he calmed and turned around, looking you up and down.

“I’m sorry. I thought Brock was smarter than falling for a fake phone call.”

“What exactly just happened?” you asked.

“Whoever wants you set up a fake drill, a test of sorts. Normally we would run one with the participants knowledge or give them a heads up in order to find vulnerabilities in a protection detail. What just happened was to mess with you and for this guy to say he’s smarter than us. It scares me because he probably is and he’s miles ahead of us. I don’t know how to keep you safe by myself, Y/N and I sure as shit don’t know who I can trust.”

“Your old unit, the good ones, call them. They’ll help you.”

“They’re all over the country.”

“You call them and I will get them out here. I will give them whatever they want. Private jets are a thing you know.”

“Y/N-”

“We need help. Let’s get help.”

“I’m sorry I’m so horrible at my job.”

“If you were horrible at your job I’d be in some basement right now. We’ll get through this and then just you and me can go on a trip away, just the two of us,” you said. He looked down and you padded over, taking his hand. “Okay?”

“I can’t stop everything,” he said. “This guy is smarter than anyone I’ve dealt with before, way smarter.”

“Then we call in for backup. We got this. I promise.”

Later That Evening

“Jared,” you said as he walked in the front door with a hum. “Jared Padalecki. What the hell are you-”

“Don’t even start with me,” he said, shutting the door after himself. You opened your mouth but he simply adjusted the bag over his shoulder. “Gen and Tom are safe and you need all hands on deck and frankly I was coming whether you liked it or not.”

“Jared-” you said as he walked past and into the living room.

“I’m here. Get over it,” he said before putting on a smile. “Hey guys. I swear you got uglier, Benny.”

“Must be from looking at you,” said Benny before he stood and gave Jared a hug. You hung back at the kitchen island, quietly listening to the eight of them talk and catch up before Jensen was standing and going over what had happened lately. You got a bit lost once they started talking in technical terms but suddenly they were breaking and everybody was grabbing their bags.

“How you holding up?” asked Jensen when he took a seat beside you.

“Nervous,” you said. “Tonight’s gonna be bad, isn’t it.”

“Hopefully not,” said Jensen as a redheaded woman went over to your fridge and grabbed a can of beer. “Y/N, this is Charlie. She was in charge of tech and surveillance for us back in the day. She works for google now, right?”

“That’s so three jobs ago,” she said with a smile. “She’s cute.”

“Thanks,” you said, Jensen rolling his eyes. “Oh, you’re…”

“Jensen ever bores you, give me a call,” she said with a wink. You swallowed and she laughed, Jensen chuckling to himself. “I’m joking. If I were into dudes I probably would be all over that myself.”

“You are not what I was expecting,” you said.

“Oh just cause we did secret stuff didn’t mean we were all sir yes sir.”

“Charlie was picked straight out of college for her...unique compter skills we’ll call it. If I could train this flailing hot mess, you’ll be just fine, honey. Charlie’s going to stay here with Ash as an attempted diversion. She’ll wear your clothes, Ash’ll wear mine. They’ll put on some wigs, we’ll see how that goes tonight.”

“Where are we going?”

“So this is an interesting hiding spot,” you said, squatted down in your next door neighbors kitchen twenty minutes later. “Thanks again Doug, I really appreciate it, even if I don’t get what’s going on yet.”

“It’s no problem, kid. The girls are on the road with their mother for the week so perfect timing,” he said. Jensen paced back and forth by the window in the dark house, not that you had much of a view of your own from over there. “Mind if I ask why you two trust me of all people?”

“Because you were halfway through kicking that paparazzi’s ass by the time I even showed up,” said Jensen, glancing over his shoulder. “You don’t want someone hurting your kids. It’s not a big leap to you keeping a watchful eye on your young neighbor just in case.”

“What are you expecting to learn from all this though. Aren’t you just going to get the team at best and not the guy?” asked Doug.

“Team could lead us to answers.”

“You know that won’t work. You’re trying to keep your head above water at this point, aren’t you,” he said.

“Yeah, Doug, I am,” said Jensen, snapping back quickly. “You have any genius ideas I’d love to hear them.”

“Y/N, when your show starts back up, would you mind letting the girls have a tour of set? They love it,” said Doug.

“Of course. If I’m still around that is,” you said. He smiled and glanced at his computer. “What?”

“I’m about to use up a huge favor that’s owed me. Glad I held onto it all these years,” he said. He took a seat behind his laptop and took out his phone.

“What are you doing?” asked Jensen.

“I’m going to ask for surveillance from last night, see if we can’t backtrack where that intruder originally came from.”

“You can do that?” you asked.

“It’s not easy but yeah, I can do that. I still have a few friends in the business. Let’s see if we can get you kids a break.”

_______

A/N: Read Part 8 here!

#spn #supernatural #jensen ackles #jensen ackles au #jensen ackles x reader #jensen ackles x you #au #bodyguard!AU #bodyguard!jensen #bodyguard!jensen x reader #spn fanfic #supernatural fanfiction

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resident-leevil-old · 3 years

Text

okay well anyways somebody asked me if i felt like talking about my raccoon city survivors au with mia and ethan again and the answer is YES.

> AU MINI FACTS <

- Ethan's mother died while giving birth.

- Ethan Winters and his father moved into Raccoon City when Ethan was a baby, around 3-4 years old.

- Ethan trans ftm because im trans and i said so.

- Mia trans mtf because im trans and i said so.

- Ethan & Mia are childhood friend to lovers in this au.

- Ethan's father worked for Umbrella, and Mia's father worked for the Connections while her mother also worked for Umbrella.

- Mia was born in Texas, but her family moved to Raccoon City after she was born. They still owned property in Texas, though.

- Mia & Carlos are related because I said so.

- so yknow the "dude its been three years" guy? that's their childhood friend and his name is Kyde because i said so.

- Albert Wesker Personally was ordered by Spencer to kill those scientists btw.

- a lot of this au is because i said so tbh

> AU SUMMARY <

Ethan Winters, Mia Oliviera, and Kyde Wells work together to survive six days of the Raccoon City Outbreak. In the process they uncover secrets and encounter many obstacles that just nearly cost them their lives.

> CHAR.BGROUND <

ETHAN W, SR - A scientist who worked for Umbrella. He lost his wife during the birth of his child E///// Winters. Struggling with the death of his wife and the harsh decline of his mental health, he began to experiment with viruses and vaccines in an attempt to bring his wife back, even using his child as a subject at certain points due to the child having strong genes from the mother. He acknowledged that he was a horrid father, but justified his actions by claiming he would bring back a better mother. He thought of Albert Wesker as a friend, and told him the truth of his research.

ETHAN W, JR - A quiet 14 year old that had a hard time making friends. Due to experiments from his father, Ethan is a culmination of infections and viruses that each impact him in different ways. As he grew up Ethan refrained from talking too much as to not interrupt his father's work, causing him to become selectively mute.

MIA OLIVIERA - Younger sister of Carlos Oliviera. Mia skipped a grade due to her intelligence and advanced knowledge on many things kids her age normally didn't. She very easily got sick as a child, though she seemed to outgrow it as she got older. She was schooled both at home and at school before the outbreak. She shared classes with Ethan Winters (Jr) and Kyde Wells.

KYDE WELLS - A friend of Ethan & Mia, known for his cowardice. Kyde has a heavy sense of self preservation, but a weighted sense of compassion as well. He only ever has risked himself for his two friends.

JAMES HARISON - Mia's father. He worked for the Connections as a scientist and a researcher. Harison and his wife often exchanged information they learned from their jobs, aiming to and succeeding at "fixing" their daughter's proneness to viral sicknesses.

MARISA OLIVIERA - Mia's mother. He worked for Umbrella as a researcher. Oliviera and her husband often exchanged information they learned from their jobs, aiming to and succeeding at "fixing" their daughter's proneness to viral sicknesses.

JAKE VERANO - An Umbrella worker who had been trapped in the underground facility for a week, listening to the sound of his coworkers being eaten alive. Unstable because of his experience, he tries to create a cure using the intel of Ethan W (SR).

> FULL AU <

[September, 25, 1998.]

Ethan Winters walked home from school when his father failed to pick him up. He walked through the streets, paying no mind to a big fight breaking out near him. On the way home, he meets up with his friend Kyde who had also been walking home. They talk and walk together for a bit, before splitting up.

When Ethan arrived home, he noticed the front door of his house had been opened slightly. Confused, but wary, he entered the house, knowing it was uncharacteristic for his father to forget the door was open.

He entered the living room, and found his father laying on the ground dead, shot twice in the head, having just been killed moments prior. Ethan moved over to his father, before Albert Wesker walked out of his father's office.

Ethan barely has much time to react to him, overwhelmed by his own panic and the death of the only adult in his life. Wesker - wanting no witnesses - shoots him three times in the chest, and leaves under the impression the child is dead for good.

Ethan Winters dies for the first time that evening.

[September, 27, 1998]

For the past two days, Mia and her parents have been barricaded in their home, unable to leave safely. Mia sat in her room for most of the time, unable to look out of the windows due to boards covering them. During those two days Mia tries to call Ethan and Kyde several times in hopes that they were safe. Neither of them answer.

Until this day, the 27th, at 2:00 am, when she calls Ethan. And he answers.

{TRANSCRIPT OF THEIR CALL:}

Ethan: h-hello?

Mia: [Ethan]! You're alive! Are you okay?

Ethan: I'm breathing. [Pause] I'm breathing. You okay?

Mia: I'm boarded up in my house, we can't leave safely. Everything is a mess. I'm so glad you're alive, [Ethan]. Are you safe? I'm guessing you're safe.

Ethan: Not sure. Not sure. Find you soon, here alone. Alone.

Mia: Alone? What happened? Where's your dad?

Ethan: [Pause.] [Loud sound in the distance.]

Mia: [Ethan]? Are you okay?

Ethan: [Dial tone.]

Mia speaks with her parents about the call, expressing worry about her friend. She spends a while trying to convince her parents that Ethan may be alive (purposefully omitting the dial tone) and need their help. Finally, they agree, and at 12 pm, they head out with all the resources they could gather.

Managing to stay out of sight, the family make it to the Winters' household. They find Ethan hiding in his bedroom, one infected laying in the hallway with a pole through its head and Ethan's father laying in the living room dead.

They rescue Ethan, and flee from the house. Mia's parents explain that they need to evacuate the city, but that they wouldn't be able to drive, so they'd have to move on foot. They returned to their house and rested for the night.

[September, 28, 1998]

The family and Ethan head out again, this time aiming to evacuate the city. After several close encounters with large groups of infected, the kids and Mia's parents are unfortunately separated. Given instructions by her parents, Mia leads Ethan through the city, having to take detours due to infected blocking pathways.

Eventually, during the night, they run into Kyde, who has lost his parents trying to escape the city. The three of them take refuge in an empty abandoned house, and rest for the walk in the morning.

Ethan sits up for a while, thinking about what happened to him, and trying to figure out how to explain it to his friends. Eventually he falls asleep, unable to figure it out. In the morning they head out again.

[September, 29-30, 1998]

During another detour taken due to large groups of infected, Ethan is kidnapped by a man in a white lab coat.

Mia & Kyde go after them, refusing to leave Ethan behind. They manage to find him after roughly half a day had passed.

Ethan had been in a hysterical state and through tears he explains to Mia and Kyde what had happened to him in his house a few days ago, confessing that he had died and revived two days later. He warns the two of them that whatever Jake, the white lab coat man, did to him, it made him dangerous and unstable.

Mia and Kyde refused again to leave him behind, and spend hours gathering information from files and research left scattered around. They manage to make Something that was able to calm him down and cleanse what they had learned had been called the "T-virus" from his body.

As soon as Ethan had woken up again, they fleed the facility, Mia & Kyde both making sure he didn't collapse on the way.

[October, 1, 1998]

They don't stop running when they're out. A broadcast goes out saying that the city will be blown up in four hours due to being unable to contain the outbreak. The three of them realize they won't be able to get out if they take anymore detours unless they find a vehicle with gas in it and a clear road to drive on.

Three hours later, out of options, nearly to the city boarder, and faced with another group of infected blocking the only straight shot out, they decide to risk a run through. However, just as they were pushing through, a helicopter flew overhead and spotted them. Calling to them, the pilot tells them to attempt making it up a building nearby if they could.

Through pure bullshittery and luck, they manage to make it up, and they board the helicopter. Just as it begins to take flight, the city starts to blow up bit by bit. In the distance, they see other helicopters flying.

> AFTER THE AU <

Mia and her parents reunite, her parents having managed to get out before the children did. Kyde goes to live with his relatives in Texas, and Ethan is offered to live with them as well.

Mia's parents move back to their texas home, and everyone who had been in the city were given therapy. Eventually the three grow up and graduate from highschool, and move on to other things, never once separating.

The three of them eventually move into a single house together in California, and some time after that Mia and Ethan get married. And for a while they live happily

And then, Mia witnesses Ethan having some sort of attack in the middle of the night one time, and realizes that he hadn't been completely cured of whatever had been infecting him in the city at all, and that it had only gone dormant for some years. While he wasn't vicious or attacking anyone, Ethan had just been really plagued and didn't even remember the fits that only seemed to happen every other night.

Out of worry and fear, Mia begins to work for the Connections, hoping there was something she could learn from them in order to help her husband finally be cured. And years after, RE7 began.

And THAT, my friends, is my Raccoon City Survivors au with the Winters, also known as Raccoon City Winters.

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whimsicallyreading · 4 years

Text

Dark Roast No Sugar

Chapter Three

Aelin would never admit it out loud, but a day off was just what she needed. She spent the morning napping, snacking, and reading. Her stomach settled, and when she took off her shoes, her feet didn't look like they belonged to a bloated cadaver.

Spending that time with Aedion was also refreshing. He kept the conversations light. Telling her about the antics between hostesses at The Pits, a run-in between Ren and the police. A story about the drug dealer they'd roughed up and how he'd pissed his pant when he saw Aedion and the stray puppy Kyllian had snuck into The Den.

When they got hungry, Aedion offered to make them a late lunch. Her mouth watered at the prospect of his famous grilled cheese with two kinds of cheeses and ketchup.

Lysandra came up to join them for lunch and her nose wrinkled at the sight of them dragging the cheesy goodness through globs of red sauce. "By the dark god, you two. That's disgusting."

Aedion grins, a dot of ketchup on his chin, "You haven't even tried it yet. This meal is a riot with the guys and saved my ass with foster siblings." He wiped his face on his sleeve and leaned back in his chair. "You don't shit on the kid who can actually make edible food."

Aelin laughs and dusts her hands off like a lady. "Actually, you don't shit on the kid who looks like he started doping at eleven. But yeah, I'm sure it was your budget lunches that saved you."

"Shut up, you love it when I cook," Aedion collected their plates.

Lysandra pulls up the chair next to Aelin's at their tiny, rickety table. She set down her container of salad, looking classier with her more mature pallet. Aelin swiped a cucumber from the top and chewed into the seasoned veggie. "Your food is nostalgic. What can I say?"

Aedion's playful demeanor seemed to deflate suddenly, a furrow creasing his brow. "I suppose why I have you two together, we should talk some business."

"Uh oh, that doesn't sound good." Lysandra tensed up, shooting a worried look at Aelin.

"Is it the bidding for this month? I told you I could get at least an extra hundred dollars to you by the end of the month. If you need more, I could-"

Aedion cut off Aelin's rambling with a raised hand. "It's not the bidding. Elias pulled enough to cover our bets for the month." Relief flooded through her, and she breathed out a sigh of relief.

The underground fighting game in Orynth was wildly exclusive. To get a spot during prime hours when tickets were hot and the betting pool was hotter, the local gangs had to participate in an auction. It was pricey, but the cuts you got from winning a fight made up for it big time.

Unfortunately, the Bane was not a wealthy group of men. A lot of them had families or relatives they were supporting. They usually scavenged up enough money to get two or three guys into the fights, and those funds were just enough to pull them through to the next month.

Like Aelin, those families did what they could to fund money towards the bidding. Initially, she was going to volunteer as a fighter, but she found out about the baby, and they all agreed it was too risky for her to get in the ring. As soon as she was cleared, she still intended to participate in the fights to Aedion's chagrin.

Between the extra patrols of her street and snuffing the rumors of her existence in the city, it took a chunk of the Bane's recourses and time. Aedion assured her that the guys understood her circumstances, but she contributed as much as she could monetarily until she could contribute physically as well. "What's going on then?"

"Rolf took a beating in the ring last night. He's going to be out of commission for a while, but we didn't lose any money. He managed to bust the guy's head at the last moment and pulled through." He paused.

Aelin was confused, though. It wasn't uncommon for one of the guys to get roughed up a bit, so long as they didn't lose, there wasn't an issue. "That's too bad about Rolf, but I don't see the problem?" she pushed him to continue.

"He swears the guy was tripping on Synth," Aedion breathes out, pained.

Oh.

"Shit," Lysandra swears and stands up. "Is he sure it was Synth?"

"It's kinda hard to rutting mistake, Lysandra," Aedion snapped. He was right, though. The Pits had rules against cheating, but they were followed loosely. If they couldn't see a knife being pulled, the fight wouldn't be called. Some of the Bane even doped before a match just so they wouldn't get caught at a disadvantage.

Synth had a lot of physical effects. Adrenalin coursed through the user at such high rates it was practically superhuman. It gave them crazy speed, strength, and heightened focus. On the flip side, it also caused fever, bulged veins, twitching, bloodshot eyes, and uncontrollable rage as you came down. It would be hard to mistake it for any other street drug. Aelin had taken Synth once before, and it wasn't an easily forgettable experience.

The detail they were glossing over was that only one person was currently capable of leaking a drug like Synth on the streets.

Arobynn Hammel

"So," Aelin finally said, breaking up the heated glares they were sharing. "He's making his presence in Orynth known."

Quiet.

"We can't know it for sure," Aedion looked at her with a sickening amount of pity. Aelin didn't want sympathy or comforting falsities. She wanted the truth.

"Bullshit," Aelin declared, making Aedion wince at the sudden sharpness. "We've had sightings of Tern and Mulligan already. We knew he was sending eyes out. They must have seen us."

Lysandra sunk back into her chair and rested her head in her hands. "I thought we made it?" her voice sounded extraordinarily young, feeble. Not at all like the vivacious woman they were used to seeing.

"Lys," it was Aelin's turn to rest a comforting hand on her friend's shoulder.

Her eyes were glassy and hollow when she looked up. "I really had myself believing we made it."

Aelin's heart broke for her.

Arobynn was a sick son of a bitch. She, Lysandra, and Sam had all come into his care at different times and served various functions within the Manor. One thing was the same though, they were all children.

They were all coerced into doing grotesque things for Arobynn's sake. Things that they should, in all honesty, spend years in therapy to recover from. Yet, some horrors were too big for even Aelin to pretend to understand.

Horrors that Lysandra was forced to live with every day.

Arobynn's unofficial mistress.

Aedion's fist slamming against the table startled them both and snapped Aelin from her thoughts. Lysandra flinched and leaned closer to Aelin. "It doesn't matter."

He pointed his finger at them and then stabbed it into the table. "It. Does. Not. Matter. Where that piece of shit is. Rifthold? Wendelyn? He can be an hour away or watering the rutting flowers next door, but he will never have either of you ever again." The golden core in Aedion's eyes was molten.

The excitement was too much for Lysandra, and the dam behind her eyes broke. Deep, heavy sobs ripped from her chest, and her body wilted forward like a wind-whipped flower.

They moved at the same time, but Aedion was faster. He pulled Lysandra from her seat and gathered her against his chest, shushing her and whispering sweet nothings into her hair.

The bells rang downstairs.

Aedion looked up helplessly, but Aelin raised a hand and mouthed, "It's fine."

None of them wanted Lysandra to be alone right now.

Aelin slipped her shoes back on and hopped down the stairs quickly. Hopefully, they wouldn't be too pissed no one was behind the counter when they walked in, she mused to herself. It only took her half-a-minute to get downstairs, but it was amazing the things people got outraged over.

Mala forgive that the coffee gets in their hand a second later than usual.

"Do my eyes deceive me, or was Aelin Galathynius taking a break?" Dorian Havilliard's greeted her with a bright smile and upraised hands. No trace of agitation at all.

Chaol Westfall stood behind him and meekly tilted his chin. "Hello, Aelin."

"Hello, Chaol." She greets him with a smile and walks into Dorian's outstretched arms. Aelin wasn't a hugger, but Dorian's hugs had a magic to them.

"Where did you go?" Dorian asked without breaking his grasp. "I never thought I'd see the day you weren't slaving away behind the counter grinding beans."

"We weren't super busy today, and I wasn't feeling the best," Aelin admitted.

Dorian pulled away slightly to look down at her in concern. His dark, thick-framed blue light glasses slipping down his nose.

"It's just the baby," she assures him. "Not the flu or anything. You don't have the right parts to catch what I've got."

Chaol snickered, but Dorian's concern only worsened. "In all seriousness, you aren't working yourself too hard?"

Aelin rolled her eyes. If one more person asked her that-

"I'm fine, Dor. It was just some morning sickness and a stressful customer that came through. No big deal."

His shoulders relax, and he releases her from his arms. "I believe you. Just-" he fumbles for the words to say, "If you have troublesome people coming in here and bothering you, let me know? Chaol can come over and hang out for the day. He has a friend, Nesryn. If it gets bad, I am more than willing to hire her-"

Aelin smiled at him and waved at him. "No need for bodyguards. People are rude. It happens. Now, what can I get for the both of you?"

Dorian was the son of the esteemed son of Dorian Sr. The owner of Adarlan Vaults, the most extensive banking chain across Erilea. It was a total accident that they stumbled into each other when Aelin went in looking for a loan to start The Stag with.

At first, he was a bit of a flirt with her. When Aelin made it clear that she wasn't interested in his advances, Dorian backed off right away and fell into the role of the supportive friend. He and Chaol had been the first patrons of the shop when the doors opened.

Chaol was technically his hired protection, but he and Dorain were life long friends bound by something more powerful than money. She never saw the two of them apart. While he appeared to be a quiet sort, he had a sharp mind and fierce loyalty that Aelin admired.

"Two iced girl scout americano's," Dorian pulled out his wallet and handed her a twenty. "Large, please."

Aelin accepted the cash and started filling cups as the two took their standard seats. She just got the espresso machine heated when a set of hands pushed her's aside and began flipping the switches for her.

"Aedion," she groaned as his hip bumped her to the side, and he took over her tasks. "Seriously?"

"You are supposed to be taking the day off," he looks at her pointedly. "Go sit with your friends. I've got this."

"Do you have this?" Aelin set a hand on her hip. "You haven't used these machines before."

Aedion scoffed, "It cannot be that complicated. Now go. Before Lysandra comes back down and wipes the floor with both of our asses." He pulls out two large mugs and grabs out a bottle of coconut flavoring. "Baby A is shielding you for now, but that woman has the memory of a rutting elephant. Don't think you can hide behind my niece or nephew forever." He's more talking to himself by the end as he starts over pouring syrups into cups. Did he even know what he was making? Aelin winced.

She might have to return the twenty to Dorian.

Aelin walks away reluctantly, "Mind if I sit here for a minute, boys?"

Chaol stands up and pulls a chair out for her, "Not at all."

He holds out a hand to help her sit, but she waves it away. She wasn't that pregnant yet.

Dorian has a hardbound book sitting in front of him, the face of his expensive watch catching the light as he turns the page. "I haven't seen you by the bank this week," he says without looking up from the page.

"We've been enjoying the peace," Chaol sits back in his own seat and flashes her a grin. "That's a joke, of course. It's been horribly boring."

"It's been a busy week. I haven't had a chance to drop my deposit off yet." Aelin typically made an excuse to visit the bank at least once a week. Dorian would kindly excuse whatever teller was working to take a break and promptly close the register so they could sit in the break room and talk over cookies and drip coffee.

She was planning on going yesterday, but her feathers were too ruffled after the incident.

"I suppose I can live without that excuse since I've taken it upon myself to visit you at work." He pulls a plastic bag filled with assorted chocolates and places it on the table between them. "If you need to drop off a deposit, I can take it back with me?"

Aelin's hand darts to the bag of sweets and pulls out a dark, salty square. "Have I mentioned you are the most attractive man I've ever met?"

They hear a loud scoff from the kitchen.

"You've mentioned it a few times." He glances up from his book long enough to wink at her. "What about that deposit?"

"I don't think I will have a big enough deposit to warrant the trip this week," the excuse isn't well-formed, and she hears it when the lie falls from her lips.

"You said you had a busy week?" Dorian frowns.

I did, but I'm putting aside extra money to fund my cousin's gang because my former foster father has a hit out on me.

"The tips have been bad" not a total lie. "Maybe it will pick up again over the weekend," Aelin shrugs nonchalantly.

Aedion walks over with two cups of coffee and a mug of tea. He lets Dorian's drink slosh over the side as he sets it down. Dorian lifts his book away from the mess and glares.

She wasn't sure what went down between Dorian and Aedion that made them hate each other. Chaol and Aedion had no qualms. They were even drinking buddies on the weekend, but Aedion had a bone to pick with Dorian long before she'd arrived back in Orynth.

Aelin half-heartedly scolded Aedion as she accepted her drink. Taking a deep drink from the mug, she was surprised to find that it was made exactly as she liked.

Chaol sipped his coffee, and Aelin watched as he barely held back a grimace. Dorian reached for his own cup, but Chaol discretely pulled it away before he could drink. Aelin caught the motion, but thankfully Aedion was already back in the kitchen and hadn't noticed.

"I will remake those for you before you leave," Aelin assured them.

"It's alright. As much as I love coffee, I really came by to spill tea," Dorian took his glasses off and leaned back in his chair.

"Gossip," Chaol translated. "He means gossip."

Dorian rolls his eyes, "That's what tea means, Chaol." Leaning forward with his elbows on the table, "A company called Wendlyn Ops. bought out The Pits."

"What?" Aelin shouts a little too loudly. Dorian shushes her, and Aedion peers out from the kitchen with worried eyes. She waves him away and whispers in a quieter tone. "What do you mean The Pits have been bought out? What for?"

"I didn't realize you would care this much about the seediest bar in town," Dorian laughed. "It's not like you can drink."

"You aren't drinking, right?" Chaol scowls.

Aelin reins back her emotions. She was definitely losing her tack being off the job for several months, but the secret basement underneath The Pits was where the fights were usually held. Iona Jayne would never sell the property when it brought in so much money.

He either owed someone a rutting ton of money, he was being blackmailed, or the most likely option.

Iona Jayne was dead.

Aelin flipped Chaol off, "Of course I'm not drinking. No promises on that in about five months... Just, who would want The Pits? Are they repurposing it?" She can already feel a headache forming behind her eyes.

"That's the interesting part," Chaol murmured. "The title for The Pits was transferred to a new owner just a few days before it was sold for triple its market value."

Dorian's grin became mischievous, "Shady deals are going on, and I'm determined to find out what."

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Aelin forced a matching smile on her, "Well, this sounds like the making of an adventure."

Aedion was deeply involved with all the goings-on at The Pits. If Dorian managed to learn too much and expose them, he would go down hard. She wasn't directly implicated in anything beyond a little racketeering, but one prolonged look at her record would raise some eyebrows. Which could tie her back to Rifthold and numerous murders. A lot of murder. Thievery. Hired assassinations.

They would be screwed, essentially.

Damn it all to hellas, she needed to talk to Aedion. Aelin understood why Dorian was interested in this. His father was involved with so many corrupt dealings they followed him like a shadow. She knew he was socially isolated beyond herself and Chaol. No one dared to associate with the son of Dorian Sr.

Unveiling a corrupt business dealing and aiding the community could help separate his image from his father's. Rectify some of the wrongs his family has committed. Give him a chance at making a future for himself out from Dorian Sr.'s thumb.

Aelin just wished he knew the depth of the task he was taking. How deep, dark, and dangerous this viper's den was. Sweet, sheltered Dorian Jr. would be eaten alive. A blue-eyed pup, trapped in the jaws of an adder.

Little did he know that Aelin was a wolf herself, and she would not stand for that breaking.

Aelin directed the conversation to safer grounds following the bomb he dropped. They discussed the book he was reading, the litter of pups his dog was expecting, his disgusting little brother. Chaol seemed to sour at the mention of Holland.

Soon they were provided with fresh drinks, and Aelin ushered them out under the pretense of needing a nap. Definitely not a lie. Her stomach was rolling again, and that blooming headache was now a whole damn rosebush in her brain.

Rubbing the knot between her eyes, she made the difficult decision of closing for the day. Business was slow. Lysandra hadn't come back downstairs. Aelin wasn't feeling well, and there was no chance she was letting Aedion use her precious machines again.

Aelin looked outside the window. It was grey and dreary outside. Perfect conditions for the three of them to order pizza, rent a movie and just put this day behind them.

"Aedion, I'm closing up." She didn't hear a reply. Aelin shrugged it off. He'd probably gone back up to sit with Lysandra.

She opened a can of coffee grounds and inhaled wistfully. What she wouldn't give for a cup of straight caffeine. With one last longing sniff, Aelin refilled canisters for tomorrow and got to cleaning up the machines.

All that was left was to close up the registers.

She'd just unlocked the drawer when the ring of the shop bells went off.

"Sorry, we're closed," Aelin said without looking away from the task at hand. She would have to remember to lock the doors first next time.

Heavy boots thudded against her wooden floors as whoever it was approached the counter. Her irritation peeked. What was with the influx of entitled assholes lately?

"We are close-" Aelin's stopped and her eyes narrowed at the gun barrel aimed at the center of her forehead.

I’m figuring out how the tagging list thing works- ☺️

If you would like me to add or take your name off the list for future updates let me know~

@thisismylibrary

@highladywhitethrone

@bee55

@royalsqueeze

@rowaelin-cressworth

@sjmships

#aelinandrowan #poorlysandra #sexyapronaedion #aelinneedsadamnnap #coffeeshopau #fanfic #suspenseintensifies

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soundsof71 · 4 years

Note

for the album thing: born in the usa :)

I could write a book about any of Bruce’s records from Born To Run to Born In The USA. I did in fact write my grad school thesis using Nebraska as the hook: ”Vehicles of Grace: Automobile Imagery and Salvation in the works of Bruce Springsteen and Flannery O’Connor” LOL which is one million percent true.

In fact, I bought Nebraska on my first day of class in grad school (a whole story by itself), and BITUSA came out as I was finishing my coursework two years later. It’s hard to overstate how hard this one hit, but my reaction was kind of complicated, so I’ll tell ya all about it.

the first song from this album I heard: “Dancing In The Dark”, which came out as a single before the album. Followed immediately by “Pink Cadillac”, its b-side. We played the SHIT out of that song in particular, far more than the A side, and were dumbfounded that it wasn’t on the album.

do I own the album?: Obvs, but there’s a story. Of course. My girlfriend and I bought it on vinyl the day it came out in June (we weren’t married yet, but we’d merged our record collections the previous year LOL), then for my birthday in August, she bought me a CD player for like $800 (they were expensive as FUCK when they first came out -- and $800 was even more of a fuckton of money back in those days, especially for a couple of grad students), with one CD, Born In The USA. That one CD was more than reason enough to spend the dough on a player.

I still have that CD, along with the ticket for show where we saw Bruce on our honeymoon in England, at St. James Park in Newcastle, in June 1985. He’d just gotten married too (the first time), which is a whole ‘nother story too. Oh, and I still have the sweatshirt from that show! I'll post a picture of all this some time.

my favorite song: Wellll....here’s where it gets kinda complicated. Bruce had a notoriously hard time picking songs for the record. He’d recorded something like 50 songs for the album, and once he cut the list to 30 or so, he kept asking people he trusted to pick THEIR favorite running order. (Dave Marsh talked about this in his book Glory Days: Bruce Springsteen in the 1980s, and I haven’t heard it much discussed since then.) It’s hard to argue with the finished results, but you know what? I kinda do, still, all these years later. LOL

My favorite song OF the album, no question, is “Shut Out The Light”. (Check my tag for this song to hear some more about it.) It was first released as the b-side to the 7 inch single of “Born In The USA” (remarkably, the third single from the record), and wouldn’t show up on CD until 1998 on the Tracks anthology. Tracks was 4 CDs in all (should probably have been 6 discs, and COULD have been 10), but I bought the whole thing for THIS.

youtube

My favorite song ON the album: “Downbound Train.”

my least favorite song: “Darlington County”.

a song I didn’t like at first, but now do: “Dancing In The Dark”. I’m not alone in this. Miami Steve famously HATED the song at first, and only came to appreciate it after years of playing it live. I still remember never more eagerly anticipating an album in my life, and never being more upset by the advance single. I was devastated.

Here’s why. Born to Run came out when I was 15. “Gotta get out while we’re young!” The romance of escape, with the last two songs, still grandly romantic, hinting at its costs.

Darkness came out when I was 17. Narrator: “They did not escape.” LOL Ghosts, bitterness, compulsion, cursed by God. His estranged wife’s eyes “filed with hate for just being born”, while “Tonight I’ll be on that hill ‘cause I can’t stop.”

The closest thing to hope: a whispered “Tonight my baby and me are gonna ride to the sea / and wash these sins from our hands.” I was a senior in high school and the dream was already dead. Awesome. LOL

The River came out when I was 20. The only hope is domesticity. Too bad that it’s suffocating and you’ll fuck it up. LOL Want to wash the sins from your hands? Sorry, the river is dry. “Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true / Or is it something worse./ that sends me down to the river?” Yikes!

The shows for this album were astounding. The album was soooo much darker than it first appeared, and the catharsis in the performance was rewarding, sure, but almost unbearable. You were left broken and crawling by the end of the night. In a good way. LOL

Nebraska came out when I was 22. Murder, mental illness, ghosts, more murder, compulsion, and as a treat, a little more murder. LOL

The one song I couldn’t stand was “Reason To Believe”, because I didn’t believe there was one, and I didn’t believe he did either. But boy did I love the album as a whole. Like I said, my grad school thesis started here, because I had too much to say about Nebraska and the sweep of Bruce’s literary roots and spiritual impulses NOT to write about it.

(Not shockingly in retrospect, and a blessing for us all that he went through with it and is still at it, but Bruce’s therapy started here too.)

So from 1975 to 1984, things got darker and darker and darker. It was beautiful. LOL And hey, this was MY LIFE we’re talking about, too! From 15 to 24, I was listening to Born To Run, Darkness, The River, and Nebraska practically on a loop, and the more hopeful stuff was becoming less and less resonant.

Sure, there was Rosalita and Thunder Road and Badlands, plenty of dancing and pumping fists, but I was dwelling in darkness, and living for it. On my best days, I was wounded, not even dead LOL but I barely listened to Born to Run by the end of this span. It was mostly Darkness and Nebraska.

I couldn’t wait to hear what was coming after the highest body count in recorded history on that album. LOL I knew it wouldn’t be acoustic again, but man, he was cutting closer and closer to the bone each time out. How much farther could he possibly go?

And it was....Dancing In The Dark? What the actual FUCK? Practically fucking disco or something? WHA....? I loved dance music, especially in the 80s, but I didn’t need it from Bruce. I had that from other people. Oh well, at least the b-side was cool, so maybe the album won’t bite. LOL BUT THEN PINK CADILLAC WASN’T ON THE ALBUM. FUCK.

The album didn't bite, of course, but it took a looooong time to get over this huge dual disappointment of a chirpy disco single by an artist I barely recognized, and whom I now felt I could no longer trust to manage his own creative mission.

My wife wrapped her head around it first (as is usually the case LOL). She dug it as the closest Bruce had yet come to putting his actual self in a song. The narrator is a writer, anyway, unlike every other song he’d ever written about jobs he never held for a single second (an observation that would form the bedrock of Springsteen on Broadway 40 years later).

Now, I totally dig it. If you’re naughty enough, I might even post my ukulele cover of Dancing In The Dark. LOL

a song I used to like, but now don’t: None. The songs I loved, which is most of ‘em honestly, I still do. Everything about this album has gotten better with time for me, and nothing about it has gotten less so.

my favorite lyric:

From “Shut Out The Light”: Oh mama mama mama come quick I've got the shakes and I'm gonna be sick Throw your arms around me in the cold dark night Hey now mama don't shut out the light

From “Downbound Train” The room was dark. Our bed was empty Then I heard that long whistle whine And I dropped to my knees, hung my head, and cried

Bruce was gonna try to give me a happier record, but I was having none of it. LOL

For the record, “Downbound Train” is my wife’s favorite track on the record by FAR, at least partly because it sounds like a band version of a song that could have followed Nebraska. I prefer Shut Out The Light because I heard the story of my own mental illness in it for the first time, but yeah, Downbound Train is amazing.

I only saw it live once at the time (in Newcastle, June 4, ‘85), but it really comes to live onstage -- true for all of Bruce of course, but this album more than any other imo.

youtube

overall rating out of 10: Then: 8. Now: 9.2. The shows were unbelievably good (we saw three shows in three different countries on that tour) and it sold a buttload, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that after the run of Darkness - The River - Nebraska, that this was a missed opportunity at best.

Time and distance heals all LOL and I now love it. Not more than the four before it, but more than anything since. A masterpiece, by any standard.

#bruce springsteen #born in the usa #shut out the light #dancing in the dark #nebraska #ask #essay #downbound train #darkness on the edge of town #Anonymous #youtube

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xmint-conditionx · 4 years

Text

☆ flanked ☆ prologue | knj

(verb) flank -

guard or strengthen (a military force or position) from the side.

attack down or from the sides, or rake with gunfire from the sides.

☆ pairing: soldier!namjoon x widow!reader; namjoon x fem!reader ☆ word count: 2K ☆ summary: you’re a recently widowed military spouse who is stationed at camp walker, south korea. you’re dealing with the tragedy of your husband’s recent death, and in the process, you accidentally meet a k-pop idol you’ve had a crush on for years. who knew you’d both be at the same post while he’s doing his compulsory service? who knew he’d be so damn nice? who knew it would be impossible to get him out of your head? ☆ warnings: mentions of death, public embarrassment, military death, adult language ☆ a/n: hey everyone c:i’m really happy to be reuploading this fic; i’m going to set a goal of updating it once a month. this is my baby, and i want to do it right, so if it doesn’t come as predictably as i want it to, apologies in advance, but i really hope you enjoy what i have!

this fic starts of intense and will only get more intense. i very much recommend double checking the warnings list because there’s gonna be some pretty heavy stuff in the prologue here and going forward. please do keep in mind that this is purely fiction and i do not want (most of) this to actually happen to anyone. it won’t all be sad though, promise! i mean it’s namjoon we’re talking about: the biggest goofball on the planet. there will be eventual smut, but we have to build up to it, now don’t we? thanks luv, enjoy!

Here you are, in the quaint little convenience store and dry cleaning shop right outside of post, on just another cloudy Winter Wednesday. However, today is a little different, because you have made it to the front of the line and have begun violently crying. Not one of those shedding a single tear cries, but a terrible cry that has taken hold of your entire body. A shaking, snot-faucet, fist-clenching cry. Nothing truly lamentable has happened, except for an inability to recall the Korean word for receipt. You’ve lived at Camp Walker for just shy of two years, so it’s safe to say your ineffectiveness in vocalizing your needs isn’t for lack of knowledge. Despite your quickly-grasped and quite thorough knowledge of the language, the overwhelming sadness and anger you possess about your situation somehow has evaporated away all your Hangul proficiency. Which has left you looking utterly incompetent. Of course a breakdown is in order. All you needed to do was pick up your dead husband’s dress blues for fucks sake, but you can’t remember how to speak and now you’re embarrassing yourself and wasting this poor lady’s time and why does this have to be so goddamn difficult.

The people behind you in line are now beginning to stare in a strange mix of confusion, concern, irritation, and apprehension. Perfect. You exit the line and begin sputtering out desperate attempts at the lost word, so entirely wrapped up in your own stupid brain that you fail to register the approach of a tall man in an American style ACU. A deep and calm voice eases out of the truly tree-sized man in front of you.

“Ma’am, do you need some help?” he asks.

Your vision is tear-ruined and the last thing you want is pity. Pity is exhausting.

“Oh, you’re gonna help the poor little sad girl, huh?” you spit out at him, not even bothering to look up, “just tell me the fucking word for receipt please. That’s all I need.”

Despite your downright rudeness, the man replies without hesitation. “Yeongsujeung. Are you sure that’s all I can help you with?” You look over towards the counter to see that the lady has begun helping other customers, and you really aren’t looking forward to waiting in line again. No pity, you remind yourself, so you shake your head at the man and meekly muster out a “gamsahabnida” as you stare at the floor, too embarrassed at your lack of composure to make eye contact with your new acquaintance.

He just sighs and says, “Ma’am, would you mind if I stood in line for you? It might feel good if you sat down for a minute. I promise it’s not a hassle. I’m here to get my dry cleaning too.”

Jesus Christ, what is this guy? Some kind of mind reader? Who is that observant? Or are you just that obvious? You really, really don’t want more help. That’s all people have been trying to do for the past week. Coming by your house with food, offering to walk your dog, so many informational pamphlets about therapy, every person saying that they can be a listening ear if you need it. But you don’t. You just want to be left alone already. Nothing anyone has said has been comforting, because they don’t actually know what it’s like. They just don’t get it. And it’s nice that they want to help and are actually trying, but fuck. It mostly just makes things worse. But your head hurts from the exertion of crying, and that’s all it takes to convince you that you might actually want to sit down.

You wipe your eyes and finally feel like you’re allowed to really breathe again. You look up at the kind man to thank him once more, this time more sincerely, and in that instant, you’re sure you’ve gone insane. That’s got to be it. The death of your husband has thrown you completely off your rocker. That’s the only explanation for what stands before you. You’ve finally had a full psychotic break and are currently hallucinating in the corner store. You’d honestly burst out laughing if your throat wasn’t raw, because standing in front of you is a man who looks remarkably like Kim Namjoon.

You haven’t thought about this man in years, and his dark shorter haircut instead of his usual longer locks is probably the most confusing matter about the whole thing, oddly enough. You recall in your mind the photocard you have of him from when you bought one of their albums several years ago. The luscious long blonde hair in the photo is shockingly different to the style that he’s sporting now. If it weren’t for his signature dimple greeting you alongside his small sincere grin, you’d almost have never recognized him.

Oh my god. And now you’re standing in front of him, and he’s standing in front of you, and he’s so much taller than you thought he would be, and you’re having a meltdown in a cornerstore, and he’s so much more handsome in person, and now you’re staring into each other's eyes and this can’t be happening.

It can’t really be him. You’ve just gone completely mental. You know the leader of BTS began his compulsory military service about a year and a half ago, but the chances of you crossing paths is still nearly impossible. You begin to tell yourself that he’s just a doppelgänger and your recent distress and suffering has made your brain desperate for serotonin. It can’t really be him. You’re just crazy now. That would be easier to deal with, at least.

You half don’t believe it’s him and half don’t want to believe it’s him. If it is him, you sure as hell don’t want to make the interaction any more weird than it’s already been. If it’s not him, you’d only be embarrassing yourself further. The best, and really, only course of action to take at this point, because you absolutely do not trust your words, is just to nod your head and avert your gaze as you walk to the little bench by the door. You try to focus your thoughts on literally anything other than your brain’s manifestation of a pop star. It almost doesn’t happen, but as peace comes, you mentally thank yourself for your long-time practice of mindfulness. It would have been an impossible task had you never done this before. By the time he gets to the front, you’ve successfully managed to calm down and focus on your breathing. You’ve got yourself convinced the man simply looks similar to Namjoon, and that’s it. Nothing to get worked up about.

As you rejoin the man, he greets you with another warm grin and gestures to the counter. Shit. Are you ready to talk again? He’s insisting you go first, and you notice the little dimple poke out again. His lips are so… pillowy. Oh god, are you staring? You shake loose of his grasp on you and in practically perfect Korean, apologize to the lady for before, tell her the last name and details on the order, and tell her you’re sorry about misplacing the receipt from drop off with the order number on it because it’s... been a really long week. She nods, seeming relieved you didn’t burst into tears again and goes in the back to search for your items.

The tall serviceman next to you now speaks to you in Korean. “That was impressive. You’ve been here for a long time?”

“Only two years.”

“Well I suppose you really didn’t need my help then,” he says and chuckles a little. “I’m glad to see sitting down was able to help you relax.”

The lady hands over the dry cleaning and you thank her. As you pay, tears begin to swell in your eyes again. You’re holding the things your husband will be buried in. You can’t stop yourself from picturing it all… the funeral, his cold body, whether you’ll have to hold a closed casket ceremony, his poor mom, how long the receiving line is going to be, whether he would want flowers or not, wondering if you’ll be able to put his little award stripes on his suit jacket in the right order or if you’re going to have to get help… again.

Being so wrapped up in your thoughts, you don’t notice your new acquaintance giving the lady his ticket. He turns to you after she’s walked in the back.

“Lucky husband, getting his dress uniform picked up for him. You really know how to spoil a man, huh?” The seemingly innocent comment shoots fire through your veins. The woman returns with his dry cleaning and they go through payment as you let the anger boil inside of you. He is oblivious to the metaphorical bombs going off inside your body. You stare a hole into the man’s head as you spit out “My husband is fucking dead.”

You turn to leave and don’t look back, not giving him a chance to process your revelation. He makes the connection a moment too late, but he’s quick to catch up with you in the parking lot, this time speaking English. “Ma’am please let me apologize. I didn’t realize...”

You continue walking to your car; you don’t want to look at him again. “I don’t need an apology from you. It doesn’t matter.”

“Please, I had no idea. I was trying to make small talk; I never would have said that-“

You whir around and glare at him. You were done. “I get it, okay? Just stop feeling sorry for me already. I’m tired of it. Thank you for waiting in line for me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a fucking funeral to plan.” The words come flying out and with each new sentence, you see him recoil again and again. His eyes are full of remorse and... understanding? You hold his gaze longer than you wanted to, and time stands still. What are you doing?

You’re fumbling with your keys, trying to manage the electronic key fob to unlock your car. He takes this opportunity to scribble some words and numbers on a paper he has clumsily fished out of one of his many uniform pockets and extends it out to you. Is he really trying to give you his number right now?! You’d be really flattered that a man this attractive is making a pass at you, if you hadn’t, you know, just told him your husband fucking died. You furrow your brows and roll your eyes, ready to chew him out again.

“Here, this is the name and address for a group therapy session on post for people who have gone through recent loss. We meet on Thursdays. I don’t know how much longer you’ll be in Korea, but you’d be welcome. I promise.”

You just stare at him dumbly, unable to process this information. Therapy? You’d been given so many pamphlets on loss that it made your head spin. The only thing that thoughts of therapy has done for you in the past week has brought up terrible associations.

“Please. Take it.”

His eyes are pleading. You can’t bear to see the desperation any longer. Breaking away from his heavy gaze, you take the scrap of paper. With one last thank you, you get in your sedan, throw the dry cleaning into the passenger seat, and lock the doors.

With your head in your hands, you start to cry again. Why do you have to be so mean? Thinking of the man, you turn to look in the rear-view mirror with a gentle hope that he’s still behind your car. You don’t know why you’re disappointed when he isn’t.

Thursday is tomorrow. You can make it until then.

#bts smut #bts imagines #namjoon x you #namjoon x reader #namjoon smut #soldier!namjoon #military!au #idol!namjoon #bts fanfiction #bts fanfic #bts fic

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en-chantant · 4 years

Text

My dog was the best thing I had in my life and now he's also gone. I grew up with him always by my side and I have never loved anything as much as I loved him. He was my little everything. Whenever I felt bad, he was always there, he always supported me with his company and I'd never know if he felt how much I loved him. I loved him with my whole fucking heart but I still feel I could've done more, that I could've tried harder, that I should've stood by his side more.

He was always there for me and I don't know if I was actually always there for him. I tried my best. I did. But I should've been better, I should've tried harder. I watched him die. Slowly. Piece by piece. I wonder how much it hurt for him, I wish I could've saved him. I wish he knew I wanted to do even the impossible to ease his pain.

Chronic kidney disease. It killed my baby. The deepest love I've ever felt. I saw how he lost weight, I saw how he started vomiting, more and more often each time. I saw how he started waking up at night to cry. I wish I could've felt his pain so that he didn't. I saw how he stopped running, how he stopped barking. I saw how he stopped being happy, how he stopped being himself.

I remember looking at his eyes and seeing sadness, I remember I even had the impression he was crying. Chronic heart disease. It also killed my little everything. Breathing became harder and harder, I remember holding him in my arms and not being sure if he was still breathing. I saw how he stopped breathing normally, I heard how he would always breathe weirdly.

I had faith he would get better, I had never been more hopeful. Every night I stood awake to help him, sometimes he would fall asleep and I would keep looking at him wishing he would feel better, wishing I could do better for him. Sometimes I would fall asleep holding his paw so that he felt I was there for him. After two months I was completely exhausted but I still wanted to do everything within my power. For a while he felt better and I thought everything would be fine. But it didn't.

I saw how eating became harder and harder for him. I saw how he stopped eating his favorite food, and I tried my best to get him to eat but it was always harder. He was always nauseous. Though he was strong, sometimes he would eat even when he was poorly breathing or even after bleeding. My little warrior. He deserved better.

I saw how walking became harder and harder, he would try to walk and he would fall on his paws. Standing up also became harder and hurtful, I remember I had to help him to make sure he would not fall. I eventually became too afraid to leave him alone for even one second. I stood with him every single minute of the day. I stopped my life so that I could take care of him and now I wish I would have stopped my life sooner. He deserved better. He was so little and yet he was so strong.

Benign prostatic hyperplasia. Arthrosis. They were also really hurtful for him. With all of that torture, a tumor was finally found. I remember when I was holding him while the vet was doing the exam and she said there was something inside his belly that shouldn't be there. I remember how I started shaking and thought desperately "Please. Please. Don't be a tumor. It can't be. Don't be a tumor. Please". Breathing became harder for me at the single idea of a tumor. I waited in silence for what could have been a lifetime until she said it was a tumor. He cried when she touched him right where the tumor was.

I remember she explained it was impossible to know if the tumor was inside or outside his kidney because his chronic kidney disease was so advanced it was impossible to even see his kidneys. I remember how she said that it was as if there were no kidneys at all. I remember how I was even unable to reply as she explained. I barely and poorly found enough words to ask what I already knew. There was no treatment for his tumor, it didn't matter whether it was benign or not. His chronic kidney disease didn't give room for any treatment. He was even unable to take meds for his pain.

I remember how she explained that the tumor would grow, how much it would hurt him and how it would drain blood from his body and that his heart wouldn't be able to produce enough blood, even less with his heart chronic disease.

The tumor and the prostatic hyperplasia had made him bled and she said it would go on. He would keep bleeding. I remember how she told me once again that I had to consider letting him go. Putting him down.

I remember how I came home to cry my heart out. I remember how badly I wanted to find an answer. I didn't even have time to cry because he was waiting for me. He needed my help so I gathered my shattered heart and promised myself it didn't matter how much it hurt me nor how much pain I felt. The only thing that mattered to me was my hugest love.

I remember how I had to remind myself many times that I didn't matter, that my pain didn't matter at all. I even feel guilty I slept. I was so tired I would fall asleep without even realizing it but I shouldn't have slept at all when I knew he would be gone. I was weak and selfish.

Intravenous therapy was also a torture for him. His veins were so thin and dehydrated it would always end up bad. I remember the first time I had to take the needle out because it was a Sunday night, it was hurting him a lot and the vet told me to do it myself. I remember how I had to hold him while he screamed his lungs out and tried to run away, so that I could take the needle out of his vein. He screamed but he also cried his heart out. I could feel how much it hurt him and that he didn't know if I had produced him that much pain. It went on. I had to force him over and over again, there were always more and more needles, he would always need them but it would always hurt. Sometimes he would hide himself so that I couldn't hurt him anymore.

I would always have to force him, "one more, my little love, this will make you feel better", I would say. But he never felt any better. I remember how he would refuse walking at all when the needle on his paw would hurt badly. I remember how his paw would become swollen when the intravenous didn't work anymore and I didn't realize it sooner.

I was always forced to take medical decisions at home when I didn't have the slightest idea of what the best for him was. I had to learn how to treat him with the intravenous, I had to inject meds directly to his vein while knowing that if I made a single mistake his heart would stop and that it would be my fault. I also had to force him to eat when he would spend hours refusing food.

My little love. I will never have words to tell you how sorry I am for all the things I had to force on you. I remember the exact moment when I realized I had to let you go. I was too afraid of what could happen next, I was too afraid to see a new day because I knew it would bring more pain for you and that I was unable to help you.

The only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted your pain to stop more than I have ever wanted anything else in my whole life. I remember holding you and promising you that I would only think of you, that you would rest even if you took my heart with you when you left. You were so dehydrated and became so weak, I was incredibly afraid something terrible would arrive at any second. It didn't matter how many fluids I tried to put into your blood to clean it, it was never enough.

I saw how the fever burned your little body down, it didn't matter how many antibiotics I tried, they were never enough. The fever would go on. I saw how your paws would shake as well as your body and how you would get scared about it. Sometimes you would cry so slow I wouldn't be sure if you were crying or doing a different noise.

My heart stopped beating at the same moment that yours did. I decided to put you down because I wanted to avoid the pain that tomorrow would have brought you, but I still feel I didn't have the right to choose over your life. It is consuming me. I decided you would die. Even when I would have died to save your life, I couldn't do anything.

I wish I could've taken all your illnesses away, I would've gladly suffered them myself so that you didn't. Your soul was pure and innocent.

I know you trusted me, and I looked at your eyes and decided you'd die. You died looking at my face and I never forget the exact moment when you stopped breathing. When the vet said you were gone I cried my heart out while I held your lifeless body. I wanted to believe it was a nightmare and that you'd wake up. I feel like a lifeless body ever since. I remember how broken I felt while I carried your lifeless body to bury you, I cried my heart out every single moment.

I wasn't ready to see how you'd disappear forever. I wasn't ready to know I'd never see your little body again. I tore myself to pieces and cried over your grave for hours. I didn't want to move. I didn't want to leave you behind. I kissed your lifeless body when I carried you for the last time and I felt with my lips how it had already changed and it destroyed my heart more than I could have possibly ever imagined. I remember the exact moment when I touched your head for the last time and I also remember the exact moment when your body was completely covered and I knew I would never see you again.

It's been 11 days. Being in my house became a torture. Looking at the place where I had to put you down hurts more than being set on fire. You're everywhere I go and you're in everything I see.

My angel. I love you more than words can express and I wish with all my heart that I could have given my life for yours.

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