#please don’t disappear because children cry when it happens

[sincericida]

ANDREW GARFIELD with friends - Florence Pugh, Vito Schnabel... (new pic)

(X)

[rapz-rites]

Demon Spawns

Damian Wayne x Powered!Fem!Reader

When your’s and Damians future kids come to the present

A/N: Inspired by @cipheress-to-k-pop version of this. Please give me some feedback, it’s always appreciated :3

Word Count: 2500+

Warnings: mentions of a miscarriage, was lightly proofread and revised

Future

-Honestly, it’s not Mar’i’s fault

-You needed someone to watch the twins as you and damian had to go away on a business trip for a few dayside hours hours and I

-Mar’i eagerly accepted

-Yes, she knew she wasn’t supposed to bring the twins to the cave but she didn’t think this would happen

-The worst she expected was that they broke on of Tim’s gadgets

-She didn’t expect them to accidentally send themselves to the future

-You were going to kill her

-Mar’i did the only thing she could think of at the moment, call her best friend, White Rabbit, aka Lian Harper, to help her get them back

Present

- You and Damian had been dating for a year already

-You really loved him

-After 3 years of knowing him and 2 months of dating, it was only a matter of time until you both found out about each other

-Damian being Robin didn’t entirely surprise you, it just made a lot of sense

-The constant disappearing, the odd phone calls, the weird excuses

-At least he wasn’t cheating (Damian would NEVER cheat)

-Growing up adopted you never knew your birth parents, just that they had to have been metas because you have powers

-You had powers like Kori and more, you even kind of looked like her

-People joked that you could have been her daughter before she came to Earth

-Those jokes make her uncomfortable

-You thought everything about her was interesting: she’s heir to the thrown on Tamaran, her sister sold her, she’s been married 4 other times, and even the fact that she 9 stomachs

-Today was a normal day at the Manor

-Everyone was just chilling in the BatCave

-Bruce and Tim were working on a case on the BatComputer

-To you, everything in the BatCave started with a ‘Bat’

-BatKeys

-BatSeat

-Your secret name for Alfred was Batler (Bat + Butler )

-Dick and Kori we flirting talking by the weapons

-And you were watching Damian train with Jason

-Watching Damian train was one of your favorite pastimes whenever you were in the cave

-Suddenly a bright light purple light flashed in the middle of the cave, right between Damian and Jason as they were jumping to attack each other,

-The light startled them, causing then the jump back

-All the heroes prepared themselves in a fighting stance

-Next thing everyone knew, two small babies, a girl and boy, were in the middle of the cave

-They looked like they could be twins, but you couldn’t say for certain from where you were standing

- Everyone was surprised, two random babies just appeared out of nowhere

-“Aye, Big Bat. Bet you don’t have a protocol for this, do ya?” Jason says trying to break the silence

-The two babies looked around confused

-They couldn’t be older than a 9 months

-Last they checked they were with Mar’i in the BatCave, now they were in the BatCave with strangers they didn’t recognize

-BOOM, waterworks

-“I’ll go and get Alfred” Tim said dashing up the stairs

-Everyone knew he was probably the least qualified to deal with children, mainly because he’s always sleep deprived

-Naturally the two most recent parents went and scooped one up

-“How did they get here?” Dick asked rocking the girl in his arms

-They both calmed down a bit looking at the person holding them and back at each other and back at the adult

-They stopped crying, but were still fussing

-“While they’re like this let’s get saliva for a DNA test to find out who their parents are”

-Bruce took two swabs and collected saliva from each of the babies

-After, Dick and Kori passed the babies around to see if anyone could calm them down

-It wasn’t until Bruce handed you the little boy that he stopped crying, cooing in your arms and little hands reaching for your face

-Jason stopped, looked at Damian, and questioned if it would be the best idea to hand a baby to him

-“Is handing Damian a crying baby the best idea?”

-“Probably not, but it’s the only idea we have” Dick responded

-Handing the baby girl to Damian, she looked at him and stopped fussing, smiling at the face in front of her

-“Never thought I’d see the day” Jason chuckled

-“What do you think their names are?” Kori asked gaining everyone’s attention

-“How about we get in a circle, go in a circle calling out random names and see who they go to” you spoke

-Everyone nodded and hummed in agreement

-You and Damian placed the babies on the floor jointing everyone else in the circle

-Before you could call the first name, a voice interrupted you

-“After this game, I believe you will be needed these”

-The voice belonging to none other than Alfred said

-Tim decided to join the circle at that point

-“Thank you” you called out

-Alfred gave you a small smile and nod before heading up the stairs

-You all started with your little game ‘Name the Babe’

-“Makayla”

-“Isaiah”

-“Nick”

-“Elizabeth”

-After 5 minutes of calling names and receiving no reaction from the babies, a ding

-It was from the BatComputer, signaling the results from the DNA test

-Dick and Kori

-Bruce opened the test and everyone had a face mixed with shock and confusion

-Under ‘FATHER’ was a picture of Damian

-”The Demon spawn had a spawn.”

-Under ‘MOTHER’ was a question mark and underneath it was ‘match not found’

-You turned to Damian with a look a shock, confusion, and… betrayal and one that said ‘please don’t tell me you cheated on me’

-Damian took a step towards you, and you took a step back

-You rushed up the stairs heading into the manor

-Damian rushed after you

-“This makes no sense. Damian has only ever been with anyone other than YN and Raven”

-“And he’s not the type for random hookups”

-Bruce checked the database and noticed he didn’t have yours or Ravens DNA in the system

-“Kori contact Raven and have her come to the BatCave”

-“Bart!” Tim shouted

-“What? Haven’t you been paying attention, Damian is the father not Bart” Jason retorted

-“I know that! But Bart’s from the future. Who says the babies can’t be too?”

-Back in the manor, Damian was looking all over for you

-Your car was still parked in front, so you were somewhere in the manor

-Fifteen minutes later Damian found you on his bed, facing the window, looking at the garden

-You’ve always loved how Damian’s room faced the garden

-He slowly walks towards you until he’s also on the bed

-“Beloved-”

-“I was pregnant”

-“What? When?”

-“Four months ago. I lost the baby early on, I didn’t even know until I went to the ER. I thought it was food poisoning from that Thai place I went to with Steph and Cass, but they told me I had a miscarriage. I was 3 weeks”

-“Why didn’t you tell me?”

-“I didn’t know how and I was somewhat relieved. I always told myself I’d wait until I was married to have kids. Also we can’t raise a kid now Dami. We’re only 21 and you work in a dangerous field.”

-You put your foreheads together, caressing his cheek with your hand

-Damian just wrapped his arms around you, pulling you down, forcing you to lay with him and you accepted his embrace

-“Todd messaged me”

-“What did he say”

-“Tim come to the conclusion that the babies most likely came from the future and father doesn’t have yours or Raven’s DNA is the system, Raven is on her way so they can run the test again”

-“And if they’re not mine”

-“Let’s not worry about that right now”

-After an hour of silence and Damian just holding you, you both make your way back to the BatCave hand in hand

-Raven, and even some League members, are now there too

-“Can I see the little ones” Diana asked with a smile on her face

-She has always had a soft spot for children

-“Careful. She just ate” Kori informed her, handing Baby Girl over

-While you and Damian were gone, Tim made the executive decision to call them Baby Girl and Baby Boy until the mother was determined

-“Awww, so precious”

-The Themyscrian rocking the small baby in her arms

-Baby Girl soon became fussy, most likely from Diana’s cuffs

-Diana handed the baby off to Raven

-It made sense

-We were here to see if you or Raven would be their mother (yk that motherly connection)

-Once Baby Girl was in Ravens arms she quickly calmed down, almost as quickly as she did with Damian

-You didn’t show it, but you felt a pang in your heart

-Damian just squeezed your hand lightly but you couldn’t take your eyes off Raven and Baby Girl

-Bruce spoke up, breaking you out of your trance

-“I need both of you to get a good saliva swab”

-You and Raven both did as told

-“Here. My arms are getting numb” Dick says handing Baby Boy to you

-You smile at the tiny human in your arms

-After 10 of waiting, a BatComputer dinged

-Bruce went to open the results

-Damian standing right behind him, and you and Raven on each side of him

-On the screen where a picture of the babies

-When did they take that picture?

-The babies were at the bottom middle and above them was the same picture of Damian as earlier and under ‘MOTHER’ was a picture of…

-You

-WAIT! How did they get that picture?

-You were too happy to question that

-“Happy to say that Baby Girl and Baby Boy are Y/N’s and Damian’s ”

-“Thank Azarath”

-You laughed at Raven, she pulls you into a hug

-“These babies are so adorable but I don’t think I’m cut out to be a mother. I’ll gladly babysit though”

-“Wait. You guys have been calling them Baby Girl and Baby Boy?”

-No one other than Wally West would ask that question

-“Come one. You can think of something better to call them”

-Before you could say something, Damian stepped in

-“Actually we already know their names”

-You smiled

-You handed Baby Boy to Damian

-“This is Soren Jackson Wayne”

-“Jackson after Drake”

-You walked over to Raven, who was holding a sleeping Baby Girl, and picked her up

-“And my gorgeous daughter. You are Jaylena Mariah Wayne. Jaylena inspired after Jason but means blue crested bird aka Nightwing. For that time you both saved me”

-You and Damian make eye contact not breaking it even when the others spoke

-Dick and Jason both smiled

-Jason punched Roy’s side

-”See that. Demon spawn named his spawn after me”

-“Don’t worry father we plan on naming the next ones after your mother and father”

-You looked away quickly,

-Bruce had a shocked look on his face

-“There’s going to be more?!”

-Jason could already see it: A demon army

-Suddenly another bright light flashed in the middle of the BatCave

-Everyone but you and Damian had a fight stance ready

-Bruce and Dick stood in front of you and Damian

-Two people now stood in the middle of the BatCave, they looked like vigilantes

-One was dressed in all white, with a matching white masked with bunny ears falling along her wavy ginger hair

-The other, well anyone could tell who she was

-Mar’i Grayson

-“Hi mom. Hi daddy”

-The girl in all white removed her mask as she walked towards Roy giving him a big hug

-“Hi dad”

-It was obvious to say that Dick, Kori, and Roy were baffled

-It wasn’t even a few hours ago they saw their daughters in the care of Barry and Iris, playing along with the other superhero kids

-Now they were teenagers, vigilantes at that too

-Mar’I was walking towards you with a pleading look

-“Sis”

-Sis?

-Mar’I never called you sis

-She always called you this funny tamaranean name she heard from Kori, it’s supposed to be a pretty flower but dangerous or something

-“I am so so so so so sorryyyyy. I know you told me not to bring them to the BatCave by myself but it was only for a minute to get something. I didn’t think they would get sent to the past. I put Sor and Lena down for a second then boom they’re gone. Please don’t kill me”

-She turns to Kori and Dick

-“Please don’t ground me”

-You step towards her

-“I can tell you didn’t want this to happen and I know my future self will probably get on you for this. So just please, please get my babies home safely”

-Mar’i nodded eagerly as you handed her Jaylena

-“I promise. I really don't want to be on the LoA’s bad side” she chuckles

-Damian looked slightly confused at the remark

-He gave Soren to Lian, staring her down with a look that says ‘drop or hurt my son, I’ll hurt you’

-“Daaaaddd”

-“Stop scaring my daughter Damian”

-“Tt”

-“Anyways… Congrats on your…nevermind” Mar’i stops when she noticed your promise ring that Damian gave you

-Soren looks at Mar’i, reaching for her but found it no use when Lian wouldn’t let him

-He looked upset

-As he started fussing a blue power orb slowly started to form about a foot above him

-Thinking of only your kids safety, you quickly absorbed the energy

-“Our kids have powers?” Damian asked in shock

-Naturally you were in shock too

-You barely knew the full extent of your powers compared to other metas your age, and now at least one of your kids will have them too

-“At the moment only Soren does. He uhm… does that sometimes. So far it only happens when he’s mad or extremely fussy.”

-Lian’s watch starts beeping

-Before she can even open her mouth Mar’i talks

-“We really have to go now”

-Damian walks up next to you, placing a hand on your waist

-“Bye Uncle D. Bye bye sis”

-Again with the sis?

-You and Damian give a small wave goodbye

-Just like that, with a flash, they’re gone

-Everyone goes their respective ways

-Tears start to well in your eyes when it’s just you and Damian in the BatCave

-“Let’s go to bed, Beloved. It’s been a long day”

-You follow him to his room and you both go to sleep

-That night you dream about your future with Damian, Jaylena, and Soren

Back to the Future(hehehe see what i did there)

-“Great! They’re still sleeping. We can get them to bed before Y/N and Damian get home”

-Mar’i was ready for this day to be over

-She knew she would get hell from you and Damian for what happened

-“Oh. We’re home. What happened?”

-Hearing your voice, Lian took that as her que to hand Soren over to Damian and hop out

-Mar’i turns around to see you and Damian dropped head to toe in LoA attire

-“Uncle D. Sis. Back already?”

-Damian walks over to Mar’i also taking Jaylena in his arms

-He walks over to you, with both twins in his arms, placing a kiss on your temple

-“I’ll put them to bed while you deal with Mar’i”

-With that Damián walks up the stairs into the manor

-“Before you blow a fuse, I know I shouldn’t have brought the twins to the Cave but I had no choice. I couldn’t leave them upstairs by themselves. As soon as they flashed to the past I immediately got help to go get them. And I almost ruined your proposal surprise but i didn’t so that’s something. I promise this will never ever EVER happen again”

-“Go home”

-“What?”

-“Go home. It’s late and we’re all tired. We’ll talk tomorrow”

-“Oh ok”

-You retire to yours and Damian’s shared bedroom as Mar’i leaves

-“What did you tell her”

-“To go home and we’ll talk tomorrow. You know she almost ruined your proposal”

-“Not surprised”

-You slip into bed, cuddling up next to Damian, head on his shoulder and his arm wrapped around your waist

-You bring your left hand up admiring your engagement and wedding rings

-“It was a great proposal”

-“Damn right it was”

-You chuckled

-You look up at a sleeping Damian, admiring the man he grew to be

-Physically he’s always been attractive, but he grew mentally and emotionally

-He wasn’t the same boy who entered the manor when he was 10, emotionally and mentally detached from everyone, doors and windows shut to everyone, stubborn as a mule

- Actually, Damian will always be stubborn

- You both grew to care deeply for each other

… after writing for about 15-20 minutes I decided I wanted to make a part 2 but of the proposal…😚

I kinda want to make another version, the kid is like a teen. Should I???

Should I write why Mar’i called the reader ‘sis’?? Wouldnt y’all like to know? Do you have any ideas?

[kittenfangirl20]

*it had been a couple years since Adam and Eve were thrown out of Eden for tasting the Forbidden Fruit, they recently had a twin boys together, Cain a boy looked so much like Adam and Abel a boy who looked so much like Eve, the pregnancy was a painful event because Eve claimed that she tricked Adam into taking a bite of the fruit even though he made the choice on his own because he didn’t want to lose someone else he loved because she didn’t want him to be punished, he was woken to the boys crying, he got up because Eve needed her sleep and made his way to where the babies slept and to his shock, Lilith was standing over the small bed Adam made for them, she was still beautiful, but in a twisted way, she now had large red horns coming from her head and large red bat like wings, she wore a crown and a deep purple gown*

Adam: What are you doing here Lilith?

Lilith: In order to be Queen of Hell with my beloved Lucifer, I was cursed to not be able to bear children of my own. Lucifer wants to be a father and I think that these beautiful little babies will be the perfect Princes of Hell. If you love Lucifer like you say, you would be willing to sacrifice them to make him happy.

Adam: Fucking stay away from Cain and Abel!!!!!!!!

Lilith: We definitely have to change their names.

*Adam charged at Lilith and she grabbed him by the wrists, now that she was a demon she had super human strength and Adam screamed while the bones in his wrists were cracking, Lilith held him up by the wrists and slammed him into the ground*

Lilith: Why fight when you can just have more children of your own.

*Lilith started to mercilessly beat him, tears started to fall from Adam’s eyes while he wondered why Lucifer could choose her over him, he hated the fact that he couldn’t protect the wife and children he loved dearly, suddenly the beating stopped and Lilith screamed, even though it hurt to move, he moved himself up a little to see Eve standing over a cowering Lilith, in Eve’s trembling hands was the angelic sword of Michael which he had given to the couple after they had been thrown out of Eden to protect them in case something like this happened, Adam was impressed to see that Eve had snuck up behind Lilith and cut off her wings, since it was angelic steel, the wings would never grow back*

Eve: As my husband said, fucking stay away from Cain and Abel. Also if you lay another hand on the man I love, I will end you and you won’t be able to be reunited with your husband.

Lilith: Fine, I will have a child one way or another. Besides I don’t understand how this hideous creature inspires such loyalty in you, I at least have better taste in men and I am not an imitation of who Adam really wants.

Eve: Lucifer chose you over Adam, I have to question his tastes. I know Adam loves Lucifer and if the world had been fair to Adam, Lucifer would have loved him the same way. But I know that Adam loves me the same way as he loves Lucifer and anyone who is loved by Adam is a very lucky person. I feel sorry for Lucifer when all he has is you when he could have had so much better.

*Lilith just spat at Adam and disappeared, Eve ran to Adam and held him in a way that wouldn’t cause him more pain*

Adam: Eve please know that I love you so much.

*it hurt Adam to speak, but he had to say it*

Eve: Don’t speak, I know how much you love me. Someone please come help Adam, I can’t lose him.

*to the surprise of the couple, one of the Archangels, Raphael, who was a healer came to heal Adam’s wounds, Adam thought that he would have been abandoned by God and the other angels like how Lucifer abandoned him, as he was being healed he wondered if Lucifer told Lilith to steal his babies with Eve because they couldn’t have their own and if Lilith had truly poisoned his first love against him*

[lynzishell]

Prev // Next

Transcript:

Content Warning: The discussion in today's post contains mention of childhood emotional abuse, dissociation, and self harm. Please proceed with caution or skip if needed.

Phoenix: Why don’t you talk to your parents anymore? What happened? Dawn: Nothing happened… Fine, if I tell you, can we never talk about this again? Phoenix: Sure.

Dawn: [pauses briefly to think about how to explain] I don’t like talking about them because I don’t like to remember what it felt like… It’s just that… they didn’t care about us at all. If they did, they never showed it. The ONLY thing they cared about was appearances. We were always expected to look and act a certain way, and I swear I could never get it right. I was too loud and too messy. And when I disappointed them, which was all the time, they would just… ignore me. They wouldn’t look at me or speak to me. It was like I’d cease to exist. It was devastating.

Dawn: When I was little, I didn’t understand, so I would throw massive tantrums trying to get them to acknowledge me. I’d scream and cry and tug on them. Eventually, they’d look at me, but they’d just laugh. Like it was the most hilarious thing they’d ever seen. Atlas never tried that, he shut down early on and would just stay in his room. Eventually, I gave up and did the same. I don’t think they ever really wanted us.

Phoenix: That’s awful. Why would they try so hard to have children if they didn’t want them? Dawn: Because that’s what was expected of them.

Phoenix: Can I ask you one more thing? Dawn: What? Phoenix: The scars on your arm…. Why? Because of them or…?

Dawn: Um, yeah, I guess. It’s hard to explain… Sometimes I would wonder if I was a real person, like I really wasn’t sure. I was always trying to do everything perfectly, to get it right. There was a part of me for a long time that worried if I didn’t, I might actually disappear one day. Not like dying, but just like, ‘poof’ from existence. And I’d get really upset And I’d feel disconnected from myself, like I wasn’t really in my body but outside it, and it was scary. But this [rolling back her sleeve], it helped... I’d feel the sting and see red, and it would bring me back into my body and remind me that I was real. And I’d feel better for a little while.

Dawn: I don’t get it. They’re the only two people in the world who were supposed to love me… unconditionally… like instinctually… and they didn’t. I never understood why. I never understood what was so wrong with me. Phoenix: Nothing. You are the best person I know, Dawn. Just because they clearly don’t have the capacity to love, doesn’t mean you were ever unlovable. I’m glad they’re not in your life anymore. They don’t deserve to be.

Phoenix: I love you so much. I promise, I will do everything I can to make sure you feel loved every single day. Dawn: You already do.

Dawn: Promise me something else? Phoenix: Anything. Dawn: Don’t ever give me the silent treatment, okay? No matter how angry I make you. Phoenix: Never. I promise.

Dawn: Thank you. I love you. Phoenix: I love you too.

[ev-pierce-writes]

Mister Knight

Pairing: Steven Grant x Fem!Reader

Words: 2.4k

Rating: 18+ (get outta here ya children)

Summary: Presumably post-fight Steven needs a little medical attention and a little love as well.

Warnings: oral (I mean....come on). p in v. this is very tame. so tame. sorry. primarily steven being in love with you so if you don't like love (who hurt you?) and you came here for other stuff... we get to it eventually.

AN: I am in love with Steven Grant. I would die for him. I imagine he is a little lost. Please, someone, teach this man how to kiss properly. Also, apologies for disappearing for a while. I happen to be a very stressed very busy very perfectionist aka procrastinating student. I am working on other things. Those other things being a novel and a PhD thesis proposal at the same time. This is my cry for help. Anyway, enjoy.

---

“Stop moving so much.”

Steven hisses in pain. “It hurts. You’re hurting me.”

“Well, you wouldn’t let me take you to a hospital, so this is what you get,” you reply, dabbing at the split across his nose with a cotton ball dipped in rubbing alcohol.

“No, Marc wouldn’t let you take us to a hospital. Don’t blame it on me.”

“This is the last one. Just sit still for one more moment.”

You smooth a plaster over the bridge of his nose as he looks up at your face from his chair. You’ve convinced him to sit long enough for you to stand over him and care for his wounds, but he hasn’t taken his eyes off your face for one moment, not even when they narrowed at the pain, his nose scrunching up at your touch. Like this, he looks diminutive; like this, you know he loves you, even if Marc has trouble saying so.

Steven says it with his whole body, not just his eyes. He’s always leaning toward you, unconsciously into your touch, nearly stumbling over his own feet or sliding right out of his chair. His smile is lopsided, a grin that widens when you laugh and catches your eye from across the room just to make sure you’re having a good time. Steven looks like Marc, and feels like him, mostly, but hunches his shoulders and wrings his hands when he’s nervous. You know he loves you because he lets you hold those hands that he seems so afraid of.

He lets you use those hands. In the shower, you guide his fingers between your legs and into the warmth of your cunt. In bed you grind against the heel of his hand or let them grope you in the dark, placing them on your chest and telling them with your own to squeeze.

Steven is shy. He’s nervous. He wants to touch you so badly it aches but he’s more afraid to do it wrong than he is excited to do it right. At first it was a game of teaching him what to do, now it’s a game of teasing the sensitive man until he’s so devoured by need it overcomes his fear of doing it improperly. You like Steven when he throws caution to the wind, when he loses all sense of correct and incorrect and does what makes him feel good.

But you can’t help but be gentle with the man. Dropping the last bloodied cotton ball on the table, you lift his chin with a finger and give the end of his nose a kiss. The hand of his that rests on his knee, that gripped it tightly through the pain, barely moves, just shifting enough so his fingers brush against the outside of the thigh you have placed between his. It’s absentminded but timid, the farthest his unconscious mind is willing to go without some encouragement.

“I should go,” you say. In reality, you have no reason to go. Tomorrow’s your day off work. The cat has been fed and she couldn’t care less about your presence or absence from the flat. But you want Steven to ask you to stay. You like when he hesitates until the last moment, battling his inner desire with his nervousness, until you’ve collected your purse and have your hand on the doorknob. Every time he makes some new excuse—"it's too late for you to take the bus” or “you’ve had a few drinks, you shouldn’t be walking home alone”—and every time you give in. You know before he asks that you’ll give in.

You don’t really pay attention to tonight’s excuse—something about a morning coffee—as you’re already shutting the door and dropping your purse to the ground again. At this point, you should just move in together, but Steven doesn’t have the guts to ask, and you’re too reluctant to give up this flirting game. You’re afraid the relationship will lose its magic if you do.

It’s a silly fear. If anything, it’ll give you more opportunities to tease him. Maybe it’s the finality of it that scares you most.

Steven lends you a t-shirt, a soft, salmon pink v-neck that was probably bought by Marc, and heads to the washroom while you change. It’s pointed. He’s still too shy to openly watch you get naked. The one time he walked in on you showering he’d apologized for a week.

But it’s the little things, you notice, that he likes best. When you nudge him aside at the sink so you can brush your teeth next to him (you even have a toothbrush at his place for God’s sake), his gaze drops to your breasts in the mirror, like he’s forgotten you can see him in the reflection staring at your nipples beneath the shirt. His methodical brushing slows when you lean against the sink, one hip cocked to the side, your underwear peeking out from beneath the hem, and bare legs crossing in an attempt at a casual manner. Steven does that absentminded thing with his fingers again, brushing them now, lightly, against your bare thigh in a moment of fascination.

Then he recovers his countenance and rushes from the washroom to lay in bed. Steven won’t sleep, at least not much, but you don’t mind. You can fill his restless nights with other things.

He’s fussing at a Rubik’s cube as you emerge from the washroom, solving it and then immediately spinning the faces around afterwards to jumble it all up again, eyes flitting between the colored dots and your figure. You once asked him to teach you how to do it, but it was a process you didn’t have the patience to learn.

“Come, get under the covers,” you say, tugging at the sheet until he wiggles awkwardly beneath it. But it’s enough to drag his attention away from the silly cube and onto you, curling up beside him. His fluttering touch is just a little braver in the dark, a little more solid, a little more roving. It starts on the back of your knee, drawing circles until his fingers meander between your thighs and press into the smooth skin they find there. Without knowing it, Steven has you soaking what was a clean pair of underwear. He doesn’t put any intention behind it, the way he didn’t intend to make contact with your skin while seated at the kitchen table or in front of the bathroom sink. He is only following the path his fingers like best, instinct and subconscious and a little bit of Marc as their guide.

This is how it starts, absentminded, leisurely, hesitant.

Steven’s fingers dance around your backside and across your stomach. You roll away, onto your back, and his body follows, mirroring, matching, leaning forward and over you. His touch chases his gaze, pointer finger dragging over the clothed nipple he gazed at through your reflection. It pebbles beneath his circling finger, and he watches, fascinated, like your body is a mystery to be explored, new each time he sees it. Every night together seems like the first with Steven. He is good, now—oh God, too good—but he hasn’t lost that first-time captivation. You let him explore, let him test and appraise and investigate the physiological changes that overcome you in response to his attention, the quickening heart rate, the shallow breath, the hooded eyes. Your gaze stays on his face, watching the watcher.

Steven takes his job seriously. He hasn’t even reached beneath your shirt—his shirt—to feel your bare skin, simply palms your breast through the soft fabric, squeezing, pinching between forefinger and thumb, rolling. He is archaeologist, discovering, uncovering; he is anthropologist, analyzing, studying. You shudder—it is too much and not enough all at the same time, overwhelming, excruciating, addicting, longing—and he shudders as well, breath stuttering in time with your heart.

“Steven,” you breath his name. He whispers yours in return. You drag him into a kiss because perhaps he can take it a bit longer, but you cannot. It’s still slow, one kiss after another with a pause for breath between each, but at least he understands your need. You realize that maybe he’s not the one overcome with teased out longing. It’s you.

You reach blindly in the moonlight of the flat’s narrow windows, find his hip, then the bulge in his thick sweatpants. You’re not so meandering as him, instead finding quickly the span of his cock and running your nails up the length of it. It twitches and he groans against your mouth.

“Yeah? Like that?” you nearly whimper, lips mere centimeters from his. “Want me to do it again?”

If his half-shut eyes are any indication, then yes, he does. But he manages a nod as well and you repeat the motion, down with your nails and back up again. Steven’s brain has shut down, propped up beside you on one elbow, fingers rolling at your nipple, forehead pressed to yours. You tug at the tie of his sweatpants, tugging it loose so you can slip your hand past the waist band.

“You want me to touch you, Steven?” you whisper, and he gulps out a yes, fuck yes with an uneven breath. His cock is thick and hot beneath your touch, the head swollen and sensitive. There is an ache between your thighs triggered by the remembrance of just how thick he is, an ache relieved only by him. It’s not a race to have him inside you but you wish it was. You smear a bead of precum down his shaft, taking care to learn every pulsing vein with the memory of your touch. Steven kisses you again as his hips jerk, bucking towards your hand in an involuntary movement to be even closer, to find friction.

You work him under his sweatpants. He works his way down your stomach back toward your thighs. You don’t even wait for him to get there, just spread your legs in anticipation. It hasn’t got the smooth confidence of practice, the way he drags the thin strip of lace to the side and finds your clit, but it is full of wonder and admiration, that touch. It finds the heat of your arousal and he glances down between kisses to take in the sight of his fingers gathering the sweet stickiness and dragging it through your folds.

Steven watches as his fingers sink into your cunt, his thumb pressed against your clit. Its slower than you want—need—to get off, but this is how Steven rolls. Marc is the fast one, the hard one, loving but always approaching a breaking point. Steven does not break. He is the calm, the reassurance, the steadiness.

He also doesn’t last long, and he drags his hips away from your hand because he can’t find the words to say he’d rather come between your thighs than in your hand. You don’t want to stop touching him. You like the reassuring weight of him in your palm. But Steven wants to taste you, devour you, and you can’t deny the poor man his dessert. That instinct comes into play, the same instinct that dragged his hand against your backside and made you slick with a simple touch. Marc doesn’t like to share details—when you’re his, you’re his alone—but this, this he did share, your sensitivity, your weakness.

The sheet has gone…somewhere. You’re not sure where. There’s a chill in the air that you feel most against your cunt, amplified by the stickiness of your arousal. It is pleasantly replaced by the heat of a flat tongue and sharp nose, the former dragging through your folds, the latter pressed against your clit. But it’s the hand on your stomach and the addition of two fingers sinking, curling, as he works your clit that warms you from the inside out. That’s the detail Marc shared, the trick that surprised you the first time Steven used it, that rolls your orgasm from the top of your head to the tips of your toes.

Now it does feel like a race. Steven is dragging the aftershocks from your body—he likes when your back arches from the mattress involuntarily and your thighs twitch and squeeze his head—but now, for you, it’s urgent, that race to have his cock buried in your cunt. You push Steven’s sweats down with your feet at his hips and at last, he helps you, the head of his cock still flushed pink and glistening from your earlier attentions. You both scramble in the twisted sheet, finally tossing it to the floor along with the rest of your clothes. It’s stumbling, this urgency, awkward and unrehearsed. It’s never like this with Marc; he always knows what to do, how to do it, moving you into place and position. That’s nice, but this is nice too, the way you can’t move fast enough but the harder you try the harder it gets, your arms tangled in tugging off your shirt. When it's gone, Steven's face is pressed to your neck, breathing in the scent of your skin and asking for permission while you tug less than gently at his curls. Your hips jerk and your legs wrap around the backs of his with impatience, but he has to hear you say it.

"For Christ's sake Steven, fuck me with your cock or I'll suffocate you with my tits."

"Doesn't sound like a bad deal," he says but it works because he presses his cock into you smooth and fast before he comes at your words alone. You choke.

What was a rushed moment has suddenly come to a standstill. Steven sighs in relief when he sinks into you, the warmth of your cunt pulling him in. But you cannot breathe, though your lungs and your head and your heart burn with need. It is so right, it is all things perfect, being filled by him. That emptiness, which felt so urgent a moment ago, completed with a self-satisfied groan.

"You alright love?" he says, worried something's wrong like he always does.

And then your soul rushes back into your body and you practically beg him to move, beg him to fuck you because you need to be one with this fiercely gentle man.

"I got you," he says, barely pulling out. His eyes find yours as you pull him back in, your nails up his back and tugging at his hair. There’s a desperation in his voice as he whispers—to you, to himself—but he never loses his composure. Not like Marc does. Not like—

No. Steven is reverent.

“Look at you—” He stutters over his words. “Fuck—you’re pretty, love. I love—I love you.”

There's a knot in your belly, pulling tighter and tighter. And then the heal of one hand is back on your lower stomach, fingers brushing over your clit, and the knot unravels.

“I love you too.”

He smiles that lopsided smile and then kisses you as he comes, his lips and his body and his cock all impossibly hot on and around and inside you. His heat penetrates your skin and sinks into your bones and yet somehow you shiver. It’s probably the way he’s looking at you.

“Cold?”

You shake your head.

“Yeah, well I am,” Steven says and pulls the sheet back on the bed. Its mangled and doesn’t cover you properly but he’s so earnest about it you giggle. And then you wrap your legs around him and hold him there, trap his throbbing cock inside you because you can’t let go of the warmth just yet.

“Don’t go,” someone says. It could be you or him at this point because both of you are thinking it.

“I won’t.”

[stuff-from-the-void-matron]

Laurel Wreaths & Animal Teeth (18)

(c!technoblade x fem!reader) (?who knows at this point..)

(Its literally been 1000 years and I’m so exhausted but I’m finally DONE with chapter 18!!! Thanks Cheesus cuz a bitch is tired. Y’all know the drill! If you like this then PLEASE I’m begging you to reblog and comment! The comments from the last chapter were the only thing keeping me writing some days cuz life is ass. Show me some love y’all! Please 🥺💗)

——————

Tubbo was, for lack of a better term, freaking the FUCK out!!

He’d just been planning to go to the Nether to mine some gold since he was running out, and figured hey why not go through the portal close to Azo’s house so he could pop by to visit her?? No big deal, right? But instead of a normal visit/mining expedition he runs into Azo…

IN THE OVERWORLD!

Where she absolutely positively was NOT supposed to be!

So yeah, the horned player was panicking. And Azo was shaking a little already, not a good sign! 

“What do I do? What the fuck do I do??? Uh, okay we gotta get back to the Nether!” 

He scooped the teary eyed Azo up and rushed with her towards the portal, but came to a sudden halt when her shaking intensified. It was too late. It didn’t matter if he got her back now, the zombification process was already starting!

His breathing hitched in panic, he sat her back down on the grass, not really sure what to do now.

The young hybrid furiously looked around them, making sure there were no mobs that would attack, seeing some pigs a bit away from them, and a skeleton about 30 blocks away though it didn’t seem to care about either of them at the moment. But Tubbo discarded that thought as soon as he had it, still freaking out about Azo. Without even bothering to keep the messages private he pulled up his communicator and sent out the panicked texts.

Tubbo: MUM COM ETO THE PORTAL THAT LEADS TO AZO’S HOUSE

Tubbo: HURRY! SOMETHING HAPPENED AND I DON’T KNOWWHAT TO DO

Everyone on the server saw them, including Reader, who was rightfully panicked after reading them. She up and abandoned the meeting she was in and sprinted out of the White House towards the portal leading to her smallest two children. She was going so fast a few people swore it looked like her feet weren’t even touching the ground. She forwent the wood path, dashing between buildings, through yards, and even over obstacles to get to the portal faster. 

Tubbo was on the verge of crying along with Azo, but he just held her close and shushed her and told her that Mum would make everything better and it would all be okay. Azo sniffled but nodded as best she could with how badly her body was shaking. She didn’t feel good, she felt bad, like the time she ate some of that gross meat she found in a chest but so much worse. And why did her hands and feet sting? Like she’d been touching those “cold” drinks her mom makes for them. Only this cold is scary..

-0-

Wilbur was running, the minute he saw Tubbo he froze like some pathetic rabbit caught in the gaze of a fox even though the younger of the two of them hadn’t even seen him. He couldn’t move, both because he was actually shocked it had been the younger ram hybrid but also because he knew moving at all would alert Tubbo to him being there. The juvenile hybrid had damn good hearing and Wilbur knew that. So he just painfully stood there, barely breathing as he watched Tubbo try calming the baby piglin down before just picking her up and running through the portal with her.

But the second they disappeared into the purple swirling haze Wilbur was off like a shot, bolting through trees and heading to the ravine he’d left Schlatt at. He heard his communicator chime, signaling a message in the public chat but he ignored it to avoid a creeper. And by the time he’d made it all the way to the ravine he was beyond winded and trying to eat some bread to get his hunger back up. Along the way he got another couple pings on his communicator but ignored them too. And when he entered the ravine Schlatt seemed to be waiting for him, looking tense and before Wilbur could speak the ram was blurting out,

“What the fuck did you do?”

That caught Wilbur by surprise, and he asked what Schlatt meant. The brunet wondered how Schlatt knew something had happened. Well him sprinting back to the ravine probably gave a hint but the mustached ram sounded so sure Wilbur had fucked up. And when Schlatt just raised an eyebrow and gestured to his own communicator Wilbur remembered he’d heard some incoming messages, but he’d been so focused on running he’d ignored them. So now when he looked he bit the inside of his cheek anxiously. 

Reader knew.

Oh shit she definitely knew about what happened to the piglin kid. Wilbur didn’t like how his skin prickled in nerves, like he was scared. He had no reason to be! She’d never know it was him that caused this, even unintentionally! So he can just calm down, breathe and scrap the plan he had to use Azo as leverage and just think of something else. No problem. 

“Dude.. I don’t know what you did, but whatever it is.. I got a feeling it’s gonna bite us right on the ass..” Schlatt said in a surly tone.

Wilbur’s throat pinched as he swallowed and he told Schlatt he was just being paranoid, he hadn’t done anything crazy. There’d been a mishap thanks to some stupid ghast but that’s all it was; a mishap. Plus there was no way to tie it all back to him. No humans or hybrids had seen him so he was in the clear.

Though.. when he finally told Schlatt what happened, the look the ram hybrid gave him did the opposite of putting his mind at ease. Then he had the gall to let out a loud bark of laughter and say,

“Wilbur, buddy… you might have just fucked yourself here. Cuz last I checked, Reader actually gives a shit about the kids she keeps around. So.. she might hold a grudge when she finds out you more or less killed one of said kids..”

Wilbur didn’t look impressed with Schlatt’s statement, and the ram would even say the ex-president was totally bored with the conversation and didn’t really care… Or he would have if he hadn’t spotted the anxious drop of sweat beading on the brunet’s brow. Oh yeah, he was definitely internally freaking out. And Schlatt can’t really blame him. Pissing off hybrid parents was stupid, any hybrid will tell you that. The ex-president should know that, what with having a hybrid father and all. 

But Schlatt shrugged and said, “Well I guess so long as you’re sure nobody saw you there then you should be fine. Right?”

The glasses wearing player nodded, a breath of relief escaping him as he clung to that thought. Nobody had seen him but some piglins, a ghast, some blazes, and the kid herself. And he doesn’t think she’ll make it to rat him out so all’s well that ends well.

*beepbeep-beep*

-0-

Reader stepped through the portal closest to L’manberg and sped through the Nether, disregarding anything in her path, and eventually she got to the familiar area where she’d build Azo’s house. But there was no sign of Azo or Tubbo anywhere. She furiously looked around before holding up her communicator, getting ready to message Tubbo if she couldn’t find him on the other side of the portal. 

But when she stepped through the sight that greeted the white eyed being almost made her knees give out underneath her. 

Tubbo was holding Azo. Azo. Who was IN THE OVERWORLD!

No, no, nonononoNONONO! She should not be here!

“TUBBO! NO! What-wh- oh fuck. What is Azo doing out here??” Reader gasped.

The boy in question started babbling about how he didn’t know, he found her out here and she was already shaking badly by the time he had. 

Reader shakily stumbled forward before collapsing onto the ground in front of the pair so she could check over Azo, her hands trembling as they reached out for her littlest child, but… she was already too far gone. Her usual white eyes looked milky and showed a glossed over appearance to them, revealing her not really being focused in the present. And her skin had taken on a bluish tint, giving her usually rosy pink flesh a colder candy pink tone. And if that weren’t bad enough, it looks like part of her flesh is starting to shrivel and rot. The sight made her stomach feel as if it weighed 100 pounds before it sank into her shoes.

Azo looked up at her but there was nothing behind her eyes. A sudden thought burst into Reader’s head and all at once she was opening her inventory and desperately scrounging through it for two particular items. She flipped through categories before finding the one she wanted, then started scrolling around in a pell-mell fashion in search of one in particular. Once she found the first she snatched it before going in search of the second. Both gathered she pushed her inventory closed and quickly uncorked the potion bottle and gently but urgently grabbed Tubbo and pulled him away from the mindless ziglin child. 

Then without warning she doused her in the potion, that’s when Tubbo realized what Reader was doing. Tears welled in his eyes and he gently placed a hand on his mum’s back, softly saying that trying the potion of weakness and golden apple route wasn’t going to work. He heard that it only works on villagers. But Reader snapped back that they didn’t know that for sure! Tubbo watched sadly as she tried offering Azo the golden apple, but she didn’t show any interest in it. Reader got so desperate that she bit off a piece herself before gently forcing it into the girl’s mouth, sighing in relief when she automatically started chewing it.

Tubbo hated that he actually held his breath for a moment afterwards, that he’d hoped it would actually work. But nothing happened and Reader’s desperation grew and she muttered about maybe the golden apple just not being strong enough so she pulled out an enchanted one instead, doing the same move of biting a piece off and feeding it to Azo. The small hybrid behind her sighed softly, his ears lowering in grief. He patted her back and said it wasn’t working, but Reader cut him off in a wobbly voice,

“No! It has to work!” before her resolve hardened and she pulled Azo into a tight hug and continued, “It WILL work!”

She rubbed Azo’s back, whispering words of encouragement, telling her she could do it and to just let the apple take effect. The antlered woman clenched her eyes shut, clinging to her piglin baby and mentally begging anything and everything possible in the universe to make it work. It had to, she couldn’t lose Azo to zombification. It wasn’t fair to the child, she didn’t deserve this fate. So Reader wished with all of her being that it would work and everything would be okay.

“Mum… I don’t think it’s working..” Tubbo muttered forlornly. 

Reader let out a choked sob, she knew he was right. Nothing was happening. But she felt like if she gave up then she was letting Azo down even more. She’d failed to keep her safe in the Nether and look what happened to her! She was a fucking zombie! Reader was a failure of a mother! She couldn’t give up! So in a wild frenzy she practically yanked her inventory open, just looking for something, ANYTHING! Her weapons, her various gold trinkets, other random shit she tossed in there without a care. Nothing that would help- huh?

“The orange?” She said in a teary tone.

At this point she was beyond desperate to help her child so she took a crafting table out and figured that if she didn’t try every option then she didn’t really want Azo healed so she was trying EVERYTHING. In record time she’d surrounded the orange with gold ingots before hesitating, not sure if she should use ingots or gold blocks or neither at all. Worried now she started frantically peeling the orange until she was left with 8 individual orange segments. She would try each of them on Azo one at a time to ensure she doesn’t waste the one orange. So normal orange first. She slips one of the segments into the piglings mouth, smiling as she chews. 

“Wait, is that an orange?-” Tubbo started to ask.

But just as he said this Reader felt like someone stole the breath from her lungs, because Azo’s body started to convulse while she let out little soft snorts. Reader took in a stuttered breath while looking down at her smallest child. Azo looked up at her, face still blank but the shaking was a sign that it was working! She might not even need the rest of the orange! Reader could feel her heart beating so fast she’s shocked she didn’t feel ill from it. But then of course she was hardly giving it any mind, far too zeroed in on her child’s physical state to even think of her own.

All they could do was sit there in stunned silence as Azo quivered under their scrutiny, not that she was aware enough to be bothered by it.

*sssshhhwwhooosh* “HEY HEY! What the fuck is goin on?! Tubbo what was with that ominous as fuck message-.. oh shit..” It was Tommy. 

He’d just rushed through the Nether portal, looking mostly angry, but with that hint of worry, before catching sight of Tubbo and Reader and demanding to know what the hell was going on.. but then he saw Azo. In the Overworld. Yeah so it was clear what was wrong..

Tommy started panicking, seeing Azo shaking in the Overworld and fucking zombified. Tubbo grabbed his arm and shushed him, ignoring Tommy’s anger at being shushed when something like this was happening before he began to fill him in on what was going on while Reader gently ran her hand down the soft hair on Azo’s head, not knowing what else to do right now besides attempting to soothe the pigling. While her two other children talked in hushed whispers behind her she was mentally chanting ‘please’ over and over again, praying to the universe that this would work and Azo would go back to normal and make it through this.

Reader couldn’t even bear to open her eyes at first when Azo stopped shaking, too scared to look down and see her baby still rotting away slowly. But the surprised but happy gasps from the two boys behind her gave her enough hope to pull back enough to look down. And she felt tears well in her eyes at the sight of Azo all healed and no longer zombified. She went to pull her small child into another happier hug but stopped when Azo made a soft snort of worry. Reader paused and asked her if she was okay, mentally starting to panic, thinking she was about to re-zombify again. But Azo pushed herself away from Reader until the antlered woman let her go.

Azo timidly took a few steps away from the three, looking anxious… like she’d never met them before..

“Kiddo, what’s wrong? You still feel sick?” Tubbo asked with a tense frown. 

Azo didn’t answer him, just stared like she was too shy to reply. So Tommy chimed in and asked if she was alright, even calling her ‘Azzy’ like he did sometimes when he was feeling more brotherly than usual. This seemed to catch Azo’s attention but now she just looked confused. Reader felt a dark pit forming in her stomach and she kneeled down and spoke directly to Azo,

“Azogamay. Do you know who we are?”

This time Azo visibly perked up, her ears twitching at the sound of Reader saying her actual full name. The white eyed child glanced between the two boys and Reader before gingerly shaking her head ‘no’. Reader felt like she’d been kicked in the chest by a ravager. She wanted to cry, to scream, anything to help her not feel so hollow all of a sudden. She knew from her ‘past life’ knowledge that the only way to ‘reset’ a villager with a profession was to zombify them, heal them, and then give them a new profession. Dying, even briefly, made them forget what and who they knew.. But she stupidly hadn’t thought that would apply to Azo. But that was probably just her foolish hopes speaking.

Reader couldn’t help how she fell back onto her behind and just… started crying. Her baby had forgotten her. 

-0-

Tommy and Tubbo were at a loss. They’d never seen Reader cry, hell they’d never seen her this upset ever. But.. if Azo had really forgotten them then they knew Reader had a reason to cry. They didn’t want to admit it but they would probably cry if Reader suddenly forgot who they were and that she was their mum.. And when Tubbo looked at Azo he saw her looking at Reader sadly, apparently not liking how she was crying. That was a good sign at least. So Tubbo blinked back his own tears and pulled a gold ingot from his inventory and held it out to the small pigling. She blinked at him before quietly taking it from him. Then he gestured for Tommy to do the same, snapping the blond boy into action. Soon Azo had two ingots and looked a lot less tense.

Tubbo sat next to Reader and rubbed her back while Tommy went and sat on her other side before gesturing for Azo to come sit in front of them. She did, gold clutched to her chest and not feeling scared anymore, now only feeling curious and sad for the tall lady in front of her that felt a bit familiar.

“Azo, this is your mum, and she’s ours too. You’re our sister!” Tommy explained with a grin that had the pigling’s head tilting in curiosity. 

The two explained everything to Azo while Reader softly cried herself out. The whole afternoon had been one emotional gut punch after another and she was feeling more than a little exhausted from it. But after she calmed down she did feel better, which was one good thing she supposed. But she felt a little bad for breaking down like that in front of her kids, she shouldn’t place the burden of consoling her onto their shoulders. So without thinking she untied her mask and took it off to wipe her face clean, missing how her sons’ eyebrows shot up seeing her do this. And when she opened her eyes they couldn’t hold back the flinch of surprise they gave to the glowing white orbs.

But Azo seemed to like them, they were the same color as hers! So she scooted closer and gave little snorts of happiness, which made Reader smile in return. But then she sighed and she told Azo that what her brothers said was true, she’d adopted all of them even if she couldn’t remember any of it. She told Azo all about the house she’d built for her in the Nether to keep her safe and how she came and visited her every day with Tommy and Tubbo, making them all food and playing with her when she wasn’t working. Azo didn’t seem distrustful anymore but Reader wasn’t sure she believed them, but then the antlered woman remembered something she had saved. With a gasp she pulled out her ender chest and happily told Azo she’d saved all the pretty pictures she’d drawn for Reader.

When she pulled out the stack of colorfully decorated paper Azo’s tail swished back and forth happily. So many were things from the Nether. Fire, netherrack, piglins, blazes, fungus, gold, and more. Then there were some things from the Overworld that the three had given to Azo; like potted flowers, amethyst gems, a jack o’ lantern, and other stuff. But Reader’s absolute favorites were the ones Azo drew of her, Reader, Tommy, and Tubbo all together. She showed these to Azo with tears in her eyes and a loving smile on her face, so motherly that Azo couldn’t help but feel loved. The little pigling might not really remember these three but they clearly remember and love her. Which was… odd, but also nice. She feels bad she can’t remember but she likes these Overworlders so she’d like to stick with them. So with a happy snort she stands up and takes Reader’s hand and says,

“Amamay!”

Reader wanted to cry all over again but held herself back and grasped Azo’s hand back gently and agreed with her, saying,

“Yeah sweetie, I’m your amamay! And these are your brothers, Tommy and Tubbo!”

Azo waved at the two, then said their names in Piglin speak, which was basically just Ubbotay and Ommytay, which sounded sorta cool but still goofy to them but they were just happy Azo was seemingly slowly starting to come around. It wasn’t back to how things were originally but.. it was better than her being a mindless zombie. So Reader rubbed her thumb over the back of Azo’s little hand and said with as much love as she could muster,

“Azogamay, I know you don’t remember us right now. But we promise to love you no matter what. If you someday get your memories back we’ll be so happy!”

Azo let Reader pull her into a hug as she continued speaking, 

“But even if you don’t… I’ll still be your amamay and they’ll still be your otherbrays. Maybe we can make lots of new memories together, as a family. How’s that sound?”

All Reader got in reply was a hug from the little pigling, and she supposed that was as good an answer as any. And with no hesitation the eldest of the four pulled the two boys into the hug with them, saying that no matter what now they were going to stick together since it seems that since being healed Azo had no problem in the overworld. The boys asked her if she wanted to come live with them, saying they could take her fishing, show her the markets, introduce her to Henry the cow, all their friends, and more! Azo seemed pretty excited so Reader stepped in and said if Azo wanted they could make her a room in her house, but only if she wanted of course. And in her excitement Azo agreed easily. Living in the Overworld sounded fun!

With that settled Reader sat Azo down on the ground between Tubbo and Tommy and with a much happier smile pulled some paper and crayons she made from her inventory and told the two boys to keep an eye on Azo while she went into the nether to grab Azo’s stuff from her house, then they could all go back to L’manberg together. They agreed and waved Reader off when she warned them to keep an eye out for mobs but then she put her mask back on, almost forgetting it, and hopped through the portal. Once through her smile fell and a scowl overtook her features as she looked around at the damage she’d missed before, the craters from what she was guessing were ghasts. But she wasn’t here for that, she was here for information.

She started questioning all the piglins in the surrounding area, asking them if they’d seen anything odd that day involving the pigling that’d gone through the portal. A couple of them weren’t sure but one did and called over two others from further away and the trio started filling Reader in on what they’d seen that day. About how a human had kidnapped one of their young and they’d all given chase but he’d been fast while only one of them had been wielding a crossbow. And when they finally caught up with him he’d run with her through the portal, and they shamefully admitted to losing sight of them after that since they couldn’t follow them through. They’d said a prayer for the child but chalked her up to being dead, which was a fair guess on their parts to be honest since she had ‘technically’ died.

But she needed more information. She asked them if they remembered what the human looked like. What color was his skin, his hair, clothes, anything to give her a hint on who he was. None of them got a good look at him from the front, since he was running away from them and all. But they did manage to notice a few distinguishing things about him…

Like his wavy dark hair.

His dark pants and long. Brown. Coat.

The hat he wore that was almost the same color as the netherrack around them.

And the funny little patch. On his shoulder. 

Reader felt her eyes narrow behind her mask and with a blank expression she pulled out some paper and drew a little L’manberg flag, internally seething when the Piglins all snorted in confirmation that, yes, that had been the patch on the man’s sleeve. Reader crushed the paper in her hands before tossing it into the nearby lava to burn away. The sound of her grinding her teeth together in silent rage made the piglins’ ears flatten in displeasure. But they said nothing, not wanting to aggravate an already furious looking ‘sow’. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the child that had been taken was her’s. So it was best to just answer her questions and stay out of her way. So they just nodded when she gave them a tense but grateful smile and excused herself. She really did have to go get Azo’s things since the pigling was going to be living with her and the boys now.

But as she did she felt her rage festering inside her. That little bastard, it was his fault Azo had fucking died. She almost lost her child because of him, it was only by pure chance they’d managed to save her. Reader never wanted to hurt someone quite as badly as she wanted to hurt Wilbur at that exact moment. Just snap his little bastard neck and toss his worthless body into a lava pool, no fuss no muss. But… she couldn’t. She wasn’t some psycho killer who snaps the spine of anyone who wrongs her. ..Even if they deserve it. She needed to talk to Wilbur first, get his side of things. There’s a chance, small as it is, that the piglins saw someone else who looked like Wilbur. Sadly Wilbur wasn’t the only white boy with dark hair on this server, so she has a duty to do some kind of investigation. 

As she decided this she made her way back to the portal, Azo’s belongings tucked away in her inventory. She needed to remain calm, cool, and collected. She would peacefully message Wilbur saying she needed to have a meeting with him, question him on his whereabouts for the day, and if he was suspicious it would lead to an arrest for child endangerment and kidnapping. It would be handled professionally.

..Brown.

Over to the left, at the edge of the crater she’d passed on her way in was a splotch of brown amidst the sea of sangria colored soil around her. Her eyes narrowed and she paused before going to see what it was, the white hot anger she’d managed to cool earlier now beginning to heat up again. And when she got closer and reached down to pick up the offending material, which turned out to be a small strip of dirty brown leather. One she’d fucking know anywhere. It was a part of that god awful fucking coat of WIlbur’s. She’d bet anything on it. She clenched her teeth together, milling them together and wanting so badly to just tear them into something, just bite something so hard. She needed to talk to WIlbur. Now. So with an inhuman speed she opened her communicator and started typing…

-0-

Back at the ravine the two defectors stared down at their respective communicators in silence, the air around them feeling almost stagnant from the tense feeling that was settling into both of their bones. Schlatt narrowed his eyes, his ears dipping down as anxiety buzzed around in his head, he needed a drink. While Wilbur felt his mouth suddenly increase its saliva, causing him to hurry and swallow before he stiffly cleared his throat and opened his mouth to say something to clear the air but… nothing came out. Schlatt ended up being the one to cut through the strained atmosphere,

“I’m gonna hazard a guess that… someone may have seen you after all..”

That was pretty fucking obvious by this point, at least if the string of messages from Reader were to be any indication..

Reader: Wilbur

Reader: wilbur I need to talk to you

Reader: now. message me right now.

Reader: where are you?

Reader: wilbur soot message me right fucking now.

Reader: wilbur I know what you did. I know you were here in the nether.

Reader: im going to come find you.

How they started normal, but slowly became more and more threatening sent chills along the ex-presidents spine. Despite being quite sure he could take the behemoth in a fight he still felt… anxious with how aggressive her messages had gotten. Wilbur swallowed again, not sure if he was trying to swallow the surplus of his saliva or his own mounting alarm. But either way he thinks they’re going to be needing backup asap. So he pulled out his crafting table and penned a quick but straightforward note before tucking it into an envelope and sealing it with twine. Schlatt watched over his shoulder as the brunet wrote the name of the future recipient across the back before sending it off,

‘Technoblade’

-0-

@lady-bee-fechin @kacchasu @putridjoy @lunawritesstories @galaxypankitty3030 @paradigmax @zachariethememerie @killmewithafanfic @trinity-1002107 @hufflepuff-demigod @truthdaze @exorcisms-with-elmo @redbloodtea @heythereimhaylz @olyink @jackalopedoodles @nikkineeky @artsimatsu @reverse-iak @corpiet @beepa99 @anxiousnarwhale @bananaaddictmilkshake @realitycanbeajerk @lostandsouciant @thegeekisheere @sparkling-gayyy @woman-soot @xxtwizztedxx @fall3n-vo1d @coolleviauchihadreamerlove @jaciahbabes @lucian-kinnder @deadroses2021 @victory-is-here @where-thesundoesntshine @itsberrydreemurstuff

[lyon-amore]

Behind the lies  Duskwood Chapter 2

Chapter 1 -------------------------------------------------------------

It had been three months since MC saved Hannah. She had already left all that behind. She didn't want to remember it. Not Duskwood, not Hannah… Not Jake. She wanted to forget them all, she had moved to another city, changed her phone number, everything necessary to make her disappear too. Maybe it hurt her to have left the group behind, but if she was still her friend, she would still remember all those lies that Jake told her. That he didn't love her. That he wasn't the hacker who had been persecuted. She had helped him mislead those they was following with his sister. Hadn't it mattered? Was everything they said to each other a lie? That is why, better forget it. She wasn't running away, she just wanted to start over and want a normal life.

 Her morning shift was over at the clothing store, and she was heading home. She wanted to rest that Friday. On Saturday she had a date with a wonderful man whom she had met through one of her new friends and she was having a beauty session. She heard a little crying near the park. She looked everywhere, confused. She walked over to the slide and looked inside it. A girl with black hair was crying.    "Hello." greeted MC in a friendly manner "Have you been lost?"    The girl shook her head, making her two pigtails wave.    “And your mom or your dad?” She looked around, searching everywhere “Are you alone?    "I wanted to go see daddy at his work" the little girl said through tears ". I separated from mom because I wanted to go look for him...    <<She speaks better than me for a little girl…>>     MC continued to look everywhere. What was she going to do? She couldn't just leave her. She held out her hand to her, smiling. She hoped that she wouldn't be scared.    "Why don't we go to the police station and tell the police so they can call your mother?" the girl looked doubtful. Obviously she wasn't going to listen to a stranger, but leaving her alone would be much worse "And on the way I'll buy you an ice cream, what do you think?"     She thought that maybe she would pay more attention to her that way, even if it was a low trick, but it was the only thing that occurred to her. The little girl nodded, starting off the slide. MC pulled away from her to let her out of it and held out her hand.    "Come on, stay close to me, okay?"    “Yes!” The girl held out her hand, smiling.    "And what's your name?"    "Rose! And you?"    "My name is MC."    "MC?" She began to think, and then laughed "I like your name!"    "Thank you Rose, you have a nice name too."    "Daddy gave it to me."    "Wow, well he chose a beautiful name for you." MC smiled at the little girl.     The way she spoke was very funny, like she tried to sound like an adult, but she still spoke like a child. She suspected that maybe it was because she was trying to imitate her parents, to feel safe.

She bought her ice cream and they went to the police station. The police were surprised to see the girl.    "That's the second time this week, little girl." said one of the policemen, crouching down to her level.    "I just want to see my daddy..." replied the little girl, holding onto MC's leg.    "We know" The policeman stood up with a smile, this time looking at MC ". We'll take care of her, I'll call her mother to come pick her up."    "Okay" MC stood at the girl's height, taking a handkerchief from her to clean her chocolate face ". Well Rose, nice to meet you, but I have to go-"    "No! I don't want to!" She hugged her and looked at the policeman "can she also stay in the children's room?"    "Rose, maybe the lady has to do things-"    "Of course, I'm busy" She carefully separated the girl, fixing her pigtails as well. She wanted that when her mother returned, she wouldn't see her in a mess ". I'm sorry, Rose, but I have to go."    "But I don't want to, please…" she gave her best convincing look.     The young MC sighed. She supposed that for a little while longer, nothing bad would happen.    "I suppose I can stay until your mother comes." she finally answered.    "Good! MC stays!" The girl rushed to her, hugging her.    "Are you sure?" the policeman asked.     MC shrugged. She couldn't say no to little Rose. In addition to that, the girl seemed happy being with her.

They waited in a room where there were all kinds of entertainment for children. Rose approached MC, with a sheet of paper in her hand. The young woman took it and the girl began to speak.    "This is mom, this is daddy, this is me and this is you."    "Is it me?" She asked, surprised, even though the drawings were almost indescribable, "Wow, you've portrayed me perfectly."    "I'll give it to daddy when he gets back."    "ROSE!" A woman with short red hair appeared in the room, approaching the girl "Where were you? I've been looking everywhere for you!"    "I wanted to go with daddy..."    "I know honey, but he doesn't come back until nightfall." Her mother kept looking at her, looking for a wound.    "I found her in a park." said MC, leaving the drawing on the table.     The woman took the child in her arms and watched her. MC felt uncomfortable.    "I was talking on the phone for a second when she left" the woman explained ". Thank you very much for bringing her, I'm Katherine" she extended her hand in greeting ", I'm sorry that my daughter has caused you trouble."    "MC and not at all, she has been the opposite, she really is a very brave girl."     Katherine looked her up and down having heard her name. She maybe she was looking to see if she really was legit.    "Look how late it is" her mother looked at her phone ". You should be with Grandma by now."    "I don't want to go with grandma" the girl denied, pointing to MC ", I want to stay with MC, at least she gives me ice cream to eat, grandma won't let me see the cartoons on the television."    "Rose!" Her mother scolded her, then looking at MC as if she was apologizing "Sorry, she's not supposed to speak so directly, I'm sure she's learned it from her father."    "Don't apologize, children tend to be too sincere."   "Mom, please, please... I want MC take care of me..."   Katherine looked at the girl and then at her daughter. Next, she turned to look at MC.    "It will only be until the evening" Katherine began to explain "I have to go out of town for work and I need someone to take care of her."    "I don't know if-"    "I'll pay you!"    <<Ding-Ding-Ding.>>    "Sure." MC agreed. There was nothing wrong with babysitting one day, right?

MC accompanied them to the building. It really was a very expensive and quite high apartments. They entered the elevator and the woman inserted some kind of key, activating it. Not even  MC apartment had a something like that.

They made it to the floor, but when the elevator opened, they were already directly on the apartment. It was quite big, with large windows and wonderful views of the city. But that wasn't what caught her eye. Above the electric fireplace, she saw some wedding photos. And, in those photos, it was Jake. Her heart pounded at the sight of him so elegantly dressed. He was too attractive to be real.    "My husband" Katherine approached her, with a smile "he spent four years in an investigation against a terrorist group. He only knew Rose when she was born, before he left.” The woman she sighed, crossing her arms ". He left her a lot of recorded videos so that as she grew up, she recognized his voice."     MC didn't say anything, just listened carefully. She had to get out of there as soon as she could.    "I just remembered that I have to do a few things for tomorrow-"    "I know who you are" Katherine cut her off and MC turned pale. She thought he was going to yell hers or something like that, but she was pretty surprised "and I'm so glad you came to rescue my husband's sister. When he told me about it, he couldn't stop raving about you and how well you did."    "Thank you…."     It was something normal right? To tell her about her and what she did it, but… had he really told her about the investigation into the terrorists? To her? To her wife? Well, she wouldn't have to care, after all, he was her wife... he would have to trust her.    "Thanks to you... He was able to finish his investigation and come home and meet his daughter…. Thank you" Katherine hugged her and she was not sure how to react.     She hugged her, patting her back as if even encouraging her. The truth is, when Jake told her the truth, she wish he would at least get hit by a truck on the way home or choke on the dinner his wife made for him and turn blue from asphyxiation, but after this, knowing that what she had done had also given a girl a father back, she had to put anger aside. It wasn't Rose's fault that she had such an asshole father.    "Well! I have to go now!" she broke away, running away, disappearing down the hallway "Come, I'll show you everything quickly."     MC followed her while she was telling where each thing was, what was it doing, which command, the fridge and the ovens... In short, a tour of a house much more magnificent than hers with a lot of things that she couldn’t obtain.    <<Jake, I hate you…>>    "A kiss Rose!" Her mother approached the girl, taking her face, crushing her cheeks, leaving a kiss on them "Behave and listen to MC, dad will return at night, so don't go looking for him, okay? Agreement?"    "Yes mom."    "MC" they left the girl's room to go to the elevator ", I'll pay you when I get back or if you want, I can tell Jake that-"    "I can wait for you to come back" she cut her off quickly. She was refusing him to give her money after she herself threw it in his face ". I wouldn't feel right accepting money from the person who helps save his sister.” she explained between lies.    "Okay then" She took her jacket and her suitcase, calling the elevator ". There's a whole list of phones in the fridge and if you need to go out for something the elevator code is 725B.” She turned around to enter the elevator.    "Alright-"    "And she didn't stay up too late!” She was exclaiming as the doors closed.    "Have a good trip!"     MC sighed. She had to keep in mind that that girl wasn't to blame for anything. She had met her without knowing who she was. She wasn't going to be cruel to her, of that she was sure.

She went to the girl's room to see how she was. She was painting on the papers. MC crouched down to sit on the small chair next to her. Her room was made for a girl with a lot of money, her bed imitated a princess castle, with stairs to climb onto the bed.    "Do you want to eat something, Rose?" MC asked calmly.    "Mmm…" the girl began to think, twisting her lips and tapping her face "Ice cream!"     MC laughed, watching her spread her arms out in excitement.    "No, no more ice cream for today and I meant to eat something real."    "And can't there be ice cream for dessert?"     Oh no… She was already giving her the innocent look.    "There will be ice cream if you don't tell mom and dad that I gave you ice cream twice in one day."    "Promised! I don't say anything!"     The girl offered her pinky and MC accepted. The girl's complicit laughter amused her.

She left the girl to eat in the kitchen, while she cleaned up what she had used.    "MC" the girl started to speak and she made a sound that she was listening "did you help my daddy?"    "Well, help, help…" she finished washing up and dried her hands with a cloth, sitting next to her "Actually, I was just investigating, I didn't do anything else."    "But he has told everything you did and that's great" she extended her little arms in the air "You're like a superhero! Like daddy! He defeated the bad guys!    "Wow, it's an honor to be a superhero" MC got up from the counter to go to the fridge, pulling out a small tub of ice cream and a spoon ". You deserve it."    "Thank you Super MC."     MC smiled, watching how she ate. She hadn't thought of it that way, that she was a hero. Perhaps because she was more intent on feeling anger than feeling good for having done something good.

They spent the afternoon playing so many things that MC ended up exhausted before the girl. It didn't cross her mind that she was Jake's daughter, nor that she was in his house. Just that she was babysitting a girl. With too cool parents to have that house. She hoped the money gave her mother would be worth it.

 While the girl was dining, they heard the elevator. Rose jumped off the seat, though MC was there in time to prevent her from falling off.    "Daddy! Daddy!” She yelled with joy, running off.     MC sighed. She knew that this would happen and that she would meet him. Well, she had to set an example for a girl and not hold a grudge in front of her. Better to swallow her pride and show her best side.

She began to leave the kitchen, heading for the elevator. She could hear his voice already. An enormous pain in the heart became present.    “Honey, should not you be at Grandma's house?” she heard him asking her daughter.    "MC is taking care of me, she's great!"    "MC?"     The young woman appeared and looked at him awkwardly, with her hands in her jeans pockets. Jake looked at her without knowing what to say. He wasn't expecting her in her own house after three months without hearing from her. After he had broken her heart.    "I ran into Rose on the street and at the police station, your… "MC took a deep breath "Wife asked me to take care of her because she kept insisting."    "Of course, I see."     They stared at each other. Not knowing what else to say. MC wanted to leave now that Jake was there, so she decided to take the initiative to go for her coat on the rack.    "Okay, I'm going now-"    "No! Stay” Rose said, then looked at her father who was still holding her ". Daddy, tell MC to stay, at least until I go to sleep, please."    Jake sighed. He couldn't resist his daughter's face either. He looked at MC and shrugged.    "You heard the boss." he finally said with a smile.     MC bit the inside of her cheek. Neither could she resist the face of her. Rose was a pretty good manipulator. Just like a certain someone. And her mother had said that she shouldn't stay up too late, she would finish dinner and go to bed.    "Okay, I'll stay" She put the jacket down, trying to put on her best smile ". But you have to finish dinner, young lady."    "Right! I have to eat dinner, daddy!"     Jake put her down and she ran off. They both stayed at the entrance. Still not saying a word. At some point, someone would have to speak.    “You look good.” Jake said, with his hands in the pockets of his suit.    "Thanks" answered MC, crossing her arms "and you... You have a nice house."     The young man let out a slack laugh. Clearly she was still angry.    "MC! I can't get to the chair!" They heard Rose scream.    "I'm going to help you!" MC yelled, not taking her eyes off Jake.     She didn't know if she'd done the right thing to stay, but for that girl, she'd hold on a little longer.

They were quiet in the kitchen when the girl's father made his appearance, dressed in a simple black T-shirt and comfortable pants. The shirt was so tight that it made MC look away in embarrassment at the thought of him. She couldn't look at him like that with his daughter in front of her. And that she still hated him.    "I… I'm sorry, I only prepared dinner for Rose." MC excused himself, without looking at him.    "It is okay, I had dinner out for work" he leaned on the counter, with a bottle of water, "What do you say, Rose?"    "Thank you for dinner, super MC." the girl answered, laughing.    "Super MC?" Jake looked at MC, with a smile.     The young woman avoided his gaze. She know he was going as a friend, but she had yet to push those emotions away.    "I'm her hero for saving her aunt" she replied, clearing her throat ". Apparently someone has been talking too much about me."    "Well, I try not to hide anything from my family" Jake replied, drinking some of the water. MC saw how he passed his tongue over his lips, wiping away the water that remained on them.     The young woman swallowed hard, squeezing her hand tightly. What a temptation they had placed on her path. But of course, his words had been harsh enough for her. He didn't hide anything from his family. Opposite of her. She wish she could answer that sentence, but she would cause trouble with Rose and she would probably tell her mother. And goodbye money.    "That's very nice" MC said finally, avoiding sounding annoyed "you have to be like your father Rose, be totally honest, never lie to the people you care about."     She knew it was like throwing a hint at him. And he knew it. Rose nodded and continued eating.

MC was washing the girl's dishes with calm. Jake came up next to her, leaning against the counter.    "I appreciate you staying with her a little longer" Jake said calmly ". Although I do not want you to do it for me."    "I stayed because Rose asked me to, not because YOU told me to" she told him annoyed "And yes, your wife has told me that she knew who I was because you told her about me." she finished scrubbing, drying her hands with a cloth, and then throwing it at his face.     She avoided yelling for the girl, she didn't want her to hear them argue. Jake sighed, setting the cloth down on the counter. Yes, she was still mad at him.    "Well, Katherine and I told each other everything" Jake said with a shrug ". I have nothing to hide from her."    "Oh? Are you sure?" MC crossed her arms, frowning more and more annoyed "Exactly what did you tell her? What did you want to take my hand and run awat? Didn't you stop thinking about me?” Jake grimaced, pinching the bridge of his nose “No! Wait: You told her that you loved me."     MC waited for Jake's response, he seemed to be thinking it over. Of course he hadn't told her. Was he really going to tell his wife that he had lied to a girl in order to get her to keep helping him find her sister? He'd clearly be dead for playing with another person's feelings. And MC knew it, because Katherine had been kind to her.    "I've only told her that you helped me and that we are friends" he finally answered, seeing how MC little by little was approaching him angrily, and Jake was backing down in fear ". MC, let us just calm down, okay?"    "If I don't kill you right now it's because I adore your daughter, she's an angel compared to the devil of her father" she touched his chest angrily. She didn't even know why she was still there, everything was over, Rose was going to sleep and she was going back with her life ". An asshole who didn't take another person's feelings into account."    "That is not true and you know it." Jake told her now in a more serious tone. Which made MC laugh sarcastically.    “Oh yeah? Tell me, at what point did you think that making me believe you loved me is part of ’’caring about my feelings’’?"     Jake hung his head. Unable to look into her eyes. MC nodded, understanding that he wasn't going to answer her. But in the end, he raised his head, ready to speak.

A few small steps were heard entering the kitchen. Rose had a toothbrush in her hand. She looked at the two adults, who looked at her a little startled to see the blood on her lip. Jake picked up kitchen paper, moving closer to her.    “Rose, what happened?” her father asked, bending down to clean her lip.    “Are you alright, Rose?” MC asked, also catching up with her.    "I was brushing my teeth and I dropped one in the water" she answered, with a trembling voice "Daddy! Am I going to lose my teeth like grandma?!"      Both adults laughed. The tension between them had disappeared thanks to the little girl who had saved them.    "No honey, it's something very natural, it means that you're getting older" Jake answered, with a smile "you're going to be six years old, it's common for teeth changes to happen at your age."    "And do you know what is best?" MC began to say, keeping the girl's attention "The tooth fairy will put a five euro bill under your pillow."    “Really?” The girl's face lit up, looking at her father now "There is a fairy who gives you money for teeth?"     Jake glanced at MC, who was grinning mischievously. She might not want the money from him, but she wasn't going to get rid of now that he had to give his daughter a bill every time a tooth fell out. Very sly, he admitted it himself. She was innocently using his daughter against him. It didn't bother him because all the children were told that story, but five euros bill was too much.    "Yes she gives you money as a thank you" Jake finally answered "Do you have the tooth?"    "Yes!" The girl opened her hand, showing it without fear "I'm going to leave it right now!"     They got up watching her leave. The discussion from earlier had disappeared.    "Thanks, now I am going to have to give a six-year-old girl bills." Jake scolded her a little jokingly.    "You're welcome, it's a pleasure to help keep your daughter's imagination awake."     The young man nodded, accepting defeat.

The girl came running back, this time with a film in her hand.    "I'm going to stay awake for the tooth fairy to come!" She exclaimed, showing the movie "Daddy! MC! Let's watch Frozen!"     Jake and MC looked at each other. They had to end this. MC was spending too much time with them already and it hurt more and more to be with him.    "Rose honey" Jake reached down again, picking up the film "it is late now, and I am sure your mother wants you in bed already, too." He looked at MC, a little uncomfortable, then he looked at his daughter ", MC has to go now, she cannot stay here, do you understand?"    "Please, please" the girl begged, then approached MC with those sparkling eyes. The same eyes as her father "MC! Please! Let's go see Frozen! And we wait for the tooth fairy together."     MC looked at Jake, who had already sat up. He shrugged, sighing. Neither wanted to be too harsh with her, though just for one day, she was giving her a day with her heroin. She was never going to see her again.    “Sure” she finally said “, let's go see the movie."    “Good!” She ran out of the kitchen.     Jake approached MC, muttering under his breath.    "Could you support me a little?" He asked the young woman, a bit annoyed "I do not want to have to listen to 'Let It go' again."    "its fatherhood, Jake" MC patted him on the chest, with a victorious smile "you have to put up with the princesses and heroes with their bad jokes."     As MC walked out of the kitchen, she heard him let out a heavy sigh. How she was enjoying it spoiling his daughter and then she was going to get money from his wife. Better impossible.

They sat down on the couch, with Rose between them, making the wall. Sometimes, MC could notice Jake's gaze. She didn't know if she was uncomfortable or perhaps exciting because it was forbidden. 

She shook her head. No. She was still mad. She shot him a look as she caught him looking at her. Which made him cough nervously when he saw the murderous look on the young woman's face. It was clear. There were too many things without talking. The problem was, that he had done too much damage. And that perhaps he was never going to be able to fix.

Rose fell asleep, in MC's lap, who was gently stroking her hair. Seeing her like this, Jake removed the film, getting up from the couch.    "Give her to me, I'll take her to her bed." The black-haired young man took the girl in his arms. Then leave the room.     MC followed, at least to see the girl for the last time. She leaned against the door frame, watching as Jake tucked her in. Well, he was an asshole, but a good asshole father. As Jake went to walk away from her, the girl began to clear up a bit, but she was still a little sleepy.    “Tooth Fairy…?” she asked, still not opening her eyes.     Jake motioned for MC to come in, afraid that he might break the girl's dreams. MC shook her head as Jake led her into her room. She then began to look for something to pretend, while Rose began to get up. The young woman managed to find a crown and a toy wand, and she hurried over to the bed. Jake handed her a bill and stood outside the room, looking behind the door.    "MC...?" asked the girl, her eyes slightly wide.    "You've got me" said the young woman, with a smile, leaving the bill under her pillow ", you've discovered my true identity."    "Are you the tooth fairy...?"    "Yes, but don't tell anyone" She raised her pinky finger, looking at her knowingly "it's our secret."      Rose smiled a little, still asleep.    "MC, can I ask for something other than money?"     MC looked back, where Jake was shaking his head. Well, one more thing to screw it up with.    "Sure, what?" She could hear Jake complain under his breath.    "Can you get mom and daddy to spend more time with me?"     MC went from a smile to a sad look. She didn't expect little Rose to say something like that to him.    "Well, Rose" she sat on the bed, taking off the crown ", your parents may be always busy, but that doesn't mean they don't love you."    "And couldn't you stay with me?"     She swallowed hard. She couldn't lie to her. She couldn't do that to her.    "Sweetheart, I'm so sorry, but... I can't stay" she took her pigtails out of her hair, brushing her hair with her fingers ", I also have things to do, you understand, right?"     The little girl agreed. She looked like she was going to cry at any moment.    "I had a lot of fun today, tooth fairy" the girl whispered, getting tired again "it's been the best day of my life... I want every day to be like this..."     MC laid her down slowly, stroking her hair gently. For a little girl, needing her parents was important. If it hadn't been for her, maybe Jake wouldn't have seen her first baby tooth fall out of her. It had been quite a few years since he had missed seeing her grow.

She walked out of the room and looked over at Jake, who was looking at her daughter. Not to her as before.    "You have an incredible daughter." MC told him, smiling at him.    "And an asshole father, I know" Jake said, with a sigh ". I'll accompany you to the elevator."     MC nodded, following after him.

She grabbed her jacket and her bag, putting it on. She approached the elevator and waited for it to go up.    "I did care about your feelings" Jake resumed the kitchen conversation, looking at her "the problem was that... I got carried away with mine."     MC reacted slowly, slowly looking at him. Was he really saying that to her? Now? At this moment? She heaved a sigh and started to hit the elevator button quickly, as if that would go faster.    "MC-"    "No!" The young woman yelled at him, whispering "Don't even think about continuing."    "I could not say anything at the station because they were looking in the mirror." Jake continued.     The elevator arrived and MC rushed into it, pressing the button for the floor below. Jake stopped the elevator door, to enter it. She tried to keep the space between them, avoiding his face.    “Do not I have the right to tell you the truth?” He tried to defend himself, looking at her.    "No, you don't have the right to say that you're going to tell me the truth after lying to me." MC looked at him angrily.    "When I told you that it was dangerous for both of us, it was partly true" the young man continued, letting out a sigh "because of my mission and on the other hand, I rejected your feelings because I remembered that I was married."    "You remember?!" She yelled at him in surprise, gesturing rapidly with her hands, controlling herself not to slap him "Did you remember that you were married?! Oh really?! And you also remembered that you had a daughter?!"    "No, I never forgot Rose."    “Oh, no?” She crossed her arms, offended “Because it didn't seem like it when you told me that you didn't stop thinking about me."    "There are two things I will regret in my life" The young woman didn't want to look at Jake's eyes. She could see that he was hurt. And she knew that it was going to be her weakness ": The first in not having been able to see my daughter grow up and the second… having cheated on you."    MC swallowed nervously. She avoided looking at him again. She didn't want to keep listening to him.

There was silence in the elevator. Jake knew he wouldn't listen to her.

They reached the ground floor, but MC, determined, decided to close the doors and look him in the eye. Maybe if she really told him the truth, she could at least forgive him and go on with her normal life, not hating him.    "Tell me."    "Tell you what, MC?" Jake shrugged, not understanding her.    "Did you really come to feel something for me? Tell me now that there's no one watching us.” Her jaw clenched, scared of the answer.     Jake sighed. Standing in front of her. He didn't touch her. He didn't caress her. But they were both close enough to feel each other's breath. MC was feeling intoxicated by the smell of his cologne. She looked him in the eye, waiting for his words. He nodded, slowly, never taking his gaze from her.    "Yes" he answered, without hesitating for a second ". Thanks to you I was able to bear the time I was alone. Meeting you brought out too intense emotions that I had never felt with anyone-"    "Jake, do you realize what you're saying?"    "You have asked"    "That's not what I'm saying." the girl shook her head, sighing "You still love her, don't you? Katherine."     The dark-haired looked down. Clearly, that couldn’t be hidden from her.    "Yes, I love her" he answered slowly ". She has always been by my side and she has always been sympathetic to me. She perhaps she is the best partner I could ever imagine having."

MC pressed the elevator button to open the door. She let out all the loaded air, leaving the place.    "Wait MC!" Jake went after her, stopping her, standing in front of her "But that does not mean I does not feel anything for you!"    "Jake!" She yelled her name furious at her, looking everywhere scared that someone would hear them "Are you telling me that it's okay for you to be with YOUR woman and for me to be the lover?!"     The boy looked at her, almost doubting her. MC couldn't believe it. It was incredible what was happening.    "I'm not going to ruin a family just because you're not brave enough to tell your wife that you cheated on her" MC shook his head, grabbing her shirt tightly ". Let's be clear, I'm not going to leave that girl without a family just because her father is an asshole who likes to play both sides."    "No, I am not playing both sides."    "You can't have both of us at the same time!" MC began to cry, pushing him "You love her, Jake! That's the truth! I was nothing more than an adventure for you! Something to distract you with while I took care of looking for your sister!"    "NO!" Jake yelled loudly, placing his hands on the young woman's shoulder "I never thought that about you, do not think that you were the other one."     She avoided looking at him. It was incredible. She licked her lips, tasting the salty tears that welled up. She slowly removed his hands from her, breathing hard.    "But I was… I always have been…"    "I..." Jake took a breath, looking at her with confusion, "I just know that I have never known how to behave with you... And that everything I told you was true-"    "Now I can't believe you" MC pushed him away, but this time without much strength, she wanted to get away from there ". I have to go."    "MC…" Jake stopped her again, taking her hand. The girl turned around, wiping away her tears "I cannot stop thinking about all the damage I did to you… About the pain I caused you… I cannot forget the image of you crying because of what I told you."    "Stop… Don’t continue…"    "I cannot forget about you" He placed her hands on the young woman's cheeks, caressing them slowly ". MC, you have marked me so much that I cannot get you out of my head."     The girl breathed hard, running her hand through his bangs. Finally she shook her head. What she was doing was hurting herself. But if he really meant it to her, he would have to make it clear to her.    "To be with me, you have to be serious" she said firmly, taking hisr hands to remove them from her face ". I'm not telling you to leave your daughter, because I would never tell you that, I'm not like that" she saw Jake's eyes shine. It seems that he wanted to cry too. He knew perfectly well that they were hurting everyone because of their selfishness ". But if you really love me, you have to make it clear to Katherine” Jake started to speak, but she continued “. If not… Then don't look for me… Don't talk to me… Let me live, Jake… If you considered me a friend too, then accept my decision."    "MC-"    "No." She pulled back a little, not wanting to breathe his cologne anymore. The scent of his. She didn't want to make a mistake ". I'm sorry Jake, but it's not my decision, it's yours. I can't decide who you really want."     She turned around, starting to walk away from him.

Before leaving the building, she looked back, seeing how he was watching her. Seeing that he wasn't even going for her, being clear about it, she left there.

She wasn't going to break up a family by being the lover. She wasn't about to destroy something he and Katherine had created: the perfect family. And she wanted Jake to really think it through, that he knew what it takes to love two people. She didn't want him to destroy it just for her either, on a whim. Something fleeting. Intense emotions? How could he say that to her? 

When she was further from the building, she continued to cry until she bent over, hugging herself.

She had moved away to forget, but it seemed that she wasn't going to shake off those feelings yet.

Chapter 3 

[ohlookanothercartoontofallinto]

Finally able to discuss this idea! So yes, 

Vigilante Wind au with the rest of the chain as heroes that want to adopt him! This would be set in a Modern/Fantasy setting. 

Let’s start with the main boy Wind, Wind would have grown up on a small island that the kingdom and the royal family didn’t really care about. He would have lived with his parent's Grandma and Aryll. Until a typhoon hit the island and destroyed everything. Wind was the lone survivor, because of his natural born powers that kept him safe. Before anyone from the mainland could get to him, Wind would be kidnapped by the Yiga organization. Becoming one of the experiments of a project known as project sheik and becoming number 745360. His fellow prisoner would be 7488110, a little kokiri boy whose real name is Makar, and 518110 a rito girl whose real name is Medli. Wind would become super protective of his co-prisoners and do everything he could to protect them from the scientist. Even if it means giving himself up for more experiments. Not all the people are bad though, slowly but surely he grows attached to an employee who has no idea what’s going on in the organization. A man that goes by the name  Linebeck. 

Linebeck, is just really, really stupid and has no idea the children are being experiment on. He is led to believe the children just have a rare disease. Resulting in him being compassionate to the kids and developing a kinship with Wind. He finally realizes something is up when Wind is forcibly dragged to  a room, while coughing up blood. When he saw linebeck Wind would cry and call for him.  “LINEBECK PLEASE! PLEASE DON’T LET THEM HURT ME PLEASE LINEBECK! LINEBECK!” The boy's scream rang out as he was dragged through the door. The old captain, rushing towards the door. “I’m sorry sir but I can not allow you to enter.” The guard halted the man’s entrance. Linebeck did not allow that to be an answer. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO MY KID!”  

After that linebeck would look into what was really going on and find everything. Deciding then and there to save the kids. He get in contact with Makar, and Medli families who were still alive, and made a plan to help all three of them disappear, using an old friend of his. Only on the day of the escape, something happened. They had successfully gotten away from the building, with the help of the children's powers, only at the last minute the alarms started blaring forcing Linebeck to pick up the kids and go. Handing Rito and Kokiri back to their families and handing Wind off to his friend Jolene. He was planning on going back to the building to make him look less suspicious. Wind protested and cried because he wanted Linebeck to come with them now. In an attempt to comfort the child he took off his blue trench coat and wrapped it around his boy. Whispering “We’ll be together again soon…I promise.” 

He lied. 

Two years would pass since that day, and Wind would become part of a Vigilante group known as the Pirates. Composed of the Pirate Queen Jolene (Jolene), Nest their tech man (Niko), Canon their muscle (gonzo). Then Gallows & Gale, Tetra and Wind. Tetra is actually the second youngest princess of the kingdom, but became friends with wind by chance when he saved her as Gales from a assassination attempt.  If you're wondering what Gales looks like he has white hair, wears Linebeck's coat he was gifted, and a black mask that wraps completely around his face with gold paint that resembles the hero's charm on the front.  His powers of course are controlling the Winds, only because of the experiments he's incredibly unstable so he has to be careful. Sometimes because of his powers it takes the air from his lungs so he can't breath and needs an oxygen mask, and sometimes he loses control and just makes a tornado. 

As for the rest of the chain. 

Crimson Rider aka Sky A hero who tamed a legendary bird and now patrols the cities.  Sky is actually the main reason they realised Wind was nice. One day during a battle Crimson was falling with sky and Wind saved them using his powers. 

Deity aka Time/Old man He controls time, and can somehow shapeshift. Was not always known as Deity, when he was a child he was known as the sidekick Mask. To the superhero Fierce Deity, who tragically passed. In honor of his fallen partner he took on the name Deity. One of the few Heroes who married someone who is not involved at all in the hero world or political world, but that's how he likes it. 

Captain Aka Warrior  Think if Sailor moon and Captain planet and America fused. This is warrior. 

Genie Aka Legend/Vet  Has 5 magical rings and 2 magical gauntlets that he can wish upon once to get any power for that day, then resets the next day. Will say he turns into a Siren a lot.  

R-G Biv aka Four or Red Blue Green Vio Shadow  Shadow is considered indigo. They were five brothers who could become one or five as well as shrink. Until tragedy stuck and Indigo was killed during a battle.  Leaving only four, and none of them had the heart to remove the I from their name. 

Wild Card aka Wild/Champion  He's like Ben Ten with the Shieka slate as a watch, but instead of shapeshifting he's given at random different weapons or items. Kind of similar to Legend only, absolutely no shapeshifting allowed. Outfits on the other hand. He also just can't die like literally someone shot him but his body refused to react. 

White Cross aka Hyrule  He's a healer, what did you expect? He prefers to be at H.Q. but when he's forced to fight he turns into a moth fairy hybrid and acts like the hulk. 

The Engineer aka Spirit (emphasis on the The) This kid is scary smart when it comes to technology. Figured out how to build a car at six. And was the one who built Wild's watch, and adds more weapons to it. Doesn't normally fight but when he does prepared to be smacked by a train.

Shaded Knight aka Twilight  Is actually Malon's younger brother. Who got dragged into this world because of Mask by accident. Yes he can shapeshift into a wolf. However he naturally had super strength, and is a beast with a crossbow. 

Dang did not mean to make it this long. If you guys have any questions please feel free to ask. It helps me develop this more or if you're just confused.

Also when you imagine Linebeck please think of @smilesrobotlover when I started picturing the scene with him all I could see was how she draws him 

Anyways I hope you enjoyed it and will explain more later. 

[morganas-pendragons]

Making a list of what I’ve witnessed/done/learned in the months I’ve worked as a SPED Paraprofessional at Pre-K:

• taught 4 year olds what the skin on your elbow is called

• taught another 4 year old how to wink

• convinced one of my favorite kids that he has a little friend named ghosty ghost following him around who pokes him at random intervals throughout the day

• taught a special needs student who didn’t speak when I met him how to communicate with me specifically through hand signals that indicated what animal he was - does it swim/fly/walk, what does it eat, is it big/small - to which he now speaks more now then he has probably ever

• got played by a 4 year old who wanted a second snack so he casually slid me the last two gushers from his bag and then turned to the teacher and said, “I’m done!”

• got a group of special ed pre-k kids to officially deem bath and body works eucalyptus hand sanitizer as “the good stuff”

• made a joke to a three year old that the enormous books he read after snack every day made him look like he was reading a newspaper. They made a joke every single day that they were on their way to read their newspapers. (It was a volcano book) 😭

• learned that pipe cleaners have metal in them. Yes, I am twenty four.

learned who Pete the Cat was

• learned that adult women between the ages of 35-40 really do act like adult children

• got complimented that my hair was “rapunzel hair” despite it not being cut for like 7 months

• learned how to be a physical touch person despite hating being hugged but hey, four year olds want to hug you constantly and how are you going to deny those puppy dog eyes?

ended up buying one of the little ones who lost his house in a tornado a stuffy and a book.. took it to his house, where he then proceeded to act like he had no idea who I was (it was cute in the moment)

apparently line tag is a thing??? on a basketball court??

oh also, they crack up with laughter when I play tag with them!

they smell markers for sport

You think they realize common little games like staring contests and then when you realize they don’t and teach them anyway they go around and teach their little minions

I have heard them sing: Barbie Girl, Flowers, Unholy, and the one song from Wednesday I can’t remember the name of 😂

I had a guy pass me a love note through his second grade son. No joke. He gave it to his kid, who gave it to the teacher to give to me, and the note was asking me out on a date.

Had a 4 year old straight up innocently say a curse word from his encoded message to his father which said, “dad: please don’t bust my a** anymore.” (Which, according to aunt who worked in building, has only happened once) And about DIED from laughing so hard. So did the teachers.

I got addicted to the snacks I had never tried until working with pre-school. SunChips and Rice Krispies never die.

Found out one of my little boys called me Carla to his parents because they couldn’t quite figure out what name he was saying. It was only upon meeting me that they said, “oh YOU’RE Kayla! We called you Carla for days!”

They sang a song about Goldfish. That song is now burned into my memory. Why is some young children’s music so freaking catchy?

On the last day, my favorite girl turned around to look at me before she got on the bus. I didn’t have the heart to really tell her that I wasn’t coming back. What I said was very brief. When she did turn around, I waved. She waved back. Little did she know I BROKE the second she walked through that door and disappeared. I didn’t think I’d come to love her as much as I did but she made it so EASY.

My oldest boy who I was the aide for? I met his grandmother, and she now sends me such wholesome photos of him and stresses that my loving him the way I did made a huge difference. She doesn’t know how hard I cry every single time she says it.

They have lungs. And I made the mistake of sticking them on high swings they can’t get to by themselves, which they all want to fight over, so half the time I wanted to just talk to teachers I ended up hearing: “MISSSSSSSSS KAYLLLAAAA!!! WILL YOU COME PUSH ME?” Hollered across the playground.

^ I will never make that same mistake again. 😂

Not everyone is meant for pre-school, but MAN… did I love it.

Cons: I never got included in anything by the teachers or their aides. They never included me, and man did that sting.

I GOT PINK EYE IN BOTH EYES THE DAY AFTER SCHOOL ENDED FOLKS

[popthebop]

the person batman wants to kill the most

batman who has a NO KILLING RULE BY THE WAY just really wants to kill bruce wayne, all the justice league are super confused when it comes up. 

like they say “who would you fuck marry kill, Bruce Wayne, Lex Luthor, superman.” and batman just goes “kill Bruce Wayne.” nothing more, they ask why. and he just is, “like don’t get me wrong I love the man. I just want him dead for reasons.” and everyone is like “WHAT REASONS, you don’t want to kill anyone not even joker. AND HE KILLED ROBIN” and he’s just deadpanning “there are so many reasons, it’s mostly because if he dies I get to do batman full-time.” and everyone is so confused, how does Bruce Wayne dying make batman have more time to be batman?? why does Bruce Wayne living make batman be batman part time?? they ask these questions and are only met with “guy’s it’s not- okay, I understand how that is confusing. honestly if night-wing was here he’d be saying ‘b, please. just please, value life more.’ it’s not- I don’t know how to explain this, it’s not because of anything really. it’s not jealousy, it’s not hate, it’s not love, or relative ease, it’s just if he disappeared my life would be better.” “and death is the easiest way, not that I want you to KILL him or anything. it’s just- my life is complicated, I've seen too much to go back to what I once was and Bruce Wayne is apart of that.” the justice league just sits silent before flash pops a question. “like were you in love with him?” Hal and plastic man just whisper to him, “he already said it wasn’t love.” “maybe they're brothers?” batman just starts sighing, and puts his hands on his cowl. “I don’t trust you enough to tell you why I think this way, but maybe I will one day.” then he just leaves.

a couple years later, 10mins before when they learn batman identity. “hey, remember when batman said in that fuck marry kill game that one time he wanted to just kill Bruce Wayne?” plastic man said, jogging the memory in the rest of the league. “YEAH I REMEMBER! you wanted to just kill Bruce Wayne, and it wasn’t for like anything?? now that we’re all buddies here. why not tell us?” Hal- green lantern said. “I have to tell you something about myself for you to understand, when I was young boy. eight to be exact, me and my mother and father had just finished watching the mark of Zorro. I was impatient and wanted to take a shortcut, so we took it. we went down park avenue, I remember it clear as day I was playing in front of my parents when- when.. a robber, came up from behind us. he was holding a gun, and demanding my mother and father give up their valuables. they didn’t... the robber shot both of them, my mothers pearls she was wearing string that was holding the necklace together broke.. they went everywhere, the robber was about to kill me too. but the gun jammed up, he ran. never saw the robber again, and as I lay down next to my mother and father crying for a what seemed like an eternity. I was born that day, the batman. I knew I had to stop this from ever happening again, I knew I had to protect. I don’t actually know how long it took for someone to call the Gotham PD, but they eventually came. a man, you might know him. gordon, picked me up from the ground and carried me away. I was still soaking in my parents blood, all the white turned red. I-i was never the same, I miss them everyday of my life. I wish they could have met my children, I wish they could have seen the man I grew into. but they never could, the place where my parents died is now called crime alley, because of all the crime and my parents death. they are the reason I don’t kill, they are the reason I am who I am. so yes that's why I want Bruce Wayne dead in the fuck marry kill scenario.” batman said.

[marauderundercover]

Temporary Arrangement... Until It’s Not Ch. 2

AO3

Prev

Living in a town like Gotham, you have to be prepared for disasters to happen. That was Tim’s motto, anyway. After all, there were enough Rogues in Gotham that Batman could have an entire team helping him, and he’d still have some Rogues left over. There were many Rogues that just operated at night, like Batman. And there were some Rogues that had specific areas of the city that they would target. Making them unlikely to hit somewhere like, say, a private school? Then, there were other Rogues. Rogues who didn’t care where or when they striked. Which was unfortunate for Tim, because he really did study hard for his math test. But after today, he was certain the teacher would just give everyone an ‘A’.

“Teenagers have such various reactions when it comes to fear. You are not adults, yet you are no longer really children.” Scarecrow rambles, gesturing widely. Tim shrinks back against the wall of the classroom, hoping Scarecrow wouldn’t notice him. He knew he was much smaller than his classmates (since he was the only ten year old in the seventh grade), and he really didn’t want to upset the man. Especially since he’d been playing around with a nasty looking syringe since walking into the room. Tim wasn’t brave enough to willingly face fear toxin, and he was okay with that. He knew that if he could avoid being dosed a little longer, Jason would show up. The middle school and high school buildings of Gotham Academy were right next to each other. There was no way Jason hadn’t heard about the Scarecrow attack. Not that Tim expected the older boy to come just for him, but he was Robin. And they’d had that one sleepover, so maybe Jason cared about him just a little bit. Plus the older boy was a hero. And Tim’s class really needed a hero at the moment.

“Hello? What have we here?” Scarecrow’s amused voice is suddenly right in front of him, and Tim feels his stomach drop. His parents would be so mad at him if he got doused with fear toxin.

“I’m Timothy, Mr. Scarecrow sir.” Tim says, thankful his voice wasn’t shaking as badly as he’d expected it to. The Rogue laughs, throwing his head back in mirth.

“Well, Timothy, what is a little boy like you doing here? Visiting a sibling, perhaps?” He asks, sounding genuinely curious. Tim shakes his head, wanting nothing more than to sink back in the shadows and disappear. He was usually so good at not being noticed. Why was today the day he was noticed?

“I’m a student here, sir.” He says, wishing the teacher would do something. He knew she was probably scared too, but he didn’t want to talk to Scarecrow anymore. And he knew he was supposed to be mature, but he just kind of wanted to cry right now.

“Interesting. Your mind is obviously more developed than most children your age. But you’re clearly not on the same emotional level as your classmates. That leaves you in an interesting position, Timothy. Do you know what that means?” The man asks, tilting his head to the side. The breath catches in Tim’s throat as his eyes catch the glint of the needle on the syringe in Scarecrow’s hand. Tim shakes his head and tries to back up, but Scarecrow’s goons rush forward and grab him, holding him still. Tim thrashes around, shaking his head.

“No. No, please, don’t.” He pleads, hoping word doesn’t get back to his father. He would be disappointed that Tim was acting like such a baby, but he couldn’t help it. He was scared. Really, really scared.

“Don’t worry. This will only sting a little.” Scarecrow says, stabbing the needle into his neck. Tim inhales sharply, hissing at the slight pinch. “It should start working quite quickly, Timothy. Please be sure to express your fear. Don’t try and hide it.” Scarecrow’s voice fades in and out as Tim looks around him. He blinks once and he’s still in his math class, surrounded by his classmates. He blinks again and he’s in his house. Alone. Tim frowns. This wasn’t scary. This was-

“Timothy Jackson Drake.” His father snaps, and Tim whirls around, eyes wide. He didn’t realize his parents were coming back today. He left a mess in the sitting room-

“I-” He starts to say, but stops as his dad moves towards him. Tim clenches his fists, trying hard not to wince as his dad gets in his face.

“I am beyond disappointed in you, Timothy. How could you do something so foolish? I thought you were better than this, Timothy. I thought you were a man now.” His father rambles at him, the anger clear on his face. Tim shakes his head, trying to put the pieces together. Why was his father so mad? Surely this wasn’t just about the homework on the floor in the sitting room, was it?

“Timothy! Look at your father when he’s speaking to you, dear.” His mother snaps. Tim blinks.

“But I-” He starts to say, but stops at the glare from his father.

“Don’t sit there and play stupid with me, boy. Batman himself told me everything.” He says, and Tim’s mouth goes dry.

“B-batman?” He stutters, struggling to catch his breath. Had Batman actually caught him following him and Robin? Did he hate him now? Was he mad at him too?

“Yes, Batman. Apparently you’ve been stalking Batman and Robin. They’re pressing charges, you know.” His father says, matter-of-factly.

“What?” Tim breathes out, unable to stop his hands from shaking.

“Batman and Robin. They’re pressing charges and there’s no way for your mother or I to fix this without it reflecting poorly on us. So you’ve left us no choice.” His father says, shaking his head. He holds his hand out and Tim’s mother grabs it.

“Sorry darling, but you understand, right?” She asks. Tim shakes his head.

“Understand what?” He asks, looking between his parents.

“We’re giving you up, of course. You’ve sullied your own name. No need to keep you around and let you ruin ours as well. After all, who wants to be connected to someone who stalked Batman and Robin? Especially someone who was caught, and has no other real purpose.” His mother says, tutting slightly. “Stop the tears, Timothy. It’s not a good look for you.” She adds before turning away from him.

“Wait, no! Mother, Father, please don’t leave! Come back!” He yells, rushing towards them. He trips on air and lands roughly on his knees. Looking back up, he realizes they’re gone. “No. No, no, please!” Scrambling to his feet, Tim looks around frantically. But it was no use. He was all alone again. And this time, it was for forever.

“Don’t worry, Timothy.” Batman’s gravelly voice says. Tim relaxes slightly until he turns and sees Batman. And the handcuffs in his hands.

“What- I’m so sorry Mr. Batman, sir, please-” He says, backing up and holding his hands up in surrender.

“It’s to help you, Timothy. Not hurt you.” Batman says firmly. Tim shakes his head, hands shaking as the handcuffs in Batman’s hands flicker and change into an orange jumpsuit with the words ‘Arkham Asylum’ printed clearly.

“I don’t wanna go to Arkham, please! Please, I’m sorry. Please don’t make me go there. Please don’t make me be alone! I’m sorry!” Tim cries, continuing to back up until he feels something solid behind him. He slides down the wall and pulls his knees close, hiding his face in them. “Please, please Batman, please don’t send me away. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Just a pinch, Tim.” Batman says. There’s a light pinch, and Tim blinks. His house fades away, back into his classroom. He blinks again, and realizes all of his classmates are gone. Only Batman and Robin remain. He blinks again, waiting for the two to disappear, but they don’t. He takes a few grounding breaths, trying to get his heart to stop going so fast.

“What happened?” Tim finally asks, frowning when he realizes his throat is scratchy. Batman glances back at Robin (Jason) who steps forward and kneels in front of him.

“Well kid, ya got a serious dose of fear serum. Did you remember that?” He asks. Tim nods slowly, remembering his parents giving him up. Hating him. Batman wanting to take him to Arkham.

“Did I-” Tim coughs, then sighs. “Were my classmates in here when I was saying things and screaming?” He asks, terrified of the answer.

“They were escorted out right before you started crying.” Robin says gently. Tim frowns, feeling his entire face heat up.

“I apologize for causing a scene.” He says, keeping his head ducked down. Why did this have to happen to him? Why couldn’t he just keep his emotions inside? He was usually much better at that.

“Hey, no, don’t apologize kid. You can’t help it with fear serum. Trust me.” Robin says, giving him a smile. Tim purses his lips, but nods. Robin was just trying to be nice to him. He didn’t want to make the older boy mad, cause then he might leave. And Tim wasn’t ready to be alone again.

“Do you have a way to contact your parents?” Batman asks, and Tim jumps slightly. He’d almost forgotten the man was in the room. The question registers, and Tim frowns.

“No? Why would I need to call my parents? It’s only second hour.” He says. Robin snorts.

“You really think school’s gonna stay open after a Scarecrow attack?” He asks. Tim frowns.

“Was someone hurt?” He asks.

“Um. Kid, fear serum? You? I thought we’ve been through that.” Robin says. Tim shakes his head.

“But I’m fine. Why would they close school for one student getting dosed? It’s fine.” He says. Robin glances back at Batman before letting out a long sigh.

“Okay. We’re not unpacking that right now, but your parents? You got a way to call them to come pick you up?” He asks. Tim thinks back to the note that had been on the fridge for the past two days. The one from Mrs. Mac saying that she wouldn’t be in this week because she had to go out of town. Then he remembers the last time Mr. Wayne had known that Tim’s parents weren’t in town. And how he let Tim stay for a sleepover. And how he talked to Tim just how he talked to the bruised kids in Crime Alley.

“They’re working, so I’ll have to call Mrs. Mac instead.” Tim finally says. “I have a phone in my backpack.” Robin grabs his backpack and passes it to him.

“Mind if we stay here while you call? Just to make sure someone picks up.” Robin asks. Tim shakes his head.

“That’s fine.” He says, pulling out his phone and calling the landline at his house. “Hello? Yes, Mrs. Mac. I- I’m fine. Uh huh. Mmhmm. Yes. Could you come pick me up, please? Thank you. Yes, I’ll wait outside. Thank you. Bye.” Tim hangs up his phone and looks up at Robin, hoping that he and Batman believed him. “Guess I’ll go wait outside now. Thank you very much for your help.” Tim says, quickly standing, stumbling slightly as he rushes out of the classroom.

---

Walking towards the bus stop the next street over, Tim tries to keep his head down. He’d thrown a hoodie over his uniform so that he could get away from the school easier. Not like the school cared anyway. By the time Tim walked outside, all of the other students and most of the faculty were gone. He couldn’t really blame them, though. He was just ready to be home, too. The sound of a car slowing down makes him shift farther away from the road. It would be just his luck to get kidnapped right before making it to the bus stop.

“Timmy?” A familiar voice calls. Tim freezes and turns towards the car, waving awkwardly at Jason who was half hanging out of the car window.

“Hello Jason.” Tim says, wishing he could just melt into a puddle. He should’ve thought of the possibility of Jason and Mr. Wayne going this way to get home. They likely had to leave the school as Jason and Mr. Wayne instead of Batman and Robin. It only made sense that they’d leave in a normal car and go a normal route-

“Where are you going, man?” Jason asks, frowning.

“I’m heading to the bus stop. My parents and Mrs. Mac are indisposed.” Tim says, hoping that Jason will just drop it. The older boy pulls himself back into the car, and for a moment, Tim thinks he’s home free. Just as he starts to walk again, Jason’s car door is thrown open and he’s jogging over to him.

“Why don’t we give you a ride home? We’re neighbors, and I’d really hate for you to walk home after all of that drama at the school.” Jason says.

“It’s fine, it didn’t really affect me much.” Tim says, mentally daring Jason to challenge his statement. Jason shrugs, but his eye twitches.

“Even if it didn’t affect you, I don’t think Bruce’ll let you walk home. Not when your house is so close to ours. C’mon Timmy, it’s just a ride home.” Jason says. Tim sighs, but follows the older boy back over to the car. Jason slides into the front seat, a wide grin on his face.

“Hello again Tim. How are you doing, buddy?” Mr. Wayne asks, looking back at him. Tim resists the urge to shrug, since it wouldn’t be polite.

“Hello Mr. Wayne, I’m fine. How are you?” Tim asks. Mr. Wayne chuckles, before pulling the car away from the curb.

“I’m just fine, Tim. And I told you, you can call me Bruce, it’s fine. So are you coming over to the manor?” He asks. Tim’s eyes widen, but before he can decline, Jason speaks up.

“That’s a great idea, B! We could have another sleepover.” The older boy says. “I’ve gotta reclaim my honor in Mario Kart, after all.” He says. Tim frowns.

“It’s a school night, though. I’m not sure-” He tries to say, but Jason interrupts.

“And school will be canceled tomorrow because of the attack today. They’ll give us the three day weekend and then make us come back on Monday. Trust me.” He says.

“Incoming message from Gotham Academy. Would you like to hear it?” A robotic voice asks.

“Yes.” Mr. Wayne says.

“Attention Gotham Academy families, all campuses will be closed on Friday due to an incident at the Middle School. No students or faculty were seriously injured. Classes will resume on Monday.” The voice reads out. Tim frowns, leaning back in his seat.

“Told ya so.” Jason says, grinning. He makes eye contact with him, and his smile fades. “If you really don’t want to stay over-” He starts to say, but Tim cuts him off. It’s not that he didn’t want to stay, because he did. He really did. After all, it wasn’t every day that an actual superhero wanted to hang out and play video games with him. It was just-

“I don’t want to be a bother.” Tim says plainly. A look of understanding flashes across Jason’s face before he shakes his head.

“You’re not a bother, kid. Especially if I’m the one who invited you. I want to hang out with you. Plus, you didn’t get to try any of Alfred’s cooking last time. I guarantee you, that alone would make it worth it.” He says. Tim glances at Mr. Wayne in the rearview mirror. The man’s frown quickly switches to a smile.

“If you want to stay, Tim, I’d be fine with that. We can even stop by your house to get any essentials you may need.” He offers. Tim glances at Jason who just smiles at him.

“Up to you, Timbit.” He says. Tim thinks about how much he really doesn’t want to be a bother, but then he remembers the things he saw with the fear serum. And how badly he doesn’t want to be alone tonight. And how nice it feels to be seen, and to kind of be wanted. Even if the invitation is still just coming from pity, Tim can pretend that they want him to be there. And so, he nods.

---

Sitting on the couch next to Jason, Tim can’t help but laugh at the other boy’s grumbling. They’d been playing Mario Kart since getting back to the manor, earlier in the afternoon. Once Tim had assured Mr. Wayne that he was fine, Jason insisted on lunch at Batburger before they took Tim back to pack a bag for the night. And once they got back to Wayne manor, Jason immediately turned on Mario Kart, occasionally choosing a track that he was clearly awful at. And every time they played it, Jason’s insults to the NPCs grew more creative. It was hilarious.

“Why do you insist on picking this track? You’ve fallen off every time we’ve played this track.” Tim asks, carefully navigating around the curves. Jason huffs.

“It’s the principal of the thing, Tim. Plus, it’s Dickhead’s favorite level. If I can just practice enough on it, I’ll be able to beat him.” He says firmly. Tim raises an eyebrow as Yoshi once again falls off.

“Dinner time, boys.” Alfred Pennyworth says, appearing in the doorway. Jason jumps slightly, making Yoshi fall off right before the finish line.

“Damnit.” He grumbles.

“Language, Master Jason. Unless you would like to add a dollar to the swear jar.” Mr. Pennyworth says, quirking an eyebrow. Jason smiles apologetically.

“Sorry, Alfie. Won’t happen again.” He says, before turning to Tim and winking. Tim snorts, then clears his throat and follows behind Jason.

“Thank you for dinner, Mr. Pennyworth.” Tim says, smiling at the man. His face softens as he nods.

“It’s my pleasure, young sir. And please, call me Alfred.” Mr. Pennyworth says. Tim smiles again, following Jason into the dining room. He liked hanging out with Jason, and after the last hour, he was pretty sure the older boy liked hanging out with him, too. Maybe they were even becoming friends.

[nobodies-png]

i really love your young!ienzo x older sibling!reader reaction, and was wondering how KH3 Ienzo would reaction to seeing the reader again after all the years of him being a nobody?

this is starting to become a series lolol but I’m glad you like it !! I wrote his reaction and some other general headcanons for what would happen after their reunion

 here’s part one and part two for those who haven’t read them! 

The only reason Ienzo hasn’t left Radiant Garden to seek you out is entirely because of Aeleus and Dilan urging him to stay, to pick up the pieces after becoming whole again - and so, he stays to help Sora, comforted by the promise of your return. Still, he’s afraid that you might never come back or that you moved on without him, all while his head races with all the things he wants to share. Ienzo might’ve spent most of his life with the other apprentices, but you’re the one that raised and properly guided him all those years age. You are family. He holds you in extreme high regards.

His reaction to finally seeing you after all those years is ugly, unlike his brief reunion with Ansem the Wise. Ienzo has definitely spent nights writing down a proper and organized speech, he’s memorized it and practiced over and gone through it a dozen times with the others. But when he hears your voice? When he sees you standing righ there? Ienzo drops whatever he’s holding and practically throws himself into your arms. He hides his face in your shirt and starts blabbering nonsense through tears and sniffs.

Any attempts at showing you that he’s grown and matured are thrown out the window and it’s like you guys are children again. The only thing you can make out is his constant stream of "I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” and “Please, forgive me” - Ienzo apologizes for being part of Xehanort’s plan, for working under Xemnas, for pretty much existing as a Nobody when he should’ve disappeared instead. But you remind him that he was just a child when it all happened and that you’re just so happy to have your baby brother back.

That’s all Ienzo needs - it’s like you’ve granted him permission to cry. The transition from Nobody to... Well, himself, has been extremely hard on him. Getting used to feelings and how to process them when he was never taught how to in the first place is pretty fucking hard. You hold him until he stops crying, and then squeeze and sway him side to side, the same thing you used to do to get him to laugh as children.

He would still try to give you his speech a few days later, once he’s gotten over the initial excitement and emotion of having you back in his life. But for now, you’ll have to deal with a very excited Ienzo - he wants to know what you’ve been up to, if you’ve been okay, as well as explain his new plans for the gummiphone and all the way’s he’s been helping Sora and the rest. Ienzo doesn’t follow you around 24/7 like he used to (he actually runs off to find you so you can be the first one to learn about his breakthroughs or to act as his personal rubber duck buddy when he’s stuck) but whenever he walks with you, chances are he’ll still hold onto the hem of your shirt or sleeve.

Sometimes, Ienzo might slip and address you the same way he used to when he was young, with shortened versions of your name because he had trouble pronouncing the full thing - it’s very embarrassing for him, he’ll apologize and quickly move on, but please don’t point it out, especially if you want him to keep doing it because it’s very cute. If you point it out to him, he’ll stop and then everybody loses. Ienzo is trying so hard to not fall back to those childish habits of his </3 

It happens on reverse to, so to speak - there will be days when Ienzo might revert back to that cold, judgemental and quiet side from his days as a Nobody. You might even catch a glimpse of his snarky and downright cruel side, mostly when he goes days working on something without breaks (a nasty habit inherited from Even, deffo). This often causes a lot of arguments between you two, something he comes to regret almost immediately because he’s supposed to be one of the good guys now. He’s supposed to know better now. But when you come back hours later, either acting like nothing wrong happened or to talk things out, Ienzo is so relieved because yeah, this is what family does. Shit like this just happens all the time, it doesn’t mean the end of the world. 

[gamerbearmira]

"Hermana?" Three year old Antonio walked away from Pepa and Felix who finally, after three years, had more than an hour to spend with him. He didn't really care though, he only barely knew them and he knew that the man might look like him but he wasn't Antonio's papa.

"Si?" Mirabel asked smiling immediately at her little brother when he tugged on her skirt from her spot on the couch mending, and embroidering, one of their papas shirts.

"Senora Pepa and Senor Felix are being weird." Antonio said bluntly and there was a moment of pure stillness from the weather and the married couple before there was a rumble of thunder and immediate downpour.

"They want to spend time with you hermano." Mirabel said shrugging her shoulders at his words.

"Why? They didn't have time for me before?" Antonio asked and the rain got a lot colder and both adults looked devastated.

"Who knows. Adults are weird like that sometimes. Do you want to stay here and spend time with them?" Mirabel asked and Antonio shook his head.

"Nu-uh. I'm not a toy. They can't pick when to spend time with me then leave me alone forever. That's not what parents do." Antonio said bluntly as he crawled into her lap, oh the Encanto was probably going to be flooded before long.

"True. What do you want to do then?" Mirabel asked, having moved an umbrella she always kept on her over his head as soon as the rain started to keep her baby brother dry.

"Can we go visit Tita and Papa? They always make time for us no matter what." Antonio asked and Mirabel nodded with a bright smile.

"Of course! I have to give papa his shirt! Look see I put butterflies on it for me and little jaguars on it for you and even a little toucan for Tita!" Mirabel excitedly showed her brother what she had done to their papas shirt before she packed it away in her bag.

Picking up Antonio in one arm she stood and headed for the door.

"Oh. See you later Senor Felix, Senora Pepa. We're gonna go visit with papa and Tita, we'll probably stay the night too so don't worry about putting Tonito to bed. And please let Senora Julieta know that there's two less people to feed tonight so she doesn't make too much." Mirabel said without thinking as she walked past them.

"But Mira they don't put me to bed? You or papa or Tita do." Antonio said confused and Mirabel just hummed.

I KNOW THEY WERE FLOOOREDDDD.

And I like the detail where Mirabel and Antonio refer to the Madrigal’s as ‘Señora’ or ‘Señor’. It really shows just how much time they spend around Mariano; since he refers to them as that, they copy him and do it as well. It also goes to show how much they don’t see them as family. Tragic <\3

Have some doodles inspired by the shirt and some kisses, because the Guzmán’s love giving their children and grandchildren kisses <3

ALSO???? HOT TAKE…

What if Mirabel’s door disappeared because the candle/Casita knew that Mirabel wouldn’t be staying with Madrigal family? Like, Mariano was quick to take her in and care for her…the Madrigals didn’t even go to immediately comfort her, they addressed the town first, leaving Mirabel to go back to the nursery to cry, until Mariano snuck up there and calmed her down.

And then it happened again with Antonio! It started when he was a baby, so his door had plenty of time to manifest into the Guźman household. Mirabel’s door probably came about when she started calling Mariano papa, so maybe 6 or 7. Don’t know what it would be, but still!

Mariano and his mom probably had a small little party planned and would just have him open his door at their house, like when they redid Mirabel’s ceremony when her door appeared there <3

Little thingie I wrote, very short, but I hope this helps with visualization of this scorching take 🏃‍♀️💨💨

—————

Mirabel carefully carried Antonio, who was still half asleep, out of the room, so that she could take him to start his bath.

After whispering a quiet, “Happy Birthday,” she exited the nursery. She was met with all of the Madrigal family standing on the other side of the hallway. They were all whispering about something.

Antonio still in her arms, she walked over, hopping slightly as she tried to get a look at what they were looking at.

“What’s happening? Is something wrong?” She said. Everyones heads suddenly snapped towards her. Some had anger, some annoyance, some fear, some worry. Mirabel backed up a bit before finally seeing what they were looking at.

There, was Antonio’s future door. It was flickering, the sparkles surrounding it disappearing as the light fluctuated. Alma was clutching her shawl as she watched the light from the door finally die off, and then dispersing leaving just a blank wall. Just like it did 10 years ago.

By this time, Antonio was awake, and looking at the scene. The family turned towards the two and were quick to apologize (although a couple refused to look at him or Mirabel). Antonio listened to them for a moment, flinching away when Pepa reached for him, for what he assumed was to be a pathetic attempt to comfort him.

“I don’t care.” Antonio said plainly. The Madrigal family reeled back at his words, Alma stepping foward.

“Toñito, what do you mean…you don’t…care…?” Alma said quietly,

“I mean I don’t care that I have no door. Mí hermana doesn’t have a door here, so I don’t see why I have to have one here too. And, don’t call me that, por favor Doña Alma. Only mí familia can call me ‘Toñito.” Antonio turned towards Mirabel, who had been holding him the entire time, a plain look on her face.

“Can we go home? To Tita and papá? I want to have breakfast there.” The small boy asked politely.

Mirabel smiled at him, letting him rest his head on her shoulder as he yawned again. “Of course tigercito. I have your new birthday clothes there anyway, so we can get dressed there too.”

With that, Mirabel and Antonio were off, down the stairs. The Madrigals watched in shock and possible horror as they left the house, Mirabel going on about how their Abuelita helped with his new clothes. Both waved Casita goodbye by as they left.

Casita opened the front doors and let them leave, not even seeming phased at what had just happened.

——

I love the snippet and I just wanted to share this ok BYEEEEEE

[abbatoirablaze]

The Understudies, Season 1, Chapter 1

Word Count: 3.6k

Warnings:  angst, mentions of death, secret child, mentions of violence, aggression, cursing

Briana’s POV

“M-mom….mom…wake up…” my almost twelve year old prodded.  I wrapped my arms around my son, pulling him onto the bed, which normally would have had him breaking out in a fit of laughter.  When I didn’t hear his melodic tone, I became confused, and my eyes opened.  He was biting his bottom lip and he looked like he was going to cry.  My heart raced as I went on high alert, “baby, what’s wrong?  What happened?”

“I-I didn’t want to wake you up…but Aunt Dot is here…sh-she said that something happened to grandpa.”

I shot up, my eyes instantly going to the door of my bedroom, where one of my sisters stood, a firm frown on her face. 

“D-dot…what are you doing here?”

“Dad’s dead…”

My breath caught in my chest, “wh-what?”

She took a few steps into my bedroom, and pulled the remote from my nightstand, pushing the dirtied scrubs to the floor.  The TV clicked on, and I was met with a breaking news bulletin.

“Eccentric billionaire, and head of the Umbrella Academy, Reginald Hargreeves was found dead in his estate this evening, by one of his staff members…” the report began; a picture of dad flashing across the screen before going to various montages of the Academy, “he’s most known as the father of fifteen adopted children, most of which have super-hero abilities.  The appearance of the Umbrella Academy was first noted in 2000, when the children were just eleven years old and had stopped a hostile takeover in France.” 

“Mom?”

I looked to Dot, “wh-when did you find out?”

“Just a few hours ago,” she admitted, “I came to find you first…have you seen Dani yet?”

“Obviously not,” I growled, “the last time I saw her was…”

We both stopped talking as I looked at my son.  He’d had a frown on his face.  He knew that I had stopped talking to Dani when she emancipated herself and kissed Diego…just like he knew that his father was another of my adopted siblings, Ben. 

He’d even managed to inherit his powers, something I’d kept a secret from my father, in order to protect him.  He knew that I had a son, but not of his powers. 

“We have to go to the house…”

I bit my lip, “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Dot…”

“It’s not an idea, Bri…”

“But-“

“Mom…I-I think we should go…” Benji said sadly, “I-I want to say goodbye to grandpa.”

“Benji…everyone will be there…”

“Good,” he said firmly, standing in a proud pose, “I want them to know that I exist…I-I don’t want them thinking that my dad’s legacy died with him.  Mom…y-you’ve always told me stories about the Umbrella Academy when I was younger…how much dad believed in the group…how much he-“

“Benjamin Michael Hargreeves…”

Benji cut himself off and just stared at me.  I felt my heart breaking as I looked at him.  He was a carbon-copy of Ben at that age.  I watched the tears stream down his cheeks as he tried to hold it back. 

“Benji…please don’t c-“

“We need to go, mom…”

I sighed, knowing that he was right. 

The siblings sat around, all trying to find something to say.  Luthor hadn’t been back from the moon for even eight hours and already he’d managed to inspect nearly every inch of the house.  There was something amiss, and he didn’t like it.  It felt too off. 

Diego was glaring at his brother, angry over how he tried to take the lead.  Luthor had always tried to take the lead, sure, but this was especially irksome.  While he’d been off in space, playing astronaut, Diego was burdened with playing vigilante, while none of his other siblings seemed to care.  Allison got to go to Hollywood.  Klaus was in and out of rehab.  Five was gone.  Six was dead.  Seven wrote a tell-all book, which made the siblings seem like they were against her…which had really hurt his feelings, because he’d always tried to be nice to her.  And the rest had either disappeared or stayed with the team long enough to die on a mission, because they hadn’t been trained nearly as well as the original six.

Vanya and Allison were just staring at the two.  One and two had always been competitive, but even in the turn of their father’s passing, it somehow felt like a competition.  They were too unsure of making a move, afraid that it would set the two hotheads off, and nothing would be accomplished. 

But it was Klaus that broke the silence, “so…now that dear old dad is gone…what’s the game plan?”

Luthor frowned at the lack of decorum from his brother, while number four busied himself with pouring a drink and lighting up a cigar. 

“I guess I should just get this started then…since none of the other siblings are going to show up…”

“Did you really expect them to, Luthor?” Diego spat, “you and dad got most of them killed…and whoever was left scattered like cockroaches to avoid being next on the chopping block.”

“The triplets left because you couldn’t keep it in your pants,” Vanya grumbled, glaring at number two, “eight, fourteen, and fifteen are still out there and they’re powerful.  But ten and eleven disappeared off the map entirely, for fear that dad would come for them next.  Last I’d heard, which was a few years ago, they were back in Brazil where they were born, but they moved every time dad found out where they were, so they could be anywhere by now.  And thirteen is nearly useless…last I heard she was still trying to ride Allison’s coat tails.”

Allison frowned, “Don’t say she’s riding my coattails.  She’s doing porn, Vanya…I’m an actress.  She’s not.”

“Soooo, I figured that we’d have sort of a memorial service in the courtyard at sundown,” Luthor said quickly, breaking the awkward tension between his siblings, “you know…uh, say a few words, just at dad’s favorite spot…”

Allison’s attention went towards Luthor, “he had a favorite spot?”

“Yeah,” Luthor said in a confused tone as he looked at his siblings, “it was at the oak tree.  We used to sit out there all the time and read.  None of you ever did that?”

“It was probably with you and Bri,” Diego growled as he rolled his eyes, “you two were always his favorites.”

Luthor frowned, “she was your girlfriend…why are you so angry at-“

“Probably because he cheated on her, so she had sex with Klaus then started seeing Ben.”

“Wait, what?” Luthor’s brows furrowed at the admission from Vanya.  He looked between Klaus and Diego, “What happened?”

Klaus chuckled, “you really don’t keep up on the times, do you, Luthor?  It happened ages ago.  Diego was seeing Bri-“

“I thought Danielle was seeing Ben after she left.”

“They were…but Dani got Bri kicked out of their little band that they’d sneak off and do shows for and then made out with big bro here on stage…”

Allison gasped, “you did what?”

“That’s why she was quick to break up with him, and then word got back to a little birdy that Invisi-girl is way more powerful than she let any of us know.”

“What are you talking about?” Luthor asked.

“Well, when we hooked up, Diego walked in on us,” Klaus admitted, “she slowed down time.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone about this?” Luthor asked with wild eyes as he looked at Diego, “if she was more powerful she could have been helping the team out wh-“

“Is that all you ever think about?” Diego growled, glaring at Luthor, “helping out the team?  Because you sure were quick to leave so you could play astronaut in outer space.”

“Dad said that there was a mission there!”

“Just a quick interruption and then we can get back to our regularly scheduled programming of arguing which of you loves fighting crime more,” Klaus grinned, interrupting his brothers as he took a drag of the cigar and began walking to the area that they were seated at, “dad’s ‘memorial’ will there be refreshments?  Tea?  Scones?  Cucumber sandwiches are always a winner with me!”

“What?” Luthor asked, his brows furrowing again as he turned towards Klaus, who had successfully changed the topic, “NO!  And put that out.  You know dad didn’t allow smoking in here!”

“Is that my skirt?”

“What?” Klaus asked.  He smiled, doing a little half-twirl as Allison’s question processed, “Oh yeah.  I found it in your room.  It’s a bit dated, I know, but it’s very breathy on the bits…”

“I see things are breaking down the way they always did,” A voice said smugly from the doors.  The siblings instantly went on the defensive until they saw number eight standing in the entryway with her arms crossed, “I see the others didn’t show…”

“What are you doing here?” Allison asked angrily.

“Just making sure the old prick is dead,” she smirked.  Then she looked at number two and gave a snarky wave, “hey Diego…it’s been a while.”

“Danielle.”

“Hey!” Luthor snapped, looking around the room, “listen up everyone.  There are still a lot of important things that we need to discuss.”

“Like what, Luthor?”

“Like the way that dad died.”

Diego rolled his eyes, “and here we go.”

“I-I don’t understand,” Vanya replied, looking around the room, “I thought that he died of a heart attack.”

“According to the coroner,” Dani smirked, pushing away from the door, “but we all know how skeptical number one is.”

“Well wouldn’t the coroner know?”

“Theoretically,” he argued, shooting a glare to Dani, “why are you even here?  No one invited you.”

“He was my father too, you ape.”

“I’m just saying that at the very least something happened,” Luthor said quickly, breaking away from looking at Dani, “the last time that I talked to dad he seemed strange.”

“Quelle?” Klaus said sarcastically, taking another drink, “c’est surprised!”

“Cut it out, Klaus…you’re not that elegant…and you don’t know any other French beyond being sarcastic,” Dani spat, glaring at number four, “what do you mean, strange, Luthor?”

Luthor huffed, half upset that the only one that seemed to be taking it seriously was Dani, the only sibling he truly disliked more than Diego.

“He sounded on edge,” Luthor admitted with a sigh, “He told me that I should be careful with who I trust.”

“Luthor he was a paranoid, bitter old man who was starting to lose what was left of his marbles,” Diego answered, rolling his eyes.  Then he looked at Dani, “you playing into this, isn’t helping, Dani.  You’re just showing up to stir the pot and then leave...”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” he growled, crossing his own arms over his chest, “it’s what you’re good at.  Breaking up relationships.”

“No…stop this!” Luthor responded, shooting more daggers between Dani and Diego, “look.  He must have known that something was going to happen.  Klaus…”

“Oh no…”

“Look, I know you don’t like to do it, but I need you to talk to dad!”

Klaus scoffed, “I can’t just call dad in the afterlife and ask him to take a collect call, Luthor.”

“Klaus.”

“I can’t just stop him from playing tennis with Hitler and ask if he has a second for that kind of call, Luthor.”

“Since when?” Luthor scoffed in response, “that’s your thing!”

Klaus sighed this time, shrugging his shoulders, “I’m not…I’m not in the right frame of mind.”

Allison rolled her eyes, “you’re high, aren’t you?”

“Yeah!” Klaus agreed, “YEAH!  How are you not, just listening to this nonsense?” 

“Well sober up,” Luthor growled, glaring at Klaus once more, “this is important.”

“Yeah…okay.”

“And then there’s the issue of the missing monocle.”

“Who gives a shit about a stupid monocle?” Diego spat.

“Exactly,” Luthor proclaimed, “It’s worthless!  Soo whoever took it, this was personal.  Someone who knew him.  Someone with a grudge.”

“Not everything has to be an investigation, Luthor!” Dani said, rolling her eyes.

“Where are you going with this?” Klaus asked.

“Oh, isn’t it obvious Klaus?” Diego asked, staring at his sibling as though he were waiting for him to get it.  When he didn’t, he sighed, “he thinks one of us killed dad.”

Klaus looked at Luthor, and when he didn’t say anything to defend himself, he gasped, “oh god.  You do.  You think one of us killed the old man.”

“How could you think that?”

“Great job, Luthor,” Diego chuckled sarcastically as he got up to leave the room.  He pushed past his siblings, “way to lead.”

“That’s not what I’m saying, Diego!”

“You’re crazy man,” Klaus agreed, shaking his head as he began to follow Diego out of the room, “crazy!”

“Hey…I’m not finished.”

“Sorry,” Klaus shrugged, “I’m just going to go murder mom.  Don’t worry, I’ll be right back.”

“That’s not what I was saying!” Luthor began, trying to defend himself as Allison and Vanya also left the room.  He frowned, being left with Dani.

“Well, that went well.”

Luthor glared at number eight, “I didn’t ask for your input.”

“Look at that, big bad Luthor left all alone…accusing his siblings of wrongdoing…” Dani smirked, “didn’t the last time you did something like this cause your current predicament.”

“Walk…Away…”

“See you at sundown, big bro,” she grinned, leaving the room, “can’t wait for dad’s memorial service…”

“W-what is that going to do?” Allison asked, glaring at Klaus as the siblings looked at the anomaly in their courtyard. 

Klaus shrugged, staring at the whitish glow where the fire extinguisher he’d tossed had disappeared into, “I don’t know.  Do you have a better idea?”

“What are you guys doing?” Luthor asked, pulling Allison behind him, “get behind me.”

“Yeah!” Diego agreed, pulling Klaus behind him, while Vanya hid in the second row with Allison and Klaus while Dani, Diego, and Luthor held the front line, “get behind us.”

“I vote for running!” Klaus said quickly, hoping that his siblings would take him up on the offer, “c’mon.  Let’s get the hell out of here.”

But before another argument could occur, the anomaly spat out someone that was all too familiar to the siblings, before disappearing. 

“Holy shit!” Klaus gasped, stepping from the cover of three of his siblings, “does anyone else see little number five, or is it just me?”

The young teenager brushed himself off before staring at his siblings, instantly knowing that he didn’t go back far enough, “shit…”

“M-maybe we should take this inside!” Luthor offered.  The siblings nodded, for once, not disagreeing with each other. 

Five was first to push past, eager to get something to eat.  He went down to the kitchen, using his powers to push himself there.  By the time the siblings had gathered at the other end of the table, he’d pulled out a cutting board, knife, bread, peanut butter, and marshmallow fluff.  Vanya felt herself unable to contain the small smile, as there would finally be her brother’s favorite sandwich being made and eaten in the house once again. 

“So, what’s the date?” he asked, unable to stand the silence as he made his food, “the exact date?”

“The 24th…”

“Of what?”

“March!” Vanya said simply. 

Five nodded, “good.”

“So…are we going to talk about what just happened?” Luthor asked, “it’s been seventeen years!”

“It’s been a lot longer than that.”

He teleported behind his sibling to grab something from the top of the fridge and Luthor frowned to himself, “I haven’t missed that.”

“Where did you go anyways?” Diego asked.

“The future,” Five answered, rolling his eyes, “it’s shit by the way.”

Klaus smiled, “Called it.”

“I should have listened to the old man,” Five mused, “jumping through space is one thing, but jumping through time is a toss of the dice…nice dress, Klaus.”

“Oh…danke.”

“In the end, I had to project my consciousness forward into a suspended bit of quantum space that exists across every possible instance of me.”

Diego’s face screwed up, “that makes no sense.”

“Well, it would if you were smarter.”

He went to lurch at the younger looking version of his sibling, but Luthor stopped him, “How long were you there?”

“Forty-five years, give or take.”

“So, what you’re saying, is that you’re 58?”

Five huffed, knowing there was only one person who would truly understand, “no…my consciousness is 58.  Apparently, my body is now 13 again.”

“Wait?” Vanya asked, “how does that even work?”

“Delores kept saying that the equations were off,” he chuckled, “eh…Bet she’s laughing now…where is she anyways?  Where is everyone else?”

“Delores?” Vanya asked. 

“Yeah.  Dot?  Last I saw she and Bri were combining their powers…she-“

Allison frowned, and Five stopped speaking, sensing something happened.

“What happened to Dot?”

“She lived that day,” Allison answered, knowing that’s where five’s mind went, “she’s been in and out of rehabs…and I told Bri not to help her try to find you anymore.”

Five’s jaw clenched, “you’re the reason I never saw her again?

“Wait, you knew five was alive?” Luthor asked, glaring at Allison.

“It was Dot,” Allison sighed, “she and Bri were visiting me, and she started OD’ing in my bathroom.  I thought she was about to die and just seeing things…”

“She found me, Allison…she was there for a moment when her astral projection was fading.”

“She was dying, Five,” Allison growled, “It took four shots of Narcan to get her to come out of it.”

His jaw ticked and he picked up the paper, “she’s not here now though?”

“I am…actually.”

Five turned towards the exit behind his siblings, his heart in his stomach as he recognized the voice. 

“Dot…” he whispered, seeing her standing there.  His siblings turned as well, all of them surprised to see the second of the triplets. 

And Vanya felt the slightest bit of jealousy as they ran to one another and embraced each other.

Diego moved out of the way, just as Luthor went to superman punch him.  But instead, he met the hard metal of Ben’s statue.  It knocked off of its platform, falling to the ground.  Its head snapped off. 

Bri’s eyes went wide as no one seemed to notice her, and she shielded her son’s face from the fighting going on.

“There goes Ben’s stat-“ but she cut herself off when she saw Bri standing in the entrance of the courtyard, holding a boy that looked identical to Ben against herself, “oh shit.”

But the fight waged on with the rest of the siblings.  Diego pulled out his knives, eager to fight.  Vanya’s eyes widened, “DIEGO, NO!”

He threw them, and one grazed Luthor, showing the world his primate form.  Embarrassed, he rushed to leave, but stopped next to Allison when he noticed Bri.

“You never know when to stop, do you?” Vanya spat, glaring at Diego.

“You got enough material for your sequel yet?”

“He was my father too!”

The two turned to leave as well, but just like their other siblings, they stopped when they spotted the final triplet.  Klaus looked up from his cigarette, and it nearly fell out of his mouth.

“I did not see that coming.”

The apparition beside him faded, and Klaus knew it was an instantaneous reaction, something that he would deal with later.

“I told you it wasn’t okay…” Dot said quickly, looking at her sister.  Dani glared at Bri and the little boy.

“I-is that what I think it is?”

“I’m not a what!” the boy said firmly, pushing away from his mother’s side.  He held her hand, but he looked at his aunts and uncles before his attention turned towards Luthor.  The leader of the team’s breath caught in his throat as he felt like he was in some sort of déjà vu.

“Y-you look just like…”

“You destroyed my dad’s statue…” the boy replied softly, glaring at him. 

“I-I didn’t mean to…I-“

“Mom…you were right,” the little boy muttered, leaning into her side once more, “we shouldn’t have come.”

Diego gave a heavy sigh, staring at the monocle that he’d taken from the house.  His heart ached as he looked at it, and all he could think about was earlier. 

Briana had a secret child with Ben. 

He felt sick to his stomach. 

It all made sense. 

How she disappeared, but Reginald was insistent that she was okay and just ‘in college’.  How he was sure that the Umbrella Academy would ‘live on’ even when the team was failing.  He’d always shielded her and made it so that he could never find her.  Years of research left him empty-handed. 

But there she had been. 

Raising Ben’s child, the whole time.

He looked back at the car, seeing Klaus talking to himself. 

“DIEGO, COME ON!” Klaus called after a moment. 

Diego dropped the monocle into the water, feeling angry that Reginald had not only kept her secret, but in a way, he’d also felt that he was responsible for his failed relationship.  Part of him wondered if he hadn’t have fucked up, if the child would be his.  If they would have had a family together.

With a heavy heart, he went back to the car.  Klaus was talking about breakfast foods, but all he could think about was her. 

The little boy. 

“She called him Benji,” Ben spoke, looking at Klaus after a second, “H-he looked just like I did when I was little.”

“Well obviously,” Klaus chuckled, “clearly it’s your kid.”

“What are you talking about, Klaus?” Diego asked, adjusting the rearview mirror so his eyes met with his brother.

“What Me?” Klaus asked.  Diego narrowed his eyes and shook his head, “nothing…nothing.  Breakfast.  I was thinking about breakfast.”

But he was looking across the seat to the sibling who was dressed in all black.  The spirit of his deceased brother.  Ben looked at him.

“We have to protect her, Klaus…we have to make sure Diego and Dani don’t get near her…I-I can’t let anyone hurt her.  We can’t let anyone hurt them.”

“Waffles first,” Klaus said, hoping that would end the conversation, “waffles and then planning.”

Chapter 2

[glitxhwayventeen]

The Established One

Sicheng

Characters: Sicheng x female reader

Warnings: birth/labor mentions (though nothing super graphic or anything), blood mentions, water breaking mentions, hunger mentions, war mentions, institutionalization mentions, abandonment mentions, abuse/bullying mentions, self doubt to the max, reader on the spectrum struggles a bit with becoming a mother, I think that’s it but lmk if i missed anything!

Author’s Note: Okay this was more cute than anything else but i needed the fluff today so don’t judge me. I figured we could all use a win after Yangyang went through hell and because the new set of chapters for Hendery’s gonna be brutal sorry😬I also barely edited this again so you’ll have to deal with it until i get the time to go through it all.

Please remember that all of these chapters and the content within them are a work of fiction! They’re just for fun/entertainment!

Watch It All Burn Masterlist

The Established One: Part 1

🥀 and ☁️ my dudes

Bold- Dialogue Italics- Thought Pink- Foreign Language Use

Tag list-

The day before yesterday, you felt some randomized nerve flares going on through the lower part of your baby bump. All you had to do to make them go away was sit down and breathe deeply for a few minutes. You thought they had disappeared after you stopped having them after a couple of hours. Boy, were you wrong.

You woke up screaming from the most pain you had ever felt in your life. You really hoped you were wrong on why it was happening. But It felt like someone was literally clawing their way out of your stomach through your back. The pressure radiating from your abdomen to your chest made it difficult to breathe properly. And when you finally got the courage to check the bedding underneath your comforter and saw a giant wet spot spread on the sheets, it just confirmed your fears. You were in labor.

But you weren’t ready. You hadn’t prepared. You didn’t know how to raise a baby.

“Sicheng,” You quickly nudged your sleeping mate’s side, eliciting absolutely no reaction from him.

How were you supposed to even keep it alive? You had no experience with children at all save for the few you had to deal with at the orphanage. But even they were old enough to at least tell you when they were hungry or tired. A baby couldn’t do any of that.

You pushed on the tall boy’s shoulders again, this time with more aggression and urgency behind your voice, “Sicheng get up!”

What if the baby got stuck or something? What if you weren’t strong enough to push it out? What if the baby came out sick? How the hell were you supposed to deal with all the uncertainties and what if’s when you had no idea how to even hold a baby properly?

Ever so slowly, you watched as his dreamy golden eyes flickered back into the dumpster fire reality you had been forced into in the middle of the night.

He used his lagging hands to rub his tired eyes awake so he could see what was happening, “_____? Is something wrong?” He asked you groggily in a hoarse voice.

Normally you would’ve swooned internally at his sexy morning tone, but you had bigger things to worry about in the moment. Much bigger things.

“Damn right something’s wrong! I think my water broke!” You hissed at him as another round of pain sharply made it’s way into your spinal column, causing you to let out a howling cry while trying to curl inward on yourself to cope with the hurt.

How could you protect a defenseless baby from the harsh world it would be pushed into when you couldn’t even protect yourself half the time? You were still adjusting to living in Korea after having already been there for over a solid year. How were you going to help it adjust to everyday life?

Suddenly your sleepy Sicheng was replaced by a new Sicheng, one much more frantic and scattered than his usual calm and somber self.

You were known as a cold hearted bitch. Everyone said you were too strict and too demanding. All you did was order others around and make them fix their mistakes. They all seemed to hate it. They all seemed to hate you.

He immediately sat up and glued himself to your side in concern, offering his strong hand for you to hold while you rode out your contractions. Which you of course took easily because you felt that for some reason squeezing it to express the difficulties you were facing would maybe draw your attention away from your pain.

But you didn’t understand when, why, or how you hurt people the way they said you did. You didn’t understand social cues well. You didn’t know just how blunt you could be or how to handle more delicate situations. You could still hardly pinpoint your own thoughts and your own feelings.

“Okay okay shit,” The pointed ear boy cursed under his breath in a hurry, “What do we do? Can I get you anything? Are you okay? How long have you been like this? Does the baby feel like it’s coming right now?” He spewed out in a muddled word soup, clearly very confused and intimidated by the situation before him.

How were you supposed to be responsible for another life when you still struggled to be in a relationship? How were you supposed to be a mother? How could someone like you possibly raise a kid?

Letting go of a thick suffocating breath you were holding in, you replied to your mate as best as you could given the circumstances, “I don’t know Sicheng. I’m in pain and I’ve never done this before. I’m not sure what to do!” You whined, feeling the pressure expand and glide down your pelvic region.

You weren’t just scared, you were petrified. The idea that a human the size of a football was about to slip out a quarter sized hole was bad enough, but once it came out you were also expected to raise it to be normal productive member of society. You wouldn’t be considered normal normally, and at the moment you weren’t exactly the most productive member of society yourself. How could you possibly do it?

“R-right um- I…” Your mate stuttered, letting you practically break his hand to distract you from your laboring, “Maybe we should-” He tried to offer before you cut him off with a blood curdling scream.

You yelled out because the pain was becoming unbearable. It was so bad it was making you stomach churningly nauseous and dazingly dizzy from having to fight against it. For a moment, you thought you’d rather die than continue feeling the scolding blades of fire going down your back. But you couldn’t stop it. You couldn’t turn back time.

The sound of a girl crying out into the night had woken the pack from their sleep rather quickly.

Once they realized where the scream had came from, Kun was knocking on and opening the door to see if everything was alright and to be sure you and your mate were okay. But things were not alright and you definitely were not okay.

“Her water broke!” Sicheng called over your sobs to the alpha, watching as the light in the halls turned on and the other members of his pack peeked their heads through the door to catch a glimpse of what was happening.

No, it wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. You didn’t want it to be happening.

The wolves amber eyes widened in shock simultaneously, each showing worry and fear behind them.

And since Kun was the oldest, his changed to the size of saucers, “Oh fuck.” Was all he said, his mate standing just as puzzled next to him while Dejun and Yangyang leaned against Ten’s figure beside the alpha to steady themselves.

You were about to deliver a baby and you didn’t even have a name picked out. You had conceived a child without thinking of the repercussions your genes could create for it. You hadn’t even gone to the doctor the whole pregnancy because you were too scared they’d find out about the pack. The baby wasn’t even born yet and you were already the world’s worst mother.

Through your breathing and pleading, you could see the stunned pack just standing there, stiller and quieter than they had ever been before. No one was moving a muscle, it didn’t even look like any of them were breathing. No one helped you or was comprehending what was about to happen.

So you assumed the job of steering everyone in the right fell to you as the default den mother of the pack. You had been with them the longer than Xue and you could certainly put feelings aside to get what had to be done done after all, “O-Okay! You guys have to get your shit together. I’m pushing out a baby!” You shouted to them, snapping them out of their traumatized trances and drawing their attention straight to you.

You grew up in an orphanage because your parents didn’t want a child that needed any sort of accommodations or special needs.

“Yangyang and Dejun, get towels, rags, and new bed material for after the birth and so we can change my bed stuff.” You barked at the two youngest in the room as another contraction took over you with a kick.

Because you were low on the orphanage’s list of what ideal children were, they never provided you with the proper clothing you were required to have for your towns shitty primary/secondary schools or even making sure you had the basic food you needed to survive.

“Yueguang, I want you to get two tubs of warm water. One’s to clean the baby up after it’s born, the others for the birth itself. But most importantly i need you to get the first aid kit so we’ll have the medical instruments needed for the delivery.” You emphasized in Cantonese to your sister, gritting your teeth together as you tried your best to breathe through your massive discomfort.

You were beaten and bullied by almost everyone who had come into contact with you, from the kids at school all the way to the orphanage’s high directors. Not a day went by where you didn’t have to suffer abuse at the hands of others who wished they didn’t have to deal with you.

“Ten, Your job is to make sure everyone else is doing their job and to sterilize everything so it can be used without causing infection later. I don’t have time to babysit the others while i literally give birth to a human being. Shit can go seriously wrong for both me and the baby if this doesn’t run smoothly. So you better not let me down.” You warned the second oldest, who sprung into action and began ushering the others out to do their assigned tasks to allow you to focus on having your baby.

You had to deal with being institutionalized in a horrible dungeon like place once the war broke out and they put a red notice on everyone who wasn’t a fully abled neurotypical person. The only reason you survived there was by sneaking in and out at night after count to could rummage the nearby market’s trash bins for any left over foods vendors might’ve tossed away.

“Kun, I need you to come here and hold my hand so Sicheng can help me. I’d ask Yue but I have a feeling this is only gonna get worse so I’ll need someone not easy to break. And since you’re alpha here, that leaves you.” The two boys hurriedly changed their positions and Kun came over to take your hand from your mate’s and the love of your life went to wash his hands so he could examine you.

No one ever wanted you because you were considered tainted. Because your birth was considered a sin against Chinese morals and idealisms. You grew up not knowing what love was or how to love anything. You grew up uncared for and isolated for all of your young life. You were hurt by everyone’s words and even tried to express it to them on numerous occasions as best as you could as someone who already had problems expressing themselves, but it was too continuous. So you tried to just shut down any feeling you had for what anyone did to you, good or bad. You weren’t sure you could connect with a kid. You figured all those bridges had long been severed. It only changed when you met Sicheng and became his mate.

As Sicheng pulled down your sleep pants so he could see how far into labor you were once he came back in the room, Kun gave you a kind smile and your trembling little hand a reassuring squeeze, signaling you weren’t alone. The small act made you feel a little better.

You may had never have known your birth parents, and you may not have known if you had any siblings you were genetically linked to, but you had a family. The pack was your family. They took you in when no one else would. They protected you when everyone else failed to. They loved you when no one else wanted you.

Kun had always been welcoming to you since Sicheng had first found you all those years ago. And, though he never outright told you, he had always been extremely grateful towards you for stepping up and being the pack mom when his mate’s mental stability hadn’t given her the ability to focus on keeping anybody in line but herself due to past trauma. That’s why he had no complaints about having to step up and hold your hand while you gave birth to his little baby niece or nephew.

The pack always had your back. Even if they weren’t always keen on having to do the chores you’d assign them or spend hours doing the homework you forced them to do. You were their sister and they wouldn’t let anything bad ever happen to you.

You knew the same thing would apply to your son or daughter.

“___ love, I see a head.” Sicheng declared from between your legs, “You’re gonna have to start pushing like now!” You heard your mate stress through your straining and aching.

And even if you had no clue how to raise or love a kid, you still had a man who loved you more than life itself willing to learn with you. He’d teach you how to.

You watched as everyone stood by you, ready to help in any way they could or provide the supplies you had directed them to get for you, in anticipation, “O-Okay…” You nearly whimpered, preparing your mind and your body to follow your mate’s instructions.

You’d be in it together. Protecting your child and each other from the cruelness of the world around you.

“You’re doing great ___! You’ve got this!” Kun whispered words of encouragement to you as you gripped his hand for support and pushed with all the strength you could muster up.

You did have it. Because even if you weren’t sure of your parenting abilities-

“You gotta push _____! I want to be an auntie already!” Yueguang laughed from her place, which was now beside you holding your other hand with tears in her eyes from watching you create a little life.

Even if you weren’t 100% your past wouldn’t affect your child-

“We’re about to be uncles dude!” You listened to Yangyang beam at the door as Dejun responded with an “I’m gonna be the baby’s favorite” while you were informed that you managed to push your baby’s head fully out by Sicheng.

You had a room full of people that would gladly give their lives for you to help see you through it. You never thought you’d get to a point in your life where you’d ever get such help or feel so secure.

Anxious and exhausted, you doubled down your efforts, pushing with all your tiny might to get your child out of your belly and into the hands of the love of your life when suddenly the immense pressure you had been feeling only moments ago went away in a pop.

You were a little confused by the loss of the hurtful sensation, but were brought back into the loop when your mate sniffled, “It’s a boy. We have a son ___!” as he held up your newborn so you could see him.

And your first thought was to question why your baby wasn’t screeching out like the babies on TV did, even though you knew based on what you’d been taught before his arrival that babies dont always do so right from the start.

You hazily stared as he tied off and cut the baby’s cord and brought him over to your shared dresser where Ten and the other boys had created a small cleaning/check up station for him to wipe him down and get him to cry.

You were worried for him. You didn’t know him, but you loved him. It was an automatic, unconditional love you felt with every inch of your soul that you never even thought you’d be able to feel for anyone other than your mate. He was your son, your baby. He had to be okay. He just… had to.

After what felt like an eternity, your newborn was poked on the foot enough to stir a noisy reaction from him. And, though Yue and Kun were sobbing words of praise in your ears at how well you did, all your mind seemed to want to center on was your son’s now abundant cries.

He made it. He was alive. He was breathing. And he was yours.

Hearing his little whines may have annoyed other people, but they just made your heart swell with happiness. You just wanted to see him and hold him and never let him go.

Tears filled your red eyes as Sicheng brought the now docile bundle of joy up to lay on your chest. You felt his little fluttering heartbeat sit on top of yours and just knew you’d never get tired of the feeling.

“He’s really ours,” He said in disbelief as his packmates began to surround the two of you to see the newest addition to the pack, Yangyang even went and brought Xue to where everyone was so she could see him too, “Can you believe it?” He asked you softly to not stir the baby in his sleep as his brothers and sisters remarked quietly on how cute your son was.

But at that point, you were so tired and drained from the birth, all you could do was smile at him and give your baby your pinky to hold while he rested on your chest. No. You really couldn’t believe it. Or that this was the life you now got to live.

(Last Updated 7/27)